The Pulse: A Novel of Surviving the Collapse of the Grid Read Online Free Page B

life among the floating wreckage. “You’d think we would see them if they were still here, even if they were dead. Wouldn’t the bodies float for a while?”
    “Maybe, maybe not. The waves could have carried the wreckage at a faster speed than floating bodies. But from the looks of these pieces and parts, I honestly don’t see how anyone could have survived the impact. Then there are plenty of sharks in these waters too. You know that from the ones we’ve already seen.”
    Artie shuddered at the thought of being in the water for a long time without a boat. He knew Larry was right. He thought that if he had been in that situation, he would have preferred to have died in the crash rather than be eaten alive later.
    “I know in some of the big airliner crashes over water they’ve picked up survivors who had been more than a day in the water,” Larry said, “but this jet might have gone straight down with an impact no one could have survived. That, and the fact that there was probably only a pilot and perhaps a copilot and two or three passengers on board makes it even less likely we would find them even if they were still afloat.”
    Larry tacked the schooner twice more and made a couple of passes upwind of the debris, just in case any swimmers or floating bodies were drifting at a slower pace than the remains of the aircraft. They both scanned the rolling seas on both sides of the boat continuously as they sailed, but saw nothing else, and soon the sun was rapidly sinking to the horizon, taking with it the last chance of seeing anything they hadn’t already spotted.
    “We may as well get back on course to St. Thomas,” Larry said. “Maybe we can find the answers there.”
    “It worries me what we will find out,” Artie said. “This is the most bizarre thing I’ve ever heard of. And I certainly never expected to sail through a plane crash site when I came down here for a tropical vacation. This delivery trip is turning out to be more of an adventure than I had bargained for.”
    “You and me both, Doc. All we can do at this point is carry on and get to the anchorage. I don’t think the radio, the GPS, or anything else is going to suddenly start working again, so we won’t get our answers until we get there.” Larry went below and grabbed his logbook and paper charts to work out the approximate position of the crash site, and entered it in the log so they could report it to the authorities when they reached the island. He then hauled in the sheets as Artie steered back on course, and soon the schooner was back up to hull speed, carrying them northeast into the growing darkness as the short tropical twilight faded to night.
    Without the formerly familiar glow of the GPS in the cockpit, Artie’s gaze was fixed on the big steering compass. At least its backlight still worked, as it was a simple 12-volt bulb wired through a switch to the vessel’s storage batteries. Larry had said the batteries would continue to provide ample power for a few lights, including the running lights and interior cabin lights, until they reached the anchorage. They couldn’t recharge them because the engineless schooner had no alternator, and the charge controllers and voltage regulators that connected the batteries to the large solar panels mounted on the stern rail had been taken out by the pulse. Larry wished that the owner had allowed the builder to install a small auxiliary diesel engine, but he had stubbornly insisted on keeping Ibis a true sailing ship.
    Artie reflected on what his brother had said earlier that day about how men had been crossing oceans in small boats without the benefit of electronics for centuries, and how they were lucky they were on a seaworthy sailing vessel instead of some posh motor-yacht with intricate systems dependent upon technology. The schooner worked now just as her predecessors had, and as long as the trade winds blew, they could depend on her to carry them to their destination. The sight of