Poseidon's Arrow

“Pretend we’re in Hawaii,” he said. “I’ll race you to Waikiki.”

“Okay,” was all she could manage. Even under the rapidly fading daylight, Dirk could see her eyes turning listless.

He grabbed her jumpsuit and swam with a sidestroke even as his own strength ebbed. The cold seemed to reach down and chill his bones, and his teeth joined Summer’s in chattering nonstop.

He felt her body sag, and he realized she could make no more headway. Through his exhausted mind, he realized hypothermia was setting in. They both had to escape the water, and soon.

Though his breath was nearly spent, he kept a ru

He pressed on, one painful stroke at a time. He had nothing left in the tank, and his muscles pleaded to cease, but somehow he blocked out the agony and kept clawing through the water. The surf line ahead gradually grew larger until he could hear the waves pounding against the land. The sound inspired him to pull harder, depleting the last of his reserves.

A wave washed over them, and Dirk came up sputtering. Summer coughed out inhaled water as they were propelled by a succeeding wave that broke on top of them. Dirk kept his grasp on Summer as they tumbled through the water and were slammed against the bottom. At last they had reached shore.

With the force of succeeding waves at his back, Dirk staggered up the sandy beach, dragging Summer behind him. He pulled her past the tide line, then collapsed to the sand.

“How are you feeling?” he gasped.

“C-c-cold,” she whispered.

It was a positive sign that she could still speak, but he had to get her dry. The night air was still warm, which would make all the difference.

When he found the strength to stand, Dirk hobbled to his feet and looked around. They had landed on a barren stretch of the southern Madagascan coastline, within the uninhabited parklands of Cape Sainte Marie. The beach and inland area were dark. He had no idea how far the nearest help was, but it didn’t matter. He lacked the energy to search.

He glanced seaward but found only a black and empty ocean. The coastline curved outward to the west, obscuring the lights of the Alexandria. He turned back inland and hiked up the beach, looking for shelter. The sand underfoot turned to hard scrabble, which led to some rocky hills and mounds. Nowhere was there anything resembling shelter.

He headed back toward Summer—and tripped over a protruding mound at the edge of the beach. It extended about a dozen feet and had created a burrow on its leeward side. The indentation would provide some protection from the sea breeze, likely the best shelter Dirk could find. Finding a ragged tassel of sea grass, he ripped up as much as he could and spread it about the burrow for insulation. He returned to Summer, carried her up the beach, and placed her in the makeshift bed.

The sea grass helped dry her skin, and he hiked down the beach to search for more. There was little, but he gathered what he could and returned to the shelter. He sat on the mound and used the grass to dry Summer’s skin before adding it to the bedding. When he stood, he knocked a lump of sand off the edge of the mound, exposing a faded band of material buried within.

He thought nothing of it as he took off his own jumpsuit and stood in the ocean breeze, shivering until his skin dried. He then lay down beside Summer as an additional wind barrier for her. She was murmuring more, and her body no longer felt icy. With a warm evening at hand, Dirk grew confident that she was going to be all right.

The exertion caught up with him, and his eyelids began to droop. A crescent moon appeared from behind a cloud and illumined the beach in a silvery glow. Above his head, Dirk could see the buried object protruding from the mound more clearly. It was washed-out yellow in color, marked with a string of faded black letters. His tired mind formed a name, which rang with a strange tone as he drifted to sleep.

Barbarigo.

47

SUMMER AWOKE TO A SCRAPING SOUND NEAR HER ear. Prying open her eyes, she spotted a hulking object moving a few feet from her head.

“Dirk!” she cried, nudging her sleeping brother beside her.

He awoke with a start, sat up, and smiled when he saw the object of Summer’s fear. It was a sunbaked radiated tortoise. “You thinking of having turtle soup for breakfast?”

The ancient reptile looked down his grainy-beaked snout at Dirk as if indicating he wasn’t amused. Turning his head down range, he dug his claws into the sand and continued his lethargic journey across the beach.

Summer gri

“Depends on how hungry you are.” Dirk stood and viewed their surroundings in daylight. The beach was flat and sandy, surrounded by rocky limestone hills rising inland. Vegetation was sparse, as the region seldom collected more than a few inches of rainfall a year.

Summer sat upright. “Do you see the Alexandria?”

As he looked offshore, Dirk saw only an empty blue sea sprinkled with whitecaps. There was no sign of the NUMA ship, or any other vessels. “I guess we drifted farther east than they suspect. If we hike up the coast far enough, maybe we can wave them down.”

Unknown to them, Jack Dahlgren and two crewmen had scoured the coastline all night in a Zodiac mounted with a searchlight. The searchers had even zipped past the beach twice. But hunkered down behind the mound, Dirk and Summer had slept through their passes, the sound of the ocean drowning out the Zodiac’s motor.

“Dirk?”

He could tell by her voice that something was wrong. “What is it?”

“I can’t move my left leg.”

Dirk turned pale. He instantly guessed why: she’d gotten the bends after all. The condition usually showed itself by pain in the joints or limbs, but sometimes by paralysis. And paralysis in the legs typically meant that a gas bubble had lodged in the spinal cord.

He rushed over and knelt beside her. “Are you certain?”

Summer nodded. “I’ve got absolutely no feeling in my left leg. But the right one feels fine.” She looked at him with dread.

“How’s the pain?”

“Pretty light, actually, but I’ll need some help to get back to the ship.”

They both knew that immediate treatment in a hyperbaric chamber was critical for a successful recovery. Summer was fortunate that the Alexandria carried such a chamber, likely the only one within hundreds of miles. But it might as well be on the moon, Dirk thought, if they couldn’t get to the ship.

He glanced at a rocky rise that towered over the beach. “I’m going to take a quick hike up that hill. I’d like to see where the ship is and figure out our options.”

“I’ll wait here,” Summer said, forcing a smile.

Dirk quickly crossed the beach and scampered up the barren hill. The rocky ground sliced into his stockinged feet, and he regretted having kicked off his shoes when he swam out of the submersible. The hill rose sharply, and he soon obtained a commanding view of the neighboring coastline.

Looking first to sea, he quickly spotted the Alexandria. She was a small dot in the distance, moored, he guessed, over the site of the sunken submersible. Dirk estimated he would have to hike five miles up the coast to reach a position where the crew might spot him. Gazing inland, he observed a barren range of rolling hills, part of the Cape Sainte Marie Special Reserve. The large national park, created as a wildlife sanctuary, had few resources, save for a handful of hiking trails and campsites.