"Your views are taken under advisement. But a great American philosopher once said it ain't over till it's over." He pushed the thumb switch on the microphone, clicking it off. Then he switched it on again. "By the way, amigo, good luck with the test." The Cyclops was going to power the world's first laser-driven space vehicle. Who knew if it would work?
'Thanks, we may need it. Catch you again at 2300."
"See you then." If I'm still around, he thought. He clicked off his mike, then switched back to channel sixteen. The radio was the only electronic equipment he had permitted himself. He enjoyed monitoring the Greek chatter coming from the island fishing boats and trawlers, which worked nights. Lots of bragging.
Now, though, the bursts of talk on the open channel were all about the building storm. The fishing boats this night had abandoned the Aegean to the massive inter-island ferries. In fact, those white multi-deck monsters were his real concern, more than the storm. Odyssey II had no radar, and his tiny mast lantern would just melt into the rain when the storm hit. Sailing in the dark and in a squall was a game of pure defense; he had to keep every sense alert—sight, hearing, even smell. He prayed the ferry lanes would be empty tonight. A Nomicos Line triple-decker could slice his little homemade toy in half without ever knowing he was there.
Odyssey II was a thirty-eight-foot wooden bark, planked construction of cypress on oak, that no sane man would have taken out of a marina. But Michael Vance was hoping to prove to the world that the fabled voyage of Ulysses from Troy back to Greece could have happened. Unlike anything seen afloat for almost three thousand years, his "yacht" was, in fact, an authentic replica of a single-masted Mycenaean warship. Painted lavender and gold—the ancient Greeks loved bold colors—she could have been a theme-park ride. But every time he looked her over, he felt proud.
His browned, cracked fingers gripped the wet wood as the sea churned ever higher, now blotting out the dim line of the horizon. The storm was arriving just as daylight faded— the worst moment.
Enough thinking, he ordered himself, audibly above the gale. It's bad for the reflexes. Just keep the tiller to leeward and don't shorten sail. Go for it. Just get around Kythera, then heave to and lie in the lee till the worst is over. Another five, maybe six kilometers should do it.
Vance wasn't Greek; he was American and looked it. As for Greece and things Greek, he preferred tequila over ouzo, a medium-rare sirloin to chewy grilled octopus. All the same, years ago he had gotten a Ph.D. in Greek archaeology from Yale, taught there for two years, then published a celebrated and radical theory about the Palace of Knossos on Crete. The book had caused an uproar in the scholarly community, and in the aftermath he had drifted away from the world of the ancient Greeks for several years. With this project, he liked to think, he was coming back home. He had just turned forty-four, and it was about time.
Age. More and more lately he realized he preferred old,
well-crafted things: stick-shift transmissions, tube amplifiers, vinyl recordings. Anything without numbers that glowed. Odyssey II was as close to that feeling as he could get.