“Nicely played,” Benter said. He got up from the war table, headed for a cubicle.
“Care for a game, either of you?” Dokhnor asked the spectators.
Moblay Sopsirk’s son shook his head. Radnal said, “I did, till I saw you play. I don’t mind facing someone better than I am if I have some chance. Even when I lose, I learn something. But you’d just trounce me, and a little of that goes a long way.”
“As you will.” Dokhnor folded the war board, poured the disks into their bag. He replaced bag and board on their shelf. “I’m for bed, then.” He marched off to the cubicle he’d chosen.
Radnal and Moblay glanced at each other, then toward the war set. By unspoken consent, they seemed to decide that if neither of them wanted a go at Dokhnor of Kellef, playing each other would be rude. “Another night,” Radnal said.
“Fair enough.” Moblay yawned, displaying teeth that gleamed all the whiter against his brown skin. He said, “I’m about done over — no, it’s ‘done in’ in Tarteshan, isn’t it? — anyhow. See you in the morning, Radnal.”
Again the tour guide controlled his annoyance at Moblay’s failure to use the polite particle vez. At first when foreigners forgot that trick of Tarteshan grammar, he’d imagined himself deliberately insulted. Now he knew better, though he still noticed the omission.
A small light came on in Dokhnor’s cubicle: a battery-powered reading lamp. The Morgaffo wasn’t reading, though. He sat with his behind on the sleeping mat and his back against the wall. His sketch pad lay on his bent knees. Radnal heard the faint skritch-skritch of charcoal on paper.
“What’s he doing?” Fer vez Canthal whispered. A generation’s peace was not enough time to teach most Tarteshans to trust their island neighbors.
“He’s drawing,” Radnal answered, as quietly. Neither of them wanted to get Dokhnor’s attention. The reply could have come out sounding innocent. It didn’t. Radnal went on, “His travel documents say he’s an artist.” Again, tone spoke volumes.
Zosel vez Glesir said, “If he really were a spy, Radnal vez, he’d carry a camera, not a sketch pad. Everyone carries a camera into Trench Park — he wouldn’t even get noticed.”
“True,” Radnal said. “But he doesn’t act like an artist. He acts like a member of the Morgaffo officer caste. You heard him — he’s sworn to their Goddess.”
Fer vez Canthal said something lewd about the Morgaffo Goddess. But he lowered his voice even further before he did. An officer from Morgaf who heard his deity offended might make formal challenge. Then again, in Tartesh, where dueling was illegal, he might simply commit murder. The only thing certain was that he wouldn’t ignore the insult.
“We can’t do anything to him — or even about him — unless we find out he is spying,” Zosel vez Glesir said.
“Yes,” Radnal said. “The last thing Tartesh wants is to hand Morgaf an incident.” He thought about what would happen to someone who fouled up so gloriously. Nothing good, that was sure. Then something else occurred to him.
“Speaking of the Tyrant, do you know who’s in this group? Freelady Toglo zev Pamdal, that’s who.”
Zosel and Fer whistled softly. “Good thing you warned us,” Zosel said. “We’ll stay round her like cotton round cut glass.”
“I don’t think she cares for that sort of thing,” Radnal said. “Treat her well, yes, but don’t fall all over yourselves.”
Zosel nodded. Fer still had Dokhnor of Kellef on his mind. “If he is a spy, what’s he doing in Trench Park instead of somewhere important?”
“I thought of that myself,” Radnal said. “Cover, maybe. And who knows where he’s going after he leaves?”
“I know where I’m going,” Zosel said, yawning: “To bed. If you want to stay up all night fretting about spies, go ahead.”
“No, thanks,” Fer answered. “A spy would have to be crazy or on holiday to come to Trench Park. If he’s crazy, we don’t have to worry about him, and if he’s on holiday, we don’t have to worry about him then, either. So I’m going to bed, too.”
“If you think I’ll stay talking to myself, you’re both crazy,” Radnal said. All three Tarteshans got up. Dokhnor of Kellef’s reading lamp went out, plunging his cubicle into blackness. Radnal dimmed the lights in the common room. He flopped down onto his sleeping mat with a long sigh. He would sooner have been out in the field, curled up in a sleepsack under gnat netting. This was the price he paid for doing what he wanted most of the time. He knew his own snores would soon join the tourists’.
Then two female shapes appeared in the entrance to his cubicle. By the gods, not again, he thought as his eyes opened wide, which showed how tired he was. He said, “Don’t you believe in sleep?”
Evillia laughed softly, or maybe Lofosa. “Not when there are better things to do,” Lofosa said. “We have some new ideas, too. But we can always see who else is awake.”
Radnal almost told her to go ahead, and take Evillia with her. But he heard himself say “No” instead. The night before had been educational beyond his dreams, the stuff people imagined when they talked about the fringe benefits of a tour guide’s job. Until last night, he’d reckoned those stories imaginary: in his two years as a guide, he’d never cavorted with a tourist before. Now… he grinned as he felt himself rising to the occasion.
The Highhead girls came in. As they’d promised, the threesome tried some new things. He wondered how long their inventiveness could last, and if he could last as long. He was sure he’d enjoy trying.
His stamina and the girls’ ingenuity flagged together. He remembered them getting up from the mat. He thought he remembered them going out into the common room. He was sure he didn’t remember anything after that. He slept like a log from a petrified forest.
When the scream jarred him awake, his first muzzy thought was that only a few heartbeats had passed. But a glance at his pocket clock as he closed his robe told him sunrise was near. He dashed out into the common room.
Several tourists were already out there, some dressed, some not. More emerged every moment, as did the other two Trench Park staffers. Everyone kept saying, “What’s going on?”
Though no one directly answered the question, no one needed to. As naked as when she’d frolicked with Radnal, Evillia stood by the table where Benter vez Maprab and Dokhnor of Kellef had played war. Dokhnor was there, too, but not standing. He lay sprawled on the floor, head twisted at an unnatural angle.
Evillia had jammed a fist in her mouth to stifle another scream. She took it out, quavered, “Is — is he dead?” Radnal strode over to Dokhnor, grabbed his wrist, felt for a pulse. He found none, nor was the Morgaffo breathing. “He’s dead, all right,” Radnal said grimly.
Evillia moaned. Her knees buckled. She toppled onto Radnal’s bent back.
When Evillia fainted, Lofosa screamed and ran forward to try to help. Nocso zev Martois screamed, too, even louder. Moblay Sopsirk’s son hurried toward Radnal and Evillia. So did Fer vez Canthal and Zosel vez Glesir. So did Toglo zev Pamdal. So did another tourist, a Highhead who’d spoken very little on the way down to the lodge.
Everyone got in everyone else’s way. Then the quiet Highhead stopped being quiet and shouted, “I am a physician, the six million gods curse you! Let me through!”
“Let the physician through,” Radnal echoed, sliding Evillia off him and to the ground as gently as he could.
“Check her first, freeman Golobol,” he added, pleased he’d hung onto the doctor’s name. “I’m afraid you’re too late to help Dokhnor now.”
Golobol was almost as dark as Moblay, but spoke Tarteshan with a different accent. As he turned to Evillia, she moaned and stirred. “She will be all right, oh yes, I am sure,” he said. “But this poor fellow-” As Radnal had, he felt for Dokhnor’s pulse. As Radnal had, he failed to find it. “You are correct, sir. This man is dead. He has been dead for some time.”