It was almost noon. After landing, they had crawled out of the ship and taken their bearings, had drunk some water and settled under the shelter of a wing and slept several hours, while the equatorial sun rose at last and carpeted the landscape in heat. Irene had woken first and shook Sam. Now that it was light, she saw that he had cut his forehead, which was smeared and crusted with dried blood. They had gone down to the beach and washed it with salt water, and now they were staring at the empty horizon.

“I’m sorry,” she said again.

“Sorry for what?”

“Panicking.”

He lay back in the sand and shaded his eyes. “You did just fine.”

“But why did you make me do it? We could have been killed.”

“Because I knew you could do it. You’re a natural. Anyway, I figured you needed the practice.”

“The practice?” She hit his shoulder. “The practice?”

He opened one eye at last and squinted at her. “One day you’re going to be flying solo, and you’re going to have to crash some bird somewhere, and I want you to know how to do it. I want you to live.”

I want you to live. Irene looked up at the hot sky. She wanted to say something, but her throat was stiff and dry. Sam lay back in his flight suit, tanned and relaxed, hair damp, one blue eye squinting in her direction. As if they were on some kind of vacation! The air was hot and dry and smelled of the ocean. Irene heaved herself to her feet and strode back to the airplane.

According to the charts, Howland Island was about twice as big as Baker, a thousand acres or so, made of coral sand and surrounded by reef. Nobody lived there, except birds. You couldn’t live there. The surface was flat and nearly barren, just scrub grass and a few trees huddled atop a small rise near the middle. Irene had a dread feeling that there was no fresh water of any kind.

At least its desert qualities made it easy to land on. The Centauri had dug ruts into the sand and grass, but it hadn’t spun or crashed or been damaged by trees. Just an intact shell of an airplane with no fuel. Irene ducked under the tail and kept walking westward. The sun was high above her, beating down on the brim of her hat. The ocean rushed against the reef. The tide was low, exposing the shallows, and Irene thought they could probably catch some fish there, some crustaceans or something.

Water was a bigger problem. Irene had packed a makeshift distilling kit among her equipment, but distilling seawater was a lot of work for meager reward. Still. Enough water to keep them alive, if they needed it.

If they needed it?