Dumarest sipped his wine. It had the harsh, arid taste of the local production and still contained the drifting motes of unfiltered spores.
"She gave me a modicum of pleasure," continued the factor, "but I paid for it with a mountain of pain. A high price, my friend, but I was young and proud, and ambition rode me like a man rides an animal." The bottle made small crystalline noises as he helped himself to more wine. "Was it so wrong to be ambitious? Without it, what is life? We are not beasts to be born and breed and wait for death. Always we must reach a little higher, strive to obtain a little more, travel a little faster. The philosophy of living, ambition!"
He drank and set down the empty glass. Reaching for the bottle he found it empty and irritably ordered another. He poured the glasses full as the barman walked away.
"Her father was the Manager of Marque," he said.
"True, she was but his seventeenth daughter, yet she was still of the ruling house. I thought my fortune assured when I contracted for her hand-the influence, the high associations! The guild is kind to those who have influence in high places, kinder still to those with connections with rulers. I tell you, my friend, for a time I walked on golden clouds." Meoud drank. "It was a dream," he said bitterly. "All I had accomplished was to engineer my own ruin."
Dumarest thought he understood. "She left you?"
"She made me bankrupt," corrected the factor. "On Marque a husband is responsible for the debts of his wife. The guild saved me from bondage, but I ended with nothing: no wife, no position, nothing but a limited charity. And so I wait on Scar."
"Brooding," said Dumarest, "dreaming of what might have been, obsessed with past opportunities and past mistakes, looking back instead of forward. You surprise me-a man of business to be so sentimental! How many of your guild suffer from such weakness?"
"How many travelers chase a legend?" Meoud was sharp. He had drunk too deeply and confessed too much, but the winter dragged and the future was bleak. "I have heard the stories, my friend. I know why you chose to live in Lowtown instead of taking a cubicle here at the station, of your searching and questioning. Earth," he said. "How can a world have such a name? It has no meaning. All planets are made of earth. Why not then call Scar dirt, or soil, or loam, or even ground? It would make as much sense."
Dumarest looked down at his hand where it was clenched around the glass. "Earth is no legend," he said flatly. "The planet is real and, one day, I shall find it."
"A legend." Meoud poured them both more wine. "Is that what brought you to Scar?"
"I was on Crane," said Dumarest. "Before that on Zagazin, on Toom, on Hope,"-he looked at his ring- "on Solis and before that…" He shrugged. "Does it matter? The ship which carried me here was the first to leave when I sought passage on Crane."
Meoud frowned. "And you took it? Just like that?"
"Why not? It was heading in the right direction, out, away from the center. The stars are thin as seen from Earth."
"As they are from many lonely worlds," pointed out the factor.
"True," admitted Dumarest. "But it was a world with a blue sky by day and a silver moon by night; the stars made patterns which wheeled across the sky. I shall recognize them when I see them again. In the meantime, if you should hear anyone speak of Earth, you will let me know?"
Meoud nodded, staring into his glass. I should tell him, he thought, convince him that he is chasing an illusion, a dream world fabricated when he was a child as a region in which to escape harsh reality. But who am I to rob a man of his dream, his dream and his reason for existence?
He lifted his glass and drank, knowing that some things are best left unsaid.
Dumarest left the factor to the consolation of his wine. The buildings of the station were dreary with winter inactivity, the residents those who had to stay from reasons of investment or duty. Others, whom the vagaries of space travel had brought early to the planet, rested in deep sleep until the summer. Still more huddled miserably in their damp quarters in Lowtown: the travelers whom chance had stranded on a non-productive world, the desperate who lacked the cost of a low passage to some other planet.
Ewan looked up as Dumarest passed his table.
"Earl," he said, "please watch. I need the practice."
"You're skillful enough," said Dumarest. "You don't need my opinion."
"I do," insisted the gambler. "I want to try something new. These shells," he explained. "As I move them about I slip this little ball beneath one. I can manipulate it as I wish." His pudgy hands moved the shells with deft skill. "Right. Now pick out the shell with the ball. Guess correctly and I will give you five. Guess wrongly and you pay me the same. Deal?"
"The odds are in your favor," pointed out Dumarest. "Two to one."
Ewan shrugged. "The house has to have some edge. Now pick."
Dumarest smiled and rested the tip of a finger on one of the shells. It was the finger on which he wore his ring. With his free hand he tipped the remaining two shells over. Neither hid the little ball.
"This one," he said, tapping the remaining hemisphere. "Pay me."
Ewan scowled. "You cheated. That isn't the right way to play."
"It's my way," said Dumarest, "and others will do the same. You've had a cheap lesson; take my advice and stick to cards and dice. It will be safer."
Ewan handed over the money. "Not if you're with me, Earl," he said. "How about it? A fifth of the profit if you will act as bodyguard and shill."
Dumarest shook his head.
"A quarter then? I can't make it more. I've got to pay for the concession, hold capital for the next season and hold more for emergencies. A quarter, Earl, just for standing by in case of trouble and leading, the betting. You could do it in your sleep. Certain cash, Earl, a high passage at least; you can't lose."
The gambler frowned as Dumarest showed no interest.
"What's the alternative?" he demanded. "Acting as guide to some fat tourist, risking your life hunting rare spores, collecting fungi for the processing sheds?" Ewan blew out his cheeks and shook his head. "You should know better; there are easier ways to make money. You're fast, quick as any man I've seen. You've got a look about you which would make any trouble-maker think twice. A third. Earl. That's as high as I can go. A clear third of the profit. What do you say?"
"Thank you," said Dumarest, "but no."
"A gambling layout is a good place to pick up gossip," said Ewan shrewdly. "Most of the new arrivals want to test their luck and they talk while doing it." He picked up a deck of cards and riffled them, his pudgy fingers almost covering the slips of plastic. "Sure you won't change your mind?"
"If I do I'll let you know," said Dumarest. He hesitated, looking down at the gambler. Had Ewan been trying to tell him something? He resisted the impulse to find out. Two men were dead and the less said about either of them the better.
He crossed to where a layout of colored holograms showed a variety of fungi in all stages of growth in perfect, three-dimensional representation. Each was labeled. The display was the property of a company operating the processing sheds and the fungi were the strains they wanted.
"Simple, safe and secure," said an ironic voice at his side. "All you have to do, Earl, is to turn yourself into a mobile hopper. Go out and drag back a few tons of fungi and, with luck, you'll get enough profit to keep you in food for a week."
"You don't have to do it," said Dumarest evenly. "No one is holding a knife to your throat."
Heldar coughed, holding his hand before his mouth as he fought for air. "Damn spores," he muttered at last. "One in the lungs is one too many." He scowled at the display. "You don't know," he said bitterly. "When hunger has you by the guts you don't stop to think of what the small print says. You just want a square meal."
"And you got it," said Dumarest. "So why are you complaining?"
Heldar scowled. "It's all right for you," he said. "You've got money. You can-"
He broke off, looking upwards. Dumarest followed his example. Every man in the place stopped what he was doing and stared at the roof.
The silence was almost tangible.
For weeks they had been deafened by the unremitting thunder of winter rain.
Chapter Two
The captain was effusive with his apologies. "My lord," he said, bowing, "my lady, I regret to inform you that we are no longer on schedule."
Jocelyn raised his eyebrows. "Regret?"