Chane walked the streets of the old town, narrow ways, with low buildings, that slanted down toward the sea. The day was dark with great clouds and a mist and spume blew in from the ocean; the worn stones under his feet were wet and glistening. The wind was raw and boisterous, muttering of coming gales.
He liked this place. It was almost as grim and harsh as Varna. And he liked the people, though they had looked at him with neither any particular friendship nor hostility. He suddenly realized that it was their voices he liked. They talked in a queer, lilting way, just the way his father had talked, and he remembered that his father had called it the "singsong."
There did not seem to be very much in this small place of Carnarvon, except a big hulking wreck of a castle down by the sea, so he went that way. The place was ancient and battered but had a sort of grandeur under the stormy sky. There was an old man in a uniform coat at the gate who sold tickets. Chane bought a ticket and started in.
Then he thought of something, and went back and asked, "I wonder if you could tell me something. You've lived here a long time, I take it?"
"All my life," said the old man. He had short, snow-white hair and a bony red face, and surprisingly bright blue eyes which he fixed on Chane.
"Some of my family came from here," Chane said. "I wondered if you knew anything about them. A Reverend Thomas Chane, who grew up here in Carnarvon."
"Caernarfon, we Welsh call it," said the old man. "It means 'fortress in Arfon.' And well I remember the Reverend Thomas. He was a fine young man, devoted to the Lord, and he went away to the stars to convert some wicked heathen and died there. Are you his son?"
Caution stirred in Chane. It was the fact that he had been born on Varna that had made him a Starwolf, and he didn't want talk about that going around.
"Just a nephew," he said.
"Ah, then you'll be David Chane's son, that went away to America," nodded the old man. "I am William Williams, and I am glad indeed to meet one from the old families who had come back."
He ceremoniously shook hands with Chane. "Yes, yes, the Reverend Thomas was a fine man and a strong preacher. I do not doubt that he converted many out on that distant world before the Lord took him."
Chane only nodded, but as he passed on into the castle he was remembering his father on Varna. The little chapel where there was never any congregation except some Varnan children who came in to listen to the Earthman who spoke their language so poorly. His father's small figure valiantly erect and his face aglow as he preached, and his mother playing the small electronic organ, both of them dying slowly as Varna's heavy gravitation slowly dragged the life out of them, but neither of them admitting it, neither of them willing to quit and go back to Earth.
He walked around and found that the looming castle was really only a hollow shell, a great open space inside it. He climbed the towers and the battlements of the walls, and wondered what it would have been like to fight in the way that they did, back in the far past, with swords and spears and primitive weapons. He supposed that some of his own ancestors had been fighters like that.
He mused, liking the lowering sky and the harsh old stones and the silence, until William Williams came to him, wearing now a worn wool jacket instead of the uniform coat.
"We close now," said the old man. "I'll walk up through town with you and show you a few of our sights . . . it's on my way."
As they walked, with the sky dusking into twilight, it seemed that the old chap was more interested in asking questions than in answering them.
"And you came from America? Of course, that was where David went, long ago. Is it a good job you have there?"
"I'm not there very much," Chane said. "I've worked in starships for a long time."
He thought how Dilullo would react to that discreet description of a Starwolf s profession, and smiled a little.
"Ah, it's a wonderful thing that men can go to the stars but it's not for me, not for me," said William Williams. He stopped, and steered Chane toward the door of a low stone building. "We'll have a pint together, if you'll so honor me."
The room inside was low and poorly lit, and there was no one but a barman and three young men farther along the bar.
Williams paid for the pint with the utmost dignity, insisting, "It is my pleasure, to buy an ale for one of the Chanes."
Chane thought the stuff was mild as water but he did not want to say so. He suggested having another, and the old man dug an elbow into his ribs in a roguish sort of way, saying, "Well, since you've twisted my arm, I must break my usual rule."
When that was finished he took Chane along the bar to the three young men and told them, "This is the son of David Chane of Caernarfon, and you've all heard of that family. And these are Hayden Jones and Griff Lewis and Lewis Evans."
They mumbled acknowledgment to Chane. Two of them were small and nondescript young men but Hayden Jones was a very big, dark young man with very bright, black eyes.
"And now I must say good night and be getting along," the old man told Chane. "I leave you in good company and hope you come home again."
Chane said goodbye, then turned to the three young men and suggested that he buy them a drink.
There was a furtive hostility about them, and they did not answer him. He repeated the offer.
"We do not need damned Americans coming here to buy our ale for us," said Hayden Jones without looking at him.
"Ah," said Chane. "That may be true. But you need better manners, don't you?"
The big young man whirled and his hand cracked and Chane found himself, amazed, sitting on the floor of the room. The old Starwolf anger flared up in him bright as fire, and he gathered himself.
Then he saw Hayden Jones turn to his two companions, not saying anything but on his face the pleased smile of a child who had just made everyone notice him. There was something so naive in that smile that the bright anger faded away as fast as it had come.
Chane relaxed his muscles and got to his feet. He rubbed his chin and said, "You have a hard hand on you, Hayden Jones."
He stuck out his hand and grasped Jones' shoulder in a bruising grip, putting his Varna strength into it. "I have a hard hand too. If it's a fight you must have I'll oblige you. But what I would really like to do is buy a few drinks."
Hayden Jones looked startled, and then he grinned sheepishly and looked at his two companions. "Well, now," he said. "We can always fight later, can't we, after we've had those drinks?"
They had the drinks, and then they had some more, and when the barman finally shoved them out the door it was late night and the gale had broken. The wind threw rain at them like small shot as they went down the slanting streets, singing the songs that Chane's three companions had been trying to teach him.
An upstairs window opened and an elderly female's voice screeched at them. Hayden Jones turned and shouted, with great stateliness.
"Be quiet, is it? And when, Mrs. Griffith, have you been so unpatriotic that you cannot hear the national anthem of Wales?"
The window slammed down and they went on. Outside the hotel, Hayden Jones said, "Now, about the fight . . ."
"Let us save it until next time," said Chane. "Late at night, I have no stomach for it."
"Until next time!"
They grinned at each other and shook hands. Chane went inside and up to his room. When he got there the little communic he had placed on the old-fashioned wooden bureau was buzzing. He switched it on, and John Dilullo's voice came through.
"Chane? You can come back now. I've got a crew."
Chane acknowledged, feeling a strong sense of regret. Ancestral memories or not, he had taken a liking to this place and these people. He would have wished to stay longer. But he was obedient, and booked his passage on the first New York rocket. All the way across the Atlantic he was thinking, I will come back to that place some day and have that fight. I think it would be a good one.
Back in New York, Chane went into the building on a side street in the starport quarter that was formally the Headquarters of the Guild of Mercenaries, but which was always called Merc Hall.
In the big main room he looked up at the wall where the crews were posted. There were neat directories of white letters on black backgrounds. He read the first one.
Leader: Martin Bender
Second: J. Bioc
Ship-captain: Paul Vristow
There followed under that a dozen other names, some of which were not Earthman names at all. Then, below that;
Destination: Procyon Three.
He went along the wall reading the other directories, and he thought, Achernar, Vanoon, Spica, Morr, the Mercs really got around. Until he saw
Leader: John Dilullo
Second: J. Bollard
And on with the other names. "Morgan Chane" was at the bottom of the list.
Dilullo's voice rasped in his ear. "Well, did you expect to be first? Remember, you're a pretty new Merc. You have no seniority."
"I'm surprised," said Chane, "that Bollard would go out again this soon."
Dilullo smiled bleakly. "Bollard's one of the few Mercs who's a family man. He's got a raft of children he adores. He's also got an ugly, nagging wife. He stays home just long enough to turn over his takings and then gets out to space again."
Dilullo added, "We're made up. I'm going to call Mr. Ashton; if he's free, I'll go over and sign the contract. Wait here."
Chane waited, and presently Dilullo came back with a surprised look on his face.
"You know what? Ashton's coming over here. He said he wants to meet the whole crew."
Dilullo, impressed, hurried out to get the crew together in one of the smaller rooms of the Hall. Bollard came in and saw Chane, and his fat, round face creased in an affectionate smile.
"Ah, the rock-hopper," he said. "I saw your name on the list, Chane. I haven't decided yet whether I'm happy about it."
"Be happy," said Chane.
Bollard shook his head, laughing as though he'd heard the best joke in the world. "No, I'm not sure. You nearly jammed us into big trouble the last time, though I have to admit you did noble helping to get us out of it."
"Mr. James Ashton," said Dilullo's voice, speaking gruffly as though he refused to be impressed by a very important person.
Ashton smiled and nodded and went through the introductions. The Mercs were all as polite as Sunday-school scholars. They eyed the man of money with unliking eyes.
Then Ashton surprised them. He began to talk to them, looking a little bit upset and embarrassed, but very earnest and determined, like a fussy schoolteacher trying to explain something.
"I've been worrying about you men," he said. "I offered a big lot of money for men to go to the Closed Worlds and look for my brother, and I know the money is why you're going. But I feel worried . . ."
He broke off, and then resolutely started again. "I've been thinking: I may be endangering a lot of men's lives, to save the one life of my brother. So I thought I should tell you . . . this job will be dangerous, as I'm sure Mr. Dilullo has explained. But if it's too dangerous, I want no man's death on my conscience. If the risks are too great, draw back. If you come back and tell me that it was not within reason to go on, I'll still pay two thirds of what I offered."
The Mercs said nothing but there was a sudden thaw in their attitude. Finally Dilullo said, "Thanks, Mr. Ashton. Mercs don't quit very easily. But thanks, just the same."
When Ashton and the other Mercs had gone, Dilullo told Chane, "You know, Ashton's a good sort. The fact that he made an offer like that, that he's worried about us, will make us knock ourselves out for him at Allubane."
Chane said, with an ironical smile, "Sure it will. And maybe that's just why he said that."
Dilullo looked at him disgustedly. "I wouldn't have a Starwolf's mind for anything you can name. No wonder that you don't really have a friend in the universe."
"But I have," said Chane. "I made some, in the place called Wales. Fine fellows, full of fight and fun, and they taught me some great songs. Listen to this one—it's an old war-song about the Men of Harlech."
He threw back his head and sang, and Dilullo winced.
"There's never been anybody Welsh who didn't fancy he could sing," he said. "Not even a Starwolf."
"It's a grand tune," said Chane. "It's worthy of being a Varnan battle-song."
"Then get ready to sing it in the Closed Worlds," Dilullo said. "I've got a feeling that my greed for money and a fine house is taking us to big trouble there."