“Do you believe in fate?” asked the girl abruptly, as he seated himself on the sand beside her. “That’s a silly, schoolgirl thing to say, isn’t it?” she added. “But I was thinking of this boat being there in the middle of the dry desert, just when we needed it most.”
“It had been there some time,” pointed out Banneker. “And if we couldn’t have come this way, I’d have found some other.”
“I believe you would,” crowed Io softly.
“So, I don’t believe in fate; not the ready-made kind. Things aren’t that easy. If I did—”
“If you did?” she prompted as he paused.
“I’d get back into the boat with you and throw away the oars.”
“I dare you!” she cried recklessly.
“We’d go whirling and spinning along,” he continued with dreams in his voice, “until dawn came, and then we’d go ashore and camp.”
“Where?”
“How should I know? In the Enchanted Canyon where it enters the Mountains of Fulfillment.... They’re not on this map.”