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his hands in the Krishnan equivalent of a shrug. “All full. Festival of Dashmok.”
    “But I have your own signature here! Get the other people out!”
    “I cannot. Too bad.” The Krishnan returned to his accounts.
    “Now look here, Master Haftid—” said Reith in rising anger. He touched the Krishnan’s shoulder.
    “Do not, my son!” said Khorsh.
    Haftid looked up with a sudden glare. He rose slowly, towering over Reith. “Get ye gone, Ertsu! We are full, and that’s that!” He pointed doorward.
    Enraged, Reith was tempted to draw the sword that clanked about his legs. The fit quickly passed as he recalled that, in a strange city, lost among thousands of beings of another species, he and his tourists could easily drop out of sight for good and all. He cursed himself for not having foreseen this contingency.
    In desperation, he turned to Khorsh. “You heard, Father?” he said in Portuguese. “What does one do in a case like that? On earth I’d have some idea, but not here.”
    Khorsh spread his hands. “I can say very little, my son. He can claim that some guests unexpectedly prolonged their stay, and the law does not let him evict them for a later arrival. You could sue him in the civil courts for the return of the deposit, but that would take years and cost many times the amount at issue.”
    Reith turned back to the innkeeper and spoke slowly, in the most polite voice he could manage: “Master Haftid, will you do me the goodness to recommend another inn, where I can lodge my people?”
    Haftid looked up from his accounts. “I could recite some names, my good foreigner, but ’twould avail you little. All, including those accepting earthmen as guests, are replete with multitudes arriving for the Festival. In every hostelry, be it manor house or hovel, ye’ll find folk sleeping on pallets in the common room, for want of better lodging.”
    Considine called from the doorway: “Hey, Fearless, how much longer you going to keep us standing out here?”
    Reith turned back to Khorsh. “Father, have you any idea of where I could put my people? I could doss down on the floor, but I can’t ask it of them.”
    The priest spread hands in resignation. “Alas, my son, I know little of the local hospices. When I travel, I can always put up at a temple; but such accommodations are not open to laymen.”
    Reith racked his brains. Then he remembered the words of Pierce Angioletti at Novorecife: “If you get into trouble in Majbur, go to see Gorbovast . . . he can fix anything.”
    “Master Haftid,” said Reith, “will you be so kind as to direct me to the office of Commissioner Gorbovast?”
    Now that he no longer faced a confrontation, the innkeeper became more agreeable. “Out the front door, turn left, go to the first crossing, turn right, straight ahead two blocks, and there it is. ’Twere unlikely ye’ll find Gorbovast so late in the day, for already Roqir’s disk does osculate the far horizon.”
    Reith made Haftid repeat the directions. Then he hurried out. His tourists set up an outcry, all asking questions: What was wrong? Was there a hitch? Where was he going to put them? Why hadn’t the agency made better arrangements? Where was his efficiency? When did they eat?
    Considine yelled: “Where’s my little blue case?”
    “You’ll have to sit on your luggage for a while, folks,” he said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
    He set off at a jog trot, holding his scabbard in his left hand to keep it from tripping him. Dodging beggars and pimps, he soon reached the area to which he had been directed. Then, unable to read the signs over the doors, he realized that he could not tell one office from another. He had a horrid vision of trying every door in the block and asking those within, in broken Gozashtandou, for directions.
    As he stood in perplexity, working up his nerve, a trio of Krishnans came out of a building a few doors away. With a large key, one of the three locked the door behind him.