Kettrick stood a while in the darkness under some ornamental trees and examined the house. Lamps still glowed among the shrubbery of the roof garden, light pleasantly subdued so that it aided the shining of the small moons but did not glare it out. A breeze blowing across the river brought the scent of flowers and, he thought, a murmur of voices. He shook his head, frowning. He would have preferred the house to be silent in sleep. It would be awkward if the place was full of guests.
Still, he had to get off the streets, before daylight or a cruising patrol caught him there. He crossed quickly to the shadow of the house and pressed against it, listening.
He could hear only two voices, speaking quietly in the high garden. He could not hear the words they were saying. He could not even be sure he recognized them, they were so remote. But one of them was the voice of a woman, and Kettrick's heart gave a sudden wild leap.
He moved on then along the wall to the service gate. It was not barred, and that should have warned him, but he was impatient now to see the face of the woman on the roof and he slipped in silently, closing the gate behind him. The paved area behind the house contained two of the small ground cars. Around the walls were the neat little buildings for the storage of tools and necessary items, with the inevitable trees, tall shrubs, and clambering vines making black clots of shadow here and there. The back of the house was dark, and there was no sound but the breeze and the murmur of voices from above.
Kettrick dropped his duffel bag out of sight in some shrubbery and started for the stone stairway that led up from the courtyard to the roof.
He was less than halfway there when he heard a rushing whisper of movement in the shadows and there was a looming of tall shapes, and great horny hands caught him and lifted him and flung him down breathless on the paving stones, shaken like a child in the hands of strong men. Crushing weight descended on him. He struggled briefly, startled and gasping for air, seeing in silhouette above him the shapes of massive bending shoulders and smooth heads against the sky. A smell of dry clean fur came to him. There was a low, almost gentle growling, and then the suggestive pricking of claws at his throat.
Kettrick began to laugh.
"Hroo, hroo!" he said to them in their own tongue. "Khitu, Chai…it be Johnny. John-nee!"
A brilliant light sprang on, slamming away the shadows. Half blinded, Kettrick looked up into the two broad faces bent above his own, seeing the round dark eyes begin to brighten.
"John-nee?"
The claw tips went away from his throat.
"John-nee! John-nee!" they clamored, and bared their white teeth, laughing. Their strong arms lifted him up, and the great hands were now as gentle as velvet. "Long go away," Chai said. "You play with us, see if we forget."
Khitu shook him reproachfully. "You come by dark. Look different. But smell the same, same John-nee!"
"Same Johnny," he said, and patted them with rough affection, as he would two great dogs, rumpling the fine smoke-gray fur. Then he looked up and saw the two people standing on the stone steps, looking down at him.
One was a man, a golden Darvan with copper curls. He wore light summer clothing, shorts and sandals and a thin shirt that left his supple body half bare above the waist. His name was Seri Otku, and he had used to be Kettrick's partner. He had a shocker in his hand.
The other was a woman, a golden Darvan also, but her skin was pale and warm like honey in the sun, and her hair had a softer luster and it was long enough to brush her bare shoulders when she turned her head. Her eyes were blue and her mouth was red, and she was built and curved and balanced so that every move she made was music. She wore a gown of soft green like a flowing of mist around her. Her name was Larith, and she had used to be something to Kettrick too.
Now she came down one step, and then another, looking at him as she might have looked at a ghost come rattling unbidded at her door.
"Johnny," she whispered. "Johnny, you shouldn't have come back!"
4
Kettrick walked to the steps and stood for a long moment without saying anything. She was as he remembered her, as he had dreamed of her and wanted her ever since his exile had begun. He did not want to speak. He only wanted to look at her, standing there in her green dress, with the, light shining on her hair. As if it were in some remote distance behind her, he saw Seri lay aside the shocker and move forward.
And now a question formed itself in his mind. It was not a new question. It was as old almost as his exile. He did not want to ask it, but it was necessary.
"Why, Larith? Why shouldn't I have come back?"
He heard Seri answer. "Because it only means trouble, for you, for us…Are you out of your mind, to come here?"
"Is that all, Larith?" asked Kettrick. "Or is there more?"
There was something different about her, after all. Her face had always been as transparent to him as though it were made of glass, and perhaps, now that he thought of it, that was simply because she had never tried to hide anything from him before. Anger, love, boredom, impatience, joy; it was all there, take it or leave it and be damned to him. But now her face was like a mask and he could not read it.
And yet she said, "I belong only to myself, Johnny, as I always did."
Her eyes were so steady on his, so wide and startled, as though, he thought, she still hoped that they might be mistaken in what they saw. The light breeze lifted her hair and stirred the soft green stuff against her body, and she seemed to shiver, as though its touch were cold.
"You shouldn't have come," she said again. And then she turned and went back up the steps, thrusting hard past Seri, and disappeared into the leafy obscurity of the garden.
Kettrick looked after her, his own face closed and impassive. Seri continued to stare at him. "Well," said Kettrick, "it has been a long time." He shrugged, and smiled at Seri. "Don't look so stricken."
"How should I look?" asked Seri. "Tell me. Joyous? Happy? Because you come in the middle of the night, my old friend, my dear friend, and I should be glad to see you? Listen, Johnny, I'm doing well again after all the trouble, and now if you're caught in my house…" He was furiously angry. "This time they won't just deport you. This time it will be Narkad." Narkad was the prison world of the Hyades, not a bad place as prisons went but unattractive even so. "And will Sekma believe that I didn't know, that I had nothing to do with your being here? You'll ruin me, Johnny!"
Kettrick said mildly, "I can't blame you for being annoyed. But Sekma isn't hammering on the gate just yet, so why not calm down? Take a few minutes to get over the shock. And you may find there's a brighter side for you. Perhaps as much as half a million credits brighter." He looked down at himself. "In the meantime, I'd appreciate some soap and water."
"Half a million credits," Seri repeated, and came down the intervening steps. "What are you talking about, Johnny? What did you come back for?"
"To finish what I started at the White Sun."
He only half saw Seri's face, only half noted the look of stunned realization. He was thinking of Larith. He had not tried to picture to himself how their meeting would be, or what she would say to him. But he had not expected anything like this.
Of course, he had been gone for more than two years. And of course, she had not known that he was coming back, tonight or any night. They had said goodbye.