"I met you the day you landed," the Tunpeshan began, and Eckert remembered. Jathong, the guide who had shown them to the house.
"You knew Pendleton?"
Jathong nodded. "I and a fellow weaver took over his small office after he had left it." Eckert recalled the small office in the square with the bolts of cloth on display, and the small mud brick on the window ledge with the incised lettering reading:
DONALD PENDLETON, SERVICE ATTACHE.
"Why you didn't tell us this before?"
"I didn't know what kind and how much information you wanted."
We didn't ask him, Eckert thought, so he didn't volunteer any information. Polite, to say the least.
"How long did you know him?"
"Since he landed. I was the one appointed to him."
"What do you mean—appointed to him?"