for drug materials. At least eight different drug plants, all of them worth as much as uranium. More, in some ways."

"Mm." The ex-agent picked up a handful of brown leaves from a table. "This, for instance. It's a distant relation of coca. The natives chew it for fun, but it's the source of a first class anesthetic. And this. If your kidneys ever break down, the doctors use this stuff to keep you alive. Kerosin, it's called. Anyway, you'll find price lists and descriptive material in the files. You've worked for Mallor before, haven't you?"

"Yes," Grady said. "I put in three years on Tengo, in Port City. Then I quit for a while. Had something else to do."

"Oh? What?"

Grady's face cracked into a slight grin. "Little bit of an argument. The Mutiny. I joined the local army, if you could call it that. I had my own gun, so they made me a major on the spot."

"The Mutiny?" The Berenice's mate had heard of that brief and savage war, in which a handful of settlers and local militia had beaten off the troops of a powerful state, and had actually won. The mate hastily readjusted his opinion of Grady upward. A trader's agent was one thing; a man who had fought through the Mutiny was something more than that. The mate opened his mouth to ask more of the story; but the Berenice's air-horn cut him off with a long wail.

"Take-off in twenty minutes," the mate said, as the noise subsided. "You ready, Jansen?"

The ex-agent nodded, and shook hands with Grady. "Good luck," he said, and started for the ship, the mate following.

"Yeah," Grady said, closing the door of the agency. He had completely put the Berenice out of his mind by the time the roar of her departure split the wet air of Pru'ut. He was, in fact, well on his way to settling down as a permanent resident by that time.

A year later, the Berenice had called twice, and her captain and mate were calling Grady by his first name. He had also acquired a native woman, who, in accordance with one of the innumerable customs, could not call him by name at all. She referred to him as Kotasa, which is a sort of title. He, also in accordance with customs, called her Shallra, which was not her name, but that of her mother. Grady was also extremely careful not to speak to her mother at all, because of another custom.

Grady—Kotasa to his wife, and 

 Prev. P 2/7 next