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"You’re sure about this?"

They were down to their last ten thousand pounds of fuel

"Please," Lore said, "don’t argue with me It’s not like we have a choice"

Rand raised the radio to hisdown Weir, switch the generator to the auxiliary bus--bilges, lights, and desalinators only"

A crackle, then Weir’s voice cah: "Lore said that?"

"Yeah, she said it I’ ceased, replaced by a low electrical hued bulbs flickered, failed, then, as if with reluctance, sparked back to life

"So that’s it?" Rand asked "We’re dead in the water?"

Lore had no answer to that

"I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said it that way"

She et it"

"I know you did your best Everyone does"

She had nothing to say They were twenty thousand tons of steel, drifting in the ocean

"Maybe so will still work out," Rand offered

Lore ascended through the ship to the deck and cli of their thirty-ninth day at sea, the equatorial sun already blazing like a furnace Not a breath of wind moved the air; the sea was absolutely flat Many of the passengers were camped on deck, huddled in the shade of canvas shelters On the charting table were the sheets of thick, fibrous paper on which Lore had run her final computations The currents when they’d rounded the Horn had nearly stopped the at full throttle, they had barely powered through, huge waves blasting over the deck, everybody vo helplessly They had auges drop, the cost grew painfully evident They had stripped everything they could and jettisoned it into the sea: pieces of bulkhead, doors, the loading crane Anything to reduce weight, to buy one h They had come up five hundred miles short

Caleb entered the pilothouse Like Rand, he was shirtless, the skin of his shoulders and cheeks flaking with sunburn "What’s going on? Why did we stop?"

From the helm, Lore shook her head

"Jesus" For a second he see?"

"We can keep the desalinators running about a week"

"And then?"

"I really don’t know, Caleb"