Free Fire And Ice by Paul Garrison

he would face an impossible voyage some five hundred lonely miles to the Mindanao Coast. Turn too late, and he'd be driven between Angaur and the northern Palau Island group or smashed on the fringing reef.
    He marshaled crude references, eyeballing the sun by
    day, the stars at night, estimating direction by the wind and the trades rollers. The canoe's leeward drift west, the counterequatorial current east, and his speed north he guessed from the trail of Dutchman's logs he dropped astern like abandoned children. The only constant would be the zenith of Betelgeuse, if he could see it. By the fourth night—when the tuna had gone rotten and Stone had tapped the final coconut and finished all but a few ounces of taro—he hoped the bright red star was standing directly overhead. And it probably was—he cursed aloud—several thousand light years above the cloud bank that had rolled in at sunset like the sliding roof of an all-weather stadium. At midnight, God favored him with a thin smile. A hazy opening appeared in the clouds, and Betelgeuse glared down through it, orange as a pumpkin. Stone lay on the bridge deck and stared aloft. The little orange dot seemed to be overhead, but the canoe was pitching in the choppy seas stirred between the counterequatorial current and the trade wind rollers. Before he could be sure, the clouds closed in again. Devastated, afraid to commit, he stared, cold and tired and hopeless, at the sea. There was light in the water. He looked up, but there was still no starlight to reflect. Then with excitement thickening in his throat he realized it sparkled deeper than reflections. Backwash streaks—long streaks of green light that pointed west like arrows.
    "The glory of the seas," the islanders called them. Phosphorescence kicked up by backwash waves. And backwash streaks only occurred between eighty and a hundred miles upwave of an atoll.
    Stone cast loose the sheets, set the mainsail over the port side and the jib over the starboard, and turned west. Sailing wing and wing, he began bashing into the counterequatorial current, on the long run downwind to Angaur. SARAH LEANED OUT THE SLEEPING CABIN PORT, TO MAKE SURE
    no one was watching from the bridge or the main deck, before holding Ronnie's GPS
    under the sky. Far below, she could see the life raft canister on the afterdeck. It gleamed white in the morning sun, beckoning. Escape, if she dared. Suicidal, until she knew for sure they were near the shipping lanes.
    "They're coming!"
    The GPS hadn't been out long enough to lock onto the satellite signals, and its screen was a riot of moving numbers. One and a half days after they had capped the gas leak, she could only guess by the sun that the ship was still making for Shanghai. And only hope they'd enter trafficked waters soon.
    "Hurry!"
    Sarah shoved the GPS back in Ronnie's Snoopy backpack and was dog-latching the port when the captain of the Dallas Belle flung open the door without knocking. His quick eyes noted her at the port, Ronnie backing from the door, and Mr. Jack, still as stone in his bed.
    "You're needed down in sick bay, Doc. We got an injured man." Sarah picked up her bag and reached for Ronnie's hand. "Leave the kid."
    "She comes with me," said Sarah.
    "Not in sick bay."
    "Ronnie has assisted me since she was eight years old," Sarah said firmly. "She's the best qualified nurse on the ship.The captain blocked the door. "Take my word for it, Doc. You don't want her down there. Not this time."
    Sarah hesitated. Something grave and troubled in the captain's expression made her believe him. "All right. Ronnie, stay with Mr. Jack. I'll be back soon."
    "But—"
    "It's okay, hon. Your mom'll be fine. She's just gotta help somebody."
    "I'm hungry."
    "Cook's pullin' muffins outta the oven. He'll rustle you up some breakfast right away. Let's go, Doc."
    Mystified, Sarah followed him out of the owner's suite and into the elevator. They descended four decks to the dispensary.
    "How's the old