Salazar sighted carefully and fired; the man collapsed amid the rubble. Mao Dai said:
"Mr. Salazar, I think you can give these people to us, including the dead one. We will see to it that they disappear without a trace."
"Okay," said Salazar. The Gueiliners seized the three surviving gangsters, twisted their arms, and tied their wrists behind them.
"What you gonna do to us?" said one of the trio, his voice rising in pitch. "We ain't hurt nobody!"
"You'll see," said Salazar.
"You gotta let me get my lawyer!" cried another. "The Settlements Constitution says I got civil rights."
"This isn't the Settlements," said Salazar. "Mr. Mao!"
"Yes, Mr. Salazar?"
"I'm pretty sure these people were hired by the Reverend Dumfries. If you could—ah—persuade them to sign confessions to that effect, the documents might be valuable back in Henderson. Be sure to question them separately so they don't have a chance to cook up a story among them."
Mao smiled. "I think we can obtain satisfactory results, sir."
Back at the inn, as Salazar and the Ritters entered, Ilya Levontin bustled up. "Oh, Mr. Salazar!"
"Yes?"
The innkeeper lowered his voice. "A Kook cop came in while you were at dinner, asking for you. Since you were not yet officially registered, I told him no, nyet, bù shì, and he went away."
"What did he want of me?"
"Just to answer some questions, he said. Are you in trouble?"
"Not yet, but maybe soon. Are there any such people around here now?"
"None that I know of, unless one of the Kook kitchen help is in Yaamo's pay."
"Then let me settle my bill now, and don't be surprised if I pull out at an odd hour or looking a bit different from the way I do now. Could the cook make me a sandwich?"
An hour later Salazar had recovered the rest of his baggage from storage and hauled it up to his room. After dinner he went to sleep until awakened by his poignet at midnight.
He got out the costume he had worn for passengers' night on the Ijumo. This consisted of an emerald-green turban, an ankle-length pumpkin-yellow robe, and a long false beard. He rubbed a brown grease pencil on his face and hands until he looked like a native of the Terran tropics, then tied on the beard and the turban. The latter was of a prewound kind with stitching to hold it together. A real turban wearer would scorn it, but Salazar had never mastered the trick of winding a turban so that it would stay wound and not fall apart when the wearer moved.
With his duffel bag on his shoulder, Salazar went quietly down to Levontin's lobby. In this otherwise deserted area, Levontin was talking with a Kook whose authoritative bearing would have identified him as a peace officer even without the symbols painted on his torso. Levontin was saying:
"No, Officer. He came here this afternoon, but he checked out earlier and left. I don't know where he is."
Salazar walked past the pair and out. As he passed, the policeman turned a searching gaze upon him, then looked back to the innkeeper, saying:
"He would not rook rike zat, would he? I have not seen him."
"No, sir, nothing like that. For one thing, he is cleanshaven save for a small mustache."
Salazar headed for the station. He passed another Kook cop outside the inn, but this one hardly looked at him. He walked briskly, fighting down the urge to break into a run. Opposite Mao Dai's revolving restaurant he passed two more Kook policemen on night patrol. He was glad that he had not yielded to the temptation to run.
When at dawn Conductor Zuiha opened the door at the end of the soft-fare car of the Unriu Express, he stared at a bearded, turbaned, long-robed, brown-skinned Terran climbing aboard. The Terran passed over a ticket to Amoen without a word. Zuiha said:
"Never seen Terran in such croze. Where come from?"
"From the spirit plane," said a deep, resonant voice, "to bring enlightenment to my fellow Terrans." The man yawned and rubbed his eyes. Salazar had been trying to sleep on a station bench.
"Could enrighten me, sir?"
"Perchance, after I have dealt with the ignorance of those of my own kind. Forgive me."
The robed one entered the car, sat down, arranged his bag as a pillow, and prepared to sleep.
VIII – The Prophet Khushvant Sen
Despite his drowsiness, fear that Yaamo's police would appear to clamp scaly hands upon him kept Salazar alert. After a time, sounds implied that two more Terrans had entered the car. Salazar opened his eyes to slits to see two ordinary-looking Terrans take seats. One flipped a hand toward Salazar, saying:
"Idhe!"
The other replied: "Einai Anatolikos. "
Salazar thought the language was Greek, of which he did not know enough to speak it. In any case, nothing about these men suggested that their doings concerned him.
At last the Unriu Express stirred to life with a clank of couplings and a rattle of chains. Salazar thought he had dozed for a few minutes, but the jerk of the train awoke him from a frightful dream. Cantemir and Mahasingh had tied him to the tracks and were standing over him, laughing, as the train bore down upon him. Just as the engine reached him, he awoke.
Making sure that the Greek speakers were far enough not to overhear, he began softly dictating into his recorder the sermon he planned to give on Mount Sungara. He worked at this task for hours, now and then erasing a paragraph to reword it. When his eyelids drooped, he dozed, awoke, and worked some more on the sermon. He would have written it out in pencil, but the lurching of the train would have made any handwriting illegible even to the writer.
At Torimas, the Greek speakers got off. Salazar was leaning out to buy another bladder of bumbleberry when he saw another Terran climb aboard. This was the towering, long-bearded Mahasingh, still with a lavender scarf wound around his head. Now Salazar would learn just how effective was his disguise. He sat up, holding his bladder of wine and giving Mahasingh a casual glance.
Making eye contact, Mahasingh halted. He placed his palms together with the fingers pointing up in a prayerful attitude. He nodded over his hands, saying:
"Namasté!"
"Good day, sir," said Salazar in an absentminded way.
Mahasingh's white teeth flashed through the mattress of beard. "Thank you, sir, and a good day to you. If I may take the liberty, I am Dhan Gopal Mahasingh."
"I'm Khushvant Sen," said Salazar. "I have heard of you. What brings you down here from Amoen?"
"I have been ordering supplies for the lumber camp I supervise, since the original supervisor met with an accident. The purchases are piled on the goods van in front."
Salazar said: "Sit down, pray. Who runs the camp in your absence?"
"My second, Hafiz Abdallah. I hope he conducts his office with efficiency and justice."
"Would you like a drop of this wine?"
"Thank you, sir, but I seek merit by abstaining. Now I must devote extra effort to my search to atone for the unfortunate accident of a few days past."
"Yes? Tell me," said Salazar.
"A mob of fanatics, inspired by their priestess, attacked my lumbering crew. To drive them off, I was compelled to shoot an attacker." He sighed gustily. "The path of virtue is hard. Would you believe it, my pursuit of merit drove my wife to leave me despite the fact that our union, celebrated with orthodox Shaivite rites, was supposed to be indissoluble?"
"Too much holiness?"
"Having given up intoxicants, the next logical step was to relinquish the fleshly pleasures of sex. After a few months of this she presented an ultimatum. All my arguments, such as the prospect of promotion in our next incarnations, did no good, and away she went. I hear she has found another husband, which is not difficult on this world with its surplus of men. I only hope that my grievous loss will be made up in my next life."