Paradox

by Alex Archer

  Slowly Charlie nodded over his self-heated tray of food. "Yeah. Yeah, I know just what you mean. My dad was the same way. High expectations, iron discipline."

  Given your notorious lifestyle, how well did that turn out? Annja wondered. She didn't feel it was her place to say so. She took no pleasure in picking at other people's psychological scabs. She noticed that the three New Yorkers were staring at the two expedition chiefs in wide-eyed horror.

  "You dudes were like, seriously abused as kids, man," Tommy said.

  "No, no, nothing like that," Baron said quickly. "We're not whining about it."

  "Spare the rod and spoil the child," Charlie said.

  "Kids need discipline," Baron agreed.

  Trish set down her half-eaten MRE on the rocky soil, slapped her hands on her thighs and stood. "I can't believe you're justifying your own abuse like that. There ought to be some kind of law!"

  "I hear you," Jason said.

  "The state should just take over care of all abused children," Trish said. "Maybe they should take an extra-close look at Protestant fundamentalist families."

  Josh gave her a narrow look. "How about unbelieving households, where their mortal souls are in peril?"

  Trish turned to Annja. "How can you just sit there and not say anything?"

  "It's not my business. I don't have any kids, or intend to for a while yet. So it's not really something I feel competent to have an opinion on, at this stage." She took another bite, chewed, winced a little at the flavor. The lasagna tasted a little…used.

  "Anyway, if you think taking kids away from their families and putting them in orphanages is such a great idea, you should trying growing up in one," she said quietly.

  "Why do you always take their side?" Trish said.

  "I'm not taking sides. I'd really prefer there not be any sides. Can't it just be all of us against the mountain and the elements?"

  "Coward!" Trish said and turned and marched off to her tent.

  "My old man always said the Bible gave the father dominion over household as it gave Man dominion over the beasts," someone said.

  Despite Annja's having spent the last few days cheek-to-cheek with pretty much the whole group she almost didn't recognize the voice. It was low, just above a whisper.

  Fred Mallory was the olive-skinned bodybuilder with his black hair cut high and tight like a marine's. As far as Annja knew he'd never served in the military, although passing through Baron's rigorous course of instruction, that might not make much functional difference. She didn't remember hearing him say anything at all.

  "He used to use this big heavy old belt. He'd use the buckle end. If we cried out he'd just hit us harder. He said…a Bible-believing man had the right to do anything he wanted with what God give him. He made us serve him…all kinds of ways."

  The wind had died down. The silence seemed to echo. The faces of his Rehoboam Academy cohorts were no less horrified as they stared at him.

  "Dude," Tommy said. "Dude."

  "That's a whole lot of information," Josh Fairlie said. "Maybe too much sharing, you know."

  "It was God's will!" The young man's muscles all seemed to be swelling to the point of bursting. Veins stood out on his forehead and the sides of his neck. Annja worried he was about to give himself a stroke.

  "We had to obey it, or we'd be damned," he said.

  "Face it, Fred," Josh said, rearing back a bit. "Your father was wrong and that's all there is to it."

  "You can't talk that way about my daddy!"

  "I'm just saying you should face facts. It's part of being a leader. And a Christian. Facing up to unpleasant realities with the Lord's help and asking the Lord for strength to deal with them."

  "He's right," Zach Thompson said.

  Fred shot to his feet like a piston and stamped away into the night. Josh shook his head. "Poor guy needs to pray for the strength to hear truth."

  "I don't know," Jeb said. "I think he's right."

  "The Bible says honor your father," Zeb said.

  "St. Paul says the father's the boss in the household," Jeb said.

  Jason scowled at the twins. "Okay, now you're starting to get into scary territory, too."

  "Just shut up about that," Baron said, standing up more deliberately than the last two to do so. "Now see what you jokers have done. I'm gonna have to go talk Fred off the ledge."

  "Fred always was a bit tightly wrapped," Zach said.

  * * *

  "SO, I GUESS IT GETS PRETTY cold out here on the mountain," Jason said. Annja sat among the tents, rummaging through her pack for things she needed to get ready for sleep. She was annoyed at not having everything on hand; she was the world's most seasoned traveler, young as she was.

  "I usually have everything right there when I need it," she said. "It's just, these last few days have been so crazy."

  "I hear you," Jason said, hunkering down near her. "Maybe you should share a tent with me. Might help take the edge off."

  She flicked a wary glance at him. "I'm supposed to be sharing one with Trish."

  He shrugged and showed teeth gleaming in the fugitive starlight sneaking through the clouds. "I bet I could warm you up better."

  Scowling, she put her toilet kit down and turned her face to him. "Listen. I like you, Jason. But I'm not interested in hooking up on this trip."

  He flushed, and his eyes got a little wild. "I know. I know. I'm a brother, right? It's the same old racist story. You white people. You act all accepting. Then when it comes down to it—back-of-the-bus time."

  "That isn't fair and it isn't okay," Annja said. "I'm not going to bother defending myself to you. And I think throwing cheap accusations about racism around are like throwing around false accusations of rape—it devalues the whole concept, and makes life a whole lot harder on the real victims."

  Shaking his head, Jason straightened back up. "I guess you're one of those who's only interested in sleeping her way to the top," he said. "I thought better of you, Annja. I really did."

  "Sleeping my way to the top? With Doug? You have got to be kidding. Anyway, isn't Kristie on top? She's the face of the program."

  She was just realizing what an unwelcome visual image she'd created for herself when Jason said, "Everybody knows this gig is your big opportunity to get some face time as something other than a boring dry-stick librarian type nay-saying everything. Maybe even get your own show if it goes well. But don't worry about it, I wouldn't want to do anything to interfere with your ambitions, lady."

  He turned and walked off. It seemed to be kind of the theme for the evening.

  "Now what?" she said to the cold air surrounding her.

  She knew the answer, though, all too well. The same thing happened on archaeological digs all the time. You had people spending too much time isolated with only each other for company and you started having soap operas. If there was less booze and dope on this trip than on a lot of digs she'd known—which was to say none, unless Wilfork had a hidden stash, and maybe Charlie—the tensions caused by danger and culture clash were impairing people's judgment. She knew that sharing deadly danger was supposed to bring people together like nothing else. She'd experienced her own share of that.

  Now, it seemed, she was experiencing the opposite.

  Out of the night Trish suddenly appeared. Annja felt a stab of irrational relief at the arrival of the expedition's lone other woman.

  "I can't believe it," Trish said.

  "Can't believe what?" There were so many possibilities.

  "That you're actually a racist. What do you think they'd say back at the studios if they knew about that?"

  "How would they react to Jason's trying to coerce me into going to bed with him by throwing out some wild accusations?" Annja said.

  Trish opened her mouth, closed it, frowned.

  "Listen," Annja said, "who I have sex with is my choice. Do you really think you can take that away from me? And I'm not discussing any 'racism' talk any further. It's absurd and insulting
and I'm not going to play."

  Trish shook her head. "I just wonder if you've been…infected by these people. You sure seem to stick up for them."

  "Mainly I try to stick up for keeping the peace and not causing conflicts over trivial stuff like who doesn't like whose opinions. We've been in a lot of real, live danger already. It's only going to get worse."

  Trish crossed her arms forcefully. She seemed dissatisfied, but unsure how to phrase her dissatisfaction.

  "You know, you guys don't really strike me as a whole lot more tolerant than Charlie's angels," Annja said.

  "Of course we're more tolerant. It's just that some things can't be tolerated."

  "That makes a whole lot of sense."

  "Listen," Trish said, "we just feel like you're not standing with us on this. If you're not with us you're against us."

  Annja raised her hands in the air and let them fall helplessly by her sides. "That's it. You're starting to quote George Bush now. You guys sleep where you want and don't worry about me."

  She got up and went off to share a tent with Levi.

  Chapter 18

  Inside the tiny tent Rabbi Leibowitz seemed nervous, almost terrified, at Annja's presence. But he was too much of a gentleman to say so. They got into their sleeping bags back to back and fell asleep after the briefest interaction in which Annja announced her intention to spend the night in his tent, then asked his permission and reassured him her only interest was sleep. Which it was.

  The next day dawned bright. Annja's spirits rose with the sun, although she knew too well both could be a deception.

  They wound their way up the great mountain. By noon they reached a place on the north face where the easy climbing ended and they faced what the seasoned mountaineers termed a technical climb up a sheer rock face. "Technical" meant that to ascend would require the use of protection such as pitons, and ropes fastened to the harnesses they all wore.

  Fortunately the cliff was mostly bare rock, granite with occasional extrusions of basalt. From her training in geology Annja knew granite was extremely hard. It would resist attempts to drive in pitons, but when hammered into cracks they tended to hold quite well. Of course, over millions of years even granite could be weakened by endless cycles of freezing and thawing, cracking into chunks from pebble to boulder size ready to peel treacherously away at the rap of a hammer or even the pressure of a climber's body.

  Because this was a journey, not a sport climb, Bostitch and Baron wisely chose not to take chances. Confronted by a sheer hundred feet of rock they sent the two strongest climbers to scout a way and secure ropes with anchors at the top. The others could then climb up with the aid of ropes, belayed by Baron, who would wait at the base and come up last. Worst-case they could simply haul exhausted or hopelessly incompetent climbers up they same way they would their own heavy packs, which they shed before starting off for maximum agility.

  Annja found herself somewhat surprised that the lead—meaning most proficient—rock-climber was Larry Taitt. Apparently he was more than a Future Bureaucrat of America with an uncharacteristic floppy-puppy attitude. Going first he swarmed up the rock with the skilled assurance of a spider monkey, driving spring-loaded camming devices into cracks in the rocks at intervals, both to protect himself and provide surety to following climbers. After sneering thoroughly at what the others were doing as mere "trad climbing," Tommy Wynock free-climbed, paralleling Larry and staying a little behind, so as to shoot his entire climb with a smaller helmet-mounted camera. Baron tightened his lips slightly at what he had to consider a lack of discipline. But although as expedition leader, or at least executive officer, he considered himself responsible for the welfare of everyone on it—rightly, in Annja's estimation—he had to face the fact that the Chasing History's Monsters video and sound crew did not consider themselves to be in his chain of command.

  In any event Tommy proved to be an expert rock climber. Knowing that, Jason, the crew chief, was content to stay at the bottom getting longer shots of the ascent. Earlier he had taken some panoramic shots of the wide, tortured land of eastern Turkey. Trish kept track of the dancing colored bars on the monitors of her recorders and fiddled with her gear.

  "Have you ever done anything like this before, Ms. Creed?" Charlie Bostitch asked, craning his head to watch the climbers scale the forbidding dark gray rock.

  "Some," she admitted. "I didn't really know what I was doing, though. I've never had much formal instruction. It was mainly a matter of not having any choice but to go ahead and do it." Which was how she wound up doing a lot of things, now that she thought about it.

  Charlie had a wide orange double-knit headband on that clashed horribly with his apple-red cheeks. His breath came in great dragon puffs of condensation. He seemed elated, elevated, as if he were getting more oxygen at this altitude than he was used to, rather than significantly less. It made Annja look with concern from him to Baron and back again, remembering that euphoria was a possible symptom of hypoxia. But Baron's expression remained unreadable as his eyes were invisible behind his dark goggles.

  Off to one side Hamid stood, slightly stooped, like a vulture perched on the stiffened leg of a dead wildebeest. His expression was fierce. Then again, with a nose and eyebrows like that Annja wasn't sure he could look any other way.

  Once ensconced at the top Larry and Tommy set anchors and fed ropes through. They tossed the lines down to their waiting companions. The Higgins twins inspected everyone to make sure their crampons were set to the front of their boots for a climb up a vertical surface—they were adjustable, and could also be worn on the bottoms of the climbers' boots for walking across ice. The climbers also used ascenders, metal grippers designed to slide up the climbing ropes but not down, helping the user do the same.

  From that point the climb came off with few dramatics. Levi did manage to break loose twice. The second time those above simply hauled him the rest of the way up like a backpack.

  The actual backpacks came up next. Baron waited at the bottom until the last climber was securely perched on the cliff top. Then making an ostentatious point of using the safety ropes and all the proper safety procedures he clambered up himself, retrieving all the climbing equipment out of cracks in the granite as he came. When he reached the top he wasn't even breathing hard, despite the fact they were well above eight thousand feet now.

  So the afternoon progressed, in a serious of vertical stages punctuated by hikes, often along narrow icy trails. As always Annja found these the scariest, even though the party roped itself together for all questionable crossings. She knew that for a party like this the greater dangers, statistically speaking, were likely to be the deceptively gentle snow and ice fields, where hidden crevasses and the ever-present danger of avalanche were greatest. But she'd seen too many people come to grief on narrow cliff-face ledges to feel complacent about them. Even if she'd actively helped some of those people come to grief on them.

  The party, it seemed, had been well screened for fear of heights. Annja herself lacked phobias of any kind, so far as she knew, although she did have what she considered a healthy regard for gravity.

  The least experienced member of the party, Levi, was cheerfully unathletic and not much more coordinated than a newborn foal. However, he was happily amenable to going where he was steered. In the face of dizzying panoramas—and even more dizzying sheer drops to certain doom—he kept a smiling, calm demeanor. Annja was unsure whether that came from fatalistic philosophical detachment or a self-induced nerd trance. When he explained to her at one rest break that he occupied his mind contemplating a slew of ancient and abstruse Qabbalist commentaries on construing the nature of the Creator, it didn't exactly clear things up for her.

  "Near-sightedness helps, too," he added with a smile.

  Hamid bore the climb the same way he seemed to bear everything including sunshine and happy tidings—with the smoldering demeanor of a pissed-off martyr.

  Still, even Levi's inevitable peelings, as the seasoned c
limbers referred to them, failed to produce much excitement. "That's why we use protection, people," Baron said in a voice of suitably heavy irony as Levi swung like a stoic rabbinical piñata over the latest terrifying void. As always his dark tinted goggles hid his eyes, but the set of his jaw when Zeb and Jeb tittered at his words promptly shut them down.

  As the sun dropped, swelling and reddening like a boil, toward the Anatolian Plateau behind them they began the day's last and most difficult ascent. Annja followed Levi to help bolster his confidence as he made his halting way aloft. His best efforts weren't enough to keep him from bumping into the rocks again and again. Annja was climbing on her own but was bent onto the safety lines by a quickdraw, which consisted of a pair of carabiners—basically snap rings—held together by a synthetic strap. She helped the rabbi as best she could. This mostly took the form of stopping him when he broke free of the cold unforgiving rock and began to spin, helping to stabilize him and get him oriented the right way, and generally encouraging him. He kept grinning down at her in an almost manic way, and she guessed that only shortness of breath caused by thin air and the tightness of his harness on his chest kept him from babbling his gratitude in a constant stream.