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He said helplessly, “Kennard, I can’t explain it to you any more than you can explain to me how youdestroyed that blue jewel of yours—or how your psychics herded a batch of clouds across the sky to putout a fire. But I helped you do it, didn’t I? And it worked? We can’t possibly be any worse off than weare already, can we? And the Terran ships find their way between the stars by using this kind of—ofscience. So will you at least let me
 
try
 
?”

Kennard was silent for a moment. At last he said, “I suppose you are right. We could not be worse off.”

Larry knelt and drew an improvised sketch map on the ground, what he remembered of the mountainrange he had seen from the distance. “Now here’s the mountains and here is the edge of the trailmen’sforest. How far had we come before you lost sure sight of exactly where we were going?”

Hesitantly, with many frowns and rememberings, Kennard traced out a route.

“And that was—exactly how long ago? Try to be as accurate as you can, Kennard; how many miles ago

did you begin not to be absolutely sure?”

Kennard put his finger on the improvised map.

“So we’re within about five hours walk from that point.” He drew a circle around the point Kennard had shown as their last positive location. “We could be anywhere in this circle, but if we keep west and keep going west we’ll have to hit the mountains—we can’t possibly miss them.” He tried not to think of what would lie before them then. Kennard thought of it as just the final hurdle, but the journey with the bandits through their own dreadful chasms and crags—bound and handcuffed like sacked luggage—had given him an enduring horror of the Darkovan mountains that was to last his lifetime.

“If this works…” Kennard said, skeptically, but immediately looked an apology. “What do I have to do

first? Is there any specific ritual for the use of this—this amulet?”

Larry, by main force, held back a shout of half-hysterical laughter. Instead, he said gravely, “Just crossyour fingers that it will work,” and started questioning Kennard about the minor discrepancies of the

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seasons, and the sun’s rising and setting. Darkover—he knew from its extremes of climate—must be a planet with an exaggeratedly tilted axis, and he would have to figure out just how far north or south of true west the sun set at this season of the year in this latitude. How he blessed the teacher at Quarters B who had loaned him the book on Darkovan geography—otherwise he might not even have been sure whether they were in the southern, rather than the northern hemisphere. He boggled at the thought of trying to explain an equator to Kennard.

A degree or two wouldn’t matter—not with a range of mountains hundreds of miles long, that theycouldn’t miss if they tried—but the nearer they came out to the pass itself, the sooner they would behome. And the sooner Kennard’s father would be out of trouble. He was amazed at how responsible hefelt.

The compass would steady, he realized, if he let it swing freely without his hand moving. All they had todo was take a rough bearing, follow it, checking it again and again every few miles.

Once again, he realized, he had taken the lead in the expedition, and Kennard, reluctantly, was forced tofollow. It bothered him, and he knew Kennard didn’t like it. He hoped, at least, that it wouldn’t bring onanother outburst of rage.

He stood up, looking at the muddy mess of their improvised map. He was cold and drenched, but heassumed an air of confidence which, in reality, he was far from feeling.

“Well, if we’re going to risk it,” he said, “west is that way. So let’s start walking. I’m ready if you are.”

It was hard, slow going, scrambling into canyons and up slopes, stopping every hour to swing thecompass free and wait for it to steady and point, re-drawing the improvised compass card in the mud. Larry finally shortened this step by drawing one on a page of his battered notebook. The rain went on,remorselessly, not hard, never soaking, but always
 
there—
 
a thin, fine, chilling drizzle that eventuallyseemed worse than the worst and hardest downpour. His arm, the one the bandits had harnessed behindhis back, felt both numb and sore, but there wasn’t a thing he could do but set his teeth and try to thinkabout something else. That night they literally dug themselves into a bank of dead leaves, in a vain attemptto keep some of the worst of the rain off. Their clothes were wet. Their skin was wet. Their boots andsocks were wet. The food they munched was wet—berries, nuts, fruits and a sort of root like a rawpotato. Kennard could easily enough have snared small game, but they tacitly agreed that even cold rawsour berries and mushrooms were preferable to raw wet meat. And Kennard swore that in this drizzle, atthis season, in this kind of country, not even a
 
kyrri
 
could strike enough spark to kindle a fire!

But toward nightfall of the next day—Larry had lost count of time, nothing existed now but the trudgingthrough wet gulleys and slopes and thorny brushwood—Kennard stopped and turned to him.

“I owe you an apology. This toy of yours is working and I know it now.”

“How?” Larry was almost too exhausted to care.

“The air is thinner and the rain is colder. Don’t you find it harder to breathe? We must be rising very rapidly now toward the mountain ranges—must have come up several thousand feet in the last few hours alone. Didn’t you notice that the western edge of every new gully was higher and harder to climb than the last?”

Larry had thought it was just his own tiredness that had made it seem so; but now that Kennardconfirmed it, it seemed indeed that the land had somehow changed character. It was barer; the ridges

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were longer and steeper, and the abundant berries and nuts and mushrooms had dwindled to a few of the

sparser, sourer kind.

“We’re getting into the mountains, all right,” Kennard said, “and that means we’d better stop early, tonight, and find all the food we can carry. There’s nothing in the passes except snow and ice and a few wild birds that nest in the crags and live on the berries up there—berries which happen to be poisonous to humans.”

Larry knew he might have found a way out of a couple of serious dilemmas with Terran science, butwithout Kennard’s woodcraft they would both have died many times over.

Food was far from easy to find; they spent hours gathering enough for a sparse supper and a few moremeager meals, and during the next day, vegetation diminished almost to nothing. However, Kennard wasalmost jubilant. If they were actually that near to the mountains, they must be nearing the pass. And thatevening, for a little while, like an unexpected gift, the fog and drizzle cleared briefly, and they saw the highpeak and the pass that lay below it, shining with the mauve and violet glare of the red sun on the snow,clear before their eyes and less than ten miles away. The brief flash of sun lasted only five minutes or so,but it was long enough for Larry to adjust and check his improvised compass card, take an exact bearingon the pass, and lay out a proper course. After that, whenever any steep slope or rock-ledge forcedthem to deviate from a chosen direction, he marked it and could correct for it; so that now, instead ofgoing in roughly the right direction, he knew they were going direct for their destination.

But, vindicated though he was in Kennard’s eyes, the going was rough now, and getting rougher. Therewere steep rock-slopes on which they had to scramble on all fours, clutching for handholds on slipperyledges; and once they had to traverse a two-inch-wide track above a cliff-face that left Larry pale andsweating with terror. Kennard took these rock-scrambles quite in stride, and was getting back some ofhis old, arrogant assurance of leadership, and it bothered Larry. Damn it, it wasn’t his fault that he hadn’tbeen trained to climb rock-faces, nor did it make him a passive follower, just because heights of this sortmade him sick and dizzy. He gritted his teeth, vowing to himself that anywhere Kennard led, he’dfollow—even though it seemed that Kennard could often have chosen easier paths, and was trying tore-establish his own leadership of the expedition by showing off his own superior mountain-craft.

Their provisions ran out that night; they slept, hungry, cold and wet, on a frost-rimed slope a little morelevel than most—or rather, Kennard slept; Larry had trouble even in breathing. The morning dawned,and long before it was full light, Kennard stirred. He said, “I know you’re not asleep. We may as wellstart; If we’re lucky we’ll reach the pass before noon.” In the bleak morning dimness Larry could not seehis friend’s face, but he did not need to see. The emotions there were as clear to him as if he were inside Kennard’s mind:
 
On the other side of the passes, there is food, and inhabited country, and warmth,and people to turn to for help. But the pass is going to be hard going. I wouldn’t like doing it evenwith a couple of experienced guides to help. If it doesn’t snow, we might get through— if thesnow’s not already too deep. Can the Terran boy hold out? He’s already about exhausted. If hegives in now
 
…

And the despair in that thought suddenly overwhelmed Larry; Kennard was thinking,
 
If he gives outnow, I’ll be alone… and it will all be for nothing
 
…

Larry wondered suddenly if he were imagining all this, if the height and the hardship were affecting hisown mind. This sort of mental eavesdropping didn’t make sense. Also, it embarrassed him. He tried,desperately, to close his mind against it, but Kennard’s misgivings were leaking through all barriers:

Can Larry hold out? Can he make it? Have I got strength enough for both of us?

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Silently, grimly, Larry resolved that if one of them gave out, it would not be himself. He was cold, hungryand wet, but by damn, he’d show this arrogant Darkovan aristocrat something.

Damn it! He was sick of being helped along and treated like the burden and the weaker one!

Terrans weak? Hadn’t the Terrans been the first to cross space! Hadn’t they taken the blind leap in thedark, before the stardrives, traveling years and years between the stars, ships disappearing and neverbeing heard of again, and yet the race from Terra had spread through all inhabited worlds! Kennardcould be proud of his Darkovan heritage and bravery. But there was something to be proud of in the Terrans, too! They had, in a way, their own arrogance, and it was just as reasonable as the Darkovanarrogance.

Here he had assumed, all along, that he was somehow inferior because, on a Darkovan world and in a Darkovan society, he was a burden to Kennard. Suppose it was reversed? Kennard did not understandthe workings of a compass. He would be utterly baffled at the drives of a spaceship or a surface-car.

But even if he died here in the mountain passes, he was going to show Kennard that where a Darkovancould lead a Terran could follow! And then, damn it, when they got back to
 
his
 
world, he’d challenge Kennard to try following
 
him
 
a while in the world of the Terrans—and see if a Darkovan could followwhere a Terran led!

He got up, grinned wryly, turned his pockets inside out in the hope of a stray crumb of food—therewasn’t one— and said, “The sooner the better.”

The grade was steeper now, and there began to be snow underfoot; they went very carefully, guardingagainst a sideslip that could have meant a ghastly fall. His injured arm felt numbed and twice it slipped onhandholds, but he proudly refused Kennard’s offers of help.

“I’ll manage,” he said, tight-mouthed.

They came to one dreadful stretch where frost-sheathed stones littered a high ledge without a sign of atrack; Kennard, who was leading, set his foot tentatively on the ledge, and it crumbled beneath him,sending pebbles crashing down in a miniature rockslide whitened with powdery snow. He staggered andreeled at the edge of the abyss, but even before he swayed Larry had moved, catching the flash of fear atthe touch, and grabbed and held him, hard—the older boy’s weight jerking his hurt arm almost from thesocket—until Kennard could recover his balance. They clung together, gasping, Kennard with fear andrelief and Larry with mingled fright and pain; something had snapped in the injured shoulder and his armhung stiff and immovable at his side, sending shudders of agony down his side when he as much asmoved a finger.

Kennard finally wiped his brow. “Zandru’s hells, I thought I was gone,” he muttered. “Thanks, Lerrys.

I’m all right now. You—” He noted Larry’s immobility. “What’s the trouble?”

“My arm,” Larry managed to get out, shakily.

Kennard touched it with careful fingers, drew a deep whistle. He moved his fingertips over it, his faceintent and concentrated. Larry felt a most strange, burning itch deep in his bones under the touch; then Kennard, without a word of warning, suddenly seized the shoulder and gave it a violent, agonizing twist. Larry yelled in pain; he couldn’t help it. But as the pain subsided, he realized what Kennard had done.

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Kennard nodded. “I had to slip the damned thing back into the socket before it froze the muscles aroundit. Or it would have taken three men to hold you down while they worked it back into place,” he said.

“How did you know—?”

“Deep-probed,” Kennard said briefly. “I can’t do it often, or very long? But I—” he hesitated, did not finish his sentence. Larry heard it anyhow:
 
I owed you that much. But damn it, now we’re both exhausted
 
!