lfth step, a cleat
strap gave. Luckily, he was able to take his lurch with a firm grip on
the balustrade; but he felt depth yawning behind him. Dourly, he took
thirty seconds to retrieve the cleat; stitching had been sawed through
by a metal edge--just as he'd told the cocksure workman it would be. Oh,
to have a world where imbecility wasn't entrenched! Well--he was
fighting here and now for the resources to found one. He resumed the
escalade, his rhythm knocked cockeyed.

Things even out. Years back, an Invader bomber had scored a near miss on
the building, and minor damage to stonework was unrepaired. Crevices
gave fingerhold, chipped-out hollows gave barely perceptible purchase to
the heel of his hand. Salutes to the random effects of unlikely causes!

He reached the turn, considered swiftly. His fresh strength was blunted;
his muscles, especially in his thumbs, were stiffening with chill. Now:
He could continue up the left side, by the building, which was tougher
and hazardous with frozen drippings, or by the outside, right-hand rail,
which was easier but meant crossing the open, half-swept wide step and
recrossing the landing up top. Damn! Why hadn't he foreseen that? Oh,
you can't think of everything. Get going, left side.

* * * * *

The wall of the building was rough-hewn and ornamented with surplus
carvings. Cheers for the 1890s architect!

Qualified cheers. The first three lifts were easy, with handholds in a
frieze of lotus. For the next, he had to heft with his side-jaw against
a boss of stone. A window ledge made the next three facile. The final
five stared, an open gap without recourse. He made two by grace of the
janitor's having swabbed his broom a little closer to the wall. His
muscles began to wobble and waver: in his proportions, he'd made
two-hundred feet of almost vertical ascent.

But, climbing a real ice-fall, you'd unleash the last convulsive effort
because you had to. Here, when you came down to it, you could always sit
and bump yourself down to the car which was, in that context, a mere
safe forty feet away. So he went on because he had to.

He got the rubber tip off one stick. The bare metal tube would bore into
the snow pack. It might hold, _if_ he bore down just right, and swung
his weight just so, and got just the right sliding purchase on the wall,
and the snow didn't give underfoot or undercane. And if it didn't
work--it didn't work.

Beyond the lan