They were shrieking and squealing and scrambling desperately to get away from him. He realized to his horror that he was visible. They were screaming “Zhoka!” over and over, and the pitch was going high. He didn’t know what it meant but it was obviously not good.

He got his hands on his belt, turned the lightbender field back on, and was relieved to see that it still worked. He tried to scramble away from the mob. But the Goompahs were running for their lives. Jack cried out and damned him for an idiot. Digger was knocked sideways and trampled. He went down with his hands over his head, thinking how there’s no safe harbor in a stampede for an invisible man. He took kicks in the ribs and head, and something that felt like a pile of lumber fell on him.

When it was over, he staggered to his feet. The street was empty, save for a few injured Goompahs trying to drag themselves away. And Jack’s ghostly form lying quite still.

Digger hurried over to him and killed the e-suits. Jack’s head lolled to one side. He tried mouth-to-mouth. Pounded on his chest.

Nothing.

A last lingering Goompah blundered into them, fell, moaned, and got up running.

LIBRARY ENTRY

. Other people have families. I have only my work. The only thing that I really ask of this life is that I do something at some point that my colleagues consider worth remembering. If I can be reasonably assured of that, I will face my own exit, however it may come, with serenity.

— Jack Markover

Diary, March 4, 2234

(Written shortly after discovering the Goompahs)

On the ground at Lookout.

Tuesday, May 6.

OTHER THAN REACTIVATE the lightbenders, Digger didn’t know what to do. He told Kellie that Jack was dead, but she didn’t have to ask him how it happened because he poured it out. Damned coin. All I did was pick up a coin and they all went crazy. My fault. He’s dead, and it’s my fault.

“Take it easy, Digger,” she said. “Sometimes things just go wrong.” A long pause. “Are you sure?”

“Yes I’m sure!”

“Okay.”

“He told me not to do it.” He was sitting in the middle of the street. It was dusty and bleak. There was still a crowd of the things, and every time he moved, the dust moved, and the Goompahs groaned and pointed and backed away.

“Where is he now?”

“Right where he fell.” In broad daylight. On the street. A couple of the Goompahs had been hurt, and others were creeping cautiously closer, trying to help, probably asking what happened.

“We have to get him out of there.”

“He’s a little heavy.” Even in the slightly reduced gravity, Digger couldn’t have gone very far with him. Jack’s face was pale. The features, which had been twisted with agony when Digger first got to him, were at rest now. There was no heartbeat and his neck appeared to be broken. “I’ve tried everything I can, Kellie.”

“Okay, Digger. You have to keep calm.”

“Kellie, don’t start on me.”

She ignored the comment. “You want me to come?”

“No. Stay with the lander.”

“I mean, with the lander.”

“No. My God, you’ll panic the town.”

“Can you commandeer a cart maybe? Get him to a place where I can get to you?”

“You’re talking about a cart with no driver going down the street?”

“You’re right. I don’t guess that would work.”

“Not hardly.” The crowd was closing in again. He hoisted the body onto his back and staggered off with it toward an alley.

“Digger, I feel helpless.”

“Me too.” Digger was crushed by guilt. Actually, he told himself, they killed him. The stupid Goompahs. Who would have thought they’d react the way they did? Damned things were dumber than bricks.

The alley ran between the backs of private homes on one side and what looked like shops on the other. It was empty. He stumbled on and told Kellie what he was doing. “I’ll stay here with him until it gets dark,” he added. “Then we’ll do what we can.”

HE SET JACK down but saw immediately there was going to be too much traffic. Goompahs coming from the far end, and a couple angling off the street he’d just left. There were some fenced spaces behind the shops, and he chose one and hauled Jack inside.

“I’m okay,” he told Kellie.

He settled down to wait. Kellie would have stayed on the circuit with him, but he was in no mood for small talk, and she got the message and signed off. Digger sat wishing he could go back and change what he’d done. It was a horrible price to pay for a moment’s stupidity.

He could see past a chained door into an area that contained a couple of urns and shelves filled with pottery. Goompahs thumped around inside, but no one ever came out into the yard. For which he was grateful.

The sun crossed the midpoint overhead and slipped into the western sky. Voices drifted down the alley. Doors opened and closed, animals brayed and slurped, and once he heard someone apparently beating a rug.

Jack’s body began to stiffen.

He talked to Jack during the course of the afternoon, but quickly broke off when he found himself apologizing. No point to that. Instead he promised to do what he could to make the mission successful. That’s what Jack would have wanted, and Digger would make it happen. It was the only way he could think to ease his conscience.

The rain clouds that had been threatening the area off and on all day grew dark and ominous, but in the end there were only a few sprinkles, and they blew away.

The streets became noisier as darkness fell. The relatively subdued crowds haggling over prices were replaced by Goompahs out to enjoy the evening. Traffic in the alley stopped. For a while oil lamps burned in the shop, but they went out as the first stars appeared. Doors closed and bolts rattled home.

Kellie checked with him occasionally. He’d calmed down during the course of the day, had gone back and forth between blaming the Goompahs and himself, would have liked to pass off responsibility, but kept coming back to the warning from Jack. Don’t do it. Jack had known what would happen.

It was almost midnight before he decided the attempt could be made in relative safety. Even then a few Goompahs were still hanging about in cafés.

“On my way,” said Kellie.

They caught a break. She came in from the sea, and as far as Digger could tell, no one saw the lander descend over the rooftops. The Goompahs in the cafés were singing and laughing and having a good time, and they stayed in the cafés. Kellie hovered high, above rooftop level, and threw down a line. Digger looped it around his harness and secured it beneath Jack’s arms. When he was ready, he took a deep breath. Dangling from a lander wasn’t his idea of a good time. “Okay,” he said. “Ready to go.”

SHE FOUND A deserted beach and took it back down. When they were all on the ground she climbed out, embraced him, looked sadly at Jack, and embraced him again. “I’m sorry, Dig,” she said.

They returned him to the Jenkins and conducted a memorial service. Jack had not been affiliated, but he’d occasionally commented that he would have liked to believe in the idea of a God who so loved the world—so they read a few appropriate passages out of the Bible. And they said good-bye to him.

When it was finished Kellie told him to get a drink, and she would take care of putting the body in storage. In the light onboard gravity, that wouldn’t be a problem, so he gratefully accepted the offer.

While she was below, he opened one of the bottles that Mark had brought in the day before—it seemed like a different age now—and poured two glasses, setting one aside.

It occurred to him that he had his wish—that he was finally alone with Kellie.

HE FILED A report in the morning, accepting full responsibility. But he kept the statement general, not mentioning the coin, merely stipulating that he’d been momentarily careless and been consequently detected, and that the crowd had panicked. He added that he understood they would probably want to pull him out. If that was their decision, he would comply. But he asked that he be allowed to stay on, to finish the mission.

Meantime, there were pickups to be distributed around the isthmus. They returned to the glade, but when Digger started to leave, Kellie announced her intention to go with him.

“Too dangerous,” he said.

“That’s exactly why you need someone else along.”

They argued about it, but Digger’s heart was never in it, and after he felt he’d convinced her of his basic willingness to go it alone, he agreed, and they started out.

By midday they were back at the scene of the riot. The garment district. Life had returned to normal, and if the Goompahs were talking about the previous day’s events, it was impossible to know. The merchant from whom he’d tried to pilfer the coin was still at his stand, and seemed immersed in hawking his wares.

“Let’s get some recordings,” said Kellie, all business, and probably determined not to let him think about yesterday.

A couple of blocks west of the shopping district lay an area dominated by parks and public buildings. One of the structures had signboards outside, rather like the ones you might still see near small country churches in the southern NAU. They took pictures and went inside.

A broad hallway with a high, curving roof ran to the rear of the building. There were large doors on both sides, and a few Goompahs wandering about, lost in the sheer space. Goompah voices came from one of the side rooms.

Digger looked in and saw several gathered around a table. They might have been debating something, but it was hard to tell. Goompahs seemed to put more energy into speaking than humans did. The laughter was louder, the points were made more vociferously, the negotiation was more demonstrative. In this group, voices were raised, and tempers seemed frayed.

“Fight coming,” said Kellie.

Digger doubted it. “I think they just like to argue.”

“They don’t hide their feelings, do they?”

“Not much.” Digger walked quietly into the room and planted a pickup on a shelf that was crowded with scrolls, aiming it so it got a decent view of the table. Then they went back out into the hall.

“Bill,” Digger said. “First unit’s up. How’s reception?”

“Loud and clear. Picture’s five by. What’s the argument about?”

“One of them was cheating at poker.”

“Really? Do they play poker here?”

Digger grinned. “Bill has no sense of humor.”

Kellie squeezed his arm. “Sure he does. He did that last line deadpan.”