er from
Charin, except in the Terran zone. I had neither the money nor the time
to make the trip in person, even if I could get passage on a
Terran-dominated airline after today.

Miellyn. She had flirted with me, and like Dallisa, she might prove
vulnerable. It might be another trap, but I'd take the chance. At least
I could get hints about Evarin. And I needed information. I wasn't used
to this kind of intrigue any more. The smell of danger was foreign to me
now, and I found it unpleasant.

The small lump of the bird in my pocket tantalized me. I took it out
again. It was a temptation to press the stud and let it settle things,
or at least start them going, then and there.

After a while I noticed the proprietors of the shop staring at the silk
of the wrappings. They backed off, apprehensive. I held out a coin and
they shook their heads. "You are welcome to the drink," one of them
said. "All we have is at your service. Only please go. Go quickly."

They would not touch the coins I offered. I thrust the bird in my
pocket, swore and went. It was my second experience with being somehow
tabu, and I didn't like it.

It was dusk when I realized I was being followed.

At first it was a glimpse out of the corner of my eye, a head seen too
frequently for coincidence. It developed into a too-persistent footstep
in uneven rhythm.

Tap-_tap_-tap. Tap-_tap_-tap.

I had my skean handy, but I had a hunch this wasn't anything I could
settle with a skean. I ducked into a side street and waited.

Nothing.

I went on, laughing at my imagined fears.

Then, after a time, the soft, persistent footfall thudded behind me
again.

I cut across a thieves market, dodging from stall to stall, cursed by
old women selling hot fried goldfish, women in striped veils railing at
me in their chiming talk when I brushed their rolled rugs with hasty
feet. Far behind I heard the familiar uneven hurry: tap-_tap_-tap,
tap-_tap_-tap.

I fled down a street where women sat on flower-decked balconies, their
open lanterns flowing with fountains and rivulets of gold and orange
fire. I raced through quiet streets where furred children crept to doors
and watched me pass with great golden eyes that shone in the dark.

I dodged into an alley and lay there, breathing hard. Someone not two
inches away said, "Are you one of us, brother?"

I muttered something surly, in his dialect, and a hand, reassuringly
human, closed on my elbow. "This way."

Out