As they approached the great rift in the ground, Rock began to get a queasy feeling.
“Wide, isn’t it?” he asked Shep over his suit radio.
“And deep,” Shep replied, after a look over the brink that had showed no bottom.
They brought the ladder over to the edge and carefully spanned the gulf with it.
“It just does make it!” Rock gasped. “There’s only about a foot to spare on each end.”
They found a wedge of rock like a dinosaur’s tooth deeply embedded in the ground not far from the crack. Around this they tied one end of their safety rope. Then Rock tied the other end around his waist.
“Hold on to the ladder to make sure it doesn’t slip,” Rock told his friend, and slowly he started out over the plunging abyss.
Rock looked down through the rungs at the black emptiness below. Although he wore the safety line, a fall could be dangerous. He looked ahead as he kept moving forward. The other end of the ladder was wobbling back and forth. When he reached the opposite side of the brink and climbed onto firm ground, he was aware only of the perspiration trickling down his face. It made him turn down his suit heat a couple of degrees.
He untied the safety line and threw it back to Shep. Then his friend started over the perilous bridge, with Rock holding his side of the ladder as firm as he was able. Shep made it safely too, so they were both vastly relieved.
“We’ll just leave the ladder in place,” Rock suggested, then added gravely, “That’s in case we have to cross it in a hurry.”