Yeah, out.
Something tapped him on the shoulder. “You okay?” said Jennifer, leaning close and talking to him.
“Not a problem,” said Zen.
“Want something to eat? I smuggled in some cookies.”
Talking threw off his beat, and that made it harder to concentrate.
“No,” he said, willing his eyes back to the task. He pushed forward harder, scanning the emptiness below him.
This is what God sees, someone had told him once. It was an orientation flight in the backseat of an SR-71. They were at eighty thousand feet, looking down at Dreamland on a clear day.
Picture, new picture.
Here was something in the right corner of his screen, the first thing he’d seen in fifteen minutes.
The rail of a ship.
The fantail of a ship.
A trawler, the radar was telling him, or rather the computer was interpreting the radar and telling him, in its synthesized voice.
He locked it out. He had to concentrate.
One of the Taiwanese spy ships.
“You’re getting the ship?” Jennifer asked over the interphone, back at her station. Even though they were physically next to each other, she couldn’t get the photo or radar feed until it was processed and recorded by C³, which took a little over five seconds. At that point, it was available to Dreamland as well.
“One of the Taiwanese ships,” said Zen. “Maybe they’re on to something.”
He was past them now, still pulsing over the empty sea. Picture, new picture. Picture, new picture.
“PacCom checking in,” said Jennifer a few minutes later.
Picture, new picture.
“Anything you want to ask them? Or give them a lead or something?”
picture, new picture.
“Zen?”
“No.”
Picture, new picture. He glanced down at the lower portion of his screen, reading the instruments—the fuel consumption was nudging a little higher than anticipated, but otherwise everything was in the green. He selected the forward video—nothing there, of course, since he was coming through sixty thousand feet—then went back to the routine.
Picture, new picture. Picture, new picture.
“Jeff, one of the Navy planes thinks it picked up a radio signal. We’re going to change our course and see if we can get over there,” said Major Alou. “It’s going to take us toward your search area. It’s about two hundred miles from our present position. So it’ll be a bit.”
Yes. Finally.
“Give me coordinates,” he said.
“I ill when we have them. we’re going very close to the Chinese fleet,” added Alou.
“Okay.” Zen reached to the console to pull up the mapping screen—he’d need to work out a new pattern with the team back at Dreamland, but he wanted a rough idea of it first. Just as his fingers hit the key sequence, something flickered at the right side of the picture.
“Dreamland is wondering about the performance of the number-two engine,” said Jennifer. “They’re worried about power going asymmetric.”
Asymmetric. Stinking scientists.
The map came up. Zen’s fingers fumbled—he wasn’t used to working these controls, couldn’t find the right sequence.
Picture, new picture.
“What should I tell them?” said Jennifer.
“We have a good location on that signal,” broke in Alou. “I’m going to turn you over—”
“Wait!” said Zen. He pushed up the visor and looked at the keyboard, finding the keys to bring the picture back up. “Everybody just give me a minute.”
South China Sea
Date and time unknown
As he leaned down toward her, something caught his attention. Stoner looked toward the horizon. There was something there—or he thought there was.
“Water,” she said.
He reached for the small metal bottle, gave it to her. She took half a gulp.
She was so beautiful.
“It’s almost empty,” she told him.
He nodded, took his own small sip, put it in his pants leg. “We have another,” he said.
“Where?”
Where? He didn’t see it.
She lifted up, looking.
It was gone. They must have lost it when the sharks attacked.
The radio was gone too. They had an empty water bottle and an empty gun.
“It’s all right,” he told her. “It’s okay—look.”
“What?”
He put his arms around her, then pointed toward the horizon.
“I don’t see anything.”
“Look,” he said. Stoner put his head on her shoulder, pointing with his arm. His cheek brushed hers. “There,” he said.