It wasn't as dark outside as in; Amy could see Jeff's shape beside the longer shadow of the lean-to, could sense him lifting his head to look at her. He didn't say anything; she assumed he didn't want to wake Pablo. She picked up the plastic bottle, unbuttoned her pants, and-crouching right there in front of the tent, with Jeff watching her through the darkness-started to urinate. It took her a moment to guide the mouth of the bottle beneath her stream, and she peed on her hand in the process. The bottle was already bottom-heavy with someone else's piss-Mathias's, Amy guessed-and there was something disturbing about this, the sound of her urine spurting into his, sloshing and spattering and merging. She wasn't going to drink it, she assured herself; it would never come to that. She was just humoring Jeff, showing him what a good sport she could be. If he wanted her to pee in the bottle, that was what she'd do, but in the morning the Greeks would arrive, and none of it would matter anymore. They'd send them off to get help, and by nightfall everything would be resolved. She capped the bottle, returned it to its spot beside the doorway, then pulled her pants back up, buttoning them as she moved toward Jeff.
The moon had risen, finally, but it was tiny, a faint silver sliver hanging just above the horizon. It didn't give off much light; she could make out the shapes of things, but not their details. Jeff was sitting cross-legged, looking oddly at peace-content, even. Amy dropped to the ground beside him, reached out and took his hand, as if she hoped by touching him she might claim some of his calm for herself. She was making a conscious effort not to glance beneath the lean-to. He's asleep, she told herself. He's fine.
"What are you doing?" she whispered.
"Thinking," Jeff answered.
"About?"
"I'm trying to remember things."
Amy felt a catch at this, a dropping sensation inside her chest, as if she'd reached for a light switch in a darkened room and encountered someone's face instead. She remembered visiting her mother's father, an old man with a smoker's cough, as he lay on his deathbed, tubed and monitored, clear fluids dripping into him, dark ones dripping out. Amy was six, maybe seven; she didn't let go of her mother's hand, not once, not even when she was prodded forward to kiss the dying man good-bye on his stubbled cheek.
"What are you doing, Dad?" her mother had asked the old man when they'd first arrived.
And he'd said, "Trying to remember things."
It was what people did, Amy had decided, as they waited for death; they lay there struggling to remember the details of their lives, all the events that had seemed so impossible to forget while they were being suffered through, the things tasted and smelled and heard, the thoughts that had felt like revelations, and now Jeff was doing this, too. He'd given up. They weren't going to survive this place; they were going to end just like Henrich, shot full of arrows, the vines coiling and flowering around their bones.
But no: it wasn't like that, not for Jeff. She should've known better.
"There's a way to distill urine," he said. "You dig a hole. You put the urine in it, in an open container. You cover the hole with a waterproof tarp, weigh it down to hold it in place. In its center you place a stone, so that the tarp droops there. And beneath that spot, in the hole, you leave an empty cup. The sun heats the hole. The urine evaporates, then condenses against the tarp. The water droplets slide down to the center and drip into the cup. Does that sound right to you?"
Amy just stared at him. She'd stopped following almost from the start.
It didn't matter, though; she knew Jeff wasn't really talking to her. He was thinking out loud, and might not even have heard her if she'd bothered to answer. "I'm pretty sure it's right," he said. "But I feel like I'm forgetting something." He fell silent again, considering this. She couldn't make out his face in the dim light, but she could picture it easily enough. There'd be a slight frown, a wrinkling of his forehead. His eyes would appear to be squinting at her, intensely, but this would be an illusion. He'd be looking through her, past her. "It doesn't have to be urine," he said finally. "We could cut the vine, too. Place it in the hole. The heat will suck the moisture right out of it."
Amy didn't know what to say to this. Ever since their arrival here, there'd been a jitteriness to Jeff, a heightened quality to his voice, his gestures. She'd assumed it was merely a symptom of anxiety, the same fear, the same nervousness the rest of them were feeling. But maybe it wasn't, she realized now; maybe it was something more unexpected. Maybe it was excitement. Amy had the sudden sense that Jeff had been preparing for something like this all his life-some crisis, some disaster-studying for it, training, reading his books, memorizing his facts. Trailing along behind this thought was the realization that if anyone was going to get them out of here, it would be Jeff. She knew this ought to have made her feel more safe rather than less, but it didn't. It unsettled her; she wanted to pull away from him, creep back into the tent. He seemed happy; he seemed glad to be here. And the possibility of this made her feel like weeping.
I'm not going to drink the urine, she wanted to say. Even distilled, I'm not going to drink it.
Instead, she lifted her head, sniffed the air. There was the faint, slightly musky scent of wood burning, a campfire smell, and she felt her stomach stir in response to it. She was hungry, she realized; they hadn't eaten since the morning. "Is that smoke?" she whispered.
"They've built fires," Jeff said. He lifted his arm, made a circular motion, encompassing them within it. "All around the base of the hill."
"To cook with?" she asked
He shook his head. "So they can see us. Make sure we don't try to sneak past in the dark."
Amy took this in, along with all its implications, the sense of being under siege. There were questions she knew she should be asking him, doors opening off of this particular hallway, leading to rooms that needed to be explored, but she didn't think she had the courage for his answers. So she kept silent, her fear chasing off her hunger, her stomach going tight and fluttery.
"There'll be dew in the morning," Jeff said. "We can tie rags to our ankles, walk through the vines, and the rags'll pick up the moisture. We can squeeze it out of them. Not much, but if-"
"Stop it," she said. She couldn't help herself. "Please, Jeff."
He fell silent, staring at her through the darkness.
"You told us the Greeks will come," she said.
He hesitated, as if choosing between different possible responses. Then, very quietly, he said, "That's right."