dangerous, uncontrollable pest humanity had ever known. Imagine what
damage rats could do, how rapidly their numbers would grow, if they
were even half as smart as human beings and could learn how to avoid
all traps and poisons.
Were these monkeys truly escapees from a laboratory, loose in the world
and cleverly eluding capture? If so, how did they get to be so
intelligent in the first place? What did they want? What was their
agenda? Why hadn’t a massive effort been launched to track them down,
round them up, and return them to better cages from which they could
never break free?
Or were they tools being used by someone at Wyvern? The way the cops
use trained police dogs. The way the Navy uses dolphins to search for
enemy submarines and, in wartime-it is rumored-even to plant magnetic
packages of explosives on the hulls of targeted boats.
A thousand other questions swarmed through my mind. All of them were
equally crazy.
Depending on the answers, the ramifications of these monkeys’
heightened intelligence could be earth-shattering. The possible
consequences to human civilization were especially alarming when You
considered the viciousness of these animals and their apparently innate
hostility.
Angela’s prediction of doom might not have been farfetched, might
actually have been less pessimistic than my assessment of the situation
would be when-if ever-I knew all the facts. Certainly, doom had come
to Angela herself.
I also intuited that the monkeys were not the entire story. They were
but one chapter of an epic. Other astonishments were awaiting
discovery.
Compared to the project at Wyvem, Pandora’s fabled box, from which had
been unleashed all the evils that plague human -wars, pestilence,
diseases, famines, floods-might prove to have held only a collection of
petty nuisances.
In my haste to get to the marina, I was cycling too fast to allow Orson
to keep pace with me. He was sprinting full throttle, ears flapping,
panting hard, but falling steadily behind.
In truth, I was cranking the bike to the max not because I was in a
hurry to reach the marina but because, unconsciously, I wanted to
outrace the tidal wave of terror sweeping toward us. There was no
escaping it, however, and no matter how furiously I pedaled, I could
outrun nothing but my dog.
Recalling Dad’s final words, I stopped pedaling and coasted until Orson
was able to stay at my side without heroic effort.
Never leave a friend behind. Friends are all we have to get us through
this life-and they are the only things from this world that we could
hope to see in the next.
Besides, the best way to deal with a rising sea of trouble is to catch
the wave at the zero break and ride it out, slide along the face
straight into the cathedral, get totally Ziplocked in the green room,
walk the board all the way through the barrel, hooting, showing no
fear.
That’s not only cool: It’s classic.
With a gentle and even tender sound, like flesh on flesh in a honeymoon
bed, low waves slipped between the pilings and slapped against the sea
wall. The damp air offered a faint and pleasant aromatic melange of
brine, fresh kelp, creosote, rusting iron, and other fragrances I
couldn’t quite identify.
The marina, tucked into the sheltered northeast corner of the bay,
offers docking for fewer than three hundred vessels, only six of which
are full-time residences for their owners. Although social life in
Moonlight Bay does not center around boating, there is a long waiting
list for any slip that becomes available.
I walked my bike toward the west end of the main pier, which ran
parallel to shore. The tires swished and bumped softly across the
dew-wet, uneven planks. Only one boat in the marina had lights in its
windows at that hour. Dock lamps, though dim, showed me the way
through the fog.
Because the fishing fleet ties up farther out along the northern horn
of the bay, the comparatively sheltered marina is reserved for pleasure
craft. There are sloops and ketches and yawls ranging from modest to
impressive-although more of the former than the latter-motor yachts
mostly of manageable length and price, a few Boston Whalers, and even