Jeff dressed in his study, slung his sten gun and, pressing the signal-emitter in his pocket, opened the spike-topped gate characteristic of all the great houses of the dome city. They stepped echoingly along the sidewalk.
"Sire," Taen's voice hissed. His face was searching the shadows. "I wouldn't take that sten gun. It would give The Assassin the fear to kill you. The excuse too, if your life has been purchased. If you are unarmed while you are on his territory it would be hardly honorable to kill you. And he may believe you have come to purchase the life of Konrad or to pay a smaller sum to assure that the inevitable death of your wife will be a painless one."
"My intentions are different," Jeff retorted, but at the corner he threw the gun over the wall into his garden.
Taen crowhopped behind, still in his shortlegged stance.
"But sire, to purchase the life of Konrad and a painless end for your wife is the way these things are done. Where could you hide her? There is no rocket leaving this planet for two months, and even in the jungle The Assassin's followers would find her."
Jeff did not reply as they rode the all-night street escalator up the hilly side of the city past the steep-roofed granite houses of the wealthier mountain men, constructed centuries before the city was domed over, past the flat-roofed, functional houses of the Earthmen who cared nothing for the traditional architecture, all for comfort.
"Sire, Konrad's house is still alight."
A waltz tune rose above the drone of the ventilators.
"He's having a party, sire. We could go back for the guns. We may never have another chance like this."