His business had to be ginger, ginger or drugs for people. “Go away,” Monique said quietly. She wanted to scream it. Dieter Kuhn or some other Nazi was surely keeping an eye on her. The Germans wanted her brother, too.

“But why do you wish me to go?” the Lizard asked. His kind, she had heard, were naive, but she hadn’t expected him to be so naive as to ask a question like that. Before she could say anything, he went on, “There could be much profit in the business I do with your famous brother. Some of that profit would go to you, as middleman.”

Monique laughed in his face, which startled him into drawing back a step. “Go away,” she repeated. “Don’t you know the Germans spy on me? They are also looking for my brother, my famous brother.” She laughed again, though doubting the Lizard understood the irony. “They are looking for him so they can kill him.”

“But why is this?” The male seemed honestly bewildered. “He still smuggles ginger to the Race. It is only that now he smuggles also other things to you Tosevites. Could they care so much about this?”

Explaining things struck Monique as more trouble than it was worth. Without even bothering to tell him to go away again, she started taking the bicycle up the stairs. She had papers to grade and, with a little luck, a long-stalled project on the epigraphy of the cult of Isis in Gallia Narbonensis to work on.

Finally sensing he wasn’t going to get anywhere, the Lizard called after her: “Tell him my name is Ssimachan. He will know of me. He will want to do business with me. We can make much profit together, he and I.”

Monique had no intention of telling Pierre any such thing. This Ssimachan struck her as so inept, he was far more likely to bring danger with him than profit. He probably had swarms of Gestapo men following him, too. If they happened to run into the ones who were, or might be, shadowing her… That was as unpleasant a thought as she’d had in quite a while.