Interzone Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine #213

by TTA Press Authors

  Rono looked at Namsing for a long, silent moment. Then he shook his head. “No. It can't. Gungnir's too stable."

  "It's ice, Rono. It's got to fall eventually."

  "No way. It'll hold."

  "Suppose it does,” Nam said. “The impact could still shake our supply caches off the ridge. The route has to be sent now or it may never be sent at all."

  Rono pounded his pale palm on the wall. “Horseshit! You're trying to put up a first ascent! You're using my damaged suit as an excuse to solo the route and steal the glory! I'm not letting you do it, Nam."

  Namsing boosted himself off the box and drifted to the ground. “You have no choice. You want to see a Gungnir ascent as badly as I do. If it doesn't happen now, there might be no Gungnir to ascend. It has to be done now, and that means I have to do it solo."

  Rono threw himself in the air and grabbed one of the dome handles like a basketball rim. His muscles tensed angrily and he flung himself back to the ground. It was impossible to pace in low gravity, dangerous to vent any frustration with physical gestures. In vain he curled his long fingers into fists. “How long did you say it was until the damn thing hits?"

  "Forty days max, Martian standard."

  "A shuttle from Ganymede could make it here—"

  "In twenty days at best. We couldn't even send a request until Ganymede escapes occlusion from Jupiter and catches up with us. That won't be for another eight and a half days; I checked it out."

  "What about a signal to Mars? We could send ours now and they could send it back to Ganymede as soon as they get a clear line."

  Namsing's face was doubtful. “Even if they have all the parts we need, a shuttle pilot would still have to skim pretty close to Jupiter to make it here in the kind of time you're talking about. And that's not leaving any time for us to acclimatize. You can't get to ten thousand meters in twenty days, Rono."

  "Not everyone, no, but you and I could do it. We're good, Nam. There's no one better."

  The little Sherpa shook his head. “Suppose we did it. Suppose everything went our way. Say the meteorite gets here in forty days and not twenty-five or thirty. Say they do have the parts we need on Ganymede. There's a shuttle available, and for some reason the pilot is willing to risk Jupiter's gravity well to get us our parts on time. He skims the clouds and makes it here in eight or nine days flat. We send a route that's never been sent, and not only that, but we do it in unthinkable time. Now we're on the summit of Gungnir when the meteorite comes down and maybe cracks the whole mountain at its foundation. We die, every trace of our being here is buried, and after a few hundred years maybe some ice miner finds our bodies.

  "Think about it, Rono. This miner finds us loaded like yaks with climbing gear and wonders why the hell we have it, because clearly there're no mountains anywhere near here to climb. Just a big icefall with a couple of fools frozen in it. That's not the way to send the hardest route in the history of mountaineering. We stick to plan, we send the damned thing, and someone lives to tell about it."

  The two men sat in silence for several minutes, the cold air pressing in on them. They had not been warm since coming to Callisto, had endured uncountable hardships in getting here, countless more in scouting and supplying their chosen route to the summit. Both men had climbed Gungnir to 8,850 meters, the height of Chomolungma itself. They had vowed to ascend no further until the day of their summit bid, and now it seemed that day would be denied them.

  "There is another way,” Rono said at last.

  "Is there?"

  The taller man nodded. “We could do it without EGC."

  Namsing's face hovered somewhere between shock and revulsion. “You can't mean that."

  "We could do it faster, Nam. We could send it in ten, twelve days without EGC, and get back down in no time. Or boost the air mixture. Screw acclimatization. Still do it under EG conversion, but increase the O2 flow. Get up, get down, get back home before the big bang."

  Electro-Gravitonic Conversion was the lynchpin of their entire ascent strategy, and one of the two features of their plan that made the whole endeavor incomprehensible to anyone who was not a mountaineer. Gravito-Electric Conversion engines had existed well before the colonization of Mars, back when scientists were still seeking a solution to the Earth's energy problems. When it was discovered that the gravitonic pull between two objects could be converted to electricity, those problems were solved. Gravitonic attraction turned out to be a perpetually renewing source of energy. A GEC engine therefore did two things: it produced small amounts of electricity indefinitely, and it floated for as long as it continued to run.

  That a person interested in climbing mountains would want a gravity-defying engine was no surprise to anyone. Indeed, it was not long after the development of GEC engines that Terran tourists were flitting about all the major peaks of the globe in insulated flight suits with self-contained air supplies. That a mountaineer would be interested in climbing with a gravity-enhancing engine baffled every engineer Namsing and Rono had approached to build one.

  Electro-Gravitonic Conversion engines were not uncommon elsewhere, particularly on Mars, where the effects of low gravity on the kidneys, muscles, and bones over prolonged periods were a constant danger. Generally EGC devices took the form of beds, not bodysuits, but if a GEC flight suit was possible, in principle there was no reason why an EGC suit would not be. The question all the engineers posed was why someone would want one.

  Still more bewildering was Nam and Rono's request for a breathing apparatus that would progressively restrict the flow of oxygen as the climber gained altitude. On a world without an atmosphere, oxygen levels were identical at every altitude, for a person always breathed from the same bottle. This made altitude a non-issue in off-Terran climbing, which was fitting since one could not even use a conventional altimeter in the absence of an atmosphere. Rono and Namsing had devised a laser triangulation system that turned out to be far more accurate than a barometric altimeter, but then baffled their engineers by demanding that it be connected to an oxygen regulator that would constrict as the lasers registered gains in elevation.

  "We designed the Tenzings together,” Nam said. “We planned this expedition together. A climb to top any climb on Earth: that was the goal. If Gungnir is going to be sent, it's going to be under the same conditions Tenzing Norgay climbed Chomolungma with Hillary: full gravity, limited oxygen. That was always the goal. You can't back out on me now."

  "Back out on you?” Rono punched the Tenzing crate so hard he had to stabilize himself with his other hand to avoid drifting away. “You're the one who's talking about climbing without me! I don't want to turn off the EGC! I don't want to cheat with the airflow! But you're going to rob me of a first ascent on the boldest climb in the history of mountaineering! Better than K2! Better than Chomolungma! Better than the whole damn Himalaya, and you're talking about soloing! What did you think I was going to do, just sit back and watch you?"

  "No,” said Namsing. “I was hoping you'd manage base camp for me."

  "That's bullshit."

  "I know.” Namsing's voice fell almost to a whisper. “I wish I could wait."

  A strange look fell over his face, one Rono could not identify despite the fact that for three years running the two had not been apart for the space of an afternoon. There was a pregnant, silent air about Namsing before he spoke again. “We can't wait, Rono. We have to stick to the original plan. We're here now, we've trained our bodies to climb it right now. All the work we've done scouting the route—I don't want to see that come to nothing. I know you want to go, and you know I'd rather climb with you. We'd stand a better chance of success climbing as a team. But the fact is you can't go right now and right now is when I have to go. If we stick to the original timetable, we need a thirty-day window and that window starts this minute. Stick to the plan and one of us is sure to live to tell the tale. Please, don't back out."

  Namsing's face was as stern as the ice that surrounded them. His logic was just as
cold. Too much of their lives had been staked on making this climb a possibility. No threat to its success could be countenanced. It had to go through.

  And yet Namsing's words didn't quite ring true. “When you say we stick to the plan,” said Rono, “you don't mean ‘we'. You mean ‘you'. The original plan never involved me baby-sitting a radio."

  "I can't tell you what to do,” said Nam. “I can only ask."

  * * * *

  Rono scowled at the display screens for the hundredth time that morning. Morning, he thought disdainfully. There were no mornings here, no evenings, no nights. No summers or winters either. It was always dark and cold. Using the ice sheath for natural insulation was better than relying on the man-made insulation alone, but that only marked the difference between habitable and lethal. Comfortable was still a long way off.

  Thoughts like this had been surfacing with alarming frequency in the weeks since the little Sherpa had gone. Other thoughts had disturbed Rono as well. The fact that he was much stronger than Namsing came to mind from time to time. So did the very real possibility that, though Namsing was by far the better climber when they had met, Rono had trained so hard since then that he might have surpassed his mentor. His bigger lungs and longer strides had always been an advantage. Now his technical abilities had grown to rival Namsing's and his willpower had done the same. The idea that the superior climber was sitting at base camp grated at him like a mosquito bite, itching all the worse every time he scratched it, and every minute he spent by himself was another opportunity to claw at it.

  He was not completely alone, of course. A single word would activate the microphone that would put him in contact with Namsing up on the ridge, and a glance at the monitors told him everything Namsing was going through. Nam's current heart rate was 110, abnormally low for anyone but a Sherpa. He was making steady upward progress at a rate of 5.5 meters a minute on a fifty-two degree slope. External temperature was a constant 164 degrees Kelvin, but inside the Tenzing suit Namsing was enjoying a balmy ten degrees Centigrade. He was sweating, then, and the Tenzing was compensating for that. He was moving well, and according to their laser triangulation system he had just pushed above the seven thousand meter mark. Carbon dioxide levels were normal; the Tenzing was allowing him to inhale just as much air as would have been available had he been standing at seven thousand meters above sea level on Earth—higher than the highest peak of every continent save Asia. The last display showed the EGC was performing according to specs as well; Namsing was experiencing this climb as similarly as possible to how it would have taken place on Earth.

  "Talk,” Rono said, vocally activating the microphone. “Namsing, do you copy?"

  A deep inhalation preceded Nam's response. “Copy, Rono. Something wrong?"

  "No. Monitors are all fine. How's the ice holding up?"

  This had been one of their concerns from the beginning. Climbing under Earth-normal conditions wore on the climber, but it also wore on the mountain. Gungnir was formed under Callistan conditions and stood in defiance of Callistan gravity. On Callisto Namsing's weight was that of an infant in Nepal; bringing his full adult weight down on Gungnir's delicate ice structures ran the risk of crumbling the ridge.

  "My crampons are biting pretty deep,” Namsing answered, “but the ice is holding up okay. So far, so good."

  So far, Rono repeated in his mind. “You feeling all right?"

  "I'd better be. Still another twenty-nine hundred meters to go."

  Rono heard the crack of an ice axe sinking into the mountain. Next came the twin crunches of Namsing planting both crampons. The sounds duplicated themselves again with only three breaths between them. At this altitude under these conditions, a rate of three breaths per step was remarkably fast.

  Rono let the rhythm of cracks and crunches ring in the dim light of the dome until the speakers on his system counted up to their five-minute default and turned themselves off. The silence that followed prompted him to glance down at the monitors again. “Talk. Namsing?"

  "Yeah,” came the panting voice.

  "My display says you're moving at eight meters a minute. What's the hurry?"

  "Just ... keeping a steady pace.” Nam was forcing the words out between breaths.

  "Have you reached cache ten yet? The computer says you should be just about on top of it now."

  "Passed it a minute ago."

  Rono furrowed his eyebrows. “Sorry, didn't copy that. Did you say you passed it?"

  "Yeah."

  Rono took another look at his display. On one monitor a bright orange line traced the toothy ridge that was Mount Gungnir. Glowing white points represented the fourteen water, air, and provision caches they had positioned along the route. Number ten was a double cache, as their plan for the summit bid had included an overnight stay at that point. Namsing's position, a red dot on the screen, was indeed twenty meters higher than the cache's position.

  "Something wrong with the water there, Nam? Doesn't suit your taste?"

  "I'm pushing ... higher,” he replied. “Sleeping at eight thousand tonight."

  "Eight thousand?! I guess the word ‘acclimatization’ doesn't mean much to you?"

  The Sherpa responded with a weak chuckle. “Have to do it, Rono. Have to keep moving."

  Rono bit back a curse. Nam was being stupid, but yelling at him wouldn't change his resolve. “I have to tell you this isn't going to improve your chances to summit. Pulmonary edema has a wicked way of slowing a guy down."

  More labored breathing accompanied the cracks and crunches through the speakers. Rono listened closely for any burbling sounds in the exhalations. He heard none. “Namsing? You still there?"

  "Yeah. Pushing on. Talk to you later. Over."

  * * * *

  Namsing stabbed the pointed haft of his ice axe into the white crust of Mount Gungnir. There was no air to carry the crunch of the ice to his ears, but he felt the tremor through the soles of his feet. He double-checked his waist tether's connection to the axe, then prodded a numb forefinger at the slender raised box mounted on his left forearm. The technology for the Tenzing's insulators was borrowed from Ganymedean miners and was unbelievably efficient, but somehow nothing human beings had ever engineered could both keep fingers warm and allow them to move nimbly. He reminded himself to be thankful that his fingers hadn't blackened and fallen off, but finding the right button on the arm unit was difficult business.

  When he finally pushed the proper button, he felt a cold liquid seep through the Tenzing's IV unit in the crook of his left elbow. He knew it was the last dosage in the last syringe. The extra syringe had been the only extra weight he had carried on this journey and now it was part of his own mass, his own blood stream. Thinking of his blood made him think of how hard his kidneys were working at this altitude, and the thought prodded him to drink deeply from the tube inside his facemask.

  Beyond the bounds of his mask the galaxy sprawled before him. Jupiter loomed in the sky to his right, and over his left shoulder he could see the setting sun. Though it was visibly bigger than any other star, it was scarcely brighter here than the full moon in a clear sky on Earth. Arcing between the two was a band of the Milky Way, bordered on either side by a million stars stretching off into infinity.

  Straight ahead the heights of Gungnir ascended like fingertips meshed together, uneven, discontinuous, describing no more than an erratic path to the summit. To either side of the ridge the slope fell a thousand meters before it began to level out, giving each side of the mountain the appearance of a massive wave. Callisto's ice was white and blue, just like that of Earth; one had to go to other moons to find ices of methane or nitrogen. The ridge Namsing stood on was firm and white, barely half as wide as he was tall. He did not fear stumbling off of it. There was no wind here to blow him off, and he had the sure feet of his heritage.

  Off the left side of the ridge, Namsing could see the rings of Valhalla stretching off into the distance. The sun hit them from just above the horizon, throwing lon
g shadows across the troughs between the frozen waves. The ice atop the rings captured the sunlight so that as the shadows grew longer, thin glowing arcs appeared in a field of silent darkness.

  Behind and below, the serrated ridge jogged back and forth on jagged angles toward the twin summits of Huginn and Muninn far below. Between them, in a deep shadow cast by a neighboring peak, flashed a solitary strobe light. It was the beacon light of the base camp where Rono sat in lonesome frustration. If Nam turned off the EGC and jumped, it seemed he could almost land on it.

  Namsing took another mouthful from the tube. A push from his tongue caused it to withdraw into its receptacle and left a cold round imprint on the tip of his tongue. The creeping chill in his left arm had largely warmed away and it was time to get moving again. Before yanking his axe free of the ice, he glanced down at the heads-up display on his facemask. Heart rate and CO2 were acceptable, but only barely. He was pushing himself hard and he knew it.

  But there was no alternative. He pushed onward up the jagged slope, carefully placing his ice axe, then kicking his crampons into foot-holes he and Rono had already made on route-finding and acclimatization runs. Suddenly his right foothold collapsed. A softball-sized chunk of ice tumbled from under his boot and bounded lazily down the ridge. The little fragments splintering from it like shards of glass were incongruous with its languid, noiseless impacts. When it bounced over the edge and began the slow, thousand meter drift to the bottom, it reminded Namsing that under the influence of the EGC, he would fall ten times that fast. He turned the Tenzing's headlamps on and resolved himself to be more careful in his foot placements.

  Namsing pushed himself further. Before long he came to a sheer face of ice a hundred meters high. He and Rono had come this far before and had already fixed a cable to the headwall with ice screws. Nam willed his fumbling fingers to unclip his waist tether from the ice axe and clip it to the cable. With his thumb he flipped open a small safety cover below the head of his axe and depressed the button beneath it, then watched as the haft telescoped down to half its former length. Now better suited for technical ice climbing, it mirrored the second technical axe Namsing drew from his hip sheath. He leashed both axes to his wrists and began climbing.