Going through the things he had acquired in the years since his arrival on Seremathenn, Walker was surprised at how little there was to pack. Though in possession of a fascinating assortment of devices and objects provided by the Sessrimathe and his room’s own synthesizer, on examining them one at a time he found that none of them meant anything to him. They had no connection with a real home, or with the life from which he had been so brutally wrenched. Therefore there seemed little need to take them with him. Doing so would only have meant burdening himself with more to worry about. Surely the Niyyuu, if not as advanced or sophisticated as the Sessrimathe, would provide adequately for his basic needs and for those of his companions.
It developed that his friends felt similarly. Accommodating though it had been to them, Seremathenn was not their home, either. However captivating, the products of its advanced civilization had no connection to their own. Braouk saw no need to take more than the minimal necessities with him, George’s kit consisted primarily of his animate rug and a few packaged foodstuffs of which he had grown particularly fond, and Sque disdained nearly everything that was not of K’eremu manufacture anyway.
The winnowing process left Walker with a small carry bag of toiletries, a couple of changes of clothing, and little else. He eyed the modest luggage as he prepared for bed. In a couple of days everything he had worked so hard to assimilate over the past years was going to be put behind him, literally as well as figuratively. There would be a new civilization to adapt to, new marvels to admire, and with luck, access to new intelligences who might at the very least have a clue as to which corner of the cosmos his tiny, out-of-the-way home lay. Directing the room to reduce the internal illumination to minimal, he watched as the walls dimmed until he could just make out shapes and spaces. Among other things, the room was its own night-light. Turning over, he tucked the faux feather pillow beneath his head and closed his eyes.
He was in his rented 4X4 again, sleepy instead of frantic this time, as he stared up at horizontally flattened eyes that flared across the lower portion of a tapering head. A membranous hearing sensor protruded from near the top of the purple conical skull. A single sucker-lined arm flap was reaching for him.
An old dream, he told himself. One that, though he relived it with less and less frequency, never lost its power to unsettle. The alien appendage touched his bare shoulder. It felt very real.
In the dream as well as the reality that had given rise to it, he had been clad in jeans and flannel shirt. His shoulder had not been bare. He blinked. Then his eyes went almost as wide as those of the creature gazing coldly down at him.
Vilenjji. In his room.
As he tried to scream, the heavy arm flap pressed down hard over his mouth. Fortunately, it did not cover his nose. Moving up rapidly behind him, a second Vilenjji easily lifted him up in the bed and despite Walker’s frantic, desperate efforts, proceeded to secure his arms behind him. Something was slapped over his mouth. It adhered tightly to the flesh and drew his lips together into a thin, tight line. Eyes goggling, moaning futilely, he was lifted off the bed and found himself being carried ignominiously toward the doorway.
Out in the faintly illuminated common room, his shock was magnified threefold as his abductor set him down on the floor. At least a dozen of his former kidnappers had crowded into the high-ceilinged open space. Arrayed like the specimens they had once been and now threatened to become again, his friends were lined up alongside Braouk’s softly gurgling imitation geysers. An outraged Sque had all ten of her limbs secured beneath her while the furious, straining Tuuqalian was cocooned in enough heavy-duty bindings to secure half a dozen elephants. Next to him, a helpless George gazed across at Walker. The dog’s dark brown eyes were full of fear.
With the same swaying, side-to-side gait Walker had thought never to see again, a single massive Vilenjji came toward him. With time, the commodities trader had become adept at recognizing individual alien characteristics. A chill as if a glass of ice water had been dumped down his back flowed through him. He recognized the alien.
Bending toward the securely bound human, Pret-Klob peered into much smaller, much rounder eyes that glared back up at him with a mixture of defiance, outrage, and alarm.
“Do you recall my telling you, some time ago, on board the Sessrimathe vessel that misguidedly chose to interfere in the normal course of commerce, that in the realness of time the natural order of things would be restored?” When a disoriented and increasingly panicky Walker made no move to respond, the Vilenjji commander straightened.
“You wonder at my presence. Know that I regard myself as something of a master of judicial minutiae. It took time, but with work and patience even the overweening Sessrimathe can grow bored with justice. Finally freed from their custody, having ‘admitted’ to my error and repented most strenuously of my ways, I was eventually able to reconstitute a small portion of my original association. As primary shareholders, we determined to commence our financial recovery by repossessing as much of our original inventory as possible. It is only business.” Turning, he hissed orders to his cohorts.
Walker felt himself lifted and bundled into some sort of open, hard-sided container. He was joined by a trembling George and the stolid cephalopodian form of Sque, whereupon the container’s lid was moved into place above them. They must have a separate, special container for Braouk, he thought as the container began to move. A wise decision on the part of the Vilenjji. Given half a chance, the infuriated Tuuqalian would tear every one of the Vilenjji limb from flap. As the flow of adrenaline began to ebb, Walker slumped against the soft inner wall of the container.
They were prisoners again.
Their container admitted sounds as well as voices, though not light. He could hear the Vilenjji chattering among themselves in their clipped, abrupt manner as the container holding him and his friends was hurried along. Somehow, their captors had succeeded in penetrating the residential complex’s admittedly modest security. Breaking the codification that protected the travelers’ common room and the individual living quarters beyond had required a higher level of skill. He was not surprised to discover that the Vilenjji were adept at breaking and entering. Antisocial activity in all its many ramifications was a celebrated specialty of theirs.
It felt as if they were moving faster now, probably via one of the complex’s numerous internal transports. He struggled ineffectually. At this late hour only the building’s few fully nocturnal residents would be about, and they would have no reason beyond individual curiosity to challenge the procession of Vilenjji and their attendant containers. Given the typical level of politeness displayed by the Sessrimathe and the sentients who regularly visited Seremathenn, Walker was not sanguine about anyone choosing to venture such a query. And once outside and beyond the boundaries of the complex . . .
The container came to an abrupt stop. Walker and George looked at one another. Off in a corner of the container, an immensely irritated Sque squatted on her bound tendrils, her silvery horizontal eyes flashing in the near darkness. With her speaking trunk fastened to her head, she was unable to give voice to the outrage she felt.
Preparing to transfer us to a mobile transport, Walker thought frantically. From there, a swift journey to the nearest port. Then to a vessel waiting in orbit that would depart as soon as they were aboard for parts beyond the reach of the disapproving Sessrimathe and central galactic civilization. Eventually to be sold.
The way things were going, he and his friends might as well never have been rescued from the Vilenjji ship.
An abrupt leap in the type and frequency of the sounds he could hear outside their prison drew his attention away from increasingly gloomy thoughts. Unexpectedly, the container gave a sharp lurch to the right. It teetered there for a moment before falling over onto its side. Muted yelps came from George as the bound and muffled dog was dumped on top of his friend. Accustomed to never losing her grip, Sque was especially unnerved by the upset.
Loud hisses reached the captives. These were interspersed with coarse, guttural exclamations in a language Walker did not recognize. Muted by distance, the barrier formed by the container, and physical disorientation, his Vilenjji implant was also unable to translate them. Overturned, the container finally steadied, with George atop Walker and Sque sputtering incoherently behind her bindings somewhere in the vicinity of his feet. With its owner stabilized, Walker’s implant was finally able to make some sense of the cacophony outside the container. At the same time, he thought he recognized the second source of shouting.
Though individually distinct, the harsh, rough voices sounded very much like that of the lissome Niyyuu who had recently engaged his services.
Emitting a recalcitrant inorganic screech, the cover of their container was stripped off and pulled back. All three prisoners promptly tumbled out, not onto hard ground or paving, but onto the short blue-green ground cover that wove its way through much of the city. Light appeared, flashed in their faces, and moved considerately away. Tall, slender figures bent to apply small handheld devices to their bindings. Each of the hands that were working on them, Walker noted immediately, had only two opposing digits.
Helped to his feet, he found himself surrounded by a quartet of tall Niyyuu. In the dim light of early morning, with Seremathenn’s sun still well below the horizon, he did not try to determine if the concerned Niyyuu who surrounded him exhibited sexual dimorphism. At the moment, there was no sign of the Vilenjji. Only elegant Sessrimathe landscaping, tall trees, and behind them, the flickering lights of their residence tower, itself designed and built to resemble the leafy forest giants it had replaced.
Standing next to his friend, George was licking one paw and using it to clean his mouth and face where the Vilenjji bindings had adhered. “That was close. It was other things, too, but that’s the most polite description I can come up with.”
“Shameful!” Nearby, Sque had spread herself out and was extending her tendrils one by one, stretching each in turn to relieve the enforced strain that had been placed on the muscles. “Really, the Vilenjji are a species that would benefit from a serious lesson in manners. I would be pleased to deliver such myself, did not circumstances prevent it.”
Now provided with a direct line of sight, or rather hearing, Walker’s implant effortlessly translated the words of the Niyyuu who appeared before him. “You all right, you and friends?” Walker winced slightly. If anything, this Niyyuu’s voice was more of an ear-numbing screech than that of Viyv-pym. He nodded, then realized that the alien probably had no idea of the gesture’s significance.
“We’re fine. Thanks to you. Another time-part and it would have been too late. We’d have been hustled off world and out of reach.”
A second tall, supple figure eased the speaker aside. “Sorry for delay in coming. Takes time analyze data, reach decision, move. Could have alerted Sessrimathe authority, but decided come ourselves.”
While George observed the exchange with interest, a grateful Walker bowed slightly to Viyv-pym. In the dim light her huge eyes took on a faint luminosity that was beyond beguiling. Noting his friend’s expression, the dog snickered. Or maybe it was just a cough caused by being muffled for so long.
“Why?” Walker stared unabashedly into those eyes, watching as the frill on the back of her head and neck bobbed up and down like a vertical metronome. “Why not call the local authority? Why risk your own lives to help us?”
“Not help you.” Though affable as ever, her tone was reminiscent of a steel chisel etching glass. “Protect my asset. Promise already deliver you to Kojn-umm.” Smooth metallic skin and gleaming golden eyes leaned closer. “Viyv-pym keeps her promises.”
He couldn’t determine—certainly not from her abrasive tone—if that last was a pledge or threat. In the end, he decided it didn’t matter. Not with half a dozen hulking Vilenjji bodies strewn across the ground and in among the nearby trees. Sessrimathe authority would want to know what had happened here, he knew. Like much else, he decided to leave explanations to the Niyyuu. They were members of this same galactic civilization, while he and his friends were only visitors. Transitory ones, he continued to hope.
“If your new friend is agreeable,” Sque declared with a waving of several tendrils, “I believe it would be advisable for us to leave with them now, in the security of their company, lest our barbaric tormentors return in greater strength for another attempt upon our freedom.”
“Some did escape.” Viyv-pym glanced to her left, her entire upper body swiveling as smoothly as if on gimbals. “As we not know what reserves of personnel or weapons they may have, recommendation of small tentacled one is practical.”
“Now?” Walker looked back toward the towering marvel of Sessrimathe engineering that had been his only home for the past two years. “It’s very late, and we have personal items we’d like to bring with us.”
Sque peered unblinkingly up at him. “You feel in need of sleep, human? This encounter has rendered you sufficiently relaxed to re-retire?”
Walker had to confess that he was not sleepy in the least.
Viyv-pym gestured toward the complex. “Return and gather belongings. Is enough time, I think. We assist. But leave tonight, now. Scenic Niyu awaits you talents.”
Braouk had no head, but the eyes on the ends of their stalks rose to gaze at the night sky. “Standing here talking, time is clearly wasted, departure awaits.” Silhouetted against the stars, he was a mountain of stability in the midst of unsettled circumstances.
Was Pret-Klob among the Vilenjji dead? Walker found himself wondering as he and his friends together with a small escort of Niyyuu made their way back to the building. Or had the commander of the avaricious alien association succeeded in escaping into the landscaping? No matter, he tried to assure himself. Where they were going, it was unlikely such as the Vilenjji would follow.
This time, he told himself, he and his friends would finally go down in the ledgers of the Vilenjji as a permanent write-off to inventory.
On the way to the transfer port, their modest baggage tucked neatly in back of the large private transport, Walker tried again to thank their rescuer. In response, Viyv-pym turned in the seat that was too wide and too short for her. It might, he thought, have contributed to the irritation that underlined the words that spilled from the perfectly round mouth, though given the level of apparent prickliness that was the norm for Niyyuu speech it was difficult to tell.
“I tell you already, Marcus, no need for thanking. No one steals from a Niyyuu a contracted employee.”
Disdaining the sloping seat, Sque had climbed up onto its back. From there, she could survey the entire interior of the transport, as well as enjoy a better view of the brightening terrain outside.
“While such persistence in pursuit of a mere mercantile end suggests customs aligned with the most primitive, its aptness cannot be denied. In that regard, such diligence can only be commended.” Silver-gray eyes flashed with intensity. “It does inspire one to wonder at its remarkable timeliness.”
Walker looked over to where the K’eremu was perched firmly on the back of the seat. “I don’t follow you, Sque.”
“An occurrence in habitual accord with the normal state of affairs,” she informed him, with no more than the usual condescension. “I am referring to the question of how our self-confessedly unaltruistic liberators managed to conveniently appear in the necessary place at the astonishingly appropriate time to manage our rescue.”
George spoke up before Walker could reply, the dog’s attention focused on Viyv-pym. “Yeah. How did you know what was going on, and how to find us? The Vilenjji could have bundled us out of our complex via any one of a dozen possible exits.”
Silently, Viyv-pym stretched herself across the back of the seat. As the speeding transport rocked silently from side to side, one willowy arm reached toward Walker. This time he didn’t flinch at all. Both long, flexible fingers lightly stroked the back of his neck before withdrawing.
“You will remember,” she rasped softly. “Our first meeting. After making agreement, I touched you then like so. At that time was conveyed from me an absorptive penetrator.”
Walker gaped at her. “You put something inside me?”
“Liquid tracker.” Suddenly that round mouth appeared much more alien than inviting. With it she could, he noted, neither smile nor frown. “Harmless, time-delineated insertion. Will be completely gone you system in few more days.”
“But why?”
“I should think that intrinsically obvious.” If anything, Sque was amused by his discomfiture.
“Keep track you,” the Niyyuu told him without embarrassment. “Protect asset. Insure come to no harm. When alerted to unlikely movement of you person at unusual time of day/night, enables I and my staff to respond with caution.” She placed the two digits of her left hand over her mouth and spoke between them. He thought he was familiar with Niyyuu laughter. Perhaps this was the species equivalent of a smile. “Good thing do so, too. You not agree?”
“We’re very grateful, of course,” he assured her as the transport inclined slightly to the right, turning north at high speed. “But you could have told me what you did.”
“Not necessary.” Radiant yellow-gold eyes enveloped him. “Would have made you feel better to know?” Amidst the aural gravel, a flicker of concern emerged.
“Of course I . . .” He hesitated. Would he have felt better knowing that some kind of alien tracking fluid was coursing through his circulatory system? Did he feel better for knowing it now? It wasn’t as if she was somehow taking advantage of him.
As was sometimes the case, George was able to better articulate his friend’s feelings than Walker was himself. “Makes you feel a little like property, does it? Remind you somehow of a previous situation?”
Walker glanced over at the dog, who was sitting up now and watching their Niyyuu employer intently. “This is nothing like our previous situation, George. We were prisoners of the Vilenjji: captives. Viyv-pym is hiring us. There’s a vast difference in that.”
“Difference, okay,” the dog conceded as he scratched at one shoulder. “‘Vast,’ I’m not so sure.”
As soon as she digested the full import of the dog’s comments, Viyv-pym grew visibly annoyed. “Captives? Prisoners? What kind insult this? I take yous Kojn-umm because of respect yous’ abilities!” One hand pointed at Walker as the tips of her slender ears quivered and her tails lashed the sides of her seat. “Unique being exhibits unique talent. That only reason I extend offer to bring yous all Niyu. You think is nothing for me to do so? Cost involved goes beyond simple hiring. I have personal reputation to maintain!”
She was truly beautiful when she was angry, Walker could not help thinking. If only she wouldn’t yell quite so much. The normal Niyyuu tone of voice was discordant enough.
“Okay, okay.” Grumbling but far from mollified by her ear-bending outburst, George finished scratching and stretched back out on the seat. “Don’t sprain your tongue—if you’ve got one.” He glanced up at the man seated next to him. “Touchy bitch, isn’t she?”
Walker held his breath, but evidently the Vilenjji implant translated the dog’s comment in a way that was consistent with good manners. At least, Viyv-pym did not respond as a human female might have. Behind them, Braouk was reciting the eighth quatrain of the Kerelon Soliloquy. In order to squeeze inside, the Tuuqalian had to lie flat on the empty deck at the rear of the transport. Lost in melancholy reminiscence, he paid little attention to the conversation forward.
Once Viyv-pym had calmed down, Walker was able to reflect more dispassionately on George’s comments. Had the dog been out of line, or was he onto something Walker was too excited or blinded to see? Had he advanced their cause of traveling nearer to their homes, or had he simply entered into an agreement that was little different from the one the Vilenjji had intended for them all along? Ostensibly, he and his companions were free agents, able to enter into an employment contract of their own choosing. Could they also exit it if and when they wished? They would be on Niyu—not sophisticated, highly civilized Sessrimathe—dealing with a species that, beyond their obvious physical attractiveness, neither he nor his companions knew anything about. How would Viyv-pym react, for example, if after arriving and performing his demonstrations for a few weeks he announced that he and his friends wished to leave?
Maybe he hadn’t made such a smart call after all, he found himself worrying. Worse still, he had inveigled his only friends into going along with it.
Something lightly touched his shoulder. Turning, he found himself staring into black, horizontal pupils set in eyes of silver. A two-foot-long tendril was coiled lightly against his clavicle while the pinkish mouth tube that emerged from the nest of tentacles fluttered in his direction.
“I cannot read thoughts. Evolved as we are, my kind has not yet advanced to that degree. But in the time we have spent forced to endure one another’s company I have become somewhat sensitive to your moods and expressions. You fear the consequences of the decision you have made.”
There was a time when such close proximity face-to-face with a creature like Sque would have sent Walker reeling in shock. It was a measure of how much he had adapted that he did not even flinch from the rubbery cephalopodian visage.
“Yes, I do.” A glance in George’s direction showed that the dog had laid his head down on crossed forepaws and was ignoring them both. “George always knows how to stir up my uncertainties.”
“A psychological device that should not be cavalierly employed by species unsophisticated in its use. Think a moment, Marcus Walker. If a self-evidently superior being like myself did not believe that there was more to be gained by accepting the offer of these Niyyuu than by declining it, would I have agreed to come along?”
Coming as it did straight from the K’eremu, the realization boosted his spirits. “No. No, you wouldn’t have. You would have stayed on Seremathenn no matter how much I urged you to come.”
“Precisely. Your oafish pleadings would have had no effect on me whatsoever.” The tendril withdrew. “I am here only because I believe it truly does afford me the best opportunity to journey a bit nearer my homeworld that I have been offered since our arrival on Seremathenn, however meager it may eventually turn out to be. My decision has nothing to do with any perceived affection you believe I may hold toward your quaintly primitive individual person.”
Walker was more relieved than he would have thought possible. “Thanks, Sque. I needed that reassurance.”
“It is unintended,” the K’eremu concluded, withdrawing backward to her perch atop the seat behind Walker’s own.
Sque’s indifference to his situation made her affirmation of his choice of action that much more heartening. Paradoxically, the fact that she could have cared less about how he felt showed how firmly she countenanced what they had done. He settled back into his seat, duly reassured in mind.
Now all he had to do was hope that primitive human and superior K’eremu were not equally misguided in their mutual decision.
In its perversely consistent fashion, it was comforting to discover in the course of the long voyage to Niyu that Viyv-pym was no more brusque of manner or grating of voice than any other representative of her kind. In fact, when confronted in close quarters with more than two or three Niyyuu conversing at once, Walker often had to manufacture an excuse to flee the location lest the pain from the sound of their overlapping voices lead to the kind of stabbing migraine he had not suffered since quitting football. He suspected that with time he would get used to the jarring, rasping, scratchy vocalizations. He would have to.
Their new hosts’ irritating voices did not trouble the affable George nearly as much, barking being a less than mellifluous method of communication to begin with. As for Braouk, the massive Tuuqalian was not bothered by them at all, while Sque regarded all forms of non-K’eremu modulated communication as unworthy of serious evaluation anyway.
So Walker was left to listen in solitary discomfort to the queries and musings of the crew and the other passengers, struggling as best he was able to avoid cringing every time he was subjected to a particularly screechy turn of Niyyuuan phrase. His Vilenjji implant did its usual excellent job of rendering otherwise unintelligible alien conversation comprehensible, but it could do nothing to mute the actual sound of their speech.
Weeks into the journey saw him gradually becoming inured to the effect, rather like someone who has been bitten numerous times by a poisonous snake and has consequently developed a certain immunity to the toxin. Or maybe, he decided, his outraged ears had been damaged to the point of being unable to discriminate between Niyyuuan vocalizations and any other kind.
Whether by accident or subconscious design, he found himself spending a lot of time in Viyv-pym’s company. He did not worry about relaxing too much. For one thing, she never missed an opportunity to remind him that the only relationship they had was that between employer and employee—though she was not engaging him personally. She was only acting as an agent for her government. Additionally, while her appearance and attitude was that of a beauteous alien apparition, her behavior was more akin to that of a crude visitant from some backward region of civilized space. Not that she was in any way boorish or ignorant, he determined. A lot of it had to do with the unfortunate manner of Niyyuu speech.
While he learned much from her about the physical nature of her homeworld, she was oddly reticent to discuss social mores and attitudes. “Yous find out after arriving,” she would always tell him. He got the impression she was being tentative rather than deliberately evasive.
George was less convinced. “She’s keeping something from us. Not necessarily concealing. Just skipping around certain subjects.”
Sitting in the room they shared, dog and Walker exchanged a glance. The Niyyuuan sleeping platform on which he was lying was almost seven feet long but so narrow that he had to be careful not to fall onto the floor whenever he turned over during the chosen sleep period. George had no such difficulty with his platform. It could have easily accommodated a dozen Georges.
“Why would she want to hide anything?” Walker wondered how Braouk was handling the journey. While he could bend low enough to clear the ceilings within the Niyyuuan vessel, the Tuuqalian could only fit through a few exceptionally wide corridors, and then only by turning sideways. As a result, for the duration of the trip he was largely confined to the single storage area that had been converted for his use. While his comparative isolation was unavoidable, Sque’s was voluntary. Unless it was obligatory, the K’eremu saw no reason to mix with lower life-forms on a social basis. This was not a problem, as the more they learned about Sque and the more often she was encountered, the more her self-imposed isolation suited the Niyyuu as much as it did the K’eremu.
“If we knew that,” the dog was saying in response to Walker’s question, “we’d probably have some idea what she was hiding. Maybe I’m way off base here, Marc. I have to keep reminding myself that we’re not captives on a Vilenjji collecting craft and that we’re here of our own free will.”
“It’ll be better once we get there. You’ll see.” Rolling over, he leaned across the narrow divide that separated their respective sleeping platforms and began to scratch the dog’s back.
George’s eyes half closed, and an expression of pleasure crossed his bushy face. “Farther down. Farther.” The dog’s eyes shut completely. “That’s it—both hip bones.” Walker continued scratching until his friend settled down on his stomach. “Thanks. Every once in a while it’s useful for me to be reminded why I keep you around.”
Walker grinned. “Because if we happen to stumble across a pile of dog food, you’ll need somebody to operate the can opener?”
“Sque’s right. You’re learning.” More seriously he added, “I may be paranoid, but paranoia’s kept me alive more than once. You keep an eye on that Viyv-pym specimen. And not the kind of eye you’ve been using.”
Walker feigned shock. “George, she’s an alien. She’s not even mammalian, in the scientific sense.”
“It’s not scientific sense that worries me here.” The dog eyed him evenly, cocking his head to one side, ears flopping. “It’s another one.”
“Look, I won’t deny that I find her attractive. But that’s all. It’s purely a matter of dispassionate aesthetics. The same’s true for every Niyyuu. They’re just a physically striking species, if verbally irritating.” He was very earnest.
The dog nodded tersely. “Let’s hope the irritation is confined to the verbal.”
“If my spending time trying to learn about her world and her people is worrying you that much,” Walker suggested, “why not ask Sque’s opinion?”
George snorted softly. “I said I was concerned, not daft. I don’t need to go looking for insults. I can find plenty without having to search for them.” With that, he rolled over onto his back, thrust his legs into the air, and gave every indication of embarking on a quick nap.
Walker let the matter drop. He was bemused by Viyv-pym, perhaps even beguiled, but he was not worried. She was too direct to be duplicitous. If he hadn’t felt that he could trust her, he would never have agreed to undertake the current journey.
Or would he? Had he been blinded by the chance to travel—hopefully—a little closer to home? Was there some aspect of her personality, of Niyyuuan nature, that his enthusiasm for the opportunity had caused him to overlook? He didn’t think so. A part of him almost wished his friends had not agreed to come with him, though. Because they had, and because it was his idea, he felt responsible for them. Braouk would have shrugged off the notion with verse, while Sque would have considered it beneath debate. Only the ever-ready George would have dumped a dutiful dollop of guilt on his fellow Chicagoan.
That settled it, Walker decided with a small smile. In some earlier incarnation, George must have been a Jewish or Italian grandmother.