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Pitt completed the circumference and dipped the craft toward the third and outermost island. This one looked dark and evil, and it took surprisingly little imagination to see that the peak was shaped in the likeness of an upturned face, much like that of the devil, with slitty eyes, small rock protrusions for horns and a sharp beard below smirking lips.
"Now that's what I call repugnant," said Pitt. "I wonder what name it goes by."
"No individual names are given on the chart," Giordino replied.
A moment later, Pitt swung the helicopter on a parallel course with the wave-swept palisades and began circling the barren island. Suddenly, Giordino stiffened and peered intently through the front windscreen. "Do you see that?"
Pitt turned briefly from the spectacular collision between water and rock and gazed forward and down. "I see no flotsam."
"Forget the water. Look over the top of that high ridge dead ahead."
Pitt studied the strange rock formation that trailed from the main mass and led into the sea like a man-made breakwater. "That blob of white snow beyond the ridge?"
"That ain't no blob of snow," Giordino said firmly.
Pitt suddenly realized what it was. "I've got it now!" he said with mounting excitement. It was smooth and white and shaped like a triangle with the top cut off. The upper rim was black, and there was some sort of painted emblem on the side. "A ship's funnel! And there's her radar mast sticking up forty meters forward. You made a good call, pal."
"If it's Polar Queen, she must have struck the cliffs on the other side of that spur."
But that was an illusion. When they flew over the natural seawall jutting into the sea it became apparent that the cruise ship was floating undamaged a good five hundred meters from the island. It was incredible, but there she was without a scratch.
"She's still clear!" Giordino shouted.
"Not for long," Pitt said. In an instant he took in the dire situation. The Polar Queen was steaming in large circles, her helm somehow jammed hard to starboard. They had arrived less than thirty minutes before her arc would bring her in collision with the sheer rocks, crushing her hull and sending everyone on board into deep, icy water.
"There are bodies on her deck," said Giordino soberly.
A few lay scattered about the bridge deck. Several had fallen on the sundeck near the stern. A Zodiac, still attached to the gangway, was dragged along through the swells, two bodies lying on its bottom. That no one was alive was obvious by the fact they were all covered with a thin coating of snow and ice.
"Two more revolutions and she'll kiss the rock," said Giordino.
"We've got to get down there and somehow turn her about."
"Not in this wind," said Giordino. "The only open space is the roof over the bridge-deck quarters.
That's a tricky landing I wouldn't want to try. Once we dump airspeed and hover prior to setting down, we'll have as much control as a dry leaf. A sudden downdraft and we'll end up in the mess down there."
Pitt unsnapped his safety harness. "Then you drive the bus while I go down on the winch."
"There are people under restraint in rubber rooms who aren't that crazy. You'd be whipped around like a yo-yo on a string."
"You know any other way to get on board?"
"Only one. But it's not approved by the Ladies Home Journal."
"The battleship drop in the Vixen affair," said Pitt, recalling.
"One more occasion where you were damned lucky," said Giordino.
There was no doubt in Pitt's mind-the ship was going to pile up on the rocks. Once the bottom was torn out of her, she would sink like a brick. There was always the possibility that someone had survived the unknown plague as Maeve and her excursionists had in the cave. The cold, hard reality dictated that the bodies be examined in hopes of tracking down the cause of death. If there was the slightest chance of saving the Polar Queen, he had to take it.
Pitt looked at Giordino and smiled faintly. "It's time to cue the daring young man on the flying trapeze."
Pitt already wore thermal underwear made from heavy nylon pile to retain his body heat and shield him from frigid temperatures. Over this he pulled on a diver's drysuit, specially insulated for polar waters. The purpose of the dry suit was twofold. The first was to protect him from the windchill while he was dangling beneath the moving helicopter. The second, to keep him alive in cold water long enough for rescue, should he drop too soon or too late and miss the ship entirely.
He strapped on a quick-release harness and tightened the chin strap to the heavy crash-type helmet that contained his radio headset. He looked through the compartment that held Van Fleet's lab equipment and into the cockpit. "Do you read me okay?" he asked Giordino through the tiny microphone in front of his lips.
"A little fuzzy around the edges. But that should clear once you're free of the engine's interference.
