and chanted and
he swayed above them like an iridescent bug, weaving arms rippling back
and forth, back and forth. I strained to catch his words.

"Our world ... an old world."

"Kamayeeeeena," whimpered the shrill chorus.

"... humans, humans, all humans would make slaves of us all, all save
the Children of the Ape...."

I lost the thread for a moment. True. The Terran Empire has one small
blind spot in otherwise sane policy, ignoring that nonhuman and human
have lived placidly here for millennia: they placidly assumed that
humans were everywhere the dominant race, as on Earth itself.

The Toymaker's weaving arms went on spinning, spinning. I rubbed my eyes
to clear them of _shallavan_ and incense. I hoped that what I saw was an
illusion of the drug--something, something huge and dark, was hovering
over the girl. She stood placidly, hands clasped on her chains, but her
eyes writhed in the frozen calm of her face.

Then something--I can only call it a sixth sense--bore it on me that
there was _someone_ outside the door. I was perhaps the only creature
there, except for Evarin, not drugged with _shallavan_, and perhaps
that's all it was. But during the days in the Secret Service I'd had to
develop some extra senses. Five just weren't enough for survival.

I _knew_ somebody was fixing to break down that door, and I had a good
idea why. I'd been followed, by the legate's orders, and, tracking me
here, they'd gone away and brought back reinforcements.

Someone struck a blow on the door and a stentorian voice bawled, "Open
up there, in the name of the Empire!"

The chanting broke in ragged quavers. Evarin stopped. Somewhere a woman
screamed. The lights abruptly went out and a stampede started in the
room. Women struck me with chains, men kicked, there were shrieks and
howls. I thrust my way forward, butting with elbows and knees and
shoulders.

A dusky emptiness yawned and I got a glimpse of sunlight and open sky
and knew that Evarin had stepped through into _somewhere_ and was gone.
The banging on the door sounded like a whole regiment of Spaceforce out
there. I dived toward the shimmer of little stars which marked Miellyn's
tiara in the darkness, braving the black horror hovering over her, and
touched rigid girl-flesh, cold as death.

I grabbed her and ducked sideways. This time it wasn't intuition--nine
times out of ten, anyway, intuition is just a mental shortcut which adds
up all the things which your subco