Larry felt his heart suck and turn over; but although his cheeks blanched, his eyes did not falter, and, at last, Cyrillon said, “Good. We understand one another.” He turned to mount, and Larry, somehow, sensed that he was disappointed.
He wanted me to be frightened and plead with him. He would get some kind of satisfaction out of seeing an Alton pleading—with him! How did I know that?
The man who had him captive lifted Larry to the back of his horse.
“For the moment we can ride,” he said, grimly. He looked ill-pleased. “Don’t give me any trouble, lad; I have no stomach for torturing even a whelp of the Hali-imyn. Never doubt he means what he says, either.”
The other bandits were mounting. Larry, stiff and cold and frightened, looked up at the high wall of mountains that rose ahead.
And yet, for all his fear, a curious and unquenchable pulse of excitement and curiosity beat within him. He had wanted to see the strange and exciting life of the alien world—and here at the foot of the strange mountains, under a strange sun, he was seeing it undiluted. Even with Kennard, there had been the sense that somehow everything was a little different, because he was Terran, because he was alien.
He realized that he had really no grounds for even the slight optimism he felt. For all he knew, Valdir and Kennard, and all their companions, might be lying dead in the valley where they had been ambushed. He was being taken—alone, unarmed, a prisoner, an alien—into some of the wildest and most dangerous and impassable country on Darkover.
Yet the indefinite lift of optimism remained. He was alive and unhurt—and almost anything could happen next.
LARRY WAS DREAMING.
In his dream he was back on Earth, and Darkover was still a faraway, romantic dream. He was on a camping trip, sleeping out in an old forest (or why would he be so cold, with the cold dampness of rain in all his bones?).
Then, through the dream, there was a faint blue glimmer, and an urgent voice speaking. Where are you? Where are you? We’ve been close enough for a long enough time, that if I can pick you up I can follow you and find you. But don’t let them know you’re Terran . . . .
Half impatiently he tried to shut the urgent voice away, to recapture the peaceful dream. He was back in the Terran Zone; in a little while his father would come in and waken him . . . Someone had left the air-conditioning turned up to maximum; it was cold in here, colder than even the Darkovan night . . . and what was the matter with his arm? Why was his bed so cold, had he fallen asleep on the floor? With a little groan, he rolled over, his eyes blinked open and he was back in the terrible present. He squeezed his eyes shut again, with a spasm of despair. He was in the mountain fort of the bandits, and he was very helplessly a captive and alone, and although during the day he could keep up some hope, just now he was only a frightened boy, frightened in a strange world.
His left arm had been cruelly forced backward and strapped behind his back, the left hand at the shoulderblade, in a sort of leather harness. The fingers had long ago gone numb. The first night of his capture, the man who had carried him along the mountain trail had lifted him—numb and helpless—from the saddle, and brought him to their fire; he had, half pityingly, thrown a blanket across him, and cut the thongs on his wrist so that he could eat. Then the masked man had given orders, and two of the men had brought the leather harness. They had begun to tie his right hand behind his back when Cyrillon, whose cold eyes seemed to be everywhere at once, said harshly, “Are you blind? The little bre’suin is left-handed.”
They had not been gentle, but he had not tried to fight of struggle; the fear was still on him, but he would not give them the satisfaction of pleading. Only once, in despair, had he thought of the last resort—telling them he was not their coveted hostage—