I suppose that everyone has, at some time or other, for a moment or so. It is hardly worth prolonged cerebration, however, and would probably be classifiable as a symptom of something that ought to be sacrificed on the smudgy altar of mental health. But ...
=Look down. How far? How great a distance? What does it feel like to fall? Is there a tingling in your wrists, hands, feet, ankles?=
Of course. But again-
Vertigo! It swept over me. Wave upon wave. A thing I had never before experienced with such intensity.
Simultaneously, I realized the unnatural source of my discomfort. It would require a superfluity of naivete not to.
My furry little enemy was broadcasting the sensation, trying to create an acrophobic attitude, succeeding.
But some things must go beyond the physical, the somatopsychic. At least, those small shreds of mysticism which make up the only religion I know kept insisting it wasn't all that simple to turn love into hate, passion to fear, to overcome the will of a lifetime with the irrationality of a moment.
I beat my fist against the beam, I gnawed at my lip. I was scared. Me. Fred Cassidy. Scared to climb it.
=Falling, falling ... Not the drifting of a leaf or a stray bit of paper, but the plummeting of a heavy body ... The only interference, perhaps, the bars of our cage ... A bloody print here, there ... That is the only statement you may record on your passage down ... As from the trees where your not-so-distant ancestors clung, fearfully-=
I saw it then. It had just given me what I needed, what I had been groping for while trying to bear the assault: an object outside myself on which I could focus my attention fully. It had allowed a patronizing attitude toward the whole human race to slip through just then. Sibla had irritated me with a touch of the same sentiment back at Merimee's place. It was all that I needed.
I allowed myself to get mad as hell. I encouraged it, stoked it.
'All right,' I said. 'Those same ancestors used to poke things like you off limbs just for laughs-to watch you spit and fall, to see whether you always landed on your feet. It's an old game. Hasn't been played properly in ages. I am about to revive it, in the name of my fathers. Behold the riant anthropoid, beware its crooked thumbs!'
I seized the beam and pulled myself up.
It backed up, paused, advanced, paused again. I felt a growing elation at its indecisiveness, a sense of triumph over the halting of the bombing of my mind. When I reached its level I ducked my head low and thrust both hands up onto the girder far enough apart so that whichever got clawed the other would still be sufficient for support.
It made as if to attack, apparently thought better of it, then turned and ran.
I pulled myself up. I stood.
I watched it scamper away, not halting until it was on the opposite side of the square of steel we held. Then I moved to the nearest corner and it moved to the farthest corner. I started up the next side. It started down the opposite side. I halted. It halted. We stared at each other.
'Okay,' I said, taking out a cigarette and lighting it 'With a stalemate you lose, you know. Those folks below aren't just sitting on their hands. They're calling for assistance. Every route down will be covered before long. I'm betting someone will be by soon in a chopper, too-with a mercy gun with infra-red sights. I have always understood it to be a little better thing to surrender than to resist arrest when you are in trouble. I am a bona fide representative of both my country's State Department and the United Nations. Choose whichever one you prefer. I-'
'Very well,' the thought came into my mind. 'I will surrender to you in your capacity as a State Department employee.'
It immediately moved to the next corner, turned there and advanced along that side at a steady pace. I turned back, moving toward the corner I had recently quit. It reached that point before I did, however, turned and continued on toward me.
'Hold it right there,' I said, 'and consider yourself in custody.'
Instead, it bounded forward and sprang toward me, my mind instantly filling with something which, when supplied with words, came through, roughly, as 'It is (satisfying / noble) to die with your (teeth / claws) (in / at) the (throat / heart) of the enemy of (nest / totem / civilization)! Die, nestmolester!'
My hand had shot forward just as it was springing, and for want of any other weapon I had flipped my cigarette into its face.
It twisted and slapped at it just before its feet left the girder. I tried to drop back and go into a crouch at the same time, raising my arms for balance, for protection.
It hit me, but not in the throat or heart. It struck against my left shoulder, clawing wildly, raking my left arm and side. And then it fell.
An instant of thoughts and actions inseparable: Regain my balance, save the nasty little thing-for whatever it knew-right arm crossbody, weight shift to left foot, left hand dipping, hooking, seizing-don't overcompensate!- comes now the jerk, the tugging, the pull-
I had it! I had hold of it by the tail! But-
A brief resistance, a sudden ripping, a new shifting of moment ...
I held only a black, stiff, artificial tail, shreds of some rubbery costume material still attached. I caught a glimpse of the small, dark form as it passed through the area of greater illumination below. I don't believe that it landed on its feet.
Chapter 12
Time.
More fragments, pieces, bits ... Time.
Epiphany in Black & Light, Scenario in Green, Gold, Purple & Gray ...
There is a man. He is climbing in the dusky daysend air, climbing the high Tower of Cheslerei in a place called Ardel beside a sea with a name he cannot quite pronounce as yet. The sea is as dark as the juice of grapes, bubbling a Chianti and chiaroscuro fermentation of the light of distant stars and the bent rays of Canis Vibesper, its own primary, now but slightly beneath the horizon, rousing another continent, pursued by the breezes that depart the inland fields to weave their courses among the interconnected balconies, towers, walls and walkways of the city, bearing the smells of the warm land toward its older, colder companion ...
Climbing from hold to green stone on the seaward side of the structure, he has contrived to race with the last of the day as it flees upward, tilts, prepares to jump. In the antic light of evening the top of the Tower of Cheslerei is the last spot touched by the daygold before its departure from the capitol. He has given himself the time from the beginning of sunset to race the final light from bottom to top, to be on hand to take the night as it comes into the last place.
He is racing with shadows now, his own already diffuse about him, his hands darting like fish above the darkness. In the great high places above him the night continues with the minting of stars. Through atmosphere's crystal mask, he glimpses their englossment as he goes. He is panting now, and the spot of gold has diminished. The shadows begin to pass him as he mounts.
But it lingers, that tiny touch of gold on the green. Thinking, perhaps, of another place of green and gold, he moves even faster, pacing his shadow, gaining on it. The light fades for an instant, returns for another.
During that instant, he catches hold of the parapet and heaves himself upward, like a swimmer departing the water.
He draws himself up and stands, turning his head toward the sea, toward the light. Yes ...
He catches the final fleck of gold that it tosses. For a moment only he stares after it.
He seats himself then on the stone and regards the night's other thousands, as he had never seen them before. For a long while, he watches ... I know him well, of course.
Portrait of Boy & Dog Romping on the Beach, TickTock and Tempest Past, Fragment- 'Fetch, boy! Fetch!'
