attened like bugs
against a wall, scrabbling for hand-holds and footholds. I felt it a
point 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 give over. Crowding together on the
ledge, I changed places with the veteran Lerrys, who was better than
most professional climbers.

He muttered, "I thought you said this was a _trail_!"

I stretched my mouth in what was supposed to be a grin and didn't quite
make it. "For the trailmen, this is a superhighway. And no one else ever
comes this way."

Now we climbed slowly over snow; once or twice we had to flounder
through drifts, and once a brief bitter snowstorm blotted out sight for
twenty minutes, while we hugged each other on the ledge, clinging wildly
against wind and icy sleet.

* * * * *

We bivouacked that night in a crevasse blown almost clean of snow, well
above the tree-line, where only scrubby unkillable thornbushes
clustered. We tore down some of them and piled them up as a windbreak,
and bedded beneath it; 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 the most miserable in memory.
Except for the slight ringing in my ears, the height alone did not
bother 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-sickness in its most
agonizing form: severe cramps and vomiting. I was desperately uneasy
about all of them, but there was nothing I could do; the only cure for
mountain-sickness is oxygen or a lower altitude, neither of which was
practical.

In the windbreak we doubled up, sharing blankets and body warmth: I took
a last look around the close space before crawling in beside Kendricks,
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, and I realized she was
including me on the Darkovan side of a joke against this big man who was
so unaware of Darkovan etiquette. But her voice was cool and curt as she
said, "I'm not worrying," and