The past, a la recherche du temps perdu. This trip, regardless of his bet with Bill, was also about recent times gone by. His father had died, the revered Michael Vance, Sr., the undisputed Grand Old Man of archaeology at Penn. It turned out to be a far greater loss than he had anticipated, like a chunk of himself torn away. He still missed their late-hours "discussions"—heated arguments, really. He had been trying to wrench away the future, the old man trying to hang on to what he knew best: the past. It had been a dynamic tension filled with mutual love. And now he felt guilty. But why? There was no reason.
He also had gone through another of life's milestones, a divorce. Eva Borodin, a dark-haired daughter of Russian aristocracy, a college sweetheart, had come back into his life after a digression of ten years. The second time around was supposed to be a charm, right?
The soap operas were wrong on that one, the same way they were about most other things in real life. Although the divorce, now a year ago, had been businesslike and amicable, it still had hurt. For the past year he had been sitting around and brooding—about life, love, middle age, death.
He still found himself wearing his wedding ring. Why? It just made him think of her even more. No, the truth was, everything reminded him of her and how much he needed her. What he had not realized—until she was gone—was that needing somebody was the richest experience of life.
He sighed into the wind. The challenge of his Odyssey enterprise was supposed to take his mind off all that. Was it working?
Maybe. But so far the jury was still out. . . .
He gripped the tiller harder and glanced up at the sail. Running downwind, the cutwater on the bow was going to be a real problem. But just another half hour, probably, and—
Christ! Bill's warning was on the mark. A massive hulk loomed dead ahead, running with no lights. It was as long as a football field, the bow towering up like a battering ram. She was moving in off his portside stern—he guessed she was making at least fifteen knots. High above the bridge, antennas and communications gear showed faintly against the twilight gloom, gray and huge. Not recommended for close encounters . . . but he still had time to tack and give her a wide berth.
He threw his weight against the tiller, veering to leeward. Once clear, he would bring the bow about and let the cutwater top her wake like a surfboard, keeping him from taking water. Then he would be on his way, into the storm and the night.
Maybe he did not even have a problem. They probably had picked him up on their radar by now. It did not mean they would veer off course, but they might throttle her down a few notches, just to be neighborly. . . .