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it is not well to say things which are not so."
"I saw it, Citizen! There were men in it, and one of them is here again. He
came looking for me with another man, and I barely escaped him. I'm afraid!"
"There is no cause for fear, only an opportunity to appreciate," Citizen
Germyn said mechanically it was what you told your chil-
dren. But within himself, he was finding it very hard to remain calm. That
word, Wolf it was a destroyer of calm, it was an incitement to panic and
hatred! He remembered Tropile well, and there was Wolf, to be sure. The mere
fact that Citizen Germyn had doubted his
Wolfishness at first was now powerful cause to be doubly convinced of it; he
had postponed the day of reckoning for an enemy of all the world, and there
was enough secret guilt in his recollection to set his own heart thumping.
"Tell me exactly what happened," said Citizen Germyn, in words that the stress
of emotion had already made far less than graceful.
Obediently Gala Tropile said: "I was returning to my home after the evening
meal and
Citizeness Puffin she took me in after Citizen Tropile after my husband was "
"I understand. You made your home with i " her.
"Yes. She told me that two men had come to see me. They spoke badly, she said,
and I
was alarmed. I peered through a window of my own home, and they were there.
One had been in the aircraft I saw! And they flew away with my husband."
"It is a matter of seriousness," Citizen Germyn admitted doubtfully. "So that
then you came to me?"
"Yes, but they saw me, Citizen! And I think they followed. You must protect
me, I have no one else!"
"If they be Wolf," Germyn said calmly, "we will raise hue and cry against
them. Now, will the Citizeness remain here? I go forth to see these men."
There was a graceless hammering on the door.
"Too late!" cried Gala Tropile in panic. "They i i" are here!
Citizen Germyn went through the ritual of greeting, of deprecating the
ugliness and poverty of his home, of offering everything he owned to his
visitors; it was the way to greet a stranger.
The two men lacked both courtesy and wit; but they did make an attempt to
comply with
the minimal formal customs of introduction. He had to give them credit for
that; and yet it was almost more alarming than if they had blustered and
yelled.
For he knew one of these men.
He dredged the name out of his memory. It was Haendl. This man appeared in
Wheeling the day Glenn Tropile had been scheduled to make the Donation of the
Spinal Tap and had broken free and escaped. He had inquired about Tropile of a
good many people, Citizen Germyn included; and even at that time, in the
excitement of an Amok, a Wolf-
finding and a Translation in a single day, Germyn had wondered at his lack of
breeding and airs.
Now he wondered no longer.
But the man made no such overt act as Tropile's terrible theft of bread, and
Citizen
Germyn postponed the raising of the hue and cry. It was not a thing to be
undertaken lightly.
"Gala Tropile is in this house," the man with Haendl said bluntly.
Citizen Germyn managed a Quirked Smile.
"We want to see her, Germyn. It's about her husband. He uh, he was with us for
a while and something happened."
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"Ah, yes. The Wolf."
The man flushed and looked at Haendl. Haendl said loudly: "The Wolf. Sure he's
a Wolf.
But he's gone now, so you don't have to worry about that."
"Gone?"
Haendl said angrily: "Not just him, but four or five of us. There was a man
named
Innison, and he's gone too. We need help, Germyn. Something about Tropile God
knows how it is, but he started something. We want to talk to his wife and
find out what we can about him. So will you get her out of the back room where
she's hiding and bring her here, please?"
Citizen Germyn quivered. He vent over the ID bracelet that once had belonged
to the late
PFC Joe Hartmann, fingering it to hide his thoughts. He said at last: "Perhaps
you are right. Perhaps the Citizeness is with my wife. If this were so, would
it not be possible that she was fearful of those who once were with her
husband?"
Haendl laughed sourly. "She isn't any more fearful than we are, Germyn. Let me
tell you something. I told you about this man Innison who disappeared. He was
a Son of the Wolf, you understand me? For that matter " He glanced at his
companion, licked his lips and changed his mind about what he had been going
to say next. "He was a Wolf. Do you ever remember hearing of a Wolf being
Translated before?"
"Translated?" Germyn dropped the ID bracelet. "But that's impossible!" ne
cried, forgetting his manners completely. "Oh, no. .Translation comes only to
those who attain the moment of supreme detachment, you can be sure of that. I
know. I've seen it with my own eyes. No Wolf could possibly "
"At least five Wolves did," Haendl said grimly. "Now you see what the trouble
is? Tropile was Translated I saw that with my own eyes. The next day, Innison.
Within a week, two or three others. So we came down here, Germyn, not because
we like you people, not because we enjoy it. But because we're scared.
What we want is to talk to Tropile's
wife you too, I guess; we want to talk to anybody who ever knew him. We want
to find out everything there is to find out about Tropile, and see if we can [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]