Hancock. Head bandaged with blood-blackened chute fabric.
She knelt beside him.
He fumbled at a pocket of his survival vest. She gently pushed his hands away, extracted a water sachet and tore the corner tab. She lifted his head and held the pouch to his lips.
He sucked the pouch dry. Feverish thirst.
‘Another?’
He nodded.
She tore the tab and watched him gulp a second pouch.
He lay back, panting.
‘More water on the plane, right?’ he asked.
‘Some.’
‘Anyone else make it?’
‘Pinback and Guthrie are dead for sure. No sign of the others. Poor bastards must be out in the desert. I’ll start a fire at first light. Put up more smoke. Maybe they’ll see it.’
Hancock held up his CSEL.
‘Couldn’t raise anyone. Not a living soul.’
‘The airwaves are stone dead.’
‘Thought my radio might be damaged.’
Frost shook her head.
‘There’s no one to raise. It’s as if the whole hemisphere has gone dark.’
‘Still,’ he said. ‘Glad you made it, Frosty.’
He held out a hand. They shook.
Frost gestured to his injured head.
‘Want me to patch you up, sir?’
‘Been walking all day. I’m beyond tired. Let me rest a while.’
‘Looks like you took a substantial knock.’
‘Woke up minus an eye.’
‘Lost some blood, by the looks.’
He nodded. He gestured to his scalp.
‘Itches like I-don’t-know-what. Hard to stop myself scratching the wound right open. Torment. How about you? You okay?’
‘Messed up my leg.’
He checked out the splint.
‘You can walk. You can put a little weight on it. So I guess it can’t be bust.’
‘Morphine dulls the pain. Not sure if that’s good or bad. Might encourage me to exacerbate the injury.’
‘You’ll be okay.’
‘Does your head hurt?’
‘It’s like my migraine has a migraine. Can’t hardly see straight. A thousand drills boring into my skull.’
‘There’s a trauma kit aboard the plane. Plenty of dope. I’ll fix you up. Get you high as a Georgia pine.’
He shook his head.
‘Pinback is dead, is that right? Then I guess that makes me AC. Better keep a clear head. Responsibilities. There’s a whole new day tomorrow and it ain’t been touched yet. Plenty to do.’
‘Maybe you ought to take a shot. Help you concentrate on the tasks at hand.’
‘No.’
‘With respect, being AC doesn’t mean a whole lot right now. The mission is over, sir. Not much to be done. Just got to sit tight and wait for rescue.’
Hancock started to get to his feet. He looked resolute, like he was ready to take charge and issue orders. Then his strength gave out and he fell on his back.
‘Seriously, sir. You’re played out. Better rest a while.’
They lay and looked up at the brilliant starfield.
‘No planes,’ said Hancock. ‘A dozen flight paths used to intersect over this desert. Few months ago we would have see contrails, running lights.’
‘We ought to concentrate on our immediate situation.’
‘A silent planet. Nothing moving on the highways. No ships at sea. Imagine the cities. New York. LA. The stillness. The silence.’
Long pause.
‘What if we’re the last people on Earth? If Vegas got wiped out, if the airwaves are dead, maybe there is no one else but us. End of the species. Could be us. Right here, right now.’
‘You want to procreate, is that what you’re saying?’
Hancock smiled.
‘Appreciate the offer, but right now I barely have enough energy to blink.’
They lay in silence a while.
‘Thought I was going to die out there, Frost. Die among the dunes. Thought my end had come.’
‘Yeah. Me too.’
‘Least we survived, right?’
She nodded.
‘Yeah,’ said Hancock. ‘Least we survived.’
12
Frost got to her feet.
‘We’ll freeze if we stay out here. We better get inside.’
She held out a hand and helped Hancock to his feet.
They leant against each other as they walked to the plane.
The body.
Pinback shrouded in the stars and stripes.
Hancock stood a while, leaning against the hull of the B-52, and contemplated the dead man.
‘Don’t mean to speak ill of the departed. Understand he was your friend and all. But the dumb bastard should have punched out.’
She helped Hancock squirm through the fissure in the fuselage and enter the darkness of the lower cabin.
He lowered himself to the floor, sat with his back against the nav console.
Frost crouched and found her survival vest by touch. She unzipped pouches and found her little Fenix flashlight. Cabin lit by a weak pencil-beam.
‘There’s a big Maglite in that locker,’ said Hancock.
Frost threw him a parka.
She zipped her flight suit and stepped into unlaced boots.
‘Try to sleep,’ advised Frost.
‘If there is stuff to be done, we ought to set to work before the sun comes up and heat starts to build.’
‘You’re in no fit state. Get some rest.’
She pulled a tool pack from a floor locker. Duct tape. She twisted the reel onto her wrist like a bangle.
‘I’m going up top. See if I can patch a few holes, trap a little heat.’
She climbed the ladder to the flight deck.
Two of the roof hatches were open to the starlit sky.
Sections of the cabin roof and walls were insulated by padded blankets clipped to the superstructure by poppers. She pulled a couple of blankets free.
She stood on a trunk stamped LIFE RAFT. She bite-ripped strips of tape and patched the vacant hatch frames with insulation.
She pulled down blast screens to curtain the missing windows.
She climbed down the ladder and set the flashlight on the nav console.
She pulled another blanket from the wall, held it against the split in the fuselage, measured it for size, prepared to seal the plane against a rising night wind.
‘I feel bad,’ said Hancock. ‘Sitting here, watching you work.’
She shrugged.
‘No point messing yourself up any further. Just add to my problems. Want to eat? We’ve got food.’
‘I’m okay,’ he said.
‘Let me know if you get hungry. I’ll fetch snack bars.’
She tore tape with her teeth.
‘Reckon they’ll show up? Trenchman and his gang?’ she asked.
‘Only hope we got is that nuke,’ said Hancock. ‘The Joint Chiefs, whoever the fuck it was ordered this mission, will regard you, me, the whole damned crew, as an expendable asset. No point crying about it. Came with the uniform, right? The moment we tied our boots. But promise you this: no way will they shrug off the loss of a tactical nuke, just leave it lying in the sand. They are desperate to erase something out there in the desert, and we got the only warhead at their disposal. If they’re still alive, if they’re still down a bunker somewhere issuing commands, they will make our rescue an absolute priority. Help will come. Just got to sit tight and not panic ourselves into anything stupid.’
A flicker in the sky outside. Pinprick, brilliant white, falling out of view.
She squirmed from the plane, limped to a nearby dune and scrambled to the top. Hancock stumbled in pursuit.
‘What can you see?’ he asked, looking up at her from the foot of the dune. He tried to stand, but fell on his knees. ‘A searchlight? A chopper?’
She waved hush and squinted at the distant horizon.
A distant star shell slowly fell to earth.