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good head for cargo stats, manifest numbers and piloting equations. After checking himself three times, he put the card in his belt-pocket with infinite care and tried to relax in the too-large, Terran-sized seat, hands tightly folded on his knee.

    It had been a weary long trip from Liad to University—three Jumps, which he had taken, recklessly, one after the other, pushing the reactions and the stamina of a master pilot to their limits. And at the end of that reckless journey, this endless day of searching, campus to campus, through a bureaucracy that spanned an entire planet—

    To this place. Very soon now he would see Anne—speak to her. He would—for the last time in his life—break with the Code and put his melant'i at peril.

    He would speak to one to whom he had given nubiath'a. The heart recoiled, no matter that necessity existed. Necessity did exist—his own, and shame to him, that he use his necessity to disturb the peace of one who was not of his clan.

    A tone sounded in the little cab, and a yellow light flashed on the board. "Approaching Quad S. Prepare to disembark," a man's pleasant voice instructed him.

    Er Thom slid forward on the seat as the surrey slowed. He was on his feet the instant the door slid open and had run halfway up the automated stairs by the time it closed behind him.

    The local sun was setting, bathing the tall buildings that enclosed the quad in pale orange light. Er Thom stopped and looked about him, spinning slowly on one heel, suddenly and acutely aware of his empty hands. It was improper of him to go giftless to an evening call; he had not thought.

    There must be shops , he thought. Mustn't there?

    A group of four tall persons was crossing the Quad a few yards to his right. He stretched his legs to catch them, fishing in his belt for the plastic card.

    His dilemma produced a slight altercation among three of his potential aides. It seemed that there were several ways to arrive at the dwelling indicated; the question addressed was which of several was the "best" way. Er Thom stood to one side, having rescued his card from one gesticulating well-wisher, and tried to cultivate patience. He heard a low laugh and turned to look at the fourth member of the party, a shortish Terran male—though still a head taller than Er Thom—with merry dark eyes and a disreputable round face.

    "Listen to that bunch and you'll get lost for sure," he said, dismissing his companions with a flutter of his fingers. "I live a couple halls down from your friend's place. I don't guarantee it's the best way, but if you follow me, I can get you there."

    "Thank you," said Er Thom, with relief. "And—I regret the inconvenience—if there would be a shop selling wine?"

    "Oh, sure," said his guide, turning left. "There's the Block Deli, right where we get the lift. Step this way, and keep an eye out for falling philosophers."

Chapter Four
Relations between Liad and Terra have never been cordial, though there have been periods of lesser and greater strain. Liad prefers to thrash Terra roundly in the field of galactic trade—a terrain it shaped—while Terra gives birth to this and that Terran-supremacist faction, whose mischief seems always to stop just short of actual warfare.

    —From "The Struggle for Fair Trade",
doctoral dissertation of Indrew Jorman,
published by Archive Press, University

     

    THE SURREY'S ding woke her; she got a grip on her briefcase and went up the autostairs in a fog.

    On the Quad, the sharp night breeze roused her and she stopped to stretch cramped leg and back muscles, staring up into a sky thick with stars. It was a very different night sky than Proziski's, with its gaggle of moons. She and Er Thom had counted those moons one night, lying naked next to each other on the roof of the unfinished Mercantile Building, the end of a bolt of trade-silk serving as coverlet and mattress. She liked to think Shan had come from that night.

    She shook her head at the laden sky