Then where the hell was the strobe? The absence of the other flotsam he understood. Pillows, life jackets, bunk mattresses, and cockpit cushions were light, high out of the water, and would quickly have sailed downwind. But not the man-overboard gear: a little nylon drogue attached to the buoy was supposed to hold it against the drift. Besides, the strobe light was heavy and low in the water and would itself resist the tug of the wind; the whole conglomeration—buoy, pole, and strobe—was supposed to stay put; that was why you carried it in the first place.

He had dropped it very near her, according to the log. She must have found it. She must be clinging to it now.

If she lived...

His eyes blurred with tears. He snapped alert at a squeal from below. His heart almost stopped. The cat? No, Jesus, the rat! Hunger must have hyped the cat into action. He heard a scuffle, the crash of a metal pot, a scratching of claws against varnish. He moved forward and peered down the hatch, but after the morning sun in his eyes, everything below was pitch black.

Screw it. He wished the rat well and the cat bad luck. He wouldn’t stop the search to help; he didn’t intend to miss searching a square inch of water.

The trades were rising. There were approaching squalls on the eastern horizon that he did not like, there were always squalls somewhere. He was intent on them when he heard an engine.

He tensed, wheeled, and looked aft. He saw nothing. The throbbing blended with the rumble of Lindy Lee’s diesel. He throttled back, then cut his motor entirely. He searched again astern.

Dead aft, perhaps ten or fifteen miles away, he spotted a tiny silver dot, an aircraft at four thousand or five thousand feet. It seemed to stop, as if banking toward him, or away. A flash of morning sunlight, as if from an upturned wing, flicked his eyes.

He dove into the lazarette for the Stars and Stripes. He hoisted the flag on the starboard yardarm, upside down, and clambered halfway up the shrouds. When he turned and found the plane again, it seemed to have turned back to its course, ignoring him.

He screamed, waved wildly, almost fell off, caught himself, and began to yell again. As if it heard him, the plane turned back, wavered indecisively, turned away and continued again on its original course. It was a twin-engined turboprop, and he could hear the beat of its power plants, just a little out of synch, humming to the northwest. He begged it to change its mind, to turn, to take another look into the path of the morning sun...