“Yeah,” she says. “I remember. I put a hundred kcal into the pool that he took from us.”
“Well, a guy who would do something like that for a couple of dinners isn’t going to flinch at a little rock climbing.”
“Maybe,” she says. “Look, though. He’s stuck.”
I push my ocular to max magnification. She’s right. He looks like he’s in an okay place at the moment, with both feet on a narrow ledge a few meters higher than where he’d been before and his right hand wrapped around a gnarled knob of granite. His left hand, though, is about a half meter short of the next solid hold. As I watch, he stretches and leans, his right hand almost coming free of its grip, but unless he’s got a limb extender in there it’s not going to work.
“You’re right,” I say. “Doesn’t matter, though. He’s just gonna have to back down, try to find another—”
He jumps.
Two hundred meters up a sheer granite cliff face, with no safety equipment and a fifteen-kilo pack on his back, Berto Gomez gathers himself, and jumps.
Cat sucks in air and takes a half step back.
Needless to say, Berto makes the catch.
The new hold is a deep horizontal crack in the rock. Berto gets both hands into it, swings briefly, and then finds a hold with his right foot, steadies, and stands.
“Holy God,” Cat says.
“Yeah,” I say. “You see what I mean?”
After a brief pause to wipe the sweat from first one hand, then the other, Berto keeps climbing.
<RedHawk>: That was fun. Can I do it again?
<Mickey7>: You’re the goddamned worst.
<RedHawk>: Did you see the jump?
<Mickey7>: Yeah, Berto. We saw the jump.
<RedHawk>: Pretty sweet, right?
<Mickey7>: The god. Damned. Worst.
<RedHawk>: Anyway, it’s nice up here. The view is unbelievable. I can see all the way back to the ridgeline.
<Mickey7>: Great. Let us know if anything is sneaking up on us, huh?
<RedHawk>: Will do. Speaking of which, I’m kind of wishing I’d brought a weapon with me. If anything catches me here, I’m pretty much defenseless.
<Mickey7>: Yeah, well. We’re all taking our chances at the moment.
<RedHawk>: Truth. What’s your plan down there, by the way?
<Mickey7>: Honestly? I don’t really have one. I’m just kind of letting events carry me, at this point. Hopefully Speaker comes back, or the local creepers send a Prime up to talk to me.
<RedHawk>: And if neither of those things happens?
<Mickey7>: I don’t know, man. My best guess would be that we sit here until something kills us or we all die of thirst, but I’m definitely open to suggestions.
<RedHawk>: I’ll let you know if anything comes to me.
<Mickey7>: Unrelated, and I know I probably should have asked you this before, but do you have enough charge in your thrusters to get back to the dome from here?
<RedHawk>: An excellent question.
<Mickey7>: Thanks. Got an excellent answer?
<RedHawk>: I do not.
<Mickey7>: And if you don’t?
<RedHawk>: Even without the thrusters, this thing still works as a glider. I guess I’ll need to figure out how to ride a thermal.
<Mickey7>: Either that or how to walk home.
<RedHawk>: Right. That.
Right around sunset, Nasha groans, rolls onto her side, and pushes herself up into a sitting position. I kneel down next to her and touch her shoulder.
“Hey,” I say. “How’re you feeling?”
She blinks, rubs her face with both hands, and then rolls her head around in a slow, lazy circle. “Honestly? Better, I think.”
I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “Oh God. That’s fantastic. You scared the hell out of me.”
Her eyes narrow. “What are you talking about, Mickey? We’re still all going to die here. Does it really matter if it’s from a brain bleed, or creepers, or just waiting around until we all dry up and blow away?”
“No,” I say. “I don’t think we’re going down here. I’ve actually been feeling more optimistic as the day has worn on. If the creepers were planning to kill us, they would have done it by now, right?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know, babe. I gave up trying to figure out what these things are thinking a while ago. Anyway, even if they don’t, we still die of thirst.”
“I’ve got a plan for that. Berto’s making an emergency supply run back to the dome tomorrow.”
“Okay,” she says. “That gets us, what, four or five liters? Enough for another day?”
I shrug. “Then I send him again.”
She laughs. “You’ve got this all figured out, huh?”
“Absolutely. All part of the master plan.”
After a few moments of silence, Nasha says, “I’m not so sure I trust that the creepers are going to leave us alone here.”
“We don’t want them to leave us alone. We want them to come out here and talk to us. We want them to give us our bomb back, remember?”
“Sure,” Nasha says. “That’s the stretch goal. In the meantime, I’d be happy if they just didn’t eat us—and I have to say, they haven’t done anything so far to give me much confidence. I mean, what was that with Speaker? They killed him, right?”
I shrug. “Did they? Or did they just drag him away?”
“They bit through the back of his neck.”
“Yeah, that’s true, but you’re making a lot of assumptions about what kills a creeper, aren’t you? I mean, does he even have a spine to sever? Where is his brain? For all we know, it’s in his tail.”
She sighs. “He went completely limp, Mickey. He looked awfully damn dead to me.”
I’d like to argue, but she makes a good point.
“You could be right,” I say. “The thing is, though—they didn’t kill us. They could have, but they didn’t. That’s got to mean something.”
“True,” she says. “Doesn’t matter, though. Without Speaker, we can’t talk to them. If we can’t talk to them, we can’t ask for the bomb. If we can’t get the bomb back from them, we’re all dead when winter comes, whether they kill us here or not.”
“No,” I say. “That’s not gonna happen. Just watch. This is all going to work itself out.”
“You got a plan?”
I grin and cup her cheek in one hand. “Don’t need a plan, homie. I’ve got you.”
She punches me, hard enough to knock me onto my backside.
“You’re an idiot,” she says. “You know that, right?”
I scoot closer to her, lean forward, and rest my forehead against hers. “Maybe. I’m your idiot, though.”
She lifts both of our rebreathers just long enough to kiss me.
“You are,” she says. “You really, really are.”
JAMIE VOLUNTEERS TO take first watch. He’s been sitting there staring at the opening all day anyway, so it’s not much of a change for him, I guess. Nasha’s not tired now, so I settle in with my head in her lap. I’m just starting to drift when my ocular pings.
<RedHawk>: You sleeping down there?
<Mickey7>: Not yet. I was kind of planning on it, though.
<RedHawk>: Not gonna lie, Mickey. I’m not too happy right now. I’m hungry and thirsty, and I’m kind of nervous that if I go to sleep, something’s gonna eat me.
<Mickey7>: That’s weird, because we’re having a great time down here.
<Mickey7>: Hey—how much weight can you carry with that glider?
<RedHawk>: Hard to say. The more I’m carrying, the harder the thrusters have to work to keep me airborne, so it depends on how far I’m going, I guess.
<Mickey7>: I was wondering what the chances would be of you getting back to the dome, fetching us some supplies, and making it back without dying. We can probably hold out for another day down here without water, but I don’t think much beyond that.