Erdon. Loch found himself wishing he was the one on the cat with her, not some show-off with a couple of Nikons. Sarah and he had grown up together on Cavenger’s expeditions. They saw each other no more than a couple of months out of every year, but they had parasailed, swum with manta rays.
“Loch!” Zaidee called from the control-room doorway. “There’s something wrong with Crashers!”
Loch went back inside and sat down with Zaidee. The picture on the laptop screen was of an iridescent forest and a frozen crystal river with a path leading across it. The cartoon figure of a young boy was being stalked by a hideous witch with a knife.
“Hey, congratulations!” Loch said. “You got to the fifth screen!”
“Yeah, but look at the squiggles,” Zaidee complained, pointing to two thick black lines dancing across the middle of the screen.
“Probably interference from the sonar.”
“It was okay before.”
“Then maybe it’s the storm coming,” Loch said.
Zaidee took the laptop, shut it off, and flipped it closed. “I’ll never get to the fifth screen by myself again.”
Loch looked up. He saw his father tense, then lean forward to the graphic recorders. Loch too had detected the change in the pitch and rhythm of the styluses. He quickly moved next to his father.
“I’m showing something,” Dr. Sam said.
Cavenger turned, his profile eerie in the light from the sonar screens. “I’ve got it too.”
“It’s reading as a large, moving object,” Dr. Sam specified. Loch heard a rare tremor crawl into his father’s voice.
“Other boats are radioing in,” Randolph said, lifting half his headset.
“Tell them we’ve got it,” Cavenger ordered. “Tell them to hold course and maintain speed.”
“Whatever it is, it’s alive. And deep,” Dr. Sam said.
“As long as it stays in front of us,” Cavenger said. He snapped his fingers at Emilio. “How far to the end of the lake?”
Emilio checked his map. “Less than a mile.”
“Where is it now?” Cavenger demanded, his eyes dropping to the master screen.
“Still in front,” Dr. Sam said.
Cavenger’s hands began to shake. “Tell the trawlers to draw the nets!”
“Draw the nets!” Randolph yelled into the radio mike.
Loch ran out onto the deck, with Zaidee right after him. The storm was mounting quickly now, like a great black glove reaching across the mountains. The wind whipped the waves higher until they struck noisily at the sides of the boats. There was a flash of lightnings followed a few seconds later by a tremendous thunderclap. The crew worked to secure the deck furniture and roll up the flapping awnings.
“Think it’s something real this time?” Zaidee asked, looking anxiously into her brother’s eyes.
“Yes, I think it’s real,” Loch said softly.
There was no sonar or radio on the catamaran. A great, black thunderhead loomed in the sky above, and Sarah took a couple of yellow rain slickers from the storage bin. She tossed one to Erdon, who was forward at the camera mounts.
“Thanks,” he said, catching it. He forced a smile as he put the slicker on, but he didn’t like the look of the thunderhead at all. He knew that a lake during a thunderstorm was not exactly the safest place to be.
Loch rushed to the bow of the yacht, with Zaidee after him. Ahead, he saw the deep undulation in the water, a sight he’d seen only once before. A chill moved across his chest as he remembered when he was a small boy standing at the edge of another dark, even deeper lake. He remembered the sounds of the sheep, their urgent bleating. …
Sarah and Erdon saw Loch and Zaidee signaling to them.
“What do they want?” Erdon called nervously over the slap of waves hitting the catamaran.
“I don’t know,” Sarah said, but she was certain they looked worried. Loch kept pointing ahead, toward the approaching shore.
“Maybe they found something,” Erdon said. He felt goose bumps rise on his arms beneath the slicker.
“Maybe.” Sarah saw the two trawlers crank up speed and pull ahead. “They’re closing the nets!” she shouted, throwing the throttle forward, propelling the cat out in front.
“NO!” Loch yelled from the deck of
“Get the camera going!” she shouted to Erdon. The vibrations had loosened one of the leads from the battery pack, and it sparked until Erdon tightened it. He put his eye to the viewfinder, turned the camera on, and pressed the RECORD button. The automatic focus whirred the lens forward and back, seeking a target.
The lake floor rose sharply now, the peat-black water turning to gray as the thick steel rises of the salmon grid stood like sentinels at the end of the lake. Sarah slowed the cat’s engines as Cavenger ordered the fleet to cut power and hang back in neutral. Only the trawlers chugged ahead at full speed, straining to close the semicircle of their nets as quickly as possible-but they were too late. Something had gotten past them and was now between the shore and the nets.
Cavenger was on deck with the megaphone.
“There!” he shouted, pointing. “It’s trapped!”
Sarah turned the cat to follow her father’s directions as Erdon swiveled the video camera around on its mount. Through the camera’s eye he saw a patch of water beyond the net begin to boil. Finally, the thing turned away from the shore. It looked as if it were going to try to escape through the nets back to the deep of the lake. Sarah watched, startled to see the net buoys tugged violently to the left.
“We’re too close,” she yelled.
“Shut the engines,” Erdon shouted, a rush of panic filling his voice. “They’re spooking it.”
Sarah turned the ignition off, but the thing still battled against the net, shaking it. Suddenly, there was a great tearing, a snapping of ropes as the buoys sprang loose and the blackness submerged again.
“What’s going on?” Erdon asked, confused. “What is that thing?”
Cavenger stood speechless, furious at the thought that the creature had escaped back toward the deep of the lake. Dr. Sam came out on deck. Zaidee ran to him, taking his hand. The crews on the drifting skiffs watched silently, waiting for Cavenger’s next command.
Emilio rushed toward the bow from the control room. “Mr. Cavenger,” he called,
“Probably the same one,” Randolph muttered.
Emilio hesitated but finally got the words out. “No. This one’s bigger. Much bigger.”
“Where is it?” Cavenger asked.
“It’s heading toward us.”
Emilio dashed back into the control room with Cavenger and Randolph right after him. Dr. Sam took Zaidee with him.
Loch looked toward Sarah. He shouted across to the catamaran. “There’s another one! Get the cat to shore!”
Sarah heard his warning and reached for the starter key.
“Don’t,” Erdon said, holding tightly to the camera mount for support. “We’re better off staying still.”
She froze when she saw the shadow fill the space beneath the catamaran.
“It’s here!” she called out to Loch. The line of silent crews aboard the skiffs heard her too, but didn’t move.
“I feel something,” Erdon said.
