[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
leaned toward Daniel.
'Here.' He pressed the mask to Daniel's mouth, closing away the bared teeth,
the black beard. The mountain had begun to mineralize the climbers, coloring
them like stone. Now, before Abe's eyes, Daniel's cheeks took on a flush
and the beds of his fingernails washed pink.
'Gus,' Abe said. Her eyes barely opened and Abe drew back, unnerved by the
oxen dumbness in her gaze. He shook her. 'Gus, wake up. We have to wake up.'
Her eyes glazed over and closed.
Abe's watch said 12:35. Past midnight. He winced at the impossibility of that.
The mountain was voracious and they were in its very belly. But where Jonah
could afford to wait it out, they could not. By dawn they might never wake
again.
Abe unlocked his stiff joints and crawled to the rear of the tent. By the
dimming light, he unzipped the door and found two more regulators
for oxygen sets. He screwed the pieces together with his good hand and
bayonet-mounted the masks and dragged the assembled sets back in. He strapped
Page 93
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
a mask to Gus's face and one to his own and cranked the flow to its full
six liters per minute, not much by paramedic standards but the maximum
for these mountaineering regulators. With his portable
Gamow bag, Abe could have dropped them to a pressure relative to
12,000 feet elevation in a matter of ten minutes. But that was down below. On
oxygen alone, the climbers all descended several thousand feet anyway, a
temporary relief.
With everyone 'sucking O's,' Abe scooted forward to address the water
situation.
The stoves had burned out while they slept, so he fished out three full
cartridges and started new fires. He worked with the slow deliberation of a
drunk. The oxygen was sobering, but with the pain in his arm wound and the
stiffness in his limbs and his diarrhea and the bronchitis and all his
other woes, the high altitude hangover was wracking.
Gus revived before Daniel did. Finally all three of them were
sitting upright, hunched close among their piles of sleeping bags and parkas
and boots and overpants like sadsack figures in a Beckett play. The wind was
roaring past the cave's entrance, but in here the tent walls didn't even
ripple. It was as if the mountain had wanted them to slumber undisturbed, on
and on.
'We have to get down,' Abe said. First it had been Daniel in charge, then Gus.
Now it was his turn. He had to manage this emergency. Gus had said it: He was
the doctor.
He loosened the slip loop around his head and pulled the mask down so that his
words were unobstructed.
'We have to go down,' he repeated. The altitude had eviscerated them. They had
to descend and regroup. They had reached their limit this round.
'We're close.' Daniel's words were muffled by his mask, but his eyes were
glittering with summit fever. He was happy. They had pushed far and even if
descent was in order, there was still time to come back and break through
Everest's glass ceiling. The route's most serious obstacle, the Shoot, was now
tamed. They had captured it with their ropes and it was open to passage. From
here to the summit was only another
2,500 vertical feet, a matter of one more camp, maybe two, a week or a
fortnight, no more, and suddenly it seemed they were very close indeed.
'Close,' Abe agreed. 'But we have to go down.' Descent was imperative. They
had wounds to lick. And with Jorgens and Carlos out of the picture, and Thomas
on his mutiny, the entire effort had to be reassessed. Even if the team could
pull together the numbers for a summit bid, it didn't have the strength just
now. Plainly they had to get down to Base Camp, all of them. Only then could
they hope to launch the final assault. To continue on in their
condition was simply to hand the mountain three victims.
'Yes,' Gus said. 'Down.'
'We'll come back,' said Abe.
'Yes,' Daniel said.
'Let me see your hands.'
Daniel held out his palms. Abe hissed inside his mask. On each hand, the flesh
lay peeled open in long flaps. He cleaned the flaps and laid them in place
and wrapped each hand with white tape. He used a special pattern favored by
boxers and jam crack climbers, thick across the palm, strung between the
fingers. Daniel would need all the extra padding possible for the long rappel
back to ABC tomorrow.
'Anything else?' Abe asked. He knew there was. Daniel had been favouring his
left side ever since arriving at Four.
Daniel removed his jacket and pulled up his sweater and shirts. Wrapped
partway round his rib cage stood a livid bruise the size of a watermelon. The
rock had bounded between his arms, just missing the abdominal cavity. A little
more to the center, the rock might have punched in a whole section of the
Page 94
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
chest wall: flail chest sternum. At this height a flail chest would have
killed him hours ago.
Abe prodded at Daniel's huge rib cage. 'Is this tender? Here? Here?' As he
probed and interrogated, Abe took stock. A gruesome furrow tracked along
Daniel's spine and there were purplish surgery scars on his shoulder and the
half-moons where they'd gone after the tendinitis in his elbows. There were
other old marks on his arms and hands, and compared to these gouges and
furrows and purpled seams, Abe's own climbing scars looked like the
hesitation marks of a fake suicide.
'Could be some hairline cracks,' he said.
'Probably just bruised,' Daniel said.
'You're lucky,' Abe said. He closed Daniel's jacket and started to lay an
oxygen mask over his mouth, but Daniel took hold of his wrist.
'I wondered about you,' he said.
Abe felt his heart sink. At long last, this was it. But why was
Daniel choosing to resurrect the past in this midnight storm so far above
the earth? Their shared past could easily wait. For that matter, it could go
unspoken altogether. Half a lifetime had passed without Abe feeling this need
to dredge up the memory. What did it matter. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl exclamation.htw.pl
leaned toward Daniel.
'Here.' He pressed the mask to Daniel's mouth, closing away the bared teeth,
the black beard. The mountain had begun to mineralize the climbers, coloring
them like stone. Now, before Abe's eyes, Daniel's cheeks took on a flush
and the beds of his fingernails washed pink.
'Gus,' Abe said. Her eyes barely opened and Abe drew back, unnerved by the
oxen dumbness in her gaze. He shook her. 'Gus, wake up. We have to wake up.'
Her eyes glazed over and closed.
Abe's watch said 12:35. Past midnight. He winced at the impossibility of that.
The mountain was voracious and they were in its very belly. But where Jonah
could afford to wait it out, they could not. By dawn they might never wake
again.
Abe unlocked his stiff joints and crawled to the rear of the tent. By the
dimming light, he unzipped the door and found two more regulators
for oxygen sets. He screwed the pieces together with his good hand and
bayonet-mounted the masks and dragged the assembled sets back in. He strapped
Page 93
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
a mask to Gus's face and one to his own and cranked the flow to its full
six liters per minute, not much by paramedic standards but the maximum
for these mountaineering regulators. With his portable
Gamow bag, Abe could have dropped them to a pressure relative to
12,000 feet elevation in a matter of ten minutes. But that was down below. On
oxygen alone, the climbers all descended several thousand feet anyway, a
temporary relief.
With everyone 'sucking O's,' Abe scooted forward to address the water
situation.
The stoves had burned out while they slept, so he fished out three full
cartridges and started new fires. He worked with the slow deliberation of a
drunk. The oxygen was sobering, but with the pain in his arm wound and the
stiffness in his limbs and his diarrhea and the bronchitis and all his
other woes, the high altitude hangover was wracking.
Gus revived before Daniel did. Finally all three of them were
sitting upright, hunched close among their piles of sleeping bags and parkas
and boots and overpants like sadsack figures in a Beckett play. The wind was
roaring past the cave's entrance, but in here the tent walls didn't even
ripple. It was as if the mountain had wanted them to slumber undisturbed, on
and on.
'We have to get down,' Abe said. First it had been Daniel in charge, then Gus.
Now it was his turn. He had to manage this emergency. Gus had said it: He was
the doctor.
He loosened the slip loop around his head and pulled the mask down so that his
words were unobstructed.
'We have to go down,' he repeated. The altitude had eviscerated them. They had
to descend and regroup. They had reached their limit this round.
'We're close.' Daniel's words were muffled by his mask, but his eyes were
glittering with summit fever. He was happy. They had pushed far and even if
descent was in order, there was still time to come back and break through
Everest's glass ceiling. The route's most serious obstacle, the Shoot, was now
tamed. They had captured it with their ropes and it was open to passage. From
here to the summit was only another
2,500 vertical feet, a matter of one more camp, maybe two, a week or a
fortnight, no more, and suddenly it seemed they were very close indeed.
'Close,' Abe agreed. 'But we have to go down.' Descent was imperative. They
had wounds to lick. And with Jorgens and Carlos out of the picture, and Thomas
on his mutiny, the entire effort had to be reassessed. Even if the team could
pull together the numbers for a summit bid, it didn't have the strength just
now. Plainly they had to get down to Base Camp, all of them. Only then could
they hope to launch the final assault. To continue on in their
condition was simply to hand the mountain three victims.
'Yes,' Gus said. 'Down.'
'We'll come back,' said Abe.
'Yes,' Daniel said.
'Let me see your hands.'
Daniel held out his palms. Abe hissed inside his mask. On each hand, the flesh
lay peeled open in long flaps. He cleaned the flaps and laid them in place
and wrapped each hand with white tape. He used a special pattern favored by
boxers and jam crack climbers, thick across the palm, strung between the
fingers. Daniel would need all the extra padding possible for the long rappel
back to ABC tomorrow.
'Anything else?' Abe asked. He knew there was. Daniel had been favouring his
left side ever since arriving at Four.
Daniel removed his jacket and pulled up his sweater and shirts. Wrapped
partway round his rib cage stood a livid bruise the size of a watermelon. The
rock had bounded between his arms, just missing the abdominal cavity. A little
more to the center, the rock might have punched in a whole section of the
Page 94
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
chest wall: flail chest sternum. At this height a flail chest would have
killed him hours ago.
Abe prodded at Daniel's huge rib cage. 'Is this tender? Here? Here?' As he
probed and interrogated, Abe took stock. A gruesome furrow tracked along
Daniel's spine and there were purplish surgery scars on his shoulder and the
half-moons where they'd gone after the tendinitis in his elbows. There were
other old marks on his arms and hands, and compared to these gouges and
furrows and purpled seams, Abe's own climbing scars looked like the
hesitation marks of a fake suicide.
'Could be some hairline cracks,' he said.
'Probably just bruised,' Daniel said.
'You're lucky,' Abe said. He closed Daniel's jacket and started to lay an
oxygen mask over his mouth, but Daniel took hold of his wrist.
'I wondered about you,' he said.
Abe felt his heart sink. At long last, this was it. But why was
Daniel choosing to resurrect the past in this midnight storm so far above
the earth? Their shared past could easily wait. For that matter, it could go
unspoken altogether. Half a lifetime had passed without Abe feeling this need
to dredge up the memory. What did it matter. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]