The Highest Mountain

By BRYCE WALTON
Illustrated by BOB HAYES
First one up this tallest summit in the Solar System was a rotten egg ... a very rotten egg!
Bruce heard their feet on the gravel outside and got up reluctantly to open the door for them. He'd been reading some of Byron's poems he'd sneaked aboard the ship; after that he had been on the point of dozing off, and now one of those strangely realistic dreams would have to be postponed for a while. Funny, those dreams. There were faces in them of human beings, or of ghosts, and other forms that weren't human at all, but seemed real and alive—except that they were also just parts of a last unconscious desire to escape death. Maybe that was it.
'Oh that my young life were a lasting dream, my spirit not awakening till the beam of an eternity should bring the 'morrow, Bruce said. He smiled without feeling much of anything and added, Thanks, Mr. Poe.
Jacobs and Anhauser stood outside. The icy wind cut through and into Bruce, but he didn't seem to notice. Anhauser's bulk loomed even larger in the special cold-resisting suiting. Jacobs' thin face frowned slyly at Bruce.
Come on in, boys, and get warm, Bruce invited.
Hey, poet, you're still here! Anhauser said, looking astonished.
We thought you'd be running off somewhere, Jacobs said.
Bruce reached for the suit on its hook, started climbing into it. Where? he asked. Mars looks alike wherever you go. Where did you think I'd be running to?
Any place just so it was away from here and us, Anhauser said.
I don't have to do that. You are going away from me. That takes care of that, doesn't it?