Douglas Preston - Impact

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

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

"Of all the crazy--"

" Dad! "

He fell silent.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I have an idea."

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

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

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

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

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

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

89

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"We've got to make it."

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

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

"With what? A boat hook?"

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

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

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

"Not completely."

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

"Yes."

"It sounds crazy."

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

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

90

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

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

The wind had shifted from the east and now the waves were coming on their stern quarter, pushing the boat forward and sideways. Her father fought the screw-turn motion of it, speeding up and slowing down. Each comber rose under the boat, throwing its nose forward, steeper and steeper, as her father gunned the engine and tried to keep the breaking water from pushing the stern under. As soon as the wave passed, the boat would tip back, bow rising into the air, and it would subside into the trough of the following wave. The air would fall into eerie silence for a moment in the lee of the trough, and then a wave would tilt them up again, lifting them into the gale. Under her father's expert seamanship the boat seemed to fall into a rhythm, its predictability bringing a small sense of reassurance. Abbey watched their progress across the bay, and finally, when they entered the protected waters of the Muscle Ridge channel, the sea subsided dramatically.

"Abbey," said her father, "check the forward bilge. I'm getting almost continuous bilge pump action here."

"Right."

She climbed down the stairs into the cabin and undogged the hatch, peering in with a flashlight. She could see water sloshing about. Probing with the light, she saw the water was well above the automatic bilge pump switch.

Leaning in farther, she shone the beam into the murky water, then reached down into it, feeling along the inside curve of the hull. Her fingers located a crack and she could feel the flow of water coming in. It wasn't a wide crack but it was long, and what was worse, the corkscrew motion of the boat was moving the two pieces on either side, grinding them against each other, slowly but surely opening it up. The water level was increasing in the bilge, despite the pump working full time.

She came back up. "The water's coming in faster than the pump can pump it out," she said.

"You and Jackie form a bucket brigade."

Abbey pulled a plastic bucket out from under the sink. Jackie positioned herself at the cabin door, while Abbey dipped it into the bilge and handed it to Jackie, who tossed the water overboard. It was exhausting, cramped work. The bilgewater had engine oil and diesel fuel in it, and soon they were both covered and stinking with it. But they seemed to have turned the corner: slowly but surely the water level was dropping. Soon the long crack came into view.

"Get me some of that waterproof marine gaffing tape," Abbey said.

Jackie handed her the roll and she pulled off a strip. Leaning into the rocking bilge, stinking with fuel and oil, Abbey wiped the fiberglass clean with a rag. Then she taped the crack, horizontally and vertically, adding several layers and pressing down. It seemed to hold. The bilge pump, going full bore, now was able to draw down the water on its own, without the help of their bucket brigade.

Jackie called down to her, "Abbey, your father wants you on deck. We're heading into the rip."

Abbey climbed up the stairs into the pilothouse. They were out of the channel and the seas were mounting up again. Ahead, Abbey could see a stretch of whitecaps where the rip current began that gave Ripp Island its name, churning along the northern reefs. It was a classic cross tide, the flow running against the prevailing wind and seas, creating massive standing waves, whirl pools, and a brutal chop.