Part 58 (2/2)

MARC: Cloud?

CHAPTER EIGHT.

As he vanished into the depths of the great creva.s.se, Basil's thought maintained its usual laconic tone: Falling. Everyone self-arrest.

Chazz, who was Number 2 on the rope, shouted an obscenity.

He fell on his face, ice-axe dangling impotently at the end of its keeper-strap, and was dragged through harsh, granular snow with arms and legs floundering. Derek, the Number 3, drove his axe into hard white ice simultaneously with Nirupam, the tail-man, just as Chazz reached the crack's edge. The rope went taut with a m.u.f.fled twung!

Nirupam said: How you Baz?

Basil said: Dangling upside down like a snared hare. A moment while I shed my pack ... ah. Over we go. Good heavens I just missed pranging into a rather bad shelf. Good show on the arrest even if a bit tardy. Is Chazz in the hole too?

Chazz said: Right on the mothering lip.

Nirupam said: Please don't move anyone. Derek are you belayed good and fast?

Derek said: I wouldn't bet on it.

An echoing yelp came from Chazz. and he screamed aloud: ”The d.a.m.n rope's cutting into the creva.s.se edge like a knife into cheese! I'm going over-”

Basil said: I shall cut my rope to ease the strain.

”Don't do it, Baz, don't!” the man above cried. The image of Basil's body tumbling into a bottomless blue crystal chasm flooded his mind and was broadcast by his grey torc to the others.

Basil said: Easy my boy. I told you I was just above a shelf.

There. I'm down.

Nirupam said: Terrific. Everybody just hang cool or whatever while I drop anchor. Soon as I unpack a bit of gear we'll get the Death-Defying Baz & Chazz Rescue Act rolling.

Deep in his roofed canyon of blue ice, Basil moved cautiously along the shelf a few metres so he was no longer directly beneath the severed climbing rope, to which his pack remained clipped by a lighter line. Showers of soft snow dribbled constantly from overhead as Chazz was slowly winched back to safety. Then abruptly, a chunk of snow as large as an ATV module cracked from the lip and crashed onto the shelf, disintegrating into a sugary cloud.

Basil said: Not to worry. I believe I'll try walking out.

The others exclaimed: What?

Basil said: The shelf rises and the creva.s.se is closing as I move northward. h.e.l.lo. The ice is warping up here and the snow cover getting very thin. I believe-can you see me?

He had poked his arm up through the snow crust and waggled it. A moment later his entire upper body was at the surface. He laughed to see the expressions on the others as he traced a curved path back to the winch-belay.

”Will you look at the man?” Derek exclaimed. ”Cool as the proverbial gherkin. My G.o.d-when I saw you drop out of sight and Chazz go sliding after, I thought you were both on the way to join poor Phillipe in Valhalla!”

Basil's pack came slithering over the snow, drawn in by the solar-powered donkey engine. The cla.s.sics professor and the three technicians hunkered to enjoy a fast cup of tea and a bar of chocolate algiprote.

”Creva.s.ses needn't be lethal,” Basil said, ”as long as one isn't injured in the fall-or, in the case of Phillipe, drowned in melt.w.a.ter. He was unlucky enough to fall into a moulin, a kind of drainpipe creva.s.se in the rotten ice of the glacier snout. With the tortuous nature of the fissure and the fast-moving water, there was no helping him-not even with Lord Bleyn's psychokinesis.”

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