orange rope up there. The Ultimate Summit had not yet made its mark above this
stone.
While Abe shook out a coil of new rope and Daniel tightened the wrist loop on his ice
axe, another hail of stone and rotten ice came slashing down.
'Rock!' he shouted down the line.
This time Abe had nothing to fear. He hid behind the outcrop and the rockfall
whined and hummed past harmlessly. With a curious detachment, he watched first
Gus then J.J. react. Gus balled tight with her armadillo technique. J.J. cumbrously
turned his pack upslope to let it take any beating. Everyone had theories on how to
survive a rockfall.
The debris skipped left, mostly strafing empty air. Here and there puffs of ice
smoke showed where rocks barked the wall. After a minute Gus and J.J. started
jumaring again. Abe was impressed with how slow and tiny they appeared, even
though they weren't so far below. The mountain had miniaturized them. They looked
trivial and expendable.
Daniel started up the Shoot, trailing a rope. Hanging from the rack crossing his
chest, his Soviet ice screws tinkled dully. He wasn't carrying much in the way of
protection. He didn't need to, he was that good.
The sun continued to plasticize the ice, softening it for Daniel's toe plants – quick,
powerful kicks to seat his front points. He flicked the tip of his ice axe into the
mountain with the finesse of a switchblade fighter, every motion surgical and
understated. Abe had never seen an ice climber operate so economically. Where most
climbers hammered at the ice for deep purchase, flailing and overdriving their tools,
Daniel seemed content to stroke it, scarcely entering the ice at all.
As Daniel advanced, Abe fed him rope through a brake mechanism. If the leader fell,
the second was supposed to catch him. Daniel wasn't the type to fall, however, which
freed Abe to gaze at Nepal and stare into the abyss. Time bent around him. From his
little perch, ABC was much too small to see and all the other camps were out of sight.
He tried guessing where Base might lie along the glacial tendrils, but the Tibetan
plateau swallowed his estimations whole. He had the sense of having climbed right out
of the world.
After another half hour, Gus reached the outcrop, groping for air like some chemical
warrior. While she was bent over, gasping and coughing, Abe clipped her pack off to a
runner sling attached to the anchor and helped her from the straps. Gus recovered
enough to straighten up.
Down below, J.J. was approaching with amazing torpor. He had the dense,
coagulated motions of a deep sea diver. He would slug his way up a few steps, then
hang on the rope for minutes at a time, paralyzed by the thin air. Then he would move
again. His progress was pained, but Abe felt no pity. He just watched. It was like
watching a bug move.
Daniel's rope slid through the brake with little pause. Abe snuck a glance around the
outcrop, but Daniel was already out of sight up the corridor.
Another rockfall shelled them. Gus huddled against Abe under the outcrop. J.J. was
still two hundred feet down, still exposed. He turned with all the speed of a tortoise.
He completed his turn just in time to take a rock square against his pack. It made a
pillowy thud and J.J. was promptly plucked from his stance. He swung out from the
wall and bounced across the slope. J.J. didn't shout out or scramble for cover. There
was no cover. He simply turned his pack upslope and took a second hit and swung
again. Then the rockfall was down. He twisted around and resumed his reptilian
progress.
'Piece of gum?' Gus asked. Abe nodded yes. He was parched. The sun was
unmerciful. What little water he had left in his bottle had to last until they reached
Four and could melt more. That could be many hours. Water, water, everywhere, he
thought, and leaned against the blazing ice.
Gus gave him a pink chunk of her Bazooka with the exaggerated care wall climbers
use to hand things back and forth. It was soft from her body heat. 'You owe me,' she
said.
Abe chewed carefully because his teeth had begun to loosen. Mostly he sucked at
the sugar. It revived him from his stupor, then dropped him back into it all over again.
He wondered if the chunk of rock or ice had given him a concussion. He felt all the
more tired and debilitated seeing Gus's animation. A nap would have been nice.
'You're on,' Gus said. Daniel's voice was chirping down at them from the Shoot.
Neither could hear what he said but both knew what he meant. It was showtime.
Abe kept his dread mute and worked into the pack straps. He wanted to stay under
this outcrop for the rest of his life. He loved this stasis, this bombproof sanctuary, and
this piece of wet gum on his sunburned tongue.
'Want me to go?' Gus prodded him. She didn't want to go either.
'Photosynthesis,' Abe said, trying to make a joke of his inertia. Gus gaped without
comprehending. He clipped his jumars onto Daniel's rope and left the outcrop,
ascending with all the speed he could muster. Daniel couldn't safely advance until Abe
arrived to belay him and tend his climbing rope. Every minute wasted was another
minute Daniel could be investing in their reach for Four. More to the point, every
wasted minute exposed Abe to more rockfall. The wall's angle eased slightly. Abe let
his quadriceps take the brunt of the toil.
The Shoot curved left. Daniel came in view. Above him the corridor seemed to
extend without end. Abe despaired at that. He'd hoped the Shoot was nearly played
out. He reached a little ledge and Daniel helped him out of his pack.
'Damn, Abe. You're running heavy.'
For the first time all day, Abe was glad he hadn't lightened his load. It was a good
respectable carry and it was plain that Daniel appreciated that. For all its brute
danger and hard labor, today was going to turn out well after all. No climber can know
in advance how well he will perform at high altitude. Abe was performing. He
belonged.
Abe had meant to ask how far it was to Four. After Daniel's praise, he didn't. They
would get there when they got there. At any rate, Daniel answered without being
asked. 'See it?' he grunted.
Abe looked. Less than eighty feet overhead stood the mouth of a cave. It opened in
the rock like a desert miracle. Only one rope led up to the cave. It looked very old and
most of it lay buried within the ice wall. Daniel had already opened a coil of new rope
to climb with and fix at the cave entrance. One end was tied to his harness.
'How about that,' Abe marvelled. His words rasped out, no saliva left. He couldn't
remember spitting out the gum, then found it lodged inside his leathery cheek. It
might be okay to drink the last of his water now. They were almost there.
The rope Abe had just ascended began jerking. That would be Gus coming up.
'I'll just run this pup out, fast like,' Daniel said. He was cranking one of his precious
Soviet ice screws into the ice to bolster their belay anchor. The screws were only six
inches long, stubby with threads coiling around the exterior of the tube. Inside his
beard, he had weariness cut in deep lines besides his mouth. 'Ten more minutes and
we're home.' He started off.
