'An hour. Maybe two hours.'
'That long?'
'You're a novice.'
'Couldn't we rappel?'
'Rappel?' He was appalled.
'It looks so easy. Swinging out and back, dropping a few feet with
every swing, bouncing off the stone, dancing along the side of the
building .
'It looks easy, but it isn't.'
'But it's fast.'
'Jesus! You've never climbed before, and you want to rappel down.'
'I've got guts.'
'But no common sense.'
'Okay,' she said. 'We don't rappel.'
'We definitely don't rappel.'
'We go. slow and easy.'
'We don't go at all.'
Ignoring him, she said, 'I can take two hours of the cold. I know I
can. And if we keep moving, maybe it won't bother us so much.'
'We'll freeze to death.' He refused to be shaken from that opinion.
'Graham, we have a simple choice. Go or stay. If we make the climb,
maybe we'll fall or freeze to death. if we stay here, we'll sure as
hell be killed.'
'I'm not convinced it is that simple.'
'Yes, you are.'
He closed his eyes. He was furious with himself, sick of his inability
to accept unpleasant realities, to risk pain, and to come face to face
with his own fear. The climb would be dangerous. Supremely dangerous.
It might even prove to be sheer folly; they could die in the first few
minutes of the descent. But she was correct when she said they had no
choice but to try it.
'Graham? We're wasting time.'
'You know the real reason why the climb isn't possible.'
'No,' she said. 'Tell me.'
He felt color and warmth come into his face. 'Connie, you aren't
leaving me with any dignity.'
'I never took that from you. You've taken it from yourself.' Her
lovely face was lined with sorrow. He could see that it hurt her to
have to speak to him so bluntly. She came across the room, put one hand
to his face. 'You've surrendered your dignity and your selfrespect.
Piece by piece.' Her voice was low, almost a whisper; it wavered.
'I'm afraid for you, afraid that if you don't stop throwing it away,
you'll have nothing left. Nothing.'
'Connie . . .' He wanted to cry.
But he had no tears for Graham Harris. He knew precisely what he had
done to himself. He had no pity; he despised the man he'd become.
He felt that, deep inside, he had always been a coward, and that his
fall on Mount Everest had given him an excuse to retreat into fear.
Why else had he resisted going to a psychiatrist? Every one of his
