Impact

Her father turned to her. 'What do you mean?'

She faced him and Jackie. 'We've got something more important to do.'

They stared at her.

'This is going to sound crazy but Jackie will back me up. Last year, the U.S. put a satellite in orbit around Mars. The goal was to map the planet and its moons. One of the things it did was take pictures of Mars's moon, Deimos, with ground-penetrating radar.'

'Abbey, please, this is not the time--'

'Listen to me, Dad! The radar woke up something on Deimos. A very ancient, very dangerous alien machine. Probably a weapon.'

'Of all the crazy--'

'Dad!'

He fell silent.

'An alien weapon. Which fired on the Earth. That meteor we saw a few months ago was the first shot. That show on the Moon was the second shot.'

She briefly explained how she and Jackie went looking for the meteorite and found the hole, how she'd met Wyman Ford, and what they had discovered.

The expression on her father's face suddenly changed from disbelief to skepticism. He looked at her intently. 'And?'

'That shot at the Moon was a demonstration. A warning.'

'So what's this thing you want to do?' asked Jackie.

A gust of wind buffeted the pilothouse, spray hitting the windows. 'I know this sounds crazy, but I think we can stop it.'

Jackie looked incredulous. 'Three wet people huddled in a boat in a storm off the coast of Maine, without cell reception, are gonna save the world? Are you nuts?'

'I have an idea.'

'Oh no, not one of your ideas.' Jackie groaned.

'You know the Earth Station, that big white bubble on Crow Island? Remember going there on field trips in high school? Inside that bubble there's a dish that AT&T built to send telephone calls to Europe. Now it's used for satellite communications, uplink and downlink of television shows, Internet and cell phone calls, shit like that.'

'Well?' Jackie swiped her wet hair out of her face.

'We point it at Deimos and use it to send that motherfucker a message.'

Jackie stared at Abbey. 'Like what kind of message? 'My big brother's gonna beat you up'?'

'I haven't quite figured that out yet.'

89

Jackie laughed. 'You really are crazy, you know that? We'll be lucky just to get our ass into port in this storm. But you want us to cross Muscongus Bay to send a message? Can't this wait until tomorrow?'

'We have no idea when the weapon might fire again. And something tells me the next shot might be the end.'

'How's that alien machine gonna know English?'

'It's highly advanced and it's been listening to our radio chatter for at least two months now, since it was awakened.'

'If it's so advanced, call it on the VHF.'

'Come on, Jackie, be serious. Even if it could distinguish our radio call from a billion other signals, it wouldn't take it as official. What's required is a big, strong, powerful signal hitting it with a clear message. Something that looks like an official communication from the Earth.'

Her father turned to her. 'Why can't the government deal with it?'

'You trust the government to handle this? First of all, they're in denial. Either they'll hold endless meetings or they'll take a potshot at it. Either way, we're dead. On top of that, I think the CIA, among others, have been trying to kill us. Even Ford was afraid of them. We're on our own--and we must do something, now.'

'Getting to Crow means traversing the Ripp Island tidal bore and then three miles of open water,' said her father. 'We'll never make it in this storm.'

'We've got to make it.'

'And once we're there,' Jackie continued, 'we're going to waltz in there and say, 'Hey, can we borrow your Earth Station to make a call to aliens on Mars?' '

'We'll force them, if need be.'

'With what? A boat hook?'

Abbey stared at her. 'Jackie, you don't get it, do you? The Earth is under attack. We may be the only ones who know it.'

'Hell with this,' said Jackie. 'Let's take a vote.' She glanced at Straw. 'What do you say? I'm for going to Vinalhaven.'

Abbey looked at her father, his pale eyes red, his beard dripping water. He stared back at her. 'Abbey, you sure about this?'

'Not completely.'

'It's more like an educated guess, then?'

'Yes.'

'It sounds crazy.'

'I know it does. But it isn't. Please, Dad, trust me--just this once.'

He was silent for a long time, and then he nodded and turned to Jackie. 'We're going to Crow Island. Jackie, I want you as spotter. Abbey, you navigate. I'll take the helm.'

90

Without a moment's hesitation, Straw thrust the throttle forward, spun the helm, and headed the boat into the storm. 'Hold on,' he said.

As soon as they came out of the lee of Devil's Limb, the boat was enveloped in the roar of breaking water, sheets of rain slamming into the windows, spume flying through the air. The waves mounted up, violent chop riding bigger waves which themselves rode on deep and terrifying swells that marched along in a regular cadence, their breaking crests swept back by the hurricane-force winds.

The wind had shifted from the east and now the waves were coming on their stern quarter, pushing the boat forward and sideways. Her father fought the screw-turn motion of it, speeding up and slowing down. Each comber rose under the boat, throwing its nose forward, steeper and steeper, as her father gunned the engine and tried to keep the breaking water from pushing the stern under. As soon as the wave passed, the boat would tip back, bow rising into the air, and it would subside into the trough of the following wave. The air would fall into eerie silence for