Death could come with the night. There would be another two hours of fading daylight and for those two hours he would be master of the mountaintop, King of Shenadun. He smiled bitterly. The King would survey his domain. He no longer felt the need of oxygen now that the exertion of climbing was done. Yes, he would make a circuit of his kingdom and have a last look at the world.
He left the bit of rope and his other equipment by the aluminum shaft. With only his ice ax he walked toward the cliff. There was no sound in all the world now that the wind had stopped. It had cleared so that he could see other peaks. Far off to the southeast was Everest. It would have been better to die on the summit of Everest. Far better.
He turned away from it angrily. For many minutes he could not recover his calm, could not reconcile himself again to the death that awaited him. Just one more peak to climb, just one more moment to feel the sun on his bronzed face.
An odd thing caught his attention. From a deep rift in the ice of the peak, a runnel of ice, like a frozen stream of water, went over the brink. He jammed the point of his ax into the ice and leaned over the brink. Odd! It was like an enormous icicle. The rift was narrow, and only a few feet long. Odd that ice should run from it, as though warm air came up through the rift.
He dropped on his face and peered down into the blackness of the rift. Could that be a faint breath of warmth? Not real warmth, but merely air a few degrees warmer than the forty below temperature of the summit.
Trembling in excitement, he pulled off his glove and stretched his numbed hand down into the rift. It was warmer!
He had no time to reason why. There could be no logical reason. All he could think of was to get down closer to that warmth. He got to his feet, braced himself and began to work with the wide edge of the ice axe, using the practised strokes of a man who could cut thousands of steps in the ice in a day. With each almost leisurely swing, a lump of shining ice jumped clear of the bite of the edge. He angled his strokes so that the chips bounced out of the rift, out of the odd crack across the ice surface.
In time he felt the need to go back after the oxygen. A few breaths helped him. The exertion was making him warmer. Eventually he had hollowed out each wall so that he could lower himself down into the rift, his head below the surface of the summit. It did seem warmer. Much warmer.
Working down in the rift was much more difficult. For a time he was able to shove the ice chips into the other portion of the rift, then that became filled and he was forced to widen the part on which he stood so that the chips would not fall back to where he wished next to strike.
He began to lose track of time. He felt weak and dizzy and when he next tried the oxygen flask, it was empty. Angrily he flung it up over the side. Forcing himself to work, and yet avoiding breaking into a fatal sweat, he cut his way down through the steel-gray ice.
His strokes grew awkward as space became more constricted. The sides were beginning to be too high to throw the loose ice out. Soon he would have to stop. And he had not, as yet, found the origin of the warmer air.
He swung his ax and, in the still air, it made an odd sound. Metallic, one might say. He thought that he might be down to rock. The daylight was fading. He struck again, got down onto hands and knees and brushed the ice flakes away from a smooth surface.
Metal!
It was clear, gray-blue, flawless metal. Metal that had been machined! Across the space he had cleared was a curved line in the substance, a joining, like a portion of a circle. He pulled his glove off again and held his hand against the metal. It was barely warmer.
Oxygen starvation was making his mind giddy and foolish. He laughed aloud. It was absurd! He. Gowan Mitchell was the first to climb Shenadun! This was a mirage. No one could have been here before him, burying metal monstrosities in the ice.
He uncovered the clean crack in the metal and discovered that it was a perfect circle, but not a trap door for a man to go through. It was too large to be designed for that. He saw where the warmer air escaped. At one point the circular crack was a tiny bit wider than at any other part.
Grunting, he forced the point of his ice axe down into the crack. He tried to pry but it slipped out with a pinging noise. He could feel himself growing weaker. He tried again, and again it slipped. Night was coming fast. For the second time in a few hours, the tears of frustration filled his eyes. The third attempt caused a small grating noise and, as he pried, the round plug tilted, turning in the hole so that it was on edge, a semicircular opening on each side.
Grinning idiotically, he dropped onto his face, the ice ax in his hand and reached down into the blackness. He touched nothing. Warm air came from the opening. Warm breathable air, but not enough to keep him alive, though he spent the night on his stomach, his head in the opening.
He must enter the hole or die. That had become the choice. Before it had been a choice of two ways of dying. Maybe this was better. He wondered if he had enough strength to hang by his hands from the edge and see if his feet touched anything. But strength evaporated even as he thought of it. He reached under his mountain jacket, pulled his knife from its sheath and dropped it into the hole. It thudded against something, but he couldn’t tell how far below. Sense of elapsing time goes astray with oxygen starvation.
Not to enter the hole was to die anyway. He lowered his feet into it, sat on the edge for a moment, then turned, his stomach against the edge. His elbow slipped on an ice fragment and, with a cry of alarm, he slid, feet first, into the blackness. The back of his head hit the metal plug. He fell fifteen feet and landed on a yielding surface. He looked up barely in time to see the plug, turned by the impact, settle back into place.
He was in utter and complete darkness. The surface under his feet sloped gently. He stretched out a hand and felt a smooth metal wall at his elbow. In a moment he located the other wall. The air was warmer. Warm enough to sustain life, and there was more oxygen in it. On hands and knees, he found his knife, replaced it in its sheath.
His mind wouldn’t work properly. He thought, I am in a sort of corridor on a soft floor which slants. It seems to be about ten feet wide. I don’t know where it goes. I will not die in here during the night. I am weary and I am afraid.
Suddenly he remembered that the sound of human voice will often give an idea of the size of a dark place. He shouted. His voice went off into a vast, unbelievable hollowness, echoing against untold distances of metal, fading at last into a distant brazen clang. It was then that he felt the fear. He had always thought of himself as being braver than the average. But his bravery had existed in known situations, against known odds. Now he faced the unknown, and he had in his heart the fear of a small child left alone in the dark.
He couldn’t bring himself to shout again.
Suddenly he remembered the packet of matches. He lighted one. The flame burned weakly. He held it high and saw how impossible it would be for him to ever reach the circular trap. He couldn’t even make out the lines of the joining. The walls shone, reflecting the match light.
It burned his fingers and he shook it out. The second match showed him that the stuff on which he stood was something like a plastic and something like fabric. It seemed to be woven. There was a gap between it and the metal wall. He inserted his fingers in the gap and felt nothing.