"We can guess they made it away from the spaceport."
"Unless," said the dog taking another sniff of the air, "they're taking her back to some other spacecraft." Buregarde looked up at Peter. "Do you catch anything?"
"Just the usual mingled fright and danger, frantic despair."
"Directional?"
Peter shook his head. "No," he said. "The source is too close."
"Let's stroll up this street to the end and come back on the other side," said the dog. "Quietly."
In a saunter they went, alert and poised. A man and his dog from all appearances. But in Xanabar, the principal city of Xanabar the Empire they were huntsman and companion.
Like all cities of more than ten million souls, Xanabar had its glistening and lofty area and its slums—and what would have been a waterfront region in a seafaring city. The conditions were the same as they'd been everywhere for a few decades of thousands of years. Only the technology changes. Man's cave is stainless steel and synthetic plastic; the cave's man is swinging a better axe, and his hide is protected from the weather by stuff far more durable than his awn skin. But he's the same man with the same hackles; they just rise for a few more thousand reasons than the hackles of his ancestors.
"Got it!" said Buregarde coming to a brief point at a closed door.
"Let's go in!"