Malhomme dipped his shaggy head. "The name is from the Old French of Earth--badman. I have a long and dishonorable family history, but the earliest of my ancestors whom I've been able to trace had the same name. Apparently there were too many Smiths, Carpenters, Bakers and Priests on that world--the time was ripe for a Malhomme. My first name would have been pronounced Reh-_nay_ before the language reform dropped all accent marks from Earth tongues."
"Considering your background," Mara smiled, "you're in good company out here."
"Good company!" Malhomme cried. "I'm not looking for good company! My work, my mission calls me to where men's hearts are the blackest, where repentance and redemption are needed--and so I come to the Edge."
"Who _is_ religious in these days?" Malhomme asked, shrugging. "Religion is of the past; it is dead. It is nearly forgotten, and one hears God's name spoken now in anger. God damn you, cry the masses! _That_ is our modern religion!"
"Rene wanders around shouting about sin," Rynason explained, "so that he can take up collections to buy himself more to drink."
Malhomme chuckled. "Ah, Lee, you're shortsighted. I'm an unbeliever, and a black rogue, but at least I have a mission. Our scientific advance has destroyed religion; we've penetrated to the heavens, and found no God. But science has not _dis_proved Him, either, and people forget that. I speak with the voice of the forgotten; I remind people of God, to even the scales." He stopped talking long enough to grab the arm of a passing waiter and order a drink. Then he turned back to them. "Nothing says I have to _believe_ in religion. If that were necessary, no one would preach it."
"Have you been preaching to the Hirlaji?" Rynason asked.
"An admirable idea!" Malhomme said. "Do they have souls?"
"They have a god, at least. Or used to, anyway. Fellow named Kor, who was god, essence, knowledge, and several other things all rolled into one."
"Return to Kor!" Malhomme said. "Perhaps it will be my next mission."
"What's your mission now?" Mara asked, smiling in spite of herself. "Besides your apparently lifelong study and participation in sin, I mean."
Malhomme sighed and sat back as his drink arrived. He dug into the pouch strung from his waist and flipped a coin to the waiter. "Believe it or not, I have one," he said, and his voice was now low and serious. "I'm not just a lounger, a drifter."