It was. What now? Inside there would be someone waiting. Keeping guard. How could he, in the guise of a common soldier, demand entrance at this hour? What if they made him switch off the costume once he got inside? They'd recognize him at once. Worse, they'd recognize Gaballufix's clothing and they'd know that there was only one way he could come in wearing their master's clothes.
No, two ways.
Gaballufix must have come home drunk before.
Nafai tried, silently at first, to think of how Gaballufix's voice sounded. Husky and coarse. Rasping in the throat. Nafai could get it generally right, he was sure-and it didn't have to be too perfect, because Gaballufix was drunk, of course-he reeked of it-and so his voice could be slurred and out of control, and he could stagger and fall and-
"Open up, open the door!" he bawled.
That was awful, that didn't sound like Gaballufix at all.
"Open the door you idiots, it's me!"
Better. Better. And besides, the Oversoul will nudge them a little, will encourage them to think of other things besides the fact that Gaballufix isn't really sounding like himself tonight.
The door opened a crack. Nafai immediately shoved it open and pushed his way through. "Locking me out of my own house, ought to send you home in a box, ought to send you back to your papa in pieces." Nafai had no idea how Gaballufix usually talked, but he guessed at general surliness and threats, especially when he was drunk. Nafai hadn't seen many drunks. Only a few times on the street, and then fairly often in the theatres, but those were actors playing drunk.
He thought: I'm an actor, after all. I thought that was what I might end up being, and here I am.
"Let me help you, sir," said the man. Nafai didn't look at him. Instead he deliberately stumbled and fell to his knees, then doubled over. "Going to puke, I think," he rasped. Then he touched the box at his belt and turned off the costume. Just for a moment. Just long enough that whoever else was in the room could see Gaballufix's clothing, while Nafai's face and hair were out of sight as he bent over. Then he turned the costume back on. He tried to produce the sound of dry heaves, and was so successful that he gagged and some bile and acid did come into his throat.
"What do you want, sir?" said the man.
"Who keeps the Index!" Nafai bawled. "Everybody wants the Index today-well now I want it."
"Zdorab," said the man.
"Get him."
"He's asleep, he..."
Nafai lurched to his feet. "When I'm off my ass in this house, nobody sleeps!"
"I'll get him, sir, I'm sorry, I just thought..."
Nafai swung clumsily at him. The man shied away, looking horrified. Am I carrying this too far? There was no way to guess. The man sidled along the wall and then ducked through a door. Nafai had no idea whether he would come back with soldiers to arrest him.
He came back with Zdorab. Or at least Nafai assumed it was Zdorab. But he had to be sure, didn't he? So he leaned dose to the man and breathed nastily in his face. "Are you Zdorab?" Let the man imagine that Gaballufix was so drunk he couldn't see straight.
"Yes, sir," said the man. He seemed frightened. Good.
"My Index. Where is it?"
"Which one?"
"The one those bastards wanted-Wetchik's boys- theIndex, by the Oversold!"
"The Palwasbantu Index?"
"Where did you put it, you rogue?"
"In the vault," said Zdorab. "I didn't know you wanted it accessible. You've never used it before, and so I .thought-"
"I can took at it if I want!"
Stop talking so much, he told himself. The more you say, the harder it will be for the Oversoul to keep this man from doubting my voice.
Zdorab led the way down a corridor. Nafai made it a point to bump into a wall now and then. When he did it on the side where Elemak's rod had fallen most heavily, it sent a stab of pain through his side, from shoulder to hip. He grunted with the pain-but figured that it would only make his performance more believable.
As they moved on through the lowest floor of the house, fear began to overtake him again. What if he had to provide a positive identification to open the vault? A retina scan? A thumbprint?
But the vault door stood open. Had the Oversoul influenced someone to forget to close it? Or had it all come down to chance? Am I fortune's fool, Nafai wondered, or merely the Oversoul's puppet? Or, by some slim chance, am I freely choosing at least some portion of my own path through this night's work?
He didn't even know which answer he wanted. If he was freely choosing for himself, then he had freely chosen to kill a man lying helpless in the street. Much better to believe that the Oversoul had compelled him or tricked him into doing it. Or that something in his genes or his upbringing had forced him to that action. Much better to believe that there was no other possible choice, rather than to torment himself with wondering whether it might not have been enough to steal Gaballufix's clothing, without having to kill him first. Being responsible for what he did with his opportunities was more of a burden than Nafai really wanted to bear.
Zdorab walked into the vault. Nafai followed, then stopped when he saw a large table where the entire fortune that Gaballufix had stolen from them that afternoon was arranged in neat stacks.
"As you can see, sir, the assay is nearly done," said Zdorab as he wandered off among the shelves. "I have kept everything clean and organized there. It's very kind of you to visit."
Is he stalling me here in the vault, Nafai wondered, waiting till help can arrive?
Zdorab emerged from the shelves at the back of the room. He was a smallish man, considerably shorter than Nafai, and he was already losing his hair though he couldn't have been more than thirty. A comical man, really-yet if he guessed at what was really happening, he might cost Nafai his life.
"Is this it?" asked Zdorab.
Nafai hadn't the faintest idea what it was supposed to look like, of course. He had seen many indexes, but most of them were small freestanding computers with wireless access to a major library. This one had nothing that Nafai could recognize as a display. What Zdorab held was a brass-colored metal ball, about twenty-five centimeters in diameter, flattened a little at the top and the bottom. "Let me see," Nafai growled.
Zdorab seemed reluctant to part with it. For a moment, Nafai felt a wave of panic sweep over him. He doesn't want to give it to me because he knows who I really am.
Then Zdorab revealed his true concern. "Sir, you said we must always keep it very clean."
He was worried about how dirty Gaballufix might have got himself under his soldier costume. After all, he seemed falling-down drunk and smelled of liquor and worse. His hands could be covered with anything.
"You're right," said Nafai. "T ow carry it."
"If you wish, sir," said Zdorab.
"That's the one, isn't it?" said Nafai. He had to be sure-he could only hope that the drunk act was convincing enough that stupid questions wouldn't arouse suspicion.
"It's the Palwashantu Index, if that's what you mean. I just wondered if that's the one you really wanted. You've never asked for it before."
So Gaballufix hadn't even brought it out of the vault-he never, not for one moment, intended to give it to them, no matter how Elemak bargained or what they paid. It made Nafai feel a little better. There had been no missed opportunity. Every script would have led to the same ending.
"Where are we taking it?" asked Zdorab.
Excellent question, thought Nafai. I can't very well tell him that we're giving it to Wetchik's sons, who are waiting in the darkness outside the Funnel.