The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Players, by Everett B. Cole

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Title: The Players

Author: Everett B. Cole

Illustrator: Solo

Release Date: August 29, 2007 [EBook #22426]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE
PLAYERS

BY EVERETT B. COLE

_A Playboy is someone with power, too much time
on his hands, and too little sense of a goal
worth achieving. And if the Playboy happens to
belong to a highly advanced culture...._

Illustrated by Solo

Through the narrow streets leading to the great plaza of Karth, swarmed
a colorful crowd--buyers, idlers, herdsmen, artisans, traders. From all
directions they came, some to gather around the fountain, some to
explore the wineshops, many to examine the wares, or to buy from the
merchants whose booths and tents hid the cobblestones.

A caravan wound its way through a gate and stopped, the weary beasts
standing patiently as the traders sought vacant space where they might
open business. From another gate, a herdsman guided his living wares
through the crowd, his working animals snapping at the heels of the
flock, keeping it together and in motion.

Musa, trader of Karth, sat cross-legged before his shop, watching the
scene with quiet amusement. Business was good in the city, and his was
pleasingly above the average. Western caravans had come in, exchanging
their goods for those eastern wares he had acquired. Buyers from the
city and from the surrounding hills had come to him, to exchange their
coin for his goods. He glanced back into the booth, satisfied with what
he saw, then resumed his casual watch of the plaza. No one seemed
interested in him.

There were customers in plenty. Men stopped, critically examined the
contents of the displays, then moved on, or stayed to bargain. One of
these paused before Musa, his eyes dwelling on the merchant rather than
on his wares.

[Illustration]

The shopper was a man of medium height. His rather slender, finely
featured face belied the apparent hea