She was floating face-down, wearing mask and snorkel, suspended warmly above a sapphire void. The surface was a vast blue mirror. The sun baking her bottom had chiseled out planes of light below, which slanted as far down as she could see. She was a thousand miles from the nearest land, in water three miles deep, trying to cool off in the Doldrums.

She turned her head. The keel of Linda Lee, battleship-solid, lay 100 feet away. The boat, seen underwater, was always immense, and very comforting. Its brick-red paint, waving tendrils of bottom-growth, stretched before her. The great bronze propeller, idle and growing barnacles on its shaft, increased in size underwater and looked as if it belonged on the Queen Mary.

Their little black and yellow pilot fish, Elmer, floated faithfully at the turn of the bilge. He seemed determined to follow them all the way to the Marquesas, swimming in their shadow. When a fish had to look for shade, it was hot.

Usually he was busy nibbling at the tubular barnacles which grew in the green moss on the hull. But now he was studying her thoughtfully. Something in his gaze discomfited her. She waved at him self-consciously. He continued to stare.

She had never seen him leave the hull, but all at once he darted toward her. His tiger-striped body flashed below. Surprised, she beckoned him back, but he disappeared to the north without even a glance.

The hell with him. She returned her gaze to the deep. She was looking for something, anything, to break the monotony and to tell Mitch, who was reading in the cockpit. She visualized a passing Russian submarine, or another glimpse of the voyeur whale which had surprised them while they were making love on the dinghy last night, or a school of mahi-mahi But she could not concentrate.

An evil conviction grew in her that something had chased Elmer off. A shark?

What in the hell was she doing, floating in water three miles deep, a thousand miles from land?

She shivered in the lukewarm sea. Now, somehow, she was certain a shark was there. The question was, where? She didn’t dare look down. Gently, keeping her legs motionless, she raised her head. Linda Lee, through her mask on the surface, was a blurry, smeary mass. She pushed back the faceplate. The boat lay frozen in time on a glassy sea. Her sails were creased and limp.

Mitch was lying somewhere in the cockpit reading, under a canvas canopy, in jet-black shade. Sweat would be rolling down his bare chest and buttocks and pooling in his cockpit cushion, stinging his ass-rash. So in a few more minutes, as he had been doing for the last three days, he would dive into the water with her, leaving the boat unattended. The shark would feast on them both, and Elmer would pick up the scraps.

“Mitch?” she called softly. “Mitch?”