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fredbassettTitle : The Skull Beneath the Skin (Part 6 of 9)
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Rating : Mostly 15, with one 18 rated section.
Characters : Nick/Stephen, Lester, Ryan, Connor, Abby, Claudia, Helen, OCs.
Disclaimer : Not mine, no money made, don’t sue.
Word Count : 2,518, this part. Total, 26,890
Spoilers : None
Summary : Nick and Stephen attend a conference and things take a particularly interesting turn during a field trip.
A/N : 1) This is my offering for the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
help_pakistan auction. It’s been a pleasure to write this story and I’d like to thank ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tryfanstone , who won me at auction as a present for a friend, and who passed on the prompts and encouraged me during the writing process. It’s been a privilege to work with you! 2) The title comes from the T.S.Eliot poem Whispers of Immortality. 3) I am very grateful to lukadreaming who nobly betaed the entire fic, and to steamshovelmama whose medical knowledge was, as ever, invaluable.
*****
The anomaly hung in the air amidst a tangle of rhododendron bushes. Dark green leaves redolent with deep red flowers framed the diamond-bright shards of time. Its beauty took Stephen’s breath away even as the sight sent a chill down his spine.
“How long will it remain open for?” Ryan demanded, directing his question to Helen.
“Long enough,” she replied. “But we can’t afford to waste any time.” Without a backward glance to see whether she was being followed or not, Helen stepped into the glittering fragments and disappeared.
Frank Taylor started to hurry after her but Nick grabbed his arm. “We stay together, Frank. Ryan goes first.” He nodded to the Special Forces captain and Ryan walked forwards, his rifle held across his chest. The anomaly swallowed him.
Nick went next, with Frank Taylor at his side. Stephen gestured to Abby and Connor and they walked through in front of him, shoulder to shoulder, carrying the lightweight stretcher that had come from the back of Ryan’s Range Rover. Stephen followed, a tranquilliser rifle slung over his shoulder with a Browning automatic a comforting weight against his leg in a borrowed thigh-holster.
Heat settled around Stephen like a stifling blanket, warmer than the English summer they had just left behind and far more humid. A riot of smells assaulted his nose: the rich loam of a ground covered by fallen leaves and other vegetation, overlaid with the heavy scent of pollen from trees laden with large, cream-coloured flowers, closely resembling magnolias.
They were surrounded by trees, some familiar, some unfamiliar but in spite of the presence of something that looked like hazel, heavy with nuts, the area still resembled the South American rainforest more than English woodland. Abby and Connor were staring around them, mouths open, eyes wide with amazed delight. Even Nick, who’d already experienced the wonders of the past more than once, looked like a kid in a fairground. At his side, Ryan – hard-eyed and alert – scanned the area for any possible threats.
Stephen took a deep breath and exhaled carefully. Then another. “We’ve got raised CO2 levels, Cutter,” he warned. He stared at Helen. “How bad is it?”
Carbon dioxide levels in the Cretaceous had varied wildly, reflecting the changing climate as the Earth moved from warm to cool to warm conditions, swinging like an erratic pendulum, possibly influenced as well by the rise and fall of volcanic activity. Stephen just hoped they weren’t about to experience anything too extreme.
Helen shrugged. “I haven’t measured it.”
“What’s your best guess?” Stephen kept his voice neutral, but they needed the information. It was about time Helen started being more forthcoming.
“Between one and two per cent. It won’t kill us, if that’s what you’re thinking, Stephen.”
“But it will mean we’ll have to work slightly harder to breathe.” He looked around at the others. “If you start to feel out of breath, try not to gasp, it won’t help. Just keep your breathing as steady as you can and don’t panic. You might start to get a slight headache. It shouldn’t get any worse than that.”
“What about Karen?” demanded Frank Taylor, an edge of desperation in his voice.
“These levels aren’t dangerous, Professor,” Stephen said trying to sound reassuring. “I just wanted to warn everyone, that’s all.” He switched his attention back to Helen. “How far do we have to go?”
She pushed a tendril of brown hair back over one ear and shouldered her small rucksack. “Not far. No more than a mile.”
Without another word, she turned and headed off through the undergrowth, with Ryan hard on her heels. Progress through the tangle of ferns and other vegetation was relatively easy, which was fortunate as none of then had a machete, although he knew Abby had managed to stow a small hand axe in her pack, as well as a couple of large kitchen knives.
Tall trees rose up like pylons, reaching for the light. Underneath their canopy, huge ferns jostled for position, some sprouting massive rounded stems, others growing straight out of the ground. The group heard the occasional rustle in the undergrowth but so far had seen nothing to cause alarm. Helen strode on confidently, but Stephen could see the constant small movements of her head from side to side, checking, searching, always alert. He was reminded forcibly that she had survived in this and other – possibly even more – hostile environments for eight years. If they wanted to stay alive as well, taking a leaf out of her book would be wise.
“Oh wow,” breathed Connor, staring around him, his eyes like saucers. “This is…”
“Amazing,” Abby finished for him, when Connor’s brain looked like it was in need of a reboot.
“Dangerous,” Stephen amended. “Connor, what should we be looking out for?”
The young man shot a look over his shoulder at Stephen, totally failing to keep a grin off his face. “Er, just about anything, really.” He saw the look of Stephen’s face and laughed somewhat breathlessly. “OK, not helping.”
“If it moves, assume it’s a threat,” Helen said from the front of the group. “I’ve seen several species of dromaeosaurs in this forest and when I came through here an hour ago there was a herd of corythosaurus. They’re herbivores, but they’re big and they spook easily. Keep moving and they’ll probably stay out of our way.”
That actually went for most things in Stephen’s experience, but it was good to hear confirmation of it from Helen. She kept up a brisk pace, not bothering to check whether everyone was still with her, although the noise of six people’s passage was no doubt enough of a clue in itself.
Something moved to his right and Stephen’s hand went automatically for the holstered Browning. Something small and grey-furred, about 20cm long, dived into a pile of leaves. It looked like an over-sized rat with a short, thick tail. Stephen relaxed and took his hand away from the pistol, but he did flip open the holster, just in case.
“So, how many trips have you made, Frank?” Nick asked Taylor who was pacing at his side, a bruise already spreading across the other man’s face.
“Three,” Taylor replied curtly, clearly not inviting further conversation.
Before Nick had a chance to press for further details, a loud crack of wood nearby made Ryan spin around, bringing his rifle up to his shoulder, searching for a target.
“Wait!” Helen’s voice rang out like a whip-crack.
A large, greenish shape with a lumbering gait was moving through the forest, no more than ten metres away. Stephen heard Connor’s sharp intake of breath and demanded, in a low voice, “What the hell is it?”
“Some sort of hadrosaur,” Connor said, wonder in his voice.
“Edmontosaurus,” said Helen.
The creature, standing half a metre or so taller than Stephen, stopped and reared up on its hind legs to pull a mouthful of leaves off a tree, wholly unconcerned by the fact that it was being watched.
“Look at the colours!” Connor stepped forward, entranced, but Abby grabbed his arm before he could go any further.
The greenish background of the creature’s hide was mottled with red, interspersed with orange bands. To Stephen’s surprise, the brightness of the colours didn’t actually stand out in a forest where brightly coloured blooms hung off all manner of trees.
Connor pulled his mobile phone out of his pocket. “Professor, can I?”
Helen snorted in disdain and started walking again, but Nick said softly, “Aye, lad, but be quick about it, and no flash, remember.”
Connor relinquished his hold on the stretcher to Abby and hastily snapped two photos then moved off again, helped along by Abby’s hand on the small of his back. He had the sort of look on his face that said if he died now, he’d die happy. In contrast, Ryan had the sort of look on his face that said no one was going to die if he had anything to do with it. Nick had given up making any attempt to talk to Frank Taylor and was simply staring around him, drinking in the sights, sounds and smells of the Cretaceous. Abby seemed wholly engrossed in the plant life, but not to the exclusion of everything else, as Stephen realised when she quietly drew his attention to what looked like a long, thin, feathered head peeping out from under the fronds of a low-growing fern. He nodded and carried on walking, hand on the pistol grip again.
He noticed that the undergrowth around them showed signs of some disturbance, as though a number of large animals had passed this way recently. A glance down at the ground confirmed his suspicions: there was plenty of broken and cracked wood and trampled vegetation underfoot. A herd of something large had milled around in the vicinity, stripping the lower branches of various trees of their leaf growth and chewing on the delicate tips of tightly-curled ferns.
“How much further, Helen?” he called, keeping his voice low.
“You never were very patient, were you, Stephen?” she chided. “Not far now. We need to be careful, the triceratops herd might still be in this area and they had several youngsters. That always makes them dangerous.”
The trees were starting to thin out slightly and Stephen recognised the leaves of one, delicate and fan-shaped, growing off branches that spread out at right-angles to the tree-trunk.
“It’s a Ginkgo,” Abby said, sharing a smile with him. “We’ve got one growing in the reptile house in the zoo.”
The tree had often been described as a living fossil, but here they were seeing it in its original habitat. On impulse, Stephen reached out and plucked off a leaf, tucking it into his pocket. Abby grinned and did the same. In front of the group, Helen held up a hand, bringing the party to a halt. With a nod to Ryan, she stepped forward, moving carefully, and then dropped to her knees. Stephen realised with surprise that they’d reached the edge of some sort of gully, heavily overhung with vegetation. It was no wonder that Karen Taylor had been unaware of the hazard if she’d been fleeing from a startled triceratops.
“Karen!” Frank Taylor’s voice was loud in the silence of the forest. “Karen!”
“Be quiet!” Helen hissed. “She’s probably still unconscious. Ryan, get him out of my way!”
Ryan took hold of Taylor’s arm and propelled the man backwards. The soldier shot a meaningful look at Nick who promptly stepped up and put a hand on Taylor’s shoulder. “Frank, let them work.”
Taylor sucked in a deep breath and nodded. His eyes held Ryan’s and he pleaded, “Save my daughter.”
The soldier nodded and dropped to his knees next to Helen, staring down into the gully. He turned around and motioned Stephen forward. “You’ve done some climbing?”
“Yes.” Stephen dropped to the ground next to Ryan and brushed aside some of the vegetation to get an idea of what they were dealing with. Below them he could hear the sound of water, flowing over a series of drops and cascades in a deep, narrow gully. Some 15 metres down, sprawled on a flat slab lay Karen Taylor, on her back, one leg bent at an unnatural angle, a smear of blood on her face and more on the rock beneath her. Her left arm was flung out sideways, the other curled over her stomach, fingers slightly clenched. At that distance, Stephen couldn’t actually tell whether she was alive or dead.
He stared down at the overgrown sides of the gully. There was a slight overhang at the top and it looked a nasty climb, one that he wasn’t sure he’d fancy tackling without the proper gear. “What equipment have we got?” he asked Ryan.
“Enough,” the soldier said, slipping his pack off his shoulders and emptying the contents onto the ground. “There’s a full set of abseiling and prusiking kit, two 30-metre ropes, three pulleys, ten karabiners and a load of slings. That should do it.”
Without wasting any time, Stephen handed the tranquilliser rifle and the waist-pack containing the spare darts to Abby, then unfastened the leg-holster that held the Browning automatic and gave that to Nick, along with two spare magazines. He then started kitting up with somewhat less lethal gear, adjusting the harness to fit and sorting through the rest of the equipment while Ryan found a suitable tree and began rigging a rope for Stephen’s descent.
Without a word, Helen rummaged through the slings, found one the length she needed and promptly fashioned a simple, but effective harness, joined together with a karabiner. “I’m going down with you.”
Stephen simply nodded and carried on getting ready. He knew that Helen had done a lot of climbing when she’d been a student and he wasn’t about to argue with her. He also wasn’t going to insult her by offering her the better kit. From what he remembered, she was almost certainly a more competent climber than he was. While they were making their own preparations, Abby was consolidating the contents of their first aid kits, putting together all their bandages and anything else that might be useful into one pack. Stephen took it from her with a small smile of thanks.
“Ready when you are,” Ryan said, giving the rope one last tug.
Stephen threaded it through the bars of the rack that he’d fastened to his harness by a karabiner. It was a long, hooped piece of metal with a series of bars through which the rope would run, slowing his rate of descent, and he would be able to control that even further by lifting or lowering the rope, lowering it to slow his downward progress, lifting it to go faster. Helen was busy manufacturing a similar device from a combination of two karabiners.
He leaned back, testing his weight against the rope and then nodded to Ryan. “Let Helen come next, then send the stretcher down on the rope, along with the first aid kit.”
“Fine,” Ryan acknowledged. “I’ll get the other rope rigged through the pulley to bring the stretcher back up. We’ll haul her up head first, there’s too much bloody vegetation to do it horizontally. There’s an inbuilt harness with a crotch strap on the stretcher.”
Stephen lowered himself carefully over the edge, trying not to dislodge any rocks that might fall and do Karen Taylor any more damage. With his weight on the harness and his feet braced against the vertical side of the gully, Stephen started his descent, keeping it slow and steady, the rope running through his fingers. Gloves would have been better, but he didn’t have any, so he’d just have to make sure he went slowly enough to avoid friction burns. The rack was a good device and he’d threaded all six bars for a deliberately slow descent.
As soon as his feet touched the slab, he crouched down to give himself some slack on the rope, calling, “Down!” as he landed on his feet. He quickly unthreaded the rope, stepped back, being careful of his footing on the damp rock, and yelled, “Rope free!” Without waiting to watch Helen’s descent, Stephen quickly knelt by Karen Taylor’s side, checking her breathing. Her father was waiting at the top of the gully, desperate for news of his daughter’s condition.
Stephen just hoped he’d be able to give the man some good news.
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Rating : Mostly 15, with one 18 rated section.
Characters : Nick/Stephen, Lester, Ryan, Connor, Abby, Claudia, Helen, OCs.
Disclaimer : Not mine, no money made, don’t sue.
Word Count : 2,518, this part. Total, 26,890
Spoilers : None
Summary : Nick and Stephen attend a conference and things take a particularly interesting turn during a field trip.
A/N : 1) This is my offering for the
help_pakistan auction. It’s been a pleasure to write this story and I’d like to thank tryfanstone , who won me at auction as a present for a friend, and who passed on the prompts and encouraged me during the writing process. It’s been a privilege to work with you! 2) The title comes from the T.S.Eliot poem Whispers of Immortality. 3) I am very grateful to lukadreaming who nobly betaed the entire fic, and to steamshovelmama whose medical knowledge was, as ever, invaluable. *****
The anomaly hung in the air amidst a tangle of rhododendron bushes. Dark green leaves redolent with deep red flowers framed the diamond-bright shards of time. Its beauty took Stephen’s breath away even as the sight sent a chill down his spine.
“How long will it remain open for?” Ryan demanded, directing his question to Helen.
“Long enough,” she replied. “But we can’t afford to waste any time.” Without a backward glance to see whether she was being followed or not, Helen stepped into the glittering fragments and disappeared.
Frank Taylor started to hurry after her but Nick grabbed his arm. “We stay together, Frank. Ryan goes first.” He nodded to the Special Forces captain and Ryan walked forwards, his rifle held across his chest. The anomaly swallowed him.
Nick went next, with Frank Taylor at his side. Stephen gestured to Abby and Connor and they walked through in front of him, shoulder to shoulder, carrying the lightweight stretcher that had come from the back of Ryan’s Range Rover. Stephen followed, a tranquilliser rifle slung over his shoulder with a Browning automatic a comforting weight against his leg in a borrowed thigh-holster.
Heat settled around Stephen like a stifling blanket, warmer than the English summer they had just left behind and far more humid. A riot of smells assaulted his nose: the rich loam of a ground covered by fallen leaves and other vegetation, overlaid with the heavy scent of pollen from trees laden with large, cream-coloured flowers, closely resembling magnolias.
They were surrounded by trees, some familiar, some unfamiliar but in spite of the presence of something that looked like hazel, heavy with nuts, the area still resembled the South American rainforest more than English woodland. Abby and Connor were staring around them, mouths open, eyes wide with amazed delight. Even Nick, who’d already experienced the wonders of the past more than once, looked like a kid in a fairground. At his side, Ryan – hard-eyed and alert – scanned the area for any possible threats.
Stephen took a deep breath and exhaled carefully. Then another. “We’ve got raised CO2 levels, Cutter,” he warned. He stared at Helen. “How bad is it?”
Carbon dioxide levels in the Cretaceous had varied wildly, reflecting the changing climate as the Earth moved from warm to cool to warm conditions, swinging like an erratic pendulum, possibly influenced as well by the rise and fall of volcanic activity. Stephen just hoped they weren’t about to experience anything too extreme.
Helen shrugged. “I haven’t measured it.”
“What’s your best guess?” Stephen kept his voice neutral, but they needed the information. It was about time Helen started being more forthcoming.
“Between one and two per cent. It won’t kill us, if that’s what you’re thinking, Stephen.”
“But it will mean we’ll have to work slightly harder to breathe.” He looked around at the others. “If you start to feel out of breath, try not to gasp, it won’t help. Just keep your breathing as steady as you can and don’t panic. You might start to get a slight headache. It shouldn’t get any worse than that.”
“What about Karen?” demanded Frank Taylor, an edge of desperation in his voice.
“These levels aren’t dangerous, Professor,” Stephen said trying to sound reassuring. “I just wanted to warn everyone, that’s all.” He switched his attention back to Helen. “How far do we have to go?”
She pushed a tendril of brown hair back over one ear and shouldered her small rucksack. “Not far. No more than a mile.”
Without another word, she turned and headed off through the undergrowth, with Ryan hard on her heels. Progress through the tangle of ferns and other vegetation was relatively easy, which was fortunate as none of then had a machete, although he knew Abby had managed to stow a small hand axe in her pack, as well as a couple of large kitchen knives.
Tall trees rose up like pylons, reaching for the light. Underneath their canopy, huge ferns jostled for position, some sprouting massive rounded stems, others growing straight out of the ground. The group heard the occasional rustle in the undergrowth but so far had seen nothing to cause alarm. Helen strode on confidently, but Stephen could see the constant small movements of her head from side to side, checking, searching, always alert. He was reminded forcibly that she had survived in this and other – possibly even more – hostile environments for eight years. If they wanted to stay alive as well, taking a leaf out of her book would be wise.
“Oh wow,” breathed Connor, staring around him, his eyes like saucers. “This is…”
“Amazing,” Abby finished for him, when Connor’s brain looked like it was in need of a reboot.
“Dangerous,” Stephen amended. “Connor, what should we be looking out for?”
The young man shot a look over his shoulder at Stephen, totally failing to keep a grin off his face. “Er, just about anything, really.” He saw the look of Stephen’s face and laughed somewhat breathlessly. “OK, not helping.”
“If it moves, assume it’s a threat,” Helen said from the front of the group. “I’ve seen several species of dromaeosaurs in this forest and when I came through here an hour ago there was a herd of corythosaurus. They’re herbivores, but they’re big and they spook easily. Keep moving and they’ll probably stay out of our way.”
That actually went for most things in Stephen’s experience, but it was good to hear confirmation of it from Helen. She kept up a brisk pace, not bothering to check whether everyone was still with her, although the noise of six people’s passage was no doubt enough of a clue in itself.
Something moved to his right and Stephen’s hand went automatically for the holstered Browning. Something small and grey-furred, about 20cm long, dived into a pile of leaves. It looked like an over-sized rat with a short, thick tail. Stephen relaxed and took his hand away from the pistol, but he did flip open the holster, just in case.
“So, how many trips have you made, Frank?” Nick asked Taylor who was pacing at his side, a bruise already spreading across the other man’s face.
“Three,” Taylor replied curtly, clearly not inviting further conversation.
Before Nick had a chance to press for further details, a loud crack of wood nearby made Ryan spin around, bringing his rifle up to his shoulder, searching for a target.
“Wait!” Helen’s voice rang out like a whip-crack.
A large, greenish shape with a lumbering gait was moving through the forest, no more than ten metres away. Stephen heard Connor’s sharp intake of breath and demanded, in a low voice, “What the hell is it?”
“Some sort of hadrosaur,” Connor said, wonder in his voice.
“Edmontosaurus,” said Helen.
The creature, standing half a metre or so taller than Stephen, stopped and reared up on its hind legs to pull a mouthful of leaves off a tree, wholly unconcerned by the fact that it was being watched.
“Look at the colours!” Connor stepped forward, entranced, but Abby grabbed his arm before he could go any further.
The greenish background of the creature’s hide was mottled with red, interspersed with orange bands. To Stephen’s surprise, the brightness of the colours didn’t actually stand out in a forest where brightly coloured blooms hung off all manner of trees.
Connor pulled his mobile phone out of his pocket. “Professor, can I?”
Helen snorted in disdain and started walking again, but Nick said softly, “Aye, lad, but be quick about it, and no flash, remember.”
Connor relinquished his hold on the stretcher to Abby and hastily snapped two photos then moved off again, helped along by Abby’s hand on the small of his back. He had the sort of look on his face that said if he died now, he’d die happy. In contrast, Ryan had the sort of look on his face that said no one was going to die if he had anything to do with it. Nick had given up making any attempt to talk to Frank Taylor and was simply staring around him, drinking in the sights, sounds and smells of the Cretaceous. Abby seemed wholly engrossed in the plant life, but not to the exclusion of everything else, as Stephen realised when she quietly drew his attention to what looked like a long, thin, feathered head peeping out from under the fronds of a low-growing fern. He nodded and carried on walking, hand on the pistol grip again.
He noticed that the undergrowth around them showed signs of some disturbance, as though a number of large animals had passed this way recently. A glance down at the ground confirmed his suspicions: there was plenty of broken and cracked wood and trampled vegetation underfoot. A herd of something large had milled around in the vicinity, stripping the lower branches of various trees of their leaf growth and chewing on the delicate tips of tightly-curled ferns.
“How much further, Helen?” he called, keeping his voice low.
“You never were very patient, were you, Stephen?” she chided. “Not far now. We need to be careful, the triceratops herd might still be in this area and they had several youngsters. That always makes them dangerous.”
The trees were starting to thin out slightly and Stephen recognised the leaves of one, delicate and fan-shaped, growing off branches that spread out at right-angles to the tree-trunk.
“It’s a Ginkgo,” Abby said, sharing a smile with him. “We’ve got one growing in the reptile house in the zoo.”
The tree had often been described as a living fossil, but here they were seeing it in its original habitat. On impulse, Stephen reached out and plucked off a leaf, tucking it into his pocket. Abby grinned and did the same. In front of the group, Helen held up a hand, bringing the party to a halt. With a nod to Ryan, she stepped forward, moving carefully, and then dropped to her knees. Stephen realised with surprise that they’d reached the edge of some sort of gully, heavily overhung with vegetation. It was no wonder that Karen Taylor had been unaware of the hazard if she’d been fleeing from a startled triceratops.
“Karen!” Frank Taylor’s voice was loud in the silence of the forest. “Karen!”
“Be quiet!” Helen hissed. “She’s probably still unconscious. Ryan, get him out of my way!”
Ryan took hold of Taylor’s arm and propelled the man backwards. The soldier shot a meaningful look at Nick who promptly stepped up and put a hand on Taylor’s shoulder. “Frank, let them work.”
Taylor sucked in a deep breath and nodded. His eyes held Ryan’s and he pleaded, “Save my daughter.”
The soldier nodded and dropped to his knees next to Helen, staring down into the gully. He turned around and motioned Stephen forward. “You’ve done some climbing?”
“Yes.” Stephen dropped to the ground next to Ryan and brushed aside some of the vegetation to get an idea of what they were dealing with. Below them he could hear the sound of water, flowing over a series of drops and cascades in a deep, narrow gully. Some 15 metres down, sprawled on a flat slab lay Karen Taylor, on her back, one leg bent at an unnatural angle, a smear of blood on her face and more on the rock beneath her. Her left arm was flung out sideways, the other curled over her stomach, fingers slightly clenched. At that distance, Stephen couldn’t actually tell whether she was alive or dead.
He stared down at the overgrown sides of the gully. There was a slight overhang at the top and it looked a nasty climb, one that he wasn’t sure he’d fancy tackling without the proper gear. “What equipment have we got?” he asked Ryan.
“Enough,” the soldier said, slipping his pack off his shoulders and emptying the contents onto the ground. “There’s a full set of abseiling and prusiking kit, two 30-metre ropes, three pulleys, ten karabiners and a load of slings. That should do it.”
Without wasting any time, Stephen handed the tranquilliser rifle and the waist-pack containing the spare darts to Abby, then unfastened the leg-holster that held the Browning automatic and gave that to Nick, along with two spare magazines. He then started kitting up with somewhat less lethal gear, adjusting the harness to fit and sorting through the rest of the equipment while Ryan found a suitable tree and began rigging a rope for Stephen’s descent.
Without a word, Helen rummaged through the slings, found one the length she needed and promptly fashioned a simple, but effective harness, joined together with a karabiner. “I’m going down with you.”
Stephen simply nodded and carried on getting ready. He knew that Helen had done a lot of climbing when she’d been a student and he wasn’t about to argue with her. He also wasn’t going to insult her by offering her the better kit. From what he remembered, she was almost certainly a more competent climber than he was. While they were making their own preparations, Abby was consolidating the contents of their first aid kits, putting together all their bandages and anything else that might be useful into one pack. Stephen took it from her with a small smile of thanks.
“Ready when you are,” Ryan said, giving the rope one last tug.
Stephen threaded it through the bars of the rack that he’d fastened to his harness by a karabiner. It was a long, hooped piece of metal with a series of bars through which the rope would run, slowing his rate of descent, and he would be able to control that even further by lifting or lowering the rope, lowering it to slow his downward progress, lifting it to go faster. Helen was busy manufacturing a similar device from a combination of two karabiners.
He leaned back, testing his weight against the rope and then nodded to Ryan. “Let Helen come next, then send the stretcher down on the rope, along with the first aid kit.”
“Fine,” Ryan acknowledged. “I’ll get the other rope rigged through the pulley to bring the stretcher back up. We’ll haul her up head first, there’s too much bloody vegetation to do it horizontally. There’s an inbuilt harness with a crotch strap on the stretcher.”
Stephen lowered himself carefully over the edge, trying not to dislodge any rocks that might fall and do Karen Taylor any more damage. With his weight on the harness and his feet braced against the vertical side of the gully, Stephen started his descent, keeping it slow and steady, the rope running through his fingers. Gloves would have been better, but he didn’t have any, so he’d just have to make sure he went slowly enough to avoid friction burns. The rack was a good device and he’d threaded all six bars for a deliberately slow descent.
As soon as his feet touched the slab, he crouched down to give himself some slack on the rope, calling, “Down!” as he landed on his feet. He quickly unthreaded the rope, stepped back, being careful of his footing on the damp rock, and yelled, “Rope free!” Without waiting to watch Helen’s descent, Stephen quickly knelt by Karen Taylor’s side, checking her breathing. Her father was waiting at the top of the gully, desperate for news of his daughter’s condition.
Stephen just hoped he’d be able to give the man some good news.