Free The Pulse by Scott B. Williams Page B

don’t see many people out cruising the world on anything under 45 feet anymore.”
    “I do,” Larry said, “but not in the popular anchorages. You probably can’t get into many of the out-of-the-way places. What does she draw, anyway?”
    “Seven feet, two inches,” Pete said.
    Larry whistled. Artie was just listening, not knowing enough about boats to really have an opinion. “I guess you didn’t see much of the Bahamas then. Not many anchorages there that carry seven feet of water.”
    “No, but our goal was to get down here to the Virgins first,” Pete said. “Then we were talking about trying to do a passage over to the Med if everything worked out. Out there in the Atlantic, draft doesn’t matter, does it?”
    “That sure is a pretty little schooner you guys are sailing,” Maryanne said, “It’s amazing how well-maintained it is. How old is it?”
    “Less than a year,” Larry said. “She looks like an old-time classic, but she’s really a new custom build, a Reuel Parker design. She only draws four feet. It’s all cold-molded wood-epoxy construction. The owner was supposed to meet me here tomorrow, but I guess that isn’t going to happen. He lives in Tampa, so unless he changed his plans and flew in early, it’s doubtful he’ll be picking up his boat.”
    “Tampa? Was he planning to sail her all the way home from here?” Pete asked.

    “No, he’s apparently got another boat he keeps there. He had this one built to keep here for cruising around the islands. She was built in Trinidad. I picked her up there and did a shakedown cruise through the Grenadines before my landlubber big brother here came down to meet me in Martinique.”
    “It wasn’t so bad, after I got my sea legs,” Artie said, the memory of the awful seasickness already fading to the back of his mind.
    Larry changed the subject back to the power outage as he stared across the harbor to the island. “I wonder how long it will be before people start to panic. If what we typically see after a big hurricane is any indication, it won’t be much longer.”
    “We haven’t been here for one of those yet,” Pete said. “This is our first year of cruising since we both retired and bought the boat. We just got here right after Christmas. We spent the fall in Key West.”
    “I’ve been down in these islands long enough to see it all. You’re right to say all of us out here on boats are better off. It’s probably going to get ugly ashore pretty quick. Especially here in Charlotte Amalie and the other crowded places. Even this harbor probably won’t be safe, so you ought to think about moving somewhere more remote. Only thing is, you don’t have many choices with that seven-foot draft.”
    “I don’t see how we could be in any danger out here,” Maryanne said. “There are so many other boats around. Who’s going to bother us?”

    “Well,” said Larry, “to people ashore, especially the gangs that don’t need an excuse like this anyway, a boat like Celebration is a gold mine. They know it’s full of expensive hardware, not to mention the food and water everyone is soon going to be desperate for. Cruisers have been targeted here before, and especially in St. Croix after Hurricane Hugo and some of the other really bad ones. I’m talking robbery, murder, gang rape, you name it.”
    Maryanne shuddered and looked at her husband. “Sounds like a realistic scenario to me,” Pete said. “The question is, where do we go? I thought we might be better off here than back home, depending on how big this thing really is. I mean, if the same pulse took out everything in the States, it might be even worse there. Look how dependent everything up there is on the power grid, not to mention transportation.”
    “It’s hard to believe this has shut down automobiles,” Artie said. “I never would have thought about that. Of course, I never would have thought about it causing airplanes to crash either. I can’t believe I’m stuck