13: OBJECTIVE
The tube went in and I pushed, leaning on it.
When I pulled it out the sand ran into the hole it had made, filling it. There wasn't anything pointed I could use: the end of the tube was blunt and therefore not very efficient as a boring tool but it was all I had. It was one of the sections of telescopic tubing among the survival gear, meant to hold up fabric and make it a shelter.
I pushed it in again, six feet away, and leaned on it.
Skin perfectly dry. Cooling had stopped.
I'd have to watch that because heat stroke develops quite rapidly: the body temperature starts rising soon after the stage where the sweat evaporates without having time to cool the skin. Quickened pulse, loss of consciousness, death.
I drank again to replace some of the sweat but the water was hot and gave no sensation of quenching the thirst: it was just liquid going into the organism. I was having to calculate now and we were running it close: one more litre was left for working with, and one reserve litre for staying alive during sleep. I could go another ninety minutes at this rate on a litre but that didn't have anything to do with it because the heat explosion would begin a long time before then unless I could take some rest.
They had come back and their shadows drifted across the flank of the dune as I pushed the tube in and struck nothing. Pull it out. Two paces and try again.
It must be this one, this dune, or the one on the far side of my No. 2 camp. I'd brought a canopy and three lengths of tubing to make shade, and the 200 °CA had been left on receive. In the last two hours I'd taken four equally-spaced rest periods of fifteen minutes. Loman had come on the air to tell me 1: that the Algerian squadrons would refuel west of here and disperse to their home stations without making a return sweep and 2: that Chirac had confirmed that even a medium sandstorm could bury an aircraft the size of Tango Victor.
Chirac had pointed out that the freighter had probably hit the sand with the undercarriage up to avoid flipping over and in any case would have gouged a deep trough until the aerofoil had started planing. This would leave the tip of the rudder only two metres or so from the ground and the main structure considerably lower. The 35mm Nikons hadn't been able to register this because they'd been almost vertically above, but from ground level it couldn't have been easy to see even before the sandstorm had blotted it out.
Probe and try again, two paces.
The chance of hitting the rudder or the aerial mast was remote. According to Chime's reckoning the mainplanes, tailplane and fuselage would be at least two metres from the surface. I'd once been in Arizona when the wind had reached seventy and the whole desert had got up and blown across the sky and it had taken us a day to dig out the half-tracks.
Push and lean and pull out.
I didn't know anything about falling over till my shoulder began blazing. I couldn't seem to get up because the whole weight of the sky was pressing on me. Heart hammering a lot, throbbing behind my eyes, get in the shade, crawl there if it's all you can do, but get there.
Sand in the teeth, gritty, and my hands burning, using them as forefeet, clumsy, going too slow, have to hurry, pool of shade, prone.
He called up at 16.31 hours, waking me.
No, I said.
Slight moisture on the skin and the pulse back to normal but I knew it'd start again within ten minutes of going back into that furnace.
He wanted details.
I'm using a metal probe, area focus the same as before.
It seemed to have taken me a long time to say it and now I was out of breath. He didn't answer straight away.
How much longer can you go on working there?
I don't know.
My hand just reached for the flask: I hadn't actually decided to drink.
I am only asking for an approximate idea, of course.
He had to say it again before I registered.
There's water for about an hour's work. But I'm starting get — starting to get — heat stroke symptoms.
Quite a long pause.
Would you be able to remain under shade until nightfall?
My head swung up suddenly and my' eyes opened.
You mean you could drop more provisions?
No.
The pulse had quickened and there was an almost immediate increase in sweating. But he'd said no and it was the first time it had actually been admitted that this was a strictly shut-ended mission unless I could find the objective.
I propped the mike on my knee, heavy to hold, cost water.
Take all — it'd take all the water I've got, waiting till dark.
It would be cooler then. You could work
No go. Thing is to press on. Tango out.
Only way to shut him up. Not a thing he could do, not even drop more water. He'd have to signal Control and tell them the score: the executive in the field has a limited number of hours to live, am I to abandon?
I got up and went out and the slam of the direct heat nearly knocked me down and I staggered a bit and then got some kind of rhythm going. The tube was stuck in the sand where I'd left it, too hot now, blister your hand, so I kicked it over and got hold of the other end and began walking to the part of the dune where I'd halted operations. About halfway there I tripped over his foot.
It took a little time because he might be able to tell me things by the way he was lying, face down and with his feet towards the end of the dune. I worked slowly, trying to get all the data the situation could provide. My tracks had a slight curvein them: I'd made a detour on my way from the canopy without meaning to, and this was why I hadn't tripped over him when I'd gone in to rest. I turned him over.
He had died in terror.
The hands flung out as he'd fallen, perhaps running too hard, running like hell away from the wreck of the freighter, running in terror. His face showed that much. He had died screaming.
Not far away there was something black showing in the sand: my feet had brought it to the surface; it lay at the edge of my tracks. It was plumage and as I pulled it upwards the wing rose, scattering sand, and then the gross black body with its bald head dangling, the hooked beak agape. The bird, like the man, had died screaming.
There was another, so near the man that in moving his body, turning it over, I had exposed part of its wing. The heat didn't seem so bad now and I was moving more quickly, a sense of purpose reviving the organism. I made a direct line to the end of the dune where his feet had pointed, and tripped again, dislodging a peaked cap from a man's head. His body was in the same attitude: he'd been running away from the freighter. His face had the same expression.
A third vulture was lying at the foot of the dune. I was kicking into the thing before I knew it. I didn't stop to examine it because the renewed strength in me was pushing me onwards and the fourth time I drove the tube into the sand it struck metal.
Distance 485 yards. Bearing 200°. Longitude 8°3′ by Latitude 30°4′.
Tango Victor.
I used the tubing like an oar, bringing the sand away but only enough to guide me. This was the leading edge of the tailplane and I moved across the flank of the dune and began probing again. It was already clear that the bodies had been lying only just below the surface because they were to the north of the freighter, in the lee of the dune: it had been the south wind that had done this, theGhibli.