Wielicki is the remaining master. He must choose among their climbing children, and his eye is unsparing. For the summit, he must choose the elect of the elite. There is Golab, the climber who was with us in the Tatras.

Bielecki, the man-child with the otherworldly endurance near the summit, is another natural choice. But his hunger for fame is a bonfire, and that worries the older man. Wielicki defended the young climber after the deaths on Broad Peak. To listen to him is to wonder if he harbors doubts.

“He is a very good climber, but he has climbed for himself,” the older climber says. “He is pursuing me, I. Maybe it is a little strange on our team because we all must work together.”

If a storm approaches, if darkness descends, the climbers must turn back, even if within sight of that fabled summit. “If I say, ‘No, come down’, they must listen,” he says. “Everyone wants to be the best, and that is how we die.”

He gives to ambition a nod of self-recognition.

“Logic competes with emotion. Everyone wants to write their own story.”

To the Brink or No?

We wander the medieval streets and bars of Krakow with the Himalayan climbers. The question of K2, to risk all for history, falls unevenly across their shoulders. Marek Chmielarski, that painter of oil platforms, will go, although his wife, a teacher, worries.

“They think we are crazy.” he says. “They are right, of course.”

Golab is in: “Sometimes I wonder why I am doing this. I don’t like to connect nationalism and climbing. But these are my friends and we are on a mission.”