But no. I looked like an empty version of the woman he knew. Sanitized. Made cosmetically acceptable. That only added to his anger… maybe pushed him over the edge.
Listen. I knew I was being ridiculous: putting the blame on my face, as always. Ugly face, beautiful face, it was always in the wrong. Loudly and clearly, I told myself, "You've really got to work on self-esteem, Festina."
I stared into the fire a long time. It felt hot on my cheeks.
A Gray Morning
I slept three or four hours over the night. Nothing happened. Nobody came… not Jelca and not a search party. That bothered me. Ullis must know I was missing. Even if Jelca had sabotaged the elevator, all those non-zoology majors should have been able to repair it by now. Where were they?
Dawn arrived diffidently, easing itself into a chilly gray. Clouds had crept in overnight — a high overcast that misted the top of the tallest mountains. It would rain before the end of the day… either that or snow. I threw more wood on the fire and huddled against Oar for comfort.
Her comfort or mine. Both.
My watch read 10:05 when I first heard the distant whine. I snatched up a handful of throwing stones… but the sound did not come from the elevator. It was somewhere outside. Was the city opening its roof doors? Could the Explorers be launching the whale? I tried to imagine a way Jelca could trick the others into leaving without even looking for me. Nothing came to mind.
As I listened, I realized the sound was not coming from the mountain; it came from the sky.
"Don't I have enough trouble?" I groaned.
I debated moving Oar to safe cover, but she'd already been moved too much for a patient with internal injuries. Anyway, if something happened to me, I wanted her in plain sight where searchers could find her.
Better to leave well enough alone.
I stood. I waited.
A glass eagle set down on the rocks in front of me. It had missiles mounted under its belly.
The cockpit slid open and a man clambered out. "Saw your fire!" he shouted.
"Happy birthday, Phylar," I said.
Yet Another Reunion
He was no longer wearing his tightsuit. In fact, Tobit had stripped to his underwear, giving a more revealing view of his hairy torso than any woman could wish. The only piece he had retained from his uniform was the helmet, carried under his arm: his good arm. His other arm, the prosthetic one, now hung from a cord around his neck, its fingers gripping the rope like a chin-up bar. Oddly enough, the false arm's skin was several shades darker than the rest of Tobit's pale body. I wondered if the prosthetic surgeons had been careless in matching his complexion or if years of drunkenness had leached the color from the rest of his flesh.
"That was a shabby trick, Ramos," he complained. "Running out on me like that." With a look of wounded dignity, he grabbed the free end of his artificial arm and clapped it into the receptor housing that Fleet surgeons had hollowed into his shoulder. A few hearty thumps hammered the connector jacks into place. "You make me feel unloved," he said as he flexed the prosthetic fingers experimentally. "You have something against amputees?"
I signed with relief. He was only irritated, not angry. For all his faults, Tobit was a true Explorer — not like Jelca, overreacting to tiny slights.
"You were busy with your friends," I answered lightly. "It would have been rude to interrupt the party." I glanced at the eagle's cockpit. "You didn't bring anyone with you?"
"There was room for only one Morlock, and I didn't want to pick favorites." He made a dismissive gesture with his hand: his artificial one, which now seemed fully functional. "To tell the truth, they were such pathetic sots I didn't have a favorite. Except you, of course, Ramos." He threw a smacking kiss in my direction. "You're looking good."
"If one more person says that to me, I'll rip the damned skin off."
"Don't rip off your cheek to spite your face." He gestured toward Oar. "What's wrong with your friend?"
"Jelca shot her."
Tobit's eyebrows raised.
"It's a long story," I said, "and I don't have time to tell it. Do those missiles of yours work?"
"Yes. No thanks to you." He looked at me warily. "Are you thinking of blasting Jelca?"
"No. I'm thinking of blasting a door."
The Blast Radius
Neither Tobit nor I could guess how much damage the missile might do. We didn't even know what payload it contained. Chemical? Nuclear? Matter-antimatter disintegration? "Phylar," I said, "before you mount weapons on a plane, shouldn't you find out how much bang they have? It might help to know whether you should keep back a hundred meters from your target or a hundred kilometers."
Tobit scowled. "I never intended to use the bombs, Ramos; I just wanted them there for completeness."
"Completeness," I repeated.
"I liked the look of them; besides, flying an eagle is so damned gauche, I needed something to make me look less precious. As soon as I figured out how to command the AI, I had the missiles reactivated and put back."
"So you armed the plane as a fashion statement?"
"Stop bitching, Ramos. You're the one who wants to blow up a mountain."
Difficult though it was, we loaded Oar into the eagle with us, sitting her up on my lap like a limp heap of laundry. She wouldn't be safe on the ground; there was no way to gauge the blast radius. Anyway, if the missile was nuclear or worse, she'd have to be dozens of klicks away to avoid damage, and we couldn't carry her that far on foot. Better to have her with us, and simply order the plane to remove itself an adequate distance from the explosion.
Before boarding the plane, Tobit got a fistful of dirt and smeared a huge brown X on the outcrop that hid the elevator door. The mark would be easy to see at a distance of at least five kilometers. Hitting the mark was another matter — we had no idea what guidance mechanisms the missiles had. Since the eagle possessed no controls, all we could do was say, "Shoot that," and let the plane do all the aiming.
Oar and I perched in the right-hand seat, strapped down as best I could manage. Tobit climbed in beside us and stuffed his head into his tightsuit helmet. "Why are you wearing that?" I asked.
"So I don't get blinded by the sun," he replied.
I looked dubious. The helmet's visor was clear, evidence that the overcast sky was no danger to anyone's eyes. If there had been any excess brightness, the visor would have automatically tinted itself.
"We don't have any sun today," I told him.
"There might be a break in the clouds. Or," he muttered in a lower voice, "there might be a nuclear fireball of apocalyptic proportions."
"Oh," I said. "I better close my eyes."
"Nah," he answered with an airy wave. "Just hide behind your girlfriend. She'll soak up the rads better than forty meters of lead." Then before I could respond, he told the plane, "Up. Let's get this show on the road."
Boom
The eagle rose straight up on its wing-jets, a smooth vertical liftoff. "Keep track of that X mark," Tobit said to the plane, "that's our target. Fly to a safe range, then blast it."
The plane banked away neatly, then angled into a steep climb on a straight line course away from target. Acceleration squashed me lightly between Oar and the back of my chair, but not painfully so. A small distance short of the cloud ceiling, the eagle leveled off and continued on the same heading, cruising comfortably short of Mach 1.