Scotty laughed. "You talk like a Marine," he said admiringly.
The night passed without incident, and the entire party was awake at dawn. Over breakfast, they discussed the affair again. Like the discussion of the night before, it proved futile. There were simply too many questions that had no answers.
Rick summed it up. "We've found Long Shadow and the Chinese with the glass eye. Or rather they've found us. And it's obvious they're out for blood. It scares me to think of what would have happened on the junk if the Englishman and Bradley hadn't taken a hand."
"I'd like to know how they knew we were coming," Scotty said.
Zircon drained the last of his coffee. "I don't think they did know. We walked into Canton Charlie's and asked for Chahda. We put the finger on ourselves, so to speak. They probably assumed that anyone asking for Chahda was an enemy. Obviously, they had some sort of contact with Chahda, otherwise he wouldn't have cabled the descriptions after stating that he was in danger."
"That sounds right," Rick agreed. He looked over to where Worthington Ko was having a cup of tea under the watchful eye of Sing. "What do we do with our fat chum?"
"Keep him for a hostage," Scotty suggested.
Zircon shook his head. "A good idea, but not practical. It would require that we guard him constantly and that would be a nuisance. No, I think we had better leave him and push on for Korse Lenken as rapidly as possible. Now that we know our danger is from Chahda's enemies and not from casual bandits, we are forewarned."
"Then what do we do with him?" Rick asked.
"Leave him here, afoot. His friends probably will find him, but I don't think that matters. Now that we know him, he's less dangerous. We can treat him like any other bandit."