went between the wandering houses. The nerves tightened up in Kirk's belly, and his back felt cold. He looked at his wrist chrono, carefully. There was no sound but the whispering of sand under their feet. Garstang would be watching with the 'scope, but once he was in among the houses he could no longer be seen.

That was almost at once. The tall men walked on with their light swaying stride, so that he had to move at an undignified trot to keep up. The stone houses with their high roofs closed in behind him. This dark and brooding town ill accorded with old tales of cluster-kings, he thought. Yet the past held many things.

When they were close to the center of the town, the leader stopped beside a round structure from whose open door came light.

"Will the man from outside enter the dwelling of our lord?"

Kirk breathed a little easier as he went through the door. Apparently there was no truth to the rumors that....

A chopping blow took him on the back of the head. He fell forward. He was stunned but not unconscious, and he tried to roll over, thrashing out blindly with his fists and feet. But at once there were men on top of him, heavy solid men grinding his face into the gritty carpet, pounding the wind out of him, holding him down.

In a minute his hands were tied tight behind him and his ankles lashed together. They cut the straps of the porto and pulled it off him. Then, like a sack of meal, he was dragged to the wall and propped upright.

In an absolute fury of rage, he spat blood out of his mouth and looked up dizzily into the light.

There were three or four men here, obviously not natives of this planet, but he did not pay much attention to them. The one he looked at stood apart, directly in front of Kirk, a lean dark iron-faced man with very alert eyes, and the easy, dangerous manner of one who enjoys his work because he is so admirably well fitted for it, as a cat enjoys hunting.

He said to Kirk, "My name is Tauncer."

Kirk nodded. He looked with feral interest at this most famous of Solleremos' agents. "I should be flattered, shouldn't I?"

Tauncer shrugged. "We all do what we can, Commander. Each in his own way."

"Well," said Kirk. "What do you want?"

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