Dan Simmons - Phases of Gravity

By nine A.M. the direct sunlight was burning on the rock and filling the air with the scent of heated pine and fir trees. Baedecker poured sweat. He wanted to stop and change from his jeans into a pair of shorts, but he was afraid that if he fell behind the other two he might never catch up. There was no sign of Deedee or Tom Jr. on the trail behind them, but Deedee had been cheery enough when they said good-bye after striking camp. Tom Gavin never really rested, he just stopped moving for a few seconds, fidgeted from foot to foot while squinting ahead up the trail, then only to say 'Ready?' and be off and moving before either Maggie or Baedecker could reply.

After the first hour it was not so bad. By the second hour Baedecker had fallen into a rhythm of pain and panting, which seemed tolerable enough. Sometime before noon they came around a bend of rock, and two tall peaks were visible ahead, the summits still holding pockets of snow despite the hot summer just past. Gavin identified the tiered, flat-topped peak as Uncompahgre and the sharper one as the Wetterhorn. A third summit was just visible above the ridgeline. 'Uncompahgre looks like a wedding cake, the Wetterhorn looks a little like the real Matterhorn, and the Matterhorn does-n't look at all like the real Matterhorn,' said Gavin.

'Gotcha,' said Baedecker.

They continued up the deteriorating trail past spires of red rock and occasional waterfalls. The Douglas firs were eighty feet tall in places, rising high above any area flat enough for them. They passed through a thick cluster of ponderosa pine and Maggie had them all sniffing the trees, explaining that the sap of the ponderosa smelled like butterscotch. Baedecker found a recent scar, sniffed the sap, and announced that it was definitely chocolate. Maggie called him a pervert. Gavin suggested that they all move a little faster.

They had lunch where Silver Creek ran into the Cimarron River. The trail had been completely eroded away, and it had taken the three of them half an hour to pick their way down the last few hundred yards of scree to the floor of the canyon. Baedecker looked back down the canyon, but there was still no sign of Deedee or Tommy. To the south the trail resumed on the opposite side of the river, but Baedecker could see no easy way across the twenty-five feet of water. He wondered how Lude and Maria and the others had managed to cross.

Maggie wandered away up Silver Creek and came back a minute later to lead Baedecker to where a dozen violet columbines grew near a fallen log. A ring of Engleman and Blue Spruce enclosed a small clearing carpeted with grass and ferns. A tiny stream bubbled through it, and scores of white-and-purple flowers spotted the grass despite the lateness of the season. Somewhere nearby a woodpecker was tapping out a frenzied code.

'Great place to camp,' said Baedecker.

'Yes,' said Maggie. 'And a great place not to camp, too.' She took out a Hershey bar and broke it in half, offering Baedecker the half with more almonds.

Gavin strode into the clearing. He had reshouldered his heavy pack and had binoculars dangling around his neck. 'Look,' he said, 'I'm going to ford the river down there above where the creek comes in. I'll leave a line across it. Then I'm going to reconnoiter the trail up the west side there. It should be about a half mile to that final set of switchbacks. I'll wait for you above tree line, okay?'

'Okay,' said Baedecker.

'The map says that the old Silver Jack Mine is up this creek,' said Maggie. 'Why don't we take a few minutes to hike up to it? Deedee and Tommy should be along pretty soon.' Gavin smiled and shrugged. 'Suit yourself. I want to get up on that plateau to find a campsite so we can scout the south ridge before nightfall.' Maggie nodded and Gavin strode away. Baedecker accompanied him down to the river to make sure there were no problems when he forded the quick current. When Gavin reached the other side, he waved and secured his rope to a tree near the bank. Baedecker returned the wave and walked back to the clearing.

Maggie was lying on her red shirt. Her midriff and shoulders were darkly tanned, but her breasts were white, the nipples a delicate shade of pink.

'Oh,' said Baedecker and sat down on a log.

Maggie lifted her hand to shield her eyes and looked at him. 'Does this make you uncomfortable, Richard?' When Baedecker hesitated, Maggie sat up and pulled on her shirt. 'There, decent again,' she said with a smile. 'Or at least covered up.' Baedecker plucked two long strands of grass, peeled the ends, and offered one to Maggie.

'Thanks.' She looked up toward the west wall of the canyon. 'Your friends are interesting,' she said.

'Tom and Deedee?' said Baedecker. 'What do you think?'

Maggie returned his level gaze. 'I think they're your friends,' she said. 'I'm their guest.' Baedecker chewed on his stem of grass and nodded. 'I'd like your opinion,' he said after a while.

Maggie smiled and looked up at the sun. 'Well, after last night's numerology sermon, I was tempted to say that these folks have their porch light on but nobody's home.' She chewed off a bit of grass. 'But that's not fair. It's unkind. I guess Tom and Deedee just represent a certain type that I have strong reservations about,' she said.

'Born-again Christians?' said Baedecker.

Maggie shook her head. 'No, people who trade their brains in for sacred truths that can be boiled down to poster slogans.'

'It sounds like we're still talking about Scott,' said Baedecker.

Maggie did not deny it. 'What do you think of Tom?' she asked.

Baedecker thought a minute. 'Well,' he said at last, 'there's a story from our early training days that I've been reminded of recently.'

'Great,' said Maggie. 'I'm a sucker for stories.'

'It's a long one.'

'I'm a sucker for long stories,' said Maggie.

'Well, we were out on two weeks of survival training,' said Baedecker. 'For the grand finale they broke us into teams of three — crews actually — flew us out into the New Mexico desert somewhere northwest of White Sands, and gave us three days to find our way back to civilization. We had our Swiss army knives, some booklets on edible plants, and one compass between us.'

'Sounds like fun,' said Maggie.

'Yeah,' said Baedecker, 'NASA thought so too. If we didn't show up in five days, they would've started a search pattern. They weren't too keen on losing any of their second-generation astronauts. So anyway, our team was the same as the crew we had later — me, Dave Muldorff, and Tom. Even then, Tom always worked harder than anyone else. Even after he made the cut . . . getting into the astronaut corps, crew selection, whatever . . . he still would work twice as hard as he had to, as if he was always on the verge of washing out. Well, all of us felt like that some of the time, but it never seemed to let up with Tom.

'Our other teammate was Dave Muldorff — we sometimes called him Rockford back then — and Dave was just the opposite. Dave once told me that the only philosophy he adhered to was Ohm's Law — find the path of least resistance and follow it. Actually, Dave was a lot like Neil Armstrong . . . they'd give a thousand percent and come out on top when they had to, but you'd never see either one of them up at dawn running laps. The main difference between Muldorff and Armstrong was that Dave had a weird sense of humor.

'So anyway, our first day in the boonies went all right. We found a water source and figured out a way to carry some with us. Tom caught a lizard before nightfall and wanted to eat it raw, but Dave and I decided to wait a bit on that. We had our course set to cross a road we knew ran into the mountains, and we were sure we'd find it sooner or later. On the second day, Tom was ready to have the lizard for lunch, but Dave convinced us to get by on plants for a while longer and save the main course for dinner. Then, about two o'clock that afternoon, Dave began acting strange. He kept sniffing the ground and saying that he could smell the way to civilization. Tom suggested sunstroke and we both got pretty alarmed. We tried to tie a T-shirt around Dave's head, but he just howled at the sky and took off running.