From his belt pouch Townsend took out a picture, to gaze one last time at his beautiful wife and two fine little boys. I'm sorry, Karen, I thought I could make it. Mike, Petey, I wish I'd gotten to see you grow. A tear welled in his eye. He glanced up the rappelling line, now flailing crazily in the growing darkness.
"Colonel, you can do it!" McGee called, the feigned optimism in his voice all too obvious.
Townsend grabbed the line. "Okay, I'm coming." He looked one more time at his sons. Remember me, boys. Remember how I lived and how I died. A man never gives up.
Townsend pulled on the line and began to haul himself upward, finding hidden reserves of strength somewhere inside. He had not thought himself capable of climbing at all, but he pulled his body upward more with strength of will than the strength of his arms. Incredibly, he ascended more than halfway, lifted by force of spirit—then his luck ran out.
Three-fourths of the way up, an enormous gust crashed him into a rocky outcrop on the cliff face. In the violence of the blow, he lost his grip on the line, which disappeared into the inky darkness, leaving him stranded with one smashed arm and the other clutching weakly to the outcrop itself.
Up at the canyon rim, McGee saw the line go slack and knew that something had gone dreadfully wrong. He yelled into his radio, "Colonel! Are you okay?"
For several seconds, he heard nothing but static. Then a faint answer came back. "I think my arm's broken. I'm on an outcrop."
McGee stared into the swirling maelstrom below. He couldn't see the frayed line, or the ledge, or the man. But the colonel had kept climbing for quite a while. He could be close.
"Can you see anything?" McGee shouted. "What's near you?"
"Only this outcrop." Townsend's answer was barely audible above the radio static caused by the swirling dust. "It looks like a bird's beak."
The beak. McGee had noticed it too. It was only fifty meters down. Fifty impossible meters through gale-blasted freezing darkness. A rescue attempt under these conditions would be insanely reckless. He couldn't possibly do it.
"Hold on, I think I can get you."
"McGee, no!" Townsend's voice carried a kind of panic. "You've got the computer card. Go back to the ship."
The salvaged card would make the ERV flyable, it could let them all get back to Earth. But who would fly the ship? Gwen? Maybe. But can I leave him here?
"I'm coming down," McGee said. He grabbed the rope and prepared to start his descent.
"No. Go back! That's an order!"
McGee hesitated. His mind flashed back to their recent departure from the Beagle. He saw Rebecca looking him in the eye, tenderly telling him to take care. McGee stopped at the edge of the dropoff, then peered down into the swirling dust, concentrating. As if in a vision, he thought he saw Townsend clinging to his outcropping.
"Screw your orders, Colonel," the historian muttered; he grabbed the line and went over the side.
McGee swung wildly in the wind as he slid down the line. He let himself fall a few meters at a time, securing himself after the twentieth drop. He's got to be around here somewhere. McGee peered through the dimness in all directions. He switched on his suit lamp to make himself visible. "Colonel, where are you?"
"Over here, below and to your left."
McGee swiveled his head and searched in the indicated direction. At first he saw nothing but swirling dust, but then the beam fell on his target. Townsend clung grimly to the rocky beak with one arm; the other hung limp. He was five meters below and ten to one side.
"I see you, Colonel! Hold on."
McGee kicked out against the cliff wall to make some horizontal progress, but the wind slammed him back against a different rock protrusion. Fortunately, he managed to swing around and let his legs take the blow, and used the energy of impact to kick out even harder in the correct direction. For several more swings McGee bounced back and forth among various outcroppings, when suddenly he landed on Townsend's rock.
He secured himself by wrapping his legs about it from above. Quickly he reached down and looped a line beneath the commander's armpits, then clamped its end fast to his belt.
Townsend's voice was groggy with pain. "McGee, you're a goddamn anarchist. Wouldn't last a day in the Air Force!"
"I know, sir. Now shut up while I rescue you."
He removed Townsend's pack and threw it into the howling abyss below. Then he fastened another cable through the harness on the back of Townsend's Marsuit and attached it to his own harness, thereby adding the colonel to the load of his own backpack.
"Well, here goes."
McGee grabbed the thrumming rope and began the ascent through the storm. The winds blew him every which way, banging him against nearby outcroppings. With Townsend's additional weight, the going was very hard. But they ascended, one meter at a time.
McGee's arms ached, already strained by overexertion and bruised by impacts. This is impossible, he thought. No it isn't. I'm lifting triple my mass... but this is Mars. I'm just hauling my own weight. It's only hard because of fatigue. His brain tried to exhort his body. You can do it. You can do it... .
Arm over arm he went, using his feet to fend off slamming blows as the riotous winds repeatedly attempted to smash him into the cliff. Suddenly the wind slammed him sideways into an outcrop, and he was caught off guard. The shock of the impact was so great that he lost his grip on the rope. He fell into the dark, and Townsend fell with him.
The wind slapped the rope sharply against his suit, like a whip. The line bounced off, but McGee reached out and made one last desperate grab. He caught the rope, but the shock of jerking his fall to a stop nearly pulled his arm out of its socket. He loosened his grip, and the line ran through his gloved palm. Then somehow he managed to close his hands again, enough to stop the fall. In four terrifying seconds the two men had fallen nearly twenty meters.
They hung together on the strained rope, swinging crazily in the blackness of the storm-darkened night. The colonel was limp and silent, not struggling, not moving at all. McGee was in intense pain; that last grab at the rope had ripped muscles in his left arm.
The temperature outside was minus 70° centigrade, and convection from the roaring winds delivered a brutal chilling signal that cut mercilessly through the high-grade insulation of the Marsuit. A veteran of McKinley and Everest, McGee had always considered himself tough against cold—but this was too much. He began to shiver uncontrollably.
With his strength ebbing and the outside cold increasing, McGee knew he had only minutes left. Climb. His arms were not strong enough, but he still had strength in his legs. If only he could use them. Climb!
Or else they would both die.
The wind swung him around toward the cliff face again, and he saw his chance. He brought his feet around, restraining his instincts to fend off the rock, and instead used the impact to try to run up the cliff. It almost worked.
For a second as his legs compressed to take the blow, then expanded again, the dominant acceleration vector on the two men was horizontal, with the downward pointing gravity of Mars creating a moderate apparent uphill slope. But as soon as the expansion was over, McGee lost all traction and he began to fall again. He stopped the fall by quickly hauling in the slack in the line.
They had made three meters.
The wind banged him sideways into the cliff, but somehow he held the line, repositioned his feet, and during impact made another several meters' progress in his bizarre run up the side of the cliff. He could not see the top, could not think about how far he had left to climb. He repeated the impact-and-scramble again and again, more times than he could count.