He turned his head to check the party. Behind him was Stedman Awk, a fat, wealthy slob of a man who'd made his fortune in hamburgers (despite thirteen injunctions over the years against cutting the meat with chickenneck, fishheads, horsemeat and plain old—very old—stale bread) and now he wanted to see how the other half functioned. The dessert-racket half, specifically. And he had caught the adventure fever from the Kid. He would learn about a lot more than rancid ice cream before he got home!
Third was the lone female, Chloe Samuels, who claimed to be a specialist in something or other. It could have been interesting, having a woman along in a necessarily tight formation like this, but it wasn't. For one thing, she was dumpy; for another, even a beauty would have been unapproachable in this cold and grime.
Next was the old man, Yale Payton, followed by the Kid.
At the end was Ambert Black: a huge Negro with too much muscle and an unpleasant militancy. There might have been trouble between him and the Kid, but the Kid was just smart enough to know he was outclassed. Black was no amateur trouble-maker; he was a pro. He had figured to make the climb on his own, but Resort regulations specified a party of at least three, one of these being a guide, for any overnight excursion from the base. Black would have tried it anyway, but knew that the robot snowsleds would have cut him off. He hated meddling robots even worse than meddling people.
A motley crew, Prior thought, without a doubt. An old man, a fat man, an adolescent, a bitter Black and a dumpy doll. All come to see the fabulous mountain of ice cream—and finding it as motley as themselves.
Prior peered ahead again, but the yellow haze cut visibility and hid the peak. Just as well; its beauty was ironic.
They reached the Stage One campsite in midafternoon. The days were about twenty hours long here and the gravity about nine-tenths of a gee, both of which fouled up visitors in subtle but determined fashion. Disorientation, irritation, even outright illness—Mt. Icecream was good for an hour's visit or a six-month tour (but not very good for either), but a week was too long for patience and too short for metabolism. As these characters would find out soon.
Prior knew the party wouldn't make it to the top. No party ever did. Probably this one wouldn't get beyond the Stage Two campsite. The old man would give out first, then the fat one, then the woman. Prior had been briefed on such dynamics, and was already an old hand. The Kid would stick it out longer, trying to prove himself. He would think it was manhood and courage he was demonstrating, but actually it was perversity and idiocy. The Negro—now, he was tough. Black wouldn't quit—but after Stage Three the party would be down to two, Black and Prior, and that was below the minimum. The robots would converge, frustrating human ambition in the name of human safety. So it would come to nothing, as it always did.
Unlike these slobs, Prior had reason to scale the mountain. Somewhere up there was the Cherry Tree—his lone hope for sexual salvation. Somewhere beyond Stage Four, reaching for the summit. He had never been to the top—no one had, as far as he knew—and his present prospects were bleak. The outside treks were better than the station boredom, at least, but their approach to the summit was illusory. To really do it he would need a sturdy and reliable party, and no such was to be formed from routine tourist ilk. If only a bunch of interstellar marines were to take their liberty here, or central European mountain climbers... but instead there were only old, fat, flighty, fighty or female vacationers, the products of pampered or deprived society.
So here he was, playing out the charade again, letting the paying customers dream of saccharin glory, and grow tired, and quit, having shown themselves up for the feebly ambitious slobs they were. He, as guide, had to pretend that there really was a chance for them to scale the candy pinnacle despite their drastic limitations.
Stage One was large, built to accommodate the many parties that did make it this far. To a considerable extent it was an extension of the main camp; it had electric power and a furnace and half a dozen private cubicles. Usually one or two couples would take the hike as a pretext to spend the night alone: "Hey! Know what we did? We made love halfway up Mt. Icecream! Match that, Jones!" The guide filled in for the rule of three, and for the price of a generous tip made himself inconspicuous when that became crowded. Prior had already escorted several of these liaisons, and knew that the anticipated adulterous pleasures too often became guilty quarrels, victim in part to the planetary forces of weight and cycle. Nothing like lack of sleep or a queasy stomach to heighten discord. Maybe sometime he would get to guide a pair of young women; that could be worthwhile, if they weren't lesbians.
But there was none of that this time. No coupling—not with Chloe as unattractive as she was, and no fairies among the men. There wasn't even much bickering, to his surprise. This ramshackle group actually seemed to be unified by a common purpose. He was sure it wouldn't last.
Tonight they talked. Chloe—Klo, she insisted on being called—was a better conversationalist than were most women, perhaps because she was physically unattractive. She didn't seem to be on the make for a man. Her hair, in the nightlight, was red—the too-sharp red of dye, but colorful all the same. She was fast on the uptake, with a snappy rejoinder for any remark tossed her way. The big Negro, Ambert Black, seemed to take half a shine to her, and that was funny too, because he was a true believer in racial purity. Black purity; none of that lily-white dilution of the stock. And the old man and the Kid continued to hit it off.
Prior thought about Oubliette and her peristaltic vagina, and daydreamed of shoving the twelve-incher into that orifice, foot by foot. God! What was he doing here on this sickenly edible mountain, when the real eating was back on Earth and between her legs!
"Sure, I know how you feel," the oldster was saying to the Kid. "My moniker isn't much better. Yale—how many times do you suppose I've been told to 'lock it up' or 'take it to college'? Actually my name means 'payer'; it's just coincidence there are other things called that. But every schnook thinks it's so terribly original to—you know."
Yes, the Kid had found a friend in the least likely place, and Prior knew Miles Long's impetus to climb the mountain had abated. The Kid thought he wanted to prove himself to all mankind, but one person sufficed. How many aggressive causes were just that way, sublimations for ordinary satisfactions denied? Prior revised his estimate: the old man would drop out first, but the Kid would join him, the fat man making up the trio.
Now he thought back to Tantamount, twin sister of Oubliette. Too bad she was scientist first, woman second; she had the body to give a man a real lift. Had Prior known then what he knew now, he would have thrown her down on that lab table and cooled his erection in her body before she even had the chance to get the loaded tampon out, and bugged out of there forever!
But when he slept, it was of the succubus he dreamed, there at the beach. She was neither man nor woman, that demon; but when she assumed the female form she was one hell of a fuck!
He woke as his penis-socket spewed into the blanket. He'd had a wet dream, but he wasn't even wearing an organ. Depth of ignominy.
Chapter Twenty-One
Next day was a harder trek. The sun was out and the surface of the ice cream melted, mucking up their boots and becoming disgustingly slippery. Fat Stedman took a heavy spill about midday, soaking his bottom in liquid strawberry, and that was it. Yale and Miles decided to sacrifice their ambition in order to see him back, generously. Of course there didn't have to be a trio going back, because the alert robots would zero in on any lesser group and take it back anyway. But it was Prior's job not to mention such details. After all, these were paying tourists, and their pride would be salved by making it back on their own.