North Cape

"Not over two miles. If we find nothing we'll try the coast to the west." He shook his head doubtfully. "I don't know though, the charts show nothing but cliffs for the next ten miles in either direction. If we don't get to that pilot soon, we may as well not even bother."

Folsom nodded and picked up the microphone to order the course change and get the lookouts out onto the bridge deck.

The ragged coastline slid by with inexorable slowness. The battle cruiser moved along the line of breakers marking the cliffs while snow fell intermittently but heavily enough to obscure visibility much of the time. The cliffs, sixty to a hundred feet high, were steep columns of rock that seemed to rise directly from the sea, and nowhere along their length could the searching seamen find any trace of beach, however small, that would permit a landing. After fifteen minutes Larkin reluctantly ordered the RFK brought about. The great ship now quickened its pace for the run up to the west. Time was growing short. Larkin knew Teleman would be on his last reserves of strength. Unless they got to him shortly, he would, in his weakened condition, die in a matter of hours.

The landing place, the only one they found, was a tiny beach less than a hundred yards wide and so shallow that the heavy seas washed perilously close to the base of the cliffs. From what Folsom could see between the crash of each wave, the beach, such as it was, was covered with heavy gravel and sloped upward steeply to the cliffs. A shallow cut led up, to disappear around a chimney of rock, but presumably pointed to the top, ninety feet up. It would be a rugged climb, Folsom knew, and a bad one in the winds which would surely be sweeping up the cut turning it into a wind tunnel. But it was the only feasible landing place they had found so far. And unless they moved farther west, down the coast another twenty miles to where the cliffs began to peter out, it was the only one they were going to find.

"Pete, what do you think? Can a boat be gotten in?" Folsom searched the narrow beach again with his glasses before replying. "I think so, Captain. If the waves are timed right, I think it could be done. Getting back out again will be the trick."

Larkin turned his own glasses on the beach. "If you can get in and find the pilot, you could wait it out in the boat until we can get a helicopter in."

"Me, Captain?"

Larkin lowered the glasses and turned to Folsom, his face completely serious.

"Yep — surprise. I would like you to lead the landing party. You know how important it is that the pilot be gotten out."

Folsom nodded silently, turning his eyes away from Larkin to stare at the distant line of cliffs. Larkin's voice contained all the explanation needed. He was indeed aware of the importance, the vital importance. "In that case, I would like to take an armed party, just to be on the safe side."

"Of course. Anything you need?" Larkin paused, considering his executive officer for a moment "What do you think, Pete?" he asked softly.

"I guess I can only give it a try," Folsom said with a grin that he did not feel. The lifeboat that rested on the aft deck was certainly odd in contrast to the sleekness of the RFK. It was a flattened sphere twelve feet in diameter, its bottom resting on a flaring, truncated cone skirt. Made of fiberglass, it was painted international orange. Folsom had always had cause to shake his head every time he saw the lifeboat above decks; strangelooking as it was, he knew it was the safest possible design that had yet evolved. There were no open-areas to fill with water in heavy seas. You entered the boat through one of three hatches near the top and let yourself down into a roomy interior lined with bunks. In the center was a closed-off electrical heating unit, powered either with a wind-driven generator or a fuel cell. The thing was literally unsinkable. The flaring skirt around the base provided stability in seas running to forty-foot waves or better. Folsom gathered, his two-man party around him to receive their last instructions from Larkin, who shook hands briefly with each man, and then they climbed aboard and sealed the hatches. Larkin stood back as the winches eased the boat off the deck and over the side. As it slid slowly down into the waves, through the upper rim of ports, Folsom and his crew could see the hull of the RFK towering over them. The waves caught at the lifeboat before Folsom got the engine started and slammed them into the side of the battle cruiser with bruising force.