There Is No Darkness by Haldeman Joe & Haldeman Jack C

Author:Haldeman, Joe & Haldeman, Jack C. [Haldeman, Joe & Haldeman, Jack C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fantasy
ISBN: 9781504042918
Amazon: B01MZ0CBJO
Goodreads: 33841123
Publisher: Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Published: 1983-02-01T08:00:00+00:00

III

It looked simple, which by itself made me suspicious. They set us down on the peak of a small mountain. The place we were headed for was on the far side of the valley below us. We could even see the tops of the base’s antennas in the distance. All we had to do was get off the mountain and cross the delta. Couldn’t have been more than thirty klicks. A piece of cake.

At first we split up and looked for an easy way down the mountain. There weren’t any. I found about a dozen places I could have gone down alone, but not with everybody else tied to me. On Springworld I’d climbed mountains like this since I was five years old. Of the others, only B’oosa had any experience on mountains. The rest were all flat-landers, as we call them at home.

B’oosa found a route he thought we might be able to manage together. It started out as a more-or-less sheer face that led down and across to a vertical fissure. Formations directly above the fissure would have made rappelling difficult; we’d have to transverse, go down sideways to it. After the fissure it didn’t look like it would be too hard.

“What do you think?” asked B’oosa.

I took a long look at the sheer face. The surface of the cliff was uneven and ought to provide fairly good foot and hand holds. It was cold, though, probably be some ice. I looked at the sky. It was a slate grey from horizon to horizon, could be a storm coming in. Ordinarily I wouldn’t even consider starting a descent under these conditions.

“Guess it’ll do,” I said. “At least it’s not snowing.”

“Not yet,” said B’oosa.

We got everyone together and explained what we had to do. B’oosa would go first and I’d take up the other end. Nobody moved until they were told to by B’oosa or myself. We double checked our equipment and headed for the edge.

B’oosa went over. I watched him descend. He was pretty good, no doubt about it. Only one arm or leg would move at a time. He checked each hold carefully before committing his weight to it. As he went down he’d drive pitons into the rock face, sliding the rope through their clips. He went sideways as much as down, guided by the nature of the cliff rather than our wishes. Soon he stopped, hollered up to the rest of us to follow. I had a good, secure position, the rope played down from me to B’oosa without kinks or sharp bends.

Pancho was the first to follow. He went slowly, checking each hold several times. Each time he reached one of the pitons, he’d pull some slack from the far side of the rope and slip it through the clip on the right side of his belt. He’d hang there for a second before he unclipped the trailing section of rope from his left side and moved on past the piton. It was slow progress, but he was doing a good job.

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