Kevin Anderson - Artifact

Hurrying, she picked up her T-shirt from the floor. An inch-long roach tumbled out of it, another resident of this fleabag hotel having his early-morning sleep disturbed.

She was tempted to step on it, bare feet or no. After all, she thought wryly, she was paying to have the room to herself. Instead she pulled on the T-shirt without checking for any more residents, and looked around the floor for her sandals.

As she put them on she wondered why Blaine hadn’t kept his promise to awaken her.

She remembered her thoughts during the evening. What the hell was wrong with her? Trust wasn’t something she gave out that often—now the right pairing of eyes and smile and she acted like a lovesick lamb.

She opened her door and almost tripped over someone who lay snoring, slumped over only a few feet from her room. It was as if he had fallen asleep on guard duty, she thought. Frikkie’s words echoed in her head:Take care of her, or—

Another roach to squash, she thought. When she had time. Right now what she had to do was catch up with Simon. For that, she’d need a boat. Diving gear.

She charged downstairs to the front desk, where a sleepy-eyed Trini woman in a simple dress stretched to its size limits looked at her as though she were crazy.

“Eduardo Blaine. Which is his room?”

The woman looked confused.

“Señor Blaine?” Peta repeated.

“Ah, sí.” The woman nodded and pointed with her thumb along the hallway beside the stairs. “Room two. End of the hall on the left.” She smiled conspiratorially, as if she thought Peta was going to sneak into Blaine’s room and give him an early-morning quickie.

“Gracias,” Peta called out as she ran down the hallway to the door marked with a gold-plated number 2 hung at a drunken angle. Banging loudly, she yelled, “Blaine? You there? Blaine, wake up!”

She stood there, waiting, the time slipping away. Simon’s boat was now well out of the bay for sure, bouncing over the water.

The bolt clicked open.

“You said you’d wake me. You said that you’d be up, and wake me before Simon could leave.”

Blaine—in white Jockeys, no shirt, and looking more asleep than awake—held the door open wide and backed up to let her in. He raised his left arm as if to check a watch that wasn’t there.

“What time is—God, my alarm. I must have…Maybe Simon hasn’t left—”

“I just saw his boat heading out of the harbor. Thanks for the help.”

“Okay, okay! Relax. Let me get dressed. I got a boat. We’ll catch him.”

“He’s already got close to ten minutes on us.”

Blaine smiled, but the charm that had worked so well the night before had lost its appeal. “No problem, I have a very fast boat.”

“Hope it works better than your alarm clock.”

He grinned boyishly. Peta guarded herself against any impulse to forgive him.

“Okay, wait in the lobby. I’ll get dressed and be out in a minute.”

“Please hurry.”

As she waited, feeling each second tick by, she thought through the possibilities. Could Blaine’s boat beat Simon’s? If not, what would happen if she had to dive after him? It had been a while since she had done a tech dive. Mixed gases—nitrogen, oxygen, helium. She knew it was not something to rush into. Rushing could get you killed.

“Let’s go,” Blaine said, running out of the hotel. She followed him to the town’s small wooden dock. At the last boat in the line, he stopped. “Jump in.”

Peta stared. “Thisis fast?”

The boat looked like a fisherman’s trawler, built for steadiness, perhaps, but surely not for speed. It did, however, have everything in it she would need for the dive, like the several pairs of tri-mix tanks which lay amid the more usual tourist dive gear.

“Don’t knock my boat.” Blaine untied the stern line. “Unless you want to swim after Simon.”

“That might be faster.”

“Just start her up,” he said, running to untie the bow line. “Hit the silver button.”

Peta pushed the button, and the inboard started with a substantial roar that immediately garnered her respect.

Blaine finished untying the lines and, jumping onto the deck, clambered back to the wheel. “Okay,” he said. “Now hold on.”

He opened the throttle and the squat boat reared up like Trigger at the end of a Lone Ranger movie. Peta flew back into her seat and tasted salty spray on her face.

“I’m impressed,” she shouted over the roar.

“You should remember…appearances can deceive you.”

Blaine turned the wheel and curled around the bigger boats, the fishing vessels taking the day off, the moored dinghies waiting for the leisure sailors to return, baked nut-brown and three sheets to the wind with multiple Caribs and Red Stripes. The boat maneuvered wonderfully, its stern sitting deep in the water while the rest of the hull nearly hydroplaned.

“That one should fit you,” he said, pointing to a black wet suit. With its frayed collar and wrists it looked as though it had been through one too many dives already.

“You sure you don’t have something a little more colorful? I would have preferred a stylish neon orange flare on the side.”

Blaine grinned. “I’ll remember that for next time. The rest of the dive gear’s back there.”

Peta nodded and turned to the piles of equipment. The masks, fins, and regulators looked like standard Caribbean tourist issue. Not top-of-the-line, but with the right gas mix, she’d be fine.

She moved to the rows of tanks. The first few cylinders were battered and air-filled, at least if the rubber caps over their first stages were true indications of their state. The smaller double tanks stood beside them. Tri-mix tanks—a nitrogen-helium mix and oxygen—which could be adjusted up or down based on depth or bottom time. Unfortunately, only one set of the tanks appeared to be filled.

“You only have one working set of the tri-mix back here,” she yelled. “Looks like I’ll be going it alone.” She didn’t relish the idea of diving without a buddy, especially since that was one of the reasons she was so mad at Simon.

“If only one of us can go, it should be me,” Blaine called back to her. She wasn’t sure if his reaction was chivalry or South American machismo, but it didn’t matter to her which it was. There was no way she would hang out on the surface.

“No chance. Simon’s my responsibility.”

Thankfully, Blaine quit arguing. She shucked her land clothes and pulled on the wet suit. When she was suited up, she moved forward to stand beside him so that she could see where they were headed. “Is it far?”

Blaine shook his head. “About ten minutes for this boat. We should be able to see the rig as soon as we curve around that spit of land there.” He pointed at a large rock outcropping that sheltered San Gabriel’s harbor. “Then we head straight on. If Simon isn’t down, he’ll probably be able to see us.”

And what then? she thought. If he saw her would that make him stop and wait?

Not Simon. He’d hurry up and dive. If she was going to stop him, she’d have to follow him down and get him to surface.

Piece of cake.

Underwater communication was so very easy, she thought sarcastically, especially with the paltry array of hand signals used by divers. A big O made with the thumb and index finger for “I’m okay.” A slashing palm over the neck for “Out of air.” Thumbs-up for “Let’s surface.” Crawling fingers for “Critter around.” Or her favorite, a vertical open palm cutting the water to indicate a reallybig critter around. As in, “Watch your butt or you’ll be some prehistoric creature’s breakfast.”

Blaine cut the boat hard, steering around a coral reef she saw only in the boat’s wake, then moved back on course for the point of the small peninsula ahead. It was obvious that he knew these waters extremely well. After a few more seconds, the boat was out far enough that Peta could see the small drilling rig and make out the shape of a boat tied up to it.