Using his new second vision, Teg chose one of the farmers, a squat, dark-skinned man with heavy features and thickly calloused hands. The man walked with a defiant sense of independence. He towed eight large panniers piled with rough-skinned melons. The smell of them was a mouth-watering agony to Teg as he matched his stride to that of the farmer. Teg strode for a few minutes in silence, then ventured: "Is this the best road to Ysai?"
"It is a long way," the man said. He had a guttural voice, something cautious in it.
Teg glanced back at the loaded panniers.
The farmer looked sidelong at Teg. "We go to a market center. Others take our produce from there to Ysai."
As they talked, Teg realized the farmer had guided (almost herded) him close to the edge of the road. The man glanced back and jerked his head slightly, nodding forward. Three more farmers came up beside them and closed in around Teg and his companion until tall panniers concealed them from the rest of the traffic.
Teg tensed. What were they planning? He sensed no menace, though. His doubled vision detected nothing violent in his immediate vicinity.
A heavy vehicle sped past them and on ahead. Teg knew of its passage only by the smell of burned fuel, the wind that shook the panniers, the thrumming of a powerful engine and sudden tension in his companions. The high panniers completely hid the passing vehicle.
"We have been looking for you to protect you, Bashar," the farmer beside him said. "There are many who hunt you but none of them with us along here."
Teg shot a startled glance at the man.
"We served with you at Renditai," the farmer said.
Teg swallowed. Renditai? He was a moment recalling it - only a minor skirmish in his long history of conflicts and negotiations.
"I am sorry but I do not know your name," Teg said.
"Be glad that you do not know our names. It is better that way."
"But I'm grateful."
"This is a small repayment, which we are glad to make, Bashar."
"I must get to Ysai," Teg said.
"It is dangerous there."
"It is dangerous everywhere."
"We guessed you would go to Ysai. Someone will come soon and you will ride in concealment. Ahhhh, here he comes. We have not seen you here, Bashar. You have not been here."
One of the other farmers took over the towing of his companion's load, pulling two strings of panniers while the farmer Teg had chosen hustled Teg under a tow rope and into a dark vehicle. Teg glimpsed shiny plasteel and plaz as the vehicle slowed only briefly for the pickup. The door closed sharply behind him and he found himself on a soft upholstered seat, alone in the back of a groundcar. The car picked up speed and soon was beyond the marching farmers. The windows around Teg had been darkened, giving him a dusky view of the passing scene. The driver was a shaded silhouette.
This first chance to relax in warm comfort since his capture almost lured Teg into sleep. He sensed no threats. His body still ached from the demands he had made on it and from the agonies of the T-probe.
He told himself, though, that he must stay awake and alert.
The driver leaned sideways and spoke over his shoulder without turning: "They have been hunting for you for two days, Bashar. Some think you already off-planet."
Two days?
The stunner and whatever else they had done to him had left him unconscious for a long time. This only added to his hunger. He tried to make the flesh-embedded chrono play against his vision centers and it only flickered as it had done each time he consulted it since the T-probe. His time sense and all references to it were changed.
So some thought he had left Gammu.
Teg did not ask who hunted him. Tleilaxu and people from the Scattering had been in that attack and the subsequent torture.
Teg glanced around his conveyance. It was one of those beautiful old pre-Scattering groundcars, the marks of the finest Ixian manufacture on it. He had never before ridden in one but he knew about them. Restorers picked them up to renew, rebuild - whatever they did that brought back the ancient sense of quality. Teg had been told that such vehicles often were found abandoned in strange places - in old broken-down buildings, in culverts, locked away in machinery warehouses, in farm fields.
Again, his driver leaned slightly sideways and spoke over one shoulder: "Do you have an address where you wish to be taken in Ysai, Bashar?"
Teg called up his memory of the contact points he had identified on his first tour of Gammu and gave one of these to the man. "Do you know that place?"
"It is mostly a meeting and drinking establishment, Bashar. I hear they serve good food, too, but anyone can enter if he has the price."
Not knowing why he had made that particular choice, Teg said: "We will chance it." He did not think it necessary to tell the driver that there were private dining rooms at the address.
The mention of food brought back sharp hunger cramps. Teg's arms began to tremble and he was several minutes restoring calmness. Last night's activities had almost drained him, he realized. He sent a searching gaze around the car's interior, wondering if there might be food or drink concealed here. The car's restoration had been accomplished with loving care but he saw no hidden compartments.
Such cars were not all that rare in some quarters, he knew, but all of them spoke of wealth. Who owned this one? Not the driver, certainly. That one had all the signs of a hired professional. But if a message had been sent to bring this car then others knew of Teg's location.
"Will we be stopped and searched?" Teg asked.
"Not this car, Bashar. The Planetary Bank of Gammu owns it."
Teg absorbed this silently. That bank had been one of his contact points. He had studied key branches carefully on his inspection tour. This memory drew him back into his responsibilities as guardian of the ghola.
"My companions," Teg ventured. "Are they..."
"Others have that in hand, Bashar. I cannot say."
"Can word be taken to..."
"When it is safe, Bashar."
"Of course."
Teg sank back into the cushions and studied his surroundings. These groundcars had been built with much plaz and almost indestructible plasteel. It was other things that went sour with age - upholstery, headliners, the electronics, the suspensor installations, the ablative liners of the turbofan ducts. And the adhesives deteriorated no matter what you did to preserve them. The restorers had made this one look as though it had just been cranked out of the factory - all subdued glowing in the metals, upholstery that molded itself to him with a faint sound of crinkling. And the smell: that indefinable aroma of newness, a mixture of polish and fine fabrics with just a hint of ozone bite underneath from the smoothly working electronics. Nowhere in it, though, was there the smell of food.
"How long to Ysai?" Teg asked.
"Another half hour, Bashar. Is there a problem that requires more speed? I don't want to attract..."
"I am very hungry."
The driver glanced left and right. There were no more farmers around them here. The roadway was almost empty except for two heavy transport pods with their tractors holding to the right verge and a large lorry hauling a towering automatic fruit picker.
"It is dangerous to delay for long," the driver said. "But I know a place where I think I can at least get you a quick bowl of soup."
"Anything would be welcome. I have not eaten for two days and there has been much activity."
They came to a crossroads and the driver turned left onto a narrow track through tall, evenly spaced conifers. Presently, he turned onto a one-lane drive through the trees. The low building at the end of this track was built of dark stones and had a blackplaz roof. The windows were narrow and glistened with protective burner nozzles.
The driver said: "Just a minute, sir." 'He got out and Teg had his first look at the man's face: extremely thin with a long nose and tiny mouth. The visible tracery of surgical reconstruction laced his cheeks. The eyes glowed silver, obviously artificial. He turned away and went into the house. When he returned, he opened Teg's door. "Please be quick, sir. The one inside is heating soup for you. I have said you are a banker. No need to pay."
The ground was icy crisp underfoot. Teg had to stoop slightly for the doorway. He entered a dark hallway, wood-paneled and with a well-lighted room at the end. The smell of food there drew him like a magnet. His arms were trembling once more. A small table had been set beside a window with a view of an enclosed and covered garden. Bushes heavy with red flowers almost concealed the stone wall that defined the garden. Yellow hotplaz gleamed over the space, bathing it in a summery artificial light. Teg sank gratefully into the single chair at the table. White linen, he saw, with an embossed edge. A single soup spoon.
A door creaked at his right and a squat figure entered carrying a bowl from which steam arose. The man hesitated when he saw Teg, then brought the bowl to the table and placed it in front of Teg. Alerted by that hesitation, Teg forced himself to ignore the tempting aroma drifting to his nostrils and concentrated instead on his companion.
"It is good soup, sir. I made it myself."
An artificial voice. Teg saw the scars at the sides of the jaw. There was the look of an ancient mechanical about this man - an almost neckless head attached to thick shoulders, arms that seemed oddly jointed at both shoulders and elbows, legs that appeared to swing only from the hips. He stood motionless now but he had entered here with a slightly jerking sway that said he was mostly replacement artificials. The look of suffering in his eyes could not be avoided.
"I know I'm not pretty, sir," the man rasped. "I was ruined in the Alajory explosion."
Teg had no idea what the Alajory explosion might have been but it obviously was presumed he knew. "Ruined," however, was an interesting accusation against Fate.
"I was wondering if I knew you," Teg said.
"No one here knows anyone else," the man said. "Eat your soup." He pointed upward at the coiled tip of quiescent snooper, the glow of its lights revealing that it read its surroundings and found no poison. "The food is safe here."
Teg looked at the dark brown liquid in his bowl. Lumps of solid meat were visible in it. He reached for the spoon. His trembling hand made two attempts before grasping the spoon and even then he sloshed most of the liquid out of the spoon before he could lift it a millimeter.
A steadying hand gripped Teg's wrist and the artificial voice spoke softly in Teg's ear: "I do not know what they did to you, Bashar, but no one will harm you here without crossing my dead body."
"You know me?"
"Many would die for you, Bashar. My son lives because of you."
Teg allowed himself to be helped. It was all he could do to swallow the first spoonful. The liquid was rich, hot and soothing. His hand steadied presently and he nodded to the man to release the wrist.
"More, sir?"
Teg realized then that he had emptied the bowl. It was tempting to say "yes" but the driver had said to make haste.
"Thank you, but I must go."
"You have not been here," the man said.
When they were once more back on the main road, Teg sat back against the groundcar's cushions and reflected on the curious echoing quality of what the ruined man had said. The same words the farmer had used: "You have not been here." It had the feeling of a common response and it said something about changes in Gammu since Teg had surveyed the place.
