whose blood had been mixed with his to seal the tribal bond. There was Ahl, whose small son Grady had nursed through a bad week. There were Grady's friends and neighbors and brothers, each with an arrow on the nock for Grady.

"It's a queer thing to happen," Grady said to himself, aloud. The sound of his own voice startled him; he had become so much a Kya that to him a man without a name should not have a voice.

The arrows struck oftener now. Grady saw a small group of men move away, and then return, carrying a short log.

The door, Grady thought. They'll break it down, and come in, with their grave faces and their polite ways, and they'll cut my throat. And it won't matter if I kill one or two or ten of them; they'll do it anyway. They won't hear an argument, because they can't hear me at all, without a name; they won't even hear any noise I make when they finish me off.

The log had begun to beat against the door, with a steady thunder. Grady opened a cabinet, and took out a jar of brown liquid. Quickly he drank it and sat down, his face graying. His head fell forward on his arms, and the book of regulations fell to the floor, atop the unfired rifle.

The Berenice swung outward, riding home to port with an empty hold. The Mallor Company would not be pleased, but there were other jobs. And the mate, sitting across the messroom table from James Grady, put the matter in its simplest terms.

"Just one of those things," the mate said. "You can't be blamed. They'll take another agent without any fuss, I imagine."

"No doubt of it," Grady said. "Can't say I'm glad to leave, though. It was a good place."

"I still don't get it," the mate said. "We came in and found you in the agency, out cold with coca. The door was down, and arrows all over the place. Why didn't they come in and dig a knife into you?"

"Customs and taboos," Grady said. "I took a chance on it, but I was pretty sure I was right. Common sense—by their standards. Man's asleep—his ghost is walking around. If you kill him in his sleep, you free his ghost, which is very bad, very strong magic. So you have to wake him up to kill him. And they couldn't wake me up; I was full of that coca leaf, enough for a week." 

 Prev. P 7/7