He said helplessly, “Kennard, I can’t explain it to you any more than you can explain to me how you destroyed that blue jewel of yours—or how your psychics herded a batch of clouds across the sky to put out a fire. But I helped you do it, didn’t I? And it worked? We can’t possibly be any worse off than we are already, can we? And the Terran ships find their way between the stars by using this kind of—of science. So will you at least let me try?”
Kennard was silent for a moment. At last he said, “I suppose you are right. We could not be worse off.”
Larry knelt and drew an improvised sketch map on the ground, what he remembered of the mountain range he had seen from the distance. “Now here’s the mountains and here is the edge of the trailmen’s forest. How far had we come before you lost sure sight of exactly where we were going?”
Hesitantly, with many frowns and rememberings, Kennard traced out a route.
“And that was—exactly how long ago? Try to be as accurate as you can, Kennard; how many miles ago did you begin not to be absolutely sure?”
Kennard put his finger on the improvised map.
“So we’re within about five hours walk from that point.” He drew a circle around the point Kennard had shown as their last positive location. “We could be anywhere in this circle, but if we keep west and keep going west we’ll have to hit the mountains—we can’t possibly miss them.” He tried not to think of what would lie before them then. Kennard thought of it as just the final hurdle, but the journey with the bandits through their own dreadful chasms and crags—bound and handcuffed like sacked luggage—had given him an enduring horror of the Darkovan mountains that was to last his lifetime.
“If this works . . .” Kennard said, skeptically, but immediately looked an apology. “What do I have to do first? Is there any specific ritual for the use of this—this amulet?”
Larry, by main force, held back a shout of half-hysterical laughter. Instead, he said gravely, “Just cross your fingers that it will work,” and started questioning Kennard about the minor discrepancies, of the seasons, and the sun’s rising and setting. Darkover—he knew from its extremes of climate—must be a planet with an exaggeratedly tilted axis, and he would have to figure out just how far north or south of true west the sun set at this season of the year in this latitude. How he blessed the teacher at Quarters B who had loaned him the book on Darkovan geography—otherwise he might not even have been sure whether they were in the southern, rather than the northern hemisphere. He boggled at the thought of trying to explain an equator to Kennard.
A degree or two wouldn’t matter—not with a range of mountains hundreds of miles long, that they couldn’t miss if they tried—but the nearer they came out to the pass itself, the sooner they would be home. And the sooner Kennard’s father would be out of trouble. He was amazed at how responsible he felt.
The compass would steady, he realized, if he let it swing freely without his hand moving. All they had to do was take a rough bearing, follow it, checking it again and again every few miles.
Once again, he realized, he had taken the lead in the expedition, and Kennard, reluctantly, was forced to follow. It bothered him, and he knew Kennard didn’t like it. He hoped, at least, that it wouldn’t bring on another outburst of rage.
He stood up, looking at the muddy mess of their improvised map. He was cold and drenched, but he assumed an air of confidence which, in reality, he was far from feeling.
“Well, if we’re going to risk it,” he said, “west is that way. So let’s start walking. I’m ready if you are.”
It was hard, slow going, scrambling into canyons and up slopes, stopping every hour to swing the compass free and wait for it to steady and point, re-drawing the improvised compass card in the mud. Larry finally shortened this step by drawing one on a page of his battered notebook. The rain went on, remorselessly, not hard, never soaking, but always there—a thin, fine, chilling drizzle that eventually seemed worse than the worst and hardest downpour. His arm, the one the bandits had harnessed behind his back, felt both numb and sore, but there wasn’t a thing he could do but set his teeth and try to think about something else. That night they literally dug themselves into a bank of dead leaves, in a vain attempt to keep some of the worst of the rain off. Their clothes were wet. Their skin was wet. Their boots and socks were wet. The food they munched was wet—berries, nuts, fruits and a sort of root like a raw potato. Kennard could easily enough have snared small game, but they tacitly agreed that even cold raw sour berries and mushrooms were preferable to raw wet meat. And Kennard swore that in this drizzle, at this season, in this kind of country, not even a kyrri could strike enough spark to kindle a fire!