He came, and I remembered to breathe. I led the way to a fairly deserted corner of the immense place, faced him and demanded, "As for you--what are you doing here? You're not intending to cross the mountains with us?" He met my scowl levelly. "I certainly am." I groaned. "Why? You're the Regent's grandson. Important people don't take on this kind of dangerous work. If anything happens to you, it will be my responsibility!" I was going to have enough trouble, I was thinking, without shepherding along one of the most revered Personages on the whole damned planet! I didn't want anyone around who had to be fawned on, or deferred to, or even listened to. * * * * * He frowned slightly, and I had the unpleasant impression that he knew what I was thinking. "In the first place--it will mean something to the trailmen, won't it--to have a Hastur with you, suing for this favor?" It certainly would. The trailmen paid little enough heed to the ordinary humans, except for considering them fair game for plundering when they came uninvited into trailman country. But they, with all Darkover, revered the Hasturs, and it was a fine point of diplomacy--if the Darkovans sent their most important leader, they might listen to him. "In the second place," Regis Hastur continued, "the Darkovans are my people, and it's my business to negotiate for them. In the third place, I know the trailmen's dialect--not well, but I can speak it a little. And in the fourth, I've climbed mountains all my life. Purely as an amateur, but I can assure you I won't be in the way." There was little enough I could say to that. He seemed to have covered every point--or every point but one, and he added, shrewdly, after a minute, "Don't worry; I'm perfectly willing to have you take charge. I won't claim--privilege." I had to be satisfied with that. * * * * * Darkover is a civilized planet with a fairly high standard of living, but it is not a mechanized or a technological culture. The people don't do much mining, or build factories, and the few which were founded by Terran enterprise never were very successful; outside the Terran Trade City, machinery or modern transportation is almost unknown. While the other men checked and loaded supplies and Rafe Scott went out to contact some friends of his and arrange for last-minute details, I sat down with Forth to memorize the medical details I must put so clearly to the trailmen. "If we could only have kept your medical knowledge!" "Trouble is, being a doctor doesn't suit my personality," I said. I felt absurdly light-hearted. Where I sat, I could raise my head and study the panorama of blackish-green foothills which lay beyond Carthon, and search out the stone roadways, like a tiny white ribbon, which we could follow for the first stage of the trip. Forth evidently did not share my enthusiasm. "You know, Jason, there is one real danger--"