Footfall

“We haven’t done that bad,” George said.

“No, but it isn’t the quiet little backwater with the silted-up harbor any more,” Isadore said. “The roads are crowded, the prices have gone up, there are MPs minding everybody’s business—”

“Screw them,” George muttered.

“But what are they doing down there?” Roger asked. “Who knows?” Isadore said. “They say they’ve built greenhouses and they’re growing wheat. You can believe as much of that as you want to.”

“And if I believe none of it?”

“Miranda’s Deputy Sheriff heard rumors that it’s a prison,” Isadore said. “Political prisoners from Kansas. Collaborators. They’ve built greenhouses, all right, but they’re working them with prisoners. Slave camp.”

“Serve the snout lovers right,” Harry said.

“They may not have had much choice,” Roger said.

“They could fight—”

“You captured one, Harry,” Roger said carefully. “But he was alone. I saw what happened to people who tried to fight them all. It wasn’t pretty.”

Bill Shakes leaned forward. “You were in alien occupied country? Tell us about it.”

Roger’s digital watch said 3:00 A.M. Both brandy bottles were empty, and they were better than halfway through a third.

Somewhere during the evening Miranda had brought down Kevin’s guitar for Harry to play, and nearly everybody came to listen while Harry sang his songs, but then the others had gone away, leaving George and Isadore and Bill.

Kevin Shakes was working on the government project-and hadn’t come home since he went down to the harbor. They got letters from him, and word through Miranda’s boyfriend.

Roger felt the tightness in his guts. I shouldn’t have had so much brandy. It’s hard to stay in control.

Something big in the harbor. Big.

George knows something he hasn’t said. What?

“About time to turn in,” Bill Shakes said.

He’s not drunk. I wonder just how much he really drank?

“Let me fmish this drink,” Roger said unsteadily. He knew he was rapidly wearing out his welcome. But I may not get a better shot. He went over to George and lifted his glass. “Death to tyrant Down with the state!”

“Right on!” George gri

“Secrets,” Roger said. “They always have secrets. Like in Vietnam, when they kept it a secret they were bombing in Cambodia. Who was it secret from? The Cambodians knew. The Viet Cong had to know. I bet they even told the Russians. So who didn’t know?”

“Right,” George said. “Right.”

“So now they’ve got more secrets.”

“George,” Bill Shakes said quietly.

George didn’t listen.

“What the hell could they be hiding?” Roger shook his head “Probably something silly—”

George dropped his voice to a conspiratorial mumble. “Snouts They’ve got snouts down there.”

Roger woke on the living room floor. His head pounded. Snouts. No big secret. Nothing but a hideout for captured snouts. That’s ridiculous! Bellingham vanished from the news before anyone captured a snout! And they wouldn’t put General Gillespi in charge of a snout prison camp.

But Bill Shakes believes it. He didn’t want me to find out. If Shakes doesn’t know what’s really going on in the harbor, nobody out here does. We’ll have to go inside.

He heard Harry’s voice from the other room. “Like Sheena Queen of the Jungle. Miz D. hopped on, and out we came. Hey real coffee! Great!” There were other voices, children, and giggles

Coffee! But to get any, he’d have to listen to Harry’s story yet again…

So. We achieve escape velocity, Pastempeh-keph thought. From here we coast. We’ll hold the African continent forever, and if new resistance rises, we’ll trample it from space. Ultimately the dissidents may rule Message Bearer while my descendants trade them metals for food.

The door to the mudroom opened. Pastempeh-keph waved happily from the mud. His fithp’s mating season had come round at last — “I have a guest,” said K’turfookeph.

You what? Pastempeh-keph didn’t say that. He said, “Enter. Soak your tired selves.” This had better be urgent!

K’turfookeph entered with Chowpeentulk. The females eased into the mud, carefully, under the low spin gravity. A few moments of quiet were allowed to pass, during which none of the tension left Chowpeentulk. Then she said, “My mate was murdered, Herdmaster. What have you done to find the rogue?”

He had thought he could postpone this. There was a war on, and a sufficiency of dead fithp. Some fi’ had removed a problem. The Herdmaster had taken steps to learn who, for he might act again, but there had been yet more urgent problems.

He said, “Tell me first, what would you have done?”

Chowpeentulk considered. “A rogue shows. He does not speak to his fithp, he abandons his mate, he does not trouble to hide who he is.”

“We have rogues enough,” the Herdmaster conceded. “Warriors on Winterhome face strange and terrible pressures. But here? So you must have noticed him. Is there a herdless one aboard? A member of the Traveler Herd whom none will associate with? No? Then who could have come and gone so u

Chowpeentulk shook her head. She was terribly tense. Why not? She had invaded the Herdmaster’s private mudroom!

He said, “Not a rogue. Then he did not act alone, and if he did, he must have shared the secret with someone. What would you do now?”

“I would ask! No Ii’ can lie to the Herdmaster.”

“That statement is too sweeping, but it has some truth. I have interviewed the heads of every fithp aboard Message Bearer. The sleepers do not ask that I seek a killer; they demanded only that I choose an Advisor from among them at once. This seemed promising. I set my attention on them. When that failed me, I questioned randomly chosen fithp: Fistarteh-thuktun’s apprentices, Tashayamp, weapons officers aboard, warriors newly come from Winterhome, mothers, newly mated females, unmated females, humans.

“Some spoke of roguish behavior in others. I challenged the alleged rogues; every accusation was unwarranted. None know how Fathisteh-tulk died. Few even know what his interests were, where he might have overturned a secret worth concealing—”

“Few? What have you learned?”

“I learned what you must have known, Chowpeentulk. Your mate was interested in the human prisoners. He questioned one Dawson, while Dawson was isolated.”

“So.” She said, “In the communal mudbath, days before he disappeared … he wouldn’t tell me what he intended, but he thought to learn something. It had to do with whether Winterhom was worth the taking.”

“It would. And where does that leave me? Did he question the Soviet prisoners? Did he learn anything? Humans may lie even to the Herdmaster, for I ca

“Meanwhile a fithpless killer walks Message Bearer. He killed among the highest rank, yet nothing shows in his stance. He know that he has played the Herdmaster for a fool.”

“We feared you had forgotten,” K’turfookeph said, with a trace of apology in her tone.

“Losing my fithp to thermonuclear bombs and wooden stick and madness, why should I ignore yet another death? But I hay no more footholds here! What should I seek? Some fi’ appeared and killed and went, u

Chowpeentulk sprayed him. The Herdmaster didn’t react at all “A rogue who came and went. So simple. Chowpeentulk, I will produce your mate’s killer within eight days. Leave us.”

Chowpeentulk knew enough to keep silent. She surged from the mud and left, dripping. Pastempeh-keph said, “Was there no another place where you and that other female could confront me?”