Chapter 5

September 29

Saturday was hot. It was more than hot, it was breathless, stifling. The Shamrock hardly moved at all, the sea was so flat. Jack found it was calm enough that he could go without his shots. Alex was pleased about that. She needed everyone’s ideas and Jack, for better or worse, was a member of the crew.

They sat on the loungers, or lay flat on the deck, in shorts and sleeveless T-shirts. Merlin had opened a bottle of beer, saying it would help her think. Jack decided it would make him think better too and, as he wasn’t having his regular medication, he could drink again. Alex, Rachel and Kat stayed with iced tea.

Aquila had reported that the ship hadn’t appeared again during Friday or during the night. Alex was concerned but she didn’t doubt anymore. They were going in the right direction. Now they needed to brainstorm a solution. The heat, however, made it difficult to get started.

“What did it look like?” Rachel asked. “How big is this thing?”

“Big,” Alex replied. “One fifty, two hundred feet long? Forty, fifty feet wide? That kinda scale. It’s big. Four tall masts; all the sail was up but they weren’t doing anything. It looked .. just like today is. Flat calm. No wind at all. I saw the crew, or some of them, and they were just .. wandering about. A sailing ship that can’t sail. It was hardly moving.”

“On the edge of the current,” Merlin remarked. “We’re having to use the engines because we’re too close to land. A few hundred yards farther out, you catch the current.” She swallowed a mouthful of beer. “Strange.”

“What is?” Kat asked.

“A ship that size .. so far in to shore. If they went out a little, they’d catch more of the current an’ go faster.”

“Do you think they’ll do that?” Alex asked. “Do we need to do the same?”

Merlin thought about it, her eyes narrowed behind the mirrored sunglasses she wore. “If they did, they could reach Monterey before October 4. We know they don’t. Around Lopez Point, they arrive at journey’s end. The distance, the weather .. I’d say they stay on this course an’, today, do even less miles. They cover the rest faster because of the storm.”

“Okay, so we stay on our course too,” Alex decided. “Now .. ideas. How do we get them back?”

“The obvious answer is to duplicate the original accident,” Jack replied. “Put ourselves right in its path, let it hit us. I can’t believe I just said that. Something that big … ” He shuddered as his fertile imagination supplied the conclusion.

“There’s only one problem with doing that,” Rachel remarked. “Duplicating the original accident could duplicate the result.”

“Trap us on board with Derek an’ Nick,” Kat said. “We don’t want that.”

“We want the opposite to happen,” Alex agreed.

“We hit them,” Merlin suggested with a taut shrug.

“Could we do that?” Jack wondered hesitantly.

“Soon as it appears, we fire up the engines, open the throttles, go for it. Ram them. We could do it.”

“If the apparition lasts,” Rachel pointed out. “It might not.”

“If, at first, you don’t succeed, try again,” Merlin countered.

“If we can’t get them back today, they’re gonna be sailing thru some pretty bad weather,” Rachel went on.

“It’s beautiful here, Mom,” Kat commented. “Now, I mean. In the present.”

“Moving target’s more difficult to hit,” Jack remarked.

“Sure, but this boat is small an’ fast compared to them, an’ the target is bigger than the side of a barn. Even if it is all over the place, I’ll hit it somewhere,” Merlin declared.

“Is everyone happy with that idea?” Alex inquired.

“Happy? No, I can’t say I’m happy with it,” Jack responded promptly, “but I understand why it’s been suggested and .. I can go along with it. If it works, an’ it gets Derek an’ Nick back, it has to be worthwhile. There shouldn’t be any damage – I mean, that bigger than the side of a barn ship has already hit this tiny, fragile boat .. didn’t leave a mark.”

“I can take a run in toward the shore, drop you off,” Merlin offered.

“I’m fine,” Jack told her in a flat, slightly accusing voice. “I’m uneasy, I’m wary, I’m only human, but I am fine. I’m staying.”

Alex waited. “Everyone else .. okay with the idea?”

Rachel and Kat nodded. “Extreme situations require extreme solutions,” Rachel said. “We have to get them back and, if this is the way to do it, we have to give it our best shot.”

“Okay,” Alex decided. “Peri, you’ll have to be at the controls. You’ve studied them, you know how to get the best performance.” And not just from the Shamrock, she silently added. “We need a lookout on deck, or at the very least someone monitoring the TK meter. Just before the ship appeared, the needle flickered. It’ll be a signal to us to get ready. Everything loose should be stowed away. We’ll be moving fast an’ I don’t want things falling on us or tripping us up.”

“What if it doesn’t work?” Jack inquired.

Merlin angled her head at him. “Why don’t you just say what’s on your mind, Jack? You’ll feel better for getting it out in the open.” He couldn’t see her eyes so he didn’t know they were smiling at him. “Boats hitting each other .. that was your idea. We just adapted it slightly.”

Jack twitched. “I was trying to be logical – ”

“You succeeded. We have a plan.”

“What I mean is .. I remembered the original accident. That worked. We know it did because the guys aren’t here with us, they’re on that ship. Don’t take this wrong but I am glad it was them an’ not me. I don’t want to find out what life is like in the past, any past. I kinda like my life as it is right now. Yes, I am uneasy about .. the plan because, y’know, I am human, and the idea of using this boat as a battering ram against such a big target … My imagination is telling me I could get hurt even though the rest of me is saying the chances of that happening are slim to nothing.”

He paused, fidgeting, his shoulders twitching. “The plan makes sense. But .. what if it doesn’t work? What if we do get damaged? Remember, in the original incident, the ship hit them an’ it was an accident. The reports all talk about a ghost ship. Alex says, when she saw it yesterday, it looked real. For real, read solid. Plus there’s a link now to this boat. We know, don’t we, that some trace of spectral energy or residue is on board. Whatever the reason, however it got here, it means the circumstances are different now. We’ve got a bit of that ship with us an’ it has people we want back. Hitting it could damage us. I just want to get that out into the public forum.”

Jack looked round at them. “And .. what if it doesn’t work, mark two? What if .. we successfully carry out the plan, we don’t end up in the water surrounded by wreckage, but we don’t get them back? Should we have a back up plan?”

Alex nodded slowly. “Jack has a point. What kind of alternative can there be?”

Rachel leaned forward. “When the ship appears, it’s like .. the dimension it inhabits collides with ours. The two meet an’ share the same area of space and, possibly, time as well. For a few second or minutes, or however long it is, that ship is in the twenty first century.”

“Peri .. could you .. force it to stay here?” Kat hesitantly inquired. Once, she would have been confident and not phrased it as a question at all. “Extend the time that the two dimensions meet?”

“I don’t know how I could do that,” Merlin began.

“By going on board .. physically,” Kat replied, unsure how much to say with Jack sitting there. Her eyebrows rose and lowered several times as Merlin watched her.

“Physical presence on board won’t stop it,” Alex commented. “Derek an’ Nick are there physically. The ship still vanishes.”

“I think what Kat is trying to explain is, somehow, getting someone on board to .. act as a drag anchor an’ keep it in this time so that Nick an’ Derek can make good their escape,” Rachel ventured. “Once they’re over the side, that someone can come back too.”

“This could cause a huge rift in the space time continuum,” Jack remarked. “An interdimensional rip which could spell disaster.”

They all looked at him.

“I read it somewhere in a sci-fi novel,” Jack shrugged. “It seemed an appropriate comment to make.”

“And, possibly, a very valid one,” Merlin agreed, surprising the hell out of him. “I think I understand what you mean an’ I’m willing to give it a shot but .. my gut says it would be fundamentally messing with some serious shit and it could backfire big time.” She thought it over some more. “If they’re on the deck, ready to move, we could get away with it. If they’re below, maybe in confinement, and .. even supposing I can force it to stay when it wants to disappear again .. the longer I do that, the more trouble we’re all gonna be in.”

“Can we get a message to them, telling them what we plan?” Rachel suggested. “The ship appears, we pass the message along, and then .. they’d be ready to make a move .. the next time.”

“That might work but we don’t know how many shots we’ll have at this. There may not be a next time,” Merlin said. “Alex .. I would really recommend keeping that idea as a last resort option.”

“Okay,” Alex nodded.

“I have a question,” Kat spoke up.

“Sure, Kat,” Alex invited.

“Why did the ship take them in the first place?”

“Wrong place at the wrong time,” Jack replied. “Out on the water, relaxing, nice day … Pow! Ship appears, hits them. Something ripped an’ they got sucked thru.”

“But why them?” Kat persisted.

“Because they were there,” Jack said, paraphrasing.

Kat shook her head at him. “We’ve all said it, right from the start. We’ve talked about it today. The original incident, the original accident. What I’m trying to say is .. what if it wasn’t an accident? What if the ship took them on purpose?”

They looked at each other. “That puts things in a totally different light,” Merlin remarked quietly.

“If it was deliberate – ” Rachel began.

“It means we’re not controlling anything. The ship is. And,” Alex concluded, “no matter what we attempt, we’ll fail. It won’t let them go until the ship no longer needs them .. or it sinks.”

Jack nodded slowly. “Well, here we are, folks. Right back at square one. What do we do now?”

*****

The noon heat had driven Kat and Jack below for an afternoon siesta. Alex, Rachel and Merlin remained out on the sundeck. Jack had heat in Las Vegas, it wasn’t anything new to him. The three women were basking in it, knowing that San Francisco was, for most of the year, misty, murky, and cool.

Jack’s question, as yet, could not be answered. They needed time to understand the full effect of Kat’s words before they could debate anything. What it did mean, short term, was that the pressure was off. So long as they were in the general area, they couldn’t, for now, do much else at all.

“How did you meet Nick .. really?” Alex asked Merlin. “We know how you first met – in a dream. But what was it like the real first time?”

Merlin smiled to herself. “Well, the first time was in the forest. I knew I wasn’t dreaming, I was on my way back from training. I didn’t know he was dreaming. So, the real first time … It was in a bar. Middle of nowhere. I was watching an ice hockey game on TV and I was aware that someone had come up to the bar beside me. After a while, I glanced round … I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I mean, I’d always thought the guy I met up with in the forest was a spirit. A dead guy. An’, suddenly, there was his exact double sitting right there. I told myself it couldn’t be the same guy, that it was just coincidence, but .. the way he was staring at me, like he knew me from somewhere … An’ when he said I looked just like someone he’d dreamed about .. I realized he wasn’t a true spirit, just .. a soul out exploring. He asked if I wanted to go on someplace else, I said okay.”

Merlin’s eyes warmed. “That week we were together, I can’t begin to tell you how special an’ how heartbreaking it was. The great love of my life was a real guy, and a normal guy. I’d sworn never to get married, that my line ended with me. I wasn’t going to force anyone to do what I do an’ I sure was never gonna have kids. It meant that .. I knew I’d have to leave when the week was done, so it was heartbreaking. It would’ve been easier for me if Nick had been dead but he wasn’t. He was so full of life. It was special because .. for a short time, I lived a normal existence with him. I was just like everyone else. He talked about his family an’ how he wanted a new start, a family of his own, about how we could get married and start up somewhere new, no one would know us … And .. I left him. I didn’t have any choice. I refused absolutely to drag him into my darkness. I was a pretty mean bitch for a while after that. Thought I’d never see him again.”

“In a bar,” Rachel echoed. “Why am I not surprised it was in a bar? It was upstate someplace, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah. Back of beyond. A real low dive.”

“Nick loves places like that,” Alex nodded. “I’m not surprised he went in there.”

“An hour later .. we wouldn’t have met,” Merlin commented. “Fate. Destiny. And, of course, when we did meet up again, it was .. difficult. I couldn’t tell him anything about me. He didn’t once say he was Legacy. But, aside from that, it was so normal. Really weird. Wasn’t until I came to the island that I realized what he did an’ .. well, you know the rest. Try as I might, I could not force him away. The more I pushed, the stronger he came back. My Mom always said that, one day, I’d meet the one guy who’d blow me away. I never believed her .. till I met Nick.” She laughed softly. “Fate has a lot to answer for.”

Merlin sat up. “So .. how’d you meet up with those two?”

Rachel and Alex exchanged glances. This was so similar to a wake. People sitting around, quietly talking about old times, past associations, recent and not so recent memories. It helped them cope .. but they had to remember Derek and Nick weren’t dead. At least, not yet.

“I was in Ireland,” Rachel began. “It was a year after Patrick and Connor were killed. Kat and I went to visit their graves, like a pilgrimage. Kat found .. this box an’ really liked it, only it wasn’t just a box, it was one of the sepulchers. Derek, Nick and Julia had flown over to track it down.” She paused, thinking back. “My very first meeting with them … I was half naked and screaming, an’ they burst in to my hotel room. Nick went thru like greased lightning, thru the window and was gone, jumping into the night, an’ I wasn’t on the first floor. Derek .. went down the stairs because he always thinks before acting.” She shrugged. “When I woke up, I was in the house at San Francisco, and the subject of an investigation. Having been on that side of it .. it was easier for me to fit in an’ be a part of the team. And I needed it. I needed to be with these people.”

Alex smiled at her. “I met Derek at college. He was giving a talk and .. he just riveted me. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Actually .. no, thinking about it, my very first meeting with him was just before the talk. There was a child, a little girl, who’d gotten separated from her mother. She was crying an’ screaming, and Derek had no idea what to do to calm her down,” Alex grinned, her heart warming with the memory. “He was totally at a loss an’ needed rescuing. So I rescued him,” she shrugged. “After that .. he became my mentor. I came out to San Francisco to learn more, sitting at the master’s feet, and I’ve been with him ever since. My first meeting with Nick .. was when he joined the Legacy. I had to teach him how to use the computer. He was so quiet, so .. keeping it all inside. Julia was the only one he’d let get close to him.”

Merlin nodded. “You rescued Derek once, now you’re doing it again.”

“If the ship lets me,” Alex agreed. “I know I won’t give up trying, not ever.”

Rachel eased forward. “Are you jealous of Julia, and her relationship with Nick?”

“No,” Merlin replied. “It was before my time. Nick’s personal life before he met me is .. a closed book. I can’t be jealous of women he loved before I came on the scene. And, equally, the guys I knew before him are none of his business.”

“If Julia hadn’t died .. would they have married?” Rachel asked Alex.

“Maybe. I can’t say because she did die,” Alex replied. “And, if they had gotten married, what would have happened the first time Peri showed up at the house?”

“Probably nothing at all,” Merlin answered, grinning.

“The one great love of your life? C’mon! What happened to fate? Destiny?” Rachel queried.

Merlin sat up. “Rachel, I don’t hit on married guys. I would’ve come to the house only because William would have sent me in after a request being made by Derek, so I would’ve come as Aquila. I wouldn’t have taken any notice of anyone else, only the Precept an’ the situation. The most I would’ve noticed is .. that there were others in the house who were no threat. You forget, the way I met Nick .. it was all engineered. Very typically William Sloan. Backdoor, underhand, cunning. It was false and it didn’t turn out the way William wanted it to. This .. what Nick an’ I have now .. is a bonus. William never wanted it to last. An’, by the time Nick an’ I did meet up, he was free, so was I. I thought he was dead, he thought I was his imagination. For a long time – months – we only met in the forest. That’s where we … ” Merlin shrugged.

“Consummated the relationship?” Rachel wondered.

“I was gonna say that’s where we fought, hunted, chased, really got to know each other in our most elemental forms. Over there, anything really does go. There are no secrets an’ no disguises. You can’t hide from yourself. And I found a guy who .. gave me a run for my money. Who hit almost as hard as I did, who never backed down because it was too much effort or he didn’t feel like it. Nick was always ready, always up for it, no matter what it was. Finding out he was actually alive was a total shock. That’s when I knew my Mom had gotten it right. But, if he’d married Julia, he’d like as not still be with her because he is loyal and he works hard at everything, and I’d still be playing the field, living alone, an’ getting ever more cynical. I think it worked out for the best, I really do.”

“So can you fight destiny?” Alex asked.

“Yeah,” Merlin nodded. “You can fight it. You could lose but you could win. But you can always fight. Things aren’t inevitable. It comes down to the moment, y’know? It’s a whole lot of factors coinciding at the right time. Afterward, you blame it on fate if it’s bad, or destiny if it’s good, but you can fight, you can resist. I do believe in timing. If Nick had arrived at that bar an hour later, I would’ve been gone. If I hadn’t decided, of my own free will, to stop off for a beer, I’d never have met him there. I might have passed him on the city streets a thousand times an’ always looked the wrong way because the time wasn’t right. I saved his life in Colombia, an’ never saw his face. He never knew I was there, shielding him with my body, taking bullets meant for him. It was just a job to me. The time wasn’t right. When it was, we met.”

“But that isn’t destiny?” Rachel smiled.

“No, it’s timing. You’d get on great with my Mom,” Merlin grinned. “You could talk for hours about destiny. I believe in timing. Derek an’ Nick are on that ship because .. the time’s right. When the time’s right again, they’ll leave. In the interim, there isn’t much we can do.”

“Except be there to pick ’em out of the water,” Alex added.

“Sometime in the next five days,” Rachel concluded.

“At least we have good weather, even if they won’t,” Alex remarked.

“I hope it lasts,” Rachel commented.

“Why’s that?” Merlin frowned.

“I’m just about at the end of Jack’s medication. One more shot,” Rachel replied with a shrug, “and he’s on his own.”

*****

More than once, Alex thought over what Merlin had said about timing and found Kat’s question resonating with sympathy if not harmony. The ship took them for a reason, deliberately, on purpose .. because the time was right. It meant they had something to do there. She hoped it was to prevent the ship sinking, to make sure it reached Monterey or whatever other port it was heading toward, even if the ship was battered and broken and would never sail again. If that were true, Alex wasn’t looking at the very definite deadline of October 4.

Temporal mechanics was not one of Alex’s strong points. As far as she knew, no one in the Legacy had ever managed to do what Derek and Nick had done – become trapped in a haunting. That was bad enough but there was the time thing to consider as well. Alex could deal with the paranormal aspect even if she was breaking new ground. The temporal part was giving her a headache.

“Hey, how you doing?” Jack inquired, sitting on the lounger next to hers.

Alex nodded. “Okay, I guess, in the circumstances.”

“You, er, thought anymore about what we’re gonna do?”

“I’ve thought, yes. Have I made any decisions? No. What .. reason could a ship have for … ” She shrugged. “It’s kidnapping.”

Jack slowly shook his head. “Kidnapping is taking hostages an’ demanding money or services. The ship hasn’t made any demands. This is more .. abduction.”

“All right,” Alex patiently corrected, “what reason could a ship have for abducting Derek an’ Nick?”

He hunched his shoulders. “Alex, the only experience – an’ that isn’t the right word exactly to use because I don’t mean personal experience here – that I have with abduction is aliens. I’ve read about it and I’ve watched TV. That’s the depth of my ‘experience’ with the subject. So .. coming at it from that angle, aliens abduct people for medical experiments.”

Alex looked at him steadily and said nothing.

“Okay,” he went on, “I’m not suggesting the ship took them so it could stick probes in ’em. But maybe it took ’em so it could find out something. Aliens use us as research subjects .. allegedly.”

To his surprise, Alex didn’t jump all over him. Her eyes became thoughtful, drifting away from his face.

“Or maybe have them do something,” she added. It made sense. It fit with her earlier ruminations.

Jack frowned. “Like what?”

“Prevent the sinking.”

“No .. no, I don’t think they could do that. Well,” he qualified, “they could but they shouldn’t.”

“Why?” Alex inquired.

“Temporal mechanics,” Jack replied with a brief shrug. He looked at her blank expression. “C’mon, Alex! You’ve seen Star Trek. The temporal prime directive?”

“Jack, that’s TV. It isn’t real.”

“Doesn’t matter! The principle’s the same. Look, you’re coming at it from the advantage of now. The ship’s been on the bottom a good long time to us. Yes, it would make sense for you to think they are there to prevent it sinking because you’re a good person who has compassion to spare. But it would change history as we know it. Derek’s on board and, to him an’ the crew, this is happening for the first time. If he tells them to sail farther out, that a big storm’s coming, that they’re gonna sink, an’ they act on those warnings, the ship will get to Monterey or even to shelter someplace else, the crew all survive, go on to lead long, purposeful, productive lives, have kids … None of that is bad. But what if one of those kids, or grandkids, go on to .. I don't know, break into Fort Knox an’ steal all the gold. America goes bankrupt. It can’t bale out the allies in World War II, they lose, Hitler wins, and the Nazis take over the world. History would change, Alex. In the blink of an eye, our lives would be different. We may never have been born at all. We’d be snuffed out. All because Derek says or does the wrong thing. That ship has to sink on October 4. The people who survived have to survive, and the people who died have to die.”

“Then why did the ship take them?” Alex asked, leaning forward. “What motive could it have if it isn’t for them to do something?”

Jack shook his head. “Maybe . .they just have to be there. Maybe they have to see something or hear something. Why do ghosts haunt?” he asked in turn.

“Violent, unexpected death. A demand for justice. Hidden information,” Alex related promptly.

“So it could be the last one. Something presently unknown. Something which went down with the ship. They have to discover it an’ then the ship will let them go.”

Alex stared, frowning, at the ocean. “Peri was saying earlier that the storm may not be the sole reason the ship sinks. Maybe Derek has to learn what the other reasons are.”

“It sounds good to me,” Jack agreed. “In which case, we can’t do a whole lot to speed the process. The ship won’t let them go until Derek does whatever it is he needs to do .. and he’s the only one who can figure that out. He’s a smart guy. He’s had five days now. I am sure he’s on the trail.”

“If he’s free to move around,” Alex pointed out. “They could believe he’s a stowaway.”

“So maybe that’s why Nick had to go with him. Remember, the ship wants them on board. The crew are incidental.”

She smiled. “You’re making it sound as if the ship’s alive and can choose.”

“So?” Jack shrugged.

“It’s a thing, Jack.”

“So? Haven’t you ever been in a hurry an’ your car refuses to start? Or the Xerox machine just won’t work? Things can be just as bloody minded as people, y’know. Take it from me, someone who knows – that ship will do what it has to if it means resolution.”

*****

Merlin was shuffling thru Nick’s notes again. “Alex said four masts, didn’t she?”

“Uh huh,” Rachel nodded as she rubbed after-sun cream on her shoulders. “Why?”

“Two schooners and a barkentine. That’s the usual suspects. Schooners only have three masts. So, by a process of elimination – ”

“It has to be the barkentine.”

“Elementary, my dear Watson,” Merlin grinned. “Now, Nick didn’t put names to any of these ships but he says about the barkentine … Wow.”

Rachel looked round. “What?”

“It sank exactly one hundred years ago,” Merlin said, glancing up. “A century. A significant year. Explains a lot.”

“Such as?”

“I don’t know but .. I can’t see anything major going down if it was ninety nine years ago, or one hundred, three. A hundred, on the nose .. explains a lot. It says to me .. if anything was gonna happen, this is the year it would go down.”

“Well, it has,” Rachel pointed out. “It’s happened.”

“Yeah, it has because it’s this year. If Nick had decided two or three years ago to look into this an’ he an’ Derek did exactly the same things as they’ve done this year .. chances are they’d’ve sat on board an’ nothing would’ve happened. The ship might have hit them but they wouldn’t have gone with it. It might have missed them. Might not have appeared at all. But a century .. right place and right time.”

Rachel slowly sat down, her face serious. “This is gonna go to the wire, isn’t it?”

Merlin put the notes back in the folder. “I think it is, yeah. It may not but .. there’s too much going on to indicate an early resolution to this. If it was just the weather, we’d be inundated with reports of ghost ships along this coast. As we’re not, I have to suspect the storm in itself isn’t responsible. Something else is going on which we know nothing about.”

“But they do.”

Merlin laughed softly. “C’mon, Rachel. Have you ever known those two to deliberately ignore a mystery when it’s right in front of them? Not only that, but it’s invited them in an’ presented itself on a silver platter? No way! You can put money on it that they are poking their noses into a lotta private stuff. Maybe they’re not enjoying it but .. what the hell, it’s passing the time till they can jump ship.”

Rachel smiled too. “You’d make a good psychologist, d’you know that?”

“I just know what presses the buttons for those guys. For Nick, it was the combination of ship an’ ghost. For Derek .. it was what happened next.” She tilted her head. “Why’d you ask?”

Rachel shrugged slightly. “I’m worried about them.”

“Yeah, you are. We all are, in our own various ways. But, with you, there’s more to it,” Merlin remarked.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Rachel muttered.

Merlin slowly nodded, wondering why Rachel had lied. “Okay.”

“Mom ..?” Kat called, her voice hesitant.

“Down here, sweetie!” Rachel called back, glad for the change of subject even though Merlin wasn’t pressing it.

“You’d better get up here,” Kat warned.

Rachel and Merlin stared at each other then scrambled for the steps.

Alex was in the main cabin, so was Jack. The terrible, draining heat was starting to ebb as the sun eased into the west. Kat was kneeling on one of the sofas, staring out the window. The atmosphere was suddenly very strained and full of growing tension.

“What is it?” Rachel asked on a hushed whisper as she emerged into the cabin.

Merlin pushed past her and looked to where Kat was looking. “Oh .. shit,” she breathed.

The western sky was full of thick, black cloud. It was boiling, angry, relentless. The sun lit it from above, turning the black to a dark velvet purple. Lightning flickered erratically, spitting into the sea.

Rachel turned her head. It was across the horizon, south to north. Not one break. And it was growing. Stretching up, becoming taller.

“It’s heading this way,” Merlin said. “By the rate it’s moving .. it’ll hit us around dawn tomorrow.”

“Just like it will Derek an’ Nick,” Alex muttered, shivering and rubbing the sudden gooseflesh on her upper arms.

“Fits the pattern,” Merlin commented. “Right place, right time, right conditions.”

“How … How long will it last?” Jack inquired softly.

“I think it’d be reasonable to say at least five days,” Merlin replied.

He nodded slowly, his voice apparently paralyzed for the moment.

There is always something positive to be found in the darkest situations, Merlin thought rather uncharitably.

“We have to prepare,” Alex said. “We’ve seen it, we can act on the warning. We don’t have much time. We should get some sleep, while we still can. I don’t suppose we’ll manage much rest in the days ahead.”

No one suggested turning tail and running for shelter back in Morro Bay. They could’ve made the voyage easily and with time to spare but this wasn’t a pleasure cruise. They were here to the end, they knew it, and they accepted it.

“Let’s move,” Alex ordered.

“Rachel ..?” Jack said, his voice strangled.

“Yes, Jack?”

“You do have enough medication to last me .. don’t you?” he asked, his eyes pleading with her. Rachel hesitated and his face fell. “We’re gonna die,” he groaned. “God help us, we are all gonna die.”

“Not if I have any say in it,” Alex declared, hoisting her battle colors.

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