We know about
your quarrel with Cargill, among other things, but we did not consider
it necessary that you should fall into his hands at present."
I was puzzled. "I still don't understand. Exactly where am I?"
"This is the mastershrine of Nebran."
_Nebran!_
The stray pieces of the puzzle suddenly jolted into place. Kyral had
warned me, not knowing he was doing it. I hastily imitated the gesture
Kyral had made, gabbling a few words of an archaic charm.
Like every Earthman who's lived on Wolf more than a tourist season, I'd
seen faces go blank and impassive at mention of the Toad God. Rumor made
his spies omnipresent, his priests omniscient, his anger all-powerful. I
had believed about a tenth of what I had heard, or less.
The Terran Empire has little to say to planetary religions, and Nebran's
cult is a remarkably obscure one, despite the street-shrines on every
corner. Now I was in his mastershrine, and the device which had brought
me here was beyond doubt a working model of a matter transmitter.
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