Facing the fire and its aftermath with Rick and Joe had made it possible -for her to envision a life with them. Their bonds had strengthened and, with them, her hope that things would work out among them. She wasn't ex-actly sure what form their arrangement would take, but she was less worried about it. Con sensed that both Joe and Rick cared for her, but in different ways. She cared for them, too, enough even to deny her hunger.
RICK WOKE NEXT. Feeling for the water bottle, he touched an arm, and heard Con whisper, "Is that Rick or Joe?"
"Rick," he whispered back. "Have you been awake long?"
"It's hard to tell, I can't see a thing."
"The next few days will be the worst of it. Every-thing's up there—debris from the impact, soot from the fire, and rain clouds, too."
"Rain," said Con wistfully. "What a lovely idea."
"It'll pour soon as it cools a bit. A lot of water was evaporated during the impact and afterward by the heat."
"I'll take it all. I could use a shower." Con sniffed. "You could too." Rick gasped in mock indignation. "What a personal remark!"
"More a scientific observation."
"You hungry?"
Con snorted at the question. "What do you think?"
"No point in waiting for sunrise to eat."
"Shouldn't we wait for Joe?"
"That meat will probably spoil before we can eat it all. We should eat as much of it as possible before it does."
"You don't need to ask me twice. My only problem is finding the food in the dark."
"Why don't you use a flashlight?" said Joe.
"Did we wake you?" asked Con: "I'm sorry if we did."
"That's okay," Joe replied. "The walls in these rooms are paper thin. Think about that before you try any hanky-panky."
"Rick mentioned breakfast. . ." said Con.
Joe laughed. "Back on your favorite subject. Breakfast sounds good to me." He felt around until he located a flashlight, then turned it on.. The light made everyone squint. He found the meat and handed a strip to Rick and two strips to Con before taking one for himself.
"That's not fair," said Con.
"I know," said Joe. "You can have more when you finish that."
"You know what I mean," said Con.
"It seems to me," said Joe, "that 'fair' means everyone gets what they need. Would it be fair to give the same portions to an adult and a child?"
"I'm not a child," said Con.
"You're missing my point," replied Joe. "In terms of our food requirements, Rick and I are children, and you're an adult. I know I kid you about your appetite, but I'm serious now. In the lean times to come, you'll' need to get more if we're all to suffer equally." He saw Con's eyes were beginning to tear up and turned off the flashlight. "We should save the batteries."
"Joe . . ."
"We need to take care of each other," said Joe. "To do that, we have to understand each other." Con swallowed with difficulty. "Thanks, Joe."
"Don't think about it. I only hope someone would do the same for Nicole." Rick, Con, and Joe ate in silence for a while, each absorbed in private thoughts. Rick eventually broke the quiet by asking Joe for the flashlight. "I need to step outside for a moment." Con quickly wiped her wet face before the light went on. Rick pressed the button on the wall, and the opening appeared. The air that came into the plane was slightly cooler than earlier, but now it was humid. Rick walked out of view, then returned in a min-ute to shine the light into the holes around the plane. One of the holes around a landing leg was filled with a rock.
"Is this the rock you were talking about, Con?"
"Yeah, I couldn't get it up."
"No wonder. It looks like most of it is still buried."
From inside the plane Rick could hear Joe moan, "Oh God, I hate digging."
"Then let's get it over with," said Con.
Joe turned on another flashlight and searched for their digging implements. He supplemented them with a table knife and a fork. "I thought we'd get high-tech," he said, showing them to Rick and Con. When they went outside to resume digging, their flash-lights illuminated a landscape of gray ash enveloped in darkness. All the fires were gone, and no orange glow relieved the perfect blackness of the sky. For all they could see, they could have been lost in a cave. The effect of the burnt landscape was equally oppressive. Joe at-tacked the ground with his spoon. "I want out of here." They dug methodically, aware of the danger of pushing their bodies in humidity that had more than made up for the drop in temperature. Con made her hole wider and wider, trying to find the edges of the rock. Rick, lying on his stomach, finally scraped the foot at the end of the landing leg. Only the front part of the leg was uncovered; the rest was still encased in dirt. Joe's hole was the larg-est, but he had the largest area to uncover.
Under an unchanging sky, they found it impossible to gauge how long they worked. Only the soreness in their bodies provided a vague measure. Otherwise, each mo-ment blended with the last into timeless drudgery. Pro-gress was slow. They worked until hunger and fatigue forced them to rest and eat. Despite their efforts, they were still far from done.
Only marginally rested, they resumed digging, and the work proceeded even more slowly than before. Con was beginning to feel it would never end when something hit her bare foot. The sensation was repeated on her leg. She shined her flashlight on her leg and saw a spot made by a drop of water, a raindrop. She assumed the spot was black because of the soot and ash that covered her. How-ever, as more drops began to hit her, she saw the rain itself was black. The others noticed it, too.
"Is this goop rain?" said Joe.
" 'Fraid so," said Rick.
"I suppose it's black from smoke and dust," said Joe.
"With a little acid thrown in," replied Rick.
"Should we be out in it?" asked Joe.
"Well, I'm going to keep digging," said Con. "I hate this place." The few scattered drops increased in number until there was a steady rain. The water was warm, but it was gritty and it stung the eyes. Con dug with her eyes closed, opening them only occasionally. When she did, the black rain made for an eerie sight. The rain's inky curtain swal-lowed the flashlight's beam. It transformed Joe and Rick into watery chimney sweeps, bathed in liquid soot. The ashy ground soon became a sticky puddle of black muck. So this is the shower I yearned for, thought Con. The rain made the digging easier as it softened the baked earth. Con found that she could widen her hole more quickly. At last, the earth came up in large spoon-fuls, and she wished they had thought of bringing water from the river. That would be unnecessary now, for the rain came down in torrents. Con was able to uncover the stone. It was water-smoothed and over two feet in di-ameter. It rested against the plane's leg, covering part of the foot. Con began to dig around the stone's edges, hop-ing to find a surface to grab. As she dug, it became ap-parent the rock was nearly spherical. Lifting it was beyond her strength and would probably require all three of them.
The water that had aided Con's digging turned against her as the stone disappeared beneath its rising surface. Further digging only brought up thin, watery, black mud. Water, mud, and ash began to fill the hole. Con looked around and saw Rick and Joe were in the same predica-ment. Joe's hole resembled a large puddle. He attacked it furiously, using both hands to fling water and mud. The rain filled it faster than he could scoop. When the side he was working on began to collapse into the hole, Joe flew into impotent rage. He slammed his fists into the sodden earth, splattering himself with muck. As if to mock him, the rain fell even harder.
"We've got to stop," said Con, shouting over the rain.
"We're so damn close!" Joe shouted back.
"Digging's only making it worse," said Con.
"Con's right, Joe. We're going to have to wait out the storm."