Dan looked at this for a moment. Then, frowning, he strode on. In his
mind's eye, he was seeing the sign by the road:
Care
High-Speed
Vehicles Only
--_Swept_--
Dan couldn't decide whether the word "Swept" was part of the warning or
just an afterthought. In any case, he had plainly heard a struggle here
and now there was nothing to be seen. Alert for more brass plates, he
wound his way through the streets until he came out on a broad avenue.
On the opposite side were a number of tall, many-windowed buildings
like apartment houses. On the sidewalks and small lawns in front,
crowds of children were playing. They were wearing low boots, leather
shorts or skirts, brightly colored blouses and hose, and yellow capes.
Walking quietly among them was a tawny animal with the look and lordly
manner of a lion.
It _was_ a lion.
As far as the rapidly dispersing fog let him see, the avenue ran
straight in one direction. In the other, it ended a block or so away.
Apparently the crooked, wind-breaking streets were only on the edge of
the city.
Dan thought of the questions Kielgaard wanted him to answer:
1, how do the Porcyns keep the size of their population down?
2, what is the connection between rejuvenation and Vacation Planet?
3, do the Porcyns have a proper mercantile attitude? Are they likely to
make an agreement? Will they keep one they do make?
To find the answers, Dan intended to work his way carefully through
the city. If nothing went wrong, he should be able to see enough to
eliminate most of the possibilities. Already he had seen enough to
make Porcyns look unpromising. The rigid city boundary, the strict
uniformity of the buildings and the uniform pattern of the clothing
suggested a case-hardened, ingrown way of living.
* * * * *
Across the street, a low door to one side of the apartment building's
main entrance came open. The lion walked out.
It was carrying a squirming little boy by his bunched-up cape. The big
creature flopped down, pinned the struggling boy with a huge paw and
methodically started to clean him. The rasp of the animal's tongue
could be heard clearly across the street.
The boy yelled.
A healthy-looking girl of about twelve, wearing a cape diagonally
striped in yellow and red, ran over and rescued the boy. The lion
rolled over on its back to have its belly scratched.
Dan scowled and walked toward the near end of the street. On
less advanced planets, where the danger of detection was not so
great, agents often went in with complex, surgically inserted
organo-transmitters in their body cavities. Unlike the simple
communicator Dan had, these were fitted with special taps on the optic
and auditory nerves, and the transmitter continuously broadcast all
that the agent saw and heard. Experts back home went over the data and
made their own conclusions.
The method was useful, but it had led to some dangerous mistakes. Sight
and sound got across, but often the atmosphere of the place didn't. Dan
thought it might be the same here.
The feeling that the city gave him didn't match what his reasoning told
him.
He crossed a street, passed an inscription on a building:
Freedom
Devisement
Fraternity
Then he was back in a twisting maze of streets. He walked till the wind
from the sea blew in his face.
The street dipped to a massive wall and the sea, where a few brightly
colored, slow-moving trawlers were going out. Dan turned in another
street and wound back and forth till he came out along the ocean front.
On one side of the street was the ocean, a broad strip of sand, and
the sea wall. On the other side was a row of small shops, brightly
awninged, with displays just being set in place out in front.
In the harbor, a ship was being unloaded. Flat-bottomed boats were
running back and forth from several long wharves. On the street ahead,
a number of heavy wagons, drawn by six-legged animals with heads like
eels, bumped and rattled toward the wharves. Behind them ran a crowd
of boys in yellow capes, a big tawny lioness trotting among them. On
the sidewalk nearby strode a few powerfully built old men, their capes
of various colors.
Dan glanced at the displays in front of the shops. Some were cases of
fish on ice. Others were piles of odd vegetables in racks. Dan paused
to look at a stack of things like purple carrots.
A man immediately came forward from the rear of the store, wiping his
hands on his apron. Dan moved on.
The next shop had the universal low boots, shorts, skirts, blouses and
hose, in assorted sizes and colors, but no capes. Dan slowed to glance
at the display and saw the proprietor coming briskly from the dark
interior, rubbing his hands. Dan speeded up and got away before the
proprietor came out.
The Porcyns, he thought, seemed at least to have a proper mercantile
attitude.