The shrines of Nebran are on every corner of Wolf, but
this is one instance when familiarity does not breed contempt. The
street was dark and seemed empty, but it was packed with all the little
noises of living. I was not unobserved. And meddling with a
street-shrine would be just as dangerous as the skeans of my three
loud-mouthed Dry-town roughnecks.
I turned and crossed the square for the last time, turning toward the
loom of the spaceship, filing the girl away as just another riddle of
Wolf I'd never solve.
How wrong I was!
CHAPTER THREE
From the spaceport gates, exchanging brief greetings with the guards, I
took a last look at the Kharsa. For a minute I toyed with the notion of
just disappearing down one of those streets. It's not hard to disappear
on Wolf, if you know how. And I knew, or had known once. Loyalty to
Terra? What had Terra given me except a taste of color and adventure,
out there in the Dry-towns, and then taken it away again?
If an Earthman is very lucky and very careful, he lasts about ten years
in Intelligence.
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