The Encounter

by Donal Myrick

  While Jim, Ted, Spider, and Bufford were discussing the books and magazines with the other aliens, Peggy was sitting next to Max listening intently to their conversation. She nudged Max and quietly said, “There is a solution. I know how to do it.”

  Max looked at her and replied with astonishment, “You do!”

  “Yes, the mapper is the solution. It has state-of-the-art geo-referencing software. It knows exactly where we are now. Xyllio’s ship knows exactly where it is in its coordinate system. We can match up points all over this cavern with great precision. If the mapper software can’t do the transform, then I am sure that we can gather enough data for a good cartographer to develop the required transform.”

  Max gave Peggy a hug and said, “You are a genius. Get busy. Xyllio, who can work with Peggy to start recording data?”

  “Tarbonio knows our navigation system best. They can work together.”

  “Good, now we have two plans to work on, one short term and one long term. I hope Scott has lots of money.”

  Max interrupted the others, “I hate to break up this party, but we have a long heavy rope to muscle back here. The clock is ticking, so we had better get started. Spider, you might as well come with us, and bring that one fifty belay line that you and Bufford have been using. We are going to need it in order to haul the rope from the bottom up to the upper passage.”

  Spider said, “Bufford and I have been idle, just waiting around for some more rope. I’m ready to climb something, so let’s go.”

  While they were trekking back to get the long rope, Max explained to Jim that either tomorrow or early the next day, the ANFO would be arriving at Miguel’s kitchen, and Sam would immediately start sending it down. “Jim, I want you and Ted to take charge of placing the ANFO in whatever place you two determine is the best place to permanently seal this passage. While you all are doing that, Spider and Bufford are going to continue pushing their lead as high and as fast as they can. I am going to be working with Xyllio and Klarrio to learn as much as I can about their starship, its location, and how to get into it when we find it. We don’t have much time left, and we have too damn much to do.”

  Jim said, “I’ve been thinking about where to place the charge. I think if we strategically place two or maybe three charges at the top of the slot, we can bring down that entire pile and completely fill that chamber and the tunnel leading out of the pit bottom with breakdown. If we do that, it will take the Russians years, maybe decades to get through the mess.”

  “If you all could do that, you two will be heroes. If we can secure that much time after we leave here, surely we can find a way to get the aliens to safety. If they give up on clearing a passage through the breakdown, they might try drilling in from the surface. If they use our fake map as a guide, they never will find the alien’s cavern. Let’s just hope they don’t do a comprehensive seismic survey of the mountain top. If they end up doing that, they will find the cavern. We must not let them do that.”

  “And, just how do you propose doing that?”

  “Hell, I don’t know, but give me a year, and I’ll figure something out.”

  About then, they arrived at the top of the slot. Jim said, “While I have everyone here, Max and I have been talking about how to blast this passage shut. I am thinking that if we place the charges somewhere around here, we should be able to pull down this entire mountain of unstable breakdown. It should, in my opinion, fill the bottom of the cave and the tunnel leading to the pit. What do you think?”

  Ted said, “If we have enough ANFO, that should work. But, you do realize that you can’t just stack the stuff up here and expect it to blow this mountain of breakdown to smithereens. It needs to be packed into holes. I think it needs to be placed in holes down at the bottom of the slot under that overhang where we spent the night. That overhang underpins this entire slot. If we remove that overhanging rock and the rock that is supporting it, I think this entire wall of breakdown will collapse. It is not very stable to begin with.”

  “That sounds perfect. We need to think through the safety aspects before we blast. We will all need to be in a safe place.”

  “I think,” opined Spider, “that means that we all will need to be four or five hundred feet off the bottom of the pit when you light the fuse.”

  Bufford corrected her, “We won’t actually light a fuse, we will detonate the charges electrically. It would be really hard to strike a match in the middle of a waterfall.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet you are right. Whatever, you know what I meant.”

  Max said, “Okay, that sounds like a plan. Let’s go down and get that rope.”

  When they got back to the bottom of the pit, the NMI rope was waiting for them in a big pile. As they were unraveling the mess, Sam came on the com and said, “Max, Scott wants to talk with you. There are developments happening up here that you need to know about. Scott, are you listening? Max is back at the pit bottom.”

  Miguel answered, “I’m monitoring this end of the line right now. Scott is in the other tent at the moment. Hang on, and I’ll get him.”

  Scott came running in and grabbed the mike. “Max, the Russians are gearing up for a descent. By our best guestimate, we have at most a week and probably less. You need to be making final preparations down there.”

  Max replied, “Understood. We will work as fast as we can. What we need next from the topside is the ANFO. Until we get it, we are going to push a lead as fast as we can. Keep us informed.”

  The NMI rope was totally soaked, so it weighed more than its three hundred pound dry weight. It proved to be quite a chore hauling that ungodly snake out of the pit and pulling it up the four hundred foot high breakdown pile, and then up through the treacherous slot. That task took several hours of hard work, but once they had it secure in the upper passage, the task of transporting it the mile and a half to the alien’s chamber was relatively easy.

  Once at the crack above the alien’s chamber, Jim asked rhetorically, “Do we just drop it down, or shall we lower it carefully?”

  Ted said, “I’m for lowering it carefully. It has taken a lot of abuse getting to here. Let’s not subject it to more abuse than we have to.”

  “Let’s lower away. Someone rig up and rappel down to receive it.”

  An hour and a half later, they all were on the bottom. They hoisted the forty-foot long hank of rope onto their shoulders and marched like a ten-legged centipede out into the alien’s chamber where they were met by Peggy and Tarbonio.

  Peggy said, “Welcome back, I see you found some more rope. Do you think Spider and Bufford will be happy now?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “I’ve got some good news and some bad news.”

  Max whined, “I don’t need any bad news, so what is the good news?”

  “Well, the good news is that I am pretty sure that we will be able to work out the required coordinate transform. The bad news is that we can’t do it from down here. Their ship is immobile, so the only coincident point that we have for both systems is where the ship sits now. That is one point. We need many more. The good news is that their nav system has stored numerous easily identifiable points from around the planet; the Egyptian Pyramids, the Rome Coliseum, the Parthenon, the Great Wall of China, and a treasure trove of many other archeological sites that no one today is even aware of. We can actually just look up the coordinates for the sites we know about and generate our transform. It will be a piece of cake.”

  “Once again, Peggy, you are the bearer of good news. I don’t think your bad news was particularly bad.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “It has been a very long exhausting but productive day, and I think everyone is ready to sack out for a while.”

  CHAPTER 35

  A Hard Day on the Wall

  Spider was the first one up and about. She nudged Bufford and said, “Let’s get some breakfast going, we’ve got a big climb ahead of us today. I don’t know about you, but I am very optimistic.”
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br />   Bufford sat up and stretched. As he put his boots on, he smiled at Spider and said, “Yeah, you know how I feel, you always do. I’m with you; I think we are going to find a way out of here today, and if not today, then tomorrow.”

  “Exactly. I’m ready to get started. Let’s get these lazy bums moving, it’s going to be a glorious day.”

  After downing a hearty breakfast, they hoisted the big rope and set off to the bottom of the climb site where they were met by all of the aliens. Although the alien’s faces didn’t show emotion, you could tell by their body language that they were excited to watch the climb.

  Max suggested to Bufford, “Why don’t you all head on up, and we will un-braid the rope and start hauling it up to you.”

  “That’s a good idea.” Spider clipped her jumars onto the fixed rope and left Bufford in the dust as she rapidly climbed up. Bufford said, “Hey, wait for me.”

  “See you on top, Fat Boy.”

  “You are not a nice person, you know that.”

  It took Spider a little less than an hour to climb up the thousand plus feet of fixed ropes. She could have done it faster, but she wasn’t in a hurry. She knew that it would take Bufford much longer to make the climb, and there was no sense in tiring themselves out. This was the easy part. The next two thousand feet were going to be the challenge.

  It took about twenty minutes to un-braid the rope. The plan was for Max and Jim to climb up the first pitch. Then Ted would tie the end of the long rope to the fixed line, and Max and Jim would pull it up to their position. There they would clip the rope into an ascender in the reverse position so that the rope could be pulled up but not slide down. After tying off the rope, they would lower the fixed rope back down so Ted could start climbing up to their position. While Ted was climbing up, Jim and Max would climb up the next pitch. At the top of each pitch, the big rope would be treaded through an ascender in the reverse position so the rope could continue to be pulled up. If the rope were dropped by accident, it would fall no further than the top of the last pitch. By the time that Jim, Ted, and Max reached Bufford and Spider, they had already added a hundred and fifty feet to the ascent and had time for a morning nap to boot. Now the long rope would become the fixed line to the top of each pitch completed by Spider. The higher they climbed, the heavier the long rope became. It was obvious that it was going to require the coordinated effort of three people to pull the rope up at the completion of each pitch.

  The difficulty of the climb was by most people’s standard fairly severe, but Spider’s routine had settled into a pace that she could continue hour after hour with only brief pauses. This style of climbing was Spider’s magic and had earned her the reputation of being one of the finest rock climbers in the country. One thing that was different this time was that she was being more cautious than usual. She was not afraid of making daring moves because she was confident that Bufford would catch her. But on this climb, she was moving slowly and meticulously because she did not want to risk a fall.

  After being on the wall for six hours, they were finally pushing through the fifteen hundred foot mark, presumably halfway to the top. At this pace, another fifteen hours of climbing would bring them to the top, assuming no major problems were encountered. Add on to that, at the very least, five or six hours of rest, and a couple of hours to eat and manage their gear. So within the next twenty-four hours, they would know if this led to an upper entrance that they could exploit or not.

  Spider decided that she needed a break. As Bufford climbed up beside her, she remarked, “This is where Peggy had to give up. I can see why. The walls come together too close for Charlie to get through.”

  Bufford agreed, “Charlie has an anti-collision algorithm that keeps him from bumping into obstacles. I think he has to stay thirty inches or so from walls unless Peggy overrides him. Peggy would have to manually fly him through these narrows if she wanted to explore higher, and I think she thought that the risk of losing him was too great to try.”

  Max, Jim, and Ted were about a hundred feet below and soon caught up with Bufford and Spider. It had been decided earlier that at the end of the day, the climbing crew would camp out on the wall rather than rappelling down and then climbing back up to continue the next day. This would save several hours each way and conserve energy. So, while the men were dragging the long rope up, Peggy had been working solo at the bottom, getting the camping gear organized into three duffle bags and ready to haul up the wall.

  Jim whined, “Pulling this damn rope up is a chore, a three-man chore. And, it’s going to get harder the higher we go.”

  Max said, “While we have Bufford with us, I think the four of us should pull up the remaining fifteen hundred feet and stash it here. That way, as we go higher, we won’t have to pull the full weight of the rope at each pitch. Also, as we go higher, we can make mini-stashes to make managing the load even easier.”

  Spider noted that Peggy was working alone to get the camping gear ready. She said, “I can’t tell for sure, but it looks to me like Peggy is trying to haul the gear up the wall by herself. I think you guys should go down and give her a hand. Will our com gear work with this rope?”

  Ted said, “I think so, but the gear in the shield down there has to be activated, and everyone has to have their helmet coms on also.”

  Max agreed in part, “I think there is more to it than that. We don’t have the master transceiver down here. Remember that component is located at the top of the pit. What will work, though, is the slider that should be inside the shield. You know, the device we clipped into when we descended. One person can clip into that item and talk with the transceiver in the shield. Anybody close to the shield can hear. Unfortunately, we need the slider up here, and the shield needs to be activated down there. Let’s pull up some rope, then we can go and set it up and help Peggy.”

  Jim said, “Max, you go on down now, and Ted and I will join you later. The three of us can pull up enough to let Spider and Bufford forge ahead, and then we will come down and help get all the gear up to here. This will probably be a good place to camp this evening.”

  Max asked, “Spider, how much longer do you feel like leading before we break for the day?”

  “I’m good for another four or five hours, at least.”

  “Okay, I’m going down to help Peggy.”

  Jim said, give us thirty to forty minutes, and we will join you.”

  “Spider, Bufford, I’ll see you all later this evening.”

  Max rappelled down to meet Peggy. He found her at the top of the first four-hundred foot pitch, where she was rigging a pulley and ascender system to hoist up one of the hundred-pound duffle bags of gear using her weight to make the pull. When Max arrived, Peggy said with a weary voice, “Boy, am I glad to see you. These bags are about to whip me.”

  “I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have started doing this by yourself. You were just supposed to get the gear organized and ready for hoisting and hoist rig set up.”

  “I know, but you all were taking too long. I had the gear ready to go hours ago, and I thought I could make the best use of my time by getting the gear a little way up the wall. I’ve got three bags stashed about two hundred feet down. It has about worn me out getting them that far.”

  “You’ve done good. Let me take it from here. Ted and Jim will be down in a while, and we can muscle this stuff up. By-the-way, is our sleeping gear in the bags?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “I’m thinking that we need to stay on the bottom tonight and go back to the pit in the morning to see how things are going. I know it is touch and go topside. When we get the duffle bags up to here, let’s toss our bedrolls out. When we get everything up to fifteen hundred, we can fix something to eat and do a little planning.”

  “Both of our sleeping bags are located in the top of one of the bags. You find them and toss them. I think I’ll start climbing up. I’m running a little slow, so I need a head start.”

  “You wait here for a moment. I’m going on
down to activate the shield so we can have some communication capability. I’m going to send the slider up to you to carry to the top. When it is mounted on the NMI, one person at a time can communicate with anyone close to the shield.”

  “We should have done that earlier.”

  “I know. Hindsight is a bitch.”

  Max rappelled to the bottom, activated the shield transceiver, and sent the slider up to Peggy.

  Jim and Ted passed Peggy on the way down, and she told them what Max was doing.

  Five hours later, they were setting up camp on the wall fifteen hundred feet above the floor. Bufford announced that, “as the unofficial camp cook, I recommend for you dining enjoyment an assortment protein bars and fruity energy drinks. Enjoy.”

  “Ah Bufford, you are indeed a purveyor of such fine cuisine. We are so lucky to have you as our cook.”

  Max announced that after they finished eating, he and Peggy were going to rappel down and spend the night on the bottom. He would go back to the pit and stay in communication with Scott, and Peggy would continue working with the aliens.

  CHAPTER 36

  Bring on the ANFO

  Miguel announced that Max was back at the bottom of the pit and wanted a status report. Scott said, “Good morning Max, I hope yesterday was productive down there.”

  “Indeed, it was. We are putting the NMI to good use, even though it is in a restricted way.”

  Sam, who was listening, said, “I thought you were going to attach it to the other NMI so you could have extended range. What are you actually doing?”

  Max said, “Well, that is sort of what we are doing, but in a different way.”

  Scott interjected, “Sam, there are some details that I need to fill you and Dr. Fred in on. But first, let me get Max updated. Max, the ANFO will be arriving here within the hour. As it arrives, we will start packaging it to keep it dry and transporting it back to the pit. Sam said that we could lower about two hundred pounds at a time. So, it will require four deliveries, and with everything involved will take the entire day to accomplish.”