This was what I had nearly become.
I went further up the hill with the rising streets. Once I turned, and
saw below me the bright-lighted spaceport, the black many-windowed loom
of the skyscraper like a patch of alien shadow in the red-violet
moonlight. I turned my back on them and walked on.
At the fringe of the thieves market I paused outside a wineshop where
Dry-towners were made welcome. A golden nonhuman child murmured
something as she pattered by me in the street, and I stopped, gripped by
a spasm of stagefright. Had the dialect of Shainsa grown rusty on my
tongue? Spies were given short shrift on Wolf, and a mile from the
spaceport, I might as well have been on one of those moons. There were
no spaceport shockers at my back now. And someone might remember the
tale of an Earthman with a scarred face who had gone to Shainsa in
disguise....
I shrugged the shirtcloak around my shoulders, pushed the door and went
in. I had remembered that Rakhal was waiting for me. Not beyond this
door, but at the end of the trail, behind some other door, somewhere.
Pages:
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72