Chapter Seven

"You're sitting up very nicely, Captain," Bartholomew nodded and smiled.

"Perhaps tomorrow you can try standing."

Henry shook his head. He laid the bowl aside, fumbled with his hands for a grip on the wall beside him.

"I don't think you ought to try it yet . . ." Bartholomew fluttered, then took Henry's arm. "But I suppose you're determined . . ." Henry gripped Bartholomew's shoulder. It felt solid under his hand; hunting and hauling wood and rope-climbing were filling out the boy's lean frame. Then he let go, leaned against the wall.

It was a strange feeling to be standing again—or almost

standing—after—how long? Six weeks now? His legs were like rotten sticks.

"Captain, that's marvelous; now you'd better lie down again—" Henry held on, straining to move the left leg; it hung limp and dead. He clamped his teeth, heaved; the leg twitched. O.K.; at least it wasn't paralyzed. Now the right . . .

"Really, Captain . . ."

Henry struggled, concentrating on the leg. It was the bad one; the broken knee hadn't turned out too well. He leaned his weight on the left leg, the toes of the crooked right leg just touching the floor. He was already dizzy—and all he'd done so far was get to his feet and lean on the wall. Bartholomew moved to help him. "Careful, Captain, you can't afford a fall—" He shook his head, elbowed himself from the wall, stood teetering. God, how the hell did a kid ever learn this balancing act! He put the short leg forward, then hopped. His leg was like a stick of soft clay. Bartholomew was chewing his lip, getting ready to jump for him . . . The right leg again; another hop. Watch it; almost went over that time.

"Wonderful, Captain! That's enough for this time. Let me help you back now." He came across, reached for Henry's arm. Henry motioned him back. One more step first. He took a breath, felt his heart thud. To hell with the pain; that's nothing. Getting across the room—it just takes one more step. And another. And another . . .

* * *

"I don't like that wind, Captain. You shouldn't try it today. Probably tomorrow it will have died down. After two months, another day won't matter." Bartholomew looked at him anxiously.

Wrapped in his stiff fur clothing, Henry pushed at the cape with the twisted left hand, gripped the stick with the right. It was amazing how much you could do with a hand, even with three fingers broken and stiff, as long as the tendons hadn't been cut.

He moved across to the entry with his hopping gait, his left elbow pressed to the side where badly mended ribs ached under their tight binding. The scars on his face itched under the two-inch beard—a tangle of gray and white. He staggered as the icy wind whipped through the opening; Bartholomew boosted and hauled him up, out into the stinging mist of blown snow. He squinted his eye against the cold that cut at him like a great knife; the cape lifted, slapping at his back. His breath seemed to choke off in his throat. He took a step; Bartholomew was beside him, his arm under Henry's. "Watch out, Captain! That breeze is pretty strong." Bartholomew tightened Henry's pack straps. He moved his shoulders, felt the dull pang from his left side. The coat Bartholomew had stitched up for him felt better now; and his boots fitted better, too, with the fur linings stuffed inside.

"Captain, are you sure it wouldn't be better to wait until tomorrow, just on the off-chance—"

Henry shook his head, started unsteadily across toward the edge of the grove.

The prints of Larry's shaggy homemade mukluks were bare patches of black rock through the powdery snow. They led up a sharp incline among tumbled boulders. Henry fought his way up, scrabbling with one hand and an elbow, groping with feet that were like old boots filled with ice water. There was Larry's face, Larry's hand reaching out to help, Larry's voice: " . .

. we've made a start! We're on our way!"

Uh-huh. We've gone fifty feet. Only twelve hundred miles to go. Henry ducked his head against the wind, started off down the blizzard-swept slope. Forget about the pain. Walk as if you knew how. What's pain, anyway? Nature's little warning. O.K. I've been warned. Just make the legs work, one after the other, and don't think about anything else.

* * *

It was hard, counting the paces. Ten; and then fifteen. Then twenty. Five times that, and it would be a hundred. Nine more hundred and it would be a thousand. Another couple of thousand, and I'll have walked a mile. Where was I? Twenty-five? Four times twenty-five is a hundred . . . To hell with that. All right so far. Thirty paces. Thirty-one steps from the room; thirty-two crab steps away from the next by the fire . . . God how it hurts . . .

Bartholomew's hand was under his arm. "You're doing fine, Captain." He had to yell to make himself heard over the shrilling of the wind, through the muffling fur turned up about Henry's ears. The boy hadn't done a bad job, making the parkas. And he'd killed the animals and skinned them out, too. Not bad, for a lad who'd never chased anything livelier than a statistic in his life. Larry might make it; stranger things had happened. If he didn't panic. If he had luck with the hunting, before he tackled the passes. If he didn't get lost. If—

If he had a magic carpet, he could fly back to Pango-Ri. Never mind the ifs. Damn! He'd lost count again. Call it fifty. Still on my feet. Getting a little numb, but that's O.K.; I can't feel the wind now. Frostbite is the least of my worries. Fifty-five. Thank God the ground's level here, no gullies to scramble through. Just put the foot, hop, put the foot, hop. It's easy. Just do it enough, then you can rest. Lie down in this nice white, clean stuff, and dream off into wherever it is that memories go when they're forgotten, and let Larry get on with the business of surviving . . . He was aware of Bartholomew's hand on his arm.

"Half a mile, Captain. The going gets a little rough ahead, I'm afraid. Broken ground, and rock fragments—"

Henry's foot caught on an upjutting projection; he stumbled, tried to stiffen his legs; they folded like paper. He went down, sagging in Bartholomew's arms.

"I'm sorry, Captain! I should have stopped for a break before now, but you were moving along so well . . ." Henry slumped in the snow. His chest burned; the right knee pulsed like a great boil, ready for lancing. His side—the damned ribs felt as though they hadn't even started to knit; the raw ends were grating together . . .

"A few minutes' rest . . . you'll feel better . . ." Bartholomew fumbled in his monstrous pack, brought out something. He worked over it . . . An odor of hot stew struck Henry's nostrils with an almost painful intensity; his salivary glands leaped into action with a stab like a hot needle behind his jaws.

"I saved this, Captain . . . for the march."

Then he was chewing, swallowing. Food. It was better than rest, better than warmth, better than the most elaborate pleasures devised in the harems of kings. He finished, pushing himself to a sitting position, got his feet under him. Larry was helping him up. He stood, still tasting the wonderful stew.

"Watch your footing now, Captain." Bartholomew's hand was under his arm; he leaned on it, tried a step. It worked. Ahead, the gray landscape stretched off into the mist of blown snow. It was a little like life—a foggy vista into which you pressed on, and on. And when you had gone as far as you could—and you fell and the snow covered you—the unknown goal was as far ahead, as unattainable as ever . . .

* * *

The knee was the worst part; his face was nicely anesthetized by the cold, and the side had settled down to a dull explosion that pulsed in counterpoint to the fire in his lungs, and the drag-hop, drag-hop was a routine, like breathing, that seemed to carry itself along by its own momentum. But the knee . . . Surely, there were bone chips grinding the flesh to shreds. The pain ran up to his hips, down to his ankle. They had stopped. Henry looked around, saw nothing but endless snow.

"We've done a mile and a half, Captain. Shall we take a short rest now?" Bartholomew's voice was an irritation, penetrating the simple equation of agony and endurance. Henry shook his head; he took a step, faltered for a moment, then caught up the rhythm again.

He drew a deep breath; that was a mistake—the fire leaped up, chokingly, died slowly back to the cozy bed of red-hot embers. That was fine; it was keeping him warm. But the knee . . . How long could a man walk on a broken leg? There was only one way to find out.

Later, he was sitting with his back against a drift of snow, the bad knee propped before him, the pain only a remote thump, like a doctor's rubber mallet against a wooden leg. Bartholomew had his arm, doing something to it. He felt a brief pang of a hypospray.

The snow was red, cut by the black shadows of tall trees.

"We'll camp here, where we have a little shelter," Bartholomew said. He was roasting a curiously scaled and beaked creature with a meaty tail, over a tiny fire.

"This is some sort of relative of the rabbity things I shot, back at the portal. I'm sure it will be edible. A pity it smells so much like burning butadiene."

Henry stared into the small, bluish flames. It had been a memorable day. Walking, falling, getting up, walking . . .

"I think it's done, Captain." Bartholomew took the roast from the spit, sawed off a joint, passed it over to Henry. "I think we're going to be all right for game from now on; there are a lot of these fellows around. I shot three; I'm letting them freeze as reserve supplies." Good boy. Hang on to the food. Twenty thousand feet; that's four miles, straight up. Figure an average thirty-degree slope . . . A squared plus B

squared . . . call it a nine-mile trek to the summit of the pass. It might be possible. It depended on things like snow depths, winds, unseen crevasses, avalanches, snow blindness, or little unscalable rock faces a few inches higher than a man could jump . . .

Better tell him to rig some grapple hooks—out of what? And how to tell him? Tramp out letters in the snow?

The meat was good—a little like turtle flesh, but tenderer. There was no salt, no melted butter, no silver and linen and thin glass and fragile porcelain, no candles and wine . . . but by God, it was as rare a feast as had ever been laid before a hungry man.

"More, Captain? It's rather good, isn't it? I wonder if the animals would be easy to raise, commercially? It's a mystery what they live on; nothing here but rock and ice . . ."

Bart rambled on. Henry half-listened, his mind drifting off on side trails. Old Man Bartholomew; would he live up to his agreement—if Larry did get back with the claim? Too bad Amos wasn't there, to look out for Dulcie's interests. He'd wanted to come pretty bad. Poor Amos. But maybe he was lucky at that. His death hadn't been an easy one, but then these last few weeks were a memory a man could do without, too . . .

"We'd better tuck in now, Captain. A long day ahead tomorrow." Henry nodded, managed to move, crawl the three feet to the tiny tent. Bartholomew helped him inside; God, how it stank! But it broke the force of the wind, and kept the snow out of his face. He pulled his blanket of fur over him, settled himself. So this was the way it ends; you eat dinner, and go to bed . . . Henry closed his eyes. And that was that . . .

* * *

There was a smell of vulcanizing rubber, and for an instant, Henry was back in a town on a small, backward world called Northroyal, standing in the tree-shaded courtyard of an inn, watching the stableman weld a new set of retreads to the worn wheels of the little red two-seater that he and Dulcia had driven down from the port . . .

"Breakfast is about ready, Captain," Bartholomew was silhouetted against the pale light that filtered through the tent flap. The cold bit at Henry's nose like pliers. He moved, felt stabs from every joint. Doctor prescribes long, invigorating walks in the open air for the patient; this is guaranteed to give him an understanding of how a mummy would feel, if you unwrapped him in a cold-storage vault . . . He lay, listening to the thump of his heart, the rasp of breath in his throat. So he was still alive! He moved his right leg tentatively. Fresh, vivid pain flooded up from it. Oh yes, he was alive, all right! That wasn't what the program had called for. When a man—sick unto death, with more half-healed wounds than the average accident ward, undernourished and poorly clad—spent a long day overexerting in sub-freezing weather—and then went to sleep in the snow—he was expected to die of exposure, if nothing else.

But instead, he was alive—awake—still a dead weight on young Bartholomew's back—and time was running out even for a healthy man, alone, to have a chance of making it.

Henry drew a deep breath; his chest gave a dutiful stab of agony. He got his hands under him, sat up. There was a moment of vertigo; the ribs complained a little more. He rolled over, worked his way out of the tent, feeling the icy fingers of the fitful morning breeze nipping at him. The food smelled better now; he was getting used to the stink. Knowing how it tasted helped; it was like cheese in that respect. He took a mouthful of snow, let it melt and trickle down. Bartholomew handed across a slab of meat. Henry bit into it. It was burned on the outside, chilled in the center. He ate it hungrily.

"I slept on the breakfast steaks, Captain," Bartholomew said cheerfully.

"Didn't want them to freeze. We're getting an early start; sun won't be up for another half hour."

Life was a perverse damned phenomenon; if there were a prize waiting for him just across the next rise, a pretty girl, a bank account, a vacation, all expenses paid—

He'd have dropped dead a hundred yards from the cave.

But all there was was twelve hundred miles of wilderness or maybe eleven hundred and ninety-five, now. And he was good for another hour, or two, three, of dragging himself on, spinning out the declining threads . . .

"The wind's behind us now," Bartholomew said. "That will help some, of course, but I imagine it will bring colder weather. I'd say it's down close to thirty degrees of frost now. I suppose a little more won't make much difference."

No, not much; it would just freeze you, standing up, between one step and the next; it would kill a patch of exposed skin quicker than a dozen unshielded megacuries. But that might make it easier; a fast death was more fun any day than this teasing along . . .

Bartholomew folded the tent, strapped up his pack, hoisted it onto his back. He stood before Henry.

The damned fool was actually grinning.

"We're going to make good time today, Captain. I have a feeling." He took Henry's arm; Henry shrugged him off, got to his feet unassisted. Why the hell had he been letting the boy waste strength, supporting him, saving his own waning vitality? It was almost as though dying wasn't what he wanted at all . . .

* * *

Later, he was sure it was. It wasn't as though there were any hope of surcease, ever; the supply of miles was limitless; the depths of cold only skimmed so far. And if some weatherproof St. Bernard came along now, with a keg of miracles hung around his neck—

He'd still be a mute, one-eyed cripple, pitifully maimed, horribly scarred, lacking all sorts of useful parts. A man wouldn't want to live in that condition, even if he weren't a drag on the living. That was simple enough. Why, then, did he go on, head down, parka hood pulled close about his face, lurching grotesquely onward, teeth clenched against the pain, while thoughts of food, and warm beds, and blessed rest tormented him like jeering imps?

Time lost its meaning. There are an infinity of infinities within infinity; and an infinity of eternities within eternity. Forever passed, while he endured; then there was a time of lying in the snow, mindless with exhaustion, and then the brief, sharp sensation of food, and then again, eternity . . . The sun was high, a pale disk in a glaring sky; later it hung in the west, shedding its cold light without the faintest hint of heat, smaller than it should be, subtly the wrong color. Bartholomew was moving about, making a fire, chattering.

" . . . a good twelve miles, I'd estimate. And the mountains are closer than we thought. It's the misty air; it makes things look far away. We're almost into the foothills now; the ground was rising for the last hour's hike today .

. ."

The voice tuned in and out.

" . . . do you agree, Captain?"

Was the boy still asking questions of the oracle—the halt, the lame, the half-blind oracle, dying before his eyes?

Sure. Anything you say. It doesn't matter. Let's get going. Henry swallowed, got to his feet, pulled away angrily as Bartholomew attempted to help him with his pack. The younger man started off, stamping away through foot-deep snow; and Henry followed.

* * *

The peak loomed over them, dominating the sky. The wind had shifted again, blowing across the slope from the west now, bringing a stinging hail of snow particles. The drifts were deeper here—dry, powdery drifts, that flowed underfoot like desert dust, each footprint sending down a minor avalanche. Henry's eye burned from the white glare. Ahead, Bartholomew stamped on, long-legged, tall, bounding up the slope like a deer, then waiting while Henry dragged his way up behind him.

"I don't like the look of the clouds, Captain," he called. "They have a sort of yellowish tinge; I'm afraid that means more snow . . . And it's getting dark fast . . ."

Henry came up, kept going; the long slope stretched ahead, white, smooth, blue-shadowed, rising in an unbroken sweep to the far heights of the pass. Why waste time talking about the weather? Just keep going, up, up, into the cold, into the thin air, thinking about nothing except the fact that it was reach the summit—or die here.

* * *

He had fallen, and Bartholomew was pulling at his arm. Henry groped, got his feet under him, struggled up. Couldn't let the boy waste his strength. Had to go on . . . as far as he could . . . walk on until the plunging heart burst. Maybe someday their bodies would be found, frozen deep inside a glacier of blue ice, preserved intact, a silent memento of the old days, long ago, when men had come, barehanded, to tame the alien world . . . He was down again. Bartholomew's hands hauled at him. The wind howled, drowning the boy's words. He shook his head; heavy, wet snow was caked against his lips, his eye. He thrust with his feet, found a purchase, crawled forward another foot. It was easier this way. The ground sloped steeply up here. He reached, with one hand and one crippled claw; his feet groped. Another foot. Where was Larry now? Good boy; not wasting his strength any more. Gone on ahead . . . He could rest now . . .

Bartholomew was back, pulling at him. Still at it . . . still determined to coax a dead man over a mountain. Couldn't let the boy wear himself out that way . . . Go on, a little farther. Die, body . . . Die, and let both of us rest . . .

* * *

He couldn't remember why the operation was necessary. It had been going on for such a long time. The anesthetic was wearing off; he could feel the scalpel cutting in—cutting into his eye—

No, it was his knee. They had cut it off, and now they were welding a steel joint in place. The fools. You couldn't weld steel to flesh! And the gas he was breathing; the welding torch had started a fire; the gas was burning, and he was breathing in the pale flames, the blue fire that was burning his chest out . . .

It was a hell of a funeral. The pallbearers were carrying him, head down—without even a coffin. A man needed a coffin. It was cold, when you were dead, without a box to keep off the icy wind. And they had stripped the body, too. And someone had cut off his hands, and his feet—

The stumps ached—but not as badly as the knee. They had tried to cut that off, too, but it had been too hard. That was because it was made of steel .

. .

The explosion jarred Henry alive. The end of the world. In a moment the other bodies which had been blown out of the graveyard would come raining down . . .

" . . . sorry . . . Captain . . ."

There was one of them now. Not a body, though. It had spoken. What were the words? Sorry . . .

Oh, how sorry a man was, once it was all over—sorry for all the lost opportunities, all the cruel words, all the joys untasted, all the little trusts betrayed . . .

"Couldn't be . . . much farther . . ." Henry heard. Much farther. Much farther

. . .

" . . . a minute . . . try again . . ."

Try again. If only a man could. The awful thing about death was the barrier that stood between you and all the things that you should have done, once, long ago, when you were still alive.

But if you could push through the barrier . . .

Perhaps if you tried . . .

There had been something that someone had wanted. It had been a simple thing, if he could only remember . . .

"Please, Captain. Wake up. Wake up . . ."

That was it. He had to wake up. That meant to open his eye . . . No, that was too hard. It was easier just to pretend he was awake—and who would know the difference? It was a clever idea. Henry wanted to laugh aloud. He would pretend to be awake. He would move his legs—that was important, he seemed to know, somehow—and his arms . . . One arm was gone. Yes, someone had cut it off once—But the other was there. It had a steel hand at the end of it, and he would reach out, catch it on something, pull, then reach out again . . .

* * *

The shout rang, loud and clear—cut off quickly. Henry waited, listening. He heard the screech of wind, the beat of blood inside his skull; nothing more. He was on a mountain—he remembered that. He remembered the funeral clearly . . .

But someone had shouted. He was alone, here, on the mountain that dead men climbed—and yet a shout had sounded just ahead . . . His arm was a grappling hook. He threw it out, caught it, pulled himself forward. It was not an easy way to travel, but it seemed correct, somehow. He pulled, reached again, touched nothing. Strange. He pushed with his feet, stretching . . .

The world was tilting under him. He poised for a dizzy moment, hanging in air—and then he was falling—and then a shock, an instant of wrenching pain—and a vast softness that enveloped him in silence through which, far away, a voice called.

* * *

There was an odor of wood smoke and hot food. Henry pried an eye open. He was half sitting, half lying against a fur-padded wall of rock. Overhead, a ledge slanted down to a curtain of animal hides. Beside him, Bartholomew squatted by a small fire, feeding twigs to the flames.

"Just in time for dinner," Bartholomew croaked. His eyes were bright, set deep in a weather-ravaged face above an ice-matted black beard. "I dug you out of the snowbank; it broke your fall."

Henry's hands ached. He lifted one, stared at flushed, dusky-red fingers.

"Your hands were pretty cold, Captain, but I massaged them by the fire; I think they'll be all right. My feet were a bit chilled, too." Henry looked, saw bloody rags of fur wrapped around Bartholomew's lower legs. He leaned back, closed his eyes.

"You understand, don't you, Captain?" Bartholomew said hoarsely. "We've made it across the mountains; we're over the pass and a couple of hundred feet down the south slope. We're going to make it, Captain! We're going to make it . . ."