How We Play the Game in Salt Lake and Other Stories

by M. Shayne Bell

  JACOB’S LADDER

  The angel’s wings had been broken.

  “I saw three wings by stairs,” Marcio said. “I go. Two knocks, let me in.”

  He left the dressing room in a hurry, but quiet. I locked the door behind him. Marcio’s a reporter for the Estado de Pará, so it was better that he go. Besides speaking Portuguese, he had pulled on a dead worker’s overalls so he could maybe talk his way out of getting thrown over if he got caught. Maybe. Sandra and I couldn’t even try that trick.

  “Think he’ll come back?”

  I looked at Sandra. “Where would he go?”

  “Turn us in. Get on their good sides. Stay alive.”

  “He’ll come back.” Marcio was Brasilian, but that made no difference to the terrorists.

  I opened a locker, found a 120-foot rope. Sandra was trying on the construction workers’ outsuits. She didn’t have much trouble finding one that fit, but it took me a while. Most were too small. Most weren’t built for American men. Sandra pulled on a suit and hung the camera around her neck.

  “You’re taking it?”

  “Damn right. And if they catch us, I’ll stomp it. No one’s going to film my death with my own camera.”

  They’d been doing that: taking pictures of the newsmen they killed with the newsmen’s own cameras — a final insult.

  Two soft taps on the door: Marcio. He was shaking. The angel’s wings clanged against the door frame. Marcio had to back up and hand them to me one at a time. Angel’s wings look like a man-sized capital I: solar battery, gears, and levers at the top; narrow pole down the middle; foot clamps at the bottom that catch on doorjambs. Marcio came through with the last set of wings. Sandra locked the door. I set my wings on the floor. They didn’t weigh much, and they looked flimsy — little more than aluminum poles to hang on to: not much to ride five hundred miles on.

  “The place crawls with our amigos — I had to club one,” Marcio said. One wing had blood on it. “I hope I kill him. If he wake up and remember me taking wings …”

  He didn’t finish. But Sandra and I understood. They’d cut the cable.

  Marcio pulled on an outsuit. “The vid? — videos are on,” he said.

  The one in the dressing room had been shot up.

  “They are throwing over all the people they catch.”

  “Workers, too?” Sandra asked.

  “Sim.Workers.”

  And videotaping it for everyone down in Macapá. Let Ground Floor know they were serious, that their deadlines were real. I wondered how long “We don’t negotiate with terrorists” would last when it came to seeing the celebs Up Top murdered.

  We’d been coming up in the second-to-last car for newsmen — neither of Salt Lake’s papers had the pull of CBS, Newsweek, or the New York Times. We’d crammed into the car with reporters from Vancouver, Lima, and Sapporo — impatient, of course. Seventy-six presidents, prime ministers, and dictators were Up Top, with members of twelve royal families, the São Paulo Symphony, actors from all seven continents, and twenty-three science fiction writers flown to Macapá to inaugurate the story of the century: the elevator to space. Man’s ladder to the stars. Jacob’s ladder to Heaven, as it was called. It’s location at the mouth of the Amazon gave the elevator easy access to the world’s shipping and the world easy access to the wealth beyond the gravity-well. Spaceships could load and unload cargo at Up Top station, which had been built in geosynchronous orbit, or at any of the forty-four partway stations stretching down the cables. Instead of fifteen hundred dollars a pound to shuttle materials up from Earth, the elevator would lift thousands of pounds an hour for twenty-five cents a pound.

  Flying to the Moon would be as cheap as flying from Salt Lake to Toronto, Mars as cheap as Salt Lake to Jerusalem.

  Security for the opening had been the tightest I’d seen. They’d checked everything and everybody everywhere. But I knew somebody’d failed or been bribed or killed when “workers” at Partway-1 pulled guns.

  The terrorists shoved two reporters from Montevideo away from the rest of us, and five terrorists aimed guns at their heads. “I have a mother and a sister to support,” one Uruguayan said. “Please.”

  They shot him. Then they shot the other, kicked the bodies over the side. “We do not joke,” one terrorist said.

  They kept us at Partway-1 for three days, making demands, getting nowhere. They threatened to blow the whole elevator, which must have pleased the Russians, who were just starting to build theirs in an African minion’s equatorial swamp.

  The terrorists set a deadline, said they’d throw the newsmen (not the workers) at Partway-1 over the side. Nobody thought they’d do it.

  They did.

  When the deadline passed, they shot up the cars docked at Partway-1 and started hunting newsmen. Sandra and I hid in a meat locker till it got too cold. I’d been at Partway-1 before and knew a possible way down. Sandra was willing to try it; we were dead if we stayed. We ran into Marcio while looking for the construction site.

  “These wings be enough?” Marcio asked, pointing at the three he’d brought in.

  I didn’t know. “Sure, of course,” I said.

  Had to be enough: there weren’t any more.

  Sandra picked one up. “Built for low G, weren’t they?”

  She saw right through me. “They have good brakes,” I said.

  “Japanese brakes,” Marcio said.

  “Ever use one, Marcio?” I asked.

  “No. No, never.”

  That surprised me — his being Brasilian and so close to Macapá. I’d flown from Salt Lake to ride a pair of angel’s wings up and down one of the cables with the workers. It hadn’t been too bad. But I’d only had to ease my wings up a few thousand feet and then back down. Now, the Japanese brakes had to be good enough to ease three of us down to Macapá: five hundred miles.

  We heard a gunshot and a scuffle in the hall.

  Without a word, we suited up. I led the way to the depressurization chamber. Once inside I checked everyone’s air supply: twelve hours each. We’d have to cover forty-two miles an hour. I figured we could move along at twice that speed and make Macapá with half our air to spare.

  I looked at my watch. 5:00 P.M. No supper. Not much food of any kind for three days. But all we had to do, I hoped, was hang on and pray. There’d be food in Macapá.

  The workers had left tools lying about. I picked up a hammer and smashed the chamber’s receiver. I left the transmitter alone so we could hear anyone coming through DP after us.

  The lights on the outer door turned green. I opened the door. We stepped out.

  No air in the open construction. Six unfinished docks there, cables stretching straight down to Macapá. Not a bad place to hide if we’d had plenty of air and could have believed our friends wouldn’t eventually notice missing suits and come looking.

  I turned on my intersuit com link and motioned for Sandra and Marcio to do the same. “Air all right?” I asked. It was.

  I stood up my angel’s wings and showed Sandra and Marcio the magnetic clamps top and bottom that hold wings to a cable; how you strap your feet in the foot clamps; where you hook your suit to the aluminum pole; which lever above your head increased and decreased speed, which was the emergency brake. Simple things, really.

  “How long will the batteries last?” Sandra asked.

  “Two hours,” I said. “They’ll recharge in half that time. We should always have two units at full power. We’ll drop with gravity. The power will keep us at a constant speed.”

  “West Germans made the batteries,” Marcio said.

  “What do we have in them?” Sandra asked, looking at me.

  “The idea,” I said.

  “I thought America would have the defective part.”

  Marcio smiled. Sandra was good for a joke in tight spots.

  I opened the toolbox welded at waist height to my wing’s pole, told Sandra and Marcio to open theirs. The clamps were inside. “We’ll hook our angel’s wings t
ogether with these so we can travel as one unit,” I said. I tossed my clamp back and looked to see what else the toolbox held: not much — a few wrenches, a belt with a magnetic clamp on it in case your wings failed and you had to go out on the cable. I closed the lid.

  We walked to the nearest cable. I held my wings next to the cable, and the magnetic clamps sealed around it.

  Then I looked down. I’d kept from doing that as long as possible. The escape plan was my idea. I felt responsible for the others, even though they chose to come and it was the only chance we had. But if I lost my nerve —

  The Amazon looked big even from five hundred miles up: big and roiling east over the Atlantic that stretched into darkness where I could see stars — no, lights maybe? Monrovia? Dakar? — while below my feet the world was green and bright. Sunlight glistened on the rivers and the sea, and Macapá was invisible in the forests of Amapá.

  I could not see the bottom of the cable. It disappeared from sight long before clouds down in the air cut across its vanishing point.

  “I can’t do it,” Marcio said. He and Sandra were looking over the side.

  I put my hand on his shoulder. “Just don’t look down.”

  “I’m afraid of heights. I can’t do it.”

  “Would you rather go down with or without angel’s wings?”

  He looked away, breathing hard.

  Sandra led him from the edge and made him sit on a box. “Don’t hyperventilate till we get you strapped on,” she said.

  “The cable disappears. Is it cut?”

  I pushed on the cable. It didn’t move. “Cable’s solid,” I said.

  “You couldn’t move a cable five hundred miles long.”

  “If it were cut, we’d see the end dancing below us.” Listen to me, I thought, talking as if I’m some kind of expert, someone who knows these things.

  I picked up the rope. “Sandra,” I said, “You come last. We’ll put Marcio between us.”

  She nodded.

  I took hold of my angel’s wings with both hands and stepped out. I did not look down, not then. I just stood for a minute with my feet in the clamps trying not to shake. When I had hold of myself, I strapped down my feet. Tight. Then I hooked my suit to the pole, reached up, switched on the power. My wings came on with a slight tremor. The light showed green. I took hold of the down lever and dropped six feet, enough so Marcio could put his wings on top of mine.

  “You all right?” Sandra asked.

  I’d been breathing hard, sounding nervous. Not good.

  “Fine,” I answered with as much confidence as I could muster. “View’s a bit breathtaking.”

  “Damn it, Nick, admit you’re scared like the rest of us.”

  “I’m OK. Send Marcio over.”

  Marcio picked up his angel’s wings and walked to the side. “I’m going to be sick,” he said. “What happens if you get sick inside your suit?”

  “We’re at three-quarters G,” Sandra said. “Vomit will settle to the bottom. Smell bad, that’s all.”

  I heard a clank over my suit com.

  “Someone’s in DP,” Sandra said. “Get going, Marcio!”

  Marcio shoved his angel’s wings against the cable. They sealed around it. He stepped out, breathing hard, and strapped down his feet, taking less time than I had. He hooked his suit to the pole. We powered down. Sandra started out.

  I snugged my wings up against Marcio’s and screwed the clamp into place. “Get your clamp, Marcio,” I said. “We’ve got to hook these things together.”

  Sandra had her feet strapped down.

  “We’re too far apart,” Marcio said. “My clamp won’t reach Sandra’s wings.”

  I ran us up the few inches between Marcio’s unit and Sandra’s. We hit with a bump.

  “Nick! I’m not hooked on!”

  Now Sandra was breathing hard. She hooked on her suit, fast.

  “Power up, Sandra.” She flicked on her unit.

  I tied the rope around my waist and played out fifty-five feet through my hands.

  “Clamp’s on,” Marcio said.

  “Get us out of here, Sandra.”

  She pushed hard on the down lever, and we fell away from Partway-1.

  I grabbed the pole, closed my eyes, tried to keep my stomach away from my chin. “Mãe de Deus,” Marcio kept saying, trying to pray, not getting farther than the first words.

  A speedometer and odometer unit was built into the pole on level with my neck. I forced my eyes open. Ninety per, and climbing.

  “Keep it there, Sandra,” I said.

  “They can see us, Nick.”

  “They can see us in Macapá if they look with the right things.”

  She leveled off at ninety-six per.

  “Any sign of them?” I asked.

  “Nothing. The depressurization light wasn’t on — red, isn’t it? Maybe no one was coming through. We just won’t know, will we?”

  Not till the cable drops away with us on it, I thought. Sandra was probably thinking that, too.

  Marcio hadn’t said anything besides Mãe de Deus. “Power off, Marcio.We’ll use your wings in a couple hours.”

  I turned off my own.

  Marcio just kept repeating Mãe de Deus over and over again.

  I reached up and tapped his leg with the rope.

  He screamed.

  “Damn,” I said, and turned down my suit-com volume.

  “Can they hear us?” Sandra asked.

  I looked at the odometer. We had dropped over eight miles in five minutes. “Suit units at Partway-1 can’t pick us up now,” I said, and I did know that. A suit com had a mile’s range. “Partway-1 and Up Top stations can hear us, but they killed the folks at Partway-1 who knew how to listen in.”

  “Let’s hope Up Top doesn’t report us. Do we have a chance, Nick?”

  “More than we had at Partway.” Marcio was muttering full sentences now, in Portuguese. I imagined he was promising to be quite a saint if he lived to walk the blessed earth.

  “Marcio,” I said. “Power off!”

  He reached up and shut off his angel’s wings. Coherent now, at least. “Take this rope, Marcio,” I said. “Tie it around your waist and hand the end up to Sandra.”

  He took the rope.

  “What’s this?” Sandra asked.

  “Safety backup.” Backup I hoped we’d never use.

  I looked at my watch. 5:35.We’d dropped for fourteen minutes. 22.4 miles. Not bad time. I let us drop another sixteen minutes. At 48 miles down we were out of casual observation from Partway-1.

  “Ease up on the speed, Sandra,” I said. “We need to find out how these things handle so we’ll know what to expect in Macapá.”

  “Good idea.”

  She pulled down her lever. We lost speed slowly: 90, 83, 78, 73 — it leveled off at 73 per. “Keep slowing up,” I said.

  “Lever’s pulled straight down, Nick.”

  We should have stopped.

  “Thing’s heating up. Red lights on some units — the battery.”

  Not only that, we were gaining speed again, fast.

  “Power off, Sandra.”

  She switched off.

  The speedometer was spinning in a blur.

  “Hang on! I’m pulling my emergency brake.”

  I pulled it.

  The brake caught with a jerk, let go, caught again. We ground to a stop that would have knocked us all off if we hadn’t had our suits hooked to the pole. My brake unit heated up bad — red lights steady, not even blinking. I didn’t know if it would work if I tried it again.

  “So we’re going to die,” Marcio said.

  “Not yet,” I said, looking down at the green of Amapá and the long, bright Amazon: 448 miles away.

  We had dropped four miles in that last minute.

  “Well, at least the Japanese brakes work,” Sandra said.

  We all laughed. It felt good to laugh, we were so nervous.

  “Who built the drive?” I asked.

  �
�We did,” Marcio said.

  “What a team,” Sandra quipped. “Our idea and your high-tech. We should have known better than to climb onto these things.”

  “You still have a red light, Sandra?”

  “No. It’s cooled off.”

  “Can the batteries blow up?” Marcio asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Honesty at last,” Sandra said.

  “I don’t know what holds from now on. You may just have bad angel’s wings. Or it may be — who knows?”

  “At least it seems we can keep a constant speed,” Sandra said. “And we can stop.”

  “Unless these things aren’t built to take dropping down into the gravity-well. We might get too heavy for them to handle.”

  “Cheery thought.”

  “So we’ll probably die,” Marcio said.

  “Then again, they may hold up,” I said.

  “And in the meantime, our friends at Partway-1 may cut this cable,” Sandra said. “Let’s do something.”

  “Power on, Marcio.We’ll start down with your drive.”

  He flicked on the switch. Green light.

  “Push up your lever, easy.”

  He grabbed the lever. When he started to push up on it, I jerked off my emergency brake. We dropped away. Marcio’s wings caught hold just fine. I had him level off at 102 — figured the sooner we got down, the better.

  We stayed pretty quiet after that, watching the night advance across the Atlantic.

  “I can’t see it,” Sandra said, suddenly, an hour later.

  “See what?”

  “Partway.”

  I looked up. It was out of sight — had been for some time, I imagined. We were 154 miles down.

  “I’d been watching it,” she said. “I wanted a picture when it was just a bump on the cable.” She looked down at me and took a picture. “I’ve gotten some good shots: you and Marcio below me, pictures of us back at Partway-1 setting up.”

  “Good for the grandkids.”

  “Too young for that.”

  “To get married, or to have grandkids?”

  “Both.”

  “I will get married in the spring,” Marcio said.

  Which meant September or October south of the Equator. “Nice girl?” I asked.

  “The best. She will have a baby four months after our wedding — a boy.”