"Why, I thought--I mean, everybody took it for granted--that is, I
heard--"
"You thought Cargill had been killed a long time ago because his name
never turned up in news dispatches any more?" I grinned sourly, seeing
my image dissolve in blurring shadows, and feeling the long-healed scar
on my mouth draw up to make the grin hideous. "I'm Cargill, all right.
I've been up on Floor 38 for six years, holding down a desk any clerk
could handle. You for instance."
He gaped. He was a rabbit of a man who had never stepped out of the safe
familiar boundaries of the Terran Trade City. "You mean _you're_ the man
who went to Charin in disguise, and routed out The Lisse? The man who
scouted the Black Ridge and Shainsa? And you've been working at a desk
upstairs all these years? It's--hard to believe, sir."
My mouth twitched. It had been hard for me to believe while I was doing
it. "The pass?"
"Right away, sir." He punched buttons and a printed chip of plastic
extruded from a slot on the desk top.
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