"Joanna
thinks I'm crazy, Race."
"She thinks you're upset."
"Rindy's an odd child, a real Dry-towner. But it's not my imagination,
Race, it's not. There's something--" Suddenly she sobbed aloud again.
"Homesick, Juli?"
"I was, a little, the first years. But I was happy, believe me." She
turned her face to me, shining with tears. "You've got to believe I
never regretted it for a minute."
"I'm glad," I said dully. _That made it just fine._
"Only that toy--"
"Who knows? It might be a clue to something." The toy had reminded me of
something, too, and I tried to remember what it was. I'd seen nonhuman
toys in the Kharsa, even bought them for Mack's kids. When a single man
is invited frequently to a home with five youngsters, it's about the
only way he can repay that hospitality, by bringing the children odd
trifles and knicknacks. But I had never seen anything quite like this
one, until--
--Until yesterday. The toy-seller they had hunted out of the Kharsa, the
one who had fled into the shrine of Nebran and vanished.
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