by Julian May
Nirupam said: Terrific. Everybody just hang cool or whatever while I drop anchor. Soon as I unpack a bit of gear we'll get the Death-Defying Baz & Chazz Rescue Act rolling.
Deep in his roofed canyon of blue ice, Basil moved cautiously along the shelf a few meters so he was no longer directly beneath the severed climbing rope, to which his pack remained clipped by a lighter line. Showers of soft snow dribbled constantly from overhead as Chazz was slowly winched back to safety. Then abruptly, a chunk of snow as large as an ATV module cracked from the lip and crashed onto the shelf, disintegrating into a sugary cloud.
Basil said: Not to worry. I believe I'll try walking out.
The others exclaimed: What?
Basil said: The shelf rises and the crevasse is closing as I move northward. Hello. The ice is warping up here and the snow cover getting very thin. I believe—can you see me?
He had poked his arm up through the snow crust and waggled it. A moment later his entire upper body was at the surface. He laughed to see the expressions on the others as he traced a curved path back to the winch-belay.
"Will you look at the man?" Derek exclaimed. "Cool as the proverbial gherkin. My God—when I saw you drop out of sight and Chazz go sliding after, I thought you were both on the way to join poor Phillipe in Valhalla!"
Basil's pack came slithering over the snow, drawn in by the solar-powered donkey engine. The classics professor and the three technicians hunkered to enjoy a fast cup of tea and a bar of chocolate algiprote.
"Crevasses needn't be lethal," Basil said, "as long as one isn't injured in the fall—or, in the case of Phillipe, drowned in meltwater. He was unlucky enough to fall into a moulin, a kind of drainpipe crevasse in the rotten ice of the glacier snout. With the tortuous nature of the fissure and the fast-moving water, there was no helping him—not even with Lord Bleyn's psychokinesis."
"My memory still retains his final mind-shouts," said Nirupam softly. "How ironic to die on the very first day of our support operation."
Chazz was smearing his abraded face with ointment. "Sure taught the rest of us grunts to stick to your flagged trail—even to take a leak. Beats me how you and Basil and Ookpik can tell where crevasses are hiding under the snow."
"We do miscalculate occasionally," observed the don. He took a tiny monocular from hisanorak and studied the Middle Tine Ridge, toward which they had been trekking.
"Found us a fast route?" Nirupam inquired. "Time's getting on. We'll have stonefall inthe gullies as the sun heats the frosty rock, and that ridge has some ugly-looking littlesnowfields that might be thinking about going avalanche before supper."
"It's a straightforward slog across the rest of this glacial tongue," Basil, said, handing over the scope. "Just a small randkluft moat where the ice falls away from the ridgewall. Then we must pick and choose among the couloirs for the ascent. I rather fancy the darkish one, shaded by that second spur. It promises' to hold tight longer than the others."
Nirupam squinched his Mongoloid features. "Hold tight, all right. It looks like it hasn't had any sun since the Miocene! Sharp and deep and probably black ice from top to bottom, as tough as cured solicrete. Our ice-axes will bounce right off it. Unless we melt steps with the blaster, we could be five hours gaining the ridgetop. I'm for one of the more open chutes. We can stay well to the shady side and keep alert. The thirdcouloir north of your black beauty is steep enough to avalanche regularly. It can't have much snow buildup. I'd try that first." He gave Basil the glass and waited as the don considered the suggestion. "Well? You like?"
Basil sighed. "Very well. I christen it Darjeeling Gutter in your honor, if you will forgive the—er—ecumenical usage."
They finished their tea, repacked the equipment, roped up, and were on their way.
Taking advantage of a brilliant waning moon and clear weather, they had begun the day's trek at 0300 hours, departing from the supply dump at the base of the Gresson Icefall when that unstable jumble of'séracs was at its most quiescent. Basil and the experienced Indian climber each carried forty kilos and Chazz and Derek took twenty-eight, and the bulk of that was left at Camp 1, newly established at 5585 meters. At dawn they had set off again to reconnoiter a route to Camp 2, taking flagged wands, a bivouac kit, the winch, and plenty of rope. Ideally, after they had gained the crest of Middle Tine via one gully or another they would scout about until they located a good spot for a "flywalk" winch-belay. Once the machinery and ropes were permanently emplaced, other climbers could simply latch on, signal the faithful donkey, and be drawn up the rocky ridge flank with minimum effort.
The pioneering team, however had to do it the hard way.
It was nearly 0930 when they reached the moatlike randkluft that was the western edge of the Tine Glacier. Late in the afternoon, the half-rock, half-ice corridor would be perilous with running meltwater. But now it was frozen solid and almost like a staircase to their crampon-shod feet. They ascended easily to the base of Darjeeling Gutter, crossed the miniature bergschrund where its cascading snows joined the main glacier, and began to creep up the sixty-degree slope of dazzling white. They bore as far to the left as possible in order to avoid the deadly warming effect of the sun, trigger of rockfalls and avalanches. It was about 900 meters to the top. Over most of that distance the couloir was a constantly changing patchwork of hardened snow, opaque and brittle ice formed by the dailythaw-and-freeze cycle, tough "live ice" that resisted the glass fangs of crampons and ice-axes, and rare patches of powder snow.
At first they moved briskly, but after an hour or so, Chazz and Derek weakened. Only amateur climbers, they had to use the easily learned but tiring crampon technique called front-pointing—digging the horizontal toe-points of the crampons into the ice as they hauled themselves along with the aid of their axes. Basil and Nirupam, using the more efficient flat-footed technique, found that they had to slow their pace drastically—then begin to belay their fatigued rope-mates and even cut steps over the worst stretchesof live ice.
The sun climbed and the gully became a heat trap. They all wore sun goggles but the light was blinding. Chunks of brittle ice began to zoom down the chute. They were not largeand the climbers had hard hats, but the psychological effect was harrowing.
Above the halfway point the slope eased and the two amateurs regained their spirits. Lunch was a scratch affair taken hurriedly on a small rock cleaver that split the snowslope. Chazz's scraped face was aggravated by the strong sunlight and the flesh around his eyes was swollen and raw. But it had become so warm that the thought of even a lightweight silk mask-bandage was intolerable, so he simply smeared on more antibiotic goo.
They had been climbing again for less than half an hour when Basil's telepathic voice signaled a halt just above a tiny ledge.
He said: Niru oldman don't much like looks of this pitch.
Nirupam said: Getting late snow deep enough to be slabby.
Basil said: It could go.
Nirupam said: Alternative traverse couloir go up rock southside. Hell scramble take us twice long we could still make the Gutter work not even 1400 hours yet.
Basil said: Risky.
Nirupam said: You boss. But Chazz running on ballpower small disaster you shrugged off back at crevasse got to him maybe delayed shock on top sore face & nearly blind.
Basil said: Chazz oldman we're going to move you to Numbe on rope. It be safer for all incase I come cropper leading.
Chazz said: Sorry to be the crock of the flock guys.
Derek said: Spare us bouillabaisse goodbuddy. Just switch with me. Snap on safety lines? Okay. Easy! You stomp me with tackety boots they hear my screech in basecamp!
Basil said: Please be very quiet all of you ... even if stepped on. The consequences of sudden noise this point could be lamentable.
Chazz said: He means avalanche could be set off by your bigmouth Derek.
Derek said: Or your clumsy feet.
Basil was looking down on the pair, who had unsnapped their harnesses from the main rope. Both
were maneuvering carefully on the tiny ledge of compacted snow, Chazz linked to Derek by a light safety line and Derek ready to refasten them to the rope as soon as the position switch had been accomplished. Nirupam, the low man, was keeping a sharp eye on the two amateurs, offering advice and encouragement. And then there was a distant crackling sound. Nirupam caught sight of a small wisp of white blurring the dazzle of the upper ice field. A jagged blue line spread across the high face of the chute and opened like a fanged mouth before disappearing behind a foaming cloud of snow.
"She's coming down!" Nirupam yelled. "Hold! Hold!"
His cries were smothered in a musical rumble, as if someone had trod upon the pedals of a great organ. A cascade of broken thin crust came jangling and hissing ahead of the snowslide. The climbers cringed, hugging the slope and drawing their heads down between their shoulders. Basil whipped his tube-pointed hammer from its holster and sank the second tool into the ice with his left hand, clinging to axe and hammer with all his strength as the avalanche rolled over them.
He said: Hold on boys hold!
Chazz's mind spoke first, incredulous, refusing to admit that he was cartwheeling through opaque white air instead of clinging to a slope by the tips of his toes and an insecurely anchored axe. Derek was torn screaming from his place by a forty-kilo slab of snow that slammed into him like a skating chunk of sidewalk. He flailed out with his axe in a futile attempt at self-arrest and cut the rope linking Nirupam to Basil. The Indian mountaineer, struck by Derek's body, tumbled help lessly as the strap of his dropped ice-axe banged about his ankles. The tool was still tethered to his harness, but he could not haul it up because his neck was broken and the motor nerves of his arms refused to function.
The rushing snow passed Basil by. He dared to lift his head and look down, in time to see the avalanche reach the base of the couloir and make glittering puffballs as it buried the bergshrund. Chazz spoke a last telepathic curse and Derek simply said: Goodbye. Nirupam was serenely reciting a Buddhist prayer as he expired from a severed spinal cord. Basil called the names of all three men telepathically and out loud, and then he hung there facing the ice and let tears course down his weathered cheeks. It was sunny and very quiet.
After a while he summoned the long-range faculty of his farspeech and bespoke Bleyn the Champion in Camp Bettaforca. No, he said, he would not turn back. Since he still carried the winch and cable, he would complete the climb up the now avalanche-free slope and see to the installation of the apparatus, so that Camp 2 might be set up easily by the next support team. It would be a simple matter for him to return to Camp 1 by nightfall by winching down and then following the marked route across Tine Glacier.
Reluctantly, Bleyn agreed to this. And for some time he watched the dogged human creep upward, and heard with his mind's ear the tag that spun endlessly through Basil's mind, to be broadcast inadvertently into the aether:
I, demens, et saevas curre per Alpes,
ut pueris placeas et declamatio fias.
The Tanu knew that Basil was quoting from a human poet again, as he had done when delivering his orientation speech at the start of the climb. The verse from Kipling had appealed to Bleyn's native bravura; but this one, oddly enough, seemed to come from Basil's own unconscious:
Go, madman, and hurry over the cruel Alps, that you may delight small boysand inspire feckless adulation.
Humans, thought Bleyn the Champion, were a paradoxical lot.
9
AIKEN WAS ALONE on his balcony in the Castle of Glass, watching Kyllikki with his farsense. Although it was night in Goriah the sun had just set in the region of the Atlantic just north of the Azores where the great schooner plowed along in afair breeze. Her solar-collector sails gleamed like bronze in the warm light. She sailed on a flaming sea with the evening star over her shoulder and deep night her destination.
Aiken called: Elizabeth.
Yes. How are you dear?
Cultivating lionheartedness. I've been watching Kyllikki and drinking Laphroaig and stuffing myself with Scotch eggs. There are three portable sigmas all charged and ready to hang around my royal neck when I decide to go to sleep and I can'thelp thinking how a beam from an X-zapper could slice through those shields like a sgian dhu through a goddam clootie dumpling ... I don't suppose you know where Marc is?
No. When he left us on Wednesday after the baby's cure he gave no indication when he'dreturn here. Shall I do a scan of Goriah for you?
Please.
...All clear unless he's put up a mental umbrella. Are you sure?
Aiken I can't farsearch for him as I would an ordinary person. Once he pops through the superficies into normal space he's free to disguise his aura or even wipe it out so that not even a Grand Master can track him. But I know he isn't able to carry anything large along with him yet. Only small objects that would fit inside the armor. Certainly not an X-ray laser. You're safe from him wearing your sigmas. And I really don't think he'd try to kill you ... yet.
Not like his darling son Hagen you mean? Well that one's cooled down nicely! All the same he won't get any rides in those aircraft—granting Basil and the boys manage to bring them back. Both Hagen and Cloud are staying with me on tight leash until further notice. Let 'em work on the Guderian device with old Celo breathing down theirnecks watching for a false move.
How is the project coming?
Well enough I guess. They've taken apart half the gadgets in my contraband store cannibalizing components and materials.
Have you thought further about whether you'd return to the Milieu?
All I can think about is confronting Marc. Get the damn thing over and done with.
He'll pick his own time and place. Unless you do as I suggested.
Meet him at your place?...Not on your life! He'd have both of us right where he wanted us.
He had the chance to dominate me already when he took over the executive during Brendan's redaction. And he let me go. I don't think you understand Marc—
! YouthinkYOUdo?!
Better than you. I've worked with him and I've also done a deep memoreview of some Rebellion history materials that I studied a long time ago. Marc is a man with his own strange code of honor. If he agreed to confer with you on neutral ground with me as monitor he'd do you no harm. Ha! I'd wallop him without blinking a fewking eye—truce or not!
No you won't. Not if you give your word to me. I know you.
Damned if you do Woman! This matter of Marc toting things around with him on the d-jump really tears it. When he gets the program squared away what's to stop himfrom plopping Kyllikki herself right down in the castle courtyard?
Listen to me Aiken. Try to understand. Once Marc becomes capable of that sort of psychotransport he has no motive left for opposing the reopening of the time-gate. I want to get the two of you together to be sure you realize this.
?...You mean the Milieu fuzz would be no threat to Marc if he could hop all over the planet—with his geriatric villains and their gear tucked under his metaphorical arm?
Exactly.
[Elation.] Woman you could be right. [Dejection.] Oh-oh. We're forgetting a complicating factor. Those bloody Rebel kids. And I use the sanguine modifier with deliberate precision.
Any resolution would have to involve them. Marc doesn't want to let them go.
[Perplexity. Anger. Dichotomous potentialities. Fatigue.]
I know dear. Nothing can be done immediately anyway. I'll be too busy watching the situation on Monte Rosa and advising the people there.
You think the Famorel Firvulag will attack tomorrow then? When the two assault teams try to take off on their big push over the top?
It's only two days until Truce—and the Famorel Little People are more traditional-minded than Sharn and Ayfa. They'll quit fighting and go home at dawn on October first.
I watched them creeping around the base of the mountain today. Damn! If only I could do something! But I barely managed to queer the Bessemer converter coup. The drain left me too poop
ed to fly—although Hagen and his crowd don't know that.
You'll regain your strength more quickly now that the integration of yourpersonality is proceeding. Eventually you'll be even stronger than before.
No doubt. If I live so long. But I've an uncanny feeling ... Do you know we're the only two Greenies left?
?Group Green?
All of them gone. Except the two of us. And now daft Dougal blethering onabout Asian and his noble sacrifice, and the Tanu on my High Table deciding it's Marc Remillard who's the Adversary that will set off the Nightfall War. Then the only one left will be you.
Aiken dear. You've been drinking too much malt whisky. You're maudlin—and you'rewrong. Stein's alive.
I've looked for him. Never found hide nor hair nor horned helm.
...You are a bit squiffed. I'll show you him and Sukey and little Thor if you promise me that you'll never try to make contact with them or interfere with them in any way.
They had a kid—? Aw. I promise. On my honor as Nonborn King. Why should I drag them into my troubles? But wait ... are they happy?
Happy as can be.
[Sentimental satisfaction.] Then show me. Please.
Wait. There. [Image: River island half-moon rushlighted window reflection black water cypresses live oaks cinnamons log house jetty clinkerbuilt dory crocodile fence silvered garden plot thorn-guarded yard thatch roof stick chimney. Open bead-screened summer room work shed main cabin glass windows wide hearth planked floor A MAN A WOMANHOLDING A CHILD.]
