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.

Now they were three, and the next dropout would terminate the project. That would be Klo. Prior could see she was already tired. She had been tempted to go back, obviously, but probably had realized that she had waited too long, and now the onus for termination of the excursion would be on her. For what that was worth.

Ahead of them Mt. Icecream towered in all its sugary splendor: the pinnacle a mile above the base camp in elevation, many miles on the slant, and many leagues by foot. Red, green, blue and brown overlaid its yellow underbase, with black and gray streaks coursing down like lava from a volcano. The red would be strawberry or cherry, the green pistachio or lime, the blue blueberry, the brown chocolate, and the streaks syrups of assorted flavors. All genuine and of excellent quality, up here where it was uncontaminated by the germs of man. The substance of Mt. Icecream would have carried a snobbish price tag in any store on Earth. Very little was exported, however, because the expense of shipping was greater than that of manufacturing an equivalent grade locally. A few super-snobs made a point of serving it on special occasions, but that came under the heading of conspicuous consumption. Every so often, these past three weeks, Prior had gone out with the shovel and scooped up some particular flavor on order for Earth shipment. But this was a standing joke among personnel and tourists alike: after all, it was only ice cream.

Klo saw him looking, and came up beside him. "It is beautiful, in its grisly way," she remarked. "What do you think made it?"

"God made it," he said. It was the standard ploy, straight from the guide manual. The fact was, no one knew who had made it or who maintained it. It did seem to be beyond coincidence for the flavors and constituents to match Earthly standards so precisely, yet there was no possible connection. It was just here, and had to be accepted on that basis.

Ambert Black came up too, as ornery as ever. "Big benign whiteass God with a long whiteass beard," he said sarcastically. "Got nothing better to do than make a mountain of upperclass ice cream. Probably shits it in His off-moments. Why worry about unimportant little things like war and poverty and disease?"

"Maybe God's tired," Klo said, unoffended. "Time for a change in administrations."

Black was silent a moment, uncertain whether she was agreeing with him or ridiculing him. Prior wasn't sure either, but did appreciate how neatly she had thrown the big Negro off balance.

"Maybe God ain't just tired," Black said at last. "Maybe He's dead. And his last Will & Testament was to be buried under an everlasting pile of ice cream. Maybe it's every man for himself, now."