The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

too particular about employment, and he could not tell why he was.
    “Nothing illegal, I assure you.” The man crossed to set his refresher cup in the empty slot. “I am an Out-Hunter.”
    Lansor blinked. This had all taken on some of the fantastic aura of a dream. The other was eyeing him impatiently, as if he had expected some reaction.
    “You may inspect my credentials if you wish.”
    “I believe you,” Vye found his voice.
    “I happen to need a gearman.”
    But this wasn’t happening! Of course, it couldn’t happen to him, Vye Lansor, state child, swamper in the Starfall. Things such as this did not happen, except in a thaline dream, and he wasn’t a smoke eater! It was the kind of dream a man didn’t want to wake from, not if he was port-drift.
    “Would you be willing to sign on?”
    Vye tried to clutch reality to himself, to remain level-headed. A gearman for an Out-Hunter! Why five men out of six would pay a large premium for a chance at such rating. The chill of doubt cut through the first hazy rosiness. A swamper from a port-side dive simply did not become a gearman for a Guild Hunter.
    Again it was as if the stranger read his thoughts. “Look here,” he spoke abruptly. “I had a bad time myself, years ago. You resemble someone to whom I owe a debt. I can’t repay him, but I can make the scales a little even this way.”
    “Make the scales even.” Vye’s fading hope brightened. Then the Out-Hunter was a follower of the Fata Rite. That would explain everything. If you could not repay a good deed to the one you owed, you must balance the Eternal Scales in another fashion. He relaxed again, a great many of his unasked questions so answered.
    “You will accept?”
    Vye nodded eagerly. “Yes, Out-Hunter.” He still could not believe that this was happening.
    The other pressed the refresher button, and this time he handed Lansor the brimming cup. “Drink on the bargain.” His words had the ring of command.
    Lansor drank, gulping down the contents of the cup, and suddenly was aware of being tired. He leaned back against the wall, his eyes closed.
    Ras Hume took the cup from the lax fingers of the young man. So far, very good. Chance appeared to be playing on his side of the board. It had been chance which had steered him into the Starfall just three nights ago when he had been in quest of his imposter. And Vye Lansor was better than he dared hope to find. The boy had the right coloring, he had been batted around enough to fall for the initial story, he was malleable now. And after Wass’ techs worked on him he would be Rynch Brodie—heir to one-third of Kogan-Bors-Wazalitz!
    “Come!” He touched Vye on the shoulder. The boy opened his eyes but his gaze did not focus as he got slowly to his feet. Hume glanced at his planet-time watch. It was still very early; the chance he must run in getting Lansor out of this building was small if they went at once. Guiding the younger man with a light hold above the elbow, he walked him out back to the flitter landing stage. The air-car was waiting. Hume’s sense of being a gambler facing a run of good luck grew as he shepherded the boy into the flitter, punched a cover destination and took off.
    On another street he transferred himself and his charge into a second air-car, set the destination to within a block of the address Wass had given him. Not much later he walked Vye into a small lobby with a discreet list of names posted in its rack. No occupations attached to those colored streamers Hume noted. This meant either that their owners represented luxury trades, where a name signified the profession or service, or that they were covers—perhaps both. Wass’ world fringed many different circles, intermingled with some quite surprising professions dedicated to the comfort, pleasure or health of the idle rich, off-world nobility, and the criminal elite.
    Hume fingered the right call button, knowing that the thumb pattern he had left on Wass’ conference table would have already been relayed as his symbol of admission here. A flicker of light winked below the name, the wall to the right shimmered, and produced a doorway. Steering Vye to it, Hume nodded to the man waiting there. He was a flat-faced Eucorian of the servant caste, and now he reached out to draw Lansor over the threshold.
    “I have him, gentlehomo.” His voice was as expressionless as his face. There was another shimmer and the door disappeared.
    Hume brushed his hand down the outer