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inher.
    “Come, Allira, let us dress you as befits the Lady of Storn, and bedazzle that ruffian into respect,” she
    said, and prepared, again, to face Brynat without revealing anything.

    III

    «^»

    BARRON had been in the service of the Terran Empire since he was a lad in his late teens and he hadserved on three planets before coming to Darkover. He discovered that afternoon that he had never left Terra. He found it out by leaving it for the first time.
    At the designated gate from the Terran Zone, a bored young clerk looked him over as he examined theslip from Transportation and Personnel, which stated that Barron, Class Two, was being released onliaison assignment beyond the Zone. He remarked, “So you’re the fellow who’s going back into themountains? You’d better get rid of those clothes and pick up some sort of suitable outfit for travellinghere. Those togs you’re wearing might do for the Zone, but back in the hills you’ll get frozen—or maybelynched. Didn’t they tell you?”
    They hadn’t told him anything. Barron felt nonplussed; was he expected to go native? He was a Terran Empire liaison man, not a secret agent. But the clerk was the first person since the accident who hadtreated him like a human being, and he was grateful. “I thought I was going as an official representative. No safe-conducts, then?”
    The clerk shrugged. “Who’d give it? You ought to be planet-wise after five years here. Terrans, or any Empire men, aren’t popular outside Trade City. Or didn’t you bother reading Official Directive Number Two?”
    “Not the fine print.” He knew that it made it illegal, on penalty of instant deportation, for Empire men to enter, without permits, any portion of the planet outside the designated trade zones. Barron had never wanted to, and so it never entered his head to wonder why. An alien planet was an alien planet— there

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    were thousands of them—and his work had always been inside the Zone.
    But it was no longer.
    The clerk was feeling talkative. “Almost all the Terrans in Mapping and Exploring or the other liaisonjobs wear Darkovan clothes. Warmer, and you don’t collect a crowd that way. Didn’t anybody tellyou?”
    Barron shook his head stubbornly. He didn’t remind the clerk that nobody had been telling him anythingfor some days. In any case, he was feeling stubborn. He was doing his proper work for the Empire—hewas officially appointed to it—and the Darkovans were not to tell him how to dress or act. If the Darkovans didn’t like the clothes he was wearing, they could start learning the tolerance for alien customswhich was the first thing required of every man who accepted work for the Terran Empire. He wassatisfied with his light, warm synthetic tunic and breeches, his soft, low-cut sandals, and his short linedovercoat, which kept out the wind. Many Darkovans had adopted them in Trade City; the clothing wascomfortable and indestructible. Why change it? He said a little stiffly, “It isn’t as if I were wearing Spaceforce uniform. I can see where that might be a breach of good taste. But these?”
    The clerk shrugged enigmatically. “It’s your funeral,” he said. “Here, I imagine this is your transportcoming now.”
    Barron looked down the roughly cobbled street, but saw no sign of any vehicle approaching. Therewere the usual crew of loungers, women in heavy shawls going about their business, and three menleading horses. He started to say “where” and then realized that the three men, who were coming straighttoward the gate, were leading four horses.
    He swallowed hard. He had known in a general way that the Darkovans had small technology and usedno motor transit. They used various pack and draft animals, indigenous relatives of the buffalo and thelarger deer, and horses—probably descended from a strain imported from Nova Terra about a hundredyears ago—for riding. It made sense. The Darkovan terrain was unsuited to roadbuilding on a