Darkover (Imaginary place) -- Fiction; Life on other planets -- Fiction; Science fiction
"I suppose it didn't work, with that cold fish, and you decided to come
to me instead? Sure, _I'll_ go to the trailmen for you. Not with that
Allison--I wouldn't go anywhere with that guy--but I speak the
trailmen's language, and without hypnosis either."
Forth was staring at me. "So you've remembered that?"
"Hell, yes," I said, "my dad crashed in the Hellers, and a band of
trailmen found me, half dead. I lived there until I was about fifteen,
then their Old-One decided I was too human for them, and they took me
out through Dammerung Pass and arranged to have me brought here. Sure,
it's all coming back now. I spent five years in the Spacemen's
Orphanage, then I went to work taking Terran tourists on hunting parties
and so on, because I liked being around the mountains. I--" I stopped.
Forth was staring at me.
"You think you'd like this job?"
"It would be tough," I said, considering. "The People of the Sky--"
(using the trailmen's name for themselves) "--don't like outsiders, but
they might be persuaded. The worst part would be getting there. The
plane, or the 'copter, isn't built that can get through the crosswinds
around the Hellers and land inside them. We'd have to go on foot, all
the way from Carthon. I'd need professional climbers--mountaineers."
"Then you don't share Allison's attitude?"
"Dammit, don't insult me!" I discovered that I was on my feet again,
pacing the office restlessly. Forth stared and mused aloud, "What's
personality anyway? A mask of emotions, superimposed on the body and the
intellect. Change the point of view, change the emotions and desires,
and even with the same body and the same past experiences, you have a
new man."
I swung round in mid-step. A new and terrible suspicion, too monstrous
to name, was creeping up on me. Forth touched a button and the face of
Jay Allison, immobile, appeared on the visionscreen. Forth put a mirror
in my hand. He said, "Jason Allison, look at yourself."
I looked.
"No," I said. And again, "No. No. No."
* * * * *
Forth didn't argue. He pointed, with a stubby finger. "Look--" he moved
the finger as he spoke, "height of forehead. Set of cheekbones. Your
eyebrows look different, and your mouth, because the expression is
different. But bony structure--the nose, the chin--"
I heard myself make a queer sound; dashed the mirror to the floor. He
grabbed my forearm. "Steady, man!"
I found a scrap of my voice. It didn't sound like Allison's. "Then
I'm--Jay_{2}? Jay Allison with amnesia?"
"Not exactly." Forth mopped his forehead with an immaculate sleeve and
it came away damp with sweat, "No--_not_ Jay Allison as I know him!" He
drew a long breath. "And sit down. Whoever you are, sit _down_!"
I sat. Gingerly. Not sure.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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