Some way farther along, a group all masked was holding a procession from a side-street behind a hand-drum, and laughingly begged her to join, but she pulled loose. The sound of bells began to hang over the gay din that rose from the city, and Lalette hurried, feeling more than ever out of protection and alone. The street where Remigorius had his shop was wider than her memory of it. Someone had affixed an absurd green paper ribbon to the neck of the stuffed lizard over the door, but all seemed dark within. There was no answer when Lalette pulled at the bell. Her heart plunged down into dreadful syncope—Oh, what will I do without money if he is not there nor anyone? Not go back to that woman of strange gods, no. She rang again, twice, to make her insistence clear, and as someone down the street greeted guests with a glad shout of welcome, the door cracked open and a voice said that the doctor was abroad, not even in Netznegon City, but there was another medic around the corner and two stories aloft. “Oh,” said Lalette, “it is not for the curative that I wished him. I desire to find a friend of his and mine—Rodvard Bergelin.” Door came fully open. In the rapidly fading light the girl found herself looking at a young man whose chin and slanting eyes betrayed Zigraner origin. As always with that race, the smile was an effort to ingratiate, but there was something unpleasant about it. “Are you—?” “Lalette Asterhax. Yes.” “Demoiselle, will you come in? The doctor has left me to keep his place for all that concerns the Sons of the New Day, since matters have reached such a crisis with what has been discovered at the conference of court.” Lalette followed him (with dreadful certainty clutching at her heart that this was the key, then, of so much she had failed to understand; Rodvard was an intimate of that gang of murderous conspirators and so must these others be.) The Zigraner indicated a stool in the shop and struck a light. “You permit that I introduce myself? I am Gaidu Pyax. Of Rodvard you should not be concerned. He is doing good work, and the High Center has forwarded to ours its praise of him.” (I am planets and centuries away from the man who has chosen me, she thought. How can I say it? What shall I ask?) “There was no word.” The Zigraner frowned. “The sub-leader of your center doubtless told you of the plot against Baron Brunivar, the regent prospective? It was Rodvard who uncovered it.” “Oh.” (The conversation was going to stop.) She cried desperately; “I thought he would be back with me for the festival.”