She shot ahead like a meteorite, and I could feel a sudden tingle ofperspiration leaping to meet and mix with the churning waters.

I swept ahead, not wanting to use my own guns, and she tripled,quadrupled the margin.

The jets died and she was still on course. Okay, I was an oldfuddyduddy. She _could_ have messed up and headed toward the top.

I plowed the sea and began to gather back my yardage, a foot at a time.I wouldn't be able to catch her or beat her now, but I'd be on the ropesbefore she hit deck.

Then the spinning magnets began their insistence and she wavered. Itwas an awfully powerful drag, even at this distance. The call of the meatgrinder.

I'd been scratched up by one once, under the _Dolphin_, a fishing boatof the middle-class. I _had_ been drinking, but it was also a rough day, andthe thing had been turned on prematurely. Fortunately, it was turned off intime, also, and a tendon-stapler made everything good as new, except in thelog, where it only mentioned that I'd been drinking. Nothing about it beingoff-hours when I had the right to do as I damn well pleased.

She had slowed to half her speed, but she was still moving cross-wise,toward the port, aft corner. I began to feel the pull myself and had to slowdown. She'd made it past the main one, but she seemed too far back. It'shard to gauge distances under water, but each red beat of time told me I wasright. She was out of danger from the main one, but the smaller port screw,located about eighty meters in, was no longer a threat but a certainty.

She had turned and was pulling away from it now. Twenty metersseparated us. She was standing still. Fifteen.

Slowly, she began a backward drifting. I hit my jatoes, aiming twometers behind her and about twenty back of the blades.

Straightline! Thankgod! Catching, softbelly, leadpipe on shoulder