The difference was that this wasn't marriage but a different kind of association. And that Che would not choose; Jenny had to choose for him. And she had no interest in the outcome.

No, that wasn't true. Now that she worked it out, she saw that she was in a real picklement of a jam. She had to make a decision that would affect the life of one friend and the freedom of the other, and it did affect her. Because she had come here into Goblin Mountain because she knew that Che needed her, being too young to survive the horror of isolation from his kind without the support of a friend. But now he could have a friend. Gwenny Goblin needed him and would be his friend; and she was not only a nice girl, she was a princess, or at least a chiefess. So Jenny wasn't needed. She was sort of the odd one out, like Electra, if Dolph married the Princess Nada. She was no princess, either in nature or role, just a girl who had been wrenched out of her former life to come to this strange one. How she wished she could return to her holt in the World of Two Moons and to her family, who surely missed her and wondered what had happened to her. But the hole through which she had come was plugged, and she didn't know the way anyway, and Sammy could not find it, because home was the one thing he could not find.

"Why are you so sad?" Gwenny asked.

Should she answer? Her situation really did not relate to the problem.

"She is far removed from her home and folk," Che answered for her. "Just as I am. It is not an easy situation."

"I wish you could both go home," Gwenny said. "And that I could go with you."

"But you are to be a chief!" Jenny protested.

"I'd rather have friends."

Jenny saw that the goblin girl needed a friend as much as Che did. Che had many friends, back at his home, and so did Jenny at hers; their only problem was that they weren't home. Gwenny was home, but without friends. Her situation was just as bad as theirs.

"Let's go exploring," Jenny said, changing the subject, because there really wasn't anything she could do with the subject. "I can tell you what I see, and you can tell me what or who it is."

"I am not sure that is wise," Che said. "Others will hear you talking, and will realize that Gwenny is not perceiving things directly."

Jenny hadn't thought of that. "Maybe I could whisper." But she saw that it was still a problem. "Or if we could work out some code the others wouldn't know. Only I don't think I could remember anything very complicated."