ving into separate creatures, slipping into the side alleys and
the dark streets that disgorged into the square. Within three minutes
the square lay empty again in the pale-crimson noon.

The kid in black leather let his breath go and swore, slipping his
shocker into its holster. He stared and demanded profanely, "Where'd the
little fellow go?"

"Who knows?" the other shrugged. "Probably sneaked into one of the
alleys. Did you see where he went, Cargill?"

I came slowly back to the gateway. To me, it had seemed that he ducked
into the street-shrine and vanished into thin air, but I've lived on
Wolf long enough to know you can't trust your eyes here. I said so, and
the kid swore again, gulping, more upset than he wanted to admit. "Does
this kind of thing happen often?"

"All the time," his companion assured him soberly, with a sidewise wink
at me. I didn't return the wink.

The kid wouldn't let it drop. "Where did you learn their lingo, Mr.
Cargill?"

"I've been on Wolf a long time," I said, spun on my heel and walked
toward Headquarters. I tried not to hear, but their voices followed me
anyhow, discreetly lowered, but not lowered enough.

"Kid, don't you know who he is? That's Cargill of the Secret Service!
Six years ago he was the best man in Intelligence, before--" The voice
lowered another decibel, and then there was the kid's voice asking,
shaken, "But what the hell happened to his face?"

I should have been used to it by now. I'd been hearing it, more or less
behind my back, for six years. Well, if my luck held, I'd never hear it
again. I strode up the white steps of the skyscraper, to finish the
arrangements that would take me away from Wolf forever. To the other end
of the Empire, to the other end of the galaxy--anywhere, so long as I
need not wear my past like a medallion around my neck, or blazoned and
branded on what was left of my ruined face.

CHAPTER TWO

The Terran Empire has set its blazon on four hundred planets circling
more than three hundred suns. But no matter what the color of the sun,
the number of moons overhead, or the geography of the planet, once you
step inside a Headquarters building, you are on Earth. And Earth would
be alien to many who called themselves Earthmen, judging by the
strangeness I always felt when I stepped into that marble-and-glass
world inside the skyscraper. I heard the sound of my steps ringing into
thin resonance along the marble corridor, and squinted