For Love of Mother-Not - Alan Dean Foster [60]
For a third time, the penestral struck, snapping in frustration at the spot where the jet boat had been only seconds earlier. Thanks to the tracker, which had first warned Lauren of the nightmare’s approach, they were able to avoid its upward rush.
“This won’t do,” she murmured. “It’ll keep working us until I make a mistake. Then it’ll take us the way it took the poor souls still stuck on those mudders.” She studied the tracker intently. “It’s circling now. Trying to cut us off from shallow water and the shore. We’ll let it think we’re headed that way. Then we’ll reverse back into deep water.”
“Why?”
She ignored the question. “You didn’t care for it when I had to shove you away from the wheel a few minutes ago, did you? Here, it’s all yours again.” She reached down and half pulled, half guided him back into the pilot’s chair. “That’s enough.” She threw the wheel over, and the boat seemed to spin on its axis. Flinx grabbed for the wheel.
“It’ll follow us straight now instead of trying to ambush us from below and will try to hit us from astern. Keep us headed out into the lake and let me know when it’s tangent to our square.” She indicated the red dot on the tracking screen that was closing on them from behind.
“But shouldn’t we—?”
She wasn’t listening to him as she made her way back to the pair of gantrylike structures protruding from the rear of the boat. She took a seat behind one, stretched it out so the arm hung free over the water, then checked controls.
“When I tell you,” she shouted back at him over the roar of the engine and the spray, “go hard a-port. That’s left.”
“I remember,” he snapped back at her. His attention was locked to the tracker. “It’s getting awfully close.”
“Good.” She positioned herself carefully in the seat, touched a switch. Flexible braces snapped shut across her waist, hips, shoulders and legs, pinning her to the seat in a striped cocoon.
“Awfully close,” Flinx reiterated.
“Not ready yet,” she murmured. “A fisherman has to be patient” The water astern began to bubble, a disturbance more widespread than a mere boat engine could produce. “Now!” she shouted.
Flinx wrenched the wheel to his left. Simultaneously, the surface of the lake exploded behind them. With both hands on the wheel, there was nothing Flinx could do except cry out as Pip left its perch and launched itself into the air. A muffled explosion sounded from the stern, and a moment later its echo reached him as the harpoon struck the penestral just beneath one of the winglike fins that shielded its gills.
The soaring monster displaced the lake where the jet boat had been before Flinx had sent it screaming into a tight turn. A distant crump reached the surface as the harpoon’s delayed charge went off inside the guts of the penestral. Polyline spewed from a drum inside the ship’s hull, a gel coating eliminating dangerous heat buildup where line rubbed the deck.
“Cut the engine,” came the command from astern.
“But then we won’t have any—” he started to protest.
“Do it,” she ordered.
Flinx sighed. He was not a good swimmer. He flicked the accelerator until their speed dropped to nothing. The jet engine sank to an idle. Instantly, the catamaran began moving in reverse. The twin hulls were pointed aft as well as forward, and the boat moved neatly through the water as it was towed backward. The retreating polyline slowed from a blur to where Flinx could count space markings as it slid off the boat. Meanwhile, Lauren had reloaded the harpoon gun and was watching the surface carefully.
She called back to him. “Where’s the penestral?”
“Still moving ahead of us, but I think it’s slowing.”
“That’s to be expected. Keep your hands on the accelerator and the wheel.”
“It’s still slowing,” he told her. “Slowing, slowing—I can’t see it anymore. I think it’s under the boat!”
“Go!” she yelled, but at that point he didn’t need to be told what to do; he had already jammed the accelerator control