"I don't come from Kyral, and I don't care where you go. I don't care what you do." I suddenly realized that the last statement was wholly untrue, and to cover my confusion I shoved the remaining bowl of noodles at her. "Eat." She wrinkled her nose in fastidious disgust. "I'm not hungry." "Eat it anyway. You're still half doped, and the food will clear your head." I picked up one mug of the coffee and drained it at a single swallow. "What were you doing in that disgusting den?" Without warning she flung herself across the table at me, throwing her arms round my neck. Startled, I let her cling a moment, then reached up and firmly unfastened her hands. "None of that now. I fell for it once, and it landed me in the middle of the mudpie." But her fingers bit my shoulder. "Rakhal, Rakhal, I tried to get away and find you. Have you still got the bird? You haven't set it off yet? Oh, don't, don't, don't, Rakhal, you don't know what Evarin is, you don't know what he's doing." The words spilled out of her like floodwaters. "He's won so many of you, don't let him have you too, Rakhal. They call you an honest man, you worked once for Terra, the Terrans would believe you if you went to them and told them what he--Rakhal, take me to the Terran Zone, take me there, take me there where they'll protect me from Evarin." At first I tried to stop her, question her, then waited and let the torrent of entreaty run on and on. At last, exhausted and breathless, she lay quietly against my shoulder, her head fallen forward. The musty reek of _shallavan_ mingled with the flower scent of her hair. "Kid," I said heavily at last, "you and your Toymaker have both got me wrong. I'm not Rakhal Sensar." "You're not?" She drew back, regarding me in dismay. Her eyes searched every inch of me, from the gray streak across my forehead to the scar running down into my collar. "Then who--" "Race Cargill. Terran Intelligence." She stared, her mouth wide like a child's. Then she laughed. She _laughed_! At first I thought she was hysterical. I stared at her in consternation. Then, as her wide eyes met mine, with all the mischief of the nonhuman which has mingled into the human here, all the circular complexities of Wolf illogic behind the woman in them, I started to laugh too. I threw back my head and roared, until we were clinging together and gasping with mirth like a pair of raving fools. The _chak_ waiter came to the door and stared at us, and I roared "Get the hell out," between spasms of crazy laughter. Then she was wiping her face, tears of mirth still dripping down her cheeks, and I was frowning bleakly into the empty bowls. "Cargill," she said hesitantly, "you can take me to the Terrans where Rakhal--" "Hell's bells," I exploded. "I can't take you anywhere, girl. I've got to find Rakhal--" I stopped in midsentence and looked at her clearly for the first time.