By sunset I was ready to leave. I hadn't had any loose ends to tie up in
the Trade City, since I'd already disposed of most of my gear before
boarding the starship. I'd never been in better circumstances to take
off for parts unknown.
Mack, still disapproving, had opened the files to me, and I'd spent most
of the day in the back rooms of Floor 38, searching Intelligence files
to refresh my memory, scanning the pages of my own old reports sent
years ago from Shainsa and Daillon. He had sent out one of the nonhumans
who worked for us, to buy or acquire somewhere in the Old Town a
Dry-towner's outfit and the other things I would wear and carry.
I would have liked to go myself. I felt that I needed the practice. I
was only now beginning to realize how much I might have forgotten in the
years behind a desk. But until I was ready to make my presence known, no
one must know that Race Cargill had not left Wolf on the starship.
Above all, I must not be seen in the Kharsa until I went there in the
Dry-town disguise which had become, years ago, a deep second nature,
almost an alternate personality.
About sunset I walked through the clean little streets of the Terran
Trade City toward the Magnusson home where Juli was waiting for me.
Most of the men who go into Civil Service of the Empire come from Earth,
or from the close-in planets of Proxima and Alpha Centaurus. They go out
unmarried, and they stay that way, or marry women native to the planets
where they are sent.
But Joanna Magnusson was one of the rare Earth women who had come out
with her husband, twenty years ago. There are two kinds of Earthwomen
like that. They make their quarterings a little bit of home, or a little
bit of hell. Joanna had made their house look like a transported corner
of Earth.
I never knew quite what to think of the Magnusson household. It seemed
to me almost madness to live under a red sun, yet come inside to yellow
light, to live on a world with the wild beauty of Wolf and yet live as
they might have lived on their home planet. Or maybe I was the one who
was out of step. I had done the reprehensible thing they called "going
native." Possibly I had done just that, and in absorbing myself into the
new world, had lost the ability to fit into the old.
Joanna, a chubby comfortable woman in her forties, opened the door and
gave me her hand. "Come in, Race. Juli's expecting you."
"It's good of you." I broke off, unable to express my gratitude. Juli
and I had come from Earth--our father had been an officer on the old
starship _Landfall_ when Juli was only a child. He had died in a wreck
off Procyon, and Mack Magnusson had found me a place in Intelligence
because I spoke four of the Wolf languages and haunted the Kharsa with
Rakhal whenever I could get away.
They had also taken Juli into their own home, like a younger sister.
They hadn't said much--because they had liked Rakhal--when the breakup
came. But that terrible night when Rakhal and I nearly killed each
other, and Rakhal came with his face bleeding and took Juli away with
him, had hurt them hard. Yet it had made them all the kinder to me.
Joanna said forthrightly, "Nonsense, Race! What else could we do?" She
drew me along the hall. "You can talk in here."
I delayed a minute before going through the door she indicated. "How is
Juli?"
"Better, I think. I put her to bed in Meta's room, and she slept most of
the day. She'll be all right. I'll leave you to talk." Joanna opened the
door, and went away.
Juli was awake and dressed, and already some of the terrible frozen
horror was gone from her face. She was still tense and devil-ridden, but
not hysterical now.
The room, one of the children's bedrooms, wasn't a big one. Even at the
top of the Secret Service, a cop doesn't live too well. Not on Terra's
Civil Service pay scale. Not, with five youngsters. It looked as if all
five of the kids had taken it to pieces, one at a time.
I sat down on a too-low chair and said, "Juli, we haven't much time,
I've got to be out of the city before dark. I want to know about Rakhal,
what he does, what he's like now. Remember, I haven't seen him for
years. Tell me everything--his friends, his amusements, everything you
know."
"I always thought you knew him better than I did." Juli had a fidgety
little way of coiling the links of the chain around her wrists and it
made me nervous.
"It's routine, Juli. Police work. Mostly I play by ear, but I try to
start out by being methodical."
She answered everything I asked her, but the sum total wasn't much and
it wouldn't help much. As I said, it's easy to disappear on Wolf. Juli
knew he had been friendly with the new holders of the Great House on
Shainsa, but she didn't even know their name.
I heard one of the Magnusson children fly to the street door and return,
shouting for her mother. Joanna knocked at the door of the room and came
in.
"There's a _chak_ outside who wants to see you, Race."
I nodded. "Probably my fancy dress. Can I change in the back room,
Joanna? Will you keep my clothes here till I get back?"
I went to the door and spoke to the furred nonhuman in the sibilant
jargon of the Kharsa and he handed me what looked like a bundle of rags.
There were hard lumps inside. The _chak_ said softly, "I hear a rumor in
the Kharsa, _Raiss_. Perhaps it will help you. Three men from Shainsa
are in the city. They came here to seek a woman who has vanished, and a
toymaker. They are returning at sunrise. Perhaps you can arrange to
travel in their caravan."
I thanked him and carried the bundle inside. In the empty back room I
stripped to the skin and unrolled the bundle. There was a pair of baggy
striped breeches, a worn and shabby shirtcloak with capacious pockets, a
looped belt with half the gilt rubbed away and the base metal showing
through, and a scuffed pair of ankle-boots tied with frayed thongs of
different colors. There was a little cluster of amulets and seals. I
chose two or three of the commonest kind, and strung them around my
neck.
One of the lumps in the bundle was a small jar, holding nothing but the
ordinary spices sold in the market, with which the average Dry-towner
flavors food. I rubbed some of the powder on my body, put a pinch in the
pocket of my shirtcloak, and chewed a few of the buds, wrinkling my nose
at the long-unfamiliar pungency.
The second lump was a skean, and unlike the worn and shabby garments,
this was brand-new and sharp and bright, and its edge held a razor
glint. I tucked it into the clasp of my shirtcloak, a reassuring weight.
It was the only weapon I could dare to carry.
The last of the solid objects in the bundle was a flat wooden case,
about nine by ten inches. I slid it open. It was divided carefully into
sections cushioned with sponge-absorbent plastic, and in them lay tiny
slips of glass, on Wolf as precious as jewels. They were lenses--camera
lenses, microscope lenses, even eyeglass lenses. Packed close, there
were nearly a hundred of them nested by the shock-absorbent stuff.
They were my excuse for travel to Shainsa. Over and above the
necessities of trade, a few items of Terran manufacture--vacuum tubes,
transistors, lenses for cameras and binoculars, liquors and finely
forged small tools--are literally worth their weight in platinum.
Even in cities where Terrans have never gone, these things bring
exorbitant prices, and trading in them is a Dry-town privilege. Rakhal
had been a trader, so Juli told me, in fine wire and surgical
instruments. Wolf is not a mechanized planet, and has never developed
any indigenous industrial system; the psychology of the nonhuman seldom
runs to technological advances.
I went down the hallway again to the room where Juli was waiting.
Catching a glimpse in a full-length mirror, I was startled. All traces
of the Terran civil servant, clumsy and uncomfortable in his ill-fitting
clothes, had dropped away. A Dry-towner, rangy and scarred, looked out
at me, and it seemed that the expression on his face was one of
amazement.
Joanna whirled as I came into the room and visibly paled before,
recovering her self-control, she gave a nervous little giggle.
"Goodness, Race, I didn't know you!"
Juli whispered, "Yes, I--I remember you better like that. You're--you
look so much like--"
The door flew open and Mickey Magnusson scampered into the room, a
chubby little boy browned by a Terra-type sunlamp and glowing with
health. In his hand he held some sparkling thing that gave off tiny
flashes and glints of color.
I gave the kid a grin before I realized that I was disguised anyhow and
probably a hideous sight. The little boy backed off, but Joanna put her
plump hand on his shoulder, murmuring soothing things.
Mickey toddled toward Juli, holding up the shining thing in his hands as
if to display something very precious and beloved. Juli bent and held
out her arms, then her face contracted and she snatched at the
plaything.
"Mickey, what's that?"