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looser but not always more comfortable.”

Chapter 4
     
    Thorby's leg hurt for a couple of days; otherwise manumission left his life unchanged. But he really was becoming inefficient as a beggar; a strong healthy youth does not draw the alms that a skinny child can. Often Baslim would have Thorby place him on his pitch, then send him on errands or tell him to go home and study. However, one or the other was always in the Plaza. Baslim sometimes disappeared, with or without warning; when this happened it was Thorby's duty to spend daylight hours on the pitch, noting arrivals and departures, keeping mental notes of slave auctions, and picking up information about both traffics through contacts around the port, in the wineshops, and among the unveiled women.
    Once Baslim was gone for a double nineday; he was simply missing when Thorby woke up. It was much longer than he had ever been away before; Thorby kept telling himself that Pop could look out for himself, while having visions of the old man dead in a gutter. But he kept track of the doings at the Plaza, including three auctions, and recorded everything that he had seen and had been able to pick up.
    Then Baslim returned. His only comment was, “Why didn't you memorize it instead of recording?”
    “Well, I did. But I was afraid I would forget something, there was so much.”
    “Hummph!”
    After that Baslim seemed even quieter, more reserved, than he had always been. Thorby wondered if he had, displeased him, but it was not the sort of question Baslim answered. Finally one night the old man said, “Son, we never did settle what you are to do after I'm gone.”
    “Huh? But I thought we had decided that, Pop. It's my problem.”
    “No, I simply postponed it . . . because of your thickheaded stubbornness. But I can't wait any longer. I've got orders for you and you are going to carry them out.”
    “Now, wait a minute, Pop! If you think you can bully me into leaving you --”
    “Shut up! I said, 'After I'm gone.' When I'm dead, I mean; not one of these little business trips . . . you are to look up a man and give him a message. Can I depend on you? Not goof off and forget it?”
    “Why, of course, Pop. But I don't like to hear you talk that way. You're going to live a long time -- you might even outlive me.”
    “Possibly. But will you shut up and listen, then do as I tell you?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “You'll find this man -- it may take a while -- and deliver this message. Then he will have something for you to do . . . I think. If he does, I want you to do exactly what he tells you to. Will you do that also?”
    “Why, of course, Pop, if that's what you want.”
    “Count it as one last favor to an old man who tried to do right by you and would have done better had he been able. It's the very last thing I want from you, son. Don't bother to burn an offering for me at the temple, just do these two things: deliver a message and one more thing, whatever the man suggests that you do.”
    “I will, Pop,” Thorby answered solemnly.
    “All right. Let's get busy.”
    The “man” turned out to be any one of five men. Each was skipper of a starship, a tramp trader, not of the Nine Worlds but occasionally picking up cargoes from ports of the Nine Worlds. Thorby thought over the list. “Pop, there's only one of these ships I recall ever putting down here.”
    “They all have, one time or another.”
    “It might be a long time before one showed up.”
    “It might be years. But when it happens, I want the message delivered exactly.”
    “To any of them? Or all of them?”
    “The first one who shows up.”
    The message was short but not easy, for it was in three languages, depending on who was to receive it, and none of the languages was among those Thorby knew. Nor did Baslim explain the words; he wanted it learned by rote in all three.
    After Thorby had stumbled through the first version of the message for the seventh time Baslim covered his ears. “No, no! It