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Dominic's voice was hoarse as he spoke his brother's often-repeated words to
the small vial: "Far from home, baby. You're far from home."
That was when the call had come over Ethan's walkie-talkie.
"Shhh!" Dominic hissed. ''Don't tell Cap I'm with you!"
"Do you think I'm deaf?" the tinny voice from the small speaker raged. "Let
me talk to my climber!"
Dominic leaned over to the handset and bellowed, "No, Cap! You don't know I'm
here!"
"Forget about that!" came the impatient reply. "Don't you see you're in
trouble?Nobody summits this late! Neither of you is going to be anywhere if
you don't get down from there!"
"We read you," agreed Ethan, much deflated. "We've had some delays oxygen
problems. We're descending."
"Not so fast," snapped Cicero. "There's a blizzard coming on the south side
a monster. It's already snowing at the Col. You can't beat it."
Dominic turned around. Angry dark clouds smothered the Khumbu glacier all the
way into the valley, engulfing everything but the peak of Lhotse. On Everest,
the storm was creeping up to the Balcony and the southeast ridge. They were
trapped! "But " he stammered, "but we can't just stay on the summit "
"There's a British team on the North Face," Cicero told them. "They left a
camp at twenty-seven thousand. That's a thousand feet closer, plus the
mountain will block the storm for a while."
The North Face! Most Everest ascents followed the southern approach, but
there were other, even more difficult, routes to the top.
"I don't know, Cap," Ethan said nervously. "It'll be dark soon, and neither
of us has ever been on the north side."
"I'll talk you through it," Cicero promised. "You'll have to rappel down two
big cliffs, but at least you'll be going down, not up."
Dominic hesitated. "Are you sure there isn't another way?" He had faith that
his body would not let him down. It was his mind he didn't trust. In his
oxygen-depleted state, did he have the powers of reason to learn a notoriously
difficult new route in the dark, with a killer storm bearing down?
"Listen, kid," Cicero said patiently. "Things happen in mountaineering. A few
dumb decisions, a little bad luck; before you know it, you're in a jam. You
can survive this but not on the southeast ridge."
Dominic's eyes met Ethan's. Cicero had climbed the North Face before. If
anyone could guide them, he could.
Dominic knelt down and set Chris's necklace in the firm snow beside the
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Summit Athletic flag Tilt and Sneezy had planted many hours earlier. He
regarded it oddly. "No," he said suddenly, vehemently. This thing had meant
good luck for him every step of the way. It had even led him to the winning
entry in the contest that had qualified him for SummitQuest's boot camp.
Sorry, Chris, but I need it more thon any mountaindoes/
Carefully, he picked up the glass bottle, unscrewed it, and let a few grains
of Dead Sea sand fall to the pinnacle of the world. Then he closed the vial
and strung the leather strap over his head. "Let's move."
At six fifty-five P.M., Ethan Zaph and Dominic Alexis stepped into the
unknown on the North Face of Everest. As they left the summit, they entered
another country. The ridge marked the border between Nepal and Tibet.
They had only been descending for twenty minutes when Cicero's voice on the
walkie-talkie began to grow more faint amid the crackling static.
Ethan was alarmed. "Cap! We're losing you! The mountain's blocking the
signal!"
"It doesn't work that way, kid," Cicero soothed.
But as they continued to negotiate the rocks, the team leader faded into the
howl of the jet stream.
"You're gone! You're totally gone!" Ethan shouted into the handset. "Cap! Can
you read me?" He shook the unit violently. "This isn't supposed to happen! I
can't even hear the static anymore!"
Dominic's mind wrestled with the altitude. "Dead batteries?"
"We've got no spares!" Ethan held the handset close enough to swallow it.
"Cap/ Weneed you/ Youcan't leave us !"
But the walkie-talkie was silent. They were on their own on the treacherous
North Face. Dominic felt the absence of Cicero's voice as sharply as if the
team leader had been climbing right beside them.
He passed Ethan the oxygen mask, and the older boy gratefully took a gasping
suck.
To their left, the peak of Cho Oyu, the sixth highest mountain on Earth, fell
into darkness as the sun dipped farther beneath the horizon. Soon it would be
Everest's turn.
Several hundred feet below them, the sullen gray clouds of the storm began to
wrap around the base of the summit pyramid.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
"Kid? Zaph?" In a rage, Cicero bounced the walkie-talkie off the wall of
Angus Harris's small shelter.
"What?" the This Way Up team leader asked anxiously.
"Keep trying to reach them!" Cicero tossed over his shoulder as he scrambled
through the flap. "I've got another missing kid to check on!"
Outside, the blizzard was revving up to its full fury. The rocks of the Col
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were already covered with three inches of fresh snow.
He could barely squeeze himself into the jam-packed SummitQuest guides' tent.
Sammi had joined the vigil around the radio. Dr. Oberman hunched over the set,
pleading with Tilt.
"Climbing issuicide in this weather!" she shrilled. "You summited; you're a
star! Don't throw your life away just when you've got everything you always
wanted!"
"I want the shrimp," Tilt panted in reply. "And Zaph. I'm not coming down
without them."
Sammi grabbed the microphone from the doc-tor's hand. "Tilt, it's Sammi.
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