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station is on the ridge on the far side about half-way up.” He looked at Jurac for a decision.

  After a moment Jurac answered, “The ridge looks pretty high and is probably at the top of the glacier also, and besides we’re not in any condition to do serious climbing, especially with Keller the way he is. We’ll head down. How far is it to the glacier’s end?”

  “About ten kilometers.”

  Jurac nodded. “We’ll hug the base of the ridge and hopefully avoid any crevasses along the way, now let’s go.”

  The sun had set and it was pitch black by the time they reached the foot of the glacier, actually stopping one hundred meters from it in fear of tumbling over the edge in the dark. Both men dropped down, exhausted from the trek. The only consolation they took from the whole episode was that the wind was blowing down the glacier, and thus was at their backs. That and the fact they’d been negotiating a slight decline. It was now twenty-three hours since they had left the ship.

  Wordlessly Jurac went about setting up the emergency shelter on the lee side of a group of boulders. After a few minutes, Terran roused himself to help. Neither man said a word; conversation had stopped eight hours ago when both had become too tired and dispirited to continue talking.

  As they worked on the tent Terran broke the silence. “Do you think there’s any chance of an avalanche?” He looked in the direction of the cliff that loomed over them, though he couldn’t see a thing beyond what his suit light illuminated, that being a few meters of flailing snow.

  “I don’t know, but probably not, it’s too cold. Everything up there would be frozen solid,” Jurac answered without pausing in what he was doing. “Besides, I’m not walking any more tonight.” Terran stood in quiet contemplation for a few seconds then went back to helping with the tent.

  The tent set up, they crawled inside and dragged Keller in after them along with a small pile of supplies. Jurac set up a small battery-powered thermal unit and after a while it had warmed the tent enough to enable them to remove their helmets and breathe the planet’s air without freezing their lungs in the process. It was still cold but they were willing to overlook that minor discomfort just for the luxury of being able to wipe their brows and scratch their noses.

  While Jurac checked over Keller, Terran thawed some of the ration bars and water over the thermal unit, and once done the pair quietly ate the bland offerings.

  “How’s Keller?” Terran asked.

  Jurac shrugged, “Still the same. The shot I gave him should have worn off by now, perhaps he’s in a coma. His vital signs are still steady though.”

  Terran nodded, “I hope he wakes up soon, dragging him is slowing us down to no end.” He stopped then added, “That’s if he can walk.”

  Jurac just sighed. “The glass is half full,” he muttered.

  “What?” Terran frowned.

  “Nothing, let’s get some sleep, we’ve got a long way to go.” He lay down, pulled a thermal wrap over himself and doused the light, listening as Terran did the same.

  Jurac opened his eyes quickly. Something had disturbed him. He checked his watch; he had only been asleep for five hours. He listened to the other men’s breathing, over laid by the howling wind and the quiet humming of the heater. Deciding it was nothing, he was about to go back to sleep when the softly spoken words came again.

  “Captain, can you hear me?” Jurac sat up with a jerk and fumbled for the light, squinting at the sudden brightness. Keller was awake; his eyes wide open, though clouded in bafflement and fear.

  “Captain?”

  “Keller, thank God! Are you okay, are you hurting?” Jurac asked. Terran was groggily rousing himself now also.

  “What happened, where am I?” Keller turned his head to Jurac, his face a mask of puzzlement but seemingly normal aside from that.

  “We’re in the emergency tent. We had to leave the ship, the radiation was leaking through it,” Jurac answered. Keller frowned slightly.

  “Do you remember the accident with the reactor?” Terran asked.

  Keller’s brows drew together for a moment and Jurac wondered if perhaps the man had hit his head and had amnesia, but after a few seconds Keller slowly nodded. “I remember that and that we came down hard but that’s all. How did I get here?”

  “We dragged you, we made a sled.”

  Keller swallowed, nodded. “Thanks, you could have left me.” He looked at the pair then glanced about, frowning again. “Where’s Mark?”

  “He didn’t make it,” Jurac answered softly.

  “Damn,” Keller slowly shook his head.

  “How do you feel, are you in pain?” Jurac asked.

  Keller nodded. “My chest feels like it’s on fire and…” He paused briefly, cutting his glance to each man in obvious nervousness before continuing, “I can’t feel my legs.”

  Terran slumped visibly and Jurac sighed, his breath coming out in one long hiss. He’d been afraid of this possibility.

  “It could just be the cold, right?” Keller asked, unable to keep the fear and hope out of his voice. “They could be just numb from the cold.”

  Jurac didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to, he knew Terran would do it for him. “You’re still in your suit, the heaters are working fine.”

  Keller turned to Terran then back to Jurac, his face alive with fear at the realization of his predicament. “The crash?” he asked softly, barely a whisper under the fury blowing outside.

  Jurac swallowed, feeling some of the young man's despair sink into himself. “Your console broke loose, pinning you to your seat at a bad angle. We had to pry you out,” he stopped, dropped his eyes from Keller's.

  Keller swallowed on a throat gone suddenly dry before asking the million-dollar question. “How far is it to the relay station?”

  “Over a hundred kilometers,” Terran said softly.

  Keller let his breath out in one long huff then was quiet for several minutes before finally nodding to himself, as though coming to a decision. “There’s no choice then. You have to leave me behind.” Jurac was shaking his head but Keller went on “Look, Captain, your chances are slim without me dragging you down, but with me they’re non existent.” Keller was trying to be brave but Jurac could see the idea of being left behind to die terrified the man.

  Jurac shook his head again. “Forget it, I’m not leaving you. Not now, not ever.”

  “But Captain…”

  “Get some sleep, we’ve got a big day ahead of us.” He reached for the light, and as he did so he caught sight of Terran’s expression; fear, anger, despair, it encompassed them all. Jurac switched off the light and lay down but it was a long time before his worried mind would let him sleep.

  Sunup brought a pleasant surprise in that the blizzard had stopped. The wind was still howling a gale though and the sky was covered in heavy cloud. After a quick breakfast, equally as bland as the previous night’s ‘dinner’, they broke camp and made their way down to the foot of the glacier.

  The glacier ended in a fifty-foot ice cliff, dropping away to the snowfields below. Without the flying snow the view was quite impressive, sweeping away to another ridge of mountains rising grey and imposing in the distance.

  Carefully Terran edged up to the drop off and looked down. The cliff was a sheer face with great ice boulders and sharp splinters gathered at its base “We’ll never get down there,” he said flatly.

  “How high is it?” Keller asked, unable to see from his position on the sled. He’d given another feeble protest this morning that he should be left behind, after which he’d lapsed into a somber silence.

  “Too high,” Terran answered. “The only rope we have is a twenty-five meter. This is probably twice that.”

  “Then we’ll just have to traverse across the top until we can find an easier way down,” Jurac said.

  Terran looked along the length of the cliff. It stretched off into the distance, steep and formidable. “It looks to be the same all
the way along, I doubt we’ll find anything better.”

  “The glass is half full,” Jurac answered and, tugging on the sled, headed off along the cliff top. After a couple of seconds Terran followed.

  Two hours later they came across a steep, indented, funnel-like ramp caused by large chunks of ice breaking away. It would be a treacherous descent but Jurac believed it would be possible to get down it, and besides he didn’t want to walk along the cliff top any further than he had to. They were walking in the opposite direction from their intended destination and every step taken meant one more that they’d have to take back once they had reached the cliff base. This same knowledge was weighing down on their mood with lead-like intensity.

  “There’s no way, it’s too steep,” was Terran’s predictable comment.

  Jurac sighed. “We’ll drive a tent pole into the ice here, then we’ll tie the rope to the sled. One of us can use the pole to inch the rope out while the other guides the sled down. When we run out of rope we’ll reset the pole and start again”.

  Terran was looking despondently at the ‘ramp’. “It’ll never work, look at all those sharp crags and spikes. The sled will catch up on them”.

  “The glass is half full,” Jurac sighed.

  “The glass is half full, the glass is half full! Why do you keep saying that, what the hell is it supposed to mean?” Terran shouted.

  Jurac looked at him coldly. “It’s an outlook on life that sadly enough, you lack,” he snapped. He turned and wandered over to