Pliocene Exile - The Adversary Part 72

Basil said: Yes.

Aiken said: Name your gratuity.

Basil said: One day's rest. Then while the others get on with the ferrying and reactivation I wish to climb to the summit of Monte Rosa. Alone. If I have not returned after three days you will a.s.sume that I have perished in the attempt. No one must risk his life or these aircraft in futile rescue manoeuvres. This is the only personal request I make of you.

Aiken said: It is granted.

Phronsie Gillis set aside her book-plaque of Grey Lensman and stared out of the flight-deck port of Old Number One at the thickening blizzard. "Sweet chariot, just look at that snow. If it's coming down like this on top of the mountain, poor Basil's quickfrozen by now. He hasn't got a Chinaman's chance."

Miss w.a.n.g looked up from her feng-huang embroidery and said plaintively, "I wish you would use less offensive metaphors."

"Honey," Phronsie retorted, "I got insults for every race, ethnic group, religious faith, and s.e.xual orientation. Nothin' personal."

Miss w.a.n.g hung her head and sniffled. "Basil was a good leader. I shall miss him."

"We all will," said Stan Dziekonski. He slapped his cards on the navigator's tank. "Gin."

The three other cardplayers tossed in their hands gloomily.

"Can't you catch anything with your farsight?" Ookpik demanded of Bleyn.

The Champion shook his great blond head. "It's the storm.

If Elizabeth is frustrated in her attempts to locate Basil, how shall I hope to succeed? And there is no response to our telepathic calls."

"We have already waited longer than the specified time,"

Ochal the Harper told them. "We'll have to go."

"d.a.m.n the specified time!" Phronsie shouted, whacking the console of Old Number One with her book. "You go off with Stan and Ooky in Number Two, Lord Harper, and let us hang on here another day. Bleyn won't mind-will you, Champ?"

Bleyn said, "Both s.h.i.+ps must go, Phronsie. We are the last, and it was Basil himself who laid down the conditions."

"He did," said Miss w.a.n.g in a small miserable voice. She wiped her nose on her sleeve, took the pilot's seat, and began the preflight very slowly. "Phronsie, please take the power readouts."

There was a collective exhalation of breath from the others.

Stan said, "Well, guess Ooky and Lord Harper and I better slog back to Two."

"Yes," said Bleyn. "See you in Goriah."

The departing trio pulled up hoods, zipped anoraks, and stuffed their hands into mittens. They shuffled back to the belly hatch. When Miss w.a.n.g cracked it open, the blizzard moaned a dirge.

"Rho-field generators looking good," said Phronsie. "Environmentals go. Hatch secure."

Miss w.a.n.g stifled a sob. "R-power to the external web. Wings back full. Ready for lift."

Phronsie spoke into the RF com. "You guys safe in Two, come back?"

"Affirm," said Ookpik. "And Harper did another scan while we were outside. Zip to the nth. But Basil's where he wanted to be."

"d.a.m.n m.u.f.fer could have planned it that way," Phronsie growled. "It wouldn't surprise me one little bit ... Oh, for G.o.d's sake, get us out of here, w.a.n.g!"

On the pinnacle of Monte Rosa, Basil sat secure in his snowcave until the hurricane roar of the wind died away. Then he plied his vitredur shovel and tunnelled out. The sky above was velvet black, dusted with subtly coloured stars. A vast cloud deck blanketed the world below 8000 metres. Off to the west, two purplish streaks like dying meteorites arced out of sight behind the Proto-Matterhorn.

Basil sat down on a compacted pile of snow, stretching his legs with extreme caution. There were crackling sounds from the left tibia and the right ankle. Stars not of the cosmos danced momentarily before his eyes and he gasped out loud. The torn knees of his grintlaskin outer pants and down trousers were black with frozen blood. He had stumped up the last two or three hundred metres after the fall. It had been rather easy, actually; but the granular snow had torn his clothing like broken gla.s.s, and he'd had to dig in precipitously before the blizzard struck.

He swivelled slowly about, surveying his world. His breath made frosty nebulae that drifted off into the void, one puff following another at shorter and shorter intervals. The warning band of constriction about his chest tightened with each filling of his lungs. He was very happy.

The overwhelming cold lanced at his unprotected eyes and so he closed them and felt immediately warmer. He said: "Vulgo enim dicitur: iucundi acti labores."

Cicero, isn't it?

"Quite right. 'De Finibus.' "

The good fathers in New Hamps.h.i.+re had heavy going pounding the Latin into us, but I think I can still manage: "It's commonly said that accomplished labours are delightful." An appropriate sentiment, but one I couldn't swear to myself.

Basil opened his eyes and saw a dark ma.s.s, very tall and approximately man-shaped, standing on the snow in front of him.

"h.e.l.lo, there," said the don. "I suppose it is you? As opposed to a hypothermic hallucination, that is."

The thing slid closer, seeming to exude a chill even more profound than that of the high alpine night.

You must excuse me if I stay within my armour.

"Perfectly understandable. I presume you've been observing my efforts."

Yours, especially.

"Ah. Well, I'm done now."

You propose to die here?

"There seems little alternative."

I could offer one.

"How very curious," Basil murmured. "Tell me about it."

I've been experimenting with my d-jumping faculty, learning to carry things outside this armoured mechanism that encases my body. It's a matter of mentally generating an upsilon-field, you see.

"Like a superluminal stars.h.i.+p?"

Exactly. I've raised my capacity to about 75 kilos of inert ma.s.s.

Now I'm ready to try teleporting something alive. I could use an animal, of course.

Basil nodded judiciously. "Or you could use me."