Harbend Garak was a long way from home, even a long way from his storefront in Hasselden. But with the western raiders plying their trade along the shores again he didn't dare ship anything all the way to distant Khi.

Years now. I know Verd better than Hasselden by now. Strange turn of luck. He remembered the tedious hours at late evening spent studying the outworlder language. Paid off in the end they did. One of only five independents to get outworlder clients. Guess I should be happy. Of course he was never awarded contracts as often as he would have had he represented a trading house, but he was content. That opportunity and his skill allowed him to avoid sharing the destiny of several other independent traders who found themselves destitute as trade became increasingly difficult under the pressure of the raiders.

Being a foreigner to Keen himself he found the outworlders to be just another group of strangers with peculiar customs. He eventually made faster progress in understanding their wants and needs than his fellow merchants, almost all native to Keen.

He slowly looked around himself wondering what this group of outworlders would be like and how eager they would be for local jewelry and other items of art.

A desk, behind which a female outworlder clerk sat, was a work of art, a wonderful item of pear tree almost certainly crafted in Erkateren by a skilled magecrafter.

He coughed quietly in his hand, stretched his back and rose. Waiting was always tedious, especially during summer when the heat sometimes made the terminal building almost unbearable.

The hall wasn't very large, maybe twenty paces east to west and thirty north to south. The glass sliding doors facing west were still in place, opening and closing by themselves whenever a merchant happened to walk past them. To the left of the doors were two sofas, with four merchants seated in them, three of which wore the green round-hat typical of the trading houses of Krante, a large town an eightdays ride southeast from Verd, three days with coach.

The last seat was occupied by a woman Harbend had proposed for invitation into the group of merchants allowed to trade with the outworlders half a year earlier. She belonged to a minor trading house in Verd.

Harbend greeted her silently with a slight bow and was rewarded with a smile of recognition as she stretched her booted legs under the table. Not a beautiful woman, he thought, but competent. She was stocky and always looked out of place, more so with her strange taste for wearing men's clothes. She was also one of the few merchants he had come to know during his years here.

He started searching for Olvar de Dagd, master of the richest trading house in Dagd, and always present whenever she was. It was no secret they shared more than their profession, and Harbend wondered what made Master de Dagd take the plump woman to his bed.

Harbend, concrete wall to his back, looked across a dirty carpet, once red but now worn to a muted brown, and found the master merchant among a group of seven. They stood in the leftmost corner closest to the pear tree desk rather than using the hard chairs lining the walls.

Olvar's bright blue contrasted against the gaudy yellow shirts the others wore. Yellow and green, yellow for Verd and the green added for a cosmopolitan touch. They all wore silk, probably imported from Khanati and dyed in Ri Khi, and very, very expensive.

One merchant leaned over the desk exchanging friendly banter with the blond outworlder woman sitting behind it. Her white blouse lacked adornments of any kind and the absence of jewelry made Harbend think of a meal served without a proper wine. At least she had added some color to her face creating a contrast to her blue or maybe green eyes. Properly clothed she was probably beautiful. The outworlders always seemed to prefer drab servant's colors, a fact that still amazed him.

The remaining three merchants sat immediately to Harbend's right, one sharing the leather sofa he had just left, and the two others occupied in a conversation almost lying in the last sofa. One had placed his hard heeled shoes on the polished table, making Harbend wince slightly. Behind them he saw the doors through which only outworlders were allowed. In difference from the entrance those doors were not made of glass but of a solid metal so deep blue that it was almost black. The metal alone was worth a fortune here, but then the outworlders seemed to have an abundance of it.

Turning his attention to his shoes he noticed a mark and dug for a handkerchief in a pocket. He polished the silver band hiding the laces. They were good shoes, sturdy but still elegant, and he kept them in good shape with a mixture of fat and perfume he always bought whenever he had a reason to visit Hasselden.

He traveled too much to like the idea of breaking in new footwear. Blistered feet could ruin an otherwise perfect day. When he was finished Harbend saw that the outworlder traders had arrived into the hall and were heading for the desk.

He listened absently while outworlder traders were paired with local merchants and made their way through the glass doors. Fifteen names, fifteen traders but still no Gregory Sanders. So, he was to be assigned the last out of sixteen as usual.

A sudden commotion closer to the desk made him look up with more interest. A middle-aged man clad in something horribly shiny and red with impossibly blue hair crowning the nightmare, immediately caught his attention. The unseemly sight transfixed him until the woman behind the desk broke the spell.

"Oh my Gooooooooood! It's Arthur Wallman! Oh my Gooooooooood!"

The screeching all but brought Harbend to his knees. The stranger flashed a perfect but pained smile to her while a small horde of outworlders flocked around him.

"Autograph, please!"

"Could you sign my color-screen? For my son, you see."

"A signature on my hat? Yes, right there. Thank you Mr Wallman."

During the madness the stranger regained his composure and Harbend felt strangely drawn to the almost unnatural air of confident charisma radiating from him. Then the aura of confidence vanished as soon as it had appeared, and Harbend gasped at the expression of utter desolation taking its place.

Whoever this man was, he wasn't one of the regular traders, but Harbend accepted the strange man as his client even though the name, Arthur Wallman, didn't correspond to the one Harbend had been assigned.

#

Arthur winced uncomfortably at the screeching, but he quickly put on his professional mask. Soon he was signing all kinds of peculiar objects, all the while longing for the ordeal to end.

He glanced at his wrist computer knowing he would have to add the local time system to its data banks. The communicator he would have to disable, but he hadn't exactly come here to make any extensive calls anyway. For reasons still unexplained to him visiting traders were forbidden to bring any functioning portable communication devices, and the locals apparently had means to find out.

Almost a tenth of the early years' travelers were caught and permanently banned from the planet before the lesson was finally learned, and he didn't plan to play the role of a very slow student.

His fellow travelers had all left the room together with the locals.

Not much of a loss. After all he'd had his credentials falsified, and while on board the merchantman he found himself forced to hold on to his lies about a secret news coverage for his newscasting company. After a few days the novelty of having a famous media personality among them wore off and he spent the rest of the voyage in solitude, which, he found out, suited him perfectly.

The members of the crowd demanding his attention earlier had vanished back to their previous doings whether those were machine repairs, paper handling or cargo lifting, and he found himself almost alone again.

I wonder how many of those stationed here came just because of my holos, Arthur thought.

Another man in the room, one Arthur had failed to notice earlier, met his eyes. Short and slender, as of Asian origin, maybe 160 centimeters tall, straight, black hair shining with a metallic sheen, most of it in a knot to the left but head otherwise shaved clean. In his mid-thirties if people aged the same way here as on Earth, and until their twenties they were supposed to. Bleached but richly decorated, baggy linen trousers were partially covered by a shirt of the same material buttoned only over the chest. The clothes told Arthur hot weather probably was what he had waiting. It made sense. He'd arrived in late summer local time.

Of course, my assigned representative. Poor bastard, he's in for a surprise.

The man rose and greeted Arthur in a singing, outlandish voice. "Harbend Garak, at your service, Lord Wallman."

"Do I need your services?"

"None needed, only offered, my lord."

Irritation still clinging to him as a result of the verbal assault from the hastily gathered fan-club, Arthur lashed out: "Let's get this straight. To begin with I'm nobody's bloody lord and what grand services are yours to offer?"

That made Harbend blanch slightly. It probably wasn't the start he had hoped for and Arthur knew he was being rude. He didn't know if the stranger grasped Terran English fully.

"My fault sir. I am a trader and help visiting traders when they are here," Harbend tried again.

"And what if such a visiting trader eventually turned out to be no trader at all, but something completely different?" This was getting fun. Arthur enjoyed verbal fencing and wasn't above taking any advantage he could. What wrong could there be goading the stranger a little?

"Then I would still offer him to find a good place to sleep and eat, good sir."

"Then it has to be good indeed. I am God's greatest gift to mankind, or mankind's greatest to God. Opinions vary dependent on who you ask."

"Which god?"

What's so difficult? Here I'm baiting the hook and you won't bite. "Then so be it my insistent trader. My trade is not with ordinary wares. What I sell has dubious lasting worth where I come from and even less here," Arthur said and bent in an exaggerated bow before continuing, "but do not despair, my gracing your lands with my presence is not brought on by monetary needs but rather personal ones," he finished after standing straight again.

"That would answer a question I had in mind. I take it you are traveling, ah, what is the word again? Incognito?"

No, he wouldn't bite, and Arthur had waited for this question anyway. The identity he'd bought didn't fool anyone. He was too well known, but bribing the communications officer on the space ship had taken care of that problem until he arrived at Theta 47. It was time to end the joking.

"You're quite right, my good man. Now, what do you have in mind?" Arthur answered eager to leave the subject.

Weeks before anyone can act on my being here anyway.

"It is already late, sir. We leave and take the train to Verd," Harbend said and started for the doors.

Arthur followed him through the sliding doors and stepped outdoors onto a gravel road. It had stopped raining but the air was still filled with the aroma of water and wet earth. The rain soaked gravel was slowly steaming and it was uncomfortably hot.

Arthur saw the queuing pairs of local and foreign traders waiting to receive luggage and beyond them a large group of riders. Thirty or so but only a few of them mounted. All wore the same green and yellow uniforms with swords hanging by their sides.

"Crossbows?" Arthur asked, surprise mixed with disbelief spicing his voice.

"Crossbows," Harbend acknowledged. "They are the Free Inquisition," he continued as if it explained everything.

"Free Inquisition?"

"Ah, well, a leftover from some local troubles a hundred years ago or so."

"So, is there an Imprisoned Inquisition, or what?"

"No, not really, or at least I strongly advise against any such suggestion as long as you are heard. Keen has its own Inquisition open only for citizens. The Free Inquisition is open for anyone who is fit and skilled enough and shares Keen's view on the use of the gift."

"And that view is?" Arthur asked while he shuffled forward in the queue.

"Using the gift is banned in Keen. Any wielder of the art caught in the act is shot on sight. It is not too uncommon anyone suspected is killed before the real investigation starts."

"Oh, I see," Arthur said glumly. "And why are they here?"

"They are still a bit edgy about you outworlders so they control anything brought in by your sky ships."

"I still don't understand. How can they do that, and by the way, why do you say them and not we?"

Harbend frowned. "The Inquisition, no matter whether it be the Holy or the Free, has access to powerful tools draining magic with which to make certain whatever strange items you bring still works while within reach of their power." He smirked before continuing, "As for my exclusion it is simple enough. I come from a land far away to the south and do not share their views on the use of the art."

"It still doesn't make sense. We're supposed to trade our wares in a city filled with this magic of yours."

Harbend smiled. "Magic has not always been banned. There was a time when magecrafters lived and worked in Verd. Once it was the very center of those artisans. The use of the art is forbidden, but the people in Keen are sensible enough to use what is already there. They have always been a practical people."

"If so, why ban magic?" Arthur asked.

"They were unluckier than most with the power struggles between mages. A lot of dirty small scale wars hit Keen and those living here." A frown grew on Harbend's face. "And one big one, of course," he finished, and for a moment there was a shade of regret glimmering in his eyes.

Arthur mused on the information for a while, and then, as had been the case for half a year, his thoughts turned darker, far darker, and he was once again trapped in his own internal nightmare.

#

When Harbend didn't receive any further comments he turned around eying the ugly sky port. The slated roof with its two small gun towers, manned by outworlder soldiers, were the same as always. From both ends of the building an ugly wall stretched over three hundred paces in each direction. The entire complex resembled a long, straight piece of a giant, polished horn lying in the mud.

The horses not bound at the arrival gate stood grazing by the wall still saddled and harnessed. He gave the troops a thorough look. Uniforms dirty, leather showing cracks where it hadn't been oiled properly and the yellow and green bore telltale spots of earlier meals. Some of the men had tired eyes and they hadn't even assigned a man to check the horses feeding by the wall. Of a full squadron less than ten men were doing anything useful at the arrival gate. Discipline must have grown lax over the last year.

Harbend threw Arthur a glance but he was deeply occupied with thoughts of his own. Daylight exposed more of the outworlder. Face angular and well kept. Blue hair that must have been colored, because brown was hidden deep beneath it. Eyes shifting between blue and green. Hands that had not seen hard work in a long time ended in too large fingers revealing he was turning fat. As all outworlders he was taller by far than the average here.

Then there were the clothes. All of them red, shifting grades of red, all shiny and none of it fitting together. Something never deciding if it was a shirt or a jacket was buttoned onto a pair of trousers so tight only the fact that it was of outworlder design and make kept it from bursting. All in all the outfit hurt Harbend's eyes.

#

Arthur forced his thoughts to the present. It was ironic that the stranger also was a foreigner here. Maybe he could share some insight in what it was like living here as one not really belonging.

Arthur recalled an incident on the surface not too long after the insane, criminal attempt to invade the planet. A decade or so earlier the locals sent cavalry to take the spaceport by force. Two thousand men died in the mud that day without ever coming close enough to use their weapons. There had been no other attempt since and somehow the locals had chosen to produce an official report as humiliatingly unlikely as the one written by the federation military after the failed assault on the planet. An exchange of military stupidity finally resulted in constructive communications between the Terran Federation and the local government here.

Strange how things turn out in the end. I know I should have shot that extra episode, but what the hell.

Ahead of him each of the traders received his or her luggage and was forced to open it, spreading its contents over several tables. What appeared to be the commander of the Inquisition troops checked that computers, holo cams and viewers still worked as described by the owner.

Damn! They're not fast, are they? We'll be standing here all bloody day!

Finally Terran trader, local merchant and luggage slowly lumbered away on the unpaved road leading to a ridge west of the launch port. A pair of rails ran alongside the road and Arthur suspected that whatever rode them was a far cry from the supersonic magnetic trains he was used to from home. As if to prove him right a number of black wagons hissed past him, solar panels glittering in the sun, and began their painfully slow ascent to the ridge.

Crap! he thought. It promised to be a very slow day. He turned to Harbend. "Three hours on the train to the capital! I should be able to see the damn town from here."

Harbend gave him an amused look. "I would not worry too much if I were you. The train to Verd is a bit faster than that."

"I bloody hope so!" Arthur replied aghast at the thought of spending half a day caught in a closed wagon traveling at walking pace.

Harbend merely grinned in return, two rows of yellow, but otherwise healthy teeth showing.