'Maybe not saviors,' Robby said. 'But not traitors, either.'
'Pete,' Stump said to Jorgens. If grimness had a voice, his was it. 'Carlos tells us that
Li didn't just find out. He was informed. Someone traded the kid for our summit.' He
didn't ask for a confession. He didn't have to. Jorgens knew what he meant.
Abe strained to hear Jorgens's answer. He couldn't distinguish between the blood
roaring through his head and the wind outside.
'Damn you, Stump,' Jorgens murmured. The two men had climbed many mountains
together, never with trouble like this. Bitterly, Jorgens surrendered the transmission
to their static.
'This is a serious matter, Pete. And you were the last to talk to Li. Over.'
Jorgens let it dangle.
Robby broke in again. He was dependably their good-time man, the one who, with a
word, could breach their deadly mood and finesse this disaster. 'Motherfucker,' was all
he had to say, and there was no mistaking who it was aimed at.
Down at Base, Carlos pieced together their judgement. 'You're not saying it was the
captain, are you?'
The damnation of Jorgens could take all night, Abe thought. They were losing sight
of the victim. Someone had to get this back on track and quickly.
'Carlos, can you talk to Li?' Abe asked. 'Tonight. Before he sends the boy off. Over.'
'Negative. I tried,' said Carlos. He sounded more weary than they were, and he was
two miles lower. 'Li's got his hackles up. He's acting real funny, like we're in deep shit.
He'll mention our cooperation in his report, but we're no longer being escorted to the
border. We're getting deported, folks.'
'But he can't do that,' Robby said, shocked. 'We didn't do anything.'
'Who can't do what?' Jorgens demanded.
'Li's declared us persona non grata,' Stump relayed. 'The Chinese are deporting us.
Over.'
'For God's sake,' Jorgens said. 'What's going on down there at Base? Handle this
thing, Stump. Over.'
Stump thought it over. 'Base, can you stall Li?' he asked. 'Two or three more days.
We can finish our business up here and come down and finish our business with him.
Over.'
'No chance.' There was a long burst of static, then Carlos broke through again. He
sounded defeated, as if the group had let him down. Obviously they had no solutions
he hadn't already thought of and discarded. 'Li knows us, guys. He told me it's very
unfortunate. He's sad that we chose the wrong mascot. As far as he's concerned, this is
kind of like putting the family pet down. You wait until the children take off for
summer camp and when they come back, Rover's already gone to heaven. Li doesn't
want any trouble. This way everybody gets what they want. We bag our summit.
They bag their desperado. Just to show us what a stand-up guy he is, Li asked me to
convey his best wishes for our climb. He said we've earned it.'
Abe felt sick.
Finally Stump returned to the air.
'Well that's that, people. The kid's gone.' His voice had grown weak. This was
supposed to have been a quick radio call, a few last words to help levitate the high
team to the top. Instead they had been handed this terrible news, and in the process
had just whittled their battery power down to a splinter on a human rights debate.
Worse, and once again, all their forward momentum had been sapped.
'I lost a friend on a big mountain once,' Stump continued. 'And when it happened, we
quit the mountain. On the spot, right then and there. We just quit. It seemed like the
right thing. We can do that here, I guess. Over.' Abe took a moment to realize Stump
was polling them. He wanted a vote.
No one spoke for a long time after that. Each camp listened to the radio plasma and
Abe thought how the very stars were bombarding them with radiation, a steady
crackling assault. Between the wind and the turning of cosmic machinery, their defeat
seemed inevitable. Part of him accepted the end, theirs and the monk's. Part of him
rebelled.
Then Gus came on the radio. Stump had relinquished the walkie-talkie to her,
probably gladly.
'I've lost people in the mountains, too.' In different circumstances she would have
sounded monstrous with her throat infection and the raging static. But tonight, given
the monk's certain fate, her hoarse grating seemed to ring with grief. 'But we didn't
quit. And
Suddenly Abe wished Daniel would take the radio and speak. He wanted to hear
what the man was thinking as these people described their losses. But Abe couldn't
make out his own thoughts. He'd probably seen more death in the hills than all of
them combined. He'd become a virtual undertaker to the luckless and star-crossed.
The Chinese weren't going to leave him a body to take under, though. There was
nothing to scoop this time, nothing to carry out in the litter.
Gus gave the other camps a chance to register their opinions. When none did, she
spoke into their silence. 'I've lived my life in the mountains. It's a hard way to go. But
I never quit, okay? Out here – Tibet, the Hill – there's nothing between us and our
choices. No buffer. No excuses. That's just how it is. And the monk made his choice.
And we made ours.'
In the background, Stump told her to say Over. Gus didn't bother. No one else
wanted air time anyway.
Their silence stretched on, though for no good reason. They had their minds made
up, every one of them. Even Abe. They had spent major portions of their lives getting
this close to the highest summit.
'It's settled then,' Stump concluded. 'We go. God speed us all. Over and out.'
10
Abe woke to D day with Christmas morning zeal.
'Kelly,' he croaked. His larynx was rusted shut with strep and he felt badly depleted.
The oxygen had not proved to be a magic bullet after all. He recalled Robby's
prescription for summiting. Quick penetration. Quick up, quick down. Abe cobbled
together his resolve. Today was the day they toppled the Hill. First Daniel, then all the
rest, a stream of barbarians, today they began crashing the breach. Abe palmed his
oxygen mask away. 'Kelly, are you awake?'
Her back was pressed tight against his, but her voice came from a great distance.
'You slept?' she said. Vaguely, as if from a long time ago, Abe recalled her dream of
death. It was a moot point. They were much too close to the summit for dreaming.
Abe sat up, still cocooned in his bag. His head brushed the tent wall and hoarfrost
rained down. From inside his bag, he switched on his headlamp. The whole interior of
the tent sparkled with their crystallized breath.
'The weather's let up,' Abe said. 'It's quiet. The wind's stopped.' There was a
peculiar humming sound, but Abe figured that was just high altitude tinnitus. He was
learning you could hear illusions as well as see them.
'What time is it?' Kelly rasped. It was dark enough to be night.
Extricating his arm from the loose clothing and the radio and gas cartridges and
