S. M. Stirling - Sea of Time 01 by S. M. Stirling

Author:S. M. Stirling
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf

***

Alston lowered her binoculars. "No sign of them," she said, keeping her face carefully blank. It was illogical to feel disappointed. Not sensible to expect the Bentley to be trapped neatly here, but there was a feeling of letdown all the same.

"They'll have gone upriver, Captain," Ian said. "That's definitely the Coatzacoalcos."

"Or they foundered on the way here, or passed on farther south, or stopped farther north," Alston noted. Still, this was the maximum probability…

"Ma'am!"

The forward lookout called. "Something floating!"

The winds were faint, and the echo sounder showed these waters to be shallow. It took some time to maneuver the Eagle close to the debris, and a few minutes more to lower a boat to hook onto it. Alston stood like stone, feeling the sweat trickling down her flanks even under the light tropical uniform with its short-sleeved shirt. The heat didn't particularly bother her; it was even a little homelike—summers in the Carolina low country were much like this. Her gathering suspicions of what they would find, however…

The sailor in the ship's boat next to the flotsam prodded at something. "There's a body here, ma'am, legs tangled in

something. Looks like one of ours, from the clothing. Been in the water a while, couple of days."

"Well, you were right," she said quietly to Arnstein. To the sailing master: "We'll anchor here, Mr. Hiller."

Tom Hiller looked around at the estuary of the Coatzacoalcos.

The land was low and flat, and the sea stretched behind them like hammered metal. "We could get a nasty blow out of the Gulf any time, ma'am," he said. "It's hurricane season."

"That's not the only nasty thing 'round here," she said, nodding downward.

The body was—had been—an American; the clothing was unmistakable. She heard Doreen swallow a retch behind her, but the Coast Guard officers were all familiar with the bloating that went with a submerged body and the way the sea life ate its way in. What drew her eye was the broken-off shaft that protruded from the dead man's ribs.

"Think of a few thousand of the locals coming out under cover of darkness," she said. "Especially if we were farther in, where the banks are close and there's no room to maneuver."

He nodded. "How are we going to get up the river at all, then, Captain?" he asked.

"Cautiously, in small boats, and with difficulty, I suspect, Mr.

Hiller," she said thoughtfully. "But first we'll have to find out what went on, and where everyone is. Call Mr. Toffler, and get his transport ready."

Assembling the ultralight was difficult in the cramped quarters of the Eagle's waist deck; the wings were long enough to overlap the rails on both sides. It was essentially a big hang glider with an aluminum trapeze below, a tiny pusher prop and engine behind the seat, and rudimentary controls.

Sort of like a beginner's sketch of an airplane, the Kentuckian pilot thought. A far cry from going "downtown" in an F-4

Phantom; more like being a forward air controller, not a trade

he'd ever wanted to take up before.

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