aceport, I might as well have been on one of those moons. There were
no spaceport shockers at my back now. And someone might remember the
tale of an Earthman with a scarred face who had gone to Shainsa in
disguise....

I shrugged the shirtcloak around my shoulders, pushed the door and went
in. I had remembered that Rakhal was waiting for me. Not beyond this
door, but at the end of the trail, behind some other door, somewhere.
And we have a byword in Shainsa: _A trail without beginning has no end_.

Right there I stopped thinking about Juli, Rindy, the Terran Empire, or
what Rakhal, who knew too many of Terra's secrets, might do if he had
turned renegade. My fingers went up and stroked, musingly, the ridge of
scar tissue along my mouth. At that moment I was thinking only of
Rakhal, of an unsettled blood-feud, and of my revenge.

Red lamps were burning inside the wineshop, where men reclined on frowsy
couches. I stumbled over one of them, found an empty place and let
myself sink down on it, arranging myself automatically in the sprawl of
Dry-towners indoors. In public they stood, rigid and formal, even to eat
and drink. Among themselves, anything less than a loose-limbed sprawl
betrayed insulting watchfulness; only a man who fears secret murder
keeps himself on guard.

A girl with a tangled rope of hair down her back came toward me. Her
hands were unchained, meaning she was a woman of the lowest class, not
worth safeguarding. Her fur smock was shabby and matted with filth. I
sent her for wine. When it came it was surprisingly good, the sweet and
treacherous wine of Ardcarran. I sipped it slowly, looking round.

If a caravan for Shainsa were leaving tomorrow, it would be known here.
A word dropped that I was returning there would bring me, by ironbound
custom, an invitation to travel in their company.

When I sent the woman for wine a second time, a man on a nearby couch
got up, and walked over to me.

He was tall even for a Dry-towner, and there was something vaguely
familiar about him. He was no riffraff of the Kharsa, either, for his
shirtcloak was of rich silk interwoven with metallic threads, and
crusted with heavy embroideries. The hilt of his skean was carved from a
single green gem. He stood looking down at me for some time before he
spoke.

"I never forget a voice, although I cannot bring your face to mind. Have
I a duty toward you?"

I had spoken a jargon to the girl, but he addressed me in the lilting,