Mountaineer

the long version

Mountaineer. Three mountain climbers assail the highest unscaled peak in the world, but only one achieves the goal; and he makes it to the top only with the help of the others, though it means his own death. A lesson in lightning. Blustering, brave George Potts always wanted a rugged son, but got small, pale, half-blind, stoop-shouldered physicist Horace Purdy Potts instead. Horace proves he is his father's son in the flaming hold of a Caribbean tramp steamer. Nine lives. It's a well known fact that a cat in the cockpit is worse than a bee in your britches. So what do you do if your sweetheart gives you a black cat as a mascot?