NEAL STEPHENSON

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the superstructure is slowly collapsing down into the hull like a botched soufflé. When Fisheye notes this, he ceases fire.

“Cut it out, boss,” Vic says.

“I’m melting!” Fisheye crows.

‘We could have used that trawler, asshole,” Eliot says, vindictively yanking his pants back on.

“I didn’t mean to blow it all up. I guess the little bullets just go through everything.”

“Sharp thinking, Fisheye,” Hiro says.

‘Well, I’m sorry I took a little action to save our asses. Come on, let’s go get one of them little boats before they all burn.”

They paddle in the direction of the decapitated yacht. By the time they reach it, Bruce Lee’s trawler is just a listing, empty steel hull with flames and smoke pouring out of it, spiced by the occasional explosion.

The remaining portion of the yacht has many, many tiny little holes in it, and glitters with exploded fragments of fiberglass: a million tiny little glass fibers about a millimeter long. The skipper and a crew member, or rather the stew that they turned into when the bridge was hit by Reason, slid off into the water along with the rest of the debris, leaving behind no evidence of their having been there except for a pair of long parallel streaks trailing off into the water. But there is a Filipino boy down in the galley, the galley so low, unhurt and only dimly aware of what happened.

A number of electrical cables have been sawn in half. Eliot digs up a toolbox from belowdecks and spends the next twelve hours patching things together to the point where the engine can be started and the yacht can be steered. Hiro, who has a rudimentary knowledge of electrical stuff, acts as gofer and limp-dicked

adviser.

“Did you hear the way the pirates were talking, before Fisheye opened up on them?” Hiro asks Eliot while they are working.

“You mean in pidgin?”

“No. At the very end. The babbling.”

“Yeah. That’s a Raft thing.”