There wasn't any sound, not even of breathing.
"You have an idea to change Lee's mind, Mike?" I asked.
He cupped his hand on the back of my neck. "Affirmative, Jonathan. A pretty damned good one, too."
Ellik stood staring out the door, gnawing on one of his knuckles, letting the sun turn the front of him into gold, so he looked like half a statue, and half a man.
"I suppose it had to come out in him sooner or later," he said.
"What, Mike?"
"What could we expect? It's the basic quality of treachery in the Oriental mind."
When the shadows were at their longest and the alien sun was down the closest to the horizon without actually going under, Ellik marched up the path shoving a new Indigo. The Azures supplied Mike with all the flunkies he wanted to gather food and the like for him, as his natural right. But I thought we had enough of them hanging around our quarters. I couldn't imagine what he would want with another one.
The alien hovered at the door. Ellik kicked him in the calf to make him understand he was to go inside.