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cost more than most except high officials could ever afford, and the
operations even more.
Marquoz shrugged. "Always glad to spend any-body's money but my own." He
sounded like ne meant it.
They were about to continue when the door slid open again and in walked a
strange, small gray-furred creature The newcomer stopped at the sight of
Mar-quoz and looked around uncertainly.
"Give us your name and we'll tell you if you're in the right place," Mavra
told it.
The creature stood up, revealing massive folds of skin connecting all its
limbs, and rested slightly on its fanned tail. Its rodentlike face looked
uncertainly at them and it chattered something that sounded like clucking and
clicking far back in the throat to Mavra.
The other two seemed to understand immediately, and Marquoz responded with,
"Well, well, well . . .
Welcome to the club, Yua."
"No translator, either," Mavra pointed out to the other two.
Marquoz just sighed and said, "Another drain on the Hakazit treasury, then.
Oh, well, it's going to com-plicate any kind of summit meeting, though."
"Looks like the gang's all here," said a voice be-hind them. They started and
turned. There, in a cor-ner of the room with no entrance or exit and which
they all could have sworn had been vacant, stood . . .
"Gypsy!" Marquoz bellowed, and moved toward him.
Gypsy put up his hands. "Easy, Marquoz! You could break my back just saying
hello!"
The great battle lizard roared with laughter but hesitated to come closer.
Finally he said, "I kind of thought you hadn't made the trip. You didn't show
up at the other end."
Gypsy shrugged. "I'm here, and that's all that counts. And I called this
meeting, along with a lot of other meetings." He paused, seeing their
surprise. "You didn't think you were did you? Lots of stuff to get it, under
way. But you're all vital, particularly now that you've survived your initial
entry and gotten established." He grinned at Marquoz. "You most of all. One of
these days you're going to have to explain to me how you did it. Not now,
though," he added hast-ily, seeing that Marquoz was just itching to tell them
all.
"You've changed as much as we," Mavra noted. "Oh, you look the same while we
don't, but your whole manner, your attitude has changed. Even your speech has
cleared up. I assume that's Com speech you're using?"
He nodded, then took out and lit a cigarette. Since that particular variation
of tobacco was unknown on the Well World, more than one of them wondered where
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he kept getting them.
"Make yourselves comfortable and I'll come to the point right away," the
mystery man said, pointing to the floor. "You Dillians and Marquoz can look
down on me. I'm gonna sit." And, with that, he sat, legs folded under him, on
the floor and idly flicked an ash.
"First of all," he continued as they drew nearer, "we're meeting here in the
Gedemondan embassy sim-ply because it was one that Ortega had never paid much
attention to. He bugged it anyway don't ask me how but a couple of good hired
techs from Shamozan and I went over and blanked them. I'm satisfied the place
is secure, even though the Sham-mies are with the other side. I had some of
our people check it afterward, just to make sure."
"What's this all about, Gypsy?" Marquoz pressed. "I always knew there was
something funny about you, but I rather expected you'd sit this one out like
you always do. You never liked a fight."
He nodded. "That's true, but this is different. I really don't want to explain
a lot right now. I'm more effective this way. But you must believe me when I
say that I'm in this not only because I can do certain things, like act as a
middleman, that others can't, but also because I have a personal stake in it
all. It'd be easy for all of us if you or Brazil could manage some of the
things I can, but you can't and that's that. And
I can't teach them to you. Wouldn't if I wanted to. That, too, we'll let pass
for now. Right now, the im-portant thing is that I'm the only messenger who
can get behind enemy lines, get to you wherever you are, and also get to
Brazil."
"Brazil!" It was Yua who made the exclamation at the name. She had no
translator and her vocal equip-ment wasn't right, but they knew what she
meant.
Gypsy nodded. "Yes, he got in. As Ortega has fig-ured out, too late. We did it
by the simplest con you could think of. We put him through ahead of all of
you. He's been here more than a month."
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