"There's always a chance."
"Yes; and if there is, you'll take it. That's something else I read in your palm. Guts and luck both. I'm willing to ride with them." Arbush shivered. "Damn this cold! What we need is a drink. Maybe Beint had a secret bottle stashed somewhere."
He found it in a loop under the console; a metal flask of brandy disguised as a container of oil. After the first drink Dumarest replaced the cap.
"We'll need this later," he said. "Now let's get back to work."
At dawn they were ready; packs loaded, pitons heavy in pouches, coils of braided wire, hammers, axes hanging from roughly fashioned harnesses. Dumarest stood, thinking, mentally rechecking what they carried. A single item could mean their lives; once they had started, there would be no turning back.
Arbush came bustling from within the body of the wreck. He carried two lasers, and a bag which made small metallic clinkings.
"Here." He handed one of the guns to Dumarest. "A good thought, Earl. I'd forgotten."
"What's in the bag?"
"Money. Your ten thousand ermils." Arbush handed them over. "Some other things."
"Such as?" He watched as the minstrel tilted the bag. Rings showed, heavy bands set with precious gems, adornments wrenched from the fingers of the dead captain. A few octagonal coins, some others. The entire portable wealth of the Styast.
"There's no point in leaving it. Earl. A city can be as deadly as a jungle for a man who can't pay his way."
A hard-learned truth. Dumarest said, "Keep the rings and well split the money. Ready now?"
* * * * *
They climbed from the ship into a scintillating fairyland; the ice glowing with red and orange, green, blue, yellow, all the colors of the spectrum fired by the light of the sun. It was small, a blue-white orb which seared the vision, a compact patch of brightness in the sky. It hung low; against it they could only squint behind protectors of tinted plastic, goggles hastily improvised from the filters of broken scanners.
For a while they studied the terrain, grotesque figures muffled and shapeless; the minstrel's gilyre, miraculously preserved, hanging by a string from his pack.
"It's cold," said Arbush, gesturing towards the sun. "It looks hot, but it's cold. Radiating high in the ultra-violet and we must be a long way from it. The entire planet could be ice-bound, Earl."
A possibility, Dumarest had been on stranger worlds; but life existed in the most unexpected places. And if this planet held wealth of any kind it would have attracted exploiters; men who would build cities, visitors in ships.
If men were close. If the world was a habitated region. If the warp hadn't flung them into another space.
He said, "I'll take the lead. We'll be roped together. Keep back, but not too far. If I slip, dig in and take the strain."
"You've done this before," said Arbush. "Traveled over ice, I mean. How bad is it, Earl?"
Bad enough. Dumarest narrowed his eyes against the glare, catching deeper pools of color; shadows which revealed crevasses, mounds and distant peaks which would have to be climbed. Ahead rolled an undulating surface, scored and traced with gullys of unknown depth; yet one which could be traversed without too much trouble during the day.
Relatively easy for men in good condition with proper equipment and clothing. Far from that, in their present condition.
"Well head towards those peaks," he said, deciding. "Due south as far as I can gather. Aim for the pass between them. When we reach it, we'll take another sighting. Now, remember, keep the rope taut and stay alert."
There was no wind; for that he was grateful. No cloud and no flurry of frozen particles; but even so the going was hard. The surface was deceptive, perspective distorted, a multitude of snares hidden by the glare. Twice he stepped over the unseen edge of a crevasse, relying on the rope which jerked him to a halt and drew him back to safety. The third time a thin layer shattered beneath his boots and he fell further down than before, feeling the savage jerk at his harness as the life-line snapped taut.
Arbush's face was anxious as he drew him to safety.
"Your mouth, Earl, it's got blood on it. Do that again and you could shred your lungs. Why not let me take the lead?"
"You're too heavy." Dumarest wiped at the blood, already frozen. "If you slipped, I couldn't hold you, I'd follow you down." He looked at the sun. "We moved too soon. Later, if the sun rises higher, we can get a better view."
"Do we wait until then?"
"No. We can't be sure the sun will rise higher than it has. We'll just have to take more care."
He moved on, cautiously, testing every step of the way. The ice was crusted in places with frozen snow, patches which had hardened to hide what lay beneath. Like snails they crawled around them, crossing them only when there was no choice, anchoring the rope to axes driven deep as each man traversed the areas in turn.
Later the going improved; the ice which had been scored with cracks as if some mammoth hand had shattered the surface, growing more solid, less treacherous.
At noon they reached the pass and looked down into nightmare.
"Well never be able to do it." Arbush, breathing heavily, slumped with his back against a hummock. The gilyre, swinging loose, rapped against the ice and made a soft, thrumming sound. "Earl, we'll have to find some other way. There has to be simpler route."
There probably was; finding it was something else. Dumarest looked at the sun; it was still low, even at the center of its swing. Lowering his eyes he took a sight; a jagged peak which rose like a rotten tooth, another beside it which seemed to bear a crenelated castle. From both summits smoke seemed to drift in thinning plumes, trapped snow carried by high-altitude winds.
Between where they sat and the distant peaks lay a mass of cracks and fissures, mounds, escarpments, gullys, shimmering cliffs; the whole area torn and jagged as if a giant fork had stirred the surface. To reach it they would first have to descend a sheer wall which stretched as far as he could see on either side.
"We'll never do it," said Arbush again. "We've got to drop five hundred feet and then cross that mess out there. Climbing, descending, up and down-and then what? More ice."
"Well do it," said Dumarest. "We have to. Hold my legs while I take a look."
He eased forward as Arbush gripped his ankles, thrusting the upper part of his body over the edge. The ice was rough, cracked in places, ledged at spots on the way down. He studied them, impressing their position on his memory. Back up in his original position he said, "It won't be all that difficult. Pitons will hold the ropes and we can use the axes."
"Just like that?"
"There's no other way." Dumarest freed the coil of braided wire from his harness. "Join this to yours and make sure the knot is tight and smooth. It has to pass through the eyelet of a piton. We'll let ourselves down as far as we can go and then take it in stages."
At the edge Dumarest searched for a firm place and hammered one of the pitons in it, up to the eyelet. Through it he fed the joined rope, testing the knot with a jerk, making certain that it would slip through. Checking the end attached to his harness, he threw the remainder over the edge, then, gripping the length below the eyelet, slipped over the edge of the cliff.
A simple manoeuvre for a fit man, to let himself down a sheer drop while supporting his own weight on a trailing rope. But he wasn't fit, the braided wire was thin, cutting into his gloved palms, hard to grip; only the spikes on his boots enabled him to ease his way down towards a ledge he had spotted.
It lay a little towards the right, too far to reach; a narrow extension from the face, the edges frayed and weak. He dropped below it, kicked at the face and began to swing like the bob on a pendulum. Another kick, a third and his boots rasped on the ledge. Before he could swing away he slammed the point of an axe into the ice and hung on, breathing deeply.