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We need him too much for that. Let me help…

Need that? A Terranan
—

That voice sounded like the redhead in the Sky Harbor Hotel, but when Kerwin whirled, half expectingto find that the man had somehow made his way into the very room, there was no one there and thebodiless voices were gone

He leaned forward, staring into the crystal. And then, as it seemed to expand, to fill the room, he saw theface of a woman.

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For a moment, because of the glint of red hair, he thought it was the small, pixielike girl they had called

Taniquel. Then he realized that he had never seen her before.

Her hair was red, but a pale red, almost more golden than red; she was small and slender, and her facewas round, childish, unmarred. She could not, Kerwin thought, be very far out of her teens. She lookedstraight at him, with wide, dreamy grey eyes that seemed to look, unfocused,
 
through
 
him.

I have faith in you
, she said somehow, wordlessly, or at least the words seemed to reverberate insidehis head,
 
and we have such need of you that I have convinced the others. Come
 
.

Kerwin’s hands clenched on the table.

“Where?
 
Where
 
?” he shouted.

But the crystal was blank and blue again, and the strange girl was gone; he heard his own cry echofoolishly on empty walls.

Had she ever been there? Kerwin wiped his forehead, damp with cold sweat. Had his own wishfulthinking tried to give him an answer? He swept the crystal into his pocket. He couldn’t waste time on this. He had to pack for space, dispose of his gear, and leave Darkover, never to return. Leave his dreamsbehind, and the last of his youth. Leave behind all those vague memories and teasing dreams, thosewill-o‘-the-wisps that had led him halfway to destruction. Make a new life for himself somewhere, asmaller life somehow, bounded by the KEEP OUT sign of the old dead hopes and longings, make a lifesomehow out of the fragments of his old aspirations, with bitterness and resignation…

And then something rose up inside Jeff Kerwin, something that was not the meek CommTerraemployee, something that stood up on its hind legs and pawed the ground and said, cold and clean andunmistakable:
 
No
 
.

That wasn’t the way it was going to be. The
 
Terranan
 
could never force him to go.

Who the hell do they think they are, anyway, those damned intruders on our world?

The voice from the crystal? No, Kerwin thought, the inner voice of his own mind, flatly rejecting thecommands of the Legate. This was
 
his
 
world, and he’d be damned if they were going to force him off it.

He realized that he was moving automatically, without thought, like a long-buried other self. Kerwinwatched himself moving around the room, discarding most of his gear; he thrust half a dozen minorkeepsakes into a pocket, left the rest where they were. He put the matrix on its chain around his neckand tucked it carefully out of sight. He started to unbutton his uniform, then shrugged, left it the way itwas, but went to a wardrobe and got out the embroidered Darkovan cloak he had bought his first night in

Thendara, drew it around his shoulders and did up the fastenings. He glanced briefly in the mirror. Then,without a backward glance, he walked out of his quarters, the thought dimly skittering across the surfaceof his mind that he would never see them again.

He walked through the central living rooms of bachelor quarters, took a short cut through the deserteddining commons. At the outer door of the section he paused; a clear and unmistakable inner voice said,
no, not now, wait
 
.

Not understanding, but riding the hunch—what else was there to do?—he sat down and waited. He felt,

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oddly, not impatient at all. The waiting had the same wary certainty of a cat at a mousehole; a secureness,

a—a
 
rightness
 
. He sat quietly, hands clasped, whistling a monotonous little tune to himself. He did not feel restless. Half an hour, an hour, an hour and a half went by; his muscles began to feel cramped and he shifted automatically to relieve the tension, but he went on waiting, without knowing what he was waiting for.

Now.

He stood up and stepped out into the deserted corridor. As he walked swiftly down the hall, he foundhimself wondering if there would be a pickup order out for him if he should be missed from his quarters. He supposed so. He had no plans, except the very basic one of refusing to obey the deportation order. This meant he must somehow get out, not only of the HQ, but of the Spaceport Zone and the entire Terran Zone unobserved. What would come after he did not know and, strangely, did not care.

Still riding the strange hunch, he turned out of the main corridor where he might meet off-dutyacquaintances heading for the quarters, and went toward a little-used freight elevator. He told himself thathe ought, at least, to take off the Darkovan cloak; if anyone met him wearing it, inside the HQ, it wouldlead to question and discovery. He put up his hand to unfasten the clasps and sling it over his arm; backin uniform, he’d just be another invisible employee walking in the halls.

No.

Clear, unmistakable, the negative warning in his mind. Puzzled, he dropped his hand and let the cloak be. He emerged from the elevator into a narrow walkway and paused to orient himself; this part of thebuilding was not familiar to him. There was a door at the end of the walkway; he pushed it open andemerged into a crowded lobby. What looked like a whole shift of maintenance workers in uniform wasmilling around, getting ready to go off duty. And a large group of Darkovans in their colorful dress andlong cloaks were making their way through the crowd toward the outer door and the gates. Kerwin, atfirst taken aback by the crowd, realized quickly that no one was paying the slightest attention to him. Slowly, unobtrusively, he made his way through the crowd, and managed to join the group of Darkovans. None of them took the slightest notice of him. He supposed they were some formal delegation from thecity, one of the committees that helped administer the Trade City. They formed a random stream in thecrowd, going in their own special direction, and Kerwin, at the edge of the group, streamed along withthem, into the street, outside the HQ, through the gateway that led out of the enclosure. The Space-forceguards there gave them, and Kerwin, only the most cursory of glances.

Outside the gate the group of Darkovans began to break up into twos and threes, talking, lingering. Oneof the men gave Kerwin a polite look of non-recognition and inquiry. Kerwin murmured a formal phrase,turned quickly and walked at random into a side street.

The Old Town was already shadowed with dimness. The wind blew chill, and Kerwin shivered a little inthe warm cloak. Where was he going, anyhow?

He hesitated at the corner of the street where, once in a restaurant, he had faced Ragan down. Shouldhe seek out the place and try and see if the little man could be useful to him?

Again the clear, unmistakable
 
no
 
from that inner mentor. Kerwin wondered if he was imagining things,rationalizing. Well, it didn’t matter much, one way or the other, and it had gotten him out of the HQ; sowhatever the hunch he was riding, he’d stay with it a while. He looked back at the HQ building, already

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half wiped out in the thickening mist, then turned his back on it and it was like the slamming of a mental

door. That was the end of that. He had cut himself adrift and he would not look back again.

A curious peace seemed to descend over him with this decision. He turned his back on the knownstreets and began to walk quickly away from the Trade City area.

He had never come quite so far into the Old Town, even on that day he had sought out the old matrixmechanic, the day that had ended with her death. Down here the buildings were old, built of that heavytranslucent stone, chill againt the blowing wind. At this hour there were few people in the streets; nowand then a solitary walker, a workman in one of the cheap imported climbing jackets, walked head downagainst the wind; once a woman carried in a curtained sedan chair on the shoulders of four men; once,moving noiselessly in the lee of the building, a silver-mantled, gliding nonhuman regarded him withuninvolved malice.

A group of street gamins in ragged smocks, barefoot, moved toward him as if to pester him for alms;suddenly they drew back, whispered to each other, and ran off. Was it the ceremonial cloak, the red hairthey could see beneath the hood?

The swift mist was thickening; now snow began to fall, soft thick heavy flakes; and Kerwin becamequickly aware that he was hopelessly lost in the unfamiliar streets. He had been walking almost atrandom, turning corners on impulse, with that strange, almost dreamish sensation that it didn’t matterwhich way he went. Now, in a great and open square, so unfamiliar that he had not the slightest idea howfar he had come, he stopped, shaking his head, coming up to normal consciousness.

Good God, where am I? And where am I going? I can’t wander around all night in a snowstorm,even wearing a Darkovan cloak over my uniform! I should have started out by looking for a placeto hide out for a while; or I should have tried to get right out of the city before I was missed!

Dazed, he looked around. Maybe he should try and get back to the HQ, take whatever punishment wascoming. No. That way lay exile. He had already settled that. But the curious hunch that had been guidinghim all this way seemed to be running out, and now it deserted him entirely. He stood staring this way andthat, wiping snowflakes from his eyes and trying to decide which way he should go. Down one side of thesquare there was a row of little shops, all fast-shuttered against the night. Kerwin mopped his wet facewith a wet sleeve, staring through the thick snow at a solitary house; a mansion, really, the town house ofsome nobleman. Inside there were lights, and he could see, through the translucent walls, dark blurredforms. Drawn almost magnetically to the lights, Kerwin crossed the square and stood just outside thehalf-open gate. Inside was a flight of shallow steps, which led to a great carved door. He stood there,fighting the invisible pull of that door.

What am I doing? I can’t just walk in there, into a strange house! Have I gone completely crazy?

No. This is the place. They’re waiting for me.

He told himself that was madness; but his steps carried him on, automatically, toward the gate. He put ahand on it, and when nothing happened, he opened it and went through and stood on the lower step. Andthere he stopped, sanity and madness fighting in him, and the worst part of it was, Kerwin wasn’t quitesure which was which.

You’ve come this far. You can’t stop now.

You’re being an awful God-damned fool, Jefferson Andrew Kerwin. Get out
—
just turn right

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around and get the hell out of here before you get yourself into something you
really
can’t handle.

Not just something predictable like being slugged and rolled in an alley
 
.

Step by slow step, he went up the sleet-slipperied steps toward the lighted doorway.
 
Too late to turnback now
 
. He grasped the handle, noticing peripherally the design, in the shape of a phoenix. He twistedit slowly, and the door opened and Kerwin stepped inside.

Miles away, in the Terran Zone, a man had gone to a communicator and requested a specially codedpriority circuit to speak with the Legate.

“Your bird’s flown,” he said.

The Legate’s face on the screen was composed and smug.

“I thought so. Push hard enough and they’d have to make a move. I knew they wouldn’t let us deport

him.”

“You sound awfully sure, sir. He sounds like an independent cuss. Maybe he just walked off on his own;

went over the wall. He wouldn’t be the first. Not even the first one named Kerwin.”

The Legate shrugged. “We’ll soon find out.”

“You want him tailed any further, then?”

The answer was immediate. “No! Hell, no! These people are nobody’s fools! In the state he was in hemight not have spotted a tail; it’s for damn sure
 
they
 
would. Let him go; no strings. It’s their move. Now —we wait.”

“We’ve been doing that for more than twenty years,” the man grumbled.

“We’ll wait twenty more if we have to. But the catalyst’s working now; somehow I don’t think it will be

that long. Wait and see.”

The screen went blank. After a while the Legate pushed another button and hit a special access codemarked KERWIN.

He looked satisfied.