"You talk their lingo. Tell them to haul off! Damned if I want to
shoot!"
I stepped down and walked into the open square, across the crumbled
white stones, toward the ragged mob. Even with two armed Spaceforce men
at my back, it made my skin crawl, but I flung up my empty hand in token
of peace:
"Take your mob out of the square," I shouted in the jargon of the
Kharsa. "This territory is held in compact of peace! Settle your
quarrels elsewhere!"
There was a little stirring in the crowd. The shock of being addressed
in their own tongue, instead of the Terran Standard which the Empire has
forced on Wolf, held them silent for a minute. I had learned that long
ago: that speaking in any of the languages of Wolf would give me a
minute's advantage.
But only a minute. Then one of the mob yelled, "We'll go if you give'm
to us! He's no right to Terran sanctuary!"
I walked over to the huddled dwarf, miserably trying to make himself
smaller against the wall. I nudged him with my foot.
"Get up. Who are you?"
The hood fell away from his face as he twitched to his feet. He was
trembling violently. In the shadow of the hood I saw a furred face, a
quivering velvety muzzle, and great soft golden eyes which held
intelligence and terror.
"What have you done? Can't you talk?"
He held out the tray which he had shielded under his cloak, an ordinary
peddler's tray. "Toys. Sell toys. Children. You got'm?"
I shook my head and pushed the creature away, with only a glance at the
array of delicately crafted manikins, tiny animals, prisms and crystal
whirligigs. "You'd better get out of here. Scram. Down that street." I
pointed.
A voice from the crowd shouted again, and it had a very ugly sound. "He
is a spy of Nebran!"
"_Nebran--_" The dwarfish nonhuman gabbled something then doubled
behind me. I saw him dodge, feint in the direction of the gates, then,
as the crowd surged that way, run for the street-shrine across the
square, slipping from recess to recess of the wall. A hail of stones
went flying in that direction. The little toy-seller dodged into the
street-shrine.
Then there was a hoarse "Ah, aaah!" of terror, and the crowd edged away,
surged backward. The next minute it had begun to melt away, its entity
dissolving into separate creatures, slipping into the side alleys and
the dark streets that disgorged into the square. Within three minutes
the square lay empty again in the pale-crimson noon.
The kid in black leather let his breath go and swore, slipping his
shocker into its holster. He stared and demanded profanely, "Where'd the
little fellow go?"
"Who knows?" the other shrugged. "Probably sneaked into one of the
alleys. Did you see where he went, Cargill?"
I came slowly back to the gateway. To me, it had seemed that he ducked
into the street-shrine and vanished into thin air, but I've lived on
Wolf long enough to know you can't trust your eyes here. I said so, and
the kid swore again, gulping, more upset than he wanted to admit. "Does
this kind of thing happen often?"
"All the time," his companion assured him soberly, with a sidewise wink
at me. I didn't return the wink.
The kid wouldn't let it drop. "Where did you learn their lingo, Mr.
Cargill?"
"I've been on Wolf a long time," I said, spun on my heel and walked
toward Headquarters. I tried not to hear, but their voices followed me
anyhow, discreetly lowered, but not lowered enough.
"Kid, don't you know who he is? That's Cargill of the Secret Service!
Six years ago he was the best man in Intelligence, before--" The voice
lowered another decibel, and then there was the kid's voice asking,
shaken, "But what the hell happened to his face?"
I should have been used to it by now. I'd been hearing it, more or less
behind my back, for six years. Well, if my luck held, I'd never hear it
again. I strode up the white steps of the skyscraper, to finish the
arrangements that would take me away from Wolf forever. To the other end
of the Empire, to the other end of the galaxy--anywhere, so long as I
need not wear my past like a medallion around my neck, or blazoned and
branded on what was left of my ruined face.