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"This helps," he said. "I would have located Cambring if I had to hire a private eye to find him. But that would have taken time. Let's get to bed. We have a lot to do tomorrow."
However, it was an hour before they fell asleep. Anana wanted to lie quietly in his arms while she talked of this and that, about her life before she had met Kickaha but mostly of incidents after she had met him. Actually, they had not known each other more than two months and their life together had been hectic. But she claimed to be in love with Kickaha and acted as if she were. He loved her but had had enough experience with the Lords to wonder how deep a capacity for love anybody ten thousand years old could possess. It was true, though, that some of the Lords could live for the moment far more intensely than anybody he had ever met simply because a man who lived in eternity had to eat up every moment as if it were his last. He could not bear to think about the unending years ahead.
In the meantime, he was happy with her, although he would have been happier if he could have some leisure and peace so he could get to know her better. Which was exactly what she was complaining about. She did not complain too much. She knew that every situation ended sooner or later.
He fell asleep thinking about this. Sometime in the night, he awoke with a jerk. For a second, he thought somebody must be in the room, and he slid out the knife that lay sheathless by his side under the sheet covering him. His eyes adjusted to the darkness, which was not too deep because of the light through the blinds from the bright neon lights outside and the street lamps. He could see no one.
Slowly, so the bed would not creak, he got out and moved cautiously around the room, the bathroom, and then the closet. The windows were still locked on the inside, the door was locked, and the bureau he had shoved against it had not moved. Nor was there anyone under the bed.
He decided that he had been sleeping on a tightwire too long. He expected, even if unconsciously, to fall off.
There must be more to it than that, however. Something working deep inside him had awakened him. He had been dreaming just before he awoke. Of what?
He could not get his hook into it and bring it up out of the unconscious, though he cast many times. He paced back and forth, the knife still in his hand, and tried to recreate the moment just before awakening. After a while he gave up. But he could not sleep when he lay back down again. He rose again, dressed, and then woke Anana up gently. At his tender touch on her face, she came up off the bed, knife in hand.
He had wisely stepped back. He said, "It's all right, lover, I just wanted to tell you that I'm leaving to check out Cambring's house. I can't sleep anymore; I feel as if I have something important to do. I've had this feeling before and it's always paid off."
He did not add that it had sometimes paid off with grave, almost fatal, trouble.
"I'll go with you."
"No, that won't be necessary. I appreciate your offer, but you stay here and sleep. I promise I won't do anything except scout around it, at a safe distance. You won't have anything to worry about."
"All right," she said, half drowsily. She had full confidence in his abilities. "Kiss me good night again and get on with you. I'm glad I'm not a restless soul."
The lobby was empty. There were no pedestrians outside the motel, although a few cars whizzed by. The droning roar of a jet lowering for International Airport seemed to be directly overhead, but its lights placed it quite a few miles southeastward. He trotted on down the street toward the south and hoped that no cops would cruise by. He understood from what he'd read that a man walking at night in the more prosperous districts was also suspect.
He could have taken a taxi to a place near his destination, but he preferred to run. He needed the exercise; if he continued life in this city long, he would be getting soft rapidly.
The smog seemed to have disappeared with the sun. At least, his eyes did not burn and run, although he did get short-winded after having trotted only eight blocks. There must be poisonous oxides hanging invisibly in the air. Or he was deteriorating faster than he had thought possible.
By the map, the Cambring house lay about three and one-half miles from the motel, not as the crow flies but as a ground-bound human must go.
Once on Rimpau he was in a neighborhood of fairly old mansions. The neighborhood looked as if only rich people had lived here, but it was changing. Some of the grounds and houses had deteriorated, and some had been made into apartment dwellings. But a number were still very well kept up.
The Cambring house was a huge three-story wooden house which looked as if it had been built circa 1920 by someone nostalgic for the architecture popular among the wealthy of the Midwest. It was set up on a high terrace with a walk in the middle of the lawn and a horse-shoe-shaped curving driveway. Three cars were parked in the drive-way. There were a dozen great oaks and several sycamores on the front lawn and many high bushes, beautifully trimmed, set in among the trees. A high brick wall enclosed all but the front part of the property.
There were lights behind closed curtains in the first and second stories. There was also a light in the second story of the garage, which he could partially see. He walked on past the front of the home to the corner. The brick wall ran along the sidewalk here. Part way down the block was another driveway which led to the garage. He stopped before the closed iron gates, which were locked on the inside.
It was possible that there were electronic detecting devices set on the grounds among the trees, but he would have to chance them. Also, it would be well to find out now.
He doubted that this house was lived in by Red Orc. Cambring must be one of Orc's underlings, probably far down in the hierarchy. The Lord of Earth would be ensconced in a truly luxurious dwelling and behind walls which would guard him well.
He set his ring for flesh-piercing powers at up to two hundred feet and placed his knife between his teeth. Instead of returning to the front, he went over the wall on the side of the house. It was more difficult to enter here, but there was better cover.
He backed up into the street and then ran forward, bounded, across the sidewalk, and leaped upward. His fingers caught the edge of the wall and he easily pulled himself up and over onto the top of the wall. He lay stretched out on it, watching the house and garage for signs of activity. About four minutes passed. A car, traveling fast, swung around the corner two blocks away and sped down the street. It was possible that the occupants of the house might see him in the beams. He swung on over and dropped onto soft grassy ground behind an oak tree. If he had wished, he could have jumped to the nearest branch, which had been sawed off close to the wall, and descended by the tree. He noted it as a means of escape.
It was now about three in the morning, if his sense of time was good. He had no watch but meant to get one, since he was now in a world where the precise measurement of time was important.
The next ten minutes he spent in quietly exploring the area immediately outside the house and the garage. Three times he went up into a tree to try to look through windows but he could see nothing. He poked around the cars but did not try to open their doors because he thought that they might have alarms. It seemed likely that a gangster like Cambring would be more worried about a bomb being placed in his car than he would about an invasion of his house. The big black Lincoln was not there. He assumed it had been impounded by the police as evidence in the murder. He read the license numbers several times to memorize them, even though he had a pencil and a piece of paper. During his years in the universe next door, he had been forced to rely on his memory. He had developed it to a power that he would have thought incredible twenty-five years ago. Illiteracy had its uses. How many educated men on Earth could recall the exact topography of a hundred places or draw a map of a five-thousand-mile route or recite a three-thousand-line epic?