Bram Möller's Arc

Chapter 16 of 63

The prototype lay dead on the scree. Wind pushed grit against the torn belly fabric. Bram knelt beside the rescued pilot and pulled the blanket back. The man's lips were gray. His breath came shallow and quick. Frostbite had blackened two fingers on his right hand. A crust of dried blood matted his hair above the ear. Four days on the mountain had almost finished him. If Bram did not stabilize him soon, the compass in Parisa's case would go home to a widow, not a wife. Bram fired the distress flare from his kit. Red light climbed above the ridge and burst. He counted to sixty and fired a second. Then he waited beside the pilot and rubbed warmth into the man's good hand. An hour later he heard the drone of Omondi's small tender balloon coming down the valley. The scientist had followed the flare on foot after landing on the flat above. He arrived slipping on the scree, lab coat flapping, medical satchel banging his hip. Behind him came a woman Bram had never seen. She wore a heavy wool coat over a doctor's blouse. A stethoscope hung at her throat. Her blonde hair was tied back hard against the wind. "Sigrun Bergsdóttir," Omondi said, breathing hard. "She was at the waystation when the flare went up. She came." Sigrun did not waste words. She knelt by the pilot and pressed two fingers to his neck. "Pulse thready. How long exposed?" "Four days," Bram said. "He was whistling the whole time." She opened her bag. "Get his boots off. Slowly. Do not rub the feet." Bram worked the frozen laces while she cut the man's jacket open and slid warming packs against his chest. Omondi held a lantern close and dropped it twice before Sigrun took it from him without looking. She threaded an IV line into the pilot's arm on the first try. Warm saline ran down the tube. "He will live if we keep him warm and still," she said. "Not if you carry him out over rock." "I have to," Bram said. "My last stop is still ahead." Sigrun looked at him. Her eyes were the color of shallow ice. "Then you go without him. He stays with me until the tender can lift him at first light." Bram looked at the pilot. Color was already returning to his mouth. The man's eyes opened a slit and found Bram's face. He tried to speak. Bram leaned close. "Tell my wife," the pilot whispered. "Tell her I heard the whistle come back." Bram nodded. He stood. Vex's patch kit still sat in the prototype's locker, and the last package for his route was strapped under the pilot's seat. He had a survivor, a doctor to hold the line, and a delivery he had not yet finished. He pulled the package free and started up the scree toward Omondi's tender.