Even now I was not wholly sure why he had erupted, that day, into
violence and a final explosion. Then he had disappeared, leaving me a
marked man. And a lonely one: Juli had gone with him.
I strode the streets of the slum unseeing, my thoughts running a
familiar channel. Juli, my kid sister, clinging around Rakhal's neck,
her gray eyes hating me. I had never seen her again.
That had been six years ago. One more adventure had shown me that my
usefulness to the Secret Service was over. Rakhal had vanished, but he
had left me a legacy: my name, written on the sure scrolls of death
anywhere outside the safe boundaries of Terran law. A marked man, I had
gone back to slow stagnation behind a desk. I'd stood it as long as I
could.
When it finally got too bad, Magnusson had been sympathetic. He was the
Chief of Terran Intelligence on Wolf, and I was next in line for his
job, but he understood when I quit. He'd arranged the transfer and the
pass, and I was leaving tonight.
I was nearly back to the spaceport by now, across from the street-shrine
at the edge of the square.
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