Adams, Robert - Horseclans 14 - A Man Called Milo Morai Before anyone could react, a 7.9mm bullet took Milo in the pit of the arm. The bullet bored completely through his chest before exiting in the left-frontal quadrant and going through the biceps, skewering both lungs and his heart along the way. The lancing agony had been exquisite, unbearable, and Milo had screamed. He drew in a deep agonizing breath to scream once again and that second scream choked away as he coughed up a boiling rush of blood. . . . Copyright© 1986 by Robert Adams Cover art by Ken Kelly All rights reserved This, the fourteenth volume of HORSECLANS, is dedicated to: Mr. Gary Massey, gentleman-attorney; Mr. Scott Wasmund, gentleman-CPA; Dr. Bill Brown, gentleman-cardiologist; Mr. Richard Evans, gentleman-editor; Mr. Ed Hayes, gentleman-journalist; Mr, Ken Kelly, gentleman-cover artist; and to Mr, Bernhard Goetz, gentleman-at-arms. PROLOGUE The day of hunting, trapping, seining and foraging for wild plants, fruits, nuts and tubers had gone well in this rich, not often hunted slice of the great prairie. Fillets of fish and thin slices of venison now had been added to others already in the process of curing over slow, smoky beds of fire scattered about the camp of the hunters. All of the daylight hours, those who had not ridden forth with the hunting and foraging parties or fished the small river had been hard at the tasks of tending the fires and the meat and fish that hung above them, had scraped and stretched and salted and rolled the skins and hides, rendered fish offal for glue, and performed the countless other tasks necessary to maintain the camp and its temporary inhabitants—human, feline and equine. Between chores, certain of the camp detail cared for and saw to the needs of an injured boy. His intemperate insubordination of the preceding night had resulted in his chief flinging him into the still-live coals of a large firepit —a regrettable but very necessary cost of survival in the often-harsh environment was instant and savage punishment for failure to obey leaders, for repeated instances of such undisciplined conduct might well one day cost lives, his own and many another also. As Sacred Sun declined in the western sky, the parties began to return to the camp with the spoils of their forays on the countryside and waters. Having less distance to travel and being also blessed with the faster, easier road, the fishing party was the first back at the campsite, where they drew their small boats of hide and wood nooert Adams A MAIN UALOJfcJJ M1LU MUKA1 through the shallows and up upon the shelving beach before unloading their catches of assorted fish, then, with flashing knives, all set about the cleaning, scaling or skinning and filleting of the feebly flopping creatures. The larger of the fillets went to the racks above the smoky fires, while the smaller went into piles and pots for the evening meal. The foragers were next to return, offloading hampers of assorted plant materials from led horses to be sorted, dried and repacked to bear back to the clans or used immediately for their own sustenance. Then this party divided, and while some saw to the horses or the sorting, others remounted and rode out to check lines of traps, snares, pits and logfalls. The first of two hunting groups rode in with a spirited whooping, laden with no less than three good-sized deer —two of them ordinary whitetails, a buck and a big doe, but the third a rare and much-prized spotted buck with palmate antlers—a smallish wapiti buck, some near-dozen long-legged hares and an assortment of other small game and birds. While still this first party of the hunters, with the more than enthusiastic assistance of those already in camp, were hard at the messy jobs of flaying and butchering, the sometime-foragers came back, having emptied arid reset traps or rebaited those they had found empty. They bore some cottontails, .squirrels, one big and three smaller raccoons, a black fox, a mink, a woodchuck, two skunks—one striped, one spotted—half a dozen muskrats and four thrashing feet of thick-bodied, now-headless watersnake which had been a chance acquisition of a muskrat trapper. The lower edge of Sacred Sun was skirting very close to the western horizon and the pots and pans above the scattered cookfires were already beginning to emit fragrant steam before the second party of hunters was sighted across the grassy expanse that lay above the narrow, winding, flood-carven river valley in a wider portion of which lay the campsite. So slowly did this party move that it seemed clear they must ride heavy-laden with game. But as th^y came closer, those gifted with the keenest sight could see that although there was game strapped to several horses, two others bore between them a makeshift litter, and at the tail of the party limped an injured horse—its head hung low, dried blood streaking its barrel, stripped of all gear and encumbrances save only a rawhide halter, bloody froth surrounding its distended nostrils and slowly dripping from muzzle and lips. "Sun and Wind," muttered Hunt Chief Tchuk Skaht to no one in particular, "I thought today's hunting went too well to be true or to last. Wind grant that that's not a Skaht in that litter, yonder . . . but that baldfaced redbay looks much like one of our herd. And if the horse was hurt, then what of its rider?" As the column wound down the path from above and into camp, the form on the litter could be seen to lie un-moving, very, very still, its eyelids closed, its sun-browned hands folded across its chest. Tchuk's heart plummeted to the depths of his felt and leather boots when he recognized the face—Myrah Skaht, daughter of his cousin, Chief Gaib Skaht; a pretty girl of only fourteen summers, a girl with the promise of becoming one of the best archers in her clan. He walked heavily in the direction of the cleared space wherein returning parties usually offloaded, his mood as heavy and dragging as his steps. "It's always the young," he brooded silently to himself, "the best, the brightest, that hunting and raids and simple accidents cost us. At least six or eight boys and girls who likely will never contribute much to our clan, whose loss would have soon been clean forgot, but, no, we here lose Myrah . . . and probably her fine, well-trained hunting mare, as well, from the looks of it. Poor Gaib will be bitter for long and long, I fear me, with this painful loss of so fine and so promising a daughter; I hope that he doesn't blame me for it." As the leader of the hunting party wearily dismounted from his stallion and set about removing saddle and gear from the mount, Tchuk came close and asked the question he had to ask. "Did she die well, Uncle Milo? Our bard is certain to ask me . . . and her grieving father, too." Looking up from where he had bent to unbuckle the 10 Robert Adams A MATS cinches of the hunting kak, the man thus addressed smiled and replied, "Be not so pessimistic, Tchuk Skaht. The unfortunate mare will probably have to be put down this evening, from the looks of her, but young Myrah was not hurt badly, only knocked giddy and shaken up. I had her put in a litter only because she seemed to have trouble sitting a horse, then I gave her a draft of sleep-root to spare her discomfort on the journey. She's only asleep, you see, not dead." "What happened, Uncle Milo? No mere fall would have torn the mare up that way." While continuing to work, the man called Uncle Milo used their shared telepathy to answer the question. "We hunted this day that wide strip of forest over by the big river of which this one is a tributary, bagging six of the small straighthorns, among other beasts, this morning. After the nooning, we all fanned out to see what else we could add to our take for the day. Our first intimation of trouble was when we heard the mare's screams. "It would appear that Myrah arrowed a yearling pig, but for some reason, her loosing did not fly with her usual trueness and the wounded beastlet fled into an area of heavy brush with Myrah in full pursuit of it." Tchuk Skaht, an experienced and widely respected hunter, blanched. "Oh, no, a sow ... or worse, a boar. And her without a spear." "Just so," agreed Uncle Milo, adding, "In her pain and hysteria, I couldn't get much out of the mind of the mare, so this is a reconstruction based on educated guesses and what I found when I got to the scene. "Apparently, the old boar carne out of the dense cover and tushed the mare just behind the-off foreleg. Myrah may not even have had time to see him. The mare reared, of course, slamming the rider's head against a thick overhanging branch so hard that the impact cracked the boiled-leather helmet clean across, though there would appear to be no damage to the head within. "Half-mad with pain, the mare of course lashed out at the boar as the savage beast pressed his attack, but accomplished little damage to him, hampered as she was by the thick brush and nowhere near as fast as him, anyway. "Matters stood thus when two of the boys came riding up. That Gy Linsee is big for his age was a rare blessing, at that place and time. Realizing at once that a horse was a detriment there, he rolled out of his saddle, after putting a brace of rapidly loosed shafts into the boar—fletch-ings-deep, he drove them, too—got the stubborn beast's attention and took him on his spear . . . where he was holding him when I and most of the rest of the hunt came up and dispatched him." Nodding solemnly, Tchuk said, "Would that so brave a young man were a Skaht, but I honor him nonetheless. Young Karee has rare insight, it would seem. If she openly announces and he does the same, I will speak Gy Linsee's part to my chief and her father and hope that he elects to live among the Clan of Skaht. If he so desires, I would be honored to have him as guest at the Skaht cooking fire, this night." Milo went about the rest of his work with a sense of satisfaction. The first real break had finally occurred. A Skaht had invited a Linsee to guest at his evening meal, and Milo could rest assured that, taking into account the event that had precipitated the offer and the exalted rank of the man who had made it, there would be nothing save sweetness and light (even if some of it was forced and grudging, at first) toward Gy Linsee from his hosts. It was, at least, a start. Clans Linsee and Skaht were both Kindred clans of long standing and ancient lineage. However, within the last couple of generations, the two had developed a senseless enmity. The clans had taken to insult, thievery and pilferage, assaults and the occasional killing and, at last, riding on raids against each other, not only meetings of warrior against warrior in open, prearranged battle— which would have been bad enough—but striking at encampments, as well. At length, the Council of Chiefs of the tribe, that loose confederation of Kindred clans known as the Horseclans, had decided that enough was enough. The vendetta had gone far enough and they were upon the point of riding down in overwhelming force upon the two clans, stripping them of all arms and possessions and, after disen- 12 Robert Adams A MAN CALLED MILO MORAI 13 franchising them, declaring them to be not of Horseclans stock, driving them out onto the prairie, afoot, unarmed and maimed, to die or live. But Milo Morai had good memories of both of the errant clans, and he prevailed upon the Council to allow him to try just once to show them the error of their current ways and teach them to live once more in peace and in brotherhood, one with the other, as did all the rest of the Kindred clans. So disgusted and dead-set were the chiefs of the Council that it is likely that no normal man, no ordinary chief, could have swayed them. But then Chief Milo of Morai was no mere man, no ordinary chief. For as long as there had been Horseclans upon the plains and prairies, there had been Uncle Milo. This same, ageless, unchanging man had succored, lived among, guided the Sacred Ancestors from whom most of the present clans held descent since the hideous War and the Great Dyings had extirpated most of mankind from all the lands. Unlike every other man and woman of the clans, he alone never aged; the same Uncle Milo who might have merrily jounced upon his knee a new boy-child of the clans might stand in the throng, unchanged in any way, as the husk of the old great-grandfather that that boy-child had, over the long years, become was sent decently to Wind on a pyre. Therefore, when Uncle Milo had ridden in—unexpected and unannounced—with the Tribal Bard and made his request of the assembled chiefs, none of them had even thought—no matter the intensity of their emotions, their fears and the resolve to which they had but just come—of saying nay to this man compounded of equal parts myth and stark reality. So, rather than riding down upon the erring clans with fire and thirsty swords, the Council had sent riders summoning the chiefs of Linsee and Skaht to the place whereat they sat in formal sessions. Arrived, the chiefs and subchiefs were informed of the decision that the Council had made, then, before any could protest, they also were informed of the request of Uncle Milo and the agreement of Council to grant his request. But it was impressed upon them that this was at best a brief reprieve and that only clear proof of a resolution of their ongoing feud would or could bring about a full reversal of Council's earlier ruling and resolution. This meant that full cooperation with the schemes of Uncle Milo were of paramount importance to both Linsees and Skahts, did they harbor any hopes of surviving into another generation as Kindred clans. Autumnal hunting parties traditionally ate very well, and this one was no exception. While still Sacred Sun was nudging the western horizon, the stewpots had been set aside so their contents could cool enough to be eaten and the coals of the firepits were put to the task of cooking other foods for the weary but ravenous men, boys and girls. The contents of those lazily steaming pots were hearty, nutritious fare, indeed. To a stock made by boiling cracked bones had been added those bits and pieces of meat and fish too small or otherwise unsuited for the curing racks, edible roots of various kinds, wild greens and herbs and a bit of precious and hoarded salt, then the mixtures had been thickened by additions of toasted, late-sprouting wild grain, seeds and nutmeats. The second and last course of the meal would be spit-roasted rabbits, hares, squirrels and birds. If anyone remained hungry after that, they could always gnaw at a hunk of the hard, strong-flavored cheese they'd brought along on this hunt, though generally it and the gut tubes of greasy pemmican were held back for a possible emergency. When the carcasses on the spits were nearing an edible degree of doneness and the horses were all cared for and other needful tasks accomplished, the Skaht boys and girls began to gather about the cookfire pit. Then Hunt Chief Tchuk Skaht called for their attention, addressed them, speaking aloud for the benefit of that minority who were possessed of little or no telepathic ability. "Kindred, mine, a guest will share our fire and our food on this night, a brave young man, who will be honored by us all for his act of selfless courage in defense of one of us Skahts during the course of Uncle Mile's 14 Robert Adams hunt, earlier today. I will bring him amongst us, but he will be a clan guest, not mine only. "He is a Linsee-born, but he cannot help that regrettable fact, for none of us have the option of choosing the clan of our parents, and I'll be expecting each and every one of you to show him true Skaht hospitality as well as the deference and the honor due a young man who saved a Skaht girl from death or serious injury at no little risk to himself. "Be you all well warned: I'll brook no misbehavior toward our honored guest—no ragging, no name-calling, no insults, no challenges. If anyone does not understand all that I have just spoken, tell me now. Well?" A stripling stepped from out the throng on the other side of the firepit. His pale-blond hair cascaded loose upon his shoulders, dripping water onto the shirt and trousers that clung to a body still damp from his evening dip in the riverlet. A look of sullen near-defiance smoldered in the depths of his blue-green eyes. "Hunt Chief, with all due respect to you, I think you try to go too far. Working with the damned Linsees, riding alongside of the scum, hunting or fishing or gathering with them . . . I—we—have debased ourselves to do all these things because you and our chief and Uncle Milo said to. I shared herd guard with one of them today, but I can see no reason why I should-have to ruin my meal with the stench of one of them in my nose. No, hunt chief or no hunt chief, you go too far, demand too much of us, this evening. I'll not sit still for it, whether others do or not. What did he do, anyway—stop some silly girl from squatting in a stand of poison oak?" It was a hoary joke amongst the clans, but still a few hesitant laughs came from here and there, and the boy preened himself, half-sneering at Tchuk the while. Tchuk was on the verge of making his way around the firepit and giving the impertinent whelp physical cause to respect his betters when a hard little hand grasped the boy's arm and spun him about to face the combined wrath of two of his clanswomen. Karee and Myrah Skaht, both of them about as damp as was the boy, Buhd, having but just laved themselves and their garments in the riverlet, were clearly hopping mad. "How dare you speak so to Hunt Chief Tchuk, you puling snotnose!" snarled Karee, striking him with some force in the chest with the flat of one calloused little hand. With the boy's attention thus distracted from her, Myrah took the opportunity to kick his shin, hard, with the toe of her fine leather riding boot, snapping, "Look at your clan chiefs daughter, you insubordinate puppy! It was my father gave the rule to Tchuk Skaht for this hunt, therefore, it's my father's—your chiefs—orders you would disobey. I should let the hunt chief kill you as you deserve, but I, myself, came close enough to my death today to relish life ... even so worthless a life as yours." She kicked him again, on the other shin, then raised her voice. "Know you all, on the hunt today, I arrowed a shoat and, failing to kill it outright, foolishly pursued it into heavy brush. The shoat's squeals brought out a monstrous old long-tushed boar. He charged my mare, savaged her, and she reared suddenly, casting me from the saddle. Then that hellish boar made for me, and you would all be building me a pyre and sending me home to Wind, this night, save for the heroism and strength of Gy Linsee. He rode up, arrowed the boar twice, then came in afoot to take a beast that outweighed him by hundreds of pounds on his spear and hold him there until more hunters came up to kill the creature. "That is why he is to be our guest at food, on this evening. And any who offer him less than he deserves, than he has earned in full this day, will assuredly find the blade of my knife in his flesh." After a single, slow-moving, grim-faced sweep of her glance completely around the circle, she suddenly smiled and added, "Who knows, Kindred? Perhaps Uncle Milo will honor our fire and food, as well, with his presence. Then, maybe, he'll tell us all more of his tales of the olden days as he did last night." If there was any one thing in particular that Horse-clansfolk instinctively honored, it was proven bravery, nooen Adams even in an enemy , . . especially in an enemy. With the tale of Gy Linsee's courageous feat in succoring their chiefs daughter become common knowledge, the big young man was received and feted in time-hoary Horse-clans tradition, for all his un-Horseclanslike size and height, his un-Kindredlike dark hair and eyes and his Linsee lineage. And, as all had hoped, Uncle Milo readily accepted the invitation of Hunt Chief Tchuk Skaht and dined around their firepit on the thick stew, the baked tubers, the roasted meats and the oddments of nuts and late fruits. The meal concluded, those who had done the day's cooking repaired to the riverbank to scour the precious metal pots with sand and cold water, then filled them with fresh water and brought them back to fireside for the preparation of the morning draft of herb and root tea, which, with a few bites of hard cheese, was the breakfast of most Horseclansfolk. The rest of the diners sat ringed about the firepit. They picked their teeth with splinters of firewood, cleaned their knives, wiped at greasy hands and faces. They chatted, both aloud and telepathically, or brought out uncompleted handicraft projects to work at by the firelight. One group of boys and girls set a small pot of cold, congealed fish glue to heat in a nestlet of coals, laying a bundle of presmoothed, prerounded dowels by, along with sharp knives, collected feathers and preshaped hunting points of bone and threads of soaked, supple sinew, all for arrow-making. One of the older boys began to carefully remove the bark from a six-foot length of tough hornbeam—the best part of a sapling killed through some natural cause a year or so before and then cured where it stood by the winds and sun. The boy had recognized it for the rare prize that it was—such made for fine spear shafts or the hafts of war axes—and he meant to finish it as much as possible before they rode back to the clan camp, where he would make of it a gift to his father. Slowly, carefully, using a belt knife for the drawknife he lacked, helped by a cousin who steadied the sapling, the boy took off the bark in long, even strips, which he flicked into the firepit and out of his way. With the last of the horny outer bark gone, he sheathed his knife, took the two-inch-thick length of wood upon his lap and began to sand it with a coarse-grained, fist-sized river rock, keeping a finer-grained pebble of equal size close to hand for semifinal finishing. Two different youngsters—a boy and a girl—squatted and braided thin strips of rawhide and sinew into strong riatas. Others honed the edges of various types of knives, spearheads and axes, or the points of fishhooks, gaffhooks and hunting darts. Yet another young Skaht was industriously knapping a lucky find of ancient glass— shards of a bottle broken long centuries before and rendered a deep purple by hundreds of years of unremitting sun—into projectile points, such points being much favored for hunting, since they needed no fire-hardening as did bone and their points and edges were sharper and more penetrating than even honed steel; he already had knapped and fitted to a hardwood hilt a larger, triangular piece of the glass to be used for the splitting of sinews. With a speed born of manual dexterity and much practice, Myrah Skaht was converting a length of antler into a barbed head for a fish spear, her knifeblade flashing in the firelight. All the while, she engaged in silent converse with Gy Linsee, where he sat between Hunt Chief Tchuk Skaht and Uncle Milo, both she and Gy being gifted with better than average telepathic abilities (that trait called "mindspeak" by the folk of the Horse-clans). The boy and girl conversed on a tight, personal beaming, and such was the very way that Milo "bespoke" Tchuk Skaht. "They are fine young people, Tchuk, all of them I've seen, this night; those who have the good fortune to live to maturity will bring great honor to Skaht, of that you may be sure." The hunt chief beamed his sincere thanks for the compliment to his clan and young clansfolk, but then sighed audibly and shook his head, setting his still-damp braids asway. "But so few will be still alive in ten years, fewer still in twenty, and it seems that always the very best are they who first go to Wind. They die in war, in the hunt, in herding, they succumb to wounds, to fevers and other illnesses. The girls, many of them, will die during or just A MAN CALLED MILO MORAI 19 after childbirth, and both boys and girls will be swept off and drowned in river crossings, will fail to outrun prairie fires or will be done to death in stupid, pointless, singular accidents. We two sit amongst a bare twoscore or so only half of whom will ever live to even my age, yet I know of Kindred clans that number more than twice as many younkers, warriors and maiden archers." He sighed even more deeply and again shook his head. "It would just seem that Clan Skaht is intended by Sacred Sun and by Wind to remain small and weak upon the land. And ever fewer Kindred of other clans seem of a mind to wed into Clan Skaht, to accept our boys and girls as spouses for their own clansfolk or even to host our wandering hunters as befits true Kindred. And this great mystery is not of my mind alone, Uncle Milo. Right often have my chief and the subchiefs and bard in council discussed these very topics . . . vainly." Milo frowned. "Oh, come now, Tchuk, you are an intelligent man, and so too are they, else they would not be leaders of their clan, but you and they have chosen first and foremost to think only within narrow limits. Open your mind, man, loose your thoughts, and you quickly will see the basic reason for all ... well, for most of the afflictions of not only your clan but of Clan Linsee, as well. "Well?" he prodded after a moment. "Think of it, man, unfetter your mind and think. You posed questions —now give me the answers to them, as you can and will." It did not take long. "The . . . the feud . . . the feud with Clan Linsee ... is that it, Uncle Milo?" Milo smiled briefly. "You have a cigar coming, but I don't have one, so how about a pipeful of my tobacco instead, Hunt Chief Tchuk? Precisely! This damnable, idiotic feud is at the bottom of all the tribulations of both Clan Skaht and Clan Linsee. Nomad clan versus nomad clan is a flatly murderous type of warfare . . . but you know that fact well, don't you? Raidings of Dirtmen steadings are one thing—the element of surprise holds down the number of casualties amongst the raiders, as too does the fact that the modes of thinking are very different when you compare settled farmers and nomad herders and hunters. And, also, the prairiecats and our strain of horses with their telepathic abilities give us a distinct edge over our prey. Yes, there are losses sustained in raiding Dirtmen, but mostly they are but piddling compared to the loot, livestock and slaves gained for the clans. Why, the hunt results in as many or more deaths and serious injuries for a far more paltry return in benefits, but you know that, too. "On the other hand, when you ride to raid or war against men just like yourselves, you can expect the butcher's bill to be high, almost insupportably high. How in hell are you going to surprise a camp the perimeter of which is patrolled by farspeaking telepathic cats and horses? And if you choose to set your own cats on the guard cats, the resultant din of feline battle is going to be heard for miles. Though I understand that the cat chiefs, both yours and Clan Linsee's, past and present, wisely refused to engage in active warfare and raiding against any Kindred clan, only fighting defensively. "Had your clans been allowed to keep up this senseless round of raidings and ambushes and duelings and battles, the time would soon have come when neither of you would have had sufficient strength remaining to even hold your own against the natural adversaries that beset us all our lives on the prairies and plains. The only reason, indeed, that you two weakened clans have survived this long is that almost all of the non-Kindred nomads have been killed off, driven off or melded into our tribe over the last few generations. Had such fearsome fighters as Clans Staiklee, Duhglisz, Kahr, Lebohn and their ilk still roamed in enmity to the Kindred, you had all been rendered corpses or slaves. "All of the other Kindred clans face precisely the same attrition from natural causes and from riding the raid against Dirtmen as do Skaht and Linsee. That they manage—barring the rare disaster—to maintain a constant strength of numbers in spite of certain losses results from the fact that they live by, adhere to, The Law and the ancient customs proven from the days of the Sacred Ancestors to the present. "First and foremost of the Law is that Kinship is holy, Tchuk. Had clan not helped Kindred clan in times of au Robert Adams need or danger over the years, there would today be no tribe, no clans. In union there is strength for all of our confederation of interrelated clans and families. Such disunity and enmity as your two clans have practiced can lead only to chaos and death for you, your descendants and, eventually, your clans. "Unfortunately, there are a certain number of hotheads, greedy, suicidal and homicidal types, in every generation of every clan. Clans Skaht and Linsee have, over the more recent years, set a bad example, and other, more sober and Law-fearing Kindred clans have avoided mixing with them because they feared the bad influence upon their own few fire-eaters. Looked at from their viewpoints, no man could blame them for being somewhat less than Kindred toward you. Prove only to the Council of Kindred Chiefs that Skaht and Linsee can live harmoniously, one with the other in peace and true brotherhood, and you will see how quickly there are offers of Kinship from your Kindred of all the other clans." He seemed on the verge of beaming more to the receptive hunt chief, but his mind was just then smitten by a beaming of the combined power of Myrah Skaht, Karee Skaht and Gy Linsee. "Uncle Milo, please, won't you do as you did last night? Please tell us all more of the olden days, of your life before the Great Dyings and of how you formed the Sacred Ancestors into our clans of today." "If I do, it will have to be, as last night, told to all, Linsees as well as Skahts. Will you welcome them among you if I agree to open my mind and memories again to you?" Chapter 1 Although radios and gramophones blared out songs of coins falling from the skies, the only thing that the skies over depression-racked Chicago seemed to be producing were rain, snow, sleet and windborne stenches from the stockyards this winter of the Year of Our Lord 1936. Or, at least, so thought Police Officer Bob Murphey as he squatted, back to a wall, keeping watch over the unfortunate gent who lay unconscious before him on the damp, slimy, gritty stones of the alleyway. Bob was certain that this one was a real gent—his clothing was too fine, too obviously expensive, for him to be aught else than a gent or a hood, and it was too conservative of cut and color to be the latter. That expensive clothing had likely gotten him into this sorry pickle, Murphey silently reflected. Why, his shoes alone represented a week's pay for the average working Joe these dark days ... if said Joe was lucky enough to be working at all. Bob had been walking his beat, huddled into his uniform coat against the chill and the thick, cloying mist, when he had passed the alley mouth and sighted in his peripheral vision a flicker of movement too large to have been a mere rat or alley cat or gaunt scavenger dog. He had turned back then, taken his best grip on his billy club and demanded, "Now what in hell's goin' on back there?" There was scuttling movement, then footfalls rapidly receding down the alleyway. Murphey had proceeded cautiously on until he had suddenly tripped over and almost fallen onto a recumbent body. A brief examina- 21 zz tlobert Adams tion had revealed that the victim was not dead yet, though from the amount of blood clotting the dark hair, he might soon be. After he had carefully, as gently as possible, dragged the body closer to the alley mouth, he had trotted the half-block or so to the callbox and reported the need for an ambulance at this location. He had returned in time to find two miscreants—likely the same ones who had slugged the gent's head and robbed him to begin with—engaged in trying to get off the man's shoes and greatcoat. One of them had gotten away, but the other now sat handcuffed and groaning from the beating Bob had inflicted with his billy club. "I'm getting old," thought the shivering policeman, clenching his jaws to stop his teeth from chattering. "Twenty years ago, it's the both of the bastards I'd've got, not just this one. When I come back from France back in '18, all full of piss and vinegar, it looked like the world was my oyster for sure. What in hell happened to all those plans, all those chances I knew was just sitting out there waiting for Big Bob Murphey to come along?" After glancing at his prisoner and assuring himself that the clubbed and moaning man offered no further threat, Murphey let his billy dangle from his wrist by the thong and tucked his numbed hands under his armpits. "I wonder if that poor gent there was in the Great War, too? Likely he was—he looks about of an age with me. 'Course, he prob'ly was an officer—he looks the type. He sure got his breaks after the war, else he wouldn't be laying there in a greatcoat that cost a hunnerd dollars if it cost one red cent. I dunno—things would prob'ly have fell in place better for me if I hadn't gone and married Kate as soon as I did. Hell, she'd've waited for me to make my pile, and we both and the kids too would've been a sight better off if I had. But then, I'd prob'ly've lost it all back in '29 like the rest of the high-rollers did and ended up dead or riding boxcars or in jail or sweeping up horse biscuits with the WPA. At least I got me a steady job and three squares a day for me and Kate and the kids and a roof over our heads and coal to burn in the Arcola, and all that is a whole helluva lot more than most folks can say these days." ,.U JVUJ-AJ JVIWIXAI. His hands thawed a bit, Bob Murphey delved into his coat pocket and brought out the billfold he had taken from his handcuffed captive. Leaning toward the dim light out of the street beyond the alley mouth, he opened the butter-soft calfskin and riffled the sharp new bills contained therein. Sinking back onto his haunches, he whistled between his teeth. At least six hundred, maybe a thousand dollars, between one and two years' pay for the likes of him, if you didn't include the piddling amounts of cash and merchandise that he accepted now and then from certain cautiously selected persons on his beat for the casting of a blind eye on victimless activities. "Well, Mr. Milo Moray," he muttered to himself, reading the name stamped in gold leaf inside the billfold, "sure and you're bound to have a sight more where this came from. And you do owe me something for saving your life tonight, after all." He stood up then and emptied the billfold, folded the bills into two wads, then stuffed one down each sock to come to rest under the arches of his feet. He then stalked over to stand looming over the prisoner. "What did you and your partner do with this man's money?" he demanded of the battered, manacled criminal. Snuffling, the slumped, bleeding man half-whined, "Didn" have time to do nuthin' with it. It's still in his billfold, hones' to God, it is." Bob Murphey sighed. "Wrong answer, feller." Leaning down, he unlocked and removed the handcuffs, returned them to their place, then took a two-handed grip on the billy club and brought it down with all of his strength upon the prisoner's head. Bob was a beefy man, a very strong man, and the one blow of the lead-weighted baton was all that was necessary to cave in the gaunt prisoner's skull. Then he tucked the empty billfold back in the pocket from which he had taken it when first he had searched the man. • Of course, the initial victim of attack was apprised of none of these events until much later. He awakened in a bed. The bed was hard, and the nooert Adams A MAIN (JALJ-iiiaJ M1IAJ MUttAl small pillow under his head had the consistency of a brick. He had no idea where he might be, why he was where he was, or exactly who he was. A woman of medium height was making one of two beds on the other side of the room, moving swiftly and surely, tucking up the sheets in smooth motions that left tight corners. It was when she turned to do the same for the other bed that she noticed that he was awake. Smiling warmly, she left the rumpled bed and bustled over to crank up the head of his bed. "Oh, Mr. Moray, doctor will be so glad to hear that we're finally conscious. How do we feel? Any headache, hmm? Would we like a drink of nice, cool water? An aspirin?" "Yes," he finally got out, wondering if that croak was his normal speaking voice. "Water. Please, water." The white-clad woman eased him a little more erect with an arm that proved surprisingly strong, then bore a glass with a bent-glass tube to his lips and allowed him to drain it before lowering his body back down. He was again asleep before his head touched the stone-hard pillow. When he once more awakened, the wan light that had come earlier through the window on his right was gone, replaced by the bright glare of the electric lamp in the ceiling above him. The two beds across the room sat crisply empty, and the white-clad woman who had given him water was nowhere to be seen. However, another woman, also wearing white—shoes, stockings, dress and odd-shaped cap atop her dark-blond, pulled-back hair— sat in a chair near his bedside reading a book. He tried to amass enough saliva to moisten his mouth and bone-dry throat but, failing in the effort, croaked, "Wa . . . water." Obviously startled, the seated woman dropped her book and sprang to her feet. "Certainly, Mr. Moray, of course you may have water, all the water you want. But you've got to try to stay awake for a little while, too. Poor Dr. Guiscarde is dead on his feet, but he insisted that he be called as soon as you woke up again. He needs to examine you and talk with you about something he thinks important." While speaking, she had pushed a button, and, when another woman in white opened the door, she said, "Miss Pollak, please get word to Dr. Guiscarde that Mr. Moray is conscious now." Although she had promised him all the water he wanted, she actually allowed him only small sips from the glass tube and carried on a nonstop monologue for the ten minutes before a spare, gangly young man entered and took her place at the bedside, signaling her to raise the head of the bed. From his black bag he removed a stethoscope, a reflector mounted on a headband and several other instruments, with which he proceeded to subject the patient to a brief examination. Then, bidding the woman to leave the room, he took her chair, slumping into it with a deep sigh. "Do you recall anything of what happened to you night before last, Mr. Moray? No? Well, a beat cop interrupted a pair of men who had slugged you, knocked you down and were in the process of robbing you. When he went to the callbox to get an ambulance down there, the two came back, but that was when their luck ran out; one ran again but the other fought, and the cop killed him with his baton, I hear tell. Officer Robert Emmett Murphey is as strong as the proverbial ox, so I find it entirely believable that he bashed the robber just a little too hard. "The hoodlum who got away must have had the money from your billfold, that and your watch and chain, which were ripped from your vest to the severe detriment of the pocket and buttonhole, I fear me. But they never had time or leisure to get your vest open, much less the shirt, so your moneybelt and all within it are laid away in the hospital safe in an envelope that I personally sealed before turning it over to the administrator. But, man, don't you know that it's been illegal to hold gold for more than two years now? If the federal government knew you were walking around with six or seven pounds of double eagles, they'd roast you over a slow fire. "Not that I necessarily agree with Roosevelt's policies, you understand, for they don't seem to be working out all that well for the vast majority of the people who have elected him twice, now. About the only good thing he's nooert Adams A MAN C;AL,L,£,IJ MILU MUKAI done was to make it legal to sell good booze again, in place of those poisonous bootleg slops. "When you are ready to convert some of those gold pieces to cash, let me know. I think my father would buy them from you at a premium, since they look to be brand-new, unworn coins. He's a well-known numismatist, so he can buy and hold them legally, which is one way to get around Roosevelt and his socialism. "Strange thing about you, though. When they brought you in here, your hair was a sticky mat of blood, yet I could find no wound or even an abrasion anywhere on your head to account for that blood. Your hat was crushed, which might mean that the thick, stiff furfelt absorbed most of the blow you were dealt, but that still doesn't account for the blood. My theory is that blood, from the man the cop killed ran down to the center of the alley and pooled under your head. Gruesome, heh? But it's as reasonable a theory as any other, I think. "I'm going to have you moved upstairs to a nicer room, a real private room. I'd like to observe you for a few days —head injuries can be tricky. You can easily afford private nurses and these days most of the nurses are in dire need of patients who can pay for their services. Mrs. Jennings, who was here when you woke a few minutes ago, will be your night nurse, and I have another in mind for your day nurse, too. Should you not care for what the hospital kitchen calls food, and not many do, there are several restaurants hereabouts that can cater your meals for reasonable costs. "Whom should we contact about you, Mr. Moray? Family? Friends? Business associates?" It took some little time, days of repetitive questioning, the bringing in of other doctors, specialists, before the man called Milo Moray was able to finally convince them all that he truly lacked any memory of his name and his life prior to the assault on him by the two thugs. The room was bright, cheery, furnished fully, and had attached a private toilet and bath to justify its steep rate of five dollars a day. The patient found the food provided bland but palatable and only rarely had meals fetched in to him from outside sources. Mrs. Jennings and Miss Duncan, his nurses, cared for him competently, brought him books from the nearby public library and helped him pass the time with conversations. As he could remember nothing of his past life, they told him of themselves and, in Mrs. Jennings' case, of her husband and child. Not that he ever seemed to lack for conversation. His status as something of a mystery man seemed to bring the oddballs out of the woodwork, as Dr. Gerald Guiscarde put it. He himself spent as much time as his busy schedule would allow with his patient, conversing with him as an equal, and he also continued to set various tests to the man he called Milo Moray. Among other things, he was able to determine that although his patient's English was accentless, non-regional American, he also was more than merely fluent in High German and French, as well as Latin and Classical Greek. Dr. Sam Osterreich, the psychiatrist, was able to add to the list of accomplishments the facts that the memoryless man was also well grounded in Yiddish, Hebrew, several dialects of Plattdeutsch, Hungarian, Polish and Russian. Through assorted visitors, it was established that the man called Moray could converse in such other tongues as Slovak, Croatian, Italian, Spanish, Arabic, Turkish, Armenian and Basque. But he proved unable to understand Cantonese, Sioux, Hindi, Tamil or Welsh, though he was proved to be fluent in Irish Gaelic, Scots Gaelic and Dutch. It was the consensus of opinion among the linguists that Guiscarde filtered in that, although probably a university graduate, certainly well educated, Moray had not learned most of his vast array of tongues in an academic setting, but rather through living among and conversing with the people whose native languages he had learned so well and in such depth. Dr. Osterreich was a stooped little gnome of a man whose English was sometimes halting and always heavily accented. He had studied under fellow Austrian Dr. Sigmund Freud. In his mid-fifties, he was a very recent immigrant and had been a widower since his wife had died of influenza while he had been serving as a medical officer of the Imperial Austro-Hungarian Army in the Great War. One early evening after his office hours, he showed up nooert Adams at the mystery patient's room with a large chess set and board, a commodious flask of fine brandy and a brace of crystal snifters. He had been prepared to teach the game to his host, but it proved unnecessary, in the end, for the man called Moray was sufficiently adept to make their games long and slow, and the psychiatrist was to return many times for chess, brandy and rambling chats in English, German and Yiddish. After a signal defeat one night, the doctor tipped over his king and regarded his host for a long moment. "What-efer you war, mein freund, goot, solid gold I vould lay that a military man you vunce war. The firm principles of strategy and tactics most naturally to you seem to come. You ponder, you efery aspect weigh, but then mofe mit alacrity and resolution. Too young you look to have been in the late unpleasantness, but to know all that you seem to know, I also feel that older than you look you must assuredly to be. Efen mit a true ear for languages, for instance, more years than you seem to have vould have required been for you to have mastered so fery many as you haf. Most truly a puzzle you are, mein freund, Milo." Some month after first awakening in the hospital, the patient had just breakfasted one morning when Dr. Gerald Guiscarde arrived with a large, thick manila envelope under one arm. "Milo, I've conferred with Sam, and we agree that there's nothing we can do for you, in the hospital or out, so it's just a useless waste of your money to stay here any longer, I feel. "Now, I took the liberty of sending your gold to my father, and he bought it all, as I was certain he would, for thirty-four dollars per coin, which came to two thousand, eight hundred and fifty-six dollars. There's an accounting in the envelope along with your moneybelt, but I'll tell you now that with the hospital, the nurses, Sam, me, and the specialists all paid, you still have two thousand and twenty-two dollars and eighteen cents. "Have you plans after you leave here? You don't intend to leave the area, do you? Sam and I still would like to see you regularly, keep up with your progress, as it were." The patient smiled sadly. "Where would I go? What A MAN (JALLEL) MiUJ MOKA1 29 would I do? I seem to have lost not only my past but, with it, any roots I might have had. No, I suppose I'll find a residence hotel somewhere, then try to find a job of some description." But his day nurse, Fanny Duncan, would not hear of such a thing, and that was how he wound up a boarder in the same house in which she lived. His ten dollars per week brought him a comfortable room, three plain but good meals per day, bath and toilet down the hall, clean bed linens once a week and a familial atmosphere. In 1914, Staff Sergeant Patrick O'Shea had left the Army he had so dearly loved behind him to take over the management of the brewery following the calamitous deaths of his father and all three of his elder brothers in a boating accident. He had also married his eldest brother's widow, Maggie, a new bride become suddenly a new widow, and they had moved into the big, rambling family house. With a staff of well-trained servants, they lived comfortably and happily, their first, Michael Gilbert O'Shea, being born in 1916. Patrick himself seemed to be adapting well to his executive position, but then the first dim tattoo of the war drums began to be heard and the warhorse in him began to champ at the bit. By the time the twins, Sally and Joseph, came along, their father was in the trenches. He returned to a business ruined by Prohibition. He returned crippled and nearly blind from being gassed. That was when Maggie, perforce, took over the house and the family. Regretfully, she let most of the servants go, retaining only the cook, the children's nurse and a single housemaid. After conferring with Patrick's attorney, she sold the brewery—lock, stock, barrels and land—for the best price she could get, paid the workers a generous severance and then followed the attorney's advice in investing what was left. Thanks to the income derived from those shrewd investments, she was soon able to hire back all of the former servants and go back to the kind of life into which she had married. And thus they lived for more than ten years. Then, overnight, their fortune was wiped out along with many another on Black Friday. Her attorney and financial adviser, who had been on that Thursday a 30 Robert Adams multimillionare, shot himself in the head with a shotgun. Maggie's butler did the same with a German pistol. With a rare prescience, she went down the following Monday and emptied what money lay still in her accounts out of the banks which soon were closed. By this time, the children were really too old to have need of a nurse, so she retained only the cook and Nellie, the maid. She firmly insisted that her elder daughter, [ Sally, and her younger, Kathleen, spend most of their ! free time in learning the arts of housekeeping and cooking, for she anticipated and feared the day when there would be too little money left to pay for any servants at all. Herself, she dusted off her only marketable skill and secured a nursing jo,b in the nearby hospital; it was not much money, true, but it was steady and far better than nothing. With two guest rooms and two more rooms of former servants sitting vacant and useless, Maggie O'Shea got the idea of taking in boarders, nurses, all of them. When, in 1934, Michael's appointment to the United States Military Academy emptied yet another room, she had no difficulty in promptly filling it with another nurse, Miss Fanny Duncan. In 1936, two more rooms became vacant. Joseph enlisted in the Navy and his twin, Sally, moved into the hospital residence hall to begin her nurse's training. This meant that Maggie had to hire on a second maid, but there was space for another in the quarters that had once been the chauffeur's over the garage, and with the combination of her salary, her husband's pension and seventy dollars each week in paid rents, she could easily afford the extra employee. And so there were presently two more nurses in the house that certain of the more affluent neighbors were beginning to call "the Convent of Saint Maggie," not that Maggie cared a fig. She had kept her house, kept her family together, adequately fed and clothed and even provided gainful employment for non-family household members, which was more than many another could say in these hard, bitter times. Even crippled as he was, a living testament to the horrors of modern warfare, to the inherent dangers of a soldier's life, Maggie often felt that the government A 1V1/U> WVL.L.HL' IVillL/^ iVIWIXfVl 00. should be paying Patrick far more than his pension for, if nothing else, his recruiting activities. He had gotten his eldest an appointment to the USMA, persuaded his youngest to enter the military, along with many another man and boy with whom he kad come in contact over the years. The old soldier had even gone after the nurses resident in his home and, at length, blarneyed one of them, Jane Sullivan, into entering the Army Nurse Corps. Jane Sullivan's room became vacant while Fanny Duncan was still nursing the mystery man, and it was Fanny who first got the idea, broached it to Dr. Guis-carde and, with his not inconsiderable help, convinced first Maggie O'Shea, then the man called Milo Moray. "Look, Maggie," Guiscarde had said, "we want to keep the patient in a sheltered environment for as long as necessary, and we want that environment to be as close as possible to the hospital. And it's not as if he were some deadbeat or bum, anyway. No, he's not employed yet, but in confidence I'll tell you this: he paid a staggering bill for his hospital room, round-the-clock nursing and the bills of several doctors in full and in cash, to the tune of well over eight hundred dollars, and he's still well heeled even after the outlay. His resources would allow him to pay your going rent for going on four years even if he never got a job. "Although he still can't remember his past life or even his own name, he's a proven brain—brilliant. He speaks a score of languages at the least, fluently, too. Dr. Samuel Osterreich says that he has met darned few men who were as good at chess as is this patient. . . ."He let that last dangle enticingly, having been coached on that particular by Fanny Duncan. "Well," Maggie pondered aloud, "I've never taken in a man for a boarder before, but this man sounds like he ... and poor Pat has had nobody living in to play chess with since the boys left. All right, doctor, I'll take him on a trial basis. If he works out, fine. If it looks like he won't fit in, I'll have to heave him out. Okay?" After his first meeting with Mr. Milo Moray, Pat O'Shea told him bluntly, "Mister, whatever else you was, you was a soldier, once, prob'ly a ofser. You just carry nuuen fiuums yourself that way, and b'lieve me, I knows. Most likely, the bestest way for you to get your mem'ry back is to re-up. 'Course, with you not rememb'ring and all, you prob'ly won't get your commission back right away, but when you ready to enlist, you just let me know. I'll get you back in—I knows some guys, local." Miio—he was finally beginning to think of himself as Milo Moray, since that was what everyone called him, for all that the name evoked not even the faint ghost of a memory within him—tramped the streets for over two weeks, searching in vain for some variety of employment. There just were no jobs available, it seemed. Pat O'Shea pointed out that the frustration would be every bit as bad or worse in another area. "It's the same all over thishere country, Milo. A few folks thinks and says it's bettern it was five, six years ago, but don't look that way to me, no way. Bestest thing a man could do, I think, is to enlist. The Army's a good life. Oh, yeah, it's hard sometimes and a man don't get paid much, but he gets his clothes and three squares a day, regular, and he don't have to pay doctors or dentists nothin', and once he gets him a few stripes, he's in like Flynn, less he fucks up or suthin'." Dr. Sam Osterreich arrived at the O'Shea house shortly after dinner of a night. After a few games of chess with O'Shea, he took Milo aside and opened the briefcase he had brought along. Shoving a wad of newsprint toward Milo, he said, "Read, if read you can, please." Two of the sheets were German newspapers, one was Russian, one French and one Italian. To his surprise, Milo discovered that he could comprehend all of them, and he began to read them to the psychiatrist, but was interrupted by a wave of the hand. "Nein, nein, you do not understand. Translate them to me, please, if you can." When Milo had done so, had translated the gist of short articles from four of the five papers, Osterreich nodded brusquely and took back the papers. "Enough. Gut, gut, sehr gut. A job you now haf, if still you need of one haf, meinfreund. You may vork here, in your home, or in an office downtown from where you J\ MAN must in any case go to be gifen the papers each week and to return the completed translations of the indicated articles. One penny per word will be paid for each accurate translation returned, and to be accurate, they all must, this very important is, Milo. "The bulk of the papers will in German be, but some will in Russian be, or in French, Spanish, Italian, various of the Slavic and Scandinavian languages, Finnish, sometimes, Yiddish, Dutch, Portuguese and even Slovakian." Pat O'Shea had been shamelessly eavesdropping, and he now demanded, "Now, just a minute, doctor, what in hell you getting Milo mixed up in, anyhow? Some of thishere Bolshevik mess? I heard you just say some them papers was going to be in Russian!" Osterreich shook his balding head vigorously. "Nothing of the sort, Mr. O'Shea. To a group of recent immgrants I have the honor to belong, to be an officer. Convinced we all are that in Europe a very bloodbath approaching is, a holocaust of such proportions as nefer seen in the world before has been. To alert the citizens and officials of this, our new homeland, we are now trying through means of issuing a monthly digest of signs culled from European newspapers. We do this at our own expense, for most imperative it is that our new, free, vonderful homeland be warned, be prepared and secure when starts does this conflagration, for in this war, coming, there no neutrals will be, we fear; all nations combatants will be and only the strongest vill survive it." O'Shea snorted. "Bejabbers and you're talkin' nonsense, doctor, pure nonsense. It won't be no more wars, not big ones, anyway. We got us the League of Nations and the World Court to settle diff rences in Europe. Pres'dent Woodrow Wilson—" "Your pardon, Mr. O'Shea," Osterreich courteously interrupted, "but I must say that your vaunted President-of-the-United-States-of-America a true naif was, and used shamelessly by France and Great Britain was to their own, most selfish ends. Nothing his supposed-great deeds accomplished but to sow the seeds of discord and misery and future war for Europe and the world. The so-called Treaty of Versailles was nothing of the sort, Mr. O'Shea, rather was it the ultimate revenge of France for the defeat she in the Franco-Prussian War suffered. Not only did the provisions of that hellish document leave France as the sole large, united, strong and vealthy nation upon the continent of Europe, it sundered, impoverished and thoroughly humiliated two of her historic rivals for hegemony—the German Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. She had no fear of her other two historic rivals, for Britain had been her ally and took her part in all the negotiations, while Russia in utter turmoil was not to be a threat. "Legally robbed of eferything of value—ofersea colonies, merchant ships, naval ships, most of the bullion that their monies backed, their heafy industries und mining, denied credit universally und with their monies worthless—the defeated were left with only starvation and despair on national scales. Und just as the despair of millions of Russians bred Bolshevism, Mr. O'Shea, so the soul-deep despair of the cruelly used Germanic peoples has bred its own brand of fanaticism, a variety efery bit as dangerous to individuals and to nations as is the Russian variety. "But the true horror of our group, Mr. O'Shea, is that Americans like you seem blissfully unaware of just how close to worldwide war we coming are. This is why the dissemination of our digest so important is, for very few Americans speak any of the languages but English, so necessary it is to translate the other important languages into English, hoping that what they read in our digest will cause them to take from the sand their heads in time." Milo's first day of work at the office of Dr. Osterreich's group revealed to him and the others there that he spoke at least two other languages, Ukrainian and Modern Greek, at least six regional dialects of German, three of French and the variant of the Dutch language known as Afrikaans and still spoken only in the Union of South Africa. But that first day also revealed to him that was he to get any meaningful amount of work done each day, it would have to be at someplace other than in that office. All of the other eleven men and women in the office had immigrated within the last decade from various European lands. One man and two women were White Russians and were jokingly called "the old non-nobility" because they had been in America longest. In addition, there were an Austrian, two Germans, a Pole, two French ladies, a Hollander and a Neapolitan Italian. Milo had met a few of them before when Osterreich had brought them to his hospital room to try to determine just how well he spoke certain foreign languages with which the psychiatrist, himself, was no more than peripherally familiar, and of course those whom he had not met had heard of him from their coworkers and from Dr. Osterreich. The staff all were bubblingly curious, and none of them seemed to believe that he truly could recall none of his past life. The two Russian ladies seemed to firmly believe him to be a Russian nobleman of some degree who had found it prudent to bury his past lest agents of Josef Stalin find and kill him; the Russian man, on the other hand, was working under the firm assumption that Milo was a Trotskyite on the run or possibly a Cossack officer who had left Russia with his regiment's payroll in gold. All of the others had their own opinions as to Milo's true identity, most of them wildly speculative if not downright romantic, and they constantly harassed him with questions to the point that he elected to do all future work either at the boardinghouse or in the enforced tranquillity of the public library. He soon found the library a good choice, for frequently he came across words in various languages of which he did not know the exact meaning. Reference books and dictionaries available at the library gave him not only the meanings he sought but also seemed to give him something else of a puzzling nature to ponder. Chapter II "Ach, mein freund Milo, I do not at all odd find this matter," Osterreich said, shaking his head and smiling. "Most of these words and phrases of general conversation are not." He flicked away the list that Milo had meticulously written out. "If, as suspect I strongly do, you mastered your multiplicity of tongues through living amongst people of those tongues rather than more formally, it fully understandable is that many modern words and technical terms of narrow usage you would not have learned. Do not to further trouble yourself with regard to such trifles. "You are doing good work, very good work, incidentally. The translations are most precise, yet without meaning of the original languages losing. Where do you work? At the O'Shea house?" "No," replied Milo, "at the public library. It's always quiet, and there's reference books available there, as well. I tried to do it all at your office, but decided after one day that I'd never get the first article finished in less than a week, not with all the interruptions. "What did you tell these people about me, Sam? The Russians think I'm Russian, the French and the Germans seem to think I'm German, and everyone there is clearly of the opinion that I'm lying about my inability to recall my past, that I'm on the run from one government or another, a spy or an international crook." Osterreich sighed. "I know, I know, Milo. Of these fanciful suppositions some of them haf broached to me, too. I told them only the truth, that an amnesiac you are 36 following probable neural damage which from a blow to the skull resulted. More recently, of their consummate silliness I haf chided them; how much good my vords to them did, I know not, howefer." He sighed again. "I had had hopes that to work around so many people to jog your memories to the surface it might. But this work you do so well is of great importance, and if you do it best alone, so be it. "But to other matters: how goes your life at the O'Shea domicile?" "The Convent of Saint Maggie?" answered Milo. "That's what the neighbors called it before I moved in, I hear." Osterreich wrinkled his brows in puzzlement. "She is so religious, then?" Milo laughed. "No, Sam, she had all females in the house, with the sole exception of Pat—two daughters, two or three female servants and five to seven female boarders in residence. The neighbors don't appear to like the idea of a boardinghouse in their neighborhood. I guess they would all have preferred that Maggie sink into genteel poverty rather than manage to survive and hold her own the way she did. She's a fighter, that woman. I admire her." "And what of the others, there, Milo? What of them do you think, eh?" "Pat O'Shea," Milo chuckled, "if he had his way, would long since have had me and everybody else in the house—excepting only Maggie, his daughters and the servants—in some branch of the armed services, having already gotten both of his sons and one of Maggie's former boarders so persuaded. He keeps working on me, of course, using every excuse he can think of to get me to enlist in the Army of the United States of America. Were you twenty years younger, no doubt he'd have been after you, too. "As for the rest of the household, I see most of them only at dinner and, sometimes, at breakfast. Those nurses who work the night shift sleep during a good part of the day, and those who work the day shift, as does Maggie, have to be on the floor at seven a.m. and so leave at a godawful hour of the morning. Fanny Duncan hasn't A MAIN »_.AJ_.J_