“Mr. Enderton, I can’t sail across in weather like this. It’s winter, and the lake winds are too strong. The boat nearly turned over twice yesterday.”
“Can’t sail, eh?” he growled, and his face was turning red. “Won’t is more like it.” His fingers began to twitch, and the look in his eyes petrified me. I had to keep talking.
“Do I really need to go over there? I mean, if I sat all day with the telecon”—I pointed to the super-telescope over by the window—“I could watch everything that goes on at Muldoon Port.”
“You can’t see ground level. I’ve tried often enough. The curve of the planet cuts off the view. It won’t do, Jay Hara.”
He was standing up, stepping toward me. Driven by desperation, I had the idea that I think killed Paddy Enderton.
“From here you can’t see it,” I said. “But the water tower that serves Toltoona is only a few minutes walk away. It’s high. There’s a ladder leading up it, and a balcony all the way round. If I was to go up there with your telecon, I bet I’d see Muldoon all the way to ground level.”
Even as I spoke, I knew it was an awful suggestion. I was volunteering to climb the giddy height of the tower—I’d done it once before, in summer, for a bet—and then sit in the freezing cold, for who knew how long, peering across Lake Sheelin at the goings-on in Muldoon Port. It was hardly better than its alternative—the blind rage and murderous hands of Paddy Enderton.
He stared at me. “Maybe. Maybe.” But I think he was talking more to himself than to me. He went across to his storage chest, opened it, and pulled out a flat black oblong, small enough to fit in his palm. “Three days,” he muttered, after he had prodded and poked at a few places on its upper surface. “Aye, that would do it.”
He sat down again. “I have to take a look at Muldoon myself, from the top of that tower. Then we’ll see.”
I thought for one ghastly moment that he was proposing we climb the tower then and there, heaving our way up the bare metal ladder in driving snow. But he had sunk in on himself, hands tight around the mug of liquor, and was ignoring me.
Or almost so. When I began to ease my way across toward the door, he was suddenly up and blocking my path more quickly than I would have thought possible.
“What are you going to tell the doctor and your mother about what we’ve been saying to each other?” His face was inches from mine.
“Nothing.” It didn’t need a genius to know the right answer. “Not a word.”
He reached out, and I thought he was going to grab me again. But all he did was pat my shoulder, and mutter, “Good lad. Off you go, then. And when it stops snowing, you’ll show me that water tower.”
I was allowed to escape. As I left, I realized that I had found something much more dangerous than sailing across any winter lake. Soon I would be perched on the top of a high tower with Paddy Enderton. An angry Paddy Enderton. A drunk Paddy Enderton. A Paddy Enderton who, if he didn’t like what he saw when we got up there…
I hurried downstairs. And not before time, because I was shivering. Enderton’s room had been freezing, cold enough to make me tremble all over. Except that I noticed, half an hour after I had parked myself next to the warm kitchen stove, that my shaking still had not stopped.
Looked at from the bottom, the tower rose forever into the afternoon sky. From the top, as I knew from experience, it would seem even taller.
And I was supposed to scale this monster carrying a quarter of my own weight in equipment on my back. The telecon was marvelous, but it was not light. The only thing I could say was that Paddy Enderton was bowed under a load at least as heavy as mine.
One hundred and forty-eight rungs in the ladder. I knew that from my previous time up. After seventy rungs a little ledge would allow us to stop and take a breather. Then came the longer haul to the top, in one continuous effort.
I placed my gloved hands on the first rung, and began to climb. It had been Enderton’s threat that had prevented me mentioning to Mother what we would be doing, but suddenly I was glad that I hadn’t. She would have been terrified— almost as terrified as I felt now.
We had agreed that I would go first, and remain on the ledge until Enderton was within ten rungs of me. Then I would start up the rest of the way, while he took a breather.
I reached the ledge all right, but once there I found that I dared not look down to see how far he had climbed. Instead I stared far out across the slate-grey surface of Lake Sheelin, to the distant domes and towers of Muldoon Port. Yesterday’s snow had ended in late afternoon, and now there was bright sun and just a breath of wind. I wished I were down there, sailing across the lake.
It was cold. We had waited until afternoon, when the sun would be in the best position for seeing Muldoon, and the temperature at its highest. Still my breath was icy vapor, freezing in the air as I exhaled. I was well swaddled in warm clothes, and as long as I kept moving only my cheeks and the tip of my nose felt chilled. But what about the hours I proposed to spend perched on top of the tower, peering into the telecon?
If I didn’t fall to death, I was going to freeze to death.
At the moment of that thought I felt a tap on my ankle, and heard Enderton’s impatient, creaking voice, “Get on with it. What are you waiting for?”
I glanced down at him, which was a big mistake. He was right underneath me, waiting for his turn on the ledge. Below him, spread out like toys, were buildings and roads and hedges and fields. It seemed impossible that our house could appear so small, from just halfway up the water tower.
To fight my panic, I started to climb as fast as I could. Too fast. It was only when I slipped a rung with my left foot, and hung for a moment by just my hands, that I slowed to a more sensible pace. I could hear my own breath, loud in my throat. But soon the round bulk of the water tank loomed above me.
And finally I was there, sprawled on the balcony and recovering my wind. Only then did I realize that I could hear Enderton’s gasping breath, too, far below me.
It was obvious. Take a man whose lungs had already been damaged by space and by an accident. Place him in air so cold that even healthy Jay Hara felt the killing chill in the depths of his chest. And then make that man climb a hundred-foot tower with a load of equipment lashed to his back.
Enderton would never reach the top. He would weaken and fall. For a moment I hoped he would, but then I nerved myself to start back down and help him. At least I had to look down and see where he was. Before I could do it, the ladder below me was creaking, and a faint, hoarse voice said, “Grab it. Lift the pack. Or I’m done for.”
I leaned out over the edge. There was one dizzying glimpse of the far-off ground, and a random thought—Ridiculous. I want to be a spacer, and I’m scared of heights!—and then I focused all my attention on Paddy Enderton. He was a few rungs below me, clinging to the ladder. His usually pale face wore a tinge of unnatural purplish-blue. His backpack of equipment, hooked around his great shoulders, was just close enough for me to grab the top straps, and hoist. Twenty seconds later we were lying head to head, panting and shuddering on the narrow balcony at the top of the water tower.
Paddy Enderton had his faults—more of them than I knew at the time—but lack of willpower was not on the list. While I still thought that he was dying he was heaving himself upright, gazing across the lake towards Muldoon Port.
“Ah,” he said. “Ah.” His breath was a series of short, rattling gasps, enough for only brief, jerky speech fragments. “Right enough. Muldoon. Maybe. Maybe.”