The Bell made a jarring launch from the USARP expedition camp where it had dropped its load of survival bags, having been forced to touch down at an angle in the steep-walled trench where the dome tents were clustered.
Nimec felt its sudden acceleration in his stomach as Granger throttled up. He held onto the sides of his tagalong seat though he was buckled and strapped in tight.
He glanced out his window. The scientific team that had called out for extra supplies — they had introduced themselves as micropaleontologists, mentioning something to Nimec about collecting flake-sized remnants of fossilized mollusks — stood waving at the bird in appreciation, arms high against a white background.
It struck him that Scarborough and his team must have looked much the same when Granger had become the last known person in the world to set eyes on them.
Then tents and expeditioners alike dwindled to vibrant orange specks under the chopper’s skids, and blanked out of sight as Granger flared off above two spiring crystal-cathedral seracs.
“I’ll have to see if we get any more urgent hails, but so far we’re in good shape,” he said. “One more scheduled inspection, a fill-up at the Marble Point fuel dump, and I think we’ll be all right to head into the valleys.”
Nimec turned his head from the window to look at him.
“I’ll be here,” he said.
“The reason they use bamboo for wands is that it can bend a hell of a lot before it breaks, and is almost climate-proof… I think it has something to do with the fibre density,” Granger said above the flap of his chopper’s rotors. “You can spot them up ahead, straight out to starboard.”
Nimec gazed down at the rows of marker wands with their orange and green flags. Granger had explained that they were planted to guide traversers and field parties across crevasse fields, steering them safely around the dangerous fissures. The purpose of his aerial survey, he’d said, was to make sure the bamboo staves hadn’t toppled, gotten their flags shorn away, or been drifted over in the storm’s gale-force winds.
“What’s your verdict?” Nimec said. “They look in decent shape to me.”
“Mostly, yeah,” Granger said. “But I know this area, and pretty well know the exact location of the wands. I think a few of them at the margins of the zone might have gotten covered.” He worked his cyclic and collective. “It wouldn’t hurt to be safe. There’s an outcrop a couple hundred yards outside the field that’s flattened on top and makes for a good natural LZ. We can land on it, take a walk, check that the banners are exposed to sight. One bad step and somebody could fall right into one of those cracks.”
“Not the sort of surprise a person would appreciate,” Nimec said.
Granger’s eyes flicked to his face.
“It sure isn’t,” Granger said. “You okay with us going down?”
“I don’t see how we’ve got any other choice,” Nimec said.
Getting from the platform where Granger lowered his skids to the first of the marker wands took them about twenty minutes. It was a tough walk for Nimec, his mountain-booted feet alternately sinking into deep snow and scuffling for traction on the slippery sheet ice.
Ahead of him, Granger was making easier progress in the snowshoes strapped over his own boots, moving with the balanced stride of someone practiced at their use.
“I know this must be tricky for you,” he’d said when Nimec stumbled minutes before. “But if you aren’t fitted for paddles that are the right weight and size, wearing them can make things worse.”
Nimec had not commented. That was a discovery he’d made for himself after trying on a second set of aluminum snowshoes Granger kept in the chopper — spares that almost sent him sprawling, and soon wound up hanging over his shoulder by their strap.
The two men stopped now, the helicopter left well out of sight to their rear. Nimec looked at the gaudy red marker poking up out of the snow to his left. Then he wiped the fog of exhaled moisture off his goggles and browsed over the lines of bamboo staves stringing a long way past it into the distance. Their distribution in the groups that he could see appeared fairly even. Wind-rippled colored banners accented all of them, red ones indicating the boundaries of danger areas, green flags indicating the safer paths around them.
He looked over at Granger. The chopper pilot had his back to him and was staring across the crevasse field.
“You ought to have a peek through your binocs,” Nimec said. “So far I’m not finding any problems.”
Granger nodded, still looking out over the range, his probe chocked upright in the snow. Nimec saw him move his arm, reaching for what he assumed was the binocular case around his neck.
Then he turned toward Nimec, a Beretta pistol in his gloved hand, proving that assumption very wrong.
Nimec’s eyes grew large.
“You want a problem,” Granger said, “you’ve got it.”
“What is this?” Nimec said. His gaze was fixed on Granger’s drawn Beretta. “What the hell are you doing?”
Granger stood there pointing it at Nimec, his expression masked by his goggles and balaclava. “It’s like I said. You came here looking for a problem. But sometimes you find ones you don’t expect.”
Nimec looked at Granger, remembered something that had occurred to him just a short while ago. When the chopper was lifting out of sight of the paleontologic expedition.
The last known person in the world to set eyes on Scarborough and his team.
The thought turned over in his mind with new, cutting significance.
“That day in Bull Pass,” he said. “You didn’t just happen to see our people. You were scouting them.”
Granger held the gun steady.
“Forget about a confession from me,” he said. “Won’t happen. I’ve got nothing to gain from it.” He shrugged. “You’ll just have to leave this world holding on to all your questions.”
Nimec lifted his eyes to Granger’s covered face.
“No,” he said. “Not about you.”
Granger stiffened almost imperceptibly, the hand in which he clenched his gun tightening around its stippled rubber grip. Then he motioned its snout toward the crevasse zone beyond the marker.
“All right, hero,” he said, pulling his probe out of the snow. “I’m taking you for another walk.”
This time their walk was a short one. Moving behind Nimec, his gun held out between them, Granger suddenly ordered him to halt near a cluster of hazard wands some fifteen or twenty yards past the first red marker.
He sidled around him toward the red-flagged bamboo poles, never lowering the Beretta.
“Here,” Granger said. “Let me show you something.”
He inched closer to the poles, extended his probe beyond them, and grooved its tip through the snow. Testing, exploring, prodding.
Moments later Nimec heard a sound like a deep swoop of breath — a giant’s breath. Then the icy crust underneath the probe gave way in a great matted hunk, breaking apart as it spilled into a wide-open hole it had covered from sight.
Nimec stared into the crevasse exposed by the disintegrated snow bridge. Its jagged lips were about six feet apart and around the same length. He couldn’t know how far down it went into the ice sheet, but the darkness filling it hinted at an evil drop.
Granger stood eying him from behind the snout of the Beretta.
“What you see is a pretty small crater,” he said. “Deep and wide enough, though.” He made a snorting sound that might have been intended as a laugh. “I always call holes like this hag’s mouths. You curious why?”