My finger traced the trigger's curve. I shifted the muzzle in that direction.
Then, as delicately as a hummingbird invades a flower, came the touch of the tamperer in the dark house where I live, my head.
_You are asleep_, something seemed to say, _and you will not awaken yet. Not until I permit it. You sleep and you hear me now. This is as it should he. There is no reason to awaken. Sleep deeply and soundly as I address you. It is very important that you do so_ ...
I let it continue, for I was fully awake. I suppressed my reactions and feigned slumber while I listened for another telltale sound.
After a minute of being reassured that I was asleep, I heard a sound of movement from the same direction as before.
I opened my eyes then, and without moving my head I began to trace the limits of the shadows.
Beside one of the rocks, perhaps thirty feet distant, was a form which had not been present when I had retired. I studied it until I detected an occasional movement. When I was certain as to its position, I flipped off the safety catch, aimed very carefully and pulled the trigger, tracing a line of fire on the ground about five feet before it. Because of the angle, a shower of dust, dirt and gravel was kicked backwards.
_If you so much as take a deep breath, I'll cut you in half_, I advised.
Then I stood and faced him, holding the pistol steady. When I spoke, I spoke in Pei'an, for I had seen in the light of the burning beam that it was a Pei'an who stood beside the rock.
"Green Green," I said, "you are the clumsiest Pei'an I've ever met."
"I have made a few mistakes," he acknowledged, from back in the shadows.
I chuckled.
"I'd say so."
"There were extenuating circumstances involved."
"Excuses. You did not properly learn the lesson of the rock. It appears to rest, but it does move, imperceptibly." I shook my head. "How will your ancestors rest after a bungled piece of vengeance like this?"
"Poorly, I fear, if this be the end."
"Why shouldn't it be? Do you deny that you assured my presence here solely for purposes of obtaining my death?"
"Why should I deny the obvious?"
"Why should I fail to do the logical thing?"
"Think, Francis Sandow, _Dra_ Sandow. How logical would it be? Why should I approach you in this fashion, when I might have allowed you to come to me where I held a position of power?"
"Perhaps I rattled your nerves last evening."
"Do not judge me that unstable. I came to place you under my control."
"And failed."
"... And failed."
"Why did you come?"
"I require your services."
"To what end?"
"We must leave here quickly. You possess a means of departure?"
"Naturally. What are you afraid of?"
"Over the years, you have collected some friends and many enemies, Francis Sandow."
"Call me Frank. I feel as if I've known you a long time, dead man."
"You should not have sent that message, Frank. Now your presence here is known. Unless you help me to escape, you will face a vengeance greater than mine."
A shifting of the breeze brought me the sweet, musty smell of that which passes for blood in a Pei'an. I flicked on my hand torch and aimed it at him.
"You're hurt."
"Yes."
I dropped the torch, sidled over to my knapsack, opened it with my left hand. I fished out the first aid pouch and tossed it to him.
"Cover your cuts," I said, picking up the light once more. "They smell bad."
He unrolled a bandage and wrapped it about his gashed right shoulder and forearm. He ignored a series of smaller wounds on his chest.
"You look as if you've been in a fight."
"I have."
"What shape is the other guy in?"
"I hurt him. I was lucky. I almost killed him, in fact. Now it is too late."
I saw that he wasn't carrying a weapon, so I holstered my own. I advanced and stood before him.
"Delgren of Dilpei sends his greetings," I said. "I think you've managed to make his fecal roster."
He snorted, chuckled.
"He was to be next," he said, "after yourself."
"You still haven't given me a good reason for keeping you alive."
"But I've aroused your curiosity, which is keeping me alive. Getting me bandaged, even."
"My patience departs, like sand through a sieve."
"Then you have not learned the lesson of the rock."
I lit a cigarette. "I'm in a position to choose my proverbs as I go along. You are not," I said.
He finished bandaging himself, then, "I wish to propose a bargain."
"Name it."
"You have a vessel hidden somewhere. Take me .to it. Take me with you, away from this world."
"In return for what?"
"Your life."
"You're hardly in a position to threaten me."
"I am not making a threat. I am offering to save your life for the moment, if you will do the same for me."
"Save me from what?"
"You know that I can restore certain persons to life."
"Yeah, you stole some Recall Tapes. --How did you do it, by the way?"
"Teleportation. It is my talent. I can transfer small objects from one place to another. Many years ago, when I first began studying you and plotting my vengeance, I made visits to Earth--each time one of your friends or enemies died there, in fact. I waited then until I had accumulated sufficient funds to purchase this world, which I thought to be a fitting place for what I had in mind. It is not difficult for a worldscaper to learn to employ the tapes."
"My friends, my enemies--you restored them here?"
"That is correct."
"Why?"
"For you to see your loved ones suffer once again, before you died yourself; and for your enemies. to watch you in your pain."
"Why did you do what you did to the one called Dango?"
"The man annoyed me. By setting him up as an example and warning for you, I also removed him from my presence and provided him with a maximum of pain. In this fashion, he served three useful purposes."
"What was the third?"
"My amusement, of course."
"I see. But why here? Why Illyria?"
"Second to Homefree, which is inaccessible, is this world not your favorite creation?"
"Yes."
"What better place then?"
I dropped my cigarette, ground it out with my heel.
"You are stronger than I thought, Frank," he said after a moment, "because you killed him once, and he has beaten me, taken away from me a thing without price ...
Suddenly I was back on Homefree, in my roof garden, puffing a cigar, seated next to a shaved monkey named Lewis Briggs. I had just opened an envelope, and I was running my eyes down a list of names.
So it wasn't telepathy. It was just memory and apprehension.
"Mike Shandon," I said softly.
"Yes. I did not know him for what he was, or I would not have recalled him."
It should have hit me sooner. The fact that he had recalled all of them, I mean. It should have, but it didn't. I'd been too busy thinking about Kathy and blood.
"You stupid son of a bitch," I said. "You stupid son of a bitch... ."
Back in the century into which I had been born, like number twenty, the art or craft--as the case may be--of espionage enjoyed a better public image than either the U.S. Marine Corps or the AMA. It was, I suppose, partly a romantic escape mechanism with respect to international tensions. It got out of hand, though, as anything must if it is to leave a mark upon its times. In the long history of popular heroes, from Renaissance princes through poor boys who live clean, work hard and marry the bosses' daughters, the man with the cyanide capsule for a tooth, the lovely traitoress for a mistress and the impossible mission where sex and violence are shorthand for love and death, this man came into his own in the seventh decade of the twentieth century and is indeed remembered with a certain measure of nostalgia-- like Christmas in Medieval England. He was, of course, abstracted from the real thing. And spies are an even duller lot today than they were then. They collect every bit of trivia they can lay their hands on and get it back to someone who feeds it to a data-processing machine, along with thousands of other items, a minor fact is thereby obtained, someone writes an obscure memo concerning it and the memo is filed and forgotten. As I mentioned earlier, there is very little precedent for interstellar warfare, and classical spying deals, basically, with military matters. When this extension of politics becomes well-nigh impossible because of logistics problems, the importance of such matters diminishes. The only real talented, important spies today are the industrial spies. The man who delivered into the hands of General Motors the microfilmed blueprints of Ford's latest brainchild or the gal with Dior's new line sketched inside her bra, _these_ spies received very little notice in the twentieth century. Now, however, they are the only genuine items around. The tensions involved in interstellar commerce are enormous. Anything that will give you an edge--a new manufacturing process, a classified shipping schedule--may become as important as the Manhattan Project once was. If somebody has something like this and you want it, a real spy is worth his weight in meerschaum.