The Memory of Earth Page 0,118

then doubled over. "Going to puke, I think," he rasped. Then he touched the box at his belt and turned off the costume. Just for a moment. Just long enough that whoever else was in the room could see Gaballufix's clothing, while Nafai's face and hair were out of sight as he bent over. Then he turned the costume back on. He tried to produce the sound of dry heaves, and was so successful that he gagged and some bile and acid did come into his throat.

"What do you want, sir?" said the man.

"Who keeps the Index!" Nafai bawled. "Everybody wants the Index today-well now I want it."

"Zdorab," said the man.

"Get him."

"He's asleep, he..."

Nafai lurched to his feet. "When I'm off my ass in this house, nobody sleeps!"

"I'll get him, sir, I'm sorry, I just thought..."

Nafai swung clumsily at him. The man shied away, looking horrified. Am I carrying this too far? There was no way to guess. The man sidled along the wall and then ducked through a door. Nafai had no idea whether he would come back with soldiers to arrest him.

He came back with Zdorab. Or at least Nafai assumed it was Zdorab. But he had to be sure, didn't he? So he leaned dose to the man and breathed nastily in his face. "Are you Zdorab?" Let the man imagine that Gaballufix was so drunk he couldn't see straight.

"Yes, sir," said the man. He seemed frightened. Good.

"My Index. Where is it?"

"Which one?"

"The one those bastards wanted-Wetchik's boys- theIndex, by the Oversold!"

"The Palwasbantu Index?"

"Where did you put it, you rogue?"

"In the vault," said Zdorab. "I didn't know you wanted it accessible. You've never used it before, and so I .thought-"

"I can took at it if I want!"

Stop talking so much, he told himself. The more you say, the harder it will be for the Oversoul to keep this man from doubting my voice.

Zdorab led the way down a corridor. Nafai made it a point to bump into a wall now and then. When he did it on the side where Elemak's rod had fallen most heavily, it sent a stab of pain through his side, from shoulder to hip. He grunted with the pain-but figured that it would only make his performance more believable.

As they moved on through the lowest floor of the house, fear began to overtake him again. What if he had to provide a positive identification to open the vault? A retina scan? A thumbprint?

But the vault door stood open. Had the Oversoul influenced someone to forget to close it? Or had it all come down to chance? Am I fortune's fool, Nafai wondered, or merely the Oversoul's puppet? Or, by some slim chance, am I freely choosing at least some portion of my own path through this night's work?

He didn't even know which answer he wanted. If he was freely choosing for himself, then he had freely chosen to kill a man lying helpless in the street. Much better to believe that the Oversoul had compelled him or tricked him into doing it. Or that something in his genes or his upbringing had forced him to that action. Much better to believe that there was no other possible choice, rather than to torment himself with wondering whether it might not have been enough to steal Gaballufix's clothing, without having to kill him first. Being responsible for what he did with his opportunities was more of a burden than Nafai really wanted to bear.

Zdorab walked into the vault. Nafai followed, then stopped when he saw a large table where the entire fortune that Gaballufix had stolen from them that afternoon was arranged in neat stacks.

"As you can see, sir, the assay is nearly done," said Zdorab as he wandered off among the shelves. "I have kept everything clean and organized there. It's very kind of you to visit."

Is he stalling me here in the vault, Nafai wondered, waiting till help can arrive?

Zdorab emerged from the shelves at the back of the room. He was a smallish man, considerably shorter than Nafai, and he was already losing his hair though he couldn't have been more than thirty. A comical man, really-yet if he guessed at what was really happening, he might cost Nafai his life.

"Is this it?" asked Zdorab.

Nafai hadn't the faintest idea what it was supposed to look like, of course. He had seen many indexes, but most of them were small freestanding computers with wireless access to a major library. This one had