Fragment

7:23 A.M.

“We have to exit, Hender,” Andy shouted. “Go now! Now, now, now!”

Andy reached for the door handle and the hatch opened inward.

Hender looked out. “OK,” Hender said. “Hi Andy!”

Copepod barked in response.

Cynthea saw Andy run out on the foredeck. The five hendropods glided behind him.

The nearest Navy ship was now on top of them, slicing past their port side, its loudspeakers blaring out over the decks.

“YOU ARE ORDERED BY THE UNITED STATES NAVY TO ABANDON SHIP NOW. CARRY NOTHING WITH YOU OR YOU WILL BE FIRED ON.”

When the hendropods saw an arcing waterspout fired from a water canon on the deck of the destroyer, they whirled and ran in the other direction.

Andy caught Hender. “No, it’s OK, Hender! Come on!”

The hendropods turned around slowly at Hender’s humming and clicking calls. Then, reluctantly, they continued behind him and Andy toward the bow.

Behind them, one last Henders rat crouched in the hatchway through which they had come, rubbing its spikes together as it chose a target.

It bolted across the deck toward the hendropods just as they entered the frame of the videophone.

As the rat launched itself through the air, Copepod growled inches from Hender’s ankle.

Hender glanced at the ocean with one eye before casually batting the rat overboard with a deft block by its rear foot.

The rat thrashed in the water before sinking into the sea.

Nell, Geoffrey, Andy, Captain Sol, Warburton, Cynthea, Samir, Marcello, and the rest of the Trident’s crew gathered the hendro pods between them on the foredeck, creating a human shield as Cynthea had commanded.

With the combined stress of the moment and the sight of the gigantic ships moving through the sea around them, all of the hendros vanished.

11:24 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time

All the major networks and cable news channels displayed on plasma screens in the White House Situation Room were muted.

The President and his advisors stared in astonishment at only one screen-the one that carried the live feed from the guided missile destroyer, U.S.S. Stout.

“Captain Bobrow, can you hear me?” the President asked the captain of the Stout.

“Yes, sir.”

“Get me a closer view of the folks on deck, if you can, Captain.”

“Yes, sir. We’re getting you a closer view now.”

The image zoomed in as a camera on the decks of the Stout showed the Trident’s crew clustered at the bow.

“Isn’t that Nell?” the President said. “That’s Nell Duckworth, I believe, isn’t it, Trudy? I was told she died in an accident on the island. And there’s Dr. Binswanger.”

The others were impressed once more by the President’s Rolodex memory for names and faces.

“What’s going on here, Wallace? Lay off the shells, Captain Bobrow, damn it. I want you to stop firing, is that understood?”

“Yes, sir, Mr. President, those are from the other guys.”

“Well, hey, you other guys, stop firing,” said the President.

“Yes, sir!”

“What is that…some kind of distortion?” the Defense Secretary asked.

“We need a closer look there, Captain Bobrow.”

“Yes, sir. We’re coming around.”

The Press Secretary suddenly cracked the door of the Situation Room and stuck his head in. “Mr. President! Turn to the Discovery Channel, sir!”

“What?”

The bullhorns sounded again from the nearest ship:

“ABANDON SHIP TRIDENT! CARRY NOTHING WITH YOU OR YOU WILL BE FIRED ON!”

“These are the amazing people of Henders Island,” Cynthea declaimed triumphantly into Peach’s microphone.

Marcello kissed his St. Christopher’s medal.

Cynthea gestured at the hendropods, but stopped, bewildered. They were gone. “What happened? Where are they?”

4:25 P.M. Greenwich Mean Time

Sixty million people worldwide were watching TV when the live-feed from the Trident cut into their regularly scheduled programming.

Within two minutes, that number had leaped to over 200 million. The number continued to rise as the media feeding-frenzy accelerated through the swarm of satellites encircling the Earth in real-time.

11:26 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time

The President listened to Cynthea Leeds speaking from the bow of the ship on the television. Whatever species of Henders organism the TV producer was referring to was nowhere to be seen.

“The President of the United States and the Navy are about to destroy not only us, but a new and intelligent species of people who have as much right to exist on this planet as we do! More, even!”

The loudspeakers of the Stout echoed over the deck in the background, “TRIDENT, YOU ARE IN DIRECT VIOLATION OF UNITED STATES NAVY DIRECTIVES. BEGIN ABANDONING SHIP IN THIRTY SECONDS, OR YOU WILL BE FIRED ON.”

“I don’t like it, Mr. President,” the Secretary of Defense insisted. “Why are they not complying? Are they crazy?”