Dark Winter

CHAPTER FIVE

Jed Lewis had a theory about life. Life was hard. Complicated. Life was a long, meandering slog up a very steep mountain and if you didn't have good friends to help point out the way, it was pretty easy to choose the wrong path sometimes. (Lewis didn't think Mickey Moss had many friends, just admirers. Rivals.) And even after choosing, you could go miles, years, before knowing whether your path was wrong or right. Moreover, everybody had their own route and their own schedule. So Jed was slow to judge how people made it up the slope. You didn't know where they were coming from. Couldn't know, as Moss had said. Didn't know where they were going. Lewis had examined the meteorite and would probably test it, but the fate of the rock was really none of his concern. Let the old scientist make his own lonely way up the peak.

Lewis himself was tired of being alone.

By the time he got back to the dome he was ravenous again. Geller was right: The polar cold almost snatched food out of your mouth. When Lewis yanked open the freezer door and stepped into the galley vestibule, he was salivating.

The galley was crowded and a table of beakers was almost full. Lewis, curious to sample the station's social spectrum, decided to sit with the some of the support staff who kept the place running. He plopped next to Geller, who was working on another mountain of food. Next to him was a smaller, quiet, mouselike man he'd noticed earlier, keeping his head down as he ate.

"A beaker joins the rabble," Geller greeted.

"Just trying to meet everyone."

"And your appetite's improved." He nodded at Lewis's tray. Stroganoff, fresh green beans, cobbler, all heaped high. Pulaski and Linda Brown could cook.

"I was on tour. The cold really burns up your reserves."

"That ain't cold. Sitting out eight hours in the wind trying to fix equipment some moron beaker busted-that's cold."

"Are there always no scientists at this table?" Lewis asked.

"Mostly. We get along great but they tend to eat with their own, we tend to eat with our own. They bitch about us, we bitch about them. Works better that way."

"I thought segregation was against the law."

"It ain't segregation, it's fucking high school." It was the growl of a new voice and Lewis looked up. The grump from the shower, Tyson. He sat heavily, spreading his arms and legs to claim a substantial portion of the table. His manner was one of fingie instructor. A heavily muscled forearm boasting a tattooed snake pulled his tray against his torso. A fork was held upright in his other fist like a flagstaff. He'd unconsciously made a tiny fort of his food. "Like the jocks and the nerds, remember? We got more cliques here than Hot Pants High."

"I think you're exaggerating a little, Buck," Geller said mildly.

"The hell I am. You got us, and you got the beakers, and you got the smokers, and you got the singles, and you got the women. The science side is all rank and show-off, with know-it-alls like Mickey Moss lording it over grad students and postdocs. And then even the tweezer twits get snobby when they want something done."

"Yeah, but everyone gets along. Better than anyplace I've ever been."

"We gotta get along, or we fucking die. But that don't mean people don't cluster with their own. Look around this room. Planet of the Apes, man. We're monkeys." The phrase jogged a memory. Hadn't Norse said something similar?

"Buck Tyson, resident sociologist," Geller introduced.

"Yeah, me and our new shrink." He nodded to Lewis.

"We met at the shower."

"Yeah, I remember. That wasn't about you. That was about Ice Prick."

Not exactly an apology, but not hostile, either. Maybe Tyson was okay. "You like to analyze?"

"I just see things like they really are. My day job is master mechanic. I make our go-carts go. You need a snow Spryte, a D-6 Cat, you come to Buck Tyson. But at night I think about our loony bin. Me thinking for myself makes some of the beakers nervous. You nervous?"

How to respond to that? "You like Doctor Bob?" Lewis deflected.

"I like where he's coming from. I like that he stays in shape. I talked to him already and I think he sees through the bullshit like I do. We're into the same shit: self-reliance. The importance of Numero Uno and thinking for yourself. He's got all these ideas from NASA about whether this place suggests what you need to make starship troopers. It's cool, what he's trying to do. Not the touchy-feely crap of the other shrinks that come down to The Ice." He turned to Geller. "You know what they did to a shrink at Vanda, over in the Dry Valleys?"

"No, what?"

"Ran over his gear with a tractor." Tyson laughed.

There was a silence, the others digesting this.

"I guess Buck is your nickname," Lewis finally said. "What's your real name?"

"James," Geller quickly interjected.

"Jimmy, you dumb fuck. You know I hate James. English faggot name."

"James Bond ain't a faggot."

"James Bond is the biggest goddamned English pansy there is! He carries a girl's gun and dresses like a fucking bridegroom! I like big guns, and big guys. I like guys who go it alone and kick butt. Like Clint Eastwood. And John Wayne. And Bruce Willis. And Rambo. And Ahhhnold. Except he married the fucking Kennedys."

"Everyone calls Tyson Buck because he's into knives," Geller explained. "And guns. And commando crap. And every other bit of militia weirdness."

"No, I'm not. I'm into sufficiency, which is more than a little important way down here." Tyson pointed his fork at Lewis. "Don't take this 'all for one and one for all' crap too seriously because when it's dark and blowing and people are freaking out, you gotta know how to take care of yourself. Right? The government likes to jabber on about our happy little commune, but in fact it's just a bunch of fucked-up overachievers. They may have a doctorate, but they manage to bring down every goddamn neurosis there is."

"Buck doesn't like people," Geller summarized.

"That's not true. I'm eating with you assholes. I even like some of the beakers like crazy Alexi, our Russian cocktail. He tells it like it is, 'cause he's out of the gulag, man. Hiro's kind of funny, like a Jap cartoon. But some of them are humorless know-it-alls, like Harrison Adams. Harrison. Not just Harry. Pompous twit. Or weirdos like Jerry Follett. I watch my backside around that faggot. Or Mickey Mouse out there in the Dark Side. Our head rodent needs his ears pinned."

"You're talking about Saint Michael," Geller said with humor.

"Pope Moss can kiss my you-know-what." Tyson turned to the other man at their table, who'd been eating silently, and clapped him on the shoulder. "The one you want to stay friends with is this guy, who runs the power plant. We try to keep him sober and sane."

The small man looked up like a blinking mole. He was balding, with pinched features and a brushy mustache. "Pika," he mumbled as introduction.

"What?" Lewis hadn't understood.

"Pika," Geller said. "Like the animal."

"What's a pika?"

"Sort of a rock rabbit," Tyson explained. "No one can stand to hang around with Pika 'cause he whistles while he works, like those dwarves. Remember them? Drives us all nuts, like Muzak. His real name is Doug Taylor but we call him Pika, which is sort of like a marmot. Critter that whistles?"

Lewis slowly nodded. "Got it."

"Pikas sort of squeak," Geller said. "But we liked the sound of the word."

"Makes sense to me."

"See, Mickey Moss can collect all the medals he wants to but what it comes down to is the guys like Pika," Tyson said. "We're at the outer edge of the envelope down here. They don't like to tell us that, but it's true. The generators stop, and we're dead. The well gets fucked up, and we're dead. A good fire gets started, and we're dead. This place is the easiest place in the world to sabotage. Any of us could kill all of us in about three nanoseconds. And then they send down a shrink? How does that make you feel?"

Lewis tried to smile. "That I better stay friends with Pika."

"You better believe it. Some idiot shut off the heat the other day. It was this little guy who got it back on." Tyson nodded in approval.

"Don't touch my machines," the small man mumbled. He didn't look at Lewis, just mildly kept eating his food.

Lewis wondered what his story was. "Okay."

"Just leave my machines alone."

It was quiet for a moment.

"So you're the new weather dude, correct?" Tyson finally asked.

"Yeah."

"So how do you like the magic kingdom?"

"It's pretty interesting."

"Damn right it's interesting. Absolutely fucking fascinating. For about three days." Tyson snorted. "After that, it's Groundhog Day. You seen that movie, where they repeat the same day over and over?"

"I've seen it."

"That's winter at the Pole."

"Don't listen to Buck too much," Geller said. "He whines like a mosquito."

"I whine because that fucker Cameron, and the bureaucrats he fronts for, won't get off my back. Have you seen our work schedule? Do this, do that, blah blah blah: More work on that list than you could do in three winters! Give me a fucking break. They're just showing off."

"Buck believes the world is out to get him," Geller interpreted.

"Screw you. It is out to get me."

"Carries a chip like a cross."

"I carry the station, man. I do the shit. You know how many people work here?" he asked Lewis.

"How many?"

"About half." Tyson laughed again.

"So what are you doing down here?" Lewis asked Tyson.

"What's that supposed to mean?" He took it like a challenge.

"It's volunteer, right? You wanted to come, right?"

"Hell yes, it's volunteer! Until they spend six thousand bucks getting each of us down here with no replacements in the pipeline. Then it's like, 'Oh, you don't care for our little utopia? Seems we've lost your return ticket until next October. Gosh golly darn. Have a great winter.' "

"It'll go faster with a positive attitude, Buck," Geller advised.

"It'll go faster when Cameron lays off me, man. Maybe I can't quit, but I don't have to jump through his work-schedule hoops, either. They may not like me, but they can't touch me." He grinned. "Not down here."

Pulaski had found them a pet. By treaty, animals weren't allowed in Antarctica in order to preserve its pristine environment. Unaware of this agreement, a small slug had smuggled its way onto the continent in a head of freshie lettuce. Lena, their greenhouse horticulturist, adopted the creature and put him in a jar with clippings from the hydroponic tanks. She called the slug Hieronymus and announced he was good luck. She was a botanist on green card from the Czech Republic, and to her everything seemed charmed in this new world. "I feel that all the time I am on vacation," she told Lewis.

"Someone should have told you about Hawaii."

"And now we have a pet!" she enthused.

"Somebody said something about a dome slug," he remembered.

"Those are people. That's what you become if you don't get outside."

"And if you do get outside?"

"Then you are a… Popsicle!" She smiled at her own knowledge of the word.

With some ceremony the slug was designated the official mascot of the Amundsen-Scott drill and dart team, which designated itself the Fighting Gastropods. Twice a week the loose assemblage played a match with the New Zealand winter-overs on the coast, keeping score by crackling radio. The Kiwis relied on their countryman Dana Andrews to keep the Yanks honest as they reported score. A caustically humored redhead with the build of a fireplug and an opinion on everyone, Dana complied. The Americans at McMurdo lent their own monitor, who hiked over to the New Zealand base for the matches in return for Kiwi beer.

Lewis was invited to join. "We're a classier team now that we have a mascot," Geller told him. "There's a real status to it now."

"I'm not much on darts." He sat down to one side as they shoved aside tables in the galley.

"You can't be any worse than Curious George," coaxed another woman. Gabriella, her name was, and she was a more effective recruiter, as sensual as Dana was stolid. She was slim, dark-haired, her skin the color of butterscotch, her eyes large, and her mouth arrested in a wry curl. She moved with a self-conscious liquid grace. Not pretty like Abby so much as alluring. Dangerously so.

"I suppose not," Lewis agreed, watching while Geller put three darts wide of the bull's-eye.

The maintenance man was frowning at his own volley when Gabriella brought Lewis to the line. Geller gave them a knowing look. "I see you've managed to let yourself be drafted. You found this dame persuasive?"

The woman gave Lewis a glance.

"More so than you," Lewis allowed.

"That isn't even a compliment," Gabriella complained.

"I like the mascot."

"That's no better! I hope you're more adept with darts than words!"

In truth, Lewis had never played the game. But he was determined to socialize down here and so he threw, managing to hit the board. Then he watched as Gabriella toed the line and cocked her slim arm, the dart balanced in her fingers like a feather. She was a male magnet and knew it, reeking of femininity and pheromones. "Who is she?" he murmured to Geller as they watched.

"Gabriella Reid, gal Friday. She does berthing, assignments, time cards, records, and all that administrative crap. Not to mention keeping men on red alert."

"I heard that, George." She didn't seem very offended, arching her body up on her toes as she threw.

"We call her Triple-A," Geller whispered after she threw a near bull's-eye and went out of earshot to retrieve the dart. "Anybody, anytime, anywhere."

"Ouch."

"She'll put out for you if you want. Looking for love in all the polar places. Easier to warm up than Ice Cream."

"Ice Cream?"

"Abby Dixon. We keep the ice cream here outside and it comes in so rock-hard we have to microwave it to eat it. The joke is that Dixon needs thirty seconds in the box, too."

"She seemed friendly enough."

"Everybody likes Abby. She's just not as friendly as our teammate there. Abby's got a boyfriend somewhere and pretends it still matters at the Pole."

Gabriella took aim again. She could tell they were watching her, talking about her, and thrived on it.

"Reid's really a good kid. Fun-loving. If you're looking for that kind of thing."

"I'm still getting over altitude sickness."

Geller laughed.

Gabriella hit the bull's-eye again.

"She's good," Lewis observed.

"Coordinated," Geller said, loud enough for her to hear.

The woman pulled the dart out. "Coordinated enough to keep my thumb out from under a hammer, which is more than I can say for you, George."

"I know. I worship you, babe."

"And I'm indifferent to your existence." She winked at Lewis.

"What brings you to the Pole?" Lewis asked her.

Gabriella considered that one more seriously. "Time. Money. Fun. It's kind of a do-over, you know?"

"Do-over?"

"I was in a cubicle next to three thousand co-workers and not a single real friend. None of it was real. Nothing I was doing counted. Nobody seemed genuine. There was too much… noise. So I decided to see if I could get a new start down here."

"Quite a change."

"I hope so. Everyone comes down here with a lot of baggage. Armor. Everyone knows they're going home. So some people are here but they're not really here, you know what I mean? You can just wait the winter out if you want to. I don't want to wait, I want to live life. Here. Now. How about you?"

Lewis shrugged. "I guess I'm still a fingie on that one."

"Not for long, maybe." She was flirting.

He decided on caution. "There's some interesting personalities at the Pole."

"Oddballs, you mean."

"Characters. Individuals."

"It wouldn't be worth being here if there weren't. Would it?" She held out the darts. "Your turn again."

"And why the Pole?" Lewis asked her, toeing up to the line.

"Because it's a powerful place. Where all lines converge. Point zero. You're on sacred ground, Jed Lewis."

"Sacred snow, isn't it?"

"Just give yourself the luxury of feeling."

Their medic, Nancy Hodge, came in and was cajoled into taking a turn. Her stance was firmer, legs apart, head cocked back rigidly, dead serious. She missed the board completely and everyone laughed.

"That's the way she gives shots!" Geller called.

Nancy pulled the errant dart out good-humoredly. "Watch what you say, George. My charts tell me you're due for a prostate exam."

"I'd rather get cancer."

Nancy lined up again, mouth pursed in concentration, and this time managed to hit the edge of the board. Dana radioed the scoreless result.

"Now we know why we won the America's Cup," the Kiwis radioed back, the comment buzzing with static.

"I guess athletics aren't Nurse Nancy's forte," Lewis observed.

"Not after teatime anyway," Geller murmured again. "If you need something checked, try to see her in the morning. She's steadier then."

"Booze?"

"Ah, I don't know. She's just not big on the hand-eye coordination thing, which ain't too cool if you need brain surgery."

"Our sole physician."

"You get the best and worst at the Pole. Missionaries and escapees. How many good doctors can walk away from their practices for a year? It's like the old naval surgeons. They all tend to have interesting stories. From the lines on her face, she looks like she's got more than one. My bet is she busted up with someone and came down here."

"To lick her wounds?"

"Or to find somebody else. This can be Lonelyhearts Club sometimes, goofily so. Hell, even somebody as ugly as me gets lucky sometimes."

"I don't know if I believe that one," Lewis said, playing straight man.

"It's true. The pilots brought in a crash dummy once and even he scored."

"But Nancy's not competent?"

"I didn't say that. She's smarter than any of us. We have a lot of fun with each other, kidding around. Just seems kind of rattled sometimes, like she's anxious to get rid of a patient. Like she's afraid of making a mistake."

The darts were fun and unworldly, performed to the background buzz of a radio linking them to a base across eight hundred miles of ice and snow. The Kiwis were intrigued by the new American mascot and Dana insisted the slug was doing gyrations every time the Yanks scored a point. Players drifted in and out, Lewis holding his own for a while. With the Americans down three matches to one, however, he excused himself and walked up a flight of stairs to the upstairs bar, the only place on station where alcohol could be consumed. It was the one nutrient they had to pay for.

Norse was there and Lewis joined him, nodding at the psychologist's beer and getting one of his own from the fridge, putting a mark on a tab for later accounting.

"Feeling better, I see," Norse observed.

"Just drinking after realizing what I got myself into."

"Miss your rocks already?"

"At least the ones ground into sand on a sunny beach."

Norse looked at Lewis with amusement. "It's interesting that they picked a geologist to do your job."

"I was available."

"That's their reason. What's yours?"

It sounded like a shrink question. "I trace it all to my mother."

"Ah." The psychologist nodded in defeat. "Okay. Confession some other time." He sipped his own beer. "I heard you met the estimable Doctor Moss."

"He granted me an audience."

"Interesting that you two got together so quickly."

Lewis wanted to deflect this line of questioning, too. "He's friends with my mentor, Jim Sparco. And it's fun to talk to God. He says we're all down here for Science."

"Well, that's the party line," Norse said. "We're the cannon fodder of the National Science Foundation, you know. They see us all as a means to an end: knowledge."

"And you don't?"

"I see knowledge as a means to us: as a way to develop as people. It's a subtle difference, but an important one. Are we here to save civilization or is it here to save us? Some historians see all of human history as the triumph of the group over the individual. But one of my questions is whether it isn't the extraordinary individual who defines the group. If the group's purpose isn't to make possible the occasional exceptional human being. The Einstein. The Jefferson. The Alexander."

"You're looking for Einstein at the Pole?"

"I'm looking for character. Integrity. Individuality. I sense some of that in you, Jed. You have a certain center of gravity. And then determining if that kind of person functions in a tight, almost claustrophobic society like the Pole. Is smothered by it. Transcends it."

"I'm just trying to keep my butt warm."

"Exactly."

Lewis smiled. Norse seemed more interested in who Jed really was than in helping him fit what the Pole wanted him to be. "Lots of individual characters here," he said, "and I like that. But it can be lonely being too individual."

"Thinking of someone in particular?"

"Well, I heard Buck Tyson's real name is Island."

"That doesn't mean he's lonely."

"He said at dinner that you two think alike."

Norse laughed. "Did he? Well. My belief is that no two people do think alike, contrary to popular belief. The Western god is rationality, and a communal kind of sanity: all of us agreeing on reality, and pulling along the same track. This social scientist is squishier, I'm afraid, theorizing that each of us is a prisoner of our own beliefs, fears, perceptions. That we live in different worlds. So to me the fundamental question is whether the kind of knowledge we gather in places like this leads to real sanity or some view of the universe that, in its very rationality, is truly insane. Does it lead to happiness? Well-being? Does it solve anything at all?"

Lewis considered. "Isn't knowledge worthwhile just for its own sake? Rod Cameron told me the purpose of life is learning. Aren't we all down here because we sort of believe that, in an unconscious way?"

"Do you believe that?" the psychologist asked.

"I don't know. It's nice to have a goal."

"Whose goal? Yours? Or the group's?"

"Both."

"No. Cameron just gave the goal to you."

Lewis was irked now. "What do you think we came down here for?"

"I don't know," the psychologist admitted. He sipped again. "That's what I'm down here to find out."

"Make a guess."

"I don't guess. I'm a trained professional." It was self-deprecating.

The psychologist had his own evasions, Lewis saw. "Not good enough," he persisted. "What's your reason, Doc?"

"Okay. I came down here to see if we should be here at all." The psychologist nodded, as if to confirm it to himself. "Do you know that America spends two hundred million dollars a year in Antarctica? Two hundred mil on the altar of knowledge! That's a goodly chunk of change. But what if rationality is a fraud? What if sanity- the idea everyone should think the same way, share the same reality- is a fraud? What if science is a fraud? That what pretends to explain everything in fact explains nothing to animals like ourselves, that NSF stands for a myth, that the druids and pagans and witches were right and that the true knowledge, the real insight, is in the dark wood- is in ourselves? What if the outermost veneer of civilization we represent is no thicker than the aluminum on this dome? What if at some point in our explorations we reach not revelation but utter mystery, a whole new pit of the indescribable, the unknowable?" He was looking at Lewis, his eyes bright. "What do we do then?" That intensity again.

Lewis shrugged in self-defense. "Well, golly. Open another beer, I suppose." He got one and did so. "You're saying you're getting your ass frozen off for no reason?"

Norse laughed, as if that were a huge joke. "I hope not!"

"But you think we're nutcases because we believe in sanity?"

"No, no. I'm rambling." The psychologist studied his beer. "Drinking. But in an age when the machines are bending us to become like them, to become part of them, I'm curious what it still means to be human. To stand for yourself. Here, at the most inhuman place on earth."

Lewis left the bar more wound up than when he entered it, still unable to sleep as his brain tried to make up its mind about his new home. He impulsively decided to walk outside. No dome slug he. The suiting up took fifteen laborious minutes and when he surmounted the ramp he saw the same pale sun at midnight that he'd seen that morning. Weird. The constant light was disorienting, the circuit of the orb dizzying. His own brain was swirling with impressions, new faces, glib philosophies. Individuals, every one. But a group, too. Which was what he'd come for.

Wasn't it?

Maybe Doctor Bob's problem was that he'd never been truly alone.

Lewis felt alone now, the station still, the breeze mild. Yet when he listened for the whisper of his freezing breath he realized he was not. There was a distant whining noise of a moving machine and he gradually recognized it as a snowmobile. Tyson? Someone, at least, was out driving at the witching hour. He began walking in a broad loop around the dome, still puffing from the altitude, looking for the source of the noise. Finally he saw a speck in the distance, an orange dot on a black one, someone driving out onto the featureless plateau. He had no idea who the driver was: old or young, man or woman. Odd at this time, but then scientists kept odd schedules.

Where was there to go?

The sound seemed to connect them like a thread and his eye remained fixed on the receding traveler, because there was nothing else to see.

Then the snowmobile slid out of view, as if entering a dip, and a few seconds later the noise grumbled away. Silence.

Lewis waited awhile for the pilgrim to reappear, but nothing happened.

The plateau was empty. He got cold and bored and turned back inside, exhausted enough now for bed.

What Came Before

I called him Fat Boy.

Not to his face, of course, because by law and custom and administrative directive the university was so politically and sexually and racially correct that those of us grubbing for a check were expected to be as unctuous as undertakers: prissy, constipated, and afraid. But in my mind he was Fat Boy, a lagging drogue of blubber, a leech, a handicap, a brake, an anchor, a limit, a curse.

I honor people who achieve the ultimate of what they can be.

I despise those who pretend to be what they can never be.

Fat Boy could never be a mountain climber.

Let me tell you about climbing. It is the most sublime of all human activities. First, because it is difficult. Second, because it is dangerous. Third, because it has a tangible goal and there can be no mistaking if that goal is reached or not: You summit, or you don't. Everything else is bullshit.

Fourth, because it is revealing. A mountain brings out the truth in a man. Or woman.

And fifth, because it is beautiful.

Our doomed little party started out at three minutes past midnight, the temperature fifteen degrees and the stars an orbiting city past the great dark silhouette of the Cascades volcano that was our goal. When the moon rose at three it turned the glacier into a bowl of milk and our route into a clean kind of heaven. It was early enough in the season that the crevasses were mostly filled with snow and so we made good time. Fifteen college students, two instructors, and myself tagging along on each climb because I actually knew what the hell to do on a mountain. It was a real class, Professor Kressler getting paid to pursue his hobby, Fleming in his shadow like an eager puppy, the kids getting credit for sweating in the snow. For me it was an excuse to go climbing. Schmooze. Brown-nose. Connect. You know the drill.

We were roped in three parties of six. The kids were quiet, in awe of the mountain, and I mostly just heard the clink of equipment and the rasp of nylon. It was good that way. The pant of their breathing was like a team of horses. The plan was to summit an hour after dawn and then glissade back down before the rising spring sun turned the snow to mush. It was the last climb of the semester.

I'd expected Fat Boy to drop the class by now. He wasn't just obese, he was weak. He wasn't just weak, he was incompetent. He could never remember the knots, never keep track of his gear. And he wasn't just incompetent, he was stupid. Twice he'd dropped off a route to catch his wheezing little breath, and once I'd had to go back down myself to find him. He hadn't been apologetic, he'd been surly. I'd told him the sport wasn't for him. He'd shown up the next class anyway. I should have shaken him, slapped him, shamed him into recognizing his own limitations. But we weren't allowed to do that. And at that time I was still weak. I was still willing to believe that others, the kind of morons that wind up in administration, might know what was best for me.

The warning signs were there. Fat Boy was last to climb out of his bag. Last to dress, last to eat, last to gather his equipment. He'd farted, stumbled, spilled. After three months of classes he still needed help with his crampons! Still needed help with his line! Almost put another student's eye out with his ice ax! Whining, defensive, apologetic. In a realistic kind of world- a just one- his kind of genetic fluff would be combed away in an instant.

But the world carries its cripples now, doesn't it?

For a while I thought we could pull him along okay, like a goat on the end of a wagon. Fleming, the other prof, knew how much I hated the kid and so put him on his rope, last in line, and managed to cajole rather than curse. The man had the patience of a saint. And for a while I could forget Fat Boy was with us. We topped the glacier, made Sullivan's Saddle, and pushed on up the central cone, only half an hour behind schedule. The boy had blubbered a bit, nose dripping, pack awry, one mitten lost who the hell knew where, but he was keeping up with a frantic gasp and if we finally made the damn summit I think I'd have been almost ready to forgive him. My contempt wouldn't fade, but my anger might.

I was actually in a good mood that morning. I still had a life. The sky was pinking. The Cascades were turning from black to deep blue shadow, and we could see the glint of the cities along the Sound. The air was cold and so clean it washed you out, laundered your brain, and I could taste the top, we were so close. Clouds were building in the west, an approaching storm, but I thought we could beat it. I was ready to forgive Fat Boy anything if we could just finish and be done.

But then there was a shout and the party came to a jerking, unsteady halt, the students gasping gratefully for breath in the respite, confused calls running up and down the line.

I unroped and sidestepped down the snow, trying to find out what was the matter. Minutes ticking on. The sun approaching to the east. Overcast from the west. The summit waiting. We had a tight window. We had to summit and get down.

Of course, I knew what I'd find before I even got down to the last team. Fleming pointed in the light of the dimming moon and I followed the rope with my eye to where its end trailed on the snow like a dead snake, empty of anything.

He'd spoiled it, of course, for all the others.

He'd spoiled it for me.

Fat Boy had untied himself and was gone.