Warlock

beyond. The rocks but a short way farther up were hoary with a thin film of white. Even here the breath of a man turned to steam as it touched the air. In the long run, the cold would be much deadlier than the mist and the waterfall's roar.
        
        For a time, the way was relatively easy, for there was a breakback into the mountain's heart, sloping upward steeply, but not sheerly. They walked in groups of six and eight, roped together by Commander Richter's orders, even though there was little likelihood of anyone taking a fatal spill on such relatively untreacherous ground. Banister, who had been monitoring the ascent of the last group the previous evening, who had seen them plunge to their deaths, was placed in the middle of an eight-man group. In the middle. Likewise, Cartier, the only survivor of the previous night's disaster, was sandwiched between other men, at the commander's discreet suggestion.
        
        Although the commander would have preferred to separate the three inexperienced climbers so that there would be but one drag upon any single climbing team, Mace had insisted upon remaining with Shaker Sandow. It had done no good to argue or to explain in logical terms. Mace had merely drawn the mask of the slow-wit, of the buffoon, down over his wide face, had pretended not to understand any of the things the commander said. Even when the Shaker himself had reluctantly suggested that perhaps it wasn't necessary for the giant to keep such a close watch, Mace remained adamant. Adamantly stupid, as one of the enlisted men said after the argument had ended in Mace's favor.
        
        But Mace was never stupid, except for the benefit of others.
        
        Near noon, they came to a canyon that broke downward in a ragged jumble of broken boulders and shale slides Its bottom was a sharp vee, with hardly any floor at all. Seven hundred feet down and seven hundred feet up the other side-the descent would be easy, but the ascent difficult. The opposite wall of the chasm bowed outward toward the top until it formed an overhang which climbers would have to broach by climbing upside down for the distance of fifty feet, then swing over the edge onto the solid ground beyond.
        
        Commander Richter called a lunch break, which was accepted with enthusiasm. The Banibaleer mess officer, a man named Daborot, broke out the food cases and used them as a table onto which the cured slabs of beef, the rounds of cheese, and stale rolls of bread were placed. Coffee was brewed in eight separate pots, and soon a line had formed to devour the simple but nourishing meal.
        
        Richter brought his mess tin to the place where the Shaker and his step-sons sat and ate with them. “We'll not all be going down and then up,” the officer said. “That overhang is a tough one even for mountaineers, and you three would never make it.”
        
        “My prayers have been answered then,” Mace said. It was not said with any particular humorous note to it
        
        “What magic do you intend to use to get us from here to there, then?” Gregor asked, his mouth full of bread and cheese so that his words were somewhat garbled.
        
        “There you have the educated Shaker-to-be,” Mace said with scorn. “Note his fine diction and his superb manners. But yes, Commander, just how will we get from here to there?”
        
        “I’ll lead a party down, up the other side. I've clambered round greater overhangs than that. We will leave a length of rope here to be tied down, and carry an unreeling coil with us as we cross. Once on the other side, we can attach it. It is but three hundred feet across by hand, which-”
        
        “You can't expect the Shaker, a man his age, to crawl three hundred feet on the slender strand of that rope, supported by just his hands!” Gregor had sprayed some amount of crumbs over his lap in his ejaculation.
        
        “I hardly said that,” Commander Richter said. “I doubt even I would wish to try it. It is not nearly the same as mountaineering, but engages an entire other set of muscles.”
        
        “What then?” Mace asked, interested.
        
        The first man to come across will be the one named Zito Tanisha. He is from the Coedone Gypsy tribes and is inclined to acrobatics of various lands. Indeed, the entire trick we will use was devised by Zito. He will cross hand over hand, for he is used to