Hallner followed, treading cautiously in his friend's footsteps, little pieces of frozen snow falling into his boots. He knew that Nilsson was trying to judge the snow-field's thickness. Below it a deep river coursed and he thought he heard its musical rushing beneath his feet. He noted, also, that his feet now felt frozen and uncomfortable.
Very slowly they crossed the snow-field and at length, after a long time, they were safely across and sat down to rest for a while, preparing for the steeper climb ahead.
Nilsson eased his pack off his shoulders and leaned against it, staring back at the field.
'No tracks,' he mused. ' Perhaps she crossed further down.'
'Perhaps she didn't come here after all.' Hallner spoke with effort. He was not really interested.
'Don't be a fool.' Nilsson rose and hefted his pack on to his back again.
They climbed over the sharp rocks separating the two snowfields and once again underwent the danger of crossing the second field.
Hallner sat down to rest again, but Nilsson climbed on. After a few moments, Hallner followed and saw that Nilsson had stopped and was frowning at the folded map in his hand.
When he reached Nilsson he saw that the mountain now curved upwards around a deep, wide indentation. Across this, a similar curve went up towards the summit. It looked a decidedly easier climb than the one which faced them.
Nilsson swore.
'The damned map's misled us - or else the position of the. fields has altered. We've climbed the wrong face.'
'Should we go back down again?' Hallner asked u n i n t e r e s t e d l y.
'No - there's not much difference - we'd have still lost a lot of time.'
Where the two curves joined, there was a ridge high above them which would take them across to the face which they should have climbed. This was getting close to the peak, so that in fact, there would be no advantage even when they reached the other side.
'No wonder we missed her tracks,' Nilsson said pettishly.
'She'll be at the summit by now.'
'How do you know she climbed this mountain?' Hallner wondered why he had not considered this earlier.
Nilsson waved the map. ' You don't think Lapps need these? No she left it behind.'
'Oh… ' Hallner stared down at the raw, tumbling rocks which formed an almost sheer drop beneath his feet.
'No more resting,' Nilsson said. ' We've got a lot of time to make up.'
He followed behind Nilsson who foolishly expended his energy in swift, savage ascents and was showing obvious signs of exhaustion before they ever reached the ridge.
Unperturbed by the changed situation, Hallner climbed after him, slowly and steadily. The ascent was taking longer, was more difficult and he, also, was tired, but he possessed no sense of despair.
Panting, Nilsson waited for him on a rock close to the ridge, which formed a narrow strip of jumbled rocks slanting upwards towards the peak. On one side of it was an almost sheer drop going down more than a hundred feet, and on the other the rocky sides sloped steeply down to be submerged in a dazzling expanse of faintly creaking ice - a glacier.
'I'm going to have to leave you behind if you don't move faster,' Nilsson panted.
Hallner put his head slightly on one side and peered up the mountain. Silently, he pointed.
'God! Everything's against us, today,' Nilsson kicked at a loose piece of rock and sent it out into space. It curved and plummeted, down, but they could not see or hear it fall.
The mist, which Hallner had noted, came rolling swiftly towards them, obscuring the other peaks, boiling in across the range.
'Will it affect us?' Hallner asked.
'It's sure to!'
'How long will it stay?'
'A few minutes or several hours, it's impossible to tell. If we stay where we are we could very well freeze to death. If we go on there's a chance of reaching the summit and getting above it. Willing to risk it?'
This last remark was a sneering challenge.
'Why yes, of course,' Hallner said.
Now that the fact had been mentioned, he noted for the first time that he was cold. But the coldness was not uncomfortable.
They had no ropes, no climbing equipment of any kind, and even his boots were flat-soled city boots. As the mist poured in, its grey, shifting mass limiting vision almost utterly at times, they climbed on, keeping together by shouts.
'Once, he could hardly see at all, reached a rock, felt about it with his boot, put his weight on the rock, slipped, clung to the rock and felt both feet go sliding free in space just as the mist parted momentarily to show him the creaking glacier far below him. And something else - a black, spread-out shadow blemishing the pure expanse of ice.
He scrabbled at the rock with his toes, trying to swing himself back to the main part of the ridge, got an insecure toehold and flung himself sideways to the comparative safety of the harrow causeway. He breathed quickly and shallowly and shook with reaction. Then he arose and continued on up the slanting ridge.
A while later, when the main thickness of the mist had rolled past and now lay above the glacier, he saw that they had crossed the ridge and were on the other side without his having realized it.He could now see Nilsson climbing with obvious difficulty towards what he had called the 'false summit'. The real summit could not be seen, was hidden by the other, but there was now only another hundred feet to climb.
They rested on the false summit, unable to see much that was below them for, although the mist was thinner, it was thick enough to hide most of the surrounding mountains. Sometimes it would part so that they could see fragments of mountains, patches of distant lakes, but little else.
Hallner looked at Nilsson. The other man's handsome face had taken on a set, obstinate look. One hand was bleeding badly.
'Are you all right?' Hallner nodded his head towards the bleeding hand.
'Yes!'
Hallner lost interest since it was evident he could not help Nilsson in his present mood.
He noted that the mist had penetrated his thin jacket and his whole body was damp and chilled. His own hands were torn and grazed and his body was bruised, aching, but he was still not discomfited. He allowed Nilsson to start off first and then forced himself on the last stage of the climb.
By the time he reached the snowless summit, the air was bright, the mist had disappeared and the sun shone in the clear sky.He flung himself down close to Nilsson who was again peering at his map.
He lay panting, sprawled awkwardly on the rock and stared out over the world.
There was nothing to say. The scene itself, although magnificent, was not what stopped him from talking, stopped his mind from reasoning, as if time had come to a standstill, as if the passage of the planet through space had been halted. He existed, like a monument, petrified, unreasoning, absorbing. He drank in eternity.
Why hadn't the dead human race realized this? It was only necessary to exist, not to be trying constantly to prove you existed when the fact was plain.
Plain to him, he realized, because he had climbed a mountain. This knowledge was his reward. He had not received any ability to think with greater clarity, or a vision to reveal the secret of the universe, or an experience of ecstasy. He had been given, by himself, by his own action, insensate peace, the infinite tranquillity of existing.
Nilsson's harsh, disappointed tones invaded this peace.
'I could have sworn she would climb up here. Maybe she did.
Maybe we were too late and she's gone back down again?'
Hallner remembered the mark he had seen on the glacier.
Now he knew what it had been.
'I saw something back on the ridge,' he said.' On the glacier.
A human figure, I think.'
'What? Why didn't you tell me?'
'I don't know.'
'Was she alive? Think of the importance of this - if she is alive we can start the human race all over again. What's the matter with you, Hallner? Have you gone crazy with shock or something? Was she alive? '