Free none

he was wearing. He’d take it off, but it was too cold for histhin Terran uniform; besides, he surmised that in his Terran clothes he couldn’t be really safe in this partof the city.
    He admitted it to himself, now; he had had just this kind of imposture in mind when he bought the cloak. But too many people were staring. He turned, deciding he had better take the fastest route back to the HQ.
    He walked swiftly now through dark, deserted streets. He heard a step behind him—a slow, purposefulstep; but told himself not to be suspicious; he wasn’t the only man who might have a good reason to beout in the rain tonight! The step kept pace with him, then quickened to overtake him, and Kerwinstepped aside to let the follower pass in the narrow street.
    That was a mistake. Kerwin felt a searing pain; then the top of his head exploded and from somewherehe heard a voice crying out strange words:
    Say to the son of the barbarian that he shall come no more to the plains of Arilinn! The
    Forbidden Tower is broken and the Golden Bell is avenged!
    That didn’t make sense, Kerwin thought in the split second before his head struck the pavement and heknew no more.

    Chapter Four: The Search
    «^»

    It was dawn, and it was raining hard, and somebody somewhere was talking right in his ear.

    Page 30

“Lie still,   vai dom   , no one will hurt you! Vandals! What has come to the city, when Comyn can be
    attacked…”
    And another voice, rougher: “Don’t be a donkey; can’t you see the uniform? The man’s   Terranan   andsomebody’s head will roll for this. Go and call the watch, quickly!”
    Someone tried to lift his head, and Kerwin decided it was his head that was going to roll, because itexploded and he slid back into unconsciousness again.
    Then, after confused noises and pain, a bright white light seemed to shine into the innermost recesses ofhis brain. He felt someone mauling his head, which hurt like hell, and grunted in pain, and someone tookthe light out of his eyes.
    He was lying in an antiseptic white bed in an antiseptic white room, and a man in a white smock, wearingthe caduceus emblem of Medic and Psych, was bending over him.
    “All right now?”
    Kerwin started to nod, but his head exploded again and he thought better of it. The doctor handed him asmall paper cup of red liquid; it burned his mouth and stung all the way down, but his head stoppedhurting.
    “What happened?” Kerwin asked.
    Johnny Ellers put his head around the door; his eyes looked bloodshot. “You ask that?   I pass out— butyou’re the one gets slugged and rolled! The greenest kid, on his first planetside assignment, ought toknow better than that! And why the hell were you wandering around in the native section? Didn’t youstudy the off-limits map?”
    There was a warning in his words. Kerwin said, slowly, “Yeah. I must’ve got lost.”
    How much of what he remembered was true? Had he dreamed all the rest—his bizarre wanderings inthe Darkovan cloak, all the people who had mistaken him for   someone else   … Had it all been wishfulthinking, based on his desire to belong?
    “What day is this?”
    “Morning after the night before,” Ellers said.
    “Where did it happen? Where did I get knocked out?”
    “God knows,” the doctor said. “Evidently someone found you and got scared; dragged you to the edge of the spaceport square and dumped you there about dawn.” The doctor moved out of eye range and Kerwin found that it hurt his head to try and follow him, so he went back to sleep. Ragan, the girl in the wineshop, the redheaded aristocrats and the strange encounter in the Sky Harbor Hotel drifted in his mind as he slipped away. If he’d started by thinking that this return to Darkover was an anticlimax to his dreams, at least he’d had enough adventure now to last him fifty years.
    No satirical demon whispered in his ear that he hadn’t started yet.
    His head was still bandaged when he reported to the Legate for