He paused at a corner to let three vehicles pass. While waiting, he heard a sound at his back.
"Mr. H!"
A boy of about twelve emerged from the shadows beneath a tree and advanced toward him. In his left hand he held a black leash, the other end of which was clipped to the collar of a green meter-long lizard with short, bowed legs. Its claws clicked on the pavement as it waddled after the boy, and when it opened its mouth to dart its red tongue in his direction, it seemed as if it were grinning. It was a very fat lizard, and it rubbed against the boy's leg several times as he approached.
"Mr. H, I went to the hospital to see you earlier, but you had to go back inside, so I only got a glimpse. I heard about how you healed Luci Dorn. It sure is lucky meeting you, just walking along."
"Don't touch me!" said Heidel; but the boy had clasped his hand too quickly and was looking up at him with eyes in which the stars danced.
Heidel dropped his hand and backed off several paces.
"Don't get too close," he said. "I think I'm catching a cold."
"Then you shouldn't be out in this night air. I'll bet my folks would put you up."
"Thanks, but I have an appointment."
"This is my _larick_." He tugged on the leash. "His name is Chan. Sit up, Chan."
The lizard opened its mouth, squatted, curled into a ball.
"He doesn't always do it. Not when he doesn't feel like it, anyway," the boy explained. "When he wants to, though, he's real good at it. He stabilizes himself with his tail. --Come on, Chan! Sit up for Mr. H."
He yanked on the leash.
"That's all right, son," said Heidel. "Maybe he's tired. --Look, I have to be going. Maybe I'll meet you again before I leave town. Okay?"
"Okay. Sure glad I got to meet you. G'night."
"Good night."
Heidel crossed the street and hurried on.
A vehicle drew up beside him.
"Hey! You're Dr. H, aren't you?" a man called.
He turned.
"That's right."
"I thought I saw you at the corner back that way. Went round the block so I could get a good look."
Heidel drew back, away from the vehicle.
"Can I give you a lift to wherever you're going?"
"No thanks. I'm almost there."
"You're sure now?"
"Positive. I appreciate the offer."
"Well, okay. --My name's Wiley."
The man extended his hand out through the window.
"I have grease on my hand. I'll get you dirty," said Heidel; and the man leaned forward, seized his left hand, squeezed it briefly, then drew back into the car.
"Okay. Take it easy, then," he said, and he drove off.
Heidel felt like screaming at the world, telling it to go away and stop touching him.
He ran for the next two blocks. Minutes later, another vehicle slowed when its lights fell upon him, but he averted his face and it passed him by. A man sitting on a porch smoking a pipe waved at him and rose to his feet. He said something, but Heidel ran again and did not hear the words.
Finally, there were greater open spaces between dwellings. Soon the aisle of glow-globes ceased and the stars took on a greater prominence. When the road ended, he continued along the trail, the bulk of the hills now blocking half his prospect.
He did not look back at Italbar as he mounted above it.
Leaning far forward, her knees pressed hard against the plated sides of tile eight-legged kooryab she rode, black hair streaming in the wind, Jackara raced through the hills above Capeville. Far below and to her left, the city crouched beneath its morning umbrella of fog. From over her right shoulder, the risen sun cast shafts down into the mist and made it sparkle.
There, the tall buildings of the city, all of silver, their countless windows taking white fire like gems, the sea beyond them something between purple and blue, clouds like one giant, frothing tidal wave, massed at the city's unguarded back, touched with pink and orange at its crest, there, halfway up the sky, ready to topple through the blue air and shave the entire peninsula from the continent, sinking it full fathom five, to lie forever dead at the ocean's bottom, becoming over the ages the lost Atlantis of Deiba, she dreamed.
Riding, clad in slacks and a short white tunic belted with red, a matching red headband keeping that fluttering hair from her bright blue eyes, Jackara cursed with the foulest oaths of all the races she had known.
Turning her mount and drawing it to a halt, so that it reared and hissed before it settled panting, she glared down at the city.
"Burn, damn you! Burn!"
But no flames leaped to do her bidding.
She drew her unregistered laser pistol from a holster beneath her garment and triggered it to cut through the trunk of a small tree. The tree stood for a moment, swayed, then fell with a crash that dislodged pebbles and sent them rolling down the hill. The _kooryab_ started at this, but she controlled it with her knees and a soft word.
Reholstering her pistol, she continued to stare at the city, and unspoken curses were there in her eyes.
It was not just Capeville and the brothel in which she worked. No. It was the whole of the CL that she hated, hated with a passion only exceeded perhaps by that of one other being. Let the other girls visit the churches of their choice on this, a holiday. Let them eat candy and grow fat. Let them entertain their true loves. Jackara rode the hills and practiced with her gun.
One day--and she hoped that that day came during her lifetime--there _would_ be fire, and blood and death within the blazing hearts of bombs and rockets. She kept herself as prepared as a bride for that day. When it came, she desired only the opportunity to die in its name, killing something for it.