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growing in force until it could uproot palms and drive waves halfway across the island.
They went across the edge of the formal gar-dens, almost directly over the spot where Sonya had
lain, unconscious, the night before, took a set of steps down to the gray beach.
See! Alex cried, pointing to the unruly waters.
Just as he had said, the waves were huge, eight or nine feet high, curling in toward the beach with
brutal force. That elemental savagery was as hyp-notic a show as the boy had promised.
There's a ship! Alex cried.
Where? Tina asked.
He pointed.
Sonya followed the direction of his outflung hand and saw, far out on that boiling cauldron of a sea,
the dark shape of a long tanker which wal-lowed up and down like some living creature unaccustomed to
savage waters and searching for a way out. Even at this distance, she was able to see the high sheets of
white spray that exploded along the tanker's bow each time it slammed through another wall of moving
water.
It occurred to her that the savage ways of Na-ture could be far more dangerous than anything a
human agent could do even if the man in ques-tion were a certified lunatic. She fervently hoped that
Greta would by-pass Distingue . . .
They walked near the water's edge, the children five paces ahead of them, and they did not say much
of anything.
Chilly, Sonya said.
A bad sign.
When, in a few more comments, they had ex-hausted the subject of the weather, they lapsed into
complete silence.
Ahead, Alex and Tina had found three-quarters of a crate washed to shore by the stormy seas, and
they were clambering over it, playing with it as all kids play with boxes. Sonya and Rudolph walked past
them a few feet, then stopped to watch over them. The game the two were playing was inexpli-cable, but
they were both enjoying it; Tina was giggling so hard, as Alex popped in and out of the huge crate, that
her small face was cherry-tinted at the cheeks and nose.
Sonya looked for the freighter.
It was gone.
Farther along the beach, however, another show was in progress, one that appeared to be quite
lively. About twenty paces away, half a hun-dred sand crabs, and perhaps twice that number, were
thickly congregated around some object which, like the wooden crate, seemed to have been washed
ashore. They scuttled over it in such num-bers, with such devotion, that they reminded Sonya of flies on
honey, and they obscured the general outline of their prize.
Isn't that strange? she asked Saine.
The crabs?
Yes.
Probably a dead fish that washed ashore and now they're having a real feast.
They'd eat dead meat?
That's about the only kind they eat. They're scavengers, not genuine predators.
An unpleasant diet, she said.
At least they keep the beaches clean, Saine said.
It's an awfully large fish, she said.
Could be a dead shark or porpoise.
The crabs scuttled back and forth, tossed around by the foaming waves that sluiced over half of their
prize.
Will they devour it all?
All but the bones.
She felt uneasy.
She was not sure why.
Rudolph ?
Hmmm?
Alex popped out of his box.
Tina giggled and slapped at him.
Something's wrong, Sonya said.
The bodyguard was instantly alert.
His hand had gone to his holster.
Nothing like that, she said.
What, then?
She nodded toward the crabs.
What about them?
I'm not sure, but
It's not pleasant, I'll agree, he said, regaining his composure. But it's a perfectly natural scene, an
ecological cycle that takes place a million times each hour.
No, she said adamantly.
Sonya
A heavy wave, taller than all of the rest that had been so regularly preceding it, swept in from the
dark edges of the sea, rising twelve feet above the surface, curling down like a water hammer. It began to
break, swept completely across the crabs and their meal, scattering the determined crusta-ceans before
it.
When the roiling waters poured back into the sea, baring the beach again, they left the crabs' meal
free of pincered diners for one brief moment, and the outlines of the thing were, at last, pains-takingly
clear and recognizable.
My God, Saine gasped.
Sonya gagged.
The crabs rushed in again.
In a second, they had obscured the thing once more.
The kids noticed the shift in their elders' atten-tion, sensed that something special had just happened
and, laughing, waving their arms, ran away from the broken crate toward the congregation of crabs.
Alex, stop! Sonya screamed.
Her damaged throat, which she would have thought incapable of that volume, produced a hoarse,
terrified explosion of sound that stopped the children in their tracks.
Alex turned and said, Sand crabs won't hurt you.
They run when you get close, Tina said.
I don't care, Sonya said, with all the authority she could muster. You come back here right now,
right away, this instant. Do you understand me? She had never taken that tone with them before, had
never needed to, and she saw that now they were cowed by it.
They walked back, not sure why she had yelled.
What'd we do? Tina asked, slightly fright-ened.
Nothing, angel, Sonya said. Just start back for the house. Walk slowly. I'll catch up in a minute.
They did exactly as they were told, holding hands again, not looking back, as if they now
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