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was what it called upon now.
    Trailing streaks of mucous slime, it moved
to the far end of the box and began to push.   Though increasingly starved for oxygen, its brain was able to generate
electrical impulses that charged its muscle fibers.
     
    *           *           *           *           *
     
    The bow of the ship buried itself in a
trough, then the stern rose.   The box
slid forward, pushing the creature with it.   But then the bow recovered and climbed toward the sky, and as the stern
fell rapidly, there was a tiny interstice when the box was weightless.
    The box moved aft, teetered on the edge of
the fantail and tumbled into the sea.
    As soon as it felt the cold, comforting
confinement of salt water, its systems responded with instantaneous
regeneration.   The creature soared
downward through the night sea, infused with the primitive perception that it
was once again where it should be.
    The ship pitched and slewed its way toward
the lee of an island as a blood-spattered Nikon camera rolled back and forth
across the afterdeck.
     
     

Part Three
    1996
     
    Waterboro
     
    9
     
    Simon Chase leaned close to the television
monitor in the boat's cabin and shaded it with his hand.   The summer sun was still low in the sky, and
its brilliance flooded through the windows and washed out definition on the
green screen.   The slowly moving white
dot was barely visible.
    With his finger Chase traced a line on the
screen, checked it against a compass and said, "Here she comes.   Swing around to one-eighty."
    "What's she doing?" asked the
mate, Tall Man Palmer, as he spun the wheel to the right and headed south.   "Been out to Block for breakfast, coming
back to Waterboro for lunch?"
    "I doubt she's hungry," Chase
said.   "Probably so full of whale
meat she won't eat for a week."
    "Or longer," said Chase's
son.   Max sat on the bench seat facing
the monitor and meticulously copied its data onto graph paper.   "Some of the carcharhinids can go more
than a month without eating."   He
made the remark with studied casualness, as if such esoterica about marine
biology was on the tip of every twelve-year-old's tongue.
    "Well, excuse me, Jacques
Cousteau," Tall Man said, chuckling.
    "Don't mind Tall Man, he's just
jealous," said Chase, touching Max's shoulder.   "You're right."   He was proud, and moved, for he knew that Max
was reaching out, trying to do his part in building a bridge that, under other
circumstances, would have been built years ago.
    Tall Man nodded toward shore and said,
"Let's go tell the folks on the beach that the lady ain't hungry.   They'd be tickled to hear it."
    Chase looked through the window at the
rocky beach of
Watch Hill
,
Rhode Island
.   Though it was not yet nine in the morning, a
few families had begun to arrive with their picnic hampers and Frisbees and
inner tubes; a few young surfers in wet suits were bobbing on the miniscule waves,
waiting for a ride that might never come — not today, at least, for there was
wind and no forecast of any.
    He smiled at the thought of the scramble,
the panic, that would ensue if the people had any idea why this
innocent-looking white boat was cruising back and forth out here, less than
five hundred yards from the beach.   People loved to read about sharks, loved to see movies about sharks,
loved to believe they understood sharks and wanted to protect them.   But tell them there was a shark in the water
anywhere within ten miles — especially a great white shark — and their love
changed instantly to fear and loathing.
    If they knew that he and Max and Tall Man
were tracking a sixteen foot white shark that likely weighed a ton or more,
their affection would turn to blood lust.   They'd holler for it to be killed.   Then, of course, as soon as someone did kill it, they'd go right back to
mouthing off about how they loved sharks and how all God's
creatures ought to be protected.
    "The shark's coming up,"