The Highest Mountain — Reading Companion

System was a rotten egg ... a very rotten egg!

Bruce heard their feet on the gravel outside and got up reluctantly to open the door for them. He'd been reading some of Byron's poems he'd sneaked aboard the ship; after that he had been on the point of dozing off, and now one of those strangely realistic dreams would have to be postponed for a while. Funny, those dreams. There were faces in them of human beings, or of ghosts, and other forms that weren't human at all, but seemed real and alive--except that they were also just parts of a last unconscious desire to escape death. Maybe that was it.

"'Oh that my young life were a lasting dream, my spirit not awakening till the beam of an eternity should bring the 'morrow," Bruce said. He smiled without feeling much of anything and added, "Thanks, Mr. Poe."

Jacobs and Anhauser stood outside. The icy wind cut through and into Bruce, but he didn't seem to notice. Anhauser's bulk loomed even larger in the special cold-resisting suiting. Jacobs' thin face frowned slyly at Bruce.

"Come on in, boys, and get warm," Bruce invited.

"Hey, poet, you're still here!" Anhauser said, looking astonished.

"We thought you'd be running off somewhere," Jacobs said.

Bruce reached for the suit on its hook, started climbing into it. "Where?" he asked. "Mars looks alike wherever you go. Where did you think I'd be running to?"

"Any place just so it was away from here and us," Anhauser said.

"I don't have to do that. You are going away from me. That takes care of that, doesn't it?"

"Ah, come on, get the hell out of there," Jacobs said. He pulled the revolver from its holster and pointed it at Bruce. "We got to get some sleep. We're starting up that mountain at five in the morning."

"I know," Bruce said. "I'll be glad to see you climb the mountain."

Outside, in the weird light of the double moons, Bruce looked up at the gigantic overhang of the mountain. It was unbelievable. The mountain didn't seem to belong here. He'd thought so when they'd first hit Mars eight months back and discovered the other four rockets that had never got back to Earth--all lying side by side under the mountain's shadow, like little white chalk marks on a tallyboard.

They'd estimated its height at over 45,000 feet, which was a lot higher than any mountain on Earth. Yet Mars was much older, geologically. The entire face of the planet was smoothed into soft, undulating red hills by erosion. And there in the middle of barren nothingness rose that one incredible mountain. On certain nights when the stars were right, it had seemed to Bruce as though it were pointing an accusing finger at Earth--or a warning one.

With Jacobs and Anhauser and the remainder of the crew of the ship, _Mars V_, seven judges sat in a semi-circle and Bruce stood there in front of them for the inquest.

In the middle of the half-moon of inquisition, with his long legs stretched out and his hands folded on his belly, sat Captain Terrence. His uniform was black. On his arm was the silver fist insignia of the Conqueror Corps. Marsha Rennels sat on the extreme right and now there was no emotion at all on her trim, neat face.

He remembered her as she had been years ago, but at the moment he wasn't looking very hard to see anything on her face. It was too late. They had gotten her young and it was too late.

Terrence's big, square face frowned a little. Bruce was aware suddenly of the sound of the bleak, never-ending wind against the plastilene shelter. He remembered the strange misty shapes that had come to him in his dreams, the voices that had called to him, and how disappointed he had been when he woke from them.

"This is a mere formality," Terrence finally said, "since we all know you killed Lieutenant Doran a few hours ago. Marsha saw you kill him. Whatever you say goes on the record, of course."

"For whom?" Bruce asked.

"What kind of question is that? For the authorities on Earth when we get back."

"When you get back? Like the crews of those other four ships out there?" Bruce laughed without much humor.