Dead calm

potential bomb. Then how about pulling loose a bunch of wires? That was better, but still not perfect. Warriner could replace them in less than an hour. Then her glance fell on the distributor. There was the answer. Smash that, and the power plant was permanently out of commission.

Then she had a better idea. Why not just remove the cap, where the wires came out? She could take it into the cabin with her; the engine couldn’t run without it, and when John got aboard he could replace it and they’d still have the engine intact. She’d watched him take it off to clean the contacts and was certain she knew how to do it. All it required was pulling out those five wires and releasing the two spring clips on the sides, and then it lifted right off. But even that would take longer than the single hammer-blow it would require to smash it, and if he made it down here before she was locked in he would simply replace it after he’d taken it away from her. She paused, undecided, and was about to abandon the idea when another occurred to her.

How many times had John cautioned her never—no matter how short of space she was around the galley—to set anything on the ladder? To the person descending, it was invisible until he’d stepped on it and fallen. She whirled and reached into the stowage racks above the sink and brought out three saucepans. She set them in a row on the next-to-bottom step; under way, Saracen wasn’t rolling heavily enough to throw them off within the next few minutes, which was all the time she needed.

She bent over and crawled into the compartment. With the metal locker pushing against her back and the bottom of the cockpit crowding her above, it was difficult to balance herself against the corkscrew motion of the boat’s stern. Here right up against the engine the racket was deafening, and she could feel herself growing sick again from the fumes. She turned slightly, so as to be headed outward. Now—

She yanked out the wire in the center of the cap. The roar of the engine cut off abruptly. She began furiously snatching out the other four, the ones to the spark plugs. She had three of them loose and was reaching for the fourth when Saracen rolled down to port and she lost her balance. She fell over on the engine, her left forearm against the hot exhaust manifold. The sudden pain was too much for her already nauseated stomach. All the strength drained out of her and she collapsed, vomiting onto the floorboards beside the engine. Light footsteps sounded in the cockpit pressing against the top of her head.

Maybe even now there wasn’t time to get out. But she had to have the cap; she’d never get another chance. She groped blindly for the last wire and had it in her hand when she was seized by another spasm of sickness. She tore it loose, still vomiting, and clawed at the spring clips on the side. The cap came free. She propelled herself toward the opening, and as her head emerged she saw Warriner’s bare legs hurrying down the ladder, above her and to her right. She was cut off; she’d taken a second too long.

Then his right foot came down on the outer rim of one of the saucepans. It flew from under him and he landed amid a metallic crashing at the foot of the ladder. She was out of the engine compartment now, and if she could get by him before he got to his feet she might make it. As she shot past he threw out an arm and caught her ankle. She pulled free but was spun off balance, and she fell over against the port bunk. He had rolled over and was scrambling to his feet. She bounced off the bunk, somehow still clutching the distributor cap, and flung herself toward the entrance to the forward cabin. She was in. She slammed the door, but before she could throw the bolt he hit it from the other side.

It came inward. She had her shoulder against it, but her feet were slipping along the deck as she was forced back. Without something to brace herself against, the outcome was inevitable. She looked behind her and saw the piled sailbags on the port bunk just beyond her legs. Putting her right foot up against them, she managed to straighten the leg enough to lock her knee. It was impossible to force him back, but the door wasn’t open enough for him to squeeze through. She could hear his feet sliding on the deck outside as he tried to get enough traction to bring his full strength to bear. A minute went by. She could feel herself growing faint, and her knee was beginning to tremble.

She still had the distributor cap in her hand and tried frantically to think of some way to dispose of it. Maybe she could toss it behind something. No. He knew she had had it when she ran in here; he’d find it, no matter what she did with it. But it was made of plastic; maybe if she slammed it down hard enough it would break. She shifted it to her free right hand and threw it with the last of her strength against the planking of the deck. It bounced upward at a slight angle, caromed off the sailbags, passed under her straining and almost horizontal body, and came down, spinning, near the bulkhead, less than a foot from the partially opened door, still intact. If he reached in he could pick it up.

He had never uttered a word. She could hear only his labored breathing and the scuffing of his sneakers against the deck on the other side of the door, and the decreasing sounds of water going past the hull as Saracen slowed and came to rest. There was a quality of horror somehow in this very absence of speech that made her shiver. She couldn’t hold out much longer; her leg was going to buckle any second.

She threw herself suddenly to the left, releasing the door. It flew inward, and he shot past her, losing his balance and falling to the deck between the bunks. She scooped up the distributor cap and ran through the after cabin toward the ladder. If she could only make it into the open before he caught her she could throw it overboard. Her head and shoulders were above the hatch, and she was drawing back her arm to throw it, when she was caught from below. It dribbled out of her hand and into the bottom of the cockpit. She managed to kick free, ran up the last two steps, and leaped into the cockpit after it. She had it in her hand when his weight landed on her from behind and she was slammed down on the port seat of the cockpit with the hand pinned beneath her body.

But he made no effort to reach beneath her and pull it out; his hands were digging at the back and sides of her neck as he tried to close his fingers around her throat. She hunched her shoulders up and pulled her chin down, grinding her face against the cushion. Then his weight was suddenly gone from her shoulders and she was lifted and thrown onto her back. She kicked out with her legs and struck at his face, but his hands were around her throat now and tightening. The contorted face and wild eyes were just above hers, and she closed her own eyes to shut them out.

The struggle was utterly silent except for a faint whining sound he made deep in his throat and the sibilant whisperings of their violence against the plastic cushion. She could no longer breathe, and the sunlight penetrating her closed eyelids began to fade downward through darkening shades of pink toward final blackness. But her hand was free now. Just as consciousness was slipping away she raised it and threw the distributor cap outward. There was no sound of its striking the deck, so it must have gone into the water. Or maybe she was already beyond hearing…

Then, strangely, she was breathing again. The hands were gone from her throat. She opened her eyes. He had stood up and was leaning across her, with his hands on the port life-line, as though he’d forgotten her. She couldn’t see his face. She slid cautiously backward, toward the forward end of the cockpit. He paid no attention. She eased herself upright, poised to leap toward the hatch, and glanced fearfully once more in his direction to see if he had turned. This time she saw his face and understood. She looked outward in the same direction.

It was the distributor cap. It had landed just off the port side, and with Saracen now lying at rest on the surface it was sinking almost straight below them through sunlit water as clear as gin. And as he had the other time at the bottle, he was staring down at it with horror and with some sick but inescapable compulsion as it slipped from side to side and then began a gentle spiral that would end in the ooze and the darkness two miles below. The agony of his face was indescribable. He screamed then and collapsed into the bottom of the cockpit with his face pressed into the seat cushion.

She stared, still poised to leap but frozen to the spot. His head rocked from side to side and he clutched the cockpit coaming with a grip that corded the muscles of his forearms. “No, no, no!” he cried out. “I didn’t do it! I didn’t mean it! It was her fault!” He began to cry then with a ragged sobbing that made his whole body shake.

She was able to move at last. She ran down the ladder on rubbery legs and through the after cabin. After slamming the door between the two, she threw the bolt and began dragging cases of canned stores from under the bunks and piling them in front of it. There were six sailbags. She stacked them against the door also, wedging the last ones against the upright pipes of the bunk frame. She was trembling and drenched with perspiration when she had finished, and collapsed on the bunk, too weak to move. Her face was swollen and painful where he had hit her, and there was an ugly red splotch on the bottom of her left forearm where it had come in contact with the exhaust manifold. She was scared, and she was sick with anxiety for John, but for the moment she was safe. Without an ax to smash the door, Warriner had little chance of breaking in, and there was no ax aboard. And until they got a breeze he couldn’t take Saracen any farther away. All she could do now was wait it out.