CHAPTER FOUR
By sunset I was ready to leave. I hadn't had any loose ends to tie up inthe Trade City, since I'd already disposed of most of my gear beforeboarding the starship. I'd never been in better circumstances to takeoff for parts unknown.
Mack, still disapproving, had opened the files to me, and I'd spent mostof the day in the back rooms of Floor 38, searching Intelligence filesto refresh my memory, scanning the pages of my own old reports sentyears ago from Shainsa and Daillon. He had sent out one of the nonhumanswho worked for us, to buy or acquire somewhere in the Old Town aDry-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. Iwas only now beginning to realize how much I might have forgotten in theyears behind a desk. But until I was ready to make my presence known, noone 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 theDry-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 TerranTrade 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 outunmarried, and they stay that way, or marry women native to the planetswhere they are sent.
But Joanna Magnusson was one of the rare Earth women who had come outwith her husband, twenty years ago. There are two kinds of Earthwomenlike that. They make their quarterings a little bit of home, or a littlebit of hell. Joanna had made their house look like a transported cornerof Earth.
I never knew quite what to think of the Magnusson household. It seemedto me almost madness to live under a red sun, yet come inside to yellowlight, to live on a world with the wild beauty of Wolf and yet live asthey might have lived on their home planet. Or maybe I was the one whowas out of step. I had done the reprehensible thing they called "goingnative." Possibly I had done just that, and in absorbing myself into thenew world, had lost the ability to fit into the old.
Joanna, a chubby comfortable woman in her forties, opened the door andgave me her hand. "Come in, Race. Juli's expecting you."
"It's good of you." I broke off, unable to express my gratitude. Juliand I had come from Earth--our father had been an officer on the oldstarship _Landfall_ when Juli was only a child. He had died in a wreckoff Procyon, and Mack Magnusson had found me a place in Intelligencebecause I spoke four of the Wolf languages and haunted the Kharsa withRakhal 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 breakupcame. But that terrible night when Rakhal and I nearly killed eachother, and Rakhal came with his face bleeding and took Juli away withhim, had hurt them hard. Yet it had made them all the kinder to me.
Joanna said forthrightly, "Nonsense, Race! What else could we do?" Shedrew me along the hall. "You can talk in here."
I delayed a minute before going through the door she indicated. "How isJuli?"
"Better, I think. I put her to bed in Meta's room, and she slept most ofthe day. She'll be all right. I'll leave you to talk." Joanna opened thedoor, and went away.
Juli was awake and dressed, and already some of the terrible frozenhorror was gone from her face. She was still tense and devil-ridden, butnot hysterical now.
The room, one of the children's bedrooms, wasn't a big one. Even at thetop of the Secret Service, a cop doesn't live too well. Not on Terra'sCivil Service pay scale. Not, with five youngsters. It looked as if allfive 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 foryears. Tell me everything--his friends, his amusements, everything youknow."
"I always thought you knew him better than I did." Juli had a fidgetylittle way of coiling the links of the chain around her wrists and itmade me nervous.
"It's routine, Juli. Police work. Mostly I play by ear, but I try tostart out by being methodical."
She answered everything I asked her, but the sum total wasn't much andit wouldn't help much. As I said, it's easy to disappear on Wolf. Juliknew he had been friendly with the new holders of the Great House onShainsa, 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 camein.
"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 sibilantjargon 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 inthe Kharsa, _Raiss_. Perhaps it will help you. Three men from Shainsaare in the city. They came here to seek a woman who has vanished, and atoymaker. They are returning at sunrise. Perhaps you can arrange totravel in their caravan."
I thanked him and carried the bundle inside. In the empty back room Istripped to the skin and unrolled the bundle. There was a pair of baggystriped breeches, a worn and shabby shirtcloak with capacious pockets, alooped belt with half the gilt rubbed away and the base metal showingthrough, and a scuffed pair of ankle-boots tied with frayed thongs ofdifferent colors. There was a little cluster of amulets and seals. Ichose two or three of the commonest kind, and strung them around myneck.
One of the lumps in the bundle was a small jar, holding nothing but theordinary spices sold in the market, with which the average Dry-townerflavors food. I rubbed some of the powder on my body, put a pinch in thepocket of my shirtcloak, and chewed a few of the buds, wrinkling my noseat 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 razorglint. 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 intosections cushioned with sponge-absorbent plastic, and in them lay tinyslips of glass, on Wolf as precious as jewels. They were lenses--cameralenses, microscope lenses, even eyeglass lenses. Packed close, therewere nearly a hundred of them nested by the shock-absorbent stuff.
They were my excuse for travel to Shainsa. Over and above thenecessities of trade, a few items of Terran manufacture--vacuum tubes,transistors, lenses for cameras and binoculars, liquors and finelyforged small tools--are literally worth their weight in platinum.
Even in cities where Terrans have never gone, these things bringexorbitant prices, and trading in them is a Dry-town privilege. Rakhalhad been a trader, so Juli told me, in fine wire and surgicalinstruments. Wolf is not a mechanized planet, and has never developedany indigenous industrial system; the psychology of the nonhuman seldomruns 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 tracesof the Terran civil servant, clumsy and uncomfortable in his ill-fittingclothes, had dropped away. A Dry-towner, rangy and scarred, looked outat me, and it seemed that the expression on his face was one ofamazement.
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--youlook so much like--"
The door flew open and Mickey Magnusson scampered into the room, achubby little boy browned by a Terra-type sunlamp and glowing withhealth. In his hand he held some sparkling thing that
gave off tinyflashes and glints of color.
I gave the kid a grin before I realized that I was disguised anyhow andprobably a hideous sight. The little boy backed off, but Joanna put herplump hand on his shoulder, murmuring soothing things.
Mickey toddled toward Juli, holding up the shining thing in his hands asif to display something very precious and beloved. Juli bent and heldout her arms, then her face contracted and she snatched at theplaything.
"Mickey, what's that?"
He thrust it protectively behind his back. "Mine!"
"Mickey, don't be naughty," Joanna chided.
"Please let me see," Juli coaxed, and he brought it out, slowly, stillsuspicious. It was an angled prism of crystal, star-shaped, set in aframe which could get the star spinning like a solidopic. But itdisplayed a new and comical face every time it was turned.
Mickey turned it round and round, charmed at being the center ofattention. There seemed to be dozens of faces, shifting with each spinof the prism, human and nonhuman, all dim and slightly distorted. My ownface, Juli's, Joanna's came out of the crystal surface, not a reflectionbut a caricature.
A choked sound from Juli made me turn in dismay. She had let herselfdrop to the floor and was sitting there, white as death, supportingherself with her two hands.
"Race! Find out where he got that--that _thing_!"
I bent and shook her. "What's the matter with you?" I demanded. She hadlapsed into the dazed, sleepwalking horror of this morning. Shewhispered, "It's not a toy. Rindy had one. Joanna, _where did he getit_?" She pointed at the shining thing with an expression of horrorwhich would have been laughable had it been less real, less filled withterror.
Joanna cocked her head to one side and wrinkled her forehead,reflectively. "Why, I don't know, now you come to ask me. I thoughtmaybe one of the _chaks_ had given it to Mickey. Bought it in thebazaar, maybe. He loves it. Do get up off the floor, Juli!"
Juli scrambled to her feet. She said, "Rindy had one. It--it terrifiedme. She would sit and look at it by the hour, and--I told you about it,Race. I threw it out once, and she woke up and screamed. She shriekedfor hours and hours and she ran out in the dark and dug for it in thetrash pile, where I'd buried it. She went out in the dark, broke all herfingernails, but she dug it out again." She checked herself, staring atJoanna, her eyes wide in appeal.
"Well, dear," said Joanna with mild, rebuking kindness, "you needn't beso upset. I don't think Mickey's so attached to it as all that, andanyhow I'm not going to throw it away." She patted Juli reassuringly onthe shoulder, then gave Mickey a little shove toward the door and turnedto follow him. "You'll want to talk alone before Race leaves. Good luck,wherever you're going, Race." She held out her hand forthrightly.
"And don't worry about Juli," she added in an undertone. "We'll takegood care of her."
When I came back to Juli she was standing by the window, looking throughthe oddly filtered glass that dimmed the red sun to orange. "Joannathinks I'm crazy, Race."
"She thinks you're upset."
"Rindy's an odd child, a real Dry-towner. But it's not my imagination,Race, it's not. There's something--" Suddenly she sobbed aloud again.
"Homesick, Juli?"
"I was, a little, the first years. But I was happy, believe me." Sheturned her face to me, shining with tears. "You've got to believe Inever regretted it for a minute."
"I'm glad," I said dully. _That made it just fine._
"Only that toy--"
"Who knows? It might be a clue to something." The toy had reminded me ofsomething, too, and I tried to remember what it was. I'd seen nonhumantoys in the Kharsa, even bought them for Mack's kids. When a single manis invited frequently to a home with five youngsters, it's about theonly way he can repay that hospitality, by bringing the children oddtrifles and knicknacks. But I had never seen anything quite like thisone, until--
--Until yesterday. The toy-seller they had hunted out of the Kharsa, theone who had fled into the shrine of Nebran and vanished. He had had halfa dozen of those prism-and-star sparklers.
I tried to call up a mental picture of the little toy-seller. I didn'thave much luck. I'd seen him only in that one swift glance from beneathhis hood. "Juli, have you ever seen a little man, like a _chak_ onlysmaller, twisted, hunchbacked? He sells toys--"
She looked blank. "I don't think so, although there are dwarf _chaks_ inthe Polar Cities. But I'm sure I've never seen one."
"It was just an idea." But it was something to think about. A toy-sellerhad vanished. Rakhal, before disappearing, had smashed all Rindy's toys.And the sight of a plaything of cunningly-cut crystal had sent Juli intohysterics.
"I'd better go before it's too dark," I said. I buckled the final claspof my shirtcloak, fitted my skean another notch into it, and counted themoney Mack had advanced me for expenses. "I want to get into the Kharsaand hunt up the caravan to Shainsa."
"You're going there first?"
"Where else?"
Juli turned, leaning one hand against the wall. She looked frail andill, years older than she was. Suddenly she flung her thin arms aroundme, and a link of the chain on her fettered hands struck me hard, as shecried out, "Race, Race, he'll kill you! How can I live with that on myconscience too?"
"You can live with a hell of a lot on your conscience." I disengaged herarms firmly from my neck. A link of the chain caught on the clasp of myshirtcloak, and again something snapped inside me. I grasped the chainin my two hands and gave a mighty heave, bracing my foot against thewall. The links snapped asunder. A flying end struck Juli under the eye.I ripped at the seals of the jeweled cuffs, tore them from her arms,find threw the whole assembly into a corner, where it fell with aclash.
"Damn it," I roared, "that's over! You're never going to wear _those_things again!" Maybe after six years in the Dry-towns, Juli wasbeginning to guess what those six years behind a desk had meant to me.
"Juli, I'll find your Rindy for you, and I'll bring Rakhal in alive. Butdon't ask more than that. Just _alive_. And don't ask me how."
He'd be alive when I got through with him. Sure, he'd be alive.
Just.