"Come on with me now," said Yann, and smacked his lips. "Wine, cooled in deep wells. Make a new man of you."
"A hell of a world," said Trehearne.
"You should see the others of this system. This is the pick of the lot."
They walked through the outer compound, a sort of caravanserai crowded with folk from the other planets, brought in for the trading. Cold-blooded creatures with crimson eyes, ophidian princes of the inner worlds, wrapped in golden mantles against the chill. Slim, furred kings of the outer planets, capped and girdled with precious stones, still and panting in the heat. These and others watched the two tall Vardda, thinking their own thoughts.
They passed through the gate out of the factory, wading in soggy mud. The sun was setting in a welter of lurid green, tinged with peacock hues. Trehearne looked at the town ahead, the straggling lanes, the crystal huts that crouched in sordid beauty, the encircling forest of ungodly trees. Doubt assailed him.
"Perhaps we should stay in the factory. There'll be plenty of wine and more comfort."
Yann cursed him good-naturedly. "I told you I know these people better than I know my own children! Come on, Trehearne, there's nothing to do in the factory. Don't you want to see something new?"
Trehearne did. He was sick of the factory, after those long shifts of sweating labor. He shrugged, and made sure of the prismed shock-tube in his belt. It was customary, when the Vardda went abroad on strange worlds, for them to carry a weapon. They were sometimes needed. Yann noticed the gesture and grinned. His own belt-holster was empty.
"I'd feel safer with one myself," he said, "but these people we're going to see are my friends. They'd be mortally offended if I came armed—a sign I didn't trust them, you see, and then look out!" He led the way down the muddy road, and Trehearne followed.
Night came. The glorious sky of the Cluster crashed down on them, sown to bursting with stars as bright as moons. The crystalline trees took on opaline fires. The hut walls glittered. Around the two Vardda gathered a crowd of sloe-eyed children, silent and solemn, with hides of dusky green. Women watched them from the doorways. Human enough and pretty enough too, the younger ones, sleek and olive-colored, wearing bright silks from Llyrdis about their hips and baubles in their hair.