Exile to the Stars (The Alarai Chronicles) by Dale B. Mattheis Page A

that!”
    Jeff
tried to drag the pack outside for a better look but it was anchored in place.
About to force it, a shred of restraint led him to explore the cause. He traced
a strap and his hand fell on the saber. It was trapped under a knee and buried
in the snow. When he picked the saber up, a lone strap slipped through the
buckle without resistance.
    “One
strap, and that one loose. No way should that saber have stayed with the pack.
What a break! I wonder what else is left?”
    The
crampons and second snowshoe were still tied in place, but the ice ax, two
water bottles and his water filter were gone. Protected by his coat, the pistol
and survival knife were present and nearly dry.
    “I
can’t believe it. I am really in luck. That roll down the mountain should have
stripped everything off. And I’ve got the crampons and snowshoes. Shit. With
all this snow, Carl’s really going to need them if he was camped on the other
side of the pass.”
    The
possibility that Carl had not survived the earthquake was too painful to
contemplate for more than a moment.
    Driven
by intense hunger, Jeff set up the camp stove in the mouth of his burrow.
Scooping snow into a pot, he tried to figure out where it had all come from. It
wasn’t long before he was shaking his head with frustration.
    “This
doesn’t make any sense! What does an earthquake have to do with snow? I don’t
see the connection. Even if I was unconscious for an entire day, there’s still
no way this much snow could have fallen!”
    He
munched on an energy bar until the water came to a boil, then dumped in a pack
of freeze-dried cereal. At that moment, the cinnamon oatmeal tasted as good as
partridge. With food in his stomach, Jeff’s spirits climbed up from the soles
of his feet.
    “Doesn’t
matter where the snow came from, it’s here. Just saving my ass is going to have
to take top priority.” He stuck his head out to check on the weather. The wind
was down to a light breeze, and the snow had stopped. “May as well see how much
things were torn up,” he muttered. “The forest must have really taken a
beating.”
    At
the rim of the depression, one glance told Jeff that the overcast was nearly
gone. He looked north, stumbled back a step and drew in a strangled breath. An
enormous mountain range dominated the skyline from east to west. Serrated peaks
thrust so far into the sky that it seemed they must fall of their own weight
and crush him like a fly. The effect was so overpowering and unexpected that he
cried out. The mountains were so high that he had to tilt his head far back to
see their cloud-capped peaks. Mountains he had never seen before.
    “I
don’t believe this. It can’t be real.” Jeff followed the range to the east. He
abruptly dropped to his knees in shock and whispered, “God save me.”
    The
mountain filled, blotted out, the southeastern sky and fully half of the
horizon. Tier upon tier, it marched into the sky as if there was no ending.
Struggling for a comparison Jeff dredged up memories of Mount Rainier south of
Seattle, which overpowered everything around it.
    “No,
not even close. Maybe Everest.”
    Struggling
to come to terms with the mountain’s dimensions, he estimated its elevation had
to be well over thirty thousand feet and its base a hundred miles wide. Hell,
he thought, that elevation would put its peak in a vacuum!
    Completely
dazed, he tore his eyes away from the mountain. Jeff exhaled in relief when he
viewed mountainous country to the southwest that was not so daunting. Standing
up, he searched the terrain in a slow sweep but recognized nothing. The sun
broke free of a cloud lighting peaks to sparkling brilliance, and still he
searched. Jeff came to himself feeling terribly lost and sat down in the snow.
Try as he might, there was no way he could squeeze these mountains out of the
Cascades. They were not only much bigger but ran east and west.
    “Maybe
the earthquake threw them up?” That made as much sense as anything