Germyn said levelly: "I believe you to be Wolf."
"You believe right. That doesn't matter any more. You don't like Wolves. Well, I don't like you. But this thing is too big for me to care about that any more. Tropile has started something happening, and what the end of it is going to be, I can't tell. But I know this: We're not safe, either of us. Maybe you still think Translation is a fulfillment. I don't; it scares me. But it's going to happen to me—and to you. It's going to happen to everybody who ever had anything to do with Glenn Tropile, unless we can somehow stop it—and I don't know how. Will you help me?"
Germyn, trying not to tremble when all his buried fears screamed Wolf!, said honestly: "I'll have to sleep on it."
Haendl looked at him for a moment. Then he shrugged. Almost to himself, he said: "Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe we can't do anything about it anyhow. All right. I'll come back in the morning, and if you've made up your mind to help, we'll start trying to make plans. And if you've made up your mind the other way—well, I guess I'll have to fight off a few Citizens. Not that I mind that."
Germyn stood up and bowed. He began the ritual Four Urgings.
"Spare me that," Haendl growled. "Meanwhile, Germyn, if I were you, I wouldn't make any long-range plans. You may not be here to carry them out."
Germyn asked thoughtfully: "And if you were you?"
"I'm not making any," Haendl said grimly.
Citizen Germyn, feeling utterly tainted with the scent of the Wolf in his home, tossed in his bed, sleepless. His eyes were wide open, staring at the dark ceiling. He could hear his wife's decorous breathing from the foot of the bed—soft and regular, it should have been lulling him to sleep.