For Love of Mother-Not - Alan Dean Foster [59]
“A one-shot gun?” he murmured. “I didn’t even hear it go off. What was the purpose of that crazy charge?” He wrestled with the wheel.
“That charge was our insurance, Flinx.” She gestured back toward the storage locker where she had repositioned the narrow gun. “That gun was a Marker. We use it to help track injured fish that break their lines.” She nodded toward the skimmer. “I think I hit it twice. The gun fires a capsule which holds a specially sensitized gel. Epoxied bonder, sticks to anything on contact, and it’s not water soluble. As long as they don’t think to check the underside of their skimmer for damage, and there’s no reason for them to do so since it’s operating perfectly, they’ll never see the gel. It’s transparent, anyway. Now we can track them.”
“Not with this boat, surely.”
“No. But there’s a skimmer back at the lodge. Would’ve taken too long to ready it or we’d be on it now instead of on this boat. Wish we were. No reason to expect a skimmer to show up suddenly to help them, though.” She gestured toward the mudder.
“As long as they don’t get too far ahead of us, we’ll be able to follow them—just like we did with this boat. But if we can hurt them now . . .” She looked back through the telescopic sight. “Ah, they’ve taken your mother up on a hoist. Strapped in. I’m sure she didn’t make it easy for them.”
“She wouldn’t,” Flinx murmured affectionately.
“Clear shooting now,” Lauren said delightedly. A loud beeping sounded from the tracking unit.
“What’s that?” Flinx gave the device a puzzled glance.
Lauren uttered a curse and pulled away from the rifle. A quick glance at the screen and Flinx found himself shoved none too gently out of the pilot’s chair. He landed on the deck hard.
“Hey, what’s—!”
Lauren wasn’t listening to him as she wrenched the wheel hard to starboard. Flinx frantically grabbed for some support as the boat heeled over. He could just see the port hull rising clear of the water as something immense and silvery-sided erupted from the lake’s surface.
Chapter Ten
Screams and shouts came from the vicinity of the mudders and the skimmer. A violent reactive wave nearly capsized the jet boat; only Lauren’s skillful and experienced maneuvering kept them afloat.
Flinx saw a vast argent spine shot through with flecks of gold that shone in the diffused sunlight. It looked like a huge pipe emerging from beneath the waves, and it turned the sunlight to rainbows. Then it was gone, not endless as he first believed. Another wave shook the catamaran as the monster submerged once again. Flinx pulled himself up to where he could peer over the edge of the cabin compartment.
The mudders had vanished completely, sucked down in a single gulp by whatever had materialized from the depths of the lake. The skimmer itself just missed being dragged down by that great gulf of a mouth. It hovered above the disturbed section of lake where its companion craft had been only a moment ago. Then someone on the skimmer apparently made a decision, for it rose another twenty meters toward the clouds and accelerated rapidly northward.
“They’re leaving,” Flinx shouted. “We have to get back to the lodge, get the skimmer you mentioned, and hurry after them before—”
“We have to get out of here alive first.” Lauren followed her announcement with another curse as her hands tore at the wheel. The silver mountain lifted from the lake just starboard of the jet boat. Flinx was gifted with a long, uncomfortable view down a throat wide enough to swallow several mudders intact. Or a jet boat. The jaws slammed shut, sending a heavy spray crashing over the gunwales. The monster was so close Flinx could smell its horrid breath. Then it was sinking back into the waters boiling behind the catamaran.
Something moved on his shoulder, and he reached up to grasp at the muscular form that was uncoiling. “No, Pip! Easy . . . this one’s too big even for you.” The snake struggled for a moment before relaxing. It bobbed and ducked nervously, however,