“Kelly! Quick! Hit the engines. We gotta make a run for it!”
Though Fred had pulled on his pants before heading up to the deck, Kelly had followed in the nude. This was one of the few times she really felt naked. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you, Fred,” she said in awe as she watched the huge head dive back below the waves. Three huge loops of sea monster appeared above the surface, then submerged with the reappearance of the head, a football field away, but turning once again toward them.
Kelly was at the controls when Fred reappeared with his videocam. “Get us moving. It’s looking for its mate, I’m sure. Either that, or it’s stupid enough to think we’re its mate.”
The Flying Witch sprang away as Kelly pushed up the speed. The monster followed along behind them, seeming to have no trouble at all keeping up. She pushed the lever up for more speed: twenty knots; thirty; forty! and it was still keeping up. “OK, I’m going full out, Fred!”
Kelly eased the speed upward. Somewhere around forty-five and forty-six knots the monster was unable to gain on them, though it still wouldn’t give up the chase. Fred kept his camera fastened on the creature, nervously checking and rechecking the power supply and the REG light. He had no intention of being just another case of someone who had mishandled the camera when the find of the century was at hand.
The Sun came up an hour into the chase, which went on hours more. Kelly finally put on some clothes when she was satisfied that the creature wasn’t going to suddenly put on a burst of speed so that her hand would be needed at the helm. Fred continued to record the creature and had talked to Kelly only when he needed the freshly charged spare power pack or another video disc.
While he watched, Fred noticed regularities in how the creature moved. First the head would go down, then the humps would disappear, one, two, three. After ten seconds the head would clear the surface again, the humps would again reappear in sequence, then the head would dive again. Fred also cranked up the magnification of the camera and tried to determine how the creature should be classed. Did it have gills, or did it breathe air? He thought he saw gill slits along the sides just back behind the huge mouth. It seemed unlikely that such creatures would have to regularly surface for air. They certainly would have been documented before now if they did.
He wondered what it would eat. Those teeth were sharp, but the jaw didn’t seem designed well for chewing. Perhaps the great serpent killed and swallowed its prey whole. That would account for why no whales ever turned up with huge round bites taken out of their hides.
And the creature’s stamina was unparalleled.
“Geez,” Kelly said after a while. “That thing’s been following us for two hundred miles. Doesn’t it ever get tired?”
“Staggering, isn’t it?” Fred said, finally setting aside his camera to talk to her. “I’ve been wondering if maybe it travels something like a kangaroo does. You know, a kangaroo is able to use its legs like springs, so it can use energy efficiently. Maybe this thing does much the same, though I don’t know how it would work.”
“What are you going to name it?”
“I hadn’t thought about that. Maybe ‘Serpens Kellias Giganticus’.”
“That’ll be something to tell my mom: ‘My boyfriend named a sea serpent after me.’ But aren’t there standards for that kind of thing?”
“Sigh. There are, Kelly Sorry,” Fred said. “I won’t even be able to think about a name until I find out if it’s, from a known genus.”
They’d been running about a quarter mile ahead of the serpent, but suddenly Fred noticed that it seemed closer. “Is our friend gaining on us? You didn’t cut back the power, did you?”
“Of course not. I haven’t touched the controls in hours.”
“Well, it’s gaining on us. We’d better see what’s going on.”
After a brief look, Kelly saw that their speed had indeed fallen, and their power consumption kept fluctuating. “Something’s wrong,” she said. “We’re losing speed, but there isn’t any reason we should be. Engine diagnostics check out.”
With that comment, the Flying Witch suddenly seemed to lose power altogether, and the engine shut off. A telltale red light was blinking. “What light is that?” Fred asked.
“Water salinity. It’s never come on before. I don’t know why… oh, dammit! Where are we, anyway?” Kelly raced to the nav station and called up their position. In an instant, positioning satellites told her where she was to within a meter. “Shit!”
“What is it?”
Kelly pointed to the map. “The Amazon. I forgot about the Amazon. Outflow, Fred. Fresh water gets dumped out of the Amazon river by the megatons and desalinifies the ocean way farther out than you’d expect. The water isn’t salty enough for my engines!”
To emphasize her words, the boat suddenly started rocking violently, and from outside they heard a deafening, monstrous scream, as if the serpent was signaling its victory to the world.
“We’re in deep shit,” Fred said.
“Hell, no! Not if I can help it,” Kelly exclaimed.
The boat was shaken by a solid thump which threw both of them to the floor. Kelly sprang up and raced to the arsenal closet, pulled out a large and obviously heavy box. “Help me carry this!”
Fred joined her, took the box away and found that it was ammunition.
Kelly answered the question in his eyes. “For the machine gun on the bow. Let’s go!”
Fred carried the box and Kelly ran ahead. She pulled the knots loose and unwrapped the tarpaulin from the gun. She pointed to a gaping hole in its side and Fred realized that the ammunition box was meant to slide in. With an effort he lifted and shoved it into locking position.
The sea serpent was coming back around. The head rose high above the water, then dove below, and there followed the dance of the humps.
Kelly lowered the gun into position and was trying to take aim. The tail had just disappeared below the waves. “Where is it going to come up?” she unfairly demanded to know, swinging the business end of the gun from side to side.
“Can’t tell you, but I’m getting the life jackets. We may have to abandon ship. It probably just wants the boat anyway because of the scent. It probably won’t even notice us.”
“Bullshit. Besides, we’re going to have one dead sea monster in a minute. This boat is my life. I’m not giving it up without a fight!”
They waited. Seconds turned into a minute turned into two minutes.
“Well, where is it?” Kelly said, not even noticing her white knuckles as she gripped the handles.
“Maybe it left,” Fred answered.
“You really think so?”
“No.”
A huge head rose out of the water to a height of forty feet right in front of Kelly, right in her gunsights. Too startled to fire, she stared for an instant, and the head whipped down and smashed onto the deck.
She fell to her knees, but clung to the gun and quickly pulled herself up. The sea monster lilted its head for another blow. Kelly let loose with a burst. She could see from her tracers that she was missing, but she turned the stream into the green hide looming before her. The slugs tore into the flesh. Huge scales came shattering and flying off. But for all that, the welts that remained didn’t seem to bother the serpent more than needle pricks. It turned aside and belly Hopped onto the water.
Its head almost flattened Fred.
“Fred! My God, Fred!” Somehow he’d been knocked overboard. Fortunately he had slipped his life jacket on as he was bringing Kelly s to her. He was bobbing about in the water.
“Fred!” Kelly screamed.
He didn’t answer, didn’t even wave an arm. He could be dazed, she thought. He wasn’t even trying to paddle away from the monster.