Forth introduced me simply as "Jason," after the Darkovan custom, and I looked the men over, one by one. Back when I"d climbed for fun, I"d liked to pick my own men; but whoever had picked this crew must have known his business.
Three were mountain Darkovans, lean swart men 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 and shoulders 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 double name indicating high Darkovan aristocracy. He looked muscular and agile enough, but his hands were suspiciously well-kept for a mountain man, and I wondered how much experience he"d had.
The fifth man shook hands with me, speaking to 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 most of the professional guides on Darkover, but I admit I don"t get into the h.e.l.lers much," he confessed. "Which route are we going to take?"
I found myself drawn into the middle of the group of men, accepting one of the small sweetish Darkovan cigarettes, looking over the plan somebody had scribbled down on the top of a packing case. I borrowed a pencil from Rafe and bent over the case, sketching out a rough map of the terrain I remembered so well from boyhood. I might be bewildered about blood fractions, but when it came to climbing I knew what I was doing. Rafe and Lerrys and the Darkovan brothers crowded behind me to look over the sketch, and Lerrys put a long fingernail on the route I"d indicated.
"Your elevation"s pretty bad here," he said diffidently, "and on the "Narr campaign the trailmen attacked us here, and it was bad fighting along those ledges."
I looked at him with new respect; dainty hands or 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 have this."
"But you"re not going to have it," said a voice behind us, a crisp authoritative voice. "Take off that gun, man!"
Kendricks and I whirled together, to see the speaker; a tall young Darkovan, still standing in the shadows. The newcomer spoke to me directly:
"I"m told you are Terran, but that you understand the trailmen. Surely you don"t intend to carry fission or fusion weapons against them?"
And I suddenly realized that we were in Darkovan territory now, and that we must reckon with the Darkovan horror of guns or of any weapon which reaches beyond the arm"s-length of the man who wields it. A simple heat-gun, to the Darkovan ethical code, is as reprehensible as a super-cobalt planetbuster.
Kendricks protested, "We can"t travel unarmed through trailmen country!
We"re apt to meet hostile bands of the creatures--and they"re nasty with those long knives they carry!"
The stranger said calmly, "I"ve no objection to 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 shadows said, "Regis Hastur."
Kendricks stared pop-eyed. My own eyes could have 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 s.p.a.ce of seconds, while I wondered what I"d do if he didn"t. Then, slowly, he unbuckled the straps and handed it to me, b.u.t.t first.
I"d never realized quite how undressed a s.p.a.ceforce man looked without his blaster. I balanced it on my palm for a minute while Regis Hastur came out of the shadows. He was tall, and had the reddish hair and fair skin of Darkovan aristocracy, and on his face was some indefinable stamp--arrogance, perhaps, or the consciousness that the Hasturs had ruled this world for centuries long before the Terrans brought ships and trade and the universe to their doors. He was looking at me as if he approved of me, and that was one step worse than the former situation.
So, using the respectful Darkovan idiom of speaking to a superior (which he was) but keeping my voice hard, I said, "There"s just one leader on any trek, Lord Hastur. On this one, I"m it. If you want to discuss whether or not we carry guns, I suggest you discuss it with me in private--and let me give the orders."
One of the Darkovans gasped. I knew I could have been mobbed. But with a mixed bag of men, I had to grab leadership quick or be relegated to nowhere. I didn"t give Regis Hastur a chance to answer that, either; I said, "Come back here. I want to talk to you anyway."
He came, and I remembered to breathe. I led the way to a fairly deserted corner of the immense place, faced him and demanded, "As for you--what are you doing here? You"re not intending to cross the mountains with us?"
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, without shepherding along one of the most revered Personages on the whole d.a.m.ned planet! I didn"t want anyone around who had to be fawned on, or deferred to, or even listened to.
He frowned slightly, and I had the unpleasant impression that he knew what I was thinking. "In the first place--it will mean something to the trailmen, won"t it--to have a Hastur with you, suing for this favor?"
It certainly would. The trailmen paid little enough heed to the ordinary humans, except for considering them fair game for plundering when 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 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 an amateur, but I can a.s.sure you 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 fairly high standard of living, but it is not a mechanized or a technological culture. The people don"t do much mining, or build factories, and the few which were founded by Terran enterprise never were very successful; outside the Terran Trade City, machinery or modern transportation is almost unknown.
While the other men checked and loaded supplies and 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 my personality," I said. I felt absurdly light-hearted. Where I sat, I could raise my head and study the panorama of blackish-green foothills which lay beyond Carthon, and search out the stone roadways, like a tiny white ribbon, which we could follow for the first stage of the trip. Forth evidently did not share my enthusiasm.
"You know, Jason, there is one real danger--"
"Do you think I care about danger? Or are you afraid I"ll turn--foolhardy?"
"Not exactly. It"s not a physical danger, Jason. It"s an emotional--or rather an intellectual danger."
"h.e.l.l, 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 a balance-wheel, if I could put it that way. And if you run too many risks, your buried alter-ego may come 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 said that was one way of putting it. I clapped him rea.s.suringly on the shoulder and said, "Forget it, sir. I promise to be G.o.dly, sober and industrious--but is there any law against 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 to meet 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 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 of shadows over a squarish sunburnt face, and her eyes were so thickly rimmed with heavy dark lashes that I could not guess their color. Her nose was snubbed and might have looked whimsical and was instead oddly arrogant. Her mouth was wide, and her chin round, and altogether 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."