He let his eyes close and waited. Do it now, kid, he thought. Do it! Do it! Take the flyer and go look for them. You have that much coming to you. Do it!
He couldn't hold the position after several more minutes; his legs were sending cramping pains up through his hips, and his hand was asleep on the seat where his gun had been. Keeping his eyes closed he shifted again. Damn her! She was a coward after all! She couldn't do it. Gradually he untensed and fatigue dulled his thoughts. Coward, the word kept parading through his mind, and it was not clear whether he meant her for not shooting, or himself for wanting her to shoot.
Marilyn's voice roused him and he had no awareness of passage of time. "Keith," she said again, "you should eat and lie down. You'll be so cramped."
He pulled himself away from the seat reluctantly. He was aching all over, from both cold and cramped muscles. The gun was once more by him. Had he dreamed it then? Quickly he looked out at her. "Did I sleep long?" he asked.
"Several hours." She had her cover draped about her and her face was pinched and very cold looking.
He ate before he went out to inspect the damage the tree had done. It was surprisingly little. The sharp nosed, wingless craft was sturdy with no protuberances to catch and break. Apparently it had slid between the woody limbs with little more than scratching to show it.
From behind him she said, "It would have been so easy once you were up there to open up and cover five or six hundred miles during that lost hour. Didn't it occur to you?"
"I thought of it," he admitted tiredly arranging his cover on the front seat.