Chapter 29
They were three men, lost in the blizzard under the screaming mountain. But there were long stretches of time when not one of them would have defined himself as a man. One was a hollow shell with eyes of glass, the last of his mind snuffed out when he surrendered his sanity to death, on his heels. Another, though he was built for this environment, had a heavy limp and often cried out in pain and anger. The third was the leader, smaller, quiet, with fiercely burning eyes and a bloody face mask. He was reduced to one thought:
I am a wedge.
Their descent was hasty, driven by gravity and the wind more than any conscious thought. That they avoided several death traps was a matter of sheer luck, for they were unaware of them snapping at their ankles just a foot away. The snow was three feet deep and crusted over but not so hard that it could bear their weight. More snow kept coming, large, heavy snowflakes whipped into a suffocating veil by the howling wind.
The leader knew he was as close to giving up as he had ever been in his hard and difficult and beautiful life. When "I am a wedge" failed to hold him up, he switched to the conscious inventory of his body. Muscles screaming, heart fluttering, his head near to exploding, numb fingers that intermittently were dead or caught fire, and the tearing sounds in his lungs with each agonized breath. The ruin of his body made him angry. The anger kept him awake, kept him going.
The rope jerked and he fell back into the furrow he had ploughed, landing hard on the pack strapped to his back. He bit down on a scream of pain and panicked, for a moment, brought back to himself but not remembering what he was doing, where he was going. Then he made an angry sound, struggled to his knees and feet and crawled, following the rope.
He found his two men.
"He's done!" Grale yelled over the howling wind.
"Set up camp!"
Kirk and Grale fought the wind for the tent. Kirk pounded in the anchors with spite and crawled in last. He found Grale asleep and woke him rudely.
"Get the stove out, Commander Grale," he ordered.
The man obeyed automatically. They lit the fire, put some snow in a pan to melt.
Kirk buckled under an attack of pain.
"Head bad, Captain?" the miner asked.
Kirk managed to smile. "It'll pass," he lied. He then studied his hands like they weren't part of him at all.
For truly they were all three wreckage.
They drank the lukewarm water and poured some into Johnson's mouth.
"We're close. I know it," Kirk said.
"I think so too."
"How is your foot?"
Grale shook his head. They hesitated for a few seconds before Kirk took out his knife and cut the boot off the left foot. Grale gagged when he saw it. Kirk handed him the flask and he took a pull, grunting with gratitude.
"Does it hurt?" Kirk asked.
"Nah," the colonist lied.
They both smiled grimly.
"Listen, Rayan, we both know that if we sit here much longer, we're dead."
"We can leave Johnson in the tent. Move on," Grale said.
"It doesn't look like you're going anywhere, mate," Kirk said softly. He got to his knees. "But I can make it. Stay with Johnson, keep each other warm. Use the last fuel if you need to." He closed his torn overcoat. His trembling fingers could hardly handle the latches. "It's maybe another five miles. I'll take nothing, I'll be quick."
Grale was suddenly frantic, caught up in Kirk's desperate urgency. "Aim for the pylon!" he hurried. "It has a red flare mounted on it. Remember, the compound's surrounded by barbed wire. It's minimal, there's not even a gate, just an opening. But it's there. There's a cargo elevator at the base of the pylon, like at Alpha Camp. You'll find the control room and the supplies room, easy."
Kirk put a hand on the miner's arm. "I'll call them in, restock, and come straight back to get you. But if I'm not back in ten hours, if the weather turns, maybe your foot is better-try it then. Not earlier. I can do it. I'll be back."
He opened the flap and threw himself out into the blizzard. A hand caught his arm.
"Don't go!" Grale shouted. Kirk could see the fear in the man's hard, ravaged face.
"I have to!" Kirk yelled. "Stay here, stay together. No one should be alone!"
"What about you?"
Kirk didn't hesitate.
"I am the Captain," he said, simply.
His voice hadn't carried. Grale could not have heard.
0000000
If wasn't fair. The mountain had kept them alive. In their most perilous moments it had held its breath and let them pass. All for this. If he failed, they'd all die, not just the two in the tent, but his wounded and starving crew and friends in the shuttle.
Stop it. Failure is not an option.
His body no longer felt like it was his. Brutally abused by the cold, wind and ice, it was finally buckling. His heart beat irregularly, his chest had the volume of a drinking glass. Each footfall drove a consuming fire through his legs, his spine. He had been lucky with his feet but now he could no longer feel his toes. An hour after leaving the tent he had gone into an uncontrolled slide down a crevasse and his right glove had snagged and been lost. That hand, shoved into his jacket, was senseless and he was grateful for it. He would not look at it.
One step after another, that's what he had been reduced to. A machine for taking one step after another. Walking into nothingness, with no dea where he was, where he was going. He had lost the path.
Then he heard the crack – more like a piece of fabric ripping - and a moment later he crashed through the ice. He flung out his arms and stopped his fall. His heart pounding, he tried to move his legs. Not thin air, but powdery snow. How deep? He kicked around in it, churning it, but it afforded no support. If he slipped through, if the crust caved, he'd suffocate before reaching the bottom, before freezing to death.
He stopped trashing. The broken shards of the crust cut into his chest and back. Only his outstretched arms, shaking with exertion, his shoulders, on fire, and his hands, scratching like claws in the ice, kept him from sliding into the grave. The wind blew snow against his shoulders and the back of his hood.
Anger rose in him and he howled, then had to stop, too breathless. He sobbed and, just before he closed his eyes, saw it.
Blink.
Blink.
He opened his eyes wide, thinking for a moment it was their companion, the one Johnson had seen following them.
A beacon. The compound!
The snow closed over the vision.
Incredibly he found the strength to pull himself out.
On hands and knees he crawled in the direction of the red blinking light. There it was again. Howling he crawled, like an animal, and then the pylon appeared in the blowing snow.
He remembered Grale saying something about barbed wire.
Too late.
Something tore at his face – he didn't feel it, just heard it, a smaller equivalent of the ice tearing. Then the metal hook was right next to his eye. He pulled back, but couldn't. He was caught. The barbed wire had him.
But I'm here, he thought, not understanding. I made it!
He lifted a hand, as if to beckon, or to offer up that part of his body, or to wave goodbye.
Goodbye.
