V

During the first five minutes Illyria returned to me, and it was as if I had never been gone. Filtered through the forest's mists, the sunlight came rose and amber; dewdrops glistened on the leaves and the grasses; the air was cool, smelled of damp earth and decomposing vegetation, which is sweet. A small yellow bird circled my head, lighted on my shoulder, perched there for a dozen paces, was gone. I stopped to cut myself a walking stick, and the smell of the white wood took me back to Ohio and the creek where I'd cut willows to fashion whistles, soaking the wands overnight, tapping the bark with the handle of my knife to loosen it, near the place where the strawberries grew. And I found some wild berries, huge and purple, crushed them between my fingers and licked the juice, which was tart. A crested lizard, bright as a tomato, stirred sluggishly atop his rock and moved to sit on the toe of my boot as I was doing this. I touched his crown, then pushed him away and moved on. When I looked back, his salt-and-pepper eyes met my own. I walked beneath forty- and fifty-foot trees, and moisture occasionally dripped down upon me. Birds began to awaken, and insects. A big-bellied green whistler began his ten-minute song of deflation on a limb above me. Somewhere to my left, a friend or relative joined in. Six purple _cobra de capella_ flowers exploded from the ground and emitted hisses as they swayed upon their stalks, their petals rippling like flags, their heavy perfumes released with bomb-like efficiency. But I wasn't startled, for it was as if I had never gone away.

I walked on and the grasses diminished. The trees were larger now, ranging from fifty to seventy feet, with numerous boulders lying among them. A good place for an ambush; likewise, a good place to take cover from one.

The shadows were deep, and para-monkeys chanted overhead while a legion of clouds advanced from the west. The low sun tickled their quarters with flame, shot shafts of light through the leaves. Vines that clung to some of the giants held blossoms like silver candelabra, and the air about them hinted of temples and incense. I forded a pearly stream and crested water snakes swam beside me, hooting like owls. They were quite poisonous, hut very friendly.

From the other bank, the ground began to slope upward, gently at first; and, as I advanced, some subtle change seemed to come over the world. There was nothing objective to which I could relate it, only a feeling that the decks of order had been slightly riffled.

The coolness of morning and the wood did not depart as the day advanced. Rather, it seemed to deepen. There was a definite chill in the air; and later it became an almost clammy feeling. Still, the sky was more than half-filled with clouds by then, and the ionization that precedes a storm often gives rise to such feelings.

When I stopped to eat, sitting with my back against the bole of an ancient mark-tree, I frightened a pandrilla who had been digging among its roots. As soon as he began to flee, I knew that something was wrong.

I filled my mind with the desire that he return, and laid it upon him.

He halted then in his flight and turned and regarded me. Slowly, he approached. I fed him a cracker and tried to see through his eyes as he ate it.

Fear, recognition, fear ... There had been a moment of misplaced panic.

It didn't belong.

I released him and he remained, content to eat my crackers. His initial response had been too unusual to dismiss, however. I feared what it indicated.

I was entering enemy territory.

I finished eating and moved on. I descended into a foggy vale, and when I left it the mists were still with me. The sky was almost completely overcast. Small animals fled before me, and I made no effort to change their minds. I walked on, and my breath was white, moist wings now. I avoided two power-pulls. If I were to use one, it could betray my position to another sensitive.

What is a power-pull? Well, it's a part of the makeup of everything with an electromagnetic field. Every world has numerous, shifting points in its gravitational matrix. There, certain machines or specially talented people can plug in and act as switchboards, batteries, conderisors. Power-pull is a handy term for such a nexus of energy, a term used by people who can employ it in such a fashion. I didn't want to use one until I was certain as to the nature of the enemy, however, for all Namebearers normally possess this capability.

So I let the fog dampen my garments and take the sheen from my boottops, when I could have dried out. I walked with my staff in my left hand, my right one free to draw and fire.

Nothing attacked me, though, as I advanced. In fact, after a time no living thing crossed my path.

I hiked until evening, making perhaps twenty miles that day. The dampness was all-pervasive, but there was no rain. I located a small cave in the foothills I was then negotiating, cast my flimsy--a ten by ten sheet of tough plastic material, three molecules in thickness--for insulation against the dirt and some of the dampness, ate a dry meal and slept, my gun near my hand.

The morning was as bleak as the night and the day before, and the fog had thickened. I suspected an intent behind it, and I moved cautiously. It struck me as just a bit too melodramatic. If he thought he was going to shake me up with shadow, mist, chill and the alienation of a few of my creatures, he was wrong. Discomfort just irritates me, makes me angry and fixes my determination to get at its source and deal with it as quickly as possible.

I slopped my way through much of the second day, topped the hills and began my downward trek. It was along about evening that I picked up a companion.

A light appeared off to my left and moved parallel to my own course. It hovered anywhere from two to eight feet above the ground, and its color varied from pale yellow through orange to white. It could have been anywhere from twenty to a hundred feet away at any given time. Occasionally, it disappeared; always, it returned. A will-o-the-wisp, sent to lure me into some crevass or marshy bog? Probably. Still, I was curious, I admired its persistence--and it was nice to have company.

"Good evening," I said. "I'm coming to kill whoever sent you, you know.

"But then you might just be marsh gas," I added. "In which case, you may dismiss my last remark.

"Either way," I went on, "I'm not in the mood to be led astray just now. You can take a coffee break if you'd like."

Then I began whistling _It's a Long Way to Tipperary_. The thing continued to pace me. I stopped and sheltered beneath a tree, to light a cigarette. I stood there and smoked it. The light hovered about fifty feet away, as if waiting. I tried to touch it with my mind, but it was as if there was nothing there. I drew my gun and thought better of it, reholstered it. I finished my cigarette, crushed it out, moved ahead.

Again, the light moved with me.

About an hour later, I made camp in a small clearing. I wrapped myself in my flimsy, my back against a rock. I built a small fire and heated some soup I'd brought along. The light wouldn't carry far on a night like this.

The will-o-the-wisp hovered just outside the circle of firelight. "Care for a cup of coffee?" I asked it. There was no reply, which was a good thing. I had only one cup with me.

After I'd finished eating, I lit a cigar and let the fire go down to embers. I puffed my cigar and wished for stars. The night was soundless about me, and the chill was reaching for my backbone. It had already seized my toes and was gnawing on them. I wished I'd thought to bring a flask of brandy.

My fellow traveler stood vigil, unmoving, and I stared back at him. If it wasn't a natural phenomenon, it was there to spy on me. Dared I sleep? I dared.

When I awoke, my chrono showed me that an hour and a quarter had passed. Nothing had changed. Not forty minutes later, either, nor two hours and ten minutes after that, when I awoke again.

I slept out the rest of the night and found it waiting in the morning.

This day was like the previous one, cold and blank. I broke camp and moved on, reckoning that I was about a third of the way to my destination.

Suddenly, there was a new development. My companion moved from my left and drifted slowly ahead. It turned right then and hovered, about sixty feet before me. By the time I reached that spot, it had moved on, anticipating my path.

That was a thing I didn't like. It was as though the guiding intelligence were mocking me, saying, "Look here, old boy, I know where you're headed and how you intend getting there. Why don't you let me make the way a bit easier?" It was a successful mock, too, for it made me feel like a complete fool. There were several things I could do about it, but I didn't feel like doing them yet.

So I followed. I followed till lunchtime, when it politely halted until I was quite finished; till dinnertime, when it did the same.

Shortly thereafter, however, the light again changed its behavior. It drifted off to the left and vanished. I stopped and stood still for a moment, for I'd grown used to it. Was I supposed to have become so conditioned to following it all day that fatigue and habit would combine to lead me after it now, off my intended path? Perhaps.

I wondered how far it would lead me if I gave it the opportunity.

I decided that twenty minutes of walking after it would be quite enough. I loosened my pistol in its holster and waited for it to come again.

It did. When it repeated its previous performances, I turned and followed. It hurried ahead, waited for me to catch up, hurried on.

After about five minutes, a light rain began to fall. Though the darkness deepened, I could see without using my hand torch. Soon I was soaked all the way through. I cursed and sloughed along, shivering.

Approximately half a mile further along, wetter, colder, darker the day, stronger still the feeling of alienation, I was left alone. The light went out. I waited, but it did not return.

Carefully, I made my way to the place where I had last seen it, circling in from the right, gun in hand, searching with my eyes and my mind.

I brushed against a dry tree-limb and heard it snap.

"Stop! For the love of God! Don't!"

I threw myself to the ground and rolled.

The cry had come from right beside me. I covered that area from a distance of twelve feet.

Cry? Had it been a truly physical sound, or something within my mind? I wasn't certain.

I waited.

Then, so softly that I wasn't certain how I was hearing it, there came to me a sound of sobbing. Soft sounds are difficult to pinpoint, and this was no exception. I turned my head slowly, from right to left, saw no one.

"Who is it?" I asked in a shrill whisper, for these, too, are without direction.

No answer. But the sobbing continued. Reaching out with my mind, I felt pain and confusion, nothing more.

"Who is it?" I repeated.

There was silence, then, "Frank?" said the voice.

This time I decided to wait. I let a minute go by, then said my name.

"Help me," came the reply.

"Who are you? Where are you?"

"Here ..."

And the answers came into my mind, and the nape of my neck crawled and my hand tightened on the pistol.

"Dango! The Capel Knife!"

I knew then what had happened, but I didn't have guts enough to turn on my torch and take a good look. I didn't need to, though.

My will-o-the-wisp chose that moment to return.

It drifted past me, rose high, higher, brightness increasing in intensity to a level far beyond anything it had exhibited earlier. It hovered at a height of fifteen or twenty feet and blazed like a flare. Below it stood Dango. He had no choice but to stand.

He was rooted to the spot.

His lean, triangular face bore a long, black beard and flowing hair that twined away among his limbs, his leaves. His eyes were dark and sunken and wretched. The bark that was a part of him bore insect holes, birddroppings and char-marks of numerous small fires about the base. I saw then that blood dripped from the limb I had broken as I'd passed him by.

I rose, slowly.

"Dango ..." I said.

"They're gnawing at my feet!" he told me.

"... I'm sorry." I lowered the gun, almost dropped it.

"Why didn't he let me stay dead?"

"Because once you were my friend, and then you were my enemy," I said. "You knew me, well."

"Because of you?" The tree swayed, as if reaching after me. He began to curse me, and I stood there and listened as the rain mingled with his blood and soaked into the ground. We had been partners in a joint venture one time, and he'd tried to cheat me. I'd brought charges, he was acquitted and tried to kill me afterwards. I put him in the hospital, back on Earth, and he'd died in an auto accident a week after his discharge. He would have killed me if he'd gotten the chance-- with a knife, I know. But I never gave him the chance. You might sort of say I helped his bad luck along when it came to the accident. I knew he'd never rest until he'd nailed me or was dead, and I didn't feel like getting nailed.

The raking light made his features look ghastly. He had the complexion of a mushroom and the eyes of an evil cat. His teeth were broken and there was a festering sore on his left cheek. The back of his head was joined with the tree, his shoulders merged with it and there were two branches which might contain his arms. From the waist down he was tree.

"Who did it?" I asked.

"The big green bastard. Pei'an... ." he said. "Suddenly, I was here. I don't understand. There was an accident ..."

"I'll get him," I said. "I'm going after him now. I'm going to kill him. Then I'll get you out--"

"No! Don't go!"

"It's the only way, Dango."

"You don't understand what it's like," he said. "I can't wait... . Please."

"It may only take a few days, Dango."

"... And he may get you instead. Then it'll be never. Christ! How it hurts! I'm sorry about that deal, Frank. Believe me... . Please!"

I looked down at the ground and up at the light.

I raised the gun and lowered it.

"I can't kill you any more," I said.

He bit his lip and the blood ran down his chin and into his beard and the tears came out of his eyes. I looked away from his eyes.

I stumbled backwards and began mumbling in Pei'an. Only then did I realize I was near a power-pull. I could feel it suddenly. And I grew taller and taller, and Frank Sandow grew smaller and smaller, and when I shrugged the thunders rumbled. When I raised my left hand they roared. When I drew it down to my shoulder the flash that followed blinded me and the shock raised my hair upon my head.

... I was alone with the smells of ozone and smoke, there, before the charred and splintered thing that had been Dango the Knife. Even the will-o-the-wisp was gone now. The rain came down in torrents and laid the smells to rest.

I staggered back in the direction from which I had come, my boots making sucking sounds in the mud, my clothes trying to crawl under my skin.

Somehow, somewhere--I don't remember exactly--I slept.

Of all the things a man may do, sleep probably contributes most to keeping him sane. It puts brackets about each day. If you do something foolish or painful today, you get irritated if somebody mentions it, today. If it happened yesterday, though, you can nod or chuckle, as the case may be. You've crossed through nothingness or dream to another island in Time. How many memories can he summoned up in a single instant? Many, it would seem. Actually, though, they're only a small fraction of those which exist, somewhere. And the longer you've been around, the more of them you have. So, once I have slept, there are many things which come to aid me when I wish to anesthetize a particular occurrence. This may sound callous. It is not. I do not mean that I live without pain for things gone by, without guilt. I mean that over the centuries I have developed a mental reflex. When I have been swamped emotionally, I sleep. When I awaken, thoughts of other days come forth, fill my head. After a time, memory the vulture circles closer and closer, then descends upon the thing of pain. It dismembers it, gorges itself upon it, digests it with the past standing to witness. I suppose it is a thing called perspective. I have seen many persons die. In many fashions. I have never been unmoved. But sleep gives memory a chance to rev its engine and hand me back my head each day. For I have also seen people live, and I have looked upon the colors of joy, sorrow, love, hate, satiation, peace.

I found her in the mountains one morning, miles from anywhere, and her lips were blue and her fingers were frostbitten. She was wearing a tiger-striped pair of leotards and she was curled into a ball beside a scrubby little bush. I put my jacket around her and left my mineral bag and my tools on a rock, and I never did recover them. She was delirious, and it seemed I heard her say the name "Noel" several times while I was carrying her back to my vehicle. She had some bad bruises and a lot of minor cuts and abrasions. I took her to a clinic where they treated her and kept her overnight. The following morning I went to see her and learned that she'd refused to supply her identity. Also, she seemed unable to supply any money. So I paid her bill and asked her what she was going to do, and she didn't know that either. I offered to put her up at the cottage I was renting and she accepted. For the first week, it was like living in a haunted house. She never talked unless I asked her a question. She prepared meals for me and kept the place clean and spent the rest of the time in her room, with the door closed. The second week she heard me picking at an old mandolin--the first time I'd touched the thing in months--and she came out and sat across the living room from me and listened. So I kept playing, for hours longer than I'd intended, just to keep her there, because it was the only thing in over a week that had evoked any sort of response. When I laid it aside, she asked me if she could try it, and I nodded. She crossed the room, picked it up, bent over and began to play. She was far from a virtuoso, but then so was I. I listened and brought her a cup of coffee, said "Good night" and that was it. The next day, though, she was a different person. She'd combed the tangles out of her dark hair and trimmed it. Much of the puffiness was gone from beneath her pale eyes. She talked to me at breakfast, about everything from the weather, the news reports, my mineral collection, music, antiques to exotic fishes. Everything excepting herself. I took her places after that: restaurants, shows, the beach--everywhere but the mountains. About four months went by like this. Then one day I realized I was beginning to fall in love with her. Of course, I didn't mention it, though she must have seen it. Hell, I didn't really know anything about her, and I felt awkward. She might have a husband and six kids somewhere. She asked me to take her dancing. I did, and we danced on a terrace under the stars until they closed the place down, around four in the morning. The next day, when I rose at the crack of noon, I was alone. On the kitchen table there was a note that said: _Thank you. Please do not look for me. I have to go back now. I love you_. It was, of course, unsigned. And that's all I know about the girl without a name.

When I was around fifteen years old, I found a baby starling beneath a tree while I was mowing the lawn in our back yard. Both its legs were broken. At least, I surmised this, because they stuck out at funny angles from its body and it sat on its backside with its tail feathers bent way up. When I crossed its field of vision, it threw its head back and opened its beak. I bent down and saw that there were ants all over it, so I picked it up and brushed them off. Then I looked for a place to put it. I decided on a bushel basket lined with freshly cut grass. I set the thing on our picnic table on the patio under the maple trees. I tried an eyedropper to get some milk down its throat, but it just seemed to choke on it. I went back to mowing the lawn. Later that day, I looked in on it and there were five or six big black beetles down in the grass with it. Disgusted, I threw them out. The next morning, when I went out with milk and an eyedropper, there were more beetles. I cleaned house once again. Later that day, I saw a huge dark bird perched on the edge of the basket. She went down inside, and after a moment flew away. I kept watching, and she returned three times within the half hour. Then I went out and looked into the basket and saw more beetles. I realized that she'd been hunting them, bringing them to it, trying to feed it. It wasn't able to eat, however, so she just left them there in the basket. That night a cat found it. There were only a few feathers and some blood among the beetles when I went out with my eyedropper and some milk the next morning.

There is a place. It is a place where broken rocks ring a red sun. Several centuries ago, we discovered a race of arthropod-like creatures called _Whilles_, with whom we could not deal. They rejected friendly overtures on the parts of every known intelligent race. Also, they slew our emissaries and sent their remains back to us, missing a few pieces here and there. When first we contacted them, they possessed vehicles for travel within their own solar system. Shortly thereafter, they developed interstellar travel. Wherever they went, they killed and they stole and then beat it back home. Perhaps they didn't realize the size of the interstellar community at that time, or perhaps they didn't care. They guessed right if they thought it would take an awfully long time to reach an accord when it came to declaring war on them. There is actually very little precedent for interstellar war. The Pei'ans are about the only ones who remember any.. So the attacks failed, what remained of our forces were withdrawn, and we began to bombard the planet. The _Whilles_ were, however, further along technologically than we'd initially thought. They had a near-perfect defense system against missiles. So we withdrew and tried to contain them. They didn't stop their raids, though. Then the Names were contacted, and three worldscapers, Sang-ring of Greldei, Karth'ting of Mordei and I, were chosen by lot to use our abilities in reverse. Later, within the system of the _Whilles_, beyond the orbit of their home world, a belt of asteroids began to collapse upon itself, forming a planetoid. Rock by rock, it grew, and slowly it altered its course. We sat, with our machinery, beyond the orbit of the farthest planet, directing the new world's growth and its slow spiral inward. When the _Whilles_ realized what was happening, they tried to destroy it. But it was too late. They never asked for mercy, and none of them tried to flee. They waited, and the day came. The orbits of the two worlds intersected, and now it is a place where broken rocks ring a red sun. I stayed drunk for a week after that.

Once I collapsed in a desert, while trying to walk from my damaged vehicle to a small outpost of civilization. I had been walking for four days, without water for two, and my throat felt like sandpaper and my feet were a million miles away. I passed out. How long I lay there, I do not know. Perhaps an entire day. Then, what I thought to be a product of delirium came and crouched beside me. It was purplish in color, with a ruff around its neck and three horny knobs on its lizard-like face. It was about four feet in length and scaly. It had a short tail and there were claws on each of its digits. Its eyes were dark ellipses with nictitating membranes. It carried a long, hollow reed and a small pouch. I still don't know what it was. It regarded me for a few moments, then dashed away. I rolled onto my side and watched it. It poked the reed into the ground and held its mouth over the end, then withdrew the reed, moved on and repeated the activity. About the eleventh time it did it, its cheeks began to bulge like balloons. Then it ran to my side, leaving the reed in place, and it touched my mouth with its forelimb. I guessed what it was trying to indicate and I opened my mouth. Leaning close, slowly, carefully, so as not to waste a drop, it trickled the hot, dirty water from its mouth into my own. Six times it returned to the reed and brought back water, giving it to me in this fashion. Then I passed out again. When I awakened, it was evening and the creature brought me more water. In the morning, I was able to walk to the tube, crouch beside it and draw my fill of liquid. The creature awakened slowly, sluggish in the pre-dawn cold. When it had come around, I took off my chrono and my hunting knife and I emptied my pockets of money and placed these things before it. It studied the items. I pushed them toward it and pointed at the pouch it bore. It pushed them back toward me and made a clicking sound with its tongue. So I touched its forelimb and said thanks in every language that I knew, picked up my stuff and started walking again. I made it into the settlement the following afternoon.

A girl, a bird, a world, a drink of water, and Dango the Knife riven from head to foot.

The cycles of recollection place pain beside thought, sight, sentiment and the always who-what-why? Sleep. the conductor of memory, keeps me sane. More than this I do not know, really. But I did not think I was callous by arising the following morning more intent upon what lay before me than behind.

What it was, was fifty to sixty miles of progressively difficult terrain. The ground was rockier, drier. Leaves possessed sharp, serrate edges.

The trees were different, the animals were different, from what I had left behind. They were parodies of the things in which I had taken such pride. My Midnight Warblers here emitted harsh croaking sounds, the insects all had stings and the flowers stank. There were no straight, tall trees. They were all of them twisted or squat. My gazelle-like leogahs were cripples. Smaller animals snarled at me and ran. Some of the larger ones had to be stared down.

My ears cracked with the increasing altitude and the fog was still with me, but I pushed on, steadily, and I made perhaps twenty-five miles that day.

Two more days, I figured. Perhaps less. And one to do the job.

That night I was awakened by one of the most godawful explosions I'd heard in years. I sat up and listened to the echoes--or perhaps it was only the ringing in my ears. I sat there with my gun in my hand and waited, beneath a large, old tree.

In the northwest, despite the fog, I could see a light. It was a sort of generalized orange glow. It began to spread.

The second explosion was not so loud as the first. Neither was the third or the fourth. By then, however, I had other things to think about.

The ground was trembling beneath me.

I stayed where I was and waited. The shocks increased in intensity.

Judging from the sky, a quarter of the world was on fire.

Since there wasn't much I could do about it at the moment, I reholstered my pistol, sat with my back against the tree and lit a cigarette. Something seemed out of whack. Green Green was sure as hell going to a lot of trouble to impress me when he should have known I wasn't that impressionable. That kind of activity could not be natural in this region, and he was the only one other than myself who was on the scene and able to do it. Why? Was he just saying, "Look, I'm tearing up your world, Sandow. What are you going to do about it?" Was he demonstrating the power of Belion with hopes of frightening me?

I toyed for a moment with the notion of seeking out a power-pull and unleashing the worst electrical storm he'd ever seen, over the entire area, just to show him how impressed I was. But I shelved the idea quickly. I did not want to fight him from a distance. I wanted to meet him face to face and tell him what I thought of him. I wanted to confront him and show myself to him and ask him why he was being such a bloody fool--why my being a homo sap had aroused such a hatred that he'd gone to such lengths to hurt me.

He obviously knew I had already arrived, was there on the world somewhere--else there would have been no will-o-the-wisp to take me to Dango. So I betrayed nothing by what I did next.

I closed my eyes and bowed my head and summoned up the power. I tried to picture him somewhere near the Isle of the Dead, a gloating Pei'an, watching his volcano rise, watching the ashes spew forth like black leaves, watching the lava glow and boil, watching the snakes of sulfur crawl through the heavens--and with the full power of my hatred behind it, I sent forth the message:

"Patience, Green Green. Patience, Gringrin-tharl. Patience. In but a few days, I will be with you for a short time. A short time only."

There was no reply, but then I hadn't expected one.

In the morning, the going was rougher. A black snowfall of ashes descended through the mist. There was still an occasional temblor, and animals fled past me, heading in the opposite direction. They ignored me completely, and I tried to ignore them.

The entire north seemed to be on fire. If it were not that I possess a sense of absolute direction on all my worlds, I would have thought that I was heading into a sunrise. I found it quite disillusioning.

Here was a Pei'an, almost a Name, a member of the most subtle race of avengers who had ever lived; and here he was acting like a clown before the abominable Earthman. Okay, he hated me and he wanted to get me. That was no reason to be sloppy about it and to forget the fine old traditions of his race. The volcano was a childish display of the power I fully expected to meet, eventually. I felt a bit ashamed for him, for such a crude exhibition at this point in the game. Even I, in my brief apprenticeship, had learned sufficient of the fine points of vengeanceship to know better than that. I was beginning to see why he'd flunked his test.

I chewed some chocolate as I walked, putting off lunch-break until later in the afternoon. I wanted to cover sufficient ground so that I'd only have a few hours' hike in the morning. I maintained a steady pace, and the light grew and grew before me, the ashes came more densely down, the ground gave a good shake about once every hour.

Around midday, a wart-bear attacked me. I tried to control it, but I couldn't. I killed it and cursed the man who had made it into what it was.

The fog had let up a good deal by then, but the drifting ash more than compensated. It was a constant twilight through which I walked, coughing. I didn't make good time because of the rearrangements of the terrain, and I added another day to my hiking schedule.

By the time I turned in that night I'd covered a lot of ground, though. I knew I'd reach Acheron before noon of the following day.

I found a dry spot for a campsite, on a small rise with half-buried boulders jutting at odd angles about its crown. I cleaned my equipment, pitched the flimsy, kindled a fire, ate some rations. Then I smoked one of my last cigars, to do my bit for air pollution, and crawled into the sack.

I was dreaming when it happened. The dream eludes me now, save for the impression that it was pleasant at first, then became a nightmare. I remember tossing about on my bed of rushes, then realizing I was awake. I kept my eyes closed and shifted my weight as though moving in my sleep. My hand touched my pistol. I lay there and listened for the sounds of danger. I opened my mind to impressions.

I tasted the smoke and cold ashes that had filled the air. I felt the damp chill in the ground beneath me. I got the impression of someone, something, nearby. Listening, I heard the tiny click of a dislodged stone, somewhere off to my right. Then silence.

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.

Mike Shandon was a real spy, the best one I'd ever employed. I can never think of him without a certain twitch of envy. He was everything I once wished I could be.

He was around two inches taller than me and perhaps twenty-five pounds heavier. His eyes were the color of just-polished mahogany and his hair was black as ink. He was damnably graceful, had a sickeningly beautiful voice and was always dressed to perfection. A farm boy from the breadbasket world Wava, he'd had an itchy heel and expensive tastes. He'd educated himself while being rehabilitated after some antisocial acts. In my youth, you would have said he'd spent his free hours in the prison library while doing time for grand larceny. You don't say it that way any more, but it amounts to the same thing. His rehabilitation was successful, if you judge it by the fact that it was a long time before he got caught again. Of course, he had a lot going for him. So much, in fact, that I was surprised he'd ever been tripped up--though he often said he was born to come in second. He was a telepath, and he had a damn near photographic memory. He was strong and tough and smart and he could hold his liquor and women fell all over him. So I think my certain twitch is not without foundalion.

He'd worked for me for several years before I'd actually met him. One of my recruiters had turned him up and sent him through Sandow Enterprises' Special Executive Training Group (Spy School). A year later he emerged second in his class. Subsequent to that, he distinguished himself when it came to product research, as we call it. His name kept cropping up in classified reports, so one day I decided to have dinner with him,

Sincerity and good manners, that's all I remembered afterwards. He was a born con man.

There are not too many human telepaths around, and telepathically obtained information is not admissable in court. Nevertheless, the ability is obviously valuable.

Valuable as he might have been, however, Shandon was something of a problem. Whatever his earnings, he spent more.

It was not until years after his death that I learned of his blackmail activities. The thing that tripped him up, actually, was his moonlighting.

We knew there was a major security leak at SE. We didn't know how or where, and it took close to five years to find out. By then, Sandow Enterprises was beginning to totter.

We nailed him. It wasn't easy, and it involved four other telepaths. But we cornered him and brought him to trial. I testified at great length, and he was convicted, sentenced and shipped off for more rehabilitation. I undertook three worldscaping jobs then, to keep SE functioning smoothly. We weathered the vicissitudes that followed, but not without a lot of trouble.

... One item of which was Shandon's escape from rehabilitative custody. This was several years later, but word of it spread fast. His trial had been somewhat sensational.

So his name was added to the wanted lists. But the universe is a big place ...

It was near Coos Bay, Oregon, that I'd taken a seaside place for my stay on Earth. Two to three months had seemed in order, as I was there to watch over our merger with a couple North American companies.

Dwelling beside a body of water is tonic for the weary psyche. Sea smells, sea birds, seawrack, sands--alternately cool, warm, moist and dry--a taste of brine and the presence of the rocking, slopping bluegraygreen spitflecked waters, has the effect of rinsing the emotions, bathing the outlook, bleaching the conscience. I walked beside it every morning before breakfast, and again in the evening before retiring. My name was Carlos Palermo, if anybody cared. After six weeks, the place had gotten me to feeling clean and healthy; and what with the mergers, my financial empire was finally coming back into balance.

The place where I stayed was set in a small cove. The house, a white, stucco building with red-tiled roof and an enclosed courtyard behind it, was right by the water. Set in the seaside wall was a black, metal gate, and beyond this lay the beach. To the south, a high escarpment of gray shale; a tangled mass of bushes and trees ended the beach to the north. It was peaceful, I was peaceful.

The night was cool--you could almost say chill. A big, three-quarter moon was working its way down into the west and dripping light onto the water. The stars seemed exceptionally bright. Far out over the heaving bulk of the ocean, a cluster of eight sea-mine derricks blocked starlight. A floating island occasionally reflected moonbeams from off its slick surfaces.

I didn't hear him coming. Apparently he had worked his way down through the brush to the north, waited till I was as near as I was going to be, approached as close as he could and rushed me when I became aware of his presence.

It is easier than you might think for one telepath to conceal himself from another, while remaining aware of the other's position and general activities. It is a matter of "blocking"--imagining a shield around yourself and remaining as emotionally inert as possible.

Admitted, this is rather difficult to do when you hate a man's guts and are stalking him for purposes of killing him. This, probably, is what saved my life.

I cannot really say that I realized there was a vicious presence at my back. It was just that as I took the night air and strolled along the line of the surf, I suddenly became apprehensive. Those nameless thoughts that sometimes run through the back of your head when you awaken for no apparent reason in the middle of a still, warm summer night, lie there awhile wondering what the hell woke you up, and then hear an unusual sound in the next room, magnified by the quiet, electrified by your inexplicable resurrection into a sense of emergency and stomach-squeezing tension--those thoughts raced in an instant, and my toes and fingertips (old anthropoid reflex!) tingled, and the night seemed a shade darker and the sea a home for possible terrors whose sucking tentacles mingled with the wave even then heading toward me; overhead, a line of brightness signified an upper-atmosphere transport which could any moment cease to function and descend like a meteor upon me.

So, when I heard the first, quick crunch of sand behind me, the adrenalin was already there.

I turned quickly, dropping into a crouch. My right foot skidded out behind me as I moved, and I fell to one knee.

A blow to the side of my face sent me sprawling to my right. He was upon me then, and we grappled in the sand, rolling, wrestling for position. Crying out would have been a waste of breath, for there was nobody else around. I tried to scuff sand into his eyes, I tried to knee him in the groin and jab him in any of a dozen painful places. He had been well trained, however, and he outweighed me and seemed faster, too.

Strange as it sounds, we fought for close to five minutes before I realized who he was. We were in the wet sand then, with the surf breaking about us, and he had already broken my nose with a forward smash of his head and snapped two of my fingers when I'd tried for a lock about his throat. The moonlight touched his moist face and I saw that it was Shandon and knew that I would have to kill him to stop him. A knockout would not be good enough. A prison or a hospital would only postpone another encounter. He had to die if I was to live. I imagine his reasoning was the same.

Moments later, something hard and sharp jabbed me in the back, and I wriggled to the left. If a man decides he wants to kill me, I don't much care how I do it to him. Being first is the only thing that matters.

As the surf splashed about my ears and Shandon pushed my head backwards into the water, I groped with my right hand and found the rock.

The first blow glanced off the forearm he had raised in defense. Telepaths have a certain advantage in a fight, because they often know what the other fellow is planning to do next. But it is a terrible thing to know and not be able to do a thing about it. My second blow smashed into his left eyesocket, and he must have seen his death coming because he howled then, like a dog, right before I pulped his temple. I hit him twice again for good measure, pushed him off and rolled away, the rock slipping from my fingers and splashing beside me.

I lay there for a long while, blinking back at the stars, while the surf washed me and the body of my enemy rocked gently, a few feet away.

When I recovered, I searched him, and among other things I found a pistol. It carried a full charge and was in perfect operating condition.

In other words, he'd wanted to kill me with his hands. He had estimated he was able to, and he had preferred risking injury in order to do it that way. He could have nailed me from the shadows, but he had had guts enough to follow the dictates of his hate. He could have been the most dangerous man I had ever faced, if he had used his brains. For this, I respected him. If it had been the other way around, _I_ would have done it the easy way. If the reasons for any violence in which I may indulge are emotional ones, I never let those feelings dictate the means.

I reported the attack, and Shandon lay dead on Earth. Somewhere in Dallas, he had become a strip of tape you could hold in the palm of your hand--all that he ever was or hoped to be--weighing less than an ounce. After thirty days, that too, would be gone.

Weeks later, on the eve of my departure, I stood on the same spot, there on the other side of the Big Pond from Tokyo Bay, and I knew that once you go down in it you do not come again. The reflected stars buckled and twisted, like in warp-drive, and though I did not know it at the time, somewhere a green man was laughing. He had gone fishing in the Bay.

"You stupid son of a bitch," I said.