Someone tugged at his elbow. The bald trader, dry-eyed, looked up anxiously. "I'm sorry. I must have upset you." He took a deep breath. "Look, it happened a long time ago. Only I can't let it die. If I did, what would it all mean? There has to be more to life than mindless butchery, doesn't there?" With that, the man disappeared into the crowd.
Staffa took a step after him, anger pulsing, only to hesitate in sudden confusion at hearing his own questions mimicked in the trader's voice. Sharp comments from surging passengers made him bide his anger and continue in the general direction of the flow — thinking. remembering.
Phillipia returned — an emerald world hanging against a backdrop of stars. Tom-cotton clouds spun lazily across the shallow seas. Phillipia, an old world, had a heritage of art and science. Though it was once the pretender to the human space hegemony, Rega had outbid it for Staffa's services. He could remember the heavy batteries of his ships pouring a devastating fire into the planetary defenses. On the first pass they'd bombed the major cities, heavy radiation leaving the commercial centers standing amid thousands of scattered corpses, poisoned, burned, and dead where they had stood.
Only after the defenses had been neutralized, had they dropped like sleek Etarian hawks to capture the remaining provincial cities and break the militia defenses. And against the Companions, the Phillipians had had no adequate defense.
He remembered nightfall in an outlying town. Columns of yellow orange flames illuminated billowing smoke in the black night skies. A Companion, bending to one knee, settled his pulse rifle and easily potted the running child, exploding the terrified boy's head like a red melon. And how old had that red-haired girl been? Twelve? Thirteen? She'd been a slip of a thing, screaming first, then blubbering as man after man took her, caressing her barely-budded breasts before finally silencing her bloody, stained body with a merciful slash of a vibraknife. Could that have been the trader's sister?
Staffa shook his head and blinked the visions away. Didn't they understand the reality of war? To make change, men died. Humanity suffered for the betterment of the whole. That was social law.
He stepped out of the terminal and into the crowded streets. The dry air of Etaria desiccated his nostrils. The place smelled of dust, spices, and stale sweat. A cacophony assaulted his ears as people shoved past. Disturbed by his memories, he walked the streets, still searching for the elusive answer as night fell and his stomach began to remind him he was no more than flesh and blood, no matter how weighty the problems he pondered were. On occasion he heard curses in the Star Butcher's name. Down deep they irritated him, rankling on the edge of his mind. He stopped at the Young Virgin Inn and climbed the steps. The temple lay only three blocks away.
I am only here long enough to lose my trail to Targa, Staffa reminded himself. And perhaps to ask an Etarian Priest about the nature of man and reality.
Inside, a boisterous group sang bawdily in one comer. Staffa took a table next to the bar and kicked his feet out. The bald trader's grief still nagged at him, and he couldn't help comparing it to his own feelings for his stolen Chrysla. An unsettling foreboding gripped him.
"Help you, sir?" The landlord bent over his shoulder. "Ashtan steak, medium rare, steamed ripa root and
Myklenian brandy," he ordered. A sudden stillness filled the room.
"Right," the landlord chuckled. "Who do you think I am? The cock-rotted Star Butcher? We've got myka stew, amplar basted in butter, and if you're feeling
real rich, Regan squid off the last transport-but it's a quartercredit. "
"Squid," Staffa said flatly. "And your best stout, or do you have any?"
"Aye, as good as you can get hereabouts. Brewery's down the street."
Men stared at him from the bar. A not so good-looking blonde woman leaned on a big man's arm and laughed at something one of them said. They looked suddenly hungry.
Staffa dismissed them from his mind. By the cock-rotted Star Butcher? Did everyone here curse in his name? At least the landlord didn't do it out of hate-or did he?
The food tasted of grease, the portion small, but again, compared to his larders of almost unlimited delicacies, maybe they had nothing better. He chugged the tepid stout and flipped a twenty credit gold piece on the table.
The landlord walked over and reached for it-stopping in mid-grasp. "By the Rotted Gods, 'tis gold!" he mumbled. "And I can't make change for that! You've a credit chip, good Lord?"
"That's the smallest I've got," Staffa told him coldly, aware the whole tavem had stopped to listen again.
"Yo, Phippet!" One of the men from the bar called. "Here, we pooled. We'll cover the good gentleman's meal if he'll come, stand to a round, and lift a toast to our health."
Staffa picked up his coin and nodded to the landlord as he stepped up to the bar. They greeted him with wolfish eyes. The blonde woman stared him up and down, a smugness in her eyes. When she smiled at him, gaps showed in her teeth. Brown robes splotched with grease and stains covered the men.
"My name is. " What in the name of the Forbidden Borders did he call himself? "Therma," he supplied. "Like the Star Butcher's last name?" The heavy blonde
woman asked. "That must be a living curse. Good thing you got money to keep the criers off yer back. "
Staffa studied her curiously. "To your health, gentle peo-
pie!" And he lifted his glass. Why am I so uneasy? I came here to socialize with common people. To do that, you must go among them, Staffa, learn them like you would the defenses of an impregnable planet.
Skyla's warning returned to haunt him. The landlord had retreated to the back of the bar, avoiding his eyes and shaking his head.
"Another drink for the gentleman! Come on," the tallest, Broddus was his name, said, "we'd be honored to take a man of your taste to a place that can accept his money— provided of course you buy the next round."
"I think I'll be leaving," Staffa said, and dropped the gold coin on the counter. "For your kindness."
"See you soon," the blonde woman promised.
Staffa made it out the door and into the street. Night had fallen and the lighting on the streets seemed oddly blurred.
Which way?
"Therma?"
Staffa turned, seeing Broddus steppng down from the tavern doorway.
"Sure we couldn't stand you to another drink?"
"I have to. " Staffa frowned.". to go. Find a priest."
"I am a priestess," the buxom blonde told him as she wound her arms around him. "Isn't that why you came to Etaria?"
Staffa shook his head, thoughts going muzzy. No, not now. This wasn't the Praetor's work, was it? Some hidden.
"Come. We'll take care of you Lord." Broddus got a shoulder under Staffa's arm, leading him away.
"Good care," the blonde woman promised as another man helped prop him up and keep him from falling.
"Let go," Staffa whispered, his tongue thick. "Don't touch me."
"Oh," the blonde whispered in his ear, "we're here to help you."
Panic burst loose in Staffa's brain. Instinctively, he lashed out. He couldn't duck the hissing silver tube that shot a vile smelling gas into his face. With his remaining strength, he laid into his assailant. hearing screams. feeling flesh
under his groping hands. He kicked, struck, and lost himself i a haze of fog that drew tight around his senses.
He didn't remember falling, but someone made a gurgling sound. Someone else
screamed in agony.
Hands worried his body. "By the Star Butcher's bloody balls! A combat suit!"
"No wonder you didn't kill him!"
"Look at this! A fortune in gold!" Strip him. "Pakt's dead. Bastard killed him."
"Hurry, with all the screaming, bulls will be here soon."
Staff a tried to react through the haze, unable to find his body. The words were disjointed, faint. He felt himself turned, flopped, hands on his flesh. Then there was the patter of running feet and the cool breeze on his skin as he dropped into the engulfing grayness. The final thing he remembered: the odor of vomit.