"I know you will be pleased, noble lords." His eyes narrowed and he leaned forward, lowering his voice. "It is plain you are not of Ghuncha Town, and are strangers here. Might I make so bold as to inquire—"
"As to the cost, which can be excessive for those who are too curious," Spock interrupted. His brows rose slightly at the way the translator interpreted his prosaic sentence.
"Certainly, yes," the proprietor babbled hastily. "I did not mean to pry, I did not . . . fifty pahds, noble sirs, will be more than sufficient."
"Since it is more than sufficient, it is doubtless more than we should pay," Kirk rumbled, reaching into the lining of his pouch-belt. "However, I have no time to haggle." He brought out a handful of brown metal squares. The shopkeeper's eyes nearly joined an unsold sword on the red velvet as Kirk counted out five of the largest squares and handed them to the man.
"Thank you, noble lords . . . blessings forever upon you," he called as they turned and began walking away. "Blessings a thousand times!"
"I'd trade a thousand blessings for a place to rest, Captain Kirk," Delminnen ventured many hours later. "Isn't it time to stop? There's no real night here, so we'll have to decide on our own."
"Innkeeping must be a round-the-clock business on Gypsy, Captain," Spock added. "We should have no difficulty in locating a busy one. Ms. Delminnen is correct. We must pace ourselves carefully or risk exhaustion at a crucial moment. The slightly greater gravity here does tend to weary one rapidly. I could use a meal myself."
"All right," Kirk agreed, wiping his forehead. The strain of trying to locate a Klingon under every curious face was beginning to tire him also. "It would be a good idea to establish some kind of local base of operations while we still have time for such things. Any sign of a likely prospect, Mr. Spock?"
The first officer was standing on tiptoe, staring ahead and slightly to their left. "I have already addressed myself to the problem, Captain. There appears to be an inn of some sort directly ahead of us."
A short walk brought them to the front of the establishment. They couldn't read the lettering on its front, but a quick, unobtrusive survey of the structure's exterior and the clientele carefully moving in and out through the oddly hinged multiple swinging—or was it folding—doors seemed to confirm Spock's initial appraisal. Furthermore, the appearance of those entering and leaving suggested a moderately high-class business.
That was enough for Kirk. They would have enough trouble remaining incognito without inviting conflict with the less savory elements of the native population. After watching the operation of the strange doors long enough to insure they wouldn't get pinched by them, he led Spock and Delminnen inside.
A system of mirrors and high windows admitted plenty of light. The interior wasn't much dimmer than the alley they had materialized in. To their left was a series of low tables at which some natives, mostly male, reclined while drinking and eating. To the right was a circular desk.
Between the two a long, paved walkway ran slightly above floor level until it met a branching stairway at the far end of the big room. This led up to a series of interior balconies before terminating in a large skylight three stories up.
A few patrons looked up, casually inspected the newcomers, and returned to their meals. Kirk noted the relative cleanliness of the place with satisfaction and moved to address the single opening in the high circular desk.
There was no one behind it. A small gong hung under a curved support to one side. Kirk lifted the tiny metal stick and hit the gong once, twice.
A tall, aged, cadaverous native appeared from an unsuspected doorway at the back of the concealed area. He wore an interesting arrangement of bloomers and overlapping vests, together with what would pass on Earth for a mournful expression. He looked more like a mortician than a concierge . . . a fact which led Kirk to wonder about the perhaps deceptive peacefulness of the inn.
Nevertheless, they were here, and it was unlikely they would encounter any place better.
"What," the native asked tiredly, "do my lords require?"
"Food and lodging for this night and maybe several more. Your best room, on the second floor, one entrance only."
The native glanced at Char Delminnen, then back at Kirk. "One room, my lord, for the three of you?"
The translator turned Kirk's mild impatience into anger. "Yes, one room! Are you deaf—or do you wish to be? There must be sufficient individual bedding for all. You will see to it personally that suitable arrangements are made."
Either this native was made of stronger stuff than the weapons seller or he simply didn't care. "Whatever my lords require. I shall see to it."
Kirk turned as if to leave, then hesitated. "There is one more thing, innkeeper."
"My lord?"
"Have you yourself seen, or heard tell of, two men . . . strangers like ourselves, with strong jaws and exceptional arrogance? They have a slightly foppish, tremendously arrogant younger man with them?" Kirk noticed Char Delminnen bridle at that description of her brother, but, if anything, the translators would only enlarge on his characterization of Van Delminnen's natural obstinacy.
The innkeeper paused thoughtfully. " 'Arrogance' is a strange word to use in identifying a man, my lord. I am sorry, but I am not in any way familiar with the persons you describe."
"I see," replied a disappointed Kirk. "Should you hear tell of such a group, inform us at once." He jiggled his pouch-belt significantly, so that the native could hear the clink of currency within.
The innkeeper merely bowed politely. "I shall do so, my lords." He gestured at the double stairway at the far end of the room. "Stairway on your right, second floor, third door down." A peculiarly shaped key was handed over. "Rest well. The room is already prepared as you desire."
Kirk frowned momentarily but then, why shouldn't such a room be readily available? He took the key, and they started for the stairs.
It was fortunate that the native's directions had been so explicit, since the carved squiggles on each door meant nothing to any of them. Kirk tried the door and found it unlocked, and they entered.
The room was spacious but dim, despite the large window. Spock moved to inspect it. He noted with a mutter of gratification that it was a sheer drop to the street below, and that the building facing them had no window directly opposite. They would have nothing to worry about from that quarter.
From there he moved to the door. Fishing into his own pouch-belt, he produced a tiny, simple lock. It looked like a local native handicraft, but was far stronger and more subtle than any lock on this world. He began to install it on the door.
"Spock and I are going to make one last sweep of our immediate area," Kirk was explaining to the exhausted Char Delminnen, "to make certain Kumara and your brother aren't close at hand. You may as well get some rest in the meantime." He nodded toward the door. "The lock Mr. Spock is installing is coded to respond only to our three voices."
"I'd like to go with you, Captain, but . . . I am tired. All right, I'll wait for you here. Wake me when you return. Then I can keep a watch while you and Mr. Spock take some rest."
"Sounds good, Ms. Delminnen. We'll try not to be too long." He reached out to pat her reassuringly on the shoulder—and froze as she leaned forward, up . . . and kissed him.
"Ready, Captain?" a blank-faced Spock asked from the half-open doorway.
Kirk gazed back at her uncertainly, finding her expression more unreadable than that of any other woman he'd ever seen. Whether there was affection, or curiosity, or something utterly incomprehensible in her stare he couldn't say.
"Coming, Mr. Spock."
The incident wasn't mentioned, and Spock gave every indication of having consigned it to the part of his mind reserved for filing inexplicable human actions. Kirk knew Spock had forgotten nothing, but he was grateful for his first officer's efforts to give the appearance of having done so.
Gradually it slipped from his mind too as they moved about the shops and homes and stalls, questioning the n
atives with increasing ease and the assurance that, while they were undeniably strangers, no one suspected how strange they actually were.
The questioning process became an exercise in consistent futility. No matter how detailed, how graphic, they made their descriptions of Kumara and Van Delminnen, they were greeted with the same negative response.
"No, noble lords, I have seen no one fitting such a description . . ." "Pardon, noble sirs, never have we heard tell of men with eyes such as you claim . . ." "No, I have not heard of them, or set sight of them myself . . ." "I have not . . ." "No . . ." "Not I . . ." "Never . . ."
By the time they returned to the inn, Kirk was too tired to care if Kumara was in this section of the town, or still at the opposite end, or back on the Klathas.
"I'd feel a lot better," he told Spock as they started up the stone stairway, "if I knew Kumara's intentions. That's more important than his location."
A scream sounded from upstairs. It was slightly muffled, but still audible enough for both men to know instantly it did not come from a native throat.
"I believe we are about to obtain a partial answer to both questions, Captain."
The transporter could have gotten them upstairs faster—but not much faster. Kirk had a hand out, reaching for the door handle, when it opened from within. He found himself face to face with a short, stocky native. This individual, whose countenance screamed "thug," had one arm wrapped tightly around a weakly struggling Char Delminnen.
They stared at each other in momentary paralysis. The native saw Spock standing behind Kirk, computed the odds, and let go of Delminnen. Turning, he made a run for the open window as fast as his bandy, muscular legs could carry him.
Kirk brushed past the dazed Delminnen and tackled the native just before he could reach the rope dangling outside the window. Both men crashed to the floor, and Kirk discovered that he was grappling with a python. Gravity-stressed muscles shoved him onto his back, and he saw the glint of light on metal as the native raised the knife.
A hand came down on the native's shoulder, fingers moved quickly and skillfully, and the native collapsed. Panting heavily from the exertion under the strong gravity, Kirk slid out from under the unconscious form and climbed to his feet. Another figure drew him over to the far bed.
Char Delminnen was sitting there, shivering noticeably but otherwise apparently in control of herself. Kirk moved to touch her, hesitated, and drew back.
"He came in through the window?"
She nodded weakly.
"The rope is suspended from the roof, Captain," Spock reported. Holding on to the sill with one hand, he was leaning out over the street and peering upward. Now he came back inside and closed the window behind him. "I apologize, Ms. Delminnen. I was negligent in my analysis of this room's defensive potential. At the time it did not occur to me that one could as easily come down to this room as up to it. Curious oversight."
"Forget it, Spock," ordered Kirk. "I didn't think of it either. We're not used to acting like cat-burglars."
" 'Cat-burglars,' Captain? The reference—"
"Has nothing to do with stealing cats," Kirk hastened to explain. That brought a hesitant grin from Char Delminnen. She stopped shaking and gestured.
"I think my visitor is coming around, Captain."
Indeed, the native was emitting bubbling sounds indicative of rising consciousness. Spock helped him to his feet and steadied the man's staggers with one hand on his shoulder and the other holding an arm tightly behind his back.
The native looked fearfully from Char Delminnen to Kirk. He tried to break free . . . but only once. Then his gaze dropped to the wooden floor, and he muttered sullenly, "What will you do to me . . . noble lords." The last was uttered in a fashion clearly indicating that their nobility was in considerable question.
"Nothing . . . if you answer a few questions," Kirk told him honestly. "Who sent you to kidnap the woman?"
The native remained silent. Spock moved his fingers on the man's shoulder in a certain way, and the man winced.
"Was it a tall man," Kirk continued evenly, "with very small pupils and dry-looking skin? Who moved quickly and with sharp gestures?"
The native's face twisted bizarrely as Spock applied further pressure. Finally: "Yes, yes . . . now let me go, sirs!" As Spock's hand relaxed, so did the native's expression. "I'll tell you what you wish."
The first officer let go and took a couple of quick steps back, remaining between the native and the now closed window. Sighing in a very humanlike fashion, the native rubbed his neck and shook his freed arm to get the blood (or whatever served for bodily fluid here) moving again.
"Where did you meet this man?" Kirk continued.
"At the Inn of the Six Rains. He offered me three hundred pahds if I would bring him a woman he described to me." The native indicated the attentive Delminnen. "That woman."
"Was he alone?"
"No." The native looked thoughtful. "There were two other lords with him. One was very much like the first, but the third was different. He was smaller and quiet . . . in fact, he said nothing while I was present. "
"Under orders from Kumara, no doubt, Captain," commented Spock.
"This other lord," Char Delminnen broke in, "who did not speak. Did he look well to you?"
The native eyed her curiously. "As well as the others . . . though I confess I paid little notice to him. It was the largest of the three lords I was concerned with."
"The one who offered you the money," Kirk declared pointedly. "This lord—he told you where to find the woman?"
"No."
Kirk relaxed considerably at that. That meant Kumara was probably not waiting for them downstairs, or rigging the stairway or preparing similar deviltry nearby.
"I found her myself, from the information the lord gave to me . . . gave to all of us."
"All of you?" Spock echoed. "There are more than one?"
"Aye. There were many present to hear the lord's offer."
"Why are you telling us this?"
The native made an indecipherable gesture. "Why should I help some other cajjy get rich?"
"It sounds like the sort of thing Kumara would do," mused Kirk sardonically. "Find himself a nice, peaceful room in a comfortable inn near his beam-down point, and then hire half the small-time cutthroats in town to do his dirty work for him, so he doesn't have to risk his own precious skin. Kumara's an atypical Klingon, Spock, but he's still a Klingon."
"I had not intended to dispute that, Captain," the first officer essayed easily. "I do wish to point out a significant new fact, however."
"What? What new fact, Spock?"
"Captain, we now have a distinct advantage. Kumara is ignorant as to our whereabouts, but we now know where he is based."
They exchanged glances. While they do so, the native showed that his body was more alert than his expression. He darted around a not-quite-fast-enough Spock, dove for the rope through the closed window, and missed.
All three rushed to the window. No crowd gathered below to inspect the body. On the contrary, there was a distinct absence of curiosity on the part of the populace.
"One native dead . . . one too many." Kirk looked over at his friend and second-in-command. "I think it's time we paid a visit to the Inn of the Six Rains, Mr. Spock."
"I agree, Captain."
They turned to leave. Char Delminnen was waiting by the door. She eyed Kirk expectantly.
"I can't leave you here and risk having another of Kumara's hired thugs finding you. Do you think you're up to coming with us, or should we hunt for another inn and wait a while longer?"
By way of answering she showed the stiletto, which her attacker had given her no opportunity to use, then slipped it back inside her blouse.
"Let's find my brother, Captain Kirk."
This time, she gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze.
For a worried moment, Kirk was concerned that they might get no closer to the Inn of the Six Rains than the front door of their o
wn inn. The dour manager was waiting for them by his enclosed moat of a desk, with two towering locals. The newcomers wore identical clothing. Kirk didn't think it was because they were relatives; he had been on enough worlds to recognize a uniform when he saw one.
"Captain," Spock whispered as the innkeeper gestured to them, "we could use the rope outside our room, ascend to the roof . . ."
"Easy, Spock. Surely other residents heard the scream. They can testify in our favor."
"There is trouble, my lords," the innkeeper explained sorrowfully.
"I can explain," Kirk began, addressing himself to the two giants instead of the speaker. "We had no intention of killing—"
The giant on the left interrupted. "Our concern is not with your intentions, or the question of killings, noble lord. But it is evident you are strangers here." He indicated the innkeeper, who looked embarrassed. "There is the matter of a shattered window."
It took a minute for the giant's words to penetrate. Once they had, Kirk settled the matter quickly. Spock chided him later for risking his cover by sinfully overpaying, but Kirk paid his first officer little heed. He was too glad to be free of local justice.
One thing was certain: They had encountered an ideal world on which to engage in Kumara's contest.
Local in-town transportation was nonexistent, they discovered the next day, but they had no difficulty in locating the Inn of the Six Rains once they had crossed the town's center. It seemed that everyone knew everything about the town, a consequence of having to walk everywhere.
The inn itself was nearly a duplicate of the one they had left, even to the fortresslike innkeeper's desk and the dining area opposite it. It had the same raised walkway in between, leading this time to a single stairway at its end. They did have the advantage of two things their old inn did not: booths and a noisy crowd.
Kirk found the atmosphere much more saloonlike than that of their own abode. Drinking was going on in earnest around them, and the air was filled with short, intriguing native laughter, shouting, and pungent smoke.
The innkeeper had assured the gentlemen that the three they searched for were indeed domiciled there. No, they were away at present. Perhaps they would return soon, to greet their friends from the country. In the meantime, why not sit and have good drink and pass tall stories around?