A werewolf among us

from your house, might be a likely suspect."
    "What would Salardi have against us? We hardly know him."
    "Perhaps he has nothing against you. Let's go see if we can find out, though." He walked off toward the gaily colored tent.
    Salardi came to the flap the second time they called his name, pushed through, and stood before them, obviously determined not to invite them inside. "What is it?" he asked.
    St. Cyr introduced himself, though he saw Salardi's eyes narrow at the mention of "detective."
    "I wonder if you'd mind answering a few questions."
    Salardi wiped at his beard, thinking it over, looked at Dane, then said, "Go ahead. I'll tell you when I've heard enough of them."
    "How long have you lived with the gypsies?"
    "Four years."
    "You're an archaeologist?"
    "No."
    "But I understood you came here with—"
    "I'm a roboticist by profession, an archaeologist by avocation. I came with the expedition to oversee their limited-response robots."
    "And you remained behind."
    Salardi said nothing.
    "Why do you stay here, among those of another species, without any of the comforts of modern life?"
    "I like them; that's it. As simple as that. I think they've gotten a lousy deal from the fedgov right down the line. I'd rather live among them than among my own kind. My own kind shame me."
    "How have they gotten a lousy deal?" St, Cyr asked.
    Salardi folded his arms across his barrel chest and said, "The fedgov always says that planets are colonized without war. I found, when I was with the diggers here, that there had been a war, a damn short and violent war, when the Darmanians were dispossessed. They were primitive, but with a high degree of artistic achievement and the most carefully structured social system I've ever seen. We knocked them down, killed more than half of them, and let another quarter die out from Earth-borne diseases. That's long in the past now, but it still haunts me. What we did here was inexcusable. Do you know that these people did not know anything of war before we came? There were perhaps half a billion of them across the globe, and they never once took arms against each other. The fedgov's war of annexation was grotesque. In two months, only two hundred thousand natives remained. And then the disease… And now that it's clear that violence against other intelligent creatures is beyond them, the fedgov lets them go, lets them wander in quasi-poverty on a planet made over for the rich.
That
is how they've gotten a lousy deal."
    The man spoke with the fiery eloquence of a fanatic on the subject. St, Cyr used his present lack of emotional balance to ask him: "Then you aren't running from criminal prosecution in the Inner Galaxy, as everyone says?"
    Salardi dropped his arms and balled his fists at his side. His face colored suddenly. "I've heard enough questions," he said. He turned and entered his tent, pulled the flap shut and tied it down from within.
     
    Dane brooded on the ride down from the gypsy camp, drove too fast for the condition of the road. St. Cyr ignored him, trusting to Fate and the boy's own desire to live to get them safely home again.
    When they had been driving for an hour, Dane suddenly spoke: "What about the fits the boy threw when he was sick—snapping at people and growling like an animal?"
    "It's a common symptom of the disease, according to Climicon. It sounds like a relative of an epileptic fit."
    "I knew that thing on your chest would keep you blind to the truth. It's trying to apply logic where logic wasn't meant to be."
    "But the logic is working," St. Cyr observed.
    "Who in hell do you suspect, St. Cyr? Who is a better potential killer than the
du-aga-klava?
Who would have reasons?"
    "Several people," St. Cyr said. "And I'm adding Salardi to the list."
    "Why him?"
    "Because he's a fanatic about the treatment accorded the natives by the fedgov. Understandable, of course, and all of it as deplorable as he thinks it is. But a fanatic might very well decide that the best way to strike back in behalf of the non-violent Darmanians is to start killing the wealthy people who have inherited this world."
    "He's had four years to start. Why begin now?"
    "Perhaps it took four years to build up a keen edge of madness."
    Dane said nothing more.
    Eventually they left the gray trees behind and passed through the lower foothills where the pines grew. The sunlight was welcome, the sky cheerfully cloudless.
    St. Cyr's mood was considerably better than it had been that morning. He had even