The Memory of Earth Page 0,117

the body up away from the blood a little, then undressed it carefully, keeping the blood off. He almost gagged as he pulled the cold wet trousers on, but then he thought contemptuously that a man who could kill the way he had just killed should hardly feel squeamish about wearing another man's piss on his legs. The same with the stench of stomach acid in the shirt and the body armor that Gaballufix had been wearing underneath. Nothing is too horrible for me to do it now, thought Nafai. I'm already lost.

The only thing he could not bring himself to do was put the blade at his waist, the way Gaballufix had done. Instead he wiped his fingerprints from the handle and tossed it down near where the head was lying. Then he laughed. There are my clothes, which countless witnesses saw me wearing today. Why should I have tried to conceal myself, if I'm leaving those behind?

And I am leaving those behind, thought Nafai. Like my own dead body I'm leaving those. The costume of a child. I'm wearing a man's clothes now. And not just any man. The most vile, monstrous man I know. They fit me.

He pulled the cloak of the soldier costume over his head. He felt no different, but he assumed that the look was there. He stepped away from the body. He could not think of where to go now. He could not think of anything,

He turned back to the body. He had left something behind, he knew that. But all that was left was his old clothing, and the blade. So he picked up the blade again after all, wiped the blood from it with his old clothes, and put it on his belt.

Now he could go on. To Gaballufix's house, of course. He knew that now, very clearly. He could think very clearly now. The trousers froze on his legs, and chafed. The body armor was heavy. It was awkward walking with the charged-wire blade. This is how it felt to be Gaballufix, thought Nafai. Tonight I am Gaballufix.

I have to hurry. Before the body is found.

No. The Oversoul will keep them from noticing the body, for a while at least. Until they are so many people out in the morning that the Oversoul can't influence them all at once. So I do have time.

He came up Fountain Street, but then thought better of it. Instead he walked over to Long Street and came up to Gaballufix's house from behind. In the alley he found the door that he had seen Elemak use, so many-so few-days before. Would it be locked?

It was. What now? Inside there would be someone waiting. Keeping guard. How could he, in the guise of a common soldier, demand entrance at this hour? What if they made him switch off the costume once he got inside? They'd recognize him at once. Worse, they'd recognize Gaballufix's clothing and they'd know that there was only one way he could come in wearing their master's clothes.

No, two ways.

Gaballufix must have come home drunk before.

Nafai tried, silently at first, to think of how Gaballufix's voice sounded. Husky and coarse. Rasping in the throat. Nafai could get it generally right, he was sure-and it didn't have to be too perfect, because Gaballufix was drunk, of course-he reeked of it-and so his voice could be slurred and out of control, and he could stagger and fall and-

"Open up, open the door!" he bawled.

That was awful, that didn't sound like Gaballufix at all.

"Open the door you idiots, it's me!"

Better. Better. And besides, the Oversoul will nudge them a little, will encourage them to think of other things besides the fact that Gaballufix isn't really sounding like himself tonight.

The door opened a crack. Nafai immediately shoved it open and pushed his way through. "Locking me out of my own house, ought to send you home in a box, ought to send you back to your papa in pieces." Nafai had no idea how Gaballufix usually talked, but he guessed at general surliness and threats, especially when he was drunk. Nafai hadn't seen many drunks. Only a few times on the street, and then fairly often in the theatres, but those were actors playing drunk.

He thought: I'm an actor, after all. I thought that was what I might end up being, and here I am.

"Let me help you, sir," said the man. Nafai didn't look at him. Instead he deliberately stumbled and fell to his knees,