Death Echo

the electronic chart on the computer’s wide screen. Nothing—land, boat, or seaplane—was close enough to worry about, yet Mac’s dark eyes kept probing the blue water ahead.
    â€œWhat are you looking for?” she asked.
    â€œFloating debris, logs, deadheads, clumps of seaweed, anything that can put a dent in my day.”
    She frowned and looked out at the water. “Is there a lot of that going around?”
    â€œIt’s worse in spring, when the melt comes and scours the riverbanks and vomits out dead forests to clutter up the sound. But we’ve been having big tides, the ones that lift centuries-old logs off beaches and send them out in the currents to play with anything else that floats.”
    She glanced at the various boats within sight. “I can see why the ferry and the big freighter aren’t worried about a few random chunks of wood, but why are all those pleasure craft racing around? And I do mean racing.”
    â€œSome of the captains are playing the odds. Most are watchingas carefully as I am. Even then,” he shrugged, “shit happens. That’s why pleasure boats don’t run at night out here, unless they have a steel hull and skegs protecting their props. Pod drives like ours just have to take their chances.”
    â€œNo protection?”
    â€œWe have skegs, but no guarantees. Like commuting on a freeway—sooner or later there will be a wreck. You just hope it’s not yours, because you have to keep on driving to make a living.”
    â€œThe waterhole theory of life at work,” Emma said.
    He looked at her in silent question.
    â€œThink of grazers approaching a waterhole at the end of the day,” she said. “They know lions are lying in wait, but there’s no choice. Water is just behind oxygen in our drive for life. So the grazers sweat and snort and shy and sidle closer to the water, knowing an individual blood sacrifice must be paid so that the rest of the herd can drink. Can survive.”
    Mac smiled like a hungry lion. “And everybody’s hoping it isn’t his turn to die.”
    â€œYeah.” She frowned and rubbed her hands over her arms. “I just wish I didn’t feel like Blackbird is a floating sacrifice for the good of the human herd.”
    He didn’t argue with her, which didn’t make her feel better.
    â€œSo, we won’t be running at night?” Emma asked.
    â€œNot unless we have to. Take the controls. Let’s see how much you learned. And be grateful you already knew how to plot a course on paper.”
    â€œBasic training,” she said. “Like riding a bike. Never goes away.”
    Unfortunately, knowing how to plot paper courses and run the boat’s computer and understanding the theory of throttle movements wasn’t the same as actually driving all those tons of yacht on a fluid, shifting, unmarked road.
    â€œPod drive?” she asked hopefully. She’d played more than her share of video games.
    â€œToo easy. Better you learn the hard way so you can appreciate the easy way.”
    She grimaced. “You sure? Theory is one thing….”
    â€œYou’d rather practice with me dead on the deck and bullets screaming around?”
    â€œGod, Mac. You should write a book on sweet talk.”
    â€œTell me that tomorrow morning.”
    She looked at his dark, dark eyes and felt like she was soaring off a cliff, flying high, no land in sight.
    She liked it.
    He said something under his breath, gestured to the controls, and slid out of the wheel seat.
    Steering the boat suddenly seemed safer than looking in Mac’s eyes. Emma took the controls and concentrated on something besides the unnerving pulse of heat in her blood.
    He watched silently, letting her learn firsthand the difference between driving a car and a boat. Once she caught on to correcting for tide and currents, he told her to plot a point ahead and lock it into the autopilot. She touched the screen quickly, answered the computer’s prompts, and let go of the wheel.
    Blackbird sailed on, correcting its course via satellite, uncaring whether it was under human or electronic control.
    â€œYou’re a quick study,” Mac said.
    â€œI’ve had to be.” She smiled suddenly. “Besides, I like challenges.” Mac wished he could take this challenging woman down to the master suite and see what each could teach and learn.
    Bad time.
    Right