I stumbled over steps, took a jolting stride downward, and found myself
in a dim room jammed with dark figures, human and nonhuman.
The figures swayed in the darkness, chanting in a dialect not altogether
familiar to me, a monotonous wailing chant, with a single recurrent
phrase: "Kamaina! Kama-aina!" It began on a high note, descending in
weird chromatics to the lowest tone the human ear could resolve.
The sound made me draw back. Even the Dry-towners shunned the orgiastic
rituals of Kamaina. Earthmen have a reputation for getting rid of the
more objectionable customs--by human standards--on any planet where they
live. But they don't touch religions, and Kamaina, on the surface
anyhow, was a religion.
I started to turn round and leave, as if I had inadvertently walked
through the wrong door, but my conductor hauled on my arm, and I was
wedged in too tight by now to risk a roughhouse. Trying to force my way
out would only have called attention to me, and the first of the Secret
Service maxims is; when in doubt, go along, keep quiet, and watch the
other guy.
As my eyes adapted to the dim light, I saw that most of the crowd were
Charin plainsmen or _chaks_. One or two wore Dry-town shirtcloaks, and I
even thought I saw an Earthman in the crowd, though I was never sure and
I fervently hope not. They were squatting around small crescent-shaped
tables, and all intently gazing at a flickery spot of light at the front
of the cellar. I saw an empty place at one table and dropped there,
finding the floor soft, as if cushioned.
On each table, small smudging pastilles were burning, and from these
cones of ash-tipped fire came the steamy, swimmy smoke that filled the
darkness with strange colors. Beside me an immature _chak_ girl was
kneeling, her fettered hands strained tightly back at her sides, her
naked breasts pierced for jeweled rings.
Beneath the pallid fur around her pointed ears, the exquisite animal
face was quite mad. She whispered to me, but her dialect was so thick
that I could follow only a few words, and would just as soon not have
heard those few. An older _chak_ grunted for silence and she subsided,
swaying and crooning.
There were cups and decanters on all the tables, and a woman tilted
pale, phosphorescent fluid into a cup and offered it to me. I took one
sip, then another. It was cold and pleasantly tart, and not until the
second swallow turned sweet on my tongue did I know what I tasted. I
pretended to swallow while the woman's eyes were fixed on me, then
somehow contrived to spill the filthy stuff down my shirt.
I was wary even of the fumes, but there was nothing else I could do. The
stuff was _shallavan_, outlawed on every planet in the Terran Empire and
every halfway decent planet outside it.
More and more figures, men and creatures, kept crowding into the cellar,
which was not very large. The place looked like the worst nightmare of a
drug-dreamer, ablaze with the colors of the smoking incense, the swaying
crowd, and their monotonous cries. Quite suddenly there was a blaze of
purple light and someone screamed in raving ecstasy: "_Na ki na Nebran
n'hai Kamaina!_"
"Kamayeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeena!" shrilled the tranced mob.
An old man jumped up and started haranguing the crowd. I could just
follow his dialect. He was talking about Terra. He was talking about
riots. He was jabbering mystical gibberish which I couldn't understand
and didn't want to understand, and rabble-rousing anti-Terran propaganda
which I understood much too well.
Another blaze of lights and another long scream in chorus:
"Kamayeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeena!"
Evarin stood in the blaze of the many-colored light.
The Toymaker, as I had seen him last, cat-smooth, gracefully alien,
shrouded in a ripple of giddy crimsons. Behind him was a blackness. I
waited till the painful blaze of lights abated, then, straining my eyes
to see past him, I got my worst shock.
A woman stood there, naked to the waist, her hands ritually fettered
with little chains that stirred and clashed musically as she moved
stiff-legged in a frozen dream. Hair like black grass banded her brow
and naked shoulders, and her eyes were crimson.
And the eyes lived in the dead dreaming face. They lived, and they were
mad with terror although the lips curved in a gently tranced smile.
Miellyn.
Evarin was speaking in that dialect I barely understood. His arms were
flung high and his cloak went spilling away from them, rippling like
something alive. The jammed humans and nonhumans swayed and chanted and
he swayed above them like an iridescent bug, weaving arms rippling back
and forth, back and forth. I strained to catch his words.
"Our world ... an old world."
"Kamayeeeeena," whimpered the shrill chorus.
"... humans, humans, all humans would make slaves of us all, all save
the Children of the Ape...."
I lost the thread for a moment. True. The Terran Empire has one small
blind spot in otherwise sane policy, ignoring that nonhuman and human
have lived placidly here for millennia: they placidly assumed that
humans were everywhere the dominant race, as on Earth itself.
The Toymaker's weaving arms went on spinning, spinning. I rubbed my eyes
to clear them of _shallavan_ and incense. I hoped that what I saw was an
illusion of the drug--something, something huge and dark, was hovering
over the girl. She stood placidly, hands clasped on her chains, but her
eyes writhed in the frozen calm of her face.
Then something--I can only call it a sixth sense--bore it on me that
there was _someone_ outside the door. I was perhaps the only creature
there, except for Evarin, not drugged with _shallavan_, and perhaps
that's all it was. But during the days in the Secret Service I'd had to
develop some extra senses. Five just weren't enough for survival.
I _knew_ somebody was fixing to break down that door, and I had a good
idea why. I'd been followed, by the legate's orders, and, tracking me
here, they'd gone away and brought back reinforcements.
Someone struck a blow on the door and a stentorian voice bawled, "Open
up there, in the name of the Empire!"
The chanting broke in ragged quavers. Evarin stopped. Somewhere a woman
screamed. The lights abruptly went out and a stampede started in the
room. Women struck me with chains, men kicked, there were shrieks and
howls. I thrust my way forward, butting with elbows and knees and
shoulders.
A dusky emptiness yawned and I got a glimpse of sunlight and open sky
and knew that Evarin had stepped through into _somewhere_ and was gone.
The banging on the door sounded like a whole regiment of Spaceforce out
there. I dived toward the shimmer of little stars which marked Miellyn's
tiara in the darkness, braving the black horror hovering over her, and
touched rigid girl-flesh, cold as death.
I grabbed her and ducked sideways. This time it wasn't intuition--nine
times out of ten, anyway, intuition is just a mental shortcut which adds
up all the things which your subconscious has noticed while you were
busy thinking about something else. Every native building on Wolf had
concealed entrances and exits and I know where to look for them. This
one was exactly where I expected. I pushed at it and found myself in a
long, dim corridor.
The head of a woman peered from an opening door. She saw Miellyn's limp
body hanging on my arm and her mouth widened in a silent scream. Then
the head popped back out of sight and a door slammed. I heard the bolt
slide. I ran for the end of the hall, the girl in my arms, thinking that
this was where I came in, as far as Miellyn was concerned, and wondering
why I bothered.
The door opened on a dark, peaceful street. One lonely moon was setting
beyond the rooftops. I set Miellyn on her feet, but she moaned and
crumpled against me. I put my shirtcloak around her bare shoulders.
Judging by the noises and yells, we'd gotten out just in time. No one
came out the exit behind us. Either the Spaceforce had plugged it or,
more likely, everyone else in the cellar had been too muddled by drugs
to know what was going on.
But it was only a few minutes, I knew, before Spaceforce would check the
whole building for concealed escape holes. Suddenly, and irrelevantly, I
found myself thinking of a day not too long ago, when I'd stood up in
front of a unit-in-training of Spaceforce, introduced to them as an
Intelligence expert on native towns, and solemnly warned them about
concealed exits and entrances. I wondered, for half a minute, if it
might not be simpler just to wait here and let them pick me up.
Then I hoisted Miellyn across my shoulders. She was heavier than she
looked, and after a minute, half conscious, she began to struggle and
moan. There was a _chak_-run cookshop down the street, a place I'd once
known well, with an evil reputation and worse food, but it was quiet and
stayed open all night. I turned in at the door, bending at the low
lintel.
The place was smoke-filled and foul-smelling. I dumped Miellyn on a
couch and sent the frowsy waiter for two bowls of noodles and coffee,
handed him a few extra coins, and told him to leave us alone. He
probably drew the worst possible inference--I saw his muzzle twitch at
the smell of _shallavan_--but it was that kind of place anyhow. He drew
down the shutters and went.
I stared at the unconscious girl, then shrugged and started on the
noodles. My own head was still swimmy with the fumes, incense and drug,
and I wanted it clear. I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do, but
I had Evarin's right-hand girl, and I was going to use her.
The noodles were greasy and had a curious taste, but they were hot, and
I ate all of one bowl before Miellyn stirred and whimpered and put up
one hand, with a little clinking of chains, to her hair. The gesture was
indefinably reminiscent of Dallisa, and for the first time I saw the
likeness between them. It made me wary and yet curiously softened.
Finding she could not move freely, she rolled over, sat up and stared
around in growing bewilderment and dismay.
"There was a sort of riot," I said. "I got you out. Evarin ditched you.
And you can quit thinking what you're thinking, I put my shirtcloak on
you because you were bare to the waist and it didn't look so good." I
stopped to think that over, and amended: "I mean I couldn't haul you
around the streets that way. It looked good enough."
To my surprise, she gave a shaky little giggle, and held out her
fettered hands. "Will you?"
I broke her links and freed her. She rubbed her wrists as if they hurt
her, then drew up her draperies, pinned them so that she was decently
covered, and tossed back my shirtcloak. Her eyes were wide and soft in
the light of the flickering stub of candle.
"O, Rakhal," she sighed. "When I saw you there--" She sat up, clasping
her hands hard together, and when she continued her voice was curiously
cold and controlled for anyone so childish. It was almost as cold as
Dallisa's.
"If you've come from Kyral, I'm not going back. I'll never go back, and
you may as well know it."
"I don't come from Kyral, and I don't care where you go. I don't care
what you do." I suddenly realized that the last statement was wholly
untrue, and to cover my confusion I shoved the remaining bowl of noodles
at her.
"Eat."