Ringclimber

Chapter 15 - The End Of Nightmares

There are three weeks of forced inactivity on the trip back to Earth. The first night is a celebration, with the crew honouring her for the successful rescue of Trafton and his team. Strangely, the reluctance she had felt on her trip to Mars has melted away, and she laughs and toasts with the captain and the pilots. The next day, she settles into a routine of reading, exercise, and catching up on editing her journals, to clear the deck for the new trip. She also allocates the quiet time each evening to passing mail over the net with the Andean team leader and members, getting to know her companions as best she can before the climb. She only dreams once of Harrison Bose, but his face is clear and alive.

The pitch is mixed ice and rock. The glaze is thin, friable, and incapable of taking an ice screw. Though the clouds are swirling snow onto the Patagonian pillar, Sharon is happier on this insecure stance, leading, than she had been an hour ago in the cramped bivouac with the Latins, tempers flaring under the pressure of the constant poor conditions. Again, her axe cuts into the deeper ice that lines the crack, again, her other hand crawls like a spider over the rock, counterbraced by the pressure of her crampon in the ice, seeking yet another tiny hold. The wind gusts to one hundred for a moment, pressing her against the wall, and then pulling her back again. Her hand gropes vainly, and the cramponed foot slips from the ice. She peels off, arcing into the wind. The rock flashes past her, then the snow, then the rock. She had run the rope out about twenty feet from the last protection. That should mean a forty foot fall. Her hands come up toward the sides of her head as she flashes down past the last ice screw. Twenty feet to go, and the wind blasts snow across her goggles again. Her hands reach her face.

Somehow, over the wind, she hears and feels the ice screw grate loose from the placement. The rope snaps slack, suddenly. She smashes sideways into the rock, dislodging a shower of ice fragments. She is going to die. There is only one piece of protection left before the belayer.

The rope seems to stretch slowly above her, bowing out into the wind. It pulls tighter and tighter, gripping her harness with an iron hand. Don't let me flip over, she pleads. Don't pull Ruis off his stance. She is slowing down. There is a sickening halt. She swings into the rock, bruising her hand and jarring her head. The blood buzzes in her ears, and her vision blurs from the shock. It is an endless minute later that she hears Ruis shouting over the wind.

"I'm all right," she calls, to reassure him. Then she realizes -- she is. She grins, and hammers on the icy rock. "I'm OK!" she shouts. She braces against the rock, and kicks a crampon into the thin ice. With a final, tensioned effort, she levers herself onto the wall again. She looks down past her legs to Ruis, ten feet below. She sighs, and leans against the wall, shaking. After a moment, she looks up, committing herself yet again to rhythmic motion. Her head aches, and she stops from time to time, breathing hard in the cold, thin air.

The ice gives way to rock, and she retracts her crampons with a clench of her toes, reaching up to the flake for the start of a strenuous layback. She presses one foot into the crack and keys around on it for the beginning of a jam; she stops for a moment to unclip a friend from the bandolier and slip it into the crack, and then clip it to the rope. She brings up the other foot into the crack and pauses. Sixty feet to the summit, and she will be first. They had chosen her for this last lead, and it will prove true that they have chosen well. She tastes this with the roar of the wind, the sporadic snorts of snow, the rock under her texture-sensitive gloves. Then she urges herself on to savor the movement, the force against resistance, and the summit.

Beyond the kitchen window, there are green trees, and their leaves glitter with sunlight and beyond them is the pale gold of the grass. Sharon still finds it strange after weeks of snow and wind, especially with her hands deep in warm, soapy water.

Erin watches her with a quiet smile from the table, sipping coffee. She sets the cup down gently.

"You're distracted this morning," she says.

Sharon returns from her reverie. "I'm sorry," she says. She smiles. "It's always hard to get used to the 'real world'."

Erin laughs. "You mean..."

"Yeah, I'm addicted."

It is an old joke between them.

Erin sips her coffee again. She feels strangely taut; the moment is delicate.

"And the Rings?"

Sharon peers at her, intently, as if remembering. "Have we had this conversation before?"

"Many times, I think." She blows smoke elegantly toward the window.

"Well, I'm going to break precedent."

"Oh?"

"I'm going to admit it: I was wrong. I've been doing that a lot, lately."

Erin leans back in the chair and looks out the window. "Oh?"

"Come on, you know what I mean. About the Rings. About going alone."

Erin returns her gaze to her friend. She finds it hard to speak.

"Tell me about it," she mutters.

Sharon sighs and her fingers roll in a graceful movement. "Kyle said it to me before I went to Patagonia. It wasn't the people that let him down. It was the machines. I guess the climb helps me see it better. You know I like Ruiz, but that team had some real compatibility problems. We've never been like that, even at our worst."

Erin flashes a grin.

Sharon leans across the table and takes Erin's hand. "I need to go back to the Rings, Erin. But I can't do it without you. Or I don't want to. Not without Pat. And... " she leans back and considers. "And what about Anne?"

"Anne's fine." There is a gleam in her eye as she regards the unhesitating motion of her friend in health.

"Yes, I think so. Well?"

"Well? Well, of course." Erin's voice lilts with excitement. "I bloody well think it's OK."

"You'll help me plan? And get funding? All the stuff we're good at, together."

"Together, yes." She squeezes Sharon's hand. Once again, in a corner of her mind, Sharon wonders at their closeness of purpose, at how it always seems that they are sisters of the spirit.

The landscape of the One Day Irish War is devastation. Withered trees, brown, dried grass, a harsh wind off the North Atlantic blowing the last of the wargerm into the salt ocean. The ceddon are long gone, but the viciousness of some unprincipled humanity had taken the last of science and used it to end the conflict for the island. Cities, crofts, and houses are silent. Bodies are strewn carelessly across the lintels of their doorways.

And from the anteroom of an isolated cottage, a sobbing teenage girl stumbles over the body of her mother as she steps out onto the path. Her dark hair is wild and unkempt, her face is torn with hunger, tears, and grief. Her feet are more uneven than the path, and she can barely keep her footing. Behind her, she drags a brightly colored raft over the dead grasses. The sun is a lie to her, and she would hate if there were anyone left to hate.

She kicks off her shoes and pulls the raft slowly and wearily down the shingle to the shore. She pauses to cough endlessly, lapsing into a final hack. The waves are making sounds like the distant breaking of glass. The raft scrapes into the water and she climbs in. Light plastic oars thrust feebly at the bottom, and then the raft makes weigh.

A slow current takes her far from shore. She slumps into the center of the raft as the warm sun slips out occasionally from torn grey cumulus. She is thirsty, but the water she scoops from the sea is bitter. She spits it away into the waves. It is not an emotional act. Her emotions were leached away days ago. She leans her chin on her arms and stares out at the wrinkling waves that glitter to the horizon. Not thinking.

After a while, her lids drop, and she is asleep. Clouds clutter the sky and hide the blue. The waves lap at the raft and occasionally heave it a meter into the air, but the girl's head lolls with the motion, and she does not dream.

In the distance a steady hum whispers on the sea breeze. Caught in a sunbeam, a metallic envelope flashes a momentary signal. Half an hour later, the dirigible passes the raft, far to the south. The waves get a little higher as the raft leaves the continental shelf.

Two hours later, a light fixed wing aircraft passes nearly overhead. It circles back, passing directly over the raft. The wind is picking up and the girl stirs as the spume kicks off the tips of the waves onto her face. With a final circle, the aircraft heads away to the west. The soft roar awakens the girl, who twitches and starts, staring blindly after the sound. She sits up and rubs her face. Her lips are dry and cracked, and her lungs feel sore with dryness. She tries to lick her lips, but her tongue doesn't obey.

Four hours later, the sound of a distant engine interrupts her vague reverie. She tries to move, but her arm is heavy and unwilling.

The aircraft hovers down on pivoted turboprops, the blast billowing the water and threatening to push the raft away. An airman leans out the side door. The girl seems to be looking at him in the fading light. "She's not moving," he yells. "I'm going in." The pilot thumbs up over his shoulder, staring straight out at the storm clouds advancing on them from the North Sea. The airman dives into the freezing waters, trailing a hookline. He pulls himself up on the edge of the raft and a wave throws him over. He is shivering, even in the drysuit. The girl looks at him blankly, and for a second he thinks of his wife and his son. He struggles to push the life harness over her head and finally clips her to the line. She keeps looking at him as if not seeing him. "Go," he yells into his headset, holding her to his chest. The aircraft engines whine a massive sound as the turboprops pull it slowly upward. The lines go taut, and the two are lifted away. The winch hauls them in.

As the aircraft flies toward Greenland, they join the storm. Lightning flickers outside, and the wings are limned with St. Elmo's. The airman hugs the shivering girl and tells her stories about his son. "Maybe you'll meet him sometime. He's only a little younger than you. You'd like him." She looks up at his drooping moustache and oriental features with wide, dull eyes.

They take her off in a stretcher, dashing under the racing clouds, a stiff wind whipping at the IV line.

Two days later, she tiptoes down the hall in a hospital gown. She pushes at the door to the stairwell, glancing nervously down the hall, but no one is watching. The door clicks softly behind her.

She wanders the passenger docks, wrapped in a stolen thick coat that hides the hospital gown. Only one ship is snug to the dock, its passengers debarking. In the distance, vast self-unloaders move slowly back and forth like skeletal dinosaurs, tending the giant cargo carriers while seabirds call. For a moment, the smell of the sea makes her stomach roil - she remembers the taste of the bitter water. But the moment passes.

She wanders away from the dock. Her eyes keep returning to the tall white ship, lined with windows, decks festooned with streamers. She pauses in the alley and sits down against the wall, between two dumpsters, knees up and held in her arms.

It is dark when she awakens. Even the ship is largely dark, but the gangplank is still down. She stirs, starts; her energy begins to return. The muscles of her arms and back are stiff and cold from the long twilight breezes. Her plan returns to her and she slowly creeps to the entrance of the alleyway, to stare at the ship, waiting. After ten minutes of no activity, she walks boldly to the gangplank and steps slowly and carefully up it, trying not to make any sound louder than the movement of the waves.

The deck is moist with remnants of dew and spray faintly reflecting the moon and glowing clouds. The young woman crouches beside the deckhouse on the far side from the dock. She slides underneath the bench and stares out at the sea. After a while, she is lulled by the sounds, and her eyelids droop closed to sleep.

The sun is bright, and the sky is very blue all of the way to the horizon. The slats of the bench seat cast linear shadows across her coat. She looks back and forth, and, with no one in sight, she slips quickly up to sit on the bench, coat gathered carefully to hide the hospital gown.

The sun is hot and she feels it pushing sleep on her again. But she resists. She wonders where they are going, but she knows she cannot ask.

A breeze flaps a flag somewhere above, distracting her. She misses seeing where the woman and girl came from, but as they walk past, the girl gives her a look. "Hey, Lisette," she says. "Look."

The woman smiles, though the girl on the bench has a vagabond look to her. "Hi." she says. "Going to Maine?"

Erin quirks a defensive smile. "Yeah." At least, as of now. "How about you?"

"That's where we're going," the girl replies. "I'm Sharon. We're French." The woman smiles in the background.

"Uh... Jane," she lies. "I'm from Maine."

"You play shuffleboard?" Sharon asks.

"I don't know," young Erin replies, frowning. "Never tried it."

"Come on."

Later, they rest at the rail. "That some new style in Greenland?" Sharon asks, gesturing at Erin's clothes. Erin is embarrassed and unprepared. "Uh, yeah. Right."

Sharon laughs, ruefully. "You must think I'm pretty dumb, huh?

"No," Erin protests. "Why?"

"You're some kind of stowaway, aren't you?"

"No. I'm going to Maine, just like you."

"Yeah? Where?"

Erin tries to rack her brain for place names.

"And where are your folks? What room are you in?"

"Well.."

Sharon faces her. "Don't you think you ought to spill, Jane?" Erin can't find a way to answer. "Listen, if you're in trouble, you ought to say so. Maybe I can help, or Lisette can help. Are you running away?"

Erin takes the cue. "Yeah. My folks are dead, a shipwreck," she replies, hating herself.

"Lisette, can Jane and I share a room. She's got a room of her own, but we could have more fun sharing mine, I think..."

"Here, try these on. Lisette'll never notice. She thinks American teenagers all wear the same clothes anyway."

The ship slides slowly into dock at twilight. Erin and Sharon stand at the rail, watching the cold water below. "You're sure you have to do it this way?" Sharon asks. Erin eyes the thirty foot drop dubiously, but she nods. "Thanks for the bathing suit. I'll never forget you, Lazlo."

"Or me you, Jane Tennyson. Write a letter when you can." She hands over a sealed plastic bag with a scrap of paper. "My address."

The engines stop. Erin swallows hard and slips over the rail. The sound of the splash is inaudible. Sharon looks away and wonders while the cool breeze ruffles her hair. It will be over a decade before they will see each other again, but she will never know that Jane Tennyson has returned to watch over her.

It is perhaps the worst fight ever. Michel cries, unattended, at the strange harsh voices from below.

"Look! It's different now, you're a mother. You can't just go off and leave your son here, alone, for months."

"My son? Alone? Where are you going to be? What happened to our son?"

"I have a company to run! How am I going to take care of him? You think that's right for him?"

"Yeah, I think that's right!" She waves her hands at his face. "Listen. I carried him for nine months, OK?"

"Oh, right! Now it's my turn." He shakes his head, sinks into the chair, and stares moodily out the window.

She stands there, violent, legs taut in an awkward stance of anger.

"Damn it, Gordon, you've got to help us. I can't be fighting with you about something as basic as this. We've got to get the suits set up. The transport and the logistics. Not to mention the permits from Liam. We've got to do all this, and if we're going to do it, you've got to be behind it."

He moves his head slowly, and the shifting ocean reflects on his eyes as he stares out to sea. Then he looks back, pain reflected in the lines of his face. His voice is soft as he begins. "I can't let you go, Erin. I'm afraid. How's Michel going to live without a mother? How am I going to live without you?"

"Don't be impossible, Gordon. You know that's not going to happen."

"How can I know that? Kyle went in, he almost didn't come out. Who's offering guarantees around here?"

She sighs, tossing her head, then looks back at him, feral. "No. There're no guarantees. I need you to help me. That's all, damn it. This is what I've been waiting for my whole career, and Sharon's the only one who can make it happen for me."

"What is it between you two, anyway? I've never understood your dependence on her to make things happen."

"Oh, come on, you bloody well know what I've done on my own. But this is special. This is the kind of thing that I need her for. She's the only one who can do this with me. I've known it for years. Don't you know it too? She's one of a kind. And this is one of a kind, too. The adventure. There's not much left for people like her and I... not much left like this. I've got to have it, Gordon. Are you going to help me?"

The ice sinks another notch in the glass, with a faint cracking sound. Dim artificial light casts the transparent shadows of glass, ice, and water across the tablecloth. Sharon eats slowly, eyes on her datapad, thoughts wandering through the architecture of the Rings.

The fork clicks softly on the plate, bringing her back to herself. Then she thinks of Phil, and her eyes come up, searching her quietly lit dining room. Where is he? She glances at the clock on her pad. An hour late. A sudden sadness rushes up on her in a wave, then subsides. In a way, she feels certain it is the sadness one might feel for something in the process of being lost. Something that might be valuable, but perhaps is not valuable enough.

Oh, how she wants to want him. To have some human point to anchor the passion she feels hammering at her... sometimes.

But that only brings to her mind an image of the moment on the new route up Trango, at the summit; after the grueling climb, in air barely thick enough to sustain life, Rael had kissed her. She had been completely surprised at the sensation of his cold lips on hers, at the warmth of his breath, the scent of his sweat in his hair and the taste of it on his moustache; all the while aware of the wind battering icily at the back of her head. She smiles, a desperate swing to the curve of her mouth. Then she refuses the images angrily.

Stop sneaking up on me, she pleads.

She sips her water quietly, momentarily defeated, but still fighting.

The heater feeds soft warmth into the car as Phil drives to meet Sharon. His thoughts are as inchoate as the soft flakes that melt swiftly on the windshield with each soft impact. The music of Anchori whispers against the upholstery as Phil worries about his ambivalence. Of course, he hasn't seen her for months... but it just isn't working.

She meets him at the door. When she sees him standing on the step, slim and tall, beads of moisture glinting in his beard and hair, she feels her old feelings for him sweep up. She leans into it and their lips meet. She feels his hands slip around her back and pull her to him.

She leans back. "C'mon in. I saved some dinner for you."

"I'm sorry I'm late."

"Yeah, yeah. You'd better have brought some of your new stuff with you."

He grins and taps the pad rolled under his arm.

Like an avalanche floating in glass, the rings are a fume of dust streams and glittering boulders. The suited figures are crosses of light on Sharon's command visor.

She is watching as it happens. A small fragment, three meters across, rolling toward Rael's path; he pivots on it --

Another fragment, flushed from stability by a collision, slips across her view. Suddenly, his image is gone, spinning recklessly away, rebounding with shocking force down the endless field of the rings.

"Rael!" she screams.

She awakens under vast windows. The Moon, nearly full, casts cold light across the room, shards on the blanket. Beyond the window are the protean chasms of cloud, remote, lonely. She rolls over and buries her head in the pillow. She looks up, and then touches her own cheek, astonished. Her fingers come away wet with tears.

She awakens from a dream of a dream, in the darkness of her room. The snow has turned to rain, and outside the windows the startling flash of lightning flickers across the rumpled sheets. Beside her, Phil stirs uneasily, dark shoulder bare above the blankets.

Sharon takes her shuttle up to Iroquois Station to catch a flight out to the Belt. A week of logistics meetings, setting up distribution agreements for her new line of pottery, days and nights of talking, persuading, staring at screens full of numbers, trying to extract sense from it all; over, at last. Time for action.

She perches at her controls as the Earth recedes below, the thrust answerable to her slightest whim. No need to talk, to persuade, to organize. It is time to do... well, almost. If only Kyle Trafton will listen -- and talk. That will need a personal touch.

For now, she takes her mind away from the problems of the past and the future, and enjoys what she has. The power of flight.

Content, Layout, and Images Copyright © 1999 by Mark Cashman except where indicated (NASA photos)