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“What’s the rendezvous estimate?” he asked the radio officer.
“Nine minutes.” He paused. “I’ve got the captain of the
Grenfell
on 79, sir.”
LeSeur walked up to the VHF console, slipped on a pair of headphones. He spoke in a low voice. “
Grenfell
, this is First Officer LeSeur, acting commander of the
Brita
. Do you have a plan?”
“This is a tough one,
Brita
but we’ve got a couple of ideas.”
“We’ve got one chance to do this. We’re faster than you by at least ten knots, and once we’re past, that’s it.”
“Understood. We’ve got on board a BO-105 utility chopper, which we could use to bring you some shaped explosives we normally use for hull-breaching—”
“At our speed, in this sea and gale conditions, you’ll never land it.”
A silence. “We’re hoping for a window.”
“Unlikely, but have the bird stand by just in case. Next idea?”
“We were thinking that, on our pass, we could hook the
Brita
with our towing winch and try to pull her off course.”
“What kind of winch?”
“A seventy-ton electrohydraulic towing winch with a 40mm wire rope—”
“That would snap like a string.”
“It probably would. Another option would be to drop a buoy and tow the wire across your course, hoping to foul your propellers.”
“There’s no way a 40mm wire rope could stop four 21.5-megawatt screws. Don’t you carry fast rescue craft?”
“Unfortunately, there’s no way we can launch our two fast rescue craft in these seas. And in any case there’s no way we can come alongside to board or evacuate, because we can’t keep up with you.”
“Any other ideas?”
A pause. “That’s all we’ve been able to come up with.”
“Then we’ll have to go with my plan,” LeSeur said.
“Shoot.”
“You’re an icebreaker, am I right?” “Well, theGrenfell ’s an ice-strengthened ship, but she’s not a true icebreaker. We sometimes do icebreaking duties such as harbor breakouts.”
“Good enough.
Grenfell
, I want you to chart a course that will take you across our bow—in such a way as to shear it off.”
A silence, and then the reply came. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I read you,
Brita
.”
“You read me fine. The idea is, by opening selected bulkhead hatches we can flood forward compartments one, two, and three. That will put us down by the head enough to lift our screws almost out of the water. TheBrita
“You’re asking me to
ram
you? Good God, have you lost your mind? There’s a good chance I’d sink my own vessel!”
“It’s the only way. If you approach head-on just a few points off our starboard side, moving not too fast—say, five to eight knots—then, just before contact, back one screw hard while engaging your bow thrusters, you could shear off our bows with your reinforced forward hullplates, swing free, and we would pass clear of each other on the starboard side. It’d be close, but it would work. That is, if you’ve got the helmsmanship to pull it off.”
“I’ve got to check with Command.”
“We’ve got five minutes to our CPA rendezvous,
Grenfell
. You known damn well you’re not going to get clearance in time. Look, do you have the knackers to do this or not? That’s the real question.”
A long silence.
“All right,
Brita
. We’ll give it a try.”
68
CONSTANCE’S EYES FLEW OPEN, HER WHOLE BODY JERKING ITSELF awake with a muffled cry. The universe came rushing back—the ship, the rolling room, the splatter of the rain, the booming seas and moaning of the wind.
She stared at the
dgongs
. It lay in an untidy coil around an ancient scrap of crumpled silk. It had been untied—for real.
She looked at Pendergast, aghast. Even as she stared, his head rose slightly and his eyes came back to life, silvery irises glittering in the candlelight. A strange smile spread across his face. “You broke the meditation, Constance.”
“You were trying . . . to
drag
me into the fire,” she gasped.
“Naturally.”
She felt a wash of despair. Instead of pulling him out of darkness, she had almost been pulled in herself. “I was trying to free you from your earthly fetters,” he said.
“Free me,” she repeated bitterly.
“Yes. To become what you will: free of the chains of sentiment, morality, principles, honor, virtue, and all those petty things that contrive to keep us enchained in the human slave-galley with everyone else, rowing ourselves nowhere.”
“And that’s what the Agozyen has done to you,” she said. “Stripped away all moral and ethical inhibitions. Let your darkest, most sociopathic desires run rampant. That’s what it offered me as well.”
Pendergast rose and extended his hand. She did not take it.
“You untied the knot,” she said.
He spoke, his voice low and strangely vibrant with triumph. “I didn’t touch it. Ever.”
“But then how . . . ?”
“I untied it
with my mind
.”
She continued to stare. “That’s impossible.”
“It is not only possible, but it happened, as you can see.”
“The meditation failed. You’re the same.”
“The meditation worked , my dear Constance. I have changed—enormously. Thanks to your insistence that we do this, I have now fully realized the power given to me by the Agozyen. The power of pure thought—of mind over matter. I’ve tapped into an immense reservoir of power, and so can you.” His eyes were glittering, passionate. “This is an extraordinary demonstration of the Agozyen mandala and its ability to transform the human mind and human thought into a tool of colossal power.”
Constance stared at him, a creeping feeling of horror in her heart.
“You wanted to bring me back,” he continued. “You wanted to restore me to my old, conflicted, foolish self. But instead, you brought me forward. You opened the door. And now, my dear Constance, it’s your turn to be freed. Remember our little agreement?”
She couldn’t speak.
“That’s right. It is now your turn to gaze upon the Agozyen.”
Still, she hesitated.
“As you wish.” He rose and grabbed the neck of the canvas sack. “I’m through looking after you.” He moved toward the door, not looking at her, hoisting the sack onto his shoulder.
With a shock, she realized he had no more regard for her than for anyone else. “Wait—” she began.