The Merlin Effect Read Free Page B

wet clothes in a pile.
    Kate raised her head, looked into his chocolate brown eyes. “Pretty stupid, huh?” She took a sip from the mug in her hands.
    Her father cocked his head and started cracking eggs intothe pan. “No, I wouldn’t say stupid. More like idiotic.” He threw the shells into a trash bin under the steering wheel. “That was a close call for both of us. I try hard never to go out past the second buoy.”
    She listened to the waves lapping at the sides of the
Skimmer.
“I can see why.”
    “At least you had enough sense to wear your life jacket. And that headlamp. I never would have seen you otherwise.”
    “It was dumb luck, not sense.”
    Turning back to the eggs, Jim began stirring them with an old wooden spoon. “Like them plain? Or my special way, Baja Scramble?”
    “Your way is fine,” mumbled Kate feebly. She swallowed some more tea, her eyes roaming the boat’s interior. The chipping gray paint, the shelves of food supplies, the boxes of diving equipment and spare parts, and the piles of nautical maps gave no hint that this was anything but a normal shrimp trawler. Only the counter by the burner, piled high with computer equipment, discarded printouts, and reference books on sonic imaging, revealed anything different.
    “How come you were out so far in the kayak?”
    “I was just, ah…exploring.”
    “Exploring!” Jim stopped stirring. “You could have been killed!”
    She frowned, said nothing.
    “Don’t you know there’s a whirlpool near here? Half a mile wide and probably just as deep?”
    “Sure, but—”
    “Then what ever possessed you to come out so far?”
    “The second buoy.” She paused, on the edge of describing her contact with the whale, then thought better of it. “I wanted to, ah, check it out.”
    Her father scrutinized her, then resumed cooking.
    “You’ve got to respect the sea, Kate. It’s full of surprises, often deadly. It’s no place to play around. There’s an old saying about this coastline.
Mas lejos de la orilla, mas cerca de la muerté.
It means
Farther from shore
…”
    “Nearer to death,”
she finished grimly. Trying to change the subject, she asked, “So why were you out with the
Skimmer?
You almost never sail after dark.”
    Jim tasted the eggs, then went back to stirring. “Well, it’s like this. You know how long it’s taken me to get Terry to part with his precious equipment so I could use it to take a sonic picture?”
    “Ever since we got here.”
    “Right. Well, no sooner do I get it all set up and start to shoot the area right under the whirlpool than the screen goes blank. Completely blank! The monitor showed a malfunction at the second buoy, so I hustled out here to check.”
    Kate stiffened. “The second buoy?”
    He glanced her way. “Don’t worry, we’re safe. I’ve got us tied up tight to the buoy. We’ll only stay here a little while longer, so I can do the repairs.”
    Stirring uneasily, she asked, “Repairs?”
    “On the sonar gear.” Pouting, he wiped the spoon on the edge of the pan. “Some damned sea animal decided to get playful with the transmitter dish. Broke it clean off, though I’m sure it’s still there, tangled up in the net someplace.”
    Again she stirred beneath the blankets. “What if the transmitter dish is…gone?”
    “Sunk? No chance. I tied those knots myself.”
    “But—”
    “Before I can repair the buoy, though, I need to see if any data got stored before the dish broke off.” Reaching his long arm to the topmost shelf, he steadied himself against the rocking of the waves and pulled down a jar of salsa. As heunscrewed the cap, he nodded toward a black cable stretching from the computer out the door of the cabin. “I’m processing that right now. It’ll take a few minutes. The equipment here on the boat isn’t as powerful as what we have back at camp.”
    Pouring the spicy salsa into the pan, he mixed it with the eggs. “I’m glad you’ve learned your lesson. All my life