For three days Blade moved steadily deeper into the mountains. He would have turned back at the end of the second day if he hadn't found food. His body might seem to have the strength and endurance of a machine, but it was flesh and blood. It would have been foolish to push on until he was too weak to retreat.

But on the afternoon of the second day he found himself looking down on a flock of animals like large one-horned goats. A well-thrown stone stunned one and sent the rest of the flock dashing off in panic. Blade plunged down the slope, drew the knife, and slit the fallen animal's throat. Then he butchered it and stuffed himself with the raw flesh. The meat was bloody, gamey, and still warm, but it was food-enough to keep him going for several more days. If he found more flocks of goats, he could keep going for weeks, even though raw goat meat wasn't exactly a gourmet meal.

After eating, Blade cut patches from the goat's skin, scraped them clean, and tied them around his feet. When the condition of his feet might be a matter of life or death, any extra protection he could give them helped.

Blade was still heading deeper into the mountains on the afternoon of the third day. His goal now was the twenty-thousand-foot peak. On one side the peak shot up in an almost vertical face nearly ten thousand feet high, flanked by two sharp spurs. On the other side a gentle slope ran almost up to the summit. Today the winds aloft must be light, for the snow plume was barely visible.

Blade decided that he'd go as far as the mountain, then explore in a complete circle around its base. After that he'd climb as far up the easy slope as he could and from that high perch look for traces of human life. If he couldn't find any, it would be time to turn back, to take his chances with the desert or at least look elsewhere for the human inhabitants of this Dimension.