Forbidden Summit

By Kirk J. Pocan

Danvedi Garwal is the highest peak in the Toribol system; a magnificent stratocone volcano rising high above the surface of the tiny Lochlon moon, Utha. The mountain remains unconquered after repeated attempts by climbers from dozens of worlds where alpine climbing is an interplanetary obsession. Now, Alois Anwar will finally get his chance to lead a group of the finest mountaineers alive to the top. But there is more to the challenge than reaching the summit. The Amanian ascent team faces political complications from a rival nemisis Trescan team advancing on the opposite side of the mountain, along with everything else the mountain throws at them including deadly parasites, period cyclones, ice worms, pagan myths, the hopelessness of failure and the greatest obstacle of all...themselves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fiction4All
• Release date: Aug 9, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005298272

Book preview

FORBIDDEN SUMMIT

Kirk J. Pocan

Published by Fiction4All (Double Dragon imprint) at Smashwords

Copyright 2023 Kirk J. Pocan

This Edition - 2023

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Cover art by Mirna Gilman

Chapter 1

Another blast of wind funneled down the slope and ripped open the body sled that Skodad hauled up from the Spider's Nest where his comrade perished. This time the gale blew the sled up in the air, tearing the anchor straps loose and throwing the corpse down the slope. The lifeless torso bounced down the ridge where it cart-wheeled into a small snow saddle, slammed into an ice horn, and came to a stop.

Skodad sucked in another hard-earned breath of air, the cold piercing his lungs. He raised his eye visor with one hand and peered straight up the mountain. Swirling clouds of vapor raced around in the fury of the screaming wind. He closed his fist, punched at the air, and spit hard on the ground.

Bitch is gonna kill us all.

Come on, don't give this thing a personality, it's a chunk of ice and rock. We die here, we make our own grave. We keep fighting, we march to the summit. Darius said, planting a green palm on his finest climber's right shoulder.

No, there's something else here, Skodad said, brushing particles of ice from the bony mantle across his thick brow ridge. She works to kill us, I can feel it. He wanted off the mountain. Reaching the summit of the highest unclimbed peak in the Toribol System was one thing. Enduring the torture of an agonizing death march without hope of success was quite another. He was sure now that nobody climbs to the summit of Danvedi Garwal. Nobody ever had and nobody ever would. This close to the summit, the truth was as clear as a king’s command.

I'll go down, get the body. He was cold and tired and the ice worked it’s numbing cold under his leathery hide, piercing through his thick armor of worn, scaled flesh. Still, Druitt tradition compelled him to carry all dead climbers to the summit, just as on any climb. Besides, he’d dropped the carcass. It was his fault. He’d have to go down and get the body.

Sit tight, we got at least two climbers down in the saddle. Can't move in this wind anyway, Darius said, dropping a nictitating membrane across one black pupil, shielding it from the knife-blade particles of ice blowing in the winds. He planted his green tail in the ice and leaned back on it, hoping to anchor down and break some of the wind away from his battered physique.

A few klicks down the slope, an ice horn toppled free from a crack in its girth. It log-rolled down the glissade trail left in the snow by the tumbling carcass. Hitting a small rise in the ice, it jumped end over end and began accelerating. The huge horn carved out deep grooves in the slope, slicing up the ridge with its cutting edge, crushing trees and vegetation in its path.

Near the saddle where the carcass lay, two Druitt climbers froze, not knowing whether to move or stand, trying to outguess the pathway of the ice bomb. The horn screamed down the ridge and flew into the saddle with the force of a tornado.

The collapsed horn rammed into the snow depression and exploded, churning up the two climbers and the carcass in a giant white cloud. Fallen debris stretched halfway up the mountain.

Several Druitt climbers rushed to help before the blast settled out, scooping out piles of snow where their comrades lay buried. Skodad raced down the ridge to help, knowing it was futile. Nothing alive could have survived the ice horn avalanche. Even an armored mobile cannon would have been crushed to pieces.

Skodad reached the saddle and helped dig. In a short while, he abandoned the rescue attempt and climbed back up the ridge. His huge barrel chest heaved up in spasm and he spat green fluid on the icy ridge. He reached the Captain, who lay spread out on the ridge top.

Five dead already and we haven't reached the Staircase. She picks us off, one at a time, like brushing dust off her apron. She will kill us all. Skodad grabbed his right shoulder and winced. Another lightning bolt of pain shot into his lower back. He felt internal pain and a rattle in his lungs. Something was torn or ruptured, bringing up more green blood and fluid every few steps he took.

Captain, let's get the hell out and turn back. No shame in it. Skodad released the safety line from his waist harness and tossed it into the snow. He'd had enough of this damn obsessive quest for the top of this cold, bleak chunk of rock that brought nothing but suffering and tragedy.

And the Druitt pledge?

To hell with the pledge.

You let the great mountain beat you just like that. Especially you. You take a thousand summits, how many first ascents and now you want to turn back. Here?

We're beat. She wins this time. You just don't know it yet, Skodad ran both digits on his right extremity down the safety line, checking for fabric tears.

We have supplies. Plenty of food. We are still strong, twelve climbers. The weather will clear.

You want to lose more climbers?

We lose climbers. It happens. You know that. You climbed on Tys, in the Crystals. What about Lagahari, and Dagroon, on Mont? What is wrong with you? Don't forget the pledge.

I never climb for the pledge. Never have. I climb for me. There, you have it. There it is. Now let’s get the hell out.

We take the summit at any cost, remember? We take the dead up too and if we can't do that, we eat them. Then we carry their spirit to the top. One way or another, we all go.

Captain, I'm not eating anybody. Skodad pulled his right glove off with his teeth and tossed it into the empty body cart. A wave of nausea swept through his diaphragm. His vision blurred and his legs began to quiver.

We're beaten here Captain, got nuthin' left. None of us. Can't you see that.

We quit now, our dead linger here forever. We go home in disgrace. Might as well be dead.

You want to die, Captain? Another stabbing pain jolted through his thorax. Hot steel on his belly wouldn’t have hurt any more. He doubled over and choked. Bright green blood filled his mouth. He spit it out.

The mountain stretched out under them like a vast empty sea interrupted by only a single tiny raft of survivors paddling towards a virgin island summit. There, a paradise of conquest would be theirs. A conquest many others had failed, thousands of climbers from hundreds of worlds over eons of time.

Far below, the Gankri River traced a tiny blue pathway up through the Mephridel basin, meeting the headwall of the great Uthan volcano. The mountain dominated the landscape across the tiny moon, resembling the rule of a great monarch queen, as it stretched its fertile slopes into the Troutle village and the distant blue spires of Fanlahalay.

The Druitts had bloodied themselves along the way, losing comrades in the river-ways and on the slopes, but managing a classic advance on the treacherous peak. Yet for all their technique, they had no hold on the mountain. Victory was illusive, even near the final base camp, with the summit close enough to spit at.

Above the ridge, green-black storm clouds parted enough to open a hole in the sky. Something big tried to poke through, something big and out of proportion. A skyscraper in the desert.

The Captain moved his eyes up the ridge, following the clearing.

Look.

Skodad strained his blurred eyes to focus on the terraced blue platform of ice that crawled up the split vertical wall before disappearing again behind the edge of the storm vapors.

The wall?

Got to be. The Grand Staircase, finally. Look at that.

Skodad's heart danced. He rose up straight. The pain went away.

Still want to turn back, Skodad?

Summit's just beyond the top of the wall?

Maybe. Don't know for sure. Nobody's ever been up there, remember?

The ridge raced over to a bergschrund, an impossible gap that split the ice wall from its trailing ridge. Beyond the gap, the Grand Staircase bolted straight up out of the mountain's girth, cutting sharp edges at perfect right angles, as if carved from a blueprint. Terraced sapphire platforms of solid glacial ice, eons old, climbed the wall, disappeared in the Uthan sky and trailed off to the summit horn.

It's an ice ladder. A damn ladder. All the way up. Skodad said.

Ice on the wall cracked without pause, making ominous sounds in the wind. Above each platform of ice were ridges and gaps laced with crevasses pulling apart in constant contraction and expansion.

Well, what about it Skodad? A great conquest stands at our feet. You still punished with the Uthan fairy tales?

Skodad felt like a child with a stolen toy. He wanted to climb, but knew he shouldn't.

It's only a mountain Skodad. A big rock. It's got no spirit.

Skodad filled his huge chest with alpine air, then managed a grin through the bony plates in his dark green mandible, Oh hell, let’s get everybody up there, rope gun over to the wall.

Excellent. Storm's breakin' up. No better time.

Skodad began to move again, his bones grating together. Even his tail dragged limp, almost useless now after thousands of klicks of constant pounding into the side of the mountain. His thick scaled hide and stout barrel-chest body was wearing out. Maybe he'd find one final burst out of his hammered body and crawl up the thing and finish it. Just one last push, agony for sure, but the end was close.

The wind died down and the mountain came to life again, white and proud, smelling of the purest alpine air and gleaming like a polished crystal. But his pain hung on like a chronic disease that never quit, and he spat bright green blood on the white snow.

Behind him he counted his twelve Druitt companions dragging up the mountain, wounded, half-lame and suffering. He pitied them, the poor bastards, crawling up the treacherous bitch mountain, carting the dead carcasses of their comrades with them. It was a pitiful vigil of vanity, a tragic and futile reminder that his culture was marred with the illusion of glory. They might as well be marching unarmed into a firefight with the Coryellions or holed up in some awful battle trench fighting the Banish.

He jammed his steel chooloon into the packed snow. A chorus of crunching boot spikes hitting the icy slope filled his ears as his comrades sunk into the blue-white ice. Not a word escaped from the mouths of his weary Druitt climbing companions. He heard only the continual crunching and scraping of steel spikes sinking into snow and ice, like the rhythmic beat of soft, steady drumming.

Above the climbers, Skodad turned around and watched a cloudbank clear, opening a window behind them. The distant blue spires of Fanlahalay poked through the opening. Beyond the spires, the deep turquoise headwaters of the Gankri River raced off and disappeared under the headwall of the mountain.

Skodad pushed his way up the ridge, reaching the edge of the bergschrund, examining the great ice wall across the open gap. The wall looked even bigger. He stared at it while the others reached the edge, peering straight up into the cloud vapor, searching for the top and some clue of the final route to the summit path.

The Druitt climbers crawled up to the edge of the bergschrund. They ripped open bundles of wall hardware while stepping into safety harness webbing that would be their lifeline.

We rope gun over, get everybody on the wall. Gotta move up fast on the thing, that way maybe we bivvy on one of the ice platforms before dark, Skodad said, wiping tiny shards of ice from the mantle above one brow ridge. A thousand tiny crystals of ice remained wedged in between the scaled folds in his face, forcing him to shake his head every few moments.

Weather might come back, damn purple clouds are moving around the west col again, the Captain said.

Skodad loaded an explosion cartridge into the chamber of the rope gun and aimed at the wall across the chasm. He fired. The cartridge flared across the opening trailed by the rope and a haze of blue smoke. The anterior blade-edge of the cartridge blasted into the wall and anchored, scattering a cloud of blue ice fragments into the chasm.

Love these Amanian rope guns, Skodad said, pulling clumps of ice off his boots.

I’m sure all of Ama would be pleased to hear that we will reach the summit with the help of their fine technology.

Hey, it’s a free market. Anyway maybe it’s their stuff, but it’s our blood.

Well said.

Skodad grabbed the rope and tied on. So, you think the summit is close?

Close enough. Think about it, we're gonna be first. First on the thing. A thousand expeditions have failed, nobody gets up there. Until now.

We carve out a little notch in history, huh?

A little? They'll erect monuments to honor this climb. Every school kid in Toribol will know your name. They’ll sing ballads for us, places like Ama, Talabreen, Horlon, a hundred worlds. Let me tell you, they will never forget, something like this, the Captain raised both palms, In all of Toribol, all the climbs, only a handful ever even reached the Staircase. We're here now, we keep going a little bit more, a little luck, we're on top soon.

Now you're a poet?

Sure, I'm a poet, if it works for you. Whatever it takes to get you up this thing.

And I'm a fool. Skodad said, leaping off the edge of the bergschrund and sailing across the chasm. He rammed into the ice wall and prepared for the ascent. He leaned back on his tail and waved at the others across the chasm. A dozen rope guns blasted their anchor ropes across the gap, plunging into the ice.

The Druitts began the final push up the Grand Staircase. They moved in columns of three, climbing up each ice platform and then pushing on with the energy of a training crew on graduation day.

Skodad pushed back the pain in his chest, forcing it to hide behind thoughts of conquest. He struggled up the ice, a few clicks ahead of his Druitt team, leading them towards the summit and a glory beyond anything they could imagine. For now, he had abandoned his fear and the vanity of success filled his mind. The captain was right; fame would find them. Their lives would be legendary, with all the honor of high military recognition. He rambled up the ice. He wouldn't stop now, or complain anymore. The end of the thing was a day's effort away.

He hammered a sink nail just below a lip of ice and clipped the rope through the eyelet. He pulled up on the rope and moved a few clicks higher, jamming a boot spike into the ice. Then, a sudden roar froze him in mid-stride. It was the familiar sound of a huge volume of snow moving fast.

What is it Skodad? the captain yelled out, just below him.

Don't know. Looks like an ice crack. Sit tight.

The ice split pulled open and crawled down the wall like paper tearing along a pre-folded crease. The ice crack roared by Skodad. It ripped down one side, across the top of the team and down the other, yanking apart tons of blue ice and crumbling into the crack along the perimeter.

The damn thing surrounds us, split up both sides. Look at that! the captain yelled at Skodad, twisting his head around to watch the ice gap zipper down the wall. The gap raced down the wall and disappeared into a mist. The edges of the crack began to collapse, pulling chunks of ice as big as buildings off the staircase.

Skodad held tight to his lifeline. The ice crack collapse rumbled under him. The avalanche reached the Druitt climbers. There was nowhere to run and nothing to do but hold on.

Drop off the line Skodad, it's our only chance! The captain screamed.

No, we ride it out, all the way. Hang on.

The ice peeled away under the climbers thrusting them off the wall and into the explosion of ice and snow. A city-sized debris flow carrying fractured stone, mud and rock particles followed, all flowing down the wall towards the bergschrund below. The Druitt climbers flew off the wall into the ice avalanche. They plunged down the mountain, heading into the mouth of the bergschrund at the base of the wall. Ropes, boots, sleds and bodies disappeared into the chasm, along with the girth of the giant ice avalanche.

The tail end of the avalanche slammed into the base, thrusting a giant column of white mist up the staircase. The cloud rose towards the summit and circled the entire peak.

High on the wall a patch of exposed stone the size of a small city laid bare under one limb of the blue ice staircase. A massive lateral crack streaked down the wall on either side of the exposed stone.

Wisps of moisture floated in the air until winds carried the vapors away and diluted them into the atmosphere. The wall grew silent again, standing guard over the great peak and its virgin summit, except for the occasional groan of a creaking ice column, or the low drag of a glacier moving across basement rock.

Nothing alive remained on the great ice wall, except for a species of a tiny insect that crawled along stone recesses in the ice cracks, eking out a marginal existence at extreme altitude in an environment of brutal hostility.

Chapter 2

Arius rubbed his palms across his forehead and inhaled, letting out a long sigh of fatigue. He’d been on the bench all day without even a hint of a break, and the monotony was killing him, not to mention the double shift he’d pulled two days ago covering for his vacationing comrades. He hated the vacation zone and his ongoing low seniority. It would be another three seasons before he’d qualify for some time off. The stress was unbearable. He might as well be in prison.

He manned one of thirty-four radar stations in the scanning tower, a structure that Ama dumped a pretty fair chunk of cash into. The tower kept track of vehicles moving around in the Toribol system, focusing on military launches, especially those heading anywhere near Ama or any of her tributary planets and moons. Inside the tower divided into two rooms with long sterile rows of flat benches surrounded by cubicles and scanning monitors where technicians and operators divided their time watching the heavens for movement. Most of the time the monitor’s scanned nothing but empty space for weeks and months, picking up satellite debris, space junk and an occasional commercial flight full of tourists. Arius spent the better part of his career parked behind these scanners. A parking attendant saw more action in a week than he did in half a lifetime.

Today, as always, not a blip on the screen and just keeping his eyelids propped open required more effort than he could manage. Then, just before his elbow slipped off the counter, he caught a solid dot moving along a corridor that could only be the escape lane above Tys.

Hey, I got a cruiser here, looks like Tys, maybe military, I don’t know.

The crew Chief moved in front of the screen and scratched his chin. That’s not a cruiser. It’s not even military, movin' too slow and it’s way too small. The crew chief looked at the numbers along the edges of the radar trace. It’s Tys though, look at the co-ordinates, he backed up a step, pushed his lower lip out and closed one eye, Trescan alright. What’re they up to now?

Arius fumbled around with his sky charts while a group of Amanian techs moved around his desk. He plugged the co-ordinates into his sequence trace analyzer and waited. He’d never even used the thing. The Unity spent a fortune on the upgrades, selling it to the public as a military deterrent, a tool that would keep an eye on every move the Trescans made, every satellite launch and any other space worthy vehicle moving off the nearby planet, military or commercial.

He pulled the result sheet from the analyzer. Looks like they’re headed out to the gas giants. Maybe Lochlon.

Naw, the crew chief yanked the paperwork from Arius, can’t land on a gas giant. Come on, fine-tune that thing, you got what you need there. And hurry up. We got to let the premier know. How stupid do you think we’ll look if we give him the wrong destination?

Arius knew the crew chief was right. Why the hell would anyone travel to Lochlon? What was he thinking? Anyway, things were heating up, and fast. What if the Trescans were launching one of their military probes, starting more colonial quests that would drag Ama into another Trolo war? Anything could be happening.

He dropped the co-ordinates into a sub-routine program, pretended to punch code and prayed that the thing would work. The chief and most of the radar wing were bearing down on him like a team of surgeons watching him cut into his first patient.

He pulled the new info out of the sequencer. This time he handed it to the chief. The chief handed it back.

No, you read it, it’s your job.

Arius read the report. Utha. It says Utha. It’s a moon. One of the moons, Lochlon.

This time the crew chief bent over and read the report without snatching it away. Utha?

He spun around and stared at the ceiling. He dropped his head and put his hands on his hips.

Trescans on Utha? Why? There’s nuthin there. No fuel, no resources, nothing accessible, it’s not worth a damn.

Arius felt compelled to respond, I dunno. It’s a tourist destination, you now beaches, rivers, mountains, that sort of thing.

Trescans on vacation. I don’t think so, they don’t do that. What do they know about havin' fun? He leaned over the radar screen and studied the trace on the grid. Can you get me ground trajectory, maybe some dimensions on the vehicle, let's take a good look at her and see what we really got here?

Arius pulled out a Toribol satellite directory. How else was he supposed to find dimensions on the launch? Did the chief think he could remote view across space? He thumbed through the directory and plugged in flight path co-ordinates. The scanner gave him a grid of the most likely launch sites.

Western Hemisphere, let’s see, looks like Trailabar or Kren, temperate province.

Trailabar I bet. Kren’s not serviceable, not since Trolo. Anyway, it ain’t military, the chief scratched his chin, Trailabar’s commercial, nuthin but miners and merchants comin' out of there. Doesn’t make a bit of sense. There’s absolutely nuthin of any value on Utha, not a horn’s tool of ore, no fuel, food or jewels. The chief looked down at the book Arius was flipping through.

What’s the directory say?

Ah, lemme see. Trailabar just lists all the merchant ships, freighters, drill rigs, exploration, some commercial flights….

Exploration?

Yeah, mapping, mining, minerals, trekking, climbing, diving, seismic studies.

Wait, wait, hold it up, the crew chief slapped a palm to his forehead. I think I know what they’re up to. He leaned over the scanner and started punching code and babbling like a school kid. Check the charts, what’s the weather like on Utha now. What season is it, check it out. His eyes darted from the grid screen to the directory. A few drops of sweat plunged off his forehead and dripped on the book, leaving a series of star shaped stains on the page. Arius pretended not to notice.

Where, ahh, where on Utha? Arius stuttered. He had no idea what the chief was up to. Neither did anyone else.

Come on, it ain’t that big, check the river basin, the Gankri River, Mephridel.

Arius scrambled through the directory again finding the Gankri River in scenic exploration.

Here it is, the weather’s good now, in fact prime, says it’s high travel season.

Exactly.

It goes on…let’s see, the high season also opens a brief window of opportunity for climbing teams to challenge the great peak, Danvedi Garwal, located at the terminus of the Mephridel-Gankri River headwall east of the Fanlahalay highlands.

The crew chief pointed a finger at his radio relay operator. Get the Premier’s first aide on the line, what’s his name, Tekus? I don’t care if he’s parked his fat butt in bed, tell them it’s a first alert. Maybe that’ll get his attention. Do it now!

The Amanian high Premier scrolled through a ledger of appointments in his foyer at the palace. There was the usual stack of requests from every province in the territory, including letters from military leaders and police officials to meet with him and discuss every small issue that they could not resolve themselves, for reasons that seemed trivial and stupid to him. Along with that, another mountain of data demanded his attention. Most of it included endless propositions for amendments to existing legal issues that the Unity bench had finalized for his approval. Nowhere in any of the reports and stacks of ledgers was there anything even remotely interesting, or something that might require even a hint of challenge. Today’s work at hand facing the Amanian Premier would bore a file clerk silly.

The foyer sat under a domed ceiling where a dozen useless but beautifully sculpted glass chandeliers dropped below, hanging over a marbled floor so clean that it was almost transparent. Inside the empty auditorium sized foyer, the Premier sat at a big lonely desk centered over the apex of the ceiling dome. The desk was surrounded by stacks of ledgers, reports, data and binders, some of which had found their way to the marbled floor under the desk, while others teetered on the edges of the pulpit.

The Premier’s first aide entered the foyer hall with an obvious hitch in his usual lazy stroll. His normally placid expression had turned sour, as if he carried news of some consequence for a change. In any event, the Premier was secretly glad to see the fat, bald little body waddle into the room, rescuing him from a mountain of paperwork. Maybe he’d dump some of the meaningless appointment requests, requisitions, legal drafts and other political banter onto his assistant for a change. After all, that’s what he was there for.

Tekus, what is it, you look like you can’t find our way out of the stunted forest, he grinned.

The aide stopped in his tracks. The scanning tower, they just picked up a Trescan launch, to Utha, of all places.

Utha? the Premier’s expression froze, his bushy eyebrows wrenching together with a powerful frown. His brilliant mind quickly scanned through an extensive mental list of possible reasons for the Trescan launch before whittling the alternatives down to two or three likely scenarios. One emerged.

They’re going to climb the mountain!

Yes, exactly, that’s what we think-it’s an exploratory launch, we think…

Oh, yes, of course you think so. They’re going to Danvedi. Well, we’ll have to get a team together right away.

The aide’s face flushed to a creamy white paste. He dropped both arms. We couldn’t finance a climb right now, the treasury just dumped its budget on military upgrades, you know that, you approved the requests.

Yes, I know I did, the Premier stood and sauntered around the foyer floor, dropping his head and folding his arms behind his back. His sandals kicked up the long robe he wore, each step jarring the robe free from its drag across the marbled floor, how much do we have in our campaign reserve?

The campaign fund? Tekus looked puzzled, we tap into those and we’ll drop off the polls. We need every half crown, every three-stone. We can’t afford it.

The Premier stopped and glared at his fat little staff member. He looked like he was about to unleash his first brigade into battle. Then he smiled, We can’t afford not to.

Tekus shook his head, What does that mean?

What do we look like, right now, in the polls?

Today?

Now.

We dropped four points last week, Antarian worked us pretty good on the military spending, you know we got a whole generation of voters who’ve never seen a war. Anyway, we’re down eleven overall.

You see, we can’t afford not to send a team to Utha.

Tekus walked to a cushioned armchair and plopped down in it, Please, let me in on it. Why would we do such a thing?

Come on, you don’t see the opportunity? When the door opens, and it’s not often, you’ve got to step inside. The Premier waved a finger at Tekus. I suppose it’s a good thing you aren’t running the campaign. Listen here, we produce a team of our best climbers and send them off to climb Danvedi. We monitor the climb, every inch of it, we challenge the Trescans up the summit and we get there first. The first to climb the great peak, ever, and we crush the Trescans, beat them with superior resources, skill, courage and talent. The public will gleam with pride.

And gladly re-elect the ruling party, responsible for such a noble achievement?

Of course.

Well, I suppose it would rally the public. The timing certainly couldn’t be any better.

The Premier flashed a grin from his long angular face. Rally the public? They’ll knock each other over to get to the polls. We’ll dominate every province.

The climb is a political statement, then?

Of course. Nothing more profound. We climb Danvedi. We beat the Trescans. The Premier had his hands in the air.

Tekus seemed convinced. Then he grimaced, and if we lose?

The Premier hadn’t considered it, but was unmoved. We have nothing to lose, at this point, do we?

Tekus didn’t dissect the remark. He seemed resigned to the truth. I suppose you’re right.

The Premier wandered back to his desk and sat down. He gleamed like a kid with a new toy.

Put it together. Today, and get the Unity Bench together sometime soon, we’ll formalize the climb, he leaned back and placed both hands on his knees, and then get back in here and help me with some of this data.

Chapter 3

Commander Alois Andar yanked the daily mail from the deposit box and searched for the stamped ministry envelope, his big hands scattering the pile of letters like a kid looking for a prize in a cereal box. Rumors spreading all over Ama told him the letter was due any day.

Just one glorious shot at Danvedi, one chance, that’s all he wanted, one government sponsored attempt with a team of the best climbers on Ama. He’d seen enough remote, isolated climbs on uninhabited worlds where no one would send their worst enemy. Besides, nobody cared about those dirty little planets and moons, hiding in forgotten corners of planetary systems long abandoned. That is, nobody except a few fat cats on the Unity Bench that might just get their name on a map, after a filthy slag heap of a mountain they’d never even laid eyes on.

Finding nothing of interest, he turned back to the deposit box and slammed the lid open, piercing the cavity with his cobalt blue eyes. He grabbed deep into the box, leaning into the opening with his middle aged torso. He scrambled his long fingers around inside, searching for an envelope that might be stuck in the rear.

There’d be no more government climbs of notable challenge and exploration. The Bench knew damn well; he was through-except for one climb. They all knew that, everybody did. Now, the opportunity loomed, after so many years. Danvedi robbed his youth, leaving his heart empty with opportunity that never came. But the passion still burned. He could still embrace the obsession and sacrifice anything, maybe everything, to climb Danvedi Garwal.

He groped around the rear of the box, pulling out a clump of letters rammed into a crack and pulled out one sterile white envelope. He ripped it open. The fine stationery and odor of dried ink gave it away. Ministry correspondence smelled like his grandfather’s study, full of ancient relics and antique books with yellowed pages. His blood pressure surged. He stumbled back inside and paced around in circles, holding the letter to his nose.

Alois’ wife, Wintara, caught him fumbling with the letter. She recognized the ministry format.

I’d say bad news the way you’re burnin' a hole in that letter from the Bench. Another staff reorganization? she said, strolling across the apartment towards her husband, kicking the bottom edge of her satin robe with bare feet.

Don’t think so, looks like, I don’t know, some kind of exploratory summons. Hold on, let me read it.

Oh great, another mapping expedition no one will ever use, sure. Why don’t they get the trainees to do that, you know, the ones that aren’t married, maybe don’t have families. You’d think they could do that, anyway. she said, her golden hair flowing along the crest of her right shoulder where it draped over her back and ran down near her waist.

No, it’s no survey request, Alois said, hesitating in mid-sentence, it’s a climb.

Wintara rolled her eyes and snapped her head back, forcing hair out of her face and over her right shoulder.

Climbing? I thought you said you were all through with that?

Well, I guess I’m still breathin', I got a pulse don’t I? Suppose I’ll keep climbin' till I drop over dead at my desk, Alois joked, sorry, honey, it’s a first ascent, an opportunity. Alois left his mouth half open, his sharp chin ahead of his upper jaw.

And that makes it better? Come on, we talked, you remember. Wintara grabbed a cup of ruid extract from the dispenser and sipped it. Where this time?

Looks like Utha. Alois cringed. Now came the hard part.

Utha? The Lochlon moon?

It’s one of them, Alois bit his lip, finished reading the note, pounded his right foot into the floor and clenched one hand into the countertop, it’s about time, he paced around staring at the ceiling, I can’t believe it. He punched at the air.

What are you talking about?

It’s Danvedi. They want to do Danvedi. After half a lifetime, I tried a hundred times, maybe a thousand times to get it approved a long time ago. You remember.

Isn’t that the one nobody comes back on?

Alois composed himself. Now all he needed to do was convince Wintara. It’s a first ascent, honey-the thing’s never been climbed, not to the top anyway. I mean, it’s the highest mountain in Toribol. I can retire after this, we’ll be rich.

Sure, rich and maybe dead. She moved closer to her husband, her angry green eyes widened. I know about Utha. I remember now. My brother told me stories, primitives and pagans. And that mountain, all the young climbers, they go there to die, that’s all.

Alois marched over to Wintara and squeezed her