“They are,” Troy replied, “but it’s very simple to disable the alarm system.  It always cracks me up.  Somebody sells the hotel the idea that they can protect their property with these alarms.  But the burglars can easily find out what system has been installed, buy the circuit data sheets, and completely disable the protection.”

      Troy glanced around the room.  He then checked his watch carefully.  “Let’s see,” he said.  “Why don’t you two move over here in these chairs.  I think you’ll be able to see better.”  Nick and Carol exchanged puzzled looks and arranged themselves as Troy had requested.  “Now,” he continued in a surprisingly serious tone, “you will see what I believe is incontrovertible proof that my story about the aliens is true.  They have told me, through this bracelet, that they are going to televise a short program from inside the vehicle at exactly seven-thirty.  If I have translated their directions properly and made the correct modifications, this television should now be able to receive their transmission.”

      He turned on the set and put it on channel 44.  There was nothing but snow and static.  “This is great, Troy,” Nick commented.  “It will probably steal rating points from soap operas and music videos.  Watching this requires even less intelligence — ”

      A picture suddenly appeared on the screen.  The lighting was poor, but Carol immediately recognized herself in the scene.  She was standing with her back to the cameras, her fingers moving around on top of what appeared to be a table.

      An orchestral version of “Silent Night,” featuring an instrument not unlike an organ, accompanied the picture.

      “That’s the music room I told you about,” Carol said to Nick.  “I guess that warden thing had a video camera in all his paraphernalia.”

      The television scene switched immediately to a close-up of Carol’s eyes.  For five seconds her marvelous, frightened eyes filled almost the entire screen.  She blinked twice before the camera pulled back and revealed her in front view.  terrified, standing and shaking in her bathing suit.  Carol shuddered as she recalled the horror of those seconds when the warden’s appendages intruded upon her person.  It was all shown in the video, some parts even in slow motion.  One of the featured scenes was the deliberate movement of the bristles across her chest, including both her erect nipples.  Oh my God, she thought.  I hadn’t realized they were erect.  Maybe fear does that.  Carol squirmed.  She felt surprisingly embarrassed in front of Nick.

      There was a jump discontinuity in the program.  In the next scene the three of them were looking at Troy, lying on his back on the floor somewhere, with enough wires and cords attached to him that he could have been Gulliver bound by the Lilliputians.  The camera panned around the room.  Two wardens were in one of the corners.  Their upper body attachments were not even similar, but they both had the same central body, amoebalike, that had confronted Troy and Carol.  On the other side of the room a pair of carpets were standing together.  From their motions it looked as if they were engaged in a conversation.  Nick and Carol and Troy watched while the camera stayed fixed for about ten seconds.  The carpets apparently finished conferring and then flipped off in separate directions.

      The final frames of the transmission were a close-up of Troy’s head showing more than a hundred probes and inserts connected to his brain.  Then the screen went back to snow and static.  “Wowee,” said Nick after a moment.  “Can I have an instant replay?”  He stood up from the bed.  “You were terrific,” he remarked to Carol, “but I think your scenes will have to be edited if we want a PG rating.”

      Carol looked up at him and blushed slightly.  “Sorry, Nick, but I don’t think you make a good comedian.  We have one already,” she nodded at Troy, “and I think that’s enough.”  She glanced at the clock beside her bed.  "Now I figure we have fifteen minutes or so to make plans.  No more.  And I have to dress as well.  Why don’t you tell Troy about your decision and what you have concluded about the Santa Rosa loot while I change my clothes.”  She grabbed a blouse and a pair of pants and headed for the bathroom.

      “Hey, wait a minute,” Nick protested.  “Aren’t we going to discuss who it was that broke into my condominium and your hotel room?”

      Carol stopped outside the bathroom door.  “There are only two possibilities that make any sense,” she said.  “It’s either the Navy or our sicko friends from the Ambrosia.  Either way we’ll find out soon enough.”  She stopped a moment and an elfin smile played across her lips.  “I want you two to see if you can figure out a way to steal Homer’s gold.  Tonight.  Before we go back to meet with our extraterrestrials tomorrow morning.”

9

CAROL and Troy went over the details one last time and she checked her watch.  “It’s eight-thirty already,” she said.  “If I’m much later I know they’ll be suspicious.” She was standing outside Nick’s Pontiac in the parking lot of the Pelican Resort, a restaurant about three-quarters of a mile from the Ashford mansion at Pelican Point.  “Where is he?” she fretted.  “We should have finished with this fifteen minutes ago.”

      “Just calm down, angel,” Troy replied.  “We have to test this new unit first.  It could be very important in an emergency and I’ve never actually used it.” He gave her a reassuring hug.  “Your friends at MOI originally developed it.”

      “Why did I have to suggest such a wild-ass idea?”  Carol said out loud to herself.  “Where’s your brain, Dawson?  Did you leave it in the .  .  .”

      “Can you hear me?” Nick’s garbled voice interrupted her.  It sounded as if it were coming from the bottom of a well.

      “Yes,” Troy answered into a tiny walkie-talkie shaped like a thimble.  “But not too clearly.  How deep are you?”

      “Say again,” said Nick.  “I did not copy completely.”

      “Yes, we can hear you,” Troy shouted.  He carefully enunciated each word.  “But not very clearly.  You must speak slowly and distinctly.  How deep are you?”

      “About eight feet,” was the response.

      “Go down to sixteen and try it again,” said Troy.  “Let’s see if it will work from the deepest part of the cave.”

      “How’s he doing that?”  Carol asked, while they waited for Nick to descend.

      “It’s a brand-new system, built into the regulator,” Troy answered.  “You have to speak while you’re exhaling for it to work.  There’s a small transmitter/receiver inside the mouthpiece and an earphone attachment.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t work much below ten feet.”

      Almost a minute later Carol and Troy heard something, very faint, not even recognizable as Nick’s voice.  Troy listened for a moment.  “We cannot read you, Nick.  There is too much attenuation.  Come on back now.  I’m going to send Carol on her way.”  Troy pressed a button on the walkie-talkie that would repeatedly transmit this last message.

      He handed the communications unit to Carol.  “Okay, angel,” he said, “you’re ready.  We should be in the water around nine o’clock and out, if all goes well, by half an hour later.  Keep them occupied with your questions.  You should leave by ten-thirty at the latest and drive directly to Nick’s apartment.  We will meet you there with your wagon.” He raised his eyebrows.  “And the gold, I hope.”

      Carol took a deep breath.  She smiled at Troy.  “I’m scared,” she said.  “I would rather face a carpet or even one of those warden things than this trio.”  She opened the car door.  “Do you really think I should go in Nick’s car?  Isn’t that certain to make them suspect something?”

      “We’ve been through all this twice before, angel,” Troy laughingly replied.  He gently nudged her into the car.  “They already know we’re friends.  Besides, we need your wagon for the diving gear, the backpacks, and the lead and gold.”  He closed the door and planted a light kiss on her cheek through the open window.  “Be safe, angel,” he said.  “And don’t take any unnecessary chances.”

      Carol started the car and backed into the middle of the parking lot.  She waved at Troy and pulled into the dark lane that led through the marsh to the end of the island.  The only light was from the nearly full gibbous moon that was already above the trees.  All right, Dawson, she thought to herself.  Now you’re in the middle of it.  Just stay calm and alert.

      She drove very slowly.  She reviewed the plans for the evening several times in her mind.  Then she started thinking about Nick.  He holds on to things.  Like I do.  He still hates Homer and Greta for cheating him.  He couldn’t wait to dive for the gold.  She smiled as she turned into the circular drive in front of Homer Ashford’s house.  I just hope there is some left over for him.

      A split second after Carol rang the doorbell, Homer opened the door and greeted her.  “You’re late,” he said in a pleasant monotone.  “We thought maybe you were not coming.  Greta is already in the pool.  Do you want to change and join her?”

      “Thanks, Captain Homer, but I decided not to swim tonight,” Carol answered politely.  “I appreciate the offer, but I’m mostly here on business.  I would prefer to start the interview as soon as possible.  Even before dinner, if that would be all right with everyone else.”

      Homer led Carol into a gigantic family room and stopped by a large wet bar.  A magnificent hand-carved wooden statue of a swimming Neptune, about four feet long altogether, was on the wall above the bar.  Carol asked for some white wine.  Homer tried without success to talk her into something stronger.

      The family room had a billiards table at one end.  On the other side, a sliding glass door opened onto a covered patio that narrowed into a cement walkway.  Carol followed Homer in silence, sipping from her white wine every twenty steps or so.  The walkway wound past big trees and a lighted gazebo off to the left before it spread out around the huge swimming pool.

      Actually there were two pools.  In front of Carol was a classic, rectangular, Olympic-sized pool under strong lights.  At one end was a slide and waterfall that ran down an artificial mountain into the swimming area.  At the other end, in the direction of the second pool and the ocean, there was a sunken Jacuzzi constructed out of the same decorated blue tiles that rimmed the top of the main pool.  The entire complex was cleverly designed to create the impression of moving water.  There seemed to be a steady flow from the waterfall, to the large pool.  down into the Jacuzzi, and then into a stream that meandered off in the direction of the house.

      The second pool was circular and dark.  It was off to Carol’s left at the edge of the property, near what looked like a small cottage for changing clothes.  Greta was in the rectangular pool in front of Carol.  She was swimming laps, her powerful body moving rhythmically through the water.  Carol, who was an excellent swimmer herself, watched Greta for a few seconds.

      “Isn’t she something?”  Homer walked over next to Carol.  His admiration was obvious.  “She won’t let herself eat a big meal unless she works out beforehand.  She can’t stand fat.”

      Homer was wearing a light brown Hawaiian shirt with a pair of tan slacks.  Brown loafers were on his feet, and a big drink, crammed with ice cubes, was in his hand.  He seemed relaxed, even affable.  Carol thought he could have passed for a retired banker or corporate executive.

      Greta continued to swim relentlessly through the water.  Homer was hovering over Carol and she was beginning to feel uncomfortable, as if her space were being invaded.

      “Where’s Ellen?” she asked, turning to the large man and moving just slightly farther away from him.

      “She’s in the kitchen,” Homer replied.  “She loves to cook, especially when we have guests.  And tonight she’s making one of her favorite dishes.”  There was almost a twinkle in his eye.  He leaned down to Carol.  “She made me promise not to tell you what we’re having,” he whispered confidentially, “but I will tell you that it’s a powerful aphrodisiac.”

      Ugh, said Carol to herself as she caught a whiff of Homer’s breath and listened to his leering chuckle.  How could I have forgotten how repulsive this man is? Does he really think that  .  .  .  Carol stopped her thought.  She reminded herself that people with excessive money very often lose touch with reality.  Probably some of the women respond.  For what he can give them.  She almost gagged.  The thought of having any kind of sexual liaison with Homer was totally repugnant.

      Greta had finished swimming laps.  She climbed out of the pool and dried herself off.  Her all-white racing uniform was like a transparent body stocking.  Even from a distance, Carol could not avoid seeing the full detail of her nipples and breasts as well as her clump of pubic hair through the thin suit.  She might as well have been naked.  Homer stood beside Carol, unabashedly staring as Greta strode across the cement.

      “No suit?”  Greta said just before she reached them.  Her eyes were trying to bore holes in Carol’s.  Carol shook her head.  “I’m sorry,” said Greta.  “Homer had hoped that we might have a race.” She looked at the captain with an odd expression that Carol did not understand.  “He loves to see women in competition.”

      “It would have been no contest,” Carol answered.  She thought she saw Greta tense.  “You would have won easily,” she added.  “You swim beautifully.”

      Greta smiled, accepting the compliment.  Her eyes roamed over Carol’s body.  She made no effort to hide the fact that she was doing an appraisal.  “You have a good body too for swimming,” Greta said.  “Maybe a little too fat on the ass and upper legs.  I could suggest workout — ”

      “Why don’t we show Miss Dawson the other pool?”  Homer interrupted.  “Before you go inside and change clothes.”  He started walking toward the little cottage near the ocean.  Without saying another word, Greta turned and followed him.  Carol took a sip from her wine.  Who knows what goes on here, she thought .  Those three have not had to work for eight years.  They take people out fishing and diving for amusement.  A strange mixture of disgust and depression started to spread in her.  So they manufacture entertainment to keep from being bored.

      Moments after Homer entered the cottage, a bank of flood-lights down underneath the second pool was illuminated.  Homer gestured for her to hurry and Carol skipped into the cottage.  They led her down a flight of steps.  Under the ground was a walkway that completely encircled the large glass aquarium that had looked, in the darkness, like a second swimming pool.  “We have six sharks now,” Homer said proudly, “as well as three red occi, a pair of cuttlefish, and of course hundreds of more standard species of fish and plants.”

      “Occi?” inquired Carol.

      “That’s the slang plural of octopus,” Homer responded with a smug, self-satisfied smile.  “Actually, the correct plural is octopodes, even though everyone now accepts octopi because it has been used so much.”

      Greta was standing with her face pressed against the glass.  A couple of bat rays swam past.  She was waiting for something.  After twenty seconds or so a grayish shark appeared.  The shark seemed to notice Greta and stopped, watching her, its face about five feet away from the glass.  Carol could see the long sharp teeth and identified it as a mako, a fierce smaller cousin of the man-eating great white shark.

      “That’s Greta’s pet,” said Homer.  “His name is Timmy.  Somehow she has trained him to recognize her face against the glass.  “ Homer watched a few more seconds.  “From time to time she goes in there to swim with him.  When the sharks have finished eating, of course.”

      The shark remained in place, staring blankly in Greta’s direction.  She began to drum her fingers against the glass in regular cadence.  “Now this is exciting,” Homer said, walking over next to Greta and the aquarium.  “What you are going to see is what biologists call a typical Pavlovian response.  I’ve never seen it quite this way before in a shark.”

      The mako began to be agitated.  Greta started increasing the tempo, the shark responding by whipping the water back and forth with its tail.  Suddenly Greta disappeared up the stairs.  Carol thought she noticed a faraway look in her eyes when Greta zoomed by her.  Carol looked at Homer for an explanation.  “Come down here closer,” he gestured to Carol.  “You don’t want to miss this.  Greta cares for the rabbits herself.  And Timmy always puts on a grand show.”

      Carol wasn’t exactly sure what Homer was talking about.  But she was enjoying the lovely aquarium.  It contained crystal-clear sea water, obviously filtered and recycled regularly.  Carol noticed several species of sponges and coral, as well as urchin and anemone.  Someone had gone to great trouble and expense to re-create the conditions in the reefs just off-shore Key West.

      Suddenly a beheaded white rabbit impaled on a long vertical staff, the blood still spurting from its arteries, appeared in the aquarium just opposite where Carol and Homer were standing.  It was over in an instant.  Driven to immediate frenzy by the blood in the water, the mako attacked, its teeth ripping half the hapless rabbit off the stave with the first bite.  The second swoop captured the rest of the rabbit and snapped the rod as well.  Carol barely had time to recoil and turn her head.  When she jumped back, she spilled wine all over her blouse.

      Trying to appear calm, she reached in her purse for a tissue to wipe her blouse.  She said nothing.  She had had a perfect view of the shark’s attack and could still feel the adrenaline imbalance that the fright had produced.  Great way to start a dinner party, she thought.  Why haven’t I ever thought of it?  Dawson, these people are weird.

      Homer was still excited.  “Wasn’t that spectacular?  Such raw, savage power in those jaws.  Driven by pure instinct.  I never get tired of it.”

      Carol followed him up the stairs.  “Good show, Greta,” she heard Homer say when they walked out of the cottage.  “It was right in front of us.  Two bites.  Wham, wham, and the rabbit was gone.”

      “I know,” said Greta.  She was holding a diving mask.  What was left of the staff was on the ground beside her.  “I could see from up here.”  Greta was staring at Carol, obviously trying to discover her reaction.  Carol averted her eyes.  She was not going to give Greta the satisfaction of knowing she had found it repulsive.

      “Greta has the whole thing down to split-second timing,” Homer continued as they walked back through the gardens to the house.  “She prepares the live rabbit on the chopping block an hour early.  Then, when Timmy is ready, she .  .  .  .”

      Carol tuned his gruesome story out of her mind.  I don’t want to hear this, she thought.  She glanced at her watch. Ten minutes after nine.  Come on guys.  Be swift.  I’m not certain I can stand these people for another hour.

      Nick and Troy swam silently along the shoreline in the moonlight.  They had carefully rehearsed the plan.  No additional light until they were in the cove beside Homer’s property and at least ten feet under water.  Troy would lead, searching for alarm systems he could disable with the tools stuffed in the pockets of his wet suit.  He would also keep a lookout for the infamous robot sentries.  Nick would follow with the buoyancy bags they would use to carry the gold.

      They had walked along the beach from the Pelican Resort parking lot, wearing their heavy diving suits as well as the backpacks, until they were only about a hundred yards from the thick fence that marked Homer’s property.  Then they had set down the packs containing their clothes and eased into the water.  During the walk Troy had had several problems with his tools, and a decision to reduce his arsenal of gadgets had delayed their arrival at the embarkation point by five minutes.  Just before they went into the water, Nick had given an uncharacteristic squeal of excitement and grabbed Troy by the shoulders.  “I hope that fucking gold is there,” he had said.  “I cannot wait to see their faces after we steal it.”

      It was time to submerge.  Holding hands in the darkness, Nick and Troy dropped about five feet under the water.  They stopped, equalized the pressure in their heads, and repeated the procedure.  When they were down about ten feet, Troy turned on the searchlight.  They quickly worked out their directions and headed around the corner, deeper into the cove adjoining Homer’s estate.

      Troy was in the lead.  He had no trouble finding the entrance to the natural tunnel that led to the subterranean cave.  As they had planned, Nick waited outside the tunnel while Troy went inside to look for alarms.  The rock cliffs closed over his head.  The watery entryway was about five feet across and four feet high.  Troy immediately found a metal box affixed to the left wall, where it was partially hidden from view.  When he examined the box, he discovered that it was emitting two laser beams separated by about three feet.

      On the other side of the natural tunnel were the receiving plates for the beams as well as the alarm electronics.  Troy swam over carefully, pulled out his screwdriver, and dismantled the housing.  The system was very simple.  Failure of either plate to receive a beam would trigger the opening of a relay.  When both relays were open, current could flow to the alarm.  Thus an object had to be large enough to break both beams simultaneously to set off an alarm.  Troy smiled to himself as he validated the operating principle by passing his hand in front of one of the beams.  Then he jerryrigged one of the relays permanently closed.  Satisfied with his work, he swam back and forth in the tunnel, breaking both beams at the same time, assuring himself that he had rendered the alarm system ineffective.

      He swam back out to meet Nick and gave him the thumbs-up sign.  The two men passed through the fifty yards of natural tunnel into the subterranean cave.  Where the narrow passageway widened, Troy again gestured to Nick to remain behind while he, Troy, went into the cave to check for booby-traps.  Nick let his feet fall to the bottom of the tunnel and switched on his own small flashlight.  He was in a perfect place for an ambush.  The tunnel was so small here that there was virtually no maneuvering room He wondered what an underwater sentry would look like.  What a place to die, he thought suddenly.  Fear swept over him as he turned off his flashlight and looked down at his illuminated diver’s watch.  He watched the glowing second hand sweeping around the face.  He tried to calm himself.  It had been three minutes since Troy had left.  Why is he taking so long? he asked himself.  He must have found something.  Another minute passed.  Then another.  Nick was having a hard time quelling the onset of panic.  What do I do if he doesn’t return?

      Just as Nick was about to swim into the cave on his own, he caught sight of Troy’s searchlight coming toward him Troy waved and Nick followed.  Within thirty seconds they were in the shallow part of the cave, where the water was only about four feet deep.  The two men stood up with their flippers lodged against the rocks to protect themselves from falling in the intermittent tidal surges.

      Nick pulled his regulator out of his mouth and flipped his mask back on his head.  Before he could speak, Troy put a finger against Nick’s lips.  “Speak very softly,” Troy’s whisper was barely audible.  “The place could be alarmed for sound as well.”

      There was no light in the cave except Troy’s searchlight.  However, over their heads, in the highest corners of the rock ceiling, Troy pointed out two separate banks of fluorescent lighting.  The cave itself was an irregular oval, about thirty yards in its longest dimension and maybe fifteen yards across at its widest point.  The ceiling was only about three feet above the water near the entrance to the tunnel out to the ocean, but it was twenty feet high in the corner where they were standing in the shallow water.

      “Well, Professor,” Troy continued whispering, “I have good news and bad news.  The bad news is that there is no treasure here in this cave.  The good news is that there are two other tunnels, both manmade, that lead away from this place and go under Captain Homer’s property.”  He paused for a moment and watched his partner.  “Shall we go for it?”

      Nick looked at his watch.  It was nine-twenty already.  He nodded.  “The bastard spent a lot of money down here.  They must have stolen more than I figured.” Nick adjusted his diving equipment.

      “We’ll start with the tunnel on the left.  As before, I’ll lead to look for trouble.”  Troy cast his searchlight around on the ceiling.  “This is a strange place.  But beautiful.  It looks like another planet, doesn’t it?”

      Nick pulled his mask back over his face and slipped the regulator in his mouth.  He flopped backward into the sea water.  Troy followed and, once under the surface, showed Nick the way to the first manmade tunnel.  This tunnel was on the other side of the cave, about twelve feet below the water at its lowest point.  It was made of normal circular sewer pipe.  The diameter of the pipe was about five feet, making the tunnel approximately the same size as the natural passageway between the ocean and the cave.  Troy entered the tunnel gingerly.  He swam back and forth from side to side, examining one wall for a few yards and then going across to the other.  He almost missed the long, slender alarm box.  It was embedded in the ceiling at a junction between two sections of sewer pipe and Troy just happened to look up before he triggered the alarm.

      This system worked on a different principle.  A camera or other optical device in the box on the ceiling took repeated images of a square foot of the tunnel bottom that was backlit by an illuminated square cleverly concealed below the normal concrete floor.  Apparently some kind of data comparison algorithm in the alarm processor contained logic by which the consecutive pictures could be assessed, in terms of threat, and an alarm triggered if necessary.  It was the most complicated device of its kind that Troy had ever seen and he quickly recognized the similarities between this system and the ocean telescope that had been onboard the Florida Queen.  That means MOI designed and developed it, he thought to himself.  So I’d best be careful.  I bet the algorithm is set so that disturbances to the camera trigger the alarm as well.

      Nick had swum over to the side of the tunnel, out of the way, and was watching Troy try to open up the alarm box without jiggling the optical instrument.  To accommodate the almost two-inch width of the box, there was a gap of that size everywhere around the circle connecting the two sequential sections of pipe.  Throughout the rest of the tunnel, all adjoining sections were cemented together.  Here the passageway was discontinuous.

      Curious, thought Nick.  He idly shone his small flashlight into the blackness in the gap beside him, expecting to see nothing but a wall of rock.  What in the world is that? he wondered, as his light fell upon some metal object that looked like a large grating.  The grating was resting upon an old piece of railroad track.  Nick looked more carefully.  He could make out a gear box and some pulleys, but he had no idea how all these mechanical devices fit together.

      Meanwhile Troy had managed to remove the housing from the alarm box without disturbing the camera and was busy trying to understand the inner workings of the system.  Whew, he thought.  This is much too complicated to figure out in five minutes.  If I can just isolate the alarm, that should be enough.  It was tough work under the water.  But Troy was clever and the electronics were packaged in a logical fashion.  He was able to find the alarm and disable it.  Afterward Troy lingered for several seconds trying to determine the purpose of the other circuits connected to the alarm subassembly.

      Nick had intended to show Troy what he had found in the gap; however, as he watched his friend struggling with the complex circuitry of the alarm box, he became again worried about the passage of time.  It was now almost a quarter to ten.  He caught Troy’s eye and pointed at his watch.  Troy reluctantly abandoned his investigation of the alarm and proceeded down the tunnel.

      Thirty yards farther the tunnel passed what looked like a door to a submarine on their left.  Both Troy and Nick tried pulling on the handle of the large and very heavy round door but nothing happened.  With gestures Troy told Nick to continue trying to open the door while he swam on down the tunnel.

      The gold bars and other objects that remained from the Santa Rosa treasure were sitting in the tunnel another thirty yards beyond the round door.  The passageway itself came to an abrupt halt against a rock wall.  In front of the wall was an array of gold and silver objects, stacked to an average depth of a foot or so across the width of the tunnel.  The treasure was not hidden in any way, it was simply scattered in random piles on the concrete floor at the end of the tunnel.  Troy was ecstatic.  There’s plenty here, he thought.  Enough for the aliens.  Enough for Nick.  Maybe even some left over for Carol and me.

      He swam back to find Nick.  Nick was absolutely exultant when he saw the unmistakable smile on Troy’s face.  He raced around his friend to the end of the tunnel When Nick first reached the treasure, he spent a minute or two swimming around, picking up each object that was different and dropping it back into the piles on the floor.

      Holy shit, Nick said gleefully to himself as he and Troy started putting gold bars into the buoyancy bags.  I was right for once.  There must be over a hundred pounds in bars alone.  They had agreed before the dive just to bring out the bars, provided there were enough.  The bars were the only objects they could be certain were pure gold.  Even if we take fifty-eight to Troy’s friends, that might leave fifty or so for us.  He did a quick mental calculation.  That could be over three hundred thousand dollars apiece.  Whoopee.

      Joy and excitement surged through Nick.  He was having difficulty containing himself.  He wanted to sing, to dance, to jump with joy.  He had been right after all.  The bastards had stolen most of the treasure and now he was stealing it back.  There’s no happiness quite like the redressing of an old and painful grievance.  And to do it with panache .  .  .  Nick was already celebrating in his heart.  This was his day.

      Filling the bags took no time at all.  Nick and Troy both felt as if they had infinite energy.  When they had finished picking up the gold bars, Troy gestured down the tunnel.  Nick looked down at the other treasure objects remaining on the floor.  We should take it all, he thought.  We should leave Homer and Greta nothing.  Nothing at all.  But he had to be practical.  Each of their bags was virtually full and they would be heavy enough as they were.

      Nick swam off in the direction of the ocean, his buoyancy bag full of gold trailing behind him.  Troy followed.  As they passed the bulky door on the right, Troy found himself thinking again about the circuitry leading to the alarm in the box just ahead, between the two sections of pipe.  What could those other connections be for?  Suddenly he remembered seeing a diagram in an electronics magazine about advanced timers that could reinitialize systems and swap out failed parts.  By now the component that Troy had disabled might have been declared a failure by the smart processor in the alarm box, in which case it would have either been replaced by a redundant part or the system would be ignoring its output.  In either situation, Troy thought, that means the system could be active again.

      It was too late.  Nick swam into the field of view of the optical device and lights came on throughout the tunnel.  A metal gate started closing behind Nick and his bag of gold.  It was only with a burst of speed that Troy propelled himself through before the gate shut completely.  But his buoyancy bag full of gold bars was left behind, on the other side of the gate.

      Nick stared at Troy’s lost bag as it floated to the floor.  He reached through the bars, grabbed the bag, and tried to pull it through.  It was useless.  He shook the gate.  The metal was extremely sturdy.  Angry and frustrated, he punched the gate with his fists.  As Nick caught his breath in between punches, he became aware of a strange droning sound, like a motor, somewhere in the distance behind him.  He turned around to find Troy.  He could not see him anywhere.

      Troy had been exhausted by his swimming sprint through the closing gate.  His energy spent, he had let himself fall to the floor of the pool in the deepest part of the cave, halfway between the two manmade tunnels.  He took several deep breaths through his mouthpiece and checked his air supply.  He had about ten minutes remaining.  He watched for a moment as Nick, almost out of sight to his right, tried fruitlessly to pull Troy’s bag through the gate.  Shit, Troy thought, disappointed that he had lost the gold, if only I had been thinking.  I should have known .  .  .  He heard an unusual sound off to his left.  Curious, Troy swam over to the entrance of the other tunnel and right into the path of the robot sentry.

      Even though the original distance between them was over fifty feet, the guidance mechanism of the sentry fixed on Troy as soon as he appeared.  Startled and fascinated, at first Troy did not try to avoid the onrush of the bullet-shaped submarine.  The sentry was three feet long and a foot wide in its midsection.  When it was about eight feet away, the sentry slowly loaded and fired a small but powerful spear, the size of a table knife, that Troy just managed to avoid as it hurtled past.  The spear crashed into the wall beside him.

      Adrenaline surged into Troy’s system and he swam out into the middle of the pool.  The sentry did not follow him immediately.  Instead it moved over in front of the natural passageway to the ocean, thereby cutting off the escape route, and then turned around to make a systematic search of the pool .  Damnit, Troy was thinking, why didn’t I leave while I had the chance?  He wondered if Nick was still over by the gate.

      The sentry had now found Nick in its field of vision.  He was swimming slowly toward the exit with his buoyancy bag.  He was unaware that he and Troy were not alone in the pool.  By the time Nick saw the sentry, he was fifteen feet away and within easy range of its underwater gun.  Troy watched the sentry load a spear.  Oh no, he cried out to himself.  Watch out, Nick.  There was nothing he could do.

      It happened so fast that neither Nick nor Troy knew exactly what occurred.  Troy would later explain that he felt a sudden warm tingle on his wrist and then something, a light beam or a laser burst or a stream of plasma perhaps, fired out of his bracelet and zapped the robot sentry into silence and motionlessness.  Nick would say that the sentry, just when it was going to fire at him, was first distracted by Troy and then recoiled as if from an impact.  Whatever happened, the sentry stopped all activity.  Immediately thereafter the two men swam together over to the shallow part of the cave.  They were temporarily safe.

      Carol could not believe how plump and succulent the oysters were.  Ellen was sitting at the other end of the table opposite her, and was beaming with pride.  “Would you like some more, dear?” she smiled, lifting the huge pot containing the oyster stew.  I’m now going to eat a second portion, Carol thought.  In addition to the catfish with Nick.  Greta would be disgusted.  She smiled to herself and nodded at Ellen.  There was at least one thing she had learned this evening.  Ellen was certainly a fantastic cook.

      And a very sad person too, Carol thought as she spooned herself some more spicy stew rich with the fabled Appalachicola oysters.  Homer had personally answered all the questions during the twenty-minute interview before dinner.  Whenever a question had been controversial or delicate, such as when Carol had asked about the allegations that part of the treasure haul had been secretly stolen and hidden by the three of them, he had looked only at Greta before he made a response.  No wonder Ellen eats all the time.  She’s the odd man out.  Or is it woman?

      “This stew is fabulous,” Carol remarked to Ellen.  “Would you mind giving me the recipe?”

      Ellen was delighted.  “Certainly, dear,” she said, “it would be my pleasure.” Carol remembered Dale’s reference to Ellen’s behavior at the MOI awards dinner and wondered if there was, indeed, any sexual component to the warmth Ellen was displaying.  I don’t see it, Carol decided.  This is just a lonely and profoundly disturbed woman.  I don’t feel one iota of sexual tension.

      “You’ve been asking the questions all evening, Miss Dawson,” Homer was saying.  “Now why don’t we ask you a few?”  He had been surprisingly pleasant and subdued since the bizarre preprandial shark feeding.  They must be normal sometimes, Carol thought.  Otherwise they couldn’t survive.  But who knows when Mr. Hyde will show up again.

      “Ya,” Greta said.  It was the first time she had spoken directly to Carol during the meal.  “Homer told me you were with Dr. Dale.  You are lovers, no?”

      You don’t beat around the bush, do you Greta.  Carol partially evaded the question.  “Dale Michaels and I are very good friends.  We spend quite a lot of time together, both socially and professionally.”

      “He is a smart man,” Greta said.  Those clear eyes stared at Carol and a smile played at the corner of Greta’s lips.  What is she trying to tell me?

      The conversation was interrupted by the sound of a sharp alarm.  Carol knew immediately that something had gone wrong.  “What in the world is that?”  Carol asked innocently as the strident alarm continued with its loud bursts.

      Homer and Greta were already up from the table.  “Excuse us,” Homer said, “it’s our burglar alarm.  Probably an error.  We’ll go check it out.”

      They hurried out of the dining room, leaving Carol and Ellen alone, and headed down a nearby hallway.  I must follow them and find out what’s going on, Carol thought, her heart and mind racing together.  She sneaked a peek at her watch.  It was five minutes past ten o’clock.  They should have finished by now.  “I’m going to the rest room,” she said to Ellen.  “Don’t bother,” she added, as Ellen started to explain the directions.  “I’m sure I can find it myself.”

      Carol walked quickly into the hall and listened for sounds of Homer and Greta.  Moving very quietly, she followed them until she was just outside a large den on the opposite side of the house.  The door to the den was ajar.  “It will focus in a second,” she heard Homer say.  There was a pause.  “Shit,” he shouted, “it looks like the gold bars are already gone.  They must have moved very fast .  .  .  The picture is really not very clear.  Here, you take a look.”

      “Ya,” said Greta.  “The bars are gone, I think .  .  .  But Homer, the gold would be very heavy.  Maybe the thieves are trapped in the tunnel .  .  .  Timmy could search for them.”

      “That would fix the bastards,” Homer’s nervous laugh sent chills down Carol’s spine.  She back pedaled slowly until she had retreated to the main foyer of the house.  She heard an outside door slam in the direction of the den.  They’ve gone out to turn the sharks loose.  Jesus.  I must warn Nick and Troy.

      Carol walked into the nearest bathroom in the hallway, pushed the door closed, and turned on the water faucet.  Then she flushed the commode and untaped the small walkie-talkie that was hidden inside her shirt.  She put the unit right next to her mouth.  “Mayday, mayday,” she said.  “They know you’re there.  You are in danger.”  She repeated the message and then pushed the button that would automatically recycle the communication several more times.  I certainly hope this damn thing works, she thought.

      She started to affix the tiny unit to the inside of her blouse again.  While she was taping it down, she happened to look in the mirror.  Her heart nearly stopped.  Ellen was standing in the doorway, staring at her, the baleful glare in her eyes indicating that she had seen and heard everything.  She took a step toward Carol.

      “Just hold it right there, Ellen,” Carol said.  Carol put her hands up.  “I have no quarrel with you.” The fat woman hesitated.  “Homer and Greta only use you anyway,” Carol added softly, “why don’t you leave them and make a life for yourself?”

      Anger broke across Ellen’s face.  Her eyes narrowed, her cheeks reddened, and she raised her huge fists to threaten Carol.  “It’s none of your damn business how I live my life,” she said menacingly.  She moved again in Carol’s direction.

      Carol grabbed the thick metal towel rack beside her and pulled with all her might.  The bar sprung free from the wall, dumping two peach bath towels and a wooden end piece on the linoleum floor.  Carol brandished the bar over her head.  “Don’t make me hit you,” she said.  “Just move aside and get out of my way.”

      Ellen did not slow down.  Carol aimed carefully and struck her hard, on the right shoulder.  The heavy woman collapsed.

      “Greta,” she wailed in a monstrous voice, “Greta, help me.”

      Still waving the bar from the towel rack, Carol walked carefully around Ellen and backed toward the door.  Once in the hall, she sprinted to the family room and headed for the front door.  Right beside the wet bar she was tackled from behind.  Carol fell forward, hard, and smashed her nose on the carpet.  She tried to squirm out of Greta’s arms but it was impossible.  She was pinned.  A few drops of blood trickled out of Carol’s nose and fell on the carpet.

      Both women were breathing heavily.  Carol managed to turn her body around so that she was facing Greta.  She struggled vainly to free herself.  Greta’s strong arms slammed Carol’s wrists against the floor.  Greta bent down until her face was only inches away from Carol’s.  “You were trying to get away, ya, and just why vere you in such a hurry.”

      There was something feral in Greta’s eyes.  On impulse, Carol lifted her head and kissed Greta, full on the lips.  Startled, her assailant’s arms momentarily relaxed.  That was all Carol needed.  Gathering all her strength, she smashed the bottom of her palm into the side of Greta’s head.  Greta was stunned.  Carol pushed her off and made a dash for the door.

      Carol was already calculating when she ran out the front door and down the steps.  Greta will be up in an instant, she thought.  I won’t have time to open the car door.  I might as well run for it.

      The German woman was only fifteen yards behind her, and gaining fast, when Carol turned onto the lane that led from Homer’s house to the Pelican Resort.  For ten years I have run three times a week.  But this is the only time my life has ever depended on it.  She tried to accelerate.  Greta continued to close the gap.  Carol was certain she was going to be caught at any minute.  Once she thought she felt Greta’s hand on her blouse.

      But after two hundred yards Greta began to drop back.  When she was a quarter of a mile from Homer’s driveway Carol dared to look over her shoulder.  Her pursuer was clearly struggling and was now fifty yards behind her.  Carol felt a renewed burst of energy.  I’m going to make it, she thought.  I’m actually going to escape.

      Greta slowed to a walk.  Eventually Carol did too, but not until she was almost to the restaurant.  Even then she continued to look back, to try to find her antagonist in the moonlight.  Now I’ll call a taxi, she was thinking, And go over to Nick’s apartment.  I hope that the two of them heard my warning and are safe.

      She could no longer see Greta.  She stopped and strained her eyes.  She must have turned back, Carol thought.  While she was looking back down the lane, a pair of very strong hands grabbed her shoulders.  She spun around and stared into the laughing eyes of Lieutenant Richard Todd.

10

HE had purposely waited until all the rest of the actors had left the dressing room.  The package itself was inconspicuous, about the size of a large bar of soap, wrapped in white paper with a dark red ribbon.  You don’t even know if it’s from her, Winters thought as he pulled the bow on the ribbon.  The commander was full of anticipation.  The show had been even better tonight.  And in the bedroom scene he had felt, for just a second, the touch of Tiffani’s tongue against his lips.  She didn’t have to do that, Winters told himself, suspending for a moment all vestiges of guilt.

      His hands trembled a little as he opened the package.  It was a plain white box.  Inside was a silver cigarette lighter simple but handsome, with the initials VW engraved on the outside at the bottom.  His heart raced.  So she does feel it too.  Commander Winters felt a powerful burst of lust in his groin.  Now he was imagining a scene no more than three or four hours in the future.  He was taking Tiffani home and they were kissing at her front door.  “Would you like to come in,” she would say .  .  .

      “I feel pretty .  .  .  oh so pretty .  .  .  I feel pretty and witty and gay .  .  .” He heard her singing as she came down the hall.  She pushed open the door to his dressing room and twirled around.  Tiffani’s hair was stacked high on her head showing the lines of her elegant neck.  The gold filigree along the top of the comb that the commander had given her blended in perfectly with the rich red and brown of her hair.  Her dress was white, low cut, with her shoulders exposed except for tiny straps in the corners.

      “Well?” she said with a big and eager smile.  She turned around again.  “What do you think?”

      “You look beautiful, Tiffani,” he replied.  He stared at her with such intensity that she blushed.

      “Oh, Vernon,” she sighed, now changing her mood, “the combs are wonderful.” She pulled a cigarette from his pack on the dresser table and lit it herself with his new lighter.  She took a deep drag, her eyes fixed on his, and put the cigarette down in the ashtray.  “I don’t know how to thank you,” she murmured.

      She walked over to him and put her hands in his.  “It’s already been another wonderful evening.”  She put her left hand behind his head and reached up to kiss him.  His heart was about to explode within his body.  She could feel his arousal as her lips nestled softly against his.  She pulled his head down to meet hers and subtly increased the pressure of her kiss.  At length he put his arms around her and pressed her body against his.

      Commander Winters thought he was going to drown in the pleasure of that kiss.  Never had he felt such longing.  He was certain he would gladly die in the morning if he could just continue to kiss her all night first.  For a moment, as he let himself experience fully the rush of joy and love and lust, all his worries and despair were pushed aside.  He wanted to wrap himself around Tiffani, somehow zip her inside his skin, and close out everything else in the universe.

      Melvin and Marc had come to the dressing room to find the commander.  They had not approached with stealth and were not even being especially quiet, but neither Tiffani nor Commander Winters heard them walk up.  The two men could see the pair kissing through the open dressing room door.  They looked at each other and reached out instinctively to touch hands for an instant.  From their own experience they knew about the difficulty of love affairs outside the accepted norm.

      Tiffani and Winters finally broke the kiss and she put her head against his chest.  Her back was to the door.  Winters opened his eyes and saw Melvin and Marc standing there in front of him.  He blanched, but the director made a gesture with his hands that said, “It’s all right.  It’s your business, not ours.”

      Melvin and Marc considerately waited several seconds so that it would look as if they had not arrived until after the kiss.  The commander patted Tiffani on the shoulder and turned her around in a fatherly manner.  “Great show, Commander,” Melvin said as he walked into the room.  “And another super performance from you too, young lady.”  He paused.  Marc smiled his compliments and Tiffani unconsciously straightened out her dress.  “There’s a Lieutenant Todd waiting outside for you, Commander,” Melvin added.  “He says it’s urgent.  He asked me to tell you to hurry.”

      Winters face was creased with wrinkles.  What in the world is he doing here?  he thought.  It’s after ten o’clock on a Saturday night.  “Thanks, Melvin,” he answered.  “Tell him I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

      The director and his friend turned and left the dressing room.  Tiffani reached over for the lit cigarette, whose ash had grown so long it had nearly fallen out of the ashtray.  She inhaled and handed it to Winters.  “Did they see us kissing?” she asked anxiously

      “No,” lied Winters.  But already he was realizing how untenable his fantasy was.  Precious Tiffani, he thought.  My teenage lover.  We were lucky.  But we cannot kid ourselves.  We will be seen eventually.  He looked into her eyes and saw the flame of adolescent passion.  Again he felt the surge in his loins.  He reached down and pulled her forcefully to him.  And if the wrong person sees us, he thought as his lips tingled with her kiss, there is no limit to my risk.

      Winters threw his cigarette down on the ground and stomped it out.  He shook his head in disbelief.  “You are telling me that you have taken those three into custody?  And you’re holding them at the base?”

      Lieutenant Todd was confused.  “But sir, don’t you understand?  We have an entire set of photographs.  In three of them you can clearly see the missile.  And there are other pictures that show the black guy in some kind of underwater structure down there in the ocean.  Just as I had guessed.  What more could we possibly need?  We also caught them, red-handed no less, coming back from a dive with fifty pounds of gold bars in their backpacks.  Fifty pounds!”

      Commander Winters turned around and went back in the theater.  “Go back to the base, Lieutenant,” he said disgustedly.  “I’ll be there in five minutes.”

      It was apparent that Melvin and Marc were just waiting for Tiffani and the commander before they locked up the theater and went to the party.  “Can you take her over, Melvin?” he asked.  “There’s a big mess out at the base tonight and it looks as if I will have to straighten it out.”  The conversation with Todd had been sobering for Winters on at least two levels.  First, it had reminded him that there was a real world out there, outside of the theater, a world that would not look kindly on a forty-three-year-old Navy commander having a sexual relationship with a seventeen-year-old high school student.  Secondly, Todd’s astonishing announcement that he had indeed detained three civilians, one of whom was a well-known reporter, jolted the commander into realizing that his preoccupation with Tiffani had affected his work.  I should never have let this thing get so far out of control, he thought.  From here on out that lieutenant makes no move that I don’t personally approve.

      “I’m sorry, Tiffani,” he said in a fatherly voice.  He gave her an ambiguous hug and a light kiss on the top of her head.  “I’ll come to the party as soon as I can.”

      “Hurry or you’ll miss the champagne,” Tiffani said with a smile.  Melvin turned off the lights in the theater.  The four of them walked out the door.

      Winters had parked down the street almost a block away.  He waved to Tiffani as she climbed into Melvin’s car.  I wonder if you will ever know, young lady, he thought.  Know how close I came tonight to throwing everything away.  In his mind’s eye it was twenty-four years before, on a cold night outside of Philadelphia, and he had just gone berserk and virtually raped Joanna Carr.  Winters started his Pontiac and eased into the street.  It would be so easy, he thought.  Just one time to forget the rules and constraints.  To dive into the water without looking first.  He remembered his pact with God after he had spent the night with Joanna.  So You kept Your part of the bargain.  I guess And I became an officer and a gentleman.  And a killer.

      He winced.  He turned the car past the swank Miyako Gardens and headed for the base.  With great effort he forced himself to stop thinking about Tiffani and Joanna and sex.  It’s not enough that I have this trial with Tiffani.  At the same time I am assigned a redneck lieutenant who runs roughshod over civilians in his attempt to prove some cockamamie .  .  .

      Commander Winters stopped at a signal.  Slowly, the full impact of what Todd had told him began to sink in.  Jesus.  I may be in trouble too.  Unlawful entry.  Wrongful detention.  They’ll throw the book at Todd .  .  .  He eased his car through the intersection.  He mechanically put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it.  So I should be apologetic.  But shit.  That Dawson woman is a reporter.  Bad bad news.

      He had arrived at the base.  He waved to the security guard and drove on to where Todd had said they were keeping the trio.  Winters stopped in front of a plain white building situated on a small hill about fifteen feet above the street level.  A nervous Lieutenant Roberto Ramirez was waiting at the edge of the road.  He was holding two large, thick envelopes in his hands.  Ramirez turned and called something toward the front door.  Todd came out in a moment.  He locked the door carefully, came down the steps, and walked toward the other two officers.  Ramirez was already showing the photographs to Commander Winters when Todd joined them.  The three men had a short but animated discussion.

      “So what happened after you received my message?”  Carol turned to the other two as soon as Todd disappeared out the door.  They had not had many chances to talk in private since Todd and Ramirez had taken them into custody in the parking lot at the Pelican Resort.

      “Troy was ready to split,” Nick laughed.  “But I thought your warning only referred to the robot sentry.  And since he had been quiet for several minutes, I figured we were already safe.  I was still really pissed off about the second bag of gold bars.  So I hurried back over to the gate.

      “I was concentrating so hard on finding a way to pull the bag through the opening that I must have been oblivious to everything else.  Suddenly I felt Troy jerk me backwards.  Maybe a second later two or three sharks, one definitely a mako, slammed hard into the gate.  I was certain the gate was going to fall into pieces.”

      “Those sharks were really nasty, angel,” Troy interjected.  “And stupid too.  The big one must have banged against the gate a dozen times before he gave up.”

      “The buoyancy bag with the gold bars was immediately ripped to shreds by the crazy sharks.  They may even have swallowed most of the bars themselves.  It was not fun being that close to them.”  Nick shuddered.  “When I close my eyes I can still see that mako’s teeth three feet away from me.  I’ll probably have bad dreams for years.”

      “I pulled Nick toward the ocean.  I didn’t want any part of those mean bastards and I didn’t trust the gate to remain intact in case they launched another attack.  We made it out in record time.  Of course, neither of us expected to be greeted by the U.S. Navy when we returned to the station wagon.”  Troy paused.  “This Todd character, what’s his problem any way?  He sure thinks he’s a bad ass.  Is he just pissed because the professor decked him last night?”

      Carol smiled.  She reached her left hand over and put it on Nick’s leg just above the knee.  Her hand remained there while she was talking.  “Todd is one of the naval engineers trying to find the lost missile.  I’m certain that he and his men must have been responsible for the break-ins at Nick’s apartment and my hotel room.  Otherwise they wouldn’t have detained us.”

      “What grounds do they have for holding us?”  Nick inquired.  He dropped his hand down and wrapped it around Carol’s.  “It’s not against the law to have gold bars in a backpack.  Don’t we have rights as citizens that prevent this kind of thing?”

      “Probably,” Carol replied.  She squeezed Nick’s hand and then retracted her own.  “But as a reporter, I find this part of our adventure extremely interesting.  You can tell that Lieutenant Ramirez is very nervous.  He wouldn’t let Todd even ask us any questions until Commander Winters was contacted.  And he has been very concerned about our comfort.”

      As if on cue, the front door opened and the three naval officers walked in.  Winters was in the lead with the two lieutenants just behind.  Nick and Carol and Troy were sitting on gray metal auditorium chairs on the left of a partitioned area that served as a waiting room for the larger offices in the rear of the building.  Winters moved into the area and half leaned against the large gray desk opposite them.

      “I’m Commander Vernon Winters,” he said, his eyes meeting each of theirs in turn.  “As Miss Dawson knows, I’m one of the senior officers on the base here.  I am currently in charge of a secret project, code named Broken Arrow.”  He smiled.  “I’m sure you are wondering why you have been brought to the base.”

      Winters reached out with his left arm and Ramirez handed him the infrared blowups that showed the missile in the most detail.  He waved the photos at the three detainees.  “One of the goals of project Broken Arrow is to find a Navy missile that has been lost somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico.  Lieutenant Todd here believes, based on these photographs, that you know where that missile is.  That is why he has acted to bring you here for questioning.”  Winters’ voice rose in pitch and he began to wave his arms.  “Now I’m certain I don’t need to remind you that state-of-the-art weapons systems are what keep our nation free and secure — ”

      “Spare us the patriotic lecture and the histrionics, Commander Winters,” interrupted Carol.  “We all know that you are searching for a lost missile and that you think we may have found it.  Sorry.  We went out looking for it today but were unable to locate it again.”  She stood up.  “Now you listen to me a minute.  Your zealous lieutenant there and his men have broken more laws than I can count.  In addition to kidnapping us, they have looted and vandalized my hotel room and Mr. Williams’ apartment.  They have also stolen some photographs and valuable equipment.”  She fixed Winters with a hard gaze.  “You sure as hell better have good reason for dragging us down here or I swear I’ll see to it that all three of you are court martialed.”

      Carol glanced at Ramirez.  He was squirming.  “In the meantime,” she continued, “you can start by giving us an official, written apology, returning all our property, and making adequate payment for all the damages.  In addition I want exclusive access to all Broken Arrow files from this moment on.  If you don’t agree to all these terms, you might as well prepare right now to read about the Gestapo tactics of the United States Navy in the next edition of the Miami Herald.”

      Uh oh, thought Winters.  This is not going to be easy.  This woman reporter intends to play the bluff and threat game.  He pulled out a cigarette while he was thinking.  “Would you please not smoke in here?”  Carol broke into his train of thought.  “We all find it offensive.”

      Damn these aggressive nonsmokers.  He replaced the Pall Mall in the pack in his pocket.  Winters had been thrown off at first by Carol’s rapid attack, but he eventually regained his composure.  “Now, Miss Dawson,” the commander began a minute later.  He looked away from the trio, in the direction of the front door.  “I can understand why you might be upset by what has happened.  I will admit that our men may indeed have acted in an unwarranted manner while they were searching your rooms to find evidence.  However .  .  .”  Winters stopped in mid-sentence, turned around, and came back toward Nick and Carol and Troy.

      “However,” he repeated.  “We are talking about treason here.”  He waited to let his threat register.  “And I don’t need to tell you, Miss Dawson, that treason is serious business.  Even more serious than journalism.”  He hesitated again for effect and his voice became very stern.  “If any of you have knowledge of the whereabouts of this missile and have conveyed that knowledge to a member of any foreign government, especially one viewed as inimical to our national interests, then you have committed treason.”

      “What kind of dope have you been smoking, Commander?”  Carol replied.  “We freely admit that we’ve been looking for your missile.  But that doesn’t make us spies.  You have no case against us.”  She glanced at Nick.  He was admiring her performance.  “I’m simply a reporter covering a story.  This treason business of yours is pure fabricated bullshit.”

      “Oh, yeah,” said Lieutenant Todd, unable to restrain himself.  “Then where were these pictures taken?”  He showed the photo of Troy in full diving regalia in the initial underwater room with the red and blue walls.  He then turned and pointed to the backpacks sitting in the opposite corner of the room.  “And what were your two friends doing with fifty pounds of gold after their dive tonight?”

      “All right, man,” Troy remarked in an exaggerated manner.  He took a step toward Lieutenant Todd.  “All right.  You’ve figured it out, haven’t you?  We found the missile and sold it to the Russians for fifty pounds of gold.”  His eyes widened as he looked at Todd.  “And now the missile is onboard a submarine on its way to Moscow or wherever .  .  .  Come on, man, get serious.  We’re not that stupid.”

      Lieutenant Todd’s temper flared up.  “You black bastard — ” he muttered before Commander Winters jumped between them.  Winters needed some time to think.  Todd’s questions were after all.  still unanswered.  Even if there were good answers, it was not difficult to understand how someone could have come to the conclusion, based on the photographs, that there might be a conspiracy involved.

      In addition, there was the issue of defending the actions of his junior officers and the investigating team.  If I let these three go now, thought Winters, then we are essentially admitting that we made an error in the first place .  .  .  Ramirez was gesturing at the commander.  He nodded outside with his head.  Winters did not understand at first, but Ramirez repeated the motion.

      “Excuse us a second,” Winters said.  The two officers walked out on the porch above the steps, leaving Todd with Nick and Carol and Troy.  “What is it, Lieutenant?”  Winters asked

      “Commander, sir,” Ramirez answered, “my career is the Navy.  If we release these three now, after no formal questioning — ”

      “I couldn’t agree more,” Winters interrupted abruptly.  “I wish that none of this today had happened.  But it did.  Now we must finish it up properly and thoroughly or we have no defense for what we did.”  He thought for a minute.  “How long would it take you to get the video and sound equipment set up for a formal interrogation?”

      “About thirty minutes,” Ramirez replied.  “Maybe forty-five at the most.”

      “Let’s do it.  While you’re getting ready, I’ll prepare the list of questions.”

      Shit, said Winters to himself as he watched Ramirez walk briskly toward his office on the other side of the base.  I am indeed going to be here all night.  He thought of his missed chance with Tiffani .  I’d better call her and explain while I’m drafting these questions.  He felt a sudden burst of anger toward Lieutenant Todd.  As for you, he thought, if we come out of this unscathed, I will personally see to it that you are transferred to Lower Slobbovia.

      It was after eleven o’clock.  Lieutenant Todd stood near the front door.  He was holding a billy club in his hand.  Once before in the evening, just after Nick and Troy had reached the Pelican Resort parking lot, Todd had used the club on Nick’s back to coerce him into the car.  Nick could still feel the welt.

      “How long is all this going to take?”  Troy asked.  He was standing near the desk.  “Can’t we go home now and get some sleep and come back on Monday morning .  .  .”

      “You heard what the man said,” Todd replied.  He was definitely gloating.  “They’ve gone off to prepare for a formal interrogation.  You should be using this time to get your story straight.”  Todd pounded his palm with the billy club.

      Troy turned to his companions.  “All right, team,” he said with a wink.  “I move we blow this joint.  Let’s overpower this geek and blast out of here.”

      “Just try it, you shits,” Todd rejoined.  He smacked one of the empty folding chairs with his club for emphasis.  “I’d like nothing better than to report that you tried to escape.”

      Nick had not said much since Winters and Ramirez had left.  He now looked across the room at Todd.  “You know what annoys me the most about this, Lieutenant?” he said to his captor.  “It’s that people like you,” he continued, without waiting for an answer, “end up in positions of power or authority all over the world.  Look at you.  You think that because you have us under your control, that makes you somebody.  Let me tell you something.  You aren’t shit.”

      Todd did not try to hide his dislike for Nick.  “At least I can find white men to be my friends,” he replied sarcastically.

      “I do declare,” Troy chimed in swiftly.  “I believe our associate Lieutenant Todd may be a bigot.  We may be talking to a true life honky.  Let’s see if ‘nigger’ is his next — ”

      “Boys, boys,” Carol interceded as Todd started to move toward Troy.  “Enough is enough.  “The room became quiet.  Troy walked back over to his friends and sat down in his chair.

      A minute later Troy leaned over to Nick and Carol.  As he was whispering to them, he put the gold bracelet right next to his mouth.  “You know, folks,” he said, “if we don’t get out of here soon, we may be here all night.  I can well imagine the questions taking three or four hours.  And that means the Navy will get to the dive site before us in the morning.”

      “But what can we do?”  Carol asked.  “It would be a miracle if they let us just walk out without any questions.”

      “A miracle, angel.”  said Troy with a grin, “is just what we need.  A good old-fashioned miracle.  Like the blue fairy.”

      “What are you shits whispering about over there?”  The truculent Lieutenant Todd began to walk toward the bathroom at the west end of the long room.  “Knock it off.  And don’t try anything.  The outside door is locked and I have the key.”  He didn’t close the bathroom door.  The urinal was fortunately out of view to the right.

      There was not much light in the back of the small bathroom.  As Todd was finishing his piss, he became aware of a strange sensation all over his right side, as if a thousand very small needles were sticking in him.  Puzzled, he turned toward the corner.  What he saw there sent an incredible shock of terror racing through his system.

      In the corner, partially hidden in the poor light, was what could only be described as a six-foot carrot.  The thicker end of the creature was balanced on four webbed pads planted on the floor.  There were no arms, but about five feet above the ground, just under a maze of blue spaghetti of unknown purpose on top of its “head,” four vertical slits, each a foot long, were cut in what might have been its face.  Out of each of these slits something strange was hanging.  Troy would later explain to Nick and Carol that these were sensors, that the carrot saw, heard, smelled, and tasted with these dangling extensions.

      Lieutenant Todd did not wait to study the creature.  He let out a whoop and backed quickly out of the bathroom.  He did not stop to retract his penis or zip his fly.  When the weird orange thing next appeared in the light at the door to the bathroom, The lieutenant was certain it was going to follow him.  He stared at it, petrified and immobile, for half a second.  Then, when it did indeed move toward him, Todd immediately turned around, unlocked the front door, and burst through it.

      Unfortunately he forgot about the eight concrete steps.  In his panic he tripped and fell.  He smacked his head hard on the second step and tumbled down to the bottom.  He lay unconscious on his back on the sidewalk in front of the building.

      Carol had cowered against Nick when she had first seen the carrot.  Then they had both glanced at Troy.  He was smiling and humming to himself, “When you wish upon a star .  .  .  makes no difference who you are.”  He seemed so blase about everything that Nick and Carol even relaxed temporarily.  However, after Lieutenant Todd disappeared out the front door and the carrot turned to face them, it was difficult to remain calm.

      “Nuts,” said Troy with a big smile.  “I was really hoping for the blue fairy.  I thought she might make me rich, or maybe even white.”

      “All right, Jefferson,” Nick said.  His face looked as if he had just eaten a lemon.  “Please explain what that thing in front of us is.”

      Troy first walked slowly over to the corner of the room to pick up their backpacks.  “This, Professor,” he replied as he then walked directly up to the carrot, “is what we might call a holographic projection.”  He put his hand into and through the orange body.  “Somewhere in the universe there is supposedly a real life creature like this, but they have only sent his image to help us escape.”

      Even with Troy’s explanation Nick and Carol did not want to come any closer to the stationary carrot than was absolutely necessary.  They moved with their backs against the walls until they reached the door.  “Don’t worry,” Troy laughed.  “It won’t hurt you.”

      The sensor hanging out of the slit on the far right of the carrot’s head was totally incomprehensible.  Carol could not take her eye off of it.  It looked like a wad of gooey honeycomb stuck on the end of a majorette’s baton.  “What does it do with that?” Carol asked, pointing as she preceded Troy out the door.

      “I don’t know, angel,” Troy answered.  “But it must be fun.”

      Nick and Troy joined Carol on the platform at the top of the stairs They all saw Todd at about the same time.  They were naturally surprised to find him lying at the bottom of the steps.  His head was bleeding.  “Should we help him?”  Carol wondered out loud as Troy bounded down the stairs in front of her.

      “No way,” Nick replied quickly.

      Troy bent down beside Todd and carefully examined the unconscious lieutenant from head to toe.  He slapped the big man lightly on the cheek.  Lieutenant Todd did not move.  Troy winked at his friends at the top of the stairs.  “The professor was right, my man,” he said, breaking into a grin, “you really aren’t shit.”

      “So I kissed her,” Carol said with a laugh.

      “You did what?” asked Nick.  They were in Troy’s old Ford LTD. driving toward the Hemingway marina.  After leaving the base they had walked the mile and a half to Troy’s duplex to pick up his car.  Carol was beside Troy in the front seat and Nick was in the back next to the backpacks containing the gold and the information discs.

      Carol turned around to Nick.  “I kissed her.”  She laughed again as Nick screwed up his face in disgust.  “What was I supposed to do?  The woman is stronger than most men.  She had me pinned on the floor.  There was something just a little suggestive about the way she was holding me .  .  .”

      “Whoooee, angel,” Troy slapped the dashboard with his left hand.  “You are amazing.  What did superkraut do next?”

      “She released her grip on my wrists.  Just for a second.  I think she was deciding whether to kiss me back.”

      “Yuch,” said Nick from the back seat.  “I think I’m going to be sick.”

      “So you smashed her up side of the head and then ran off?” asked Troy.  Carol nodded.  Troy laughed heartily and then became more serious.  “Be careful if you ever see her again, angel.  Greta does not like to lose.”

      “But you’re wrong about her in one respect, Carol,” Nick remarked.  “Greta’s not into women at all.  She likes sex with men too much.”

      Carol found Nick’s comment smug and even irritating.  She spoke across the front seat to Troy.  “Why is it, Troy, that men naturally assume that any woman who has sexual relations with men could not possibly be interested in having sex with another woman?  Is this another example of their fundamental belief in their own innate superiority?”  She didn’t wait for an answer.  Carol turned around again to talk to Nick.  “And in case you’re wondering, the answer is no, I’m not a lesbian.  I am relentlessly heterosexual, as much because of my San Fernando Valley middle class background as anything.  But I will admit that sometimes I grow extremely tired of men and what I call their baboon demonstrations of macho.”

      “Hey,” Nick replied, “I didn’t mean to start an argument.  I was just suggesting — ”

      “Okay, okay,” Carol interrupted, loosening up a bit, “no harm done.  I guess I am a little quick on the trigger.”  She was quiet for a few seconds.  “By the way, Nick,” she remarked then, “there’s one part of this that I still don’t understand completely.  Why did Captain Homer go to such great lengths to hide the rest of the treasure all this time?  Why didn’t he just sell it off as soon as he could?”

      “Lots of reasons,” Nick replied.  “Not the least of which was fear that he might somehow be discovered and indicted for the perjury he committed during our trial.  But this way he also escapes the IRS, the value of the gold appreciates in time, and, most importantly, Greta has to hang around if she wants her whole share.  He almost certainly converts some of it to cash from time to time, probably through a third party.  But never enough to call attention to the transaction.”

      “So you see, angel,” Troy said, “that’s why there’s no way he can call the police.  Because he would have to admit everything.  I bet he’s really pissed off.”

      Troy pulled into a left-hand turn lane and waited for the signal to change.  A car pulled up beside them on the right, next to Carol, and she just happened to look idly in that direction.  It was a Mercedes.

      Later on Carol would recall that time seemed to dilate for her.  Each second of the next minute was recorded in her memory in super slow motion, as if it were covering a much longer period of time.  Greta was driving Captain Homer’s car and was staring at Carol.  Homer was sitting beside her, waving his fists, shouting something that Carol couldn’t hear through her closed window.  Carol focused on Greta’s amazing eyes.  Never had she seen such hatred.  For just an instant Carol looked away to alert Troy and Nick.  When she turned back she saw that Greta had a pistol pointed directly at her.

      Three things happened almost simultaneously.  Carol ducked, Troy pulled into the intersection against the red light, barely missing a speeding car, and Greta fired the gun.  The bullet ripped through Carol’s window and crashed into Troy’s door, somehow miraculously missing them both.  Carol sat cringing under the dashboard in the front seat.  She fought against panic and tried to catch her breath.

      The chase was on.  It was after eleven-thirty on a Saturday night in Key West and the traffic in the residential area was light.  Troy’s Ford was no match for the Mercedes.  Twice more Greta maneuvered into position and the Ford was sprayed with bullets.  Windows were broken and pitted but none of the occupants of the car was injured.

      Nick was lying on the floor in the back seat.  “Get down-town if you can,” he shouted at Troy.  “Maybe we can lose them in the traffic.”

      Troy was hunkered down behind the steering wheel as far as he could go.  He could barely see the roadway in front of them.  He was driving like a lunatic, swerving across the four-lane street into oncoming traffic, honking frantically, and making it impossible for Greta to predict his next move.  “Where are the cops when you really need them?” he said out loud.  “We have maniacs firing guns at us in the middle of Key West and there are no men of blue anywhere in sight.”

      After Nick’s suggestion Troy suddenly spun around in the middle of the street and started heading in the opposite direction.  Greta was not prepared.  She hit the brakes on the Mercedes, went into a skid, caromed off a parked car, and then resumed the chase.

      There were now no cars on the street in front of them and the Mercedes was closing the gap.  “Uh oh,” said Troy, fearing another attack.  He violently pulled the steering wheel to the left, shot through an alley, into a parking lot, and back onto a narrow street.  A few moments later he made a quick turn into a driveway.  The car became flooded with light and Troy jammed on the brakes.  “Everybody out,” he hollered.  While Nick and Carol were trying to determine what the hell was happening, Troy was giving his car keys to a tall figure dressed in a red uniform.

      “We’re just having drinks,” he said.  They heard the screech of the brakes on the Mercedes.  “And those people behind us,” Troy said in a loud voice to the half dozen onlookers, including two parking attendants, who were standing nearby, “have guns and are trying to kill us.”

      It was too late for Greta and Homer to escape.  Troy had driven into the parking entrance of the Miyako Gardens Hotel and already another car had come into the circular drive behind the Mercedes.  Greta threw the car in reverse, smashed against the grill and bumper of the Jaguar behind her, and then tried to make a run for it by squeezing around Troy’s Ford.  Troy and the uniformed attendant dove for cover as Greta hit the open door of the Ford, lost control of the Mercedes, and eventually crashed into the parking kiosk in the middle of the driveway.  As Nick and Carol stumbled out of the car, four hotel security men surrounded Greta and Homer.

      Troy walked over to join his friends.  “Anybody hurt?”  Both Carol and Nick shook their heads.  Troy broke into a grand smile.  “I guess that ought to take care of those characters,” he said.

      Carol gave him a hug.  “It was a brilliant idea to drive here,” she said.  “What made you think of it?”

      “Birds,” Troy answered.

      “Birds?”  Nick responded.  “What the fuck are you talking about, Jefferson?”

      “Well, Professor,” said Troy, opening the door to the elegant hotel and following his colleagues inside into the open atrium, “when they were about to catch us that last time, I realized that they were probably going to kill us for stealing their gold.  And I wondered if there really were birds in heaven.  My mother always told me that there were.”

      “Troy,” Carol said with a smile, “you are so full of shit.  Come to the point.”

      “Exactly, angel,” he answered.  “Look around you.” In the atrium of the Miyako Gardens was a magnificent aviary whose tiny, threaded wire rose four stories into the air under a bank of skylights.  Hundreds of colored birds played among the vines and palm trees and brought the real sound and feel of the tropics to the lobby of the hotel.

      “When I thought about birds,” Troy could no longer restrain a crazy laugh, “I realized we were in the vicinity of this hotel and the plan sort of jumped into my mind.”

      The three of them stood together and gazed up at the aviary.  Carol was in the middle.  She reached out her hands to both men.

REPATRIATION

BENEATH the emerald-green ocean the spacecraft rests quietly.  Odd fishlike creatures swim by, observe the visitor from the heavens, and then continue on their journey.  The final checkout before deployment is underway.  When the checkout is completed, a door near the bottom of the craft opens and a gold metallic sphere with a diameter of about five inches appears.  The sphere is tied down on top of a long, narrow platform.  The treads underneath the platform propel it down a small ramp and then across the sandy ocean floor.

      The flatbodied vehicle and its cargo disappear in the distance.  After a long wait the strange moving platform returns to the spaceship without the golden sphere.  The ramp slides back into the vehicle, the door closes, and the spacecraft is prepared for launch.  Soon thereafter the great ship eases forward in the water, rising until it is just beneath the surface of the emerald ocean.  It then reconfigures itself, adds wings, steerable flaps, and other control devices, and breaks the water looking temporarily like an airplane.  Its ascent into the blue sky filled with light from the twin suns is rapid and breathtaking.  Orbital velocity is reached in almost no time.  Once in orbit above the atmosphere the aerodynamic surfaces are retracted and the spaceship makes one final voyage around the planet Canthor.  When it reaches the proper true anomaly of its orbit, the craft accelerates quickly and hurtles again toward the cold and dark of interstellar space.  The third delivery has been completed; nine more remain on its sixty-millicycle mission.

      Three millicycles pass.  The next target planet is only six systems away, another oceanic planet orbiting around a solitary yellow sun of unusual stability.  The fourth cradle will be deposited there, on the third body away from the star, a planet whose period of motion about its central sun is so short that it makes fourteen revolutions in one millicycle.

      Before reaching the target, the spaceship makes a detour.  It dives deep into the hydrogen-rich atmosphere of the largest planet in the new system, thereby accomplishing two goals.  Its velocity with respect to the central star is significantly slowed through conversion of kinetic energy to dissipated heat, and its reservoir of raw elements and primitive chemical compounds, from which the onboard manufacturing equipment creates all the backup and replacement parts, is partially replenished.  After exiting from the dive into the thick atmosphere.  the interstellar voyager covers the final distance to its target in a leisurely six hundred nanocycles.

      During the approach, the automatic software in the central computer goes through a well-tested sequence designed to discover whether any of the conditions on the target planet have changed since the last complete set of systematic observations three cycles ago since the contents of each cradle have been uniquely designed, based upon the environment of the specific planet where the zygotes must grow and flourish, any major change in that environment could drastically reduce the probability of survival for the repatriated species.  Upon command from the computer, a battery of advanced remote sensing instruments is deployed to confirm the original design specifications for the planet.

      But the instruments do not, as planned, validate the set of design assumptions.  The environment has changed.  Not markedly, not as if it had been reworked on a massive scale by an advanced intelligence for some specific purpose.  The initial data strongly suggests instead that during the last cycle or two some indigenous intelligence has emerged that has had a nontrivial impact on both the planet’s surface and its atmosphere.

      As the remote sensing instruments continue their survey of the target planet, something even more unusual is discovered.  There are artificial satellites, thousands of them, in orbit around the body.  A spacefaring species now makes this planet its home.  An alarm is triggered in the central computer of the spaceship.  The zygotes and the cradle system destined for this planet were not designed to deal with any other advanced species.

      However, the brilliant engineers of the Colony had anticipated that at least one of the dozen target planets might have changed significantly during the three cycles since the last regular observations.  A contingency protocol for handling new situations has been programmed into the approach sequence.  Essentially, this protocol calls for careful analysis of the new conditions on the planet, assessment of the impact of those conditions on the key probability of survival parameters, and then, assuming that the impact assessment is not unsatisfactory, transfer, where possible, of new information into the electronic infrastructure responsible for the education of the repatriated species after cradle deployment.

      One of the special subroutines in the contingency protocol handles the surprise emergence of a new spacefaring species.  The first action in the sequence is the examination of one of the orbiting satellites to assess its technological sophistication.  With great care the interstellar spaceship eases into a rendezvous position with one of the artificial satellites that remain mostly stationary above a single region on the rotating planet below.  Using superfast burst algorithms stored in the communications macro, the spacecraft searches for and establishes the command and telemetry frequencies of its neighbor.  But attempts to actually command the satellite fail, suggesting an elaborate protective code embedded in the receivers and/or a complicated redundant command procedure.

      Without being able to command the satellite and thus assess its capabilities, the visiting spaceship cannot conclusively establish the technological stage of the new spacefaring species.  The contingency protocol calls, in this situation, for trying to “capture” the satellite to perform in situ analysis, provided there is no obvious danger from devices onboard the satellite itself.  This particular branch in the software logic for the spaceship was the subject of intense debate by the oversight board of the Committee of Engineers back during the design process several cycles earlier.  Many of the more experienced engineers thought that it was risky to include such a logic loop, primarily because of the possibility that a paranoid emerging culture might arm their satellites with destructive devices that could not be easily recognized and disarmed.

      However, it was argued, on the basis of historical evidence from throughout the galaxy, that since most incipient civilizations abolish warfare and aggression before they become spacefaring, absence of a clearly identifiable destruct or protective device was sufficient additional evidence to allow the careful capturing and dismantling of a satellite.  And everyone agreed that the detailed information about the technological status of the new species that would result from such “reverse engineering” would be extremely valuable in completing the assessment of the risk to the repatriated species.

      Great remote manipulator arms extend from the spacecraft, seize the surveillance satellite, and pull it into a large room with vaulted ceilings.  An army of small electronic robots attacks it at once, scurrying all over its surface with probes and attachments.  Trillions of bits of data about the satellite are fed into the primary data storage device in the spaceship computer.  The new spacefarers are not very advanced technically.  In fact, the computer algorithm concludes, it is very surprising that they have even mastered launching and maintaining so many satellites.

      An explosion starts to rip through the room.  An astonishing sequence of events takes place almost instantaneously after the explosion, as the spaceship deploys its protective resources to stop the spread of the fireball and mitigate the damage caused by the small nuclear device that has vaporized its host satellite.  The explosion is quickly contained by unknown techniques, but not until considerable destruction has been caused onboard the interstellar craft.

      An elaborate self-test occupies the great spaceship after the explosion.  Detailed computer analysis of the damage indicates that the probability of successfully deploying the cradles at the additional eight planets would be measurably increased if the mission were temporarily interrupted to allow some repair processes to take place.  A safe haven to conduct the repair operations, in a known environment with very few variations is the concomitant requirement.  The master computer decides, based on the system and subsystem constraints that must he applied during the repairs, that the shallow ocean floor on this target planet is a perfect place for such a hiatus in the mission plan.

      The spaceship descends into the atmosphere, again reconfiguring itself to expose a set of aerodynamic control surfaces.  During its rapid descent, the flight path is crossed by a bullet-shaped vehicle that has just been released from a high altitude airplane.  The spaceship approaches and then flies alongside the missile.  The missile telemetry is intercepted by the spaceship and correlated with the types of downlink data extracted from the satellite earlier.  The spaceship computer uses its enormous processing capability and cross-correlation algorithms to try to break the command code of the tiny missile.  Eventually it is successful and the visitor is able to interact with the guided projectile.

      The spaceship commands the missile to read out its guidance subroutines.  Performing quadrillions of computations per second, the intelligent computer at the heart of the interstellar craft deduces the targeting strategy for the missile.  A target image that would result in the missile landing in the ocean, close to the chosen location for the space vehicle, is commanded into the missile’s guidance algorithm The spacecraft and missile plunge in tandem into the Gulf of Mexico.

      The two vehicles come to rest about two miles apart on the ocean floor.  Within the carefully coded fault protection software of the great spaceship, which took over operation of the craft immediately after the explosion of the satellite, four separate activities are being conducted in parallel.  One of the processors is sorting through the data archives associated with this particular planet to determine what possible indigenous species could have gone through an evolutionary burst and become spacefaring with such rapidity.  Coupled with this first set of computations is an evaluation of the impact of such a local advanced intelligence on the survivability of the repatriated zygotes.  Among the questions addressed by the evaluation is what active steps can be taken by the spaceship now to increase the likelihood of successful embryo germination and development.

      A third processor in the central computer performs a thorough, detailed analysis of the spacecraft state, including careful assessments of repair techniques and materials needed to fix each and every damaged component.  The fourth major parallel subroutine directs the effort of the small flat robots that go out into the ocean, first to verify that the nearby missile is harmless and can be safely brought back to the ship, and second to catalogue all the flora and fauna in the neighborhood in case any kind of camouflage becomes necessary.

      The carpets bring the missile to the spaceship for additional analysis.  No major new insights are gleaned from this study.  The engineering similarities between the missile and the earlier artificial satellite are simply catalogued in the data archives.  The concurrent spaceship damage assessment concludes that all the raw materials and tools necessary for the repairs are available except for the proper quantities of lead and gold both of which are difficult and time-consuming to make in the transmuter.  If somehow enough additional lead and gold can be found, then the spaceship can be ready to leave this planet in three local days; if the spaceship has to make the lead and gold by itself, including leaching the elements in trace amounts from the ocean around it, then the total repair effort might take as long as thirty days.

      The other two processors reach some equally interesting probabilistic conclusions.  Mostly based upon the data taken during the endangered species roundup seven cycles earlier, two separate types of animals, one land-based and one water-based, are identified as the only possible candidates for the evolutionary burst that produced spacefarers in such a short time.  Actually, according to the computer, if the land-based human beings survived their earlier nadir (around the time when some specimens were removed by the zoo ships of the Colony) and did not become extinct, they had by far the better chance of becoming the space voyager, especially in view of the results of the experiments conducted on them at the Zoo Complex.  But if, indeed, the descendants of those bipedal, upright, aggressive creatures have become spacefarers, the processor warns, then the chances for survival to maturity by the zygotes in the cradle are extremely low.  Unless somehow significant design changes in the cradle can be made on the spot or the development of the repatriates can be kept a secret from the humans for as long as a millicycle.

      More worrisome for the extraterrestrial spaceship from the point of view of the overall mission is the tentative conclusion that it may well be discovered by the intelligent and potentially hostile inhabitants of the target planet in a comparatively short period of time.  If discovered and seriously threatened, the spaceship could depart from the planet quickly and search for another haven to make repairs; however, traveling in the space environment in its current damaged state would be very risky.  Another option would be for the spacecraft to send its own robots to the mines on this planet to extract the lead and gold that would virtually guarantee safe arrival at the next target, where the heavy metals are plentiful.

      In either case, premature discovery by uncooperative Earthlings would almost certainly doom the zygote cradle that would be left on the Earth, if it is known that the cradle system came from the alien spacecraft.  Thus the first action that the spaceship takes is to check out, deploy, and then hide the Earth cradle away from the vehicle.  The carpets locate a sequestered spot six or seven hundred yards away on the nearby ocean floor and the platforms move the gold metallic cradle into that place under a rock overhang.

      To reduce the probability of being discovered, the spaceship changes its outer surface to match the ocean floor around it.  After a complex set of analyses of its entire decision matrix, the central computer concludes that the maximum likelihood of success path for the overall mission involves trying to enlist either the whales or the human beings to supply the extra lead and gold, as well as the new information to be transmitted to the cradle.  So the spacecraft implements those repairs that are straightforward, puts itself into a standby for launch mode, and begins the task of communicating with the Earthlings.

      The data taken by the Zoo explorers seven cycles ago (about a hundred thousand Earth years) suggested that the whales and human beings, at that time, had approximately the same potential for intelligence.  The whale language was richer and more complicated at the time of this earlier investigation.  The Zoo explorers studied it briefly and recorded in the archives its fundamental tenets.  based upon that old data, while at the same time trying to develop a scenario for communicating with the humans, the spaceship attempts to make contact with the whales.  Because the whales have not substantially changed in the intervening time, the attempts are partially successful; the whales understand that they are being called, but they are mostly confused by the messages and unable to figure out how to respond.

      Two small pods of whales do, however, decipher the message transmitted in the ocean by the alien ship and swim toward its source.  The robots in the extraterrestrial spacecraft examine the whales carefully, even showing the captive missile to one of the pods to elicit recognition, and conclude absolutely that the whales cannot be the spacefarers.  Therefore it is the human beings who have made the great evolutionary strides and must be contacted and somehow induced to provide the lead and the gold and the requisite information.  Further attempts to communicate with the whales are abandoned.

      Before the alien ship has determined the method it will use to contact humanity, chance provides it with an excellent opportunity.  During the final interactions with the whales, three human beings are swimming in the neighborhood.  By incredible luck, these three find the deployed cradle and take it to the land.  As a cautionary move, the spaceship computer commands temporary changes inside the cradle to ensure its protection and to provide for more frequent status monitoring; however, there is no major concern yet.  The humans do not recognize the connection between the cradle and the spacecraft.  In addition, with the zygotes in their early stages of pullulation, the cradle has an extremely robust design.  Having the cradle in the possession of humans at this time can also be viewed as an advantage for the superaliens; receivers in the cradle can be commanded to listen to the conversations and then telemeter to the mother spacecraft information that will permit learning the rudiments of the human language.

      The logical processes in the extraterrestrial computers are strained to the limit to figure out a way to contact human beings for help without creating undue risk for both the Earth cradle and the rest of the mission.  The computers are about to decide on a rapid strike at mines for the lead and gold when they realize, based on their partial understanding of the human language, that the three humans who found the cradle may be coming back into the vicinity.  All of the spaceship processors are strapped together to design a scenario that will induce these humans to help them.  The inside of the spaceship is even reconfigured from scratch for the arrival of the humans.  For if the scenario is successful, there is a high probability that the spaceship can continue on its mission, having successfully deposited the millions of repatriated zygotes, but without having disrupted the main flow of life on Earth.  This was the original goal of the mission.

SUNDAY

1

IT was after two o’clock in the morning by the time the Florida Queen left the marina and headed out into the Gulf of Mexico.  Carol and Troy stood together against the railing while Nick steered the boat through the harbor.  “Well, angel,” Troy said, “it has already been an unbelievable experience, hasn’t it?  And I must admit that I myself am a little nervous about what we’re going to find out at the dive site this time.”

      “I thought you knew what was going to happen, Troy,” Carol replied, pointing at his bracelet.  “Don’t they tell you everything?”

      “They tell me a lot.  And I’m getting better at understanding their messages.  But how do I know if they’re telling the truth?”

      “We have had the same problem with you at times,” Nick interjected from under the canopy.  The boat was almost out in the open ocean.  The lights from Key West were receding behind them.  “In the final analysis, particularly when nothing makes sense anyway, it comes down to a question of trust.  If I were to ask myself logically why I am going out into the Gulf of Mexico in the middle of the night to take lead and gold and information to some extraterrestrials who stopped here on the Earth to make repairs — ”

      Carol laughed and interrupted.  “But there’s no logical way to discuss this entire series of events.  Troy already pointed that out.  We’re not operating on logic.  And I don’t even think it’s a question of trust so much.”  She paused and looked up at the stars.  “It’s more like faith.”

      Troy put his arm around Carol and smiled.  “I agree with you, angel.  After all, we don’t know shit.  Only they know.”

      Carol yawned.  There was silence on the boat.  Everyone was very tired.  After the security men had surrounded Homer and Greta at the Miyako Gardens, the police had of course been called.  They had arrived within ten minutes but it had seemed as if their questions were going to last forever.  Carol, Nick, and Troy had each been required to file a separate written statement.  Homer and Greta admitted nothing, despite the fact that the security men had taken two handguns from them and matching bullet fragments were found inside Troy’s car.  Homer had phoned his lawyer and was expecting to be out on bail within four to six hours.

      When the trio did finally reach the marina (they had to walk from the hotel because the police impounded Troy’s car as evidence) carrying the backpacks, Troy remembered that he had not yet connected the new navigation equipment.  Maybe it was because Troy was tired or perhaps having his two friends watch him part of the time over his shoulder made him nervous; whatever the reason, Troy was very slow in installing and verifying the new navigation processor.

      Meanwhile, Carol and Nick had been checking to ensure that there were three complete sets of diving apparatus onboard the boat.  The diving gear the men had used earlier in the evening was still out at the base in the possession of the United States Navy.  Nick thought he recalled putting enough extra equipment on the boat to handle the large party from Tampa that had originally chartered the Florida Queen for the weekend.  He was correct, but one of the regulator systems did not function properly during the checkout and had to be exchanged for a spare.

      During the walk from the hotel to the marina, Nick and Carol and Troy had come to the unanimous conclusion that they would all three keep the underwater rendezvous with the superalien spaceship.  There was no other reasonable solution.  The boat could certainly be safely anchored.  And none of the three of them could bear to think of missing the climax to their adventure.

      Nick entered the ocean coordinates of the dive site into the navigation processor and put the boat on autopilot.  He saw Carol yawn again.  It was infectious.  As he opened his mouth for a long, relaxing yawn, Nick realized how exhausted he was.  He walked around behind the canopy and found two light air mattresses in a jumbled pile of supplies.  He started inflating one of them by blowing into a valve at the end.

      Carol came around to the back of the boat when the first mattress was almost inflated.  The light on top of the canopy gave her face a glow.  She’s even beautiful when she’s tired, Nick thought.  He motioned to the other mattress.  Carol bent down to pick it up and started inflating it.  And very capable.  I’ve never met a woman who was so good at so many things.

      Nick finished with his air mattress and laid it down on the bottom of the boat.  Carol was tiring, so he helped her inflate the rest of her mattress.  He grabbed some towels and wadded them up like pillows.  “We all have to sleep some,” he said to her as an explanation.  “Otherwise we’ll be punchy when we try to dive.”

      Carol nodded and walked back to the edge of the canopy.  “Is it all right with you if Nick and I take a short nap?” she said to Troy.  He smiled his assent.  “Wake one or both of us in an hour,” she continued, “if you want to use one of the air mattresses.”  She turned around and started to leave.  “Uh, Troy,” she asked, before she left the side of the canopy.

      “Yes, angel?” he answered.

      “Do you know where they came from?”  She pointed at the sky.  Not too many stars were visible because of the brightness of the gibbous moon.  It was well past its zenith and already into its western descent.

      Troy looked up at the heavens and thought for almost a minute.  “No, angel,” he responded at length.  “I think they’ve tried to tell me, maybe even twice, but I can’t understand what they’re saying.  But I do know that they come from another star.”

      Troy now walked over beside Carol and gave her a kiss on the cheek.  “Sleep tight and don’t let the bedbugs bite,” he said.  “And maybe you can ask them yourself after you wake up.”

      Where do you come from?  Carol was thinking.  And why did you land here, in this place, at this time?  She shaded her eyes from the glare of the moon and concentrated her attention on Sirius, the brightest true star in the sky.  Do you have a home there, around another star?  With mothers and fathers and brothers?  Do you have love and oceans and mountains and music?  And longing and loneliness and fear of death?  For reasons she could not understand, tears found their way into Carol’s eyes.  She dropped her gaze and walked back to the air mattresses.  Nick was already stretched out on one of them.  He was on his back and his eyes were closed.  Carol lay down on the mattress beside him.  She reached out and put her hand in his.  He pulled her hand to his lips, kissed it softly, and dropped it on his chest.

      Nick’s dream was confusing.  He was in the main lobby of a huge open library with twenty floors of books.  He could see the spiral staircases ascending to the stacks above him.  “But you don’t understand,” he said to the clerk standing behind the long counter.  “I must read all these books this weekend.  Otherwise I won’t be ready for the test on Monday.”

      “I’m sorry, sir,” the diffident clerk replied quietly after scanning Nick’s list a second time.  “But all copies of these books are currently checked out.”

      Nick started to panic.  He looked up at the enormously high ceiling and the floors of shelved books above him.  He saw Carol Dawson up on the third floor, leaning against the railing and reading a book.  His panic subsided.  She’ll know the material, he thought to himself in the dream.  He raced over to the staircase and bounded up the two flights of curving stairs.

      He was out of breath when he reached Carol.  She was reading one of the books that had been on his list.  “Oh, good,” he said between gasps, “I knew as soon as I saw you that there was no worry.”

      She looked at him quizzically.  Without warning she thrust her hand down into the top of his jeans and grabbed his penis.  He responded immediately and leaned forward to kiss her.  She shook her head and backed up.  He pursued her, pushing her against the railing.  She fought him.  He pressed hard against her body and succeeded in kissing her.  The railing gave way and they were falling, falling.  He woke up before they hit the floor in the lobby of the library.

      Nick shuddered himself awake.  Carol was watching him intently.  Her head was resting on her hands, propped up by her elbow.  “Are you all right?” she asked as soon as he opened his eyes.

      It took Nick a few seconds to acclimate after the vivid dream.  His heart was still racing out of control.  “I think so,” he said.  Carol continued to stare at him.  “Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked.

      “Well,” she began, “I woke up because you were talking.  I even thought I heard my name a couple of times.  Maybe I imagined it.  If you don’t mind my asking, do you often talk in your sleep?”

      “I don’t know,” Nick answered.  He laughed a little.  “Nobody has ever mentioned it to me before.”

      “Not even Monique?”  Carol said.  Her eyes did not leave Nick’s.  She could tell that he was trying to decide what kind of answer to give to her question.  You’re pushing again, a voice inside her said.  Let the man do things at his own pace.

      Nick looked away.  “We did not sleep together that much,” he said softly.  There was a long pause.  “Besides,” he said, now turning back to Carol, “that was ten years ago.  I was very young.  And she was married to someone else.”

      While they had been sleeping Troy had switched off the light on the top of the canopy.  The only light on their faces now was the reflection from the moon.  They continued to look at each other in silence.  Nick had not said very much to Carol about Monique, but it had been more than he had ever told anyone else, including his parents.  Carol knew how much of an effort it had been for him to answer her question honestly.  She rolled over on her back again and extended her hand to Nick.

      “So here we are, Mr. Williams.  Two solitary voyagers on the sea of life.  Both of us are now past thirty.  Many of our friends and classmates have already settled down into that house in the suburbs with the two kids and a dog.  Why not us?  What’s different about us?”

      The moon was accelerating its downward arc through the sky above them.  As it descended, more stars could be seen on the opposite horizon.  Nick thought he saw a shooting star.  There would be no way to hide from feelings.  Nick was jumping ahead of the conversation, imagining for the moment that he was going to be involved with Carol.  She would not permit it.  At least I would not have any doubts about where we stood.

      “When I was over at her house on Friday morning,” Nick finally replied to her question, “Amanda Winchester told me that I’m looking for a fantasy woman, someone absolutely perfect.  And that mere mortals always come up short in my estimation.”  He propped his head up and looked at Carol.  “But I think it’s something else.  I think maybe I’m not willing to make a commitment because of fear of rejection.”

      Did I really say that?  wondered Nick, shocked at himself.  Instantly he felt as if he never should have shared the thought.  His defenses began to build and he braced himself for a flippant or insensitive reply.

      But it did not come.  Instead Carol was quiet and thoughtful.  At length she spoke.  “My protection is different from yours,” she said.  “I always play it safe.  I pick men I admire and respect, intellectual pals if you will, but for whom I do not have any passion.  When I meet a man who sets off the banjos and bells, I run the other way.”

      Because I’m afraid, she thought.  Afraid that I might love him as much as I did my father.  And I could not survive if I were abandoned like that again.

      She felt Nick’s hand on her cheek.  He was caressing her gently.  She reached up, took his hand, and squeezed it.  He pulled himself up on his side where he could see her better.  She could tell that he wanted to kiss her.  She squeezed his hand again.  Slowly, tentatively, he dropped his mouth on hers.  It was a tender, adoring kiss, without pressure or overt passion, a subtle, artful question that could have been either the beginning of a love affair or the sole kiss exchanged between two people whose paths just happened to cross in life.  Carol heard banjos and bells.

2

WINTERS stood on the deck by himself, smoking quietly.  It was not a large boat, this converted trawler, but it was very fast.  They had not left the dock until after four o’clock and they had almost caught up with their prey already.  The commander rubbed his eyes and yawned.  He was tired.  He blew smoke out over the ocean.  On the eastern horizon there was just a faint suggestion of dawn.  To the west, in the direction of the moon, Winters thought he saw the dim light of another boat.

      These young people must all be crazy, he thought to himself as he reflected back on the events of the evening.  Why the hell did they leave?  Did they push Todd down those stairs without his knowing it?  It would have been so much easier if they had just stayed there until we returned.

      He remembered the look on Lieutenant Ramirez’ face when he had interrupted the telephone conversation that Winters had been having with his wife, Betty.  “Excuse me.  Commander,” Ramirez had said.  He had been out of breath.  “You must come quickly Lieutenant Todd is injured and our prisoners have escaped.”

      He had told his wife that he had no idea when he would be home and then joined Ramirez for the short walk back to the administration annex.  On the way Winters had been thinking about Tiffani, about the difficulty he had had in explaining to the seventeen-year-old why he could not just drop everything and meet her at the party.  “But you can work any day or night, Vernon,” she had said.  “This is our only time to be together.”  She had already drunk too much champagne.  Later in the conversation, when Winters had made it clear to her that he almost certainly would not make it to the party at all, and that he would probably ask Melvin and Marc to take her home, Tiffani had become petulant and angry.  She had stopped calling him Vernon.  “All right, Commander,” she had said, “I guess I’ll see you at the theater on Tuesday night.”

      The phone had clicked off and Winters had felt an ache tearing through his heart.  Oh fuck, he had thought for a moment, I’ve blown it.  He had imagined himself jumping in the car, forgetting Todd and Ramirez and the Panther missile, and driving over to the party to sweep Tiffani into his arms.  But he had not done it.  Despite his incredible longing, he was not able to pull himself away from his duty.  If it was meant to be, he told himself consolingly, then those flames of passion will burn again.  But even with his limited romantic experience Winters knew better.  Timing is everything in a love affair.  If momentum is lost at a critical moment, especially when the rhythm of the passion is heading for a climax, it will never be regained.

      Ramirez had already called the doctor on the base and he had arrived at the annex just after the two officers.  While they were standing there together, Ramirez had insisted to Winters that it must have been foul play, that Todd could not have fallen so hard unless he had either been pushed or thrown down the concrete steps.  The lieutenant had begun to stir during the doctor’s examination.  “He has a bad concussion,” the doctor had said after he first checked Todd’s eyes.  “He’ll probably be all right but he’ll have a ferocious headache in the morning.  Meanwhile, we’ll take him over to the infirmary and sew up that gash in his head.”

      To Winters it didn’t make sense.  While he was waiting patiently in an adjoining room for the doctors and nurses to finish the stitches in the lieutenant’s head, Winters tried to figure out what possible motive Nick and Carol and Troy could have had for attacking Todd and then escaping.  The Dawson woman is smart and successful.  Why would she do it?  He wondered if perhaps the trio might have been involved in some kind of big drug transaction.  That would at least explain all the gold.  But Todd and Ramirez did not find any indication of drugs.  So what the hell is happening?

      Lieutenant Todd had been kept awake during the procedure in the emergency room.  He had been given only a local anesthetic to reduce his pain.  But he had not been very lucid in response to the doctor’s simple questions.  “That sometimes happens with a concussion,” the medical officer had told Winters afterward.  “He may not be very coherent for the next day or two.”

      Nevertheless, around two o’clock, immediately after Todd’s head had been shaven, stitched, and bandaged, Commander Winters and Lieutenant Ramirez had decided to ask him about what had occurred at the annex.  The commander could not accept Todd’s answer, even though the lieutenant repeated it twice verbatim.  Todd had insisted that a six-foot carrot with vertical slits in its face had hidden in the bathroom and had jumped him while he was trying to take a piss.  He had escaped that first assault, but the giant carrot had then followed him into the main room at the annex.

      “And just how did this thing — ”

      “Carrot,” interrupted Todd.

      “And how did this carrot attack you?” continued Winters.  Jesus, he had thought, this man has cracked.  One bump on he head and he has finally flipped.

      “It’s hard to describe exactly,” Lieutenant Todd had answered slowly.  “You see, it had four doodads hanging out of these vertical slits in its head.  They were all mean looking — ”

      The doctor had come up and interrupted.  “Gentlemen,” he had said with a perfect bedside smile, “my patient desperately needs rest.  Surely some of these questions can wait until tomorrow.”

      Commander Winters remembered an overpowering sense of bewilderment as he watched the gurney take Lieutenant Todd from the emergency operating room to the infirmary.  As soon as Todd was out of earshot, the commander had turned to Lieutenant Ramirez.  “And what do you make of all this, Lieutenant?”

      “Commander, sir, I’m no medical expert .  .  .”

      “I know that, Lieutenant.  I don’t want your medical opinion.  I want to know what you think about the, uh, carrot business.”  Damn him, Winters had thought.  Does he have so little imagination that he can’t even react to Todd’s story?

      “Sir,” Ramirez had replied, “the carrot business is outside my experience.”

      To say the least.  Winters smiled to himself and flipped his cigarette into the water.  He walked over to the little wheel-house and checked the navigator.  They were only seven miles from the target boat and converging rapidly.  He pulled back on the throttle and put the boat into neutral gear.  Winters did not want to draw any closer to the Florida Queen until Ramirez and the other two seamen were awake and in position.

      He estimated that it was still about forty minutes until sunrise.  Winters laughed again about Ramirez’s unwillingness to venture a comment on Todd’s carrot story.  But the young Latino is a good officer.  His only mistake was following Todd.  Winters remembered how quickly Ramirez had organized all the details of their current sortie, picking the high-tech converted trawler for speed and stealth, rousting the two bachelor seamen who worked for him in Intelligence, and establishing a special link between the base and the trawler so that the whereabouts of the Florida Queen would be known at all times.

      “We must follow them.  We really have no choice,” Lieutenant Ramirez had said firmly to Winters after they had verified that Nick’s boat had indeed left the Hemingway Marina just after two o’clock.  “Otherwise there’s no way we could ever justify our having taken them into custody in the first place.”

      Winters had reluctantly agreed and Ramirez had organized the chase.  The commander had told the younger men to get some sleep while he formulated the plan.  Which is simple.  Okay, you guys, come with us and answer the questions or we’ll charge you under the sedition act of 1991.  Now, after putting the boat in idle, Winters was ready to wake Ramirez and the other two men.  He intended to apprehend Nick, Carol, and Troy as soon as it was daylight.

      The wind around the boat changed direction and Winters stopped a minute to check the weather.  He turned his face toward the moon.  The air suddenly felt warmer, almost hot, and he was reminded of a night off the coast of Libya eight years earlier.  The worst night of my life, he thought.  For a few moments his resolve to carry out his plan wavered and he asked himself if he was about to make another mistake.

      Then he heard a trumpet blast, followed maybe four seconds later by a similar but quieter sound.  Winters looked around him in the placid ocean.  He saw nothing.  Now he heard a group of trumpets and their echo, both sounds distinctly coming from the west.  The commander strained his eyes in the direction of the moon.  Silhouetted against its face he saw what appeared to be a group of snakes dancing out of the water.  He went inside the wheelhouse to fetch a pair of binoculars.

      By the time the commander returned to the railing a magnificent symphony surrounded him.  Where is this incredible music coming from? he asked at first, before he succumbed completely to its mesmerizing beauty.  He stood powerless against the railing, listening intently.  The music was rich, emotional, full of evocative longing.  Winters was swept away.  not only into his own past where his deepest memories were stored, but also onto another planet in another era where proud and dignified serpents with blue necks called to their loved ones during their short annual mating rite.

      He was spellbound.  Tears were already flooding into his eyes when he at last mechanically lifted the binoculars and focused on the strange, sinuous shapes underneath the moon.  The ghostlike images were completely transparent; the moonlight went right through them.  As Winters watched what was a thousand necks dancing above the water, cavorting back and forth in perfect rhythm, and as he heard the music build toward the concluding crescendo of the Canthorean mating symphony, his tired eyes blurred and he swore that what he saw across the water in front of him, calling to him with a song of longing and desire, was an image of Tiffani Thomas.  His heart was devastated by the combination of the music and the sight of her.  Winters was aware of an intense sense of loss unparalleled in his life.

      Yes, he said to himself as Tiffani continued to beckon in the distance, I’m coming.  I’m sorry Tiffani darling.  Tomorrow I will come to see you.  We will .  .  .  He stopped his interior monologue to wipe his eyes.  The music had now entered the final crescendo.  signaling the actual mating dance of the pairs of Canthorean serpents.  Winters looked through his binoculars again.  The image of Tiffani was gone.  He adjusted his glasses.  Joanna Carr came into focus, smiled briefly, and disappeared.  A moment later the little Arab girl from the Virginia beach seemed to dance just under the moon.  She was happy and gay.  She too was gone in an instant.

      The music was all around him.  Bursts of sound, powerful, full, expressing pleasure no longer anticipated but now being experienced.  He looked through his binoculars one more time.  The moon was setting.  As it fell into the ocean the image created against its illuminated disc by the dancing serpents was unmistakable.  Winters clearly saw the faces of his wife, Betty, and his son, Hap.  They were smiling at him together with a deep and abiding affection.  They remained there in his vision until the moon sank completely into the ocean.

3

CAROL struggled to adjust her diving equipment.  “Do you need some help, angel?”  Troy asked.  He came over and stood beside her in the predawn dark.  He was already fully prepared for the dive.

      “I haven’t worn anything like this since my first set of scuba lessons,” she said, fidgeting uncomfortably with the old-fashioned gear.

      Troy tightened the weight belt around her waist.  “You’re scared, aren’t you, angel?”  Carol didn’t answer right away.  “Me too.  My pulse rate must be twice normal.”

      Carol’s equipment seemed to please her finally.  “You know, Troy, even after the last three days my brain is having a hard time convincing the rest of me that all this is really happening.  Imagine writing it down for someone to read.  “As we were preparing to return to the alien spaceship .  .  .’ ”

      “Hey, you guys, come here,” Nick called from the other side of the canopy.  Carol and Troy walked around to the front of the boat.  Nick was staring out across the ocean to the east.  He handed a small pair of binoculars to Carol.  “Do you see a light out there in the distance, just to the left of that island?”

      Carol could barely make out the light.  “Uh huh,” she said to Nick.  “But so what?  Isn’t it reasonable that somewhere out in the ocean there would be another boat?”

      “Of course,” Nick answered.  “But that light hasn’t moved for fifteen minutes.  It’s just sitting there.  Why would a fishing boat, or any other kind of boat, be — ”

      “Sh,” interrupted Troy.  He put his fingers to his lips.  “Listen,” he whispered, “I hear music.”

      His companions stood quietly on the deck.  Behind them the moon disappeared into the ocean.  Above the gentle lapping of the waves all three of them could hear what sounded like the climax of a symphony, played by a full orchestra.  They listened for thirty seconds.  The music reached a peak, faded slightly, and then ceased abruptly.

      “That was beautiful,” Carol remarked.

      “And weird,” Nick said, walking over beside her.  “Where the hell was it coming from?  Is someone out there testing a new stereo system?  My God, if the sound travels five or ten miles, it must be deafening up close.”

      Troy was standing off to the side by himself.  He was concentrating on something.  Suddenly he turned to his companions.  “I know this sounds crazy,” he said to Nick and Carol, “but I think the music was a signal for us to dive.  Or perhaps a warning.”

      “Great,” said Carol.  “That’s what we need to reassure us.  A warning of some kind.  As if we’re not nervous enough.”

      Nick put his arm around her.  “Hey, lady,” he said, “don’t wimp out on us now.  After all those brave comments about a once in a lifetime experience .  .  .”

      “Really, let’s go,” Troy said impatiently.  He looked anxious and very serious.  “I’m definitely getting the message that we should dive now.”

      Troy’s solemnity changed the mood of the trio.  The three of them worked together in silence to secure the two buoyancy bags containing the lead, the gold, and the information discs.  The eastern sky continued to brighten.  It was only about fifteen minutes until sunrise.

      While they were working, Carol noticed that Nick seemed a little distracted.  Right before they left the boat she walked up beside him.  “Are you all right?” she said quietly.

      “Yes,” he answered.  “I’m just trying to figure out if I’ve completely lost my mind.  For eight years I have been thinking about what I would do if I ever had my full share of the treasure.  Now I’m about to give it all away to some extra-terrestrials from God knows where.”  He looked at her.  “There’s enough gold here to last three people a long time.”

      “I know,” she said, giving him a little hug.  “I must admit that I’ve thought about it too.  But in reality, part belongs to Amanda Winchester, part to Jake Lewis, most of it to the IRS .  .  .”  She grinned.  “And it’s only money.  That’s nothing when you compare it to being the only humans to interact with visitors from another planet.”

      “I hope you’re right,” he said.  “I hope I don’t wake up tomorrow and feel as if I’ve made a terrible mistake.  This entire episode has been so bizarre that I suspect my normal faculties aren’t working properly.  We don’t even know for sure if these aliens are friendly .  .  .”

      Carol pulled her diving mask over her face.  “We’ll never have all the answers,” she said.  She took his hand.  “Let’s go, Nick.”

      Troy was first into the water.  Nick and Carol followed.  It had been agreed before the dive that Carol would take the searchlight and lead the group.  She was the most mobile of the threesome because each of the men was dragging a buoyancy bag.  The trio had been concerned that they might have difficulty finding the ship and had discussed an elaborate set of contingency plans for locating it.  They needn’t have worried.  Thirty feet under the Florida Queen, in virtually the exact place where the fissure had been on Thursday, there was a light in the water.  Carol pointed at it and the two men swam up behind her.  As they drew closer, they saw that the light was coming from a rectangular area about ten feet high and twenty feet wide.  They could not see anything except what looked like some kind of material or fabric with a soft light behind it.

      Carol hesitated.  Troy swam right on by her, into the lighted area, his buoyancy bag trailing behind him.  Everything disappeared.  Nick and Carol waited.  Carol felt herself tightening up.  Come on now, Dawson, she thought, it’s your turn.  You’ve been here before.  She took a deep breath and swam into the material.  She felt something like plastic touch her face and then she was in a covered tunnel.  A swift current was pulling her to the right.  She went down a small water slide and was deposited in a shallow pool at the bottom.  She clambered out of the pool and began removing her diving equipment.

      Troy was standing on the floor about ten feet beyond the end of the pool.  Next to him a warden had already taken the buoyancy bag, opened it, and adroitly separated the gold bars and the lead weights from the information discs.  As Carol’s eyes adjusted to the dim light around her, she saw that the warden was now loading the gold on a small platform sitting on top of tank treads about a foot above the floor.  Immediately thereafter, the warden placed the information discs and the lead weights on two other platforms.  A carpet that had been lying inconspicuously over against the wall on the left then rose up, apparently activated the treads under the platforms, and directed them toward a nearby hallway leading out of the room.

      Carol pulled off her mask and finished removing her diving gear.  She was in a medium-sized room somewhat like the ones she and Troy had encountered at the beginning of her last dive.  The curved wall partitions were colored black and white.  There was a small window to the ocean next to the splash pool on her left.  The ceilings were low and tight, only a couple of feet above her head, giving her a feeling of claustrophobia.  So here I am again, she thought, Back in Wonderland.  This time I will take plenty of pictures.  She photographed the procession of the carpet and three platforms just as it disappeared from the room.  She then changed lenses and took a dozen quick close-up pictures of the warden standing next to Troy.  It had the same amoebalike central body as the one she had confronted the day before, but there were only five implements sticking out of its upper half.  The warden had probably been customized for its particular job of taking the objects from the trio.

      Troy walked over beside her.  “Where’s Nick?” he asked.  My God, Carol thought as she turned around and looked back at the slide and splash pool.  I almost forgot.  She chastised herself for not having waited for Nick.  After all, he’s never been down here .  .  .

      Nick’s big body careened out of control against the sides of the slide and he hurtled into the splash pool.  The heavy buoyancy bag came down behind him and hit him hard, just above the kidneys.  He stumbled to his feet, fell down in the pool, and then stood up again.  In his diving apparatus with the thin plastic material from the bag tied around his wrist, it was he who looked like the visitor from outer space.

      Carol and Troy were laughing as Nick climbed out of the splash pool.  “All right.  Professor!”  exclaimed Troy.  He reached forward to give him a hand.  “Good show.  It’s a shame we don’t have that entry on tape.”

      Nick removed his mouthpiece.  He was out of breath.  “Thanks a lot for waiting, team,” he stammered.  He looked around him.  “What is this place, anyway?”

      The warden meanwhile had approached him from the side and was already tugging at the bag with one of its appendages.  “Just a minute, weirdo,” Nick said, suppressing his fright.  “Let me get my bearings first.”

      The warden didn’t stop.  A knifelike appendage cut the bag below where it was attached to Nick’s wrist.  Next the warden took the entire bag, including its lead and gold contents, and somehow pushed it through its own semipermeable outer skin.  The bag could be seen intact, adjacent to the rectangular control boxes, as the warden turned and hurried across the floor.  It went through the same exit that the carpet and platforms had used earlier.

      “You’re welcome,” Nick managed to say as he watched the strange creature disappear with the loot.  He finished taking off his diving gear and walked over to Troy.  “Okay, Jefferson, you’re the main man here.  What do we do now?”

      “Well, Professor,” he answered, “as far as I can tell, our job is finished.  If you guys want, we can suit up again and jump through that window wall over there.  We’d be back in the boat in less than five minutes.  If I’ve read the messages right, these alien dudes will be ready to leave very shortly.”

      “You mean that’s it?  We’re done?”  Carol asked.  Troy nodded.  “This is the most overrated experience since my first sexual encounter,” Carol commented.

      Nick was walking across the room, moving directly away from the splash pool and his two friends.  “Where are you going?”  Troy asked.

      “I paid a hefty admission price,” Nick replied.  “I’m at least entitled to a tour.”  Carol and Troy followed him.  They crossed the empty room and walked through an exit between two wall partitions on the opposite side.  They entered a short, dark, covered corridor.  They could see light at the other end.  They emerged into another room, this one circular and significantly larger.  It had the high cathedral ceilings that Carol had liked so much on her last visit.

      This room was not empty.  Sitting in its middle facing them was a gigantic, enclosed, translucent cylinder, about twenty-five feet high altogether and ten feet in diameter at its base.  A horde of orange pipes and purple cable sheaths attached the cylinder to a group of machines built into the wall behind it.  There was a light green liquid filling the inside of the cylinder and eight gold metallic objects floating at different heights in the liquid.  The objects were many different shapes.  One looked like a starfish, another like a box, a third like a derby hat; the only thing the objects had in common was their gold metallic outer covering.  Upon close inspection of the cylinder, thin membranes could be seen inside the liquid.  These surfaces effectively partitioned the internal volume and gave each of the golden objects its own unique subvolume.

      “All right, genius,” Nick said to Troy, after he stared at the cylinder for almost a full minute.  “Explain what this is all about.”  Carol was in a photographer’s paradise.  She had nearly finished recording all hundred and twenty-eight pictures that could be stored on one minidisc.  She had photographed the cylinder from all angles, including a close-up of each of the objects suspended in the liquid, and was now working on the machines behind it.  She stopped taking pictures to listen to Troy’s reply.

      “Well, Professor .  .  .”  Troy started.  His forehead was knitted as he tried to concentrate.  “As far as I can make out from what they’ve been trying to tell me, this spaceship is on a mission to a dozen planets that are scattered in this part of the galaxy.  On each planet the aliens leave one of those golden things you see in the cylinder.  They contain tiny embryos or seeds that have been genetically engineered for survival on that specific planet.”

      Carol walked over beside them.  “So the ship goes from planet to planet, dropping off these packages containing seeds of some kind?  Sort of a galactic Johnny Appleseed?”

      “Sort of, angel, except that there are both animal and plant seeds inside the container.  Plus advanced robots that nurture and educate the growing things until they reach maturity.  Then the creatures can flourish on their own without help.”

      “All in that one little package?”  Nick asked.  He looked again at the fascinating objects floating in the liquid in the cylinder.  He loved the golden color.  All of a sudden he thought of the trident.  He imagined thousands of tiny swarming embryos inside its outer golden surface and in his mind’s eye he projected the growth of the swarm into the future.  There was something fearsome about creatures genetically engineered to survive on the planet Earth.  What if they are not friendly?

      Nick’s heart sped up as he realized what had been bothering him, partly subconsciously, since he started believing Troy’s story about the aliens.  Why did they stop on the Earth in the first place?  What do they really want from us?  His mind raced on.  And if that trident contains beings destined for Earth that are extremely advanced, he thought, then it doesn’t matter if they are friendly.  We will be finished sooner or later anyway.

      Carol and Troy were talking in general terms about the way an advanced civilization might use seeds to colonize other planets.  Nick wasn’t listening carefully.  I can’t tell Troy or even Carol.  If the aliens know what I’m thinking they will stop me.  I’d better do it soon.

      “Troy,” he heard Carol say as she began to take another set of pictures of the objects in the cylinder, “is it just co-incidence that the trident we found on Thursday looks so much like one of these seed packages?”

      Nick did not wait for Troy to answer.  “Excuse me,” he interrupted in a loud voice.  “I forgot something very important.  I must go back to the boat.  Stay here and wait for me.  I’ll be right back.”

      He burst out of the room, down the corridor, and across the room with the low ceiling and the window on the ocean.  Good, he said to himself, nothing is going to stop me.  Without even pausing to put on his diving gear, Nick took a huge breath and dove through the window.  He was afraid that his lungs were going to explode before he reached the surface.  But he made it.  He climbed up the ladder and onto the boat.

      Nick went immediately to the bottom drawer underneath the racks of electronic equipment.  He reached in and grabbed the golden trident.  He could feel that the axis rod had thickened considerably.  It was now nearly twice as thick as it had been the first time that he held it.  Carol was right.  Damnit, why didn’t I listen to her at the time?  He pulled the object completely out of the drawer.  The sun was just about to come up behind him.  In the dawn light Nick could see that the trident had changed in several other ways.  It was heavier.  The individual tines on the fork end were much thicker and had almost grown together.  In addition, there was an open hole into a soft, gooey interior on the north pole of the larger of the two spheres.

      Nick examined it carefully.  Suddenly he felt powerful arms wrap themselves around his chest and upper body, forcing him to drop the trident on the floor of the boat.  “Now just hold steady,” he heard a lightly accented voice say, “and turn around slowly.  We won’t hurt you if you cooperate.”

      Nick turned around.  Commander Winters and a tall, fat seaman that Nick had never seen before were standing in front of him in wetsuits.  Lieutenant Ramirez was still holding him from behind.  Ramirez gradually released Nick and bent down to pick up the trident.  He handed it to Winters.  “Thank you, Lieutenant,” Winters said.  “Where are your companions, Williams?” he then asked Nick.  “Down there with my missile?”

      Nick didn’t say anything at first.  Too much was happening too fast.  He was having difficulty integrating Winters into his scenario for returning the trident to the spaceship.  As soon as Nick had felt the changes in its outer surface, he had known for certain that the trident was one of the seed packages.

      Winters was studying the trident.  “And what’s the significance of this thing?” he said.  “You guys have taken enough photographs of it.”

      Nick was doing some calculations.  If I am delayed here very long, then Carol and Troy will undoubtedly leave the ship.  And the aliens will launch.  He took a deep breath.  My only chance is the truth.

      “Commander Winters,” Nick began, “please listen very carefully to what I’m about to say.  It will sound fantastic, even preposterous, but it’s all true.  And if you will come with me, I can prove everything to you.  The fate of the human race may well depend on what we do in the next five minutes.”  He paused to organize his ideas.

      For some reason Winters thought about the ridiculous carrot story that Todd had told him.  But the earnestness he was seeing in Nick’s face persuaded him to continue to pay attention.  “Go ahead, Williams,” he said.

      “Carol Dawson and Troy Jefferson are right now onboard a super-advanced extraterrestrial spaceship that is directly under this boat.  The alien vehicle is traveling from planet to planet depositing packages of embryonic beings that are genetically designed to survive on a particular planet.  That golden thing in your hand is, in a sense, a cradle for creatures that may later flourish on the Earth.  I must return it to the aliens before they leave or our descendants may not survive.”

      Commander Winters looked at Nick as if he had lost his mind.  The commander started to say something.  “No,” Nick interrupted.  “Hear me out.  The spacecraft also stopped here because it needed some repairs.  At one time we thought it might have found your missile.  That’s partially how we got involved in the first place.  We didn’t know about the creatures in the cradle.  So we were trying to help.  One of the things the aliens needed for their repairs was gold.  You see, they only had three days — ”

      “Jesus K.  Christ!”  Winters shouted at Nick.  “Do you really expect me to believe this crap?  This is the looniest, most farfetched story I have ever heard in my entire life.  You’re nuts.  Cradles, aliens who need gold for repairs .  .  .  I suppose next you’ll be telling me that they are six feet tall and look like carrots — ”       “And have four vertical slits in their faces?”  Nick added.

      Winters glanced around.  “You told him?” he said to Lieutenant Ramirez.  Ramirez shook his head back and forth.

      “No,” Nick continued abruptly as the commander looked completely confused.  “The carrot thing wasn’t an alien, at least not one of the superaliens who made the ship.  The carrot was a holographic projection .  .  .”

      The perplexed Commander Winters waved his hands.  “ I’m not listening to any more of this nonsense, Williams.  At least not here.  What I want to know is what you and your friends know about the location of the missile.  Now will you come with us over to our boat of your own free will, or do we have to tie you up?”

      At that moment, six feet above them, a ten-legged, black, spiderlike creature with a body about four inches in diameter walked unnoticed to the edge of the canopy.  It extended three antennae in their direction and then leaped off the side, landing on the back of Lieutenant Ramirez’ neck.  “Aieee,” screamed the lieutenant during the pause in the conversation.  He fell down on his knees behind Nick and grasped at the black thing that was trying to take a sample chunk out of his neck.  For a second nobody moved.  Then Nick grabbed a large pair of pliers from the counter and thwacked the black thing once, twice, and even a third time before it released its grip on Ramirez’ neck.

      All four men watched it fall to the deck, scuttle rapidly over to the cradle that Commander Winters had put down so that he could assist Ramirez, shrink its size by a factor of ten, and disappear into the cradle through the soft gooey opening on the top of the sphere.  Within seconds the goo hardened and all the external surfaces of the cradle were again rigid.

      Winters was flabbergasted.  Ramirez crossed himself.  The seaman looked as if he were about to faint.  “I swear to you that my story is true, Commander,” Nick said calmly.  “All you have to do is come down with me and see for yourself.  I left my diving gear down there so that I could hurry up here to retrieve this thing.  We can go together with my last working tank and share the air supply.”

      Winters’ head was spinning.  The ten-legged spider was the straw that broke the camel’s back.  He felt that he had now entered the Twilight Zone.  I have never seen or heard anything even remotely like this before in my life, Winters thought.  And only half an hour ago I had wild hallucinations with musical accompaniment.  Maybe I am the one losing touch with reality.  Lieutenant Ramirez was still on his knees.  It looked as if he were praying.  Or maybe this is finally my sign from God.

      “All right, Williams,” the commander was surprised to hear himself say.  “I’ll go with you.  But my men will wait here on your boat for our return.”

      Nick picked up the trident and raced around the canopy to prepare the diving equipment.

      It took Carol and Troy a few seconds to react to Nick’s abrupt departure.  “That was strange,” Carol said finally.  “What do you suppose he forgot?”

      “I have no idea,” Troy shrugged.  “But I hope he hurries back.  I don’t think it’s very long until launch.  And I’m sure they will throw us out before then.”

      Carol thought for a moment and then turned back to look at the cylinder.  “You know, Troy, those golden things are exactly like the trident on the outside.  Did you say — ”

      “I didn’t answer you before, angel,” Troy interrupted.  “But yes, you’re right.  It is the same material.  I hadn’t realized until we came down here today that what we picked up on that first dive was the seed package for Earth.  They may have tried to tell me before; maybe I just didn’t understand them.”

      Carol was fascinated.  She walked over and put her face against the cylinder wall.  It felt more like glass than plastic.  “So maybe I was right when I thought it was heavier and thicker .  .  .”  she said, as much to herself as to Troy.  “And inside that trident are seeds for better plants and animals?”  Troy nodded his head in response.

      There was now some motion inside the cylinder.  The thin membranes separating the subvolumes were growing what appeared to be guidewires that were wrapping themselves around the individual golden objects.  Carol reloaded her camera with a new disc and ran around the outside of the cylinder, stopping in the best positions to photograph the process.  Troy looked down at his bracelet.  “There’s no doubt about it, angel.  These ETs are definitely preparing to launch.  Maybe we should go.”

      ‘We’ll wait as long as we can,” Carol shouted from across the room.  “These photographs will he priceless.”  They both could now hear weird noises behind the walls.  The noises were not loud, but they were distracting because they were erratic and so totally alien.  Troy paced nervously as he listened to the gamut of sounds.  Carol walked over beside him.  “Besides,” she said, “Nick asked us to wait for him.”

      “That’s great,” Troy answered, “as long as they wait as well.”  He seemed uncharacteristically nervous.  “I don’t want to be onboard when these guys leave the Earth.”

      “Hey there, Mr. Jefferson,” Carol said, you are supposed to he the calm one.  Relax.  You just said yourself that you think they’ll throw us out before they leave.”  She paused and looked searchingly at Troy.  “What do you know that I don’t?”

      Troy turned away from her and started walking toward the exit.  Carol ran after him and grabbed his arm.  “What is it, Troy?” she said.  ‘What’s wrong?”

      “Look, angel,” he replied, not looking directly at her, “I just figured it out myself a minute ago.  And I’m still not sure what it means.  I hope I haven’t made a terrible — ”

      “What are you talking about?” she interrupted him.  “You’re not making any sense.”

      “The Earth package,” he blurted out.  “It has human seeds in it too.  Along with the trees and insects and grasses and birds.”

      Carol stood facing Troy, trying to understand what was bothering him so much.  “When they came here a long long time ago,” he said, his face wrinkled with concern, “they took specimens of the different species and returned them to their home world.  Where they were improved by genetic engineering and prepared for their eventual return to the Earth.  Some of those specimens were human beings.”

      Carol’s heart quickened as she realized what Troy was telling her.  So that’s it, she said to herself.  There are superhumans inside that package we’ve found.  Not just better flowers and better bugs, but better people as well.  But unlike Troy, Carol’s immediate reaction was not fear.  She was overwhelmed by curiosity.

      “Can I see them?” she asked excitedly.  Troy didn’t understand.  “The superhumans, or whatever you want to call them .  .  .  ,” she continued, “can I see them?”

      Troy shook his head.  “They’re just tiny zygotes, angel.  More than a billion would fit in your hand.  You wouldn’t be able to see anything.”

      Carol was not dissuaded.  “ But these guys have such amazing technological ability.  Maybe they can .  .  .”  She stopped.  “Wait a minute, Troy.  Remember that carrot on the base?  It was a holographic projection and must have come somehow out of the information base on this spacecraft.”

      Carol walked away from Troy into the middle of the room.  She raised her arms and looked up at the ceiling thirty feet above her.  “Okay, you guys, whoever you are,” she invoked in a loud voice.  “Now there’s something that I want.  We risked our ass to get what you needed for your repairs.  You can at least reciprocate.  I want to see what we might look like someday .  .  .”

      To their left, not too far from one of the large blocky machines connected to the cylinder, two of the wall partitions moved apart to form a hallway.  They could see light at the other end.  “Come on,” an exultant Carol called to Troy, who was again smiling and admiring her assertiveness, “let’s go see what our superaliens have created for us now.”

      At the end of the short corridor, there was a softly lit square room about twenty feet on a side.  Against the opposite wall, illuminated by a blue light that gave the entire tableau a surrealistic appearance, eight children were standing around a large, glowing model of the Earth.  As Carol and Troy approached, they recognized that what they were seeing was not real, that it was simply a complex sequence of images projected into the air in front of them.  But the diaphanous picture contained such rich detail that it was easy to forget it was just a projection.

      The children were four or five years old.  All were wearing only a thin white loincloth that covered their genitals.  There were four girls and four boys.  Two of them were black, two were Caucasian with blue eyes and blonde hair, two were Oriental, and the final boy and girl, definitely twins, looked like a mixture of all humanity What Carol immediately noticed was their eyes.  All eight children had large, piercing eyes of brilliant intensity that were focused on the glowing Earth in front of them.

      “The continents of this planet,” the little black boy was saying, “were once tied together in a single gigantic land mass that stretched from pole to pole.  This was relatively recently, only about two hundred million years ago.  Since that time the motion of the plates on which the individual land masses rest has completely changed the configuration of the surface.  Here, for example, you can see the Indian sub continent tearing away from Antarctica a hundred million years ago and moving across the ocean toward an eventual collision with Asia.  It was this collision and the subsequent plate interaction that lifted the Himalayas, the highest mountains on the planet, to their current height.”

      As the little boy was talking, the electronic model Earth in front of him demonstrated the continental changes that he was describing.  “But what is the mechanism that causes these plates and land masses to move with respect to each other?” the tiny blonde-haired girl asked.

      “Psst,” Carol whispered in Troy’s ear.  “How come they are speaking English and know all this Earth geography?”  Troy looked at her as if he were disappointed and made a circular motion with his hands.  Of course, Carol said to herself, they’ve already processed the discs.

      “.  .  .  then this activity results in material being thrust upward from the mantle below the Earth’s crust.  Eventually the continents are pushed apart.  Any other questions?”  The black boy was smiling.  He pointed at the model in front of him.  “Here’s what will happen to the land masses in the next fifty million years or so.  The Americas will continue to move to the West, away from Africa and Europe, making the South Atlantic a much larger ocean.  The Persian Gulf will close altogether, Australia will drive north toward the equator and press against Asia, and both Baja California and the area around Los Angeles will split off from North America to drift northward in the Pacific Ocean.  By fifty million years from now Los Angeles will start sliding into the Aleutian Islands.”

      All of the children watched the changing globe with complete attention.  When the continents on the surface of the model stopped moving, the Oriental boy stepped slightly out from the group.  “We have seen this continental drift phenomenon that Brian has been describing on half a dozen other planets, all of them bodies mostly covered by a liquid.  Tomorrow Sherry will lead a more detailed discussion about the forces inside a planet that cause the sea floor to spread in the first place.”

      A projected image of a warden entered the scene from the left and removed both the Earth globe and several other unidentified props.  The small boy waited patiently for the warden to complete his task and then continued, “Darla and David now want to share with us a project they have been working on for several days.  They will play the music while Miranda and Justin perform the dance they choreographed.”

      The mixed twins turned eagerly to their classmates.  The girl spoke out.  “When we first learned about adult love and the changes that we all can expect after we pass puberty, David and I tried to envision what it would be like to find a new desire even stronger than those we already know.  Our joint vision became a short musical composition and a dance.  We call it ‘The Dance of Love.’ ”

      The two children sat down away from the group, almost at the side of the image, and began moving their fingers rapidly as if they were typing on the floor.  A light synthesized melody, pleasant and spirited, filled the room.  The blond boy and the Oriental girl began to dance in the center of the group.  At first in the dance, the two were totally separate, unaware of each other, each child completely absorbed in his own activities.  The boy knelt down to pick a beautiful flower, its red and white coloring shimmering in the holographic projection.  The girl bounced a large bright blue ball as she danced.  After a while the little girl noticed the boy and approached him, somewhat tentatively, offering to share the ball.  The boy played ball with her but ignored everything except the game.

      This is magic, thought Carol as she watched the children’s images moving with grace and deft precision in front of her.  These children are wonderful.  But they can’t be real.  They are too orderly, too self-contained.  Where is the tension, the strife?  But despite her questions she was profoundly moved by the scene she was witnessing.  The children were acting in concert, as a group, flowing in harmony from activity to activity.  Their body language was open and unafraid.  No neuroses were blocking their learning process.

      The dance continued.  The music deepened as the boy began to pay attention to his partner and she began arranging her hair with his favorite flowers for their brief encounters.  The body movements changed as well, the sprightly, exuberant bounces of the initial stages giving way to subtly suggestive motions designed to awaken and then tease the budding libido.  The tiny dancers touched, moved away, and came back together in an embrace.

      Carol was entranced.  How would my life have been different, she wondered, if I had known all this at the age of five?  She remembered her rich friend at soccer camp, Jessica from Laguna Beach, whom she had seen occasionally in subsequent years.  Jessica was always ahead, always had to be first.  She had had sex with boys before I even started my period.  And look what happened to her.  Three marriages, three divorces, just thirty years old.

      Carol tried to stop her mind from drifting so that she could pay complete attention to the dance.  Suddenly she remembered her camera.  She had just taken her first pictures of the children when she heard a noise behind her.  Nick was coming toward them through the corridor.  And he was carrying the trident in his hand.

      Nick started to say something but Troy hushed him by putting his finger against his own lips and pointing at the dance in progress.  The tempo had now changed.  The two mixed children had somehow put the music on automatic (it seemed to be repeating some of the early verses, but with additional instruments in a more complex pattern) and joined the blond boy and the Oriental girl in the dance.  Carol’s first impression before Nick spoke out loud was that the dance was now exploring friendships between the paired couple and other people.

      “What’s this all about?”  Nick said.  The moment he spoke the entire projected tableau vanished.  All of the children, the dance, and the music disappeared in an instant.  Carol was surprised to find that she was disappointed and even a little angry.  “Now you’ve blown it,” she said.

      Nick looked at his companions’ stern faces.  “Jesus,” he said, holding up the cradle, “such a greeting.  I bust my butt to go retrieve this damn thing and you guys are pissed when I come back because I interrupt a movie of some kind.”

      “For your information, Mr. Williams,” Carol replied, “what we were watching was no ordinary movie.  In fact, those kids in that dance are the same species as the ones in your trident.”  Nick looked at her skeptically.  “Tell him, Troy.”

      “She’s right, Professor,” Troy said.  “We just figured it out while you were gone.  That thing you’re carrying is the seed package for Earth.  Some of the zygotes in there are what Carol calls superhumans.  Genetically engineered humans with more capability than you or me.  Like the kids we just saw.”

      Nick lifted the cradle to eye level.  “I had figured out myself that this thing was a seed package.  But what’s this shit about human seeds?”  He glanced at Troy.  “You’re serious, aren’t you?”  Troy nodded his head.  Troy nodded.  All three of them stared intently at the object in front of them.  Carol kept glancing back and forth from the trident to where the image of the superchildren had been.  “It still doesn’t seem possible,” Nick added, “but then nothing else has for the last — ”

      “So what did you forget, Nick?”  Carol interrupted.  “And why did you bring that thing back?”  There was no immediate response from Nick.  “By the way,” she smiled, “you missed the show of a lifetime.”

      “The trident was what I forgot,” Nick answered.  “It occurred to me, while I was studying the gold objects in the cylinder, that our trident might be a seed package.  And I was worried that it might be dangerous .  .  .”

      The sudden sound of organ music flooding down the corridor from the large room behind them stopped their conversation.  Nick and Carol looked at Troy.  He put the bracelet up to his ear as if he were listening to it and cracked a large grin.  “I think that’s the five-minute warning,” Troy said.  “We’d better make our last touchdown and clear out of here.”

      The trio turned and walked back down the corridor to the room with the cylinder.  When they arrived.  Carol and Troy were astonished to see a figure in a blue and white wetsuit on the opposite side of the room.  He was kneeling reverently right next to the cylinder.

      “Oh, yeah.”  said Nick with a nervous laugh, “I forgot to tell you.  Commander Winters came back with me .  .  .”

      Commander Winters had felt quite comfortable in the water even though he had not been down on a dive in five years.  Nick had gone freestyle, swimming right beside the commander and using the emergency mouthpiece connected to the air supply on Winters’ back.  Despite his sense of urgency, Nick had remembered that Winters was basically a novice again and had not rushed the first part of the dive.  But when Winters had refused several times to follow Nick up close to the light in the ocean, Nick had become exasperated.

      Nick had then taken a final deep breath from the ancillary mouthpiece and grabbed Winters by the shoulders.  With gestures, he had explained to the commander that he, Nick, was going to go through the plastic stuff or whatever it was in front of the light and that Winters could either follow him or not.  The commander had reluctantly given Nick his hand.  Nick turned around immediately and pulled Winters into and through the membrane that separated the alien spaceship from the ocean.

      Winters had been completely terrified during his tumble on the water slide inside the vehicle.  As a result he had lost his bearings and had had great difficulty standing up after he landed in the splash pool.  Nick was already out of the pool and anxious to find his friends.  “Look,” Nick had said, as soon as he could get the commander’s attention, “I’m going to leave you now for a few minutes.”  He had pointed at the exit on the opposite of the room.  “We’ll be in the big room with the high ceilings just on the other side of that wall.”  Then he had left carrying the strange golden object from the boat.

      Winters was left alone.  He carefully pulled himself out on the side of the splash pool and methodically stacked his equipment alongside all the rest of the diving gear.  He looked around the room, noting the curves in the black and white partitions.  He too felt the closeness of the ceiling.  Now according to Williams, the commander thought to himself, I’m in part of an alien spaceship that has temporarily stopped on Earth.  So far, except for that clever one-way entrance that I did not have time to analyze, I see no evidence of extraterrestrial origin .  .  .

      Comforted by his logic, he eased across the room toward the opposite wall and into the dark corridor.  But his newfound sense of comfort was totally destroyed when he walked into the room dominated by the enormous cylinder with the golden objects floating in the light green liquid.  He arched his back and stared at the vaulted, cathedral ceilings far above his head.  He then approached the cylinder.

      For Winters, the connection between the trident that Nick had been holding and the objects inside the cylinder was instantaneous.  Those must be more seed packages, destined for other worlds.  Winters thought, his crisp logic disappearing in a quick leap of faith.  With six-root carrots and who knows what else to populate a few of the billions of worlds in our galaxy alone.

      The commander walked around the cylinder as if he were in a dream.  His mind continually replayed both what Nick had told him right before they descended and the amazing scene he had witnessed when the spiderlike creature had shrunk up and jumped into the golden object.  So it’s all true.  All those things the scientists have been saying about the possibility of vast hordes of living creatures out there among the stars.  He stopped for a moment, partially listening to the strange noises behind the walls.  And we are only a few of God’s many many children.

      Organ music, similar in timbre to that which Carol had heard when she had finished playing “Silent Night,” but with a different tune, began to sound in the distant reaches of the ceiling above him.  It reminded Winters of church music.  His reaction was instinctual .  He knelt down in front of the cylinder and clasped his hands together in prayer.

      The music swelled in the room.  What Winters heard in his head was the introduction to the Doxology.  the short hymn that he had heard every single Sunday for eighteen years in the Presbyterian church in Columbus, Indiana.  In his mind’s eye he was thirteen years old again and sitting next to Betty in his choir robes.  He smiled at her and they stood up together.

      Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

      The choir sang the first phrase of the hymn and Winters’ brain was bombarded by a montage of memories from his early teens and before, a suite of epiphanic images of his innocent and unknowing closeness with a parental God, one who was in the wall behind his bed or just over his rooftop or at most in the summer afternoon clouds above Columbus.  Here was an eight-year-old boy praying that his father would not find out that it was he who had set fire to the vacant lot across from the Smith mansion.  Another time, at ten, the little Vernon wept bitter tears as he held his dead cocker spaniel Runtie in his arms and begged the omniscient God to accept his dead dog’s soul into heaven.

      The night before the Easter pageant, the first time that Vernon had portrayed Him in His final hours, dragging the cross to Calvary, eleven-year-old Vernon had been unable to sleep.  As the night was passing by the boy began to panic, began to fear that he would freeze up and forget his lines.  But then he had known what to do.  He had reached under his pillow and found the little New Testament that always stayed there, day and night. He had opened it to Matthew 28.  “Go ye therefore,” it had said, “baptizing all nations .  .  .”

      That had been enough.  Then Vernon had prayed for sleep.  His friendly, fatherly God had sent the little boy an image of himself delivering a spellbinding performance in the pageant the next day.  Comforted by that picture, he had fallen asleep.

      Praise Him all creatures here below.

      With the second phrase of the hymn resounding in his ears the venue for Winters’ mental montage changed to Annapolis Maryland.  He was a young man now, in the last two years of his university work at the Naval Academy.  The pictures that flooded his brain were all taken at the same place, outside the beautiful little Protestant chapel in the middle of the campus.  He was either walking in or walking out.  He went in the snow, in the rain, and in the late summer heat.  He would fulfill his pledge.  He had made a bargain with God, a business deal as it were, you do your part and I’ll do mine.  It was no longer a one-sided relationship.  Now, life had taught the serious young midshipman from Indiana that it was necessary to offer this God something in order to guarantee His compliance with the deal.

      For two years Vernon went regularly to the chapel, twice a week at least.  He did not really worship there; he corresponded with a worldly God, one that read the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.  They discussed things.  Vernon reminded Him that he was steadfastly upholding his end of the deal and thanked Him for keeping His part of the bargain.  But never once did they talk about Joanna Carr.  She didn’t matter.  The whole affair was between Midshipman Vernon Winters and God.

      Praise Him above ye heavenly host.

      The commander had unconsciously bowed his head almost to the floor by the time he heard the third phrase of the hymn.  In his heart he knew the next stops on this spiritual journey.  He was off the coast of Libya first, praying those horrible words requesting death and destruction for Gaddafi’s family.  God had changed as Lieutenant Winters had matured.  He was now an executive, a president of something larger than a nation, an admiral, a judge, somewhat remote, but still accessible in time of real need.

      However, he had lost his all-forgiving nature.  He had become stern and judgmental.  Killing a small Arab girl wasn’t like burning down the vacant lot across from the Smith mansion.  Winters’ God now held him personally accountable for all his actions.  And there were some sins almost beyond forgiveness, some deeds so heinous that one might wait for weeks, months, or even years in the anterooms of His court before He would consent to hear your plea for mercy and expiation.

      Again the commander remembered his desperate search for Him after that awful evening when he had sat on the couch beside his wife and watched the videotaped newsreels of the Libya bombing.  She had been so proud of him.  She had taped every segment of CBS news that had covered the North African engagement and then surprised him with a complete showing the day after he returned to Norfolk.  It was only then that the full horror of what he had done had struck Winters.  Struggling not to vomit as the camera had shown the gruesome result of those missiles that had been fired from his planes, Winters had stumbled out into the night air, alone, and wandered until daybreak.

      He had been looking for Him.  A dozen times in the next three years this rite would repeat itself and he would wander again, all night, alternately praying and walking, hoping for some sign that He had listened to the commander’s prayers.  The stars and moon above him on those nights had been magnificent.  But they could not grant forgiveness, could not give surcease to his troubled soul.

      Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

      And so God became blackness, a void, for Commander Winters.  On those rare occasions afterward when he would pray, there was no longer any mental image of God, no picture of Him at all in his mind.  There was just blackness, darkness, emptiness.  Until this moment.  As he knelt there outside the cylinder, heard the final phrase of the Doxology, and prayed to God to forgive him his doubts, his longings for Tiffani Thomas, and his general lack of direction, there was an explosion of light in Winters mind’s eye.  God was speaking to him!  God had at last given him a sign!

      It was not the sign that Winters had been seeking, not evidence that He had finally forgiven the commander and accepted his penance, but something much much better.  The explosion of light in Winter’s mind was a star, a solar furnace forging helium out of hydrogen.  As his mental camera backed away rapidly, Winters could see planets around that star and signs of intelligence on a few of the planets.  There were other stars and other planets in the distance.  Billions of stars in this galaxy alone and, after the mammoth voids between the galaxies, more huge collections of stars and planets and living creatures stretching incomprehensible distances in all directions.

      Winters’ body shook with joy and his eyes flooded with tears when he realized how completely God had answered his prayers.  It would not have been enough for Him to simply reveal to Winters that he was forgiven.  No, this Lord of everything imaginable, whose domain embraced chemicals risen to consciousness on millions of worlds in a vast and uncountable universe, this God who was truly omnipotent and ubiquitous, had gone way beyond his prayers.  He had shown Winters the unity in everything.  He had not limited Himself just to the affairs of one individual on a small and insignificant blue planet orbiting an ordinary yellow sun in one of the spiral arms of the Milky Way Galaxy; he had also shown Winters how that species and its pool of intelligence and spirituality was connected to every part of every atom in His grand dominion.

      As Nick walked across the room toward Commander Winters, the intermittent noises behind the walls increased in amplitude and frequency.  Around on the far side of the cylinder, next to one of the larger support machines, a door opened and two carpets, moving inchworm style, came into the room.  They were immediately followed by two wardens and four platforms on treads.  The platforms were carrying stacks of building materials.  Each of the wardens led two platforms to a corner of the room, where they started constructing secure anchor stanchions for the cylinder.

      The two carpets confronted Nick in the center of the room.  They stood up on end and leaned in the direction of the exit toward the ocean.  “They’re telling us it’s time to go,” Carol said as she and Troy came up beside Nick.

      “I understand that,” Nick replied.  “But I’m not yet ready to leave.”  He turned to Troy.  “Does this game have an X key at all?” he asked.  “I could use a time out.”

      Troy laughed.  “I don’t think so, Professor.  And there’s no way we can save the game and try again.”

      Nick looked as if he were in deep thought.  The carpets continued to beckon.  “Come on, Nick,” Carol grabbed him by the arm.  “Let’s go before they get angry.”

      Suddenly Nick advanced toward one of the carpets and extended the golden cradle.  “Here,” he said, “take this and put it with the rest of them, up there, in the cylinder where it belongs.”  The carpet recoiled and twisted its top from side to side.  Then it pulled its two vertical sides together and pointed at Nick.

      “I don’t need a bracelet to interpret that gesture,” Troy remarked.  “The carpet is plainly telling you to take the trident back to your boat.”

      Nick nodded his head and was quiet for a moment.  “Is this the only one?” he asked Troy.  Troy didn’t understand the question.  “Is this the only seed package for Earth?”

      “I think so,” Troy answered after a moment’s hesitation.  He looked at Nick with a puzzled expression.

      Meanwhile the activity level in the room had increased substantially.  As Commander Winters ambled toward the trio in the middle of the hubbub, the wardens and platforms were actively building in the corners, moving equipment could be heard behind the walls, and the organ music was growing louder and slightly ominous.  In addition, a giant sock or cover of some kind, lined with a soft, pliant material, had unfurled above them in the ceiling and was descending slowly over the cylinder.  Commander Winters stared around the room with undisguised astonishment.  Still serenely content in his heart from the beauty and intensity of his epiphany, he was not paying much attention to the conversation beside him.

      “They must take this thing with them,” Nick was saying earnestly to Carol and Troy.  “Don’t you see?  It’s even more important now that I know there are human seedlings inside.  Our children won’t have a chance.”

      “But they were so beautiful, so smart,” Carol said.  “You didn’t see them like we did.  I can’t believe those children would ever hurt anybody or anything.”

      They wouldn’t mean to destroy us,” Nick argued.  “It would just happen.”

      The carpets were starting to jump up and down.  “I know, I know,” Nick said as he again extended the cradle toward them.  “You want us to go.  But first, please listen to me.  We’ve helped you, now I’m asking that you help us.  I’m afraid of what might be in this package, afraid that it might upset the delicate stability of our planet.  Our progress as a species has been slow, in fits and starts, with almost as many backward steps as forward.  Whatever is here could threaten our future development.  Or maybe even halt it altogether.”

      The activity in the room continued unabated.  There was no noticeable reaction to Nick’s speech from the impatient carpets, who were now taking turns walking over to the exit in case the dumb humans still did not understand their message.  Nick looked entreatingly at Carol.  She returned his gaze and smiled.  After a few seconds she came over and took his hand.  Their eyes met for a brief moment as she started talking and Nick saw a new expression, something approaching admiration, in her glance.

      “He’s right, you know,” Carol said in the direction of the pair of carpets.  “You haven’t thought carefully enough about the outcome of this mission of yours.  Sooner or later your special embryos and the humans already on this planet will interact and there will be a catastrophe.  If the seed package is found early in the development of your superhumans, I am certain the Earthlings will feel compelled to destroy it.  What possible other reaction could they have?  The magnitude of the threat may not be fully known, but it is easy to recognize that creatures genetically engineered by superaliens could pose a gigantic problem for the native species of this planet.”

      Troy was standing just behind Nick and Carol, listening attentively to what she was saying.  Around him the preparations for launch continued.  The wardens and platforms had finished constructing and installing the two pairs of stanchions that would be connected to the cylinder during launch to minimize vibrations.  The golden cradles in the cylinder could no longer be seen; the cover had descended almost to the floor.

      “.  .  .  So unless you take this golden package back with you, perhaps to place it on another world which does not yet have intelligence, there will be unnecessary death.  Either your seedlings will perish before maturity or the native humans like us will eventually be swallowed up, if not killed outright, by the more capable beings you have engineered.  That hardly seems to be a fair reward for our effort on your behalf.”

      Carol stopped to watch four strange cords extend themselves from the top and near the bottom of the cylinder, wriggle through the air, and end up attached to the stanchions in the corners of the room.  The carpets were becoming increasingly agitated.  The two wardens finished supervising their prelaunch procedures.  They turned abruptly toward the four human beings and moved in their direction.

      Carol tightened her hold on Nick’s hand.  “Perhaps it’s true that our natural development is a slow and not altogether satisfactory process, “ she continued, fear creeping into her voice as the dreaded wardens quickly approached them, “and it’s certainly true that we humans here make mistakes, both as individuals and as groups .  However, you can’t overlook the fact that this imperfect process produced us, and we had enough foresight or compassion or whatever you want to call it — ”

      “Hold it,” shouted Troy.  He seized the cradle from Nick’s hand and jumped directly into the path of one of the menacing wardens.  He was only inches away from two whirling, threatening rods with cutting implements on the end.  “Hold it,” he shouted again.  Miraculously, all activity ceased.  The carpets and wardens stood still, the noises in the wall stopped, even the organ music was silenced.  “Of all of us,” Troy said in a loud voice, his head tilted back and aimed at the ceiling, “I have the most knowledge of what your mission is all about.  And the most to lose by recommending that you abandon this part of it.  But I agree with my friends.”

      Troy removed his bracelet and then dramatically jammed both the bracelet and the cradle inside the warden.  He felt as if he were plunging his hand into a bowl of hot bread dough.  He released both objects and withdrew his hand.  The warden didn’t move.  The bracelet and the cradle remained where Troy left them inside the warden’s body.

      “From the very beginning I realized that the bracelet you gave me enabled me to have special powers, talents that were not naturally mine.  I understood, without knowing the specifics, that there would be a substantial and continuing reward for my helping you.  And I thought that finally, finally, Troy Jefferson would be somebody special in this world.”

      Troy walked past the amazed Commander Winters, who was following the proceedings with a peaceful detachment, and came up beside Nick and Carol.  It was absolutely quiet in the room.  “When my brother, Jamie, was killed,” he began again softly, “I swore that I would do whatever was necessary to leave my imprint on society.  During those two years that I wandered all over the country, I spent most of my time daydreaming.  My dreams all had the same conclusion.  I would discover something new and earthshaking and become both rich and famous overnight.”

      Troy gave Carol a quick kiss and winked.  “I love you, angel,” he said.  “And you too, Professor.”  Troy then turned around and faced the covered cylinder.  “When I left here on Thursday afternoon, I was so excited I couldn’t contain myself.  I kept saymg, ‘Shit, Jefferson, here it is.  You are going to be the most important man in the history of the fucking world.’ ”

      Troy paused.  “But I have learned something very important these last three days,” he said, “something that most of us probably never consider.  It is that the process is more important than the end result.  It is what you learn while you’re dreaming or scheming or working toward a goal that is essential and valuable, not the achievement of the goal itself.  And that’s why you guys must now do what my friends have asked.

      “I know that you ETs have tried to explain to me in these last several minutes, through the bracelet that you offered me for life, that the new humans you are depositing here will lead us primitive beings into a bold and wonderful era.  That may be true.  And I agree that we could use some help, that our species is full of prejudice and selfishness and all kinds of other problems.  But you cannot simply give us the answers.  Without the benefit of the struggle to improve ourselves, without the process of overcoming our own weaknesses, there will be no fundamental change in us old humans.  We will not become better.  We will become second-class citizens, acolytes in a future of your vision and design.  So take your perfect humans away and let us make it on our own.  We deserve the chance.”

      There was no movement in the room for several seconds after Troy finished.  Then the warden in front of him jerked sideways and began to move.  Troy braced for an attack.  But the warden moved in the direction of the exit next to the cylinder.  The bracelet and cradle could still be seen inside its body.

      “All right, team,” Troy shouted happily.  Nick and Carol hugged.  Troy took Commander Winters by the hand.  As they were leaving, the four of them turned around one last time to look at the large chamber.  In this final view, each one of them saw the room in terms of his own amazing experiences.  The noises had begun again behind the walls.  And the carpets, platforms, and wardens were filing out of the room through the door beside the covered cylinder.

      They had only been onboard the boat for three or four minutes when the water underneath them suddenly became very turbulent.  They were strangely quiet, all four of them.  A frustrated Lieutenant Ramirez paced about the deck, trying to get someone to tell him what had happened under the water.  Even Commander Winters virtually ignored the lieutenant and just shook his head or gave simple answers to all his questions.

      They were certain that the spaceship was about to launch.  They didn’t realize that it would glide gently away from their area first, so that it would not submerge them with a giant wave, before breaking the water and heading into the sky.  The water stayed agitated for several minutes.  All of them scanned the ocean for a sign of the vehicle.

      “Look,” yelled Commander Winters excitedly, pointing at a giant silver bird lifting into the sky about forty-five degrees away from the early morning sun.  Its rise was initially slow, but as it rose it accelerated rapidly.  Nick and Carol and Troy clasped hands tightly as they watched the awesome spectacle.  Winters came over and stood beside the trio.  After thirty seconds the craft had disappeared above the clouds.  There was never any sound.

      “Fantastic,” said Commander Winters.