by Jack Porter
I made that commitment now.
“Commander Reynolds, you were not wrong to trust me. I will not abandon you or the others. I will do whatever I can to keep us all safe on this world.”
At my words, it was as if I’d removed at least some of that weight that Uma carried. Some of the tension in the set of her shoulders, in the expression on her face, faded just a little.
She nodded. “And what about when it comes to leading us all? Rather than being just one of us?”
I understood what she meant. “You are the transport’s Commander. As you say, without the Captain, you are in charge.”
Once more, she focused her purple-tinged eyes on me. “It may have escaped your notice, but we are no longer on the transport.”
I shrugged. “The others still look to you for guidance,” I said. “You said it yourself. Their lives are your responsibility.”
With that, I sensed that the conversation was at an end. And I was tired. For the second time in just a few hours, I had a very attractive woman in my reach, but this time, it didn’t feel like there was anything I could do about it.
With a sigh, I made my way to a spot I had picked out for myself, and was settling myself in to catch a couple of hours of sleep when I thought I heard Commander Uma Reynolds speak one more time.
“But what if I don’t want that responsibility?” she asked.
This time, I got to wake up without the assistance of a subterranean nightmare hellbent on wrapping its tentacles around me and the girls and dragging us all away.
I was getting tired of the steady diet of water and rations, and would have cheerfully murdered a family of ducklings for even the faintest smell of good coffee.
At the same time, if I’d actually had that aforementioned coffee, I would have been more quickly my usual, less murderous self. And I had gone without coffee many, many times before.
Perhaps not for as long as I would this time, but the point was that I didn’t physically need it to survive. Even if I would sometimes happily choose a good, strong cup, undiminished by either sugar or milk, over a good steak, a comfortable bed, or pretty much anything.
With a sigh, I helped the girls pack the sheets of canvas and makeshift tent poles away, and together, we moved the sled, complete with all the supplies, as close to the edge as we dared.
Then we were ready to begin.
By then, our shadows had grown fairly long. We were still a fair way from true twilight, but already, the sun seemed to lack the impact it’d had when we began our journey.
During the night, such as it was, the crevice hadn’t diminished. It was just as substantial, just as sheer and as deep as it had been when we first stumbled across it.
A single glance each way along it, augmented by my ocular enhancements, was enough to convince me that if there was an end to this geological feature, then it would take several days for us to reach it.
Our only real option was the one we had discussed before going to sleep. Which meant we had to split the party.
“Who’s going down?” I asked.
It wasn’t going to be me. It was my strength that was going to make this possible, if anything did.
“I will,” said Deeve. The expression on her face suggested she heard the double entendre as clearly as I did, and it was all I could not to laugh.
Playing it straight, I nodded. It was a good choice. She was capable, and would be able to handle herself should anything go wrong. But I didn’t want her to be all by herself done the bottom of the cliff.
“Who else?”
Uma looked to be about to volunteer, but I shook my head. “I might need your strength. As you said, the water container is heavy. Perhaps I can lower it down all by myself, but if I can’t—how would you feel about climbing back up to the top?”
The Commander saw my reasoning, and nodded.
“I’ll go,” said Kia. She had been largely avoiding me ever since we’d woken up, and I wondered if she was harboring regrets. Or maybe she just didn’t want anyone else to figure out what we had been up to.
“And one more?” I said, looking between Sydney and Jayloo.
Jayloo looked more than a little uncertain, and it wasn’t hard to guess why. She still had one of her arms in a sling, and that would make the climb down even more difficult for her than it would be for the others.
I didn’t tell her, but I was already planning on how to deal with that particular problem.
“I’ll go,” said Sydney. “I’ve done a little climbing before.”
It was perhaps fifty feet from the top of this cliff to the bottom. Sure, it wasn’t a sheer, glassy surface, devoid of all hand and foot holds. But it wasn’t to be taken lightly either.
Fortunately, we had plenty of the salvaged cord to go around. And some of it had already been fashioned into harnesses.
I offered the first harness to Deeve, who understood what I intended without having to ask.
Chapter 21
The harnesses we’d put together weren’t exactly complex. They were just a couple of loops designed to fit around our shoulders. Useful for towing a makeshift sled and all our supplies, but perhaps not quite as good when climbing down a steep rock face.
Except that Deeve didn’t stick her arms through the loops. Instead, she stepped into them and brought them up to her hips. Then she wrapped another loop of the cord around her waist for added stability.
That done, she looked at me. “If I lose my grip, don’t let me fall,” she said. Unlike Kia, she continued to treat me exactly the same as she’d always done. Except that maybe she was a little more relaxed around me.
I gave her a reassuring smile. “I won’t. But be careful anyway.”
Deeve poked her tongue out at me in an impudent gesture, then made her way to the edge. Swiftly but carefully, began to make her way down.
Just as carefully, I let out more and more of the cord, not really taking any of her weight, but just being there in case I was needed.
Nor was I the only one with Deeve’s safety in mind. Uma took a position next to me and stood as I was, backing me up by wrapping the end of the cord around her back, just to be sure.
Slowly and methodically, Deeve made her way to the bottom. When she was there, she called up that she had made it, and stepped out of the harness.
Kia followed suit with no issues, and then it was Sydney’s turn.
The shorter woman wasn’t as naturally athletic as Deeve, and had to scramble a bit more. Once, perhaps halfway down, she slipped and let out a cry. It was enough of a warning that both Uma and I were able to hold tight and prevent her from falling. But I wasn’t close enough to see clearly what had happened, and had no intention of straying closer to the edge than I was.
“Are you all right?” I called out.
“Yeah!” came the reply. She made a couple of grunting noises, and I could tell she was trying to sort herself out.
“This fucking cord has gone up my ass!” she added, and I did my best to smother a chuckle. “Gimme just a bit… Let me see if I can reach…”
She didn’t need to go into any more detail. I did as Sydney suggested, letting out just a little bit of the cord, and within moments, the environmentalist was back on track.
She made it the rest of the way without any more issues.
“I’m down! But I don’t recommend doing it the way I did it. The harness isn’t exactly comfortable.”
She stepped far enough away from the cliff face that I could see her clearly. She stood with Kia and Deeve, all of them looking up, expressions of expectation on their face.
I took a moment to pull the harness back up, then said to Uma, “Now the fun begins.”
With that, I started dropping some of the less easily damaged supplies over the edge.
Some of the knives I’d made were among the first to go, as were the random shards of salvaged metal and bone that we hadn’t done anything with yet. Once the girls down below had cleared them out of the way, the makeshift tent
poles, salvaged sections of canvas, and even the metal panel that formed the sled itself followed them down.
Then things got serious. The tool chest wasn’t something I was willing to simply cast over the side. Instead, I lowered it gently, using the salvaged cord, lowering it hand over hand over hand until it reached the bottom.
It was heavy. A good sixty, maybe seventy pounds of tools, most of which I was uncertain if we would ever really need. I mean, the toolkit contained a full set of spanners, but as far as I knew, we didn’t have anything resembling nuts and bolts in our supplies.
At the same time, I was loath to simply leave them behind. Perhaps we wouldn’t be tightening or loosening bolts any time soon. But at the very least, the wrenches were good quality steel. Who knew what use we might be able to put them to in the future?
While I worked on the tool box, Uma lowered the med kit, and then the two of us locked the lids of the ration containers tight, and lowered them down as well, one after the other.
Finally, the only thing that remained other than my makeshift club, the salvaged cord, and the three of us, was the water container.
This was the most challenging item we’d brought with us. Big, bulky, and heavy as hell, we spent considerable time just creating a suitable harness for it, winding the cord around until we’d created a snug mesh.
Out of no more than simple curiosity, I wrapped my arms around that bulky, plastic thing, and lifted it off the ground.
Both Uma and Jayloo watched with interest, and when I set it back down, Uma raised an eyebrow.
“And?” she said.
“It’s damn heavy,” I replied. “And the water sloshing about within it doesn’t help.” Then I offered both of the women a grin. “Are either of you thirsty, by any chance? Lighten the load a little?”
They actually took me up on the offer, dipping the battered cup into the water container and drinking their fill.
When Uma was done and the lid was tightly screwed back into place, she looked at me.
“That does raise a question,” she said. “Should we empty some of the water to try to make it lighter? Sacrifice some to make it more likely we’ll be able to save the rest?”
It was a good suggestion. But I was confident that between the two of us, we could do this without lightening the load.
I shook my head. “Let’s just get this done,” I said.
I wrapped the cord around myself as Uma had done before, and she did the same with hers. Unlike with everything else, with this water container, we’d joined this container to two separate cords, to better enable the pair of us to work as a team.
I knew that the water container was tough. Designed to withstand considerable trauma. After all, it had survived the transport crash where so much else had not.
At the same time, it was never meant to be indestructible. If we just tossed it over the edge, there was a good chance it would survive. But to my mind, it wasn’t worth the risk. What if it landed on just the wrong angle, on a rock that proved just sharp enough?
The whole thing could burst open, and then we would be without any water at all until we reached the rain clouds up ahead.
“Are you ready?” I asked, and the Commander nodded. “Then let’s do this.”
This was the difficult bit. To get the weight of the water container over the edge while at the same time not losing control.
The method we had decided on was simple. Uma and Jayloo would both do what they could to move it the last couple of feet and tip it while I held back, using my strength to keep it in place until Uma could join me.
It worked a treat. I was able to hold the weight of it all by myself while Jayloo hurried out of the way.
Then, between the two of us, my arms and hands feeling the weight, my legs and feet dug into the sand as much as I could, we lowered the container all the way to the ground.
When we were done, I was drenched with sweat, and I saw that Uma was the same.
Even so, I managed a grin. “Well. That wasn’t so hard, now was it?” I asked.
Then I turned toward Jayloo. “Your turn,” I said.
Chapter 22
The purple-haired woman looked at me with an uncertain expression.
“Huh? What do you mean?”
I figured there was a good chance she wasn’t going to take this well. I kept my voice calm and reassuring.
“We’re going to lower you down the cliff just like we did with the water container.”
“You’re going to what now?” she blurted.
Uma tried to stave off the inevitable, even though both of us could see that Jayloo had taken a step or two backward.
“Are you able to climb down with your arm the way it is?” she asked.
Jayloo turned toward her with a frightened expression. She looked like a rabbit caught in a sudden light. Panicked, afraid, but not sure which way she should run.
“No. Of course I can’t.”
“Well, this is the only option. We put you in a harness, and lower you gently down.”
Jayloo shook her head more and more violently. She stepped further away.
“No. You can’t. I can’t.”
Uma proved to be less patient than me. “Unless you want to stay here and slowly die of thirst, you don’t have a choice.”
All of a sudden, it was like Jayloo’s eyes sprang a leak. One moment, they were dry, and the next they were filled with tears. She wasn’t crying, not really, but her eyes didn’t know it.
I cocked my head to one side, trying to understand.
“You’re afraid of heights,” I said.
“No I’m not. I’m afraid of falling!” she said. “And why wouldn’t I be?”
I tried to reason one more time. “Tell me, what did you think was going to happen when we got to this point?”
But Jayloo wasn’t responding to reason. She was responding to fear. To the panic that was coursing through her veins at the situation.
“I don’t know! I was just trying not to think about it!”
I was starting to wonder if it hadn’t been a mistake to send Sydney down to the bottom. Perhaps the environmentalist could have calmed Jayloo down. As for me and Uma, we weren’t having as much luck.
I tried one more time. “Jayloo, this has to be done. If it makes you feel better, you can close your eyes while we lower you down.”
The purple-haired woman stared at me as if I was speaking a foreign language. She shook her head, but I wasn’t completely sure she understood a word I’d said.
“You really don’t have a choice,” Uma said again. “All you’re doing is wasting our time.”
As if in support of the Commander’s words, Deeve called up from below.
“Adam? Uma? What’s going on?”
“Jayloo is afraid of heights,” I shouted back.
Then I turned to the woman in question. “What do you need to be able to do this?” I asked her.
The question caught her by surprise. Instead of backpedaling, instead of shaking her head, she caught her lip in between her teeth and thought about it.
But before she could come to any decision, Sydney called out from below. “Jayloo, it’s okay. I’m down here. We’re all down here. We are waiting for you!”
I could see Jayloo’s chest rise and fall as she breathed more quickly than normal. But it seemed we were starting to get through.
“I can close my eyes?” she said.
“You don’t have to do anything. Just stay still, and Uma and I will lower you down. It’ll be like you’re in a lift, and have hit the button to take you to the ground floor.”
She took a step toward us. “You won’t drop me?”
I tried my smile again. “We didn’t drop anything else. And I guarantee you are lighter than that water container by some margin.”
She still looked hesitant, but she took another step back toward us. She looked at me with an imploring expression, then turned to Uma.
“You won’t let him drop me?” she said.
>
Uma shot a look my way. I knew what she was thinking. Knew what Jayloo was asking.
“I trust him,” she said.
It was clear that Jayloo still didn’t. Yet in that, she had no real choice either.
“I promise. You will reach the bottom safely.”
In the end, I don’t think it was one single thing that convinced her. More a combination of my promise, Sydney waiting for her at the bottom, and the reality of the situation.
There really wasn’t any other option.
Finally, the purple-haired woman nodded. She stepped forward all the way, but deliberately didn’t look over the edge.
“What do I need to do?”
We helped Jayloo step into a harness, and wrapped the cord around her waist a few times for added stability.
“You can hold onto this,” I said, holding the cord out for her. “And, as I said, close your eyes. It’ll be easy.”
For the past couple of days, ever since Jayloo and I had met, the smallest of the women had viewed me unfavorably, her expression varying from suspicion through to scorn, with a smattering of less flattering responses thrown in for good measure.
This time, when she looked at me, she was almost imploring.
“Are you sure you’re strong enough?” she asked.
In answer, I gripped the cord just above her hand and raised it high enough that her feet left the ground.
It was relatively easy. I couldn’t have held her like that forever, with my arm outstretched, but for a few seconds—I didn’t even break a sweat.
Jayloo squealed out loud and started to thrash about in panic.
“Easy, easy,” I said. “I’m putting you back down now.”
I did so, and in just a few moments, Jayloo calmed herself down. “Don’t do that again!” she snapped.
“I won’t. But I think you will agree, I’m strong enough. So, are you ready?”
The purple-haired woman thought about it, then nodded.
“I can do this,” she said to herself.
