The Ice Limit

in which the slopes had eroded away, leaving behind the two basalt-filled throats.

He turned around, glancing over his shoulder. Several miles behind and far below them, the landing area was a sprinkling of black dots on a white landscape, threadlike roads leading away across the island. In the wake of Rochefort's and Evans's deaths, recovery work had resumed immediately. It was being directed by Garza and the second engineer, Stonecipher, a humorless man who seemed to have inherited Rochefort's personality along with his duties.

Rachel Amira came up beside him, her breath frosty. She gazed up at the peaks, frowning. 'How far do we have to go?'

'I want to reach that stripe of darker material about halfway up. That's probably a remnant of the last eruption, so we'd want to use that to date the flow.'

'No problem,' she said, rattling her gear with a show of bravado.

She had been in high spirits since meeting up for the climb, speaking little but humming and whistling to herself. McFarlane, on the other hand, felt restless, impatient.

His eyes traveled up the possible routes, looking for obstacles, cornices, loose rock. Then he started off again, snowshoes biting into the freshly fallen snow. They moved slowly, hiking up the talus slope. Near the base of the plug, McFarlane stopped at an unusual rock that poked out from the snow. He gave it a sharp rap with his rock hammer, slipped two chips into his sample pouch, and jotted a quick note.

'Playing with rocks,' said Rachel. 'How like a boy.'

'That's why I became a planetary geologist.'

'Bet you had a rock collection as a kid.'

'Actually, no. What did you collect? Barbie dolls?'

Rachel snorted. 'I had a rather eclectic collection. Bird's nests, snakeskins, dried tarantulas, bones, butterflies, scorpions, a dead owl, unusual roadkill — that sort of thing.'

'Dried tarantulas?'

'Yeah. I grew up in Portal, Arizona, at the foot of the Chiricahua Mountains. In the fall, the big male tarantulas would come out onto the roads, looking to get laid. I had about thirty of them, mounted on a board. Goddamn dog ate my whole collection one day.'

'Did the dog die?'

'Unfortunately, no. She threw them up all over my mom's bed, though. In the middle of the night. That was pretty funny.' She giggled at the recollection.

They paused. The slope beyond grew steeper. Here the constant wind had given the snow a thick crust.

'Let's ditch the snowshoes,' McFarlane said.

Despite the subzero weather, he felt overheated and tugged down the zipper of his parka. 'We'll head for the saddle between the two peaks,' he said, fitting crampons to his boots and moving forward again. 'What kind of roadkill?'

'Herps, mostly.'

'Herps?'

'Herpetological specimens. Amphibians and reptiles.'

'Why?'

Rachel smiled. 'Because they were interesting. Dry, flat easy to sort and store. I had some pretty unusual species.'

'I bet your mom loved that.'

'She didn't know about it.'

They lapsed into silence, their breath leaving white trails behind them. A few minutes brought them to the saddle, and McFarlane stopped for another rest. 'Three weeks on that damn ship has put me out of shape,' he gasped.

'You did all right last night, mister.' A grin began to spread across her face. Then she suddenly flushed, turning her face away.

He did not respond. Rachel had been a good partner, and he felt that he could trust her now, despite the duplicity. But what had happened last night was an unexpected complication. The last thing he wanted now were complications.

They rested for a few minutes, sharing a canteen of water. Far to the west, McFarlane could see a dark streak lying across the horizon: a harbinger of the storm.

'You seem different from the rest of Glinn's team,' he said. 'Why's that?'

'I am different. That's no accident. Everyone at EES is super cautious, including Glinn. He needed somebody who took risks. And, in case you hadn't noticed, I'm brilliant.'

'I had noticed,' said McFarlane, taking out a candy and handing it to her.

They chewed in silence. Then McFarlane stuffed the empty wrappers back into the pack and swung it over his shoulder, casting an appraising eye at the slope above them.

'It looks a little tricky from here. I'll go —'

But Rachel already began scrambling up the icy snowfield ahead of him. It rose to the bottom of the rock, getting bluer — icier — as it became steeper.

'Take it easy,' he called up, looking out from the face. The view out over the rugged islands of the Horn group was spectacular. Far beyond, over the horizon, he could just see the tops of the Fuegian mountains. The Rolvaag, for all its bulk, looked like a child's bathtub toy in the black water of the bay. The destroyer could just be seen, mostly hidden by a rugged island. At the limit of vision, he could see the line of storm eating into the crystalline sky.

Looking back up, he was alarmed to see how quickly Rachel had climbed. 'Slow down!' he called, more urgently this time.

'Slowpoke!' was the taunting reply.

And then a rock clattered past, followed by another, larger, inches from his ear. With a crumpling sound, a small part of the talus slope slid away from Rachel's feet, exposing a dark scar beneath the snow. She dropped heavily onto her stomach, legs dangling into space. A strangle of fear escaped her as she twisted, scrabbling for a purchase.

'Hold on!' McFarlane cried, scrambling upward.

In a moment he was on a broad ledge directly beneath her. He edged closer, cautious now, planting his feet carefully in the hard surface. He reached out and grasped her forearm. 'I've got you,' he panted. 'Let go.'

'I can't,' she said between clenched teeth.

'It's okay,' he repeated quietly. 'I've got you.'

She gave a small groan, then relaxed her grip. He felt her weight coming down on him and he twisted, guiding her feet to the broad ledge below him. She landed hard and collapsed, shaking, onto her knees.

'Oh, my God,' she said, her voice quavering. 'I almost fell.' She put an arm around him.

'It's okay,' he said. 'You would've fallen all of five feet. Into a snowdrift.'

'Really?' She looked down and made a wry face. 'It felt like the whole mountain was falling away in a landslide. I was going to say you saved my life, but I guess you didn't. Thanks anyway.'

She raised her head to his, giving him a quick light kiss on the mouth. She paused a moment, then kissed him again, more deliberately this time. Then, sensing resistance, she pulled back, regarding him intently with her dark eyes. They stared at each other in silence for a moment, the world spread out a thousand feet below them.

'You still don't trust me, Sam?' she asked quietly.

'I trust you.'

She drew closer to him again, her eyebrows knitting in a look of consternation. 'Then what's wrong? Is there somebody else? Our gallant captain, perhaps? Even Eli seems —' She stopped abruptly, her eyes cast downward, hugging her knees closely to herself.

Half a dozen responses came to McFarlane's mind, but each one seemed either frivolous or patronizing. For want of a better reply, he simply reshouldered the pack and shook his head, smiling foolishly.

'There's a good sampling spot maybe twenty feet up the slope,' he said after a moment.

Rachel's eyes were still on the ground. 'You go get your sample. I think I'll wait here.'

It was the work of a few minutes to reach the site, hack half a dozen pieces of the darker basalt from the rock face, and return to Rachel. She stood up as he approached, and they climbed back down to the saddle in