Doctor Who_ All-Consuming Fire - Andy Lane [100]
At one point I grasped at a rock which came away in my hand and rolled down the slope with an increasing clatter of smaller stones following it until it was out of sight. The echoes of its passage lived on for some time.
It was getting colder. Much colder. I turned the collar of my coat up and bound strips of handkerchief round my hands, but it was of little use. Ace did not seem to be bothered by the cold.
'You should try doing route marches on Ragnarok,' she snapped when I offered her my jacket. 'The only inhabitants are a tribe of brass monkeys who all look like they've lost something.'
I did not understand her meaning, so I smiled and climbed on.
By this time I was forced to seek out crevices with my hands and feet to anchor myself before taking a step. The sharply edged rocks tore at my fingertips, and the blood seeping from the wounds made my handholds difficult. I wished that I had brought gloves. The weight of my body constantly threatened to tear me from the rock and send me hurtling down the slope. I dared not look down. My world was a few square feet of rock, my one aim to find enough purchase to enable me to pull myself onwards to another world: another few feet of rock. Every so often, but not often enough, Ace called a halt. In those periods I gazed ahead, toward the oppressive ice barrier. Wavelike formations of thin clouds seemed to chase each other across its surface and crash against the mountainside where it penetrated the ice. The inflated bladder-like animals skated across the sky in flocks of ten or twenty, looking rather like fat pheasants, or perhaps puffed-up goldfish. The thought of chocolate began to obsess me.
We passed a stream of some viscous turquoise substance that wound its way through the rocks. My throat was dry, and so I made as if to drink some. Ace warned me off.
'It's not water,' she said. 'More like a liquid atmosphere. Oxygen and nitrogen, mainly, although it should be gaseous at this temperature.
Probably some kind of allotropic form that we don't get on Earth. A-level chemistry's all right for a few bangs, but not much use on alien planets.'
Over the course of a few minutes, I found it increasingly difficult to breath.
My lungs seemed to be on fire, and I felt as if spikes were being driven into my temples. Finding handholds was almost impossible: I seemed to be able to concentrate on a smaller area of ground than before and my hands were having to scrabble in the grey areas on the edges of my vision until they found something which would take my weight. Twice I found nothing, and had to retrace my path and find a new one. I cursed myself for eating that alien creature. Its flesh was obviously poisonous, and I had obviously ingested an incapacitating, if not fatal, dose. It was only when I noticed that Ace was also having problems that I remembered the symptoms of oxygen deprivation, and suggested that we go back and dip handkerchiefs in the stream. If we tied them around our necks, I reasoned, the heat of our bodies should cause the liquid to evaporate back into a breathable vapour.
Although sceptical, Ace complied with my suggestion. I am glad to say that it worked, and we were able to climb onwards refreshed. We made sure that we climbed alongside the stream, and when the effort of drawing a breath became a chore again, we would re-moisten our handkerchiefs. Ace took me more seriously after that.
We were constantly attempting to find the easiest path up the side of the mountain, choosing those sections which appeared to have more cracks which we could use as hand-and footholds, detouring around large outcrops of stone and sections of friable rock, always trying to look ahead and predict which channels, chimneys or ledges would lead to fresh paths and which would lead to dead ends. Sometimes we got it right, and could gain ten or fifteen feet in a few minutes: sometimes we got it wrong and would have to retrace our steps and find another path. Frequently we would have to spend as much time travelling