American Science Fiction #41 — page 18: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

* cussed lens. . In a patch of loose scree. pall remained. Somewhere out of it 1 heard a voice calling , my. nae, more loudly with each repetition. My eyes tried to bore through the haze and shortly a stocky figure detached itself from it, coming towards me. It was Johnny Eagle, his eyes more luminous than I had even seen them. “I've founds the Twins,” he. said simply and plunged back into the mist with me close. behind. I stumbled eagerly up the slope for nearly two hundred yards.’ Johnny Eagle was standing on a_ boulder, pointing north through a great break in the low ceiling of cloud. I looked, my heart racing wildly. There they were towering in the sky, the Twins, as similar as though they were a double image seen in a badly fo- 1 judged them to be three miles off. | I yelled for Johnny to stay put while I scrambled down the slope, ripping my pants and scraping my Knees as my legs gave way under me ee. Back at the plane I found the pilot putting up a makeshift antenna. “Get Burns Lake quick,” I ordered between gasps. “Ask for Armstrong.” Armstrong was elated but grimly realistic. “This must be it, Arnold; it has to be.” I knew what he meant. This was our last lead; there wouldn’t be time for more. ‘ , Armstrong asked whether I could move out up the peaks and radio a report to him. J looked out of the cabin ports. Night had fallen quickly, but in the cloud blankets the clefts were widening to let feeble patches of starlight show through. | “Pil start right away,” I assured’ Armstrong. “It’s clearing here.” Johnny Eagle scouted around the lake till he found a stream flowing from, the direction. of the Twin Peaks. With it as a guide we set off, panting as we _ stumbled, slipped, crawled along and wincing as needle- pointed evergreens stung our faces. -. Sometimes the stream twisted out of sight, but Johnny. pushed on with the ancient woodland canniness of the great. Frog tribe. There were times, though, when this mystic pines lay about us. the starry skies were our Peaks, their - STOPWATCH ON THE. WORLD ey! sense deserted him.and we Soha 4 | @ each): plexed , and; barely visible . other a foot away. We waited, then, for some sudden glimmer to reveal our guiding stream; . 7 M* weary legs.soon told me my estimate of four miles to the Twins was way off. About midnight. we broke out of the forest wilderness high up on the timber line. The night was brilliantly clear by this time; sharply etched shadows of dark i - Towering into upper reaches capped with snow, with here and there a thick dark scar where a fissure lay in shadow. For the first time I saw the Twins were. joined, Siamese-wise, mass. _Even though the going became easier, I felt more tired than before, The rarefied air sharpened the sense of fatigue and a tightness clutched at my chest. But I forgot all about it when I saw the grave. -:I spotted it even before Johnny Eagte cried out. The grave lay exposed in a bare patch above a clump of stunted timber; a tilted rotting cross was its only mark- ing. : : The almost unhoped-for discovery of. this meagre clue to the location: of Chetzisky infused me with new energy. My tiring ‘legs revived. Johnny Eagle was hard put to stay. ahead of me. — : gpa On the bare rock shoulder of the granite bastion between the Twin Peaks we came upon a trail. My pace. redoubled. Johnny Eagle stared at me in frank admiration and yielded me the lead: The trail headed straight for the blank, inaccessible face of the ridge. But as we drew near the sheer wall. high up near its rim, a cleft appeared, through which the trail Jed. The de- file was narrow, shrinking at times to the width of a man. Suddenly the walls ‘fell away and we found ourselves on the narrow strand of a crater lake. In its centre the dark mass of an island stood out. under the starlight. by a low truncated i I strained for some sign of habita- .- tion but the wooded isle remained i COmiclbooxs.Cohnl