to find himself gagging on her...and I mean that in the best of possible connotations."
"I know. She can take care of herself."
"But you'll still blame yourself if anything happens to her. As you still do for the deaths of her sister and her fiance."
Smith scowled down at the top of her head. "How the hell did you know about that?"
"Randi and I discussed you rather intensively one evening," Valentina replied. "A species of girl talk. I've also studied you for a bit, and I've come to certain conclusions of my own. You're one of those poor bastards stuck in the middle-tough enough to make the blood decisions, but with enough humanity left for it to gnaw at you. It's a difficult balance to maintain. That makes you rare and worth keeping. That's why, in due course, we're going to become lovers."
Smith couldn't prevent the soft bark of laughter that escaped him. He had wondered, and he had been given an answer. "I see. Don't I have any say in the matter?"
Valentina nestled contentedly again, tucking her head in under his chin. "No, not really. Don't bother yourself about it now, Jon. I'll handle all the details."
She had to be joking in her usual quirky manner. But there was something about the calm woman's surety in her voice that didn't seem to apply to that scenario. He couldn't help but recall the last lingering warmth of her lips on his yesterday, and he had a sudden urge to experience that warmth again.
Then the muzzy grumble and stirring of Major Smyslov in the next compartment broke the fragile bubble and returned them to the bleak reality of Wednesday Island.
It was a pale gray world atop the saddleback glacier. The dully luminous cloud cover hid the tops of the peaks and faded the horizons to the north and south into a vague nonvisibility. The surface snow and ice had been infected by the grayness as well, losing their luster. Only the dark exposed rock of the mountain flanks stood out, extruding from the dingy-paper whiteness with an exaggerated three-dimensionality. The immediate visibility around the downed bomber and the three human flyspecks standing beside it was good, yet it was difficult to truly see. Amid the blanched contrasts it was hard to gauge sizes and distances, and something akin to vertigo intermittently tugged at the consciousness.
Jon Smith felt the effect as he panned his binoculars in their instinctive slow circle, seeing nothing either desired or unwanted.
"All right, lady and gentleman, where are they?" he asked. "Where did they go after the crash?"
"I would say down the coast, Colonel," Smyslov replied swiftly. "They would need food, and there is nothing to be had here. Along the coast there would be seals and bears. There would also be better opportunities for shelter. The weather up here on the glacier would be too bad."
Valentina shook her hooded head. "No, I disagree, Gregori. They made their survival camp up here, probably within sight of this aircraft."
"If they did, it's pretty well hidden." Smith returned his binoculars to their case. "And the major makes a pretty good case about the food. What brings you to your conclusion, Val?"
"A number of things," she replied. "For one, the stripped state of the aircraft. It would take a lot of work and a lot of trips to move all of that material out of the wreck. They wouldn't have carried it far. For another, they wouldn't be immediately concerned about food. They would have had emergency rations for at least a couple of weeks, and they weren't planning to stay around for that long."
"Would they have had much choice?"
"They thought so, Jon. These people were not planning on setting up housekeeping. They intended to go home. Remember how they pulled the radio and radar systems out of the plane, as well as the auxiliary power unit? They had all of the components and expertise they needed to build one hellaciously powerful radio transmitter, one that could reach halfway around the world, and certainly back to Russia. That's another reason they'd want to stay up here. The higher elevation would increase their broadcast and reception range."
"Then why didn't they use it?" Smith asked.
"I don't know." Smith could feel the words the historian didn't want to speak aloud. He turned toward Smyslov. "What do you think, Major?"
The Russian shook his head. "I must disagree, Colonel. If they had built such a radio, they would have called for rescue. Obviously they did not."