Then, with a squeal, she hurled herself on him, throwing her arms around his neck. Dark staggered back, overwhelmed by marsuits, an abundance of wriggling femininity and a babble of happy and-completely unintelligible words gushed against his bearded cheek.
He managed to disentangle himself by the dual process of dropping the marsuits and holding Maya forcibly at arm's length. She gazed up into his face, her own awed and radiant, and was able to reduce her own words to connected sentences.
"You're not here," she said positively. "You can't be here. You're dead. I saw you killed. You must be one of the ghosts of Ultra Vires."
She wriggled free and threw her arms around his neck again, announcing happily, "But you're a solid, comfortable ghost, and I love you!"
Again, Dark managed to get her at arm's length and looked down seriously into her face.
"Did I hear you correctly?" he asked soberly. "Did you say you love me?"
"I did. And I mean it. Oh, Dark, how I mean it!"
He pulled her to him. He kissed her gravely. Then he held her close in his arms, while she rested her head contentedly against his shoulder.
"What," he asked at last, "are you doing here, tinkering with a groundcar?"
"Nuwell and I were on our way to Mars City by helicopter, when it failed and crashed," she explained. "This was the only place near enough for us to make it afoot, and the marsuit radios don't have the range to call for help. We've been here more than two weeks now, trying to repair these groundcars."