Twenty more steps and I figured I’d quit. I counted out twenty steps and decided I’d do twenty more. Then twenty more. I went down the path convinced that each step was my last. I think I fell a couple of times. I think I remember B’oosa helping me up. Only then it wasn’t B’oosa, it was somebody else. Somebody familiar. Scooter? Skeeter! Vito Fargnoli, the Heller who had dropped us off. Bruno was there too. I tried to say something to him and all the hate welled up and everything went blank. It was just like sliding down a tunnel. A black tunnel.
When I came to I was stretched out on a bunk. The first thing I noticed was that it was too short. Then I noticed the small bandage on my hand. I sat up and Pancho grinned at me from the next bed.
“Buenos dias, amigo,” said Pancho. “Did you enjoy your sleep?”
“Sleep?” I asked, shaking my head, trying to clear it.
“You’ve slept the day around,” said Pancho. “How do you feel?”
“Okay, I guess. But you …”
“I’m okay, amigo. Look.” He pulled back his sheet and showed me his leg. You could hardly see where the plastiflesh joined with the real flesh. I peeked under my bandage. My hand looked just as good.
“They must have some pretty good doctors around here,” I said.
“The best,” said Pancho. “They import them from Earth.”
“Of course.”
“They brought you some broth,” said Pancho. “Give it a try.”
I looked at the bowl on the stand by my bed and remembered Pancho shoveling away the gray, pasty food the other day. But I was hungry and sipped it. It wasn’t half bad. I was surprised, first decent food I’d had on Hell. I drank it all.
“Watch this,” said Pancho, slipping out of bed.
“Wait,” I said. “Don’t …”
“It’s all right, Carl. No problem at all. Mostly it was just the poison in my system. One shot and I was good as new. See?”
I saw and was impressed. I’d figured at best he’d be laid up for a week or so. Last time I’d looked at him I’d thought he was almost dead. The wonders of modern medicine. I moved my fingers and they worked fine. More wonders.
“What am I doing still In bed?” I asked.
“Beats the bananas out of me, amigo. Sleeping, I guess. You always were one for lots of sack time. Let’s get dressed and find the others.”
It sounded good to me. We dressed and went wandering. Found B’oosa in the canteen, alone. He didn’t know where Alegria and Miko were. I don’t know why it bothered me, but it did. B’oosa looked preoccupied. We sat down anyway.
“What’s the good word?” asked Pancho.
“Not much,” said B’oosa, pushing his coffee cup away from him. “Not many good words at all.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked. I’d never seen B’oosa quite so upset.
“They were there the whole time,” he said softly.
“Who? Where?”
“The Hellers,” said B’oosa, shaking his head. “We were never out of their sight. Skeeter and Bruno were there all the time. They only stepped in at the last minute.”
“You mean they let all that happen” I couldn’t believe it.
“Afraid so,” said B’oosa. “All part of the ‘soft’ survival training course.”
“Survival? They could have killed us.”
“I doubt it,” said B’oosa. “They would have done something if it had gotten too serious.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
B’oosa looked thoughtful. “No, I’m not sure, but I’d like to believe it.”
“And the transmitter?”
“It was never supposed to work. But the next one will, they assured me.”
“Next one? What next one?”
B’oosa nodded toward the door. “Here they come. Let them tell you.”
Skeeter and Bruno were walking toward the table. I felt like knocking a few heads together.
“Hello, students,” said Bruno. “Ready for some cold weather?”
“What cold weather?” asked Pancho.
“We jump at 0800,” said Bruno, dropping an envelope on the table. “Here’s the schedule. Pick up your gear this evening. Tomorrow we’ll be on the high plateau. See you then.” He turned and left. Skeeter stayed for a second.
“You okay, Pancho?” he asked.
Pancho shrugged. “I guess I’ll live.”
Skeeter looked nervous, blushed a little. “Hey, I’m sorry about what happened. If I’d had my way —“
“Skeeter. Get a move on,” shouted Bruno from the door.
“Sorry, Pancho, really I am,” he said and left.
B’oosa had opened the envelope. “Same procedure,” he said. “Only arctic conditions this time. Too bad about that, don’t like being cold. Heat I can take, but cold …”
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Same crew,” said B’oosa.
“No way,” I said. “I refuse to go out with Miko again. Not when my life may depend on him staying awake.”
“Calm down, Carl,” said Pancho. “He feels real bad about it. I think he wants to make it up to you — to us.”
“I don’t care,” I said. “I won’t do it.”
“Yes you will,” said B’oosa quietly. He slid the assignments across the table. They were signed by the Dean.
I could get out of it if I really wanted to. If I wanted to flunk, to look like a coward, to look like a fool. Trapped again. If the Dean hadn’t signed it, I might have had a chance. He doesn’t sign many documents like this, so he must have wanted this crew together for some reason. Offhand, I couldn’t think of a single good one.
I wondered how cold it would be.
III
It looked simple, which by itself made me suspicious. They set us down on the peak of a small mountain. The place we were headed for was on the far side of the valley below us. We could even see the tops of the base’s antennas in the distance. All we had to do was get off the mountain an cross the delta. Couldn’t have been more than thirty klicks. A piece of cake.
At first we split up and looked for an easy way down the mountain. There weren’t any. I found about a dozen places I could have gone down alone, but not with everybody else tied to me. On Springworld I’d climbed mountains like this since I was five years old. Of the others, only B’oosa had any experience on mountains. The rest were all flat-landers, as we call them at home.
B’oosa found a route be thought we might be able to manage together. It started out as a more-or-less sheer face that led down and across to a vertical fissure. Formations directly above the fissure would have made rappelling difficult; we’d have to transverse, go down sideways to it. After the fissure it didn’t look like it would be too hard.
“What do you think?” asked B’oosa.
I took a long look at the sheer face. The surface of the cliff was uneven and ought to provide fairly good foot and hand holds. It was cold, though, probably be some ice. I looked at the sky. It was a slate grey from horizon to horizon, could be a storm coming in. Ordinarily I wouldn’t even consider starting a descent under these conditions.
“Guess it’ll do,” I said. “At least it’s not snowing.”
“Not yet,” said B’oosa.
We got everyone together and explained what we had to do. B’oosa would go first and I’d take up the other end. Nobody moved unless they were told to by B’oosa or myself. We double checked our equipment and headed for the edge.
B’oosa went over. I watched him descend. He was pretty good, no doubt about it. Only one arm or leg would move at a time. He checked each hold carefully before committing his weight to it. As he went down he’d drive pitons into the rock face, sliding the rope through their clips. He went sideways as much as down, guided by the nature of the cliff rather than our wishes. Soon he stopped, hollered up to the rest of us to follow. I had a good, secure position, the rope played down from me to B’oosa without kinks or sharp bends.
Pancho was the first to follow. He went
slowly, checking each hold several times. Each time he reached one of the pitons, he’d pull some slack from the far side of the rope and slip it through the clip on the right side of his belt. He’d hang there for a second before he unclipped the trailing section of rope from his left side and moved on past the piton. It was slow progress, but he was doing a good job. No such thing as being too careful on the side of a mountain.
Alegria was the next over. She started when Pancho was about halfway to B’oosa. She came easily, gracefully. I’d never seen anyone take to the ropes so naturally. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought she’d been doing it all her life. Her moves were careful, but smooth. She went along the rock as if she was part of it. I couldn’t detect a single trace of nervousness. She moved like a cat and I figured she was a good person to have in the middle.
Miko went over after Alegria. He wasn’t surefooted, but at least he didn’t do anything stupid. A couple of times he stopped and didn’t seem to be able to find the next hold. I could see them from where I was. I started after him and helped him along.
I immediately slipped into the old rhythms and patterns. Funny how you never seem to lose certain skills once you learn them, even if you don’t practice them. I felt right at home. Even having Miko in front of me didn’t bother me too much.
Most people would think that going first in a line like this would be the most dangerous position. It isn’t true. The person taking up the rear runs the greatest risk. I know, I’ve done it both ways. Many times.
It got a little harder. Once B’oosa trapped himself in a dead end, found himself with no place to get a forward hold. He could have driven in a piton and tried to swing out to find one, but the others wouldn’t have been able to follow. We had to back up and follow a different tack. It worked a little better, but that had cost us some valuable time and the wind was picking up. B’oosa signaled us and we started forward again.
By the time we caught up with B’oosa, the wind was coming full force. There was nothing to do but grit our teeth and keep on going. When we got to the fissure at least we’d be sheltered from the wind. I guessed it would take two more stretches. B’oosa took the slack rope and moved on.
It was starting to rain. Just a little at first, but the wind made it seem colder than it was. It made the rocks slippery, too, and the going was slower. I wanted to get to the fissure before things started icing up and I guess that was where I made my mistake, going too fast. If I hadn’t been in such a hurry it never would have happened.
Miko had gone ahead while I fooled with a troublesome kink in the rope. Everyone was out of sight around a ledge and I was in a hurry to catch up. I only had a two-point hold and too much slack when I reached around the ledge. It was a stupid thing to do.
I had a good hold with my left foot and my left hand was fairly secure, but my right side was blocked by the ledge. I was sure there would be a hold on the other side, so I swung my body around. As I passed a certain point in my swing I felt my balance shift and realized I was in trouble. Too much slack. Too far from the nearest piton. If there wasn’t anything to grab on the other side of the ledge, I was going to fall. It was as simple as that; all physics and the motion of falling bodies. There wasn’t anything to grab. My fingers slid over wet, smooth rocks. I fell over backwards. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion.
It wasn’t the first time I’d fallen, so I knew what to expect. I’d only go down until the rope stretched to the next piton, then I’d stop and swing. I tried to let my body relax. There was a sharp double-yank on the rope. All bets were off; that was probably a piton pulling loose. No telling what would happen now.
The rocks slapped and tore at my face and hands as I fell. I tried to grab anything that slipped by. If I couldn’t hold it, at least it would slow me down. It didn’t look as though I was going to be able to get a good grip on anything; the rocks were wet with rain and my fingers were wet with blood. Somewhere I heard someone yell. It could have been me.
My right foot hit a small outcropping and I threw my body hard against it. Pain ripped through my side as the rock tore along my body. It slowed me down. I scrambled for toeholds, footholds, mouth holds, anything. The outcropping caught me in the chin, I hugged the side of the cliff. Somehow I stopped. I waited for the others to come falling past me, dragging me along with them. Nothing. All I could hear was my own labored breathing.
I have no idea why I didn’t keep falling. As far as I could tell I didn’t have a single hold. Arms spread wide, I pressed myself as close to the cliff as possible. It was ridiculous to have gotten myself into such an awkward position. I couldn’t move a muscle without losing what little grip I had.
It seemed like I hung there for hours, but it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. I could feel the rope moving and occasionally muted voices would drift down to me, but I could never quite make out the words. Dirt and small pebbles fell past me as they worked their was down to me. My left leg, in an awkward position, started to twitch. I felt more dumb than scared. I’d made a bad mistake. More than that, I’d involved other people in it. If I’d done it at home, I would have paid for my mistake alone; here I’d almost dragged four other people along with me.
“Trying to find the quick way down, Carl?” B’oosa’s voice startled me.
“I missed my grip,” I said. “I slipped.”
“We all slip once in a while,” said B’oosa. I could hear him driving in a piton, but I didn’t dare move my head to see him.
“Almost there,” he said. “Just a second … Ah, that’s got it. I’ve got the rope secured about two meters above your head and a meter to your left. If you let go and swing to your left, you should find a good grip.”
I had no choice but to trust him. I knew he’d done a good job — I don’t think he’s capable of doing a bad one — but as I swung out, I’ll have to admit I wondered if he’d underestimated my weight. He hadn’t. I found the grip easily.
“Thanks,” I said, breathing hard. “I didn’t think that piton would pull loose.”
“It didn’t pull loose, Carl,” B’oosa said slowly.
“What do you mean?”
“It broke. Snapped right in two.”
“That’s impossible. I know I’m heavy, but those pitons are built to take it.”
“That one didn’t,” he said in a tone of voice that made me shiver. “And I’m not too sure about the others.”
I didn’t like the implications.
“I’m going back to the other end,” he said. “Unless you’d rather I took up the rear.”
I knew what he was saying. In his usual roundabout, polite way, he was asking me if I’d lost my nerve.
“No, I’m okay,” I said. We made the fissure in ten minutes and then we rested.
The fissure was actually a vertical crack that ran the rest of the way down the mountain. It would be fairly easy to work our way down; clear sailing after that. Almost a hike to the valley.
The top of the fissure was narrow and I could hardly squeeze into it. The others fit comfortably. It had an uneven surface and it was easy to prop your feet against one side of the crack and your shoulders against the other. We rested that way for several minutes before moving down. The storm was gaining in intensity, but we were fairly well sheltered in the fissure.
B’oosa led the way down and I took up the rear position. It went fairly easily. I’d anchor the line and B’oosa would guide the others down as far as the rope would allow, then I’d come down to them and we’d start all over again. It worked real well, except for the time that Pancho slipped, but even that wasn’t serious. We decided to camp at the bottom of the fissure, since it was level enough for our tent. It was starting to get dark and the storm showed no sign of letting up.
I drew first watch. There really wasn’t too much to watch out for. I couldn’t imagine any animal being out in weather like this, but if there were any, they’d probably be large, mean and cold. The rain turned to sleet and when Miko came to relieve
me, I headed straight for the sack. I listened to the wind howling for about ten seconds before I fell asleep.
B’oosa woke me and gave me a hot cup of tea. The wind was still roaring outside the tent. If anything, it was louder than the night before. I had about a thousand scrapes and cuts from my little spill the day before and I could feel every one of them.
I stepped outside the tent and the cold sank into me, bone-deep. Everything was covered with a thin layer of ice.
Although we’d come a long way down the day before, we were still fairly high up. Visibility was rotten; I couldn’t even see the valley floor. It was still sleeting. Pancho came out and stood beside me.
“What do you think, amigo?”
“Look at all that ice,” I said. “I think it’s going to take us all day to get off this mountain.”
It took two.
They were two hard days. It wasn’t that the descent was steep; it was just that the weather never gave up for a second. It was hard to keep your footing on even relatively level ground. We spent a lot of time slipping and sliding around. I could see why they had given us five days to reach the station.
Late n the second day, B’oosa took a bad spill on an icy rock. I thought he might have sprained his ankle, though he never said anything. I don’t think that guy would complain even if it had been a compound fracture.
The sleet eventually turned to snow, It wasn’t really much of an improvement, but we were grateful for even small favors. We camped at the foot of the mountain, with the delta area spread out before us. It was flat, treeless and cold. A very bleak place,
The delta was a sloppy network of thousands of little creeks and rivers, branching off from a major river that flowed into the northern sea. The smaller ones were probably frozen; it was the others that would be trouble.
It was a big area. We were glad to have the transmitter, and hoped it worked this time. Were they watching us? It would be hard for them to find places to hide.
We broke camp early; the snow stopped just before dawn. They sky brightened to a uniform, dull slate, no trace of blue. The wind was strong and gusty, the driven snow constant cold specks of pain on your face.