Regs

This was one reason for me to be glad Tasker had decided to come along. What I knew of this world (gleaned from a very fast read-through of Marc Cranshaw's database) told me that a woman traveling alone was going to spend much of her time explaining herself, or perhaps even defending her right to retain her freedom of movement.

Tasker's presence solved that problem for me. He'd done his own read-through of Marc's data on this culture, and I'd given him a role to play; a cover identity to use. He said easily now, "Rudolf Tasker, sir. This is my sister, Nora Cranshaw. We're looking for her husband."

We could use our own names here, which was going to simplify things immeasurably. Once, centuries ago, our ancestors and these people's forebears had spoken the same tongue. There had been enough drift so that without preparation we would have had great difficulty communicating, but proper names were still similar enough so that ours just needed to be given the correct local pronunciation.

And if I wanted to have guaranteed access to Marc when we located him (when, not if!), I needed to use his surname. That would let me identify myself as his spouse?which I wasn't, of course. Just his boss, his team leader. But on this world, I would have to play a role in order to function effectively.

In order to survive, actually.

"Banks," the old man said, and it was his name. "Pleased to know you, Tasker."

Me, he ignored. Tasker wasn't violating any rules of courtesy by giving my name as well as his own, but he hadn't been required to acknowledge that I had one. In which case our driver would have assumed that I was Tasker's wife.

Good thinking, Rudy. It wouldn't hurt to mention our mission up front, because this friendly local might be able to help. To point us in the right direction, anyway. To get us started.

And besides, Rudy wasn't all that experienced at field work. If Cranshaw had to in order to keep our covers unbroken, he would do anything short of killing me to conform to local customs. Up to and including knock me flat, in perfect portrayal of a husband disciplining his wife in a misogynistic society. But Rudy Tasker, poor kid, was finding it hard even to treat me discourteously. I hoped he wasn't going to wind up getting me killed, before this was over.

Chapter 2

A small town police station looks and feels like a small town police station, no matter what its developmental era and no matter where in the galaxy it's located. This one was in a neat building of reddish bricks (that I suspected really had been made by firing clay), a building that had three stories and was therefore the tallest one in sight.

Most of this community was built from wood, and its houses were sprawling one-story affairs. Banks let us off at the "public safety," as he called it, before he drove on to an open-air market whose stalls were being set up on a gravel-surfaced lot further down the town's main street.

The back of his truck was filled with produce, piles of round vegetables (or were they fruits?) that looked a lot like Terran eggplants. In which case, I was glad I wasn't going to have to eat any of them.

I hate anything that's got seeds in the middle of it, if they're seeds that the diner is expected to eat. Yech!

I wondered what happened if a woman had to be arrested, on this world? Because when we went inside the station, my "brother" Rudy and I, we saw not one single female face.