the planet savers by marion zimmer bradley part 1 by the time i got myself all the way awakei thought i was alone. i was lying on a leather couch in a bare white room with huge windows,alternate glass-brick and clear glass. beyond the clear windows was a view of snow-peakedmountains which turned to pale shadows in the glass-brick. habit and memory fitted names to all these;the bare office, the orange flare of the great sun, the names of the dimming mountains. butbeyond a polished glass desk, a man sat watching me. and i had never seen the man before.
he was chubby, and not young, and had ginger-coloredeyebrows and a fringe of ginger-colored hair around the edges of a forehead which was otherwisequite pink and bald. he was wearing a white uniform coat, and the intertwined caduceuson the pocket and on the sleeve proclaimed him a member of the medical service attachedto the civilian hq of the terran trade city. i didn't stop to make all these evaluationsconsciously, of course. they were just part of my world when i woke up and found it takingshape around me. the familiar mountains, the familiar sun, the strange man. but he spoketo me in a friendly way, as if it were an ordinary thing to find a perfect strangersprawled out taking a siesta in here. "could i trouble you to tell me your name?"
the man in the mirror was a stranger. that was reasonable enough. if i found somebodymaking himself at home in my office-if i had an office-i'd ask him his name, too.i started to swing my legs to the floor, and had to stop and steady myself with one handwhile the room drifted in giddy circles around me. "i wouldn't try to sit up just yet," he remarked,while the floor calmed down again. then he repeated, politely but insistently, "yourname?" "oh, yes. my name." it was-i fumbled throughlayers of what felt like gray fuzz, trying to lay my tongue on the most familiar of allsounds, my own name. it was-why, it was-i
said, on a high rising note, "this is damnsilly," and swallowed. and swallowed again. hard. "calm down," the chubby man said soothingly.that was easier said than done. i stared at him in growing panic and demanded, "but, but,have i had amnesia or something?" "or something." "what's my name?" "now, now, take it easy! i'm sure you'll rememberit soon enough. you can answer other questions, i'm sure. how old are you?" i answered eagerly and quickly, "twenty-two."
the chubby man scribbled something on a card."interesting. in-ter-est-ing. do you know where we are?" i looked around the office. "in the terranheadquarters. from your uniform, i'd say we were on floor 8-medical." he nodded and scribbled again, pursing hislips. "can you-uh-tell me what planet we are on?" i had to laugh. "darkover," i chuckled, "ihope! and if you want the names of the moons, or the date of the founding of the trade city,or something-" he gave in, laughing with me. "remember whereyou were born?"
"on samarra. i came here when i was threeyears old-my father was in mapping and exploring-" i stopped short, in shock. "he's dead!" "can you tell me your father's name?" "same as mine. jay-jason-" the flash ofmemory closed down in the middle of a word. it had been a good try, but it hadn't quiteworked. the doctor said soothingly, "we're doing very well." "you haven't told me anything," i accused."who are you? why are you asking me all these questions?" he pointed to a sign on his desk. i scowledand spelled out the letters. "randall ... forth
... director ... department ..." and dr. forthmade a note. i said aloud, "it is-doctor forth, isn't it?" "don't you know?" i looked down at myself, and shook my head."maybe i'm doctor forth," i said, noticing for the first time that i was also wearinga white coat with the caduceus emblem of medical. but it had the wrong feel, as if i were dressedin somebody else's clothes. i was no doctor, was i? i pushed back one sleeve slightly,exposing a long, triangular scar under the cuff. dr. forth-by now i was sure he wasdr. forth-followed the direction of my eyes. "where did you get the scar?"
"knife fight. one of the bands of those-who-may-not-enter-citiescaught us on the slopes, and we-" the memory thinned out again, and i said despairingly,"it's all confused! what's the matter? why am i up on medical? have i had an accident?amnesia?" "not exactly. i'll explain." i got up and walked to the window, unsteadilybecause my feet wanted to walk slowly while i felt like bursting through some invisiblenet and striding there at one bound. once i got to the window the room stayed put whilei gulped down great breaths of warm sweetish air. i said, "i could use a drink." "good idea. though i don't usually recommendit." forth reached into a drawer for a flat
bottle; poured tea-colored liquid into a throwawaycup. after a minute he poured more for himself. "here. and sit down, man. you make me nervous,hovering like that." i didn't sit down. i strode to the door andflung it open. forth's voice was low and unhurried. "what's the matter? you can go out, if youwant to, but won't you sit down and talk to me for a minute? anyway, where do you wantto go?" the question made me uncomfortable. i tooka couple of long breaths and came back into the room. forth said, "drink this," and ipoured it down. he refilled the cup unasked, and i swallowed that too and felt the hardlump in my middle begin to loosen up and dissolve. forth said, "claustrophobia too. typical,"and scribbled on the card some more. i was
getting tired of that performance. i turnedon him to tell him so, then suddenly felt amused-or maybe it was the liquor workingin me. he seemed such a funny little man, shutting himself up inside an office likethis and talking about claustrophobia and watching me as if i were a big bug. i tossedthe cup into a disposal. "isn't it about time for a few of those explanations?" "if you think you can take it. how do youfeel now?" "fine." i sat down on the couch again, leaningback and stretching out my long legs comfortably. "what did you put in that drink?" he chuckled. "trade secret. now; the easiestway to explain would be to let you watch a
film we made yesterday." "to watch-" i stopped. "it's your time we'rewasting." he punched a button on the desk, spoke intoa mouthpiece. "surveillance? give us a monitor on-" he spoke a string of incomprehensiblenumbers, while i lounged at ease on the couch. forth waited for an answer, then touched anotherbutton and steel louvers closed noiselessly over the windows, blacking them out. i rosein sudden panic, then relaxed as the room went dark. the darkness felt oddly more normalthan the light, and i leaned back and watched the flickers clear as one wall of the officebecame a large visionscreen. forth came and sat beside me on the leather couch, but inthe picture forth was there, sitting at his
desk, watching another man, a stranger, walkinto the office. like forth, the newcomer wore a white coatwith the caduceus emblems. i disliked the man on sight. he was tall and lean and composed,with a dour face set in thin lines. i guessed that he was somewhere in his thirties. dr.-forth-in-the-filmsaid, "sit down, doctor," and i drew a long breath, overwhelmed by a curious, certainsensation. i have been here before. i have seen thishappen before. (and curiously formless i felt. i sat andwatched, and i knew i was watching, and sitting. but it was in that dreamlike fashion, wherethe dreamer at once watches his visions and participates in them....)
"sit down, doctor," forth said, "did you bringin the reports?" jay allison carefully took the indicated seat,poised nervously on the edge of the chair. he sat very straight, leaning forward onlya little to hand a thick folder of papers across the desk. forth took it, but didn'topen it. "what do you think, dr. allison?" "there is no possible room for doubt." jayallison spoke precisely, in a rather high-pitched and emphatic tone. "it follows the statisticalpattern for all recorded attacks of 48-year fever ... by the way, sir, haven't we anybetter name than that for this particular disease? the term '48-year fever' connotesa fever of 48 years duration, rather than a pandemic recurring every 48 years."
"a fever that lasted 48 years would be quitea fever," dr. forth said with the shadow of a grim smile. "nevertheless that's the onlyname we have so far. name it and you can have it. allison's disease?" jay allison greeted this pleasantry with arepressive frown. "as i understand it, the disease cycle seems to be connected somehowwith the once-every-48-years conjunction of the four moons, which explains why the darkovansare so superstitious about it. the moons have remarkably eccentric orbits-i don't knowanything about that part, i'm quoting dr. moore. if there's an animal vector to thedisease, we've never discovered it. the pattern runs like this; a few cases in the mountaindistricts, the next month a hundred-odd cases
all over this part of the planet. then itskips exactly three months without increase. the next upswing puts the number of reportedcases in the thousands, and three months after that, it reaches real pandemic proportionsand decimates the entire human population of darkover." "that's about it," forth admitted. they benttogether over the folder, jay allison drawing back slightly to avoid touching the otherman. forth said, "we terrans have had a trade compacton darkover for a hundred and fifty-two years. the first outbreak of this 48-year fever killedall but a dozen men out of three hundred. the darkovans were worse off than we were.the last outbreak wasn't quite so bad, but
it was bad enough, i've heard. it has an 87per cent mortality-for humans, that is. i understand the trailmen don't die of it." "the darkovans call it the trailmen's fever,dr. forth, because the trailmen are virtually immune to it. it remains in their midst asa mild ailment taken by children. when it breaks out into the virulent form every 48years, most of the trailmen are already immune. i took the disease myself as a child-maybeyou heard?" forth nodded. "you may be the only terranever to contract the disease and survive." "the trailmen incubate the disease," jay allisonsaid. "i should think the logical thing would be to drop a couple of hydrogen bombs on thetrail cities-and wipe it out for good and
all." (sitting on the sofa in forth's dark office,i stiffened with such fury that he shook my shoulder and muttered, "easy, there, man!") dr. forth, on the screen, looked annoyed,and jay allison said, with a grimace of distaste, "i didn't mean that literally. but the trailmenare not human. it wouldn't be genocide, just an exterminator's job. a public health measure." forth looked shocked as he realized that theyounger man meant what he was saying. he said, "galactic center would have to rule on whetherthey're dumb animals or intelligent non-humans, and whether they're entitled to the statusof a civilization. all precedent on darkover
is toward recognizing them as men-and goodgod, jay, you'd probably be called as a witness for the defense! how can you say they're nothuman after your experience with them? anyway, by the time their status was finally decided,half of the recognizable humans on darkover would be dead. we need a better solution thanthat." he pushed his chair back and looked out thewindow. "i won't go into the political situation,"he said, "you aren't interested in terran empire politics, and i'm no expert either.but you'd have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to know that darkover's been playing theimmovable object to the irresistible force. the darkovans are more advanced in some ofthe non-causative sciences than we are, and
until now, they wouldn't admit that terrahad a thing to contribute. however-and this is the big however-they do know, and they'rewilling to admit, that our medical sciences are better than theirs." "theirs being practically non-existent." "exactly-and this could be the first crackin the barrier. you may not realize the significance of this, but the legate received an offerfrom the hasturs themselves." jay allison murmured, "i'm to be impressed?" "on darkover you'd damn well better be impressedwhen the hasturs sit up and take notice." "i understand they're telepaths or something-"
"telepaths, psychokinetics, parapsychs, justabout anything else. for all practical purposes they're the gods of darkover. and one of thehasturs-a rather young and unimportant one, i'll admit, the old man's grandson-cameto the legate's office, in person, mind you. he offered, if the terran medical would helpdarkover lick the trailmen's fever, to coach selected terran men in matrix mechanics." "good lord," jay said. it was a concessionbeyond terra's wildest dreams; for a hundred years they had tried to beg, buy or stealsome knowledge of the mysterious science of matrix mechanics-that curious disciplinewhich could turn matter into raw energy, and vice versa, without any intermediate stagesand without fission by-products. matrix mechanics
had made the darkovans virtually immune tothe lure of terra's advanced technologies. jay said, "personally i think darkovan scienceis over-rated. but i can see the propaganda angle-" "not to mention the humanitarian angle ofhealing-" jay allison gave one of his cold shrugs. "thereal angle seems to be this; can we cure the 48-year fever?" "not yet. but we have a lead. during the lastepidemic, a terran scientist discovered a blood fraction containing antibodies againstthe fever-in the trailmen. isolated to a serum, it might reduce the virulent 48-yearepidemic form to the mild form again. unfortunately,
he died himself in the epidemic, without finishinghis work, and his notebooks were overlooked until this year. we have 18,000 men, and theirfamilies, on darkover now, jay. frankly, if we lose too many of them, we're going to haveto pull out of darkover-the big brass on terra will write off the loss of a garrisonof professional traders, but not of a whole trade city colony. that's not even mentioningthe prestige we'll lose if our much-vaunted terran medical sciences can't save darkoverfrom an epidemic. we've got exactly five months. we can't synthesize a serum in that time.we've got to appeal to the trailmen. and that's why i called you up here. you know more aboutthe trailmen than any living terran. you ought to. you spent eight years in a nest."
(in forth's darkened office i sat up straighter,with a flash of returning memory. jay allison, i judged, was several years older than i,but we had one thing in common; this cold fish of a man shared with myself that experienceof marvelous years spent in an alien world!) jay allison scowled, displeased. "that wasyears ago. i was hardly more than a baby. my father crashed on a mapping expeditionover the hellers-god only knows what possessed him to try and take a light plane over thosecrosswinds. i survived the crash by the merest chance, and lived with the trailmen-so i'mtold-until i was thirteen or fourteen. i don't remember much about it. children aren'tparticularly observant." forth leaned over the desk, staring. "youspeak their language, don't you?"
"i used to. i might remember it under hypnosis,i suppose. why? do you want me to translate something?" "not exactly. we were thinking of sendingyou on an expedition to the trailmen themselves." (in the darkened office, watching jay's startledface, i thought; god, what an adventure! i wonder-i wonder if they want me to go withhim?) forth was explaining: "it would be a difficulttrek. you know what the hellers are like. still, you used to climb mountains, as a hobby,before you went into medical-" "i outgrew the childishness of hobbies manyyears ago, sir," jay said stiffly. "we'd get you the best guides we could, terranand darkovan. but they couldn't do the one
thing you can do. you know the trailmen, jay.you might be able to persuade them to do the one thing they've never done before." "what's that?" jay allison sounded suspicious. "come out of the mountains. send us volunteers-blooddonors-we might, if we had enough blood to work on, be able to isolate the right fraction,and synthesize it, in time to prevent the epidemic from really taking hold. jay, it'sa tough mission and it's dangerous as all hell, but somebody's got to do it, and i'mafraid you're the only qualified man." "i like my first suggestion better. bomb thetrailmen-and the hellers-right off the planet." jay's face was set in lines of loathing,which he controlled after a minute, and said,
"i-i didn't mean that. theoretically i cansee the necessity, only-" he stopped and swallowed. "please say what you were going to say." "i wonder if i am as well qualified as youthink? no-don't interrupt-i find the natives of darkover distasteful, even the humans.as for the trailmen-" (i was getting mad and impatient. i whisperedto forth in the darkness, "shut the damn film off! you couldn't send that guy on an errandlike that! i'd rather-" (forth snapped, "shut up and listen!" (i shut up and the film continued to repeat.)
jay allison was not acting. he was painedand disgusted. forth wouldn't let him finish his explanation of why he had refused evento teach in the medical college established for darkovans by the terran empire. he interrupted,and he sounded irritated. "we know all that. it evidently never occurredto you, jay, that it's an inconvenience to us-that all this vital knowledge shouldlie, purely by accident, in the hands of the one man who's too damned stubborn to use it?" jay didn't move an eyelash, where i wouldhave squirmed, "i have always been aware of that, doctor." forth drew a long breath. "i'll concede you'renot suitable at the moment, jay. but what
do you know of applied psychodynamics?" "very little, i'm sorry to say." allison didn'tsound sorry, though. he sounded bored to death with the whole conversation. "may i be blunt-and personal?" "please do. i'm not at all sensitive." "basically, then, doctor allison, a personas contained and repressed as yourself usually has a clearly defined subsidiary personality.in neurotic individuals this complex of personality traits sometimes splits off, and we get asyndrome known as multiple, or alternate personality." "i've scanned a few of the classic cases.wasn't there a woman with four separate personalities?"
"exactly. however, you aren't neurotic, andordinarily there would not be the slightest chance of your repressed alternate takingover your personality." "thank you," jay murmured ironically, "i'dbe losing sleep over that." "nevertheless i presume you do have such asubsidiary personality, although he would normally never manifest. this subsidiary-let'scall him jay2-would embody all the characteristics which you repress. he would be gregarious,where you are retiring and studious; adventurous where you are cautious; talkative while youare taciturn; he would perhaps enjoy action for its own sake, while you exercise faithfullyin the gymnasium only for your health's sake; and he might even remember the trailmen withpleasure rather than dislike."
"in short-a blend of all the undesirablecharacteristics?" "one could put it that way. certainly he wouldbe a blend of all the characteristics which you, jay1, consider undesirable. but-ifreleased by hypnotism and suggestion, he might be suitable for the job in hand." "but how do you know i actually have suchan-alternate?" "i don't. but it's a good guess. most repressed-"forth coughed and amended, "most disciplined personalities possess such a suppressed secondarypersonality. don't you occasionally-rather rarely-find yourself doing things whichare entirely out of character for you?" i could almost feel allison taking it in,as he confessed, "well-yes. for instance-the
other day-although i dress conservativelyat all times-" he glanced at his uniform coat, "i found myself buying-" he stoppedagain and his face went an unlovely terra-cotta color as he finally mumbled, "a flowered redsports shirt." sitting in the dark i felt vaguely sorry forthe poor gawk, disturbed by, ashamed of the only human impulses he ever had. on the screenallison frowned fiercely, "a crazy impulse." "you could say that, or say it was an actionof the suppressed jay2. how about it, allison? you may be the only terran on darkover, maybethe only human, who could get into a trailman's nest without being murdered." "sir-as a citizen of the empire, i don'thave any choice, do i?"
"jay, look," forth said, and i felt him tryingto reach through the barricade and touch, really touch that cold contained young man,"we couldn't order any man to do anything like this. aside from the ordinary dangers,it could destroy your personal balance, maybe permanently. i'm asking you to volunteer somethingabove and beyond the call of duty. man to man-what do you say?" i would have been moved by his words. evenat secondhand i was moved by them. jay allison looked at the floor, and i saw him twist hislong well-kept surgeon's hands and crack the knuckles with an odd gesture. finally he said,"i haven't any choice either way, doctor. i'll take the chance. i'll go to the trailmen."
the screen went dark again and forth flickedthe light on. he said, "well?" i gave it back, in his own intonation, "well?"and was exasperated to find that i was twisting my own knuckles in the nervous gesture ofallison's painful decision. i jerked them apart and got up. "i suppose it didn't work, with that coldfish, and you decided to come to me instead? sure, i'll go to the trailmen for you. notwith that allison-i wouldn't go anywhere with that guy-but i speak the trailmen'slanguage, and without hypnosis either." forth was staring at me. "so you've rememberedthat?" "hell, yes," i said, "my dad crashed in thehellers, and a band of trailmen found me,
half dead. i lived there until i was aboutfifteen, then their old-one decided i was too human for them, and they took me out throughdammerung pass and arranged to have me brought here. sure, it's all coming back now. i spentfive years in the spacemen's orphanage, then i went to work taking terran tourists on huntingparties and so on, because i liked being around the mountains. i-" i stopped. forth wasstaring at me. "you think you'd like this job?" "it would be tough," i said, considering."the people of the sky-" (using the trailmen's name for themselves) "-don't like outsiders,but they might be persuaded. the worst part would be getting there. the plane, or the'copter, isn't built that can get through
the crosswinds around the hellers and landinside them. we'd have to go on foot, all the way from carthon. i'd need professionalclimbers-mountaineers." "then you don't share allison's attitude?" "dammit, don't insult me!" i discovered thati was on my feet again, pacing the office restlessly. forth stared and mused aloud,"what's personality anyway? a mask of emotions, superimposed on the body and the intellect.change the point of view, change the emotions and desires, and even with the same body andthe same past experiences, you have a new man." i swung round in mid-step. a new and terriblesuspicion, too monstrous to name, was creeping
up on me. forth touched a button and the faceof jay allison, immobile, appeared on the visionscreen. forth put a mirror in my hand.he said, "jason allison, look at yourself." i looked. "no," i said. and again, "no. no. no." forth didn't argue. he pointed, with a stubbyfinger. "look-" he moved the finger as he spoke, "height of forehead. set of cheekbones.your eyebrows look different, and your mouth, because the expression is different. but bonystructure-the nose, the chin-" i heard myself make a queer sound; dashedthe mirror to the floor. he grabbed my forearm. "steady, man!"
i found a scrap of my voice. it didn't soundlike allison's. "then i'm-jay2? jay allison with amnesia?" "not exactly." forth mopped his forehead withan immaculate sleeve and it came away damp with sweat, "no-not jay allison as i knowhim!" he drew a long breath. "and sit down. whoever you are, sit down!" i sat. gingerly. not sure. "but the man jay might have been, given adifferent temperamental bias. i'd say-the man jay allison started out to be. the manhe refused to be. within his subconscious, he built up barriers against a whole seriesof memories, and the subliminal threshold-"
"doc, i don't understand the psycho talk." forth stared. "and you do remember the trailmen'slanguage. i thought so. allison's personality is suppressed in you, as yours was in him." "one thing, doc. i don't know a thing aboutblood fractions or epidemics. my half of the personality didn't study medicine." i tookup the mirror again and broodingly studied the face there. the high thin cheeks, highforehead shaded by coarse dark hair which jay allison had slicked down now heavily rumpled.i still didn't think i looked anything like the doctor. our voices were nothing alikeeither; his had been pitched rather high, falsetto. my own, as nearly as i could judge,was a full octave deeper, and more resonant.
yet they issued from the same vocal chords,unless forth was having a reasonless, macabre joke. "did i honest-to-god study medicine? it'sthe last thing i'd think about. it's an honest trade, i guess, but i've never been that intellectual." "you-or rather, jay allison is a specialistin darkovan parasitology, as well as a very competent surgeon." forth was sitting withhis chin in his hands, watching me intently. he scowled and said, "if anything, the physicalchange is more startling than the other. i wouldn't have recognized you." "that tallies with me. i don't recognize myself."i added, "-and the queer thing is, i didn't
even like jay allison, to put it mildly. ifhe-i can't say he, can i?" "i don't know why not. you're no more jayallison than i am. for one thing, you're younger. ten years younger. i doubt if any of his friends-ifhe had any-would recognize you. you-it's ridiculous to go on calling you jay2. whatshould i call you?" "why should i care? call me jason." "suits you," forth said enigmatically. "look,then, jason. i'd like to give you a few days to readjust to your new personality, but weare really pressed for time. can you fly to carthon tonight? i've hand-picked a good crewfor you, and sent them on ahead. you'll meet them there. you'll find them competent."
i stared at him. suddenly the room oppressedme and i found it hard to breathe. i said in wonder, "you were pretty sure of yourself,weren't you?" forth just looked at me, for what seemed along time. then he said, in a very quiet voice, "no. i wasn't sure at all. but if you didn'tturn up, and i couldn't talk jay into it, i'd have had to try it myself." jason allison, junior, was listed on the directoryof the terran hq as "suite 1214, medical residence corridor." i found the rooms without any trouble,though an elderly doctor stared at me rather curiously as i barged along the quiet hallway.the suite-bedroom, minuscule sitting-room, compact bath-depressed me; clean, closed-inand neutral as the man who owned them, i rummaged
them restlessly, trying to find some scrapof familiarity to indicate that i had lived here for the past eleven years. jay allison was thirty-four years old. i hadgiven my age, without hesitation, as 22. there were no obvious blanks in my memory; fromthe moment jay allison had spoken of the trailmen, my past had rushed back and stood, completeto yesterday's supper (only had i eaten that supper twelve years ago)? i remembered myfather, a lined silent man who had liked to fly solitary, taking photograph after photographfrom his plane for the meticulous work of mapping and exploration. he'd liked to haveme fly with him and i'd flown over virtually every inch of the planet. no one else hadever dared fly over the hellers, except the
big commercial spacecraft that kept to a safealtitude. i vaguely remembered the crash and the strange hands pulling me out of the wreckageand the weeks i'd spent, broken-bodied and delirious, gently tended by one of the red-eyed,twittering women of the trailmen. in all i had spent eight years in the nest, which wasnot a nest at all but a vast sprawling city built in the branches of enormous trees. withthe small and delicate humanoids who had been my playfellows, i had gathered the nuts andbuds and trapped the small arboreal animals they used for food, taken my share at weavingclothing from the fibres of parasite plants cultivated on the stems, and in all thoseeight years i had set foot on the ground less than a dozen times, even though i had travelledfor miles through the tree-roads high above
the forest floor. then the old-one's painful decision that iwas too alien for them, and the difficult and dangerous journey my trailmen foster-parentsand foster-brothers had undertaken, to help me out of the hellers and arrange for me tobe taken to the trade city. after two years of physically painful and mentally rebelliousreadjustment to daytime living, the owl-eyed trailmen saw best, and lived largely, by moonlight,i had found a niche for myself, and settled down. but all of the later years (after jayallison had taken over, i supposed, from a basic pattern of memory common to both ofus) had vanished into the limbo of the subconscious. a bookrack was crammed with large microcards;i slipped one into the viewer, with a queer
sense of spying, and found myself listeningapprehensively to hear that measured step and jay allison's falsetto voice demandingwhat the hell i was doing, meddling with his possessions. eye to the viewer, i read brieflyat random, something about the management of compound fracture, then realized i hadunderstood exactly three words in a paragraph. i put my fist against my forehead and heardthe words echoing there emptily; "laceration ... primary efflusion ... serum and lymph... granulation tissue...." i presumed that the words meant something and that i oncehad known what. but if i had a medical education, i didn't recall a syllable of it. i didn'tknow a fracture from a fraction. in a sudden frenzy of impatience i strippedoff the white coat and put on the first shirt
i came to, a crimson thing that hung in theline of white coats like an exotic bird in snow country. i went back to rummaging thedrawers and bureaus. carelessly shoved in a pigeonhole i found another microcard thatlooked familiar; and when i slipped it mechanically into the viewer it turned out to be a bookon mountaineering which, oddly enough, i remembered buying as a youngster. it dispelled my last,lingering doubts. evidently i had bought it before the personalities had forked so sharplyapart and separated, jason from jay. i was beginning to believe. not to accept. justto believe it had happened. the book looked well-thumbed, and had been handled so muchi had to baby it into the slot of the viewer. under a folded pile of clean underwear i founda flat half-empty bottle of whiskey. i remembered
forth's words that he'd never seen jay allisondrink, and suddenly i thought, "the fool!" i fixed myself a drink and sat down, idlyscanning over the mountaineering book. not till i'd entered medical school, i suspected,did the two halves of me fork so strongly apart ... so strongly that there had beendays and weeks and, i suspected, years where jay allison had kept me prisoner. i triedto juggle dates in my mind, looked at a calendar, and got such a mental jolt that i put it face-downto think about when i was a little drunker. i wondered if my detailed memories of my teensand early twenties were the same memories jay allison looked back on. i didn't thinkso. people forget and remember selectively. week by week, then, and year by year, thedominant personality of jay had crowded me
out; so that the young rowdy, more than halfdarkovan, loving the mountains, half-homesick for a non-human world, had been drowned inthe chilly, austere young medical student who lost himself in his work. but i, jason-ihad always been the watcher behind, the person jay allison dared not be? why was he pastthirty-and i just 22? a ringing shattered the silence; i had tohunt for the intercom on the bedroom wall. i said, "who is it?" and an unfamiliar voicedemanded, "dr. allison?" i said automatically, "nobody here by thatname," and started to put back the mouthpiece. then i stopped and gulped and asked, "is thatyou, dr. forth?" it was, and i breathed again. i didn't evenwant to think about what i'd say if somebody
else had demanded to know why in the devili was answering dr. allison's private telephone. when forth had finished, i went to the mirror,and stared, trying to see behind my face the sharp features of that stranger, doctor jasonallison. i delayed, even while i was wondering what few things i should pack for a trip intothe mountains and the habit of hunting parties was making mental lists about heat-socks andwindbreakers. the face that looked at me was a young face, unlined and faintly freckled,the same face as always except that i'd lost my suntan; jay allison had kept me indoorstoo long. suddenly i struck the mirror lightly with my fist. "the hell with you, dr. allison," i said,and went to see if he had kept any clothes
fit to pack. part 2 dr. forth was waiting for me in the smallskyport on the roof, and so was a small 'copter, one of the fairly old ones assigned to medicalservice when they were too beat-up for services with higher priority. forth took one startledstare at my crimson shirt, but all he said was, "hello, jason. here's something we'vegot to decide right away; do we tell the crew who you really are?" i shook my head emphatically. "i'm not jayallison; i don't want his name or his reputation. unless there are men on the crew who knowallison by sight-"
"some of them do, but i don't think they'drecognize you." "tell them i'm his twin brother," i said humorlessly. "that wouldn't be necessary. there's not enoughresemblance." forth raised his head and beckoned to a man who was doing something near the'copter. he said under his breath, "you'll see what i mean," as the man approached. he wore the uniform of spaceforce-blackleather with a little rainbow of stars on his sleeve meaning he'd seen service on adozen different planets, a different colored star for each one. he wasn't a young man,but on the wrong side of fifty, seamed and burly and huge, with a split lip and weatheredface. i liked his looks. we shook hands and
forth said, "this is our man, kendricks. he'scalled jason, and he's an expert on the trailmen. jason, this is buck kendricks." "glad to know you, jason." i thought kendrickslooked at me half a second more than necessary. "the 'copter's ready. climb in, doc-you'regoing as far as carthon, aren't you?" we put on zippered windbreaks and the 'coptersoared noiselessly into the pale crimson sky. i sat beside forth, looking down through palelilac clouds at the pattern of darkover spread below me. "kendricks was giving me a funny eye, doc.what's biting him?" "he has known jay allison for eight years,"forth said quietly, "and he hasn't recognized
you yet." but we let it ride at that, to my great relief,and didn't talk any more about me at all. as we flew under silent whirring blades, turningour backs on the settled country which lay near the trade city, we talked about darkoveritself. forth told me about the trailmen's fever and managed to give me some idea aboutwhat the blood fraction was, and why it was necessary to persuade fifty or sixty of thehumanoids to return with me, to donate blood from which the antibody could be, first isolated,then synthesised. it would be a totally unheard-of thing, ifi could accomplish it. most of the trailmen never touched ground in their entire lives,except when crossing the passes above the
snow line. not a dozen of them, includingmy foster-parents who had so painfully brought me out across dammerung, had ever crossedthe ring of encircling mountains that walled them away from the rest of the planet. humanssometimes penetrated the lower forests in search of the trailmen. it was one-way traffic.the trailmen never came in search of them. we talked, too, about some of those humanswho had crossed the mountains into trailmen country-those mountains profanely dubbedthe hellers by the first terrans who had tried to fly over them in anything lower or slowerthan a spaceship. (the darkovan name for the hellers was even more explicit, and even intranslation, unrepeatable.) "what about this crew you picked? they'renot terrans?"
forth shook his head. "it would be murderto send anyone recognizably terran into the hellers. you know how the trailmen feel aboutoutsiders getting into their country." i knew. forth continued, "just the same, there willbe two terrans with you." "they don't know jay allison?" i didn't wantto be burdened with anyone-not anyone-who would know me, or expect me to behave likemy forgotten other self. "kendricks knows you," forth said, "but i'mgoing to be perfectly truthful. i never knew jay allison well, except in line of work.i know a lot of things-from the past couple of days-which came out during the hypnoticsessions, which he'd never have dreamed of telling me, or anyone else, consciously. andthat comes under the heading of a professional
confidence-even from you. and for that reason,i'm sending kendricks along-and you're going to have to take the chance he'll recognizeyou. isn't that carthon down there?" carthon lay nestled under the outlying foothillsof the hellers, ancient and sprawling and squatty, and burned brown with the dust offive thousand years. children ran out to stare at the 'copter as we landed near the city;few planes ever flew low enough to be seen, this near the hellers. forth had sent his crew ahead and parked themin an abandoned huge place at the edge of the city which might once have been a warehouseor a ruined palace. inside there were a couple of trucks, stripped down to framework andflatbed like all machinery shipped through
space from terra. there were pack animals,dark shapes in the gloom. crates were stacked up in an orderly untidiness, and at the farend a fire was burning and five or six men in darkovan clothing-loose sleeved shirts,tight wrapped breeches, low boots-were squatting around it, talking. they got up as forth andkendricks and i walked toward them, and forth greeted them clumsily, in bad accented darkovan,then switched to terran standard, letting one of the men translate for him. forth introduced me simply as "jason," afterthe darkovan custom, and i looked the men over, one by one. back when i'd climbed forfun, i'd liked to pick my own men; but whoever had picked this crew must have known his business.
three were mountain darkovans, lean swartmen enough alike to be brothers; i learned after a while that they actually were brothers,hjalmar, garin and vardo. all three were well over six feet, and hjalmar stood head andshoulders over his brothers, whom i never learned to tell apart. the fourth man, a redhead,was dressed rather better than the others and introduced as lerrys ridenow-the doublename indicating high darkovan aristocracy. he looked muscular and agile enough, but hishands were suspiciously well-kept for a mountain man, and i wondered how much experience he'dhad. the fifth man shook hands with me, speakingto kendricks and forth as if they were old friends. "don't i know you from someplace,jason?"
he looked darkovan, and wore darkovan clothes,but forth had forewarned me, and attack seemed the best defense. "aren't you terran?" "my father was," he said, and i understood;a situation not exactly uncommon, but ticklish on a planet like darkover. i said carelessly,"i may have seen you around the hq. i can't place you, though." "my name's rafe scott. i thought i knew mostof the professional guides on darkover, but i admit i don't get into the hellers much,"he confessed. "which route are we going to take?" i found myself drawn into the middle of thegroup of men, accepting one of the small sweetish
darkovan cigarettes, looking over the plansomebody had scribbled down on the top of a packing case. i borrowed a pencil from rafeand bent over the case, sketching out a rough map of the terrain i remembered so well fromboyhood. i might be bewildered about blood fractions, but when it came to climbing iknew what i was doing. rafe and lerrys and the darkovan brothers crowded behind me tolook over the sketch, and lerrys put a long fingernail on the route i'd indicated. "your elevation's pretty bad here," he saiddiffidently, "and on the 'narr campaign the trailmen attacked us here, and it was badfighting along those ledges." i looked at him with new respect; dainty handsor not, he evidently knew the country. kendricks
patted the blaster on his hip and said grimly,"but this isn't the 'narr campaign. i'd like to see any trailmen attack us while i havethis." "but you're not going to have it," said avoice behind us, a crisp authoritative voice. "take off that gun, man!" kendricks and i whirled together, to see thespeaker; a tall young darkovan, still standing in the shadows. the newcomer spoke to me directly: "i'm told you are terran, but that you understandthe trailmen. surely you don't intend to carry fission or fusion weapons against them?" and i suddenly realized that we were in darkovanterritory now, and that we must reckon with
the darkovan horror of guns or of any weaponwhich reaches beyond the arm's-length of the man who wields it. a simple heat-gun, to thedarkovan ethical code, is as reprehensible as a super-cobalt planetbuster. kendricks protested, "we can't travel unarmedthrough trailmen country! we're apt to meet hostile bands of the creatures-and they'renasty with those long knives they carry!" the stranger said calmly, "i've no objectionto you, or anyone else, carrying a knife for self-defense." "a knife?" kendricks drew breath to roar."listen, you bug-eyed son-of-a-who do you think you are, anyway?"
the darkovans muttered. the man in the shadowssaid, "regis hastur." kendricks stared pop-eyed. my own eyes couldhave popped, but i decided it was time for me to take charge, if i were ever going to.i rapped, "all right, this is my show. buck, give me the gun." he looked wrathfully at me for a space ofseconds, while i wondered what i'd do if he didn't. then, slowly, he unbuckled the strapsand handed it to me, butt first. i'd never realized quite how undressed a spaceforceman looked without his blaster. i balanced it on my palm for a minute while regis hasturcame out of the shadows. he was tall, and had the reddish hair and fair skin of darkovanaristocracy, and on his face was some indefinable
stamp-arrogance, perhaps, or the consciousnessthat the hasturs had ruled this world for centuries long before the terrans broughtships and trade and the universe to their doors. he was looking at me as if he approvedof me, and that was one step worse than the former situation. so, using the respectful darkovan idiom ofspeaking to a superior (which he was) but keeping my voice hard, i said, "there's justone leader on any trek, lord hastur. on this one, i'm it. if you want to discuss whetheror not we carry guns, i suggest you discuss it with me in private-and let me give theorders." one of the darkovans gasped. i knew i couldhave been mobbed. but with a mixed bag of
men, i had to grab leadership quick or berelegated to nowhere. i didn't give regis hastur a chance to answer that, either; isaid, "come back here. i want to talk to you anyway." he came, and i remembered to breathe. i ledthe way to a fairly deserted corner of the immense place, faced him and demanded, "asfor you-what are you doing here? you're not intending to cross the mountains withus?" he met my scowl levelly. "i certainly am." i groaned. "why? you're the regent's grandson.important people don't take on this kind of dangerous work. if anything happens to you,it will be my responsibility!" i was going
to have enough trouble, i was thinking, withoutshepherding along one of the most revered personages on the whole damned planet! i didn'twant anyone around who had to be fawned on, or deferred to, or even listened to. he frowned slightly, and i had the unpleasantimpression that he knew what i was thinking. "in the first place-it will mean somethingto the trailmen, won't it-to have a hastur with you, suing for this favor?" it certainly would. the trailmen paid littleenough heed to the ordinary humans, except for considering them fair game for plunderingwhen they came uninvited into trailman country. but they, with all darkover, revered the hasturs,and it was a fine point of diplomacy-if
the darkovans sent their most important leader,they might listen to him. "in the second place," regis hastur continued,"the darkovans are my people, and it's my business to negotiate for them. in the thirdplace, i know the trailmen's dialect-not well, but i can speak it a little. and inthe fourth, i've climbed mountains all my life. purely as an amateur, but i can assureyou i won't be in the way." there was little enough i could say to that.he seemed to have covered every point-or every point but one, and he added, shrewdly,after a minute, "don't worry; i'm perfectly willing to have you take charge. i won't claim-privilege." i had to be satisfied with that.
darkover is a civilized planet with a fairlyhigh standard of living, but it is not a mechanized or a technological culture. the people don'tdo much mining, or build factories, and the few which were founded by terran enterprisenever were very successful; outside the terran trade city, machinery or modern transportationis almost unknown. while the other men checked and loaded suppliesand rafe scott went out to contact some friends of his and arrange for last-minute details,i sat down with forth to memorize the medical details i must put so clearly to the trailmen. "if we could only have kept your medical knowledge!" "trouble is, being a doctor doesn't suit mypersonality," i said. i felt absurdly light-hearted.
where i sat, i could raise my head and studythe panorama of blackish-green foothills which lay beyond carthon, and search out the stoneroadways, like a tiny white ribbon, which we could follow for the first stage of thetrip. forth evidently did not share my enthusiasm. "you know, jason, there is one real danger-" "do you think i care about danger? or areyou afraid i'll turn-foolhardy?" "not exactly. it's not a physical danger,jason. it's an emotional-or rather an intellectual danger." "hell, don't you know any language but thatpsycho double-talk?" "let me finish, jason. jay allison may havebeen repressed, overcontrolled, but you are
seriously impulsive. you lack a balance-wheel,if i could put it that way. and if you run too many risks, your buried alter-ego maycome to the surface and take over in sheer self-preservation." "in other words," i said, laughing loudly,"if i scare that allison stuffed-shirt he may start stirring in his grave?" forth coughed and smothered a laugh and saidthat was one way of putting it. i clapped him reassuringly on the shoulder and said,"forget it, sir. i promise to be godly, sober and industrious-but is there any law againstenjoying what i'm doing?" somebody burst out of the warehouse-palaceplace, and shouted at me. "jason? the guide
is here," and i stood up, giving forth a finalgrin. "don't you worry. jay allison's good riddance," i said, and went back to meet theother guide they had chosen. and i almost backed out when i saw the guide.for the guide was a woman. she was small for a darkovan girl, and narrowlybuilt, the sort of body that could have been called boyish or coltish but certainly not,at first glance, feminine. close-cut curls, blue-black and wispy, cast the faintest ofshadows over a squarish sunburnt face, and her eyes were so thickly rimmed with heavydark lashes that i could not guess their color. her nose was snubbed and might have lookedwhimsical and was instead oddly arrogant. her mouth was wide, and her chin round, andaltogether i dismissed her as not at all a
pretty woman. she held up her palm and said rather sullenly,"kyla-raineach, free amazon, licensed guide." i acknowledged the gesture with a nod, scowling.the guild of free amazons entered virtually every masculine field, but that of mountainguide seemed somewhat bizarre even for an amazon. she seemed wiry and agile enough,her body, under the heavy blanket-like clothing, almost as lean of hip and flat of breast asmy own; only the slender long legs were unequivocally feminine. the other men were checking and loading supplies;i noted from the corner of my eye that regis hastur was taking his turn heaving bundleswith the rest. i sat down on some still-undisturbed
sacks, and motioned her to sit. "you've had trail experience? we're goinginto the hellers through dammerung, and that's rough going even for professionals." she said in a flat expressionless voice, "iwas with the terran mapping expedition to the south polar ridge last year." "ever been in the hellers? if anything happenedto me, could you lead the expedition safely back to carthon?" she looked down at her stubby fingers. "i'msure i could," she said finally, and started to rise. "is that all?"
"one thing more-" i gestured to her to stayput. "kyla, you'll be one woman among eight men-" the snubbed nose wrinkled up; "i don't expectyou to crawl into my blankets, if that's what you mean. it's not in my contract-i hope!" i felt my face burning. damn the girl! "it'snot in mine, anyway," i snapped, "but i can't answer for seven other men, most of them mountainroughnecks!" even as i said it i wondered why i bothered; certainly a free amazon coulddefend her own virtue, or not, if she wanted to, without any help from me. i had to excusemyself by adding, "in either case you'll be a disturbing element-i don't want fights,either!"
she made a little low-pitched sound of amusement."there's safety in numbers, and-are you familiar with the physiological effect ofhigh altitudes on men acclimated to low ones?" suddenly she threw back her head and the hiddensound became free and merry laughter. "jason, i'm a free amazon, and that means-no, i'mnot neutered, though some of us are. but you have my word, i won't create any trouble ofany recognizably female variety." she stood up. "now, if you don't mind, i'd like to checkthe mountain equipment." her eyes were still laughing at me, but curiouslyi didn't mind at all. there was a refreshing element in her manner. we started that night, a curiously lopsidedlittle caravan. the pack animals were loaded
into one truck and didn't like it. we hadanother stripped-down truck which carried supplies. the ancient stone roads, ruttedand gullied here and there with the flood-waters and silt of decades, had not been plannedfor any travel other than the feet of men or beasts. we passed tiny villages and isolatedcountry estates, and a few of the solitary towers where the matrix mechanics worked alonewith the secret sciences of darkover, towers of glareless stone which sometimes shone likeblue beacons in the dark. kendricks drove the truck which carried theanimals, and was amused by it. rafe and i took turns driving the other truck, sharingthe wide front seat with regis hastur and the girl kyla, while the other men found seatsbetween crates and sacks in the back. once
while rafe was at the wheel and the girl dozingwith her coat over her face to shut out the fierce sun, regis asked me, "what are thetrailcities like?" i tried to tell him, but i've never been goodat boiling things down into descriptions, and when he found i was not disposed to talk,he fell silent and i was free to drowse over what i knew of the trailmen and their world. nature seems to have a sameness on all inhabitedworlds, tending toward the economy and simplicity of the human form. the upright carriage, freeingthe hands, the opposable thumb, the color-sensitivity of retinal rods and cones, the developmentof language and of lengthy parental nurture-these things seem to be indispensable to the growthof civilization, and in the end they spell
human. except for minor variations dependingon climate or foodstuff, the inhabitant of megaera or darkover is indistinguishable fromthe terran or sirian; differences are mainly cultural, and sometimes an isolated culturewill mutate in a strange direction or remain, atavists, somewhere halfway to the summitof the ladder of evolution-which, at least on the known planets, still reckons homo sapiensas the most complex of nature's forms. the trailmen were a pausing-place which hadproved tenacious. when the mainstream of evolution on darkover left the trees to struggle forexistence on the ground, a few remained behind. evolution did not cease for them, but evolvedhomo arborens; nocturnal, nystalopic humanoids who lived out their lives in the extensiveforests.
the truck bumped over the bad, rutted roads.the wind was chilly-the truck, a mere conveyance for hauling, had no such refinements of luxuryas windows. i jolted awake-what nonsense had i been thinking? vague ideas about evolutionswirled in my brain like burst bubbles-the trailmen? they were just the trailmen, whocould explain them? jay allison, maybe? rafe turned his head and asked, "where do we pullup for the night? it's getting dark, and we have all this gear to sort!" i roused myself,and took over the business of the expedition again. but when the trucks had been parked and atent pitched and the pack animals unloaded and hobbled, and a start made at getting thegear together-when all this had been done
i lay awake, listening to kendricks' heavysnoring, but myself afraid to sleep. dozing in the truck, an odd lapse of consciousnesshad come over me ... myself yet not myself, drowsing over thoughts i did not recognizeas my own. if i slept, who would i be when i woke? we had made our camp in the bend of an enormousriver, wide and shallow and unbridged; the river kadarin, traditionally a point of noreturn for humans on darkover. the river is fed by ocean tides and we would have to waitfor low water to cross. beyond the river lay thick forests, and beyond the forests theslopes of the hellers, rising upward and upward; and their every fold and every valley wasfilled to the brim with forest, and in the
forests lived the trailmen. but though all this country was thickly populatedwith outlying colonies and nests, it would be no use to bargain with any of them; wemust deal with the old one of the north nest, where i had spent so many of my boyhood years. from time immemorial, the trailmen-usuallyinoffensive-had kept strict boundaries marked between their lands and the lands of ground-dwellingmen. they never came beyond the kadarin. on the other hand, almost any human who venturedinto their territory became, by that act, fair game for attack. a few of the darkovan mountain people hadtrade treaties with the trailmen; they traded
clothing, forged metals, small implements,in return for nuts, bark for dyestuffs and certain leaves and mosses for drugs. in return,the trailmen permitted them to hunt in the forest lands without being molested. but otherhumans, venturing into trailman territory, ran the risk of merciless raiding; the trailmenwere not bloodthirsty, and did not kill for the sake of killing, but they attacked inpacks of two or three dozen, and their prey would be stripped and plundered of everythingportable. travelling through their country would bedangerous.... the sun was high before we struck the camp.while the others were packing up the last oddments, ready for the saddle, i gave thegirl kyla the task of readying the rucksacks
we'd carry after the trails got too bad evenfor the pack animals, and went to stand at the water's edge, checking the depth of theford and glancing up at the smoke-hazed rifts between peak and peak. the men were packing up the small tent we'duse in the forests, moving around with a good deal of horseplay and a certain brisk bustle.they were a good crew, i'd already discovered. rafe and lerrys and the three darkovan brotherswere tireless, cheerful and mountain-hardened. kendricks, obviously out of his element, couldbe implicitly relied on to follow orders, and i felt that i could fall back on him.strange as it seemed, the very fact that he was a terran was vaguely comforting, wherei'd anticipated it would be a nuisance.
the girl kyla was still something of an unknownquantity. she was too taut and quiet, working her share but seldom contributing a word-wewere not yet in mountain country. so far she was quiet and touchy with me, although sheseemed natural enough with the darkovans, and i let her alone. "hi, jason, get a move on," someone shouted,and i walked back toward the clearing squinting in the sun. it hurt, and i touched my facegingerly, suddenly realizing what had happened. yesterday, riding in the uncovered truck,and this morning, un-used to the fierce sun of these latitudes, i had neglected to takethe proper precautions against exposure and my face was reddening with sunburn. i walkedtoward kyla, who was cinching a final load
on one of the pack-animals, which she didefficiently enough. she didn't wait for me to ask, but sized upthe situation with one amused glance at my face. "sunburn? put some of this on it." sheproduced a tube of white stuff; i twisted at the top inexpertly, and she took it fromme, squeezed the stuff out in her palm and said, "stand still and bend down your head." she smeared the mixture efficiently acrossmy forehead and cheeks. it felt cold and good. i started to thank her, then broke off asshe burst out laughing. "what's the matter?" "you should see yourself!" she gurgled. i wasn't amused. no doubt i presented a grotesqueappearance, and no doubt she had the right
to laugh at it, but i scowled. it hurt. intendingto put things back on the proper footing, i demanded, "did you make up the climbingloads?" "all except bedding. i wasn't sure how muchto allow," she said. "jason, have you eyeshades for when you get on snow?" i nodded, and sheinstructed me severely, "don't forget them. snowblindness-i give you my word-is evenmore unpleasant than sunburn-and very painful!" "damn it, girl, i'm not stupid!" i exploded. she said, in her expressionless monotone again,"then you ought to have known better than to get sunburnt. here, put this in your pocket,"she handed me the tube of sunburn cream, "maybe i'd better check up on some of the othersand make sure they haven't forgotten." she
went off without another word, leaving mewith an unpleasant feeling that she'd come off best, that she considered me an irresponsiblescamp. forth had said almost the same thing.... i told off the darkovan brothers to urge thepack animals across the narrowest part of the ford, and gestured to corus and kyla toride one on either side of kendricks, who might not be aware of the swirling, treacherouscurrents of a mountain river. rafe could not urge his edgy horse into the water; he finallydismounted, took off his boots, and led the creature across the slippery rocks. i crossedlast, riding close to regis hastur, alert for dangers and thinking resentfully thatanyone so important to darkover's policies
should not be risked on such a mission. why,if the terran legate had (unthinkably!) come with us, he would be surrounded by bodyguards,secret service men and dozens of precautions against accident, assassination or misadventure. all that day we rode upward, encamping atthe furthest point we could travel with pack animals or mounted. the next day's climb wouldenter the dangerous trails we must travel afoot. we pitched a comfortable camp, buti admit i slept badly. kendricks and lerrys and rafe had blinding headaches from the sunand the thinness of the air; i was more used to these conditions, but i felt a sense ofunpleasant pressure, and my ears rang. regis arrogantly denied any discomfort, but he moanedand cried out continuously in his sleep until
lerrys kicked him, after which he was silentand, i feared, sleepless. kyla seemed the least affected of any; probably she had beenat higher altitudes more continuously than any of us. but there were dark circles beneathher eyes. however, no one complained as we readied ourselvesfor the final last long climb upward. if we were fortunate, we could cross dammerung beforenightfall; at the very least, we should bivouac tonight very near the pass. our camp had beenmade at the last level spot; we partially hobbled the pack animals so they would notstray too far, and left ample food for them, and cached all but the most necessary of lighttrail gear. as we prepared to start upward on the steep, narrow track-hardly more thana rabbit-run-i glanced at kyla and stated,
"we'll work on rope from the first stretch.starting now." one of the darkovan brothers stared at mewith contempt. "call yourself a mountain man, jason? why, my little daughter could scrambleup that track without so much as a push on her behind!" i set my chin and glared at him. "the rocksaren't easy, and some of these men aren't used to working on rope at all. we might aswell get used to it, because when we start working along the ledges, i don't want anybodywho doesn't know how." they still didn't like it, but nobody protestedfurther until i directed the huge kendricks to the center of the second rope. he glaredviciously at the light nylon line and demanded
in some apprehension, "hadn't i better golast until i know what i'm doing? hemmed in between the two of you, i'm apt to do somethingdamned dumb!" hjalmar roared with laughter and informedhim that the center place on a 3-man rope was always reserved for weaklings, novicesand amateurs. i expected kendricks' temper to flare up: the burly spaceforce man andthe darkovan giant glared at one another, then kendricks only shrugged and knotted theline through his belt. kyla warned kendricks and lerrys about looking down from ledges,and we started. the first stretch was almost too simple, aclear track winding higher and higher for a couple of miles. pausing to rest for a moment,we could turn and see the entire valley outspread
below us. gradually the trail grew steeper,in spots pitched almost at a 50-degree angle, and was scattered with gravel, loose rockand shale, so that we placed our feet carefully, leaning forward to catch at handholds andsteady ourselves against rocks. i tested each boulder carefully, since any weight placedagainst an unsteady rock might dislodge it on somebody below. one of the darkovan brothers-vardo,i thought-was behind me, separated by ten or twelve feet of slack rope, and twice whenhis feet slipped on gravel he stumbled and gave me an unpleasant jerk. what he mutteredwas perfectly true; on slopes like this, where a fall wasn't dangerous anyhow, it was betterto work unroped; then a slip bothered no one but the slipper. but i was finding out whati wanted to know-what kind of climbers i
had to lead through the hellers. along a cliff face the trail narrowed horizontally,leading across a foot-wide ledge overhanging a sheer drop of fifty feet and covered withloose shale and scrub plants. nothing, of course, to an experienced climber-a foot-wideledge might as well be a four-lane superhighway. kendricks made a nervous joke about a tightropewalker, but when his turn came he picked his way securely, without losing balance. theamateurs-lerrys ridenow, regis, rafe-came across without hesitation, but i wonderedhow well they would have done at a less secure altitude; to a real mountaineer, a footpathis a footpath, whether in a meadow, above a two-foot drop, a thirty-foot ledge, or asheer mountain face three miles above the
first level spot. after crossing the ledge the going was harder.a steeper trail, in places nearly imperceptible, led between thick scrub and overhanging trees,thickly forested. in spots their twisted roots obscured the trail; in others the persistentgrowth had thrust aside rocks and dirt. we had to make our way through tangles of underbrushwhich would have been nothing to a trailman, but which made our ground-accustomed bodiesache with the effort of getting over or through them; and once the track was totally blockedby a barricade of tangled dead brushwood, borne down on floodwater after a sudden thawor cloud-burst. we had to work painfully around it over a three-hundred-foot rockslide, whichwe could cross only one at a time, crab-fashion,
leaning double to balance ourselves; and noone complained now about the rope. toward noon i had the first intimation thatwe were not alone on the slope. at first it was no more than a glimpse ofmotion out of the corner of my eyes, the shadow of a shadow. the fourth time i saw it, i calledsoftly to kyla: "see anything?" "i was beginning to think it was my eyes,or the altitude. i saw, jason." "look for a spot where we can take a break,"i directed. we climbed along a shallow ledge, the faint imperceptible flutters in the brushwoodclimbing with us on either side. i muttered to the girl, "i'll be glad when we get clearof this. at least we'll be able to see what's coming after us!"
"if it comes to a fight," she said surprisingly,"i'd rather fight on gravel than ice." over a rise, there was a roaring sound; kylaswung up and balanced on a rock-wedged tree root, cupped her mouth to her hands and called,"rapids!" i pulled myself up to the edge of the dropand stood looking down into the narrow gully. here the narrow track we had been followingwas crossed and obscured by the deep, roaring rapids of a mountain stream. less than twenty feet across, it tumbled inan icy flood, almost a waterfall, pitching over the lip of a crag above us. it had sliceda ravine five feet deep in the mountainside, and came roaring down with a rushing noisethat made my head vibrate. it looked formidable;
anyone stepping into it would be knocked offhis feet in seconds, and swept a thousand feet down the mountainside by the force ofthe current. rafe scrambled gingerly over the gullied lipof the channel it had cut, and bent carefully to scoop up water in his palm and drink. "phew,it's colder than zandru's ninth hell. must come straight down from a glacier!" it did. i remembered the trail and rememberedthe spot. kendricks joined me at the water's edge, and asked, "how do we get across?" "i'm not sure," i said, studying the racingwhite torrent. overhead, about twenty feet from where we clustered on the slope, thethick branches of enormous trees overhung
the rapids, their long roots partially bared,gnarled and twisted by recurrent floods; and between these trees swayed one of the queerswing-bridges of the trailmen, hanging only about ten feet above the water. even i had never learned to navigate one ofthese swing-bridges without assistance; human arms are no longer suited to brachiation.i might have managed it once; but at present, except as a desperate final expedient, itwas out of the question. rafe or lerrys, who were lightly built and acrobatic, could probablydo it as a simple stunt on the level, in a field; on a steep and rocky mountainside,where a fall might mean being dashed a thousand feet down the torrent, i doubted it. the trailmen'sbridge was out ... but what other choice was
there? i beckoned to kendricks, he being the mani was the most inclined to trust with my life at the moment, and said, "it looks uncrossable,but i think two men could get across, if they were steady on their feet. the others canhold us on ropes, in case we do get knocked down. if we can get to the opposite bank,we can stretch a fixed rope from that snub of rock-" i pointed, "and the others cancross with that. the first men over will be the only ones to run any risk. want to try?" the rope swung perilously, threateningto dash her on the rocks. i liked it better that he didn't answer rightaway, but went to the edge of the gully and
peered down the rocky chasm. doubtless, ifwe were knocked down, all seven of the others could haul us up again; but not before we'dbeen badly smashed on the rocks. and once again i caught that elusive shadow of movementin the brushwood; if the trailmen chose a moment when we were half-in, half-out of therapids, we'd be ridiculously vulnerable to attack. "we ought to be able to get a fixed rope easierthan that," hjalmar said, and took one of the spares from his rucksack. he coiled it,making a running loop on one end, and standing precariously on the lip of the rapids, sentit spinning toward the outcrop of rock we had chosen as a fixed point. "if i can getit over...."
the rope fell short, and hjalmar reeled itin and cast the loop again. he made three more unsuccessful tries before finally, withheld breath, we watched the noose settle over the rocky snub. gently, pulling the line taut,we watched it stretch above the rapids. the knot tightened, fastened. hjalmar grinnedand let out his breath. "there," he said, and jerked hard on the rope,testing it with a long hard pull. the rocky outcrop broke, with a sharp crack, split,and toppled entirely into the rapids, the sudden jerk almost pulling hjalmar off hisfeet. the boulder rolled, with a great bouncing splash, faster and faster down the mountain,taking the rope with it. we just stood and stared for a minute. hjalmarswore horribly, in the unprintable filth of
the mountain tongue, and his brothers joinedin. "how the devil was i to know the rock would split off?" "better for it to split now than when we weredepending on it," kyla said stolidly. "i have a better idea." she was untying herself fromthe rope as she spoke, and knotting one of the spares through her belt. she handed theother end of the rope to lerrys. "hold on to this," she said, and slipped out of herblankety windbreak, standing shivering in a thin sweater. she unstrapped her boots andtossed them to me. "now boost me on your shoulders, hjalmar." too late, i guessed her intention and shouted,"no, don't try-!" but she had already clambered
to an unsteady perch on the big darkovan'sshoulders and made a flying grab for the lowest loop of the trailmen's bridge. she hung there,swaying slightly and sickeningly, as the loose lianas gave to her weight. "hjalmar-lerrys-haul her down!" "i'm lighter than any of you," kyla calledshrilly, "and not hefty enough to be any use on the ropes!" her voice quavered somewhatas she added, "-and hang on to that rope, lerrys! if you lose it, i'll have done thisfor nothing!" she gripped the loop of vine and reached,with her free hand, for the next loop. now she was swinging out over the edge of theboiling rapids. tight-mouthed, i gestured
to the others to spread out slightly below-notthat anything would help her if she fell. hjalmar, watching as the woman gained thethird loop-which joggled horribly to her slight weight-shouted suddenly, "kyla, quick!the loop beyond-don't touch the next one! it's frayed-rotted through!" kyla brought her left hand up to her righton the third loop. she made a long reach, missed her grab, swung again, and clung, breathinghard, to the safe fifth loop. i watched, sick with dread. the damned girl should have toldme what she intended. kyla glanced down and we got a glimpse ofher face, glistening with the mixture of sunburn cream and sweat, drawn with effort. her tinyswaying figure hung twelve feet above the
white tumbling water, and if she lost hergrip, only a miracle could bring her out alive. she hung there for a minute, jiggling slightly,then started a long back-and-forward swing. on the third forward swing she made a longleap and grabbed at the final loop. it slipped through her fingers; she made awild grab with the other hand, and the liana dipped sharply under her weight, raced throughher fingers, and with a sharp snap, broke in two. she gave a wild shriek as it parted,and twisted her body frantically in mid-air, landing asprawl half-in, half-out of the rapids,but on the further bank. she hauled her legs up on dry land and crouched there, drenchedto the waist but safe. the darkovans were yelling in delight. i motionedto lerrys to make his end of the rope fast
around a hefty tree-root, and shouted, "areyou hurt?" she indicated in pantomime that the thundering of the water drowned words,and bent to belay her end of the rope. in sign-language i gestured to her to make verysure of the knots; if anyone slipped, she hadn't the weight to hold us. i hauled on the rope myself to test it, andit held fast. i slung her boots around my neck by their cords, then, gripping the fixedrope, kendricks and i stepped into the water. it was even icier than i expected, and myfirst step was nearly the last; the rush of the white water knocked me to my knees, andi floundered and would have measured my length except for my hands on the fixed rope. buckkendricks grabbed at me, letting go the rope
to do it, and i swore at him, raging, whilewe got on our feet again and braced ourselves against the onrushing current. while we struggledin the pounding waters, i admitted to myself; we could never have crossed without the ropekyla had risked her life to fix. shivering, we got across and hauled ourselvesout. i signalled to the others to cross two at a time, and kyla seized my elbow. "jason-" "later, dammit!" i had to shout to make myselfheard over the roaring water, as i held out a hand to help rafe get his footing on theledge. "this-can't-wait," she yelled, cuppingher hands and shouting into my ear. i turned on her. "what!"
"there are-trailmen-on the top level-ofthat bridge! i saw them! they cut the loop!" regis and hjalmar came struggling across last;regis, lightly-built, was swept off his feet and hjalmar turned to grab him, but i shoutedto him to keep clear-they were still roped together and if the ropes fouled we mightdrown someone. lerrys and i leaped down and hauled regis clear; he coughed, spitting icywater, drenched to the skin. i motioned to lerrys to leave the fixed rope,though i had little hope that it would be there when we returned, and looked quicklyaround, debating what to do. regis and rafe and i were wet clear through; the others towell above the knee. at this altitude, this was dangerous, although we were not yet highenough to worry about frostbite. trailmen
or no trailmen, we must run the lesser riskof finding a place where we could kindle a fire and dry out. "up there-there's a clearing," i said briefly,and hurried them along. part 3 it was hard climbing now, on rock, and therewere places where we had to scrabble for handholds, and flatten ourselves out against an almostsheer wall. the keen wind rose as we climbed higher, whining through the thick forest,soughing in the rocky outcrops, and biting through our soaked clothing with icy teeth.kendricks was having hard going now, and i helped him as much as i could, but i was achingwith cold. we gained the clearing, a small
bare spot on a lesser peak, and i directedthe two darkovan brothers who were the driest to gather dry brushwood and get a fire going.it was hardly near enough sunset to camp; but by the time we were dry enough to go onsafely, it would be, so i gave orders to get the tent up, then rounded angrily on kyla. "see here, another time don't try any dangeroustricks unless you're ordered to!" "go easy on her," regis hastur interceded,"we'd never have crossed without the fixed rope. good work, girl." "you keep out of this!" i snapped. it wastrue, yet resentment boiled in me as kyla's plain sullen face glowed under the praisefrom the hastur.
the fact was-i admitted it grudgingly-alightweight like kyla ran less risk on an acrobat's bridge than in that kind of roaringcurrent. that did not lessen my annoyance; and regis hastur's interference, and the foolishgrin on the girl's face, made me boil over. i wanted to question her further about thesight of trailmen on the bridge, but decided against it. we had been spared attack on therapids, so it wasn't impossible that a group, not hostile, was simply watching our progress-maybeeven aware that we were on a peaceful mission. but i didn't believe it for a minute. if iknew anything about the trailmen, it was this-one could not judge them by human standards atall. i tried to decide what i would have done, as a trailman, but my brain wouldn't run thatway at the moment.
the darkovan brothers had built up the firewith a thoroughly reckless disregard of watching eyes. it seemed to me that the morale andfitness of the shivering crew was of more value at the moment than caution; and aroundthe roaring fire, feeling my soaked clothes warming to the blaze and drinking boilinghot tea from a mug, it seemed that we were right. optimism reappeared; kyla, lettinghjalmar dress her hands which had been rubbed raw by the slipping lianas, made jokes withthe men about her feat of acrobatics. we had made camp on the summit of an outlyingarm of the main ridge of the hellers, and the whole massive range lay before our eyes,turned to a million colors in the declining sun. green and turquoise and rose, the mountainswere even more beautiful than i remembered.
the shoulder of the high slope we had justclimbed had obscured the real mountain massif from our sight, and i saw kendricks' eyeswiden as he realized that this high summit we had just mastered was only the first stepof the task which lay before us. the real ridge rose ahead, thickly forested on thelower slopes, then strewn with rock and granite like the landscape of an airless, desertedmoon. and above the rock, there were straight walls capped with blinding snow and ice. downone peak a glacier flowed, a waterfall, a cascade shockingly arrested in motion. i murmuredthe trailman's name for the mountain, aloud, and translated it for the others: "the wall around the world."
"good name for it," lerrys murmured, comingwith his mug in his hand to look at the mountain. "jason, the big peak there has never beenclimbed, has it?" "i can't remember." my teeth were chatteringand i went back toward the fire. regis surveyed the distant glacier and murmured, "it doesn'tlook too bad. there could be a route along that western arãªte-hjalmar, weren't youwith the expedition that climbed and mapped high kimbi?" the giant nodded, rather proudly. "we gotwithin a hundred feet of the top, then a snowstorm came up and we had to turn back. some daywe'll tackle the wall around the world-it's been tried, but no one ever climbed the peak."
"no one ever will," lerrys stated positively,"there's two hundred feet of sheer rock cliff, prince regis, you'd need wings to get up.and there's the avalanche ledge they call hell's alley-" kendricks broke in irritably, "i don't carewhether it's ever been climbed or ever will be climbed, we're not going to climb it now!"he stared at me and added, "i hope!" "we're not." i was glad of the interruption.if the youngsters and amateurs wanted to amuse themselves plotting hypothetical attacks onunclimbable sierras, that was all very well, but it was, if nothing worse, a great wasteof time. i showed kendricks a notch in the ridge, thousands of feet lower than the peaks,and well-sheltered from the icefalls on either
side. "that's dammerung; we're going through there.we won't be on the mountain at all, and it's less than 22,000 feet high in the pass-althoughthere are some bad ledges and washes. we'll keep clear of the main tree-roads if we can,and all the mapped trailmen's villages, but we may run into wandering bands-" abruptlyi made my decision and gestured them around "from this point," i broke the news, "we'reliable to be attacked. kyla, tell them what you saw." she put down her mug. her face was seriousagain, as she related what she had seen on the bridge. "we're on a peaceful mission,but they don't know that yet. the thing to
remember is that they do not wish to kill,only to wound and rob. if we show fight-" she displayed a short ugly knife, which shetucked matter-of-factly into her shirt-front, "they will run away again." lerrys loosened a narrow dagger which untilthis moment i had thought purely ornamental. he said, "mind if i say something more, jason?i remember from the 'narr campaign-the trailmen fight at close quarters, and by human standardsthey fight dirty." he looked around fiercely, his unshaven face glinting as he grinned."one more thing. i like elbow room. do we have to stay roped together when we startout again?" i thought it over. his enthusiasm for a fightmade me feel both annoyed and curiously delighted.
"i won't make anyone stay roped who thinkshe'd be safer without it," i said, "we'll decide that when the time comes, anyway. butpersonally-the trailmen are used to running along narrow ledges, and we're not. theirfirst tactic would probably be to push us off, one by one. if we're roped, we can fendthem off better." i dismissed the subject, adding, "just now, the important thing isto dry out." kendricks remained at my side after the othershad gathered around the fire, looking into the thick forest which sloped up to our campsite.he said, "this place looks as if it had been used for a camp before. aren't we just asvulnerable to attack here as we would be anywhere else?"
he had hit on the one thing i hadn't wantedto talk about. this clearing was altogether too convenient. i only said, "at least therearen't so many ledges to push us off." kendricks muttered, "you've got the only blaster!" "i left it at carthon," i said truthfully.then i laid down the law: "listen, buck. if we kill a single trailman,except in hand-to-hand fight in self-defense, we might as well pack up and go home. we'reon a peaceful mission, and we're begging a favor. even if we're attacked-we kill onlyas a last resort, and in hand-to-hand combat!" "damned primitive frontier planet-" "would you rather die of the trailmen's disease?"
he said savagely, "we're apt to catch it anyway-here.you're immune, you don't care, you're safe! the rest of us are on a suicide mission-anddamn it, when i die i want to take a few of those monkeys with me!" i bent my head, bit my lip and said nothing.buck couldn't be blamed for the way he felt. after a moment i pointed to the notch in theridge again. "it's not so far. once we get through dammerung, it's easy going into thetrailmen's city. beyond there, it's all civilized." "maybe you call it civilization," kendrickssaid, and turned away. "come on, let's finish drying our feet." and at that moment they hit us.
kendricks' yell was the only warning i hadbefore i was fighting away something scrabbling up my back. i whirled and ripped the creatureaway, and saw dimly that the clearing was filled to the rim with an explosion of furrywhite bodies. i cupped my hands and yelled, in the only trailman dialect i knew, "holdoff! we come in peace!" one of them yelled something unintelligibleand plunged at me-another tribe! i saw a white-furred, chinless face, contorted inrage, a small ugly knife-a female! i ripped out my own knife, fending away a savage slash.something tore white-hot across the knuckles of my hand; the fingers went limp and my knifefell, and the trailman woman snatched it up and made off with her prize, swinging lithelyupward into the treetops.
i searched quickly, gripped with my good handat the bleeding knuckles, and found regis hastur struggling at the edge of a ledge witha pair of the creatures. the crazy thought ran through my mind that if they killed himall darkover would rise and exterminate the trailmen and it would all be my fault. thenregis tore one hand free, and made a curious motion with his fingers. it looked like an immense green spark a footlong, or like a fireball. it exploded in one creature's white face and she gave a wildhowl of terror and anguish, scrabbled blindly at her eyes, and with a despairing shriek,ran for the shelter of the trees. the pack of trailmen gave a long formless wail, andthen they were gathering, flying, retreating
into the shadows. rafe yelled something obsceneand then a bolt of bluish flame lanced toward the retreating pack. one of the humanoidsfell without a cry, pitching senseless over the ledge. i ran toward rafe, struggling with him forthe shocker he had drawn from its hiding-place inside his shirt. "you blind damned fool!"i cursed him, "you may have ruined everything-" "they'd have killed him without it," he retortedwrathfully. he had evidently failed to see how efficiently regis defended himself. rafemotioned toward the fleeing pack and sneered, "why don't you go with your friends?" with a grip i thought i had forgotten, i gotmy hand around rafe's knuckles and squeezed.
his hand went limp and i snatched the shockerand pitched it over the ledge. "one word and i'll pitch you after it," iwarned. "who's hurt?" garin was blinking senselessly, half-dazedby a blow; regis' forehead had been gashed and dripped blood, and hjalmar's thigh slicedin a clean cut. my own knuckles were laid bare and the hand was getting numb. it wasa little while before anybody noticed kyla, crouched over speechless with pain. she reeledand turned deathly white when we touched her; we stretched her out where she was, and gother shirt off, and kendricks crowded up beside us to examine the wound. "a clean cut," he said, but i didn't hear.something had turned over inside me, like
a hand stirring up my brain, and.... jay allison looked around with a gasp of suddenvertigo. he was not in forth's office, but standing precariously near the edge of a cliff.he shut his eyes briefly, wondering if he were having one of his worst nightmares, andopened them on a familiar face. buck kendricks was bone-white, his mouth wideningas he said hoarsely, "jay! doctor allison-for god's sake-" a doctor's training creates reactions thatare almost reflexes; jay allison recovered some degree of sanity as he became aware thatsomeone was stretched out in front of him, half-naked, and bleeding profusely. he motionedaway the crowding strangers and said in his
bad darkovan, "let her alone, this is my work."he didn't know enough words to curse them away, so he switched to terran, speaking tokendricks: "buck, get these people away, give the patientsome air. where's my surgical case?" he bent and probed briefly, realizing only now thatthe injured was a woman, and young. the wound was only a superficial laceration;whatever sharp instrument had inflicted it, had turned on the costal bone without penetratinglung tissue. it could have been sutured, but kendricks handed him only a badly-filled first-aidkit; so dr. allison covered it tightly with a plastic clip-shield which would seal itfrom further bleeding, and let it alone. by the time he had finished, the strange girlhad begun to stir. she said haltingly, "jason-?"
"dr. allison," he corrected tersely, surprisedin a minor way-the major surprise had blurred lesser ones-that she knew his name. kendricksspoke swiftly to the girl, in one of the darkovan languages jay didn't understand, and thendrew jay aside, out of earshot. he said in a shaken voice, "jay, i didn't know-i wouldn'thave believed-you're doctor allison? good lord-jason!" and then he moved fast. "what's the matter?oh, hell, jay, don't faint on me!" jay was aware that he didn't come out of ittoo bravely, but anyone who blamed him (he thought resentfully) should try it on forsize; going to sleep in a comfortably closed-in office and waking up on a cliff at the outeredges of nowhere. his hand hurt; he saw that
it was bleeding and flexed it experimentally,trying to determine that no tendons had been injured. he rapped, "how did this happen?" "sir, keep your voice down-or speak darkovan!" jay blinked again. kendricks was still theonly familiar thing in a strangely vertiginous universe. the spaceforce man said huskily."before heaven, jay, i hadn't any idea-and i've known you how long? eight, nine years?" jay said, "that idiot forth!" and swore, thecolorless profanity of an indoor man. somebody shouted, "jason!" in an imperativevoice, and kendricks said shakily, "jay, if they see you-you literally are not the sameman!"
"obviously not." jay looked at the tent, onepole still unpitched. "anyone in there?" "not yet." kendricks almost shoved him inside."i'll tell them-i'll tell them something." he took a radiant from his pocket, set itdown and stared at allison in the flickering light, and said something profane. "you'll-you'llbe all right here?" jay nodded. it was all he could manage. hewas keeping a tight hold on his nerve; if it went, he'd start to rave like a madman.a little time passed, there were strange noises outside, and then there was a polite coughand a man walked into the tent. he was obviously a darkovan aristocrat andlooked vaguely familiar, though jay had no conscious memory of seeing him before. talland slender, he possessed that perfect and
exquisite masculine beauty sometimes seenamong darkovans, and he spoke to jay familiarly but with surprising courtesy: "i have told them you are not to be disturbedfor a moment, that your hand is worse than we believed. a surgeon's hands are delicatethings, doctor allison, and i hope that yours are not badly injured. will you let me look?" jay allison drew back his hand automatically,then, conscious of the churlishness of the gesture, let the stranger take it in his andlook at the fingers. the man said, "it does not seem serious. i was sure it was somethingmore than that." he raised grave eyes. "you don't even remember my name, do you, dr. allison?"
"you know who i am?" "dr. forth didn't tell me. but we hastursare partly telepathic, jason-forgive me-doctor allison. i have known from the first thatyou were possessed by a god or daemon." "superstitious rubbish," jay snapped. "typicalof a darkovan!" "it is a convenient manner of speaking, nomore," said the young hastur, overlooking the rudeness. "i suppose i could learn yourterminology, if i considered it worth the effort. i have had psi training, and i cantell the difference when half of a man's soul has driven out the other half. perhaps i canrestore you to yourself-" "if you think i'd have some darkovan freakmeddling with my mind-" jay began hotly,
then stopped. under regis' grave eyes, hefelt a surge of unfamiliar humility. this crew of men needed their leader, and obviouslyhe, jay allison, wasn't the leader they needed. he covered his eyes with one hand. regis bent and put a hand on his shoulder,compassionately, but jay twitched it off, and his voice, when he found it, was bitterand defensive and cold. "all right. the work's the thing. i can'tdo it, jason can. you're a parapsych. if you can switch me off-go right ahead!" i stared at regis, passing a hand across myforehead. "what happened?" i demanded, and in even swifter apprehension, "where's kyla?she was hurt-"
"kyla's all right," regis said, but i gotup quickly to make sure. kyla was outside, lying quite comfortably on a roll of blankets.she was propped on her elbow drinking something hot, and there was a good smell of hot foodin the air. i stared at regis and demanded, "i didn't conk out, did i, from a little scratchlike this?" i looked carelessly at my gashed hand. "wait-" regis held me back, "don't go outjust yet. do you remember what happened, doctor allison?" i stared in growing horror, my worst fearconfirmed. regis said quietly, "you-changed. probably from the shock of seeing-" he stoppedin mid-sentence, and i said, "the last thing
i remember is seeing that kyla was bleeding,when we got her clothes off. but-good gods, a little blood wouldn't scare me, and jayallison's a surgeon, would it bring him roaring up like that?" "i couldn't say." regis looked as if he knewmore than he was telling. "i don't believe that dr. allison-he's not much like you-wasvery concerned with kyla. are you?" "damn right i am. i want to make sure she'sall right-" i stopped abruptly. "regis-did they all see it?" "only kendricks and i," regis said, "and wewill not speak of it." i said, "thanks," and felt his reassuringhand-clasp. damn it, demigod or prince, i
liked regis. i went out and accepted some food from thekettle and sat down between kyla and kendricks to eat. i was shaken, weak with reaction.furthermore, i realized that we couldn't stay here. it was too vulnerable to attack. so,in our present condition, were we. if we could push on hard enough to get near dammerungpass tonight, then tomorrow we could cross it early, before the sun warmed the snow andwe had snowslides and slush to deal with. beyond dammerung, i knew the tribesmen andcould speak their language. i mentioned this, and kendricks looked doubtfullyat kyla. "can she climb?" "can she stay here?" i countered. but i wentand sat beside her anyhow.
"how badly are you hurt? do you think youcan travel?" she said fiercely, "of course i can climb!i tell you, i'm no weak girl, i'm a free amazon!" she flung off the blanket somebody had tuckedaround her legs. her lips looked a little pinched, but the long stride was steady asshe walked to the fire and demanded more soup. we struck the camp in minutes. the trailmenband of raiding females had snatched up almost everything portable, and there was no sensein striking and caching the tent; they'd return and hunt it out. if we came back with a trailmenescort, we wouldn't need it anyway. i ordered them to leave everything but the lightestgear, and examined each remaining rucksack. rations for the night we would spend in thepass, our few remaining blankets, ropes, sunglasses.
everything else i ruthlessly ordered leftbehind. it was harder going now. for one thing, thesun was lowering, and the evening wind was icy. nearly everyone of us had some hurt,slight in itself, which hindered us in climbing. kyla was white and rigid, but did not spareherself; kendricks was suffering severely from mountain sickness at this altitude, andi gave him all the help i could, but with my stiffening slashed hand i wasn't havingtoo easy a time myself. there was one expanse that was sheer rock-climbing,flattened like bugs against a wall, scrabbling for hand-holds and footholds. i felt it apoint of pride to lead, and i led; but by the time we had climbed the thirty-foot wall,and scrambled along a ledge to where we could
pick up the trail again, i was ready to giveover. crowding together on the ledge, i changed places with the veteran lerrys, who was betterthan most professional climbers. he muttered, "i thought you said this wasa trail!" i stretched my mouth in what was supposedto be a grin and didn't quite make it. "for the trailmen, this is a superhighway. andno one else ever comes this way." now we climbed slowly over snow; once or twicewe had to flounder through drifts, and once a brief bitter snowstorm blotted out sightfor twenty minutes, while we hugged each other on the ledge, clinging wildly against windand icy sleet. we bivouacked that night in a crevasse blownalmost clean of snow, well above the tree-line,
where only scrubby unkillable thornbushesclustered. we tore down some of them and piled them up as a windbreak, and bedded beneathit; but we all thought with aching regret of the comfort of the camp gear we'd abandoned.the going had gotten good and rough. that night remains in my mind as one of themost miserable in memory. except for the slight ringing in my ears, the height alone did notbother me, but the others did not fare so well. most of the men had blinding headaches,kyla's slashed side must have given her considerable pain, and kendricks had succumbed to mountain-sicknessin its most agonizing form: severe cramps and vomiting. i was desperately uneasy aboutall of them, but there was nothing i could do; the only cure for mountain-sickness isoxygen or a lower altitude, neither of which
was practical. in the windbreak we doubled up, sharing blanketsand body warmth: i took a last look around the close space before crawling in besidekendricks, and saw the girl bedding down slightly apart from the others. i started to say something,but kendricks spoke, first. voicing my thoughts. "better crawl in with us, girl." he added,coldly but not unkindly, "you needn't worry about any funny stuff." kyla gave me just the flicker of a grin, andi realized she was including me on the darkovan side of a joke against this big man who wasso unaware of darkovan etiquette. but her voice was cool and curt as she said, "i'mnot worrying," and loosened her heavy coat
slightly before creeping into the nest ofblankets between us. it was painfully cramped, and chilly in spiteof the self-heating blankets; we crowded close together and kyla's head rested on my shoulder.i felt her snuggle closely to me, half asleep, hunting for a warm place; and i found myselfvery much aware of her closeness, curiously grateful to her. an ordinary woman would haveprotested, if only as a matter of form, sharing blankets with two strange men. i realizedthat if kyla had refused to crawl in with us, she would have called attention to hersex much more than she did by matter-of-factly behaving as if she were, in fact, male. she shivered convulsively, and i whispered,"side hurting? are you cold?"
"a little. it's been a long time since i'vebeen at these altitudes, too. what it really is-i can't get those women out of my head." kendricks coughed, moving uncomfortably. "idon't understand-those creatures who attacked us-all women-?" i explained briefly. "among the people ofthe sky, as everywhere, more females are born than males. but the trailmen's lives are sobalanced that they have no room for extra females within the nests-the cities. sowhen a girl child of the sky people reaches womanhood, the other women drive her out ofthe city with kicks and blows, and she has to wander in the forest until some male comesafter her and claims her and brings her back
as his own. then she can never be driven forthagain, although if she bears no children she can be forced to be a servant to his otherwives." kendricks made a little sound of disgust. "you think it cruel," kyla said with suddenpassion, "but in the forest they can live and find their own food; they will not starveor die. many of them prefer the forest life to living in the nests, and they will fightaway any male who comes near them. we who call ourselves human often make less provisionfor our spare women." she was silent, sighing as if with pain. kendricksmade no reply except a non-committal grunt. i held myself back by main force from touchingkyla, remembering what she was, and finally
said, "we'd better quit talking. the otherswant to sleep, if we don't." after a time i heard kendricks snoring, andkyla's quiet even breaths. i wondered drowsily how jay would have felt about this situation-hewho hated darkover and avoided contact with every other human being, crowded between adarkovan free-amazon and half a dozen assorted roughnecks. i turned the thought off, fearingit might somehow re-arouse him in his brain. but i had to think of something, anythingto turn aside this consciousness of the woman's head against my chest, her warm breath comingand going against my bare neck. only by the severest possible act of will did i keep myselffrom slipping my hand over her breasts, warm and palpable through the thin sweater, i wonderedwhy forth had called me undisciplined. i couldn't
risk my leadership by making advances to ourcontracted guide-woman, amazon or whatever! somehow the girl seemed to be the pivot pointof all my thoughts. she was not part of the terran hq, she was not part of any world jayallison might have known. she belonged wholly to jason, to my world. between sleep and waking,i lost myself in a dream of skimming flight-wise along the tree roads, chasing the distantform of a girl driven from the nest that day with blows and curses. somewhere in the leavesi would find her ... and we would return to the city, her head garlanded with the redleaves of a chosen-one, and the same women who had stoned her forth would crowd aboutand welcome her when she returned. the fleeing woman looked over her shoulder with kyla'seyes; and then the woman's form muted and
dr. forth was standing between us in the tree-road,with the caduceus emblem on his coat stretched like a red staff between us. kendricks inhis spaceforce uniform was threatening us with a blaster, and regis hastur was suddenlywearing space service uniform too and saying, "jay allison, jay allison," as the tree-roadsplintered and cracked beneath our feet and we were tumbling down the waterfall and downand down and down.... "wake up!" kyla whispered, and dug an elbowinto my side. i opened my eyes on crowded blackness, grasping at the vanishing nightmare."what's the matter?" "you were moaning. touch of altitude sickness?" i grunted, realized my arm was around hershoulder, and pulled it quickly away. after
awhile i slept again, fitfully. before light we crawled wearily out of thebivouac, cramped and stiff and not rested, but ready to get out of this and go on. thesnow was hard, in the dim light, and the trail not difficult here. after all the troubleon the lower slopes, i think even the amateurs had lost their desire for adventurous climbing;we were all just as well pleased that the actual crossing of dammerung should be ananticlimax and uneventful. the sun was just rising when we reached thepass, and we stood for a moment, gathered close together, in the narrow defile betweenthe great summits to either side. hjalmar gave the peaks a wistful look.
"wish we could climb them." regis grinned at him companionably. "sometime-andyou have the word of a hastur, you'll be along on that expedition." the big fellows' eyesglowed. regis turned to me, and said warmly, "what about it, jason? a bargain? shall weall climb it together, next year?" i started to grin back and then some bleakblack devil surged up in me, raging. when this was over, i'd suddenly realized, i wouldn'tbe there. i wouldn't be anywhere. i was a surrogate, a substitute, a splinter of jayallison, and when it was over, forth and his tactics would put me back into what they consideredmy rightful place-which was nowhere. i'd never climb a mountain except now, when wewere racing against time and necessity. i
set my mouth in an unaccustomed narrow lineand said, "we'll talk about that when we get back-if we ever do. now i suggest we getgoing. some of us would like to get down to lower altitudes." the trail down from dammerung inside the ridge,unlike the outside trail, was clear and well-marked, and we wound down the slope, walking in easysingle file. as the mist thinned and we left the snow-line behind, we saw what looked likea great green carpet, interspersed with shining colors which were mere flickers below us.i pointed them out. "the treetops of the north forest-and thecolors you see are in the streets of the trailcity." an hour's walking brought us to the edge ofthe forest. we travelled swiftly now, forgetting
our weariness, eager to reach the city beforenightfall. it was quiet in the forest, almost ominously still. over our head somewhere,in the thick branches which in places shut out the sunlight completely, i knew that thetree-roads ran crisscross, and now and again i heard some rustle, a fragment of sound,a voice, a snatch of song. "it's so dark down here," rafe muttered, "anyoneliving in this forest would have to live in the treetops, or go totally blind!" kendricks whispered to me, "are we being followed?are they going to jump us?" "i don't think so. what you hear are justthe inhabitants of the city-going about their daily business up there."
"queer business it must be," regis said curiously,and as we walked along the mossy, needly forest floor, i told him something of the trailmen'slives. i had lost my fear. if anyone came at us now, i could speak their language, icould identify myself, tell my business, name my foster-parents. some of my confidence evidentlyspread to the others. but as we came into more and more familiarterritory, i stopped abruptly and struck my hand against my forehead. "i knew we had forgotten something!" i saidroughly, "i've been away from here too long, that's all. kyla." "what about kyla?"
the girl explained it herself, in her expressionlessmonotone. "i am an unattached female. such women are not permitted in the nests." "that's easy, then," lerrys said. "she mustbelong to one of us." he didn't add a syllable. no one could have expected it; darkovan aristocratsdon't bring their women on trips like this, and their women are not like kyla. the three brothers broke into a spate of volunteering,and rafe made an obscene suggestion. kyla scowled obstinately, her mouth tight withwhat could have been embarrassment or rage. "if you believe i need your protection-!" "kyla," i said tersely, "is under my protection.she will be introduced as my woman-and treated
as such." rafe twisted his mouth in an un-funny smile."i see the leader keeps all the best for himself?" my face must have done something i didn'tknow about, for rafe backed slowly away. i forced myself to speak slowly: "kyla is aguide, and indispensable. if anything happens to me, she is the only one who can lead youback. therefore her safety is my personal affair. understand?" as we went along the trail, the vague greenlight disappeared. "we're right below the trailcity," i whispered, and pointed upward.all around us the hundred trees rose, branchless pillars so immense that four men, hands joined,could not have encircled one with their arms.
they stretched upward for some three hundredfeet, before stretching out their interweaving branches; above that, nothing was visiblebut blackness. yet the grove was not dark, but lighted withthe startlingly brilliant phosphorescence of the fungi growing on the trunks, and trimmedinto bizarre ornamental shapes. in cages of transparent fibre, glowing insects as largeas a hand hummed softly and continuously. as i watched, a trailman-quite naked exceptfor an ornate hat and a narrow binding around the loins-descended the trunk. he went fromcage to cage, feeding the glow-worms with bits of shining fungus from a basket on hisarm. i called to him in his own language, and hedropped the basket, with an exclamation, his
spidery thin body braced to flee or to raisean alarm. "but i belong to the nest," i called to him,and gave him the names of my foster-parents. he came toward me, gripping my forearm withwarm long fingers in a gesture of greeting. "jason? yes, i hear them speak of you," hesaid in his gentle twittering voice, "you are at home. but those others-?" he gesturednervously at the strange faces. "my friends," i assured him, "and we cometo beg the old one for an audience. for tonight i seek shelter with my parents, if they willreceive us." he raised his head and called softly, anda slim child bounded down the trunk and took the basket. the trailman said, "i am carrho.perhaps it would be better if i guided you
to your foster-parents, so you will not bechallenged." i breathed more freely. i did not personallyrecognize carrho, but he looked pleasantly familiar. guided by him, we climbed one byone up the dark stairway inside the trunk, and emerged into the bright square, shadedby the topmost leaves into a delicate green twilight. i felt weary and successful. kendricks stepped gingerly on the swaying,jiggling floor of the square. it gave slightly at every step, and kendricks swore moroselyin a language that fortunately only rafe and i understood. curious trailmen flocked tothe street and twittered welcome and surprise. rafe and kendricks betrayed considerable contemptwhen i greeted my foster-parents affectionately.
they were already old, and i was saddenedto see it; their fur graying, their prehensile toes and fingers crooked with a rheumaticcomplaint of some sort, their reddish eyes bleared and rheumy. they welcomed me, andmade arrangements for the others in my party to be housed in an abandoned house nearby... they had insisted that i, of course, must return to their roof, and kyla, of course,had to stay with me. "couldn't we camp on the ground instead?"kendricks asked, eying the flimsy shelter with distaste. "it would offend our hosts," i said firmly.i saw nothing wrong with it. roofed with woven bark, carpeted with moss which was plantedon the floor, the place was abandoned, somewhat
a bit musty, but weathertight and seemed comfortableto me. the first thing to be done was to despatcha messenger to the old one, begging the favor of an audience with him. that done, (by oneof my foster-brothers), we settled down to a meal of buds, honey, insects and birds eggs!it tasted good to me, with the familiarity of food eaten in childhood, but among theothers, only kyla ate with appetite and regis hastur with interested curiosity. after the demands of hospitality had beensatisfied, my foster-parents asked the names of my party, and i introduced them one byone. when i named regis hastur, it reduced them to brief silence, and then to an outcry;gently but firmly, they insisted that their
home was unworthy to shelter the son of ahastur, and that he must be fittingly entertained at the royal nest of the old one. there was no gracious way for regis to protest,and when the messenger returned, he prepared to accompany him. but before leaving, he drewme aside: "i don't much like leaving the rest of you-" "you'll be safe enough." "it's not that i'm worried about, dr. allison." "call me jason," i corrected angrily. regissaid, with a little tightening of his mouth, "that's it. you'll have to be dr. allisontomorrow when you tell the old one about your
mission. but you have to be the jason he knows,too." "so-?" "i wish i needn't leave here. i wish you were-goingto stay with the men who know you only as jason, instead of being alone-or only withkyla." there was something odd in his face, and iwondered at it. could he-a hastur-be jealous of kyla? jealous of me? it had never occurredto me that he might be somehow attracted to kyla. i tried to pass it off lightly: "kyla might divert me." regis said without emphasis, "yet she broughtdr. allison back once before." then, surprisingly,
he laughed. "or maybe you're right. maybekyla will-scare away dr. allison if he shows up." the coals of the dying fire laid strange tintsof color on kyla's face and shoulders and the wispy waves of her dark hair. now thatwe were alone, i felt constrained. "can't you sleep, jason?" i shook my head. "better sleep while you can."i felt that this night of all nights i dared not close my eyes or when i woke i would havevanished into the jay allison i hated. for a moment i saw the room with his eyes; tohim it would not seem cosy and clean, but-habituated to white sterile tile, terran rooms and corridors-dirtyand unsanitary as any beast's den.
kyla said broodingly, "you're a strange man,jason. what sort of man are you-in terra's world?" i laughed, but there was no mirth in it. suddenlyi had to tell her the whole truth: "kyla, the man you know as me doesn't exist.i was created for this one specific task. once it's finished, so am i." she started, her eyes widening. "i've heardtales of-of the terrans and their sciences-that they make men who aren't real, men of metal-notbone and flesh-" before the dawning of that naive horror iquickly held out my bandaged hand, took her fingers in mine and ran them over it. "isthis metal? no, no, kyla. but the man you
know as jason-i won't be him, i'll be someonedifferent-" how could i explain a subsidiary personality to kyla, when i didn't understandit myself? she kept my fingers in hers softly and said,"i saw-someone else-looking from your eyes at me once. a ghost." i shook my head savagely. "to the terrans,i'm the ghost!" "poor ghost," she whispered. her pity stung. i didn't want it. "what i don't remember i can't regret. probablyi won't even remember you." but i lied. i knew that although i forgot everything else,unregretting because unremembered, i could
not bear to lose this girl, that my ghostwould walk restless forever if i forgot her. i looked across the fire at kyla, cross-leggedin the faint light-only a few coals in the brazier. she had removed her sexless outerclothing, and wore some clinging garment, as simple as a child's smock and curiouslyappealing. there was still a little ridge of bandage visible beneath it and a randommemory, not mine, remarked in the back corners of my brain that with the cut improperly suturedthere would be a visible scar. visible to whom? she reached out an appealing hand. "jason!jason-?" part 4
my self-possession deserted me. i felt asif i stood, small and reeling, under a great empty echoing chamber which was jay allison'smind, and that the roof was about to fall in on me. kyla's image flickered in and outof focus, first infinitely gentle and appealing, then-as if seen at the wrong end of a telescope-faraway and sharply incised and as remote and undesirable as any bug underneath a lens. her hands closed on my shoulders. i put outa groping hand to push her away. "jason," she implored, "don't-go away fromme like that! talk to me, tell me!" but her words reached me through emptiness....i knew important things might hang on tomorrow's meeting, jason alone could come through thatmeeting, where the terrans for some reason
put him through this hell and damnation andtorture ... oh, yes ... the trailmen's fever. jay allison pushed the girl's hand away andscowled savagely, trying to collect his thoughts and concentrate them on what he must say anddo, to convince the trailmen of their duty toward the rest of the planet. as if they-noteven human-could have a sense of duty! with an unaccustomed surge of emotion, hewished he were with the others. kendricks, now. jay knew, precisely, why forth had sentthe big, reliable spaceman at his back. and that handsome, arrogant darkovan-where washe? jay looked at the girl in puzzlement; he didn't want to reveal that he wasn't quitesure of what he was saying or doing, or that he had little memory of what jason had beenup to.
he started to ask, "where did the hastur kidgo?" before a vagrant logical thought told him that such an important guest would havebeen lodged with the old one. then a wave of despair hit him; jay realized he did noteven speak the trailmen's language, that it had slipped from his thoughts completely. she felt a touch of panic. he was leavingher again. "you-" he fished desperately for the girl'sname, "kyla. you don't speak the trailmen's language, do you?" "a few words. no more. why?" she had withdrawninto a corner of the tiny room-still not far from him-and he wondered remotely whathis damned alter ego had been up to. with
jason, there was no telling. jay raised hiseyes with a melancholy smile. "sit down, child. you needn't be frightened." "i'm-i'm trying to understand-" the girltouched him again, evidently trying to conquer her terror. "it isn't easy-when you turninto someone else under my eyes-" jay saw that she was shaking in real fright. he said wearily, "i'm not going to-to turninto a bat and fly away. i'm just a poor devil of a doctor who's gotten himself into oneunholy mess." there was no reason, he was thinking, to take out his own misery and despairby shouting at this poor kid. god knew what she'd been through with his irresponsibleother self-forth had admitted that that
damned "jason" personality was a blend ofall the undesirable traits he'd fought to smother all his life. by an effort of willhe kept himself from pulling away from her hand on his shoulder. "jason, don't-slip away like that! think!try to keep hold on yourself!" jay propped his head in his hands, tryingto make sense of that. certainly in the dim light she could not be too conscious of subtlechanges of expression. she evidently thought she was talking to jason. she didn't seemto be overly intelligent. "think about tomorrow, jason. what are yougoing to say to him? think about your parents-" jay allison wondered what they would thinkwhen they found a stranger here. he felt like
a stranger. yet he must have come, tonight,into this house and spoken-he rummaged desperately in his mind for some fragments of the trailmen'slanguage. he had spoken it as a child. he must recall enough to speak to the woman whohad been a kind foster-mother to her alien son. he tried to form his lips to the unfamiliarshapes of words ... jay covered his face with his hands again.jason was the part of himself that remembered the trailmen. that was what he had to remember-jasonwas not a hostile stranger, not an alien intruder in his body. jason was a lost part of himselfand at the moment a damn necessary part. if there were only some way to get back the jasonmemories, skills, without losing himself ... he said to the girl, "let me think. let me-"to his surprise and horror his voice broke
into an alien tongue, "let me alone, willyou?" maybe, jay thought, i could stay myself ifi could remember the rest. dr. forth said: jason would remember the trailmen with kindness,not dislike. jay searched his memory and found nothingbut familiar frustration; years spent in an alien land, apart from a human heritage, strandedand abandoned. my father left me. he crashed the plane and i never saw him again and ihate him for leaving me ... but his father had not abandoned him. he hadcrashed the plane trying to save them both. it was no one's fault- except my father's. for trying to fly overthe hellers into a country where no man belongs
... he hadn't belonged. and yet the trailmen,whom he considered little better than roaming beasts, had taken the alien child into theircity, their homes, their hearts. they had loved him. and he ... "and i loved them," i found myself sayinghalf aloud, then realized that kyla was gripping my arm, looking up imploringly into my face.i shook my head rather groggily. "what's the matter?" "you frightened me," she said in a shaky littlevoice, and i suddenly knew what had happened. i tensed with savage rage against jay allison.he couldn't even give me the splinter of life
i'd won for myself, but had to come sneakingout of my mind, how he must hate me! not half as much as i hated him, damn him! along witheverything else, he'd scared kyla half to death! she was kneeling very close to me, and i realizedthat there was one way to fight that cold austere fish of a jay allison, send him shriekingdown into hell again. he was a man who hated everything except the cold world he'd madehis life. kyla's face was lifted, soft and intent and pleading, and suddenly i reachedout and pulled her to me and kissed her, hard. "could a ghost do this?" i demanded, "or this?" she whispered, "no-oh, no," and her armswent up to lock around my neck. as i pulled
her down on the sweet-smelling moss that carpetedthe chamber, i felt the dark ghost of my other self thin out, vanish and disappear. regis had been right. it had been the onlyway ... the old one was not old at all; the titlewas purely ceremonial. this one was young-not much older than i-but he had poise and dignityand the same strange indefinable quality i had recognized in regis hastur. it was something,i supposed, that the terran empire had lost in spreading from star to star. a feelingof knowing one's own place, a dignity that didn't demand recognition because it had neverlacked for it. like all trailmen he had the chinless faceand lobeless ears, the heavy-haired body which
looked slightly less than human. he spokevery low-the trailmen have very acute hearing-and i had to strain my ears to listen, and rememberto keep my own voice down. he stretched his hand to me, and i loweredmy head over it and murmured, "i take submission, old one." "never mind that," he said in his gentle twitteringvoice, "sit down, my son. you are welcome here, but i feel you have abused our trustin you. we dismissed you to your own kind because we felt you would be happier so. didwe show you anything but kindness, that after so many years you return with armed men?" the reproof in his red eyes was hardly anauspicious beginning. i said helplessly, "old
one, the men with me are not armed. a bandof those-who-may-not-enter-cities attacked us, and we defended ourselves. i travelledwith so many men only because i feared to travel the passes alone." "but does that explain why you have returnedat all?" the reason and reproach in his voice made sense. finally i said, "old one, we come as suppliants.my people appeal to your people in the hope that you will be-" i started to say, ashuman, stopped and amended "-that you will deal as kindly with them as with me." his face betrayed nothing. "what do you ask?"
i explained. i told it badly, stumbling, notknowing the technical terms, knowing they had no equivalents anyway in the trailmen'slanguage. he listened, asking a penetrating question now and again. when i mentioned theterran legate's offer to recognize the trailmen as a separate and independent government,he frowned and rebuked me: "we of the sky people have no dealings withthe terrans, and care nothing for their recognition-or its lack." for that i had no answer, and the old onecontinued, kindly but indifferently, "we do not like to think that the fever which isa children's little sickness with us shall kill so many of your kind. but you cannotin all honesty blame us. you cannot say that
we spread the disease; we never go beyondthe mountains. are we to blame that the winds change or the moons come together in the sky?when the time has come for men to die, they die." he stretched his hand in dismissal."i will give your men safe-conduct to the river, jason. do not return." regis hastur rose suddenly and faced him."will you hear me, father?" he used the ceremonial title without hesitation, and the old onesaid in distress, "the son of hastur need never speak as a suppliant to the sky people!" "nevertheless, hear me as a suppliant, father,"regis said quietly. "it is not the strangers and aliens of terra who are pleading. we havelearned one thing from the strangers of terra,
which you have not yet learned. i am youngand it is not fitting that i should teach you, but you have said; are we to blame thatthe moons come together in the sky? no. but we have learned from the terrans not to blamethe moons in the sky for our own ignorance of the ways of the gods-by which i meanthe ways of sickness or poverty or misery." "these are strange words for a hastur," saidthe old one, displeased. "these are strange times for a hastur," saidregis loudly. the old one winced, and regis moderated his tone, but continued vehemently,"you blame the moons in the sky. i say the moons are not to blame-nor the winds-northe gods. the gods send these things to men to test their wits and to find if they havethe will to master them!"
the old one's forehead ridged vertically andhe said with stinging contempt, "is this the breed of king which men call hastur now?" "man or god or hastur, i am not too proudto plead for my people," retorted regis, flushing with anger. "never in all the history of darkoverhas a hastur stood before one of you and begged-" "-for the men from another world." "-for all men on our world! old one, i couldsit and keep state in the house of the hasturs, and even death could not touch me until igrew weary of living! but i preferred to learn new lives from new men. the terrans have somethingto teach even the hasturs, and they can learn a remedy against the trailmen's fever." helooked round at me, turning the discussion
over to me again, and i said: "i am no alien from another world, old one.i have been a son in your house. perhaps i was sent to teach you to fight destiny. icannot believe you are indifferent to death." suddenly, hardly knowing what i was goingto do until i found myself on my knees, i knelt and looked up into the quiet stern remoteface of the nonhuman: "my father," i said, "you took a dying manand a dying child from a burning plane. even those of their own kind might have strippedtheir corpses and left them to die. you saved the child, fostered him and treated him asa son. when he reached an age to be unhappy with you, you let a dozen of your people risktheir lives to take him to his own. you cannot
ask me to believe that you are indifferentto the death of a million of my people, when the fate of one could stir your pity!" there was a moment's silence. finally theold one said, "indifferent-no. but helpless. my people die when they leave the mountains.the air is too rich for them. the food is wrong. the light blinds and tortures them.can i send them to suffer and die, those people who call me father?" and a memory, buried all my life, suddenlysurfaced. i said urgently, "father, listen. in the world i live in now, i am called awise man. you need not believe me, but listen; i know your people, they are my people. iremember when i left you, more than a dozen
of my foster-parents' friends offered, knowingthey risked death, to go with me. i was a child; i did not realize the sacrifice theymade. but i watched them suffer, as we went lower in the mountains, and i resolved ... iresolved ..." i spoke with difficulty, forcing the words through a reluctant barricade, "... thatsince others had suffered so for me ... i would spend my life in curing the sufferingsof others. father, the terrans call me a wise doctor, a man of healing. among the terransi can see that my people, if they will come to us and help us, have air they can breatheand food which will suit them and that they are guarded from the light. i don't ask youto send anyone, father. i ask only-tell your sons what i have told you. if i knowyour people-who are my people forever-hundreds
of them will offer to return with me. andyou may witness what your foster-son has sworn here; if one of your sons dies, your alienson will answer for it with his own life." the words had poured from me in a flood. theywere not all mine; some unconscious thing had recalled in me that jay allison had powerto make these promises. for the first time i began to see what force, what guilt, whatdedication working in jay allison had turned him aside from me. i remained at the old one'sfeet, kneeling, overcome, ashamed of the thing i had become. jay allison was worth ten ofme. irresponsible, forth had said. lacking purpose, lacking balance. what right had ito despise my soberer self? at last i felt the old one touch my head lightly.
"get up, my son," he said, "i will answerfor my people. and forgive me for my doubts and my delays." neither regis nor i spoke for a minute afterwe left the audience room; then, almost as one, we turned to each other. regis spokefirst, soberly. "it was a fine thing you did, jason. i didn'tbelieve he'd agree to it." "it was your speech that did it," i denied.the sober mood, the unaccustomed surge of emotion, was still on me, but it was givingway to a sudden upswing of exaltation. damn it, i'd done it! let jay allison try to matchthat ... regis still looked grave. "he'd have refused,but you appealed to him as one of themselves.
and yet it wasn't quite that ... it was somethingmore ..." regis put a quick embarrassed arm around my shoulders and suddenly blurted out,"i think the terran medical played hell with your life, jason! and even if it saves a millionlives-it's hard to forgive them for that!" late the next day the old one called us inagain, and told us that a hundred men had volunteered to return with us and act as blooddonors and experimental subjects for research into the trailmen's disease. the trip over the mountains, so painfullyaccomplished was easier in return. our escort of a hundred trailmen guaranteed us againstattack, and they could choose the easiest paths.
only as we undertook the long climb downwardthrough the foothills did the trailmen, un-used to ground travel at any time, and sufferingfrom the unaccustomed low altitude, begin to weaken. as we grew stronger, more and moreof them faltered, and we travelled more and more slowly. not even kendricks could be callousabout "inhuman animals" by the time we reached the point where we had left the pack animals.and it was rafe scott who came to me and said desperately, "jason, these poor fellows willnever make it to carthon. lerrys and i know this country. let us go ahead, as fast aswe can travel alone, and arrange at carthon for transit-maybe we can get pressurizedaircraft to fly them from here. we can send a message from carthon, too, about accommodationsfor them at the terran hq."
i was surprised and a little guilty that ihad not thought of this myself. i covered it with a mocking, "i thought you didn't givea damn about 'any of my friends.'" rafe said doggedly, "i guess i was wrong aboutthat. they're going through this out of a sense of duty, so they must be pretty differentthan i thought they were." regis, who had overheard rafe's plan, nowbroke in quietly, "there's no need for you to travel ahead, rafe. i can send a quickermessage." i had forgotten that regis was a trained telepath.he added, "there are some space and distance limitations to such messages, but there isa regular relay net all over darkover, and one of the relays is a girl who lives at thevery edge of the terran zone. if you'll tell
me what will give her access to the terranhq-" he flushed slightly and explained, "from what i know of the terrans, she wouldnot be very fortunate relaying the message if she merely walked to the gate and saidshe had a relayed telepathic message for someone, would she?" i had to smile at the picture that conjuredup in my mind. "i'm afraid not," i admitted. "tell her to go to dr. forth, and give themessage from dr. jason allison." regis looked at me curiously-it was thefirst time i had spoken my own name in the hearing of the others. but he nodded, withoutcomment. for the next hour or two he seemed somewhat more pre-occupied than usual, butafter a time he came to me and told me that
the message had gone through. sometime laterhe relayed an answer; that airlift would be waiting for us, not at carthon, but a smallvillage near the ford of the kadarin where we had left our trucks. when we camped that night there were a dozenpractical problems needing attention; the time and exact place of crossing the ford,the reassurance to be given to terrified trailmen who could face leaving their forests but notcrossing the final barricade of the river, the small help in our power to be given thesick ones. but after everything had been done that i could do, and after the whole camphad quieted down, i sat before the low-burning fire and stared into it, deep in painful lassitude.tomorrow we would cross the river and a few
hours later we would be back in the terranhq. and then.... and then ... and then nothing. i would vanish,i would utterly cease to exist anywhere, except as a vagrant ghost troubling jay allison'sunquiet dreams. as he moved through the cold round of his days i would be no more thana spent wind, a burst bubble, a thinned cloud. the rose and saffron of the dying fire-colorsgave shape to my dreams. once more, as in the trailcity that night, kyla slipped throughfirelight to my side, and i looked up at her and suddenly i knew i could not bear it. ipulled her to me and muttered, "oh, kyla-kyla, i won't even remember you!" she pushed my hands away, kneeling upright,and said urgently, "jason, listen. we are
close to carthon, the others can lead themthe rest of the way. why go back to them at all? slip away now and never go back! we can-"she stopped, coloring fiercely, that sudden and terrifying shyness overcoming her again,and at last she said in a whisper, "darkover is a wide world, jason. big enough for usto hide in. i don't believe they would search very far." they wouldn't. i could leave word with kendricks-notwith regis, the telepath would see through me immediately-that i had ridden ahead tocarthon, with kyla. by the time they realized that i had fled, they would be too concernedwith getting the trailmen safely to the terran zone to spend much time looking for a runaway.as kyla said, the world was wide. and it was
my world. and i would not be alone in it. "kyla, kyla," i said helplessly, and crushedher against me, kissing her. she closed her eyes and i took a long, long look at her face.not beautiful, no. but womanly and brave and all the other beautiful things. it was a farewelllook, and i knew it, if she didn't. after the briefest time, she pulled a littleaway, and her flat voice was gentler and more breathless than usual. "we'd better leavebefore the others waken." she saw that i did not move. "jason-?" i could not look at her. muffled behind myhands, i said, "no, kyla. i-i promised the old one to look after my people in the terranworld. i must go back-"
"you won't be there to look after them! youwon't be you!" i said bleakly, "i'll write a letter to remindmyself. jay allison has a very strong sense of duty. he'll look after them for me. hewon't like it, but he'll do it, with his last breath. he's a better man than i am, kyla.you'd better forget about me." i said, wearily, "i never existed." that wasn't the end. not nearly. she-begged,and i don't know why i put myself through the hell of stubbornness. but in the end sheran away, crying, and i threw myself down by the fire, cursing forth, cursing my ownfolly, but most of all cursing jay allison, hating my other self with a blistering, sickeningrage.
coming through the outskirts of the smallvillage the next afternoon, the village where the airlift would meet us, we noted that thepoorer quarter was almost abandoned. regis said bleakly, "it's begun," and dropped outof line to stand in the doorway of a silent dwelling. after a minute he beckoned to me,and i looked inside. i wished i hadn't. the sight would haunt mewhile i lived. an old man, two young women and half a dozen children between four andfifteen years old lay inside. the old man, one of the children, and one of the youngwomen were laid out neatly in clean death, shrouded, their faces covered with green branchesafter the darkovan custom for the dead. the other young woman lay huddled near the fireplace,her coarse dress splattered with the filthy
stuff she had vomited, dying. the children-buteven now i can't think of the children without retching. one, very small, had been in thewoman's arms when she collapsed; it had squirmed free-for a little while. the others werein an indescribable condition and the worst of it was that one of them was still moving,feebly, long past help. regis turned blindly from the door and leaned against the wall,his shoulders heaving. not, as i first thought, in disgust, but in grief. tears ran over hishands and spilled down, and when i took him by the arm to lead him away, he reeled andfell against me. he said in a broken, blurred, choking voice,"oh, lord, jason, those children, those children-if you ever had any doubts about what you'redoing, any doubts about what you've done,
think about that, think that you've saveda whole world from that, think that you've done something even the hasturs couldn't do!" my own throat tightened with something morethan embarrassment. "better wait till we know for sure whether the terrans can carry throughwith it, and you'd better get to hell away from this doorway. i'm immune, but damn it,you're not." but i had to take him and lead him away, like a child, from that house. helooked up into my face and said with burning sincerity, "i wonder if you believe i'd givemy life, a dozen times over, to have done that?" it was a curious, austere reward. but vaguelyit comforted me. and then, as we rode into
the village itself, i lost myself, or triedto lose myself, in reassuring the frightened trailmen who had never seen a city on theground, never seen or heard of an airplane. i avoided kyla. i didn't want a final word,a farewell. we had had our farewells already. forth had done a marvelous job of having quartersready for the trailmen, and after they were comfortably installed and reassured, i wentdown wearily and dressed in jay allison's clothing. i looked out the window at the distantmountains and a line from the book on mountaineering, which i had bought as a youngster in an alienworld, and jay had kept as a stray fragment of personality, ran in violent conflict throughmy mind: something hidden-go and find it ...
something lost beyond the ranges ... i had just begun to live. surely i deservedbetter than this, to vanish when i had just discovered life. did the man who did not knowhow to live, deserve to live at all? jay allison-that cold man who had never looked beyond any ranges-whyshould i be lost in him? something lost beyond the ranges ... nothingwould be lost but myself. i was beginning to loathe the overflown sense of duty whichhad brought me back here. now, when it was too late, i was bitterly regretting ... kylahad offered me life. surely i would never see kyla again. could i regret what i would never remember?i walked into forth's office as if i were
going to my doom. i was ... forth greeted me warmly. "sit down and tell me all about it ..." heinsisted. i would rather not speak. instead, compulsively, i made it a full report ... andcurious flickers came in and out of my consciousness as i spoke. by the time i realized i was reactingto a post-hypnotic suggestion, that in fact i was going under hypnosis again, it was toolate and i could only think that this was worse than death because in a way i wouldbe alive ... jay allison sat up and meticulously straightenedhis cuff before tightening his mouth in what was meant for a smile. "i assume, then, thatthe experiment was a success?"
"a complete success." forth's voice was somewhatharsh and annoyed, but jay was untroubled; he had known for years that most of his subordinatesand superiors disliked him, and had long ago stopped worrying about it. "the trailmen agreed?" "they agreed," forth said, surprised. "youdon't remember anything at all?" "scraps. like a nightmare." jay allison lookeddown at the back of his hand, flexing the fingers cautiously against pain, touchingthe partially healed red slash. forth followed the direction of his eyes and said, not unsympathetically,"don't worry about your hand. i looked at it pretty carefully. you'll have the totaluse of it."
jay said rigidly, "it seems to have been apretty severe risk to take. did you ever stop to think what it would have meant to me, tolose the use of my hand?" "it seemed a justifiable risk, even if youhad," forth said dryly. "jay, i've got the whole story on tape, just as you told it tome. you might not like having a blank spot in your memory. want to hear what your alterego did?" jay hesitated. then he unfolded his long legsand stood up. "no, i don't think i care to know." he waited, arrested by a twinge ofa sore muscle, and frowned. what had happened, what would he never know,why did the random ache bring a pain deeper than the pain of a torn nerve? forth was watchinghim, and jay asked irritably, "what is it?"
"you're one hell of a cold fish, jay." "i don't understand you, sir." "you wouldn't," forth muttered. "funny. iliked your subsidiary personality." jay's mouth contracted in a mirthless grin. "you would," he said, and swung quickly round. "come on. if i'm going to work on that serumproject i'd better inspect the volunteers and line up the blood donors and look overold whatshisname's papers." but beyond the window the snowy ridges ofthe mountain, inscrutable, caught and held his eye; a riddle and a puzzle-
"ridiculous," he said, and went to his work. four months later, jay allison and randallforth stood together, watching the last of the disappearing planes, carrying the volunteersback toward carthon and their mountains. "i should have flown back to carthon withthem," jay said moodily. forth watched the tall man stare at the mountain; wondered whatlay behind the contained gestures and the brooding. he said, "you've done enough, jay. you'veworked like the devil. thurmond-the legate-sent down to say you'd get an official commendationand a promotion for your part. that's not even mentioning what you did in the trailmen'scity." he put a hand on his colleague's shoulder,
but jay shook it off impatiently. all through the work of isolating and testingthe blood fraction, jay had worked tirelessly and unsparingly; scarcely sleeping, but brooding;silent, prone to fly into sudden savage rages, but painstaking. he had overseen the trailmenwith an almost fatherly solicitude-but from a distance. he had left no stone unturnedfor their comfort-but refused to see them in person except when it was unavoidable. forth thought, we played a dangerous game.jay allison had made his own adjustment to life, and we disturbed that balance. havewe wrecked the man? he's expendable, but damn it, what a loss! he asked, "well, why didn'tyou fly back to carthon with them? kendricks
went along, you know. he expected you to gountil the last minute." jay did not answer. he had avoided kendricks,the only witness to his duality. in all his nightmare brooding, the avoidance of anyonewho had known him as jason became a mania. once, meeting rafe scott on the lower floorof the hq, he had turned frantically and plunged like a madman through halls and corridors,to avoid coming face to face with the man, finally running up four flights of stairsand taking shelter in his rooms, with the pounding heart and bursting veins of a huntedcriminal. at last he said, "if you've called me down here to read me the riot act aboutnot wanting to make another trip into the hellers-!"
"no, no," forth said equably, "there's a visitorcoming. regis hastur sent word he wants to see you. in case you don't remember him, hewas on project jason-" "i remember," jay said grimly. it was nearlyhis one clear memory-the nightmare of the ledge, his slashed hand, the shameful nakedbody of the darkovan woman, and-blurring these things, the too-handsome darkovan aristocratwho had banished him for jason again. "he's a better psychiatrist than you are, forth.he changed me into jason in the flicker of an eyelash, and it took you half a dozen hypnoticsessions." "i've heard about the psi powers of the hasturs,"forth said, "but i've never been lucky enough to meet one in person. tell me about it. whatdid he do?"
jay made a tight movement of exasperation,too controlled for a shrug. "ask him, why don't you. look, forth, i don't much careto see him. i didn't do it for darkover; i did it because it was my job. i'd prefer toforget the whole thing. why don't you talk to him?" "i rather had the idea that he wanted to seeyou personally. jay, you did a tremendous thing, man! damn it, why don't you strut alittle? be-be normal for once! why, i'd be damned near bursting with pride if oneof the hasturs insisted on congratulating me personally!" jay's lip twitched, and his voice shook withcontrolled exasperation. "maybe you would.
i don't see it that way." "well, i'm afraid you'll have to. on darkovernobody refuses when the hasturs make a request-and certainly not a request as reasonable as thisone." forth sat down beside the desk. jay struck the woodwork with a violent clenchedfist and when he lowered his hand there was a tiny smear of blood along his knuckles.after a minute he walked to the couch and sat down, very straight and stiff, sayingnothing. neither of the men spoke again until forth started at the sound of a buzzer, drewthe mouthpiece toward him, and said, "tell him we are honored-you know the routinefor dignitaries, and send him up here." jay twisted his fingers together and ran histhumb, in a new gesture, over the ridge of
scar tissue along the knuckles. forth wasaware of an entirely new quality in the silence, and started to speak to break it, but beforehe could do so, the office door slid open on its silent beam, and regis hastur stoodthere. forth rose courteously and jay got to hisfeet like a mechanical doll jerked on strings. the young darkovan ruler smiled engaginglyat him: "don't bother, this visit is informal; that'sthe reason i came here rather than inviting you both to the tower. dr. forth? it is apleasure to meet you again, sir. i hope that our gratitude to you will soon take a moretangible form. there has not been a single death from the trailmen's fever since youmade the serum available."
jay, motionless, saw bitterly that the oldman had succumbed to the youngster's deliberate charm. the chubby, wrinkled old face seamedup in a pleased smile as forth said, "the gifts sent to the trailmen in your name, lordhastur, were greatly welcomed." "do you think that any of us will ever forgetwhat they have done?" regis replied. he turned toward the window and smiled rather tentativelyat the man who stood there; motionless since his first conventional gesture of politeness: "dr. allison, do you remember me at all?" "i remember you," jay allison said sullenly. his voice hung heavy in the room, its sounda miasma in his ears. all his sleepless, nightmare-charged
brooding, all his bottled hate for darkoverand the memories he had tried to bury, erupted into overwrought bitterness against this too-ingratiatingyoungster who was a demigod on this world and who had humiliated him, repudiated himfor the hated jason ... for jay, regis had suddenly become the symbol of a world thathated him, forced him into a false mold. a black and rushing wind seemed to blur theroom. he said hoarsely, "i remember you all right," and took one savage, hurtling step. the weight of the unexpected blow spun regisaround, and the next moment jay allison, who had never touched another human being exceptwith the remote hands of healing, closed steely, murderous hands around regis' throat. theworld thinned out into a crimson rage. there
were shouting and sudden noises, and a red-hotexplosion in his brain ... "you'd better drink this," forth remarked,and i realized i was turning a paper cup in my hands. forth sat down, a little weakly,as i raised it to my lips and sipped. regis took his hand away from his throat and saidhuskily, "i could use some of that, doctor." i put the whiskey down. "you'll do betterwith water until your throat muscles are healed," i said swiftly, and went to fill a throwawaycup for him, without thinking. handing it to him. i stopped in sudden dismay and myhand shook, spilling a few drops. i said hoarsely, swallowing, "-but drink it, anyway-" regis got a few drops down, painfully, andsaid, "my own fault. the moment i saw-jay
allison-i knew he was a madman. i'd havestopped him sooner only he took me by surprise." "but-you say him-i'm jay allison," i said,and then my knees went weak and i sat down. "what in hell is this? i'm not jay-but i'mnot jason, either-" i could remember my entire life, but the focushad shifted. i still felt the old love, the old nostalgia for the trailmen; but i alsoknew, with a sure sense of identity, that i was doctor jason allison, jr., who had abandonedmountain climbing and become a specialist in darkovan parasitology. not jay who hadrejected his world; not jason who had been rejected by it. but then who? regis said quietly, "i've seen you before-once.when you knelt to the old one of the trailmen."
with a whimsical smile he said, "as an ignorantsuperstitious darkovan, i'd say that you were a man who'd balanced his god and daemon foronce." i looked helplessly at the young hastur. afew seconds ago my hands had been at his throat. jay or jason, maddened by self-hate and jealousy,could disclaim responsibility for the other's acts. i couldn't. regis said, "we could take the easy way out,and arrange it so we'd never have to see each other again. or we could do it the hard way."he extended his hand, and after a minute, i understood, and we shook hands briefly,like strangers who have just met. he added,
"your work with the trailmen is finished,but we hasturs committed ourselves to teach some of the terrans our science-matrix mechanics.dr. allison-jason-you know darkover, and i think we could work with you. further, youknow something about slipping mental gears. i meant to ask; would you care to be one ofthem? you'd be ideal." i looked out the window at the distant mountains.this work-this would be something which would satisfy both halves of myself. the irresistibleforce, the immovable object-and no ghosts wandering in my brain. "i'll do it," i toldregis. and then, deliberately, i turned my back on him and went up to the quarters, nowdeserted, which we had readied for the trailmen. with my new doubled-or complete-memories,another ghost had roused up in my brain, and
i remembered a woman who had appeared vaguelyin jay allison's orbit, unnoticed, working with the trailmen, tolerated because she couldspeak their language. i opened the door, searched briefly through the rooms, and shouted, "kyla!"and she came. running. disheveled. mine. at the last moment, she drew back a littlefrom my arms and whispered, "you're jason-but you're something more. different ..." "i don't know who i am," i said quietly, "buti'm me. maybe for the first time. want to help me find out just who that is?" i put my arm around her, trying to find apath between memory and tomorrow. all my life, i had walked a strange road toward an unknownhorizon. now, reaching my horizon, i found
it marked only the rim of an unknown country. kyla and i would explore it together.
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