Arrival (25 page)

“Really? I didn’t realize you watched them.”

“Occasionally,” he admitted as he followed her through the compartment on their way to the habitat bay. “You know, you can be quite the clever girl, Doc.”

“Occasionally.”

* * *

Day 14;

Today, I learned what ‘anaphylaxis’ meant. The hard way, unfortunately. I had a nasty reaction to the bite of an insect that nearly stopped my breathing. Amazingly, Jack managed to administer emergency medical care that saved my life. Again, another of his abilities has surprised me. I can only imagine how calmly he must have handled such a desperate situation.

In yet another surprising moment, Jack revealed a side of him that I never would have expected. This man of many surprises showed me a sensitivity that defies his cold, decisive nature. We shared insights and we gained knowledge of one another’s souls.

The pace he has set for us has been grueling, at times near impossible. But it is by no means without forethought or consideration. My condition is good, my hope ever alive, and my optimism surprisingly high. Jack has insisted we take a day off to rest, in light of my near-death experience.

Speaking of this, I want you to know that the realization of what nearly transpired left me riddled with guilt. When I promised you that I would stay safe, and return to your side, I had no idea of the obstacles fate would place in my path. I only hope destiny allows me to honor my promise.

* * *

Several days later, Jack and Will were far up into the hills. It had only taken Will a day to recover enough to continue on, but Jack had opted to travel only as far as the base of the hills the first day, allowing Will to take it easy.

Just as they had anticipated, hiking through the mountains was far more difficult than walking across the plains. Still, after nearly two weeks of hiking across flatland, they were happy with the change of scenery. Here, it was greener, and more lush. Instead of hiking a relatively straight course across open plains, they found themselves weaving through never-ending forests. The trees here towered above them, and were adorned with various species of birds and small animals. There was plenty of water flowing through these hills as well, with a new stream crossing their path nearly every day.

As he had expected, Will found a greater variety of geological samples here than in the flatlands. Unfortunately, Jack’s schedule left him little time for any real scientific study. So he collected small samples along the way whenever they stopped to rest, taking note of their location. After dinner, he would spend an hour or so studying the samples, leaving them behind the next morning when they struck camp and moved on.

It seemed as though they had gained at least a few thousand meters in altitude. The air was crisper, cooler, and undoubtedly thinner. The result was that water that had been enough for two days, was now only enough for one.

Today, they had been following a ravine up the side of a long hill since they broke camp more than four hours ago, hoping it would be the easiest way across the summit.

“It looks like we’re nearing the summit,” Jack panted as the trees began to thin out.

“I hope so,” Will remarked weakly. “I’m almost out of energy.”

“Just a little bit farther,” Jack promised.

They continued up the ravine, stepping around rocks, fallen logs, and branches. Will had guessed that they were actually following a dried-up run-off stream. He figured it had to be this planet’s hot season. They had seen many dried-up streambeds along the way, and it hadn’t rained since they arrived.

Just as Jack promised, the trees disappeared and the ravine began to flatten out once they reached the summit. Finally, the ravine disappeared altogether as the hillside leveled off. It was a relief to be walking on flatland again. The next leg would be downhill, which both of them preferred.

Jack picked up the pace a little after the terrain flattened out, but then suddenly slowed down.

“What’s wrong?” Will asked when he noticed that Jack was lagging behind. “You need a break?” he teased.

“Do you hear that?” Jack asked as he ground to a halt.

Will stopped beside Jack and listened. “Sounds like running water.”

“It sounds like a
lot
of running water,” Jack corrected, remembering the sound of the first river they had taken water samples from.

“A river?”

“Yeah,” Jack answered, a bit puzzled.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Will insisted. “How can you have a river at the top of a summit?”

Jack began to move forward again. The ground ahead looked different somehow. He was pretty sure the start of the downhill grade was just ahead since the ground was not visible beyond ten meters. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” he said nervously. That’s when he realized what was so different.

They came to a stop at the edge of a cliff. They stood there in amazement, gazing upon the vista stretched out below them. There were no more hills on this side, no gradual decline to mirror the ascension they had just completed. Instead, it was a near straight drop, jagged and uneven, with rocks and strange trees jutting out of the cliff face.

“Uh-oh,” was all that Jack could say.

Below them stretched a vast, jungle-like forest so thick that he felt he could step onto the treetops like walking across a carpet. The canopy was colored in greens, tans, and browns, with occasional splotches of colorful flowers growing in the sunlit treetops that broke up the monotony. A wide river wound its way through the forest below, cutting it in half. About fifty kilometers across, the far side of the valley butted up against the base of another mountain range, the one that Jack assumed was the final obstacle between them and the coastline.

Jack looked to his left, where he heard the running water. The ridgeline they were standing on wrapped around a few hundred meters until it ended at the base of a very steep, rocky mountainside. A long series of waterfalls poured down the side of the mountain face, cascading from ledge to landing, forming a pool at each step before spilling out over the next edge. It ended in a large pool at the head of a great river.

To his right, the ridgeline had a slight downhill grade for another half kilometer before it also ran into another mountain face.

Jack looked straight down to the base. It wasn’t exactly straight down, but it was close enough. “What do you think, three hundred meters maybe?”

“Does it matter?”

“Guess not,” Jack decided. “We’ll have to look around and try to find the best place to climb down,” he announced as he began walking along the ridgeline to his right.

“Excuse me?” Will asked in disbelief. “Did you say,
climb down?
”

“How else do you expect to get down there? Take an elevator?” Jack joked as he walked along the ridge, stopping every few steps to peer over the edge.

“Are you nuts?” Will objected. “We can’t climb down this!”

“Relax, Will. We can do this. Besides, the only other option is to go around. And by the look of those mountains, that’ll take us months.”

Will refused to believe what he was hearing. He was already turning pale at the thought of falling to his death. “You forgot the third option, Jack. We can go back to the escape pod and forget about the whole thing!”

“I thought you said you wanted to go all the way or not at all?”

“Well, yes, I did. But at the time, I assumed the trip would be relatively horizontal.”

“It is,” Jack defended, “mostly.”

“Mostly. That’s cute, Jack. You know, I wasn’t sure at first, but now I have no doubts at all. You
are
crazy.”

“Do you always babble like this?” Jack asked.

“Only when someone is suggesting that I jump off a cliff. Otherwise, I’m a very quiet man.”

Jack stopped suddenly. “Look,” he said, pointing at the ridgeline ahead of them. “There.”

“What? What is it?”

“That’s where we can get down.”

Will looked; the cliff face was not quite as steep closest to the northern end of the ridge, but it still looked like suicide to him. “Please, Jack… Think about this,” he begged.

Jack took off his pack, laid it against a rock, and began to unpack his rope.

“Maybe you should sleep on it,” Will suggested.

After thirty minutes of rest, they were ready to begin their descent…or at least
Jack
was. It had taken Jack threatening to go on without him to convince Will to continue the journey. Using a one-hundred-meter rope, they lowered their packs down to the first ledge, letting the rope fall down on top of the packs once they had settled on the ledge below. Neither of them wanted to attempt the descent while carrying twenty-five kilograms on their backs.

There were no great obstacles for the first fifty meters. The cliff face wrapped around the base of the northern mountains, so it was not as steep. A lot of very careful steps and a few butt-slides got them down. But the last fifty meters required more effort. Facing the mountainside, they stepped down, one rock, crack, or handhold at a time. On more than one occasion, Will’s grip would fumble, sending pebbles and dirt showering down onto Jack. But they managed to get to the shelf where their packs waited without serious difficulty.

“That wasn’t… so bad,” Jack panted as he opened his canteen and guzzled nearly a liter of water.

“No, it wasn’t,” Will admitted. He plopped down on the ground next to Jack, pulling out his own canteen.

“The next leg shouldn’t be much worse,” Jack promised. He looked up at the sun. “We shouldn’t rest too long, though. We don’t have that much daylight left, and we’ll still need time to find water and pitch camp before it gets too dark.”

“Finally, something sensible.”

Jack was too tired to laugh. Putting away his canteen, he got back up to his feet, walking over to the pile of backpacks and rope at the far end of the ledge. Tossing the rope over the edge to let it untangle, Jack pushed the packs to the side of the ledge. “Give me a hand lowering these.”

Will joined him, looping the rope around his waist and leaning back against the cliff to brace himself.

“Ready?” Jack called.

“Ready.”

Jack sat on the ground in front of Will, held onto the rope, and pushed the backpacks over the edge with his feet, putting tension on the rope. Slowly, they lowered the packs down the cliff face, the packs knocking bits and pieces of the mountain free as they slid down.

Will watched the free rope that hung over the edge to the left as it fed up and around him, paying out through Jack’s hands back over the edge. It began swaying around more than usual. Suddenly, the end of the rope bounced up over the ledge. Will grabbed tightly, trapping the running line against his waist. He felt a warm, almost burning sensation against his right flank as the rope found its way under his shirt and onto his bare skin. “That’s it!” Will called out. “We’re out of rope!”

Jack grabbed tightly onto the rope. Satisfied that the packs’ descent had been halted, he called out to Will. “You got it?”

“Yeah, I got it,” Will said as he braced himself to take the full weight of the dangling backpacks.

Jack let go of the rope slowly. Will leaned back harder as the line became considerably heavier. Jack moved to the edge to look over at the packs.

“Christ! We’re probably less than five meters short!” he exclaimed. He turned around to face Will. “Anything breakable in there?”

“Just the data pad and video-player,” Will answered.

“Yeah, but they’re pretty well padded.” Jack looked back over the edge. “What the hell, let it go, Will.”

“Are you sure?”

“No, but I don’t see much choice.”

“Okay.” Will slowly fed the last of the rope around his waist, until he could feel the knot at the end of the rope in his left hand. “Here it goes!” he announced as he let go of the rope.

Jack watched as the packs suddenly dropped the last five meters, bouncing off the ledge and over the side, heading toward the base of the cliff. “Uh-oh,” Jack muttered as he watched the packs fall, the rope trailing behind in several graceful loops. Suddenly, one of the loops of rope caught onto a tree trunk protruding from the side of the mountain. There was a whizzing sound as the rope wrapped around the tree, its slack scraping at the tree bark. Then, much to Jack’s surprise, the rope managed to wrap itself tightly around the tree. The rope went taut, the falling backpacks instantly reversing their course, bouncing back upward from the stretch of the line.

Jack watched as the packs bobbed up and down on the end of the line before they finally came to rest against the side of the mountain, suspended at the end of the precariously secured line. “I don’t believe it,” Jack groaned. “You wanna talk about luck? Take at look at this, Will.”

Will walked over to the edge to take a look for himself. “How did that happen?”

“I have no idea,” Jack admitted. “The falling rope just sort of wrapped around that tree, and presto.”

“Unbelievable,” Will agreed.

“Yeah. Let’s get down there before that tree gives way.”

Now with a little experience under their belts, the next leg was somewhat easier. Although most of it involved climbing down from rock to rock, the cragged mountainside provided an abundance of hand and footholds. Along the way, they were able to pull their packs back up to their original intended resting place and untangle their rope before continuing their descent. After an hour, and another brief rest, they lowered their packs down to the base. This time, the drop was straight down the entire way.

“Okay, we’re going to have to do this one at a time,” Jack said. “It’s at least one hundred meters down to the bottom, and all we have left is a fifty-meter line, so one of us is going to have to climb about halfway down while the other one belays him from here.”

“Then what does the top guy do?”

“He climbs down to the bottom guy, who belays him.”

“From below? What happens if the second guy falls?”

“Well, he won’t fall all the way down, only forty to fifty meters or so.”

“Oh, is that all?” Will answered sarcastically. “Then you better go first,” he suggested.

“You sure?”

“No. But there’s no way a little guy like me is going to be able to stop someone your size from falling. You’d just take me with you.”

“Good point. But that means you’re going to have to make it down without any overhead support, you know.”

“Don’t remind me.” Will scoffed.

Jack tied a few straps around his waist and legs, forming a makeshift harness. He attached the end of the short line to the harness and tugged at it a few times. “Okay, when I get down to the ledge, I’ll take this off so you can haul it up and use it. Just keep a little slack on the rope unless I call for tension, or unless I fall, of course.”

“Of course.” Will braced himself, ready to take Jack’s weight if necessary. “Ready when you are.”

Jack moved to the edge of the cliff, pacing back and forth a few times as he peered over the edge, trying to determine the best spot to begin his descent.

“Okay, here I go.” Jack knelt down on the ground, lowering his legs over the edge. He put his feet onto his first foothold, a large rock jutting out from the face.

Will carefully fed out the line as he watched Jack disappear over the edge, wondering if he would be able to do the same when it was his turn. Now he couldn’t even see Jack, and was only able to gauge his progress by the amount of line he had fed him. Occasionally, he could hear the sound of crumbling rock, the pieces bouncing off the face on the way down, dislodging other stones.