by Julian May
The hut door opened, admitting three exotics and Kang Lee, the gold-tore officer of the watch. The Tanu climbers Bleyn the Champion and Aronn looked almost like outsized humans in their alpine clothing; but Ochal the Harper was an eerie sight, a white anorak and pants pulled over his brightly glowing amethyst armor.
"The others are coming immediately," the farsensor said. "We'll use this map for orientation rather than attempt a mind-meld." He spread a large sheet of durofilm on the table in the center of the hut. More people came stomping in—Bengt Sandvik and Nazir of the second assault team, and the nonclimbing physician, Magnus Bell. Last of all, smiling and imperturbable in the face of the others' coolness, came the little deputy assault leader, Dr. Thongsa.
"Now let the briefing commence!" he ordered. Somebody snickered.
Ochal's mailed finger traced a path across the map, leaving a lingering bright mark on the plass. "It seems the Foe has done the unexpected. With their forces diminished by the landslide back in the Tarentaise, no one suspected that they would dare to split what was left. Nevertheless, this is exactly what they did. After crossing the Little St. Bernard Pass and marching into the Proto-Augusta Valley, they arrived here." He indicated a point on the river some 40 kilometers east of the pass. "About one hundred Firvulag continued to move east along the Augusta in a straightforward manner to the Val d'Ayas, which is their most logical corridor of access to Camp Bettaforca. This was the force Elizabeth tracked."
"And the rest of them?" Ookpik asked.
"The force she did not perceive," Ochal resumed, "consisted of some seventy of the more stalwart Foe, those able to exercise strong shielding functions. After these troops broke away from their fellows, they went through the steep gorges of the Valpelline, where even a Grand Master would have the utmost difficulty farsensing them. They traveled northeast and then east across very rugged terrain, then curved back southward. They will fall upon us from the head of the Ayas instead of the foot, probably attacking from that ridge to the northwest."
"The storm's coming in from that direction," Ookpik noted brightly. "Might slow the bastards down."
"We must be off at once!" piped Thongsa, prodding the air with his ice axe spike. "Once we reach the glacier, the Firvulag won't dare follow—and at least we'll be safe!"
An embarrassed silence greeted this gaffe.
Ochal said gently, "We think that the Foe are poised to attack Camp Bettaforca, and our people are armed and ready. But you must under stand that another possibility exists. The Firvulag nation were anciently born and bred in the high snowy mountains of Duat, our native world. Even a thousand years in the Many-Colored Land will not have diminished their craftiness in such terrain—and the Famorel Little People are even more mountain-wise than their kinfolk of the northern realm. They are keen farsensors. They undoubtedly know the locations of our advance camps on Monte Rosa."
"Surely not!" wailed the Tibetan physician.
"The Firvulag objective," Bleyn the Champion reminded him, "is to deny us the aircraft. Attacking Bettaforca with its strong defenses isn't nearly so tempting as going for us climbers. Besides—the second force of Little People will be in a better position to attack the base."
Thongsa's black eyes darted like terrified beetles in his flat bronze face. "We must postpone the assault until the enemy is defeated!"
Bleyn was implacable. "The Foe may win. The King commands that we begin the high climb at once."
"But we may have to fight our way up the entire South Face!" Thongsa cried.
"Now you have it straight, darling," said Mr. Betsy comfortably. He hoicked up his pack, fastened the buckles, and adjusted the hood of his anorak over the pink pompoms of his balaclava. "Shall we be off?"
"Wait!" exclaimed the Tibetan wildly. His voice was drowned by the rumbling agreement of the others, who began putting on their gear.
"Feel like guiding a rookie today, Bets?" asked Magnus Bell. "I'm mooching along with you guys—part of the way, at least—to cope with the sickees, help haul them back down. Mountaineering-wise, I'm dumb but willing. In the tough pitches, I expect to bedragged."
Thongsa was fairly hopping with fury. "This is madness! When I agreed to lead the second assault team, I never anticipated it would involve a running gun battle! I resign forthwith!"
"Go right ahead," said Aronn gloomily. He was a horse-faced Tanu with an air of perennial disillusionment, not above using his PK talent to cheat at craps. He had muscles likea bull gigantopithecus. "You may back out of the leadership if you choose, Lowlife, but your alpine expertise and piloting ability are irreplaceable. You go with usif I must carry you by the scruff of the neck."
"This is insupportable," Thongsa whimpered.
"Isn't it, though?" agreed Betsy. His dainty goateed face thrust close to that of the rebellious pilot-physician. As other hands lifted Thongsa's pack to his shoulders, Betsy latched it on. "Think of the aircraft, darling. Think of the time-gate that the aircraft will help to build! Think of yourself going through that time-gate. Don't you want to go back to the Milieu?"
Tears stood in Thongsa's eyes. "I did not think so before. But now ... yes. Yes! YES!"
***
They crept across the rotten ice of the Gresson Glacier, divided into four-man partiesand firmly roped in spite of the fact that the trail was marked with flagged wands. All around them were the sounds of running water and the squeaks and groans of settling ice. At long intervals they heard thunderous crashes as'séracs calved from the four great icefalls. The moon had a ring around it and the summit of Monte Rosa wore a spectral caul.
The two Tanu kept in constant telepathic communication with the base camp at the same time that their farsense scanned the expanse of ice for signs of the advancing Foe. But nothing happened. For more than two hours, until the gray light of dawn smudged the sky behind Rosa's right flank, they picked their way across the glacier. Thongsa went first, probing with his long-hafted axe, leading Nazir, Bengt, and Aronn. Then came Ookpik leading Betsy, Magnus, and Bleyn the Champion. No one fell into a crevasse. No one even lost his footing. The tores helped them to see in the dark. Thongsa's route finding was a model ofconservative ice travel: painstaking, safe, and very, very slow.
They saw the storm sweeping toward them as they approached the supply dump at the footof the Gresson Icefall. At the same time Bleyn announced:
Elizabeth regrets that a combination of meteorological interference thoughtresistant rock formations and Firvulag screening makes it all but impossible for her to pinpoint thelocation of the northern force of the Foe. The southern force is easily farsensed 8 kilometers south of Bettaforca in the Ayas Valley apparently bivouacked...
Sleet struck them. The aether rang with epithets as they paused to seal shut the scabbards of their weapons and pull down their hoods. Then they slogged on through the gloaming, with Aronn's farsight helping Thongsa to locate the wands as the storm intensified. Sometimes they were ankle-deep in running water and their socks quickly became soaked. But it was possible for the two Tanu overlords to step up circulation in the extremities of the gray-torc wearers, so their wool-clad feet remained warm, if slightly chafed.
Magnus said: All the same we're sure to get blisters unless we dry out soon.
Bleyn said: I farsee the supply dump tents less than half a league ahead.
Ookpik asked: How much is that in honest meters?
Aronn said: I know not but you puny-leggers will take at least another hour to get there unless you crank it up.
Nazir said: Subhan'llah I think I'm sinking guys! ...I am!
Thongsa said: Belay Bengt I am fast.
Bengt said: Got him.
Nazir said: Bloody hell I'm waist deep...
Thongsa said: Can you lift him Lord Aronn?
Aronn said: Upsy-pupsy little man.
As if he were on an elevator, the Arab technician levitated from the mush-filled crevasse that had threatened to swallow him. The psychokinesis of both Aronn and Bleyn held him in midair, then tilted
him carefully to spill water from various parts of his clothing.
Bleyn said: It storms too hard to do a proper job drying you Nazir. I can banish discomfort until we reach the dump. Satisfactory?
Nazir said: Carry on.
The sleet storm moderated somewhat with the coming of dawn. Monte Rosa's snowfields slowly took on a sanguine tinge and the sky turned to purplish crimson, strewn with fast-moving little black clouds.
"I know it's 'red sky at morning, sailors take warning,'" Magnus quoted. "Does that hold true for mountain weather as well?"
"Probably," said Betsy, with cheerful pessimism. "Look there! The wind's blowing open the mist ahead. I see the icefall—and the tents."
The humans all cheered. The shelters of silver decamole were virtually invisible against the ice, but they bore banners of streaming orange silk, and seemed not more than 150 meters away.
"We will rest well, dry out, and prepare a substantial meal," Thongsa declared. "It's obvious that the Firvulag were more prudent than we, doubtless spending the night in some cosy, stormproof shelter. Come! Let us make haste!"
He strode forward with his axe held at a jaunty piolet-canne and his glass crampons clinking against the water ice. The photon beam that killed him instantly was undoubtedly a mistake. Some impetuous Firvulag stalwart had bungled and fired too soon from the tumble of broken white blocks to the left of the tents. The ragged fusillade that followed was delivered from extreme Matsu range, and was hopelessly fouled by a sudden blatter of sleet that swept across the glacier.
"Get down!" Bleyn shouted. "Behind that ice ridge!"
They broke away from the flagged trail just in time. The storm was giving its last gasp, and as the air cleared, the laser beams zapped with increasing efficiency, chipping great hunks from the ridge.
They unroped and wormed away eastward. The ridge, though not very high, was adequate cover, leading them to an outcropping of verglas-sheathed granite, where they regrouped and considered the situation.
It was now full light. They were more than 300 meters from the tent site and somewhat farther from the hiding place of the Firvulag. The Foe had concealed themselves in a pile of house-sized séracs on the righthand margin of the icefall and now commanded the only route up the mountain.
"Somebody using his noggin among that lot," Ookpik observed. "Still, things could be worse."
"And would be," Betsy muttered, "if one spook hadn't got itchy trigger finger."
"Is it the entire gang?" Nazir asked. "The seventy-odd sods Ochal the Harper estimated?"
"I am counting," Bleyn said grimly. "At such close range, I can pick them out, even if they are screened."
"Pity you didn't earlier," murmured Betsy.
"I was unforgivably careless," the Champion admitted. "Such scrutiny requires intense concentration, and my attention was divided. Even a High Table member may nod—Tana curse the luck!"
"Things could be worse," Ookpik said again. He seemed unaccountably excited as he extracted a monocular from his pack with some difficulty and peered through it.
"What ho?" Bengt asked.
"They don't call it an icefall for nothing, cheechako," said the Inuit engineer.
Aronn said, "It hasn't moved since we first came to the mountain."
"Needed lubrication," said Ookpik.
"You'll have to hit the trigger point just right," Nazir said dubiously. "I mean, we can't fart around for hours peppering the fall, or the spooks will wise up."
"How can I estimate these angles if you keep yapping?" Ookpik complained. Everyone was still for several minutes. Then the Eskimo asked, "Any of you Tanu fly?"
"No," said Bleyn. "I have a mental block and Aronn has never been able to assimilate the program."
"But you can move things at distance?"
"I'm no Kuhal Earthshaker, but I can fling about eight times my weight. Aronn's good for half that much."
Ookpik did a rapid calculation. "Better than a ton. Ho-kay. You could move something over on the icefall?"
"Well—" Bleyn hesitated. "We could try. But just tossing about, mind you. No sustained lift. And we have to have a line of sight on it."
The Eskimo's eyes were glittering. "Just give me a few more minutes."
They relaxed behind the ice-covered rocks. Soggy footgear was dried by Aronn's creative power. Betsy helped Nazir change his clothing.
Magnus brewed hot chocolate. From time to time the Firvulag opened fire on their position, but the only result was the removal of most of the ice-rind on the north side of the outcropping and minimal damage to the granite.
"I count sixty-eight of the Foe," Bleyn announced. "The entire northern wing must be dug in behind those enormous glacial blocks."
"They seem to be mostly Matsu-equipped," Betsy said. "I've noted only two or three blasts of a different color. Possibly Mauser solar-powered. Nothing to match our Weatherbies and Bosches."
"I found the spot," Ookpik said at last. "Perfect. A little higher than I'd like, but what the hell—momentum's momentum. So what if we have to scout a new route up the fall? We can rest in the dump first, maybe give Basil a chance to get down with poor Stan."
"We don't know that this will work," Betsy said grimly. "Let's not plan too far ahead, darling."
Ookpik had the monocular to his eye. "Tune in on my optics, everybody. See that'sérac shaped like a sideways Coke bottle?"
"What is a Coke bottle?" Aronn asked.
"That one," Ookpik clarified. When everyone had identified the key ice-block, the engineer explained what had to be done. They all took up their weapons and aimed carefully at a designated point. "Remember, you two Exalteds," Ookpik told the Tanu, "as we zap 'er, lift. We've got to send it tumbling down, and then with any luck the whole lash-up will collapse. Ready?..."
Fire.
Three green beams and four blue-white ones lanced out. There was a bloom of steam and pulverized ice. The two psychokinetics exerted their mental power. The'sérac shuddered but stood fast.
"Rock it!" yelled Ookpik. "Fire again!"
The photon weapons sang. Bleyn and Aronn stood shoulder to shoulder, their handsome faces distorted by the effort. The cloud halfway up the icefall expanded. A grating sound reached their ears. Aronn cried, "It's going over the edge!" And then the trough of giant ice-blocks seemed to shimmer in the strengthening light. The farsenses of the Tanu lockedonto the sight and broadcast it to the gray tores of the humans. They saw the face of the looming frozen cascade heave and ripple. Blue-and-white masses flew up andoutward as if in slow motion, then tumbled end over end with facets gleaming and projections fracturing like cloudy glass. A stupendous roar filled the air. Loose snow, shaken from the tumbling blocks, exploded in great clots, and crystal whirlwinds sparkled at the fringes of the monstrous avalanche.
In the aether, there were inhuman cries.
When it was over, the Gresson Icefall looked very little changed, for one chunk of iceis not very different from another. But the apron of the fall, which had been dirty gray, was now pristine—and extended nearly halfway to the rocks where the climbing party had taken refuge. The Firvulag redoubt was buried beneath at least sixteen meters of icy rubble. The supply dump tents were only buried ten meters deep.
Ookpik looked at the others with a resigned expression. "You win a few, you lose a few. But I guess we'd better start climbing. It's a long way up to Camp 1."
11
SHACKLED with glass gyves, sullen but resigned, Tony Wayland stood beside Kuhal Earthshaker on the balcony of the Roniah City-Lord's palace and addressedthe King's simulacrum, which appeared to be seated cross-legged in the limpid afternoon air just the other side of the balustrade.
"Well, Your Majesty, you have to work the niobium in an argon atmosphere, for starters. That's the biggest part of your problem. As for alloying it with dysprosium, I'm afraid I haven't the foggiest."
"But you could experiment?" Aiken leaned forward anxiously, his hands braced on the knees of his golden pocket-suit.
&nb
sp; "Oh, I suppose so." Tony's manner was barely civil. "Given sufficient quantities of the stuff to work with. But you say you don't have any of the pure element. Do you realize how difficult it's going to be, extracting the Dy from ores? I mean, even when you manage to coax the yttrium complex out of the crud, you'll have a devil of a time sifting the Dy out in any kind of pure state. I suppose you couldn't substitute some other paramagnetic substance?"
"No," said Aiken. "We have a gadget called an ion concentrator that might help with your refining problem, however."
"It might," Tony snapped. "But the problem's yours, not mine."
Kuhal Earthshaker cuffed the metallurgist lightly, sending him to his knees. "Remember to whom you speak, Lowlife! Your survival hangs by a thread!"
Tony only laughed. His golden tore and relatively fragile psyche would protect him against the more subtle manifestations of mental violence—as he knew very well from his years in Finiah. "Go ahead and beat me!" he sneered. "Fat lot of good I'll be to you if you crock up my cortex!"
Aiken nodded agreement. "It was always friendly persuasion that kept you turning out the barium, wasn't it, Tony?"
"Damn right."
"I want to be your friend, too," said the King winningly. "I won't have Lord Kuhal replace your golden tore with a gray or silver one if you give me your word of honor to work with us in a spirit of goodwill. I'm afraid you'll have to be kept under house arrest for the duration of the project, but that's more for your safety than anything else. You'll have free run of the Castle of Glass outside of working hours and whatever goodies your heart desires. When we get the Guderian device into operation, you can ask for whatever reward you like."
"All I want," said Tony forlornly, "is to go home to my wife in Nionel."
The King unfolded his limbs, stood up and stretched. "You help us make this gimcrack wire that we need, and you could be gazing into her loving eyes by Grand Tourney time."
"Eye," Tony corrected him. "Oh ... very well. I'll give it my best shot. You have my word."
"Send him out with the convoy tonight," Aiken ordered Kuhal, and vanished.