In the light spilling in through the empty doorway from the corridor, Harry could make out several items abandoned by the desperadoes in their flight. There on the floor lay a short cudgel, over there beside the wall a knife, and there, beside an upended cot and candle stand, the scrap of cloth they had been trying to plaster over Harry's face. He presumed the fabric was laced with some kind of poison or anesthetic.

Bulaboldo was back on his feet now, stretching his back and testing his joints, his groans subsiding; he seemed to have got the worst of them out of his system.

The big man came closer. "Harry. You're all right?" His concern sounded genuine.

Still panting, Harry took a quick inventory, checking out his sore spots one by one. They all turned out to be no worse than bruises. "Nothing broken, not even any blood. Good thing you came in when you did. How about yourself?"

A massive shrug. "Nothing worth mentioning. A mere scratch."

Harry couldn't see even that much damage, but he said: "I owe you another one."

"I will be proud to collect that debt, dear lad." Then Bulaboldo, mumbling to himself what sounded like exotic curses in some alternate language, moved about the room with his head bent, studying the various items dropped by the invaders.

Harry had turned back to Lily, who was still huddled on the floor in one corner of the room, making her favorite strange noises. Bending, he touched her gently, and asked: "You all right?"

She choked out some answer that Harry could not hear clearly. By this time other people, guests and workers of the caravanserai, roused by the uproar, were crowding in at the empty doorway, walking on the fallen door, beginning a clamor of comments and questions.

Bulaboldo had discovered that one of the cots was still intact enough to let him sit on it.

The stationmaster was among the first to enter, with a kind of billy club in hand. When he saw that the trouble, whatever it had been, was over now, he stuck his billy club back in his belt, with a firmness that seemed to permanently forswear the use of violence. A moment later he had picked up the cloth dropped by the invaders. After taking one whiff at arm's length, he threw it back on the floor. "Enough to make your head spin."

"That seemed to be the general idea," Harry agreed.

"What happened?"

Harry pointed at the evidence. "People broke in - look at your window bars - and tried to kidnap me."

"Kidnap?"

"Don't ask me why."

There followed a barrage of questions from several new arrivals.

Harry could testify that at least a couple of the intruders who got away must also have been seriously hurt, and must have needed help in making their getaway.

Lily said she had been on the floor when the fight ended, unable to see which way any of the escaping people went.

The stationmaster looked as if he had hoped to find some innocent explanation of it all; but by now it was plain that wasn't going to happen. With a sigh he asked: "Can we be sure how many there were?"

"There were five," said Harry.

"Can we be sure?"

Harry looked at him. "What did I just say? Did my best to keep track while I was hitting them. Four got away."

Kul interrupted, with a mighty clearing of his throat. "When I looked out the window, it seemed to me there were two cars, already starting to move away."

"Which way did they go?" the stationmaster wondered. "East or west?"

Bulaboldo shook his head. "I don't know. They were moving out of the parking spaces, toward the road. Light's bad out there, and I couldn't see which way they turned."

None of the three participants in the fight who were still conscious could contribute anything immediately helpful. When people kept looking at Harry, he added: "It was just sort of fleeing bodies, vanishing in the gloom. But one didn't get away." Quickly Harry turned his attention to the body feebly moving on the floor.

By now, there were more people in the room than there had been during the fight. Guests of the caravanserai jostled for space with members of the staff. All were questioning each other, to no avail, while a couple hovered in ineffective sympathy over the kidnapper still on the floor.

"What happened to this one?" someone wondered. The man showed no obvious wounds.

"He ran into a door," Harry grunted. Then he looked over at Lily. "Sure you're all right?" Only now did he see that blood was trickling, very lightly, from her pretty neck, where the menacing knife had made a nick.

"I guess I'll live," she got out quietly.

A couple of people had started fussing over her, administering first aid.

Someone had set up the candle and relighted it, and at last someone else was bringing a brighter lamp into the room. In its efficient glow Bulaboldo got busy, pointing out to newcomers the weapons that the intruders had dropped on the floor.

Harry was also able to get a better look at the big man's protective garment, which had been fabricated of some fine, lightweight plastic chain mail. Harry had seen that stuff before - it was tough enough to repel almost any point or blade.

The stationmaster and others were working over the kidnapper who had not been able to get away. One of them was gently peeling off the fellow's mask. The face revealed was one that Harry had never seen before.

Looking at it from across the room, Harry thought he could detect certain signs of serious head injury: the fellow's pupils were of unequal size, and he seemed to have blood oozing from one ear. Harry would have liked to drag him into a brighter light somewhere, and try some homegrown methods of resuscitation. But no, it looked like any questioning would have to wait. The man was still breathing, but that was about it.

A bunch of people were still in the room, and more hovered at the door, vacillating between wanting to look at what was happening and trying to remain uninvolved.

Lily, who obviously needed no ambulance, was standing up and had a small bandage on her throat to stop the bleeding. She told her version of events, and then repeated it as more people started asking questions. The story she told meshed pretty closely with the scenario as Harry recalled it.

She was backed up by the respected Maracandan businessman and dealer in mining properties, Kul Bulaboldo, who was eager to identify himself - he had begun handing out smart business cards - and to vouch for the integrity of his two friends.

The stationmaster rose and turned away from the man on the floor, muttering that he was in bad shape. "We don't even have a decent medirobot here; transit authority says it would take up too much free-zone room. All we can do is get this fellow to the hospital, quick as we can, I say we don't wait for an ambulance. And I'll try to get off a couple of telegrams." He started trying to shoo people out of the room. He turned to look at Harry. "Maybe they'll want to send out some kind of investigator from Minersville."

Harry stared right back. "Obviously they were mistaking me for someone else, this Doctor Somebody. What gets me is, when you decide to kidnap someone, why do it here?"

Bulaboldo made a thoughtful murmur that might or might not have meant he considered the question a useful one. "You mean, why at a caravanserai?"

"Well, that. But in particular I was thinking, why do it in a breakdown zone?"

Kul frowned ferociously. He seemed genuinely surprised and outraged at the kidnapping attempt. "Oh, I suppose it makes sense. Getting at the victim would be easier. It would probably have been much harder to force their way into a modern building, equipped with some high-tech security system. In a free zone, the predators would have been able to escape much faster in a powered vehicle, but any pursuit that followed would be faster, too. And news of the crime could be sent ahead to cut them off."

Privately, Harry was trying to tie the incident to his lingering suspicion that Lily was after all involved in something shady. But he couldn't come up with a connection.

The stationmaster seemed afflicted with lingering shock. When the case of head injury had been dispatched to Minersville in a pedicar, propelled by two hard-muscled young employees of the caravanserai, he came back to Harry's room to talk some more.

"Nothing like this ever happened here before," he repeated several times, sounding half apologetic and half angry.

Bulaboldo, listening with every appearance of great sympathy for the beset official, had begun to exert his considerable skills at soothing authority and establishing an indirect dominance of his own.

He forestalled any attempt, quashed any suggestion, to hold Harry here at the caravanserai until some official investigator arrived.

"We'll all be in Minersville tomorrow anyway," he assured the official. "But perhaps you should telegraph in that direction, have them be on the lookout for the fugitives."

"Ah, when you really need the damn thing, it never works. But I'll see if we can get a signal through."

The stationmaster's helper, a nervous youth carrying a pad and stylus, began to try to write down the names and addresses of the principal witnesses.

Harry gave such personal data as seemed pertinent. Then he said: "What puzzles me is that one of them called me by name."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. But not by my right name. 'Doctor Kloskurb,' or something close to that. What kind of sense does that make?" Then he fell silent, jogged by a certain memory that he didn't want to talk about just then.

No one else had a good answer to his question. As word of the attempted kidnapping spread through the caravanserai, every face that he saw seemed to be looking at him strangely. He glowered back at them, and no one except the stationmaster bothered him with questions.

In the common room, the smell of yesterday's cooking lingered in the air, and a row of broad tables awaited tomorrow morning's breakfast, now not many hours away.

A quarter of an hour later, the official announced with some satisfaction that the morning's eastbound caravan would be departing at its scheduled time, and crew and passengers alike should attempt to get back to sleep. Harry decided he would try.

Lily had announced she was more than ready to make that effort, and closed her door. But only seconds later, the door between her room and Harry's slid open again, and she put her head through, taking another look at the cheap shattered furniture, the other door still on the floor, the broken barrier of the window.

"Looks a bit of a mess," she commented. "Harry, I've got an empty cot in my room, if you'd like to use it." She paused, fingering her throat, where the small bandage was almost invisible. "Unless you're going to your friend's room?"

"My friend? Oh, you mean Kul?" Harry had to chuckle. "But he was some help, wasn't he? Thanks. I'm sure I'll like your room better." He began to throw his belongings into the little bag from the general store. Packing took about five seconds, including picking up his boots. "Sorry about your neck; I didn't mean to joggle the fellow's arm. I guess my aim was just a little off; but my intentions were better than his were."

"You probably saved my life - again." She was holding the door to her room open for him. "I don't know if either of us will get any sleep." Then she considered how that might sound. "I mean..."

"I understand. If I snore too loud, just kick me." He had just stretched out and closed his eyes, when Lily's voice asked from the other bunk: "What were they after, Harry? It wasn't really anything to do with you, was it?"

"Not that I know of. Except that kind of stuff seems to follow me around." He paused, wondering whether to open his eyes or not, and deciding against it. "Still want me to help you find your husband?"

"Yes. I do."

The rest of the night passed uneventfully.

When Harry woke up, suddenly and peacefully, the first gleams of what passed for daylight on Maracanda were brightening the window of Lily's room. She lay sleeping, face half buried in her pillow. Like Harry she was fully clothed except for boots, but she had pulled a blanket round her, probably more for symbolic security than for warmth.

For a few moments Harry lay studying her face, thinking he knew not much more about her than he had two days ago. Then she began to stir, and it was time to get up. In a few minutes, they were joining their fellow passengers in a kind of cafeteria line for a good recycler breakfast.

The signal for boarding the eastbound caravan was given almost on time. Soon the travelers were back in their respective wagons, most choosing to occupy the same chairs as yesterday. The lure lamp was lighted and dangled on its pole in front of the movable cage of massive spheres. The spheres trembled for a moment, then began to roll toward the source of special light. Harry wondered if they had got a good rest during the hours of darkness.

Again the pace was moderate. It seemed to Harry that a good long-distance runner would probably have been able to keep up.

Full daylight, or its analogue, came from the brightening east to meet the travelers on the road. By then, they had reached a place where they had a good view of the several distinct layers of atmosphere - for want of a better word - each displaying gaps of apparent emptiness, that made up the imitation sky of Maracanda. No one with the caravan seemed to know exactly how far up between these layers the breathable atmosphere extended.

The closest layer hovered, somehow self-supporting, no more than a few meters above the crest of a rise of land.

Harry mused, "Looks like it should be possible to climb up there and touch the sky."

Bulaboldo shook his head. "Actually it could be possible, but I wouldn't advise making the attempt. No one's done that, to my knowledge, and survived."

That got Lily's attention. "What happens?"

"As I understand it" - Kul made a finger-snapping gesture - "like lightning, only more so."

The morning was spent in following a winding road, or trail, between chains of towering hills, and across and around other landforms more than ordinarily spectacular.

As the journey wore on, Bulaboldo was ready to converse again, but not about the kidnapping attempt. He had several times already expressed his concern about what the Space Force might be doing, legally or otherwise, to Harry's ship. Harry himself wasn't particularly worried, and was able to reassure his associate. He thought his ship and his cargo should be safe till he went back to get them. But whether that would be in days or years he didn't know.

Elaborating on their earlier discussion, Harry told Bulaboldo that taking control of the Witch would not be an easy task for the Space Force, even if they brought in clever engineers. Not with the automatic defenses and alarms Harry had in place. The thoughtware also bristled with truly fiendish downlock codes, practically guaranteed to stop anyone but Harry from getting his ship to lift off, or even turning on her engines.

"I told you. The Space Force has had a shot at it before, without any noticeable success."

But it seemed inevitable that the Space Force would now be keeping watch on Harry's ship, ready to arrest him the moment he went near it.

Bulaboldo asked how much cargo space Harry had available.

"Depends what kind of additional cargo I'd be attempting to fit in. I've got some machinery in there now. Maybe you'd like to make me an offer on that?"

"Machinery. Ah. Can you testify as to its nature?"

"Supposed to be food processing, of some exotic kind, I think. No, I haven't seen any of the crates open."

"Well, let me consider it, old chap. When I've had a chance to eye the merchandise, I might make an offer. Creative trading can present a fascinating challenge."

Gradually the talk turned to other kinds of hardware. Harry was still seeking information. "What about weapons? Their use in the breakdown zones, I mean."

"No different from any other machines. Complexity fails, almost every time. I believe it's been demonstrated that a bow and arrow remain dependable - a longbow, that is. The crossbow is a little too complex. With anything more complicated than that, it's hopeless. They say that in the early days on Maracanda exhaustive tests were made, on everything from slingshots up to alphatrigger carbines.

"But no need for concern. One has yet to encounter any dangerous native forms of life - with the exception, it would seem, of kidnappers. There are no voracious beasties here."

"And no berserkers."

Bulaboldo looked startled, as if that particular idea had not even crossed his mind. "No. Not yet. And they're certainly complicated machines. I don't see how they could expect to have much success at all, on a world full of breakdown zones."

"And not much here in the way of humanity. No bait to tempt the predators."

The conversation moved along again. Harry was reminded of an ancient poem that had something about caravans in it.

"Poetry, old spark? I've noted in the past you have a certain tendency to quote the stuff."

"Learned that from my ship."

Bulaboldo only looked at him. It was perfectly obvious that the ship wasn't going to display any tendencies it hadn't learned from Harry.

It was late in the local afternoon when the train of cars, pulled tirelessly, if not very swiftly, by the cage of rolling spheres, drew near its goal.

On this last leg of their journey, signs frequently appeared at roadside, warning in several languages, of BREAKDOWN ZONES ahead. The signs here struck Harry as rather pointless, as the travelers had been largely in such zones since sometime yesterday.

At last there came an hour when the caravan emerged from a deep notch between tall, irregular landforms, each a different color, to confront a sprawl of the peculiar Maracandan buildings, and it was obvious that they had found their destination.

As the train of cars pulled up to a loading dock very much like the one it had departed from back in Port City, the lure lamp was shaded, and the massed spheres under their cage of basket-work rolled gently to a halt.

This was a bustling free zone, and the sounds and sights of high technology reached the travelers before they were close enough to get a good look at the town itself.

Tomb Town occupied a free zone almost a kilometer square. Unfortunately, the Maracandan sky above consisted of a solid dome of breakdown, preventing the establishment of any kind of spaceport, or even the erection of buildings more than three or four stories high.

Harry supposed that the difficulty of getting to these remote towns only made them more attractive to certain people. Occupying a slice of precious space at the rim of the Tomb Town free zone was a vast but inconspicuous recycling plant, a large-scale version of the system that produced gourmet wonders on Harry's ship. Harry supposed the plant was kept in steady operation. Hydrogen to keep its power lamps alive could be pried loose from the Maracandan substrate.

Even at first glance, Tomb Town radiated a crude energy that had been missing from Port City. The loading dock was bustling with traffic coming and going from Minersville, only a few kilometers away.

It seemed clear that this settlement was considerably smaller than Port City, but it showed signs of rapid growth, including heavy pedestrian traffic on the streets visible from the main gate. A map posted at the gate suggested that the town was laid out in an odd plan, doubtless to take advantage of as much of the free zone as possible.

The caravan only stopped here briefly, for partial unloading, and would soon be rolling on along the road to Minersville.

Actually, before the caravan had fully stopped, a small rush of men and women, traders and prospectors, were jumping off the moving wagons. The object of the rush was to get as quick a look as possible at the latest version of a map showing what lands were still considered available. Dealers in land had sprung into existence, and with the blessing of the public office were subdividing lots.

Bulaboldo on the other hand was in no hurry and seemed scornful of anyone who had to rush around like that just to meet someone else's schedule.

A large and badly faded banner of plain dumb cloth said WELCOME above the symbolically gated entrance to the town. From what Harry could see of the settlement, it looked a bigger place than he had, for some reason, been expecting.

Harry held back a little from the rush to disembark, preferring to avoid the crush of bodies at the exit door. A few passengers, unwilling to wait in line, were just leaping out over the car's low sides. But Lily was in the forefront of those using the designed way out, with some of the business-suited passengers giving her the most competition. The business people seemed to be even more eager to get off than the religious pilgrims, as if another half minute or so might make all the difference in the kind of claim they would be allowed to file.

While waiting, Harry surveyed the scene, looking for any sign of a Space Force presence, wondering if Rovaki might have telegraphed ahead with orders to harass him some more. So far he couldn't see any.

Whether or not the Force was here, Pike had assured him that the Templars were, jealously maintaining some presence, too. Harry had also been told where to find their private communication line, which he was supposed to use to get any necessary messages back to Pike.

Lily had been quickly off the caravan, but then she just stood there for a moment, carrying her small baggage. As if, thought Harry, she had been imagining Alan standing here to meet her when she arrived, and now was shocked when that didn't happen.

Harry, even more lightly burdened, came to stand beside her.

It wasn't hard to tell, from the glaring signs, that most of the buildings facing the newcomers, and the biggest of them, were casinos that seemed to be doing a good business near the mining town. The casinos had palisaded walls, with only a few high, small windows. They looked well-to-do, and fortified, in a way that the caravanserai had not been. Evidently not everyone in Tomb Town was focused on spiritual values.

On the caravan he had heard stories about how the crews of some civilian vessels jumped ship when they arrived on Maracanda and heard the rumors of mineral wealth. Some of them had gone tearing off into the interior with little or nothing in the way of preparation, and no one who told the stories was sure what had become of them. The local authorities could put up warning signs, but they were not equipped or inclined to use sterner measures.