Another fly settled on the gunner's face, strolling down a cheek to the dried blood painted under the man's nose. Taylor flicked at it, careful not to touch the head, not to do any more damage than he had already done. Looking at the caked blood, Taylor realized that they must have been sitting there for hours before he himself had come to.
Where were the rescue aircraft? The world was utterly silent.
The gunner made a sound that was more like that of a badly wounded animal than of a human being. Then without warning, he spoke one distinct word:
"Water."
The hopelessness of it all made Taylor begin to cry again. He could find no trace in himself now of the superpilot, the fearless cavalryman.
"Ben… for God's sake… you can't drink. I can't give you anything. You mustn't move your head."
The gunner moaned. There was still no evidence of genuine consciousness in the sound. The single word might have been an eruption out of a coma's dream.
"Please… water."
Periodically, throughout the afternoon and evening, the gunner would call for water, or mumble the word "drink." His eyes never opened. Taylor rigged a bit of shade for the man out of scraps, but there was no practical way to reduce the heat in the narrow cockpit. Taylor tried to fan his broken companion, but the effort was so obviously ineffectual it became ridiculous. Soon, he settled himself into the meager shade on the side of the wreck away from the sun, flare pistol ready to signal at the first sound of search helicopters. He tried to be stingy with the emergency water supply, but it was hard. He grew thirstier. Yet, invariably, after he allowed himself a taste of the sour wetness, the gunner would begin calling for water, as though he were watching as Taylor drank, accusing him of drinking his share too. Occasionally, Taylor would get up and chase the flies away from the injured man's face and hands. But they soon returned. The gunner's lips were already swollen and oozing.
In the night, the younger man's voice woke Taylor. The sound was a horrible rasp. But the man did not beg for a drink now. He spoke to a third person:
"Can't make me go off there. I won't do it. No. I'm not… going off of there…" Then he moaned back into his dream.
Taylor made one of his periodic attempts to bully the radio to life. But there was nothing. And the emergency transponder had gone astray somewhere in the course of the crash landing. He was afraid to light a fire, afraid that the wrong party might see it, afraid that it would attract animals rather than keep them at bay. He found it impossible to go back to sleep after the gunner's ravings had awakened him. All of his body seemed to hurt. But, far worse, he seemed to be thinking very clearly now. He realized that, although he wanted the gunner to survive, wanted it badly, he would unhesitatingly choose his own survival over that of the other man, if a choice had to be made. He had always imagined himself to be selfless, ready for sacrifice. But now it was very clear to him that he wanted, above all, to live, and that his own life was more important to him than was the life of any other man. His year of service in Colombia, during the drug-war deployment, had not truly tested him. Beyond occasional small-arms fire from the jungle or a hilltop, the greatest enemy had been boredom, and he had imagined himself to be fearless, a real stud. But the captain's bars on his shoulders, all of the words he had spoken in dozens of ceremonies, his cherished vision of himself… it was all a joke. In his moment of responsibility, he had failed, and there was no rationalizing it away. Even now, if he could have chosen to be in the warm, safe bed of any of a dozen girlfriends instead of here pretending to nurse the injured weapons officer, he would have made his decision unhesitatingly. Sitting afraid in the African night, under a painfully clear sky, he found that he had never known himself at all in his twenty-nine years. The man in the mirror had been a dressed-up doll.
A sharp new pain woke him from his doze, and, in the morning light, he could just make out the ants scouting over his body, feeding on his tom calf. He jumped up, slapping at himself in fresh terror. He danced wildly, smashing at the tiny creatures with his fists, scraping at his ankles and boots, tearing at the zipper lines of his flight suit as he felt the bites moving along his legs.
After stripping himself half-naked, he won his battle. Gasping and shaking, he went to check on the weapons officer.
The man's face was covered with ants. The eyes were open, their blinking the only sign of resistance against the swarm. The pupils never moved, staring straight ahead at the wrecked console. But they were unmistakably alive. Sentient.
"No," Taylor screamed. He tried to be gentle in his frenzy, scooping away the copper-colored ants. But he felt as maddened as if they were plundering his own face.
Despite his best efforts, the gunner's head shifted on its skewed axis, and the man moaned. Then the eyes moved, staring up at Taylor with perfect clarity from a face swollen so badly it was almost unrecognizable.
"It's no good, sir," the gunner whispered, his voice incredibly calm. "They're all over me. I can feel them." He paused, as though he were merely discussing a minor disappointment. "I was just afraid you were gone. I thought you were mad because I didn't fire."
Taylor carefully undid the zipper in the front of the man's flight suit. As he pulled it down, ants began to spill down the teeth onto the outer fabric. The cockpit floor, the man's boots were invisible under a coppery mass.
"Please give me something to drink."
Taylor could feel the ants working at his own ankles again.
"Just a drink."
"Ben… for God's sake… if I…"
"I know…" the gunner said. Tears were seeping out of his swollen eyes now. "It doesn't matter. I want to drink."
Taylor hastened to fetch the double canteen.
"Ben…"
The gunner closed his eyes. "Can't talk…'' he said. He seemed to be clenching himself against an unimaginable pain.
As gently as he could, Taylor put the canteen to the man's lips. But the mouth was already dead. He carefully tipped the water as ants began crawling up over his own hands.
With a jerk, the gunner gagged. His head lolled forward, throat gurgling, unable to accept the water.
Taylor almost dropped the canteen. But the self-preservation instinct in him was still too strong. He pulled back, spilling only a little of the water. With ants chewing fire into his hands and forearms, he carefully screwed the cap tight. Then he drew his pistol and shot his weapons officer through the forehead.
The map was useless at first, since the landscape was all the same, and he simply followed the compass. North. Flying above the earth, it had been easy to find beauty in the rugged grasslands and bush, but now, on foot, the country was a monotonous nightmare of heat, thorns, vermin, and snakes. It took him a full day of steady, pained walking before the waste hills of the mining complex swelled up in the distance. Then his water ran out. Maddeningly, the waste hills refused to grow larger, and the bush clutched at him, as if determined to hold him back. His flight suit shredded away from his arms, and sweat burned down over his opened flesh. In panic, he fired his pistol at a rearing snake that appeared immediately in front of him. He began to shake, and to dream. In his lucid moments he was uncertain whether he was suffering from fear or dehydration. He forced himself to focus on his goal, to remain focused, and he refused to consider the possibility that he might finally reach his squadron's field site only to find it evacuated. He thought about water and about safe rest in a place where nature's wretchedness would not crawl over him as he slept.