“I can run one,” said Mark, suddenly.
Sheffield stared at him in surprise. “You can?”
“I watched Dr. Fawkes when we came. I know everything he did. And he has a repair manual for the coaster. I sneaked that out once and read it.”
Sheffield said lightly, “Well, that’s very nice. We have a spare navigator for an emergency, then.”
He turned away from Mark then, so he never saw the tree limb as it came down on his head. He didn’t hear Mark’s troubled voice saying, “I’m sorry, Dr. Sheffield.” He didn’t even, properly speaking, feel the concussion that knocked him out.
It was the jar of the coaster’s landing, Sheffield later thought, that first brought consciousness back. It was a dim aching sort of thing that had no understanding in it at first.
The sound of Mark’s voice was floating up to him. That was his first sensation. Then as he tried to roll over and get a knee beneath him, he could feel his head throbbing.
For a while, Mark’s voice was only a collection of sounds that meant nothing to him. Then they began to coalesce into words. Finally, when his eyes fluttered open and light entered stabbingly so that he had to close them again, he could make out sentences. He remained where he was, head hanging, one quivering knee holding him up.
Mark was saying in a breathless, high-pitched voice, “…A thousand people all dead. Just graves. And nobody knows why.”