Calories

SlNGER took a quick look up and down the street. Few were abroad in the long spring twilight, especially since a light snow had begun and the wind whipped a thin surface-drift over the cobbles. Nothing to hold a footprint yet, so he'd be sweet for a while before the Johns mooched along.

Hoping the stories of Syechas's hospitality to fugitives were true, he darted through the door with more agility than one would expect of a man of his bulk. Inside, the sweet smell of nyomnigë met his nose. Luckily he didn't have to worry about letting that drug get him. A difference between the superficially human-looking Krishnans and Earthmen was that instead of giving the latter visions of love, wealth, and other fine things, nyomnigë simply made them sick.

Syechas loomed in the gloom, his shaven skull reflecting feeble yellow lamplight. "Yes?"

Singer swept off his heavy fur cap, baring his own polished pate. Since coming to Nichnyamadze he had taken up this local custom, because it saved an Earthman a picnic in the form of messing around with green hair-dye.

"My name is Dinki," said Singer in stumbling Nichnyami. "They say that you—that you shelter people who wish to be left—uh—severely alone."

"They say many things," said Syechas, bulking immovably before him.

"I can pay," said Singer with a smile.

Syechas raised his antennae. "How much?"

Singer felt into his surcoat and brought out one of the two platinum candlesticks.

"Hm," said Syechas, narrowing heavy-lidded eyes as he held the bauble up to the lamp in the wall-bracket. "This is from the high priest's palace." He turned the object so that the jewels threw little sharp beams of light here and there.. "It would be risky to sell."

"Still," said Singer, "it should be worth—let us say—sixty days' lodging at—at a minimum? In strict—uh—privacy?"

"Have you another?" said Syechas, looking at Singer's big gold ring.

"No," replied Singer, feeling the other hard against his chest.

"Then make it forty days' minimum and I will take you."

"Done."

"Come then." Syechas led down the dark corridor. From the rooms on either side came silence or various sounds: -song here, mutterings there. Singer would have liked to have dropped an eave, since Syechas was said to have a finger in every conspiratorial pie in the city of Vyutr. However, he dared not annoy his new landlord by lagging.

Up a flight of dingy stairs they went; up another; into a room containing an unmade bed and a few crude movables. Syechas took a step-ladder out of the closet and set it up directly under a trapdoor in the ceiling, climbed, and rapped. Then he pushed up the trapdoor, came down, and said: "Up there."

Singer climbed. When he put his head through the opening he found it not quite so dark as an attic should be. He climbed the rest of the way and saw why: a table against a partition on which stood a lamp shaded by a piece of board.

Somebody was breathing.

Singer whirled, hand on his knife, and hit his head on a rafter. As the stars cleared he saw a man crouching in the gloom with a thing in his hand.

"Who are you?" said Singer.

"I might ask the same question."

"Stsa!" came Syechas's heavy voice. "Carve each other not; you're in like condition. Dinki, I'll fetch you a pallet. Have you supped?"

"No," said Singer.

"Very well." Sounds indicated that Syechas was securing the ladder. "Close the trap, and open not save on my knock: two, and again three."

"All right now," said Singer. "As I'm a—a fugitive like yourself, you can put up that thing. What is it, a pistol?" He picked the board off the table, so that the little oil-lamp shone unimpeded.

He saw a short man with a flat oriental-looking face and shaven head—typical Nichnyami. The man looked younger than Singer. However, you couldn't tell with Krishnans, who, lacking the benefits of Earthly science, seldom surpassed a century and a half, Earth time. The man held what he now saw to be a cocked crossbow-pistol. He shook out the bolt, let down the string, and said:

"As you see, no. Where should I get the magic weapons of the Earthmen?" Then after a pause: "Syechas played me foul, putting another in my suite—" (he indicated the attic with a faint smile) "—when I'd paid him for exclusive use. But he has us by the antennae. Whence hail you, stranger? From your accent I'd say not from Nichnyamadze."

"You're right. I—"

Singer paused, watching the other twirl one finger round his right antenna, and then take that organ of smell between thumb and finger and tug it gently, thrice.

Singer casually did likewise. This was a high-sign among Earthmen travelling in disguise on the planet Krishna, implying their feelers were false and glued on.

"Do you speak Portuguese?" said the stranger in that tongue.

"Sim, senhor" replied Singer in the language of the spaceways. "Enough to get by."

"Was your original language by any chance English?"

Singer's plump face took on a broad grin as he thrust out a beefy hand. "Good-o! Shike on it, cobber!"

The other man shook with a steely grip, saying: "Are you English?"

"D'you tike me for a bleeding Pommy? Hell no, I'm an Austrylian! But ain't it a hang of a thing to yarn in the good old English language agine?"

"Sure is," said the man with a faintly ironical grin for which Singer could see no reason. "What's your name?"

"Born Cuthwih Singer, but me pals calls me 'Dinky.' Yours?"

"I'm Earl Okagamut."

"The Earl of what?"

"No; that's my name. Okagamut. Earl Okagamut."

"Oh. How'd you land in this hell-hole?"

"Studying for a Ph. D.," said Okagamut.

"That don't sound reasonable, now. Explain."

"Sure. I'm studying for a degree in xenanthropology, and for my thesis I took Krishnan religious customs. By a little bribery and a lot of damn foolishness I got into the purity ceremony in the Fprochan Temple, disguised as a Kangandite priest."

"You are a doer! And they caught you digging the jewel out of the idol's eye, I suppose?"

"No; they only worship geometrical abstractions."

"I know; I was Yadjye's butler. Maybe that's what makes 'em such wowsers. What happened?"

"You were Yadjye's butler? It was old Yadjye himself who caught me. I must have turned right when I should have turned left, or gotten up when I should have prostrated myself, for the first thing I knew the high priest was yelling 'sacrilege!' and a hundred minor Kangandites, not being supposed to shed blood, were trying to strangle me with the belt-cords of their robes."

"How d'you get out?" cried Singer excitedly.

"This." Okagamut whisked out his blade: slightly curved, too long for a knife though rather short for a sword, with a fancy knuckle-guard. "I had to prick a couple, for which my next incarnation will no doubt be in the body of an unha. Luckily I got out before the temple guards were alerted, and came here. How about you?"

"Oh, nothing much about me," said Singer with an air of false modesty. "But since you insist, I had a good pozzer at Novorecife and married a bonzer sheila, when who blows in from Earth but another wife I'd forgot about, complete with documents to prove it. Well, you know how it is there—for a Brazzy, Abreu's the worst wowser I ever seen ..."

"I know," said Okagamut. "Being scared of his own wife, he won't stand for liberties on the part of anyone else."

"That's the dinkum oil. I thought it wise to up stick before he put his Johns on me, and ever since then I've been a sundowner wandering the face of Krishna and living by what wits I've got. By devious methods I wormed my way into the household of His Sacredness High-Priest Yadjye, Archbishop or Chief Rabbi or whatever you call him of the Church of the Divine Space, otherwise the Kangandite Cult, for the Diocese of Nichnyamadze."

"As his butler?" asked Okagamut.

"Well, yes and no. Having once been an undertaker I knew something of forms and ceremonies. Therefore he employed me as a master of protocol, to tell the temple virgins when to bring on the roast and such. Only poor Yadjye can't eat roast, being head of a religion that disbelieves in meat-eating and any other kind of fun you might mention."

"How about the temple virgins? Are they?"

"They are; or at least they were before I came along. They serve him at table in rotation, you see. Well, there was a tonky little sort starting her training, named Lüdey, and we will not bandy a woman's name except to say that everything was as jolly as could be until she got the idea that I should take her away from it all to see the world. Several worlds, in fact, for in the course of the proceedings she had naturally got on to the fact that I was an Earthman. I explained how I couldn't get off Krishna unless they changed the law about bigamy, for Novorecife was the only spaceport and Abreu's troopers would catch me dinkum die if I tried it.

"But the situation deteriorated, as that bloke Shakespeare said, until she departed with a toss of her lovely head and a threat to tell Uncle Yadjye about the viper in his bosom. Not waiting to argue the toss I shook the dust of the Archepiscopal palace from my boots and—here I am! Now what'll we do?"

"Don't know. How are you fixed for money?"

"Oh," said Singer cautiously, "I copped one of Yadjye's candlesticks and gave it Syechas for board and keep."

"Is that all?"

"It's all I'm telling about. I didn't have time to pack me luggage. How about you?"

"Somewhat the same, except that I had some cash on me. I can't stay here much longer or I won't have enough for the kind of escape I'm planning."

"What's your idea?" said Singer eagerly.

"Well, I don't know. I'd planned it for one man, and it'll cost more than I've got with two."

Singer looked hard at Okagamut. While this man seemed fair dinkum, Singer was not free from prejudices. Finally he made up his mind.

"Look, cobber, let's take a chance," he said, bringing out the other candlestick and his small change and laying them on the floor. "We can trust each other farther than we can Syechas, anyhow. Part up your oscar and we shall see what we can do."

Okagamut brought out a money-belt. They counted coins and estimated the value of the candlestick, and were just securing their wealth when five raps on the trapdoor told them Syechas was bringing supper.

After they had closed the trap again Singer beamed at the tray with honest pleasure. "Meat, by God! After a month of greens I thought I'd never see real tucker again. How does he do it?"

Okagamut shrugged. "If he can get nyomnigë I guess he can bootleg a little meat. Contraband is his business."

"Including us," said Singer. "Look, what's this escape plan?"

"Had any polar experience?"

"Having been a professional tourist guide, I've done a little mountaineering. Why?"

"I thought we might buy a sled and cut across the Psheshuva. I know the President of Olñega."

"Hm," said Singer, not sure he liked the plan. The Psheshuva was a spur to the South Polar Plateau, which extended north a thousand hoda or so, separating the Kingdom of Nichnyamadze from the Republic of Olñega. Singer had never driven a fsyok-sled, and his mountaineering was confined to a few slides down an easy slope on skis. "How will you make arrangements?"

"Syechas can take care of most of it. Claims he can get us out of Vyutr—for a consideration, of course."

"What's he going to use, a glider? With these winds a big kite could lift us over the wall."

"I suspect a tunnel. How much trail can you take?"

Singer said: "I've had a bit of graft in my day, though I've lived an easy life lately." He patted his paunch. "That'll work off, I dare say."

"How about arms?"

Singer shook his head. "Nothing but me eating-dirk. I never could get the knack of these silly swords. Why, one bomb or gun—"

"I know, but we're on Krishna, where they don't have such things. Maybe it's just as well, because we'll have to watch our weight to the last gram."

Syechas said: "Myosl will take you through the tunnel. Then you have a three-days' walk into the mountains. When you reach Dyeniik's house, you can get your needfuls from there on."

Myosl led them, muffled in furs, out Syechas's back door into the cold night; along a winding path among rubbish-heaps and through fences, and down steps to another door. A lock squealed, and they were in complete darkness.

Myosl snapped one of those flint-and-steel contraptions and lit a small candle-lamp. The reflector threw a weak beam into a tunnel walled with rough stone down which water dripped from whiskers of mould and moss. Singer had to bend, and the mud sucked at his boots. Every few paces their shabby-looking guide looked back at them.

Okagamut said softly: "This must run for kilometres."

"Right-o. I should think we'd be outside the walls now. I don't—" Singer paused as Myosl bent another of those looks on him.

"Go on. I'm sure he can't understand English."

"I was about to say, I don't trust that joker. Wouldn't it be a go, now, if after our host back there had got all the brass he could wring out of us, we was to be smeared by a push in these here catacombs and robbed of the rest?"

They plodded on, their breaths making plumes of vapour in the cold air. The silence was broken only by the drip of water and the squelching of their boots in the mud. The place stank.

"It's rising," said Okagamut.

The tunnel not only rose, but also made a couple of right-angled turns and ended with a door. Myosl took another look behind him and opened the door.

Beyond the room was a small space like a closet and another door. Through this door they found themselves in a kind of underground meeting-room, far gone in ruin. At the far end a broken door hung askew on one hinge. Through the triangular opening Singer could see steps going up and moonlight coming down.

Okagamut said: "See that helmet in stone carved on the altar? This must be a secret chapel of Qondyorr, the old Gozashtando god of war. After the Kangandites got control of the kingdom, they drove the other cults underground, in both senses. Wish I could get access to the records of—"

Myosl whistled sharply.

"Watch it, bod!" cried Singer, reaching for the clasp of his cloak.

Two men stepped out of the shadows. Each ran at one of the Earthmen with a sword. Myosl laid down his lantern, drew a dagger, and danced after them.

Skipping back to stay out of reach of the point, Singer tripped and fell on his back. His assailant lunged. Singer knocked the blade aside with his forearm and shot his heel out against the man's belly. The man reeled back and crashed into Myosl. By the time they had recovered, Singer was up again, the clasp finally undone.

"Come on, ringtails!" said Singer, whipping the cloak into a roll and swinging it with both hands. The heavy fur-lined garment made a fine club. Whang! The nearest attacker's sword went flying across the room. Whang! Myosl was knocked sideways.

Somebody screamed. Beyond his assailants Singer saw Okagamut's man thrashing on the floor. Okagamut turned towards them. Myosl lunged with his dagger; Singer caught his wrist and they grappled, Myosl trying to cut through Singer's glove. The other attacker squared off with his fists at Okagamut, who led with his left. The Krishnan countered with a straight right which the Earthman dodged, and the latter came back with a right, almost at the same instant, to the side of the Krishnan's jaw. Crack! The Krishnan sat down.

Singer brought his leg into play and sent Myosl staggering back. Then he got out his own knife, a special number with a knobby guard that made a fine knuckleduster. As Myosl recovered from the kick, Singer punched his face with the guard and then let him have the point.

"You're late," Singer told Okagamut as Myosl collapsed. "No, wait, the other's getting up!"

Both rushed at the remaining Krishnan, who, however, was now on his feet and using them. He leaped through the doorway and up the stairs. The Earthmen tripped and stumbled after him. The stairs, half buried in moss and stones, led up to what must have once been a hidden entrance on the surface, long since fallen to pieces. Though all three moons bathed the snow-spotted landscape, the Krishnan could not be seen. A half-hoda away rose the wall of Vyutr.

Okagamut said: "Maybe he's behind one of these boulders or bushes, but even if we flushed him the racket would bring the guard out."

"Good-o," said Singer. "Let's see what we've got below."

The two Krishnans in the chapel were dead, one with the hilt of Okagamut's short sword sticking out of his ribs. The blade must have stuck in a bone, for Okagamut had to take the hilt in both hands and set his foot on the corpse to jerk the blade out.

"That's the trouble with Krishnans," said Singer. "They looks human except for details like the ears and feelers, but you never can tell where their bones and vital organs are." He picked up the sword of the man who had run away. "You know, Earl, maybe swords ain't so silly here after all. I think I'll keep this half-pie article. Of course if I had me lady from Bristol ..." He examined the cheap sword, whose scabbard had fled with its owner. On the other hand the attacker whom Okagamut had killed had broken his sword.

"His lunge went over my shoulder and hit the wall," Okagamut explained. "What do you make of this attack?"

Singer fitted the odd sword into the dead man's scabbard. A little tight, but it would have to do.

"Simple robbery, near as I can see;" he said. "I don't know this smear here. Still, we'd best push off. I say, there ought to be a fortune in smuggling modern arms to these bushmen!"

"Been tried. The Interplanetary Council goes to any length to stop it. There was the King of Zamba's crate of machine-guns—but that's a long story."

"What's the idea of that crook I.C. regulation?"

"To keep Krishnans from exterminating each other, I suppose. Still, a smart Earthman can use his brains without actually breaking the rule."

"Like the way you stoushed that skite? If I'm not mistaken, the pugilistic manoeuvre you employed was a right cross, which takes practice and is only for experts. How about it?"

"I was in the ring once," said Okagamut. "Before I went to college. When I was a freshman the coach found out and had me in the gym showing the boys how to do rights over lefts. Funny thing, nobody ever tried to haze me."

"I can see why," said Singer.

Singer said: "We ought to come to this cocky's hut sarvo."

They had stopped to rest where the road crossed a spur of the range leading up to the Psheshuva. The clear air allowed a view over many miles of hills covered with bushy growths, rolling away to the snowy plain beyond. Vyutr was a smudge on the horizon.

"We'd better, before we run out of grub," said Okagamut. "I'll ask the next smitrot-herder."

The herder gripped his club suspiciously, while his fsyok rose to its six legs and yowled threateningly. When assured that they had no designs on his herd he told them: "A little farther, my masters; see yon hill? Just out of sight over it, take a trail to the right ..."

They took up the weary walk again. At last they found the hut. Their knock was answered by a short gnome of a Krishnan with frayed antennae and white hair. "Who be ye?"

"Are you Dyenük?" said Okagamut.

"Answer not one question with another, if ye'd do business with me."

"We are the men from Syechas."

"Prove it," said the gnome.

"Here's a letter from him. Uh, you're holding it upside down."

"So I be, heh heh. Come in, come in. Mayey!" he shouted.

He led them into the house, rudely furnished but comfortable, solidly built, and too big to be called a hut. A flat-faced Nichnyamadze girl, clad only in the smitrot-skin pants worn by the country folk of both sexes in this cold region, looked up from her housecleaning to giggle. A second one appeared. "My daughters, Mayey and Pyesatül. Good girls ever since they were hatched. Ye'd like rest and food ere we take up the business?"

"You are right, sir," said Okagamut, sinking into a chair and tugging at a boot.

"So your name's Mayey?" said Singer to the first girl, grinning. "Now that is a nice name. I. think not that I ever heard it before."

"Oh, great lord, you mock a poor mountain maid. 'Tis common."

"Well, that could be, as I have never—uh—been hereabouts before. A pretty name goes with a pretty face and other things ..."

Okagamut said: "Drink your kvad, Dinky, and leave Mayey alone. Have you got all the stuff for us, Dyenük?"

The gnome counted on fingers. "The overboots, mittens, and other items of clothing, aye. The sled, skis and poles, tent, stove, and such-like items of gear, aye. The horashevë, not yet ready, but with your help, good sirs—"

"What is horashevë?" said Singer.

"What we'd call pemmican on Earth," said Okagamut.

"Well, what's that?"

"It's what we'll be eating. Go on, Dyenük."

"But now, sirs, I come to the sad part of the tale, as it says in the story of the princess with two heads. For a disease has afflicted the fsyok-kennels of this-land within the last two ten-nights, so that I can spare you but five fsyokn to pull your sled."

"Five!" said Okagamut.

"Aye, but big and strong. They'll manage everywhere save on steep slopes, and as for that, such lusty youths as yourselves should make no obstacle thereof."

"We're in a fix," said Okagamut to Singer. "I was counting on nine. We'll have to push the damned sled halfway to Olñega."

"Slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, as that chap Napoleon said," replied Singer cheerfully. "Oh well, they says exercise is good for one." And he left the technicalities to his companion while he turned his charm on Mayey.

Pyesatül announced dinner, during which Okagamut and the oldster chattered about weather, weight of equipment, food required per man per day, and other factors in polar travel. As they talked in local units of measurement, Singer could make nothing of it. Dyenük also inveighed against the tyranny of the Kangandite cult, who by their tabus on meat had impoverished honest herders:

"The revenue from the hides, sirs, barely pays my taxes; wherefore for tobacco and such simples I must sell through folk like Syechas—I, always hitherto a veritable pillar of legality ..."

Afterwards Okagamut said: "With your kind permission we'll retire, omitting supper to be up early on the morrow."

Singer murmured to Mayey: "See you later, little one," before his companion hauled him away to their room.

When Okagamut seemed to be breathing regularly, Singer got up, slipped on his shirt and pants, and tiptoed to the door.

"What are you up to, Dinky?" came a sharp whisper.

"Nothing to fret about. Just a date with the dinkum sheila."

"Damn you! Move and I'll put a bolt through you!"

The lamp came on, and Singer saw that his friend did indeed have his crossbow-pistol in hand, loaded and cocked.

"What the flopping hell's bothering you, pal?" said Singer. "Don't get off your bike over this!"

"You leave those girls alone, see?"

"And what business is it of yours, may I inquah?"

"Anything you do while you're with me's my business. If you make a pass at those girls, I'll kill you. We've got enough troubles without leaving some broken-hearted Jane to put Yadjye's cops on your track."

"But I was only going to give her a bit of a smoodge—good clean fun."

"You heard me. If you don't like it you can stay here while I take the team. I can get across the Psheshuva alone, and you can't. Get me?"

"Oh, hell!" Singer pulled off his shirt, wadded it up, and threw, it in a corner.

Next morning, his feelings still hurt, Singer ate in glowering silence, speaking to Okagamut only when he had to and then in curt monosyllables. He cast furtive glances at the girls and thought of what might have been. He did not, however, plan to circumvent Okagamut's tabu; the damned little Chow might smear him, and in any case, he'd never get to Olñega.

When Singer would have relaxed over his pipe after breakfast, Okagamut said briskly: "Turn to, chum; we've got work."

Dyenük led them outside to a shed wherein a mess of gear was piled on and around a big sled. The herder proffered mittens and overboots until he had fitted both of them. Then he brought forth two pairs of short skis shod on the bottom with tvortsevë-hide, the bristles pointing aft.

"Be sure your bindings are tight, my lords," he said. "I once rented skis to a man of Vyutr who insisted on going out on the glacier with loose bindings. Naturally he floundered in the snow, without control, and when a pudamef crept out of a crevasse the poor lad could do nought."

"What's a pudamef?" said Singer.

"A kind of snow-dragon they have around the edges of the plateau," said Okagamut. "Dyenük, how about poles?"

"We use these," said their host, getting down a spear with a ski-pole disc near its butt-end.

Okagamut swung the object. "Too heavy for one hand, but if we're likely to meet pudamefn it will be useful. W'll just have to learn to ski with one pole."

Dyenük explained the operation of the tent and other pieces of equipment, then took them out to a lean-to built against the side of the shed. "The horashevë for the fsyokn is finished," he said, "but not yours. 'Twould have been, save that one of the beasts slipped his tether two nights gone and feasted on the man-food. You, Dinky, shall dice this haunch of unha while your friend stirs the fat-cauldron and I weigh out ingredients. Girls! Girls! How are your biscuits coming?"

Singer looked in dismay at the pile of bricks of composition food already stacked against the shed. "Good gods, have we got to haul all that?"

"Absolutely," said Okagamut. "For the work that's ahead of us, you need at least 5,000 calories a day."

Singer chopped at slabs of meat and heaps of dried vegetables with a knife until his fingers ached, then stirred the fat in the rendering-pot until his arm ached and the stench nearly suffocated him, then mixed ingredients until he could hardly stand for weariness. They took but a few minutes out for lunch. Dyeniik's daughters brought out a huge pile of biscuits and smaller amounts of other Krishnan foods, which they began packing into leather bags, together with the bricks of frozen horashevë. Then they packed the smaller bags into two large canvas containers.

Okagamut indicated one of these, saying.: "Okay, Dinky, that's your grub for the trip."

"Mine?" said Singer, hefting the container. "Gad, she must weigh five stone. That's a year's tucker!"

"Remember that when you're tempted to eat over your daily ration ... What is it, Pyesatül?"

"Lord," said the younger girl, "I know not if I should disturb you, but yonder come a party of men towards our steading."

Sure enough, far off, where the plain first began to break up into the rolling foothills that led up to their present height, a little group of black specks was creeping over the landscape.

"Have you got a telescope?" Okagamut asked Dyenük.

"Aye. I'll fetch it."

They took turns looking through the glass. The black specks were undoubtedly men on ayas.

"What'll we do?" said Singer. "Run for it?"

"We've got to pack the sled first," said Okagamut. "It'll take them some hours to reach here, won't it, Dyenük?"

"Aye." They hauled the sled out of the shed and began stowing and lashing their gear to it.

"What can I do?" said Singer, feeling useless.

"Keep out of our way," snapped Okagamut. Singer's anger at his companion, which had died down during the day's work, flared up again. He stamped off.

It seemed to Singer that they took an interminable time checking and re-arranging their gear. Finally they lashed a tarpaulin over the whole, and manhandled the sled around to the front of the house.

"Bear a hand!" barked Okagamut. Although offended, Singer complied. The weight of the loaded sled amazed him.

"It'll lighten as we go," said Okagamut.

"Huh," said Singer. "It's fair cow that it should be heaviest at the start, when we're going uphill."

They went around to the kennels, where Dyenük handed Singer the leash of one of the fsyokn and told him to lead the animal back to the sled. Singer did not like the wide mouth and fangs of the creature, a big long-haired cousin of the eshun, which in more equatorial nations performed the office of tame dog. The beast, however, seemed eager to be hitched up and with its six powerful legs almost pulled Singer off his feet. It scudded through the thin slushy snow, Singer bouncing behind.

Dyenük said: "Keep those two apart, lest they fight!"

While the animals yowled, Okagamut paid off Dyenük, practically exhausting his and Singer's resources. Singer impulsively tossed his ring to Dyenük. "Give it to whichever girl marries first," he said. "Cheerio!"

They looked towards the plains. The black specks were nearer.

Okagamut cracked his whip and shouted: "Kshay!" The five fsyokn dug in their paws and pulled.

"Dzat!" They did a column-right at the road. Lumps of slush flew back over the sled; the Earthmen had to run. Singer found he could climb hills faster with his fur-shod skis than with the ordinary kind, since one could advance by simply sliding them parallel without herring-boning.

He was beginning to puff when the fsyokn settled down to a more normal pace. It was late in the long Krishnan day. In these latitudes it never got really dark, save for a short time around midnight in winter; the rest of the time there was either a low sun or twilight. The seasons differed but little because of the slight inclination of the planet's axis.

The layer of pearly cloud that covered the sky made it hard to tell direction, and soon the light became too dim to see those black specks far behind.

"By the gods," said Singer after a couple of hours, "I'm softer than I thought."

"Getting tired?"

"I can go as far as you, Mr. Okagamut."

"Okay. We want to do all we can before stopping." They did halt for an evening meal. Okagamut said: "Watch it, there. One biscuit's all you get."

"But I'm jolly starved!"

"I know, but you'll be hungrier yet if you don't stick to your ration. I warned you."

"Wowser!" muttered Singer. While he thought he was coming to dislike this reserved and competent young man, he didn't want to provoke him into leaving him flat in this white wilderness.

They went on again and reached the foot of Shtojë Glacier. Okagamut said: "We can wait here till morning, or start up the glacier and put a little more distance between us and Yadjye's boys before it gets dark. It'll be hard going, with crevasses, but if you'll take a chance I will."

"I'm with you," said Singer, and they started up.

On the steeper slopes both had to push on the rear of the sled while the animals heaved and panted in front. At times they even slid backwards. They passed crevasses: great ice-chasms dropping off into blue darkness. Singer shuddered as they threaded their way around them.

When Singer thought he would drop from exhaustion, Okagamut said: "We'll camp here; it's beginning to blow."

A breeze was raising an ankle-high drift. They found a level spot, staked out the animals, and set up the tent slowly and with much fumbling, for they were unused to their gear. The wind rose, making it hard to stake the tent and filling the air with a whirling, blinding, stinging cloud of snowflakes. They hastily fed the animals, pushed the sled so that one of its runners rested on the windward flap of the tent, and crawled through the tent-sleeve just as the wind began to blow in earnest. The tent-walls flapped with a deafening drum-like sound. Okagamut pulled off his footgear and pants and slid into his sleeping-bag. Singer did likewise, looking apprehensively at the snapping cloth over his head.

"I wonder," he said, "when this thing's going to take off."

A snore answered him.

For hours, it seemed, the racket kept him awake despite his fatigue. Then he slept, woke, and slept again. He woke again to find Okagamut preparing a meal. The wind still shrieked and shook the tent.

"How long does a blow like this keep up?" asked Singer.

"A ten-night, maybe."

"Don't poke borax at me!"

"No, I mean it."

"Won't that give the Johns a chance to catch us?" Okagamut shook his head. "They can't travel in it either."

They dozed the day away, except to crawl out into the drift to feed the fsyokn. The next night was the same; then the wind dropped.

Okagamut crept out through the sleeve and whistled. The fsyokn, looking unhappy with their fur full of icicles, howled a greeting. Singer came out too. The cloud-curtain was rolling back. The wind had in some places scoured off the snow, leaving glare ice, while in others it had packed the snow into wave-like ridges. "Sastrugi," said Okagamut. "Hard going."

"Look!" cried Singer, pointing.

Far down the slope they saw two brown oblongs against the white tents. There were many fsyokn pegged out, though at the distance they couldn't count them.

"Let's go," said Okagamut.

"How do you know they're after us? Might be a skiing party."

"I'm not taking a chance."

Although they worked fast, the cold numbed their fingers and the unfamiliar gear resisted their efforts to pack it back into the sled. A couple of specks had detached themselves from the other encampment and moved closer, growing to men. A faint hail came up the glacier: "You there! Stay where you are!"

"It's them," said Singer, collapsing the tent.

Something whistled and struck the ice with a sharp sound.

"They've got a crossbow," said Okagamut. "Why not fort up and shoot back with your little bow?"

"Nuts. They'd have us hopelessly out-ranged. Once we get going they'll never catch us. Here, catch this line and tie it to your belt."

Another missile whistled overhead. Okagamut cracked his whip, and off they went. The sastrugi made their sled pitch like a tugboat in a gale. Singer fell over the ridges and picked himself up until he was sure he was black and blue all over. He looked back and said:

"Those blokes with the bow have stopped, anyhow. The others seem to be breaking camp."

They struggled on. The party behind drew closer, until through his goggles Singer made out two nine-fsyok teams, each pulling a heavily-loaded sled, and five men. Sometimes the two Earthmen hit a patch of smooth, hard snow and drew ahead; then they'd meet a steep slope or a stretch of sastrugi or a crevassed area and the pursuers would gain.

"Hi!" said Singer. "They've stopped and are running about like a pack of flopping ants!"

Okagamut paused for a look. "Ha! One of their sleds has fallen down a crevasse, and they're trying to haul it out."

"There wasn't no crevasse there when we went over it—or was there?"

"Sure; we've been crossing snow-bridges all morning. With this warmer weather they're melting thin, and they're apt to drop out from under you. That's why we wear skis and go roped together. I suppose we'd weakened one, so that when their heavier teams crossed, it went."

"Ugh," said Singer with a shiver that was not entirely due to the cold.

The pursuers receded to a stippling on the landscape, and then were hidden by the contour of the glacier. The Earthmen slogged away until the low sun slanted towards the horizon again. Singer asked: "How d'you know your way?"

"Sun partly; I hope we don't have another overcast until we reach the plateau. Once we're there, there are mountains we can sight on."

They camped that evening when exhausted, and spent the night taking turns sleeping and watching. Next morning the snow turned slushy and stuck to skis and sled-runners. They had to push the sled, grunting. Singer once thought he saw moving specks on the horizon. The next day was much the same, though the slope became easier. Then another blizzard pinned them for a night, a day, and another night.

Singer stuck his head out the following morning and said: "Looks like clearing." He dressed, remarking: "At this rate I shan't have any potbelly left when we get to Olñega. Look at these trousers!"

His pants were indeed inches too large around the waist. He looked at himself in his little hand-mirror: his thin hair and abundant beard, once auburn but now' greying, were sprouting fast. Okagamut's hair was coming out glossy black, and the man seemed to have no beard to speak of.

"See what they're yelling about, will you, Dinky?'' said Okagamut, pottering with the stove. The animals' morning howls had risen to a hysterical pitch.

Singer crawled out to look. He stopped and drew in his breath.

Crawling over the snow came a snaky creature fifteen or twenty metres long, belonging to the six-legged division of Krishnan land vertebrates. Each leg ended in a large webbed foot with long curved talons. Its reptilian appearance was confused by the fact that it was covered with dense white fur.

Singer yelled: "Earl!" snatched his ski-spear from where it stuck upright in the snow, and ran towards the pudamef, which was nearing the sledge-beasts.

The snow-dragon arched its neck and hissed.

Singer threw the spear. It missed and sailed over the creature's back.

He tugged at his sword-hilt. The sword stuck fast. Singer remembered that the scabbard didn't fit. Another tug, harder, did no good.

The snaky white head shot out. Singer leaped back, tripped over a sastruga, and fell, hitting his head on a patch of bare ice. Stars danced in front of his eyes.

The jaws gaped nearer.

A yell, and Okagamut leaped past and lunged with the other spear. Singer saw blood on the white-furred muzzle. Another thrust, into the gaping maw. More blood, and then the creature was backing, hissing like a boiler safety-valve. It turned and crawled off with a clockworky motion. Okagamut chased it with shouts and menaces until it disappeared among the pressure-ridges.

"Are you all right, Dinky?" said Okagamut.

Singer felt the back of his head and winced. "Outside of a cracked skull or two I'm fine. Threw my spear and missed—"

"I'll get your spear ..." Okagamut walked towards where the ski-spear stood with its head buried in the snow.

Then, quick as a flash, he vanished.

"Hey, Earl!" cried Singer, getting up. "Don't do that! I say, where the flopping hell are you?"

He started towards the site of the disappearance, then, remembering Okagamut's cautions about crevasses, went back to the tent, put on his skis, and set out again.

He found a hole in the snow going down to darkness, just big enough for Okagamut's body. He began enlarging the hole with his hands, calling: "Earl!"

"Pass down a knife!" came a voice from the depths.

Singer went back and got the climbing-rope, tied his knife to the end, and lowered it down the hole. After he had dangled it at various depths, the call came up: "Can't get hold of it. My arms are pinned."

Singer hauled back the knife and stood up, nonplussed. As his eyes swept the horizon they stopped at a group of black specks. He peered for several seconds. No doubt this time.

He fought down the urge to hitch up the team, which he could now drive after a fashion, and race off by himself. Why should he get caught ...?

He shook his head to clear away such thoughts and shouted down: "What'll I do now, come down and get you?"

The faint voice came back: "Can you climb a rope?"

"Yes, I've been a ship's painter."

"Okay. First, take off your skis and put on your crampons. Then tie all the skis and poles together to make a deadman, and dig a trench at least a metre deep. Tie the line around the middle of your bundle and bury it ..."

Singer raced to carry out instructions. He got the shovel, tied up the bundle, and in less than half an hour was lowering himself down the crevasse by the climbing-rope, whose other end was belayed by the deadman.

As the crevasse averaged only a metre wide, he found that by bracing his back against one side and digging the spikes of the crampons on his feet into the other, he hardly needed the rope. The inside of a glacier was the strangest place he had ever been in.

Sunlight came through the ice as a diffused blue glow.

Water dripped somewhere, plink-plink, and from deep-in the ice same cracking and groaning sounds.

Fifteen metres from the surface he found Okagamut, wedged head downward where the walls shelved together. Bracing his feet, Singer began chipping away with his knife.

"Watch out," said Okagamut. "You don't want to drop me down the rest of the way."

Singer kept on, expecting any minute to hear the whoops of the pursuers. Finally he worked the end of the rope around his companion's torso, tied it securely, and inched his way back up to the surface. Despite the cold, he was soaked with sweat.

The specks on the horizon were bigger.

He heaved on the rope. No good. Heave. No good.

He looked around frantically. The fsyokn! While they obeyed him none too well, beggars couldn't be choosers, as that bloke Cicero said. He tied the end of the rope to the sledge-trace and, with difficulty, hitched up the team.

"Kshay!" The animals strained at their traces, with no result.

Again, with a crack of the whip. No good. The specks were visibly growing, weren't they?

Again. And again. He used the whip, and with his other hand hauled on the rope himself.

The tension suddenly lessened. Up came Okagamut, until he flopped over the lip of the hole and scrambled to his feet. The fsyokn, not having been told to stop pulling, jerked him flat on his face and began dragging him at a run until Singer's shrieks stopped them.

Okagamut felt his right arm, saying: "No bones broken, I think, but my arm's asleep from having the circulation cut off. Serves me right for running around a glacier without skis—hey, aren't those our friends from Vyutr?"

"Right-o."

"Why didn't you tell me? Get the gear stowed, quick!"

"I thought you had enough to worry about, battler," said Singer, pulling up tent-stakes.

The approaching party could now be made out. The howls of their fsyokn came across the snow. The two men, the smaller hampered by his paralysed arm, rushed about stowing their gear.

"They've got us this time, that's no furphy," said Singer.

"Not necessarily. Here, catch this. Put that there. Tie down this corner. Get your skis back on."

"Still think we can escape?"

"Once we get going, I know it. Got everything? Kshay?"

Off they went. Okagamut's arm had come to life again. They jogged beside the sled at a dog-trot. Yells, whip-cracks, and howls came from the pursuers.

On the Earthmen went, neither gaining nor losing, all morning and part of the afternoon. When they got too exhausted with trotting, they hopped on the sled long enough to catch their breath.

"What's happened back there?" said Singer.

"One of their fsyokn has dropped dead, and they're cutting him loose."

"We'd better slow up a bit, lest ours do the same."

After a few minutes at an easier pace, Singer's head stopped spinning and the pounding of his heart abated. Then he said: "Oh!"

"What?"

"Look at that slope!"

"That leads to the plateau. If we can make it we'll have fairly easy going the rest of the way."

As the exhausted animals could not drag the sled up the grade, the men put their shoulders to the rear of the load. Up they went, a step at a time.

The noise neared. Something went fwht! "Shooting at us again," panted Okagamut.

The next, thought Singer, would hit right between his shoulder-blades.

Fwh-tunk! The arrow struck the load on the sled. Singer hoped it hadn't punctured their kettle.

Fwht!

"One more heave," gritted Okagamut, "and we'll be out of—uh! They got me!"

Singer, heedless of the archers, seized his companion. "Where?"

"Here!" Okagamut showed the feathered tail of the bolt sticking out of his coat. "Hey, wait!" He pulled the missile out. No blood. "They didn't get me after all; that fur-lined vest Dyenük sold me must have stopped it!"

They struggled to the top of the slope, missiles scattering more and more widely as the bowmen, in a last effort, shot at higher and higher angles.

At the top they paused for breath, out of range. Singer cried: "They're turning back!"

"I thought they would," said Okagamut.

After a moment of silence, Singer said: "Let's take a spell for a pot of billy and a smoke-o."

"Okay."

"You know, cobber, I had a deny on you back there at the hut on account of what happened. But now "I sees it was my fault. You're a dinkum bloke and a credit to your jolly species, and I'm sorry for the way I acted. Will you shike on it?"

"I'll shike," said Okagamut with a grin.

"By the way, how'd you know they'd turn back if you kept ahead of 'em long enough?"

"Hadn't you guessed? It's a matter of logic. For one thing I'm an Eskimo, brought up on conditions like this. I was born in Kotzebue Sound, and I teach at the University of Alaska.

"I knew that to keep up your strength on the trail you need a high-calorie diet which means a high meat-content. Being vegetarians the Kangandites couldn't do that. They either had to pack such a load of plant foods to get the necessary calories and oil to cook it that their beasts couldn't haul it, or else they'd find themselves running out of grub before they even reached the plateau. Which—" (he jerked his thumb towards the Kangandites, now small specks again) "is just what happened!"