He laughed and said, “We’ll take it along, anyway. We might be able to sell it to collectors. And
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we’ll take along some jewels, too.”
He set the machines to turn out clothes for himself and Anana. They were designed as he remembered the latest American styles circa 1945. “They’ll do until we can buy some new.”
While they were getting ready, they moved Luvah to a bigger and more comfortable room and assigned the kitchen taloses to look after him. Kickaha left Anana to talk to her brother while he busied himself collecting the necessities for the Earth trip. He got some medicines, drugs, beam-ers, charges for the beamers, a throwing knife, and a little stiletto for her with poison in the hollow hilt. The Horn of Shambarimen was in a case.
He carried the case into the room where the two were. “I look like a musician,” he said. “I ought to get a haircut as soon as I get a chance after we get there. My hair’s so long I look like Tarzan—I don’t want to attract attention. Oh, yes, you might as well start calling me Paul from now on~. Kickaha is out. It’s Paul J. Finnegan again.”
They made their farewell with Luvah, who said that he would be the palace guardian while they were gone. He would make sure that the taloses put all the bodies in the incinerators, and he would set the defenses of the palace for marauding Lords. He was ecstatic that Anana had been reunited with him, even if only briefly. He was not, it was obvious, the customary Lord.
Despite which, once they were out of his room, Kickaha said, “Did you talk about old times, as I told you?”
“Yes,” she said, “and there were many things he just could not remember.”
Kickaha stopped and said, “You think. . . ?”
She shook her head and laughed. “No. There
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were also many things he did remember, things which a Beller could not possibly know. And he reminded me of some things I had forgotten. He is my brother all the way through; he is not a Beller, as you suspected, my suspicious lover.”
He grinned and said, “You thought of the idea the same time as myself, remember?”
He kissed her. Just before they stepped onto the gate, which would be activated by a code-sentence, he said, “You speak English?”
“I spent most of my three years on Earth in Paris and London,” she answered. “But I’ve forgotten all my French and English.”
“You’ll pick it up again. Meanwhile, let me do the talking.”
He paused, as if he hated to begin the journey.
“One thing about going to Earth. We have to track down that Beller. But we won’t have to worry about running foul of any Lords.”
Anana looked surprised.
“Didn’t Wolff tell you? Red Ore is the secret Lord of Earth!”