My Worry

The women are shown to a hut where they can stay the night, and food is brought for them. The other villagers have left, and I am about to do so as well, when I have an uncomfortable thought. "Presumably the facility must by now have replaced the aircraft that I stole and crashed," I say. "How come they didn't find you with it before you managed to get this far?"

The woman who seems to be the group's leader smiles. "That was why we timed it for when we did. Their plane had engine trouble and was grounded. We figured that it would take them long enough to fix it, or to arrange to get another plane, for us to get well away."

"What about the tracks left by the buggy in the sand, though? Depending on how windy the weather is, those could remain visible for some days."

"Once we leave in the morning, another couple of hours should see us out of the desert. No more tracks. We'll change our heading then. They shouldn't be able to find us."

"But if they see that your track has come within a couple of miles of this village...?"

"But the track will then continue onwards. And our coming on foot from the buggy to here and back to the buggy shouldn't have left any traces - at least not any visible from the air. Even if they were somehow to get the plane flying again right now, it couldn't search for us at night, so we'll be long gone before they can overfly this area. I don't think that you need worry."

1. Her confidence proves to be justified.
2. Her confidence is ill-founded.
3. In the morning, as the women have a hurried breakfast before leaving, I learn more about the facility from them.

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