Impact

by Douglas Preston

  The only thing that would save him at all was the eight thousand dollars he had coming in severance and vacation pay.

  He poured a cup of coffee, dumped in an excess of cream and sugar, and sipped it. He still had the radar images of Deimos to look at but he doubted they would reveal anything, since the radar resolution was thirty meters, as opposed to one meter for the photographs. At least there were fewer images to look through.

  Reluctantly, he went back to the hard drive and called up the radar images. They had been computer processed into long vertical slices through Deimos’s surface, the radar penetrating as much as a hundred meters deep. The images came up as long, black strips, like ribbons, with the surface and subsurface features outlined in red and orange.

  Almost immediately, he saw something odd. Under Voltaire crater, a dense, symmetrical knot of material reflected back a bright orange. He squinted, trying to make it out. Then he leaned back: of course, it was merely the meteoritic body which had gouged the crater in the first place. No mystery there. NPF scientists had probably already examined it and come to the same conclusion.

  Nevertheless, he called up the visual image of Voltaire crater and examined it again. It was the deepest and freshest crater on Deimos, so deep that part of the crater bottom was in shadow.

  He leaned forward, squinting. There was something in that shadow.

  Using the proprietary image enhancement software loaded on the drive, Corso worked on pulling the image out of the darkness. He increased contrast, painted it in false colors, sharpened edge transitions, and manipulated almost every pixel to extract the maximum visual information from the faintest and most ambiguous data. Corso had been doing this very thing for almost a year and he knew exactly how to tease the image into life—if it was a real image and not a glitch. It was a difficult and subtle process which took almost an hour. With each pass, his surprise turned to astonishment, amazement, and finally stupefaction. Because what he saw, deep in the shadows of Voltaire crater, was not a natural object. There could be no doubt. It was not a glitch, a software artifact.

  It was a construction, an artificial object, a machine.

  Breathing hard, he stood up and went to the window, leaning on the sill and sticking his head into the feeble stream of cool air coming from the AC, sucking it in, trying to get his breathing under control. The sun was setting over the intersection, casting a brownish light over the waste-scape of cars, traffic lights, power lines, and tawdry businesses, all dotted about with limp palm trees.

  A machine. An alien machine.

  Mark Corso suddenly felt calm. Amazingly calm. This was far bigger than his petty personal problems. He reminded himself why he had gone into science to begin with. This was why.

  Now that he was out of work, he had time to think things through and decide what to do. The data was classified and his possession of it a felony, so he couldn’t just announce his discovery. If he reported it back to NPF, they would surely find a way to deprive him of credit and perhaps even send him to prison. For that reason, he had to move carefully, think things through, not do anything rash. He needed space and time and calm to make the right decisions. Because what he did next would not only determine his future, but it might well affect the future of the planet.

  He took another deep breath, rose, and began to pack up his apartment for his move back to Brooklyn.

  35

  A thunderous roar sounded, once, twice, the rounds punching through the fiberglass walls of the wheelhouse, spraying Abbey with sharp slivers. With a yell she threw herself to the deck, her mind in a blank panic. The boat had suddenly materialized out of the fog, bearing down on them at full speed, and as it swung sideways and reversed with a huge roar, she had found herself staring at Randall Worth with a massive handgun, pointing it at them and firing.

  “What the fuck?” Jackie screamed, huddled on the deck.

  Boom! Boom! Two more bullets crashed through the windows and another blew out a hole the size of a tennis ball near her head.

  “Jackie!” she screamed. “Jackie!”

  “I’m here,” came her choked voice.

  Abbey turned to see her friend cowering in the corner, hands over her head. “Get below!” she yelled, crawling toward the companionway. “Below the waterline!” She reached the companionway and tumbled headfirst down it, spilling onto the floor of the cabin. Jackie arrived a moment later, screaming and covering her head.

  “Jackie, are you hurt?” Abbey yelled.

  “I don’t know,” Jackie sobbed.

  Abbey checked Jackie all around, but could find no blood beyond cuts from fiberglass shrapnel.

  “What the fuck?” Jackie screamed, her hands over her head. “What the fuck?”

  “It’s Worth. He’s shooting at us.”

  “Why?” she wailed.

  Abbey shook her again. “Hey! Listen—to—me.”

  Jackie gulped.

  Another round of gunfire smashed through the superstructure, ripping through the hull and portholes above the V-berths. One of the shots blasted a hole at the waterline and the sea came gushing in.

  Jackie screamed, covering her head.

  “Listen to me, God damn it!” Abbey reached over and tried to pull Jackie’s hands away from her head. “We’re below the waterline. He can’t hit us here. But he’s going to board. We’ve got to defend ourselves. Do you understand?”

  Jackie nodded, swallowing.

  Abbey looked around. The V-berths were a mess, the sleeping bags rumpled up, dirty dishes in the sink, everything covered with shredded fiberglass powder. The water was gushing in through the hole and she could hear the automatic bilge pumps running.

  The toolbox under the sink. Staying low, she reached across and yanked opened the cabinet.

  A voice sounded across the water. “Hey, girls! Daddy’s home!” Another six blasts from the gun followed, ripping through the cabin over their heads. Keeping low, Abbey dragged the toolbox out and unlatched it, the tools spilling to the floor. She sorted through them, grabbing a fish knife and a hammer. “The Mace. Where is it?”

  Jackie gasped. “In the backpack in the stern compartment.”

  “Shit.” Sticking the knife in her belt, Abbey handed the hammer to Jackie. “Take this.”

  Jackie took the hammer.

  Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Another set of shots from the gun. The splinters of fiberglass ricocheted around the cabin, filling the air with choking, resinous dust. Abbey crawled up to the companionway door, turned the lock, and crawled back.

  “We’re sinking,” Jackie said.

  “That’s the least of our problems.”

  She heard the sound of Worth’s engine rumbling as he came up alongside their boat. The engine sound went into neutral, then a quick reverse, and a moment later she felt the boat bump up against theirs. His feet landed on their deck with a thump.

  “Fuck, fuck,” said Jackie, heaving. “He’s boarding.”

  Abbey tried to stop herself from hyperventilating. They needed a plan. “You lie on the floor,” she said. “In the middle. Pretend to be shot. I’ll hide in the head. When he busts through that door, I’ll jump out and stab him with the knife.”

  “Are you crazy? He’s got a gun!”

  “He’s all fucked up on drugs. Do as I say and lie down.”

  Jackie curled up on the floor, helpless and sobbing.

  Ducking into the head, Abbey closed the door so that only the barest crack remained, through which she could see the stairs of the companionway. She tensed, ready to spring.

  She heard the tump tump of Worth’s boots over the deck. “Daddy’s home!”

  Abbey clutched the knife, peering through the crack.

  Slow footfalls moved around the deck and into the pilothouse. He tried the door into the cabin with a shake. “Now you’re gonna learn the meaning of deeper, you coon bitch! You and your butch friend. I’m taking your treasure and I’m going to teach you a lesson you’ll never forget!”

  Tr
easure? The moron had believed their story. She could hear his ragged, labored breathing, the unsteady tremor in his voice. It scared her even more than the gunshots.

  “We . . . don’t have any treasure,” Jackie said, curled up on the floor and choking in fear.

  A raucous laugh. “You think I’m stupid, you little cunt? Don’t fucking lie to me. I’m here to get the treasure—and teach you two a lesson in respect.”

  “I swear we don’t have—”

  She was interrupted by a kick to the flimsy door, which cracked it almost in half. Jackie gave a scream. “No! Don’t!”

  Abbey tensed.

  Another kick and the door parted, hanging in two pieces from the frame. Worth appeared at the top of the stairs, bending over, peering down, a big gun in his hand. “Wendy, I’m home!” He kicked away the two pieces of door and placed a big boot on the top step, another step, and another, until he stood at the bottom of the little stair. Jackie was curled up on the floor, sobbing, He aimed the gun at her, holding it sideways.

  “Where’s the treasure?”

  “Please, I swear it . . . There isn’t any treasure . . .” Jackie sobbed, covering her head, curling up. “No treasure . . . please . . . just a crater . . .”

  “Bullshit!” he screamed, shaking the gun. “Don’t fuck with me!”

  One more step.

  He took another step.

  Abbey burst out of the head and brought the knife down toward his back with all her might. But he heard her and flung up his free arm, smacking her away. The knife flew out of her hand and he fired the gun at her, wildly, the round blasting another hole in the hull well below the waterline.

  A jet of seawater came gushing in.

  Abbey threw herself at him but he slugged her in the stomach and she fell to her knees, wind knocked out, choking and gasping, trying to get her breath back, icy seawater pouring over her.

  “Where’s the treasure, bitch!” He grabbed her hair, jerked her head around, and jammed the gun into her ear.

  She managed to suck in air, heaving. He pulled her head around, pushed the gun barrel into her mouth. “Hey, Jackie! Tell me where the treasure is or I pull the trigger!”

  “The treasure was a lie,” gasped Jackie. “Please believe me, just a cover story—”

  He thumbed back the action. “Stop lying, bitch, or she’s dead! Now where the fuck is it? Go get it, now!”

  Abbey tried to say something, but couldn’t. The water was coming up fast.

  “Last chance!”

  “Okay, all right, I’ll tell you!” Jackie screamed. “Stop and I’ll tell you!”

  “Where?” Worth shrieked, his voice cracking into the high register.

  “In the stern cockpit under the rear hatch. Taped up underneath the deck, above the rudder box.”

  “Hurry, go get it! The boat’s sinking!”

  Jackie climbed to her feet. She was dripping wet. The water was six inches deep already.

  “You! Abbey! Go with her.” He yanked the gun out of her mouth, breaking one of her teeth, and jerked her up, shoving her up the ladder and manhandling her through the pilothouse to the stern.

  “Open it!” Worth yelled at Jackie, still holding Abbey with the gun at her head.

  Jackie tried to open the hatch, lifting the lever and twisting it.

  “Hurry up or I shoot her!”

  She heaved on it, heaved again. “I can’t! It’s stuck, I need help!”

  Worth thrust Abbey to the deck. “Go help her!” His face was contorted, blazing red, the cords in his neck standing out, his greasy hair matted on his skull, mouthful of rotten teeth stinking.

  Abbey scrambled across the deck and grabbed one side of the lever, Jackie the other. Their eyes met, and they both made a show of trying to twist open the lever. It still wouldn’t release.

  “Harder!”

  More struggling.

  “Get on the other side of the boat,” Worth said. “Both of you. Over there.” He waggled the gun.

  Abbey and Jackie moved to the other side of the boat. They huddled together, and Abbey nudged Jackie, making a movement with her eyes toward the hammer she still had. Jackie slipped the hammer into her hand.

  Slowly, keeping an eye on them, Worth laid down the gun, grabbed the handles, and wrenched them around. The hatch unlocked easily.

  “Weak-ass bitches,” he said, sliding the hatch aside. He hesitated, staring eagerly at the dark opening. He just couldn’t help himself: he stuck his head down to peer below the deck.

  Abbey leapt across the deck and brought hammer down with both hands just as he was pulling his head back out. It hit the top of his skull with a sickening sound, like a bat hitting a hollow log. Worth slumped forward. Blood welled from the depressed fracture, gushing onto the deck, running and mingling with the rainwater. Worth’s little finger twitched grotesquely and went still. Jackie leapt on the backpack and pulled out the Mace, spraying it on his inert form.

  There was a long silence and then Jackie said, her voice full of awe, “Oh my God, he’s dead.”

  Abbey stared. It seemed unreal, like a movie. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t breathe.

  “Abbey?” said Jackie. “We’re sinking.”

  Her father’s boat was sinking. She dropped the hammer and ran to the engine panel. Both bilge pumps were going full bore, but even as she checked for damage, there was a sizzling sound as the rising water topped the battery cases and shorted them out. The electrical systems went dead, the bilge pumps humming down to silence.

  Jackie went into action. She charged down into the cabin, sloshing through the rising water, examined the holes. Then she grabbed a blanket and some loose rope and hauled it on deck. “Abbey! Help me!” She tossed her rope. “Cut the line into four pieces and tie them onto the corners of the blanket!”

  Abbey obeyed while Jackie pulled off her shoes, held her breath, and jumped in the water. She surfaced.

  “Hand me one end of the blanket! We’ll tie it around the boat, cover these holes!”

  Abbey tossed the blanket overboard, and Jackie grabbed one end and swam under the boat, wrapping the blanket over the holes, and then came up the other side with the lines in hand. She surfaced, gasping. “Take these!”

  Abbey tied the lines to the rails and hauled Jackie back on board. The Marea was beginning to list.

  “Is that going to work?” Abbey said.

  “Might buy us time. We’ll use Worth’s boat to tow and beach her on the nearest island,” said Jackie. “Follow me.” She leapt from the Marea to the Old Salt, which was still tied up, engine idling, and took the helm, Abbey following. Jackie thrust it into full throttle. The engine roared, the boat straining forward, pulling the nine-ton Marea alongside it, Jackie adjusting the rudder to compensate for the dead weight.

  “Where are we going?” Abbey cried.

  “Franklin. We’re going to run both boats right up on the beach. It’s the only way. Abbey, check those cleats—make sure they hold.”

  While Abbey checked, Jackie pulled down the VHF and began broadcasting a mayday. “This is the Marea, Marea, Marea, position 43 50 north 69 23 west. My boat is sinking, we have a severely injured passenger. A second boat is on scene and towing. I require immediate assistance. Over.”

  She stopped broadcasting and waited. A minute later the response came.

  “Marea, this is the Coast Guard station Tenants Harbor, responding. The closest boat to your position is the lobster boat Misty Sue, south of Friendship Long Island, coming to your assistance at ten knots. The Misty Sue will communicate with you on channel six. Over.”

  “There’s nobody closer?” Jackie screamed. “We’re sinking!”

  “There aren’t many vessels out there, Marea. We’re sending out the Coast Guard RB-M Admiral Fitch from Tenants Harbor with a paramedic, over.”

  “I’m going to try to beach it on Franklin,” Jackie said.

  “Marea, what’s the nature of the injury?”

  “He’s dead, I think. Head bash
ed in with a hammer.”

  A silence. “Repeat that, please.”

  “I said he’s dead. Randall Worth. He shot up our boat and boarded. Attempted robbery. So we killed him.”

  A pause. “Is anyone else hurt?”

  “Not really.”

  “This is a crime scene, then, and should be treated as such. Please be advised . . .” The voice droned on. They were barely crawling along at three knots and slowing down as the Marea continued to take on water. Abbey checked below; the blanket had slowed the flow of water but hadn’t stopped it. Franklin was four miles away—at this speed more than an hour of travel time.

  “Fuck!” Jackie said out loud, cutting off the Coast Guard and tuning to channel 6. “This is Marea, calling Misty Sue, what’s your position?”

  “Just coming through the Allen Island passage. What’s happening?”

  “I’m towing a sinking boat. I need more towing power. I’m looking to beach it on Franklin.”

  “I should be there in . . . forty minutes.”

  Worth’s boat struggled to make headway, hauling the sinking Marea alongside of it. The Marea was now listing badly and their boat was losing steerage due to the deadweight.

  “We’ve got to cut it loose,” said Jackie. “When it sinks, it’ll capsize us, pull us under.”

  “No!” Abbey said. “Please. We’ll uncleat it from the side and retie it to the stern—and drag it behind us. We’ll go faster that way.”

  “Give it a try.”

  Abbey untied the Marea and pulled ahead, attaching a cable from the anchor post to a stern cleat on Worth’s boat.

  “That cleat’s not going to hold,” said Jackie.

  “Better than the other one.”