u still got
the bird? You haven't set it off yet? Oh, don't, don't, don't, Rakhal,
you don't know what Evarin is, you don't know what he's doing." The
words spilled out of her like floodwaters. "He's won so many of you,
don't let him have you too, Rakhal. They call you an honest man, you
worked once for Terra, the Terrans would believe you if you went to them
and told them what he--Rakhal, take me to the Terran Zone, take me
there, take me there where they'll protect me from Evarin."

At first I tried to stop her, question her, then waited and let the
torrent of entreaty run on and on. At last, exhausted and breathless,
she lay quietly against my shoulder, her head fallen forward. The musty
reek of _shallavan_ mingled with the flower scent of her hair.

"Kid," I said heavily at last, "you and your Toymaker have both got me
wrong. I'm not Rakhal Sensar."

"You're not?" She drew back, regarding me in dismay. Her eyes searched
every inch of me, from the gray streak across my forehead to the scar
running down into my collar. "Then who--"

"Race Cargill. Terran Intelligence."

She stared, her mouth wide like a child's.

Then she laughed. She _laughed_! At first I thought she was hysterical.
I stared at her in consternation. Then, as her wide eyes met mine, with
all the mischief of the nonhuman which has mingled into the human here,
all the circular complexities of Wolf illogic behind the woman in them,
I started to laugh too.

I threw back my head and roared, until we were clinging together and
gasping with mirth like a pair of raving fools. The _chak_ waiter came
to the door and stared at us, and I roared "Get the hell out," between
spasms of crazy laughter.

Then she was wiping her face, tears of mirth still dripping down her
cheeks, and I was frowning bleakly into the empty bowls.

"Cargill," she said hesitantly, "you can take me to the Terrans where
Rakhal--"

"Hell's bells," I exploded. "I can't take you anywhere, girl. I've got
to find Rakhal--" I stopped in midsentence and looked at her clearly for
the first time.

"Child, I'll see that you're protected, if I can. But I'm afraid you've
walked from the trap to the cookpot. There isn't a house in Charin that
will hold me. I've been thrown out twice today."

She nodded. "I don't know how the word spreads, but it happens, in
nonhuman parts. I think they can see trouble written in a human face, or
smell it on the wind." She fell silent, her face propped slee