Rocket to Limbo

Slowly, numbly, they began to move. Fox ran back and forth on the line, shouting at them, pounding them on the back, dragging Klein to his feet when he stumbled and pushing him forward again as they moved out and away from the wreck. Lars threw Kennedy’s arm around his neck, half-supported the little man’s body with his right arm, and they started forward. Every muscle in Lars’ body ached, but the Commander’s voice burned raw in his mind. He caught a bitter tongue-lashing as he paused to resettle his grip, and felt bitter anger flare, warming him, quickening his step. But mostly there was weariness, and wonder. How could Fox do it? How could he find this bottomless resource of burning energy, to drive and drive to the point of hopelessness, and then drive more? What miracle of strength and vitality could that man have? There were no answers, yet dimly a flicker of understanding flared in Lars’ mind. This was why he could lead, because he had strength where strength failed.

They moved, a sorry beaten line, past the wrecked ship, on up the snowfield toward the low saddle of the pass before them. They didn’t care what was beyond it now. All they cared was to get it over, to cross beyond, somehow. The wind was whipping the snow into a blizzard now, and darkness was falling rapidly; the rocks were becoming hazy and indistinct, even the expanse of white above and beyond grew gray, grayer. Lars stopped once and looked back, peering through the gloom to see the fantastic wreck they had left behind them, but he could see. nothing but a wall of white.

Had it really been there? Could it have been there? Or had it been a feverish dream, a weird nightmare to torment them? Perhaps a vicious twist of their imaginations, a wraith, like the thing in the valley that Kennedy had thought he had seen. But it didn’t matter now. All that mattered was one foot ahead, another, climb, stumble, climb some more, on up the ridge.

Until finally, imperceptibly in the darkness, they were moving down instead of up, and the ragged shadows of twisted trees were appearing below them, the timber line, high on this side of the pass, and the wind dying as they slid down into a protective cut in the rock and dragged wood up, wood that meant warmth at last, a place to rest in safety.

They were over the pass. Below them the valley lay, dark and imponderable before them.

Dawn came silent and windless and gray. The snow had stopped, and a wall of fog had descended, hiding all but the first lines of trees below the camping place. It was still cold, and there was no food, but the men felt at least half alive as light began to show grayly from over the pass.

They had thrown caution to the winds when they had reached that sheltering place, and built up a huge fire, warming themselves, drying their underclothes, drawing some element of life and hope from the yellow flames. And then they had slept, for the first time in days. Fox, Lorry, Lambert and Lars had split watches while the others slept like the rocks they were sleeping on. When Lars’ turn came, he hardly felt the hard ground beneath him before he was in oblivion.

But with morning came some degree of orientation. They could not see the valley below them except for a few yards of gray slope downward because of the fog, but they knew that this was the valley where Kennedy had seen, or thought he had seen a city. A city that human hands could not have made, Kennedy had said. It sobered their faces as they warmed themselves around the refurbished fire.

“We’ve got to go down there,” Lambert was saying. “There’s nothing to go back for.”

“What about Kennedy and Marstom? Do you think they can travel?” Fox showed his weariness now, but his voice was firm. “We could hold up here another day, if necessary. There’s protection here, and fuel.”

“The sleep did them good,” Lambert said. “They need food, and medicine, as well as rest, and they won’t find those things here.”

“You think we’ll find them—” he jerked his thumb over his shoulder—“down there?”

“We won’t know until we try it.”

So it was decided. Marstom’s cough was noticeably better, and Lars no longer felt the feverish heat in his cheeks; his eyes felt sore, and his bones ached, but he decided that mostly he felt hungry, and dirty, and tired.

They moved down the valley. Jerry Klein was himself again, a little shame-faced as he picked the lead down the rocky slope and stopped to help the sick men. There was a faint trail through the scrub trees, and after two or three hours of trudging downward, they found the forest gave way to a grassy meadow.