Catseye Read Online Free PDF

for seven days, not off-world, from Kyger’s,” he recited, allowing his hand to remain tight against the heated panel for a full moment before he gave way to Kyger.
    The other’s hand, wider, the fingers thicker and blunter at the tips, smacked against the white oblong in turn.
    â€œKossi Kyger, registered merchant, accepts contract for seven days from Troy Horan, laborer. Record it so.”
    The metallic voice of the recorder chattered back at them. “It is so sealed and noted.”
    Kyger returned to his eazi-rest. “Shop uniform in the storehouse. Any reason for you to go back to the Dipple tonight?”
    Troy paused to shake his head. His few possessions of any value had been thumb-locked into a Dipple safe pocket that morning. And the lock would hold against any touch but his own for ten days. He could pick up the contents of that very small locker any time. Was it imagination again, or did Kyger seem to be relieved?
    â€œZul furnished night watch inside here. One man inside, a yardman out, a patroller on alarm call. Some of the stock are delicate. You’ll make two rounds—”
    He was interrupted by the showroom gong and pulled himself to his feet. “Change and get to work,” he ordered as he left the office.
    Troy sealed the fore seam of the shop coveralls and strapped on again his rider’s belt. The Kyger livery was of the same dark blue that Kyger affected in his own garments, and it did not include the reptileskin boots Zul had worn—nor was there any knife for the belt. He had risen one short step above the Dipple, but that was all.
    Shopping hours ran on into the late evening, and twice Troy was summoned to the display rooms to carry in some animate treasure for inspection. He had just returned a squirming cub, listed as an animal but with fluffy feathers instead of fur and six legs waving wildly in the air, a big-eared head digging chin point into Troy’s shoulder as it looked with avid interest at the world, to a cage, where three more of its kind immediately fell upon it in mock attack, when Kyger came to the door.
    â€œThat closes us for tonight. Guard quarters are next to the storeroom. I’m aloft—over there.” He jerked a thumb at the back wall of the courtyard and the line of windows looking out from a second level. “Here—” His hand cupped over a knob of brilliant scarlet just inside the door and now glowing in the subdued light of the cage room. “Need help, hit one of these. There’s one in each room. You’ll make rounds at three, again at six. Meanwhile”—below the knob was a lever he pushed up—“you’ll be able to hear them through the com if there’s any disturbance. The yard cages are not your concern.”
    â€œYes, Merchant,” Troy assented.
    Kyger went on down the corridor, stopping to thumb-seal the door of his office—almost ostentatiously, as if he wanted his most recent employee to witness that act.
    Then, without any good night, he was gone. Troy felt the nudge of responsibility. He stepped inside each bird room. The light was dimmed; many of the inhabitants were now asleep. In every room the lever was up, the com safely on. Then he went to the padded wall shelf in the cubby off the storeroom, still a little too excited to sleep.
    Within a matter of three days the pattern of Kyger’s had become a routine into which Troy fitted easily. He had been successful in caring for a delicate and rare fussel hawk, which Kyger himself had been unable to handle, and had began to hope that perhaps his week’s contract might indeed be renewed. He also discovered that Kyger’s not only sold—but bought.
    There was a second entrance to the shop through the courtyard, an inconspicuous covered way through which men, mostly wearing spacer uniform, found their way, with either carrying cages or other wild-life containers. All of these, he had his orders, were to be