“I’d tell you I believed you,” replied Terwilliger. “I don’t want no bounty hunter getting mad at me.”

Cain laughed. “Can you tell anything from Stern’s face?”

“Just that he’s been with the fali too long. Not much human left in it.”

“What do these fali look like?” asked Cain.

“Either pretty good or pretty strange, depending.”

“Depending on what?”

“On how long you’ve been alone,” answered Terwilliger.

“You still haven’t told me what they look like.”

Terwilliger grinned and ruffled the cards. “Shall we up the stakes a little?”

Cain shook his head. “They’re not worth more to me than Stern is.”

“They might be, when I tell you what they do.”

“Hearsay?”

“Experience.”

Cain cocked an eyebrow. “I thought you disapproved of them.”

“Anybody’s allowed to try something new once or twice, just to get the feel of it,” explained Terwilliger. “What I object to is addiction, not experimentation.”

“I don’t plan to be here long enough to do either,” said Cain. “You can put the cards away.”

“Oh, we can always find a little something to wager about,” said Terwilliger. “For fifty credits a hand, I could tell you where to find the Suliman brothers.”

“You’re too late. They were taken a week ago.”

“All three?”

Cain nodded.

“Damn!” said Terwilliger. “Well, for a hundred, I might tell you about some competition that’s moved into the area.”

“I know about the Angel.”

“News sure travels fast,” commented Terwilliger ruefully.

“Tell you what,” said Cain. “I’ll play for a thousand a hand if you have any information about Santiago.”

“You and five hundred other guys.” The gambler shook his head. “It beats me how he can still be free after all these years with so many people looking for him.”

Just then the bartender walked across the room and came to a stop in front of their table.

“Are you Cain?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“He wants you.”

“Where do I find him?” asked Cain.

“I’ll show you the way,” offered Terwilliger.

The bartender nodded and returned to his duties.

“Follow me,” said the gambler, getting to his feet.

Cain stood up and left a few bills on the table.

They walked out through a side door, across the dusty road that had once been a major thoroughfare, and into the smaller of Port étrange’s two functioning hotels. Terwilliger led him through a lobby that had once been quite elegant but was now showing the signs of age and neglect: sleek chrome pillars were now tarnished, the ever-changing choreopattern of colored lights was out of synch with the atonal music, the front door remained dilated for almost a full minute after they passed through it.

They approached a bank of elevators and walked to the last one in line. Terwilliger summoned it with a low command.

“This’ll take you right to him,” he announced.

“Has he got a room number?”