ew. Forth continued, "Just the same,
there will be two Terrans with you."

"They don't know Jay Allison?" I didn't want to be burdened with
anyone--not anyone--who would know me, or expect me to behave like my
forgotten other self.

"Kendricks knows you," Forth said, "but I'm going to be perfectly
truthful. I never knew Jay Allison well, except in line of work. I know
a lot of things--from the past couple of days--which came out during
the hypnotic sessions, which he'd never have dreamed of telling me, or
anyone else, consciously. And that comes under the heading of a
professional confidence--even from you. And for that reason, I'm sending
Kendricks along--and you're going to have to take the chance he'll
recognize you. Isn't that Carthon down there?"

* * * * *

Carthon lay nestled under the outlying foothills of the Hellers, ancient
and sprawling and squatty, and burned brown with the dust of five
thousand years. Children ran out to stare at the 'copter as we landed
near the city; few planes ever flew low enough to be seen, this near the
Hellers.

Forth had sent his crew ahead and parked them in an abandoned huge place
at the edge of the city which might once have been a warehouse or a
ruined palace. Inside there were a couple of trucks, stripped down to
framework and flatbed like all machinery shipped through space from
Terra. There were pack animals, dark shapes in the gloom. Crates were
stacked up in an orderly untidiness, and at the far end a fire was
burning and five or six men in Darkovan clothing--loose sleeved shirts,
tight wrapped breeches, low boots--were squatting around it, talking.
They got up as Forth and Kendricks and I walked toward them, and Forth
greeted them clumsily, in bad accented Darkovan, then switched to Terran
Standard, letting one of the men translate for him.

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