Sometimes hope may seem like madness.
And on a desert planet, with time running out, that kind of lunatic hope may be catching.
 

Planet Delta Lurima hides a beating heart, says Sara: "It's not dead!" Her small head plunges to the purple soil, ears hungry for the drumming that no other man or woman in our stranded and dejected crew can hear. She's barking mad, the captain says, and we, unanimous, agree, but do not intervene. We watch her burrow deeper into alien strata and insanity, then we search the sky and wonder when a star will shape itself into a ship. With rations running low, we feed on dreams of waking to a shuttle engine's thrumming as it lands. But Sara, sleepless, digs and hums a broken rhythm any medic like me recognizes: the stumbling pulse heading toward death. I squat beside her as she dives through earth, her red hands splashing soil on me like blood. I ask if I might help her find her heart. She smiles a yes and shows me how to tear the clods out of our way. We're almost there.