and handed itto me, butt first.
I'd never realized quite how undressed a Spaceforce man looked withouthis 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 fairskin of Darkovan aristocracy, and on his face was some indefinablestamp--arrogance, perhaps, or the consciousness that the Hasturs hadruled this world for centuries long before the Terrans brought ships andtrade and the universe to their doors. He was looking at me as if heapproved of me, and that was one step worse than the former situation.
So, using the respectful Darkovan idiom of speaking to a superior (whichhe was) but keeping my voice hard, I said, "There's just one leader onany trek, Lord Hastur. On this one, I'm it. If you want to discusswhether or not we carry guns, I suggest you discuss it with me inprivate--and let me give the orders."
One of the Darkovans gasped. I knew I could have been mobbed. But with amixed bag of men, I had to grab leadership quick or be relegated tonowhere. 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 led the way to a fairly desertedcorner of the immense place, faced him and demanded, "As for you--whatare 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'ttake on this kind of dangerous work. If anything happens to you, it willbe my responsibility!" I was going to have enough trouble, I wasthinking, without shepherding along one of the most revered Personageson the whole damned planet! I didn't want anyone around who had to befawned on, or deferred to, or even listened to.
* * * * *
He frowned slightly, and I had the unpleasant impression that he knewwhat I was thinking. "In the first place--it will mean something to thetrailmen, won't it--to have a Hastur with you, suing for this favor?"
It certainly would. The trailmen paid little enough heed to the ordinaryhumans, except for considering them fair game for plundering when theycame uninvited into trailman country. But they, with all Darkover,revered the Hasturs, and it was a fine point of diplomacy--if theDarkovans sent their most important leader, they might listen to him.
"In the second place," Regis Hastur continued, "the Darkovans are mypeople, and it's my business to negotiate for them. In the third place,I know the trailmen's dialect--not well, but I can speak it a little.And in the fourth, I've climbed mountains all my life. Purely as anamateur, but I can assure you I won't be in the way."
There was little enough I could say to that. He seemed to have coveredevery point--or every point but one, and he added, shrewdly, after aminute, "Don't worry; I'm perfectly willing to have you take charge. Iwon't claim--privilege."
I had to be satisfied with that.
* * * * *
Darkover is a civilized planet with a fairly high 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 byTerran enterprise never were very successful; outside the Terran TradeCity, machinery or modern transportation is almost unknown.
While the other men checked and loaded supplies and Rafe Scott went outto contact some friends of his and arrange for last-minute details, Isat down with Forth to memorize the medical details I must put soclearly to the trailmen.
"If we could only have kept your medical knowledge!"
"Trouble is, being a doctor doesn't suit my personality," I said. I feltabsurdly light-hearted. Where I sat, I could raise my head and study thepanorama of blackish-green foothills which lay beyond Carthon, andsearch out the stone roadways, like a tiny white ribbon, which we couldfollow for the first stage of the trip. Forth evidently did not share myenthusiasm.
"You know, Jason, there is one real danger--"
"Do you think I care about danger? Or are you afraid I'llturn--foolhardy?"
"Not exactly. It's not a physical danger, Jason. It's an emotional--orrather an intellectual danger."
"Hell, don't you know any language but that psycho double-talk?"
"Let me finish, Jason. Jay Allison may have been repressed,overcontrolled, but you are seriously impulsive. You lack abalance-wheel, if I could put it that way. And if you run too manyrisks, your buried alter-ego may come to the surface and take over insheer self-preservation."
"In other words," I said, laughing loudly, "if I scare that Allisonstuffed-shirt he may start stirring in his grave?"
Forth coughed and smothered a laugh and said that was one way of puttingit. I clapped him reassuringly on the shoulder and said, "Forget it,sir. I promise to be godly, sober and industrious--but is there any lawagainst enjoying what I'm doing?"
Somebody burst out of the warehouse-palace place, and shouted at me."Jason? The guide is here," and I stood up, giving Forth a final grin."Don't you worry. Jay Allison's good riddance," I said, and went back tomeet the other 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 narrowly built, the sort of bodythat could have been called boyish or coltish but certainly not, atfirst glance, feminine. Close-cut curls, blue-black and wispy, cast thefaintest of shadows over a squarish sunburnt face, and her eyes were sothickly rimmed with heavy dark lashes that I could not guess theircolor. Her nose was snubbed and might have looked whimsical and wasinstead 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, freeAmazon, licensed guide."
I acknowledged the gesture with a nod, scowling. The guild of freeAmazons entered virtually every masculine field, but that of mountainguide seemed somewhat bizarre even for an Amazon. She seemed wiry andagile enough, her body, under the heavy blanket-like clothing, almost aslean of hip and flat of breast as my own; only the slender long legswere unequivocally feminine.
The other men were checking and loading supplies; I noted from thecorner of my eye that Regis Hastur was taking his turn heaving bundleswith the rest. I sat down on some still-undisturbed sacks, and motionedher to sit.
"You've had trail experience? We're going into the Hellers throughDammerung, and that's rough going even for professionals."
* * * * *
She said in a flat expressionless voice, "I was with the Terran Mappingexpedition to the South Polar ridge last year."
"Ever been in the Hellers? If anything happened to me, could you leadthe expedition safely back to Carthon?"
She looked down at her stubby fingers. "I'm sure I could," she saidfinally, and started to rise. "Is that all?"
"One thing more--" I gestured to her to stay put. "Kyla, you'll be onewoman among eight men--"
The snubbed nose wrinkled up; "I don't expect you to crawl into myblankets, if that's what you mean. It's not in my contract--I hope!"
I felt my face burning. Damn the girl! "It's not in mine, anyway," Isnapped, "but I can't answer for seven other men, most of them mountainroughnecks!" Even as I said it I wondered why I bothered; certainly afree Amazon could defend her own virtue, or not, if she wanted to,without any help from me. I had to excuse myself by adding, "In eithercase you'll be a disturbing element--I don't want fights, either!"
She made a little low-pitched sound of amusement. "There's safety innumbers, and--are you familiar with the physiological effect of highaltitudes on men acclimated to low ones?" Suddenly she threw back herhead and the hidden sound became free and merry laughter. "Jason, I'm afree Amazon, and that means--no, I'm not neutered, though some of usare. But you have my word, I won't create any trouble of anyrecognizably female variety." She stood up. "Now, if you don't mind, I'dlike to check the mountain equipment."
Her eyes were still laughing at me, but curiously I didn't mind at all.There w
as a refreshing element in her manner.
* * * * *
We started that night, a curiously lopsided little caravan. The packanimals were loaded into one truck and didn't like it. We had anotherstripped-down truck which carried supplies. The ancient stone roads,rutted and gullied here and there with the flood-waters and silt ofdecades, had not been planned for any travel other than the feet of menor beasts. We passed tiny villages and isolated country estates, and afew of the solitary towers where the matrix mechanics worked alone withthe secret sciences of Darkover, towers of glareless stone
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