The girl wriggled out of the bed and went away, shutting the door carefully behind her. Kettrick put his eye to the chink.
On the other side of the wall was the room where Flay had entertained him and Boker. Flay and Boker were there now. They had just come in, and with them were two men in the dull-green uniforms of the I–C.
One of them was Sekma.
Kettrick drew back, feeling physically sick. He could hear them talking, but for the moment he was too stunned to listen. Chai started to speak to him and he caught her just in time, warning her to silence. Then he pointed to the table. "Eat," he whispered. "Not hungry now, bring the bottle."
She brought him the clay bottle and then settled herself to eat from the tray. Kettrick pulled one of the heavy blankets around him and hunched up in the corner of the bed where the chink was. He took a long pull at the whiskey and then laid his head against the cold stone.
On the other side of the wall the men had sat down and Flay was pouring drinks for them, and everything was friendly. The second I–C man, a plum-colored, loose-jointed chap from Shargo on the other side of the Cluster, was just at the edge of Kettrick's view. His rather blobby features appeared free from all strain. Boker, his silver mane bristling down over the neck of his coverall, had his back to Kettrick. His voice sounded as jovial and careless as ever. It was only because Kettrick knew him so well that he could tell by the set of his back and rather overlargeness of his gestures that he was inwardly anything but careless.
Sekma was facing Kettrick. The narrow head, the tight curls like a copper helmet, the chiseled bones, the brilliant blue eyes…there he was, so close, so tantalizingly close. Kettrick had only to cry out through the chink in the wall…
He bit hard on hiis tongue to keep from doing it.
"Just a routine check," Sekma was saying. "Thank you, Flay." They all drank politely.
And why the hell, thought Kettrick, couldn't you have made your routine check a little earlier, when Seri was here? You could have caught him then…
No. Seri would have set up shop for an innocent trader. He would have had the components of the Doomstar well hidden, most certainly beyond the range of any ordinary search. And if by chance he had been caught, the Firgals would have seen to it that Sekma did not profit by his interference.
"Everything is in order," Boker was telling Sekma. "You're welcome to inspect the ship."
"I shall," said Sekma, and accepted another cup from Flay, who now sat down beside him.
"You may inspect the trading place, too," said Flay. "Although every time you do it is the same thing. Some day I will have to arrange a few parcels of narcotic just to make you happy."
"It's a kind thought, Flay," said Sekma. "We like to have some justification for these trips, which are quite as tiresome for us as they are for you."
"At least," said Flay, "Interworld-Commerce is democratic. It sends its high officers to work as well as the rank-and-file."
Sekma smiled. "It doesn't 'send.' The choice is mine."
"Then I would say that your devotion to duty is almost as good as a Firgal's." He flourished the bottle again, though Sekma had hardly touched his second cup. "Here, make your routine visit less tiresome with this. And perhaps tomorrow we will hunt, eh? This snow will not lie deep."
"That would be enjoyable," said Sekma. "Thank you." He lifted his cup and sipped from it. Apparently his attention now was centered entirely on the liquor. Kettrick knew better. Sekma's whole body was a quivering antenna, sensitive to the flicker of an eyelash, the silence of a held breath.
Boker said, "On Pellin I was offered a piece of contraband…a very attractive piece, I might say…but I declined it."
Sekma's gaze never lifted from the smoky liquid in the cup. "You're learning virtue, Boker. I'm pleased." He savored the rather musty bouquet and then drank. He set the cup back down. "This trip has one aspect that is not routine, I must admit."
"Ah," said Flay. "Aha."
Boker's back stiffened. Only the Shargonese continued to sip his drink contentedly, unaware that death in the shape of strong red-braided men filled all the house and all the town around him. If he were not unaware, Kettrick envied him his iron nerve.
"I have heard a rumor," Sekma said, "that Johnny Kettrick is back in the Cluster." Now his blue gaze flashed like lightning from Boker to Flay.
"Johnny Kettrick?" said Boker.
"Johnny?" said Flay. "Is he indeed? I should like to see him again. He can hunt and he can drink, he leaves my women alone, and he gives me the best barter of any trader. Boker is all right, Boker is good, but there was never another one like Johnny. You should not have driven him away."
"Ah huh," said Sekma. "I have heard that tune sung before. Of course, then, you haven't seen him?"
"Not I," said Flay, "Not here."
"And you, Boker? Not here, of course, but say, at Ree Darva? There was word that he had been seen there, in the Out-Quarter."
"That may be," said Boker, "but it must have been after I left."
Sekma pinned him with that sharp gaze. "Why do you say it must have been? Do you know that he's back?"
Of course, thought Kettrick, Sekma couldn't be sure that he had ever reached Tananaru. He might have gone anywhere from Aldebaran. He might have died there from sickness, or been killed by some squalid idiot with a share-the-wealth plan, or perished of an accident.
Boker said, "You know we shipped together, you know we were friends. He'd have come to see me. That's why I say he must have come after I left, if he came at all, and that I can't tell. This is the first I've heard of it."
Admirable liar, Boker. Convincing liar. Kettrick knew how he must be suffering. He found himself starting to laugh hysterically, and pulled hard on the bottle to stop it. Here for the first time in their lives he and Boker wanted to level with Sekma, and they couldn't. All because the Doomstar was true.
He crouched in the close bed, peering through the chink and shivering with cold and frustration, until the men left. Before they did they had eaten a great deal, and drunk a good bit, and some of Flay's many sons had joined in, and somewhere along the line Flay asked Sekma where he had come from, and Sekma said, "Kirnanoc."
"Ah," said Flay. 'Then you will go south across the Cluster?"
Sekma nodded. "To Gurra. That was another of Kettrick's favorite haunts. They may have heard of him there."
"There was no word of him on Pellin," Boker said. "If there had been, I'd have heard it. Everyone remembers that we were friends."
"It is possible," said Flay carelessly, "that your rumor about Johnny is like most rumors, mere wind blowing from one empty space to another."
They went away, leaving the room dark and silent. Leaving Kettrick, on the other side of the wall, to lie and think. To pray that Boker or Hurth or Gievan might find a time when he could speak to Sekma alone. Surely such a time would come…it only needed a moment. During the inspection of the ship, perhaps…
But Flay's sons would be there. They did not speak Darvan, and it would be easy for Boker to talk to Sekma in a language they could not understand. Except that a name is a name in any language, and so is a word like Doomstar. And in any case, the Firgals were no fools. Even if Boker were actually only telling Sekma the latest dirty story, they would be instantly suspicious, wondering what was being said that the speaker wished to hide from them. The fate of their world hung on it. If they had to make a mistake, it would be at the expense of the outworlders, not their own.