Wasp

CHAPTER IV

Luck held. Mowry did not have to wait long for a train to Pertane. He was more than glad of this because the bored station police tended to become inquisitive about travellers who sat around too long. True, if accosted he could show his documents or, strictly as a last resort, arrogantly use the stolen Kaitempi card to browbeat his way out of a possible trap: But it was better and safer not to become an object of attention in this place at this time.

The train came in and he managed to get aboard without having been noticed by one of several restlessly roaming cops. After a short time it pulled out again, rumbled into pitch darkness. The lateness of the hour meant that passengers were few and the coach he had chosen had plenty of vacant seats. It was easy to select a place where he’d not be pestered by a garrulous neighbour or studied for the fall length of the journey by someone with sharp eyes and a long memory. He lolled back, tired and heavy-eyed, and hoped to heaven that if there should be another police check en route his papers, or the Kaitempi card, or his gun would get him out of a jam.

One thing was certain: if Pigface’s body were found within the next three or four hours the resulting hullabaloo would spread fast enough and far enough to ensure a thorough end-to-end search of the train. The searchers would have no suspect’s description to go upon but they’d take a look into all luggage and recognise stolen property when they found it. Anyone of relatively low brain-power would have the sense to grab the owner of said luggage and disregard all protestations of innocence.

He dozed uneasily to the hypnotic thrum-tiddy-thrum of the train. Every time a door slammed or a window rattled he awoke, nerves stretched, body tense. A couple of times he wondered whether a top priority radio-call was beating the train to its destination.

“Halt and search all passengers and luggage on the 11.20 from Radine.”

There was no check on the way. The train slowed, clanked through the points and switches of a large grid system, rolled into Pertane. Its passengers dismounted, all of them sleepy and a few looking half-dead as they straggled untidily toward the exit. Mowry timed himself to be in the rear of the bunch, lagging behind with half a dozen bandy-legged moochers. His full attention was directed straight ahead, watching for evidence of a grim-faced bunch waiting at the barrier.

If they were really there, in ambush for him, there’d be only two courses open to him. He could drop the case and with it the valuable loot, shoot first and fastest, make a bolt and hope to get away in the ensuing confusion. As a tactic it would give him the advantage of surprise. But failure meant immediate death and even success might be dearly bought with a couple of bullets in the body.

Alternatively he could try to bluff by marching straight up to the biggest and ugliest of them, shoving the case into his hands and saying with dopey eagerness, “Pardon, officer, but one of those fellows who just went through dropped this in front of me. I can’t imagine why he abandoned his luggage.“Then somewhere in the resulting chaos should occur the chance for him to amble around a corner and run as if jet-propelled.

He was sweaty with reaction when he found his fears were not confirmed. It had been his first murder and it was a murder because they would define it as such. So he’d been paying for it in his own imagination, fancying himself hunted before the hunt was up. Beyond the barrier lounged two station police eyeing the emerging stream with total lack of interest and yawning from time to time. He went past practically under their noses and they could not have cared less about him.

But he wasn’t yet out of the bag. Police on the station expected to see people carrying luggage any time of day or night. Cops in the city streets were different, being more inclined to question the reason at such an indecent hour. They were nasty-minded about burdened walkers in the night.

That problem could be solved by the easy expedient of taking a taxi only to create another problem. Taxis have to be driven. Drivers have mouths and memories. The most taciturn of them could become positively gabby when questioned by the Kaitempi.

“You take anyone off the 11.20 from Radine?”

“Yar. Young fellow with a case.”

“Notice anything suspicious about him? He act tough or behave warily, for instance?”

“Not that I noticed. Seemed all right to me. Wasn’t a native Jaimecan though. Spoke with a real Mashambi growl.”

“Remember where you took him, hi?”

“Yar, I do. I can show you.”

There was an escape from this predicament; he took it by dumping the case in a rented locker on the station and walking away free of the betraying burden. In theory the case should be safe enough for one full Jaimecan day. In ominous fact there was a slight chance of it being discovered and used as bait.

On a world where nothing was sacrosanct from their prying fingers the Kaitempi had master-keys to everything. They weren’t above opening and searching every bank of lockers within a thousand miles of the scene of the crime if by any quirk of thought they took it into their heads that to do so would be a smart move. So when he returned in daytime to collect the case he’d have to approach the lockers with considerable caution, making sure that a watch was not being kept upon them by a ring of hard characters.

Pacing rapidly home, he was within half a mile of his destination when two cops stepped from a dark doorway the other side of the street.

“Hey, you!”

Mowry stopped. They came across, stared at him in grim silence. Then one made a gesture to indicate the high-shining stars, the deserted street.

“Wandering around pretty late, aren’t you?”

“Nothing wrong with that, is there?” he answered, making his tone slightly apologetic.

“We are asking the questions,” retorted the cop. “Where’ve you been to this hour?”

“On a train.”

“From where?”

“Khamasta.”

“And where’re you going now?”

“Home.”

“You’d have made it quicker in a taxi, wouldn’t you?”

“Sure would,” Mowry agreed. “Unfortunately I happened to be last out. Someone always has to be last out. By that time every taxi had been grabbed.”

“Well, it’s a story.”

At this point the other cop chipped in. He adopted Technique Number Seven, namely, a narrowing of the eyes, an out-thrusting of the jaw and a harshening of the voice. Once in a while Number Seven would be rewarded with a guilty look or at least a hopelessly exaggerated expression of innocence. He was very good at it, having practised it assiduously upon his wife and the bedroom mirror.

“You wouldn’t perhaps have been nowhere near Khamasta, hi? You wouldn’t perhaps have been spending the night taking a nice, easy stroll around Pertane and sort of absentmindedly messing around with walls and windows, would you?”

“No, I wouldn’t,” said Mowry. “For the reason that nobody would pay me a bad guilder for my trouble. Do I look crazy?”

“Not enough to be noticed,” admitted the cop. “But somebody’s doing it, crazy or not.”

“Well, I can’t blame you fellows for wanting to nab him. I don’t like loonies myself. They give me the creeps.” He made an impatient gesture. “If you’re going to search me how about getting the job done? I’ve had a long day, I’m dog-tired and I want to get home.”

“I don’t think we’ll bother,” said the cop. “You show us your identity-card.”

Mowry dug it out. The cop gave it no more than a perfunctory glance while his companion ignored it altogether.

“All right, on your way. If you insist on walking the streets at this hour you must expect to be stopped and questioned. There’s a war on, see?”

“Yes, officer;’ said Mowry, meekly.

He pushed off at his best pace, thanking heaven he had got rid of his luggage. If he’d been holding that case tbey’d have regarded it, rightly enough, as probable evidence of evil-doing. To prevent them from opening it and inspecting the contents he’d have had to subdue them with the Kaitempi card. He didn’t want to make use of that tactic if he could help it until sometime after Pigface’s killing had been discovered and the resulting uproar had died down. Say in at least one month’s time.

Reaching his apartment, he undressed but did not go immediately to sleep. He lay in bed and examined the precious card again and again. Now that he had more time to ponder its full significance and obvious potentialities he found himself torn two ways—should he keep it or not?

The socio-political system of the Sirian Empire being what it was, a Kaitempi card was the prime scare-device on any Sirian-held planet. The mere sight of this dreaded totem was enough to make ninety-nine percent of civilians get down on their knees and salaam, their faces in the dust. That fact made a Kaitempi card of tremendous value to any wasp. Yet Terra had not provided him with such a weapon. He’d had to grab it for himself. The obvious conclusion was that Terran Intelligence lacked an original copy.

Out there amid the mist of stars, on the green-blue world called Earth, they could duplicate anything save a living. entity—and could produce a very close imitation even of that. Maybe they needed this card. Given the chance, maybe they’d arm every wasp in existence with a mock-majorship in the Kaitempi and by the same token give life to some otherwise doomed to death.

For himself, to surrender the card to Terran authority would be like voluntarily sacrificing his queen while playing a hard-fought and bitter game of chess. All the same, before going to sleep he reached his conclusion: on his first return to the cave he would beam a detailed report of what had happened, the prize he had won and what it was worth. Terra could then decide whether or not to deprive him of it in the interest of the greater number.

The wasp buzzed alone, unaided, but was loyal to the swarm.

At noon he made cautious return to the station, hung around for twenty minutes as if waiting to meet an incoming traveller. He kept sharp, careful watch in all directions while appearing bored and interested in nothing save occasional streams of arrivals. Some fifty or sixty other people were idling about in unconscious imitation of himself, among them he could detect nobody maintaining a sly eye upon the lockers. There were about a dozen who looked overmuscled and wore the deadpan hardness of officials but these were solely interested in people coming through the barriers.

Finally he took the chance, ambled casually up to his locker, stuck his key in its door while wishing to God that he had a third eye located in the back of his neck. Opening the door he took out the case and had a bad moment as he stood with the damning evidence in his hand. If ever it was going to occur, now was the time for a shout of triumph, a sudden grip on his shoulder, a bunch of callous faces all around.

Still nothing happened. He strolled away looking blandly innocent but deep inside as leery as a fox who hears the dim, distant baying of the hounds. Outside the station he jumped a crosstown bus, maintained a wary watch for followers.

Chances were very high that nobody had noticed him, nobody was interested in him, because in Radine the Kaitempi were still running around in circles without the vaguest notion of where to probe first. But he could not take that for granted nor dare he underestimate their craftiness. There was one chance in a thousand that by some item he’d overlooked or hadn’t thought of he’d given them a lead straight to the lockers and that they had decided not to nab him on the spot, hoping that if left to run loose he’d take them to the rest of the presumed mob.

So during the ride he peered repeatedly backward, observed passengers getting on and off, tried to see if he could spot a loaded dynocar tagging along somewhere behind. He changed buses five times, lugged the case along two squalid alleys, walked into the fronts and out the backs of three department stores.

Satisfied at last that there was no surreptitious pursuit he made for his apartment, kicked the case under the bed, let go a deep sigh. They’d warned him that this kind of life would prove a continual strain on the nerves. It sure was!

Going out again, he bought a box of envelopes and a cheap typewriter. Then using the Kaitempi paper he spent the rest of the day and part of the next one typing with forceful brevity. He didn’t have to bother about leaving his prints all over this correspondence; Terran fingerprint treatment had turned his impressions into vague, unclassifiable blotches.

When he had finished that task he devoted the following day to patient research in the city library. He made copious notes, went home, addressed a stack of envelopes, stamped the lot.

In the early evening he mailed more than two hundred letters to newspaper editors, radio announcers, military leaders, senior civil servants, police chiefs, prominent politicians and key-members of the government. Defiantly positioned under the Kaitempi heading and supported by the embossed seal of its winged sword, the message was short but said plenty:

That done, he burned the envelope-box and dropped the typewriter in the river where it ran deep. If he had occasion to write any more letters he’d buy another one and afterward get rid of it the same way. He could well afford to buy and scrap a hundred typewriters if he thought it necessary. The more the merrier. If the Kaitempi analysed the type on threatening correspondence and found a number of untraceable machines being used, they’d get the idea that a gigantic organisation was at work. Furthermore, every purchase helped inflate the Jaimecan economy with worthless paper.

His next step was to visit a drive-yourself agency and rent a dynocar for a week, using the name of Shir Agavan and the address of the hotel where first he’d holed-up. By its means he got rid of five hundred stickers distributed over six small towns and thirty villages. The job was a lot riskier than it had been in Radine or Pertane.

The villages were by far the worst to handle, the smaller in size the more troublesome they proved. In a city of a quarter million to two million population a stranger is an insignificant nonentity; in a dump of less than one thousand inhabitants he is noticed, remarked upon, his every move watched.

On many occasions a bunch of yokels gave him the chance to slap up a sticker by switching attention from him to his car. Twice somebody took down the car’s number just for the ducks of it. It was a good thing he’d given a blind-alley lead when hiring it because police inquiries about the widespread rash of subversive stickers would almost certainly make them relate the phenomenon to the laconic, fast-moving stranger driving dyno XC 17978.

He had been on Jaimec exactly four weeks when he disposed of the last of the stickers from his bag and thus reached the end of phase one. It was at this point he began to feel despondent.

In the papers and over the air officialdom still maintained complete silence about traitorous activities. Not a word had been said about the slaughter of Pigface Sallana. All the outward evidence suggested that the government remained bliss-fully unaware of waspish buzzings and was totally uncon-cerned about the existence of an imaginery Dirac Angestun Gesept.

Thus deprived of visible reactions Mowry had no way of telling what results he had achieved, if any. In retrospect this paper-war looked pretty futile in spite of all Wolf’s glib talk about pinning down an army with little more than gestures. He, Mowry, had been lashing out in the dark and the other’ fellow wasn’t even bothering to hit back.

That made it difficult to maintain enthusiasm at the first feverish pitch. Just one public squeal of pain from the opposition or a howl of fury or a tirade of threats would have given him a big boost by showing him that at last he had landed a real wallop on something solid. But they wouldn’t give him the petty satisfaction of hearing them breathing hard.

He was paying the psychological penalty of working alone. There was no companion-in-arms with whom to share stimulating speculations about the enemy’s hidden countermoves. Nobody to encourage or from whom to receive encouragement. Nobody sharing the conspiracy and the danger and—as is usual among two or more—the laughs. In his waspish role he was thrown wholly upon his own moral resources which needed feeding with factual evidence that so far had not been forthcoming.

Swiftly he built up a blue spell so dismal and depressing that for two days he hung around the apartment and did nothing but mope. On the third day pessimism evaporated and was replaced with a growing sense of alarm. He did not ignore the new feeling. At training college they’d warned him times without number always to heed it.

“The fact that one is hunted in deadly earnest can cause an abnormal sharpening of the mental perceptions almost to the point of developing a sixth sense. That’s what makes hardened criminals difficult to catch. They get hunches and play them. Many a badly wanted crook has moved out one jump ahead of the police with such timeliness that they’ve suspected a tip-off. All that had really happened was that the fellow suddenly got the jitters and took off good and fast. For the sake of your skin you do the same. If ever you feel they’re getting close don’t hang around and try check on it—just beat it someplace else!”

Yes, that’s what they’d said to him. He remembered now that he had wondered whether this ability to smell danger might be quasi-telepathic. The police rarely pulled a raid without a stakeout or some sort of preliminary observation. A hound hanging around a hole, sharp-eyed, sharp-toothed and unable to avoid thinking of what he was doing, might give the one in hiding his mental scent that would register not in clear thought-forms but rather as the inward shrilling of an alarm-bell.

On the strength of that he grabbed his bags and bolted out the back way. Nobody was loafing around at that moment, nobody saw him go, nobody tracked him as he went.

Four beefy characters stationed themselves within watching and shooting distance of the back a little before midnight. Two carloads of similar specimens drew up at the front, bashed open the door, charged upstairs. They were there three hours and half-killed the landlord before they became convinced of his ignorance.

Mowry knew nothihg of this. It was the much-needed boost he was lucky to miss.

His new sanctuary a mile and a half distant was one long, narrow room at top of a dilapidated building in Pertane’s toughest quarter, a district where slatterns kept house by kicking the dirt around until it got lost. Here he’d not been asked for any name or identity-card, it being one of the more delightful customs of the country to mind one’s own goddam business. All that proved necessary was to exhibit a fifty guilder note. The money had been snatched, a cheap and well-worn key given in exchange.

Promptly he made the key useless by buying a cruciform multiward lock and fitting it to the door. He also fixed a couple of recessed bolts to the window despite that it was forty feet above ground and well-nigh unreachable. Finally he built a small hidden trap in the roof, this being his intended escape route if ever the stairs became solidly blocked with enemy carcases.

For the time being, he reckoned, he stood chiefly in danger of the locality’s small-time thieves—the big ones wouldn’t bother to cut their way into one room in a slum. The locks and bolts should be plenty good enough to keep out the pikers. He trusted his unsavoury neighbours as much as they trusted their own mothers which was as far as said mothers could be thrown with one hand against a strong wind.

Again he had to spend some time cleaning the joint and making it fit for Terran habitation. If ever he was caught by the Kaitempi he’d roll in the deep, stinking filth of a death-cell, naked, manacled and half-starved until they led him to tbe strangling-post. Dirt would then have to be endured because there’d be no choice about it. But so long as he remained free he insisted on his right to be fastidious. By the time he’d finished his housework the room was brighter and sweeter than ever it had been since the builders moved out and the proletariat moved in.

By now he’d recovered from both his depression and his sense of impending disaster. In better spirits he went outdoors, walked along the road until he reached a vacant lot littered with junk. When nobody was looking he dropped Pigface’s gun on the lot at a point near the sidewalk where it could easily be seen.

Ambling onward with hands in pockets, his gait a bow-legged slouch, he reached a doorway, lounged in it and assumed the look of bored cunning of one who sows not neither doth he reap. This was the fashionable expression in that area. Mostly his gaze was aimed across the street but all the time he was keeping surreptitious watch upon the gun lying seventy yards away.

What followed proved yet again that not one person in ten uses his eyes. Within short time thirty people had passed close by the gun without seeing it. Six of these walked within a few inches of it, one actually stepped over it.

Finally someone spotted it. He was a shrivel-chested, spindly-legged youth with splotches of darker purple on his face. Halting by the gun, he stared at it, bent over for a closer look but did not touch it. Then he glanced hurriedly and, failed to see the watching Mowry who had retreated farther into the doorway. Again he bent toward the gun, put out a hand as if to grab it. At the last moment he changed his mind, hastened away. He crossed right in front of Mowry, his face wearing wearing a mixture of frustrated cupidity and fear.

“Wanted it but too. scared to take it,” Mowry decided.

Twenty more pedestrians passed. Of these, two noticed the gun and pretended they’d not seen it. Neither came back to claim it when nobody was near. Probably they viewed the weapon as dangerous evidence that someone had seen fit to dump—and they weren’t going to be chumps enough to be caught with it. The one who eventually confiscated it was an artist in his own right.

This character, a heavily built individual with hanging jowls and a rolling gait, went by the gun and noted its existence without batting an eyelid or changing pace. Continuing onward, he stopped at the next corner fifty yards away, looked around with the air of a stranger uncertain of his whereabouts, dug a notebook from his pocket and put on a great play of consulting it. All the time his sharp little eyes were darting this way and that but failed to find the watcher in the doorway.

After a while he retraced his steps, crossed the vacant lot, dropped the notebook on top of the gun, scooped up both in one swift snatch and ambled casually onward. The way the book remained prominently in his hand while the gun disappeared was a wonder to behold.

Letting the, fellow get a good lead, Mowry emerged from the doorway and followed. He hoped the other had only a short way to go. This, obviously, was a smart customer likely to notice and throw off a shadower if chased too long. He didn’t want to lose him after the trouble he’d taken to find a willing gun-grabber.

Floppy Jowls continued along the road, turned right into a narrower and dirtier street, headed over a crossroad, turned left. At no time did he behave suspiciously, take evasive tactics or show any awareness of being followed.

Near the end of the street he entered a cheap restaurant with dusty windows and a cracked, unreadable sign above it door. A few moments later Mowry mooched past, gave the place a swift once-over. It had an ominous look about it, a typical rat-hole where underworld characters took refuge from the sunshine while they waited for the night. But. nothing ventured, nothing gained. Boldly he shoved open the door and walked in.

The place stank of unwashed bodies, stale food and drippings of zith. Behind the bar a sallow-faced attendant eyed him with the hostile expression reserved for any and every unfamiliar face. A dozen customers sat in the half-light by the stained and paintless wall and glowered at him on general principles. They looked a choice bunch of apaches.

Mowry leaned on the bar and spoke to Sallow Face, making his tones sound tough. “I’ll have a mug of coffee.”

“Coffee?” The other jumped as if rammed with a needle. “Blood of Jaime, that’s a Spakum drink.”

“Yar,” said Mowry. “I want to spit it all over the floor.” He let go a harsh, grating laugh. “Wake up and give me a zith.”

The attendant scowled, snatched a none too clean glassite mug from a shelf, pumped it full of low-grade zith and slid it across. “Six-tenths.”

Paying him, Mowry took the drink across to a small table in the darkest corner, a dozen pairs of eyes following his every move. He sat down, looked idly around and ignored the grim silence. His manner was that of one thoroughly at home when slumming. His questing gaze found Floppy Jowls just as that worthy left his seat, came across mug in hand and joined him at the table.

The latter’s move in apparently welcoming the newcomer caused a sudden relaxation in the place. Tension disappeared, toughies lost interest in Mowry, the bar attendant lounged back, general conversation was resumed. That showed Floppy Jowls was sufficiently well-known among the hard-faced clientele for them to take on trust anyone known to him.

Meanwhile, he had squatted face to face with Mowry and introduced himself with, “My name is Arhava, Butin Arhava.” He paused, waiting for a response that did not come; then went on, “You’re a stranger. From Diracta. Specifically from Masham. I can tell by your accent.”

“Clever of you,” Mowry encouraged.

“One has to be clever to get by. The stupid don’t. They choke in a rope.” He took a swig of zith. “You wouldn’t walk into this place unless you were a genuine stranger—or one of the Kaitempi.”

“No?”

“No, I don’t think so. And the Kaitempi wouldn’t dare send just one man in here. They’d send six. Maybe more. The Kaitempi would expect trouble aplenty in the Cafe Susun.”

“That,” said Mowry, “suits me very well.”

“It suits me even better.” Butin Arhava showed the snout of Pigface’s gun pver the edge of the table. It was pointed straight at the other’s middle. “I do not like being followed. If this gun went off nobody in here would give a damn. You wouldn’t worry either, not for long. So you’d better talk. Why have you been following me, hi?”

“You knew I was behind you all the time?”

“I did. What’s the big idea?”

“You’ll hardly believe it when I tell you.” Leaning across the table, Mowry grinned straight into his scowling face. “I want to give you a thousand guilders.”

“That’s nice,” said Arhava, unimpressed. “That’s very nice.” His eyes narrowed. “And you’re all set to reach into your pocket and give it me, hi?”

Mowry nodded, still grinning. “Yes—unless you’re so lily-livered that you prefer to reach into it yourself.”

“You won’t bait me that way,” retorted Arhava. “I’ve got control of the situation and I’m keeping it, see? Now get busy dipping—but if what comes out of that pocket is a gun it’s you and not me who’ll be at the wrong end of the bang. Go ahead and dip. I’m watching.”

With the weapon steadily aimed at him over the table’s rim, Mowry felt in his right-hand pocket, drew out a neat wad of twenty-guilder notes, poked them across. “There you are. They’re all yours.”

For a moment Arhava gaped with complete incredulity, then he made a swift pass and the notes vanished. The gun also disappeared. He lay back in his seat and studied Mowry with a mixture of bafflement and suspicion. “Now show the string.”

“No string,” Mowry assured. “Just a gift from an admirer.”

“Meaning who?”

“Me.”

“But you don’t know me from the Statue of Jaime.”

“I hope to,” said Mowry. “I hope to know you well enough to convince you of something mightily important”

“And what is that?”

“There’s lots more money where that came from.”

“Is that so?” Arhava gave a knowing smirk. “Well, where did it come from?”

“I just told you—an admirer.”

“Don’t give me that.

“All right. The conversation is over. It’s been nice knowing you. Now get back to your own seat”

“Don’t be silly.” Licking his lips, Arhava glanced cautiously around the room, reduced his voice almost to a whisper. “How much?”

“Twenty thousand guilders.”

The other fanned his hands as if beating off an annoying fly. “Sh-h-h! Don’t say it so loud!” Another leery look around the room. “Did you actually say twenty thousand?”

“Yar.”

Arhava took a deep breath. “Who d’you want killed?”

“One—for a start.”

“Are you serious?”

“I’ve just given you a thousand guilders and that’s not funny. Besides, you can put the matter to the test. Cut a throat and collect it’s as easy as that.”

“Just for a start, you said?”

“I did. By that is meant that if I like your work I’ll offer further employment. I’ve got a list of names and will pay twenty thousand per body.” Watching him for effect, Mowry put a note of warning into his voice. “The Kaitempi will reward you with ten thousand for delivering me into their hands. That’s money for the taking and with no risk attached. But to get it you’ll have to sacrifice all chance at a far bigger sum, maybe a million or more.” He paused, finished with pointed sarcasm, “One does not flood one’s own goldmine, does one?”

“Nar, not unless one is cracked.” Arhava became slightly unnerved as his thoughts milled around. “And what makes you think I’m a professional killer?”

“I don’t think anything of the sort. But I know you’re a shady character, probably with a police record, otherwise you wouldn’t have swiped that gun and neither would you dive into a crummy joint like this. That means you’re just the type who’ll do some dirty work for me or, alternatively, can intro-duce me to someone who is willing to do it. Personally, I don’t care a hoot who performs the task, you or your Uncle Smatsy. I reek of money. You love the scent of it. If you want to go on, sniffing it you’ve got to do something about it.”

Arhava nodded slowly, stuck a hand in his pocket and fondled the thousand guilders. There was a queer fire in his eyes. “I don’t do that kind of work, it’s not quite in my line. And it needs more than one, but—”

“But what?”

“Not saying. I’ve got to have time to think this over. I want to discuss it with a couple of friends.”

Mowry stood up. “I’ll give you four days to find them and chew the fat. By then you’d better have made up your mind one way or the other. I’ll be here again in four days time at this hour.” Then he gave the other a light but imperative shove in the shoulder. “I don’t like being followed either. Lay off if you want to grow old and get rich.”

With that; he departed: Arhava remained obediently seated and gazed dreamily at the door. After a time he called for another zith. His voice was strangely hoarse.

The barman dumped the drink at his elbow, said with no great interest, “Friend of yours, Butin?”

“Yar Datham Hain.”

Datham Hain being the Sirian version of Santa Claus.