Her voice had begun shaking with anger because I wouldn't understand, because I wouldn't think it out, as she'd had time to think it out while I was looking for her. "And listen to this, Clive, and it's all I'm going to say. If you try to carry me out of here I'm going to resist, every inch of the way. I'm going to fight you, every bloody inch and every bloody yard, till you realise it's not worth it, and drop me, and leave me to rot." Then the anger was suddenly spent, and she was speaking so softly that I could barely hear. "But if you've got any kindness in you, any humanity, you'll face what you know you've got to do, and be gentle with me, and save me from all those things we all hope never to die with: pain, and humiliation, and indignity."

I knelt there for a time, going over it all, while the shadows in the moonlight crept from rock to rock, lengthening as the night moved on towards the dawn. I don't know when it was that she spoke again, as softly as before.

"Face it, Clive. Bite the bullet."

And at last I knew there was no argument, and no choice.

"I wish there'd been time to know you," I said.

"I've told you quite a bit, in the last few minutes. I'm someone to be reckoned with. Are you going to help me?"

"Yes."

She gave a quick shuddering laugh. "I finally got it into your thick skull."

"That's right."

"What made it so difficult? Because I'm a woman?"

"Probably."

"Then you're a male chauvinist pig. Listen, the monastery is east of here, the other side of that long ridge with the funny-looking rock at the end. Okay?"

"Okay."

"You knew that already, but I'm just cross-checking. To climb that ridge won't be easy, but there's no other way to go. It'll be easier, though, with some of the extra equipment you'll have: you can make hay with the pitons, using mine as well — you won't have to salvage any. And there'll be double the food and water ration. Did you see the terrain the other side of the ridge?"

"Not very clearly, in this light."

"You're not trained. You have to watch for the shadows, and know what they mean, how deep they are, and how high the object is that's throwing them. Listen, the terrain on the far side is almost flat, a narrow strip maybe a dozen yards wide and almost as long as the ridge itself. Are you listening?"

"Yes." But she knew that half my mind was still circling, looking for an escape, an escape for her that didn't demand her life.

"I'd say you'd be in full sight of the monastery, anywhere on that ridge, with one exception. There was a long shadow crossing it at an angle, starting just north of the middle and going obliquely south-east — in other words, towards the monastery. One thing I can tell you for sure: the monastery is something like five hundred feet above that ridge; six hundred at the most. Did you notice the ring formation?"

"Where?" The only escape was an escape for me: to leave her, and let her keep her word to them in any way she wanted, and let her do it alone. There was no choice there either.

"The rings on the mountains here," she said. "Clive, you'd better listen — there's no time to think about anything else. The ridges go up the mountains here in a typical ring system, though it's been mostly obliterated by time. You might be able to reach the monastery by following the oblique cleft towards the south-east, out of sight from the ridge. Okay?"

I was rolling up the bandage. "Yes. I'll try that."

"If it doesn't work, then you'll have to climb straight up from the north or south. That's when you'll need the extra pitons. There's no sheer rockface anywhere, except that bit we hit when we came down. You've got something like forty-five minutes of darkness left, to stow the chutes and conceal them." She looked away. "And me."

I put the roll of lint back into the bag, and pulled the zip. One had to keep order.

"I'll remember what you've advised. I'll try the cleft."

"It could work. But don't try it while it's still dark; there's a nasty bit between here and where it begins; it's where the rock goes sheer down."

"I'll wait till daylight."

"That's about it, then." She turned her head and looked at me again. "Except that I've got a last request. I want you to make love to me."

I'd noticed a movement in the mist here, not long ago; there was a bluff of rock throwing its shadow across the ground where we were, and the shadow was creeping as the moon lowered towards the mountains in the west. I suppose a wind was getting up, though hardly what you'd call a wind: just a stirring of the air, its movement playing on the insubstantial vapours, giving them the life of ghosts. There'd been the hint of woodsmoke, too, before, coming from one of the villages, one of the villages that was so close that we could smell its fires, so far that she would never see it; now there was the scent of pines on the air; or it had been here too, before, but overlayed by the bitterness of the smoke. Make love, yes, a certain logic in that, the way she saw things; I was beginning to know her nature.

I'd been quiet for too long, because she said, "Of course I might not be your type. I don't want you to think I'm- you know — sort of soliciting." She tried a laugh but it didn't quite come off.

I told her quickly, "Certainly you're my type. You'd be anyone's. Newcomb could hardly keep his eye on the navigation, as you must have noticed."

"You were very well brought up."

"Last dance, is that it?"

"Last drink, or whatever. Last anything I can get. I'm not one to go out with a whimper."

But I knew it was more than that; it was her sense of affirmation, of life at the death. It had been a good party, and she wasn't going to leave until the music stopped.

"Can you smell the pines?" I asked her.

"Yes. I wondered if you'd noticed. Isn't it lovely?" She was lifting her hand to me and I kissed her fingers; they were deathly cold: there'd been a certain degree of shock, and I think anyone else would have passed out by now.

"We'll have to look out for your leg," I said.

"You bet. Forget the missionary position, but thank God there are plenty of other ways." She was trying to reach for one of the haversacks, and I got it for her. "Put it under my head, Clive; there's no need to be uncomfy." Then the tears began, as she let everything go; there was no grief in this, I thought, and no self-pity, but just the gathering sense of loneliness that even she couldn't hold back; and perhaps it was a sign that she could now trust me enough to let me hear tier cry, knowing I wouldn't think of it as weakness. I remember being surprised, as I put my mouth on hers, that her tears could feel so warm against the coldness of her face, and so tender in someone so strong.

"Clive," she said in a moment, "we're strangers, but it doesn't mean we can't find some kind of love, just while it lasts. Do what you can."

Her blood was black in the moonlight, pooling among the stones. My hand was over her wrist, held loosely there, and I don't know why; to stop the rhythmic spurting from staining her flying suit — one must, yes, keep order; or to tempt me to deny all her arguments and grip with sudden force and reach with my other hand for the pressure point and then a tourniquet and somehow carry her through the mountains; or simply to ease the soreness for her, by the comfort of touching.

"I could have done a lot worse, Clive." The strength was leaving her voice.

"A lot worse?"

"Than finding you, for the last dance."

Her cropped head turned sideways on the haversack, but she straightened it to look up at me, like someone falling asleep and then waking because the time wasn't right.

"I wouldn't have wanted anyone else to be here now," I told her.

"It was a privilege."

"A privilege?" A little dry laugh came. "Oh God, I'm in such a mess." Her lips could scarcely open now. "You must try the cleft in the ridge, Clive… the way I said…»