The Ice Limit

They left the building, descending a graveled path into the woods. Cicadas droned in the canopy over their heads. They soon struck the sandy clearing. Here the pyramid rose directly above them, stark yellow against the cerulean sky. The half-built structure gave off a smell of ancient dust and limitless desert wastes.

Lloyd caught sight of them and came forward immediately, both hands extended. "Eli!" he boomed good-naturedly. "You're late. One would think you were planning to move Mount Everest instead of a lump of iron." He took Glinn's elbow and steered him toward a set of stone benches on the far side of the pyramid.

McFarlane settled on a bench opposite Lloyd and Glinn. Here, in the shadow of the pyramid, it was cool.

Lloyd pointed at the slim folder under Glinn's arm. "Is that all my million dollars bought me?"

Glinn did not reply directly; he was gazing at the pyramid. "How high will it be when completed?" he asked. "Seventy-seven feet," Lloyd replied proudly. "It's the tomb of an Old Kingdom pharaoh, Khefret II. A minor ruler in every way — poor kid died at thirteen. I wanted a bigger one, of course. But it is the only pyramid outside of the Nile Valley."

"And the base, what does it measure?"

"One hundred and forty feet on a side."

Glinn was silent for a moment, his eyes veiled. "Interesting coincidence," he said.

"Coincidence?"

Glinn's eyes slid back to Lloyd. "We reanalyzed the data on your meteorite. We think it weighs closer to ten thousand tons. Same as your pyramid over there. Using standard nickel-iron meteorites as a basis, that would make your rock about forty feet in diameter."

"That's wonderful! The bigger the better."

"Moving the meteorite will be like moving this pyramid of yours. Not block by block, but all together."

"So?"

"Take the Eiffel Tower, for instance," Glinn said.

"I wouldn't want to. Ugly as hell."

"The Eiffel Tower weighs about five thousand tons."

Lloyd looked at him.

"The Saturn V rocket — the heaviest land-based object ever moved by human beings — weighs three thousand tons. Moving your meteorite, Mr. Lloyd, will be like moving two Eiffel towers. Or three Saturn V rockets."

"What's the point?" Lloyd asked.

"The point is that ten thousand tons, when you actually consider it, is a staggering weight. Twenty million pounds. And we're talking about lugging it halfway around the world."

Lloyd grinned. "The heaviest object ever moved by mankind — I like that. You couldn't ask for a better publicity hook. But I don't see the problem. Once it's on board the ship, you can bring it right up the Hudson practically to our doorstep."

"Getting it on board the ship is the problem — especially those last fifty feet from shore into the hold. The biggest crane in the world picks up less than a thousand tons."

"So build a pier and slide it out to the boat."

"Off the coast of Isla Desolación, the depth drops to two hundred feet a mere twenty feet from shore. So you can't build a fixed pier. And the meteorite would sink an ordinary floating pier."

"Find a shallower place."

"We've checked. There is no other place. In fact, the only possible loading point is on the eastern coast of the island. A snowfield lies between that point and the meteorite. The snow is two hundred feet deep in the center. Which means we have to move your rock around the snowfield to get it to the ship."

Lloyd grunted. "I'm beginning to see the problem. Why don't we just bring a big ship in there, back it up to shore, and roll the damn thing into the hold? The biggest supertankers hold half a million tons of crude. That's more than enough to spare."

"If you roll this meteorite into the hold of a ship, it would simply drop right through the bottom. This is not crude oil, which conveniently displaces its weight as it fills a hold."

"What's all this dancing around, then?" Lloyd asked sharply. "Is this leading up to a refusal?"

Glinn shook his head. "On the contrary. We're willing to take on the job."

Lloyd beamed. "That's terrific! Why all the gloomy talk?"

"I simply wanted to prepare you for the enormity of the task you want to accomplish. And for the commensurate enormity of our bill."

Lloyd's broad features narrowed. "And that is... ?"

"One hundred and fifty million dollars. Including chartering the transport vessel. FOB the Lloyd Museum."

Lloyd's face went pale. "My God. One hundred and fifty million..." His chin sank onto his hands. "For a ten-thousand-ton rock. That's..."

"Seven dollars and fifty cents a pound," said Glinn.

"Not bad," McFarlane said, "when you consider that the going rate for a decent meteorite is about a hundred bucks a pound."

Lloyd looked at him. "Is that so?"

McFarlane nodded.

"In any case," Glinn continued, "because of the unusual nature of the job, our acceptance comes with two conditions."

"Yes?"

"The first condition is double overage. As you'll see in the report, our cost estimates haven't been especially conservative. But we feel that, to be absolutely safe, twice that amount must be budgeted for."

"Meaning it's really going to cost three hundred million dollars."

"No. We believe it's going to cost one hundred and fifty, or we wouldn't have presented you with that figure. But

given all the unknown variables, the incomplete data, and the immense weight of the meteorite, we need some maneuvering room."

"Maneuvering room." Lloyd shook his head. "And the second condition?"

Glinn took the folder from under his arm and placed it on one knee. "A dead man's switch."

"What's that?"

"A special trapdoor, built into the bottom of the transport vessel, so that in the direst emergency the meteorite can be jettisoned."

Lloyd seemed not to understand. "Jettison the meteorite?"

"If it ever shook loose from its berth, it could sink the ship. If that happened, we'd need a way to get rid of it, fast."

As Lloyd listened to this, the pallor that had come across his face gave way to a flush of anger. "You mean to say the first time we hit a rough sea, you dump the meteorite overboard? Forget it."

"According to Dr. Amira, our mathematician, there's only a one-in-five-thousand chance of it being necessary."

McFarlane spoke. "I thought he was paying the big bucks because you guaranteed success. Dumping the meteorite in a storm sounds like a failure to me."

Glinn glanced at him. "Our guarantee is that EES will never fail in our work. And that guarantee is unequivocal. But we can't guarantee against an act of God. Natural systems are inherently unpredictable. If a freak storm came out of nowhere and foundered the vessel, we wouldn't necessarily consider that a failure."

Lloyd bounded to his feet. "Well, there's no way in hell I'm going to drop the meteorite to the bottom of the ocean. So there's no point in letting you build a dead man's switch." He took several steps away from them, then stopped, facing the pyramid, arms folded.

"It's the price of the dance," Glinn said. He spoke quietly, but his voice carried total conviction.

For a time, Lloyd made no reply. The big man shook his head, clearly in the grip of an inner struggle. At last he turned.

"All right," he said. "When do we start?"

"Today, if you like." Glinn stood up, carefully placing his folder on the stone bench. "This contains an overview of the preparations we'll need to make, along with a breakdown of the associated costs. All we need is your go-ahead and a fifty-million retainer. As you will see, EES will handle all the details."

Lloyd took the folder. "I'll read it before lunch."

"I think you'll find it interesting. And now, I'd better get back to New York." Glinn nodded at the two men in turn. "Gentlemen, enjoy your pyramid."

Then he turned, made his way across the sandy clearing, and disappeared into the tightly woven shade of the maple trees.

Millburn, New Jersey,

June 9, 2:45 P.M.

ELI GLINN sat, motionless, behind the wheel of a nondescript four-door sedan. By instinct, he had parked at an angle that maximized sun glare off the windshield, making it difficult for passersby to observe him. He dispassionately took in the sights and sounds of the typical East Coast suburb: tended lawns, ancient trees, the distant hum of freeway traffic.

Two buildings down, the front door of a small Georgian opened and a woman appeared. Glinn straightened up with an almost imperceptible motion. He watched attentively as she descended the front steps, hesitated, then looked back over her shoulder. But the door had already shut. She turned away and began walking toward him briskly, head held high, shoulders straight, light yellow hair burnished by the afternoon sun.

Glinn opened a manila folder lying on the passenger seat and studied a photograph clipped to the papers inside. This was her. He slipped the folder into the rear of the car and looked back through the window. Even out of uniform the woman radiated authority, competence, and self-discipline. And nothing about her betrayed how difficult the last eighteen months must have been. That was good, very good. As she approached, he lowered the passenger window: according to his character profile, surprise offered the highest hope of success.

"Captain Britton?" he called out. "My name is Eli Glinn. Could I have a word with you?"

She paused. He noted that, already, the surprise on her face was giving way to curiosity. There was no alarm or fear; merely quiet confidence.

The woman stepped toward the car. "Yes?"

Automatically, Glinn made a number of mental notes. The woman wore no perfume, and she kept her small but functional handbag clasped tightly against her side. She was tall, but fine-boned. Although her face was pale, tiny crinkles around the green eyes and a splash of freckles gave evidence of years spent in the sun and wind. Her voice was low.

"Actually, what I have to say might take a while. Can I drop you somewhere?"

"Unnecessary, thank you. The train station's just a few blocks away."

Glinn nodded. "Heading home to New Rochelle? The connections are very inconvenient. I'd be happy to drive you."

This time the surprise lingered a little longer, and when it died away it left a look of speculation in the sea green eyes. "My mother always told me never to get into a stranger's car.

"Your mother taught you well. But I think what I have to say will be of interest to you."

The woman considered this a moment. Then she nodded. "Very well," she said, opening the passenger door and taking a seat. Glinn noticed that she kept her purse in her lap, and her right hand, significantly, stayed on the door handle. He was not surprised she had accepted. But he was impressed by her ability to size up a situation, examine the options, and quickly arrive at a solution. She was willing to take a risk, but not a foolish one. This is what the dossier had led him to expect.

"You'll have to give me directions," he said, pulling away from the curb. "I'm not familiar with this part of New Jersey." This was not precisely true. He knew half a dozen ways to get to Westchester County, but he wanted to see how she handled command, even one as small as this. As they drove, Britton remained collected, giving terse directions in the manner of someone accustomed to having her orders obeyed. A very impressive woman indeed, perhaps all the more impressive for her single catastrophic failure.

"Let me get something out of the way from the beginning," he said. "I know your past history, and it has no bearing on what I'm about to say."

From the comer of his eye, he saw her stiffen. But when she spoke, her voice was calm. "I believe that at this point, a lady is supposed to say, `You have me at a disadvantage, sir.'"

"I can't go into details at the moment. But I'm here to offer you the captaincy of an oil tanker."

They rode for several minutes in silence.

At last she glanced over at him. "If you knew my history as well as you say, I doubt you'd be making such an offer." Her voice remained calm, but Glinn could read many things in her face: curiosity, pride, suspicion, perhaps hope. "You're wrong, Captain Britton. I know the whole story. I know how you were one of the few female masters in the tanker fleet. I know how you were ostracized, how you tended to catch the least popular routes. The pressures you faced were immense." He paused. "I know that you were found on the bridge of your last command in a state of intoxication. You were diagnosed an alcoholic and entered a rehabilitation center. As a result of rehab, you successfully retained your master's license. But since leaving the center over a year ago, you've had no new offers of command. Did I miss anything?" He carefully waited for the reaction.

"No," she replied, steadily. "That about covers it."

"I'll be frank, Captain. This assignment is very unusual. I have a short list of other masters I could approach, but I think they might well turn down the command."

"While I, on the other hand, am desperate." Britton continued staring out the windshield, speaking in a low voice.

"If you had been desperate, you would have taken that tramp Panama steamer offered you last November, or that Liberian freighter, with its armed guards and suspicious cargo." He watched her eyes narrow slightly. "You see, Captain Britton, in my line of work, I analyze the nature of failure."

"And just what is your line of work, Mr. Glinn?"

"Engineering. Our analysis has shown that people who failed once are ninety percent less likely to fail again." I myself am a living example of the truth of this theory.

Glinn did not actually utter this last sentence, but he had been about to. He allowed his eyes to sweep over Captain Britton for a moment. What had prompted him to almost drop a reserve as habitual as breathing? This merited later consideration.

He returned his eyes to the road. "We have evaluated your overall record thoroughly. Once you were a superb captain with a drinking problem. Now you are merely a superb captain. One on whose discretion I know I can rely."

Britton acknowledged this with a slight nod of her head. "Discretion," she repeated, with a faint sardonic note.

"If you accept the assignment, I will be able to say much more. But what I can tell you now is this. The voyage will not be a long one, perhaps three months at most. It will have to be conducted under great secrecy. The destination is the far southern latitudes, an area you know well. The financial backing is more than adequate, and you may handpick your crew, as long as they pass our background checks. All officers and crew will draw triple the normal pay."

Britton frowned. "If you know I turned down the Liberians, then you know I don't smuggle drugs, run guns, or deal in contraband. I will not break the law, Mr. Glinn."

"The mission is legal, but it is unique enough to require a motivated crew. And there is something else. If the mission is successful — I should say, when the mission is successful, because my job is to make sure it is — there will be publicity, largely favorable. Not for me — I avoid that sort of thing — but for you. It could be useful in a number of ways. It could get you reinstated onto the list of active masters, for example. And it would carry some weight with your child custody hearings, perhaps making these long weekend visitations unnecessary."

This last observation had the effect Glinn hoped for. Britton looked at him quickly, then glanced over her shoulder, as if at the swiftly retreating Georgian house, now many miles behind them. Then she looked back at Glinn.

"I've been reading W.H. Auden," she said. "On the train coming out this morning, I came across a poem called 'Atlantis.' The last stanza started out something like this:

All the little household gods

Have started crying, but say

Good-bye now, and put to sea."

She smiled. And, if Glinn paid attention to such things, he would have insisted that the smile was distinctly beautiful.

Port of Elizabeth,

June 17, 10:00 A.M.

PALMER LLOYD paused before the windowless door, a grimy rectangle in the vast expanse of metal building that reared up before him. From behind, where his driver leaned against a limousine reading a tabloid, he could hear the roar of the New Jersey Turnpike echoing across the dead swamplands and old warehouses. Ahead, beyond the Marsh Street dry docks, the Port of Elizabeth glittered in the summer heat. Nearby, a crane nodded maternally above a container ship. Beyond the port, a brace of tugboats was pushing a barge burdened with cubed cars. And even farther beyond, poking above the blackened backside of Bayonne, the Manhattan skyline beckoned, gleaming in the sun like a row of jewels.

Lloyd was momentarily swept by a feeling of nostalgia. It had been years since he was last here. He remembered growing up in ironbound Rahway, near the port. In his poverty-stricken boyhood, Lloyd had spent many days prowling the docks, yards, and factories.

He inhaled the industrial air, the familiar acrid odor of artificial roses mingling with the smell of the salt marshes, tar, and sulfur. He still loved the feel of the place, the stacks trailing steam and smoke, the gleaming refineries, the thickets of power lines. The naked industrial muscle had a Sheeler-like beauty to it. It was places like Elizabeth, he mused, with their synergy of commerce and industry, that gave the residents of the suburbs and the phony boutique artiste towns the very wherewithal that allowed them to sneer at its ugliness from their own perches of comfort. Strange how much he missed those lost boyhood days, even though all his dreams had come true.

And even stranger that his greatest achievement should be launched from here, where his own roots lay. Even as a boy he had loved collecting. Having no money, he had to build up his natural history collection by finding his own specimens. He picked up arrowheads out of eroded embankments, shells from the grimy shoreline, rocks and minerals from abandoned mines; he dug fossils from the Jurassic deposits of nearby Hackensack and caught butterflies by the dozen from these very marshes. He collected frogs, lizards, snakes, and all manner of animal life, preserving them in gin swiped from his father. He had amassed a fine collection — until his house burned down on his fifteenth birthday, taking all his treasures with it. It was the most painful loss of his life. After that, he never collected another specimen. He'd gone to college, then into business, piling success upon success. And then one day, it dawned on him that he could now afford to buy the very best the world could offer. He could, in an odd way, erase that early loss. What started as a hobby became a passion — and his vision for the Lloyd Museum was born. And now here he was, back at the Jersey docks, about to set off to claim the greatest treasure of all.

He took a deep breath and gripped the handle of the door, a tingle of anticipation coursing through him. Glinn's thin folder had been a masterpiece — well worth the million he had paid for it. The plan it outlined was brilliant. Every contingency had been accounted for, every difficulty anticipated. Before he'd finished reading, his shock and anger at the price tag had been replaced by eagerness. And now, after ten days of impatient waiting, he would see the first stage of the plan nearing completion. The heaviest object ever moved by mankind. He turned the handle and stepped inside.

The building's facade, large as it was, only hinted at the vastness of its interior. Seeing such a large space without internal floors or walls, completely open to its high ceiling, temporarily defeated the eye's ability to judge distances, but it seemed at least a quarter mile in length. A network of catwalks stretched through the dusty air like metal spiderwebbing. A cacophony of noise rolled through the cavernous space toward him: the chatter of riveting, the clang of steel, the crackle of welding.

And there, at the center of furious activity, it lay: a stupendous vessel, propped up in dry dock by great steel buttresses, its bulbous bow towering above him. As oil tankers go, it was not the biggest, but out of the water it was just about the most gigantic thing Lloyd had ever seen. The name Rolvaag was stenciled in white paint along the port side. Men and machines were crawling around it like a colony of ants. A smile broke out on Lloyd's face as he inhaled the heady aroma of burnt metal, solvents, and diesel fumes. A part of him enjoyed watching the flagrant expenditure of money — even his own.

Glinn appeared, rolled-up blueprints in one hand, an EES hard hat on his head. Lloyd looked at him, still smiling, and shook his head wordlessly in admiration.

Glinn handed him a spare hard hat. "The view from the catwalks is even better," he said. "We'll meet Captain Britton up there."

Lloyd fitted the hard hat to his head and followed Glinn onto a small lift. They ascended about a hundred feet, then stepped out onto a catwalk that ran around all four walls of the dry dock. As he moved, Lloyd found himself unable to take his gaze off the immense ship that stretched away below him. It was incredible. And it was his.

"It was built in Stavanger, Norway, six months ago." Glinn's dry voice was almost lost in the din of construction that rose up to meet them. "Given everything we're doing to it, we couldn't opt for a spot charter. So we had to buy it outright."

"Double overage," Lloyd murmured.

"We'll be able to sell it later and recoup almost all the expense, of course. And I think you'll find the Rolvaag worth it. It's state of the art, double-hulled and deep drafted for rough seas. It displaces a hundred and fifty thousand tons-smallish when you consider that VLCCs displace up to half a million."

"It's remarkable. If there was only some way of running my affairs remotely, I'd give anything to be able to go along."

"We'll document everything, of course. There will be daily conferences via satellite uplink. I think you'll share everything but the seasickness."

As they continued along the catwalk, the entire port side of the vessel became visible. Lloyd stopped.

"What is it?" Glinn asked.

"I..." Lloyd paused, temporarily at a loss for words. "I just never thought it would look so credible."

Amusement gleamed briefly in Glinn's eyes. "Industrial Light and Magic is doing a fine job, don't you think?"

"The Hollywood firm?"

Glinn nodded. "Why reinvent the wheel? They've got the best visual effects designers in the world. And they're discreet."

Lloyd did not reply. He simply stood at the railing, gazing down. Before his very eyes, the sleek, state-of-the-art oil tanker was being transformed into a shabby ore carrier bound for its graveyard voyage. The forward half of the great ship presented beautiful, clean expanses of painted metal, welds and plates in crisp geometrical perfection: all the sparkling newness of a six-month-old vessel. From amidships to the stern, however, the contrast could not have been more outrageous. The rear section of the ship looked like a wreck. The aft superstructure seemed to have been coated in twenty layers of paint, each flaking off at a different rate. One of the bridge wings, a queer-looking structure to begin with, had been apparently crushed, then welded back together. Great rivers of rust cascaded down the dented hull. The railings were warped, and missing sections had been crudely patched with welded pipe, rebar, and angle iron.

"It's a perfect disguise," said Lloyd. "Just like the mining operation."

"I'm especially pleased with the radar mast," said Glinn, pointing aft.

Even from this distance, Lloyd could see the paint was largely stripped off, and bits of metal dangled from old wires. A few antennae had been broken, crudely spliced, then broken again. Everything was streaked with stack soot.

"Inside that wreck of a mast," Glinn went on, "you'll find the very latest equipment: P-Code and differential GPS, Spizz-64, FLIR, LN-66, Slick 32, passive ESM, and other specialized radar equipment, Tigershark Loran C, INMARSAT, and Sperry GMDSS communications stations. If we run into any, ah, special situations, there are some mast electronics that can be raised at the push of a button."

As Lloyd watched, a crane holding a huge wrecking ball swiveled toward the hull; with exquisite care the ball was brought in contact with the port side of the ship once, twice, then three times, adding fresh indignities. Painters with thick hoses swarmed over the ship's midsection, turning the spotless deck into a storm of simulated tar, oil, and grit.

"The real job will be cleaning all this up," Glinn said "Once we unload the meteorite and are ready to resell the ship."

Lloyd tore his gaze away. Once we unload the meteorite... In less than two weeks, the ship would be heading to sea. And when it returned — when, at last, his prize could be unveiled — the whole world would be talking about what had been accomplished.

"Of course, we're not doing much to the interior," Glinn said as they started along the catwalk again. "The quarters are quite luxurious — large staterooms, wood paneling, computer-controlled lighting, lounges, exercise rooms, and so forth."

Lloyd stopped once again as he noticed activity around a hole cut into the forward hull. A line of bulldozers, D-cats, front-end loaders, skidders with house-size tires, and other heavy mining equipment snaked away from the hole, a heavyweight traffic jam, waiting to be loaded onto the ship. There was a roar of diesel engines and the grinding of gears as, one by one, the equipment drove in and disappeared from view.

"An industrial-age Noah's ark," said Lloyd.

"It was cheaper and faster to make our own door than to position all the heavy equipment with a crane," Glinn said. "The Rolvaag is designed like a typical tanker. The cargo-oil spaces occupy three quarters of the hull. The rest is taken up with general holds, compartments, machinery spaces, and the like. We've built special bays to hold the equipment and raw material we'll need for the job. We've already loaded a thousand tons of the best Mannsheim high-tensile steel, a quarter million board feet of laminated timbers, and everything from aircraft tires to generators."

Lloyd pointed. "And those boxcars on the deck?"

"They're designed to look like the Rolvaag is making some extra bucks on the side piggybacking containers. Inside are some very sophisticated labs."

"Tell me about them."

"The gray one closest to the bow is a hydro lab. Next to it is a clean room. And then we have a high-speed CAD workstation, a darkroom, tech stores, a scientific freezer, electron microscope and X-ray crystallography labs, a diver's locker, and an isotope and radiation chamber. Belowdecks are medical and surgical spaces, a biohazard lab, and two machine shops. No windows for any of them, I'm afraid; that would give the game away."

Lloyd shook his head. "I'm beginning to see where all my money is going. Don't forget, Eli, what I'm buying is basically a recovery operation. The science can wait."

"I haven't forgotten. But given the high degree of unknowns, and the fact that we'll only get one chance at this recovery, we must be prepared for anything."

"Of course. That's why I'm sending Sam McFarlane. But as long as things go according to plan, his expertise is for use with the engineering problem. I don't want a lot of timewasting scientific tests. Just get the thing the hell out of Chile. We'll have all the time in the world to fuss with it later."

"Sam McFarlane," Glinn repeated. "An interesting choice. Curious fellow."

Lloyd looked at him. "Now don't you start telling me I made a mistake."

"I didn't say that. I merely express surprise at your choice of planetary geologists."

"He's the best guy for the job. I don't want a crowd of wimpy scientists down there. Sam's worked both the lab and the field. He can do it all. He's tough. He knows Chile. The guy who found the thing was his ex-partner, for chrissakes, and his analysis of the data was brilliant." He leaned confidentially toward Glinn. "So he made an error of judgment a couple of years back. And, yes, it wasn't a small one. Does that mean nobody should trust him for the rest of his life? Besides" — and here he placed a hand on Glinn's shoulder-"you'll be there to keep an eye on him. Just in case temptation comes his way." He released his hold and turned back to the ship. "And speaking of temptation, where exactly will the meteorite go?"

"Follow me," Glinn said. "I'll show you."

They climbed another set of stairs and continued along a high catwalk that bridged the ship's beam. Here, a lone figure stood at the rail: silent, erect, dressed in a captain's outfit, looking every inch the ship's officer. As they approached, the figure detached itself from the railing and waited. "Captain Britton," said Glinn, "Mr. Lloyd."

Lloyd extended his hand, then froze. "A woman?" he blurted involuntarily.

Without a pause, she grasped his hand. "Very observant, Mr. Lloyd." She gave his hand a firm, short shake. "Sally Britton."

"Of course," said Lloyd. "I just didn't expect —" Why hadn't Glinn warned him? His eyes lingered on the trim form, the wisp of blond hair escaping from beneath her cap.

"Glad you could meet us," said Glinn. "I wanted you to see the ship before it was completely disguised."

"Thank you, Mr. Glinn," she said, the faint smile holding. "I don't think I've ever seen anything quite so repulsive in my life."

"It's purely cosmetic."

"I intend to spend the next several days making sure of that." She pointed toward some large projections from the side of the superstructure. "What's behind those forward bulkheads?"

"Additional security equipment," Glinn said. "We've taken every possible safety precaution, and then some."

"Interesting."

Lloyd gazed at her profile curiously. "Eli here has said nothing about you," he said. "Can you fill me in on your background?"

"I was a ship's officer for five years, and a captain for three."

Lloyd caught the past tense. "What kind of ships?"

"Tankers and VLCCs."

"I'm sorry?"

"Very Large Crude Carriers. Over two hundred and fifty thousand tons displacement. Tankers on steroids, basically."

"She's gone around the Horn on several occasions," said Glinn.

"Around the Horn? I didn't know that route was still used."

"The big VLCCs can't go through the Panama Canal," said Britton. "The preferred route is around the Cape of Good Hope, but occasionally schedules require a Horn passage."

"That's one reason we hired her," said Glinn. "The seas down there can be tricky."

Lloyd nodded, still gazing at Britton. She returned the look calmly, unruffled by the pandemonium taking place below her. "You know about our unusual cargo?" he asked.

She nodded.

"And you have no problem with it?"

She looked at him. "I have no problem with it."

Something in those clear green eyes told Lloyd a different story. He opened his mouth to speak, but Glinn interrupted smoothly. "Come on," he said. "I'll show you the cradle."

He motioned them farther down the catwalk. Here the ship's deck lay directly below, wreathed in clouds of welding smoke and diesel exhaust. Deckplates had been removed, exposing a vast hole in the ship. Manuel Garza, chief engineer for EES, stood at its edge, holding a radio to his ear with one hand and gesturing with the other. Catching sight of them overhead, he waved.

Peering down into the exposed space, Lloyd could make out an amazingly complex structure, with the elegance of a crystal lattice. Strings of yellow sodium lights along its edges made the dark hold sparkle and glow like a deep, enchanted grotto.

"That's the hold?" Lloyd asked.

"Tank, not hold. Number three center tank, to be precise. We'll be placing the meteorite at the very center of the ship's keel, to maximize stability. And we've added a passageway beneath the maindeck, running from the superstructure forward, to aid access. Note the mechanical doors we've installed on each side of the tank opening."

The cradle was a long way down. Lloyd squinted against the glow of the countless lights.

"I'll be damned," he said suddenly. "Half of it's made of wood!" He turned to Glinn. "Cutting corners already?"

The corners of Glinn's mouth jerked upward in a brief smile. "Wood, Mr. Lloyd, is the ultimate engineering material."

Lloyd shook his head. "Wood? For a ten-thousand-ton weight? I can't believe it."

"Wood is ideal. It gives ever so slightly, but never deforms. It tends to bite into heavy objects, locking them in place. The type of oak we're using, greenheart laminated with epoxy, has a higher shear strength than steel. And wood can be carved and shaped to fit the curves of the hull. It won't wear through the steel hull in a heavy sea, and it doesn't suffer metal fatigue."

"But why so complicated an arrangement?"

"We had to solve a little problem," said Glinn. "At ten thousand tons, the meteorite must be absolutely locked into place, immobilized in the hold. If the Rolvaag encounters heavy weather on the way back to New York, even a tiny shift of the meteorite's position could fatally destabilize the ship. That network of timbers not only locks the thing into place, but distributes its weight evenly throughout the hull, simulating the loading of crude oil."

"Impressive," said Britton. "You took the internal frames and partitioning into account?"

"Yes. Dr. Amira is a computational genius. She worked up a calculation that took all of ten hours on a Cray T3D supercomputer, but it gave us the configuration. We can't finish it, of course, until we get the exact dimensions of the rock. We've built this based on Mr. Lloyd's flyover data. But when we actually unearth the meteorite, we'll build a second cradle around it that we can plug into this one."

Lloyd nodded. "And what are those men doing?" He pointed to the deepest depths of the hold, where a gaggle of workmen, barely visible, were cutting through the hull plates with acetylene torches.

"The dead man's switch," said Glinn evenly.

Lloyd felt a surge of irritation. "You're not really going through with that."

"We've already discussed it."

Lloyd struggled to sound reasonable. "Look. If you open up the bottom of the ship to dump the meteorite in the middle of some storm, the damn ship's going to sink anyway. Any idiot can see that."

Glinn held Lloyd with his gray, impenetrable eyes. "If the switch is thrown, it will take less than sixty seconds to open the tank, release the rock, and reseal it. The tanker won't sink in sixty seconds, no matter how heavy the seas are. On the contrary, the inrush of water will actually compensate for the sudden loss of ballast when the meteorite goes. Dr. Amira worked that all out, too. And a pretty little equation it was."

Lloyd stared back at him. This man actually derived pleasure from having solved the problem of how to send a priceless meteorite to the bottom of the Atlantic. "All I can say is, if anyone throws that dead man's switch on my meteorite, he's a dead man himself."

Captain Britton laughed — a high, ringing sound that carried above the clangor below. Both men turned toward her. "Don't forget, Mr. Lloyd," she said crisply, "it's nobody's meteorite yet. And there's a long stretch of water ahead of us before it is."

Aboard the Rolvaag,

June 26, 12:35 A.M.

MCFARLANE STEPPED through the hatchway, carefully closed the steel door behind him, and walked out onto the fly deck. It was the very highest point of the ship's superstructure, and it felt like the roof of the world. The smooth surface of the Atlantic lay more than a hundred feet below him, dappled in faint starlight. The gentle breeze carried the distant cry of gulls, and smelled wonderfully of the sea.

He walked over to the forward railing and wrapped his hands around it. He thought about the huge ship that would be his home for the next few months. Directly below his feet lay the bridge. Below that lay a deck left mysteriously empty by Glinn. Farther below lay the rambling quarters of the senior officers. And a full six stories down, the maindeck, stretching ahead a sixth of a mile to the bow. An occasional dash of starlit spray washed over the forecastle head. The network of piping and tank valves remained, and placed around it were a maze of old containers — the laboratories and workspaces — like a child's woodblock city.

In a few minutes his presence would be required at the "night lunch," which would be their first formal meal on board ship. But he had come up here first to convince himself that the voyage had really begun.

He breathed in, trying to clear his head of the last frantic days, setting up labs and beta-testing equipment. He gripped the railing tighter, feeling a swell of exhilaration. This is more like it, he thought. Even a jail cell in Chile seemed preferable to having Lloyd constantly looking over his shoulder, second-guessing, worrying over trivial details. Whatever lay at the end of their journey — whatever it was that Nestor Masangkay had found — at least they were on their way.

McFarlane turned and made the long walk across the deck to the aft rail. Although the thrum of engines came faintly from the depths of the ship, up here he could feel no hint of vibration. In the distance he could see the Cape May lighthouse winking, one short, one long. After Glinn secured their clearance papers through some private means of his own, they had left Elizabeth under cover of darkness, maintaining secrecy to the last. They would soon be in the main shipping lanes, beyond the continental shelf, and would then turn due south. Five weeks from now, if all went as planned, they would see the same light again. McFarlane tried to imagine what it would be like if they did recover it successfully: the furious outcry, the scientific coup — and, perhaps, his own personal exoneration.

Then he smiled cynically to himself. Life didn't work like that. It was so much easier to see himself back again in the Kalahari, a little more money in his pocket, a little chubby from ship's food, tracking down the elusive Bushmen and renewing his search for the Okavango. And nothing would erase what he had done to Nestor — particularly now that his old friend and partner was dead.

As he gazed out over the ship's stem, McFarlane became aware of another odor on the sea air: tobacco. Looking around, he realized he wasn't alone. From the far side of the fly deck, a small pinpoint of red winked against the dark, then disappeared again. Someone had been quietly standing there; a fellow passenger enjoying the night.

Then the red ember jerked and bobbed as the person rose to approach him. With surprise, he realized it was Rachel Amira, Glinn's physicist, and his own alleged assistant. Between the fingers of her right hand were the final inches of a thick cigar. McFarlane sighed inwardly at having his solitary reverie intruded upon, especially by this sardonic woman. "Ciao, boss. Any orders for me?"

McFarlane remained silent, feeling a swell of annoyance at the word "boss." He hadn't signed on to be a manager. Amira didn't need a nursemaid. And she didn't seem too pleased with the arrangement either. What could Glinn have been thinking?

"Three hours at sea, and I'm bored already." She waved the cigar. "Want one?"

"No thanks. I want to taste my dinner."

"Ship's cooking? You must be a masochist." She leaned against the rail beside him with a bored sigh. "This ship gives me the willies."

"How so?"

"It's just so cold, so robotic. When I think of going to sea, I think of iron men running all over the decks, jumping at barked orders. But look at this." She jerked a finger over her shoulder. "Eight hundred feet worth of deck, and nothing stirring. Nothing. It's a haunted ship. Deserted. Everything's done by computer."

She has a point, McFarlane thought. Even though by modern supertanker standards the Rolvaag was only moderate sized, it was still huge. Yet only a skeleton crew was necessary to man it. With all the ship's complement, the EES specialists and engineers, and the construction crew, there were still fewer than one hundred people aboard. A cruise ship half the Rolvaag's size might carry two thousand.

"And it's so damned big," he heard her say, as if answering his own thoughts.

"Talk to Glinn about that. Lloyd would have been happier spending less money for less boat."

"Did you know," said Amira, "that these tankers are the first man-made vessels big enough to be affected by the earth's rotation?"

"No, I didn't." Here was a woman who liked the sound of her own voice.

"Yeah. And it takes three sea miles to stop this baby with engines full astern."

"You're a regular fund of tanker trivia."

"Oh, I'm good at cocktail conversation." Amira blew a smoke ring into the darkness.

"What else are you good at?"

Amira laughed. "I'm not too bad at math."

"So I've heard." McFarlane turned away, leaning over the rail, hoping she would take the hint.

"Well, we can't all be airline stewardesses when we grow up, you know." There was a moment of blessed silence as Amira puffed at the cigar. "Hey, you know what, boss?"

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't call me that."

"It's what you are, right?"

McFarlane turned to her. "I didn't ask for an assistant. I don't need an assistant. I don't like this arrangement any more than you do."

Amira puffed, a sardonic smile hovering, her eyes full of amusement.

"So I've got an idea," McFarlane said.

"What's that?"

"Let's just pretend you're not my assistant"

"What, you firing me already?"

McFarlane sighed, suppressing his first, impulsive reaction. "We're going to be spending a lot of time together. So let's work together as equals, okay? Glinn doesn't need to know. And I think we'd both be happier."

Amira examined the lengthening ash, then tossed the cigar over the rail into the sea. When she spoke, her voice sounded a little more friendly. "That thing you did with the sandwich cracked me up. Rochefort's a control freak. It really pissed him off, getting covered with jelly. I liked that."

"I made my point."

Amira giggled and McFarlane glanced in her direction, at the eyes glinting in the half-light, at the dark hair disappearing into the velvet behind her. There was a complex person in there, hiding behind the tomboy, one-of-the-guys facade. He looked back out to sea. "Well, I'm sure I'm not going to be Rochefort's good buddy."

"Nobody is. He's only half human."

"Like Glinn. I don't think Glinn would even take a leak without first analyzing all possible trajectories."

There was a pause. He could tell his joke had displeased her.

"Let me tell you a little about Glinn," Amira said. "He's only had two jobs in his life. Effective Engineering Solutions. And the military."

There was something in her voice that made McFarlane glance back at her.

"Before starting EES, Glinn was an intelligence specialist in the Special Forces. Prisoner interrogation, photo recon, underwater demolition, that kind of stuff. Head of his A-Team. Came up through Airborne, then the Rangers. Earned his bones in the Phoenix program during Vietnam. "

"Interesting."

"Damn right." Amira spoke almost fiercely. "They excelled in hot-war situations. From what Garza tells me, the team's kill-loss ratio was excellent."

"Garza?"

"He was engineer specialist on Glinn's team. Second in command. Back then, instead of building things, he blew stuff up."

"Garza told you all this?"

Amira hesitated. "Eli told me some of it himself."

"So what happened?"

"His team got their asses kicked trying to secure a bridge on the Cambodian border. Bad intel on enemy placements. Eli lost his whole team, everyone except Garza." Amira dug into her pocket, pulled out a peanut, shelled it. "And now Glinn runs EES. And does all the intel himself. So you see, Sam, I think you've misread him."

"You seem to know a lot about him."

Amira's eyes suddenly grew veiled. She shrugged, then smiled. The ardent look faded as quickly as it had appeared. "It's a beautiful sight," she said, nodding out across the water toward the Cape May light. It wavered in the velvety night: their last contact with North America.

"That it is," McFarlane replied.

"Care to bet how many miles away it is?"

McFarlane frowned. "Excuse me?"

"A small wager. On the distance to that lighthouse."

"I'm not a betting man. Besides, you probably have some arcane mathematical formula at your fingertips."

"You'd be right about that." Amira shelled some more peanuts, tossed the nuts into her mouth, then flung the shells into the sea. "So?"

"So what?"

"Here we are, bound for the ends of the earth, out to snag the biggest rock anybody's ever seen. So, Mr. Meteorite Hunter, what do you really think?"

I think —" McFarlane began. Then he stopped. He realized he wasn't allowing himself to hope that this second chance — which after all had come out of nowhere — might actually work out.

"I think," he said aloud, "that we'd better get down to dinner. If we're late, that captain of ours will probably keelhaul us. And that's no joke on a tanker."

Rolvaag,

June 26, 12:55 A.M.

THEY STEPPED out of the elevator. Here, five decks closer to the engines, McFarlane could feel a deep, regular vibration: still faint, yet always present in his ears and his bones.

"This way," Amira said, motioning him down the blue-and-white corridor.

McFarlane followed, glancing around as they went. In dry dock, he'd spent his days and even most nights in the container labs on deck, and today marked his first time inside the superstructure. In his experience, ships were cramped, claustrophobic spaces. But everything about the Rolvaag seemed built to a different scale: the passages were wide, the cabins and public areas spacious and carpeted. Glancing into doorways, he noticed a large-screen theater with seats for at least fifty people, and a wood-paneled library. Then they rounded a corner, Amira pushed open a door, and they stepped into the officer's mess.

McFarlane stopped. He had been expecting the indifferent dining area of a working ship. But once again the Rolvaag surprised him. The mess was a vast room, extending across the entire aft forecastle deck. Huge windows looked out onto the ship's wake, boiling back into the darkness. A dozen round tables, each set for eight and covered with crisp linen and fresh flowers, were arranged around the center of the room. Dining stewards in starched uniforms stood at their stations. McFarlane felt underdressed.

Already, people were beginning to gravitate toward the tables. McFarlane had been warned that seating arrangements on board ship were regimented, at least at first, and that he was expected to sit at the captain's table. Glancing around, he spotted Glinn standing at the table closest to the windows. He made his way across the dark carpeting.

Glinn had his nose in a small volume, which he quickly slipped into his pocket as they approached. Just before it vanished, McFarlane caught the title: Selected Poetry of W.H. Auden. Glinn had never struck him as a reader of poetry. Perhaps he had misjudged the man after all.

"Luxurious," McFarlane said as he looked around. "Especially for an oil tanker."

"Actually, this is fairly standard," Glinn replied. "On such a large vessel, space is no longer at a premium. These ships are so expensive to operate, they spend practically no time in port. That means the crews are stuck on board for many, many months. It pays to keep them happy."

More people were taking their places beside the tables, and the noise level in the room had increased. McFarlane looked around at the cluster of technicians, ship's officers, and EES specialists. Things had happened so quickly that he only recognized perhaps a dozen of the seventy-odd people now in the room.

Then quiet fell across the mess. As McFarlane glanced toward the door, Britton, the captain of the Rolvaag, stepped in. He had known she was a woman, but he wasn't expecting either her youth — she couldn't be more than thirty-five — or her stately bearing. She carried herself with a natural dignity. She was dressed in an impeccable uniform: naval blazer, gold buttons, crisp officer's skirt. Small gold

bars were affixed to her graceful shoulders. She came toward them with a measured step that radiated competence and something else — perhaps, he thought, an iron will.

The captain took her seat, and there was a rustle as the rest of the room followed her lead. Britton removed her hat, revealing a tight coil of blond hair, and placed it on a small side table that seemed specially set up for that purpose. As McFarlane looked closer, he noticed her eyes betrayed a look older than her years.

A graying man in an officer's uniform came up to whisper something in the captain's ear. He was tall and thin, with dark eyes set in even darker sockets. Britton nodded and he stepped back, glancing around the table. His easy, fluid movements reminded McFarlane of a large predator.

Britton gestured toward him with an upraised palm. "I'd like to introduce the Rolvaag's chief mate, Victor Howell."

There were murmured greetings, and the man nodded, then moved away to take his position at the head of a nearby table. Glinn spoke quietly. "May I complete the introductions?"

"Of course," the captain said. She had a clear, clipped voice, with the faintest trace of an accent.

"This is the Lloyd Museum meteorite specialist, Dr. Sam McFarlane."

The captain grasped McFarlane's hand across the table. "Sally Britton," she said, her hand cool and strong. And now McFarlane identified the accent as a Scottish burr. "Welcome aboard, Dr. McFarlane."

"And this is Dr. Rachel Amira, the mathematician on my team," Glinn continued, continuing around the table. "And Eugene Rochefort, chief engineer."

Rochefort glanced up with a nervous little nod, his intelligent, obsessive eyes darting about. He was wearing a blue blazer that might have looked acceptable if it had not been made of polyester that shined under the dining room lights.

His eyes landed on McFarlane's, then darted away again. He seemed ill at ease.

"And this is Dr. Patrick Brambell, the ship's doctor. No stranger to the high seas."

Brambell flashed the table a droll smile and gave a little Japanese bow. He was a devious-looking old fellow with sharp features, fine parallel wrinkles tracing a high brow, thin stooped shoulders, and a head as glabrous as a piece of porcelain.

"You've worked as a ship's doctor before?" Britton inquired politely.

"Never set foot on dry land if I can help it," said Brambell, his voice wry and Irish.

Britton nodded as she slipped her napkin out of its ring, flicked it open, and laid it across her lap. Her movements, her fingers, her conversation all seemed to have an economy of motion, an unconscious efficiency. She was so cool and poised it seemed to McFarlane a defense of some kind. As he picked up his own napkin, he noticed a card, placed in the center of the table in a silver holder, with a printed menu. It read: Consommé Olga, Lamb Vindaloo, Chicken Lyonnaise, Tiramisu. He gave a low whistle.

"The menu not to your liking, Dr. McFarlane?" Britton asked.

"Just the opposite. I was expecting egg salad sandwiches and pistachio ice cream."

"Good dining is a shipboard tradition," said Britton. "Our chief cook, Mr. Singh, is one of the finest chefs afloat. His father cooked for the British admiralty in the days of the Raj."

"Nothing like a good vindaloo to remind you of your mortality," said Brambell.

"First things first," Amira said, rubbing her hands and looking around. "Where's the bar steward? I'm desperate for a cocktail."

"We'll be sharing that bottle," Glinn said, indicating the open bottle of Chateau Margaux that stood beside the floral display.

"Nice wine. But there's nothing like a dry Bombay martini before dinner. Even when dinner's at midnight." Amira laughed.

Glinn spoke up. "I'm sorry, Rachel, but there are no spiritous liquors allowed on board the ship."

Amira looked at Glinn. "Spiritous liquors?" she repeated with a brief laugh. "This is new, Eli. Have you joined the Christian Women's Temperance League?"

Glinn continued smoothly. "The captain allows one glass of wine, taken before or with dinner. No hard liquor on the ship."

It was as if a lightbulb came on over Amira's head. The joking look was replaced by a sudden flush. Her eyes darted toward the captain, then away again. "Oh," she said.

Following Amira's glance, McFarlane noticed that Britton's face had turned slightly pale under her tan.

Glinn was still looking at Amira, whose blush continued to deepen. "I think you'll find the quality of the Bordeaux makes up for the restriction."

Amira remained silent, embarrassment clear on her face. Britton took the bottle and filled glasses for everyone at the table except herself. Whatever the mystery was, McFarlane thought, it had passed. As a steward slipped a plate of consommé in front of him, he made a mental note to ask Amira about it later.

The noise of conversation at the nearest tables rose once again, filling a brief and awkward silence. At the nearest table, Manuel Garza was buttering a slab of bread with his beefy paw and roaring at a joke.

"What's it like to handle a ship this big?" McFarlane asked. It was not simply a polite question to fill the silence: something about Britton intrigued him. He wanted to see what lay under that lovely, perfect surface.

Britton took a spoonful of consommé. "In some ways, these new tankers practically pilot themselves. I keep the crew running smoothly and act as troubleshooter. These ships don't like shallow water, they don't like to turn, and they don't like surprises." She lowered her spoon. "My job is to make sure we don't encounter any."

"Doesn't it go against the grain, commanding—well — an old rust bucket?"

Britton's response was measured. "Certain things are habitual at sea. The ship won't remain this way forever. I intend to have every spare hand working cleanup detail on the voyage home."

She turned toward Glinn. "Speaking of that, I'd like to ask you a favor. This expedition of ours is rather... unusual. The crew have been talking about it."

Glinn nodded. "Of course. Tomorrow, if you'll gather them together, I'll speak to them."

Britton nodded in approval. The steward returned, deftly replacing their plates with fresh ones. The fragrant smell of curry and tamarind rose from the table. McFarlane dug into the vindaloo, realizing a second or two later that it was probably the most fiery dish he had ever eaten.

"My, my, that's fine," muttered Brambell.

"How many times have you been around the Horn?" McFarlane asked, taking a large swig of water. He could feel the sweat popping out on his brow.

"Five," said Britton. "But those voyages were always at the height of the southern summer, when we were less likely to encounter bad weather."

Something in her tone made McFarlane uneasy. "But a vessel this big and powerful has nothing to fear from a storm, does it?"

Britton smiled distantly. "The Cape Horn region is like no place else on earth. Force 15 gales are commonplace. You've heard of the famed williwaws, no doubt?"

McFarlane nodded.

"Well, there's another wind far more deadly, although less well known. The locals call it a panteonero, a `cemetery wind.' It can blow at over a hundred knots for several days without letup. It gets its name from the fact that it blows mariners right into their graves."

"But surely even the strongest wind couldn't affect the Rolvaag?" McFarlane asked.

"As long as we have steerage, we're fine, of course. But cemetery winds have pushed unwary or helpless ships down into the Screaming Sixties. That's what we call the stretch of open ocean between South America and Antarctica. For a mariner, it's the worst place on earth. Gigantic waves build up, and it's the only place where both waves and wind can circle the globe together without striking land. The waves just get bigger and bigger — up to two hundred feet high."

"Jesus," said McFarlane. "Ever taken a boat down there?" Britton shook her head. "No," she said. "I never have, and I never will." She paused for a moment. Then she folded her napkin and gazed across the table at him. "Have you ever heard of a Captain Honeycutt?"

McFarlane thought a moment. "English mariner?"

Britton nodded. "He set off from London in 1607 with four ships, bound for the Pacific. Thirty years before, Drake had rounded the Horn, but had lost five of his six ships in the process. Honeycutt was determined to prove that the trip could be made without losing a single vessel. They hit weather as they approached the Strait of Le Maire. The crew pleaded with Honeycutt to turn back. He insisted on pushing on. As they rounded the Horn, a terrible gale blew up. A giant breaking wave — the Chileans call them tigres — sank two of the ships in less than a minute. The other two were dismasted. For several days the hulks drifted south, borne along by the raging gale, past the Ice Limit."

"The Ice Limit?"

"That's where the waters of the southern oceans meet the subfreezing waters surrounding Antarctica. Oceanographers call it the Antarctic Convergence. It's where the ice begins. At any rate, in the night, Honeycutt's ships were dashed against the side of an ice island."

"Like the Titanic," Amira said quietly. They were the first words she had spoken for several minutes.

The captain looked at her. "Not an iceberg. An ice island. The berg that wrecked the Titanic was an ice cube compared to what you get below the Limit. The one that crushed Honeycutt's ships probably measured twenty miles by forty."

"Did you say forty miles?" McFarlane asked.

"Much larger ones have been reported, bigger than some states. They're visible from space. Giant plates broken off the Antarctic ice shelves."

"Jesus."

"Of the hundred-odd souls still alive, perhaps thirty managed to crawl up onto the ice island. They gathered some wreckage that had washed up, and built a small fire. Over the next two days, half of them died of exposure. They had to keep shifting the fire, because it kept sinking into the ice. They began to hallucinate. Some claimed a huge shrouded creature with silky white hair and red teeth carried away members of the crew."

"Goodness gracious," said Brambell, arrested in the vigorous act of eating, "that's straight out of Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym."

Britton paused to look at him. "That's exactly right," she said. "In fact, it's where Poe got the idea. The creature, it was said, ate their ears, toes, fingers, and knees, leaving the rest of the body parts scattered about the ice."

As he listened, McFarlane realized that conversation at the closest tables had fallen away.

"Over the next two weeks, the sailors died, one by one. Soon their numbers had been reduced to ten by starvation. The survivors took the only option left."

Amira made a face and put down her fork with a clatter. "I think I know what's coming."

"Yes. They were forced to eat what sailors euphemistically call `long pig.' Their own dead companions."

"Charming," Brambell said. "I understand it's better than pork, if cooked properly. Pass the lamb, please."

"Perhaps a week later, one of the survivors spotted the remains of a vessel approaching them, bobbing in the heavy seas. It was the stern of one of their own ships that had broken in two during the storm. The men began to argue. Honeycutt and some others wanted to take their chances on the wreck. But it was lying low in the water, and most did not have the stomach to take to the seas on it. In the end only Honeycutt, his quartermaster, and one common seaman braved the swim. The quartermaster died of the cold before he could clamber aboard the hulk. But Honeycutt and the seaman made it. Their last view of the massive ice island came that evening, as it turned southward in the swells, heading slowly for Antarctica and oblivion. As it faded into the mists, they thought they saw a shrouded creature, tearing apart the survivors.

"Three days later, the wreck they were on struck the reefs around Diego Ramirez Island, southwest of the Horn. Honeycutt drowned, and only the seaman made it ashore. The man lived off shellfish, moss, cormorant guano, and kelp. He kept up a constant fire of turf, on the remote chance some vessel would pass by. Six months later, a Spanish ship saw the signal and brought him aboard."

"He must've been glad to see that ship," said McFarlane.

"Yes and no," said Britton. "England was at war with Spain at the time. He spent the next ten years in a dungeon in Cádiz. But in time he was released, and he returned to his native Scotland, married a lass twenty years his junior, and lived out a life as a farmer far, far from the sea."

Britton paused, smoothing the thick linen with the tips of her fingers. "That common seaman," she said quietly, "was William McKyle Britton. My ancestor."

She took a drink from her water glass, dabbed at her mouth with the napkin, and nodded to the steward to bring on the next course.

Rolvaag,

June 27, 3:45 P.M.

MCFARLANE LEANED against the maindeck railing, enjoying the lazy, almost imperceptible roll of the ship. The Rolvaag was "in ballast" — its ballast tanks partially filled with seawater to compensate for a lack of cargo — and consequently rode high in the water. To his left rose the ship's aft superstructure, a monolithic white slab relieved only by rheumy windows and the distant bridge wings. A hundred miles to the west, over the horizon, lay Myrtle Beach and the low coastline of South Carolina.

Assembled on the deck around him were the fifty-odd souls who made up the crew of the Rolvaag, a small group, considering the vastness of the ship. What struck him most was the diversity: Africans, Portuguese, French, English, Americans, Chinese, Indonesians, squinting in the lateafternoon sunlight and murmuring to each other in half a dozen languages. McFarlane guessed they would not take well to bullshit. He hoped Glinn had also registered that fact.

A sharp laugh cut across the group, and McFarlane turned to see Amira. The only EES staffer in attendance, she was sitting with a group of Africans who were stripped to the waist. They were talking and laughing animatedly.

The sun was dropping into the semitropical seas, sinking into a line of peach-colored clouds that stood like mushrooms on the distant horizon. The sea was oily and smooth, with only the suggestion of a swell.

A door in the superstructure opened and Glinn emerged. He walked slowly out along the central catwalk that ran, arrow straight, over a thousand feet to the Rolvaag's bows. Behind him came Captain Britton, followed by the first mate and several other senior officers.

McFarlane watched the captain with renewed interest. A somewhat abashed Amira had told him the full story after dinner. Two years earlier, Britton had run a tanker onto Three Brothers' Reef off Spitsbergen. There had been no oil in the hold, but the damage to the ship had been considerable. Britton had been legally intoxicated at the time. Though there was no proof that her drinking caused the accident — it appeared to be an operational error by the helmsman — she had been without a command ever since. No wonder she agreed to this assignment, he thought, watching her step forward. And Glinn must have realized that no captain in good standing would have taken it. McFarlane shook his head curiously. Glinn would have left nothing to chance, especially the command of the Rolvaag. He must know something about this woman.

Amira had joked about it in a way that made McFarlane a little uncomfortable. "It doesn't seem fair, punishing the whole ship for the weakness of one person," she'd said to McFarlane. "You can bet the crew is none too pleased. Can't you just see them in the crew's mess, sipping a glass of wine with dinner? Lovely, with just a touch of oak, wouldn't you say?" She had finished by making a wry face.

Overhead, Glinn had now reached the assembly. He stopped, hands behind his back, gazing down at the maindeck and the upturned faces.

"I am Eli Glinn," he began in his quiet, uninflected voice. "President of Effective Engineering Solutions. Many of you know the broad outlines of our expedition. Your captain has asked me to fill in some of the details. After doing so, I'll be happy to take questions."

He glanced down at the company.

"We are heading to the southern tip of South America, to retrieve a large meteorite for the Lloyd Museum. If we're correct, it will be the largest meteorite ever unearthed. In the hold, as many of you know, there is a special cradle built to receive it. The plan is very simple: we anchor in the Cape Horn islands. My crew, with the help of some of you, will excavate the meteorite, transport it to the ship, and place it in the cradle. Then we will deliver it to the Lloyd Museum."

He paused.

"Some of you may be concerned about the legality of the operation. We have staked mining claims to the island. The meteorite is an ore body, and no laws will be broken. There is, on the other hand, a potential practical problem in that Chile does not know we are retrieving a meteorite. But let me assure you this is a remote possibility. Everything has been worked out in great detail, and we do not anticipate any difficulties. The Cape Horn islands are uninhabited. The nearest settlement is Puerto Williams, fifty miles away. Even if the Chilean authorities learn what we are doing, we are prepared to pay a reasonable sum for the meteorite. So, as you can see, there is no cause for alarm, or even anxiety."

He paused again, then looked up. "Are there any questions?"

A dozen hands shot up. Glinn nodded to the closest man, a burly oiler wearing greasy overalls.

"So what is this meteorite?" the man boomed. There was an immediate murmur of assent.

"It will probably be a mass of nickel-iron weighing some ten thousand tons. An inert lump of metal."

"What's so important about it?"

"We believe it to be the largest meteorite ever discovered by man."

More hands went up.

"What happens if we get caught?"

"What we are doing is one hundred percent legal," Glinn replied.

A man in a blue uniform stood up, one of the ship's electricians. "I don't like it," he said in a broad Yorkshire accent. He had a mass of red hair and an unruly beard.

Glinn waited politely.

"If the bloody Chileans catch us making off with their rock, anything could happen. If everything's one hundred percent legal, why not just buy the bloody stone from them?"

Glinn looked at the man, his pale gray eyes unwavering. "May I ask your name?"

"It's Lewis," came the reply.

"Because, Mr. Lewis, it would be politically impossible for the Chileans to sell it to us. On the other hand, they don't have the technological expertise to get it out of the ground and off the island, so it would just sit there, buried — probably forever. In America, it will be studied. It will be exhibited at a museum for all to see. It will be held in trust for mankind. This is not Chilean cultural patrimony. It could have fallen anywhere — even in Yorkshire."

There was a brief laugh from Lewis's mates. McFarlane was glad to see that Glinn seemed to be gaining their confidence with his straightforward talk.

"Sir," said one slight man, a junior ship's officer. "What about this dead man's switch?"

"The dead man's switch," Glinn said smoothly, his voice steady, almost mesmerizing, "is a distant precaution. In the unlikely event that the meteorite comes loose from its cradle — in a huge storm, say — it is merely a way for us to lighten our ballast by releasing it into the ocean. It's no different from the nineteenth-century mariners who had to throw their cargo overboard in severe weather. But the chances of having to jettison it are vanishingly small. The idea is to protect the ship and the crew above all, even at the expense of losing the meteorite."

"So how do you throw this switch?" another shouted out.

"I know the key. So does my chief engineer, Eugene Rochefort, and my construction manager, Manuel Garza."

"What about the captain?"

"It was felt advisable to leave that option in the hands of EES personnel," said Glinn. "It is, after all, our meteorite."

"But it's our bloody ship!"

The murmuring of the crew rose above the sound of the wind and the deep thrum of the engines. McFarlane glanced up at Captain Britton. She was standing behind Glinn, arms at her sides, stony-faced.

"The captain has agreed to this unusual arrangement. We built the dead man's switch, and we know how to operate it. In the unlikely event that it is used, it must be done with great care, with precise timing, by those who are trained for it. Otherwise, the ship could sink with the rock." He looked around. "Any more questions?"

There was a restless silence.

"I realize this is not a normal voyage," Glinn went on. "Some uncertainty — even anxiety — is natural. As with any sea journey, there are risks involved. I told you what we are doing is completely legal. However, I would be deluding you if I said the Chileans would feel the same way. These are the reasons each of you will receive a fifty-thousand-dollar bonus if we are successful."

There was a collective gasp from the crew, and an eruption of talk. Glinn held up his hand and silence again descended.

"If anyone feels uneasy about this expedition, you are free to go. We will arrange passage back to New York, with compensation." He looked pointedly at Lewis, the electrician.

The man stared back, then broke into a broad grin. "You sold me, mate."

"We all have much to do," Glinn said, addressing the group. "If you have anything else to add — or anything else to ask — do so now."

His eyes ranged enquiringly over them. Then, seeing the silence was absolute, he nodded, turned, and made his way back along the catwalk.

Rolvaag,

4:20 P.M.

THE CREW had broken up into small groups, talking quietly among themselves as they began to move back toward their stations. A sudden breeze tugged at McFarlane's windbreaker. As he turned toward the shelter of the ship, he saw Amira. She was standing by the starboard railing, still talking to the group of deckhands. She made some comment, and the small knot around her suddenly erupted into laughter.

McFarlane made his way to the officers' dayroom. Like most of the other ship's compartments he had seen, it was large and expensively, if sparsely, appointed. But it housed one great attraction for him: a coffeepot that was never empty. He poured himself a cup and sipped at it with a contented sigh.

"Some cream with that?" came a woman's voice from behind him. He turned to see Captain Britton. She closed the door to the dayroom, then walked toward him with a smile. The wind had loosened the severe braid of hair beneath her officer's hat, and a few errant strands hung down, framing a long and elegant neck.

"No thanks, I prefer it black." McFarlane watched as Britton helped herself to a cup, adding a single teaspoon of sugar. They sipped together in silence for a moment.

"I have to ask you," McFarlane said, more to make conversation than anything else. "This pot always seems to be full. And it always tastes perfectly fresh. Just how do you achieve that miracle?"

"It's no miracle. The stewards bring a new pot every thirty minutes, needed or not. Forty-eight pots a day." McFarlane shook his head. "Remarkable," he said. "But then, it's a remarkable ship."

Captain Britton took another sip of coffee. "Care for a tour?" she asked.

McFarlane looked at her. Surely the master of the Rolvaag had better things to do. Still, it would be a nice break. Life on board ship had quickly settled into a routine. He took a final swig of coffee and set down the cup. "Sounds great," he said. "I've been wondering what kind of secrets are hiding inside this big old hull."

"Not many secrets," Britton said, opening the door to the dayroom and ushering him out into the wide hallway. "Just lots and lots of places to put oil."

The door to the maindeck opened and the slight figure of Rachel Amira appeared. Seeing them, she paused. Britton gave her a cool nod, then turned away and started down the corridor. As they rounded the corner, McFarlane glanced backward. Amira was still watching them, a smirk on her lips.

Opening a huge set of double doors, Britton led him into the ship's galley. Here, Mr. Singh held sway over stewards, assistant chefs, and banks of gleaming ovens. There were massive walk-in freezers, full of sides of lamb, beef, chickens, ducks, and a row of red-and-white-marbled carcasses McFarlane thought must be goats. "You've got enough to feed an army here," he said.

"Mr. Singh would probably say you scientists eat like one." Britton smiled. "Come on, let's leave him to it."

They passed the billiards room and swimming pool, then descended a level, where Britton showed him the crew's game room and mess. Down another staircase and they arrived at the crew's quarters: large rooms with individual baths, sandwiched between galleries that ran up the port and starboard sides of the ship. They paused at the end of the port passageway. Here, the noise of the engine was noticeably louder. The corridor seemed to stretch forward forever, portholes on the left, cabin doors on the right.

"Everything's built to a giant's scale," McFarlane said. "And it's so empty."

Britton laughed. "Visitors always say that. The fact is, the ship's basically run by computers. We navigate by geophysical satellite data, course is maintained automatically, even collision detection is monitored electronically. Thirty years ago, ship's electrician was a lowly position. Now, electronics specialists are critical."

"It's all very impressive." McFarlane turned toward Britton. "Don't get me wrong, but I've always wondered why Glinn chose a tanker for this job. Why go to the trouble of disguising a tanker as an ore carrier? Why not just get a dry bulk carrier to begin with? Or a big container ship? God knows it would have been cheaper."

"I think I can explain that. Follow me."

Britton opened a door and ushered McFarlane forward. The carpeting and wood veneer gave way to stamped metal and linoleum. They descended yet another set of stairs to a door labeled CARGO CONTROL ROOM. The room beyond was dominated by a vast electronic schematic of the ship's maindeck, mounted on the far bulkhead. Countless small points of light blinked red and yellow across its surface.

"This is the ship's mimic diagram," Britton said, motioning McFarlane toward the schematic. "It's the way we keep track of how and where cargo is loaded. We control the ballast, pumps, and cargo valves directly from the mimic area." She pointed to a series of gauges and switches arrayed beneath the diagram. "These controls regulate the pump pressures."

She led the way across the room, where an officer watched an array of computer screens. "This computer calculates cargo distribution. And these computers are the ship's automatic gauging system. They monitor pressure, volume, and temperature throughout the ship's tanks."

She patted the beige case of the nearest monitor. "This is why Glinn chose a tanker. This meteorite of yours is heavy. Loading it will be exceedingly tricky. With our tanks and computers, we can shift seawater ballast around from tank to tank, maintaining even trim and list no matter what weird lopsided thing goes inside. We can keep everything level. I don't think anybody would be happy if we turned belly-up the moment you drop that thing in the tank."

Britton moved to the far side of the ballast control equipment. "Speaking of the computers, do you have any idea what this is?" She pointed to a tall, freestanding tower of black steel, featureless except for a keyhole and a small logo reading SECURE DATAMETRICS. It looked very different from the rest of the ship's electronics. "Glinn's people installed it back in Elizabeth. There's another, smaller one like it, up on the bridge. None of my officers can figure out what the thing does."

McFarlane ran a curious hand over its beveled front. "No idea. Could it have something to do with the dead man's switch?"

"That's what I assumed at first." She led him out of the room and along the metal-floored corridor to a waiting elevator. "But it seems to be tied in to more than one of the ship's key systems."

"Would you like me to ask Glinn?"

"No, don't bother. I'll ask him sometime myself. But here I am, going on and on about the Rolvaag," she said, punching an elevator button. "I'm curious how exactly one becomes a meteorite hunter."

McFarlane looked at her as the elevator began to sink. She was a very poised woman; her shoulders were straight, her chin held high. But it was not a military kind of stiffness; rather, he thought, it was a kind of quiet pride. She knew he was a meteorite hunter: he wondered if she knew about Masangkay and the Tornarssuk meteorite fiasco. You and I have a lot in common, he thought. He could only imagine how tough it must have been for her to put on a uniform again and walk a bridge, wondering what people were saying behind her back.

"I got caught in a meteorite shower in Mexico."

"Incredible. And you survived."

"Only once in recorded history has a meteorite ever struck anyone," McFarlane said. "A woman with a history of hypochondria, lying in bed. The rock had been slowed by going through the upper stories of her house, so it only made a massive bruise. Sure got her out of bed, though."

Britton laughed: a lovely sound.

"So I went back to school and became a planetary geologist. But I was never very good at playing the sober scientist."

"What does a planetary geologist study?"

"A long list of boring subjects, before you get to the really good stuff. Geology, chemistry, astronomy, physics, calculus."

"Sounds more interesting than studying for a master's license. And the good stuff?"

"My high point was getting to study a Martian meteorite in graduate school. I was looking at the effect of cosmic rays on its chemical composition — trying to find a way to date it, basically."

The elevator door opened and they stepped out. "A real Martian rock," Britton said, opening a door and stepping out into yet another endless corridor.

McFarlane shrugged. "I liked finding meteorites. It was a bit like treasure hunting. And I liked studying meteorites.

But I didn't like rubbing elbows at faculty sherry hour, or going to conferences and chatting with rock jocks about collisional ejection and cratering mechanics. I guess the feeling was mutual. Anyway, my academic career lasted all of five years. Got denied tenure. I've been on my own ever since."

He held his breath, thinking of his ex-partner, realizing this was a poor choice of words. But the captain did not pursue it, and the moment passed.

"All I know about meteorites is that they're rocks that fall out of the sky," Britton said. "Where do they come from? Other than Mars, of course."

"Martian meteorites are extremely rare. Most of them are chunks of rock from the inner asteroid belt. Small bits and pieces from planets that broke up soon after the formation of the solar system."

"The thing you're after isn't exactly small."

"Well, most of them are small. But it doesn't take a whole lot to make a big impact. The Tunguska meteorite, which hit Siberia in 1908, had an impact energy equal to a ten-megaton hydrogen bomb."

"Ten megatons?"

"And that's small potatoes. Some meteoroids hit the earth with a kinetic energy greater than one hundred million megatons. That's the kind of blast that tends to end an entire geologic age, kill off the dinosaurs, and generally ruin everybody's day."

"Jesus." Britton shook her head.

He laughed dryly. "Don't worry. They're pretty rare. One every hundred million years."

They had worked their way through another maze of corridors. McFarlane felt hopelessly lost.

"Are all meteorites the same?"

"No, no. But most of the ones that hit the earth are ordinary chondrites."

"Chondrites?"

"Basically, old gray stones. Pretty boring." McFarlane hesitated. "There are the nickel-iron types — probably like the one we're snagging. But the most interesting type is called CI chondrites." He stopped.

Britton glanced over at him.

"It's hard to explain. It might be boring for you." McFarlane remembered, more than once, putting a glaze over everyone's eyes at a dinner party in his younger, enthusiastic, innocent years.

"I'm the one that studied celestial navigation. Try me." "Well, CI chondrites are clumped directly out of the pure, unadulterated dust cloud the solar system formed from. Which makes them very interesting. They contain clues to how the solar system formed. They're also very old. Older than the Earth."

"And how old is that?"

"Four and a half billion years." He noticed a genuine interest shining in her eyes.

"Amazing."

"And it's been theorized that there's a type of meteorite even more incredible —"

McFarlane fell silent abruptly, checking himself. He did not want the old obsession to return; not now. He walked on in the sudden stillness, aware of Britton's curious gaze.

The corridor ended in a dogged hatch. Undogging the cleats, Britton pulled it open. A wall of sound flew out at them: the huge roar of endless horsepower. McFarlane followed the captain out onto a narrow catwalk. About fifty feet below, he could see two enormous turbines roaring in tandem. The huge space seemed completely deserted; apparently it, too, was run by computer. He gripped a metal pole for support, and it vibrated wildly in his hand.

Britton looked at him with a small smile as they continued along the catwalk. "The Rolvaag is driven by steam boilers, not diesel motors like other ships," she said, raising her voice over the roar. "We do have an emergency diesel for electricity, though. On a modern ship like this, you can't afford to lose power. Because if you do, you've got nothing: no computers, no navigation, no fire-fighting equipment. You're a drifting hulk. We call it DIW: dead in the water."

They passed through another heavy door at the forward end of the engine space. Britton dogged it shut, then led the way down a hallway that ended at a closed elevator door. McFarlane followed, grateful for the quiet.

The captain stopped at the elevator, looking back at him calculatingly. Suddenly, he realized she had more on her mind than a tour of the jolly old Rolvaag.

"Mr. Glinn gave a good talk," Britton said at last.

"I'm glad you think so."

"Crews can be a superstitious lot, you know. It's amazing how fast rumor and speculation can turn into fact belowdecks. I think that talk went a long way toward squelching any rumors." There was another brief pause. Then she spoke again.

"I have the feeling Mr. Glinn knows a lot more than he said. Actually, no — that isn't the right way to put it. I think maybe he knows less than he let on." She glanced sidelong at McFarlane. "Isn't that right?"

McFarlane hesitated. He didn't know what Lloyd or Glinn had told the captain — or, more to the point, what they had withheld. Nevertheless, he felt that the more she knew, the better off the ship would be. He felt a sense of kinship with her. They'd both made big mistakes. They'd both been dragged behind the motorcycle of life a little longer than the average Joe. In his gut, he trusted Sally Britton.

"You're right," he said. "The truth is, we know almost nothing about it. We don't know how something so large could have survived impact. We don't know why it hasn't rusted away. What little electromagnetic and gravitational data we have about the rock seem contradictory, even impossible."

"I see," said Britton. She looked into McFarlane's eyes. "Is it dangerous?"

"There is no reason to think so." He hesitated. "No reason to think not, either."

There was a pause.

"What I mean is, will it pose a hazard to my ship or my crew?"

McFarlane chewed his lip, wondering how to answer. "A hazard? It's heavy as hell. It'll be tricky to maneuver. But once it's safely secured in its cradle, I have to believe it'll be less dangerous than a hold full of inflammable oil." He looked at her. "And Glinn seems to be a man who never takes chances."

For a moment, Britton thought about this. Then she nodded. "That was my take on him, too: cautious to a fault." She pressed the button for the elevator. "That's the kind of person I like on board. Because the next time I end up on a reef, I'm going down with the ship."

Rolvaag,

July 3, 2:15 P.M.

AS THE good ship Rolvaag crossed the equator, with the coast of Brazil and the mouth of the Amazon far to the west, a time-honored ritual began on the ship's bow, as it had on oceangoing vessels for hundreds of years.

Thirty feet below deck and almost nine hundred feet aft, Dr. Patrick Brambell was unpacking his last box of books. For almost every year of his working life he had crossed the line at least once, and he found the concomitant ceremonies — the "Neptune's tea" made from boiled socks, the gauntlet of fish-wielding deckhands, the vulgar laughter of the shellbacks — distasteful in the extreme.

He had been unpacking and arranging his extensive library ever since the Rolvaag left port. It was a task he enjoyed almost as much as reading the books themselves, and he never allowed himself to hurry. Now he ran a scalpel along the final seam of packing tape, pulled back the cardboard flaps, and looked inside. With loving fingers, he removed the topmost book, Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, and caressed its fine half-leather cover before placing it on the last free shelf in his cabin. Orlando Furioso came next, then Huysmans's À rebours, Coleridge's lectures on Shakespeare, Dr. Johnson's Rambler essays, Newman's Apologia pro Vita Sua. None of the books was about medicine; in fact, of the thousand-odd eclectic books in Brambell's traveling library, only a dozen or so could be considered professional references — and those he segregated in his medical suite, to remove the vocational stain from his cherished library. For Dr. Brambell was first a reader, and second a doctor.

The box empty at last, Brambell sighed in mingled satisfaction and regret and stepped back to survey the ranks of books standing in neat rows on every surface and shelf. As he did so, there was the clatter of a distant door, followed by the measured cadence of footsteps. Brambell waited motionless, listening, hoping it was not for him but knowing it was. The footsteps stopped, and a brief double rap came from the direction of the waiting room.

Brambell sighed again; a very different sigh from the first. He glanced around the cabin quickly. Then, spying a surgical mask, he picked it up and slipped it over his mouth. He found it very useful in hurrying patients along. He gave the books a last loving glance, then slipped out of the cabin, closing the door behind him.

He walked down the long hallway, past the rooms of empty hospital beds, past the surgical bays and the pathology lab, to the waiting room. There was Eli Glinn, an expandable file beneath one arm.

Glinn's eyes fastened on the surgical mask. "I didn't realize you were with someone."

"I'm not," Brambell said through the mask. "You're the first to arrive."

Glinn glanced at the mask a moment more. Then he nodded. "Very well. May we speak?"

"Certainly." Brambell led the way to his consultation room. He found Glinn to be one of the most unusual creatures he had ever met: a man with culture who took no delight in it; a man with conversation who never employed it; a man with hooded gray eyes who made it his business to know everyone's weaknesses, save his own.

Brambell closed the door to his consultation room. "Please sit down, Mr. Glinn." He waved a hand at Glinn's folder. "I assume those are the medical histories? They are late. Fortunately, I've had no need to call on them yet."

Glinn slipped into the chair. "I've set aside some of the folders that might require your attention. Most are routine. There are a few exceptions."

"I see."

"We'll start with the crew. Victor Howell has testicular cryptorchidism."

"Odd that he hasn't had it corrected."

Glinn looked up. "He probably doesn't like the idea of a knife down there."

Brambell nodded.

Glinn leafed through several more folders. There were the usual complaints and conditions to be found in any random sampling of the population: a few diabetics, a chronic slipped disk, a case of Addison's disease.

"Fairly healthy crew, there," said Brambell, hoping faintly that the session was over. But no — Glinn was taking out another set of folders.

"And here are the psychological profiles," Glinn said. Brambell glanced over at the names. "What about the EES people?"

"We have a slightly different system," said Glinn. "EES files are available on a need-to-know basis only."

Brambell didn't respond to that one. No use arguing with a man like Glinn.

Glinn took two additional folders out of his briefcase and placed them on Brambell's desk, then casually leaned back in the chair. "There's really only one person here I'm concerned about."

"And who might that be?"

"McFarlane."

Brambell tugged the mask down around his chin. "The dashing meteorite hunter?" he asked in surprise. The man did carry around a faint air of trouble, it was true.

Glinn tapped the top folder. "I will be giving you regular reports on him."

Brambell raised his eyebrows.

"McFarlane is the one key figure here not of my choosing. He's had a dubious career, to say the least. That is why I would like you to evaluate this report, and the ones to follow."

Brambell looked at the file with distaste. "Who's your mole?" he asked. He expected Glinn to be offended, but he was not.

"I would rather keep that confidential."

Brambell nodded. He pulled the file toward him, leafing through it. "'Diffident about expedition and its chances for success,"' he read aloud. "'Motivations unclear. Distrustful of the scientific community. Extremely uncomfortable with managerial role. Tends to be a loner.'" He dropped the folder. "I don't see anything unusual."

Glinn nodded at the second, much larger folder. "Here's a background file on McFarlane. Among other things, it contains a report here about an unpleasant incident in Greenland some years ago."

Brambell sighed. He was a most incurious man, and this was, he suspected, a major reason why Glinn had hired him. "I'll look at it later."

"Let's look at it now."

"Perhaps you could summarize it for me."

"Very well."

Brambell sat back, folded his hands, and resigned himself to listening.

"Years ago, McFarlane had a partner named Masangkay. They first teamed up to smuggle the Atacama tektites out of Chile, which made them infamous in that country. After that, they successfully located several other small but important meteorites. The two worked well together. McFarlane had gotten in trouble at his last museum job and went freelance. He had an instinctive knack for finding meteorites, but rock hunting isn't a full-time job unless you can get backers. Masangkay, unlike McFarlane, was smooth at museum politics and lined up several excellent assignments. They grew very close. McFarlane married Masangkay's sister, Malou, making them brothers-in-law. However, over the years, their relationship began to fray. Perhaps McFarlane envied Masangkay's successful museum career. Or Masangkay envied the fact that McFarlane was by nature the better field scientist. But most of all it had to do with McFarlane's pet theory."

"And that was?"

"McFarlane believed that, someday, an interstellar meteorite would be found. One that had traveled across vast interstellar distances from another star system. Everyone told him this was mathematically impossible — all known meteorites came from inside the solar system. But McFarlane was obsessed with the idea. It gave him the faint odor of quackery, and that didn't sit well with a traditionalist like Masangkay.

"In any case, about three years ago there was a major meteorite fall near Tornarssuk, Greenland. It was tracked by satellites and seismic sensors, which allowed for good triangulation of its impact site. Its trajectory was even captured on an amateur videotape. The New York Museum of Natural History, working with the Danish government, hired Masangkay to find the meteorite. Masangkay brought in McFarlane.

"They found the Tornarssuk, but it took a lot more time and cost a lot more money than they anticipated. Large debts were incurred. The New York Museum balked. To make matters worse, there was friction between Masangkay and McFarlane. McFarlane extrapolated the orbit of the Tornarssuk from the satellite data, and became convinced that the meteorite was following a hyperbolic orbit, which meant it must have come in from far beyond the solar system. He thought it was the interstellar meteorite he had been looking for all his life. Masangkay was worried sick over the funding, and this was the last thing he wanted to hear. They waited, guarding the site, for days, but no money came. At last, Masangkay went off to resupply and meet with Danish officials. He left McFarlane with the stone — and, unfortunately, a communications dish.

"As best I understand it, McFarlane had a kind of psychological break. He was there, alone, for a week. He became convinced that the New York Museum would fail to provide the extra funding, and that in the end the meteorite would be spirited off by somebody, broken up, and sold on the black market, never to be seen or studied again. So he used the satellite dish to contact a rich Japanese collector who he knew could buy it whole and keep it. In short, he betrayed his partner. When Masangkay returned with the supplies — and, as it happened, the extra funding — the Japanese were already there. They wasted no time at all. They took it away. Masangkay felt betrayed, and the scientific world was furious at McFarlane. They've never forgiven him."

Brambell nodded sleepily. It was an interesting story. Might make for a good, if somewhat sensational, novel. Jack London could have done it justice. Or better yet, Conrad...

"I worry about McFarlane," Glinn said, intruding on his thoughts. "We can't have anything like that happening here. It would ruin everything. If he was willing to betray his own brother-in-law, he would betray Lloyd and EES without a second thought."

"Why should he?" Brambell yawned. "Lloyd has deep pockets, and he seems perfectly happy to write checks." "McFarlane is mercenary, of course, but this goes beyond money. The meteorite we're after has some very peculiar properties. If McFarlane grows obsessed with it as he did with the Tornarssuk... " Glinn hesitated. "For example, if we ever have to use the dead man's switch, it would be in a time of extreme crisis. Every second would count. I don't want anybody trying to prevent it."

"And my role in this?"

"You have a background in psychiatry. I want you to review these periodic reports. If you see any cause for concern — in particular, any incipient signs of a break like his last one — please let me know."

Brambell flipped through the two files again, the old one and the new. The background file was strange. He wondered where Glinn had gotten the information — very little, if any, was standard psychiatric or medical stuff. Many of the reports had no reporting doctors' names or affiliations — indeed, some had no names at all. Whatever the source, it had a very expensive whiff about it.

He finally looked up at Glinn and slapped the folder shut. "I'll look this over, and I'll keep an eye on him. I'm not sure my take on what happened is the same as yours."

Glinn rose to leave, his gray eyes as impenetrable as slate. Brambell found it unaccountably irritating.

"And the Greenland meteorite?" Brambell asked. "Was it from interstellar space?"

"Of course not. It turned out to be an ordinary rock from the asteroid belt. McFarlane was wrong."

"And the wife?" Brambell asked after a moment.

"What wife?"

"McFarlane's wife. Malou Masangkay."

"She left him. Went back to the Philippines and remarried."

In a moment, Glinn was gone, his carefully placed footfalls fading down the corridor. For a moment, the doctor listened to the dying cadence, thinking. Then a line of Conrad's came to mind. He spoke it aloud: "No man ever understands quite his own artful dodges to escape from the grim shadow of self-knowledge."

With a sigh of returning contentment, he put aside the files and went back into his private suite. The torpid equatorial climate, as well as something about Glinn himself, made the doctor think of Maugham — the short stories, to be exact. He ran his fingers over the nubbed spines — each rekindling a universe of memory and emotion as it passed by — found what he was looking for, settled into a large wing chair, and opened the cover with a shiver of delight.

Rolvaag,

July 11, 7:55 A.M.

MCFARLANE ADVANCED onto the parquet deck and looked around curiously. It was his first time on the bridge, and this was without question the most dramatic space on the Rolvaag. The bridge was as wide as the ship itself. Three sides of the room were dominated by large square windows, slanting outward from bottom to top, each equipped with its own electric wiper. On either end, doors led out to the bridge wings. Other doors to the rear were labeled CHART ROOM and RADIO ROOM in brass letters. Beneath the forward windows, a bank of equipment stretched the entire length of the bridge: consoles, rows of telephones, links to control stations throughout the ship. Beyond the windows, a predawn squall lay across stormy deserts of ocean. The only light came from the instrument panels and screens. A smaller row of windows gave a view aft, between the stacks and past the stern of the ship to the white double lines of the wake, vanishing toward the horizon.

In the center of the room stood a command-and-control station. Here, McFarlane saw the captain, a dim figure in the near-darkness. She was speaking into a telephone, occasionally leaning over to murmur to the helmsman beside her, the hollows of his eyes illuminated a cold green by his radar screen.

As McFarlane joined the silent vigil, the squall began to break up and a gray dawn crept over the horizon. A single deckhand moved antlike across the distant forecastle, bound on obscure business. Above the creamy bow-wake, a few persistent seabirds wheeled and screamed. It was a shocking contrast to the torrid tropics, which they had left behind less than a week before.

After the Rolvaag had crossed the equator, in sultry heat and heavy rains, a lassitude had fallen over the ship. McFarlane had felt it, too: yawning over games of shuffleboard; lolling in his suite, staring at the butternut walls. But as they continued south, the air had grown crisper, the ocean swells longer and heavier, and the pearlescent sky of the tropics had given way to brilliant azure, flecked with clouds. As the air freshened, he sensed that the general malaise was being replaced by amounting excitement.

The door to the bridge opened once again, and two figures entered: a third officer, taking the morning eight-to-twelve, and Eli Glinn. He came silently up to McFarlane's side.

"What's this all about?" McFarlane asked under his breath.

Before Glinn could answer, there was a soft click from behind. McFarlane glanced back to see Victor Howell step out of the radio room and look on as the watch was relieved.

The third officer came over and murmured something in the captain's ear. In turn, she glanced at Glinn. "Keep an eye off the starboard bow," she said, nodding out toward the horizon, which lay like a knife edge against the sky.

As the sky lightened, the swells and hollows of the heaving sea became more clearly defined. A spear of dawn light probed through the heavy canopy of clouds off the ship's starboard bow. Stepping away from the helmsman, the captain strolled to the forward wall of windows, hands clasped behind her back. As she did so, another ray of light clipped the tops of the clouds. And then, abruptly, the entire western horizon lit up like an eruption of fire. McFarlane squinted, trying to understand what it was he was staring at. Then he made it out: a row of great snowcapped peaks, wreathed inglaciers, ablaze in the dawn.

The captain turned and faced the group. "Land ho," she said dryly. "The mountains of Tierra del Fuego. Within a few hours, we'll pass through the Strait of Le Maire and into the Pacific Ocean." She passed a pair of binoculars to McFarlane.

McFarlane stared at the range of mountains through the binoculars: distant and forbidding, like the ramparts of a lost continent, the peaks shedding long veils of snow.

Glinn straightened his shoulders, turned away from the sight, and glanced at Victor Howell. The chief mate strolled over to a technician at the far end of the bridge, who quickly stood up and disappeared out the door onto the starboard bridge wing. Howell returned to the command station. "Give yourself fifteen for coffee," he said to the third officer. "I'll take the con."

The junior officer looked from Howell to the captain, surprised by this break from procedure. "Do you want me to enter it in the log, ma'am?" he asked.

Britton shook her head. "Unnecessary. Just be back in a quarter of an hour."

Once the man had disappeared from the bridge, the captain turned to Howell. "Is Banks ready with the New York hookup?" she asked.

The chief mate nodded. "We've got Mr. Lloyd waiting."

"Very well. Patch him through."

McFarlane stifled a sigh. Isn't once a day enough? he thought. He had almost grown to dread the noon videoconference calls he made daily to the Lloyd Museum. Lloyd was always talking a mile a minute, desperate to learn of the ship's progress down to the nautical mile, grilling everyone at length, hatching schemes and questioning every plan. McFarlane marveled at Glinn's patience.

There was a crackling noise in a loudspeaker bolted to a bulkhead, then McFarlane heard Lloyd's voice, loud even in the spacious bridge. "Sam? Sam, are you there?"

"This is Captain Britton, Mr. Lloyd," Britton said, motioning the others toward a microphone at the command station. "The coast of Chile is in sight. We're a day out of Puerto Williams."

"Marvelous!" Lloyd boomed.

Glinn approached the microphone. "Mr. Lloyd, it's Eli Glinn. Tomorrow we clear Chilean customs. Dr. McFarlane, myself, and the captain will take a launch into Puerto Williams to present ship's papers."

"Is that necessary?" Lloyd asked. "Why must you all go?"

"Let me explain the situation. The first problem is that the customs people will probably want to come on board the ship."

"Jesus," came Lloyd's voice. "That could give the whole game away."

"Potentially. That is why our first effort will be to prevent a visit. The Chileans will be curious to meet the principals — the captain, the chief mining engineer. If we sent underlings, they will almost certainly insist on coming aboard."

"What about me?" McFarlane asked. "I'm persona non grata in Chile, remember? I'd just as soon keep a low profile."

"Sorry, but you're our ace in the hole," Glinn replied.

"And why is that?"

"You're the only one of us who has actually been in Chile. You've got more experience in situations like this. In the very remote chance that events play out along an unexpected path, we need your instincts."

"Great. I don't think I'm being properly compensated for taking such a risk."

"Oh yes you are." Lloyd's voice sounded testy. "Look, Eli. What if they want to board her anyway?"

"We've prepared a special reception room for the occasion."

"Reception room? The last thing we want is them hanging about."

"The room will not encourage any lingering. If they do come aboard, they will be escorted to the forward tankwashing control room. It's not a very comfortable place. We've fitted it with some metal chairs — not enough — and a Formica table. The heat's been turned off. We've painted parts of the deck with a chemical wash smelling faintly of excrement and vomit."

Lloyd's laugh, amplified and metallic, rang across the bridge. "Eli, God forbid you should ever direct a war. But what if they want to see the bridge?"

"We have a strategy for that as well. Trust me, Palmer, when we get through with the customs people in Puerto Williams, it will be highly unlikely they will want to come aboard, and even less likely they will want to see the bridge." He turned. "Dr. McFarlane, from now on you speak no Spanish. Just follow my lead. Let me and Captain Britton do all the talking."

There was a momentary silence. "You said that was our first problem," Lloyd spoke up at last. "Is there another one?"

"There's an errand we must run while we're in Puerto Williams."

"Dare I ask what that might be?"

"I'm planning to engage the services of a man named John Puppup. We'll have to find him and get him on board." Lloyd groaned. "Eli, I'm beginning to think you enjoy springing these surprises on me. Who is John Puppup, and why do we need him?"

"He's half Yaghan, half English."

"And what the hell is a Yaghan?"

"The Yaghan Indians were the original inhabitants of the Cape Horn islands. They are now extinct. Only a few mestizos are left. Puppup is old, perhaps seventy. He basically witnessed the extinction of his people. He's the last to retain some local Indian knowledge."

The overhead speaker fell silent a moment. Then it cracked back into life. "Eli, this scheme sounds half-baked. You said you planned to engage his services? Does he know about this?"

"Not yet."

"What if he says no?"

"When we get to him, he won't be in any condition to say no. Besides, haven't you heard of the time-honored naval tradition of 'impressment'?"

Lloyd groaned. "So now we're going to add kidnapping to our list of crimes."

"This is a high-stakes game," said Glinn. "You knew it when we began. Puppup will go home a rich man. We will have no trouble from that quarter. The only trouble will be locating him and getting him aboard."

"Any more surprises?"

"At customs, Dr. McFarlane and myself will present counterfeit passports. This is the path with the highest certainty of success, although it entails some minor breaking of Chilean law."

"Wait a minute," McFarlane said. "Traveling with fake passports is breaking American law."

"It will never be known. I have arranged for the passport records to be lost in transit between Puerto Williams and Punta Arenas. We will retain your real passports, of course, which have been marked with the correct visas, arrival, and departure stamps. Or so it will seem."

He looked around, as if asking for objections. There were none. The chief officer was at the helm, steering the ship impassively. Captain Britton was looking at Glinn. Her eyes were wide, but she remained silent.

"Very well," Lloyd said. "But I have to tell you, Eli, this scheme of yours makes me very nervous. I want an immediate update when you get back from customs."

The speaker abruptly went dead. Britton nodded to Victor Howell, who disappeared into the radio room. "Everyone who goes into port is going to have to look the part," Glinn said. "Dr. McFarlane can go as he is" — Glinn gave him a rather dismissive once-over — "but Captain Britton will need to be several degrees less formal."

"You said we'll have fake passports," McFarlane said. "I assume we'll have fake names to go with them?"

"Correct. You'll be Dr. Sam Widmanstätten."

"Cute."

There was a short silence. "And yourself?" Britton asked.

For the first time McFarlane could remember, Glinn laughed — a low, small sound that seemed to be mostly breath.

"Call me Ishmael," he said.

Chile,

July 12, 9:30 A.M.

THE FOLLOWING day, the great ship Rolvaag lay at rest in the Goree Roads, a broad channel between three islands rising out of the Pacific. A chill sunlight bathed the scene in sharp relief. McFarlane stood at the rail of the Rolvaag's launch, a small decrepit vessel almost as rust-stained as its parent, and stared at the tanker as they slowly pulled away. It looked even bigger from sea level. Far above, on the fantail, he could see Amira, swaddled in a parka three sizes too large. "Hey, boss!" she cried faintly as she waved, "don't come back with the clap!"