Robert Silverberg - Hot Times in Magma City

“All right, everybody, listen up,” he announces. “We’re making a 90-degree shift in operations.”

Easier said than done, of course. The hoses will have to be decoupled and dragged to new hydrants, the massive pump has to be swung around, the trajectory of the water stream has to be recalibrated—nor will the lava stand still while they are doing all these things. It’s a challenge, but stuff like this is meat and potatoes to Mattison, the fundamental nutritive agent out of which his recovery is being built. He starts giving the orders; and his poor battered bedraggled team of ex-abusers, ex-homelesses, ex-burglars, ex-muggers, ex-whores, ex-this, ex-that, all of it bad, swings gamely into action, because this is part of their recovery too.

But in the middle of the process of moving the pump, Blazes McFlynn steps back, folds his arms across the chest of his lava suit, and says, “Coffee break.”

Mattison stares at him incredulously. “What the fuck did you say?”

“Time out, is what I said. You think it’s a snap, hauling this monster around? I’m tired. I’m a crippled man, Matty. I got to sit down for a while and take a breather.”

“The lava is changing direction. There’s a park and a reservoir and a freeway in the path of danger now.”

“So?” McFlynn says. “What’s that mean to me?”

Mattison is so astonished that for a moment he can’t speak. If this is a joke, it’s a damn lousy one. He needs McFlynn badly, and McFlynn has to know that. Mattison, flabbergasted, gapes and gestures in helpless pantomime.

McFlynn says, “Not my park. Not my freeway. I don’t even know where the fuck we are right now. But my bad leg is aching like a holy son of a bitch and I want to sit down and rest and that’s that.”

“I’ll sit you down, all right,” Mattison says, recovering his voice finally. “I’ll sit you down inside a volcano, you obstreperous lazy son of a bitch. I’ll drop you in on your head.” He knows that he is not supposed to speak to the inmates this way, and that everybody else is listening in and someone is bound to talk and he will very likely be reprimanded later on by Donna, but he can’t help himself. He doesn’t pretend to be a saint and McFlynn’s sudden rebellion has pissed him off almost to the breaking point. Almost. What he really would like to do now is put one hand under McFlynn’s left armpit and one hand under the right one and pick him up and carry him to the lava and dangle his feet over the fiery-hot flow for a moment and then let go.

Very likely that is exactly what Mattison would have tried to do two years ago, if he and McFlynn had found themselves in this situation two years ago; but it is a measure of the progress he has been making that he merely fantasizes tossing McFlynn into the lava, now, instead of actually doing it. The fantasy is so vivid that for a dizzy moment he believes that he is actually doing it, and he gets a savage rush of glee from the spectacle of McFlynn disappearing, melting away as he goes under, into the blazing river of molten magma.

But actually doing it would be extremely poor procedural technique. And also McFlynn is not exactly a weakling and Mattison is aware that he might find himself involved in a non-trivial fight if he tries anything. Mattison has never lost a fight in his life, but it is some time since he has been in one, and he may be out of practice; and in any case there’s no time now, with the lava about to overflow his dam, to fuck around getting into fights with people like Blazes McFlynn.

So what he does, instead, is turn his back on McFlynn, swallowing the rest of what he would like to say and do to him, and indicate to Prochaska, Hawks, and Snow, who have been watching the whole dispute in silence, that they will have to finish moving the pump without McFlynn’s help. They all know what that means, that McFlynn has shafted them thoroughly by dumping his share of this tremendous job on their shoulders, and they are righteously angry. A certain amount of venting occurs, which Mattison decides would be best to permit. Hawks tells McFlynn that he’s a motherfucking goof-off and Prochaska says something guttural and probably highly uncomplimentary in what is probably Czech, and even Snow, not famous for hard work himself, gives McFlynn the hand-across-bent-forearm chop. McFlynn doesn’t seem to give a damn. He replies to the whole bunch of them with an upthrust finger and a lazy, contemptuous smirk that makes Mattison think that the next event is going to be a crazy free-for-all; but no, no, they all ostentatiously turn their backs on him too and continue the job of guiding the pump toward its new position.

It’s a miserably hard job. The pump is on a wheeled carriage, sure, but it isn’t designed to be moved in an arc as narrow as this, and they really have to bust their humps to swing it into its new position. The men grunt and groan and gasp as they bend and push. Mattison, who as the biggest and strongest of the group has taken up the key position, can feel things popping in his arms and shoulders as he puts his whole weight into the job. And all the while McFlynn stands to one side, watching.

The pump is more than halfway into place when McFlynn comes limping over as though he has graciously decided that he will join them in the work after all.

“Look who’s here,” says Hawks. “You motherfucker son of a bitch.”

“Can I be of any assistance?” McFlynn says grandly.

He tries to take up a position against the side of the pump carriage between Hawks and Prochaska. Hawks turns squarely toward McFlynn and seems to be thinking about throwing a punch at him. Mattison, who has been worried about this possibility since McFlynn made his announcement, poises himself to step in, but Hawks gets his anger under control just in time. Muttering to himself, he turns back in Prochaska’s direction. There is just enough room for McFlynn to shove his way in between Hawks and Mattison. He braces himself and puts his shoulder against the carriage, making a big show of throwing all his strength into the task.

“Hey, be careful not to strain yourself, now!” Mattison tells him.

“Fuck you, Matty,” McFlynn says sulkily. “That’s all I have to say, just fuck you.”

“You’re welcome,” says Mattison, as with the aid of McFlynn’s added strength they finally manage to finish swinging the big pump around and lock it on its track.

The men step back from it, wheezing, sucking in breath after their heavy exertions. But the incident isn’t over. Prochaska goes up to McFlynn and says something else to him in the harsh language that Mattison assumes is Czech. McFlynn gives Prochaska the finger again. Maybe there’s going to be a fight after all. No. They are content to glare, it seems. Mattison glances at McFlynn and sees, through the faceplate of his suit, that the expression on McFlynn’s face has become unexpectedly complicated. He looks defiant but maybe just a little shamefaced too. An attack of conscience? A bit of guilt over his stupid dereliction kicking in at last, now that he realizes that he actually was needed badly just now and fucked everybody over by crapping out? Better late than never, Mattison figures.

Prochaska still isn’t finished letting McFlynn know what he thinks of him, though: he throws in a couple of harsh new Slavic expletives, and McFlynn, who probably has no more of an idea of what Prochaska is saying to him than Mattison does, dourly gives him back some muttered threats salted with the standard Anglo-Saxonisms.

Things are starting to get a little out of hand, Mattison thinks. He needs to do something, although he’s not sure what. But he has a lava flow to worry about, first.

The lava, in fact, is getting a little out of hand also. Not that it has started to flow in any serious way toward Whatchamacallit Park and Whozis Reservoir, not yet. A thin little eddy of it has begun to dribble off that way over the right-hand edge of Mattison’s dam, but nothing significant. The main flow is still traveling from east to west. The real problem is that new flows are starting to emerge from the ground alongside the original source, and there are now six or seven streams instead of three. Red gleams are showing through the gray and black of the dam, indicating that the hot new lava is finding its way between sections of the hardened stuff. That means that what is coming out now is thinner than before.