Forcing himself to slow to a walk, he made his way along the debris-choked road. Somehow he had to find a place to hide or at least a place where he could blend in with the background. Glancing continuously over his shoulder as he went, Grayson's heart froze, then began to hammer at his throat when something behind him moved. He relaxed then, thinking at first it was just another derelict. But no, it was the man he'd collided with on the street in front of the Palace Grounds. Had the man been following him? It could well be that any citizen who turned him in to the Guard would be rewarded, which certainly would be a temptation for any of this ragged lot. Grayson quickened his step. He didn't KNOW that he was being followed, but...
Moving down the littered street, he was so startled to feel the squish of mud against his boots that he stopped where he was for a moment. All along the street there were places where secondnight ice had melted off roofs, flowed down rusted gutterspouts, and pooled in curbside depressions worn hollow over the years. In most spots, the surface water was sucked away by the thirsty sand, but here the meltwater was trapped in pools of black mud, where it would remain until the next freeze. The sight of it gave him an idea.
Removing his cloak as he walked, Grayson dropped it beside a half-naked derelict leaning against a worn stone wall. There was no time to hide it. The soldiers were mere seconds behind him. Then he went to work unraveling his head bandage, which he crumpled and stuffed into an already overflowing garbage bin. A bit farther ahead, there was a stretch of road unoccupied by street people or anyone else. Kneeling by a mud pool, Grayson gathered a double handful of the stinking stuff, and lathered it over his head. It burned like fire when it touched the inflamed wound on the side of his head. He knew he was begging for an infection, but the thought of the Interrogators drove him on.
By the time he was done, Grayson's yellow hair, his face, and his tunic were generously coated with black mud. What else? he thought, mind racing. His clothes were nondescript enough, except for his boots, so tight his feet were aching now. They were much too shiny and new to belong to a mud-smeared derelict
After a moment's thought, Grayson pried off the boots and carefully set them together nearby, then muddied his feet as well. The final touch would be two empty liquor bottles he found in a mound of garbage across the street. Grayson then lay down with his feet sprawled well into the middle of the street, his head close by the noisome pool, with a bottle cradled in each arm. It was only seconds later that he heard the scuffing of booted feet rounding the curve of the street.
There were five of them, Palace Guards in dark green and gold, four with wicked-looking assault rifles held at port arms. They picked their way cautiously along the street, stepping around or past the worst of the mud and garbage.
"Here!" one of them shouted. "His boots!" The soldier swooped down and grabbed the shiny boots. Grayson opened his eyes in his best imitation of bleary-eyed dullness, and saw that one of the soldiers already had tucked his cast-off cloak and the bloodied strips of bandage under one arm. Another one — probably the leader, judging by his imperious hands-on-hips stance and lack of a rifle — stood over Grayson and nudged him with the toe of his boot. "You!"
Grayson clutched the bottles tighter, and gave the man a wit-befuddled smile. If he could convince the soldiers that he was a street drunk, that someone else had dropped the boots beside him as he lay there in the mud...
"You," the soldier said again. His upper lip curled even as he spoke, as though the man were trying to avoid breathing the stench of the noxious mud and garbage. "Where'd these boots come from?"
"Wha-a?" Grayson slurred his speech and turned his grin idiotic.
"Sergeant!" Here was a new voice. Grayson followed its sound and saw another squad of soldiers coming up the street from the other direction. They must have sent this second patrol ahead to another main street so that they could work back, hoping to trap him between. The newcomer was an officer, his Guard's Lieutenant uniform more gold than green, looped with aiguillettes and tassels that glittered in the red sunlight. "Any sign of him?"
"He came this way, sir. Look."
The two examined the cloak, bandages, and boots for a moment, their own boots only a meter from Grayson's bare, muddy feet. The lead officer shook his head. "He didn't get past us. You must have missed him."
"He might be trying to blend in with the street scum, sir,' the sergeant said. At this, the bottles trembled in Grayson's hands and his heart pounded so furiously he was certain it would give him away. "We could round them up and question them all."
"Pah! Or shoot them."
"I might be able to help you, Lieutenant." That new voice sent chills along Grayson's spine. Rags moved down the street, and a filthy and unshaven man lurched into view. It was the young man he'd thought was following him. He must have been close enough behind Grayson to see him preparing his hasty disguise!
Grayson tensed, readying himself. If he jumped up and ran, the soldiers would cut him down before he made it around the curve of the road, unless he could take them by surprise. He wondered how fast his bare and tender feet could move over broken chunks of sun baked ferrocrete.
"You see this guy?" the Lieutenant asked, holding up the boots.
"Sure did." The street dweller glanced at Grayson, his face neutral. "See that pipe?" he said, gesturing at the drainpipe above Grayson's mud pool. "Fella came tearing in here maybe a minute ago. Stripped off his boots, plopped 'em down there, and shinnied up that pipe like a leaflighter in heat." He pointed across the flat slab roofs back in the general direction of the palace. "He headed off across the roofs off that-a-way."
"Damn," the Lieutenant muttered. "He's trying to backtrack on us. You men! At the double! C'mon!"
The troop gathered into ragged ranks and clumped off down the street at a half-run. The one holding. Grayson's boots tossed them aside. When the soldiers were far enough away, he sat up slowly, dusting ineffectually at the mud caked on his tunic. "Thanks."
The man glanced up and down the street, then his dirty face with its scraggly growth of beard broke into a wide, unexpected grin. "Don't mention it. You looked like you were new in town."
"Well, you might say that. Who are you?"
The man gave a sweeping, polished bow. "Renfred Tor, at your service."
"I think it should be the other way around. I'm indebted to you, sir."
"Why were they after you?"
Grayson hesitated. His first inclination urged caution. The stranger seemed friendly enough, but maybe he was just looking for more information about the fugitive before turning him in. Picking his way across the street to retrieve his boots, Grayson turned various possibilities over in his mind. If he was going to have to do any more running, he would need those painfully tight boots.
Suddenly Grayson realized that the man had used two names. He could not possibly be a native of Trellwan! "You're an offworlder," he said, avoiding the other's question.
"You might say that." Tor's eyes shifted down the street "Offworlders don't seem very popular around here."
Grayson nodded and smiled ruefully. "I'm Grayson Carlyle. I was with the Commonwealth garrison Lance at the Castle."
"Pleased to meet you. Uh... you seem to have misplaced your 'Mech Lance."
"They misplaced me. The bandits attacked the Castle and I was left for dead. When I came to, my unit had already pulled out"
"Ah," said Tor.
"How about you? What are you doing here?"
Tor stared at Grayson a long moment, then told him, "I'm the DropShip pilot who brought those bandits here in the first place."