The Professor went down to the lagoon at first light to see how the vessel he had privately dubbed the 'S.S. Moot Point' had fared with its newly lightened load. It was rare he was the first one up and about, but he'd had a troubled night; an unnerving theory was rattling around his brain, and he badly wanted to check the raft, and prove to himself that he was mistaken. The raft, however, was gone; nothing was left but a rope trailing into the water from where the Skipper had tied it the night before. Also missing were the containers of food and fresh water that had not fit onboard, the ones they had left neatly piled on the shore.

"No. Oh, no," the Professor breathed, splashing into the water and grabbing for the rope, in the insane hope that the raft would still be at the other end. It wasn't; the rope's end was fraying, either broken or cut. "No. No, no, no... He couldn't have. He couldn't have." He swam out deeper, to the approximate spot where he had last seen the raft. Sure enough, deep below, he could see a tangled heap of lumpy sacks, lying where they had been jettisoned. He swam back to shore with a speed that would have impressed an Olympian, and ran back to camp like a man possessed.

He threw open the door to the crew's hut. The Skipper was still asleep; the upper hammock was empty. "Skipper. Skipper! Wake up!"

"Wha—what's wrong?" Skipper's voice was a bit groggy. "Professor? What's the matter? Why are you all wet?"

"Where's Gilligan?"

"What do you mean? He's right—huh?" The Skipper blinked, checked his watch. "I don't know. Probably getting firewood or checking the traps at the lagoon or something. Like always. What's going on?"

The Professor didn't answer him. With a muttered curse, he tore back the curtain on the wardrobe and rifled through the contents. Sure enough, Gilligan's possessions were still there, but that proved nothing except that he had chosen to abandon such valuables as a shirt with two carefully mended holes; one in the front, one in the back.

"Professor? What in blazes is going on? What are you looking for in there?"

"The raft is gone, Skipper. It's gone!"

"Gone? Well, why on earth would you be looking for it in our closet? That's just ridic—" The same realization hit the Skipper, and the blood drained out of his face. "You don't think he…?"

"He kept insisting that he be allowed to take the raft out alone," the Professor said. "He was quite adamant about it, in fact. Obviously, we both know how foolhardy a notion that was, but I fear that..." he shook his head, unable to finish the sentence.

"You 'fear' he went AWOL. You 'fear' he's trying to singlehandedly make it to the shipping lanes in that floating coffin," said the Skipper calmly. "You 'fear' he's trying to save us from ourselves."

"My God, Skipper, you sound like you approve!"

"Is that what you think?" The Skipper did not lose his self-control so much as he let the mask slip for a moment. The Professor took an involuntary step back, away from the raw pain in the sailor's voice. "Believe me, if he gets back here in one piece, I'm going to break him in half lengthwise. But he wasn't wrong about our chances. If we tried to pack the seven of us onto that thing, it wouldn't have taken us anywhere except Davy Jones' locker."

"That's just it, Skipper! I don't think it's going to prove capable of supporting one person for any appreciable timespan, and will certainly not remain viable all the way to the shipping lanes. Barring miracles, attempting to utilize that craft is nothing short of suicide!"

"And you think he cares? Where have you been all this time, Professor?" The Skipper's clenched fists were shaking, just a bit. But he was still the captain, and his voice was steady. "Look. We won't say anything to the others; not yet, anyway. There's nothing any of us can do one way or the other, and there is always the chance that he'll make it back."

"Skipper…?"

"With all due respect, Professor, you've been wrong before. And he's good at what he does. Maybe the raft will stay together longer than you think it will. Maybe he'll find a ship in time. But touching off a panic won't do any of us any good. We'll keep this quiet, at least for today. That's an order."

OoOoOoO

Late that afternoon, the Skipper walked back towards camp, his feet dragging just a bit. He didn't want to have the conversation he knew was waiting for him when there were only six people at the table that night. More than that, he didn't want to see that vacant seat either, or the empty hammock. Unabashedly stalling for time, he detoured to the well to get a cup of water he didn't especially want.

Gilligan was there, drawing up a bucket. "Oh, hey there, Skipper. Want a drink?" He held out the dipper casually.

"Yeah, thanks, little buddy," he said, unthinkingly, and took a sip.

And promptly spewed it back out in a fine spray as the double-take of all double-takes all but choked him. "Gilligan! You're alive!"

Gilligan, wincing, wiped his face with his sleeve. "Not for long, looks like! What're you trying to do, drown a guy?"

In one motion, the Skipper threw down the coconut-shell dipper, grabbed a double handful of red shirt, and hauled the smaller man up onto his tiptoes. "Gilligan, you idiot! What were you thinking? I ought to wring your scrawny neck!"

Gilligan, from his vantage point six inches away from that very red face, stared at the Skipper. He knew his captain inside and out; he could translate 'Skipper to English' in his sleep. This wasn't angry yelling. This was anything but angry yelling, in fact. There were dozens of variations of angry yelling, ranging from the fairly innocuous I-have-one-nerve-left-and-you're-getting-on-it, to the somewhat more upsetting you-did-something-stupid-and-I-am-annoyed, all the way up to the genuinely terrifying you-did-something-bad-and-I-won't-stand-for-it. That last he had never actually seen directed at himself, and he wanted to keep it that way.

There were also the various shades of friendly yelling, like it's-us-two-against-this-crazy-world or why-does-morning-have-to-come-so-early, and of teasing yelling that nobody could ever mistake for the real thing, (and he included under that heading even the nonverbal things like the friendly punch to the arm that could knock down a brick wall,) and all the threats of creative mayhem, the ones with about as much malice in them as a request to pass the salt. The Skipper wasn't the mushy type, and if you knew what you were listening to, and the words were always the least important part of it, a growled promise to break every bone in his first mate's body was both intended and understood as being downright affectionate.

This, however, was different. This, unless he was vastly mistaken, was I-was-scared-out-of-my-wits-and-thank-God-you're-okay yelling. The kind where being taken by the shoulders and shaken until your teeth rattled was the equivalent of a bear hug. It had something to do with the way he held his shoulders, and the tension in his hands, and the tiny muscles around his eyes. And there had been a lot of that sort of yelling over the last month or two, but this was more intense, somehow. What was going on here?

The Professor burst out of the underbrush, with that same look of frenzied relief in his eyes, babbling something, but, honestly, Gilligan had other things to think about just then.

"Report! What in the name of everything holy is going on here? What did you do? You might as well tell me the truth now; I'll have it out of you one way or the other!"

"Skipper—I'll tell you anything you want to know!" Whatever the Skipper had been scared about, it must have been awful. He looked like death warmed over, and there was just that hint of the faintest, tiniest catch in his voice. "But, Skipper, just one thing… first you gotta tell me what it is you're telling me to tell you, because I can't tell what you're talking about, and I can't tell what it is I'm supposed to be telling you 'til you tell me what it is!"

The Skipper let go of Gilligan's collar, his hands falling limply to his sides, and he closed his eyes for a moment in rapt gratitude. That was vintage Gilligan, all right. Logic was his servant, not his master, and just now, that brain-buster of a question was the sweetest sound he'd ever heard.

The Professor pushed the Skipper aside. Which, frankly, took some doing. "Where's the food?"

Gilligan blinked. Great, fantastic, the Professor had gone bonkers, too. Could this day get any better? "It's only four-thirty, so I don't think Mary Ann will have finished cooking dinner yet. Anyway, Professor, you live in the supply hut! It's all right there! If you don't want any of that food, tell me what you do want, and I'll try to get it for you, okay?"

A vein in the Professor's forehead was throbbing. "Not that food. The supplies we'd prepared for our voyage. The ones we had to offload last night, remember? Where are they?"

That was what this was about? Who got this wound up over a few bags of pineapple? "I put them in the storage cave," he said carefully. "So Gladys and her friends couldn't steal them overnight. They're all safe and sound. But it's okay; I can go get them and put them back on the beach right this minute if you'd rather…"

"Never mind the food!" The Skipper took back control of the conversation.

"Me? You're the ones who came charging in here like your shorts were on fire!"

"Belay that! I'm talking about the raft, you idiot! What happened to the raft?"

"What about the raft?" The lack of comprehension was too genuine to be doubted. "I didn't know anything happened to it! It was fine last night!"

"Well, it's gone now!"

"…Gone?" A hundred different kinds of shock and dismay kaleidoscoped across Gilligan's face, before giving way to offense. "Well, I didn't take it! I couldn't, not yet!"

"What do you mean yet?"

"Well, I was still waiting for you guys to admit that it made the most sense for me to go; and I figured it would take you at least another day or two to let 'smart' beat out 'stubborn'."

The Professor ignored the implications of that. "Then where were you all day?"

"Gladys swung by and picked me up; I was with her!"

The Skipper exhaled sharply. "And it didn't occur to you to mention to anyone you were going to wander off with a monkey before we all had heart attacks?"

"I never got the chance. See, when I said she 'swung by and picked me up,' I meant she really 'swung by and picked me up!' I only just this minute got away. Trust me, by this time, I know all about arguing with big, strong, stubborn gorillas, and I never win!" He rolled his eyes in remembered irritation. "Albert and his wife Charlene are even worse."

Albert, the Professor thought he recalled, was the gorilla who had attempted to romance Mrs. Howell. Or possibly the one who liked to throw hand grenades. It didn't really matter which. Given the previous comment, whether or not Gilligan was including the various human primates on the island under the 'stubborn gorilla' heading was another question, but not one he felt any real inclination to explore. Just at the moment, he was too busy feeling his muscles turn to jelly as the adrenaline slowly drained out of his system, leaving both a profound relief that his friend was safe, and a morbid curiosity regarding the hypothesis that had sent him to the lagoon that morning in the first place. "Do you happen to know what happened to the scraps from the raft?"

The Skipper gave him an odd look. "Sure, they're in our hut. I kept them in case we sprang a leak and needed to patch something. The glue's there, too. Did you want that?"

"No, not yet," the Professor said. "May I see them?"

"Yeah, of course," the Skipper said. "Come on; let's go back and I'll get them for you."

They walked back to camp; the Skipper bringing up the rear, casually keeping his first mate in his line of sight at all times, still not quite able to believe that he was there at all.

Inside the hut, the Professor lit the candle. Unnecessarily, because the sun was shining through the open windows, and the hut was as bright as it ever was. The Skipper and Gilligan traded another odd look; Gilligan just shrugged and retrieved the box of scraps. "Um, Professor… I don't think there's enough here to build a new raft," he said carefully.

No, there wasn't. There wasn't enough there to build a pocket handkerchief. The Professor carefully picked out the largest swatch, about the size of his palm, and held it an inch or two away from the flame. Slowly at first, then faster and faster, the fabric contracted, becoming stiffer and shinier, until it was about the size of his thumb.

He nodded, looked up. "As I suspected. The Japanese characters on the outside of the crate must have indicated that this is some sort of heat-sensitive packaging material. The raft was neither stolen or sabotaged—it shrank."

"It shrank?"

"Yes, Skipper. Do you remember, that first day, how we were able to load the food, the water, and the weighted dummies with no difficulty? There was ample room for all of it."

"Er… yes, I guess so," the Skipper said.

"After a day of being exposed to the heat of the sun, the raft began to contract, displacing the dummies, and eventually, it could no longer support the weight of the supplies as well as ourselves. The rate of shrinkage seems to increase exponentially as time goes on; I suspect that by the time the raft sank under the weight of the remaining cargo, it was approximately the size of a milk crate, if not a soap dish."

The Skipper swallowed hard. "So if we'd tried taking her out to sea, you think she'd have kept shrinking? With us on board?"

"I'm certain of it. The rays of the tropical sun, coupled with our body heat, would have kept the fabric of the raft at a temperature high enough that continued shrinkage would have been sadly inevitable. We would have drowned."

"It sure is a good thing we left her out in the lagoon for those extra couple of days while we made sure that sealant you made was gonna hold," Gilligan said, round-eyed.

The Skipper looked at him. "You mean, it's a good thing we left her out in the lagoon while we were arguing with you, little buddy! Your mule-headed stubbornness saved us all!"