The strong thermals rising along the cliff face struck the kite like a rising elevator and I was slammed upward, the control bar swinging back against my upper chest hard enough to knock the wind out of me, and the parawing swooped, climbed, and tried to do a lazy loop with a radius of sixty or seventy meters. I found myself hanging almost upside down again, but this time with the kite and controls beneath me and the rock wall dead ahead again.

This was no good. I would conclude the loop on the cliff wall. I yanked the right panic handle, spilled lift, tumbled sideways in a sickening drop, sealed the wing, and tugged handles and control bar while shifting my weight wildly to establish balance and control. The clouds had parted enough for me to see the cliff twenty or thirty meters to my right as I fought the thermals and the kite itself for a clean line. Then I was leveled and flying the contraption, spiraling around to my left again, but carefully this time—ever so carefully—thankful for the break in the clouds that allowed me to judge my distance from the cliff and leaning hard left on the control bar.

Suddenly a whisper in my ear said, “Wow! That was fun to watch. Do it again!”

I jumped at the voice in my ear and then looked up and behind me. The bright yellow triangle of Aenea’s parawing circled above me, the clouds close above it like a gray ceiling.

“No thanks,” I said, allowing the comthreads on the throat of my skinsuit to pick up the subvocals. “I guess I’m through showing off.”

I glanced up at her again. “Why are you here? Where’s A. Bettik?”

“We rendezvoused above the clouds, didn’t see you, and I came down to find you,” Aenea said simply, her comthreaded voice soft in my ear.

I felt a surge of nausea—more from the thought of her risking everything to do that than from the violent aerobatics of a moment earlier. “I’m all right,” I said gruffly. “Just had to get the feel of the ridge lift.”

“Yeah,” said Aenea. “It’s tricky. Why don’t you follow me up?”

I did so, not allowing my pride to get in the way of survival. It was difficult to keep her yellow wing in sight with the shifting fog, but easier than flying blind near this cliff. She seemed to sense exactly where the rock wall was, cutting our circle within five meters of it—catching the strong center of the thermals there—but never coming too close or swinging too wide.

Within minutes we came out of the clouds. I admit that the experience took my breath away—first a slow brightening, then a rush of sunlight, then rising above the cloud level like a swimmer emerging from a white sea, then squinting into the bright light within the blinding freedom of blue sky and a seemingly infinite view on all sides. Only the highest peaks and ridgelines were visible above the ocean of clouds: T’ai Shan gleaming cold and icy white so far to our east, Heng Shan about equidistant to the north, our ridgeline from Jo-kung rising like a razor’s edge just above the tides of cloud running back to the west, K’un Lun Ridge a distant wall running northwest to southeast, and far, far away near the edge of the world, the brilliant summits of Chomo Lori, Mt. Parnassus, Kangchengjunga, Mt. Koya, Mt. Kalais, and others I could not identify from this angle. There was a glimmer of sunlight on something tall beyond distant Phari Ridge, and I thought this might be the Potala or the lesser Shivling. I quit gawking and turned my attention back to our attempt to gain altitude. A. Bettik circled close by and gave me a thumbs-up. I returned the signal and looked up to see Lhomo gesturing fifty meters above us: Close up. Keep your circles tight. Follow me. We did that, Aenea easily climbing to her wingman position behind Lhomo, A. Bettik’s blue kite circling across the climb circle from her, and me bringing up the rear fifteen meters below and fifty meters across the circle from the android.

Lhomo seemed to know exactly where the thermals were—sometimes we circled farther back west, caught the lift, and opened our circles to move east again. Sometimes we seemed to circle without gaining altitude, but then I would look north to Heng Shan and sense that we had covered another several hundred meters upward. Slowly we climbed and slowly we circled east, although T’ai Shan must still have been eighty or ninety klicks away. It grew colder and harder to breathe.

I sealed the last bit of osmosis mask and inhaled pure O to the 2nd power as we climbed. The skinsuit tightened around me, acting as a pressure suit and thermsuit all in one.

I could see Lhomo shivering in his zygoat chuba and heavy mittens. There was ice on A. Bettik’s bare forearm. And still we circled and rose. The sky darkened and the view grew more unbelievable—distant Nanda Devi in the southwest, Helgafell in the even more distant southeast, and Harney Peak far beyond the Shivling all coming into sight above the curve of the planet. Finally Lhomo had had enough. A moment earlier I had unsealed the clear osmosis mask on my hood to see how thick the air was, tried to inhale what felt like hard vacuum, and quickly resealed the membrane. I could not imagine how Lhomo managed to breathe, think, and function at this altitude. Now he signaled us to keep circling higher on the thermal he had been working, gave us the ancient “good luck” sign of the circled thumb and forefinger, and then spilled the thin air out of his delta kite to drop away like a hurtling Thomas hawk. Within seconds, the red delta was several thousand meters below us and swooping toward the ridgeline to the west.

We continued circling and climbing, occasionally losing the lift for a moment, but then finding it again.

We were being blown eastward by the lower edges of the jet stream, but we followed Lhomo’s final advice and resisted the temptation to turn toward our destination; we did not have enough altitude or tailwind yet to make the eighty-kilometer voyage. Encountering the jet stream was like suddenly entering a whitewater rapids in a kayak. Aenea’s kite found the edge of it first, and I watched the yellow fabric vibrate as if in a powerful gale, then the aluminum super-structure flex wildly. Then A. Bettik and I were into it and it was everything we could do to hold ourselves horizontal in the swinging harness behind the control bar and continue circling for altitude.

“It’s hard,” came Aenea’s voice in my ear. “It wants to tear loose and head east.”

“We can’t,” I gasped, pulling the parawing into the headwind again and being thrown higher in one great vertical lift ride.

“I know,” came Aenea’s strained voice. I was a hundred meters away and below her now, but I could see her small form wrestling with the control bar, her legs straight, her small feet pointed backward like a cliff diver’s.

I peered around. The brilliant sun was haloed by ice crystals. The ridgelines were almost invisible so far below, the summits of the highest peaks now klicks beneath us. “How is A. Bettik doing?” asked Aenea. I twisted and strained to see. The android was circling above me. His eyes appeared to be closed, but I could see him making adjustments to the control bar. His blue flesh gleamed with frost.

“All right, I think,” I said. “Aenea?”

“Yes?”

“Is there any chance of the Pax at Shivling or in orbit picking up our comthread broadcasts?”

The com unit-diskey journal was in my pocket, but we had decided never to use it until it was time to call the ship. It would be ironic if we were captured or killed because of using these skinsuit communicators.

“No chance,” gasped Aenea. Even with the osmosis masks and the rebreather matrix woven into the skinsuits, the air was thin and cold. “The comthreads are very short range. Half a klick at most.”

“Then stay close,” I said and concentrated on gaining a few hundred more meters before the almost silent hurricane that was buffeting me sent the kite screaming off to the east.