Ringclimber

Chapter 4 - Moving On

"The mixed route (III,5.13b, A4) ascends the east side of the pillar, exposed to the most ferocious of the Patagonian winds. Sharon Lazlo led the crux summit pitch in a howling storm featuring winds of over 70 knots. Not dissuaded by a one hundred and twenty foot leader fall when her pro pulled from the mixed terrain, she immediately restarted the pitch..."

Mountain News, Cliff Magazine

An early evening at home from the pottery and she comes across a reference to Erin's climb in her journal notifications. Without thinking, she reads that Erin is planning to lead, she is going to climb with Pat, and another woman, a physician who Sharon isn't familiar with, but, who, apparently, is well known to the Martians... She is about to follow the links to the physician's climbing record, when she stops. In frozen memory, she whispers... "Arsia..."; she sees the long iron slopes, the broken crinkled lava, the umber sky with its spectral clouds... She hears the alien strains of shi-bop...

Then she slings the datapad the length of the couch and stares at it as if it is a scorpion.

A cafe near the pottery is a frequent stop for her on the way home. A quiet cup of coffee, while perched on a stool over a crisply clean counter. White light, walls, and chrome. The movement of people and their conversation, without the need to respond or to act; the sound of plates and cups clicking softly; the smell and flavor of the coffee and donuts; the video wall at the end of the counter makes news a simple background. At least, until...

"The Pritcher-Hale Expedition today announced the departure date for the first of four interstellar probes to be sent over the next decade. On January seventeenth, the first probe will depart Saturn orbit for Barnard's Star. Three other probes will be sent at intervals of three years.

"The probes, one hundred forty thousand tons each, will use a modified Hale effect drive, based on systems currently in use for interplanetary travel. The Poyngton fold, which boosts effective velocity above light speed..."

An older man beside her, face heavy and wrinkled, slight whitish stubble across his chin, mutters, "Always doing stuff." He glances at Sharon. "You know what I mean? Everybody's always talking about doing stuff. I'm not so sure its such a great idea - going to the stars, you know? Everybody's always talking about this like it's the greatest thing."

She shakes her head and sighs. As she stands and drops a tip on the counter, she leans over. "You know, when you stop, you're dead," she whispers.

And as she walks back to her car in the twilight, insects chirping in the hedgerows, she pauses at the sight of the sticker she had once proudly put in her back window.

I'd rather be in the Rings

She averts her eyes, and tries to forget what she told the old man.

It is another late day for her and she doesn't arrive at the pottery until twilight. Quince sits in the dimness, a cone of light beside him as he mulls over a glowing, shaded design on his desk display. "Where's Phil?" she asks.

"In the kiln," Quince replies, glancing up from his work as she passes.

She opens the door and stops. Phil is standing by the shelf, regarding an oddly shaped piece, and the expression on his face is one she has never seen there before, but one she has often felt on her own. His dark eyes are faintly unfocused, seeing something more than the object, and the long, brown muscles of his jaw are tense without smiling. He reaches out and lifts the pot from the shelf, and she notices that it is so thin that it seems to be nothing but a smooth, translucent glaze, patterned gently with color. He looks up suddenly and recognizes her.

"Don't breathe, or you'll drop it," she whispers; her voice echoes quietly from the walls of the kiln.

"You like it?" he asks.

"Don't be stupid." She hesitates before she asks: "Could I have a look?"

He smiles, mute with joy, and holds it out.

She raises a hand and refuses the trust. "I just want to look." Then she turns and steps to the door. "Quince," she yells. "Get the photo table ready right away. And call Belleson's for me; get a dinner reservation for eight."

"One, or what?" he calls back across the room. She looks at Phil.

"Three," she replies, grinning at him over her shoulder. "You too. It's a celebration. Phil's graduated."

She made him explain it once to them all, and then, after Quince had beaten an early retreat, once again.

"... Okay, I said, then I'll try slow firing, but the thing still isn't strong enough. I came in Friday and found shards all over. Quince'll never forgive me. Did you see how he made a face when I mentioned it before? It blew that beautiful blue vase he's been working on into twenty pieces."

She chuckles. "Once," she said, "when I was just getting started, I threw this pot, nothing really special, and when I came back after the weekend, the thing had exploded. Wiped out three I liked better." She sighs.

"This is too light to do that much damage." He takes it as seriously as she had mocked it, but the grin cranks up the edges of his mouth. He runs a hand through his shock of faintly charcoal hair, and his dark eyes reflect a sudden flicker of the candlelight.

"Yeah, sure..." she holds his glance.

"But I want to tell you, I know you like it, but it is really from an idea you gave me, even if it was before I came on. Those free-fall pots you sold down in Heron Point? I bought one before I knew you. I never saw anything like their fragility, and I thought, well, you know, it gave me this idea. To try to make the thinnest thing I could."

Her eyes slip from his as they always do when she is flattered, because she hates it. "I'd rather you hadn't thought of that at all."

"Why?" he asks, astonished. "But why? Maybe you think they're not your best, but ..."

"Look," she leans across the table. "The part I like about it is that it is your idea, okay."

"Well, it is."

She pushes back the chair and frowns. "Damn it Phil, I'm being such a bitch."

"It's okay." But he is puzzled, and gives a stiff shrug.

"No, it's not okay."

She smiles, and there is just a trace, so small, of sadness. "You're just not a student anymore, Phil."

He grins. "I'm still learning."

"Maybe she's not telling the truth," Gordon replies. "I'm not in a position to tell. What's she got to hide?" But, secretly, he feels he knows.

"That she's unhappy," Erin insists.

"Why?"

"Because she doesn't want us to feel sorry for her. You know how damn independent she is. You should have seen how she reacts when I just mentioned the climb."

"I know, I know..." he mutters, waving her off.

"But what are we going to do?"

"Nothing, Erin. It's none of my business. Doesn't the climb keep you busy enough?"

"Oh, busy enough," she sneers.

It is an afternoon of slanting sunlight that glows on the wet clay as it spins, and warms their fingers as they shape it. They speak from time to time, and fall into silence equally often.

Phil is lost in thought, eyes turned down on his vase, a simple piece, made only for relaxation and practice. Sharon looks over across the sunbeams, and smiles. It is that look of his that reaches her wordlessly, and as she returns her eyes to her work, she wonders idly whether the feeling is stronger than just the joy of a teacher in a successful student...

He glances up, belatedly sensing her look. Then he wonders at the strange, heady rush he feels. What is happening to him lately? He can hardly look at her anymore. Of course, she is attractive, but it had always been teacher and student. He wonders if that might, somehow, be changing.

When they close up that evening, Sharon locks the door. Strange forces seems to be struggling behind Phil's features, but she can't tell what it is. It echoes that turbulent feeling that keeps drawing her eyes to his face when they work together. She suddenly realizes what she is beginning to feel, and she is afraid.

"Phil?" she asks, but her voice is almost a hoarse whisper.

He glances away, then back again.

"Nothing," he replies, hastily. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Gordon and Erin, she can't call them. She hadn't even been able to talk about Rael with them; how could she go to them with this? She wants shelter, protection, and Erin... Erin is always confrontational.

But what does she want to be protected from?

She can see Rael, as she had always known him during their five years, lips grinning below his ragged moustache, wind lashing black hair no tie could restrain, sun gleaming on the gold loop that tried. His hands, on the ropes and protection.. on her. How he looked through the glass of a helmet, seeing space as she stepped out before him, leading the rings. And the image she keeps for torture: how he would have looked in death; how he looks now, drifting silent, lost, and frozen among the icy boulders... it is there too. Oh, how she had loved him. And how many times she had never said it; how many times they had fought, walking away from each other as if they would never look back; anger so strong for something so small. If only she had never...

She lies propped on the couch, soft jazz filling the air, only the lamp in the corner casting its warm light across the carpet. And even as the tears seep from the corner of her eyes, she remembers the strange thrill of seeing Phil with that expression of creation.

She thinks she is falling in love with him; she is sure that is what he is struggling with. And she can't afford it. She doesn't even know how she feels about climbing, about her real work, about herself - how can she expect to decide how she feels about Phil, especially with Rael always hovering there, even when she sleeps?

She curls into a ball, hugging her knees through the thin fabric of her skirt. Her eyes sting, and she reaches out and strokes the carpet where the light falls across it.

It was true, she thought she had been getting better. There had been that walk on Mars, and only a faint fear as she had first stepped out into that desert. And there had been Lucas, with only an echo of terror and failure, mingled with the acknowledged, purposive loss of parting. But now she knows that it is an illusion. She has been holding her life to one side, afraid to go back, and this confronts her with the inadequacy of her healing. She realizes she can't know if she loves Phil in any degree without knowing if she loves herself.

She is afraid for herself. Afraid that what had happened to Rael would happen to her -- afraid of the silent darkness that gives no answer to error. And until she can go back and stand there, pleased by what gives rise to fear in everyone she has known, she can't let herself out of a shell that clutches the brittle parts of her ego into something resembling coherency.

She sits up and tucks the hair back behind her ears. Her datapad sits on the end table, silent. She reaches for it, its cool substance into her hand, lit with symbols. She lays it on her knees and she sighs, looking down at it. Don't turn back now, she pleads. She knows that this isn't her last chance to back away, and, yet, her hand reaches out, only faintly uneven in motion. Hoping her resolve will last, she selects Erin.

Sharon's voice seems hollow in the dim room.

"Sharon. I've missed you. How have you been?"

"Fine, Erin; you?"

"Good. Gordon's off on Titan, though, so I'm home alone for a month. It's a nice change."

"I read about the climb last week in the Gazetteer."

"Oh, yes."

"I hear you're climbing with somebody new." She tries to keep the edge from her voice.

"Right. Anne Lambert. She was on Pavonis a couple of years ago. Remember the recording of the slide?"

"Oh, sure. She's the one?"

"Yeah. Usually likes to go solo, but we need someone with the experience, you know? Of course, if you don't mind my saying, I'd rather have had you as well."

"I don't mind," Sharon replies. "It's flattering, especially considering how things went the last time I was on Arsia."

"Well, that damn fool would have to go injure himself, you know. As far as it went, it is a superb climb. Besides, everybody climbs lots of bloody hills they come down in disarray."

"So... how are preparations coming. All finished?"

"Oh, not by a long shot. Everybody's having trouble getting time, you know how it is."

"Yeah. I... don't suppose you could use a hand, though?"

Erin's eyes take on a speculative look.

"Couldn't be you're weakening, Sharon Lazlo? Might come on board after all?"

"Oh, Erin, I couldn't ask."

"No, you couldn't, but I could. And I'm not too proud to ask again, even after I've had my head beaten down once. I learned the stupidity of that a long time ago, especially with someone as stubborn as you."

"All right, damn it. Is there a slot for me?"

"Oh, Sharon, come on. Of course. You could call me up two days before we were ready to go, and I'd bring you on."

"Damned if I've ever understood why," Sharon whispers, feeling the tears ready again.

"I don't forget you've always been the only one I could talk to." Erin's voice has softened strangely, and Sharon once again wonders why she means so much to the gaunt Irish girl. "And I don't forget how goddamn good you are."

"Don't then," Sharon smiles. "What about work?"

"I'll talk to Gordon. Don't worry about that. Just get ready to head out to Kylee. We'll meet there in two weeks. All right?"

Sharon feels the first wave of relief course through her. "Oh, you bet!"

And this time, it has to be success.

A week later, Sharon and Phil walk the wet streets near the pottery. Lightning throbs the dull masses of cloud overhead, and the occasional beat of waning thunder scrapes at their ears.

He takes her hand, and she squeezes back. She feels like a betrayer when she begins. "Phil, I... have to leave, day after tomorrow, for Kylee. I'm going to be away a couple of months. I don't want to close down -- the show at the Met is too close. You'll be in charge, this time."

He stops, searching her face for something. "I thought you still had a week."

"No, I," she looks at her hand on his, "I'm not going back for work."

He feels the sudden fear that has always lived in the background of their days-old relationship. Is he about to hear of another lover? Someone he hadn't known about? He had hardly believed it when it seemed she had come to him, and he kept waiting for the ruin of this raw emotion that seemed to be constantly racing around his brain. So far, he has made few inroads on her life, and he wonders if he can say he knows her. Maybe, but not enough to know what is coming next.

"I don't understand."

She glances around them, at the silent street. "I'm going on that climb. The one Gordon and Erin have been trying to get me to go on. I... have to go. There are some things I have to settle for myself. Some things I need to know. Things I can only find out by climbing."

"Like whether you're really through with Rael." He tries to say it unemotionally, but this ghost has haunted him all along.

"I won't ever be 'through' with him," she snaps, instantly regretting it when she sees the hurt pass quickly across his face. But she forces herself to go on. "No, I have to know if I can live with it. I can't stay here doing pottery for the rest of my life. I'm a climber, and a spacer, too, and I have to know if I can go back. I want something good to happen for us. But if I can't get past this, it's always going to be hanging there. I'm not that kind of person. I can't just wait for it to go away. It won't. I have to go out and face it, Phil. I have to."

"I know." He squeezes her hand, gently; it costs him more effort than painting the most intricate glaze to release it. "You have to go work it out. We have time. Just don't take this as a final thing. Rael's dying, that's not the kind of thing you get by all at once. It takes a long time."

She swings her head, and he thinks he sees tears in her eyes. Of all the things he had known about Sharon Lazlo, he had never known she could cry, and he wishes she would never have to again. He puts his arms around her. He wants to know what to do.

In the comforting solidity of his embrace, Sharon feels glad that he is so caring, that he hasn't rejected her. Why has she never noticed how sensitive he is? She shudders with sadness.

While in the distance, electricity returns home.

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