Hartford's right hand tore through the plastic pellicle over his Dardick-pistol and brought the weapon to bear on the figure before him. "You're a Stinker!" he said. "Pia's safety-suit—that's the suit you're wearing."
"Tonshu," the Indigenous Hominid said, bowing his head. He indicated the empty holster at his side: he was unarmed. "I come on taku, here to your honored precincts, to speak of things done and of future things. You are Hartford?"
Hartford thought quickly. His responsibility was to the Garrison. This stranger was above all else a possible source of contamination, a carrier of the micro-bugs that could kill every Axenite on Kansas. Shooting him would rupture the safety-suit he wore. As it was, his exterior surface was clean; he could have entered the Barracks only by marching in from Retreat with the rest of the regiment, through the sterilizing Syphon. "I am Hartford. Lee Hartford."
"Pia said you are a good man," the stranger said, bowing.
"What is your name?"
"Renkei. As you say, I take Pia's uwa-zutsumi, this smooth garment." Renkei indicated the safety-suit by slicking his hands over it. "I must enter here to talk with Hartford. To enter, I must have garment. Pia, my brother, is dead. I borrowed his garment. Can I, with you, stop the ugly thing that began last night in Kansannamura? Kuwashiku wa zonzezu; I do not know. I can but try."
What a perfect disguise a safety-suit made, Hartford thought. Besides, it was the only passport a man needed to enter the Barracks. He stared at the stranger. He looked no different to men Hartford had met before, Axenites whose grandparents had been born by aseptic Caesarian section in Nagoya or Canton, two of the great gnotobiotic centers of fifty years ago. Renkei was a Stinker, a Kansan, an Indigenous Hominid (ignominious name!); he was also, Hartford felt, a man.
"Tell me why you made the dangerous journey here, into the midst of your enemies," he said.
"The death of our friend Pia. The burning of Kansannamura. The war between my people and you who wear smooth garments," he said. "This is aru-majiki koto."