Immortal Coil - Jeffrey Lang [88]
Vaslovik seemed to waver between telling the truth and reassuring Graves, then seemed to decide to err on the side of reassurance. “Yes, of course.”
Soong studied the readout. The number of EM signatures had doubled in the past three minutes. More than fifty now, but at the rate they were increasing it wouldn’t be long before that number would double again.
“What could they be, Soong?” Graves whispered.
“Do you really want to stay to find out?”
Graves did not respond, but only headed for the door. Just as they stepped through the first hatch, the ground began to shiver beneath their feet. Soong stumbled into a wall and Graves almost cracked his head on the hatch frame. There was a moment, a brief, brief moment, as they stepped through, when Soong considered going back inside and pushing the inner hatch shut again, but then his resolve wavered. The idea of turning around and going back inside was more than he could face. And besides, they could hear Vaslovik cursing, an event so rare that it had to be investigated immediately. Soong stumbled outside just as Vaslovik was picking himself up off the ground. Near his feet lay the shattered remains of the pattern enhancers Soong had set up on the ledge and a coil of rope. The pitons he had set had come loose and the rope had fallen on top of the enhancer.
Vaslovik muttered, ” ‘Whatever can go wrong will go wrong …’ ” The ground shuddered again, then subsided.
Soong looked at Graves and Vaslovik and sighed. “Do you think you can make it to the top if I give one of you an antigrav? The batteries have had time to recharge. From the top of the cliff, I could probably pull one of you up.”
Vaslovik nodded, but then he looked at Graves, who was shaking his head. “You can,” Vaslovik said. “If I can do it, you can. And, frankly, I don’t think you want to face the alternative.”
Graves began to gulp air, his breath coming too quick and shallow. Soong began to worry that his advisor was going to hyperventilate and keel over, but then he seemed to bear down on his fears, inhaled deeply, and stared back at Vaslovik. “I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” he hissed. “Did you have any idea that something like this might happen?”
Vaslovik shook his head. “No, Ira,” he said. “Not exactly. I had suspicions, but nothing like this. If you feel like I’ve misled you, well, then …” He shrugged. Soong realized that this was as close to an apology as Vaslovik could come.
Graves sighed, then rolled his eyes and craned his neck to look up the sheer face of the cliff. “All right,” he said wearily. “Let’s go.”
“Wait,” Vaslovik said. “Step back and let me try something.” Graves and Soong took a half-dozen steps away from the cliff and watched as Vaslovik pulled out his pen and twisted its cap. A different set of prongs emerged, and then the air began to shudder. There came a subsonic moan so deep that Soong felt his empty bowels vibrate. Chunks of ice calved away from the cliff face and slid into the chasm, sending up an explosion of glittering dirty gray crystals and granite shards. When the dust settled, Soong saw that the exposed rock face was jagged and craggy, and, more important, would be much easier to climb.
“Now, get moving, Graves,” Vaslovik said and Soong realized that it was almost like a different person was speaking: not the kindly, brilliant, somewhat absentminded professor, but a drillmaster, a man who was used to issuing orders that would not, could not, be questioned. “After all, it’s only twenty or thirty meters.” He handed Graves the antigravs, then stepped toward the wall and gripped the first outcropping.
Soong strapped the antigravs around Graves’s waist, which had the effect of halving his weight to make the ascent easier—if Graves didn’t have a panic attack on the way. He stepped to the wall, then activated the antigravs.
“You can do it, Ira,” Soong said. “See you at the top.” With the last word of encouragement, Soong turned his attention to his own predicament and began to slowly work his way up the cliff. This would have been nearly impossible