Godspeed (6 page)

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."

He gestured to me to help him, and began taking parts of the telecon from our packs. In his shaking hands the tubes seemed to join themselves. The skeleton was assembled in a couple of minutes, while I did nothing but sit and watch.

Last of all, Enderton lifted the twin eyepieces. He peered into them, out across the lake. And then he gave a whistling groan, as though all the air had gone from his lungs at once.

"It happened," he said. "Happened already. I'm a dead man."

He leaned back against the bulk of the water tank and laid the eyepieces on the balcony. I grabbed them and lifted them to my own eyes, their metal rims freezing cold against my unprotected face.

Muldoon Port was clearly visible, all the way to the ground as I had suggested. From the despairing tone in Enderton's voice I had almost expected the two-half-man to spring into view, a man without arms carrying a legless one on his back. But there was nothing unusual about Muldoon Port. It was quiet and peaceful, with only a handful of people walking between the buildings. Then I realized that
was
unusual. When I had last been there the port had hummed with life; now it was almost empty.

Winterfall.
It had been and gone.

I was still staring when Enderton grabbed the viewing tubes from me again and rotated the assembly. From the direction that he pointed I knew what he must be doing. He was following the shore line, tracking the road leading out of Muldoon Port around the southern end of the lake toward Toltoona.

"Nothing to see," he muttered after a few seconds. "But nothing means nothing. They'll know how to follow. They'll be on the way. It could be any time."

Again the eyepieces were laid on the balcony, while Enderton stood up and leaned dangerously over the rail. He stared, first south to Toltoona, then away in the opposite direction along the line of the lake.

"The shore road," he said abruptly. "How does it run north of here? Does it carry on right around?"

"Not close to the lake. It goes off west, then curves round to the Tullamore bridge. I've never been there, but it's on Doctor Eileen's rounds. She says it gets just about impossible in deep snow."

Enderton said not another word, but he grabbed the telecon, took it apart, and stuffed all the pieces that we had both struggled to carry up into one backpack. I didn't see any way that a single person could manage the whole thing. It was only when he set his foot on the first step of the ladder that I realized we weren't going to.

"The telecon!" I said.

"Safe enough up here." He was already three rungs down. "It's yours. You can get it any time you fancy. Come on."

I had no idea what he was doing, but I didn't want to stay on top of that water tower a second longer than necessary. The sun was low in the sky, a north wind was rising, and the air was becoming colder and colder. I took a last look at the precious telecon, sitting wedged on the balcony, then hefted my empty backpack and followed him. I didn't look at anything, and especially I didn't look down. But I could hear Enderton below me, wheezing and muttering.

"Can't be north, and can't be Toltoona. They'll have the roads covered. Water, then. It has to be water."

I was counting the rungs as we went down. After seventy-eight we were again at the ledge. Enderton did not stop this time to rest on it, and nor did I. At the hundred and thirtieth rung I paused and finally risked a glance down. He was almost at the bottom, his face purple-red and his every breath a groan.

I kept going, and soon my boots were crunching into deep snow. I felt a giddy sense of relief and safety. Within a moment it was gone, because Paddy Enderton had me by the arm. He was leaning against me for support, but at the same time he was dragging me down the hill—away from the house.

"You're going the wrong way," I protested, and tried to pull free.

"No. The only way." His fingers tightened around my biceps, hard enough to hurt. "We're sailing across the lake, Jay."

"We can't. In another half hour it will be dark." And then, when he ignored that, "What about your things back at the house?"

"I have all I need." He patted his pocket. "No more talk. You take me. Tonight."

"Mother doesn't know where I am. I can't do it."

"If you want to live, you can. Or do you think Molly Hara would prefer a dead son? It's your choice." He reached with his free hand into his jacket pocket, and pulled out a thin-bladed knife. "You sail me to Muldoon Port, Jay Hara. Tonight. Or I cut your throat here and now, and take my chances sailing across by myself."

CHAPTER 6

I thought I would describe what it felt like to be out on Lake Sheelin at night, in winter, with a blustery wind rolling and pitching the little sailboat, and a murderous man holding a naked knife blade just a couple of feet away from me.

I can't do it. I think that terror must be like an earache or a stomachache. After it's over you know that you had it and you know that it hurt bad, but you can't feel it or even
imagine
it, once it has gone away.

I know it must have been freezing cold in the boat; but I have no memory of being cold. I must have set the sail, too, and used the distant lights of Muldoon Port to guide our course, but I don't remember that, either. What I do remember is the insane sense of relief, when we were a quarter of a mile offshore and Paddy Enderton put away his knife and pulled out of his pocket the same little wafer of black plastic that he had fiddled with back in the house, what seemed like weeks ago but was really only the previous day.

This time he must have done something different with it, because suddenly the plastic card disappeared. The volume around it became a three-dimensional pattern of colored points of light, moving in complicated spirals past each other. Enderton stared at them for a long time, then his hand reached out into the center of the display. The lights vanished. Once again he was gripping a plain black oblong.

It was the fascination of watching those lights that made me miss the other change, the one in Enderton himself. When we had first descended the water tower and floundered through deep snow down to the pier and the sailboat, my captor's breath had groaned and wheezed in his throat. Once seated in the boat, however, I had been too busy to take notice of it.

Now I heard his breathing change again, to a loud, painful grunt. Enderton's hand suddenly jerked up to paw at his throat. I could see his face only as a pale oval in the darkness, and I leaned forward to peer at it more closely. As I did so he gasped, shuddered, and flopped forward. His head met my knee, then slipped sideways to hit the wooden seat with a solid thud.

At first I thought he was doing it on purpose, and for a few seconds I was too scared to react. Then I reached out and shook his shoulder.

"Mr. Enderton!"

He lay face down, his legs caught under the seat. If it had not been for that, I think he would have toppled sideways and gone right overboard. As it was, the boat was too narrow for me to turn him over and I was not strong enough to lift him.

I crouched forward myself, my head down close to his. He was breathing, but in shallow, rasping breaths like troubled snoring.

I peered ahead of us, across the lake. We were less than a quarter of the way to Muldoon Port. The wind was with us, the lights of the port were plainly visible, and we could certainly keep going as we were. But what would I do when we arrived? I felt sure that Paddy Enderton had made his plans, but I had no idea what they were. With Muldoon Port almost deserted, it was not even certain that there would be anyone around to lift him out of the boat.