Exile's Song Read Online Free PDF

she felt sweat break out on her forehead and under her arms. Why, oh why, had the Old Man and Dio been so secretive?
    Stop this! There must have been reasons, probably good reasons, why they never told me anything about this world. And they never thought I would return to Darkover, did they? They don’t even know I’m here now, unless they got my last communication. They probably think I am happily ensconced at University, or off somewhere doing music research. And they probably have no idea that I need them right now. The Old Man is busy with the Senate, and Dio is . . . no, I must be imagining something. Dio is fine, just fine. Despite her logical insistence that her stepmother was all right, Margaret had a nasty feeling that something was very wrong, at that very moment, and she did not like it at all.
    “You idiot,” MacDoevid said, shoving his companion on the shoulder. “Extra children, indeed! Stop showin’ off or I’ll tell Auntie how rude ye’ were, and when she finishes skelpin’ ye’, she willna let ye’ meet any more ships.”
    “Do you boys come here every day?” Margaret asked, too exhausted and disoriented to try to make any sense of this byplay.
    “Na, domna, only when there’s a passenger ship. Lots o’ ships land here, but most of ’em aren’t people ships.” It took a moment for her tired brain to realize he meant cargo ships and transfer ships, which were more common and more frequent visitors to Darkover than the passenger ships. Darkover was well situated as a transfer point, but most people never left the spaceport. “We get money for luggin’ stuff,” he hinted broadly, gesturing at the bags she clung to stubbornly. “We have to be people the Officer knows. He tells us when one is coming, because he knows us, and knows we is trusty. Strange ones might be thieves,” he added, as if he knew her reluctance to surrender her load was fear of just that.
    She understood the boy’s hints perfectly well, and wished she felt more comfortable about trusting them. Margaret had some local money in her belt pouch. She had cleaned out the University branch of Rothschild and Tanaka, Moneychangers, of their entire stock of Cottman currency. It was the equivalent of about twelve standard credits. What that meant in the local economy was anyone’s guess. She tried to flog her tired brain into useful channels. What should she give them for being guides, always assuming they were not going to lead them into a dark alley and rob them. She dismissed that thought as unkind. Geremy would certainly not be bashful about telling her if she was stingy, she decided. He seemed irrepressible, and she envied his confidence.
    Ahead, she saw another wall, a lower one this time. It seemed to separate the loathsome orphanage from the rest of the city. They passed beneath an arch where a black-leathered guard lounged comfortably. He waved to the boys as if they were a familiar sight, and gave Margaret and the professor no more than an indifferent glance. She guessed he saw all the few tourists there were. Once beyond the arch, they were surrounded by stone houses and cobblestoned streets that seemed to run together at crazy angles. No wonder there were no wheeled vehicles! These streets were too narrow for any Terran car.
    The cold was intense now and seemed to pierce her bones, even through the cloak. The somewhat crabby agent at the University travel service had grudgingly told her it was spring on Cottman IV, which had conveyed to her mind something warm and balmy, not this icy reality. She envied the boys their comfortable wool tunics. When I lived here, I must have worn that sort of wool, and furs, too. I think I had a fur tunic when I was very small—funny I never remembered it before now. It was rust-colored, the color of my mother’s hair.
    Margaret shook herself. How strange to think that her tunic was the color of her mother’s hair. The memory was fugitive, faint, and maddening, and she shivered. Then