I worried about the men below me, but they were the least of my problems, I realized. It was pretty damned dark up here, and their light would not carry far.
As carefully as I could, I eased myself and my burden over the side and held on to die trail rim with both hands, otherwise dangling free. The drag from Ti on my back became so great I almost cried out, but I hadn’t gone through all that training for nothing, nor had a week or so of soft living undone months of hard toil. I managed to keep myself hanging there; how long until I lost my grip and dropped off, I couldn’t tell.
.Again I counted on normal human behavior to help me—and I needed all the help I could get These people had been walking the trail, up and down, down and up, for all their shift, and they were likely to be more bored than totally vigilant, like the two guards at the Castle had been.
They came out of the clouds, walking slowly down the trail. One of them idly picked up a pebble and tossed it over the side, barely missing me only one level and one switchback below them.
“Well, we finally got outta that stinkin’ mist,” one of the women noted with relief.
“Yeah, let the guys get soaked,” the other one cracked. “Maybe if we take it slow enough it’ll be dawn and we’ll be relieved before we hav’ta go up again.”
“You said it,” the first one agreed. “I’ve had it with this mountain business. Me for a hot meal, bath, and bed, and I don’t care in what order.”
They were very close now, around the turn and coming back toward my precarious and increasingly agonizing perch. All I could think of was Don’t stop! Just don’t stop! But there is a law governing such things and stop they did, not more than three or four meters from where my aching, raw hands were visible if they cared to look.
“Hey! Look! I see ’em coming!” one noted, pointing—I could see the arm and finger outstretched, far too close for comfort.
“Wanna wait here for ’em?”
No, no, you don’t want to do that! I thought and prayed so loud that if there had been any such thing as ESP receptivity here they would certainly have heard me.
“You mean stall?” the other responded, thinking it over. “Naah. Why bother? Let’s get this over with.”
As they both turned and left the ledge, I chanced a glance downward to see where the approaching men were. Too close, I decided. Their lantern was already lighting the way only a couple of levels below me, and the women’s own light would expose me when they made the turn. I would have to time my move pretty well and do it silently. I judged the light from their lantern that was thrown forward against the curve of the switchback to be about twenty or so meters further on and watched it grow brighter and brighter.
I almost blew it, for they actually came in view just as I hoisted myself and my heavy burden up and over onto the roadway, flattening there and freezing as still as Ti.
“You hear something?” one of them asked the other.
“Yeah,” the other replied suspiciously. “Sounded just ahead. Let’s take it slow and easy.”
Not too slow, I wished, nor too cautious. I had to get up and start moving before the men got too close—and never had I felt less like moving. My neck and back ached, and my arms felt as if they were disjointed and incapable of anything. I summoned what reserve strength I had and tried some mental exercises to sponge away as much of the discomfort and ache as possible. Controlling my pain centers was no trick, but it was a false control, of course. My muscles and joints were in such pain because they had been pushed to the edge of endurance, and no longer feeling the warnings of the body didn’t lessen that fact. I wondered how much further it was to the top, and whether I was up to it. I didn’t even want to think about meeting yet another patrol on its way down or at the top. Judging by the light and sound, I made my way up toward the still-inviting fog, and made it.
The going was a lot slower now, since I couldn’t see three meters in front of me, and the air became suddenly very wet and sticky. Still, I welcomed the gray cloak as a friend and ally, the first and only one I had ever had on this insane world.
I wasn’t worried about the men approaching from below. Being human and bored, they would stop and exchange small talk with the women coming down; that would buy me a few precious minutes to add to the distance. Then- lantern would be little help once they made the dew line, so they’d be going as slowly as I. If I ran into no one else and if I could just make it over the top before the sun came up, I felt I might just get away.
The sky was certainly getting light by the tune I reached the summit, but by then I really didn’t care any more. From this point on I’d be descending toward the wild—too early for any commercial traffic, I hoped—and into whatever brush there might be. I was out on my feet, every step a horrible experience, but I drove myself, knowing that I had to make it down, had to make it to cover, before the day really began. I hoped there would be only light patrols on this side of the range—if any at all. Not that they wouldn’t be looking for me here, but with limited manpower Artur would concentrate mainly on keeping me bottled up. Only when they discovered the dead guards would their search become frantic, and only after that would they begin to widen it into places they did not control.
At least I hoped so.
I was soaked through by the tune I made it to the lower edge of the dew line, had been for a couple of hours. For the first time since being on Lilith, the combination of wetness, a light wind, and the slight elevation threw a genuine chill into me. It was getting really light now; the sun, I was sure, was going to peek through any minute now and perhaps burn off some of this cloud cover.
Now, out of the thick mountain-bred fog, I could see ahead of me my first real view on Lilith of a place other than Zeis Keep. There were rolling, thickly forested hills, it appeared, the trees and hilltops peeking out a dark blue-green from trapped pockets of thick ground fog. The place had an eerie stillness about it, and I felt certain that I would at least make it to the shelter of those trees.
I could no longer carry Ti, and ordered her to let go of my back and walk beside me. Though she could keep up by running if she had to, I took it slowly and carefully nonetheless. The stone path was slick and wet, and I wanted no accidents for either of us, not now—not when I had accomplished my immediate goal.
The sun was well up and warming the place into a steam bath before I finally decided I couldn’t take any more and picked a spot not far from the road that seemed well concealed from prying eyes and barren of any obvious threat from natural causes. I sensitized Ti with a series of commands so that she would remain listening and would wake me if she heard anyone or anything approaching, then settled down under tree and bush cover on the grass and rock-strewn forest floor and let myself relax for the first time. No matter how rotten I felt, I did feel a strong sense of accomplishment.
I’d escaped! I’d made it! I was, for the first time in this body, once more a free man, a free agent! It felt really good.
Deep down, though, that nagging little voice I always carried with me sang a different tune. All right, superhuman, it mocked. So now you’re naked and unarmed in a strange and hostile world whose inhabitants are all raised against you, saddled with a robot-like girl, and you’ve got no place to go and no help to do anything else. All right, Homo superior—now what do you do?
There was only one response to that. I fell into the deepest of sleeps.
Chapter Thirteen