If they ever got struck by a whale and had to abandon the ketch, the transmitter would be nice for Lindy’s morale. But Mitch had directed enough unsuccessful searches in crowded Korean waters to know that in the untraveled South Pacific it would be as useful as a candle held aloft.

The gift succeeded, of course, in summoning the image of Lindy and him in a life raft under an empty sky. “Very interesting approach,” he said ungratefully. “Italian. Machiavellian, you might say. But just a little too late.”

Bernie shrugged. “Not too late.” He produced the agreement, ready to tear it in half. “Your chair’s still warm.”

“Sorry,” smiled Mitch. When they shook hands, Bernie suddenly hugged his shoulders.

Mitch was touched, but Bernie had already clouded the day.

Tony hitchhiked down from Humboldt to see them off. He arrived as Mitch was preparing to crawl into the engine compartment to change the oil filter. Mitch laid out his tools while Tony watched. The kid was nervous as a defendant being sworn. Mitch suspected that when he was safely crammed below, out of sight, his hands slippery with warm engine oil and his mind on nuts and bolts, his son would drop whatever bomb was balanced on the edge of his mind.

Tony had paused to leave his sleeping bag at Nancy’s, and thus arrived too late to help Lindy, who’d already left to pick up a last case of canned food from the wholesale market.

“Nothing I can do, Dad?” he asked without enthusiasm. There was plenty, but Mitch regarded his son and shook his head. Tony seemed on the edge of a breakdown: he was yawning, his foot was jiggling, his fingers were tapping, and his eyes were shifting. If Mitch asked him to tune the rigging or to hank-on the jib, he would probably mangle a turnbuckle or drop the sail overboard.

“You might tell me what’s on your mind.”

Tony looked up, startled. “Nothing. Why?” There was no way to float the problem to the surface, so Mitch snaked into a hole that even his son could barely have fitted—and hadn’t volunteered. He flicked on the dim worklight behind the engine and began to unscrew the filter. When there was no chance that he would reemerge to face him, Tony launched his rocket. “Dad?”

“Um?”

“I can’t go back.”

Mitch dropped the master nut from the filter casing. In the orange glow of his worklamp, he saw it roll along the engine bed. He grabbed for it, knocked it off, and heard it plop into the bilge, far below the pan and forever out of reach. "Shit!"

“I’m sorry, Dad,” Tony said distantly. “I flunked biology, and soil chemistry I, and—”

Mitch’s crotch felt moist and he discovered that oil was trickling onto his belly. “Son of a bitch,” he growled. “Tony, look—”

“I’m sorry, Dad. I know how you feel, but—”