"But surely, master. I'll do aught that you command. Are you absolutely sure you crave no partner? I can show you your way about here, as Sivandi showed Lord Zerre through the maze in the story—"
"Not yet," said Hasselborg, who thought he could trust Sarhad about as far as he could knock him with a feather. He ate with his left hand, keeping his right ready for trouble.
When he finished, he hitched his wallet around and said: "Has anybody around here heard of another stranger from Novorecife coming this way about ten ten-days ago? A man about my height—" He went into his description and produced the sketches.
"No," said Sarhad, "I've seen none like that. I could ask around, though I doubt 'twill help, because I keep close track of new arrivals myself. I make the rounds of the inns, and watch by the city gates, and keep myself generally informed. Little goes on in this city that Goodman Sarhad knows not of, I can tell you."
Hasselborg let him chatter until he finished. Then, rising, he said: "Better get that prick taken care of, chum, or you'll get infected."
"Infected? Ao!" Sarhad for the first time noticed the darkened stain on his jacket. "The cut's nought, but how abut paying me for my coat? Brand-new; only the second wearing; just got it from Rosid's finest tailor—"
"Stow it; that's only a fair return. The stars give you pleasant dreams!"
Next morning Hasselborg, not trusting these great clumsy locks, checked his belongings to make sure nothing had been stolen. Then he set out afoot. The city gate was decorated with heads stuck on spikes in what Hasselborg considered questionable taste. A couple of spearmen halted him. They let him through after he had waved the letter to the dasht and signed a big register.
He stolled through the city, taking in the sights, sounds, and smells—though the last could not very well be avoided, and caused him to worry about picking up an infection. He was almost run down by a boy-Krishnan on a scooter and then had to jump to avoid a collision with a portly man in the robe, chain, and nose-mask of a physician, whizzing along on the same kind of vehicle.
At the artists' shop, he asked for some quick-drying plaster—he meant plaster of Paris but did not know the Gozashtandou for it—and some sealing wax. With these purchases he returned to his hotel, signing out again at the gate. The calendar girl, having let herself in with a pass key, was doing his room. She gave him a good-morning and a smile that implied she would be amenable to further suggestions. Hasselborg, having other fish to fry, merely gave her the cold eye until she departed.
When alone, he put on his glasses, lit his candle, and got out his bachelor sewing kit and his little Gozashtandou-Portuguese dictionary. With the plaster he made molds of the three big waxen seals on his letter to the dasht. Then he broke open the seals, carefully so as not to tear the stiff glossy paper, and detached the fragments of the seals from the ribbon that enwrapped the letter by heating the needle from his kit in the candle flame and prying the wax loose from the silk.
He held the letter towards the light from the little window and frowned in concentration. When he had puzzled out the Pitmanlike fishhooks of the writing, he saw that it read:
Julio Gois to the Lord Jam, Dasht of Ruz:
I trust that my lord's stars are propitious. The bearer is a spy from Mikardand who means you nought but ill. Treat him even as he deserves. Accept, lord, assurances of my faithful respect.
V.
Hasselborg, reading the letter through again, did a slow burn and suppressed an impulse to crumple the letter and throw it across the room. That dirty little— Then his sense of humor came to his rescue. The fishes answered with a grin, "Why, what a temper you are in!" And hadn't he been up against this sort of thing often enough not to let it get his goat, or whatever they had in lieu of goats on Krishna?
So, Gois had been getting ideas from Hamletl Hasselborg shuddered to think of what might have happened if he'd handed the letter to the dasht without reading it first.
What now? Gallop back to Novorecife to denounce Gois? No, wait. What had possessed Gois to do such a thing? The man had seemed to like him, and he didn't think Gois was off his wavelength. It must be that Hasselborg's presence on Krishna threatened Gois' interests; just how would transpire in due course. If so, if Gois were involved in some racket or conspiracy, his superiors like the pompous Abreu might be also involved. In any case, these Brazzies, while good fellows for the most part, would stick together against a mere Americano do Norte.
Could he forge a new letter? It would take a bit of doing, especially since he was not sure that his written Gozashtandou would fool a bright native. By consulting his dictionary, however, and experimenting with a pencil eraser, he found that he could erase the words for "spy" and "ill" and substitute "artist" and "good" for them. He did so, folded the letter, and tied it up. Then with the candle he melted gobs of sealing wax on the ribbon where it crossed itself and used the plaster molds of the original seals to stamp new impressions on the wax just like the old.
Before he mounted his noble aya and galloped off in all directions, however, a little reflection was in order. He went to work with needle and thread on the cuts in his coat left by the affrays of the previous day while he pondered. Since Gois had tried this treacherous trick, he had probably also lied about the direction in which Fallon had gone. As Hasselborg could neither be sure of the direction nor return to Novorecife for more instructions, he would have to do it the hard way. He would have to make a complete circuit of the Terran outpost: rivers, mountains, bandit-infested swamps, and all, investigating all the routes radiating out from Novorecife until he picked up the trail of the fugitives. Of course, if his circuit failed to find the trail, he would have a good excuse to—stop it! he sternly told himself. This is a job.
Meanwhile he had better try the dasht, as originally intended, on the chance that he might be able to pick up a lead at the court. Then a quick getaway with an introduction to some bigwig in Hershid…
A brisk, cool wind flapped the pennons on the spires of the onion-shaped domes of the palace and drove great fleets of little white clouds banked deep across the greenish sky. This green-and-white pattern was reflected in puddles around the palace gate. The wind also whipped Hasselborg's cloak as he stood talking to the sentry at the gate. The guard said:
"His High-and-Mightiness will take your letter within, and in an hour he'll come back to tell you to come round tomorrow to learn when the dasht'll give you an audience. Tomorrow he'll tell you the schedule's not made up for the next ten-night, and to return next day. After more delays, he'll tell you to be here twenty days from now. So ye'll just sit and drink until your money's gone, and when the day arrives ye'll be told that at the last minute they gave your time to some more worshipful visitor, and ye'll have to begin over, like Qabuz in the story who was trying to climb the tree for the fruit and always slipped back just afore he reached it. I envy you not."
Hasselborg jerked the strap of his wallet so that the coins inside jingled, saying: "D'you suppose a little of this might help, if you follow me?"
The sentry grinned. "Mayhap, so that ye know how to go about it. Otherwise ye'll lose your coin to no advantage—"
The guard shut his mouth as the black-clad major-domo waddled back to the gate, wheezing: "Come at once, good Master Kavir. The dasht will see you forthwith."
Hasselborg grinned in his turn at the sight of the guard's drooping jaw and followed his guide across the courtyard and through the vast entrance. They passed Krishnans of both sexes in bright clothes of extreme cut, the women in gowns like those of ancient Crete on earth, and walked through a long series of halls dimly lit by lanterns held in wall brackets in the form of scaly, dragonlike arms. Occasionally a page whizzed by on a scooter.