Later, when George went up on deck, he found Cushing and Elizabeth up there. His first reaction was to go back below, like maybe he was interrupting something. But he saw he wasn’t. They were both leaning on the rail, looking out into the fog.
“Anything going on?” he said.
Cushing shrugged. “I’m not sure.”
George started watching, too.
The fog was very thick, thicker than it had been earlier. But it was still day and the mist was still backlit by itself, though heavy and roiling like some crazy fusion of smog, steam, and smoke. A gushing gaseous envelope. You could smell the dankness of it, feel its moisture on your skin like jungle damp.
“What is it I’m looking for?” George said, lighting a cigarette,
“Just wait,” Cushing said.
So George waited. Waited and smoked and wondered when the real question would be broached, that of when they were planning on making their pilgrimage up to the Lancet. Way he was looking at it, it was something they had to do and soon and also something that might kill them.
“There,” Cushing said. “You see it?”
George did, all right. A dull blue glow off in the fog that brightened, flickered for a few moments like a loose light bulb and then vanished. About two minutes later it did it again, then not for another five. Irregular, but artificial-looking. Like maybe somebody was turning on and off a light out there or something, something electrical, was shorting out.
“Like neon or something,” George said.
Of course, Cushing was quick to point out that it was more like argon. Electrified neon gas had a reddish glow to it, but electrified argon was blue. And this was definitely blue. “What do you make of it?” George asked him.
But he said he didn’t know. “Could be just about anything… could even be some weird chemical reaction, you know, some sort of gas mixing with the fog.”
But standing there, watching it, George was thinking it was not random. Like maybe it was being directed.
Fabrini came up on deck next. “Well, when are we going to go? I’m in a hurry to get out or die trying.” Then he saw that glow out there pulsing. “What in the hell is that?”
George was thinking that a searchlight seen through coastal fog might look like that.
“You don’t think it’s that… that Fog-Devil, do you?” Fabrini asked.
“No,” Cushing said. “I don’t think so.”
George said, “Elizabeth… have you seen this before?”
“One or twice in the past few days,” she admitted. “But not before, never before.”
George could tell from her tone that something about that light was getting her hackles up. It was disturbing her, putting her on her guard, but she didn’t seem to know why… or want to say why.
“Okay,” Fabrini said. “I’m curious. What are we waiting for?”
Cushing shrugged. “Let’s do it.”