Dead in the Water

EIGHT

KATES feet hit the deck with a satisfying thump. Crossing over had not been such an ordeal this time, as it was still light out and this time the Avilda, bless her heart, was only the second boat out from the dock. Whistling, she opened the door to the galley. The whistle died on her lips.

The whole crew was there. Harry Gault, standing, had his arms crossed across his chest and a glower on his face, but as that was his natural expression Kate ignored it. Ned looked as if he might take a bite out of the next person to walk too close to him, but that, too, was natural. Seth, as usual, looked tranquil, even a little bored. Andy was wide-eyed and apprehensive and looked every one of his nineteen years.

The Coast Guard was there, too, in the persons of two officers, crisp and official in blue uniforms, clipboards held at shoulder arms. One was short and stocky and white-haired, the other was short and skinny with brown hair that curled out from beneath his cap in an undisciplined mass. Her cap, Kate realized. When the door opened they turned.

"Hi," she said, shutting the door behind her. "Don't mind me, I'm just the other deckhand."

She leaned up against the wall next to the door and shoved her hands in her pockets. She knew immediately what was going on. It was a snap safety inspection.

What with federal cutbacks they didn't happen all that often anymore, but neither were they unknown, the proof positive standing four feet away from her. She was only sorry that engine maintenance didn't come within the Coasties' purview. She settled back and prepared to enjoy herself.

"Your mast light is out, your fire extinguishers needed servicing six months ago, your Epirb hasn't been tested in seven months, you've forgotten the last time you assembled the crew for an emergency drill, and you can't find your ship's log to jog your memory," the older Coastie said. "Pretty sloppy seamanship, Captain Gault. It's going to cost you."

The thin officer stared around her with a puzzled air.

"This is the Avilda, isn't it?"

Harry ignored her and Ned only scowled. Andy looked as if his vocal cords had frozen in place and Kate wouldn't have volunteered a helpful remark if her life depended on it. "Yes," Seth said laconically.

"Owned by Alaska Ventures? Out of Freetown, Oregon?"

Seth nodded.

The officer looked back down at her list. "I'd never have believed it."

"Okay," the first officer said, "flotation devices."

"There's a survival suit for every crewman on board,"

Harry Gault growled.

"Standard procedure on any boat owned by Alaska Ventures," the second officer said, and met Harry's glare with a smile that said she hoped Harry might try to make something out of the implied insult. Kate found herself liking the younger Coastie without any effort at all.

"Well, trot 'ern out," the first officer said impatiently.

"Come on, your survival suits. Let's see 'em."

Kate was suddenly very still. Her eyes met Andy's across the galley, his alarmed, hers holding a distinct warning.

Nobody moved. Again, it was Seth who broke the stalemate by coming forward and pulling up the seat of the bench that ran around the galley table. He stood staring down for a moment.

"Well?" the first officer said impatiently. "Haul 'ern out, let's take a look."

"Okay," Seth said equably, "but one of 'em you won't have to check. It's already been used."

Harry's head snapped around. "What?"

In reply, Seth reached into the locker and produced the survival suit that Kate had field-tested two nights before. It wasn't exactly dripping, but it had been folded and put away wet. Some of the folds still held water. As they watched, a drop of seawater collected in one fold and dripped to the floor.

The galley was very still. Slowly, Harry looked up, first at Andy, and then, a much longer and more considering look, at Kate. She met his eyes with a slight lift of her brows. The silence stretched out. "What?" she said, ignoring the wet survival suit dangling from Seth's hand, staring straight at Harry with as much innocence as she could muster. "What's the problem?"

Oblivious, the thin officer was pawing through the locker. "One, two, three, four," she said. "And five."

She looked up and counted heads. "One, two, three, four, five. All but four in the original, unopened packaging,"

The stout officer scratched his head. "You know we can't require you to test those suits. Hell, it was only recently we were allowed to require you to carry them.

But," he said, bending a hard look on the skipper, "you have got to know that it's a whole lot safer when your crew is versed in survival suit operations. Look what happened to the Daisy Mae. We found a survival suit still in its package. Hadn't even been opened. Hadn't even been tried on." He gestured. "Not like this one. Ought to have let it dry out before you put it back, though."

"I guess I better 'fess up," Andy said suddenly. Everyone turned toward him, as, behind them, Kate shook her head violently. Ignoring her, he said, "I got curious and tried it on this morning. And then I thought what the hell and took a little dip in the harbor." He grinned. "I'm from Ventura. I'm used to surfing every day. I miss the water."

The two officers exchanged a wooden glance. "There's a world of difference between the water off Ventura and the water in Iliuliuk Bay," the stocky officer said dryly.

"The idea here is to keep the hell out of the water if at all possible." He looked back at his clipboard, making a minute notation to his list. "Anyway, the point is to maintain your boat in such a fashion that you don't have to go swimming." He ripped off a copy and held it out to Harry. For a moment Kate thought he wasn't going to take it. Seth nudged him, and he extended a reluctant hand.

The slip was thrust into it unhesitatingly. "Your owners will receive formal notice within ten days to two weeks.

If I were you, I'd see to rectifying those violations before you ship out again. And if your mooring light is gone, maybe you should check your stock of bulbs for running lights. They generally tend to need to be replaced all at the same time." He touched the brim of his cap. "Good-bye."

Like a skinny mirror image, the second officer echoed the movement. "It's been swell," Kate heard her breathe, and then they were gone.

Harry chewed Andy out for a good five minutes, using every four-letter word in the book and some he made up on the spot, and when he was done, Ned took over.

When he was finished, Andy looked, if not squelched, at least a trifle subdued. Kate stood in the galley with him, knowing he had taken the onus of suspicion on himself, angry because he had, a little grateful, too, and more than a little touched by the gesture. She only hoped it didn't get him killed.

She had no chance to express any of these feelings.

Ned took the first watch and they rumbled out of the harbor on the evening tide. It was too early to go to bed, and Kate thought it best to fall in with the first night out's regular routine. There was some discussion as to who and what would occupy the VCR in the rec room. Seth chose Debbie Does Dallas, as expected, Andy chose Gandhi, also expected, and Harry chose The Dam Busters, which show of good taste amazed Kate. The fact that the movie was even in Harry's library amazed her even more, before she realized that their selection was probably standard issue on Alaska Ventures's boats. Kate, who harbored a secret]etch for John Wayne, chose Rio Lobo. "Who wants popcorn?"

"Me!" came a chorus of three.

"Butter?"

"Lots!"

John Wayne saved the Union in spite of itself one more time and Andy got up to rewind the tape and start Gandhi.

"Did you know," Seth said.

Kate, full of buttered popcorn and relief, said lazily,

"What?"

"Did you know that the last shot fired in the Civil War was fired around these parts?"

"What," Kate said, "you mean around these here Aleutian parts?"

"Uh-huh."

"No way," she said.

"Come on," Andy said.

"Bullshit," Harry agreed.

"It's true. The summer of 1865, the Confederate Navy ship Shenandoah blew almost forty Union ships out of the Bering Sea. Whalers, merchant vessels, anything flying the wrong flag. On June 26 Waddell-he was the skipper-took six whalers off St. Lawrence Island alone.

Two days later he took eleven more in the Bering Strait.

See, the Confederacy was trying to hit the Yankees in the wallet."

"Wait a minute," Kate said, who wasn't a John Wayne fan for nothing, "Lee surrendered in April."

"The Shenandoah was umpteen thousand miles from home in April," Seth said, "and they couldn't afford a satellite dish. They didn't know. What's more, they were never caught. When a British ship told them the war was over, Waddell sailed her all the way around the Horn and back to England, where he surrendered to the American ambassador."

"Wow!" Andy said, eyes shining. "So the last shot of the Civil War was fired off the coast of Alaska! That's great! Isn't that great, Kate?"

Still suspicious, Kate said, "How come I've never heard of this before?"

"Why, I don't know, Kate," Seth said, so mildly it was impossible to suspect him of malice. "Could it be that you don't know everything after all?"

"I never said I did," Kate said, hurt, and made an instantaneous resolve upon next setting foot on shore to find the nearest history of the Civil War and took it up.

The credits for Gandhi rolled. Seth yawned and mumbled something about a long day. Harry was right behind him. Kate, who liked Ben Kingsley almost as much as she liked John Wayne, and who had no TV or VCR in her little cabin in the middle of a million square acres of federal park and so didn't get to see movies unless she was visiting Bobby, stayed put. She would have stayed put for Debbie Does Dallas.

When the door closed behind Harry she waited a few moments before saying in a low voice, "Andy?

Thanks."

He flushed up to the roots of his hair. Trying for nonchalance, his voice squeaked, and he flushed again. He cleared his throat and said gruffly, "Forget it." He picked up the remote and pretended to fiddle with the tracking.

"You ever going to tell me what you were doing on that island? Or what they were doing there?"

"Sometime."

"But not now?"

She shook her head. "Andy?" He looked at her and sobered at her expression. "This is my last trip on the Avilda. It should be yours, too."

"I haven't found another berth yet, I-"

"I'll help you find one," she said. "Let's get off the Avilda while we can still walk off. Okay?"

The color left his face, leaving it pale beneath his fading tan. "Okay."

They settled back to watch the movie. When it was over, Andy said on a long sigh, "Now there's a man who is on the road to Enlightenment."

Kate hid a grin. "No need to reinforce his prana, I guess."

"No, Kate," Andy said earnestly, "everyone has to do that. 'You must perform thy allotted work, for action is superior to inaction.' Like Jesus, Gandhi preached love of your fellow man, and he performed his allotted work so well that his legacy was a free India."

"And look how well things turned out there," Kate told him. " Pakistan and India are at each other's throats, they're starving in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka is in the middle of a civil war and every two or three years the Muslims murder a hundred or so Hindus, or the other way around. Some legacy, all right."

" 'Always perform the work that has to be done without attachment,' " Andy quoted solemnly, " 'for man attains the Supreme by performing work without attachment.'

"Is there anything you don't believe in?" she demanded, exasperated. "There's got to be some crackpot religion you've overlooked. Zoroastrianism? The Cathars?

Have you accidentally let a recruiter for the Rosecrucian Fellowship pass you by?"

" 'The ignorant man who is without faith and of a doubting nature perishes.' " And the little prick had the nerve to grin at her.