“Wish I may, wish I might, wish I may, wish I might, wish I may, wish I might….”
There was a bank of thin mist clinging to the black surface of the sea about a half mile away to the west. Jim lay back and rested, watching it, aware that he needed to exercise extreme caution for the next few hours. If the fog came closer and thickened, then it would be only too easy to lose all sense of direction. They had no compass in the boat, and it would be frighteningly simple to row strongly out toward the far horizon instead of trying to keep reasonably close in to shore.
Jim also knew that the coast of northern California was notorious for dangerous currents and treacherous changes in the weather.
But for now he felt fairly secure.
He was trying to identify some of the main diamond-glittering patterns in the starry sky from his fast-fading memory. It had been at least nine years ago, at the beginning of his space training, when Ursa Major and Orion and Betelgeuse and Cygnus and Hydra were all familiar to him, along with hundreds of other stars and constellations.
“Delphinus?” he said quietly, doubtfully. “Draco, over there? Shit, I don’t know.”
It was a passingly strange thought that all of his qualifications and expertise as a leading officer in the United States space program were now of less value than his ability to kill other human beings with the big Ruger Blackhawk Hunter holstered at his hip.
Sly had finally fallen silent and was doubled over, his large head resting on his hands. Jim was astounded at the lad’s resilience, wondering what he must have made of the past few weeks of his life. To be ripped away from his mother, Alison, though that was probably not much hardship. And then to be exposed to so much death. The deaths of his father and then his good and trusted friend, Kyle Lynch.
Jim also wondered what might have happened to the rest of his command. How many were alive?
“If any,” he whispered.
The rocking of the boat made him feel sleepy, but he fought against it, digging his fingernails into his cheeks, pinching himself hard, until tears watered his eyes.
The stranger from the mist… what had his name been? Dorian Langford, the widowed publisher of school textbooks. He’d said the big quakes had devastated the land to the north, severing virtually all communication by land. Thousands of acres flooded as the sea had broken inland. Jim had seen some old vids of the catastrophic disaster of the early nineties, clear over the Midwest, when months of rain had inundated tens of thousands of square miles all across the valleys of the Missouri and the Mississippi. It was an eco-holocaust that had taken the region thirty years to recover from. It had finally just about gotten back on course when Earthblood had struck.
If the cautious Mr. Langford had been correct, then it might involve a long ocean journey in the frail little rowboat before they could once again find dry land and resume the quest toward Aurora.
The swaying movement of the little boat was languorous, the chuckle of water rippling under the keel lulling Jim Hilton toward sleep….
IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL sunny morning, in the hills above the reservoir, less than a half mile from the Hollywood sign. Jim was standing in the heated pool of his home on Tahoe Drive. The twins, Andrea and Heather, were rehearsing a playlet to be performed at their school in a few days, just before Easter. They wore frilled bathing costumes, Andrea’s vivid green and Heather’s a startling bloodred.
Jim leaned on the hot stones and smiled up into the cloudless sky.
This was about as close to perfect happiness as the gods allowed you to get.
Lori came out of the cool depths of the house, sliding back the almost invisible screen door. She carried a large white tray, carefully picking her way around the girls.
“Hi, lover.”
Jim waved to her, sending spreading ripples across the chlorinated turquoise pool. “Looks good,” he called.
“Me or the food?”
“Both, of course.”