He found this same condition prevailed throughout the city, too. They spoke to him seldom, yet he found himself with the best meals, the better seats, the quieter rooms, and the clearest path.
It took about twenty days of that to get Guy worried.
And since he became dead certain that they suspected him of being different, Guy left the city at night, and gave only a short note of thanks to Jerimick. He explained that his search required that he seek new fields. His only concession to Terran training was the night he selected. It was the night after payday, and it increased his tiny store of funds to a more reasonable value.
Guy took a night-flier and went halfway across the continent. It still followed him, for the stewardess gave him more than his share of attention.
Guy was not vain. No more, that is, than any other normal man. He knew that his figure was well-proportioned and did not require any apology in the abbreviated Ertinian costume. His features were regular, and though his thirty years was still considered young, the lines on his face gave him character. He'd been shaving within an inch of his life each morning and before dinner each night, and he knew that his beard was light enough to escape detection as long as he maintained that schedule.
This attention he was getting bothered him. He was not ready for attention yet. He'd prefer a couple of years to establish some sort of false foundation by skipping around from place to place, and losing his past in the maze of data.
What was worse, he could pin nothing down definitely. He wondered whether he might be guiltily self-conscious. That might be. But he'd been honestly critical and knew that Ertene was singling him out for something.
It was not the kind of attention that accompanied suspicion or notoriety. It was a universal will to help him, to offer him the best, to accord him some sort of deference.
But why?
His discussions with others were nonproductive. They spoke in vague terms until they heard his viewpoint and then agreed with him, and it was only with difficulty that he learned their true views were calculable only by the magnitude of their agreement.