theothers. Kendricks, now. Jay knew, precisely, why Forth had sent the big,reliable spaceman at his back. And that handsome, arrogantDarkovan--where was he? Jay looked at the girl in puzzlement; he didn'twant to reveal that he wasn't quite sure of what he was saying or doing,or that he had little memory of what Jason had been up to.
He started to ask, "Where did the Hastur kid go?" before a vagrantlogical thought told him that such an important guest would have beenlodged with the Old One. Then a wave of despair hit him; Jay realized hedid not even speak the trailmen's language, that it had slipped from histhoughts completely.
She felt a touch of panic. He was leaving her again.]
"You--" he fished desperately for the girl's name, "Kyla. You don'tspeak the trailmen's language, do you?"
"A few words. No more. Why?" She had withdrawn into a corner of the tinyroom--still not far from him--and he wondered remotely what his damnedalter ego had been up to. With Jason, there was no telling. Jay raisedhis eyes with a melancholy smile.
"Sit down, child. You needn't be frightened."
"I'm--I'm trying to understand--" the girl touched him again, evidentlytrying to conquer her terror. "It isn't easy--when you turn into someoneelse under my eyes--" Jay saw that she was shaking in real fright.
He said wearily, "I'm not going to--to turn into a bat and fly away. I'mjust a poor devil of a doctor who's gotten himself into one unholymess." There was no reason, he was thinking, to take out his own miseryand despair by shouting at this poor kid. God knew what she'd beenthrough with his irresponsible other self--Forth had admitted that thatdamned "Jason" personality was a blend of all the undesirable traitshe'd fought to smother all his life. By an effort of will he kepthimself 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, trying to 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 seem to be overly intelligent.
"Think about tomorrow, Jason. What are you going to say to him? Thinkabout your parents--"
Jay Allison wondered what they would think when they found a strangerhere. He felt like a stranger. Yet he must have come, tonight, into thishouse and spoken--he rummaged desperately in his mind for some fragmentsof the trailmen's language. He had spoken it as a child. He must recallenough to speak to the woman who had been a kind foster-mother to heralien son. He tried to form his lips to the unfamiliar shapes of words...
Jay covered his face with his hands again. Jason was the part of himselfthat remembered the trailmen. _That_ was what he had to remember--Jasonwas not a hostile stranger, not an alien intruder in his body. Jason wasa lost part of himself and at the moment a damn necessary part. If therewere only some way to get back the Jason memories, skills, withoutlosing _himself_ ... he said to the girl, "Let me think. Let me--" tohis surprise and horror his voice broke into an alien tongue, "Let mealone, will you?"
Maybe, Jay thought, I could stay myself if I could remember the rest.Dr. Forth said: Jason would remember the trailmen with kindness, notdislike.
Jay searched his memory and found nothing but familiar frustration;years spent in an alien land, apart from a human heritage, stranded andabandoned. _My father left me. He crashed the plane and I never saw himagain and I hate him for leaving me ..._
But his father had not abandoned him. He had crashed the plane trying tosave them both. It was no one's fault--
_Except my father's. For trying to fly over the Hellers into a countrywhere no man belongs ..._
He hadn't belonged. And yet the trailmen, whom he considered littlebetter than roaming beasts, had taken the alien child into their city,their homes, their hearts. They had loved him. And he ...
* * * * *
"And I loved them," I found myself saying half aloud, then realized thatKyla was gripping my arm, looking up imploringly into my face. I shookmy head rather groggily. "What's the matter?"
"You frightened me," she said in a shaky little voice, and I suddenlyknew 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, buthad to come sneaking out of my mind, how he must hate me! Not half asmuch as I hated him, damn him! Along with everything else, he'd scaredKyla half to death!
She was kneeling very close to me, and I realized that there was one wayto fight that cold austere fish of a Jay Allison, send him shriekingdown into hell again. He was a man who hated everything except the coldworld he'd made his life. Kyla's face was lifted, soft and intent andpleading, and suddenly I reached out and pulled her to me and kissedher, hard.
"Could a ghost do this?" I demanded, "or this?"
She whispered, "No--oh, no," and her arms went up to lock around myneck. As I pulled her down on the sweet-smelling moss that carpeted thechamber, I felt the dark ghost of my other self thin out, vanish anddisappear.
Regis had been right. It had been the only way ...
* * * * *
The Old One was not old at all; the title was purely ceremonial. Thisone was young--not much older than I--but he had poise and dignity andthe same strange indefinable quality I had recognized in Regis Hastur.It was something, I supposed, that the Terran Empire had lost inspreading from star to star. A feeling of knowing one's own place, adignity that didn't demand recognition because it had never lacked forit.
Like all trailmen he had the chinless face and lobeless ears, theheavy-haired body which looked slightly less than human. He spoke verylow--the trailmen have very acute hearing--and I had to strain my earsto listen, and remember to keep my own voice down.
He stretched his hand to me, and I lowered my head over it and murmured,"I take submission, Old One."
"Never mind that," he said in his gentle twittering voice, "sit down, myson. You are welcome here, but I feel you have abused our trust in you.We dismissed you to your own kind because we felt you would be happierso. Did we show you anything but kindness, that after so many years youreturn with armed men?"
The reproof in his red eyes was hardly an auspicious beginning. I saidhelplessly, "Old One, the men with me are not armed. A band ofthose-who-may-not-enter-cities attacked us, and we defended ourselves. Itravelled with so many men only because I feared to travel the passesalone."
"But does that explain why you have returned at all?" The reason andreproach in his voice made sense.
Finally I said, "Old One, we come as suppliants. My people appeal toyour people in the hope that you will be--" I started to say, _ashuman_, stopped and amended "--that you will deal as kindly with them aswith me."
His face betrayed nothing. "What do you ask?"
I explained. I told it badly, stumbling, not knowing the technicalterms, knowing they had no equivalents anyway in the trailmen'slanguage. He listened, asking a penetrating question now and again. WhenI mentioned the Terran Legate's offer to recognize the trailmen as aseparate and independent government, he frowned and rebuked me:
"We of the Sky People have no dealings with the Terrans, and carenothing for their recognition--or its lack."
For that I had no answer, and the Old One continued, kindly butindifferently, "We do not like to think that the fever which is achildren's little sickness with us shall kill so many of your kind. Butyou cannot in all honesty blame us. You cannot say that we spread thedisease; we never go beyond the mountains. Are we to blame that thewinds change or the moons come together in the sky? When the time hascome for men to die, they die." He stretched his hand in dismissal. "Iwill give your men safe-conduct to the river, Jason. Do not return."
Regis Hastur rose suddenly and faced him. "Will you hear me, Father?" Heused the ceremonial title without hesitation, and the Old One said indistress, "The son of Hastur need never speak as a suppliant to the SkyPeople!"
"Nevertheless, hear me as a suppliant, Father," Regis
said quietly. "Itis not the strangers and aliens of Terra who are pleading. We havelearned one thing from the strangers of Terra, which you have not yetlearned. I am young and it is not fitting that I should teach you, butyou have said; are we to blame that the moons come together in the sky?No. But we have learned from the Terrans not to blame the moons in thesky for our own ignorance of the ways of the Gods--by which I mean theways of sickness or poverty or misery."
"These are strange words for a Hastur," said the Old One, displeased.
"These are strange times for a Hastur," said Regis loudly. The Old Onewinced, and Regis moderated his tone, but continued vehemently,