I let my arm relax in the hand that guided me, flung a fold of my shirtcloak over my face, and went along with my unknown guide. CHAPTER THIRTEEN I stumbled over steps, took a jolting stride downward, and found myself in a dim room jammed with dark figures, human and nonhuman. The figures swayed in the darkness, chanting in a dialect not altogether familiar to me, a monotonous wailing chant, with a single recurrent phrase: "Kamaina! Kama-aina!" It began on a high note, descending in weird chromatics to the lowest tone the human ear could resolve. The sound made me draw back. Even the Dry-towners shunned the orgiastic rituals of Kamaina. Earthmen have a reputation for getting rid of the more objectionable customs--by human standards--on any planet where they live. But they don't touch religions, and Kamaina, on the surface anyhow, was a religion. I started to turn round and leave, as if I had inadvertently walked through the wrong door, but my conductor hauled on my arm, and I was wedged in too tight by now to risk a roughhouse. Trying to force my way out would only have called attention to me, and the first of the Secret Service maxims is; when in doubt, go along, keep quiet, and watch the other guy. As my eyes adapted to the dim light, I saw that most of the crowd were Charin plainsmen or _chaks_. One or two wore Dry-town shirtcloaks, and I even thought I saw an Earthman in the crowd, though I was never sure and I fervently hope not. They were squatting around small crescent-shaped tables, and all intently gazing at a flickery spot of light at the front of the cellar. I saw an empty place at one table and dropped there, finding the floor soft, as if cushioned. On each table, small smudging pastilles were burning, and from these cones of ash-tipped fire came the steamy, swimmy smoke that filled the darkness with strange colors. Beside me an immature _chak_ girl was kneeling, her fettered hands strained tightly back at her sides, her naked breasts pierced for jeweled rings. Beneath the pallid fur around her pointed ears, the exquisite animal face was quite mad. She whispered to me, but her dialect was so thick that I could follow only a few words, and would just as soon not have heard those few. An older _chak_ grunted for silence and she subsided, swaying and crooning. There were cups and decanters on all the tables, and a woman tilted pale, phosphorescent fluid into a cup and offered it to me. I took one sip, then another. It was cold and pleasantly tart, and not until the second swallow turned sweet on my tongue did I know what I tasted. I pretended to swallow while the woman's eyes were fixed on me, then somehow contrived to spill the filthy stuff down my shirt. I was wary even of the fumes, but there was nothing else I could do. The stuff was _shallavan_, outlawed on every planet in the Terran Empire and every halfway decent planet outside it.