Sixty Days and Counting by Kim Stanley Robinson

peninsula blocked the view.
    “The ones still at the house went for the driveway,” he said. “They’re going to drive around the lake, I bet. Do you think they can get to the southern end of the lake before we do?”
    “Depends on the wind,” Caroline said. “Also, they might stop at Pond’s End, for a second at least, to take a look and see if we’re coming up to that end.”
    “But it wouldn’t make sense for us to do that.”
    “Unless we had parked there. But they’ll only stop a second, because they’ll be able to see us. You can see all the way down the lake. So they’ll see which way we’re going.”
    “And then?”
    “I think we can beat them. They’ll have to circle around on the roads. If the wind holds, I’m sure we can beat them.”
    The craft emerged from the channel onto the long stretch of the lake, where the wind was even stronger. Looking through the binoculars as best he could given the chatter, Frank saw a dark van stop at the far end of the pond, then, after a few moments’ pause, drive on.
    He had made the same drive himself a couple of hours before, and it seemed to him it had taken about fifteen minutes, maybe twenty, to get to the south end of the pond by way of the small roads through the woods. But he hadn’t been hurrying. At full speed it might take only half that.
    But now the iceboat had the full force of the north wind behind it, funneling down the steep granite walls to both sides—and the gusts felt stronger than ever, even though they were running straight downwind. The boat only touched the ice along the edges of the metal runners, screeching their banshee trio. Caroline’s attention was fixed on the sail, her body hunched at the tiller and line, feeling the wind like a telegraph operator. Frank didn’t disturb her, but only sat on the gunwale opposite to the sail, as she had told him to do. The stretch of the lake they had to sail looked a couple of miles long. In a sailboat they would have been in trouble. On the ice, however, they zipped along as if in a catamaran’s dream, almost frictionless despite the loud noise of what friction was left. Frank guessed they were going about twenty miles an hour, maybe twenty-five, maybe thirty; it was hard to tell. Fast enough: down a granite wind tunnel, perfectly shaped to their need for speed. The dwarf trees on the steep granite slopes to each side bounced and whistled, the sun was almost blocked by the western cliff, blazing in the pale streaked sky, whitening the cloud to each side of it. Caroline spared a moment to give Frank a look, and it seemed she was going to speak, then shook her head and simply gestured at the surrounding scene, mouth tight. Frustrated.
    “I guess them showing up so soon suggests I tipped them off somehow,” he said.
    “Yes.” She was looking at the sail.
    “I’m sorry. I thought I needed to warn you.”
    Her mouth stayed tight. She said nothing.
    The minutes dragged, but Frank’s watch showed that only eight had passed when they came to the south end of the lake. There were a couple of big houses tucked back in the forest to the left. Caroline pulled the tiller and boom line and brought them into the beach next to the pump house, executing a bravura late turn that hooked so hard Frank was afraid the iceboat might be knocked on its side. Certainly a windsurfer or catamaran would have gone down like a bowling pin. But there was nothing for the iceboat to do but groan and scrape and spin, into the wind and past it, then screeching back, then stopping, then drifting back onto the beach.
    “Hurry,” Caroline said, and jumped out and ran up to Frank’s van.
    Frank followed. “What about the boat?”
    She grimaced. “We have to leave it!” Then, when they were in his van: “I’ll call Mary when I can get a clean line and tell her where it is. I’d hate for Harold’s boat to be lost because of this
shit
.” Her voice was suddenly vicious.
    Then she was all business, giving Frank