was a word, perhaps a name, spelled out against the dead-black sky. He knew it. It was in some damned alphabet or other; fretfully he chided himself for not remembering which of the twenty-odd he could recognize it could be.
Colt realized that the Occidentals were staring at him with polite concern. He noticed a shred of meat between the teeth of Mme. Lodz as she smiled reassuringly—white, sharp teeth, they were. Colt rubbed his eyes dazedly. He knew he must be a haggard and unseemly figure to their cultured gaze—but they hadn't seen the words in the sky —or had they—?
Politely they stared at him, phrases bubbling from their lips:
'So frightfully sorry, old man—'
'Wouldn't upset you for the world—'
'Hate to see you lose your grip—'
Colt shook his head dazedly, as though he felt strands of sticky silk wind around his face and head. He turned and ran, hearing the voice of Raisuli Batar call after him, 'Don't stray too far—'
He didn't know how long he ran or how far he strayed. Finally he fell flat, sprawled childishly, feeling sick and confused in his head. He looked up for a moment to see that the caravan fires were below some curve of rock or other—at any rate, well out of sight. They were such little lights, he thought. Good for a few feet of warm glow, then sucked into the black of High Pamir. They made not even a gleam in the night-heavy sky.
And there, on the other side of him and the caravan, he saw the tall figure of another human being. She stood on black rock between two drifts of snow.
Colt bit out the foil seal of the brandy bottle and pulled the cork with his fingers. After a warm gulp of the stuff, he rose.
'Have a drink?'
She turned. She was young in her body and face, Mongoloid. Her eyes were blue-black and shining like metal. Her nose was short, Chinese, yet her skin was quite white. She did not have the eyefold of the yellow people.
Silently she extended one hand for the bottle, tilted it high. Colt saw a shudder run through her body as she swallowed and passed him the tall flask with its gold-flecked liquor.
'You must have been cold.'
'By choice. Do you think I'd warm myself at either fire?'
'Either?' he asked.
'There are two caravans. Didn't you know?'
'No. I'm just here—what's the other caravan?'
'Just here, are you? Did you know that you're dead?'
Colt thought the matter over slowly; finally declared, 'I guess I did. And all those others—and you—?'
'All dead. We're the detritus of High Pamir. You'll find, if you look, men who fell to death from airplanes within the past few years walking by the side of Neanderthalers who somehow strayed very far from their tribes and died. The greatest part of the caravans comes, of course, from older caravans of the living who carried their goods from Asia to Europe for thousands of years.'
Colt coughed nervously. 'Have another drink,' he said. 'Then let's see this other caravan. I'm not too well pleased with the one I fell into.'
She took his hand and guided him across the snow and black rock to back within sight of his own caravan. He stared, eager and hungry to see. As she pointed with one tapering finger it seemed that many things were clearer than they ever had been before. He saw that the long line of lights was not his caravan but another in the opposite direction, paralleling his.
'There you will see their caravan master,' she said, putting her face next to his. He looked and saw a potbellied monster whose turban was half as high as its wearer. Its silhouette, as it passed before a fire, was indescribably unpleasant.
'Evening prayer,' said his guide, with a faint tone of mockery.
He studied them as they arranged flares before a platform flung together out of planks and trestles; he also saw them assemble a sort of idol, fitting the various parts together and bolting them securely. When the thing was perhaps two-thirds assembled he turned away and covered his face, repelled.
'I won't look at the rest of it now,' he said. 'Perhaps later, if you wish me to.'
'That's right,' she said. 'It isn't a thing to look at calmly. But you will see the rest of it one time or another. This is a very long caravan.'
She looked down and said, 'Now they are worshiping.'
Colt looked. 'Yes,' he said flatly. They were worshiping in their own fashion, dancing and leaping uglily while some dozen of them blew or saw fantastic discords from musical instruments. Others were arranged in a choir; as they began to sing Colt felt cold nausea stirring at the pit of his belly.
Their singing was markedly unpleasant; Colt, who enjoyed the discords of Ernest Bloch and Jean Sibelius, found them stimulatingly revolting.
The choir droned out a minor melody, varying it again and again with what Colt construed to be quarter-tones and split-interval harmonies.
He found he was listening intently, nearly fascinated by the ugly sounds.
'Why are they doing it?' he asked at length.
'It is their way,' she said with a shrug. 'I see you are interested. I, too, am interested. Perhaps I should not discuss this before you have had the opportunity of making up your own mind. But as you may guess, the caravan below us there, where they make the noises, is Bad. It is a sort of marching gallery of demons and the black in heart. On the other hand, the caravan with which you found yourself previously is Good—
basically kind and constructive, taking delight in order and precision.'
Colt, half-listening, drew her down beside him on the rock. He uncorked the bottle. 'You must tell me about yourself,' he said earnestly. 'It is becoming difficult for me to understand all this. So tell me about yourself, if you may.'
She smiled slowly. 'I am half-caste,' she said. 'The Russian Revolution—so many attractive and indigent female aristocrats, quite unable to work with their hands …many, as you must know, found their way to Shanghai.
'There was a Chinese merchant and my mother, a princess. Not eine Fuerstin—merely a hanger-on at court. I danced. When I was a small child already I was dancing. My price was high, very high at one time. I lost popularity, and with it income and much self-assurance. I was a very bad woman. Not bad as those people there are bad, but I was very bad in my own way.
'Somehow I learned mathematics—a British actuary who knew me for a while let me use his library, and I learned quickly. So I started for India, where nobody would hire me. I heard that there was a country to the north that wanted many people who knew building and mathematics and statistics. Railway took me through the Khaiber and Afghanistan—
from there pony and litter—till I died of exposure seven months ago.
That is why we meet on High Pamir.'
'Listen,' said Colt. 'Listen to that.'
It was again the megatherial voices, louder than before. He looked at the woman and saw that her throat cords were fight as she stared into the black-velvet heavens.
Colt squinted up between two fingers, snapped shut his eyelids after a moment of the glaring word across the sky that followed the voices. He cursed briefly, blinded. Burned into the backs of his eyes were the familiar characters of the lightning, silent and portentous.
'It doesn't do to stare into it that way,' said the woman.
'Come with me.' He felt for her hand and let her pull him to his feet. As sight returned he realized that again they were walking on rock.
'And there's the Good and holy caravan at evening devotions,' said the woman, with the same note of bedrock cynicism in her voice. And they were. From his point of vantage Colt could see Raisuli Batar solemnly prostrating himself before a modestly clad, well-proportioned idol whose face beamed kindly on the congregation through two blue-enameled eyes. There was a choir that sang the old German hymn 'Ein Feste Burg.'
'Shocking,' said the woman, 'yet strangely moving to the spirit. One feels a certain longing….'
Bluntly Colt said, 'I'd like to join them. You're holding me back, you know. I wouldn't see you as a comrade
