“Fifty-nine percent!” Racine called.
“All right, Hogg,” Daniel said. His servant touched a key of the cockpit radio.
A white flash lit the underside of Ganser’s truck, still parked beside the ruined harbormaster’s office. The sharp bang an instant later was simultaneous with the billow of orange fire enveloping the front of the vehicle. Hogg’s small explosive charge had ruptured the fuel tank and ignited the contents.
The Ahura drove toward the harbor entrance at increasing speed. The blaze on the waterfront would hold the attention of those in the houses. Lamsoe kept the automatic impeller trained on the community; other sailors had their weapons ready as well, but the yacht might have been leaving a city of the dead for all the response Adele saw.
The masts adjusted automatically so that the solar panels gathered the maximum available sunlight. Daniel was giving orders and the Cinnabar crew seethed with meaningful activity as the shore receded, but Adele’s mind was in a place of its own.
The boy she’d killed had haunted her dreams for fifteen years. Now that accusing corpse would have five fellows for company.
* * *
“We’re at a hundred percent and rising, sir,” Racine called. “Shall I bring the charging system on line?”
Racine was a fitter from the Aglaia’s power room and seemed comfortable with the inside of delicate electronics. The riggers who made up the bulk of Daniel’s detachment were resourceful and extremely good with their hands, but they tended to think in terms of breaking strain rather than impedances.
“Not yet,” Daniel said. “I want her up on the skids first.”
He turned toward Woetjans and said, “Prepare to deploy skids!”
“Grab hold, everybody!” Woetjans bellowed.
Daniel wasn’t concerned about the ratings knowing what to do, but he glanced over his shoulder in the other direction to make sure that Adele had obeyed. She held one of the handgrips bolted to the cockpit sides. Her hair, almost as short as that of the naval personnel, ruffled in the twenty mile per hour breeze. This was the best speed of which the Ahura was capable with its hull wet.
Daniel grasped the lever in front of him with his left hand. He drew it back firmly.
The two narrow skids made a grinding noise as they rotated out of their housings in the forward hull. Miniature ball lightnings appeared to port and starboard, six feet from the cockpit. Daniel’s hair rose on end. He’d been aboard electrofoils a dozen times, but this transition phase always made him wish he’d stayed on shore.
The Ahura lurched onto her skids with a crackling roar. Without the drag of her hull the yacht jumped ahead, though for the moment the waterjet continued to provide the propulsion.
The Ahura was levitating on static charges induced in the sea beneath her and precisely equal charges in the skids. Unlike a hydrofoil, the electrofoil could hover at a dead stop without any portion of the vessel touching the water.
“No drop in power, sir!” Racine said. “She’s clean and the current’s still going up. Shall I—”
“Not yet!” Daniel repeated. He set the automatic pilot for 60 mph, then engaged it while watching the bubble level.
The waterjet, the vessel’s last contact with the sea over which she floated, retracted into the lower hull.
The Ahura surged ahead again, her speed continuing to build. The electrical charges were no longer in balance: the induced field migrated sternward by a matter of a few centimeters. The difference meant that the charges’ repulsion thrust the hull forward instead of merely lifting it.
The yacht reached sixty miles an hour and steadied. Windthrust was a serious force, particularly for the ratings on the open deck. Daniel was sure he could increase speed by another twenty miles an hour, perhaps more, but the punishment the crew would take wasn’t worth the increment.
The Ahura was as sweet a craft as a man could wish. She handled this heavy load with a smooth ride and perfect docility in the controls.
“Engage the charging system, Racine,” Daniel ordered. “Cafoldi, come take the helm.”
The batteries would charge from the excess of solar power over the needs of the foils. With luck the Ahura would be able to continue all night without reducing speed.