Free Chain Lightning by Elizabeth Lowell Page A

presence of the tiny animals that were in the process of further enlarging the greatest mass of material ever assembled by any life-form anywhere on the face of the earth. From orbital distance, even the most dense metropolitan sprawls of humanity didn’t register on the human eye; the Barrier Reef did. More than twelve hundred miles long and sixty stories from bottom to wave-combed top, the reef formed a 100,000-square-mile fringe to Australia’s northeastern edge.
    And just off the nose of the plane, only a few minutes away, lay tiny Lady Elliot Island, a scuba diver’s paradise. Elation surged within Sutter, making him smile. He had wanted to go to Lady Elliot since the first time he had heard of the island twenty years before. Now it was finally within reach, the southernmost coral island of the immense Great Barrier Reef complex, an island that was no more than a tiny mote decorated with white breakers, lime green lagoons and an ocean so clear that he could count more shades of blue than he had words to describe.
    The plane banked, shutting off Sutter’s view of Lady Elliot Island. Eagerly he leaned to his left, over Mandy’s lap, peering out her window. The plane straightened, shifting his weight unexpectedly. He bumped into Mandy.
    “Excuse me,“ he said loudly over the engine noise, “I…“
    Sutter’s words trailed off as he realized that Mandy hadn’t noticed him. She was rigid in her seat, her hands clenched together, her face gleaming with sweat. It occurred to him that he couldn’t remember her moving at all during the flight. She hadn’t even crossed and recrossed her ankles or shifted her purse or rummaged inside it for a comb or a piece of gum. It was as though she were a statue.
    “Mandy?“
    There was no answer. Sutter touched Mandy’s hands. The chill of her skin shocked him; the plane was too small to be air-conditioned, which meant that the interior temperature was well into the eighties. There was no reason for her to be so cold.
    If Mandy felt Sutter’s touch she didn’t show it. Nor did she appear to notice the plane’s descent. She was unnaturally still, as white as the coral beaches and landing strip below, her skin icy to the touch.
    Abruptly Sutter understood that Mandy hadn’t been joking at the Bundaberg airport; she really was terrified. Even as he reached out automatically to comfort her, he overrode the impulse, forcing his hands back to his sides. So far she had somehow managed to control her terror. Anything he did might snap that fragile restraint and send her into a bout of hysterical screaming. The pilot didn’t need that kind of distraction at the moment – there was a hard crosswind blowing and the coral landing strip was little more than a white line gnawed through the sturdy she-oaks that had colonized the island.
    The pilot crabbed in, compensated for the relatively calm air between the she-oaks and dropped down onto the crushed coral runway, dumping speed as fast as he could. Sutter’s eyes widened when he saw why the pilot was in such a hurry to stop – a colony of terns was nesting on the far half of the strip.
    The pilot knew precisely what he was doing. He stopped short of the birds with room to spare. He shut down the engine, popped open the side window for ventilation and stretched. The passenger sitting next to him hopped out, followed by the pilot himself. In order for the four people seated behind Sutter to exit, he had to get out first, for until his seat was folded down, there would be no way for anyone in back to scramble out of the plane. He looked over at Mandy. She hadn’t moved.
    Sutter got out quickly, helped the remaining passengers out and then climbed back in. Mandy neither moved nor acknowledged her surroundings in any way.
    “Mandy, it’s all right. We’ve landed.“
    Sutter’s voice was low, soothing. She didn’t seem to hear him. Slowly he removed her black, oversized sunglasses. Her eyes were wide, unfocused, dilated, and what he