"By then I suppose I had an interest in you. Not a romantic interest,
you understand. I'm not at all romantic."
"What kind of an interest?" Barrent asked.
"I thought you might be good recruitment material."
"I'd like to hear more about it," Barrent said.
Moera was silent for a while, watching him with unblinking green eyes.
She said, "There's not much I can tell you. I'm a member of an
organization. We're always on the lookout for good prospects. Usually we
screen directly from the prison ships. After that, recruiters like me go
out in search of people we can use."
"What type of people do you look for?"
"Not your type, Will. I'm sorry."
"Why not me?"
"At first I thought seriously about recruiting you," Moera said. "You
seemed like just the sort of person we needed. Then I checked into your
record."
"And?"
"We don't recruit murderers. Sometimes we employ them for specific jobs,
but we don't take them into the organization. There are certain
extenuating circumstances which we recognize; self-defense, for example.
But aside from that, we feel that a man who has committed premeditated
murder on Earth is the wrong man for us."
"I see," Barrent said. "Would it help any if I told you I don't have the
usual Omegan attitude toward murder?"
"I know you don't," Moera said. "If it were up to me, I'd take you into
the organization. But it's not my choice.... Will, are you sure you're a
murderer?"
"I believe I am," Barrent said. "I probably am."
"Too bad," Moera said. "Still, the organization needs high-survival
types, no matter what they did on Earth. I can't promise anything, but
I'll see what I can do. It would help if you could find out more about
why you committed murder. Perhaps there were extenuating
circumstances."
"Perhaps," Barrent said doubtfully. "I'll try to find out."
That evening, just before he went to sleep, Moera opened the adjoining
door and came into his room. Slim and warm, she slipped into his bed.
When he started to speak, she put a hand over his mouth. And Barrent,
who had learned not to question good fortune, kept quiet.
The rest of the vacation passed much too quickly. The subject of the
organization did not come up again; but, perhaps as compensation, the
adjoining door was not closed. At last, late on the seventh day, Barrent
and Moera returned to Tetrahyde.
"When can I see you again?" Barrent asked.
"I'll get in touch with you."
"That's not a very satisfactory arrangement."
"It's the best I can do," Moera said. "I'm sorry, Will. I'll see what I
can do about the organization."
Barrent had to be satisfied with that. When the vehicle dropped him at
his store, he still didn't know where she lived, or what kind of an
organization she represented.
* * * * *
Back in his apartment, he considered carefully the details of his dream
in the Dream Shop. It was all there: his anger at Therkaler, the illicit
weapon, the encounter, the corpse, and then the informer and the judge.
Only one thing was missing. He had no recollection of the actual murder,
no memory of aiming the weapon and activating it. The dream stopped when
he met Therkaler, and started again after he was dead.
Perhaps he had blocked the moment of actual murder out of his mind; but
perhaps there had been some provocation, some satisfactory reason why
he had killed the man. He would have to find out.
There were only two ways of getting information about Earth. One lay
through the horror-tinged visions of the Dream Shop, and he was
determined not to go there again. The other way was through the services
of a skrenning mutant.
Barrent had the usual distaste for mutants. They were another race
entirely, and their status of untouchability was no mere prejudice. It
was well known that mutants often carried strange and incurable
diseases. They were shunned, and they had reacted to exclusion by
exclusiveness. They lived in the Mutant Quarter, which was almost a
self-contained city within Tetrahyde. Citizens with good sense stayed
away from the Quarter, especially after dark; everyone knew that mutants
could be vindictive.
But only mutants had the skrenning ability. In their misshapen bodies
were unusual powers and talents, odd and abnormal abilities which the
normal man shunned by day but secretly courted by night. Mutants were
said to be in the particular favor of The Black One. Some people felt
that the great art of Black Magic, about which the priests boasted,
could only be performed by a mutant; but one never said so in the
presence of a priest.
Mutants, because of their strange talents, were reputed to remember much
more of Earth than was possible for normal men and women. Not only could
they remember Earth in general, but in particular they could skren the
life-thread of a man backward through space and time, pierce the wall
of forgetfulness and tell what really had happened to him.
Other people believed that mutants had no unusual abilities at all. They
considered them clever rogues who lived off people's credulity.
Barrent decided to find out for himself. Late one night, suitably
cloaked and armed, he left his apartment and went to the Mutant
Quarter.