Cradle
Arthur C. Clarke & Gentry Lee
Contents:
FOREWORD
THURSDAY
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
CYCLE 447
- 1
- 2
FRIDAY
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
ASSEMBLY AND TEST
SATURDAY
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
REPATRIATION
SUNDAY
- 1
- 2
- 3
THE emerald water smashes against the dark volcanic cliffs. Fine
white spray hovers over the harsh rock creating a misty veil that
glimmers in the fading light. In the distance, two yellow suns set
simultaneously, separated by about forty degrees as they disappear
together below the horizon. Across the blue-black sky, on the
opposite side of the isthmus that slopes gently downward from the
volcanic cliffs to another ocean, a pair of full moons rise as the
two suns vanish. Their twin moonlight, although much weaker than
the shine of the disappearing suns, is still strong enough to
create dancing moon shadows on the ocean beneath the rocky
overhang.
As the dual moons rise on the eastern side of the isthmus, light
begins to glow on the horizon beside them, about twenty degrees to
the south. At first the glow looks like the light of a distant
city, but with each passing moment it brightens until it spreads
across the sky. At length an awesome third moon, its first chord
coming over the horizon when the twin moons are maybe ten degrees
into their arc, begins to rise. Calm descends on both oceans for a
few seconds, as if the world beneath the giant orb has paused to
give homage to the spectacular sight. This great yellow moon, its
face clearly scarred by craters, appears to be surveying its
dominion as it slowly rises in the sky and bathes the emerald
oceans in a mysterious reflected light. It is a hundred times the
size of the smaller twin moons and its wide swath through the sky
is greater in size than that cut minutes before by the pair of
setting suns
Below the cliffs, in the shadow of the newest moon, a long sinuous
object arcs its way out of the water, rising nearly twenty feet
above the surface. The slender apparition twists itself toward the
cliffs and thrusts itself forward as the piercing sound of a
trumpet, a solo blast, reverberates against the rocks and carries
across the isthmus. A moment later another sound is heard, a muted
echo or possibly a reply from the other sea. The creature swims
gracefully into the moonlight, its long, lithe neck a cobalt blue
above a gray body mostly submerged in the ocean. Now the bluenecked
serpent extends itself upward again and leans toward the land, its
face revealed in the expanding moonlight. The facial features are
convoluted and complex, with rows of orifices of unknown purpose.
At the peak of its extension, the creature contorts its face and a
medley of sounds is heard; the trumpet blast is now accompanied by
an oboe and an organ. After a short pause a muted response, quieter
but with the same rich complexity of sound, comes back across the
isthmus.
The serpent swims north along the shore. Behind it in the moonlight
half a dozen other swirling necks rise from the ocean. These
creatures are a little smaller, the hues of their cobalt necks not
quite so vivid. This ensemble turns as one, on cue, and blasts six
trumpet calls to the east. Again a pause precedes the expected
response, the sound of several smaller trumpets from across the
land. Immediately the six new creatures and their distant friends
begin a complex, interleaved musical pattern, slowly building in
intensity until the overture reaches an inevitable crescendo and
then abruptly abates.
After a few moments more the oceans on both sides of the isthmus
become alive with teeming serpents of all sizes. Hundreds, even
thousands, of serpents, covering the water for as far as the eye
can see, begin languorously extending their necks, twisting as if
looking around, and joining in the singing. The serpents of the
eastern sea are slightly smaller than their western cousins. The
necks of the eastern serpents are pale blue instead of cobalt.
These pale blue serpents are also joined by a nursery of tiny
creatures, the palest of blue markings on their necks, whose
singing is high-pitched and a trifle erratic and sounds like
piccolos interspersed with crystal bells.
The waters of the emerald oceans begin to surge forward in tidal
frenzy, now rapidly moving up the rocky cliffs on the western side
and quickly submerging great chunks of land on the sloping side
that runs to the eastern ocean. The concerted pull of all the moons
produces a tide that will eventually cover the isthmus completely,
uniting the two oceans. As the waters draw ever closer together,
the music from the thousand singing serpents swells to
magnificence, flooding the entire area with a sound of mesmerizing
beauty. It is also a plaintive sound of longing and anticipation,
the universal cry of long-suppressed desire on the verge of being
satisfied.
The great longnecked serpents of Canthor conclude their annual
mating symphony as the two oceans become one and the inhabitants of
each ocean seek out their lifelong mates in the united waters.
There are five nights out of each Canthorean year when the tidal
forces act together to submerge the isthmus and permit the sexual
mixing of the serpents. Five nights of love play and frolicking, of
renewal and promise, before the requisite return to the separate
oceans and a year of waiting for the great tide to come again.
For the little ones, the new serpents placed into gestation by the
last annual gathering and hatched by their mothers in the eastern
ocean, the great tide is a time of excitement and sadness. They
must now separate from their playmates, leave their infancy behind.
Half must depart from their mothers as well and go to swim among
the cobalt blue adults that they have never met. This half, having
lived their lives among their mothers' friends exclusively, will
swim above and across the isthmus on the fifth night alongside
their fathers. Once into the western ocean, their pale blue necks
will begin to deepen in color as they begin the transition through
puberty into adulthood. And next year, their tiny voices will have
matured just enough that each of them may detect some arousing and
positive response to his call during the mating symphony
Thousands of years pass on the planet Canthor. The forces of change
conspire against the beautiful bluenecked serpents. First a major
ice age comes to the world, locking up more of the planet's water
in perennial polar caps and lowering the seas. The number of days
that the great tide submerges the isthmus is reduced to four, then
three, and finally only two. The elaborate mating ritual of the
serpents, worked out over hundreds of generations, works best for a
five-night courtship. For the several hundred years that only two
nights are available for mating, the number of serpent offspring
produced each year drops precipitously. The total number of
Canthorean serpents becomes dangerously small.
At length the radiative output of the dual suns increases slightly
again and Canthor emerges from its ice age. The sea level rises and
the number of days for mating returns eventually to five. The
serpent symphony, which had added a saddened counterpoint during
the trying years of reduced mating nights, again becomes charged
with joy. For several generations the number of serpents increases.
But then the lovely creatures encounter another foe.
Evolving elsewhere on Canthor for almost a million years has been
another intelligent species, a fierce, squat creature with an
insatiable appetite for control. The ice age stimulated the rapid
evolution of these trolls by enforcing a strict survival of the
fittest that naturally selected those individuals with the most
resources (intelligence and power primarily) and, in a sense,
purified the troll gene pool.
The troll species that emerges from the thousands of years of ice
domination on Canthor is sharper and more capable of dealing with
the rest of its environment. It has become a tool maker and has
learned how to use the riches of the planet for its benefit. No
other living creatures on Canthor can match the cleverness of the
trolls or threaten their existence. So the trolls proliferate
around the planet, dominating it completely with their
rapaciousness.
The bluenecked serpents have had no natural enemies on Canthor for
hundreds of millennia. Therefore they have not retained the
aggression and territoriality necessary to survive when threatened.
Their diet has always consisted primarily of plants and animals
that fill the Canthorean oceans. The seas provide a virtual
cornucopia of food, so it does not make much of an impression upon
the serpents when the trolls begin to farm the oceans for their own
food. To the trolls, however, whose greed for territory knows no
bounds, the serpents represent at least a rival for the plenty of
the oceans and possibly, because of their size and intelligence,
even a survival threat.
It is again the time of the great tide and the male longnecked
serpents have completed their ocean migration on time, swarming as
usual just opposite the great volcanic cliffs. There are only a few
hundred male serpents now, down markedly from the halcyon years
when they were so numerous they stretched as far as the eye could
see. The giant full moon rises as it has for thousands of years,
following the twin smaller moons into the sky, and the overture
announces the coming mating symphony. But as the tide rolls in to
submerge the isthmus, the serpents sense that something is wrong. A
growing cacophony creeps into the mystical mating song. Anxiety
spreads by sound across both sides of the land separating the
serpents. When the tide finally surges over the top of the volcanic
rocks, the point in the original mating symphony for the
magnificent final crescendo, the sound of the serpents' pleading
wail fills the Canthorean night.
The trolls have erected a huge barrier down the spine of the
isthmus. Carefully calculated to be just tall enough to preclude
passage to the largest of the serpents, this oppressive barrier
allows the lovely bluenecked creatures, if they strain, to sense
one another at close range but not to touch. The nights of the
great tide are extremely painful to watch. From both sides the
serpents hurl themselves repeatedly and ineffectually at the wall,
trying desperately to make contact with their mates. But it is all
in vain. The barrier holds. The serpents are unable to mate. Both
sexes return eventually to their respective oceans, deeply saddened
and profoundly aware of the implications of the barrier for their
future.
Some of the serpents batter themselves nearly senseless as they try
to break down the wall. These wounded ones on both sides of the
isthmus remain behind to recover while the rest of the species,
resuming the annual migration as if the normal mating had indeed
taken place, slowly and sadly swim away, each sex heading for a
separate reach of Canthor.
It is two nights after the great tide has stopped submerging the
land between the oceans. Two older male serpents, their necks still
bruised from the repeated bootless hammerings against the hated
barrier, are swimming slowly together in the moonlight. A strange
light in the sky comes swiftly upon them from above. It hovers over
the serpents, seeming to spotlight them as they crane their necks
to see what is happening.
In a moment the graceful necks keel forward and slap down upon the
moonlit ocean. From out of the light above them comes an object, a
basket of some kind, that descends to the water. The two serpents
are scooped up, lifted silently out of the sea into the air, reeled
in by some unknown fisherman in the sky above them. The same scene
repeats a dozen times, first in the western ocean with the wounded
serpents whose necks are cobalt blue, then in the eastern ocean
with their pale blue counterparts. It is as if a great roundup is
taking place, removing all the exhausted serpents who had been
unable to take their place with the rest of the species in the
annual migration.
Far above Canthor a gigantic cylindrical spaceship awaits the
return of its robot minions. Twenty miles on a side, this traveling
planet opens itself to a fleet of returning vehicles the size of
large airplanes that bring back the quarry from Canthor. The
cylinder rotates slowly as Canthor and its giant moon shine in the
background. A solo laggard vehicle returns a door opens to receive
it in the back of the larger craft, and for a while there is no
more activity. At length the cylinder tips over on its side and
fires several small rockets. It is out of sight in seconds,
departing Canthor for other worlds.
The snow falls steadily on the huge man trudging silently through
the forest. Clad in skins, carrying a heavy load on his back and a
large spear in one hand, he turns his hairy, unkempt face toward
the others behind him, his family, and grunts at them to hurry.
There are five altogether, an infant carried by the woman and two
teenage children. The teenagers are wearing skins like their
parents and have large bundles slung across their backs. The
teenage boy is also carrying a spear. At close distance all of them
look very weary, almost exhausted.
They break free from the forest for a moment and enter a meadow
that surrounds a frozen pond. The snow continues to fall, adding to
the three inches that already cover the ground. The father motions
to his family to stop and approaches the pond gingerly. As the
others huddle together against the cold, the man takes a crude tool
from his bundle and, after brushing the snow off the surface of the
pond in a small area, begins to cut the ice. Almost an hour passes.
Finally he succeeds, utters a grunt of happiness, and bends down to
drink the water. He pulls out a skin, fills it, and brings the
water to his wife and children.
The teenage daughter smiles at her father, a smile of love and
admiration, as he offers her the water. Her face is tired, etched
with the lines of sun and wind and cold. She reaches up to take the
skin. Suddenly her face contorts with fear, she screams, and her
father turns just in time to protect himself from a snarling wolf,
midair in an attack. He strikes the wolf full force with his
powerful arm, knocking it away from its target, and then stumbles
toward his spear on the ground beside the pond. He grabs the spear
and turns around quickly, prepared to defend his family.
Three wolves have attacked them. His son has deftly impaled one of
the wolves through the midriff with his spear, but now a second
wolf has pinioned the boy, defenseless in the snow, before he has
been able to withdraw his weapon and strike again. In a frenzy, the
father jumps forward and thrusts his spear into the wolf attacking
his son. But it is too late. The hungry wolf had already found the
boy's throat, severing the jugular vein with one quick snap of his
powerful jaws.
Whirling around, the caveman moves against the last of the wolves.
His wife lies bleeding in the snow and his infant child is
unprotected, screaming in its wrappings some twenty feet from the
mother. The last wolf, wary of the huge man, feints an attack
against the father and then leaps for the baby. Before the man can
respond, the wolf has grabbed the baby by its clothes and headed
off for the forest.
The young girl was spared physical injury in the attack but was
devastated by the near instant death of her brother and the
disappearance of her tiny sister. She holds her dead brother's hand
and sobs uncontrollably. The father stuffs virgin snow in the
wife's wounds and then lifts her upon his back along with the heavy
bundles. He grunts a couple of times to his daughter and she
finally, reluctantly, picks herself up and starts gathering what
remains of the family's things into another bundle.
As night falls the three surviving members of the family are
approaching some caves at the edge of the forest. The father is
near exhaustion from the weight of his wife and the family's meager
belongings. He sits down to rest for a moment. His daughter
stumbles down beside him, placing her head in his lap. She cries
silently and her father tenderly wipes away her tears. A bright
light suddenly shines down on them from above and an instant later
all three are unconscious.
A tethered metallic basket about fifteen feet long and five feet
wide descends in the eerie snowy light and comes to rest softly on
the ground beside the three humans. The sides of the basket drop
and metal belts extend themselves outward, wrapping around each of
the people. They are pulled into the basket, the sides of the
basket are closed, and the strange object then ascends into the
snowy night. Seconds later the spotlight disappears and life
returns to normal in the prehistoric forest.
Above the Earth the giant cylinder sits quietly, waiting for its
messengers to return. The planet below is nearly cloudless and the
great blue stretches of ocean tremble like jewels in the reflected
sunlight. Near the evening terminator, the low sun angles show a
vast expanse of ice extending down from the North Pole, covering
almost all of a large continent. To the west, across a great ocean
and an all white northern island, the midday sun shines on another
large continent. It is also mostly covered by ice. Here the ice
extends southward across two thirds of the land mass and only
disappears completely as the continent begins to taper and the
southern sea is reached.
The hunting shuttles sent out from the great cylinder return to
their base and unload their prey. The father, injured mother, and
teenage daughter are inside the small shuttle craft along with
fifty to sixty other humans, obviously selected from disparate
points around the world. None of the humans is moving. After the
shuttle safely docks with the mother ship, all the prehistoric
humans are moved in a large van to a receiving station. Here they
are admitted and catalogued, and then taken inside a vast module
that re-creates the environment of Earth.
Far above the Earth, the last of the drone scouts returns to the
giant cylinder. There is a momentary pause, as if some unknown
checklist were being verified, and then the cylindrical space
vehicle disappears.
THEY were there on the beach at sunrise. Sometime during the night
seven whales had run aground at Deer Key, five miles east of Key
West. The powerful leviathans of the deep, ten to fifteen feet
long, looked helpless as they lay floundering on the sand. Another
half dozen members of this misguided pod of false killer whales
were swimming in circles in the shallow lagoon just off the beach,
obviously lost and confused.
By seven o'clock on the clear March morning, whale experts from Key
West had arrived and were already beginning to coordinate what
would later become a concerted effort by local fishermen and
boating enthusiasts to push the beached animals back into the
lagoon. Once the whales were off the beach, the next task would be
to coax the entire pod into the Gulf of Mexico. There was little or
no chance that the animals would survive unless they could be
returned to open water.
Carol Dawson was the first reporter to arrive. She parked her
sporty new Korean station wagon on the shoulder of the road, just
off the beach, and jumped out to analyze the situation. The beach
and lagoon at Deer Key formed a cove that was shaped like a half
moon. An imaginary cord connecting the two points of land at the
ends of the cove would extend almost half a mile across the water.
Outside the cord was the Gulf of Mexico. The seven whales had
penetrated the cove in the center and were beached at the point
farthest from the open sea. They were about thirty feet apart and
maybe twenty-five feet up on the sand. The rest of the whales were
trapped in the shallows no more than a hundred feet offshore.
Carol walked around to the back of her station wagon. Before
pulling out a large photographic case, she stopped to adjust the
strings on her pants. (She had dressed quickly this morning when
awakened in her Key West hotel room by the call from Miami. Her
exercise sweat suit was hardly her usual working attire. The sweats
hid the assets of a shapely, finely tuned body that looked more
like twenty than thirty.) Inside the case was a collection of
cameras, both still and video. She selected three of the cameras,
popped a couple of M & Ms from an old package into her mouth,
and approached the beach. As she walked across the sand toward the
people and the beached whales, Carol stopped occasionally to
photograph the scene.
Carol first approached a man wearing a uniform from the South
Florida Marine Research Center. He was facing the ocean and talking
to two Naval officers from the Marine Patrol section of the U.S.
Naval Air Station in Key West. A dozen or so local volunteers were
in close orbit around the speakers, keeping their distance but
listening intently to the discussion. Carol walked up to the man
from the research center and took him by the arm.
"Good morning, Jeff," she said.
He turned to look at her. After a moment a vague smile of
recognition crossed his face.
"Carol Dawson, Miami Herald," she said quickly. "We met one night
at MOI. I was with Dale Michaels."
"Sure, I remember you," he said. "How could I forget a gorgeous
face like yours?" After a moment he continued, "But what are you
doing here? As far as I know, nobody in the world knew these whales
were here until an hour ago. And Miami is over a hundred miles
away."
Carol laughed, her eyes politely acknowledging and thanking Jeff
for the compliment. She still didn't like it but had grudgingly
grown to accept the fact that people, men especially, remembered
her for her looks.
"I was already in Key West on another story, Dale called me this
morning as soon as he heard about the whales. Can I interrupt you
for just a minute and get some expert comments? For the record, of
course."
As she was speaking, Carol reached down and picked up a video
camera, one of the newest models, a 1993 SONY about the size of a
small notebook, and began interviewing Dr. Jeff Marsden, "the
leading authority on whales in the Florida Keys." The interview was
standard stuff, of course, and Carol could have herself supplied
all the answers. But Ms. Dawson was a good reporter and knew the
value of an expert in situations like this.
Dr. Marsden explained that marine biologists still did not
understand the reasons for whale beachings, although their
increased frequency in the late eighties and early nineties had
provided ample opportunities for research. According to him, most
experts blamed the beachings on infestations of parasites in the
individual whales leading each of the unfortunate pods. The
prevailing theory suggests that these parasites confuse the
intricate navigation systems telling the whales where to go. In
other words, the lead whale somehow thinks his migration path is
onto the beach and across the land; the others follow because of
the rigorous hierarchy in the pod.
"I've heard some people say, Dr. Marsden, that the increase in
whale beachings is due to us and our pollution. Would you care to
comment on the accusation that our wastes as well as our acoustic
and electronic pollution have undermined the sensitive biosystems
that the whales use to navigate?"
Carol used the zoom on her tiny video camera to record the
furrowing of Jeff Marsden's brow. He was clearly not expecting such
a leading question from her this early in the morning.
After thinking for a moment, he answered. "There have been several
attempts to explain why there are so many more beachings now than
were recorded in the past. Most researchers come to the inescapable
conclusion that something in the whales' environment has changed in
the last half-century. It is not too farfetched to imagine that we
may well have been responsible for the changes."
Carol knew she had the right quotes for a perfect short piece for
television. She then quickly and professionally wrapped up the
interview, thanked Dr. Marsden, and walked over to the onlookers.
In a minute she had plenty of volunteers to take her out into the
lagoon so that she could take some close-up photographs of the
confused whales. Within five minutes not only had Carol finished
several discs of still photographs, but she also had rigged up her
video camera with a stabilizing tripod on one of the little boats
and done a video clip of herself explaining the beachings.
Before leaving the beach at Deer Key, Carol Dawson opened up the
back of her station wagon. It served her well as a portable photo
laboratory. She first rewound and checked the video tape that she
had taken, listening particularly to hear if the splashing of the
whales could be heard behind her while she was in the boat. Then
she popped the discs from the still cameras into readers to see if
she liked all the photographs. They were good. She smiled to
herself, closed the back of the station wagon, and drove back to
Key West.
CAROL finished the redundant transfer of the videotape through the
modem to Joey Hernandez in Miami and then called another number.
She was sitting in one of the private cubicles inside the large new
communications room at the Key West Marriott. The screen in front
of Carol indicated that the connection for her new number had been
made, but there was not yet any picture. She heard a woman's voice
say, "Good morning, Dr. Michaels' office."
"Good morning, Bernice, it's Carol. I'm on video."
The monitor cleared up in a second and a pleasant middle-aged woman
appeared. "Oh, hi, Carol. I'll tell Dale you're on the line."
Carol smiled as she watched Bernice swivel her chair and roll over
to a panel of buttons on her left. Bernice was almost surrounded by
her desk. In front of her were a couple of keyboards connected to
two large screens, a variety of disc drives, and what looked like a
phone embedded in another monitor. Apparently there had been no
room for the communications panel right next to the phone, so
Bernice had to roll three to four feet in her chair to signal to
Dr. Dale Michaels that he had a call, that it was on video, that it
was Carol, and that it was coming from Key West. Dr. Dale, as he
was known by everyone except Carol, liked to have plenty of
information before he answered the phone.
Both to Bernice's left and right were perpendicular extensions to
the desk, upon which were arrayed stacks of floppy discs of
different sizes (the stacks were labeled "read" or "file" or
"outgoing correspondence"), interleaved with groups of magazines
and manila folders containing hard copy printout from the
computers. Bernice pushed a button on the panel but nothing
happened. She looked apologetically at Carol on the screen above
the phone.
"I'm sorry, Carol." Bernice was a little flustered. "Maybe I didn't
do it right. Dr. Dale had a new system installed this week again
and I'm not certain ..."
One of the two large monitors flashed a message. "Oh good," Bernice
continued, now smiling, "I did it right. He'll be with you in a
minute. He has someone in there with him and will finish quickly so
he can see you and speak with you. I hope you don't mind if I put
you on hold."
Carol nodded and Bernice's image faded away from the screen. On the
monitor Carol now watched the beginning of a short tutorial
documentary on oyster farming. The piece was beautifully filmed
underwater using the most advanced photographic equipment. The
narration featured the mellifluous voice of Dr. Dale and the video
pointed out the connection between the inventions at MOI (the Miami
Oceanographic Institute, of which Dr. Dale Michaels was the founder
and chief executive officer) and the rapid rise of sea farming of
all kinds. But Carol had to laugh. Playing quietly behind the
narration, and increasing in volume during periods of narrative
silence, was Pachelbel's "Canon." It was Dale's favorite piece of
mood music (he was so predictable - Carol always knew what was
coming next when Dale put Pachelbel on the CD player in his
apartment), but it seemed strange to her to listen to the lilting
strings as the cameras moved in for close-ups of growing
oysters.
The oyster story was abruptly discontinued in medias res and the
screen dissolved to the interior of a large executive office. Dale
Michaels was sitting on a couch, across the room from his modem
desk, looking at one of three video monitors that could be seen in
the room. "Good morning again, Carol," he said enthusiastically.
"So how did it go? And where are you? I didn't know that they had
videos in the Marriott rooms yet."
Dr. Michaels was tall and slim. Blond, his hair was slightly curly
and receding just a trace at the temples. He flashed a ready smile
that was too quick, almost practiced, but his green eyes were warm
and open.
"I'm down in the comm room here at the hotel," Carol answered. "I
just sent the whale beaching story off to the Herald on disc.
Jesus, Dale, I felt so sorry for those poor animals. How can they
be so smart and still get their directions so fouled up?"
"We don't know, Carol," Dale replied. "But remember that our
definition of intelligence and the whales' definition are almost
certainly completely different. Besides, it's not that surprising
that they trust their internal navigation system even when it leads
them to disaster. Can you imagine a situation in which you would
essentially disregard information that your eyes were giving you?
It's the same thing. We're talking here about a malfunction in
their primary sensor."
Carol was quiet for a moment. "I guess I can see what you're
saying," she said finally, "but it hurt to see them so helpless.
Oh, well, anyway, I got the story on video too. Incidentally, the
new integrated video technology is superb. The Marriott here just
installed a new higher data rate modem for video and I was able to
transfer the entire eight-minute piece to Joey Hernandez at Channel
44 in only two minutes. He loved it. He does the noon news, you
know. Catch it if you can and tell me what you think."
Carol paused just a beat. "And by the way, Dale, thanks again for
the tip."
"Just glad to help." Dale was beaming. He loved it when he could
help Carol with her career. He had been pursuing her
single-mindedly, in his left brain scientific way, for almost a
year and a half. But he had been unable to convince her that a
permanent relationship would be mutually beneficial. Or at least he
thought that was the problem.
"I think this whale thing could be a great cover," Carol was
saying. "You know I was worried about attracting too much attention
with your telescope. And the treasure hunter bit just doesn't fit
if someone down here recognizes me. But I think I can use a whale
follow-up story as the pretense. What do you think?"
"Sounds reasonable to me," Dale answered. "Incidentally, there have
been a couple of other whale irregularities reported as well this
morning - a partial pod beaching up at Sanibel and a supposed
attack on a fishing boat north of Marathon. The owner was
Vietnamese and highly excitable. Of course it's almost unheard of
that false killers attack anything related to humans. But maybe you
can use the whole thing somehow."
Carol saw that he was already up from the couch and walking around
his office. Dr. Dale Michaels had so much energy it was almost
impossible for him to sit still or relax. He was just a few months
away from his fortieth birthday but he still had the zest and
enthusiasm of a teenager.
"Just try not to let anyone from the Navy know that you have the
telescope," he continued. "They called again this morning and asked
for a third set of equipment. I told them the third telescope was
loaned out and being used for research. Whatever it is that they're
looking for must be very important." He turned and looked at the
camera. "And very secret. This guy Lieutenant Todd reminded me
again this morning, as soon as I made a normal scientific inquiry,
that it was Navy business and he couldn't tell me anything about
it."
Carol made some notes on a small spiral pad. "You know, Dale," she
began again, "I thought this story had tremendous potential as soon
as you mentioned it to me yesterday. Everything indicates that
something unusual and secret is going on with the Navy. I myself
was amused by the amateur way that Todd stonewalled me on the phone
yesterday and then demanded to know who had given me his name. I
told him that a source in the Pentagon had suggested that there was
some high-priority activity at the Naval Air Station in Key West
and that he, Todd, was associated with it. He seemed to buy it. And
I'm convinced that the bozo Navy public affairs guy here knows
nothing at all about anything that might be happening."
Carol yawned and quickly put her hand over her mouth. "Well, it's
too late to go back to bed. I guess I'll exercise and then go find
that boat we talked about. I feel as if I'm looking for a needle in
a haystack, but your guess could be right. Anyway, I'll start with
the map you gave me. And if they really have lost a cruise missile
somewhere down here and are trying to cover it up, it would
certainly be a great scoop for me. Talk to you later."
Dale waved good-bye and hung up. Carol left the communications area
and walked out to the end of the hotel. She had an oceanfront room
on the first floor. The Herald wouldn't pay for that kind of
luxury, but she had decided to splurge anyway this time and pamper
herself. As she was changing into her skin-tight workout swimsuit,
she mused to herself about her conversation with Dale. Nobody would
ever know, she thought, that Dale and I are lovers. Or at least sex
partners It's all so businesslike. As if we're teammates or
something. No darlings or dears. She paused for a moment and then
completed her thought. Did I make it that way? she wondered.
It was almost nine o'clock and the resort was in the process of
waking up when Carol walked out of her room and onto the hotel
grounds. On the beach, the staff had just arrived and were setting
out the chaises and umbrellas on the sand for the early risers.
Carol walked over to the young man in charge (a typical Charlie
Terrific, Carol thought sarcastically as she watched him strut
along in front of his concession shack) and informed him that she
was going for a long exercise swim. Twice at hotels previously she
had forgotten to tell the guardians of the beach that she was going
to swim a half mile away from the shore. Both times she had been
"rescued," much to her dismay, and had created an untoward
scene.
As Carol worked into the rhythm of her freestyle stroke, she began
to feel the release of tension, the loosening of the knots that
bound her most of the time. Although she told most other people
that she exercised regularly to stay fit, the real reason Carol
spent at least forty-five minutes each morning running, swimming,
or walking briskly was that she needed the exercise to deal with
her fast-paced life. Only after hard exercise could she really feel
calm and at peace with her world.
It was normal for Carol to let her mind drift idly from subject to
subject while she was swimming long distances. This morning she
remembered swimming long ago in the cold waters of the Pacific
Ocean near Laguna Beach in California. Carol had been eight years
old at the time and had gone to a birthday party given by a friend,
Jessica was her name, whom Carol had met at soccer camp during the
summer. Jessica was rich. Her house had cost more than a million
dollars and Jessica had more toys and dolls than Carol could
possibly imagine.
Hmm, Carol was thinking as she recalled Jessica's party and the
clowns and the ponies. That was when I still believed in fairy
tales. That was before the separation and divorce ...
Her watch alarm sounded, breaking her reverie, and Carol turned
around in the water and headed back to shore. As she did so, she
saw something strange out of the corner of her eye. No more than
twenty yards from her a great whale broke the water, sending chills
down her spine and adrenaline rushing into her system. The whale
disappeared underwater and, despite the fact that Carol treaded
water for a couple of minutes and scanned the horizon, she never
saw him again.
At length Carol began swimming back toward shore. Her heart rate
had started to return to normal after the bizarre encounter and now
she was thinking about her lifelong fascination with whales. She
remembered having a toy whale from Sea World, in San Diego, when
she was seven. What was his name? Shammy. Shamu. Something like
that. Then Carol remembered an earlier experience, one she had not
thought about for twenty-five years.
Carol was five or six and sitting in her room, ready for bed as
requested, and her father came into the room carrying a picture
book. They sat together on the bed and leaned against the wallpaper
with yellow flowers while he read to her. She loved it when he put
his arm around her and turned the pages in her lap. She felt
protected and comfortable. He read to her a story about a whale
that seemed human and a man named Captain Ahab. The pictures were
frightening, one in particular showed a boat being tossed about by
a giant whale with a harpoon stuck in his back.
When her father tucked her in that night he seemed to linger in the
room, showering her with tender hugs and kisses. She saw tears in
his eyes and asked him if anything was wrong. Her father just shook
his head and told her that he loved her so much, sometimes it made
him cry.
Carol was so deep in this vivid memory that she wasn't paying
attention to where she was swimming. She had drifted west with the
current and could now barely see the hotel. It took her a few
minutes to orient herself and head back in the right direction.
LIEUTENANT Richard Todd waited impatiently while the data
processing assistant made the last corrections on the master
sheets. "Come on, come on. The meeting is supposed to start in five
minutes. And we have a couple more changes to make."
The poor girl was clearly hassled by the Navy officer hanging over
her shoulder while she worked at the design monitor. She corrected
a couple of spelling errors on one sheet and pushed the return key.
On the screen in front of her appeared a computer line-drawn map of
South Florida and the Keys. With a light pen she tried to follow
Lieutenant Todd's instructions and highlight the specific areas
described by him.
"There," he said finally, "that's good. That finishes the group.
Now hit the hard copy repro button. What's the initial key?
17BROK01? Good. On the Top Secret data base? All right. Today's
password?"
"Matisse, Lieutenant," she answered, standing up to walk around the
machine and pick up a single collated hard copy of his
presentation. Todd had a blank look on his face. "He was a French
painter," the girl said sarcastically, "M-A-T-I-S-S-E, in case
you're wondering."
Todd signed out for his copy of the material and then scribbled the
spelling of Matisse on a sheet of scratch paper. He awkwardly
thanked the girl in a minimal way and left the room, heading out of
the building and across the street.
The conference center for the U.S. Naval Air Station in Key West
was next door. It was a brand-new building of modem design, one of
the few edifices on the base to break the architectural monotone
that could best be described as "white stucco, World War II."
Lieutenant Todd worked in one of the nondescript white buildings as
head of Special Projects for the site. Todd and his group were
essentially troubleshooters for the command, crackerjack systems
engineers who were moved from project to project depending upon
where they were needed. Todd himself was twenty-eight, an Annapolis
graduate in aerospace engineering, a gung-ho Navy bachelor who had
grown up in Littleton, a suburb of Denver in Colorado. Todd was
ambitious and in a hurry. He felt as if he were out of the
mainstream down here in Key West and longed for a chance to move to
somewhere he could really prove his mettle, a weapons design
center, for example, or even the Pentagon.
The sign on the door in the conference center read TOP SECRET -
BROKEN ARROW. Lieutenant Todd checked his watch. One minute
remained before 0930, the time for the meeting. He entered an
alphanumeric code into the door lock and walked into the back of a
midsized conference room with three large screens in the front. His
group of five younger officers and a couple of members of the
senior staff had already arrived. They were standing around the
coffee and donuts that were on a table at the left. Commander
Vernon Winters was sitting alone at the center of a long table that
ran across the room and virtually bisected it. He was facing the
screens with his back to the entrance.
"All right, all right," Winters said, first looking around the room
and then at the digital time printout in the upper left corner of
the front wall, "let's get started. Are you ready Lieutenant Todd?"
The other officers sat down at the table. At the last minute
another senior staff officer entered the room and took a seat in
one of the chairs at the back.
Todd walked around the table to the front of the room, to a podium
with a built-in keyboard underneath a small monitor, and eyed
Commander Winters. "Yes, sir," he answered. He activated the
computer system in the podium. Todd indicated that he wanted access
to the Top Secret Data Base. He then entered a complicated keyed
input that was the first pan of a password system. The interactive
monitor in the podium next requested the password of the day.
Todd's first attempt was unsuccessful, for he hadn't remembered the
correct spelling. He began to search his pockets for the piece of
scrap paper.
The only other keyboard in the room was in the center of the long
table where Winters was sitting. While Lieutenant Todd fumbled
around at the podium, the commander smiled, entered the password,
and then added some code of his own. The center screen came alive
in vivid color and showed a stylized woman in a yellow dress,
sitting at a piano, while two young boys played checkers behind
her. A sense of red flooded forth from the picture. It was a
reproduction of one of Matisse's paintings from his late years in
Nice and was magnificently projected at the front of the room.
Lieutenant Todd looked startled. A couple of the senior officers
laughed.
Winters smiled engagingly. "There are some fairly amazing things
that can be done with the resolution power of a 4K-by-4K image and
a nearly infinite data base." There was an awkward silence and then
Winters continued. "I guess it's hopeless to keep trying to expand
the education of you young officers on this base. Go on. Continue.
I've put you already into the Top Secret Data Base and any new
input will override the picture."
Todd composed himself. This man Winters is certainly a queer duck,
he thought. The admiral who was the commanding officer of the Key
West base had assigned the commander last night to lead this
important Panther missile investigation. Winters had an impressive
background in missiles and in systems engineering, but whoever
heard of starting such a critical meeting by calling a painting up
on the screen? Todd now entered 17BROK01 and, after counting the
people, the number nine. In a few seconds a machine in the back
corner of the room had copies of the presentation collated and
stapled for the use of the participants. Todd called his first
image (entitled "Introduction and Background") to the center screen
with another touch of the keyboard.
"Yesterday morning," he began, "a demonstration test for the new
Panther missile was conducted over the North Atlantic. The missile
was fired at 0700 from an airplane at eighty thousand feet off the
coast of Labrador. It was aimed at a target near the Bahamas, one
of our old aircraft carriers. After flying a normal ballistic
trajectory into the region where the ship was located, the Panther
was supposed to activate its terminal guidance that uses the
Advanced Pattern Recognition System or APRS. The missile should
then have found the aircraft carrier and, using the reaction
control jets as its primary control authority, made whatever
vernier corrections were necessary to impact the old carrier on the
main deck."
Todd pushed a key on the podium and a line drawing map of the
American east coast, including the area from Labrador through Cuba,
appeared on the left screen. "The missile was a final test
version," he continued, "in the exact configuration of the
production flight vehicle, except for the command test set and the
warhead. This was to be the longest test flight yet conducted and
was designed to demonstrate thoroughly the new 4.2 version of the
software that was recently installed in the APRS. So of course the
missile was not armed."
The lieutenant picked up a light pen from the podium and marked on
the small monitor in front of him. His markings were immediately
translated to the larger screen behind him so that everyone could
easily follow his discussion. "On the screen you all can see the
predicted versus actual overflight path of the bird yesterday.
Here, roughly ten miles east of Cape Canaveral on what appeared to
be a nominal flight, the sequencer turned on the cameras. After a
couple of hundred calibration images, sort of a self-test of the
APRS, the terminal guidance algorithms were activated as scheduled.
As far as we can tell from the realtime telemetry, nothing strange
had occurred until this time."
The right screen now showed a detailed map of south Florida and the
Keys that included the target in the Bahamas. The maps on the two
flanking screens remained in view during the rest of his
presentation but Lieutenant Todd constantly changed the word charts
in the middle to keep up with the discussion. "The a priori
location of the target, which was where the cameras should first
have looked for the aircraft carrier, was here at Eleuthera, in the
Bahamas. The search algorithm should have fanned out in a circle
from there and, if it had operated properly, found the target in
about fifteen seconds. This (Todd pointed toward a dotted line on
the more detailed map) should have been the impact trajectory.
"However," Todd continued dramatically, "based on the telemetry
data that we have analyzed to date, it appears that the missile
veered sharply westward, toward the coast of Florida, soon after
the terminal guidance system was activated. We have only been able
to reconstruct its path up to this point, where it was about three
miles west of Miami Beach at an altitude of ten thousand feet.
After that the telemetry becomes intermittent and erratic. But we
do know that all the terminal guidance engines were on at the time
we lost complete data. Projecting the total control authority for
the missile, the area highlighted here, covering the Everglades,
the Keys, and even as far south as Cuba, represents where the bird
might have landed."
Lieutenant Todd paused for a second and Commander Winters, who had
been writing down major points in a small notebook during the
presentation, immediately jumped in and started taking charge of
the meeting. "A couple of questions, Lieutenant, before we
proceed," Winters began in a businesslike manner with an obvious
overtone of authority. "First, why was the missile not destroyed
soon after it veered off course?"
"We're not exactly certain, Commander. The command test set and the
small ordnance had been installed, of course, specifically for that
purpose. The change in the motion of the vehicle was so sudden and
so unexpected that we reacted a little slowly at the beginning. By
the time we sent the command, it's possible that we were out of
range. All we know is that we never saw an explosion of any kind.
We can only assume - "
"We'll come back to this operational error later," Winters
interrupted him again. Todd blanched at the word "error" and
fidgeted behind the podium. "Where would the impact point have been
according to the guidance constants active at the time of the last
complete telemetry packet? And how long is it going to take us to
extract additional information from the intermittent data?"
Lieutenant Todd noted to himself that the commander was sharp.
Winters had obviously been associated with anomaly investigations
before. Todd then explained that if the active guidance constants
had not changed again, the continued firing of the terminal engines
would have brought the missile to an impact point about twenty
miles south of Key West. "However," Todd added, "the constants were
allowed, by the software, to change every five seconds. And they
had changed in two of the last five internal data updates. So it's
unlikely they stayed the same as they were when our complete
telemetry terminated. Unfortunately, although all the constants -
even the future predicted ones that are being calculated by the
APRS-are stored in the onboard computer, because of bandwidth
limitations we only transmit the active constants with the realtime
telemetry. We are now going through the dropout data manually to
see if we can find out anything more about the constants."
One of the other staff officers asked a question about the
probability of the missile actually having reached Cuba. Lieutenant
Todd answered "very low" and then activated an electronic overlay
that placed a dotted and blinking trajectory on the right screen
inset map. The blinking dots followed a path that started just off
Coral Gables, south of the city of Miami, and then continued across
a portion of south Florida into the Gulf of Mexico, across the
Keys, and finally into the ocean again. "It is along this line that
we intend to concentrate our search. Unless the bird suddenly
changed its mind its general heading would have been consistent
with a perceived target located anywhere along this path. And since
we have no reports of any land impact near a populated area, we
assume that the missile landed in the Everglades or the ocean."
Lieutenant Todd had consulted briefly with Winters the previous
evening on the agenda for the meeting. It had been scheduled to
last only an hour, but the number of questions caused it to stretch
to an hour and a half. Todd was thorough and precise in his
presentation but was obviously dismayed by Winters' continued
probing into the possibility of human error. The lieutenant freely
admitted that they had blown the procedure to destroy the missile
when it went awry, but defended his men by citing the unusual
circumstances and the nearly perfect previous record enjoyed by the
Panther missile. He also explained that they were going to equip
their search vessels with the best possible instrumentation
("including the new ocean telescope developed by the Miami
Oceanographic Institute") and begin searching the outlined areas in
earnest the next day.
Winters asked many questions about the possible cause of the
missile's strange behavior. Todd told him that he and his staff
were convinced that it was a software problem, that some new or
updated algorithm in the 4.2 version of the software had somehow
scrambled both the initialization sequence and the optically stored
target parameters. Winters accepted their opinion eventually, but
not until he ordered them to prepare a "top down" failure modes
analysis that would list every possible hardware, software, or
operational error (Todd winced when Winters mentioned operations
again) that could lead to the kind of problem observed.
Toward the end of the meeting Winters reiterated the secrecy of the
activity and pointed out that the Broken Arrow project was to
remain completely unknown to the press. "Commander," Todd broke in
while Winters was explaining the press policy. The lieutenant had
begun the meeting with confidence but was feeling increasingly
unsettled. "Sir, I had a call late yesterday afternoon from a
reporter, a Carolyn or Kathy Dawson I think, from the Miami Herald.
She told me that she had heard of some special activity down here
and that I was supposedly connected with it. She claimed her source
was someone in the Pentagon."
Winters shook his head. "Shit, Lieutenant, why didn't you say
something before this? Can't you imagine what will happen if the
word gets out that one of our missiles wandered over Miami?" He
paused. "What did you tell her?"
"I didn't tell her anything. But I think she is still suspicious.
She called the public affairs office after she talked to me."
Winters gave an order that the existence of the Broken Arrow
investigation was to be kept classified and that any and all
inquiries about it were to be referred to him. He then called for
the next status meeting at 1500 on the following day, Friday, by
which time (he told Lieutenant Todd) the commander expected to see
the results of the analysis of the intermittent telemetry, a more
complete logic breakdown of the failure modes, and a list of recent
open items with the 4.2 software.
Lieutenant Richard Todd left the meeting aware that this assignment
was going to have a significant impact on his career. It was clear
to the lieutenant that his personal competence was already being
questioned by this Commander Winters. Todd intended to respond to
the challenge in a positive way. First he called a small postmortem
meeting of the junior officers in his group. He told them (they
were all young ensigns, just out of the university after completing
a Navy ROTC program) that their collective ass was on the line.
Then he defined a series of action items that would keep all of
them up working for most of the night. It was imperative to Todd
that he be properly prepared for the next meeting.
KEY West was proud of its new marina. Completed in 1992 just after
the explosion in cruises had brought an influx of new visitors to
the old city, the marina was thoroughly modem. Scattered around the
jetties on high towers were automatic cameras that constantly
surveyed the marina. These cameras and the rest of the electronic
surveillance systems were just one facet of an elaborate security
setup that protected the slips when the boat owners were absent.
Another of the new features of the Hemmingway Marina (it was
naturally named after the most famous resident of Key West) was a
centralized navigation control center. Here, using a virtually
automatic traffic control system, a single controller was able to
pass instructions to all the vessels in the harbor and provide for
efficient handling of the burgeoning water traffic.
The marina was built on Key West Bight, on what had been a decaying
part of the waterfront. It had slips for almost four hundred boats
and its completion changed the nature of the city's commerce. Young
professionals wanting to be near their boats at the marina quickly
purchased and upgraded all the wonderful nineteenth-century houses
that lined Caroline and Eaton streets on what was known as the
Pelican Path. Smart shops, toney restaurants, even little theaters
crowded into the area around the marina to create an atmosphere of
bustle and excitement. There was even a new Japanese hotel, the
Miyako Gardens, which was famous for its magnificent collection of
tropical birds that played in the waterfalls and ferns of its
atrium.
Just before noon Carol Dawson walked into the marina headquarters
and approached the circular information desk in the middle of the
large room. She was wearing a sharp silk blouse, light purple in
color, and a pair of long white cotton slacks that covered the tops
of her white tennis shoes. Two petite ruby and gold bracelets were
wrapped around her right wrist, and a huge amethyst set in a gold
basket at the end of a neck chain dangled perfectly at the vertex
of the "V" in her open blouse. She looked stunning, like a
well-heeled tourist about to rent a boat for the afternoon.
The young girl behind the information desk was in her early
twenties. She was blonde, fairly attractive in the clean-cut
American style originally typified by Cheryl Tiegs. She watched
Carol with just a tinge of competitive jealously as the journalist
moved purposefully across the room. "Can I help you?" she said with
feigned cheer as Carol reached the desk.
"I would like to charter a boat for the rest of the day." Carol
began. "I want to go out to do a little diving and a little
swimming and maybe see some of the interesting ship-wrecks around
here." She planned to say nothing about the whales until she had
picked the boat.
"Well, you've come to the right place," the girl responded. She
turned to the computer on her left and prepared to use the
keyboard. "My name is Julianne and one of my jobs here is to help
tourists find the boats that are just right for their recreational
needs." Carol noted that Julianne sounded as if she had memorized
the little speech. "Did you have any particular price in mind?
Although most of the boats here at Hemingway are private vessels,
we still do have all sorts of boats for charter and most of them
meet your requirements. Assuming of course that they're still
available."
Carol shook her head and in a few minutes she was handed a computer
listing that included nine boats. "Here are the boats that are
possible," the girl said. "As I told you, there's quite a range in
price."
Carol's eyes scanned down the list. The biggest and most expensive
boat was the Ambrosia, a fifty-four-footer that chartered for eight
hundred dollars a day, or five hundred for a half day. The list
included a couple of intermediate entries as well as two small
boats, twenty-six-footers, that rented for half the price of the
Ambrosia. "I'd like to talk to the captain of the Ambrosia first,"
Carol said, after a moment's hesitation. "Where do I go?"
"Do you know Captain Homer?" Julianne replied, a strange smile
starting to form at the corner of her mouth. "Homer Ashford," she
said again slowly, as if the name should be recognized. Carol's
mind began going through a memory search routine. The name was
familiar. Where had she heard it? A long time ago, in a news
program ...
Carol had not quite retrieved the memory when the girl continued.
"I'll let them know that you're coming." Below the desk counter on
the right was a huge bank of relay switches, several hundred in
all, apparently connected to a speaker system. Julianne flipped one
of the switches and turned to Carol. "It should only be a minute,"
she said.
"Vat is it, Julianne?" a booming feminine voice inquired within
about twenty seconds. The voice was foreign, German Judging from
the way the first word was pronounced. And the voice was also
impatient.
"There's a woman here, Greta, a Miss Carol Dawson from Miami, and
she wants to come down to talk to Captain Homer about chartering
the yacht for the afternoon."
After a moment's silence, Greta was heard again, "Ya, okay, send
her down." Julianne motioned for Carol to walk halfway around the
circular desk to where a familiar keyboard was sitting in a small
well on the counter. Carol had been through this process many times
since the UIS (Universal Identification System) was first
introduced in 1991. Using the keyboard, she entered her name and
her social security number. Carol wondered which verification
question it would be this time. Her birthplace? Her mother's maiden
name? Her father's birth date? It was always random, selected from
the twenty personal facts that were immutable and belonged to each
individual. To impersonate someone now really took an effort.
"Miss Carol Dawson, 1418 Oakwood Gardens, Apt. 17, Miami Beach."
Carol nodded her head. Blonde Julianne obviously enjoyed her role
of checking out the prospective clients. "What was your birth
date?" Carol was asked.
"December 27, 1963," Carol responded. Julianne's face registered
that Carol had given the correct answer. But Carol could see
something else in her face, something competitive and even
supercilious, almost a "Ha-ha-de-ha-ha, I'm lots younger than you
are and now I know it." Usually Carol didn't pay attention to such
trivia. But for some reason, this morning she was uncomfortable
about the fact that she was now thirty. She started to indicate her
annoyance to smug little Julianne but thought better of it and held
her tongue.
Julianne gave her instructions. "Walk out that door over there, at
the far right, and walk straight until you come to Jetty Number 4.
Then turn left and insert this card in the gate lock. Slip "P" as
in Peter is where the Ambrosia is berthed. It's a long walk, way
down at the end of the jetty. But you can't miss the yacht, it's
one of the largest and most beautiful boats at Hemingway."
Julianne was right. It was quite a hike to the end of Jetty Number
4. Carol Dawson probably passed a total of thirty boats of all
sizes, on both sides of the jetty, before she reached the Ambrosia.
By the time Carol could discern the bold blue identifying letters
on the front of the cabin, she had started to sweat from the heat
and humidity of late morning.
Captain Homer Ashford walked up the gangplank to meet her when she
finally reached the Ambrosia. He was in his mid to late fifties, an
enormous man, well over six feet tall and weighing close to two
hundred and fifty pounds. His hair was still thick, but the
original black color had now almost completely surrendered to the
gray.
Captain Homer's wild eyes had followed Carol's approach with
undisguised lubricious delight. Carol recognized the look and her
reaction was one of immediate disgust. She started to turn around
and go back to the marina headquarters. But she stopped herself,
realizing that it was a long walk back and that she was already hot
and tired. Captain Homer, apparently sensing her disapproval by the
change in her gait, changed his leer to an avuncular smile.
"Miss Dawson, I presume?" the captain said, bowing slightly with
fake gallantry. "Welcome to the Ambrosia. Captain Homer Ashford and
his crew at your service. "Carol reluctantly smiled. This buffoon
in the outrageous blue Hawaiian shirt at least did not appear to
take himself too seriously. Still slightly wary, she took the
proffered Coke from his out-stretched hand and followed him along
the smaller side jetty beside the boat. The two of them then
descended onto the yacht. It was huge.
"We understand from Julianne that you are interested in a charter
for this afternoon. We would love to take you out to one of our
favorite spots, Dolphin Key." They were standing in front of the
wheelhouse and the covered cabin area as they talked. Captain Homer
was clearly already into his sales pitch. From somewhere nearby
Carol could hear the clang of metal. It sounded like barbells.
"Dolphin Key is a marvelous isolated island," Captain Homer
continued, "perfect for swimming and even nude sunbathing, if you
like that sort of thing. There's also a sunken wreck from the
eighteenth century not more than a couple of miles away if you're
interested in doing some diving." Carol took another drink from her
Coke and looked at Homer for an instant. She quickly averted her
eyes. He was leering again. His peculiar emphasis on the word
"nude" had somehow changed Carol's mental picture of Dolphin Key
from a quiet tropical paradise to a gathering place for debauchery
and peeping Toms. Carol recoiled from Captain Homer's light touch
as he guided her around the side of the yacht. This man is a creep,
she thought. I should have followed my first instincts and turned
around.
The clang of metal grew louder as they walked past the entrance to
the cabin and approached the front of the luxurious boat. Carol's
journalistic curiosity was piqued; the sound seemed so out of
place. She hardly paid attention as Captain Homer pointed out all
the outstanding features of the yacht. When they finally had a
clear view of the front deck of the Ambrosia, Carol saw that the
sound had indeed been barbells. A blonde woman with her back toward
them was working out with weights on the front deck.
The woman's body was magnificent, even breathtaking. As she
strained to finish her repetitive presses, she lifted the barbells
high over her head Rivulets of sweat cascaded down the muscles that
seemed to descend in ripples from her shoulders. She was wearing a
low-cut black leotard, almost backless, whose thin straps did not
seem capable of holding up the rest of the outfit. Captain Homer
had stopped talking about the boat. Carol noticed that he was
standing in rapt admiration, apparently transfixed by the sensual
beauty of the sweaty woman in the leotard. This place is weird,
Carol thought. Maybe that's why the girl asked me if I knew these
people.
The woman put the weights back on the small rack and picked up a
towel When she turned around Carol could see that she was in her
mid to late thirties, pretty in an athletic sort of way . Her
breasts were large and taut and clearly visible in the scant
leotard. But it was her eyes that were truly remarkable. They were
gray-blue in color and they seemed to look right through you. Carol
thought that the woman's first piercing glance was hostile, almost
threatening.
"Greta," said Captain Homer, when she looked at him after her first
glance at Carol, "this is Miss Carol Dawson. She may be our charter
for this afternoon."
Greta did not smile or say anything. She wiped the sweat off her
brow, took a couple of deep breaths, and put the towel behind her
neck and over her shoulders. She squared herself off to face Carol
and Captain Homer. Then with her shoulders back and her hands on
her hips, she flexed her chest muscles. With each flexure her
abundant breasts seemed to stretch up toward her neck. Throughout
this routine her incredibly clear eyes evaluated Carol, checking
out her body and clothing in minute detail. Carol squirmed
involuntarily.
"Well, hello, Greta," she said, her usual aplomb strangely absent
in this awkward moment, "nice to meet you." Jesus, Carol thought,
as Greta just looked at Carol's outstretched hand for several
seconds, let me out of here. I must be on a strange planet or
having a nightmare.
"Greta sometimes likes to have fun with our customers," Captain
Homer said to Carol, "but don't let it put you off." Was he
irritated with Greta? Carol thought she detected some unspoken
communication between Greta and Captain Homer, for at length Greta
smiled. But it was an artificial smile.
"Velcome to the Ambrosia," Greta said, mimicking Captain Homer's
first remarks to Carol. "Our pleasure avaits you." Greta lifted her
arms over her head, watching Carol again, and began to stretch.
"Come vit us to paradise," Greta said.
Carol felt Captain Homer's burly hand on her elbow, turning her
around. She also thought she saw an angry glance from Homer to
Greta. "The Ambrosia is the finest charter vessel in Key West," he
said, guiding her back toward the stem and resuming his sales
pitch. "It has every possible convenience and luxury. Giant screen
cable television, compact disc player with quad speakers, automatic
chef programmed with over a hundred gourmet dishes, robot massage.
And nobody knows the Keys like Captain Homer. I've been diving and
fishing these waters for fifty years."
They had stopped at the entrance to the cabin area in the middle of
the yacht. Through the glass door Carol could see stairs descending
to another level. "Would you like to come down and see the galley
and the bedroom?" Captain Homer said, without a trace of the
earlier suggestiveness. He was a clever chameleon, there was no
doubt about that. Carol revised her earlier judgment of him as a
buffoon. But what was this business with muscle-bound Greta,
whoever she is, Carol wondered. And just what is going on here? Why
are they so strange?
"No, thank you, Captain Ashford." Carol saw her opportunity to exit
gracefully. She handed him what was left of the unfinished Coke.
"I've seen enough. It's a magnificent yacht but I can tell it's
much too expensive for a single woman wanting to spend a relaxing
afternoon. But thanks a lot for your time and the brief tour."
She started to walk toward the gangplank to the jetty. Captain
Homer's eyes narrowed, "But we haven't even discussed price, Miss
Dawson. I'm certain that for someone like you we could make a
special deal ..."
Carol could tell that he was not going to let her go without some
additional discussion. As she started to leave the yacht, Greta
came up beside Captain Homer. "It vould give you sometink to write
about for your paper," Greta said with a bizarre smile. "Sometink
unusual."
Carol turned, startled. "So you recognized me?" she said, stating
the obvious. The strange pair grinned back at her. "Why didn't you
say something?"
Captain Homer simply shrugged his huge shoulders. "We thought maybe
you were traveling incognito, or were looking for some special fun,
or maybe even were working on a story ..." His voice trailed off
Carol smiled and shook her head. Then she waved good-bye, mounted
the gangplank, and turned on the jetty toward the distant marina
headquarters. Who are those people? she asked herself again. Now
I'm certain that I have seen them before. But where?
* * * * *
Twice Carol looked over her shoulder to see if Captain Homer and
Greta were still watching her. The second time, when she was almost
a hundred yards away, they were no longer in sight. She sighed with
relief. The experience had definitely unnerved her.
Carol walked on slowly. She pulled the computer listing that
Julianne had given her from a small purple beach bag. Before she
could look at it, she heard a telephone ring on her left and her
eyes lifted naturally to follow the sound. The telephone was
ringing on a boat just in front of her. A husky man in his early
thirties was sitting in a folding chair on the same boat. Wearing
only a red baseball cap, a pair of swim trunks, dark sunglasses and
some thongs, the man was intently watching a small television
propped up on a flimsy tray of some kind. He held a sandwich in one
hand (Carol could see the white mayonnaise oozing out between the
slices of bread even from her distance of ten yards or so) and a
can of beer in the other. There was no sign that the man in the red
cap even heard the telephone.
Carol moved closer, a little curious. A basketball game was in
progress on the television. On about the sixth ring of the phone,
the man gave a small cheer (with his mouth full of sandwich) in the
direction of the six-inch picture tube, took a swig from his beer,
and abruptly jumped up to answer the call. The telephone was
underneath a canopy in the center of the boat, on a wooden paneled
wall behind the steering wheel and next to some built-in counters
that appeared to contain the navigation and radio equipment for the
boat. The man fiddled with the steering wheel unconsciously during
the brief conversation and never took his eyes off the television.
He hung up, issued another short cheer, and returned to his folding
chair.
Carol was now standing on the jetty, just inches away from the
front of the boat and no more than ten feet away from where the man
was sitting. But he was oblivious to her, totally absorbed in his
basketball game. "All right," he shouted all at once, reacting to
something pleasing in the game. He jumped up. The sudden movement
caused the boat to rock and the jerrybuilt tray underneath the
television gave way. The man reached out quickly and grabbed the TV
before it hit the ground, but in so doing he lost his balance and
fell forward on his elbows.
"Shit," he said to himself, wincing from the pain. He was lying on
the deck, his sunglasses cocked sideways on his head, the game
still continuing on the little set in his hands. Carol could not
suppress her laughter. Now aware that he was not alone for the
first time, Nick Williams, the owner and operator of the Florida
Queen, turned in the direction of the feminine laugh.
"Excuse me," Carol began in a friendly way, "I just happened to be
walking by and I saw you fall ..." She stopped. Nick was not
amused.
"What do you want?" Nick fixed her with a truculent glare. He stood
up, still holding (and watching) the television and now trying as
well to put the tray back together. He didn't have enough hands to
do everything at once.
"You know," Carol said, still smiling, "I could help you with that,
if it wouldn't injure your masculine pride." Uh oh, Nick thought in
a flash, Another pushy, assertive broad.
Nick put the television down on the deck of the boat and began to
reassemble the tray. "No thank you," he said. "I can manage."
Obviously ignoring Carol, he set the TV back on the tray, returned
to his folding chair, and picked up his sandwich and beer.
Carol was amused by what Nick had clearly intended as a putdown.
She looked around the boat. Neatness was not one of the strengths
of the proprietor. Little odds and ends, including masks, snorkels,
regulators, towels, and even old lunches from fast-food restaurants
were scattered all over the front of the boat. In one of the
corners someone had obviously taken apart a piece of electronic
equipment, perhaps for repair, and left the entire works a jumbled
mess. Mounted on the top of the blue canopy were two signs, each
with a different type of print, one giving the name of the boat and
the other saying THANK YOU FOR NOT SMOKING.
The boat looked out of character for the sleek modern marina and
Carol imagined the other boat owners reacting with disgust each day
as they passed the Florida Queen. On an impulse Carol looked at the
computer listing in her hand. She almost laughed out loud when she
saw the boat listing as one of the nine available for hire.
"Excuse me," she began, intending to start the discussion about
chartering the boat for the afternoon.
Nick heaved an exaggerated sigh and turned away from his televised
basketball game. The miffed look on his face was unmistakable. It
said, What? Are you still here? I thought we'd finished our
conversation. Now go away and let me enjoy the afternoon on my
boat.
Mischievous Carol couldn't resist the opportunity to harass the
arrogant Mr. Williams (she assumed that the name on the computer
listing and the man in front of her were the same, for she couldn't
imagine a crew member acting with such apparent confidence and
authority on someone else's boat). "Who's playing?" she said
cheerfully, as if she had no idea that Nick was trying to get rid
of her.
"Harvard and Tennessee," he answered gruffly, amazed that Carol
hadn't got the message.
"What's the score?" she said quickly, now enjoying the game she had
just created.
Nick turned around again, his quizzical look acknowledging his
exasperation. "It's 31-29 Harvard," he said sharply, "just before
the end of the first half." Carol didn't move. She simply smiled
and returned his fierce stare without blinking. "And it's the first
round of the NCAA tournament and they're playing in the Southeast
Regional. Any more questions?"
"Just one," she said. "I would like to charter this boat for the
afternoon. Are you Nick Williams?"
He was taken by surprise. "Whaat?" Nick said. At that minute
Tennessee tied the basketball game again, distracting Nick even
further. He watched the game for a couple of seconds and then tried
to collect himself. "But I have had no calls from Julianne. Anyone
who wants to charter a boat here at Hemingway has to sign in at the
desk and ..."
"I came down to look at another boat first. I didn't like it. So I
stopped by here on the way back." Nick was watching the television
again and Carol was losing her patience with him. At first he had
been amusing. At least I don't have to worry about his pawing me,
she thought. The guy can't even concentrate on me enough to get his
boat chartered. "Look," she added, "do you want a charter for this
afternoon or not?
The first half of the basketball game ended. "All right ... I guess
so," Nick said slowly, thinking to himself, only because I need the
money. He gestured to Carol to descend onto the deck of the boat.
"Let me just call Julianne and make sure you're legit. You never
know these days."
While Nick confirmed Carol's identification with the marina
headquarters, a jaunty young black man in his early twenties came
down the jetty and stopped just opposite the Florida Queen. "Hey,
Professor," he said, the moment Nick was off the phone, "am I in
the wrong place?" He motioned to Carol. "You didn't tell me you
were entertaining beauty, style, and class today. Wooee! Look at
that jewelry. And that silk blouse. Should I go now and come back
to hear your stories later?" He winked at Carol. "He's no good,
angel. All his girlfriends eventually end up with me."
"Cut the crap, Jefferson," Nick reacted, "this woman is a potential
customer. And you're late, as usual. How do you expect me to run a
charter dive boat when I don't have any idea when or if my crew is
going to show up?"
"Professor," the newcomer jumped down on the boat and walked up to
Carol, "if I had known that you had something that looked like this
down here, I would have been here before dawn. Hello, there, young
lady, my name is Troy Jefferson. I am the rest of the crew on this
lunatic asylum of a boat."
Carol had been slightly discombobulated by the arrival of Troy and
the quick repartee that followed. But she adapted swiftly and
regained her composure. She took Troy's out-stretched hand and
smiled. He immediately leaned up and almost brushed his cheek
against hers. "Ooueee," Troy pulled back grinning. "I just caught a
whiff of Oscar de la Renta. Professor, didn't I tell you this woman
had class? Well, angel," he looked at Carol in mock admiration, "I
just can't tell you how much it means to me to finally meet up with
someone like you on this tub. Usually we get old ladies, I mean old
ladies, who want to - "
"Enough, Jefferson," Nick interrupted him. "We have work to do.
It's almost noon already and we're still at least half an hour away
from being ready to leave. We don't even know what Miss Dawson
wants to do."
"Carol is fine," she said. She paused for a moment, assessing the
two men in front of her. Might as well, Carol thought, nobody is
going to suspect anything if I'm with these two. "Well, I told the
desk that I wanted to go out to do some swimming and diving. But
that's only partially true. What I really want to do is go out here
(she pulled a folded map out of her beach bag and showed them an
area of about ten square miles in the Gulf of Mexico to the north
of Key West) and look for whales."
Nick's brow furrowed. Troy peered over Carol's shoulder at the map.
"There have been numerous irregularities in the behavior of whales
in this area lately, including a major beaching at Deer Key this
morning," Carol continued. "I want to see if I can find any pattern
in their actions. I may need to do some diving so one of you will
have to accompany me. I assume that at least one of you is a
licensed diver and that your dive gear is onboard?"
The two men regarded her with disbelieving stares. Carol felt on
the defensive. "Really ... I'm a reporter." she said as an
explanation. "I work for the Miami Herald. I just did a story this
morning on the Deer Key beaching."
Troy turned to Nick. "Okay, Professor, I guess we have a live
charter here. One who says she wants to look for whales in the Gulf
of Mexico. What do you say? Should we accept her money?"
Nick shrugged his shoulders indifferently and Troy took it as
assent. "All right, angel," Troy said to Carol, "we'll be ready in
half an hour. We're both licensed divers if we're really needed.
Our gear is onboard and we can get more for you. Why don't you pay
Julianne at the desk and get your things together."
Troy turned and walked over to the jumbled mess of electronics at
the front of the boat. He picked up one of the boxes with its
housing partially removed and began toying with it. Nick pulled
another beer out of the refrigerator and opened the built-in
counters, exposing racks of equipment. Carol did not move. After
about twenty seconds Nick noticed that she was still there. "Well,"
he said in a tone of dismissal, "didn't you hear Troy? We won't be
ready for half an hour." He turned around and walked toward the
back of the boat.
Troy looked up from his repair work. He was amused by the friction
already developing between Nick and Carol. "Is he always so
pleasant?" Carol said to Troy, nodding in Nick's direction. She was
still smiling but her tone conveyed some irritation. "I have a few
pieces of equipment that I want to bring onboard. Can you give me a
hand with it?"
Thirty minutes later Troy and Carol returned to the Florida Queen.
Troy was grinning and whistling "Zippity-Do-Dah" as he pulled a
cart down the jetty and came to a stop in front of the boat. A
partially filled footlocker was resting on the cart. Troy could
hardly wait to see Nick's face when he saw Carol's "few pieces of
equipment." Troy was excited by the turn of events. He knew that
this was no casual afternoon charter. Reporters, even successful
ones (and Troy's street intelligence had quickly informed him that
Carol was not just an ordinary reporter), did not have everyday
access to the kind of equipment that she was carrying. Already Troy
was certain that the whale story was just a cover. But he wasn't
going to say anything just yet; he wanted to wait and see how
things developed.
Troy liked this confident young woman. There was not a trace of
superiority or prejudice in her manner. And she had a good sense of
humor. After they had opened the back of her station wagon and she
had showed him the footlocker full of equipment, Troy had
demonstrated to Carol that he was fairly sophisticated about
electronics. He had recognized immediately the MOI insignia on
Dale's ocean telescope and Troy had even guessed the meaning of the
MOI-IPL acronym on the back of the large monitor and data storage
system. When he had looked at her for an explanation, Carol had
just laughed and said, "So I need some help finding the whales.
What can I say?"
Carol and Troy had loaded the gear on the cart and wheeled it
through the parking lot. She had been a little dismayed at first by
Troy's recognition of the origin of the equipment and his friendly,
probing questions (which she handled adroitly with vague answers -
she was helped by the fact that Troy wanted mostly to know how the
electronics worked and she, in truth, didn't have the foggiest
idea). But as they talked, Carol developed a comfortable feeling
about Troy. Her intuitive sense told her that Troy was an ally and
could be counted on to be discreet with any important
information.
Carol had not, however, planned for a security check inside the
Hemingway Marina headquarters. One of the primary selling points of
the slips at the new marina had been the almost unparalleled
security system offered the boat owners. Every person who went in
or out of the marina had to pass through computerized gates
adjacent to the headquarters building. A full listing of each
individual entrance and exit, including the time of passage through
the gate, was printed out each night and retained in the security
office files as a precaution in case any suspicious or untoward
events were reported.
Materiel entering and leaving the marina was also routinely
scrutinized (and logged) by the security chief to prevent the theft
of expensive navigation equipment and other electronics. Carol was
only mildly irked when, after she paid for the charter, Julianne
asked her to fill out a sheet describing the contents of the closed
footlocker. But Carol really objected when the summoned security
chief, a typical Boston Irish policeman who had retired in the Key
West area, Forced her to open the locker to verify the contents.
Carol's objections and Troy's attempts to help her were to no
avail. Rules were rules.
Because the cart would not fit through the door into the adjacent
security office, the footlocker was opened in the main clearing
room of the marina headquarters. A couple of curious passersby,
including one giant, friendly woman about forty named Ellen (Troy
knew her from somewhere, probably she was one of the boat owners,
Carol thought), came over and watched while Officer O'Rourke
carefully compared the contents of the locker with the list that
Carol had prepared.
Carol was a little rattled as she and Troy pulled the cart down the
jetty toward the Florida Queen. She had hoped to attract as little
attention as possible and she was now angry with herself for not
anticipating the security check. Nick, meanwhile, after performing
a few routine preparations on the boat and opening another beer,
had become engrossed again in the basketball game. His beloved
Harvard was now losing to Tennessee. He did not even hear Troy's
whistling until his crewman and Carol were just a few yards
away.
"Jesus," Nick turned around, "I thought you had gotten lost ..."
His voice trailed off as he saw the cart and the foot-locker. "What
the fuck is that?"
"It's Miss Dawson's equipment, Professor," Troy answered with a big
grin. He reached into the locker, first picking up a cylinder with
a clear glass face, a large flashlight-looking object on a mounting
bracket. It was about two feet long and weighed about twelve
pounds. "Here, for example, is what she tells me is an ocean
telescope. We attach it to the bottom of the boat by this bracket
and it takes pictures that are displayed on this here television
monitor and also stored on this other device, a recorder of some -
"
"Hold it," Nick interrupted Troy imperiously. Nick walked up the
gangplank and stared incredulously into the locker. He shook his
head and looked from Troy to Carol. "Do I have this right? We are
supposed to set up all this shit just to go out into the Gulf for
one afternoon to look for whales?" He scowled at Troy. "Where is
your head, Jefferson? This stuff is heavy, it will take time to set
it up, and it' s already after noon.
"And as for you, sister," Nick continued, turning to Carol, "take
your toys and your treasure map elsewhere. We know what you're up
to and we have more important things to do."
"Are you through?" Carol shouted at Nick as he walked back down the
gangplank onto the Florida Queen. He stopped and turned partially
around. "Look, you asshole." Carol raged, giving vent to the
frustration and anger that had been building inside of her, "it is
certainly your right to deny me the use of your boat. But it is not
your right to act like God almighty and treat me or anyone else
like shit just because I'm a woman and you feel like pushing
somebody around." She stepped toward him. Nick backed up a step in
the face of her continued offensive.
"I told you that I want to look for whales and that's what I intend
to do. What you might think I'm doing is really of no significance
to me. As for the important things that you have to do, you haven't
moved from that goddamn basketball game in the last hour, except to
get more beer. If you'll just stay out of the way. Troy and I can
set all this gear in place in half an hour. And besides," Carol
slowed down just a bit, starting to feel a little embarrassed about
her outburst, "I have already paid for the charter and you know how
hard it is to straighten out these computer credit card
accounts."
"Oooeee, Professor," Troy grinned wickedly and winked at Carol.
"Isn't she something else?" He stopped and became serious. "Look,
Nick, we need the money, both of us. And I would be happy to help
her. We can take off some of the excess diving gear if it's
necessary to balance the weight."
Nick walked back to the folding chair and the television. He took
another drink from his beer and did not turn around to look at
Carol and Troy. "All right," he said, somewhat reluctantly. "Get
started. But if we're not ready to sail by one o'clock it's no
deal." The basketball players swam in front of his eyes. Harvard
had tied the game again. But this time he wasn't watching. He was
thinking about Carol's outburst. I wonder if she's right. I wonder
if I do think that women are inferior. Or worse.
COMMANDER Vernon Winters was trembling when he hung up the phone.
He felt as if he had just seen a ghost. He threw his apple core in
the wastebasket and reached in his pocket for one of his Pall
Malls. Without thinking, he stood up and walked across the room to
the large bay window that opened onto the grassy courtyard of the
main administration building. Lunch hour had just finished at the
U.S. Naval Air Station. The crowds of young men and women heading
either toward or away from the cafeteria had died out. A solitary
young ensign was sitting on the grass reading a book, his back
against a large tree.
Commander Winters lit his nonfilter cigarette and inhaled deeply.
He expelled the smoke with a rush and quickly took another breath.
"Hey, Indiana," the voice had said two minutes before, "this is
Randy. Remember me?" As if he could ever forget that nasal
baritone. And then, without waiting for an answer, the voice had
materialized into an earnest face on the video monitor. Admiral
Randolph Hilliard was sitting behind his desk in a large Pentagon
office. "Good," he continued, "now we can see each other."
Hilliard had paused for a moment and then leaned forward toward the
camera. "I was glad to hear that Duckett put you in charge of this
Panther business. It could be nasty. We must find out what
happened, quickly and with no publicity. Both the secretary and I
are counting on you."
What had he said in response to the admiral? Commander Winters
couldn't remember, but he assumed that it must have been all right.
And he did remember the last few words, when Admiral Hilliard had
said that he would call back for an update after the meeting on
Friday afternoon. Winters had not heard that voice for almost eight
years but the recognition was instantaneous. And the memories that
flooded forth were just a few milliseconds behind.
The commander took another drag from his cigarette and turned away
from the window. He walked slowly across the room. His eyes slid
across but did not see the lovely, soft print of the Renoir
painting, "Deux Jeunes Filles au Piano," that was the most
prominent object on his office wall. It was his favorite painting.
His wife and son had given him the special large reproduction for
his fortieth birthday; usually several times a week he would stand
in front of it and admire the beautiful composition. But two
graceful young girls working on their afternoon piano lessons were
not the order for the day.
Vernon Winters sat back down at his desk and buried his face in his
hands. Here if comes again, he thought, I can't hold it back now,
not after seeing Randy and hearing that voice. He looked around and
then stubbed out the cigarette in the large ashtray on his desk.
For a few moments he played aimlessly with the two small framed
photographs on his desk (one was a portrait of a pale
twelve-year-old boy together with a plain woman in her early
forties; the other was a cast photo from the Key West Players
production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, dated March 1993, in which
Winters was dressed in a summer business suit). At length the
commander put the photographs aside, leaned back in his chair,
closed his eyes, and succumbed to the powerful pull of his memory.
A curtain in his mind parted and he was transported to a clear,
warm night almost eight years before, in early April of 1986. The
first sound that he heard was the excited nasal voice of Lieutenant
Randolph Hilliard.
"Psst, Indiana, wake up. How can you be asleep? It's Randy. We've
got to talk. I'm so excited I could shit." Vernon Winters had only
fallen asleep himself about an hour before. He unconsciously looked
at his watch. Almost two o'clock. His friend stood next to his
bunk, grinning from ear to ear. "Only three more hours and we
attack. Finally we're going to blast that A-rab lunatic and
terrorist supporter to heaven with Allah. Shit, big buddy, this is
our moment. This is what we worked our whole life for."
Winters shook his head and began to come out of a deep sleep. It
took him a moment to remember that he was onboard the USS Nimitz
off the coast of Libya. The first action of his military career was
about to occur. "Look, Randy," Winters had said eventually (on that
night almost eight years ago) "shouldn't we be sleeping? What if
the Libyans attack us tomorrow? We'll have to be alert."
"Shit no," said his friend and fellow officer, helping him to sit
up and handing him a cigarette, "those geeks will never attack
someone who can fight. They're terrorists. They only know how to
fight unarmed people. The only one of them that has any guts is
that Colonel Gaddafi and he's nutty as a fruitcake. After we blow
him to kingdom come, the battle will be over. Besides, I have
enough adrenaline flowing that I could stay awake for thirty-six
hours with no sweat."
Winters felt the nicotine coursing through his body. It reawakened
the eager anticipation that he had finally conquered when he had
fallen asleep an hour earlier. Randy was talking a blue streak. "I
can't believe how goddamn lucky we are. For six years I have been
wondering how an officer can stand out, distinguish himself, you
know, in peacetime. Now here we are. Some loonie plants a bomb in a
club in Berlin and we just happen to be on duty in the Med. Talk
about being in the right place at the right time. Shit. Think how
many other midshipmen from our class would give their right nut to
be here instead of us. Tomorrow we kill that crazy man and we're on
our way to captain, maybe even admiral, in five to eight
years."
Winters reacted negatively to his friend's suggestion that one of
the benefits of the strike against Gaddafi would be an acceleration
in their personal advancement. But he said nothing. He was already
deep in his own private thoughts. He too was excited and he didn't
fully understand why. The excitement was similar to the way he had
felt before the state quarterfinals in basketball in high school.
But Lieutenant Winters couldn't help wondering how much the
excitement would be leavened by fear if they were preparing to
engage in a real battle.
For almost a week they had been getting ready for the strike. It
was normal Navy business to go through the preparations for combat
and then have them called off, usually about a day ahead of the
planned encounter. But this time it had been different from the
beginning. Hilliard and Winters had quickly recognized that there
was a seriousness in the senior officers that had never been there
before. None of the usual horsing around and nonsense had been
tolerated in the tedious and boring checks of the planes, the
missiles, and the guns. The Nimitz was preparing for war. And then
yesterday, the normal time for such a drill to be called off, the
captain had gathered all the officers together and told them that
he had received the order to attack at dawn. Winters' heart had
skipped a beat as the commanding officer had briefed them on the
full scope of the American action against Libya
Winters' last assignment, just after evening mess, had been to go
over the bombing targets with the pilots one more time. Two
separate planes were being sent to bomb the residence where Gaddafi
was supposedly sleeping. One of the two chosen pilots was outwardly
ecstatic; he realized that he had been given the prime target of
the raid. The other pilot, Lieutenant Gibson from Oregon, was quiet
but thorough in his preparations. He kept looking at the map with
Winters and going over the Libyan gun emplacements. Gibson also
complained that his mouth was dry and drank several glasses of
water.
"Shit, Indiana, you know what's bothering me? Those flyboys will be
in the battle and we'll be stuck here with no role unless the crazy
A-rabs decide to attack. How can we get into the fight? Wait. I
just had a thought." Lieutenant Hilliard was still talking nonstop.
It was after three o'clock and they had already gone over
everything associated with the attack at least twice. Winters was
feeling lifeless and enervated from lack of sleep but the
astonishing Hilliard continued to exude exuberance.
"What a great idea," Randy continued. talking to himself. "But we
can do it. You briefed the pilots tonight, didn't you, so you know
who's going after what targets?" Vernon nodded his head. "Then
that's it. We'll tape a personal 'screw you' to the side of the
missile that's going to get Gaddafi. That way part of us will go
into battle."
Vernon did not have the energy to dissuade Randy from his crazy
plan. As the time for the attack drew closer, Lieutenants Winters
and Hilliard went into the hangar on the Nimitz and found the
airplane assigned to Lieutenant Gibson (Winters never knew why, but
he immediately assumed it would be Gibson who would score a missile
on the Gaddafi enclave). Laughingly, Randy explained to the fresh
ensign on watch what he and Vernon were going to try to do. It took
them almost half an hour to locate the right plane and then
identify the missile that would be the first to be launched against
the Gaddafi household.
The two lieutenants argued for almost ten minutes about the message
they were going to write on the paper that would be taped on the
missile. Winters wanted something deep, almost philosophical, like
"Such is the just end to the tyranny of terrorism. "Hilliard argued
persuasively that Winters' concept was too obscure. At length a
tired Lieutenant Winters assented to the visceral communication
written by his friend. "DIE, MOTHERFUCKER," was the message the two
lieutenants inscribed on the side of the missile.
Winters returned to his bunk exhausted. Tired and still a little
unsettled by the magnitude of the coming day's events, he pulled
out his personal Bible to read a few verses. There was no comfort
in the good book for the Presbyterian from Indiana. He tried
praying, generic prayers at first and then more specific, as had
been his custom during critical moments in his life. He asked for
the Lord to guard his wife and son and to be with him in this
moment of travail. And then, quickly and without thinking,
Lieutenant Vernon Winters asked God to rain down terror in the form
of the missile with the taped message on Colonel Gaddafi and all
his family.
Eight years later, sitting in his office at the U.S. Naval Air
Station in Key West, Commander Winters would remember that prayer
and cringe inside. Even then, in 1986, just after he finished the
prayer, he had felt weird and disoriented, almost as if he had
somehow committed a blasphemy and displeased the Lord. A brief hour
of sleep that followed was torturous, full of dreams of hideous
gargoyles and vampires. He watched the planes leave the carrier the
next morning at dawn in a dreamlike trance. His mouth had a bitter
metal taste when he mechanically shook Gibson's hand and wished him
luck.
For all those years Winters had wished that he could have rescinded
that prayer. He was convinced that God had permitted that
particular missile carried by Gibson to take the life of Gaddafi's
infant daughter just to teach Winters a personal lesson. On that
day, he thought as he sat in his office on a Thursday in March
1994, I committed sacrilege and violated Your trust. I overstepped
my bound and lost my privileged position in Your sanctuary. I have
asked for forgiveness many times since then but it has not been
forthcoming. How much longer must I wait?
VERNON Allen Winters was born on June 25, 1950, the day that the
North Koreans invaded South Korea. He was reminded of the
significance of his birthdate throughout his life by his father,
Martin Winters, a man who was a hardworking, deeply religious corn
farmer in Indiana at the time Vernon was born. When Vernon was
three years old and his sister Linda was six, the family moved off
the farm and into the town of Columbus, a white, middle-class town
of thirty thousand or so in south central Indiana. Vernon's mother
had felt isolated out on the farm. particularly during the winter,
and wanted more company. The Winters' farm provided a nice cash
profit. Mr. Winters, by now almost forty, put most of the nest egg
aside as security for a rainy day and became a banker.
Martin Winters was proud to be an American. Whenever Mr. Winters
would tell Vernon about the day of his birth, the story would
inevitably center around the news of the start of the Korean War
and how it was explained to the nation by President Harry Truman.
"I thought that day," Mr. Winters would say, "that it was surely no
coincidence. The good Lord brought you to us that special day
because of his purpose for you. And I bet he meant for you to be a
protector of this wonderful country we have created ..." Later
banker Winters would always see to it that the Army-Navy football
game was one of the key events of the year and he would tell his
friends, particularly when it became obvious that young Vernon was
a good student, that "the boy is still trying to choose which of
the academies to attend." Vernon was never asked.
The Winters family lived a simple Midwestern life. Mr. Winters was
moderately successful, eventually becoming the senior
vice-president of the largest bank in Columbus. The family's chief
social activity was church. They were Presbyterians and spent
almost all day Sunday at the church. Mrs. Winters ran the Sunday
school. Mr. Winters was a deacon and voluntarily managed the church
finances. Vernon and Linda helped supervise the smaller children at
Sunday school and were responsible for the special Bible displays
on the bulletin boards in the kindergarten and primary school
rooms.
During the week Mrs. Winters sewed and watched soap operas and
sometimes played bridge with friends. She never worked outside the
home. Her husband and her children were her job. She was an
attentive, patient parent who deeply cared for her children and
tirelessly chauffeured them to their many activities throughout
their years of adolescence.
Vernon played all sports in high school, football and basketball
because it was expected of him, baseball because he loved it. He
was above average at all sports, not outstanding at anything.
"Activities are important, particularly sports," banker Winters
often told him approvingly. "The academies look at much more than
your grades " The only significant decision that Vernon had to make
in the first eighteen years of his life was which of the service
academies he preferred. (Mr. Winters, being cautious, was prepared
politically to secure a nomination for Vernon to any of the
academies. He strongly urged Vernon to think about applying to all
three just in case.) In his junior year at Columbus High School,
Vernon took the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and made such a high
score that it was obvious he would be able to pick his own
favorite. He chose Annapolis and was not questioned about the
reasons. If he had been, he would have answered that he just liked
the idea of himself in a Navy uniform.
Vernon's teenage years were remarkably linear, particularly
considering that they occurred at a time of great social turmoil in
the United States. The Winters family prayed together for hours
after the Kennedy assassination, worried about local boys in the
Vietnam War, remarked with concern when three prominent high school
seniors refused to cut their hair and were expelled from school,
and attended a couple of church-sponsored meetings on the evils of
marijuana. But all these anxieties were outside the daily harmony
of the Winters family. Music by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones
did penetrate the controlled Winters culture, of course, and even
some of the protest songs sung by Bob Dylan and Joan Baez were
played on Vernon's stereo. But neither Vernon nor his sister Linda
paid much serious attention to the lyrics.
It was an easy existence. Vernon's closest friends were all from
families like his. Mothers did not work, fathers were bankers or
lawyers or businessmen, almost all were Republicans (but a
patriotic Democrat was accepted) and believed fervently in God,
country, and the entire litany that ends in apple pie. Vernon was a
"good kid," even an "exceptional kid," who first drew attention to
himself by his performances in the annual church pageants at
Christmas and Easter. The pastor of their church was a great
believer that reenactment of the birth and crucifixion of Christ,
performed by the children of the town, was a powerful way to
reconfirm the faith of the local citizenry. And Reverend Pendleton
was correct. The Columbus Presbyterian Church pageants were one of
the highlights of the local year. When the church congregation and
their friends saw their own children acting in the roles of Joseph,
Mary, and even Christ, they became involved in the depicted events
at an emotional level that was virtually impossible to achieve in
any other way.
Reverend Pendleton had two casts for each pageant, so that more
children could participate, but Vernon was always the star. When he
was eleven years old Vernon first portrayed Christ in the Easter
pageant and it was mentioned in the religious column of the
Columbus newspaper that his tortured dragging of the cross had
"captured all of man's suffering." He was Joseph at Christmas and
Jesus at Easter for four years running, before he became too old
and therefore no longer eligible for the pageants. The last two
years, when Vernon was thirteen and fourteen, the role of the
Virgin Mary in the "A" cast was played by the pastor's daughter,
Betty Vernon and Betty were together quite often while rehearsing
and both families were delighted. All four parents made no secret
of the fact that they would generously approve if, "assuming God
wills it," the Vernon-Betty friendship would eventually mature into
something more permanent.
Vernon loved the attention he received from the pageants. Although
Betty was touched deeply by the religious aspects of their
performances (she remained truly devoted to God, without wavering,
through everything in her life), Vernon's joy was standing by his
proud parents after each performance and soaking up the praise. In
high school he gravitated naturally toward the small drama activity
and was the lead in the school play every year. His mother
supported this over his father's mild objections ("After all,
dear," she would say, "I don't think anyone is really going to
think Vernon's a sissy when he's playing three sports.") and
because she also vicariously enjoyed the applause.
During the summer of 1968, just before he entered Annapolis, Vernon
worked in his uncle's cornfields. Only a little more than a hundred
miles away there were riots at the Democratic Convention in
Chicago, but in Columbus Vernon spent his summer evenings with
Betty, talking with chums and drinking root beer at the A & W
Drive-in. Mr. and Mrs. Winters played miniature golf or canasta
with Vernon and Betty from time to time. They were delighted and
proud to have "good clean kids" who were not hippies or drug
victims. All in all, Vernon's last summer in Indiana was ordered,
constrained, and very pleasant.
As expected, he was a model student at Annapolis. He studied hard,
obeyed all the rules, learned what his professors taught him, and
dreamed of being the commander of an aircraft carrier or a nuclear
submarine. He was not outgoing for the big-city boys seemed way too
sophisticated for him and he did not always feel comfortable when
they talked about sex so casually. He was a virgin and he was not
ashamed of it. He just didn't feel the need to broadcast it around
the U.S. Naval Academy. He had a couple of dates a month, nothing
special, just when the occasion called for it. After a blind date
early his junior year with Joanna Carr, a cheerleader at the
University of Maryland, he took her out several more times. She was
vivacious, lovely, fun, and modem. She drew out the best in Vernon,
made him laugh and even relax. She was his date for the weekend of
the Army-Navy game in Philadelphia.
(During his entire time at the Academy, Vernon went home every
summer and every Christmas to Indiana. He always saw Betty
Pendleton when he was home. Betty graduated from high school and
entered a nearby state college to study education. Once or twice a
year, on special occasions such as the anniversary of their first
kiss or New Year's Eve, Betty and he would celebrate, in a sense,
by doing a little something intimate. Like controlled petting
[outside only] or kissing lying down. Neither of them ever
suggested any variation in this well-established routine.)
Vernon and Joanna were joined for the weekend by another
midshipman, the closest acquaintance that Vernon had at Navy who
was still not quite what one would call a friend, Duane Eller, and
his date from Columbia, an extremely loud and pushy girl named
Edith. Vernon had never spent much time around a New York City girl
and he found Edith absolutely obnoxious. Edith was violently
anti-Nixon and anti-Vietnam and seemed, despite the fact that her
date for the weekend was going to be a military officer,
anti-military as well. The original plan for the weekend had been
decidedly proper, even backward given that it was 1970 and casual
intercourse was not unusual on college campuses. Vernon and Duane
were to share one motel room and the two girls were to share
another. Over a pizza dinner the night before the game, Edith
frequently insulted Joanna and Vernon both ("Miss Betty
Crocker-Go-Team-Go" and "Onward Christian Soldiers, God's on Our
Side") and Duane did nothing to intercede. Seeing that Edith was
annoying Joanna, Vernon suggested to Joanna that it might be easier
if the two of them shared a room instead of following the original
game plan. She readily agreed.
Vernon had made no sexual moves on Joanna on the four or five dates
that they had had together. He had been attentive, had kissed her
good night a couple of times, and had held her hand most of the
evening on their last date. Everything had always been extremely
proper, but there had never actually been any opportunity for
intimacy. So Joanna really didn't know what to expect. She liked
this handsome Hoosier midshipman and had thought, a couple of
times, about the possibility of the involvement developing into
something serious. But Vernon was not yet anyone "super special"
for her.
Just after they made the room change (which a drunken Edith made
more difficult by embarrassing them and herself with lewd
comments), Vernon very carefully apologized to Joanna and told her
that he would sleep in the car if she were offended. The room was a
typical Holiday Inn room with two double beds. Joanna laughed. "I
know you didn't plan this," she said. "If I need protection, I can
order you to your bed." The first night they enjoyed watching
television and drinking more beer in the room. They both felt a
little awkward. At bedtime they shared a couple of almost
passionate kisses, laughed together, and then went to separate
beds.
The next evening, after the postgame dance sponsored by the Naval
Academy at a downtown Philadelphia hotel, Joanna and Vernon
returned to their room at the Holiday Inn just before midnight.
They had already changed into their jeans and Vernon was brushing
his teeth when there was a knock on their door. Joanna opened the
door and Duane Eller was standing there, a gigantic shit-eating
grin on his face and his hand clenched around some small object.
"This stuff is fuckin' fantastic," he said, thrusting a joint into
Joanna's hand. "You've just got to try it." Duane withdrew quickly
with a wild smile.
Joanna was a bright young woman. But it did not occur to her that
her date had never even seen a joint, much less smoked one. She
herself had smoked marijuana maybe a dozen times over a four-year
period, beginning in her junior year in high school. She liked it,
if the situation and the company were right; she avoided it when
she couldn't have control of her environment. But she had enjoyed
the weekend with Vernon and she thought this might be a perfect way
to loosen him up a little.
Under almost any circumstances Vernon would have said no to any
offer of marijuana, not just because he was against all drugs, but
also because he would have been terrified that somehow he would be
discovered and eventually thrown out of Annapolis. But here was his
lovely date, a mainstream American cheerleader from Maryland, and
she had just lit a joint and offered it to him. Joanna quickly saw
that he was a grass neophyte. She showed him how to inhale and hold
in the smoke, how not to bogart the joint, and eventually how to
use a roach clip (one of her hairpins) to finish it off. Vernon had
expected to feel as if he were drunk. He was astonished to find
that he felt more alert. Much to his own surprise, he began
reciting e.e. cummings poems he had been studying in Lit. And then
he and Joanna began to laugh. They laughed at everything. At Edith,
football, the Naval Academy, their parents, even Vietnam. They
laughed until they were almost crying.
An overpowering hunger attacked Vernon and Joanna. They put on
their jackets and walked out into the cold December air to find
something to eat. Arm in arm they paraded down the suburban
parkway, finding a convenience store that was still open about a
half mile from their motel. They bought Cokes and potato chips and
Fritos and, much to Vernon's astonishment, a package of Ding Dongs.
Joanna opened the potato chips while they were still in the store.
She put one in Vernon's mouth and they "Mmmed" while the checkout
clerk laughed with them.
Vernon could not believe the taste of the chips. He ate the entire
bag while they were walking back to their room. When he was
finished, Vernon burst spontaneously into song, singing "Maxwell's
Silver Hammer" by the Beatles. Joanna joined in vigorously on the
"Bang, bang, Maxwell's silver hammer came down upon his head ..."
She reached up with the side of her fist and playfully banged on
the top of his head. Vernon felt jaunty, liberated, as if he had
known Joanna forever. He put his arm around her and kissed her
ostentatiously as they turned into the driveway leading to their
motel.
They sat on the floor with all their munchies spread out in front
of them. Vernon turned on the radio. It was tuned to a classical
station in the middle of a symphony. Vernon was mesmerized by the
sound. For the first time in his life, Vernon could actually hear
the individual instruments of the orchestra in his head. He
visualized a stage and saw the musicians pulling their bows across
the violins. He was fascinated and excited. Vernon told Joanna that
all his senses were alive.
To Joanna Carr, it seemed that Vernon was finally opening up. When
he leaned over to kiss her, she was more than willing. They kissed
sweetly but deeply several times while the symphony was playing.
During a momentary break for some more munchies, Joanna tuned the
radio to a rock and roll station. The music changed the pace in
their necking. Driving, jangling sounds increased the tempo and
their kisses became more passionate. In his ardor Vernon pushed
Joanna down on the floor and they kissed over and over again as
they lay side by side, still fully clothed. They became enthralled
by the strength of their arousal.
The radio now started playing "Light My Fire" by the Doors. And
Vernon Allen Winters of Columbus, Indiana, third-year midshipman at
the U S. Naval Academy, was no longer a virgin by the time the long
song was over. "The time to hesitate is through, no time to wallow
in the mire, try now you can only lose, and our love become a
funeral pyre ... Come on baby, light my fire ... Come on baby,
light my fire." Vernon had never lost control of himself before in
his entire life. But when Joanna stroked the outline of his swollen
penis underneath his jeans, it was as if a giant wall of steel and
concrete suddenly gave way. Years later, Vernon would still marvel
at the raw passion he showed for two, maybe three minutes. The
combination of Joanna's insistent kisses, the grass, and the
driving rhythms of the music pushed him over the edge. He was an
animal. Still on the floor of the motel room, he pulled vigorously
on Joanna's slacks several times, nearly tearing them as he managed
to free them from her hips. Her underpants half followed the
slacks. Vernon grabbed them roughly and pulled them down the rest
of the way while he was squirming out of his own jeans.
Joanna tried in a quiet voice to slow Vernon down, to suggest that
maybe the bed would be better. Or at least it would be more
pleasant if they actually took off their shoes and socks and didn't
make love with their pants around their ankles restricting their
movement. But Vernon was gone. Years of restraint left him no
ability to deal with his own surging desire. He was possessed. He
crawled on top of Joanna, a look of frightening seriousness on his
face. For the first time she was scared and her sudden fear
heightened her sexual excitement. Vernon struggled for a few
seconds (the music was now in the frenzied instrumental part of
"Light My Fire") to find the right spot and then entered her
abruptly and forcefully. Joanna felt him drive once, twice, and
then shudder all over. He was done in maybe ten seconds. She
intuitively knew that it had been his first time and the pleasure
of that knowledge outweighed her bruised feelings about his lack of
finesse and gentleness.
Vernon said nothing and quickly fell asleep on the floor next to
Joanna. She gamely went to the bed, pulled the bed-spread off,
cuddled into Vernon's arms on the floor, and wrapped the spread
around them. She smiled to herself and drifted off to sleep, still
a little puzzled by this Hoosier lying next to her. But she knew
that they were now special to each other.
How special Joanna would never really know. When Vernon woke up in
the middle of the night, he felt an over-powering sense of guilt.
He could not believe that he had smoked dope and then virtually
raped a girl he hardly knew. He had lost control. He had been
unable to stop what he was doing and had clearly crossed the bounds
of propriety. He winced when he thought about what his parents (or
worse, Betty and Reverend Pendleton) would think about him if they
could have seen what he had done. Then the guilt gave way to fear.
Vernon imagined that Joanna was pregnant, that he had to leave
Annapolis and marry her (What would he do? What kind of job would
he have if he were not a naval officer?), that he had to explain
all this to his parents and to the Pendletons. Worse still, he next
imagined that at any minute the motel would be raided and the
police would find the butt of the joint in the roach clip. He would
first be kicked out of the Academy for drug abuse, then find out
that he had made a girl pregnant.
Vernon Winters was now really scared. Lying on the floor of a motel
room on the outskirts of Philadelphia at three o'clock on a Sunday
morning, he began to pray in earnest. "Dear God," Vernon Winters
prayed, asking for something specific for himself for the first
time since he asked God to help him on the day that he took the
SATs, "let me get out of this without harm and I will become the
most perfectly disciplined naval officer that You have ever seen. I
will dedicate my life to defending this country that honors You.
Just please help me."
Eventually Vernon managed to fall asleep again. But his sleep was
fitful and disturbed by vivid dreams. In one dream Vernon was
dressed in his midshipman's uniform but was on stage back at the
Columbus Presbyterian Church. It was the Easter pageant and he was
again Christ, dragging the cross to Calvary. The sharp edge of the
cross on his shoulder was cutting through his uniform shirt and
Vernon was aware of anxiety that he might not pass inspection. He
stumbled and fell, the cross cut deeper through the uniform as he
had feared and he could see some blood running down his arm.
"Crucify him," Vernon heard someone shout in the dream. "Crucify
him," a group of people in the audience shouted together as Vernon
tried vainly to see through the klieg lights. He woke up sweating.
For a couple of moments he was disoriented. Then again his emotions
went the cycle from disgust to depression to fear as he played
through the events of the night before.
Joanna was tender and affectionate after she woke up but Vernon was
very distant. He explained his attitude by saying he was worried
about his coming exams. A couple of times Joanna started to talk
about what had happened the night before, but each time he rapidly
changed the subject. Vernon suffered through brunch and the drive
back to College Park to Joanna's sorority house. Joanna tried to
kiss him meaningfully when they parted but Vernon did not
reciprocate. He was in a hurry to forget the entire weekend. Back
in the privacy of his own room in Annapolis, he contritely
bargained again with God to let him escape unscathed.
Midshipman Vernon Winters was true to his word. He not only never
talked to Joanna Carr again (she called and failed to reach him a
couple of times, sent two letters that were unanswered, and then
gave up), he also gave up dating altogether during his final
eighteen months at Annapolis. He worked very hard on his studies
and attended chapel, as he had promised God, twice each week.
He graduated with honors and did his initial tour of duty on a
large aircraft carrier. Two years later, in June of 1974, after
Betty Pendleton had completed college and obtained her teacher's
certificate, Vernon married her in the Columbus Presbyterian Church
where they had played Joseph and Mary a dozen years earlier. They
moved to Norfolk, Virginia, and Vernon believed that the pattern of
his life was set. His life would be going out to sea for long
stretches and then coming home for short stays with Betty and any
children they might have.
Vernon regularly thanked God for keeping up His part of the bargain
and he dedicated himself to being the finest officer in the U.S.
Navy. All of his fitness reports praised his dependability and
thoroughness. His commanding officers openly told him that he was
admiral material. Until Libya. Or more specifically, until he
returned home after the Libyan action. For the entire world changed
for Vernon Allen Winters during the few weeks after the American
attack against Gaddafi.
CAROL and Troy were sitting in deck chairs at the front of the
Florida Queen. They were facing forward in the boat, toward the
ocean and the warm afternoon sun. Carol had removed her purple
blouse to reveal the top of a one-piece blue bathing suit, but she
was still wearing her white cotton slacks. Troy was shirtless in a
white surfing outfit that came quite a way down his beautiful black
legs. His body was lean and sinewy, clearly fit but not overly
muscled. They were talking casually and animatedly, laughing often
in an easy way. Behind them underneath the canopy, Nick Williams
was reading A Fan's Notes by Fred Exley. Every now and then he
would look up at the other two for a few moments and then return to
his book.
"So why didn't you ever go to college?" Carol was asking Troy. "You
clearly had the ability. You would have made a fantastic
engineer."
Troy stood up, took off his sunglasses, and walked to the railing.
"My brother, Jamie, said the same thing," he said slowly, staring
out at the quiet ocean. "But I was just too wild. When I finally
did graduate from high school, I was hungry to know what the world
was like. So I took off. I wandered all over the U.S. and Canada
for a couple of years."
"Was that when you learned about electronics?" Carol asked. She
checked her watch to see what time it was.
"That was later, much later," said Troy, remembering. "Those two
years of wandering I didn't learn anything except how to survive on
my wits. Plus what it was like to be a black boy in a white man's
world." He looked at Carol. There was no noticeable reaction.
"I must have had a hundred different jobs," he continued, looking
back at the ocean, "I was a cook, a copyboy, a bartender, a
construction worker. I even taught swimming lessons in a private
club. I was a bellman in a resort hotel, a greenskeeper for a
country club ..." Troy laughed and turned again to see if Carol was
paying attention. "But I guess you're not interested in all this
..."
"Sure I am," Carol said, "it's fascinating to me. I'm trying to
imagine what you looked like in a hotel uniform. And if Chief Nick
is right, we still have another ten minutes to pass until we reach
where we're going." She dropped her voice. "At least you talk. The
professor is not exactly social."
"Being a black bellhop at a southern Mississippi resort hotel was
an amazing learning experience," Troy began, a smile spreading
across his face. Troy loved to tell stories about his life. It
always placed him center stage. "Imagine, angel, I'm eighteen years
old and I luck into a job at the grand old Gulfport Inn, right on
the beach. Room and board plus tips. I'm on top of the world. At
least until the chief bellman, an impossible little man named Fish,
takes me out to the barracks where all the bellhops and kitchen
staff live and introduces me to everybody as the 'new nigger
bellhop.' From bits of discussion I can tell that the hotel is in
some kind of trouble because of possible racial discrimination and
hiring me is part of their response.
"My room in the barracks was right behind the twelfth green on the
golf course. A small bunk bed, a dresser built into the wall, a
desk or table with a portable lamp, a sink to brush my teeth and
wash my face - that's where I lived for six weeks. Down at the
other end of the building was the great community bathroom that
everyone left whenever I showed up.
"In my high school in Miami virtually the entire student body was
Cuban or black or both. So I knew almost nothing about white
people. From books and television I had this fantasy image of
whites as handsome, competent, educated, and rich. Ha. My fantasy
quickly vanished. You would not have believed the crew that worked
in that hotel. The head bellman Fish smoked dope every night with
his sixteen-year-old son Danny and dreamed of the day he would find
a million dollars left in somebody's room. His only other goal in
life was to continue screwing the chef's wife, Marie, in the supply
closet every morning until he died.
"One of the other bellmen was a poor, lonely soul whose real name
was Saint John because his brilliant parents thought that 'Saint'
was a given name. He had only six teeth, wore thick glasses, and
had a giant tumor underneath his left eye. Saint John knew that he
was ugly and he worried all the time about losing his job because
of his personal appearance. So Fish exploited him unmercifully by
giving him all the shittiest assignments and forcing him to pay
kickbacks with a portion of his tips. The other bellmen also
ridiculed Saint John at every opportunity and made him the butt of
their practical jokes.
"One night I was sitting quietly in my room reading a book when
there was a soft knock on the door. When I answered it, Saint John
was standing there. He looked confused and distracted. He was
holding a small game box in one hand and a six-pack of beer in the
other. I waited a few moments and then asked him what he wanted. He
looked nervously in both directions and then asked me if I knew how
to play chess. When I told him yes and added that I would enjoy a
game, Saint John grinned from ear to ear and mumbled something
about being glad that he had taken a chance. I invited him in and
we played and talked and drank beer for almost two hours. He was
one of nine children from a poor, rural Mississippi family. While
we were playing, Saint John casually let slip that he had been a
little reluctant to ask me to play because Fish and Miller had told
him that niggers were too dumb to play chess.
Saint John and I became friends, at least sort of, for the few more
weeks that I stayed there. We were united by the deepest of bonds,
we were both outsiders in that strange social structure created by
the employees of the Gulfport Inn. It was from Saint John that I
learned about the many misconceptions that Southern whites have
about blacks." Troy laughed. "You know, one night Saint John
actually followed me to the bath-room to verify with his own eyes
that I was not significantly larger than he was."
Troy returned to his deck chair and looked at Carol. She was
smiling. It was hard not to enjoy Troy's stories. He told them with
such enthusiasm and self-involved charm. Under the canopy Nick also
had put his book aside and was listening to the conversation.
"Then there was this giant Farrell, early twenties, who looked like
Elvis Presley. He supplied liquor to the guests at cut rates,
operated an escort service on call, and took excess hotel goods to
sell at his sister's market. He rented part of my room to store
some of the liquor. What a character. After big convention
breakfasts Farrell would pour the leftover orange juice in the
pitchers into bottles and keep it for resale. One morning the hotel
manager found a case of the juice temporarily sitting in a room off
the lobby and demanded to know what was going on. Farrell grabbed
me and took me out front. He told me that he wanted to make a deal.
If I would acknowledge that I had taken the juice, Farrell would
pay me twenty dollars. He explained that if I confessed, nothing
would happen to me, because niggers were expected to steal. But if
he Farrell were caught, he would lose his job ..."
Nick came out from under the canopy. "I hate to break this up," he
said, a little sarcastic edge in his voice, "but according to our
computer navigator, we are now at the south edge of the region on
the map." He handed the map back to Carol.
"Thanks, Professor," Troy laughed, "I believe you saved Carol from
being talked to death." He walked over to where all the monitoring
equipment had been set up on the footlocker next to the canopy. He
turned on the power supply. "Hey, angel, you want to tell me now
how this all works?"
Dale Michaels' ocean telescope was programmed to take three
virtually simultaneous pictures at each fixed setting. The first of
the pictures was a normal visible image, the second was the same
field of view photographed at infrared wavelengths, and the third
was a composite sonar image of the same frame. The sonar subsystem
did not produce crisp pictures, only outlines of objects. However,
it probed to greater depths than either the visible or infrared
elements of the telescope and could be used even when the water
underneath the boat was murky.
Affixed to the bottom of almost any boat, the compact telescope
could be driven thirty degrees back and forth about the vertical by
a small internal motor. The observation schedule for the telescope
was usually defined by a preprogrammed protocol. The details of
this sequence as well as the critical optical parameters for the
telescope were all stored in the system microprocessor; however,
everything in the software could be changed in realtime by manual
input if the operator desired.
Data from the telescope was carried to the rest of the electronic
equipment on the boat by means of very thin fiber optics. These
cables were bracketed along the edge of the boat. About ten percent
of the pictures reconstructed from this data were then displayed
(after some very crude enhancements) on the boat's monitor in
realtime. But all the data taken by the telescope was automatically
recorded in the one hundred gigabit memory unit that adjoined the
monitor. Another set of fiber optics connected the same memory unit
with the boat's central navigation system and the servomotor
actuators controlling the telescopes. These circuits were pulsed
every ten milliseconds so that the orientation of the telescope and
the boat's location at the time of each telescope image could be
stored together in the permanent file.
Next to the monitor on top of the footlocker, but on the other side
from the memory unit, was the system control panel. Dr. Dale
Michaels and MOI were famous throughout the world for the
cleverness of their inventions; however, these ingenious creations
were not so easy to operate. Dale had tried to give Carol a crash
course on the workings of the system the night before she had
driven down to Key West from Miami. It had been almost useless.
Eventually frustrated, Dale had simply programmed into the
microprocessor an easy sequence that mosaicked the area under the
boat in regular patterns. He then set the optical gains at normal
default values, and instructed Carol not to change anything. "All
you have to do," Dr. Michaels had said as he had carefully loaded
the system control panel into the station wagon, "is push this GO
button. Then cover the panel to make certain that nobody
inadvertently hits the wrong command."
So Carol certainly could not explain to Troy how anything worked.
She walked over beside him on the boat, put her arm on his
shoulder, and grinned sheepishly. "I hate to disappoint you, my
inquisitive friend, but I don't know any more about how this thing
works than I told you when we were setting up all the equipment. To
operate it, all we have to do is turn on the power supply, which
you have already done, and then push this button." She pushed the
GO button on the panel. A picture of the clear ocean about fifty
feet underneath the boat appeared immediately on the color monitor.
The picture was amazingly sharp. The threesome watched in wonder as
a hammerhead shark swam through a school of small gray fish,
swallowing hundreds of them in his awesome rush.
"As I understand it," Carol continued as both men stayed glued in
fascination to the monitor, "the telescope system then does the
rest, following a planned set of observations stored in its
software. Obviously we see what it sees here on this monitor. At
least we see the visual image. The simultaneous infrared and sonar
pictures are stored on the recorder. My friend at MOI (she didn't
want to alert them even more by using Dale's name) tried to explain
how I could change between the visual and infrared and sonar
images, but it wasn't simple. You'd think it would be as easy as
pushing an "I" for infrared or an "S" for sonar. Nope. You have to
input as many as a dozen commands just to change which output
signal is fed into the monitor."
Troy was impressed. Not just by the ocean telescope system, but
also by the way Carol, a woman admittedly not educated in
engineering or electronics, had clearly grasped the essentials of
it. "The infrared part of the telescope must measure thermal
radiation," he said slowly, "if I remember my high school physics
correctly. But how would underwater thermal variations tell you
anything about whales?"
At this point Nick Williams shook his head and turned away from the
screen. He recognized that he was hopelessly out of his
intellectual element with all these engineering terms and he was
more than a little embarrassed to admit his total ignorance in
front of Carol and Troy. Nick also didn't believe for an instant
that Carol had brought all this electronic wizardry on board to
find whales that had strayed from their migration route. He walked
over to the small refrigerator and pulled out another beer. "And
what we're going to do for the next two hours, if I understand it
correctly, is ride around in the boat while you look for whales on
that screen?"
Nick's derisive comment carried with it an unmistakable challenge.
It intruded upon the warm and friendly rapport that had been
created between Carol and Troy. She allowed herself to become
irritated again by Nick's attitude and fired back her own verbal
fusillade. "That was the plan, Mister Williams, as I told you when
we left Key West. But Troy tells me that you're something of a
treasure hunter. Or at least were some years ago. And since you
seem to have convinced yourself that treasure is really what I'm
after, perhaps you'd like to sit here next to me and look at the
same pictures to make sure I don't miss any whales. Or treasure, as
the case may be."
Nick and Carol glared at each other for a few moments. Then Troy
stepped between them. "Look, Professor ... and you too, angel ... I
don't pretend to understand why you two insist on pissing each
other off. But it's a pain in the ass for me. Can't you just cool
it for a while? After all," Troy added, looking first at Nick and
then at Carol, "if you two go for a dive, you're partners. Your
lives may depend on one another. So knock it off."
Carol shrugged her shoulders and nodded. "Okay by me," she said.
But seeing no immediate response from Nick, she couldn't resist
another shot. "Provided that Mr. Williams recognizes his
responsibility as a PADI member and stays sober enough to
dive."
Nick's eyes flashed angrily. Then he walked over to the deck
railing and dramatically poured his new beer into the ocean. "Don't
worry about me, sweetheart," he said, forcing a smile, "I can take
care of myself. You just worry about what you do."
The ocean telescope microprocessor contained a special alarm
subroutine that sounded a noise like a telephone ring whenever the
programmed alarm conditions were triggered. At Carol's request,
Dale Michaels had personally adapted the normal alarming algorithm
just before she left for Key West so that it would react to either
a large creature moving across the field of view or a stationary
"unknown" object of significant size. After he had finished the
logic design for the small change and sent it to his software
department for top priority coding and testing, Dale had smiled to
himself. He was amused by his complicity with Carol. This piece of
technological subterfuge would certainly convince Carol's
companions, whoever they might be, that she was earnest in her
search for whales. At the same time, the alarm would also sound if
what Carol was really seeking, supposedly an errant (and secret)
Navy missile currently under development, appeared on the ocean
floor underneath the boat.
The basic structure for both alarm algorithms was easy to
understand. To identify a moving animal, it was sufficient to
overlay two or three images taken less than a second apart (at any
wavelength, although there was greater accuracy in the process with
the sharper visual images), and then compare the data using the
knowledge that most of the scene should be unchanged. Significant
miscompares (connected areas in the overlay that differed from
image to image) would suggest the presence of a large moving
creature.
To identify foreign objects in the field of view, the alarm
algorithm took advantage of the tremendous storage capacity of the
memory unit in the telescope data processing system. The near
simultaneous infrared and visual images were fed into the memory
unit and then crudely analyzed against a data set that contained
chains of pattern recognition parameters over both wavelength
regions. These pattern parameters had been developed through years
of careful research and had been recently expanded by MOI to
include virtually everything normal (plants, animals, reef
structures, etc.) that might be seen on the ocean floor around the
Florida Keys. Any large object that didn't correlate in realtime
with this existing data base would be flagged and the alarm would
sound.
The alarms made it unnecessary to sit patiently in front of the
screen and study the thousands of frames of data as they were
received on the boat. Even Troy, a confessed "knowledge junkie"
whose interest in everything was almost insatiable, grew tired of
staring at the monitor after about ten minutes, particularly when
the boat entered into deeper water and very little could be seen in
the visual images.
A couple of solitary sharks triggered alarms and created momentary
excitement about twenty minutes after the telescope was activated,
but a long period void of any discoveries followed. As the
afternoon waned Nick became more and more impatient. "I don't know
why I allowed myself to be talked into this wild goose chase," he
grumbled to nobody in particular. "We could have been preparing the
boat for the weekend charter."
Carol ignored Nick's comment and studied the map one more time.
They had traversed from south to north the region she and Dale had
defined and were now moving slowly east along the northern
periphery. Dale had constructed the search area based upon his own
inferences from the questions asked him by the Navy. He probably
could have pinned down the area of interest with greater certainty
with a few more questions of his own, but he hadn't wanted to
arouse any suspicions.
Carol knew that the search was a little like finding a needle in a
haystack, but she had thought it would he worthwhile because of the
potential payoff. If she could somehow find and photograph a secret
Navy missile that had crashed near a populated area ... What a
scoop that would be! But now she too was growing a little impatient
and it was hard for her to revive her earlier excitement after the
long afternoon in the sun. They would have to head back to Key West
soon to ensure arrival by nightfall. Oh well, she thought to
herself with resignation, at least I gave it a shot. And as my
father used to say, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
She was standing all the way at the prow of the boat when suddenly
alarms started coming from the memory unit next to the monitor. One
ring, then two, followed by a brief silence. A third ring then
sounded and was rapidly joined by a fourth. Carol rushed excitedly
toward the monitor. "Stop the boat," she shouted imperiously at
Nick. But she was too late. By the time she reached the monitor,
the alarms had stopped and she could not see anything on the
screen
"Turn around, turn around," a frustrated Carol hollered
immediately, not noticing that Nick was again glaring at her.
"Aye, aye, Cap-i-tan," Nick said, jerking on the wheel with such
force that Carol lost her balance. The monitor and other electronic
equipment started to slide off their flimsy mountings on the top of
the footlocker; they were rescued at the last minute by Troy. The
Florida Queen veered sharply in the water. Despite the quietness of
the ocean, a small wave came over the railing on the low side of
the deck, catching Carol from the knees down. The bottom of her
cotton slacks were left clinging to her calves. Her white tennis
shoes and socks were drenched. Nick made no effort to hide his
amusement.
Carol was about to joust with him again when the renewed ringing of
the alarms diverted her attention. Regaining her squishy footing as
the boat leveled off, she saw in the monitor that they were above a
coral reef. And deep beneath the boat, barely discernible on the
screen, were three whales of the same kind that she had seen on the
beach that morning at Deer Key. They were swimming together in what
appeared to be an aimless pattern. But there was more. The special
alarm message code indicated that there was also a foreign object
in or near to the same field of view as the desultory whales. Carol
could not contain her excitement. She clapped her hands. "Anchor,
please," she shouted, and then she laughed. She saw that Troy had
already thrown the anchor overboard.
A few minutes later Carol was hurriedly putting on her buoyancy
vest in the aft portion of the boat behind the canopy. Her mask and
her flippers had already been adjusted and were beside her on the
deck. Troy was helping her by holding up the air bottle that was
built into the back of the bulky vest. "Don't worry about Nick,"
Troy said. "He may be grumpy today for some reason, maybe because
Harvard lost the basketball game, but he's a fabulous diver. And he
has the reputation of being the best dive teacher in the Keys." He
grinned. "After all, he taught me a couple of months ago and we're
not even supposed to be able to swim."
Carol smiled and shook her head at Troy. "Don't you ever stop
joking?" she said. She slid her free arm through the second opening
and the vest fell into place. "By the way," she continued softly,
"for an expert diver your friend certainly uses antiquated
equipment." At this moment she regretted her decision to leave her
customized diving vest in the station wagon. She always used it
when she dove with Dale and it had all the latest advances, such as
ABC (Automatic Buoyancy Compensation) and a perfect pocket for her
underwater camera. But after all the brouhaha when she came through
the marina headquarters with her footlocker of electronic
equipment, Carol had decided not to attract further attention by
bringing in a state-of-the-art diving vest.
"Nick thinks the new vests make it too easy for the diver. He wants
them to have to adjust their buoyancy manually - so that they are
more conscious of how far down they are." Troy looked Carol over.
"You're pretty light. This belt may be enough by itself. Do you
normally use any weights?"
Carol shook her head and pulled the belt around her waist. Nick
came around the canopy carrying his mask and flippers. He had
already put on his diving vest with air bottle and his weighted
belt. "Those whales of yours are still in the same spot down
there," he said. "I've never seen whales hang around like that. "He
handed her a piece of chewing tobacco. She rubbed the tobacco on
the inside of her mask (to prevent fogging) while Nick walked
around behind her. He looked at her air gauge and checked both her
regulator and the secondary mouthpiece that he might have to use to
share her air in the event of an emergency.
Nick talked to Carol while he was making her final equipment
checks. "This is your charter," he began in what sounded like a
friendly tone, "so we can go almost anywhere you want while we are
down there. The dive will not be too difficult, since it's only
forty-five feet or so to the floor. However," Nick moved around in
front of Carol and looked directly in her eyes, "I want one thing
thoroughly understood. This is my boat and I am responsible for the
safety of the people on it. Including you, whether you like it or
not. Before we dive, I want to make certain that you will follow my
lead under the water."
Carol recognized that Nick was trying to be diplomatic. It even
flashed through her mind that he looked sort of cute standing there
in front of her in his diving gear. She decided to be gracious.
"Agreed," she said. "But one thing before we descend. Remember that
I'm a reporter. I will have a camera with me and may want you to
move from time to time. So don't get angry if I motion you out of
the way."
Nick smiled. "Okay," he said, "I'll try to remember."
Carol put on her flippers and mask. Then she picked up her
underwater camera by the strap and threw it over her neck and
shoulder. Troy helped her tighten the strap in the back. Nick was
sitting on the side of the boat at a break in the railing, right
next to a crude ladder that Troy had just dropped overboard. "I've
checked the water already," Nick said, "and there's quite a current
up here. Let's go down the anchor rope until we reach the ocean
floor. Then you can pick the direction from there."
Nick rolled backward off the boat. In a moment he surfaced,
treading water. Carol returned his thumbs-up sign (the signal
between divers that everything's all right) and sat down herself on
the side of the boat. Troy helped her make one last comfort
adjustment to her vest. "Good luck, angel," Troy said. "I hope you
find what you're looking for. And be careful."
Carol put the regulator in her mouth, took a breath, and then
repeated Nick's backward roll maneuver. The ocean water felt cool
against her sunbaked back. In a few seconds she joined Nick over at
the anchor rope and the two of them repeated the thumbs up sign.
Nick led the way down. He went hand over hand, cautiously, never
completely releasing the rope. Carol followed carefully. She could
feel the strong current that Nick had mentioned. It pulled at her,
trying to take her away from the rope, but she managed to hold on.
Every six to eight feet in the descent, Nick stopped to equalize
the pressure in his ears and looked up to see both that Carol was
following and that she was all right. Then he continued his
descent.
There was nothing much to see until they reached the reef beneath
them. The telescope pictures had been so sharp that they had been
misleading. The reef with its riot of color and its surfeit of
plant and animal life had seemed to be right underneath them
because of the automatic focusing action of the optical system. But
thirty-five feet is a long way down. Any normal three-story
building could have been sitting on the ocean floor underneath the
Florida Queen and it would not have touched her hull.
When they finally reached the top of the reef where the anchor was
implanted, Carol realized she had made a mistake. She did not
recognize her surroundings and therefore did not know which
direction to take to find the whales. She reproached herself
briefly for not having spent a few more moments studying the
monitor to make sure that she knew where all the landmarks were. Oh
well, Carol then thought, It's too late for that now. I'll just
pick a direction and go. Besides, I don't have any idea where the
alarm object is anyway.
Visibility in the water was fair to good, maybe fifty to sixty feet
in all directions. Carol adjusted her buoyancy slightly and then
pointed to a gap between two reef structures, both of which were
covered with kelp, sea anemones, and the ubiquitous coral. Nick
nodded his head. Tucking her arms to her side to streamline her
movement, Carol kicked up and down with her flippers and swam
toward the gap.
Behind her, Nick watched Carol swim with appreciation and
admiration. She moved through the water as gracefully as the school
of yellow and black angelfish beside her. Nick had not interrogated
Carol very much about her diving experience and had not known
exactly what to expect. He had suspected from her ease and
familiarity with the equipment that she was a seasoned diver; but
he had not prepared himself for an underwater peer. Except for
Greta, Nick had not encountered a woman before who was as
comfortable under the water as he was.
Nick absolutely loved the peace and serenity of the rich and
vibrant world beneath the ocean surface. The only sound he ever
heard down there was his own breathing. All around him the coral
reefs teemed with life of unimaginable beauty and complexity.
There, underneath him now, was a grouper taking a bath by sitting
at the bottom of a natural hole and letting dozens of tiny cleaner
fish eat away all the accumulated parasites. A moment earlier,
Nick's downward excursion toward the ocean floor had scared up a
manta ray hidden in the sand. This large ray, called a devilfish by
the cognoscenti, had undulated out of its hiding place at the last
moment and just missed Nick with its powerful and dangerous
tail.
Nick Williams felt at home down in this watery world at the bottom
of the Gulf of Mexico. It was his recreation and his refuge.
Whenever he was distressed or disturbed by events on the surface,
he knew that he could dive and find relaxation and escape. Except
on this particular dive he was aware of an ineffable emotion, a
beginning perhaps, a longing that was barely defined, possibly
mixed up with a memory of years ago. He was following a beautiful
mermaid as she swam along the reef and the sight stirred him. I
have acted like a schoolboy, he thought, and a bore. Or worse. And
why? Because she is pretty? No. Because she is so alive. So much
more alive than I am
Carol and Nick made two different excursions, each time starting
from the anchor rope, without finding the whales or anything else
unusual. When they returned to the anchor after the second
unsuccessful foray, Nick pointed at his watch. They had been under
the water for almost half an hour already. Carol wagged her head up
and down and then held up her index finger, indicating that she
would try one more direction.
They found the whales right after they crossed over a big upward
bulge in the reef that came within fifteen feet of the surface.
Nick saw them first and pointed down. The three whales were about
twenty feet below them and maybe thirty yards ahead. They were
still swimming slowly, more or less together, in the same
directionless, near circular pattern that Nick and Carol had
watched on the screen. Carol waved Nick out of the way and pointed
at her camera. She then swam toward the whales, taking pictures as
she approached them while carefully monitoring her depth and
equalizing the pressure in her ears.
Nick swam down beside her. He was certain the whales had seen the
two of them, but for some reason they had made no attempt to flee.
In all his years as a diver, Nick had only once seen a whale in the
open ocean accept the nearby presence of a human. And that had been
a calfing mother, in a Pacific Ocean lagoon off of Baja California,
whose birth pangs were a more powerful force than her instinctive
fear of humans. Here even when Carol approached to within twenty
feet or so the whales continued their indolent drift. They appeared
to be lost, or maybe even drugged.
Carol slowed her approach when the whales made no attempt to get
away. She took some more photographs. Close-up pictures of whales
in their natural habitat were still uncommon, so her trip had
already been a journalistic success. But she too was puzzled by
their behavior. Why were they ignoring her presence? And what were
they doing hanging around this particular spot? She remembered
being surprised by the solitary whale during her morning swim and
wondered again if somehow all these strange events were
related.
Nick was off to her right, about twenty yards away. He was pointing
at something on the other side of the whales and gesturing for
Carol to come toward him. She swam away from the great mammals and
headed in Nick's direction. She saw immediately what had attracted
his attention. Below the whales, just above the ocean floor, there
was a large dark hole in the bottom of an imposing reef structure.
At first glance it appeared to be the entrance to an underground
cave of some kind. But Carol's sharp eyes noticed that the
lip-shaped fissure was extremely smooth and symmetric, almost
suggesting to her that it was an engineering construction of some
kind. She laughed at herself as she swam up beside Nick. The
amazing underwater world and the bizarre behavior of these whales
were playing tricks with her mind.
Nick pointed down at the hole and then at himself, indicating that
he was going down to check it out more closely. When he started to
leave, Carol had a sudden impulse to reach for his foot and pull
him back. A moment later, as she watched Nick swim away, a powerful
fear of unknown origin swept over her. She began to tremble as she
struggled gamely with this strange emotion. Goose bumps appeared on
her arms and legs and Carol felt an overwhelming desire to get
away, to escape before something terrible happened.
An instant later she saw one of the whales move toward Nick. If
Carol had been on land she could have yelled, but fifty feet deep
in the ocean there was no way to warn someone from afar. As Nick
drew near the opening, unaware of any danger, he was brushed to the
side by one of the whales with such force that he bounced against
the reef and then caromed off. He fell down onto a small spot of
sand on the ocean floor. Carol swam toward him quickly while
keeping a careful eye on the whales. Nick had lost his regulator
and did not seem to be making any attempt to replace it. She drew
up beside him and flashed the thumbs-up sign. There was no
response. Nick's eyes were closed.
Carol felt a surge of adrenaline as she reached for Nick's
regulator and thrust it into his mouth. She beat against his mask
with her fist. After a few painfully long seconds, Nick opened his
eyes. Carol tried thumbs up again. Nick shook his head, as if he
were clearing out the cobwebs, smiled, and then returned the okay
signal. He started to move but Carol restrained him. She indicated
with gestures for him to sit still while she hurriedly looked him
over. From the force with which Nick had hit the reef, Carol feared
the worst. Even if his diving gear was all right, certainly his
skin would have been ripped and torn by the sharp coral and the
impact. But incredibly, there did not appear to be significant
damage to either Nick or the equipment. All she could find were a
couple of small scrapes.
The three whales remained in the same area where they had been
before. Looking up at them from below, Carol thought that they
looked like sentinels guarding a particular piece of ocean
territory. Back and forth they swam, inscribing a total composite
arc of maybe two hundred yards. Whatever it had been that had
caused one of the whales to vary its swimming pattern and run into
Nick was certainly unclear. But Carol did not want to risk another
encounter. She motioned for Nick to follow her and they swam about
thirty yards away, to a sandy trench between the reefs.
Carol planned to return to the surface as soon as it was clear that
Nick was not seriously hurt. But while Carol was thoroughly
surveying his body to make certain that she had not overlooked any
serious lacerations in her hurried check, Nick discovered two
parallel indentations in the sand below him. He grabbed Carol's arm
to show her what he had found. The indentations were grooved like
tank tracks and were about three inches deep. They appeared to be
fresh. In one direction the tracks ran toward the reef fissure
underneath the three whales. In the other direction the parallel
lines extended as far as Nick and Carol could see, running along
the sandy trench between the two major reefs in the area.
Nick pointed up the trench and then swam away in that direction,
following the tracks with fascination. He did not turn around to
see if Carol were following. Carol quickly backtracked as close to
the fissure as she dared (was she imagining again or were the three
whales watching her as she crept along the ocean floor?) to take
some pictures and to verify that the tracks did indeed emanate from
the opening in the reef. She thought she saw a network of similar
indentations converging just in front of the fissure, but she did
not tarry long. She didn't want to be separated from Nick in this
spooky place. When she turned around, he was just barely in sight.
But he had fortunately stopped when he realized that Carol was not
behind him. Nick made an apologetic gesture when she finally caught
up with him.
At one point the parallel lines disappeared as the sandy trench
turned to rock, but Nick and Carol located the continuation of the
same tracks some fifty yards farther along. The trench eventually
became so narrow that they were forced to swim six feet or so above
it to keep from banging against the rocks and coral on either side.
Soon thereafter the tracks and the trench made a left turn and
disappeared under an overhang. Carol and Nick stopped and floated
in the water facing each other. They carried on a conversation with
hand gestures. At length, they decided that Carol would go down
first to see if anything was under the overhang, since she wanted a
close-up photograph of the disappearance of the tracks anyway.
Carol swam carefully down to the floor of the trench, skillfully
avoiding contact with the edges of the reef on both sides. Where it
disappeared under the overhang, the trench was just wide enough for
her to put one of her flippered feet down lengthwise. The overhang
was about eighteen inches above the floor, but there was no way she
could bend down and look underneath without scraping her face or
hands against the reef. Carol gingerly slid her hand under the
overhang in the last direction of the tracks. Nothing. She would
have to brace herself against the rocks and coral and stick her
hand deeper into the area.
While Carol was trying to move herself into a better position, she
momentarily lost her balance and felt the sting of coral on the
back of her left thigh. Ouch, she thought as she put her right hand
back under the overhang, that's one for me. One physical reminder
of an amazing day. Weird even. Bizarre whales. Tank tracks on the
bottom of the ocean ... what is this? Carol's hand closed around
what felt like a metallic rod about an inch thick. It was such a
surprising touch, she immediately withdrew her hand and a shudder
raced down her spine. Her heart rate accelerated and she tried to
breathe slowly to calm herself. Then she purposefully put her hand
back and found the object again. Or was it another object? This
time she felt something metallic all right, but it seemed to be
wider and to have four tines like a fork. Carol slid her hand along
the object and refound the rod portion.
From his vantage point above her, Nick could tell that Carol had
discovered something. Now it was his turn to be excited. He swam
down to her as she struggled unsuccessfully to retrieve the object.
They changed positions and Nick reached under the projecting rock.
He first touched something that felt like a smooth sphere about the
size of the palm of his hand. Nick could tell that the bottom of
the sphere rested on the sand and that the rod attached to it was
elevated by several inches. Nick steadied himself and jerked on the
rod. It moved a little. He moved his grip sideways on the rod and
heaved again. Several more pulls and the object was out from under
the overhang.
For almost a minute Nick and Carol hovered over the gold-metallic
object lying beneath them on the sand. Its surface was smooth to
the eye as well as to the touch and altogether it was about
eighteen inches long. Nothing but the polished, reflecting surface
could be seen, suggesting that the object was indeed made from some
kind of metal. The long axis of the object was an inch-thick rod
that was, at one end, tapered and worked into a kind of a hook.
Four inches back from the hook was the center of a small sphere,
symmetrically constructed around the rod, whose radius was a little
over two inches. The larger sphere that Nick had felt when he first
put his hand under the overhang had a radius of four inches or so
and it was right in the middle of the rod. This sphere was also
perfectly symmetric around the rod axis. Beyond the two spheres the
object was unadorned until the rod broke into four smaller
branches, the tines that Carol had felt, at its other end.
Carol carefully took photographs of the object as it lay exposed in
front of the overhang. Before she was finished, Nick pointed at his
watch. They had been underwater almost an hour. Carol checked her
air gauge and found that she was almost into the red. She waved a
sign at Nick and he swam down to pick up the object. It was
extremely heavy, weighing an astonishing twenty pounds or so in
Nick's estimation. Then it wasn't caught on anything when I was
trying to pull it out, Nick thought, it's just that heavy.
The weight of the object only increased Nick's excitement that had
begun when he had first seen the gold color. Although he had never
seen anything quite like this hook and fork with spheres, he
remembered that the heaviest pieces from the wreck of the Santa
Rosa had all been made of gold. And this piece was far heavier than
anything he had ever touched. Jesus, he thought to himself as he
discarded some of the lead weights in his belt to make it easier
for him to carry the object up to the boat, if there's even ten
pounds of pure gold here, at current market value of a thousand
dollars an ounce, that's $160,000, and this may just be the
beginning. Wherever this thing came from, there must be more. All
right, Williams. This may be your lucky day.
Carol's thoughts raced at a mile a minute as she swam in tandem
with Nick toward the anchor rope. She was busy trying to integrate
everything she had seen in the last hour. She was already convinced
that everything was somehow associated with the errant Navy missile
- the behavior of the whales, the golden fork with the hook, the
tank tracks on the bottom of the ocean. But at first Carol had no
clue about what the connections were.
During the swim back Carol suddenly remembered reading some years
before a story about Russian submarine tracks being found on the
ocean floor outside a Swedish naval yard. In her journalistic mind
she began to concoct a wild but plausible scenario to explain
everything that she had seen. Maybe the missile crashed near here
and continued to send out data even when it was underwater, she
thought to herself. Its electronic signals somehow confused the
whales. And maybe those same signals were picked up by Russian
submarines. And American. Her thoughts came to a temporary dead end
for a moment. So there are at least two choices, Carol thought
again after swimming a few more strokes and watching Nick approach
the anchor rope with the golden object still firmly in his hand.
Either I've found a Russian plot to locate and steal an American
missile. Or the tracks and goldenfork are somehow part of an
American effort to find the missile without alerting the public. It
doesn't matter. Either way it's a big story. But I must take that
golden thing to Dale and MOI to analyze.
Both Nick and Carol were dangerously low on air by the time they
reached the surface beside the Florida Queen. They called Troy to
give them a hand with their prize from the deep. Carol and Nick
were exhausted when they finally crawled into the boat. But they
were also both on emotional highs, thrilled with the discoveries of
the afternoon. Everyone started talking at once. Troy had a story
to tell too, for he had seen something unusual on the monitor while
Nick and Carol were following the tracks in the trench. Nick pulled
some beer and sandwiches out of the refrigerator and Carol tended
her coral cuts. The laughing trio sat down on the deck chairs
together as the sun was setting. They had much to share during the
ninety-minute trip back to Key West.
THE camaraderie lasted most of the way back to the marina. Nick was
no longer taciturn. Excited by what he believed was the initial
find of a major sunken treasure, he was positively a chatterbox. At
least twice he retold his version of the whale encounter. Nick was
certain that the collision was accidental, that the whale simply
happened to be moving in that direction for some other reason and
just paid no attention to the fact that Nick was there.
"Impossible," Nick had scoffed when Carol had initially suggested
that the whale might have deliberately hit him because he was
heading for the fissure in the reef. "Whoever heard of whales
guarding a spot in the ocean. Besides, if your theory's right, then
why didn't the whale really smack me, and finish me off? You're
asking me to accept that the whales were protecting an underground
cave? And then that they were warning me to stay away with that
gentle push?" He laughed good-naturedly. "Let me ask you something,
Miss Dawson," he said, "do you believe in elves and fairies?"
"From where I was watching," Carol replied, "it sure looked as if
the whole thing was planned. "She did not pursue the subject
further. In fact, after her initial outbursts, Carol did not talk
very much about anything on the trip back to Key West. She too was
excited and she was worried that if she talked too much she might
inadvertently give away her thoughts about the possible connection
between what they had seen and the lost Navy missile. So she didn't
mention either her eerie fear just before the whale hit Nick or the
network of tracks she thought she saw converging just under the
base of the fissure.
As far as Nick was concerned, the object they had retrieved was
definitely part of a treasure. It didn't bother him that it was
hidden under an overhang at the end of some strange tracks. He
shrugged it off by suggesting that maybe somebody had found the
sunken treasure several years earlier and then tried to hide a few
of the better pieces. (But why were the tracks fresh? And what had
made them? Carol wanted to ask these questions but realized it was
in her best interest for Nick to remain convinced that he had found
treasure.) Nick was blind to all arguments and even facts that
didn't support his treasure theory. It was emotionally vital to
Nick for the gold fork thing to be the first piece of a great
discovery. And like many people, Nick was capable of suspending his
normally sharp critical faculties when he had a vested emotional
involvement in an issue.
When Nick and Carol finally quieted down enough to listen, Troy had
a chance to tell his own story. "After you guys left the area
underneath the boat, I guess to follow your trench, I became
worried about you and started watching the screen more often. Now,
angel, by this time those three whales had been swimming about in
that same dumb pattern for over an hour. So I wasn't checking them
real close."
Troy was up out of his deck chair, walking back and forth in front
of Carol and Nick. It was a dark night; low clouds had rolled in
from the north to block the moon and obscure most of the stars. The
spotlight from the top of the canopy occasionally caught Troy's
chiseled features as he moved in and out of the shadows. "Because I
wanted to find you guys, I lifted the alarm suppression the way you
showed me and was regularly serenaded by the ding-dong-ding from
the three whales. Now listen to this. After a couple of minutes, I
heard a fourth alarm. I looked down at the monitor, expecting to
see one of you, and I saw another whale, same species, swimming
underneath the other three and in the opposite direction. Within
ten seconds the original whales turned, breaking their long
pattern, and followed the new whale off the monitor to the left.
They never returned."
Troy wound up the story with a dramatic inflection and Nick laughed
out loud, "Jesus, Jefferson, you do have a way of telling a story.
I suppose you're going to tell me now that these whales were
stationed there and the new guy came along with different orders.
Or something like that. Christ, between you and Carol, you'll have
me believe that the whales are organized into covens of whatever."
Nick stopped for a moment. Troy was disappointed that Carol didn't
say anything.
"Now," Nick continued, dismissing Troy's story and getting to the
subject he had been thinking about for almost an hour, "we have an
important issue to discuss. We have brought back something from the
ocean that could conceivably be worth a lot of money. If nobody
else can prove conclusively that it is theirs, then it will belong
to the finders." Nick looked first at Carol and then at Troy. "Even
though I'm captain and owner of this boat and I carried the thing
up from the ocean floor, I'm prepared to offer that we split the
proceeds in thirds. Does that sound fair enough to the two of
you?"
There was a moderately long silence before Troy answered. "Sure,
Nick, that sounds fine to me." Nick smiled and reached across to
shake Troy's hand. He then extended his hand to Carol.
"Just a minute," she said quietly, looking directly at Nick and not
taking his hand. "Since you've decided to start this conversation,
there are several more items that must be discussed. It's not
simply a question of money for this object. There's also the issue
of possession. Who keeps the golden trident? Who determines when
we've been offered a fair price? What do we agree to say, or not to
say, to others? And what if other objects are found down there by
one or more of us? Do we all share? There's an entire agreement
that must be worked out before we dock."
Nick frowned. "Now I understand why you've been so quiet these last
few minutes. You've been thinking about your share. I misjudged
you. I thought you might decide not to create any more trouble -
"
"Who said anything about trouble?" Carol interrupted him abruptly,
her voice rising slightly. "If you must know, I'm not that
interested in the damn money. I will gladly take my one-third if
any dollars are forthcoming from the trident there, for I certainly
deserve it. But if any more such treasures are down there and you
and Troy can find them without me, then be my guest. I want
something else."
Both men were now listening intently. "First and foremost, I want
exclusive rights to this story, and that means absolute secrecy
about what we have found, when and where we found it, and anything
else associated with it - at least until we're certain there's
nothing more to learn. Second, I want immediate possession of the
object for forty-eight hours, before anyone else knows that it
exists. After that you can have it to take to the authorities for
evaluation."
Uh oh, Carol thought to herself as she saw the searching looks she
had elicited from Nick and Troy. I overdid it. They suspect
something. Better back off just a bit. "Of course," she smiled
disarmingly, "I've just given my initial position. I expect that
some negotiations may be necessary."
"Wow, angel," Troy said with a laugh, "that was some speech. For
just a minute there, I thought that maybe there was a whole other
game going on here and you were the only one playing. Of course the
professor and I will be delighted to discuss an agreement with you,
won't we, Nick?"
Nick nodded. But he had also been alerted by the careful
organization and unmistakable intensity of Carol's response. It
seemed out of proportion to the journalistic value of their find.
Is she trying to make this some kind of a contest between us? he
thought to himself. Or am I missing something altogether?
They had worked out a compromise agreement by the time the Florida
Queen reached the dock in Key West. Nick would take the golden
trident (both of the men liked Carol's name for the object) with
him on Friday morning. There was an elderly woman in Key West who
was a compendium of treasure knowledge and she would be able to
assess its value and to give its probable place and date of origin.
The woman would also be a witness to their find in case the trident
were ever misplaced. On Friday afternoon, the three of them would
meet on the boat or in the marina parking lot at four o'clock. Nick
would give the object to Carol and she would keep it over the
weekend. After she returned it to Nick on Monday morning, he would
be responsible for its care and eventual sale. The three of them
had joint ownership of the trident, but Carol waived any interest
in future discoveries. Carol wrote the terms of the simple
agreement on the back of a restaurant menu from her purse, they all
signed it, and she promised to bring copies back the next day.
Troy was quiet and subdued while he was loading all Carol's
equipment back into the footlocker. He lifted the locker onto the
cart and then pulled the cart along the jetty. Carol walked beside
him. It was about nine o'clock and very quiet at the marina. The
tall fluorescent lights created a strange reflection on the wooden
jetties. "Well, angel," Troy said as Carol and he approached the
marina headquarters, "it's been quite a day. I've really enjoyed
your company." He stopped and turned to look at her. Her black hair
had dried unevenly and looked a bit disheveled, but her face was
beautiful in the reflected light.
Troy looked away, out at the water and the boats. "You know, it's a
shame sometimes the way life works. You meet somebody by chance,
you strike up a friendship, and then poof, they're gone. It's all
so ... so transient."
Carol came over beside him and stretched to kiss his cheek. "And
you know I like you, too," she said, lightening up the conversation
with a grin and making certain that Troy understood what kind of a
friendship they could have. "But cheer up. All is not lost. You'll
see me tomorrow for a while and then maybe when I return the golden
thing on Monday."
She hooked her arm through his as they momentarily walked back down
the Jetty, away from the loaded cart. "And who knows," Carol
laughed, "I'm down in the Keys from time to time. We could have a
drink together and you could tell me some more stories. "They could
just barely make out the spotlight above the canopy on the Florida
Queen some hundred yards in the distance. "I see your friend the
professor is still at work. He's not strong on good-byes. Or any
other area of manners as far as I can tell."
She turned, switching locked arms, and they walked back to the
loaded cart. They moved through the apparently deserted
headquarters without speaking. When the footlocker had been
replaced in the station wagon, Carol gave Troy a hug. "You're a
good man, Troy Jefferson," she said. "I wish you well."
Nick was almost ready to leave by the time Troy returned to the
boat. He was packing a small exercise bag. "Looks innocent enough,
doesn't it, Troy? Nobody will ever suspect that one of the great
treasures of the ocean is in here." He paused a moment and changed
the subject. "You put her safely in her car? Good. She's a strange
one, isn't she, all feisty and aggressive but still pretty at the
same time. I wonder what makes her tick."
Nick zipped up the bag and walked around to the side of the canopy.
"Just finish up with the diving gear tonight. Don't worry about the
rest of the boat - we'll fix it up tomorrow. I'm going to go home
and dream of riches."
"Speaking of riches, Professor," Troy said with a smile, "how about
that hundred-dollar loan I asked you for on Tuesday. You never
answered me and just said we'll see."
Nick walked deliberately over to Troy and stood right in front of
him. He spoke very slowly. "I should have made my Polonius speech
to both of us when you asked me for a loan the first time. But here
we are now, borrower and lender, and I don't like it. I will lend
you a hundred dollars but, Mister Troy Jefferson, this is
positively the last time. Please don't ever ask me again. These
loans for your so-called inventions are making it hard for me to
work with you."
Troy was a little surprised by the unexpected harshness in Nick's
tone. But he was also angered by the connotation of the last
sentence. "Are you suggesting," Troy said softly, suppressing his
temper, "that I'm not telling the truth, that the money is not
being spent on electronics? Or are you telling that you don't
believe an uneducated black man could possibly invent anything
worth having?"
Nick faced Troy again. "Spare me your righteous racial indignation.
This is not a question of prejudice or lies. It's money, pure and
simple. My lending you money is fucking up our friendship." Troy
started to speak but Nick waved him off. "Now it's been a long day.
And a fascinating one at that. I've said all I want to say on the
subject of the loan and I consider the issue finished."
Nick picked up his bag, said good night, and left the Florida
Queen. Troy went behind the canopy to organize the diving gear.
About ten minutes later, just as he was finishing, he heard someone
calling his name. "Troy ... Troy, is that you?" an accented voice
said.
Troy leaned around the canopy and saw Greta standing on the jetty
under the fluorescent light. Even though there was now a slight
chill in the air, she was wearing her usual skimpy bikini that
showed off her marvelous physique. Troy broke into a grand smile,
"Well, well, if it isn't superkraut! How the hell are you? I can
see you're still taking care of that wondrous body."
Greta managed the beginnings of a smile. "Homer and Ellen and I are
having a small party tonight. We noticed that you were working late
and thought that maybe you'd like to join us when you're done."
"Just might do that," Troy said, nodding his head up and down.
"Just might do that."
"OH, God, can't we stop now? Finally? Please let us. It's so quiet
here, now." She was speaking to the stars and the sky. The old
man's head slumped forward in the wheelchair as he drew his last
breath. Hannah Jelkes knelt beside him to see if he was indeed gone
and then, after kissing him on the crown of the head, she looked up
again with a peaceful smile. The curtain fell and rose again in a
few seconds. The cast assembled quickly on stage.
"Okay, that's it for tonight, good job." The director, a man in his
early sixties, gray hair thinning on the top, approached the stage
with a bounce. "Great performance, Henrietta, try to can that one
for the opening tomorrow night. Just the right combination of
strength and vulnerability." Melvin Burton nimbly jumped up on the
stage. "And you, Jessie, if you make Maxine any lustier they'll
close us down." He spun around with a flourish and laughed along
with two other people at the front of the theater.
"Okay, gang," Melvin turned back to address the cast, "now go home
and get lots of rest. It was better tonight, looked good Oh,
Commander, can you and Tiffani stay around for a moment after you
change? I have a couple more pointers for you."
He jumped back down from the stage and walked back to the fourth
row of the theater where his two associates were sitting. One was a
woman, even older than Melvin but with twinkling green eyes behind
her granny glasses. She was wearing a bright print dress full of
spring colors. The other person was a man, about forty, with a
studious face and a warm, open manner. Melvin fretted as he sat
down beside them. "I worried when we picked Night of the Iquana
that it might be too difficult for Key West. It's not as well known
as Streetcar or Glass Menagerie. And in some ways the characters
are just as foreign as those in Suddenly, Last Summer. But it looks
almost okay. If we can just fix the scenes between Shannon and
Charlotte."
"Are you sorry now you added the prologue?" the woman asked. Amanda
Winchester was an institution in Key West. Among other things, she
was the doyenne of the theatrical entrepreneurs in the revitalized
city. She owned two of the new theaters near the marina and had
been responsible for the formation of at least three different
local repertory groups. She loved plays and theater people. And
Melvin Burton was her favorite director.
"No, I'm not, Amanda. It clearly adds to the play to get some kind
of initial feeling for how frustrating it would be to lead a group
of Baptist women on a tour of Mexico in the summer. And without the
sex scene between Charlotte and Shannon in that small, stuffy hotel
room, I'm not sure their affair is believable to the audience." He
paused a moment, reflecting. "Huston did the same thing with the
movie."
"Right now that sex scene doesn't play at all," the other man said.
"In fact it's almost comical. The hugs they exchange are like the
ones my brother gives his daughters."
"Patience, Marc," Melvin answered.
"Something has to be done or we should take the prologue out
altogether," Amanda agreed. "Marc's right, the scene tonight was
almost comical. Part of the problem is that Charlotte looks like a
child in that scene." She paused a moment before continuing. "You
know, the girl has gorgeous long hair and we have it stacked on top
of her head to look prim and proper. Clearly she wouldn't wear it
down all day in the heat of a Mexican summer. But what if she took
it down when she went to Shannon's room?"
"That's a great idea, Amanda. As I have often said, you would have
made a fabulous director." Melvin looked at Marc and they exchanged
a warm smile. Then the director settled back in his seat and
started thinking about what he was going to tell his two cast
members in a few moments.
Melvin Burton was a happy man. He lived with his room-mate of
fifteen years, Marc Adler, in a beach house on Sugarloaf Key, about
ten miles east of Key West. Melvin had directed plays on Broadway
for almost a decade and had been associated with the theater in one
capacity or another since the mid-fifties. Always careful with his
money, Melvin had managed to save an impressive amount by 1979.
Worried about the impact of inflation on his savings, Melvin had
sought advice from an accountant who was a friend of a close
associate. It was almost love at first sight. Marc was twenty-eight
at the time, shy, lonely, unsure of himself in the maelstrom of New
York City. Melvin's savoir faire and theatrical panache opened Marc
up to aspects of life that he had never known.
As the stock market ratcheted upward in the mid-eighties, Melvin
watched his net worth near a million dollars. But other factors in
his life were not so bullish. The AIDS epidemic hit the theatrical
community in New York with a vengeance and both Melvin and Marc
lost many of their lifelong friends. And Melvin's career seemed to
have peaked; he was no longer in demand as one of the premier
directors.
One night on his way home from the theater, Marc was mugged by a
group of teenagers. They beat him up, stole his watch and wallet,
and left him bleeding in the street. As a saddened Melvin
ministered to his friend's wounds, he made a major decision. They
would leave New York. He would sell his stocks and convert his
fortune to fixed income investments. They would buy a home where it
was warm and safe, where they could relax and read and swim
together. Maybe they would do some community theater work if it was
available, but that was not the most important thing. What was
important was that they share Melvin's remaining years.
Melvin ran into Amanda Winchester one day while he and Marc were on
vacation in Key West. They had worked together briefly on a project
that had never panned out twenty years before. Amanda told him that
she had just formed a local amateur repettory group to do two
Tennessee Williams plays a year. Would he be interested in
directing them?
Melvin and Marc moved to Key West and started to build their house
on Sugarloaf Key. Both of them thoroughly enjoyed their work with
the Key West Players. The actors were everyday people, dedicated
and earnest. Some had had a little acting experience. But for the
most part, the secretaries, housewives, and retail clerks, plus
officers and enlisted men from the U.S. Naval Air Station, were all
novices with one thing in common. Each of them viewed his few days
on the stage as his moment of glory, and he wanted to make the best
of it.
Commander Winters came out of the dressing room first. He was
wearing his uniform (he had come right over to rehearsal from the
base) and looked a bit stiff and uncertain. He sat down in one of
the theater chairs next to Amanda Winchester. "I was really glad to
see you back again," said Amanda, taking his hand. "I thought your
Goober last fall was just right."
Winters thanked her politely. Amanda changed the subject. "So how
are things out at the base? I read an article the other day in the
Miami Herald about all the modern weapons the Navy has these days,
pilotless submarines and vertical takeoff fighters and search and
destroy torpedoes. There seems to be no limit to our ability to
build more powerful and dangerous toys for war. Are you involved
with all that?"
"Only in a limited way," Commander Winters answered pleasantly.
Then, anticipating the discussion with the director, he leaned
forward so that he could see Melvin and Marc as well as Amanda. "I
apologize if I was a little flat tonight," he began. "We have a
couple of big problems out at the base and I may have been a bit
distracted, but I'll be ready tomorrow - "
"Oh, no," said Melvin, interrupting him, "that's not what I wanted
to talk to you about. It's your first scene with Tiffani ... Ah,
here she comes. Let's go up on the stage."
Tiffani Thomas was almost seventeen years old and a junior at Key
West High School. A Navy brat all her life, Tiffani had gone to
seven different schools in her eleven years since kindergarten. Her
father was a noncommissioned officer who had been assigned to Key
West about three months before. She had been recommended to Melvin
Burton by the high school drama teacher when it became apparent
that Denise Wright simply could not play the role of Charlotte
Goodall.
"She hasn't done anything for me yet except rehearse," the teacher
had said of Tiffani, "but she learns her lines quickly and has a
quality, an intensity I guess, that sets her apart from the others.
And she's clearly been in plays before. I don't know if she can get
ready in three weeks, but she's my first choice by far."
Tiffani probably would not have been called beautiful by her
Florida classmates. Her features were too much out of the ordinary
to be be properly appreciated by most high school boys. Her assets
were olive eyes, quiet and brooding, light freckles on a pale
complexion, long red eyelashes tinged with brown, and a magnificent
head of thick auburn hair. Her carriage was proper and erect, not
slumped like most teenagers, so she probably seemed aloof to her
peers. "Striking," Amanda called her, accurately, when she first
saw Tiffani.
She was standing on the stage alone in her short-sleeved blouse and
jeans as the two men approached. Her hair was pulled back in a
ponytail the way her father liked it. Tiffani was very nervous. She
was worried about what Mr. Burton was going to say to her. She had
overheard the buyer who was playing Hannah Jelkes say that Melvin
might do away with the part of Charlotte altogether if "the new
girl can't hack it. "I have worked so hard for this part, Tiffani
thought. Oh please, please, don't let it be bad news.
Tiffani was looking down at her feet when Melvin Burton and
Commander Winters joined her on the stage. "Well, now," Melvin
began, "let's get straight to the point. The first scene with you
two in the hotel room is not working. In fact, it's a disaster. We
must make some changes."
Melvin saw that Tiffani was not looking at him. Gently he put his
hand under her chin and lifted it until her eyes met his. "You must
look at me, child, for I'm trying to tell you some very important
things." He noticed that her eyes were brimming with water and his
years of experience told him immediately what was wrong. He leaned
forward and whispered so that nobody else could hear, "I said we
would make some changes, not do away with the scene. Now get
yourself together and listen up."
Burton regained his director's voice and turned toward Winters. "In
this scene, Commander, your character Shannon and young Miss
Goodall engage in foreplay that leads to intercourse later that
night. In the following scene they are discovered, in flagrante
delicto, by the confused Miss Fellowes. And that establishes the
desperate situation causing Shannon to run to Maxine and Fred at
the Costa Verde.
"But our scene does not work right now because nobody watching it
will recognize what you two are doing as foreplay. Now I can change
the movement to make it easier - putting Shannan already on the bed
when he discovers Charlotte behind the door would be one way - and
I can change Charlotte's clothing so that she looks less like a
little girl, but there's one thing that I cannot do ..." Melvin
stopped and looked back and forth from Tiffani to Winters. They
were both staring blankly at him.
"Come here, come here, both of you," Melvin said, gesturing
impatiently with his right hand. He dropped his voice again. He
took Tiffani's hand with his left and Commander Winters' with his
right. "You two are lovers for one night in this play. It is
essential that the audience believe this or they will not
understand completely why Shannon is at the end of his rope, like
the iguana. Shannon is desperate because he was originally locked
out of his church for giving in to the same lust ..."
They were both listening but Melvin's director's intuition told him
he was still not reaching them. He had another idea. He took
Tiffani's hand and put it into the commander's, closing his own
hand over theirs for emphasis. "Look at each other for a moment.
That's right." He turned to Winters. "She's a beautiful young
woman, isn't she, Commander?"
Their eyes were in contact. "And he's a handsome man, isn't he,
Tiffani? I want you to imagine that you have an uncontrollable
desire to touch him, to kiss him, to be naked with him." Tiffani
blushed. Winters fidgeted. Melvin was fairly certain that he saw a
spark, albeit a fleeting one.
"Now tomorrow night," he continued, looking at Tiffani and taking
his hand off theirs, "I want you to capture that feeling when
you're hiding in his room. I want it to explode out of you when he
notices that you are there. And you, Commander," he looked back at
the middle-aged naval officer, "you are torn between an
overpowering passion to possess this young girl physically and the
almost certain knowledge that it will be the final ruination of
both your life and your soul. You are hopelessly trapped. Remember,
you fear that God has already forsaken you for your past sins. But,
despite that, you finally relinquish yourself to your lust and
commit another unpardonable sin."
Tiffani and Commander Winters both realized at virtually the same
time that their hands were still intertwined. They looked at each
other for a moment and then, embarrassed, awkwardly separated them.
Melvin Burton slipped between his players and put his arms around
their shoulders. "So go on home now and think about what I've said.
And come back tomorrow and really break a leg."
Vernon Winters drove the Pontiac into his driveway in suburban Key
West just before eleven o'clock. The house was quiet, the only
lights were in the garage and the kitchen. As regular as the stars,
Vernon thought, Hap to bed at ten, Betty to bed at ten-thirty. In
his mind's eye he saw his wife go into his son's bedroom, as she
did every night, and fiddle momentarily with his sheets and
coverlet. "Did you say your prayers?"
"Yes, ma'am," Hap always answered.
Then she would kiss him good night on the forehead, turn out his
light as she left the room, and go into her bedroom. Within ten
minutes she would have changed into her pajamas, brushed her teeth,
and washed her face. She would then kneel beside her bed, her
elbows on the top of the blanket and her hands clasped right in
front of her face. "Dear God," she would say aloud, and then she
would pray until exactly ten-thirty, moving her lips silently with
her eyes closed. Five minutes later she would be asleep.
Vernon was aware of a vague disquiet as he walked through the
living room toward the three bedrooms on the opposite side of the
house from the garage. There was something stirring in him,
something that he could not identify exactly, but he assumed it was
associated with either the nervousness of opening night or the
sudden return of Randy Hilliard to his life. He wanted to talk to
someone.
He stopped at Hap's bedroom first Commander Winters walked in
quietly in the dark and sat on the side of his son's bed. Hap was
fast asleep, lying on his side. A tiny nightlight beside his bed
illuminated his profile. How like your mother you look, Winters
thought. And act. You two are so close. I'm almost a trespasser in
my own home. He put his hand gently against Hap's cheek. The boy
did not stir. How can I make up for all the time I was gone?
Winters gently nudged his son awake. "Hap," he said softly, "it's
your dad." Henry Allen Pendleton Winters rubbed his eyes and then
sat up quickly in bed. "Yes, sir," he said, "is anything wrong? Is
Mom all right?"
"No," his father answered, and then laughed. "I mean yes. Mom's all
right. Nothing's wrong. I just wanted to talk."
Hap looked at the clock beside his bed. "Ummm, well, okay, Dad.
What do you want to talk about?"
Winters was quiet for a moment. "Hap, did you ever read the copy of
the script that I got for you and your mother, the one from my
play?"
"No, sir. Not much," Hap replied. "I'm sorry, but I just couldn't
get into it. I think maybe it's above my head." He brightened. "But
I'm looking forward to seeing you in it tomorrow night." There was
a long pause. "Umm, what's it about anyway?"
Winters stood up and looked out the open window. Beyond the screen
he could hear the gentle susurration of the crickets. "It's about a
man who loses his place with God because he can't or won't control
his actions. It's about ..." Winters turned his head around quick1y
and caught his son eyeing the clock. A sharp emotional pain raced
through him. He waited until it had abated and then drew a breath.
"Well, we can talk about it some other time, son. I just realized
how late it is."
He walked to the door. "Good night, Hap," he said.
"Good night, sir."
Vernon Winters walked past his wife's room to the third bedroom at
the end of the hall. He undressed slowly, now even more aware than
before of an unfulfilled longing. He thought for a fleeting second
about waking Betty up to talk and maybe ... But he knew better.
That's not her style, he said to himself, never was. Even before
when we slept together. And after Libya and the dreams and tears at
night who could blame her for wanting her own bedroom.
He slipped into his bed in his undershorts. The soothing melody of
the crickets enveloped him. And besides. She has her God and I have
my despair. There is nothing left between us except Hap. We couple
as strangers. both fearing any discovery.
"THE communication room will close in five minutes. The
communication room will close in five minutes." The disembodied,
recorded voice sounded tired. Carol Dawson was weary herself. She
was talking to Dale Michaels on the videophone. Photographs were
strewn all over the desk underneath the screen and the video
camera.
"All right," Carol was saying, "I guess I agree with you. The only
possible way for me to decipher this puzzle is to bring all the
photos and the telescope recording unit back to Miami. "She sighed
and then yawned. "I'll come up there first thing in the morning, on
the flight that arrives at seven-thirty, so that IPL can get an
early shot at the recorded data. But remember, I must be back here
in time to pick up the golden trident at four. Can the lab process
all the data in a couple of hours?"
"That's not the hard part. Trying to analyze the data and piece
together a coherent story in an hour or two will be the tough job.
"Dr. Dale was sitting on the couch in the living room of his
spacious condominium in Key Biscayne. In front of him, on the
coffee table, was a magnificent jade chess board with green and
white squares. Six carved chess pieces were still on the board, the
two opposing queens and four pawns, two from each side. Dale
Michaels paused and looked meaningfully at the camera. "I know how
important this is to you. I've cancelled my eleven o'clock meeting
so I can help you."
"Thanks," Carol said automatically. She felt a trickle of
irritation. Why is it, she thought while Dale talked about one of
his new projects at MOI, that men always demand gratitude for every
little sacrifice? If a woman changes her schedule to accommodate a
man, it's expected. But if a man revises his precious schedule it's
a big fucking deal.
Dale droned on. Now he was enthusiastically telling her about a new
Institute effort to survey the underwater volcanoes around Papua,
New Guinea. Whew, Carol smiled to herself when she realized that
Dale's self-centered focus was bothering her, I must really be
beat. I believe I'm on the verge of being bitchy.
"Hey," Carol interrupted him. She stood up and started to pick up
the scattered photographs. "Sorry to bring a halt to this party,
but they're closing the room and I'm exhausted. I'll see you in the
morning."
"Aren't you going to make a move?" Dale replied, pointing at the
chess board.
"No, I'm not," Carol said, showing just a trace of anger. "And I
may not ever. Any reasonable player would have accepted the draw
that I offered you last weekend and gone on to more important
things. Your damn ego just can't deal with the idea that one game
out of five I can battle you to a tie."
"People have been known to make mistakes in the end-game," Dale
answered, avoiding altogether the emotional content in her remark.
"But I know you're tired. I'll meet you at the airport and take you
to breakfast."
"Okay. Good night." Carol hung up the videophone a little brusquely
and packed all the photographs in her briefcase. As soon as she had
left the marina, she had taken her camera and film straight to the
darkroom at the Key West Independent, where she had spent an hour
developing and studying the prints. The results were intriguing,
particularly a couple of the blowups. In one of them she could
clearly see four separate tracks converging to a spot just under
the fissure. In another photo the bodies of the three whales were
caught in a pose that looked as if they were in the middle of a
deep conversation.
Carol walked through the spacious lobby in the Marriott Hotel. The
piano bar was almost deserted. The lithe black pianist was playing
an old Karen Carpenter song, "Good-bye to Love. " A handsome man in
his late thirties or early forties was kissing a Rashy young blonde
in a nook off to the right. Carol bridled. The bimbo must be all of
twenty-three, she said to herself, probably his secretary or
something equally important.
As she wound her way down the long corridor toward her room, Carol
thought about her conversation with Dale. He had told her that the
Navy had small robot vehicles, some of them derived from original
MOI designs, that could easily have made the tracks. So it was
virtually certain that the Russians had similar vehicles. He had
dismissed the whales' behavior as irrelevant but had thought that
her failure to find out if anything else was under the overhang had
been a serious mistake. Of course, Carol had realized when he had
said it, I should have spent another minute looking. Nuts. I hope I
didn't blow it. In her mind's eye she then had carefully revisited
the entire scenario at the overhang to see if there were any clues
that something else may have been hidden there.
The biggest surprise in the discussion with Dale had come when
Carol, in passing, had praised the way the new alarm algorithm had
worked. Dale suddenly had become very interested. "So the alert
code definitely read 101?" he had said.
"Yes," she had answered, "that's why I wasn't that astonished when
we found the object."
"No way," he had said emphatically. "The trident could not have
caused the alert code. Even if it was at the edge of the field of
view of the telescope, and that seems unlikely given how far you
followed the trench, it's too small to trigger the foreign object
alarm. And how could it have been seen under the overhang anyway?"
Dale had paused for a few seconds. "You didn't look at any of the
infrared images in realtime, did you? Well, we can process them
tomorrow and see if we can figure out what triggered the
alarm."
Carol felt strangely defeated as she opened the door to her motel
room. It's just fatigue, she said to herself, not wanting to admit
that her conversation with Dale had made her feel inadequate. She
put her briefcase on a chair and walked wearily to the bathroom to
wash her face. Two minutes later she was asleep on the bed in her
underclothes. Her slacks, blouse, shoes, and socks were all stacked
together in the corner.
She is a little girl again in her dream, wearing the
blue-and-yellow striped dress that her parents gave her for her
seventh birthday. Carol is walking around with her father in the
Northridge Mall on a busy Saturday morning. They pass a large candy
store. She lets go of his hand and runs into the store and stares
through the glass case at all the chocolates. Carol points at some
milk chocolate turtles when the big man behind the display case
asks her what she wants.
In the dream Carol cannot reach the counter and doesn't have any
money "Where is your mother, little girl?" the candy store man
asks. Carol shakes her head and the man repeats the question. She
stands on her tiptoes and tells the man in a confidential whisper
that her mother drinks too much, but that her father always buys
her candy.
The man smiles, but he still won't give her the chocolates. "And
where is your father, little girl?" the candy store man now asks.
In the case Carol can see the reflection of a kindly, smiling man
standing behind her, framed between two piles of chocolates. She
wheels around, expecting to see her father. But the man behind her
is not her father. This man's face is grotesque, disfigured.
Frightened, she turns back around to the chocolates. The man in the
store is now taking the candy away. It is closing time. Carol
starts to cry.
"Where is your father, little girl? Where is your father?" The
little girl in the dream is sobbing. She is surrounded by big
people, all of them asking questions. She puts her hands over her
ears.
"He's gone," Carol finally shouts. "He's gone. He left us and went
away and now I'm all alone."
AGAINST the deep black background of scattered stars the filaments
of the Milky Way Galaxy seem like thin wisps of light added by a
master artist. Here, at the far edge of the Outer Shell, near the
beginning of what the Colonists call the Gap, there is no
suggestion of the teeming activity of the Colony, some twenty-four
light millicycles away. An awesome, unbroken quiet is the
background for the breathtaking beauty of a black sky studded with
twinkling stars.
Suddenly out of the void comes a small interstellar messenger
robot. It seeks and finally finds a dark spherical satellite about
three miles in diameter that is easily overlooked in the great
panorama of the celestial sky. Time passes. A close-up reveals
activity on the satellite. Soft artificial lights now illuminate
portions of the surface. Automated vehicles are working on the
periphery of the object, apparently changing its shape. External
structures are dismantled and taken off to a temporary storage area
in the distance. At length the original satellite disappears
altogether and what is left are two long parallel rails of metal
alloy, built in sections of about two hundred yards apiece from the
spare parts of the now vanished satellite. Each rail is ten yards
across and separated from its matched partner by about a hundred
yards.
Regular sorties to the storage area continue until the useful
supplies of material are depleted and the tracks extend for a
distance of almost ten miles. Then activity stops. The rails from
nowhere to nowhere in space stand as mute reminders of some major
engineering activity suddenly abandoned. Or was it? From just below
a prominent binary pair, the two brightest lights in the eastern
sky, a speck emerges. The speck grows until it dominates the
eastern quadrant of the sky. A dozen, no, sixteen great
interstellar cargo ships with bright, flashing red lights lead a
procession of robot vehicles into the region. The ghostly rails to
nowhere are surrounded by the new arrivals. The first cargo ship
opens and eight small shuttles emerge, each one moving back down
the line toward another of the great cargo containers. The shuttles
wait silently outside the huge ships while the entourage completes
its arrival.
The final vehicle to arrive is a tiny space tug pulling a long,
slender object that looks like two folded Japanese fans joined
together end to end. It is encased in a transparent and protective
sheath of very thin material. Eight small, darting vehicles dance
like hummingbirds along its entire length, as if they were somehow
guiding it, guarding it, and checking out its health all at the
same time.
The large cargo ships shaped like ancient blimps now open and
reveal their contents. Most of them are carrying rail sections
stacked in enormous piles. The small shuttles unload the sections,
leaving them stacked, and set them in groups stretching for miles
in both directions from the existing rails. When the rail sections
are almost all unloaded, four of the shuttles approach the side of
one of the remaining giant cargo ships and wait for the bay doors
to swing open. From the inside of this cargo ship come eight
machines that attack each of the four shuttles in pairs, breaking
them carefully into pieces and taking the parts back into the dark
of the cargo bay. A few moments later, an elongated complex of
articulating machinery emerges from this great ship. Once released
from the confines of the cargo carrier, it stretches itself into a
long bench reaching almost a mile in length. Every hundred yards or
so along the central platform of this bench, a smaller set of
coordinated components form into highly organized local groups.
This is the automated, multipurpose construction system, one of the
technological treasures of the Colonists. The entire system moves
into place at the end of the tracks and its many remote
manipulators begin to pull rail sections from the various stacks.
Its sophisticated local hands and fingers deftly put the new
sections in place and attach them with atomic welds. The speed is
astonishing. An entire mile of new track is finished within minutes
and the great builder moves to another group of rail section piles.
The completed tracks extend for almost a hundred miles in
space.
Having finished with one task, the construction system undergoes
its next metamorphosis. Tearing itself into pieces starting from
the two ends of the long bench, the monolithic structure disappears
and is reorganized into thousands of separate but similar
components. These little antlike contraptions attach themselves in
groups to individual rail sections. They measure carefully all the
dimensions and check all the welds between adjacent sections. Then,
as if on cue, the rails on the four ends of the track segments
begin to bend and elevate, lifted by the antlike components. The
rails twist upward, upward, bringing the rest of the track with
them. The two long parallel lines are eventually transformed into a
giant double hoop, over ten miles in radius, that looks like an
amusement park ferris wheel suspended in space.
With the completion of the double hoop, the construction system
again reconfigures itself. Some of the new elements of the system
pick up the long slender object shaped like end-to-end Japanese
fans. They erect it near the hoop (it is, not surprisingly, almost
the exact length as the diameter of the hoops) under the careful
surveillance of its hummingbird protectors. Then the object is
hoist into place as a north-south spoke in the double hoop
structure. Some of the hummingbirds produce unseen thin cables and
anchor the spoke to the hoop structure at both ends. The rest of
the tiny mechanical speedsters create a web that winds around the
center section and connects the great antenna with the east-west
axis of the hoops.
The antenna, now connected to its supporting structure, opens
slowly at both the north and south pole positions on the hoop.
Closer inspection reveals that the hummingbirds are actually
pulling the delicate individual folds apart. The folds spread out
until the entire interior of the hoops is covered with a mixture of
mesh, ribbing, and amazingly complex local arrays. The initial
deployment is complete.
The communication complex next goes through an elaborate self-test
while its construction minions stand by in case any problems are
encountered. The tests are successful and the station is declared
operational. Within hours the phalanx of robot emissaries from the
inhabited universe picks up all the stray metal lying around and
packs it into one of the large cargo ships. Then, as swiftly as
they came, the robot vehicles disappear into the blackness around
the station, leaving the imposing hoop structure alone as a
reminder of the presence of intelligence in the universe.
Around the vast Outer Shell, whose two hundred and fifty-six
sections each contain more volume than the Colony, over one
thousand similar upgrades have been made during Cycle 446 in an
attempt to extend advanced communications capabilities to new
locales. This is the last upgrade of a very difficult group in a
region near the Gap. This group was delayed several times because
of an unacceptably high number of manufacturing deficiencies at the
nearest major factory over two light millicycles away. After
several attempts to diagnose and repair the problems, eventually
the plant had to be closed and virtually rebuilt from scratch. The
total delay to the completion of the project was fourteen
millicycles, just about what the Council of Engineers had predicted
in their worst-case analysis that accompanied the Cycle 446
Proclamation.
* * * * *
As the big moment approaches, all normal activity in the heart of
the Colony ceases. In the last nanocycle, there is no business
activity, no entertainment. The spaceports are even empty. At
precisely 446.9, after two hundred millicycles of debate and
discussion by the Council of Leaders, the governmental blueprint
for the next era will be delivered and all intelligence in the
Colony will be listening.
The giant transmitter is activated on schedule and the Cycle 447
Proclamation pours out at an information rate of a hundred trillion
bits of information per picocycle. The actual data rate from the
powerful source is much higher, but the information rate is reduced
to accommodate requirements for both sophisticated encoding and
error checks internal to the data. With the coding, only Colony
receivers equipped with special decryption algorithms can
unscramble the message at any level. And the internal consistency
checks on each packet of data in the transmission reduce the
probability of receiving an erroneous piece of information, even at
an enormous distance, to practically zero.
Following the organization and agenda for The Proclamation
established in the Era of Genius, between Cycles 371 and 406, the
first microcycle of the transmission is a complete summary of the
entire plan. Two hundred nanocycles of this summary are devoted to
each of the five divisions governed by the Council of Leaders:
administration, information, communication, transportation, and
exploration. After a planned break of four hundred nanocycles, to
allow receiver adjustments along the path of the signal, the
transmission of the actual Cycle 447 Proclamation begins. On and on
it goes. It does not stop until twenty microcycles later. Four
complete microcycles are used for in-depth explanations of the
major projects to be undertaken in each of the five disciplines. Of
particular interest to the Committee for the Outer Shell, the group
that governs the huge concentric region defining the most distant
reach where the Colonists claim jurisdiction, is a plan from the
Division of Exploration announcing the repatriation to the Outer
Shell of almost a million species from Zoo System #3.
(The transmission of The Proclamation, a wealth of information that
can be translated into language, pictures, sounds, and other
sensory impressions depending on the receiving beings and the
sophistication of their decryption equipment, is the beginning of
the governmental process for each cycle. Based upon The
Proclamation, regional bodies or administrative agencies with
subordinate jurisdictions then adjust their plans for the cycle to
be consistent with those announced by the Council of Leaders. This
procedure is defined in detail in the Articles of Colonial
Confederation.)
The Proclamation is relayed throughout the Colony and the near
reaches of the Inner Shell by means of giant communication stations
along the developed transportation routes. These stations, actually
information centers that store all Colony messages in their
extensive libraries for as long as a hundred cycles, amplify and
retransmit the signal to the next station in the pattern some ten
light microcycles away. The edge of the Colony (and hence the
beginning of the Inner Shell) was expanded by the Boundary Decree
in the Cycle 416 Proclamation to include all points up to three
light millicycles from the administrative center. Thus, by the time
the Proclamation reaches the mammoth Zoo Complex, a combination of
three stars and nineteen planets (four of them artificial) just
across the edge of the Colony, the message has been relayed through
three hundred stations.
The Committee of Zookeepers eagerly awaits the proclamation to find
out the response to their recommended expansion of the Zoo Complex.
They are surprised to find their proposal replaced by another
repatriation plan. Once before, in Cycle 429, they had proposed an
expansion of the zoo to handle the explosion of successful progeny
created by the breakthroughs in adaptive genetic engineering during
Cycles 426-428. At that time also their request had been denied and
the Council of Leaders had recommended repatriation to solve the
population problem. During Cycles 430-436 the population of the Zoo
Complex was kept approximately constant by these regular transfers
of common species back to their original homes
But starting with Cycle 437, there was a rapid increase in interest
in comparative biology. It was triggered by the discovery of a
fifth class of life form, called Type E by the Council of
Biologists, in Section 28 of the Outer Shell. Subsequent
expeditions to the same area showed not only that the dominant life
type throughout Sections 28-33 was Type E. but also that Type A was
surprisingly present as well in those sections. This was the first
time that natural evolution in any region had shown a predilection
for any kind of life form other than the Type A of the Colonists
and its developed hybrids. The quest to understand these unusual
creatures led to the endangered species expeditions in the Outer
Shell in Cycles 440 and 441 and the creation, in Cycle 442, of
several worlds specifically to study the new Type E life forms.
Many of these new species flourished in Zoo System #3, causing
population and space problems again for the Committee of
Zookeepers. The space shortage was especially severe and it was
exacerbated both by the need to segregate all the Type E life forms
and by their rapid reproduction. Therefore, at the beginning of the
planning process for this Cycle 447, the Committee of Zookeepers
had proposed their small expansion of the Zoo Complex, suggesting
not only a fourth zoo system completely dedicated to Type E life
forms, but also a vigorous campaign for completing the repatriation
of all Colony and Inner Shell species with aggression coefficients
below 14.
The Committee of Zookeepers are stunned by the scale of the Outer
Shell repatriation plan contained in the Cycle 447 Proclamation. In
a lively technical discussion catalyzed by the unexpected proposal,
the dangers of returning the Outer Shell life forms to their
original planets are vigorously reasserted. The Committee decides
tentatively to take an unusual step-to submit a Proclamation
Variance to the Council of Leaders. In the draft variance the
Zookeepers point out that many genetic experiments have been
conducted with the new Type E forms, that the evolutionary
possibilities for the new species are therefore uncertain, that the
monitoring frequencies and test facilities in the Outer Shell are
inadequate, and that the aggression coefficients for many of the
group are not yet accurately tabulated
Before they actually submit the variance, however, the Committee of
Zookeepers realizes that someone must have pointed out all these
factors in the original debates. So why was the repatriation policy
promulgated? Was this part of some new overarching design that
downgrades the importance of zoological information altogether? Or
is the policy strictly political and possibly connected with the
Message from Power #2?
IN keeping with the laws of the Colony governing the dissemination
and preservation of important historical information, the official
commentary of key Council-level organizations accompanies the
transmission of the Cycle 447 Proclamation. Of particular interest
to those involved in the Outer Shell repatriation project are the
following excerpts from the report of the Council of Engineers:
... The earliest repatriation to the Inner Shell was done on almost
an ad hoc basis, simply transporting the life forms, en masse, to
their original region or another of similar environment in a nearby
sector. This was accomplished by conducting a roundup of the
tranquilized creatures at their zoo habitats, loading them into
huge cargo vessels maintaining internal conditions equivalent to
the habitat, and then dispersing them at their new home. This
process worked adequately for small transfers over short distances.
It was also cheap. However, it had many severe deficiencies that
rendered it almost useless for sustained operations.
First and foremost, the ontogenetic development of the creatures
was completely interrupted by the repatriation procedure. They were
frightened by their removal, disturbed by their necessarily reduced
locus of movement during transit, and, once situated in their new
locales, bothered by even minute differences from their earlier
homes. Their memories, even if electronically cleansed, retained an
intense sense of 1098 that undermined their adjustment. All these
conditions taken together led to a marked phylogenetic increase in
aggression coefficient, across the board, that did not
significantly damp in some of the species for ten to fifteen
generations... .
... From the point of view of spacecraft design, both the size and
distance of the proposed transfers precluded using mature specimens
long before the biological and developmental problems were
thoroughly understood. When the Cycle 432 Proclamation called for
increased repatriation within the Colony and the Inner Shell, there
was some panic at the Council of Engineers because it was thought
that transportation vehicles on a near planetary scale might be
required. Fortunately, the Committees on Biological Engineering and
Advanced Robotics proposed that future transfers be accomplished
using suspended zygotes together with new versions of the
superintelligent robots serving as zoo monitors.
After a few early problems with the zygote technique, It was more
or less perfected, at least for the Types A and B life forms 90
prevalent in the Colony. Repatriation success ratios for the last
ten cycles are very high, even for the more difficult types C and
D. However, such success ratios should not be expected in the
implementation of the Cycle 447 Proclamation. Not only are some of
the target life forms the newest and least understood in the Zoo
Complex, but also they will be repatriated, in many cases, to a
distant, poorly documented biological environment where monitoring
is as infrequent as every three or four hundred millicycles. Some
of the more advanced Type E forms have amazingly short life spans
for lntelligence, as little as five or six millicycles, which means
that fifty to a hundred generations may elapse between progress
checks... .
... But all in all it is a magnificent challenge for engineering.
Many transfer vehicles will fly well outside the standard
transportation infrastructure and therefore must be able to forage
raw materials on their own. Conditions at the target worlds may
have changed, so adaptability and the processing of new information
will play a critical role in the design. The electronic components
will have more failures due to the long flight times, meaning that
extraordinary fault correction systems must be developed and
tested... .
And from the Council of Historians:
It is useful to begin our mostly negative comment on the Outer
Shell repatriation plan by reminding all Colonists that our Council
includes the longest continuously active intelligence pool of any
Council In the Directory. Two of our groups have direct memories of
the Era of Genius through many generations of biological refresh.
Thus it is natural that our approach to any proposed project is to
assess its merit in terms of its role in the overall evolution
and/or strategy of our society. It is not our desire to dampen the
youthful zeal that thrills at the acquisition of new knowledge or
the prospect of great adventure; rather, we would like to place a
sense of perspective on all Colony endeavors and measure the future
impact of any perceived changes in basic policy... .
... The proposed repatriation scheme is still another step in the
dangerous folly of unbridled frontierism that began, in our
opinion, with the Boundary Decree of Cycle 416. Instead of
discussing the details of the proposed plan without reference to
its historical context (there are excellent descriptions of the
elements of the plan in the report by the Council of Engineers -
some of the significant short-term risks are listed in the report
by the Council of Biologists), we wish to delineate its dangers by
including it in our broad indictment of the entire genus of
adventures spawned by the Boundary Decree... .
... The justifications advanced for frontierism always sound good
on the surface. Its proponents point out that societal change is
produced by new information outside the ordinary sweep of events,
that frontierism is essentially aimed at producing this kind of new
knowledge, and that the resulting change in perspective that comes
from a 'new view of the universe' forces the proper and regular
reassessment of our culture.
History is usually in general agreement with the advocates of
frontierism and that is doubtless why this repatriation proposal
and similar other previous exploration activities have been so
enthusiastically supported. However, there are limitations to the
benefits redounding from new information, especially when frontier
investigations reveal knowledge that is either inimical to the
fundamental structure of the society or beyond the comprehension of
the most learned groups. In these cases the diffusion through the
society of the new information is unsettling, instead of being
enriching and uplifting, and actually undermines the security of
the established institutions.
A perfect example of what happens when frontierism is embraced
without constraint can be seen in the events of the last thirty
cycles that led to the receipt of the message from Power #2 in the
middle of Cycle 444. The Boundary Decree initiated the process by
establishing, in effect, a new Jurisdictional domain for the
Colonists. The old central Colony had no rigorous boundary.
Significant development extended out to only two light millicycles
distance from the administrative center. The outermost permanently
maintained station was at that time a mere ten light millicycles
away. The Decree of Cycle 416 regularized the nearby universe,
creating four concentric worlds and expanding the central Colony
itself to a radius of three light millicycles. Three specific
Shells were also created, with the Outer Shell defined to be the
entire region between twelve and twenty-four light millicycles away
from the administrative center.
This Outer Shell contained fifty thousand unexplored star systems
in a volume a thousand times greater than that of the old central
Colony. During the period between Cycles 425 and 430, almost half
of the major initiatives identified in the cyclical proclamations
were involved, in one way or another, with the exploration of the
Outer Shell. (It should be pointed out that during those five
cycles there was also documented speculation that such a rapid
expansion in our knowledge base might have unforeseen
ramifications, but the negativists, as they were called, were
drowned out by the collective fascination with the exploratory
binge.) men, in Cycle 433, our new class of interstellar drones,
specifically designed to study and categorize the many worlds of
the Outer Shell, encountered a large, quiescent spacecraft of
unknown origin. Careful in situ investigations were unsuccsssful in
their attempts to correlate the engineering components of the
spaceship with any known technological base for a spacefaring
species.
Eschewing the caution suggested by many of the Committees, the
Council of Leaders had the enigmatic spaceship towed back to one of
the developed cities of the Inner Shell. There it was placed on
display and analyzed in detail. The initial conclusion of the
drones was validated. The spacecraft had not come from anywhere
inside the domain of the Colony. The Council of Engineers concluded
that the technological capabillty of this builders was roughly
equivalent to that of the Colonists in the early Era of Genius. But
when had it been made? And where did it come from? And most
importantly, who had made it?
By deciding to bring the dead spaceship back to civilization, the
Council of Leaders basically guaranteed that the unsettling
question of its origin would remain uppermost in the minds of the
Colonists. This unbridled quest for any and all information again
worked to destabilize the culture. The entire society was rife with
rumored explanations to the unanswered and disquieting questions
raised by the spaceship. The dominant opinion was that the craft
had been a Colonial prototype, never put into production, that had
somehow been omitted from the official Encyclopedia of Space
Vehicles. This opinion was consistent with the general tendency of
the Colonists to believe they were innately superior to all other
life forms.
It might have been possible to let the doubts and fears about the
unknown spacecraft diminish to nothing, but the Council of Leaders
resuscitated the collective anxieties by announcing, in the Cycle
434 Proclamation, that the largest new project of the Colony would
be the design and eventual deployment of a new generation of
receiver arrays in the Outer Shell. The purpose of these arrays
would be to intercept and decode any coherent radio messages that
might be emanating from inside the Gap. It was a clear indication
that the leadership believed the silent spaceship to be of
extracolonial origin.
In Cycles 435 and 436 wave after wave of disturbing information
staggered the Colony. First there was the premature announcement
that many extracolonial messages had been decoded. This disclosure
supported the widespread rumor of multiple Powers in the galaxy,
some of them far more evolved than the Colony. This frightening
concept lingered for half a cycle before the Council of
Astronomers, responding to these proliferating half-truths, finally
announced that all but a handful of the messages could be ascribed
to a single power, Power #2, whose center of activity appeared to
be about two hundred light millicycles away. Shortly thereafter
their next astonishing announcement unambiguously identified Power
#2 transmissions coming from sources as far as one hundred and
fifty light millicycles apart, or more than three times the
diameter across the entire Colony Jurisdiction!
Between Cycle 438 and the receipt of the message, the Council of
Leaders ignored advice that the Colony should carefully husband its
resources while analyzing the impact of the discovery of the
strange spaceship. Crash programs were instituted in advanced
encryption, it is true, primarily to allay concerns that Power #2
might be monitoring all our transmissions. This action was widely
hailed as a step in the right direction. However, at the same time
the exploration of the Outer Shell was intensified, leading to the
identification of the new Type E life forms and the subsequent,
thinly disguised endangered species roundup. All suggestions to
retrench and slow down the exploration program were ignored. In
Cycle 442, in fact, the Zoo Complex created several artificial
planets just for the conduct of genetic capabilities experiments
with the Type E species.
Then came the Message from Power #2. So simple, so straightforward,
so terrifying. It was coded in our most advanced encryption
algorithm. It acknowledged our mutual awareness of one another and
suggested opening up bilateral communications. Nothing else. End of
Message... .
... It is not fear of hostility from Power #2 that motivates our
objection to continued exploration in the Outer Shell. On the
contrary. We as historians think the nascent concern about the
possible aggressiveness of Power #2 is unfounded. Study after study
has shown that there is a significant positive correlation between
high aggression coefficient and inability to evolve into a society
with a purview greater than a single solar system. In fact, the
probability that a society as advanced as ours could have retained
aggression and territoriality as constituents in its overall
psychological makeup is vanishingly small.
Nevertheless, such monumental events as the receipt of the message
from Power #2 call for reflection and synthesis, not additional
exploratory activities. We should be using our resources to study
and understand the entire range of impacts that the message will
have on our society, not squandering them on bold repatriation
schemes. It is a question of priorities and once again the
advocates of frontierism, exalting new information and
technological development over the stability of the society, are
blind to the downside risks of their endeavors... .
NICK Williams woke up at five o'clock in the morning and could not
go back to sleep. His mind was too active, racing over and over the
events of the day before and the possible outcomes of the day
ahead. The same phenomenon had occurred often when he was in high
school in Virginia and then a few times later, at Harvard, usually
just before big swimming meets. If he had too much excitement
running through his system, his brain would not turn off enough to
let him sleep.
He lay in bed for almost another hour, alternately trying to coax
himself back to sleep and indulging his fantasy that what he had
found the day before was just the first item in a vast cache of
valuable treasure. Nick loved to fantasize. It was always easy for
him to see, in his mind's eye, all the scenes in the novels that he
loved so much to read. Now for a moment he imagined headlines in
the Miami Herald announcing his discovery of a hoard of sunken gold
off the coast of Key West.
Around six o'clock Nick gave up trying to sleep and climbed out of
bed. The little exercise bag was next to the dresser. He pulled the
golden trident out to look at it, as he had done four or five times
the night before. What was this thing? he asked himself. It must
have had some practical use for it's too damn ugly to be
ornamental. He shook his head. Amanda will know. If anyone can tell
me where this thing came from, she can.
Nick walked across his bedroom to the sliding glass doors and
opened the curtains. It was almost sunrise. Beyond the small
balcony outside he could see the beach and the ocean. His
condominium was on the third floor and had an unspoiled view of the
quiet surf. Above the water a couple of brown pelicans soared in
graceful formation, waiting for a chance to descend into the water
and catch some unsuspecting fish swimming too close to the surface.
Nick watched a couple in their seventies walking slowly along the
beach. They were holding hands and talking quietly; a couple of
times the woman broke away to pick up a shell or two and put it in
a small Ziploc bag.
Nick turned away from the door and grabbed the jeans that he had
dropped on the floor the night before. He pulled them on over his
undershorts and walked into the living room carrying the bag with
the trident. He put the golden object carefully on the table where
he could study it, and then went back into the open kitchen to
start the coffee maker and turn on the radio.
Except for the books, Nick's living room was decorated just like
hundreds of Florida seaside condominiums. The couch and easy chair
were comfortable and bright, cream in color with a couple of light
green ferns in the pattern for decoration. Two small paintings of
water birds standing on an empty beach adorned the otherwise empty
walls. Light beige drapes that matched the carpet framed the long
sliding glass doors that led to the balcony with the rattan patio
furniture.
It was the books that gave the apartment some individuality. Along
the wall opposite the couch, between the living room and the
bedroom, was the large wood bookcase. It stretched almost all the
way from the sliding glass doors in front of the balcony to the
bedroom door. Although the general appearance of the apartment was
one of disarray (newspapers and sports magazines strewn about here
and there on the coffee table, clothes and towels on the floor in
the bedroom and the bathroom, dirty dishes in the sink, the
dishwasher standing open half full of dishes), the bookcase area
was clearly well maintained. Altogether there must have been four
or five hundred books on the four shelves of the long bookcase, all
paperbacks, virtually all novels, and all carefully filed according
to category.
In front of each group of books, Scotch-taped to the outside of the
bookshelf, was a sheet of paper identifying the category. Nick had
finished A Fan's Notes on the boat on Thursday and had already put
it back in its proper place on the shelf (in the category of
"American, 20th Century, A-G") right next to a dozen or more books
by William Faulkner. He had then selected for his bedtime reading a
nineteenth-century French novel, Madame Bovary, by Gustave
Flaubert. Nick had read the book once before, during his sophomore
year at Harvard, and had not thought that much about it. However,
he had been recently surprised to find the book on several lists of
the ten finest novels of all time, ranking right up there with such
masterpieces as Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky. Hmm. Perhaps I
missed something the first time, he had told himself the previous
night before deciding to read it again.
But Nick had not been able to focus on the magnificently detailed
descriptions of life in provincial France a hundred and fifty years
earlier. As he had followed the story of the lovely Emma Bovary, a
woman for whom the stultifying sameness of her life was cause
enough to have affairs that would eventually scandalize her
village, the excitement of Nick's own life, for once, kept
intruding. He was unable to suspend himself in the novel. His mind
kept returning to the possibilities offered by the golden object in
the exercise bag.
Nick turned the object over and over in his hands while he drank
his morning coffee. Then he had an idea. He walked back to the
second bedroom, just opposite the kitchen and next to the laundry
room, and opened the closet door. Nick used most of this closet as
a storage area. In the corner of the closet were four huge
cardboard boxes of junk that he had brought with him when he had
bought the condominium seven years earlier. He had never opened
them even once in the intervening time. But he did remember that in
one of those boxes were a bunch of photographs of the objects they
had brought up from the Santa Rosa. Maybe if I look at those
pictures, he thought to himself as he struggled to find the right
container in the dimly lit closet, I will see something that looks
like that thing.
He finally located the correct box and dragged it out into the
middle of the living room. At one time its contents might have been
well organized, for there were manila folders with filing labels
inside. But almost all of the papers and photos and newspaper
clippings had fallen out of their original places and were now
scattered around the box in a loose jumble. Nick reached in and
pulled out a clipping from the Miami Herald. It was yellow from age
and had been crammed down into one of the corners. Five people,
including Nick, were featured in a big photograph on the front
page.
Nick stopped for a moment and looked at the photo and the caption.
Has it really been that long? he wondered, Almost eight years since
we found the Santa Rosa. The caption identified the five
individuals in the photograph as the crew of the Neptune, a dive
and salvage boat that had found an old Spanish ship named the Santa
Rosa sunk in the Gulf of Mexico about fifteen miles north of the
Dry Tortugas. Gold and silver objects worth more than two million
dollars had been retrieved from the vessel and were piled in front
of the happy smiling crew. From left to right they were Greta
Erhard, Jake Lewis, Homer Ashford, Ellen Ashford, and Nick
Williams.
That was before they started eating, Nick thought to himself. Ellen
ate because of Greta, because it gave her an excuse in her own mind
for what was happening with Homer. And Homer ate because he could
afford it. Just like he does everything else. For some people
constraints are the only thing that saves them. Give them freedom
and they go berserk.
Nick dug deeper into the box, looking for a set of twenty or so
photographs that showed most of the large gold items they had
retrieved from the Santa Rosa. Eventually he started finding some
of the pictures, in groups of four or five, in different parts of
what was now becoming a hopeless pile at the bottom of the box.
Each time he would find some more photos, he would pull them out,
look at them carefully, and then shake his head to acknowledge that
the golden trident did not look a thing like any of the objects
from the Santa Rosa.
At the bottom of the box Nick encountered a yellow manila folder
with a rubber band wrapped carefully around it. Thinking at first
that this folder might contain the rest of the pictures from the
Santa Rosa, Nick pulled out the folder and opened it hastily. An 8
x 11 picture of a beautiful woman in her early thirties slid out
and fell on the living room floor. It was followed by handwritten
notes, cards, a few letters in envelopes, and then about twenty
sheets of bond paper covered with double-spaced typing. Nick
sighed. How was it possible that he hadn't recognized this
folder?
The woman in the portrait had long black hair, lightly frosted in
the front. She was wearing a dark red cotton blouse, slightly open
at the top to show a triple strand of pearls just under the neck.
In blue ink that contrasted with the red of the blouse, someone
with magnificent, clearly artistic hand-writing had written, "Mon
Cher - Je t'aime, Monique," across the lower right portion of the
photograph.
Nick bent down on his knees to pick up the scattered contents of
the folder. He looked at the portrait carefully, his heart skipping
a few beats as he remembered how beautiful she had been. He started
to sort the typed pages together. At the top of one of the pages
was written, in all capital letters, "MONIQUE," and then underneath
it, "by Nicholas C. Williams." He started to read.
"The wonder of life lies in its unpredictability. Each of our lives
is irrevocably changed by the things we cannot have possibly
forecast. We walk out of the door every morning to go to work or to
class or even to the grocery store, and ninety-nine times out of a
hundred we return without anything having happened that we will
remember even a month in the future. On those days our lives are
swept up in the banality of living, in the basic humdrum cadence of
everyday existence. It is the other day, the magic day, for which
we live.
"On this magic day our character becomes defined, our growth is
accelerated, our emotional transitions are made. Sometimes, maybe
once in a lifetime, there will be a string of these magic days, one
after another, so full of life and change and challenge that we are
completely transformed by the experience and our souls become
suffused with a boundless joy. During that time we are often
overcome by the simple and incredible miracle of just being alive.
This is the story of one such magic period.
"It was spring break in Fort Lauderdale. Our swimming season had
just finished at Harvard and my uncle, as a present for my
twenty-first birthday, offered to let me use his condominium in
Florida for a couple of weeks so I could unwind from the twin
rigors of studying and swimming practice ..."
Nick had not looked at these pages for almost ten years. As he read
the first few paragraphs he remembered, vividly, the ecstasy in
which they were written. It was two nights before the party. She
was at some social function that night, would be too late, would
come by first thing in the morning. I couldn't sleep. It was the
first night in a week I had been away from her. He stopped for a
moment, old emotions twisting around inside him, making him feel
dizzy and slightly nauseous. He read the first paragraph again. It
was also before the pain. Before the incredible goddamn pain.
For almost thirty minutes music had been playing on the radio. Nick
had heard it, he knew it was there, but he could not have
identified any of the songs. It had been background music. Now,
just at the moment when his memories of Monique were the most
poignant, the Miami "classic rock and roll station, WMIM, 99.9 on
your FM dial," played Cyndi Lauper's haunting 1984 hit "Time After
Time." The music seemed to increase markedly in amplitude. Nick had
to sit down and grab a breath. Until the song, he had been able to
deal with his memories of Monique. But somehow that song, the one
he had played on the cassette player in his car almost every night
as he had made the drive from Fort Lauderdale to Palm Beach to see
her, carried with it all the youthful love, joy, fear, and anger
that had marked the entire affair. Nick was overwhelmed. As he sat
on the couch and listened to the song, hot tears welled up in his
eyes and then ran softly down his cheeks.
"... Lying in my bed, I hear the clock tick, and think of you ...
Caught up in circles, confusion is nothing new ... Flashback, warm
nights, almost left behind ... Suitcase of memories ... Time after
Time."
YOU say, go slow, I fall behind... . The second hand unwinds ..."
Brenda leaned over and turned the volume down on the cassette
player. "It's me, Mr. Stubbs, honest. Brenda Goldfine. Don't you
recognize me?" She was shouting at an old man in a blue uniform who
was sitting on a stool in a small circular tower in the middle of
the road. "And that's Teresa Silver in the back. She's not feeling
too well. Come on, open the gate and let us through."
The security guard climbed down from his stool and slowly walked
out in front of Nick's old Pontiac. He wrote the license number
down on a note pad and then came around to Brenda's window. "All
right this time, Brenda, but this is not according to the rules.
All visitors coming into Windsor Cove after ten o'clock at night
must be cleared ahead of time."
At length the guard raised the gate and Nick moved his car forward
again. "The guy's really a pain in the ass," Brenda said to Nick,
smacking her gum as she talked, "Christ, you'd think he owned one
of the places or something." Nick had heard about Windsor Cove. Or
rather had read about it. Once when he was over at his uncle's home
in Potomac, Maryland, there had been a copy of Town and Country
magazine on the table and he had read about the "gracious life of
Windsor Cove." Now, as he drove past the estates in the most
prestigious section of Palm Beach, he was awed by the personal
wealth displayed.
"Over there. That's Teresa's house." Brenda pointed at a colonial
house set back about a hundred yards from the road. Nick drove into
the long semicircular driveway and eventually stopped in front of a
walkway leading to the front of the house. It was an imposing
place. Two full floors, six white columns over twenty feet high, an
opulent door whose top half was an arched, stained glass window of
a white heron in flight against a blue sky filled with fleecy
clouds.
Brenda looked in the back of the car where her friend was passed
out. "Look, I'd better handle this. I'll go up and talk to Mrs.
Silver and explain what happened and everything. Otherwise you
could be in deep shit. Sometimes she jumps to conclusions."
By the time Brenda reached the front door to ring the bell, it had
already opened. An attractive woman in a red silk blouse and a pair
of chic black slacks was waiting. Nick guessed that she had
probably been called by the security guard. He couldn't tell much
about the conversation, but he could see that Teresa's mother was
asking questions. After a couple of minutes, Brenda and the woman
came back to the car. "You didn't tell me she was still passed
out," Nick heard a surprisingly husky voice say. There was also
some kind of accent, European perhaps. "You know, Brenda, this is
absolutely the last time she can go anywhere with you. You just
can't control her. I'm not even sure that you try." The voice was
angry but not strident.
Nick opened his door and climbed out of the car. "This is the guy I
was telling you about, Mrs. Silver," Brenda said. "Without him
Teresa might still be lying on the beach."
Mrs. Silver extended her hand. Nick took it, feeling a little
awkward. He didn't know how to shake hands with a woman. "I
understand that I'm in your debt, young man," Mrs. Silver said
graciously. "Brenda tells me that you rescued Teresa from all sorts
of horrors." The light from the street lamps played about her
sculptured face. Her hand was soft, sensual. Nick smelled just a
trace of perfume, something exotic. Her eyes were fixed on his,
unwavering, inquisitive.
"Yes, Ma'am," Nick said clumsily. "I mean, well, she had had too
much to drink and I thought the crowd of teenagers she was with
were a little bit out of control." He stopped. She was still
watching him, measuring him. He was becoming agitated and didn't
understand why. "Somebody had to help her and I just happened to be
there ..." He trailed off weakly.
Mrs. Silver thanked him again and turned to Brenda. "Your mother's
expecting you, dear. We'll stay out front until you get home. Flash
your lights to let us know you're there." Brenda looked happy to be
dismissed. She scampered off into the night in the direction of the
nearest house about a hundred yards away.
There was a momentary pause as they watched the sixteen-year-old
disappear into the night. Nick found himself stealing furtive looks
at Mrs. Silver's profile. An inchoate awareness of what he was
feeling made him more nervous. Jesus, she's beautiful. And young.
How could she be the girl's mother? He was wrestling with a jumble
of thoughts as he saw the lights flicker in the distance.
"Good," she said, turning to Nick with a smile, "Brenda's home. Now
we can worry about Teresa." She stopped for a moment and laughed.
"Oh, I almost forgot. We haven't been formally introduced. I'm
Teresa's mother, Monica Silver."
"I'm Nick Williams," he said in response. Her dark eyes were fixed
on him again. In the reflected light the expression in her eyes
seemed to vary. One moment she was a pixie, then a seductress, then
a very proper Palm Beach society woman. Or was Nick imagining it?
He couldn't return her gaze anymore. He felt his cheeks flush as he
averted his eyes.
"I had to carry her from the beach to the parking lot," Nick said
abruptly, as he went around to the back door of his car and opened
it. The teenager had been leaning against the door and nearly fell
out. She didn't stir. He picked Teresa up and threw her over his
shoulder. "So it's no problem for me to carry her for you now. I'm
used to it."
They walked quietly down the path toward the house, Monica Silver
leading by a few steps. Nick watched her walk in front of him. She
moved effortlessly, like a dancer, with almost perfect posture. Her
dark hair was wrapped up at the back in a chignon. It must be very
long, he thought to himself with delight, imagining her hair
flowing down her beautiful back.
It was a warm and humid Palm Beach evening. Nick was sweating by
the time they reached the entrance. "Could you do me one more
favor, Nick?" Mrs. Silver asked. "Could you carry her up to her
room? My husband's not here and the help has all gone to bed. And I
doubt seriously if she's going to get herself together well enough
to climb the stairs, even with my help, in the near future."
Nick followed Mrs. Silver's instructions and carried Teresa through
the atrium, into the living room, up the entry steps onto the
platform, up the left flight to the second floor, and then into her
bedroom. It was huge. In her room Teresa had a king-size bed with
four posters, a giant television, an entire cabinet of movies for
the VCR, and a sound system that would have been a credit to any
rock and roll band. Bruce Springsteen posters and photos were all
over the room. Nick laid Teresa gently on her bed. She murmured
"Thank you," indicating to him that at least she was semiconscious.
Her mother bent over her and gave her a kiss.
Nick left the two of them alone and went back down the stairs into
the living room. He could not believe that somebody really could
live in a house like this. Why the living room alone was bigger
than the house in Falls Church where he grew up. He wandered around
the room after he came down the stairs. There were original
paintings on the walls, crystal glass chandeliers hanging from the
ceiling, and art objects and bric-a-brac both on the tables and in
every nook and cranny. It was all too much for him. He was
overwhelmed.
He felt a hand on his shoulder and involuntarily recoiled. Monica
Silver chided him, "Goodness, you're jumpy. It's only me. " He
turned around to look at her Was he imagining it or had she somehow
combed her hair and put on fresh makeup in the few seconds they had
been separated? For the first time he saw her in the full light.
She was the most beautiful woman that he had ever seen. His breath
was taken away and he felt giddy. Outside he had not been able to
see her skin clearly. Now he found himself staring at her bare
arms, following the elegant contours of her neck. Her skin had the
smoothness of ivory. It called to him to touch it. Watch yourself,
Williams, he heard a voice inside him say, Or you are going to be
outrageous. He tried to calm himself.
But it was useless. He could not take his eyes off her. She was
saying something. She had asked him a question. He had not even
heard it, so dumbfounded was he by what was happening, by where he
was. She was leading him somewhere in the house. His imagination
was running wild. She took him into a small room with a table and
told him to sit down.
"It's the least I can do," she was saying, "to repay you for what
you did for Teresa. I know you must be hungry. And we still have
some great food left over from the party tonight."
Nick was in a breakfast nook just off the kitchen. To his left a
door led to the patio and then outside, into the back yard. The
lights around the huge swimming pool were still on. He could see
manicured gardens with roses in bloom, chaise longues, colorful
umbrellas, white iron tables with twisted, lacy legs - he could not
believe that it was all real. He felt transported to another world,
a world that existed only in books and movies.
Monica Silver laid out some food on the table. Smoked salmon,
onions, capers, cream cheese, two different kinds of bread, plus a
dish of some other kind of fish that Nick did not recognize.
"That's marinated herring," she said with a smile, noticing Nick's
quizzical expression. She handed him a wine glass. He took it and
unconsciously looked her straight in the eyes. He was transfixed.
He felt weak and powerless, as if he were being drawn into her deep
brown, bewitching eyes, into her world of richness and luxury and
beauty. His knees were weak, his heart was racing, he could feel
his fingers tingling
She poured some white wine in his glass and then in her own. "This
is a brilliant Burgundy, Clos des Mouches," she said, touching her
glass to his with a light tinkle. "Let's make a toast."
She was radiant. He was enthralled. "To happiness," she said.
They talked for over three hours. Nick learned that Monica Silver
had grown up in France, that her father had been a small,
struggling fur merchant in Paris, and that she had met her husband,
Aaron (the biggest of the big Montreal furriers), while helping her
father at the shop. She had been seventeen at the time of the
whirlwind courtship. Mr: Silver had proposed just seven days after
they had met and she had accepted immediately even though her
husband-to-be was twenty years older. She moved to Montreal and
married him before she was eighteen. Teresa was born nine months
later.
Nick told her that he was in his junior year at Harvard, majoring
in English and French to get a good liberal arts education and
prepare himself for either law school or graduate school. As soon
as she found out that he was in his third year of French, she
switched and spoke to him in her native language. Her name became
Monique. He missed some of what she said, but it didn't matter. He
understood the gist of it. And her dramatic voice plus the sound of
the foreign language only increased the power of the spell already
cast by the wine and her beauty.
Nick also tried to speak French from time to time. Whatever
self-consciousness he might have ordinarily felt was swept away by
the magic of the setting and their growing rapport. They laughed
together easily at his mistakes. She was gracious and charming when
she corrected him, always adding "mais vous parlez fran,cais tres
bien" in the early part of the evening. Later, as their
conversation became more personal (Nick talked about his problems
with his father; Monique wondered aloud if there was anything a
mother could do with a teenage daughter except hope that some basic
values had been learned), Monique changed to the more personal "tu"
form in talking to him. This established an additional intimacy
between them that deepened in the wee hours of the morning.
Monique talked about Paris, about the romance of the streets, the
bistros, the museums, the history. Nick visualized it all and felt
transported with her to the city of lights. She told about her
dreams when she was growing up, about walking in the sixteenth
arrondissement among the wealthy and promising herself that someday
... He listened closely, enraptured, an almost beatific smile upon
his face. In the end, Monique had to tell him that it was time to
go because she had an early tennis lesson in the morning. It was
after three o'clock. He apologized as they walked together to the
door. She laughed and said that it had been fun. At the door she
reached up and kissed him on the cheek. His heart soared out of his
body at the touch of her lips. "Call me sometime," she said with a
playful smile, as she closed the door behind him
For over thirty hours Nick thought of nothing but Monique. He
talked to her in his mind during the day; she was his lover in
dreams at night. He called her once, twice, three times, each time
talking to her answering machine. The third time he left her his
phone number and address and suggested that she try to get in touch
with him when her schedule would permit.
By noon on the second day after his evening at the Silvers' Palm
Beach mansion, he started to calm down, to realize that there was
no sense in his continuing to worship the image of a woman he had
met for a single evening. Especially a woman who was married to
someone else. In the late afternoon he went out on the beach to
play volleyball with some of the other college students he had met
during his first days in Florida. He had just served an ace when he
thought he heard his name being called by a husky, accented voice
that was absolutely unmistakable.
He thought for a moment he was dreaming. Standing in the sand not
ten yards away was Monique. She was wearing a bright red and white
striped bikini and her long black hair hung down her back to just
above her waist. The volleyball game stopped. His friends whistled.
He walked over to her his heart pounding in his temples and his
breath struggling to find its way out of his constricted chest.
Monique smiled and slid her arm through his. She explained that she
had brought Teresa into Lauderdale for a small high school party
and since it was so hot ...
They walked along, the beach and talked as the sun set behind the
condominiums. They were oblivious to the young people all around
them. The gentle waves washed their feet with warm water as they
walked. Monique insisted that they eat in Nick's condo, so they
stopped for tuna fish, tomatoes, onions, and mayonnaise to put on
their sandwiches. Cold beer, potato chips, and sandwiches on a bare
formica table was the dinner. Lovemaking was the dessert. Nick
almost had an orgasm on their first kiss and his passion made him
klutzy and funny in trying to remove her bikini. Monique slowed him
down, smiled softly, neatly folded her bikini and his bathing suit
(while he of course was going wild), and then came to join him on
the bed. After two kisses naked on the bed, Nick was seized by a
paroxysm of lust. He rolled roughly on top of Monique and began
gyrating with his hips. At first a bit alarmed, Monique slowed him
just a bit and guided him gently into her.
Monique's body was nearly perfect. Nice, full, upright breasts
(they had been reconstructed of course after she had nursed Teresa
but how could Nick have known or cared?) slim waist, rounded,
feminine ass (not one of those boyish asses that really skinny
women have), taut muscled legs kept in shape with lots of exercise.
But it was her skin, that magnificent ivory skin, that sent Nick
into ecstasy. It was so soft and easy to the touch.
Her mouth seemed to fit his perfectly. Nick had been with two women
before, a high-priced call girl given to him as a Christmas present
after the Harvard swimming team had discovered he was still a
virgin at the end of his freshman year and Jennifer Barnes from
Radcliffe, his sometimes steady date during most of his sophomore
year. Jennifer's teeth always clanged against his when they kissed.
But that had not been the only difficulty in his relationship with
Jennifer. She was a physicist and her approach to sex had been
almost clinical. She measured sizes and durations and frequencies
and even quantities of ejaculant. After three "scheduled
performances" with Jenny Nick had decided it wasn't worth it.
Nick gasped as he slid into Monique. Both of them knew it would be
over soon. Ten seconds later Nick finished his climax and started
to withdraw. But Monique held his rear firmly in her hands, keeping
him in place, and deftly (how did she do it?) rolled over so that
she was on top. Nick was now out of his element. In his limited
experience, withdrawal was the next step after orgasm. He didn't
know what Monique was doing. Ever so slowly, her eyes half closed
as she hummed a piece of classical music to herself, Monique rocked
back and forth on top of him, her vaginal walls holding tightly to
his now flaccid penis. After a couple of minutes she began to grind
her pelvis forward as she rocked and, much to Nick's amazement, as
her breath shortened he found himself becoming aroused again. Now
her eyes closed altogether and her rhythm became stronger, the
thrusts of her forward motion grinding with a little pain into his
bones. Nick was now definitely erect and he started following her
motion, lightly gyrating in pattern with her.
Monique leaned forward, concentrating but smiling with her eyes
closed, preparing for her own orgasm. She was acutely aware and
delighted that Nick was up again. Timing her own progress perfectly
(and in complete control of the situation), she adroitly and softly
reached down and began titillating Nick's nipples in rhythm with
her forward thrusts. Nick had never had his breasts touched in
lovemaking before and was shocked. But the raw excitement was
overwhelming. She increased her play, even pinching him when she
saw (and felt) his response. As wave after wave of delightful
release coursed through her body, Nick uttered a loud, wailing
scream and had his second orgasm in fifteen minutes. At the end of
the climax he was completely given over to pleasure and made animal
sounds and shook involuntarily from exhausted satiety.
Nick was a little embarrassed by his noisy and uncontrolled
response, but Monique's playful and friendly afterplay assured him
that everything was all right. She went to his closet, pulled out
one of his three dress shirts, and put it on. The tails came almost
down to her knees (Monique was only five feet five and Nick was a
shade less than six two) and she looked positively gamine with her
pixie smile, long hair, and man's shirt. Nick began to declare his
love but Monique came forward and put her finger to his lips. Then
she kissed him lovingly, told him that she needed to pick up
Teresa, jumped in the shower for what could not have been more than
a minute, dressed, kissed him again, and walked out the door. Nick
did not move during this entire time. After she left he fell asleep
contentedly. He did not dream.
For the next eight days Nick was on top of the world. He saw
Monique every day, most of the time at her Palm Beach mansion, but
sometimes at his uncle's condominium. They made love at every
opportunity and it was always different. Monique was full of
surprises. The second time Nick went to her house, for example, he
found her in the back, swimming naked in the pool. She told him
that she had given all the servants the day off. Within minutes
they were frolicking and laughing on the grass between the garden
and the pool.
Their affair was conducted in French. Monique taught him about food
and wine. They shared their knowledge of French literature. One
passionate night they argued about Andre Gide's La Symphonie
Pastorale both before and after lovemaking. Monique defended the
pastor and laughed at Nick's insistence that the blind Gertrude was
"an innocent. " Another evening, when Monique demanded that Nick
wear a black Halloween mask and a pair of white leotards throughout
their long French dinner, they read Jean Genet's Le Balcon together
as a prelude to sex.
The days raced by relentlessly, clothed in the magic of love and
intimacy. Once Nick showed up at the mansion and Monique greeted
him dressed in an incredible coat, a full-length Alaskan seal fur
with indigo fox trim around the collars as well as down the lapels
and framing the sleeves from the shoulders to the wrists. The coat
was the softest thing Nick had ever touched, even softer than her
tantalizing skin. His playful paramour had turned the air
conditioning up as high as it would go so that she could wear her
favorite coat. She was wearing nothing underneath it. After
lovemaking that evening she dressed Nick's naked body in one of her
husband's beaver coats, explaining the presence of half a dozen fur
coats in Palm Beach with a simple "it's our business and we like to
have some things to show our friends and acquaintances in case they
are interested."
Nick professed his love with increasing zeal each time they met
anew. Monique responded with her usual "je t'aime," but would not
reply to Nick's insistent questions about the future. She avoided
all questions about her relationship with Mr. Silver, except to say
that he was a workaholic and that he stayed in Montreal most of the
year. He had bought the place in Palm Beach primarily because
Monique did not like the cold and wanted a more active social life
than the one they had in Montreal. Monique usually spent the period
from Christmas to Easter in Palm Beach; Teresa, who had just
finished her spring break from her exclusive private school and had
returned to Canada, came down as often as possible so that she
could be with her mother.
Monique gave short, terse answers about her present life. But she
waxed rhapsodic about her childhood in Paris. She never criticized
her husband or complained about her married life. Yet she did tell
Nick that her days with him had been the happiest time of her life.
She also talked about some of her friends, but Nick never met any
of them. They were always alone.
One day she picked him up in her Cadillac and they headed toward
Key Largo so that he could do some diving at the Pennekamp
Recreation Area. As always, she was wearing her wedding ring. On
this particular day Nick had vowed to himself that he would get
some answers about the future, and the constant presence of her
wedding ring pissed him off. He asked her to remove it. She
politely refused, then grew angry when he pressed her. She pulled
the car off the highway in the marshland north of the Keys and
stopped the engine
"It is a fact that I am married," she said resolutely, "and taking
the ring off is not going to change anything. I am in love with
you, without doubt, but you have understood my situation from the
beginning. If you cannot deal with it anymore, then perhaps we
should just call it quits."
Nick was shocked by her response. The thought of being without her
terrified him. He apologized and professed his love. He began
kissing her passionately and then jumped in the back seat. He told
her that he needed her right then, that moment. She somewhat
reluctantly joined him and they had intercourse on the back seat of
her Cadillac. Monique was quiet and pensive most of the rest of the
day.
On Friday, exactly a week after they had met, Monique took Nick to
a tuxedo shop to have him fitted for a black tie dinner with some
friends that she was having on Saturday night in her home. So
finally he was going to be seen with her. "And," Nick thought, "now
she will talk about our future." Nick was supposed to be in Boston
on Monday morning and his parents were expecting him Saturday night
in Falls Church, but he assured himself that he could drive all day
(and all night if necessary, so pumped up was he in his love for
Monique) to get to classes on Monday morning.
Nick was full of hope and dreams when he showed up at the Silver
mansion on Saturday night. He looked elegant in his summer tux, and
the smile with which he greeted Monique at the door could have won
a prize. Even with the doorman standing by, he handed her a dozen
red roses, gave her a kiss, and told her that he loved her. "Of
course you do," she said lightly, "doesn't everybody?" She took him
inside and introduced him to the four other people who had also
come early as the "young man who saved our Teresa one day in
Lauderdale." Then Monique excused herself. It was her fashion, Nick
later learned, to ask a few select friends to come early to a
party, to greet them in casual attire, and then to return an hour
or so later, when everyone had arrived, with a grand entrance. As
Monique gracefully walked up the stairs of the mansion, Nick's eyes
followed her with an unmistakable look of adoration.
"Isn't she magnificent?" Nick was asked by a relaxed, tanned man of
about fifty who offered him a martini. His name was Clayton. "Once
I was with her all weekend on their yacht, while Aaron was in
Montreal. I thought she had invited me for a little diversion." He
laughed. "But I was wrong. She just wanted some company and I could
talk about France and Europe. Come with me (he slipped his arm
through Nick's) and I'll introduce you to the select group that was
invited early today."
Nick was treated with extreme courtesy by the other favored guests,
but he was wary of their questions about Monique. He was, after
all, a Southern boy, and if there was something to say about their
relationship, it was her place to say it. So he answered politely
but modestly and didn't elaborate at all.
One of the two women at the bar, who introduced herself as Jane
Somebody, said that she was Monica's oldest friend in Palm Beach.
(They all called her Monica. It was impossible for Nick to call her
anything but Monique. Nick wondered if they could guess what was
going on or if Monique had told them.) Jane was in her late
thirties, plump and raucous, a heavy drinker and a chain smoker.
She had once been fairly attractive but had lived too hard too
soon. She was one of those people who touch everybody during a
conversation. She made Nick nervous.
The other guests began to arrive. Jane and Clayton (as in Clayton
Poindexter III of Newport and Palm Beach. Clayton, when asked by
Nick what he did, answered, "NVMS." Nick of course had absolutely
no idea what that meant. Clayton laughed. "NVMS - No visible means
of support - a term used to cover all bums.") seemed to be acting
as hostess and host in Monique's absence. They introduced him to
everybody. Nick had three or four martinis and told the Teresa
story at least seven times during the first hour that he was in the
Silver mansion.
Nick was becoming fairly spiffed by this time. He sang to himself
as he took another martini off the cocktail tray being proffered by
one of the servants. The alcohol had buoyed his spirits and made
him feel somehow temporarily suave and debonair. Nick was on the
patio talking to Monique's "riding partner," a lovely woman in her
mid-twenties named Anne, when he heard scattered applause from the
living room. "It's Monica," Anne said. "Let's go see."
The grand stairway in the Silvers' colonial mansion rose to a
platform maybe six feet above the living room floor and then split,
with two different sets of stairs then continuing up to the second
floor. Monique was standing on the platform, acknowledging the
applause. dressed in a simple navy blue knit dress that seemed
form-fitted to her perfect body. The back was cut way down, almost
to the bottom of her spectacular hair (she turned around to please
the forty or so guests), and, in the front, two thin pieces of
cloth ran from her shoulders to her waist, covering each breast
adequately but leaving plenty of cleavage to be admired. Entranced
by the vision of his queen, Nick cheered lustily, a little too
loud, "Bravo. Bravo." Monique seemed not to hear his cheer. She had
turned and was looking up the stairs.
It probably took an entire minute for Nick to comprehend the sight
he was seeing. A man, a distinguished-looking man in his early
fifties, wearing a custom-made tan tuxedo and sporting an amazing
sapphire ring on his little finger, came down the staircase and put
his arms around Monique's waist. She reached up and kissed him. He
smiled and waved at the crowd as they politely applauded. They
walked down the stairs together to the living room.
Who is that? Nick thought to himself and even through the gin and
the vermouth and all the incredible feelings the answer came back,
That is her husband, Aaron. What is he doing here? Why didn't she
tell me? And then, following very swiftly, How could she do this to
me? I love her and she loves me and there is something very very
wrong. This cannot be happening.
Nick tried to breathe but felt as if a large piece of earth-moving
machinery were pressed against his chest. Instinctively he turned
away from the sight of Monique and Aaron walking down the stairs
arm in arm. As he did he spilled part of a martini on Anne's
shoulder. His apology was very clumsy. Now completely
discombobulated, he stumbled over to the bar, trying desperately to
breathe and to stop the pounding in his chest. No. No. She can't be
doing this. There must be some mistake. His mind could not read the
message that his eyes were transmitting. He drank another martini
swiftly, barely aware of his surroundings or the jumbled feelings
torturing his soul.
"There he is." He heard her voice behind him, the voice that had
come to signify everything that was valuable and important in life,
the voice of love. But this time he was terrified. Nick turned and
Monique and Aaron were standing right in front of him.
"So finally I get to meet this young man I've heard so much about,"
he said. Aaron was pleasant, friendly, without a trace of anything
but gratitude in his voice. Aaron Silver was holding out his hand.
Monique was smiling. God, she's so beautiful. Even now, when I
should hate her. Nick mechanically shook Aaron's hand and quietly
accepted his thanks for "helping Teresa at a difficult time." Nick
said nothing. He turned to look at Monique. She reached up and
kissed him on the cheek. Oh those lips. How I long still for those
lips. Why? Why? What happens to us now?
Nick suddenly realized that there were tears in his eyes. Ohmygod .
I'm going to cry. Embarrassed beyond measure, Nick abruptly excused
himself and walked out onto the patio. Now the tears were running
down his cheeks. He was afraid he was going to sit down on the
grass and start bawling like a baby Confused, puzzled, he walked
around the garden with his head down and tried, without success, to
draw a regular breath.
He felt a hand on his elbow. It was Jane, the last person on Earth
that Nick wanted to see at this moment. "She'll be out to see you
in a few minutes. First she and Aaron have to make the rounds, you
know how it is at parties when you're the hostess." Jane lit a
cigarette. Nick was certain he was going to puke. He turned quickly
to ask her to put out the cigarette and he lost his
equilibrium.
Maybe it was the drink, maybe the adrenaline, maybe it was just too
much. Nick's head was spinning around and around. He inadvertently
leaned against Jane for support. She misunderstood, and then pulled
his head to her shoulder. "There, there," she said. "Don't take it
so hard. You and Monique will still be able to have some time
together. Aaron will only be here for a couple of days and then
he'll go back to Montreal to work. Besides," she said with gusto,
"if you're anywhere near as good as Monica says you are, I'd be
delighted to take care of you when she's with Aaron."
Nick pushed her away and staggered back. He felt as if he had just
been hit in the face with a sledgehammer. The full impact of Jane's
comment sunk in slowly and an uncontrollable mixture of anger and
hurt surged to the surface. What? What? She knows. This cloying
bitch knows. Maybe they all know. What? Fuck. Fuck this altogether.
And then, almost immediately, as his mind began to take the measure
of the evening's events, How do I get out of here? Where is the
exit? As he walked around the house to the front (he was not about
to go inside again), from deep inside Nick there now came a sound,
a sound that welled up to the surface and could not be contained.
This was the wail of pain, the unmitigated and ineluctable cry of
the animal in total despair. Millennia of acculturation have made
it rare to hear such cries from human beings. But this loud and
untoward scream, which rose into the Palm Beach night like a siren
from a police car, gave Nick his first comfort. While the
partygoers were trying to decide what they had heard, Nick climbed
into his 1977 Pontiac and drove away.
He drove south toward Fort Lauderdale, his heart still pumping like
crazy and his body trembling from adrenaline. He didn't think about
anything coherently. The pictures in his mind seemed to come at
random, without any clear connection between them. Monique was the
focus of all the pictures in the montage. Monique in her Alaskan
seal coat, Monique in her red and white bathing suit, Monique in
her dress tonight (Nick winced, for just off-screen left in his
mind's eye, he could see Aaron coming down the stairs). Had it all
been meaningless? Was it just a game? Nick was too young to know
about the grays of life. For him it was a simple question of black
or white. It was either wonderful or it was shit. Monique either
loved him passionately and wanted to give up her luxurious life to
marry him, or she was just using him to satisfy her sexual needs
and her ego. So, he concluded, as he arrived at his uncle's
condominium in Fort Lauderdale, I was another of her toys. I was
like her furs and horses and yachts and clothes. I made her feel
good.
Disgusted with himself, depressed beyond belief, a headache
starting to tear his brain apart from the martinis, Nick rapidly
packed his clothes. He didn't bathe or eat. He took his two
suitcases down to the car, left the rented tuxedo with the managers
of the complex, and drove out toward Interstate 95. A couple of
miles before he reached the freeway, Nick pulled the car off on the
shoulder and allowed himself a few tears. That was all. The
external hardness that would characterize the next ten years of his
life began at that moment. Never again, he said to himself. I will
never again let some bitch make a fool of me. No way, Jose`.
Ten years later, early on a March morning in his condominium in Key
West, Nick Williams would idly play with a metallic golden object
sitting on his coffee table and experience again the terrible pain
of seeing Monique with her husband at that party. Wistfully, with
some mature chagrin, he would remember also how, when he reached
1-95, he turned left and south toward Miami and the Keys instead of
right and north toward Boston. He couldn't have explained why at
the time. He might have said that Harvard was trivial after Monique
or that he wanted to study life and not books. He didn't understand
that his need to start absolutely fresh came from the fact that he
could not face himself.
He had not played the memory of Monique through from start to
finish for five years. This morning, for the first time, Nick had
been able to distance himself from the recalled emotions, ever so
slightly, and to see the entire affair with a tiny bit of
perspective. He recognized that his blind youthful passion had set
him up for the anguish, but he was still reluctant to find Monique
faultless. At least the memory no longer destroyed him. He picked
up the trident and walked to the window. Maybe it's all coming
together now, he said to himself. A new treasure. A final molting
of the last adolescent angst. He thought about Carol Dawson. She
was vexing but her intensity fascinated him. Always the dreamer,
Nick visualized Carol in his arms and imagined the warmth and
softness of her kiss.
CAROL watched in fascination as the octopus captured its prey with
its long tentacles. "Imagine what it would be like to have eight
arms," Oscar Burcham said. "Just think of the brain architecture
necessary to separate all the inputs, to identify which stimulus
was coming from which limb, to coordinate all the tentacles in
defense or acquisition of food."
Carol laughed and turned to her companion. They were standing in
front of a large. translucent glass window inside a dimly lit
building. "Oh, Oscar," she said to the old man with the bright
eyes, "you never change. Only you can think of all these living
creatures as biological systems with architectures. Don't you ever
wonder about their feelings, their dreams while they are sleeping,
their concepts of death?"
"Aye, well I do," Oscar replied with a twinkle in his eye. "But
it's virtually impossible for human beings, even with a common
language and developed communications skills, to truly describe
their feelings. How could we even know or appreciate, for example,
a dolphin's sense of loneliness? In our maudlin way we ascribe to
them human emotions, which is ridiculous." He paused for a moment
to think. "No," he continued, "it's more fruitful to conduct
scientific inquiry at levels where we can understand the answers.
In the long run, I believe that knowing how these creatures
function, in the scientific sense, is more likely to lead us to
their emotional quotients than conducting psychological experiments
whose outcomes cannot be interpreted."
Carol reached over and kissed him fondly. "You take everything I
say so seriously, Oscar. Even when I'm kidding, you always pay
attention to my comments." She stopped and looked away. "You're the
only one who does."
Oscar pulled back dramatically and put both his hands on Carol's
right shoulder. "Somewhere here there's a chip ... I know it for a
fact ... It's almost always here ... Ah, I found it." He looked at
her knowingly. "It's not becoming, you know. Here you are, a
successful, even celebrated reporter, still suffering from what
could only be described as terminal insecurity. What's this about?
Did you and the boss have a big fight this morning?"
"No," Carol replied, as they walked across the room to another part
of the aquarium. "Well, sort of I guess. You know how he is. He
takes over everything. I'm working on this big story down in Key
West. Dale comes to the airport to pick me up, takes me out to
breakfast, and proceeds to tell me exactly what I should be doing
to cover my assignment. His suggestions are almost all good, and I
appreciate his help on the technical issues, but it's the way he
talks to me. As if he thinks I'm stupid or something."
Oscar looked at her intently. "Carol, my dear, he talks to
everybody that way, including me. He doesn't mean anything by it.
He is absolutely convinced of his own superiority and nothing has
ever happened in his life to change his mind. He was a millionaire
from his own patents before he graduated from MIT."
Carol was impatient and frustrated. "I know all that, Oscar,
believe me, I know. But you're protecting him again. Dale and I
have been lovers for almost a year. He tells everybody how proud of
me he is, how much he enjoys being stimulated by my mind. But when
we're together, he treats me like a fool. This morning he even
argued with me about what I was having for breakfast. For Christ's
sake, I've been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize but the guy who
wants to marry me doesn't think I can order my own breakfast."
They were standing in front of a large tank with crystal-clear
water. About half a dozen small whales were swimming in circles
around the tank, occasionally going to the surface for air. "You
came and asked my opinion in the beginning, my young friend," he
said quietly. "And I told you that I thought your souls were not
compatible. Do you remember what you said to me?"
"Yes," she answered with a rueful smile. "I asked you what the
chief scientist of MOI could possibly know about souls. I'm sorry,
Oscar. I was sorry at the time. I was so headstrong. Dale looked
great on paper and I wanted your approval - "
"Forget it," he interrupted her. "You know how I feel about you.
But never underestimate a scientist. Some of them," he said
abstractedly, "want to know facts and concepts so that ultimately
they can understand the overall nature of everything. Including the
putative soul.
"Now take these whales," Oscar continued, increasing the tempo and
adroitly changing the subject. "We have been mapping their brains
for almost a decade now, isolating various kinds of functions in
specific locations, and trying to correlate their brain structure
with that of a human being. We have been reasonably successful. The
language function that governs their singing has been separated and
the location of the physical controls for all parts of the body
have been identified. In fact, we have found an area in the whale
brain that corresponds to the equivalent function for every major
capability in the human brain. But there's still a problem, a
mystery if you will."
One of the whales stopped in its normal circuit about the tank. It
seemed to be watching them. "There's a large section of their brain
that we have been unable to allocate to any specific function. A
brilliant scientist years ago, after listening to the whales' songs
while they were migrating and correlating those songs with the rest
of their behavior, postulated that this large, unmapped portion of
their brain was a multidimensional memory array. His hypothesis was
that the whales store entire incidents in that array, including
sights, sounds, and even feelings, and that they relive these
incidents during migration to alleviate the boredom. Our tests are
starting to confirm his theory."
Carol was intrigued. "You mean, they might put in that array the
entire set of sensory impressions from something important, like
calving, and then have, in a sense, a full instant replay during a
particularly boring part of the migration route? Wow. That's
fascinating. My memory irritates me all the time. It would be great
if somehow I could go in there, in a directed sense, and pull out
anything I want. Complete with feelings." She laughed. "There have
been times in the summers when I couldn't remember exactly how
great it felt to ski and I have almost panicked, worrying about
whether or not that feeling might be gone the next winter."
Oscar waved at the whale and it swam away. "Be careful," he said.
"Other people have also thought that it would be fantastic if our
memories were more complete, like a computer's. But suppose we did
have a perfect, multidimensional memory like that hypothesized for
the whale. And suppose we had the same lack of entry control that
is characteristic of human memory as it now exists. You know, where
what we remember and when we remember it are not under our
individual control. Then there would be problems. We might even be
nonfunctional as a species. A song, a picture, a smell, even the
taste of a cake might suddenly force us to confront anew the full
emotions associated with the death of a loved one. We might have to
see again a painful fight between our parents. Or even the trauma
of our own birth."
Oscar was quiet for a moment. "No," he said finally, "evolution has
served us in good stead. It couldn't develop an entry control
mechanism for our memories. So to protect us, to keep us from being
demolished by mistakes or past events, evolution built a natural
fade process into our memories - "
"Carol Dawson. Carol Dawson. Report immediately to the audiovisual
conference room adjacent to the director's office."
The loudspeaker interrupted the quiet in the MOI aquarium. Carol
gave Oscar a hug. "It's been great, Ozzie, as always," she said,
watching him wince as she used her pet name for him. "But it looks
like they've finished developing the pictures. Incidentally, I
think the whole business about the whales' memories is fascinating.
I want to come back and do a feature on it Maybe next week
sometime. Give my love to your daughter and grandson."
Carol had become so engrossed in the discussion with Oscar that she
had momentarily forgotten why she had flown to Miami early that
morning. Now she felt anew a keen sense of excitement as she drove
back to the main MOI administrative building from the aquarium.
Dale had been confident at breakfast that processing the infrared
images would reveal something of interest. "After all," he had said
logically, "the foreign object alarm was triggered repeatedly And
nothing could be seen in the visual images. Therefore, either the
infrared observations caused the alarm or the algorithm did not
work properly. The second possibility is very unlikely, since I
designed the data flow myself and my best programmers tested it
after it was coded."
Dale was uncharacteristically excited when she walked into the
conference room. Carol started to ask him a question but was
silenced by a vigorous negative motion of the head that followed
his smile of greeting. Dale was talking to two of the
image-processing technicians. "Okay, then, we're squared away?
Display the images in this sequence. I'll call for each one by
using the pickle." The technicians left the room.
Dale came over and grabbed Carol. "You are not going to believe
this," he said, "what a bonanza. What a fucking bonanza!" He
settled down a little. "But first things first. I promised myself
that I would not spoil it for you. "He showed her to a seat at the
conference table in front of the large screen and then sat down
beside her.
He pushed the remote-control switch. Up on the large screen came a
still frame of the three whales in the reef area under the boat.
The fissure could clearly be seen to the right and beneath the
whales. Dale looked at Carol. "I see," she shrugged, "but what's
the deal? I took pictures with my underwater camera that are just
as good."
Dale turned back to the screen and pushed thc remote several more
times. The successive scenes zoomed in on the hole in the coral
reef, eventually isolating and centering on a small glint in the
lower left side of the fissure. Again Dale looked at Carol. "I have
a similar blowup," she said pensively. "But it's impossible to tell
if something is really there or if it's an artifact of the
photographic process. "She stopped herself. "Although the fact that
two distinctly different techniques found the light in essentially
the same place suggests that it might not be a processing
distortion." She leaned forward, interested. "So what's next?"
There was no way he could contain himself Dale jumped up and
started pacing around the room. "What's next," he began, "could be
your ticket to the Pulitzer dinner in New York. Now I am going to
show you exactly the same sequence of images, only these were taken
in the infrared a fraction of a second later. Watch closely,
especially in the center of the fissure."
The first processed infrared image covered the same area underneath
the boat that the first visual image had shown. In the infrared
picture, however, what was shown were thermal variations in the
scene. In the processing, each pixel (an individual picture element
in the image) was given a specific temperature based on the
infrared radiation observed from that portion of the frame. Similar
temperatures were then grouped together by the computer processing
and assigned the same color. This process created isothermal
regions, or regions of roughly the same temperature, that were
visually connected by color. The result was that in the first
picture the whales stood out in red, most of the reef plants were
blue, and the normalized water temperature formed a dusky gray
background. It took Carol a moment to adjust to the display. Dale
was smiling triumphantly. Before Carol had a chance to focus on two
small regions, one red and another brown down in the center of the
hole in the reef, the zoom process had begun. In a few seconds an
infrared close-up of the fissure clearly demonstrated why Dale was
so excited.
"I told you there was something under the boat," he said, walking
to the screen and pointing at a brown, elongated object. The object
was cylindrical at one end and tapered to a point at the other. The
fissure had been blown up by the zoom process so that it almost
completely filled the screen. Even with all the magnification, the
quality of the infrared image was superb. Inside the opening three
or four different colors could be seen; however, only two, the
brown and the red, were continuous over a significant number of
pixels
"Holy shit," said Carol, involuntarily rising from her seat and
walking over to join Dale, "that brown thing must be the lost
missile. It was underneath us all the time. " She picked up the
pointer and waved it at the screen. "But what's this red area? It
looks like the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland."
"I'm not absolutely certain," Dale replied, "and it's probably not
anything of major significance. But I do have a crazy idea.
Actually it's based on what you told me about the strange behavior
of the whales down there. It may be the head of another whale, back
away from the light, looking out of the cave. Or whatever the
opening is. Here, look at this. By zooming out a little we obtain
one single picture that shows both of the red isothermal regions.
Look how the red region in the middle of the fissure and the red
from your sentinel whales look the same. Even with additional
stretching, the two regions remain comparable in temperature. Not a
proof of any kind, but it certainly supports my proposition."
Carol's mind was racing ahead. She was already planning her next
move. It was essential that she retrieve that missile before
anybody knew it was there. She needed to return to Key West as soon
as possible. She picked up her purse and her briefcase. "Can
someone drive me to the airport, please, Dale? Right now. I want to
call that Lieutenant Todd again and scare him a bit. You know, make
him a little more cautious and buy some time for us."
She paused, thinking of a million things at once. "But I can't call
him from here without making him suspicious ... And I must make
some arrangements for a boat for tomorrow ... Oh, incidentally, I
assume you have hard copy of those pictures available for me."
Dale nodded his head. "I do," he said. "But first sit down and
relax for a second. I want to show you something else. I don't yet
know if it's a real phenomenon, but if it is ..." Carol started to
protest but there was something in his manner that told her to
acquiesce. She sat down. He launched into a discussion of
enhancement algorithms, explaining how the information in pictures
could be stretched to highlight special features and allow easier
interpretation.
"Okay, Okay," she said at length. "The bottom line is what I need.
I know already how clever you and your engineers are."
Dale put the first infrared image back on the screen, the one that
showed the full view of the three whales underneath the boat. "This
picture does not have much thermal granularity. Every pixel in the
region colored red, for example, does not correspond to exactly the
same temperature. In reality, the spread in temperatures for the
same color is roughly five degrees. Now if we stretch the image,
and make the isothermal regions only cover a total spread of two
degrees each, we obtain this picture."
In the new image there were ten different colors. It was much
harder to see individual features, and spurious data points made
the picture extremely difficult to interpret. A portion of the
front of one of the whales was now a different color from the rest
of the animal.
"The limit of accuracy of the equipment, by the time the raw
spectral data is converted to temperatures, is about one degree. If
we show another stretch of the same picture, with the connected
isothermal regions now only covering a total range of one degree
each, then the picture almost becomes gibberish. Now there are
twenty different colors for the isothermal regions and, because the
noise or error in each data point is of the same magnitude as the
spread in the isothermal region, it is virtually impossible to see
the figures of known objects like the three whales. I tell you all
this up front to make certain you realize that what I am about to
show you may be completely wrong. It is, nevertheless, absolutely
fascinating."
The next image projected on the screen was a close-up down on the
floor of the ocean, just above the trench that Carol had followed
when backtracking to find the origin of the tracks. The familiar
parallel lines just barely showed up in the infrared image The
fissure was almost off the left side of the image. On either side
of the trench, blue color broken with some occasional green marked
the two reefs. Carol looked at Dale with a puzzled expression on
her face.
"This close-up has the same five-degree granularity as the big
reference image. There is nothing of note here." He flashed another
picture. "Nor here, where we have increased the number of colors to
ten again. But look at this." One more image went up on the screen.
The picture was very difficult to follow, much less interpret. As
many as twenty different colors connected odd regions in what
appeared to be random patterns. About the only thing that was
regular in the picture were the background rocks on which the coral
and other sea life were living. And it was those background rocks
that had Dale so excited.
"This is what I wanted you to see," he said, waving his hand at the
rocks on the two sides of the trench. "The two reef structures do
not have the same color. For some unknown and absolutely
inexplicable reason, every background rock area on this reef is
coded chartreuse. On the opposite reef, just across the trench a
few feet away, all the background rock is yellow. A one-degree
difference. Now if some of the yellow pieces were interspersed with
the chartreuse, and vice versa, then I would say that the data
clearly has no significance and that what we are seeing are noise
signatures. But this pattern is compelling."
Carol was lost. She could see that the rocks on one reef structure
were all chartreuse and that the opposite reef was yellow. But it
didn't mean anything to her. She shook her head. She needed more
explanation.
"Don't you understand?" Dale said with a final dramatic flourish.
"If this data is right, then we have found something else of great
importance. Either there is some source inside one of the reef
structures that is making its surface uniformly warmer, or, and I
admit this sounds truly incredible, one of the two is not a reef at
all and is something else masquerading as a reef."
IT was almost always impossible to find a parking place in the
middle of the working day near Amanda Winchester's house in Key
West. The Hemingway Marina had revitalized the old part of the city
where she lived, but as usual everyone had underestimated the need
for parking. All the repainted and renovated nineteenth-century
mansions along Eaton and Caroline streets had signs on the street
saying such things as DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT PARKING HERE IF YOU'RE
NOT A RESIDENT, but it was no use. People who worked in the retail
shops around the marina parked where it was convenient for them and
avoided the heavy parking fee at the marina lot.
After searching fruitlessly for a parking place for fifteen
minutes, Nick Williams decided to park outside of a convenience
store and walk the block or so to Amanda's house. He was strangely
anxious. Part of his nervousness was due to his excitement, but he
was also feeling a little guilty. Amanda had been the major sponsor
of the original Santa Rosa expedition and Nick had spent
considerable time with her after they had found the treasure.
Amanda and Nick and Jake Lewis had all three believed that Homer
Ashford and his menage a` trois had somehow hidden part of the
treasure and then cheated them out of their proper shares. Nick and
Amanda worked together trying to find evidence that Homer had
stolen from them, but they were never able to prove anything
conclusively.
During this period Amanda and Nick had become quite close. They had
seen each other virtually every week and for a while he had thought
of her as an aunt or grandmother. But after a year or so, Nick had
stopped going by to visit her. He hadn't understood it at the time,
but the real reason he began to avoid her was that Amanda was too
intense for him. And she was always too personal. She asked him too
many hard questions about what he was doing with his life.
On this particular morning he had no real options. Amanda was
widely recognized as the expert on sunken treasure in the Keys.
There were two components in her life, treasure and the theater,
and her knowledge of each was encyclopedic. Nick had not called
first because he didn't want to discuss the trident unless she was
willing to see him. So it was with some trepidation that he rang
the doorbell on the front porch of her magnificent home.
A young woman in her early twenties came to the door and opened it
just a bit. "Yes?" she said, her face wedging into the crack, her
expression wary.
"My name's Nick Williams," he said. "I would like to see Mrs.
Winchester if possible. Is she in?" There was a pause. "I'm an old
- "
"My grandmother is very busy this morning," the girl curtly
interrupted him. "Perhaps you can call and make an appointment."
She started to close the door and leave Nick standing on the porch
next to his exercise bag. Then Nick heard another voice, a muffled
exchange, and the door swung open.
"Well, for goodness sake," Amanda said with her arms outstretched,
"I have a young gentleman caller. Come here, Nikki, and give me a
kiss." Nick was embarrassed. He walked forward and gave the elderly
woman a perfunctory hug.
As he withdrew from the embrace, he started to apologize. "I'm
sorry I haven't been by to see you. I mean to, but somehow my
schedule - "
"It's all right, Nikki, I understand." Amanda interrupted him
pleasantly. Her eyes were so sharp they belied her age. "Come in
and tell me what you've been up to. I haven't seen you since,
goodness, has it been a couple of years already since we shared
that cognac after Streetcar?" She led him into a combination study
and living room and sat him down next to her on the couch. "You
know, Nikki, I thought your comments about the actress playing
Blanche DuBois were the most observant ones I heard during the
entire run. You were right about her. She couldn't have played
Blanche except as a total mental case. The woman simply had no
concept of a feminine sexual appetite."
Nick looked around him. The room had hardly changed in the eight
years since he had last visited it. The ceiling was very high,
maybe fifteen feet. The walls were lined with bookcases whose full
shelves extended all the way to the ceiling. Opposite the door a
huge canvas painting of Amanda and her husband standing outside
their home on Cape Cod dominated the room. A new 1955 Ford was
partially visible in the background of the painting. She was
radiantly beautiful in the picture, in her early thirties, dressed
in a white evening gown with daring red trim both around the wrists
and along the collar of the neck. Her husband was in a black tux.
He was mostly bald, with short blond hair graying at the temples.
His eyes were warm and kindly.
Amanda asked Nick if he wanted tea and he nodded. The granddaughter
Jennifer disappeared into the hallway. Amanda turned and took
Nick's hands in hers. "I am glad you came, Nikki, I have missed
you. From time to time I hear a snippet here or there about you or
your boat, but often second-hand information is altogether wrong.
What have you been doing? Still reading all the time? Do you have a
girlfriend?"
Nick laughed. Amanda had not changed. She had never been one for
small talk. "No girlfriend," Nick said, "same problem as always.
The ones that are intelligent turn out to be either arrogant or
emotionally inept or both; the ones that are sensitive and
affectionate have never read a book. "For some reason Carol Dawson
jumped into Nick's mind and he almost said, without thinking,
"except for, maybe," but he stopped himself. "What I need," he said
instead, "is someone like you."
"No, Nikki," Amanda replied, suddenly serious. She folded her hands
in her lap and stared momentarily across the room. "No," she
repeated softly, her voice then gathering intensity as she turned
back to look at him, "even I am not perfect enough for you. I
remember well all your fantasy visions of gracious young goddesses.
Somehow you had mixed the best parts of all the women in your
favorite novels together with your teenage dreams. It always seemed
to me that you had put women up on a pedestal; they had to be
queens or princesses. But in the girls you actually dated, you
looked for weaknesses, signs of ordinariness, and indications of
common behavior. It was almost as if you were hoping to find them
imperfect, to detect chinks in their armor so that you could
justify your lack of interest."
Jennifer arrived with the tea. Nick was uncomfortable. He had
forgotten what it was like to talk to Amanda. Her emotional probing
and her unsolicited observations were both extremely disquieting to
him this morning. Nick had not come to see her to dissect his
attitude toward women. He changed the subject
"Speaking of treasure," he said, bending down to pick up his bag,
"I found something very interesting yesterday while I was out
diving. I thought maybe you might have seen something like it
before." He pulled the trident out and handed it to Amanda. She
almost dropped it because she was not prepared for its weight.
"Goodness," she said, her skinny arm trembling under the strain of
holding the golden trident out in front of her. "What could it
possibly be made from? It's too heavy to be gold!"
Nick leaned forward and took the object. He held it for her as she
ran her fingers over its exceptionally smooth exterior. "I've never
seen anything like this, Nikki. I don't need to get out all the
books and the photographs for comparison. The smoothness of the
finish is inconsistent with the processing techniques in Europe
during or after the galleon days. This must be modern. But I can't
tell you anything else. Where in the world did you find it?"
He told her just the outline of the story, careful as always not to
give away key bits of information. It was not just the agreement he
had made with Carol and Troy; treasure hunters never really trust
anybody. But he did share with Amanda his idea that perhaps someone
had cached this particular piece, as well as some others, for later
retrieval. Nick insisted that this idea of his was a perfectly
plausible explanation for the tracks on the ocean floor.
"Your scenario seems very unlikely to me," Amanda said, "although I
must admit that I am baffled and have no better explanation. Maybe
Miss Dawson has some sources that can shed some light on the origin
of this thing. But there is almost no chance that I am mistaken. I
have personally seen or viewed close-up photographs of every
significant piece of treasure recovered from the Keys in the past
century. You could show me a new piece today and I could probably
tell you in what European country it was made and in what decade.
If this object comes from a sunken ship, it is a modern ship,
almost certainly after World War II. Beyond that I can't help
you."
Nick put the trident back in the bag and started to leave. "Wait
just a minute before you go, Nikki," Amanda said as he stood up.
"Come over here for a minute." She took him by the arm and led him
over to a spot just in front of the large painting. "You would have
liked Walter, Nikki. He was a dreamer also. He loved to look for
treasure. Every year we would spend a week or two in the Caribbean
on a yacht, ostensibly looking for treasure but just generally
sharing each other's dreams. From time to time we would find
objects on the bottom of the ocean that we couldn't understand and
we would create fanciful conjectures to explain them. Almost always
there was some prosaic explanation that was inferior to our
fantasies."
Nick was standing beside her with his bag in his right hand. Amanda
turned to him and put her hand softly on his left forearm. "But it
didn't matter. It didn't even matter that most of the years we came
up empty-handed altogether. For we always found the real treasure,
our love for each other. We always returned home renewed and
laughing and thankful that life had allowed us to share another
week or ten days in which we had imagined and fantasized and hunted
for treasure together."
Her eyes were soft and loving. Her voice was low but full of
passion. "I do not know when or if you will come again, Nikki, but
there are some things that I have been wanting to say to you for
some time. If you like, you can dismiss them as the ravings of a
sententious old woman, but I may never have a chance to tell you
these things again. You have all the attributes I loved in Walter,
intelligence, imagination, sensitivity. But something is wrong. You
are alone. By choice. Your dreams of treasure, your zest for life -
you do not share these things. It is very sad for me to see this."
She stopped for a second and looked back at the painting. Then she
completed her thought, almost as if she were talking to herself.
"For when you are seventy years old and look back at what your life
has meant, you will not focus on your solo activities. What you
will remember are the incidents of touching, those times when your
life was enriched by a moment of sharing with a friend or loved
one. It is our mutual awareness of this miracle called life that
allows us to accept our mortality."
Nick had not been prepared for an emotional encounter with Amanda.
He had thought that he would stop by to see her for a few moments,
ask her about the trident, and then depart. In retrospect he
realized that he had treated Amanda very callously over the years.
She had offered genuine friendship and he had spurned it, taking
her out of his life altogether when their interaction no longer
suited him. He winced as he recognized how selfish he had been.
As he walked slowly down the street, idly looking at the gracious
old houses built over a hundred years ago, Nick took a deep breath.
He had experienced too many emotions for one morning. First
Monique, then Amanda. And it looks as if the trident is not going
to solve all my problems. Funny how things always come in
groups.
He found himself musing that maybe there had been a lot of truth in
what Amanda had said. He acknowledged that he had been feeling
lonely lately. And he wondered if the vague loneliness was indeed
coupled to a creeping awareness of his own mortality, to the
passage of that phase of life enshrined by Thomas Wolfe with the
phrase, "For we were young, and we knew that we could never die."
Nick was feeling very tired when he came to the end of the sidewalk
and turned onto the pavement of the convenience store parking
lot.
He saw her before she saw him. She was standing next to the
driver's side of her brand-new red Mercedes sports coupe. She had a
small brown paper hag in her arm and was looking in the window of
the car next to hers, Nick's 1990 Pontiac Nick felt a quick rush of
adrenaline followed by anger and distrust. She finally saw him just
as he started to speak. "Why, Greta, what a surprise! I guess we
just happened to be in this part of Key West today at exactly the
same time."
"Ya, Nick, I thought it was your car. How are you?" Greta put the
paper bag on the hood of her car and approached him in a friendly
manner. She had either missed or was ignoring the sarcasm in his
greeting. She was wearing a sleeveless yellow tank top and a pair
of tight blue shorts. Her blonde hair was pulled back in two short
pigtails.
"Don't play innocent with me, fraulein," Nick overreacted. "I know
you didn't come here to shop. " He was nearly shouting. He used his
free arm to accentuate his comments and block Greta's approach.
"This is not one of the stops on your circuit. You came here to
find me. Now what do you want?" Nick dropped his arm. A couple of
passersby had stopped to watch the exchange.
Greta stared at him for a moment with those crystal-clear eyes. She
was wearing no makeup. She looked like a little girl except for the
wrinkles on her face. "Are you still so angry, Nick? After all
these years?" She came up next to him and smiled knowingly into his
eyes. "I remember one night, almost five years ago," she said
playfully, "when you were not so angry. You were glad to see me.
You asked me if I would have you for one night, no questions asked,
and I agreed. You were great."
In a momentary flash Nick remembered the rainy night when he had
stopped Greta just as she was leaving the pier. He recalled also
how desperately he had needed to touch someone, anyone, on that
particular night. "That was the day after my father's funeral," he
said roughly, "and didn't mean shit anyway." He looked away. He did
not want to return her piercing gaze.
"That wasn't the impression I had," Greta continued in the same
playful but otherwise emotionless tone. "I felt you inside me, I
tasted your kisses. You can't tell me - "
"Look," interrupted Nick, clearly irritated. "What do you want? I
don't want to stand here all morning arguing with you about some
stupid night five years ago. Now I know that you're here for a
reason. What is it?"
Greta backed off a step and her face hardened. "You are a very
difficult man, Nick. It could be such fun doing business together
if you weren't such a, how do you say, pain in the ass." She
stopped for a moment. "I have come from Homer. He has a proposition
for you. He wants to see what you found yesterday in the ocean and
maybe discuss a partnership."
Nick laughed triumphantly. "So I was right all along. You were sent
to find me. And now that bastard wants to discuss a partnership.
Hah. Not a fucking chance. You won't steal from me again. Tell your
employer or lover or whatever he is to cram his proposition up his
ass. Now if you'll excuse me ..."
He started to walk around Greta and open his car door. Her strong
hand grabbed his forearm. "You're making a mistake, Nick." Her eyes
bored into his again. "A big mistake. You can't afford to do it on
your own. What you found is probably worthless. If it is, let him
spend the money." Her chameleon eyes shifted one more time. "And it
would be such fun to work together again."
Nick climbed into his car and turned on the engine. "No dice,
Greta. You're wasting your time. Now I've got to go." He backed out
of the parking place and then drove into the narrow street. The
treasure was front and center in his mind again. He had been
momentarily depressed by what Amanda had told him about the
trident, but the fact that Homer wanted to see it gave Nick a
feeling of power. But, he asked himself, how does he know already?
Who talked? Or could someone have seen us?
WHEN Commander Winters returned to his office after a scheduled
meeting with the public relations department, his secretary, Dora,
was conspicuously reading the Key West newspaper. "Ahem," she said,
deliberately attracting his attention. "Is the Vernon Winters
starring in The Night of the Iguana at the Key West Playhouse
tonight anyone I know? Or are there two of them in this town?"
He laughed. He liked Dora. She was almost sixty, black, a
grandmother more than a dozen times, and one of the few secretaries
on the base who actually had some pride in her work. She treated
everybody, including Commander Winters, like one of her children.
"So why didn't you tell me?" she said with feigned outrage. "After
all, what if I had missed it altogether? I told you last year to
make certain that you always told us when you were performing."
He took her hand and gave it a little squeeze. "I had intended to
tell you, Dora, but somehow it just slipped my mind. And you know
that my thespian activities are not exactly embraced by the Navy,
so I don't ballyhoo them about so much. But I'll have some tickets
for you and your husband in a couple of weeks." He looked at the
stack of message notes on her desk. "That many, huh? And I was only
gone a little over two hours. It never rains but it pours."
"Two of these are supposedly urgent." Dora looked at her watch "A
Miss Dawson from the Miami Herald will call back in about five
minutes and that Lieutenant Todd has been calling all morning. He
insists that he must see you before lunch or he can't be properly
prepared for the meeting this afternoon. Apparently he left a long,
message on your Top Secret telemail sometime this morning. Right
now he's furious with me because I wouldn't interrupt your meetings
to tell you about his message. Is it really that important?"
Commander Winters shrugged his shoulders and opened the door to his
office. I wonder what Todd wants, he thought. I guess I should have
checked my telemail before running off to the meeting with the
chief. "Did you put all the rest of the messages on the computer?"
he asked Dora before he closed the door. She nodded. "Okay, I'll
talk to Miss Dawson when she calls. Tell Todd that I will see him
in fifteen minutes." He sat down at his desk and turned on his
computer. He activated his telemail subdirectory and saw that he
had three new entries already this morning, one in the TOP SECRET
queue. Commander Winters identified himself, entered the top secret
code word, and started to read Lieutenant Todd's transmission.
The phone rang. After a few seconds Dora buzzed him and told him
that it was Miss Dawson. Before they started, Commander Winters
agreed that the interview could be on the videophone and that it
could be taped. He recognized Carol immediately from her occasional
appearances on television. She explained to him that she was using
the communications facility at the Miami International Airport.
"Commander Winters," she said, wasting no time, "we have an
uncorroborated report that the Navy is engaged in a search for
something important, and secret, in the Gulf of Mexico between Key
West and the Everglades. Your press people and a Lieutenant Todd
have both denied the report and referred all questions to you. Our
source also told us, and we have subsequently verified both of
these facts, that there are today a large number of technology
ships sailing in the Gulf and that you have been trying to rent
sophisticated ocean telescopes from the Miami Oceanographic
Institute. Do you have any comment?"
"Certainly, Miss Dawson." The commander wore his best acting smile.
He had carefully rehearsed the response in his morning meeting with
the admiral. "It's really amazing how rumors fly, particularly when
someone suspects the Navy of nefarious deeds. " He chuckled. "All
the activity is just preparation for some routine maneuvers next
week. A few of the sailors who man the technology ships are a
little rusty and wanted some practice this week. As for the MOI
telescopes, we intended to use them in our maneuvers to check their
value in assessing underwater threats." He looked directly at the
camera. "That's it, Miss Dawson. There's nothing special going
on."
Carol watched the commander on the monitor at the airport. She had
expected someone with an imposing air of authority. This man had a
softness in his eyes, some kind of sensitivity that was unusual in
a career military officer. Carol had a sudden idea. She walked up
close to her own camera. "Commander Winters," she said pleasantly,
"let me ask you a hypothetical question. If the Navy were testing a
new kind of missile and one test flight went astray, possibly even
threatening population centers, wouldn't it be likely that the
Navy, claiming national security reasons as its defense, would deny
that such a thing had happened?"
For a fleeting fraction of a second the expression in the eyes of
Commander Winters wavered. He looked shocked. Then he regained
control. "It is difficult to answer such a hypothetical question,"
he intoned formally, "but I can tell you that it is Navy policy to
keep the public informed about its activities. Only when the flow
of information to the public could significantly undermine our
national security would any kind of censorship take place."
The interview wound up quickly. Carol had accomplished her
objective. Damn, said Commander Winters to himself as Dora
announced that Lieutenant Todd was waiting to see him. I should
have expected that question. But how did she know that? Did she
somehow trick Todd or one of the other officers? Or did someone in
Washington spill the beans?
Winters opened the door to his office and Lieutenant Todd nearly
stormed into the room. With him was another tall young lieutenant,
thick shouldered with a bushy mustache whom Todd introduced as
Lieutenant Ramirez of the Naval Intelligence Division. "Did you
read my telemail message? What did you think? My God, it's almost
unbelievable what those Russians have done. I had no idea they
could be so clever." Todd was almost shouting as he paced excitedly
around the office.
Winters watched Todd jumping around the room. This young
lieutenant, he thought, is in a big hurry to get somewhere. His
impatience is oozing out of every pore. But what in the world is he
saying about the Russians? And why is this Mexican muscleman here
with him?
"Sit down. please," the commander replied, motioning at the two
chairs opposite his desk. He looked sternly at Lieutenant Todd.
"And start by explaining why Lieutenant Ramirez is here. You know
the regulations; we were all briefed on them again last week. Only
officers at the rank of commander or higher can authorize sharing
information on a need-to-know basis."
Todd immediately defended himself against the reproach. "Commander
Winters, sir," he replied, "I believe that what we have here is a
major international incident, far too big to be handled by special
projects and systems engineering alone. I left word on your
telemail interrupt at 0830 this morning for you to contact me ASAP,
that there was a significant new development in the Broken Arrow
project. When I had not heard from you by 1000, even though I had
tried several additional times to reach you by telephone, I became
worried that we might be losing valuable time. I then contacted
Ramirez so that he and his men could start their work."
Todd stood up from his chair. "Sir," he began again, the excitement
rising in his voice, "maybe I didn't make it clear enough in my
telemail message. We have hard evidence that someone commanded the
Panther to go astray, right after the APRS was activated. We have
confirmed from a special manual search of the intermittent
telemetry data that the command receipt counters went crazy during
a two-second period just before the missile veered off course."
"Calm down, Lieutenant Todd, and sit down again. "Winters was
irritated, not just by Todd's nonchalant dismissal of the
regulations issue, but also by his undisguised accusation that
Winters had been delinquent in responding to his messages. The
commander's day had begun with a meeting with the admiral who ran
the air station. He had wanted a briefing on all this Broken Arrow
business. So Winters had not even been in his office, except for a
couple of minutes, until after he came back from the public
relations department.
When Todd was again seated, Winters continued carefully, "Now spare
me the hysteria and your personal conclusions. I want you to give
me the facts, only the facts, slowly and without prejudice. The
accusations you made a few moments ago are very very serious. In my
eyes, if you have jumped to unsubstantiated conclusions too
quickly, your fitness as an officer may be in doubt. So start at
the beginning."
There was a flash of anger in the lieutenant's eyes and then he
opened his notebook. When he spoke, his voice was a monotone,
carefully modulated to be free of all emotion. "At precisely 0345
this morning," he began, "I was awakened by Ensign Andrews, who had
been working most of the night on the telemetry dumps that we
recalled both from the Canaveral station and the tracking ship near
Bimini. His assignment had been to go through the scheduled
sequence of events onboard the Panther missile and determine, from
the scattered telemetry if possible, if any anomalous events had
occurred onboard just before the missile went off course. We
thought that this way we might have a chance to isolate the cause
of the problem.
"Basically Ensign Andrews was a detective As you know, the data
system is quite constrained by the limited downlink bandwidth. So
the packets of telemetry data come out in a somewhat artificial
way, meaning that many of the data values governing the behavior of
the bird at the time it changed direction would not have been sent
to the Earth until several minutes later, after the missile had
gone awry and the tracking stations had already dropped and
regained lock a couple of times.
"Ensign Andrews showed me that in the intermittent data there were
four discrete measurements taken from the command receipt counter,
a simple buffer in the software that increments by one every time a
new command message is correctly received by the missile. At first
we did not believe what we were seeing. We thought perhaps someone
had made an error or that the decommutation maps were wrong. But by
0700 we had both checked the values from the two tracking sites and
verified that we were indeed looking at the correct channel.
Commander, in the 1.7 seconds after the APRS was activated, the
command receipt counter registered over three hundred new messages.
And then the missile swerved away from its intended target."
The commander was writing in a small spiral notebook while Todd was
talking. It took him almost half a minute to finish his notes. Then
he looked up at Todd and Ramirez. "Am I to believe then," he said,
his voice heavy with sarcasm, "that this is the entire data set
upon which you wish to base your indictment of the Soviet Union and
put our Navy intelligence community on alert? Or is there something
else?"
Todd looked confused. "You think it's more likely," Commander
Winters continued, his voice now rising, "that the Russians knew
the code for the command test set and transmitted three hundred
messages in less than two seconds, exactly at the right time and
from somewhere off the Florida coast, than it is that somewhere in
the 4.2 software system there is an error that is improperly
incrementing the command receipt counter? My God, Lieutenant, use
your head. Are you seeing bogeymen at night? This is 1994. There is
virtually no tension on the international scene. You believe that
the Russians are so colossally stupid that they would risk detente
to command a Navy cruise missile off course while it is still under
test? Even if they could somehow command the missile to a specific
location and then recover it and understand it thoroughly by
reverse engineering, why would they take such a horrendous chance
for such a comparatively small return?"
Todd and Ramirez said nothing during the commander's harangue.
Ramirez was starting to look uncomfortably embarrassed toward the
end. Todd's boyish self-confidence had faded as well and he began
to wring his hands and pop his knuckles absentmindedly. After a
long pause Winters continued, firmly but without some of the
exasperation of his initial speech.
"We assigned some specific work items yesterday, Lieutenant. They
were supposed to be addressed by today. Look again at the 4.2
software, particularly to see if there were any errors in the
interface with the command test set that showed up during module or
integration testing. Maybe there was a bug in the command receipt
counter subroutine that did not get corrected in the new release.
And for the meeting this afternoon, I want you to show me a list of
possible failure modes that would explain the telemetry data, other
than commands being sent from a foreign power. And then show what
you are planning to do to analyze each failure mode and reduce the
length of the list."
Ramirez stood up to leave. "Under the circumstances, Commander, I
feel that my presence here is a little, uh, improper. I have
briefed a couple of my men already and have kicked off some
investigative work to see if there is now or has been recently any
Russian military or civilian activity in the area. I had put a top
priority on the effort. In view of this conversation, I feel I
should suspend - "
"Not necessarily," Commander Winters interrupted him. "It might be
very difficult for you to explain at this juncture." He looked at
both of the squirming young lieutenants. "And it is not my wish to
be vindictive and put you both on report, although I think you both
acted hastily and outside regulations. No, Lieutenant, continue
with the intelligence gathering, it may eventually be of some
importance. Just don't make a big deal out of it. I'll accept the
responsibility."
Ramirez walked toward the door. He was clearly grateful. "Thank
you, Commander," he said sincerely, "for a minute there I thought
maybe I had crapped in my mess kit. I've learned a very valuable
lesson."
Winters saluted the intelligence officer and motioned Todd, who was
apparently also preparing to leave, back to his seat. The commander
walked over in front of the Renoir painting and appeared to be
studying it. He spoke quietly, without turning to face the junior
lieutenant. "Did you say anything to that reporter Miss Dawson
about a missile, or did she mention a missile to you while you were
talking to her?"
"No, sir, there was nothing like that," Todd asserted. "She was
even vague when I asked her what she had heard."
"She either has some inside information or is very very lucky," the
commander said abstractedly, almost to himself. He walked over
closer to the painting and imagined that he could hear the piano
being played by the younger of the two sisters. Today he heard a
Mozart sonata. But it was not the right time to listen. This young
man needs a good lesson out of all this, Winters thought as he
turned around.
"Do you smoke. Lieutenant?" he asked, offering Todd a cigarette and
placing one in his own mouth. The younger man shook his head. "I
do," said Winters, lighting his Pall Mall, "even though there are a
thousand reasons why I shouldn't. But I almost never smoke around
people who don't. It's a question of consideration."
Winters walked over to look out the window and blew the smoke
slowly out his mouth. Todd looked puzzled. "And right now," Winters
continued, "I'm smoking, strangely enough, also out of
consideration. For you. You see, Lieutenant Todd," he said,
wheeling around dramatically, "I'm calmer after I smoke. That means
I can deal better with my anger."
He walked directly over in front of the lieutenant. "Because I'm
goddamn mad about this, young man. Make no mistake about that.
There's a part of me that wants to make an example of you, maybe
even court martial you for not following regulations. You're too
cocky, too sure of your own conclusions. You're dangerous. If you
had slipped and made some of the comments you made in here to that
woman reporter, then it would be Katie bar the door. But" - Winters
walked around behind his desk and stubbed out his cigarette, - "it
has always been my belief that people should not be crucified for a
single mistake."
The commander sat down and leaned back in his chair. "Just between
us guys, Lieutenant, you're on probation with me. I don't want to
hear any more nonsense about an international incident. This is a
simple case of a malfunctioning test missile. Do your job
thoroughly and carefully. Don't worry, you'll be noticed if the
work is done properly. The system is not blind to your ambition or
your talent. But if you run off half-cocked one more time on this
problem, I will personally see to it that your personnel file is
ruined."
Todd could tell that he was being dismissed. He was still angry,
now at himself mostly, but he knew better than to let any of it
show. He considered Commander Winters to be a marginally competent
old fart, and he hated being lectured by him. As of now, however, I
have no choice but to accept it, he said to himself as he left the
commander's office.
NICK'S message light was blinking when he walked into his townhouse
after the meeting with Amanda and the encounter with Greta. He put
the bag with the trident back in the closet and turned on the
answering machine. Julianne appeared on the small three-inch
monitor. Nick smiled to himself. She always left all of his
messages, no matter how small, in video.
"Sorry to tell you this, Nick, but your Tampa charter for tomorrow
and Sunday just called up to cancel. They said they heard a weather
forecast calling for thunderstorms. Anyway, all is not completely
lost 'cause you get to keep their deposit." She paused a couple of
seconds. "By the way, Linda and Cotinne and I are going to Sloppy
Joe's tonight to hear Angie Leatherwood. Why don't you stop by and
say hello? I might even buy you a drink."
Shit, said Nick to himself. I needed the money. And Troy did too.
He automatically entered Troy's name on the small keyboard near the
phone and waited for Troy to pick up the receiver and turn on the
video switch.
"Why hello, Professor. What are you doing on such a beautiful day
in the tropics?" Troy was in a good humor as usual. Nick could not
understand how anyone could be in such a perpetually good mood.
"I have bad news and bad news, my friend," Nick replied. "First,
Amanda Winchester says our trident is modern and almost certainly
not a part of any ancient treasure. For my part, I'm not completely
convinced. But it doesn't look promising. Second, and probably more
important for the short term, our charter has cancelled. We have no
work for the weekend."
"Ouch," Troy said, a frown sweeping over his face. "That do present
some problems." For a moment it seemed that Troy couldn't figure
out what to say. Then the normal Troy was back, smiling cheerfully,
"Hey, Professor, I have an idea. Since we now both have nothing to
do this afternoon, why don't you come over here to the Jefferson
sanitarium for some chips and beer? I want to show you something
anyway." His eyes were twinkling.
Under almost any circumstances Nick would have declined Troy's
offer and spent the afternoon reading Madame Bovary. But the
morning had already been heavy with emotion and Nick was acutely
aware that he needed some levity. He smiled to himself. Troy was a
very funny man. An afternoon of booze and mirth sounded appealing.
Besides, Troy had been working for him for four months and they had
not yet taken any time to socialize. Even though they had spent
many hours working together on the boat, Nick had never once
visited Troy's apartment. "All right," Nick heard himself respond,
"you're on. I'll bring the food and you get the beer. I'll see you
in twenty to thirty minutes."
When Nick stopped his car in front of the small frame duplex in one
of Key West's oldest sections, Troy was just arriving himself. He
had apparently walked to a nearby store, for he was carrying a
large brown paper bag containing three six-packs of beer. "This
ought to hold us for the afternoon." He winked as he greeted Nick
and led him up the walkway to his front door. A paper sign was
taped to the door. It said, PROF - BE BACK IN A JIFF - TROY. Troy
took the sign down and reached up to a small ledge above the door
to find a key.
Nick had never wondered what Troy's apartment would be like. But he
certainly would not have imagined the living room that he found
when he followed Troy inside. The room was laid out neatly and
furnished in what could only be called early grandmother style. The
motley array of old couches and easy chairs purchased at
neighborhood garage sales (none of which was the same color, which
was of no importance to Troy - he thought of furniture in terms of
functional units, not as pieces of decoration) were arranged in a
rectangle with a long wooden coffee table in the middle. An
assortment of electronics and video magazines were neatly stacked
upon the table. Dominating the room was a state-of-the-art sound
system whose four tall speakers were carefully placed in the
corners so that all the sound was focused toward the center of the
room. As soon as the two men were inside, Troy went over to the
compact disc player on thc top of the stereo equipment rack and
turned it on. A wonderfully rich, black, female voice backed by a
piano and a guitar filled the room.
"This is Angie's new album," Troy said, handing Nick an open beer.
He had been to the kitchen and the refrigerator while Nick was
looking around the room. "Her agent thinks this one will go gold.
Love Letters just barely missed, but she made more than a quarter
of a million off it anyway. Not counting the money from the concert
tour."
"I remember your telling me that you knew her." Nick said, taking a
long drink from his beer. He had walked across the room to a box
next to the stereo rack where sixty or seventy discs were neatly
arranged. On the front of an open disc jacket on the top of the box
was a beautiful young black woman, softly backlit. She was wearing
a long dark cocktail dress. Memories of Enchanting Nights was the
title of the album. "Is there more to the story of Miss
Leatherwood?" Nick said, looking up at Troy. "This is one
magnificent lady, if you ask me."
Troy came over beside him. He programmed the disc player to cut
eight on the album. "Thought you'd never ask," he grinned
expansively. "This song probably says it the best." Nick sat down
in one of the strange easy chairs and listened to a soft ballad
with an easy beat in the background. The title of the song was "Let
Me Take Care of You, Baby." It told the story of a gifted lover who
made the songstress laugh at home or in bed. They were compatible,
they were friends. But he couldn't talk commitment because he
hadn't made it yet. So in the last stanza the woman singing the
song appeals to him to swallow his pride and let her make it easy
for him.
Nick looked at Troy and rolled his eyes while he shook his head.
"Jefferson," he said, "you're too much. I never know when you're
telling the truth and when you're slinging bullshit with both
arms."
Troy laughed and stood up from the couch. "But, Professor," he
protested, "that's what makes it more interesting." He came over
and took Nick's empty beer can. "It's hard for you to believe,
isn't it?" he said, still smiling while he looked directly at Nick,
"that maybe your funny black first mate has a few dimensions you
haven't seen."
Troy turned and walked toward the kitchen. Nick could hear him
opening beer cans and putting the chips in a bowl. "So," Nick
hollered, "I'm waiting. What's the scoop?"
"Angie and I have known each other for five years," Troy said from
the kitchen. "When we were first dating she was only nineteen and
completely naive about life. One night we were over here, right
after I first moved in, and we were listening to a Whitney Houston
album. Angie started singing."
Troy came back in the living room. He put the bowl of assorted
chips on the little wood coffee table and sat down in a chair next
to Nick. "The rest, as they say in Hollywood, is history." He waved
his arms. "I introduced her to the owner of a local night club.
Within a year she had a recording contract and I had a problem. She
was my woman. But I couldn't afford to keep up with her." Troy was
uncharacteristically quiet for a few seconds. "It's really shit
when your pride stands in the way of your feelings for the only
woman you've ever loved."
Nick was surprised to discover that Troy's intimate revelation had
touched him. Nick leaned forward in his chair and dropped his hand
lightly on Troy's shoulder in a gesture of understanding. Troy
changed the subject quickly. "And what about you, Professor? How
many broken hearts are hanging in your closet? I've seen the way
Julianne and Corinne and even Greta look at you. Why haven't you
ever married?"
Nick laughed and guzzled his beer. "Christ, this must be my lucky
day. Do you know, Jefferson, that you're the second person today to
ask me about my love life? And the first one was a seventy-year-old
woman."
Nick took another drink. "Speaking of Greta," he continued, "I ran
into her this morning - and it wasn't an accident. She was waiting
for me while I was talking to Amanda. She knew that we found
something yesterday and wanted to talk about a partnership deal. Do
you know anything about this?"
"Sure do," Troy answered easily. "Homer must have had her spying on
us. When I finished up with the boat last night, she was waiting to
pump me for information. She had watched you leave with your
exercise bag and either guessed or knew that we had found
something. I didn't tell her anything, although I didn't deny it
either. Remember, Ellen saw Carol and me in the marina office with
all that snazzy equipment."
"Yeah, I know," said Nick, "and I really didn't expect to keep it
entirely under wraps forever. I just wish we could find more of the
treasure, if it exists, before those snoops start to follow our
every move."
The two men sat in silence, drinking their beer. "But you've
managed to avoid my question," Troy said at length with a
mischievous smile. "The subject was women. How come a guy like you,
handsome, educated, apparently not gay, does not have a steady
woman?"
Nick thought for a moment. He studied Troy's friendly, guileless
face and decided to take the plunge. "I'm not sure, Troy," he said
seriously, "but I think maybe I push them all away. I find
something wrong with them so I have an excuse." A new idea crept
into Nick's mind. "Maybe I'm getting even in a way. You asked about
broken hearts? The biggest one in the closet is my own. Mine was
torn to shreds when I was a kid by a woman who probably doesn't
even remember me."
Troy rose from his chair and walked over to the disc player to
change the music. "Listen to us," he said lightly, "both struggling
with the infinite complexity of the female species. May they remain
forever crazy and mysterious and wonderful. And by the way,
Professor" - Troy's characteristic grin had returned, - "I brought
this subject up to warn you. Unless I miss my guess, that reporter
lady has her sights set on you. She likes challenges. And so far
you have given off nothing but negative signals. To say the
least."
Nick jumped up from his chair with a spurt of energy. "I'm going
for another beer, my good man. Until just this moment I had thought
that I was talking to someone with insight and understanding. Now I
find that I'm talking instead to some stupid black man who thinks
'asshole' is a term of endearment." He paused briefly on his way to
the kitchen to pick up some potato chips. "By the way," he shouted
at Troy between crunches on his chips, "you said on the phone that
you wanted to show me something. Was that the Angie Leatherwood
album or was it something else?"
Troy met him in the hall as Nick was returning with the beer. "No,"
he said earnestly, "it was something else. But I wanted to talk to
you for a little first to make sure ... well, I'm not sure why,
maybe to give me some confidence that you wouldn't put me
down."
"What are you talking about?" Nick said, a little confused.
"It's in here," Troy replied, knocking on a closed door off the
hall in the opposite direction from the living room. "It's my baby.
I've been working on it for over two years now, alone most of the
time - although Angie's artistic kid brother Lanny has helped me
with some of it - and now I want you to try it out." He smiled.
"You will be my first alpha tester."
"What the hell ... I'm lost. What's an alpha tester?" Nick's brow
furrowed as he tried to follow the conversation. The two quick
beers on an empty stomach had already given him a small and
unexpected buzz.
"My invention," Troy said slowly, letting each word sink in, "is a
computer game. I've been working on it for almost two years. And
you are going to be the first outsider to play it."
Nick screwed up his face as if he had just eaten a particularly
tart piece of grapefruit. "Moi?" he exclaimed. "You want me to play
a computer game? You want me, whose hand-eye coordination is almost
nonexistent even when completely sober, to sit down and shoot
aliens, or dodge bombs, or roll marbles at a frenzied pace that
only neo-adolescents can enjoy? Jefferson, have you lost your mind?
This is Nick Williams, the guy you call the Professor, the man who
sits and reads books for entertainment."
"Very, very good," Troy replied, laughing heartily at Nick's
outburst. "You're perfect as an alpha tester. My game is not one of
those arcade games that test your reflexes, although there are a
few places in the game where the pace is fairly fast. My creation
is an adventure game. It's a little like a novel, except that the
player defines the outcome of the game. I'm aiming at a wide
audience and I'm including a lot of unusual technological wrinkles.
I would love to see how you respond."
Troy took Nick's shrug as grudging assent and opened the door to
what should have been the master bedroom in the duplex unit.
Instead, what greeted Nick's eyes was an almost phantasmagoric
collection of electronic equipment filling every nook and cranny of
a fairly large room. His first impression was one of total chaos.
But after shaking his head and blinking a couple of times, Nick
could make out some order in the jumble of scopes, monitors,
cables, computers, and sundry unattached parts. On one side of the
room was a chair about ten feet in front of a giant screen. Between
this chair and the screen was a low table with a keyboard on it.
Troy motioned to Nick to sit down.
"My game is called Alien Adventure," Troy said excitedly, "and it
will start as soon as I boot the discs and you are ready at the
keyboard. But there are some things that I must tell you first,
before you start." He knelt beside Nick and pointed at the
keyboard. "There are three critical keys for you to remember while
you are playing the game. First, the X key stops the clock. From
the moment you start the game, the clock continues to run. While
the clock is running you are consuming vital resources. There is
only this one way to stop the clock and gather your wits without
paying a penalty. Hitting the X key allows you to stop and
think.
"Even more important than the X is the S key. The S allows you to
checkpoint or, as you would say, save the game. Right now you can't
understand what I'm telling you, because you haven't played
complicated computer games before, but believe me, you must learn
regularly to save the game. When you hit the S key, all the
parameters of the game you are playing are written into a special
data base that has a unique identifier. Then, at any time in the
future, you can call that identifier and the game will restart in
exactly the place where you saved it. This feature can be a life
saver. If you take a risky route in the game and your character
ends up dying, it's the save game feature that keeps you from
having to start all over again."
Nick was amazed. This was a different Troy than he had ever seen
before. True, he had been a little surprised and considerably
impressed by his first mate's ability to fix virtually any piece of
electronic gear on the boat, but never in his wildest dreams had he
imagined that Troy left the boat and went home to work with similar
parts in a much more creative way. Now this same smiling black man
had him sitting in a chair in front of a giant screen and was
lecturing him patiently like a child. Nick could hardly wait to see
what would happen next.
"Finally," Troy said, asking with his eyes if Nick was still
following him, "there's the H or help key. When you simply have run
out of imagination and don't know what to do, you can push H. The
game will then give you some hints on how you might proceed. But I
must warn you of one thing. The clock continues to run while you
are being helped. And there are some places in the game, during a
battle for instance where pushing the H key can be disastrous,
because you are essentially defenseless during the time that the
game processes your request for help. H is most useful when you are
in a benign spot and trying to figure out your overall
strategy."
Still squatting beside him, Troy handed Nick a small spiral
notebook and motioned for him to open it. The first page said
"Command Dictionary." On each page was a separate entry, legibly
written by hand, that explained the game command that would result
from hitting the key listed at the top of the page. "Here are the
rest of your commands, fifty in all," Troy said. "But you don't
need to memorize them. I'll help you. You'll learn some of them
yourself after you play the game for a while. Most of the important
commands are activated by a single stroke on the keyboard, but some
of the commands require two entries."
Nick flipped through the notebook. He noted that the key L prompted
the command "Look." But another entry was necessary to identify
what instrument was being used to look. L followed by a 1, for
example, meant to look with your eyes. L8 meant to look with an
ultraviolet spectrometer, whatever that was. Nick was already
overwhelmed. He looked over at his friend, who was busy making
final checks on some equipment.
Troy came back to the chair and looked down at Nick. "Now," he
said, "I think you're ready Any questions?"
"Just one, my lord and guide," Nick replied with mock meekness.
"May I please have another beer before I risk my manhood in some
weird world of your creation?"
Actually Nick was not yet ready to play the game. Even after Troy
booted three compact discs, there were more preliminary activities
before Nick could begin the game itself. He had to enter his name,
race, age, and sex in response to questions that appeared on the
giant screen. Nick looked at Troy with a curious tilt of his head
and a weird expression on his face. "Don't ask questions at this
point," Troy told him, "it will all be clear soon enough."
The screen next was filled with a beautiful ringed planet that
looked like what an artist who favored purple might make out of
Saturn. The perspective was from the pole of the planet; the rings
were all displayed like the different sections of a dart target.
Little flecks of light gleamed intermittently from the rings,
indicating that the sun or star or whatever was the source for the
reflected light was in the vicinity of the viewer. It was a lovely
picture. A simple credit in block titles, Alien Adventure by Troy
Jefferson, was superimposed on the ringed planet for three or four
seconds and the sound of soft classical music could be heard in the
room. Nick resisted an urge to chuckle when he heard Troy's voice,
clearly serious and selfconscious, coming from one of the
speakers.
Troy's recorded voice explained the initial conditions for the
game. The adventurer was on a space station in polar orbit around
Gunna, the largest planet belonging to another solar system whose
central body was the G-type star that we call Tau Ceti, only ten
light years or so away from the Earth. "Tau Ceti has eight primary
bodies in its system," Troy's voice said, "including six planets
and two moons.
"Maps of the system are available at the commissary on the space
station," Troy's voice continued, "although some of the regions
have been incompletely mapped. When your adventure begins, you are
sleeping in your cabin onboard the station. An alarm sounds on your
personal receiver ..."
The voice faded and the sound of an alarm could be heard. The
picture on the giant screen was the inside of a space cabin, almost
certainly taken from one of the many successful science fiction
movies. In the upper right hand corner of the screen was a game
digital clock that was changing by one unit every four seconds or
so. Nick looked helplessly at Troy. Troy suggested that he hit the
L key. In a few seconds Nick learned that he could use the
direction keys on the board to look at specific items in his cabin.
Each time he hit a direction key, the picture on the screen changed
to correspond to a different point of view. Nick noticed that there
was a fuzzy picture on his small television and followed Troy's
suggestion to watch until it became clear.
When the focus on his cabin television sharpened, Nick could see a
young woman wearing a long, full, richly red dress that dropped
almost all the way to the floor. She was standing, somewhat
incongruously, in a small, stark room furnished with a single bed,
a little desk, and a straight chair. Some light was entering the
room through the solitary window near the ceiling and behind the
desk. Thick vertical bars were imbedded in the window glass.
The camera zoomed in on her face. Nick leaned forward in his chair
in Troy's apartment. "Why ... why it's Julianne," Nick said in
astonishment, just as the woman began to speak.
"Captain Nick Williams," she said, much to his surprise, "you and I
have never met, but your reputation for valor and justice is
unequaled in the Federation. I am Princess Heather of Othen. While
attending the great ball at the inauguration of the Viceroy of
Toom, I was kidnapped by willens and taken to their stronghold on
the planet Accutar. They have told my father, King Merson, that
they will not release me unless he cedes to them all the ore-rich
asteroids in the Endelva region.
"He must not do that, Nick," the princess continued earnestly as
the camera zoomed in on her face, "or he will deprive our people of
their only source of hanna, the key to our immortality. My sources
tell me that already my father wastes away, brooding over his
impossible predicament. My sister Samantha has fled from Othen with
a key division of our best soldiers and a huge store of hanna. It
is not clear whether she intends to try to free me or to revolt
against my father's rule in the event that he should decide to give
up the Endelva asteroids in exchange for my life. She has always
been completely unpredictable.
"Yesterday the willens delivered an ultimatum to my father. He must
make his decision in one month, or they will behead me. Captain
Williams, please help me. I do not want to die. If you come and
rescue me, I will share with you the Othen throne and the secret of
our immortality. We can live forever as king and queen."
The transmission stopped suddenly and the picture was gone. The
screen again showed a picture of the inside of Nick's cabin onboard
the space station. Nick resisted an impulse to applaud and sat
without moving. Somehow Troy had made Julianne into a very
believable Princess Heather. But how did my name get into the
script? he wondered. He wanted to ask questions but a warning
message flashed on the giant screen, indicating that time was
passing and the adventurer was not taking any action. Nick found
the X key and the digital clock on the screen stopped. He turned to
Troy. "So what do I do now?"
With Troy's occasional help, Nick equipped himself for a journey,
found his way to the spaceport, and climbed in a small shuttle
craft. Despite Troy's hints that his chances for survival in "open
space" were small unless he spent more time examining the other
facilities on the space station, Nick blasted off anyway. It was
great fun. He used the commands on the keyboard to control his
speed and direction. What he saw on the screen was perfectly
matched with his commands, giving him the illusion that he was
actually flying a vehicle through space. He saw many other vehicles
on the monitor as he maneuvered toward his target, a planet named
Gunna, but none of them approached his shuttle. Just outside the
Gunna sphere of influence, however, a needle-nosed craft approached
him quickly and then, without warning, blasted him with a battery
of missiles. Nick was unable to escape. The screen filled with fire
from the explosion that ripped through his shuttle. Then the
monitor went blank and black except for the simple message "Game
Over" in white letters in the middle of the screen.
"Time for another beer? Nick asked, surprised to discover that he
was actually disappointed by the death of his character.
"Right on, Captain," Troy replied.
They walked into the kitchen together. Troy opened the refrigerator
and pulled out two more beers. He handed one to Nick. The professor
was still absorbed in thinking about the game. "If I remember
correctly, there were four sections marked on that map of the space
station," Nick said aloud. "And I only went in two of them. Would
you mind telling me about the other two sections?"
"You missed the cafeteria and the library," Troy said delighted
that Nick was still interested. "The cafeteria is not all that
important," he added, laughing, "although I've never known you to
go anywhere before without eating first. But the library - "
"Don't tell me," Nick said, interrupting him. "Let me figure it
out. In the library I can learn about willens and the Otheners, or
whatever they're called, who can live forever and what exactly is a
Viceroy of Toom." He shook his head. "My, my, Troy. I must say that
I am more than a little impressed. I have no idea how anyone could
create something like this; And I have a feeling that I've just
scratched the surface."
"I take it you're ready to continue, Professor?" Troy replied,
acknowledging the praise with a huge grin. "One piece of advice.
While you're in the library, look in the Encyclopedia of Space
Vehicles so you can at least tell a hostile ship when it appears.
Otherwise you're never going to reach the exciting parts of the
game."
The afternoon passed quickly Nick found that escape into the
imaginative world of Troy's game was magnificently relaxing, just
the tonic that he needed after the morning memories of Monique.
Troy knew that Nick was enjoying the playing and he was thrilled.
He felt a surge of creative pride and his belief that Alien
Adventure would be his ticket to success was reborn.
In his vain search for Princess Heather, Nick died a couple more
times. Once, when he landed on the unmapped planet Thenia, a black
man with a lizard head approached him and told him to leave, that
there was nothing but trouble on Thenia. Nick ignored the warning
and moved away from his shuttle in a land rover. He narrowly
escaped a volcanic eruption only to be trapped and eaten by a
gigantic slime mold that oozed out of the ground in the vicinity of
his shuttle landing site.
In another reincarnation Nick encountered Samantha, Princcss
Heather's sister, played for a couple of scenes by Julianne's buxom
friend Corinne. Actually, Troy had made Corinne up to look like
Susie Q, the famous porn queen of the early nineties, and most of
the actual pictures that appeared on the game screen were taken
from her ribald classic Pleasure Until Pain. Deft interleaving of
new footage with the borrowed shots gave the illusion of being in
the movie with Susie Q while she offered sexual delights beyond
refusal.
Samantha alias Susie Q alias Corinne seduced Nick and then stabbed
him to death with a small dagger while he was lying naked and
expectant on the bed. By this point the two men were drinking their
final six-pack of beer and the combination of the pornographic
scenes and the alcohol had made their conversation coarse and
degenerate. "Shit," exclaimed Nick, entreating Troy to replay the
scene where a naked Samantha/Susie Q comes up to the camera to take
his erect penis in her mouth. "I have never, no never, even heard
of a computer game where you almost get a blow job. Man, you are
twisted. A genius, yes, I'll agree. But absolutely fucking twisted.
What on God's earth induced you to put sex scenes in this
game?"
"Hey, man." Troy laughed, putting his arm around Nick as they half
staggered into the living room, "the name of the game is sales. And
right here, in Entertainment Software (he picked up a magazine from
the table), it says that seventy-two percent, seventy-two fucking
percent, my friend, of all the people who buy computer games are
16- to 24-year-old males. And do you know what that group likes in
addition o computer games and science fiction? Sex, my man. Can't
you just see some teenage nerd retreating into his room to play
this game and whack off? Eeee yaaa!" Troy fell down on one of the
easy chairs and beat his chest.
"You're crazy, Jefferson," Nick said, watching Troy's display. "I
don't know if I can ever again be alone with you on a boat. You are
a certified nut case. I mean, just imagine the reviews. Alien
Adventure features an encounter with Susie Q the queen of
pornography, in an underground castle on the asteroid Vitt. Which
reminds me, how in the world did you get all those movie pieces in
there?"
"Lots of research and hard work, Professor," Troy answered,
starting to calm down a little. "Lanny and three of his friends
have spent maybe a thousand hours watching film for me, trying to
find exactly the right clips. And none of this would be possible,
of course, without the new data storage methods. We can now store
an excellent digital version of every movie ever made in the United
States in a warehouse not much larger than this duplex. I've just
used data base capabilities to the fullest."
Nick crushed a beer can in his hands. "It's fabulous. Really. But I
don't know about the sex business. And why do you have the player
register his race at the beginning of the game? Don't you think
that will offend some people? I never saw anything in the game that
was based on the racial information."
Even though he was drunk, Troy became momentarily serious and
almost somber. "Look, man," he said firmly, "sex and race are both
a part of life. It may be true that people play computer games
primarily for entertainment, and that they would prefer not to be
confronted by some topics when they are amusing themselves, but I
must be allowed some creative license. Race is with us every day
and ignoring it, it seems to me, only contributes to the
problem."
Troy brightened up. "Hey, Professor. That lizard-man who warned you
on Thenia was black. You went ahead anyway despite his warning.
What if he had been white? Would you have turned around and gone
back to the shuttle? A black man playing the game encounters a
white lizard-man on Thenia. It's part of the show, man. There are
twenty or so changes in the scenario that are based on racial
input."
Nick's expression was clearly disbelieving. "Really," Troy said,
standing up to return to the room where they had played his game,
"I'll show you. Watch how the game starts if you register that you
are a black male."
Nick followed Troy back into the computer room. His curiosity was
clearly piqued. Troy turned the game on and Nick entered the
biographical data, changing his race to black. This time, when the
television picture in his space station cabin came into focus,
Princess Heather was black! The princess this time was, in fact,
Angie Leatherwood. "Well, I'll be damned," Nick said, looking over
at a beaming Troy. "You are one clever dude, Mr. Jefferson." Nick
walked out of the room whistling and shaking his head again. Troy
turned off the game and followed.
"Okay," Nick began, once they were back in Troy's living room and
seated on the couch, "one last question and then let's forget the
game for the time being. How did you get my name into it? I thought
that was very impressive."
"It was originally Lanny's idea, based on a movie he watched about
a speech therapist. Lanny had all the minor characters spend a day
mouthing all the vowel and consonant sounds in a test session. Then
we just put the sounds together with what are called audio analytic
continuation techniques." Troy laughed. He was feeling ebullient
and basking in the compliments. "But it does have its drawbacks.
Our interpreter only knows how to read simple English words. We may
have to suppress that feature if we sell the game abroad."
Nick stood up. "Well, I've run out of superlatives By the way, are
there more of you, brothers, sisters, anything? I guess I'd like to
warn the rest of the world."
"Only me now," Troy replied. a faraway look fleetingly crossing his
face. "I had a brother, Jamie, six years older than me. We were
very close. He died in an automobile accident when I was
fourteen."
There was an awkward silence. "I'm sorry," Nick said, again touched
by Troy's openness. Troy shrugged his shoulders and struggled with
the sudden memory.
Nick changed the subject. They talked about the boat and then about
Homer and his crew for several minutes. Suddenly Nick looked at his
watch. "Jesus Christ," he said. "It's after four o'clock. Weren't
we supposed to meet Carol Dawson at four?"
Troy jumped out of his chair. "We sure were. Some partners we
turned out to be," he was grinning again, "spending the entire
afternoon drinking beer and playing games." The two men shared a
small hug, threw the empty beer cans in the trash, and went out the
door toward Nick's car.
CAROL was clearly irritated as she sat in the communications room
at the Marriott. She was drumming her fingers on the desk while she
listened to the telephone ring. There was a click and then Nick's
voice said, "I am not at home at the present time. But if - " She
flipped the switch off hastily and completed the sentence, her
sardonic mimicry releasing some of her frustration, "But if you'll
leave your name, your number, and the time that you called, I'll
get back to you as soon as I return. S-h-i-t. Shit. I knew I should
have called before I left Miami."
She dialed another number. Bernice answered and put her right
through (on video) to Dr. Dale Michaels. Carol did not bother with
a greeting. "Can you believe that I can't even find the stupid
bastard? He's not on his boat, he's not at home. Nobody knows where
he is. I could have stayed in Miami and taken a nap."
Carol had not told Dr. Dale much about Nick and Troy. And what she
had said about Nick had not been flattering.
· 'Well, what did you expect?" Dale responded. "You wanted
to go out with amateurs as a cover. Why would you think that he
would be easy to find before your appointment? That kind usually
stays in bed with his dame of the day until he has some reason to
greet the world." Dale chuckled to himself
Carol found herself strangely annoyed by Dale's disdainful comment
about Nick's love life. She started to say something but decided
against it. "Say, Dale," she said instead, "is this phone line
absolutely secure? I have a couple of sensitive items to discuss
with you."
He smiled. "Nothing to worry about. I have sensors that flash if
there is the slightest unexplained break anywhere in the line. Even
on your end."
"Good," Carol replied. She pulled out her notebook and scanned a
handwritten list. " As far as Arnie Webber knows," she said,
looking up at the video camera, "there are no legal prohibitions
against salvaging any U. S. government property, provided it is
returned to its rightful owner very soon after its retrieval. So I
wouldn't technically be committing a crime if I pull the missile
up." She checked the first item off her list.
"But, Dale, I thought about something else on the flight down here
from Miami. This thing is, after all, some kind of guided missile.
What if it blows up? Am I crazy to worry about such a thing? Or is
it somehow incapacitated or what-ever by sitting down there in the
sand and salt water for several days?"
Dale laughed. "Sometimes, Carol, you're divine. I am fairly
confident that the new missile is designed to operate either in the
air or in water. And I don't think that the sand would be able to
foul up its critical parts in a short period of time. However, the
fact that it hasn't exploded yet suggests to me that it probably
wasn't armed in the first place, except possibly for a small
destruct device that may or may not have already failed. You are
taking a calculated risk in retrieving that missile. I still
strongly suggest that you make your dive, obtain the photographs,
and then go public with the story. Dredging the missile up for
display purposes seems to me to be more of a stunt than journalism.
Besides, it's dangerous."
Carol was curt. "As I said in the car, you are entitled to your
opinion. The Navy could make a case that I faked the pictures
somehow. But they cannot argue with a missile that has physical
presence and can clearly be seen by a nationwide television
audience. I want maximum impact for the story."
She checked another item off the list in her notebook. "Oh, yes, I
forgot to mention this morning that I met another boat captain down
here, a bit of a creep actually, an older fat man named Homer. He
seemed to recognize me almost immediately. Wealthy, big yacht and
all that. Strange crew - "
"Was his last name Ashford? Homer Ashford?" Dale interrupted
her.
Carol nodded. "So you know him?" she asked.
"Certainly," Dale replied. "He was the leader of the expedition
that found the Santa Rosa treasure in 1986. You've met him too,
although it's obvious you've forgotten. He and his wife were guests
at the MOI awards banquet early in 1993." Dale stopped to think.
"That's right. I remember now, you were real late coming to the
party because of that threat made against you by Juan Salvador. But
I'm surprised you forgot them, the wife especially. She was a great
big fat woman and she thought you were the cat's pajamas."
Slowly but surely it all clicked in Carol's memory. She recalled a
bizarre evening right after she first started going with Dale. She
had run a piece in the Herald on cocaine trafficking and had
suggested that the Cuban city councilman, Juan Salvador, was
deliberately inhibiting the police investigations. At noon that
day, a usually reliable source had called her editor at the paper
and told him that Senor Salvador had just purchased a contract on
Carol's life. The Herald had assigned her a bodyguard and
recommended that she alter her normal schedule so that her
whereabouts would always be uncertain.
The evening of the MOI banquet Carol was in a fog. The bodyguard
had been with her for only three hours and already she felt
confined and restricted. But Carol had been genuinely frightened by
the threat. At the banquet she had scrutinized every face, looking
for an assassin, waiting for someone to make a move. As she sat in
the hotel communications room fourteen months later, she did
vaguely remember meeting Homer (he had been dressed in a tux) and
some jolly fat woman who had followed her around for twenty minutes
or so. Damnit, Carol thought. It's my memory again. I should have
recognized him immediately. How stupid of me.
"Okay," Carol said to Dale, "I remember them now. But why were they
at the MOI awards banquet?"
"We were honoring our leading benefactors that night," Dale
replied. "Homer and Ellen have been big supporters of our
underwater sentry effort. In fact, he has field tested many of our
prototypes at his facility there in Key West. Real solid test data
too. Best compilation of sentry/intruder responses that anybody has
catalogued. Why? it was Ashford who showed us how the MQ-6 could be
fooled - "
"Okay, Okay," Carol said, realizing that her tolerance threshold
was still extremely low. "Thanks for the information. It's now a
quarter till four. I'm going to go down to the marina to meet Nick
Williams and make arrangements for tomorrow. If anything new comes
up, I'll call you at home tonight."
"Ciao," said Dale Michaels. trying without success to sound
sophisticated, "and please be careful."
Carol hung up the phone with a sigh. She wondered if she should
spend a minute or two figuring out where she and Dale were going.
Or not going. As the case may be. She thought about all the things
she needed to do. She closed her notebook and rose from her chair.
Not right now, she thought I don't have time now to think about
Dale. But as soon as I have a break in this crazy life of mine.
Carol was really fuming when she walked back into the marina
headquarters the second time. She approached the information desk
with fire in her eyes. "Miss," she said nastily to Julianne, "as I
told you fifteen minutes ago, I had an appointment here at four
o'clock with Nick Williams and Troy Jefferson. It is now, as you
can see, after four-thirty."
Carol pointed at the digital clock with an impatient, sweeping
gesture that commanded Julianne to look. "We have both established
independently that Mr. Williams is not home," Carol continued. "Now
ate you going to give me Mr. Jefterson's phone number, or should I
make a scene?"
Julianne did not like Carol or her obvious attitude of superiority.
She held her ground. "As I told you, Miss Dawson," she said
politely but with a biting overtone, "marina policy prohibits our
giving out the phone numbers of the independent boat owners or
their crew members. It's a question of privacy. Now if you had a
formal charter through the marina," Julianne continued, enjoying
her moment of glory, "then it would be our job to assist you. But
as I said earlier, we have no record - "
"Goddamn it, I know that," replied Carol furiously. She slammed the
envelope of photos that she was carrying down on Julianne's
counter. "I'm not an imbecile. We've been through this before. I
told you I was supposed to meet them here at four o'clock. Now if
you won't help me, I want to talk to your superior, the assistant
manager of whatever."
"Fine," said Julianne, her eyes firing darts of contempt at Carol.
"If you will just take a seat over there, I will see if I can
locate - "
"I will not take a seat," shouted Carol in exasperation. "I want to
see him now. This is an issue of extreme urgency. Now pick up the
phone and - "
"Is something wrong here? Perhaps I can help." Carol spun around.
Homer Ashford was standing right behind her. Just to the right,
toward the gate in the direction of the jetties, Greta and a big
heavy woman (That's Ellen. Now I remember her, Carol thought) were
talking quietly. Ellen smiled at Carol. Greta looked right through
her.
"Well, hello, Captain Homer," Julianne said sweetly, "it's nice of
you to ask. But I think everything's under control. Miss Dawson
here has just indicated that she does not accept my explanation of
marina policy. She is going to wait for - "
"Maybe you can help," Carol interrupted Julianne defiantly. "I had
an appointment here at four o'clock with Nick Williams and Troy
Jefferson. They have not shown up. Do you by any chance happen to
know Troy's phone number?"
Captain Homer gave Carol a suspicious look and exchanged a knowing
glance with Ellen and Greta. He turned back to Carol. "Well, it is
certainly a surprise, Miss Dawson, to see you back here again. Why
we were just talking about you this morning, saying that we hoped
you had a good time on your free day in Key West." He paused for
effect. "Now I wonder why you've come back here again, the very
next day. And did I hear correctly, you need to see Williams and
Jefferson on an issue of extreme urgency? It couldn't possibly have
anything to do with all that equipment you brought in here
yesterday, could it? Or the little gray bag that Williams has been
guarding since last night?"
Uh oh, thought Carol, as Greta and Ellen moved in around her. I'm
surrounded. Captain Homer started to pick up the sealed envelope on
Julianne's counter but Carol stopped him.
"If you don't mind, Captain Ashford," she said firmly, taking his
hand off the envelope and putting the photos under her arm. She
lowered her voice. "I would like to talk to you privately." Carol
nodded her head at the two women. "Can we go out in the parking lot
together for a minute?"
Homer's beady eyes squinted at her. Then his face broke into the
same obnoxious, lecherous smile that Carol had seen on the
Ambrosia. "Certainly, my dear," he said. He shouted to Greta and
Ellen as he walked out the door with Carol, "Wait here. I'll only
be a minute."
Necessity is the mother of invention, Carol thought to herself as
she led Homer Ashford out the door. So invent, bitch. And now. As
in this moment.
They walked up the steps to the parking lot. Carol turned to
Captain Homer at the top of the steps with a conspiratorial look on
her face. "I can tell that you've figured out why I'm here," she
said. "I didn't want it this way, I thought it would make a better
story if nobody knew what I was doing. But you're obviously too
clever for me." Homer grinned foolishly. "But I would ask you to
tell as few people as possible. You can tell your wife and Greta,
but please nobody else. The Herald wants it to be a surprise."
Homer looked puzzled. Carol leaned over and almost whispered in his
ear. "The entire Sunday magazine section the fourth week in April.
Isn't that unbelievable? Working title, 'Dreams of Being Rich,'
stories about people like you, like Mel Fisher, like the four
Floridians who have won over a million dollars each in the lottery.
On how sudden income changes your life. I'm doing the whole piece.
I'm starting with the treasure angle because of its general
interest."
Carol could see that Captain Homer was reeling. She knew she had
him off guard. "Yesterday I just wanted to check your boat quickly,
see how you lived, see how it would photograph. I freaked out a
little when you recognized me so fast. But I had always planned to
go out with Williams first." Carol laughed. "My treasure-finding
equipment from MOI faked him out. He still thinks I am a genuine
treasure seeker. I almost completed my whole interview with him
yesterday. I only came back today to finish a couple of small
items."
An alert went off in Homer Ashford's system when Carol talked about
faking out Nick Williams. Homer wasn't certain he believed this
smooth reporter's story even now. He mused to himself that her
story was plausible, but there was still one big unanswered
question. "But what is Williams carrying around in that bag?" he
asked.
"That," said Carol, sensing his distrust, "is nothing." She raised
her eyebrows and laughed again. "Or almost anyway. We pulled up a
worthless old trinket yesterday afternoon so I could photograph the
salvage process for the story. I told him to have it appraised
today. He thinks I'm an eccentric. He must be keeping it hidden in
the bag because he's embarrassed and doesn't want anybody to see
him with it."
Carol lightly hit Captain Homer in the ribs with her elbow. He
shook his head. Part of him realized he was being told a very
clever lie. But somehow enough of it made sense that Homer couldn't
pierce the deception. His brow furrowed for a moment. "So I guess
you'll want to talk to us when you're through with the other two
..."
At just that moment, unbeknownst to Carol, Nick and Troy drove into
the marina parking lot. They were still slightly drunk and silly.
"Lawdy, lawdy," said Troy, spotting Carol and Captain Homer in
conversation, "I believe my eyes have screwed up. They're sending a
picture of a beauty and a beast to my brain. It's Miss Carol Dawson
together with our favorite fat captain. Now what do you suppose
they're talking about?"
"I don't know," said Nick, bridling instantly, "but I'm damn sure
going to find out. If she's double-crossing us ... ." He pulled the
car quickly into a parking place and started to jump out. Troy
reached across and restrained him.
"Now why don't you let me handle this one?" Troy said. "Humor may
be just the right ticket here."
Nick thought for a moment. "Maybe you're right," he said. "I'll let
you go first."
Troy walked into view just as Carol and Captain Homer were
finishing their conversation. "Helloooo, angel," he said from forty
yards away, "what's happening?"
Carol held her hand up in acknowledgment but didn't turn around to
greet Troy. "So that's 2748 Columbia, just beyond the Pelican
Resort, at eight-thirty tomorrow night?"
"Right," replied Homer Ashford. He nodded his head in Troy's
direction and started to leave. 'We'll be ready for you. Bring
plenty of tape, for it's a long story." He made a peculiar clucking
sound with his mouth. "And plan to stay for a little party
afterward."
Homer was already halfway down the steps when Troy walked up beside
Carol. "Hello, Captain Homer. Good-bye, Captain Homer," he said
quietly, still playing the comic. He leaned over to kiss Carol on
the cheek. "Hi there, angel ..."
"Yuch," Carol pulled her cheek away. "You smell like brewery. No
wonder I've had to look all over town for you two." She saw Nick
coming toward them across the parking lot. He was carrying the
exercise bag. She raised her voice. "Well, Mr. Williams, what a
pleasant surprise. How nice that you and your brother here could
climb down from your bar stools long enough to keep our
appointment." She looked at her watch. "My, my," she said in her
most sarcastic voice, "we are certainly fashionably late. Let's
see, if one waits fifteen minutes for a full professor, how long
does one wait for a fake professor?"
"Knock off the bullshit, Miss High and Mighty," Nick said,
responding angrily to her barbs. He joined Carol and Troy and then
caught his breath. "We have a few bones to pick with you as well,"
he continued. "Just what were you doing talking to that asshole
Ashford?"
Nick sounded threatening. Carol recoiled. "Listen to him," she
said, "the typical macho male. Always shifts the blame to the
woman. 'Hey bitch,' he says, 'forget I'm late, forget I'm an
arrogant bastard, it was your fault anyway ...' "
"Hey, hey ... hey," Troy interceded. Carol and Nick were glowering
at each other. They both started to speak but Troy interrupted them
again. "Children, children, please," he continued, "I have
something important to say." They both looked at him. Troy raised
his arms for quiet. Then he adopted a stiff pose and pretended to
be reading. " 'Fourscore and seven years ago, our forefathers
brought forth upon this continent a new nation ...' "
Carol cracked up first. "Troy," she said, smiling despite her
anger, " you are something else. You are also ridiculous."
A grinning Troy punched Nick on the shoulder. "How did I do,
Professor? Would I make a good Lincoln? Could a nice young black
boy play Lincoln for the white folks?"
Nick smiled reluctantly and looked down at the macadam while Troy
jabbered. When Troy was finished, Nick's tone to Carol was
conciliatory. "I'm sorry we were late," he said in measured tones,
"we forgot what time it was. Here's the trident."
Carol recognized how difficult it had been for Nick to apologize.
She accepted gracefully with a short smile and a gesture with her
hands. "You keep the trident for a little while longer," she said
after a brief silence. "We have a lot of other things to talk
about." She looked around. "But this may be the wrong place and the
wrong time."
Both Nick and Troy were giving her questioning looks. "I have some
very exciting news," she explained, "some of which is here in your
copy of the pictures that I developed this morning. Bottom line is
that the telescope picked up an infrared signal coming out of the
fissure from some kind of large object or objects." She turned to
Nick. "It may be more treasure. We can t be certain what it is
based on the images."
Nick reached for the envelope. Carol pulled it away. "Not here, not
now. Too many eyes and ears. Take my word for it. What we have to
do now is make plans. Can you two take me out again tomorrow
morning early and be prepared to salvage objects possibly as big as
two hundred pounds? Of course, I intend to pay for chartering the
boat again."
"Wow," whistled Nick, "two hundred pounds! I can hardly wait to see
the pictures . " He was sobering up rapidly . " We'll need to
borrow a dredger and - "
"I still have the telescope so we can use it again," Carol added.
She looked at her watch. "It's almost five o'clock now, how much
preparation time do you need?"
"Three hours, four hours at the most," Nick said, calculating
swiftly. "With Troy's help, of course," he added.
"Gladly, my friends," Troy replied. "And since Angie has reserved a
special table for me at Sloppy Joe's for her ten-thirty show
tonight, why don't we meet there and go over the details for
tomorrow?"
"Angie Leatherwood is a friend of yours?" Carol said, obviously
impressed. "I haven't seen her since she made the big time." She
paused for a second and handed the envelope to Nick. "Look at these
images in private. The whole set was taken just under the boat
where we were diving. Some are obviously blowups of others. It may
take a little time for your eyes to adjust to all the colors. But
it's the brown object or objects that we're after." Carol could
tell that both of the men were eager to see the pictures. She
walked with them toward Nick's car. "So I'll see both of you
tonight at Sloppy Joe's about ten-fifteen." She turned to head for
her own parking place.
"Uh, Carol, just a minute," Nick stopped her. Carol waited while
Nick, suddenly awkward, tried to figure out a nice way to ask his
question. "Would you mind telling us why you were talking to
Captain Homer?" he at last said tactfully.
Carol looked at Nick and Troy for a minute and then laughed. "I ran
into him while I was in the office trying to call you guys. He
wanted to know about the piece we retrieved yesterday. I put him
off the track by telling him I was doing a feature article on all
members of the crew that found the Santa Rosa treasure eight years
ago."
Nick glanced at Troy with mock disgust "You see, Jefferson," he
said with exaggerated emphasis. "I told you there was a legitimate
explanation." The two men waved at Carol as she headed for her
car.
LIEUTENANT Todd," the commander said with exasperation, "I am
beginning to think that the U.S. Navy has overestimated your
intelligence or experience or both. It is beyond me how you can
continue even to consider the possibility that the Panther was
commanded off course by the Russians, particularly in light of the
new information you presented this afternoon."
"But, sir," the younger man answered stubbornly "it is still a
viable hypothesis. And you yourself said in the meeting that a good
failure analysis does not exclude any reasonable possibility."
The two men were in Commander Winters' office. The commander walked
over to look out the window. It was almost dark outside. The air
was heavy, still, and humid. Thunderstorms were building over the
ocean to the south. The base was nearly empty. At length Winters
looked at his watch, heaved a sigh, and came back across the room
toward Lieutenant Todd. He was smiling only slightly.
"You listened well, Lieutenant. But the operative word here is
'reasonable.' Let's review the facts. Did I or did I not hear
correctly that your telemetry analysis unit found this afternoon
that the commands rejected counter on the bird also incremented
during the flight, beginning as early as off the coast of New
Brunswick? And that, apparently, over one thousand command messages
were rejected as the missile made its way down the Atlantic Coast?
How do you propose to explain all this in terms of your scenario?
Did the Russians deploy an entire fleet of ships along the flight
path, just to confuse and capture one solitary Navy test
missile?"
Commander Winters was now standing directly in front of the taller
young lieutenant. "Or maybe you believe," he continued
sarcastically, before Todd could respond, "that the Russians have a
new secret weapon that flies alongside a missile going at Mach 6
and talks to it en route. Come on, Lieutenant, on what reasonable
grounds do you consider this bizarre Russian hypothesis of yours
still viable?"
Lieutenant Todd did not yield. "Sir," he answered, "none of the
other possible explanations for the missile's behavior makes any
more sense at this stage. You now say that you believe it's a
software problem; however, our very brightest programmers cannot
imagine how the only external indication of a major, system-level
software malfunction could be that two, and only two, command
counters go haywire. They have checked all the internal software
diagnostic data that was telemetered to the ground and they can
find no problems. Besides, the pre-release checkout indicates that
all the software was working fine just seconds before the flight
began.
"And we know something else. Ramirez has learned from Washington
that there have been peculiar movements in the Russian submarine
fleet off the Florida coast in the last forty-eight hours. I'm not
saying that the Russian hypothesis, as you call it, is the answer.
Just that until we have a more satisfactory explanation of a
failure mechanism that could cause both command counters to
increment, it makes sense to carry one option that assumes maybe
the Panther was actually commanded."
Winters shook his head "All right, Lieutenant," he said finally. "I
will not order you to take it off the list. But I will order you to
concentrate this weekend on finding the missile in the ocean
somewhere and identifying a hardware and/or software problem that
could have caused either the command counter anomaly or the change
in the flight path or both. There must be an explanation that does
not involve operations on a massive scale by the Russians."
Todd started to walk around Winters and leave. "Just a minute," the
commander said, his eyes narrowing. "I don't believe it's
necessary, is it Lieutenant, to remind you of who will be held
responsible if the outside world gets wind of this Russian
business?"
"No, Commander ... sir," was the answer.
"Then carry on," said Winters, "and let me know if there are any
significant new developments."
Commander Winters was in a hurry. He had called the theater right
after Todd had left and told Melvin Burton that he was going to be
late. He drove quickly into a hamburger stand, wolfed down a burger
and fries, and headed for the marina area.
He arrived at the theater when most of the rest of the cast was
already dressed. Melvin met him at the door. "Quickly now,
Commander, we have no time to spare. The makeup must be correct the
first time." He looked nervously at his watch. "You're in the
pulpit in exactly forty-two minutes." The commander entered the
men's dressing room, took off his Navy uniform, and put on the dour
black and white regalia of an Episcopal priest. Outside the door to
the dressing room Melvin paced back and forth, going through a
final checklist in his mind.
Commander Winters was in the pulpit when the curtain rose. He had a
strong case of normal opening-night jitters. He looked across the
three rows of his stage congregation to the full audience in the
theater. He saw his wife Betty and son Hap in the second row.
Winters smiled at them quickly before the applause died down. Then
his nervousness disappeared as he launched into Shannon's
sermon.
The short prologue sped by quickly. The lights dimmed another time
for fifteen seconds, the set changed automatically, and he was in
the final scene, walking into his hotel room in Mexico and still
mumbling to himself phrases from his letter. Shannon/Winters sat
down on his bed. He heard a noise in the corner of the room and
looked up. It was Charlotte/Tiffani. Her gorgeous auburn hair was
down over her shoulders. She was wearing a light blue silk
nightshirt, cut low in the middle, which her ample and upright
breasts filled completely. He heard her say, "Larry, oh Larry,
finally we're alone together," and she came to sit beside him on
the bed. Her perfume filled his nostrils. Her hand was behind his
head. Her lips pressed against his, insistent, hard, searching. He
pulled back. Her lips followed, then her body. He fell back on the
bed. She crawled on top, her kisses continuing, her breasts pushed
against his pounding chest. He put his arms around her, slowly at
first, and then, lying on his back, he enveloped her with a deep
embrace.
The lights flashed off and on for several seconds.
Charlotte/Tiffani slid off of Winters and lay beside him on the
bed. He could hear her labored breathing. A voice was heard,
"Charlotte." Then again, with a loud knock on the door, "Charlotte,
I know you're in there." The door sprang open. The two lovers half
sat up in bed. The lights went off and the curtain came down. The
applause was loud and sustained.
Commander Vernon Winters pushed open the door and stumbled outside.
He was at the alley entrance to the theater. The door, over which
was a single light bulb covered with insects, opened onto a small
wooden platform a few steps above the pavement. Winters walked down
the three steps and stood beside the red brick wall of the theater.
He pulled out a cigarette and lit it.
He watched the smoke curl upward against the red brick. In the
distance there was a burst of lightning, then a pause before the
sound of rolling thunder. He inhaled deeply again and tried to
understand what he had been feeling during those five or ten
seconds with Tiffani. I wonder if they could tell, he thought. I
wonder if it was obvious to everyone. When he had changed clothes
for the first full act of the play, he had noticed the telltale
tracks on his undershorts. He expelled some more smoke and winced.
And that little girl. My God. She knows for sure. She must have
felt it when she was on top of me.
Despite himself, he recaptured for an instant his excitement when
Tiffani had pressed herself against him. His breath shortened. A
first tinge of guilt began to manifest itself. My God, he thought
again. What am I? I'm a dirty old man. For some reason he found
himself thinking of Joanna Carr, of a night almost twenty-five
years ago. He remembered the moment when he took her ...
"Commander," he heard a voice say. He turned around. Tiffani was
standing on the platform in her T-shirt and jeans, her long hair
down over her shoulders. Now she was walking down the steps toward
him. "Commander," she said again with a mysterious smile, "may I
have a cigarette?"
He was dumbfounded, stupefied. He said nothing. Winters
automatically reached into his pocket and pulled out his pack of
Pall Malls. The girl took one, packed it against her fingernail,
and slid it into her mouth. She waited a second, maybe two. Then
she gave him another smile. Winters at last woke up and produced
his cheap supermarket lighter. She cupped his trembling hand and
inhaled vigorously on the cigarette.
Winters watched her, fascinated, as she pulled the smoke into her
lungs. He studied her mouth, her white neck, her uplifted chest as
she caressed the smoke. With the same rapt attention, he watched
her diaphragm subside and the smoke curl out of her pursed
lips.
They stood there together, quietly smoking, neither speaking. Over
the ocean there was another flash of lightning, another roll of
thunder. Each time that Tiffani would put the cigarette in her
mouth, the mesmerized Winters would follow her every move. She
would inhale deeply, intently, pulling hard on the cigarette for
the nicotine her body cherished. He was only vaguely aware of his
jumbled thoughts.
She's beautiful, so beautiful. Young and fresh and full of life.
And that hair. How I would love to wrap it around my neck ... but
she's not a little girl. She's a young woman. She must sense what
I'm feeling, my fascination for her ... she smokes as I do. With
complete concentration. She caresses ...
"I love stormy nights," Tiffani broke the silence as still another
distant flash of lightning lit up the sky. She moved closer to him
and then craned her neck to see around a group of trees that was
blocking her view of the cloud formation where the lightning was
occurring. She brushed against Commander Winters ever so slightly.
He was electrified.
His mouth was dry. His body was suffused with desire, a desire he
barely recognized. He could not answer her comment. Instead he
stared off at the growing storm and took the final drag from his
cigarette.
She too finished her cigarette and dropped it on the pavement. As
she turned to face him and their eyes met, the last wisps of smoke
were playfully wandering across her lips. She gave a quick,
flirtatious blow with her mouth and Winters felt a burst of lust in
his groin. He retained his self-control and they entered the
theater in silence.
The applause continued. Commander Winters brought the women who had
played Maxine and Hannah, one on either side of him, forward for
their final bow, just as they had planned before the performance
began. The applause intensified. Again he stared at the empty seats
where Betty and Hap had been before the intermission. He heard a
voice from the audience shout "Charlotte Goodall" and Winters
improvised. He took the two ladies back to the line of the
assembled cast and walked down the line to Tiffani. For a moment
she did not understand. Then her face broke into a radiant smile
and she took his hand.
He walked forward with her to the front of the stage. their hands
wrapped together in a tight hold. This was her special moment. She
was near tears as she heard the applause grow again. He stood aside
and she bowed gracefully to the audience. She finished her bow,
took his hand again with a delightful squeeze, and backed up into
the line with the cast.
Melvin, Marc, and Amanda were all backstage while they were
dressing. Enthusiastic congratulations were everywhere. Melvin
particularly seemed ecstatic. He admitted that he had had some
misgivings during rehearsals, but that everyone had been wonderful.
The director confided to Winters that the bedroom scene with
Tiffani had been "superb - couldn't have been better," as Melvin
literally danced out the dressing room door.
Winters was overwhelmed with a myriad of emotions. He was pleased
with his performance in the play and the audience reception, but
other more personal things were on his mind. What had happened to
Betty and Hap? Why had they left at intermission? In his mind's
eye, Winters imagined Betty watching his love scene with Tiffani.
He had a momentary panic as he convinced himself that she had
known, from out in the audience, that her husband was not acting at
all, that he was every bit as aroused as the character he was
playing.
What had occurred with Tiffani he could not begin to understand and
could not even think about without starting to feel guilty. While
he was putting back on his Navy uniform, he allowed himself to
taste again her kisses on the bed in the play and to feel the
sexual tension while they smoked together in the alley. But beyond
his awareness of his arousal he would not go. Guilt was a
depressing emotion, and on his successful opening night he did not
want to be depressed.
When Commander Winters walked out of the men's communal dressing
room, Tiffani was waiting for him. Her hair was back in pigtails,
her face scrubbed free of makeup. She looked again like a little
girl. "Commander," she said, almost with servility, "would you do
me a favor, please?" He smiled his assent. She beckoned to him and
he followed her out in the hall that was adjacent to the backstage
quarters.
A red-haired man about the commander's age was standing in the
hall, nervously smoking a cigarette and pacing. It was obvious that
he felt uncomfortable and out of place. Next to him was a tawdry
brunette, early thirties perhaps, chewing gum and talking to the
man in a whisper. The man noticeably relaxed when he saw the
commander in his uniform.
"Well, sir," he said to Winters when Tiffani introduced him as her
father, "it's good to meet you. I don't know much about this acting
business, but I worry that it's unhealthy for my daughter
sometimes." He winked at his wife, Tiffani's stepmother, and
lowered his voice. "You know, sir, with all the wimps and fags and
other weirdo actors, a man can't be too careful. But Tiff told me
there was a real Navy officer, a bona fide commander, as part of
the cast. At first I didn't believe her."
Mr. Thomas was definitely getting signals both from Tiffani and his
wife. He was talking too much. "I'm regular Navy myself," he
blurted out as Winters remained silent, "almost twenty-five years.
Signed up when I was just a boy of eighteen. Met Tiff's mother two
years later - "
"Daddy," Tiffani interrupted him, "you promised that you wouldn't
embarrass me. Please just ask him. He probably has things that he
needs to do."
The commander had certainly not been prepared to meet Tiffani's
father and stepmother. In fact, he had never for a moment even
thought about her parents, although as he stood there, listening to
Mr. Thomas, it all made sense. Tiffani was, after all, only a
junior in high school. So of course she lives at home, he thought.
With her parents. Mr. Thomas was looking very serious. For about a
second Winters felt fear and the beginning of panic. No. No, he
thought quickly, she can't have told them anything. It's all much
too soon.
"My wife and I play bridge," Mr. Thomas was saying, "duplicate
bridge, in tournaments. And this weekend there's a big sectional in
Miami. We'll be leaving tomorrow morning and coming back very late
on Sunday night."
Winters was puzzled. He was lost in this conversation. Why should
he care about what the Thomases did with their free time? At length
Mr. Thomas came to the point. "So we had called Mae's cousin in
Marathon and asked her if she would pick my daughter up after the
show tomorrow night. But that would mean Tiff would have to miss
the cast party. Tiff suggested that maybe you would be willing to
see her home safely from the party and," Mr. Thomas smiled
pleasantly, "keep a fatherly eye on her while I'm off playing
bridge."
Winters instinctively glanced at Tiffani. For just a few
milliseconds he saw a worldly look in her eyes that tore through
him like a fireball. Then she was a little girl again, entreating
her father to let her go to the party.
The commander played his role well. "All right, Mr. Thomas," he
replied, "I'll be glad to help you out." He patted Tiffani fondly.
"She deserves to go to the party, she's worked hard. "He paused for
a moment. "But I have a couple of questions. There will certainly
be champagne at the party and it will probably go real late. Does
she have a curfew? How do you feel about - "
"Just use your own judgment, Commander," Mr. Thomas cut him short.
"Mae and I trust you completely." The man reached over and shook
Winters' hand. "And thank you very much. By the way," he added, as
he turned around to leave, "you were great, although I must admit I
was worried when you were necking with my daughter. The fag that
wrote the play must have been one weird dude."
Tiffani's stepmother mumbled thanks over her chewing gum and the
girl herself said "See ya tomorrow" as the three of them walked
away. The commander reached in his pocket for another
cigarette.
Betty and Hap were both asleep, as Commander Winters knew they
would be, when he finally arrived home around eleven o'clock He
walked softly past his son's room but then stopped outside of
Betty's. Basically a considerate man, Winters spent a few seconds
weighing Betty's sleep against his need for an explanation. He
decided to go in and wake her up. He was surprised to find that he
was nervous when he sat down on the side of her bed in the
dark.
She was sleeping on her back with a sheet and a very thin blanket
both pulled up neatly to within about two inches of her shoulders.
He shook her lightly. "Betty, dear," he said. "I'm home. I'd like
to talk to you." She stirred. He shook her again. "It's Vernon," he
said softly.
His wife sat up in bed and turned on the light on the end table.
Underneath the light was a small picture of the face of Jesus, a
man wise beyond his thirty or so years, with a full beard, a
serious look, and a glow approximating a halo behind his head.
"Goodness," she said, frowning and rubbing her eyes, "What's going
on? Is everything all right?" Betty had never been particularly
pretty. But in the last ten years she had ignored her looks
altogether and had even put on twenty pounds of ungainly
weight.
"Yes," he answered. "I just wanted to talk. And to find out why you
and Hap left the show just after the intermission."
Betty looked him directly in the eyes. This was a woman without
guile, even without nuance. Life was simple and straightforward for
her. If you truly believed in God and Jesus Christ, then you had no
doubts. About anything. "Vernon," she began, "I have often wondered
why you choose to perform in such strange plays. But I have never
complained about it, particularly since it seems to be the only
thing that has excited you in a good way since Libya and that awful
beach incident."
She frowned and a cloud seemed to cross her face momentarily. Then
she continued in her matter-of-fact way. "But Hap is no longer a
child. He is becoming a young man. And hearing his father, even in
a play, refer to God as a 'petulant old man' and a 'senile
delinquent' is not likely to strengthen his faith." She looked
away. "And I thought it was equally disturbing for him to watch you
groping with that young girl. All in all," she said, glancing back
at her husband and summarizing the entire issue, "I thought the
play had no values, no morals, and nothing worth staying for."
Winters felt his anger building but struggled with it, as he always
did. He envied Betty her steadfast faith, her ability to see God
clearly in every daily activity. He himself felt disjoint from the
God of his childhood and his fruitless personal searches had not
yet resulted in a clearer perception of Him. But a couple of things
Winters did know for certain. His God would laugh with and have
compassion for Tennessee Williams' characters. And He would not be
pleased by bombs falling on little children.
The commander did not argue with Betty. He gave her a brotherly
kiss on the cheek and she turned off the light. For just a moment
he wondered. How long has it been? Three weeks? But he couldn't
remember the exact time. Or even whether or not it had been good.
They "fooled around," as Betty called it, whenever her awareness of
his need overcame her general lack of interest. Probably about
normal for couples our age, Winters thought, somewhat defensively,
as he undressed in his room.
But he was not able to sleep as he lay quietly in the dark
underneath the sheet. The feeling of arousal that had been so
intense first during the play and then again out in the alley
continued to call to him. With pictures. When he closed his eyes he
could again see Tiffani's soft and flirtatious lips blowing out the
last of the smoke that had been deep within her lungs. His mouth
could still taste those passionate kisses that she had forced upon
him during the bedroom scene. And then there was that special look
when her father had asked him to take care of her at the party. Had
he imagined it?
Several times Commander Winters changed positions in his bed,
trying to dispel the images in his mind and the nervousness that
was keeping him awake. He was unsuccessful. Eventually, while he
was lying on his back, he realized there was one possible release
from this kind of tension. At first he felt guilty, even
embarrassed, but the waves of images of Tiffani continued to flood
into his brain.
He touched himself. The images from the day sharpened and began to
expand into fantasies. She was lying on top of him on the bed, as
she had been in the play, and he was responding to her kisses. For
a brief second Winters became frightened and held himself in check.
But a desperate surge of longing removed his last inhibition. He
was again an adolescent, alone in his rich imagination.
The scene in his mind changed. He was lying naked on a huge
king-size bed in an opulent room with high ceilings. Tiffani
approached him from the lighted bathroom, also naked, her long
auburn hair cascading over her shoulders and hiding the nipples of
her breasts. She took a last languorous pull from her cigarette and
put it out in the ashtray beside the bed, her eyes never leaving
his as she slowly, almost lovingly, expelled the last of the smoke
from her mouth. She climbed into the bed beside him. He could feel
the softness of her skin, the tingle of her long hair against his
neck and chest.
She kissed him gently but passionately, with her hands behind his
head. He felt her tongue playing enticingly across his lips. She
moved her body into position next to him and pressed her pelvis
into his. He felt himself rising. She took his penis in her hand
and squeezed lightly. He was completely erect. She squeezed again,
then gracefully raised her body up and inserted him deep inside
her. He felt a magical moist warmth and then exploded almost
immediately.
Commander Winters was staggered by the power and the intensity of
his fantasy. Somewhere inside him a voice cried for caution and
warned of dire consequences if he let this fantasy become too real.
But as he lay spent and alone in his suburban home, he pushed his
guilt and fears aside and allowed himself the unrivaled bliss of
post-orgasmic sleep.
SLOPPY Joe's was an institution in Key West. The favorite bar of
Hemingway and his motley crew had managed to adapt quickly to the
multifaceted evolution of the city that it had come to symbolize.
Many denizens of the old city had been almost apoplectic when the
bar had forsaken its historic location downtown and moved into the
vast shopping complex surrounding the new marina. But even they
grudgingly admitted, after the club reopened in a well-ventilated
large room complete with sound stage and excellent acoustics, that
the Tiffany lamps, long wooden bars, narrow mirrors from ceiling to
floor, and memorabilia from a hundred years in Key West had been
tastefully rearranged in a way that retained the spirit of the old
bar.
It was altogether fitting that Angie Leatherwood should perform as
the headliner at Sloppy Joe's during her brief and infrequent
returns to the city of her birth. Troy's glib tongue had originally
talked the owner, a transplanted fifty-year-old New Yorker named
Tony Palazzo, into giving her an audition when she was still
nineteen. Tony had heard her sing for five minutes and then had
exclaimed, punctuating his comments with wild hand gestures, "It's
not enough that you bring me a black girl who's so beautiful she
takes your breath away. No, you bring me one who also sings like a
nightingale. Mama mia Life is not fair. My daughter Carla would
kill to sound like that." Tony had become Angie's biggest fan and
had unselfishly promoted her career. Angie never forgot what Tony
had done for her and always sang at Sloppy Joe's when she was in
town. She was like that.
Troy's table was front and center, about ten feet away from the
edge of the stage. Nick and Troy were already seated at the small
round table and had finished their first drinks when Carol arrived
about five minutes before ten-thirty. She apologized and mumbled
something about parking in Siberia. As soon as she arrived, Nick
pulled out the envelope of images and both men told her that they
had found the pictures fascinating. Nick began asking questions
about the photographs while Troy summoned a waiter. Nick and Carol
were involved in an earnest conversation about the objects in the
fissure when the new drinks reached the table. Nick had just
mentioned that one of them looked like a modern missile. It was ten
thirty-five. The lights flashed off and on to announce that the
show was beginning.
Angie Leatherwood was a consummate performer. Like many of the very
best entertainers, she never forgot that it was the audience that
was the customer, that it was they who both created her image and
enhanced her mystique. She began with the title song from her new
album, "Memories of Enchanting Nights," and then sang a medley of
Whitney Houston songs, according a tribute to that brilliant
songstress whose talent had sparked Angie's own desire to sing.
Next she showed her versatility by blending a quartet of songs with
different beats, a Jamaican reggae, a soft ballad from her first
album, Love Letters, a nearly perfect Diana Ross imitation from an
old Supremes song, "Where Did Our Love Go?" and an emotionally
powerful, lilting encomium to her blind father entitled "The Man
with Vision."
Thunderous applause greeted the conclusion of each song. Sloppy
Joe's was sold out, including all the standing room along the
hundred-foot bar. Seven different huge video screens scattered
throughout the spacious club brought Angie home to those who were
not close to the stage. This was her crowd, these were her friends.
A couple of times Angie was almost embarrassed because the clapping
and the bravos would not stop. At Troy's table, very little was
said during the show. The threesome pointed out songs they
particularly liked (Carol's favorite was the Whitney Houston song,
"The Greatest Love of All"), but there was no time for
conversation. Angie dedicated her penultimate song, "Let Me Take
Care of You, Baby," to her "dearest friend" (Nick kicked Troy under
the table) and then finished with her most popular cut from Love
Letters. The audience gave her a standing ovation and hooted
noisily for an encore. Nick noticed while he was standing that he
was a little woozy from the two strong drinks and was also feeling
strangely emotional, possibly because of the subliminal
associations created by the love songs that Angie was singing.
Angie returned to the stage. As the noise subsided, her soft and
caressing voice could be heard. "You all know that Key West is a
very special place for me. It was here that I was raised and went
to school. Most of my memories bring me back here." She paused and
her eyes scanned the audience. "There are many songs that bring
back memories and the emotions that go with them. But of all of
them, my favorite is the theme song from the musical Cats. So, Key
West, this is for you."
There was scattered clapping as the music synthesizers accompanying
her played the introduction to "Memories." The audience remained
standing as Angie's mellifluous voice launched into the beautiful
song. As soon as she began, Nick was instantly transported to the
Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in June of 1984, where he was
watching a production of Cats with his mother and father. He had
finally come home to explain to them why he had been unable to
return to Harvard after his spring break in Florida. But try as he
might, he could not begin to tell the story to his disappointed
father and brokenhearted mother. All he could say was, "It was a
woman ..." and then he would fall silent.
It had been a sad reunion. While he was visiting his home in Falls
Church, the first malignant polyps had been discovered and removed
from his father's colon. The doctors had been optimistic about
several more years of life, but they had stressed that colon cancer
often recurred and metastasized to other parts of the body. In a
long talk with his suddenly frail father, Nick had promised to
finish his degree in Miami. But that was little solace to the older
man; he had dreamed of seeing his son graduate from Harvard.
The performance of Cats at the Kennedy Center had been only mildly
entertaining for Nick. In the middle he had found himself wondering
how many people in the audience really knew the author of the
source material for the songs, this poet T.S. Eliot, who not only
admired and enjoyed feline idiosyncrasies, but also once began a
poem by describing the evening "spread out against the sky, like a
patient aetherized upon a table." But when the old female cat
walked to center stage, her beauty faded into wrinkles, and began
her song of her "days in the sun," Nick had been moved right along
with the entire audience. For reasons he never understood, he had
seen Monique singing the song, years in the future. And in
Washington he had wept, silent tears hidden quickly from his
parents, when the achingly pure soprano voice had reached the
climax of the song..
"Touch me ... It's so easy to leave me ... all alone with my
memories ... of my days in the sun ... If you touch me ... you'll
understand what happiness is ..."
Angie's voice at Sloppy Joe's was not nearly as piercing as that
soprano in Washington But she sang with the same intensity, evoking
all the sadness of someone for whom all the joys of life are in the
past. The corners of Nick's eyes filled with tears and one of them
brimmed out to run down his cheek.
From where Carol was standing, the lights from the stage reflected
off Nick's cheek. She saw the tear, the window of vulnerability,
and was herself moved in return. For the first time she felt a deep
stirring, almost an affection for this distant, solitary, but
strangely attractive man.
Ah Carol, how different it might have been if, for once in your
life, you had not acted impulsively. If you had just let the man
have his moment of loneliness or heartbreak or tenderness or
whatever he was feeling, then you might have mentioned it later, at
a quieter time, to some advantage. The sharing of this moment might
even have eventually been part of the bonding between you. But you
had to tap Nick on the shoulder, before the song was through,
before he even realized himself that he was tearful, and break his
precious communion with his inner self. You were an interloper.
Worse, as so often happens, he interpreted your smile as derision,
not sympathy, and like a frightened turtle withdrew completely from
the evening. It was guaranteed that he would reject as insincere
any subsequent overtures of friendship.
Troy missed the interplay between Carol and Nick. So he was quite
surprised, when he turned around and sat down after the final
applause, to find Nick's shoulders set in an unmistakable pose of
hostility. "Wasn't she wonderful, angel?" Troy said to Carol. "And
how about you, Professor? Was this the first time you heard her
sing?"
Nick nodded. "She was great," he said, almost grudgingly. "And I am
thirsty. Can a man get a drink in this place?"
Troy was slightly offended. "Well, pardon us," he said. "So sorry
that the entertainment lasted so long." He tried to signal for the
waiter. "What's eating him, angel?" he said conversationally to
Carol.
Carol shrugged her shoulders. Then, trying to lighten the
atmosphere, she leaned toward Nick and tapped him on the forearm on
top of the table. "Hey, Nick," she said, "have you been taking
angry pills?"
Nick quickly withdrew his arm and grumbled something inaudible as a
reply. He turned away from the conversation and saw that Angie was
approaching the table. He stood up automatically and both Carol and
Troy joined him. "You were fantastic," said Carol, a little too
loud, just as soon as Angie was within earshot.
"Thanks ... Hi," replied Angie, as she walked up to the table and
took the chair that Troy had pulled out for her. She spent a few
moments graciously acknowledging the praise from people at the
nearby tables. Then she sat down and smiled. "You must be Carol
Dawson," she said easily, leaning across the table toward the
reporter.
Angie was even more beautiful in person than she had been in the
picture on the disc jacket. Her coloring was a dark brown, not
quite black. Her makeup, including the light pink lipstick, was
muted to permit her natural assets, including virtually perfect
white teeth on prominent display when she smiled, to draw the
attention. But beyond the beauty was the woman herself. No still
photograph could do justice to the natural warmth that radiated
from Angie. You liked her immediately.
"And you must be Nick Williams," Angie said, extending her hand to
Nick. He was still standing, looking uncomfortable and uncertain,
although Troy had already seated himself. "Troy has told me so many
things about you in the past few days, I feel as if we're already
friends. He claims that you've read every novel ever written that's
worth reading."
"That's an exaggeration, of course," Nick replied, obviously
pleased to be recognized. He seemed to loosen up a little and
finally sat down. He started to add another comment but Carol
jumped into the conversation and cut him off.
"Did you write that beautiful song about the blind man yourself?"
she asked, before Angie had really had time to sit down and collect
herself. "It seemed to be a very personal statement."
"Yes," Angie answered Carol pleasantly, without a trace of
irritation at Carol's aggressive behavior. "Most of my material
comes from other sources, but occasionally I write a song myself.
When it is a very special subject for me." She smiled briefly at
Troy before continuing. "My father is a remarkable, loving man,
blind from birth but with an uncanny comprehension of the world at
all levels. Without his patience and guidance, I probably would
never have had the courage to sing as a little girl. I was too shy
and self-conscious. But my father convinced all of us when we were
small that we were somehow special. He told us that God had given
each of us something unusual, something uniquely ours, and that one
of the great joys of life was discovering and then developing that
special talent."
"And that song, 'Let Me Take Care of You, Baby,' did you really
write that for Troy?" Nick blurted out his question before Angie
had finished her sentence. He thereby destroyed the soft mood
created by Angie's loving description of her father. Nick was on
the edge of his chair and for some reason seemed agitated and
unsettled. Troy wondered again what he had missed in the
interaction between Carol and Nick that had caused his friend to
become so tense.
Angie looked at Troy. "I guess so," she said with a wistful smile,
"although it was originally meant to be a playful tune, a light
commentary on the game of love." She stopped for a moment. "But it
does talk about a real problem. It's very hard sometimes being a
successful women. It interferes - "
"Amen. Amen," Carol interrupted while Angie was still developing
her thought. This was one of Carol's favorite subjects and she was
ready to pounce on the opportunity. "Most men cannot deal with a
woman who is the least bit successful, much less in the spotlight."
She looked directly at Nick and then continued, "Even now, in 1994,
there are still unwritten rules that must be followed. If you want
to have a permanent relationship with a man, there are three
don'ts: Don't let him think you're smarter than he is, don't
suggest sex first, and, above all, don't make more money than he
does. These are the three key areas where their egos are extremely
fragile And if you undermine the ego of any man, even when you're
just kidding with him, then it s a lost cause."
"Sounds like you're an expert," Nick replied sarcastically. His
hostility was obvious. "I wonder if it ever occurred to any of you
liberated females that men are not put off by your success, but
rather by the way you handle it. What you accomplish in life does
not mean shit at the personal level. Most ambitious, aggressive
women I have met (and now he was looking directly at Carol) go out
of their way to make male-female relationships into some kind of
competition. They will not let the man, even for a moment, have the
illusion that he lives in a patriarchal society. I think some of
them purposely emasculate - "
"There it is," Carol jumped in triumphantly. She nudged Angie, who
was smiling but still a little embarrassed at the rancor in this
exchange. "That's the magic word. Whenever a woman wants to argue
and not accept as gospel some profound male truth, she is trying to
'castrate' or 'emasculate' - "
"Okay, you guys," Troy interjected firmly, shaking his head.
"That's enough. Let's change the subject. I had thought that maybe
you two could enjoy an evening together, but not if we're going to
start this way."
"The problem," Carol continued, now looking at Angie and ignoring
Troy's request, "is that men are frightened. Their hegemony in the
Western world is threatened by the emergence of women who aren't
willing to be just barefoot and pregnant. Why, when I was at
Stanford - "
She stopped and turned when she heard the legs of a chair scraping
across the Roor. "With all due respect, Miss Leatherwood," Nick was
standing up again, holding the chair in his hand, "I believe I will
excuse myself. I thoroughly enjoyed your music, but I do not wish
to subject you to any more bad manners. I wish you continued good
fortune in your career and I hope that someday you can spend some
time on the boat with Troy and me." Nick turned to Troy. "I'll see
you at the marina at eight o'clock in the morning." Finally he
looked at Carol. "You, too, if you still want to go. You can tell
us about the wimps at Stanford while we're out in the middle of the
Gulf."
Nick did not wait for a reply He picked up the envelope and walked
back through the crowd toward the exit. As he was approaching the
door he heard a voice calling him, "Nick. Oh, Nick. Over here." It
was Julianne, waving to him from a nearby table full of glasses and
ashtrays. She and Corinne and Linda were surrounded by half a dozen
men but Julianne was moving them all around and pulling up an empty
chair. Nick walked over to her table.
Thirty minutes later Nick was very drunk. The combination of
Julianne's occasionally brushing his leg, Corinne's gigantic
breasts (they were covered now but he could remember them from
Troy's game in the afternoon), and intermittent glimpses of Carol
through the cigarette smoke had made him very horny as well. God
damn it, Williams, he had thought to himself when he first sat down
with Julianne's group. You blew it again. Here you had this perfect
chance to charm her. Maybe even score. But half an hour later,
after the drinks, his thoughts were more reminiscent of Aesop's
fox. She's too aggressive for me anyway. Famous. Pushy. Probably
too hard underneath And cold in bed. Another ballbuster. Yet still
he watched her from across the room.
The extra chairs that had been brought in for Angie's performance
were cleared away to make room for dancing. A disc jockey
orchestrated the rest of the evening from a booth next to the
stage; one could dance to a variety of modern musical selections,
watch the outrageously overproduced music videos on the big
screens. or just talk, for the music was not overwhelmingly loud.
Most of the people around Nick were from the marina. During a break
in the music, just after Nick had downed another fast tequila,
Linda Quinlan leaned across the table. "Come on, Nick," she said,
"let us in on your secret. What did you and Troy find
yesterday?"
"Nothing special," said Nick, remembering his agreement but
surprised to discover that he did indeed want to talk about it.
"Rumor says different," jumped in one of the men at the table.
"Everybody knows that you took something to Amanda Winchester this
morning. Come on, tell us what it was. Have you found a new
treasure ship?"
"Maybe," said Nick, a drunken grin on his face, "just maybe."
Another strong impulse pushed him to tell the story and show the
pictures, but he stopped himself. "I can't talk about it," was all
he would say.
At this moment two burly young men, short-haired Navy types wearing
officer's uniforms, were making a beeline for Nick's table from the
other side of the floor. One of them was dark, Hispanic. Their
approach was confident, even arrogant, and their arrival at the
table stopped all the conversation. The white lieutenant put his
hand on Julianne's shoulder. "All right, gorgeous," he said boldly,
"the Navy is here. Why don't you and your friend there (he nodded
at Corinne - Ramirez was standing behind her), come and dance with
us?"
Julianne said, "No, thank you," very politely and smiled. Todd
looked down at her. He was weaving just a little and it was clear
from his eyes that he had been drinking heavily.
"You mean to tell me," he said, "that you would prefer to sit here
with these local geeks rather than dance with future admirals?"
Julianne felt his hand tighten on her shoulder. She looked around
the table and tried to ignore him.
Todd did not like rejection. He took his hand off Julianne's
shoulder and pointed at Corinne's breasts. "Christ, Ramirez, you
were right. They are monsters. Wouldn't you like to snarf one of
those?" The two lieutenants laughed crudely. Corinne squirmed
self-consciously.
Linda Quinlan's steady boyfriend rose from his chair. Other than
Nick, he was the only one of the men at the table who was
approximately the same size as Todd and Ramirez. "Look, guys," he
said reasonably, "the lady said no very nicely. There is no need to
insult her or her friends - "
"Listen to him, Ramirez," Todd interrupted, "this character said we
insulted someone. Since when is admiring the size of someone's
cachunga's an insult?" He chuckled to himself at his cleverness.
Ramirez made a sign to leave but Todd waved him off.
The drunken Nick had been ready to explode all night. "Get out of
here, asshole," he said, quietly but firmly. He was still sitting
down next to Julianne.
"Who are you calling asshole, cocksucker?" the truculent Lieutenant
Todd replied. He turned to Ramirez. "I do believe that I am going
to be forced to strum the head of this impertinent bastard."
But Nick was ahead of him. Rising swiftly, he uncoiled a vicious
punch that struck Todd full in the face and sent him tumbling
backwards, into another table covered with drinks. Todd and the
table crashed to the floor and Nick went after him. Ramirez pulled
Nick off his fellow officer and, when Nick turned and swung at him
as well, Ramirez gave Nick a push that caused his unsteady legs to
give way. Nick fell back over Julianne and another full table
collapsed upon the floor
From across the room Carol and Angie and Troy could see the fracas
and recognize Nick in the middle of it. "Uh oh," Troy said, jumping
up to go to his friend's aid. Carol was right behind him. When they
reached the opposite side of the room, both club bouncers were
already on top of the action. Meanwhile, Nick and Julianne were
still trying to get unscrambled on the floor and Todd was slowly
rising to his feet.
In the fight, the envelope of photos had been knocked free and a
couple of them had fallen partially out. Ramirez had picked the
envelope up off the floor and, because of the bright colors, was
looking at the pictures. The close-up of the brown missile in the
fissure was clearly visible in the top photo. "Hey," he said to the
shaken Todd, "look at this. What do you think this is all
about?"
Carol acted instantly. She walked past Ramirez, grabbed the
envelope and pictures, and before he could say anything, she
screamed, "Not again, Nick, no, I don't believe it. How could you
be drunk again?" She knelt down beside Nick on the floor and
cradled his head in her free hand. "Oh, darling," she said, as he
stared at her in complete disbelief, "you promised that you'd
stop."
The astonished crowd watched as Carol kissed Nick full on the mouth
to prevent his saying anything. Troy was amazed. "Troy," she
shouted a moment later, while Nick was trying to gather his wits.
"Troy, where are you? Here, give me a hand." Troy rushed up and
helped Nick to his feet. "We're taking him home now," she announced
to the onlookers. She and Troy each took one arm and the three of
them stumbled toward the door of the nightclub. They passed the
manager in the doorway. Carol told him that she would come by the
next day to settle accounts. She and Troy half carried Nick into
the street.
As they walked away from Sloppy Joe's, Carol turned around and saw
that part of the crowd had followed them to the door. Ramirez and
Todd, the latter still rubbing his cheek, were standing in front of
the group with puzzled expressions on their faces. "Where are we
taking him, angel?" Troy asked when they were out of earshot. "We
don't even know where he parked his car.
"It doesn't matter," Carol replied, "just as long as we are out of
sight of the club."
The awkward threesome turned right, down the same alley that ran
behind the theater where The Night of the Iguana had finished an
hour before. Just past the theater there was a small vacant lot on
the left Carol stopped the trio at the edge of the lot, opposite a
grove of trees, and looked back to make certain they were not being
followed. She heaved a sigh and loosened her grip on Nick. She
unconsciously fanned her sweating face with the envelope she had
recovered from Ramirez.
Nick was now almost coherent. "I had no idea," he mumbled to Carol,
pulling his arm free from Troy and trying to embrace her, "that you
felt that way about me."
"I don't," Carol said emphatically. She pushed his arms away and
backpedaled toward the vacant lot. Nick didn't understand and
continued his approach. "Stop," she shouted angrily at him. "Stop,
you drunken bastard."
She tried to fend off his advance with her hands. But he kept
coming. Just before Troy moved up to restrain him, Carol slapped
Nick hard in the face with the hand that was not holding the
envelope. Momentarily startled Nick lost his footing and fell into
the grass on his stomach.
Still fuming, Carol bent down beside him and forcefully rolled him
over on his back. "Don't you ever, ever, use physical force with
me," she shouted at Nick. "Not under any circumstances." She
dropped the envelope on Nick's stomach and stood up quickly. She
looked at Troy, shook her head in disgust, and stalked off down the
alley.
UNDER the scanning electron microscope they look like tightly
coiled springs with a small tail. When they are placed in water or
some other liquid, the springs seem to stretch out and cilialike
appendages extend a few angstroms out from the tail to provide
motility.
There are millions of them concentrated in a mixture the size of a
tiny drop of water and they are being carefully checked by a laser
device that is also counting and sorting them as it illuminates
microscopic portions of the mixture. When the count is completed,
the smaller division of the separated mixture is sluiced out of the
metal receptacle and down a channel into another liquid, this one
emerald green in color, that is contained in a bottle-shaped
beaker. The springs spread out and follow random paths in wandering
around the beaker.
External mechanisms regularly churn the emerald green liquid.
Around the inside of the beaker, tiny sensors register the
temperature, pressure, and exact chemical and electrical
characteristics of the fluid. Some parameter is not absolutely
perfect. A small valve opens a port in the base of the beaker and a
new chemical is injected into the green solution. Continuous
measurements monitor the diffusion of this additional material. At
length the fluid is properly altered and a new equilibrium is
reached.
Everything is now ready. From above several thousand small pellets
are dropped into the container. Some of these pellets float on the
surface but most sink to variable depths in the liquid. Embedded in
each of the pellets is a complicated engineering construction on an
amazingly miniaturized scale. The external surface of the pellets
contains sensors that scan the nearby region of the liquid for the
springlike objects. A high-frequency transmitter housed next to the
sensors directs a call to the springs and attracts them to the
neighborhood. Clusters of springs develop around each pellet.
Now, one at a time, these springs are harvested by small
instruments inside the spongy outer section of the pellet and then
loaded in carriers that are electrically fired toward the central
cavity of the pellet. Within that cavity sits a single black,
amorphous spot, its exterior constantly changing shape as its
opaque material shifts around to follow unknown stimuli. This spot
is surrounded by a yellow goo that fills the remainder of the
cavity.
The first spring slips out of its carrier, then locates and
penetrates the spot. The spring can be seen for an instant moving
toward the center. However, it is broken up and destroyed within
milliseconds. Other springs are fired into the cavity at regular
intervals and all try, after penetration, to reach some special
region in the spot. Finally one of the procession succeeds and the
spot changes color to bright red. In rapid succession, some enzyme
in the spongy outer section of the pellet is dumped into the yellow
goo, turning its color a little toward green, and all the rest of
the springs disappear, apparently absorbed by the pellet structure.
The entire pellet itself next elongates and extends a miniature
propulsion system into the emerald liquid. After carefully steering
around the many hazards, it then joins the queue of fertilized
pellets moving, one by one, through a round diaphanous membrane in
the bottom of the beaker.
The fluid dense with pellets speeds along a narrow tube until it
reaches a partially closed container approximately the size of the
beaker. Inside this translucent jar, a mechanical, spoonlike object
digs into the stream of liquid flowing through and plucks out the
pellets. They are lifted up and then suspended momentarily around
the passing fluid in a heavy gas enclosed by the jar. Within
moments each of the pellets splits and their carapaces apparently
dissolve, leaving visible inside the jar an array of the little red
spots surrounded by the off-yellow goo and suspended in an
invisible gas.
The goo extends itself slowly throughout the jar above the flowing
fluid until all the open areas between the red spots are filled.
When the emerald stream below drops to a trickle and then
disappears altogether, the goo hardens into a gelatin and fills the
ports where the fluid once entered and departed. Within the jar are
several thousand red spots embedded in the yellow-green gelatin.
The spots undergo no visible change throughout this process.
Time passes. Activity in the jar ceases. Occasionally mechanical
probes to test the stability of the gelatin are inserted into the
jar at the old fluid ports. At last the translucent jar is removed
from its storage location by what looks like a robotic forklift. It
is placed on a moving belt that now carries it, along with several
dozen other jars containing different kinds of objects (blue
pencils, purple stars, and red boxes can all be seen) also
suspended in yellow-green gelatin, to a vast circular oven almost
an inch in diameter. Here all the jars are carefully baked
together. Inside the oven, the molecules of the jar material
immediately evaporate. Next a pair of disembodied manipulator hands
wrap an incredibly thin blanket of connective filaments around all
the gelatinous structures. After some time this ensemble unit is
then pulled automatically out of the oven and packaged inside a
gold metallic envelope whose several layers are designed to provide
all the remaining environmental protection.
The hypergolic propellants mix and burst instantly into flame,
pouring fire out the rocket nozzle. The slender vehicle rises,
slowly at first, but later with astonishing speed. Before reaching
the zenith of its flight, the rocket stage underneath the strange
paraboloid payload falls away and tiny motors ignite on the
underside of the flying boomerang. At the apex of the trajectory,
the entire package suddenly explodes and apparently disintegrates.
Hundreds of pieces of the original payload fall toward the surface
of the planet in seemingly random directions.
Closer inspection reveals that each individual piece resulting from
the explosion is made of a gold metallic material encased in
plastic. A small sensor/propulsion package is attached to the
plastic; it supplies needed vernier corrections during the descent
after the controlled explosion. The plastic debris falls upon a
strange, hybrid planet, obviously artificial judging by the wide
variety of incongruous surfaces and cloud groupings that can be
recognized from an altitude of tens of miles. There are scattered
liquid lakes of different hues plus discontinuous surface
topography with regions of desert and grasslands as well as barren
mountains and canyons. A connected quarter of the planet is covered
with clouds . The clouds are here white and fleecy, there brown and
thick. Some of the clouds are active, building and changing with
hints of turbulence. Other parts of the cloudy region are static,
small wisps of white stretching without change across the sky.
One of the plastic vehicles plunges through a misty blue cloudbank
into an emerald sea. The plastic is left on the surface, but the
encased gold metallic object sinks thirty feet to the floor of the
ocean. For a day or two there is no discernible change in its
appearance. Then a protrusion begins to form in its north polar
region, on the top of the golden sphere as it sits on the ocean
floor. The growth expands slowly, until the spherical shape appears
to have a large carbuncle on its top. A metamorphosis now takes
place. On the outside of the protrusion, the hard metal surface
softens and begins to resemble an organic membrane. Although the
membrane is thick and dense, it occasionally bulges, suggesting
some motion on the other side of its golden barrier.
Eventually a thin black rod, a probe of some kind, thrusts through
the surface into the emerald ocean. A second probe becomes visible,
then a third, both long black rods like the first one, but each
equipped with strikingly different apparatus scattered along the
length of the rod. Something larger pushes against the membrane,
once, twice, then finally breaking through. What a strange
contraption! It's an aerodynamic shape about three inches long, in
two separate segments with a joint between them. The forebody is a
nosecone; the afterbody is long and slender and tapers to a point.
In addition to the three probes on the front of its forebody, it
has four other furlable appendages or arms, two connected to the
side of each segment.
It swims over to a nearby underwater plant with its arms stored
next to its smooth body. There it unfurls the multi-faceted
appendages and begins to examine the plant. An astonishing array of
tiny instruments studies the plant for a few moments and then the
entity moves away. The same procedure is repeated with each plant
encountered. Eventually the thing finds a plant that it "likes" and
its pincers remove a -major leaf. The leaf is neatly folded into a
smaller volume and is then carried back to the object with the
golden membrane.
The strange forager is joined by a partner, a carbon copy of
itself, and by two fat fish with multiple arms and legs. The latter
pair scuttle off to the side and begin modifying the ocean floor.
Days pass. The things with the probes work ceaselessly, bringing
more and more varieties of plant and animal life back to the home
base. The legged fish meanwhile have constructed, out of available
sand, rocks, shells, and living creatures, almost a thousand tiny,
sealed rectangular homes on the ocean floor. These fish entities
too work without break. Their next task is to transport each of the
red spots, one at a time, from the golden cradle to their new
houses.
If a microscope were available, it would show that some structure
was already developing inside the red spots, giving them definition
and distinction, by the time of their initial transport. But they
are still very, very small. Once the red spots and their gelatin
protection are carefully implanted inside their tiny houses, the
foragers make routine stops on each trip to deposit a portion of
their harvest. At the same time, the fish with legs, the architects
and builders of the rectangular houses, begin working on
transparent, igloolike homes for the embryos of another
species.
A year later moonlight falls on the emerald lake. Several hundred
eager, excited, wriggling necks, some royal blue and some pale
blue, struggle upward to find the moon. Their heads pivot to face
all directions and maybe two dozen separate indentations and
orifices can be seen in each face. The necks crane this way, then
that way. The silent serpents are searching for something.
From the direction of the moon a bizarre ship approaches on the
water. It is large compared to the young serpents, its twin towers
standing about eight feet out of the water and about six feet
above, on the average, a squarish platform fifteen feet on a side
that forms the bottom of the boat. The top surface of this platform
is irregular, undulating, and cratered. The platform floats
smoothly upon the water.
The ship comes into the middle of the serpents and stops. The
serpents divide into two groups according to the color of their
necks and then line up on either side of the ship in very orderly
rows and columns. A single musical note, a B-flat with a Hautish
timbre, comes from the ship. Quickly the note is repeated up and
down the rows and columns by each of the serpents on the two sides
of the boat. Then a second note issues forth from the ship, also
sounding like a flute, and the process repeats itself. For hours
the music lesson continues, covering a range of both notes and
chords, until some of the serpents on each side lose their voices
The exercise concludes with an attempted ensemble performance by
the royal bluenecked serpents, but the result is a painful
cacophony.
Inside the ship, every note, every movement, every response by the
juvenile serpents to the music lesson is carefully monitored and
recorded. The ingenious engineering design of the boat is based
upon the key controlling elements of the original cradle. However,
although segments of gold metallic material (as well as the long
black rods and even portions of the fat fish with legs) appear in
the computer that runs the ship, the primary constituents of its
mass are derived from great quantities of local rock and organic
matter taken from the floor of the emerald lake. The ship is the
quintessential music teacher, a virtually perfect synthesizer
equipped with microprocessors that not only store all the responses
of the pupils, but also contain software that will allow
experimentation with a range of individualized methods of
teaching.
But this sophisticated robot, engineered by the artificial
.intelligence packed around the serpent zygotes and made almost
entirely of chemical compounds extracted from material found in the
neighborhood of the landing point, is itself being watched and
studied from afar by test engineers. The current test is in its
earliest stages and is progressing splendidly. This is the third
different configuration tried for the music teacher, the hardest
part of the design of the cradle that will carry the serpent
zygotes back to Canthor. The first was an abysmal failure; the
embryos developed into adolescents all right, but the teacher was
never able to instruct them well enough that they could sing the
mating song and reproduce. The second design was better; it was
able to teach the serpents to perform the courtship symphony and a
new generation of the species was produced. However, this next
group of adult serpents was not able subsequently to teach their
progeny to sing.
The best of the bioengineering personnel in the Colony were brought
in to study this problem. After pouring over quadrillions of bits
of accumulated data associated with the development of the serpents
and other related species, they found a curious correlation between
the degree of nurturing provided by the parent and the resulting
ability of that infant, upon reaching maturity, to teach its own
offspring. The artificial intelligence package responsible for the
first six months of serpent life was then redesigned to include a
surrogate mother whose only purpose was to hold and cuddle the
fledgling serpents at regular intervals. Subsystem tests proved
successful; this slight alteration of the early nurturing protocol
produced adult serpents that were able to teach their children to
sing
This demonstration test lasts for more than four millcycles. At the
end of the period, the test is declared an unqualified success. A
strong, creative serpent population nearing twenty-five thousand
fills the artificial lake. Limitations to future growth are only
test related. Eventually the test survivors are transported to
another locale in the Zoo Complex and the Canthorean serpents are
added to the list of species ready for zygote repatriation.
THE full moon rises over the placid ocean. Troy stares at the
moonbeams, watching them shimmer on the quiet water. Angie appears
and stands in the water in front of him. She is wearing a skintight
white bathing suit, one piece, and is submerged from the waist
down.
She beckons to him and he walks across the damp sand toward the
water. He is barefoot and is also wearing a white bathing suit. The
water is surprisingly warm. Angie begins to sing. Her magnificent
voice enfolds him as Troy draws nearer to her in the light
surf.
They touch and kiss. She pulls away and gives him a smile of
encouragement. Troy feels himself becoming aroused. Suddenly a
siren pierces the air, destroying the calm of the night. Instantly
the sea becomes choppy, agitated, full of whitecaps. Troy turns
around, alarmed, and glances at the shore. He sees nothing special.
He looks back at the ocean. Angie has disappeared. Out in the
distance, near the horizon, Troy thinks he sees the beginning of a
tidal wave. The siren shrieks again and Troy sees a large shapeless
mass riding a nearby wave in the moonlight.
He goes toward the object. The tidal wave is now defined in the
distance, filling half his dream screen. The bulky object nearby is
a black body dressed in a red muscle shirt and bluejeans. The siren
grows louder. Troy rolls the body over and looks at the face. It is
his brother, Jamie.
Troy Jefferson bolted upright in bed. his heart pounding furiously,
his mind making the transition from the dream world to reality.
Outside his duplex apartment a siren raged. He could tell from the
frequency change that the police car or ambulance had just sped
past his front door. He shook himself and crawled out of bed. The
digital clock on the end table read 3:03.
Troy walked to the kitchen. He went to the refrigerator and poured
himself a glass of grapefruit juice. He listened to the siren in
the distance until it faded away altogether. Then he started back
to the small second bedroom where he slept. In the hallway he was
stopped by the sound of another siren, this one even louder, that
seemed to be coming toward him. For a few seconds he thought the
siren was just outside his front door and he recalled, vividly,
another siren in the middle of another night. His heart began to
pound anew. "Jamie," Troy said to himself almost involuntarily,
"Jamie. Why did you have to die?"
Troy could still see the events of that evening with perfect
clarity. Nothing in the first tableau had faded even a little. The
beginning memory was the three of them, Jamie, Troy, and their
mother, sitting silently at the dinner table, eating fried chicken
and mashed potatoes. Jamie had just arrived home from Gainesville
for spring break that afternoon and had spent almost an hour,
before they had sat down to eat, regaling his fifteen-year-old
brother with stories of football and university life. Jamie had
been Troy's idol throughout his childhood. Handsome, intelligent,
and articulate, Jamie had also been blessed with incredible
physical gifts. As a result, he had been the starting halfback for
the Florida Gators in his sophomore year and was being touted as a
potential All-American for the following season. Troy had bitterly
missed Jamie when he had first gone away to the university, but in
the intervening eighteen months he had learned to accept his
absence and to look forward to his brother's holiday visits.
"So, bro," Jamie had said with a smile, when he finished his dinner
and pushed his plate away, "what about you? You've finished another
quarter already. Did you make the grades of a future
astronaut?"
"I did okay," Troy had replied, hiding his pride. "I made a B plus
in Social Studies because my teacher thought I had taken an
anti-American position in my paper on the Panama Canal."
"I guess an occasional B plus is acceptable," Jamie had laughed,
his affection for his younger brother clearly showing. "But I bet
Burford didn't make many B's when he was in the ninth grade."
Whenever Troy recalled the fateful evening that his brother was
killed, he always remembered the mention of Guion Burford, the
first American black astronaut. Most of the time his memory,
because it was so painful to proceed immediately to the terrible
recollection of his dying brother in his arms, would choose to
digress to a happier time, to a remembrance of his brother Jamie
that was almost as vivid as the death scene, but was happy and
reinforcing instead of being gut wrenching and depressing.
During the summer before his death, on a hot, humid day in late
August, Jamie Jefferson had arranged a third personal meeting with
his football coach at Florida to request permission to skip
practice for two days. He wanted to take his little brother, Troy,
to see the launch of the space shuttle. In the first two meetings,
the coach had vigorously opposed Jamie's taking the time away from
the important workouts, but he had stopped short of denying the
request.
"You still don't understand, coach," Jamie had said firmly at the
start of their third and final meeting on the subject. "My little
brother has no father. And he's a genius at math and science. He
blows the top off those standardized aptitude tests. He needs a
role model. He needs to know that blacks can do something
significant other than sports." The coach had eventually relented
and given Jamie permission, but only because he had figured out
that Jamie was going to go under any circumstances.
Jamie had driven his battered Chevrolet nonstop across Florida,
picked up his brother in Miami, and continued northward without
sleeping for another four hours to Cocoa Beach. They had arrived in
the middle of the night. Jamie, by now exhausted, parked the car in
a beach access zone next to a seven-story condominium along the
nicest part of the beach. "All right, little brother." he had said,
"now get some sleep."
But Troy had not been able to sleep. He had been too excited
thinking about the launch scheduled the next evening, the eighth
shuttle launch in all, the first one that had ever occurred at
night. He had been reading everything he could find about astronaut
Burford and the plans for the mission. He kept imagining that it
was the future and that he, Troy Jefferson, was an astronaut about
to be launched into space. After all, Burford was living proof that
it could indeed be done, that a black American could attain the
upper echelons of society and become a popular hero on the basis of
his intelligence, personality, and hard work.
At sunrise Troy had crawled out of the car and walked the few yards
to the beach. It was very quiet. Troy's company was limited to a
few walkers and joggers plus a couple of those bizarre sand crabs,
whose eyes wavered back and forth at the end of peculiar stalks as
they raced sideways into their holes in the sand. To the north Troy
could see some of the launch pads for the unmanned rockets at Cape
Canaveral Air Force Base, but in his mind's eye he saw them as the
launching apparatus for the shuttle. He wondered what astronaut
Burford was doing at that very moment. What was he eating for
breakfast? Was he with his family or with the astronaut crew?
Jamie had awakened around noon and the brothers had spent the early
afternoon on the beach together, laughing and playing in the surf.
Then they picked up some hamburgers and drove the final half hour
to the Kennedy Space Center. Jamie had strongarmed an avid Gator
booster, an aerospace executive who lived in Melbourne, for tickets
to the VIP viewing area. They arrived there just before nightfall.
Four miles away, the impressive shuttle launch configuration.
consisting of the orbiter mounted on top of an orange external tank
with two solid rocket boosters on the side, stood erect against its
launching tower as the final countdown began.
No observing experience in Troy's life would ever come close to
rivaling his watching the space shuttle blast off that night. As he
listened to the countdown being announced over the loudspeakers in
the VIP area, he was eager and anticipant, but not yet in awe. The
moment the engines ignited, however, filling the Florida night with
reddish-orange flame and thick white clouds of billowing smoke,
Troy's eyes nearly popped out of his head. But it was the
combination of his seeing the giant spaceship, slowly and
majestically lifting itself into the heavens riding a long slender
flame, and his hearing the astonishing sound, a constant roar
punctuated with unexplained pops (which at only four miles away
still arrived twenty or so seconds behind the sight of the engine
ignition), that really caused the goose bumps to break out on his
skin, the tears to come to his eyes, and the tingle to spread
through his body. Troy's intense emotional excitement lasted well
over a minute. He stood beside his brother Jamie, tightly holding
his hand, his back arched as he strained to follow the flame rising
higher and higher and then finally disappearing in the night sky
above him.
After the launch they slept again in the car. Jamie then dropped
Troy at the bus station in Orlando and headed back to Gainesville
for football practice. Young Troy felt that he was a new person,
that he had been transformed by his experience. In the week that
followed he obsessively followed the flight. Burford became his
hero, his new idol. During the first two quarters of the following
year, he applied himself avidly to his schoolwork. He had a goal.
He was going to be an astronaut.
Little did Troy know that on a March night only seven months later
he would have another experience, this one devastating and deeply
disturbing, that would completely overshadow the thrill he had felt
at the shuttle launch. On that later March evening, his brother
Jamie would stop by his room before leaving the house around eight
o'clock. "I'm going over to Maria's, bro," Jamie would say. "We'll
probably take in a movie."
Maria Alvarez was eighteen and still a senior in high school. She
had been Jamie's steady girl for a couple of years. She lived in
Little Havana together with her Cuban family and eight
siblings.
Troy had given his brother a hug. "I'm glad you're here, Jamie.
There are so many things that I want to show you. I made you a set
of headphones in school - "
"I want to see everything." his brother had interrupted him. "But
tomorrow, first thing in the morning. Now don't stay up too late.
Astronauts need plenty of sleep so they can be alert." Jamie had
smiled and walked out of Troy's room. It was the last thing Troy
would ever hear him say.
Troy never could remember what he had heard first when he had
awakened in the middle of that night. His mother's wild wail had
mixed with the screech of the nearby sirens to create an imbroglio
of sound that was unforgettable and terrifying. Troy had raced to
the door and into the front yard wearing only his pajama bottoms.
The sound of the ambulance siren was drawing closer. His mother was
at the end of the short walkway in front of the house, bending down
over a dark body spread partly in the street in front of Jamie's
Chevrolet and partly in their yard. Three policemen and half a
dozen curious bystanders were huddled around his distraught
mother.
"Somehow," he heard one of the policemen say as Troy, in a panic,
tried to figure out what was happening, "he managed to drive home.
It's incredible after all the blood he lost. He must have been hit
four times in the stomach ..."
His mother's cry intensified again and, at that moment, Troy put
all the pieces together and recognized the body lying on its back.
A chill went through him, he gasped, and then Troy fell on his
knees beside his brother's head. Jamie was struggling for breath.
His eyes were open but they did not seem to be focusing on
anything.
Troy cradled Jamie's head in his hands. He looked down at his
brother's stomach. His red shirt was awash in blood that seemed to
be flowing in a continuous stream from an area just above the
genitals. Blood was on Jamie's jeans, on the ground, everywhere.
Troy felt himself gag, then retch involuntarily. Nothing came up.
Hot tears filled his eyes.
"We think it was a gang shooting, Mrs. Jefferson," the policeman
droned on. "Probably some kind of a mistake. Everybody knows that
Jamie wasn't mixed up with that kind of crowd." Reporters had
arrived. Lights were flashing from cameras. More sirens
approached.
Jamie's eyes went blank. There was no sign of breathing. Troy
pulled his brother's head to his chest. He instinctively knew that
Jamie was dead. He began to sob uncontrollably. "No," he mumbled.
"No. Not my brother. Not Jamie. He never hurt anybody."
Someone tried to comfort him, to pat him on the shoulder Troy
shrugged them off violently "Leave me alone," he shouted between
sobs. "He was my brother. He was my only brother." After a couple
of moments, Troy tenderly placed Jamie's head back down on the
ground. He then collapsed in total despair beside him.
At almost three-thirty in the morning some ten years later, in
March of 1994, Troy Jefferson would be at home, alone in his
duplex, awake with the memory of that terrible moment when Jamie
had died. He would feel a new the heartbreak of that loss. And he
would realize again, very clearly, that most of his adolescent
dreams had died with his brother, that he had forsaken his dreams
of college and being an astronaut because they were inextricably
coupled with his memory of Jamie.
Somehow he had stumbled through high school in the three years that
had followed Jamie's death. But it had taken the combined efforts
of his mother and the school and the city authorities to keep Troy
from abandoning school altogether. Then, as soon as he had
graduated, he had left Miami. Or rather, ran away. Away from what
had happened and what might have been. For over two years he then
wandered in a desultory manner throughout North America, a young,
solitary black man, bereft of love and friendship, looking for
something to overcome the feeling of emptiness that was his
constant companion.
So I finally came to Key West, Troy would think, years later, as he
settled back in his bed in the middle of the morning for a couple
more hours of sleep. And for some reason made myself a home. Maybe
it was just time. Or maybe I had learned enough to know that life
goes on. But somehow, although the wound has never healed, I got
past Jamie. And found the lost Troy. Or so I hope.
The dream that had been interrupted by the siren suddenly came back
into his mind. Angie was beautiful in the moonlight in her white
bathing suit. And now for some unfinished business, Troy laughed to
himself, concentrating on the image of Angie as he returned to
sleep.
"GOOD morning, angel," Troy said with a grand smile as Carol
approached the Florida Queen. "Ready to do some fishing?" He hopped
out of the boat and shouted at Nick, who was around at the back on
the other side of the canopy. "She's here, Professor," he hollered
"I'm going out to the parking lot to get her stuff." Carol gave
Troy the keys to her car and he took off in the direction of the
marina office.
Carol paced for a few moments on the jetty before Nick emerged from
behind the canopy. "Come on down on the boat," he said, scowling a
little as he wiped some heavy dredging chain with a dark cloth.
Nick felt terrible. He had a nasty hangover. And he was still
bothered by the events of the night before Carol didn't say
anything at first. Nick stopped cleaning the chain and waited for
her to speak.
"I don't know exactly how to say this," she began in a firm but
pleasant voice, "but it's important to me that I say it before I
get on the boat." Carol cleared her throat. "Nick," she said
deliberately, "I don't want to dive with you today. I want to dive
with Troy."
Nick gave her a quizzical look. He was standing in the sun and his
head was aching. "But Troy - " he began.
"I know what you're going to say," she interrupted him. "He doesn't
have much experience and it could be a dangerous dive." She stared
directly at Nick. "That doesn't matter to me. I have enough diving
experience for both of us. I prefer to dive with Troy." She waited
a few seconds. "Now if you're not willing - "
This time it was Nick who interrupted Carol. "All right, all
right," he said, turning away. He was surprised to find that he was
both hurt and angry. This woman is still pissed, he said to
himself. And I thought maybe ... Nick walked away from Carol and
went back on the other side of the canopy to finish preparing the
small rented salvage crane he and Troy had installed the night
before. Since they had used this old equipment several times on
other excursions, the installation had been straight forward and
without major problems.
Carol climbed onto the boat and put her copy of the photos on top
of the counter next to the steering wheel. "Where's the trident?"
she called to Nick. "I thought I'd take another look at it this
morning."
"Bottom left drawer, under the nav equipment," was his swift and
sharp reply. She took the gray bag out of the drawer, opened it,
and pulled out the golden trident. She held it by the long middle
rod. It felt funny for some reason. Carol put the object back in
the bag and pulled it out a second time. Again she held the heavy
trident in her hands. It still didn't feel right. Carol remembered
grasping the rod underneath the overhang in the water and wrapping
her hand slowly around the central rod. That's it, she said to
herself. It's thicker.
She turned the object over in her hands. What's the matter with me?
she thought. Have I lost my mind? How could it he thicker? She
examined it one more time with great care. This time she thought
that the individual tines of the fork had lengthened and that she
could detect a perceptible increase in the overall weight. Good
grief. Can this be possible? she wondered.
Carol pulled out the photos she had brought along. All the images
of the trident that she had with her had been taken underwater. But
she was certain that she could discern two subtle changes since it
was first photographed. The axis rod did appear to be thicker and
the tines of the fork did indeed look longer.
"Nick," she said in a loud voice. "Nick, can you come here?"
"I'm right in the middle of something," an unfriendly voice
responded from the other side of the canopy. "Is it important?"
"No. I mean yes," Carol answered. "But it can wait until your first
available moment."
Carol's mind was racing. There are only two possibilities, she said
to herself with logical precision, either it has changed or it
hasn't. If it hasn't changed, then I must be spooked. For it
definitely seems thicker. But how could it change? Either on its
own or someone changed it. But who? Nick? But how could he ...
?
Nick came up to her. "Yes?" he said in a distant, almost hostile
tone. He was obviously annoyed.
Carol handed him the trident. "Well?" she said, smiling and looking
at him expectantly.
"Well, what?" he answered, totally confused by what was happening
and still angry about the earlier interaction.
"Can you tell the difference?" Carol continued, nodding at the
trident in his hand.
Nick turned it upside down as she had done. The sunlight glinted
off the golden surface and hurt his eyes. He squinted. Then he
switched the object from hand to hand and looked at it from many
different angles. "I think I'm lost," Nick said at length. "Are you
trying to tell me that there's some change in this thing?"
He held it out between them. "Yes," she said. "Can't you feel it?
The central rod's thicker than it was on Thursday and the tines or
individual elements of that fork on one end are a little longer.
And don't you think the whole thing is heavier?"
Nick's headache continued to throb. He looked back and forth
between the trident and Carol. As far as he could tell, the object
had not changed. "No, I don't," he said. "It seems the same to
me."
"You're just being difficult," Carol persisted, grabbing the
trident back. "Here, look at the pictures. Check out the length of
the fork there compared to the overall rod and then look at it now.
It's different."
There was something in Carol's general attitude that really
irritated Nick. She always seemed to assume that she was right and
everyone else was wrong. "This is absurd," Nick nearly shouted in
reply, "and I have a lot of work to do." He paused for a moment and
then continued. "How the hell could it change? It's a metal object,
for Christ's sake. What do you think? That somehow it grew?
Shit."
He shook his head and started to walk away. After a couple of
steps, he turned around. "You can't trust the pictures anyway, " he
said in more measured tones . "Underwater photos always distort the
objects ..."
Troy was approaching with both the cart and Carol's equipment. He
could tell from the body positions, even without hearing the words,
that his two boatmates were at it again. "My, my," he said as he
walked up, "I can't leave you two alone for a minute. What are you
fighting about this morning, Professor?"
"This supposedly intelligent reporter friend of yours," Nick
replied, looking at Carol and speaking in a patronizing manner,
"insists that our trident has changed shape. Overnight I guess.
Although she has not yet begun to explain how. Will you please,
since she won't believe me, explain to her about the index of
refraction or whatever it is that fouls up underwater
pictures."
Carol appealed to Troy. "But it has changed. Honest. I remember
clearly what it felt like at first and now it feels different."
Troy was unloading the cart and putting the ocean telescope system
on the Florida Queen. "Angel," Troy said, stopping to check the
trident that she was extending toward him with both hands, "I can't
tell whether it has changed or not, but I can tell you one thing.
You were very excited when you found it the first time and you were
also underwater. With that combination I wouldn't trust my own
memory of how something felt."
Carol looked at the two men. She was going to pursue the discussion
but Nick abruptly changed the subject. "Did you know, Mr.
Jefferson, that our client Miss Dawson has requested your services
as a diving partner today? She doesn't want to dive with me." His
tone was now acerbic.
Troy looked at Carol with surprise. "That's real nice, angel," he
said quietly, "but Nick is really the expert. I'm just a little
more than a beginner."
"I know that," Carol responded brusquely, still chafing from the
outcome of the previous conversation. "But I want to dive with
someone I can trust. Someone who behaves responsibly. I know enough
about diving for both of us."
Nick gave Carol an angry look and then turned and walked away. He
was pissed. "Come on, Jefferson," he said. "I've already agreed to
let Miss High and Mighty have her way. This time. Let's get the
boat ready and finish setting up that telescope thing of hers
again."
"My father finally divorced my mother when I was ten," Carol was
saying to Troy. They were sitting together in the deck chairs at
the front of the boat. After they had gone over the procedures for
the dive a couple of times, Carol had mentioned something about her
first boating experience, a birthday on a fishing boat with her
father when she was six, and the two of them had moved comfortably
into a discussion of their childhood. "The breakup was awful." She
handed the can of Coke back to Troy. "I think you might have been
luckier, in some ways, never to have known your father."
"I doubt it," Troy replied seriously. "From my earliest days, I
resented the fact that some of the kids had two parents. My
brother, Jamie, tried to help, of course, but there was only so
much he could do. I purposely chose friends who had fathers living
at home." He laughed. "I remember one dark black kid named Willie
Adams. His dad was at home all right, but he was an embarrassment
to the family. He was an older man, nearing sixty at the time, and
he didn't work. He just sat on the front porch in his rocking chair
all day and drank beer.
"Whenever I went over to Willie's house to play, I would always
find some excuse to spend a little time on the porch sitting next
to Mr. Adams. Willie would fidget uncomfortably, unable to
understand why I wanted to listen to his father tell his old,
supposedly boring stories. Mr. Adams had been in the Korean War and
he loved to tell about his friends and the battles and,
particularly, the Korean women and what he called their tricks.
"Anyway, you could always tell when Mr. Adams was about to start
one of his stories. His eyes would begin to stare in front of him,
as if he were looking intently at something far off in the
distance, and he would say, as much to himself as anybody, 'Tell
the truth, Baby Ruth.' Then he would recite the story, almost as if
he were quoting from a written book, 'We had driven the North
Koreans back to the Yalu and our battalion commander told us they
were ready to surrender,' he would say. "We were feeling good,
talking about what we were all going to do when we got back to the
States. But then the great yellow horde poured out of China ...'
"
Troy stopped. He stared out at the ocean. It was easy for Carol to
see him as a young boy, sitting on a porch with his embarrassed
friend Willie and listening to stories told by a man who lived
hopelessly in the past but who, nevertheless, represented the
father that Troy had never had. She leaned over to Troy and touched
his forearm. "It makes a pretty picture," she said. "You probably
never knew how happy you made that man by listening to his
stories."
Around on the other side of the canopy, Nick Williams was sitting
by himself in another deck chair. He was reading Madame Bovary and
trying without success to ignore both his residual hangover and the
scattered tidbits of conversation he was overhearing. He had
programmed the navigation system to return automatically to the
dive site from Thursday, so there was nothing else he really needed
to do to pilot the boat. Nick almost certainly would have enjoyed
sharing the conversation with Carol and Troy, but after his earlier
confrontation with her, in which he felt she had made it clear that
she didn't want to associate with him, he was not about to join
them. It was now necessary that he ignore her. Otherwise she would
conclude that he was just another wimp.
And besides, he liked his book. He was reading the part where Emma
Bovary gives herself over completely to the affair with Rudolph
Boulanger. Nick could see Emma sneaking away from her house in the
small French provincial village and racing across the fields into
the arms of her lover. Most of the time in the past, whenever Nick
had read a novel about a beautiful, dark heroine, he had pictured
Monique. But interestingly enough, the Emma Bovary that he was
envisioning while he was reading on the boat was Carol Dawson. And
more than once that morning, when Nick had read Flaubert's
descriptions of the passions of Emma and Rudolph, he had imagined
himself in the role of the bachelor from the French landed gentry
making love to Emma/Carol.
The automatic navigation system that guided the boat while Nick was
reading consisted of a simple transmitter/receiver combination and
a small miniprocessor. Taking advantage of a worldwide set of
synchronous satellites, software in the processor established the
boat's location very precisely and then followed a preprogrammed
steering algorithm to the desired final site. Along the way, the
two-way link with the satellite overhead provided the necessary
information to up date the path through the ocean.
When the Florida Queen was within a mile of the dive site, the nav
system sounded a tone. Nick then went to the controls and changed
to manual guidance. Carol and Troy rose from their chairs.
"Remember," she said, "the primary purpose of our dive is to
photograph and salvage whatever it was that we saw down in that
fissure on Thursday. If we have enough time afterward, we will go
back to the overhang where we found the trident."
Carol walked over and switched on the monitor attached to the ocean
telescope. She was standing only a few feet away from Nick. They
had not exchanged any words since right after the boat left Key
West. "Good luck," he said quietly.
She looked at him to see whether he was serious or was being
sarcastic. She couldn't tell. "Thank you," she said evenly.
Troy joined Carol at the monitor. She pulled the photographs out of
the envelope so they could be used to define the exact spot to
anchor. For a couple of minutes she issued instructions to Nick,
based on what she was seeing from the telescope, commanding small
corrections to the boat's position. At last the ocean floor
underneath them looked almost exactly as it had on Thursday when
they had seen the whales. With one major difference.
"Now where's that hole in the reef?" Troy said innocently. "I don't
seem to be able to find it on the monitor."
Carol's heart was speeding as she glanced back and forth from the
telescope screen to the photographs. Where is that fissure? she
thought, It can't have disappeared. The boat drifted away from the
dive site and Nick steered it back. This time Troy dropped the
anchor overboard. But Carol still could not see any sign of the
fissure. She could not understand it.
"Nick," she said finally, "could you give us a hand? We were down
there together and we both saw the hole. Are Troy and I just
confused in some way?"
Nick came over from the steering wheel under the canopy and stared
into the monitor. He too was puzzled. But he thought he saw other
things on the bottom of the ocean that also looked a little
different. "I don't see the hole either," he said, "but maybe it's
just the lighting. We were here in the afternoon last time and now
it's ten in the morning."
Troy turned to Carol. "Maybe Nick ought to dive with you. He was
there before, has seen the fissure, and knows how to find the
overhang. Everything I know is from the pictures."
"No," said Carol quickly. "I want to dive with you. Nick's probably
right. We just can't see the fissure because of the different
lighting." She picked up her underwater camera and walked around
the canopy toward the back of the boat. "Let's get going," she
said. "We'll do just fine."
Troy gave Nick a silent shrug, as if to say "I tried," and followed
her a few moments later.
"BUT Richard," Ramirez said, "we could get into big trouble."
"I don't see how," Lieutenant Todd replied. "Or why anybody ever
has to know. The Navy built the system, after all, primarily for
its own ships. We just allow everyone else to use it. All we have
to do is interrogate the master register and get the Doppler and
ranging time history for their particular identification code. Then
we can figure out where they are. It's easy. We do it all the time
for our own vessels."
"But we signed a maritime convention restricting our access to the
private registers except in life-or-death or national security
cases," Ramirez continued. "I can't just tap into the satellite
files because you and I suspect a certain boat of being on an
illegal mission. We need more authority."
"Look, Roberto," Todd argued vehemently, "who do you think is going
to give us permission? We don't have the photographs. We only have
your word for it. No. We must act on our own. If we're wrong, then
nobody ever has to know about it. If we're right, we'll nail that
bastard, we'll both be heroes, and nobody will give us a hard time
about what we've done."
Ramirez was silent for a few seconds. "Don't you at least think we
should inform Commander Winters? He is, after all, the officer in
charge of this Panther investigation."
"Absolutely not," said Lieutenant Todd quickly. "You heard him at
the meeting yesterday. He thinks we're out of line already. He'd
like nothing better than to shit all over us. He's jealous." Todd
saw that Ramirez was still undecided. "I'll tell you what," he
said, "we'll call him after we find out where the vessel is."
Lieutenant Ramirez shook his head. "That won't make any difference.
We still will have exceeded our authority."
"Shit," said Todd in exasperation. "Tell me what has to be done and
I'll do it. Without you. I'll take all the risk." He stopped and
looked directly at Ramirez. "I can't fucking understand it. I guess
you Mexicans really are gutless. You're the one who actually saw
the missile in the photograph, but ..."
Ramirez's eyes narrowed. His voice became hard. "That's enough,
Todd. We'll get the data. But if this turns out to be a disaster, I
will personally break your neck with my own hands."
"I knew you'd see it my way," Lieutenant Todd replied, smiling as
he followed Ramirez to a command console.
Commander Winters put the extra six-pack of Coke on the top of the
ice and then closed the cooler. "Anything else," he shouted out the
door at his wife and son, "before I haul this thing out to the
car?"
"No, sir," was the reply from the driveway. The commander picked up
the cooler and carried it through the screen door. "Whew," he said,
as he loaded it in the open trunk of the car, "you have enough food
and drink in here for a dozen people."
"I wish you were coming, sir," said Hap. "Most of the rest of the
fathers will be there."
"I know. I know," answered Winters. "But your mother's going. And I
need to do some private rehearsing for tonight." He gave his son a
brief hug. "Besides, Hap, we've talked about this before. Lately I
haven't felt comfortable at organized church activities. I believe
that religion is between God and the individual."
"You haven't always felt that way," Betty interjected from the
other side of the car. "In fact, you used to love church picnics.
You'd play softball and swim and we would laugh all evening." There
was just a trace of bitterness in her voice. "Come on, Hap." she
said after a momentary pause "We don't want to be late. Thank your
father for helping us pack."
"Thanks, Dad." Hap climbed into the car and Winters closed the door
behind him. They waved to each other as the Pontiac backed out of
the driveway into the street. As they drove away, Winters mused to
himself, I must spend more time with him. He needs me now. If I
don't it will soon be too late.
He turned around and walked back into the house. At the
refrigerator he stopped and opened the door. He poured himself a
glass of orange juice. While he was drinking it, he looked idly
around the kitchen. Already Betty had cleaned up the breakfast
dishes and put them in the dishwasher. The counters were scrubbed.
The morning paper was neatly folded on the breakfast table. The
kitchen was tidy, orderly. Like his wife. She abhorred messes of
all kinds. Winters remembered one morning, back when Hap was still
in diapers and they were living in Norfolk Virginia. The little boy
had been exuberantly pounding the kitchen table and suddenly his
arms had flailed out, knocking Betty's cup of coffee and the
creamer onto the floor. They both broke and made quite a mess all
over the kitchen. Betty had stopped her meal abruptly. By the time
she had returned to her cold scrambled eggs, there was not the
slightest indication anywhere, not on the floors, the lower
cupboard, or even in the wastebasket (she packed all the broken
pieces neatly in the basket liner and then removed the entire bag
to the outside cans), that there had been an accident.
Just to the right of the refrigerator in the Winterses' kitchen,
hanging on the wall, there was a small plaque with simple
lettering. "For God so loved the world," it said, "that He gave His
only begotten son, that whosoever shall believe in Him shall have
everlasting life ... John 3:16." Vernon Winters saw this kitchen
plaque every day, but he had not actually read the words for
months, maybe even years. On this particular Saturday morning he
read them and was moved. He thought about Betty's God, a God very
similar to the one he had worshipped in his childhood and
adolescence in Indiana, a quiet, calm, wise old man who sat up in
heaven somewhere, watching everything, knowing everything, waiting
to receive and answer our prayers. It was such a simple, beautiful
image. "Our Father, Who art in Heaven," he said, recalling the
hundreds maybe thousands of times that he had prayed in church,
"Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done. On Earth
as it is in Heaven ..."
And what is Thy will for me, old man, Winters thought, a little
taken aback by his own irreverence. For eight years You have let me
drift. Ignored me. Tested me like Job. Or maybe punished me. He
walked over to the kitchen table and sat down. He took another sip
from his orange juice. But have I been forgiven? I don't yet know.
Never once in all that time have You given me a definite sign.
Despite my prayers and my tears. One time, he thought, right after
Libya, I wondered if maybe ...
He remembered being half asleep on the beach, lying on his back
with his eyes closed on a big comfortable towel. In the distance he
could hear the surf and children's voices, occasionally he could
even distinguish Hap's voice or Betty's. The summer sun was warm,
relaxing. A light began to dart about on the inside of his eyelids.
Winters opened his eyes. He couldn't see much because the sunlight
was too bright and there was also a glare, a metal glint of some
kind, in his eyes. He shaded his forehead with his hand. A little
girl with long hair, a year old perhaps, was standing just above
him, staring at him. The glint was coming from the long metal comb
in her hair.
Winters closed his eyes and opened them again. Now he could see her
better. She had shifted her head just a little so the glare was
gone. But she was still staring fixedly at him, with absolutely no
expression on her face. She was wearing only diapers. He could tell
that she was foreign. Arab perhaps, he had thought at the time,
looking back into her deep brown, almond-shaped eyes. She didn't
move or say anything. She just watched him, curious, relentless,
without seeming to notice anything that he did.
"Hello," Winters said quietly. "Who are you?"
The little Arab girl gave no sign that she had heard anything.
After a few seconds, however, she suddenly pointed her finger at
him and her face looked angry. Winters shuddered and sat up
abruptly. His quick action frightened her and she began to cry He
reached for her but she pulled away, slipped, lost her balance, and
fell on the sand. Her head hit something sharp when she fell and
blood started running down her scalp and onto her shoulder.
Terrified, first by the fall and then by the sight of her own
blood, the little girl began to wail.
Winters hovered over her, struggling with his own panic as he
watched the blood splatter the sand. Something unrecognized flashed
through his mind and he decided to pick the little Arab girl up to
comfort her. She fought him violently, with the reckless abandon
and surprising strength of the toddler, and struggled free. She
fell again on the sand, on her side, the blood from her scalp
injury scattering drops of red around the light brown sand. She was
now completely hysterical, crying so hard she often could not catch
her breath, her face suffused with fear and anger. She pointed
again at Winters.
Within seconds a pair of dark brown arms swooped out of the sky and
picked her up. For the first time Winters noticed that there were
other people around, lots of them in fact. The little girl had been
picked up by a man who must have been her father, a short, squat
Arab man in his mid-twenties wearing a bright blue bathing suit. He
was holding his daughter protectively, looking as if he were
expecting a fight, and consoling his distraught young wife whose
sobs intermingled with the little girl's frantic cries. Both the
parents were looking at Winters accusingly. The mother daubed at
the little girl's bleeding head with a towel.
"I didn't mean to hurt her," Winters said, recognizing as he spoke
that what he said would be misinterpreted. "She fell and hit her
head on something and I ..." The Arab couple were backing away
slowly. Winters turned to the others, maybe a dozen people who had
come over in response to the little girl's cries. They also were
looking at him strangely. "I didn't mean to hurt her," he repeated
in a loud voice. "I was just ..." He stopped himself. Big tears
were falling off his face and onto the sand. My God, he thought,
I'm crying. No wonder these people ...
He heard another cry. Betty and Hap had apparently just walked up
behind him as the Arab couple had backed away with their bleeding
daughter. Now, having seen the blood on his father's hands,
five-year-old Hap had broken into tears and buried his face in his
mother's hip. He sobbed and sobbed. Winters looked at his hands,
then at the people standing around him. Impulsively he bent down
and tried to clean his hands in the sand. The sound of his son's
sobbing punctuated his vain attempt to wipe his hands free of the
blood.
As he was kneeling in the sand, Commander Winters glanced at his
wife Betty for the first time since the incident had started. What
he saw on her face was abject horror. He entreated her for support
with his eyes, but instead her eyes glazed over and she too fell to
her knees, careful not to disturb her tearful son who was clinging
to her side. And Betty began to pray. "Dear God," she said with her
eyes closed.
The crowd dispersed slowly, several of them going over to the Arab
family to see if they could be of any help. Winters stayed on his
knees in the sand, shaken by his own actions.
At length Betty stood up. "There, there," she consoled her son Hap,
"everything will be all right." Without saying another word, she
carefully picked up the beach bag and towels and started walking
toward the parking lot. The commander followed.
They left the beach and drove back to Norfolk where they were
living. And she never asked about it, Winters thought, as he sat at
his kitchen table eight years later. She wouldn't even let me talk
about it. For at least three years. It was as if it had never
happened. Now she mentions it once in a blue moon. But we still
have never discussed it.
He finished his orange juice and lit a cigarette. As he did so, he
thought immediately of Tiffani and the night before. Fear and
arousal simultaneously stirred in Winters when he thought of the
coming evening. He also found that he had a curious desire to pray.
And now dear God, he said tentatively, are You testing me again? He
was suddenly aware of his own anger. Or are You laughing at me?
Maybe it wasn't enough for You to forsake me, to leave me adrift.
Maybe You won't he satisfied until I am humiliated.
Again he felt like crying. But he resisted. Winters crushed out his
cigarette and stood up from the table. He walked over to the side
of the refrigerator and pulled the plaque containing the Bible
verse off the wall. He started to throw it in the trash but, after
hesitating for a second, he changed his mind and put it in one of
the kitchen drawers.
CAROL was swimming rapidly about six feet above the trench as they
approached the final turn. She took a few photographs while she
waited for Troy to catch up, pointed down below her to where the
tracks turned to the left, and then started swimming again, more
slowly this time, following the tracks in the narrow crevice toward
the overhang. Nothing here had changed. She motioned for Troy to
stay back and swam down into the trench, carefully, as she had done
before when she was with Nick. Her search of the area under the
overhang was very thorough. She did not find anything.
She gestured to Troy that nothing was there, and then, after
another quick sequence of photographs, the two divers began
retracing their path, going back along the tracks toward the area
under the boat where they had already spent fifteen minutes earlier
searching fruitlessly for the fissure they had seen on Thursday. It
had mysteriously vanished. All the tracks, although somewhat
eroded, still converged in front of the reef structure where the
hole had been just two days before. Carol had poked and prodded,
even damaged the reef in several places (which, as an
environmentalist, she hated to do, but she was certain the hole had
to be there), but had not found the fissure. If Troy had not seen
it so clearly, first on the ocean telescope monitor and then in the
pictures, he would have thought that it was just a figment of Nick
and Carol's collective imagination.
As Carol, deep in her thoughts, turned right over the main trench
after leaving the side path that had led to the overhang, she was
careless and brushed ever so slightly against a crop of coral that
was extending outward from the reef. She felt a sting on her hand.
She looked down and saw that she was bleeding. That's funny, she
thought, I just barely touched it. Her mind flashed back to ten
minutes before, when she had been roughly pushing the coral and
kelp aside in search of the fissure. And I wasn't even scratched
...
A wild, inchoate idea started forming in her mind. Excited now, she
intensified her swimming down the long trench where the fissure had
been. Troy could not keep up with her. It was a long swim but Carol
completed it in about four or five minutes. She checked her
regulator pressure as she waited for her diving partner. They
exchanged the thumbs-up sign when he arrived and Carol tried.
without success, to explain her idea to Troy using hand signals.
Finally, she bravely reached out and grabbed a piece of coral with
her hand. Carol saw Troy's eyes open wide and his face grimace
behind his mask. She opened her hard. There were no cuts, no
scrapes, no blood. Astounded, Troy swam over beside her to look at
the coral colony she had just disturbed. He too could touch and
even hold this strange coral without cutting his hand. What was
going on?
Carol was now pulling the coral and kelp away from the reef. Troy
watched in amazement as a huge segment of the reef structure seemed
to peel off, almost like a blanket ...
They heard the great WHOOSH only milliseconds before they felt the
pull. A giant chasm opened in the reef behind them and everything
in the area, Troy, Carol, schools of fish, plants of all kinds, and
an enormous volume of water, was swept into the hole. The current
was very swift but the channel was not too large, for Carol and
Troy bounced against what felt like metallic sides a couple of
times. There was no time to think. They were carried along, as if
on a water slide, and simply had to wait for the ride to be
over.
The dark gave way to a deep dusk and the current slowed markedly.
Separated by about twenty feet, Carol and Troy each tried to gather
his wits and figure out what was happening. They appeared to be in
the outer annulus of a large circular tank and were going around
and around, passing gates of some kind after every ninety degrees
of revolution. The water in the tank was about ten feet deep. Carol
rolled on her back and looked up. She could see a lot of large
structures above her, some of them moving, that seemed to be made
out of metal or plastic. She could not see Troy anywhere. She tried
to grab the sides of the tank so she could stop and look for him.
It was useless. She could not resist the motion of the current.
They made three or four trips around the circle without seeing each
other. Troy noticed that all the fish and plants had slowly
disappeared from their annulus, suggesting that some kind of
sorting process was underway. Suddenly the current increased and he
was pitched forward and down, under the water and then through a
half-open gate, into darkness again. Just as a trace of light
appeared above the water and the rate of flow again slowed, he felt
something clamp on to his right arm.
Troy was lifted out of the water a foot or so. In the dim light he
couldn't see exactly what it was that had caught him, but it felt
very strong. It held him without additional movement. Troy looked
behind him in the current, where he had been, and he saw Carol's
tumbling body approaching. With his free left arm he grabbed at
her. She felt his arm and immediately wrapped herself around it.
She composed herself, lifted her head out of the water, and
struggled to reach the trunk of Troy's body. She succeeded in
holding tight to him as the current rushed past. She caught her
breath and for just a moment their eyes met behind their diving
masks.
Then, inexplicably, the clamp released. When they were back in the
water, the current did not seem so strong. They were able to hold
on to each other without much difficulty. After about fifteen
seconds, the flow of the water slowed down altogether. They had
been deposited in a pool in what appeared to be a large room and
the water was draining out, running into some unseen orifice at the
far end of the room. The last of the water disappeared. Shaken and
exhausted Carol and Troy started to stand up in their diving
gear.
Carol had great difficulty getting to her feet. Troy helped her up
and then pointed to his regulator. Ever so slowly, he slipped out
of his mouthpiece and sampled the ambient environment. One breath,
then another. As far as he could tell, he was breathing normal air.
He shrugged his shoulders at Carol and, in a fit of bravado, took
off his mask as well. "Hellooo," he shouted nervously, "Anybody
there? You have guests out here."
Carol slowly removed both her mask and her regulator. She had a
dazed look on her face. The two of them looked around. The ceiling
was about ten feet above them. Overall the dimensions of the
chamber were roughly equivalent to a large living room in a nice
suburban home. The walls, however, were quite unusual. Instead of
being flat and forming nice right-angle joints at each of the
intersections, the walls were made of large, curved surfaces, some
concave and some convex, that were alternately colored red and
blue. Without thinking, Carol began walking around, slowly of
course because of the bulky diving gear, and taking
photographs.
"Uh, just a moment, Miss Dawson," Troy said with a hesitant smile.
He pulled off his flippers and followed her. "Before you take any
more pictures, angel, would you kindly tell this unsophisticated
black boy just where in the fuck he is? I mean, last I knew, I was
going down under the boat to look for a hole. I think I found it,
but I must say it's a trifle unnerving to be visiting someone and
not know just who it is. So could you stop with the journalism bit
for just a minute and tell me why you are so calm."
Carol was right in front of one of the concave blue wall panels.
There were two or three indentations in the wall structure, at
about eye level, that formed circles or ellipses. "Now what do you
suppose this is?" Carol wondered aloud. Her voice sounded flat, as
if she were far away.
"Carol," Troy almost shouted. "Stop it. Stop right now. We can't
just blissfully walk around here as if this is a typical afternoon
stroll through a model house. We have to talk. Where are we? How
are we going; to get out and go home? Home, remember the place? I
guarantee you it's not under the ocean two hours away from shore."
He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her.
She started to snap out of her daze. She looked slowly around the
entire room and then back at Troy. "Jesus," she said. "And shit."
He saw her tremble a little and stepped forward to hug her. She
indicated for him to leave her alone. "I'm all right. At least
almost." Carol took a couple of deep breaths and then smiled.
"Anyway, I've sure got one hell of a story here." She looked around
the room again. "Uh Troy," she said with her brow wrinkled, "how
did we get in here? I don't see a doorway or an opening or
anything."
"Good question," Troy replied. "A very good question, to which I
might have the answer. I think these crazy colored walls move
around. I believe I saw the walls rolling into place when I was
under the water. So all we have to do is push them aside and find
our way out." He tried to wedge his hands into a crack that was a
connection between a red and a blue piece of the wall structure. He
was unsuccessful.
Carol left Troy and started to pace around the perimeter of the
room in her ungainly diving apparatus. She quickly stopped and took
off everything except her bathing suit. She seemed intent on both
examining and photographing every single panel in the wall. Troy
took off his own air tanks and buoyancy vest as well, dropping them
on the light metal floor with a clank. He watched her for a
minute.
"Carol, oh Carol," he said from across the room, a big fake grin
spreading across his face. "Would you like to tell me what you're
doing now? I mean, after all, angel, I may be able to help."
"I'm looking for something that says 'Eat Me' or 'Drink Me,' " she
replied with a nervous laugh.
"Of course," Troy mumbled to himself, "that was absolutely
obvious."
"Do you remember Alice in Wonderland?" Carol asked from the
opposite side of the room. She had found a long, thin protuberance
that looked like a handle sticking out from the center of one of
the red panels. She waved and he came over. The two of them tried
to twist and turn the handle. Nothing happened. Carol became
frustrated struggling with it.
Troy thought he saw a first sign of panic in Carol as her eyes
frantically scanned the rest of the room. He pulled himself up and
stood at attention, military style. "Speak roughly to your little
boy ... And beat him when he sneezes ... He only does it to annoy .
. because he knows it teases."
The deep furrows in Carol's face showed that she thought Troy had
temporarily lost his mind. "That was the Queen of Hearts, I think."
Troy laughed. "I'm not sure exactly. But I had to learn it for a
play when I was in the fifth grade." Carol had relaxed and was also
laughing in spite of her fear. She reached up and gave Troy a kiss
on the cheek. "Careful, now, careful," he said with a twinkle in
his eye. "We black men are easily aroused."
Carol slid her arm through Troy's as they finished walking around
the rest of the room, searching the walls for any sign of an exit
Troy's banter made Carol feel comfortable. "When I was in the
eighth grade a black teacher of mine told me that Alice was a
racist story. He contended that it was very significant that it was
a white rabbit that Alice followed. He said that no nice little
white girl would ever have pursued a black rabbit down a hole." He
stopped in front of another red panel. "Well, well," he said. "What
have we here?"
This red panel looked just like the rest of the wall from a
distance. But up close, within a range of a couple of feet or so,
all kinds of patterns, made with small white dots, could be seen
stippled on top of the red paint. An array of consecutive
rectangular sections outlined by the white dots high-lighted the
center of the panel "Hey, angel," Troy said, pushing on the
sections at random, "don't you think this looks suspiciously like a
keyboard?" Troy began to push on the keys at random. Carol joined
him. It became a game. The two of them stood at the red panel for
almost a minute, putting their fingers into every outlined section
and pushing hard.
Suddenly Carol backed away from the panel, turned around, and
started walking directly across the room. "Where are you going?"
yelled Troy, as Carol, spinning around to answer, nearly stumbled
over her diving gear on the floor.
"I have a crazy idea," called Carol. "Call it feminine intuition.
Call it psychic if you will." She had reached the red panel where
they had struggled with the handle. Now she pulled it down easily
and immediately heard a creak. She jumped back, startled, as the
entire panel folded back and away from her, revealing a dark
opening large enough for a truck to enter. Troy came over beside
her and the two of them stared into the void.
"Holy shit," he said "Are we supposed to go in there?"
Carol nodded. "I'm certain we are."
Troy looked at her with a curious expression. "And just how do you
know that?"
"Because it's the only way out of here," Carol replied.
Troy cast one final glance around the strange room with the curved
and colored walls. There was an indisputable logic to what Carol
had said. He took a deep breath, held Carol's hand, and walked into
the black tunnel.
Behind them they could barely see the small shaft of light coming
from the room where they had left their diving gear. Inside the
pitch-black hallway they moved very slowly, cautiously. Troy kept
one hand on the wall and the other clenched around Carol's. The
sound of their labored breathing, heightened by the constant fear
and apprehension, reverberated off the rounded walls. They didn't
talk. Twice Troy had started to sing a few lines from a popular
song, to assuage his own disquiet, but both times Carol stopped
him. She wanted to be able to hear in case there were any other
noises.
At one point she squeezed his hand and stopped. "Listen," she said
in a whisper. Troy held his breath. There was utter silence, except
for something very soft that he couldn't quite identify, way off in
the distance. "Music," Carol said. "I think I hear music."
Troy strained to identify the sound just below the threshold of his
hearing. It was useless. He pulled on Carol's hand. "It's probably
inside your head," he said. "Let's go."
They had made a turn and the light behind them had disappeared.
Altogether they had been in the tunnel for about ten minutes. Carol
was becoming despondent. "What if this doesn't go anywhere?" she
asked Troy.
"That doesn't make any sense," he replied quickly. "Somebody built
it for some purpose. It's obviously a connecting passageway." He
fell silent.
"Who built it?" Carol asked the question that had been troubling
both of them during the long tense walk down the dark hallway.
"Another good question," Troy replied. He hesitated just a minute
before continuing with his answer. "My guess is the United States
Navy. I think we're in some kind of top-secret underwater
laboratory that nobody knows about." Of course, he thought, not
saying it out loud because he didn't want to disturb Carol, it
could also be Russian. In which case we are in deep shit. If the
Russians have a large, secret laboratory this close to Key West,
they are not going to be happy ...
"Look, Troy," Carol said excitedly. "I see a light. There is
somebody here after all." The tunnel was about to split into two
pans. At the end of one of the two forks, the one sharply to the
left, a patch of illumination could clearly be seen. Still holding
hands, Troy and Carol walked briskly toward the light. Troy was
aware that his heart was beating very rapidly
Carol almost raced into the new room. She had expected that they
were about to be found, that this mysterious adventure was now
going to end and everything would be explained. Instead, as she
looked around her in a small, oval chamber with the same bizarre
panels for walls (except these were colored brown and white,
instead of red and blue as in the previous room), she felt a
tremendous confusion. "What is this place?" she asked Troy. "And
how are we going to get out?"
Troy was standing in the center of the room with his head tilted
back as far as it would go. He was staring up at a vast arched
ceiling some thirty to thirty-five feet above them. "Wow," he
exclaimed, "this is one huge place." The muted light illuminating
the room was coming from slabs of partially translucent material,
possibly glass crystals, that were embedded in the ceiling.
The brown and white panels forming the walls for the particular
room they had entered were only ten feet high, but they were high
enough to prevent Carol and Troy from seeing out. They had a
strange sense of both freedom and confinement. On the one hand,
first the tunnel and now this small room, the size of a child's
bedroom in a small house, had made them feel claustrophobic;
however, the sense of space conveyed by the cathedral ceilings was
liberating.
"Well?" asked Carol, somewhat impatiently, after waiting a few
moments while Troy walked around and surveyed the room. He was
observing that the brown and white wall panels were only slightly
curved and were thus much closer to normal walls than those in the
initial room had been.
"I'm sorry, angel," he replied, "I forgot the question."
She shook her head. "There is only one question, Mr. Jefferson. I
believe that you asked it of me on our last tour stop." She looked
at her watch. "In about fifteen minutes, we will have exceeded the
maximum time for our air supply. Unless I miss my guess, our friend
Nick is probably starting to worry right now. But we still have no
idea ... What are you doing?"
She interrupted herself when Troy bent down to pull a small knob on
one of the brown panels in the corner of the room. "These are
drawers, angel," he said, as the bottom part of the panel came out
several inches from the wall. "Like a dresser." He opened a second
drawer above the first. "And they have something in them."
Carol came over to see. She reached into the second drawer that
Troy had opened and pulled out a rust-colored sphere about the size
of a tennis ball. The surface of the ball was very curious. Instead
of being smooth and regular, it had grooves cut into it, mostly on
one side, and tiny bumps, like those on the surface of a pickle,
around and next to the grooves. In other places there were poorly
defined indentations as well. Carol examined the sphere in the weak
light. "I've seen something like this before," she said. "But
where?" She thought for a few seconds. "I've got it," she
announced, pleased that her memory had come through, "this looks
exactly like the model of Mars in the National Air and Space
Museum."
"Then I must have the Earth," Troy replied, showing her a mostly
blue sphere the size of a softball that he had removed from the top
drawer. The two of them stood together in the dim light, looking
back and forth at the spheres they were holding in their hands.
"Shit," Troy shouted eventually, spinning around and looking at the
ceiling. "And double shit. Whoever you are, we've had enough. Come
out now and identify yourself."
A partial echo of his voice came back to them. Otherwise they heard
nothing. Anxious to be doing something, Carol continued her search
of the room. She found another group of three drawers in a nearby
brown panel. While she was opening the first of these, Troy
playfully hurled his blue ball at what appeared to be an exit, a
dark opening between panels on the other side of the room. The
sphere hit a white panel near the exit with a thunk and started to
fall to the floor. However, just before it touched the ground, the
sphere lifted up, as if pulled somehow from above, and stopped in
the center of the room about five feet above the floor. It began to
spin.
Troy's eyes opened wide. He walked over to the sphere and placed
his hand between the ball and high ceiling, trying to find the
strings. Nothing happened. The Earth sphere continued to spin
slowly and inscribe a circle in the air in the middle of the room.
Troy pushed the ball lightly. It moved in response to his push, but
after his applied force was removed and the effect had dissipated,
the sphere returned to its previous location and continued its
earlier movement. Troy turned around. Carol had her back to him and
was searching unsuccessfully for another set of drawers. The Mars
ball was still in her left hand.
"Uh, Carol," Troy said slowly. "Would you mind coming over here a
moment?"
"Certainly," she replied without looking. "Jesus, Troy, these
drawers are full of all kinds ..." She had turned around and now
noticed the Earth sphere hovering in the air near the center of the
room. Her brow knitted. "That's cute," she said tentatively, "real
cute. I didn't know you were a magician as well." Her voice trailed
off. She could see the perplexed expression on Troy's face. She
walked over next to him to have a closer look.
The two of them stood silently for at least ten seconds as they
watched the blue softball slowly spin in the air. Next Troy took
the Mars sphere from Carol and tossed it, under-handed, up toward
the high ceiling. It arched up and fell down normally, until it was
just above the floor. Then, like the blue sphere before it, the
Mars ball developed its own sense of direction and momentum. It
floated up about five feet off the floor, began to spin slowly, and
hovered in the air next to the blue sphere representing the
Earth.
Carol grabbed Troy's hand. She shivered and then regained her
composure. "There's something about this that gives me the
willies," she said. "All in all, I would deal better with a
caterpillar asking me, 'Who are you?' At least in that case I would
have some idea what I'm up against."
Troy turned around and led Carol back over to the partially opened
drawers. "I ran into this old bearded dude once when I was
hitchhiking," he began, as he pulled out a basketball that was
covered with latitudinal belts and bands in shades of red and
orange. He aimlessly tossed the big Jupiter ball over his shoulder,
using both hands. Carol watched it, still fascinated, as it joined
the other two spheres orbiting around an empty focus in the middle
of the room.
"He was driving an old run-down pickup truck and smoking a joint.
At first we talked a little. He would ask me questions and I would
start to give an answer. But after a sentence or two, he would
interrupt me and say, 'You don't know shit, man.' That was his
response to everything."
Troy methodically emptied all six of the drawers while he was
telling his story. He threw all the objects he found into the
center of the room. A few of them he watched, casually, as if he
were witnessing an everyday occurrence. Each of the new spheres
repeated the earlier pattern. A nearly complete working model of
the solar system was forming about five feet above the f1oor.
"Finally I grew tired of his game and was quiet. We drove along for
miles in silence. It was a clear and beautiful night and he kept
hanging his head out the window to look at the stars. Once, when he
pulled his head back in, he lit another joint, handed it to me, and
pointed back out the window at the stars. 'They know, man, they
know,' he said. Miles later, when he let me out of the truck, he
leaned over and I could see the wildness in his eyes. 'Remember,
man,' he whispered, 'you don't know shit. But they know.' "
As Troy finished the tale, Carol came over beside him and pulled
out two handfuls of tiny fragments from the final drawer. They were
a little sticky to the touch. She shook them off her hands and they
miraculously flew around the room and coalesced into the ring
systems of Saturn and Uranus. She looked at Troy in awe.
"Does that bizarre story have a point?" Carol asked. "I must admit
that I am amazed at how nonchalant you are about this whole damn
thing. For myself, I'm just about ready to freak out.
Completely."
Troy pointed at the miniature planets floating in the air. "What we
are seeing has no explanation in terms of our experience. We've
either died together or transferred to a new dimension or someone
is playing mind games with us." He smiled at Carol. "If you must
know, angel, I'm scared absolutely shitless. But like that old
stoned hippie, I keep telling myself, 'They know.' Somehow it gives
me comfort."
They heard a soft sliding sound and a shaft of bright light burst
into the room from an opening that was forming between two panels,
one brown and one white, just to the right of the exit. Carol
recoiled automatically and covered her eyes for an instant. Troy
also jumped back at first, but then shaded his eyes with his hands
and watched. The panels continued to slide until an opening about
two feet wide had developed. The room was beginning to fill with
light. Troy saw a great illuminated ball coming slowly through the
opening. "Here comes the Sun Doot-un-Doo-Doo Doo ... Here comes the
Sun," he sang anxiously, "And I say ... it's all right ..." He
hummed a few more bars of the song as Carol opened her eyes.
"Jesus," she said. The bright orb, the size of a giant beach ball,
lifted itself into its proper place in the orrery and flooded the
entire room with its radiance. The spinning, orbiting planets shone
with reflected light from their sides facing the Sun. Carol stood
transfixed, silent tears running down her face. She could not speak
or move. She was completely overwhelmed.
Troy was also frightened, but not yet so much that his ability to
function was impaired. However, a moment later he saw something in
the exit that sent a bolt of terror through his system. His heart
surged into overdrive as he blinked and then squinted, making
certain his mind was not playing tricks on him as he looked just
around the bright light of the model Sun. Instinctively, he turned
to protect Carol and shielded her from what he had just seen.
"Don't look now," he whispered, "but we have a visitor."
"What?" said Carol, confused and still stunned.
Troy held her by the arms and they moved together several steps to
the right. He looked over his own shoulder and saw the thing
again.
"Over by the exit," he said, turning around, unable any longer to
hide his panic.
Carol's eyes indicated that she had found the source of Troy's
terror. She had no idea what it was, but she could see that it was
large, clearly threatening, and absolutely different from anything
that she had ever seen or imagined. It had also moved into the
room. She heard Troy's frantic, incoherent shouts, but their
meaning didn't register. She looked at the thing again and her mind
balked. She opened her mouth to scream. Nothing came out at first.
She dropped to her knees on the floor. She heard the sound of
screams in her ear, but they seemed far, far away. Her brain was
sending a message that said, 'You're screaming,' but for some
reason it didn't seem possible. It had to be someone else.
The thing was coming toward her Its main body was about eight feet
tall at that moment, but it was continually changing its shape and
size as it undulated across the room. Whatever it was, Troy and
Carol could see into it and even through parts of its structure. A
transparent external boundary membrane was wrapped around a
permanently seething set of mostly clear fluid matter that ebbed
and flowed with each movement. The thing moved like an amoeba,
matter simply heading in the right direction, but with astonishing
speed. Tiny black dots were scattered just behind all its external
surfaces, darting in all directions, apparently supervising the
continuous reconfigurations that gave it motion. A half dozen
chunks of grayish, opaque matter, objects a foot or so square, were
also embedded near the center of the primary body.
But it was not the main body of the thing that was so terrifying.
Protruding from its upper portions was a frightening array of a
dozen appendages, mostly long and slender in shape, that appeared
to be stuck into the main body like sharp objects in a pin cushion.
It looked as if the large, clear, amoebalike structure was a
versatile transportation system that could carry virtually anything
and that the payload, at least for this usage, was this family of
constantly active rods, all of which were threatening because their
end effectors resembled needles, hands, brushes, teeth, and even
swords and guns. In Carol's mind, she was being attacked by a
heavily armored tank that could change size in an instant and move
on invisible treads in any direction.
Troy moved to the side, trying to calm his fear and catch his
breath, as he watched the thing zero in on Carol. Its longest
attachment, a reddish plastic implement which split into two short
tines about a foot away from the primary body, suddenly extended
itself outward an additional three feet and stopped just six inches
in front of Carol's eyes. She screamed and pushed it away,
forcefully, but it popped right back into position. Troy plucked
the Jupiter ball out of the air and, with all his might, hurled the
sphere at the center of the thing. The shapeless mass fell back on
impact and immediately retracted its extended appendages. But in an
instant the thing reconfigured itself somehow and adjusted its
matter to let the ball pass completely through. Before it hit the
floor on the other side, Jupiter rose into the air and came back to
take its proper position in the solar system model.
The thing had now stopped advancing toward Carol. It was sitting in
the middle of the room, its spindly appendages flailing around in
all directions. It seemed to be making a decision. Troy bravely
grabbed a rod with an end effector like a brush and tried to pull
it away from the main structure. Instantly, core clear material
flowed into the joint where that particular rod was attached,
strengthening the connection. But Troy's action definitely caused a
change in its pattern. The thing started after him. Ever so
carefully, making sure it would follow him while watching out for
another quick extension of the red implement with the two tines,
Troy edged toward the exit. As the thing continued to move toward
him, Troy motioned for Carol to get back. Then he broke for the
door, tripping slightly over an extended rod on his way out.
It hardly hesitated. With surprising celerity the thing made itself
short and squat. A maximum amount of exposed surface was now on the
floor and it could move more quickly and efficiently. The deployed
group of attachments were placed into some kind of compact
traveling configuration and the thing hustled out the door.
Carol was left alone on her knees on the floor. The solar system
model was above her and to the right. For over a minute she didn't
move. She just watched the spinning planets abstractedly and
listened for the occasional sound of Troy's footfalls in the
distance. At length there was a long period of silence and Carol
rose to her feet. She took several small, slow steps, reassuring
herself that she was all right, and then walked over to the exit
opening between the panels. The exit opened onto a corridor that
ran in both directions.
Troy had gone to the right when he had left the room. After
remembering her camera and going back to take a few quick
photographs of the suspended planets, Carol followed Troy's path,
also taking the corridor to the right. She walked slowly down the
black hall, turning around frequently to locate the light coming
from the room that she had just left. There was now a close ceiling
over her head. The hall next split into two forks; both directions
were dark. Carol listened for sounds. Again she thought she heard
music, but she couldn't begin to identify where it was coming
from.
This time she chose the left fork in the hallway. Soon it narrowed
and seemed to be circling back in the direction from which she had
just come. She was just about to turn around and retrace her steps
when she distinctly heard two noises, something like a thud
followed by a scraping sound, off to the right in front of her.
Drawing her breath slowly and struggling to conquer her fear, Carol
moved forward in the dark. After about twenty more feet she came
upon a low door that opened to the right. She bent down slightly
and peered in. In the dusky light she saw unusual shapes and
structures in another small room with walls made of the now
familiar curved and colored panels. She crawled through the doorway
and stood up.
Soft local lights located in a few of the wall panels came on as
soon as Carol's feet contacted the floor in the room. Her arrival
also triggered two or three notes from some kind of musical
instrument. It sounded like an organ and was apparently way off in
the distance in another part of the cathedral area enclosed by the
vast arched ceilings that were again above her. She stopped,
surprised. She stood still for several seconds. Then, without
moving, Carol carefully surveyed her new surroundings.
In this room the wall panels were very bright, alternating between
purple and gold, and they were extremely curved. Along with Carol
in the room there were three objects of unknown purpose. One looked
like a writing table, a second like a long, low bench that was wide
at one end and tapered to a point at the other, and the third
resembled a very tall telephone pole whose top and bottom were
connected by sixteen thin strings stretched out and around a broad
ring about one third of the way down the pole.
Carol could walk between the thin strings. The ring, made out of a
gold metallic material, was a couple of feet above her head, almost
at the level of the top of the wall panels. She grabbed one of the
strings and felt it vibrate. It made a muffled, flat sound. She
backed away from the string and tried to pluck it. A note sounded,
very lyrical, like a heavy harp. Carol realized she was standing
inside a musical instrument. But how to play it? She spent a few
minutes wandering around the room, trying without success to find
the equivalent of a bow. She knew it would be impossible to play
the harp if she had to run around and pluck each individual string
herself.
She walked over to the writing table. She quickly figured out that
it was also a musical instrument. It looked much more promising.
There were indentations in the table, sixty-four altogether, set up
in eight rows and eight columns. Pressing each key produced a
different sound. Although Carol had taken five years of piano
lessons as a small child, it was a difficult chore, at first, for
her even to play "Silent Night" on the strange writing table. She
had to correlate the sounds made by pressing the individual keys
with the notes and chords that she remembered from her childhood.
While she was teaching herself to play the instrument, she stopped
often to listen to the delicate, crystal sound that it made. It
reminded her mostly of a xylophone.
Carol stood at the table for several minutes. Eventually she played
an entire verse of "Silent Night" without making a single mistake.
Carol smiled, pleased with herself, and relaxed momentarily. During
this interlude the great organ in the distance (which she had heard
briefly when she had entered the room and could now pinpoint as
being somewhere in the upper reaches of the cathedral area)
suddenly began to play. Carol felt goose bumps rise on her arms,
partially due to the beauty of the music and partially because it
reminded her again of what a bizarre world she had entered. What is
that organ playing? she thought to herself. It sounds like an
overture. She listened for a few seconds. Why ... that's an
introduction. To "Silent Night"! It's very creative.
The organ sound was joined by several others, each emanating from
somewhere in the ceiling. All the instruments together played a
complex version of the "Silent Night" that Carol had so
painstakingly pounded out on the writing table a few moments
before. The beautiful music swelled throughout the cathedral. Carol
looked up and then closed her eyes. She spun her body around and
around in a little dance. When she opened her eyes again, each of
them confronted what appeared to be a tiny optical instrument no
more than an inch away. Carol froze in terror.
The thing had noiselessly come up behind her while she was playing
music at the writing table and had waited patiently, while
deploying its appendages, until she was ready to turn around. It
was about her height now and the closest part of the translucent
main body was only an arm's length away. As Carol stood there
motionless, barely daring to breathe, five or six of the thing's
attachments came forward to touch her. A small digging instrument
scraped some skin off her bare shoulder. The sword cut off some of
her hair. A tiny cord attached to one of the long rods wrapped
around her wrist. A set of bristles the size of the head of a
toothbrush traveled across her chest, tickling her nipples through
her bathing suit and crossing over the camera that was draped
around her neck. She was having so many feelings simultaneously
that she had lost track of all the stimuli. Carol closed her eyes
and tried to concentrate on something else. She felt a needle prick
her forehead.
It was over very fast, less than a minute altogether. The thing
retracted its appendages, backed up a couple of feet and stood
there, observing her from a distance. Carol waited. After another
twenty seconds, the attachments were stowed, as they had been when
the thing had gone after Troy, and it left the room.
Carol listened for sounds. It was totally quiet again. She backed
up from the writing table and tried to organize her thoughts. After
about a minute, the purple and gold wall panels began to move to
the side on their own accord. They folded upon themselves and
formed small stacks. Then the corridors around the music room
collapsed and automatically organized their partitions into neat
piles. Carol found herself standing in one huge room under the
cathedral ceilings. In the distance her weird antagonist with the
flailing appendages passed through a side door about twenty-five
yards away and disappeared quickly from view.
She looked around. There was no sign of Troy. The walls were creamy
white and nondescript, somewhat boring after the colored panels in
the earlier rooms. There were two doors, opposite each other in the
middle of the room. Except for the musical instruments, which now
seemed completely out of place clustered together at one end of
such a vast room, the only other object she could see was a small
piece of carpet against thc wall to the left. In front of her
against the far wall, about fifty yards away, there was what
appeared to be a large window on the ocean. Even from a distance
she could see and identify some of the fish swimming by.
At first Carol hurried toward the window. When she was about
halfway there and even with the doors, she stopped a few seconds
and took a few photographs of the rather bland room. Curiously, the
small carpet was not where she remembered it. It had somehow been
moved while she was walking. She approached the carpet very slowly.
Her weird experiences since she and Troy had been sucked out of the
ocean had made Carol understandably wary. As she drew closer, she
saw that the flat object lying on the floor was definite]y not a
carpet. From above she could see an intricate internal design, like
a complex network of sophisticated electronic chips. There were
strange whorls and geometric patterns on its surface; they had no
specific meaning to Carol but they reminded her of the fractal
designs Dr. Dale had shown her one night in his apartment. The
symmetries of the object were readily apparent. In fact, each of
the four quadrants of the carpet was identical.
It was about six feet long, three feet wide, and two inches thick.
The dominant color was slate gray, although there were some
significant color variations. Some of the larger individual
components must have been color-coded according to some master
plan. Carol could identify groupings of similar elements in red,
yellow, blue, and white within the design. The overall harmony of
the colors was striking, suggesting that some effort had been made
by the designers to include aesthetic considerations.
Carol bent down on her knees beside the carpet and studied it more
intently. Its surface was densely packed. The closer she looked,
the more detail she found. Extraordinary, she thought. But what in
the world is it? And how did it move? Or could I possibly have
imagined it? She put her hand on the exposed top surface. She felt
a soft tingle, like a gentle electric shock. She slid one hand
under the edge and lifted slightly. It was heavy. She removed her
hand.
Her desire to escape from this strange world now overruled her
curiosity. Carol took a photograph of the carpet from the top and
started walking away in the direction of the window. After several
strides, she turned quickly to her left to look at the carpet one
more time. It had moved again and was still even with her in the
room. Carol continued walking toward the window, now watching the
carpet out of the corner of her eye. When she had walked another
ten feet, her peripheral vision saw it arch up quickly along a line
through its center, pulling the rear of its body in a forward
direction. Half a second later the front end of the carpet scooted
forward and the center fell flat against the floor again. This
maneuver was repeated six or eight times in rapid succession as the
carpet zipped up to a position even with Carol in the room.
Despite her situation, Carol laughed. She was still full of
adrenaline and uptight, but there was definitely something humorous
about a multicolored carpet that could crawl like an inchworm.
"Ha," Carol said out loud, "I caught you. Now you owe me an
explanation."
Carol certainly did not expect a reply to her comment.
Nevertheless, after just a short delay, the behavior of the carpet
was altered. First it began to generate small wave pulses along its
surface, with four or five crests from front to back. After smartly
reversing the direction of motion of the waves several times, the
carpet's next trick was to keep its front end fixed on the floor,
as if there were suction cups holding it down, and raise its back
side entirely off the floor. In that mode it was about six feet
tall. It seemed to be looking at Carol.
She was flabbergasted. "Well, I asked for it," she said out loud,
still amused by the antics of the carpet. Now it seemed to be
motioning for her to go toward the window. I have lost my mind, she
thought to herself. Completely. Troy was right. Maybe we're dead.
The carpet arched over on the floor and began to scamper toward the
window, tumbling in somersaults like a slinky toy. Carol followed.
This is nuts, she thought as she watched the carpet move somehow
through the window and into the ocean. And Alice thought she was in
Wonderland.
The carpet was playing in the water, dodging fish as they swam by
in schools and teasing a sea urchin stuck fast against the reef. At
length it came back into the room and stood upright. A little water
dripped on the floor when the carpet set in motion a series of fast
simultaneous waves, both latitudinal and longitudinal, that
effectively shook the residual liquid from its surface. It then
faced Carol and clearly beckoned for her to go through the window
into the ocean
"Look here, flat guy," she said, chuckling to herself as she tried
to figure out what to say. Now I know I'm insane, she thought in a
flash. I'm standing here talking to a carpet. Next thing I know it
will talk back. "Now I'm not stupid," she continued. "I recognize
that you're trying to get me to go into the ocean. But there are a
few things that you don't - "
The carpet interrupted the conversation by going quickly through
the window into the ocean again. It performed a couple of flips and
came back into the room with Carol. Once more it shook itself and
then stood rigidly, upright as before as if to say, "See, it's
easy."
"As I was saying," Carol began again, "I have perhaps gone crazy,
but I'm willing to trust that I can indeed go through that window
in some magical way. My problem is that these is water out there. I
can't breathe in water. Without my diving gear, which I left
somewhere in this labyrinth, I will die "
The carpet didn't move. Carol repeated her statement, using
elaborate hand gestures to make her key points. Then she fell
silent. After a short wait the carpet began to move about actively.
It then approached her carefully and amazingly stretched itself out
in all directions so that it was almost double its original size.
Carol wasn't significantly fazed. At this point she was almost
incapable of being astonished again. Even by an elastic carpet that
pulled its two top sides together, over her head, to form a
cone.
Carol backed away a couple of steps from the now giant carpet. "Oh
ho," she said, "I think I understand. You are going to form an air
pocket for me so that I can breathe." She stood still for a moment,
thinking and shaking her head. "Why not," she said at last, "it's
no weirder than anything else that's happened."
With the carpet hovering over and around her head, Carol closed her
eyes and walked directly toward the window. She took a deep breath
when she felt a soft plastic touch on different parts of her body.
Suddenly the water was all around her except for the small air
pocket from the neck up. It was hard for Carol to keep her diving
discipline, but she managed to equalize the pressure every six to
eight feet during her ascent. She took one final breath and zoomed
up to the surface. The carpet peeled off in the last foot before
she broke water.
The Florida Queen was about fifty yards away. "Nick," she shouted
with all her might, "Nick, over here." She swam furiously toward
the boat. A wave broke over her head. The boat was again visible,
she could see a figure in profile. He was looking over the side of
the boat. "Nick," Carol cried again when she had gathered her
strength. This time he heard her and turned around. She waved her
arms.
NICK had followed Carol and Troy on the monitor right after their
initial descent, when they were still directly under the boat
searching for the fissure. But he had quickly tired of watching
them swim around in circles and had returned to his deck chair to
read his novel. Afterward he had walked over to the screen several
more times to look for them and had seen nothing; Carol and Troy
had already left to investigate the area under the overhang.
Nick had checked the monitor again after he had finished Madame
Bovary. He had been a little surprised to discover that the fissure
was again clearly visible underneath the Florida Queen. He next
assumed that he must have been correct, that it had just been a
case of bad lighting, since with the sun directly overhead, the
hole in the reef looked much smaller to him than it had two days
before. He had then busied himself about the boat until his wrist
alarm went off, indicating that Carol and Troy had about five more
minutes of air remaining.
Nick walked over and looked at the images being taken by the ocean
telescope and placed in realtime on the screen. There was no sign
of Carol and Troy under the boat. Nick started becoming restive. I
hope they're paying attention, he thought. He realized that they
had been gone from view for a long time and that he had never seen
them actually explore the fissure, their primary goal. A creeping
disquiet began to spread through him as the clock continued to run
out.
There's only one explanation, he thought, fighting against the
negative ideas that were filtering into his mind. They have been
gone a long time, so they must have found something interesting at
the overhang. Or somewhere else. For just a moment Nick imagined
that Carol and Troy had found a lode of treasure, full of objects
that looked like the strange trident they had retrieved on
Thursday.
The second hand seemed to be racing on his watch. It was now one
minute until they should run out of air. Nick nervously checked the
monitor again. Nothing. He felt his heart speed up. They must be in
the red, he thought. Even if they have carefully conserved the air,
they must be in the red. Nick worried for a second about a gauge
failure, but he quickly remembered checking both of them himself
when he arrived at the boat that morning. Besides, it's terribly
unlikely they would both fail ... so there must be trouble.
Another minute passed and Nick realized that he had not formulated
a plan as to what he would do if they didn't show up. His mind
raced swiftly through his options. There were two distinctly
different action patterns he could follow. He could put on his
diving gear and go look for them along the trench between the
fissure and the overhang. Or he could assume that, in their
excitement, Carol and Troy had simply neglected to check their air
gauges regularly and as a result had been forced to surface
wherever they were when they ran out of air.
If I go down after them, he thought, I probably won't reach them in
time. Nick had a moment of self-recrimination because he had not
properly prepared for this contingency. It would take him several
valuable minutes to put on and check out his own diving apparatus.
That settles it. I must assume they're around here somewhere.
Floating on the surface. He looked briefly at the screen one more
time and then walked over to the side of the boat. He scanned the
ocean. It was a little choppy now. He didn't see any sign of
them.
Nick turned on the engine and pulled in the anchor. He made a quick
mental assessment of the general direction to the overhang and
started steering with the engine at very low throttle.
Unfortunately, he could not see the telescope monitor from the
steering wheel, and the canopy blocked his vision behind him. Nick
was in perpetual motion, back and forth from the wheel to the
screen to the sides of the boat. As his fear and frustration began
to build, so did his anger. It was now five minutes after the
nominal time that their air supply would have been depleted.
Damnit, Nick thought, still not allowing his brain to nurture
images of disaster, How could they be so careless? I knew I
shouldn't have let them go as a pair. He continued to castigate
himself and then turned on Carol. I let that woman push me
around. I will sure as hell straighten her out when I find them.
Nick turned the boat sharply to the left.
He thought he heard a voice. Nick ran to the side of the boat. He
had no sense of what direction the shout had come from. After two
or three more seconds he heard it again. He turned and saw a figure
wave. Nick waved back and went over to the steering wheel to change
the direction of the boat. He pulled out a strong rope from the
equipment drawer and tied it around one of the stanchions next to
the ladder. He threw the line to Carol as the boat pulled up
alongside her and then he cut the motor back to idle.
She had no trouble catching the line. As he was reeling her in,
Nick's eyes searched the surrounding water for Troy. He could not
see him. Carol had now reached the ladder. "You would not believe
..." she started, trying to catch her breath as she put her first
foot on the ladder.
"Where's Troy?" interrupted Nick. gesturing out at the ocean.
Carol took another step up the ladder. It was clear that she was
exhausted. Nick took her hand and she came into the boat. She stood
up on her wobbly legs.
"Where's Troy?" Nick asked again forcefully. He looked at Carol.
"And what happened to all your gear?"
Carol took a deep breath. "I ... don't know ... where Troy is," she
stammered. "We were sucked down - "
"You don't know!" shouted Nick, now frantically looking around on
the ocean surface. "You go on a dive, come up without your gear,
and don't know where your partner is. What kind - "
A small wave hit the boat. Carol had raised her hand to protest
Nick's diatribe, but the motion of the boat knocked her feet out
from under her. She fell hard on her knees and winced at the pain.
Nick was hovering over her, still shouting. "Well, Miss Perfect,
you better come up with some fucking answers fast. If we don't find
Troy soon, he'll be dead. And if he's dead, it will be your goddamn
fault."
Carol instinctively cowered at the anger of the large man. Her
knees hurt, she was exhausted, and this man was yelling in her
face. Suddenly her emotions gave way. "Shut up," she shouted. "Shut
up, you asshole. And get away from me." She was flailing with her
arms, hitting Nick on the legs and in the stomach. "You don't know
anything," she said after taking a quick breath. "You don't know
shit."
Carol put her head in her hands and began to cry. In that instant,
a long-buried memory burst upon her mind Her five-year-old brother
was sobbing hysterically and attacking her, pummeling her with his
fists. She had her hands up to protect herself. "It's your fault,
Carol," he was screaming, "he left because of you." She remembered
the hot tears in her eyes. "It's not true, Richie, it's not true.
It wasn't my fault."
On the boat Carol glanced up through her tears at Nick. He had
backed away and was looking sheepish. She wiped her eyes and took a
deep breath. "It was not my fault," Carol said deliberately and
emphatically. Nick stuck out his hand to help her up and she
smacked it away. He mumbled "I'm sorry" as she rose to her feet.
"Now if you'll just shut up and listen," she continued, "I'll tell
you what happened. The reef under the boat wasn't a reef at all ...
Oh, my God ... It's here."
Nick saw a look of consternation break on Carol's face. She pointed
over behind him, on the other side of the boat. He turned around to
look. At first he didn't notice anything. Then he saw a strange
flat object that looked like a piece of carpet inching along the
boat toward the telescope monitor. He screwed up his face and
turned back to Carol with a puzzled expression.
While Carol had been talking, the carpet had somehow crawled up the
side and then flopped into the boat. By the time she started to
explain, it was already standing in front of the television
monitor, looking at the images the telescope was taking of the
ocean floor beneath the boat. There was no time for lengthy
explanations. "What the fuck?" Nick said, and walked over to
apprehend the peculiar visitor. When his hand was about an inch
away from touching the carpet, he felt a strong electrical
discharge in the end of his fingers. "Ow!" he said, jumping back.
He shook his hand and watched with amazement. The carpet continued
to stand in front of the screen.
Nick looked at Carol as if he expected some assistance. But she was
finding the whole scene amusing. "That thing is just one of the
reasons the dive was strange," she said, making no effort to
provide any help. "But I don't think it will hurt you. It probably
saved my life."
Nick grabbed a small fishnet hanging on the side of the structure
holding up the canopy and slowly approached the carpet. As he drew
near, it seemed to turn and look at him. Nick lunged forward with
the net. The carpet dodged deftly and Nick lost his balance. He
fell against the monitor with his arms akimbo. Carol laughed out
loud, remembering the first time they met. The carpet flipped over
to the telescope data system and wrapped itself tightly around the
entire set of electronic equipment.
From the floor of the boat Nick watched the carpet investigating
the data system and shook his head in disbelief. "What the hell is
that thing anyway?" he shouted to Carol.
She came over and graciously offered a hand to help him up. It was
her way of apologizing for her earlier outburst. "I have no earthly
idea," Carol replied. "At first I thought it might be a
sophisticated Navy robot. But it is much too advanced, too
intelligent." She pointed at the sky with her free left hand. "They
know," she said with a smile.
The comment reminded Carol of Troy and she became solemn. She
walked over to the side of the boat and stared at the ocean. Nick
was now standing up next to the monitor within an arm's length of
the carpet and the data system. It looked as if the carpet had
somehow extended part of itself into the internal electronics. Nick
watched for a few seconds, fascinated, as the various digital
diagnostic readouts on the top of the data system went crazy. "Hey,
Carol," he said. "Come here and look at this. That damn thing is
plastic or something."
She did not turn around at first. "Nick," Carol asked softly,
finally facing him, "what are we going to do about Troy?"
"As soon as we get this damn invader out of here," Nick replied
from underneath the canopy, where he was now looking through his
kitchen implements, "we'll do a systematic search of the area. I
may even dive and see if I can find him."
Nick had picked up a large cooking fork with a plastic handle and
was about to attempt to pry the carpet off the data system. "I
wouldn't do that if I were you," admonished Carol. "He'll leave
when he's ready."
But it was too late. Nick stuck the fork into and through the
carpet and up against the uppermost rack of electronic parts. There
was a popping sound and a tiny blue arc zapped down the fork,
driving Nick backward with a powerful kick. Alarms went off, the
digital readout from the data system went blank, and the ocean
telescope monitor began to smoke. The carpet dropped down on the
floor and began making the little waves that it had showed to Carol
in the large room with the window on the ocean. A moment later, two
alarms from the navigation system sounded, indicating not only that
the boat's current location had been lost, but also that the
nonvolatile memory, where all the parameters that permitted
satellite communication were stored, had been erased.
In the middle of the noise and smoke, Nick stood with a puzzled
expression on his face. He was rubbing his right arm from his wrist
to his shoulder. "I'm numb," he said in astonishment. "I can't feel
anything in my arm."
The carpet continued with its wave patterns on the floor of the
boat while Carol picked up a pail, leaned overboard for some water,
and doused the monitor. Nick had not moved. He was still standing
there, looking helpless and pinching his arm. Carol threw the rest
of the water on Nick. "Shit," he sputtered, backing up
involuntarily, "why did you do that?"
"Because we have to find Troy," she said, walking over to the
boat's controls. "And we can't wait all day. Ignore the damn carpet
... and your arm. A man's life is at stake."
She increased the speed of the boat. As she did, the carpet stood
up again, twisted around, and hustled to the side. Nick tried to
stop it but it was out of the boat and into the water in a flash.
As Carol steered the boat through circles of larger and larger
radius, Nick stood on the side of the Florida Queen and searched
for Troy.
An hour later they both agreed there was no reason for them to
continue the search. Carol and Nick had been over the entire region
of the ocean in the boat several times (with some care and
difficulty, because they no longer had a working navigation system)
and had found no trace of Troy. After he had convinced himself that
his arm was all right. Nick had even donned his diving equipment,
as a last resort, and had retraced the path from the fissure to the
overhang and back. Still no sign of Troy. Nick had been just
slightly tempted to investigate the fissure, but Carol's wild story
seemed remotely plausible, and Nick did not like the idea of being
sucked into some bizarre underground laboratory. And he knew that
if he were to disappear, it would be virtually impossible for Carol
to guide the boat back to Key West without an active navigation
system.
Carol recounted the whole story of her dive while she and Nick were
canvassing the area. He was certain she was liberally embellishing
the details, but he could see no over-arching logical flaws in her
tale. And he himself had, after all, confronted the carpet on the
Florida Queen. So he acknowledged, in his own mind, that Carol and
Troy had indeed had hair-raising experiences in an underwater
building of some type and that the technology they had encountered
was definitely more advanced than anything they had ever seen
before
But Nick was reluctant to accept Carol's blithe explanation that
the trio had met some extraterrestrials. It didn't seem likely to
Nick that a first contact would be made under such mundane
circumstances Although he readily admitted that the carpet was a
marvel of capability far beyond his ken, he did not think of
himself as being technologically sophisticated and therefore he
could not state, categorically, that human beings could not have
created it.
Infact, Nick thought to himself as he was carefully searching the
horizon with his binoculars for reference landmarks before
beginning the trip back to Key West, what a perfect deception.
Suppose the Russians or even our own Navy wanted to mislead ... He
stopped himself in mid-thought and realized that if he were right,
and their encounter had been with a human creation, then they could
very well still be in danger. But why was Carol allowed to leave?
And why didn't they confiscate my boat? Nick found a small island
that he recognized off in the distance and changed the orientation
of the boat. He shook his head. It was all very confusing.
"You don't agree with me that we've just met some ETs?" Carol came
up beside Nick and slightly teased him with her question.
"I don't know," he answered slowly. "It seems like quite a leap to
make. After all, if there is an extraterrestrial infestation in the
waters of the Gulf of Mexico, it should have been found before now.
Submarines and other boats with active sonar must cross this region
at least once or twice a year." He smiled at her. "You've been
reading too much science fiction."
"On the contrary," she responded, fixing him with her gaze, "my
experience with state-of-the-art technology is almost certainly
more extensive than yours. I have done a series of features on the
Miami Oceanographic Institute and have seen what kind of ingenious
new concepts are being developed. And nothing, absolutely nothing,
comes close to the carpet or the giant amoeba thing. The likelihood
that there is some nonfantastic explanation for all this is very
very small." She paused for a moment. "Besides," she continued,
"maybe the laboratory hasn't been there for long. Maybe it was just
recently finished or even transported here."
Nick had felt himself bridle when Carol had started her comment.
There she goes again, he had thought. So sure of herself. So cocky
and competitive. Almost like a man. He admitted to himself that he
had also been known to make arguments from authority. And she was
certainly right in one respect. She had had much more exposure to
high technology than he had. Nick decided not to argue with her.
This time.
There was a momentary pause in the conversation. Carol was also
becoming more sensitive to the dynamic of their interaction. She
had noticed in realtime that Nick's face had tightened when she had
suggested that she knew more about technology than he did. Uh oh,
had flashed through her mind. Come on, Carol. Be a little more
tactful and considerate. She decided to change the subject.
"How long will it take us to reach the marina?" she asked. In her
excitement on Thursday afternoon, she had not paid much attention
to time during their return trip.
"A little less than two hours," Nick replied. He laughed. "Unless I
get lost. I haven't used manual guidance in these waters for over
five years."
"And what are you going to say when we get there?"
Nick looked at her. "To whom ... about what?" he asked.
"You know. About our dive. About Troy."
They stared at each other. Nick finally broke the silence. "My vote
would be to say nothing about it ... until ... until we know for
certain," he said quietly. "Then if Troy shows up, there's no
problem."
"And if he doesn't ever show up ... " Carol's voice trailed off,
"then we, Mr. Williams, are both in very deep shit." The gravity of
their situation was becoming clear to both of them.
"But who do you think will ever believe such an incredible tale?"
Nick said after a moment. "Even with your pictures, there's no
really hard evidence to corroborate our story. These days people
can create any kind of photo they want on a computer. Remember that
murder case in Miami last year, where an alibi photograph was
produced and admitted as official evidence? And then later that
data processor showed up and blew the whistle?" He paused. Carol
was listening intently. "And whoever built that place may be
dismantling it at this very moment," he continued. "Otherwise. why
did they let us get away? No. I say we wait awhile. Twenty-four
hours or so anyway. And think carefully about what we're going to
do."
Carol nodded her head affirmatively. "I think I agree with you,
although not exactly for the same reasons." She was aware there was
still a journalistic voice inside her that wanted to guard the
information for her sensational scoop. She hoped her ambition
wasn't somehow standing in the way of making the right decision for
Troy. "But Nick," Carol said reflectively, "you don't think we're
endangering Troy in any way by not contacting the authorities?"
"No," Nick replied immediately. "I suspect that if they were going
to kill him, they would have done so already. Or will soon."
This part of the conversation was too casual for Carol. She walked
over to the edge of the boat and stared out at the sea again. She
thought of Troy and their wild adventure after they were sucked
into the fissure. He had helped her hang together. No question
about it. His humor and wit had kept her from falling apart. And he
may have well saved her life by deflecting the attention of that
thing.
He was a warm, sensitive man underneath that funny exterior, she
thought. Very aware. He also seemed to be covering lots of pain.
From somewhere. For a moment Carol convinced herself that Troy was
all right. After all, they had helped her to escape. Then she
wondered why she had never run into him again down there. A seed of
doubt was planted in her mind. She squirmed. Damnit. We don't
really know one way or the other. It's uncertainty again. I hate
uncertainty. It's unfair.
A profound sadness, a deep and disturbing feeling from the past,
stirred in Carol. She felt helpless, without any control of the
situation. Tears filled her eyes. Nick had come up beside her
without saying anything. He saw the tears in her eyes but didn't
comment. He just put his hand over hers for a moment and then
removed it.
"Troy was becoming a good friend," Carol said, starting to hide
what she was really feeling. All of a sudden her need to share her
true emotions overcame her normal protection mechanisms. She looked
down at the water. "But that's not really why I'm upset just now.
I'm crying because of the uncertainty. I can't stand not knowing."
Carol paused and wiped her eyes.
Nick was quiet. He did not understand exactly what she was saying,
but he sensed that something special was about to happen between
them. The gentle waves lapped against the side of the boat. "It
reminds me of my childhood, right after my father left," she
continued softly. "I kept believing that he would be coming back.
All three of us, Richie, my mom, and I, would tell each other that
it was just a temporary separation, that someday he would walk
through the door and say 'I'm home.' At night I would lie in my bed
and listen for the sound of his car in the driveway."
The tears were flowing now, big drops cascading down her cheeks and
falling into the vast ocean. "When he would come to pick us up for
dinner, or on a Saturday, I would help Mom fix herself up, choose
her clothes for her, brush her hair." Carol choked up for a moment.
"After I hugged him at the door, I would always take him to Mother
and say, 'Isn't she beautiful?'
"For six months this went on. I never knew what I was going to feel
from day to day. The uncertainty destroyed me, made me sick. I
begged my father to give my mom one more chance. Richie even
suggested that he could buy the house next door if he and Mother
couldn't get along. So we could at least all be close together."
Carol smiled grimly and took a huge breath.
"Then my father took my mother to San Francisco for the weekend. I
was so excited. For thirty-six hours my heart soared, my future was
assured. I was the happiest ten-year-old girl in the San Fernando
Valley. But when they came home un Sunday night my mother was very
drunk. Her eyes were swollen, her mascara was running, she was a
mess. She marched right past Richie and me and went to her room. My
dad, Richie, and I stood in the living room, all hugging, and wept
together. In that instant I knew it was all over."
Carol was calming down now but the tears were still there. She
looked at Nick, her eyes entreating. "It would have been so much
easier if I could have cried one time and been done with it. But
no. There was uncertainty, so there was still hope. So every day,
every goddamn day, my little heart was broken again." Carol wiped
her eyes one more time. Then she looked out at the ocean and
shouted with all her might, "I want to know now, or at least soon,
what happened to Troy! Don't make me wait forever. I can't take
it."
She turned to Nick. He opened his arms. Without a word she put the
side of her face against his chest. He closed his arms around
her.
NICK reached above the door to Troy's duplex and found the key on
the ledge. He knocked on the door again and opened it cautiously.
"Hello," he called out, "is anybody there?"
Carol followed him into the living room. "I didn't know you two
were such close friends," she said, after she glanced with
amusement at Troy's motley collection of furniture. "I don't think
I've ever told anyone where I keep my key."
What Nick was looking for was not in the living room. He walked
down the hallway, past the large bedroom with its storehouse of
equipment, and into the smaller bedroom where Troy slept.
"Actually," Nick yelled at Carol, who had stopped behind him in the
hall opposite the first bedroom and was gawking at the jumble of
electronics filling every conceivable cranny, "it was only
yesterday that I came over here for the first time. So I don't
really know where ... oh, good, I think I've found something." He
picked up a sheet of computer printout that was underneath a
paperweight on the end table beside Troy's bed. It was dated
January 15, 1994, and contained about twenty names, addresses, and
phone numbers.
Nick met Carol in the hallway. He read quickly through the page and
showed it to her. "There's not much here. Phone numbers and
addresses for electronics and software supply houses. A bunch of
numbers for Angie Leatherwood, probably while she was still on
tour." He pointed at one entry. "This must be his mother, Kathryn
Jefferson, in Coral Gables, Florida. But there's no phone number
listed with the address."
Carol took the sheet from Nick and checked it herself. "I never
heard him mention anyone but Angie, his mother, and his brother
Jamie. No other friends or family. And I somehow have the
impression that he hasn't seen much of his mother recently. Did you
ever hear him say anything about any other family?"
"No," Nick replied. They had wandered together into the game room
and Nick was idly turning knobs and switches as he walked past the
arrays of equipment. He stopped and thought for a moment. "So that
means Angie is the one. We'll tell her right away and then wait -
"
Carol and Nick both froze as they distinctly heard the front door
open and close. After about a second, Nick called out in a loud but
uncertain voice, "Hello, whoever it is, we're back here in the
bedroom." There was no answer. They could hear soft footsteps in
the hallway. Nick instinctively moved over to protect Carol. A
moment later Troy came around the corner and into the room.
"Well, well," he said, grinning broadly, "as I live and breathe. I
have found a pair of burglars in my home."
Carol ran up to Troy and threw her arms around his neck. "Troy,"
she said, her comments coming in quick staccato bursts, "is it ever
good to see you. Where have you been? You scared the shit out of
us. We thought you were dead."
Troy returned Carol's hug and winked at Nick. "My, my. Such a
reception. I should have vanished before." He extended a hand to
shake the one that Nick was offering him. For a moment his face
became serious. "On second thought, one experience like that is
definitely enough."
Carol backed away and Troy saw the computer sheet in her hand. "We
were going to try to notify your family ..." she started. Troy
reached out to take the page and Carol noticed a bracelet on Troy's
right wrist that she had never seen before. It was wide, almost an
inch and a half, and looked as if its twenty or so links had been
made from flattened gold nuggets. "Where did you get this?" Carol
asked, holding his wrist up so that she could see the bracelet more
clearly.
Nick was unable to restrain himself any longer. Before Troy could
answer Carol's question, he jumped into the conversation.
"According to Carol," he said, "you were last seen disappearing
down a corridor in an underwater laboratory. With a six-foot amoeba
in hot pursuit. How the hell did you escape? We searched all over
the area ..."
Troy held up his hands. He was enjoying being the center of
attention. "Friends, friends. Wait a minute, will you? I will tell
you the story as soon as I take care of the necessities of life."
He turned and walked into the bathroom. Nick and Carol heard a
familiar sound. "Get some beer out of the refrigerator and go into
the living room," Troy shouted from behind the closed door. "We
might as well enjoy this part of it."
Two minutes later Nick and Carol were sitting together on the large
couch in the living room. Troy plopped into the chair opposite them
just as Nick took a huge swig from his beer. "Once upon a time,"
Troy began with a mischievous grin, "there was a young black named
Troy Jefferson, who, while diving with his friends, vanished for
almost two hours in a strange building underneath the ocean. When
he emerged from his underwater adventure, he was rescued by divers
from the United States Navy, who just happened to be in the area at
the time. Soon thereafter young Troy was flown in a military
helicopter back to Key West. There he was interrogated at length
about why he was swimming in the Gulf of Mexico, all by himself,
ten miles from the nearest island. An hour later he was released
without anyone believing any part of his story." Troy looked back
and forth from Nick to Carol. "Of course," he added, now more
serious, "I didn't tell them anything that really happened. There's
no way they would have believed the truth."
Carol was leaning forward on the couch. "So the Navy picked you up.
Just after we left." She turned to Nick. "They must have been
following us for some reason." The missile must have been there
after all, she thought to herself. But where did it go? Did the
Navy find it? And how are they involved with this crazy laboratory?
Nothing makes sense ...
"We spent over an hour looking for you." Nick was saying. He was
feeling remorseful because they had abandoned the search for Troy
so quickly. "It didn't occur to me that you might still be down in
that place, whatever it was, and of course we couldn't hang around
forever. All of our electronics were zapped by this funny carpet
thing that came out of the sea. So we lost all nav - " He stopped
in mid-sentence and looked at Troy. "I'm sorry, friend."
"Don't worry about it," Troy replied with a shrug, "I would have
done the same thing. At least I now know that you have met one of
the bizarre characters in my story. You didn't, by any chance, also
meet one of the wardens did you? Great big globs of clear jelly,
amoebalike, with little boxes in the middle and removable rods
hanging out all over the top?"
Nick shook his head. "Warden?" Carol asked quickly, her brow
knitted. "Why do you call that thing a warden?"
Warden, sentinel, whatever," Troy answered. "They told me the
warden things protect the principal cargo of the ship." Troy stared
into the blank gazes of his friends. "Which leads me back to the
first question," he continued. "They gave me this bracelet. It is
some kind of two-way communications device. I couldn't begin to
explain how it works, but I know that they are listening and
watching as well as transmitting messages to me. Only a few of
which I understand."
Carol was starting to feel overwhelmed again. In her mind this
already complex situation had added a new dimension. Hundreds of
questions were crowding into her brain and she could not decide
which one to ask first.
Meanwhile Nick stood up. "Hold it a minute," he said, looking
dubious and just a little confused. "Did I hear you right? Did you
say you were given a communications bracelet by some
extraterrestrials and then released into the ocean? And then the
Navy picked you up and brought you back to Key West? Christ,
Jefferson, you do have an imagination. Save your creativity for
that computer game. Please just tell us the truth."
"I am," replied Troy. "Really - "
"What did they look like?" Carol interrupted, her journalistic
training taking over. She had pulled a small tape recorder, the
size of a fountain pen, out of her purse. Troy reached over and
switched it off." For now, angel, " he said, "this is strictly
between us ... I don't think I saw any of them anyway. Just the
wardens and the carpets. And my guess is that they're just robots,
machines of some type. Intelligent, yes, but controlled by
something else - "
"Jesus," Nick interrupted, "you're serious." He was becoming
exasperated. "This is turning into the most amazing shaggy dog
story that I have ever heard. Wardens, carpets, robots. I am lost.
Who are they? What are they doing in the ocean? And why have they
given you a bracelet?" He picked up one of the little pillows on
the couch and threw it across the room.
Carol laughed nervously. "Nick's not the only one feeling
frustrated, Troy. I was with you down there and I must admit that
I'm having a hard time tracking your story. Maybe we should stop
interrupting and let you talk. I've told Nick what happened in that
solar system room up until you ran out and the thing or warden
followed. Start from there, if you would, and tell the story in
logical sequence."
"I'm not sure there is such a thing as a logical sequence, angel,"
Troy replied, echoing Carol's laugh. "The whole episode defies
logic altogether. The warden thing eventually trapped me in a blind
alley and sort of anesthetized me with one of its rods. It was like
I was dreaming, but the dreams were real. I remember a similar
feeling, after a fistfight when I was a teenager. I had a small
concussion then. I knew that I was alive, but I was very very slow
to react. Reality seemed toned down, out there in the distance
somewhere.
"Anyway, another warden character showed up, same kind of body but
different fixtures sticking in the jelly, and carried me to what I
think was an examination room. I don't know exactly how long I was
there. I was stretched out on the floor and touched by all kinds of
instruments. My brain felt as if it were in superfast motion, but I
don't recall any specific thoughts. Some images I do remember. I
relived my brother, Jamie, breaking through the line on a trap play
and going forty-five yards for a touchdown in the Florida state
championship. Then the bracelet was put on my wrist and I had the
distinct impression that someone was talking to me. Very quietly,
perhaps even in a foreign language, but every now and then I
understood what was being said.
"What they told me," Troy continued with an intense and distant
expression on his face, "was that what we call the laboratory is
really a space vehicle from another world. And that it has
crash-landed, in a sense, on the Earth to allow time for some
difficult repairs. They, that is, whoever built the ship, need help
from us, from me and you, to obtain some of the specific items
necessary for the repairs. Then they can continue on their
journey."
Nick was now sitting on the floor just opposite Troy. Both Carol
and he were hanging on every word. They sat in silence for almost
thirty seconds after Troy had finished. "If this story is true,"
Nick finally spoke, "then we are - "
There was a loud knock at the door. All three of them jumped.
Several seconds later the knock repeated. Troy went to the door and
partially opened it.
"There you are, you little shit," Carol and Nick heard a gruff,
angry voice say. Captain Homer Ashford pushed through the door. He
didn't see Nick and Carol at first. "We had a deal and you've
welshed on it. You have been back two hours already ..."
Out of the corner of his eye, Captain Homer saw that there were
other people in the room. He turned around to talk to Greta, who
had not yet entered the house. "Guess what?" he said. "Nick
Williams and Miss Dawson are also here. No wonder we couldn't find
her at the hotel."
Greta followed Homer into the living room. Her clear,
expressionless eyes spent no more than one second staring at each
of the trio. Carol thought she saw just a trace of disdain in
Greta's look, but she wasn't certain. Homer turned to Carol, the
tone in his voice markedly more civil. "We saw you two return from
your excursion around two o'clock," he said with a fake smile. "But
somehow we missed Troy." He winked at Carol and turned to Nick.
"Find any more exciting trinkets today, Williams?"
Nick had never made any attempt to hide the fact that he did not
like Captain Homer. "Why of course, Captain," he answered, sneering
the epithet, "would you believe we found a veritable mountain of
gold and silver bars? Looked like that Santa Rosa stack we had on
the boat one afternoon, must be about eight years ago. Remember?
That was before Jake and I let you and Greta unload it."
Homer's voice had a nasty edge to it. "I should have sued you for
slander, Williams. That would have shut your loud mouth once and
for all. You had your day in court. Now knock off the crap, or one
day you'll have more trouble than you can handle."
While Nick and Homer were trading insults and threats, Greta was
strutting around the living room as if she were in her own house.
She seemed to be oblivious to the conversation and even to the
presence of the other people in the room. She was wearing a tight
white muscle shirt and a pair of navy blue shorts. When Greta
walked, she carried her arms high, her back straight, and her
breasts erect. Carol was intrigued by her behavior. She watched
Greta stop and sort through Troy's compact discs. Greta pulled out
the disc with the cover picture of Angie Leatherwood and licked her
lips. This pair belongs in a kinky novel, Carol thought, as she
overheard Troy tell Captain Homer that he was busy this afternoon
but would get back to him later. What's their story? wondered
Carol. And where does fat Ellen fit in? Carol remembered that she
was scheduled to interview the three of them later in the evening.
But I'm not sure that I really want to find out.
"We were calling to tell you to bring your swimming suit tonight,"
Captain Homer was addressing Carol. She had missed the first part
of his statement while she was watching Greta parade around the
room.
"Pardon me," she said politely. "Could you repeat what you just
said? I'm afraid I had drifted away for a few seconds."
"I said that you should come early, about eight o'clock." Homer
replied. "And bring your suit. We have a most interesting and
unusual pool."
During this exchange, Greta walked up behind Nick and quickly
reached both arms around him. With everyone else in the room
watching, she lightly twisted his nipples through his polo shirt
and laughed when he jumped. "You always did like that, ya, Nikki,"
she said, releasing him after an instant. Carol saw anger flash in
Homer's eyes. Nick started to say something but Greta had already
walked out the front door before he could register a protest.
"Be sure to call me when you're through here, Homer said to Troy
after an embarrassing silence. "We need to straighten out a few
things." The older man turned around, awkwardly, and without
additional comment followed Greta toward his Mercedes parked in
front of Troy's house.
"Now where were we?" said Troy abstractedly, as he closed the door
behind Homer and Greta.
"You," said Nick with emphasis, "were telling us an amazing story
and had almost reached the punch line, where you were going to tell
us what we could do to help some aliens who landed here on Earth to
repair their space vehicle. But first I, for one, would like some
explanations. I don't know if I believe any of this wild fairy tale
you're telling us, but I will admit that it is extremely creative.
What concerns me at this minute, however, is not the issue of
creatures from another world. It's those two real-life sleazebag
human beings who just left. What did they want? And are they
somehow involved in our current adventure?"
"Just a minute, Nick," Carol intervened. "Before we become
sidetracked, I would like to know what kind of help these ETs of
Troy's want from us. A telephone? A new spaceship? Let's find this
out now and talk about Homer and your girlfriend Greta later." Her
reference to Greta was light and playful. Nick accepted it with
good humor and feigned a wound. Then he nodded his assent to
Carol's suggestion. Troy pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket
and took a deep breath.
"Now you guys must understand that I'm not yet absolutely certain
that I am properly receiving all their messages. But this
particular transmission, where they list the things they need from
us, is repeated every half hour. My interpretation of it hasn't
changed for the last ninety minutes, so I'm fairly certain that I
have it right. It's a long list and of course I don't pretend to
comprehend why they want all this stuff. But I am certain you will
both find it very interesting."
Troy started reading from his handwritten list. "They want an
English dictionary and grammar, plus the same thing for four other
major languages; an encyclopedia of plant and animal life; a
compact world history; a statistical tract defining the current
political and economic status of the world; a comparative study of
the world's major existing religions; complete issues covering the
last two years of at least three significant daily newspapers;
summary journals of science and technology, including surveys of
weapon systems both deployed and under development; an encyclopedia
of the arts, preferably including video and sound where
appropriate; forty-seven pounds of lead; and fifty-eight pounds of
gold."
Nick whistled when Troy was finished. At Carol's request, Troy
handed the sheet to her and Nick read it another time over her
shoulder, absorbing every item. Neither of them said anything.
"Believe it or not," Troy added as an afterthought about a minute
later, "the first eight items are not too difficult to obtain. I
stopped by the Key West Public Library on the way home from the
marina and, for a fee, they are preparing for me a set of compact
discs that contain virtually all of the requested information. The
difficult items are at the end of the list. That's where your help
is needed."
Troy stopped for a second to see if Nick and Carol were following
him. "Just to make certain I understand." Nick was now walking
slowly around the room with the list in his hand, "what you want,
or they want if you will, is for us to return to their laboratory
or vehicle or whatever it is with all this information plus the
lead and gold?" Troy nodded. "But fifty-eight pounds of gold?
That's about a million dollars' worth. Where would we get it? And
what would they do with it anyway?"
Troy acknowledged that he didn't know the answers to those
questions. "But I have the feeling," he added, "again based upon
what I think they are telling me, that partially satisfying their
needs will make their task that much easier. So I guess we do what
we can and hope that it's enough."
Nick shook his head back and forth. "You know, Carol," he said as
he handed the list back to her, "never in my wildest flights of
imagination could I have concocted such an intricate and crazy
scheme. This entire thing is so unbelievable and fantastic that it
just begs to be accepted. It's pure genius."
Troy smiled. "So you will help after all?" he asked.
"I didn't say that," answered Nick. "I still have lots of
questions. And of course I can't speak for Miss Dawson. But
somehow, even if it's all make believe, the idea of playing the
good Samaritan for an extraterrestrial ship is very appealing."
During the next half hour both Carol and Nick questioned Troy
extensively. Troy dismissed Homer and Greta in a hurry, simply
stating that he had agreed on Thursday night to keep them informed
about what was happening onboard the Florida Queen in exchange for
a short-term loan. He also indicated that he never intended to
really give them any information, but that was all right because
they were crooks anyway. Nick was not completely satisfied with
Troy's explanation. He felt that he was not being told the whole
truth.
In fact, the more questions he asked, the more doubt there was in
Nick's mind about the entire story Troy was telling. But what are
the other options? Nick thought to himself. I have seen that carpet
with my own eyes. If it is not an ET, or at least made by one, then
it must be a very advanced robot designed by us or the Russians. As
he continued to question Troy, Nick's facile mind began to
construct an alternative scenario, admittedly wild and improbable,
but one that nevertheless explained all the events of the previous
three days in a way that Nick found just as reasonable as Troy's
crazy story about the alien space vehicle.
Suppose somehow Troy and that turd Homer are working with the
Russians. And this entire thing is just an elaborate cover for a
rendezvous where illegal information will be passed. Homer would do
anything for money. But why would Troy do it? Having Troy
participate in a scheme to sell U.S. secrets to a foreign country
was the acknowledged weakness in Nick's alternative explanation,
but he rationalized it by convincing himself that perhaps Troy
needed a lot of extra money to pay for all the electronic equipment
in his computer game.
He certainly couldn't have saved enough money from his paltry
salary, Nick continued thinking. So suppose these computer discs of
Troy's have secret military data instead of all that crazy
information he just listed. Then the gold could this payoff . Or
someone else's. Nick asked several more questions about the gold.
Troy admitted he did not understand very well what they were
telling him, through the bracelet, about why they needed the lead
and the gold. He just mumbled something about those two elements
being difficult to produce by transmutation and then added nothing
else.
For her part, Carol grew more and more convinced that the story
Troy was telling was true. His inability to answer all the
questions did not disturb her; as a matter of fact, given the
rather fantastic nature of his story, if he had had pat answers to
all the questions, she would have felt less assured of its truth.
Despite her critical journalistic background, she found herself
intrigued and a little enchanted by the idea that some superaliens
from another world needed her help.
Carol's intuition was just as important as her rational thought
processes in the formation of her opinion. First of all, she
trusted Troy. She watched him very carefully when he answered the
questions and did not see the slightest indication that he was
lying. She had no doubt that Troy believed he was telling the
truth. But whether Troy was indeed telling the truth, or was
instead being manipulated and directed by the very ETs that he was
purporting to represent, was another issue altogether. But for what
purpose? she reasoned. There's not much that the three of us can do
for them. Even the information they requested, except for the
weapons stuff, is relatively innocuous. She temporarily set aside
the notion that her friend Troy had become some kind of pawn for
the aliens.
Carol could tell that Nick was growing more suspicious. Nick
thought it was very peculiar that there were three Navy divers in
the water at the exactly correct location when one of the carpets
ushered Troy to the surface. And Troy's report of the interrogation
process after they had flown him to Key West was so confused that
Nick became exasperated again.
"Christ, Jefferson," he said, "you either have a very short or a
very convenient memory. You tell us that the Navy kept you in
custody for almost an hour, yet you hardly remember any of their
questions and have no idea why they were interrogating you. That
just doesn't sound right to me."
Troy was becoming a little angry. "Shit, Nick, I told you that I
was tired. I had been through a traumatic experience. Their
questions didn't make sense to me. And the entire time I felt as if
a little voice was trying to make itself heard inside my head."
Nick turned to Carol. "I think I'm changing my mind. I don't want
to play in this game, no matter how clever it is. Homer and Greta
annoy me, but I can deal with them if it's necessary. On the other
hand, the Navy scares me. There was some reason they were following
us. It's just too damn unlikely to be a coincidence. Maybe Troy
knows something about it and maybe he doesn't. I can't tell. But I
don't like the smell of it."
He stood up to leave. Carol motioned for Nick to sit down and took
a deep breath. "Look, you two," she said in a low voice. "I have a
confession to make. And it seems as if this is the perfect time to
make it I did not come down here to Key West to look for whales."
She glanced at Nick. "And not for treasure either. I came here to
check out a rumor that a new Navy missile had gone astray and
crashed in the Gulf of Mexico." She paused several seconds to let
her message register. "I probably should have told you earlier. But
I never found the right time. I'm truly sorry."
"And you thought the missile was in the fissure," said Troy a few
seconds later. "Which was why you came back yesterday."
"We were going to salvage it for you and give you a worldwide
scoop," added Nick, his feeling of betrayal softened somewhat by
the obvious sincerity of her apology. "You were using us all the
time."
"You could call it that," Carol conceded, "but as a reporter, I
don't see it that way." She noticed the tension in the room. Nick
seemed especially guarded. "But now it doesn't matter anyway," she
continued. "What is important is that I have given an explanation
for the Navy's presence at the dive site. During the last two days
I have made several inquiries at all levels about the clandestine
activities that the Navy currently has underway to search for the
missile. Last night that Mexican lieutenant got a good look at our
best close-ups of the missile in the fissure. Undoubtedly someone
put two and two together."
"Look, angel," Troy spoke after another short silence, "I don't
know anything about a missile. And too much is going on for me to
be hurt because you lied to me. I'm sure you had your reasons. What
I need to know now is whether or not you will help me take this
stuff back to the ETs or aliens or whatever you want to call
them."
Before Carol could answer, Nick stood up again and started walking
toward the door. "I'm very hungry," he announced, "and I want to
think through this entire situation. If you don't mind, Troy, I'll
have an early supper and meet you later on tonight with my
answer."
Carol realized that she also was extremely hungry. It had been a
long, exhausting day and she had not eaten anything significant
since breakfast. She was also a little concerned about Nick's
response to her confession. "Why don't I join you for a bite?" she
said to Nick. He gave a noncommittal shrug, as if to say suit
yourself. Carol gave Troy a hug.
"Let's all meet at my room in the Marriott around seven-thirty. I
have to go there anyway to dress for my interview with the triple
creeps. You guys can give me some pointers."
Her humor did not lighten the atmosphere in the room. Troy was
clearly worried about something. His face was very earnest, almost
stern. "Professor," he said to Nick in a soft and deliberate
monotone, "I know I didn't have all the answers to your questions.
I don't even have the answers to my own. But I do know one thing
for certain. Nothing like this has ever happened on the Earth
before. At least not in recorded history. The creatures who built
that spaceship are, when compared to us, as we would appear to the
ants or the bees if they could comprehend us. They have asked the
three of us for help in repairing their vehicle. To say that this
is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity would be a colossal
under-statement.
"It would be great if we could sit around and debate this issue for
weeks or even months. But we can't. Time is running out. The Navy
is certain to find them soon, maybe they have already, with
possibly dire circumstances for the human beings on this planet.
They have made it clear to me that their mission must be fulfilled,
that they must repair their vehicle and continue their voyage, even
if they must interfere with the Earth system to achieve their
goal.
"I know all this sounds incredible, maybe even absurd. But I am
going to collect some lead weights from my diver friends and pick
up the compact discs at the library. With or without your help, I
want to be over their spaceship at dawn tomorrow."
Nick studied Troy very carefully during this speech. For an instant
in the middle, it seemed as if it were not Troy speaking at all,
but someone or something else speaking through him. An eerie chill
raced down Nick's spine. Shit, he thought. I'm as bad as they are.
I'm now caught up in this thing too. He gestured to Carol to follow
him and walked out the door.
As I have told you twice before?" the voice sounded tired and
bored, "I was out diving with my friends, Nick Williams and Carol
Dawson. She had a problem with her equipment and decided to make a
quick return to the boat. We had found a particularly interesting
reef, with some very unusual features, and we weren't certain we
would be able to locate it again. So I decided to stay and wait for
her to come back. When I finally surfaced half an hour later, there
was no sign of them or the boat."
The recorder clicked off. The two lieutenants stared at each other.
"Shit, Ramirez, do you believe that bastard's story? Any part of
it?" The other man shook his head. "Then why the hell did you let
him go? That black shitass sat there for an hour, making fools out
of us with ridiculous answers to our questions. and then you
summarily released him."
"We can't detain someone without positive evidence of wrong doing,"
responded Ramirez, as if he were quoting from a military manual.
"And swimming in the ocean ten miles from the nearest island,
although strange, does not constitute wrong doing." Ramirez could
see that his colleague was scowling. "Besides, he never slipped up.
He always told exactly the same story."
"The same bullshit, you mean." Lieutenant Richard Todd leaned back
in his chair. The two men were sitting around a small conference
table in an old room with white plaster walls. The tape recorder
was on the table in front of them next to an empty ashtray. "He
didn't even believe his own story. He just sat there, that cocky
grin on his black face, knowing that we couldn't charge him with
anything." Todd put all four of his chair legs back on the floor
and pounded the table for emphasis. "An experienced diver would
never stay down by himself for five minutes, much less thirty. Too
many things could go wrong. As for his friends, why the hell did
they leave him?" Now Todd stood up and made gestures in the air
with his hands. "I'll tell you why, Lieutenant. Because they knew
he was all right, that he had been picked up by a Russian
submarine. Shit, I told you we should have taken one of the new
vessels. We probably could have spotted the sub with the upgraded
electronic gear."
Ramirez was playing idly with the glass ashtray while Todd was
giving his lecture. "You really believe that those three are
involved with the Russians in this, don't you? It sure seems
farfetched to me."
"Fucking A," replied Todd, "nothing else makes even a tittle sense.
Every engineer we have talked to says there are no conceivable
failures that are consistent both with the observed behavior of the
missile and the telemetry we received at our tracking stations. So
the Russians must have commanded it off course."
Todd grew excited as he explained the rest of the plot. "The
Russians knew they would need some local help to find the exact
location of the missile in the ocean, so they hired Williams and
crew to search for the bird and then tell them where it was. They
planned to pick it up with one of their subs. Adding that Dawson
woman to their team was a master stroke; her inquiries have slowed
down our own search by making us more concerned about the
press."
Lieutenant Ramirez laughed. 'You always sound convincing, Richard.
But we still do not have even one shred of evidence. I don't
believe Troy Jefferson's story any more than you do, but there
could be many reasons why he lied, only one of which is any of our
business. Besides, there still is a fundamental problem with your
explanation. Why would the Russians go to all this trouble just to
seize a Panther missile?"
"You and I and even Commander Winters may not know the true story
of the Panther missile," Todd countered quickly. "It may be
designed to carry some new breakthrough weapon that we haven't even
heard about. It's not all that unusual for the Navy to represent a
project falsely and to keep its true purpose hidden." He stopped to
think. "But what's motivating the Russians is not that important to
us. We have evidence of a conspiracy here. Our job is to stop
it."
Ramirez did not reply right away. He continued to push the ashtray
around on the table. "I guess I no longer view it that way," he
said at length, gazing directly at Todd. I see no substantial
evidence of any conspiracy. Unless Commander Winters himself orders
additional work from my department, I am abandoning my
investigation." He looked at his watch. "At least I can still spend
Saturday night and Sunday with my family." He rose to leave.
"And what if I bring you proof?" Todd asked, making no effort to
hide his disgust with Ramirez.
"Proof will convince Winters as well," Ramirez answered coldly. "I
have taken enough risk on this project. I will not take any more
action unless instructed by the proper authority."
Winters wasn't really certain he would find something appropriate.
Ordinarily, he carefully avoided shopping malls, especially on a
Saturday afternoon. But while he had been lying on the couch,
watching one of the NCAA basketball games and sipping a beer, he
had remembered how pleased he had been when Helen Turnbull, who had
played Maggie, had given him a set of unusual tile coasters after
the opening weekend of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. "It's a fading
tradition in the theater, I fear," the experienced actress had said
when he thanked her, "but giving small presents after the opening
night or nights is still my way of congratulating those people I
have enjoyed working with."
The mall was crowded with Saturday shoppers and Commander Winters
felt oddly conspicuous, as if everyone were looking at him. He
walked around for several minutes before he even thought about what
kind of gift he might get for her. Something simple of course, he
thought. Nothing that could be misinterpreted. Just a nice memento
or souvenir. He saw Tiffani in his mind's eye as she had appeared
in his fantasy just before he had fallen asleep the night before.
The image embarrassed him in the shopping crowd and he nervously
called up another picture, this one wholesome and acceptable, of
the little girl Tiffani during his conversation with her father.
Her hair, he thought, remembering the pigtails. I'll buy her
something for her hair.
He walked into a gift shop and tried to make some sense out of the
jumble of bric-a-brac that lined the walls and was assembled on top
of an assortment of tables in no identifiable pattern. "Can I help
you?" Winters jumped when a salesgirl approached him from behind.
He shook his head. Now why did you do that? he said to himself. Of
course you need help. Otherwise you'll never find anything.
"Excuse me, young lady," he almost shouted at the retreating
salesgirl, "I guess I could use some advice. I want to buy a
present." Winters again felt as if everyone were watching him. "For
my niece," he added quickly.
The salesgirl was a brunette, about twenty, very plain, but with an
eager face. "Did you have anything in mind?" she asked. Her hair
was long, like Tiffani's. Winters relaxed a little.
"Sort of," he said. "She has beautiful long hair. Like yours. What
could I get her that would be really special? It's her birthday."
Again he felt a strange anxiety that he did not understand.
"What color?" the girl asked.
The question didn't make sense. "I don't even know yet what I
want," he replied with a puzzled expression, "so I certainly don't
know the color."
The salesgirl smiled. "What color is your niece's hair?" she said
very slowly, almost as if she were speaking to a mental retard.
"Oh, of course," Winters laughed. "Reddish-brown, auburn," he said.
"And it's very long." You said that already, a voice whispered
inside of him. You are acting like a fool.
The salesgirl motioned for him to follow her and they walked back
to the rear of the store. She pointed at a small round glass case
full of combs of all shapes and sizes. "These would make excellent
gifts for your niece," she said. There was an inflection in her
voice when she said the word "niece" that bothered Winters. Could
she know something? One of her friends? Or maybe she was at the
play? He took a breath and calmed himself. Again Winters was
astounded by the volatility of his emotions.
On one of the small shelves were two beautiful matching brown combs
with gold filigree across the top. One of the combs was large
enough to hold all that magnificent hair in a chignon against her
neck. The other smaller comb was a perfect size to adorn the side
or back of her hairstyle. "I'll take those," he said to the girl,
"the ones with the gold work along the top. And please giftwrap
them for me."
The efficient salesgirl reached inside the display case and pulled
out the combs. She told Winters to wait a couple of minutes while
she wrapped the present. She disappeared into the back of the store
and winters was left alone. I'll leave them on her dressing table
at the end of intermission, he was thinking. He conjured up a
picture of Tiffani going into the dressing room, by herself, and
finding the present under her nameplate against the mirror. Winters
smiled as he imagined her reaction. At that moment a woman with her
eight- or nine-year-old daughter brushed by him in the store.
"Pardon me," the woman said, without looking around, as she and the
little girl rushed to finger some Easter baskets hanging on the
wall.
The salesgirl had finished wrapping the present and was standing
next to the computer cash register. When Winters reached the
counter, she handed him a small card that had "Happy Birthday"
imprinted on the upper left corner. Winters stared at it for a few
seconds. "No," he said finally. "No card. I'll buy another at the
stationery store."
"Cash or charge?" the girl asked him.
Winters panicked for a moment. I don't know if I have enough cash
on me, he thought. And how would I ever explain the charge to
Betty? He opened his wallet and counted his money. He smiled at the
girl and said "Cash, please" when he realized that he had almost
fifty dollars. The bill was only thirty-two dollars, including the
tax.
Commander Winters felt a rush of Joy as he nearly skipped out of
the store. His earlier nervousness had completely disappeared. He
even began to whistle just before he pushed open the door and left
the enclosed air-conditioned environment of the mall. I hope she
likes the combs, he said to himself. Then he smiled again. I know
she will.
NICK poured the last of the bottle of Chablis into Carol's glass.
"I don't think I could ever be a journalist," he said. "To be
successful it sounds to me as if you have to be a sneak."
Carol moved a piece of broiled catfish mixed with some cauliflower
onto her fork and put the bite in her mouth. "It's not that much
different from any other job. There are always questions of ethics,
as well as places where your personal and professional lives come
into conflict. " She finished chewing her food and swallowed before
she continued. "I had thought that maybe I would tell you and Troy
on Friday evening. But things just didn't work out, as you
know."
"If you had," Nick pushed his plate away to indicate that he was
finished with his meal, "then everything would have been different.
I would have been aware of the possible danger and most likely it
would have been you and I in that place together. Who knows what
might have happened then."
"I've had worse conflicts before." Carol took a drink from her
glass of wine. She wanted to finish with this subject. In her way.
"Right after I graduated from Stanford, I worked for the San
Francisco Chronicle. I was dating Lucas Tipton a little at the time
that the Warrior drug scandal broke. I used the social contacts I
had made through him to obtain a unique slant on the story. Lucas
never forgave me. So I'm used to problems. They go with the
territory."
A waiter came by and poured them some coffee. "But now that I have
finished apologizing, for the third time," Carol said pointedly, "I
hope we can go back to more important matters. I must tell you,
Nick, that I find your Russian plot idea absolutely off the wall.
The weakest element is Troy. There's simply no way he could be a
spy. It's preposterous."
"More preposterous than a super-alien space vehicle in need of
repairs at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico?" Nick countered
stubbornly. "Besides, I have a definite motive. Money. Did you see
all the equipment he has wrapped up in that computer game?"
"Angie probably makes enough off her royalties in one week to cover
all that computer stuff," Carol replied. She reached across the
table and put her hand on Nick's forearm. "Now don't overreact, but
you know there are some relationships where the woman carries the
financial load. I can tell that she loves him. There's no doubt in
my mind that she would offer to help him."
"Then why did he try to borrow money from me and then Captain Homer
on Thursday night?"
"Hell, Nick, I don't know." Carol was becoming slightly frustrated.
"But it's irrelevant anyway. I can't imagine any set of conditions,
unless I was convinced that I was going to be killed, that would
prevent my going back out there with Troy. Whatever the truth is,
it is certainly a sensational story. I'm surprised you are so
hesitant. I thought you were an adventurer."
Carol stared directly across the table at Nick. He thought he saw a
flicker of flirtation hiding behind her unwavering gaze. You are
one fascinating woman, he thought. And you're taunting me a little
now. I caught your double meaning. He remembered how good he had
felt when he held her on the boat in the afternoon. Underneath that
aggressive veneer is another person. Beautiful and intelligent.
Hard as nails one minute and a vulnerable little girl the next.
Nick was certain that any hope he might have of continuing his
relationship with Carol was dependant on his helping Troy. She
wasn't interested in men who were not willing to take chances.
"I used to be," Nick finally replied. He twirled his empty wine
glass in his hand. "I don't know what happened. I guess I got stung
a couple of times and that has made me more cautious. Particularly
where people are concerned. But I will admit that if I stand back
from this situation and imagine myself as simply an observer, I
find the whole affair absolutely fascinating."
Carol finished her wine and put the glass back on the table. Nick
was quiet. She drummed her fingers on the tabletop and smiled.
"Well," she said, fixing him with her eyes and picking up her
coffee cup, "have you made a decision?"
He laughed. "Okay. Okay. I'll do it." Now it was his turn to reach
out and touch her arm. "For lots of reasons."
"Good," she remarked. "Now that something has been decided, why
don't you help me prepare for my interview with Captain Homer and
the crew. How much was the stuff worth that you pulled up from the
Santa Rosa? And who was Jake? I must act as if I'm serious about
this story." Carol put her fountain pen tape recorder on the table
and turned it on.
"We officially cleared a little over two million dollars. Jake
Lewis and I each received ten percent, Amanda Winchester was
reimbursed for the expense advance plus twenty-five percent of the
profit. Homer, Ellen and Greta kept the rest." Nick stopped but
Carol indicated for him to continue. "Jake Lewis was the only close
friend I have ever had as an adult. He was an absolute peach of a
person, honest, hard-working, intelligent, and loyal. And
completely naive. He fell for Greta like a ton of bricks. She
manipulated him completely and then used his love to her own
advantage."
Nick looked away, out the window of the small seafood restaurant,
at some seagulls who were soaring over the water in the fading
twilight. "The night we came back with the big haul, Jake and I
agreed that one of the two of us would always be awake. Even then
there was something peculiar in the Homer-Ellen-Greta triangle. At
that time they were not yet all living together, but I still didn't
trust them. While Jake was supposedly on watch, Greta balled his
brains out. 'To celebrate,' he said, when he apologized to me for
falling asleep afterwards. When I woke up, more than half of the
treasure was gone."
Anger long buried was seething in Nick. Carol watched him
carefully, noting the intensity of his passion. "Jake didn't give a
shit about the money. He even tried to talk Amanda and me out of
going to court. That's the kind of guy he was. I remember he told
me, 'Hey, Nick, my friend, we made two hundred thousand apiece out
of this. We cannot prove there was more. Let's just be thankful and
get on with our lives.' Homer had cheated him and Greta had shit
all over him, but Jake still wasn't pissed. Not much more than a
year later, he married a water ski queen from Winter Haven, bought
a house in Orlando, and went to work as an aerospace engineer."
The light was vanishing outside. Nick was deep in a memory,
recalling the full measure of his storm of righteous indignation
from eight years before. "I've never understood them," Carol said
quietly. She switched off the recorder. Nick turned and looked at
her, a quizzical frown on his face. "You know," she added, "the
people like your friend Jake. Infinite resiliency. No harbored
grudges. Whatever happens to them they just shake off, like water,
and go on living. Cheerfully." It was her turn to feel a little
emotion. "Sometimes I wish I could be more like that. Then I
wouldn't be afraid."
They stared at each other in the soft light. Nick put his hand over
hers. And there's that vulnerable little girl again. He felt a deep
emotional longing stirring in his heart. She's let me see it twice
in a single day. "Carol," he said gently, "I want to thank you for
this afternoon. You know, for sharing your feelings with me. I feel
like I saw an entirely different Carol Dawson."
"You did," she said, smiling and making it clear that her
protective shield was going up again. "And only time will tell if
it was a huge mistake." She pulled her hand slowly away from his
"For the moment, though, we have other business. Back to the menage
a trois. What kind of facility is it that they manage and what do
they do there?"
"Excuse me?" replied Nick, obviously confused.
"A friend of mine, Dr. Dale Michaels of the Miami Oceanographic
Institute, told me that Captain Homer and Ellen have some kind of
high-tech operation here. I don't remember exactly how he described
it - "
"You must be mistaken," Nick interrupted. "I have known them for
almost ten years and they are never anywhere except in that fancy
house of his or onboard the Ambrosia."
Carol was puzzled. "Dale's information is always correct. He just
told me, yesterday in fact, that Homer Ashford had field tested the
institute's most advanced underwater sentries throughout the last
five years and that his reports - "
"Hold it. Hold it." Nick was leaning forward on the table. "I'm not
sure I'm following you. Back up. This could be very very
important."
Carol started again. "One of MOI's newest product areas is
underwater sentries, robots, essentially, that protect aquaculture
farms from sophisticated thieves as well as large fish or whales.
Dale said that Homer contributes money for the research and then
field tests the prototypes - "
"Son of a bitch." Nick was standing up. He was bursting with
excitement. "How could I have been so stupid? Of course, of
course."
Now Carol was lost. "Would you mind telling me what's going
on?"
"Certainly," Nick answered. "But right now we're in a hurry. We
have to go by my apartment to look at an old map and pick up
another navigation system for the boat. I'll explain everything on
the way."
Nick put his key card in the reader and the garage door opened. He
pulled his Pontiac into his reserved spot and stopped the car. "So
you see," he was saying to Carol, "he knew that we wouldn't find
anything. He let us search both his house and the lot that he had
bought for his new mansion, down at Pelican Point. We found
nothing. At that time it was still hidden somewhere out in the
ocean."
"Did you look in the water around his new property at that
time?"
"Yes, we did. Jake and I each dove there, on separate days. We
found a very interesting subterranean cave, but no sign of any of
the Santa Rosa treasure. But we must have given him the idea. I bet
he moved the stuff there a year or two after Jake left. He probably
figured it was safe by then. And he had doubtless worried himself
sick that someone would discover the treasure out in the ocean. You
see, it all fits. Including his involvement with underwater
sentries."
Carol nodded and laughed a little. "It certainly makes better sense
than your idea that Troy was working for the Russians." They opened
the doors and climbed out of the car. "So how much do you think
they have left?" Carol asked as they headed for the elevator.
"Who knows?" Nick answered. "Maybe they stole three million out of
five." He thought for a minute. "They must still have a bunch.
Otherwise Greta would have split by now."
The elevator doors opened and Nick pressed the button for the third
floor. Carol heaved a big sigh. "What's the matter?" he asked.
"I'm exhausted," she said. "I feel as if I'm on a carousel that's
spinning faster and faster. So much has happened in the last three
days. I'm not sure I could deal with much more. What I need now is
a second wind."
"Magic days," Nick replied as they walked out of the elevator.
"These are magic days."
She looked at him with a curious expression. He laughed. "I'll
explain an old theory of mine later," he said. He entered a
sequence of numbers into the small plate on his door and the lock
disengaged. Nick moved to the side with feigned gallantry and let
Carol enter first. What she saw was chaos.
The place was a total shambles. In the living room, just beyond the
kitchen area, all of Nick's precious novels had been scattered
randomly about on the floor, the couch, and the chairs. It looked
as if someone had taken each book out of the bookcase, held it up
and shook it (trying to find loose papers perhaps), and then either
dropped it or thrown it across the room. Nick pushed by Carol and
stared at the destruction. "Shit," he said.
The kitchen had been plundered as well. All the drawers were open.
Pots, pans, and tableware were strewn on the counters and on the
floor. To Nick's right, the cardboard boxes containing his
memorabilia had been pulled into the middle of the second bedroom.
Their contents had been partially dumped onto the floor around
them.
"What hurricane hit this place?" Carol asked as she surveyed the
mess. "I didn't expect you to be a good house-keeper, but this is
ridiculous."
Nick was unable to laugh at Carol's comment. He checked the master
bedroom and found that it also had been ransacked. He then returned
to the living room and started picking up his beloved novels and
stacking them neatly on the coffee table. He winced when he found
his worn copy of L'Etranger by Albert Camus. The spine of the book
was destroyed. "This is not the work of vandals," he said as Carol
knelt down to help. "They were searching for something
specific."
"Have you found anything missing yet?" she asked.
"No," Nick replied, picking up another novel with a mutilated cover
and shaking his head. "But the bastards have really screwed up my
books."
She stacked his Faulkner collection on the easy chair. "I can see
why Troy was impressed," she said. "Have you really read all these
novels?" Nick nodded. Carol picked one up that had fallen under the
television stand. "What's this about?" She held up the book. "I've
never even heard of it."
Nick had just arranged another dozen books on the coffee table.
"Oh, that's a fantastic novel," he said enthusiastically,
forgetting for a moment that his condominium had just been trashed.
"The whole story is told through this exchange of letters among all
the principal characters. It's set in eighteenth-century France,
and the main couple, socially prominent and bored, cement their
weird relationship by sharing details of their affairs. With other
lovers of course. It caused quite a scandal in Europe."
"That doesn't exactly sound like your typical Harlequin romance,"
Carol remarked, trying to commit the title of the book to her
memory.
Nick stood up and walked into the smaller bedroom. He began to sort
through the contents of the cardboard boxes. "There are things
missing in here," he called out to Carol. She stopped arranging
books and joined him in the bedroom. "All my photographs of the
Santa Rosa treasure and even the newspaper clippings are gone.
That's odd," he said.
Carol was beside him on the floor, in front of the boxes. She
frowned. "Is the trident still on the boat?"
"Yes," he answered. He stopped rifling through the papers. "Down in
the bottom drawer of the electronics cabinet. You think there's a
connection?"
She nodded. "I think that was what they were after. I don't know
why. It just seems right."
Nick picked up a large yellow folder that had been on the floor and
replaced it in one of the cardboard boxes. A photograph and some
sheets of typing paper fell out. Carol picked up the picture while
Nick scrambled after the papers. She studied the photo and read the
French inscription. She was surprised to feel a twinge of jealousy.
"Beautiful," she commented. She noticed the pearls. "Also very rich
and sophisticated. She doesn't look like your type."
She handed Monique's photograph to Nick. Despite his attempt to be
nonchalant, he was blushing. "That was a long time ago," he mumbled
as he hastily stuffed the photo back into the folder.
"Really?" Carol said, eyeing him carefully. "She looks as if she's
about our age. It couldn't have been too long ago."
Nick was flustered. He packed some more loose material in the boxes
and glanced at his watch. "We'd better leave soon if we're going to
meet Troy at your hotel." He stood up. Carol remained kneeling on
the floor, looking up at him with a steady gaze. "It's a long
story," he said. "Someday I'll tell you all about it."
Carol's curiosity was piqued. She followed Nick out of his
condominium and into the elevator. He was still ill at ease.
Bullseye, she thought to herself. I think I have just discovered a
major key to Mr. Williams. A woman named Monique. She smiled as
Nick motioned for her to precede him out of the elevator. And the
man does love his books.
Carol's room at the Marriott had two entrances. The normal approach
to the room was by way of the corridor that led to the lobby. But
there was another door that opened on the garden and the pool. When
she exercised in the morning, Carol always used the garden
entrance.
Nick and Carol were talking casually but quietly as they came
toward her room from the lobby. She pulled out her electronic card
key just before they arrived. As she started to insert the card
into the lock, they heard an unusual sound, like metal banging
against metal, from the inside of her room. Before Carol could say
anything, Nick shushed her by putting his finger to his mouth. "You
heard it too?" she whispered softly. He nodded his head. Using
gestures, he asked her if there was another entrance to the room.
She pointed out the door to the hotel grounds at the end of the
corridor.
Palm trees and tropical hedges covered most of the area to the east
of the Marriott swimming pool. Nick and Carol left the walkway
leading to the pool and crept up to the windows of her room. The
venetian blinds were drawn but they could still see into the room
through a crack under the bottom of the blinds. At first the room
was completely dark. Then a solitary beam from a flashlight
reflected for an instant off one of the walls. In that split second
they saw a silhouetted figure in the neighborhood of the television
set, but they could not identify him. The flashlight came on again
and it paused for a moment on the door to the corridor. The door
was bolted. In the brief flicker of the light beam, Carol also saw
that all her dresser drawers were open.
Nick crawled over next to Carol in the flower bed just under the
windows. "You stay here and watch," he whispered. "I'll go get
something from the car. Don't let them know you're here." He
squeezed her shoulder and disappeared. Carol stayed glued to the
window. Once more the flashlight came on, illuminating electronic
parts spread out on the far bed. Carol strained for a look at who
was holding the flashlight. She couldn't see him.
She became acutely aware of the passage of time. Her intuition told
her that the intruder was getting ready to leave. She suddenly
realized she was completely exposed sitting out there underneath
the window. Come on, Nick, she said to herself. Hurry it up. Or I
may be chopped liver. The figure in the room moved toward the
garden door and then stopped Carol felt her pulse rate increase. At
just that moment Nick returned, out of breath. He had brought back
a long crowbar from the trunk of his car. Carol motioned to him to
stand by the door, that the intruder was about to come out.
She saw the figure put his hand on the doorknob and she flattened
herself against the dirt. Nick was behind the door, poised to
deliver a powerful blow to whoever exited from the room. The door
opened, Nick started to strike. "Troy," screamed Carol from the
flower bed. He jumped back just in time, barely missing the
downward swoop of Nick's crowbar. Carol was on her feet in an
instant. She ran up to a shaken Troy. "Are you all right?" she
said.
His eyes were wide from fright. "Jesus, Professor," he said,
glancing at the crowbar that Nick was wielding, "you might have
killed me."
"Shit, Jefferson," Nick replied, the adrenaline still coursing
through his system, "why didn't you tell us it was you? And what
were you doing in Carol's room?" He looked at Troy accusingly.
Troy backed into the room and turned on the lights. The room was a
disaster. It looked like Nick's condominium when Carol had first
walked through the front door.
Carol turned to Troy. "Why on earth ..."
"I didn't do it, angel," he replied. "Honest Injun." Troy looked at
his two friends. "Sit down," he said. "This will only take a
second."
Meanwhile Carol's eyes were scanning the room. "Crap," she said
angrily, "all my cameras and film are gone. And virtually the
entire telescope system, including the post-processor unit. Dale
will shoot me." She looked in one of the open drawers. "The
assholes took my photographs from the first dive as well. They were
in a large envelope on the right side of this top drawer."
Carol sat down on the bed looking a little dazed. "All the film
from the photographs that I took inside that place has been stolen.
So much for my sensational story," she said.
Nick tried to comfort her. "Who knows. Maybe they'll turn up. And
besides, yal still have all the negatives from the first dive."
Carol shook her head. "It's not the same thing." She thought for a
minute. "Damnit," she said, "I should have kept the exposed film
with me when we left the hotel to go to Troy's apartment." She
looked at the two men and then brightened a bit. "Oh well," she
said. "There's always tomorrow."
Troy was still waiting patiently to give his explanation. He
indicated for Nick to sit down on the bed next to Carol. "I'll make
this short and sweet," he said. "Just the facts. I arrived here
about seven o'clock. I came early because I wanted to make some
modifications to your television set. I'll explain why in a
minute.
"The people in the hotel wouldn't give me a key to your room so I
came down here and fooled the card reader." He smiled. "It's no
problem for someone who knows how these things work. Anyway, as
soon as the green light came on and the guard bolt released, I
heard the garden door slam. Someone had been in the room while I
was opening the door. I caught a fleeting glimpse of him as he
hightailed it around the corner of the building. He was a big man,
not someone I recognized immediately. He was moving with
difficulty, as if he were carrying something heavy."
"Part of the ocean telescope," Carol said.
"Go on," added Nick. "What happened next? I want to hear why you
were in Carol's room working in the dark. I bet you'll come up with
a good story for that too."
"That's easy," Troy said to Nick. "I was afraid the thief or
thieves might come back. I didn't want them to see me."
"You're amazing, Jefferson," Nick responded. "You're the kind of
person who would tell a cop that you were exceeding the speed limit
because you wanted to get to a filling station before you ran out
of gas."
"And the cop would believe him," Carol remarked. They all laughed.
The tension in the room was diffusing.
"All right," said Nick. "Now tell us what you've done to the
television. Incidentally, how did you get inside it? I thought
these hotel sets were all alarmed."
"They are," Troy replied, "but it's very simple to disable the
alarm system. It always cracks me up. Somebody sells the hotel the
idea that they can protect their property with these alarms. But
the burglars can easily find out what system has been installed,
buy the circuit data sheets, and completely disable the
protection."
Troy glanced around the room. He then checked his watch carefully.
"Let's see," he said. "Why don't you two move over here in these
chairs. I think you'll be able to see better." Nick and Carol
exchanged puzzled looks and arranged themselves as Troy had
requested. "Now," he continued in a surprisingly serious tone, "you
will see what I believe is incontrovertible proof that my story
about the aliens is true. They have told me, through this bracelet,
that they are going to televise a short program from inside the
vehicle at exactly seven-thirty. If I have translated their
directions properly and made the correct modifications, this
television should now be able to receive their transmission."
He turned on the set and put it on channel 44. There was nothing
but snow and static. "This is great, Troy," Nick commented. "It
will probably steal rating points from soap operas and music
videos. Watching this requires even less intelligence - "
A picture suddenly appeared on the screen. The lighting was poor,
but Carol immediately recognized herself in the scene. She was
standing with her back to the cameras, her fingers moving around on
top of what appeared to be a table.
An orchestral version of "Silent Night," featuring an instrument
not unlike an organ, accompanied the picture.
"That's the music room I told you about," Carol said to Nick. "I
guess that warden thing had a video camera in all his
paraphernalia."
The television scene switched immediately to a close-up of Carol's
eyes. For five seconds her marvelous, frightened eyes filled almost
the entire screen. She blinked twice before the camera pulled back
and revealed her in front view. terrified, standing and shaking in
her bathing suit. Carol shuddered as she recalled the horror of
those seconds when the warden's appendages intruded upon her
person. It was all shown in the video, some parts even in slow
motion. One of the featured scenes was the deliberate movement of
the bristles across her chest, including both her erect nipples. Oh
my God, she thought. I hadn't realized they were erect. Maybe fear
does that. Carol squirmed. She felt surprisingly embarrassed in
front of Nick.
There was a jump discontinuity in the program. In the next scene
the three of them were looking at Troy, lying on his back on the
floor somewhere, with enough wires and cords attached to him that
he could have been Gulliver bound by the Lilliputians. The camera
panned around the room. Two wardens were in one of the corners.
Their upper body attachments were not even similar, but they both
had the same central body, amoebalike, that had confronted Troy and
Carol. On the other side of the room a pair of carpets were
standing together. From their motions it looked as if they were
engaged in a conversation. Nick and Carol and Troy watched while
the camera stayed fixed for about ten seconds. The carpets
apparently finished conferring and then flipped off in separate
directions.
The final frames of the transmission were a close-up of Troy's head
showing more than a hundred probes and inserts connected to his
brain. Then the screen went back to snow and static. "Wowee," said
Nick after a moment. "Can I have an instant replay?" He stood up
from the bed. "You were terrific," he remarked to Carol, "but I
think your scenes will have to be edited if we want a PG
rating."
Carol looked up at him and blushed slightly. "Sorry, Nick, but I
don't think you make a good comedian. We have one already," she
nodded at Troy, "and I think that's enough." She glanced at the
clock beside her bed. "Now I figure we have fifteen minutes or so
to make plans. No more. And I have to dress as well. Why don't you
tell Troy about your decision and what you have concluded about the
Santa Rosa loot while I change my clothes." She grabbed a blouse
and a pair of pants and headed for the bathroom.
"Hey, wait a minute," Nick protested. "Aren't we going to discuss
who it was that broke into my condominium and your hotel room?"
Carol stopped outside the bathroom door. "There are only two
possibilities that make any sense," she said. "It's either the Navy
or our sicko friends from the Ambrosia. Either way we'll find out
soon enough." She stopped a moment and an elfin smile played across
her lips. "I want you two to see if you can figure out a way to
steal Homer's gold. Tonight. Before we go back to meet with our
extraterrestrials tomorrow morning."
CAROL and Troy went over the details one last time and she checked
her watch. "It's eight-thirty already," she said. "If I'm much
later I know they'll be suspicious." She was standing outside
Nick's Pontiac in the parking lot of the Pelican Resort, a
restaurant about three-quarters of a mile from the Ashford mansion
at Pelican Point. "Where is he?" she fretted. "We should have
finished with this fifteen minutes ago."
"Just calm down, angel," Troy replied. "We have to test this new
unit first. It could be very important in an emergency and I've
never actually used it." He gave her a reassuring hug. "Your
friends at MOI originally developed it."
"Why did I have to suggest such a wild-ass idea?" Carol said out
loud to herself. "Where's your brain, Dawson? Did you leave it in
the ..."
"Can you hear me?" Nick's garbled voice interrupted her. It sounded
as if it were coming from the bottom of a well.
"Yes," Troy answered into a tiny walkie-talkie shaped like a
thimble. "But not too clearly. How deep are you?"
"Say again," said Nick. "I did not copy completely."
"Yes, we can hear you," Troy shouted. He carefully enunciated each
word. "But not very clearly. You must speak slowly and distinctly.
How deep are you?"
"About eight feet," was the response.
"Go down to sixteen and try it again," said Troy. "Let's see if it
will work from the deepest part of the cave."
"How's he doing that?" Carol asked, while they waited for Nick to
descend.
"It's a brand-new system, built into the regulator," Troy answered.
"You have to speak while you're exhaling for it to work. There's a
small transmitter/receiver inside the mouthpiece and an earphone
attachment. Unfortunately, it doesn't work much below ten
feet."
Almost a minute later Carol and Troy heard something, very faint,
not even recognizable as Nick's voice. Troy listened for a moment.
"We cannot read you, Nick. There is too much attenuation. Come on
back now. I'm going to send Carol on her way." Troy pressed a
button on the walkie-talkie that would repeatedly transmit this
last message.
He handed the communications unit to Carol. "Okay, angel," he said,
"you're ready. We should be in the water around nine o'clock and
out, if all goes well, by half an hour later. Keep them occupied
with your questions. You should leave by ten-thirty at the latest
and drive directly to Nick's apartment. We will meet you there with
your wagon." He raised his eyebrows. "And the gold, I hope."
Carol took a deep breath. She smiled at Troy. "I'm scared," she
said. "I would rather face a carpet or even one of those warden
things than this trio." She opened the car door. "Do you really
think I should go in Nick's car? Isn't that certain to make them
suspect something?"
"We've been through all this twice before, angel," Troy laughingly
replied. He gently nudged her into the car. "They already know
we're friends. Besides, we need your wagon for the diving gear, the
backpacks, and the lead and gold." He closed the door and planted a
light kiss on her cheek through the open window. "Be safe, angel,"
he said. "And don't take any unnecessary chances."
Carol started the car and backed into the middle of the parking
lot. She waved at Troy and pulled into the dark lane that led
through the marsh to the end of the island. The only light was from
the nearly full gibbous moon that was already above the trees. All
right, Dawson, she thought to herself. Now you're in the middle of
it. Just stay calm and alert.
She drove very slowly. She reviewed the plans for the evening
several times in her mind. Then she started thinking about Nick. He
holds on to things. Like I do. He still hates Homer and Greta for
cheating him. He couldn't wait to dive for the gold. She smiled as
she turned into the circular drive in front of Homer Ashford's
house. I just hope there is some left over for him.
A split second after Carol rang the doorbell, Homer opened the door
and greeted her. "You're late," he said in a pleasant monotone. "We
thought maybe you were not coming. Greta is already in the pool. Do
you want to change and join her?"
"Thanks, Captain Homer, but I decided not to swim tonight," Carol
answered politely. "I appreciate the offer, but I'm mostly here on
business. I would prefer to start the interview as soon as
possible. Even before dinner, if that would be all right with
everyone else."
Homer led Carol into a gigantic family room and stopped by a large
wet bar. A magnificent hand-carved wooden statue of a swimming
Neptune, about four feet long altogether, was on the wall above the
bar. Carol asked for some white wine. Homer tried without success
to talk her into something stronger.
The family room had a billiards table at one end. On the other
side, a sliding glass door opened onto a covered patio that
narrowed into a cement walkway. Carol followed Homer in silence,
sipping from her white wine every twenty steps or so. The walkway
wound past big trees and a lighted gazebo off to the left before it
spread out around the huge swimming pool.
Actually there were two pools. In front of Carol was a classic,
rectangular, Olympic-sized pool under strong lights. At one end was
a slide and waterfall that ran down an artificial mountain into the
swimming area. At the other end, in the direction of the second
pool and the ocean, there was a sunken Jacuzzi constructed out of
the same decorated blue tiles that rimmed the top of the main pool.
The entire complex was cleverly designed to create the impression
of moving water. There seemed to be a steady flow from the
waterfall, to the large pool. down into the Jacuzzi, and then into
a stream that meandered off in the direction of the house.
The second pool was circular and dark. It was off to Carol's left
at the edge of the property, near what looked like a small cottage
for changing clothes. Greta was in the rectangular pool in front of
Carol. She was swimming laps, her powerful body moving rhythmically
through the water. Carol, who was an excellent swimmer herself,
watched Greta for a few seconds.
"Isn't she something?" Homer walked over next to Carol. His
admiration was obvious. "She won't let herself eat a big meal
unless she works out beforehand. She can't stand fat."
Homer was wearing a light brown Hawaiian shirt with a pair of tan
slacks. Brown loafers were on his feet, and a big drink, crammed
with ice cubes, was in his hand. He seemed relaxed, even affable.
Carol thought he could have passed for a retired banker or
corporate executive.
Greta continued to swim relentlessly through the water. Homer was
hovering over Carol and she was beginning to feel uncomfortable, as
if her space were being invaded.
"Where's Ellen?" she asked, turning to the large man and moving
just slightly farther away from him.
"She's in the kitchen," Homer replied. "She loves to cook,
especially when we have guests. And tonight she's making one of her
favorite dishes." There was almost a twinkle in his eye. He leaned
down to Carol. "She made me promise not to tell you what we're
having," he whispered confidentially, "but I will tell you that
it's a powerful aphrodisiac."
Ugh, said Carol to herself as she caught a whiff of Homer's breath
and listened to his leering chuckle. How could I have forgotten how
repulsive this man is? Does he really think that ... Carol stopped
her thought. She reminded herself that people with excessive money
very often lose touch with reality. Probably some of the women
respond. For what he can give them. She almost gagged. The thought
of having any kind of sexual liaison with Homer was totally
repugnant.
Greta had finished swimming laps. She climbed out of the pool and
dried herself off. Her all-white racing uniform was like a
transparent body stocking. Even from a distance, Carol could not
avoid seeing the full detail of her nipples and breasts as well as
her clump of pubic hair through the thin suit. She might as well
have been naked. Homer stood beside Carol, unabashedly staring as
Greta strode across the cement.
"No suit?" Greta said just before she reached them. Her eyes were
trying to bore holes in Carol's. Carol shook her head. "I'm sorry,"
said Greta. "Homer had hoped that we might have a race." She looked
at the captain with an odd expression that Carol did not
understand. "He loves to see women in competition."
"It would have been no contest," Carol answered. She thought she
saw Greta tense. "You would have won easily," she added. "You swim
beautifully."
Greta smiled, accepting the compliment. Her eyes roamed over
Carol's body. She made no effort to hide the fact that she was
doing an appraisal. "You have a good body too for swimming," Greta
said. "Maybe a little too fat on the ass and upper legs. I could
suggest workout - "
"Why don't we show Miss Dawson the other pool?" Homer interrupted.
"Before you go inside and change clothes." He started walking
toward the little cottage near the ocean. Without saying another
word, Greta turned and followed him. Carol took a sip from her
wine. Who knows what goes on here, she thought . Those three have
not had to work for eight years. They take people out fishing and
diving for amusement. A strange mixture of disgust and depression
started to spread in her. So they manufacture entertainment to keep
from being bored.
Moments after Homer entered the cottage, a bank of flood-lights
down underneath the second pool was illuminated. Homer gestured for
her to hurry and Carol skipped into the cottage. They led her down
a flight of steps. Under the ground was a walkway that completely
encircled the large glass aquarium that had looked, in the
darkness, like a second swimming pool. "We have six sharks now,"
Homer said proudly, "as well as three red occi, a pair of
cuttlefish, and of course hundreds of more standard species of fish
and plants."
"Occi?" inquired Carol.
"That's the slang plural of octopus," Homer responded with a smug,
self-satisfied smile. "Actually, the correct plural is octopodes,
even though everyone now accepts octopi because it has been used so
much."
Greta was standing with her face pressed against the glass. A
couple of bat rays swam past. She was waiting for something. After
twenty seconds or so a grayish shark appeared. The shark seemed to
notice Greta and stopped, watching her, its face about five feet
away from the glass. Carol could see the long sharp teeth and
identified it as a mako, a fierce smaller cousin of the man-eating
great white shark.
"That's Greta's pet," said Homer. "His name is Timmy. Somehow she
has trained him to recognize her face against the glass. " Homer
watched a few more seconds. "From time to time she goes in there to
swim with him. When the sharks have finished eating, of
course."
The shark remained in place, staring blankly in Greta's direction.
She began to drum her fingers against the glass in regular cadence.
"Now this is exciting," Homer said, walking over next to Greta and
the aquarium. "What you are going to see is what biologists call a
typical Pavlovian response. I've never seen it quite this way
before in a shark."
The mako began to be agitated. Greta started increasing the tempo,
the shark responding by whipping the water back and forth with its
tail. Suddenly Greta disappeared up the stairs. Carol thought she
noticed a faraway look in her eyes when Greta zoomed by her. Carol
looked at Homer for an explanation. "Come down here closer," he
gestured to Carol. "You don't want to miss this. Greta cares for
the rabbits herself. And Timmy always puts on a grand show."
Carol wasn't exactly sure what Homer was talking about. But she was
enjoying the lovely aquarium. It contained crystal-clear sea water,
obviously filtered and recycled regularly. Carol noticed several
species of sponges and coral, as well as urchin and anemone.
Someone had gone to great trouble and expense to re-create the
conditions in the reefs just off-shore Key West.
Suddenly a beheaded white rabbit impaled on a long vertical staff,
the blood still spurting from its arteries, appeared in the
aquarium just opposite where Carol and Homer were standing. It was
over in an instant. Driven to immediate frenzy by the blood in the
water, the mako attacked, its teeth ripping half the hapless rabbit
off the stave with the first bite. The second swoop captured the
rest of the rabbit and snapped the rod as well. Carol barely had
time to recoil and turn her head. When she jumped back, she spilled
wine all over her blouse.
Trying to appear calm, she reached in her purse for a tissue to
wipe her blouse. She said nothing. She had had a perfect view of
the shark's attack and could still feel the adrenaline imbalance
that the fright had produced. Great way to start a dinner party,
she thought. Why haven't I ever thought of it? Dawson, these people
are weird.
Homer was still excited. "Wasn't that spectacular? Such raw, savage
power in those jaws. Driven by pure instinct. I never get tired of
it."
Carol followed him up the stairs. "Good show, Greta," she heard
Homer say when they walked out of the cottage. "It was right in
front of us. Two bites. Wham, wham, and the rabbit was gone."
"I know," said Greta. She was holding a diving mask. What was left
of the staff was on the ground beside her. "I could see from up
here." Greta was staring at Carol, obviously trying to discover her
reaction. Carol averted her eyes. She was not going to give Greta
the satisfaction of knowing she had found it repulsive.
"Greta has the whole thing down to split-second timing," Homer
continued as they walked back through the gardens to the house.
"She prepares the live rabbit on the chopping block an hour early.
Then, when Timmy is ready, she ... ."
Carol tuned his gruesome story out of her mind. I don't want to
hear this, she thought. She glanced at her watch. Ten minutes after
nine. Come on guys. Be swift. I'm not certain I can stand these
people for another hour.
Nick and Troy swam silently along the shoreline in the moonlight.
They had carefully rehearsed the plan. No additional light until
they were in the cove beside Homer's property and at least ten feet
under water. Troy would lead, searching for alarm systems he could
disable with the tools stuffed in the pockets of his wet suit. He
would also keep a lookout for the infamous robot sentries. Nick
would follow with the buoyancy bags they would use to carry the
gold.
They had walked along the beach from the Pelican Resort parking
lot, wearing their heavy diving suits as well as the backpacks,
until they were only about a hundred yards from the thick fence
that marked Homer's property. Then they had set down the packs
containing their clothes and eased into the water. During the walk
Troy had had several problems with his tools, and a decision to
reduce his arsenal of gadgets had delayed their arrival at the
embarkation point by five minutes. Just before they went into the
water, Nick had given an uncharacteristic squeal of excitement and
grabbed Troy by the shoulders. "I hope that fucking gold is there,"
he had said. "I cannot wait to see their faces after we steal
it."
It was time to submerge. Holding hands in the darkness, Nick and
Troy dropped about five feet under the water. They stopped,
equalized the pressure in their heads, and repeated the procedure.
When they were down about ten feet, Troy turned on the searchlight.
They quickly worked out their directions and headed around the
corner, deeper into the cove adjoining Homer's estate.
Troy was in the lead. He had no trouble finding the entrance to the
natural tunnel that led to the subterranean cave. As they had
planned, Nick waited outside the tunnel while Troy went inside to
look for alarms. The rock cliffs closed over his head. The watery
entryway was about five feet across and four feet high. Troy
immediately found a metal box affixed to the left wall, where it
was partially hidden from view. When he examined the box, he
discovered that it was emitting two laser beams separated by about
three feet.
On the other side of the natural tunnel were the receiving plates
for the beams as well as the alarm electronics. Troy swam over
carefully, pulled out his screwdriver, and dismantled the housing.
The system was very simple. Failure of either plate to receive a
beam would trigger the opening of a relay. When both relays were
open, current could flow to the alarm. Thus an object had to be
large enough to break both beams simultaneously to set off an
alarm. Troy smiled to himself as he validated the operating
principle by passing his hand in front of one of the beams. Then he
jerryrigged one of the relays permanently closed. Satisfied with
his work, he swam back and forth in the tunnel, breaking both beams
at the same time, assuring himself that he had rendered the alarm
system ineffective.
He swam back out to meet Nick and gave him the thumbs-up sign. The
two men passed through the fifty yards of natural tunnel into the
subterranean cave. Where the narrow passageway widened, Troy again
gestured to Nick to remain behind while he, Troy, went into the
cave to check for booby-traps. Nick let his feet fall to the bottom
of the tunnel and switched on his own small flashlight. He was in a
perfect place for an ambush. The tunnel was so small here that
there was virtually no maneuvering room He wondered what an
underwater sentry would look like. What a place to die, he thought
suddenly. Fear swept over him as he turned off his flashlight and
looked down at his illuminated diver's watch. He watched the
glowing second hand sweeping around the face. He tried to calm
himself. It had been three minutes since Troy had left. Why is he
taking so long? he asked himself. He must have found something.
Another minute passed. Then another. Nick was having a hard time
quelling the onset of panic. What do I do if he doesn't return?
Just as Nick was about to swim into the cave on his own, he caught
sight of Troy's searchlight coming toward him Troy waved and Nick
followed. Within thirty seconds they were in the shallow part of
the cave, where the water was only about four feet deep. The two
men stood up with their flippers lodged against the rocks to
protect themselves from falling in the intermittent tidal
surges.
Nick pulled his regulator out of his mouth and flipped his mask
back on his head. Before he could speak, Troy put a finger against
Nick's lips. "Speak very softly," Troy's whisper was barely
audible. "The place could be alarmed for sound as well."
There was no light in the cave except Troy's searchlight. However,
over their heads, in the highest corners of the rock ceiling, Troy
pointed out two separate banks of fluorescent lighting. The cave
itself was an irregular oval, about thirty yards in its longest
dimension and maybe fifteen yards across at its widest point. The
ceiling was only about three feet above the water near the entrance
to the tunnel out to the ocean, but it was twenty feet high in the
corner where they were standing in the shallow water.
"Well, Professor," Troy continued whispering, "I have good news and
bad news. The bad news is that there is no treasure here in this
cave. The good news is that there are two other tunnels, both
manmade, that lead away from this place and go under Captain
Homer's property." He paused for a moment and watched his partner.
"Shall we go for it?"
Nick looked at his watch. It was nine-twenty already. He nodded.
"The bastard spent a lot of money down here. They must have stolen
more than I figured." Nick adjusted his diving equipment.
"We'll start with the tunnel on the left. As before, I'll lead to
look for trouble." Troy cast his searchlight around on the ceiling.
"This is a strange place. But beautiful. It looks like another
planet, doesn't it?"
Nick pulled his mask back over his face and slipped the regulator
in his mouth. He flopped backward into the sea water. Troy followed
and, once under the surface, showed Nick the way to the first
manmade tunnel. This tunnel was on the other side of the cave,
about twelve feet below the water at its lowest point. It was made
of normal circular sewer pipe. The diameter of the pipe was about
five feet, making the tunnel approximately the same size as the
natural passageway between the ocean and the cave. Troy entered the
tunnel gingerly. He swam back and forth from side to side,
examining one wall for a few yards and then going across to the
other. He almost missed the long, slender alarm box. It was
embedded in the ceiling at a junction between two sections of sewer
pipe and Troy just happened to look up before he triggered the
alarm.
This system worked on a different principle. A camera or other
optical device in the box on the ceiling took repeated images of a
square foot of the tunnel bottom that was backlit by an illuminated
square cleverly concealed below the normal concrete floor.
Apparently some kind of data comparison algorithm in the alarm
processor contained logic by which the consecutive pictures could
be assessed, in terms of threat, and an alarm triggered if
necessary. It was the most complicated device of its kind that Troy
had ever seen and he quickly recognized the similarities between
this system and the ocean telescope that had been onboard the
Florida Queen. That means MOI designed and developed it, he thought
to himself. So I'd best be careful. I bet the algorithm is set so
that disturbances to the camera trigger the alarm as well.
Nick had swum over to the side of the tunnel, out of the way, and
was watching Troy try to open up the alarm box without jiggling the
optical instrument. To accommodate the almost two-inch width of the
box, there was a gap of that size everywhere around the circle
connecting the two sequential sections of pipe. Throughout the rest
of the tunnel, all adjoining sections were cemented together. Here
the passageway was discontinuous.
Curious, thought Nick. He idly shone his small flashlight into the
blackness in the gap beside him, expecting to see nothing but a
wall of rock. What in the world is that? he wondered, as his light
fell upon some metal object that looked like a large grating. The
grating was resting upon an old piece of railroad track. Nick
looked more carefully. He could make out a gear box and some
pulleys, but he had no idea how all these mechanical devices fit
together.
Meanwhile Troy had managed to remove the housing from the alarm box
without disturbing the camera and was busy trying to understand the
inner workings of the system. Whew, he thought. This is much too
complicated to figure out in five minutes. If I can just isolate
the alarm, that should be enough. It was tough work under the
water. But Troy was clever and the electronics were packaged in a
logical fashion. He was able to find the alarm and disable it.
Afterward Troy lingered for several seconds trying to determine the
purpose of the other circuits connected to the alarm
subassembly.
Nick had intended to show Troy what he had found in the gap;
however, as he watched his friend struggling with the complex
circuitry of the alarm box, he became again worried about the
passage of time. It was now almost a quarter to ten. He caught
Troy's eye and pointed at his watch. Troy reluctantly abandoned his
investigation of the alarm and proceeded down the tunnel.
Thirty yards farther the tunnel passed what looked like a door to a
submarine on their left. Both Troy and Nick tried pulling on the
handle of the large and very heavy round door but nothing happened.
With gestures Troy told Nick to continue trying to open the door
while he swam on down the tunnel.
The gold bars and other objects that remained from the Santa Rosa
treasure were sitting in the tunnel another thirty yards beyond the
round door. The passageway itself came to an abrupt halt against a
rock wall. In front of the wall was an array of gold and silver
objects, stacked to an average depth of a foot or so across the
width of the tunnel. The treasure was not hidden in any way, it was
simply scattered in random piles on the concrete floor at the end
of the tunnel. Troy was ecstatic. There's plenty here, he thought.
Enough for the aliens. Enough for Nick. Maybe even some left over
for Carol and me.
He swam back to find Nick. Nick was absolutely exultant when he saw
the unmistakable smile on Troy's face. He raced around his friend
to the end of the tunnel When Nick first reached the treasure, he
spent a minute or two swimming around, picking up each object that
was different and dropping it back into the piles on the floor.
Holy shit, Nick said gleefully to himself as he and Troy started
putting gold bars into the buoyancy bags. I was right for once.
There must be over a hundred pounds in bars alone. They had agreed
before the dive just to bring out the bars, provided there were
enough. The bars were the only objects they could be certain were
pure gold. Even if we take fifty-eight to Troy's friends, that
might leave fifty or so for us. He did a quick mental calculation.
That could be over three hundred thousand dollars apiece.
Whoopee.
Joy and excitement surged through Nick. He was having difficulty
containing himself. He wanted to sing, to dance, to jump with joy.
He had been right after all. The bastards had stolen most of the
treasure and now he was stealing it back. There's no happiness
quite like the redressing of an old and painful grievance. And to
do it with panache ... Nick was already celebrating in his heart.
This was his day.
Filling the bags took no time at all. Nick and Troy both felt as if
they had infinite energy. When they had finished picking up the
gold bars, Troy gestured down the tunnel. Nick looked down at the
other treasure objects remaining on the floor. We should take it
all, he thought. We should leave Homer and Greta nothing. Nothing
at all. But he had to be practical. Each of their bags was
virtually full and they would be heavy enough as they were.
Nick swam off in the direction of the ocean, his buoyancy bag full
of gold trailing behind him. Troy followed. As they passed the
bulky door on the right, Troy found himself thinking again about
the circuitry leading to the alarm in the box just ahead, between
the two sections of pipe. What could those other connections be
for? Suddenly he remembered seeing a diagram in an electronics
magazine about advanced timers that could reinitialize systems and
swap out failed parts. By now the component that Troy had disabled
might have been declared a failure by the smart processor in the
alarm box, in which case it would have either been replaced by a
redundant part or the system would be ignoring its output. In
either situation, Troy thought, that means the system could be
active again.
It was too late. Nick swam into the field of view of the optical
device and lights came on throughout the tunnel. A metal gate
started closing behind Nick and his bag of gold. It was only with a
burst of speed that Troy propelled himself through before the gate
shut completely. But his buoyancy bag full of gold bars was left
behind, on the other side of the gate.
Nick stared at Troy's lost bag as it floated to the floor. He
reached through the bars, grabbed the bag, and tried to pull it
through. It was useless. He shook the gate. The metal was extremely
sturdy. Angry and frustrated, he punched the gate with his fists.
As Nick caught his breath in between punches, he became aware of a
strange droning sound, like a motor, somewhere in the distance
behind him. He turned around to find Troy. He could not see him
anywhere.
Troy had been exhausted by his swimming sprint through the closing
gate. His energy spent, he had let himself fall to the floor of the
pool in the deepest part of the cave, halfway between the two
manmade tunnels. He took several deep breaths through his
mouthpiece and checked his air supply. He had about ten minutes
remaining. He watched for a moment as Nick, almost out of sight to
his right, tried fruitlessly to pull Troy's bag through the gate.
Shit, Troy thought, disappointed that he had lost the gold, if only
I had been thinking. I should have known ... He heard an unusual
sound off to his left. Curious, Troy swam over to the entrance of
the other tunnel and right into the path of the robot sentry.
Even though the original distance between them was over fifty feet,
the guidance mechanism of the sentry fixed on Troy as soon as he
appeared. Startled and fascinated, at first Troy did not try to
avoid the onrush of the bullet-shaped submarine. The sentry was
three feet long and a foot wide in its midsection. When it was
about eight feet away, the sentry slowly loaded and fired a small
but powerful spear, the size of a table knife, that Troy just
managed to avoid as it hurtled past. The spear crashed into the
wall beside him.
Adrenaline surged into Troy's system and he swam out into the
middle of the pool. The sentry did not follow him immediately.
Instead it moved over in front of the natural passageway to the
ocean, thereby cutting off the escape route, and then turned around
to make a systematic search of the pool . Damnit, Troy was
thinking, why didn't I leave while I had the chance? He wondered if
Nick was still over by the gate.
The sentry had now found Nick in its field of vision. He was
swimming slowly toward the exit with his buoyancy bag. He was
unaware that he and Troy were not alone in the pool. By the time
Nick saw the sentry, he was fifteen feet away and within easy range
of its underwater gun. Troy watched the sentry load a spear. Oh no,
he cried out to himself. Watch out, Nick. There was nothing he
could do.
It happened so fast that neither Nick nor Troy knew exactly what
occurred. Troy would later explain that he felt a sudden warm
tingle on his wrist and then something, a light beam or a laser
burst or a stream of plasma perhaps, fired out of his bracelet and
zapped the robot sentry into silence and motionlessness. Nick would
say that the sentry, just when it was going to fire at him, was
first distracted by Troy and then recoiled as if from an impact.
Whatever happened, the sentry stopped all activity. Immediately
thereafter the two men swam together over to the shallow part of
the cave. They were temporarily safe.
Carol could not believe how plump and succulent the oysters were.
Ellen was sitting at the other end of the table opposite her, and
was beaming with pride. "Would you like some more, dear?" she
smiled, lifting the huge pot containing the oyster stew. I'm now
going to eat a second portion, Carol thought. In addition to the
catfish with Nick. Greta would be disgusted. She smiled to herself
and nodded at Ellen. There was at least one thing she had learned
this evening. Ellen was certainly a fantastic cook.
And a very sad person too, Carol thought as she spooned herself
some more spicy stew rich with the fabled Appalachicola oysters.
Homer had personally answered all the questions during the
twenty-minute interview before dinner. Whenever a question had been
controversial or delicate, such as when Carol had asked about the
allegations that part of the treasure haul had been secretly stolen
and hidden by the three of them, he had looked only at Greta before
he made a response. No wonder Ellen eats all the time. She's the
odd man out. Or is it woman?
"This stew is fabulous," Carol remarked to Ellen. "Would you mind
giving me the recipe?"
Ellen was delighted. "Certainly, dear," she said, "it would be my
pleasure." Carol remembered Dale's reference to Ellen's behavior at
the MOI awards dinner and wondered if there was, indeed, any sexual
component to the warmth Ellen was displaying. I don't see it, Carol
decided. This is just a lonely and profoundly disturbed woman. I
don't feel one iota of sexual tension.
"You've been asking the questions all evening, Miss Dawson," Homer
was saying. "Now why don't we ask you a few?" He had been
surprisingly pleasant and subdued since the bizarre preprandial
shark feeding. They must be normal sometimes, Carol thought.
Otherwise they couldn't survive. But who knows when Mr. Hyde will
show up again.
"Ya," Greta said. It was the first time she had spoken directly to
Carol during the meal. "Homer told me you were with Dr. Dale. You
are lovers, no?"
You don't beat around the bush, do you Greta. Carol partially
evaded the question. "Dale Michaels and I are very good friends. We
spend quite a lot of time together, both socially and
professionally."
"He is a smart man," Greta said. Those clear eyes stared at Carol
and a smile played at the corner of Greta's lips. What is she
trying to tell me?
The conversation was interrupted by the sound of a sharp alarm.
Carol knew immediately that something had gone wrong. "What in the
world is that?" Carol asked innocently as the strident alarm
continued with its loud bursts.
Homer and Greta were already up from the table. "Excuse us," Homer
said, "it's our burglar alarm. Probably an error. We'll go check it
out."
They hurried out of the dining room, leaving Carol and Ellen alone,
and headed down a nearby hallway. I must follow them and find out
what's going on, Carol thought, her heart and mind racing together.
She sneaked a peek at her watch. It was five minutes past ten
o'clock. They should have finished by now. "I'm going to the rest
room," she said to Ellen. "Don't bother," she added, as Ellen
started to explain the directions. "I'm sure I can find it
myself."
Carol walked quickly into the hall and listened for sounds of Homer
and Greta. Moving very quietly, she followed them until she was
just outside a large den on the opposite side of the house. The
door to the den was ajar. "It will focus in a second," she heard
Homer say. There was a pause. "Shit," he shouted, "it looks like
the gold bars are already gone. They must have moved very fast ...
The picture is really not very clear. Here, you take a look."
"Ya," said Greta. "The bars are gone, I think ... But Homer, the
gold would be very heavy. Maybe the thieves are trapped in the
tunnel ... Timmy could search for them."
"That would fix the bastards," Homer's nervous laugh sent chills
down Carol's spine. She back pedaled slowly until she had retreated
to the main foyer of the house. She heard an outside door slam in
the direction of the den. They've gone out to turn the sharks
loose. Jesus. I must warn Nick and Troy.
Carol walked into the nearest bathroom in the hallway, pushed the
door closed, and turned on the water faucet. Then she flushed the
commode and untaped the small walkie-talkie that was hidden inside
her shirt. She put the unit right next to her mouth. "Mayday,
mayday," she said. "They know you're there. You are in danger." She
repeated the message and then pushed the button that would
automatically recycle the communication several more times. I
certainly hope this damn thing works, she thought.
She started to affix the tiny unit to the inside of her blouse
again. While she was taping it down, she happened to look in the
mirror. Her heart nearly stopped. Ellen was standing in the
doorway, staring at her, the baleful glare in her eyes indicating
that she had seen and heard everything. She took a step toward
Carol.
"Just hold it right there, Ellen," Carol said. Carol put her hands
up. "I have no quarrel with you." The fat woman hesitated. "Homer
and Greta only use you anyway," Carol added softly, "why don't you
leave them and make a life for yourself?"
Anger broke across Ellen's face. Her eyes narrowed, her cheeks
reddened, and she raised her huge fists to threaten Carol. "It's
none of your damn business how I live my life," she said
menacingly. She moved again in Carol's direction.
Carol grabbed the thick metal towel rack beside her and pulled with
all her might. The bar sprung free from the wall, dumping two peach
bath towels and a wooden end piece on the linoleum floor. Carol
brandished the bar over her head. "Don't make me hit you," she
said. "Just move aside and get out of my way."
Ellen did not slow down. Carol aimed carefully and struck her hard,
on the right shoulder. The heavy woman collapsed.
"Greta," she wailed in a monstrous voice, "Greta, help me."
Still waving the bar from the towel rack, Carol walked carefully
around Ellen and backed toward the door. Once in the hall, she
sprinted to the family room and headed for the front door. Right
beside the wet bar she was tackled from behind. Carol fell forward,
hard, and smashed her nose on the carpet. She tried to squirm out
of Greta's arms but it was impossible. She was pinned. A few drops
of blood trickled out of Carol's nose and fell on the carpet.
Both women were breathing heavily. Carol managed to turn her body
around so that she was facing Greta. She struggled vainly to free
herself. Greta's strong arms slammed Carol's wrists against the
floor. Greta bent down until her face was only inches away from
Carol's. "You were trying to get away, ya, and just why vere you in
such a hurry."
There was something feral in Greta's eyes. On impulse, Carol lifted
her head and kissed Greta, full on the lips. Startled, her
assailant's arms momentarily relaxed. That was all Carol needed.
Gathering all her strength, she smashed the bottom of her palm into
the side of Greta's head. Greta was stunned. Carol pushed her off
and made a dash for the door.
Carol was already calculating when she ran out the front door and
down the steps. Greta will be up in an instant, she thought. I
won't have time to open the car door. I might as well run for
it.
The German woman was only fifteen yards behind her, and gaining
fast, when Carol turned onto the lane that led from Homer's house
to the Pelican Resort. For ten years I have run three times a week.
But this is the only time my life has ever depended on it. She
tried to accelerate. Greta continued to close the gap. Carol was
certain she was going to be caught at any minute. Once she thought
she felt Greta's hand on her blouse.
But after two hundred yards Greta began to drop back. When she was
a quarter of a mile from Homer's driveway Carol dared to look over
her shoulder. Her pursuer was clearly struggling and was now fifty
yards behind her. Carol felt a renewed burst of energy. I'm going
to make it, she thought. I'm actually going to escape.
Greta slowed to a walk. Eventually Carol did too, but not until she
was almost to the restaurant. Even then she continued to look back,
to try to find her antagonist in the moonlight. Now I'll call a
taxi, she was thinking, And go over to Nick's apartment. I hope
that the two of them heard my warning and are safe.
She could no longer see Greta. She stopped and strained her eyes.
She must have turned back, Carol thought. While she was looking
back down the lane, a pair of very strong hands grabbed her
shoulders. She spun around and stared into the laughing eyes of
Lieutenant Richard Todd.
HE had purposely waited until all the rest of the actors had left
the dressing room. The package itself was inconspicuous, about the
size of a large bar of soap, wrapped in white paper with a dark red
ribbon. You don't even know if it's from her, Winters thought as he
pulled the bow on the ribbon. The commander was full of
anticipation. The show had been even better tonight. And in the
bedroom scene he had felt, for just a second, the touch of
Tiffani's tongue against his lips. She didn't have to do that,
Winters told himself, suspending for a moment all vestiges of
guilt.
His hands trembled a little as he opened the package. It was a
plain white box. Inside was a silver cigarette lighter simple but
handsome, with the initials VW engraved on the outside at the
bottom. His heart raced. So she does feel it too. Commander Winters
felt a powerful burst of lust in his groin. Now he was imagining a
scene no more than three or four hours in the future. He was taking
Tiffani home and they were kissing at her front door. "Would you
like to come in," she would say ...
"I feel pretty ... oh so pretty ... I feel pretty and witty and gay
..." He heard her singing as she came down the hall. She pushed
open the door to his dressing room and twirled around. Tiffani's
hair was stacked high on her head showing the lines of her elegant
neck. The gold filigree along the top of the comb that the
commander had given her blended in perfectly with the rich red and
brown of her hair. Her dress was white, low cut, with her shoulders
exposed except for tiny straps in the corners.
"Well?" she said with a big and eager smile. She turned around
again. "What do you think?"
"You look beautiful, Tiffani," he replied. He stared at her with
such intensity that she blushed.
"Oh, Vernon," she sighed, now changing her mood, "the combs are
wonderful." She pulled a cigarette from his pack on the dresser
table and lit it herself with his new lighter. She took a deep
drag, her eyes fixed on his, and put the cigarette down in the
ashtray. "I don't know how to thank you," she murmured.
She walked over to him and put her hands in his. "It's already been
another wonderful evening." She put her left hand behind his head
and reached up to kiss him. His heart was about to explode within
his body. She could feel his arousal as her lips nestled softly
against his. She pulled his head down to meet hers and subtly
increased the pressure of her kiss. At length he put his arms
around her and pressed her body against his.
Commander Winters thought he was going to drown in the pleasure of
that kiss. Never had he felt such longing. He was certain he would
gladly die in the morning if he could just continue to kiss her all
night first. For a moment, as he let himself experience fully the
rush of joy and love and lust, all his worries and despair were
pushed aside. He wanted to wrap himself around Tiffani, somehow zip
her inside his skin, and close out everything else in the
universe.
Melvin and Marc had come to the dressing room to find the
commander. They had not approached with stealth and were not even
being especially quiet, but neither Tiffani nor Commander Winters
heard them walk up. The two men could see the pair kissing through
the open dressing room door. They looked at each other and reached
out instinctively to touch hands for an instant. From their own
experience they knew about the difficulty of love affairs outside
the accepted norm.
Tiffani and Winters finally broke the kiss and she put her head
against his chest. Her back was to the door. Winters opened his
eyes and saw Melvin and Marc standing there in front of him. He
blanched, but the director made a gesture with his hands that said,
"It's all right. It's your business, not ours."
Melvin and Marc considerately waited several seconds so that it
would look as if they had not arrived until after the kiss. The
commander patted Tiffani on the shoulder and turned her around in a
fatherly manner. "Great show, Commander," Melvin said as he walked
into the room. "And another super performance from you too, young
lady." He paused. Marc smiled his compliments and Tiffani
unconsciously straightened out her dress. "There's a Lieutenant
Todd waiting outside for you, Commander," Melvin added. "He says
it's urgent. He asked me to tell you to hurry."
Winters face was creased with wrinkles. What in the world is he
doing here? he thought. It's after ten o'clock on a Saturday night.
"Thanks, Melvin," he answered. "Tell him I'll be out in a few
minutes."
The director and his friend turned and left the dressing room.
Tiffani reached over for the lit cigarette, whose ash had grown so
long it had nearly fallen out of the ashtray. She inhaled and
handed it to Winters. "Did they see us kissing?" she asked
anxiously
"No," lied Winters. But already he was realizing how untenable his
fantasy was. Precious Tiffani, he thought. My teenage lover. We
were lucky. But we cannot kid ourselves. We will be seen
eventually. He looked into her eyes and saw the flame of adolescent
passion. Again he felt the surge in his loins. He reached down and
pulled her forcefully to him. And if the wrong person sees us, he
thought as his lips tingled with her kiss, there is no limit to my
risk.
Winters threw his cigarette down on the ground and stomped it out.
He shook his head in disbelief. "You are telling me that you have
taken those three into custody? And you're holding them at the
base?"
Lieutenant Todd was confused. "But sir, don't you understand? We
have an entire set of photographs. In three of them you can clearly
see the missile. And there are other pictures that show the black
guy in some kind of underwater structure down there in the ocean.
Just as I had guessed. What more could we possibly need? We also
caught them, red-handed no less, coming back from a dive with fifty
pounds of gold bars in their backpacks. Fifty pounds!"
Commander Winters turned around and went back in the theater. "Go
back to the base, Lieutenant," he said disgustedly. "I'll be there
in five minutes."
It was apparent that Melvin and Marc were just waiting for Tiffani
and the commander before they locked up the theater and went to the
party. "Can you take her over, Melvin?" he asked. "There's a big
mess out at the base tonight and it looks as if I will have to
straighten it out." The conversation with Todd had been sobering
for Winters on at least two levels. First, it had reminded him that
there was a real world out there, outside of the theater, a world
that would not look kindly on a forty-three-year-old Navy commander
having a sexual relationship with a seventeen-year-old high school
student. Secondly, Todd's astonishing announcement that he had
indeed detained three civilians, one of whom was a well-known
reporter, jolted the commander into realizing that his
preoccupation with Tiffani had affected his work. I should never
have let this thing get so far out of control, he thought. From
here on out that lieutenant makes no move that I don't personally
approve.
"I'm sorry, Tiffani," he said in a fatherly voice. He gave her an
ambiguous hug and a light kiss on the top of her head. "I'll come
to the party as soon as I can."
"Hurry or you'll miss the champagne," Tiffani said with a smile.
Melvin turned off the lights in the theater. The four of them
walked out the door.
Winters had parked down the street almost a block away. He waved to
Tiffani as she climbed into Melvin's car. I wonder if you will ever
know, young lady, he thought. Know how close I came tonight to
throwing everything away. In his mind's eye it was twenty-four
years before, on a cold night outside of Philadelphia, and he had
just gone berserk and virtually raped Joanna Carr. Winters started
his Pontiac and eased into the street. It would be so easy, he
thought. Just one time to forget the rules and constraints. To dive
into the water without looking first. He remembered his pact with
God after he had spent the night with Joanna. So You kept Your part
of the bargain. I guess And I became an officer and a gentleman.
And a killer.
He winced. He turned the car past the swank Miyako Gardens and
headed for the base. With great effort he forced himself to stop
thinking about Tiffani and Joanna and sex. It's not enough that I
have this trial with Tiffani. At the same time I am assigned a
redneck lieutenant who runs roughshod over civilians in his attempt
to prove some cockamamie ...
Commander Winters stopped at a signal. Slowly, the full impact of
what Todd had told him began to sink in. Jesus. I may be in trouble
too. Unlawful entry. Wrongful detention. They'll throw the book at
Todd ... He eased his car through the intersection. He mechanically
put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it. So I should be apologetic.
But shit. That Dawson woman is a reporter. Bad bad news.
He had arrived at the base. He waved to the security guard and
drove on to where Todd had said they were keeping the trio. Winters
stopped in front of a plain white building situated on a small hill
about fifteen feet above the street level. A nervous Lieutenant
Roberto Ramirez was waiting at the edge of the road. He was holding
two large, thick envelopes in his hands. Ramirez turned and called
something toward the front door. Todd came out in a moment. He
locked the door carefully, came down the steps, and walked toward
the other two officers. Ramirez was already showing the photographs
to Commander Winters when Todd joined them. The three men had a
short but animated discussion.
"So what happened after you received my message?" Carol turned to
the other two as soon as Todd disappeared out the door. They had
not had many chances to talk in private since Todd and Ramirez had
taken them into custody in the parking lot at the Pelican
Resort.
"Troy was ready to split," Nick laughed. "But I thought your
warning only referred to the robot sentry. And since he had been
quiet for several minutes, I figured we were already safe. I was
still really pissed off about the second bag of gold bars. So I
hurried back over to the gate.
"I was concentrating so hard on finding a way to pull the bag
through the opening that I must have been oblivious to everything
else. Suddenly I felt Troy jerk me backwards. Maybe a second later
two or three sharks, one definitely a mako, slammed hard into the
gate. I was certain the gate was going to fall into pieces."
"Those sharks were really nasty, angel," Troy interjected. "And
stupid too. The big one must have banged against the gate a dozen
times before he gave up."
"The buoyancy bag with the gold bars was immediately ripped to
shreds by the crazy sharks. They may even have swallowed most of
the bars themselves. It was not fun being that close to them." Nick
shuddered. "When I close my eyes I can still see that mako's teeth
three feet away from me. I'll probably have bad dreams for
years."
"I pulled Nick toward the ocean. I didn't want any part of those
mean bastards and I didn't trust the gate to remain intact in case
they launched another attack. We made it out in record time. Of
course, neither of us expected to be greeted by the U.S. Navy when
we returned to the station wagon." Troy paused. "This Todd
character, what's his problem any way? He sure thinks he's a bad
ass. Is he just pissed because the professor decked him last
night?"
Carol smiled. She reached her left hand over and put it on Nick's
leg just above the knee. Her hand remained there while she was
talking. "Todd is one of the naval engineers trying to find the
lost missile. I'm certain that he and his men must have been
responsible for the break-ins at Nick's apartment and my hotel
room. Otherwise they wouldn't have detained us."
"What grounds do they have for holding us?" Nick inquired. He
dropped his hand down and wrapped it around Carol's. "It's not
against the law to have gold bars in a backpack. Don't we have
rights as citizens that prevent this kind of thing?"
"Probably," Carol replied. She squeezed Nick's hand and then
retracted her own. "But as a reporter, I find this part of our
adventure extremely interesting. You can tell that Lieutenant
Ramirez is very nervous. He wouldn't let Todd even ask us any
questions until Commander Winters was contacted. And he has been
very concerned about our comfort."
As if on cue, the front door opened and the three naval officers
walked in. Winters was in the lead with the two lieutenants just
behind. Nick and Carol and Troy were sitting on gray metal
auditorium chairs on the left of a partitioned area that served as
a waiting room for the larger offices in the rear of the building.
Winters moved into the area and half leaned against the large gray
desk opposite them.
"I'm Commander Vernon Winters," he said, his eyes meeting each of
theirs in turn. "As Miss Dawson knows, I'm one of the senior
officers on the base here. I am currently in charge of a secret
project, code named Broken Arrow." He smiled. "I'm sure you are
wondering why you have been brought to the base."
Winters reached out with his left arm and Ramirez handed him the
infrared blowups that showed the missile in the most detail. He
waved the photos at the three detainees. "One of the goals of
project Broken Arrow is to find a Navy missile that has been lost
somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico. Lieutenant Todd here believes,
based on these photographs, that you know where that missile is.
That is why he has acted to bring you here for questioning."
Winters' voice rose in pitch and he began to wave his arms. "Now
I'm certain I don't need to remind you that state-of-the-art
weapons systems are what keep our nation free and secure - "
"Spare us the patriotic lecture and the histrionics, Commander
Winters," interrupted Carol. "We all know that you are searching
for a lost missile and that you think we may have found it. Sorry.
We went out looking for it today but were unable to locate it
again." She stood up. "Now you listen to me a minute. Your zealous
lieutenant there and his men have broken more laws than I can
count. In addition to kidnapping us, they have looted and
vandalized my hotel room and Mr. Williams' apartment. They have
also stolen some photographs and valuable equipment." She fixed
Winters with a hard gaze. "You sure as hell better have good reason
for dragging us down here or I swear I'll see to it that all three
of you are court martialed."
Carol glanced at Ramirez. He was squirming. "In the meantime," she
continued, "you can start by giving us an official, written
apology, returning all our property, and making adequate payment
for all the damages. In addition I want exclusive access to all
Broken Arrow files from this moment on. If you don't agree to all
these terms, you might as well prepare right now to read about the
Gestapo tactics of the United States Navy in the next edition of
the Miami Herald."
Uh oh, thought Winters. This is not going to be easy. This woman
reporter intends to play the bluff and threat game. He pulled out a
cigarette while he was thinking. "Would you please not smoke in
here?" Carol broke into his train of thought. "We all find it
offensive."
Damn these aggressive nonsmokers. He replaced the Pall Mall in the
pack in his pocket. Winters had been thrown off at first by Carol's
rapid attack, but he eventually regained his composure. "Now, Miss
Dawson," the commander began a minute later. He looked away from
the trio, in the direction of the front door. "I can understand why
you might be upset by what has happened. I will admit that our men
may indeed have acted in an unwarranted manner while they were
searching your rooms to find evidence. However ..." Winters stopped
in mid-sentence, turned around, and came back toward Nick and Carol
and Troy.
"However," he repeated. "We are talking about treason here." He
waited to let his threat register. "And I don't need to tell you,
Miss Dawson, that treason is serious business. Even more serious
than journalism." He hesitated again for effect and his voice
became very stern. "If any of you have knowledge of the whereabouts
of this missile and have conveyed that knowledge to a member of any
foreign government, especially one viewed as inimical to our
national interests, then you have committed treason."
"What kind of dope have you been smoking, Commander?" Carol
replied. "We freely admit that we've been looking for your missile.
But that doesn't make us spies. You have no case against us." She
glanced at Nick. He was admiring her performance. "I'm simply a
reporter covering a story. This treason business of yours is pure
fabricated bullshit."
"Oh, yeah," said Lieutenant Todd, unable to restrain himself. "Then
where were these pictures taken?" He showed the photo of Troy in
full diving regalia in the initial underwater room with the red and
blue walls. He then turned and pointed to the backpacks sitting in
the opposite corner of the room. "And what were your two friends
doing with fifty pounds of gold after their dive tonight?"
"All right, man," Troy remarked in an exaggerated manner. He took a
step toward Lieutenant Todd. "All right. You've figured it out,
haven't you? We found the missile and sold it to the Russians for
fifty pounds of gold." His eyes widened as he looked at Todd. "And
now the missile is onboard a submarine on its way to Moscow or
wherever ... Come on, man, get serious. We're not that stupid."
Lieutenant Todd's temper flared up. "You black bastard - " he
muttered before Commander Winters jumped between them. Winters
needed some time to think. Todd's questions were after all. still
unanswered. Even if there were good answers, it was not difficult
to understand how someone could have come to the conclusion, based
on the photographs, that there might be a conspiracy involved.
In addition, there was the issue of defending the actions of his
junior officers and the investigating team. If I let these three go
now, thought Winters, then we are essentially admitting that we
made an error in the first place ... Ramirez was gesturing at the
commander. He nodded outside with his head. Winters did not
understand at first, but Ramirez repeated the motion.
"Excuse us a second," Winters said. The two officers walked out on
the porch above the steps, leaving Todd with Nick and Carol and
Troy. "What is it, Lieutenant?" Winters asked
"Commander, sir," Ramirez answered, "my career is the Navy. If we
release these three now, after no formal questioning - "
"I couldn't agree more," Winters interrupted abruptly. "I wish that
none of this today had happened. But it did. Now we must finish it
up properly and thoroughly or we have no defense for what we did."
He thought for a minute. "How long would it take you to get the
video and sound equipment set up for a formal interrogation?"
"About thirty minutes," Ramirez replied. "Maybe forty-five at the
most."
"Let's do it. While you're getting ready, I'll prepare the list of
questions."
Shit, said Winters to himself as he watched Ramirez walk briskly
toward his office on the other side of the base. I am indeed going
to be here all night. He thought of his missed chance with Tiffani
. I'd better call her and explain while I'm drafting these
questions. He felt a sudden burst of anger toward Lieutenant Todd.
As for you, he thought, if we come out of this unscathed, I will
personally see to it that you are transferred to Lower
Slobbovia.
It was after eleven o'clock. Lieutenant Todd stood near the front
door. He was holding a billy club in his hand. Once before in the
evening, just after Nick and Troy had reached the Pelican Resort
parking lot, Todd had used the club on Nick's back to coerce him
into the car. Nick could still feel the welt.
"How long is all this going to take?" Troy asked. He was standing
near the desk. "Can't we go home now and get some sleep and come
back on Monday morning ..."
"You heard what the man said," Todd replied. He was definitely
gloating. "They've gone off to prepare for a formal interrogation.
You should be using this time to get your story straight." Todd
pounded his palm with the billy club.
Troy turned to his companions. "All right, team," he said with a
wink. "I move we blow this joint. Let's overpower this geek and
blast out of here."
"Just try it, you shits," Todd rejoined. He smacked one of the
empty folding chairs with his club for emphasis. "I'd like nothing
better than to report that you tried to escape."
Nick had not said much since Winters and Ramirez had left. He now
looked across the room at Todd. "You know what annoys me the most
about this, Lieutenant?" he said to his captor. "It's that people
like you," he continued, without waiting for an answer, "end up in
positions of power or authority all over the world. Look at you.
You think that because you have us under your control, that makes
you somebody. Let me tell you something. You aren't shit."
Todd did not try to hide his dislike for Nick. "At least I can find
white men to be my friends," he replied sarcastically.
"I do declare," Troy chimed in swiftly. "I believe our associate
Lieutenant Todd may be a bigot. We may be talking to a true life
honky. Let's see if 'nigger' is his next - "
"Boys, boys," Carol interceded as Todd started to move toward Troy.
"Enough is enough. "The room became quiet. Troy walked back over to
his friends and sat down in his chair.
A minute later Troy leaned over to Nick and Carol. As he was
whispering to them, he put the gold bracelet right next to his
mouth. "You know, folks," he said, "if we don't get out of here
soon, we may be here all night. I can well imagine the questions
taking three or four hours. And that means the Navy will get to the
dive site before us in the morning."
"But what can we do?" Carol asked. "It would be a miracle if they
let us just walk out without any questions."
"A miracle, angel." said Troy with a grin, "is just what we need. A
good old-fashioned miracle. Like the blue fairy."
"What are you shits whispering about over there?" The truculent
Lieutenant Todd began to walk toward the bathroom at the west end
of the long room. "Knock it off. And don't try anything. The
outside door is locked and I have the key." He didn't close the
bathroom door. The urinal was fortunately out of view to the
right.
There was not much light in the back of the small bathroom. As Todd
was finishing his piss, he became aware of a strange sensation all
over his right side, as if a thousand very small needles were
sticking in him. Puzzled, he turned toward the corner. What he saw
there sent an incredible shock of terror racing through his
system.
In the corner, partially hidden in the poor light, was what could
only be described as a six-foot carrot. The thicker end of the
creature was balanced on four webbed pads planted on the floor.
There were no arms, but about five feet above the ground, just
under a maze of blue spaghetti of unknown purpose on top of its
"head," four vertical slits, each a foot long, were cut in what
might have been its face. Out of each of these slits something
strange was hanging. Troy would later explain to Nick and Carol
that these were sensors, that the carrot saw, heard, smelled, and
tasted with these dangling extensions.
Lieutenant Todd did not wait to study the creature. He let out a
whoop and backed quickly out of the bathroom. He did not stop to
retract his penis or zip his fly. When the weird orange thing next
appeared in the light at the door to the bathroom, The lieutenant
was certain it was going to follow him. He stared at it, petrified
and immobile, for half a second. Then, when it did indeed move
toward him, Todd immediately turned around, unlocked the front
door, and burst through it.
Unfortunately he forgot about the eight concrete steps. In his
panic he tripped and fell. He smacked his head hard on the second
step and tumbled down to the bottom. He lay unconscious on his back
on the sidewalk in front of the building.
Carol had cowered against Nick when she had first seen the carrot.
Then they had both glanced at Troy. He was smiling and humming to
himself, "When you wish upon a star ... makes no difference who you
are." He seemed so blase about everything that Nick and Carol even
relaxed temporarily. However, after Lieutenant Todd disappeared out
the front door and the carrot turned to face them, it was difficult
to remain calm.
"Nuts," said Troy with a big smile. "I was really hoping for the
blue fairy. I thought she might make me rich, or maybe even
white."
"All right, Jefferson," Nick said. His face looked as if he had
just eaten a lemon. "Please explain what that thing in front of us
is."
Troy first walked slowly over to the corner of the room to pick up
their backpacks. "This, Professor," he replied as he then walked
directly up to the carrot, "is what we might call a holographic
projection." He put his hand into and through the orange body.
"Somewhere in the universe there is supposedly a real life creature
like this, but they have only sent his image to help us
escape."
Even with Troy's explanation Nick and Carol did not want to come
any closer to the stationary carrot than was absolutely necessary.
They moved with their backs against the walls until they reached
the door. "Don't worry," Troy laughed. "It won't hurt you."
The sensor hanging out of the slit on the far right of the carrot's
head was totally incomprehensible. Carol could not take her eye off
of it. It looked like a wad of gooey honeycomb stuck on the end of
a majorette's baton. "What does it do with that?" Carol asked,
pointing as she preceded Troy out the door.
"I don't know, angel," Troy answered. "But it must be fun."
Nick and Troy joined Carol on the platform at the top of the stairs
They all saw Todd at about the same time. They were naturally
surprised to find him lying at the bottom of the steps. His head
was bleeding. "Should we help him?" Carol wondered out loud as Troy
bounded down the stairs in front of her.
"No way," Nick replied quickly.
Troy bent down beside Todd and carefully examined the unconscious
lieutenant from head to toe. He slapped the big man lightly on the
cheek. Lieutenant Todd did not move. Troy winked at his friends at
the top of the stairs. "The professor was right, my man," he said,
breaking into a grin, "you really aren't shit."
"So I kissed her," Carol said with a laugh.
"You did what?" asked Nick. They were in Troy's old Ford LTD.
driving toward the Hemingway marina. After leaving the base they
had walked the mile and a half to Troy's duplex to pick up his car.
Carol was beside Troy in the front seat and Nick was in the back
next to the backpacks containing the gold and the information
discs.
Carol turned around to Nick. "I kissed her." She laughed again as
Nick screwed up his face in disgust. "What was I supposed to do?
The woman is stronger than most men. She had me pinned on the
floor. There was something just a little suggestive about the way
she was holding me ..."
"Whoooee, angel," Troy slapped the dashboard with his left hand.
"You are amazing. What did superkraut do next?"
"She released her grip on my wrists. Just for a second. I think she
was deciding whether to kiss me back."
"Yuch," said Nick from the back seat. "I think I'm going to be
sick."
"So you smashed her up side of the head and then ran off?" asked
Troy. Carol nodded. Troy laughed heartily and then became more
serious. "Be careful if you ever see her again, angel. Greta does
not like to lose."
"But you're wrong about her in one respect, Carol," Nick remarked.
"Greta's not into women at all. She likes sex with men too
much."
Carol found Nick's comment smug and even irritating. She spoke
across the front seat to Troy. "Why is it, Troy, that men naturally
assume that any woman who has sexual relations with men could not
possibly be interested in having sex with another woman? Is this
another example of their fundamental belief in their own innate
superiority?" She didn't wait for an answer. Carol turned around
again to talk to Nick. "And in case you're wondering, the answer is
no, I'm not a lesbian. I am relentlessly heterosexual, as much
because of my San Fernando Valley middle class background as
anything. But I will admit that sometimes I grow extremely tired of
men and what I call their baboon demonstrations of macho."
"Hey," Nick replied, "I didn't mean to start an argument. I was
just suggesting - "
"Okay, okay," Carol interrupted, loosening up a bit, "no harm done.
I guess I am a little quick on the trigger." She was quiet for a
few seconds. "By the way, Nick," she remarked then, "there's one
part of this that I still don't understand completely. Why did
Captain Homer go to such great lengths to hide the rest of the
treasure all this time? Why didn't he just sell it off as soon as
he could?"
"Lots of reasons," Nick replied. "Not the least of which was fear
that he might somehow be discovered and indicted for the perjury he
committed during our trial. But this way he also escapes the IRS,
the value of the gold appreciates in time, and, most importantly,
Greta has to hang around if she wants her whole share. He almost
certainly converts some of it to cash from time to time, probably
through a third party. But never enough to call attention to the
transaction."
"So you see, angel," Troy said, "that's why there's no way he can
call the police. Because he would have to admit everything. I bet
he's really pissed off."
Troy pulled into a left-hand turn lane and waited for the signal to
change. A car pulled up beside them on the right, next to Carol,
and she just happened to look idly in that direction. It was a
Mercedes.
Later on Carol would recall that time seemed to dilate for her.
Each second of the next minute was recorded in her memory in super
slow motion, as if it were covering a much longer period of time.
Greta was driving Captain Homer's car and was staring at Carol.
Homer was sitting beside her, waving his fists, shouting something
that Carol couldn't hear through her closed window. Carol focused
on Greta's amazing eyes. Never had she seen such hatred. For just
an instant Carol looked away to alert Troy and Nick. When she
turned back she saw that Greta had a pistol pointed directly at
her.
Three things happened almost simultaneously. Carol ducked, Troy
pulled into the intersection against the red light, barely missing
a speeding car, and Greta fired the gun. The bullet ripped through
Carol's window and crashed into Troy's door, somehow miraculously
missing them both. Carol sat cringing under the dashboard in the
front seat. She fought against panic and tried to catch her
breath.
The chase was on. It was after eleven-thirty on a Saturday night in
Key West and the traffic in the residential area was light. Troy's
Ford was no match for the Mercedes. Twice more Greta maneuvered
into position and the Ford was sprayed with bullets. Windows were
broken and pitted but none of the occupants of the car was
injured.
Nick was lying on the floor in the back seat. "Get down-town if you
can," he shouted at Troy. "Maybe we can lose them in the
traffic."
Troy was hunkered down behind the steering wheel as far as he could
go. He could barely see the roadway in front of them. He was
driving like a lunatic, swerving across the four-lane street into
oncoming traffic, honking frantically, and making it impossible for
Greta to predict his next move. "Where are the cops when you really
need them?" he said out loud. "We have maniacs firing guns at us in
the middle of Key West and there are no men of blue anywhere in
sight."
After Nick's suggestion Troy suddenly spun around in the middle of
the street and started heading in the opposite direction. Greta was
not prepared. She hit the brakes on the Mercedes, went into a skid,
caromed off a parked car, and then resumed the chase.
There were now no cars on the street in front of them and the
Mercedes was closing the gap. "Uh oh," said Troy, fearing another
attack. He violently pulled the steering wheel to the left, shot
through an alley, into a parking lot, and back onto a narrow
street. A few moments later he made a quick turn into a driveway.
The car became flooded with light and Troy jammed on the brakes.
"Everybody out," he hollered. While Nick and Carol were trying to
determine what the hell was happening, Troy was giving his car keys
to a tall figure dressed in a red uniform.
"We're just having drinks," he said. They heard the screech of the
brakes on the Mercedes. "And those people behind us," Troy said in
a loud voice to the half dozen onlookers, including two parking
attendants, who were standing nearby, "have guns and are trying to
kill us."
It was too late for Greta and Homer to escape. Troy had driven into
the parking entrance of the Miyako Gardens Hotel and already
another car had come into the circular drive behind the Mercedes.
Greta threw the car in reverse, smashed against the grill and
bumper of the Jaguar behind her, and then tried to make a run for
it by squeezing around Troy's Ford. Troy and the uniformed
attendant dove for cover as Greta hit the open door of the Ford,
lost control of the Mercedes, and eventually crashed into the
parking kiosk in the middle of the driveway. As Nick and Carol
stumbled out of the car, four hotel security men surrounded Greta
and Homer.
Troy walked over to join his friends. "Anybody hurt?" Both Carol
and Nick shook their heads. Troy broke into a grand smile. "I guess
that ought to take care of those characters," he said.
Carol gave him a hug. "It was a brilliant idea to drive here," she
said. "What made you think of it?"
"Birds," Troy answered.
"Birds?" Nick responded. "What the fuck are you talking about,
Jefferson?"
"Well, Professor," said Troy, opening the door to the elegant hotel
and following his colleagues inside into the open atrium, "when
they were about to catch us that last time, I realized that they
were probably going to kill us for stealing their gold. And I
wondered if there really were birds in heaven. My mother always
told me that there were."
"Troy," Carol said with a smile, "you are so full of shit. Come to
the point."
"Exactly, angel," he answered. "Look around you." In the atrium of
the Miyako Gardens was a magnificent aviary whose tiny, threaded
wire rose four stories into the air under a bank of skylights.
Hundreds of colored birds played among the vines and palm trees and
brought the real sound and feel of the tropics to the lobby of the
hotel.
"When I thought about birds," Troy could no longer restrain a crazy
laugh, "I realized we were in the vicinity of this hotel and the
plan sort of jumped into my mind."
The three of them stood together and gazed up at the aviary. Carol
was in the middle. She reached out her hands to both men.
BENEATH the emerald-green ocean the spacecraft rests quietly. Odd
fishlike creatures swim by, observe the visitor from the heavens,
and then continue on their journey. The final checkout before
deployment is underway. When the checkout is completed, a door near
the bottom of the craft opens and a gold metallic sphere with a
diameter of about five inches appears. The sphere is tied down on
top of a long, narrow platform. The treads underneath the platform
propel it down a small ramp and then across the sandy ocean
floor.
The flatbodied vehicle and its cargo disappear in the distance.
After a long wait the strange moving platform returns to the
spaceship without the golden sphere. The ramp slides back into the
vehicle, the door closes, and the spacecraft is prepared for
launch. Soon thereafter the great ship eases forward in the water,
rising until it is just beneath the surface of the emerald ocean.
It then reconfigures itself, adds wings, steerable flaps, and other
control devices, and breaks the water looking temporarily like an
airplane. Its ascent into the blue sky filled with light from the
twin suns is rapid and breathtaking. Orbital velocity is reached in
almost no time. Once in orbit above the atmosphere the aerodynamic
surfaces are retracted and the spaceship makes one final voyage
around the planet Canthor. When it reaches the proper true anomaly
of its orbit, the craft accelerates quickly and hurtles again
toward the cold and dark of interstellar space. The third delivery
has been completed; nine more remain on its sixty-millicycle
mission.
Three millicycles pass. The next target planet is only six systems
away, another oceanic planet orbiting around a solitary yellow sun
of unusual stability. The fourth cradle will be deposited there, on
the third body away from the star, a planet whose period of motion
about its central sun is so short that it makes fourteen
revolutions in one millicycle.
Before reaching the target, the spaceship makes a detour. It dives
deep into the hydrogen-rich atmosphere of the largest planet in the
new system, thereby accomplishing two goals. Its velocity with
respect to the central star is significantly slowed through
conversion of kinetic energy to dissipated heat, and its reservoir
of raw elements and primitive chemical compounds, from which the
onboard manufacturing equipment creates all the backup and
replacement parts, is partially replenished. After exiting from the
dive into the thick atmosphere. the interstellar voyager covers the
final distance to its target in a leisurely six hundred
nanocycles.
During the approach, the automatic software in the central computer
goes through a well-tested sequence designed to discover whether
any of the conditions on the target planet have changed since the
last complete set of systematic observations three cycles ago since
the contents of each cradle have been uniquely designed, based upon
the environment of the specific planet where the zygotes must grow
and flourish, any major change in that environment could
drastically reduce the probability of survival for the repatriated
species. Upon command from the computer, a battery of advanced
remote sensing instruments is deployed to confirm the original
design specifications for the planet.
But the instruments do not, as planned, validate the set of design
assumptions. The environment has changed. Not markedly, not as if
it had been reworked on a massive scale by an advanced intelligence
for some specific purpose. The initial data strongly suggests
instead that during the last cycle or two some indigenous
intelligence has emerged that has had a nontrivial impact on both
the planet's surface and its atmosphere.
As the remote sensing instruments continue their survey of the
target planet, something even more unusual is discovered. There are
artificial satellites, thousands of them, in orbit around the body.
A spacefaring species now makes this planet its home. An alarm is
triggered in the central computer of the spaceship. The zygotes and
the cradle system destined for this planet were not designed to
deal with any other advanced species.
However, the brilliant engineers of the Colony had anticipated that
at least one of the dozen target planets might have changed
significantly during the three cycles since the last regular
observations. A contingency protocol for handling new situations
has been programmed into the approach sequence. Essentially, this
protocol calls for careful analysis of the new conditions on the
planet, assessment of the impact of those conditions on the key
probability of survival parameters, and then, assuming that the
impact assessment is not unsatisfactory, transfer, where possible,
of new information into the electronic infrastructure responsible
for the education of the repatriated species after cradle
deployment.
One of the special subroutines in the contingency protocol handles
the surprise emergence of a new spacefaring species. The first
action in the sequence is the examination of one of the orbiting
satellites to assess its technological sophistication. With great
care the interstellar spaceship eases into a rendezvous position
with one of the artificial satellites that remain mostly stationary
above a single region on the rotating planet below. Using superfast
burst algorithms stored in the communications macro, the spacecraft
searches for and establishes the command and telemetry frequencies
of its neighbor. But attempts to actually command the satellite
fail, suggesting an elaborate protective code embedded in the
receivers and/or a complicated redundant command procedure.
Without being able to command the satellite and thus assess its
capabilities, the visiting spaceship cannot conclusively establish
the technological stage of the new spacefaring species. The
contingency protocol calls, in this situation, for trying to
"capture" the satellite to perform in situ analysis, provided there
is no obvious danger from devices onboard the satellite itself.
This particular branch in the software logic for the spaceship was
the subject of intense debate by the oversight board of the
Committee of Engineers back during the design process several
cycles earlier. Many of the more experienced engineers thought that
it was risky to include such a logic loop, primarily because of the
possibility that a paranoid emerging culture might arm their
satellites with destructive devices that could not be easily
recognized and disarmed.
However, it was argued, on the basis of historical evidence from
throughout the galaxy, that since most incipient civilizations
abolish warfare and aggression before they become spacefaring,
absence of a clearly identifiable destruct or protective device was
sufficient additional evidence to allow the careful capturing and
dismantling of a satellite. And everyone agreed that the detailed
information about the technological status of the new species that
would result from such "reverse engineering" would be extremely
valuable in completing the assessment of the risk to the
repatriated species.
Great remote manipulator arms extend from the spacecraft, seize the
surveillance satellite, and pull it into a large room with vaulted
ceilings. An army of small electronic robots attacks it at once,
scurrying all over its surface with probes and attachments.
Trillions of bits of data about the satellite are fed into the
primary data storage device in the spaceship computer. The new
spacefarers are not very advanced technically. In fact, the
computer algorithm concludes, it is very surprising that they have
even mastered launching and maintaining so many satellites.
An explosion starts to rip through the room. An astonishing
sequence of events takes place almost instantaneously after the
explosion, as the spaceship deploys its protective resources to
stop the spread of the fireball and mitigate the damage caused by
the small nuclear device that has vaporized its host satellite. The
explosion is quickly contained by unknown techniques, but not until
considerable destruction has been caused onboard the interstellar
craft.
An elaborate self-test occupies the great spaceship after the
explosion. Detailed computer analysis of the damage indicates that
the probability of successfully deploying the cradles at the
additional eight planets would be measurably increased if the
mission were temporarily interrupted to allow some repair processes
to take place. A safe haven to conduct the repair operations, in a
known environment with very few variations is the concomitant
requirement. The master computer decides, based on the system and
subsystem constraints that must he applied during the repairs, that
the shallow ocean floor on this target planet is a perfect place
for such a hiatus in the mission plan.
The spaceship descends into the atmosphere, again reconfiguring
itself to expose a set of aerodynamic control surfaces. During its
rapid descent, the flight path is crossed by a bullet-shaped
vehicle that has just been released from a high altitude airplane.
The spaceship approaches and then flies alongside the missile. The
missile telemetry is intercepted by the spaceship and correlated
with the types of downlink data extracted from the satellite
earlier. The spaceship computer uses its enormous processing
capability and cross-correlation algorithms to try to break the
command code of the tiny missile. Eventually it is successful and
the visitor is able to interact with the guided projectile.
The spaceship commands the missile to read out its guidance
subroutines. Performing quadrillions of computations per second,
the intelligent computer at the heart of the interstellar craft
deduces the targeting strategy for the missile. A target image that
would result in the missile landing in the ocean, close to the
chosen location for the space vehicle, is commanded into the
missile's guidance algorithm The spacecraft and missile plunge in
tandem into the Gulf of Mexico.
The two vehicles come to rest about two miles apart on the ocean
floor. Within the carefully coded fault protection software of the
great spaceship, which took over operation of the craft immediately
after the explosion of the satellite, four separate activities are
being conducted in parallel. One of the processors is sorting
through the data archives associated with this particular planet to
determine what possible indigenous species could have gone through
an evolutionary burst and become spacefaring with such rapidity.
Coupled with this first set of computations is an evaluation of the
impact of such a local advanced intelligence on the survivability
of the repatriated zygotes. Among the questions addressed by the
evaluation is what active steps can be taken by the spaceship now
to increase the likelihood of successful embryo germination and
development.
A third processor in the central computer performs a thorough,
detailed analysis of the spacecraft state, including careful
assessments of repair techniques and materials needed to fix each
and every damaged component. The fourth major parallel subroutine
directs the effort of the small flat robots that go out into the
ocean, first to verify that the nearby missile is harmless and can
be safely brought back to the ship, and second to catalogue all the
flora and fauna in the neighborhood in case any kind of camouflage
becomes necessary.
The carpets bring the missile to the spaceship for additional
analysis. No major new insights are gleaned from this study. The
engineering similarities between the missile and the earlier
artificial satellite are simply catalogued in the data archives.
The concurrent spaceship damage assessment concludes that all the
raw materials and tools necessary for the repairs are available
except for the proper quantities of lead and gold both of which are
difficult and time-consuming to make in the transmuter. If somehow
enough additional lead and gold can be found, then the spaceship
can be ready to leave this planet in three local days; if the
spaceship has to make the lead and gold by itself, including
leaching the elements in trace amounts from the ocean around it,
then the total repair effort might take as long as thirty days.
The other two processors reach some equally interesting
probabilistic conclusions. Mostly based upon the data taken during
the endangered species roundup seven cycles earlier, two separate
types of animals, one land-based and one water-based, are
identified as the only possible candidates for the evolutionary
burst that produced spacefarers in such a short time. Actually,
according to the computer, if the land-based human beings survived
their earlier nadir (around the time when some specimens were
removed by the zoo ships of the Colony) and did not become extinct,
they had by far the better chance of becoming the space voyager,
especially in view of the results of the experiments conducted on
them at the Zoo Complex. But if, indeed, the descendants of those
bipedal, upright, aggressive creatures have become spacefarers, the
processor warns, then the chances for survival to maturity by the
zygotes in the cradle are extremely low. Unless somehow significant
design changes in the cradle can be made on the spot or the
development of the repatriates can be kept a secret from the humans
for as long as a millicycle.
More worrisome for the extraterrestrial spaceship from the point of
view of the overall mission is the tentative conclusion that it may
well be discovered by the intelligent and potentially hostile
inhabitants of the target planet in a comparatively short period of
time. If discovered and seriously threatened, the spaceship could
depart from the planet quickly and search for another haven to make
repairs; however, traveling in the space environment in its current
damaged state would be very risky. Another option would be for the
spacecraft to send its own robots to the mines on this planet to
extract the lead and gold that would virtually guarantee safe
arrival at the next target, where the heavy metals are
plentiful.
In either case, premature discovery by uncooperative Earthlings
would almost certainly doom the zygote cradle that would be left on
the Earth, if it is known that the cradle system came from the
alien spacecraft. Thus the first action that the spaceship takes is
to check out, deploy, and then hide the Earth cradle away from the
vehicle. The carpets locate a sequestered spot six or seven hundred
yards away on the nearby ocean floor and the platforms move the
gold metallic cradle into that place under a rock overhang.
To reduce the probability of being discovered, the spaceship
changes its outer surface to match the ocean floor around it. After
a complex set of analyses of its entire decision matrix, the
central computer concludes that the maximum likelihood of success
path for the overall mission involves trying to enlist either the
whales or the human beings to supply the extra lead and gold, as
well as the new information to be transmitted to the cradle. So the
spacecraft implements those repairs that are straightforward, puts
itself into a standby for launch mode, and begins the task of
communicating with the Earthlings.
The data taken by the Zoo explorers seven cycles ago (about a
hundred thousand Earth years) suggested that the whales and human
beings, at that time, had approximately the same potential for
intelligence. The whale language was richer and more complicated at
the time of this earlier investigation. The Zoo explorers studied
it briefly and recorded in the archives its fundamental tenets.
based upon that old data, while at the same time trying to develop
a scenario for communicating with the humans, the spaceship
attempts to make contact with the whales. Because the whales have
not substantially changed in the intervening time, the attempts are
partially successful; the whales understand that they are being
called, but they are mostly confused by the messages and unable to
figure out how to respond.
Two small pods of whales do, however, decipher the message
transmitted in the ocean by the alien ship and swim toward its
source. The robots in the extraterrestrial spacecraft examine the
whales carefully, even showing the captive missile to one of the
pods to elicit recognition, and conclude absolutely that the whales
cannot be the spacefarers. Therefore it is the human beings who
have made the great evolutionary strides and must be contacted and
somehow induced to provide the lead and the gold and the requisite
information. Further attempts to communicate with the whales are
abandoned.
Before the alien ship has determined the method it will use to
contact humanity, chance provides it with an excellent opportunity.
During the final interactions with the whales, three human beings
are swimming in the neighborhood. By incredible luck, these three
find the deployed cradle and take it to the land. As a cautionary
move, the spaceship computer commands temporary changes inside the
cradle to ensure its protection and to provide for more frequent
status monitoring; however, there is no major concern yet. The
humans do not recognize the connection between the cradle and the
spacecraft. In addition, with the zygotes in their early stages of
pullulation, the cradle has an extremely robust design. Having the
cradle in the possession of humans at this time can also be viewed
as an advantage for the superaliens; receivers in the cradle can be
commanded to listen to the conversations and then telemeter to the
mother spacecraft information that will permit learning the
rudiments of the human language.
The logical processes in the extraterrestrial computers are
strained to the limit to figure out a way to contact human beings
for help without creating undue risk for both the Earth cradle and
the rest of the mission. The computers are about to decide on a
rapid strike at mines for the lead and gold when they realize,
based on their partial understanding of the human language, that
the three humans who found the cradle may be coming back into the
vicinity. All of the spaceship processors are strapped together to
design a scenario that will induce these humans to help them. The
inside of the spaceship is even reconfigured from scratch for the
arrival of the humans. For if the scenario is successful, there is
a high probability that the spaceship can continue on its mission,
having successfully deposited the millions of repatriated zygotes,
but without having disrupted the main flow of life on Earth. This
was the original goal of the mission.
IT was after two o'clock in the morning by the time the Florida
Queen left the marina and headed out into the Gulf of Mexico. Carol
and Troy stood together against the railing while Nick steered the
boat through the harbor. "Well, angel," Troy said, "it has already
been an unbelievable experience, hasn't it? And I must admit that I
myself am a little nervous about what we're going to find out at
the dive site this time."
"I thought you knew what was going to happen, Troy," Carol replied,
pointing at his bracelet. "Don't they tell you everything?"
"They tell me a lot. And I'm getting better at understanding their
messages. But how do I know if they're telling the truth?"
"We have had the same problem with you at times," Nick interjected
from under the canopy. The boat was almost out in the open ocean.
The lights from Key West were receding behind them. "In the final
analysis, particularly when nothing makes sense anyway, it comes
down to a question of trust. If I were to ask myself logically why
I am going out into the Gulf of Mexico in the middle of the night
to take lead and gold and information to some extraterrestrials who
stopped here on the Earth to make repairs - "
Carol laughed and interrupted. "But there's no logical way to
discuss this entire series of events. Troy already pointed that
out. We're not operating on logic. And I don't even think it's a
question of trust so much." She paused and looked up at the stars.
"It's more like faith."
Troy put his arm around Carol and smiled. "I agree with you, angel.
After all, we don't know shit. Only they know."
Carol yawned. There was silence on the boat. Everyone was very
tired. After the security men had surrounded Homer and Greta at the
Miyako Gardens, the police had of course been called. They had
arrived within ten minutes but it had seemed as if their questions
were going to last forever. Carol, Nick, and Troy had each been
required to file a separate written statement. Homer and Greta
admitted nothing, despite the fact that the security men had taken
two handguns from them and matching bullet fragments were found
inside Troy's car. Homer had phoned his lawyer and was expecting to
be out on bail within four to six hours.
When the trio did finally reach the marina (they had to walk from
the hotel because the police impounded Troy's car as evidence)
carrying the backpacks, Troy remembered that he had not yet
connected the new navigation equipment. Maybe it was because Troy
was tired or perhaps having his two friends watch him part of the
time over his shoulder made him nervous; whatever the reason, Troy
was very slow in installing and verifying the new navigation
processor.
Meanwhile, Carol and Nick had been checking to ensure that there
were three complete sets of diving apparatus onboard the boat. The
diving gear the men had used earlier in the evening was still out
at the base in the possession of the United States Navy. Nick
thought he recalled putting enough extra equipment on the boat to
handle the large party from Tampa that had originally chartered the
Florida Queen for the weekend. He was correct, but one of the
regulator systems did not function properly during the checkout and
had to be exchanged for a spare.
During the walk from the hotel to the marina, Nick and Carol and
Troy had come to the unanimous conclusion that they would all three
keep the underwater rendezvous with the superalien spaceship. There
was no other reasonable solution. The boat could certainly be
safely anchored. And none of the three of them could bear to think
of missing the climax to their adventure.
Nick entered the ocean coordinates of the dive site into the
navigation processor and put the boat on autopilot. He saw Carol
yawn again. It was infectious. As he opened his mouth for a long,
relaxing yawn, Nick realized how exhausted he was. He walked around
behind the canopy and found two light air mattresses in a jumbled
pile of supplies. He started inflating one of them by blowing into
a valve at the end.
Carol came around to the back of the boat when the first mattress
was almost inflated. The light on top of the canopy gave her face a
glow. She's even beautiful when she's tired, Nick thought. He
motioned to the other mattress. Carol bent down to pick it up and
started inflating it. And very capable. I've never met a woman who
was so good at so many things.
Nick finished with his air mattress and laid it down on the bottom
of the boat. Carol was tiring, so he helped her inflate the rest of
her mattress. He grabbed some towels and wadded them up like
pillows. "We all have to sleep some," he said to her as an
explanation. "Otherwise we'll be punchy when we try to dive."
Carol nodded and walked back to the edge of the canopy. "Is it all
right with you if Nick and I take a short nap?" she said to Troy.
He smiled his assent. "Wake one or both of us in an hour," she
continued, "if you want to use one of the air mattresses." She
turned around and started to leave. "Uh, Troy," she asked, before
she left the side of the canopy.
"Yes, angel?" he answered.
"Do you know where they came from?" She pointed at the sky. Not too
many stars were visible because of the brightness of the gibbous
moon. It was well past its zenith and already into its western
descent.
Troy looked up at the heavens and thought for almost a minute. "No,
angel," he responded at length. "I think they've tried to tell me,
maybe even twice, but I can't understand what they're saying. But I
do know that they come from another star."
Troy now walked over beside Carol and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
"Sleep tight and don't let the bedbugs bite," he said. "And maybe
you can ask them yourself after you wake up."
Where do you come from? Carol was thinking. And why did you land
here, in this place, at this time? She shaded her eyes from the
glare of the moon and concentrated her attention on Sirius, the
brightest true star in the sky. Do you have a home there, around
another star? With mothers and fathers and brothers? Do you have
love and oceans and mountains and music? And longing and loneliness
and fear of death? For reasons she could not understand, tears
found their way into Carol's eyes. She dropped her gaze and walked
back to the air mattresses. Nick was already stretched out on one
of them. He was on his back and his eyes were closed. Carol lay
down on the mattress beside him. She reached out and put her hand
in his. He pulled her hand to his lips, kissed it softly, and
dropped it on his chest.
Nick's dream was confusing. He was in the main lobby of a huge open
library with twenty floors of books. He could see the spiral
staircases ascending to the stacks above him. "But you don't
understand," he said to the clerk standing behind the long counter.
"I must read all these books this weekend. Otherwise I won't be
ready for the test on Monday."
"I'm sorry, sir," the diffident clerk replied quietly after
scanning Nick's list a second time. "But all copies of these books
are currently checked out."
Nick started to panic. He looked up at the enormously high ceiling
and the floors of shelved books above him. He saw Carol Dawson up
on the third floor, leaning against the railing and reading a book.
His panic subsided. She'll know the material, he thought to himself
in the dream. He raced over to the staircase and bounded up the two
flights of curving stairs.
He was out of breath when he reached Carol. She was reading one of
the books that had been on his list. "Oh, good," he said between
gasps, "I knew as soon as I saw you that there was no worry."
She looked at him quizzically. Without warning she thrust her hand
down into the top of his jeans and grabbed his penis. He responded
immediately and leaned forward to kiss her. She shook her head and
backed up. He pursued her, pushing her against the railing. She
fought him. He pressed hard against her body and succeeded in
kissing her. The railing gave way and they were falling, falling.
He woke up before they hit the floor in the lobby of the
library.
Nick shuddered himself awake. Carol was watching him intently. Her
head was resting on her hands, propped up by her elbow. "Are you
all right?" she asked as soon as he opened his eyes.
It took Nick a few seconds to acclimate after the vivid dream. His
heart was still racing out of control. "I think so," he said. Carol
continued to stare at him. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
he asked.
"Well," she began, "I woke up because you were talking. I even
thought I heard my name a couple of times. Maybe I imagined it. If
you don't mind my asking, do you often talk in your sleep?"
"I don't know," Nick answered. He laughed a little. "Nobody has
ever mentioned it to me before."
"Not even Monique?" Carol said. Her eyes did not leave Nick's. She
could tell that he was trying to decide what kind of answer to give
to her question. You're pushing again, a voice inside her said. Let
the man do things at his own pace.
Nick looked away. "We did not sleep together that much," he said
softly. There was a long pause. "Besides," he said, now turning
back to Carol, "that was ten years ago. I was very young. And she
was married to someone else."
While they had been sleeping Troy had switched off the light on the
top of the canopy. The only light on their faces now was the
reflection from the moon. They continued to look at each other in
silence. Nick had not said very much to Carol about Monique, but it
had been more than he had ever told anyone else, including his
parents. Carol knew how much of an effort it had been for him to
answer her question honestly. She rolled over on her back again and
extended her hand to Nick.
"So here we are, Mr. Williams. Two solitary voyagers on the sea of
life. Both of us are now past thirty. Many of our friends and
classmates have already settled down into that house in the suburbs
with the two kids and a dog. Why not us? What's different about
us?"
The moon was accelerating its downward arc through the sky above
them. As it descended, more stars could be seen on the opposite
horizon. Nick thought he saw a shooting star. There would be no way
to hide from feelings. Nick was jumping ahead of the conversation,
imagining for the moment that he was going to be involved with
Carol. She would not permit it. At least I would not have any
doubts about where we stood.
"When I was over at her house on Friday morning," Nick finally
replied to her question, "Amanda Winchester told me that I'm
looking for a fantasy woman, someone absolutely perfect. And that
mere mortals always come up short in my estimation." He propped his
head up and looked at Carol. "But I think it's something else. I
think maybe I'm not willing to make a commitment because of fear of
rejection."
Did I really say that? wondered Nick, shocked at himself. Instantly
he felt as if he never should have shared the thought. His defenses
began to build and he braced himself for a flippant or insensitive
reply.
But it did not come. Instead Carol was quiet and thoughtful. At
length she spoke. "My protection is different from yours," she
said. "I always play it safe. I pick men I admire and respect,
intellectual pals if you will, but for whom I do not have any
passion. When I meet a man who sets off the banjos and bells, I run
the other way."
Because I'm afraid, she thought. Afraid that I might love him as
much as I did my father. And I could not survive if I were
abandoned like that again.
She felt Nick's hand on her cheek. He was caressing her gently. She
reached up, took his hand, and squeezed it. He pulled himself up on
his side where he could see her better. She could tell that he
wanted to kiss her. She squeezed his hand again. Slowly,
tentatively, he dropped his mouth on hers. It was a tender, adoring
kiss, without pressure or overt passion, a subtle, artful question
that could have been either the beginning of a love affair or the
sole kiss exchanged between two people whose paths just happened to
cross in life. Carol heard banjos and bells.
WINTERS stood on the deck by himself, smoking quietly. It was not a
large boat, this converted trawler, but it was very fast. They had
not left the dock until after four o'clock and they had almost
caught up with their prey already. The commander rubbed his eyes
and yawned. He was tired. He blew smoke out over the ocean. On the
eastern horizon there was just a faint suggestion of dawn. To the
west, in the direction of the moon, Winters thought he saw the dim
light of another boat.
These young people must all be crazy, he thought to himself as he
reflected back on the events of the evening. Why the hell did they
leave? Did they push Todd down those stairs without his knowing it?
It would have been so much easier if they had just stayed there
until we returned.
He remembered the look on Lieutenant Ramirez' face when he had
interrupted the telephone conversation that Winters had been having
with his wife, Betty. "Excuse me. Commander," Ramirez had said. He
had been out of breath. "You must come quickly Lieutenant Todd is
injured and our prisoners have escaped."
He had told his wife that he had no idea when he would be home and
then joined Ramirez for the short walk back to the administration
annex. On the way Winters had been thinking about Tiffani, about
the difficulty he had had in explaining to the seventeen-year-old
why he could not just drop everything and meet her at the party.
"But you can work any day or night, Vernon," she had said. "This is
our only time to be together." She had already drunk too much
champagne. Later in the conversation, when Winters had made it
clear to her that he almost certainly would not make it to the
party at all, and that he would probably ask Melvin and Marc to
take her home, Tiffani had become petulant and angry. She had
stopped calling him Vernon. "All right, Commander," she had said,
"I guess I'll see you at the theater on Tuesday night."
The phone had clicked off and Winters had felt an ache tearing
through his heart. Oh fuck, he had thought for a moment, I've blown
it. He had imagined himself jumping in the car, forgetting Todd and
Ramirez and the Panther missile, and driving over to the party to
sweep Tiffani into his arms. But he had not done it. Despite his
incredible longing, he was not able to pull himself away from his
duty. If it was meant to be, he told himself consolingly, then
those flames of passion will burn again. But even with his limited
romantic experience Winters knew better. Timing is everything in a
love affair. If momentum is lost at a critical moment, especially
when the rhythm of the passion is heading for a climax, it will
never be regained.
Ramirez had already called the doctor on the base and he had
arrived at the annex just after the two officers. While they were
standing there together, Ramirez had insisted to Winters that it
must have been foul play, that Todd could not have fallen so hard
unless he had either been pushed or thrown down the concrete steps.
The lieutenant had begun to stir during the doctor's examination.
"He has a bad concussion," the doctor had said after he first
checked Todd's eyes. "He'll probably be all right but he'll have a
ferocious headache in the morning. Meanwhile, we'll take him over
to the infirmary and sew up that gash in his head."
To Winters it didn't make sense. While he was waiting patiently in
an adjoining room for the doctors and nurses to finish the stitches
in the lieutenant's head, Winters tried to figure out what possible
motive Nick and Carol and Troy could have had for attacking Todd
and then escaping. The Dawson woman is smart and successful. Why
would she do it? He wondered if perhaps the trio might have been
involved in some kind of big drug transaction. That would at least
explain all the gold. But Todd and Ramirez did not find any
indication of drugs. So what the hell is happening?
Lieutenant Todd had been kept awake during the procedure in the
emergency room. He had been given only a local anesthetic to reduce
his pain. But he had not been very lucid in response to the
doctor's simple questions. "That sometimes happens with a
concussion," the medical officer had told Winters afterward. "He
may not be very coherent for the next day or two."
Nevertheless, around two o'clock, immediately after Todd's head had
been shaven, stitched, and bandaged, Commander Winters and
Lieutenant Ramirez had decided to ask him about what had occurred
at the annex. The commander could not accept Todd's answer, even
though the lieutenant repeated it twice verbatim. Todd had insisted
that a six-foot carrot with vertical slits in its face had hidden
in the bathroom and had jumped him while he was trying to take a
piss. He had escaped that first assault, but the giant carrot had
then followed him into the main room at the annex.
"And just how did this thing - "
"Carrot," interrupted Todd.
"And how did this carrot attack you?" continued Winters. Jesus, he
had thought, this man has cracked. One bump on he head and he has
finally flipped.
"It's hard to describe exactly," Lieutenant Todd had answered
slowly. "You see, it had four doodads hanging out of these vertical
slits in its head. They were all mean looking - "
The doctor had come up and interrupted. "Gentlemen," he had said
with a perfect bedside smile, "my patient desperately needs rest.
Surely some of these questions can wait until tomorrow."
Commander Winters remembered an overpowering sense of bewilderment
as he watched the gurney take Lieutenant Todd from the emergency
operating room to the infirmary. As soon as Todd was out of
earshot, the commander had turned to Lieutenant Ramirez. "And what
do you make of all this, Lieutenant?"
"Commander, sir, I'm no medical expert ..."
"I know that, Lieutenant. I don't want your medical opinion. I want
to know what you think about the, uh, carrot business." Damn him,
Winters had thought. Does he have so little imagination that he
can't even react to Todd's story?
"Sir," Ramirez had replied, "the carrot business is outside my
experience."
To say the least. Winters smiled to himself and flipped his
cigarette into the water. He walked over to the little wheel-house
and checked the navigator. They were only seven miles from the
target boat and converging rapidly. He pulled back on the throttle
and put the boat into neutral gear. Winters did not want to draw
any closer to the Florida Queen until Ramirez and the other two
seamen were awake and in position.
He estimated that it was still about forty minutes until sunrise.
Winters laughed again about Ramirez's unwillingness to venture a
comment on Todd's carrot story. But the young Latino is a good
officer. His only mistake was following Todd. Winters remembered
how quickly Ramirez had organized all the details of their current
sortie, picking the high-tech converted trawler for speed and
stealth, rousting the two bachelor seamen who worked for him in
Intelligence, and establishing a special link between the base and
the trawler so that the whereabouts of the Florida Queen would be
known at all times.
"We must follow them. We really have no choice," Lieutenant Ramirez
had said firmly to Winters after they had verified that Nick's boat
had indeed left the Hemingway Marina just after two o'clock.
"Otherwise there's no way we could ever justify our having taken
them into custody in the first place."
Winters had reluctantly agreed and Ramirez had organized the chase.
The commander had told the younger men to get some sleep while he
formulated the plan. Which is simple. Okay, you guys, come with us
and answer the questions or we'll charge you under the sedition act
of 1991. Now, after putting the boat in idle, Winters was ready to
wake Ramirez and the other two men. He intended to apprehend Nick,
Carol, and Troy as soon as it was daylight.
The wind around the boat changed direction and Winters stopped a
minute to check the weather. He turned his face toward the moon.
The air suddenly felt warmer, almost hot, and he was reminded of a
night off the coast of Libya eight years earlier. The worst night
of my life, he thought. For a few moments his resolve to carry out
his plan wavered and he asked himself if he was about to make
another mistake.
Then he heard a trumpet blast, followed maybe four seconds later by
a similar but quieter sound. Winters looked around him in the
placid ocean. He saw nothing. Now he heard a group of trumpets and
their echo, both sounds distinctly coming from the west. The
commander strained his eyes in the direction of the moon.
Silhouetted against its face he saw what appeared to be a group of
snakes dancing out of the water. He went inside the wheelhouse to
fetch a pair of binoculars.
By the time the commander returned to the railing a magnificent
symphony surrounded him. Where is this incredible music coming
from? he asked at first, before he succumbed completely to its
mesmerizing beauty. He stood powerless against the railing,
listening intently. The music was rich, emotional, full of
evocative longing. Winters was swept away. not only into his own
past where his deepest memories were stored, but also onto another
planet in another era where proud and dignified serpents with blue
necks called to their loved ones during their short annual mating
rite.
He was spellbound. Tears were already flooding into his eyes when
he at last mechanically lifted the binoculars and focused on the
strange, sinuous shapes underneath the moon. The ghostlike images
were completely transparent; the moonlight went right through them.
As Winters watched what was a thousand necks dancing above the
water, cavorting back and forth in perfect rhythm, and as he heard
the music build toward the concluding crescendo of the Canthorean
mating symphony, his tired eyes blurred and he swore that what he
saw across the water in front of him, calling to him with a song of
longing and desire, was an image of Tiffani Thomas. His heart was
devastated by the combination of the music and the sight of her.
Winters was aware of an intense sense of loss unparalleled in his
life.
Yes, he said to himself as Tiffani continued to beckon in the
distance, I'm coming. I'm sorry Tiffani darling. Tomorrow I will
come to see you. We will ... He stopped his interior monologue to
wipe his eyes. The music had now entered the final crescendo.
signaling the actual mating dance of the pairs of Canthorean
serpents. Winters looked through his binoculars again. The image of
Tiffani was gone. He adjusted his glasses. Joanna Carr came into
focus, smiled briefly, and disappeared. A moment later the little
Arab girl from the Virginia beach seemed to dance just under the
moon. She was happy and gay. She too was gone in an instant.
The music was all around him. Bursts of sound, powerful, full,
expressing pleasure no longer anticipated but now being
experienced. He looked through his binoculars one more time. The
moon was setting. As it fell into the ocean the image created
against its illuminated disc by the dancing serpents was
unmistakable. Winters clearly saw the faces of his wife, Betty, and
his son, Hap. They were smiling at him together with a deep and
abiding affection. They remained there in his vision until the moon
sank completely into the ocean.
CAROL struggled to adjust her diving equipment. "Do you need some
help, angel?" Troy asked. He came over and stood beside her in the
predawn dark. He was already fully prepared for the dive.
"I haven't worn anything like this since my first set of scuba
lessons," she said, fidgeting uncomfortably with the old-fashioned
gear.
Troy tightened the weight belt around her waist. "You're scared,
aren't you, angel?" Carol didn't answer right away. "Me too. My
pulse rate must be twice normal."
Carol's equipment seemed to please her finally. "You know, Troy,
even after the last three days my brain is having a hard time
convincing the rest of me that all this is really happening.
Imagine writing it down for someone to read. "As we were preparing
to return to the alien spaceship ...' "
"Hey, you guys, come here," Nick called from the other side of the
canopy. Carol and Troy walked around to the front of the boat. Nick
was staring out across the ocean to the east. He handed a small
pair of binoculars to Carol. "Do you see a light out there in the
distance, just to the left of that island?"
Carol could barely make out the light. "Uh huh," she said to Nick.
"But so what? Isn't it reasonable that somewhere out in the ocean
there would be another boat?"
"Of course," Nick answered. "But that light hasn't moved for
fifteen minutes. It's just sitting there. Why would a fishing boat,
or any other kind of boat, be - "
"Sh," interrupted Troy. He put his fingers to his lips. "Listen,"
he whispered, "I hear music."
His companions stood quietly on the deck. Behind them the moon
disappeared into the ocean. Above the gentle lapping of the waves
all three of them could hear what sounded like the climax of a
symphony, played by a full orchestra. They listened for thirty
seconds. The music reached a peak, faded slightly, and then ceased
abruptly.
"That was beautiful," Carol remarked.
"And weird," Nick said, walking over beside her. "Where the hell
was it coming from? Is someone out there testing a new stereo
system? My God, if the sound travels five or ten miles, it must be
deafening up close."
Troy was standing off to the side by himself. He was concentrating
on something. Suddenly he turned to his companions. "I know this
sounds crazy," he said to Nick and Carol, "but I think the music
was a signal for us to dive. Or perhaps a warning."
"Great," said Carol. "That's what we need to reassure us. A warning
of some kind. As if we're not nervous enough."
Nick put his arm around her. "Hey, lady," he said, "don't wimp out
on us now. After all those brave comments about a once in a
lifetime experience ..."
"Really, let's go," Troy said impatiently. He looked anxious and
very serious. "I'm definitely getting the message that we should
dive now."
Troy's solemnity changed the mood of the trio. The three of them
worked together in silence to secure the two buoyancy bags
containing the lead, the gold, and the information discs. The
eastern sky continued to brighten. It was only about fifteen
minutes until sunrise.
While they were working, Carol noticed that Nick seemed a little
distracted. Right before they left the boat she walked up beside
him. "Are you all right?" she said quietly.
"Yes," he answered. "I'm just trying to figure out if I've
completely lost my mind. For eight years I have been thinking about
what I would do if I ever had my full share of the treasure. Now
I'm about to give it all away to some extra-terrestrials from God
knows where." He looked at her. "There's enough gold here to last
three people a long time."
"I know," she said, giving him a little hug. "I must admit that
I've thought about it too. But in reality, part belongs to Amanda
Winchester, part to Jake Lewis, most of it to the IRS ..." She
grinned. "And it's only money. That's nothing when you compare it
to being the only humans to interact with visitors from another
planet."
"I hope you're right," he said. "I hope I don't wake up tomorrow
and feel as if I've made a terrible mistake. This entire episode
has been so bizarre that I suspect my normal faculties aren't
working properly. We don't even know for sure if these aliens are
friendly ..."
Carol pulled her diving mask over her face. "We'll never have all
the answers," she said. She took his hand. "Let's go, Nick."
Troy was first into the water. Nick and Carol followed. It had been
agreed before the dive that Carol would take the searchlight and
lead the group. She was the most mobile of the threesome because
each of the men was dragging a buoyancy bag. The trio had been
concerned that they might have difficulty finding the ship and had
discussed an elaborate set of contingency plans for locating it.
They needn't have worried. Thirty feet under the Florida Queen, in
virtually the exact place where the fissure had been on Thursday,
there was a light in the water. Carol pointed at it and the two men
swam up behind her. As they drew closer, they saw that the light
was coming from a rectangular area about ten feet high and twenty
feet wide. They could not see anything except what looked like some
kind of material or fabric with a soft light behind it.
Carol hesitated. Troy swam right on by her, into the lighted area,
his buoyancy bag trailing behind him. Everything disappeared. Nick
and Carol waited. Carol felt herself tightening up. Come on now,
Dawson, she thought, it's your turn. You've been here before. She
took a deep breath and swam into the material. She felt something
like plastic touch her face and then she was in a covered tunnel. A
swift current was pulling her to the right. She went down a small
water slide and was deposited in a shallow pool at the bottom. She
clambered out of the pool and began removing her diving
equipment.
Troy was standing on the floor about ten feet beyond the end of the
pool. Next to him a warden had already taken the buoyancy bag,
opened it, and adroitly separated the gold bars and the lead
weights from the information discs. As Carol's eyes adjusted to the
dim light around her, she saw that the warden was now loading the
gold on a small platform sitting on top of tank treads about a foot
above the floor. Immediately thereafter, the warden placed the
information discs and the lead weights on two other platforms. A
carpet that had been lying inconspicuously over against the wall on
the left then rose up, apparently activated the treads under the
platforms, and directed them toward a nearby hallway leading out of
the room.
Carol pulled off her mask and finished removing her diving gear.
She was in a medium-sized room somewhat like the ones she and Troy
had encountered at the beginning of her last dive. The curved wall
partitions were colored black and white. There was a small window
to the ocean next to the splash pool on her left. The ceilings were
low and tight, only a couple of feet above her head, giving her a
feeling of claustrophobia. So here I am again, she thought, Back in
Wonderland. This time I will take plenty of pictures. She
photographed the procession of the carpet and three platforms just
as it disappeared from the room. She then changed lenses and took a
dozen quick close-up pictures of the warden standing next to Troy.
It had the same amoebalike central body as the one she had
confronted the day before, but there were only five implements
sticking out of its upper half. The warden had probably been
customized for its particular job of taking the objects from the
trio.
Troy walked over beside her. "Where's Nick?" he asked. My God,
Carol thought as she turned around and looked back at the slide and
splash pool. I almost forgot. She chastised herself for not having
waited for Nick. After all, he's never been down here ...
Nick's big body careened out of control against the sides of the
slide and he hurtled into the splash pool. The heavy buoyancy bag
came down behind him and hit him hard, just above the kidneys. He
stumbled to his feet, fell down in the pool, and then stood up
again. In his diving apparatus with the thin plastic material from
the bag tied around his wrist, it was he who looked like the
visitor from outer space.
Carol and Troy were laughing as Nick climbed out of the splash
pool. "All right. Professor!" exclaimed Troy. He reached forward to
give him a hand. "Good show. It's a shame we don't have that entry
on tape."
Nick removed his mouthpiece. He was out of breath. "Thanks a lot
for waiting, team," he stammered. He looked around him. "What is
this place, anyway?"
The warden meanwhile had approached him from the side and was
already tugging at the bag with one of its appendages. "Just a
minute, weirdo," Nick said, suppressing his fright. "Let me get my
bearings first."
The warden didn't stop. A knifelike appendage cut the bag below
where it was attached to Nick's wrist. Next the warden took the
entire bag, including its lead and gold contents, and somehow
pushed it through its own semipermeable outer skin. The bag could
be seen intact, adjacent to the rectangular control boxes, as the
warden turned and hurried across the floor. It went through the
same exit that the carpet and platforms had used earlier.
"You're welcome," Nick managed to say as he watched the strange
creature disappear with the loot. He finished taking off his diving
gear and walked over to Troy. "Okay, Jefferson, you're the main man
here. What do we do now?"
"Well, Professor," he answered, "as far as I can tell, our job is
finished. If you guys want, we can suit up again and jump through
that window wall over there. We'd be back in the boat in less than
five minutes. If I've read the messages right, these alien dudes
will be ready to leave very shortly."
"You mean that's it? We're done?" Carol asked. Troy nodded. "This
is the most overrated experience since my first sexual encounter,"
Carol commented.
Nick was walking across the room, moving directly away from the
splash pool and his two friends. "Where are you going?" Troy
asked.
"I paid a hefty admission price," Nick replied. "I'm at least
entitled to a tour." Carol and Troy followed him. They crossed the
empty room and walked through an exit between two wall partitions
on the opposite side. They entered a short, dark, covered corridor.
They could see light at the other end. They emerged into another
room, this one circular and significantly larger. It had the high
cathedral ceilings that Carol had liked so much on her last
visit.
This room was not empty. Sitting in its middle facing them was a
gigantic, enclosed, translucent cylinder, about twenty-five feet
high altogether and ten feet in diameter at its base. A horde of
orange pipes and purple cable sheaths attached the cylinder to a
group of machines built into the wall behind it. There was a light
green liquid filling the inside of the cylinder and eight gold
metallic objects floating at different heights in the liquid. The
objects were many different shapes. One looked like a starfish,
another like a box, a third like a derby hat; the only thing the
objects had in common was their gold metallic outer covering. Upon
close inspection of the cylinder, thin membranes could be seen
inside the liquid. These surfaces effectively partitioned the
internal volume and gave each of the golden objects its own unique
subvolume.
"All right, genius," Nick said to Troy, after he stared at the
cylinder for almost a full minute. "Explain what this is all
about." Carol was in a photographer's paradise. She had nearly
finished recording all hundred and twenty-eight pictures that could
be stored on one minidisc. She had photographed the cylinder from
all angles, including a close-up of each of the objects suspended
in the liquid, and was now working on the machines behind it. She
stopped taking pictures to listen to Troy's reply.
"Well, Professor ..." Troy started. His forehead was knitted as he
tried to concentrate. "As far as I can make out from what they've
been trying to tell me, this spaceship is on a mission to a dozen
planets that are scattered in this part of the galaxy. On each
planet the aliens leave one of those golden things you see in the
cylinder. They contain tiny embryos or seeds that have been
genetically engineered for survival on that specific planet."
Carol walked over beside them. "So the ship goes from planet to
planet, dropping off these packages containing seeds of some kind?
Sort of a galactic Johnny Appleseed?"
"Sort of, angel, except that there are both animal and plant seeds
inside the container. Plus advanced robots that nurture and educate
the growing things until they reach maturity. Then the creatures
can flourish on their own without help."
"All in that one little package?" Nick asked. He looked again at
the fascinating objects floating in the liquid in the cylinder. He
loved the golden color. All of a sudden he thought of the trident.
He imagined thousands of tiny swarming embryos inside its outer
golden surface and in his mind's eye he projected the growth of the
swarm into the future. There was something fearsome about creatures
genetically engineered to survive on the planet Earth. What if they
are not friendly?
Nick's heart sped up as he realized what had been bothering him,
partly subconsciously, since he started believing Troy's story
about the aliens. Why did they stop on the Earth in the first
place? What do they really want from us? His mind raced on. And if
that trident contains beings destined for Earth that are extremely
advanced, he thought, then it doesn't matter if they are friendly.
We will be finished sooner or later anyway.
Carol and Troy were talking in general terms about the way an
advanced civilization might use seeds to colonize other planets.
Nick wasn't listening carefully. I can't tell Troy or even Carol.
If the aliens know what I'm thinking they will stop me. I'd better
do it soon.
"Troy," he heard Carol say as she began to take another set of
pictures of the objects in the cylinder, "is it just co-incidence
that the trident we found on Thursday looks so much like one of
these seed packages?"
Nick did not wait for Troy to answer. "Excuse me," he interrupted
in a loud voice. "I forgot something very important. I must go back
to the boat. Stay here and wait for me. I'll be right back."
He burst out of the room, down the corridor, and across the room
with the low ceiling and the window on the ocean. Good, he said to
himself, nothing is going to stop me. Without even pausing to put
on his diving gear, Nick took a huge breath and dove through the
window. He was afraid that his lungs were going to explode before
he reached the surface. But he made it. He climbed up the ladder
and onto the boat.
Nick went immediately to the bottom drawer underneath the racks of
electronic equipment. He reached in and grabbed the golden trident.
He could feel that the axis rod had thickened considerably. It was
now nearly twice as thick as it had been the first time that he
held it. Carol was right. Damnit, why didn't I listen to her at the
time? He pulled the object completely out of the drawer. The sun
was just about to come up behind him. In the dawn light Nick could
see that the trident had changed in several other ways. It was
heavier. The individual tines on the fork end were much thicker and
had almost grown together. In addition, there was an open hole into
a soft, gooey interior on the north pole of the larger of the two
spheres.
Nick examined it carefully. Suddenly he felt powerful arms wrap
themselves around his chest and upper body, forcing him to drop the
trident on the floor of the boat. "Now just hold steady," he heard
a lightly accented voice say, "and turn around slowly. We won't
hurt you if you cooperate."
Nick turned around. Commander Winters and a tall, fat seaman that
Nick had never seen before were standing in front of him in
wetsuits. Lieutenant Ramirez was still holding him from behind.
Ramirez gradually released Nick and bent down to pick up the
trident. He handed it to Winters. "Thank you, Lieutenant," Winters
said. "Where are your companions, Williams?" he then asked Nick.
"Down there with my missile?"
Nick didn't say anything at first. Too much was happening too fast.
He was having difficulty integrating Winters into his scenario for
returning the trident to the spaceship. As soon as Nick had felt
the changes in its outer surface, he had known for certain that the
trident was one of the seed packages.
Winters was studying the trident. "And what's the significance of
this thing?" he said. "You guys have taken enough photographs of
it."
Nick was doing some calculations. If I am delayed here very long,
then Carol and Troy will undoubtedly leave the ship. And the aliens
will launch. He took a deep breath. My only chance is the
truth.
"Commander Winters," Nick began, "please listen very carefully to
what I'm about to say. It will sound fantastic, even preposterous,
but it's all true. And if you will come with me, I can prove
everything to you. The fate of the human race may well depend on
what we do in the next five minutes." He paused to organize his
ideas.
For some reason Winters thought about the ridiculous carrot story
that Todd had told him. But the earnestness he was seeing in Nick's
face persuaded him to continue to pay attention. "Go ahead,
Williams," he said.
"Carol Dawson and Troy Jefferson are right now onboard a
super-advanced extraterrestrial spaceship that is directly under
this boat. The alien vehicle is traveling from planet to planet
depositing packages of embryonic beings that are genetically
designed to survive on a particular planet. That golden thing in
your hand is, in a sense, a cradle for creatures that may later
flourish on the Earth. I must return it to the aliens before they
leave or our descendants may not survive."
Commander Winters looked at Nick as if he had lost his mind. The
commander started to say something. "No," Nick interrupted. "Hear
me out. The spacecraft also stopped here because it needed some
repairs. At one time we thought it might have found your missile.
That's partially how we got involved in the first place. We didn't
know about the creatures in the cradle. So we were trying to help.
One of the things the aliens needed for their repairs was gold. You
see, they only had three days - "
"Jesus K. Christ!" Winters shouted at Nick. "Do you really expect
me to believe this crap? This is the looniest, most farfetched
story I have ever heard in my entire life. You're nuts. Cradles,
aliens who need gold for repairs ... I suppose next you'll be
telling me that they are six feet tall and look like carrots - "
"And have four vertical slits in their faces?" Nick added.
Winters glanced around. "You told him?" he said to Lieutenant
Ramirez. Ramirez shook his head back and forth.
"No," Nick continued abruptly as the commander looked completely
confused. "The carrot thing wasn't an alien, at least not one of
the superaliens who made the ship. The carrot was a holographic
projection ..."
The perplexed Commander Winters waved his hands. " I'm not
listening to any more of this nonsense, Williams. At least not
here. What I want to know is what you and your friends know about
the location of the missile. Now will you come with us over to our
boat of your own free will, or do we have to tie you up?"
At that moment, six feet above them, a ten-legged, black,
spiderlike creature with a body about four inches in diameter
walked unnoticed to the edge of the canopy. It extended three
antennae in their direction and then leaped off the side, landing
on the back of Lieutenant Ramirez' neck. "Aieee," screamed the
lieutenant during the pause in the conversation. He fell down on
his knees behind Nick and grasped at the black thing that was
trying to take a sample chunk out of his neck. For a second nobody
moved. Then Nick grabbed a large pair of pliers from the counter
and thwacked the black thing once, twice, and even a third time
before it released its grip on Ramirez' neck.
All four men watched it fall to the deck, scuttle rapidly over to
the cradle that Commander Winters had put down so that he could
assist Ramirez, shrink its size by a factor of ten, and disappear
into the cradle through the soft gooey opening on the top of the
sphere. Within seconds the goo hardened and all the external
surfaces of the cradle were again rigid.
Winters was flabbergasted. Ramirez crossed himself. The seaman
looked as if he were about to faint. "I swear to you that my story
is true, Commander," Nick said calmly. "All you have to do is come
down with me and see for yourself. I left my diving gear down there
so that I could hurry up here to retrieve this thing. We can go
together with my last working tank and share the air supply."
Winters' head was spinning. The ten-legged spider was the straw
that broke the camel's back. He felt that he had now entered the
Twilight Zone. I have never seen or heard anything even remotely
like this before in my life, Winters thought. And only half an hour
ago I had wild hallucinations with musical accompaniment. Maybe I
am the one losing touch with reality. Lieutenant Ramirez was still
on his knees. It looked as if he were praying. Or maybe this is
finally my sign from God.
"All right, Williams," the commander was surprised to hear himself
say. "I'll go with you. But my men will wait here on your boat for
our return."
Nick picked up the trident and raced around the canopy to prepare
the diving equipment.
It took Carol and Troy a few seconds to react to Nick's abrupt
departure. "That was strange," Carol said finally. "What do you
suppose he forgot?"
"I have no idea," Troy shrugged. "But I hope he hurries back. I
don't think it's very long until launch. And I'm sure they will
throw us out before then."
Carol thought for a moment and then turned back to look at the
cylinder. "You know, Troy, those golden things are exactly like the
trident on the outside. Did you say - "
"I didn't answer you before, angel," Troy interrupted. "But yes,
you're right. It is the same material. I hadn't realized until we
came down here today that what we picked up on that first dive was
the seed package for Earth. They may have tried to tell me before;
maybe I just didn't understand them."
Carol was fascinated. She walked over and put her face against the
cylinder wall. It felt more like glass than plastic. "So maybe I
was right when I thought it was heavier and thicker ..." she said,
as much to herself as to Troy. "And inside that trident are seeds
for better plants and animals?" Troy nodded his head in
response.
There was now some motion inside the cylinder. The thin membranes
separating the subvolumes were growing what appeared to be
guidewires that were wrapping themselves around the individual
golden objects. Carol reloaded her camera with a new disc and ran
around the outside of the cylinder, stopping in the best positions
to photograph the process. Troy looked down at his bracelet.
"There's no doubt about it, angel. These ETs are definitely
preparing to launch. Maybe we should go."
'We'll wait as long as we can," Carol shouted from across the room.
"These photographs will he priceless." They both could now hear
weird noises behind the walls. The noises were not loud, but they
were distracting because they were erratic and so totally alien.
Troy paced nervously as he listened to the gamut of sounds. Carol
walked over beside him. "Besides," she said, "Nick asked us to wait
for him."
"That's great," Troy answered, "as long as they wait as well." He
seemed uncharacteristically nervous. "I don't want to be onboard
when these guys leave the Earth."
"Hey there, Mr. Jefferson," Carol said, you are supposed to he the
calm one. Relax. You just said yourself that you think they'll
throw us out before they leave." She paused and looked searchingly
at Troy. "What do you know that I don't?"
Troy turned away from her and started walking toward the exit.
Carol ran after him and grabbed his arm. "What is it, Troy?" she
said. 'What's wrong?"
"Look, angel," he replied, not looking directly at her, "I just
figured it out myself a minute ago. And I'm still not sure what it
means. I hope I haven't made a terrible - "
"What are you talking about?" she interrupted him. "You're not
making any sense."
"The Earth package," he blurted out. "It has human seeds in it too.
Along with the trees and insects and grasses and birds."
Carol stood facing Troy, trying to understand what was bothering
him so much. "When they came here a long long time ago," he said,
his face wrinkled with concern, "they took specimens of the
different species and returned them to their home world. Where they
were improved by genetic engineering and prepared for their
eventual return to the Earth. Some of those specimens were human
beings."
Carol's heart quickened as she realized what Troy was telling her.
So that's it, she said to herself. There are superhumans inside
that package we've found. Not just better flowers and better bugs,
but better people as well. But unlike Troy, Carol's immediate
reaction was not fear. She was overwhelmed by curiosity.
"Can I see them?" she asked excitedly. Troy didn't understand. "The
superhumans, or whatever you want to call them ... ," she
continued, "can I see them?"
Troy shook his head. "They're just tiny zygotes, angel. More than a
billion would fit in your hand. You wouldn't be able to see
anything."
Carol was not dissuaded. " But these guys have such amazing
technological ability. Maybe they can ..." She stopped. "Wait a
minute, Troy. Remember that carrot on the base? It was a
holographic projection and must have come somehow out of the
information base on this spacecraft."
Carol walked away from Troy into the middle of the room. She raised
her arms and looked up at the ceiling thirty feet above her. "Okay,
you guys, whoever you are," she invoked in a loud voice. "Now
there's something that I want. We risked our ass to get what you
needed for your repairs. You can at least reciprocate. I want to
see what we might look like someday ..."
To their left, not too far from one of the large blocky machines
connected to the cylinder, two of the wall partitions moved apart
to form a hallway. They could see light at the other end. "Come
on," an exultant Carol called to Troy, who was again smiling and
admiring her assertiveness, "let's go see what our superaliens have
created for us now."
At the end of the short corridor, there was a softly lit square
room about twenty feet on a side. Against the opposite wall,
illuminated by a blue light that gave the entire tableau a
surrealistic appearance, eight children were standing around a
large, glowing model of the Earth. As Carol and Troy approached,
they recognized that what they were seeing was not real, that it
was simply a complex sequence of images projected into the air in
front of them. But the diaphanous picture contained such rich
detail that it was easy to forget it was just a projection.
The children were four or five years old. All were wearing only a
thin white loincloth that covered their genitals. There were four
girls and four boys. Two of them were black, two were Caucasian
with blue eyes and blonde hair, two were Oriental, and the final
boy and girl, definitely twins, looked like a mixture of all
humanity What Carol immediately noticed was their eyes. All eight
children had large, piercing eyes of brilliant intensity that were
focused on the glowing Earth in front of them.
"The continents of this planet," the little black boy was saying,
"were once tied together in a single gigantic land mass that
stretched from pole to pole. This was relatively recently, only
about two hundred million years ago. Since that time the motion of
the plates on which the individual land masses rest has completely
changed the configuration of the surface. Here, for example, you
can see the Indian sub continent tearing away from Antarctica a
hundred million years ago and moving across the ocean toward an
eventual collision with Asia. It was this collision and the
subsequent plate interaction that lifted the Himalayas, the highest
mountains on the planet, to their current height."
As the little boy was talking, the electronic model Earth in front
of him demonstrated the continental changes that he was describing.
"But what is the mechanism that causes these plates and land masses
to move with respect to each other?" the tiny blonde-haired girl
asked.
"Psst," Carol whispered in Troy's ear. "How come they are speaking
English and know all this Earth geography?" Troy looked at her as
if he were disappointed and made a circular motion with his hands.
Of course, Carol said to herself, they've already processed the
discs.
"... then this activity results in material being thrust upward
from the mantle below the Earth's crust. Eventually the continents
are pushed apart. Any other questions?" The black boy was smiling.
He pointed at the model in front of him. "Here's what will happen
to the land masses in the next fifty million years or so. The
Americas will continue to move to the West, away from Africa and
Europe, making the South Atlantic a much larger ocean. The Persian
Gulf will close altogether, Australia will drive north toward the
equator and press against Asia, and both Baja California and the
area around Los Angeles will split off from North America to drift
northward in the Pacific Ocean. By fifty million years from now Los
Angeles will start sliding into the Aleutian Islands."
All of the children watched the changing globe with complete
attention. When the continents on the surface of the model stopped
moving, the Oriental boy stepped slightly out from the group. "We
have seen this continental drift phenomenon that Brian has been
describing on half a dozen other planets, all of them bodies mostly
covered by a liquid. Tomorrow Sherry will lead a more detailed
discussion about the forces inside a planet that cause the sea
floor to spread in the first place."
A projected image of a warden entered the scene from the left and
removed both the Earth globe and several other unidentified props.
The small boy waited patiently for the warden to complete his task
and then continued, "Darla and David now want to share with us a
project they have been working on for several days. They will play
the music while Miranda and Justin perform the dance they
choreographed."
The mixed twins turned eagerly to their classmates. The girl spoke
out. "When we first learned about adult love and the changes that
we all can expect after we pass puberty, David and I tried to
envision what it would be like to find a new desire even stronger
than those we already know. Our joint vision became a short musical
composition and a dance. We call it 'The Dance of Love.' "
The two children sat down away from the group, almost at the side
of the image, and began moving their fingers rapidly as if they
were typing on the floor. A light synthesized melody, pleasant and
spirited, filled the room. The blond boy and the Oriental girl
began to dance in the center of the group. At first in the dance,
the two were totally separate, unaware of each other, each child
completely absorbed in his own activities. The boy knelt down to
pick a beautiful flower, its red and white coloring shimmering in
the holographic projection. The girl bounced a large bright blue
ball as she danced. After a while the little girl noticed the boy
and approached him, somewhat tentatively, offering to share the
ball. The boy played ball with her but ignored everything except
the game.
This is magic, thought Carol as she watched the children's images
moving with grace and deft precision in front of her. These
children are wonderful. But they can't be real. They are too
orderly, too self-contained. Where is the tension, the strife? But
despite her questions she was profoundly moved by the scene she was
witnessing. The children were acting in concert, as a group,
flowing in harmony from activity to activity. Their body language
was open and unafraid. No neuroses were blocking their learning
process.
The dance continued. The music deepened as the boy began to pay
attention to his partner and she began arranging her hair with his
favorite flowers for their brief encounters. The body movements
changed as well, the sprightly, exuberant bounces of the initial
stages giving way to subtly suggestive motions designed to awaken
and then tease the budding libido. The tiny dancers touched, moved
away, and came back together in an embrace.
Carol was entranced. How would my life have been different, she
wondered, if I had known all this at the age of five? She
remembered her rich friend at soccer camp, Jessica from Laguna
Beach, whom she had seen occasionally in subsequent years. Jessica
was always ahead, always had to be first. She had had sex with boys
before I even started my period. And look what happened to her.
Three marriages, three divorces, just thirty years old.
Carol tried to stop her mind from drifting so that she could pay
complete attention to the dance. Suddenly she remembered her
camera. She had just taken her first pictures of the children when
she heard a noise behind her. Nick was coming toward them through
the corridor. And he was carrying the trident in his hand.
Nick started to say something but Troy hushed him by putting his
finger against his own lips and pointing at the dance in progress.
The tempo had now changed. The two mixed children had somehow put
the music on automatic (it seemed to be repeating some of the early
verses, but with additional instruments in a more complex pattern)
and joined the blond boy and the Oriental girl in the dance.
Carol's first impression before Nick spoke out loud was that the
dance was now exploring friendships between the paired couple and
other people.
"What's this all about?" Nick said. The moment he spoke the entire
projected tableau vanished. All of the children, the dance, and the
music disappeared in an instant. Carol was surprised to find that
she was disappointed and even a little angry. "Now you've blown
it," she said.
Nick looked at his companions' stern faces. "Jesus," he said,
holding up the cradle, "such a greeting. I bust my butt to go
retrieve this damn thing and you guys are pissed when I come back
because I interrupt a movie of some kind."
"For your information, Mr. Williams," Carol replied, "what we were
watching was no ordinary movie. In fact, those kids in that dance
are the same species as the ones in your trident." Nick looked at
her skeptically. "Tell him, Troy."
"She's right, Professor," Troy said. "We just figured it out while
you were gone. That thing you're carrying is the seed package for
Earth. Some of the zygotes in there are what Carol calls
superhumans. Genetically engineered humans with more capability
than you or me. Like the kids we just saw."
Nick lifted the cradle to eye level. "I had figured out myself that
this thing was a seed package. But what's this shit about human
seeds?" He glanced at Troy. "You're serious, aren't you?" Troy
nodded his head. Troy nodded. All three of them stared intently at
the object in front of them. Carol kept glancing back and forth
from the trident to where the image of the superchildren had been.
"It still doesn't seem possible," Nick added, "but then nothing
else has for the last - "
"So what did you forget, Nick?" Carol interrupted. "And why did you
bring that thing back?" There was no immediate response from Nick.
"By the way," she smiled, "you missed the show of a lifetime."
"The trident was what I forgot," Nick answered. "It occurred to me,
while I was studying the gold objects in the cylinder, that our
trident might be a seed package. And I was worried that it might be
dangerous ..."
The sudden sound of organ music flooding down the corridor from the
large room behind them stopped their conversation. Nick and Carol
looked at Troy. He put the bracelet up to his ear as if he were
listening to it and cracked a large grin. "I think that's the
five-minute warning," Troy said. "We'd better make our last
touchdown and clear out of here."
The trio turned and walked back down the corridor to the room with
the cylinder. When they arrived. Carol and Troy were astonished to
see a figure in a blue and white wetsuit on the opposite side of
the room. He was kneeling reverently right next to the
cylinder.
"Oh, yeah." said Nick with a nervous laugh, "I forgot to tell you.
Commander Winters came back with me ..."
Commander Winters had felt quite comfortable in the water even
though he had not been down on a dive in five years. Nick had gone
freestyle, swimming right beside the commander and using the
emergency mouthpiece connected to the air supply on Winters' back.
Despite his sense of urgency, Nick had remembered that Winters was
basically a novice again and had not rushed the first part of the
dive. But when Winters had refused several times to follow Nick up
close to the light in the ocean, Nick had become exasperated.
Nick had then taken a final deep breath from the ancillary
mouthpiece and grabbed Winters by the shoulders. With gestures, he
had explained to the commander that he, Nick, was going to go
through the plastic stuff or whatever it was in front of the light
and that Winters could either follow him or not. The commander had
reluctantly given Nick his hand. Nick turned around immediately and
pulled Winters into and through the membrane that separated the
alien spaceship from the ocean.
Winters had been completely terrified during his tumble on the
water slide inside the vehicle. As a result he had lost his
bearings and had had great difficulty standing up after he landed
in the splash pool. Nick was already out of the pool and anxious to
find his friends. "Look," Nick had said, as soon as he could get
the commander's attention, "I'm going to leave you now for a few
minutes." He had pointed at the exit on the opposite of the room.
"We'll be in the big room with the high ceilings just on the other
side of that wall." Then he had left carrying the strange golden
object from the boat.
Winters was left alone. He carefully pulled himself out on the side
of the splash pool and methodically stacked his equipment alongside
all the rest of the diving gear. He looked around the room, noting
the curves in the black and white partitions. He too felt the
closeness of the ceiling. Now according to Williams, the commander
thought to himself, I'm in part of an alien spaceship that has
temporarily stopped on Earth. So far, except for that clever
one-way entrance that I did not have time to analyze, I see no
evidence of extraterrestrial origin ...
Comforted by his logic, he eased across the room toward the
opposite wall and into the dark corridor. But his newfound sense of
comfort was totally destroyed when he walked into the room
dominated by the enormous cylinder with the golden objects floating
in the light green liquid. He arched his back and stared at the
vaulted, cathedral ceilings far above his head. He then approached
the cylinder.
For Winters, the connection between the trident that Nick had been
holding and the objects inside the cylinder was instantaneous.
Those must be more seed packages, destined for other worlds.
Winters thought, his crisp logic disappearing in a quick leap of
faith. With six-root carrots and who knows what else to populate a
few of the billions of worlds in our galaxy alone.
The commander walked around the cylinder as if he were in a dream.
His mind continually replayed both what Nick had told him right
before they descended and the amazing scene he had witnessed when
the spiderlike creature had shrunk up and jumped into the golden
object. So it's all true. All those things the scientists have been
saying about the possibility of vast hordes of living creatures out
there among the stars. He stopped for a moment, partially listening
to the strange noises behind the walls. And we are only a few of
God's many many children.
Organ music, similar in timbre to that which Carol had heard when
she had finished playing "Silent Night," but with a different tune,
began to sound in the distant reaches of the ceiling above him. It
reminded Winters of church music. His reaction was instinctual . He
knelt down in front of the cylinder and clasped his hands together
in prayer.
The music swelled in the room. What Winters heard in his head was
the introduction to the Doxology. the short hymn that he had heard
every single Sunday for eighteen years in the Presbyterian church
in Columbus, Indiana. In his mind's eye he was thirteen years old
again and sitting next to Betty in his choir robes. He smiled at
her and they stood up together.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
The choir sang the first phrase of the hymn and Winters' brain was
bombarded by a montage of memories from his early teens and before,
a suite of epiphanic images of his innocent and unknowing closeness
with a parental God, one who was in the wall behind his bed or just
over his rooftop or at most in the summer afternoon clouds above
Columbus. Here was an eight-year-old boy praying that his father
would not find out that it was he who had set fire to the vacant
lot across from the Smith mansion. Another time, at ten, the little
Vernon wept bitter tears as he held his dead cocker spaniel Runtie
in his arms and begged the omniscient God to accept his dead dog's
soul into heaven.
The night before the Easter pageant, the first time that Vernon had
portrayed Him in His final hours, dragging the cross to Calvary,
eleven-year-old Vernon had been unable to sleep. As the night was
passing by the boy began to panic, began to fear that he would
freeze up and forget his lines. But then he had known what to do.
He had reached under his pillow and found the little New Testament
that always stayed there, day and night. He had opened it to
Matthew 28. "Go ye therefore," it had said, "baptizing all nations
..."
That had been enough. Then Vernon had prayed for sleep. His
friendly, fatherly God had sent the little boy an image of himself
delivering a spellbinding performance in the pageant the next day.
Comforted by that picture, he had fallen asleep.
Praise Him all creatures here below.
With the second phrase of the hymn resounding in his ears the venue
for Winters' mental montage changed to Annapolis Maryland. He was a
young man now, in the last two years of his university work at the
Naval Academy. The pictures that flooded his brain were all taken
at the same place, outside the beautiful little Protestant chapel
in the middle of the campus. He was either walking in or walking
out. He went in the snow, in the rain, and in the late summer heat.
He would fulfill his pledge. He had made a bargain with God, a
business deal as it were, you do your part and I'll do mine. It was
no longer a one-sided relationship. Now, life had taught the
serious young midshipman from Indiana that it was necessary to
offer this God something in order to guarantee His compliance with
the deal.
For two years Vernon went regularly to the chapel, twice a week at
least. He did not really worship there; he corresponded with a
worldly God, one that read the New York Times and the Wall Street
Journal. They discussed things. Vernon reminded Him that he was
steadfastly upholding his end of the deal and thanked Him for
keeping His part of the bargain. But never once did they talk about
Joanna Carr. She didn't matter. The whole affair was between
Midshipman Vernon Winters and God.
Praise Him above ye heavenly host.
The commander had unconsciously bowed his head almost to the floor
by the time he heard the third phrase of the hymn. In his heart he
knew the next stops on this spiritual journey. He was off the coast
of Libya first, praying those horrible words requesting death and
destruction for Gaddafi's family. God had changed as Lieutenant
Winters had matured. He was now an executive, a president of
something larger than a nation, an admiral, a judge, somewhat
remote, but still accessible in time of real need.
However, he had lost his all-forgiving nature. He had become stern
and judgmental. Killing a small Arab girl wasn't like burning down
the vacant lot across from the Smith mansion. Winters' God now held
him personally accountable for all his actions. And there were some
sins almost beyond forgiveness, some deeds so heinous that one
might wait for weeks, months, or even years in the anterooms of His
court before He would consent to hear your plea for mercy and
expiation.
Again the commander remembered his desperate search for Him after
that awful evening when he had sat on the couch beside his wife and
watched the videotaped newsreels of the Libya bombing. She had been
so proud of him. She had taped every segment of CBS news that had
covered the North African engagement and then surprised him with a
complete showing the day after he returned to Norfolk. It was only
then that the full horror of what he had done had struck Winters.
Struggling not to vomit as the camera had shown the gruesome result
of those missiles that had been fired from his planes, Winters had
stumbled out into the night air, alone, and wandered until
daybreak.
He had been looking for Him. A dozen times in the next three years
this rite would repeat itself and he would wander again, all night,
alternately praying and walking, hoping for some sign that He had
listened to the commander's prayers. The stars and moon above him
on those nights had been magnificent. But they could not grant
forgiveness, could not give surcease to his troubled soul.
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
And so God became blackness, a void, for Commander Winters. On
those rare occasions afterward when he would pray, there was no
longer any mental image of God, no picture of Him at all in his
mind. There was just blackness, darkness, emptiness. Until this
moment. As he knelt there outside the cylinder, heard the final
phrase of the Doxology, and prayed to God to forgive him his
doubts, his longings for Tiffani Thomas, and his general lack of
direction, there was an explosion of light in Winters mind's eye.
God was speaking to him! God had at last given him a sign!
It was not the sign that Winters had been seeking, not evidence
that He had finally forgiven the commander and accepted his
penance, but something much much better. The explosion of light in
Winter's mind was a star, a solar furnace forging helium out of
hydrogen. As his mental camera backed away rapidly, Winters could
see planets around that star and signs of intelligence on a few of
the planets. There were other stars and other planets in the
distance. Billions of stars in this galaxy alone and, after the
mammoth voids between the galaxies, more huge collections of stars
and planets and living creatures stretching incomprehensible
distances in all directions.
Winters' body shook with joy and his eyes flooded with tears when
he realized how completely God had answered his prayers. It would
not have been enough for Him to simply reveal to Winters that he
was forgiven. No, this Lord of everything imaginable, whose domain
embraced chemicals risen to consciousness on millions of worlds in
a vast and uncountable universe, this God who was truly omnipotent
and ubiquitous, had gone way beyond his prayers. He had shown
Winters the unity in everything. He had not limited Himself just to
the affairs of one individual on a small and insignificant blue
planet orbiting an ordinary yellow sun in one of the spiral arms of
the Milky Way Galaxy; he had also shown Winters how that species
and its pool of intelligence and spirituality was connected to
every part of every atom in His grand dominion.
As Nick walked across the room toward Commander Winters, the
intermittent noises behind the walls increased in amplitude and
frequency. Around on the far side of the cylinder, next to one of
the larger support machines, a door opened and two carpets, moving
inchworm style, came into the room. They were immediately followed
by two wardens and four platforms on treads. The platforms were
carrying stacks of building materials. Each of the wardens led two
platforms to a corner of the room, where they started constructing
secure anchor stanchions for the cylinder.
The two carpets confronted Nick in the center of the room. They
stood up on end and leaned in the direction of the exit toward the
ocean. "They're telling us it's time to go," Carol said as she and
Troy came up beside Nick.
"I understand that," Nick replied. "But I'm not yet ready to
leave." He turned to Troy. "Does this game have an X key at all?"
he asked. "I could use a time out."
Troy laughed. "I don't think so, Professor. And there's no way we
can save the game and try again."
Nick looked as if he were in deep thought. The carpets continued to
beckon. "Come on, Nick," Carol grabbed him by the arm. "Let's go
before they get angry."
Suddenly Nick advanced toward one of the carpets and extended the
golden cradle. "Here," he said, "take this and put it with the rest
of them, up there, in the cylinder where it belongs." The carpet
recoiled and twisted its top from side to side. Then it pulled its
two vertical sides together and pointed at Nick.
"I don't need a bracelet to interpret that gesture," Troy remarked.
"The carpet is plainly telling you to take the trident back to your
boat."
Nick nodded his head and was quiet for a moment. "Is this the only
one?" he asked Troy. Troy didn't understand the question. "Is this
the only seed package for Earth?"
"I think so," Troy answered after a moment's hesitation. He looked
at Nick with a puzzled expression.
Meanwhile the activity level in the room had increased
substantially. As Commander Winters ambled toward the trio in the
middle of the hubbub, the wardens and platforms were actively
building in the corners, moving equipment could be heard behind the
walls, and the organ music was growing louder and slightly ominous.
In addition, a giant sock or cover of some kind, lined with a soft,
pliant material, had unfurled above them in the ceiling and was
descending slowly over the cylinder. Commander Winters stared
around the room with undisguised astonishment. Still serenely
content in his heart from the beauty and intensity of his epiphany,
he was not paying much attention to the conversation beside
him.
"They must take this thing with them," Nick was saying earnestly to
Carol and Troy. "Don't you see? It's even more important now that I
know there are human seedlings inside. Our children won't have a
chance."
"But they were so beautiful, so smart," Carol said. "You didn't see
them like we did. I can't believe those children would ever hurt
anybody or anything."
They wouldn't mean to destroy us," Nick argued. "It would just
happen."
The carpets were starting to jump up and down. "I know, I know,"
Nick said as he again extended the cradle toward them. "You want us
to go. But first, please listen to me. We've helped you, now I'm
asking that you help us. I'm afraid of what might be in this
package, afraid that it might upset the delicate stability of our
planet. Our progress as a species has been slow, in fits and
starts, with almost as many backward steps as forward. Whatever is
here could threaten our future development. Or maybe even halt it
altogether."
The activity in the room continued unabated. There was no
noticeable reaction to Nick's speech from the impatient carpets,
who were now taking turns walking over to the exit in case the dumb
humans still did not understand their message. Nick looked
entreatingly at Carol. She returned his gaze and smiled. After a
few seconds she came over and took his hand. Their eyes met for a
brief moment as she started talking and Nick saw a new expression,
something approaching admiration, in her glance.
"He's right, you know," Carol said in the direction of the pair of
carpets. "You haven't thought carefully enough about the outcome of
this mission of yours. Sooner or later your special embryos and the
humans already on this planet will interact and there will be a
catastrophe. If the seed package is found early in the development
of your superhumans, I am certain the Earthlings will feel
compelled to destroy it. What possible other reaction could they
have? The magnitude of the threat may not be fully known, but it is
easy to recognize that creatures genetically engineered by
superaliens could pose a gigantic problem for the native species of
this planet."
Troy was standing just behind Nick and Carol, listening attentively
to what she was saying. Around him the preparations for launch
continued. The wardens and platforms had finished constructing and
installing the two pairs of stanchions that would be connected to
the cylinder during launch to minimize vibrations. The golden
cradles in the cylinder could no longer be seen; the cover had
descended almost to the floor.
"... So unless you take this golden package back with you, perhaps
to place it on another world which does not yet have intelligence,
there will be unnecessary death. Either your seedlings will perish
before maturity or the native humans like us will eventually be
swallowed up, if not killed outright, by the more capable beings
you have engineered. That hardly seems to be a fair reward for our
effort on your behalf."
Carol stopped to watch four strange cords extend themselves from
the top and near the bottom of the cylinder, wriggle through the
air, and end up attached to the stanchions in the corners of the
room. The carpets were becoming increasingly agitated. The two
wardens finished supervising their prelaunch procedures. They
turned abruptly toward the four human beings and moved in their
direction.
Carol tightened her hold on Nick's hand. "Perhaps it's true that
our natural development is a slow and not altogether satisfactory
process, " she continued, fear creeping into her voice as the
dreaded wardens quickly approached them, "and it's certainly true
that we humans here make mistakes, both as individuals and as
groups . However, you can't overlook the fact that this imperfect
process produced us, and we had enough foresight or compassion or
whatever you want to call it - "
"Hold it," shouted Troy. He seized the cradle from Nick's hand and
jumped directly into the path of one of the menacing wardens. He
was only inches away from two whirling, threatening rods with
cutting implements on the end. "Hold it," he shouted again.
Miraculously, all activity ceased. The carpets and wardens stood
still, the noises in the wall stopped, even the organ music was
silenced. "Of all of us," Troy said in a loud voice, his head
tilted back and aimed at the ceiling, "I have the most knowledge of
what your mission is all about. And the most to lose by
recommending that you abandon this part of it. But I agree with my
friends."
Troy removed his bracelet and then dramatically jammed both the
bracelet and the cradle inside the warden. He felt as if he were
plunging his hand into a bowl of hot bread dough. He released both
objects and withdrew his hand. The warden didn't move. The bracelet
and the cradle remained where Troy left them inside the warden's
body.
"From the very beginning I realized that the bracelet you gave me
enabled me to have special powers, talents that were not naturally
mine. I understood, without knowing the specifics, that there would
be a substantial and continuing reward for my helping you. And I
thought that finally, finally, Troy Jefferson would be somebody
special in this world."
Troy walked past the amazed Commander Winters, who was following
the proceedings with a peaceful detachment, and came up beside Nick
and Carol. It was absolutely quiet in the room. "When my brother,
Jamie, was killed," he began again softly, "I swore that I would do
whatever was necessary to leave my imprint on society. During those
two years that I wandered all over the country, I spent most of my
time daydreaming. My dreams all had the same conclusion. I would
discover something new and earthshaking and become both rich and
famous overnight."
Troy gave Carol a quick kiss and winked. "I love you, angel," he
said. "And you too, Professor." Troy then turned around and faced
the covered cylinder. "When I left here on Thursday afternoon, I
was so excited I couldn't contain myself. I kept saymg, 'Shit,
Jefferson, here it is. You are going to be the most important man
in the history of the fucking world.' "
Troy paused. "But I have learned something very important these
last three days," he said, "something that most of us probably
never consider. It is that the process is more important than the
end result. It is what you learn while you're dreaming or scheming
or working toward a goal that is essential and valuable, not the
achievement of the goal itself. And that's why you guys must now do
what my friends have asked.
"I know that you ETs have tried to explain to me in these last
several minutes, through the bracelet that you offered me for life,
that the new humans you are depositing here will lead us primitive
beings into a bold and wonderful era. That may be true. And I agree
that we could use some help, that our species is full of prejudice
and selfishness and all kinds of other problems. But you cannot
simply give us the answers. Without the benefit of the struggle to
improve ourselves, without the process of overcoming our own
weaknesses, there will be no fundamental change in us old humans.
We will not become better. We will become second-class citizens,
acolytes in a future of your vision and design. So take your
perfect humans away and let us make it on our own. We deserve the
chance."
There was no movement in the room for several seconds after Troy
finished. Then the warden in front of him jerked sideways and began
to move. Troy braced for an attack. But the warden moved in the
direction of the exit next to the cylinder. The bracelet and cradle
could still be seen inside its body.
"All right, team," Troy shouted happily. Nick and Carol hugged.
Troy took Commander Winters by the hand. As they were leaving, the
four of them turned around one last time to look at the large
chamber. In this final view, each one of them saw the room in terms
of his own amazing experiences. The noises had begun again behind
the walls. And the carpets, platforms, and wardens were filing out
of the room through the door beside the covered cylinder.
They had only been onboard the boat for three or four minutes when
the water underneath them suddenly became very turbulent. They were
strangely quiet, all four of them. A frustrated Lieutenant Ramirez
paced about the deck, trying to get someone to tell him what had
happened under the water. Even Commander Winters virtually ignored
the lieutenant and just shook his head or gave simple answers to
all his questions.
They were certain that the spaceship was about to launch. They
didn't realize that it would glide gently away from their area
first, so that it would not submerge them with a giant wave, before
breaking the water and heading into the sky. The water stayed
agitated for several minutes. All of them scanned the ocean for a
sign of the vehicle.
"Look," yelled Commander Winters excitedly, pointing at a giant
silver bird lifting into the sky about forty-five degrees away from
the early morning sun. Its rise was initially slow, but as it rose
it accelerated rapidly. Nick and Carol and Troy clasped hands
tightly as they watched the awesome spectacle. Winters came over
and stood beside the trio. After thirty seconds the craft had
disappeared above the clouds. There was never any sound.
"Fantastic," said Commander Winters.