"At first Rakhal worked as a trader in
Shainsa."
I wasn't surprised. The Dry-towns were the core of Terran trade on Wolf,
and it was through their cooperation that Terra existed here peaceably,
on a world only half human, or less.
The men of the Dry-towns existed strangely poised between two worlds.
They had made dealings with the first Terran ships, and thus gave
entrance to the wedge of the Terran Empire. And yet they stood proud and
apart. They alone had never yielded to the Terranizing which overtakes
all Empire planets sooner or later.
There were no Trade Cities in the Dry-towns; an Earthman who went there
unprotected faced a thousand deaths, each one worse than the last. There
were those who said that the men of Shainsa and Daillon and Ardcarran
had sold the rest of Wolf to the Terrans, to keep the Terrans from their
own door.
Even Rakhal, who had worked with Terra since boyhood, had finally come
to a point of decision and gone his own way. And it was not Terra's way.
That was what Juli was saying now.
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