The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell [158]
He turned at the sound of her husky laugh. Tinted by half-washed blood and its bruises growing more colorful hourly, the beautiful Sephardic face remained cool and composed, but the eyes smiled as Sofia Mendes looked around her. "Why walk," she asked, arched brows high, "when we can fly?"
THEY SLEPT THEN and awoke late, tight-muscled and sore, but heartened by the poststorm sunlight and by their survival. They made a simple breakfast from the stock in the lander and Sofia reacquainted herself with the plane, going through the exercise of takeoff and landing on the simulator. Marc occupied himself with a brief survey of the forest life-forms he’d studied during their first weeks on Rakhat, taking notes on what might be seasonal changes. And he went to the grave of Alan Pace, neatened it, and prayed for a while.
At midmorning, Sofia climbed stiffly out of the lander and walked over. "We should be ready to go in about two hours."
Marc suddenly straightened. It was a mistake and he groaned, but then he asked, "Have you contacted the others yet?"
"Oh, my God! They’ve probably given us up for dead by now," Sofia cried, appalled. "I meant to raise them last night. It slipped my mind entirely. Oh, Marc, they must be frantic!"
Marc had never before seen her in the least flustered. It humanized her and, for the first time, he decided that he liked her very much. "Sofia," he said, mimicking her own wry tone of the previous night, "next time we are in a plane crash together, I’m sure you will remember to radio in news of our survival. We are, after all, amateurs at this sort of thing. A few mistakes are to be expected."
"I may have been more shaken than I realized." She shook her head. "Come on. Better late than never."
They went to the lander and tried to contact Kashan but got only dead air. "Blackout," Sofia said disgustedly. It was one of those irritating hiatuses in satellite relay coverage. "Four hours before we get a carrier signal back."
"Ah, well, we shall be home soon, like ones arisen from the dead!" Marc said gaily. Then he added conspiratorially, "Perhaps in his surprise, the Father Superior won’t notice that we’ve smashed his little airplane to bits."
Sending Marc back to his plants, Sofia began a rigorous preflight inspection. There were a hundred potential hazards: little green guy nests in the engines, Richard Nixons roosting in the undercarriage, bugger swarms in the electronics boxes. When at last she was as certain as she could be that the lander was safe to fly, she went aft to the cargo bay and called Robichaux over. "I’ll be doing a test startup and then I’ll take off for a few practice maneuvers. Would you like to come for the ride or have you had enough excitement for the week?"
"I believe I should prefer to spend the time collecting samples."
If it had been Sandoz, she’d have said, No guts. She smiled at Marc. "I’ll be back in half an hour."
He helped her fasten down the bay door and then moved well back to the edge of the forest, out of range of the engine blast. When he turned, he could see her through the cockpit window, wincing as she tightened the straps over a body as sore as his own. She looked at him then, and he put his hands together and raised them over his head in a painful good luck gesture. She nodded, and started the ignition countdown.
TO AN EX-COMBAT pilot like D. W. Yarbrough, the words "missing in action" always brought a hollow-bellied horror. Planes went down and you didn’t know where or why. You knew the odds, but you didn’t know the truth. And your next move was always awful with finely calculated risk. Did you send others into danger in hope of an unlikely rescue or did you accept the reality of casualties? There was a price, either way.
D.W. was not one to flagellate himself with knotted cords of regret and hindsight. Nevertheless,