Impact

83

The Marea II crested another terrifying wave and Abbey caught a glimpse, through the lashing rain, of a smudge of whitewater ahead. The chartplotter placed them a few hundred yards from the first of the three great rocks.

'There! Ahead!'

'I see it,' said Jackie calmly, easing the wheel over. 'I'm heading into the lee.'

The sea calmed as they entered the protected area of water behind the rocks. A huge swell still warped through, but the chop and wind dropped considerably. As the boat rose and fell, Abbey could see immense seas thundering along the base of the rocks, some of the curlers reaching twenty feet or more, rearing into the rock and exploding upward as if in slow motion, great spumes of atomized water.

'All right,' said Jackie, as she brought the boat into a slow, tight circle. 'What's the plan?'

'I--' Abbey hesitated. 'We pretend to surrender. He'll take us aboard his boat and then we'll look for our opportunity.'

Jackie stared. 'You call that a plan?'

'What else can we do?'

'He's going to kill us, boom boom. And that's it. There won't be time to 'look for an opportunity.' And don't fool yourself, he ain't giving up your father. Abbey, I want to save your father but I don't want to throw away my own life. You understand?'

'I'm thinking,' Abbey gasped.

Jackie brought the boat around in a slow circle, staying close to the lee shore. 'Stop hyperventilating, he's going to be here any minute. Focus. You're smart. You can do it.'

Abbey turned to the radar to see if she could get a fix on the approaching boat. She fiddled with the gain, trying to tune out the rain and sea return. The screen was a wash of static. Slowly, as she manipulated the various parameters, she began to get an image of the huge exposed reefs to starboard, big green blobs on the screen. And then she saw another blob, smaller, washing in and out--moving toward them.

'That's it,' she said. 'They're here. Back the boat in that channel between the two rocks.'

'You crazy? That's a narrow channel with surf on both sides!'

'Give me the helm then.'

'No. I'll do it.'

'Get the boat in there so he can't see us on his radar.'

Jackie stared at her, face pale. 'And then?'

'We need weapons.' Abbey threw open the cabin door and scrambled down the shuddering steps--hanging onto the rails. With a hideous feeling of deja vu, she threw open the cabin, hauled out the toolbox, and removed a small pair of marine bolt cutters, standard onboard equipment for dealing with frozen bolts, clamps, and rods. She also took out a fish knife and a long Phillips-head screwdriver. She came back up and slammed the tools on the dash.

Abbey grabbed Jackie by both shoulders and leaned into her face. 'You want a plan? Here it is. Ram. Board. Kill him. Cut Dad free.'

'We ram them and we're both gonna sink.'

'Not if you hit them broadside, aft of the pilothouse. The skeg'll just ride up on the gunwale, I'll jump off, and then you reverse like hell and pull back off before the boat breaks its spine. The Marea II's built like a brick shit house.'

'Ram, board, and kill? He's armed! What've we got--a fish knife?'

'You got a better plan?'

'No.'

'Then we go with what we've got.'

The green blob on the radar screen was creeping closer. Abbey glanced out at the dark water and could see a glimmer of light.

'He's got his spotlights on! Get going!'

Jackie throttled the boat up and moved it behind the rock, backing and turning furiously, fighting the wind, sea, and a powerful current running between the rocks. The roaring noise of the surf was deafening, the wind blowing tatters of spume over their boat. Jackie struggled to keep the boat in the middle of the channel, beyond the rearing breakers that thundered into the spires of rock.

'How am I going to know when to come out and ram him?'

'He'll enter the lee,' said Abbey, 'just like we did. He'll be looking for us, shining the light around. A slow target. When he doesn't see us he'll call. That's our signal. Wait for him to get broadside, then you come out full- speed ahead and t-bone him. Here, take a knife.'

Jackie took the long fish knife and stuck it into her belt.

Abbey stuck a long thin screwdriver in one pocket and pushed the boltcutters through a belt loop. 'I'll be at the bow rail, ready to jump on board.'

The sea pushed the boat toward the rocks and Jackie struggled to control it, reversing, trying to keep it out of the sucking surf. 'It isn't going to work--'

'Don't say it.'

84

The clocks in the room approached 3 A.M. as the discussion crawled along, going nowhere. From the flat- panel at the end of the room, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs finally said a few words, addressing them to Chaudry. His voice was mild, courteous. 'If you wish to take the military option off the table, Dr. Chaudry, what do you propose to replace it with?'

Chaudry stared at him. 'Study. Research. Now that we know where it is--assuming that image is of the thing responsible for the strangelet missiles--we can redirect all our moveable satellite resources toward it. We just need to get the coordinates off that disk.'

'And then?' the chairman asked.

'We attempt communication.'

'And what, exactly, would we say?'

'Explain that we want peace--that we're a peaceful people. We aren't a threat to them.'

'A peaceful people?' Mickelson said, with a snort. 'Let's hope that 'machine' has been sound asleep over the past few bloody centuries.'

'That may in fact be the problem,' said Chaudry, 'the reason it's threatening us. Because of our aggressive behavior. Who knows how long it's been monitoring us, listening in on all our radio and television broadcasts which have been pouring into space for the past century. Its computers would decipher them, of course. Anyone looking at all our news broadcasts over the past hundred years would take a dim view of humanity.'

'How the hell would it know English?' Mickelson asked.