Wind Raker - Book IV of The Order of the Air by Melissa Scott, Jo Graham Page B

motive to find evidence or not to find it. And that's the heart of the matter, Dr. Ballard."
    "I see," Jerry said. His management of the dig would have to be impeccable. Any deviation would be seized upon by either side of the debate as a sign that the results were hopelessly flawed. He must be utterly impartial. Which would be easy enough, Jerry thought, as he had no personal feelings about this one way or the other. It would be easy enough not to bias his conclusions. After all, he had no emotional involvement in the outcome.
    “But I’m remiss,” Bea said. “You must want breakfast.”
    It was bacon and eggs, plain and tasty, served on the veranda along with a glass of pineapple juice and more of the excellent coffee. He tried not to wolf his food, but it seemed to him that it disappeared with dismaying haste. When he had finished, Bea collected hat and gloves and they climbed back into the Packard for the drive down the mountainside to the Museum. The air blowing past the car was soft and warm and strangely scented, and he couldn’t help a smile.
    Dr. Buck was waiting already, although by Jerry’s watch it wasn’t quite nine, standing beside an elderly Ford that had definitely seen better days. The doors were missing, and the roof had been cut away in the back to make a cargo platform. Bea made her farewells without seeming to notice its state, promising to collect Jerry in the evening, and disappeared into the Museum. A couple of young men dodged past her carrying baskets and three shovels, which they tied to the car with the ease of long practice. Dr. Buck gave Jerry an apologetic glance.
    “I’m afraid I’ve loaned Dr. Radke my car at the moment — I had things to deliver here before we headed to the dig. There’s something of a tradition of creative repurposing here on Hawai’i, Dr. Ballard. New imported vehicles are prohibitively expensive for most people, so the majority make do with older, rebuilt models. Even the museum.”
    “So this belongs to the museum?” Jerry asked, and levered himself carefully into the passenger seat. There was a leather strap bolted to the frame above where the door had been, and he wound his fingers through it.
    Buck nodded, working the starter. “Or possibly in a museum. But it’s at your disposal, yours and Dr. Radke’s. All the boys working at the dig can drive, so there’s no shortage of drivers, either.” He backed the Ford carefully out of its place, and turned onto the road that seemed to lead north out of town. “Mind you, like many machines, it has its own eccentricities.”
    “I’m used to that,” Jerry said, with a smile. He appreciated Buck’s tact. He hadn’t been able to drive a car since he lost his leg. Alma had talked about rigging him a hand throttle, but he had dreaded the thought — one more thing to relearn that had once been instinctive and easy — anyway, there had never been any real need.
    “That’s right,” Buck said. “I imagine your aviator friends have to improvise occasionally.”
    “More than one might wish,” Jerry answered, and was rewarded with a grin.
    “Yes, I followed the Great Passenger Derby, Dr. Ballard. I wasn’t sorry to see Harvard’s defeat.”
    Right, Buck had been a visiting scholar at Yale that year. Jerry felt himself blush anyway. So much for presenting himself purely as a serious academic.
    The buildings fell away behind them as they turned north along the coast road, traveling on an edge between the houses and shops on the seaward side, and the farmland further in. Jerry didn’t recognize most of the crops, though he guessed that the short, spike-leaved plants were pineapples; to the west, the surf beat against reefs and curled in here and there to beaches as pale as new bread. After about half an hour, Buck turned onto a road that led into the fields. It rapidly became little more than a rutted track, and Jerry tightened his grip on the leather strap. Buck downshifted, gears grinding, as they crossed