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\fs24\lang1033\langfe1033\cgrid\langnp1033\langfenp1033 {\fs40\lang5129\langfe1033\langnp5129\insrsid1277578 Snow
\par 
\par }{\lang5129\langfe1033\langnp5129\insrsid1277578 Alice, who was on point, signed that he was going to advance and did so.
\par You don\rquote t move fast on sloping, frozen, hard-packed snow.  Nor can you }{\lang5129\langfe1033\langnp5129\insrsid14353013 crouch}{\lang5129\langfe1033\langnp5129\insrsid1277578 
 very low wearing six layers of clothing including padded thermals with eighty pounds of gear on your back and a loaded, cocked automatic rifle in your hands but Alice did a very creditab
le job and went to ground again behind an outcrop of rock about eighty metres short of the ridge.  For all his care, though, and despite his snow-coloured helmet, cape and overtrousers he\rquote 
d still looked like a fly on a wedding-cake as he traversed the slope.
\par I scanned the rocks of the ridge with my \lquote scope.  The sky behind it was a frozen, washed-out blue and the black rocks were jagged and shattered like the dirty teeth of a bloke who\rquote 
s just taken a rifle-barrel across the mouth. The wind was doing about a hundred miles an hour from the other side and bringing streamers of fine snow which were arcing like fire-hoses over our heads and falling in a light, fine}{
\lang5129\langfe1033\langnp5129\insrsid6881434 , shining}{\lang5129\langfe1033\langnp5129\insrsid1277578  powder around us.   The chance there w}{\lang5129\langfe1033\langnp5129\insrsid4394639 ere}{\lang5129\langfe1033\langnp5129\insrsid1277578  fuzz}{
\lang5129\langfe1033\langnp5129\insrsid4394639 ies}{\lang5129\langfe1033\langnp5129\insrsid1277578  up there}{\lang5129\langfe1033\langnp5129\insrsid9859240  seemed slim to}{\lang5129\langfe1033\langnp5129\insrsid1277578  zero but the War 
against Terror was }{\lang5129\langfe1033\langnp5129\insrsid12404557 still }{\lang5129\langfe1033\langnp5129\insrsid9859240 m}{\lang5129\langfe1033\langnp5129\insrsid1277578 aking grunts like us }{\lang5129\langfe1033\langnp5129\insrsid9859240 go }{
\lang5129\langfe1033\langnp5129\insrsid1277578 where no grunt had gone before, }{\lang5129\langfe1033\langnp5129\insrsid6881434 al}{\lang5129\langfe1033\langnp5129\insrsid1277578 though not particularly boldly as our main concern was getting back again.

\par Alice raised his head and peeped cautiously over his rock.
\par \'93Shit. I don\rquote t fucking believe this,\'94 his voice said through the piece of plastic in my ear.
\par Most troopers swear}{\lang5129\langfe1033\langnp5129\insrsid12274745  like troopers until they get three stripes an}{\lang5129\langfe1033\langnp5129\insrsid1277578 d a glimpse of officer-land, when they clean their act up.  Alice was not officer material.

\par \'93Report,\'94 I snapped into the mike under my ice-stiff scarf.
\par His reply was a further stream of stunned-sounding obscenities and I could see him shaking his head in disbelief.  Whatever it was, though, he wasn\rquote t behaving as though it was going to shoot at him so I signed Tugger to stay back and cut across t
he slope to another outcrop ten metres to Alice\rquote s left.  He was still staring at something ahead of him like a kid at his first Christmas tree, so I peered around my own rock to see what it was.
\par \'93Fuckin\rquote  hell,\'94 I breathed into the mike for the world to hear as long as it had satellites, AWACS and some fancy real-time encryption algorithms, and was listening.
\par The slope formed a shallow bowl just in front of us before climbing again to the ridge.  In the bowl was a girl.  A naked girl, in temperatures of minu
s 10c. and a wind-chill of as much again.  An absolutely stunningly beautiful, naked girl posing motionless with her eyes shut and one foot raised behind her to rest in a loop of her arm like some weird yoga practice.
\par \'93This ain\rquote t fuckin\rquote  real,\'94 Alice breathed electronically into my ear.
\par She had a kind of serene, Mona Lisa smile on her face, and was very much alive.  Round, full, prick-throbbing breasts rose and fell gently, regularly, as she breathed, one pulled slightly out of shape by an arm raised and fo
lded behind her head.  Wind that would have frozen my eyeballs were it not for my goggles played gently with thick tresses of golden hair while skin that should have been bleached white with bits dropping off after ten minutes in that cold looked as pink 
and smooth and warm as the last tart I\rquote d had in Hereford before the tour.
\par \'93Who the fuck is she?\'94 Alice asked.
\par \lquote How the fuck should I know?\rquote  I didn\rquote t say.  }{\lang5129\langfe1033\langnp5129\insrsid4939787 Even w}{\lang5129\langfe1033\langnp5129\insrsid1277578 
ith her clothes on she would be a stunner, but the kind of stunner with a name like Sally you\rquote d 
find behind a bar pretty much anywhere.  With her clothes off in the snow fourteen thousand fucking feet up a fucking mountain in the fucking Hindu Kush twenty miles from the nearest fucking path and a hundred from the nearest fucking fire\'85..  }{
\lang5129\langfe1033\langnp5129\insrsid2952769 \'93}{\lang5129\langfe1033\langnp5129\insrsid1277578 Jesus fucking Christ!}{\lang5129\langfe1033\langnp5129\insrsid2952769 \'94 I breathed.}{\lang5129\langfe1033\langnp5129\insrsid1277578 
\par \'93Nah,\'94 said Alice.  "Don't reckon on that."}{\lang5129\langfe1033\langnp5129\insrsid610261  Quite a wit, our Alice.}{\lang5129\langfe1033\langnp5129\insrsid1277578 
\par I couldn\rquote t see }{\lang5129\langfe1033\langnp5129\insrsid2952769 her}{\lang5129\langfe1033\langnp5129\insrsid1277578 
 clothes nearby.  Nor any footprints around her.  Out of the main force of the wind the fine snow had been able to settle around her almost to her thighs, so she\rquote 
d been there a while.  With one leg tucked forward and one stretched behind her in that yoga position her crotch was buried in the snow but I could imagine the golden fur between her thighs and the snow packed into the slit of her body, the
 wrinkled bud of her clit tingling with its cold embrace,  the small, moist, fragrant cave in the snow just beneath the lush lips between her legs made by the heat of her cunt radiating desire.
\par I shook the thoughts from my head.  Was she some religious nut?  Was she just spaced out?  Was I spaced out?  High altitude could do funny things to a bloke, but Alice had seen it too. 
\par I signed him to cover me and slipped around my rock to crawl towards the girl.  Something moved among the rocks behind her and snow 
puffed into white roses around me.  The girl, in the way, took a round in the back and bright red blood bloomed between her lovely breasts to paint the snow between us scarlet.  Her eyes opened, startled. She gazed at me puzzled for a moment and then fold
ed gracefully forward over her knee.  Alice\rquote s rifle barked and the firing stopped.
\par \'93Got the fucker,\'94 Alice said with satisfaction.
\par The fuzzy was alone and we gathered around the dead girl in the red snow, folded like a ballerina doing the dying swan naked with a little round hole between her shoulders.  I had seen in her eyes she had thought she was }{
\lang5129\langfe1033\langnp5129\insrsid1794147 finally }{\lang5129\langfe1033\langnp5129\insrsid1277578 alone, in }{\lang5129\langfe1033\langnp5129\insrsid610261 her mountaintop}{\lang5129\langfe1033\langnp5129\insrsid1277578 
 world, finding whatever she was looking for, when our world had intruded.
\par \'93Fuckin\rquote  shame,\'94  Alice observed.  "Nice tits."
\par }{\lang5129\langfe1033\langnp5129\insrsid7095342 
\par 
\par }{\lang5129\langfe1033\langnp5129\insrsid1277578 
\par }\pard \ql \li0\ri0\widctlpar\faauto\rin0\lin0\itap0\pararsid10038256 {\fs20\insrsid10038256\charrsid15675078 \'a9 Rex Antioch}{\insrsid1277578\charrsid10038256 
\par }\pard \ql \li0\ri0\nowidctlpar\faauto\rin0\lin0\itap0\pararsid14353013 {\fs20\insrsid2638092\charrsid12714995 Written for ASSTR\rquote s }{\fs20\insrsid7095342\charrsid12714995 2003 }{\fs20\insrsid2638092\charrsid12714995 
anniversary celebration and, personally, to celebrate the aw}{\fs20\insrsid7095342\charrsid12714995 e}{\fs20\insrsid2638092\charrsid12714995 some talent of }{\fs20\insrsid10320843\charrsid12714995 Jonathon Earl Bowser. }{
\fs20\insrsid14353013\charrsid12714995 One of the objectives of th}{\fs20\insrsid10320843\charrsid12714995 e}{\fs20\insrsid14353013\charrsid12714995  celebration is to }{\fs20\insrsid10320843\charrsid12714995 acknowledge}{
\fs20\insrsid14353013\charrsid12714995  those who}{\fs20\insrsid10320843\charrsid12714995  }{\fs20\insrsid14353013\charrsid12714995 make a donation to ASSTR. ASSTR rel}{\fs20\insrsid5263523\charrsid12714995 ie}{\fs20\insrsid14353013\charrsid12714995 
s on your donations to keep}{\fs20\insrsid10320843\charrsid12714995  }{\fs20\insrsid14353013\charrsid12714995 doing its}{\fs20\insrsid10320843\charrsid12714995  }{\fs20\insrsid14353013\charrsid12714995 great work. }{\fs20\insrsid4662693 P}{
\fs20\insrsid14353013\charrsid12714995 lease make a donation}{\fs20\insrsid10320843\charrsid12714995  if you can}{\fs20\insrsid14353013\charrsid12714995 . You can find}{\fs20\insrsid10320843\charrsid12714995  }{\fs20\insrsid14353013\charrsid12714995 
details on}{\fs20\insrsid10320843\charrsid12714995  }{\fs20\insrsid14353013\charrsid12714995 how to donate at http://www.asstr.org/donations.html .}{\fs20\insrsid12714995\charrsid12714995  
\par \'93Snow\'94 can be found at  http://www.jonathonart.com/drawing1.html
\par }\pard \ql \fi567\li0\ri0\nowidctlpar\faauto\rin0\lin0\itap0 {\insrsid1277578\charrsid2638092 
\par }{\insrsid1277578\charrsid10320843 
\par }}