Peak by Roland Smith Page A

and laid it on a cot. Leah pulled off her outer and inner thermal gloves with her teeth, then slowly unzipped the bag.
    "How are you feeling?" she asked.
    Francis was the color of a corpse. He blinked his eyes open and managed to give her a weak smile. He whispered, "I'm not claustrophobic anymore."
    Leah smiled and put a stethoscope to his chest. "But you still have HAPE."
    "I'm not going to the summit?"
    "Not this year," Josh said, looking just as disappointed as Francis. He had another opening on his climbing permit.
     
     
    WE LEFT FRANCIS AND LEAH and went into the mess tent. A handful of the team, staff, and Sherpas were still up drinking tea and playing cards. Josh reported on Francis's condition. When he finished he asked how Bill was.
    "Not too good," the Texan answered. "He doesn't want to go back up."
    Josh swore. Another climber down—and no one had climbed higher than ABC yet.
    The mess tent cleared out pretty fast after that, leaving me, Sun-jo, Zopa, and Sparky. It felt good to drink hot tea and to breathe and have air actually fill my lungs. I felt like I was sitting in an oxygen tent, not a mess tent.
    "Peak and Miss Angelo need to get up to ABC," Zopa said.
    "I know," Josh said. "I was going to take them and the film crew up when I got back, but I'll have to wait a few days now. I'm wiped."
    "I'll take them all up tomorrow," Zopa offered.
    I couldn't even imagine walking back up the glacier in a few hours, but I couldn't protest in front of Josh or Zopa. I wished that JR, Will, and Jack hadn't headed to their tents after filming Francis being freed from the Gamow bag. If they had been there to hear Zopa's suggestion, I'm sure they would have protested for me.
    "I can't ask you to do that," Josh said.
    "You didn't ask me," Zopa said. "I offered. They need to go up. The weather will break in a few hours."
    "Not according to the satellite maps I just looked at," Sparky said.
    Zopa shrugged. "The maps are wrong."
    "What about Holly?" Josh asked.
    "I had a doctor from another camp look at her earlier today," Zopa answered. "She can go."
    Josh grinned. "So, you already had this figured out before you came up to get me."
    Zopa ignored the comment. "We will take some of the porters and yaks," he said. "Resupply what was lost in the storm. There are some Sherpas I would like to visit at ABC before I leave the mountain."
    "Did you talk to Pa-sang?"
    Pa-sang was Josh's sirdar, who I had seen around camp but had never officially met. He was constantly rushing around, yelling at the porters, arguing with Sherpas, or in the HQ tent talking to the Base Camp crew.
    "He had the porters pack what was needed this afternoon," Zopa answered.
    Josh looked at me. "Are you ready for twenty-one thousand feet?"
    I said I was, but I had some serious doubts. I hoped Zopa was wrong about the weather.

ABC
     
    THE NEXT MORNING I poked my head through the tent flap.
    Crystal clear, twenty-eight degrees, no wind—by far the best weather we'd had since getting to Base Camp—and I could not have been more disappointed.
    I had a sore throat and it felt like the muscles and joints inside my skin had been replaced with broken glass.
    Sun-jo was sitting outside waiting for me, dressed in my former clothes, including my so-called junk boots. And there was an added touch: The Peak Experience logo had been sewn on both the parka and his stocking cap. I thought Zopa had traded all that stuff away. Why was Sun-jo wearing my clothes?
    "You do not look well," he said.
    "I do not feel well," I croaked back at him. "What's with the clothes?"
    "They didn't fit you," he answered. "Zopa gave them to me."
    I was too out of it to pursue it any further. I reached back into the tent for my water bottle and found it was frozen solid. I was so tired the night before, I had forgotten to put it in the sleeping bag with me to keep it from freezing. I'd spent hours packing and repacking my gear for the trip up to ABC.
    Sun-jo pulled his water bottle out of his