He toed out his cigarette. "You're the only person who's equipped for
it. Maybe you'd get it, Willie."
"How do you mean?"
"I kept an ICEG record. Not that I knew it was going to happen, just
wanted proof if they gave me a deal and I pulled it off. Filipson
wouldn't renege, but generals were expendable. No one knew I had that
transmitter in my temporal bone, and I rigged it to get a tape on my
home receiver. Like to hear it?"
I said what anyone would, and steered him back to quarters before he'd
think better of it. This would be something!
* * * * *
On the way, he filled in background. Scott had been living out of
hospital in a small apartment, enjoying as much liberty as he could
manage. He had equipment so he could stump around, and an antique car
specially equipped. He wasn't complimentary about them. Orthopedic
products had to be: unreliable, hard to service, unsightly, intricate,
and uncomfortable. If they also squeaked and cut your clothes, fine!
Having to plan every move with an eye on weather and a dozen other
factors, he developed in uncanny foresight. Yet he had to improvise at a
moment's notice. With life a continuous high-wire act, he trained every
surviving fiber to precision, dexterity, and tenacity. Finally, he
avoided help. Not pride, self-preservation; the compulsively helpful
have rarely the wit to ask before rushing in to knock you on your face,
so he learned to bide his time till the horizon was clear of beaming
simpletons. Also, he found an interest in how far he could go.
These qualities, and the time he had for thinking, begot Seed-corn. When
he had it convincing, he applied to see General Filipson, head of
Regional Intelligence, a man with both insight and authority to make the
deal--but also as tough as his post demanded. Scott got an appointment
two weeks ahead.
That put it early in April, which decreased the weather hazard--a major
consideration in even a trip to the Supermarket. What was Scott's grim
consternation, then, when he woke on D-day to find his windows plastered
with snow under a driving wind--not mentioned in last night's forecast
of course.
He could concoct a plausible excuse for postponement--which Filipson was
just the man to see through; or call help to get him to HQ--and have
Filipson bark, "Man, you can't even make it across town on your own
power because of a little snow." No, come hell or blizzard, he'd have to
go solo. Besides, when he faced the inevitable unexpected behind Invader
lines, he couldn't afford a precedent of having flinched now.
He dressed and breakfasted with all the petty foresights that can mean
the shaving of clearance in a tight squeeze, and got off with all the
margin of time he could muster. In the apartment court, he had a parking
space by the basement exit and, for a wonder, no free-wheeling
nincompoop had done him out of it last night. Even so, getting to the
car door illustrated the ordeal ahead; the snow was the damp, heavy
stuff that packs and glares. The streets were nasty, but he had the
advantage of having learned restraint and foresight.
HQ had been the post office, a ponderous red-stone building filling a
whole block. He had scouted it thoroughly in advance, outside and in,
and scheduled his route to the general's office, allowing for minor
hazards. Now, he had half an hour extra for the unscheduled major
hazard.
But on arriving, he could hardly believe his luck. No car was yet parked
in front of the building, and the walk was scraped clean and salted to
kill the still falling flakes. No problems. He parked and began to
unload himself quickly, to forestall the elderly MP who hurried towards
him. But, as Scott prepared to thank him off, the man said, "Sorry, Mac,
no one can park there this morning."
Scott felt the chill of nemesis. Knowing it was useless, he protested
his identity and mission.
But, "Sorry, major. But you'll have to park around back. They're
bringing in the big computer. General himself can't park here. Them's
orders."
He could ask the sergeant to park the car. But the man couldn't leave
his post, would make a to-do calling someone--and that was Filipson's
suite overlooking the scene. No dice. Go see what might be possible.
But side and back parking were jammed with refugees from the computer,
and so was the other side. And he came around to the front again. Five
minutes wasted. He thought searchingly.
He could drive to a taxi lot, park there, and be driven back by taxi,
disembark on the clean walk, and there you were. Of course, he could
hear Filipson's "Thought you drove your own car, ha?" and his own
damaging excuses. But even Out Yonder, you'd cut corners in emergency.
It was all such a comfortable Out, he relaxed. And, relaxing, saw his
alternative.
* * * * *
He was driving around the block again, and noted the back entrance. This
was not ground level, because of the slope of ground; it faced a broad
landing, reached by a double flight of steps. These began on each side
at right-angles to the building and then turned up to the landing along
the face of the wall. Normally, they were negotiable; but now, even had
he found parking near them, he hadn't the chance of the celluloid cat in
hell of even crossing the ten feet of uncleaned sidewalk. You might as
well climb an eighty-degree, fifty-foot wall of rotten ice. But there
was always a way, and he saw it.
The unpassable walk itself was an avenue of approach. He swung his car
onto it at the corner, and drove along it to the steps to park in the
angle between steps and wall--and discovered a new shut-out. He'd
expected the steps to be a mean job in the raw wind that favored this
face of the building; but a wartime janitor had swept them sketchily
only down the middle, far from the balustrades he must use. By the
balustrades, early feet had packed a semi-ice far more treacherous than
the untouched snow; and, the two bottom steps curved out beyond the
balustrade. So ... a sufficiently reckless alpinist might assay a cliff
in a sleet storm and gale, but he couldn't even try if it began with an
overhang.
Still time for the taxi. And so, again Scott saw the way that was always
there: Set the car so he could use its hood to heft up those first
steps.
Suddenly, his thinking metamorphosed: He faced, not a miserable,
unwarranted forlorn hope, but the universe as it was. Titanic pressure
suit against the hurricanes of Jupiter, and against a gutter freshet,
life was always outclassed--and always fought back. Proportions didn't
matter, only mood.
He switched on his ICEG to record what might happen. I auditioned it,
but I can't disentangle it from what he told me. For example, in his
words: Multiply distances by five, heights by ten, and slickness by
twenty. And in the playback: Thirty chin-high ledges loaded with soft
lard, and only finger holds and toe holds. And you did it on stilts that
began, not at your heels, at your hips. Add the hazard of Helpful Hosea:
"Here, lemme giveya hand, Mac!", grabbing the key arm, and crashing down
the precipice on top of you.
Switching on the ICEG took his mind back to the snug apartment where its
receiver stood, the armchair, books, desk of diverting work. It looked
awful good, but ... life fought back, and always it found a way.
* * * * *
He shucked his windbreaker because it would be more encumbrance than
help in the showdown. He checked, shoelaces, and strapped on the cleats
he had made for what they were worth. He vetoed the bag of sand and salt
he kept for minor difficulties--far too slow. He got out of the car.
This could be the last job he'd have to do incognito--Seed-corn, he'd
get credit for. Therefore, he cherished it: triumph for its own sake.
Alternatively, he'd end at the bottom in a burlesque clutter of
chrom-alum splints and sticks, with maybe a broken bone to clinch the
decision. For some men, death is literally more tolerable than defeat in
humiliation.
Eighteen shallow steps to the turn, twelve to the top. Once, he'd have
cleared it in three heartbeats. Now, he had to make it to a
twenty-minute deadline, without rope or alpenstock, a Moon-man adapted
to a fraction of Earth gravity.
With the help of the car hood, the first two pitches were easy. For the
next four or five, wind had swept the top of the balustrade, providing
damp, gritty handhold. Before the going got tougher, he developed a
technic, a rhythm and system of thrusts proportioned to heights and
widths, a way of scraping holds where ice was not malignantly welded to
stone, an appreciation of snow texture and depth, an economy of effort.
He was enjoying a premature elation when, on the twelfth step, a cleat
strap gave. Luckily, he was able to take his lurch with a firm grip on
the balustrade; but he felt depth yawning behind him. Dourly, he took
thirty seconds to retrieve the cleat; stitching had been sawed through
by a metal edge--just as he'd told the cocksure workman it would be. Oh,
to have a world where imbecility wasn't entrenched! Well--he was
fighting here and now for the resources to found one. He resumed the
escalade, his rhythm knocked cockeyed.
Things even out. Years back, an Invader bomber had scored a near miss on
the building, and minor damage to stonework was unrepaired. Crevices
gave fingerhold, chipped-out hollows gave barely perceptible purchase to
the heel of his hand. Salutes to the random effects of unlikely causes!
He reached the turn, considered swiftly. His fresh strength was blunted;
his muscles, especially in his thumbs, were stiffening with chill. Now:
He could continue up the left side, by the building, which was tougher
and hazardous with frozen drippings, or by the outside, right-hand rail,
which was easier but meant crossing the open, half-swept wide step and
recrossing the landing up top. Damn! Why hadn't he foreseen that? Oh,
you can't think of everything. Get going, left side.
* * * * *
The wall of the building was rough-hewn and ornamented with surplus
carvings. Cheers for the 1890s architect!
Qualified cheers. The first three lifts were easy, with handholds in a
frieze of lotus. For the next, he had to heft with his side-jaw against
a boss of stone. A window ledge made the next three facile. The final
five stared, an open gap without recourse. He made two by grace of the
janitor's having swabbed his broom a little closer to the wall. His
muscles began to wobble and waver: in his proportions, he'd made
two-hundred feet of almost vertical ascent.
But, climbing a real ice-fall, you'd unleash the last convulsive effort
because you had to. Here, when you came down to it, you could always sit
and bump yourself down to the car which was, in that context, a mere
safe forty feet away. So he went on because he had to.
He got the rubber tip off one stick. The bare metal tube would bore into
the snow pack. It might hold, _if_ he bore down just right, and swung
his weight just so, and got just the right sliding purchase on the wall,
and the snow didn't give underfoot or undercane. And if it didn't
work--it didn't work.
Beyond the landing, westwards, the sky had broken into April blue, far
away over Iowa and Kansas, over Operation Seed-corn, over the refuge for
rebels that lay at the end of all his roads....
He got set ... and lifted. A thousand miles nearer the refuge! Got set
... and lifted, balanced over plunging gulfs. His reach found a round
pilaster at the top, a perfect grip for a hand. He drew himself up, and
this time his cleated foot cut through snow to stone, and slipped, but
his hold was too good. And there he was.
No salutes, no cheers, only one more victory for life.
Even in victory, unlife gave you no respite. The doorstep was three feet
wide, hollowed by eighty years of traffic, and filled with frozen
drippings from its pseudo-Norman arch. He had to tilt across it and
catch the brass knob--like snatching a ring in a high dive.
No danger now, except sitting down in a growing puddle till someone came
along to hoist him under the armpits, and then arriving at the general's
late, with his seat black-wet.... You unhorse your foeman, curvet up to
the royal box to receive the victor's chaplet, swing from your saddle,
and fall flat on your face.
But, he cogitated on the bench inside, getting his other cleat off and
the tip back on his stick, things do even out. No hearty helper had
intervened, no snot-nosed, gaping child had twitched his attention,
nobody's secretary--pretty of course--had scurried to helpfully knock
him down with the door. They were all out front superintending arrival
of the computer.
* * * * *
The general said only, if tartly, "Oh yes, major, come in. You're late,
a'n't you?"
"It's still icy," said Ed Scott. "Had to drive carefully, you know."
In fact, he _had_ lost minutes that way, enough to have saved his exact
deadline. And that excuse, being in proportion to Filipson's standard
dimension, was fair game.
* * * * *
I wondered what dimension Clyde would go on to, now that the challenge
of war was past. To his rebels refuge at last maybe? Does it matter?
Whatever it is, life will be outclassed, and Scott-Esterbrook's brand of
life will fight back.