poor gawk, disturbed
by, ashamed of the only human impulses he ever had. On the screen
Allison frowned fiercely, "A crazy impulse."

"You could say that, or say it was an action of the suppressed Jay_{2}.
How about it, Allison? You may be the only Terran on Darkover, maybe the
only human, who could get into a trailman's Nest without being
murdered."

"Sir--as a citizen of the Empire, I don't have any choice, do I?"

"Jay, look," Forth said, and I felt him trying to reach through the
barricade and touch, really touch that cold contained young man, "we
couldn't _order_ any man to do anything like this. Aside from the
ordinary dangers, it could destroy your personal balance, maybe
permanently. I'm asking you to volunteer something above and beyond the
call of duty. Man to man--what do you say?"

I would have been moved by his words. Even at secondhand I was moved by
them. Jay Allison looked at the floor, and I saw him twist his long
well-kept surgeon's hands and crack the knuckles with an odd gesture.
Finally he said, "I haven't any choice either way, Doctor. I'll take the
chance. I'll go to the trailmen."

* * * * *

The screen went dark again and Forth flicked the light on. He said,
"Well?"

I gave it back, in his own intonation, "Well?" and was exasperated to
find that I was twisting my own knuckles in the nervous gesture of
Allison's painful decision. I jerked them apart and got up.

"I suppose it didn't work, with that cold fish, and you decided to come
to me instead? Sure, _I'll_ go to the trailmen for you. Not with that
Allison--I wouldn't go anywhere with that guy--but I speak the
trailmen's language, and without hypnosis either."

Forth was staring at me. "So you've remembered that?"

"Hell, yes," I said, "my dad crashed in the Hellers, and a band of
trailmen found me, half dead. I lived there until I was about fifteen,
then their Old-One decided I was too human for them, and they took me
out through Dammerung Pass and arranged to have me brought here. Sure,
it's all coming back now. I spent five years in the Spacemen's
Orphanage, then I went to work taking Terran tourists on hunting parties
and so on, because I liked being around the mountains. I--" I stopped.
Forth was staring at me.

"You think you'd like this job?"

"It would be tough," I said, considering. "The People of the Sky--"
(using the trailmen's name for themselves) "--don't like outsiders, but
they migh