Freds saw the look on my face, and he grinned feebly. “Old Kunga Norbu is pretty fast when he has to be.”

But that wasn’t going to do. “Ga gor nee,” I said—and then Freds and Kunga were holding me up. Laure hurried up to join us, round-eyed with apprehension.

“Very bad,” he said.

“Gar,” I attempted, and couldn’t go on.

“All right, all right,” Freds said, soothing me with his gloved hands. “Hey, George. Relax.”

“He,” I got out, and pointed at the remains of the serac, then at Kunga.

“I know,” Freds said, frowning. He exchanged a glance with Kunga, who was watching me impassively. They spoke to each other in Tibetan. “Listen,” Freds said to me. “Let’s top the pass and then I’ll explain it to you. It’ll take a while, and we don’t have that much day left. Plus we’ve got to find a way around these ice cubes so we can stick to the fixed ropes. Come on, buddy.” He slapped my arm. “Concentrate. Let’s do it.”

So we started up again, Kunga leading as fast as before. I was still in shock, however, and I kept seeing the collapse of the serac, with Kunga under it. He just couldn’t have escaped it! And yet there he was up above us, jumaring up the fixed ropes like a monkey scurrying up a palm.

It was a miracle. And I had seen it. I had a hell of a time concentrating on the rest of that day’s climb.

IX

Just before sunset we topped the Lho La, and set our tent on the pass’s flat expanse of deep hard snow. It was one of the spacier campsites I had ever occupied: on the crest of the Himalaya, in a broad saddle between the tallest mountain on earth, and the very spiky and beautiful Lingtren.