The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Choice of Miracles, by James A. Cox

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: A Choice of Miracles

Author: James A. Cox

Illustrator: Virgil Finlay

Release Date: August 4, 2008 [EBook #26190]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHOICE OF MIRACLES ***

Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

A Choice
Of Miracles

By JAMES A. COX

_You're down in the jungle with death staring you in the face. There
is nothing left but prayer. So you ask for your life. But wait! Are
you sure that's really what you want above all else?_

Andy Larson was a hard-headed Swede. He had to be, to be still alive. He
hadn't been able to move anything but that hard head for what he
estimated to be about three hours since he regained consciousness. And
in that time he hadn't heard anything that led him to believe anyone
else had survived the crash.

[Illustration: Hurt and helpless, Larson waited for death.]

The only thing Andy Larson had heard was the water and the far-away
whine of the patrol ship on its grid track search pattern. It had not
reached his area yet, and he wasn't at all excited about his chances of
being spotted when it did get nearer. He could turn his head, and he
could see the tangled interlacing of tree branches and vines above and
around him. He remembered, at the first moment of impact, just before
the ship began to break apart, a tremendous geyser of mud and water. The
picture was indelibly imprinted on his mind. He couldn't see the water
now, but he could hear it. The litter he could see by twisting his head
as far to the left as it would go told him they had crash-landed on the
water--a river by the sound of it--and had skipped drunkenly, in
something approximating flat stone fashion, into the forest lining the
river's bank. There had been no explosion and no fire, there was no wide
swath cut through the trees--and therefore no reason why he should
assume the patrol would spot him. There might be pieces of the ship
lying where the patrol could see them. But he doubted that, for the
river wa