Dan Simmons - Phases of Gravity

'We caught up to him within a quarter of a mile; when we came over a rock ridge, there was Muldorff in the middle of this desolate arroyo sitting in a lawn chair under a beach umbrella, drinking a cold beer. He had a transistor radio going, a cooler full of ice and beer under his feet, and a swimming pool — one of those little inflatable ones that kids use — a pool a few feet away with an inflatable raft and a couple of rubber ducks in it. And you have to remember that we were in the middle of nowhere — still about sixty miles from the nearest road.

'After he got through laughing, Dave told us how he did it. He had a WAF clerk at the base commander's office get into the files and find the proposed drop points for the various NASA teams. Then Dave vectored our probable route back and got a friend of his who was flying choppers out of White Sands to ferry the junk out to this arroyo. Dave thought it was funny as hell. Tom didn't. He was so mad at first that he turned his back and walked away from Dave and his beach umbrella and his rock music. At first I sort of agreed with Tom. Dave's stunt was the kind of thing that used to drive NASA absolutely apeshit. The agency had no sense of humor at all as far as we could tell. Our whole team could've been in big trouble.

'But after a beer or two, Dave packed all the stuff in behind a boulder and we got back to survival training. Tom didn't speak to him for twenty-four hours. Worse than that, I don't think Tom ever completely forgave or forgot for the two years we worked together after that. At first I thought it was just that he was angry about Dave screwing up our training and jeopardizing Tom's perfect record. Then I realized that it was more than that. Dave had broken the rules and Tom could never quite get around that. And there was one other thing . . .'

'What's that?' asked Maggie.

Baedecker leaned forward and whispered. 'Well, I think Tom was really looking forward to eating that damned lizard and Dave had taken some of the flavor out of it.'

Deedee and Tom Jr. showed up when Baedecker and Maggie were preparing to cross the river, and the four forded together. Tommy looked pale and somewhat subdued but remained as sullen as before. Deedee was chipper enough for both of them. The river was never more than knee-deep, but the current was swift and the water was ice-cold. Baedecker waited until the others were across, untied the rope from the east bank, and brought it across with him.

Forty-five minutes later they passed a waterfall, crossed the stream again — on a fallen log this time — and soon after that they were climbing switchbacks. The summit of the Matterhorn loomed above them and each time they paused to rest, more of Uncompahgre Peak had become visible to the southeast. They were within a few miles of the mountain now, and Baedecker began to realize how large the massif actually was. It reminded him of the huge mesas and buttes he had seen in New Mexico and Arizona, but this one was sharper, steeper, and it rose not from the desert but from a ten-thousand-foot plateau.

By mid-afternoon they had completed the last series of switchbacks and emerged onto the high tundra. The transformation was startling. The thick pine forests of the canyon had given way to a few aged and stunted fir trees, often weathered to the point there were no branches at all on their western and northern sides, and then to tall clumps of ground juniper, and then even these had disappeared and only grass and the low, red-and-tan gorse covered the rocky tundra. To Baedecker, coming up over the last ridge from the canyon was like stepping from the top rung of a ladder onto the roof of a tall building.

From the high pass they were now traversing, Baedecker could see dozens of greater and lesser mountain peaks and a seemingly endless vista of passes, ridges, high meadows, and softly undulating tundra. Patches of snow mottled the landscape. Overhead, a scattering of fluffy cumulus stretched to the serrated horizon, the white against blue above almost blending into the white against brown below.

Baedecker paused, panting, feeling the sweat pour from him, his lungs still demanding more oxygen than they could supply. 'Fantastic,' he said.

Maggie was grinning. She removed a red kerchief she had been using as a headband and mopped her face. She touched Baedecker's arm and pointed to the northeast where sheep were grazing along a rolling stretch of alpine meadow several ridges away. The gray bodies mixed with the clouds and snowfields and cloud shadows to give a sense of dappled movement across the entire panorama.

'Fantastic,' Baedecker said again. His heart was pounding at his ribs. He felt as if he had left some dark part of him behind in the shadows of the canyon. Maggie offered him her water bottle. He was aware of her arm touching his as he drank.

Tommy slumped down on a rock and poked at a clump of moss campion with his walking stick. Deedee smiled and looked around. 'There's Tom,' she said and pointed to a small figure far across the pass. 'It looks like he's setting up the tent already.'

'This is marvelous,' Baedecker said softly to himself. For some reason he felt light-headed in the cool, thin air. He gave the water bottle to Maggie and she drank deeply, throwing her head back so that her short, blond curls caught the sunlight.

Maggie offered the water bottle to Deedee, but the older woman took her hand instead. With her other hand she seized Baedecker's fingers. The three stood in a rough circle. Deedee bowed her head. 'Thank you, O Lord,' she said, 'for allowing us to witness the perfection of Your Creation and for sharing this special moment with dear friends who will, with the help of the Holy Spirit, come to know the truth of Thy Word. In Jesus' name we ask. Amen.' Deedee patted Baedecker's hand and looked at him. 'It is marvelous,' she said. There were tears in her eyes. 'And admit it, Richard,' she said, 'don't you wish Joan were here to share this with us?'

Their campsite had three tents arranged around a tall, flat-topped boulder that stood alone at the locus of a great circle of tundra. There was no firewood at that altitude except for the branches of the low shrubbery that grew between the rocks, so they set their two backpack stoves on a flat rock next to the boulder and watched the blue propane flames as the stars came out.

Before dinner they had reconnoitered their route as the shadows of the Wetterhorn and the Matterhorn covered the plateau and moved up the terraced sides of Uncompahgre. 'There,' said Gavin and handed the binoculars to Baedecker. 'Right at the base of the south ridge.' Baedecker looked and could make out a low, red tent set back in the shadows of the rocks. Two figures moved around it, storing equipment and working over a small stove. Baedecker handed back the binoculars. 'I see two of them,' he said. 'I wonder where the girl and the guy carrying the hang glider are.'

'Up there,' said Maggie and pointed toward the high ridge just at the point where sunlight still struck the massif.

Gavin focused his binoculars. 'I see them. That idiot is still dragging the kite along.'

'He can't be planning to fly it tonight, can he?' asked Maggie.

Gavin shook his head. 'No, he's still hours from the summit. They're just getting as high as they can before nightfall.' He handed the binoculars to Maggie.

'The early-morning conditions would be best for what he wants to do,' said Baedecker. 'Strong thermals. Not too much wind.' Maggie gave him the binoculars and Baedecker swept the ridge twice before finding the small figures high on the jagged spine of the mountain. Sunlight illuminated the red-and-yellow carrying bag as the little man bent under the burden of the aluminum and Dacron bundle. The woman followed several paces behind, bent under her own load of a large frame pack with two sleeping bags. As Baedecker watched, the sunlight left the mountain and the two struggling silhouettes became indistinguishable from the tumble of spires and boulders along the ridge.