Willow owned the Salvation Inn. She was reputed to be beautiful.
Asquiol appeared displeased, but he only shrugged and smiled faintly. 'You're right, Talfryn - if tactless. But don't worry, I'll still go when the time comes.'
'Good.' said Renark.
A woman came up the narrow stair leading to the gallery.
She moved in full knowledge of her slim beauty and her lips were curved in a soft smile. She was wearing the spoils of her conquests - her emerald-coloured dress was covered with jewels mined on a thousand planets. They flashed brightly, challenging the very brilliance of the desert. Her hands, heavy with rings, held a tray of hot food.
As she reached the table, Asquiol looked up at her and took the tray, making sure he touched her hands as he did so.
'Thanks,' she said. 'And hello - you must be the famous Warden Renark."
'Ex-Warden,' he said. 'And you're the young woman who has so disturbed our proud friend here.'
She didn't reply to that.
'Eat well, gentlemen,' she said, then returned down the staircase. 'We'll meet later, Asquiol,' she called over her shoulder as she made her way across the crowded floor of the great tavern.
Renark felt slightly troubled by this new intrusion. He hadn't been prepared for it. Although his loyalty to both his friends was great, he wanted Asquiol on the trip much more than he wanted Talfryn.
Asquiol was young, reckless, inclined to vindictive acts of cruelty at times; he was arrogant and selfish and yet he had a core of integrated strength which was hard to equate with his outward appearance.
But a woman. A woman could either complement that strength or destroy it. And Renark wasn't sure about Willow Kovacs.
Philosophically, and for the moment, Renark accepted the situation and turned his mind to the problem in hand.
'I think we should give the ship another check,' he suggested when they had eaten. 'Shall we go out to the pads now?'
Talfryn agreed, but Asquiol said: 'I'll stay here. I'll either join you out there or see you when you return. How long will you be?'
'I've no idea,' Renark said, rising. 'But stay here so that we can contact you if necessary.'
Asquiol nodded. 'Don't worry - I wasn't thinking of leaving the inn.'
Renark restrained an urge to tell Asquiol to be, wary, but the Guide Senser respected his friend - it was up to the Prince of Pompeii to conduct his own affairs without advice.
Renark and Talfryn walked down the stairs, pushed their way through the throng and made for the door.
Outside there was a buzz of excited conversation. The two men caught some of it as they walked along the metal-paved streets.
'It seems there's a rumour that the Geepees are on their way in,' Talfryn said worriedly.
Renark's face was grim. 'Let's hope they don't get here before the Shifter.'
Talfryn glanced at him. 'Are they after you?'
'They've been after me for three years. Oh, it's not for any crime. But the Gee-lords came to the conclusion that I might know something of use to them and have been trying to get hold of me.'
'And do you know something of use to them?'
'I know something,' Renark nodded, 'but it's in their interest and mine that they don't find out about it.'
'That's part of your secret?'
Tart of the secret,' Renark agreed. 'Don't worry - if we reach the Shifter, I'll let you know it, for better or worse.'
He let his mind reach out into the void beyond the Rim. It was out there, coming closer. He could sense it. His mind trembled. He felt physically sick.
It was so wrong - wrong!
Implacably, the impossible system was shifting in. Would it stay long enough for them to get to it? And could they reach it? If only he knew a little more about it. It was a big gamble he was taking and there was just a shin chance of it paying off.
Only he knew what was at stake. That knowledge was a burden he had had to strengthen himself to bear. Most men could not have done so.
As he walked along, glancing at the wretches who had so hopefully come to Migaa, he wondered if it was worth the attempt after all. But he shrugged to himself. You had to accept that it was worth it, he told himself.
There were none there who might have been properly described as extra-terrestrials. One of the discoveries Man had made when settling the galaxy was that he represented the only highly-developed, intelligent life-form. There were other types of animal life, but Earth, throughout the galaxy, had been the only planet to bear a beast that could reason and invent. This was an accepted thing amongst most people, but philosophers still wondered and marvelled and there were many theories to explain the fact.
Two years previously Renark had suddenly resigned from his position as Warden of the Rim Worlds. It had been an important position and his resignation had given rise to speculation and gossip. The visit of an alien spaceship, supposedly an intergalactic craft, had not been admitted by the Galactic Lords. When pressed for information they had replied ambiguously. Only Renark had seen the aliens, spent much time with them.
He had given no explanation to the Gee-lords and even now they still sought him out, trying to persuade him to take over a job which he had done responsibly and imaginatively. Space-sensers were rare, rarer even than other psi-talents - and a Guide Senser of Renark's stature was that much rarer. There were only a few G.S. men in the entire galaxy and their talents were in demand. For the most part they acted as pilots and guides on difficult runs through hyper-space, keeping, as it were, an anchor to the mainland and giving ships exact directions how, where and when to enter normal space. They were also employed on mapping the galaxy and any changes which occurred in it. They were invaluable to a complicated, galaxy-travelling civilisation.
So the Gee-lords had begged Renark to remain Warden of the Rim even if he would not tell them who the visitors to Golund had been. But he had refused, and two years had been spent in collecting a special knowledge of what little information was known about the Shifter. In the end they had resorted to sending the Geepees after him, but with the help of Talfryn and Asquiol he had so far evaded them. He prayed they wouldn't come to Migaa before the Shifter materialised.
Renark had fitted his ship with the best equipment and instruments available.
This equipment, in his eyes, included the dynamic, if erratic, Asquiol and the easy-going Paul Talfryn. Both had helped him in the past because they admired him. He, in turn, responded to the sense of loyalty for them that he felt - and knew he could work best with these two men.
Several hundred ships were clustered in the spaceport. Many had been there for years, but all of them were kept in constant readiness for the time when the Shifter might be sighted.
Certain ships had been there for a century or more, their original owners having died, disappointed and frustrated, never having achieved their goal.
Renark's great spacer was a converted Police Cruiser which he had bought cheaply - and illegally - rebuilt and re-equipped. It could be ready for take-off in half a minute. It was also heavily armed. It was against the law to own a police ship and also to own an armed private vessel. The Union owned and leased all commercial craft.
The spacer required no crew. It was fully automatic and had room for thirty passengers. Already, since landing, Renark had been pestered by people offering huge sums to guarantee them passage to the Shifter, but he had refused. Renark had little sympathy for most of those who gathered in Migaa. They would have received more mercy from the enlightened Legal Code, of which the Union was justly proud, than from Renark of the Rim.
Although Migaa itself was thick with criminals of all kinds, there were few in relation to the huge human population of the galaxy. For nearly two centuries the galaxy had been completely at peace, although the price of peace had, in the past, been a rigid and authoritarian rule which had, in the last century, thawed into the liberal government which now had been elected to serve the galaxy.