Photo: pressure climbing the hard way.
The next day we had climbed still in the pressurized extent of the city but this time wearing sports climbing suits. Climbing in pressurized gloves would be nearly impossible. Instead, we wore what people called orangutan gloves. A pressurized cylinder sat around your real hand. This had force feedback System built into it which transmitted your finger movements to a robot hand. The robot hand was thin and incredibly strong. It would even transmit the touch of the rock and the feel back to your hands. By connecting the robot hand to straps you could hang from your hands for hours rather than the few minutes raw fingers would do. Wearing suits made you look like your arms were for longer and as Dante said they were really good if you had itchy knees.
We spent the next day climbing up the inside of the city but, using the monofilament rope and the orangutan arms. It was strange climbing up the mountain on and near vertical route crawling up the vertical face in the middle of nowhere then suddenly being beside the balcony of a house, a restaurant or cafe. Instructors climbed with us and it seemed like the instructors new all the best places to stop for lunch. I'd always want to do this with Dante but never thought I'd be actually able to climb with him on Mars. Yet here we were together possibly the most happiest and adrenaline filled day of my life.
It was about a couple of hours after sunrise when Benni finally fell off. He had been climbing bravely but still had to remember to do everything. We had got to an area they called the waterfall. It was quite beautiful watching the slow motion water droplets dropping to the ground miles below. All you could hear were the birds and the hiss of water. We were nearly 2 miles up so the ground was lost in soft white mist far, far below us.
Benni had fallen swinging across the rock. This had chopped at the monofilament wire. Generally, everybody was connected to two other people, but the other person that was connected to him was Marko. Benni had been caught but ended up on a tree sticking out of the side of the rock. It had been complicated and after that Benni had given up, he was sorely tired, his nerves shaken he needed to stop.
"Nuts" said Benni. So he jumped. The robots carrying the gear watched him closely. One of the luggage robots jumped after him for safety. After a second of freefall Benni's suit turned into a massive Michelin man. Now wrapped in air bags, Benni fell like a massive marshmallow skydiver to the mist below. The bags would protect him against bouncing against the rock on the way down and absorb the impact below. The robot fell like a rock, caught up withim and then used small drone fans to guide Benni down. Fortunately, there was nothing below us but tall trees and occasional catch nets. The robot made sure he got a good distance away from the wall so he was unlikely to end landing in someone's restaurant terrace pasta. Benny disappeard but I got a text saying he was ok.
We had carried on climbing for a few more hours. As we did the glass covering the roof of the canyon got clearer and bigger. It formed a low dome made out of triangles. I was climbing with Dante ( who else ?) and after a while he found a nut from a bolt which was sitting on a tiny outcrop he was climbing by. He works his way over to me and goes.
"Scarlett!" he said.
I looked over to his smiling face. There was a lot of pain which had written it's self on that face but it was fading now. Something was up, he hardly ever called me Scarlett. He had a plan.
"I've been thinking" he continued "I'm probably going to die in a couple of days. So I was wondering if you would marry me."
"What now?" I said. We were hanging on threads using robotic hands hundreds of feet up in the air.
"You got it now, if your not busy or anything" said Dante
He took my robotic extension hand in his robotic extension hand. Then slipped the bolt over my index finger. The bolt would be too small to run over my real finger but on the narrow carbon fibre fingers of the climbing hand it did. One of the instructors came over to us wondering if we had problems. I hated the way they could practically stick to the rock, while I had to carefully figure on my way up.
"You have a problem bud," he asked.
Dante looked up at him. "Yeah can you marry us?"
I looked at him, it dawned on me he was actually serious.
"No, but you can marry each other. The Quakers got here first." said the climbing instructor. "but you still need a license when you get down. "
He took a moment to fill us in, then called everyone to climb towards us. Dante had been climbing slightly competitively and most people below is. It took about half an hour people to catch up and everywhere all hanging on bits of rock looking up. The quakers were the masters of minimalism and had a vow which went to back to the 1669 on Earth. One of the instructors came over and I was handed me some flowers she'd picked up on the climb up they were white some earth mutation without the name. Dante took my hand while we were both hanging from safety lines in the rock.
"In the presence of God and these our friends I take thee, Lilly Scarlett Banks to be my wife, promising with Divine assistance to be unto thee a loving and faithful husband so long as we both shall live." he said.
My voice went sore I could hardly speak. I repeated the words exactly but reversing husband and wife. Dante looked around.. for a moment I too hung there clinging to rock 2 miles above nothing. It was peaceful and without any comparison, the biggest Cathedral I could possibly imagine.
"I may kiss the bride, " said Dante realising there was no minister.
We kissed, and with tears in my eyes we returned to climbing.