In a way Hanlon was rather glad. It did help solve some of his problems, in that it left him freer to go and come where and when he wished. So he made no further protests, but silently packed his things, pocketed the money Endar had left, and went out and got his trike and rode back to Stearra. He wondered if his old rooms had yet been taken by someone else.
When he reached the building where he had been living, he parked his tricycle in the shed in the back yard, and went up to his old apartment.
The padlock and hasp had been forced, and the door was closed but unlocked. He opened it and went in just the same, for there were still some of his things there. He was determined to get them, even if someone else was living here now.
But the moment he got inside he sensed something changed. He stood quietly, letting his mind sniff at the feeling, trying to figure out what it was. He thought he heard a slight noise in the next room, and tiptoed softly across to the door. It was, he now saw, slightly ajar, and he peered through the crack. Someone was lying on his bed—an older Estrellan male, he judged by the longer, heavier beard.
Something about that face seemed familiar.
The being in the spaceship high above the surface of this planet had been growing more and more puzzled and unsure of itself during the past several days. Its plans seemed to be going all awry—and it was not quite sure why.
That native it had been controlling had not acted as he was supposed to act. Or rather, things had happened that had made it impossible for him to act always as directed. Even to the being the strange behavior of those four-legged beasts for riding, that had ruined its carefully prepared plan, was completely unexplainable.
And there was still the problem of that one unreadable mind on this world. Various things the being had done or caused to be done had enabled it, through its high-powered, multiphased scanner, to SEE the entity and keep track of its various goings and comings, but all its most intense efforts had not yet been able to touch that mind.
That this entity was working with those others who had such a different mind-texture from the usual run of Estrellans, it had long since proved to its satisfaction. The being now knew what these others were, and what they were trying to do on this planet. But who or what that unreadable entity was, what it was doing, and why—all this had so far defied the being's utmost powers.