Then they hit a maple-syrup slick. Black windmilled, caught Klo by the left breast, and held his position. Prior's soles skidded on the goo. Now he was a water-ski amateur, his cord hitched to two live boats.

Klo's foot struck an encrustation of crystallized sugar—probably maple-sugar. She did a split and spun off to the side. Since she was the only one retaining secure footing, until this point, a splendid crash was in the making.

Prior's penis-head popped out of her bottom and snapped back stingingly. With half his forward pull deflected, Prior fell to the other side. Here there was an outcropping of pistachio that piled up as he plowed sidewise through it. This tension, combined with the shrinkage sponsored by the cold, was enough finally to yank out the other glans, and he rolled to a stop half-buried in green snow.

He was freezing. But before he uncovered himself he twisted off the bifurcate, shrunken member and threw it away. Not only had his orgasm been stifled, he had been hauled roughly and painfully from a hot shower to sub-freezing cold, and he had no one to blame but his penis!

Black trotted back, shivering. He saw the splay of pistachio. He pounced. "Got it!" he exclaimed, lifting the discarded member. "Fucking two-headed snake!" He inspected it more closely. He did a doubletake. He faced Prior, who was just standing up and brushing off the green. "Where'd you get this, Gross?"

So Black wasn't entirely naive about prosthetics. "Doctor named Oubliette Emdee, back on Earth." Prior shivered and started back for the camp. "Want her address?"

Black considered, hefting the member. "Yeah. Yeah, I do. If she makes these in basic black."

"She doesn't make them, she fits them. But she has quite an assortment."

Black became almost friendly as the three of them crowded back into the warm room, shaking off ice. "It ain't that I hate you less, you white cocksucker, but that I hate cops more."

"Nice to know," Prior said neutrally. It was possible to get along with Black if you didn't argue with him, as Klo had shown.

"Yeah. There's this squad of whiteass cops back home. Cops ain't all bad—I heard of one once that wasn't, anyway—but these ones—five, six of 'em—need a proper screwing. Know what I mean?"

"Six at once?" This man had big ambitions!

"Got to be, or they'll scatter. Every night they bust up somebody's crap game, grab the stakes, and play it out themselves. All them fat asses, bending over..."

Prior laughed. "I'll write out her address for you!"

Chapter Twenty-Three

The third day's hike was stiff, but still Klo didn't break. Now they mounted massive projections of rocklike sugar crystals that crumbled treacherously when subjected to the slightest stress or warmth. The candy grime got into their suits and wouldn't quite melt and wouldn't quite dry. At the margins of neck, wrist and ankle it became the consistency of half-chewed taffy (which it was) and pulled and chafed. In the crotches of thigh and armpit it became the consistency of luke-warm milk-chocolate, the kind that melts in your hand not in your mouth (which it was), and sucked and gooked with every motion. In the hair of the head it became caked butterscotch pudding; in the hair of the pubes, caked vanilla icing.

"Up farther where it's colder we'll be able to use pitons," Prior said, for all the dubious comfort that was worth. Anything would be better than this gooey intermediate zone!

Stage Three was nestled in a chocolate crevasse. The chocolate looked like bare dirt, just as the distant pistachio looked like living foliage and the vanilla snow like vanilla snow. But the consistency of this chocolate was more like wood. The cabin roof was piled with purple—blueberry or black raspberry flavor, Prior judged.

"After this, the climb gets rough," Prior said as they scraped rancid rind off their torsos. "This is higher than most parties get, so it's no shame to turn back."

"I hear no white man's made it all the way up," Black said, with the accent on "white."

"I hear no man's made it up," Klo said, her accent on "man."

"Not to Stage Five, no," Prior admitted. "No human beings of any color or sex. The robots built that stage, and a couple of them were lost in glaciers or something."

"I ain't even going to fuck, tonight," Black said grimly.

"Who asked you to?" Klo demanded. "You attract snakes."

"Save my great black godless strength to put beautiful black Black on the friggin' white pinnacle," he finished, glowering at Prior. "First man to make it."

Prior laughed. "If we make it, you can step on the top first. You're the paying customer. I have other plans."

"Yeah?" Black looked at him suspiciously. "What?"

"I'm going to climb the Cherry Tree." It was safe to talk about it now; they wouldn't comprehend the reference anyway, or care one way or the other.

"The Cherry Tree! You mean that's up there? On top of ol' Icecream? I changed my black mind!"

"You know about it?" Prior asked, surprised.

"I'm a man, ain't I? I got a cock, don't I? But that sure ain't my kind of cunt. I ain't goin' near it!"

Prior was intrigued. "You'll risk your precious black life to climb a stupid mountain of ice cream, but you're afraid of a little tree?"

"That tree, yes! I don't mind dying so much, but I'm choosy about how my ass gets reamed." He rubbed his backside, perhaps remembering what Prior had done the day before, but decided not to make an issue of it.

It occurred to Prior that the talking statues hadn't told him everything. "I only want to climb it and get the spire at the top. You can stand back and watch. If I fall, I'm the only one who gets hurt. Then the robots will come and carry us all back down. What's so frightening about that?"

Black shook his head as he stepped into the shower. "You're a whiteassed pekkernosed candy-coated bugging stooge, but you don't deserve what you're headed for. I tell you this for your own cornholing good: lay off the Cherry Tree."

"Why? I need that spire."

"Like elephant turds in your beer you need it! And you can't get near it."

"I'm curious too," Klo said as Black emerged from the shower. The Negro hadn't taken long at all this time; apparently he was serious about not fornicating. "What's so dangerous about a tree—a cherry tree, yet?"

Black ignored her and looked at Prior inscrutably. "They's no fool like a white fool!" He pondered while he toweled off his robust torso and Klo got into the spray of hot water. "Hokay. I know a little magic—black magic, of course—enough to haul down a branch or two. Suppose I bring one here, so you can see it? Then you'll know."

"You can bring the Cherry Tree here?" Prior was excited.

"A branch of it, paleass. That's enough. You look at it—then you can quit, and we'll just sashay back down the mountain, and not break any ill wind about it, okay?"

"Quit?" Prior demanded incredulously. "Because of a look at one fool branch? You're nuttier than I thought, and that was pretty damn—"

"I'm smart," Black said, taking no offense. He brought out a red crayon and began marking off a large pentagram. "You got a notion that'll wipe you out—and not only in this life."

"For someone who doesn't believe in God—" Klo said, poking her head and one breast out of the spray. Then she saw the pentagram. "Hey! That's how you summon a demon!"

"Don't bother me, pig. This is tricky."

Prior decided not to bother him either. Black was acting as if he knew what he was doing.

The Negro completed the diagram, then brought out a package of powder and a candle.

"Talk of the dark ages!" Klo said, coming out. Prior was ready for his own shower, but decided to keep his clothing on despite the discomfort until he had a better notion what this was all about.