Aurora Quest

Heather glanced at Carrie and Jim. “Sorry,” she muttered. “Didn’t think.”

“Don’t worry,” said Carrie. “We’re all bone weary, kid. Get to land and catch up on some sleep. That’s what I’m most looking forward to.”

“Stop rowing,” said Jim, sitting in the stern, fingers cramped around the tiller of the little vessel. Oddly it seemed to be chillier now than when they had first started their voyage, with sleet among the rain.

Sly and Carrie both followed his orders, carefully bringing the oars in and laying them along the bottom of the boat. Heather was poised in the bow, holding the coil of rope, ready to jump out onto the spit of land.

They’d come through a bank of drizzle, and everyone was cold and tired and wet. But at least they were going to he back on solid, if not dry, land.

Jim’s wristwatch, when he wiped it clean, showed it was close to noon.

He glanced behind him, to the open ocean, and farther south, to distant Eureka. The sky was dull, clouds pressing down onto the surface of the sea as if air and water were somehow merging into each other.

For a fraction of a stolen moment the clouds shifted, and he thought he glimpsed a ship, far, far off, with dark-colored sails. Blue or green. Then the wind veered and the curtain closed and the vessel vanished.

“Painted ship on a painted ocean,” he muttered, dredging the phrase from his high-school memory.

Jim’s attention came back to the land. He wrinkled his forehead at the realization that he’d been careless. He’d been surviving in the ravaged world for long enough to know that if you wanted to stay alive you checked and then you checked again. After that you checked once more.

But there was no sign of life.

Dreary hillsides, bare of any vegetation, showed only the stumps of dead trees. It looked as though there had recently been a high tide, with mud and drifted detritus spread all along the waterline.

Jim spotted what looked like blacktop, approximately fifty feet above them, running north to south. Likely the highway that they’d have taken if they hadn’t been forced into the detour of Eureka. There was also a burned out building along to the left, with smoke-blackened walls and eyeless windows.

It was just possible a mile or so north to see some higher ground, dusted with fine snow.

Heather was standing up as the boat drifted in, almost silently, its keel grating in the dirt. She turned around and grinned at her father.

“Like Columbus or the pilgrim fathers. Shall I claim this new and unknown land in the name of the Hilton family? Or in the name of Aurora?”

Jim and Carrie laughed, Sly following their example a few beats later.

The shot came from somewhere inland, close to the road, the explosion echoing flatly out to sea. Jim spotted a puff of smoke, blown instantly away.

But that wasn’t what mattered.

Heather screamed once, her arms thrown wide, the rope dropping. Her feet slipped, and she fell over the side of the boat into the shallow water with a resounding splash.

Jim Hilton’s mind blanked out on him at the realization of blind disaster.

Chapter Sixteen

Pamela McGill was standing on the main deck of the Eureka Belle, staring out ahead. It was freezing cold, with no sign of the sun, though her father had claimed that it wasn’t all that far off noon.

The land had been visible for some time now. Paul had clambered up the mainmast an hour ago and shouted down that he could see it. Now it was more than just a blur. There were some mountains, snow tipped, to the north. The bay that the earthquake had created seemed to stretch inland for dozens of miles and had totally altered the shape of the coast.

“See anyone, child?” Nanci had come up behind her, silent as ever.

“No. Is there something on the beach there?”

The older woman shaded her eyes. “Lord gave you good sight,” she said with what sounded like a note of irritation in her voice. “Can just make out… No, I’ll take your word for it. What do you figure?”

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