[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Amazing Stories May 1963.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The door was low, deep-sunk into the thickness of the wall. Carey
knocked and then he waited, stooped a bit under the lintel-stone,
fitting his body to the meagre shadow as though he could really hide it
there. A few yards away, beyond cracked and tilted paving-blocks, the
Jekkara Low-Canal showed its still black water to the still black sky,
and both were full of stars.
Nothing moved along the canal-site. The town was closed tight, and
this in itself was so unnatural that it made Carey shiver. He had been
here before and he knew how it ought to be. The chief industry of the
Low-Canal towns is sinning of one sort or another, and they work at
it right around the clock. One might have thought that all the people
had gone away, but Carey knew they hadn't. He knew that he had not
taken a single step unwatched. He had not really believed that they
would let him come this far, and he wondered why they had not killed
him. Perhaps they remembered him.
There was a sound on the other side of the door.
Carey said in the antique High Martian, "Here is one who claims the
guest-right." In Low Martian, the vernacular that fitted more easily on
his tongue, he said, "Let me in, Derech. You owe me blood."
The door opened narrowly and Carey slid through it, into lamp-light and
relative warmth. Derech closed the door and barred it, saying,
"Damn you, Carey. I knew you were going to turn up here babbling about
blood-debts. I swore I wouldn't let you in."
He was a Low-Canaller, lean and small and dark and predatory. He
wore a red jewel in his left ear-lobe and a totally incongruous but
comfortable suit of Terran synthetics, insulated against heat and cold.
Carey smiled.
"Sixteen years ago," he said, "you'd have perished before you'd have
worn that."
"Corruption. Nothing corrupts like comfort, unless it's kindness."
Derech sighed. "I knew it was a mistake to let you save my neck that
time. Sooner or later you'd claim payment. Well, now that I have let
you in, you might as well sit down." He poured wine into a cup of
alabaster worn thin as an eggshell and handed it to Carey. They drank,
sombrely, in silence. The flickering lamp-light showed the shadows and
the deep lines in Carey's face.