“I’m sorry.”
“It is nothing. I was gone in thoughts, Sean.”
He stood regarding her. His eyes followed the gentle curve of her body to the face, and rested. “You wish you were
back on Rendezvous, don’t you?”
She smiled, and then suddenly she laughed. It was like a tinkling of bells. “Poor silly Sean. You think too much.” He drew her against him and she pressed close. His mouth brushed the fragrance of her hair and closed the parted lips below his.
Well-she’s right. I worry too much, and it gets me nowhere.
Gently, he disengaged himself. “How about some solid fuel?”
She nodded and moved lightly to the boat’s gravity shaft. “This falling up is fun,” she called. “You have so many toys.”
“Toys?” he echoed. But she was already gone, floating along the upward beam toward the galley near the bows.
The next morning, he donned Nomad folk dress but added a heavy tunic. He had to wait for Ilaloa to finish her shower. She was always taking long baths aboard ship, as if to wasb off some hidden uncleanliness.
“Put on some thick clothes, dear,” be advised, feeling a warm husband sense witl-dn him.
She wrinkled her nose. “Do I have to?”
“If you don’t want to freeze out there, yes. What’s wrong with dressing, anyway?”
“It is Lbe-shut-away from sun and rain and all the many winds,” she answered. “There is a dead sldn around and it is another darkness. You are locked from life, Sean.’ But she did clothe herself and danced eagerly before him to the airlock.
The morning was chill and misted; wet flagstones gleamed underfoot as they went toward the outer gates. They walked under mountainous towers and down the hill into the city.
It was already awake, and its noise grew loud as they entered the streets-shrill clamor of voices, thump of hoofs, groaning wheels and clashing irori. The smells were there, too. Sean snorted and glanced down at Ilaloa. But she didn’t seem to mind; she was looking around with a wide-eyed wonder he hadn’t seen in her before.
The streets were narrow and cobbled, slippery with muck, twisting fantastically between the high walls of peak-roofed houses. Doors were heavy and brass-bound, windows no more than narrow slits; overhanging balconies shut out the sky. Flimsy wooden booths lined the fa@ades, each with its wares on display-pottery, clothing, tools, weapons, rugs, food, wine, all the poor needs and luxuries of the planet cried by their raucous merchants. Here and there a temple stood, minareted and grotesquely ornamented with the bloodsmeared effigies of gods.
The crowd swirled about Sean and Ilaloa, trying hard not to jostle the sacred human flgures but sometimes pushed against them. It was the kind of spectacle which is only romantic at long range. Sean thought he could feel the violence that boiled around him.
Ilaloa tugged at his sleeve and be stooped to bear her under the din. “Do you know this city, Sean?”
“Not very well,” he admitted. “I can show you a few sights if-” He hesitated. “If you want to.”
“Oh yes!”
A trumpet brayed up ahead, and the ErulaDi sprang to the walls. Sean pulled Ilaloa with him, aware of what was coming. A squad of guardsmen galloped past, armored and hehneted, mud sheeting from the hoofs. Their bugler had a lash that be swung about him. There was a human in their midst, the chief, dressed even as they.
A woman screamed in the wake of the troop. Before the crowd had filled the street again, Sean saw that she was
bent over a small fmy shape. Her child had not been fast enough.
His threat was so tight that it hurt him. “This way, Ilaloa,” he said. “Back this way.”
“There was death,” said Ilaloa quietly.
‘Yes,” he replied. “That’s the way Erulan is.”
They entered another thoroughfare. There was a procession of slaves coming, chained iieck to neck. Their feet bled as they walked. A couple of soldiers urged them along
with whips, but they didn’t look up.
Sean regarded Ilaloa again. She stood watching the slaves go by, but somehow the compassion in her face didn’t go
deep.
A gallows was in the market square on which the street opened. Three bodies swung aloft. Beneath them, a gallantly clad Erulani was thrumming a small harp. It was a happy