The Ice Limit

by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

Dou­glas Pre­ston - Lin­coln Child

BE­YOND THE ICE LIM­IT

Dou­glas Pre­ston & Lin­coln Child

Is­la Des­olación,

Jan­uary 16, 1:15 P.M.

THE VAL­LEY that had no name ran be­tween bar­ren hills, a long mot­tled floor of gray and

green cov­ered with sol­dier moss, lichens, and carpha grass­es. It was mid-​Jan­uary — the height of sum­mer — and the crevass­es be­tween the patch­es of bro­ken rock were mortared with tiny pin­guic­ula flow­ers. To the east, the wall of a snow­field gleamed a bot­tom­less blue. Black­flies and mosquitoes droned in the air, and the sum­mer fogs that shroud­ed Is­la Des­olación had tem­porar­ily bro­ken apart, al­low­ing a wa­tery sun­light to speck­le the val­ley floor.

A man walked slow­ly across the is­land’s grav­eled flats, stop­ping, mov­ing, then stop­ping again. He was not fol­low­ing a trail — in the Cape Horn is­lands, at the nether­most tip of South Amer­ica, there were none.

Nestor Masangkay was dressed in worn oil­skins and a greasy leather hat. His wispy beard was so thick with sea salt that it had di­vid­ed it­self in­to forked tips. It wag­gled like a snake’s tongue as he led two heav­ily bur­dened mules across the flats. There was no one to hear his voice com­ment­ing un­fa­vor­ably on the mules’ parent­age, char­ac­ter, and right to ex­is­tence. Once in a while the com­plaints were punc­tu­at­ed with the thwack of a suck­er rod that he car­ried in one brown hand. He had nev­er met a mule, es­pe­cial­ly a rent­ed mule, that he liked.

But Masangkay’s voice held no anger, and the thwacks of his suck­er rod held lit­tle force. Ex­cite­ment was ris­ing with­in him. His eyes roamed over the land­scape, tak­ing in ev­ery de­tail: the colum­nar basaltic es­carp­ment a mile away, the dou­ble-​throat­ed vol­canic plug, the un­usu­al out­crop­ping of sed­imen­ta­ry rock. The ge­ol­ogy was promis­ing. Very promis­ing.

He walked across the val­ley floor, eyes on the ground. Once in a while a hob­nailed boot would lash out and kick a rock loose. The beard wag­gled; Masangkay grunt­ed; and the cu­ri­ous pack train would move on once again.

In the cen­ter of the val­ley, Masangkay’s boot dis­lodged a rock from the flat. But this time he stopped to pick it up. The man ex­am­ined the soft rock, rub­bing it with his thumb, abrad­ing small gran­ules that clung to his skin. He brought it to his face and peered at the grit with a jew­el­er’s loupe.

He rec­og­nized this spec­imen — a fri­able, green­ish ma­te­ri­al with white in­clu­sions — as a min­er­al known as co­esite. It was this ug­ly, worth­less rock that he had trav­eled twelve thou­sand miles to find.

His face broke in­to a broad grin, and he opened his arms to heav­en and let out a ter­rif­ic whoop of joy, the hills trad­ing echoes of his voice, back and forth, back and forth, un­til at last it died away.

He fell silent and looked around at the hills, gaug­ing the al­lu­vial pat­tern of ero­sion. His gaze lin­gered again on the sed­imen­ta­ry out­crop, its lay­ers clear­ly de­lin­eat­ed. Then his eyes re­turned to the ground. He led the mules an­oth­er ten yards and pried a sec­ond stone loose from the val­ley floor with his foot, turn­ing it over. Then he kicked loose a third stone, and a fourth. It was all co­esite — the val­ley floor was prac­ti­cal­ly paved with it.

Near the edge of the snow­field, a boul­der — a glacial er­rat­ic — lay atop the tun­dra. Masangkay led his mules over to the boul­der and tied them to it. Then, keep­ing his move­ments as slow and de­lib­er­ate as pos­si­ble, he walked back across the flats, pick­ing up rocks, scuff­ing the ground with his boot, draw­ing a men­tal map of the co­esite dis­tri­bu­tion. It was in­cred­ible, ex­ceed­ing even his most op­ti­mistic as­sump­tions.

He had come to this is­land with re­al­is­tic hopes. He knew from per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ence that lo­cal leg­ends rarely panned out. He re­called the dusty mu­se­um li­brary where he had first come across the leg­end of Hanuxa: the smell of the crum­bling an­thro­po­log­ical mono­graph, the fad­ed pic­tures of ar­ti­facts and long-​dead In­di­ans. He al­most hadn’t both­ered; Cape Horn was a hell of a long way from New York City. And his in­stincts had of­ten been wrong in the past. But here he was.

And he had found the prize of a life­time.

Masangkay took a deep breath. He was get­ting ahead of him­self. Walk­ing back to the boul­der, he reached be­neath the bel­ly of the lead pack­mule. Work­ing swift­ly, he un­rav­eled the di­amond hitch, pulled the hemp rope from the pack, and un­buck­led the wood­en box pan­niers. Un­latch­ing the lid of one pan­nier, he pulled out a long dry­sack and laid it on the ground. From it he ex­tract­ed six alu­minum cylin­ders, a small com­put­er key­board and screen, a leather strap, two met­al spheres, and a nicad bat­tery. Sit­ting cross-​legged on the ground, he as­sem­bled the equip­ment in­to an alu­minum rod fif­teen feet long, with spher­ical pro­jec­tions at ei­ther end. He fit­ted the com­put­er to its cen­ter, clipped on the leather strap, and slapped the bat­tery in­to a slot on one side. He stood up, ex­am­in­ing the high-​tech ob­ject with sat­is­fac­tion: a shiny anachro­nism among the grub­by pack gear. It was an elec­tro­mag­net­ic to­mo­graph­ic sounder, and it was worth over fifty thou­sand dol­lars — a ten-​thou­sand down pay­ment and fi­nanc­ing for the rest, which was prov­ing to be a strug­gle to pay off atop all his oth­er debts. Of course, when this project paid off, he could set­tle with ev­ery­one — even his old part­ner.

Masangkay flicked the pow­er switch and wait­ed for the ma­chine to warm up. He raised the screen in­to po­si­tion, grasped a han­dle at the cen­ter of the rod, and let the weight set­tle around his neck, bal­anc­ing the sounder the way a high-​wire artist bal­ances his pole. With his free hand he checked the set­tings, cal­ibrat­ed and ze­roed the in­stru­ment, and then be­gan walk­ing steadi­ly across the long flat star­ing fixed­ly at the screen. As he walked, fog drift­ed in and the sky grew dark. Near the cen­ter of the flat, he sud­den­ly stopped.

Masangkay stared at the screen in sur­prise. Then he ad­just­ed some set­tings and took an­oth­er step. Once again he paused, brow fur­rowed. With a curse he switched the ma­chine off, re­turned to the edge of the flat, reze­roed the ma­chine, and walked at right an­gles to his pre­vi­ous path. Again he paused, sur­prise giv­ing way to dis­be­lief. He marked the spot with two rocks, one atop the oth­er. Then he walked to the far side of the flat, turned, and came back, more quick­ly now. A soft rain was bead­ing on his face and shoul­ders, but he ig­nored it. He pressed a but­ton, and a nar­row line of pa­per be­gan spool­ing out of the com­put­er. He ex­am­ined it close­ly, ink bleed­ing down the pa­per in the mist. His breath came faster. At first he thought the da­ta was wrong: but there it was, three pass­es, all per­fect­ly con­sis­tent. He made yet an­oth­er pass, more reck­less than the last, tear­ing off an­oth­er spool of pa­per, ex­am­in­ing it quick­ly, then balling it in­to his jack­et pock­et.

Af­ter the fourth pass, he be­gan talk­ing to him­self in a low, rapid mono­tone. Veer­ing back to­ward the mules, he dropped the to­mo­graph­ic sounder on the dry­sack and un­tied the sec­ond mule’s pack with trem­bling hands. In his haste, one of the pan­niers fell to the ground and split open, spilling picks, shov­els, rock ham­mers, an auger, and a bun­dle of dy­na­mite. Masangkay scooped up a pick and shov­el and jogged back to the cen­ter of the flat. Fling­ing the shov­el to the ground, he be­gan fever­ish­ly swing­ing the pick, break­ing up the rough sur­face. Then he scooped out the loos­ened grav­el with the shov­el, throw­ing it well to the side. He con­tin­ued in this fash­ion, al­ter­nat­ing pick and shov­el. The mules watched him with com­plete im­pas­siv­ity, heads droop­ing, eyes half-​lid­ded.

Masangkay worked as the rain be­gan to stiff­en. Shal­low pools col­lect­ed at the low­est points of the grav­eled flat. A cold smell of ice drift­ed in­land from Franklin Chan­nel, to the north. There was a dis­tant roll of thun­der. Gulls came wing­ing over his head, cir­cling in cu­rios­ity, ut­ter­ing for­lorn cries.

The hole deep­ened to a foot, then two. Be­low the hard lay­er of grav­el, the al­lu­vial sand was soft and eas­ily dug. The hills dis­ap­peared be­hind shift­ing cur­tains of rain and mist. Masangkay worked on, heed­less, strip­ping off his coat, then his shirt, and even­tu­al­ly his un­der­shirt, fling­ing them out of the hole. Mud and wa­ter min­gled with the sweat that ran across his back and chest, defin­ing the rip­ples and hol­lows of his mus­cu­la­ture, while the points of his beard hung with wa­ter.

Then, with a cry, he stopped. He crouched in the hole, scoop­ing the sand and mud away from a hard sur­face be­neath his feet. He let the rain wash the last bit of mud from the sur­face.

Sud­den­ly, he start­ed in shock and be­wil­der­ment. Then he knelt as if pray­ing, spread­ing his sweaty hands rev­er­ent­ly on the sur­face. His breath came in gasps, eyes wild with as­ton­ish­ment, sweat and rain stream­ing to­geth­er off his fore­head, his heart pound­ing from ex­er­tion, ex­cite­ment, and in­ex­press­ible joy.

At that mo­ment, a shock wave of bril­liant light burst out of the hole, fol­lowed by a prodi­gious boom that rolled off across the val­ley, echo­ing and dy­ing among the far hills. The two mules raised their heads in the di­rec­tion of the noise.

They saw a small body of mist, which be­came crab­like, broke apart, and drift­ed off in­to the rain.

The teth­ered mules looked away from the scene with in­dif­fer­ence as night set­tled up­on Is­la Des­olación.

Is­la Des­olación,

Febru­ary 22, 11:00 A.M.

THE LONG bark ca­noe cut through the wa­ter of the chan­nel, mov­ing swift­ly with the tidal cur­rent. A sin­gle fig­ure, small and bent, knelt in­side, ex­pert­ly feath­er­ing a pad­dle, guid­ing the ca­noe through the chop. A thin trail of smoke rose from the smol­der­ing fire built on a pad of wet clay in the cen­ter of the ca­noe.

The ca­noe round­ed the black cliffs of Is­la Des­olación, turned in­to the smoother wa­ter of a lit­tle cove, and crunched on­to the cob­bled beach. The fig­ure leapt out and pulled the ca­noe above the high tide mark.

He had heard the news, in pass­ing, from one of the no­madic fish­er­men who lived alone in these cold seas. That a for­eign­look­ing man would vis­it such a re­mote and in­hos­pitable is­land was un­usu­al in­deed. But even more un­usu­al was the fact that a month had passed, and the man had ap­par­ent­ly not left.

He paused, catch­ing sight of some­thing. Mov­ing for­ward, he picked up a piece of shat­tered fiber­glass, and then an­oth­er, look­ing at them, peel­ing some strands from the bro­ken edges and toss­ing them aside. The re­mains of a fresh­ly wrecked boat. Per­haps there was a sim­ple ex­pla­na­tion af­ter all.

He was a pe­cu­liar-​look­ing man — old, dark, with long gray hair and a thin lit­tle mus­tache that drooped down from his chin like the film of a spi­der­web. De­spite the freez­ing weath­er, he was dressed on­ly in a soiled T-​shirt and a bag­gy pair of shorts. Touch­ing a fin­ger to his nose, he blew snot out of his nos­trils, first one, then the oth­er, with a del­icate mo­tion. Then he scram­bled up the cliff at the head of the lit­tle cove.

He paused at its brink, his bright black eyes scan­ning the ground for signs. The grav­el­ly floor, dot­ted with mounds of moss, was spongy from the freeze-​thaw cy­cle, and it had pre­served the foot­prints — and hoof­prints — ex­cel­lent­ly.

He fol­lowed the trail as it made its ir­reg­ular way up a rise to the snow­field. There it fol­lowed the edge of the field, even­tu­al­ly cut­ting down in­to the val­ley be­yond. At a brow over­look­ing the val­ley the prints stopped, milling around in a crazy pat­tern. The man paused, gaz­ing down in­to the bar­ren draw. There was some­thing down there: bits of col­or against the land­scape, and the glint of sun­light off pol­ished met­al.

He hur­ried down.

He reached the mules first, still tied to the rock. They were long dead. His eyes trav­eled hun­gri­ly across the ground, glit­ter­ing with avarice as they reg­is­tered the sup­plies and equip­ment. Then he saw the body.

He ap­proached it, mov­ing much more cau­tious­ly. It lay on its back, about a hun­dred yards from the mouth of a re­cent­ly dug hole. It was naked, with just a shred of charred cloth­ing cling­ing to the car­bonized flesh. Its black, burnt hands were raised to the sky, like the claws of a dead crow, and its splayed legs were drawn up to its crushed chest. The rain had col­lect­ed in the hol­low eye sock­ets, mak­ing two lit­tle pools of wa­ter that re­flect­ed the sky and clouds.

The old man backed away, one foot at a time, like a cat. Then he stopped. He re­mained root­ed to the spot, star­ing and won­der­ing, for a long time. And then — slow­ly, and with­out turn­ing his back on the black­ened corpse — he turned his at­ten­tion to the trove of valu­able equip­ment that lay scat­tered about.

New York City,

May 20, 2:00 P.M.

THE SALE room at Christie’s was a sim­ple space, framed in blond wood and lit by a rect­an­gle of lights sus­pend­ed from the ceil­ing. Al­though the hard­wood floor had been laid in a beau­ti­ful her­ring­bone pat­tern, al­most none of it was vis­ible be­neath the count­less rows of chairs — all filled — and the feet of the re­porters, late­com­ers, and spec­ta­tors who crowd­ed the rear of the room.

As the chair­man of Christie’s mount­ed the cen­ter podi­um, the room fell silent: The long, cream-​col­ored screen be­hind him, which in a nor­mal auc­tion might be hung with paint­ings or prints, was va­cant.

The chair­man rapped on the podi­um with his gav­el, looked around, then drew a card from his suit and con­sult­ed it. He placed the card care­ful­ly at one side of the podi­um and looked up again.

“I imag­ine,” he said, the plum­my En­glish vow­els res­onat­ing un­der the slight am­pli­fi­ca­tion, “that a few of you may al­ready be aware of what we’re of­fer­ing to­day.”

Deco­rous amuse­ment rip­pled through the as­sem­bly.

“I re­gret that we could not bring it to the stage for you to see. It was a tri­fle large.” An­oth­er laugh float­ed through the au­di­ence. The chair­man was clear­ly rel­ish­ing the im­por­tance of what was about to hap­pen.

“But I have brought a small piece of it — a to­ken, so to speak — as as­sur­ance you will be bid­ding on the gen­uine ar­ti­cle.” With that he nod­ded, and a slen­der young man with the bear­ing of a gazelle walked out on­stage, hold­ing a small vel­vet box in both arms. The man un­latched it, opened the lid, and turned in a semi­cir­cle for the au­di­ence to see. A low mur­mur rose among the crowd, then fell away again.

In­side, a curved brown tooth lay nes­tled on white satin. It was about sev­en inch­es long, with a wicked­ly ser­rat­ed in­ner edge.

The chair­man cleared his throat. “The con­sign­er of lot num­ber one, our on­ly lot to­day, is the Nava­jo Na­tion, in a trust ar­range­ment with the gov­ern­ment of the Unit­ed States of Amer­ica.”

He sur­veyed the au­di­ence. “The lot is a fos­sil. A re­mark­able fos­sil.” He con­sult­ed the card on the podi­um. “In 1996, a Nava­jo shep­herd named Wil­son Atcit­ty lost some sheep in the Lukachukai moun­tains along the Ari­zona-​New Mex­ico bor­der. In at­tempt­ing to find his sheep, he came across a large bone pro­trud­ing from a sand­stone wall in a re­mote canyon. Ge­ol­ogists call this lay­er of sand­stone the Hell Creek For­ma­tion, and it dates back to the Cre­ta­ceous era. Word got back to the Al­bu­querque Mu­se­um of Nat­ural His­to­ry. Un­der an agree­ment with the Nava­jo Na­tion, they be­gan ex­ca­vat­ing the skele­ton. As work pro­ceed­ed they re­al­ized they had not one but two en­twined skele­tons: a Tyran­nosaurus rex and a Tricer­atops. The Tyran­nosaurus had its jaws fas­tened about the Tricer­atops’ neck, just be­neath its crest, vir­tu­al­ly de­cap­itat­ing the crea­ture with a sav­age bite. The Tricer­atops, for his part, had thrust his cen­tral horn deep in­to the chest of the Tyran­nosaurus. Both an­imals died to­geth­er, locked in a ter­ri­ble em­brace.”

He cleared his throat. “I can’t wait for the movie.”

There was an­oth­er round of laugh­ter.

“The bat­tle was so vi­olent that be­neath the Tricer­atops, pa­le­on­tol­ogists found five teeth from the Tyran­nosaurus that had ap­par­ent­ly bro­ken off dur­ing the heat of the fight. This is one of them.” He nod­ded to the as­sis­tant, who closed the box.

“A block of stone con­tain­ing the two di­nosaurs, weigh­ing some three hun­dred tons, was re­moved from the moun­tain­side and sta­bi­lized at the Al­bu­querque Mu­se­um. It was then tak­en to the New York Mu­se­um of Nat­ural His­to­ry for fur­ther prepa­ra­tion. The two skele­tons are still part­ly em­bed­ded in the sand­stone ma­trix.”

He glanced at his card again.

“Ac­cord­ing to sci­en­tists con­sult­ed by Christie’s, these are the two most per­fect di­nosaur skele­tons ev­er found. They are of in­cal­cu­la­ble val­ue to sci­ence. The chief pa­le­on­tol­ogist at the New York Mu­se­um has called it the great­est fos­sil dis­cov­ery in his­to­ry.”

He care­ful­ly re­placed the card and picked up the gav­el. As if on sig­nal, three bid spot­ters moved wraith­like on­to the stage, wait­ing at qui­et at­ten­tion. Em­ploy­ees at the tele­phone sta­tions stood mo­tion­less, phones in hand, lines open.

“We have an es­ti­mate on this lot of twelve mil­lion dol­lars, and an open­ing price of five mil­lion.” The chair­man tapped his gav­el.

There was a faint smat­ter­ing of calls, nods, and gen­teel­ly raised pad­dles.

“I have five mil­lion. Six mil­lion. Thank you, I have sev­en mil­lion.” The spot­ters craned their necks, catch­ing the bids, re­lay­ing them to the chair­man. The sot­to voce hub­bub in the hall grad­ual­ly in­creased.

“I have eight mil­lion.”

A scat­ter­ing of ap­plause erupt­ed as the record price for a di­nosaur fos­sil was bro­ken.

“Ten mil­lion. Eleven mil­lion. Twelve. Thank you, I have thir­teen. I have four­teen. Fif­teen.”

The show of pad­dles had dwin­dled con­sid­er­ably, but sev­er­al tele­phone bid­ders were still ac­tive, along with half a dozen in the au­di­ence. The dol­lar dis­play to the chair­man’s right rose rapid­ly, with the En­glish and Eu­ro equiv­alents be­neath fol­low­ing in lock­step.

“Eigh­teen mil­lion. I have eigh­teen mil­lion. Nine­teen.”

The mur­mur­ing be­came a groundswell and the chair­man gave a cau­tion­ary rap with his gav­el. The bid­ding con­tin­ued, qui­et­ly but fu­ri­ous­ly. “Twen­ty-​five mil­lion. I have twen­ty-​six. Twen­ty-​sev­en to the gen­tle­man on the right.”

The mur­mur­ing rose once again, and this time the chair­man did not quell it.

“I have thir­ty-​two mil­lion. Thir­ty-​two and a half on the phone. Thir­ty-​three. Thank you, I have thir­ty-​three and a half. Thir­ty-​four to the la­dy in the front.”

An elec­tric­ity was build­ing in the sale room: the price was mount­ing far high­er than even the wildest pre­dic­tions.

“Thir­ty-​five on the phone. Thir­ty-​five and a half to the la­dy. Thir­ty-​six.”

Then there was a small stir in the crowd; a rus­tle, a shift­ing of at­ten­tion. A num­ber of eyes turned to­ward the door lead­ing out in­to the main gallery. Stand­ing on the cres­cent-​moon steps was a re­mark­able-​look­ing man of about six­ty, a mas­sive, even over­whelm­ing pres­ence. He had a shaved head and a dark Vandyke beard. A Valenti­no suit of dark blue silk was draped over his im­pos­ing frame, shim­mer­ing slight­ly in the light when he moved. A Turn­bull & Ass­er shirt, un­com­pro­mis­ing­ly white, lay open at the neck. Over it was a string tie, held in place by a fist-​size piece of am­ber, con­tain­ing the on­ly Ar­chaeopteryx feath­er ev­er found.

“Thir­ty-​six mil­lion,” the chair­man re­peat­ed. But his eyes, like ev­ery­one else’s, had strayed to­ward the new ar­rival. The man stood on the steps, his blue eyes sparkling with vi­tal­ity and some pri­vate amuse­ment. He slow­ly raised his pad­dle. A hush fell. On the re­mote chance any­body in the crowd had not rec­og­nized the man, the pad­dle was a give-​away: it was num­bered 001, the on­ly num­ber Christie’s had ev­er al­lowed to be giv­en per­ma­nent­ly to a client.

The chair­man looked at him, ex­pec­tant­ly.

“One hun­dred,” the man said at last, soft­ly but pre­cise­ly.

The hush deep­ened “I beg your par­don?” The chair­man’s voice was dry.

“One hun­dred mil­lion dol­lars,” the man said. His teeth were very large, very straight, and very white.

Again the si­lence was ab­so­lute.

“I have a bid of one hun­dred mil­lion,” said the chair­man, a lit­tle shak­ily.

Time seemed to have been sus­pend­ed. A tele­phone rang some­where in the build­ing, at the edge of au­di­bil­ity, and the sound of a car horn fil­tered up from the av­enue.

Then the spell was bro­ken with a smart rap of the gav­el. “Lot num­ber one, for one hun­dred mil­lion dol­lars, sold to Palmer Lloyd!”

The room erupt­ed. In a flash ev­ery­one was on their feet. There was ex­uber­ant clap­ping, cheers, a call of “bra­vo” as if a great tenor had just con­clud­ed the per­for­mance of his ca­reer. Oth­ers were not as pleased, and the cheer­ing and clap­ping was in­ter­laced with hiss­es of dis­ap­proval, cat­calls, low boos. Christie’s had nev­er wit­nessed a crowd so close to hys­te­ria: all the par­tic­ipants, pro and con, were well aware that his­to­ry had just been made. But the man who had caused it all was gone, out through the main gallery, down the green car­pet past the cashier — and the mul­ti­tude found them­selves ad­dress­ing an emp­ty door­way.

Kala­hari Desert,

June 1, 6:45 P.M.

SAM MC­FAR­LANE sat cross-​legged in the dust. The evening fire, built of twigs on bare ground, cast a trem­bling net of shad­ows over the thorn scrub sur­round­ing the camp. The near­est set­tle­ment lay one hun­dred miles be­hind his back.

He looked around at the wiz­ened fig­ures squat­ting on their heels around the fire, naked ex­cept for dusty breech-​clouts, their alert eyes gleam­ing. San Bush­men. It took a long time to gain their trust, but once gained, it was un­shak­able. Very dif­fer­ent, Mc­Far­lane thought, from back home.

In front of each San lay a bat­tered sec­ond­hand met­al de­tec­tor. The San re­mained im­mo­bile as Mc­Far­lane rose to his feet. He spoke slow­ly, awk­ward­ly, in their strange click lan­guage. At first there were some snick­ers as he strug­gled with the words, but Mc­Far­lane had a nat­ural affin­ity for lan­guages, and as he con­tin­ued the men fell back in­to re­spect­ful si­lence.

At the con­clu­sion of his speech, Mc­Far­lane smoothed out a patch of sand. Us­ing a stick, he be­gan to draw a map. The San squat­ted on their heels, cran­ing their necks to look at the draw­ing. Slow­ly the map took shape, and the San nod­ded their un­der­stand­ing as Mc­Far­lane point­ed out the var­ious land­marks. It was the Mak­gadik­ga­di Pans that lay north of the camp: a thou­sand square miles of dry lakebeds, sand hills, and al­ka­li flats, des­olate and un­in­hab­it­ed. In the deep in­te­ri­or of the Pans, he drew a small cir­cle with his stick. Then he stabbed the stick in the cen­ter of the cir­cle and looked up with a broad smile.

There was a mo­ment of si­lence, punc­tu­at­ed by the lone­ly sound of a ruoru bird call­ing across the dis­tant flats. The San be­gan talk­ing among them­selves in low voic­es, the clicks and clucks of their lan­guage like the rat­tling of peb­bles in a stream. A gnarled old fig­ure, the head­man of the band, point­ed at the map. Mc­Far­lane leaned for­ward, strain­ing to un­der­stand the rapid speech. Yes, they knew the area, the old man said. He be­gan to de­scribe trails, known on­ly to the San, that crossed the re­mote area. With a twig and some peb­bles, the head­man be­gan mark­ing where the seeps were, where the game was, where ed­ible roots and plants could be found. Mc­Far­lane wait­ed pa­tient­ly.

At last, qui­et again set­tled on the group. The head­man spoke to Mc­Far­lane, more slow­ly this time. Yes, they were will­ing to do what the white man want­ed. But they were afraid of the white man’s ma­chines, and they al­so did not un­der­stand this thing the white man was look­ing for.

Mc­Far­lane rose again, pulled the stick out of the map. Then he took a small, dark lump of iron from his pock­et, no big­ger than a mar­ble, and placed it in the hole left by the stick. He pushed it down and con­cealed it with sand. Then he stood; picked up his met­al de­tec­tor, and snapped it on. There was a brief, high-​pitched whine. Ev­ery­one watched in ner­vous si­lence. He took two steps away from the map, turned, and be­gan walk­ing for­ward, mak­ing low sweeps over the ground with the de­tec­tor. As it swept over the buried lump of iron, there was a squawk. The San jumped back­ward in alarm and there was a burst of rapid talk. Mc­Far­lane smiled, spoke a few words; and the San crept back in­to their seat­ing places. He turned off the met­al de­tec­tor and held it to­ward the head­man, who took it re­luc­tant­ly. Mc­Far­lane showed him how to turn it on, and then guid­ed him, in sweep­ing mo­tions, over the cir­cle. A sec­ond squawk sound­ed. The head­man flinched but then smiled. He tried it again, and again, his smile grow­ing broad­er, his face break­ing in­to a mass of wrin­kles. “Sun’a ai, Ma!gad’i!ga­di !iaad’mi,” he said, ges­tur­ing to his band.

With Mc­Far­lane’s pa­tient help, each San Bush­man in turn picked up a ma­chine and test­ed it on the hid­den iron nugget. Slow­ly, the ap­pre­hen­sion was re­placed by laugh­ter and spec­ula­tive dis­cus­sion. Even­tu­al­ly Mc­Far­lane raised his hands, and all sat down again, each with his ma­chine in his lap. They were ready to be­gin the search.

Mc­Far­lane took a leather bag from his pock­et, opened it, in­vert­ed it. A dozen gold Kruger­rands fell in­to his out­stretched palm. The ruoru bird be­gan its mourn­ful call again as the last light died from the sky. Slow­ly and with cer­emo­ny, he gave a gold coin to each man in turn. They took them rev­er­ent­ly, with paired hands, bow­ing their heads.

The head­man spoke again to Mc­Far­lane. To­mor­row, they would move camp and be­gin the jour­ney in­to the heart of the Mak­gadik­ga­di Pans with the white man’s ma­chines. They would look for this big thing the white man want­ed. When they found it, they would re­turn. They would tell the white man where it was…

The old man sud­den­ly dart­ed his eyes to the sky in alarm. The oth­ers did the same as Mc­Far­lane watched, his brow creas­ing in puz­zle­ment. Then he heard it him­self: a faint, rhyth­mic throb­bing. He fol­lowed their gaze to the dark hori­zon. Al­ready the Bush­men were on their feet, bird­like, ap­pre­hen­sive. There was rapid, ur­gent talk. A clus­ter of lights, faint but grow­ing brighter, rose in the dis­tant sky. The throb­bing sound grew stronger. The pen­cil-​like beam of a spot­light stabbed down­ward in­to the scrub.

With a soft cry of alarm, the old man dropped his Kruger­rand and dis­ap­peared in­to the dark­ness. The rest fol­lowed suit. In­stant­ly, it seemed, Mc­Far­lane was left alone, star­ing in­to the still dark­ness of the brush. He turned wild­ly as the light grew in in­ten­si­ty. It was com­ing straight for the camp. And now he could see it was a big Black­hawk he­li­copter, its ro­tors tear­ing up the night air, run­ning lights wink­ing, the over­size spot­light rac­ing across the ground un­til at last it fixed him in its glare.

Mc­Far­lane threw him­self in­to the dust be­hind a thorn­bush and lay there, feel­ing ex­posed in the bril­liant light. Dig­ging a hand in­to his boot, he pulled out a small pis­tol. Dust whipped up around him, sting­ing his eyes as the desert bush­es gy­rat­ed ma­ni­acal­ly. The he­li­copter slowed, hov­ered, and de­scend­ed to an open area at one side of the camp, the back­wash blow­ing a cas­cade of sparks from the fire. As the chop­per set­tled, a light­bar on its roof lit up, bathing the area in an even harsh­er glare. The ro­tors pow­ered down. Mc­Far­lane wait­ed, wip­ing dirt from his face, keep­ing his eyes on the he­li­copter’s hatch, gun at the ready. Soon it swung open, and a large, sol­id man stepped out, alone.

Mc­Far­lane peered through the thorny scrub. The man was dressed in kha­ki shorts and a cot­ton bush shirt, and a Tilley hat sat on his mas­sive shaven head. There was some­thing heavy swing­ing in one of the shorts’ over­size pock­ets. The man be­gan walk­ing to­ward Mc­Far­lane.

Mc­Far­lane slow­ly rose, keep­ing the bush be­tween him­self and the chop­per, train­ing his gun on the man’s chest. But the stranger seemed un­con­cerned. Al­though he was in shad­ow, sil­hou­et­ted by the chop­per’s take­down lights, Mc­Far­lane thought he saw teeth gleam­ing in a smile. He stopped five paces away. He had to be six foot eight, at least — Mc­Far­lane was not sure he had ev­er seen any­body quite as tall be­fore.

“You’re a dif­fi­cult man to find,” the man said.

In the deep, res­onant voice Mc­Far­lane heard nasal traces of an East Coast ac­cent. “Who the hell are you?” he replied, keep­ing the gun lev­eled.

“In­tro­duc­tions are so much more pleas­ant af­ter the firearms have been put away.”

“Take the gun out of your pock­et and toss it in the dirt,” said Mc­Far­lane.

The man chuck­led and with­drew the lump: it was not a gun, but a small ther­mos. “Some­thing to keep out the chill,” he said, hold­ing it up. “Care to share it with me?”

Mc­Far­lane glanced back at the he­li­copter, but the on­ly oth­er oc­cu­pant was the pi­lot. “It took me a month to gain their trust,” he said in a low voice, “and you’ve just scat­tered them all to hell and gone. I want to know who you are, and why you’re here. And it had bet­ter be good.”

“It’s not good, I’m afraid. Your part­ner, Nestor Masangkay, is dead.”

Mc­Far­lane felt a sud­den numb­ness. His gun hand slow­ly dropped. “Dead?”

The man nod­ded.

“How?”

“Do­ing just what you’re do­ing. We don’t re­al­ly know how.” He ges­tured. “Shall we move by the fire? I didn’t ex­pect these Kala­hari nights to be so nip­py.”

Mc­Far­lane edged to­ward the re­mains of the fire, keep­ing the gun loose­ly by his side, his mind full of con­flict­ing emo­tions. He no­ticed, dis­tant­ly, that the back­wash of the chop­per had erased his sand map, ex­pos­ing the lit­tle nugget of iron.

“So what’s your con­nec­tion to Nestor?” he asked.

The man did not an­swer right away. In­stead, he sur­veyed the scene — the dozen met­al de­tec­tors scat­tered willy-​nil­ly by the flee­ing San, the gold coins ly­ing in the sand. He bent down and picked up the brown fin­ger­nail of iron, heft­ed it, and then held it up to his eye. Then he glanced up at Mc­Far­lane. “Look­ing for the Oka­van­go me­te­orite again?”

Mc­Far­lane said noth­ing, but his hand tight­ened on the gun.

“You knew Masangkay bet­ter than any­body. I need you to help me fin­ish his project.”

“And just what project was that?” Mc­Far­lane asked.

“I’m afraid I’ve said all I can say about it.”

“And I’m afraid I’ve heard all I want to hear. The on­ly per­son I help any­more is my­self.”

“So I’ve heard.”

Mc­Far­lane stepped for­ward quick­ly, the anger re­turn­ing. The man raised a paci­fy­ing hand. “The least you can do is hear me out.”

“I haven’t even heard your name, and, frankly, I don’t want to. Thanks for bring­ing me the bad news. Now why don’t you get back in your chop­per and get the hell out of here.” “For­give me for not in­tro­duc­ing my­self. I’m Palmer Lloyd.”

Mc­Far­lane be­gan to laugh. “Yeah, and I’m Bill Gates.”

But the big man wasn’t laugh­ing — just smil­ing. Mc­Far­lane looked clos­er at his face, re­al­ly study­ing it for the first time. “Je­sus,” he breathed.

“You may have heard that I’m build­ing a new mu­se­um.”

Mc­Far­lane shook his head. “Was Nestor work­ing for you?”

“No. But his ac­tiv­ities re­cent­ly came to my at­ten­tion, and I want to fin­ish what he start­ed.”

“Look,” said Mc­Far­lane, shov­ing the gun in­to his waist­band. “I’m not in­ter­est­ed. Nestor Masangkay and I part­ed ways a long time ago. But I’m sure you know all about that.”

Lloyd smiled and held up the ther­mos. “Shall we talk about it over a tod­dy?” With­out wait­ing for an an­swer, he set­tled him­self by the fire — white man style, with his butt in the dust — un­screwed the cap, and poured out a steam­ing cup. He of­fered it to Mc­Far­lane, who shook his head im­pa­tient­ly.

“You like hunt­ing me­te­orites?” Lloyd asked.

“It has its days.”

“And you re­al­ly think you’ll find the Oka­van­go?”

“Yes. Un­til you dropped out of the sky.” Mc­Far­lane crouched be­side him. “I’d love to chitchat with you. But ev­ery minute you sit here with that idling chop­per, the Bush­men are get­ting far­ther away. So I’ll say it again. I’m not in­ter­est­ed in a job. Not at your mu­se­um, not at any mu­se­um.” He hes­itat­ed. “Be­sides, you can’t pay me what I’m go­ing to make on the Oka­van­go.”

“And just what might that be?” Lloyd asked, sip­ping the cup him­self.

“A quar­ter mil­lion. At least.”

Lloyd nod­ded “As­sum­ing you find it. Sub­tract what you owe ev­ery­one over the Tornarssuk fi­as­co, and I imag­ine you’ll prob­ably break even.”

Mc­Far­lane laughed harsh­ly. “Ev­ery­one’s en­ti­tled to one mis­take. I’ll have enough left over to get me start­ed on the next rock. There’s a lot of me­te­orites out there. It sure beats a cu­ra­tor’s salary.”

“I’m not talk­ing about a cu­ra­tor­ship.”

“Then what are you talk­ing about?”

“I’m sure you could make a pret­ty good guess. I can’t talk about par­tic­ulars un­til I know you’re on board.” He sipped at the tod­dy. “Do this one for your old part­ner.”

“Old ex-​part­ner.”

Lloyd sighed. “You’re right. I know all about you and Masangkay. It wasn’t en­tire­ly your fault, los­ing the Tornarssuk rock like that. If any­one’s to blame, it’s the bu­reau­crats at the New York Mu­se­um of Nat­ural His­to­ry.”

“Why don’t you give up? I’m not in­ter­est­ed.”

“Let me tell you about the com­pen­sa­tion. As a sign­ing bonus, I’ll pay off the quar­ter mil­lion you owe, get the cred­itors off your back. If the project is suc­cess­ful, you’ll get an­oth­er quar­ter mil­lion. If it isn’t, you’ll have to set­tle for be­ing debt free. Ei­ther way, you can con­tin­ue at my mu­se­um as di­rec­tor of the Plan­etary Sci­ences De­part­ment if you wish. I’ll build you a state-​ofthe-​art lab­ora­to­ry. You’ll have a sec­re­tary, lab as­sis­tants, a six-​fig­ure salary — the works.”

Mc­Far­lane be­gan to laugh again. “Beau­ti­ful. So how long is this project?”

“Six months. On the out­side.”

Mc­Far­lane stopped laugh­ing. “Half a mil­lion for six months’ work?”

“If we’re suc­cess­ful.”

“What’s the catch?”

“No catch.”

“Why me?”

“You knew Masangkay: his quirks, his work pat­terns, his thoughts. There’s a big mys­tery lin­ger­ing over what he was do­ing, and you’re the man who can solve it. And be­sides, you’re one of the top me­te­orite hunters in the world. You’ve got an in­tu­itive sense about them. Peo­ple say you can smell them.”

“I’m not the on­ly one out there.” The praise ir­ri­tat­ed Mc­Far­lane: it smacked of ma­nip­ula­tion.

In re­sponse, Lloyd ex­tend­ed one hand, the knuck­le of the ring fin­ger raised. There was a wink of pre­cious met­al as he turned it in Mc­Far­lane’s di­rec­tion.

“Sor­ry,” Mc­Far­lane an­swered. “I on­ly kiss the ring of the pope.”

Lloyd chuck­led. “Look at the stone,” he said.

Peer­ing more close­ly, Mc­Far­lane saw that the ring on Lloyd’s fin­ger con­sist­ed of a milky gem­stone, deep vi­olet, in a heavy plat­inum set­ting. He rec­og­nized it im­me­di­ate­ly. “Nice stone. But you could have bought it from me whole­sale.”

“No doubt. Af­ter all, you and Masangkay are the ones that got the At­aca­ma tek­tites out of Chile.”

“Right. And I’m still a want­ed man in those parts as a re­sult.”

“We will of­fer you suit­able pro­tec­tions.”

“So it’s Chile, huh? Well, I know what the in­sides of their jails look like. Sor­ry.”

Lloyd didn’t re­spond im­me­di­ate­ly. Pick­ing up a stick, he banked the scat­tered em­bers, then tossed the stick on­to them. The fire crack­led up, beat­ing back the dark­ness. On any­body else, the Tilley hat would look a lit­tle sil­ly; some­how, Lloyd man­aged to pull it off. “If you knew what we were plan­ning, Dr. Mc­Far­lane, you’d do it for free. I’m of­fer­ing you the sci­en­tif­ic prize of the cen­tu­ry.”

Mc­Far­lane chuck­led, shak­ing his head. “I’m done with sci­ence,” he said. “I’ve had enough dusty labs and mu­se­um bu­reau­cra­cies to last me a life­time.”

Lloyd sighed and stood up. “Well, it looks like I’ve wast­ed my time. I guess we’ll have to go with our num­ber two choice.”

Mc­Far­lane paused. “And who would that be?”

“Hugo Bre­itling would love to be in on this.”

“Bre­itling? He couldn’t find a me­te­orite if it hit him in the ass.”

“He found the Thule me­te­orite,” Lloyd replied, slap­ping the dust from his pants. He gave Mc­Far­lane a side­long glance. “Which is big­ger than any­thing you’ve found.”

“But that’s all he found. And that was sheer luck.”

“Fact is, I’m go­ing to need luck for this project.” Lloyd screwed the top back on the ther­mos and tossed it in­to the dust at Mc­Far­lane’s feet. “Here, have your­self a par­ty. I’ve got to get go­ing.”

He be­gan strid­ing to­ward the he­li­copter. As Mc­Far­lane watched, the en­gine revved and the heavy ro­tors picked up speed, beat­ing the air, send­ing skeins of dust swirling er­rat­ical­ly across the ground. It sud­den­ly oc­curred to him that, if the chop­per left, he might nev­er learn how Masangkay died, or what he had been do­ing. De­spite him­self, he was in­trigued. Mc­Far­lane looked around quick­ly: at the met­al de­tec­tors, dent­ed and scat­tered; at the bleak lit­tle camp; at the land­scape be­yond, parched and un­promis­ing.

At the he­li­copter’s hatch, Lloyd paused.

“Make it an even mil­lion!” called Mc­Far­lane to the man’s broad back.

Care­ful­ly, so as not to up­set the hat, Lloyd ducked his head and be­gan step­ping in­to the chop­per.

“Sev­en fifty, then!”

There was an­oth­er pause. And then Palmer Lloyd slow­ly turned, his face break­ing in­to a broad smile.

The Hud­son Riv­er Val­ley,

June 3, 10:45 A.M.

PALMER LLOYD loved many rare and valu­able things, but one of the things he loved most was Thomas Cole’s paint­ing Sun­ny Morn­ing on the Hud­son Riv­er. As a schol­ar­ship stu­dent in Boston, he had of­ten gone to the Mu­se­um of Fine Arts, walk­ing through the gal­leries with his eyes down­cast so as not to sul­ly his vi­sion be­fore he could stand be­fore that glo­ri­ous paint­ing.

Lloyd pre­ferred to own the things he loved, but the Thomas Cole paint­ing was not to be had at any price. In­stead, he had pur­chased the next best thing. On this sun­ny morn­ing he sat in his up­per Hud­son Val­ley of­fice, gaz­ing out a win­dow that framed pre­cise­ly the view in Cole’s paint­ing. There was a very beau­ti­ful line of light pen­cil­ing the ex­treme hori­zon; the fields, seen through the break­ing mists, were exquisite­ly fresh and green. The moun­tain­side in the fore­ground, limned by the ris­ing sun, sparkled. Not much had changed in the Clove Val­ley since Cole had paint­ed this scene in 1827, and Lloyd had made sure, with vast land pur­chas­es along his line of sight, that noth­ing would.

He swiveled in his chair, gaz­ing across a desk of spauld­ed maple in­to a win­dow that looked in the op­po­site di­rec­tion. From here, the hill­side fell away be­neath him, a bril­liant mo­sa­ic of glass and steel. Hands be­hind his head, Lloyd sur­veyed the scene of fran­tic ac­tiv­ity with sat­is­fac­tion. Work crews swarmed over the land­scape, ful­fill­ing a vi­sion — his vi­sion — un­par­al­leled in the world. “A mir­acle of rare de­vice,” he mur­mured be­neath his breath.

At the cen­ter of the ac­tiv­ity, green in the Catskill morn­ing light, was a mas­sive dome: an over­size repli­ca of Lon­don’s Crys­tal Palace, which had been the first struc­ture made en­tire­ly of glass. Up­on its com­ple­tion in 1851 it was con­sid­ered one of the most beau­ti­ful build­ings ev­er con­struct­ed, but it had been gut­ted by fire in 1936, and its re­mains de­mol­ished in 1942 for fear it would pro­vide a con­ve­nient land­mark for Nazi bombers.

Be­yond the over­ar­ch­ing dome, Lloyd could see the first blocks be­ing laid of the pyra­mid of Khe­fret II, a small Old King­dom pyra­mid. He smiled a lit­tle rue­ful­ly at the mem­ory of his trip to Egypt: his byzan­tine deal­ings with gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, the Key­stone Kops up­roar about the suit­case full of gold that no one could lift, all the oth­er te­dious melo­dra­ma. That pyra­mid had cost him more than he liked, and it wasn’t ex­act­ly Cheops, but it was im­pres­sive nonethe­less.

Think­ing of the pyra­mid re­mind­ed him of the out­rage its pur­chase had caused in the ar­chae­olog­ical world, and he glanced up at the news­pa­per ar­ti­cles and mag­azine cov­ers framed on a near­by wall. “Where Have All the Ar­ti­facts Gone?” read one, ac­com­pa­nied by a grotesque car­ica­ture of Lloyd, com­plete with shifty eyes and slouch hat, slip­ping a minia­ture pyra­mid un­der his dark cloak. He scanned the oth­er framed head­lines. “The Hitler of Col­lec­tors?” read one; and then there were all the ones de­cry­ing his re­cent pur­chase: “Bones of Con­tention: Pa­le­on­tol­ogists Out­raged by Sale.” And a Newsweek cov­er: “What Do You Do with Thir­ty Bil­lion? An­swer: Buy the Earth.” The wall was cov­ered with them, the shrill ut­ter­ances of the naysay­ers, the self-​ap­point­ed guardians of cul­tur­al moral­ity. Lloyd found it all an end­less source of amuse­ment.

A small chime rang on a flat pan­el laid in­to his desk, and the voice of his sec­re­tary flut­ed: “There’s a Mr. Glinn to see you, sir.”

“Send him in.” Lloyd didn’t both­er to sup­press the ex­cite­ment in his voice. He had not met Eli Glinn be­fore, and it had been sur­pris­ing­ly dif­fi­cult to get him to come in per­son.

He close­ly ob­served the man as he en­tered the of­fice, with­out even a brief­case in his hand, sun­burnt face ex­pres­sion­less. Lloyd had found, in his long and fruit­ful busi­ness ca­reer, that first im­pres­sions, if care­ful­ly made, were ex­ceed­ing­ly re­veal­ing. He took in the close­cropped brown hair, the square jaw, the thin lips. The man looked, at first glance, as in­scrutable as the Sphinx. There was noth­ing dis­tinc­tive about him, noth­ing that gave any­thing away. Even his gray eyes were veiled, cau­tious, and still. Ev­ery­thing about him looked or­di­nary: or­di­nary height, or­di­nary build, good-​look­ing but not hand­some, well-​dressed but not dap­per. His on­ly un­usu­al fea­ture, Lloyd thought, was the way he moved. His shoes made no sound on the floor, his clothes did not rus­tle on his per­son, his limbs moved light­ly and eas­ily through the air. He glid­ed through the room like a deer through a for­est.

And, of course, there was noth­ing or­di­nary in the man’s ré­sumé.

“Mr. Glinn,” Lloyd said, walk­ing to­ward him and tak­ing his hand. “Thank you for com­ing.”

Glinn nod­ded silent­ly, shook the prof­fered hand with a shake that was nei­ther too long nor too short, nei­ther limp nor bone-​crush­ing­ly ma­cho. Lloyd felt mod­er­ate­ly dis­con­cert­ed: he was hav­ing trou­ble form­ing that in­valu­able first im­pres­sion. He swept his hand to­ward the win­dow and the sprawl­ing, half-​fin­ished struc­tures be­yond. “So. What do you think of my mu­se­um?”

“Large,” Glinn said with­out smil­ing.

Lloyd laughed. “The Get­ty of nat­ural his­to­ry mu­se­ums. Or it will be, soon — with three times the en­dow­ment.”

“In­ter­est­ing that you de­cid­ed to lo­cate it here, a hun­dred miles from the city.”

“A nice touch of hubris, don’t you think? Ac­tu­al­ly, I’m do­ing the New York Mu­se­um of Nat­ural His­to­ry a fa­vor. If we’d built there in­stead of up here, we’d have put them out of busi­ness with­in a month. But since we’ll have the biggest and the best of ev­ery­thing, they’ll be re­duced to serv­ing school field trips.” Lloyd chuck­led. “Come on, Sam Mc­Far­lane is wait­ing for us. I’ll give you a tour on the way.”

“Sam Mc­Far­lane?”

“He’s my me­te­orite ex­pert. Well, he’s still on­ly about half mine, I’d say, but I’m work­ing on him. The day is young.”

Lloyd placed a hand on the el­bow of Glinn’s well-​tai­lored but anony­mous dark suit — the ma­te­ri­al was bet­ter than he ex­pect­ed — and guid­ed him back through the out­er of­fice, down a sweep­ing cir­cu­lar ramp of gran­ite and pol­ished mar­ble, and along a large cor­ri­dor to­ward the Crys­tal Palace. The noise was much loud­er here, and their foot­steps were punc­tu­at­ed by shouts, the steady ca­dence of nail­guns, and the stut­ter of jack­ham­mers.

With bare­ly con­tained en­thu­si­asm, Lloyd point­ed out the sights as they walked. “That’s the di­amond hall, there,” he said, wav­ing his hand to­ward a large sub­ter­ranean space, haloed in vi­olet light. “We dis­cov­ered there were some old dig­gings in this hill­side, so we tun­neled our way in and set up the ex­hib­it with­in an en­tire­ly nat­ural con­text. It’s the on­ly hall in any ma­jor mu­se­um de­vot­ed ex­clu­sive­ly to di­amonds. But since we’ve ac­quired the three largest spec­imens in the world, it seemed ap­pro­pri­ate. You must have heard about how we snapped up the Blue Man­darin from De Beers, just ahead of the Japanese?” He gave a wicked chuck­le at the mem­ory.

“I read the pa­pers,” Glinn said dry­ly.

“And that,” said Lloyd, be­com­ing more an­imat­ed, “will house the Gallery of Ex­tinct Life. Pas­sen­ger pi­geons, a do­do bird from the Galá­pa­gos, even a mam­moth re­moved from the Siberi­an ice, still per­fect­ly frozen. They found crushed but­ter­cups in its mouth — rem­nants of its last meal.”

“I read about the mam­moth, too,” Glinn said. “Weren’t there sev­er­al shoot­ings in Siberia in the af­ter­math of its ac­qui­si­tion?”

De­spite the point­ed­ness of the ques­tion, Glinn’s tone was mild, with­out any trace of cen­sure, and Lloyd didn’t pause in his an­swer. “You’d be sur­prised, Mr. Glinn, how quick­ly coun­tries waive their so-​called cul­tur­al pat­ri­mo­ny when large sums of mon­ey be­come in­volved. Here, I’ll show you what I mean.” He beck­oned his guest for­ward, through a half-​com­plet­ed arch­way flanked by two men in hard hats, in­to a dark­ened hall that stretched for a hun­dred yards. He paused to flick on the lights, then turned with a grin.

Be­fore them stretched a hard­ened, mud­like sur­face. Wan­der­ing across this sur­face were two sets of small foot­prints. It looked as if peo­ple had wan­dered in­to the hall while the ce­ment on the floor was set­ting.

The Lae­toli foot­prints,” Lloyd said rev­er­ent­ly.

Glinn said noth­ing.

“The old­est ho­minid foot­prints ev­er dis­cov­ered. Think about it: three and a half mil­lion years ago our first bipedal an­ces­tors made those foot­prints, walk­ing across a lay­er of wet vol­canic ash. They’re unique. No­body knew that Aus­tralo­pithe­cus afaren­sis walked up­right un­til these were found. They’re the ear­li­est proof of our hu­man­ity, Mr. Glinn.”

“The Get­ty Con­ser­va­tion In­sti­tute must have been in­ter­est­ed to hear of this ac­qui­si­tion,” Glinn said.

Lloyd looked at his com­pan­ion more care­ful­ly. Glinn was an ex­cep­tion­al­ly dif­fi­cult man to read. “I see you’ve done your home­work. The Get­ty want­ed to leave them buried in situ. How long do you think that would have last­ed, with Tan­za­nia in the state it’s in?” He shook his head. “The Get­ty paid one mil­lion dol­lars to cov­er them back up. I paid twen­ty mil­lion to bring them here, where schol­ars and count­less vis­itors can ben­efit.”

Glinn glanced around at the con­struc­tion. “Speak­ing of schol­ars, where are the sci­en­tists? I see a lot of blue col­lars, but very few white coats.”

Lloyd waved his hand. “I bring them on as I need them. For the most part, I know what I want to buy. When the time comes, though, I’ll get the best. I’ll stage a raid­ing par­ty through the coun­try’s cu­ra­to­ri­al of­fices that will leave them spin­ning. It’ll be just like Sher­man march­ing to the sea. The New York Mu­se­um won’t know what hit them”

More quick­ly now, Lloyd di­rect­ed his vis­itor away from the long hall­way and in­to a war­ren of cor­ri­dors that an­gled deep­er in­to the Palace. At the end of one cor­ri­dor, they stopped be­fore a door marked CON­FER­ENCE ROOM A. Loung­ing be­side the door was Sam Mc­Far­lane, look­ing ev­ery inch the ad­ven­tur­er: lean and rugged, blue eyes fad­ed by the sun. His straw-​col­ored hair had a faint hor­izon­tal ridge to it, as if years of wear­ing heavy-​brimmed hats had per­ma­nent­ly creased it. Just look­ing at him, Lloyd could see why the man had nev­er tak­en to academia. He seemed as out of place among the flu­ores­cent lights and drab-​col­ored labs as would the San Bush­men he had been with just the oth­er day. Lloyd not­ed, with sat­is­fac­tion, that Mc­Far­lane looked tired. No doubt he had got­ten very lit­tle sleep over the last two days.

Reach­ing in­to his pock­et, Lloyd with­drew a key and opened the door. The space be­yond was al­ways a shock to first-​time vis­itors. One-​way glass cov­ered three of the room’s walls, look­ing down on the grand en­trance to the mu­se­um: a vast oc­tag­onal space, cur­rent­ly emp­ty, in the very cen­ter of the Palace. Lloyd glanced to see how Glinn would take it. But the man was as in­scrutable as ev­er.

For months Lloyd had ag­onized over what ob­ject would oc­cu­py the soar­ing oc­tag­onal space be­low — un­til the auc­tion at Christie’s. The bat­tling di­nosaurs, he had thought, would make a per­fect cen­ter­piece. You could still read the des­per­ate agony of their fi­nal strug­gle in the con­tort­ed bones.

And then his eyes fell on the ta­ble lit­tered with charts, print­outs, and aeri­al pho­tographs. When this hap­pened, Lloyd had for­got­ten all about the di­nosaurs. This would be the pièce de ré­sis­tance, the crown­ing glo­ry of the Lloyd Mu­se­um. Mount­ing this in the cen­ter of the Crys­tal Palace would be the proud­est mo­ment of his life.

“May I in­tro­duce Dr. Sam Mc­Far­lane,” Lloyd said, turn­ing away from the ta­ble and look­ing at Glinn. “The mu­se­um’s re­tain­ing his ser­vices for the du­ra­tion of this as­sign­ment.”

Mc­Far­lane shook Glinn’s hand.

“Un­til last week, Sam was wan­der­ing around the Kala­hari Desert look­ing for the Oka­van­go me­te­orite. A poor use of his tal­ents. I think you’ll agree we’ve found some­thing much more in­ter­est­ing for him to do.”

He ges­tured at Glinn. “Sam, this is Mr. Eli Glinn, pres­ident of Ef­fec­tive En­gi­neer­ing So­lu­tions, Inc. Don’t let the dull name fool you — it’s a re­mark­able com­pa­ny. Mr. Glinn spe­cial­izes in such things as rais­ing Nazi subs full of gold, fig­ur­ing out why space shut­tles blow up — that sort of thing. Solv­ing unique en­gi­neer­ing prob­lems and an­alyz­ing ma­jor fail­ures.” “In­ter­est­ing job,” said Mc­Far­lane.

Lloyd nod­ded. “Usu­al­ly, though, EES steps in af­ter the fact. Once things have got­ten fucked up.” The vul­gar­ity, enun­ci­at­ed slow­ly and dis­tinct­ly, hung in the air. “But I’m bring­ing them in now to help make sure a cer­tain task doesn’t get fucked up. And that task, gen­tle­men, is why we’re all here to­day.”

He ges­tured to­ward the con­fer­ence ta­ble. “Sam, I want you to tell Mr. Glinn what you’ve found, look­ing at this da­ta over the last few days.”

“Right now?” Mc­Far­lane asked. He seemed un­char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly ner­vous.

“When else?”

Mc­Far­lane glanced over the ta­ble, hes­itat­ed, and then spoke. “What we have here,” he said, “is geo­phys­ical da­ta about an un­usu­al site in the Cape Horn is­lands of Chile.”

Glinn nod­ded en­cour­ag­ing­ly.

“Mr. Lloyd asked me to an­alyze it. At first, the da­ta seemed… im­pos­si­ble. Like this to­mo­graph­ic read­out.” He picked it up, glanced at it, let it drop. His eyes swept over the rest of the pa­pers, and his voice fal­tered.

Lloyd cleared his throat. Sam was still a lit­tle shak­en by it all; he was go­ing to need some help. He turned to Glinn. “Per­haps I’d bet­ter bring you up to speed on the his­to­ry. One of our scouts came across a deal­er in elec­tron­ic equip­ment in Pun­ta Are­nas, Chile. He was try­ing to sell a rust­ed-​out elec­tro­mag­net­ic to­mo­graph­ic sounder. It’s a piece of min­ing sur­vey equip­ment, made here in the States by De­Wit­ter In­dus­tries. It had been found, along with a bag of rocks and some pa­pers, near the re­mains of a prospec­tor on a re­mote is­land down near Cape Horn. On a whim, my scout bought it all. When he took a clos­er look at the pa­pers — those that he could de­ci­pher — the scout no­ticed they be­longed to a man named Nestor Masangkay.”

Lloyd’s eyes drift­ed to­ward the con­fer­ence ta­ble. “Be­fore his death on the is­land, Masangkay had been a plan­etary ge­ol­ogist. More specif­ical­ly, a me­te­orite hunter. And, up un­til about two years ago, he’d been the part­ner of Sam Mc­Far­lane here.”

He saw Mc­Far­lane’s shoul­ders stiff­en.

“When our scout learned this, he sent ev­ery­thing back here for anal­ysis. The to­mo­graph­ic sounder had a flop­py disk rust­ed in­to its drive bay. One of our tech­ni­cians man­aged to ex­tract the da­ta. Some of my peo­ple an­alyzed the da­ta, but it was sim­ply too far out­side the bell curve for them to make much sense of it. That’s why we hired Sam.”

Mc­Far­lane had turned from the first page to the sec­ond, and then back again. “At first I thought that Nestor had for­got­ten to cal­ibrate his ma­chine. But then I looked at the rest of the da­ta.” He dropped the read­out, then pushed the two weath­ered sheets aside with a slow, al­most rev­er­ent no­tion. He be­gan leaf­ing through the scat­ter and re­moved an­oth­er sheet.

“We didn’t send a ground ex­pe­di­tion,” Lloyd con­tin­ued, speak­ing again to Glinn, “be­cause the last thing we want to do is at­tract at­ten­tion. But we did or­der a fly­over of the is­land. And that sheet Sam’s hold­ing now is a dump from the LOG II satel­lite — the Low Or­bit Geo­sur­vey.”

Mc­Far­lane care­ful­ly put down the da­ta dump. “I had a lot of trou­ble be­liev­ing this,” he fi­nal­ly said. “I must have gone over it a dozen times. But there’s no get­ting away from it. It can mean on­ly one thing.”

“Yes?” Glinn’s voice was low, en­cour­ag­ing, hold­ing no trace of cu­rios­ity.

“I think I know what Nestor was af­ter.”

Lloyd wait­ed. He knew what Mc­Far­lane was go­ing to say. But he want­ed to hear it again.

“What we’ve got here is the largest me­te­orite in the world.”

Lloyd broke in­to a grin. “Tell Mr. Glinn just how large, Sam.”

Mc­Far­lane cleared his throat. “The largest me­te­orite re­cov­ered in the world so far is the Ah­nighi­to, in the New York Mu­se­um. It weighs six­ty-​one tons. This one weighs four thou­sand tons. At an ab­so­lute min­imum.”

“Thank you,” Lloyd said, his frame swelling with joy, his face break­ing in­to a ra­di­ant smile. Then he turned and looked again at Glinn. The man’s face still be­trayed noth­ing.

There was a long mo­ment of si­lence. And then Lloyd spoke again, his voice low and hoarse with emo­tion.

“I want that me­te­orite. Your job, Mr. Glinn, is to make sure I get it.”

New York City,

June 4, 11:45 A.M.

THE LAND Rover jounced its way down West Street, the sag­ging piers along the Hud­son flash­ing by the pas­sen­ger win­dow, the sky over Jer­sey City a dull sepia in the noon light. Mc­Far­lane braked hard, then swerved to avoid a taxi an­gling across three lanes to catch a fare. It was a smooth, au­to­mat­ic mo­tion. Mc­Far­lane’s mind was far away.

He was re­mem­ber­ing the af­ter­noon when the Zaragosa me­te­orite fell. He’d fin­ished high school, had no job or plans of one, and was hik­ing across the Mex­ican desert, Car­los Cas­tane­da in his back pock­et. The sun had been low, and he’d been think­ing about find­ing a place to pitch his bedroll. Sud­den­ly, the land­scape grew bright around him, as if the sun had emerged from heavy clouds. But the sky was al­ready per­fect­ly clear. And then he’d stopped dead in his tracks. On the sandy ground ahead of him, a sec­ond shad­ow of him­self had ap­peared; long and ragged at first, but quick­ly com­pact­ing. There was a sound of singing. And then, a mas­sive ex­plo­sion. He’d fall­en to the ground, think­ing earth­quake, or nu­cle­ar blast, or Ar­maged­don. There was a pat­ter of rain. Ex­cept it was not rain: it was thou­sands of tiny rocks drop­ping around him. He picked one up; a lit­tle piece of gray stone, cov­ered in black crust. It still held the deep cold of out­er space in­side, de­spite its fiery pas­sage through the at­mo­sphere, and it was cov­ered with frost.

As he stared at the frag­ment from out­er space, he sud­den­ly knew what he want­ed to do with the rest of his life. But that had been years ago. Now, he tried to think as lit­tle about those ide­al­is­tic days as pos­si­ble. His eyes strayed to a locked brief­case on the pas­sen­ger seat, which con­tained Nestor Masangkay’s bat­tered jour­nal. He tried to think as lit­tle as pos­si­ble about that, too.

A light ahead turned green, and he made a turn in­to a nar­row one-​way street. This was the meat-​pack­ing dis­trict, perched at the ut­ter­most edge of the West Vil­lage. Old load­ing docks yawned wide, filled with burly men man­han­dling car­cass­es in and out of trucks. Along the far side of the street, as if to take ad­van­tage of the prox­im­ity, was a crowd of restau­rants with names like The Hog Pit and Un­cle Bil­ly’s Back­yard. It was the an­tithe­sis of the chrome­and-​glass Park Av­enue head­quar­ters of Lloyd Hold­ings, from which he had just come. Nice place for a cor­po­rate pres­ence, Mc­Far­lane thought, if you deal in pork-​bel­ly fu­tures. He dou­ble-​checked the scrib­bled ad­dress ly­ing on his dash­board.

He slowed, then guid­ed the Land Rover to a stop on the far side of an es­pe­cial­ly de­crepit load­ing dock. Killing the en­gine, he stepped in­to the meat-​fra­grant hu­mid­ity and looked around. Halfway down the block a garbage truck idled, grind­ing busi­ly away at its load. Even from this dis­tance, he caught a whiff of the green juice that drib­bled off its rear bumper. It was a stench unique to New York City garbage trucks; once smelled, nev­er for­got­ten.

He took a deep breath. The meet­ing hadn’t be­gun yet, and al­ready he felt him­self tense, the de­fen­sive­ness ris­ing. He won­dered how much Lloyd had told Glinn about him­self and Masangkay. It didn’t re­al­ly mat­ter; what they didn’t know they’d learn soon enough. Gos­sip moved even faster than the im­pactors he hunt­ed.

He pulled a heavy port­fo­lio from the back of the Land Rover, then closed and locked the door. Be­fore him rose the grimy brick fa­cade of a fin de siè­cle build­ing, a mas­sive struc­ture tak­ing up most of the block. His eye trav­eled up a dozen sto­ries, com­ing to rest at the words PRICE & PRICE PORK PACK­ING INC. The paint was al­most ef­faced by time. Al­though the win­dows on the low­er floors had been bricked over, he could see fresh glass and chrome wink­ing on the up­per sto­ries.

The on­ly en­trance seemed to be a brace of met­al load­ing doors. He pressed a buzzer at their side and wait­ed. Af­ter a few sec­onds there came a faint click and the doors part­ed, mov­ing noise­less­ly on oiled bear­ings.

He stepped in­to a poor­ly lit cor­ri­dor that end­ed in an­oth­er set of steel doors, much new­er, flanked with se­cu­ri­ty key­pads and a reti­nal scan­ning unit. As he ap­proached, one of the doors opened and a small, dark, heav­ily mus­cled man in an MIT warm-​up suit came for­ward, an ath­let­ic spring to his step. Tight­ly curled black hair, fringed with white at the tem­ples, cov­ered his head. He had dark, in­tel­li­gent eyes and an easy­go­ing air that was very un­cor­po­rate.

“Dr. Mc­Far­lane?” the man asked in a friend­ly growl, ex­tend­ing a hairy hand. “I’m Manuel Garza, con­struc­tion en­gi­neer for EES.” His grip was sur­pris­ing­ly gen­tle.

“Is this your cor­po­rate head­quar­ters?” Mc­Far­lane asked with a wry smile.

“We pre­fer our anonymi­ty.”

“Well, at least you don’t have to go far for a steak.”

Garza laughed gruffly. “Not if you like it rare.”

Mc­Far­lane fol­lowed him through the open door. He found him­self in a cav­ernous room, bril­liant­ly lit with halo­gen lights. Acres of steel ta­bles stood in long, neat rows. On them rest­ed nu­mer­ous tagged ob­jects — piles of sand, rocks, melt­ed jet en­gines, ragged pieces of met­al. Tech­ni­cians in lab coats moved around. One passed him, cradling a piece of as­phalt in white­gloved hands as if it were a Ming vase.

Garza fol­lowed Mc­Far­lane’s gaze around the room, and then glanced at his watch. “We’ve got a few min­utes. Care for a tour?”

“Why not? I al­ways love a good junk­yard.”

Garza thread­ed his way among the ta­bles, nod­ding to var­ious tech­ni­cians. He paused at an un­usu­al­ly long ta­ble, cov­ered with twist­ed black lumps of rock. “Rec­og­nize these?”

“That’s pa­hoe­hoe. There’s a nice ex­am­ple of aa. Some vol­canic bombs. You guys build­ing a vol­cano?”

“No,” said Garza. “Just blew one apart.” He nod­ded to a scale mod­el of a vol­canic is­land at the far end of the ta­ble, com­plete with a city, canyons, forests, and moun­tains. He reached be­neath the lip of the ta­ble and pressed a but­ton. There was a brief whirr, a groan­ing noise, and the vol­cano be­gan to belch la­va, spilling in sin­uous flows down its flanks and creep­ing to­ward the scale city. “The la­va is spe­cial­ly for­mu­lat­ed methyl cel­lu­lose.”

“Beats my old N-​scale rail­road.”

“A Third World gov­ern­ment need­ed our as­sis­tance. A dor­mant vol­cano had erupt­ed on one of their is­lands. A lake of la­va was build­ing up in the caldera and was about to bust out and head straight for this city of six­ty thou­sand. Our job was to save the city.”

“Fun­ny, I didn’t read any­thing in the news about this.”

“It wasn’t fun­ny at all. The gov­ern­ment wasn’t go­ing to evac­uate the city. It’s a mi­nor off­shore bank­ing haven. Most­ly drug mon­ey.”

“Maybe you should have let it burn, like Sodom and Go­mor­rah.”

“We’re an en­gi­neer­ing firm, not God. We don’t con­cern our­selves with the moral sta­tus of pay­ing clients.”

Mc­Far­lane laughed, feel­ing him­self re­lax a lit­tle. “So how’d you stop it?”

“We blocked those two val­leys, there, with land­slides. Then we punched a hole in the vol­cano with high ex­plo­sives and blast­ed an over­flow chan­nel on the far side. We used a sig­nif­icant por­tion of the world’s non­mil­itary sup­ply of Sem­tex in the pro­cess. All the la­va went in­to the sea, cre­at­ing al­most a thou­sand acres of new re­al es­tate for our client in the pro­cess. That didn’t quite pay our fee, of course. But it helped.”

Garza moved on. They passed a se­ries of ta­bles cov­ered with bits of fuse­lage and burnt elec­tron­ics. “Jet crash,” said Garza, “ter­ror­ist bomb.” He dis­missed it with a quick wave of his hand.

Reach­ing the far side of the room, Garza opened a small white door and led Mc­Far­lane down a se­ries of ster­ile cor­ri­dors. Mc­Far­lane could hear the hush of air scrub­bers; the clat­ter of keys; a strange, reg­ular thud­ding sound from far be­low his feet.

Then Garza opened an­oth­er door and Mc­Far­lane stopped short in sur­prise. The space ahead of him was vast at least six sto­ries tall and two hun­dred feet deep. Around the edges of the room was a for­est of high-​tech equip­ment: banks of dig­ital cam­eras, cat­ego­ry-5 ca­bling, huge “green screens” for vi­su­al ef­fects back­drops. Along one wall sat half a dozen Lin­coln con­vert­ibles of ear­ly six­ties vin­tage, long and slab­sid­ed. In­side each car sat four care­ful­ly dressed dum­mies, two in the front and two in the rear.

The cen­ter of the enor­mous space was tak­en up by a mod­el of a city in­ter­sec­tion, com­plete down to work­ing stop­lights. Build­ing fa­cades of var­ious heights rose on ei­ther side. A groove ran down the as­phalt­ed road, and a pul­ley sys­tem with­in it was fixed to the front bumper of yet an­oth­er Lin­coln, its four dum­mies in care­ful place. An un­du­lat­ing greensward of sculpt­ed As­tro­Turf lined the road­way. The road­way end­ed in an over­pass, and there stood Eli Glinn him­self, bull­horn in one hand.

Mc­Far­lane stepped for­ward in Garza’s wake, halt­ing at last on the pave­ment in the ar­ti­fi­cial shade of some plas­tic bush­es. Some­thing about the scene looked strange­ly fa­mil­iar.

On the over­pass, Glinn raised the bull­horn. “Thir­ty sec­onds,” he called out.

“Sync­ing to dig­ital feed,” came a dis­em­bod­ied voice. “Sound off.”

There was a flur­ry of re­spons­es. “Green across the board,” the voice said.

“Ev­ery­one clear,” said Glinn. “Pow­er up and let’s go.” Ac­tiv­ity seemed to come from ev­ery­where. There was a hum and the pul­ley sys­tem moved for­ward, pulling the limo along the di­rec­tion of the groove. Tech­ni­cians stood be­hind the dig­ital cam­eras, record­ing the progress.

There was the crack of an ex­plo­sion near­by, then two more in quick suc­ces­sion. Mc­Far­lane ducked in­stinc­tive­ly, rec­og­niz­ing the sound as gun­fire. No­body else seemed alarmed, and he looked in the di­rec­tion of the noise. It seemed to have come from some bush­es to his right. Peer­ing close­ly in­to the fo­liage, he could make out two large ri­fles, mount­ed on steel pedestals. Their stocks had been sawn off, and leads ran from the trig­gers.

Sud­den­ly, he knew where he was. “Dealey Plaza,” he mur­mured.

Garza smiled.

Mc­Far­lane stepped on­to the As­tro­Turf and peered clos­er at the two ri­fles. Fol­low­ing the di­rec­tion of their bar­rels, he no­ticed that the rear right dum­my was lean­ing to one side, its head shat­tered.

Glinn ap­proached the side of the car, in­spect­ed the dum­mies, then mur­mured to some­one be­side him, point­ing out bul­let tra­jec­to­ries. As he stepped away and came to­ward Mc­Far­lane, the tech­ni­cians crowd­ed for­ward, tak­ing pic­tures and jot­ting down da­ta.

“Wel­come to my mu­se­um, Dr. Mc­Far­lane,” he said, shak­ing his hand. “I’ll thank you to step off our grassy knoll, how­ev­er. That ri­fle still holds sev­er­al live rounds.” He turned to­ward Garza. “It’s a per­fect match. We’ve cracked this one. No need for ad­di­tion­al run-​throughs.”

“So this is the project you’re just wrap­ping up?” Mc­Far­lane asked.

Glinn nod­ded. “Some new ev­idence turned up re­cent­ly that need­ed fur­ther anal­ysis.”

“And what have you found?”

Glinn gave him a cool glance. “Per­haps you’ll read about it in the New York Times some­day, Dr. Mc­Far­lane. But I doubt it. For now, let me just say that I have a greater re­spect for con­spir­acy the­orists than I did a month ago.”

“Very in­ter­est­ing. This must’ve cost a for­tune. Who paid for it?”

There was a con­spic­uous si­lence.

“What does this have to do with en­gi­neer­ing?” Mc­Far­lane fi­nal­ly asked.

“Ev­ery­thing. EES was a pi­oneer in the sci­ence of fail­ure anal­ysis, and half our work is still in that area. Un­der­stand­ing how things fail is the most im­por­tant com­po­nent in solv­ing en­gi­neer­ing prob­lems.”

“But this… ?” Mc­Far­lane jerked his hand in the di­rec­tion of the re-​cre­at­ed plaza.

Glinn smiled elu­sive­ly. “As­sas­si­na­tion of a pres­ident is a rather ma­jor fail­ure, don’t you think? Not to men­tion the botched in­ves­ti­ga­tion that fol­lowed. Be­sides, our work in an­alyz­ing fail­ures such as this helps us main­tain our per­fect en­gi­neer­ing record.”

“Per­fect?”

“That’s right. EES has nev­er failed. Nev­er. It is our trade­mark.” He ges­tured to Garza, and they moved back to­ward the door­way. “It’s not enough to fig­ure out how to do some­thing. You must al­so an­alyze ev­ery pos­si­ble path to fail­ure. On­ly then can you be cer­tain of suc­cess. That is why we have nev­er failed. We do not sign a con­tract un­til we know we can suc­ceed. And then we guar­an­tee suc­cess. There are no dis­claimers in our con­tracts.”

“Is that why you haven’t signed the Lloyd Mu­se­um con­tract yet?”

“Yes. And it’s why you’re here to­day.” Glinn re­moved a heavy, beau­ti­ful­ly en­graved gold watch from his pock­et, checked the time, and slid it back. Then he turned the door han­dle briskly and stepped through. “Come on. The oth­ers are wait­ing.”

EES Head­quar­ters,

1:00 P.M.

A SHORT AS­CENT in an in­dus­tri­al el­eva­tor, a maze­like jour­ney through white hall­ways, and Mc­Far­lane found him­self ush­ered in­to a con­fer­ence room. Low-​ceilinged and aus­tere­ly fur­nished, it was as un­der­stat­ed as Palmer Lloyd’s had been lav­ish. There were no win­dows, no prints on the walls — on­ly a cir­cu­lar ta­ble made out of an ex­ot­ic wood, and a dark­ened screen at the far end of the room.

Two peo­ple were seat­ed at the ta­ble, star­ing at him, eval­uat­ing him with their eyes. The clos­est was a black-​haired young wom­an, dressed in Farmer Brown-​style bib over­alls. She was not ex­act­ly pret­ty, but her brown eyes were quick and had glim­mers of gold in their depths. They lin­gered over him in a sar­don­ic way that Mc­Far­lane found un­set­tling. She was of av­er­age size, slen­der, un­re­mark­able, with a healthy tan brown­ing her cheek­bones and nose. She had very long hands with longer fin­gers, cur­rent­ly busy crack­ing a peanut in­to a large ash­tray on the ta­ble in front of her. She looked like an over­grown tomboy.

The man be­yond her was dressed in a white lab coat. He was blade thin, with a bad­ly ra­zor-​burned face. One eye­lid seemed to droop slight­ly, giv­ing the eye a joc­ular look, as if it was about to wink. But there was noth­ing joc­ular about the rest of the man: he looked hu­mor­less, pinched, as tense as catgut. He fid­get­ed rest­less­ly with a me­chan­ical pen­cil, turn­ing it over and over.

Glinn nod­ded. “This is Eu­gene Rochefort, man­ag­er of en­gi­neer­ing. He spe­cial­izes in one­of-​a-​kind en­gi­neer­ing de­signs.”

Rochefort ac­cept­ed the com­pli­ment with a purse of his lips, the pres­sure briefly turn­ing them white.

“And this is Dr. Rachel Ami­ra. She start­ed out as a physi­cist with us, but we soon be­gan to ex­ploit her rare gifts as a math­emati­cian. If you have a prob­lem, she will give you an equa­tion. Rachel, Gene, please wel­come Dr. Sam Mc­Far­lane. Me­te­orite hunter.”

They nod­ded in re­ply. Mc­Far­lane felt their eyes on him as he bus­ied him­self with open­ing the port­fo­lio case and dis­tribut­ing fold­ers. He felt the ten­sion re­turn.

Glinn ac­cept­ed his fold­er. “I’d like to go over the gen­er­al out­line of the prob­lem, and then open the floor for dis­cus­sion.”

“Sure thing,” said Mc­Far­lane, set­tling in­to a chair.

Glinn glanced around, his gray eyes un­read­able. Then he with­drew a sheaf of notes from in­side his jack­et. “First, some gen­er­al in­for­ma­tion. The tar­get area is a small is­land, known as Is­la Des­olación, off the south­ern tip of South Amer­ica in the Cape Horn is­lands. It lies in Chilean na­tion­al ter­ri­to­ry. It is about eight miles long and three miles wide.”

He paused and looked around.

“Our client, Palmer Lloyd, in­sists up­on mov­ing ahead with the ut­most pos­si­ble speed. He is con­cerned about pos­si­ble com­pe­ti­tion from oth­er mu­se­ums. That means work­ing in the depths of the South Amer­ican win­ter. In the Cape Horn is­lands, tem­per­atures in Ju­ly range from above freez­ing to as much as thir­ty be­low ze­ro, Fahren­heit. Cape Horn is the south­ern­most ma­jor land­mass out­side of Antarc­ti­ca it­self, more than a thou­sand miles clos­er to the South Pole than Africa’s Cape of Good Hope. Dur­ing the tar­get month, we can ex­pect five hours of day­light.

“Isle Des­olación is not a hos­pitable place. It is bar­ren, windswept, most­ly vol­canic with some Ter­tiary sed­imen­ta­ry basins. The is­land is bi­sect­ed by a large snow­field, and there is an old vol­canic plug to­ward the north end. The tides range from thir­ty to thir­ty-​five ver­ti­cal feet, and a re­vers­ing six­knot cur­rent sweeps the is­land group.”

“Love­ly con­di­tions for a pic­nic,” Garza mut­tered.

“The clos­est hu­man set­tle­ment is on Navari­no Is­land, in the Bea­gle Chan­nel, about forty miles north of the Cape Horn is­lands. It is a Chilean naval base called Puer­to Williams, with a small mes­ti­zo In­di­an shan­ty­town at­tached to it.”

“Puer­to Williams?” Garza said. “I thought this was Chile we were talk­ing about.”

“The en­tire area was orig­inal­ly mapped by En­glish­men.” Glinn placed the notes on the ta­ble. “Dr. Mc­Far­lane, I un­der­stand you’ve been in Chile.”

Mc­Far­lane nod­ded.

“What can you tell us about their navy?”

“Charm­ing fel­lows.”

There was a si­lence. Rochefort, the en­gi­neer, be­gan tap­ping his pen­cil on the ta­ble in an ir­ri­tat­ed tat­too. The door opened, and a wait­er be­gan serv­ing sand­wich­es and cof­fee.

“They bel­liger­ent­ly pa­trol the coastal wa­ters,” Mc­Far­lane went on, “es­pe­cial­ly in the south, along the bor­der with Ar­genti­na. The two coun­tries have a long-​run­ning bor­der dis­pute, as you prob­ably know.”

“Can you add any­thing to what I’ve said about the cli­mate?”

“I once spent time in Pun­ta Are­nas in late fall. Bliz­zards, sleet storms, and fog are com­mon. Not to men­tion willi­waws.”

“Willi­waws?” Rochefort asked in a tremu­lous, reed-​thin voice.

“Ba­si­cal­ly a mi­croburst of wind. It lasts on­ly a minute or two, but it can peak at about a hun­dred and fifty knots.”

“What about de­cent an­chor­ages?” Garza asked.

“I’ve been told there are no de­cent an­chor­ages. In fact, from what I’ve heard, there’s no good hold­ing ground for a ship any­where in the Cape Horn is­lands.”

“We like a chal­lenge,” said Garza.

Glinn col­lect­ed the pa­pers, fold­ed them care­ful­ly, and re­turned them to his jack­et pock­et. Some­how, Mc­Far­lane felt the man had al­ready known the an­swers to his own ques­tions.

“Clear­ly,” Glinn said, “we have a com­plex prob­lem, even with­out con­sid­er­ing the me­te­orite. But let’s con­sid­er it now. Rachel, I be­lieve you have some ques­tions about the da­ta?”

“I have a com­ment about the da­ta.” Ami­ra’s eyes glanced at a fold­er be­fore her, then hov­ered on Mc­Far­lane with faint amuse­ment. She had a su­pe­ri­or at­ti­tude that Mc­Far­lane found an­noy­ing.

“Yes?” said Mc­Far­lane.

“I don’t be­lieve a word of it.”

“What ex­act­ly don’t you be­lieve?”

She waved her hand over his port­fo­lio. “You’re the me­te­orite ex­pert, right? Then you know why no one has ev­er found a me­te­orite larg­er than six­ty tons. Any larg­er, and the force of im­pact caus­es the me­te­orite to shat­ter. Above two hun­dred tons, me­te­orites va­por­ize from the im­pact. So how could a mon­ster like this still be in­tact?”

“I can’t — ” Mc­Far­lane be­gan.

But Ami­ra in­ter­rupt­ed. “The sec­ond thing is that iron me­te­orites rust. It on­ly takes about five thou­sand years to rust even the biggest one in­to a pile of scale. So if it some­how did sur­vive the im­pact, why is it still there? How do you ex­plain this ge­olog­ical re­port that says it fell thir­ty mil­lion years ago, was buried in sed­iment, and is on­ly now be­ing ex­posed through ero­sion?”

Mc­Far­lane set­tled back in his chair. She wait­ed, rais­ing her eye­brows quizzi­cal­ly.

“Have you ev­er read Sher­lock Holmes?” Mc­Far­lane asked with a smile of his own.

Ami­ra rolled her eyes. “You’re not go­ing to quote that old saw about how once you’ve elim­inat­ed the im­pos­si­ble, what­ev­er re­mains, no mat­ter how im­prob­able, must be the truth — are you?”

Mc­Far­lane shot a sur­prised glance at her. “Well, isn’t it true?”

Ami­ra smirked her tri­umph, while Rochefort shook his head.

“So, Dr. Mc­Far­lane,” Ami­ra said bright­ly, “is that your source of sci­en­tif­ic au­thor­ity? Sir Arthur Co­nan Doyle?”

Mc­Far­lane ex­haled slow­ly. “Some­one else col­lect­ed the base da­ta. I can’t vouch for it. All I can say is, if that da­ta’s ac­cu­rate, there’s no oth­er ex­pla­na­tion: it’s a me­te­orite.” There was a si­lence. “Some­one else’s da­ta,” Ami­ra said, crack­ing an­oth­er shell and pop­ping the nuts in­to her mouth. “Would that be a Dr. Masangkay, by chance?”

“Yes.”

“You knew each oth­er, I be­lieve?”

“We were part­ners.”

“Ah.” Ami­ra nod­ded, as if hear­ing this for the first time. “And so, if Dr. Masangkay col­lect­ed this da­ta, you have a high de­gree of con­fi­dence in it? You trust him?”

“Ab­so­lute­ly.”

“I won­der if he’d say the same about you,” Rochefort said in his qui­et, high, clipped voice.

Mc­Far­lane turned his head and looked steadi­ly at the en­gi­neer.

“Let’s pro­ceed,” Glinn said.

Mc­Far­lane looked away from Rochefort and tapped his port­fo­lio with the back of one hand. “There’s an enor­mous cir­cu­lar de­posit of shocked and fused co­esite on that is­land. Right in the cen­ter is a dense mass of fer­ro­mag­net­ic ma­te­ri­al.”

“A nat­ural de­posit of iron ore,” said Rochefort.

“The fly­over in­di­cates a re­ver­sal of the sed­imen­ta­ry stra­ta around the site.”

Ami­ra looked puz­zled. “A what?”

“Flipped sed­imen­ta­ry lay­ers.”

Rochefort sighed heav­ily. “Sig­ni­fy­ing… ?”

“When a large me­te­orite strikes sed­imen­ta­ry lay­ers, the lay­ers get re­versed.”

Rochefort con­tin­ued tap­ping his pen­cil. “How? By mag­ic?”

Mc­Far­lane looked at him again, longer this time. “Per­haps Mr. Rochefort would like a demon­stra­tion?”

“I would,” said Rochefort.

Mc­Far­lane picked up his sand­wich. He ex­am­ined it, smelled it. “Peanut but­ter and jel­ly?” He made a face.

“May we just have the demon­stra­tion, please?” Rochefort asked in a tight, ex­as­per­at­ed voice.

“Of course.” Mc­Far­lane placed the sand­wich on the ta­ble be­tween him­self and Rochefort. Then he tilt­ed his cof­fee cup and care­ful­ly poured liq­uid over it.

“What is he do­ing?” said Rochefort, turn­ing to Glinn, his voice high. “I knew this was a mis­take. We should have re­quired one of the prin­ci­pals to come in.”

Mc­Far­lane held up his hand. “Bear with me. We’re just prepar­ing our sed­imen­ta­ry de­posit here.” He reached for an­oth­er sand­wich and placed it on top, then tipped on more cof­fee un­til it was sat­urat­ed. “There. This sand­wich is the sed­imen­ta­ry de­posit: bread, peanut but­ter, jel­ly, more bread, in lay­ers. And my fist” — he raised his hand above his head — “is the me­te­orite.” He brought his fist down on the sand­wich with a jar­ring crash.

“For Christ’s sake!” Rochefort cried, jump­ing back, his shirt splat­tered with peanut but­ter. He stood up, flick­ing bits of sod­den bread from his arms.

At the far end of the ta­ble, Garza sat with an as­ton­ished look on his face. Glinn was ex­pres­sion­less.

“Now, let us ex­am­ine the re­mains of the sand­wich on the ta­ble,” Mc­Far­lane con­tin­ued as calm­ly as if he were giv­ing a col­lege lec­ture. “Please note that all the pieces have been flipped over. The bot­tom lay­er of bread is now on the top, the peanut but­ter and jel­ly have re­versed places, and the top lay­er of bread is now on the bot­tom. It’s what a me­te­orite does when it hits sed­imen­ta­ry rock: it pul­ver­izes the lay­ers, flips them over, and lays them back down in re­versed se­quence.” He glanced at Rochefort. “Any fur­ther ques­tions or com­ments?”

“This is out­ra­geous,” said Rochefort, wip­ing his glass­es with a hand­ker­chief.

“Sit down, please, Mr. Rochefort,” said Glinn qui­et­ly. To Mc­Far­lane’s sur­prise, Ami­ra be­gan to laugh: a deep, smooth laugh. “That was very good, Dr. Mc­Far­lane. Very en­ter­tain­ing. We need a lit­tle ex­cite­ment in our meet­ings.” She turned to Rochefort. “If you had or­dered club sand­wich­es like I sug­gest­ed, this wouldn’t have hap­pened.”

Rochefort scowled as he re­turned to his seat.

“Any­way,” said Mc­Far­lane, sit­ting back and wip­ing his hand with a nap­kin, “stra­ta re­ver­sal means on­ly one thing: a mas­sive im­pact crater. Tak­en to­geth­er, ev­ery­thing points to a me­te­orite strike. Now if you have a bet­ter ex­pla­na­tion for what is down there, I’d like to hear it.”

He wait­ed.

“Per­haps it’s an alien space­ship?” Garza asked hope­ful­ly.

“We con­sid­ered that, Manuel,” Ami­ra replied dry­ly.

“And?”

“Oc­cam’s ra­zor. It seemed un­like­ly.”

Rochefort was still clean­ing the peanut but­ter from his glass­es. “Spec­ula­tion is use­less. Why not send a ground par­ty to check it out, and get some bet­ter da­ta?”

Mc­Far­lane glanced at Glinn, who was lis­ten­ing with halflid­ded eyes. “Mr. Lloyd and I trust the da­ta we have in hand. And he doesn’t want to draw any more at­ten­tion to the site than he has al­ready. With good rea­son.”

Garza sud­den­ly spoke up. “Yeah, and that brings up the sec­ond prob­lem we need to dis­cuss: how we’re go­ing to get what­ev­er it is out of Chile. I be­lieve you’re fa­mil­iar with that sort of — shall we say — op­er­ation?”

More po­lite than call­ing it smug­gling, Mc­Far­lane thought. Aloud, he said, “More or less.”

“And your thoughts?”

“It’s met­al. It’s ba­si­cal­ly an ore body. It doesn’t fall un­der the laws of cul­tur­al pat­ri­mo­ny. At my rec­om­men­da­tion, Lloyd cre­at­ed a com­pa­ny that is in the pro­cess of ac­quir­ing min­er­al leas­es to the is­land. I sug­gest­ed that we go down there as a min­ing op­er­ation, dig it up, and ship it home. There’s noth­ing il­le­gal in it — ac­cord­ing to the lawyers.”

Ami­ra smiled again. “But if the gov­ern­ment of Chile re­al­ized this was the world’s largest me­te­orite and not just some or­di­nary iron de­posit, it might take a dim view of your op­er­ation.”

“A ‘dim view’ is an un­der­state­ment. We might all get shot.”

“A fate you bare­ly es­caped smug­gling the At­aca­ma tek­tites out of the coun­try, right?” Garza asked.

Through­out the meet­ing, Garza had re­mained friend­ly, show­ing none of Rochefort’s hos­til­ity or Ami­ra’s sar­don­ic at­ti­tude. Still, Mc­Far­lane found him­self col­or­ing. “We took a few chances. It’s part of the job.”

“So it seems.” Garza laughed, turn­ing over the sheets in his fold­er. “I’m amazed you’d con­sid­er go­ing back there. This project could cre­ate an in­ter­na­tion­al in­ci­dent.”

“Once Lloyd un­veils the me­te­orite in his new mu­se­um,” Mc­Far­lane replied, “I can guar­an­tee you there will be an in­ter­na­tion­al in­ci­dent.”

“The point,” Glinn in­ter­ject­ed smooth­ly, “is that this must be car­ried out in se­cre­cy. What hap­pens af­ter we con­clude our part of the busi­ness is up to Mr. Lloyd.”

No­body spoke for a mo­ment.

“There is one oth­er ques­tion,” Glinn con­tin­ued at last. “About your ex-​part­ner, Dr. Masangkay.”

Here it comes, Mc­Far­lane thought. He steeled him­self.

“Any idea what killed him?”

Mc­Far­lane hes­itat­ed. This was not the ques­tion he’d ex­pect­ed. “No idea,” he said af­ter a mo­ment. “The body hasn’t been re­cov­ered. It could well have been ex­po­sure or star­va­tion. That cli­mate isn’t ex­act­ly hos­pitable.”

“But there were no med­ical prob­lems? No his­to­ry that might have con­tribut­ed?”

“Mal­nu­tri­tion as a kid. Noth­ing else. Or if there was, I didn’t know about it. There was no men­tion of ill­ness or star­va­tion in the di­ary.”

Mc­Far­lane watched Glinn page through his fold­er. The meet­ing seemed to be over. “Lloyd told me to bring back an an­swer,” he said.

Glinn put the fold­er aside. “It’s go­ing to cost a mil­lion dol­lars.”

Mc­Far­lane was mo­men­tar­ily tak­en aback. The amount was less than he had ex­pect­ed. But what sur­prised him most was how quick­ly Glinn had ar­rived at it. “Nat­ural­ly, Mr. Lloyd will have to sign off, but that seems very rea­son­able — “

Glinn raised his hand. “I’m afraid you’ve mis­un­der­stood. It’s go­ing to cost a mil­lion dol­lars to de­ter­mine whether we can un­der­take this project.”

Mc­Far­lane stared at him. “You mean it’s go­ing to cost a mil­lion dol­lars just for the es­ti­mate?”

“Ac­tu­al­ly, it’s worse than that,” Glinn said. “We might come back and tell you EES can’t sign on at all.”

Mc­Far­lane shook his head. “Lloyd’s go­ing to love this.”

“There are many un­knowns about this project, not the least of which is what we’re go­ing to find when we get there. There are po­lit­ical prob­lems, en­gi­neer­ing prob­lems, sci­en­tif­ic prob­lems. To an­alyze them, we’ll need to build scale mod­els. We’ll need hours of time on a su­per­com­put­er. We’ll need the con­fi­den­tial ad­vice of physi­cists, struc­tural en­gi­neers, in­ter­na­tion­al lawyers, even his­to­ri­ans and po­lit­ical sci­en­tists. Mr. Lloyd’s de­sire for speed will make things even more ex­pen­sive.”

“Okay, okay. So when will we get our an­swer?”

“With­in sev­en­ty-​two hours of our re­ceipt of Mr. Lloyd’s cer­ti­fied check.”

Mc­Far­lane licked his lips. It was be­gin­ning to oc­cur to him that he him­self was be­ing un­der­paid. “And what if the an­swer’s no?” he asked.

“Then Lloyd will at least have the con­so­la­tion of know­ing the project is im­pos­si­ble. If there’s a way to re­trieve that me­te­orite, we’ll find it.”

“Have you ev­er said no to any­one?”

“Of­ten.”

“Oh, re­al­ly? Like when?”

Glinn coughed slight­ly. “Just last month a cer­tain east­ern Eu­ro­pean coun­try want­ed us to en­tomb a de­funct nu­cle­ar re­ac­tor in con­crete and move it across an in­ter­na­tion­al bor­der, un­de­tect­ed, for a neigh­bor­ing coun­try to deal with.”

“You’re jok­ing,” said Mc­Far­lane.

“Not at all,” said Glinn. “We had to turn them down, of course.”

“Their bud­get was in­suf­fi­cient,” said Garza.

Mc­Far­lane shook his head and snapped his port­fo­lio shut. “If you show me to a phone, I’ll re­lay your of­fer to Lloyd.”

Glinn nod­ded to Garza, who stood up. “Come this way, please, Dr. Mc­Far­lane,” said Garza, hold­ing open the door.

As the door hissed shut, Rochefort let out an­oth­er sigh of ir­ri­ta­tion. “We don’t re­al­ly have to work with him, do we?” He flicked a clot of pur­ple jel­ly from his lab coat. “He’s not a sci­en­tist, he’s a scav­enger.”

“He has a doc­tor­ate in plan­etary ge­ol­ogy,” said Glinn.

“That de­gree died long ago from ne­glect. But I’m not just talk­ing about the man’s ethics, what he did to his part­ner. Look at this.” He ges­tured at his shirt. “The man’s a loose can­non. He’s un­pre­dictable.”

“There is no such thing as an un­pre­dictable per­son,” Glinn replied. “On­ly a per­son we don’t un­der­stand.” He gazed at the mess on his fifty-​thou­sand-​dol­lar Ac­ca­wood ta­ble. “Nat­ural­ly, we’ll make it our busi­ness to un­der­stand ev­ery­thing about Dr. Mc­Far­lane. Rachel?”

She turned to him.

“I’m go­ing to give you a very spe­cial as­sign­ment.” Ami­ra flashed an­oth­er sar­don­ic smile at Rochefort. “Of course,” she said.

“You’re go­ing to be Dr. Mc­Far­lane’s as­sis­tant.”

There was a sud­den si­lence as the smile dis­ap­peared from Ami­ra’s face.

Glinn went on smooth­ly, with­out giv­ing her time to re­act. “You will keep an eye on him. You will pre­pare reg­ular re­ports on him and give them to me.”

“I’m no damn shrink!” Ami­ra ex­plod­ed. “And I’m sure as hell no rat!”

Now it was Rochefort whose face was mot­tled with an ex­pres­sion that might have passed for amuse­ment, if it had not been so laced with ill will.

“Your re­ports will be strict­ly ob­ser­va­tion­al,” Glinn said. “They will be thor­ough­ly eval­uat­ed by a psy­chi­atrist. Rachel, you’re a shrewd an­alyst, of hu­man be­ings as well as math­emat­ics. You will, of course, be an as­sis­tant in name on­ly. As for your be­ing a rat, that’s en­tire­ly in­cor­rect. You know Dr. Mc­Far­lane has a check­ered past. He will be the on­ly one on this ex­pe­di­tion not of our choos­ing. We must keep a close watch on him.”

“Does that give me li­cense to spy on him?”

“Say I hadn’t asked you to do this. If you were to catch him do­ing any­thing that might com­pro­mise the ex­pe­di­tion, you’d have told me with­out a sec­ond thought. All I’m ask­ing you to do is for­mal­ize the pro­cess a lit­tle.”

Ami­ra flushed and was silent.

Glinn gath­ered up his pa­pers, and they swift­ly dis­ap­peared in­to the folds of his suit. “All this may be moot if the project turns out to be im­pos­si­ble. There’s one lit­tle thing I have to look in­to first.”

Lloyd Mu­se­um,

June 7, 3:15 P.M.

MC­FAR­LANE PACED his of­fice in the mu­se­um’s brand-​new ad­min­is­tra­tion build­ing, mov­ing rest­less­ly from wall to wall like a caged an­imal. The large space was half filled with un­opened box­es, and the top of his desk was lit­tered with blueprints, mem­os, charts, and print­outs. He had on­ly both­ered to tear the plas­tic wrap off a sin­gle chair. The rest of the fur­ni­ture re­mained shrink-​wrapped, and the of­fice smelled raw with new car­pet­ing and fresh paint. Out­side the win­dows, con­struc­tion con­tin­ued at a fran­tic pace. It was un­set­tling to see so much mon­ey be­ing spent so quick­ly. But if any­one could af­ford it, he sup­posed Lloyd could. The di­ver­si­fied com­pa­nies that made up Lloyd Hold­ings — aero-​space en­gi­neer­ing, de­fense con­tract­ing, su­per­com­put­er de­vel­op­ment, elec­tron­ic da­ta sys­tems — brought in enough rev­enue to make the man one of the two or three rich­est in the world.

Forc­ing him­self to sit down, Mc­Far­lane shoved the pa­pers aside to clear a space, opened the bot­tom desk draw­er, and pulled out Masangkay’s moldy di­ary. Just see­ing the Taga­log words on pa­per had brought back a host of mem­ories, al­most all of them bit­ter­sweet, fad­ed, like old sepia-​toned pho­tographs.

He opened the cov­er, turned the pages, and gazed again at the strange, crabbed script of the fi­nal en­try. Masangkay had been a poor di­ary keep­er. Ex­act­ly how many hours or days passed be­tween this en­try and his death was im­pos­si­ble to know.

Nakaupo ako at nag­pa­pau­sok para umalis ang mga lin­tik na lam­ok. Akala ko masama na ang South Green­land, mas grabe pala di­to sa Is­la Des­olación…

Mc­Far­lane glanced down at the trans­la­tion he had writ­ten out for Lloyd:

I am sit­ting by my fire, in the smoke, try­ing to keep the damned mosquitoes at bay. And I thought South Green­land was bad. Is­la Des­olación: good name. I al­ways won­dered what the end of the world looked like. Now I know. It looks promis­ing: the re­versed stra­ta, the bizarre vul­can­ism, the satel­lite anoma­lies. It all mesh­es with the Yaghan leg­ends. But it doesn’t make sense. It must have come in damn fast, maybe even too fast for an el­lip­ti­cal or­bit. I keep think­ing about Mc­Far­lane’s crazy the­ory. Christ, I find my­self al­most wish­ing the old bas­tard were here to see this. But if he was here, no doubt he’d find some way to screw things up. To­mor­row, I’ll start the quan­ti­ta­tive sur­vey of the val­ley. If it’s there, even deep, I’ll find it. It all de­pends on to­mor­row.

And that was it. He had died, all alone, in one of the re­motest places on earth.

Mc­Far­lane leaned back in his chair. Mc­Far­lane ’s crazy the­ory… The truth was, walang ka­bal­bal­an didn’t pre­cise­ly trans­late as “crazy” — it meant some­thing a lot more un­flat­ter­ing — but Lloyd didn’t need to know ev­ery­thing.

But that was be­side the point. The point was, his own the­ory had been crazy. Now, with the wis­dom of hind­sight, he won­dered why he had held on to it so tena­cious­ly, for so long, and at such a ter­ri­ble price.

All known me­te­orites came from in­side the so­lar sys­tem. His the­ory of in­ter­stel­lar me­te­orites — me­te­orites that orig­inat­ed out­side, from oth­er star sys­tems — ap­peared ridicu­lous in hind­sight. To think that a rock could wan­der across the vast­ness of the space be­tween the stars and just hap­pen to land on Earth. Math­emati­cians al­ways said the prob­abil­ities were on the or­der of a quin­til­lion to one. So why hadn’t he left it at that? His idea that some­day some­one — prefer­ably him­self — would find an in­ter­stel­lar me­te­orite had been fan­ci­ful, ridicu­lous, even ar­ro­gant. And what was more to the point, it had twist­ed his judg­ment and, ul­ti­mate­ly, messed up his life al­most be­yond re­demp­tion.

How strange it was to see Masangkay bring­ing up the the­ory now in his jour­nal. The re­versed stra­ta were to be ex­pect­ed. What was it that didn’t make sense to him? What had been so puz­zling?

He closed the di­ary and stood up, re­turn­ing to the win­dow. He re­mem­bered Masangkay’s round face, the thick, scruffy black hair, the sar­cas­tic grin, the eyes danc­ing with hu­mor, vi­vac­ity, and in­tel­li­gence. He re­mem­bered that last day out­side the New York Mu­se­um — bright sun­light gild­ing ev­ery­thing to a painful bril­liance — where Masangkay had come rush­ing down the steps, glass­es askew, shout­ing, “Sam! They’ve giv­en us the green light! We’re on our way to Green­land!” And — more painful­ly — he re­mem­bered that night af­ter they ac­tu­al­ly found the Tornarssuk me­te­orite, Masangkay tilt­ing the pre­cious bot­tle of whiskey up, the fire­light flick­er­ing in its am­ber depths as he took a long drink, his back against the dark met­al. God, the hang­over the next day… But they had found it — sit­ting right there, as if some­one had care­ful­ly placed it on the grav­el for all to see. Over the years, they had found many me­te­orites to­geth­er, but noth­ing like this. It had come in at an acute an­gle and had ac­tu­al­ly bounced off the ice sheet, tum­bling for miles. It was a beau­ti­ful siderite, shaped like a sea horse …

And now it sat in some Tokyo busi­ness­man’s back­yard gar­den. It had cost him his re­la­tion­ship with Masangkay. And his rep­uta­tion.

He stared out the win­dow, re­turn­ing to the present. Above the leafy maples and white oaks a struc­ture was ris­ing, in­com­pre­hen­si­bly out of place in the up­per Hud­son Val­ley: an an­cient, sun-​weath­ered Egyp­tian pyra­mid. As he watched, a crane swung an­oth­er block of lime­stone above the tree­tops and be­gan low­er­ing it gen­tly on­to the half-​built struc­ture. A fin­ger of sand trailed off the block and feath­ered away in­to the wind. In the clear­ing at the base of the pyra­mid he could see Lloyd him­self, over­sized sa­fari hat dap­pled by the leafy shade. The man had a weak­ness for melo­dra­mat­ic head­gear.

There was a knock on the door and Glinn en­tered, a fold­er be­neath one arm. He glid­ed his way among the box­es to Mc­Far­lane’s side and gazed at the scene be­low.

“Did Lloyd ac­quire a mum­my to ac­ces­sorize it?” he asked.

Mc­Far­lane grunt­ed a laugh. “As a mat­ter of fact, he did. Not the orig­inal — that was loot­ed long ago — but an­oth­er one. Some poor soul who had no idea he’d be spend­ing eter­ni­ty in the Hud­son Riv­er Val­ley. Lloyd is hav­ing some of King Tut’s gold­en trea­sures repli­cat­ed for the buri­al cham­ber. Couldn’t buy the orig­inals, ap­par­ent­ly.”

“Even thir­ty bil­lion has its lim­its,” said Glinn. He nod­ded out the win­dow. “Shall we?”

They left the build­ing, de­scend­ing a grav­eled path in­to the woods. Ci­cadas droned in the canopy over their heads. They soon struck the sandy clear­ing. Here the pyra­mid rose di­rect­ly above them, stark yel­low against the cerulean sky. The half-​built struc­ture gave off a smell of an­cient dust and lim­it­less desert wastes.

Lloyd caught sight of them and came for­ward im­me­di­ate­ly, both hands ex­tend­ed. “Eli!” he boomed good-​na­tured­ly. “You’re late. One would think you were plan­ning to move Mount Ever­est in­stead of a lump of iron.” He took Glinn’s el­bow and steered him to­ward a set of stone bench­es on the far side of the pyra­mid.

Mc­Far­lane set­tled on a bench op­po­site Lloyd and Glinn. Here, in the shad­ow of the pyra­mid, it was cool.

Lloyd point­ed at the slim fold­er un­der Glinn’s arm. “Is that all my mil­lion dol­lars bought me?”

Glinn did not re­ply di­rect­ly; he was gaz­ing at the pyra­mid. “How high will it be when com­plet­ed?” he asked. “Sev­en­ty-​sev­en feet,” Lloyd replied proud­ly. “It’s the tomb of an Old King­dom pharaoh, Khe­fret II. A mi­nor ruler in ev­ery way — poor kid died at thir­teen. I want­ed a big­ger one, of course. But it is the on­ly pyra­mid out­side of the Nile Val­ley.”

“And the base, what does it mea­sure?”

“One hun­dred and forty feet on a side.”

Glinn was silent for a mo­ment, his eyes veiled. “In­ter­est­ing co­in­ci­dence,” he said.

“Co­in­ci­dence?”

Glinn’s eyes slid back to Lloyd. “We re­an­alyzed the da­ta on your me­te­orite. We think it weighs clos­er to ten thou­sand tons. Same as your pyra­mid over there. Us­ing stan­dard nick­el-​iron me­te­orites as a ba­sis, that would make your rock about forty feet in di­am­eter.”

“That’s won­der­ful! The big­ger the bet­ter.”

“Mov­ing the me­te­orite will be like mov­ing this pyra­mid of yours. Not block by block, but all to­geth­er.”

“So?”

“Take the Eif­fel Tow­er, for in­stance,” Glinn said.

“I wouldn’t want to. Ug­ly as hell.”

“The Eif­fel Tow­er weighs about five thou­sand tons.”

Lloyd looked at him.

“The Sat­urn V rock­et — the heav­iest land-​based ob­ject ev­er moved by hu­man be­ings — weighs three thou­sand tons. Mov­ing your me­te­orite, Mr. Lloyd, will be like mov­ing two Eif­fel tow­ers. Or three Sat­urn V rock­ets.”

“What’s the point?” Lloyd asked.

“The point is that ten thou­sand tons, when you ac­tu­al­ly con­sid­er it, is a stag­ger­ing weight. Twen­ty mil­lion pounds. And we’re talk­ing about lug­ging it halfway around the world.”

Lloyd grinned. “The heav­iest ob­ject ev­er moved by mankind — I like that. You couldn’t ask for a bet­ter pub­lic­ity hook. But I don’t see the prob­lem. Once it’s on board the ship, you can bring it right up the Hud­son prac­ti­cal­ly to our doorstep.”

“Get­ting it on board the ship is the prob­lem — es­pe­cial­ly those last fifty feet from shore in­to the hold. The biggest crane in the world picks up less than a thou­sand tons.”

“So build a pier and slide it out to the boat.”

“Off the coast of Is­la Des­olación, the depth drops to two hun­dred feet a mere twen­ty feet from shore. So you can’t build a fixed pier. And the me­te­orite would sink an or­di­nary float­ing pier.”

“Find a shal­low­er place.”

“We’ve checked. There is no oth­er place. In fact, the on­ly pos­si­ble load­ing point is on the east­ern coast of the is­land. A snow­field lies be­tween that point and the me­te­orite. The snow is two hun­dred feet deep in the cen­ter. Which means we have to move your rock around the snow­field to get it to the ship.”

Lloyd grunt­ed. “I’m be­gin­ning to see the prob­lem. Why don’t we just bring a big ship in there, back it up to shore, and roll the damn thing in­to the hold? The biggest su­per­tankers hold half a mil­lion tons of crude. That’s more than enough to spare.”

“If you roll this me­te­orite in­to the hold of a ship, it would sim­ply drop right through the bot­tom. This is not crude oil, which con­ve­nient­ly dis­places its weight as it fills a hold.”

“What’s all this danc­ing around, then?” Lloyd asked sharply. “Is this lead­ing up to a re­fusal?”

Glinn shook his head. “On the con­trary. We’re will­ing to take on the job.”

Lloyd beamed. “That’s ter­rif­ic! Why all the gloomy talk?”

“I sim­ply want­ed to pre­pare you for the enor­mi­ty of the task you want to ac­com­plish. And for the com­men­su­rate enor­mi­ty of our bill.”

Lloyd’s broad fea­tures nar­rowed. “And that is… ?”

“One hun­dred and fifty mil­lion dol­lars. In­clud­ing char­ter­ing the trans­port ves­sel. FOB the Lloyd Mu­se­um.”

Lloyd’s face went pale. “My God. One hun­dred and fifty mil­lion…” His chin sank on­to his hands. “For a ten-​thou­sand-​ton rock. That’s…”

“Sev­en dol­lars and fifty cents a pound,” said Glinn.

“Not bad,” Mc­Far­lane said, “when you con­sid­er that the go­ing rate for a de­cent me­te­orite is about a hun­dred bucks a pound.”

Lloyd looked at him. “Is that so?”

Mc­Far­lane nod­ded.

“In any case,” Glinn con­tin­ued, “be­cause of the un­usu­al na­ture of the job, our ac­cep­tance comes with two con­di­tions.”

“Yes?”

“The first con­di­tion is dou­ble over­age. As you’ll see in the re­port, our cost es­ti­mates haven’t been es­pe­cial­ly con­ser­va­tive. But we feel that, to be ab­so­lute­ly safe, twice that amount must be bud­get­ed for.”

“Mean­ing it’s re­al­ly go­ing to cost three hun­dred mil­lion dol­lars.”

“No. We be­lieve it’s go­ing to cost one hun­dred and fifty, or we wouldn’t have pre­sent­ed you with that fig­ure. But

giv­en all the un­known vari­ables, the in­com­plete da­ta, and the im­mense weight of the me­te­orite, we need some ma­neu­ver­ing room.”

“Ma­neu­ver­ing room.” Lloyd shook his head. “And the sec­ond con­di­tion?”

Glinn took the fold­er from un­der his arm and placed it on one knee. “A dead man’s switch.”

“What’s that?”

“A spe­cial trap­door, built in­to the bot­tom of the trans­port ves­sel, so that in the direst emer­gen­cy the me­te­orite can be jet­ti­soned.”

Lloyd seemed not to un­der­stand. “Jet­ti­son the me­te­orite?”

“If it ev­er shook loose from its berth, it could sink the ship. If that hap­pened, we’d need a way to get rid of it, fast.”

As Lloyd lis­tened to this, the pal­lor that had come across his face gave way to a flush of anger. “You mean to say the first time we hit a rough sea, you dump the me­te­orite over­board? For­get it.”

“Ac­cord­ing to Dr. Ami­ra, our math­emati­cian, there’s on­ly a one-​in-​five-​thou­sand chance of it be­ing nec­es­sary.”

Mc­Far­lane spoke. “I thought he was pay­ing the big bucks be­cause you guar­an­teed suc­cess. Dump­ing the me­te­orite in a storm sounds like a fail­ure to me.”

Glinn glanced at him. “Our guar­an­tee is that EES will nev­er fail in our work. And that guar­an­tee is un­equiv­ocal. But we can’t guar­an­tee against an act of God. Nat­ural sys­tems are in­her­ent­ly un­pre­dictable. If a freak storm came out of nowhere and foundered the ves­sel, we wouldn’t nec­es­sar­ily con­sid­er that a fail­ure.”

Lloyd bound­ed to his feet. “Well, there’s no way in hell I’m go­ing to drop the me­te­orite to the bot­tom of the ocean. So there’s no point in let­ting you build a dead man’s switch.” He took sev­er­al steps away from them, then stopped, fac­ing the pyra­mid, arms fold­ed. “It’s the price of the dance,” Glinn said. He spoke qui­et­ly, but his voice car­ried to­tal con­vic­tion.

For a time, Lloyd made no re­ply. The big man shook his head, clear­ly in the grip of an in­ner strug­gle. At last he turned.

“All right,” he said. “When do we start?”

“To­day, if you like.” Glinn stood up, care­ful­ly plac­ing his fold­er on the stone bench. “This con­tains an overview of the prepa­ra­tions we’ll need to make, along with a break­down of the as­so­ci­at­ed costs. All we need is your go-​ahead and a fifty-​mil­lion re­tain­er. As you will see, EES will han­dle all the de­tails.”

Lloyd took the fold­er. “I’ll read it be­fore lunch.”

“I think you’ll find it in­ter­est­ing. And now, I’d bet­ter get back to New York.” Glinn nod­ded at the two men in turn. “Gen­tle­men, en­joy your pyra­mid.”

Then he turned, made his way across the sandy clear­ing, and dis­ap­peared in­to the tight­ly wo­ven shade of the maple trees.

Mill­burn, New Jer­sey,

June 9, 2:45 P.M.

ELI GLINN sat, mo­tion­less, be­hind the wheel of a non­de­script four-​door sedan. By in­stinct, he had parked at an an­gle that max­imized sun glare off the wind­shield, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult for passers­by to ob­serve him. He dis­pas­sion­ate­ly took in the sights and sounds of the typ­ical East Coast sub­urb: tend­ed lawns, an­cient trees, the dis­tant hum of free­way traf­fic.

Two build­ings down, the front door of a small Geor­gian opened and a wom­an ap­peared. Glinn straight­ened up with an al­most im­per­cep­ti­ble mo­tion. He watched at­ten­tive­ly as she de­scend­ed the front steps, hes­itat­ed, then looked back over her shoul­der. But the door had al­ready shut. She turned away and be­gan walk­ing to­ward him briskly, head held high, shoul­ders straight, light yel­low hair bur­nished by the af­ter­noon sun.

Glinn opened a mani­la fold­er ly­ing on the pas­sen­ger seat and stud­ied a pho­to­graph clipped to the pa­pers in­side. This was her. He slipped the fold­er in­to the rear of the car and looked back through the win­dow. Even out of uni­form the wom­an ra­di­at­ed au­thor­ity, com­pe­tence, and self-​dis­ci­pline. And noth­ing about her be­trayed how dif­fi­cult the last eigh­teen months must have been. That was good, very good. As she ap­proached, he low­ered the pas­sen­ger win­dow: ac­cord­ing to his char­ac­ter pro­file, sur­prise of­fered the high­est hope of suc­cess.

“Cap­tain Brit­ton?” he called out. “My name is Eli Glinn. Could I have a word with you?”

She paused. He not­ed that, al­ready, the sur­prise on her face was giv­ing way to cu­rios­ity. There was no alarm or fear; mere­ly qui­et con­fi­dence.

The wom­an stepped to­ward the car. “Yes?”

Au­to­mat­ical­ly, Glinn made a num­ber of men­tal notes. The wom­an wore no per­fume, and she kept her small but func­tion­al hand­bag clasped tight­ly against her side. She was tall, but fine-​boned. Al­though her face was pale, tiny crin­kles around the green eyes and a splash of freck­les gave ev­idence of years spent in the sun and wind. Her voice was low.

“Ac­tu­al­ly, what I have to say might take a while. Can I drop you some­where?”

“Un­nec­es­sary, thank you. The train sta­tion’s just a few blocks away.”

Glinn nod­ded. “Head­ing home to New Rochelle? The con­nec­tions are very in­con­ve­nient. I’d be hap­py to drive you.”

This time the sur­prise lin­gered a lit­tle longer, and when it died away it left a look of spec­ula­tion in the sea green eyes. “My moth­er al­ways told me nev­er to get in­to a stranger’s car.

“Your moth­er taught you well. But I think what I have to say will be of in­ter­est to you.”

The wom­an con­sid­ered this a mo­ment. Then she nod­ded. “Very well,” she said, open­ing the pas­sen­ger door and tak­ing a seat. Glinn no­ticed that she kept her purse in her lap, and her right hand, sig­nif­icant­ly, stayed on the door han­dle. He was not sur­prised she had ac­cept­ed. But he was im­pressed by her abil­ity to size up a sit­ua­tion, ex­am­ine the op­tions, and quick­ly ar­rive at a so­lu­tion. She was will­ing to take a risk, but not a fool­ish one. This is what the dossier had led him to ex­pect.

“You’ll have to give me di­rec­tions,” he said, pulling away from the curb. “I’m not fa­mil­iar with this part of New Jer­sey.” This was not pre­cise­ly true. He knew half a dozen ways to get to Westch­ester Coun­ty, but he want­ed to see how she han­dled com­mand, even one as small as this. As they drove, Brit­ton re­mained col­lect­ed, giv­ing terse di­rec­tions in the man­ner of some­one ac­cus­tomed to hav­ing her or­ders obeyed. A very im­pres­sive wom­an in­deed, per­haps all the more im­pres­sive for her sin­gle catas­troph­ic fail­ure.

“Let me get some­thing out of the way from the be­gin­ning,” he said. “I know your past his­to­ry, and it has no bear­ing on what I’m about to say.”

From the com­er of his eye, he saw her stiff­en. But when she spoke, her voice was calm. “I be­lieve that at this point, a la­dy is sup­posed to say, `You have me at a dis­ad­van­tage, sir.’”

“I can’t go in­to de­tails at the mo­ment. But I’m here to of­fer you the cap­tain­cy of an oil tanker.”

They rode for sev­er­al min­utes in si­lence.

At last she glanced over at him. “If you knew my his­to­ry as well as you say, I doubt you’d be mak­ing such an of­fer.” Her voice re­mained calm, but Glinn could read many things in her face: cu­rios­ity, pride, sus­pi­cion, per­haps hope. “You’re wrong, Cap­tain Brit­ton. I know the whole sto­ry. I know how you were one of the few fe­male mas­ters in the tanker fleet. I know how you were os­tra­cized, how you tend­ed to catch the least pop­ular routes. The pres­sures you faced were im­mense.” He paused. “I know that you were found on the bridge of your last com­mand in a state of in­tox­ica­tion. You were di­ag­nosed an al­co­holic and en­tered a re­ha­bil­ita­tion cen­ter. As a re­sult of re­hab, you suc­cess­ful­ly re­tained your mas­ter’s li­cense. But since leav­ing the cen­ter over a year ago, you’ve had no new of­fers of com­mand. Did I miss any­thing?” He care­ful­ly wait­ed for the re­ac­tion.

“No,” she replied, steadi­ly. “That about cov­ers it.”

“I’ll be frank, Cap­tain. This as­sign­ment is very un­usu­al. I have a short list of oth­er mas­ters I could ap­proach, but I think they might well turn down the com­mand.”

“While I, on the oth­er hand, am des­per­ate.” Brit­ton con­tin­ued star­ing out the wind­shield, speak­ing in a low voice.

“If you had been des­per­ate, you would have tak­en that tramp Pana­ma steam­er of­fered you last Novem­ber, or that Liberi­an freighter, with its armed guards and sus­pi­cious car­go.” He watched her eyes nar­row slight­ly. “You see, Cap­tain Brit­ton, in my line of work, I an­alyze the na­ture of fail­ure.”

“And just what is your line of work, Mr. Glinn?”

“En­gi­neer­ing. Our anal­ysis has shown that peo­ple who failed once are nine­ty per­cent less like­ly to fail again.” I my­self am a liv­ing ex­am­ple of the truth of this the­ory.

Glinn did not ac­tu­al­ly ut­ter this last sen­tence, but he had been about to. He al­lowed his eyes to sweep over Cap­tain Brit­ton for a mo­ment. What had prompt­ed him to al­most drop a re­serve as ha­bit­ual as breath­ing? This mer­it­ed lat­er con­sid­er­ation.

He re­turned his eyes to the road. “We have eval­uat­ed your over­all record thor­ough­ly. Once you were a su­perb cap­tain with a drink­ing prob­lem. Now you are mere­ly a su­perb cap­tain. One on whose dis­cre­tion I know I can re­ly.”

Brit­ton ac­knowl­edged this with a slight nod of her head. “Dis­cre­tion,” she re­peat­ed, with a faint sar­don­ic note.

“If you ac­cept the as­sign­ment, I will be able to say much more. But what I can tell you now is this. The voy­age will not be a long one, per­haps three months at most. It will have to be con­duct­ed un­der great se­cre­cy. The des­ti­na­tion is the far south­ern lat­itudes, an area you know well. The fi­nan­cial back­ing is more than ad­equate, and you may hand­pick your crew, as long as they pass our back­ground checks. All of­fi­cers and crew will draw triple the nor­mal pay.”

Brit­ton frowned. “If you know I turned down the Liberi­ans, then you know I don’t smug­gle drugs, run guns, or deal in con­tra­band. I will not break the law, Mr. Glinn.”

“The mis­sion is le­gal, but it is unique enough to re­quire a mo­ti­vat­ed crew. And there is some­thing else. If the mis­sion is suc­cess­ful — I should say, when the mis­sion is suc­cess­ful, be­cause my job is to make sure it is — there will be pub­lic­ity, large­ly fa­vor­able. Not for me — I avoid that sort of thing — but for you. It could be use­ful in a num­ber of ways. It could get you re­in­stat­ed on­to the list of ac­tive mas­ters, for ex­am­ple. And it would car­ry some weight with your child cus­tody hear­ings, per­haps mak­ing these long week­end vis­ita­tions un­nec­es­sary.”

This last ob­ser­va­tion had the ef­fect Glinn hoped for. Brit­ton looked at him quick­ly, then glanced over her shoul­der, as if at the swift­ly re­treat­ing Geor­gian house, now many miles be­hind them. Then she looked back at Glinn.

“I’ve been read­ing W.H. Au­den,” she said. “On the train com­ing out this morn­ing, I came across a po­em called ‘At­lantis.’ The last stan­za start­ed out some­thing like this:

All the lit­tle house­hold gods Have start­ed cry­ing, but say Good-​bye now, and put to sea.”

She smiled. And, if Glinn paid at­ten­tion to such things, he would have in­sist­ed that the smile was dis­tinct­ly beau­ti­ful.

Port of Eliz­abeth,

June 17, 10:00 A.M.

PALMER LLOYD paused be­fore the win­dow­less door, a grimy rect­an­gle in the vast ex­panse of met­al build­ing that reared up be­fore him. From be­hind, where his driv­er leaned against a limou­sine read­ing a tabloid, he could hear the roar of the New Jer­sey Turn­pike echo­ing across the dead swamp­lands and old ware­hous­es. Ahead, be­yond the Marsh Street dry docks, the Port of Eliz­abeth glit­tered in the sum­mer heat. Near­by, a crane nod­ded ma­ter­nal­ly above a con­tain­er ship. Be­yond the port, a brace of tug­boats was push­ing a barge bur­dened with cubed cars. And even far­ther be­yond, pok­ing above the black­ened back­side of Bay­onne, the Man­hat­tan sky­line beck­oned, gleam­ing in the sun like a row of jew­els.

Lloyd was mo­men­tar­ily swept by a feel­ing of nos­tal­gia. It had been years since he was last here. He re­mem­bered grow­ing up in iron­bound Rah­way, near the port. In his pover­tys­trick­en boy­hood, Lloyd had spent many days prowl­ing the docks, yards, and fac­to­ries.

He in­haled the in­dus­tri­al air, the fa­mil­iar acrid odor of ar­ti­fi­cial ros­es min­gling with the smell of the salt marsh­es, tar, and sul­fur. He still loved the feel of the place, the stacks trail­ing steam and smoke, the gleam­ing re­finer­ies, the thick­ets of pow­er lines. The naked in­dus­tri­al mus­cle had a Sheel­er-​like beau­ty to it. It was places like Eliz­abeth, he mused, with their syn­er­gy of com­merce and in­dus­try, that gave the res­idents of the sub­urbs and the pho­ny bou­tique artiste towns the very where­with­al that al­lowed them to sneer at its ug­li­ness from their own perch­es of com­fort. Strange how much he missed those lost boy­hood days, even though all his dreams had come true.

And even stranger that his great­est achieve­ment should be launched from here, where his own roots lay. Even as a boy he had loved col­lect­ing. Hav­ing no mon­ey, he had to build up his nat­ural his­to­ry col­lec­tion by find­ing his own spec­imens. He picked up ar­row­heads out of erod­ed em­bank­ments, shells from the grimy shore­line, rocks and min­er­als from aban­doned mines; he dug fos­sils from the Juras­sic de­posits of near­by Hack­en­sack and caught but­ter­flies by the dozen from these very marsh­es. He col­lect­ed frogs, lizards, snakes, and all man­ner of an­imal life, pre­serv­ing them in gin swiped from his fa­ther. He had amassed a fine col­lec­tion — un­til his house burned down on his fif­teenth birth­day, tak­ing all his trea­sures with it. It was the most painful loss of his life. Af­ter that, he nev­er col­lect­ed an­oth­er spec­imen. He’d gone to col­lege, then in­to busi­ness, pil­ing suc­cess up­on suc­cess. And then one day, it dawned on him that he could now af­ford to buy the very best the world could of­fer. He could, in an odd way, erase that ear­ly loss. What start­ed as a hob­by be­came a pas­sion — and his vi­sion for the Lloyd Mu­se­um was born. And now here he was, back at the Jer­sey docks, about to set off to claim the great­est trea­sure of all.

He took a deep breath and gripped the han­dle of the door, a tin­gle of an­tic­ipa­tion cours­ing through him. Glinn’s thin fold­er had been a mas­ter­piece — well worth the mil­lion he had paid for it. The plan it out­lined was bril­liant. Ev­ery con­tin­gen­cy had been ac­count­ed for, ev­ery dif­fi­cul­ty an­tic­ipat­ed. Be­fore he’d fin­ished read­ing, his shock and anger at the price tag had been re­placed by ea­ger­ness. And now, af­ter ten days of im­pa­tient wait­ing, he would see the first stage of the plan near­ing com­ple­tion. The heav­iest ob­ject ev­er moved by mankind. He turned the han­dle and stepped in­side.

The build­ing’s fa­cade, large as it was, on­ly hint­ed at the vast­ness of its in­te­ri­or. See­ing such a large space with­out in­ter­nal floors or walls, com­plete­ly open to its high ceil­ing, tem­porar­ily de­feat­ed the eye’s abil­ity to judge dis­tances, but it seemed at least a quar­ter mile in length. A net­work of cat­walks stretched through the dusty air like met­al spi­der­web­bing. A ca­copho­ny of noise rolled through the cav­ernous space to­ward him: the chat­ter of riv­et­ing, the clang of steel, the crack­le of weld­ing.

And there, at the cen­ter of fu­ri­ous ac­tiv­ity, it lay: a stu­pen­dous ves­sel, propped up in dry dock by great steel but­tress­es, its bul­bous bow tow­er­ing above him. As oil tankers go, it was not the biggest, but out of the wa­ter it was just about the most gi­gan­tic thing Lloyd had ev­er seen. The name Rolvaag was sten­ciled in white paint along the port side. Men and ma­chines were crawl­ing around it like a colony of ants. A smile broke out on Lloyd’s face as he in­haled the heady aro­ma of burnt met­al, sol­vents, and diesel fumes. A part of him en­joyed watch­ing the fla­grant ex­pen­di­ture of mon­ey — even his own.

Glinn ap­peared, rolled-​up blueprints in one hand, an EES hard hat on his head. Lloyd looked at him, still smil­ing, and shook his head word­less­ly in ad­mi­ra­tion.

Glinn hand­ed him a spare hard hat. “The view from the cat­walks is even bet­ter,” he said. “We’ll meet Cap­tain Brit­ton up there.”

Lloyd fit­ted the hard hat to his head and fol­lowed Glinn on­to a small lift. They as­cend­ed about a hun­dred feet, then stepped out on­to a cat­walk that ran around all four walls of the dry dock. As he moved, Lloyd found him­self un­able to take his gaze off the im­mense ship that stretched away be­low him. It was in­cred­ible. And it was his.

“It was built in Sta­vanger, Nor­way, six months ago.” Glinn’s dry voice was al­most lost in the din of con­struc­tion that rose up to meet them. “Giv­en ev­ery­thing we’re do­ing to it, we couldn’t opt for a spot char­ter. So we had to buy it out­right.”

“Dou­ble over­age,” Lloyd mur­mured.

“We’ll be able to sell it lat­er and re­coup al­most all the ex­pense, of course. And I think you’ll find the Rolvaag worth it. It’s state of the art, dou­ble-​hulled and deep draft­ed for rough seas. It dis­places a hun­dred and fifty thou­sand tons-​small­ish when you con­sid­er that VL­CCs dis­place up to half a mil­lion.”

“It’s re­mark­able. If there was on­ly some way of run­ning my af­fairs re­mote­ly, I’d give any­thing to be able to go along.”

“We’ll doc­ument ev­ery­thing, of course. There will be dai­ly con­fer­ences via satel­lite up­link. I think you’ll share ev­ery­thing but the sea­sick­ness.”

As they con­tin­ued along the cat­walk, the en­tire port side of the ves­sel be­came vis­ible. Lloyd stopped.

“What is it?” Glinn asked.

“I…” Lloyd paused, tem­porar­ily at a loss for words. “I just nev­er thought it would look so cred­ible.”

Amuse­ment gleamed briefly in Glinn’s eyes. “In­dus­tri­al Light and Mag­ic is do­ing a fine job, don’t you think?”

“The Hol­ly­wood firm?”

Glinn nod­ded. “Why rein­vent the wheel? They’ve got the best vi­su­al ef­fects de­sign­ers in the world. And they’re dis­creet.”

Lloyd did not re­ply. He sim­ply stood at the rail­ing, gaz­ing down. Be­fore his very eyes, the sleek, state-​of-​the-​art oil tanker was be­ing trans­formed in­to a shab­by ore car­ri­er bound for its grave­yard voy­age. The for­ward half of the great ship pre­sent­ed beau­ti­ful, clean ex­pans­es of paint­ed met­al, welds and plates in crisp ge­omet­ri­cal per­fec­tion: all the sparkling new­ness of a six-​month-​old ves­sel. From amid­ships to the stern, how­ev­er, the con­trast could not have been more out­ra­geous. The rear sec­tion of the ship looked like a wreck. The aft su­per­struc­ture seemed to have been coat­ed in twen­ty lay­ers of paint, each flak­ing off at a dif­fer­ent rate. One of the bridge wings, a queer-​look­ing struc­ture to be­gin with, had been ap­par­ent­ly crushed, then weld­ed back to­geth­er. Great rivers of rust cas­cad­ed down the dent­ed hull. The rail­ings were warped, and miss­ing sec­tions had been crude­ly patched with weld­ed pipe, re­bar, and an­gle iron.

“It’s a per­fect dis­guise,” said Lloyd. “Just like the min­ing op­er­ation.”

“I’m es­pe­cial­ly pleased with the radar mast,” said Glinn, point­ing aft.

Even from this dis­tance, Lloyd could see the paint was large­ly stripped off, and bits of met­al dan­gled from old wires. A few an­ten­nae had been bro­ken, crude­ly spliced, then bro­ken again. Ev­ery­thing was streaked with stack soot.

“In­side that wreck of a mast,” Glinn went on, “you’ll find the very lat­est equip­ment: P-​Code and dif­fer­en­tial GPS, Spizz-64, FLIR, LN-66, Slick 32, pas­sive ESM, and oth­er spe­cial­ized radar equip­ment, Tiger­shark Lo­ran C, IN­MARSAT, and Sper­ry GMDSS com­mu­ni­ca­tions sta­tions. If we run in­to any, ah, spe­cial sit­ua­tions, there are some mast elec­tron­ics that can be raised at the push of a but­ton.”

As Lloyd watched, a crane hold­ing a huge wreck­ing ball swiveled to­ward the hull; with exquisite care the ball was brought in con­tact with the port side of the ship once, twice, then three times, adding fresh in­dig­ni­ties. Painters with thick hoses swarmed over the ship’s mid­sec­tion, turn­ing the spot­less deck in­to a storm of sim­ulat­ed tar, oil, and grit.

“The re­al job will be clean­ing all this up,” Glinn said “Once we un­load the me­te­orite and are ready to re­sell the ship.”

Lloyd tore his gaze away. Once we un­load the me­te­orite… In less than two weeks, the ship would be head­ing to sea. And when it re­turned — when, at last, his prize could be un­veiled — the whole world would be talk­ing about what had been ac­com­plished.

“Of course, we’re not do­ing much to the in­te­ri­or,” Glinn said as they start­ed along the cat­walk again. “The quar­ters are quite lux­uri­ous — large state­rooms, wood pan­el­ing, com­put­er-​con­trolled light­ing, lounges, ex­er­cise rooms, and so forth.”

Lloyd stopped once again as he no­ticed ac­tiv­ity around a hole cut in­to the for­ward hull. A line of bull­doz­ers, D-​cats, front-​end load­ers, skid­ders with house-​size tires, and oth­er heavy min­ing equip­ment snaked away from the hole, a heavy­weight traf­fic jam, wait­ing to be load­ed on­to the ship. There was a roar of diesel en­gines and the grind­ing of gears as, one by one, the equip­ment drove in and dis­ap­peared from view.

“An in­dus­tri­al-​age Noah’s ark,” said Lloyd.

“It was cheap­er and faster to make our own door than to po­si­tion all the heavy equip­ment with a crane,” Glinn said. “The Rolvaag is de­signed like a typ­ical tanker. The car­go-​oil spaces oc­cu­py three quar­ters of the hull. The rest is tak­en up with gen­er­al holds, com­part­ments, ma­chin­ery spaces, and the like. We’ve built spe­cial bays to hold the equip­ment and raw ma­te­ri­al we’ll need for the job. We’ve al­ready load­ed a thou­sand tons of the best Mannsheim high­ten­sile steel, a quar­ter mil­lion board feet of lam­inat­ed tim­bers, and ev­ery­thing from air­craft tires to gen­er­ators.”

Lloyd point­ed. “And those box­cars on the deck?”

“They’re de­signed to look like the Rolvaag is mak­ing some ex­tra bucks on the side pig­gy­back­ing con­tain­ers. In­side are some very so­phis­ti­cat­ed labs.”

“Tell me about them.”

“The gray one clos­est to the bow is a hy­dro lab. Next to it is a clean room. And then we have a high-​speed CAD work­sta­tion, a dark­room, tech stores, a sci­en­tif­ic freez­er, elec­tron mi­cro­scope and X-​ray crys­tal­log­ra­phy labs, a div­er’s lock­er, and an iso­tope and ra­di­ation cham­ber. Be­lowdecks are med­ical and sur­gi­cal spaces, a bio­haz­ard lab, and two ma­chine shops. No win­dows for any of them, I’m afraid; that would give the game away.”

Lloyd shook his head. “I’m be­gin­ning to see where all my mon­ey is go­ing. Don’t for­get, Eli, what I’m buy­ing is ba­si­cal­ly a re­cov­ery op­er­ation. The sci­ence can wait.”

“I haven’t for­got­ten. But giv­en the high de­gree of un­knowns, and the fact that we’ll on­ly get one chance at this re­cov­ery, we must be pre­pared for any­thing.”

“Of course. That’s why I’m send­ing Sam Mc­Far­lane. But as long as things go ac­cord­ing to plan, his ex­per­tise is for use with the en­gi­neer­ing prob­lem. I don’t want a lot of time­wast­ing sci­en­tif­ic tests. Just get the thing the hell out of Chile. We’ll have all the time in the world to fuss with it lat­er.”

“Sam Mc­Far­lane,” Glinn re­peat­ed. “An in­ter­est­ing choice. Cu­ri­ous fel­low.”

Lloyd looked at him. “Now don’t you start telling me I made a mis­take.”

“I didn’t say that. I mere­ly ex­press sur­prise at your choice of plan­etary ge­ol­ogists.”

“He’s the best guy for the job. I don’t want a crowd of wimpy sci­en­tists down there. Sam’s worked both the lab and the field. He can do it all. He’s tough. He knows Chile. The guy who found the thing was his ex-​part­ner, for chris­sakes, and his anal­ysis of the da­ta was bril­liant.” He leaned con­fi­den­tial­ly to­ward Glinn. “So he made an er­ror of judg­ment a cou­ple of years back. And, yes, it wasn’t a small one. Does that mean no­body should trust him for the rest of his life? Be­sides” — and here he placed a hand on Glinn’s shoul­der-“you’ll be there to keep an eye on him. Just in case temp­ta­tion comes his way.” He re­leased his hold and turned back to the ship. “And speak­ing of temp­ta­tion, where ex­act­ly will the me­te­orite go?”

“Fol­low me,” Glinn said. “I’ll show you.”

They climbed an­oth­er set of stairs and con­tin­ued along a high cat­walk that bridged the ship’s beam. Here, a lone fig­ure stood at the rail: silent, erect, dressed in a cap­tain’s out­fit, look­ing ev­ery inch the ship’s of­fi­cer. As they ap­proached, the fig­ure de­tached it­self from the rail­ing and wait­ed. “Cap­tain Brit­ton,” said Glinn, “Mr. Lloyd.”

Lloyd ex­tend­ed his hand, then froze. “A wom­an?” he blurt­ed in­vol­un­tar­ily.

With­out a pause, she grasped his hand. “Very ob­ser­vant, Mr. Lloyd.” She gave his hand a firm, short shake. “Sal­ly Brit­ton.”

“Of course,” said Lloyd. “I just didn’t ex­pect — -” Why hadn’t Glinn warned him? His eyes lin­gered on the trim form, the wisp of blond hair es­cap­ing from be­neath her cap.

“Glad you could meet us,” said Glinn. “I want­ed you to see the ship be­fore it was com­plete­ly dis­guised.”

“Thank you, Mr. Glinn,” she said, the faint smile hold­ing. “I don’t think I’ve ev­er seen any­thing quite so re­pul­sive in my life.”

“It’s pure­ly cos­met­ic.”

“I in­tend to spend the next sev­er­al days mak­ing sure of that.” She point­ed to­ward some large pro­jec­tions from the side of the su­per­struc­ture. “What’s be­hind those for­ward bulk­heads?”

“Ad­di­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty equip­ment,” Glinn said. “We’ve tak­en ev­ery pos­si­ble safe­ty pre­cau­tion, and then some.”

“In­ter­est­ing.”

Lloyd gazed at her pro­file cu­ri­ous­ly. “Eli here has said noth­ing about you,” he said. “Can you fill me in on your back­ground?”

“I was a ship’s of­fi­cer for five years, and a cap­tain for three.”

Lloyd caught the past tense. “What kind of ships?”

“Tankers and VL­CCs.”

“I’m sor­ry?”

“Very Large Crude Car­ri­ers. Over two hun­dred and fifty thou­sand tons dis­place­ment. Tankers on steroids, ba­si­cal­ly.”

“She’s gone around the Horn on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions,” said Glinn.

“Around the Horn? I didn’t know that route was still used.”

“The big VL­CCs can’t go through the Pana­ma Canal,” said Brit­ton. “The pre­ferred route is around the Cape of Good Hope, but oc­ca­sion­al­ly sched­ules re­quire a Horn pas­sage.”

“That’s one rea­son we hired her,” said Glinn. “The seas down there can be tricky.”

Lloyd nod­ded, still gaz­ing at Brit­ton. She re­turned the look calm­ly, un­ruf­fled by the pan­de­mo­ni­um tak­ing place be­low her. “You know about our un­usu­al car­go?” he asked.

She nod­ded.

“And you have no prob­lem with it?”

She looked at him. “I have no prob­lem with it.”

Some­thing in those clear green eyes told Lloyd a dif­fer­ent sto­ry. He opened his mouth to speak, but Glinn in­ter­rupt­ed smooth­ly. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll show you the cra­dle.”

He mo­tioned them far­ther down the cat­walk. Here the ship’s deck lay di­rect­ly be­low, wreathed in clouds of weld­ing smoke and diesel ex­haust. Deck­plates had been re­moved, ex­pos­ing a vast hole in the ship. Manuel Garza, chief en­gi­neer for EES, stood at its edge, hold­ing a ra­dio to his ear with one hand and ges­tur­ing with the oth­er. Catch­ing sight of them over­head, he waved.

Peer­ing down in­to the ex­posed space, Lloyd could make out an amaz­ing­ly com­plex struc­ture, with the el­egance of a crys­tal lat­tice. Strings of yel­low sodi­um lights along its edges made the dark hold sparkle and glow like a deep, en­chant­ed grot­to.

“That’s the hold?” Lloyd asked.

“Tank, not hold. Num­ber three cen­ter tank, to be pre­cise. We’ll be plac­ing the me­te­orite at the very cen­ter of the ship’s keel, to max­imize sta­bil­ity. And we’ve added a pas­sage­way be­neath the main­deck, run­ning from the su­per­struc­ture for­ward, to aid ac­cess. Note the me­chan­ical doors we’ve in­stalled on each side of the tank open­ing.”

The cra­dle was a long way down. Lloyd squint­ed against the glow of the count­less lights.

“I’ll be damned,” he said sud­den­ly. “Half of it’s made of wood!” He turned to Glinn. “Cut­ting cor­ners al­ready?”

The cor­ners of Glinn’s mouth jerked up­ward in a brief smile. “Wood, Mr. Lloyd, is the ul­ti­mate en­gi­neer­ing ma­te­ri­al.”

Lloyd shook his head. “Wood? For a ten-​thou­sand-​ton weight? I can’t be­lieve it.”

“Wood is ide­al. It gives ev­er so slight­ly, but nev­er de­forms. It tends to bite in­to heavy ob­jects, lock­ing them in place. The type of oak we’re us­ing, green­heart lam­inat­ed with epoxy, has a high­er shear strength than steel. And wood can be carved and shaped to fit the curves of the hull. It won’t wear through the steel hull in a heavy sea, and it doesn’t suf­fer met­al fa­tigue.”

“But why so com­pli­cat­ed an ar­range­ment?”

“We had to solve a lit­tle prob­lem,” said Glinn. “At ten thou­sand tons, the me­te­orite must be ab­so­lute­ly locked in­to place, im­mo­bi­lized in the hold. If the Rolvaag en­coun­ters heavy weath­er on the way back to New York, even a tiny shift of the me­te­orite’s po­si­tion could fa­tal­ly desta­bi­lize the ship. That net­work of tim­bers not on­ly locks the thing in­to place, but dis­tributes its weight even­ly through­out the hull, sim­ulat­ing the load­ing of crude oil.”

“Im­pres­sive,” said Brit­ton. “You took the in­ter­nal frames and par­ti­tion­ing in­to ac­count?”

“Yes. Dr. Ami­ra is a com­pu­ta­tion­al ge­nius. She worked up a cal­cu­la­tion that took all of ten hours on a Cray T3D su­per­com­put­er, but it gave us the con­fig­ura­tion. We can’t fin­ish it, of course, un­til we get the ex­act di­men­sions of the rock. We’ve built this based on Mr. Lloyd’s fly­over da­ta. But when we ac­tu­al­ly un­earth the me­te­orite, we’ll build a sec­ond cra­dle around it that we can plug in­to this one.”

Lloyd nod­ded. “And what are those men do­ing?” He point­ed to the deep­est depths of the hold, where a gag­gle of work­men, bare­ly vis­ible, were cut­ting through the hull plates with acety­lene torch­es.

“The dead man’s switch,” said Glinn even­ly.

Lloyd felt a surge of ir­ri­ta­tion. “You’re not re­al­ly go­ing through with that.”

“We’ve al­ready dis­cussed it.”

Lloyd strug­gled to sound rea­son­able. “Look. If you open up the bot­tom of the ship to dump the me­te­orite in the mid­dle of some storm, the damn ship’s go­ing to sink any­way. Any id­iot can see that.”

Glinn held Lloyd with his gray, im­pen­etra­ble eyes. “If the switch is thrown, it will take less than six­ty sec­onds to open the tank, re­lease the rock, and re­seal it. The tanker won’t sink in six­ty sec­onds, no mat­ter how heavy the seas are. On the con­trary, the in­rush of wa­ter will ac­tu­al­ly com­pen­sate for the sud­den loss of bal­last when the me­te­orite goes. Dr. Ami­ra worked that all out, too. And a pret­ty lit­tle equa­tion it was.”

Lloyd stared back at him. This man ac­tu­al­ly de­rived plea­sure from hav­ing solved the prob­lem of how to send a price­less me­te­orite to the bot­tom of the At­lantic. “All I can say is, if any­one throws that dead man’s switch on my me­te­orite, he’s a dead man him­self.”

Cap­tain Brit­ton laughed — a high, ring­ing sound that car­ried above the clan­gor be­low. Both men turned to­ward her. “Don’t for­get, Mr. Lloyd,” she said crisply, “it’s no­body’s me­te­orite yet. And there’s a long stretch of wa­ter ahead of us be­fore it is.”

Aboard the Rolvaag,

June 26, 12:35 A.M.

MC­FAR­LANE STEPPED through the hatch­way, care­ful­ly closed the steel door be­hind him, and walked out on­to the fly deck. It was the very high­est point of the ship’s su­per­struc­ture, and it felt like the roof of the world. The smooth sur­face of the At­lantic lay more than a hun­dred feet be­low him, dap­pled in faint starlight. The gen­tle breeze car­ried the dis­tant cry of gulls, and smelled won­der­ful­ly of the sea.

He walked over to the for­ward rail­ing and wrapped his hands around it. He thought about the huge ship that would be his home for the next few months. Di­rect­ly be­low his feet lay the bridge. Be­low that lay a deck left mys­te­ri­ous­ly emp­ty by Glinn. Far­ther be­low lay the ram­bling quar­ters of the se­nior of­fi­cers. And a full six sto­ries down, the main­deck, stretch­ing ahead a sixth of a mile to the bow. An oc­ca­sion­al dash of star­lit spray washed over the fore­cas­tle head. The net­work of pip­ing and tank valves re­mained, and placed around it were a maze of old con­tain­ers — the lab­ora­to­ries and workspaces — like a child’s wood­block city.

In a few min­utes his pres­ence would be re­quired at the “night lunch,” which would be their first for­mal meal on board ship. But he had come up here first to con­vince him­self that the voy­age had re­al­ly be­gun.

He breathed in, try­ing to clear his head of the last fran­tic days, set­ting up labs and be­tat­est­ing equip­ment. He gripped the rail­ing tighter, feel­ing a swell of ex­hil­ara­tion. This is more like it, he thought. Even a jail cell in Chile seemed prefer­able to hav­ing Lloyd con­stant­ly look­ing over his shoul­der, sec­ond-​guess­ing, wor­ry­ing over triv­ial de­tails. What­ev­er lay at the end of their jour­ney — what­ev­er it was that Nestor Masangkay had found — at least they were on their way.

Mc­Far­lane turned and made the long walk across the deck to the aft rail. Al­though the thrum of en­gines came faint­ly from the depths of the ship, up here he could feel no hint of vi­bra­tion. In the dis­tance he could see the Cape May light­house wink­ing, one short, one long. Af­ter Glinn se­cured their clear­ance pa­pers through some pri­vate means of his own, they had left Eliz­abeth un­der cov­er of dark­ness, main­tain­ing se­cre­cy to the last. They would soon be in the main ship­ping lanes, be­yond the con­ti­nen­tal shelf, and would then turn due south. Five weeks from now, if all went as planned, they would see the same light again. Mc­Far­lane tried to imag­ine what it would be like if they did re­cov­er it suc­cess­ful­ly: the fu­ri­ous out­cry, the sci­en­tif­ic coup — and, per­haps, his own per­son­al ex­on­er­ation.

Then he smiled cyn­ical­ly to him­self. Life didn’t work like that. It was so much eas­ier to see him­self back again in the Kala­hari, a lit­tle more mon­ey in his pock­et, a lit­tle chub­by from ship’s food, track­ing down the elu­sive Bush­men and re­new­ing his search for the Oka­van­go. And noth­ing would erase what he had done to Nestor — par­tic­ular­ly now that his old friend and part­ner was dead.

As he gazed out over the ship’s stem, Mc­Far­lane be­came aware of an­oth­er odor on the sea air: to­bac­co. Look­ing around, he re­al­ized he wasn’t alone. From the far side of the fly deck, a small pin­point of red winked against the dark, then dis­ap­peared again. Some­one had been qui­et­ly stand­ing there; a fel­low pas­sen­ger en­joy­ing the night.

Then the red em­ber jerked and bobbed as the per­son rose to ap­proach him. With sur­prise, he re­al­ized it was Rachel Ami­ra, Glinn’s physi­cist, and his own al­leged as­sis­tant. Be­tween the fin­gers of her right hand were the fi­nal inch­es of a thick cigar. Mc­Far­lane sighed in­ward­ly at hav­ing his soli­tary rever­ie in­trud­ed up­on, es­pe­cial­ly by this sar­don­ic wom­an. “Ciao, boss. Any or­ders for me?”

Mc­Far­lane re­mained silent, feel­ing a swell of an­noy­ance at the word “boss.” He hadn’t signed on to be a man­ag­er. Ami­ra didn’t need a nurse­maid. And she didn’t seem too pleased with the ar­range­ment ei­ther. What could Glinn have been think­ing?

“Three hours at sea, and I’m bored al­ready.” She waved the cigar. “Want one?”

“No thanks. I want to taste my din­ner.”

“Ship’s cook­ing? You must be a masochist.” She leaned against the rail be­side him with a bored sigh. “This ship gives me the willies.”

“How so?”

“It’s just so cold, so robot­ic. When I think of go­ing to sea, I think of iron men run­ning all over the decks, jump­ing at barked or­ders. But look at this.” She jerked a fin­ger over her shoul­der. “Eight hun­dred feet worth of deck, and noth­ing stir­ring. Noth­ing. It’s a haunt­ed ship. De­sert­ed. Ev­ery­thing’s done by com­put­er.”

She has a point, Mc­Far­lane thought. Even though by mod­ern su­per­tanker stan­dards the Rolvaag was on­ly mod­er­ate sized, it was still huge. Yet on­ly a skele­ton crew was nec­es­sary to man it. With all the ship’s com­ple­ment, the EES spe­cial­ists and en­gi­neers, and the con­struc­tion crew, there were still few­er than one hun­dred peo­ple aboard. A cruise ship half the Rolvaag’s size might car­ry two thou­sand.

“And it’s so damned big,” he heard her say, as if an­swer­ing his own thoughts.

“Talk to Glinn about that. Lloyd would have been hap­pi­er spend­ing less mon­ey for less boat.”

“Did you know,” said Ami­ra, “that these tankers are the first man-​made ves­sels big enough to be af­fect­ed by the earth’s ro­ta­tion?”

“No, I didn’t.” Here was a wom­an who liked the sound of her own voice.

“Yeah. And it takes three sea miles to stop this ba­by with en­gines full astern.”

“You’re a reg­ular fund of tanker triv­ia.”

“Oh, I’m good at cock­tail con­ver­sa­tion.” Ami­ra blew a smoke ring in­to the dark­ness.

“What else are you good at?”

Ami­ra laughed. “I’m not too bad at math.”

“So I’ve heard.” Mc­Far­lane turned away, lean­ing over the rail, hop­ing she would take the hint.

“Well, we can’t all be air­line stew­ardess­es when we grow up, you know.” There was a mo­ment of blessed si­lence as Ami­ra puffed at the cigar. “Hey, you know what, boss?”

“I’d ap­pre­ci­ate it if you didn’t call me that.”

“It’s what you are, right?”

Mc­Far­lane turned to her. “I didn’t ask for an as­sis­tant. I don’t need an as­sis­tant. I don’t like this ar­range­ment any more than you do.”

Ami­ra puffed, a sar­don­ic smile hov­er­ing, her eyes full of amuse­ment.

“So I’ve got an idea,” Mc­Far­lane said.

“What’s that?”

“Let’s just pre­tend you’re not my as­sis­tant”

“What, you fir­ing me al­ready?”

Mc­Far­lane sighed, sup­press­ing his first, im­pul­sive re­ac­tion. “We’re go­ing to be spend­ing a lot of time to­geth­er. So let’s work to­geth­er as equals, okay? Glinn doesn’t need to know. And I think we’d both be hap­pi­er.”

Ami­ra ex­am­ined the length­en­ing ash, then tossed the cigar over the rail in­to the sea. When she spoke, her voice sound­ed a lit­tle more friend­ly. “That thing you did with the sand­wich cracked me up. Rochefort’s a con­trol freak. It re­al­ly pissed him off, get­ting cov­ered with jel­ly. I liked that.”

“I made my point.”

Ami­ra gig­gled and Mc­Far­lane glanced in her di­rec­tion, at the eyes glint­ing in the half-​light, at the dark hair dis­ap­pear­ing in­to the vel­vet be­hind her. There was a com­plex per­son in there, hid­ing be­hind the tomboy, one-​of-​the-​guys fa­cade. He looked back out to sea. “Well, I’m sure I’m not go­ing to be Rochefort’s good bud­dy.”

“No­body is. He’s on­ly half hu­man.”

“Like Glinn. I don’t think Glinn would even take a leak with­out first an­alyz­ing all pos­si­ble tra­jec­to­ries.”

There was a pause. He could tell his joke had dis­pleased her.

“Let me tell you a lit­tle about Glinn,” Ami­ra said. “He’s on­ly had two jobs in his life. Ef­fec­tive En­gi­neer­ing So­lu­tions. And the mil­itary.”

There was some­thing in her voice that made Mc­Far­lane glance back at her.

“Be­fore start­ing EES, Glinn was an in­tel­li­gence spe­cial­ist in the Spe­cial Forces. Pris­on­er in­ter­ro­ga­tion, pho­to re­con, un­der­wa­ter de­mo­li­tion, that kind of stuff. Head of his A-​Team. Came up through Air­borne, then the Rangers. Earned his bones in the Phoenix pro­gram dur­ing Viet­nam. “

“In­ter­est­ing.”

“Damn right.” Ami­ra spoke al­most fierce­ly. “They ex­celled in hot-​war sit­ua­tions. From what Garza tells me, the team’s kill-​loss ra­tio was ex­cel­lent.”

“Garza?”

“He was en­gi­neer spe­cial­ist on Glinn’s team. Sec­ond in com­mand. Back then, in­stead of build­ing things, he blew stuff up.”

“Garza told you all this?”

Ami­ra hes­itat­ed. “Eli told me some of it him­self.”

“So what hap­pened?”

“His team got their ass­es kicked try­ing to se­cure a bridge on the Cam­bo­di­an bor­der. Bad in­tel on en­emy place­ments. Eli lost his whole team, ev­ery­one ex­cept Garza.” Ami­ra dug in­to her pock­et, pulled out a peanut, shelled it. “And now Glinn runs EES. And does all the in­tel him­self. So you see, Sam, I think you’ve mis­read him.”

“You seem to know a lot about him.”

Ami­ra’s eyes sud­den­ly grew veiled. She shrugged, then smiled. The ar­dent look fad­ed as quick­ly as it had ap­peared. “It’s a beau­ti­ful sight,” she said, nod­ding out across the wa­ter to­ward the Cape May light. It wa­vered in the vel­vety night: their last con­tact with North Amer­ica.

“That it is,” Mc­Far­lane replied.

“Care to bet how many miles away it is?”

Mc­Far­lane frowned. “Ex­cuse me?”

“A small wa­ger. On the dis­tance to that light­house.”

“I’m not a bet­ting man. Be­sides, you prob­ably have some ar­cane math­emat­ical for­mu­la at your fin­ger­tips.”

“You’d be right about that.” Ami­ra shelled some more peanuts, tossed the nuts in­to her mouth, then flung the shells in­to the sea. “So?”

“So what?”

“Here we are, bound for the ends of the earth, out to snag the biggest rock any­body’s ev­er seen. So, Mr. Me­te­orite Hunter, what do you re­al­ly think?”

I think — ” Mc­Far­lane be­gan. Then he stopped. He re­al­ized he wasn’t al­low­ing him­self to hope that this sec­ond chance — which af­ter all had come out of nowhere — might ac­tu­al­ly work out.

“I think,” he said aloud, “that we’d bet­ter get down to din­ner. If we’re late, that cap­tain of ours will prob­ably keel­haul us. And that’s no joke on a tanker.”

Rolvaag,

June 26, 12:55 A.M.

THEY STEPPED out of the el­eva­tor. Here, five decks clos­er to the en­gines, Mc­Far­lane could feel a deep, reg­ular vi­bra­tion: still faint, yet al­ways present in his ears and his bones.

“This way,” Ami­ra said, mo­tion­ing him down the blue-​and-​white cor­ri­dor.

Mc­Far­lane fol­lowed, glanc­ing around as they went. In dry dock, he’d spent his days and even most nights in the con­tain­er labs on deck, and to­day marked his first time in­side the su­per­struc­ture. In his ex­pe­ri­ence, ships were cramped, claus­tro­pho­bic spaces. But ev­ery­thing about the Rolvaag seemed built to a dif­fer­ent scale: the pas­sages were wide, the cab­ins and pub­lic ar­eas spa­cious and car­pet­ed. Glanc­ing in­to door­ways, he no­ticed a large-​screen the­ater with seats for at least fifty peo­ple, and a wood-​pan­eled li­brary. Then they round­ed a cor­ner, Ami­ra pushed open a door, and they stepped in­to the of­fi­cer’s mess.

Mc­Far­lane stopped. He had been ex­pect­ing the in­dif­fer­ent din­ing area of a work­ing ship. But once again the Rolvaag sur­prised him. The mess was a vast room, ex­tend­ing across the en­tire aft fore­cas­tle deck. Huge win­dows looked out on­to the ship’s wake, boil­ing back in­to the dark­ness. A dozen round ta­bles, each set for eight and cov­ered with crisp linen and fresh flow­ers, were ar­ranged around the cen­ter of the room. Din­ing stew­ards in starched uni­forms stood at their sta­tions. Mc­Far­lane felt un­der­dressed.

Al­ready, peo­ple were be­gin­ning to grav­itate to­ward the ta­bles. Mc­Far­lane had been warned that seat­ing ar­range­ments on board ship were reg­iment­ed, at least at first, and that he was ex­pect­ed to sit at the cap­tain’s ta­ble. Glanc­ing around, he spot­ted Glinn stand­ing at the ta­ble clos­est to the win­dows. He made his way across the dark car­pet­ing.

Glinn had his nose in a small vol­ume, which he quick­ly slipped in­to his pock­et as they ap­proached. Just be­fore it van­ished, Mc­Far­lane caught the ti­tle: Se­lect­ed Po­et­ry of W.H. Au­den. Glinn had nev­er struck him as a read­er of po­et­ry. Per­haps he had mis­judged the man af­ter all.

“Lux­uri­ous,” Mc­Far­lane said as he looked around. “Es­pe­cial­ly for an oil tanker.”

“Ac­tu­al­ly, this is fair­ly stan­dard,” Glinn replied. “On such a large ves­sel, space is no longer at a pre­mi­um. These ships are so ex­pen­sive to op­er­ate, they spend prac­ti­cal­ly no time in port. That means the crews are stuck on board for many, many months. It pays to keep them hap­py.”

More peo­ple were tak­ing their places be­side the ta­bles, and the noise lev­el in the room had in­creased. Mc­Far­lane looked around at the clus­ter of tech­ni­cians, ship’s of­fi­cers, and EES spe­cial­ists. Things had hap­pened so quick­ly that he on­ly rec­og­nized per­haps a dozen of the sev­en­ty-​odd peo­ple now in the room.

Then qui­et fell across the mess. As Mc­Far­lane glanced to­ward the door, Brit­ton, the cap­tain of the Rolvaag, stepped in. He had known she was a wom­an, but he wasn’t ex­pect­ing ei­ther her youth — she couldn’t be more than thir­ty-​five — or her state­ly bear­ing. She car­ried her­self with a nat­ural dig­ni­ty. She was dressed in an im­pec­ca­ble uni­form: naval blaz­er, gold but­tons, crisp of­fi­cer’s skirt. Small gold

bars were af­fixed to her grace­ful shoul­ders. She came to­ward them with a mea­sured step that ra­di­at­ed com­pe­tence and some­thing else — per­haps, he thought, an iron will.

The cap­tain took her seat, and there was a rus­tle as the rest of the room fol­lowed her lead. Brit­ton re­moved her hat, re­veal­ing a tight coil of blond hair, and placed it on a small side ta­ble that seemed spe­cial­ly set up for that pur­pose. As Mc­Far­lane looked clos­er, he no­ticed her eyes be­trayed a look old­er than her years.

A gray­ing man in an of­fi­cer’s uni­form came up to whis­per some­thing in the cap­tain’s ear. He was tall and thin, with dark eyes set in even dark­er sock­ets. Brit­ton nod­ded and he stepped back, glanc­ing around the ta­ble. His easy, flu­id move­ments re­mind­ed Mc­Far­lane of a large preda­tor.

Brit­ton ges­tured to­ward him with an up­raised palm. “I’d like to in­tro­duce the Rolvaag’s chief mate, Vic­tor How­ell.”

There were mur­mured greet­ings, and the man nod­ded, then moved away to take his po­si­tion at the head of a near­by ta­ble. Glinn spoke qui­et­ly. “May I com­plete the in­tro­duc­tions?”

“Of course,” the cap­tain said. She had a clear, clipped voice, with the faintest trace of an ac­cent.

“This is the Lloyd Mu­se­um me­te­orite spe­cial­ist, Dr. Sam Mc­Far­lane.”

The cap­tain grasped Mc­Far­lane’s hand across the ta­ble. “Sal­ly Brit­ton,” she said, her hand cool and strong. And now Mc­Far­lane iden­ti­fied the ac­cent as a Scot­tish burr. “Wel­come aboard, Dr. Mc­Far­lane.”

“And this is Dr. Rachel Ami­ra, the math­emati­cian on my team,” Glinn con­tin­ued, con­tin­uing around the ta­ble. “And Eu­gene Rochefort, chief en­gi­neer.”

Rochefort glanced up with a ner­vous lit­tle nod, his in­tel­li­gent, ob­ses­sive eyes dart­ing about. He was wear­ing a blue blaz­er that might have looked ac­cept­able if it had not been made of polyester that shined un­der the din­ing room lights.

His eyes land­ed on Mc­Far­lane’s, then dart­ed away again. He seemed ill at ease.

“And this is Dr. Patrick Bram­bell, the ship’s doc­tor. No stranger to the high seas.”

Bram­bell flashed the ta­ble a droll smile and gave a lit­tle Japanese bow. He was a de­vi­ous-​look­ing old fel­low with sharp fea­tures, fine par­al­lel wrin­kles trac­ing a high brow, thin stooped shoul­ders, and a head as glabrous as a piece of porce­lain.

“You’ve worked as a ship’s doc­tor be­fore?” Brit­ton in­quired po­lite­ly.

“Nev­er set foot on dry land if I can help it,” said Bram­bell, his voice wry and Irish.

Brit­ton nod­ded as she slipped her nap­kin out of its ring, flicked it open, and laid it across her lap. Her move­ments, her fin­gers, her con­ver­sa­tion all seemed to have an econ­omy of mo­tion, an un­con­scious ef­fi­cien­cy. She was so cool and poised it seemed to Mc­Far­lane a de­fense of some kind. As he picked up his own nap­kin, he no­ticed a card, placed in the cen­ter of the ta­ble in a sil­ver hold­er, with a print­ed menu. It read: Con­som­mé Ol­ga, Lamb Vin­daloo, Chick­en Ly­on­naise, Tiramisu. He gave a low whis­tle.

“The menu not to your lik­ing, Dr. Mc­Far­lane?” Brit­ton asked.

“Just the op­po­site. I was ex­pect­ing egg sal­ad sand­wich­es and pis­ta­chio ice cream.”

“Good din­ing is a ship­board tra­di­tion,” said Brit­ton. “Our chief cook, Mr. Singh, is one of the finest chefs afloat. His fa­ther cooked for the British ad­mi­ral­ty in the days of the Raj.”

“Noth­ing like a good vin­daloo to re­mind you of your mor­tal­ity,” said Bram­bell.

“First things first,” Ami­ra said, rub­bing her hands and look­ing around. “Where’s the bar stew­ard? I’m des­per­ate for a cock­tail.”

“We’ll be shar­ing that bot­tle,” Glinn said, in­di­cat­ing the open bot­tle of Chateau Mar­gaux that stood be­side the flo­ral dis­play.

“Nice wine. But there’s noth­ing like a dry Bom­bay mar­ti­ni be­fore din­ner. Even when din­ner’s at mid­night.” Ami­ra laughed.

Glinn spoke up. “I’m sor­ry, Rachel, but there are no spir­itous liquors al­lowed on board the ship.”

Ami­ra looked at Glinn. “Spir­itous liquors?” she re­peat­ed with a brief laugh. “This is new, Eli. Have you joined the Chris­tian Wom­en’s Tem­per­ance League?”

Glinn con­tin­ued smooth­ly. “The cap­tain al­lows one glass of wine, tak­en be­fore or with din­ner. No hard liquor on the ship.”

It was as if a light­bulb came on over Ami­ra’s head. The jok­ing look was re­placed by a sud­den flush. Her eyes dart­ed to­ward the cap­tain, then away again. “Oh,” she said.

Fol­low­ing Ami­ra’s glance, Mc­Far­lane no­ticed that Brit­ton’s face had turned slight­ly pale un­der her tan.

Glinn was still look­ing at Ami­ra, whose blush con­tin­ued to deep­en. “I think you’ll find the qual­ity of the Bor­deaux makes up for the re­stric­tion.”

Ami­ra re­mained silent, em­bar­rass­ment clear on her face. Brit­ton took the bot­tle and filled glass­es for ev­ery­one at the ta­ble ex­cept her­self. What­ev­er the mys­tery was, Mc­Far­lane thought, it had passed. As a stew­ard slipped a plate of con­som­mé in front of him, he made a men­tal note to ask Ami­ra about it lat­er.

The noise of con­ver­sa­tion at the near­est ta­bles rose once again, fill­ing a brief and awk­ward si­lence. At the near­est ta­ble, Manuel Garza was but­ter­ing a slab of bread with his beefy paw and roar­ing at a joke.

“What’s it like to han­dle a ship this big?” Mc­Far­lane asked. It was not sim­ply a po­lite ques­tion to fill the si­lence: some­thing about Brit­ton in­trigued him. He want­ed to see what lay un­der that love­ly, per­fect sur­face.

Brit­ton took a spoon­ful of con­som­mé. “In some ways, these new tankers prac­ti­cal­ly pi­lot them­selves. I keep the crew run­ning smooth­ly and act as trou­bleshoot­er. These ships don’t like shal­low wa­ter, they don’t like to turn, and they don’t like sur­pris­es.” She low­ered her spoon. “My job is to make sure we don’t en­counter any.”

“Doesn’t it go against the grain, com­mand­ing—well — an old rust buck­et?”

Brit­ton’s re­sponse was mea­sured. “Cer­tain things are ha­bit­ual at sea. The ship won’t re­main this way for­ev­er. I in­tend to have ev­ery spare hand work­ing cleanup de­tail on the voy­age home.”

She turned to­ward Glinn. “Speak­ing of that, I’d like to ask you a fa­vor. This ex­pe­di­tion of ours is rather… un­usu­al. The crew have been talk­ing about it.”

Glinn nod­ded. “Of course. To­mor­row, if you’ll gath­er them to­geth­er, I’ll speak to them.”

Brit­ton nod­ded in ap­proval. The stew­ard re­turned, deft­ly re­plac­ing their plates with fresh ones. The fra­grant smell of cur­ry and tamarind rose from the ta­ble. Mc­Far­lane dug in­to the vin­daloo, re­al­iz­ing a sec­ond or two lat­er that it was prob­ably the most fiery dish he had ev­er eat­en.

“My, my, that’s fine,” mut­tered Bram­bell.

“How many times have you been around the Horn?” Mc­Far­lane asked, tak­ing a large swig of wa­ter. He could feel the sweat pop­ping out on his brow.

“Five,” said Brit­ton. “But those voy­ages were al­ways at the height of the south­ern sum­mer, when we were less like­ly to en­counter bad weath­er.”

Some­thing in her tone made Mc­Far­lane un­easy. “But a ves­sel this big and pow­er­ful has noth­ing to fear from a storm, does it?”

Brit­ton smiled dis­tant­ly. “The Cape Horn re­gion is like no place else on earth. Force 15 gales are com­mon­place. You’ve heard of the famed willi­waws, no doubt?”

Mc­Far­lane nod­ded.

“Well, there’s an­oth­er wind far more dead­ly, al­though less well known. The lo­cals call it a pan­teonero, a `ceme­tery wind.’ It can blow at over a hun­dred knots for sev­er­al days with­out let­up. It gets its name from the fact that it blows mariners right in­to their graves.”

“But sure­ly even the strongest wind couldn’t af­fect the Rolvaag?” Mc­Far­lane asked.

“As long as we have steer­age, we’re fine, of course. But ceme­tery winds have pushed un­wary or help­less ships down in­to the Scream­ing Six­ties. That’s what we call the stretch of open ocean be­tween South Amer­ica and Antarc­ti­ca. For a mariner, it’s the worst place on earth. Gi­gan­tic waves build up, and it’s the on­ly place where both waves and wind can cir­cle the globe to­geth­er with­out strik­ing land. The waves just get big­ger and big­ger — up to two hun­dred feet high.”

“Je­sus,” said Mc­Far­lane. “Ev­er tak­en a boat down there?” Brit­ton shook her head. “No,” she said. “I nev­er have, and I nev­er will.” She paused for a mo­ment. Then she fold­ed her nap­kin and gazed across the ta­ble at him. “Have you ev­er heard of a Cap­tain Hon­ey­cutt?”

Mc­Far­lane thought a mo­ment. “En­glish mariner?”

Brit­ton nod­ded. “He set off from Lon­don in 1607 with four ships, bound for the Pa­cif­ic. Thir­ty years be­fore, Drake had round­ed the Horn, but had lost five of his six ships in the pro­cess. Hon­ey­cutt was de­ter­mined to prove that the trip could be made with­out los­ing a sin­gle ves­sel. They hit weath­er as they ap­proached the Strait of Le Maire. The crew plead­ed with Hon­ey­cutt to turn back. He in­sist­ed on push­ing on. As they round­ed the Horn, a ter­ri­ble gale blew up. A gi­ant break­ing wave — the Chileans call them ti­gres — sank two of the ships in less than a minute. The oth­er two were dis­mast­ed. For sev­er­al days the hulks drift­ed south, borne along by the rag­ing gale, past the Ice Lim­it.”

“The Ice Lim­it?”

“That’s where the wa­ters of the south­ern oceans meet the sub­freez­ing wa­ters sur­round­ing Antarc­ti­ca. Oceanog­ra­phers call it the Antarc­tic Con­ver­gence. It’s where the ice be­gins. At any rate, in the night, Hon­ey­cutt’s ships were dashed against the side of an ice is­land.”

“Like the Ti­tan­ic,” Ami­ra said qui­et­ly. They were the first words she had spo­ken for sev­er­al min­utes.

The cap­tain looked at her. “Not an ice­berg. An ice is­land. The berg that wrecked the Ti­tan­ic was an ice cube com­pared to what you get be­low the Lim­it. The one that crushed Hon­ey­cutt’s ships prob­ably mea­sured twen­ty miles by forty.”

“Did you say forty miles?” Mc­Far­lane asked.

“Much larg­er ones have been re­port­ed, big­ger than some states. They’re vis­ible from space. Gi­ant plates bro­ken off the Antarc­tic ice shelves.”

“Je­sus.”

“Of the hun­dred-​odd souls still alive, per­haps thir­ty man­aged to crawl up on­to the ice is­land. They gath­ered some wreck­age that had washed up, and built a small fire. Over the next two days, half of them died of ex­po­sure. They had to keep shift­ing the fire, be­cause it kept sink­ing in­to the ice. They be­gan to hal­lu­ci­nate. Some claimed a huge shroud­ed crea­ture with silky white hair and red teeth car­ried away mem­bers of the crew.”

“Good­ness gra­cious,” said Bram­bell, ar­rest­ed in the vig­or­ous act of eat­ing, “that’s straight out of Poe’s Nar­ra­tive of Arthur Gor­don Pym.”

Brit­ton paused to look at him. “That’s ex­act­ly right,” she said. “In fact, it’s where Poe got the idea. The crea­ture, it was said, ate their ears, toes, fin­gers, and knees, leav­ing the rest of the body parts scat­tered about the ice.”

As he lis­tened, Mc­Far­lane re­al­ized that con­ver­sa­tion at the clos­est ta­bles had fall­en away.

“Over the next two weeks, the sailors died, one by one. Soon their num­bers had been re­duced to ten by star­va­tion. The sur­vivors took the on­ly op­tion left.”

Ami­ra made a face and put down her fork with a clat­ter. “I think I know what’s com­ing.”

“Yes. They were forced to eat what sailors eu­phemisti­cal­ly call `long pig.’ Their own dead com­pan­ions.”

“Charm­ing,” Bram­bell said. “I un­der­stand it’s bet­ter than pork, if cooked prop­er­ly. Pass the lamb, please.”

“Per­haps a week lat­er, one of the sur­vivors spot­ted the re­mains of a ves­sel ap­proach­ing them, bob­bing in the heavy seas. It was the stern of one of their own ships that had bro­ken in two dur­ing the storm. The men be­gan to ar­gue. Hon­ey­cutt and some oth­ers want­ed to take their chances on the wreck. But it was ly­ing low in the wa­ter, and most did not have the stom­ach to take to the seas on it. In the end on­ly Hon­ey­cutt, his quar­ter­mas­ter, and one com­mon sea­man braved the swim. The quar­ter­mas­ter died of the cold be­fore he could clam­ber aboard the hulk. But Hon­ey­cutt and the sea­man made it. Their last view of the mas­sive ice is­land came that evening, as it turned south­ward in the swells, head­ing slow­ly for Antarc­ti­ca and obliv­ion. As it fad­ed in­to the mists, they thought they saw a shroud­ed crea­ture, tear­ing apart the sur­vivors.

“Three days lat­er, the wreck they were on struck the reefs around Diego Ramirez Is­land, south­west of the Horn. Hon­ey­cutt drowned, and on­ly the sea­man made it ashore. The man lived off shell­fish, moss, cor­morant guano, and kelp. He kept up a con­stant fire of turf, on the re­mote chance some ves­sel would pass by. Six months lat­er, a Span­ish ship saw the sig­nal and brought him aboard.”

“He must’ve been glad to see that ship,” said Mc­Far­lane.

“Yes and no,” said Brit­ton. “Eng­land was at war with Spain at the time. He spent the next ten years in a dun­geon in Cádiz. But in time he was re­leased, and he re­turned to his na­tive Scot­land, mar­ried a lass twen­ty years his ju­nior, and lived out a life as a farmer far, far from the sea.”

Brit­ton paused, smooth­ing the thick linen with the tips of her fin­gers. “That com­mon sea­man,” she said qui­et­ly, “was William McK­yle Brit­ton. My an­ces­tor.”

She took a drink from her wa­ter glass, dabbed at her mouth with the nap­kin, and nod­ded to the stew­ard to bring on the next course.

Rolvaag,

June 27, 3:45 P.M.

MC­FAR­LANE LEANED against the main­deck rail­ing, en­joy­ing the lazy, al­most im­per­cep­ti­ble roll of the ship. The Rolvaag was “in bal­last” — its bal­last tanks par­tial­ly filled with sea­wa­ter to com­pen­sate for a lack of car­go — and con­se­quent­ly rode high in the wa­ter. To his left rose the ship’s aft su­per­struc­ture, a mono­lith­ic white slab re­lieved on­ly by rheumy win­dows and the dis­tant bridge wings. A hun­dred miles to the west, over the hori­zon, lay Myr­tle Beach and the low coast­line of South Car­oli­na.

As­sem­bled on the deck around him were the fifty-​odd souls who made up the crew of the Rolvaag, a small group, con­sid­er­ing the vast­ness of the ship. What struck him most was the di­ver­si­ty: Africans, Por­tuguese, French, En­glish, Amer­icans, Chi­nese, In­done­sians, squint­ing in the lateafter­noon sun­light and mur­mur­ing to each oth­er in half a dozen lan­guages. Mc­Far­lane guessed they would not take well to bull­shit. He hoped Glinn had al­so reg­is­tered that fact.

A sharp laugh cut across the group, and Mc­Far­lane turned to see Ami­ra. The on­ly EES staffer in at­ten­dance, she was sit­ting with a group of Africans who were stripped to the waist. They were talk­ing and laugh­ing an­imat­ed­ly.

The sun was drop­ping in­to the semitrop­ical seas, sink­ing in­to a line of peach-​col­ored clouds that stood like mush­rooms on the dis­tant hori­zon. The sea was oily and smooth, with on­ly the sug­ges­tion of a swell.

A door in the su­per­struc­ture opened and Glinn emerged. He walked slow­ly out along the cen­tral cat­walk that ran, ar­row straight, over a thou­sand feet to the Rolvaag’s bows. Be­hind him came Cap­tain Brit­ton, fol­lowed by the first mate and sev­er­al oth­er se­nior of­fi­cers.

Mc­Far­lane watched the cap­tain with re­newed in­ter­est. A some­what abashed Ami­ra had told him the full sto­ry af­ter din­ner. Two years ear­li­er, Brit­ton had run a tanker on­to Three Broth­ers’ Reef off Spits­ber­gen. There had been no oil in the hold, but the dam­age to the ship had been con­sid­er­able. Brit­ton had been legal­ly in­tox­icat­ed at the time. Though there was no proof that her drink­ing caused the ac­ci­dent — it ap­peared to be an op­er­ational er­ror by the helms­man — she had been with­out a com­mand ev­er since. No won­der she agreed to this as­sign­ment, he thought, watch­ing her step for­ward. And Glinn must have re­al­ized that no cap­tain in good stand­ing would have tak­en it. Mc­Far­lane shook his head cu­ri­ous­ly. Glinn would have left noth­ing to chance, es­pe­cial­ly the com­mand of the Rolvaag. He must know some­thing about this wom­an.

Ami­ra had joked about it in a way that made Mc­Far­lane a lit­tle un­com­fort­able. “It doesn’t seem fair, pun­ish­ing the whole ship for the weak­ness of one per­son,” she’d said to Mc­Far­lane. “You can bet the crew is none too pleased. Can’t you just see them in the crew’s mess, sip­ping a glass of wine with din­ner? Love­ly, with just a touch of oak, wouldn’t you say?” She had fin­ished by mak­ing a wry face.

Over­head, Glinn had now reached the as­sem­bly. He stopped, hands be­hind his back, gaz­ing down at the main­deck and the up­turned faces.

“I am Eli Glinn,” he be­gan in his qui­et, un­in­flect­ed voice. “Pres­ident of Ef­fec­tive En­gi­neer­ing So­lu­tions. Many of you know the broad out­lines of our ex­pe­di­tion. Your cap­tain has asked me to fill in some of the de­tails. Af­ter do­ing so, I’ll be hap­py to take ques­tions.”

He glanced down at the com­pa­ny.

“We are head­ing to the south­ern tip of South Amer­ica, to re­trieve a large me­te­orite for the Lloyd Mu­se­um. If we’re cor­rect, it will be the largest me­te­orite ev­er un­earthed. In the hold, as many of you know, there is a spe­cial cra­dle built to re­ceive it. The plan is very sim­ple: we an­chor in the Cape Horn is­lands. My crew, with the help of some of you, will ex­ca­vate the me­te­orite, trans­port it to the ship, and place it in the cra­dle. Then we will de­liv­er it to the Lloyd Mu­se­um.”

He paused.

“Some of you may be con­cerned about the le­gal­ity of the op­er­ation. We have staked min­ing claims to the is­land. The me­te­orite is an ore body, and no laws will be bro­ken. There is, on the oth­er hand, a po­ten­tial prac­ti­cal prob­lem in that Chile does not know we are re­triev­ing a me­te­orite. But let me as­sure you this is a re­mote pos­si­bil­ity. Ev­ery­thing has been worked out in great de­tail, and we do not an­tic­ipate any dif­fi­cul­ties. The Cape Horn is­lands are un­in­hab­it­ed. The near­est set­tle­ment is Puer­to Williams, fifty miles away. Even if the Chilean au­thor­ities learn what we are do­ing, we are pre­pared to pay a rea­son­able sum for the me­te­orite. So, as you can see, there is no cause for alarm, or even anx­iety.”

He paused again, then looked up. “Are there any ques­tions?”

A dozen hands shot up. Glinn nod­ded to the clos­est man, a burly oil­er wear­ing greasy over­alls.

“So what is this me­te­orite?” the man boomed. There was an im­me­di­ate mur­mur of as­sent.

“It will prob­ably be a mass of nick­el-​iron weigh­ing some ten thou­sand tons. An in­ert lump of met­al.”

“What’s so im­por­tant about it?”

“We be­lieve it to be the largest me­te­orite ev­er dis­cov­ered by man.”

More hands went up.

“What hap­pens if we get caught?”

“What we are do­ing is one hun­dred per­cent le­gal,” Glinn replied.

A man in a blue uni­form stood up, one of the ship’s elec­tri­cians. “I don’t like it,” he said in a broad York­shire ac­cent. He had a mass of red hair and an un­ruly beard.

Glinn wait­ed po­lite­ly.

“If the bloody Chileans catch us mak­ing off with their rock, any­thing could hap­pen. If ev­ery­thing’s one hun­dred per­cent le­gal, why not just buy the bloody stone from them?”

Glinn looked at the man, his pale gray eyes un­wa­ver­ing. “May I ask your name?”

“It’s Lewis,” came the re­ply.

“Be­cause, Mr. Lewis, it would be po­lit­ical­ly im­pos­si­ble for the Chileans to sell it to us. On the oth­er hand, they don’t have the tech­no­log­ical ex­per­tise to get it out of the ground and off the is­land, so it would just sit there, buried — prob­ably for­ev­er. In Amer­ica, it will be stud­ied. It will be ex­hib­it­ed at a mu­se­um for all to see. It will be held in trust for mankind. This is not Chilean cul­tur­al pat­ri­mo­ny. It could have fall­en any­where — even in York­shire.”

There was a brief laugh from Lewis’s mates. Mc­Far­lane was glad to see that Glinn seemed to be gain­ing their con­fi­dence with his straight­for­ward talk.

“Sir,” said one slight man, a ju­nior ship’s of­fi­cer. “What about this dead man’s switch?”

“The dead man’s switch,” Glinn said smooth­ly, his voice steady, al­most mes­mer­iz­ing, “is a dis­tant pre­cau­tion. In the un­like­ly event that the me­te­orite comes loose from its cra­dle — in a huge storm, say — it is mere­ly a way for us to light­en our bal­last by re­leas­ing it in­to the ocean. It’s no dif­fer­ent from the nine­teenth-​cen­tu­ry mariners who had to throw their car­go over­board in se­vere weath­er. But the chances of hav­ing to jet­ti­son it are van­ish­ing­ly small. The idea is to pro­tect the ship and the crew above all, even at the ex­pense of los­ing the me­te­orite.”

“So how do you throw this switch?” an­oth­er shout­ed out.

“I know the key. So does my chief en­gi­neer, Eu­gene Rochefort, and my con­struc­tion man­ag­er, Manuel Garza.”

“What about the cap­tain?”

“It was felt ad­vis­able to leave that op­tion in the hands of EES per­son­nel,” said Glinn. “It is, af­ter all, our me­te­orite.”

“But it’s our bloody ship!”

The mur­mur­ing of the crew rose above the sound of the wind and the deep thrum of the en­gines. Mc­Far­lane glanced up at Cap­tain Brit­ton. She was stand­ing be­hind Glinn, arms at her sides, stony-​faced.

“The cap­tain has agreed to this un­usu­al ar­range­ment. We built the dead man’s switch, and we know how to op­er­ate it. In the un­like­ly event that it is used, it must be done with great care, with pre­cise tim­ing, by those who are trained for it. Oth­er­wise, the ship could sink with the rock.” He looked around. “Any more ques­tions?”

There was a rest­less si­lence.

“I re­al­ize this is not a nor­mal voy­age,” Glinn went on. “Some un­cer­tain­ty — even anx­iety — is nat­ural. As with any sea jour­ney, there are risks in­volved. I told you what we are do­ing is com­plete­ly le­gal. How­ev­er, I would be de­lud­ing you if I said the Chileans would feel the same way. These are the rea­sons each of you will re­ceive a fifty-​thou­sand-​dol­lar bonus if we are suc­cess­ful.”

There was a col­lec­tive gasp from the crew, and an erup­tion of talk. Glinn held up his hand and si­lence again de­scend­ed.

“If any­one feels un­easy about this ex­pe­di­tion, you are free to go. We will ar­range pas­sage back to New York, with com­pen­sa­tion.” He looked point­ed­ly at Lewis, the elec­tri­cian.

The man stared back, then broke in­to a broad grin. “You sold me, mate.”

“We all have much to do,” Glinn said, ad­dress­ing the group. “If you have any­thing else to add — or any­thing else to ask — do so now.”

His eyes ranged en­quir­ing­ly over them. Then, see­ing the si­lence was ab­so­lute, he nod­ded, turned, and made his way back along the cat­walk.

Rolvaag,

4:20 P.M.

THE CREW had bro­ken up in­to small groups, talk­ing qui­et­ly among them­selves as they be­gan to move back to­ward their sta­tions. A sud­den breeze tugged at Mc­Far­lane’s wind­break­er. As he turned to­ward the shel­ter of the ship, he saw Ami­ra. She was stand­ing by the star­board rail­ing, still talk­ing to the group of deck­hands. She made some com­ment, and the small knot around her sud­den­ly erupt­ed in­to laugh­ter.

Mc­Far­lane made his way to the of­fi­cers’ day­room. Like most of the oth­er ship’s com­part­ments he had seen, it was large and ex­pen­sive­ly, if sparse­ly, ap­point­ed. But it housed one great at­trac­tion for him: a cof­feepot that was nev­er emp­ty. He poured him­self a cup and sipped at it with a con­tent­ed sigh.

“Some cream with that?” came a wom­an’s voice from be­hind him. He turned to see Cap­tain Brit­ton. She closed the door to the day­room, then walked to­ward him with a smile. The wind had loos­ened the se­vere braid of hair be­neath her of­fi­cer’s hat, and a few er­rant strands hung down, fram­ing a long and el­egant neck.

“No thanks, I pre­fer it black.” Mc­Far­lane watched as Brit­ton helped her­self to a cup, adding a sin­gle tea­spoon of sug­ar. They sipped to­geth­er in si­lence for a mo­ment.

“I have to ask you,” Mc­Far­lane said, more to make con­ver­sa­tion than any­thing else. “This pot al­ways seems to be full. And it al­ways tastes per­fect­ly fresh. Just how do you achieve that mir­acle?”

“It’s no mir­acle. The stew­ards bring a new pot ev­ery thir­ty min­utes, need­ed or not. Fortyeight pots a day.” Mc­Far­lane shook his head. “Re­mark­able,” he said. “But then, it’s a re­mark­able ship.”

Cap­tain Brit­ton took an­oth­er sip of cof­fee. “Care for a tour?” she asked.

Mc­Far­lane looked at her. Sure­ly the mas­ter of the Rolvaag had bet­ter things to do. Still, it would be a nice break. Life on board ship had quick­ly set­tled in­to a rou­tine. He took a fi­nal swig of cof­fee and set down the cup. “Sounds great,” he said. “I’ve been won­der­ing what kind of se­crets are hid­ing in­side this big old hull.”

“Not many se­crets,” Brit­ton said, open­ing the door to the day­room and ush­er­ing him out in­to the wide hall­way. “Just lots and lots of places to put oil.”

The door to the main­deck opened and the slight fig­ure of Rachel Ami­ra ap­peared. See­ing them, she paused. Brit­ton gave her a cool nod, then turned away and start­ed down the cor­ri­dor. As they round­ed the cor­ner, Mc­Far­lane glanced back­ward. Ami­ra was still watch­ing them, a smirk on her lips.

Open­ing a huge set of dou­ble doors, Brit­ton led him in­to the ship’s gal­ley. Here, Mr. Singh held sway over stew­ards, as­sis­tant chefs, and banks of gleam­ing ovens. There were mas­sive walk-​in freez­ers, full of sides of lamb, beef, chick­ens, ducks, and a row of red-​and-​whitemar­bled car­cass­es Mc­Far­lane thought must be goats. “You’ve got enough to feed an army here,” he said.

“Mr. Singh would prob­ably say you sci­en­tists eat like one.” Brit­ton smiled. “Come on, let’s leave him to it.”

They passed the bil­liards room and swim­ming pool, then de­scend­ed a lev­el, where Brit­ton showed him the crew’s game room and mess. Down an­oth­er stair­case and they ar­rived at the crew’s quar­ters: large rooms with in­di­vid­ual baths, sand­wiched be­tween gal­leries that ran up the port and star­board sides of the ship. They paused at the end of the port pas­sage­way. Here, the noise of the en­gine was no­tice­ably loud­er. The cor­ri­dor seemed to stretch for­ward for­ev­er, port­holes on the left, cab­in doors on the right.

“Ev­ery­thing’s built to a gi­ant’s scale,” Mc­Far­lane said. “And it’s so emp­ty.”

Brit­ton laughed. “Vis­itors al­ways say that. The fact is, the ship’s ba­si­cal­ly run by com­put­ers. We nav­igate by geo­phys­ical satel­lite da­ta, course is main­tained au­to­mat­ical­ly, even col­li­sion de­tec­tion is mon­itored elec­tron­ical­ly. Thir­ty years ago, ship’s elec­tri­cian was a low­ly po­si­tion. Now, elec­tron­ics spe­cial­ists are crit­ical.”

“It’s all very im­pres­sive.” Mc­Far­lane turned to­ward Brit­ton. “Don’t get me wrong, but I’ve al­ways won­dered why Glinn chose a tanker for this job. Why go to the trou­ble of dis­guis­ing a tanker as an ore car­ri­er? Why not just get a dry bulk car­ri­er to be­gin with? Or a big con­tain­er ship? God knows it would have been cheap­er.”

“I think I can ex­plain that. Fol­low me.”

Brit­ton opened a door and ush­ered Mc­Far­lane for­ward. The car­pet­ing and wood ve­neer gave way to stamped met­al and linoleum. They de­scend­ed yet an­oth­er set of stairs to a door la­beled CAR­GO CON­TROL ROOM. The room be­yond was dom­inat­ed by a vast elec­tron­ic schemat­ic of the ship’s main­deck, mount­ed on the far bulk­head. Count­less small points of light blinked red and yel­low across its sur­face.

“This is the ship’s mim­ic di­agram,” Brit­ton said, mo­tion­ing Mc­Far­lane to­ward the schemat­ic. “It’s the way we keep track of how and where car­go is load­ed. We con­trol the bal­last, pumps, and car­go valves di­rect­ly from the mim­ic area.” She point­ed to a se­ries of gauges and switch­es ar­rayed be­neath the di­agram. “These con­trols reg­ulate the pump pres­sures.”

She led the way across the room, where an of­fi­cer watched an ar­ray of com­put­er screens. “This com­put­er cal­cu­lates car­go dis­tri­bu­tion. And these com­put­ers are the ship’s au­to­mat­ic gaug­ing sys­tem. They mon­itor pres­sure, vol­ume, and tem­per­ature through­out the ship’s tanks.”

She pat­ted the beige case of the near­est mon­itor. “This is why Glinn chose a tanker. This me­te­orite of yours is heavy. Load­ing it will be ex­ceed­ing­ly tricky. With our tanks and com­put­ers, we can shift sea­wa­ter bal­last around from tank to tank, main­tain­ing even trim and list no mat­ter what weird lop­sid­ed thing goes in­side. We can keep ev­ery­thing lev­el. I don’t think any­body would be hap­py if we turned bel­ly-​up the mo­ment you drop that thing in the tank.”

Brit­ton moved to the far side of the bal­last con­trol equip­ment. “Speak­ing of the com­put­ers, do you have any idea what this is?” She point­ed to a tall, free­stand­ing tow­er of black steel, fea­ture­less ex­cept for a key­hole and a small lo­go read­ing SE­CURE DATA­MET­RICS. It looked very dif­fer­ent from the rest of the ship’s elec­tron­ics. “Glinn’s peo­ple in­stalled it back in Eliz­abeth. There’s an­oth­er, small­er one like it, up on the bridge. None of my of­fi­cers can fig­ure out what the thing does.”

Mc­Far­lane ran a cu­ri­ous hand over its beveled front. “No idea. Could it have some­thing to do with the dead man’s switch?”

“That’s what I as­sumed at first.” She led him out of the room and along the met­al-​floored cor­ri­dor to a wait­ing el­eva­tor. “But it seems to be tied in to more than one of the ship’s key sys­tems.”

“Would you like me to ask Glinn?”

“No, don’t both­er. I’ll ask him some­time my­self. But here I am, go­ing on and on about the Rolvaag,” she said, punch­ing an el­eva­tor but­ton. “I’m cu­ri­ous how ex­act­ly one be­comes a me­te­orite hunter.”

Mc­Far­lane looked at her as the el­eva­tor be­gan to sink. She was a very poised wom­an; her shoul­ders were straight, her chin held high. But it was not a mil­itary kind of stiff­ness; rather, he thought, it was a kind of qui­et pride. She knew he was a me­te­orite hunter: he won­dered if she knew about Masangkay and the Tornarssuk me­te­orite fi­as­co. You and I have a lot in com­mon, he thought. He could on­ly imag­ine how tough it must have been for her to put on a uni­form again and walk a bridge, won­der­ing what peo­ple were say­ing be­hind her back.

“I got caught in a me­te­orite show­er in Mex­ico.”

“In­cred­ible. And you sur­vived.”

“On­ly once in record­ed his­to­ry has a me­te­orite ev­er struck any­one,” Mc­Far­lane said. “A wom­an with a his­to­ry of hypochon­dria, ly­ing in bed. The rock had been slowed by go­ing through the up­per sto­ries of her house, so it on­ly made a mas­sive bruise. Sure got her out of bed, though.”

Brit­ton laughed: a love­ly sound.

“So I went back to school and be­came a plan­etary ge­ol­ogist. But I was nev­er very good at play­ing the sober sci­en­tist.”

“What does a plan­etary ge­ol­ogist study?”

“A long list of bor­ing sub­jects, be­fore you get to the re­al­ly good stuff. Ge­ol­ogy, chem­istry, as­tron­omy, physics, cal­cu­lus.”

“Sounds more in­ter­est­ing than study­ing for a mas­ter’s li­cense. And the good stuff?”

“My high point was get­ting to study a Mar­tian me­te­orite in grad­uate school. I was look­ing at the ef­fect of cos­mic rays on its chem­ical com­po­si­tion — try­ing to find a way to date it, ba­si­cal­ly.”

The el­eva­tor door opened and they stepped out. “A re­al Mar­tian rock,” Brit­ton said, open­ing a door and step­ping out in­to yet an­oth­er end­less cor­ri­dor.

Mc­Far­lane shrugged. “I liked find­ing me­te­orites. It was a bit like trea­sure hunt­ing. And I liked study­ing me­te­orites.

But I didn’t like rub­bing el­bows at fac­ul­ty sher­ry hour, or go­ing to con­fer­ences and chat­ting with rock jocks about col­li­sion­al ejec­tion and cra­ter­ing me­chan­ics. I guess the feel­ing was mu­tu­al. Any­way, my aca­dem­ic ca­reer last­ed all of five years. Got de­nied tenure. I’ve been on my own ev­er since.”

He held his breath, think­ing of his ex-​part­ner, re­al­iz­ing this was a poor choice of words. But the cap­tain did not pur­sue it, and the mo­ment passed.

“All I know about me­te­orites is that they’re rocks that fall out of the sky,” Brit­ton said. “Where do they come from? Oth­er than Mars, of course.”

“Mar­tian me­te­orites are ex­treme­ly rare. Most of them are chunks of rock from the in­ner as­ter­oid belt. Small bits and pieces from plan­ets that broke up soon af­ter the for­ma­tion of the so­lar sys­tem.”

“The thing you’re af­ter isn’t ex­act­ly small.”

“Well, most of them are small. But it doesn’t take a whole lot to make a big im­pact. The Tun­gus­ka me­te­orite, which hit Siberia in 1908, had an im­pact en­er­gy equal to a ten-​mega­ton hy­dro­gen bomb.”

“Ten mega­tons?”

“And that’s small pota­toes. Some me­te­oroids hit the earth with a ki­net­ic en­er­gy greater than one hun­dred mil­lion mega­tons. That’s the kind of blast that tends to end an en­tire ge­olog­ic age, kill off the di­nosaurs, and gen­er­al­ly ru­in ev­ery­body’s day.”

“Je­sus.” Brit­ton shook her head.

He laughed dry­ly. “Don’t wor­ry. They’re pret­ty rare. One ev­ery hun­dred mil­lion years.”

They had worked their way through an­oth­er maze of cor­ri­dors. Mc­Far­lane felt hope­less­ly lost.

“Are all me­te­orites the same?”

“No, no. But most of the ones that hit the earth are or­di­nary chon­drites. “

“Chon­drites?”

“Ba­si­cal­ly, old gray stones. Pret­ty bor­ing.” Mc­Far­lane hes­itat­ed. “There are the nick­el-​iron types — prob­ably like the one we’re snag­ging. But the most in­ter­est­ing type is called CI chon­drites.” He stopped.

Brit­ton glanced over at him.

“It’s hard to ex­plain. It might be bor­ing for you.” Mc­Far­lane re­mem­bered, more than once, putting a glaze over ev­ery­one’s eyes at a din­ner par­ty in his younger, en­thu­si­as­tic, in­no­cent years.

“I’m the one that stud­ied ce­les­tial nav­iga­tion. Try me.” “Well, CI chon­drites are clumped di­rect­ly out of the pure, unadul­ter­at­ed dust cloud the so­lar sys­tem formed from. Which makes them very in­ter­est­ing. They con­tain clues to how the so­lar sys­tem formed. They’re al­so very old. Old­er than the Earth.”

“And how old is that?”

“Four and a half bil­lion years.” He no­ticed a gen­uine in­ter­est shin­ing in her eyes.

“Amaz­ing.”

“And it’s been the­orized that there’s a type of me­te­orite even more in­cred­ible — “

Mc­Far­lane fell silent abrupt­ly, check­ing him­self. He did not want the old ob­ses­sion to re­turn; not now. He walked on in the sud­den still­ness, aware of Brit­ton’s cu­ri­ous gaze.

The cor­ri­dor end­ed in a dogged hatch. Un­dog­ging the cleats, Brit­ton pulled it open. A wall of sound flew out at them: the huge roar of end­less horse­pow­er. Mc­Far­lane fol­lowed the cap­tain out on­to a nar­row cat­walk. About fifty feet be­low, he could see two enor­mous tur­bines roar­ing in tan­dem. The huge space seemed com­plete­ly de­sert­ed; ap­par­ent­ly it, too, was run by com­put­er. He gripped a met­al pole for sup­port, and it vi­brat­ed wild­ly in his hand.

Brit­ton looked at him with a small smile as they con­tin­ued along the cat­walk. “The Rolvaag is driv­en by steam boil­ers, not diesel mo­tors like oth­er ships,” she said, rais­ing her voice over the roar. “We do have an emer­gen­cy diesel for elec­tric­ity, though. On a mod­ern ship like this, you can’t af­ford to lose pow­er. Be­cause if you do, you’ve got noth­ing: no com­put­ers, no nav­iga­tion, no fire-​fight­ing equip­ment. You’re a drift­ing hulk. We call it DIW: dead in the wa­ter.”

They passed through an­oth­er heavy door at the for­ward end of the en­gine space. Brit­ton dogged it shut, then led the way down a hall­way that end­ed at a closed el­eva­tor door. Mc­Far­lane fol­lowed, grate­ful for the qui­et.

The cap­tain stopped at the el­eva­tor, look­ing back at him cal­cu­lat­ing­ly. Sud­den­ly, he re­al­ized she had more on her mind than a tour of the jol­ly old Rolvaag.

“Mr. Glinn gave a good talk,” Brit­ton said at last.

“I’m glad you think so.”

“Crews can be a su­per­sti­tious lot, you know. It’s amaz­ing how fast ru­mor and spec­ula­tion can turn in­to fact be­lowdecks. I think that talk went a long way to­ward squelch­ing any ru­mors.” There was an­oth­er brief pause. Then she spoke again.

“I have the feel­ing Mr. Glinn knows a lot more than he said. Ac­tu­al­ly, no — that isn’t the right way to put it. I think maybe he knows less than he let on.” She glanced side­long at Mc­Far­lane. “Isn’t that right?”

Mc­Far­lane hes­itat­ed. He didn’t know what Lloyd or Glinn had told the cap­tain — or, more to the point, what they had with­held. Nev­er­the­less, he felt that the more she knew, the bet­ter off the ship would be. He felt a sense of kin­ship with her. They’d both made big mis­takes. They’d both been dragged be­hind the mo­tor­cy­cle of life a lit­tle longer than the av­er­age Joe. In his gut, he trust­ed Sal­ly Brit­ton.

“You’re right,” he said. “The truth is, we know al­most noth­ing about it. We don’t know how some­thing so large could have sur­vived im­pact. We don’t know why it hasn’t rust­ed away. What lit­tle elec­tro­mag­net­ic and grav­ita­tion­al da­ta we have about the rock seem con­tra­dic­to­ry, even im­pos­si­ble.”

“I see,” said Brit­ton. She looked in­to Mc­Far­lane’s eyes. “Is it dan­ger­ous?”

“There is no rea­son to think so.” He hes­itat­ed. “No rea­son to think not, ei­ther.”

There was a pause.

“What I mean is, will it pose a haz­ard to my ship or my crew?”

Mc­Far­lane chewed his lip, won­der­ing how to an­swer. “A haz­ard? It’s heavy as hell. It’ll be tricky to ma­neu­ver. But once it’s safe­ly se­cured in its cra­dle, I have to be­lieve it’ll be less dan­ger­ous than a hold full of in­flammable oil.” He looked at her. “And Glinn seems to be a man who nev­er takes chances.”

For a mo­ment, Brit­ton thought about this. Then she nod­ded. “That was my take on him, too: cau­tious to a fault.” She pressed the but­ton for the el­eva­tor. “That’s the kind of per­son I like on board. Be­cause the next time I end up on a reef, I’m go­ing down with the ship.”

Rolvaag,

Ju­ly 3, 2:15 P.M.

AS THE good ship Rolvaag crossed the equa­tor, with the coast of Brazil and the mouth of the Ama­zon far to the west, a time-​hon­ored rit­ual be­gan on the ship’s bow, as it had on ocean­go­ing ves­sels for hun­dreds of years.

Thir­ty feet be­low deck and al­most nine hun­dred feet aft, Dr. Patrick Bram­bell was un­pack­ing his last box of books. For al­most ev­ery year of his work­ing life he had crossed the line at least once, and he found the con­comi­tant cer­emonies — the “Nep­tune’s tea” made from boiled socks, the gaunt­let of fish-​wield­ing deck­hands, the vul­gar laugh­ter of the shell­backs — dis­taste­ful in the ex­treme.

He had been un­pack­ing and ar­rang­ing his ex­ten­sive li­brary ev­er since the Rolvaag left port. It was a task he en­joyed al­most as much as read­ing the books them­selves, and he nev­er al­lowed him­self to hur­ry. Now he ran a scalpel along the fi­nal seam of pack­ing tape, pulled back the card­board flaps, and looked in­side. With lov­ing fin­gers, he re­moved the top­most book, Bur­ton’s Anato­my of Melan­choly, and ca­ressed its fine half-​leather cov­er be­fore plac­ing it on the last free shelf in his cab­in. Or­lan­do Fu­rioso came next, then Huys­mans’s À re­bours, Co­leridge’s lec­tures on Shake­speare, Dr. John­son’s Ram­bler es­says, New­man’s Apolo­gia pro Vi­ta Sua. None of the books was about medicine; in fact, of the thou­sand-​odd eclec­tic books in Bram­bell’s trav­el­ing li­brary, on­ly a dozen or so could be con­sid­ered pro­fes­sion­al ref­er­ences — and those he seg­re­gat­ed in his med­ical suite, to re­move the vo­ca­tion­al stain from his cher­ished li­brary. For Dr. Bram­bell was first a read­er, and sec­ond a doc­tor.

The box emp­ty at last, Bram­bell sighed in min­gled sat­is­fac­tion and re­gret and stepped back to sur­vey the ranks of books stand­ing in neat rows on ev­ery sur­face and shelf. As he did so, there was the clat­ter of a dis­tant door, fol­lowed by the mea­sured ca­dence of foot­steps. Bram­bell wait­ed mo­tion­less, lis­ten­ing, hop­ing it was not for him but know­ing it was. The foot­steps stopped, and a brief dou­ble rap came from the di­rec­tion of the wait­ing room.

Bram­bell sighed again; a very dif­fer­ent sigh from the first. He glanced around the cab­in quick­ly. Then, spy­ing a sur­gi­cal mask, he picked it up and slipped it over his mouth. He found it very use­ful in hur­ry­ing pa­tients along. He gave the books a last lov­ing glance, then slipped out of the cab­in, clos­ing the door be­hind him.

He walked down the long hall­way, past the rooms of emp­ty hos­pi­tal beds, past the sur­gi­cal bays and the pathol­ogy lab, to the wait­ing room. There was Eli Glinn, an ex­pand­able file be­neath one arm.

Glinn’s eyes fas­tened on the sur­gi­cal mask. “I didn’t re­al­ize you were with some­one.”

“I’m not,” Bram­bell said through the mask. “You’re the first to ar­rive.”

Glinn glanced at the mask a mo­ment more. Then he nod­ded. “Very well. May we speak?”

“Cer­tain­ly.” Bram­bell led the way to his con­sul­ta­tion room. He found Glinn to be one of the most un­usu­al crea­tures he had ev­er met: a man with cul­ture who took no de­light in it; a man with con­ver­sa­tion who nev­er em­ployed it; a man with hood­ed gray eyes who made it his busi­ness to know ev­ery­one’s weak­ness­es, save his own.

Bram­bell closed the door to his con­sul­ta­tion room. “Please sit down, Mr. Glinn.” He waved a hand at Glinn’s fold­er. “I as­sume those are the med­ical his­to­ries? They are late. For­tu­nate­ly, I’ve had no need to call on them yet.”

Glinn slipped in­to the chair. “I’ve set aside some of the fold­ers that might re­quire your at­ten­tion. Most are rou­tine. There are a few ex­cep­tions.”

“I see.”

“We’ll start with the crew. Vic­tor How­ell has tes­tic­ular cryp­torchidism.”

“Odd that he hasn’t had it cor­rect­ed.”

Glinn looked up. “He prob­ably doesn’t like the idea of a knife down there.”

Bram­bell nod­ded.

Glinn leafed through sev­er­al more fold­ers. There were the usu­al com­plaints and con­di­tions to be found in any ran­dom sam­pling of the pop­ula­tion: a few di­abet­ics, a chron­ic slipped disk, a case of Ad­di­son’s dis­ease.

“Fair­ly healthy crew, there,” said Bram­bell, hop­ing faint­ly that the ses­sion was over. But no — Glinn was tak­ing out an­oth­er set of fold­ers.

“And here are the psy­cho­log­ical pro­files,” Glinn said. Bram­bell glanced over at the names. “What about the EES peo­ple?”

“We have a slight­ly dif­fer­ent sys­tem,” said Glinn. “EES files are avail­able on a need-​to­know ba­sis on­ly.”

Bram­bell didn’t re­spond to that one. No use ar­gu­ing with a man like Glinn.

Glinn took two ad­di­tion­al fold­ers out of his brief­case and placed them on Bram­bell’s desk, then ca­su­al­ly leaned back in the chair. “There’s re­al­ly on­ly one per­son here I’m con­cerned about.”

“And who might that be?”

“Mc­Far­lane.”

Bram­bell tugged the mask down around his chin. “The dash­ing me­te­orite hunter?” he asked in sur­prise. The man did car­ry around a faint air of trou­ble, it was true.

Glinn tapped the top fold­er. “I will be giv­ing you reg­ular re­ports on him.”

Bram­bell raised his eye­brows.

“Mc­Far­lane is the one key fig­ure here not of my choos­ing. He’s had a du­bi­ous ca­reer, to say the least. That is why I would like you to eval­uate this re­port, and the ones to fol­low.”

Bram­bell looked at the file with dis­taste. “Who’s your mole?” he asked. He ex­pect­ed Glinn to be of­fend­ed, but he was not.

“I would rather keep that con­fi­den­tial.”

Bram­bell nod­ded. He pulled the file to­ward him, leaf­ing through it. “‘Dif­fi­dent about ex­pe­di­tion and its chances for suc­cess,”‘ he read aloud. “‘Mo­ti­va­tions un­clear. Dis­trust­ful of the sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ty. Ex­treme­ly un­com­fort­able with man­age­ri­al role. Tends to be a lon­er.’” He dropped the fold­er. “I don’t see any­thing un­usu­al.”

Glinn nod­ded at the sec­ond, much larg­er fold­er. “Here’s a back­ground file on Mc­Far­lane. Among oth­er things, it con­tains a re­port here about an un­pleas­ant in­ci­dent in Green­land some years ago.”

Bram­bell sighed. He was a most in­cu­ri­ous man, and this was, he sus­pect­ed, a ma­jor rea­son why Glinn had hired him. “I’ll look at it lat­er.”

“Let’s look at it now.”

“Per­haps you could sum­ma­rize it for me.”

“Very well.”

Bram­bell sat back, fold­ed his hands, and re­signed him­self to lis­ten­ing.

“Years ago, Mc­Far­lane had a part­ner named Masangkay. They first teamed up to smug­gle the At­aca­ma tek­tites out of Chile, which made them in­fa­mous in that coun­try. Af­ter that, they suc­cess­ful­ly lo­cat­ed sev­er­al oth­er small but im­por­tant me­te­orites. The two worked well to­geth­er. Mc­Far­lane had got­ten in trou­ble at his last mu­se­um job and went free­lance. He had an in­stinc­tive knack for find­ing me­te­orites, but rock hunt­ing isn’t a full-​time job un­less you can get back­ers. Masangkay, un­like Mc­Far­lane, was smooth at mu­se­um pol­itics and lined up sev­er­al ex­cel­lent as­sign­ments. They grew very close. Mc­Far­lane mar­ried Masangkay’s sis­ter, Mal­ou, mak­ing them broth­ers-​in-​law. How­ev­er, over the years, their re­la­tion­ship be­gan to fray. Per­haps Mc­Far­lane en­vied Masangkay’s suc­cess­ful mu­se­um ca­reer. Or Masangkay en­vied the fact that Mc­Far­lane was by na­ture the bet­ter field sci­en­tist. But most of all it had to do with Mc­Far­lane’s pet the­ory.”

“And that was?”

“Mc­Far­lane be­lieved that, some­day, an in­ter­stel­lar me­te­orite would be found. One that had trav­eled across vast in­ter­stel­lar dis­tances from an­oth­er star sys­tem. Ev­ery­one told him this was math­emat­ical­ly im­pos­si­ble — all known me­te­orites came from in­side the so­lar sys­tem. But Mc­Far­lane was ob­sessed with the idea. It gave him the faint odor of quack­ery, and that didn’t sit well with a tra­di­tion­al­ist like Masangkay.

“In any case, about three years ago there was a ma­jor me­te­orite fall near Tornarssuk, Green­land. It was tracked by satel­lites and seis­mic sen­sors, which al­lowed for good tri­an­gu­la­tion of its im­pact site. Its tra­jec­to­ry was even cap­tured on an am­ateur video­tape. The New York Mu­se­um of Nat­ural His­to­ry, work­ing with the Dan­ish gov­ern­ment, hired Masangkay to find the me­te­orite. Masangkay brought in Mc­Far­lane.

“They found the Tornarssuk, but it took a lot more time and cost a lot more mon­ey than they an­tic­ipat­ed. Large debts were in­curred. The New York Mu­se­um balked. To make mat­ters worse, there was fric­tion be­tween Masangkay and Mc­Far­lane. Mc­Far­lane ex­trap­olat­ed the or­bit of the Tornarssuk from the satel­lite da­ta, and be­came con­vinced that the me­te­orite was fol­low­ing a hy­per­bol­ic or­bit, which meant it must have come in from far be­yond the so­lar sys­tem. He thought it was the in­ter­stel­lar me­te­orite he had been look­ing for all his life. Masangkay was wor­ried sick over the fund­ing, and this was the last thing he want­ed to hear. They wait­ed, guard­ing the site, for days, but no mon­ey came. At last, Masangkay went off to re­sup­ply and meet with Dan­ish of­fi­cials. He left Mc­Far­lane with the stone — and, un­for­tu­nate­ly, a com­mu­ni­ca­tions dish.

“As best I un­der­stand it, Mc­Far­lane had a kind of psy­cho­log­ical break. He was there, alone, for a week. He be­came con­vinced that the New York Mu­se­um would fail to pro­vide the ex­tra fund­ing, and that in the end the me­te­orite would be spir­it­ed off by some­body, bro­ken up, and sold on the black mar­ket, nev­er to be seen or stud­ied again. So he used the satel­lite dish to con­tact a rich Japanese col­lec­tor who he knew could buy it whole and keep it. In short, he be­trayed his part­ner. When Masangkay re­turned with the sup­plies — and, as it hap­pened, the ex­tra fund­ing — the Japanese were al­ready there. They wast­ed no time at all. They took it away. Masangkay felt be­trayed, and the sci­en­tif­ic world was fu­ri­ous at Mc­Far­lane. They’ve nev­er for­giv­en him.”

Bram­bell nod­ded sleep­ily. It was an in­ter­est­ing sto­ry. Might make for a good, if some­what sen­sa­tion­al, nov­el. Jack Lon­don could have done it jus­tice. Or bet­ter yet, Con­rad…

“I wor­ry about Mc­Far­lane,” Glinn said, in­trud­ing on his thoughts. “We can’t have any­thing like that hap­pen­ing here. It would ru­in ev­ery­thing. If he was will­ing to be­tray his own broth­er-​in-​law, he would be­tray Lloyd and EES with­out a sec­ond thought.”

“Why should he?” Bram­bell yawned. “Lloyd has deep pock­ets, and he seems per­fect­ly hap­py to write checks.” “Mc­Far­lane is mer­ce­nary, of course, but this goes be­yond mon­ey. The me­te­orite we’re af­ter has some very pe­cu­liar prop­er­ties. If Mc­Far­lane grows ob­sessed with it as he did with the Tornarssuk… ” Glinn hes­itat­ed. “For ex­am­ple, if we ev­er have to use the dead man’s switch, it would be in a time of ex­treme cri­sis. Ev­ery sec­ond would count. I don’t want any­body try­ing to pre­vent it.”

“And my role in this?”

“You have a back­ground in psy­chi­atry. I want you to re­view these pe­ri­od­ic re­ports. If you see any cause for con­cern — in par­tic­ular, any in­cip­ient signs of a break like his last one — please let me know.”

Bram­bell flipped through the two files again, the old one and the new. The back­ground file was strange. He won­dered where Glinn had got­ten the in­for­ma­tion — very lit­tle, if any, was stan­dard psy­chi­atric or med­ical stuff. Many of the re­ports had no re­port­ing doc­tors’ names or af­fil­ia­tions — in­deed, some had no names at all. What­ev­er the source, it had a very ex­pen­sive whiff about it.

He fi­nal­ly looked up at Glinn and slapped the fold­er shut. “I’ll look this over, and I’ll keep an eye on him. I’m not sure my take on what hap­pened is the same as yours.”

Glinn rose to leave, his gray eyes as im­pen­etra­ble as slate. Bram­bell found it un­ac­count­ably ir­ri­tat­ing.

“And the Green­land me­te­orite?” Bram­bell asked. “Was it from in­ter­stel­lar space?”

“Of course not. It turned out to be an or­di­nary rock from the as­ter­oid belt. Mc­Far­lane was wrong.”

“And the wife?” Bram­bell asked af­ter a mo­ment.

“What wife?”

“Mc­Far­lane’s wife. Mal­ou Masangkay.”

“She left him. Went back to the Philip­pines and re­mar­ried.”

In a mo­ment, Glinn was gone, his care­ful­ly placed foot­falls fad­ing down the cor­ri­dor. For a mo­ment, the doc­tor lis­tened to the dy­ing ca­dence, think­ing. Then a line of Con­rad’s came to mind. He spoke it aloud: “No man ev­er un­der­stands quite his own art­ful dodges to es­cape from the grim shad­ow of self-​knowl­edge.”

With a sigh of re­turn­ing con­tent­ment, he put aside the files and went back in­to his pri­vate suite. The tor­pid equa­to­ri­al cli­mate, as well as some­thing about Glinn him­self, made the doc­tor think of Maugh­am — the short sto­ries, to be ex­act. He ran his fin­gers over the nubbed spines — each rekin­dling a uni­verse of mem­ory and emo­tion as it passed by — found what he was look­ing for, set­tled in­to a large wing chair, and opened the cov­er with a shiv­er of de­light.

Rolvaag,

Ju­ly 11, 7:55 A.M.

MC­FAR­LANE AD­VANCED on­to the par­quet deck and looked around cu­ri­ous­ly. It was his first time on the bridge, and this was with­out ques­tion the most dra­mat­ic space on the Rolvaag. The bridge was as wide as the ship it­self. Three sides of the room were dom­inat­ed by large square win­dows, slant­ing out­ward from bot­tom to top, each equipped with its own elec­tric wiper. On ei­ther end, doors led out to the bridge wings. Oth­er doors to the rear were la­beled CHART ROOM and RA­DIO ROOM in brass let­ters. Be­neath the for­ward win­dows, a bank of equip­ment stretched the en­tire length of the bridge: con­soles, rows of tele­phones, links to con­trol sta­tions through­out the ship. Be­yond the win­dows, a predawn squall lay across stormy deserts of ocean. The on­ly light came from the in­stru­ment pan­els and screens. A small­er row of win­dows gave a view aft, be­tween the stacks and past the stern of the ship to the white dou­ble lines of the wake, van­ish­ing to­ward the hori­zon.

In the cen­ter of the room stood a com­mand-​and-​con­trol sta­tion. Here, Mc­Far­lane saw the cap­tain, a dim fig­ure in the near-​dark­ness. She was speak­ing in­to a tele­phone, oc­ca­sion­al­ly lean­ing over to mur­mur to the helms­man be­side her, the hol­lows of his eyes il­lu­mi­nat­ed a cold green by his radar screen.

As Mc­Far­lane joined the silent vig­il, the squall be­gan to break up and a gray dawn crept over the hori­zon. A sin­gle deck­hand moved antlike across the dis­tant fore­cas­tle, bound on ob­scure busi­ness. Above the creamy bow-​wake, a few per­sis­tent seabirds wheeled and screamed. It was a shock­ing con­trast to the tor­rid trop­ics, which they had left be­hind less than a week be­fore.

Af­ter the Rolvaag had crossed the equa­tor, in sul­try heat and heavy rains, a las­si­tude had fall­en over the ship. Mc­Far­lane had felt it, too: yawn­ing over games of shuf­fle­board; lolling in his suite, star­ing at the but­ter­nut walls. But as they con­tin­ued south, the air had grown crisper, the ocean swells longer and heav­ier, and the pearles­cent sky of the trop­ics had giv­en way to bril­liant azure, flecked with clouds. As the air fresh­ened, he sensed that the gen­er­al malaise was be­ing re­placed by amount­ing ex­cite­ment.

The door to the bridge opened once again, and two fig­ures en­tered: a third of­fi­cer, tak­ing the morn­ing eight-​to-​twelve, and Eli Glinn. He came silent­ly up to Mc­Far­lane’s side. “What’s this all about?” Mc­Far­lane asked un­der his breath.

Be­fore Glinn could an­swer, there was a soft click from be­hind. Mc­Far­lane glanced back to see Vic­tor How­ell step out of the ra­dio room and look on as the watch was re­lieved.

The third of­fi­cer came over and mur­mured some­thing in the cap­tain’s ear. In turn, she glanced at Glinn. “Keep an eye off the star­board bow,” she said, nod­ding out to­ward the hori­zon, which lay like a knife edge against the sky.

As the sky light­ened, the swells and hol­lows of the heav­ing sea be­came more clear­ly de­fined. A spear of dawn light probed through the heavy canopy of clouds off the ship’s star­board bow. Step­ping away from the helms­man, the cap­tain strolled to the for­ward wall of win­dows, hands clasped be­hind her back. As she did so, an­oth­er ray of light clipped the tops of the clouds. And then, abrupt­ly, the en­tire west­ern hori­zon lit up like an erup­tion of fire. Mc­Far­lane squint­ed, try­ing to un­der­stand what it was he was star­ing at. Then he made it out: a row of great snow­capped peaks, wreathed inglaciers, ablaze in the dawn.

The cap­tain turned and faced the group. “Land ho,” she said dry­ly. “The moun­tains of Tier­ra del Fuego. With­in a few hours, we’ll pass through the Strait of Le Maire and in­to the Pa­cif­ic Ocean.” She passed a pair of binoc­ulars to Mc­Far­lane.

Mc­Far­lane stared at the range of moun­tains through the binoc­ulars: dis­tant and for­bid­ding, like the ram­parts of a lost con­ti­nent, the peaks shed­ding long veils of snow.

Glinn straight­ened his shoul­ders, turned away from the sight, and glanced at Vic­tor How­ell. The chief mate strolled over to a tech­ni­cian at the far end of the bridge, who quick­ly stood up and dis­ap­peared out the door on­to the star­board bridge wing. How­ell re­turned to the com­mand sta­tion. “Give your­self fif­teen for cof­fee,” he said to the third of­fi­cer. “I’ll take the con.”

The ju­nior of­fi­cer looked from How­ell to the cap­tain, sur­prised by this break from pro­ce­dure. “Do you want me to en­ter it in the log, ma’am?” he asked.

Brit­ton shook her head. “Un­nec­es­sary. Just be back in a quar­ter of an hour.”

Once the man had dis­ap­peared from the bridge, the cap­tain turned to How­ell. “Is Banks ready with the New York hookup?” she asked.

The chief mate nod­ded. “We’ve got Mr. Lloyd wait­ing.”

“Very well. Patch him through.”

Mc­Far­lane sti­fled a sigh. Isn’t once a day enough? he thought. He had al­most grown to dread the noon video­con­fer­ence calls he made dai­ly to the Lloyd Mu­se­um. Lloyd was al­ways talk­ing a mile a minute, des­per­ate to learn of the ship’s progress down to the nau­ti­cal mile, grilling ev­ery­one at length, hatch­ing schemes and ques­tion­ing ev­ery plan. Mc­Far­lane mar­veled at Glinn’s pa­tience.

There was a crack­ling noise in a loud­speak­er bolt­ed to a bulk­head, then Mc­Far­lane heard Lloyd’s voice, loud even in the spa­cious bridge. “Sam? Sam, are you there?”

“This is Cap­tain Brit­ton, Mr. Lloyd,” Brit­ton said, mo­tion­ing the oth­ers to­ward a mi­cro­phone at the com­mand sta­tion. “The coast of Chile is in sight. We’re a day out of Puer­to Williams.”

“Mar­velous!” Lloyd boomed.

Glinn ap­proached the mi­cro­phone. “Mr. Lloyd, it’s Eli Glinn. To­mor­row we clear Chilean cus­toms. Dr. Mc­Far­lane, my­self, and the cap­tain will take a launch in­to Puer­to Williams to present ship’s pa­pers.”

“Is that nec­es­sary?” Lloyd asked. “Why must you all go?”

“Let me ex­plain the sit­ua­tion. The first prob­lem is that the cus­toms peo­ple will prob­ably want to come on board the ship.”

“Je­sus,” came Lloyd’s voice. “That could give the whole game away.”

“Po­ten­tial­ly. That is why our first ef­fort will be to pre­vent a vis­it. The Chileans will be cu­ri­ous to meet the prin­ci­pals — the cap­tain, the chief min­ing en­gi­neer. If we sent un­der­lings, they will al­most cer­tain­ly in­sist on com­ing aboard.”

“What about me?” Mc­Far­lane asked. “I’m per­sona non gra­ta in Chile, re­mem­ber? I’d just as soon keep a low pro­file.”

“Sor­ry, but you’re our ace in the hole,” Glinn replied.

“And why is that?”

“You’re the on­ly one of us who has ac­tu­al­ly been in Chile. You’ve got more ex­pe­ri­ence in sit­ua­tions like this. In the very re­mote chance that events play out along an un­ex­pect­ed path, we need your in­stincts.”

“Great. I don’t think I’m be­ing prop­er­ly com­pen­sat­ed for tak­ing such a risk.”

“Oh yes you are.” Lloyd’s voice sound­ed testy. “Look, Eli. What if they want to board her any­way?”

“We’ve pre­pared a spe­cial re­cep­tion room for the oc­ca­sion.”

“Re­cep­tion room? The last thing we want is them hang­ing about.”

“The room will not en­cour­age any lin­ger­ing. If they do come aboard, they will be es­cort­ed to the for­ward tankwash­ing con­trol room. It’s not a very com­fort­able place. We’ve fit­ted it with some met­al chairs — not enough — and a Formi­ca ta­ble. The heat’s been turned off. We’ve paint­ed parts of the deck with a chem­ical wash smelling faint­ly of ex­cre­ment and vom­it.”

Lloyd’s laugh, am­pli­fied and metal­lic, rang across the bridge. “Eli, God for­bid you should ev­er di­rect a war. But what if they want to see the bridge?”

“We have a strat­egy for that as well. Trust me, Palmer, when we get through with the cus­toms peo­ple in Puer­to Williams, it will be high­ly un­like­ly they will want to come aboard, and even less like­ly they will want to see the bridge.” He turned. “Dr. Mc­Far­lane, from now on you speak no Span­ish. Just fol­low my lead. Let me and Cap­tain Brit­ton do all the talk­ing.”

There was a mo­men­tary si­lence. “You said that was our first prob­lem,” Lloyd spoke up at last. “Is there an­oth­er one?”

“There’s an er­rand we must run while we’re in Puer­to Williams.”

“Dare I ask what that might be?”

“I’m plan­ning to en­gage the ser­vices of a man named John Pup­pup. We’ll have to find him and get him on board.” Lloyd groaned. “Eli, I’m be­gin­ning to think you en­joy spring­ing these sur­pris­es on me. Who is John Pup­pup, and why do we need him?”

“He’s half Yaghan, half En­glish.”

“And what the hell is a Yaghan?”

“The Yaghan In­di­ans were the orig­inal in­hab­itants of the Cape Horn is­lands. They are now ex­tinct. On­ly a few mes­ti­zos are left. Pup­pup is old, per­haps sev­en­ty. He ba­si­cal­ly wit­nessed the ex­tinc­tion of his peo­ple. He’s the last to re­tain some lo­cal In­di­an knowl­edge.”

The over­head speak­er fell silent a mo­ment. Then it cracked back in­to life. “Eli, this scheme sounds half-​baked. You said you planned to en­gage his ser­vices? Does he know about this?”

“Not yet.”

“What if he says no?”

“When we get to him, he won’t be in any con­di­tion to say no. Be­sides, haven’t you heard of the time-​hon­ored naval tra­di­tion of ‘im­press­ment’?”

Lloyd groaned. “So now we’re go­ing to add kid­nap­ping to our list of crimes.”

“This is a high-​stakes game,” said Glinn. “You knew it when we be­gan. Pup­pup will go home a rich man. We will have no trou­ble from that quar­ter. The on­ly trou­ble will be lo­cat­ing him and get­ting him aboard.”

“Any more sur­pris­es?”

“At cus­toms, Dr. Mc­Far­lane and my­self will present coun­ter­feit pass­ports. This is the path with the high­est cer­tain­ty of suc­cess, al­though it en­tails some mi­nor break­ing of Chilean law.”

“Wait a minute,” Mc­Far­lane said. “Trav­el­ing with fake pass­ports is break­ing Amer­ican law.”

“It will nev­er be known. I have ar­ranged for the pass­port records to be lost in tran­sit be­tween Puer­to Williams and Pun­ta Are­nas. We will re­tain your re­al pass­ports, of course, which have been marked with the cor­rect visas, ar­rival, and de­par­ture stamps. Or so it will seem.”

He looked around, as if ask­ing for ob­jec­tions. There were none. The chief of­fi­cer was at the helm, steer­ing the ship im­pas­sive­ly. Cap­tain Brit­ton was look­ing at Glinn. Her eyes were wide, but she re­mained silent.

“Very well,” Lloyd said. “But I have to tell you, Eli, this scheme of yours makes me very ner­vous. I want an im­me­di­ate up­date when you get back from cus­toms.”

The speak­er abrupt­ly went dead. Brit­ton nod­ded to Vic­tor How­ell, who dis­ap­peared in­to the ra­dio room. “Ev­ery­one who goes in­to port is go­ing to have to look the part,” Glinn said. “Dr. Mc­Far­lane can go as he is” — Glinn gave him a rather dis­mis­sive once-​over — “but Cap­tain Brit­ton will need to be sev­er­al de­grees less for­mal.”

“You said we’ll have fake pass­ports,” Mc­Far­lane said. “I as­sume we’ll have fake names to go with them?”

“Cor­rect. You’ll be Dr. Sam Wid­manstät­ten.”

“Cute.”

There was a short si­lence. “And your­self?” Brit­ton asked.

For the first time Mc­Far­lane could re­mem­ber, Glinn laughed — a low, small sound that seemed to be most­ly breath.

“Call me Ish­mael,” he said.

Chile,

Ju­ly 12, 9:30 A.M.

THE FOL­LOW­ING day, the great ship Rolvaag lay at rest in the Goree Roads, a broad chan­nel be­tween three is­lands ris­ing out of the Pa­cif­ic. A chill sun­light bathed the scene in sharp re­lief. Mc­Far­lane stood at the rail of the Rolvaag’s launch, a small de­crepit ves­sel al­most as rust-​stained as its par­ent, and stared at the tanker as they slow­ly pulled away. It looked even big­ger from sea lev­el. Far above, on the fan­tail, he could see Ami­ra, swad­dled in a par­ka three sizes too large. “Hey, boss!” she cried faint­ly as she waved, “don’t come back with the clap!”

The boat swung around in the chop and turned to­ward the des­olate land­scape of Is­la Navari­no. It was the south­ern­most in­hab­it­ed land­mass on earth. Un­like the moun­tain­ous coast they had passed the pri­or af­ter­noon, the east­ern flanks of Navari­no were low and monotonous: a frozen, snow­cov­ered swamp de­scend­ing to broad shin­gled beach­es pound­ed by Pa­cif­ic rollers. There was no sign of hu­man life. Puer­to Williams lay some twen­ty miles up the Bea­gle Chan­nel, in pro­tect­ed wa­ters. Mc­Far­lane shiv­ered, draw­ing his own par­ka more tight­ly around him. Spend­ing time on Is­la Des­olación — re­mote even by the stan­dards of this god­for­sak­en place — was one thing. But hang­ing around a Chilean har­bor made him ner­vous. A thou­sand miles north of here there were still plen­ty of peo­ple who would re­mem­ber his face — and would be hap­py to ac­quaint him with the busi­ness end of a cat­tle prod. There was al­ways a chance, how­ev­er small, that one of them would now be sta­tioned down here.

There was a move­ment by his side as Glinn joined him at the rail. The man was wear­ing a greasy quilt­ed jack­et, sev­er­al lay­ers of soiled woolen shirts, and an or­ange watch­cap. He clutched a bat­tered brief­case in one hand. His face, fas­tid­ious­ly clean-​shaven un­der nor­mal con­di­tions, had been al­lowed to rough­en. A bent cigarette dan­gled from his lips, and Mc­Far­lane could see he was ac­tu­al­ly smok­ing it, in­hal­ing and ex­hal­ing with ev­ery in­di­ca­tion of plea­sure.

“I don’t be­lieve we’ve met,” Mc­Far­lane said.

“I’m Eli Ish­mael, chief min­ing en­gi­neer.”

“Well, Mr. Min­ing En­gi­neer, if I didn’t know bet­ter I’d say you were ac­tu­al­ly en­joy­ing your­self.”

Glinn pulled the cigarette from his mouth, gazed at it a mo­ment, then tossed it to­ward the frozen seascape. “En­joy­ment is not nec­es­sar­ily in­com­pat­ible with suc­cess.”

Mc­Far­lane ges­tured at his shab­by clothes. “Where’d you get all this, any­how? You look like you’ve been stok­ing coal.”

“A cou­ple of cos­tume con­sul­tants flew in from Hol­ly­wood while the ship was be­ing fit­ted,” Glinn an­swered. “We’ve got a few sea lock­ers full, enough to cov­er any con­tin­gen­cy.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. So what ex­act­ly are our march­ing or­ders?”

“It’s very sim­ple. Our job is to in­tro­duce our­selves at cus­toms, han­dle any ques­tions about the min­ing per­mits, post our bond, and find John Pup­pup. We’re a wild­cat­ting out­fit, here to mine iron ore. The com­pa­ny is tee­ter­ing on bankrupt­cy, and this is our last shot. If some­one speaks En­glish and ques­tions you, in­sist bel­liger­ent­ly that we are a first-​class out­fit. But as much as pos­si­ble, don’t speak at all. And if some­thing un­to­ward hap­pens at cus­toms, re­act as you would nat­ural­ly.”

“Nat­ural­ly?” Mc­Far­lane shook his head. “My nat­ural in­stinct would be to run like hell.” He paused. “How about the cap­tain? You think she’s up to this?”

“As you may have no­ticed, she’s not your typ­ical sea cap­tain.”

The launch cut through the chop, the care­ful­ly de­tuned diesels ham­mer­ing vi­olent­ly from be­low. The door to the cab­in thumped open and Brit­ton ap­proached them, wear­ing old jeans, a pea jack­et, and a bat­tered cap with gold cap­tain’s bars. Binoc­ulars swung from her neck. It was the first time Mc­Far­lane had seen her out of a crisp naval uni­form, and the change was both re­fresh­ing and al­lur­ing.

“May I com­pli­ment you on your out­fit?” Glinn said. Mc­Far­lane glanced at him in sur­prise; he did not re­mem­ber ev­er hear­ing Glinn praise any­body be­fore.

The cap­tain flashed Glinn a smile in re­turn. “You may not. I loathe it.”

As the boat round­ed the north­ern end of Is­la Navari­no, a dark shape ap­peared in the dis­tance. Mc­Far­lane could see it was an enor­mous iron ship.

“God,” said Mc­Far­lane. “Look at the size of that. We’ll have to give it a wide berth, or its wake will sink us.” Brit­ton raised her binoc­ulars. Af­ter a long look, she low­ered them again, more slow­ly. “I don’t think so,” she replied. “She’s not go­ing any­where fast.”

De­spite the fact that the ship’s bow was to­ward them, it seemed to take an eter­ni­ty to draw near­er. The twin masts, gaunt and spi­dery, list­ed slight­ly to one side. Then Mc­Far­lane un­der­stood: the ship was a wreck, lodged on a reef in the very mid­dle of the chan­nel.

Glinn took the binoc­ulars Brit­ton of­fered. “It’s the Capitán Prax­os,” he said. “A car­go ves­sel, by the looks of it. Must have been driv­en on a shoal.”

“It’s hard to be­lieve a ship that size could be wrecked in these pro­tect­ed wa­ters,” said Mc­Far­lane.

“This sound is on­ly pro­tect­ed dur­ing north­east­er­ly winds, like we have to­day,” said Brit­ton, her voice cold. “When they shift to the west, they’d turn this place in­to a wind tun­nel. Per­haps the ship had en­gine trou­ble at the time.”

They fell silent as the hulk drew near­er. De­spite the bril­liant clar­ity of the morn­ing sun, the ship re­mained odd­ly out of fo­cus, as if sur­round­ed in its own cloak of mist. The ves­sel was coat­ed, stern to stern, in a fur of rust and de­cay. Its iron tow­ers were bro­ken, one hang­ing off the side and caught among heavy chains, the oth­er ly­ing in a tan­gle on the deck. No birds perched on its rot­ting su­per­struc­ture. Even the waves seemed to avoid its scabrous sides. It was spec­tral, sur­re­al: a ca­dav­er­ous sen­tinel, giv­ing mute warn­ing to all who passed.

“Some­body ought to speak to Puer­to Williams Cham­ber of Com­merce about that,” Mc­Far­lane said. The joke was greet­ed with­out laugh­ter. A chill seemed to have fall­en on the group.

The pi­lot throt­tled up, as if ea­ger to be past the wreck, and they turned in­to the Bea­gle Chan­nel. Here, knife-​edged moun­tains rose from the wa­ter, dark and for­bid­ding, snow­fields and glaciers wink­ing in their folds. The boat was buf­fet­ed by a gust of wind, and Mc­Far­lane pulled his par­ka tighter around him.

“To the right is Ar­genti­na,” Glinn said. “To the left, Chile.”

“And I’m head­ing in­side,” said Brit­ton, turn­ing to­ward the pi­lot­house.

An hour lat­er, Puer­to Williams rose out of the gray light off the port bow: a col­lec­tion of shab­by wood­en build­ings, yel­low with red roofs, nes­tled in a bowl be­tween hills. Be­hind it rose a range of hy­per­bore­an moun­tains, white and sharp as teeth. At the foot of the town stood a row of de­cay­ing piers. Wood­en drag­gers and sin­gle-​mast­ed gaff sloops with tarred hulls were moored in the har­bor. Near­by, Mc­Far­lane could see the Bar­rio de los In­dios: a crooked as­sort­ment of planked hous­es and damp huts, ten­drils of smoke ris­ing from makeshift chim­neys. Be­yond them lay the naval sta­tion it­self, a for­lorn row of cor­ru­gat­ed met­al build­ings. What looked like two naval ten­ders and an old de­stroy­er were moored near­by.

With­in the space of a few min­utes, it seemed, the bright morn­ing sky had dark­ened. As the launch pulled up to one of the wood­en piers, a smell of rot­ting fish, shot through with odors of sewage and sea­weed, washed over them. Sev­er­al men ap­peared from near­by huts and came sham­bling down gang­planks. Shout­ing and ges­tur­ing, they tried to en­tice the launch to land at any of half a dozen places, each hold­ing up a hawser or point­ing at a cleat. The boat slid in­to the dock and a loud ar­gu­ment en­sued be­tween the two near­est men, qui­et­ed on­ly when Glinn passed out cigarettes.

The three climbed out on the slip­pery dock and looked up at the dis­mal town. Stray flakes of snow dust­ed the shoul­ders of Mc­Far­lane’s par­ka.

“Where is the of­fice of cus­toms?” Glinn asked one of the men in Span­ish.

“I will take you there,” said three si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly. Now wom­en were ar­riv­ing, crowd­ing around with plas­tic buck­ets full of sea urchins, mus­sels, and con­grio col­orado, jostling one an­oth­er aside and shov­ing the ripe shell­fish in­to their faces.

“Sea urchin,” said one wom­an in bro­ken En­glish. She had the wiz­ened face of a sep­tu­age­nar­ian and sport­ed a sin­gle, re­mark­ably white tooth. “Very good for man. Make hard. Muy fuerte.” She ges­tured with a stiff up­raised arm to in­di­cate its re­sults, while the men roared with laugh­ter.

“No gra­cias seño­ra,” Glinn said, shov­ing his way through the crowd to fol­low his self­ap­point­ed guides.

The men led the way up the pier and along the wa­ter­front in the di­rec­tion of the naval sta­tion. Here, be­side an­oth­er pier on­ly slight­ly less shab­by, they stopped at a low planked build­ing. Light streamed from its sole win­dow in­to the dark­en­ing air, and the fra­grant smoke of a wood fire bil­lowed from a tin pipe in the far wall. A fad­ed Chilean flag hung be­side the door.

Glinn tipped their guides and pushed open the door, Brit­ton fol­low­ing be­hind him. Mc­Far­lane came last. He took a deep breath of the ripe, chill air, re­mind­ing him­self it was very un­like­ly any­one here would rec­og­nize him from the At­aca­ma busi­ness.

The in­side was what he ex­pect­ed: the scarred ta­ble, the pot­bel­lied stove, the dark-​eyed of­fi­cial. Walk­ing vol­un­tar­ily in­to a Chilean gov­ern­ment of­fice — even one as re­mote and provin­cial as this — made him ner­vous. His eyes strayed in­vol­un­tar­ily to the tat­tered-​look­ing sheaf of want­ed posters hang­ing from a wall by a rust­ed met­al clamp. Cool it, he told him­self.

The cus­toms of­fi­cial had care­ful­ly slicked-​back hair and an im­mac­ulate uni­form. He smiled at them, re­veal­ing an ex­panse of gold teeth. “Please,” he said in Span­ish. “Sit down.” He had a soft, ef­fem­inate voice. The man ra­di­at­ed a kind well-​be­ing that seemed ex­trav­agant­ly out of place in such a for­lorn out­post.

From a back room of the cus­toms of­fice, voic­es that had been raised in ar­gu­ment were sud­den­ly hushed. Mc­Far­lane wait­ed for Glinn and Brit­ton to sit down, then fol­lowed their lead, low­er­ing him­self gin­ger­ly in­to a scuffed wood­en chair. The pot­bel­lied stove crack­led, giv­ing off a won­der­ful glow of heat.

“Por fa­vor,” the of­fi­cial said, push­ing a cedar box full of cigarettes at them. Ev­ery­one de­clined ex­cept Glinn, who took two. He stuck one be­tween his lips and popped the oth­er in­to his pock­et. “Mas tarde,” he said with a grin.

The man leaned across the ta­ble and lit Glinn’s cigarette with a gold lighter. Glinn took a deep drag on the un­fil­tered cigarette, then leaned over to spit a small piece of to­bac­co off his tongue. Mc­Far­lane glanced from him to Brit­ton.

“Wel­come to Chile,” the of­fi­cial said in En­glish, turn­ing the lighter over in his del­icate hands be­fore slip­ping it back in his jack­et pock­et. Then he switched back to Span­ish. “You are from the Amer­ican min­ing ship Rolvaag, of course?”

“Yes,” said Brit­ton, al­so in Span­ish. With seem­ing care­less­ness, she slipped some pa­pers and a wad of pass­ports out of a bat­tered leather port­fo­lio.

“Look­ing for iron?” the man asked with a smile.

Glinn nod­ded.

“And you ex­pect to find this iron on Is­la Des­olación?” His smile held a touch of cyn­icism, Mc­Far­lane thought. Or was it sus­pi­cion?

“Of course,” Glinn an­swered quick­ly, af­ter sti­fling a wet cough. “We are equipped with all the lat­est min­ing equip­ment and a fine ore car­ri­er. This is a high­ly pro­fes­sion­al op­er­ation.”

The slight­ly amused ex­pres­sion on the of­fi­cial’s face in­di­cat­ed that he had al­ready re­ceived in­for­ma­tion about the big rust buck­et an­chored be­yond the chan­nel. He drew the pa­pers to­ward him and flipped through them ca­su­al­ly. “It will take some time to pro­cess these,” he said. “We will prob­ably want to vis­it your ship. Where is the cap­tain?”

“I am the mas­ter of the Rolvaag,” said Brit­ton.

At this the of­fi­cial’s eye­brows shot up. There was a shuf­fling of feet from the back room of the cus­toms house, and two more of­fi­cials of in­dis­tinct rank came through the door. Head­ing to the stove, they sat down on a bench be­side it.

“You are the cap­tain,” the of­fi­cial said.

“Sí.”

The of­fi­cial grunt­ed, looked down at the pa­pers, ca­su­al­ly leafed through them, and looked up at her again. “And you, señor?” he asked, swivel­ing his gaze to Mc­Far­lane.

Glinn spoke. “This is Dr. Wid­manstät­ten, se­nior sci­en­tist. He speaks no Span­ish. I am the chief en­gi­neer, Eli Ish­mael.”

Mc­Far­lane felt the of­fi­cial’s gaze linger on him. “Wid­manstät­ten,” the man re­peat­ed slow­ly, as if tast­ing the name. The two oth­er of­fi­cials turned to look at him.

Mc­Far­lane’s mouth went dry. His face hadn’t been in the Chilean news­pa­pers for at least five years. And he’d had a beard at the time. Noth­ing to wor­ry about, he told him­self. Sweat be­gan to form at his tem­ples.

The Chileans stared at him cu­ri­ous­ly, as if de­tect­ing his ag­ita­tion with some kind of pro­fes­sion­al sixth sense.

“No speak Span­ish?” the of­fi­cial said to him. His eyes nar­rowed as he stared.

There was a brief si­lence. Then, in­vol­un­tar­ily, Mc­Far­lane blurt­ed out the first thing that came to mind: “Quiero una pu­ta.”

There was sud­den laugh­ter from the Chilean of­fi­cials. “He speaks well enough,” said the man be­hind the ta­ble. Mc­Far­lane sat back and licked his lips, ex­hal­ing slow­ly.

Glinn coughed again, a hideous rack­ing cough. “Par­don me,” he said, pulling out a grimy hand­ker­chief, wip­ing his chin, scat­ter­ing yel­low phlegm with a sav­age shake, and re­turn­ing it to his pock­et.

The of­fi­cial glanced at the hand­ker­chief, then rubbed his del­icate hands to­geth­er. “I hope you are not com­ing down with some­thing in this damp cli­mate of ours.”

“It is noth­ing,” said Glinn. Mc­Far­lane looked at him with grow­ing alarm. The man’s eyes were raw and blood­shot: he looked ill.

Brit­ton coughed del­icate­ly in­to her hand. “A cold,” she said. “It’s been go­ing around ship.”

“A mere cold?” asked the of­fi­cial, his eye­brows as­sum­ing an un­easy arch.

“Well…” Brit­ton paused. “Our sick bay is over­flow­ing—“

“It’s noth­ing se­ri­ous,” Glinn in­ter­rupt­ed, his voice thready with mu­cus. “Per­haps a touch of in­fluen­za. You know what it is like on board ship, ev­ery­one con­fined to small spaces.” He let out a laugh that de­volved in­to an­oth­er cough. “Speak­ing of that, we would be de­light­ed to re­ceive you aboard our ves­sel to­day or to­mor­row, at your con­ve­nience.”

“Per­haps that won’t be nec­es­sary,” said the of­fi­cial. “Pro­vid­ed these pa­pers are in or­der.” He leafed through them. “Where is your min­ing bond?”

With a mighty clear­ing of the throat, Glinn leaned over the desk and pulled an em­bossed, sealed set of pa­pers from his jack­et. Re­ceiv­ing them with the edges of his fin­gers, the of­fi­cial scanned the top sheet, then flipped to the next with a jerk of his wrist. He laid the sheets on the worn table­top.

“I am des­olat­ed,” he said with a sad shake of his head. “But this is the wrong form.”

Mc­Far­lane saw the oth­er two of­fi­cials glance covert­ly at each oth­er.

“It is?” asked Glinn.

There was a sud­den change in the room; an air of tense ex­pec­ta­tion.

“You will need to bring the cor­rect form from Pun­ta Are­nas,” the of­fi­cial said. “At that time, I can stamp it ap­proved. Un­til then, I will hold your pass­ports for safe­keep­ing.”

“It is the cor­rect form,” said Brit­ton, her voice tak­ing a hard edge.

“Let me take care of this.” Glinn spoke to her in En­glish. “I think they want some mon­ey.” Brit­ton flared. “What, they want a bribe?”

Glinn made a sup­press­ing mo­tion with one hand. “Easy.”

Mc­Far­lane looked at the two, won­der­ing if what he was see­ing be­tween them was re­al, or an act.

Glinn turned back to the cus­toms of­fi­cial, whose face was wreathed in a false smile. “Per­haps,” Glinn said in Span­ish, “we could pur­chase the cor­rect bond here?”

“It is a pos­si­bil­ity,” said the of­fi­cial. “They are ex­pen­sive.”

With a loud sniff, Glinn heft­ed his brief­case and laid it on the ta­ble. De­spite its dirty, scuffed ap­pear­ance, the of­fi­cials glanced at it with ill-​con­cealed an­tic­ipa­tion. Glinn flicked open the latch­es and raised the top, pre­tend­ing to hide its con­tents from the Chileans. In­side were more pa­pers and a dozen bun­dles of Amer­ican twen­ties, held to­geth­er by rub­ber bands. Glinn re­moved half of the bun­dles and laid them on the ta­ble. “Will that take care of it?” he asked.

The of­fi­cial smiled and set­tled back in his chair, mak­ing a tent of his fin­gers. “I’m afraid not, señor. Min­ing bonds are ex­pen­sive.” His eyes were fas­tid­ious­ly avert­ed from the open brief­case.

“How much, then?”

The of­fi­cial pre­tend­ed to do a quick men­tal cal­cu­la­tion. “Twice that amount should be suf­fi­cient.”

There was a si­lence. Then, word­less­ly, Glinn reached in­to the brief­case, re­moved the rest of the bun­dles, and placed them on the ta­ble.

To Mc­Far­lane, it was as if the tense at­mo­sphere had sud­den­ly dis­si­pat­ed. The of­fi­cial at the ta­ble gath­ered up the mon­ey. Brit­ton looked an­noyed but re­signed. The two of­fi­cials sit­ting on the bench be­side the stove were smil­ing wide­ly. The on­ly ex­cep­tion was a new ar­rival; a strik­ing fig­ure who had slipped in from the back room at some point dur­ing the ne­go­ti­ation and was now stand­ing in the door­way. He was a tall man with a brown face as sharp as a knife, keen black eyes, thick eye­brows, and point­ed ears that gave him an in­tense, al­most Mephistophe­lean au­ra. He wore a clean but fad­ed Chilean naval uni­form with a bit of gold thread on the shoul­ders. Mc­Far­lane not­ed that, while the man’s left arm lay at his side with mil­itary rigid­ity, the right was held hor­izon­tal­ly across his stom­ach, its at­ro­phied hand curled in­to an in­vol­un­tary brown com­ma. The man looked at the of­fi­cials, at Glinn, at the mon­ey on the ta­ble, and his lips curled in­to a faint smile of con­tempt.

The stacks of mon­ey had now been gath­ered in­to four piles. “What about a re­ceipt?” asked Brit­ton.

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly, that is not our way…” The cus­toms of­fi­cial spread his hands with an­oth­er smile. Mov­ing back quick­ly, he slipped one of the piles of mon­ey in­to his desk, then hand­ed two of the oth­er piles to the men on the bench. “For safe­keep­ing,” he said to Glinn. Fi­nal­ly, the of­fi­cial picked up the re­main­ing pile and of­fered it to the uni­formed man. The man, who had been peer­ing close­ly at Mc­Far­lane, crossed his good hand over the bad but made no ges­ture for the mon­ey. The of­fi­cial held it there for a mo­ment, and then spoke to him in a rapid un­der­tone.

“Na­da,” an­swered the uni­formed man in a loud voice. Then he stepped for­ward and turned to the group, his eyes glit­ter­ing with ha­tred. “You Amer­icans think you can buy ev­ery­thing,” he said in clear, un­in­flect­ed En­glish. “You can­not. I am not like these cor­rupt of­fi­cials. Keep your mon­ey.”

The cus­toms of­fi­cial spoke sharply, wag­gling the wad of bills at him. “You will take it, fool.”

There was a dis­tinct click as Glinn care­ful­ly closed his brief­case.

“No,” said the uni­formed man, switch­ing to Span­ish. “This is a farce, and all of you know it. We are be­ing robbed.” He spat to­ward the stove. In the dread si­lence that fol­lowed, Mc­Far­lane clear­ly heard the smack and siz­zle as the gob­bet hit the hot iron.

“Robbed?” the of­fi­cial asked. “How do you mean?”

“You think Amer­icans would come down here to mine iron?” the man said. “Then you are the fool. They are here for some­thing else.”

“Tell me, wise Co­man­dante, why they are here.”

“There is no iron ore on Is­la Des­olación. They can on­ly be here for one thing. Gold.”

Af­ter a pause, the of­fi­cial be­gan to laugh — a low-​throat­ed, mirth­less laugh. He turned to Glinn. “Gold?” he said, a lit­tle more sharply than be­fore. “Is that why you are here? To steal gold from Chile?”

Mc­Far­lane glanced at Glinn. To his great dis­may, he saw a look of guilt and naked fear writ large across Glinn’s face; enough to arouse sus­pi­cion in even the dullest of­fi­cial.

“We are here to mine iron ore,” Glinn said, in a sin­gu­lar­ly un­con­vinc­ing way.

“I must in­form you that a gold min­ing bond will be much more ex­pen­sive,” said the of­fi­cial.

“But we are here to mine iron ore.”

“Come, come,” said the of­fi­cial. “Let us speak frankly to each oth­er and not cre­ate un­nec­es­sary trou­ble. This sto­ry of iron…” He smiled know­ing­ly.

There was a long, ex­pec­tant si­lence. Then Glinn broke it with an­oth­er cough. “Un­der the cir­cum­stances, per­haps a roy­al­ty might be in or­der. Pro­vid­ed that all pa­per­work is tak­en care of ex­pe­di­tious­ly.”

The of­fi­cial wait­ed. Again Glinn opened the brief­case. He re­moved the pa­pers and placed them in his pock­et. Then he ran his hands across the base of the now-​emp­ty brief­case, as if search­ing for some­thing. There was a muf­fled click and a false bot­tom sprang loose. A yel­low ra­di­ance emerged, re­flect­ing off the of­fi­cial’s sur­prised face.

“Madre de dios,” the man whis­pered.

“This is for you — and your as­so­ciates — now,” said Glinn. “On our dis­em­barka­tion, when we clear cus­toms — if all has gone well — you will re­ceive twice that amount. Of course, if false ru­mors of a gold strike on Is­la Des­olación get back to Pun­ta Are­nas, or if we re­ceive un­wel­come vis­itors, we won’t be able to com­plete our min­ing op­er­ation. You will re­ceive noth­ing more.” He sneezed un­ex­pect­ed­ly, spray­ing the back of the case with sali­va.

The of­fi­cial hasti­ly shut it. “Yes, yes. Ev­ery­thing will be tak­en care of.”

The Chilean co­man­dante re­spond­ed sav­age­ly. “Look at the lot of you, like dogs sniff­ing around a bitch in heat.”

The two of­fi­cials rose from the bench and ap­proached him, mur­mur­ing ur­gent­ly and ges­tur­ing to­ward the brief­case. But the co­man­dante broke free. “I am ashamed to be in the same room. You would sell your own moth­ers.”

The cus­toms of­fi­cial turned in his seat and stared be­hind him. “I think you had bet­ter re­turn to your ves­sel, Co­man­dante Val­lenar,” he said ici­ly.

The uni­formed man glared at each per­son in the room in turn. Then, erect and silent, he walked around the ta­ble and out the door, leav­ing it to bang in the wind.

“What of him?” Glinn asked.

“You must for­give Co­man­dante Val­lenar,” the of­fi­cial said, reach­ing in­to an­oth­er draw­er and pulling out some pa­pers and an of­fi­cial stamp. He inked the stamp, then quick­ly im­pressed the pa­pers, seem­ing­ly anx­ious to have the vis­itors gone. “He is an ide­al­ist in a land of prag­ma­tists. But he is noth­ing. There will be no ru­mors, no in­ter­rup­tion of your work. You have my word.” He hand­ed the pa­pers and the pass­ports back across the desk.

Glinn took them and turned to go, then hes­itat­ed. “One oth­er thing. We have hired a man named John Pup­pup. Do you have any idea where we might find him?”

“Pup­pup?” The of­fi­cial was clear­ly star­tled. “That old man? What­ev­er for?”

“It was rep­re­sent­ed to us that he has an in­ti­mate knowl­edge of the Cape Horn is­lands.”

“I can­not imag­ine who told you such a thing. Un­for­tu­nate­ly for you, he re­ceived mon­ey from some­where a few days ago. And that means on­ly one thing. I would try El Pi­coro­co first. On Calle­jon Bar­ran­ca.” The of­fi­cial rose, flash­ing his gild­ed smile. “I wish you luck find­ing iron on Is­la Des­olación.”

Puer­to Williams,

11:45 A.M.

LEAV­ING THE cus­toms of­fice, they turned in­land and be­gan climb­ing the hill to­ward the Bar­rio de los In­dios. The grad­ed dirt road quick­ly gave way to a mix­ture of snow and icy mud. Wood­en cor­duroys had been placed stair­wise along the makeshift track to hold back ero­sion. The small hous­es lin­ing the path were a rag­tag as­sort­ment made with un­matched lum­ber, sur­round­ed by crude wood­en fences. A group of chil­dren fol­lowed the strangers, gig­gling and point­ing. A don­key car­ry­ing an enor­mous fag­got of wood passed them on the way down­hill, al­most jostling Mc­Far­lane in­to a pud­dle. He re­gained his bal­ance with a back­ward curse.

“Ex­act­ly how much of that lit­tle dog-​and-​pony show was planned?” he asked Glinn in a low tone.

“All ex­cept for Co­man­dante Val­lenar. And your lit­tle out­burst. Un­script­ed, but suc­cess­ful.”

“Suc­cess­ful? Now they think we’re il­le­gal­ly min­ing gold. I would call it a dis­as­ter.”

Glinn smiled in­dul­gent­ly. “It couldn’t have gone bet­ter. If they gave it some thought, they would nev­er be­lieve that an Amer­ican com­pa­ny would send an ore car­ri­er to the ends of the earth to mine iron. Co­man­dante Val­lenar’s flare-​up was well timed. It saved me from hav­ing to plant the idea in their heads my­self.”

Mc­Far­lane shook his head. “Think of the ru­mors it will start.”

“There al­ready are ru­mors. The amount of gold we gave them will shut them up for life. Now our good cus­toms peo­ple are go­ing to scotch those ru­mors and or­der the is­land out of bounds. They’re much more suit­ed for the job than we are. And they have ex­cel­lent in­cen­tive to do it.”

“What about that co­man­dante?” asked Brit­ton. “He didn’t look like he was get­ting with the pro­gram.”

“Not ev­ery­one can be bribed. For­tu­nate­ly, he has no pow­er or cred­ibil­ity. The on­ly naval of­fi­cers who end up down here are the ones that have been con­vict­ed of crimes or dis­graced in one way or an­oth­er. Those cus­toms of­fi­cials will be ex­treme­ly anx­ious to keep him in line. That will un­doubt­ed­ly mean a pay­off to the com­mand­ing of­fi­cer of the naval base. We gave those of­fi­cials more than enough to go around.” Glinn pursed his lips. “Still, we should learn a lit­tle more about this Co­man­dante Val­lenar.”

They stepped over a run­nel of soapy wa­ter as the grade less­ened. Glinn asked di­rec­tions of a passer­by, and they turned off in­to a nar­row side street. A dirty noon mist was set­tling on the vil­lage, and along with it came a hard freez­ing of the damp air. A dead mas­tiff lay swollen in the gut­ter. Mc­Far­lane breathed in the smell of fish and raw earth, no­ticed the flim­sy wood­en tien­da ad­ver­tis­ing Fan­ta and lo­cal beers, and was ir­re­sistibly brought back five years in time. Af­ter twice try­ing un­suc­cess­ful­ly to cross in­to Ar­genti­na, bur­dened by the At­aca­ma tek­tites, he and Nestor Masangkay had end­ed up cross­ing in­to Bo­livia near the town of An­cuaque: so un­like this town in ap­pear­ance, and yet so like it in spir­it.

Glinn came to a halt. At the end of the al­ley be­fore them was a sag­ging, red-​shin­gled build­ing. A blue bulb blinked above a sign that read EL PI­CORO­CO. CERVEZA MAS FI­NA. From an open door be­neath, the faint throb of ranchera mu­sic spilled in­to the street.

“I think I’m be­gin­ning to un­der­stand some of your meth­ods,” said Mc­Far­lane. “What was that the cus­toms man said about some­body send­ing Pup­pup mon­ey? Was that you, by any chance?”

Glinn in­clined his head but did not speak.

“I think I’ll wait out here,” said Brit­ton.

Mc­Far­lane fol­lowed Glinn past the door and in­to a dim space. He saw a scuffed bar made out of deal, sev­er­al wood­en ta­bles cov­ered with bot­tle rings, and an En­glish dart­board, its wire num­bers black­ened with tar and soot. The smoke-​laden air tast­ed as if it had hung there for years. The bar­tender straight­ened up as they walked in, and the lev­el of con­ver­sa­tion dropped as the few pa­trons turned to stare at the new­com­ers.

Glinn si­dled up the bar and or­dered two beers. The bar­tender brought them over, warm and drip­ping with foam. “We are look­ing for Señor Pup­pup,” said Glinn.

“Pup­pup?” The bar­tender broke in­to a broad, scant-​toothed grin. “He is in the back.”

They fol­lowed the man through a bead­ed cur­tain, in­to a lit­tle snug with a pri­vate ta­ble and an emp­ty bot­tle of De­war’s. Stretched out on a bench along the wall was a skin­ny old man in in­de­scrib­ably dirty clothes. A pair of wispy Fu Manchu-​style mus­tach­es drooped from his up­per lip. A thrum­cap that looked like it had been sewn to­geth­er from bits of old rags had slid from his head to the bench. “Sleep­ing or drunk?” asked Glinn.

The bar­tender roared with laugh­ter. “Both.”

“When will he be sober?”

The man leaned down, rum­maged through Pup­pup’s pock­ets, and pulled out a small wad of dirty bills. He count­ed them, then shoved them back.

“He will be sober on Tues­day next.”

“But he has been hired by our ves­sel.”

The bar­tender laughed again, more cyn­ical­ly.

Glinn thought a mo­ment, or at least gave the ap­pear­ance of do­ing so. “We have or­ders to bring him on board. May I trou­ble you for the hire of two of your cus­tomers to help us?”

The bar­tender nod­ded and walked back to the bar, re­turn­ing with two burly men. A few words were spo­ken, mon­ey was ex­changed, and the two lift­ed Pup­pup from the bench and slung his arms around their shoul­ders. His head lolled for­ward. In their grasp, he looked as light and frag­ile as a dry leaf.

Mc­Far­lane took a deep, grate­ful breath of air as they stepped out­side. It stank, but it was bet­ter than the stale at­mo­sphere of the bar. Brit­ton, who had been stand­ing in the shad­ows on a far cor­ner, came for­ward. Her eyes nar­rowed at the sight of Pup­pup.

“He’s not much to look at now,” Glinn said. “But he’ll make an ex­cel­lent har­bor pi­lot. He’s been travers­ing the wa­ters of the Cape Horn is­lands by ca­noe for fifty years; he knows all the cur­rents, winds, weath­er, reefs, and tides.”

Brit­ton raised her eye­brows. “This old man?”

Glinn nod­ded. “As I told Lloyd this morn­ing, he’s half Yaghan. They were the orig­inal in­hab­itants of the Cape Horn is­lands. He’s prac­ti­cal­ly the last one left who knows the lan­guage, songs, and leg­ends. He spends most of his time roam­ing the is­lands, liv­ing off shell­fish, plants, and roots. If you asked him, he’d prob­ably tell you the Cape Horn is­lands are his.”

“How pic­turesque,” said Mc­Far­lane.

Glinn turned to Mc­Far­lane. “Yes. And he al­so hap­pens to be the one who found your part­ner’s body.”

Mc­Far­lane stopped dead.

“That’s right,” Glinn con­tin­ued in an un­der­tone. “He’s the one who col­lect­ed the to­mo­graph­ic sounder and the rock sam­ples and sold them in Pun­ta Are­nas. On top of ev­ery­thing else, his ab­sence in Puer­to Williams will be most help­ful to us. Now that we have at­tract­ed at­ten­tion to Is­la Des­olación, he won’t be around to gos­sip and spread ru­mor.”

Mc­Far­lane looked again at the drunk. “So he’s the bas­tard who robbed my part­ner.”

Glinn laid a hand on Mc­Far­lane’s arm. “He’s ex­treme­ly poor. He found a dead man with some valu­able things. It’s un­der­stand­able, and for­giv­able, that he’d look to make a small prof­it. There was no harm in it. If not for him, your old friend might still be ly­ing undis­cov­ered. And you would not have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to fin­ish his work.”

Mc­Far­lane pulled away, even as he was forced to ad­mit to him­self that Glinn was right.

“He will be most use­ful to us,” Glinn said. “I can promise you that.”

Silent­ly Mc­Far­lane fol­lowed the group as they made their way down the murky hill­side to­ward the har­bor.

Rolvaag,

2:50 P.M.

BY THE time the launch ex­it­ed the Bea­gle Chan­nel and ap­proached the Rolvaag, a heavy, bit­ter fog had en­veloped the sea. The small group re­mained in­side the wheel­house, hud­dled on flota­tion cush­ions, bare­ly speak­ing. Pup­pup, who was propped up­right be­tween Glinn and Sal­ly Brit­ton, showed no signs of re­gain­ing con­scious­ness. How­ev­er, sev­er­al times he had to be pre­vent­ed from nod­ding to one side and snug­gling him­self against the cap­tain’s pea coat.

“Is he sham­ming?” the cap­tain asked, as she plucked the old man’s frail-​look­ing hand from her lapel and gen­tly pushed him away.

Glinn smiled. Mc­Far­lane no­ticed that the cigarettes, the rack­ing cough, the rheumy eyes had all van­ished; the cool pres­ence had re­turned.

Ahead, the ghost­ly out­line of the tanker now ap­peared above the heavy swell, its sides ris­ing, ris­ing above them, on­ly to dis­ap­pear again in­to the soupy at­mo­sphere. The launch came along­side and was hoist­ed in­to its davits. As they went aboard, Pup­pup be­gan to stir. Mc­Far­lane helped him shak­ily to his feet in the swirling fog. Couldn’t weigh more than nine­ty pounds, he thought.

“John Pup­pup?” Glinn said in his mild voice. “I am Eli Glinn.”

Pup­pup took his hand and gave it a silent shake. He then solemn­ly shook hands with ev­ery­one else around him, in­clud­ing the launch ten­der, a stew­ard, and two sur­prised deck­hands. He shook the cap­tain’s hand last and longest of all.

“Are you all right?” Glinn asked.

The man looked around with bright black eyes, stroking his thin mus­tache. He seemed to be nei­ther sur­prised nor per­turbed by the strange sur­round­ings.

“Mr. Pup­pup, you’re prob­ably won­der­ing what you’re do­ing here.”

Pup­pup’s hand sud­den­ly dove in­to his pock­et and re­moved the wad of soiled mon­ey; he count­ed it, grunt­ed with sat­is­fac­tion that he hadn’t been robbed, and re­placed it.

Glinn ges­tured to­ward the stew­ard. “Mr. Davies here will see you to your cab­in, where you can get washed up and put on a fresh change of clothes. Does that suit you?”

Pup­pup looked at Glinn cu­ri­ous­ly.

“Maybe he doesn’t speak En­glish,” Mc­Far­lane mur­mured.

Pup­pup’s eyes swift­ly fixed on him. “Speaks the king’s own, I does.” His voice was high and melo­di­ous, and through it Mc­Far­lane heard a com­plex fugue of ac­cents, Cock­ney En­glish strong­ly pre­dom­inat­ing.

“I’ll be hap­py to an­swer all your ques­tions once you’ve had a chance to set­tle in,” Glinn said. “We will meet in the li­brary to­mor­row morn­ing.” He nod­ded to Davies.

With­out an­oth­er word, Pup­pup turned away. All eyes fol­lowed him as the stew­ard led the way in­to the aft su­per­struc­ture.

Over­head, the ship’s blow­er rasped in­to life. “Cap­tain to the bridge,” came the metal­lic voice of Vic­tor How­ell.

“What’s up?” Mc­Far­lane asked.

Brit­ton shook her head. “Let’s find out.”

The bridge looked out in­to an all-​en­velop­ing cloud of gray. Noth­ing, not even the deck of the ship, was vis­ible. As he stepped through the door, Mc­Far­lane caught the tense at­mo­sphere with­in. In­stead of the nor­mal skele­ton com­ple­ment, there were half a dozen ship’s of­fi­cers on the bridge. From the ra­dio room, he could hear the high-​speed clat­ter of a com­put­er key­board.

“What do we have, Mr. How­ell?” Brit­ton asked calm­ly.

How­ell looked up from a near­by screen. “Radar con­tact.”

“Who is it?” Mc­Far­lane asked.

“Un­known. They’re not re­spond­ing to our hails. Giv­en its speed and radar cross-​sec­tion, it’s prob­ably a gun­boat.” He peered back, throw­ing some switch­es. “Too far to get a good look on the FLIR.”

“Where away?” Brit­ton asked.

“They seem to be cir­cling, as if search­ing for some­thing. Wait a mo­ment, the course has stead­ied. Eight miles, bear­ing one six ze­ro true, and clos­ing. The ESM’s pick­ing up radar. We’re be­ing paint­ed.”

The cap­tain joined him quick­ly and peered in­to the radar hood. “They’re CB­DR. Es­ti­mat­ed time to CPA?”

“Twelve min­utes, at cur­rent speed and head­ing.”

“What does all that al­pha­bet soup mean?” Mc­Far­lane asked.

Brit­ton glanced at him. “CB­DR — con­stant bear­ing and de­creas­ing range.”

“Col­li­sion course,” How­ell mur­mured.

Brit­ton turned to the third of­fi­cer, who was man­ning the com­mand sta­tion. “Are we un­der way?”

The of­fi­cer nod­ded. “Steam’s up, ma’am. We’re on dy­nam­ic po­si­tion­ing.”

“Tell the en­gine room to goose it.”

“Aye, aye.” The of­fi­cer picked up a black-​han­dled tele­phone.

There was a low shud­der as the ship’s en­gines revved. An­ti­col­li­sion alarms be­gan to sound.

“Tak­ing eva­sive ac­tion?” Mc­Far­lane asked.

Brit­ton shook her head. “We’re too big for that, even with en­gine steer­ing. But we’re go­ing to give it a shot.”

From far above on the radar mast, the ship’s foghorn gave a deaf­en­ing blast.

“Course un­changed,” How­ell said, head glued to the radar hood.

“Helm’s an­swer­ing,” said the third of­fi­cer.

“Rud­der amid­ships.” Brit­ton walked to­ward the ra­dio room and opened the gray met­al door. “Any luck, Banks?”

“No re­sponse.”

Mc­Far­lane walked to the for­ward bank of win­dows. The line of wipers was clear­ing the film of mist and sleet that seemed to con­stant­ly re­new it­self. Sun­light strug­gled to break through the heavy gauze be­yond. “Can’t they hear us?” he asked.

“Of course they can,” Glinn said qui­et­ly. “They know per­fect­ly well we’re here.”

“Course un­changed,” How­ell mur­mured, peer­ing in­to the radar hood. “Col­li­sion in nine min­utes.”

“Fire flares in the di­rec­tion of the ship,” Brit­ton said, back at the com­mand sta­tion.

How­ell re­layed the or­der, and Brit­ton turned to the watch of­fi­cer. “How’s she steer?”

“Like a pig, ma’am, at this speed.”

Mc­Far­lane could feel a heavy strain shud­der­ing through the ship.

“Five min­utes and clos­ing,” How­ell said.

“Fire some more flares. Fire them at the ship. Put me on ICM fre­quen­cy.” Brit­ton picked up a trans­mit­ter from the com­mand sta­tion. “Uniden­ti­fied ves­sel three thou­sand yards off my port quar­ter, this is the tanker Rolvaag. Change your course twen­ty de­grees to star­board to avoid col­li­sion. Re­peat, change your course twen­ty de­grees to star­board.” She re­peat­ed the mes­sage in Span­ish, then turned up the gain on the re­ceiv­er. The en­tire bridge lis­tened silent­ly to the wash of stat­ic.

Brit­ton re­placed the trans­mit­ter. She looked at the helms­man, then at How­ell.

“Three min­utes to col­li­sion,” How­ell said.

She spoke in­to the blow­er. “All hands, this is the mas­ter speak­ing. Pre­pare for col­li­sion at the star­board bow.”

The foghorn ripped once again through the thin­ning veils of mist. A clax­on was go­ing off, and lights were blink­ing on the bridge.

“Com­ing up on the star­board bow,” How­ell said.

“Get dam­age and fire con­trol ready,” Brit­ton replied. Then she pulled a bull­horn from the bulk­head, raced to­ward the door lead­ing on­to the star­board bridge wing, tore it open, and van­ished out­side. As if at a sin­gle thought, Glinn and Mc­Far­lane fol­lowed.

The mo­ment he stepped out­side, Mc­Far­lane was soaked by the frigid, heavy haze. Be­low, he could hear con­fused sounds of run­ning and shout­ing. The foghorn, even loud­er here on the ex­posed deck, seemed to at­om­ize the thick air that sur­round­ed them. Brit­ton had run to the far end of the wing and was lean­ing over the rail­ing, sus­pend­ed a hun­dred feet above the sea, bull­horn poised.

The fog was be­gin­ning to break up, stream­ing across the main­deck. But off the star­board bow, it seemed to Mc­Far­lane that the mist was thick­en­ing, grow­ing dark­er again. Sud­den­ly, a for­est of an­ten­nas so­lid­ified out of the gloom, for­ward an­chor light glow­ing pale white. The foghorn once again blast­ed its warn­ing, but the ves­sel came un­re­lent­ing­ly to­ward them at full speed, a creamy, snarling wake of foam cut­ting across its gray bows. Its out­lines be­came clear­er. It was a de­stroy­er, its sides pit­ted and scarred and streaked with rust. Chilean flags flut­tered from its su­per­struc­ture and fan­tail. Four-​inch guns, stub­by and evil-​look­ing, sat in hous­ings on the fore and aft decks.

Brit­ton was scream­ing in­to the bull­horn. Col­li­sion alarms sound­ed, and Mc­Far­lane could feel the bridge wing shak­ing be­neath him as the en­gines tried to pull away. But it was im­pos­si­ble to turn the big ship quick­ly enough. He plant­ed his feet, grasp­ing the rail­ing, prepar­ing for im­pact.

At the last mo­ment, the de­stroy­er sheered to port, glid­ing past the tanker with no more than twen­ty yards to spare. Brit­ton low­ered the bull­horn. All eyes fol­lowed the small­er ves­sel.

Ev­ery gun of the de­stroy­er — from the big deck tur­rets to the 40-mil­lime­ter can­non — was trained on the bridge of the Rolvaag. Mc­Far­lane stared at the ship in min­gled per­plex­ity and hor­ror. And then his eyes fell on the de­stroy­er’s fly­ing bridge.

Stand­ing alone, in full uni­form, was the naval co­man­dante they had met that morn­ing in cus­toms. Wind tugged at the gold bars on his of­fi­cer’s cap. He was pass­ing so close be­neath them that Mc­Far­lane could see the beads of mois­ture on his face.

Val­lenar paid them no mind. He was lean­ing against a .50-cal­iber ma­chine gun mount­ed to the rail, but it was a pos­ture of false ease. The bar­rel of the gun, its per­fo­rat­ed snout heavy with sea salt and rust, was aimed di­rect­ly at them, an in­so­lent promise of death. His black eyes skew­ered them one at a time. His with­ered arm was clutched against his chest at a pre­cise an­gle to his body. The man’s gaze nev­er wa­vered, and as the de­stroy­er slid by, both he and the ma­chine gun ro­tat­ed slow­ly, keep­ing them in view.

And then the de­stroy­er fell astern of the Rolvaag, slip­ping back in­to the mist, and the specter was gone. In the chill si­lence that re­mained, Mc­Far­lane heard the de­stroy­er’s en­gines rum­ble up to full speed once again, and felt the faintest sen­sa­tion of rock­ing as its wake passed be­neath the tanker. It had the gen­tle up-​and-​down mo­tion of a ba­by’s cra­dle, and, if it had not been ter­ri­fy­ing, would have been dis­tinct­ly com­fort­ing.

Rolvaag,

Ju­ly 13, 6:30 A.M.

MC­FAR­LANE STIRRED in the predawn dark­ness of his state­room. The bed­sheets were twist­ed around hum in a cy­clone of linen, and the pil­low be­neath his head was heavy with sweat. He rolled over, still half asleep, in­stinc­tive­ly reach­ing for Mal­ou’s com­fort­ing warmth. But save for him­self, the berth was emp­ty.

He sat up and wait­ed for his pound­ing heart to find its nor­mal rhythm as the dis­con­nect­ed im­ages of a night­mar — a ship, tossed on a stormy sea — re­ced­ed from his mind. As he passed a hand across his eyes, he re­al­ized that not ev­ery­thing had been a dream: the mo­tion of the wa­ter was still with him. The ship’s move­ment had changed; in­stead of the usu­al gen­tle roll, it felt shud­dery and rough. Throw­ing aside the sheets, he walked to the win­dow and pulled the cur­tain back. Sleet splat­tered against the Plex­iglas, and there was a thick coat­ing of ice along its low­er edge.

The dark set of rooms seemed op­pres­sive and he dressed hur­ried­ly, ea­ger for fresh air de­spite the nasty con­di­tions. As he trot­ted down the two flights of stairs to the main­deck, the ship rolled and he was forced to steady him­self on the rail­ing for sup­port.

As he opened the door lead­ing out of the su­per­struc­ture a blast of icy wind buf­fet­ed his face. It was brac­ing, and it drove the last ves­tiges of the night­mare from his mind. In the halflight he could see the wind­ward vents, davits, and con­tain­ers plas­tered with ice, the deck awash in slush. Mc­Far­lane could now hear clear­ly the boom of a heavy sea run­ning the length of the ship. Out here, the roll of the ves­sel was more pro­nounced. The dark, moil­ing seas were pe­ri­od­ical­ly whitened with great comb­ing waves, the faint hiss of the break­ing wa­ter com­ing to his ears over the moan­ing of the wind.

Some­one was lean­ing up against the star­board rail­ing, head sunk for­ward. As he ap­proached, he saw it was Ami­ra, bun­dled once again in the ridicu­lous­ly over­sized par­ka. “What are you do­ing here?” he asked.

She turned to­ward him. Deep with­in the furred hood of the par­ka, he made out a greentinged face. A few ten­drils of black hair es­caped, whipped back by the wind.

“Try­ing to puke,” she said. “What’s your ex­cuse?”

“Couldn’t sleep.”

Ami­ra nod­ded. “I’m hop­ing that de­stroy­er comes by again. I’d like noth­ing bet­ter than to un­load the con­tents of my stom­ach on that ug­ly lit­tle co­man­dante.”

Mc­Far­lane did not an­swer. The en­counter with the Chilean ves­sel, and spec­ula­tion about Co­man­dante Val­lenar and his mo­tives, had dom­inat­ed din­ner-​ta­ble talk the pre­vi­ous night. And Lloyd, when he heard of the in­ci­dent, had be­come fran­tic. On­ly Glinn seemed un­con­cerned.

“Will you look at this?” Ami­ra said. Fol­low­ing her gaze, Mc­Far­lane saw the dark form of a jog­ger, clad on­ly in gray warm-​ups, mak­ing its way along the port rail. As he stared, he re­al­ized it was Sal­ly Brit­ton.

“On­ly she would be man enough to go jog­ging in this weath­er,” Ami­ra said sourly.

“She’s pret­ty tough.”

“More like crazy.” Ami­ra snick­ered. “Look at that sweat­shirt bounc­ing around.”

Mc­Far­lane, who had been look­ing at it, said noth­ing.

“Don’t get me wrong. I take a pure­ly sci­en­tif­ic in­ter­est. I’m think­ing how one would cal­cu­late an equa­tion of state for those rather im­pres­sive breasts.”

“An equa­tion of state?”

“It’s some­thing we physi­cists do. It re­lates all the phys­ical prop­er­ties of an ob­ject — tem­per­ature, pres­sure, den­si­ty, elas­tic­ity — “

“I get the pic­ture.”

“Look,” Ami­ra said, abrupt­ly chang­ing the sub­ject. “‘There’s an­oth­er wreck.”

In the bleak win­ter dis­tance, Mc­Far­lane could see the out­line of a large ship, its back bro­ken on a rock.

“What is that, four?” Ami­ra asked.

“Five, I think.” As the Rolvaag head­ed south from Puer­to Williams to­ward Cape Horn, the sight­ings of gi­ant ship­wrecks had grown more fre­quent. Some were al­most as large as the Rolvaag. The area was a ver­ita­ble grave­yard of ship­ping, and the sight no longer brought any sur­prise.

Brit­ton had by now round­ed the bow and was head­ing in their di­rec­tion.

“Here she comes,” said Ami­ra.

As Brit­ton drew up to them, she slowed, jog­ging in place. Brit­ton’s warm-​up suit was damp with sleet and rain, and it clung to her body. Equa­tion of state, Mc­Far­lane thought to him­self.

“I want­ed to let you know that, at nine o’clock, I’m go­ing to is­sue a deck safe­ty-​har­ness or­der,” she said.

“Why’s that?” Mc­Far­lane asked.

“A squall is com­ing.”

“Com­ing?” Ami­ra said with a bleak laugh. “It looks like it’s al­ready here.”

“As we head out of the lee of Is­la Navari­no, we’re go­ing to be head­ing in­to a gale. No­body will be al­lowed on deck with­out a har­ness.” Brit­ton had an­swered Ami­ra’s ques­tion, but she was look­ing at Mc­Far­lane.

“Thanks for the warn­ing,” Mc­Far­lane said. Brit­ton nod­ded to him, then jogged away. In a minute she was gone.

“What is it you have against her?” Mc­Far­lane said.

Ami­ra was silent a mo­ment. “Some­thing about Brit­ton bugs me. She’s too per­fect.”

“I think that’s what they call an air of com­mand.”

“And it seemed so un­fair, the whole ship suf­fer­ing be­cause of her booze prob­lem.”

“It was Glinn’s de­ci­sion,” said Mc­Far­lane.

Af­ter a mo­ment, Ami­ra sighed and shook her head. “Yeah, that’s vin­tage Eli, isn’t it? You can bet there’s an un­bro­ken line of im­pec­ca­ble log­ic lead­ing up to that de­ci­sion. He just hasn’t told any­body what it is.”

Mc­Far­lane shiv­ered un­der a fresh blast of wind. “Well, I’ve had enough sea air to last awhile. Shall we get some break­fast?”

Ami­ra let out a groan. “You go ahead, I’ll wait here awhile longer. Soon­er or lat­er, some­thing’s bound to come up.”

Af­ter break­fast, Mc­Far­lane head­ed to the ship’s li­brary, where Glinn had asked to meet him. The li­brary, like ev­ery­thing about the ves­sel, was large. Win­dows, streaked with sleet, cov­ered one wall. Be­yond and far be­low, he could see snow driv­ing al­most hor­izon­tal­ly, whirling in­to the black wa­ter.

The shelves con­tained a wide as­sort­ment of books: nau­ti­cal texts and trea­tis­es, en­cy­clo­pe­dias, Read­er’s Di­gest con­den­sa­tions, for­got­ten best-​sell­ers. He browsed through them, wait­ing for Glinn, feel­ing un­set­tled. The clos­er they got to Is­la Des­olación — to the spot where Masangkay died — the more rest­less he be­came. They were very close now. To­day, they would round the Horn and an­chor in the Horn Is­lands at last.

Mc­Far­lane’s fin­gers stopped at the slen­der vol­ume: The Nar­ra­tive of Arthur Gor­don Pym of Nan­tuck­et. This was the Edgar Al­lan Poe ti­tle Brit­ton men­tioned at din­ner that first night at sea. Cu­ri­ous, he took it to the near­est so­fa. The dark leather felt slip­pery as he set­tled in­to it and cracked the book. The pleas­ant smell of buck­ram and old pa­per rose to his nos­trils.

My name is Arthur Gor­don Pym. My fa­ther was a re­spectable trad­er in sea stores at Nan­tuck­et, where I was born. My ma­ter­nal grand­fa­ther was an at­tor­ney in good prac­tice. He was for­tu­nate in ev­ery­thing, and had spec­ulat­ed very suc­cess­ful­ly in stocks of the Edgar­ton New­Bank, as it was for­mer­ly called.

This was a dis­ap­point­ing­ly dry be­gin­ning, and it was with re­lief that he saw the door open and Glinn en­ter. Be­hind him fol­lowed Pup­pup, duck­ing and smil­ing, bare­ly rec­og­niz­able from the drunk they had brought on board the pre­vi­ous af­ter­noon. His long gray hair was braid­ed back from his fore­head, and the neat­ly groomed but still wispy mus­tache drooped from his pen­du­lous lip.

“Sor­ry to have kept you wait­ing,” Glinn said. “I’ve been speak­ing to Mr. Pup­pup. He seems con­tent to as­sist us.” Pup­pup grinned and shook hands all around again. Mc­Far­lane found his hand cu­ri­ous­ly cool and dry.

“Come to the win­dows,” Glinn said. Mc­Far­lane strolled over and gazed out. Through the torn and roil­ing mists he could now make out, to the north­east, a bar­ren is­land ris­ing from the wa­ter, lit­tle more than the jagged top of a drowned moun­tain, white surf claw­ing and leap­ing at its base.

“That,” mur­mured Glinn, “is Is­la Barn­evelt. “

A dis­tant squall line passed, like the draw­ing of a cur­tain from the storm-​wracked hori­zon. An­oth­er is­land came in­to view: black, rugged, its moun­tain­ous heights whirling with snow and fog.

“And that is Is­la De­ceit. The east­ern­most of the Cape Horn is­lands.”

Be­yond it, the fresh light ex­posed an­oth­er wilder­ness of drowned moun­tain­tops pok­ing from the sea. As they watched, the light was ex­tin­guished as quick­ly as it had come. Mid­night seemed to close around the ves­sel, and an­oth­er squall struck them full on, its fury bat­ter­ing the win­dows, hail rat­tling off the ship like ma­chine gun fire. Mc­Far­lane felt the big ship lean.

Glinn with­drew a fold­ed piece of pa­per. “I re­ceived this mes­sage half an hour ago.” He hand­ed it to Mc­Far­lane.

Mc­Far­lane un­fold­ed it cu­ri­ous­ly. It was a brief ca­ble: On no ac­count are you to make land­fall on the tar­get is­land with­out fur­ther in­struc­tions from me. Lloyd.

Mc­Far­lane hand­ed it back to Glinn, who re­turned it to his pock­et. “Lloyd’s told me noth­ing about his plans. What do you think it means? And why not sim­ply tele­phone or e-​mail?”

“Be­cause he may not be near a tele­phone.” Glinn drew him­self up. “The view from the bridge is even nicer. Care to come along?”

Some­how, Mc­Far­lane did not think the EES head was in­ter­est­ed in the view. He fol­lowed. Glinn was cor­rect, how­ev­er: from the bridge, the fury of the seas was even more awein­spir­ing. An­gry black waves broke and fought among them­selves, and the wind wor­ried at their tops and ran deep run­nels through their troughs. As Mc­Far­lane watched, the Rolvaag’s fore­cas­tle nod­ded down­ward in­to a mas­sive sea, then strug­gled up again, sheets of sea­wa­ter cas­cad­ing from its flanks.

Brit­ton turned to­ward them, her face spec­tral in the ar­ti­fi­cial glow. “I see you’ve brought the pi­lot,” she said, glanc­ing a lit­tle du­bi­ous­ly to­ward Pup­pup. “Once we round the Horn, we’ll see what ad­vice he can give us for the ap­proach.”

At her side, Vic­tor How­ell stirred. “There it is now,” he said. Far ahead of the ship, a break in the storm threw a gleam of light up­on a fis­sured crag, taller and dark­er than the oth­ers, ris­ing from the fran­tic seas.

“Cabo de Hornos,” said Glinn. “Cape Horn. But I’ve come about some­thing else. We should ex­pect a vis­itor mo­men­tar­ily—“

“Cap­tain!” the third of­fi­cer in­ter­rupt­ed, bent over a screen. “The Slick 32 is pick­ing up radar. I’ve got an air con­tact, ap­proach­ing from the north­east.”

“Bear­ing?”

“Ze­ro four ze­ro true, ma’am. Di­rect­ly for us.”

The air on the bridge grew tense. Vic­tor How­ell walked quick­ly to the third of­fi­cer and peered over his shoul­der at the screen.

“Range and speed?” Brit­ton asked.

“Forty miles, and ap­proach­ing at about one hun­dred and sev­en­ty knots, ma’am.”

“Re­con­nais­sance air­craft?”

How­ell straight­ened up. “In this weath­er?”

A wild gust of wind sent rain rat­tling against the win­dows.

“Well, it sure isn’t some hob­by­ist in a Cess­na,” Brit­ton mur­mured. “Could it be a com­mer­cial air­craft, stray­ing off course?”

“Un­like­ly. The on­ly things that fly down here are char­tered pud­dle jumpers. And they’d nev­er be up in some­thing like this.”

No­body an­swered. Ex­cept for the howl of the wind and the crash of the sea, the bridge re­mained com­plete­ly silent for the space of a minute.

“Bear­ing?” the cap­tain asked again, more qui­et­ly. “Still dead on, ma’am.”

She nod­ded slow­ly. “Very well. Sound sta­tions, Mr. How­ell.”

Sud­den­ly, the com­mu­ni­ca­tions of­fi­cer, Banks, leaned out of the ra­dio room. “That bird out there? It’s a Lloyd Hold­ings he­li­copter.”

“Are you sure?” Brit­ton asked.

“I’ve ver­ified the call sign.” “Mr. Banks, con­tact that chop­per.”

Glinn cleared his throat. As Mc­Far­lane watched, he re­placed the fold­ed sheet in­to his jack­et. Through­out the sud­den ex­cite­ment he had shown nei­ther alarm nor sur­prise. “I think,” he said qui­et­ly, “you had bet­ter pre­pare a land­ing area.”

The cap­tain stared at him. “In this weath­er?”

Banks stepped back out of the ra­dio room. “They’re re­quest­ing per­mis­sion to land, ma’am.”

“I don’t be­lieve it,” How­ell cried. “We’re in the mid­dle of a Force 8 gale.”

“I don’t be­lieve you have a choice,” Glinn said.

Over the next ten min­utes, there was an ex­plo­sion of ac­tiv­ity as prepa­ra­tions were made for a land­ing. When Mc­Far­lane ar­rived at the hatch­way lead­ing out on­to the fan­tail, Glinn at his side, a stern-​look­ing crew­man word­less­ly is­sued them safe­ty har­ness­es. Mc­Far­lane tugged the bulky thing on and snapped it in­to place. The crew­man gave it a quick tug, grunt­ed his ap­proval, then un­dogged the hatch.

As Mc­Far­lane stepped through, the blast of wind threat­ened to car­ry him over the rail­ing. With an ef­fort, he snapped his har­ness to the ex­ter­nal rail­ing and moved to­ward the land­ing pad. Crew­men were sta­tioned along the deck, their har­ness­es se­cure­ly strapped to the met­al rail­ings. Even though the ship had throt­tled back her en­gines to just enough pow­er to claw a steer­age­way through the seas, the deck pitched. A dozen flares were snapped on and placed around the perime­ter, fit­ful sprays of crim­son against the driv­ing sleet and snow.

“There it is!” some­body cried.

Mc­Far­lane squint­ed in­to the storm. In the dis­tance, the huge form of a Chi­nook he­li­copter hung in the air, run­ning lights glow­ing. As he watched, the he­li­copter ap­proached, yaw­ing from left to right as gusts of wind hit it. An alarm sud­den­ly screamed near­by, and a se­ries of or­ange warn­ing lights lit up the Rolvaag’s su­per­struc­ture. Mc­Far­lane could hear the beat of the chop­per’s en­gines strain­ing against the fury of the storm. How­ell shout­ed di­rec­tions through a bull­horn even as he kept the ra­dio plas­tered to his face.

Now the chop­per was bank­ing in­to hov­er po­si­tion. Mc­Far­lane could see the pi­lot in the nose, strug­gling with the con­trols. The sleet pelt­ed them with the re­dou­bled blast from the blades. The chop­per’s bel­ly bucked from side to side as it gin­ger­ly ap­proached the sway­ing deck. A vi­olent gust sent it shear­ing to one side, and the pi­lot quick­ly banked away, com­ing around for a sec­ond at­tempt. There was a des­per­ate mo­ment where Mc­Far­lane felt sure the pi­lot would lose con­trol, but then its tires set­tled on­to the pad and crew­men rushed to place wood­en chocks be­neath its wheels. The car­go door rolled open. A flur­ry of men, wom­en, ma­chines, and equip­ment tum­bled out.

And then Mc­Far­lane saw the un­mis­tak­able fig­ure of Lloyd drop to the wet sur­face of the pad, larg­er than life in foul-​weath­er gear and boots. He jogged from the un­der­side of the air­craft, the sou’west­er on his head whip­ping back in the storm. Catch­ing sight of Mc­Far­lane and Glinn, he gave an en­thu­si­as­tic wave. A crew­man raced to se­cure a safe­ty belt and har­ness to him, but Lloyd mo­tioned him away. He walked up, wip­ing the rain from his face, and grasped Mc­Far­lane and Glinn by the hands.

“Gen­tle­men,” he boomed over the storm, a huge smile on his face. “The cof­fee’s on me.”

Rolvaag,

11:15 A.M.

GLANC­ING AT his watch, Mc­Far­lane en­tered the el­eva­tor and punched a but­ton for the mid­dle bridge deck. He’d passed this emp­ty deck many times, won­der­ing why Glinn had al­ways kept it off-​lim­its. Now, as the el­eva­tor rose smooth­ly, he re­al­ized what it had been re­served for. It was as if Glinn had known all along that Lloyd would be drop­ping in.

The el­eva­tor doors opened to a scene of fran­tic ac­tiv­ity: the ring­ing of phones, the whirr of fax­es and print­ers, and the bus­tle of peo­ple. There were sev­er­al sec­re­taries at desks ranged along one wall, men and wom­en tak­ing calls, typ­ing at work­sta­tions, scut­tling about on Lloyd Hold­ings busi­ness.

A man in a light-​col­ored suit ap­proached him, thread­ing his way through the hub­bub. Mc­Far­lane rec­og­nized the over­sized ears, droop­ing mouth, and fat pursed lips as be­long­ing to Pen­fold, Lloyd’s per­son­al as­sis­tant. Pen­fold nev­er seemed to walk to­ward any­thing, but in­stead ap­proached from an an­gle, as if a di­rect ap­proach would be too brazen.

“Dr. Mc­Far­lane?” Pen­fold said in his high, ner­vous voice. “This way, please.”

He led Mc­Far­lane through a door, down a cor­ri­dor, and in­to a small sit­ting room, with black leather so­fas ar­ranged around a glass- and gold-​leafed ta­ble. A door opened in­to yet an­oth­er of­fice, and from it Mc­Far­lane could hear Lloyd’s bas­so pro­fun­do voice. “Please sit down,” said Pen­fold. “Mr. Lloyd will be with you short­ly.” He van­ished, and Mc­Far­lane set­tled back in­to the creak­ing leather so­fa. There was a wall of tele­vi­sion sets tuned to var­ious news chan­nels from around the world. The lat­est mag­azines lay on the ta­ble: Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­ican, the New York­er, and the New Re­pub­lic. Mc­Far­lane picked one up, be­gan flip­ping through it ab­sent­ly, then put it down again. Why had Lloyd come down so abrupt­ly? Had some­thing gone wrong?

“Sam!” Look­ing up, he saw the huge man stand­ing in the door­way, fill­ing it with his bulk, ra­di­at­ing pow­er, good hu­mor, and bound­less self-​con­fi­dence.

Mc­Far­lane rose. Lloyd moved to­ward him, beam­ing, arms out­stretched. “Sam, it’s fine to see you again.” He squeezed Mc­Far­lane’s shoul­ders be­tween his beefy palms and ex­am­ined him, still grip­ping his shoul­ders. “I can’t tell you how ex­cit­ing it is to be here. Come in.”

Mc­Far­lane fol­lowed Lloyd’s broad back, beau­ti­ful­ly draped in Valenti­no. Lloyd’s in­ner of­fice was spare: a row of win­dows, the cold light of the Antarc­tic re­gions flood­ing in, two sim­ple wing chairs, a desk with a phone, a lap­top com­put­er — and two wine­glass­es be­side a fresh­ly opened bot­tle of Chateau Mar­gaux.

Lloyd ges­tured at the wine. “Care for a glass?”

Mc­Far­lane grinned, and nod­ded. Lloyd poured the ru­by liq­uid in­to a glass, fill­ing an­oth­er for him­self. He set­tled his bulk in­to a chair, and held his glass up. “Cheers.”

They clinked and Mc­Far­lane sipped the exquisite wine. He wasn’t much of a con­nois­seur, but even the gross­est palate could ap­pre­ci­ate this.

“I hate Glinn’s habit of keep­ing me in the dark,” Lloyd said. “Why wasn’t I told about this be­ing a dry ship, Sam? Or about Brit­ton’s his­to­ry? I can’t fath­om Glinn’s think­ing on this one. He should have briefed me back in Eliz­abeth. Thank God there’s been no prob­lem.”

“She’s an ex­cel­lent cap­tain,” Mc­Far­lane said. “She’s han­dled the ship with great skill. Knows it in­side and out. Crew re­spects the hell out of her. Doesn’t take guff from any­body, ei­ther.”

Lloyd lis­tened, frown­ing. “That’s good to know.” The phone buzzed. Lloyd picked it up. “Yes?” he said im­pa­tient­ly. “I’m in a meet­ing.”

There was a pause while Lloyd lis­tened. Mc­Far­lane watched him, think­ing that what Lloyd had said about Glinn was true. Se­cre­tive­ness was a habit with Glinn — or, per­haps, an in­stinct.

“I’ll call the sen­ator back,” Lloyd said af­ter a mo­ment. “And no more calls.” He strode over to the win­dow and stood, hands clasped be­hind his back. Al­though the worst of the storm had passed, the panoram­ic win­dows re­mained streaked with sleet. “Mag­nif­icent,” Lloyd breathed, some­thing like rev­er­ence in his voice. “To think we’ll be at the is­land with­in the hour. Christ, Sam, we’re al­most there!”

He swiveled away from the win­dow. The frown was gone, re­placed by a look of ela­tion. “I’ve made a de­ci­sion. Eli needs to hear it, too, but I want­ed you to know first.” He paused, ex­haled. “I’m go­ing to plant the flag, Sam.”

Mc­Far­lane looked at Lloyd. “You’re go­ing to what?”

“This af­ter­noon, I’m tak­ing the launch to Is­la Des­olación.”

“Just you?” Mc­Far­lane felt a strange sen­sa­tion in the pit of his stom­ach.

“Just me. And that crazy old Pup­pup, of course, to guide me to the me­te­orite.”

“But the weath­er — “

“The weath­er couldn’t be bet­ter!” Lloyd stepped away from the win­dows and paced rest­less­ly be­tween the wing chairs. This kind of mo­ment, Sam, isn’t giv­en to many.”

Mc­Far­lane sat in his chair, the strange feel­ing grow­ing. “Just you?” he re­peat­ed. “You won’t share the dis­cov­ery?”

“No, I won’t. Why the hell should I? Peary did the same thing on his last dash to the Pole. Glinn’s got to un­der­stand. He may not like it, but it’s my ex­pe­di­tion. I’m go­ing in alone.”

“No,” Mc­Far­lane said qui­et­ly. “No, you’re not.”

Lloyd stopped pac­ing.

“You’re not leav­ing me be­hind.”

Lloyd turned in sur­prise, his pierc­ing eyes on Mc­Far­lane. “You?”

Mc­Far­lane said noth­ing, main­tain­ing eye con­tact.

Af­ter a mo­ment, Lloyd be­gan to chuck­le. “You know, Sam, you’re not the man I first met hid­ing be­hind a bush in the Kala­hari Desert. It nev­er oc­curred to me you’d care about some­thing like this.” His smile sud­den­ly van­ished. “What would you do if I said no?”

Mc­Far­lane stood up. “I don’t know. Some­thing rash and ill-​ad­vised, prob­ably.”

Lloyd’s whole frame seemed to swell. “Are you threat­en­ing me?”

Mc­Far­lane held his eyes. “Yeah. I guess I am.”

Lloyd con­tin­ued look­ing at him steadi­ly. “Well, well.”

“You sought me out. You knew what I’d dreamed of my en­tire life.” Mc­Far­lane care­ful­ly watched Lloyd’s ex­pres­sion. This was a man un­used to be­ing chal­lenged. “I was out there try­ing to put the past be­hind me. And you ar­rived, dan­gling it, like a car­rot on a stick. You knew I’d bite. And now I’m here, and you can’t leave me out. I won’t miss this.” There was a tense si­lence in which Mc­Far­lane could hear the dis­tant clat­ter of keys, the ring­ing of phones. Then, abrupt­ly, Lloyd’s hard fea­tures soft­ened. He placed a hand on his bald head and smoothed his shiny pate. Then he ran his fin­gers down through his goa­tee. “If I bring you, then what about Glinn? Or Ami­ra? Or Brit­ton? Ev­ery­one’s go­ing to want a piece of this.”

“No. It’ll be just us two. I’ve earned it; you’ve earned it. That’s all. You have the pow­er to make it hap­pen.”

Lloyd con­tin­ued to stare at him. “I think I like the new Sam Mc­Far­lane,” he said at last. “I nev­er ful­ly bought that tough-​guy cyn­ic act any­way. But I have to tell you, Sam: this in­ter­est of yours had bet­ter be healthy. Do I have to speak more plain­ly? I don’t want a re­peat of that Tornarssuk busi­ness.”

Mc­Far­lane felt a stab of anger. “I’ll just pre­tend I didn’t hear that.”

“You heard it. Let’s not play coy.”

Mc­Far­lane wait­ed.

Lloyd dropped his hand with a dep­re­cat­ing smile. “It’s been years since some­one stood up to me like that. It’s brac­ing. God damn you, Sam, all right. We’ll do it to­geth­er. But you re­al­ize Glinn’s go­ing to try to scotch ev­ery­thing.” He walked back to­ward the bank of win­dows, check­ing his watch as he did so. “He’s go­ing to be an old wom­an about this.”

As if he had timed the mo­ment — and lat­er, Mc­Far­lane re­al­ized he prob­ably had — Glinn came glid­ing in­to the of­fice. Be­hind fol­lowed Pup­pup, silent and wraith­like, rapid­ly be­com­ing a fix­ture in Glinn’s shad­ow, his alert black eyes filled with some pri­vate amuse­ment. Pup­pup cov­ered his mouth, bow­ing and gen­uflect­ing in the strangest fash­ion.

“Right on time, as al­ways,” Lloyd boomed, turn­ing to­ward Glinn and tak­ing his hand. “Lis­ten, Eli, there’s some­thing I’ve de­cid­ed. I’d like your bless­ing, but I know I’m not go­ing to get it. So I want to warn you in ad­vance, there’s no pow­er on heav­en or earth that’s go­ing to pre­vent me from car­ry­ing it out. Is that clear?”

“Very clear,” said Glinn, set­tling com­fort­ably in­to one of the wing chairs and cross­ing his legs.

“There’s no use ar­gu­ing with me about this. The de­ci­sion’s made.”

“Won­der­ful. I wish I could go along.”

For an in­stant, Lloyd ap­peared to be dumb­found­ed. Then his look turned in­to fury. “You son of a bitch, you’ve got the ship wired.”

“Don’t be ridicu­lous. I knew from the very be­gin­ning you would in­sist on mak­ing the first vis­it to the me­te­orite.”

“But that’s im­pos­si­ble. Even I didn’t know—“

Glinn waved his hand. “Don’t you think that, in an­alyz­ing ev­ery pos­si­ble path of fail­ure and suc­cess, we had to take your psy­cho­log­ical pro­file in­to ac­count? We knew what you were go­ing to do even be­fore you knew your­self.” He glanced at Mc­Far­lane. “Did Sam here in­sist on go­ing along, too?”

Lloyd sim­ply nod­ded.

“I see. The port stern launch will be your best bet. It’s the small­est and most ma­neu­ver­able. I’ve ar­ranged for Mr. How­ell to take you in. I’ve al­so or­dered haver­sacks with food, wa­ter, match­es, fu­el, flash­lights, and so forth — and, of course, a GPS unit and two-​way ra­dios. I as­sume you’ll want Pup­pup to guide you?”

“De­light­ed to be of as­sis­tance,” sung out Pup­pup.

Lloyd glanced from Glinn to Pup­pup and back again. Af­ter a mo­ment, he gave a rue­ful chuck­le. “No­body likes to be pre­dictable. Does any­thing sur­prise you?”

“You didn’t hire me to be sur­prised, Mr. Lloyd. You’re on­ly go­ing to have a few hours of day­light, so you need to push off as soon as the ship ar­rives in the Franklin Chan­nel. You might want to con­sid­er wait­ing un­til to­mor­row morn­ing.”

Lloyd shook his head. “No. My time is short here.”

Glinn nod­ded, as if he had ex­pect­ed as much. “Pup­pup tells me of a small half-​moon beach on the lee end of the is­land. You can run the mo­tor launch right up on the shin­gle.You’ll need to be in and out of there fair­ly quick­ly.”

Lloyd sighed. “You re­al­ly know how to take the ro­mance out of life.”

“No,” said Glinn, stand­ing up. “I on­ly take out the un­cer­tain­ty.” He nod­ded out the win­dows. “If you want ro­mance, come take a look out there.”

They stepped for­ward. Mc­Far­lane could see a small is­land, just com­ing in­to view, even dark­er than the black wa­ter around it.

“That, gen­tle­men, is Is­la Des­olación.”

Mc­Far­lane looked at it, min­gled cu­rios­ity and trep­ida­tion quick­en­ing with­in him. A sin­gle shaft of light moved across the bru­tal rocks, van­ish­ing and reap­pear­ing at the caprice of the en­shroud­ing fogs. Im­mense seas tore at its rocky shore. At its north­ern end, he made out a cloven vol­canic plug: a dou­ble spire of rock. Snaking through the cen­tral val­ley was a deep snow­field, its icy cen­ter ex­posed and pol­ished by the wind: a turquoise jew­el in the monochro­mat­ic seascape.

Af­ter a mo­ment, Lloyd spoke: “By God, there it is,” he said. “Our is­land, Eli, at the edge of the world. Our is­land. And my me­te­orite.”

There was a strange, low gig­gle be­hind them. Mc­Far­lane turned to see Pup­pup, who had re­mained silent through­out the en­tire con­ver­sa­tion, cov­er­ing his mouth with nar­row fin­gers.

“What is it?” Lloyd asked sharply.

But Pup­pup did not an­swer, and con­tin­ued to gig­gle as he backed and bowed and scraped his way out of the of­fice, un­wa­ver­ing black eyes fixed on Lloyd.

Is­la Des­olación,

12:45 P.M.

WITH­IN AN hour, the tanker had eased its bulk in­to Franklin Chan­nel, which was less a chan­nel than an ir­reg­ular bay, cir­cled by the crag­gy peaks of the Cape Horn is­lands. Now, Mc­Far­lane sat in the cen­ter of the open launch, his hands grip­ping the gun­wales, aware of the awk­ward bulk of the life pre­serv­er strapped over his heavy jack­et and slick­er. The seas that caused the Rolvaag to roll un­com­fort­ably were now toss­ing the launch around like a child’s pa­per boat. The chief mate, Vic­tor How­ell, stood at the helm, his face fur­rowed with con­cen­tra­tion as he fought to keep his head­ing. John Pup­pup had scram­bled in­to the bow and was flopped down like an ex­cit­ed boy, each hand grip­ping a cleat. Over the last hour, he had act­ed as an im­promp­tu har­bor pi­lot for the Rolvaag, and his in­fre­quent mur­mured words had turned what would have been a har­row­ing ap­proach in­to one that was mere­ly nail-​bit­ing. Now his face was turned to the is­land, light snow set­tling on his nar­row shoul­ders.

The launch bucked and twist­ed, and Mc­Far­lane clung tighter.

The chop eased as the launch ap­proached the lee of Is­la Des­olación. The is­land reared up be­fore them, true to its name: black rocks pok­ing up like bro­ken knuck­les through wind­blown patch­es of snow. A cove came in­to sight, dark un­der the shad­ow of a ledge. Fol­low­ing Pup­pup’s sig­nal, How­ell turned the launch to­ward it. At ten yards out he cut the en­gine, rais­ing the pro­peller shaft si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly. The boat glid­ed in, crunch­ing light­ly on­to the shin­gle beach. Pup­pup sprang out like a mon­key, and Mc­Far­lane fol­lowed. He turned to of­fer Lloyd a hand.

“I’m not that old, for chris­sakes,” Lloyd said as he grabbed a pack and hopped out.

How­ell backed the boat off with a roar. “I’ll be back at three o’clock,” he called.

Mc­Far­lane watched the boat slap its way from shore. Be­yond, he could make out a zinc­col­ored wall of bad weath­er com­ing to­ward them. Mc­Far­lane hugged him­self against the cold. Al­though he knew the Rolvaag was less than a mile away, he nev­er­the­less wished it was with­in eye­sight. Nestor was right, he thought. This is the very edge of the world.

Well, Sam, we’ve got two hours,” Lloyd said with a broad grin. “Let’s make the best of it.” He dug in­to his pock­et and pulled out a small cam­era. “Let’s get Pup­pup to take a pic­ture of our first land­fall.” He glanced around. “Now where did he get to?”

Mc­Far­lane looked around the small beach. Pup­pup was nowhere to be seen.

“Pup­pup!” Lloyd cried.

“Up here, guv!” came a faint cry from above. Look­ing up, Mc­Far­lane made out his sil­hou­ette at the top of the ledge, framed by the dark­en­ing sky. One skin­ny arm was wav­ing, the oth­er point­ing at a near­by ravine that bi­sect­ed the cliff face.

“How’d he get up there so fast?” Mc­Far­lane asked. “He’s a queer lit­tle fel­low, isn’t he?” Lloyd shook his head. “I hope to hell he re­mem­bers the way.”

They walked up the shin­gles to the base of the ledge. Chunks of ice, washed ashore by storms, lit­tered the strand The air smelled sharply of moss and salt. Mc­Far­lane squint­ed at the black basalt cliff. He took a deep breath, then start­ed up the nar­row crevasse. It was a tougher climb than it looked: the ravine was slick with packed snow, and the last fif­teen feet was a treach­er­ous scram­ble over icy boul­ders. Be­neath him, he could hear Lloyd puff­ing as he fol­lowed. But he kept a good pace, fit for a man of six­ty, and they soon found them­selves clam­ber­ing on­to the top of the cliff.

“Good!” cried Pup­pup, bow­ing and ap­plaud­ing. “Very good!”

Mc­Far­lane bent for­ward, rest­ing his palms on his knees. The cold air seared his lungs, while the rest of him sweat­ed be­neath the par­ka. Be­side him, he could hear Lloyd catch­ing his breath. Noth­ing more was said about the cam­era.

Straight­en­ing up, Mc­Far­lane saw they were stand­ing on a rock-​strewn plain. A quar­ter mile be­yond lay the long snow­field that stretched back in­to the cen­ter of the is­land. Clouds now cov­ered the sky, and the falling snow grew heav­ier.

With­out a word, Pup­pup turned and set off at a brisk pace. Lloyd and Mc­Far­lane scram­bled to keep up as they climbed the steady rise. With re­mark­able speed, the snow de­vel­oped in­to a flur­ry, shut­ting their world down in­to a cir­cle of white. Pup­pup was bare­ly vis­ible twen­ty feet ahead, a bob­bing specter. As they gained al­ti­tude the wind picked up, driv­ing the snow hor­izon­tal­ly across Mc­Far­lane’s field of vi­sion. Now he was glad that Glinn had in­sist­ed on the sub­ze­ro boots and Arc­tic parkas.

They crest­ed the rise. The snow flur­ries swept aside, giv­ing Mc­Far­lane a glimpse in­to the val­ley be­yond. They were on the edge of a sad­dle over­look­ing the snow­field. It looked much larg­er from up here: a great blue-​white mass, al­most glacial in its ir­re­sistibil­ity. It ran down the cen­ter of the val­ley, sur­round­ed by low hills. Be­yond, the twin vol­canic peaks thrust up like fangs. Mc­Far­lane could see an­oth­er snowsquall boil­ing up to­ward them from the val­ley: an un­re­lieved wall of white that swal­lowed the land­scape as it ap­proached.

“Grand view up here, eh?” said Pup­pup.

Lloyd nod­ded. The fringe of his par­ka was dust­ed with snow, and his goa­tee was flecked with ice. “I’ve been won­der­ing about that large cen­tral snow­field. Does it have a name?”

“Oh, yes,” said Pup­pup, bob­bing his head sev­er­al times, his wispy mus­tache sway­ing in time. “They call it the Vom­it of Hanuxa.”

“How pic­turesque. And those two peaks?”

“The Jaws of Hanuxa.”

“Makes sense,” said Lloyd. “Who is Hanuxa?”

“A Yaghan In­di­an leg­end,” Pup­pup replied. He did not of­fer more.

Mc­Far­lane looked sharply at Pup­pup. He re­mem­bered the men­tion of the Yaghan leg­ends in Masangkay’s jour­nal. He won­dered if this was the leg­end that had led Masangkay down there.

“I’m al­ways in­ter­est­ed in old leg­ends,” he said ca­su­al­ly. “Will you tell us about it?”

Pup­pup shrugged, nod­ding his head again cheer­ful­ly. “I don’t be­lieve any of those old su­per­sti­tions,” he said. “I’m a Chris­tian.”

Once again, he turned sud­den­ly and be­gan walk­ing, set­ting a rapid pace down the hill­side to­ward the snow­field. Mc­Far­lane al­most had to jog to keep up. He could hear Lloyd la­bor­ing be­hind him.

The snow­field lay in a deep fold of the land, mounds of bro­ken boul­ders and de­bris lin­ing its edges. As they came up to it, the fresh squall fell about them. Mc­Far­lane bowed un­der the wind.

“Come on, you lot!” cried Pup­pup out of the storm. They walked par­al­lel to the snow­field, which rose steeply above them like the flank of a huge beast. Now and then, Pup­pup stopped to ex­am­ine it more close­ly. “Here,” he said at last, kick­ing at the ver­ti­cal wall to make a toe­hold, pulling him­self up, and kick­ing again. Cau­tious­ly, Mc­Far­lane crawled up be­hind him, us­ing Pup­pup’s toe­holds, keep­ing his face turned away from the wind.

The steep sides of the snow­field grad­ual­ly lev­eled out, but the wind swirled around them ev­er more vi­olent­ly. “Tell Pup­pup to slow down!” Lloyd shout­ed from be­hind. But if any­thing, Pup­pup walked faster.

“Hanuxa,” he sud­den­ly be­gan in his strange, singsong ac­cent, “was the son of Yekai­jiz, god of the night sky. Yekai­jiz had two chil­dren: Hanuxa and his twin broth­er, Haraxa. Haraxa was al­ways the fa­vorite of the fa­ther. The ap­ple of his eye, like. As time went on, Hanuxa grew more and more jeal­ous of his broth­er. And he want­ed his broth­er’s pow­er for him­self.”

“Aha, the old sto­ry of Cain and Abel,” Lloyd said.

The snow in the cen­ter of the field had been scoured away, leav­ing blue ice. It seemed im­pos­si­bly strange some­how, Mc­Far­lane thought, to be trudg­ing through the cen­ter of this noth­ing­ness, this child’s snow globe of white, to­ward a huge mys­te­ri­ous rock and the grave of his for­mer part­ner — while lis­ten­ing to this old man re­late the leg­end of Is­la Des­olación.

“The Yaghans be­lieve that blood is the source of life and pow­er,” Pup­pup con­tin­ued. “So one day, Hanuxa killed his broth­er. Slit Haraxa’s throat and drank his blood, he did. And his own skin turned the col­or of blood, and he got the pow­er. But Yekai­jiz, the fa­ther, found out. He im­pris­oned Hanuxa in­side the is­land, en­tomb­ing him be­low the sur­face. And some­times, if peo­ple ap­proach too close to the is­land af­ter dark, on windy nights when the surf is up, they can see flash­es of light, and hear howls of rage, when Hanuxa tries to es­cape.”

“Will he ev­er es­cape?” Lloyd asked.

“Dun­no, guv. Bad news if he does.”

The snow­field be­gan to slope down­ward, end­ing at last in a six-​foot cor­nice. One at a time, they low­ered them­selves over the edge, slid­ing down on­to hard­er ground. The wind was grad­ual­ly abat­ing and the snow falling more soft­ly now, big fat flakes that spun and flut­tered to earth like ash. Even so, the wind kept the bar­ren plain scoured al­most clean. A few hun­dred yards ahead, Mc­Far­lane could see a large boul­der. He watched as Pup­pup be­gan to jog to­ward it.

Lloyd strode over, Mc­Far­lane fol­low­ing more slow­ly. A wrin­kled piece of hide lay in the lee of the boul­der. Near­by was a scat­ter­ing of an­imal bones and two skulls, a rot­ting hal­ter still wrapped around one of them. A frayed hal­ter rope was tied around the boul­der. There were some scat­tered tin cans, a large piece of can­vas, a sod­den bedroll, and two bro­ken pack­sad­dles. Some­thing was un­der­neath the can­vas. Mc­Far­lane felt a sud­den chill.

“My God,” said Lloyd. “These must be your old part­ner’s mules. They starved to death right here, tied to this rock.” He be­gan to reach for­ward, but Mc­Far­lane raised a gloved hand and stayed him. Then, he slow­ly ap­proached the boul­der him­self. He leaned over and gen­tly grasped the edge of the frozen piece of can­vas. He gave it a shake to clear it of snow, then tossed it aside. But it did not un­cov­er Masangkay’s body, on­ly a wel­ter of de­cay­ing be­long­ings. He could see old packs of ra­men noo­dles and tin cans of sar­dines. The tins had burst, spew­ing pieces of fish across the frozen sur­face. Nestor al­ways did fa­vor sar­dines, he thought with a pang.

Sud­den­ly, an old mem­ory came back. It was five years ear­li­er, and sev­er­al thou­sand miles to the north. He and Nestor had been crouched in a deep cul­vert next to a dirt road, their packs stuffed to burst­ing with the At­aca­ma tek­tites. Ar­mored trucks passed by just a few feet away, show­er­ing the cul­vert with peb­bles. And yet they were gid­dy with suc­cess, slap­ping each oth­er and chortling. They were ravenous, but did not dare light a fire for fear of be­ing dis­cov­ered. Masangkay had reached in­to his pack and, pulling out a tin of sar­dines, of­fered it to Mc­Far­lane. “Are you kid­ding?” Mc­Far­lane had whis­pered. “That stuff tastes even worse than it smells.”

“That’s why I like it,” Masangkay whis­pered back. “Amoy ek-​ek yung ka­may mo!”

Mc­Far­lane had giv­en him a blank look. But in­stead of ex­plain­ing, Masangkay be­gan to laugh: soft­ly at first, and then more and more vi­olent­ly. Some­how, in the su­per­charged at­mo­sphere of dan­ger and ten­sion, his laugh­ter was ir­re­sistibly in­fec­tious. And with­out know­ing why, Mc­Far­lane, too, dis­solved in­to silent con­vul­sions of laugh­ter, clutch­ing the pre­cious bags, as the very trucks that hunt­ed them crossed and re­crossed over­head.

Then Mc­Far­lane was back in the present, crouch­ing in the snow, the frozen tins of food and rags of cloth­ing scat­tered around his feet. A queer sen­sa­tion had come over him. It seemed like such a pa­thet­ic col­lec­tion of trash. This was a hor­ri­ble place to die, all alone. He felt a tick­ling at the cor­ners of his eyes.

“So where’s the me­te­orite?” he heard Lloyd ask.

“The what?” said Pup­pup.

“The hole, man, where’s the hole Masangkay dug?”

Pup­pup point­ed vague­ly in­to the swirling snow.

“Damn it, take me there!”

Mc­Far­lane looked first to­ward Lloyd, then at Pup­pup, who was al­ready trot­ting ahead. He rose and fol­lowed them through the falling snow.

Half a mile, and Pup­pup stopped, point­ing. Mc­Far­lane took a few steps for­ward, star­ing at the scooped-​out de­pres­sion. Its sides were slumped in, and a drift of snow lay at its bot­tom. Some­how, he had thought the hole would be big­ger. He felt Lloyd grip his arm, squeez­ing it so tight­ly it was painful even through the lay­ers of wool and down.

“Think of it, Sam,” Lloyd whis­pered. “It’s right here. Right be­neath our feet.” He tore his eyes away from the hole and looked at Mc­Far­lane. “I wish to hell we could see it.”

Mc­Far­lane re­al­ized that he should be feel­ing some­thing oth­er than a pro­found sad­ness and a creep­ing, eerie si­lence. Lloyd slipped off his pack, un­fas­tened the top, and pulled out a ther­mos and three plas­tic cups. “Hot choco­late?”

“Sure.”

Lloyd smiled wist­ful­ly. “That god­damned Eli. He should have sup­plied a bot­tle of cognac. Well, at least it’s hot.” He un­screwed the cap and poured out the steam­ing cups. Lloyd held his up, and Mc­Far­lane and Pup­pup fol­lowed suit.

“Here’s to the Des­ola­tion me­te­orite.” Lloyd’s voice sound­ed small and muf­fled in the silent snow­fall.

“Masangkay,” Mc­Far­lane heard him­self say, af­ter a brief si­lence.

“I’m sor­ry?”

“The Masangkay me­te­orite.”

“Sam, that’s not pro­to­col. You al­ways name the me­te­orite af­ter the place where — “

The emp­ty feel­ing in­side Mc­Far­lane van­ished. “Screw pro­to­col,” he said, low­er­ing his cup. “He found it, not you. Or me. He died for it.”

Lloyd looked back at him. It’s a lit­tle too late now for an at­tack of ethics, his gaze seemed to say. “We’ll talk about this lat­er,” he said even­ly. “Right now, let’s drink to it, what­ev­er the hell its name.”

They tapped their plas­tic cups and drank the hot choco­late down in a sin­gle gulp. A gull passed by un­seen, its for­lorn cry lost in the snow. Mc­Far­lane felt the wel­come creep of warmth in his gut, and the sud­den anger eased. Al­ready the light was be­gin­ning to dim, and the bor­ders of their small world were ringed with a gray­ing white­ness. Lloyd re­trieved the cups and placed them and the ther­mos back in his pack. The mo­ment had a cer­tain awk­ward­ness; per­haps, Mc­Far­lane thought, all such self-​con­scious­ly his­toric mo­ments did.

And there was an­oth­er rea­son for awk­ward­ness. They still hadn’t found the body. Mc­Far­lane found him­self afraid to lift his eyes from the ground, for fear of mak­ing the dis­cov­ery; afraid to turn to Pup­pup and ask where it was.

Lloyd took an­oth­er long look at the hole be­fore his feet, then glanced at his watch. “Let’s get Pup­pup to take a pic­ture.”

Du­ti­ful­ly, Mc­Far­lane stepped up be­side Lloyd as the old­er man passed his cam­era to Pup­pup.

As the shut­ter clicked, Lloyd stiff­ened, his eyes fo­cus­ing in the near dis­tance. “Look over there,” he said, point­ing over Pup­pup’s shoul­der to­ward a dun-​col­ored jum­ble, up a small rise about a hun­dred yards from the hole.

They ap­proached it. The skele­tal re­mains lay par­tial­ly cov­ered in snow, the bones shat­tered, al­most un­rec­og­niz­able save for a grin­ning, lop­sid­ed jaw. Near­by was a shov­el blade, its han­dle miss­ing. One of the feet was still wear­ing a rot­ten boot.

“Masangkay,” Lloyd whis­pered.

Be­side him, Mc­Far­lane was silent. They had been through so much to­geth­er. His for­mer friend, for­mer broth­er-​in-​law, re­duced now to a cold jum­ble of bro­ken bones at the bot­tom of the world. How had he died? Ex­po­sure? Freak heart at­tack? Clear­ly, it hadn’t been star­va­tion: there was plen­ty of food back at the mules. And what had bro­ken up and scat­tered the bones? Birds? An­imals? The is­land seemed de­void of life. And Pup­pup had not even both­ered to bury him.

Lloyd swiveled to­ward Pup­pup. “Do you have any idea what killed him?”

Pup­pup sim­ply sniffed.

“Let me guess. Hanuxa.”

“If you be­lieve the leg­ends, guv,” Pup­pup said. “And as I said, I don’t.”

Lloyd looked hard at Pup­pup for a mo­ment. Then he sighed, and gave Mc­Far­lane’s shoul­der a squeeze. “I’m sor­ry, Sam,” he said. “This must be tough for you.”

They stood in si­lence a mo­ment longer, hud­dled over the pa­thet­ic re­mains. Then Lloyd stirred. “Time to get mov­ing,” he said. “How­ell said three P.M. and I’d rather not spend the night on this rock.”

“In a mo­ment,” Mc­Far­lane said, still star­ing down. “We need to bury him first.”

Lloyd hes­itat­ed. Mc­Far­lane steeled him­self, wait­ing for the protest. But the big man nod­ded. “Of course.”

While Lloyd col­lect­ed the bone frag­ments in­to a small pile, Mc­Far­lane hunt­ed up boul­ders in the deep­en­ing snow, pry­ing them loose from the frozen ground with numb fin­gers. To­geth­er, they made a cairn over the re­mains. Pup­pup stood back, watch­ing.

“Aren’t you go­ing to help?” Lloyd asked.

“Not me. Like I said, I’m a Chris­tian, I am. It says in the Book, let the dead bury the dead.” “Weren’t too Chris­tian to emp­ty his pock­ets, though, were you?” Mc­Far­lane said. Pup­pup fold­ed his arms, a sil­ly, guilty-​look­ing smile on his face.

Mc­Far­lane went back to work, and with­in fif­teen min­utes they were done. He fash­ioned a rough cross from two sticks and plant­ed it care­ful­ly atop the low pile of rocks. Then he stepped back, dust­ing the snow from his gloves.

“Can­ticum gradu­um de pro­fundis cla­mavi ad te Domine,” he said un­der his breath. “Rest easy, part­ner.”

Then he nod­ded to Lloyd and they turned east, head­ing for the white bulk of the snow­field as the sky grew still dark­er and an­oth­er squall gath­ered at their backs.

Is­la Des­olación,

Ju­ly 16, 8:42 A.M.

MC­FAR­LANE LOOKED out over the new grav­el road, cut through the bril­liant ex­panse of fresh snow like a black snake. He shook his head, smil­ing to him­self in grudg­ing ad­mi­ra­tion. In the three days since his first vis­it, the is­land had been trans­formed al­most be­yond recog­ni­tion.

There was a rough lurch, and half of Mc­Far­lane’s cof­fee splashed from his cup on­to his snow­pants. “Christ!” he yelped, hold­ing the cup at arm’s length and swat­ting at his pants.

From in­side the cab, the driv­er, a burly fel­low named Evans, smiled. “Sor­ry,” he said. These Cats don’t ex­act­ly ride like El­do­ra­dos.”

De­spite its mas­sive yel­low bulk, and tires al­most twice as tall as a man, the Cat 785’s cab held on­ly one per­son, and Mc­Far­lane had end­ed up sit­ting, cross-​legged, on the nar­row plat­form be­side it. Di­rect­ly be­neath him, the huge diesel en­gine snarled. He didn’t mind. To­day was the day. To­day they were go­ing to un­cov­er the me­te­orite.

He thought back over the last sev­en­ty-​two hours. The very night they ar­rived, Glinn had ini­ti­at­ed an as­ton­ish­ing pro­cess of un­load­ing. It had all hap­pened with ruth­less speed and ef­fi­cien­cy. By morn­ing, the most in­crim­inat­ing equip­ment had been moved by heavy equip­ment to pre­fab hangars on the is­land. At the same time, EES work­ers un­der Garza and Rochefort had blast­ed and lev­eled the beach site, built jet­ties and break­wa­ters with riprap and steel, and grad­ed a broad road from the land­ing site around the snow­field to the me­te­orite area — the road he was now on. The EES team had al­so of­fload­ed some of the portable con­tain­er labs and workspaces and moved them to the stag­ing area, where they had been ar­ranged among rows of Quon­set huts.

But as the Cater­pil­lar 785 Hauler round­ed the snow­field and ap­proached the stag­ing area, Mc­Far­lane saw that the most as­ton­ish­ing change of all had tak­en place on an es­carp­ment about a mile away. There, an army of work­ers with heavy equip­ment had be­gun goug­ing out an open pit. A dozen huts had sprout­ed up along its verge. Pe­ri­od­ical­ly, Mc­Far­lane could hear an ex­plo­sive shud­der, and clouds of dust would rise in­to the sky over the pit. A tail­ings pile was grow­ing to one side, and a leach­pond had been built near­by.

“What’s go­ing on over there?” Mc­Far­lane shout­ed to Evans over the roar of the en­gine, point­ing to the es­carp­ment.

“Min­ing.”

“I can see that. But what are they min­ing?”

Evans broke in­to a grin. “Na­da.”

Mc­Far­lane had to laugh. Glinn was amaz­ing. Any­one look­ing at the site would think the ac­tiv­ity on the es­carp­ment was their re­al busi­ness; the stag­ing area around the me­te­orite looked like a mi­nor sup­ply dump.

He turned his gaze from the er­satz mine back to the road that lay ahead. The Hanuxa snow­field cor­us­cat­ed, seem­ing to grab the light and draw it in­to its depths, turn­ing it to in­fi­nite hues of blue and turquoise. The Jaws of Hanuxa stood be­yond, their grim­ness soft­ened by a dust­ing of fresh snow.

Mc­Far­lane hadn’t slept at all the night be­fore, and yet he felt al­most too wake­ful. In less than an hour, they would know. They would see it. They would touch it.

The truck lurched again, and Mc­Far­lane tight­ened his grip on the met­al rail­ing with one hand while quick­ly down­ing his cof­fee with the oth­er. It might be sun­ny for a change, but it was al­so hellish­ly cold. He crushed the foam cup and slid it in­to a pock­et of his par­ka. The big Cat was on­ly slight­ly less shab­by-​look­ing than the Rolvaag it­self, but Mc­Far­lane could see that this, too, was an il­lu­sion: the in­te­ri­or of the cab was brand-​new.

“Quite a ma­chine,” he yelled over to Evans.

“Oh, yeah,” the man replied, his breath smok­ing.

The roadbed grew smoother and the Cat sped up. As they trun­dled along, they passed an­oth­er hauler and a bull­doz­er head­ed back to­ward the shore, and the drivers waved cheer­ful­ly at Evans. Mc­Far­lane re­al­ized he knew noth­ing about the men and wom­en wield­ing all the heavy equip­ment — who they were, what they thought about such a strange project. “You guys work for Glinn?” he asked Evans.

Evans nod­ded. “To a man.” He seemed to wear a per­pet­ual smile on his crag­gy face, over­hung with two bristly eye­brows. “Not full-​time, though. Some of the boys are rough­necks on oil rigs, some build bridges, you name it. We even have a crew from the Big Dig in Boston. But when you get the call from EES, you drop ev­ery­thing and come run­ning.

“Why’s that?”

Evans’s smile widened. “The pay is five times scale, that’s why.”

“Guess I’m work­ing the wrong end of the job, then.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’re do­ing all right for your­self, Dr. Mc­Far­lane.” Evans throt­tled down to let a grad­er pass them, its met­al blades wink­ing in the bril­liant sun­shine.

“Is this the biggest job you’ve seen EES take on?”

“Nope.” Evans goosed the en­gine and they lurched for­ward once again. “Small to mid­dling, ac­tu­al­ly.”

The snow­field fell be­hind them. Ahead, Mc­Far­lane could now see a broad de­pres­sion, cov­er­ing per­haps an acre, that had been scraped in­to the frozen earth. An ar­ray of four huge in­frared dish­es sur­round­ed the stag­ing area, point­ing down. Near­by stood a row of graders, lined up as if at at­ten­tion. En­gi­neers and oth­er work­ers were scat­tered around, hud­dled to­geth­er over plans, tak­ing mea­sure­ments, speak­ing in­to ra­dios. In the dis­tance, a snow­cat — a large, trail­er­like ve­hi­cle with mon­strous met­al treads — was crawl­ing to­ward the snow­field, wield­ing high-​tech in­stru­ments held out on booms. Off to one side, small and for­lorn, was the cairn he and Lloyd had built over Nestor Masangkay’s re­mains.

Evans came to an idle at the edge of the stag­ing area. Mc­Far­lane hopped off and made for the hut marked COM­MIS­SARY. In­side, Lloyd and Glinn sat at a ta­ble near a makeshift kitchen, deep in dis­cus­sion. Ami­ra was stand­ing by a grid­dle, load­ing a plate with food. Near­by, John Pup­pup was curled up, nap­ping. The room smelled of cof­fee and ba­con.

“About time you got here,” Ami­ra said as she re­turned to the ta­ble, her plate heaped with at least a dozen slices of ba­con. “Wal­low­ing in your bunk un­til all hours. You should be mak­ing an ex­am­ple for your as­sis­tant.” She poured a cup of maple syrup over the mound of ba­con, stirred it around, picked up a drip­ping piece, and fold­ed it in­to her mouth.

Lloyd was warm­ing his hands around a cup of cof­fee. “With your eat­ing habits, Rachel,” he said good-​hu­mored­ly, “you should be dead by now.”

Ami­ra laughed. “The brain us­es more calo­ries per minute think­ing than the body does jog­ging. How do you think I stay so svelte and sexy?” She tapped her fore­head.

“How soon un­til we un­cov­er the rock?” Mc­Far­lane asked.

Glinn sat back, slid out his gold pock­et watch, and flicked it open. “Half an hour. We’re just go­ing to un­cov­er enough of the sur­face to al­low you to per­form some tests.

Dr. Ami­ra will as­sist you with test­ing and an­alyz­ing the da­ta.”

Mc­Far­lane nod­ded. This had al­ready been care­ful­ly dis­cussed, but Glinn al­ways went over ev­ery­thing twice. Dou­ble over­age, he thought.

“We’ll have to chris­ten it,” Ami­ra said, thrust­ing an­oth­er piece of ba­con in­to her mouth. “Any­body bring the cham­pagne?”

Lloyd frowned. “Un­for­tu­nate­ly, it’s more like a Tem­per­ance meet­ing around here than a sci­en­tif­ic ex­pe­di­tion.”

“Guess you’ll have to break one of your ther­moses of hot choco­late over the rock,” Mc­Far­lane said.

Glinn reached down, drew out a satchel, re­moved a bot­tle of Per­ri­er-​Jouët and placed it care­ful­ly on the ta­ble.

“Fleur de Cham­pagne,” Lloyd whis­pered al­most rev­er­en­tial­ly. “My fa­vorite. Eli, you old liar, you nev­er told me you had bot­tles of cham­pagne aboard.”

Glinn’s on­ly re­ply was a slight smile.

“If we’re go­ing to chris­ten this thing, has any­body thought up a name?” Ami­ra asked.

“Sam here wants to call it the Masangkay me­te­orite,” Lloyd said. He paused. “I’m in­clined to go with the usu­al nomen­cla­ture and call it the Des­olación.”

There was an awk­ward si­lence.

“We’ve got to have a name,” Ami­ra said.

“Nestor Masangkay made the ul­ti­mate sac­ri­fice find­ing this me­te­orite,” said Mc­Far­lane in a low voice, look­ing hard at Lloyd. “We wouldn’t be here with­out him. On the oth­er hand, you fi­nanced the ex­pe­di­tion, so you’ve won the right to name the rock.” He con­tin­ued gaz­ing steadi­ly at the bil­lion­aire.

When Lloyd spoke, his voice was un­usu­al­ly qui­et. “We don’t even know if Nestor Masangkay would have want­ed the hon­or,” he said. “This isn’t the time to break with tra­di­tion, Sam. We’ll call it the Des­olación me­te­orite, but we’ll name the hall it’s in af­ter Nestor. We’ll erect a plaque, de­tail­ing his dis­cov­ery. Is that ac­cept­able?”

Mc­Far­lane thought a mo­ment. Then he gave the briefest of nods.

Glinn passed the bot­tle to Lloyd, then rose. They all went out in­to the bril­liant morn­ing sun. As they walked, Glinn came up to Mc­Far­lane’s side. “Of course, you re­al­ize that at some point we’re go­ing to have to ex­hume your friend,” he said, nod­ding in the di­rec­tion of the stone cairn.

“Why?” Mc­Far­lane asked, sur­prised.

“We need to know the cause of death. Dr. Bram­bell must ex­am­ine the re­mains.”

“What for?”

“It’s a loose end. I’m sor­ry.”

Mc­Far­lane be­gan to ob­ject, then stopped. As usu­al, there was no ar­gu­ing with Glinn’s log­ic.

Soon they were stand­ing along the edge of the grad­ed area. Nestor’s old hole was gone, filled in by the graders.

“We’ve scraped the earth down to with­in about three feet of the top of the rock,” Glinn said, “tak­ing sam­ples of each lay­er. We’ll grade off most of the rest, and then switch to trow­els and brush­es for the last foot. We don’t want to so much as even bruise the me­te­orite.” “Good man,” Lloyd an­swered.

Garza and Rochefort were stand­ing to­geth­er by the line of graders. Now Rochefort came over to join them, his face pur­ple with wind­burn.

“Ready?” Glinn asked.

Rochefort nod­ded. The graders were manned and idling, their ex­hausts send­ing up plumes of smoke and steam.

“No prob­lems?” Lloyd asked.

“None.”

Glinn glanced over to­ward the graders and gave a thumbs-​up to Garza. The en­gi­neer, wear­ing his usu­al ath­let­ic warm-​ups, turned, held up his fist and cranked it in a cir­cle, and the graders rum­bled to life. They moved for­ward slow­ly, diesel smoke foul­ing the air, low­er­ing their blades un­til they bit in­to the ground.

Be­hind the lead grad­er, sev­er­al white-​jack­et­ed work­ers walked, sam­ple bags in their hands. They picked up peb­bles and dirt ex­posed by the graders and dropped them in the bags for lat­er ex­am­ina­tion.

The line of graders made a pass over the area, re­mov­ing six inch­es of dirt. Lloyd gri­maced as he watched. “I hate to think of those big blades pass­ing so close to my me­te­orite.”

“Don’t wor­ry,” Glinn said. “We’ve fac­tored in el­bow room. There’s no chance of them dam­ag­ing it.”

The graders made an­oth­er pass. Then Ami­ra came slow­ly through the cen­ter of the grad­ed area, wheel­ing a pro­ton mag­ne­tome­ter across the ground. At the far end, she stopped, punched some but­tons on the ma­chine’s front pan­el, and tore off the nar­row piece of pa­per that emerged. She came up to them, trundling the mag­ne­tome­ter be­hind her.

Glinn took the pa­per. “There it is,” he said, hand­ing it to Lloyd.

Lloyd grasped the pa­per and Mc­Far­lane leaned over to look. A faint, er­rat­ic line rep­re­sent­ed the ground. Be­neath, much dark­er, was the top edge of a large, semi­cir­cu­lar shape. The pa­per shook in Lloyd’s pow­er­ful hands. Mc­Far­lane thought, God, there re­al­ly is some­thing down there. He hadn’t quite be­lieved it, not un­til now.

“Fif­teen inch­es to go,” said Ami­ra.

“Time to switch to ar­chae­olog­ical mode,” Glinn said. “We’re sink­ing our hole in a slight­ly dif­fer­ent place from where Masangkay dug, so we can sam­ple undis­turbed earth above.”

The group fol­lowed him across the fresh­ly ex­posed grav­el. Ami­ra took some more read­ings, tapped a few stakes in­to the ground, grid­ded it off, and snapped some chalk strings to make a square two me­ters on a side. The group of la­bor­ers came for­ward and be­gan care­ful­ly trow­el­ing dirt from the square.

“How come the ground’s not frozen?” asked Mc­Far­lane.

Glinn nod­ded up­ward at the four tow­ers. “We’ve bathed the area in far in­frared.” “You’ve thought of ev­ery­thing,” said Lloyd, shak­ing his head.

“You’re pay­ing us to do just that.”

The men pro­ceed­ed to trow­el out a neat cube, de­scend­ing bit by bit, oc­ca­sion­al­ly tak­ing sam­ples of min­er­als, grav­el, and sand as they went. One of them stopped and held up a jagged ob­ject, sand ad­her­ing to its sur­face.

“That’s in­ter­est­ing,” said Glinn, step­ping for­ward quick­ly. “What is it?”

“You got me,” said Ami­ra. “Strange. Looks al­most like glass.”

“Ful­gu­rite,” said Mc­Far­lane.

“What?”

“Ful­gu­rite. It’s what hap­pens when a pow­er­ful bolt of light­ning hits wet sand. It fus­es a chan­nel through the sand, turn­ing it to glass.”

“That’s why I hired him,” said Lloyd, look­ing around with a grin.

“Here’s an­oth­er,” said a work­man. They care­ful­ly dug around it, leav­ing it stick­ing up in the sand like a tree branch.

“Me­te­orites are fer­ro­mag­net­ic,” Mc­Far­lane said, drop­ping down and care­ful­ly pluck­ing it from the sand with his gloved hands. “This one must have at­tract­ed more than its share of light­ning.”

The men con­tin­ued to work, un­cov­er­ing sev­er­al more ful­gu­rites, which were wrapped in tis­sue and packed in wood­en crates. Ami­ra swept her in­stru­ment over the ground sur­face. “Six more inch­es,” she said.

“Switch to brush­es,” said Glinn.

Two men now crouched around the hole, the rest of the work­ers tak­ing up po­si­tions be­hind them. At this depth, Mc­Far­lane could see that the dirt was wet, al­most sat­urat­ed with wa­ter, and the work­ers were not so much sweep­ing away sand as they were brush­ing mud. A hush fell on the group as the hole deep­ened, cen­time­ter by cen­time­ter.

“Take an­oth­er read­ing,” mur­mured Glinn.

“One more inch,” Ami­ra said.

Mc­Far­lane leaned for­ward. The two la­bor­ers were us­ing stiff plas­tic brush­es to care­ful­ly whisk the mud in­to pans, which they passed to the men be­hind them.

And then a brush swept across a hard sur­face. The two work­men stepped out of the hole and gin­ger­ly trow­eled away the heavy mud, leav­ing a shal­low lay­er cov­er­ing the hard sur­face be­low.

“Rinse it off,” said Glinn. Mc­Far­lane thought he heard a note of an­tic­ipa­tion in the voice. “Hur­ry, man!” Lloyd cried.

One of the work­men came run­ning up, un­rolling a thin hose. Glinn him­self took the noz­zle, aimed it to­ward the mud-​cov­ered me­te­orite, and squeezed. For sev­er­al sec­onds, there was no sound ex­cept the gen­tle hiss of wa­ter as the last of the mud was rinsed from the sur­face.

Then Glinn jerked the noz­zle shut. The wa­ter drained away from the naked sur­face of the me­te­orite. A sud­den paral­ysis, an elec­tric mo­ment of sus­pen­sion, gripped the com­pa­ny.

And then there was the sound of the cham­pagne bot­tle, heed­less­ly dropped, land­ing on the damp earth with a heavy thud.

Is­la Des­olación,

9:55 A.M.

PALMER LLOYD stood at the edge of the pre­cise cut in the earth, his eyes locked on the naked sur­face of the me­te­orite. For a mo­ment, his mind went blank at the as­ton­ish­ing sight. And then, grad­ual­ly, he be­came aware of him­self again: felt the blood pound­ing in his tem­ples, the air fill­ing his chest, the cold air freez­ing his nose and cheeks. And yet the over­pow­er­ing sur­prise re­mained. He was look­ing at it, he was see­ing it, but he couldn’t be­lieve it.

“Mar­gaux,” he mur­mured, his voice small in the snowy vast­ness.

The si­lence around him was com­plete. Ev­ery­one had been shocked mute.

Lloyd had made pil­grim­ages to most of the great iron me­te­orites in the world — the Ho­ba, the Ah­nighi­to, the Willamette, the Wom­an. De­spite their wide­ly vary­ing shapes, they all had the same pit­ted, brown­ish-​black sur­face. All iron me­te­orites looked alike.

But this me­te­orite was scar­let. But no, he thought, as his brain be­gan to pick up speed again: the word “scar­let” did not do it jus­tice. It was the deep, pure vel­vety col­or of pol­ished car­nelian, yet even rich­er. It was, in fact, pre­cise­ly the col­or of a fine Bor­deaux wine, like the par­si­mo­nious drams of Chateau Mar­gaux with which he had been forced to con­tent him­self on the Rolvaag.

Now one voice cut through the shocked si­lence. It had a note of au­thor­ity that Lloyd rec­og­nized as Glinn’s. “I would like ev­ery­one to please step back from the hole.”

Dis­tant­ly, Lloyd was aware that no­body was mov­ing.

“Step back,” Glinn re­peat­ed, more sharply.

This time, the tight cir­cle of on­look­ers re­luc­tant­ly shuf­fled back a few steps. As the shad­ows fell away, sun­light lanced through the crowd, il­lu­mi­nat­ing the pit. Once more, Lloyd felt the breath snatched from him. In the sun­light, the me­te­orite re­vealed a silky, metal­lic sur­face that re­sem­bled noth­ing so much as gold. Like gold, this scar­let met­al seemed to col­lect and trap the am­bi­ent light, dark­en­ing the out­side world while giv­ing it­self an in­ef­fa­ble, in­te­ri­or il­lu­mi­na­tion. It was not on­ly beau­ti­ful, but un­ut­ter­ably strange.

And it was his.

He felt flood­ed by a sud­den, pow­er­ful joy: for this amaz­ing thing that lay at his feet and for the as­ton­ish­ing tra­jec­to­ry of his life that had giv­en him the op­por­tu­ni­ty to find it. Bring­ing the largest me­te­orite in hu­man his­to­ry back to his mu­se­um had al­ways seemed goal enough. But now the stakes were high­er. It was no ac­ci­dent that he — per­haps the on­ly per­son on earth with the vi­sion and the re­sources — would be here, at this time and in this place, star­ing at this rav­ish­ing ob­ject.

“Mr. Lloyd,” he heard Glinn say. “I said step back.”

In­stead, Lloyd leaned for­ward.

Glinn raised his voice. “Palmer, do not do it!”

But Lloyd had al­ready dropped in­to the hole, his feet land­ing square­ly on the sur­face of the me­te­orite. He im­me­di­ate­ly fell to his knees, al­low­ing the tips of his gloved fin­gers to ca­ress the smooth­ly rip­pled metal­lic sur­face. On im­pulse, he leaned down and placed his cheek against it. Above, there was a brief si­lence.

“How does it feel?” he heard Mc­Far­lane ask.

“Cold,” Lloyd replied, sit­ting up. He could hear the qua­ver in his voice as he spoke, feel the tears freez­ing on his numb cheek. “It feels very cold.”

Is­la Des­olación,

1:55 P.M.

MC­FAR­LANE STARED at the lap­top on his knees. The cur­sor blinked back, re­proach­ful­ly, from a near­ly blank screen. He sighed and shift­ed in the met­al fold­ing chair, try­ing to get com­fort­able. The lone win­dow of the com­mis­sary hut glit­tered with frost, and the sound of wind came through the walls. Out­side, the clear weath­er had giv­en way to snow. But with­in the hut, a coal stove threw out a won­der­ful­ly in­tense heat.

Mc­Far­lane moused a com­mand, then closed the lap­top with a curse. On a near­by ta­ble, a print­er be­gan to hum. He shift­ed again, rest­less­ly. Once again, he re­played the events of the morn­ing. The mo­ment of awestruck si­lence, Lloyd jump­ing so im­pul­sive­ly in­to the hole, and Glinn call­ing out to him — by his Chris­tian name, for the first time Mc­Far­lane re­mem­bered. The tri­umphant chris­ten­ing, the tor­rent of ques­tions that fol­lowed. And — over­lay­ing ev­ery­thing — an over­pow­er­ing sense of in­com­pre­hen­sion. He felt that the breath had been knocked out of him, that he was strug­gling for air.

He, too, had felt a sud­den urge to jump in; to touch the thing, to re­as­sure him­self that it was re­al. But he was al­so slight­ly afraid of it. It had such a rich col­or, so out of place in the monochro­mat­ic land­scape. It re­mind­ed him of an op­er­at­ing ta­ble, a vast ex­panse of snowy white sheets with a bloody in­ci­sion at their cen­ter. It re­pelled and fas­ci­nat­ed si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly. And it ex­cit­ed in him a hope that he thought had been dead.

The door to the hut opened, ad­mit­ting a howl of snow. Mc­Far­lane glanced up as Ami­ra stepped in.

“Fin­ish the re­port?” she asked, re­mov­ing her par­ka and shak­ing off the snow.

In re­sponse, Mc­Far­lane nod­ded to­ward the print­er. Ami­ra walked to it and grabbed the emerg­ing sheet. Then she barked a laugh. “‘The me­te­orite is red,’” she read aloud. She tossed the sheet in­to Mc­Far­lane’s lap. “Now that’s what I like in a man, suc­cinct­ness.”

“Why fill up pa­per with a lot of use­less spec­ula­tions? Un­til we get a piece of it for study, how can I pos­si­bly say what the hell it is?”

She pulled up a chair and sat down be­side him. It seemed to Mc­Far­lane that, be­neath a forced ca­su­al­ness, she was eye­ing him very care­ful­ly. “You’ve been study­ing me­te­orites for years. I doubt your spec­ula­tions would be use­less.”

“What do you think?”

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

Mc­Far­lane glanced down at the pat­tern of rip­ples on the ply­wood ta­ble, trac­ing his fin­ger along them. It had the frac­tal per­fec­tion of a coast­line, or a snowflake, or a Man­del­brot set. It re­mind­ed him how com­pli­cat­ed ev­ery­thing was: the uni­verse, an atom, a piece of wood. Out of the cor­ner of his eye he saw Ami­ra draw a met­al cigar tube from her par­ka and up­end it, let­ting a half-​burnt sto­gie drop in­to her hand.

“Please don’t,” he said. “I’d rather not be driv­en out in­to the cold.”

Ami­ra re­placed the cigar. “I know some­thing is run­ning through that head of yours.”

Mc­Far­lane shrugged.

“Okay,” she said. “You want to know what I think? You’re in de­nial.”

He turned to look at her again.

“That’s right. You had a pet the­ory once — some­thing you be­lieved in, de­spite the razz­ing of your peers. Isn’t that right? And when you thought you’d fi­nal­ly found ev­idence for that the­ory, it got you in­to trou­ble. In all the ex­cite­ment you lost your usu­al good judg­ment and shaft­ed a friend. And in the end, your ev­idence turned out to be worth­less.”

Mc­Far­lane looked at her. “I didn’t know you had a de­gree in psy­chi­atry, along with ev­ery­thing else.”

She leaned clos­er, press­ing. “Sure, I heard the sto­ry. The point is, now you’ve got what you’ve been look­ing for all these years. You’ve got more than ev­idence. You’ve got proof. But you don’t want to ad­mit it. You’re afraid to go down that road again.”

Mc­Far­lane held her gaze for a minute. He felt his anger drain away. He slumped in his chair, his mind in tur­moil. Could she be right? he won­dered.

She laughed. “Take the col­or, for ex­am­ple. You know why no met­als are deep red?” “No.”

“Ob­jects are a cer­tain col­or be­cause of the way they in­ter­act with pho­tons of light.” Ami­ra shoved a hand in her pock­et and took out a crum­pled pa­per bag. “Jol­ly Ranch­er?”

“What the hell’s a Jol­ly Ranch­er?”

She tossed him a can­dy and shook an­oth­er one in­to her hand. She held the green lozenge up be­tween thumb and fore­fin­ger. “Ev­ery ob­ject, ex­cept for a per­fect black­body, ab­sorbs some wave­lengths of light and scat­ters oth­ers. Take this green can­dy. It’s green be­cause its scat­ters the green wave­lengths of light back at our eye, while ab­sorb­ing the rest. I’ve run a few pret­ty lit­tle cal­cu­la­tions, and I can’t find a sin­gle the­oret­ical com­bi­na­tion of al­loyed met­als that will scat­ter red light. It seems to be im­pos­si­ble for any known al­loy to be deep red. Yel­low, white, or­ange, pur­ple, gray — but not red.” She popped the green can­dy in her mouth, bit down with a loud crunch, and be­gan to chew.

Mc­Far­lane placed his can­dy on the ta­ble. “So what are you say­ing?”

“You know what I’m say­ing. I’m say­ing it’s made of some weird el­ement we’ve nev­er seen be­fore. So stop be­ing coy. I know that’s what you’ve been think­ing: This is it: this is an in­ter­stel­lar me­te­orite.”

Mc­Far­lane raised his hand. “All right, it’s true, I have been think­ing about it.”

“And?”

“All the me­te­orites ev­er found have been made from known el­ements — nick­el, iron, car­bon, sil­icon. They all formed here, in our own so­lar sys­tem, out of the pri­mor­dial cloud of dust that once sur­round­ed our sun.” He paused, choos­ing his words care­ful­ly. “Ob­vi­ous­ly, you know I used to spec­ulate about the pos­si­bil­ity of me­te­orites com­ing from out­side the so­lar sys­tem. A chunk of some­thing that just hap­pened to wan­der past and get caught in the sun’s grav­ita­tion­al field. An in­ter­stel­lar me­te­orite.”

Ami­ra smiled know­ing­ly. “But the math­emati­cians said it was im­pos­si­ble: a quin­til­lion to one.”

Mc­Far­lane nod­ded.

“I ran some cal­cu­la­tions back on the ship. The math­emati­cians were wrong: they were work­ing from faulty as­sump­tions. It’s on­ly about a bil­lion to one.”

Mc­Far­lane laughed. “Yeah. Bil­lion, quin­til­lion, what’s the dif­fer­ence?”

“It’s a bil­lion to one for any giv­en year.”

Mc­Far­lane stopped laugh­ing.

“That’s right,” said Ami­ra. “Over bil­lions of years, there’s a bet­ter than even chance that one did land on Earth. It’s not on­ly pos­si­ble, it’s prob­able. I res­ur­rect­ed your lit­tle the­ory for you. You owe me, big time.”

A si­lence fell in the com­mis­sary hut, bro­ken on­ly by the rat­tle of wind. Then Mc­Far­lane be­gan to speak. “You mean you re­al­ly be­lieve this me­te­orite is made of some al­loy or met­al that doesn’t ex­ist any­where in the so­lar sys­tem?”

“Yup. And you be­lieve it, too. That’s why you haven’t writ­ten your re­port.”

Mc­Far­lane went on slow­ly, al­most to him­self. “If this met­al did ex­ist some­where, we’d have found at least some trace of it. Af­ter all, the sun and the plan­ets formed from the same dust cloud. So it must have come from be­yond.” He looked at her. “It’s in­escapable.”

She grinned. “My thoughts ex­act­ly.”

He fell silent and the two sat, ab­sorbed for the mo­ment. “We need to get our hands on a piece of it,” Ami­ra said at last. “I’ve got the per­fect tool for the job, too, a high­speed di­amond cor­er. I’d say five ki­los would be a nice chunk to start with, wouldn’t you?”

Mc­Far­lane nod­ded. “But let’s just keep our spec­ula­tions to our­selves for now. Lloyd and the rest are due here any minute.”

As if on cue, there was a stomp­ing out­side the hut, and the door opened to re­veal Lloyd, even more bear­like than usu­al in a heavy par­ka, framed against the dim blue light. Glinn fol­lowed, then Rochefort and Garza. Lloyd’s as­sis­tant, Pen­fold, came last, shiv­er­ing, his thick lips blue and pursed.

“Cold as a witch’s tit out there,” Lloyd cried, stamp­ing his feet and hold­ing his hands near the stove. He was bub­bling over with good hu­mor. The men from EES, on the oth­er hand, sim­ply sat down at the ta­ble, look­ing sub­dued.

Pen­fold took up a po­si­tion in the far cor­ner of the room, ra­dio in hand. “Mr. Lloyd sir, we have to get to the land­ing site,” he said. “Un­less the he­li­copter leaves with­in the hour, you’ll nev­er get back to New York in time for the share­hold­ers’ meet­ing.”

“Yes, yes. In a minute. I want to hear what Sam here has to say.”

Pen­fold sighed and mur­mured in­to the ra­dio.

Glinn glanced at Mc­Far­lane with his gray, se­ri­ous eyes. “Is the re­port ready?”

“Sure.” Mc­Far­lane nod­ded at the piece of pa­per.

Glinn glanced at it. “I’m not much in the mood for drollery, Dr. Mc­Far­lane.”

It was the first time Mc­Far­lane had seen Glinn show ir­ri­ta­tion, or any strong emo­tion, for that mat­ter. It oc­curred to him that Glinn, too, must have been shocked by what they found in the hole. This is a man who hates sur­pris­es, he thought. “Mr. Glinn, I can’t base a re­port on spec­ula­tion,” he said. “I need to study it.”

“I’ll tell you what we need,” Lloyd said loud­ly. “We need to get it the hell out of the ground and in­to in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters, be­fore the Chileans get wind of this. You can study it lat­er.” It seemed to Mc­Far­lane that this was the lat­est sal­vo in a con­tin­uing ar­gu­ment be­tween Glinn and Lloyd.

“Dr. Mc­Far­lane, per­haps I can sim­pli­fy mat­ters,” Glinn said. “There’s one thing I’m par­tic­ular­ly in­ter­est­ed in know­ing. Is it dan­ger­ous?”

“We know it’s not ra­dioac­tive. It might be poi­sonous, I sup­pose. Most met­als are, to one de­gree or an­oth­er.”

“How poi­sonous?”

Mc­Far­lane shrugged. “Palmer touched it, and he’s still alive.”

“He’ll be the last one to do that,” Glinn replied. “I’ve giv­en or­ders that no­body is to come in­to di­rect con­tact with the me­te­orite, un­der any cir­cum­stances.” He paused. “Any­thing else? Could it be har­bor­ing virus­es?”

“It’s been sit­ting there for mil­lions of years, so any alien mi­crobes would have dis­persed long ago. It might be worth tak­ing soil sam­ples and col­lect­ing moss, lichen, and oth­er plants from the area, to see if any­thing’s un­usu­al.”

“What would one look for?”

“Mu­ta­tions, per­haps, or signs of low-​lev­el ex­po­sure to tox­ins or ter­ato­gens.”

Glinn nod­ded. “I’ll speak to Dr. Bram­bell about it. Dr. Ami­ra, any thoughts on its met­al­lur­gi­cal prop­er­ties? It is a met­al, isn’t it?”

There was an­oth­er crunch of can­dy. “Yes, very like­ly, since it’s fer­ro­mag­net­ic. Like gold, it doesn’t ox­idize. How­ev­er, I can’t fig­ure out how a met­al can be red. Dr. Mc­Far­lane and I were just dis­cussing the need to take a sam­ple.”

“Sam­ple?” Lloyd asked. The room fell silent at the change in his voice.

“Of course,” said Mc­Far­lane af­ter a mo­ment. “It’s stan­dard pro­ce­dure.”

“You’re go­ing to cut a piece off my me­te­orite?”

Mc­Far­lane looked at Lloyd, and then at Glinn. “Is there a prob­lem with that?”

“You’re damn right there’s a prob­lem,” Lloyd said. “This is a mu­se­um spec­imen. We’re putting it on dis­play. I don’t want it chopped up or drilled.”

“There isn’t a ma­jor me­te­orite found that hasn’t been sec­tioned. We’re on­ly talk­ing about cor­ing out a five-​kilo­gram piece. That’ll be enough for all the tests any­one could con­ceiv­ably think of. A piece that large could be worked on for years.”

Lloyd shook his head. “No way.”

“We must do it,” Mc­Far­lane said with ve­he­mence. “There’s no way to study this me­te­orite with­out va­por­iz­ing, melt­ing, pol­ish­ing, etch­ing. Giv­en the size of this thing, the sam­ple would be a drop in the buck­et.”

“It ain’t the Mona Lisa,” Ami­ra mur­mured.

“That’s an ig­no­rant com­ment,” Lloyd said, round­ing on her. Then he sank back with a sigh. “Cut­ting it up seems like such a — well, a sac­ri­lege. Couldn’t we just leave it a mys­tery?”

“Ab­so­lute­ly not,” said Glinn. “We need to know more about it be­fore I’ll au­tho­rize mov­ing it. Dr. Mc­Far­lane is right.”

Lloyd stared at him, his face red­den­ing. “Be­fore you’ll au­tho­rize mov­ing it? Lis­ten to me, Eli. I’ve gone along with all your lit­tle rules. I’ve played your game. But let’s get one thing straight: I’m pay­ing the bills. This is my me­te­orite. You signed a con­tract to get it for me. You like to brag that you’ve nev­er failed. If this ship re­turns to New York with­out that me­te­orite, you will have failed. Am I right?”

Glinn looked at Lloyd. Then he spoke calm­ly, al­most as one might speak to a child. “Mr. Lloyd, you will get your me­te­orite. I mere­ly want to see you have it with­out any­one get­ting un­nec­es­sar­ily hurt. Isn’t that what you want, too?”

Lloyd hes­itat­ed. “Of course it is.”

Mc­Far­lane was amazed at how quick­ly Glinn had put the man on the de­fen­sive.

“Then all I am ask­ing is that we pro­ceed with care.”

Lloyd licked his lips. “It’s just that ev­ery­thing’s come to a grind­ing halt. Why? The me­te­orite’s red. So I ask you, what’s wrong with red? I think it’s great. Has ev­ery­body for­got­ten about our friend in the de­stroy­er? Time is the one thing we don’t have here.”

“Mr. Lloyd!” Pen­fold said, hold­ing up the ra­dio ap­peal­ing­ly, like a beg­gar might hold up an alms cup. “The he­li­copter. Please!”

“God damn it!” Lloyd cried. Af­ter a mo­ment, he spun away. “All right, for chris­sakes, take your sam­ple. Just cap the hole so it isn’t vis­ible. And do it fast. By the time I get back to New York, I want that son of a bitch on the move.”

He stomped out of the hut, Pen­fold at his heels. The door banged shut be­hind them. For a minute, maybe two, the room was still. Then Ami­ra rose to her feet.

“Come on, Sam,” she said. “Let’s drill this suck­er.”

Is­la Des­olación,

2:15 P.M.

AF­TER THE warmth of the hut, the wind felt keen as a knife. Mc­Far­lane shiv­ered as he fol­lowed Ami­ra to tech stores, think­ing long­ing­ly of the dry heat of the Kala­hari.

The con­tain­er was longer and wider than the rest, dingy on the out­side, clean and spa­cious on the in­side. Mon­itors and rack-​mount­ed di­ag­nos­tic tools, pow­ered by the cen­tral gen­er­ator in a neigh­bor­ing hut, glowed in the dim light. Ami­ra made for a large met­al ta­ble, which held a col­lapsed tri­pod and a high-​speed portable min­ing drill. If it weren’t for the leather sling around the drill, Mc­Far­lane would nev­er have sus­pect­ed it of be­ing par­tic­ular­ly “portable.” It looked like a twen­ty-​first-​cen­tu­ry bazooka.

Ami­ra pat­ted the drill af­fec­tion­ate­ly. “Don’t you just love high-​tech toys that break things? Look at this moth­er. Ev­er seen one of these be­fore?”

“Not one so big.” Mc­Far­lane watched as she ex­pert­ly broke the drill down and ex­am­ined its com­po­nents. Sat­is­fied, she slapped it back to­geth­er, plugged the end of a heavy cord in­to a sock­et, and ran the ma­chine through its di­ag­nos­tics.

“Check this out.” She heft­ed a long, cru­el-​look­ing shaft of met­al, one end bul­bous and pocked like a club, with a hol­low core. “Ten carats of in­dus­tri­al di­amond in the bit alone.” She pressed a but­ton and the elec­tron­ic chuck loos­ened with a snap. She slung the drill over her shoul­der with a grunt and pressed its trig­ger, fill­ing the room with a deep-​throat­ed growl. “Time to make a hole,” she said, grin­ning.

They left the equip­ment hut and head­ed out in­to the gloom, Mc­Far­lane play­ing out the elec­tri­cal cord be­hind them. A shod­dy-​look­ing main­te­nance shack had been erect­ed over the ex­posed me­te­orite, con­ceal­ing it from view. In­side, banks of halo­gen lights bathed the shal­low cut in a cool glow. Glinn was al­ready stand­ing at the edge of the hole, peer­ing down, ra­dio in one hand, his small frame set in­to sharp re­lief by the light.

They joined Glinn at the edge of the hole. In the white light, the me­te­orite be­low their feet glowed al­most pur­ple, like a fresh bruise. Pulling off her gloves, Ami­ra took the tri­pod from Mc­Far­lane, quick­ly set its legs, and fit­ted the drill in­to its hous­ing. “This thing has a ter­rif­ic vac­uum sys­tem,” she said, point­ing to a nar­row man­ifold that curved be­neath the bit. “Sucks up ev­ery par­ti­cle of dust. If the met­al’s poi­sonous, it won’t mat­ter.”

“Even so, I’m evac­uat­ing the area,” said Glinn, who raised the ra­dio and spoke rapid­ly in­to it. “And re­mem­ber, keep well back. Do not touch it.” He mo­tioned for the work­men to leave.

Mc­Far­lane watched as Ami­ra snapped on the pow­er switch, checked the in­di­ca­tor lights along the drill’s flank, and deft­ly po­si­tioned the bit above the me­te­orite. “Looks like you’ve done this be­fore,” he said.

“Damn right. Eli here put me through this a dozen times.”

Mc­Far­lane looked at Glinn. “You re­hearsed this?”

“Ev­ery step,” Ami­ra said as she pulled a large re­mote from her pock­et and be­gan cal­ibrat­ing it. “And not just this. Ev­ery­thing. He plans all our projects like an in­va­sion. D-​Day. You prac­tice your ass off, be­cause you on­ly get one shot at the re­al thing.” She stepped back and blew on her hands. “Man, you should’ve seen the big ball of iron Eli made us dig up and schlepp all over cre­ation, again and again. We called it Big Bertha. I re­al­ly learned to hate that damn rock.”

“Where did you do this?”

“Up at the Bar Cross Ranch near Boze­man, Mon­tana. You didn’t re­al­ly think this was a first run, did you?”

With the re­mote cal­ibrat­ed and the drill fixed in­to po­si­tion over the naked sur­face of the me­te­orite, Ami­ra turned to a near­by case and snapped its hinges open. Pulling out a small met­al can, she tore off its lid and — keep­ing well back — up­end­ed it over the me­te­orite. A black, gluey sub­stance poured out, spread­ing over the red sur­face in a vis­cous lay­er. With a small brush, she ap­plied the re­main­der to the end of the di­amond bit. Then, reach­ing in­to the case again, she pulled out a thin sheet of rub­ber and gin­ger­ly pressed it down over the sealant.

“We’ll give that a mo­ment to get tacky,” she ex­plained “We don’t want even the slight­est speck of me­te­orite dust es­cap­ing in­to the air.” She fum­bled in her par­ka, ex­tract­ed the cigar tube, glanced at the ex­pres­sions on Glinn’s and Mc­Far­lane’s faces, sighed, and be­gan crack­ing peanuts in­stead.

Mc­Far­lane shook his head. “Peanuts, can­dy, cigars. What else do you do that your moth­er would dis­ap­prove of?”

She looked at him. “Hot mon­key sex, rock and roll, ex­treme ski­ing, and high-​stakes black­jack.”

Mc­Far­lane laughed. Then he asked, “Are you ner­vous?”

“Not so much ner­vous as in­cred­ibly ex­cit­ed. You?”

Mc­Far­lane thought about this for a mo­ment. It was al­most as if he was al­low­ing him­self to be­come ex­cit­ed; to grow used to the idea that this was, af­ter all, the very thing he had hunt­ed for all those years.

“Yeah,” he said. “Ex­cit­ed.”

Glinn pulled out his gold pock­et watch, flicked open its cov­er, and glanced at its face. “It’s time.”

Ami­ra re­turned to the drill and ad­just­ed a di­al. A low rum­ble be­gan to fill the close air of the shack. She checked the po­si­tion of the bit, then took a step back, mak­ing an ad­just­ment with the re­mote. The rum­ble rose to a whine. She ma­neu­vered a small hat switch on the re­mote, and the whirling bit obe­di­ent­ly de­scend­ed, then re­tract­ed.

“Five by five,” she said, glanc­ing at Glinn.

Glinn reached in­to the open case, pulled out three res­pi­ra­tors, and tossed two of them to Mc­Far­lane and Ami­ra. “We’ll step out­side now and work from the re­mote.”

Mc­Far­lane snugged the res­pi­ra­tor on­to his head, seat­ing the cold rub­ber around his jaws, and stepped out­side. With­out a hood, the wind cut cru­el­ly around his ears and the nape of his neck. From in­side, the an­gry, hor­net­like whine of the idling drill was still clear­ly au­di­ble.

“Far­ther,” Glinn said. “Min­imum dis­tance one hun­dred feet.”

They stepped back from the build­ing. Snow was tum­bling in­to the air, turn­ing the site in­to a filmy sea of white.

“If this turns out to be a space­ship,” Ami­ra said, her voice muf­fled, “some­body in­side’s gonna be mighty pissed when Mr. Di­amond Head pokes through.”

The shack was bare­ly vis­ible through the snow, the open door a dim rect­an­gle of white in the swirling gray. “All ready.”

“Good,” Glinn replied. “Cut through the sealant. We’ll pause at one mil­lime­ter be­low the sur­face of the me­te­orite to scan for out­gassing.”

Ami­ra nod­ded and aimed the re­mote, fin­ger­ing the hat switch. The whine grew loud­er for a mo­ment, then sud­den­ly be­came muf­fled. A few sec­onds went by.

“Fun­ny, I’m not mak­ing any progress,” said Ami­ra.

“Raise the drill.”

Ami­ra pulled back on the hat, and the whine grew loud­er again, set­tling down quick­ly to a steady pitch. “Seems fine.”

“RPM?”

“Twelve thou­sand.”

“Raise it to six­teen and low­er again.”

The whine in­creased in pitch. As Mc­Far­lane lis­tened, it grew muf­fled once again. There was a sharp grind­ing noise, then noth­ing.

Ami­ra glanced at a small LED read­out on the re­mote, its red num­bers stark against the black cas­ing. “It stopped,” she said.

“Any idea why?”

“Seems to be run­ning hot, maybe there’s some­thing wrong with the mo­tor. But the in­ter­nals all checked out.”

“Re­tract and let it cool. Then dou­ble the torque, and low­er again.”

They wait­ed while Ami­ra fid­dled with the re­mote. Mc­Far­lane kept his eyes on the open door of the shack. Af­ter a few mo­ments, Ami­ra grunt­ed to her­self and nosed the hat switch for­ward. The whine re­turned, throat­ier now. Sud­den­ly, the note grew low­er as the drill la­bored.

“Heat­ing up again,” Ami­ra said. “Damn this thing.” Her jaw set, and she gave the hat switch a jab.

The pitch changed abrupt­ly. There was a sharp rip­ping sound, and a dull flick­er of or­ange light burst from the door­way. It was fol­lowed by a loud crack­le, then an­oth­er, much qui­eter. And then all was silent.

“What hap­pened?” Glinn asked sharply.

Ami­ra peered out, frown­ing through her res­pi­ra­tor. “I don’t know.”

She took an im­pul­sive step to­ward the shack, but Glinn put out a hand to stop her. “No. Rachel, de­ter­mine what hap­pened first.”

With a heavy sigh, Ami­ra turned back to the re­mote. “There’s a lot of gib­ber­ish I’ve nev­er seen be­fore,” she said, scrolling back through the LED read­out. “Wait, here’s some­thing. It says `Fail­ure Code 47.’” She looked up and snort­ed. “That’s just great. And the man­ual’s prob­ably back in Mon­tana.”

A small book­let ap­peared, as if by sleight of hand, in Glinn’s right glove. He turned the pages. Then he stopped short. “Fail­ure Code 47, you said?”

“Yup.”

“Im­pos­si­ble.”

There was a pause. “Eli, I don’t think I’ve ev­er heard you use that word be­fore,” Ami­ra replied.

Glinn looked up from the man­ual, alien in his par­ka and goon­like res­pi­ra­tor. “The drill’s burned out.”

“Burned out? With the kind of horse­pow­er that thing’s sport­ing? I don’t be­lieve it.”

Glinn slipped the man­ual back in­to the folds of his par­ka. “Be­lieve it.”

They looked at each oth­er as the snowflakes curled around them.

“But that could on­ly hap­pen if the me­te­orite was hard­er than di­amond,” Ami­ra said.

In an­swer, Glinn sim­ply moved to­ward the hut.

In­side, the air was thick with the smell of burnt rub­ber. The drill was half ob­scured by smoke, the LED lights along its flank dark, its un­der­side scorched. “It’s not re­spond­ing at all,” Ami­ra said, ma­nip­ulat­ing its con­trols by hand.

“Prob­ably tripped the cir­cuit break­ers,” said Glinn. “Re­tract the bit man­ual­ly.”

Mc­Far­lane watched as, inch by inch, the huge bit rose out of the acrid smoke. When the tip at last came in­to view, he saw that its ser­rat­ed end was now an ug­ly, cir­cu­lar scar of met­al, fused and burnt.

“Je­sus,” said Ami­ra. “That was a five-​thou­sand-​dol­lar di­amond-​car­borun­dum bit.”

Mc­Far­lane looked over at Glinn, half hid­den by the curls of smoke. The man’s eyes were not on the drill bit; in­stead, they seemed to be con­tem­plat­ing some­thing in the dis­tance.

As Mc­Far­lane watched, he un­clipped his res­pi­ra­tor and pulled it free.

The wind rose sud­den­ly, slam­ming the door shut, rat­tling its hinges and wor­ry­ing the knob.

“What now?” Ami­ra asked.

“We take the bit back to the Rolvaag for a thor­ough ex­am­ina­tion,” Glinn said.

Ami­ra turned to the drill, but Glinn’s ex­pres­sion had lost none of its dis­tance. “And it’s time we took some­thing else back with us as well,” he added qui­et­ly.

Is­la Des­olación,

3:05 P.M.

OUT­SIDE THE shack, Mc­Far­lane pulled off the res­pi­ra­tor and snugged the hood of his par­ka tight­ly around his face. Wind gust­ed through the stag­ing area, send­ing skeins of snow whirling across the frozen ground. By now, Lloyd must be well on his way back to New York. Al­ready, what lit­tle light the heavy clouds per­mit­ted was fad­ing from the sky. It would be dark in half an hour.

There was a crunch of snow, and Glinn and Ami­ra ap­peared, re­turn­ing from the stores hut. Ami­ra held a flu­ores­cent storm lantern in each hand, and Glinn was pulling a long, low alu­minum sled be­hind him.

“What’s that?” Mc­Far­lane asked, point­ing to a large blue trunk of mold­ed plas­tic that lay on the sled.

“Ev­idence lock­er,” Glinn said. “For the re­mains.” Mc­Far­lane felt a mount­ing queasi­ness in his gut. “Is this ab­so­lute­ly nec­es­sary?”

“I know it can’t be easy for you,” Glinn replied. “But it’s an un­known. And at EES, we dis­like un­knowns.”

As they ap­proached the pile of rocks that marked Masangkay’s grave, the snow flur­ries be­gan to draw away. The Jaws of Hanuxa came in­to view, dark against an even dark­er sky. Be­yond, Mc­Far­lane caught the mer­est patch of storm-​flecked bay. On the dis­tant hori­zon, the sharp peaks of Is­la Wol­las­ton clawed their way sky­ward. It was in­cred­ible how quick­ly the weath­er changed down here.

Al­ready the wind had stuffed snow and ice in­to the crevices of the makeshift cairn, mor­tar­ing the grave in white. With­out cer­emo­ny, Glinn pulled out the cross, laid it down, and be­gan pry­ing frozen rocks from the pile and rolling them aside. He glanced back at Mc­Far­lane. “It’s fine if you’d rather hang back a bit.”

Mc­Far­lane swal­lowed. There were very few things he could imag­ine less pleas­ant than this par­tic­ular job. But if it had to be done, he want­ed to be part of it. “No,” he said. “I’ll help.”

It was much eas­ier to pull the grave apart than it had been to as­sem­ble it. Soon, Masangkay’s re­mains be­gan to come in­to view. Glinn slowed his pace, work­ing more gin­ger­ly. Mc­Far­lane stared at the bro­ken bones; the split skull and bro­ken teeth; the ropy pieces of gris­tle, the part­ly mum­mi­fied flesh. It was hard to be­lieve that this had once been his part­ner and friend. He felt his gorge rise, his breath come fast.

Dark­ness was falling quick­ly. Putting aside the last of the rocks, Glinn lit the lanterns and placed one on ei­ther side of the grave. With a pair of for­ceps he be­gan plac­ing the bones in­to the plas­tic-​lined com­part­ments of the lock­er. A few of the bones still ad­hered to each oth­er, held to­geth­er by strips of car­ti­lage, skin, and des­ic­cat­ed gris­tle, but most looked as if they had been vi­olent­ly torn asun­der.

“I’m no foren­sic pathol­ogist,” said Ami­ra, “but this guy looks like he had a close en­counter with a Pe­ter­bilt “

Glinn said noth­ing, for­ceps mov­ing again and again from the ground to the lock­er, his face hid­den by the folds of his hood. Then he stopped.

“What is it?” Ami­ra asked.

Reach­ing out with the for­ceps, Glinn care­ful­ly pried some­thing out of the frozen dirt. “This boot isn’t just rot­ten,” he said. “It’s been burned. And some of these bones ap­pear to have been burned, too.”

“Do you sup­pose he was mur­dered for his equip­ment?” Ami­ra asked. “And they burned the body to con­ceal the crime? It would be a hell of a lot eas­ier than dig­ging a grave in this soil.”

“That would make Pup­pup a mur­der­er,” said Mc­Far­lane, feel­ing the hard­ness in his own voice.

Glinn held up a dis­tal pha­lanx, ex­am­in­ing it in the light like a small jew­el. “Very un­like­ly,” he said. “How­ev­er, that’s a ques­tion for the good doc­tor to an­swer.”

“About time he had some­thing to do,” Ami­ra said. “In­stead of read­ing his books and wan­der­ing around the ship like a ghoul.”

Glinn placed the bone in­to the ev­idence lock­er. Then he turned back to the gravesite and picked up some­thing else with his for­ceps.

“This was un­der­neath the boot,” he said. He held the ob­ject up to the light, brushed off the cling­ing ice and dirt, and held it up again.

“A belt buck­le,” said Ami­ra.

“What?” Mc­Far­lane asked. He pushed his way for­ward, star­ing.

“It’s some kind of pur­ple gem­stone, placed in a sil­ver set­ting,” Ami­ra said. “But look, it’s been melt­ed.”

Mc­Far­lane sank back.

Ami­ra looked at him. “Are you all right?” Mc­Far­lane mere­ly passed a gloved hand across his eyes and shook his head. To see that here, of all places… Years ago, af­ter they had scored big with the At­aca­ma tek­tites, he had had a pair of belt buck­les made, each with a sec­tioned tek­tite, to cel­ebrate their coup. He’d lost his long ago. But de­spite ev­ery­thing, Nestor had still been wear­ing his at his death. It sur­prised Mc­Far­lane how very much that meant to him.

With­out speak­ing, they gath­ered up the prospec­tor’s mea­ger ef­fects. Then Glinn fas­tened the lock­er, Ami­ra gath­ered up the lights, and the two be­gan trudg­ing back. Mc­Far­lane re­mained a mo­ment longer, star­ing at the cold jum­ble of rocks. Then he turned to fol­low.

Pun­ta Are­nas,

Ju­ly 17, 8:00 A.M.

CO­MAN­DANTE VAL­LENAR stood over the tiny met­al sink in his cab­in, smok­ing the bit­ter end of a puro and lath­er­ing his face with san­dal­wood-​scent­ed shav­ing cream. He de­test­ed the fra­grant shav­ing cream, just like he de­test­ed the ra­zor that lay on the basin: a two-​blad­ed dis­pos­able of bright yel­low plas­tic. Typ­ical Amer­ican throw­away trash. Who else would build such a waste­ful thing, two blades when just a sin­gle blade would do? But naval stores were capri­cious, es­pe­cial­ly for ships that spent most of their time in the far south. He stared at the lit­tle dis­pos­able in dis­gust, one of a pack of ten that the quar­ter­mas­ter had is­sued him that morn­ing. It was ei­ther that or a straight ra­zor. And on board ship, straight ra­zors could be dan­ger­ous.

He rinsed the blade, then raised it to his left cheek­bone. He al­ways start­ed with the left side of his face: he had nev­er been com­fort­able shav­ing with his left hand, and this side was eas­ier some­how.

At least the shav­ing cream hid the smell of the ship. Almi­rante Ramirez was the old­est de­stroy­er in the fleet, pur­chased from the U.K. in the fifties. Decades of poor san­ita­tion, veg­etable peel­ings rot­ting in bil­ge­wa­ter, chem­ical sol­vents, faulty sewage dis­pos­al, and spilled diesel fu­el had suf­fused the ves­sel with a stench that noth­ing short of sink­ing would erad­icate.

The sud­den blat of an airhom chased away the noise of cry­ing birds and dis­tant traf­fic. He glanced through the rust­ed port­hole to­ward the piers and the city be­yond. It was a bril­liant day, with crys­tal skies and a brisk cold wind from the west.

The co­man­dante re­turned to his shav­ing. He nev­er liked an­chor­ing in Pun­ta Are­nas; it was a poor place for a ship, es­pe­cial­ly in a west­er­ly wind. He was sur­round­ed, as usu­al, by fish­ing boats tak­ing ad­van­tage of the de­stroy­er’s lee. It was typ­ical South Amer­ican an­ar­chy; no dis­ci­pline, no sense of the dig­ni­ty due a mil­itary ves­sel.

There was a rap on the door. “Co­man­dante,” came the voice of Tim­mer, the sig­nal of­fi­cer.

“En­ter,” the co­man­dante said with­out turn­ing. In the mir­ror, he could see the door open and Tim­mer en­ter with an­oth­er man in tow: a civil­ian, well-​fed, pros­per­ous, sat­is­fied with him­self.

Val­lenar ran the blade a few times along his chin. Then he rinsed the blade in the met­al basin and turned. “Thank you, Mr. Tim­mer,” he said with a smile. “You may go. If you would be so kind as to post a man out­side.”

Af­ter Tim­mer left, Val­lenar took a mo­ment to ex­am­ine the man be­fore him. He stood be­fore the desk, a slight smile on his face, no trace of ap­pre­hen­sion. And why should he be afraid? Val­lenar thought, with­out mal­ice. Val­lenar was a com­man­der in name on­ly. He had the old­est war­ship in the fleet, with the worst post­ing. So who could blame the man who stood here be­fore him now for stick­ing out his chest ev­er so slight­ly, for feel­ing like a big man who could stare down the pow­er­less co­man­dante of a rust­ing ves­sel?

Val­lenar took one last, deep drag on the puro, then flicked it out the open port­hole. He laid down the ra­zor and pulled a cigar box from a desk draw­er with his good hand, of­fer­ing the box to the stranger. The man glanced at the cigars with dis­dain and shook his head. Val­lenar took one for him­self.

“I apol­ogize for the cigars,” the co­man­dante said, re­plac­ing the box. “They are of very poor qual­ity. Here in the navy, you must take what you are giv­en.”

The man smiled con­de­scend­ing­ly, star­ing at his with­ered right arm. Val­lenar eyed the heavy sheen of po­made in the man’s hair and the clear pol­ish on his fin­ger­nails. “Sit down, my friend,” he said, plac­ing the cigar in his mouth. “For­give me if I con­tin­ue shav­ing while we talk.”

The man took a seat in front of the desk, dain­ti­ly prop­ping one leg over the oth­er.

“I un­der­stand you are a deal­er in used elec­tron­ic equip­ment — watch­es, com­put­ers, pho­to­copiers, that sort of thing.” Val­lenar paused while draw­ing the ra­zor across his up­per lip. “Yes?”

“New and used equip­ment,” the man said.

“I stand cor­rect­ed,” Val­lenar said. “About four or five months ago — it would have been in March, I be­lieve — you pur­chased a cer­tain piece of equip­ment, a to­mo­graph­ic sounder. It is a tool used by prospec­tors, a set of long met­al rods with a key­board at its cen­ter. Did you not?”

“Mi Co­man­dante, I have a large busi­ness. I can­not re­mem­ber ev­ery piece of junk that cross­es my door.”

Val­lenar turned. “I did not say it was junk. You said you sell new and used equip­ment, did you not?”

The mer­chant shrugged, raised his hands, and smiled. It was a smile that the co­man­dante had seen count­less times be­fore from pet­ty bu­reau­crats, of­fi­cials, busi­ness­men. It was a smile that said, I won’t know any­thing, and I won’t help you, un­til I get la mor­di­da, the bribe. It was the same smile he had seen on the faces of the cus­toms of­fi­cials in Puer­to Williams, a week be­fore. And yet to­day, in­stead of rage, he felt on­ly a great pity for this man. A man like this wasn’t born pol­lut­ed. He had been cor­rupt­ed by de­grees. It was a symp­tom of a greater sick­ness; a sick­ness that man­ifest­ed it­self all around him.

Sigh­ing deeply, Val­lenar came around the desk and perched on the edge clos­est to the mer­chant. He smiled at the man, feel­ing the shav­ing cream dry­ing on his skin. The mer­chant nod­ded his head with a con­spir­ato­ri­al wink. As he did so, he rubbed his thumb and fore­fin­ger to­geth­er in the uni­ver­sal ges­ture, lay­ing the oth­er man­icured palm on the ta­ble.

As quick as a strik­ing snake, the co­man­dante’s hand shot for­ward. With a sharp, dig­ging move­ment, he sank the twin blades of the ra­zor in­to the moon end of the mer­chant’s mid­dle fin­ger­nail. The man drew in his breath sharply. Ter­ri­fied eyes stared up at the co­man­dante, who met his gaze with per­fect im­pas­siv­ity. Then the co­man­dante gave a bru­tal tug and the man shrieked as the fin­ger­nail was torn away.

Val­lenar shook the ra­zor, flick­ing the bloody nail out the port­hole. Then he turned to the mir­ror and re­sumed shav­ing. For a mo­ment, the on­ly sounds in the small cab­in were the scrape of the blades against skin and the loud moan­ing of the mer­chant. Val­lenar no­ticed, with faint in­ter­est, that the ra­zor was leav­ing an un­shaven stripe on his face; a piece of mat­ter must have re­mained stuck be­tween the blades.

He rinsed the blade again and fin­ished shav­ing. Then, pat­ting and dry­ing his face, he turned to the mer­chant. The man had risen to his feet and was stand­ing be­fore the desk, sway­ing and moan­ing, and clutch­ing his drip­ping fin­ger.

Val­lenar leaned over the desk, tugged a hand­ker­chief out of his pock­et, and gen­tly wrapped it around the man’s wound­ed fin­ger. “Please, sit down,” he said.

The mer­chant sat, whim­per­ing soft­ly, his jowls quiv­er­ing with fright.

“You will do us both a ser­vice if you an­swer my ques­tions quick­ly and pre­cise­ly. Now, did you pur­chase a de­vice such as I de­scribed?”

“Yes, I did,” the man said in­stant­ly. “I did have an in­stru­ment like that, Co­man­dante.”

“And who bought it from you?”

“An Amer­ican artist.” He cra­dled his wound­ed fin­ger.

“An artist?”

“A sculp­tor. He want­ed to make a mod­ern sculp­ture out of it to show in New York. It was rust­ed, use­less for any­thing else.”

Val­lenar smiled. “An Amer­ican sculp­tor. What was his name?”

“He did not give me his name.”

Val­lenar nod­ded, still smil­ing. The man was now so very ea­ger to tell the truth. “Of course not. And now tell me, señor — but I re­al­ize I have not asked your name. How in­con­sid­er­ate of me.”

“Tornero, mi Co­man­dante. Rafael Tornero Perea.”

“Señor Tornero, tell me, from whom did you pur­chase the in­stru­ment?”

“A mes­ti­zo.”

Val­lenar paused. “A mes­ti­zo? What was his name?”

“I am sor­ry… I do not know.”

Val­lenar frowned. “You don’t know his name? There are very few mes­ti­zos left, and few­er still come to Pun­ta Are­nas.”

“I can’t re­mem­ber, Co­man­dante, tru­ly I can’t.” The man’s eyes grew fran­tic as he searched his mem­ory in des­per­ation. Sweat trick­led from the po­mad­ed brow. “He was not from Pun­ta Are­nas, he was from the south. It was a strange name.”

Sud­den­ly, a flash came over Val­lenar. “Was it Pup­pup? Juan Pup­pup?”

“Yes! Thank you, thank you, Co­man­dante, for re­fresh­ing my mem­ory. Pup­pup. That was the name.”

“Did he say where he found it?”

“Yes. He said he found it on las Is­las de Hornos. I didn’t be­lieve him. Why would any­thing of val­ue be found down there?” The man was bab­bling ur­gent­ly now, speak­ing as if he could not get the words out fast enough. “I thought he was try­ing to get a bet­ter price.” His face bright­ened. “And now, I re­mem­ber, there was a pick, and a strange-​look­ing ham­mer, too. “

“A strange-​look­ing ham­mer?”

“Yes. One end was long and curved. And there was a leather bag of rocks. The Amer­ican bought all those things, too.”

Val­lenar leaned ea­ger­ly across the desk. “Rocks? Did you look at them?”

“Yes, sir, I cer­tain­ly did. I looked at them.”

“Were they gold?”

“Oh, no. They had no val­ue.”

“Ah. And you must be a ge­ol­ogist, of course, to know that they had no val­ue?”

Though Val­lenar’s tone was mild, the man cringed in the chair. “Co­man­dante, I showed them to Señor Alon­so Tor­res, who owns the rock shop on Calle Col­inas. I thought they might be valu­able ores. But he said they were worth­less. He said I should throw them away.”

“And how would he know?”

“He knows, Co­man­dante. He is an ex­pert in rocks and min­er­als.”

Val­lenar walked to­ward the sin­gle port­hole, limed and rust­ed from years of salt wa­ter. “Did he say what they were?”

“He said they were noth­ing.”

Val­lenar turned back to the mer­chant. “What did they look like?”

“They were just rocks. Ug­ly rocks.”

Val­lenar closed his eyes, try­ing hard to stem the anger ris­ing with­in him. It would be un­seem­ly to lose his tem­per, here in front of a guest on his own ship.

“I may have one more in my shop, Co­man­dante.”

Val­lenar opened his eyes again. “You may?”

“Señor Tor­res kept one to do fur­ther tests. I got it back af­ter the Amer­ican bought the in­stru­ment. For a time, I used it as a pa­per­weight. I, too, hoped it might be valu­able, de­spite what Señor Tor­res said. Per­haps I can still lo­cate it.”

Co­man­dante Val­lenar sud­den­ly smiled. He re­moved the un­lit cigar from his mouth, ex­am­ined the tip, and lit it from a box of wood­en match­es on his desk. “I should like to pur­chase this rock you men­tion.”

“You are in­ter­est­ed in this rock? It would be my priv­ilege to give it to you. Let us not talk of pur­chase, Co­man­dante.”

Val­lenar bowed slight­ly. “Then I would be pleased to ac­com­pa­ny you, señor, to your place of busi­ness, to ac­cept this kind gift.” Then he took a deep drag on the cigar and, with the great­est of cour­tesy, ush­ered the mer­chant out of the cab­in and in­to the foul cen­tral cor­ri­dor of the Almi­rante Ramirez.

Rolvaag,

9:35 A.M.

THE DRILL bit was laid out on an ex­am­ina­tion ta­ble, its scorched head rest­ing on a bed of white plas­tic. A bank of over­head lights bathed the hulk in blue. Sam­pling in­stru­ments were lined up be­side it, in­di­vid­ual­ly sealed in plas­tic. Mc­Far­lane, dressed in scrubs, fit­ted a sur­gi­cal mask in­to po­si­tion over his head. The chan­nel was un­usu­al­ly calm. In the win­dow­less lab, it was hard to be­lieve they were on board a ship.

“Scalpel, doc­tor?” Ami­ra asked, her voice muf­fled by her mask.

Mc­Far­lane shook his head. “Nurse, I think we lost the pa­tient.”

Ami­ra clucked in sym­pa­thy. Be­hind her, Eli Glinn watched, arms fold­ed.

Mc­Far­lane moved to an elec­tron­ic stere­ozoom mi­cro­scope and swiveled it in­to po­si­tion over the ta­ble. A high­ly mag­ni­fied pic­ture of the drill head flick­ered in­to view on a near­by work­sta­tion screen: a land­scape of Ar­maged­don, fused canyons and melt­ed ridges. “Let’s burn one,” he said.

“Sure thing, doc,” Ami­ra said, slid­ing a write­able CD in­to the drive bay of the ma­chine.

Mc­Far­lane pulled a swiv­el chair to­ward the ta­ble, sat down at the mi­cro­scope, and snugged the twin eye­pieces to his head. Slow­ly, he moved the eye­pieces, scan­ning the crevass­es, hop­ing the drill bit might have re­moved some­thing, no mat­ter how small, from the sur­face of the me­te­orite. But no tell­tale par­ti­cles of red gleamed in the lu­nar land­scape, even when he switched to UV light. As he searched, he was aware that Glinn had come for­ward and was star­ing at the video screen.

Af­ter sev­er­al fruit­less min­utes, Mc­Far­lane sighed. “Go to 120x.”

Ami­ra ad­just­ed the ma­chine. The land­scape leapt for­ward, look­ing even more grotesque. Again Mc­Far­lane scanned it, sec­tor by sec­tor.

“I can’t be­lieve it,” said Ami­ra, star­ing at the screen. “It should have picked up some­thing.”

Mc­Far­lane sat back with a sigh. “If it did, it’s be­yond the pow­er of this mi­cro­scope to see it.”

“That sug­gests the me­te­orite must be one tena­cious crys­tal lat­tice.”

“It sure as hell isn’t a nor­mal met­al.” Mc­Far­lane slapped the two eye­pieces to­geth­er and fold­ed them back in­to the ma­chine.

“What now?” said Glinn, his voice low.

Mc­Far­lane swiveled in his chair. He pulled down the mask and thought for a mo­ment. “There’s al­ways the elec­tron mi­cro­probe.”

“And that is…?”

“The plan­etary ge­ol­ogist’s fa­vorite tool. We’ve got one here. You put a sam­ple of ma­te­ri­al in a vac­uum cham­ber, shoot a high-​speed beam of elec­trons at it. Nor­mal­ly, you an­alyze the X rays it pro­duces, but you can heat up the elec­tron beam to the point where it’ll va­por­ize a tiny amount of the ma­te­ri­al, which will con­dense as a thin film on a gold plate. Voilà, your sam­ple. Small, but vi­able.”

“How do you know the elec­tron beam will be able to va­por­ize a bit of the rock?” Glinn asked.

“The elec­trons are eject­ed from a fil­ament at ex­treme­ly high speed. You can ramp it up al­most to the speed of light and fo­cus it down to a mi­crom­eter. Be­lieve me, it’ll knock off at least a few atoms.”

Glinn was silent, clear­ly weigh­ing in his mind the pos­si­ble dan­ger against the need for more in­for­ma­tion. “Very well,” he said. “Pro­ceed. But re­mem­ber, no one is to touch the me­te­orite di­rect­ly.”

Mc­Far­lane frowned. “The tricky part is how to do it. Nor­mal­ly, you bring the sam­ple to the mi­cro­probe. This time we’ll have to bring the mi­cro­probe to the sam­ple. But the thing isn’t portable — it weighs about six hun­dred pounds. And we’ll have to ju­ry-​rig some sort of vac­uum cham­ber over its sur­face.”

Glinn re­moved a ra­dio from his belt. “Garza? I want eight men up on the main­deck im­me­di­ate­ly. We’ll need to get a sling and ve­hi­cle big enough to move a six-​hun­dred-​pound in­stru­ment on the first morn­ing trans­port.”

“Tell him we need a ma­jor pow­er source, too,” Mc­Far­lane added.

“And have a ca­ble with a ground-​fault in­ter­rupt able to car­ry up to twen­ty thou­sand watts.”

Mc­Far­lane gave a low whis­tle. “That’ll do it.”

“You have one hour to get your sam­ples. We have no more time.” These words were spo­ken very slow­ly, and very clear­ly. “Garza will be here short­ly. Be ready.”

Glinn rose abrupt­ly and left the lab, the door suck­ing in a gust of frigid air as it shut be­hind him.

Mc­Far­lane looked at Ami­ra. “He’s get­ting touchy.”

“He hates not know­ing,” said Ami­ra. “Un­cer­tain­ty drives him around the bend.”

“It must be hard to live life like that.”

A dis­tant look of pain crossed her face. “You haven’t any idea.”

Mc­Far­lane looked at her cu­ri­ous­ly, but Ami­ra mere­ly pulled down her mask and re­moved her gloves. “Let’s break down the mi­cro­probe for trans­port,” she said.

Is­la Des­olación,

1:45 P.M.

BY EAR­LY af­ter­noon, the stag­ing area had been prepped for the test. In­side the lit­tle shack, the light was bril­liant, the air suf­fo­cat­ing­ly warm. Mc­Far­lane stood over the hole, look­ing down on the rich, deep red sur­face. Even in the harsh light it had a soft lus­ter. The mi­cro­probe, a long cylin­der of stain­less steel, lay on a padded cra­dle. Ami­ra was ar­rang­ing the oth­er equip­ment Mc­Far­lane had or­dered: an inch-​thick bell jar con­tain­ing a fil­ament and plug, a set of gold disks sealed in plas­tic, and an elec­tro­mag­net for fo­cus­ing the elec­tron beam.

“I need one square foot of the me­te­orite cleaned to ab­so­lute per­fec­tion,” Mc­Far­lane said to Glinn, who was stand­ing near­by. “Oth­er­wise we’ll get con­tam­inants.”

“We’ll make it hap­pen,” said Glinn. “Once we get the sam­ples, what’s your plan?”

“We’ll run a se­ries of tests on them. With any luck, we’ll be able to de­ter­mine its ba­sic elec­tri­cal, chem­ical, and phys­ical prop­er­ties.”

“How long will that take?”

“Forty-​eight hours. More, if we eat and sleep.”

Glinn’s lips com­pressed to­geth­er. “We can’t af­ford more than twelve hours. Con­fine your­self to the most es­sen­tial tests.” He checked his mas­sive gold pock­et watch. An­oth­er hour, and all was in readi­ness. The bell jar had been tight­ly sealed to the sur­face of the me­te­orite — an ex­cru­ci­at­ing­ly cau­tious op­er­ation. In­side the bell jar, ten tiny sam­ple disks lay on pieces of glass, ar­rayed in a cir­cle. A ring of elec­tro­mag­nets sur­round­ed the jar. The elec­tron mi­cro­probe lay near­by, par­tial­ly open, its com­plex guts ex­posed. Mul­ti­col­ored wires and tubes streamed from it.

“Rachel, please turn on the vac­uum pump,” Mc­Far­lane said.

There was a whir as air was sucked from the bell jar. Mc­Far­lane mon­itored a screen on the mi­cro­probe. “What do you know. The seal’s hold­ing. Vac­uum’s down to five mi­cro­bars.”

Glinn moved clos­er, watch­ing the small screen in­tent­ly.

“Turn on the elec­tro­mag­nets,” Mc­Far­lane said.

“You’ve got it,” said Ami­ra.

“Douse the lights.”

The room went dark. The on­ly light came from cracks in the walls of the ill-​made shack and from the LEDs ar­ranged along the mi­cro­probe’s con­trols.

“I’m turn­ing the beam on at low pow­er,” Mc­Far­lane whis­pered.

A faint bluish beam ap­peared in the bell jar. It flick­ered and ro­tat­ed, cast­ing a spec­tral light across the me­te­orite’s sur­face, turn­ing the crim­son sur­face al­most black. The walls of the shack danced and wa­vered.

Mc­Far­lane care­ful­ly turned two sets of di­als, al­ter­ing the mag­net­ic fields around the jar. The beam stopped ro­tat­ing and be­gan to nar­row, be­com­ing brighter. Soon it looked like a blue pen­cil, its point rest­ing on the me­te­orite’s sur­face.

“We’re there,” he said. “Now I’m go­ing to bring it to full pow­er for five sec­onds.”

He held his breath. If Glinn’s con­cerns were jus­ti­fied—if the me­te­orite was some­how dan­ger­ous — this was when they might find out.

He pressed the timer. There was a sud­den, much brighter, beam in­side the jar. Where it touched the me­te­orite’s sur­face, there was an in­tense vi­olet pin­point of light. Five sec­onds ticked off, and then ev­ery­thing went dark again. Mc­Far­lane felt him­self re­lax in­vol­un­tar­ily. “Lights.”

As the lights came on, Mc­Far­lane knelt above the me­te­orite’s sur­face, star­ing ea­ger­ly at the gold disks. He caught his breath. Each disk was now marked with the faintest blush of red. Not on­ly that, but at the spot where the elec­tron beam had touched the me­te­orite, he saw — or thought he saw — the tini­est pit, a gleam­ing speck on the smooth sur­face.

He straight­ened up.

“Well?” asked Glinn. “What hap­pened?”

Mc­Far­lane grinned. “This ba­by isn’t so tough, af­ter all.”

Is­la Des­olación,

Ju­ly 18, 9:00 A.M.

MC­FAR­LANE CRUNCHED across the stag­ing area, Ami­ra at his side. The site looked the same — the same rows of con­tain­ers and Quon­set huts; the same raw, frost­ed earth. On­ly he was dif­fer­ent. He felt bone tired yet ex­hil­arat­ed. As they walked in si­lence, the crisp air seemed to mag­ni­fy ev­ery­thing: the sound of his boots creak­ing in the fresh snow, the clat­ter of dis­tant ma­chin­ery, the rasp of his own breath. It helped clear his head of all the strange spec­ula­tions that the night’s ex­per­iments had aroused.

Reach­ing the bank of con­tain­ers, he ap­proached the main lab and held open the door for Ami­ra. In­side, in the dim light, he could see Stoneci­pher, the project’s sec­ond en­gi­neer, work­ing on an open com­put­er box, disks and cir­cuit boards spread out fan­wise. Stoneci­pher straight­ened up his short, nar­row body at their ar­rival.

“Mr. Glinn wants to see you, on the dou­ble,” he said.

“Where is he?” asked Mc­Far­lane.

“Un­der­ground. I’ll take you.”

Not far from the shack that cov­ered the me­te­orite, a sec­ond shack had been erect­ed, even more di­lap­idat­ed than its cousin. The door to this shack opened and Garza emerged, wear­ing a hard hat be­neath his hood and car­ry­ing sev­er­al oth­ers in his hands. He tossed one to each of them.

“Come on in,” he said, ush­er­ing them in­to the small­er shack. Mc­Far­lane looked around the dim space, won­der­ing what was go­ing on. The shack held noth­ing but some old tools and sev­er­al nail kegs.

“What’s this?” Mc­Far­lane asked.

“You’ll see,” said Garza with a grin. He rolled the nail kegs away from the cen­ter of the shack, ex­pos­ing a steel plate, which he hooked open.

Mc­Far­lane drew in his breath in as­ton­ish­ment. The open trap­door re­vealed a de­scend­ing stair­case in a tun­nel, cut in­to the ground, and heav­ily re­in­forced with steel. White light blazed up­ward. “Pret­ty cloak-​and-​dag­ger,” he said.

Garza laughed. “I call it the King Tut method. They hid the tun­nel in­to King Tut’s trea­sure cham­ber by lo­cat­ing it be­neath the shack of an in­signif­icant work­er.”

They de­scend­ed the nar­row stair­case, sin­gle file, to a nar­row tun­nel il­lu­mi­nat­ed by du­al lines of flu­ores­cent lights. The tun­nel was so mas­sive­ly cribbed with I-​beams that it seemed made en­tire­ly of steel. The group pro­ceed­ed sin­gle file, their breath leav­ing fog trails in the frosty air. Ici­cles hung from the over­head struts, and hoar­frost grew in sheets and spikes along the walls. Mc­Far­lane caught his breath as he saw a patch of un­mis­tak­able col­or ahead of them, bright red against the shine of ice and steel.

“You’re look­ing at a small sec­tion of the me­te­orite’s un­der­side,” Garza said, stop­ping be­side it.

Un­der­neath the lus­trous red sur­face, a row of jacks, each a foot in di­am­eter, sat like squat pil­lars on fat, claw­like feet, bolt­ed to the met­al crib­bing on the floor and walls.

“There they are,” said Garza af­fec­tion­ate­ly. “The bad boys who’ll be do­ing the lift­ing.” He pat­ted the clos­est with a gloved hand. “At go-​ahead, we’ll lift the rock ex­act­ly six cen­time­ters. Then we’ll wedge it, repo­si­tion the jacks, and lift again. As soon as we get enough clear­ance, we’ll start build­ing the cra­dle un­der­neath. It’ll be cramped, and cold as hell, but it’s the on­ly way.”

“We’ve placed fifty per­cent more jacks than we need,” added Rochefort. His face had turned mot­tled in the cold, and his nose was blue. “The tun­nel was de­signed to be stronger than the ma­trix of the earth it­self. It’s com­plete­ly safe.” He spoke very rapid­ly, his thin lips com­pressed in a dis­ap­prov­ing frown, as if he felt any ques­tion­ing of his work would be a waste of time as well as an af­front.

Garza turned away from the me­te­orite and led the group down a tun­nel that branched away at right an­gles. Sev­er­al small­er tun­nels curved away from its right-​hand wall, head­ing to oth­er ex­posed ar­eas of the me­te­orite’s un­der­side and ad­di­tion­al banks of jacks. Af­ter about a hun­dred feet, the tun­nel opened in­to a huge sub­ter­ranean stor­age room. It had a packed dirt floor and was roofed with cais­son plates. In­side, I-​beams, lam­inat­ed tim­bers, and struc­tural steel were stacked in or­der­ly rows, along with a va­ri­ety of con­struc­tion equip­ment. Glinn stood at the far end of the space, talk­ing qui­et­ly to a tech­ni­cian.

“Je­sus,” breathed Mc­Far­lane. “This place is huge. I can’t be­lieve you built it in a cou­ple of days.”

“We don’t want any­one nos­ing around our ware­house,” said Garza. “If an en­gi­neer saw all this, he’d know im­me­di­ate­ly we weren’t min­ing iron. Or gold. This will be used to build the cra­dle, bit by bit, as we jack up the me­te­orite and get a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of its con­tours. Over there are pre­ci­sion arc welders, acety­lene torch­es, hot riv­et­ing equip­ment, and some good old-​fash­ioned wood­work­ing tools.”

Glinn came over, nod­ding first at Mc­Far­lane, then at Ami­ra. “Rachel, please sit down. You look tired.” He in­di­cat­ed a pile of I-​beams as a seat.

“Tired.” She gave a wan smile. “And amazed.”

“I’m ea­ger to hear your re­port.”

Mc­Far­lane squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again. “Noth­ing’s writ­ten up yet. If you want a brief­ing, you’ll have to set­tle for a ver­bal one.”

Glinn tent­ed his gloved fin­gers to­geth­er, nod­ding as Mc­Far­lane re­moved a dog-​eared lab note­book from his jack­et. Ev­ery breath was send­ing up a plume of frost. He opened it and flipped briefly through many pages of scrib­bled notes.

“I want to say up front that this is just the be­gin­ning. Twelve hours gave us bare­ly enough time to scratch the sur­face.”

Glinn nod­ded again, silent­ly.

“I’ll de­scribe the re­sults of the tests, but I warn you: they don’t make a whole lot of sense. We start­ed by try­ing to de­ter­mine the met­al’s ba­sic prop­er­ties — melt­ing point, den­si­ty, elec­tri­cal re­sis­tance, atom­ic weight, va­lence — that sort of thing. First off, we heat­ed a sam­ple to find its melt­ing point. We brought it up to over fifty thou­sand de­grees K, va­por­iz­ing the gold sub­strate. It still re­mained sol­id.”

Glinn’s eyes were half-​lid­ded. He mur­mured, “So that’s how it sur­vived the im­pact.”

“Ex­act­ly,” said Ami­ra.

“Then we tried to use a mass spec­trom­eter to find its atom­ic weight. Be­cause of the high melt­ing point, the ex­per­iment didn’t fly. Even with the mi­cro­probe, we couldn’t get it to re­main a gas long enough to run the test.”

Mc­Far­lane flipped some pages. “Like­wise with spe­cif­ic grav­ity. The mi­cro­probe didn’t give us a large enough sam­ple to de­ter­mine that. It ap­pears to be chem­ical­ly in­ac­tive — we hit it with ev­ery sol­vent, acid, and re­ac­tive sub­stance we could find in the lab at room tem­per­ature and pres­sure, as well as at high tem­per­atures and pres­sures. To­tal­ly in­ert. It’s like a no­ble gas, ex­cept it’s sol­id. No va­lence elec­trons.”

“Go on.”

“Then we wired it up to test its elec­tro­mag­net­ic prop­er­ties. And that’s when we hit pay dirt. Ba­si­cal­ly, the me­te­orite seems to be a room-​tem­per­ature su­per­con­duc­tor: it con­ducts elec­tric­ity with­out re­sis­tance. You put a cur­rent in­to it, and it will cir­cu­late for­ev­er un­less some­thing breaks it out.”

If he was sur­prised at this, Glinn did not show it.

“Then we hit it with a beam of neu­trons. It’s a stan­dard test on an un­known ma­te­ri­al: the neu­trons cause the ma­te­ri­al to emit X rays, which tell you what’s in­side it. But in this case, the neu­trons just dis­ap­peared. Swal­lowed up. Gone. It did the same thing with a beam of pro­tons.”

Now Glinn raised his eye­brows.

“That would be like shoot­ing a forty-​four mag­num at a piece of pa­per, and hav­ing the bul­let van­ish in­to the pa­per,” said Ami­ra.

Glinn looked at her. “Any ex­pla­na­tion?”

She shook her head. “I tried to do a quan­tum me­chan­ical anal­ysis of what might be hap­pen­ing. No luck. It ap­pears to be im­pos­si­ble.”

Mc­Far­lane con­tin­ued to flip through his notes. “The last test we did was X-​ray diffrac­tion.”

“Ex­plain,” Glinn mur­mured.

“You shine X rays through the ma­te­ri­al, then you make a pic­ture of the diffrac­tion pat­tern that re­sults. A com­put­er re­verse-​en­gi­neers those pat­terns and tells you what kind of crys­tal lat­tice gen­er­at­ed them. Well, we got a se­ri­ous­ly weird diffrac­tion pat­tern — vir­tu­al­ly frac­tal. Rachel wrote a pro­gram that tried to cal­cu­late what kind of crys­tal struc­ture would pro­duce such a pat­tern.”

“It’s still try­ing,” Ami­ra said. “It’s prob­ably gagged on it by now. It’s one hell of a com­pu­ta­tion, if it can be done at all.”

“One oth­er thing,” said Mc­Far­lane. “We used fis­sion-​track anal­ysis to date the co­esite from the stag­ing area. We’ve now got a date on when the me­te­orite struck: thir­ty-​two mil­lion years ago.”

As he lis­tened, Glinn’s gaze had slow­ly dropped to the frozen dirt floor. “Con­clu­sions?” he said at last, very qui­et­ly.

“They’re very pre­lim­inary” Mc­Far­lane said.

“Un­der­stood.”

Mc­Far­lane took a deep breath. “Have you heard of the hy­po­thet­ical `is­land of sta­bil­ity’ on the pe­ri­od­ic ta­ble?”

“No.”

“For years, sci­en­tists have been search­ing for heav­ier and heav­ier el­ements high­er on the pe­ri­od­ic ta­ble. Most of the ones they’ve found are very short-​lived: they last on­ly a few bil­lionths of a sec­ond be­fore they de­cay in­to some oth­er el­ement. But there’s a the­ory that way, way up on the pe­ri­od­ic ta­ble might be a group of el­ements that are sta­ble — that don’t de­cay. An is­land of sta­bil­ity. No­body knows what kind of prop­er­ties these el­ements would have, but they would be ex­treme­ly strange, and very, very heavy. You couldn’t syn­the­size them even with the largest of to­day’s par­ti­cle ac­cel­er­ators.”

“And you think this might be such an el­ement?”

“I’m fair­ly sure of it, ac­tu­al­ly.”

“How would such an el­ement be cre­at­ed?”

“On­ly in the most vi­olent event in the known uni­verse: a hy­per­no­va.”

“A hy­per­no­va?”

“Yes. It’s much big­ger than a su­per­no­va. It oc­curs when a gi­ant star col­laps­es in­to a black hole, or when two neu­tron stars col­lide to form a black hole. For about ten sec­onds, a hy­per­no­va pro­duces as much en­er­gy as the rest of the known uni­verse put to­geth­er. Such a thing just might have enough en­er­gy to cre­ate these strange el­ements. It al­so might have had enough en­er­gy to ac­cel­er­ate this me­te­orite in­to space at a speed that would car­ry it across the vast dis­tances be­tween stars, to land on Earth.”

“An in­ter­stel­lar me­te­orite,” Glinn said in a flat tone.

Mc­Far­lane no­ticed, with sur­prise, a brief but sig­nif­icant ex­change of glances be­tween Glinn and Ami­ra. He tensed im­me­di­ate­ly, but Glinn mere­ly nod­ded.

“You’ve giv­en me more ques­tions than an­swers.”

“You gave us on­ly twelve hours.”

There was a brief si­lence.

“Let’s re­turn to the most ba­sic ques­tion,” Glinn said. “Is it dan­ger­ous?”

“We don’t have to wor­ry about it poi­son­ing any­body,” said Ami­ra. “It’s not ra­dioac­tive or re­ac­tive. It’s to­tal­ly in­ert. I be­lieve it’s safe. I wouldn’t, how­ev­er, mess around with it elec­tri­cal­ly. Be­ing a room-​tem­per­ature su­per­con­duc­tor, it has pow­er­ful and strange elec­tro­mag­net­ic prop­er­ties.”

Glinn turned. “Dr. Mc­Far­lane?”

“It’s a mass of con­tra­dic­tions,” Mc­Far­lane said, keep­ing his voice neu­tral. “We haven’t dis­cov­ered any­thing specif­ical­ly dan­ger­ous. But then again, we haven’t shown it to be com­plete­ly safe, ei­ther. We’ve got a sec­ond set of tests run­ning now, and if that sheds any more light we’ll let you know. But it will take years to re­al­ly an­swer these ques­tions, not twelve hours.”

“I see.” Glinn sighed, a small hiss­ing sound that in any­body else would have been ir­ri­ta­tion. “As it hap­pens, we have dis­cov­ered some­thing about the me­te­orite that may be of in­ter­est to you.”

“What’s that?”

“We’d orig­inal­ly es­ti­mat­ed it to be about twelve hun­dred cu­bic me­ters in size, or about forty-​two feet in di­am­eter. Garza and his crew have been map­ping the ex­ter­nal con­tours of the me­te­orite as they pre­pare these tun­nels. It turns out the me­te­orite is a lot small­er than we be­lieved. It’s on­ly about twen­ty feet in di­am­eter.”

Mc­Far­lane’s mind tried to fit this fact in. In an odd way, he felt dis­ap­point­ment. It wasn’t much big­ger than the Ah­nighi­to, at the mu­se­um in New York.

“It’s dif­fi­cult to mea­sure its mass at this point,” Glinn said. “But all in­di­ca­tions are that the me­te­orite still weighs at least ten thou­sand tons.”

Mc­Far­lane sud­den­ly for­got his dis­ap­point­ment. “That means it has a spe­cif­ic grav­ity of — “

“Je­sus, at least sev­en­ty-​five,” said Ami­ra.

Glinn raised an eye­brow. “And what does that sig­ni­fy?”

“The two heav­iest known el­ements are os­mi­um and irid­ium,” Ami­ra said. “They each have a spe­cif­ic grav­ity of around twen­ty-​two. With a spe­cif­ic grav­ity of sev­en­ty-​five, this me­te­orite is more than three times denser than any known el­ement on Earth.”

“There’s your proof,” mur­mured Mc­Far­lane. He felt his heart pound­ing.

“I’m sor­ry?” said Glinn.

It was as if a weight was sud­den­ly plucked from Mc­Far­lane’s shoul­ders. He looked Glinn in the face. “There can’t be any doubt now. It’s in­ter­stel­lar.”

Glinn re­mained in­scrutable.

“There’s no way any­thing that dense orig­inat­ed in our so­lar sys­tem. It must have come from some­where else. A place in the uni­verse very dif­fer­ent from our own. The re­gion of a hy­per­no­va.”

There was a very long mo­ment of si­lence. Mc­Far­lane could hear work­men shout­ing in the dis­tant tun­nels, and the muf­fled sound of jack­ham­mers and weld­ing. Fi­nal­ly Glinn cleared his throat. “Dr. Mc­Far­lane,” he be­gan qui­et­ly. “Sam. I apol­ogize if I seem doubt­ful. Un­der­stand that we’re op­er­at­ing out­side the pa­ram­eters of any con­ceiv­able mod­el. There’s no prece­dent to guide us. I re­al­ize you haven’t had ad­equate time for your tests. But our win­dow of op­por­tu­ni­ty is about to close. I want your best guess — as a sci­en­tist, and as a hu­man be­ing — whether it’s safe to pro­ceed, or whether we should close down the op­er­ation and go home.”

Mc­Far­lane took a deep breath. He un­der­stood what Glinn was ask­ing. But he al­so knew, quite clear­ly, what Glinn had left un­said. As a sci­en­tist, and as a hu­man be­ing … Glinn was ask­ing him to look at the ques­tion ob­jec­tive­ly — not as the man who be­trayed his friend over this pre­cise thing five years be­fore. Sev­er­al pic­tures flashed through his mind: Lloyd, pac­ing be­fore his pyra­mid; the glit­ter­ing black eyes of the de­stroy­er co­man­dante; the bro­ken, weath­ered bones of his dead part­ner.

Mc­Far­lane be­gan slow­ly. “It’s been ly­ing here for thir­ty-​two mil­lion years with­out ap­par­ent prob­lems. But the truth is, we don’t know. All I can say is, this is a sci­en­tif­ic dis­cov­ery of the high­est im­por­tance. Are the risks worth it? Noth­ing tru­ly great is ev­er ac­com­plished with­out risk.”

Glinn’s eyes seemed to go very far away. His ex­pres­sion was as un­read­able as al­ways, but Mc­Far­lane sensed he had ar­tic­ulat­ed the man’s own thoughts.

Glinn pulled out his pock­et watch, open­ing it with a smart snap of his wrist. He had made a de­ci­sion. “We’ll lift the rock in thir­ty min­utes. Rachel, if you and Gene will test the ser­vo con­nec­tions, we’ll be ready.”

Mc­Far­lane felt a sud­den flood of emo­tion — ex­cite­ment or an­tic­ipa­tion, he couldn’t be pre­cise­ly sure.

“We have to be top­side for those tests,” Garza said, glanc­ing at his watch. “No­body is al­lowed down here.”

The feel­ing ebbed quick­ly. “I thought you said it was com­plete­ly safe,” Mc­Far­lane said.

“Dou­ble over­age,” Glinn mur­mured. Then, lead­ing the way, he walked out of the stor­age vault and led the way down the nar­row tun­nel.

Rolvaag,

9:30 A.M.

DR. PATRICK Bram­bell lay snug in his bunk, read­ing Spenser’s The Faerie Queen. The tanker rode peace­ful­ly in the sound, and the mat­tress was de­light­ful­ly soft. The tem­per­ature in the med­ical suite had been cranked up to eighty-​six de­grees: ex­act­ly the way he liked it. Ev­ery­one but a skele­ton crew was ashore, prepar­ing to lift the me­te­orite, and the ship was qui­et. He was aware of no dis­com­fort, no an­noy­ance in the world — save per­haps that his arm, which had been prop­ping up the book in front of his nose for the last half hour, had be­gun to fall asleep. And that was a prob­lem eas­ily reme­died. With a sigh of con­tent­ment, he trans­ferred the book to his oth­er hand, turned the page, and im­mersed him­self again in Spenser’s el­egant verse.

Then he stopped. There was, in fact, one oth­er an­noy­ance. His glance fell re­luc­tant­ly through the open door­way, past the hall and in­to the med­ical lab­ora­to­ry be­yond. On a gleam­ing met­al gur­ney sat the blue ev­idence lock­er, clasps loos­ened but lid un­opened. There was some­thing for­lorn, al­most re­proach­ful, about it. Glinn want­ed the ex­am­ina­tion by the end of the day.

Bram­bell stared at it for a mo­ment. Then he laid the book aside, rose re­gret­ful­ly from his bunk, and straight­ened his sur­gi­cal smock. Though he rarely prac­ticed medicine, and even more rarely per­formed surgery, he de­light­ed in wear­ing a sur­gi­cal smock and nev­er took one off while awake. As a uni­form, he found it vast­ly more in­tim­idat­ing than a po­lice­man’s and on­ly a lit­tle less so than the grim reaper’s. Sur­gi­cal smocks, es­pe­cial­ly when flecked with blood, tend­ed to hur­ry of­fice vis­its along and speed un­nec­es­sary con­ver­sa­tions.

He stepped out of his cab­in and paused in the long hall­way of the med­ical suite, sur­vey­ing the par­al­lel lines of open door­ways. No­body in the wait­ing room. Ten beds, all emp­ty. It was most sat­is­fac­to­ry.

En­ter­ing the med­ical lab­ora­to­ry, he washed his hands in the over­sized sink, then flicked the wa­ter from his fin­gers while turn­ing in a small cir­cle, in an ir­rev­er­ent im­ita­tion of a priest. Nudg­ing the hot-​air dry­er with his el­bow, he rubbed his knobbed old hands be­fore the gush of air. As he did so, he gazed around at the neat rows of well-​worn books: over­flow from his cab­in. Above them he had hung two pic­tures: a de­pic­tion of Je­sus Christ, with the fire and thorns of the sa­cred heart; and a small, fad­ed pho­to­graph of two iden­ti­cal ba­bies in sailor suits. The pic­ture of Christ re­mind­ed him of many things, some self-​con­tra­dic­to­ry but al­ways in­ter­est­ing. The pic­ture of him­self and his twin broth­er, Si­mon, who had been mur­dered by a mug­ger in New York City, re­mind­ed him of why he had nev­er mar­ried or had chil­dren.

He pulled on a pair of la­tex gloves, snapped on the ring light, and swiveled the mag­ni­fy­ing glass in­to place over the gur­ney. Then he opened the ev­idence lock­er and stared dis­ap­prov­ing­ly at the jum­ble of bones. He could see right away that sev­er­al were miss­ing, and the rest had been tossed in hig­gledy-​pig­gledy, with no re­gard for anato­my. He shook his wiz­ened head at the gen­er­al in­com­pe­tence of the world.

He be­gan re­mov­ing the bones, iden­ti­fy­ing them, and ar­rang­ing them in their prop­er places on the gur­ney. Not much sign of an­imal dam­age, be­yond the nib­blings of ro­dents. Then his brow fur­rowed. The num­ber of pe­ri­mortem breaks was un­usu­al, even re­mark­able. He paused, a nugget of bone sus­pend­ed halfway be­tween lock­er and gur­ney. Then, more slow­ly, he placed it on the met­al sur­face. There was a still­ness in the med­ical suite as Bram­bell stepped back, fold­ed his green-​suit­ed arms, and stared at the re­mains.

Ev­er since his Dublin child­hood, his moth­er had en­ter­tained dreams of her twin lads grow­ing up to be doc­tors. Ma Bram­bell had been an ir­re­sistible nat­ural force, and so, like his broth­er Si­mon, Patrick had gone to med­ical school. While Si­mon had rel­ished the job and gone on to great ac­claim as a med­ical ex­am­in­er in New York, Patrick found him­self re­sent­ing the time away from lit­er­ature. Over the years, he had grav­itat­ed to ships, most re­cent­ly to large tankers, where the crews were small and the ac­com­mo­da­tions com­fort­able. And so far, the Rolvaag had lived up to his ex­pec­ta­tions. No pa­rade of bro­ken bones, rag­ing fevers, or drip­ping cas­es of clap. Aside from a few bouts of sea­sick­ness, a si­nus in­fec­tion, and of course Glinn’s pre­oc­cu­pa­tion with the me­te­orite hunter, he had been left to read his books. Un­til now.

But as he stared at the col­lec­tion of bro­ken bones, Bram­bell felt an un­char­ac­ter­is­tic cu­rios­ity stir­ring with­in him. The si­lence of the med­ical lab was bro­ken by the whis­tled strains of “The Sprig of Shil­le­lagh.”

More quick­ly now, Bram­bell, whistling mer­ri­ly, fin­ished lay­ing out the skele­ton. He ex­am­ined the ef­fects: but­tons, bits of cloth­ing, an old boot. Of course there was on­ly one boot; the daft beg­gars had missed the oth­er. Along with the right clav­icle, a piece of the il­ium, the left ra­dius, carpals and in­ter­carpals… He made a men­tal list of the miss­ing bones. At least the skull was there, if in sev­er­al pieces.

He bent clos­er. It, too, was webbed with pe­ri­mortem frac­tures. The rim of the or­bit was heavy; the mandible ro­bust; def­inite­ly a male. From the state of the su­tu­ral clos­ing he would be about thir­ty-​five, maybe forty. A small man, no more than five foot sev­en, but pow­er­ful­ly built, with well-​de­vel­oped mus­cle at­tach­ments. Years of field­work, no doubt. This fit the pro­file of the plan­etary ge­ol­ogist Nestor Masangkay that Glinn had giv­en him.

Many of the teeth were snapped off at the root. It looked like the poor man had con­vulsed so hard in his death throes that he had bro­ken all his teeth, and even split his jaw.

Still whistling, Bram­bell turned his at­ten­tion to the postcra­nial skele­ton. Vir­tu­al­ly ev­ery bone that could be bro­ken was bro­ken. He won­dered what could have caused such mas­sive trau­ma. It was ap­par­ent­ly a blow to the front, strik­ing si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly from toe to crown. He was re­mind­ed of a poor sky­div­er he had au­top­sied in med­ical school; the man had packed his chute wrong and fall­en three thou­sand feet on­to the mid­dle of I-95.

Bram­bell caught his breath, “The Sprig of Shil­le­lagh” sud­den­ly dy­ing on his lips. He had been so caught up by the frac­tur­ing of the bones that he had not stopped to ex­am­ine their oth­er char­ac­ter­is­tics. But now, as he did so, he could see that the prox­imal pha­langes showed flak­ing and crum­bling char­ac­ter­is­tic of high heat — or se­vere burn­ing. Al­most all of the dis­tal pha­langes were miss­ing, prob­ably com­plete­ly burned up. Toes and fin­gers. He bent clos­er. The bro­ken teeth were scorched, the brit­tle enam­el spalling off.

His eyes made a cir­cuit of the re­mains. The pari­etal showed heavy burn dam­age, the bone soft and crum­bling. He bent down, sniffed. Ah, yes: he could even smell it. And what was this? Bram­bell picked up a belt buck­le. The bloody thing was melt­ed. And the sin­gle boot wasn’t just rot­ten — it too had burned. The bits of cloth were al­so scorched. That dev­il, Glinn, hadn’t men­tioned a word of this, al­though he sure­ly must have no­ticed.

Then Bram­bell rocked back on his feet. It was with a twinge of re­gret that he re­al­ized there was no mys­tery here, af­ter all. He now knew ex­act­ly how the prospec­tor had died.

In the dim light of the med­ical spaces, “The Sprig of Shil­le­lagh” start­ed up once again, the mer­ry tune now sound­ing a lit­tle mourn­ful, as Bram­bell care­ful­ly closed up the ev­idence lock­er and re­turned to his bunk.

Is­la Des­olación,

10:00 A.M.

MC­FAR­LANE STOOD at the frost­ed win­dow of the com­mu­ni­ca­tions cen­ter, melt­ing a hole with his hand. Clouds hung heavy over the Jaws of Hanuxa, cast­ing a pall of dark­ness over the Cape Horn is­lands. Be­hind him, Rochefort, more tense than usu­al, was typ­ing at a Sil­icon Graph­ics work­sta­tion.

The last half hour had seen a fren­zy of ac­tiv­ity. The cor­ru­gat­ed-​met­al shack that shield­ed the me­te­orite from view had been moved to one side, and the area above the rock had been fresh­ly blad­ed down to dirt, a dark brown scar on the white fairy­land of snow. A small army of work­ers swarmed about, each at some ob­scure task. The ra­dio traf­fic had been a per­fect Ba­bel of tech­ni­cal in­com­pre­hen­sion.

Out­side, a deep-​throat­ed whis­tle blew. Mc­Far­lane felt his pulse quick­en.

The door to the hut banged open and Ami­ra en­tered, a wide smile on her face. Com­ing in be­hind, Glinn closed the door care­ful­ly, then went to stand be­hind Rochefort. “Lift se­quence ready?” he asked.

“Check.”

Glinn lift­ed a ra­dio and spoke in­to it. “Mr. Garza? Five min­utes to lift. Please mon­itor this fre­quen­cy.” He dropped the ra­dio and glanced at Ami­ra, who had tak­en a seat at a near­by con­sole and was fit­ting an ear­phone. “Ser­vos?”

“On line,” she replied.

“So what will we see?” Mc­Far­lane asked. Al­ready, he could an­tic­ipate Lloyd’s bar­rage of ques­tions dur­ing the next video­con­fer­ence.

“Noth­ing,” said Glinn. “We’re on­ly rais­ing it six cen­time­ters. There might be a lit­tle crack­ling of the earth above.” He nod­ded to Rochefort. “Bring the jacks up to six­ty tons each.”

Rochefort’s hands moved across the key­board. “Jacks are uni­form­ly en­gag­ing. No slip­page.”

There was a faint, sub­audi­ble vi­bra­tion in the ground. Glinn and Rochefort bent close to the screen, ex­am­in­ing the da­ta that scrolled past. They seemed per­fect­ly calm and un­con­cerned. Typ­ing, wait­ing, typ­ing some more. It seemed so rou­tine. Not ex­act­ly the kind of me­te­orite hunt­ing Mc­Far­lane was used to: dig­ging in some sheikh’s back­yard by moon­light, heart in mouth, muf­fling ev­ery bite of the shov­el.

“Bring the jacks up to sev­en­ty,” said Glinn.

“Done.”

There was a long, bor­ing wait.

“Damn,” Rochefort mut­tered. “I’m get­ting no move­ment. Noth­ing.”

“Bring them up to eighty.”

Rochefort tapped on some keys. There was a pause, then he shook his head. “Rachel?” Glinn asked.

“Noth­ing wrong with the ser­vos.”

There was an­oth­er si­lence, longer this time.

“We should have seen move­ment at six­ty-​sev­en tons per jack.” Glinn wait­ed a mo­ment, then spoke again. “Raise it to one hun­dred.”

Rochefort tapped the key­board. Mc­Far­lane glanced at the two faces il­lu­mi­nat­ed in the gleam of Rochefort’s mon­itor. Sud­den­ly, the ten­sion in the hut had risen dra­mat­ical­ly.

“Noth­ing?” asked Glinn, some­thing like con­cern in his voice.

“It’s still sit­ting there.” Rochefort’s face was even more pinched than usu­al.

Glinn straight­ened up. He slow­ly walked to the win­dow, his fin­gers squeak­ing on the glass as he cleared a hole through the frost.

Min­utes crawled by while Rochefort re­mained glued to the com­put­er and Ami­ra mon­itored the ser­vos. Then Glinn turned.

“All right. Let’s low­er the jacks, ex­am­ine the set­tings, and try again.”

Sud­den­ly a strange keen­ing seemed to fill the room, com­ing from ev­ery­where and nowhere at once. It was al­most ghost­ly. Mc­Far­lane felt his skin crawl.

Rochefort was sud­den­ly in­tent on the mon­itor. “Slump­ing in sec­tor six,” he said, his fin­gers fly­ing over the key­board.

The sound sub­sid­ed.

“What the hell was that?” Mc­Far­lane asked.

Glinn shook his head. “It looks like we might have lift­ed the me­te­orite just a mil­lime­ter in sec­tor six, but then it sub­sid­ed and pushed the jacks back.”

“Get­ting an­oth­er shift,” Rochefort said sud­den­ly, a note of alarm in his voice.

Glinn strode over and peered at the screen. “It’s asym­met­ri­cal. Low­er the jacks to nine­ty, quick­ly.”

A pat­ter of keystrokes, and Glinn stepped back, frown­ing. “What’s with sec­tor six?”

“The jacks seemed to have locked at a hun­dred tons,” Rochefort said. “They won’t go down.”

“Your anal­ysis?”

“The rock may be set­tling to­ward that sec­tor. If so, a lot of weight has just shift­ed on­to them.”

“Ze­ro out all the jacks.”

To Mc­Far­lane, the scene seemed al­most sur­re­al. There was no sound, no dra­mat­ic sub­ter­ranean rum­bling; just a group of tense peo­ple gath­ered around flick­er­ing mon­itors.

Rochefort stopped typ­ing. “All of sec­tor six has locked up. The jacks must have frozen un­der the weight.”

“Can we ze­ro the rest?”

“If I do that, the me­te­orite might desta­bi­lize.”

“Desta­bi­lize,” Mc­Far­lane re­peat­ed. “You mean, as in tilt?”

Glinn’s eyes glid­ed to­ward him, then re­turned to the com­put­er screen. “Sug­ges­tions, Mr. Rochefort?” he asked cool­ly.

The en­gi­neer leaned back, licked the tip of his left in­dex fin­ger, and placed it against his right thumb. “Here’s what I think. We leave the jacks as is. Keep them in po­si­tion. Then we re­lease the flu­id from the emer­gen­cy hy­draulic valves on the sec­tor six jacks. Un­freeze them.”

“How?” Glinn asked.

Af­ter a mo­ment, Rochefort replied, “Man­ual­ly.”

Glinn held up his ra­dio. “Garza?”

“Roger.”

“You fol­low this?”

“Roger that.”

“Your opin­ion?”

“I agree with Gene. We must’ve se­ri­ous­ly un­der­es­ti­mat­ed the weight of this ba­by.”

Glinn swiveled his gray eyes back to Rochefort. “And who do you sug­gest should drain the jacks?”

“I wouldn’t ask any­one to do it but my­self. Then we’ll let the me­te­orite set­tle back down to a sta­ble rest­ing place, set ad­di­tion­al jacks, and try again.”

“You’re go­ing to need a sec­ond per­son,” came Garza’s voice over the ra­dio. “That would be me.”

“I’m not go­ing to send both my chief en­gi­neer and my con­struc­tion man­ag­er un­der­neath that rock,” said Glinn. “Mr. Rochefort, an­alyze the risk.”

Rochefort did some cal­cu­la­tions on a pock­et cal­cu­la­tor. “The jacks are rat­ed to stand max­imum pres­sure for six­teen hours.”

“What about high­er-​than-​max­imum? As­sume one hun­dred per­cent above max­imum.”

“The time-​fail­ure rate gets short­er.” Rochefort made an­oth­er se­ries of cal­cu­la­tions. “How­ev­er, the chance of fail­ure in the next thir­ty min­utes is less than one per­cent.”

“That’s ac­cept­able,” said Glinn. “Mr. Rochefort, take a crew mem­ber of your choice along.” He glanced at his pock­et watch. “You have thir­ty min­utes from this mo­ment, not one sec­ond more. Good luck.”

Rochefort stood up and looked at them, his face pale. “Re­mem­ber, sir, we don’t be­lieve in luck,” he said. “But thank you all the same.”

Is­la Des­olación,

10:24 A.M.

ROCHEFORT OPENED the door to the de­crepit hut and moved the nail kegs aside, ex­pos­ing the ac­cess tube and its ha­lo of bright flu­ores­cent light. He gripped the rungs of the lad­der and be­gan to de­scend, palm­top com­put­er and ra­dio jig­gling on his belt. Evans fol­lowed be­hind, hum­ming an off-​key vari­ant of “Muskrat Ram­ble.”

The main emo­tion Rochefort felt was em­bar­rass­ment. Brief as it was, the walk from the com­mu­ni­ca­tions hut had tak­en an eter­ni­ty. Al­though the stag­ing area was de­sert­ed, he had nev­er­the­less sensed dozens of eyes trained di­rect­ly — and no doubt re­proach­ful­ly — on his back.

He had set fifty per­cent more jacks than deemed nec­es­sary. It was with­in EES op­er­at­ing guide­lines, and it had seemed like a safe mar­gin. But he had mis­cal­cu­lat­ed. He should have in­voked dou­ble over­age, set two hun­dred jacks. But the time pres­sure had al­ways been there, hov­er­ing over ev­ery­thing, flow­ing from Lloyd to Glinn and in­fect­ing ev­ery­thing they did. So Rochefort had sug­gest­ed a hun­dred and fifty, and Glinn had not ques­tioned his de­ci­sion. The fact was, no­body had said any­thing to him about the mis­take — or even hint­ed one was made. But that did not negate the fact that he had been wrong. And Rochefort could not bear to be wrong. He felt sat­urat­ed by bit­ter­ness. Reach­ing the bot­tom, he moved quick­ly along the tun­nel, duck­ing his head in­stinc­tive­ly be­low the lines of flu­ores­cent lights. Chains of ice crys­tals, formed from the con­densed breath of the work­ers, stuck like feath­ers to the spars and truss­es. Evans, com­ing up be­hind, dragged a fin­ger through them as he whis­tled.

Rochefort was hu­mil­iat­ed, not wor­ried. He knew that even if the jacks in sec­tor six failed — a mi­nus­cule pos­si­bil­ity — it was un­like­ly the me­te­orite would do any­thing ex­cept set­tle back down in­to place. It had sat there for un­told mil­len­nia, and the forces of mass and in­er­tia dic­tat­ed it would prob­ably stay that way. The worst-​case sce­nario meant they’d be back where they start­ed from.

Back where they start­ed from … His mouth set in a hard line. It meant set­ting more jacks, per­haps even dig­ging a few more tun­nels. He had strong­ly rec­om­mend­ed to Glinn that all Lloyd Mu­se­um per­son­nel be left be­hind; that it should be strict­ly an EES ex­pe­di­tion; that Lloyd’s on­ly per­son­al in­volve­ment should be to take fi­nal pos­ses­sion of the me­te­orite and pay the bill. For some un­known rea­son of his own, Glinn had al­lowed Lloyd to get dai­ly up­dates. This was the sort of thing that re­sult­ed.

The tun­nel reached sec­tor one, then veered left at a nine­ty-​de­gree an­gle. Rochefort fol­lowed the main tun­nel an­oth­er forty feet, then took one of the side branch­es that curved around to­ward the far side of the me­te­orite. The ra­dio bur­bled and he pulled it from his belt. “Ap­proach­ing sec­tor six,” he said.

“Di­ag­nos­tics in­di­cate that all jacks in that sec­tor, with the ex­cep­tion of four and six, need to be un­locked,” said Glinn. “We es­ti­mate you can com­plete the task in six­teen min­utes.”

Twelve, thought Rochefort, but he re­spond­ed, “Af­fir­ma­tive.”

The side tun­nel an­gled around the front of the me­te­orite and split in­to three ac­cess tubes. Rochefort chose the cen­ter tube. Ahead, he could see the jacks of sec­tor six, yel­low against the blood­red me­te­orite. They ran ahead in a long line from the end of the ac­cess tube. Walk­ing for­ward, he ex­am­ined all fif­teen in turn. They looked per­fect­ly se­cure, their claw feet firm­ly an­chored to the base of the wall struts, ser­vo ca­bles run­ning away in rivers of wire and ca­ble. The jacks did not ap­pear to have moved in the slight­est. It was hard to be­lieve they were each frozen un­der a hun­dred tons of strain.

With a sigh of ir­ri­ta­tion, he crouched by the first jack. The bel­ly of the me­te­orite curved above him, ribbed as smooth­ly and as reg­ular­ly as if worked by a ma­chine. Evans came for­ward with a small ca­mi-​tool for un­lock­ing the hy­draulic valves. “Looks like a great big bowl­ing ball, doesn’t it?” he said cheer­ful­ly.

Rochefort grunt­ed and point­ed to­ward the valve stem of the first jack. Evans knelt be­side it, gripped the stem with his ca­mi, and be­gan to turn it gin­ger­ly.

“Don’t wor­ry, it’s not go­ing to break,” Rochefort snapped. “Let’s move. We’ve got an­oth­er twelve wait­ing.”

“More rapid­ly, Evans spun the stem through a nine­ty-​de­gree twist. With a small ham­mer, Rochefort adroit­ly tapped out the man­ual slide on the rear of the jack, ex­pos­ing the safe­ty plate. A red light went on, in­di­cat­ing the valve was un­locked and ready to open.

Af­ter the first jack, Evans grew less hes­itant, and they be­gan to work quick­ly in tan­dem, mov­ing down the line, skip­ping the jacks num­bered four and six. At the last jack, num­ber fif­teen, they stopped. Rochefort looked at his watch. It had tak­en on­ly eight min­utes. All that was left was to go back down the line, punch­ing the re­lease but­tons on each valve. Al­though the flu­id was un­der in­tense pres­sure, an in­ter­nal reg­ula­tor would en­sure even drainage, slow­ly eas­ing the load off the jack. Mean­while, the con­trol­ling com­put­er back in the com­mu­ni­ca­tions hut would be low­er­ing in tan­dem the hy­draulic pres­sure on all the oth­er jacks. The sit­ua­tion would re­turn to nor­mal, and then all they need­ed to do was set more jacks and try again. He’d do Glinn one bet­ter, set three hun­dred jacks. But they would need at least a day to fer­ry them over from the ship, get them in place, wire the ser­vos, run di­ag­nos­tics. They would need more tun­nels, too… He shook his head. He should have start­ed with three hun­dred the first time.

“Feels hot in here,” said Evans, tug­ging back his hood.

Rochefort didn’t an­swer. Heat and cold were one and the same to him. The two men turned and be­gan walk­ing down the line of jacks, stop­ping at each to raise the safe­ty plate and push the emer­gen­cy flu­id re­lease but­ton.

Halfway down the line, a faint, mouse­like sound brought Rochefort to a halt.

Al­though it was im­por­tant to be­gin re­leas­ing flu­id from all the jacks to­geth­er, the sound was so un­usu­al that Rochefort glanced down the row of jacks, try­ing to de­ter­mine its source. It seemed to have come from the front of the row of jacks. As he looked in that di­rec­tion, the sound came again: a kind of whis­pered, ag­onized creak. He nar­rowed his eyes. Jack num­ber one didn’t look right; it seemed odd­ly crooked.

He didn’t need time to think. “Get out!” he shout­ed. “Now!”

He rose to his feet and sprint­ed for the ac­cess tube, Evans at his heels. He knew that there must be more weight on those jacks than they had guessed in even their most pes­simistic as­sump­tions: a lot more weight. Just how much more would de­ter­mine whether they would get out in time.

He could hear Evans run­ning be­hind him, feet thud­ding, grunt­ing with each step. But even be­fore they reached the ac­cess tube the first jack gave with a ter­ri­fy­ing crack, fol­lowed by a sec­ond crack, and then a third, as the jacks failed in se­quence. There was a pause, then a stut­ter­ing se­ries of pops, like a burst of ma­chine gun fire, as the rest of the jacks failed. In­stant­ly, Rochefort was sur­round­ed by blind­ing sprays of hy­draulic flu­id. There was a sound like a whirr of a vast sewing ma­chine as the tun­nel’s struts and braces be­gan to un­rav­el. He ran des­per­ate­ly through the spray, the in­tense force of the pres­sur­ized flu­id tear­ing his coat to rib­bons and sear­ing his flesh. He cal­cu­lat­ed that the prob­abil­ity of sur­vival was drop­ping fast.

He knew it was ex­act­ly ze­ro when the me­te­orite tipped to­ward him with a great hol­low boom, buck­ling steel as it came, squirt­ing dirt and mud and ice, loom­ing in­to his field of vi­sion un­til all he saw was a shin­ing, in­ex­orable, piti­less red.

Rolvaag,

Noon

WHEN MC­FAR­LANE ar­rived at the Rolvaag’s li­brary, he found a hushed group scat­tered among the chairs and couch­es. Shock and dis­cour­age­ment hung in the air. Garza stared, un­mov­ing, out of the wall of win­dows, across the Franklin Chan­nel to­ward Is­la De­ceit. Ami­ra sat in a cor­ner, knees hud­dled be­neath her chin. Brit­ton and First Mate How­ell were speak­ing in low tones. Even the reclu­sive Dr. Bram­bell was on hand, drum­ming his fin­gers on the arms of his chair and glanc­ing im­pa­tient­ly at his watch. Of the ma­jor play­ers, on­ly Glinn was ab­sent. As Mc­Far­lane took a seat, the li­brary door opened again and the head of EES slipped in, a slim fold­er be­neath one arm. On his heels was John Pup­pup, his smile and spright­ly step out of place among the somber group. Mc­Far­lane was not sur­prised to see him: though Pup­pup was dis­in­clined to go ashore, while Glinn was on board the Rolvaag the Yaghan seemed per­pet­ual­ly at his side, fol­low­ing him around like a faith­ful dog.

All eyes turned to Glinn as he stepped in­to the mid­dle of the room. Pri­vate­ly, Mc­Far­lane won­dered just how hard the man was tak­ing all this: two of his men, in­clud­ing his chief en­gi­neer, dead. But he seemed, as usu­al, calm, neu­tral, un­af­fect­ed.

Glinn’s gray eyes flick­ered over the group. “Gene Rochefort had been with Ef­fec­tive En­gi­neer­ing So­lu­tions from the be­gin­ning. Frank Evans was a rel­ative­ly new em­ploy­ee, but his death is no less re­gret­ted. This is a tragedy for all of us in this room. But I’m not here to eu­lo­gize. Nei­ther Gene nor Frank would have want­ed that. We made an im­por­tant dis­cov­ery, but we made it the hard way. The Des­olación me­te­orite is a great deal heav­ier than any of us pre­dict­ed. Care­ful anal­ysis of the fail­ure da­ta from the jacks, along with some high­ly sen­si­tive gravi­met­ric mea­sure­ments, have giv­en us a new and more ac­cu­rate es­ti­mate of mass. And that mass is twen­ty-​five thou­sand tons.”

De­spite his lin­ger­ing sense of shock, Mc­Far­lane felt him­self go cold at these words. He made a quick cal­cu­la­tion: that gave it a spe­cif­ic grav­ity of about 190. One hun­dred and nine­ty times denser than wa­ter. A cu­bic foot of it would weigh… Good Lord. Al­most six tons.

But two men were dead. Two more men, Mc­Far­lane cor­rect­ed him­self, think­ing of the pa­thet­ic lit­ter of bones that had been his ex-​part­ner.

“Dou­ble over­age is our pol­icy,” Glinn was say­ing. “We planned as if ev­ery­thing would be twice our best es­ti­mate-​twice the ex­pense, twice the ef­fort — and twice the mass. That means we al­ready planned for a rock that weighed al­most this much. So I’m here to tell you that we can pro­ceed on sched­ule. We still have the means at our dis­pos­al to re­trieve it, bring it to the ship, and load it in­to the hold­ing tank.”

It seemed to Mc­Far­lane as if, min­gled among Glinn’s cool tones, there was an odd note: of some­thing al­most like tri­umph.

“Just a minute,” Mc­Far­lane said. “Two men just died. We have a re­spon­si­bil­ity — “

“You are not re­spon­si­ble,” Glinn in­ter­rupt­ed smooth­ly. “We are. And we’re ful­ly in­sured.”

“I’m not talk­ing about in­sur­ance. I’m talk­ing about two peo­ple’s lives. Two peo­ple were killed try­ing to move this me­te­orite.”

“We took ev­ery rea­son­able pre­cau­tion. The prob­abil­ity of fail­ure was less than one per­cent. Noth­ing is free of risk, as you your­self so re­cent­ly point­ed out. And in terms of ca­su­al­ties, we’re ac­tu­al­ly on sched­ule.”

“On sched­ule?” Mc­Far­lane could hard­ly be­lieve what he heard. He glanced at Ami­ra, and then at Garza, fail­ing to see in their faces the out­rage he felt. “What the hell does that mean?” “In any com­plex en­gi­neer­ing sit­ua­tion, no mat­ter how much care is tak­en, ca­su­al­ties oc­cur. By this stage, we had ex­pect­ed two ca­su­al­ties.”

“Je­sus, that’s a heart­less cal­cu­la­tion.”

“On the con­trary. When the Gold­en Gate Bridge was be­ing de­signed, it was es­ti­mat­ed that three dozen men would lose their lives dur­ing con­struc­tion. That was nei­ther cold­blood­ed nor heart­less — it was just part of the plan­ning pro­cess. What is heart­less is bring­ing peo­ple in­to dan­ger with­out cal­cu­lat­ing the risk. Rochefort and Evans knew those risks, and ac­cept­ed them.” Glinn looked straight at Mc­Far­lane, speak­ing al­most in a mono­tone. “I as­sure you, I’m griev­ing in ways you will nev­er know. But I was hired to re­trieve this me­te­orite, and that’s what I in­tend to do. I can’t af­ford to let per­son­al feel­ings cloud my judg­ment or weak­en my re­solve.”

Sud­den­ly Brit­ton spoke up. Mc­Far­lane could see out­rage glit­ter­ing in her eyes. “Tell me, Mr. Glinn. Just how many oth­ers have you cal­cu­lat­ed need to die be­fore we bring the Des­olación me­te­orite home?”

For the briefest of mo­ments, Glinn’s neu­tral ve­neer seemed to slip at this sal­vo from an un­ex­pect­ed di­rec­tion. “None, if I can help it,” he said more cold­ly. “We will do ev­ery­thing in our pow­er to pre­vent any­one from get­ting hurt or killed. And your im­pli­ca­tion that I find a cer­tain num­ber of deaths ac­cept­able on­ly shows your ig­no­rance of risk as­sess­ment. The point is this: no mat­ter how care­ful we are, there may be ca­su­al­ties. It’s like fly­ing: de­spite ev­ery­one’s best ef­forts, planes crash. You can cal­cu­late the prob­able death rate for any par­tic­ular flight. But we still con­tin­ue to fly. That de­ci­sion to keep fly­ing doesn’t make the deaths any more ac­cept­able. Do I make my­self un­der­stood?”

Brit­ton stared fixed­ly at Glinn but said noth­ing fur­ther.

Then Glinn’s voice sud­den­ly be­came gen­tle. “Your con­cerns are gen­uine, and un­der­stand­able. I ap­pre­ci­ate that.” He turned, and his voice hard­ened slight­ly. “But Dr. Mc­Far­lane, we can’t re­trieve this me­te­orite by half mea­sures.”

Mc­Far­lane flushed. “I don’t want any­one else get­ting hurt. That’s not the way I op­er­ate.”

“I can’t make that promise,” Glinn said. “You, of all peo­ple, know how unique this me­te­orite is. You can’t as­sign it a val­ue in dol­lars, and you can’t as­sign it a val­ue in hu­man life. It all boils down to the one ques­tion, which I will di­rect to you as the rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Lloyd Mu­se­um — do you still want it?”

Mc­Far­lane glanced around the room. All eyes had turned to­ward him. In the si­lence that fol­lowed, he re­al­ized he could not bring him­self to an­swer the ques­tion.

Af­ter a mo­ment, Glinn nod­ded slow­ly. “We’ll re­cov­er the bod­ies and give them a heroes’ buri­al when we re­turn to New York.”

Dr. Bram­bell cleared his throat, and his queru­lous Irish voice sang out. “I’m afraid, Mr. Glinn, there won’t be any­thing more to bury than, ah, two box­es of wet dirt.” Glinn dart­ed Bram­bell an icy look. “Do you have any­thing else of sub­stance to add, Doc­tor?”

Bram­bell crossed one green-​smocked leg over the oth­er and tent­ed his fin­gers. “I can tell you how Dr. Masangkay died.”

There was a sud­den hush.

“Go on,” said Glinn fi­nal­ly.

“He was struck by a bolt of light­ning.”

Mc­Far­lane strug­gled to ab­sorb this. His old part­ner, at the very mo­ment of mak­ing the dis­cov­ery of a life­time — struck and killed by light­ning? It seemed like some­thing out of a bad nov­el. And yet in hind­sight, it made sense. The ful­gu­rites he’d seen at the site were a tip-​off. On top of ev­ery­thing else, the me­te­orite was a gi­gan­tic light­ning rod.

“Your ev­idence?” Glinn asked.

“The bones were burned in a pat­tern that sug­gest­ed light­ning — a mas­sive charge of elec­tric­ity pass­ing through the body. I’ve seen it be­fore. And on­ly an elec­tri­cal blast on the or­der of light­ning could cause the kind of scal­ing and shat­ter­ing those bones ev­idenced. Light­ning, you see, not on­ly burns bones and in­stant­ly boils the blood, caus­ing an ex­plo­sive re­lease of steam, but it al­so trig­gers sud­den mus­cle con­trac­tions that shat­ter bones. In some cas­es, it strikes the body with such force that it mim­ics, say, be­ing hit by a truck. Dr. Masangkay’s body vir­tu­al­ly ex­plod­ed.”

The doc­tor daw­dled over the word “ex­plod­ed,” lin­ger­ing on each syl­la­ble with a lov­ing drawl. Mc­Far­lane shud­dered.

“Thank you, Doc­tor,” said Glinn dry­ly. “I will al­so be ea­ger to hear your anal­ysis of the bio­ta found in the eighty bags of sam­ple earth we re­moved from the vicin­ity of the me­te­orite. I’ll have them sent down to the med­ical lab right away.”

Glinn opened his fold­er. “If the me­te­orite at­tracts light­ning, that’s yet an­oth­er rea­son to keep it cov­ered. Let’s move on. A mo­ment ago, I said we could pro­ceed on sched­ule. There will, how­ev­er, have to be some ad­just­ments. For ex­am­ple, the weight of the me­te­orite is so great that we are now forced to take the ab­so­lute short­est path from the im­pact site to the ship. That means bring­ing the me­te­orite through the snow­field, rather than around it. The me­te­orite can on­ly be moved in a straight line, along a slope of con­stant de­scent. It won’t be easy, and it will mean a lot of cut­ting and fill­ing, but it can be done. Al­so, Cap­tain Brit­ton has ad­vised me that a win­ter storm is mov­ing in our di­rec­tion. If it stays on course, we will have to fac­tor it in­to our plans. To a cer­tain ex­tent, the cov­er will be wel­come.” He stood up. “I’ll be prepar­ing let­ters for the fam­ily of Gene Rochefort and for the wid­ow of Frank Evans. If any of you would like to in­clude a per­son­al note, please get it to me be­fore we dock in New York. And now, one fi­nal thing.”

He glanced at Mc­Far­lane. “You told me that the co­esite and im­pactite around the me­te­orite was formed thir­ty-​two mil­lion years ago.”

“Yes,” said Mc­Far­lane.

“I want you to col­lect sam­ples of the basalt flows and vol­canic plug be­yond the camp and date them as well. We clear­ly need to know more about the ge­ol­ogy of this is­land. Did your sec­ond se­ries of tests bring about any fresh con­clu­sions?”

“On­ly fresh puz­zles.”

“In that case, is­land ge­ol­ogy will be your next project.” He looked around. “Any­thing else be­fore we get back to work?”

“Yes, guv,” came the reedy voice from the cor­ner of the li­brary. It was Pup­pup, for­got­ten by all. He was sit­ting in a straight-​backed chair, hair di­sheveled, rais­ing his hand and wav­ing it like a school­boy.

“Yes?” Glinn asked.

“You said that two peo­ple died.”

Glinn did not an­swer. Mc­Far­lane, watch­ing, no­ticed that Glinn did not meet Pup­pup’s eyes in the way he met ev­ery­one else’s.

“You said that maybe some more peo­ple are go­ing to die.”

“I said noth­ing of the sort,” said Glinn crisply. “Now, if we’re fin­ished here — “

“What hap­pens if ev­ery­body dies?” Pup­pup asked, his voice sud­den­ly loud.

There was an awk­ward mo­ment.

“Damn lu­natic,” Garza mut­tered un­der his breath.

Pup­pup mere­ly point­ed out the grimy win­dow. All eyes turned.

Just be­yond the rocky out­line of Is­la De­ceit, dark against the fail­ing sky, the gaunt prow of a de­stroy­er was eas­ing in­to view, its guns trained on the tanker.

Rolvaag,

12:25 P.M.

GLINNSLIPPED a hand in­to his pock­et, with­drew a pair of minia­ture binoc­ulars, and ex­am­ined the ship. He had ex­pect­ed Val­lenar to make an­oth­er move; and this, ap­par­ent­ly, was it.

Brit­ton leapt out of her seat and strode to the win­dow. “He looks like he’s about to blow us out of the wa­ter,” she said.

Glinn first ex­am­ined the masts, and then the four-​inch guns. He low­ered the binoc­ulars. “It’s a bluff.”

“How do you know that?”

“Check your Slick 32.”

Brit­ton turned to How­ell.

“Slick shows no fire-​con­trol radar ac­tive along that line of bear­ing.”

Brit­ton glanced back at Glinn with a cu­ri­ous ex­pres­sion in her face.

Glinn hand­ed her the binoc­ulars. “He’s point­ing the guns at us, but he has no in­ten­tion of fir­ing them. You’ll no­tice the fire-​con­trol radars aren’t ro­tat­ing.”

“So I see.” Brit­ton re­turned the binoc­ulars. “Sta­tions fore and aft, Mr. How­ell.”

“Mr. Garza, will you make sure our re­cep­tion room is ready, just in case?” Glinn pock­et­ed the binoc­ulars and glanced at Pup­pup. The mes­ti­zo had slumped back in his chair and was stroking his long, droop­ing mus­tach­es. “Mr. Pup­pup, I would like to take a turn with you on deck, if you please.”

Pup­pup’s ex­pres­sion did not change. He stood and fol­lowed Glinn out of the li­brary and down the wide cor­ri­dor. Out­side, a bit­ter wind blew across the bay, rais­ing danc­ing white­caps. Pieces of ice skit­tered across the deck. Glinn walked ahead, the lit­tle old man at his heels, un­til they reached the great rise of the bow. Here, Glinn stopped and leaned against an an­chor wind­lass, gaz­ing out at the dis­tant de­stroy­er. Now that Val­lenar had made his move, the prob­lem would be to an­tic­ipate his fu­ture ac­tions. Glinn glanced covert­ly at Pup­pup. The on­ly per­son on board who could shed light on Val­lenar was the one he un­der­stood least. He had found him­self un­able to pre­dict or con­trol Pup­pup’s ac­tions. And the man dogged him like a shad­ow. It had proved sur­pris­ing­ly un­set­tling.

“Got a cigarette?” Pup­pup asked.

Glinn slid a new pack out of his pock­et — Marl­boros, worth their weight in gold — and hand­ed it to Pup­pup. The man tore it open and tapped out a cigarette. “Match?”

Glinn lit his cigarette with a lighter.

“Thanks, guv.” Pup­pup took a deep drag on the cigarette. “Bit parky out to­day, eh?”

“Yes it is.” There was a pause. “Where did you learn your En­glish, Mr. Pup­pup?”

“From the mis­sion­ar­ies, didn’t I? The on­ly bit of school­ing I had was from them.”

“Did one of them come from Lon­don, by chance?”

“Both of them as did, sir.”

Glinn wait­ed a mo­ment while Pup­pup smoked. Even con­sid­er­ing the cul­tur­al dif­fer­ences, the man was re­mark­ably dif­fi­cult to read. In fact, Glinn had nev­er met such an opaque in­di­vid­ual.

He be­gan slow­ly. “That’s a nice ring,” he said, point­ing offhand­ed­ly at a lit­tle gold ring on the mes­ti­zo’s pinkie.

Pup­pup held it up with a grin. “That it is. Pure gold, a pearl, two ru­bies, and all.”

“A gift from Queen Ade­laide, I pre­sume?”

Pup­pup start­ed, the cigarette jig­gling in his mouth. But he re­cov­ered quick­ly. “Right you are.”

“And what hap­pened to the queen’s bon­net?”

Pup­pup looked at him cu­ri­ous­ly. “Buried with the mis­sus. Looked a fair old treat in it, too.”

“Was Fue­gia Bas­ket your great-​great-​great-​grand­moth­er, then?”

“In a man­ner of speak­ing.” Pup­pup’s eyes re­mained veiled.

“You come from a dis­tin­guished fam­ily.” As Glinn spoke, he looked very close­ly at Pup­pup’s eyes. When they flicked away, he knew the com­ment had had its in­tend­ed ef­fect. Still, it was es­sen­tial that this be han­dled with the great­est fi­nesse. He would have on­ly one chance to un­lock John Pup­pup.

“Your wife must have died a long time ago.”

Pup­pup still didn’t an­swer.

“Small­pox?”

Pup­pup shook his head. “Measles.”

“Ah,” Glinn said. “My grand­fa­ther died of measles, al­so.” This was, in fact, true.

Pup­pup nod­ded.

“We have some­thing else in com­mon,” said Glinn.

Pup­pup looked at him side­ways.

“My great-​great-​great-​grand­fa­ther was Cap­tain Fitzroy.” Glinn spoke the lie very care­ful­ly, keep­ing his eyes un­mov­ing.

Pup­pup’s own eyes slid back out to sea, but Glinn could see the un­cer­tain­ty in them. The eyes be­trayed, ev­ery time. Un­less, of course, you trained them.

“Strange how his­to­ry re­peats it­self,” he went on. “I have an en­grav­ing of your great-​great­great-​grand­moth­er, when she was a lit­tle girl, meet­ing the queen. It hangs in my par­lor.” For the Yaghan, es­tab­lish­ing the fam­ily con­nec­tion was ev­ery­thing, if Glinn’s read­ing of the ethno­graph­ic lit­er­ature was cor­rect.

As he lis­tened, Pup­pup grew tense.

“John, may I see the ring again?”

With­out look­ing at him, Pup­pup raised his brown hand Glinn took it gen­tly in his own, ap­ply­ing a warm pres­sure to the palm. He had no­ticed the ring the first time he had seen him, drunk in the snug in Puer­to Williams. It had tak­en his peo­ple back in New York a few days to de­ter­mine what it was, and where it had come from.

“Fate is a strange thing, John. My great-​great-​great­grand­fa­ther, Cap­tain Fitzroy, of the HMS Bea­gle, kid­napped your great-​great-​great-​grand­moth­er, Fue­gia Bas­ket, and took her to Eng­land to meet the queen. And now I have kid­napped you,” he added with a smile. “Iron­ic, isn’t it? Ex­cept that I won’t be tak­ing you to Eng­land. Soon, you’ll be home again.” It was pop­ular in those days to bring “prim­itives” back from the far­thest reach­es of the earth to dis­play at court. Fue­gia Bas­ket had gone back to Tier­ra del Fuego on the Bea­gle sev­er­al years lat­er, with the bon­net and ring giv­en her by the queen. An­oth­er pas­sen­ger on that voy­age had been Mr. Charles Dar­win.

Al­though Pup­pup did not look at him, the opac­ity seemed to be fad­ing from his eyes.

“What will hap­pen to the ring?” Glinn asked.

“It’ll stay with me in­to the grave.”

“No chil­dren?” Glinn al­ready knew that Pup­pup was the last of the Yaghan, but he want­ed to gauge the an­swer.

Pup­pup shook his head.

Glinn nod­ded, still hold­ing the hand. “Are there no oth­ers left at all?”

“A few mes­ti­zos, but I’m the last one to speak the lin­go.”

“That must make you sad.”

“There’s an an­cient Yaghan leg­end, and the old­er I get the more I think it was meant for me.”

“What is that?”

“When the time comes for the last Yaghan to die, Hanuxa him­self will draw him down in­to the earth. From his bones, a new race will grow.”

Glinn let go of Pup­pup’s hand. “And how would Hanuxa take the last Yaghan?”

Pup­pup shook his head. “It’s a bloody su­per­sti­tion, isn’t it then? I don’t re­mem­ber the de­tails.”

Glinn didn’t push. This was the old Pup­pup talk­ing again. He re­al­ized there was no way to know if he had been suc­cess­ful in reach­ing him. “John, I need your help with Co­man­dante Emil­iano Val­lenar. His pres­ence here is a threat to our mis­sion. What can you tell me about him?”

Pup­pup shook an­oth­er cigarette out of the pack. “Co­man­dante Emil­iano came down here twen­ty-​five years ago. Af­ter the Pinochet coup.”

“Why?”

“His fa­ther fell out of a he­li­copter while be­ing ques­tioned. An Al­lende man. So was the son. He was post­ed down here to keep him at arm’s length, like.”

Glinn nod­ded. That ex­plained a great deal. Not on­ly his dis­grace in the Chilean navy, but his ha­tred of the Amer­icans, pos­si­bly even his self-​loathing as a Chilean. “Why is he still com­mand­ing a de­stroy­er?”

“He knows cer­tain things about cer­tain peo­ple, don’t he? He’s a good of­fi­cer. And Co­man­dante Emil­iano is very stub­born. And very care­ful.”

“I see,” said Glinn, not­ing the shrewd­ness of Pup­pup’s in­sights. “Is there any­thing else about him that I should know? Is he mar­ried?”

Pup­pup licked the end of a new cigarette and placed it be­tween his lips. “The co­man­dante is a dou­ble mur­der­er.”

Glinn sti­fled his sur­prise by light­ing the cigarette.

“He brought his wife to Puer­to Williams. It’s a bad place for a wom­an. There’s noth­ing to do, no dances, no fi­es­tas. Dur­ing the Falk­lands War, the co­man­dante was put on a long tour of du­ty in the Es­tre­cho de Ma­ga­llanes, keep­ing the Ar­gen­tini­an fleet pinned down for the British. When he came back, he dis­cov­ered his wife had tak­en a lover.” Pup­pup took a deep drag. “The co­man­dante was clever. He wait­ed un­til he could walk in on them, do­ing it, like. He cut her throat. As I heard it, he did some­thing even worse to the man. He bled to death on the way to the hos­pi­tal in Pun­ta Are­nas.”

“Why wasn’t he put in prison?”

“Down here, you don’t just tell your ri­val to sod off. Chileans have old no­tions of hon­or, don’t they?” Pup­pup spoke very clear­ly, very mat­ter-​of-​fact­ly. “If he had killed them out­side the bed­room, it would have been dif­fer­ent. But…” He shrugged. “Ev­ery­one un­der­stood why a man who saw his wife like that would do what he did. And that’s an­oth­er rea­son why the co­man­dante kept his com­mand so long.”

“Why is that?”

“He’s a man who might do any­thing.”

Glinn paused a mo­ment, look­ing out across the chan­nel at the de­stroy­er. It hung there, mo­tion­less, dark. “There’s some­thing else I must ask you,” he said, his eyes still on the war­ship. “That mer­chant in Pun­ta Are­nas, the one you sold the prospec­tor’s equip­ment to. Would he re­mem­ber you? Would he be able to iden­ti­fy you, if asked?”

Pup­pup seemed to think for a minute. “Can’t say,” he an­swered at last. “It was a big shop. Then again, there aren’t many Yaghan In­di­ans in Pun­ta Are­nas. And we had quite a bar­gain­ing ses­sion.”

“I see,” said Glinn. “Thank you, John. You’ve been very help­ful.”

“Speak noth­ing of it, guv’nor,” said Pup­pup. He looked side­long at Glinn, eyes sparkling with shrewd­ness and amuse­ment.

Glinn thought quick­ly. Some­times it was best to con­fess a lie im­me­di­ate­ly. If done prop­er­ly, it could breed a per­verse kind of trust.

“I’m afraid I haven’t been en­tire­ly hon­est with you,” he said. “I know a lot about Cap­tain Fitzroy. But he isn’t ac­tu­al­ly my an­ces­tor.”

Pup­pup cack­led un­pleas­ant­ly. “Of course not. No more than Fue­gia Bas­ket was mine.”

A gust of bit­ter Wind tore at Glinn’s col­lar. He glanced over at Pup­pup. “How did you get the ring then?”

“With us Yaghans, so many died that the last one left in­her­it­ed the lot. That’s how I got the bon­net and the ring, and just about ev­ery­thing else.” Pup­pup con­tin­ued gaz­ing at Glinn in a be­mused way.

“What hap­pened to it all?”

“Sold most of it. Drank the pro­ceeds.”

Glinn, star­tled again at the di­rect­ness of the re­sponse, re­al­ized he hadn’t even be­gun to un­der­stand the Yaghan. “When this is over,” the old man added, “you’ll have to take me with you, wher­ev­er you’re go­ing. I can’t go back home again.”

“Why not?” But even as he asked the ques­tion, Glinn re­al­ized he al­ready knew the an­swer.

Rolvaag,

11:20 P.M.

MC­FAR­LANE WALKED down the blue-​car­pet­ed cor­ri­dor of the low­er bridge deck. He was bone tired, yet he could not sleep. Too much had hap­pened for one day: the long string of bizarre dis­cov­er­ies, the deaths of Rochefort and Evans, the reap­pear­ance of the de­stroy­er. Hav­ing giv­en up on sleep, he found him­self roam­ing the decks of the Rolvaag like a rest­less ap­pari­tion.

Now he paused be­fore a state­room door. His feet, un­bid­den, had brought him to Ami­ra’s cab­in. He re­al­ized, with sur­prise, that he want­ed her com­pa­ny. Her cyn­ical laugh might be just the brac­ing ton­ic he need­ed. Time spent with her would be mer­ci­ful­ly free of chitchat or ex­haus­tive ex­pla­na­tions. He won­dered if she’d be in­ter­est­ed in a cup of cof­fee in the ward­room, or a game of pool.

He knocked on the door. “Rachel?”

There was no re­sponse. She couldn’t be sleep­ing — Ami­ra claimed she had nev­er gone to bed be­fore 3 A.M. in the last ten years.

He knocked again. The un­latched door eased open un­der the pres­sure of his knuck­les.

“Rachel? It’s Sam.” He stepped in­side, cu­ri­ous de­spite him­self; he had nev­er been in­side Ami­ra’s cab­in. In­stead of the dis­ar­ray, the con­fused ri­ot of sheets and cigar ash and clothes he ex­pect­ed, the place looked fas­tid­ious­ly clean. The so­fa and chairs were neat­ly ar­ranged, the shelves of sci­en­tif­ic man­uals care­ful­ly or­dered. For a mo­ment he won­dered if she was even liv­ing there, un­til he saw a lit­ter of bro­ken peanut shells, ly­ing in a semi­cir­cle un­der­neath the com­put­er ta­ble.

He smiled fond­ly as he stepped to­ward the ta­ble. His eyes strayed to the screen and were ar­rest­ed by the sight of his own last name.

A two-​page doc­ument stood in the near­by print­er. Snatch­ing the top page, he be­gan to read.

EES CON­FI­DEN­TIAL From: R. Ami­ra To: E. Glinn Sub­ject: S. Mc­Far­lane Since the last re­port, the sub­ject has be­come in­creas­ing­ly en­grossed with the me­te­orite and its in­com­pre­hen­si­bil­ity. He is still am­bive­lent about the project, and about Lloyd him­self, he has al­so been drawn in, al­most against his will, by the prob­lems the me­te­orite pos­es. There is lit­tle talk be­tween us of any­thing else — at least, un­til what hap­pened at the site this morn­ing. I am not sure he is be­ing com­plete­ly forthright with me, but I’m not com­fort­able press­ing the is­sue any far­ther. Af­ter the me­te­orite was first un­cov­ered, I ini­ti­at­ed a con­ver­sa­tion about his ear­li­er the­ory about the ex­is­tence of in­ter­stel­lar me­te­orites. While re­luc­tant at first, he soon be­came en­thu­si­as­tic, ex­plain­ing how the the­ory fits the Des­olación me­te­orite. How­ev­er, he felt a need for se­cre­cy and asked me not to share his sus­pi­cions with any­one. As you must know from this morn­ing’s dis­cus­sion, his be­lief in its in­ter­stel­lar na­ture is, if any­thing, grow­ing.

There was a clos­ing of a door, the sharp in­take of breath. Mc­Far­lane turned. Ami­ra stood with her back to the cab­in door. She was still dressed for din­ner in a knee-​length black dress, but she had thrown her par­ka over her shoul­ders for the trip to the com­mis­sary. She was in the act of pulling a new­ly pur­chased bag of peanuts from one of the pock­ets. She glanced at him, then at the pa­per in his hand, and be­came still.

For a mo­ment, they sim­ply looked at each oth­er. Slow­ly, as if by its own ac­cord, the bag of peanuts dropped back in­to the pock­et of the par­ka.

More than any­thing else, Mc­Far­lane felt a bleak­ness spread through him. It was as if, af­ter all the re­cent shocks, he could find no more re­serves of emo­tion to draw on.

“Well,” he said fi­nal­ly. “Looks like I’m not the on­ly Ju­das on this boat.”

Ami­ra re­turned his gaze, her face pale. “You al­ways break in­to oth­er peo­ple’s rooms and read their pri­vate pa­pers?”

Mc­Far­lane smiled cold­ly. He flipped the pa­per on­to the desk. “Sor­ry, but this work is un­sat­is­fac­to­ry. `Am­biva­lent’ is mis­spelled. Eli’s not go­ing to paste a star by your name to­day.” He stepped to­ward the door that was still blocked by her body. “Please step aside.”

Ami­ra fal­tered, dropped her eyes, but she did not step away. “Wait,” she said.

“I said, step aside.”

She nod­ded to­ward the print­er. “Not un­til you read the rest.”

A flush of rage coursed through him at this, and he raised his hand to brush her aside. Then, mas­ter­ing him­self, he willed his hand back down. “I’ve read quite enough, thanks. Now get the hell out of my way.”

“Read the rest. Then you can go.” Ami­ra blinked, licked her lips. She stood her ground.

He held her gaze for a minute, per­haps two. Then he turned, reached for the rest of the re­port, and read.

As it hap­pens, I agree with him. The ev­idence is strong, if not ir­refutable, that this me­te­orite came from far be­yond the so­lar sys­tem. Sam’s the­ory has been vin­di­cat­ed. Fur­ther­more, I see no ev­idence of ob­ses­sion in Sam, or any­thing else that could pose a threat to the ex­pe­di­tion. Just the op­po­site: the me­te­orite seems to be awak­en­ing the sci­en­tist in him. I’ve seen less of the sar­cas­tic, de­fen­sive, and some­times mer­ce­nary side of him that was so ev­ident in the be­gin­ning; this has been re­placed by a vo­ra­cious cu­rios­ity, a pro­found de­sire to un­der­stand this bizarre rock. And so this will be my third, and fi­nal, re­port. I can’t in good con­science con­tin­ue to pro­vide these re­ports. If I sense prob­lems, I’ll re­port them. I’d do that in any case as a loy­al EES em­ploy­ee. The fact is, this me­te­orite is stranger than any of us could have pos­si­bly fore­seen. It may even be dan­ger­ous. I can’t both watch him and work with him. You asked me to be Sam’s as­sis­tant. And that’s just what I plan to be — for his good, my good, and the good of the mis­sion.

Mc­Far­lane pulled the chair away from the com­put­er ta­ble and eased down in­to it, the pa­per crack­ling in his hand. He felt his anger drain­ing away, leav­ing a con­fused wel­ter of feel­ings.

For what seemed like a long time, nei­ther one spoke. Mc­Far­lane could hear the dis­tant rush of wa­ter, feel the faint thrum­ming of the en­gines. Then he looked up at her.

“It was Eli’s idea,” she said. “You were Lloyd’s man, not his. You had a ques­tion­able his­to­ry. And at that first meet­ing, that thing with the sand­wich, you showed your­self to be a bit un­pre­dictable. Un­pre­dictable peo­ple make him ner­vous. So he told me to keep an eye on you. Write reg­ular re­ports.

Mc­Far­lane sat, watch­ing her in si­lence.

“I didn’t like the idea. At first it was be­ing your as­sis­tant that re­al­ly got to me most, though. I just thought the re­ports would be a pain. But I had no idea — no idea — how hard they would ac­tu­al­ly be. I felt like a re­al shit ev­ery time I sat down to write one.” She sighed deeply, a catch sound­ing in her throat. “These last cou­ple of days… I don’t know.” She shook her head. “And then, writ­ing this one… I just re­al­ized I couldn’t do it any­more. Not even for him.”

She abrupt­ly fell silent. She dropped her eyes from his face to the car­pet. De­spite her ef­forts, he saw her chin trem­ble. A sin­gle tear chart­ed an er­rat­ic course down her cheek.

Quick­ly, Mc­Far­lane rose from his chair and came to her. He drew the tear away. She put her hands around his neck and drew him to­ward her, bury­ing her face in his neck.

“Oh, Sam,” she whis­pered. “I’m so sor­ry.”

“It’s all right.”

A sec­ond tear be­gan to fur­row down her cheek. He bent to brush it away, but she turned her face to meet his and their lips joined in­stead.

With a soft moan, she pulled him more tight­ly to her. Mc­Far­lane, drawn for­ward over the so­fa, felt the pres­sure of her breasts against him, felt her calves slid­ing past his hips. For a mo­ment, he hes­itat­ed. Then he felt her hands tease the back of his neck and her thighs lock around him, and he yield­ed to a flood of pas­sion. He slid his hands be­neath her dress and pulled her to him, rais­ing her legs, press­ing the palms of his hands against the in­sides of her knees. He kissed her ar­dent­ly as her hands traced ca­ress­ing lines down his back.

“Oh, Sam,” she said again. And then she pressed her mouth to his.

Is­la Des­olación,

Ju­ly 19, 11:30 A.M.

MC­FAR­LANE EYED the tow­ers of black la­va that reared be­fore him. The im­mense fangs were even more im­pres­sive close up. Ge­olog­ical­ly, he rec­og­nized them as clas­sic “vol­canic plugs” — the rem­nants of a twin vol­cano, in which the slopes had erod­ed away, leav­ing be­hind the two basalt-​filled throats.

He turned around, glanc­ing over his shoul­der. Sev­er­al miles be­hind and far be­low them, the land­ing area was a sprin­kling of black dots on a white land­scape, thread­like roads lead­ing away across the is­land. In the wake of Rochefort’s and Evans’s deaths, re­cov­ery work had re­sumed im­me­di­ate­ly. It was be­ing di­rect­ed by Garza and the sec­ond en­gi­neer, Stoneci­pher, a hu­mor­less man who seemed to have in­her­it­ed Rochefort’s per­son­al­ity along with his du­ties.

Rachel Ami­ra came up be­side him, her breath frosty. She gazed up at the peaks, frown­ing. “How far do we have to go?”

“I want to reach that stripe of dark­er ma­te­ri­al about halfway up. That’s prob­ably a rem­nant of the last erup­tion, so we’d want to use that to date the flow.”

“No prob­lem,” she said, rat­tling her gear with a show of brava­do.

She had been in high spir­its since meet­ing up for the climb, speak­ing lit­tle but hum­ming and whistling to her­self. Mc­Far­lane, on the oth­er hand, felt rest­less, im­pa­tient.

His eyes trav­eled up the pos­si­ble routes, look­ing for ob­sta­cles, cor­nices, loose rock. Then he start­ed off again, snow­shoes bit­ing in­to the fresh­ly fall­en snow. They moved slow­ly, hik­ing up the talus slope. Near the base of the plug, Mc­Far­lane stopped at an un­usu­al rock that poked out from the snow. He gave it a sharp rap with his rock ham­mer, slipped two chips in­to his sam­ple pouch, and jot­ted a quick note.

“Play­ing with rocks,” said Rachel. “How like a boy.”

“That’s why I be­came a plan­etary ge­ol­ogist.”

“Bet you had a rock col­lec­tion as a kid.”

“Ac­tu­al­ly, no. What did you col­lect? Bar­bie dolls?”

Rachel snort­ed. “I had a rather eclec­tic col­lec­tion. Bird’s nests, snake­skins, dried taran­tu­las, bones, but­ter­flies, scor­pi­ons, a dead owl, un­usu­al road­kill — that sort of thing.”

“Dried taran­tu­las?”

“Yeah. I grew up in Por­tal, Ari­zona, at the foot of the Chir­ic­ahua Moun­tains. In the fall, the big male taran­tu­las would come out on­to the roads, look­ing to get laid. I had about thir­ty of them, mount­ed on a board. God­damn dog ate my whole col­lec­tion one day.”

“Did the dog die?”

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly, no. She threw them up all over my mom’s bed, though. In the mid­dle of the night. That was pret­ty fun­ny.” She gig­gled at the rec­ol­lec­tion.

They paused. The slope be­yond grew steep­er. Here the con­stant wind had giv­en the snow a thick crust.

“Let’s ditch the snow­shoes,” Mc­Far­lane said.

De­spite the sub­ze­ro weath­er, he felt over­heat­ed and tugged down the zip­per of his par­ka. “We’ll head for the sad­dle be­tween the two peaks,” he said, fit­ting cram­pons to his boots and mov­ing for­ward again. “What kind of road­kill?”

“Herps, most­ly.”

“Herps?”

“Her­peto­log­ical spec­imens. Am­phib­ians and rep­tiles.”

“Why?”

Rachel smiled. “Be­cause they were in­ter­est­ing. Dry, flat easy to sort and store. I had some pret­ty un­usu­al species.”

“I bet your mom loved that.”

“She didn’t know about it.”

They lapsed in­to si­lence, their breath leav­ing white trails be­hind them. A few min­utes brought them to the sad­dle, and Mc­Far­lane stopped for an­oth­er rest. “Three weeks on that damn ship has put me out of shape,” he gasped.

“You did all right last night, mis­ter.” A grin be­gan to spread across her face. Then she sud­den­ly flushed, turn­ing her face away.

He did not re­spond. Rachel had been a good part­ner, and he felt that he could trust her now, de­spite the du­plic­ity. But what had hap­pened last night was an un­ex­pect­ed com­pli­ca­tion. The last thing he want­ed now were com­pli­ca­tions.

They rest­ed for a few min­utes, shar­ing a can­teen of wa­ter. Far to the west, Mc­Far­lane could see a dark streak ly­ing across the hori­zon: a harbinger of the storm.

“You seem dif­fer­ent from the rest of Glinn’s team,” he said. “Why’s that?”

“I am dif­fer­ent. That’s no ac­ci­dent. Ev­ery­one at EES is su­per cau­tious, in­clud­ing Glinn. He need­ed some­body who took risks. And, in case you hadn’t no­ticed, I’m bril­liant.”

“I had no­ticed,” said Mc­Far­lane, tak­ing out a can­dy and hand­ing it to her.

They chewed in si­lence. Then Mc­Far­lane stuffed the emp­ty wrap­pers back in­to the pack and swung it over his shoul­der, cast­ing an ap­prais­ing eye at the slope above them.

“It looks a lit­tle tricky from here. I’ll go — “

But Rachel al­ready be­gan scram­bling up the icy snow­field ahead of him. It rose to the bot­tom of the rock, get­ting bluer — ici­er — as it be­came steep­er.

“Take it easy,” he called up, look­ing out from the face. The view out over the rugged is­lands of the Horn group was spec­tac­ular. Far be­yond, over the hori­zon, he could just see the tops of the Fue­gian moun­tains. The Rolvaag, for all its bulk, looked like a child’s bath­tub toy in the black wa­ter of the bay. The de­stroy­er could just be seen, most­ly hid­den by a rugged is­land. At the lim­it of vi­sion, he could see the line of storm eat­ing in­to the crys­talline sky.

Look­ing back up, he was alarmed to see how quick­ly Rachel had climbed. “Slow down!” he called, more ur­gent­ly this time.

“Slow­poke!” was the taunt­ing re­ply.

And then a rock clat­tered past, fol­lowed by an­oth­er, larg­er, inch­es from his ear. With a crum­pling sound, a small part of the talus slope slid away from Rachel’s feet, ex­pos­ing a dark scar be­neath the snow. She dropped heav­ily on­to her stom­ach, legs dan­gling in­to space. A stran­gle of fear es­caped her as she twist­ed, scrab­bling for a pur­chase.

“Hold on!” Mc­Far­lane cried, scram­bling up­ward.

In a mo­ment he was on a broad ledge di­rect­ly be­neath her. He edged clos­er, cau­tious now, plant­ing his feet care­ful­ly in the hard sur­face. He reached out and grasped her fore­arm. “I’ve got you,” he pant­ed. “Let go.”

“I can’t,” she said be­tween clenched teeth.

“It’s okay,” he re­peat­ed qui­et­ly. “I’ve got you.”

She gave a small groan, then re­laxed her grip. He felt her weight com­ing down on him and he twist­ed, guid­ing her feet to the broad ledge be­low him. She land­ed hard and col­lapsed, shak­ing, on­to her knees.

“Oh, my God,” she said, her voice qua­ver­ing. “I al­most fell.” She put an arm around him.

“It’s okay,” he said. “You would’ve fall­en all of five feet. In­to a snow­drift.”

“Re­al­ly?” She looked down and made a wry face. “It felt like the whole moun­tain was falling away in a land­slide. I was go­ing to say you saved my life, but I guess you didn’t. Thanks any­way.”

She raised her head to his, giv­ing him a quick light kiss on the mouth. She paused a mo­ment, then kissed him again, more de­lib­er­ate­ly this time. Then, sens­ing re­sis­tance, she pulled back, re­gard­ing him in­tent­ly with her dark eyes. They stared at each oth­er in si­lence for a mo­ment, the world spread out a thou­sand feet be­low them.

“You still don’t trust me, Sam?” she asked qui­et­ly.

“I trust you.”

She drew clos­er to him again, her eye­brows knit­ting in a look of con­ster­na­tion. “Then what’s wrong? Is there some­body else? Our gal­lant cap­tain, per­haps? Even Eli seems — ” She stopped abrupt­ly, her eyes cast down­ward, hug­ging her knees close­ly to her­self.

Half a dozen re­spons­es came to Mc­Far­lane’s mind, but each one seemed ei­ther frivolous or pa­tron­iz­ing. For want of a bet­ter re­ply, he sim­ply reshoul­dered the pack and shook his head, smil­ing fool­ish­ly.

“There’s a good sam­pling spot maybe twen­ty feet up the slope,” he said af­ter a mo­ment.

Rachel’s eyes were still on the ground. “You go get your sam­ple. I think I’ll wait here.”

It was the work of a few min­utes to reach the site, hack half a dozen pieces of the dark­er basalt from the rock face, and re­turn to Rachel. She stood up as he ap­proached, and they climbed back down to the sad­dle in si­lence.

“Let’s take a breather,” Mc­Far­lane said at last, as ca­su­al­ly as he could. His eyes were on Rachel. They would be work­ing to­geth­er close­ly for the rest of the ex­pe­di­tion; the last thing he need­ed was to have an awk­ward­ness be­tween them. He put his hand on her el­bow and she turned to­ward him ex­pec­tant­ly.

“Rachel,” he said. “Lis­ten. Last night was won­der­ful. But let’s leave it like that. At least for now.”

Her look sharp­ened. “Mean­ing?”

“Mean­ing we have a job to do. To­geth­er. And it’s com­pli­cat­ed enough as it is. So let’s not push things, okay?” She blinked quick­ly, then nod­ded, a brief smile cov­er­ing the dis­ap­point­ment, even hurt, that had flashed across her face. “Okay,” she said, look­ing away.

Mc­Far­lane put his arms around her. With her heavy par­ka, it was like em­brac­ing the Miche­lin man. With a gloved fin­ger, he gen­tly raised her face to­ward his.

“Is it okay?” he asked.

She nod­ded again. “It’s not the first time I’ve heard it,” she said. “It gets eas­ier.”

“What does that mean?”

She shrugged. “Noth­ing. I guess I’m just not very good at this kind of thing, that’s all.”

They held each oth­er as the cold wind ed­died around them. Mc­Far­lane looked down at the stray hairs curl­ing away from the hood of Rachel’s par­ka. And then, on im­pulse, he asked a ques­tion he’d been won­der­ing about since the first night on the fly deck. “Was there ev­er any­thing be­tween you and Glinn?”

She looked at him, then pulled away, her ex­pres­sion be­com­ing guard­ed. Then she sighed, re­lax­ing. “Oh, why the hell not tell you. It’s true. Once up­on a time, Eli and I had a thing. Just a lit­tle thing, I sup­pose. It was… very nice.” A smile rose on her lips, then slow­ly fad­ed. She turned away and sat down in the snow, legs kicked out be­fore her, gaz­ing out over the white vista be­neath them.

Mc­Far­lane sat down be­side her. “What hap­pened?”

She glanced over. “Do I re­al­ly need to spell it out? Eli broke it off.” She smiled cold­ly. “And you know what? Ev­ery­thing was go­ing great. There was noth­ing wrong. I’d nev­er been hap­pi­er in my life.” She paused. “I guess that’s what spooked him. He couldn’t bear the thought that it wouldn’t al­ways stay that great. So when things couldn’t get any bet­ter, he cut it off. Just like that. Be­cause if things can’t get any bet­ter, they can on­ly get worse. That would be a fail­ure. Right? And Eli Glinn is a man who can’t fail.” She laughed mirth­less­ly.

“But you two still think alike, in some ways,” said Mc­Far­lane. “Like yes­ter­day, in the li­brary. I kind of fig­ured you’d speak up. About what hap­pened to Rochefort and Evans, I mean. But you didn’t. Does that mean their deaths are okay with you, too?”

“Please, Sam. No death is okay. But al­most ev­ery project I’ve worked on with EES has seen ca­su­al­ties. It’s the na­ture of this busi­ness.”

They sat a mo­ment, look­ing away from each oth­er. Then Rachel rose to her feet.

“Come on,” she said qui­et­ly, dust­ing her­self off. “Last one back has to clean the test tubes.”

Almi­rante Ramirez,

2:45 P.M.

CO­MAN­DANTE EMIL­IANO Val­lenar stood on the de­stroy­er’s puente volante, the fly­ing bridge, scan­ning the enor­mous tanker with his field binoc­ulars. Slow­ly, care­ful­ly, his eyes trav­eled from the bow, along the main­deck, on and on and on, un­til at last he reached the su­per­struc­ture. As al­ways, it was an in­ter­est­ing jour­ney. He had lin­gered on it so long, and so care­ful­ly, that he felt he knew ev­ery rust­ed port­hole, ev­ery davit, ev­ery smear of oil. There were cer­tain things on this so-​called ore car­ri­er that he found sus­pi­cious: those an­ten­nas, hid­den low, that looked dis­tinct­ly as if they be­longed to some pas­sive elec­tron­ic surveil­lance mea­sur­ing de­vice. And a very tall an­ten­na at the top of the mast, de­spite its bro­ken ap­pear­ance, looked like an air-​search radar.

He low­ered the binoc­ulars, reached in­to his coat with a gloved hand, and pulled out the let­ter from the ge­ol­ogist in Val­paraiso.

Es­timable Sir, The rock which you so kind­ly fur­nished me is a some­what un­usu­al type of stri­at­ed quartz — specif­ical­ly, sil­icon diox­ide — with mi­cro­scop­ic in­clu­sions of feldspar, horn­blende, and mi­ca. How­ev­er, I am sor­ry to tell you that it is of no val­ue what­so­ev­er, ei­ther for com­mer­cial pur­pos­es or to min­er­al col­lec­tors. In re­sponse to your spe­cif­ic query, there are no traces of gold, sil­ver, or any oth­er valu­able ores, min­er­als, or com­pounds present. Nor is this type of min­er­al found in as­so­ci­ation with de­posits of oil, gas, oil shale, or oth­er com­mer­cial hy­dro­car­bon prod­ucts. Once again, I am humbly sor­ry to con­vey this in­for­ma­tion to you, as it must sure­ly dis­cour­age any pur­suit of your great-​un­cle’s min­ing claim.

Val­lenar traced the em­bossed seal at the top of the let­ter with his hand. Then, in a spasm of dis­gust, he balled it in his fist and shoved it in­to his pock­et. The anal­ysis was not worth the pa­per it was writ­ten on.

Once again, he raised the binoc­ulars in the di­rec­tion of the for­eign ves­sel. No ship of its size should be moored here. In the Horn is­lands there was on­ly one known an­chor­age, Surgidero Ot­ter, and that was on the far side of Is­la Wol­las­ton. In the Franklin Chan­nel, there was no de­cent hold­ing ground at all, with the ex­cep­tion of an un­chart­ed ledge that he, alone, had dis­cov­ered. The cur­rents were strong. On­ly a very ig­no­rant cap­tain would try to moor here. And then he would have sure­ly run moor­ing ca­bles to shore.

But this ves­sel had dropped an­chor in bad ground, and had been sit­ting there for a num­ber of days, swing­ing back and forth with the tide and wind, as if it had found the finest hold­ing ground in the world. At first, Val­lenar had been as­ton­ished by this. It seemed mirac­ulous. But then he had no­ticed small, in­fre­quent swirls of wa­ter at the ves­sel’s stern, and he re­al­ized that its stern thrusters were run­ning. Al­ways run­ning. They were ad­just­ing their thrust to keep the ship sta­tion­ary in the ev­er-​chang­ing cur­rents of the chan­nel, ex­cept at the change of tide, when he could see they were be­ing used to swing the ship around.

And that could mean on­ly one thing: the an­chor ca­bles were a de­cep­tion. The ship was equipped with a dy­nam­ic po­si­tion­ing sys­tem. This re­quired a link to a geopo­si­tion­ing satel­lite and a pow­er­ful com­put­er op­er­at­ing the ship’s en­gines, work­ing to­geth­er to main­tain an ex­act po­si­tion on the sur­face of the earth. It was the very lat­est tech­nol­ogy. Val­lenar had read about it, but nev­er seen it. No ship in the Chilean navy was equipped with DPS. Even in a small ves­sel, it was ex­treme­ly cost­ly to in­stall and burned a tremen­dous amount of fu­el. And yet here it was, on this al­leged shab­by con­vert­ed tanker.

He breathed deeply, swivel­ing the binoc­ulars from the ship to the is­land be­yond. He took in the equip­ment shed, the road lead­ing in­land to the mine. There was a large scar on a hill­side where heavy equip­ment was at work, be­side what might be leach­ing pools. But there was al­so a de­cep­tion here. There were no hy­draulic noz­zles or sluic­ing work to in­di­cate plac­er min­ing. Ex­cept for the pools, it was a neat op­er­ation. Too neat, in fact. He had grown up in a min­ing camp in the north, and he knew what they were like.

In his heart, the co­man­dante now knew the Amer­icans were not dig­ging for gold. And any fool could see they were not dig­ging iron ore. It looked more like a di­amond pipe op­er­ation than any­thing else. But if the Amer­icans were min­ing di­amonds, why then had they brought such a huge ves­sel with them? The whole op­er­ation, from start to fin­ish, car­ried a strong odor of du­plic­ity.

He won­dered if the work had any­thing to do with the leg­ends about the is­land, the old myths of the Yaghans. He vague­ly re­mem­bered the bor­ra­cho, Juan Pup­pup, ram­bling on about some leg­end in the bar one evening. He tried to re­mem­ber what it was: some­thing about an an­gry god and his frat­ri­ci­dal son. When he got his hands on Pup­pup, he would make sure the mes­ti­zo’s last earth­ly act would be to tell him ev­ery­thing he knew.

Foot­steps ap­proached, then the ofi­cial de guardia, the of­fi­cer of the deck, ap­peared at his side. “Co­man­dante,” the man said, snap­ping a salute. “En­gine room re­ports all en­gines on line.”

“Very well. Make your course ze­ro nine ze­ro. And please send Mr. Tim­mer to me.”

The of­fi­cer salut­ed again, then turned and left the fly­ing bridge. Val­lenar scowled as he watched the man re­treat down the met­al stair­way. New or­ders had come in; as usu­al, they amount­ed to more worth­less pa­trolling in des­olate wa­ters.

With his good hand, he reached in­to the pock­et of his jack­et and found the chunk of rock that had been re­turned with the let­ter. It was bare­ly larg­er than a prune. And yet he was con­vinced it held the se­cret to what the Amer­icans were do­ing. They had learned some­thing from the prospec­tor’s ma­chine and the sack of rocks. Some­thing im­por­tant enough to bring a vast amount of mon­ey and equip­ment to this re­mote, dan­ger­ous place.

Val­lenar clutched the rock tight­ly. He need­ed to know what the Amer­icans knew. If the mo­ron­ic ge­ol­ogist at the uni­ver­si­ty could not help him, he would find some­body who could. He knew that Aus­tralia had some of the best ge­ol­ogists in the world. That was where he would send it, by ur­gent ex­press. They would un­lock the peb­ble’s se­cret. Then he would know what they were af­ter. And how to re­spond.

“Sir!” The voice of Tim­mer in­trud­ed on his thoughts.

Val­lenar glanced over at the man’s trim fig­ure, stand­ing at rigid at­ten­tion; glanced over his blue eyes and sun­bleached hair, his spot­less uni­form. Even in a crew that had been drilled for in­stant, in­stinc­tive obe­di­ence, Ofi­cial de Co­mu­ni­ca­ciones Tim­mer stood out. His moth­er had come to Chile from Ger­many in 1945; a beau­ti­ful wom­an, cul­ti­vat­ed, sen­su­al. Tim­mer had been raised with dis­ci­pline. And he was no stranger to the use of force.

“At ease,” said Val­lenar, his tone soft­en­ing. Tim­mer re­laxed al­most im­per­cep­ti­bly.

Val­lenar clasped his hands be­hind his back and gazed out at the flaw­less sky. “We are head­ing east,” he said, “but we will re­turn here to­mor­row. Bad weath­er is ex­pect­ed.”

“Yes, sir.” Tim­mer con­tin­ued star­ing straight ahead.

“On that day, I will have an as­sign­ment for you. It will in­volve a de­gree of risk.” “I look for­ward to it, sir.”

Co­man­dante Val­lenar smiled. “I knew you would,” he said, the faintest touch of pride in his voice.

Rolvaag,

2:50 P.M.

MC­FAR­LANE PAUSED just in­side the out­er door of the Rolvaag’s sick bay. He’d al­ways had a mor­bid fear of doc­tors’ of­fices and hos­pi­tals — any place with in­ti­ma­tions of mor­tal­ity. The Rolvaag’s wait­ing room was de­void even of the false sense of tran­quil­li­ty such places or­di­nar­ily tried to project. The well-​thumbed mag­azines, the shab­by Nor­man Rock­well re­pro­duc­tions, were miss­ing. The on­ly dec­ora­tion was a large med­ical school poster de­tail­ing, in full col­or, var­ious dis­eases of the skin. The place smelled so strong­ly of rub­bing al­co­hol and io­dine that Mc­Far­lane be­lieved the strange old doc­tor must be us­ing them for rug clean­er.

He hes­itat­ed a mo­ment, feel­ing a lit­tle fool­ish. This er­rand can wait, he thought. But then, with a deep breath, he found him­self walk­ing across the room and in­to a long hall­way. He stopped at the last door and rapped on the frame.

Cap­tain Brit­ton and the doc­tor were in­side, qui­et­ly dis­cussing a chart that lay open on the ta­ble be­tween them. Bram­bell sat back in his chair, ca­su­al­ly clos­ing the fold­er as he did so. “Ah, Dr. Mc­Far­lane.” The dry voice held no sur­prise. He stared at Mc­Far­lane, eyes un­blink­ing, wait­ing.

This can wait, he thought again. But it was too late; they were both look­ing at him ex­pec­tant­ly. “Masangkay’s ef­fects,” he said aloud. “Those things with the body? Now that you’ve com­plet­ed the tests, can they be re­leased?”

Bram­bell con­tin­ued to look at him. It was a stare not of hu­man com­pas­sion but of clin­ical in­ter­est. “There was noth­ing of val­ue among them,” he an­swered.

Mc­Far­lane leaned against the door­frame and wait­ed, re­fus­ing to be­tray any­thing to the watch­ful eyes. At last, the doc­tor sighed. “Once they’ve been pho­tographed, I see no rea­son to keep them. What pre­cise­ly are you in­ter­est­ed in?”

“Just let me know when they’re ready, will you?” Mc­Far­lane pushed him­self away from the frame, nod­ded to Brit­ton, and turned back to­ward the wait­ing room. As he pulled open the out­er door, he heard quick foot­steps be­hind him.

“Dr. Mc­Far­lane.” It was Cap­tain Brit­ton. “I’ll walk top­side with you.”

“Didn’t mean to break up the par­ty,” Mc­Far­lane said, swing­ing out in­to the hall.

“I have to get back up to the bridge any­way. I’m ex­pect­ing an up­date on that ap­proach­ing storm.”

They moved down the wide cor­ri­dor, dark ex­cept for the reg­ular stripes of sun­light that slant­ed in­ward from the round port­holes.

“I’m sor­ry about your friend Masangkay, Dr. Mc­Far­lane,” she said with un­ex­pect­ed kind­ness.

Mc­Far­lane glanced at her. “Thanks.” Even in the dim cor­ri­dor, her eyes were bright. He won­dered if she was go­ing to probe his nos­tal­gic de­sire for Nestor’s ef­fects, but she re­mained silent. Once again, he was struck by an in­de­fin­able feel­ing of kin­ship. “Call me Sam,” he said.

“Okay, Sam.”

They stepped out of the stair­well on­to the main­deck.

“Take a turn around the deck with me,” Brit­ton said.

Sur­prised, Mc­Far­lane fol­lowed her back through su­per­struc­ture to the fan­tail. Some­thing in her state­ly bear­ing, in the sway of her walk, re­mind­ed him of his ex-​wife, Mal­ou. A pale gold­en light lay over the ship’s stern. The wa­ter of the chan­nel shone a rich, deep blue.

Brit­ton walked past the land­ing pad and leaned against the rail, squint­ing in­to the sun. “Sam, I have a dilem­ma. I frankly don’t like what I’m hear­ing about that me­te­orite. I fear it will en­dan­ger the ship. A sea­man al­ways trusts her gut. And I re­al­ly don’t like see­ing that out there.” She mo­tioned to­ward the low, slen­der line of the Chilean de­stroy­er ly­ing in the wa­ters be­yond the chan­nel. “On the oth­er hand, from what I’ve seen of Glinn, I have ev­ery rea­son to ex­pect suc­cess.” She glanced at him. “You see the para­dox? I can’t trust Eli Glinn and my own in­stincts both. And if I need to act, I need to act now. I’m not go­ing to put any­thing in the hold of my ship that isn’t safe.”

In the piti­less sun­light, Brit­ton looked old­er than her years. She’s think­ing of abort­ing the mis­sion, he thought in sur­prise.

“I don’t think Lloyd would be very hap­py if you balked now,” he said.

“Lloyd isn’t the mas­ter of the Rolvaag. I’m speak­ing to you, as I did be­fore, be­cause you’re the on­ly one I can speak to.”

Mc­Far­lane looked at her.

“As cap­tain, I can’t con­fide in any of my of­fi­cers or crew. And I cer­tain­ly can’t speak to EES per­son­nel about these con­cerns. That leaves you, the me­te­orite ex­pert. I need to know if you think that me­te­orite will en­dan­ger my ship. I need your view, not Mr. Lloyd’s.”

Mc­Far­lane held her gaze a mo­ment longer. Then he turned back to­ward the sea.

“I can’t an­swer your ques­tion,” he said. “It’s dan­ger­ous enough — we’ve learned that the hard way. But will it specif­ical­ly en­dan­ger the ship? I don’t know. But I think maybe it’s too late for us to stop, even if we want­ed to.”

“But in the li­brary, you spoke up. You had con­cerns. Just as I did.”

“I’m very con­cerned. But it isn’t that sim­ple. That me­te­orite is as deep a mys­tery as any in the uni­verse. What it rep­re­sents is so im­por­tant that I think we’ve got no choice but to con­tin­ue. If Mag­el­lan had sober­ly tak­en in­to ac­count all the risks, he nev­er would have be­gun his voy­age around the world. Colum­bus would nev­er have dis­cov­ered Amer­ica.”

Brit­ton was silent, study­ing him in­tent­ly. “You think this me­te­orite is a dis­cov­ery on a par with Mag­el­lan or Colum­bus?”

“Yes,” he said fi­nal­ly. “I do.”

“In the li­brary, Glinn asked you a ques­tion. You didn’t an­swer it.”

“I couldn’t an­swer it.”

“Why?”

He turned and looked in­to her steady green eyes. “Be­cause I re­al­ized — de­spite Rochefort, de­spite ev­ery­thing — I want that me­te­orite. More than I’ve ev­er want­ed any­thing.”

Af­ter a pause, Brit­ton drew her­self up. “Thank you, Sam,” she said. Then, turn­ing smart­ly, she head­ed for the bridge.

Is­la Des­olación,

Ju­ly 20, 2:05 P.M.

MC­FAR­LANE AND Rachel stood at the edge of the stag­ing area, in the cold af­ter­noon sun. The east­ern sky was clear and bright, the land­scape be­low painful­ly sharp in the crisp air. But the sky to the west looked very dif­fer­ent: a vast, dark cloak that stretched across the hori­zon, tum­bling low, mov­ing in their di­rec­tion, blot­ting out the moun­tain peaks. A gust of wind swirled old snow around their feet. The storm was no longer just a blip on a screen: it was al­most on top of them.

Garza came to­ward them. “Nev­er thought I’d like the look of a storm as ug­ly as that one,” he said, smil­ing and point­ing west­ward.

“What’s the plan now?” Mc­Far­lane asked.

“Cut and cov­er, from here to the shore,” said Garza with a wink.

“Cut and cov­er?”

“In­stant tun­nel. It’s the sim­plest en­gi­neered tun­nel, a tech­nique that’s been used since Baby­lon. We dig a chan­nel with a hy­draulic ex­ca­va­tor, roof it over with steel plates, and throw dirt and snow on top to hide it. As the me­te­orite is dragged to­ward the shore, we back­fill the old tun­nel and dig new tun­nel ahead.”

Rachel nod­ded to­ward the hy­draulic ex­ca­va­tor. “That ba­by makes Mike Mul­li­gan’s steam shov­el look like a Ton­ka toy.”

Mc­Far­lane thought back to all that had been ac­com­plished in the two days since the me­te­orite crushed Rochefort and Evans. The tun­nels had been cleared and reshored, and dou­ble the num­ber of jacks po­si­tioned un­der the rock. The me­te­orite had been raised with­out a hitch, a cra­dle built un­der­neath it, and the dirt cleared away. A gi­gan­tic steel flatbed cart had been brought up from the ship and po­si­tioned next to it. Now it was time to drag the me­te­orite and its cra­dle on­to the cart. Garza had made it all look so easy.

The en­gi­neer grinned again. He was gar­ru­lous, in high spir­its. “Ready to see the heav­iest ob­ject ev­er moved by mankind get moved?”

“Sure,” said Mc­Far­lane.

“The first step is po­si­tion­ing it on the cart. We’ll have to un­cov­er the me­te­orite for that. Briefly. That’s why I like the look of that storm. Don’t want those damn Chileans get­ting a gan­der at our rock.”

Garza stepped back and spoke in­to his ra­dio. Far­ther away, Stoneci­pher made a mo­tion with his hands to the crane op­er­ator. As Mc­Far­lane watched, the crane op­er­ator be­gan re­mov­ing the steel roof­ing plates off the cut that held the me­te­orite and stack­ing them near­by. The wind was pick­ing up, whistling about the huts and whip­ping snow along the ground. The fi­nal met­al plate twist­ed wild­ly in the air as the crane op­er­ator fought to hold the boom steady against the gusts. “To the left, to the left!” Stoneci­pher called in­to his ra­dio. “Now, boom down, boom down, boom down… Cut.” Af­ter a tense mo­ment, it, too, was set safe­ly aside. Mc­Far­lane gazed in­to the open trench.

For the first time, Mc­Far­lane saw the me­te­orite ex­posed in its en­tire­ty. It lay in its cra­dle, a blood­red, lop­sid­ed egg atop a nest of tim­bers and met­al I-​beams. It was a breath­tak­ing sight. Dim­ly, he was aware that Rachel was speak­ing.

“What did I tell you,” she said to Garza. “He’s got the look.”

“The look” was a term she had coined for the way al­most any­body — tech­ni­cians, sci­en­tists, con­struc­tion work­ers — tend­ed to stop what they were do­ing and stare at the me­te­orite, as if mes­mer­ized.

With an ef­fort, Mc­Far­lane pulled his gaze from the me­te­orite to her. The in­fec­tious twin­kle of mer­ri­ment — so ev­ident­ly miss­ing for the last twen­ty-​four hours — had re­turned to her eyes.

“It’s beau­ti­ful,” he said.

He glanced back down the length of the ex­posed tun­nel to the cart that would car­ry the rock. It was a re­mark­ablelook­ing thing, a hon­ey­combed flatbed of steel and ce­ram­ic­car­bon com­pos­ite a hun­dred feet long. Al­though he could not see them from above, Mc­Far­lane knew that be­neath the cart was an ar­ray of heavy-​du­ty air­craft tires: thir­ty-​six axles, with forty tires on each axle, to bear the stag­ger­ing weight of the me­te­orite. At the far end, a mas­sive steel cap­stan rose from a sock­et in the tun­nel bed.

Glinn was call­ing out or­ders to dark fig­ures in the tun­nel, rais­ing his voice above the in­creas­ing fury of the wind. The front now loomed above them, a cliff of dark weath­er that ate away day­light as it ap­proached. He broke off and came over to Mc­Far­lane.

“Any new re­sults from the sec­ond set of tests, Dr. Mc­Far­lane?” he asked as he watched the men work be­neath them.

Mc­Far­lane nod­ded. “On sev­er­al fronts.” He fell silent. It was on­ly a small sat­is­fac­tion, he knew: mak­ing Glinn ask. It con­tin­ued to ran­kle him, Glinn’s mon­itor­ing his ac­tions. But he had de­cid­ed not to make an is­sue of it — at least not now.

Glinn in­clined his head, as if per­ceiv­ing the thought. “I see. May we hear them, please?”

“Sure thing. We have its melt­ing point now. Or rather, I should say va­por point, since it goes di­rect­ly from a sol­id to a gas.”

Glinn raised his eye­brows in­quir­ing­ly.

“One point two mil­lion de­grees Kelvin.”

Glinn breathed out. “Good Lord.”

“We’ve al­so made some progress on its crys­talline struc­ture. It’s an ex­treme­ly com­pli­cat­ed, asym­met­ri­cal frac­tal pat­tern built from nest­ed isosce­les tri­an­gles. The pat­terns re­peat them­selves at dif­fer­ent scales from the macro­scop­ic all the way down to in­di­vid­ual atoms. A text­book frac­tal. Which ex­plains its ex­treme hard­ness. It ap­pears to be el­emen­tal, not an al­loy.”

“Any more in­for­ma­tion about its place on the pe­ri­od­ic ta­ble?”

“Very high up, above one sev­en­ty-​sev­en. A su­per­ac­tinide el­ement, prob­ably. The in­di­vid­ual atoms ap­pear to be gi­gan­tic, each with hun­dreds of pro­tons and neu­trons. It’s most def­inite­ly an el­ement in the `is­land of sta­bil­ity’ we talked about ear­li­er.”

“Any­thing else?”

Mc­Far­lane took a breath of frosty air. “Yes. Some­thing very in­ter­est­ing. Rachel and I dat­ed the Jaws of Hanuxa. The vol­canic erup­tions and la­va flows date al­most pre­cise­ly to the time of the me­te­orite’s im­pact.”

Glinn’s eyes flick­ered to­ward him. “Your con­clu­sion?”

“We al­ways as­sumed that the me­te­orite land­ed near a vol­cano. But now it looks as if the me­te­orite made the vol­cano.”

Glinn wait­ed.

“The me­te­orite was so heavy and dense, and trav­el­ing so fast, that it punched deep in­to the earth’s crust, like a bul­let, trig­ger­ing the vol­canic erup­tion. That’s why Is­la Des­olación, alone among the Cape Horn is­lands, is vol­canic. In his jour­nal, Nestor talked about the `weird co­esite’ of the re­gion. And when I re­ex­am­ined the co­esite with the X-​ray diffrac­tor, I re­al­ized he was right. It is dif­fer­ent. The me­te­orite’s im­pact was so se­vere that the sur­round­ing rock that wasn’t va­por­ized un­der­went a phase change. The im­pact chem­ical­ly changed the ma­te­ri­al in­to a form of co­esite nev­er seen be­fore.”

He ges­tured in the di­rec­tion of the Jaws of Hanuxa. “The force of the erup­tion, the tur­bu­lence of the mag­ma and the ex­plo­sive re­lease of gas­es, car­ried the me­te­orite back up, where it froze in­to po­si­tion sev­er­al thou­sand feet down. Over mil­lions of years, in the up­lift and ero­sion of the south­ern Cordillera, it grad­ual­ly moved clos­er and clos­er to the sur­face, un­til it fi­nal­ly erod­ed out of the is­land val­ley. At least, that’s what seems to fit the facts.”

There was a thought­ful si­lence. Then Glinn looked over at Garza and Stoneci­pher. “Let’s pro­ceed.”

Garza shout­ed out or­ders. Mc­Far­lane watched as some of the fig­ures in the tun­nel be­low gin­ger­ly at­tached a web­bing of thick Kevlar straps to the cra­dle and the me­te­orite. Oth­ers pulled more straps over the top of the sled and in­to po­si­tion around the cap­stan. Then the group stood back. There was a metal­lic cough, then a throaty rum­ble, and the ground be­neath Mc­Far­lane’s feet came alive with vi­bra­tion. Two mas­sive diesel gen­er­ators be­gan turn­ing the steel cap­stan. As it turned, the web­bing of Kevlar straps slow­ly be­gan to wind up, tak­ing out the slack, tight­en­ing around the rock. The gen­er­ators stopped: the me­te­orite was now ready to move.

Mc­Far­lane’s eyes re­turned to the me­te­orite. The shad­ow of the storm fell across the stag­ing area, and the me­te­orite looked duller, as if some in­ter­nal fire had been quenched.

“Je­sus,” Rachel said, glanc­ing at the wall of wind and snow that was boil­ing to­ward them. “Here it comes.”

“Ev­ery­thing’s in po­si­tion,” Garza said.

Glinn turned, the wind tug­ging at his par­ka. “We stop at the first sign of light­ning,” he said. “Move it.”

There was a sud­den ris­ing dark­ness, a muf­fled howl, and pel­lets of snow came blast­ing hor­izon­tal­ly through the air. In an in­stant, Mc­Far­lane’s view was re­duced to monochro­mat­ic shad­ows. Over the fury of the wind came the roar of heavy ma­chin­ery as the gen­er­ators came up to speed. The ground was shak­ing hard­er now, and a low, sub­au­di­to­ry rum­ble — a pres­sure on the ear and gut — went through him. The gen­er­ators climbed, whin­ing loud­er as they strained to move the rock.

“It’s a his­toric mo­ment,” Rachel wailed, “and I can’t see a damn thing.”

Mc­Far­lane pulled the hood of his par­ka tight around his face and crouched for­ward. He could see the Kevlar was drawn tight now, the straps like bars of iron, singing un­der the strain. Creaks and strange twang­ing nois­es rose up, au­di­ble even over the wind. The rock did not move, and the ten­sion be­gan to mount. The twang­ing nois­es rose in pitch; the gen­er­ators roared; and still the rock re­mained sta­tion­ary. And then, at the height of the ca­copho­ny, Mc­Far­lane thought he saw the me­te­orite move. But with the wind shriek­ing in his ears and the snow ob­scur­ing his vi­sion, he could not be sure.

Garza looked up, smiled crooked­ly, and gave them a thumbs-​up.

“It’s mov­ing!” Rachel cried.

Garza and Stoneci­pher shout­ed or­ders to the work­ers be­low. Be­neath the cra­dle, the steel run­ners squealed and smoked. Work­ers pumped a con­tin­uous slur­ry of graphite on the run­ners and the sur­face of the cart. The acrid smell of burn­ing steel rose to Mc­Far­lane’s nos­trils.

And then it was over. With a tremen­dous, de­cay­ing groan, the me­te­orite and its cra­dle set­tled on­to the wait­ing cart. The Kevlar straps loos­ened, and the gen­er­ators pow­ered down.

“We did it!” Rachel pressed her in­dex fin­gers to her lips and gave a pierc­ing whis­tle.

Mc­Far­lane gazed down at the me­te­orite, now safe­ly mount­ed on the cart. “Ten feet,” he said. “Ten thou­sand miles to go.”

Be­yond the Jaws of Hanuxa, there was a bril­liant flash of light­ning, then an­oth­er. A mon­strous clap of thun­der rolled past them. The wind rose in strength, tear­ing at the snow, send­ing sheets of white across the ground and in­to the trench.

“That’s it!” Glinn called out to the group. “Mr. Garza, please cov­er the tun­nel.”

Garza turned to­ward the crane op­er­ator, one gloved hand keep­ing his hood se­cure against the wind. “Can’t do it!” he shout­ed back. “The wind’s too strong. It’ll top­ple the boom.”

Glinn nod­ded. “Then pull the tarps and rib­bing over it un­til the storm pass­es.”

As Mc­Far­lane watched, a group of work­ers ran down both sides of the trench, un­rolling a tarp as they went, strug­gling to keep it in place against the ris­ing fury, of the wind. It was streaked with mot­tled white and gray, cam­ou­flaged to re­sem­ble the bleak sur­face of the is­land. Mc­Far­lane was im­pressed once again by Glinn’s abil­ity to an­tic­ipate ev­ery pos­si­bil­ity, to have a con­tin­gen­cy plan al­ways wait­ing in the wings.

An­oth­er flash of light­ning, clos­er this time, gave a strange il­lu­mi­na­tion to the snow-​heavy air.

Sat­is­fied that the tarp had been prop­er­ly se­cured, Glinn nod­ded to Mc­Far­lane. “Let’s get back to the huts.” He looked over at Garza. “I want the area cleared of per­son­nel un­til the storm pass­es. Post a guard at four-​hour shifts.”

Then he mo­tioned to Mc­Far­lane and Rachel and they be­gan to make their way across the stag­ing area, lean­ing in­to the howl­ing wind.

Is­la Des­olación,

10:40 P.M.

ADOL­FO TIM­MER wait­ed be­hind a large snow­drift, mo­tion­less in the dark. He had lain, watch­ing, un­til he was al­most com­plete­ly buried by the storm. Down be­low, he could see the faint glow of lights, fad­ing in and out of the snow. It was now af­ter mid­night, and he had seen no ac­tiv­ity. The cleared area was de­sert­ed, the work­ers no doubt shel­ter­ing in the huts. It was time to act.

Tim­mer raised his head against the still-​in­ten­si­fy­ing blast. He rose, the wind whip­ping the ac­cu­mu­lat­ed snow from his limbs. Around him, the storm had shaped the snow in­to long, di­ag­onal fins, some more than ten feet high. It was per­fect cov­er.

He moved for­ward on his snow­shoes, shield­ed by the drifts. He stopped near the edge of the cleared area. Ahead lay a pool of dirty light. Crouch­ing be­hind a snow­bank, he wait­ed, then raised his head and looked around. Per­haps fifty yards away, a lone shack stood, the wind moan­ing through gaps in its cor­ru­gat­ed roof. On the far side of the cleared area, across from the shack, he could make out the long row of Quon­set huts, their win­dows small squares of yel­low. Be­side them were oth­er struc­tures and some con­tain­ers. As he stared, Tim­mer’s eyes nar­rowed. The leach­ing ponds and tail­ing piles across the is­land had proved to be a ruse, a cov­er for some­thing else.

But what?

He tensed. From around the cor­ner of the shack, a man in a heavy par­ka ap­peared. He opened the door of the shack, looked in­side, closed it again. Then he walked slow­ly along one edge of the cleared area, rub­bing his mit­tens to­geth­er, duck­ing his head against the wind and snow.

Tim­mer watched care­ful­ly. The man was not out for an evening smoke. He was do­ing guard du­ty.

But why post a guard over an old shack and a bar­ren patch of ground?

He crept for­ward, slow­ly, un­til he reached an­oth­er drift. He was much clos­er to the shack now. He wait­ed, mo­tion­less, as the man re­turned to its door, stamped warmth in­to his feet, then walked away again. Un­less there was some­body else post­ed in­side the shack, the guard was alone.

Tim­mer came around the side of the drift and ap­proached the build­ing, keep­ing it be­tween him and the guard. He stayed close to the ground, let­ting the dark­ness and the storm con­ceal him, care­ful to ex­pose on­ly the white ny­lon of his snow­suit to the cir­cle of light.

Be­fore he left the Almi­rante Ramirez, the co­man­dante had told him to take no un­nec­es­sary risks. He had said it more than once: Be very care­ful, Mr. Tim­mer. I want you back in one piece. There was no way to know if the guard was armed: Tim­mer would as­sume he was. Crouch­ing in the shad­ow of the shack, he reached in­to his snow­suit. His hand closed around the han­dle of his knife and slid it out of the scab­bard, mak­ing sure it had not frozen in place. Tug­ging off one glove, he felt the blade: ice cold and ra­zor sharp. Ex­cel­lent. Yes, my Co­man­dante, he thought: I will be very, very care­ful. He clasped it tight­ly, ig­nor­ing the cold that bit in­to his fin­gers. He want­ed the blade warm enough to cut through flesh with­out freez­ing and snag­ging.

He wait­ed as the storm grew even stronger. The wind whipped around the bare sides of the shack, howl­ing and cry­ing. He pulled his hood from his head, lis­ten­ing with his naked ear. Then he heard it again: the soft swish and crush of foot­steps ap­proach­ing through the snow.

A faint shad­ow came in­to view around the edge of the hut, bare­ly vis­ible in the dim light. Tim­mer pressed against the shack as it ap­proached. There was the sound of breath­ing, the thump­ing of arms as the man hugged him­self against the cold.

Tim­mer spun around the com­er, lash­ing out low with his foot. The fig­ure fell face­down in the snow. In a flash Tim­mer was on top of him, knee dig­ging in­to his back, drag­ging the man in­to shad­ow while wrench­ing back his head. The knife came for­ward, scor­ing deeply across the man’s neck. Tim­mer felt the blade grat­ing against the cer­vi­cal ver­te­brae. There was a soft gur­gle, then a rush of hot blood. Tim­mer con­tin­ued to hold the man’s head back, let­ting his life drain in­to the snow. Then he re­laxed his grip and eased the body for­ward.

Tim­mer turned the man over and ex­am­ined his face. He was white, not the mes­ti­zo the co­man­dante had told him to watch for. He pat­ted the man’s pock­ets quick­ly, find­ing a two-​way ra­dio and a small semi­au­to­mat­ic weapon. He slipped them in­to his pock­et, then con­cealed the body in a near­by drift, sweep­ing snow over it and smooth­ing over the area. He cleaned his knife in the snow and care­ful­ly buried the bloody mush. The fact that he had seen on­ly one guard did not mean there could not be an­oth­er.

Mov­ing around the rear of the shack and keep­ing out of the light, he crept along the edge of the cleared area, fol­low­ing the path the guard had walked. It was most cu­ri­ous: there was noth­ing here but snow. As he stepped for­ward again, the ground yield­ed sud­den­ly be­neath one of his snow­shoes, and he scram­bled back­ward in sur­prise. Ex­plor­ing cau­tious­ly, on his hands and knees now, he felt some­thing strange be­neath the thin cov­er­ing of snow. It was not earth, it was not a crevasse; there was a hol­low be­neath the ground, with some kind of cloth stretched tight across it, held up by spac­ers.

Care­ful­ly, Tim­mer made his way back to the shad­ows be­hind the shack. Be­fore he ex­plored fur­ther, he would have to make sure there were no sur­pris­es in­side. Keep­ing his knife poised, he crept around to the front, opened the door a crack, and glanced with­in. It was de­sert­ed. He slipped in­side and closed the door be­hind him. He pulled out a small flash­light and swept it around. The beam il­lu­mi­nat­ed noth­ing but kegs full of nails.

Why would some­body post a guard in front of a use­less, emp­ty shack?

Then he no­ticed some­thing. Quick­ly, he turned out his light. A faint line of light was com­ing from the edge of a steel plate be­neath one of the kegs.

Mov­ing it aside, Tim­mer saw a trap­door of band­ed met­al. He knelt be­side it, lis­ten­ing in­tent­ly for a mo­ment. Then he grasped the door and lift­ed it gin­ger­ly.

Af­ter the hours of wait­ing and watch­ing in the win­ter night, the flu­ores­cence that streamed up was blind­ing. He closed the trap­door again and crouched in the dark­ness, think­ing. Then he re­moved his snow­shoes, con­cealed them in the far com­er of the hut, and opened the door again, wait­ing a mo­ment for his eyes to ad­just. Then, knife in hand, he de­scend­ed the lad­der.

Thir­ty feet down, he stepped off the lad­der in­to the tun­nel. He paused. It was warmer down here, but at first Tim­mer bare­ly no­ticed: in the glare of the light he felt ex­posed and vul­ner­able. He moved rapid­ly along the tun­nel, keep­ing low. This was like no gold mine he had ev­er heard of. In fact, it was like no mine at all.

Reach­ing a junc­tion, he paused to look around. There was no­body: no sound, no move­ment. He licked his lips, won­der­ing what to do next.

Then he paused. Up ahead, the tun­nel widened. There was an open space ahead, with some­thing very large in it. He crept to the edge of the open area and shined his light around. A gi­ant cart.

Tim­mer ap­proached it cau­tious­ly, creep­ing along the wall. It was a huge steel flatbed trail­er, per­haps a hun­dred feet long. Mount­ed to its un­der­side were big tires: hun­dreds of them, on gleam­ing ti­ta­ni­um axles. His eyes trav­eled slow­ly up­ward. Built on the cart was a com­plex pyra­mid of wood­en struts and mem­bers. And nes­tled in that was some­thing Tim­mer had nev­er seen or imag­ined be­fore. Some­thing huge and red. Some­thing that gleamed with im­pos­si­ble rich­ness in the ar­ti­fi­cial light of the tun­nel.

He looked around again, then ap­proached the cart. Set­ting one foot on the clos­est tire, he pulled him­self on­to the plat­form, breath­ing heav­ily. He was quick­ly over­heat­ing in his heavy snow­suit, but he ig­nored the dis­com­fort. Over­head, a large tarp was stretched tight­ly across the open roof: the tarp on­to which he had stepped. But Tim­mer had no in­ter­est in this. His eyes were on the thing rest­ing in the huge cra­dle.

Very care­ful­ly, he climbed the wood­en struts to­ward it. There was no doubt about it: this, this was what the Amer­icans had come for. But what was it?

There was no time to waste; there was no time even to hunt for the lit­tle mes­ti­zo. Co­man­dante Val­lenar would want to know about this right away. And yet still Tim­mer hes­itat­ed, bal­anced on the wood­en cra­dle.

The thing was al­most ethe­re­al in its beau­ty. It was as if it had no sur­face; as if he could put his hand for­ward and thrust it right in­to its ru­by depths. As he stared, he thought he could see sub­tle pat­terns with­in, shift­ing and chang­ing, cor­us­cat­ing in the light. He al­most imag­ined a cold­ness em­anat­ing from it, cool­ing his over­heat­ed face. It was the most beau­ti­ful, oth­er­world­ly thing he had ev­er seen.

With­out tak­ing his eyes away, Tim­mer slipped the knife in­to a pock­et, pulled off his glove, and held his hand for­ward, slow­ly, al­most rev­er­ent­ly, to­ward the rich and shin­ing sur­face. Is­la Des­olación,

11:15 P.M.

SAM MC­FAR­LANE jerked awake, heart pound­ing. He would have thought it a night­mare, if the sound of the ex­plo­sion was not still re­ver­ber­at­ing across the land­scape. He stood bolt up­right, the chair falling to the floor be­hind him. From the cor­ner of his eye he saw that Glinn, too, was on his feet, lis­ten­ing. As they met each oth­er’s gaze, the lights in the hut winked out. There was a mo­ment of pitch-​black­ness, and then an emer­gen­cy light snapped on over the door, bathing the room in pale or­ange.

“What the hell was that?” Mc­Far­lane said. His voice was al­most drowned out by a loud gust of wind: the win­dow had been blown out, and snow swirled in­to the hut, min­gling with wood­en splin­ters and shards of glass.

Glinn ap­proached the win­dow and gazed out in­to the stormy dark­ness. Then he glanced at Garza. He, too, was on his feet. “Who’s got du­ty?”

“Hill.”

Glinn raised a ra­dio. “Hill. This is Glinn. Re­port.” He took his thumb from the trans­mit but­ton and lis­tened. “Hill!” he called again. Then he switched fre­quen­cies. “For­ward post? Thomp­son?” He was an­swered by a loud hiss of stat­ic.

He dropped the ra­dio. “Ra­dio’s out, I’m not get­ting any re­spons­es.” He turned back to Garza, who was pulling on his snow­suit. “Where are you go­ing?”

“To the elec­tri­cal hut.”

“Neg­ative. We’ll go to­geth­er.”

Glinn’s tone had be­come sharp­er, mil­itary. “Yes, sir,” Garza replied briskly.

There was a clat­ter­ing out­side, then Ami­ra tum­bled in from the com­mu­ni­ca­tions hut, snow cling­ing to her shoul­ders.

“Pow­er’s down ev­ery­where,” she gasped. “All we’ve got is the re­serve.”

“Un­der­stood,” Glinn said. A small Glock 17 pis­tol had ap­peared in his hand. He checked the mag­azine, then tucked it in­to his belt.

Mc­Far­lane had turned to reach for his own snow­suit. As he thrust his arms in­to the sleeves, he saw Glinn look at him. “Don’t even say it,” Mc­Far­lane be­gan. “I’m com­ing with you.”

Glinn hes­itat­ed, and saw his re­solve. He turned to Ami­ra. “You stay here.”

“But — “

“Rachel, we need you here. Lock the door af­ter we leave. We’ll have a guard here short­ly.”

With­in mo­ments, three of Glinn’s men, Thomp­son, Roc­co, and Sanders, ap­peared at the door, pow­er­ful torch­es in their hands and In­gram M10 sub­ma­chine guns slung over their shoul­ders.

“Ev­ery­one ac­count­ed for ex­cept Hill, sir,” Thomp­son said.

“Sanders, have guards post­ed at ev­ery hut. Thomp­son, Roc­co, you come with me.” Glinn strapped on snow­shoes, grabbed a torch, and led the way out in­to the swirling dark.

Mc­Far­lane strug­gled with the un­fa­mil­iar snow­shoes. Hours of drows­ing by the stove had made him for­get how cold it was out­side, how sharp the snowflakes felt when the wind drove them against his face.

The elec­tri­cal hut lay on­ly fifty yards away. Garza un­locked the door and they en­tered the small space, Thomp­son and Roc­co sweep­ing it with their torch­es. The smell of burnt wiring hung in the air. Garza knelt to pull open the gray met­al cov­er of the mas­ter con­trol cab­inet. As he did so, a cloud of acrid smoke bil­lowed out in­to the light of the torch­es.

Garza ran his fin­ger down the pan­el. “To­tal­ly fried,” he said.

“Es­ti­mat­ed time to re­pair?” Glinn asked.

“Main switch­ing box, ten min­utes, max. Then we can run di­ag­nos­tics.”

“Do it. You men, get out­side and guard the door.”

The con­struc­tion chief worked in si­lence while Mc­Far­lane looked on. Glinn tried the ra­dio again; find­ing it was still broad­cast­ing noth­ing but noise, he re­placed it in his pock­et. At length, Garza stepped back and threw a se­ries of switch­es. There was a click and a hum, but no lights. With a grunt of sur­prise, Garza opened a near­by met­al lock­er, with­drew a palm­top di­ag­nos­tic com­put­er, plugged it in­to a jack on the mas­ter con­trol cab­inet, and switched it on. A small blue screen flick­ered in­to life.

“We’ve got mul­ti­ple burnouts, up and down the line,” he said af­ter a mo­ment.

“What about the surge sup­pres­sors?”

“What­ev­er it was, it caused one hell of a spike. Over a bil­lion volts in un­der a mil­lisec­ond, with a cur­rent ex­ceed­ing fifty thou­sand amps. No damp­en­ers or surge sup­pres­sors could pro­tect against that.”

“A bil­lion volts?” Mc­Far­lane said in dis­be­lief. “Not even light­ning is that pow­er­ful.”

“That’s right,” Garza said, pulling the tool from the pan­el and drop­ping it in­to a pock­et of his snow­suit. “A burst of this size makes light­ning look like stat­ic cling.”

“Then what was it?”

Garza shook his head. “God knows.”

Glinn stood still a mo­ment, gaz­ing at the fused com­po­nents. “Let’s check the rock.”

They stepped back out in­to the storm, moved past the huts, and strug­gled across the stag­ing area. Even from a dis­tance, Mc­Far­lane could see that the tarp had been torn from its teth­ers. As they drew near­er, Glinn made a sup­press­ing mo­tion with his hand, then in­struct­ed Roc­co and Thomp­son to en­ter the shack and de­scend in­to the tun­nel. Pulling out his pis­tol, Glinn moved for­ward care­ful­ly, Garza at his side. Mc­Far­lane stepped up to the edge of the trench, the tat­tered re­mains of the tarp bil­low­ing sky­ward like ghost­ly linen. Glinn an­gled the beam of the torch down­ward, in­to the tun­nel.

Dirt, rocks, and charred wood were scat­tered ev­ery­where. Part of the cart was twist­ed and fused, hiss­ing faint­ly. send­ing up clouds of steam. Globs of foamy met­al, now reso­lid­ified, spat­tered the tun­nel. Be­neath the cart, sev­er­al rows of tires had melt­ed to­geth­er and were now burn­ing, send­ing up foul clouds of smoke.

Glinn’s eyes moved rapid­ly around the scene, fol­low­ing his torch. “Was it a bomb?”

“Looks more like a gi­gan­tic elec­tri­cal arc.”

Lights wa­vered at the far end of the tun­nel, then Thomp­son and Roc­co ap­proached be­neath them, wav­ing away the pall of smoke. They be­gan spray­ing fire sup­pres­sant on the burn­ing tires.

“See any dam­age to the me­te­orite?” Glinn called down.

There was a pause as the men be­low made a vi­su­al in­spec­tion. “Can’t see a scratch on it.”

“Thomp­son,” Glinn said, point­ing down in­to the trench. “Over there.”

Mc­Far­lane fol­lowed his arm to a spot be­yond the cart. Some­thing was burn­ing fit­ful­ly. Near­by, ragged clumps of mat­ter and bone glis­tened in the flick­er­ing light. Thomp­son shined his torch to­ward one of them. There was a hand, a piece of what looked like a flayed hu­man shoul­der, a twist­ed length of gray­ish en­trails.

“Christ,” Mc­Far­lane groaned.

“Looks like we found Hill,” said Garza.

“Here’s his gun,” Thomp­son said.

Glinn shout­ed down in­to the tun­nel. “Thomp­son, I want you to check the rest of the tun­nel sys­tem. Re­port any­thing you find. Roc­co, roust up a med team. Let’s get those re­mains gath­ered up.”

“Yes, sir.”

Glinn looked back to­ward Garza. “Get the perime­ter se­cured. Gath­er all surveil­lance da­ta and get it an­alyzed right away. Call back to the ship for a gen­er­al alert. I want a new pow­er grid up and run­ning in six hours.”

“All com­mu­ni­ca­tions with the ship are down,” said Garza. “We’re get­ting noth­ing but noise on all chan­nels.”

Glinn turned back to­ward the tun­nel. “You! Thomp­son! When you’re done here, take a snow­cat to the beach. Con­tact the ship from the land­ing area. Use Morse if you have to.”

Thomp­son salut­ed, then turned and made his way down the tun­nel. In a mo­ment he dis­ap­peared from view in the smoke and dark­ness.

Glinn turned to Mc­Far­lane. “Go get Ami­ra and any di­ag­nos­tic tools you’ll need. I’m go­ing to have a team sweep the tun­nels. Once the area’s se­cured, and Hill’s body is re­moved, I want you to ex­am­ine the me­te­orite. Noth­ing elab­orate for the time be­ing. Just de­ter­mine what hap­pened here. And don’t touch that rock.”

Mc­Far­lane looked down. At the base of the cart, Roc­co was slip­ping what looked like a lung on­to a fold­ed sec­tion of tarp. Above, the me­te­orite steamed in its wood­en bed. He wasn’t about to touch it, but he said noth­ing.

“Roc­co,” Glinn called out, point­ing to an area just to the rear of the dam­aged cart, where there was a faint flick­er­ing “You’ve got an­oth­er small fire over there.”

Roc­co ap­proached it with the ex­tin­guish­er, then stopped short. He looked up at them. “I think it’s a heart, sir.”

Glinn pursed his lips. “I see. Ex­tin­guish it, Mr. Roc­co, and car­ry on.”

Is­la Des­olación,

Ju­ly 21, 12:05 A.M.

AS MC­FAR­LANE trudged across the stag­ing area to­ward the row of huts, the wind pressed rude­ly at his back, as if try­ing to force him to his knees. Be­side him, Rachel stum­bled, then re­cov­ered.

“Is this storm ev­er go­ing to end?” she asked.

Mc­Far­lane, his mind a whirl­wind of spec­ula­tion, did not re­ply.

In an­oth­er minute they were in­side the med­ical hut. He peeled out of his suit. The air was rich with the smell of roast­ed meat. He saw that Garza was speak­ing in­to a ra­dio.

“How long have you had com­mu­ni­ca­tions?” he asked Glinn.

“Half an hour, or there­abouts. Still spot­ty, but im­prov­ing.”

“That’s odd. We just tried to con­tact you from the tun­nel and got noth­ing but ra­dio noise.” Mc­Far­lane be­gan to speak again, but fell silent, forc­ing his mind to work through the weari­ness.

Garza low­ered his ra­dio. “It’s Thomp­son, from the beach. He says Cap­tain Brit­ton re­fus­es to send any­one over with the equip­ment un­til the storm dies down. It’s too dan­ger­ous.”

“That’s not ac­cept­able. Give me that ra­dio.” Glinn spoke rapid­ly. “Thomp­son? Ex­plain to the cap­tain that we’ve lost com­mu­ni­ca­tions, the com­put­er net­work, and the pow­er grid. We need the gen­er­ator and the equip­ment, and we need them now. Lives are at risk. If you en­counter any more dif­fi­cul­ties, let me know and I’ll see to it per­son­al­ly. Get Bram­bell out here, too. I want him to ex­am­ine Hill’s re­mains.”

Dis­tant­ly, Mc­Far­lane watched Roc­co, hands and fore­arms hid­den by heavy rub­ber gloves, re­mov­ing charred body parts from a tarp and plac­ing them in a freez­er-​lock­er.

“There’s some­thing else, sir,” Garza said, lis­ten­ing once again to the ra­dio. “Palmer Lloyd’s in com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the Rolvaag. He de­mands to be patched through to Sam Mc­Far­lane.”

Mc­Far­lane felt him­self shocked back in­to the stream of events. “It’s not ex­act­ly the best time, is it?” he said with a dis­be­liev­ing laugh, look­ing at Glinn. But the ex­pres­sion on Glinn’s face took him by sur­prise.

“Can you rig up a squawk box?” Glinn asked.

“I’ll grab one from the com­mu­ni­ca­tions hut,” Garza said.

Mc­Far­lane spoke to Glinn. “You’re not re­al­ly go­ing to chitchat with Lloyd, are you? Now, of all times?”

Glinn re­turned the look. “It beats the al­ter­na­tive,” he replied.

On­ly much lat­er did Mc­Far­lane re­al­ize what Glinn meant.

With­in min­utes, the hut’s trans­mit­ter had been ju­ry-​rigged with an ex­ter­nal speak­er. As Garza at­tached his ra­dio, a wash of stat­ic filled the room. It fad­ed in­to si­lence, grew loud­er, then fad­ed again. Mc­Far­lane glanced around: at Rachel, hud­dled near the stove for warmth; at Glinn, pac­ing in front of the ra­dio; at Roc­co, in­dus­tri­ous­ly sort­ing body parts in the back of the room. He had a the­ory — or the be­gin­nings of one. It was still too raw, too full of holes, to be shared. And yet he knew he had lit­tle choice.

There was a squeal of feed­back, then a ragged voice emerged from the speak­er. “Hel­lo?” it said. “Hel­lo?” It was Lloyd, dis­tort­ed.

Glinn leaned for­ward. “This is Eli Glinn, Mr. Lloyd. Can you hear me?”

“Yes! Yes, I can! But you’re damned faint, Eli.”

“We’re ex­pe­ri­enc­ing some kind of ra­dio in­ter­fer­ence. We’ll have to be brief. There’s a great deal go­ing on at the mo­ment, and our bat­tery pow­er is lim­it­ed.”

“Why? What the hell is go­ing on? Why didn’t Sam call in for his dai­ly brief­ing? I couldn’t get a straight an­swer from that bloody cap­tain of yours.”

“There’s been an ac­ci­dent. One of our men is dead.”

“Two men, you mean. Mc­Far­lane told me about that in­ci­dent with the me­te­orite. Damn shame about Rochefort.”

“There’s been a new fa­tal­ity. A man named Hill.”

There was a pierc­ing shriek from the speak­er. Then Lloyd’s voice re­turned, even fainter now: ” — hap­pened to him?”

“We don’t know yet,” Glinn said. “Mc­Far­lane and Rachel Ami­ra have just re­turned from ex­am­in­ing the me­te­orite.” He mo­tioned Mc­Far­lane to­ward the speak­er.

Mc­Far­lane moved for­ward with great un­will­ing­ness. He swal­lowed. “Mr. Lloyd,” he be­gan. “What I’m about to tell you is the­oret­ical, a con­clu­sion based on what I’ve ob­served. But I think we were wrong about how Nestor Masangkay died.”

“Wrong?” said Lloyd. “What do you mean? And what does it have to do with the death of this man Hill?”

“If I’m right, it has ev­ery­thing to do with it. I think both men died be­cause they touched the me­te­orite.”

For a mo­ment, the hut was silent save for the pop and stut­ter of the ra­dio.

“Sam, that’s ab­surd,” Lloyd said. “I touched the me­te­orite.”

“Bear with me. We thought Nestor was killed by light­ning. And it’s true, the me­te­orite is a pow­er­ful at­trac­tor. But Garza can tell you that the blast in the tun­nel was on the or­der of a bil­lion volts. No light­ning bolt could pro­duce that kind of pow­er. I ex­am­ined the cart and me­te­orite. The pat­tern of dam­age shows def­inite signs that the me­te­orite threw out a mas­sive blast of elec­tric­ity it­self.”

“But I laid my damn cheek against it. And I’m still here.”

“I know that. I don’t have an an­swer yet to why you were spared. But noth­ing else fits. The tun­nel was de­sert­ed, the me­te­orite was shield­ed from the el­ements. No oth­er force was act­ing up­on it. It looks like a bolt of elec­tric­ity came out of the rock, passed through part of the cart and cra­dle, spray­ing molten met­al out­ward. And be­neath the cart, I found a glove. It was the on­ly piece of Hill’s cloth­ing not burned. I think he dropped the glove so he could touch the me­te­orite.”

“Why would he do some­thing like that?” Lloyd asked im­pa­tient­ly.

This time, it was Rachel who spoke up. “Why did you?” she asked. “That’s one mighty strange-​look­ing rock. You can’t al­ways pre­dict what some­one’s go­ing to do the first time they see it.”

“Je­sus, this is un­be­liev­able,” Lloyd said. There was a mo­ment of si­lence. “But you can pro­ceed. Right?”

Mc­Far­lane dart­ed a look at Glinn.

“The cart and the cra­dle have been dam­aged,” Glinn said. “But Mr. Garza tells me they can be re­paired with­in twen­ty­four hours. The me­te­orite re­mains a ques­tion, how­ev­er.”

“Why?” Lloyd asked. “Was it dam­aged?”

“No,” Glinn con­tin­ued. “It ap­pears to be un­scathed. I’d giv­en stand­ing or­ders from the be­gin­ning to treat this thing as if it was dan­ger­ous. Now — if Dr. Mc­Far­lane’s right — we know that it is. We must take ad­di­tion­al pre­cau­tions to load that rock on­to the ship. But we have to move fast: it’s al­so dan­ger­ous to re­main here any longer than ab­so­lute­ly nec­es­sary.”

“I don’t like it. You should have fig­ured out these pre­cau­tions be­fore we ev­er left New York.”

It seemed to Mc­Far­lane that Glinn’s eyes nar­rowed al­most im­per­cep­ti­bly. “Mr. Lloyd, this me­te­orite has con­found­ed all our ex­pec­ta­tions. We’re now out­side the pa­ram­eters of the orig­inal EES anal­ysis. That has nev­er hap­pened be­fore. Do you know what that nor­mal­ly means?” Lloyd did not re­ply.

“We abort the project,” Glinn fin­ished.

“That is not a god­damn op­tion!” Lloyd was sud­den­ly shout­ing, but the re­cep­tion had grown so poor that Mc­Far­lane had to strain to hear. “I don’t want that kind of talk. You hear me? Glinn, you get the god­damn rock on the boat and you bring it home.”

Abrupt­ly, the ra­dio cut out.

“He ter­mi­nat­ed the trans­mis­sion,” said Garza.

The hut was silent; all eyes were on Glinn.

Over the man’s shoul­der, Mc­Far­lane could see Roc­co, still at his gris­ly task. He had what looked like a piece of skull in his gloved hands, an eye­ball hang­ing from it, held on­ly by the oc­ular nerve.

Rachel sighed, shook her head, and rose slow­ly from her wood­en chair. “So what do we do?”

“For now, help us get the plant back on line. Once we have pow­er, you two will tack­le that prob­lem.” Glinn turned to Mc­Far­lane. “Where’s Hill’s glove?”

“Right here.” Mc­Far­lane reached weari­ly for his satchel, pulled out a sealed bag­gie, and held it up.

“That’s a leather glove,” Garza said. “The con­struc­tion team was is­sued Gore-​Tex gloves.”

There was a sud­den si­lence.

“Mr. Glinn?”

Roc­co’s voice was so sharp, the note of sur­prise so clear, that ev­ery­one glanced to­ward him. He still had the piece of skull in his hand, poised in front of his chin, as if he were about to take a snap­shot with it.

“Yes, Mr. Roc­co?”

“Frank Hill had brown eyes.”

Glinn’s face flicked from Roc­co to the skull and then back again, the mute ques­tion clear on his face.

With an odd­ly del­icate mo­tion, Roc­co drew the cuff of his shirt across the dan­gling eye­ball, wip­ing it clean.

“This isn’t Hill,” he said. “This eye is blue.”

Is­la Des­olación,

12:40 A.M.

GLINN STOPPED, ar­rest­ed by the sight of the eye­ball dan­gling from a strip of nerve. “Mr. Garza?” His voice was un­usu­al­ly calm.

“Sir.”

“Get a team to­geth­er. Find Hill. Use probes, ther­mal sen­sors.”

“Yes, sir.”

“But keep a sharp eye out. Watch for boo­by traps, snipers. Don’t rule out any­thing.”

Garza dis­ap­peared in­to the night. Glinn took the shat­tered eye from Roc­co and be­gan ro­tat­ing it un­der his gaze. It seemed to Mc­Far­lane that he scru­ti­nized it as one might a piece of fine porce­lain. Then he walked over to the ta­ble where the body parts lay di­vid­ed be­tween the tarp and the cold-​stor­age lock­er.

“Let’s see what we’ve got here,” he mur­mured. As Mc­Far­lane watched, he be­gan sort­ing through them, han­dling each piece, peer­ing at it crit­ical­ly, set­ting it down again and mov­ing to the next, like a shop­per brows­ing the meat sec­tion of a su­per­mar­ket.

“Blond,” he said, hold­ing up a tiny hair to the light. He be­gan as­sem­bling pieces of the head. “High cheek­bones… close-​cropped hair… Nordic fea­tures…” He put them aside and con­tin­ued rum­mag­ing. “Death’s head tat­too on the right arm… Young, per­haps twen­ty-​five.”

His ex­am­ina­tion last­ed fif­teen min­utes, dur­ing which no­body else spoke. At last, he straight­ened up and went to wash his hands in the sink. There was no wa­ter, so he flicked the ex­cess mat­ter from his hands and wiped them with a tow­el. Then he paced the length of the hut, turned, walked back.

Sud­den­ly, Glinn went still. He seemed to have come to a de­ci­sion. He plucked a ra­dio from the ta­ble. “Thomp­son?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What’s the sta­tus on the gen­er­ator?”

“Brit­ton is bring­ing it her­self; she wouldn’t risk her crew. She says Bram­bell will come as soon as it’s safe. The storm is sup­posed to ease by dawn.”

The ra­dio beeped and Glinn switched fre­quen­cies. “Found Hill,” came Garza’s terse voice.

“Yes?”

“He was buried in a snow­drift. Throat cut. Very pro­fes­sion­al piece of work.”

“Thank you, Mr. Garza.” Glinn’s pro­file was dul­ly il­lu­mi­nat­ed in the emer­gen­cy light of the hut. A sin­gle bead of sweat stood on his brow.

“And there’s a pair of snow­shoes hid­den in the en­trance shack. Like the glove, they’re not ours.”

“I see. Bring Hill’s body to the med­ical hut, please. We wouldn’t want it to freeze be­fore Dr. Bram­bell ar­rives; that would be in­con­ve­nient.”

“So who was this oth­er man?” Mc­Far­lane asked.

In­stead of an­swer­ing, Glinn turned away and mur­mured some­thing in Span­ish, just loud enough for Mc­Far­lane to catch: “You are not a wise man, mi Co­man­dante. Not a wise man at all.”

Is­la Des­olación,

Ju­ly 23, 12:05 P.M.

THE STORM eased, and forty-​eight hours passed with­out fur­ther in­ci­dent. Se­cu­ri­ty was beefed up con­sid­er­ably; guard du­ty was tripled, ad­di­tion­al cam­eras were in­stalled, and a perime­ter of mo­tion-​de­tect­ing sen­sors was sunk in­to the snow around the op­er­ation.

Mean­while, work on the sunken road­way pro­ceed­ed at a break­neck pace. As soon as one sec­tion was built, the me­te­orite and cart were dragged along, inch by inch, to rest on­ly while the cap­stan was repo­si­tioned, a new sec­tion of road­way built, and the pre­vi­ous sec­tion filled in. Safe­ty pre­cau­tions around the me­te­orite had been re­dou­bled.

At last, the ex­ca­va­tors reached the in­te­ri­or of the snow­field. Here, shel­tered be­neath al­most two hun­dred feet of sol­id ice, the me­te­orite wait­ed while dig­ging teams cored through the snow­field from both ends.

Eli Glinn stood in­side the mouth of the ice tun­nel, watch­ing the progress as the great ma­chines worked. All had gone ac­cord­ing to plan, de­spite the two re­cent deaths. Half a dozen thick hoses snaked out of the hole in the ice, diesel fumes and soot spew­ing from their ends: a ju­ry-​rigged forced-​air sys­tem to suck ex­haust from the tun­nel while the heavy ma­chin­ery carved through the ice. It was beau­ti­ful in its way, Glinn thought, one more en­gi­neer­ing mar­vel in a long list since the project had be­gun. The walls and ceil­ing of the tun­nel were roughedged and ir­reg­ular, frac­tal in their end­less knobs and ridges. A mil­lion cracks and fis­sures ran away in crazy spi­der­webs across the walls, white against the shock­ing­ly deep blue of the ice. On­ly the floor was even, cov­ered with the om­nipresent crushed grav­el over which the cart would trav­el.

A sin­gle row of flu­ores­cent lights lit the tun­nel. Peer­ing ahead, Glinn could see the me­te­orite on its cart, a red blob in­side an eerie blue tube. The tun­nel echoed with the crash­ing and grind­ing of un­seen ma­chin­ery. There was a wink of head­lights in the dis­tance, then some kind of ve­hi­cle made its way around the me­te­orite and came to­ward him. It was a train of ore carts, full of glit­ter­ing blue shards of ice.

The rev­ela­tion that the me­te­orite could kill by touch had star­tled Glinn more than he cared to ad­mit. De­spite that he had in­sti­tut­ed or­ders nev­er to touch the rock di­rect­ly, he had al­ways con­sid­ered this mere­ly a ju­di­cious pre­cau­tion. He sensed that Mc­Far­lane was right: the touch had caused the ex­plo­sion. There seemed to be no oth­er pos­si­ble an­swer. A strate­gic re­cal­cu­la­tion had be­come nec­es­sary. It had caused yet an­oth­er re­vi­sion in his fail­ure-​suc­cess anal­ysis — one that re­quired vir­tu­al­ly all of EES’s com­put­er ca­pac­ity back in New York to pro­cess.

Glinn looked once again at the red rock, sit­ting like a huge gem­stone on its bed of green­heart oak. This was the thing that killed Val­lenar’s man, killed Rochefort and Evans, killed Masangkay. Strange that it had not killed Lloyd. It was un­de­ni­ably dead­ly… but the fact was, they were still ahead of sched­ule on fa­tal­ities. The vol­cano project had cost four­teen lives, in­clud­ing one med­dling gov­ern­ment min­is­ter who in­sist­ed on be­ing where he shouldn’t have been. Glinn re­mind­ed him­self that, de­spite the strangeness of the rock, de­spite the prob­lem of the Chilean de­stroy­er, this re­mained es­sen­tial­ly a heavy mov­ing job.

He glanced at his watch. Mc­Far­lane and Ami­ra would be on time; they al­ways were. And he could see them now, step­ping out of a snow­cat at the mouth of the ice tun­nel, Mc­Far­lane lug­ging a duf­fel bag full of in­stru­ments. In five min­utes they were at Glinn’s side. He turned to them. “You’ve got forty min­utes un­til the tun­nel is com­plete and the me­te­orite is moved again. Make good use of it.”

“We in­tend to,” said Ami­ra.

He watched her pulling gear out of the duf­fel and set­ting up in­stru­ments, while Mc­Far­lane silent­ly took pic­tures of the rock with a dig­ital cam­era. She was ca­pa­ble. Mc­Far­lane had learned about her re­ports, as he had ex­pect­ed. This had had the de­sired ef­fect: it put Mc­Far­lane on no­tice that his be­hav­ior was be­ing scru­ti­nized. It al­so gave Ami­ra an eth­ical dilem­ma to oc­cu­py her­self with, al­ways help­ful in dis­tract­ing her from the thornier moral ques­tions she had a ten­den­cy to ask. Moral ques­tions that had no place in a cold-​blood­ed en­gi­neer­ing project. Mc­Far­lane had tak­en it bet­ter than the pro­file pre­dict­ed. A com­pli­cat­ed man, and one who had proven him­self un­usu­al­ly use­ful.

Glinn no­ticed an­oth­er cat ar­riv­ing, al­so with a pas­sen­ger. Sal­ly Brit­ton stepped out, a long coat of navy blue wool bil­low­ing out be­hind her. Un­char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly, there was no of­fi­cer’s cap on her head, and her wheat-​col­ored hair gleamed in the lights of the tun­nel. Glinn smiled. He had al­so been ex­pect­ing this, ev­er since the ex­plo­sion that killed the Chilean spy. Ex­pect­ing it, even look­ing for­ward to it.

As Brit­ton drew near, Glinn turned to­ward her with a gen­uine­ly wel­com­ing smile. He took her hand. “Nice to see you, Cap­tain. What brings you down here?”

Brit­ton looked around, her in­tel­li­gent green eyes tak­ing in ev­ery­thing. They froze when they saw the me­te­orite.

“Good God,” she said, her step sud­den­ly fal­ter­ing.

Glinn smiled. “It’s al­ways a shock at first sight.”

She nod­ded word­less­ly.

“Noth­ing great can hap­pen in this world, Cap­tain, with­out some dif­fi­cul­ty.” Glinn spoke qui­et­ly, but with great force. “It’s the sci­en­tif­ic dis­cov­ery of the cen­tu­ry.” Glinn did not par­tic­ular­ly care about its val­ue to sci­ence; his in­ter­est was sole­ly in the en­gi­neer­ing as­pects. But he was not go­ing to es­chew a lit­tle dra­ma, if it served his pur­pos­es.

Brit­ton con­tin­ued star­ing. “They said it was red, but I had no idea…”

The roar of heavy ma­chin­ery echoed down the ice tun­nel as she stared: one minute, then two. At last, with ob­vi­ous ef­fort, she took a breath, pulled her eyes away, and faced him.

“Two more peo­ple have been killed. But what news we’ve had from you has been slow in com­ing, and ru­mors are ev­ery­where. The crew are ner­vous, and so are my of­fi­cers. I need to know ex­act­ly what hap­pened, and why.”

Glinn nod­ded, wait­ing.

“That me­te­orite is not com­ing on board my ship un­til I’m con­vinced it’s safe.” She said it all at once and then stood firm, her slim, small form plant­ed on the grav­el.

Glinn smiled. This was one hun­dred per­cent Sal­ly Brit­ton. Ev­ery day he ad­mired her more.

“I feel ex­act­ly the same way,” he said.

She looked at him, off bal­ance, ob­vi­ous­ly hav­ing ex­pect­ed re­sis­tance.

“Mr. Glinn, we have a dead Chilean naval of­fi­cer to ex­plain to the au­thor­ities. We have a war­ship out there some­where, a de­stroy­er that likes to train its guns on us. Three of your peo­ple are dead. We have a twen­ty-​five-​thou­sand-​ton rock that, when it isn’t crush­ing peo­ple, blows them to bits, and you want to put it in­side my ship.” She paused a mo­ment, then con­tin­ued, her voice low­er. “Even the best crews can get su­per­sti­tious. There’s been a lot of wild talk.”

“You are right to be con­cerned. Let me brief you on what hap­pened. I apol­ogize for not com­ing to the ship my­self, but as you know we’ve been fight­ing the clock.”

She wait­ed.

“Two nights ago, dur­ing the storm, we had an in­trud­er from the Chilean ship. He was killed by an elec­tri­cal dis­charge from the me­te­orite. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, not be­fore he mur­dered one of our men.”

Brit­ton looked at him sharply. “So it’s true? Light­ning shot out of the me­te­orite? I didn’t be­lieve it. And I sure as hell don’t un­der­stand it.”

“It’s ac­tu­al­ly quite sim­ple. It’s made of a met­al that is a su­per­con­duc­tor of elec­tric­ity. The hu­man body — hu­man skin — has an elec­tri­cal po­ten­tial. If you touch the me­te­orite, the me­te­orite dis­charges some of the elec­tric­ity cir­cu­lat­ing in­side it. Like a blast of light­ning, on­ly greater. Mc­Far­lane has ex­plained the the­ory to me. That’s what we be­lieve killed the Chilean, as well as Nestor Masangkay, the man who first dis­cov­ered the me­te­orite.” “Why does it do that?”

“Mc­Far­lane and Ami­ra are work­ing on that ques­tion now. But mov­ing the rock is the pri­or­ity now, and they haven’t had time for fur­ther anal­ysis.”

“So what’s to pre­vent this from hap­pen­ing on my ship?”

“An­oth­er good ques­tion.” Glinn smiled. “We’re work­ing on that one too. We’re tak­ing great pre­cau­tions to make sure no one touch­es it. In­deed, we had in­sti­tut­ed such a pol­icy even be­fore we re­al­ized that touch could trig­ger an ex­plo­sion.”

“I see. Where does the elec­tric­ity come from?”

Glinn’s hes­ita­tion was very brief. “That’s one of the things that Dr. Mc­Far­lane is study­ing right now.”

Brit­ton did not re­spond.

Quite sud­den­ly, Glinn took her hand. He felt a brief, in­stinc­tive re­sis­tance. Then she re­laxed.

“I un­der­stand your con­cerns, Cap­tain,” he said gen­tly. “That’s why we are tak­ing all pos­si­ble pre­cau­tions. But you must be­lieve we will not fail. You must be­lieve in me. Just as I be­lieve in you to main­tain dis­ci­pline aboard your ship, de­spite the ner­vous­ness and su­per­sti­tions of the crew.”

She looked at him, but he could see her eyes ir­re­sistibly drawn back to the great red rock.

“Stay a while,” said Glinn soft­ly, smil­ing. “Stay and watch us bring the heav­iest ob­ject ev­er moved by mankind to your ship.”

She looked from the rock to­ward him, then back to the rock, hes­itat­ing.

A ra­dio on her belt chirped. She im­me­di­ate­ly freed her­self and stepped away. “This is Cap­tain Brit­ton,” she said.

Watch­ing the change in her face, Glinn knew pre­cise­ly what she must be hear­ing.

She re­placed the ra­dio. “The de­stroy­er. It’s re­turned.”

Glinn nod­ded. The smile had not left his face. “No sur­prise,” he said. “The Almi­rante Ramirez has lost one of her own. Now she’s come to get him back.”

Rolvaag,

Ju­ly 24, 3:45 P.M.

NIGHT wAS falling over Is­la Des­olación. Cof­fee cup in hand, Mc­Far­lane watched the twi­light gath­er from the soli­tude of the fly deck. It was a per­fect evening: clear, cold, wind­less. In the dis­tance, there were some re­main­ing streaks of clouds: mare’s tails of pink and peach. The is­land lay etched in light, un­nat­ural­ly clear and crisp. Be­yond, the glossy wa­ters of Franklin Chan­nel re­flect­ed the last rays of the set­ting sun. Far­ther still lay Val­lenar’s de­stroy­er, gray, malev­olent, the name Almi­rante Ramirez bare­ly leg­ible on its rust-​streaked sides. That af­ter­noon it had moved in clos­er, nos­ing in­to place at the en­trance to Franklin Chan­nel — their on­ly route of ex­it. Now it looked as though it planned to stay.

Mc­Far­lane took a sip of cof­fee, then im­pul­sive­ly poured the rest over the side. Caf­feine was the last thing he need­ed right now. There was al­ready a tremen­dous ten­sion in his gut. He won­dered just how Glinn was plan­ning to deal with the de­stroy­er, on top of ev­ery­thing else. But Glinn had seemed calm that day; ex­cep­tion­al­ly calm. He won­dered if the man was hav­ing a ner­vous break­down.

The me­te­orite had been moved — painful­ly, cen­time­ter by cen­time­ter — through the ice­field and down the sunken road­way to the edge of Is­la Des­olación. It had fi­nal­ly reached a bluff over­look­ing Franklin Chan­nel. To hide it, an­oth­er of Glinn’s cor­ru­gat­ed met­al shacks had gone up. Mc­Far­lane ex­am­ined the shack from the deck. As usu­al, it was a mas­ter­piece of de­cep­tion: a rusty con­trap­tion of sec­ond­hand met­al that list­ed dan­ger­ous­ly. Bald tires had been piled in front. He won­dered how they planned to low­er it in­to the hold; Glinn had been ex­cep­tion­al­ly cagey. All he knew was, it was go­ing to hap­pen in a sin­gle night: that night.

The hatch opened and Mc­Far­lane turned at the sound. He was sur­prised to see Glinn, who hadn’t been on board the ship, as far as he could tell, for al­most a week.

The man saun­tered over ca­su­al­ly. Al­though his face re­mained gray, there was an eas­iness to his move­ments. “Evening,” he said.

“You seem aw­ful­ly calm.”

In­stead of re­ply­ing, Glinn re­moved a pack of cigarettes and, much to Mc­Far­lane’s sur­prise, slid one in­to his mouth. He lit it, the match flar­ing against his sal­low face, and took a long drag.

“Didn’t know you smoked. Out of cos­tume, any­way.”

Glinn smiled. “I al­low my­self twelve cigarettes a year. It’s my one fool­ish­ness.”

“When was the last time you slept?” Mc­Far­lane asked.

Glinn gazed out over the peace­ful wa­ters. “I’m not sure. Sleep is like food: af­ter the first few days you stop miss­ing it.”

He smoked in si­lence for a few min­utes. “Any fresh in­sights from your time in the ice tun­nel?” he asked at last.

“Tan­ta­liz­ing bits and pieces. It has an atom­ic num­ber in ex­cess of four hun­dred, for ex­am­ple.”

Glinn nod­ded.

“Sound trav­els through it at ten per­cent the speed of light. It has a very faint in­ter­nal struc­ture: an out­er lay­er and an in­ner lay­er, with a small in­clu­sion in the cen­ter. Most me­te­orites come from the breakup of a larg­er body. This one is just the op­po­site: it looks like it grew by ac­cre­tion, prob­ably in a jet of plas­ma from a hy­per­no­va. Sort of like a pearl around a grain of sand. That’s why it’s some­what sym­met­ri­cal.”

“Ex­traor­di­nary. And the elec­tri­cal dis­charge?”

“Still a mys­tery. We don’t know why a hu­man touch should trig­ger it when noth­ing else seems to. We al­so don’t know why it is that Lloyd, alone, es­caped get­ting blown to bits. We’ve got more da­ta than we can even be­gin to an­alyze, and it’s all con­tra­dic­to­ry.”

“What about the way our ra­dios were knocked out af­ter the ex­plo­sion? Any con­nec­tion?”

“Yes. It seems that af­ter the dis­charge, the me­te­orite was in an ex­cit­ed state, emit­ting ra­dio waves — long-​wave­length elec­tro­mag­net­ic ra­di­ation. That ac­counts for the in­ter­fer­ence with ra­dio com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Over time, it died down, but in its im­me­di­ate vicin­ity — say, in­side the tun­nel — the me­te­orite was still throw­ing off enough ra­dio noise to de­feat ra­dio traf­fic for sev­er­al hours, at least.”

“And now?”

“It’s set­tled down. At least un­til the next ex­plo­sion.”

Glinn puffed silent­ly, sa­vor­ing the cigarette as Mc­Far­lane watched. Then he ges­tured to­ward the shore, and the rick­ety shack that con­cealed the me­te­orite. “In a few hours, that thing will be in the tank. If you have any last reser­va­tions, I need to know now. Our lives at sea de­pend on it.”

Mc­Far­lane said noth­ing. He could al­most feel the bur­den of the ques­tion set­tling on his shoul­ders. “I sim­ply can’t pre­dict what’s go­ing to hap­pen,” he said.

Glinn smoked. “I’m not ask­ing for a pre­dic­tion, on­ly an ed­ucat­ed guess.”

“We’ve had the chance to ob­serve it, un­der var­ious con­di­tions, for al­most two weeks. Ex­cept for the elec­tri­cal dis­charge ap­par­ent­ly caused by hu­man touch, it seems com­plete­ly in­ert. It doesn’t re­act to met­al touch­ing it, or even a high-​pow­ered elec­tron mi­cro­probe. As long as our safe­ty pre­cau­tions are kept rigid­ly in place, I can’t think of any rea­son why it should act dif­fer­ent­ly in the hold­ing tank of the Rolvaag.”

Mc­Far­lane hes­itat­ed, won­der­ing if his own fas­ci­na­tion with the me­te­orite was caus­ing him to lose his ob­jec­tiv­ity. The idea of leav­ing it be­hind was… un­think­able. He changed the sub­ject. “Lloyd’s been on the satel­lite phone al­most hourly, and he’s des­per­ate for news.”

Glinn in­haled bliss­ful­ly, his eyes half closed, like a Bud­dha. “In thir­ty min­utes, as soon as it’s ful­ly dark, we bring the ship up against the bluff and be­gin load­ing the me­te­orite on a tow­er built out of the tank. It will be in the tank by three A.M., and by dawn we’ll be a good way to in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters. You can re­late that to Mr. Lloyd. Ev­ery­thing is un­der con­trol. Garza and Stoneci­pher will be run­ning the op­er­ation. I won’t even be need­ed un­til the fi­nal stage.”

“What about that?” Mc­Far­lane nod­ded to­ward the de­stroy­er. “Once you start low­er­ing the rock in­to the tank, it’s go­ing to be ex­posed for all to see. The Rolvaag will be a sit­ting duck.”

“We will work un­der cov­er of dark­ness and a pre­dict­ed fog. Nev­er­the­less, I will be pay­ing a call on Co­man­dante Val­lenar dur­ing the crit­ical pe­ri­od.”

Mc­Far­lane was not sure he had heard cor­rect­ly. “You’ll be do­ing what?”

“It will dis­tract him.” Then, more qui­et­ly, “And it will serve oth­er pur­pos­es as well.” “That’s in­sane. He might ar­rest you, or even kill you.”

“I don’t be­lieve so. By all ac­counts, Co­man­dante Val­lenar is a bru­tal man. But he is not crazy.”

“In case you hadn’t no­ticed, he’s block­ing our on­ly ex­it.” Night had fall­en, and a cloak of dark­ness had set­tled over the is­land. Glinn checked his gold watch, then pulled a ra­dio out of his pock­et. “Manuel? You may com­mence.”

Al­most in­stan­ta­neous­ly, the bluff was lit up by banks of bril­liant lights, bathing the bleak land­scape in a cold il­lu­mi­na­tion. A swarm of work­ers ap­peared as if out of nowhere. Heavy ma­chin­ery growled.

“Je­sus, why don’t you put up a bill­board say­ing: `Here it is’?” asked Mc­Far­lane.

“The bluff is not vis­ible from Val­lenar’s ship,” Glinn said. “It’s blocked by that head­land. If Val­lenar wants to see what this new ac­tiv­ity is about — and he will — he’ll have to move the de­stroy­er back up to the north­ern end of the chan­nel. Some­times the best dis­guise is no dis­guise at all. Val­lenar, you see, won’t be ex­pect­ing our de­par­ture.”

“Why not?”

“Be­cause we will al­so con­tin­ue the de­coy min­ing op­er­ation all night long. All the heavy equip­ment, and two dozen men, will re­main on the is­land, work­ing at a fever­ish pace. There will be oc­ca­sion­al ex­plo­sions, nat­ural­ly, and lots of ra­dio traf­fic. Just be­fore dawn, some­thing will be found. Or at least it will look that way to the Almi­rante Ramirez. There will be great ex­cite­ment. The work­men will take a break to dis­cuss the dis­cov­ery.” He flicked the butt away, watch­ing it sail in­to the dark­ness. “The Rolvaag’s ten­der is hid­den on the far side of the is­land. As soon as we de­part, the ten­der will load up the men and meet us be­hind Horn Is­land. Ev­ery­thing else will be left be­hind.”

“Ev­ery­thing?” Mc­Far­lane let his mind run over the shacks full of equip­ment, the doz­ers, the con­tain­er labs, the huge yel­low haulers.

“Yes. The gen­er­ators will be run­ning, all the lights will be left on. Mil­lions of dol­lars’ worth of heavy equip­ment will be left on the is­land in plain view. When Val­lenar sees us move, he’ll as­sume we’re com­ing back.”

“He won’t give chase?”

Glinn did not re­spond for a mo­ment. “He might”

“What then?”

Glinn smiled. “Ev­ery path has been an­alyzed, ev­ery con­tin­gen­cy planned for.” He raised his ra­dio again. “Bring the ves­sel in to­ward the bluff.”

Af­ter a pause, Mc­Far­lane could feel the vi­bra­tion of the big en­gines. Slow­ly, very slow­ly, the great ship be­gan to turn.

Glinn looked back to­ward Mc­Far­lane. “You have a crit­ical role in this, Sam.”

Mc­Far­lane looked at him in sur­prise. “Me?”

Glinn nod­ded. “I want you to stay in com­mu­ni­ca­tion with Lloyd. Keep him in­formed, keep him calm, and, above all, keep him where he is. It might be dis­as­trous if he came down now. And now, farewell. I must pre­pare for my meet­ing with our Chilean friend.” He paused and looked Mc­Far­lane steadi­ly in the face. “I owe you an apol­ogy.”

“What for?” Mc­Far­lane asked.

“You know very well what for. I couldn’t have wished for a more con­sis­tent or re­li­able sci­en­tist. At the con­clu­sion of the ex­pe­di­tion, our file on you will be de­stroyed.”

Mc­Far­lane didn’t quite know what to make of this con­fes­sion. It seemed sin­cere; but then, ev­ery­thing about the man was so cal­cu­lat­ed that he won­dered if even this ad­mis­sion was in­tend­ed to do dou­ble, or even triple du­ty, in Glinn’s grand scheme.

Glinn held out his hand. Mc­Far­lane took it, and laid his oth­er hand on Glinn’s shoul­der.

In a mo­ment Glinn was gone.

It was on­ly lat­er that Mc­Far­lane re­al­ized the thick padding he’d felt un­der his fin­gers was not a heavy coat but a flak vest.

Franklin Chan­nel,

8:40 P.M.

GLINN STOOD at the bow of the small launch, wel­com­ing the frigid air that streamed across his face. The four men who were part of the op­er­ation sat on the deck of the dark pi­lot­house, suit­ed up, silent and out of sight. Di­rect­ly ahead, the lights of the de­stroy­er wa­vered in the calm wa­ters of the sound. As he pre­dict­ed, it had moved up chan­nel.

He glanced back to­ward the is­land it­self. An im­mense clus­ter of lights sur­round­ed the fever­ish min­ing ac­tiv­ity. Heavy equip­ment rum­bled back and forth. As he watched, the faint crump of a dis­tant ex­plo­sion rolled through the air. By com­par­ison, the re­al work tak­ing place on the bluff looked in­ci­den­tal. The move­ment of the Rolvaag had been pre­sent­ed, through ra­dio traf­fic, as a pre­cau­tion against an­oth­er storm — the big ship would be mov­ing in­to the lee of the is­land and string­ing ca­bles to shore.

He smelled the mois­ture-​laden sea air, breathed in the de­cep­tive calm. A big storm was cer­tain­ly com­ing. Its pre­cise na­ture was a se­cret shared on­ly by Glinn, Brit­ton, and the on­du­ty of­fi­cers of the Rolvaag; there had seemed no need to dis­tract the crew or the EES en­gi­neers at such a crit­ical mo­ment. But satel­lite weath­er anal­ysis in­di­cat­ed it might de­vel­op in­to a pan­teonero, a ceme­tery wind, kick­ing up as ear­ly as dawn. Such a wind al­ways start­ed out of the south­west and then swung around to the north­west as it gained strength. Such winds could grow to Force 15. But if the Rolvaag could get through the Strait of Le Maire by noon, they would be in the lee of Tier­ra del Fuego be­fore the worst of the wind start­ed. And it would be at their backs: ide­al for a large tanker, hellish for a small pur­suer.

He knew that Val­lenar must now be aware of his ap­proach. The launch moved slow­ly, its full com­ple­ment of run­ning lights on. Even with­out radar it would be con­spic­uous against the black, moon­less night wa­ter.

The launch drew with­in two hun­dred yards of the ship. Glinn heard a faint splash be­hind him but did not turn around. As ex­pect­ed, three oth­er splash­es quick­ly fol­lowed. He was aware of a preter­nat­ural calm­ness, a sharp­en­ing of his sens­es, that al­ways came be­fore an op. It had been a long time, and the feel­ing was pleas­ant, al­most nos­tal­gic.

A spot­light on the de­stroy­er’s fan­tail snapped on and swiveled to­ward the launch, blind­ing him with its bril­liance. He re­mained mo­tion­less in the bow as the launch slowed. If he was go­ing to be shot, this would be the mo­ment. And yet he felt an un­wa­ver­ing con­vic­tion that the de­stroy­er’s gun would re­main silent. He breathed in, then ex­haled slow­ly, once, twice. The crit­ical mo­ment passed.

They met him at the board­ing hatch and led him up through a se­ries of foul pas­sage­ways and slip­pery met­al stair­ways. At the en­trance to the puente, the bridge, they paused. Ex­cept for the deck of­fi­cer, Val­lenar was alone. He stood at the for­ward win­dows, look­ing out at the is­land, cigar in his mouth, hands clasped be­hind his back. It was cold; ei­ther the heat­ing sys­tem did not work, or it had been turned off. Like the rest of the ship, the bridge smelled of en­gine oil, bil­ge­wa­ter, and fish.

Val­lenar did not turn. Glinn let a very long si­lence en­sue be­fore he be­gan.

“Co­man­dante,” he said in po­lite, mea­sured Span­ish, “I have come to pay you my re­spects.”

A faint noise is­sued from Val­lenar, which Glinn took for amuse­ment. The man still did not turn. The at­mo­sphere around Glinn seemed charged with su­per­hu­man clar­ity; his body felt light, as if made of air.

Val­lenar re­moved a let­ter from his pock­et, un­fold­ed it, and paused. Glinn could see the let­ter­head of a well-​known Aus­tralian uni­ver­si­ty. Val­lenar spoke at last. “It’s a me­te­orite,” he said, his voice flat and dry.

So he knew. It had seemed the most un­like­ly path of those they had an­alyzed; but now it be­came the path they must fol­low.

“Yes.”

Val­lenar turned. His heavy woolen coat fell back, dis­play­ing an old Luger snugged in­to his belt.

“You are steal­ing a me­te­orite from my coun­try.”

“Not steal­ing,” said Glinn. “We are with­in in­ter­na­tion­al law.”

Val­lenar barked out a laugh, hol­low on the near­ly de­sert­ed bridge. “I know. You are a min­ing op­er­ation, and it is met­al. I was wrong af­ter all: you did come down here for iron.”

Glinn said noth­ing. With ev­ery word of Val­lenar’s, he was get­ting price­less in­for­ma­tion about the man; in­for­ma­tion that would al­low him to make ev­er more ac­cu­rate pre­dic­tions on fu­ture be­hav­ior.

“But you, señor, are out­side my law. The law of Co­man­dante Val­lenar.”

“I do not un­der­stand,” said Glinn, al­though he did.

“You will not leave Chile with this me­te­orite.”

“If we find it,” said Glinn.

Val­lenar paused ev­er so slight­ly, and in that pause Glinn saw that he did not, in fact, know they had found it.

“What is to pre­vent me from sim­ply re­port­ing this to the au­thor­ities in San­ti­ago? They, at least, have not been bribed.”

“You are free to re­port it to any­one you wish,” said Glinn. “We are do­ing noth­ing il­le­gal.” He knew Val­lenar would nev­er re­port it. Val­lenar was the kind of man who would set­tle things his own way.

Val­lenar took a long drag on the cigar, blow­ing the smoke in Glinn’s di­rec­tion. “Tell me, señor… Ish­mael, was it not?”

“Ac­tu­al­ly, my name is Glinn.”

“I see. So tell me, Mr. Glinn, why have you come to my ship?”

Glinn knew he had to an­swer this care­ful­ly. “I was hop­ing, Co­man­dante, that we could work out an ar­range­ment with you.”

He saw the ex­pect­ed anger in the cap­tain’s face, and pressed on. “I am au­tho­rized to give you one mil­lion dol­lars, gold, for your co­op­er­ation.”

Val­lenar sud­den­ly smiled, his eyes veiled. “You have it on you?”

“Of course not.”

The co­man­dante lazi­ly puffed on the puro. “Per­haps, señor, you think I have a price like the oth­ers. Be­cause I am a South Amer­ican, a dirty Latin, that I am al­ways will­ing to co­op­er­ate in ex­change for la mor­di­da.”

“It has been my ex­pe­ri­ence that no one is in­cor­rupt­ible,” said Glinn. “Amer­icans in­clud­ed.” He watched the co­man­dante care­ful­ly. He knew he would refuse the bribe, but even in the re­fusal there would be in­for­ma­tion.

“If that has been your ex­pe­ri­ence, then you have led a cor­rupt life, sur­round­ing your­self with whores, de­gen­er­ates, and ho­mo­sex­uals. You will not leave Chile with this me­te­orite. I re­quest you to take your gold, señor, and fill your moth­er’s who­rish coño with it.”

Glinn did not re­spond to this strongest of Span­ish in­sults. Val­lenar low­ered his cigar. “There is an­oth­er, mat­ter. I sent a man over to make a re­con­nais­sance of the is­land, and he has not re­turned. His name is Tim­mer. He is my ofi­cial de co­mu­ni­ca­ciones, my sig­nal of­fi­cer.”

Glinn was faint­ly sur­prised at this. He did not be­lieve the co­man­dante would bring up the sub­ject, let alone ad­mit the man was on a spy­ing ex­pe­di­tion. Af­ter all, this man Tim­mer had failed, and Val­lenar was clear­ly some­one to whom fail­ure was con­temptible.

“He slit the throat of one of our men. We are hold­ing him.

The co­man­dante’s eyes nar­rowed, and for a mo­ment his con­trol seemed to slip. But he re­cov­ered and smiled again. “You will re­turn him to me, please.”

“I am sor­ry,” said Glinn. “He com­mit­ted a crime.”

“You will re­turn him to me at once, or I will blow your ship out of the wa­ter,” Val­lenar said, his voice ris­ing.

Again, Glinn felt a twinge of puz­zle­ment. This rash threat was far out of pro­por­tion to the sit­ua­tion. A sig­nal of­fi­cer was eas­ily re­placed, not of high rank. There was some­thing more here than met the eye. His mind raced over the pos­si­bil­ities even as he was for­mu­lat­ing his an­swer. “That would be un­wise, since your man is in the ship’s brig.”

The co­man­dante stared hard at Glinn. When he spoke again, his voice was even once more. “Give me back Tim­mer, and I may con­sid­er let­ting you take the me­te­orite.”

Glinn knew this was a lie. Val­lenar would no more let them go if they re­turned Tim­mer than they could re­turn the man. The co­man­dante, he un­der­stood from Pup­pup, had a fa­nat­ical­ly loy­al crew. Now, per­haps, he could un­der­stand why: Val­lenar re­turned their loy­al­ty just as fierce­ly. Glinn had be­lieved the co­man­dante to be a man to whom oth­er peo­ple were dis­pens­able. This was a side of Val­lenar that he had not an­tic­ipat­ed. It didn’t fit the pro­file that his peo­ple back in New York had drawn up, or the back­ground dossier he had ob­tained. Still, it was use­ful. He would have to re­con­sid­er Val­lenar. At any rate, he now had the in­for­ma­tion he need­ed: he knew now what Val­lenar knew. And his own team had had am­ple time to do what need­ed to be done.

“I will re­lay your of­fer to our cap­tain,” he said. “And I think it might be pos­si­ble to ar­range. I will have an an­swer for you by noon.” Glinn bowed slight­ly. “And now, with your per­mis­sion, I will re­turn to my ship.”

Val­lenar smiled, mak­ing an al­most suc­cess­ful ef­fort to cov­er up a sim­mer­ing anger. “You do that, señor. Be­cause if I do not see Tim­mer with my own eyes by noon, then I will know that he is dead. And your lives will not be worth dog dirt un­der my heel.”

Rolvaag,

11:50 P.M.

MC­FAR­LANE TOOK the call in Lloyd’s suite of de­sert­ed of­fices. Out­side the wide span of win­dows, a breeze had sprung up, and a swell was rolling in from the west. The great ship stood in the lee of the sheer basaltic cliffs, its hawsers strung to the shore, af­fixed to steel bolts in the bedrock it­self. All was in readi­ness, await­ing the cloak­ing fog that Glinn said was pre­dict­ed for mid­night.

The phone on Lloyd’s desk be­gan to blink an­gri­ly, and Mc­Far­lane reached for it with a sigh. It would be his third con­ver­sa­tion with Lloyd that evening. He hat­ed this new role, a go­be­tween, a sec­re­tary. “Mr. Lloyd?”

“Yes, yes, I’m here. Has Glinn re­turned?” There was that same loud, con­tin­uous noise in the back­ground he had heard dur­ing their last con­ver­sa­tion. Idly, Mc­Far­lane won­dered where Lloyd was call­ing from.

“He came back two hours ago.”

“What did he say? Did Val­lenar take the bribe?”

“No.”

“Maybe he didn’t of­fer enough mon­ey.”

“Glinn seems to think that no amount of mon­ey would make a dif­fer­ence.”

“Je­sus Christ, ev­ery­one has a price! I sup­pose it’s too late now, but I’d pay twen­ty mil­lion. You tell him that. Twen­ty mil­lion in gold, sent any­where in the world. And Amer­ican pass­ports for him and his fam­ily.”

Mc­Far­lane said noth­ing. Some­how, he didn’t think Val­lenar would be in­ter­est­ed in Amer­ican pass­ports.

“So what’s Glinn’s plan?”

Mc­Far­lane swal­lowed. He hat­ed this more by the minute. “He says it’s fool­proof, but he can’t share it with us now. He says con­fi­den­tial­ity is crit­ical to its suc­cess — “

“What bull­shit! Put him on. Now.”

“I tried to find him when I heard you were call­ing. Again. He’s not an­swer­ing his page or ra­dio. No one seems to know where he is.”

“Damn him! I knew I shouldn’t have put all my—“

His voice was drowned out by a roar of stat­ic. It re­turned, a lit­tle fainter than be­fore. “Sam? Sam!”

“I’m here.”

“Lis­ten. You’re the Lloyd rep­re­sen­ta­tive down there. You tell Glinn to call me im­me­di­ate­ly, and tell him that’s an or­der, or I’ll fire his ass and per­son­al­ly throw him over­board.”

“Yes,” said Mc­Far­lane weari­ly.

“Are you in my of­fice? Can you see the me­te­orite?”

“It’s still hid­den on the bluff.”

“When will it be moved on­to the ship?”

“As soon as the fog rolls in. I’m told it’ll take a few hours to get it in­to the tank, maybe half an hour to se­cure it, and then we’re off. We’re sup­posed to be out of here no lat­er than five A.M.”

“That’s cut­ting it close. And I hear there’s an­oth­er storm com­ing, big­ger than the last.”

“Storm?” Mc­Far­lane asked.

The on­ly an­swer was stat­ic. He wait­ed, but the line was dead. Af­ter a minute he hung up the phone and stared out the win­dow. As he did so, he heard the elec­tron­ic clock on Lloyd’s desk chime out mid­night.

I’ll per­son­al­ly throw him over­board, he’d said.

And then Mc­Far­lane sud­den­ly un­der­stood the sound he had heard be­hind Lloyd’s voice: a jet en­gine.

Lloyd was on a plane.

Almi­rante Ramirez,

Ju­ly 25, Mid­night

CO­MAN­DANTE VAL­LENAR stood at the bridge, star­ing through the binoc­ular scope. His ship lay at the north­ern end of the chan­nel, where he had an un­op­posed view of the ac­tiv­ity on shore. It was a re­veal­ing sight in­deed.

The Amer­icans had brought the big tanker in against the bluff and strung hawsers to shore. Clear­ly, the cap­tain of the Rolvaag knew a thing or two about Cape Horn weath­er. They could not know of the un­chart­ed un­der­sea ledge to which he had an­chored the Almi­rante Ramirez So in­stead they had teth­ered the ship in the lee of the is­land, hop­ing to pro­tect them­selves from the worst fury of the storm. With any luck, the off­shore breeze would keep the ship away from the dan­ger­ous rocks. Still, it was a very risky ma­neu­ver for a ves­sel that large, par­tic­ular­ly a ship us­ing dy­nam­ic po­si­tion­ing, if the wind should change sud­den­ly. It would have been much safer to take the ship away from land al­to­geth­er. Some­thing press­ing was keep­ing them near­by.

And he did not have far to look for it. He swiveled the scope back to the cen­ter of the is­land and the wide-​scale min­ing op­er­ation, tak­ing place some two miles from the Rolvaag. He had been scru­ti­niz­ing it even be­fore the Amer­ican, Glinn, had ar­rived. A few hours be­fore, there had been a sud­den in­crease in ac­tiv­ity: ex­plo­sions, the fran­tic grind­ing of ma­chin­ery, work­men dash­ing here and there, huge lights bathing the work­site. The in­ter­cept­ed ra­dio traf­fic in­di­cat­ed the work crews had found some­thing. Some­thing big.

But they were hav­ing great dif­fi­cul­ty with this find. First, they broke their most pow­er­ful crane try­ing to lift it. And now they were try­ing to drag the thing with heavy ma­chin­ery. But the ra­dio chat­ter made it clear they were hav­ing lit­tle or no luck. No doubt the Rolvaag was stay­ing near­by in case ex­tra men or equip­ment was need­ed. Val­lenar smiled: the Amer­icans were not so com­pe­tent af­ter all. At this rate, it would take them weeks to get the me­te­orite on board the ship.

Of course, he would nev­er al­low that to hap­pen. Once Tim­mer was safe­ly back, Val­lenar would dis­able the tanker to pre­vent their leav­ing, and then com­mu­ni­cate the news of their at­tempt­ed theft. It would pre­serve the hon­or of his coun­try. When the politi­cians saw the me­te­orite — when they learned how the Amer­icans had tried to steal it — they would un­der­stand. With that me­te­orite, he might even be pro­mot­ed out of Puer­to Williams. It would be the cor­rupt bas­tards in Pun­ta Are­nas, not he, who would suf­fer. But the tim­ing was ev­ery­thing…

His smile fad­ed as he thought of Tim­mer, locked in the brig of that tanker. That he had killed some­one was no sur­prise; young Tim­mer was a quick thinker, ea­ger to im­press. What sur­prised Val­lenar was that he had been caught. He looked for­ward to the de­brief­ing.

He did not al­low him­self to think about the oth­er pos­si­bil­ity: that the Amer­ican had lied, and Tim­mer was dead. There was a rus­tle, and the ofi­cial de guardia came up be­hind him. “Co­man­dante?”

Val­lenar nod­ded with­out look­ing at him.

“We have re­ceived a sec­ond or­der to re­turn to base, sir.”

Val­lenar said noth­ing. He wait­ed, think­ing.

“Sir?”

Val­lenar looked back out in­to the dark­ness. The ex­pect­ed fog was now rolling in. “Ob­serve ra­dio si­lence. Ac­knowl­edge noth­ing.”

There was a faint flick­er­ing in the of­fi­cer’s eyes at this re­quest, but the man was far too well trained to ques­tion an or­der. “Yes, sir.”

Val­lenar watched the fog. It drift­ed in like smoke, creep­ing out of nowhere to shroud the seascape. The lights of the great tanker be­gan flick­er­ing in and out, blot­ted by patch­es of fog, un­til they dis­ap­peared. In the mid­dle of the is­land, the bril­liant light of the work­site gave way to an in­dis­tinct glow, then yield­ed com­plete­ly, leav­ing a wall of dark­ness be­fore the bridge. He bent his head to­ward the FLIR scope, where the ship was out­lined in a hazy yel­low.

Val­lenar straight­ened, then stepped back from the scope. He thought of Glinn. There was some­thing strange about him, some­thing un­read­able. His vis­it to the Almi­rante Ramirez had been brazen. It had tak­en co­jones. And yet it both­ered him.

He stared out in­to the fog an­oth­er mo­ment. Then he turned to the deck of­fi­cer. “Have the ofi­cial cen­tral de in­for­ma­ciones de com­bate re­port to the bridge,” he said soft­ly but care­ful­ly. Rolvaag,

Mid­night

WHEN MC­FAR­LANE ar­rived on the bridge, he found a trou­bled-​look­ing group of of­fi­cers hud­dled over the com­mand sta­tion. A clax­on had gone off and all hands had been called to quar­ters over the ship’s PA. Brit­ton, who had sent him an ur­gent sum­mons, seemed not to no­tice his ar­rival. Out­side the bank of win­dows lay a haze of fog. The pow­er­ful lights on the ship’s fore­cas­tle were faint pin­pricks of yel­low.

“Has he got a lock on us?” Brit­ton asked.

“Af­fir­ma­tive,” an­swered a near­by of­fi­cer. “With tar­get­ing radar.”

She drew the back of her hand across her fore­head, then glanced up and caught sight of Mc­Far­lane. “Where is Mr. Glinn?” she asked. “Why isn’t he re­spond­ing?”

“I don’t know. He dis­ap­peared soon af­ter re­turn­ing from the Chilean ship. I’ve been try­ing to reach him my­self.”

Brit­ton turned to How­ell.

“He may not be on the ship,” the chief mate said.

“He’s on the ship. I want two search par­ties, one for­ward and one aft. Have them work their way mid­ships. Do a high-​or­der search. Bring him to the bridge im­me­di­ate­ly.”

“That won’t be nec­es­sary.” Glinn, noise­less as ev­er, had ma­te­ri­al­ized at Mc­Far­lane’s side. Be­hind him were two men that Mc­Far­lane didn’t re­mem­ber hav­ing seen be­fore. Their shirts bore the small cir­cu­lar EES in­signia.

“Eli,” Mc­Far­lane be­gan, “Palmer Lloyd has been on the phone again — “

“Dr. Mc­Far­lane, si­lence on the bridge, if you please!” Brit­ton barked. The note of com­mand in her voice was over­whelm­ing. Mc­Far­lane fell silent.

Brit­ton turned to­ward Glinn. “Who are these men, and why are they on my bridge?”

“They are EES em­ploy­ees.”

Brit­ton paused a mo­ment, as if di­gest­ing this. “Mr. Glinn, I wish to re­mind you — and Dr. Mc­Far­lane, as the on­board rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Lloyd In­dus­tries — that, as mas­ter of the Rolvaag, I am the ul­ti­mate au­thor­ity as to the han­dling and dis­po­si­tion of this ves­sel.”

Glinn nod­ded. Or, at least, Mc­Far­lane thought he did; the ges­ture was so slight as to be im­per­cep­ti­ble.

“I now in­tend to ex­er­cise my pre­rog­ative un­der such au­thor­ity.”

Mc­Far­lane no­ticed that the faces of How­ell and the oth­er bridge of­fi­cers were hard-​set. Clear­ly, some­thing was about to hap­pen. And yet Glinn seemed to re­ceive this stiff an­nounce­ment with­out con­cern.

“And how do you plan to ex­er­cise this pre­rog­ative?”

“That me­te­orite is not com­ing aboard my ship.”

There was si­lence while Glinn looked at her mild­ly. “Cap­tain, I think it would be bet­ter if we dis­cussed this in pri­vate.”

“No, sir.” She turned to How­ell. “Be­gin prepa­ra­tions to va­cate the is­land. We leave in nine­ty min­utes.”

“One mo­ment, if you please, Mr. How­ell.” Glinn’s eyes re­mained on the cap­tain. “May I ask what pre­cip­itat­ed this de­ci­sion?”

“You know my mis­giv­ings about that rock. You’ve giv­en me no as­sur­ances, be­yond guess­work, that the thing is safe to bring aboard. And just five min­utes ago, that de­stroy­er paint­ed us with fire-​con­trol radar. We’re a sit­ting duck. Even if the me­te­orite is safe, the con­di­tions aren’t. A se­vere storm is on its way. You don’t load the heav­iest ob­ject ev­er moved by man when you’re star­ing down the busi­ness end of a four-​inch gun.”

“He will not fire. At least, not yet. He be­lieves we have his man Tim­mer in the brig. And he seems re­mark­ably ea­ger to get him back safe­ly.”

“I see. And what will he do when he finds Tim­mer’s dead?”

Glinn did not an­swer this ques­tion. “Run­ning away with­out a prop­er plan is a guar­an­teed way to fail. And Val­lenar won’t let us leave un­til Tim­mer is re­turned.”

“All I can say is that I’d rather try run­ning now than with a bel­ly­ful of me­te­orite slow­ing us down.”

Glinn con­tin­ued to re­gard her with a mild, al­most sad ex­pres­sion.

A tech­ni­cian cleared his throat. “I’ve got an in­bound air con­tact bear­ing ze­ro ze­ro nine at thir­ty-​five miles.”

“Track it and get me a call sign,” Brit­ton said, with­out shift­ing po­si­tion or drop­ping her gaze from Glinn.

There was a short, tense si­lence.

“Have you for­got­ten the con­tract you signed with EES?” Glinn asked.

“I’ve for­got­ten noth­ing, Mr. Glinn. But there is a high­er law which su­per­sedes all con­tracts: the law and cus­tom of the sea. The cap­tain has the last word on mat­ters per­tain­ing to her ves­sel. And, un­der present cir­cum­stances, I will not al­low that me­te­orite on board.”

“Cap­tain Brit­ton, if you will not speak pri­vate­ly with me, all I can do is as­sure you there is no need to wor­ry.” Glinn nod­ded to his men. One of them stepped for­ward, sit­ting down at an un­used com­put­er con­sole of black steel. The words SE­CURE DATA­MET­RICS were stamped in­to its side. The oth­er man took up a po­si­tion be­hind him, his back to the con­sole, fac­ing the bridge of­fi­cers. Mc­Far­lane re­al­ized this con­sole was a small­er cousin of the mys­te­ri­ous ma­chine Brit­ton had point­ed out to him in the car­go con­trol room.

Brit­ton watched the two strangers dark­ly. “Mr. How­ell, re­move all EES per­son­nel from the bridge.”

“That,” said Glinn sor­row­ful­ly, “will not be pos­si­ble.”

Some­thing in his tone seemed to make Brit­ton hes­itate. “What do you mean?”

“The Rolvaag is a mar­velous ship, the lat­est in mar­itime com­put­er­iza­tion. As a pre­cau­tion, EES has used that com­put­er­iza­tion against a con­tin­gen­cy such as this. You see, our sys­tems con­trol the main com­put­er. Nor­mal­ly, this con­trol is trans­par­ent. But af­ter the Rolvaag was brought in to shore, I de­ac­ti­vat­ed the by­pass. Now we alone have the au­tho­riza­tion codes to con­trol the main en­gines. You can­not trans­mit any en­gine or rud­der or­ders un­til the cor­rect se­quence is punched in.”

Brit­ton looked at him, silent fury on her face.

How­ell picked up a tele­phone on the com­mand con­sole. “Se­cu­ri­ty to the bridge, on the dou­ble.”

Brit­ton turned to the watch of­fi­cer. “Ini­ti­ate en­gine se­quence.”

There was a pause as the of­fi­cer en­tered a se­ries of com­mands. “No re­sponse from the en­gines, ma’am. I’ve got a dead board.”

“Run a di­ag­nos­tic,” she said.

“Cap­tain,” con­tin­ued Glinn, “I’m afraid you will be re­quired to ob­serve the let­ter of your con­tract whether you like it or not.”

She wheeled sud­den­ly, her eyes locked on his. She said some­thing to him in a voice too low for Mc­Far­lane to hear. Glinn stepped for­ward. “No,” he al­most whis­pered. “You promised to cap­tain this ship back to New York. I mere­ly added a safe­guard to pre­vent a vi­ola­tion of that promise — by you, or by oth­ers.”

Brit­ton fell silent, her tall frame quiv­er­ing slight­ly.

“If we leave now, rash­ly, with­out a plan, they will sink us.” Glinn’s voice re­mained low, per­sua­sive, ur­gent. “Our very sur­vival now de­pends on your fol­low­ing my lead. I know what I am do­ing.”

Brit­ton con­tin­ued look­ing at him. “This will not stand.”

“Cap­tain, you must be­lieve me when I tell you that, if we are to sur­vive, we have on­ly one course of ac­tion. You must co­op­er­ate with me, or we will all die. It is as sim­ple as that.”

“Cap­tain,” the watch of­fi­cer be­gan, “the di­ag­nos­tics check out…” His voice died away as he saw Brit­ton had not heard him.

A group of se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers ap­peared on the bridge.

“You heard the cap­tain,” barked How­ell, mo­tion­ing the se­cu­ri­ty team for­ward. “Clear all EES per­son­nel from the bridge.” At the con­sole, Glinn’s op­er­atives stiff­ened in prepa­ra­tion. And then Brit­ton slow­ly held up a hand.

“Cap­tain — ” How­ell be­gan.

“They may re­main. “

How­ell looked at her in­cred­ulous­ly, but Brit­ton did not turn.

There was a long, ag­onized si­lence. Then Glinn nod­ded to his team.

The seat­ed man took a stub­by met­al key from around his neck and in­sert­ed it in­to the front of the con­sole. Glinn stepped for­ward, typed a short se­ries of com­mands, then turned to a nu­mer­ic key­pad and typed again, briefly.

The watch of­fi­cer glanced up. “Sir, the board’s gone green.”

Brit­ton nod­ded. “I hope to God you do know what you’re do­ing.” She did not look at Glinn as she spoke.

“If you trust any­thing, Cap­tain, I hope you will trust this. I have made a pro­fes­sion­al pact — and a per­son­al one — to bring the me­te­orite to New York. I have thrown tremen­dous re­sources in­to solv­ing any prob­lem we might en­counter — in­clud­ing this one. I — we — will not fail.”

If this had any im­pact on Brit­ton, Mc­Far­lane could not see it. Her eyes re­mained dis­tant.

Glinn stepped back. “Cap­tain, the next twelve hours will be the most try­ing of the en­tire mis­sion. Suc­cess now de­pends on a cer­tain sub­or­di­na­tion of your au­thor­ity as cap­tain. For that I apol­ogize. But once the me­te­orite is safe­ly in the hold­ing tank, the ship will be yours again. And by noon to­mor­row, we’ll be well on our way back to New York. With a prize be­yond price.”

As Glinn looked at her, Mc­Far­lane saw him smile: faint, ten­uous, but there nonethe­less.

Banks stepped out of the ra­dio room. “I’ve got an ID on the bird, ma’am. It’s a Lloyd Hold­ings he­li­copter, send­ing an en­crypt­ed call sign over the bridge-​to-​bridge fre­quen­cy.”

The smile van­ished from Glinn’s face. He dart­ed a look at Mc­Far­lane. Don’t look at me, Mc­Far­lane al­most said. You should have kept him in the loop.

The of­fi­cer at the radar con­sole ad­just­ed his head­phones. “Cap­tain, he’s re­quest­ing per­mis­sion to land.”

“ETA?”

“Thir­ty min­utes.”

Glinn turned. “Cap­tain, if you don’t mind, I have a few mat­ters to at­tend to. Make any nec­es­sary prepa­ra­tions for our de­par­ture you see fit. I’ll re­turn short­ly.”

He be­gan walk­ing away, leav­ing the two EES em­ploy­ees at the con­sole. In the door­way, he paused. “Dr. Mc­Far­lane,” he said, with­out look­ing around. “Mr. Lloyd will be ex­pect­ing a wel­come. Ar­range it, if you please.”

Rolvaag,

12:30 A.M.

WITH A de­press­ing sense of déjà vu, Mc­Far­lane paced the main­deck, wait­ing for the he­li­copter to ap­proach the tanker. For in­ter­minable min­utes, there was noth­ing more than a low thud of ro­tors some­where out in the murk. Mc­Far­lane watched the fren­zied ac­tiv­ity that had be­gun the mo­ment the fog con­cealed their ship from the Almi­rante Ramirez. The bluff loomed be­side them, the crags of rock soft­ened by the fog. Atop stood the shack that en­closed the me­te­orite. Be­fore him, the cen­ter tank lay open. A pale light drift­ed up­ward. Mc­Far­lane watched while, with as­ton­ish­ing speed, swarms of work­men be­gan as­sem­bling a tow­er of gleam­ing struts. It rose out of the tank, its met­al lat­tice­work glow­ing soft­ly in the sodi­um lights. Now, two der­ricks swung ad­di­tion­al pre­fab­ri­cat­ed pieces of tow­er in­to place. At least a dozen welders were at work on the tow­er, and con­tin­uous streams of sparks cas­cad­ed down­ward on­to the hard hats and shoul­ders of the en­gi­neers be­low. De­spite its size and bulk, the whole struc­ture looked odd­ly del­icate: a com­plex spi­der­web of three di­men­sions. For the life of him, Mc­Far­lane could not see how the me­te­orite was go­ing to get in­to the tank once it was dragged on top of the tow­er.

The thud­ding sound grew sud­den­ly loud­er, and Mc­Far­lane trot­ted back along the su­per­struc­ture to the fan­tail. The big Chi­nook was emerg­ing out of the fog, its ro­tors send­ing bil­lows of fine spray up from the deck. A man with coned flash­lights in his hands ma­neu­vered the bird in­to po­si­tion. It was a rou­tine land­ing, with none of the ex­cite­ment of Lloyd’s ar­rival dur­ing their stormy round­ing of Cape Horn.

Mood­ily, he watched as the he­li­copter’s over­size tires sank on­to the pad. Act­ing as a gofer be­tween Lloyd and Glinn was a no-​win sit­ua­tion. He wasn’t a li­ai­son: he was a sci­en­tist. This wasn’t why he had hired on, and the knowl­edge made him an­gry.

A hatch­way in the he­li­copter’s bel­ly opened. Lloyd stood with­in, a long black cash­mere coat bil­low­ing out be­hind him, a gray fe­do­ra in one hand. Land­ing lights gleamed off his wet pate. He made the jump, land­ing grace­ful­ly for a man of his size, and then strode across the deck, un­bowed, pow­er­ful, obliv­ious to the jum­ble of equip­ment and staff that streamed out of the chop­per on the hy­draulic ramp de­ployed be­hind him. He grasped Mc­Far­lane’s hand in his steel grip, smiled and nod­ded, and con­tin­ued walk­ing. Mc­Far­lane fol­lowed him across the windswept deck and out of the noise of the blades. Near the for­ward rail­ing, Lloyd stopped, scan­ning the fan­tas­ti­cal tow­er from bot­tom to top. “Where’s Glinn?” he shout­ed.

“He should be back on the bridge by now.”

“Let’s go.”

The bridge was alive with ten­sion, faces drawn in the pale il­lu­mi­na­tion. Lloyd paused in the door­way for a mo­ment, drink­ing it in. Then he stepped heav­ily for­ward. Glinn was stand­ing at the EES con­sole, speak­ing in hushed tones to his man at the key­board. Lloyd strode to­ward him, en­fold­ing Glinn’s nar­row hand in his own. “The man of the hour,” he cried. If he had been an­gry on the plane, he seemed to have re­cov­ered his high spir­its. He waved one hand out to­ward the struc­ture ris­ing out of the tank. “Christ, Eli, that’s in­cred­ible. Are you sure it’s go­ing to hold a twen­ty-​five-​thou­sand-​ton rock?”

“Dou­ble over­age,” was Glinn’s re­ply.

“I should have known. How the hell is it sup­posed to work?”

“Con­trolled fail­ure.”

“What? Fail­ure? From your mouth? Heav­en for­bid.”

“We move the rock to the tow­er. Then we set off a se­ries of ex­plo­sive charges. These will cause the lev­els of the tow­er to fail in se­quence, bring­ing the me­te­orite down, bit by bit, in­to the hold­ing tank.”

Lloyd gazed at the struc­ture. “Amaz­ing,” he said. “Has it ev­er been done be­fore?”

“Not in quite this way.”

“Are you sure it’ll work?”

A wry smile ap­peared on Glinn’s thin lips.

“Sor­ry I asked. All that’s your de­part­ment, Eli, and I’m not go­ing to sec­ond-​guess you on it. I’m down here for a dif­fer­ent rea­son.” He drew him­self to his full height and looked around. “I’m not go­ing to mince words. We’ve got a prob­lem here, and it’s not be­ing dealt with. We’ve come too far to let any­thing stop us now. So I’ve come down to kick ass and take names.” He point­ed out in­to the dense fog. “There’s a war­ship parked right off our bow. It’s sent in spies. They’re just wait­ing for us to make a move. And, god­dammit, Eli, you’ve done noth­ing about it. Well, there’s to be no more chick­en­shit wa­ver­ing. Strong ac­tion is what’s need­ed here, and from now on I’ll be han­dling it per­son­al­ly. I’m trav­el­ing back to New York with you on­board the ship. But first, I’m get­ting the Chilean navy to re­call this damn cow­boy.” He turned back to­ward the door. “It’ll take my peo­ple just a few min­utes to get up to speed. Eli, I’ll ex­pect you in my of­fice in half an hour. I’m go­ing to make some calls. I’ve dealt with this kind of tin­pot po­lit­ical sit­ua­tion be­fore.”

Dur­ing this brief speech, Glinn kept his deep gray eyes trained steadi­ly on Lloyd. Now he touched his brow with a hand­ker­chief and glanced at Mc­Far­lane. As usu­al, it was al­most im­pos­si­ble to read any­thing in­to his gaze: Weari­ness? Dis­gust? Noth­ing at all?

Glinn spoke. “I’m sor­ry, Mr. Lloyd. Did you say you had con­tact­ed the Chilean au­thor­ities?”

“No, not yet. I want­ed to find out ex­act­ly what was hap­pen­ing here first. But I’ve got pow­er­ful friends in Chile, in­clud­ing the vice pres­ident and the Amer­ican am­bas­sador.” Ca­su­al­ly, Glinn took a step clos­er to the EES con­sole. “I’m afraid that will not be pos­si­ble.” “What, ex­act­ly, will not be pos­si­ble?” Sur­prise min­gled with im­pa­tience in Lloyd’s tone.

“Your in­volve­ment in any as­pect of this op­er­ation. You would have done bet­ter to stay in New York.”

Lloyd’s voice sharp­ened with anger. “Glinn, don’t go telling me what I can and can’t do. I’ll leave the en­gi­neer­ing in your hands, but this is a po­lit­ical sit­ua­tion.”

“I as­sure you I am deal­ing with all as­pects of the po­lit­ical sit­ua­tion.”

Lloyd’s voice trem­bled. “Oh re­al­ly? And what about that de­stroy­er out there? It’s armed to the teeth, and its guns are point­ing at us, in case you didn’t no­tice. You’ve not done a damn thing. Noth­ing.”

Hear­ing this, Cap­tain Brit­ton glanced at How­ell, and then — more sig­nif­icant­ly — at Glinn.

“Mr. Lloyd, I will say this on­ly once. You gave me a job to do. I am do­ing it. Your role right now is very sim­ple: let me car­ry out my plan. This is no time for drawn-​out ex­pla­na­tions.”

Lloyd, in­stead of re­spond­ing, turned to Pen­fold, who had been hov­er­ing un­hap­pi­ly in the door to the bridge. “Get Am­bas­sador Throck­mor­ton on the horn and con­fer­ence him in­to the vice pres­ident’s of­fice in San­ti­ago. I’ll be down in a minute.”

Pen­fold dis­ap­peared.

“Mr. Lloyd,” said Glinn qui­et­ly. “You may re­main on the bridge and ob­serve. That is all.”

“It’s way too late for that, Glinn.”

Glinn turned qui­et­ly and spoke to his man at the black com­put­er. “Kill the pow­er in the Lloyd In­dus­tries suite, and sus­pend ship-​to-​shore com­mu­ni­ca­tions across the board.”

There was a shocked si­lence. “You son of a bitch,” Lloyd roared, re­cov­er­ing quick­ly. He turned to Brit­ton. “I con­tra­vene that or­der. Mr. Glinn is re­lieved of au­thor­ity.”

It ap­peared that Glinn hadn’t heard. He punched in an­oth­er fre­quen­cy on his ra­dio. “Mr. Garza? I’ll take that re­port now.”

He lis­tened for a mo­ment, then replied, “Ex­cel­lent. With the cov­er­ing fog, let’s start an ear­ly evac­ua­tion of the is­land. Or­der all nonessen­tial per­son­nel back on board. But fol­low the game plan pre­cise­ly: in­struct them to leave the lights on and the equip­ment run­ning. I’ve had Rachel set the ra­dio trans­mis­sion rou­tines to au­to­mat­ic. Bring the ten­der around the rear of the is­land, but be care­ful to al­ways keep it with­in the radar shad­ow of the is­land or the Rolvaag.”

Lloyd broke in, his voice shak­ing with rage. “Aren’t you for­get­ting, Glinn, who’s ul­ti­mate­ly in charge of this op­er­ation? On top of fir­ing you, I’m stop­ping all pay­ments to EES.” He turned to Brit­ton. “Re­store pow­er to my suite.”

It again ap­peared for sev­er­al mo­ments as if Glinn had still not heard Lloyd. Brit­ton, al­so, made no move. Glinn con­tin­ued speak­ing calm­ly in­to the ra­dio, giv­ing or­ders, check­ing on progress. A sud­den gust of wind buf­fet­ed the bridge win­dows, send­ing stream­ers of rain down the Plex­iglas. Lloyd’s face flushed a deep pur­ple as he looked around at the cap­tain and the crew. But no one met his eyes. The work of the bridge went on.

“Did any of you hear me?” he cried.

And then at last Glinn turned back. “I am not for­get­ting that you are ul­ti­mate­ly in charge, Mr. Lloyd,” he an­swered, his voice sud­den­ly con­cil­ia­to­ry, even friend­ly.

Lloyd took a deep breath, mo­men­tar­ily thrown off bal­ance.

Glinn con­tin­ued to speak soft­ly, per­sua­sive­ly, even kind­ly. “Mr. Lloyd, in any op­er­ation, there must be a sin­gle com­man­der. You know that bet­ter than any­one. In our con­tract, I made you a promise. I’m not go­ing to break that promise. If I seem in­sub­or­di­nate, please know that I am do­ing it for you. If you had con­tact­ed the Chilean vice pres­ident, all would have been lost. I know him per­son­al­ly: we used to play po­lo to­geth­er on his Patag­oni­an ranch. He would like noth­ing bet­ter than to give the Amer­icans a swift poke in the eye.”

Lloyd fal­tered. “You played po­lo with — ?”

Glinn went on, speak­ing rapid­ly. “I alone have all the facts. I alone know the path to suc­cess. I am not be­ing se­cre­tive for the sake of coy­ness, Mr. Lloyd. There is a vi­tal rea­son for this: it is es­sen­tial to pre­vent sec­ond-​guess­ing and free­lance de­ci­sion mak­ing. Frankly, the me­te­orite bears no in­trin­sic in­ter­est for me. But I promised to move this thing from point A to point B, and no one, no one, is go­ing to stop me. So I hope you un­der­stand now why I am not go­ing to re­lin­quish con­trol of this op­er­ation, or share with you ex­pla­na­tions and prog­nos­ti­ca­tions. As for you with­hold­ing pay­ment, we can set­tle that ques­tion like gen­tle­men once we are back on Amer­ican soil.”

“Look here, Glinn, that’s all very well and good — “

“This dis­cus­sion is over, and now, sir, you will obey me.” Glinn’s voice, still soft, sud­den­ly took on a steely edge. “Whether that means stay­ing here qui­et­ly, or dis­ap­pear­ing in­to your of­fice, or be­ing es­cort­ed to the brig, is a mat­ter of in­dif­fer­ence to me.”

Lloyd stared at him, dumb­found­ed. “You think you could put me in the brig, you ar­ro­gant bas­tard?”

The ex­pres­sion on Glinn’s face pro­vid­ed the an­swer.

Lloyd was silent for a mo­ment, his face al­most pur­ple with rage. Then he turned to Brit­ton. “And who are you work­ing for?”

But Brit­ton’s eyes, deep and green as the ocean, were still on Glinn. “I’m work­ing for the man with the keys to the car,” she said at last.

Lloyd stood there, swelling in fury. But he did not im­me­di­ate­ly re­act. In­stead, he made a slow cir­cuit of the bridge, his creak­ing wingtips leav­ing a trail of wa­ter, un­til he stopped at the bridge win­dows. There he stood, breath­ing heav­ily a mo­ment, look­ing out at noth­ing in par­tic­ular. “Once again, I or­der that pow­er and com­mu­ni­ca­tions be re­stored to my suite.”

There was no sound, no an­swer. It was clear that no one, not even the low­est of­fi­cer, in­tend­ed to obey Lloyd.

Lloyd slow­ly turned, and his eyes fell square on Mc­Far­lane. He spoke in a low voice. “And you, Sam?”

An­oth­er hard gust buf­fet­ed the win­dows. Mc­Far­lane, stand­ing in sus­pen­sion, felt the shud­der in the air. The bridge had fall­en death­ly qui­et. He had a de­ci­sion to make — and he found it one of the eas­iest de­ci­sions of his ca­reer.

“I’m work­ing for the rock,” said Mc­Far­lane qui­et­ly.

Lloyd con­tin­ued look­ing at him, his eyes black, adaman­tine. Then, all at once, he seemed to crum­ple. The bull-​like pow­er seemed to drain out of his mas­sive frame; his shoul­ders slumped; his face lost its fiery col­or. He turned, hes­itat­ed, then walked slow­ly off the bridge and dis­ap­peared out the door.

Af­ter a mo­ment, Glinn bent once again to­ward the black com­put­er and mur­mured to his man at the key­board.

Rolvaag,

1:45 A.M.

CAP­TAIN BRIT­TON stared straight ahead, be­tray­ing noth­ing of her feel­ings. She tried to mea­sure her breath­ing, the rhythm of her heart — ev­ery­thing — to the pulse of the ship. Over the past hours, the wind had been pick­ing up steadi­ly, and it moaned and rat­tled about the ship. It was rain­ing hard­er now, fat drops that shot out of the fog like bul­lets. The pan­teonero was not far away.

She trans­ferred her at­ten­tion to the spi­der­webbed tow­er that rose out of the ship’s tank. It was still well be­low the lev­el of the bluff, and yet it seemed to be com­plete. She had no idea what the next step would be. It was un­com­fort­able, even hu­mil­iat­ing, not know­ing. She glanced over to­ward the EES com­put­er and the man op­er­at­ing it. She had thought she knew ev­ery­one on board. And yet this man was a stranger who seemed to know a great deal about the op­er­ation of a su­per­tanker. She pressed her lips more tight­ly to­geth­er.

There were times, of course, when she re­lin­quished com­mand — tak­ing on fu­el, say, or when a har­bor pi­lot came aboard. But those were com­fort­able, fa­mil­iar pat­terns of run­ning a ship, es­tab­lished over decades. This was not com­fort­able: it was a hu­mil­ia­tion. Strangers were run­ning the load­ing pro­cess, af­ter lash­ing the ship to the shore and leav­ing her a sit­ting duck three thou­sand yards from a war­ship… Once again, she strug­gled to tuck away the feel­ings of anger and hurt. Af­ter all, her own feel­ings were not im­por­tant — not when she thought about what wait­ed for them, out there in the murk.

Anger and hurt… Her eyes flick­ered to Glinn, stand­ing be­side the black con­sole, oc­ca­sion­al­ly whis­per­ing words to his op­er­ative. He had just hu­mil­iat­ed, even crushed, the world’s most pow­er­ful in­dus­tri­al­ist, and yet he looked so slen­der, so or­di­nary. She con­tin­ued look­ing covert­ly at him. She could un­der­stand her anger. But hurt was some­thing else. More than once she had lain awake at night, won­der­ing what went on in his mind, what made him tick. She won­dered how a man who was so phys­ical­ly in­con­se­quen­tial — a man she might pass in the street with­out a sec­ond glance — could take up res­idence in her imag­ina­tion so vivid­ly. She won­dered how he could be so ruth­less, so dis­ci­plined. Did he re­al­ly have a plan, or was he sim­ply good at cov­er­ing up a se­ries of ad hoc re­ac­tions to un­ex­pect­ed events? The most dan­ger­ous peo­ple were those who knew they were al­ways right. And yet Glinn had been al­ways right. He seemed to know ev­ery­thing in ad­vance, he seemed to un­der­stand ev­ery­body. He cer­tain­ly had un­der­stood her — at least, the pro­fes­sion­al Sal­ly Brit­ton. Suc­cess now de­pends on a cer­tain sub­or­di­na­tion of your au­thor­ity as cap­tain, he had said. She found her­self won­der­ing if he re­al­ly knew how she felt about hav­ing her com­mand sub­or­di­nat­ed, even tem­porar­ily, or if he even cared. She won­dered why she cared that he cared.

She felt a shud­der as pumps came on along both sides of the ship. Jets of sea­wa­ter blast­ed through dis­charge pipes in­to the sea. The ship be­gan to rise al­most im­per­cep­ti­bly as the bal­last tanks emp­tied. Of course: that’s how the squat-​look­ing tow­er would be raised to the lev­el of the me­te­orite on the bluff. The whole ship would rise to meet it, bring­ing the plat­form flush with the rock. Again she felt hu­mil­iat­ed at hav­ing con­trol of the tanker tak­en from her, and yet awed at the au­dac­ity of the plan.

She re­mained stiffly at at­ten­tion, speak­ing to no one, as the great ship rose in the wa­ter. It was a strange feel­ing, to see the ship go­ing through the tra­di­tion­al, mo­tions of de­bal­last­ing — lash­ing the sea suc­tions, align­ing the load­ing arms, open­ing the man­ifold blocks — and yet see­ing them as an ob­serv­er rather than a par­tic­ipant. And to ob­serve it un­der such cir­cum­stances — teth­ered to shore in the lee of a storm-​went against ev­ery­thing she had ev­er learned in her ca­reer.

At last the tow­er was even with the shed perched on the bluff. She watched Glinn mur­mur to the con­sole op­er­ator. In­stant­ly, the pumps ceased.

A loud crack echoed from the bluff. A cloud of smoke ex­pand­ed as the met­al shed blew apart. The smoke rolled away to merge with the fog, re­veal­ing the me­te­orite, blood­red un­der the sodi­um lights. Brit­ton caught her breath. She was aware that all eyes on the bridge had locked on the me­te­orite. There was a col­lec­tive gasp.

On the bluff, diesel en­gines roared in­to life and a com­pli­cat­ed se­ries of pul­leys and cap­stans be­gan to turn. A high­pitched squeal sound­ed; diesel smoke bil­lowed sky­ward to min­gle with fog. Inch by inch, the me­te­orite be­gan mov­ing to­ward the re­in­forced edge of the bluff. Brit­ton watched, trans­fixed, the flood of emo­tions in­side her tem­porar­ily stilled. There was some­thing re­gal about the me­te­orite’s progress: state­ly, slow, reg­ular. It crept past the edge on­to the plat­form atop the tow­er. Then it stopped. Again she felt the whole ship vi­brate as the com­put­er-​con­trolled pumps kept the ship trim, emp­ty­ing pre­cise­ly enough bal­last to com­pen­sate for the grow­ing weight of the me­te­orite.

Brit­ton watched the pro­cess in tense si­lence. The me­te­orite would creep a lit­tle far­ther on­to the plat­form, then stop, to an an­swer­ing shud­der from the bal­last pumps. The jerky bal­let con­tin­ued for twen­ty min­utes. At last, it was fin­ished: the me­te­orite was cen­tered atop the tow­er. She felt the Rolvaag’s top-​heav­iness, the desta­bi­liza­tion caused by the me­te­orite’s weight; but she could al­so sense the bal­last tanks now re­fill­ing with wa­ter, the ship sink­ing back down in­to the wa­ter for sta­bil­ity.

Glinn spoke again to the com­put­er op­er­ator. Then, nod­ding at Brit­ton, he walked out on­to the bridge wing near­est the bluff. The bridge re­mained silent for an­oth­er minute. Then she felt Chief Mate How­ell come up be­hind her. She did not turn as he leaned to­ward her ear.

“Cap­tain,” he mur­mured. “I want you to know that we — I mean, the of­fi­cers and my­self — aren’t hap­py about this. It isn’t right, the way you were treat­ed. We’re be­hind you a hun­dred per­cent. You just say the word and…” There was no need to fin­ish the sen­tence.

Brit­ton re­mained rigid­ly at at­ten­tion. “I thank you, Mr. How­ell,” she replied in a qui­et voice. “But that will be all.”

Af­ter a mo­ment, How­ell stepped back. Brit­ton took a deep breath. The time for ac­tion had passed. Now, they were com­mit­ted. The me­te­orite was no longer a land-​based prob­lem. It was on the ship. And the on­ly way to get it off was to see the Rolvaag docked safe­ly in New York. Once again she thought of Glinn, of the way he had wooed her in­to com­mand­ing the Rolvaag, how he had known ev­ery­thing about her, how much he had trust­ed her in cus­toms at Puer­to Williams. They had been a good team. She won­dered if she had done the right thing in yield­ing her com­mand to him, how­ev­er tem­po­rary. But then she had had no choice.

Through all these thoughts, Brit­ton stood rigid­ly at at­ten­tion.

Out­side, there was an­oth­er sharp crack­ing sound; a gleam­ing row of ti­ta­ni­um struts flew away from the top rung of the tow­er with a dozen puffs of smoke. They spun away, cor­us­cat­ing in­to the fog, drop­ping lazi­ly out of sight. The me­te­orite sank on­to the next lay­er of the tow­er; the whole ship shud­dered again; and the bal­last pumps rum­bled in­to life. Then there was an­oth­er round of ex­plo­sions; an­oth­er nar­row lay­er of the tow­er crum­pled in­to it­self, and the me­te­orite sank a few inch­es clos­er to the tank.

A part of Brit­ton re­al­ized this was an awe­some en­gi­neer­ing feat; ut­ter­ly orig­inal, per­fect­ly planned, beau­ti­ful­ly ex­ecut­ed. But an­oth­er part of her found no plea­sure in it. She glanced down the length of the ves­sel. The fog was get­ting patchi­er, and the sleety rain was now blow­ing hor­izon­tal­ly across the win­dows. Soon the fog would blow away. Then the game would be up. Be­cause Val­lenar was not some en­gi­neer­ing prob­lem Glinn could solve with a slide rule. And their on­ly bar­gain­ing chip lay deep in­side the Rolvaag — not in the brig, but in Dr. Bram­bell’s frozen morgue.

Rolvaag,

2:50 A.M.

LLOYD PACED his dark­ened study on the mid­dle bridge deck with the rest­less fury of a caged beast. The wind had picked up, and ev­ery few min­utes a gust would strike the ship with such force that the stern win­dows bowed and rat­tled in their frames. Lloyd bare­ly no­ticed.

He paused a mo­ment, then stared out through the open door of his pri­vate of­fice in­to the sit­ting room be­yond. Its sur­faces were faint­ly il­lu­mi­nat­ed in the dull red glow of emer­gen­cy lights. The wall of tele­vi­sion screens, black and fea­ture­less, blinked back the silent mock­ery of a hun­dred dim re­flec­tions of him­self.

He spun away, trem­bling. His body swelled with anger in­side his suit, strain­ing the ex­pen­sive fab­ric. It was in­com­pre­hen­si­ble. Glinn — a man he was pay­ing three hun­dred mil­lion dol­lars — had or­dered him from the bridge of his own ship. He had cut off the pow­er to his suite, leav­ing him deaf, dumb, and blind. There were mat­ters to take care of back in New York — crit­ical mat­ters. The en­forced si­lence was cost­ing him big mon­ey. And there was some­thing else; some­thing that hurt more than mon­ey. Glinn had hu­mil­iat­ed him in front of the bridge of­fi­cers and his own peo­ple.

Lloyd could for­give a lot of things, but that he could nev­er for­give. Palmer Lloyd had faced down pres­idents, prime min­is­ters, sheikhs, cap­tains of in­dus­try, and mob king­pins. But this man was dif­fer­ent.

In a parox­ysm of rage he kicked out at one of the wing chairs, send­ing it crash­ing to the deck. And then sud­den­ly he whirled around, lis­ten­ing in­tent­ly.

The howl of the wind, the faint grind­ing of ma­chin­ery from the bo­gus work­site, went on as they had be­fore. But there had been an­oth­er, more reg­ular sound: some­thing that Lloyd, in the full flood of his anger, had not im­me­di­ate­ly no­ticed. There it was again: the stac­ca­to pop of as ex­plo­sion. It was very near; on the ship, in fact, be­cause he could feel the deck shud­der­ing faint­ly be­neath his feet.

He wait­ed in the faint light, mus­cles tense, cu­rios­ity now min­gling with his out­rage. There it was again: the sound, fol­lowed by the shud­der.

Some­thing was hap­pen­ing on the main­deck.

Quick­ly, he walked out through the sit­ting room, down the cor­ri­dor, and in­to the cen­tral suite. Here, his sec­re­taries and as­sis­tants sat awk­ward­ly among the dead phones and dark­ened com­put­ers, talk­ing qui­et­ly. The talk fell away as he passed through the long, low space. Noise­less­ly, Pen­fold slipped out of the shad­ows to pluck at his sleeve. Brush­ing him away, Lloyd moved past the closed el­eva­tors and opened the sound­proofed door that led to his pri­vate apart­ment. He went through the rooms to the for­ward bulk­head of the su­per­struc­ture. He wiped the con­den­sa­tion from a port­hole with the cuff of his suit jack­et and peered out.

Be­low, the deck was a hive of ac­tiv­ity. Work­ers were bat­ten­ing down the deck equip­ment, check­ing fas­ten­ings, tight­en­ing hatch­es, mak­ing all the last fren­zied prepa­ra­tions for a sea voy­age. But what caught his at­ten­tion was the bizarre tow­er that reared out of the tank. It was short­er than it had been be­fore; much short­er, in fact. Smoke and steam en­cir­cled it, blend­ing with the fog to cre­ate clouds that un­furled along the deck in a slow-​mo­tion bal­let. As he watched, there was an­oth­er rat-​tat-​tat of ex­plo­sions. The me­te­orite dropped slight­ly and the ship shud­dered again. Groups of work­ers scur­ried for­ward, clear­ing away the fresh de­bris be­fore the next set of ex­plo­sions.

Now he un­der­stood pre­cise­ly what Glinn had meant by a con­trolled fail­ure of the tow­er. They were blow­ing it apart, bit by bit. As he watched, Lloyd grasped that this was the best — prob­ably the on­ly — way of get­ting some­thing that heavy in­to the tank. He caught his breath at the bril­liance and the au­dac­ity of it.

At this thought, a fresh spasm of rage ripped through his body. But Lloyd closed his eyes against it, turn­ing away, tak­ing a deep breath, try­ing to calm him­self.

Glinn had told him not to come; Mc­Far­lane had told him not to come. But he had come any­way. Just as he had leapt on­to the me­te­orite when it was first ex­posed. He thought of what had hap­pened to the man named Tim­mer, and he shud­dered.

Per­haps com­ing down again, guns blaz­ing, had not been the right thing to do. It was im­pul­sive, and Lloyd knew enough about him­self to know he was not nor­mal­ly an im­pul­sive man. He was too close to this: it had be­come too per­son­al. J.P. Mor­gan once said, “If you want some­thing too much, you will not suc­ceed in get­ting it.” He had al­ways lived by that phi­los­ophy: he had nev­er been afraid to walk away from a deal, no mat­ter how lu­cra­tive. The abil­ity to fold a hand, even with four aces, had been his most valu­able busi­ness as­set. Now, for the first time in his life, he had drawn a hand that he could not fold. He was in the game to the fin­ish, win or lose.

Lloyd found him­self fight­ing an un­fa­mil­iar bat­tle: a strug­gle to steady his mind. He con­sid­ered that he had not made $34 bil­lion by be­ing un­rea­son­able and hot-​tem­pered. He had al­ways avoid­ed sec­ond-​guess­ing his hired pro­fes­sion­als. In this ter­ri­ble mo­ment of hu­mil­ia­tion, de­feat, and self-​re­flec­tion, he re­al­ized that Glinn might, in fact, have been act­ing in his best in­ter­ests by send­ing him from the bridge and cut­ting him off from the world. But even this thought touched off an­oth­er wave of anger. Best in­ter­ests or not, the man had been ar­ro­gant and high-​hand­ed. Glinn’s cool­ness, his un­flap­pa­bil­ity, his as­sump­tion of lead­er­ship, en­raged Lloyd. He had been hu­mil­iat­ed in front of ev­ery­one, and he would nev­er for­get nor for­give it. When all this was over, there would be a reck­on­ing for Glinn, fi­nan­cial and oth­er­wise.

But first they had to get the me­te­orite the hell out of there. And Glinn seemed to be the on­ly man who could do it.

Rolvaag,

3:40 A.M.

CAP­TAIN BRIT­TON, the me­te­orite will be in­side the hold­ing tank with­in ten min­utes. The ship will be yours, and we can de­part.”

Glinn’s words broke the long hush that had fall­en over the bridge. Like the oth­ers, Mc­Far­lane had been star­ing at the slow, reg­ular progress of the me­te­orite in­to the bel­ly of the Rolvaag.

For an­oth­er minute, maybe two, Brit­ton stood un­mov­ing, stat­uesque, star­ing out the win­dows of the bridge as she had ev­er since Lloyd’s de­par­ture. At last she turned and looked di­rect­ly at Glinn. Af­ter a sig­nif­icant mo­ment she turned to­ward the sec­ond of­fi­cer. “Wind speed?”

“Thir­ty knots from the south­west, gust­ing to forty, and ris­ing.”

“Cur­rents?”

The mur­mured ex­change con­tin­ued, while Glinn leaned to­ward his man at the com­put­er con­sole: “Have Pup­pup and Ami­ra re­port to me here, please.”

There was an­oth­er rapid se­ries of ex­plo­sions. The ship lurched, and the bal­last pumps rum­bled to com­pen­sate.

“There’s a weath­er front com­ing in,” How­ell mur­mured. “We’re los­ing our fog.”

“Vis­ibil­ity?” Brit­ton asked.

“Ris­ing to five hun­dred yards.”

“Po­si­tion of the war­ship?”

“Un­changed at twen­ty-​two hun­dred yards, ze­ro five one.”

A gust of wind hit the ship hard. Then there was a vast, hol­low boom, dif­fer­ent from any­thing Mc­Far­lane had felt be­fore, and a shud­der seemed to run through the very spine of the ves­sel.

“The hull just hit the bluff,” said Brit­ton qui­et­ly.

“We can’t move yet,” replied Glinn. “Will the hull stand it?”

“For a while,” Brit­ton an­swered ex­pres­sion­less­ly. “Per­haps.”

A door at the far end of the bridge opened and Rachel en­tered. She looked around, her bright alert eyes quick­ly siz­ing up the sit­ua­tion. She came up be­side Mc­Far­lane. “Garza bet­ter get that thing in the tank be­fore we’re holed,” she mut­tered.

There was an­oth­er se­ries of ex­plo­sions, and the me­te­orite dropped far­ther. Its base was now hid­den in­side the frame of the ship.

“Dr. Mc­Far­lane,” Glinn said with­out turn­ing around. “Once the me­te­orite is se­cured in the tank, it be­comes yours. I want you and Ami­ra to mon­itor it round the clock. Let me know if there’s any change in read­ings, or in the me­te­orite’s sta­tus. I don’t want any more sur­pris­es from that rock.”

“Right.”

“The lab is ready, and there’s an ob­ser­va­tion plat­form above the tank. If you need any­thing, let me know.”

“More light­ning now,” the sec­ond of­fi­cer broke in. “Ten miles out.”

There was a mo­ment of si­lence.

“Speed this up,” Brit­ton said sud­den­ly to Glinn.

“Can’t,” mur­mured Glinn, al­most ab­sent­mind­ed­ly.

“Vis­ibil­ity one thou­sand yards,” said the sec­ond of­fi­cer. “Wind speed in­creas­ing to forty knots.”

Mc­Far­lane swal­lowed. Ev­ery­thing had been mov­ing ahead with such pre­dictable, clock­work pre­ci­sion that he’d al­most been lulled in­to for­get­ting the dan­ger. He re­mem­bered Lloyd’s ques­tion: So how are you go­ing to deal with that de­stroy­er out there? How in­deed? He won­dered what Lloyd was do­ing, down in his dark­ened state­rooms. He thought, with sur­pris­ing­ly lit­tle re­gret, about the prob­able loss of his $750,000 fee, giv­en what he had said to Lloyd. It hard­ly mat­tered to him now — now that he had the rock.

An­oth­er crack­le of ex­plo­sions, and ti­ta­ni­um struts flashed out, bounc­ing and skid­ding along the main­deck and ric­ochet­ing off the rails. He could hear the thunk of ad­di­tion­al struts falling away in­to the tank. There were oc­ca­sion­al ticks of grav­el on the bridge win­dows now, picked off the near­by bluff by the ris­ing wind. The pan­teonero was de­scend­ing in earnest.

Glinn’s ra­dio squawked. “Two more feet and we’ll have clear­ance,” came the metal­lic voice of Garza.

“Stay on this chan­nel. I want you to call out each drop.”

Pup­pup opened the door and en­tered the bridge, rub­bing his eyes and yawn­ing.

“Vis­ibil­ity two thou­sand yards,” said the sec­ond of­fi­cer. “The fog’s lift­ing fast. The war­ship will have vi­su­al con­tact with us at any mo­ment.”

Mc­Far­lane heard a rum­ble of thun­der. It was drowned out by an­oth­er great boom as the ves­sel made con­tact with the bluff for a sec­ond time.

“In­crease RPM on main en­gines!” barked Brit­ton. A new vi­bra­tion was added to the mix.

“Eigh­teen inch­es to go,” came Garza’s voice from the main­deck.

“Light­ning at five miles. Vis­ibil­ity twen­ty-​five hun­dred yards.”

“Ini­ti­ate black­out,” Glinn said.

In­stant­ly, the bril­liant­ly lit deck was plunged in­to dark­ness as the ship went black. The am­bi­ent light from the su­per­struc­ture cast a dull glow over the me­te­orite, its top now bare­ly vis­ible. The whole ship was shak­ing — whether from the me­te­orite’s de­scent, the rollers now crash­ing along its flank, or the wind, it was im­pos­si­ble for Mc­Far­lane to tell. There was an­oth­er round of ex­plo­sions, and the me­te­orite sank still low­er. Both Brit­ton and Glinn were call­ing out com­mands now; there was an awk­ward mo­ment in which the ship seemed to have two mas­ters. As the fog rolled back, Mc­Far­lane could see that the chan­nel was a tur­moil of white­caps, heaved up and down by combers. His eyes re­mained glued to the noc­tur­nal seascape be­yond the win­dows, wait­ing for the sharp prow of the de­stroy­er to ma­te­ri­al­ize.

“Six inch­es,” said Garza over the ra­dio.

“Pre­pare to close the hatch,” Glinn said.

There was a flash of light­ning to the south­west, fol­lowed short­ly by a faint rum­ble.

“Vis­ibil­ity four thou­sand yards. Light­ning at two miles.”

Mc­Far­lane be­came aware of Rachel, grip­ping his el­bow hard. “Je­sus, that’s too close,” she mur­mured.

And there it was: the de­stroy­er off to the right, a dim clus­ter of lights, flick­er­ing through the storm. As Mc­Far­lane stared, the fog peeled away from the de­stroy­er. It was sta­tion­ary, lights ablaze, as if flaunt­ing its pres­ence. There was an­oth­er ex­plo­sion, an­oth­er shud­der.

“She’s in,” came Garza’s voice.

“Close the me­chan­ical doors,” Brit­ton said crisply. “Slip ca­ble, Mr. How­ell. Smart­ly. Set course one three five.”

There was a fresh set of ex­plo­sions, and the great hawsers that moored the ship to the cliff dropped away, swing­ing lazi­ly to­ward the bluff.

“Right fif­teen de­grees rud­der, steady on course one three five,” said How­ell.

Almi­rante Ramirez,

3:55 A.M.

JUST OVER a mile away, Co­man­dante Val­lenar paced his own bridge. It was un­heat­ed, and, as he pre­ferred, manned with the min­imum com­ple­ment. He stared out the for­ward win­dows to­ward the ship’s castil­lo, the fore­cas­tle. He could see noth­ing through the light­en­ing fog. Then, abrupt­ly, he veered to­ward the ofi­cial de guardia en la mer, the con­ning of­fi­cer, who was stand­ing in the radar al­cove. He leaned over his shoul­der to scru­ti­nize the for­ward-​look­ing in­frared radar. The tanker’s sig­na­ture showed him noth­ing he did not al­ready know, and an­swered none of his ques­tions. Why was the ship still moored to the shore? In the gath­er­ing storm, it had be­come in­creas­ing­ly dan­ger­ous to re­main. Could they be at­tempt­ing to move the me­te­orite to­ward the ship? No — be­fore the fog had moved in, he’d watched them strug­gling in­ef­fec­tive­ly with it in the is­land’s in­te­ri­or. Even now, he could hear the fran­tic grind­ing of ma­chin­ery. And the chat­ter of talk over the shore ra­dio was con­tin­uing. Still, it seemed fool­ish to en­dan­ger the ship by leav­ing it strung to shore. And the man Glinn was no fool.

What, then, was go­ing on?

Ear­li­er, the loud thud of pro­peller blades had sound­ed over the wind as a he­li­copter hov­ered near­by, land­ed, then de­part­ed. There had been the sound of near­by ex­plo­sions — much small­er than those from the is­land, but ap­par­ent­ly orig­inat­ing from the vicin­ity of the ship. Or per­haps from the ship it­self. Could there have been some ac­ci­dent on board? Were there ca­su­al­ties? Had Tim­mer com­man­deered a weapon and tried to es­cape?

He turned from the an­cient green radar screen and gazed in­tent­ly in­to the dark­ness. Through the flick­er­ing tat­ters of fog and sleet, he thought he glimpsed lights. The fog was lift­ing and he would soon have vi­su­al con­tact with the ship. He blinked hard, then looked again. The lights were gone. Wind whipped against the ship, whistling and cry­ing. Val­lenar had heard that cry be­fore. It was a pan­teonero.

He’d al­ready ig­nored sev­er­al or­ders to re­turn to base, each more ur­gent, more threat­en­ing, than the last. It was the cor­rup­tion, the bribed of­fi­cials, call­ing him back. By the Moth­er of God, they would thank him in the end.

He could feel the move­ment of his ship in the heavy swell, a corkscrew mo­tion that he did not like. The an­chor to the un­chart­ed un­der­wa­ter ledge held — the best an­chor­age, the on­ly an­chor­age, in the Franklin Chan­nel.

What was go­ing on?

He would not wait for noon to get an an­swer about Tim­mer. At first light, he would fire a few four-​inch shells high in­to their bows — noth­ing that would sink the ship, of course, but enough to dis­able it and get their at­ten­tion. Then he would de­liv­er an ul­ti­ma­tum: hand over Tim­mer or die.

Some­thing flick­ered through the part­ing sheets of fog. He stared, face close to the glass. There they were again: lights, no doubt of it. He strained in­to the dark­ness. The fog and sleet whipped past, but he saw it again, fleet­ing­ly; and then again. Now, the out­line of the great ship was be­com­ing vis­ible in the lift­ing murk. He raised his binoc­ulars — and the ship dis­ap­peared. He cursed as he ex­am­ined the black­ness. And then, again, he saw lights: one light now, very faint.

The bas­tards had dark­ened ship.

What were they hid­ing?

He stepped back­ward, glanc­ing at the FLIR scope, try­ing to pull some kind of mean­ing out of the blur­ry green smear. Some­thing, he sensed, was about to hap­pen. Per­haps the time to act was now.

He turned to the boatswain’s mate. “Sound gen­er­al quar­ters,” he said.

The mate leaned in­to the IMC. “Gen­er­al quar­ters, gen­er­al quar­ters, all hands man bat­tle sta­tions.”

A clax­on horn went off. Al­most im­me­di­ate­ly, the jefe de la guardia en la mer, the tac­ti­cal ac­tion of­fi­cer, ap­peared on the bridge and salut­ed.

Val­lenar opened a stores clos­et and pulled out a bulky set of So­vi­et­ski night-​vi­sion gog­gles. Strap­ping them in place around his head, he stepped to­ward the win­dows and peered out again. The Rus­sian tech­nol­ogy was not as good as the ITT de­vices made by the Amer­icans, but then again they were not near­ly as ex­pen­sive. He glanced out to­ward the tanker.

With the gog­gles, he could see more clear­ly. Fig­ures were scur­ry­ing across the deck, clear­ly mak­ing prepa­ra­tions to get un­der way. But, per­plex­ing­ly, the great­est ac­tiv­ity seemed to cen­ter around a large open hatch in the mid­dle of the deck. Some­thing was pro­trud­ing from the hatch­way; some­thing Val­lenar could not quite make out.

As he stared, there was a sear­ing flick­er of small ex­plo­sions just above the open tank. The sec­ond-​gen­er­ation night gog­gles, un­equipped with safe­ty cutouts, over­load­ed in the glare. Val­lenar stag­gered back­ward, claw­ing at the gog­gles, pulling them from his face and rub­bing his eyes with a curse.

“Tar­get by fire con­trol,” he called out to the tac­ti­cal ac­tion of­fi­cer. “Do not en­gage with four-​inch guns un­til I so or­der.”

There was a slight hes­ita­tion.

Al­though spots still swayed in front of his eyes, Val­lenar turned sharply in the di­rec­tion of the weapons of­fi­cer. “Aye aye, sir,” came the re­ply. “Tar­get­ed by fire con­trol. Track­ing da­ta trans­ferred to weapons sys­tem.”

Val­lenar turned to the con­ning of­fi­cer. “Pre­pare to raise an­chor.”

“Aye, prepar­ing to raise an­chor.”

“How is our fu­el?”

“Fifty-​five per­cent, sir.”

Val­lenar closed his eyes, let­ting the painful glare sub­side. He with­drew a cigar from his pock­et, and spent a good three min­utes light­ing it. Then he turned back to­ward the win­dow.

“The Amer­ican ship is mov­ing,” said the con­ning of­fi­cer, lean­ing over the radar.

Val­lenar took a slow puff. High time. Per­haps they were fi­nal­ly go­ing to an­chor in safer wa­ter, in the lee up the chan­nel. From there, they could ride out the storm. “It’s mov­ing away from the bluff.”

Val­lenar wait­ed.

“Turn­ing… Bear­ing ze­ro eight five now.”

The wrong di­rec­tion for the lee wa­ter up chan­nel. Still Val­lenar wait­ed, a sud­den, cold dread in his heart. Five min­utes passed.

“Still bear­ing ze­ro eight five, ac­cel­er­at­ing to four knots.”

“Keep track­ing,” he mur­mured. The dread gripped him tighter now.

“Tar­get turn­ing, mov­ing five knots, bear­ing one one five, one two ze­ro, one two five — “

Ac­cel­er­at­ing fast for a tanker, he thought. But it didn’t mat­ter what kind of en­gines the mas­sive ship sport­ed; out­run­ning a de­stroy­er was a phys­ical im­pos­si­bil­ity.

He turned away from the win­dows. “Aim for­ward of the king posts, above the wa­ter­line. I want the ship crip­pled, not sunk.”

“The tar­get is mov­ing five knots, steady­ing at one three five.”

Head­ing for open sea, Val­lenar thought. That was it, then; Tim­mer was dead.

Casseo, the tac­ti­cal ac­tion of­fi­cer, spoke: “Main­tain­ing track­ing of tar­get, sir.”

Val­lenar strug­gled to keep him­self calm, to keep him­self strong; to show noth­ing of him­self to the men around him. Now, more than ev­er, he would need clar­ity.

He low­ered the cigar, licked his dry lips.

“Pre­pare to fire,” he said.

Rolvaag,

3:55 A.M.

GLINN DREW in breath slow­ly, de­lib­er­ate­ly, feel­ing the steady rush of air fill his lungs. As al­ways be­fore an ac­tion, a preter­nat­ural calm set­tled over him. The ship was rigged for sea and the pow­er­ful en­gines hummed far be­neath his feet. The de­stroy­er sat low in the wa­ter, a bright spot in the gloom about twen­ty de­grees aft of the port beam.

It would all be over with­in five min­utes. But the tim­ing would be ev­ery­thing.

He turned his gaze to­ward the cor­ner of the bridge. Pup­pup was stand­ing in the shad­ows, hands fold­ed, wait­ing. Now he came for­ward at Glinn’s nod.

“Yes?”

“I’ll need you to stand ready to as­sist the helms­man. We may have to make abrupt changes to our course, and we’ll need your ex­per­tise with the cur­rents and un­der­wa­ter to­pog­ra­phy.”

“The un­der­wa­ter what?”

“Where the reefs are, where it’s shal­low, where it’s deep enough to pass safe­ly.”

Pup­pup seemed to ac­cept this. Then he looked up at Glinn, eyes bright. “Guv?”

“Yes.”

“My ca­noe on­ly draws six inch­es. I nev­er had to wor­ry about any of that lot.”

“I’m aware of that. I’m al­so aware that the tides here run thir­ty feet, and it’s high tide. You know where the wrecks are and the sunken ledges. Be ready.”

“Very well, guv.”

Glinn watched as the lit­tle man slunk back in­to the shad­ows. Then his glance flick­ered to­ward Brit­ton, at the com­mand sta­tion with How­ell and the deck of­fi­cer. She was in­deed a fine wom­an, a good cap­tain, ev­ery­thing he had known she would be. The way she’d re­act­ed when he tem­porar­ily ab­ro­gat­ed her au­thor­ity — that, above all, had im­pressed him deeply. There was a great dig­ni­ty and self-​con­trol in her bear­ing, even as she re­lin­quished com­mand. He won­dered if it was in­nate, or the re­sult of her ear­li­er dis­grace.

On im­pulse, he had ear­ly on picked up a book of W.H. Au­den’s po­et­ry from the ship’s li­brary. He was not a read­er of po­et­ry; it had al­ways seemed a non­pro­duc­tive pur­suit. He’d turned to some­thing called “In Praise of Lime­stone,” with its vague promise of en­gi­neer­ing. It had been a rev­ela­to­ry ex­pe­ri­ence. He’d had no idea of the pow­er of po­et­ry: of how much feel­ing, thought, even wis­dom could be im­part­ed in such com­pact lan­guage. It oc­curred to him that it would be in­ter­est­ing to dis­cuss this with Brit­ton. Af­ter all, it had been her Au­den quo­ta­tion dur­ing their first meet­ing that had led him to the book.

All these thoughts oc­cu­pied Glinn’s mind for less than a sec­ond. They van­ished at the low sound of an alarm. Brit­ton spoke, her voice dis­tinct but calm: “The war­ship’s paint­ing us with high PRF fire-​con­trol radar.” She turned to How­ell. “Sound sta­tions.”

How­ell re­peat­ed the com­mand. An­oth­er siren went off, much loud­er.

Glinn stepped light­ly to­ward his man at the com­put­er con­sole. “Jam it,” he mur­mured.

He felt Brit­ton’s eyes flick­er to­ward him. “Jam it?” she re­peat­ed, a trace of sar­casm min­gling with the ten­sion in her voice. “May I ask with what?”

“With the Mc­Don­nell-​Dou­glas Black­out Se­ries Wide-​Band ECM sys­tem on your mast. He’s go­ing to fire on us with his guns, or per­haps even launch an Ex­ocet. We have chaff and CI­WS, to take care of any mis­sile launch.”

This time, How­ell turned to look at him in­cred­ulous­ly. “Close-​In Weapons Sys­tem? There’s noth­ing like that on our ship.”

“Un­der those for­ward bulk­heads.” Glinn nod­ded to his man. “Time to shed our clothes.”

The man typed a few com­mands and there was a sharp crack for­ward. Glinn watched as the bulk­heads peeled off and fell in­to the sea, just as planned, ex­pos­ing the six stub­by bar­rels of the Phal­lanx Gatling guns which, Glinn knew, could fire 20-mil­lime­ter rounds of de­plet­ed ura­ni­um at an in­com­ing mis­sile at a rate in ex­cess of 3,000 rounds per minute. “Je­sus,” said How­ell, “that’s clas­si­fied hard­ware.”

“In­deed.”

“Ad­di­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty equip­ment, I be­lieve he once called it,” Brit­ton said with a trace of irony.

Glinn turned back to­ward her. “At the mo­ment we be­gin jam­ming, I sug­gest you bring her head hard to star­board.”

“Eva­sive ac­tion?” How­ell said. “With this ship? It takes three miles just to stop.”

“I’m well aware of that. Do it any­way.”

Brit­ton spoke. “Mr. How­ell, bring her head hard to star­board.”

How­ell turned to the helms­man. “Hard right rud­der, star­board en­gine back emer­gen­cy full, port en­gine emer­gen­cy ahead.”

Brit­ton looked at Glinn’s man. “Em­ploy all coun­ter­mea­sures. If he fires a mis­sile, de­ploy chaff, CI­WS, as nec­es­sary. “

There was a de­lay, then a shud­der, as the ship be­gan to slow and turn.

“This isn’t go­ing to work,” How­ell mut­tered.

Glinn did not both­er to an­swer. He knew that, in fact, the tac­tic would work. Even if the elec­tron­ic coun­ter­mea­sures failed, Val­lenar would be aim­ing high at the bow, where it would cause the most ex­cite­ment with the least dam­age. He wouldn’t try to sink the Rolvaag — not yet, at any rate.

A long two min­utes passed in the dark­ness. Then there was an erup­tion of light along the side of the de­stroy­er as its four-​inch guns fired. Some tense sec­onds lat­er, there was an ex­plo­sion off the Rolvaag’s port bow, and an­oth­er, and a third, faint gey­sers of wa­ter ris­ing in the dark­ness and twist­ing away in the wind. Glinn not­ed that, as he ex­pect­ed, the shells were go­ing wide.

The of­fi­cers on the bridge ex­changed pale, shocked glances. Glinn watched them with sym­pa­thy. He knew that, even in the best of cir­cum­stances, com­ing un­der fire for the first time was trau­mat­ic.

“I’m get­ting move­ment on the de­stroy­er,” How­ell said, star­ing at the radar.

“May I sug­gest all ahead flank, steady course one eight ze­ro,” Glinn said gen­tly.

The helms­man did not re­peat the or­der, in­stead glanc­ing over at the cap­tain. “That’ll take us out of the main chan­nel, in­side the reefs,” he said, voice wa­ver­ing ev­er so slight­ly. “They’re un­chart­ed…”

Glinn mo­tioned to Pup­pup.

“Yes, guv?”

“We’re tak­ing the reef side of the chan­nel.”

“Sure thing.” Pup­pup skipped over to stand be­side the helms­man.

Brit­ton sighed. “Ex­ecute the or­der.”

Surf crashed in­to the bow, send­ing foam across the deck. Pup­pup peered out in­to the dark.

“Take it a lit­tle to the left, there.”

“Make it so, Mr. How­ell,” Brit­ton said terse­ly.

“Left five de­grees rud­der,” said How­ell, “steady on course one sev­en five.”

There was a mo­ment of strained si­lence. Then the helms­man spoke. “Aye, sir, steady at one sev­en five.”

How­ell leaned over the radar. “They’re pick­ing up speed, up to twelve knots now to our eight.” He stared hard at Glinn. “What the hell’s your plan now?” he asked. “You think we can out­run that bas­tard? You crazy? In a few min­utes he’ll be close enough to sink us with his four-​inch­ers, de­spite our jam­ming.”

“Mr. How­ell!” Brit­ton said sharply. The chief mate fell silent.

Glinn glanced at his man at the com­put­er. “Armed?” he asked.

The man nod­ded.

“Wait for my sig­nal.”

Glinn looked out through the win­dow at the de­stroy­er. He, too, could see it was now mov­ing faster through the wa­ter. Even an old war­ship like that could do thir­ty-​four knots. It was a beau­ti­ful sight, in the dark at least: the bril­liant clus­ter of lights, the “bone in the throat,” the wa­tery re­flec­tions off the un­der­side of the gun tur­rets. He wait­ed an­oth­er mo­ment, let­ting the de­stroy­er build up plen­ty of head­way.

“Fire in the hole.”

It was grat­ify­ing to see the two sud­den gey­sers of wa­ter rip along the de­stroy­er’s stern; to see the high wind car­ry the wa­ter right across the fly­ing bridge; and, more grat­ify­ing still, to hear the twin re­ports, bare­ly sev­en sec­onds lat­er. He watched as the de­stroy­er be­gan to swing broad­side to the swell.

With both screws stripped, Co­man­dante Val­lenar would swift­ly end up on the rocks. Glinn won­dered, with faint amuse­ment, how Val­lenar would now ex­plain the loss of his ship. As­sum­ing he sur­vived, of course.

There was a re­port from the de­stroy­er, and then an­oth­er: it was fir­ing its four-​inch guns again. Then the re­ports were punc­tu­at­ed with the high­er sound of 40-mil­lime­ter can­non. In a mo­ment, all the ship’s guns were fir­ing in a fu­ri­ous ges­ture of im­po­tent rage, the clus­ter of flash­es like man­ic strobes against the vel­vety dark­ness of the sea. But with the Almi­rante Ramirez’s radar use­less, their steer­age gone, their ship wal­low­ing broad­side to a heavy sea, and the Rolvaag in black­out, slip­ping away in­to the dark night on a new course, their shots were, nat­ural­ly, go­ing wild.

“A touch more to the left there, guv,” said Pup­pup, stroking one mus­tache, squint­ing in­to the dark­ness.

“Left five de­grees rud­der,” said Brit­ton to the helms­man, with­out wait­ing for How­ell.

The ship changed course al­most im­per­cep­ti­bly.

Pup­pup peered out in­tent­ly. The min­utes ticked on. Then he bent his head to­ward Glinn. “We’re out of it.”

Brit­ton watched him re­treat again to the far shad­ows of the bridge. “Steady as she goes,” she said. “All ahead flank.”

The mas­sive re­ports con­tin­ued to echo crazi­ly among the moun­tain peaks and silent glaciers, rolling and boom­ing, grad­ual­ly grow­ing fainter. Soon they were head­ing in­to the open ocean.

Thir­ty min­utes lat­er, on the west side of Horn Is­land, they slowed just long enough to make a run­ning re­cov­ery of the ten­der.

Then Brit­ton spoke: “Take her round the Horn, Mr. How­ell.”

Cabo de Hornos came dim­ly in­to view and the sound of fir­ing fi­nal­ly dis­ap­peared, swal­lowed by the howl of the wind and the thun­der of the sea along the hull. It was over. Glinn had nev­er once looked back at Des­ola­tion Is­land — at the bright lights of its works, at the ma­chines that still raced fu­ri­ous­ly on their imag­inary er­rands. Now, with the op com­plet­ed, he felt his breath­ing pick up, his heart rate be­gin to in­crease again.

“Mr. Glinn?”

It was Brit­ton. She was look­ing at him, her eyes lu­mi­nous and in­tense.

“Yes?”

“How are you go­ing to ex­plain the sink­ing of a war­ship of a for­eign na­tion?”

“They fired first. We act­ed in self-​de­fense. Be­sides, our charges on­ly knocked out their steer­age. The pan­teonero will sink them.”

“That isn’t go­ing to cut it. We’ll be lucky not to spend the rest of our lives in prison.”

“I re­spect­ful­ly dis­agree, Cap­tain. Ev­ery­thing we’ve done has been le­gal. Ev­ery­thing. We were a le­gal min­ing op­er­ation. We re­cov­ered an ore body, a me­te­orite, it so hap­pens, which fell well with­in the le­gal lan­guage of our min­ing con­tract with Chile. From the very be­gin­ning, we were ha­rassed, forced to pay bribes, and threat­ened. One of our men was mur­dered. Fi­nal­ly, as we de­part­ed, we were fired up­on by a free­lanc­ing war­ship. And yet, dur­ing this en­tire pe­ri­od, there was no warn­ing to us from the Chilean gov­ern­ment, no of­fi­cial com­mu­ni­ca­tion what­so­ev­er. I as­sure you, we’re go­ing to lodge the strongest pos­si­ble protest with the State De­part­ment on our re­turn. We’ve been treat­ed out­ra­geous­ly.” He paused, then added with the faintest of smiles, “You don’t re­al­ly think our gov­ern­ment will see it any oth­er way, do you?”

Brit­ton con­tin­ued re­gard­ing him, her eyes quite beau­ti­ful­ly green, for what seemed a long time. Now she came close and spoke in his ear.

“You know what?” she whis­pered. “I think you’re cer­ti­fi­able.”

There was, Glinn thought, a note of ad­mi­ra­tion in her voice.

Rolvaag,

4:00 A.M.

PALMER LLOYD sat in his study, slouched deep in the lone up­right wing chair, his broad back to the door. His cus­tom­made En­glish shoes, now dry, had nudged the use­less phone and lap­top to one com­er of the small ta­ble. Out­side the bank of win­dows, a faint phos­pho­res­cence lay across the vi­olent sur­face of the ocean, throw­ing rip­pling pat­terns of green light around the dark­ened study, giv­ing the im­pres­sion that the room lay on the bot­tom of the sea.

Lloyd gazed out mo­tion­less­ly at that faint light. He had sat mo­tion­less through it all: the fir­ing of the guns, the brief chase with the Chilean de­stroy­er, the ex­plo­sions, the tem­pes­tu­ous trip around the Cape.

With a soft click, the lights in the study came on, in­stant­ly turn­ing the storm­scape be­yond the win­dows to an in­dis­tinct black. In the pri­vate of­fice be­yond, the wall of tele­vi­sion sets lit up, sud­den­ly crowd­ed with dozens of silent talk­ing heads. Fur­ther, in the suite of of­fices, a tele­phone rang; then an­oth­er, and an­oth­er. Still Palmer Lloyd did not move.

Even Lloyd could not say pre­cise­ly what was go­ing through his mind. Over the dark hours, there had been anger, of course; there had been frus­tra­tion, hu­mil­ia­tion, de­nial. All these feel­ings he un­der­stood. Glinn had sum­mar­ily re­moved him from the bridge, clipped his wings, left him pow­er­less. Such a thing had nev­er hap­pened to him be­fore. What he could not quite un­der­stand — what he could not ex­plain — was the grow­ing feel­ing of joy that shot through all these oth­er feel­ings, suf­fus­ing them like light through a screen. The load­ing of the rock, the dis­abling of the Chilean ship, had been a mag­nif­icent piece of work.

Un­der the un­ex­pect­ed glare of self-​ex­am­ina­tion, Lloyd re­al­ized that Glinn had been cor­rect to send him away. His own bull-​in-​a-​chi­na-​shop meth­ods would have been dis­as­trous along­side such a care­ful­ly bal­anced scheme. And now the lights were back on. Glinn’s mes­sage to him was crys­tal clear.

He re­mained still, a fixed spot at the cen­ter of fresh­ly re­newed ac­tiv­ity, and thought about his past suc­cess­es. This, too, would be a suc­cess. Thanks to Glinn.

And who had hired Glinn? Who had cho­sen the right man — the on­ly man — for the job? De­spite the hu­mil­ia­tion, Lloyd con­grat­ulat­ed him­self on his choice. He had cho­sen well. He had suc­ceed­ed. The me­te­orite was safe­ly aboard. With the de­stroy­er out of ac­tion, noth­ing could stop them. Soon, they would be in in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters. And then it was a straight shot to New York. There would be an up­roar, of course, when they re­turned to the States. But he rel­ished a good fight — es­pe­cial­ly when he was in the right.

He in­haled deeply, as the feel­ing of joy con­tin­ued to swell. The phone on his desk be­gan to ring, but still he ig­nored it. There was a tap­ping at the door, no doubt Pen­fold; he ig­nored that too. A vi­olent gust shook the win­dows, splat­ter­ing them with rain and sleet. And then at last Lloyd stood up, dust­ed him­self off, and squared his shoul­ders. Not yet, but soon — very soon — it would be time to re­turn to the bridge and con­grat­ulate Glinn on his — on their — suc­cess.

Almi­rante Ramirez,

4:10 A.M.

CO­MAN­DANTE VAL­LENAR stared in­to the black­ness of the Cape Horn night, grip­ping the en­gine-​room tele­graph, steady­ing him­self against the steep rolling of the ship. It was all too clear what had hap­pened… and why.

Push­ing the fury to the back of his con­scious­ness, he con­cen­trat­ed on a men­tal cal­cu­la­tion. In the six­ty-​knot pan­teonero, the de­stroy­er’s windage would pro­duce a two-​knot drift; com­bine that with the two-​knot east­er­ly set of the cur­rent, and he had about one hour be­fore his ship was thrust on­to the reefs be­yond Is­la De­ceit.

Be­hind him, he could feel the si­lence of his of­fi­cers. They were await­ing the or­ders to aban­don ship. They were go­ing to be dis­ap­point­ed.

Val­lenar took a breath, con­trol­ling him­self with an iron will. When he spoke to the of­fi­cer of the deck, his voice was steady, with­out qua­ver. “Dam­age as­sess­ment, Mr. San­tander.”

“It is dif­fi­cult to say, Co­man­dante. Both screws ap­pear to be stripped. Rud­der dam­aged but func­tion­al. No hull breach re­port­ed. But the ship has lost head­way and steer­age. We are dead in the wa­ter, sir.”

“Send two divers over the side. Re­port spe­cif­ic dam­age to the screws.”

This or­der was greet­ed with a deep­er si­lence. Val­lenar turned, very slow­ly, rak­ing the as­sem­bled of­fi­cers with his eyes.

“Sir, it will be death to send any­one over­board in this sea.” said the of­fi­cer of the deck.

Val­lenar held him in his gaze. Un­like the oth­ers, San­tander was rel­ative­ly new to his com­mand: a mere six months spent here at the bot­tom of the world. “Yes,” said Val­lenar, “I see the prob­lem. We can­not have that.”

The man smiled.

“Send a team of six. That way, at least one should sur­vive to com­plete the job.”

The smile van­ished.

“That’s a di­rect or­der. Dis­obey, and you will be lead­ing that team.”

“Yes, sir,” said the of­fi­cer of the deck.

“There is a large wood­en crate in along the star­board side of For­ward Hold C, marked `40 mm ord­nance.’ In­side is a spare screw.” Val­lenar had pre­pared for many emer­gen­cies, the loss of a screw in­clud­ed. Hid­ing spare parts aboard ship was a good way to get around the cor­rupt of­fi­cials of the Pun­ta Are­nas Navy Yard. “Af­ter doc­ument­ing the dam­age, you will cut what sec­tions you need from the spare screw. Divers will weld these sec­tions to the dam­aged screws to give us propul­sion. We will be on the shoals of Is­la De­ceit in less than six­ty min­utes. There will be no or­der giv­en to aban­don ship. There will be no dis­tress call. You will ei­ther give me propul­sion, or all hands will go down with the ship.”

“Yes, sir,” said the of­fi­cer of the deck in a near whis­per. The looks of the oth­er bridge of­fi­cers be­trayed what they thought of this des­per­ate plan. Val­lenar ig­nored them. He did not care what they thought: he cared on­ly that they obeyed. And for now, they were obey­ing.

Rolvaag,

7:55 A.M.

MANUEL GARZA stood on a nar­row met­al cat­walk, peer­ing down at the great red rock that lay far be­low him. From this height it looked al­most small: an ex­ot­ic egg, sit­ting in a nest of steel and wood. The web­bing sur­round­ing it was a fine piece of work: damn fine, per­haps the best thing he had done in his life. Mar­ry­ing brute strength to pin­point pre­ci­sion had been re­mark­ably dif­fi­cult, a chal­lenge that on­ly some­one like Gene Rochefort could ap­pre­ci­ate. Garza found him­self sor­ry that Rochefort wasn’t here to see it; beau­ti­ful en­gi­neer­ing was one of the few things that had brought a smile to the man’s pinched face.

The TIG weld­ing crew had fol­lowed him down the ac­cess tun­nel and were now step­ping through the hatch­way on­to the cat­walk, mak­ing a rack­et in their heavy rub­ber boots. They were a col­or­ful bunch: yel­low suits and gloves, weld­ing di­agrams with in­di­vid­ual jobs col­ored in red.

“You’ve got your as­sign­ments,” Garza said. “You know what to do. We need to lock that son of a bitch in­to place and we need to do it be­fore the seas get any rougher.”

The fore­man gave Garza a mock salute. Ev­ery­one seemed to be in high spir­its; the me­te­orite was in the hold, the Chilean de­stroy­er was out of the pic­ture, and they were on their way home.

“Oh, and one oth­er thing. Try not to touch it.”

The men laughed at the lit­tle joke. Some­one made a crack about Tim­mer’s ass achiev­ing es­cape ve­loc­ity; there was a ref­er­ence to be­ing mailed home in Tup­per­ware con­tain­ers. But no­body moved to­ward the el­eva­tor cage lead­ing to the bot­tom of the tank. Garza could see that, de­spite the hu­mor and the high spir­its, there was a deep ner­vous­ness. The me­te­orite might be safe­ly in the Rolvaag, but it had lost none of its abil­ity to in­spire dread. There was on­ly one way to han­dle this: quick­ly. “Go to it,” Garza said, slap­ping the fore­man on the back with an air of hearti­ness.

With­out fur­ther de­lay, the men be­gan step­ping in­to the cage. Garza al­most stayed be­hind — af­ter all, he could di­rect the en­tire op­er­ation bet­ter from the ob­ser­va­tion unit at the end of the cat­walk — but de­cid­ed that would be un­seem­ly. He stepped in­to the cage and slid the grat­ing shut.

“In­to the bel­ly of the beast, Mr. Garza?” one man asked.

“Got­ta keep you jack­ass­es out of trou­ble.”

They de­scend­ed to the bot­tom of the tank, where a se­ries of met­al beams had been laid across the keel rid­er, form­ing a floor. But­tress­ing mem­bers ran from the cra­dle in all di­rec­tions, dis­tribut­ing the weight of the me­te­orite to­ward all cor­ners of the ship. Fol­low­ing the di­rec­tions on their weld­ing di­agrams, the men branched out, climb­ing along struts and dis­ap­pear­ing in­to the com­plex lat­tice that sur­round­ed the me­te­orite. Soon they were all in place, but the tank re­mained silent for a long mo­ment; it was as if, down here be­side the rock, no­body want­ed to be the first to be­gin. And then the bright points of light be­gan pop­ping out in the dim space, cast­ing crazy shad­ows as the welders fired up their equip­ment and went to work.

Garza checked the as­sign­ment list and the mas­ter di­agram, sat­is­fy­ing him­self that ev­ery­body was do­ing just what he was sup­posed to. There was a faint cho­rus of siz­zling as the TIG welders bit in­to the met­al, fus­ing the cra­dle in­to place at a host of crit­ical nodes. He ran his gaze over the welders in turn. It was un­like­ly some cow­boy would get too close to the rock, but he made sure nonethe­less. Some­where in the dis­tance he could hear an oc­ca­sion­al drip. Search­ing idly for the source, he glanced at the lon­gi­tu­di­nal bulk­heads ris­ing six­ty feet to the top of the tank, ribbed and worked like a met­al cathe­dral. Then he glanced down at the bot­tom gird­ers. The hull plates were wet. No sur­prise there, un­der the cir­cum­stances. He could hear the mea­sured boom of surf along the hull, feel the gen­tle, slow-​mo­tion rolling of the ship. He thought of the three mem­branes of met­al that lay be­tween him and the bot­tom­less ocean. It was a dis­qui­et­ing thought, and he pulled his gaze away, look­ing now at the me­te­orite it­self, in­side its webbed prison.

Al­though from down here it looked more im­pos­ing, it was di­min­ished by the vast­ness of the tank. Once again, he tried to com­pre­hend how some­thing so small could weigh so much. Five Eif­fel tow­ers packed in­to twen­ty feet of me­te­orite. Curved, peb­bled sur­face. No scoope­dout hol­lows like a nor­mal me­te­orite. Stun­ning, al­most in­de­scrib­able col­or. He’d love to give his girl­friend a ring made out of that stuff. And then his mem­ory flashed back to the var­ious chunks of the man named Tim­mer, laid out in the com­mand hut. Nope; no ring.

He glanced at his watch. Fif­teen min­utes. The work was es­ti­mat­ed to take twen­ty-​five. “How’s it go­ing?” he called to the crew fore­man.

“Al­most there,” the fore­man called back, his voice echo­ing and dis­tort­ed in the great tank. Garza stood back and wait­ed, feel­ing the ship rolling more heav­ily now. The smell of cook­ing steel, tung­sten, and ti­ta­ni­um was strong in the air.

At last the TIG welders be­gan snap­ping off as the welders fin­ished their work. Garza nod­ded. Twen­ty-​two min­utes: not bad. Just a few more crit­ical welds and they’d be done.

Rochefort had de­signed things to keep those welds to a min­imum. When­ev­er pos­si­ble, he’d kept things sim­ple. Less like­ly to fail. He may have been a prig, but he was a damn good en­gi­neer. Garza sighed as the ship be­gan to roll again, wish­ing again Rochefort could have seen his plan be­come re­al here in this tank. Some­one got killed on al­most ev­ery job. It was a lit­tle like war; bet­ter not to make too many friends…

He re­al­ized that the ves­sel was still rolling. This is a big one, he thought. There was a faint flur­ry of creaks and groans. “Hold tight!” he called out to the crew as he turned away and grasped the lift rail­ing for sup­port. The ship heeled, more, and still more.

Then he found him­self ly­ing on his back, in the pitch­dark, pain cours­ing through him. How did he get there? A minute could have passed, or an hour; there was no way to tell. His head swirled: there had been an ex­plo­sion. Some­where in the black­ness, a man was scream­ing — hideous­ly — and there was a strong smell of ozone and burnt met­al in the air, over­laid with a whiff of woodsmoke. Some­thing warm and sticky coat­ed his face, and the pain throbbed in rhythm with the beat of his heart. But then it be­gan to go away — far away — and soon he was able to sleep once again.

Rolvaag,

8:00 A.M.

PALMER LLOYD had tak­en his time ar­riv­ing on the bridge. He had to brace him­self. He could show no lin­ger­ing child­ish re­sent­ment.

He was re­ceived with po­lite, even def­er­en­tial nods. There was a new feel­ing on the bridge, and it took him a mo­ment to un­der­stand. The mis­sion was al­most over. He was no longer a pas­sen­ger, a nui­sance at a crit­ical mo­ment. He was Palmer Lloyd, own­er of the most im­por­tant me­te­orite ev­er dis­cov­ered, di­rec­tor of the Lloyd Mu­se­um, CEO of Lloyd Hold­ings, the sev­enth rich­est man in the world.

He came up be­hind Brit­ton. Over the gold bars on her shoul­der, he could see a mon­itor dis­play­ing a glob­al po­si­tion­ing di­agram. He had seen this screen be­fore. Their ship showed on the screen as a cross, the long ax­is in­di­cat­ing di­rec­tion of trav­el. Its for­ward end was steadi­ly ap­proach­ing a red line that arced gen­tly across the di­agram. Ev­ery few sec­onds, the screen flick­ered as the chart in­for­ma­tion was up­dat­ed via satel­lite. When they crossed that line, they would be in in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters. Home free.

“How long?” he asked.

“Eight min­utes,” Brit­ton replied. Her voice, though cool as ev­er, had lost the tight­ness of those har­row­ing fi­nal min­utes at the is­land.

Lloyd glanced over at Glinn. He was stand­ing be­side Pup­pup, hands clasped be­hind his back, his face the usu­al mask of in­dif­fer­ence. Still, Lloyd felt sure he could see a smug­ness lin­ger­ing in those im­pas­sive eyes. As well it should. They were min­utes from one of the great­est sci­en­tif­ic and en­gi­neer­ing achieve­ments of the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry. He wait­ed, not rush­ing it.

He glanced around the rest of the com­pa­ny: the crew of the watch, tired but sat­is­fied, an­tic­ipat­ing their re­lief. Chief Mate How­ell, in­scrutable. Mc­Far­lane and Ami­ra, stand­ing to­geth­er silent­ly. Even the crafty old doc­tor, Bram­bell, had emerged from his hole be­lowdecks. It was as if, on some un­spo­ken sig­nal, they had as­sem­bled to wit­ness some­thing mo­men­tous.

Lloyd straight­ened up, a small ges­ture meant to at­tract at­ten­tion. He wait­ed un­til all eyes were on him, then turned to Glinn.

“Mr. Glinn, may I of­fer you my heart­felt con­grat­ula­tions,” he said.

Glinn bowed slight­ly. Smiles and glances went around the bridge.

At that mo­ment the bridge door opened and a stew­ard came in, wheel­ing a stain­less-​steel cart. The neck of a cham­pagne bot­tle peeked out from an urn of crushed ice. A dozen crys­tal glass­es were racked up be­side it.

Lloyd rubbed his hands to­geth­er de­light­ed­ly. “Eli, you liar. You may be an old wom­an about some things, but your tim­ing to­day has been exquisite.”

“I did tell an un­truth when I said I’d on­ly brought one bot­tle along. Ac­tu­al­ly, I brought a case.”

“Mar­velous! Let’s have at it, then.”

“We’ll have to make do with this sin­gle bot­tle. This is a ship’s bridge. Fear not — the mo­ment we reach New York Har­bor, I’ll un­cork the oth­er ten my­self. Mean­while, please do the hon­ors.” And he ges­tured to­ward the cart.

Lloyd strode over, slid the bot­tle out of the ice, and held it up with a grin.

“Don’t drop it this time, guv,” Pup­pup said, al­most in­audi­bly.

Lloyd looked at Brit­ton. “How much longer?”

“Three min­utes.”

The wind beat against the win­dows. The pan­teonero was grow­ing, but — Brit­ton had in­formed him — they would round Stat­en Is­land and be in the lee of Tier­ra del Fuego long be­fore the south­west­er­ly wind shift­ed to the more dan­ger­ous north­west. He un­wired the cork and wait­ed, the bot­tle cold in his hand.

For a mo­ment, the on­ly sounds on the bridge were the moan of the wind and the dis­tant thun­der­ing of the ocean. Then Brit­ton looked up from the screen and glanced at How­ell, who nod­ded his af­fir­ma­tion.

“The Rolvaag has just crossed in­to in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters,” she said qui­et­ly.

A small cheer erupt­ed. Lloyd popped the cork and be­gan pour­ing ju­di­cious mea­sures all around.

Sud­den­ly the grin­ning face of Pup­pup ap­peared be­fore Lloyd, his skin­ny arms hold­ing up two glass­es. “Right here, guv. One for me and one for me friend.” He ducked his head.

Lloyd emp­tied the bot­tle in­to the glass­es. “Who’s your friend?” he asked, smil­ing in­dul­gent­ly. The man’s role, though not large, had been cru­cial. He would find him a good job at the Lloyd Mu­se­um, in main­te­nance per­haps, or even se­cu­ri­ty. Or maybe, as the last sur­viv­ing Yaghan In­di­an, there might be some­thing even bet­ter. Per­haps he should con­sid­er some kind of ex­hib­it, af­ter all. It would be taste­ful and cor­rect — a far cry from those nine­teenth-​cen­tu­ry ex­hi­bi­tions of prim­itive peo­ple-​but it could be a draw. Es­pe­cial­ly with Pup­pup on hand as the last liv­ing ex­am­ple. Yes, he would have to think about it…

“Hanuxa,” Pup­pup an­swered, with an­oth­er duck and grin. Lloyd looked up in time to see his rab­bit­like re­treat, drink­ing two-​fist­ed­ly from both glass­es.

The chief mate’s voice broke through the hub­bub. “I’ve got a sur­face con­tact at thir­ty-​two miles, bear­ing three one five true at twen­ty knots.”

In­stant­ly, the con­ver­sa­tion ceased. Lloyd glanced over at Glinn, ea­ger for as­sur­ance, and felt a prick­ly sen­sa­tion stir in his gut. The man had an ex­pres­sion on his face he had nev­er seen be­fore: a look of sick sur­prise.

“Glinn?” he said. “It’s some mer­chant ves­sel, right?”

With­out an­swer­ing, Glinn turned to his op­er­ative at the EES con­sole and spoke a few words in an un­der­tone.

“It’s the Almi­rante Ramirez,” said Brit­ton in an un­der­tone.

“What? How can you know that from the radar?” Lloyd asked, the prick­ly sen­sa­tion turn­ing in­to a flush of dis­be­lief.

Brit­ton looked at him. “There’s no way to tell for sure, but it’s in the right place at the right time. Most ship­ping would be head­ing through the Strait of Le Maire, par­tic­ular­ly in this weath­er. But this one’s com­ing af­ter us, with all it’s got.”

Lloyd watched as Glinn con­ferred with the man at the com­put­er. There was the faint sound of a di­al tone, of high­speed di­al­ing, the hiss of a dig­ital hand­shake.

“I thought you put that son of a bitch out of ac­tion,” Lloyd said.

Glinn straight­ened up, and Lloyd was im­me­di­ate­ly re­as­sured to see that the col­lect­ed, con­fi­dent ex­pres­sion had re­turned to his face. “Our friend proves un­usu­al­ly re­source­ful.” “Re­source­ful?”

“Co­man­dante Val­lenar has man­aged to re­pair his ves­sel, at least part­ly. Quite an achieve­ment. I can scarce­ly be­lieve it pos­si­ble. But it makes no dif­fer­ence.”

“Why not?” Brit­ton asked.

“It’s all in the com­put­er pro­file. He will not pur­sue us in­to in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters.”

“That’s a rather ar­ro­gant pre­dic­tion, if you ask me. The man’s crazy. He might do any­thing.”

“You are in er­ror. Co­man­dante Val­lenar, de­spite ev­ery­thing, is a naval of­fi­cer at heart. He prides him­self on his hon­or and loy­al­ty, and on a set of ab­stract mil­itary ide­als. For all these rea­sons, he will not pur­sue us be­yond the line. To do so would be to em­bar­rass Chile — and cre­ate an un­pleas­ant in­ci­dent with his coun­try’s largest sup­pli­er of for­eign aid. Fur­ther­more, he will not take a crip­pled ship too deeply in­to a build­ing storm.”

“So why’s he still com­ing?”

“Two rea­sons. First, he doesn’t know our ex­act lo­ca­tion, and he still hopes to cut us off be­fore we reach in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters. Sec­ond, our co­man­dante is a man of the no­ble ges­ture. Like a dog run­ning to the end of his chain know­ing his quar­ry is out of reach, he will drive full bore to the edge of his coun­try’s wa­ters, then turn back.”

“Fan­cy anal­ysis,” said Brit­ton, “but is it right?”

“Yes,” said Glinn, “it is right.” His voice was serene with con­vic­tion.

Lloyd smiled. “I’ve made the mis­take of not trust­ing you be­fore. I’m sat­is­fied. If you say he won’t cross, he won’t cross.”

Brit­ton said noth­ing. Glinn turned to her with a per­son­al, al­most in­ti­mate ges­ture, and Lloyd was sur­prised to see him clasp her hands gen­tly. He did not quite catch Glinn’s words, but Brit­ton ap­peared to flush.

“All right,” she said, in a voice that was just au­di­ble.

Pup­pup sud­den­ly ap­peared, both glass­es emp­ty, hold­ing them up in a sup­pli­cat­ing ges­ture. Lloyd glanced at him, notic­ing the way he un­con­scious­ly kept his bal­ance de­spite an un­usu­al­ly heavy roll of the deck. “Any more, then?” the Yaghan asked. “For me and me friend, I mean.”

There was no time to an­swer. There was a sud­den vi­bra­tion, a sub­son­ic boom, that shook the very frame of the tanker. The bridge lights flick­ered, and the banks of mon­itors sank in­to a wash of gray elec­tron­ic snow. Im­me­di­ate­ly, Brit­ton and the rest of the of­fi­cers were at their sta­tions. “What the hell was that?” Lloyd asked sharply.

No one an­swered him. Glinn had re­turned to his op­er­ative’s side and was con­fer­ring with him in low, ur­gent tones. There was a deep vi­bra­tion in the ship, al­most like a groan. It was fol­lowed by an­oth­er.

And then, as abrupt­ly as it be­gan, the dis­tur­bance ceased: the screens re­turned, the lights bright­ened and stead­ied. There was a cho­rus of chirps and whirrs as de­vices across the bridge re­boot­ed.

“We don’t know what it was,” Brit­ton said, fi­nal­ly an­swer­ing Lloyd’s ques­tion. Her eyes swept over the in­stru­men­ta­tion. “Some kind of gen­er­al mal­func­tion. An ex­plo­sion, per­haps. It seems to have af­fect­ed all ship’s sys­tems.” She turned to the chief mate. “I want a dam­age as­sess­ment right away.”

How­ell picked up the tele­phone and made two quick calls. Af­ter the sec­ond, he re­placed the phone, face ashen. “It’s the hold­ing tank,” he said, “the one with the me­te­orite. There’s been a se­ri­ous ac­ci­dent.”

“What kind of ac­ci­dent?” Glinn asked.

“A dis­charge from the rock.”

Glinn turned to Mc­Far­lane and Ami­ra. “Get on it. Find out what hap­pened and why. And Dr. Bram­bell, you bet­ter get to — “

But Bram­bell had al­ready dis­ap­peared from the bridge.

Almi­rante Ramirez,

8:30 A.M.

VAL­LENAR STARED hard in­to the murk, as if the act of star­ing it­self would bring the elu­sive tanker in­to view.

“Sta­tus,” he mur­mured again to the con­ning of­fi­cer.

“With the jam­ming, sir, it’s hard to tell. My best es­ti­mate is that the tar­get is head­ing ze­ro nine ze­ro at ap­prox­imate­ly six­teen knots.”

“Range?”

“Sir, I can’t tell ex­act­ly. Some­where around thir­ty nau­ti­cal miles. We wouldn’t even have that close a fix, ex­cept their jam­ming seemed to drop briefly a few min­utes ago.”

Val­lenar could feel a rhyth­mic surge to his ship: a sick­en­ing lift­ing and drop­ping of the deck. He had on­ly felt this mo­tion once be­fore, when he had been caught in a storm south of Diego Ramirez dur­ing a train­ing mis­sion. He knew what this odd mo­tion meant: the dis­tance be­tween the wave crests had be­gun to ex­ceed twice the length of the Almi­rante Ramirez. He could see the fol­low­ing sea from the aft win­dows: long mus­cu­lar swells, topped with a break­ing line of wa­ter, com­ing at his stern and foam­ing along the hull be­fore dis­ap­pear­ing for­ward in­to the dark­ness. Once in a while a gi­ant wave, a ti­gre, would come up from be­hind, the wa­ter pil­ing up against the rud­der, giv­ing the helms­man a loose wheel and threat­en­ing to shove the de­stroy­er around, caus­ing it to broach to. It would on­ly get worse when they turned south and took the sea on their beam.

Reach­ing thought­ful­ly in­to his pock­et, he with­drew a puro and ex­am­ined its soiled out­er leaves ab­sent­ly. He thought of the two dead divers, their cold stiff bod­ies wrapped in tarps and stored in sea lock­ers aft. He thought of the three oth­ers, who nev­er resur­faced, and a fourth, shiv­er­ing now in the last stages of hy­pother­mia. They had done their du­ty — no more, and no less. The ship was sea­wor­thy. True, they could make on­ly twen­ty knots with their dam­aged pro­pellers. But the tanker was on­ly mak­ing six­teen. And the long east­ward run to­ward in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters was giv­ing him the time he need­ed to achieve his strat­egy.

He glanced back at the con­ning of­fi­cer. The crew was fright­ened: of this storm, of this chase. That fear was good. Fright­ened men worked faster. But Tim­mer had been worth any ten of them.

He bit off the end of the cigar and spat it away. Tim­mer had been worth the en­tire com­ple­ment…

Val­lenar mas­tered him­self, tak­ing the time to light the cigar care­ful­ly, me­thod­ical­ly. The glow­ing red tip re­flect­ed back from the inky win­dows. By now they sure­ly knew he was com­ing af­ter them once again. This time he would be more care­ful. He had fall­en in­to their trap once, and he would not al­low it to hap­pen again. Ini­tial­ly, his plan had been to crip­ple the ship. But now it was clear that Tim­mer was dead. The time for mere crip­pling was long past.

Five hours, maybe less, would bring them in­to range of his four-​inch guns. In the mean­time, if there was even a short respite from jam­ming, the Ex­ocets were ready to fire at a mo­ment’s no­tice.

This time, there would be no mis­take.

Rolvaag,

9:20 A.M.

AS MC­FAR­LANE ran down the cen­ter cor­ri­dor of the med­ical suite, Rachel on his heels, he al­most col­lid­ed with Bram­bell, step­ping through the op­er­at­ing room door. He was a very dif­fer­ent Bram­bell than the wry, dry man of the din­ner ta­ble: this Bram­bell was grim, his move­ments brusque, his wiry frame tense.

“We’re here to see — ” Mc­Far­lane be­gan, but Bram­bell was stalk­ing down the hall and dis­ap­pear­ing be­hind an­oth­er door, pay­ing them not the slight­est bit of at­ten­tion. Mc­Far­lane glanced at Rachel.

Fol­low­ing Bram­bell’s path, they en­tered a bright­ly lit room. The doc­tor, who was still wear­ing a pair of sur­gi­cal gloves, stood over a gur­ney, ex­am­in­ing a mo­tion­less pa­tient. The man’s head was swathed in ban­dages, and the sur­round­ing sheets were soaked in blood. As Mc­Far­lane watched, Bram­bell jerked a sheet over the man’s head with a sharp, an­gry mo­tion. Then he turned to a near­by sink.

Mc­Far­lane swal­lowed hard. “We need to speak with Manuel Garza,” he said.

“Ab­so­lute­ly not,” Bram­bell said as he broke scrub, rip­ping off the pair of bloody gloves and dash­ing his hands un­der hot wa­ter.

“Doc­tor, we must ques­tion Garza about what hap­pened. The safe­ty of the ship de­pends on it.”

Bram­bell stopped in his tracks, look­ing at Mc­Far­lane for the first time. His face was somber but con­trolled. He said noth­ing for a mo­ment, and Mc­Far­lane could see be­hind the mask the rac­ing mind of a doc­tor mak­ing a de­ci­sion un­der ex­treme pres­sure.

“Room Three,” he said as he pulled on a fresh pair of sur­gi­cal gloves. “Five min­utes.”

They found Garza in a small room, wide awake. His face was bruised, his eyes black­ened, and his head heav­ily ban­daged. When the door opened, he swiveled his dark gaze at them, then looked away im­me­di­ate­ly. “They’re all dead, aren’t they?” he whis­pered, eyes on the bulk­head.

Mc­Far­lane hes­itat­ed. “All but one.”

“But he’s al­so go­ing to die.” It was a state­ment, not a ques­tion.

Rachel came over and laid a hand on his shoul­der. “Manuel, I know how hard this must be for you. But we need to know what hap­pened in the hold­ing tank.”

Garza did not look at her. He pursed his lips, blinked his black­ened eyes. “What hap­pened? What do you think hap­pened? That god­damn me­te­orite went off again.”

“Went off?” Mc­Far­lane re­peat­ed.

“Yeah. It ex­plod­ed. Just like it did with that guy Tim­mer.” Mc­Far­lane and Rachel ex­changed glances.

“Which one of your men touched it?” Rachel asked.

Garza sud­den­ly turned to stare at her. Mc­Far­lane wasn’t sure if his look was one of sur­prise, anger, or dis­be­lief, the wide pur­ple moon-​holes of his eyes seemed to draw all ex­pres­sion from the rest of his face.

“No­body touched it.”

“Some­body must have.”

“I said no­body. I was watch­ing ev­ery minute.”

“Manuel — ” Rachel be­gan.

He rose an­gri­ly. “You think my men were crazy? They hat­ed be­ing near that thing, they were scared to death of it Rachel, I’m telling you, no­body got with­in five feet.”

He winced and lay back.

Af­ter a mo­ment, Mc­Far­lane spoke again. “We need to know ex­act­ly what you saw. Can you tell us what you re­mem­ber, right be­fore it hap­pened? What was go­ing on? Did you no­tice any­thing un­usu­al?”

“No. The men were al­most fin­ished with the weld­ing. Some of them had fin­ished. The job was vir­tu­al­ly done. Ev­ery­one was still wear­ing their pro­tec­tive gear. The ship was heel­ing. It seemed to be tak­ing a pret­ty big wave.”

“I re­mem­ber that wave,” Rachel said. “Are you sure no­body lost his bal­ance, no­body put out an in­vol­un­tary hand to steady — “

“You don’t be­lieve me, do you?” he asked. “Tough shit, be­cause it’s true. No­body touched the rock. Check the tapes your­self if you want.”

“Was there any­thing un­usu­al about the me­te­orite?” Mc­Far­lane asked. “Any­thing fun­ny?”

Garza thought for a mo­ment. Then he shook his head.

Mc­Far­lane leaned clos­er. “That freak wave that heeled the ship. Do you think tilt­ing the me­te­orite could have caused the ex­plo­sion?”

“Why? It was tilt­ed, banged, and shoved all the way from the im­pact site to the hold­ing tank. Noth­ing like this hap­pened.”

There was a si­lence.

“It’s the rock,” Garza mur­mured.

Mc­Far­lane blinked, not sure he had heard cor­rect­ly.

“What?” he asked.

“I said, it’s the god­damn rock. It wants us dead. All of us.”

And with that, he turned to­ward the bulk­head and would not speak again.

Rolvaag,

10:00 A.M.

VI­OLENT dawn rose be­yond the win­dows of the bridge, re­veal­ing a wind-​torn sea. A pro­ces­sion of gi­gan­tic swells, un­du­lat­ing, re­morse­less, came out of the storm-​wracked west­ern hori­zon and dis­ap­peared in­to the east. The pan­teonero con­tin­ued to build, a scream­ing wind that seemed to rip pieces of sea from the tops of the waves and send them fly­ing, shred­ding the wa­ter in­to white sheets of foam. The great ship heaved up, heaved down, rolling and pitch­ing in ag­oniz­ing slow mo­tion.

Eli Glinn stood alone at the win­dows, hands clasped be­hind his back. He gazed out at the vi­olence, con­scious of an in­ter­nal seren­ity he had rarely felt since the project be­gan. It had been a project fraught with un­ex­pect­ed turns and sur­pris­es. Even here, on the ship, the me­te­orite con­tin­ued to be­dev­il them: How­ell had re­turned from the sick bay with re­ports of six dead and Garza in­jured. Nev­er­the­less, EES had suc­ceed­ed. It was one of the great­est en­gi­neer­ing feats ev­er.

He would not care to re­peat such a project again.

He turned. Brit­ton and the oth­er ship’s of­fi­cers were glued to the sur­face radar, track­ing the Almi­rante Ramirez.

Lloyd hov­ered be­hind them. It was a tense-​look­ing group. Clear­ly, his as­sur­ances about Co­man­dante Val­lenar had not con­vinced them. A nat­ural, if il­log­ical, po­si­tion to take. But Glinn’s pro­pri­etary pro­fil­ing pro­gram had nev­er been wrong in a crit­ical pre­dic­tion. Be­sides, he knew Val­lenar. He had met the man on his own turf. He had seen the iron dis­ci­pline on his ship. He had seen the man’s skill as a naval of­fi­cer, his over­ween­ing pride, his love of coun­try. The man will not cross the line. Not for a me­te­orite. At the last minute would turn; the mo­ment of cri­sis would pass; and they would be on their way home.

“Cap­tain,” he asked, “what course do you pro­pose to take us out of Drake Pas­sage?”

“As soon as the Ramirez turns around, I’ll or­der a three three ze­ro bear­ing to bring us back in­to the lee of South Amer­ica and get us out of this gale.”

Glinn nod­ded ap­prov­ing­ly. “That will be soon.”

Brit­ton’s eyes dropped back to the screen. She said noth­ing more.

Glinn strolled over and stood with Lloyd be­hind Cap­tain Brit­ton. On the elec­tron­ic chart, the green dot that rep­re­sent­ed Val­lenar was fast ap­proach­ing in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters. Glinn couldn’t help but smile. It was like watch­ing a horse race on tele­vi­sion for which he alone knew the out­come.

“Any ra­dio con­tact from the Ramirez?”

“No,” Brit­ton replied. “They’ve been main­tain­ing ra­dio si­lence through­out. Not even mak­ing con­tact with their own base. Banks heard the base CO or­der him back hours ago.”

Nat­ural­ly, thought Glinn. It fit the pro­file.

He al­lowed his gaze to linger on Brit­ton: at the scat­ter­ing of freck­les on her nose, the poise in her bear­ing. She doubt­ed his judg­ment now; but lat­er she would see that he had been right. He thought about the courage she had shown, the unerring good sense, the cool­ness un­der pres­sure; the dig­ni­ty, even while the bridge had been out of her com­mand. This was a wom­an, he felt, he could fi­nal­ly trust. Per­haps this was the wom­an he had been look­ing for. It bore fur­ther con­sid­er­ation. He be­gan think­ing of the cor­rect strat­egy to win her, po­ten­tial av­enues of fail­ure, the like­li­est path to suc­cess…

He glanced back at the radar screen. The dot was now just min­utes from the line. He felt the faintest twinge of ner­vous­ness dis­turb his seren­ity. But all fac­tors had been tak­en in­to ac­count. The man would turn.

He looked de­lib­er­ate­ly away from the screen and strolled back to the win­dow. It was an awe­some sight. The waves were top­ping the main­deck, sweep­ing past in green sheets, stream­ing through the scup­pers back in­to the sea. The Rolvaag, de­spite its move­ment, still felt quite sta­ble — it was a fol­low­ing sea, which great­ly aid­ed sta­bil­ity. And the mass in the cen­ter tank act­ed as bal­last.

He glanced at his watch. Any mo­ment now, Brit­ton would re­port that the Ramirez had turned back.

There was an au­di­ble sound, a col­lec­tive mur­mur, from the group around the radar.

“The Ramirez is chang­ing course,” said Brit­ton, glanc­ing up.

Glinn nod­ded, sup­press­ing a smile.

“Turn­ing norther­ly to a ze­ro six ze­ro head­ing.”

Glinn wait­ed.

“He just crossed the line,” Brit­ton added in a low voice. “Still head­ing ze­ro six ze­ro.”

Glinn hes­itat­ed. “Val­lenar’s nav­iga­tion is slight­ly off. His rud­der is dam­aged. He’s clear­ly in the pro­cess of turn­ing around.”

The min­utes ticked off. Glinn left the win­dows and once again ap­proached the screen. The green dot con­tin­ued head­ing east-​north­east. It wasn’t ex­act­ly chas­ing them now, but it wasn’t turn­ing around ei­ther. Strange. He felt an­oth­er twinge.

“He will come around mo­men­tar­ily,” mur­mured Glinn.

The si­lence length­ened as the Ramirez con­tin­ued on its bear­ing.

“Main­tain­ing speed,” said How­ell.

“Turn,” mut­tered Lloyd.

The ship did not turn. In­stead, it made an­oth­er slight course cor­rec­tion to ze­ro five ze­ro.

“What’s the hell’s he do­ing?” Lloyd sud­den­ly ex­plod­ed.

Brit­ton straight­ened up and looked square­ly at Glinn. She said noth­ing, but words were un­nec­es­sary: Glinn could read her ex­pres­sion with crys­tal clar­ity.

Doubt passed through him like a spasm, to be quick­ly re­placed by re­as­sur­ance. He knew now what the prob­lem was. “Of course. He’s not on­ly hav­ing trou­ble with his rud­der, but his prim­itive nav­iga­tion sys­tems have been af­fect­ed by our jam­ming. The man doesn’t know where he is.” He turned to his op­er­ative at the con­sole. “Turn off the ECM. Let our friend find his bear­ings.”

The op­er­ative typed a se­ries of com­mands.

“He’s twen­ty-​five miles dis­tant,” said How­ell. “We’re just with­in range of his Ex­ocets.”

“I’m aware of that,” mur­mured Glinn.

There was a mo­ment in which the en­tire bridge fell silent. Then How­ell spoke again. “We’re be­ing il­lu­mi­nat­ed with tar­get­ing radar. He’s get­ting our range and bear­ing.”

For the first time since his fi­nal op as a Ranger, Glinn felt a cer­tain kind of un­easi­ness in his gut. “Give him a few more min­utes. Let him fig­ure out we’re both in in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters.”

Again the min­utes ticked by.

“For God’s sake, bring the ECM back on line!” Brit­ton said sharply.

“An­oth­er minute. Please.”

“Ex­ocet launched,” said How­ell.

“CI­WS full au­to,” said Brit­ton. “Pre­pare to launch chaff.”

The min­utes passed in frozen dread.

Then there was a sud­den rat­tling of Gatling guns as the CI­WS went in­to ac­tion, fol­lowed by a har­row­ing air­burst off the star­board side of the ship. A tiny piece of shrap­nel ticked off a bridge win­dow, leav­ing a star.

“Still be­ing paint­ed with radar,” said How­ell.

“Mr. Glinn!” Brit­ton cried. “Or­der your man to reem­ploy ECM!”

“Reem­ploy elec­tron­ic coun­ter­mea­sures,” Glinn said weak­ly, lean­ing on the con­sole for sup­port. He stared at the im­pla­ca­ble green point on the screen, his mind rac­ing to find the an­swers, to see the pat­tern. Val­lenar had stayed true to form by launch­ing a mis­sile at them. This was a ges­ture Glinn had an­tic­ipat­ed. Now, hav­ing rat­tled his saber in im­po­tent rage, the man would turn back. Glinn wait­ed, will­ing the ship to turn.

But the puls­ing green dot con­tin­ued on its course: not their own course, ex­act­ly, but a course that took it ev­er deep­er in­to in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters.

“Eli?” It was Lloyd. His voice was strange­ly calm. With an ef­fort, Glinn de­tached him­self from a hun­dred av­enues of spec­ula­tion and met Lloyd’s flinty stare.

“He’s not go­ing to turn,” Lloyd said. “He’s com­ing af­ter us. For the kill.”

Rolvaag,

10:20 A.M.

SAL­LY BRIT­TON steeled her­self, tun­ing out ex­tra­ne­ous de­tails one at a time, fo­cus­ing her mind for what was to come. One look at Glinn’s pale, shat­tered face had dis­armed her anger and told her all she need­ed to know about the fail­ure of his pre­dic­tion. She felt a twinge of sym­pa­thy for the man, de­spite the un­for­giv­able mis­judg­ment which had now put all their lives in ex­treme dan­ger. She her­self had made a mis­judg­ment, on a bridge sim­ilar to this one, not all that long ago.

She turned her at­ten­tion to the rear of the bridge, where a large nau­ti­cal chart of the Cape Horn re­gion was dis­played. As she looked at it, go­ing au­to­mat­ical­ly through the fa­mil­iar steps, she felt the worst of the ten­sion ease. A few op­tions pre­sent­ed them­selves. All might not be lost.

She felt Glinn’s pres­ence be­hind her. She turned to see that the col­or was re­turn­ing to his face, and the look of shock and paral­ysis was leav­ing his eyes. She re­al­ized, with sur­prise, that this man was still far from beat­en.

“Cap­tain,” he said, “may I con­fer with you a mo­ment?”

She nod­ded.

He took up po­si­tion be­side her, re­mov­ing a piece of pa­per from the vest pock­et of his suit as he did so. “I have here all the spec­ifi­ca­tions of the Almi­rante Ramirez. The da­ta is ac­cu­rate as of ap­prox­imate­ly three weeks ago.”

She looked at him. “Where did you get this?”

“From our home of­fice.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“The Almi­rante Ramirez is an Almi­rante-​class de­stroy­er, built for the Chilean navy by Vick­ers-​Arm­strong in the U.K. Its keel was laid in 1957 and the ship was com­mis­sioned in 1960. It has a com­ple­ment of 266, with 17 of­fi­cers. It dis­places — “

“I don’t need to know how many din­ners they serve. Get to the threat sys­tems.”

Glinn’s eyes flit­ted down­ward. “It was retrofitted in the sev­en­ties to hold four Aerospa­tiale 38 Ex­ocet sea-​skim­ming mis­siles. They have a range of twen­ty-​five nau­ti­cal miles. For­tu­nate­ly for us, they use an ear­li­er gen­er­ation of ac­tive radar hom­ing that can’t over­come our ad­vanced ECM sys­tem. So the Ex­ocets are use­less to him, even in vi­su­al range.”

“What else has he got?”

“Four Vick­ers four-​inch guns, two for­ward and two aft, that can de­liv­er forty rounds a minute with a range of ten nau­ti­cal miles. These are nor­mal­ly di­rect­ed us­ing two SGR 102 fire-​con­trol radars, but, if nec­es­sary, can al­so be tar­get­ed vi­su­al­ly.”

“Dear God. Forty rounds a minute per gun?”

“There are al­so four Bo­fors 40-mil­lime­ters with a range of six point five nau­ti­cal miles. They can throw three hun­dred shells a minute.”

Brit­ton felt the blood leave her face. “Any one of those guns could take us out in a mat­ter of min­utes. We can’t let him get with­in range.”

“Vi­su­al tar­get­ing in this heavy sea will be dif­fi­cult. But you are cor­rect: we wouldn’t last long in a bar­rage. We’ve got to in­crease our speed.”

Brit­ton didn’t an­swer at first. “You know we’re al­ready push­ing the lim­its of the tur­bines at six­teen knots.” She turned to the chief mate. “Mr. How­ell, is there any way we can squeeze a lit­tle more speed out of her?”

“I might be able to wring out an­oth­er knot.”

“Very well. Do it.”

He turned to the helms­man. “All ahead one ten.”

Deep in­side the ship, she felt an an­swer­ing rum­ble as the en­gines were brought up to 110 rpms. That would give them — she did a quick men­tal cal­cu­la­tion — four and a half hours, maybe a lit­tle less, be­fore they were with­in range of the Vick­ers.

She turned back to Glinn and the chart. “I’ve worked it out,” she said. “Our best op­tion is to head north­east in­to Ar­gen­tini­an na­tion­al wa­ters as soon as pos­si­ble. Ar­genti­na is a bit­ter en­emy of Chile, and they’d hard­ly coun­te­nance a Chilean de­stroy­er chas­ing us in­to their wa­ters. They’d con­sid­er it an act of war.”

She glanced at Glinn, but his veiled look be­trayed noth­ing.

“Al­ter­na­tive­ly, we could head for the British naval base on the Falk­land Is­lands. We should al­so ra­dio our gov­ern­ment and re­port we’re un­der at­tack by a Chilean war­ship. We might be able to put some mil­itary pres­sure on that crazy son of a bitch.”

She wait­ed for a re­sponse.

At last, Glinn spoke. “I un­der­stand now what Val­lenar’s slight course changes were about.”

“What?”

“We’ve been cut off.”

Brit­ton looked quick­ly back at the map. The Ramirez was now twen­ty miles north­west of them, on a true bear­ing of 300 de­grees. Sud­den­ly, she un­der­stood.

“Oh shit,” she breathed.

“If we change course now to Ar­genti­na or the Falk­lands, he’ll over­take us about here.” Glinn drew a small cir­cle on the map with his fin­ger.

“We’ll head west back to Chile, then,” Brit­ton said quick­ly. “He wouldn’t get away with sink­ing us in the Puer­to Williams har­bor.”

“No doubt. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, even if we turn back now, he’ll in­ter­cept us here.” His fin­ger traced an­oth­er cir­cle on the map.

“Then we’ll head for the British sci­en­tif­ic sta­tion on South Geor­gia Is­land.”

“Then he’ll in­ter­cept us here.”

She watched the map, a par­alyz­ing chill creep­ing down her spine.

“You see, Sal­ly — may I call you Sal­ly? — when he made those course changes to the north­east, he had al­ready an­tic­ipat­ed our pos­si­ble points of refuge. If we had re­al­ized this and act­ed im­me­di­ate­ly, we would have had a chance of get­ting to Ar­genti­na, at least. But now even that route is closed to us.”

Brit­ton felt a pres­sure on her chest. “The U.S. Navy—“

“My man’s al­ready checked that. There’s no ef­fec­tive mil­itary help with­in twen­ty-​four hours.”

“But there’s a British naval base on the Falk­lands, armed to the teeth!”

“We con­sid­ered that, too. Chile was a British al­ly in the Falk­lands War. For the U.S. to re­quest mil­itary help from the U.K. against its for­mer al­ly, us­ing the very base they fought for — well, let us just say it is a re­quest that would take more time than we have to ex­pe­dite, even with Lloyd’s and my con­nec­tions. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, the ex­treme South At­lantic is no place to get in­to a mil­itary scrape. We’re on our own.”

She looked at Glinn. He re­turned her gaze with gray eyes that seemed to have deep­ened un­til they were al­most the col­or of the sur­round­ing ocean. There was a plan be­hind those eyes. She was afraid to ask what it was.

“We head south,” Glinn said sim­ply. “To the Ice Lim­it.”

Brit­ton could hard­ly be­lieve it. “Go south in­to the Scream­ing Six­ties, in­to the ice, in a storm like this? That’s not an op­tion.”

“You’re right,” said Glinn qui­et­ly. “It’s not an op­tion. It’s the on­ly op­tion.”

Almi­rante Ramirez,

11:00 A.M.

AF­TER DAWN, Val­lenar no­ticed that the wind had be­gun its in­evitable shift to the west. His plan had worked. Be­lat­ed­ly, the Amer­icans had re­al­ized they were cut off. There was no place for them to go but down in­to the Six­ties. Al­ready, they had changed course to one eight ze­ro — due south. And that’s where he would in­ter­cept them, where the endgame would play out: at the Ice Lim­it, in the black freez­ing wa­ters of the Antarc­tic Ocean.

He spoke soft­ly, pre­cise­ly. “From now on, I’ll have the deck.”

The ofi­cial de guardia, the of­fi­cer of the deck, called out, “Aye, sir, the co­man­dante has the deck!”

“Set head­ing one eight ze­ro,” Val­lenar said to the con­ning of­fi­cer.

This or­der would place the vi­olent sea di­rect­ly on their beam, the most dan­ger­ous po­si­tion for the de­stroy­er. The bridge of­fi­cers knew this. He wait­ed for the con­ning of­fi­cer to re­peat the or­der and call rud­der di­rec­tions. But no or­ders came.

“Sir?” It was the of­fi­cer of the deck who spoke.

Val­lenar did not turn to look at the of­fi­cer of the deck. He did not need to; he sensed what was about to hap­pen. Out of the cor­ner of his eye he could see the con­ning of­fi­cer and the ti­mo­nel, the helms­man, all rigid­ly at at­ten­tion.

So this was it. Bet­ter it should hap­pen now than lat­er.

He raised his eye­brows at the of­fi­cer of the deck. “Mr. San­tander, are we hav­ing a prob­lem with the chain of com­mand on the bridge?” He spoke as mild­ly as pos­si­ble.

“The of­fi­cers of the Almi­rante Ramirez would like to know our mis­sion, sir.”

Val­lenar wait­ed, still not look­ing at the man. Si­lence, he had long dis­cov­ered, was more in­tim­idat­ing than words. A minute passed, and then he spoke.

“Is it cus­tom­ary for Chilean naval of­fi­cers to ques­tion their com­man­der?”

“No, sir.”

Val­lenar took out a puro, rolled it be­tween his fin­gers, bit off the end, and placed it care­ful­ly be­tween his lips. He drew air through it.

“Then why are you ques­tion­ing me?” He spoke gen­tly.

“Sir… be­cause of the un­usu­al na­ture of the mis­sion, sir.”

Val­lenar re­moved the cigar and in­spect­ed it. “Un­usu­al? How so?”

There was an un­com­fort­able pause.

“It is our im­pres­sion, sir, that we were or­dered back to base last night. We are not aware of any or­ders to pur­sue this civil­ian ship.”

Val­lenar took in the word civil­ian. It was a de­lib­er­ate re­buke, a sug­ges­tion that Val­lenar was en­gaged in a cow­ard­ly pur­suit against an un­armed ad­ver­sary. He drew more air through the un­lit cigar.

“Tell me, Mr. San­tander. On board ship, do you take or­ders from your co­man­dante, or from a base com­man­der on shore?”

“From the co­man­dante, sir.”

“Am I your co­man­dante?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then there is noth­ing more to dis­cuss.”

Val­lenar re­moved a box of match­es from his uni­form pock­et, opened the box, re­moved one wax match, drew it slow­ly across the strik­er un­til it flared, and lit his cigar.

“Sir, I beg your par­don, what you have said is in­suf­fi­cient. Men died re­pair­ing that screw. We re­spect­ful­ly re­quest in­for­ma­tion on our mis­sion.”

At last, Val­lenar turned. He felt the grow­ing rage with­in him — rage at the ar­ro­gant Amer­icans, at the man Glinn who came to chitchat while his divers sab­otaged the ves­sel, at Tim­mer’s death — all chan­neled now to­ward this sub­or­di­nate, who dared to ques­tion his de­ci­sions. He puffed, draw­ing the smoke in­to his lungs, feel­ing the surge of nico­tine in his blood. When he was steady again, he flicked the match to­ward the damp deck and low­ered the cigar. This ofi­cial de guardia was a green, fool­ish man, and the chal­lenge was not un­ex­pect­ed. He looked around at the oth­er of­fi­cers on the bridge. All of them quick­ly low­ered their eyes.

With one smooth move­ment, Val­lenar with­drew his sidearm and pressed its bar­rel against With one smooth move­ment, Val­lenar with­drew his sidearm and pressed its bar­rel against mil­lime­ter slug thrust the man back like the blow of a fist, slam­ming him hard in­to a bulk­head. The of­fi­cer of the deck stared down in dis­be­lief at his ru­ined chest and the small hor­izon­tal foun­tain of blood that pumped its rhyth­mic stream. Air sucked in and out of the wound, once, then again. The man fell to his knees, then top­pled for­ward on­to his el­bows, sur­prised eyes now turn­ing glassy, mouth still open wide.

Val­lenar re­turned the gun to its sling. The on­ly sound on the bridge was San­tander’s ster­torous at­tempts to breathe and the qui­et pat­ter of blood as it rained from his chest on­to the deck.

Val­lenar glanced at the con­ning of­fi­cer. “Mr. Aller. Ef­fec­tive im­me­di­ate­ly, you are the of­fi­cer of the deck. And you, Mr. Lo­mas, are the con­ning of­fi­cer. A new course has been or­dered. Ex­ecute it.”

He turned away, draw­ing on his cigar, look­ing once again out over the storm-​tossed ocean. The heel of his right hand still rest­ed on the Luger. He wait­ed to see if the in­cip­ient mutiny would con­tin­ue. It would be a pity to lose Aller as well.

Aller looked at the new con­ning of­fi­cer, and nod­ded weak­ly.

“Right stan­dard rud­der,” said the con­ning of­fi­cer, “steady on course one eight ze­ro.”

The helms­man an­swered. “Aye, sir, right stan­dard rud­der, com­ing to course one eight ze­ro.”

Val­lenar slipped his hand from his weapon. It was over. Cut off the head and the body will die.

The ship be­gan to turn broad­side to the sea, helped along by ter­ri­fy­ing shoves from each pass­ing wave. As the shud­der­ing and reel­ing grew worse, the bridge per­son­nel took hold of stan­chions, flag­bag rails, any­thing that would help them keep up­right.

“Steady on one eight ze­ro,” said the helms­man in a qua­ver­ing voice.

“Very well,” the con­ning of­fi­cer an­swered.

Val­lenar leaned in­to the speak­ing tube. “Radar, es­ti­mate when we will be with­in tar­get­ing range of the Amer­ican ship with the Vick­ers guns.”

Af­ter a mo­ment, the re­sponse came: “Sir, at present course and speed, es­ti­mat­ed range in three hours, thir­ty min­utes.”

“Very good.” Val­lenar leaned away from the tube and flicked a thumb to­ward the dy­ing man at his feet. “Mr. Sanchez, take this away. And get a clean­ing de­tail up here.”

He turned back to the vi­olent sea.

Rolvaag,

11:30 A.M.

GLINN STOOD next to Brit­ton, mo­tion­less be­side the helm. As they fled south­ward to­ward the six­ti­eth par­al­lel, the Rolvaag had moved square­ly in­to the west­er­lies that raged around the bot­tom of the world, end­less­ly cir­cling, build­ing up the great­est seas on earth. As far as the eye could see, a ter­ri­fy­ing pro­gres­sion of At­lantic rollers swept east­ward, high as moun­tains. In the last hour, as the storm grew in in­ten­si­ty, the ocean seemed to have lost a sol­id sur­face; there was no longer a sharp line be­tween wa­ter and air. The scream­ing winds and heav­ing seas joined in a fury of spray and spume. As the tanker sank in­to the trough be­tween each wave there would come a brief, eerie calm; and then the great ship would shud­der and rise back in­to the howl­ing gale.

But Glinn did not see the storm. For some time his thoughts had been else­where. Val­lenar had staked ev­ery­thing — his ca­reer, his crew, his ship, the hon­or of his coun­try, his very life — on this chase. He knew they were car­ry­ing on­ly a rock; a huge rock, but a rock nonethe­less. This chase did not make sense.

He had mis­cal­cu­lat­ed bad­ly. Un­for­giv­ably. For the briefest of mo­ments, Glinn con­tem­plat­ed fail­ure; rolled it to and fro on his tongue, as if tast­ing it. Then, with a spasm, he forced it from his thoughts. There would be, could be, no fail­ure here.

The prob­lem did not lie in the com­put­er pro­file, or in the two-​foot file on Val­lenar back in New York; it lay in him­self. There was a cru­cial piece miss­ing. And this piece was in his own mind, wait­ing for him to rec­og­nize it. If he could un­der­stand Val­lenar’s mo­ti­va­tion for this in­sane pur­suit, then he could act up­on it… How far would Val­lenar take it? Would he pur­sue them past the Ice Lim­it? He shook his head, as if to shake loose the an­swer, but there was noth­ing. With­out un­der­stand­ing Val­lenar’s mo­ti­va­tion, he could de­vel­op no plan.

He glanced over at Brit­ton. She was star­ing at the radar, and the wa­ver­ing green pip that rep­re­sent­ed the Almi­rante Ramirez.

“The Ramirez has matched our course for the last half hour,” she said, with­out look­ing up. “One eight ze­ro, dead astern, hold­ing at twen­ty knots, con­stant bear­ing and de­creas­ing range.”

Glinn said noth­ing. It was in­cred­ible to him that Val­lenar would take his ship in­to a beam sea like this. The gi­ant Rolvaag was strug­gling, and it was far bet­ter at han­dling the storm than a de­stroy­er with scarce­ly a forty-​foot beam. It was tru­ly in­sane. There was a good chance that the Almi­rante Ramirez would be cap­sized. But a good chance was still a chance, and Glinn had no idea what kind of sea­man­ship Val­lenar could bring to bear. He sus­pect­ed first-​rate.

“At cur­rent speed and bear­ing, he’ll catch up with us at the Ice Lim­it,” Brit­ton said. “And he’ll come with­in fir­ing range con­sid­er­ably be­fore then.”

“In just over three hours,” said Glinn. “Around dusk.”

“Once we’re in range, do you think he will fire?”

“I have no doubt of it.”

“We have no de­fense. We’ll be ripped to pieces.”

“If we’re un­able to lose him in the dark­ness, that’s un­for­tu­nate­ly true.”

She looked up at him. “What about the me­te­orite?” she asked in a low voice.

“What about it?”

She low­ered her voice, glanc­ing at Lloyd. “If we drop it, we’ll be able to in­crease our speed.”

Glinn felt him­self stiff­en. He glanced over at Lloyd, who stood frown­ing at the bridge win­dows, trun­klike legs plant­ed wide apart. He hadn’t heard. When Glinn an­swered, he spoke slow­ly, rea­son­ably.

“To jet­ti­son it, we have to bring the ship to an ab­so­lute halt. That would give Val­lenar all the time he needs to catch us. We’d be sunk be­fore we came to rest.”

“Then you’ve run out of an­swers?” she asked, her voice even low­er.

He looked in­to her green eyes. They were clear, and steady, and quite beau­ti­ful. “There is no such thing as a prob­lem with­out a so­lu­tion,” he said. “We just have to nd it.”

Brit­ton paused. “Be­fore we left the is­land, you asked me to trust you. I hope that I can. I would like to very much.”

Glinn looked away, feel­ing an un­ex­pect­ed flush of emo­tion. For a mo­ment, his eyes fell on the GPS screen, and the dot­ted green line marked Ice Lim­it that ran across it. Then he looked back in­to her eyes. “You can trust me on this, Cap­tain. I will have a so­lu­tion for you. I promise.”

She nod­ded slow­ly. “I don’t be­lieve you’re a man who breaks his promis­es. I hope I’m right. Mr. Glinn — Eli — there’s on­ly one thing I want out of life right now. And that’s to see my daugh­ter again.”

Glinn be­gan to an­swer. But what came out in­stead was a hiss of sur­prise. He took an in­vol­un­tary step back. In a blind­ing flash of in­sight brought on by Brit­ton’s fi­nal sen­tence, he un­der­stood what was driv­ing Val­lenar.

He turned and, with­out a word, abrupt­ly left the bridge.

Rolvaag,

12:30 P.M.

LLOYD PACED rest­less­ly across the long ex­panse of the bridge. The storm bat­tered fu­ri­ous­ly against the win­dows, but he had avert­ed his eyes from the tear­ing seas. In all his life, he had nev­er seen any­thing so fright­en­ing. It bare­ly re­sem­bled wa­ter any­more, look­ing more like moun­tains, green and gray and black, ris­ing, falling, sweep­ing, crum­bling apart in gi­gan­tic creamy avalanch­es. He could hard­ly see how their ship — any ship — -could sur­vive five sec­onds in such a sea. Yet the Rolvaag plowed on. It was dif­fi­cult to walk, but he need­ed the dis­trac­tion of the phys­ical ac­tiv­ity. Reach­ing the star­board wing door, he piv­ot­ed brusque­ly and re­sumed pac­ing. He had been at it for six­ty min­utes, ev­er since Glinn had van­ished with­out a word.

His head ached from the sud­den re­ver­sals of for­tune, the abrupt shifts in mood, the un­bear­able ten­sion of the last twelve hours. Ex­as­per­ation, hu­mil­ia­tion, tri­umph, ap­pre­hen­sion. He glanced up at the bulk­head clock, then at the faces of the bridge of­fi­cers. How­ell, his face set. Brit­ton, ex­pres­sion­less, mon­itor­ing al­ter­nate­ly the radar screen and the GPS chart. Banks, framed in­side the door of the ra­dio room. Lloyd felt like shak­ing some kind of an­swers out of them. But they had al­ready told him ev­ery­thing there was to know. They had about two hours be­fore the Ramirez would start edg­ing in­to range.

Lloyd felt his limbs stiff­en against a cur­rent of rage. It was Glinn’s fault. It was over­ween­ing ar­ro­gance: he had stud­ied the op­tions so long the man be­lieved him­self in­ca­pable of fail­ure. Think long, think wrong, some­one had once said. If he’d been al­lowed to call in some fa­vors, they wouldn’t be help­less, like a mouse wait­ing for the cat to close in for the kill.

The door to the bridge opened and Glinn stepped in. “Good af­ter­noon, Cap­tain,” he said non­cha­lant­ly.

More than any­thing, this air of non­cha­lance sent fury cours­ing through Lloyd. “God damn you, Glinn,” he said, “where the hell have you been?”

Glinn’s eyes drift­ed to­ward him. “I’ve been ex­am­in­ing Val­lenar’s files. I know now what’s driv­ing him.”

“Who the hell cares? He’s the one who’s driv­ing us, right to­wards Antarc­ti­ca.”

“Tim­mer was Val­lenar’s son.”

Lloyd stopped short. “Tim­mer?” he asked, con­fused.

“Val­lenar’s sig­nal of­fi­cer. The man who was killed by the me­te­orite.”

“That’s ab­surd. Didn’t I hear Tim­mer had blond hair and blue eyes?”

“He was Val­lenar’s son by a Ger­man mis­tress.”

“Is this an­oth­er guess, or do you have ev­idence?”

“There’s no record of a son, but it’s the on­ly ex­pla­na­tion. That’s why he was so anx­ious to get Tim­mer back when I vis­it­ed. And that’s why he ini­tial­ly re­frained from at­tack­ing our ship: I told him Tim­mer was in the brig. But as soon as we left the is­land, he re­al­ized Tim­mer was dead. I be­lieve he thinks we mur­dered him. That’s why he pur­sued us in­to in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters. That’s why he’ll nev­er give up un­til he dies. Or un­til we do.”

The spasm of fury had left. Lloyd felt drained, ex­haust­ed.

Anger at this point was use­less. He con­trolled his voice. “And how, pray tell, is this psy­cho­log­ical in­sight go­ing to help us?”

In­stead of an­swer­ing, Glinn glanced back at Brit­ton. “How far are we from the Ice Lim­it?”

“It’s sev­en­ty-​sev­en nau­ti­cal miles south of our po­si­tion.”

“Can you see any ice on your radar?”

Brit­ton turned. “Mr. How­ell?”

“Some drift ice at ten miles. A few growlers. Just at the Lim­it, the long-​range sur­face radar’s pick­ing up a mas­sive ice is­land. Two ice is­lands, ac­tu­al­ly; it looks like one broke in half.”

“Bear­ing?”

“One nine one.”

Glinn spoke: “I would sug­gest head­ing that way. Make a very slow turn. If it takes Val­lenar a while to no­tice the course change, we might gain a mile or two.”

How­ell looked ques­tion­ing­ly at Brit­ton.

“Mr. Glinn,” said Brit­ton, “it’s sui­cide to take a huge ship like this past the Ice Lim­it. Es­pe­cial­ly in this weath­er.”

“There are rea­sons,” said Glinn.

“Care to share them with us?” Lloyd asked. “Or are you go­ing to keep us in the dark again? Maybe we could’ve used some free­lance de­ci­sion mak­ing back there.”

Glinn’s gaze fell first on Lloyd, then Brit­ton, then How­ell.

“Fair enough,” he said, af­ter a mo­ment. “We are re­duced to two op­tions: turn away and try to out­run the de­stroy­er. Or keep to this course and try to lose the de­stroy­er be­low the Ice Lim­it. The for­mer has a close to one hun­dred per­cent prob­abil­ity of fail­ure; the lat­ter, some­what less. This lat­ter plan al­so has the ad­van­tage of forc­ing the de­stroy­er through a beam sea.”

“What is this Ice Lim­it?” Lloyd asked.

“It’s where the freez­ing wa­ters around Antarc­ti­ca meet the warmer north­ern wa­ters of the At­lantic and Pa­cif­ic. Oceanog­ra­phers call it the Antarc­tic Con­ver­gence. It’s known for im­pen­etra­ble fogs and, of course, ex­treme­ly dan­ger­ous ice.”

“You’re propos­ing to take the Rolvaag in­to an area of ice and fog? It does sound like sui­cide.”

“What we need now is con­ceal­ment, time to lose the de­stroy­er long enough to lay a course away from it. In the dark­ness, in the ice and fog, we might just es­cape.”

“We might just sink, too.”

“The prob­abil­ity of hit­ting an ice­berg is low­er than the prob­abil­ity of be­ing sunk by the de­stroy­er.”

“What if there’s no fog?” asked How­ell.

“Then we have a prob­lem.”

There was a long si­lence. And then Brit­ton spoke: “Mr. How­ell. Set a new course for one nine ze­ro. Bring her head around slow­ly.”

There was the briefest of hes­ita­tions. Then How­ell re­layed the or­der to the helms­man in clipped tones. As he spoke, his eyes nev­er left Glinn’s.

Rolvaag,

2:00 P.M.

MC­FAR­LANE SLUMPED back in the un­com­fort­able plas­tic chair, sigh­ing and rub­bing his eyes. Rachel sat be­side him, crack­ing peanut shells and let­ting the de­bris fall on­to the met­al deck of the ob­ser­va­tion unit. The on­ly light came from a sin­gle mon­itor set high in the bulk­head above them.

“Don’t you ev­er get tired of those damn peanuts?” Mc­Far­lane said.

Rachel seemed to con­sid­er this a mo­ment. “Nope,” she replied.

They lapsed in­to si­lence. Con­scious of an in­cip­ient headache and low-​grade nau­sea, Mc­Far­lane closed his eyes. The mo­ment he did so, the roll of the ship seemed to in­crease dra­mat­ical­ly. He heard the tick of met­al, the oc­ca­sion­al drip of wa­ter. Oth­er than that, the hold­ing tank that yawned be­neath them was qui­et.

Mc­Far­lane opened his eyes with an ef­fort. “Run it again,” he said.

“But we’ve al­ready viewed it five times,” Rachel said. When Mc­Far­lane did not re­ply, she gave a dis­gust­ed snort and leaned for­ward to punch the trans­port con­trols.

Of the three se­cu­ri­ty view­cams in the hold­ing tank, on­ly one had sur­vived the ex­plo­sion. He watched as Rachel ran the tape for­ward at high speed, slow­ing to nor­mal speed a minute be­fore the det­ona­tion. They watched in si­lence as the sec­onds count­ed down. Noth­ing new. Garza was right: no­body had touched the rock. No­body had even been close.

Mc­Far­lane leaned back again with a curse, glanc­ing out of the ob­ser­va­tion unit and along the cat­walk, as if search­ing for an an­swer on the walls of the tank. Then he let his eyes trav­el slow­ly down the forty-​foot span to the top of the me­te­orite. The ex­plo­sion had gone off side­ways, killing most of the lights in the tank, dam­ag­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions net­works both fore and aft, but leav­ing the cat­walk and ob­ser­va­tion unit at the top of the tank un­harmed. The web looked large­ly in­tact, al­though it was clear that some struts had been knocked out. Molten steel had sprayed in foamy streaks across the walls of the tank, and some of the mas­sive lam­inat­ed oak tim­bers were chart­ed. Flecks of blood and red mat­ter could be seen here and there at points the scrub team had missed. The me­te­orite it­self looked un­changed.

What’s the se­cret here? he thought. What is it we’re miss­ing?

“Let’s go over what we know,” he said. “The ex­plo­sion seems to have been just like the one that killed Tim­mer.”

“Per­haps even stronger,” Rachel said. “One hell of an elec­tri­cal blast. If there hadn’t been so much met­al around to ab­sorb the charge, it might have blown the ship’s elec­tron­ics.”

“And af­ter­wards, the me­te­orite threw off a lot of ra­dio noise,” he said. “Just like with Tim­mer.”

Rachel picked up her ra­dio, turned it on, made a face at the roar of stat­ic, turned it off again. “And it’s still throw­ing it off,” she said.

They lapsed in­to si­lence again.

“I won­der if any­thing trig­gered the blast,” said Rachel, rewind­ing the tape. “Maybe it was ran­dom.”

Mc­Far­lane didn’t re­spond. It couldn’t be ran­dom; some­thing must have trig­gered it. And de­spite Garza’s re­mark — and the in­creas­ing ner­vous­ness of the crew — he didn’t be­lieve the me­te­orite was some ma­lig­nant thing, ac­tive­ly seek­ing to hurt them.

Mc­Far­lane won­dered if per­haps Tim­mer and Masangkay had nev­er touched the thing, af­ter all. But no; he’d an­alyzed it too care­ful­ly. The key to the mys­tery had to be Palmer Lloyd. He had placed his cheek against the rock and lived to tell the sto­ry. The two oth­ers had been blown up.

What was dif­fer­ent about their touch­es?

He sat up in the chair. “Let’s watch it again.”

Word­less­ly, Rachel punched the con­trols, and the mon­itor flick­ered to life.

The sur­viv­ing cam­era had been placed al­most di­rect­ly above the rock, just be­low the ob­ser­va­tion unit. There was Garza, stand­ing to one side, the weld­ing di­agrams un­rolled be­fore him. The TIG welders were spaced even­ly around the rock, work­ing on var­ious nodes. They were kneel­ing, their bright points of flame leav­ing red tracks on the screen. In the low­er right cor­ner, a time dis­play ran rapid­ly through the sec­onds.

“Turn up the sound,” Mc­Far­lane said. He closed his eyes; the headache and nau­sea were get­ting worse. Sea­sick­ness.

Garza’s voice leapt in­to the small en­clo­sure. “How’s it go­ing?” he shout­ed. There was an an­swer­ing shout: “Al­most there.” Scratchy si­lence; the trick­le of wa­ter; the pop of a torch flar­ing out. Room tone, then a flur­ry of creaks and groans as the ves­sel be­gan to heel. He heard Garza’s voice: “Hold tight!”

And then it end­ed in a hiss of white noise.

Mc­Far­lane opened his eyes. “Back ten sec­onds.”

They watched as it ran through again.

“It went off at the very top of the roll,” Rachel said.

“But Garza’s right. That thing was man­han­dled all the way down to the shore.” Mc­Far­lane paused. “Could there be an­oth­er work­man, hid­den by the rock? Some­body we’re not see­ing?”

“I thought of that. Six welders came in, plus Garza. Look, you can see them all there in the last frame, clear­ly vis­ible. All well back from the me­te­orite.”

Mc­Far­lane dropped his chin to his hands. Some­thing about the video was nag­ging at him, but he couldn’t put his fin­ger on it. Maybe it was noth­ing. Maybe he was just too damn tired.

Rachel stretched, swept peanut shells from her knees. “Here we are, try­ing to sec­ondguess Garza,” she said. “But what if ev­ery­body’s right?”

Mc­Far­lane glanced at her. “I don’t un­der­stand.”

“What if no­body touched the me­te­orite? What if it was some­thing else that touched the me­te­orite?”

“Some­thing else?” he replied. “But there was noth­ing else mov­ing in that room — ” He stopped abrupt­ly, re­al­iz­ing what had been trou­bling him: the sound of wa­ter.

“Give me the last six­ty sec­onds,” he said. “Quick­ly.”

He lift­ed his head to­ward the screen, search­ing for the source of the sound he’d heard. There it was, very faint­ly: a thin stream at one side, falling from above, dis­ap­pear­ing in­to the depths of the tank. He stared at it. As the ship be­gan the heavy roll, the stream of wa­ter pulled away from the bulk­head and be­gan an­gling clos­er to the me­te­orite.

“Wa­ter,” Mc­Far­lane said aloud.

Rachel looked at him cu­ri­ous­ly.

“There was a stream of wa­ter com­ing down the side of the tank. There must be a leak in the me­chan­ical door. Look, you can still see it.” He point­ed up at a nar­row stream trick­ling down the far lon­gi­tu­di­nal bulk­head. “The me­te­orite went off when that roll brought the wa­ter in con­tact with it.”

“That’s ab­surd. The me­te­orite’s been sit­ting in wa­ter­logged ground for mil­lions of years. It got rained and snowed on. It’s in­ert. How could wa­ter pos­si­bly af­fect it?”

“I don’t know, but take a look.” He re­played the video, demon­strat­ing how, at the in­stant the wa­ter con­nect­ed with the me­te­orite, the screen popped in­to snow.

“Co­in­ci­dence?” she asked.

Mc­Far­lane shook his head. “No.”

Rachel looked at him. “Sam, how could this wa­ter be dif­fer­ent from all the oth­er wa­ter that’s touched the me­te­orite?”

And then, in a mo­ment of rev­ela­tion, it be­came clear. “Salt,” he said. “It’s salt wa­ter drip­ping in­to the hold.”

Af­ter a shocked mo­ment, Rachel sud­den­ly gasped.

“That’s it,” she said. “And that’s why Tim­mer and Masangkay set it off with their hands — their sweaty hands. There was salt in their touch. But Lloyd put his cheek to it on a bit­ter­ly cold day. There was no sweat in his touch. It must be high­ly re­ac­tive to sodi­um chlo­ride. But why, Sam? What’s it re­act­ing to?”

Mc­Far­lane looked at her, then be­yond, to where the trick­le of sea­wa­ter still glis­tened in the gloom, sway­ing with the grad­ual mo­tion of the ship.

The mo­tion of the ship…

“We’ll wor­ry about that lat­er,” he said. He reached for his ra­dio, snapped it on, heard the hiss of stat­ic.

“God damn it!” he said, shov­ing the ra­dio back in his belt.

“Sam — ” Rachel be­gan.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” he in­ter­rupt­ed. “Oth­er­wise, when the next big roll comes, we’re toast.”

He stood up just as she gripped his arm.

“We can’t leave,” she said. “An­oth­er ex­plo­sion like that might break the web. If the me­te­orite gets loose, we’ll all die.”

“Then we have to keep the wa­ter from the rock.”

For a mo­ment, the two stared at each oth­er. And then, as with a sin­gle thought, they sprint­ed down the cat­walk to­ward the ac­cess tun­nel.

Almi­rante Ramirez,

2:45 P.M.

VAL­LENAR STOOD at the bridge, look­ing south­ward over the heav­ing seas, an old pair of binoc­ulars cra­dled in his hands. The of­fi­cers around him were strug­gling to re­main on their feet in the wild­ly rolling ship, their faces frozen masks of neu­tral­ity. They were ter­ri­fied. But now his regime of ab­so­lute dis­ci­pline was pay­ing off: the test had come, and those who re­mained were with him. They would fol­low him to hell, if nec­es­sary — and that, he thought as he glanced at the chart, was ex­act­ly where they were head­ing.

The snow and sleet had stopped, and the sky was clear­ing. Vis­ibil­ity was ex­cel­lent. But the wind had, if any­thing, picked up, and the seas were mount­ing ev­er high­er. When the ship sank in­to the bot­tom of the troughs, it be­came en­shroud­ed in a mid­night dark­ness, and the walls of black wa­ter ris­ing on ei­ther side made him feel as if the ship were at the bot­tom of a vast canyon. At the bot­tom of these troughs, the wave crests were an as­ton­ish­ing twen­ty me­ters above the lev­el of the bridge. He had nev­er seen a sea like this in his life, and the in­crease in vis­ibil­ity, while use­ful to his plan, made it ap­pear all the more dread­ful. The nor­mal pro­ce­dure would be to head in­to the wind and ride it out. That was not an op­tion. He had to keep a head­ing that put the wind and sea al­most on his beam; oth­er­wise, the heav­ier Amer­ican ship would es­cape.

He watched as the bow of his de­stroy­er plowed in­to the sea at the bot­tom of the long trough and came up slow­ly, the castil­lo thun­der­ous­ly shed­ding wa­ter; the ship leaned to star­board un­til the bridge was hang­ing over the open ocean, wracked with foam. Ev­ery­one grabbed a hand­hold. The bridge hung for fright­en­ing sec­onds, then slow­ly right­ed it­self, the mo­men­tum dip­ping it to port. It was an es­pe­cial­ly ug­ly roll.

Val­lenar knew the ship, knew what it could and could not do. He could feel when the wind and wa­ter took charge. They had not — at least, not yet. It would take vig­ilance, and adroit sea­man­ship, to keep the ship from founder­ing. He would do it him­self, not leave it to the con­ning of­fi­cer.

He saw a foam­ing swell loom­ing in the dis­tance, tow­er­ing over the rest, thrust­ing it­self through the storm like a whale. He spoke calm­ly, al­most non­cha­lant­ly. “Ease your rud­der to left stan­dard, star­board en­gine back one-​third, port en­gine ahead two-​thirds. Keep call­ing your head.”

“Com­ing around easy, sir,” said Aller. “Head­ing one sev­en five, head­ing one sev­en ze­ro — “

“Steady on one six five.”

The wave be­gan to take the ship in its em­brace; the Ramirez rose, strained, cant­ed. Val­lenar held on to the en­gine-​room tele­graph as they heeled sick­en­ing­ly, the in­cli­nome­ter read­ing close to forty de­grees, be­fore the wave fi­nal­ly crest­ed. For a mo­ment, he had a long view across the south­ern ocean, all the way to the hori­zon. He quick­ly fit­ted the binoc­ulars to his eyes and scanned the tu­mul­tuous sea un­til they sub­sid­ed in­to the next trough. It was a ter­ri­fy­ing sight: the mon­umen­tal peaks and val­leys of wa­ter, the ab­so­lute promis­cu­ity of chaos. It tem­porar­ily un­nerved him.

As the ship fell, he calmed him­self. They rose again, and so did Val­lenar’s binoc­ulars. He felt a sud­den lurch in his chest: there it was; a dark sil­hou­ette against the sea, bor­dered in white. It was larg­er, and clos­er, than he thought it would be. He kept the binoc­ulars trained, al­most afraid to blink, as the ship sub­sid­ed, then slow­ly be­gan to rise on the next foamwebbed moun­tain of wa­ter. As they topped it, and the comb­ing crest creamed over the port rail­ing and slant­ed the ship over, Val­lenar saw the tanker again.

“Port en­gine back one-​third. Right stan­dard rud­der. Steady on one eight ze­ro.”

Once more the deck heaved up and fell to star­board.

“What is our fu­el?”

“Thir­ty per­cent.”

He turned to the in­ge­niero de guardia, the en­gi­neer of the watch. “Bal­last the tanks.” Fill­ing the emp­ty tanks with sea­wa­ter would slow them down half a knot, but it would add a sta­bil­ity they would need for what was about to come.

“Bal­last­ing the tanks,” said the en­gi­neer, with ev­ident re­lief.

Val­lenar turned to the quar­ter­mas­ter. “Barom­eter?”

“Twen­ty-​nine point two eight, falling.”

He called his tac­ti­cal ac­tion of­fi­cer to the bridge. “We have vi­su­al con­tact with the Amer­ican ship,” he said, hand­ing the man the binoc­ulars.

The man raised them to his eyes. “I see it, sir,” he said af­ter a mo­ment.

Val­lenar turned to­ward the of­fi­cer of the deck. “It bears one nine ze­ro, or there­abouts. Have CIC give me a course to in­ter­cept.”

The or­ders were re­layed, the new course giv­en. Ev­ery­thing now was crisp, cor­rect.

Val­lenar swiveled back to the tac­ti­cal ac­tion of­fi­cer. “Re­port when we are with­in gun range. Do not en­gage with­out my or­der.”

“Yes, sir,” said the tac­ti­cal ac­tion of­fi­cer, in a care­ful­ly neu­tral tone.

The de­stroy­er be­gan to yaw as it cleared an­oth­er ug­ly wave, its prow drop­ping in­to the next trough with a rum­ble of wa­ter. The deck heaved, ca­reen­ing to star­board. The head be­gan swing­ing to port, a heavy, un­con­trolled mo­tion.

“I can’t hold her at one nine ze­ro.”

“Use full rud­der to main­tain your head­ing.”

The ship stead­ied. Val­lenar could see a ti­gre ap­proach­ing from due west.

“Ease your rud­der to stan­dard. Ease it!”

The ship be­gan a slow, dan­gling roll as it mount­ed the side of the enor­mous wave. When the wave broke, a sheet of wa­ter came rac­ing across the deck: they were ac­tu­al­ly ship­ping wa­ter on the bridge.

“Right hard rud­der! Right hard!”

The ship skid­ded side­ways.

“Rud­der’s out of the wa­ter, sir!” the helms­man cried, the wheel loose in his hands.

“Port en­gine back two-​thirds! Star­board ahead flank!”

The op­er­ator worked the en­gine tele­graph. The ship con­tin­ued side­ways.

“She’s not an­swer­ing — “

Val­lenar felt a twinge of fear — not for him­self, but for his un­com­plet­ed mis­sion — and then he felt the stern set­tle in the sea and the screws bite in­to the wa­ter.

He slow­ly re­leased his breath, then leaned in­to the squawk box as if noth­ing had hap­pened. “Re­port any air con­tacts.” No ship would be com­ing to the aid of the Amer­icans in this weath­er, he was sure of that; but he felt less sure about air­craft.

“No air con­tact out to two hun­dred miles,” re­turned the CIC. “Ice to the south.”

“What kind of ice?”

“Two large ice is­lands and as­sort­ed growlers and drift ice.”

They’re run­ning to the ice, Val­lenar thought with sat­is­fac­tion. It was a des­per­ate mea­sure, tak­ing a tanker be­low the Ice Lim­it, de­lib­er­ate­ly head­ing for the ice, in a storm like this. But it was their on­ly move, and he had ex­pect­ed it. Per­haps they thought they could play hide-​and­seek among the bergs, or es­cape un­der cov­er of dark­ness. Per­haps they were hop­ing for fog. It would not suc­ceed. On the con­trary, the ice would work to his ad­van­tage by damp­en­ing the heavy seas. And in ice, a de­stroy­er was far more ma­neu­ver­able than a tanker. He would kill them in the ice — if the ice didn’t get them first.

“Draw­ing in­to gun range, sir,” said the tac­ti­cal ac­tion of­fi­cer.

Val­lenar looked out over the storm-​tossed ocean. Now, even with­out the binoc­ulars, he could oc­ca­sion­al­ly glimpse the dark speck of the Amer­ican ship. It was per­haps eight miles away, but even at that dis­tance it made a big, fat tar­get.

“Do you have vi­su­al con­tact ac­cept­able for tar­get­ing?” he asked.

“Not yet, sir. Vi­su­al tar­get­ing will be dif­fi­cult in this sea, at this range.”

“Then we wait un­til we are clos­er.”

The min­utes dragged on as they gained, very slow­ly, on the Amer­ican ship. The sky dark­ened as the wind held steady at eighty knots. The fear that had gripped the bridge re­mained, a healthy ton­ic. The sun was set­ting. Val­lenar con­tin­ued to is­sue a stream of care­ful­ly nu­anced rud­der and en­gine in­struc­tions, re­spond­ing to the chang­ing sea. The re­pairs to the pro­pellers and rud­der were hold­ing well. The men had done a good job. Pity so many had died in the pro­cess.

Night would be falling soon, and the Rolvaag was run­ning dark. He could wait no longer. “Mr. Casseo, brack­et the tar­get. Trac­ers on­ly.”

“Yes, sir,” said the tac­ti­cal ac­tion of­fi­cer. “Load­ing trac­ers.”

Val­lenar looked down at the for­ward guns. Af­ter a minute he saw them turn, el­evate to about forty-​five de­grees, and then fire in se­quence: two bright shells. The bar­rels jerked back­ward in a gout of flame, and the bridge shook with the re­coil. Val­lenar clapped his binoc­ulars to his eyes and watched the rang­ing shots arc in­to the storm. Both fell wild, well short of the tanker.

The ship sub­sid­ed in­to an­oth­er trough, then climbed again. Once more, the for­ward guns fired trac­ers in the pause at the top of their roll. These flew far­ther, but still fell short.

The tac­ti­cal ac­tion of­fi­cer timed ad­di­tion­al shots for the wave crests, mak­ing slight ad­just­ments. Af­ter a few min­utes, he spoke again. “Co­man­dante, I be­lieve we have suf­fi­cient range da­ta to lay a line of shells across the tar­get.”

“Very well. Fire for ef­fect. I want to dis­able the ship enough to slow it down but not sink it. Then we will draw close for a clean kill.”

There was the briefest of si­lences at this.

“Yes, sir,” said the tac­ti­cal ac­tion of­fi­cer.

As the de­stroy­er rose, the guns went in­to ac­tion once again, live rounds leav­ing the bar­rels now, scream­ing south­ward in dead­ly arcs of or­ange.

Rolvaag,

3:30 P M.

MC­FAR­LANE SANK back against the bulk­head of the ob­ser­va­tion unit, ig­nor­ing the near­by chair and let­ting him­self slide down to the met­al deck. He felt ut­ter­ly drained. Count­less small mus­cles twitched spas­mod­ical­ly in his arms and legs. He could feel Rachel plop her­self down be­side him, but he felt too ex­haust­ed even to look over.

With the me­te­orite dis­rupt­ing their ra­dios, and no time to get help, they had been forced to find a so­lu­tion them­selves. Stand­ing in the ac­cess cor­ri­dor, be­hind the safe­ly closed hatch, they had fi­nal­ly come up with a work­able scheme. There were dozens of wa­ter­proof tarps in the stor­age com­part­ments be­hind them, slung over the stacks of stores. They rigged a se­ries of those tarps over the top of the web to shield the me­te­orite from sea­wa­ter. It took a half hour of fran­tic ac­tiv­ity, con­duct­ed un­der con­stant fear of an­oth­er ex­plo­sion.

Mc­Far­lane un­clipped his ra­dio, found it was still dead, and snapped it off again with a shrug. Glinn would learn all about it even­tu­al­ly. It seemed strange to Mc­Far­lane that Brit­ton, and Glinn, and the rest could have been on that bridge all this time, pre­oc­cu­pied with their own work, com­plete­ly un­aware of the cri­sis that had played out half a dozen decks be­neath them. He won­dered what the hell was go­ing on up there; the storm seemed to be get­ting worse.

He felt him­self roll back with the ship. It was on­ly a mat­ter of time un­til the stream of sea­wa­ter swerved to­ward the web once again.

They lapsed in­to si­lence. Mc­Far­lane looked over as Rachel reached in­to a breast pock­et of her shirt, pulled out a jew­el case con­tain­ing a CD-​ROM, and gave it an ap­prais­ing glance. Then, ex­hal­ing in re­lief, she re­placed the case.

“I’d for­got­ten all about that in the scram­ble,” she said. “Thank God it wasn’t dam­aged.”

“What is it?” he asked.

“Be­fore board­ing, I dumped all the da­ta from our me­te­orite tests on­to this disk,” she said. “I want to go over it again. If we get out of here alive, that is.”

Mc­Far­lane said noth­ing.

“It must have an in­ter­nal en­er­gy source,” Rachel went on. “How else could it gen­er­ate so much elec­tric­ity? If it were just a ca­pac­itor, it would have dis­charged what­ev­er elec­tric­ity it had mil­lions of years ago. It’s gen­er­at­ing the charge in­side it­self.” She tapped the disk in her pock­et. “The an­swer has to lie some­where in the da­ta.”

“What I want to know is just what kind of en­vi­ron­ment it comes from. I mean, the thing re­acts so vi­olent­ly to salt wa­ter, of all things.” Mc­Far­lane sighed. “Ah, hell. Let’s give the damn rock a rest.”

“That’s just the prob­lem,” Rachel said. “Maybe it isn’t just a rock.”

“Not your space­ship the­ory again.”

“No. Maybe it’s some­thing a lot sim­pler than a space­ship.”

Mc­Far­lane be­gan to an­swer, then stopped. The rolls of the ship were grow­ing ev­er steep­er.

Rachel too had gone silent. It was clear she knew what he was think­ing. “Must be a hell of a sea up there,” he said.

She nod­ded. “Any­time now.”

They wait­ed in si­lence as the rolls grew ev­er stronger. At last, at the very crest of a great roll, the stream of wa­ter once again part­ed from the bulk­head and an­gled through the air to­ward the tarps. Mc­Far­lane pulled him­self to his feet and stared out the win­dow of the ob­ser­va­tion unit, wait­ing. Over the rush of the ocean and the dis­tant shriek of the wind, he heard the pat­ter of wa­ter on plas­tic com­ing up from be­low. He watched it run harm­less­ly down the tarps to drip in­to the spaces be­tween the bot­tom gird­ers.

They paused, ex­pec­tant­ly, for the space of a heart­beat. Then Rachel let out a long breath.

“Looks like it worked,” she said. “Con­grat­ula­tions.”

“Con­grat­ula­tions?” Mc­Far­lane replied. “It was your idea.”

“Yeah, I know. But you fig­ured out the salin­ity an­gle.”

“On­ly through your prompt­ing.” Mc­Far­lane hes­itat­ed. “Lis­ten to us,” he went on. “We’re a god­damn mu­tu­al ap­pre­ci­ation so­ci­ety.”

De­spite his weari­ness, he found him­self grin­ning. He could al­most feel a huge weight lift­ing from his shoul­ders. They knew now what caused the ex­plo­sions. They had tak­en the nec­es­sary steps to make sure it would not hap­pen again. They were on their way home.

He looked down at Rachel, her dark hair shin­ing in the dim light. Just a few weeks ago, the thought of shar­ing this easy, com­fort­able si­lence would have been un­think­able. And yet now it seemed hard to imag­ine a time when she had not been with him, work­ing at his side — fin­ish­ing his sen­tences for him, teas­ing him, pro­vid­ing spec­ula­tion, wise­cracks, and in­sight whether they were de­sired or not.

She was lean­ing back against the tank, gaz­ing out at noth­ing as the ship went in­to an even steep­er roll, un­aware that he was look­ing at her. “Do you hear some­thing?” she asked. “I could swear I heard a dis­tant ex­plo­sion.”

But Mc­Far­lane was bare­ly lis­ten­ing. To his sur­prise, he felt him­self kneel­ing be­side her and draw­ing her near with a very dif­fer­ent feel­ing than the pas­sion that had briefly filled him in her cab­in.

She laid her head on his shoul­der.

“You know some­thing?” he said. “You’re the nicest smart-​assed, back­stab­bing as­sis­tant I’ve met in a long time.”

“Mmm. I’ll bet you say that to all the girls.”

He stroked her cheek gen­tly, then raised her lips to his as an­oth­er large wave passed by. Wa­ter splat­tered loud­ly across the tarps.

“Does this mean I get to wear your MIT ring?” she mur­mured.

“No. But you can bor­row my rock ham­mer.”

They kissed again as the ship slow­ly right­ed, then went im­me­di­ate­ly in­to an­oth­er heavy roll in the oth­er di­rec­tion.

Sud­den­ly, Mc­Far­lane drew back. Over the gen­er­al mut­ter­ing and creak­ing of the hold, over the dis­tant boom of the sea, he heard a new sound, a strange, high-​pitched creak­ing, end­ing in a metal­lic crack, loud as a gun­shot; and then an­oth­er, and an­oth­er.

He glanced quick­ly at Rachel. She looked back, her eyes wide and lu­mi­nous. The loud re­ports ceased, but the echoes still sound­ed in his ears. They wait­ed in shocked si­lence. With each fresh roll of the ship, there now arose a cho­rus of oth­er sounds: the groan­ing of steel, the creak and crack­le of splin­ter­ing wood, the tear­ing of riv­ets and welds.

Rolvaag,

3:30 P.M.

BRIT­TON WATCHED the first trac­er shell rise lazi­ly above the wracked sur­face of the sea and then fall away in a twin­kle of light. An­oth­er one fol­lowed, still drop­ping well short of their po­si­tion.

Lloyd was in­stant­ly at the win­dow. “Christ, do you be­lieve this? The son of a bitch is fir­ing at us.”

“Trac­ers,” said Glinn. “They’re get­ting our range.”

She saw Lloyd’s jaw set in a tight line.

“Mr. How­ell, hard left rud­der,” she or­dered as an­oth­er pair of trac­er shells arched over the sea, a lit­tle clos­er this time.

They watched in si­lence as more shells came on, creep­ing ev­er clos­er. And then one flashed di­rect­ly over­head, a streak of light against the dark sky.

“We’re brack­et­ed,” mur­mured Glinn. “Now they’ll open up with live rounds, walk­ing them through our po­si­tion.”

Lloyd turned on him. “What are you, a sports an­nounc­er? We need a plan, not run­ning com­men­tary. I can’t be­lieve this. Three hun­dred mil­lion and this is where you’ve brought us?”

Brit­ton spoke, quick­ly but dis­tinct­ly. “Si­lence on the bridge! Mr. How­ell, right full rud­der! En­gines emer­gen­cy astern!” In the cri­sis, she felt her thoughts be­gin to stream past with a crys­talline clar­ity. It was al­most as if some­one else was do­ing her think­ing for her. She glanced at Lloyd, stand­ing there at the cen­ter of the bridge win­dows, his beefy fin­gers twined like a knot as he looked south­ward over the ruth­less seas. How dif­fi­cult it must be to re­al­ize that mon­ey couldn’t buy ev­ery­thing — even one’s own life. How dif­fer­ent he was, in the last anal­ysis, from the man who stood be­side him.

Her eyes moved to Glinn. She found her­self be­com­ing de­pen­dent on his judg­ment now, in a way she would nev­er have al­lowed be­fore he had been proven wrong — proven hu­man, she thought.

Be­yond the two men lay the storm-​tossed sea. As night had fall­en, they had dark­ened the ship in an at­tempt to elude Val­lenar’s guns. But a huge south­ern moon, a day from full, had risen in a crys­talline night sky to thwart their hopes. To Brit­ton, it al­most looked as if it was smil­ing mock­ing­ly at them. A pan­teonero was a strange form of weath­er: it usu­al­ly end­ed in a clear night of mad­den­ing, mur­der­ous wind. In the moon­light, the moil­ing sur­face of the ocean had a ghast­ly lu­mi­nes­cence. The sur­re­al ocean con­tin­ued to launch a pro­ces­sion of gi­gan­tic break­ers past them, loom­ing above the ship, pe­ri­od­ical­ly throw­ing it in­to dark­ness deep­er than night, sub­sid­ing in huge roars as the ship broke out once again in­to the moon­light, the tum­bling white wa­ter, and the ban­shee winds.

An abrupt re­port, faint but au­di­ble above the storm, shook the bridge win­dows. Oth­ers fol­lowed in mea­sured ca­dence. Brit­ton saw a row of gey­sers climb­ing down the face of a wave to the north, one af­ter an­oth­er, head­ing to­ward the Rolvaag along the line of its for­mer course.

The great ship’s head la­bored and wal­lowed in the seas. Turn, you bitch, she thought.

Sud­den­ly, the ship bucked and shud­dered. A great bil­low of ug­ly yel­low smoke shot from the bow, hot met­al whin­ing up­ward, trail­ing stream­ers. A thun­der­ous re­port im­me­di­ate­ly fol­lowed. One of the king posts jerked in­to the air, twist­ing as it fell back, the guy wires whiplash­ing across the deck. Then the gey­sers were erupt­ing ahead of them and turn­ing wide as the fire passed their po­si­tion.

There was a death­ly mo­ment of sta­sis.

Brit­ton was the first to re­cov­er. She raised her glass­es and ex­am­ined the bow area. It ap­peared that at least one shell had ripped through the fore­cas­tle. The great ship rose on the next wave; in the bright moon­light, she could see wa­ter run­ning in­to the ex­posed chain lock­er and out a ragged hole, well above the wa­ter­line.

“Gen­er­al alarm,” she said. “Mr. How­ell, send a dam­age­con­trol team for­ward. As­sem­ble a fire team with AFFF foam and an Ex­plosime­ter. And I want a life­line rigged up along the main­deck, bow to stern.”

“Aye aye, ma’am.”

Al­most in­vol­un­tar­ily, she glanced at Glinn.

“Cut the en­gines,” he mur­mured. “Veer away from the wind. Cut ECM. Pre­tend we’re crip­pled. That will stop his fir­ing for now. Give it just five min­utes, then we’ll run again. That will force him to re­peat his range-​find­ing. We must make those ice is­lands.” She watched him step away to con­fer with his op­er­ative in low tones.

“Mr. How­ell,” she said. “All en­gines stop. Left thir­ty de­gree rud­der.” The ship con­tin­ued for­ward un­der its im­mense in­er­tia, slow­ly turn­ing.

She looked at Lloyd. His face had gone gray, as if the fir­ing had shocked him to the core. Per­haps he be­lieved he was about to die. Per­haps he was think­ing about what it would be like to be sink­ing in the cold, black, two-​mile-​deep wa­ter. She had seen that look be­fore, on oth­er ships in oth­er storms. It was not a pret­ty sight.

She dropped her gaze to the radar. It was get­ting a lot of sea re­turn, but it cleared ev­ery time the Rolvaag rose. They were now twen­ty-​five miles from the Ice Lim­it and the pair of ice is­lands. The beam sea was slow­ing down the Chilean ship by as much as a knot, but it was still clos­ing the gap steadi­ly, re­lent­less­ly. As she looked out over the boil­ing seas, she won­dered how the de­stroy­er could pos­si­bly be sur­viv­ing.

Sud­den­ly the door to the bridge burst open. And there, framed in the door­way, was Mc­Far­lane. He took a step for­ward, Rachel fol­low­ing close be­hind.

“The me­te­orite,” Mc­Far­lane said as he strug­gled for air, his face wild.

“What about the me­te­orite?” Glinn asked sharply.

“It’s break­ing free.”

Rolvaag,

3:55 P.M.

GLINN LIS­TENED as Mc­Far­lane gasped out his sto­ry, feel­ing an un­fa­mil­iar — and un­pleas­ant — sen­sa­tion of sur­prise drift over him. But it was with his usu­al, un­hur­ried econ­omy of mo­tion that he turned to­ward a tele­phone. “Sick bay? Get Garza on the horn.”

In a mo­ment, Garza’s weak­ened voice came across the line. “Yes?”

“Glinn here. The me­te­orite’s break­ing its welds. Get Stoneci­pher and the back­up team down there at once. You lead it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“There’s some­thing else,” said Mc­Far­lane. He was still strug­gling for breath.

Glinn turned.

“The rock re­acts to salt. Salt, not touch. That’s what sets it off, what killed Garza’s team. Rachel and I strapped tarps over the web. But what­ev­er you do, for God’s sake keep salt wa­ter off it. And it’s still throw­ing off a lot of ra­dio noise. Ra­dio com­mu­ni­ca­tion will be spot­ty, at least for an hour or so.

Glinn took this in, then raised the phone and spoke again to Garza. As he was fin­ish­ing, he heard a fum­bling sound on the oth­er end, fol­lowed by the nasal, an­gry voice of Bram­bell. “What’s this dev­il­ment? I for­bid this man leav­ing sick bay. He has head trau­ma, con­cus­sion, a hy­per­ex­tend­ed wrist, and — “

“No more talk, Dr. Bram­bell. I must have Garza’s ex­per­tise at what­ev­er cost.” “Mr. Glinn — “

“The life of the ship de­pends on it.” He low­ered the phone and looked at Brit­ton. “Is there any way to re­duce the ship’s list in these waves?”

Brit­ton shook her head. “In seas this heavy, bal­last shift­ing would on­ly make the ship more un­sta­ble.”

The Rolvaag con­tin­ued driv­ing south­ward, the rag­ing sea al­ter­nate­ly bury­ing its main­deck in the wa­ter, then forc­ing it sky­ward, wa­ter thun­der­ing out the scup­pers. Two of the con­tain­ers had torn free and washed over­board, and sev­er­al oth­ers were now shift­ing in their lash­ings.

“What the hell were those ex­plo­sions?” Mc­Far­lane asked Glinn.

“We were fired on by the Chilean ship.” He looked first at Mc­Far­lane, and then at Ami­ra. “Do you have any idea why salt af­fects the me­te­orite?”

“It doesn’t seem like a chem­ical re­ac­tion,” Mc­Far­lane said. “None of the me­te­orite was con­sumed in the ex­plo­sions, and there sure as hell wasn’t enough salt to gen­er­ate that kind of en­er­gy.”

Glinn looked at Ami­ra.

“It was too big an ex­plo­sion to be ei­ther a chem­ical or cat­alyt­ic re­ac­tion,” she said.

“What oth­er kind of re­ac­tion is there? Nu­cle­ar?”

“That’s one un­like­ly pos­si­bil­ity. But I think we’re not look­ing at this prob­lem from the right per­spec­tive.”

Glinn had seen this be­fore. Ami­ra’s mind had a ten­den­cy to jump out of ev­ery­one else’s groove. What re­sult­ed was ei­ther ge­nius or id­io­cy. It was one of the rea­sons he had hired her, and even at this ex­trem­ity he knew bet­ter than to ig­nore it. “How so?” he asked.

“It’s just a feel­ing. We keep try­ing to un­der­stand it from our point of view, think­ing of it as a me­te­orite. What we need to do is look at it from its point of view. Salt is im­por­tant to it, some­how — some­thing ei­ther dan­ger­ous, or… nec­es­sary.”

How­ell’s voice filled the re­sult­ing si­lence. “Cap­tain, more rang­ing shots be­ing fired from the Ramirez.” The chief mate hunched over the Doppler radar. There was a long mo­ment of si­lence, and he looked up, a grin on his face. “A snowsquall just cut us off from the Ramirez. The bas­tards can’t see us, Cap­tain. They’re run­ning blind.”

“Come right, steady on one nine ze­ro,” said Brit­ton.

Glinn moved to the GPS chart, star­ing at its ar­range­ment of green dots. The chess game was draw­ing to a close; the board was cleared of all but a few pieces. Their fate had been re­duced to a com­bi­na­tion of four fac­tors: two ships, the storm, the ice. He ex­am­ined them in­tent­ly for thir­ty min­utes, the po­si­tions of the two ships chang­ing ev­er so slight­ly, his mind in­tense­ly con­cen­trat­ed. He closed his eyes, re­tain­ing the im­age of the green dots in his mind. In that sim­plic­ity lay a dead­ly lack of op­tions. Like a chess mas­ter, he had played out in his mind each pos­si­ble se­quence of moves. All but one led to one hun­dred per­cent prob­abil­ity of fail­ure. And the prob­abil­ity of suc­cess on the last op­tion re­mained ex­ceed­ing­ly low. For this last play to suc­ceed, ev­ery­thing would have to hap­pen per­fect­ly — and on top of that, they would need luck. Glinn hat­ed luck. A strat­egy that re­quired luck was of­ten fa­tal. And now that which he hat­ed, he need­ed most of all.

He opened his eyes, fo­cus­ing im­me­di­ate­ly on the chart. The green dot rep­re­sent­ing the Rolvaag was now thir­ty min­utes from the Ice Lim­it and a few min­utes more from the two gi­gan­tic ice is­lands.

Glinn’s ra­dio chirped and he snapped it on.

“Garza here,” came the weak­ened voice over a wash of stat­ic. “In the tank. There’s a lot of ra­dio in­ter­fer­ence, don’t know how long we can talk.”

“Go on.”

“There are welds fail­ing with each roll of the ship.”

“Cause?”

“The me­te­orite’s dis­charge snapped some crit­ical points on the web and weak­ened oth­ers. Al­so, Rochefort de­signed the cra­dle for a max­imum thir­ty-​five-​de­gree roll. We’re still ten de­grees be­low the lim­it — ” For a mo­ment, the ra­dio cut out. “But of course the me­te­orite is two hun­dred and fifty per­cent heav­ier than Rochefort ini­tial­ly an­tic­ipat­ed. We might be a bit short on the en­gi­neer­ing.”

“How short?”

“Hard to say with­out — ” The ra­dio cut out a sec­ond time. “Still a cer­tain amount of ov­erengi­neer­ing was built in­to the de­sign, even be­yond dou­ble-​over­age. Stoneci­pher thinks we might be able to go a long way like this. On the oth­er hand, if some key points go, the rest could fail quick­ly.”

“I don’t like these words `might’ and `could.’”

“It’s im­pos­si­ble to be more pre­cise.”

“So how quick­ly is `quick­ly’?”

“We’d have five, ten min­utes, maybe. Maybe more.”

“And then?”

“The me­te­orite will shift. Even a few inch­es might be fa­tal, cause hull fail­ure.”

“Re­in­force those crit­ical point welds.”

There was a crack­ling pause. Glinn knew what Garza was think­ing about: what hap­pened the last time they weld­ed the cra­dle.

“Yes, sir,” Garza said fi­nal­ly.

“And keep the salt wa­ter off it.”

The on­ly an­swer was an­oth­er buzz of stat­ic.

The great ship Rolvaag drove south­ward, ev­er south­ward.

Rolvaag,

5:00 P.M.

AT THE rear of the bridge was an ob­ser­va­tion al­cove, a small area sand­wiched be­tween the ra­dio room and the chart room. Ex­cept for the tall ex­panse of win­dows, it was de­void of fur­ni­ture or dec­ora­tion. At the win­dows stood Glinn, binoc­ulars to his eyes, look­ing aft be­tween the stacks. The snowsquall, a wa­ver­ing gray line to the north, was pass­ing. It had giv­en them six­ty min­utes. They need­ed an­oth­er twen­ty. But as the bright moon­light once again lay a car­pet of il­lu­mi­na­tion across the rag­ing seas, it be­came clear that they were not go­ing to get it.

As if on cue, the Ramirez came blow­ing out of the dis­tant cur­tain of snow. It was shock­ing­ly close now, no more than four miles away, lights ablaze. Its bow rose and fell in the vi­olent sea, and he thought he could even see the for­ward guns trained on them, etched against the night sky be­hind. The Rolvaag would be as clear to them as the Ramirez was to him. There was a sud­den mur­mur on the bridge, fol­lowed by an un­bear­ably tense si­lence. Val­lenar was wast­ing no time: the for­ward guns quick­ly ad­just­ed their el­eva­tion.

Even worse, with an­oth­er gun the Ramirez be­gan fir­ing a string of white phos­pho­rus “Wil­ley Pe­ters,” which popped on and drift­ed slow­ly down, bril­liant­ly light­ing up the Rolvaag and the sea around it.

Val­lenar was me­thod­ical, not rushed. He was be­ing care­ful. He knew he had them. Glinn glanced at his gold pock­et watch. At four miles, the Ramirez would just fire away, not both­er­ing to get their range. The Rolvaag was twen­ty min­utes from the ice is­lands. They would need twen­ty min­utes of luck.

“Cross­ing the Ice Lim­it, ma’am,” said How­ell to Brit­ton.

Glinn glanced down to the sea. Even in the moon­light, he could eas­ily make out the abrupt col­or change in the wa­ter. from a deep green to a clear, al­most bluish black. He came to the front of the bridge now, search­ing the south­ern hori­zon with his binoc­ulars. He could see thin patch­es of brash ice lift­ing and falling, and as the ship rose he caught a strik­ing glimpse of the ice is­lands — two low, flat lines of turquoise. He raised his binoc­ulars and ex­am­ined them more close­ly. The one to the east was huge, per­haps twen­ty miles long; the one to the west about five. They rode steady in the wa­ter, vast still mesas above the change­able sea — so large that even this vi­olent sea could not raise and low­er them. There was a gap be­tween the is­lands of per­haps a thou­sand yards.

“No sign of fog,” said Brit­ton, com­ing up be­side him with her own binoc­ulars.

As Glinn con­tin­ued gaz­ing south­ward, a ter­ri­ble feel­ing, per­haps the most ter­ri­ble he had ev­er felt, con­strict­ed his so­lar plexus. The Ice Lim­it had not brought them cov­er. If any­thing, the sky to the south was clear­er. The bril­liant moon­light, sil­ver­ing the enor­mous waves, was like a search­light across the sea. The Wil­ley Pe­ters, slow­ly drop­ping about them, made the land­scape as bright as day. There was no place to hide. They were com­plete­ly vul­ner­able. It was in­tol­er­able, an exquisite pain unique in Glinn’s ex­pe­ri­ence.

With supreme self-​mas­tery, he once again raised the binoc­ulars and ex­am­ined the is­lands. The Ramirez was not fir­ing, tak­ing her time, sure now of the kill. Min­utes passed as his mind trav­eled back down all the dead av­enues it had ex­plored be­fore. Again and again his mind probed far­ther, deep­er down the branch­es of pos­si­bil­ity, try­ing to reach an­oth­er so­lu­tion to their prob­lem. But there were no oth­ers: just the one far-​fetched plan. The si­lence stretched on.

A shell came scream­ing down past the su­per­struc­ture, send­ing up a del­icate plume of spray. And an­oth­er, and an­oth­er, clos­ing on their po­si­tion.

He quick­ly turned to Brit­ton. “Cap­tain,” he mur­mured, “pass be­tween the two is­lands, stay­ing close to the larg­er is­land. Un­der­stand me now: as close as you pos­si­bly can. Then bring the ship in­to its lee and heave to.”

Brit­ton had not dropped her binoc­ulars. “That’s go­ing to turn us in­to a sit­ting duck as soon as he comes around the is­land. This is not a vi­able plan, Eli.”

“It’s our on­ly chance,” he an­swered. “Trust me.”

A geyser erupt­ed off their port side, and an­oth­er, the shells once again walk­ing through their po­si­tion. There was no time to turn, no point in eva­sive ac­tion. Glinn braced him­self. Tall columns of wa­ter shot up around them, mov­ing clos­er. There was a brief lull, preg­nant and ter­ri­ble. And then a ter­rif­ic ex­plo­sion jerked Glinn from his feet and threw him to the deck. Some of the bridge win­dows blew out, scat­ter­ing jew­eled shards across the deck and let­ting in the howl­ing of the wind.

As Glinn lay on the deck, half stunned, he heard — or per­haps felt — a sec­ond ex­plo­sion. And that was when the lights went out.

Rolvaag,

5:10 P.M.

THE FIR­ING stopped. Brit­ton, ly­ing amid shards of Plex­iglas, in­stinc­tive­ly lis­tened for the en­gines. They were still run­ning, but the vi­bra­tion was dif­fer­ent. Dif­fer­ent, and omi­nous. She rose shak­ily as the or­ange emer­gen­cy lights snapped on. The ship rolled with the ter­ri­fy­ing sea, and now the roar of the wind and waves, blast­ing through the bro­ken win­dows, filled her ears, along with sting­ing sheets of salt spray and gusts of sub­ze­ro air. The storm was now in­side the bridge. She stag­gered over the main con­sole, which was cov­ered with blink­ing lights, shak­ing chips of plas­tic out of her hair.

She found her voice. “Sta­tus, Mr. How­ell.”

He was al­so on his feet, punch­ing but­tons on the con­sole, speak­ing in­to the phone. “Los­ing pow­er to the port tur­bine.”

“Ten de­grees left rud­der.”

“Ten de­grees left rud­der, aye, ma’am.” How­ell spoke briefly in­to the in­ter­com. “Cap­tain, it looks like we re­ceived two hits on C deck. One in six star­board, the oth­er in the vicin­ity of the en­gine room.”

“Get dam­age con­trol on it. I need dam­age as­sess­ment and ca­su­al­ty count, and I need them now. Mr. Warn­er, start the bilge pumps.”

“Start the bilge pumps, aye, ma’am.”

An­oth­er gust of wind blast­ed through the bridge, bring­ing with it an­oth­er sheet of spray. As the tem­per­ature on the bridge dropped, the spray was start­ing to freeze on the deck and con­soles. But Brit­ton hard­ly felt the cold.

Lloyd ap­proached, shrug­ging glass from his clothes. A nasty cut across his fore­head was bleed­ing pro­fuse­ly.

“Mr. Lloyd, re­port to sick bay — ” Brit­ton be­gan au­to­mat­ical­ly.

“Don’t be ridicu­lous,” he said im­pa­tient­ly, wip­ing the blood off his brow and fling­ing it to one side. “I’m here to help.”

The blast seemed to have shocked him back to life. “Then you can get us all foul-​weath­er gear,” Brit­ton said, ges­tur­ing to­ward a stor­age lock­er at the rear of the bridge.

A ra­dio crack­led and How­ell an­swered. “Wait­ing on the ca­su­al­ty list, ma’am. Dam­age con­trol re­ports fire in the en­gine room. It was a di­rect hit.”

“Can it be con­tained with portable ex­tin­guish­ers?”

“Neg­ative. It’s spread­ing too fast.”

“Use the fixed C02 sys­tem. And I want wa­ter fog on the ex­te­ri­or bulk­heads.”

She glanced over at Glinn. He had been speak­ing ur­gent­ly to his op­er­ative at the EES con­sole. The man stood and van­ished from the bridge.

“Mr. Glinn, I need a re­port from the hold, please,” she said.

He turned to How­ell. “Patch Garza through.”

A minute lat­er, the over­head speak­er crack­led. “Je­sus, what the hell’s go­ing on?” Garza asked.

“We’ve re­ceived two more hits. What’s your sta­tus?”

“Those ex­plo­sions came on a roll. They broke ad­di­tion­al welds. We’re work­ing as fast as we can, but the me­te­orite — “

“Keep on it, Manuel. Smart­ly.”

Lloyd re­turned from the lock­er and be­gan dis­tribut­ing gear to the bridge crew. Brit­ton ac­cept­ed hers, pulled it on, and looked for­ward. The ice is­lands now loomed up, faint­ly blue in the moon­light, bare­ly two miles dis­tant, rear­ing two hun­dred feet or more out of the wa­ter, the surf tear­ing and rip­ping at their bases.

“Mr. How­ell, what is the po­si­tion of the en­emy ship?”

“Just at three miles and clos­ing. They’re fir­ing again.”

There was an­oth­er ex­plo­sion off the port beam, a geyser of wa­ter that rose, on­ly to im­me­di­ate­ly bend al­most hor­izon­tal un­der the force of the pan­teonero. Now Brit­ton could hear the dis­tant re­ports of the guns them­selves, strange­ly dis­con­nect­ed from the near­by ex­plo­sions. There was an­oth­er crash, a shud­der, and she flinched as white-​hot met­al screamed up past the bridge win­dows.

“Glanc­ing shot, main­deck,” How­ell said. He looked over at her. “The fire’s be­ing con­tained. But dam­age to both tur­bines was se­vere. The ex­plo­sion knocked out the high- and low-​pres­sure tur­bines. We’re los­ing pow­er, fast.”

She dropped her eyes and watched as the dig­ital read­out blinked the ship’s speed back at them. It dropped to four­teen knots, then thir­teen. With the drop in speed, the mo­tion of the ship be­came worse. Brit­ton could feel the storm tak­ing over, clutch­ing her ship in its an­ar­chis­tic grip. Ten knots. The big­ger waves were shov­ing it hard, side­ways, up, down, in a weird and sick­en­ing bal­let. Nev­er had she be­lieved a ship this big could be so bul­lied by the sea. She fo­cused on the con­sole.

The en­gine warn­ing lights were on. They didn’t tell her any­thing she didn’t al­ready know: be­neath her feet she felt the dis­tant thrum of the wrecked en­gines, strained, stut­ter­ing, in­ter­mit­tent. And then the lights flick­ered again as the pow­er failed and the back­up sys­tems en­gaged.

No one spoke as the great ves­sel plowed through the seas. Its great in­er­tia con­tin­ued to car­ry it for­ward, but ev­ery break­ing wave robbed an­oth­er knot or two from its for­ward mo­tion. Ramirez gained on them ev­er more quick­ly.

Brit­ton looked around at her of­fi­cers on the bridge. Ev­ery one of them looked back with pale, steady faces. The chase was over.

Lloyd broke the si­lence. Blood from his wound­ed fore­head trick­led in­to his right eye, and he blinked it away ab­sent­ly. “I guess this is it,” he said.

Brit­ton nod­ded.

Lloyd turned to Mc­Far­lane. “You know, Sam, I wish I was down in the hold right now. I’d kind of like to say good­bye to it. I sup­pose that sounds crazy. Does that sound crazy to you?” “No,” he replied. “No, it doesn’t.”

Out of the cor­ner of her eye, Brit­ton saw Glinn turn to­ward them at these words. But the man re­mained silent as the dark shad­ows of the ice is­lands slipped ev­er clos­er.

Almi­rante Ramirez,

5:15 P.M.

CEASE FIR­ING,” Val­lenar said to the tac­ti­cal ac­tion of­fi­cer. He raised his binoc­ulars and ex­am­ined the wound­ed ship. Plumes of black smoke, thick and low, were pour­ing from the stern of the tanker and bar­rel­ing across the moon­lit seas. At least two con­firmed hits, in­clud­ing what looked like a shell di­rect­ly in­to the en­gine room and ex­ten­sive dam­age to their com­mu­ni­ca­tions masts. It was bril­liant shoot­ing in seas such as this: enough to leave the ship dead in the wa­ter, ex­act­ly as he had hoped. He could al­ready see they were los­ing head­way — re­al­ly los­ing head­way. This time, there was no feint.

The Amer­ican ship was still aim­ing for the ice is­lands. They would prove a pa­thet­ic, tem­po­rary shel­ter from his guns. But the fe­male cap­tain had shown great courage. She would not sur­ren­der her ship un­til all cours­es of ac­tion had been tried. He could un­der­stand such a cap­tain. Hid­ing be­hind the is­land was a no­ble, if fu­tile, ges­ture. And, of course, for them there would be no sur­ren­der. On­ly death.

He glanced at his watch. In twen­ty min­utes, he would pull through the gap and draw up to the Rolvaag. The slack wa­ter in the lee of the ice is­lands would give him a steady plat­form for pre­cise fir­ing.

He be­gan to vi­su­al­ize the kill. There could be no er­ror, no pos­si­bil­ity of re­ver­sal. He would po­si­tion the Ramirez at least a mile away, to pre­vent more un­der­wa­ter ex­cur­sions. He would il­lu­mi­nate the en­tire area with phos­pho­rus flares. There would be no haste: the op­er­ation would be ex­ecut­ed with care. But he wouldn’t tease it out, make things un­du­ly slow; he was no sadist, and the fe­male cap­tain in par­tic­ular de­served a re­spect­ful death.

It would be best to hull her aft, he de­cid­ed; at the wa­ter­line, so she would go down by the stern. It was most im­por­tant that none es­caped to pro­vide an eye­wit­ness ac­count of what hap­pened here. He would turn the 40-mil­lime­ter guns on the first lifeboats; that would keep the rest on board un­til the end. As the ship went down, the sur­vivors would crowd in­to the fore­cas­tle, where he could bet­ter see them. He want­ed most par­tic­ular­ly to make sure the smooth one, the ly­ing cabrón, would die. This man was be­hind ev­ery­thing. If any­one had or­dered his son ex­ecut­ed, it was him.

The tanker, now slowed to five knots, was draw­ing be­tween the ice is­lands, pass­ing close to the larg­er one. Very close, in fact; per­haps the rud­der was dam­aged. The is­lands were so tall, so sheer, that the tanker ap­peared to be slip­ping in­to some mon­strous hangar of gleam­ing azure. As the Rolvaag dis­ap­peared from view be­tween them, he saw the ship be­gin a turn to port. That would take it be­hind the larg­er of the two is­lands and in­to its lee, tem­porar­ily out of the reach of his guns. It was a sad, hope­less ef­fort.

“Sonar?” he called out, drop­ping the binoc­ulars at last.

“Clear, sir.”

That was it — there was no un­ex­pect­ed un­der­wa­ter ice; it was a clean drop from the top to the root of the ice is­land. Time to fin­ish the job.

“Steady through the gap. Fol­low their course.”

He turned to the tac­ti­cal ac­tion of­fi­cer. “Await my or­ders to en­gage with the guns.”

“Aye, sir.”

Val­lenar swiveled back to the win­dows, rais­ing the binoc­ulars once again.

Rolvaag,

5:20 P.M.

THE ROLVAAG passed be­tween the ice is­lands, glid­ing in­to a tran­quil, twilit world. The wind dropped, no longer gust­ing through the bro­ken win­dows in­to the bridge. Sud­den­ly the ship was re­leased from the evil grip of the storm. Brit­ton found the sud­den si­lence in the midst of the storm un­set­tling. She stared up at the cliffs that rose up on ei­ther side, sheer as if cleaved with an ax. Be­low, at the wa­ter­line, the pound­ing surf on the wind­ward side had formed an un­der­cut of fan­tas­tic-​look­ing caves. In the moon­light, the ice shone a pure, rich blue so deep she thought it one of the most beau­ti­ful things she had ev­er seen. Fun­ny, she thought, how the near­ness of death could height­en one’s sense of beau­ty.

Glinn, who had dis­ap­peared on­to the port bridge wing, now re­turned, clos­ing the door care­ful­ly be­hind him. He ap­proached her, wip­ing flecks of spray from his shoul­ders.

“Steady as she goes,” he said qui­et­ly. “Keep the tanker’s head at this an­gle.”

She did not both­er re­lay­ing the use­less and cryp­tic di­rec­tion to How­ell.

The ship had lost even more head­way mak­ing a nine­ty-​de­gree turn be­hind the ice is­land. Now they were glid­ing par­al­lel to the ice at about a knot, still slow­ing. Once they stopped, they’d nev­er start again.

She glanced at his pro­file, at the un­read­able face. She al­most asked whether he re­al­ly thought they were go­ing to suc­cess­ful­ly hide their al­most-​quar­ter-​mile ship from the de­stroy­er. But she kept silent. Glinn had made a supreme ef­fort. There was noth­ing more he could do. In a few min­utes, the Ramirez would round the ice is­land and that would be it. She tried not to think of her daugh­ter. That was go­ing to be hard­est of all, let­ting go of her daugh­ter.

In the lee of the is­land, ev­ery­thing seemed strange­ly qui­et. There was a ter­ri­ble si­lence on the bridge: there were no longer any or­ders to give or re­ceive. The wind was gone, and the swell warp­ing around the is­land was smooth and low. The wall of ice was on­ly a quar­ter mile dis­tant. Here and there, long fis­sures ran down from its top, deep run­nels worn by icemelt and rain. She could see small wa­ter­falls feath­er­ing in­to the moon­lit sea, and hear the dis­tant crack­ing and ping­ing of the ice. Be­yond that came a dis­tant keen­ing sound of wind, rak­ing the top of the ice is­land. It was an ethe­re­al, oth­er­world­ly place. She watched an ice­berg, re­cent­ly calved off the is­land, drift away to the west. She want­ed to be there when it slow­ly melt­ed and dis­ap­peared in­to the sea. She want­ed to be any­where but here.

“It isn’t over, Sal­ly,” Glinn said qui­et­ly, so that on­ly she could hear. He was re­gard­ing her in­tent­ly.

“Yes, it is. The de­stroy­er killed all our pow­er.”

“You’ll see your daugh­ter again.”

“Please don’t say that.” She brushed away a tear.

To her sur­prise, Glinn took her hand.

“If we get through this,” he be­gan, with a hes­ita­tion for­eign to him, “I would like to see you again. May I do that? I would like to learn more about po­et­ry. Per­haps you could teach me.”

“Please, Eli. It’s eas­ier if we don’t talk.” She gave his hand a gen­tle pres­sure.

And then she saw the prow of the Ramirez nos­ing past the ice.

It was less than two miles away, slink­ing close to the blue wall of the ice is­land fol­low­ing their own wake, ap­proach­ing like a shark clos­ing on its dis­abled prey. The gun tur­rets were track­ing them with a cool de­lib­er­ation.

As Brit­ton stared out the rear­ward bridge win­dows at those guns, wait­ing for the fi­nal dead­ly fire to erupt from their bar­rels, time slowed. The space be­tween her heart­beats seemed to grow longer. She took in the scene around her: Lloyd, Mc­Far­lane, How­ell, the watch of­fi­cers, silent­ly wait­ing. Wait­ing for death in the dark cold wa­ter.

There was a pop­ping sound from the de­stroy­er, and an ar­ray of Wil­ley Pe­ters soared in­to the air, ex­plod­ing in­to a crooked line of bril­liance. Brit­ton shield­ed her eyes as the sur­face of the wa­ter, the deck of the tanker, the wall of the ice is­land, shed their col­ors un­der the ter­ri­ble il­lu­mi­na­tion. As the worst of the bright­ness eased, she squint­ed out the win­dows once again. The guns on the Ramirez low­ered their el­eva­tion, point­ing at them un­til all that could be seen were the black holes of the muz­zles. The ship was now halfway through the gap and slow­ing fast. The shoot­ing would be al­most point-​blank.

An ex­plo­sion cracked through the air, echo­ing and re­ver­ber­at­ing be­tween the is­lands. Brit­ton jerked back in­stinc­tive­ly, and felt Glinn’s hand bear down on hers. This was it, then. She mur­mured a silent prayer for her daugh­ter, and for death to be mer­ci­ful and quick.

But no burst of flame had come from the de­stroy­er’s guns. Brit­ton’s eyes scanned the scene in con­fu­sion. She saw move­ment far above.

At the top of the ice cliff above the Ramirez, splin­ters and chunks of ice were spin­ning lazi­ly in­to the air, ris­ing above four drift­ing puffs of smoke. The echoes died, and for a mo­ment the still­ness re­turned. And then the ice is­land seemed to shift. The face of the cliff above the Ramirez be­gan to slip, and the blue fis­sure opened be­tween it and the rest of the is­land, rapid­ly widen­ing; now Brit­ton could see that a gi­gan­tic piece of ice, near­ly two hun­dred feet high, was peel­ing away. The great plate of ice sep­arat­ed from the cliff and be­gan to de­scend, break­ing in­to sev­er­al pieces as it did so, in a kind of slow, ma­jes­tic bal­let. As it merged with the sea, a wall of wa­ter be­gan to rise: black at first, then green and white. High­er and high­er the wa­ter rose, pro­pelled by the great plung­ing mass of the ice, and then the sound be­gan to reach her, a min­gled ca­copho­ny of noise that grew steadi­ly in vol­ume. And still the wave mount­ed, so pre­cip­itous it be­gan break­ing over it­self even as it formed, climb­ing, break­ing, climb­ing again. The vast block of ice dis­ap­peared, driv­en be­low the sur­face by its own mo­men­tum, and the steep-​walled wave broke free and head­ed, broad­side, for the Ramirez.

There was a roar from its steam tur­bines as the de­stroy­er tried to ma­neu­ver. But in an in­stant the wave was up­on it; the de­stroy­er yawed, rose, and rose still far­ther, heel­ing, the rust red of its bow­plates ex­posed. For a sick­en­ing mo­ment it seemed to pause, slant­ing far to star­board, its two masts al­most hor­izon­tal to the sea, as the crest of the mon­strous wave foamed over it. Sec­onds ticked by as the ship hov­ered there, cling­ing to the wave, poised be­tween right­ing it­self and founder­ing. Brit­ton felt her heart pound­ing vi­olent­ly in her chest. Then the ship wa­vered and be­gan to come up­right, wa­ter shed­ding from its deck. It didn’t work, she thought; God, it didn’t work.

The right­ing move­ment slowed, the ship paused again, and then it sagged back in­to the wa­ter. There was a sigh of air from the su­per­struc­ture, jets of spray shot in all di­rec­tions, and the de­stroy­er turned over, its slimy keel rolling heav­ily to­ward the sky. There was an­oth­er, loud­er sigh; a moil­ing of wa­ter and foam and bub­bling air around the hull; and then, with hard­ly a swirl, it dis­ap­peared in­to the icy deep. There was a sec­ond brief ex­plo­sion of bub­bles, and then those, too, dis­ap­peared, leav­ing be­hind black wa­ter.

It had tak­en less than nine­ty sec­onds.

Brit­ton saw the freak­ish wave race to­ward them, spread­ing and at­ten­uat­ing as it did so.

“Hang on,” mur­mured Glinn.

Po­si­tioned length­wise to the wave, the tanker rose sharply, heeled, then came eas­ily to rest.

Brit­ton dis­en­gaged her hand from Glinn’s and raised her binoc­ulars, feel­ing the cold rub­ber against the sock­ets of her eyes. She could hard­ly com­pre­hend that the de­stroy­er was gone. Not a man, not a life raft — not even a cush­ion or bot­tle — ap­peared on the sur­face. The Almi­rante Ramirez had dis­ap­peared with­out a trace.

Glinn’s eyes were on the is­land, and she fol­lowed his gaze. There, at the edge of the ice plateau, were four dark specks: men in dry suits, cross­ing their arms over their heads, fists to­geth­er. One by one, the flares dropped in­to the sea, each with a faint hiss. Dark­ness re­turned.

Glinn raised his ra­dio.

“Op ac­com­plished,” he said qui­et­ly. “Pre­pare to re­ceive the launch.”

Rolvaag,

5:40 P.M.

PALMER LLOYD found him­self mo­men­tar­ily un­able to speak. He had been so cer­tain of im­pend­ing death that to stand here on the bridge, draw­ing breath, seemed a mir­acle. When he fi­nal­ly found his voice, he turned to Glinn. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“The chance of suc­cess was too slim. I my­self did not be­lieve it would suc­ceed.” His lips twitched briefly in an iron­ic smile. “It re­quired luck.”

In a sud­den phys­ical dis­play of emo­tion Lloyd leapt for­ward, wrap­ping Glinn in a bear hug. “Christ,” he said, “I feel like a con­demned man get­ting a re­prieve. Eli, is there any­thing you can’t do?” He found him­self cry­ing. He didn’t care.

“It’s not over yet.”

Lloyd sim­ply grinned at the man’s false mod­esty.

Brit­ton turned to How­ell. “Are we tak­ing in wa­ter?”

“Noth­ing that the bilge pumps can’t han­dle, Cap­tain. As long as we have aux­il­iary pow­er.”

“And how long is that?”

“By shut­ting down all but es­sen­tial sys­tems, with the emer­gen­cy diesel, more than twen­ty­five hours.”

“Splen­did!” Lloyd said. “We’re in fine shape. We’ll re­pair the en­gines and be on our way.” He beamed at Glinn and then Brit­ton, and then fal­tered a lit­tle. He won­dered why they looked so grim. “Is there a prob­lem?”

“We’re DIW, Mr. Lloyd,” said Brit­ton. “The cur­rent’s mov­ing us back in­to the storm.”

“DIW?”

“Dead in the wa­ter.”

“We’ve weath­ered it so far. It can’t get any worse than this. Can it?”

No one an­swered his ques­tion.

Brit­ton spoke to How­ell. “Give me sta­tus on our com­mu­ni­ca­tions.”

“All long-​range and satel­lite com­mu­ni­ca­tions down.”

“Is­sue an SOS. Raise South Geor­gia on the emer­gen­cy chan­nel six­teen.”

Lloyd felt a sud­den chill. “What’s this about an SOS?”

Again no one an­swered. Brit­ton said, “Mr. How­ell, what is the sta­tus on en­gine dam­age?”

Af­ter a mo­ment How­ell re­port­ed back. “Both tur­bines be­yond re­pair, ma’am.”

“Pre­pare for pos­si­ble evac­ua­tion of the ship.”

Lloyd could hard­ly be­lieve what he was hear­ing. “Just what the hell are you talk­ing about? Is the ship sink­ing?”

Brit­ton turned a pair of cool green eyes on him. “That’s my me­te­orite down there. I’m not leav­ing this ship.”

“No­body’s leav­ing the ship, Mr. Lloyd. We’ll on­ly aban­don ship as a last re­sort. Putting lifeboats out in­to this storm would prob­ably be sui­cide any­way.”

“For God’s sake, then, let’s not over­re­act. We can weath­er the storm and get a tow to the Falk­lands. Things aren’t that bad.”

“We have no steer­age, no head­way. Once we drift back in­to that storm, we’ll have eighty­knot winds, a hun­dred-​foot sea, and a six-​knot cur­rent all push­ing us in one di­rec­tion, to­ward the Brans­field Strait. That’s Antarc­ti­ca, Mr. Lloyd. Things are that bad.”

Lloyd felt stunned. Al­ready, he could feel a swell rolling the ship. A gust of air came in­to the bridge.

“Lis­ten to me,” he said in a low voice. “I don’t care what you have to do, or how you do it, but don’t you lose my me­te­orite. Is that un­der­stood?”

Brit­ton gave him a steady, hos­tile look. “Mr. Lloyd, right now I couldn’t give a shit about your me­te­orite. My sole con­cern is my ship and crew. Is that un­der­stood?”

Lloyd turned to Glinn, look­ing for sup­port. But Glinn had re­mained per­fect­ly silent and still, his face its usu­al mask.

“When can we get a tow?”

“Most of our elec­tron­ics are down, but we’re try­ing to raise South Geor­gia. It all de­pends on the storm.”

Lloyd broke away im­pa­tient­ly and turned to Glinn. “What’s hap­pen­ing in the hold­ing tank?”

“Garza is re­in­forc­ing the web with fresh welds.”

“And how long will that take?”

Glinn did not an­swer. He did not need to; be­cause now Lloyd could feel it, too. The mo­tion of the ship was grow­ing worse — ghast­ly, slow rolls that took for­ev­er to com­plete. And at the top of each roll, the Rolvaag cried in pain: a deep groan­ing that was half sound and half vi­bra­tion. It was the dead hand of the me­te­orite.

Rolvaag,

5:45 P.M.

HOW­ELL EMERGED from the ra­dio room and spoke to Brit­ton. “We’ve got South Geor­gia, ma’am,” he said.

“Very good. Put them on voice, please.”

The bridge in­ter­com came to life. “South Geor­gia to tanker Rolvaag, ac­knowl­edged.” The voice was tin­ny and faint, and Brit­ton could rec­og­nize a Home Coun­ties ac­cent bare­ly rec­og­niz­able through the stat­ic.

She picked up a trans­mit­ter and opened the chan­nel. “South Geor­gia, this is an emer­gen­cy. We are severe­ly dam­aged, with­out propul­sion, re­peat, with­out propul­sion. We’re drift­ing south-​south­east­ward at a rate of nine knots.”

“Ac­knowl­edged, Rolvaag. State your po­si­tion.”

“Our po­si­tion is 61°1512 South, 60°533 West.”

“Ad­vise as to your car­go. In bal­last or oil?”

Glinn glanced up at her, a sharp look. Brit­ton closed the chan­nel.

“From this point on,” Glinn said, “we be­gin telling the truth. Our truth.”

Brit­ton turned back to the trans­mit­ter. “South Geor­gia, we’re con­vert­ed to an ore car­ri­er. We’re ful­ly load­ed with, ah, a me­te­orite, mined on the Cape Horn is­lands.”

There was an­oth­er si­lence.

“Did not copy, Rolvaag. Did you say me­te­orite?”

“Af­fir­ma­tive. Our car­go is a twen­ty-​five-​thou­sand-​ton me­te­orite.”

“A me­te­orite of twen­ty-​five thou­sand tons,” the voice re­peat­ed im­pas­sive­ly. “Rolvaag, please ad­vise as to your in­tend­ed des­ti­na­tion.”

Brit­ton knew this was a sub­tle way of ask­ing, What the hell are you do­ing down here?

“We’re head­ed for Port Eliz­abeth, New Jer­sey.”

There was an­oth­er si­lence. Brit­ton wait­ed, winc­ing in­ward­ly. Any knowl­edge­able mariner would know there was some­thing very wrong with this sto­ry. Here they were, two hun­dred miles off the Brans­field Straits, well in­to a ma­jor storm. And yet this was their first dis­tress call.

“Er, Rolvaag, may I ask if you have the lat­est weath­er re­port?”

“Yes, we do.” But she knew he would give it to her any­way.

“Winds in­creas­ing to a hun­dred knots by mid­night, seas top­ping forty me­ters, all of Drake Pas­sage un­der a Force 15 storm warn­ing.”

“It’s al­most Force 13 now,” she replied.

“Un­der­stood. Please de­scribe the na­ture of your dam­age.”

Make it good, Glinn mur­mured.

“South Geor­gia, we were at­tacked with­out warn­ing by a Chilean war­ship in in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters. Shells struck our en­gine room, fore­cas­tle, and main­deck. We have lost head­way and steer­age. We are DIW, re­peat, Delta In­dia Whiskey.”

“Good Lord. Are you still un­der at­tack?”

“The de­stroy­er struck an ice­berg and sank thir­ty min­utes ago.”

“This is ex­traor­di­nary. Why…?”

This was not a prop­er ques­tion to ask dur­ing an emer­gen­cy dis­tress call. But again, this was a most un­usu­al emer­gen­cy. “We have no idea why. The Chilean cap­tain seems to have been act­ing alone, with­out or­ders.”

“Did you iden­ti­fy the war­ship?”

“The Almi­rante Ramirez, Emil­iano Val­lenar, CO.”

“Are you tak­ing in wa­ter?”

“Noth­ing our bilge pumps can’t han­dle.”

“Are you in im­mi­nent dan­ger?”

“Yes. Our car­go could shift at any mo­ment and the ship might founder.”

“Rolvaag, please stand by.”

There was a six­ty-​sec­ond si­lence.

“Rolvaag, we ful­ly ap­pre­ci­ate your sit­ua­tion. We have SAR as­sets stand­ing by here and at the Falk­lands. But we can­not, I re­peat, we can­not un­der­take a search and res­cue un­til the storm abates to Force 10 or less. Do you have satel­lite com­mu­ni­ca­tions?”

“No. Most of our elec­tron­ics are down.”

“We will ad­vise your gov­ern­ment of your sta­tus. Is there any­thing else we can do?”

“Just a tow, as soon as pos­si­ble. Be­fore we end up on the Brans­field reefs.”

There was a whis­per of stat­ic. Then the voice re­turned. “Good luck, Rolvaag. God bless.”

“Thank you, South Geor­gia.”

Brit­ton re­placed the trans­mit­ter, leaned on the con­sole, and stared out in­to the night.

Rolvaag,

6:40 P.M.

AS THE Rolvaag drift­ed out of the lee of the ice is­land, the wind caught it and shoved it bru­tal­ly back in­to the storm. The wind gath­ered force, and in mo­ments they were soaked again with freez­ing spray. Sal­ly Brit­ton could feel that the ship, with no head­way left, was com­plete­ly at the mer­cy of the storm. It was a re­pul­sive, help­less feel­ing.

The storm be­gan to strength­en with a clock­work reg­ular­ity. Brit­ton watched it build, minute by minute, un­til it reached an in­ten­si­ty she bare­ly be­lieved pos­si­ble. The moon had fall­en be­hind thick clouds, and noth­ing could be seen be­yond the bridge. The storm was there, in­side the bridge, all around them: in the lash­ings of spray, in the bits of ra­zor­sharp ice whip­ping through, in the smell of death at sea crowd­ing in. But it was the sound that un­nerved her most: a con­tin­uous dull roar that seemed to come from all di­rec­tions at once. The tem­per­ature on the bridge was nine­teen de­grees Fahren­heit and she could feel ice build­ing in her hair.

She con­tin­ued to re­ceive reg­ular re­ports of their sta­tus, but found her­self is­su­ing few or­ders. With­out pow­er or steer­age there was lit­tle she could do but wait. The feel­ing of help­less­ness was nigh un­bear­able. Based on the mo­tion of the ship, she es­ti­mat­ed sig­nif­icant wave heights at well over one hun­dred feet, and they were mov­ing as pow­er­ful­ly as a freight train. These were the waves that cir­cled the globe, pushed by the winds, nev­er hit­ting shore, build­ing, ev­er build­ing. These were the waves of the Scream­ing Six­ties, the biggest seas on earth. On­ly the sheer size of the Rolvaag was sav­ing it now. As the ship rose on each wave, the winds climbed to a gib­ber­ing wail. At the peak of the wave the whole su­per­struc­ture would vi­brate and hum, as if the winds were at­tempt­ing to de­cap­itate the ship. Then there would be a shud­der, and the ship would heel, slow­ly, aching­ly. The wave-​by-​wave bat­tle was record­ed by the in­cli­nome­ter: ten, twen­ty, twen­ty-​five de­grees. As the an­gle be­came crit­ical, all eyes stared at this nor­mal­ly in­signif­icant in­stru­ment. Then the crest of the wave would pass and Brit­ton would wait for the ship to re­cov­er: the most ter­ri­ble mo­ment of all. But each time the ship did re­cov­er, first im­per­cep­ti­bly, then more quick­ly, grad­ual­ly right­ing in­to an equal­ly un­nerv­ing over­cor­rec­tion, as its great in­er­tia caused it to lean mo­men­tar­ily against the wave. It would slide in­to the next trough, shield­ed by the sur­round­ing moun­tains of wa­ter, in­to an eerie still­ness al­most more fright­en­ing than the storm above. The pro­cess would re­peat again, and again, in an end­less, cru­el ca­dence. Through­out all this, there was noth­ing she — or any of them — could do.

Brit­ton turned on the for­ward su­per­struc­ture spot­lights to check the Rolvaag’s main­deck. Most of the con­tain­ers and sev­er­al davits had been torn from their moor­ings and swept over­board, but the me­chan­ical door and the tank hatch­es were sol­id. The ves­sel was still tak­ing in wa­ter from the shell hole near the king posts, but the bilge pumps were com­pen­sat­ing. The Rolvaag was a well-​built, sea­wor­thy ves­sel; it would be weath­er­ing the storm nice­ly — were it not for the mon­strous weight in her bel­ly.

By sev­en, the storm had reached Force 15, with gusts up to one hun­dred knots. When the ship topped a wave, the force of the wind com­ing through the bridge threat­ened to suck them out in­to the dark­ness. No storm could keep up this kind of vi­olence for long. Soon, Brit­ton hoped, it would be­gin to break. It had to.

She kept check­ing the sur­face scopes, ir­ra­tional­ly, look­ing for a con­tact that might in­di­cate a res­cue. But they were streaked with grass, giv­ing most­ly sea re­turn. At the crest of each wave, they cleared long enough to show a growler field — small bergs — about eight miles ahead. Be­tween the ship and the growler field lay a sin­gle ice is­land, small­er than those they had passed but sev­er­al miles long nev­er­the­less. As the ship was pushed deep­er in­to the ice, the waves would mit­igate; but, of course, then there would be more ice to deal with.

The GPS, at least, was steady and clear. They were about one hun­dred and fifty miles north­west of the South Shet­land Is­lands, an un­in­hab­it­ed row of fan­glike moun­tains stick­ing up from the Antarc­tic seas, sur­round­ed by reefs and rip­ping cur­rents. Be­yond lay the Brans­field Strait, and, be­yond that, pack ice and the bru­tal coast of Antarc­ti­ca. As they drew clos­er to the coast, the seas would drop but the cur­rents would get worse. One hun­dred and fifty miles… if South Geor­gia could launch a res­cue at 6 A.M…. It all de­pend­ed on that thing down in the hold.

She thought of ask­ing Glinn for a progress re­port. But then she re­al­ized she did not want a re­port. Glinn had been as silent as she, and she won­dered just what was go­ing through his mind. She, at least, could read the move­ment of the ship. For the oth­ers it must be sim­ple, sheer ter­ror.

The ship rolled; a fright­en­ing roll. But as the roll ap­proached the apex, she felt an odd hitch, a catch, to it. At the same time, Glinn raised his ra­dio to his ear, lis­ten­ing in­tent­ly. He saw her look.

“It’s Garza,” he said. “I can’t hear him over the storm.”

She turned to How­ell. “Patch him through. Max­imum gain.”

Sud­den­ly Garza’s voice boomed through the bridge. “Eli!” he was call­ing. The am­pli­fi­ca­tion gave the pan­ic in his voice a ragged, des­per­ate edge. In the back­ground, Brit­ton could hear the groan and screech of tor­tured met­al.

“Here.”

“We’re los­ing the pri­ma­ry cross­pieces!”

“Stick with it.”

Brit­ton won­dered at Glinn’s calm, steady voice.

The ship be­gan to heel again.

“Eli, the whole thing’s un­rav­el­ing faster than we can keep up with — ” The ship heeled far­ther, and an­oth­er scream of met­al drowned out Garza’s voice.

“Manuel,” said Glinn. “Rochefort knew what he was do­ing when he de­signed that web. It’s much stronger than you think. Take it one step at a time.”

Still the ship slant­ed.

“Eli, the rock — It’s mov­ing! I can’t — ” The ra­dio went dead.

The ship paused, shud­dered through­out its frame, then slow­ly be­gan to right it­self. Brit­ton felt that lit­tle hitch again, like a pause, al­most as if the ship had caught on some­thing for a mo­ment.

Glinn kept his eyes to the speak­er. Af­ter a mo­ment, it crack­led once again. Garza’s voice came back on. “Eli? Are you there?”

“Yes.”

“I think the thing shift­ed slight­ly, but it came back in­to place.”

Glinn al­most smiled. “Manuel, do you see how you’re over­re­act­ing? Don’t pan­ic. Fo­cus on the crit­ical points and let the oth­ers go. Triage the sit­ua­tion. There’s a tremen­dous amount of re­dun­dan­cy built in­to that web. Dou­ble over­age. Re­mem­ber that.”

“Yes, sir.”

The ship be­gan an­oth­er roll; a slow, screech­ing, ag­oniz­ing mo­tion. Again she felt the pause, and then she felt some­thing new, dif­fer­ent in the mo­tion… Some­thing ug­ly. Brit­ton looked at Glinn, then at Lloyd. She could see that they hadn’t no­ticed. When the me­te­orite had moved, she could feel how it af­fect­ed the en­tire ship. The mas­sive Rolvaag had al­most piv­ot­ed on the crest of that last wave. She won­dered if it was her imag­ina­tion. She wait­ed while the ship sank down in­to the un­nat­ural peace of the trough, then be­gan to rise again. She turned on the main­deck lights and sealights: she want­ed to see the con­for­ma­tion of the ship on the wa­ter. It was ris­ing, shud­der­ing as if to shake off its bur­den, the heavy black wa­ter surg­ing off its sides and out the scup­pers. As they came up the thing in the hold be­gan to groan again; slow­ly, the ship reared up the long face of the wave, shiv­er­ing as it rose in­to the wind. The bow broke through the top­most comb of wa­ter, and the groan­ing be­came a shriek of protest­ing met­al and tim­ber, echo­ing through the bones of the ship. There it was: the Rolvaag made that same ug­ly mo­tion at the top, a yaw that al­most be­came a piv­ot, then a ly­ing back down in the wa­ter. There was a hes­ita­tion be­fore it re­cov­ered — and that was the worst of all.

Once, on a ter­ri­ble storm off the Grand Banks, she had seen a ship break its back. The hull had come apart with a hor­rif­ic noise; black wa­ter had boiled in, in­stant­ly flood­ing the ship’s deep­est com­part­ments. No­body had a chance to get off: all were sucked down in­to the deep. It was a sight that still dis­turbed her sleep to this day.

She glanced at How­ell. He had no­ticed the slow re­cov­ery, too: he was star­ing at her, frame rigid, round eyes white in a death­ly pale face. She had nev­er seen him so fright­ened. “Cap­tain…” he be­gan, his voice break­ing.

She ges­tured him silent. She knew what he was go­ing to say. It was her du­ty to say it.

She glanced at Glinn. His face re­mained strange­ly con­fi­dent and serene. She had to look away. For all his knowl­edge, the man did not know the feel of a ship.

The Rolvaag was on the verge of break­ing up.

They be­gan to sub­side in­to an­oth­er trough, the wind abrupt­ly drop­ping to ze­ro. She took the op­por­tu­ni­ty to look around the bridge: Lloyd, Mc­Far­lane, Ami­ra, Glinn, How­ell, Banks, the oth­er of­fi­cers of the watch. All silent. All watch­ing her. All wait­ing for her to do some­thing, to keep them alive.

“Mr. Lloyd,” she said.

“Yes?” He stepped over, ea­ger to help.

This was go­ing to be hard.

A hideous shud­der rat­tled the con­soles and win­dows as the ship took a ma­jor cross-​swell. When the sound eased as the ship slipped back down, Brit­ton could breathe again. “Mr. Lloyd,” she said again. “The me­te­orite must go.”

Rolvaag,

7:00 P.M.

ON THESE words, Mc­Far­lane felt a queer feel­ing in his gut. A gal­van­ic charge seemed to spread through his body. Nev­er. It was im­pos­si­ble. He tried to shake off the sea­sick­ness and fear of the last har­row­ing min­utes.

“Ab­so­lute­ly not,” he heard Lloyd say. The words were qui­et, bare­ly au­di­ble above the roar of the sea. Nev­er­the­less, they car­ried a tremen­dous force of con­vic­tion. A hush fell on the bridge as the ship went deep­er in­to the preter­nat­ural calm of the trough.

“I am the cap­tain of this ship,” Brit­ton said qui­et­ly. “The lives of my crew de­pend on it. Mr. Glinn, I or­der you to trig­ger the dead man’s switch. I or­der it.”

Af­ter the briefest of hes­ita­tions, Glinn turned to­ward the EES con­sole.

“No!” screamed Lloyd, seiz­ing Glinn’s arm in a pow­er­ful grip. “You touch that com­put­er and I’ll kill you with my bare hands.”

With a short, sharp mo­tion, Glinn twist­ed out of the grip, throw­ing Lloyd off bal­ance. The big man stum­bled, then drew him­self up, pant­ing. The ship slant­ed again and a metal­lic groan ran through the length of the hull. All move­ment stopped as ev­ery­one clung to the near­est hand­hold.

“You hear that, Mr. Lloyd?” Brit­ton cried over the sound of protest­ing met­al. “That son of a bitch down there is killing my ship!”

“Glinn, stay away from that key­board.”

“The cap­tain has giv­en an or­der,” How­ell shout­ed, his voice high.

“No! On­ly Glinn has the key, and he won’t do it! He can’t, not with­out my per­mis­sion! Eli, do you hear me? I or­der you not to ini­ti­ate the dead man’s switch.” Lloyd moved sud­den­ly to the EES com­put­er, block­ing it with his body.

How­ell turned. “Se­cu­ri­ty! Seize this man and re­move him from the bridge.”

But Brit­ton held up a hand. “Mr. Lloyd, step away from the com­put­er. Mr. Glinn, ex­ecute my com­mand.” The ves­sel had be­gun to heel still far­ther, and a ter­ri­fy­ing crack­le shot through the ship’s steel, ris­ing in pitch to a muf­fled howl of tear­ing met­al, abrupt­ly cut off as they be­gan to right.

Lloyd gripped the com­put­er, his eyes wild. “Sam!” he cried, his wild eyes seiz­ing on Mc­Far­lane.

Mc­Far­lane had been watch­ing, dumb­struck, al­most par­alyzed with con­flict­ing emo­tions: ter­ror for his life, de­sire for the rock and its bound­less mys­ter­ies. He would rather go down with it than give it up now. Al­most.

“Sam!” Lloyd was al­most plead­ing now. “You’re the sci­en­tist here. Tell them about all the re­search you did, the is­land of sta­bil­ity, the new el­ement…” He was be­com­ing in­co­her­ent. “Tell them why it’s so im­por­tant. Tell them why they can’t dump the rock!”

Mc­Far­lane felt his throat con­strict — and re­al­ized, for the first time, how ut­ter­ly ir­re­spon­si­ble it had been to take the rock to sea. If it sank now, it would drive it­self deep in­to the abyssal mud of the ocean bot­tom, two miles down, nev­er to be seen again. The loss to sci­ence would be catas­troph­ic. It was un­think­able.

He found his voice. “Lloyd’s right. It might be the most im­por­tant sci­en­tif­ic dis­cov­ery ev­er made. You can’t let it go.”

Brit­ton turned to him. “We no longer have a choice. The me­te­orite is go­ing to the bot­tom — no mat­ter what we do. So that leaves us with on­ly one ques­tion. Are we go­ing to let it take us with it?”

Rolvaag,

7:10 P.M.

MC­FAR­LANE LOOKED at the faces around him: Lloyd, tense and ex­pec­tant; Glinn, veiled and un­read­able; Rachel, clear­ly as con­flict­ed as he was; Brit­ton, an ex­pres­sion of ut­ter con­vic­tion on her face. It was a hag­gard group, ice crys­tal­liz­ing in their hair, faces raw and bleed­ing with the cuts of the fly­ing ice.

“We can aban­don ship in­stead,” Lloyd said, his voice pan­icky. “Hell, let the ship drift with­out us. It’s drift­ing any­way. Maybe it’ll sur­vive on its own. We don’t have to jet­ti­son the rock.”

“It’s close to sui­cide to launch lifeboats in this sea,” Brit­ton replied. “It’s be­low ze­ro out there, for God’s sake.” “We can’t just drop it,” Lloyd con­tin­ued, des­per­ate now. “It would be a crime against sci­ence. This is all an over­re­ac­tion. We’ve al­ready been through so much. Glinn, for God’s sake, tell her she’s over­re­act­ing.”

But Glinn said noth­ing.

“I know my ship,” was all Brit­ton said.

Lloyd veered wild­ly be­tween threats and pleas. Now he turned back to Mc­Far­lane. “There must be some­thing. Some way, Sam! Tell them again about the val­ue to sci­ence, about the ir­re­place­able…”

Mc­Far­lane looked at Lloyd’s face. It was ghast­ly in the or­ange emer­gen­cy lights. He strug­gled against his own nau­sea, fear, and cold. They couldn’t let it go. He seemed sus­pend­ed: he thought of Nestor, and what it meant to die, and he thought of sink­ing in the cold dark bot­tom­less wa­ter — and sud­den­ly he was very, very afraid of death. The fear surged over him, tem­porar­ily usurp­ing the in­tel­lec­tu­al func­tion­ing of his brain.

“Sam! Je­sus Christ, tell them!”

Mc­Far­lane tried to speak, but the wind had risen and his words were lost in the howl. “What?” Lloyd cried. “Ev­ery­one, lis­ten to Sam! Sam — “

“Let it go,” Mc­Far­lane said.

An in­cred­ulous look filled Lloyd’s face, and he was tem­porar­ily speech­less.

“You heard her,” Mc­Far­lane said. “It’s go­ing to the bot­tom re­gard­less. The fight’s over.” A feel­ing of hope­less­ness swept over him. He felt a warmth at the cor­ners of his eyes and re­al­ized it was tears. Such a waste, such a waste…

Abrupt­ly, Lloyd turned, aban­don­ing Mc­Far­lane for Glinn. “Eli? Eli! You’ve nev­er failed me be­fore, there’s al­ways been some­thing in that bag of tricks. Help me here, I beg you. Don’t let them drop the rock.”

His voice had tak­en on a pa­thet­ic, be­seech­ing tone. The man was un­rav­el­ing be­fore their eyes.

Glinn said noth­ing as the ship be­gan to roll again. Mc­Far­lane fol­lowed Brit­ton’s eyes to the in­cli­nome­ter. All talk ceased as the wind shrieked through the bro­ken bridge win­dows. Then the ter­ri­ble sound be­gan again. The Rolvaag hes­itat­ed, thir­ty de­grees on its side, ev­ery­one cling­ing des­per­ate­ly, the ves­sel wal­low­ing broad­side to. Mc­Far­lane gripped a bulk­head rail. The ter­ror he felt was now help­ing to clear his mind, sweep­ing away his re­gret. All he want­ed to do was get rid of it.

“Re­cov­er,” he heard Brit­ton mur­mur. “Re­cov­er.”

The ship re­mained heeled stub­born­ly to port. The bridge hung so far out over the side of the ship that Mc­Far­lane could see noth­ing but black wa­ter be­low the win­dows. He was swept with a feel­ing of ver­ti­go. And then, with an im­mense shud­der, it grad­ual­ly be­gan to right.

As soon as the deck lev­eled, Lloyd let go of the com­put­er, his face torn with a mix­ture of hor­ror, rage, and frus­tra­tion. Mc­Far­lane could see the same ter­ror work­ing in him, clear­ing his mind as well, il­lu­mi­nat­ing the sole ra­tio­nal course left them.

“All right,” Lloyd fi­nal­ly said. “Let it go.” He buried his face in his hands.

Brit­ton spoke to Glinn. “You heard him. Get rid of it, now.” Re­lief sound­ed clear­ly through the ten­sion in her voice.

Slow­ly, al­most me­chan­ical­ly, Glinn sat down at the EES con­sole. He placed his fin­gers on the key­board. Then he glanced at Mc­Far­lane. “Tell me, Sam. If the me­te­orite re­acts to salin­ity, what will hap­pen when it hits the open ocean un­der­neath the ship?”

Mc­Far­lane start­ed. In all the may­hem, he had not stopped to con­sid­er this. He thought quick­ly.

“Sea­wa­ter is a con­duc­tor,” he replied. “The me­te­orite’s dis­charge will be at­ten­uat­ed through it.”

“Are you sure it won’t blow up the ship?”

Mc­Far­lane hes­itat­ed. “No.”

Glinn nod­ded. “I see.”

They wait­ed. There was no sound of typ­ing. Glinn sat hunched over the key­board, mo­tion­less.

Si­lence fell again as the ship sub­sid­ed in­to an­oth­er trough.

Glinn half turned his head, fin­gers still poised over the keys. “This is an un­nec­es­sary step,” he said qui­et­ly. “And it is al­so too dan­ger­ous.”

His long white hands fell away from the keys, and he stood up slow­ly to face them. “The ship will sur­vive. Rochefort’s work has nev­er failed. There is no need to use the dead man’s switch. In this in­stance, I am in agree­ment with Mr. Lloyd.”

There was a mo­ment of shocked si­lence.

“When the me­te­orite comes in­to con­tact with sea­wa­ter, the ex­plo­sion could sink the ship,” Glinn went on.

“I told you, the charge will be dis­persed through the sea­wa­ter,” said Mc­Far­lane.

Glinn pursed his lips. “So you think. We can’t risk dam­ag­ing the jet­ti­son doors. If they can’t be closed, the tank will flood.”

Brit­ton spoke: “What’s cer­tain is that if the me­te­orite isn’t jet­ti­soned, the Rolvaag will go down. Eli, don’t you un­der­stand? We aren’t go­ing to last a dozen more rolls.”

The ship be­gan to rise on the next wave.

“Sal­ly, you’re the last per­son I’d ex­pect to pan­ic.” Glinn’s voice was calm, con­fi­dent. “We can ride this out.”

Brit­ton took an au­di­ble breath. “Eli, I know my ship. It’s over, for God’s sake. Can’t you see that?”

“Not at all,” said Glinn. “The worst has passed. Trust me.”

The word trust hung in the air as the ship rolled far­ther and far­ther. The bridge seemed to have been shocked in­to paral­ysis, ev­ery eye on Glinn. And still the ship rolled.

Garza’s voice came on the speak­er, faint now, fad­ing in and out “Eli! The web is fail­ing! Did you hear me? Fail­ing!”

Glinn wheeled to­ward the mi­cro­phone. “Stay with it, man. I’ll be down there in a mo­ment.”

“Eli, the foun­da­tion of the cra­dle is be­ing rocked to pieces. There’s met­al ev­ery­where. I’ve got to get the men out of here. “

“Mr. Garza!” Brit­ton spoke in­to the ship’s in­ter­com. “This is the cap­tain speak­ing. Are you fa­mil­iar with the dead man’s switch?”

“I built it.”

“Then trig­ger it.”

Glinn stood, im­pas­sive. Mc­Far­lane watched him, try­ing to un­der­stand this sud­den change. Was Glinn right? Could the ship — the me­te­orite — sur­vive? Then he glanced at the faces of the of­fi­cers. The ab­ject ter­ror in their eyes told him a dif­fer­ent sto­ry. The ship poised at the crest of the wave, twist­ed, groaned, sank back again.

“The dead man’s switch must be ini­ti­at­ed from the EES com­put­er on the bridge,” said Garza. “Eli has the codes..”

“Can you do it man­ual­ly?” Brit­ton asked.

“No. Eli! For God’s sake, hur­ry. We don’t have much time be­fore this thing rolls right through the side of the ship.”

‘Mr. Garza,” Brit­ton said. “Or­der your men to their aban­don sta­tions.”

Glinn spoke: “Garza, I con­tra­vene that or­der. We won’t fail. Stay at your work.”

“No way, sir. We’re evac­uat­ing.” The ra­dio went dead.

Glinn looked pale. He glanced around the bridge. The ship sub­sid­ed in­to a trough, and si­lence fell.

Brit­ton stepped to­ward Glinn and put her hand light­ly on his shoul­der. “Eli,” she said. “I know you have it in you to ad­mit fail­ure. I know you’ve got courage enough to do that. Right now you’re the on­ly one with the pow­er to save us and this ship. Ex­ecute the dead man’s switch, please.”

Mc­Far­lane watched as she stretched out her oth­er hand and clasped Glinn’s. He seemed to wa­ver.

Sud­den­ly, silent­ly, Pup­pup re­turned to the bridge. He was stream­ing wet, dressed once again in his old rags. There was a strange ex­cite­ment in his face, an ex­pectan­cy, that chilled Mc­Far­lane.

Glinn smiled and squeezed Brit­ton’s hand. “What non­sense. Sal­ly, I re­al­ly ex­pect­ed more of you. Don’t you see we can’t fail? We’ve planned far too care­ful­ly for that. There’s no need to in­voke the dead man’s switch. In fact, un­der the cir­cum­stances, it would be dan­ger­ous to do so.” He looked around. “I don’t blame any of you. This is a com­plex sit­ua­tion, and fear is an un­der­stand­able re­ac­tion. But you have to con­sid­er what I’ve just brought you through, vir­tu­al­ly sin­gle-​hand­ed­ly. I can promise you, the web will hold, and the ship will weath­er the storm. We’re cer­tain­ly not go­ing to end it here — not be­cause of a re­gret­table fail­ure of nerve.”

Mc­Far­lane wa­vered, feel­ing a surge of hope. Maybe Glinn was right. The man was so per­sua­sive, so con­fi­dent. He had suc­ceed­ed un­der the most un­like­ly cir­cum­stances. He saw that Lloyd, too, looked ea­ger, want­ing to be con­vinced.

The ship rose. It heeled. All talk ceased as ev­ery­one clung for their lives to what­ev­er hand­holds they could find. The screech­ing cho­rus of warp­ing, tear­ing met­al be­gan anew, ris­ing in vol­ume un­til it drowned out even the rage of the storm. At that mo­ment, Mc­Far­lane re­al­ized, ut­ter­ly and com­plete­ly, just how wrong Glinn was. At the crest, the ship shook as if it were in an earth­quake; the emer­gen­cy lights flick­ered.

Af­ter an ag­oniz­ing mo­ment, the ship right­ed it­self and fell over the crest of the wave. The wind howled once about the bridge and was cut off.

“You’re wrong this time, Glinn, you son of a bitch,” said Lloyd, ter­ror back in full force. “Throw the switch.”

Glinn smiled, al­most to the point of sneer­ing. “Sor­ry, Mr. Lloyd. I’m the on­ly one who has the codes, and once again I will save your me­te­orite for you, de­spite your­self.”

Sud­den­ly Lloyd rushed at Glinn, a stran­gled cry ris­ing in his throat. Glinn sidestepped him light­ly, and with the briefest flick of the heel of one hand sent Lloyd crash­ing to the deck, gasp­ing heav­ily.

Mc­Far­lane took a step to­ward Glinn. The man turned on him light­ly, poised. His eyes re­mained as im­pen­etra­ble, as opaque, as ev­er. Mc­Far­lane re­al­ized that Glinn wasn’t go­ing to change his mind. He was a man who couldn’t fail, and he would die prov­ing it.

Brit­ton glanced to­ward the chief mate. One look at her face told Mc­Far­lane she had reached the same de­ci­sion.

“Mr. How­ell,” she said. “All hands to aban­don sta­tions. We will aban­don ship.”

Glinn’s eyes nar­rowed slight­ly in sur­prise, but he re­mained silent.

How­ell turned to Glinn. “You’re giv­ing us a death sen­tence, forc­ing us out in that storm in lifeboats, you crazy bas­tard.”

“I may be the on­ly sane one left on the bridge.”

Lloyd pulled him­self painful­ly from the deck as the ship strug­gled once again to rise. He did not look at Glinn. Glinn turned and, with­out an­oth­er word, left the slant­ing bridge.

“Mr. How­ell,” Brit­ton said. “Ini­ti­ate a 406 MHz bea­con, and get all hands to the boats. If I’m not back in five min­utes, you will as­sume the du­ties of mas­ter.”

Then she, too, turned and van­ished.

Rolvaag,

7:35 P.M.

ELI GLINN stood on the iron cat­walk above num­ber three cen­ter tank. He heard a clang­ing noise as Pup­pup dogged the hatch of the ac­cess cor­ri­dor shut. He felt a small twinge of grat­itude for the In­di­an. He had been loy­al to the last, when ev­ery­one else — even Sal­ly — had failed him.

The hys­te­ria he had wit­nessed on the bridge was very dis­turb­ing. He had suc­ceed­ed at ev­ery turn, and they should have trust­ed him. A clax­on horn was blow­ing in some far­away, echo­ing space: an eerie, un­pleas­ant noise. In the com­ing hours, many would die in the rough seas. It was all so un­nec­es­sary. The great Rolvaag would sur­vive; of that he was sure. It would sur­vive, with its car­go, and those who re­mained with it. And at dawn, with the storm just a mem­ory, they would be met by the tow­ships from South Geor­gia. The Rolvaag would re­turn to New York with the me­te­orite. It was a pity that so many oth­ers would not.

He thought of Brit­ton again. A mag­nif­icent wom­an. He felt a great sad­ness when he re­flect­ed on her un­will­ing­ness to trust him at the end. He would nev­er find an­oth­er like her; that he knew. He would save her ship for her, but any ques­tion of a per­son­al re­la­tion­ship was now dead. He leaned against the lon­gi­tu­di­nal bulk­head, dis­tant­ly sur­prised at how long it was tak­ing to re­gain his breath. He clung as the ship heeled; an alarm­ing an­gle, ad­mit­ted­ly, but still be­neath the crit­ical lim­it of thir­ty-​five de­grees. He could hear the slip­page of chains, the protests of met­al, be­low his feet. At last, the ship be­gan to right it­self with a groan. A tragedy, that af­ter all he had done — the quite ex­traor­di­nary suc­cess­es he had en­gi­neered — they were not will­ing to trust him this one last time. All but Pup­pup. He glanced to­ward the old man.

“Head­ing down there, guv?”

Glinn nod­ded. “I’ll need your help.”

“‘At’s what I’m here for.”

They stepped to the edge of the cat­walk. There be­low sat the rock, the top of its sur­round­ing web swathed in plas­tic tarps. The emer­gen­cy lights bathed it in a dim light. The tank was still hold­ing nice­ly, stay­ing dry. It was a su­perb ship. The triple hulling made all the dif­fer­ence. Even cov­ered with tarps the rock looked mag­nif­icent, the epi­cen­ter of their ter­rors and hopes. It was rest­ing in its cra­dle, just as he knew it would be.

Then his eyes flick­ered down to the struts and braces. There was, it had to be ad­mit­ted, a great deal of dam­age: bent spars, com­pres­sion frac­tures, sheared met­al. The trans­verse web brack­ets along the bot­tom of the tank were lit­tered with bro­ken riv­ets, snapped chains, and splin­tered wood. He could hear a resid­ual creak­ing and groan­ing. But the web was still es­sen­tial­ly in­tact.

The el­eva­tor was bro­ken, how­ev­er. He be­gan climb­ing down.

The ship rose, heel­ing again.

Glinn stead­ied him­self, then con­tin­ued de­scend­ing. It took longer than he thought it would, and by the time he had reached the bot­tom he felt more hor­izon­tal than ver­ti­cal — splayed up­on, rather than cling­ing to, the lad­der. Hook­ing an el­bow to it, he braced him­self, wait­ing it out. Now he could see, un­der the tarps, the red flank of the rock. The sounds in the hold were grow­ing, like some in­fer­nal sym­pho­ny of met­al, but they sig­ni­fied noth­ing. To­ward the top of the roll he slipped out his pock­et watch and held it at arm’s length, dan­gling it from its chain, es­ti­mat­ing the roll. Twen­ty-​five de­grees: well be­low crit­ical val­ue.

He heard a sud­den mut­ter­ing, groan­ing noise, and the mas­sive crim­son curve of the me­te­orite seemed to stir. The ship heeled far­ther, the me­te­orite moved with it, un­til Glinn was not sure whether the ship was shift­ing the me­te­orite or vice ver­sa. The me­te­orite now seemed poised at the edge of its cra­dle, ready to tip out. There was a crack­ling, splin­ter­ing sound. Twen­ty-​sev­en de­grees. Twen­tyeight.

The ship shud­dered, paused, then be­gan to right it­self. Glinn eased out a breath. Twen­tyeight de­grees. Well with­in tol­er­ances. The me­te­orite shift­ed back in­to its cra­dle with a mon­strous shud­der. Abrupt­ly, the screech of met­al stopped. The scream­ing of the wind and wa­ter out­side the hull abat­ed as the ship sank down.

His eyes scanned the tank. What was nec­es­sary here was to tight­en the chains clos­est to the me­te­orite. They had been de­signed so that one per­son could do it, us­ing a mo­tor-​as­sist­ed “come-​along” an­chored to each tight­en­ing point. He was sur­prised Garza hadn’t done this al­ready.

Quick­ly, he scram­bled to the main tight­en­ing point and switched on the key mo­tor-​as­sist. It lit up — in per­fect work­ing or­der, of course.

The ship con­tin­ued to sub­side in­to the on­com­ing trough, giv­ing him some peace and sta­bil­ity in which to work.

Glinn pulled the for­ward lever on the mo­tor-​as­sist; and was pleased to see the big rub­ber-​coat­ed chains that had come loose in the rock­ing of the me­te­orite tight­en again. Why hadn’t Garza done this? The rea­son was clear: he had pan­icked. Glinn felt a mo­men­tary dis­ap­point­ment at his trust­ed con­struc­tion man­ag­er. This wasn’t like Garza; not like him at all. So many had failed him; but at least he had failed no one.

The chains were tight­en­ing nice­ly, and he turned to Pup­pup. “Take this tool­box,” he said, in­di­cat­ing a box left in Garza’s re­treat.

The ship rose; the roll be­gan; the chains be­gan to strain. And then, with a sharp ratch­et­ing noise, the chains loos­ened. Glinn peered close­ly in the dim light. He saw that, in fact, Garza had al­ready tried it. The gears on the mo­tor-​as­sist had been stripped, and the four-​inch steel ratch­et head had sheared off. The as­sist was use­less.

The ship be­gan to rise. And then he heard a voice from above. He ducked out from the web and glanced up. Sal­ly Brit­ton was step­ping through the hatch­way on­to the cat­walk. She car­ried her­self with the same nat­ural dig­ni­ty that had struck him so force­ful­ly the first time he had seen her, com­ing down those sun-​drenched steps, ages and ages ago. His heart gave an un­ex­pect­ed lurch. She had changed her mind: she would stay with the ship.

Brit­ton had to pause dur­ing the long, screech­ing roll. They stared at each oth­er while the me­te­orite rocked in its cra­dle and the ship screamed its pain. When it was over she called out again. “Eli! The ship’s about to break up!”

Glinn felt sharp dis­ap­point­ment: there had been no change in her think­ing af­ter all. But all this was a dis­trac­tion. He fo­cused his at­ten­tion on the cra­dle again. Now he saw it: the way to lock down the rock was to tight­en the topchain bolt at the sum­mit of the me­te­orite. It would mean cut­ting through the tarp. It was a sim­ple mat­ter, re­quir­ing no more than six inch­es of hand tight­en­ing. He be­gan climb­ing up the near­est chain.

“Eli, please! There’s an ex­tra lifeboat in re­serve for us. Leave this thing and come with me!”

Glinn pulled him­self up, Pup­pup fol­low­ing with the tool­box. He need­ed to fo­cus his mind on the ob­jec­tive, not suf­fer dis­trac­tions.

Reach­ing the crown of the me­te­orite, he found to his sur­prise a small flap al­ready cut in the tarp. Be­neath, the topchain bolt was loose, as he ex­pect­ed. As the ship rose out of the trough and be­gan to heel yet again, he fit­ted the wrench around the nut, an­chored the bolt with a sec­ond wrench, and be­gan to tight­en.

Noth­ing moved. He had not com­pre­hend­ed — could not com­pre­hend — what tremen­dous, what unimag­in­able pres­sure the bolt was un­der.

“Hold this wrench,” he said. Pup­pup obliged, grab­bing it with his sinewy arms.

The ship cant­ed far­ther.

“Come back to the bridge with me, Eli,” Brit­ton said. “There may still be time to trig­ger the switch. Both of us might yet live.”

Glinn glanced up for an in­stant from his strug­gle with the bolt. There was no plead­ing in her voice — that was not Sal­ly Brit­ton’s way. He heard pa­tience, rea­son, and ut­ter con­vic­tion. It made him sad. “Sal­ly,” he said, “the on­ly peo­ple who are go­ing to die are the fool­ish ones in the lifeboats. If you stay here, you’ll sur­vive.”

“I know my ship, Eli,” was all she said.

Kneel­ing, hunched over the topchain bolt, he strug­gled with the nut. Some­one else had tried this be­fore him: there were fresh marks on the met­al. As the ship heeled, he felt the me­te­orite shift, and he an­chored him­self more firm­ly, both feet braced against the links. He strained to the lim­its of ex­trem­ity, but it did not move. Gasp­ing, he re­fit­ted the wrench.

Still the ship heeled.

Brit­ton spoke out of the dark­ness above, her voice ris­ing above the sound. “Eli, I would like to have that din­ner with you. I don’t know much about po­et­ry, but what I know I could share with you. I would like to share it with you.”

The me­te­orite shud­dered, and Glinn found him­self grip­ping with both hands as the me­te­orite tipped with the ship. There were ropes up here, fas­tened to the frame plates of the tank, and he quick­ly lashed one around his waist to keep his po­si­tion. He re­turned to the wrench. A quar­ter turn, that was all he need­ed. The yaw­ing of the ship slowed and he once again grasped the han­dle of the wrench.

“And I could love you. Eli…”

Glinn stopped sud­den­ly and stared up at Brit­ton. She tried to speak again, but her voice was drowned out by the ris­ing shriek of tor­tured met­al, echo­ing mad­ly in the vast space. All he could see was her small fig­ure on the cat­walk above. Her gold­en hair had be­come un­pinned and lay wild­ly across her shoul­ders, glow­ing even in the dim light.

As he stared, he be­came dim­ly aware that the ship was not lev­el­ing out. He looked away from her, first at the bolt, then at Pup­pup. The man was grin­ning, his long thin mus­tach­es drip­ping wa­ter. Glinn felt a surge of anger at him­self for not fo­cus­ing on the prob­lem at hand.

“The wrench!” he called to Pup­pup over the scream­ing of met­al.

The ship was very far over, the sounds of met­al deaf­en­ing. With a hand he wished was stead­ier, Glinn took out his pock­et watch to once again cal­cu­late the in­cli­na­tion; he held it up but it swung back and forth. As he tried to steady it, the watch slipped through his fin­gers and shat­tered against the flank of the rock; he saw lit­tle glints of gold and glass skit­ter­ing along the red sur­face and dis­ap­pear­ing in­to the depths.

The yaw­ing seemed to ac­cel­er­ate with a bru­tal sud­den­ness. Or was it his imag­ina­tion? Sure­ly none of this could be re­al. Dou­ble over­age had been brought to bear, the cal­cu­la­tions run and re­run, ev­ery pos­si­ble path to fail­ure ac­count­ed for.

And then he felt the me­te­orite be­gin to move be­neath him, and there was a tear­ing sound as the tarps rent and the web un­rav­eled, the sud­den red of the me­te­orite fill­ing his field of vi­sion like the open­ing of a great wound, the rock criss­crossed by tan­gled ropes and ca­bles, riv­ets shoot­ing and ric­ochet­ing past him. Still the ship yawed on its side, steep­er and steep­er. He scram­bled des­per­ate­ly, try­ing to un­tie the rope from his waist, but the knot was so tight, so tight…

There was a sound be­yond all de­scrip­tion, as if the heav­ens and the gulfs be­low had opened up at once. The tank tore apart in a ter­rif­ic show­er of sparks, and the me­te­orite rolled in­to the dark­ness — a mon­strous sham­bling like some de­lib­er­ate beast — tak­ing him with it. In­stant­ly all was dark, and he felt a rush of chill air…

There was the faint tin­kle of glass­es, the mur­mur of voic­es. L’Am­broisie was busy on this balmy Thurs­day night, filled with art fanciers and wealthy Parisians. Be­yond the restau­rant’s dis­creet front, the smoky au­tumn moon lent the Marais dis­trict a del­icate shim­mer. Glinn smiled at Sal­ly Brit­ton, who was seat­ed across the fine white damask. “Try this,” he said as the wait­er un­corked a bot­tle of Veuve Cliquot and tipped a chilly stream in­to their glass­es. He grasped his glass and raised it. She smiled and spoke:

…how ev­ery­thing turns away Quite leisure­ly from the dis­as­ter, the plough­man may Have heard the splash, the for­sak­en cry, But for him it was not an im­por­tant fail­ure

An im­por­tant fail­ure…

As his mood turned to puz­zle­ment, the recita­tion was drowned by a hideous laugh from Pup­pup. And then the scene va­por­ized in a pure flash of bril­liant, beau­ti­ful light.

Drake Pas­sage,

7:55 P.M.

MC­FAR­LANE CLUTCHED des­per­ate­ly at the lifeboat’s safe­ty loops, rid­ing it through the great peaks and val­leys of a con­fused sea, Rachel cling­ing tight­ly to his arm. The last twen­ty min­utes had passed in a ter­ri­fy­ing con­fu­sion: Brit­ton’s sud­den de­par­ture from the bridge; How­ell’s tak­ing com­mand and or­der­ing them to aban­don ship; the muster at the lifeboat sta­tions and the har­row­ing launch­ing of the boats in­to the rag­ing seas. Af­ter the tense hours of the chase, the strug­gle against the storm and the me­te­orite, this ul­ti­mate calami­ty had hap­pened so quick­ly that it seemed un­re­al. He looked around the in­ner walls of the lifeboat for the first time. With its sin­gle-​piece hull, tiny en­trance port, and tinier win­dows, it looked like an over­size tor­pe­do. How­ell was at the helm, guid­ing the in­board; Lloyd and some twen­ty in all were in­side, in­clud­ing half a dozen whose own lifeboat had been torn from its davits dur­ing launch and who had to be plucked from the freez­ing waves.

He tight­ened his grip as the boat dropped in free fall, crashed, and was abrupt­ly driv­en up­ward. In­stead of plow­ing through like the Rolvaag, the six­ty-​foot craft bobbed like a wood­chip. The stag­ger­ing falls, the wrench­ing climbs up the cliffs of wa­ter, were ex­haust­ing and ter­ri­fy­ing. They were drenched in ice wa­ter, and some who had been in the sea, Mc­Far­lane could see, were un­con­scious. Bram­bell was there, thank God, at­tend­ing to them as best he could.

An of­fi­cer in the bow of the boat was se­cur­ing the pro­vi­sions and se­cu­ri­ty gear. De­bris was wal­low­ing and rolling in the wa­ter be­neath their feet. They were all sick, and some were retch­ing un­con­trol­lably. None of the crew spoke, go­ing silent­ly through their du­ties. The tight­ly en­closed hull of the lifeboat shel­tered them from the el­ements. But Mc­Far­lane could feel the ter­ri­ble seas were bat­ter­ing the boat mer­ci­less­ly.

How­ell fi­nal­ly spoke, his voice hoarse over the sound of wind and wa­ter. He was hold­ing a ra­dio to his mouth, but he spoke so that ev­ery­one in the boat could hear.

“All boats, lis­ten up! Our on­ly chance is to head for an ice is­land to the south­east, and ride out the storm in its lee. Main­tain a head­ing of one two ze­ro at ten knots and keep in vi­su­al con­tact at all times. Keep chan­nel three open. Ac­ti­vate emer­gen­cy bea­cons.”

It was hard to tell they were go­ing any­where, but the moon had come back out — and now and then, through the nar­row ob­long win­dows, Mc­Far­lane caught the faint lights of the oth­er two lifeboats driv­ing down the foam-​webbed seas, strug­gling to keep in sight. At the heights of the ter­ri­ble waves, he could still make out the Rolvaag, half a mile back, wal­low­ing back and forth as if in slow mo­tion, its emer­gen­cy lights wink­ing on and off. No more boats had been launched since their pack of three start­ed out min­utes be­fore. He could not take his eyes from the sight of the gi­gan­tic ves­sel, held in the death grip of the storm.

A fresh roller tried to raise the tanker, but this time the Rolvaag hung back, al­most as if it was teth­ered from be­low. It leaned far­ther and far­ther from the face of the wave, and as the crest boiled over the ship it slow­ly lay down on its side. Mc­Far­lane glanced over at Lloyd. The man’s hag­gard face was turned away from Mc­Far­lane and the Rolvaag both.

An­oth­er bob; the seas com­plete­ly sub­merged the lifeboat; then they strug­gled up­ward again. Al­though he too want­ed noth­ing more than to avert his eyes, Mc­Far­lane found his gaze drawn once again to the great ship. It still hung side­ways, mo­tion­less. Even af­ter the crest of the wave had passed over, it sagged, dragged low­er and low­er by the in­eluctable weight. Its stern be­gan to peer through the re­treat­ing wave, dead screws ex­posed. A dis­tant shriek, al­most fem­inine, cut through the howl of the storm. And then, both bow and stern jerked apart and rose from the seas in a boil of white. There was a deep, in­tense blue light in the cen­ter of the cat­aclysm, so bright it seemed to light up the sea from un­der­neath, send­ing an un­earth­ly hue through the wa­ter. A huge gout of steam ripped through the sur­face and mush­roomed up­ward, blan­ket­ing the doomed ship, while light­ning flick­ered with­in it, break­ing out its top in forks that stabbed in­to the night. At that mo­ment the lifeboat sank back in­to a wel­ter of wa­ter, ob­scur­ing the ter­ri­ble sight. When it emerged, the seas were emp­ty and dark. The ship was gone.

Mc­Far­lane sat back, shak­ing and nau­se­at­ed. He did not dare look at Lloyd. Glinn, Brit­ton, the three dozen crew­men, EES staffers, and Lloyd In­dus­tries work­ers who had gone down with the ship… the me­te­orite, plung­ing to the bot­tom, two miles be­low… He closed his eyes, tight­en­ing his grip on the shiv­er­ing Rachel. He had nev­er been so cold, so sick, so fright­ened in his life.

She mur­mured some­thing un­in­tel­li­gi­ble and he leaned close. “What’s that?”

She was press­ing some­thing to­ward him. “Take it,” she said. “Take it.”

In her hands was her CD-​ROM, con­tain­ing the test da­ta on the me­te­orite.

“Why?” he asked.

“I want you to keep it. Keep it al­ways. The an­swers are there, Sam. Promise me you’ll find them.”

He slipped the disk in­to his pock­et. It was all they had left: a few hun­dred megabytes of da­ta. The me­te­orite was for­ev­er lost to the world; it had al­ready buried it­self deep in the abyssal silt of the ocean floor.

“Promise,” Rachel said again. Her voice sound­ed slurred, drugged.

“I promise.” And he hugged her clos­er to him, feel­ing the warm trick­le of her tears up­on his hands. The me­te­orite was gone. So many oth­ers were gone. But the two of them re­mained, would al­ways re­main.

“We’ll find the an­swers to­geth­er,” he said.

A break­ing crest slammed in­to the lifeboat, driv­ing it side­ways. They were thrown to the deck of the boat. Mc­Far­lane could hear How­ell shout­ing com­mands as an­oth­er break­ing wave slammed the boat and pushed it side­ways, al­most flip­ping it over. It dropped back with a crash. “My arm!” a man cried. “I’ve bro­ken my arm!”

Mc­Far­lane helped Rachel back on­to the padded seat, helped her arms in­to the loops. The seas were roar­ing all around them, bury­ing them in wa­ter, some­times forc­ing the en­tire closed boat be­neath the sur­face.

“How much far­ther?” some­one shout­ed.

“Two miles,” How­ell replied, strug­gling to keep the boat on course. “Give or take.”

Heavy wa­ter rinsed down the port­holes, al­low­ing on­ly oc­ca­sion­al glimpses of the black night be­yond. Mc­Far­lane’s el­bows, knees, and shoul­ders grew sore from be­ing bat­tered against the sides and roof of the small ves­sel. He felt like a ping-​pong ball tum­bling in­side a wash­ing ma­chine. It was so cold that he had lost all feel­ing in his feet. Re­al­ity be­gan to re­cede. He re­mem­bered a sum­mer spent on a lake in Michi­gan. He would sit on the beach for hours, bot­tom in the sand, feet in the shal­lows. But the wa­ter had nev­er been this cold… He re­al­ized that frigid sea­wa­ter was ris­ing in the bot­tom of the boat. The pun­ish­ing gale was pulling the lifeboat apart at the seams.

He stared out the lit­tle win­dow. A few hun­dred yards away, he could see the lights of the oth­er two boats, buck­ing and bounc­ing in the sea. A great wave would de­scend up­on them, and they would strug­gle through it, corkscrew­ing wild­ly as the pi­lots worked to keep them from rolling over, the pro­pellers whin­ing mad­ly as they rose out of the wa­ter. He stared, stu­pe­fied with ex­haus­tion and fear, at the wild­ly gy­rat­ing an­ten­nas, the se­mi-​cir­cles of ten-​gal­lon wa­ter tanks knock­ing crazi­ly around the sterns.

And then one of the boats van­ished. One mo­ment it was there, run­ning lights wink­ing, div­ing in­to yet an­oth­er wave; and then it was gone, buried, its lights cut out as abrupt­ly as if shut off with a switch.

“We’ve lost the bea­con on num­ber three boat, sir,” said the man in the bow. Mc­Far­lane let his head sink to­ward his chest. Who had been in that boat? Garza? Stoneci­pher? His mind did not work any­more. A part of him now hoped they too would go down as swift­ly; he longed for a quick end­ing to this agony. The wa­ter in the bot­tom of the boat was get­ting deep­er. He re­al­ized, vague­ly, that they were sink­ing.

And then the seas be­gan to qui­et. The craft was still pitch­ing and bob­bing in fe­ro­cious chop, but the end­less pro­ces­sion of wa­tery moun­tains be­neath them ceased, and the wind fell.

“We’re in the lee,” said How­ell. His hair was mat­ted and lank, the uni­form be­neath the foul-​weath­er gear soaked. Blood min­gled with wa­ter in pink rivulets that ran down his face. And yet when he spoke, his hoarse voice was steady. Again he had the ra­dio.

“I need your at­ten­tion! Both boats are tak­ing on wa­ter, fast. They won’t stay afloat much longer. We’ve got on­ly one choice — to trans­fer our­selves and as many pro­vi­sions as we can car­ry to the ice is­land. Un­der­stood?”

Very few in the boat looked up; they seemed be­yond car­ing. The fee­ble bea­con on their boat swept the flank of ice. “There’s a small ice ledge up ahead. We’ll run the boats right up on it. Lewis in the bow will pass out sup­plies to each of you and take you out two at a time, fast. If you fall in the wa­ter, get the hell out — it’ll kill you in five min­utes. Now bud­dy up.”

Mc­Far­lane drew Rachel pro­tec­tive­ly to­ward him, then turned to look at Lloyd. The man stared back this time, his eyes dark, hol­low, haunt­ed.

“What have I done?” he whis­pered hoarse­ly. “Oh my God, what have I done?”

Drake Pas­sage,

Ju­ly 26, 11:00 A.M.

DAWN ROSE over the ice is­land.

Mc­Far­lane, who had passed in and out of a fit­ful doze, was slow in wak­ing. At last he raised his head, the ice crack­ling off his coat as he did so. Around him, a small group of sur­vivors had hud­dled to­geth­er for warmth. Some lay on their backs, their faces coat­ed with ice, their eyes open, frost­ed over. Oth­ers were half up­right, on their knees, un­mov­ing. They must be dead, Mc­Far­lane thought in a dreamy sort of way. A hun­dred had be­gun the voy­age. And now he could see bare­ly two dozen.

Rachel lay be­fore him, her eyes closed. He strug­gled to a sit­ting po­si­tion, snow slid­ing from his limbs. The wind was gone, and a death­ly still­ness sur­round­ed them, un­der­lined by the thun­der of surf be­low them, wor­ry­ing the mar­gins of the ice is­land.

Be­fore him stretched a table­land of turquoise ice, cut with rivulets that deep­ened in­to canyons as they snaked off to the edges of the is­land. A red line, like a streak of blood, tint­ed the east­ern hori­zon, drib­bling col­or across the heav­ing seas. In the dis­tance, the hori­zon was dot­ted with blue and green ice­bergs: hun­dreds of them, like jew­els, sta­tion­ary in the swell, their tops glis­ten­ing in the morn­ing light. It was an un­end­ing land­scape of wa­ter and ice.

He felt ter­ri­bly sleepy. Odd that he was no longer cold. He strug­gled to bring him­self awake. Now, slow­ly, it came back to him: the land­ing, climb­ing a crevasse to the top in the black­ness, the wretched at­tempts to light a fire, the slow slide in­to lethar­gy. There was the time be­fore, too — be­fore all this — but he did not want to think of that right now. Right now, his world had shrunk to the edges of this strange is­land.

Here, on its top, there was no feel­ing of mo­tion. It was as sol­id as land. The great pro­ces­sion of rollers con­tin­ued east­ward, smoother now. Af­ter the black of the night and the gray of the storm, ev­ery­thing seemed tint­ed in pas­tels; the blue ice, the pink sea, the red-​and-​peach sky. It was beau­ti­ful, strange, oth­er­world­ly.

He tried to stand, but his legs ig­nored the com­mand and he on­ly rose to one knee be­fore falling back. He felt an ex­haus­tion so pro­found it took a supreme ef­fort of will not to sink back to the ground. A dim part of his mind re­al­ized it was more than ex­haus­tion — it was hy­pother­mia.

They had to get up, move. He had to rouse them.

He turned to Rachel and shook her rough­ly. Her lid­ded eyes swiveled around to him. Her lips were blue and ice clung to her black hair.

“Rachel,” he croaked. “Rachel, get up, please.”

Her lips moved and spoke, but it was a hiss of air, with­out sound.

“Rachel?” He bent down. He could hear her words now, sibi­lant, ghost­ly.

“The me­te­orite…” she mur­mured.

“It went to the bot­tom,” Mc­Far­lane said. “Don’t think about it now. It’s over.”

She shook her head faint­ly. “No… not what you think…”

She closed her eyes, and he shook her again. “So sleepy…”

“Rachel. Don’t go to sleep. What were you say­ing?” She was ram­bling, delu­sion­al, but he re­al­ized it was im­por­tant to keep her talk­ing and awake. He shook her again. “The me­te­orite, Rachel. What about it?” Her eyes half opened, and she glanced down­ward. Mc­Far­lane fol­lowed her gaze; there was noth­ing. Her hand stirred slight­ly.

“There…” she said, look­ing down.

Mc­Far­lane took her hand. He pulled off the sod­den, half­frozen gloves. Her hand was freez­ing; her fin­ger­tips white. Now he un­der­stood: her fin­gers were frost­bit­ten. He tried to mas­sage the fin­gers and the hand re­laxed. She was hold­ing a peanut.

“Are you hun­gry?” Mc­Far­lane asked as the nut rolled away in­to the snow. Rachel closed her eyes again. He tried to rouse her and could not. He pressed him­self against her, and her body was heavy and cold. He turned for help and found Lloyd, ly­ing on the ice be­side them. “Lloyd?” he whis­pered.

“Yes,” came the faint, grav­el­ly voice.

“We’ve got to move.” Mc­Far­lane found him­self grow­ing short of breath.

“Not in­ter­est­ed.”

Mc­Far­lane turned back to shake Rachel again, but he could hard­ly move his own arm now, let alone ap­ply force to her. She was in­ert. The loss seemed more than he could fath­om. He looked out over the hud­dled, un­mov­ing shapes, glis­ten­ing un­der their thin coat­ings of ice. There was Bram­bell, the doc­tor, with a book crooked in­con­gru­ous­ly un­der his arm. There was Garza, the white of his ban­daged head rimed in frost. There was How­ell. Two, maybe three dozen oth­ers. No one was mov­ing. Sud­den­ly he found he cared; cared very much. He want­ed to yell, to get up and start kick­ing and punch­ing peo­ple to their feet, but he couldn’t even find the en­er­gy to speak. There were too many of them; he couldn’t warm them all. He couldn’t even warm him­self.

His head swam as a strange, inky sen­sa­tion over­came him. Ap­athy came creep­ing. We’re all go­ing to die here, he thought, but it’s okay. He looked over at Rachel, try­ing to shake the ink­iness off. Her eyes were half open now, rolled up, just the whites show­ing. Her face was gray. He would go where she had gone. It was okay. A sin­gle snowflake drift­ed out of the sky and touched her lips. It took a long time to melt.

The ink­iness re­turned, and this time it was good, like sleep­ing in his moth­er’s arms once again, and he gave in to it. As he drift­ed off in­to de­li­cious sleep, Rachel’s voice kept go­ing through his mind: Not what you think. Not what you think.

And then the voice changed: loud­er, more metal­lic. “South Geor­gia Bra­vo… In sight… Ap­proach­ing for a high-​line pick­up…”

A light ap­peared over­head. There was a clat­ter­ing, a rhyth­mic beat­ing. Voic­es, a ra­dio. He strug­gled against it all. No, no, let me sleep! Leave me be!

And then the pain be­gan.

South Geor­gia Is­land,

Ju­ly 29, 12:20 P.M.

PALMER LLOYD lay in a ply­wood bunk bed in the in­fir­mary hut of the British sci­en­tif­ic sta­tion. He stared at the ply­wood ceil­ing: end­less loops of dark and light wood, pat­terns his eyes had traced a thou­sand times over the re­cent days. He smelled the stale food that had been sit­ting by his bed since lunchtime. He heard the sound of wind out­side the tiny win­dow that peeked out over the blue snow­fields, blue moun­tains, and blue glaciers of the is­land.

It had been three days since their res­cue. So many had died, on the ship, in the lifeboats, on the ice is­land. But one man of her crew alive, what put to sea with sev­en­ty-​five… The old sea-​dit­ty from Trea­sure Is­land ran through his head, as it had run, over and over and over, since he had first re­gained con­scious­ness here in this bed.

He had sur­vived. To­mor­row, a he­li­copter would take him to the Falk­lands. From there he would re­turn to New York. Dis­tant­ly, he won­dered how the me­dia was go­ing to re­port this one. He found that he didn’t care. So lit­tle seemed im­por­tant any­more. He was fin­ished: fin­ished with the mu­se­um, fin­ished with busi­ness, fin­ished with sci­ence. All his dreams — they seemed so an­cient now — had gone to the bot­tom with the rock. All he want­ed to do was go to his farm in up­state New York, mix a stiff mar­ti­ni, sit in the rock­ing chair on the porch, and watch the deer eat ap­ples in his or­chard.

An or­der­ly came in, re­moved the tray, and be­gan to put down an­oth­er.

Lloyd shook his head.

“It’s my job, mate,” the or­der­ly said.

“Very well.”

At that mo­ment there was a knock on the door. Mc­Far­lane came in. His left hand and part of his face was ban­daged, he was wear­ing dark glass­es, and the man looked un­steady on his feet. In fact, he looked ter­ri­ble. He sat down in the met­al fold­ing chair that oc­cu­pied al­most all the free space in the tiny room. The chair creaked.

Lloyd was sur­prised to see him. He hadn’t seen Mc­Far­lane at all these past three days. He had just as­sumed Mc­Far­lane was through with him — as well he should be. Hard­ly any­one had spo­ken to him. His on­ly vis­itor from the ex­pe­di­tion, in fact, had been How­ell, and that had been to sign some pa­pers. They all hat­ed him now.

Lloyd thought Mc­Far­lane was wait­ing to speak un­til the or­der­ly left. But the door closed be­hind them, and still Mc­Far­lane re­mained silent. He did not say any­thing for a long time. And then at last he re­moved his dark glass­es and leaned for­ward.

The change star­tled Lloyd. It was al­most as if the man’s eyes were on fire. They were red and raw, with dark cir­cles be­neath. He was dirty, un­kempt. The loss of the me­te­orite, the death of Ami­ra, had hit him hard.

“Lis­ten,” said Mc­Far­lane, his voice tight with ten­sion. “I’ve got some­thing to tell you.”

Lloyd wait­ed.

Mc­Far­lane bent even clos­er now, speak­ing di­rect­ly in­to Lloyd’s ear. “The Rolvaag went down at 61°3214 South, 59°3010 West.”

“Please don’t speak of this with me, Sam. Not now.”

“Yes, now,” said Mc­Far­lane with un­ex­pect­ed ve­he­mence.

He reached in­to his pock­et and with­drew a com­pact disc. He held it up, wink­ing its rain­bow col­ors in the light.

“On this disc — “

Lloyd turned away and faced the ply­wood wall. “Sam, it’s over. The me­te­orite’s gone. Give it up.”

“On this disc is the last batch of da­ta we gath­ered on the me­te­orite. I made a promise. I’ve been… study­ing it.”

Lloyd felt tired — so very, very tired. His eyes strayed out the lit­tle win­dow to the moun­tains wreathed in glaciers, their icy tops pierc­ing the clouds. He hat­ed the sight of ice. He nev­er want­ed to see ice again, ev­er.

“Yes­ter­day,” Mc­Far­lane con­tin­ued re­lent­less­ly, “one of the sci­en­tists at the sta­tion here told me they’d been record­ing some very un­usu­al, shal­low seaquakes. Dozens of them, all be­low 3 on the Richter scale.”

Lloyd wait­ed for Mc­Far­lane to con­tin­ue. It was all so ir­rel­evant.

“The epi­cen­ter of those quakes is at 61°3214 South, 59°3010 West.”

Lloyd’s eyes flick­ered. He slow­ly turned his head back to meet the young sci­en­tist’s eyes.

“I’ve been an­alyz­ing this da­ta,” Mc­Far­lane con­tin­ued. “It most­ly has to do with the shape and in­ter­nal struc­ture of the me­te­orite. It’s very un­usu­al.”

Lloyd did not an­swer, but he did not turn away ei­ther.

“It’s lay­ered. It’s al­most sym­met­ri­cal. It’s not nat­ural.”

Lloyd sat up. “Not nat­ural?” He was be­gin­ning to feel alarmed. Mc­Far­lane had suf­fered a psy­cho­log­ical break. He need­ed help.

“I said, lay­ered. It has an out­er shell, a thick in­ner lay­er, and a tiny round in­clu­sion right in the cen­ter. This is not an ac­ci­dent. Think about it. What else is like this? It’s very com­mon. It must be a uni­ver­sal struc­ture.”

“Sam, you’re tired. Let me call a nurse for you. She’ll — ” But Mc­Far­lane in­ter­rupt­ed. “Ami­ra fig­ured it out. Right be­fore she died. It was in her hand. Re­mem­ber how she said we had to stop think­ing from our per­spec­tive, start think­ing from the me­te­orite’s per­spec­tive? At the end, Ami­ra knew. It re­act­ed to salt wa­ter. It had been wait­ing for salt wa­ter. Wait­ing mil­lions of years.”

Lloyd looked for the emer­gen­cy but­ton near his bed. Mc­Far­lane was in much worse con­di­tion than he had ini­tial­ly thought.

Mc­Far­lane paused, his eyes glit­ter­ing un­nat­ural­ly. “You see, Lloyd, it wasn’t a me­te­orite at all.”

Lloyd felt a queer sus­pen­sion, a still­ness in the room. There was the but­ton; if on­ly he could press it ca­su­al­ly, with­out ex­cit­ing the man. Mc­Far­lane’s face was flushed, sweaty, his breath­ing rapid and shal­low. The loss of the rock, the sink­ing of the Rolvaag, the deaths in the wa­ter, on the ice — it must have bro­ken him. Lloyd felt a fresh stab of guilt: even the sur­vivors were dam­aged.

“Did you hear me, Lloyd? I said it’s not a me­te­orite.”

“What was it, then, Sam?” Lloyd man­aged to ask, keep­ing his voice calm, his hand ca­su­al­ly mov­ing to­ward the but­ton.

“All those shal­low earth­quakes, right where the ship went down…”

“What about them?”

“Just this. Are you fa­mil­iar with the Pansper­mia the­ory? That the earth was orig­inal­ly seed­ed with life from spores drift­ing through space?”

“Cer­tain­ly, Sam, cer­tain­ly,” Lloyd said in a sooth­ing voice. He pressed the but­ton: once, twice, three times. The nurse would be there mo­men­tar­ily. Mc­Far­lane would get help.

“Well, this is Pansper­mia with a vengeance.” The redrimmed eye bored in­to Lloyd’s. “That thing we just plant­ed at the bot­tom of the sea? I don’t know what it was, not ex­act­ly. But I do know one thing.”

“And what’s that?” Lloyd tried to sound nor­mal. Thank God, he could hear the hur­ried foot­steps of the nurse in the cor­ri­dor.

“It’s sprout­ing.”

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Qvadis

Ex­press Read­er Edi­tion

www.qvadis.com

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