With six gallons of fuel remaining in the auxiliary tank, a note appeared on the clothesline. Descend to 200 ft. Prepare water landing.

She scribbled on the same square of paper: YOU.

He didn’t answer. The left engine droned on, oblivious to its imminent death.

Irene started to descend. Her pulse punched against her throat, closing off her breath. Her hands shook on the stick. A hand came down on her shoulder. A finger appeared in her field of vision, jabbing at the window. Irene raised herself an inch or two and followed the line it drew across the water, right toward a tiny patch of white at the extreme southern end of the horizon.

THERE IT IS, Sam yelled in her ear.

Not a panicked yell, no fear at all, just loud and confident so that she could hear him above the noise of the engine.

But the island, as it grew in size and came into focus, was not shaped like a potato chip. More like a dill pickle, or a banana.

Irene couldn’t send any notes now. She had to fly, she had to look at this scrap of land by the light of the moon and figure out what it was made of, how to land on it, could she land on it. And all the while her heart was beating so hard and so fast, she thought her ribs would break. She couldn’t breathe. This white mist seemed to be filling her brain. All those times she had practiced landing in an emergency, landing on the sand in the desert, landing without an engine, but she hadn’t practiced this. Landing on some unknown piece of land in the middle of the ocean. The shape of it grew and grew. She couldn’t see, she couldn’t tell if those dark patches were grass or scrub or trees or what have you.

She couldn’t do it.

She flung out an arm behind her and grabbed hold of some part of Sam, his shoulder. She turned and looked at him, and the panic must have burst right into the open, because he took her hand off his shoulder and shouted in her ear, You can do it!

I CAN’T! she yelled back, and this time she rose from the seat and let go of the stick.

The Centauri pitched and dove.

Sam slammed her down on the seat, grabbed her hand, and set it on the stick.

LAND THE GODDAMN AIRPLANE, he said in her ear. I’M RIGHT HERE.