Part 70 (2/2)
”I'm quite worried about Aronn. His condition seems to be deteriorating.”
”I have noted it.” The Champion's eyes turned to his Guild Brother, who sat apathetically in front of an infrared heating unit, holding an untasted chocolate bar in one mittened hand.
”We'll have to go roped on the slope,” Basil said. ”There may be some steep pitches of ice and the wind will be severe.
I'm afraid it's out of the question for Aronn to continue as tailman to Ookpik's team. If he should fall, his great weight would tear the other three loose. They would slide down the slick chute into the lap of the Col, perhaps more than a thousand metres.”
”Very likely,” said the Tanu.
”I have seen other climbers with Aronn's symptoms,” Basil went on. ”I must tell you that there is a chance of your friend becoming irrational. He could panic, even become madly euphoric and decide to throw away his ice-axe, or go dancing about the slope. Will you be able to control him through your golden torc?”
”I can coerce him, certainly. But Aronn is a stalwart psychokinetic , and if he becomes crazed he may override my compulsion.
When persons of my race suffer mental disorder, it is redaction and not coercion that they require-and my brain, impelled by self-preservation, concentrates this faculty w.i.l.l.y-nilly to my own benefit. There is another problem. Even though I am normally Aronn's coercive superior, his powers may at times exceed my own when he is stimulated by aberrant mental impulses.”
Basil said, ”We cannot leave Aronn here and we cannot turn back. Once we get across the Col, we can put him into a decamole sledge for the downhill slog. But somehow, he's going to have to make it across that snowfield. I propose that we transfer Betsy to Ookpik's rope. You and I will be Aronn's ropemates.
We will lead the way, and I will provide-uh-bombproof belays all the way.”
”Aronn weighs near one hundred and eighty of your kilos.
Would this not put you at considerable hazard? I myself am greatly weakened. I do not think I could sustain Aronn with my psychokinesis. It would have to be done physically.”
”We could put him between us-”
”And if all three of us should fall,” Bleyn said starkly, ”who will lead the others to the aircraft? Ookpik, I will remind you, is not nearly so experienced in alpine mountaineering as was the late Thongsa. My orders from the King command me to retrieve the aircraft at any cost.”
”We will not abandon Aronn.” Basil was firm.
”No,” Bleyn agreed softly. ”But you will lead the others in a five-man team, and I and my Guild Brother will follow, roped together. We will trust in Tana to sustain us. If we fall, it is her will.”
Basil said, ”If you fall, we humans will come to the aircraft with no Tanu overlord to compel us! How do you know we won't abscond with a s.h.i.+p and fly to freedom? Neither you nor the King could coerce us at long distance.”
”There is no need to coerce you. I have said that humans are impossible to understand-but I was wrong. I understand you well enough, Basil, to know that you will do as you have promised, whether or not Aronn or I survive.”
The don gave a diffident nod. ”That's all right, then. Shall we get on with it?”
The wind screamed. Its chill factor, Basil estimated, was probably better than minus sixty Celsius. He felt his face congealing inside the rime-coated fur ruff of his anorak hood. His fingers grew more and more numb with the cutting of each step in the tough white ice. He sank an ice screw, made fast, and said: Belay on! Climb away.
Ookpik said: Climbing. He scuttled quickly across the freshly cut footholds, then anch.o.r.ed himself in turn. Meanwhile Basil was chopping, chopping, cramponing along, with Ookpik belayed and braced against a possible fall of the leader. As the line of slots extended across the steep slope, Bengt followed on the rope, then n.a.z.ir, then Betsy; and ten metres or so in the rear and dropping farther and farther behind came the two Tanu.
Basil swung his axe in time to the rhythm of his labouring heart. His lungs strained to extract oxygen from the thin, frigid air and the pain drove him to greater effort. Faster. He worked out to the end of the rope that Ookpik had secured, chopping ice with as much speed as he dared; for speed was the only thing that would bring them out of the screaming wind that was freezing them slowly to death. Basil knew it and Bleyn the Champion knew it. The others were too weak and miserable to care.
Basil said: How Aronn doing Bleyn?
Bleyn said: Weak very weak halfstupefied but no mania Tanabethanked he responds my coercion.
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