At noon the next day the world slowed again and changed course, going into an orbit around the planet, becoming a third moon, nearer to the surface than the others.

The people, all of those who had followed their normal day-to-day life even after New America came into the system, abandoned it at last. They crowded near the television towers, waiting for the signal which would open up some of the sky and show them the planet they circled, a great green disk, twice the apparent diameter of the legendary Moon of Earth.

Max stood beside Trina in the crowd that pressed close about his ship. He wore his spaceman’s suit, and the helmet was in his hand. Soon he too would be aboard with the others, going down to the planet.

“You’re sure you won’t come, Trina? We’ll be down in a couple of hours.”

“I’ll wait until we land there. If we do.”

Curt Elias came toward them through the crowd. When he saw Trina he smiled and walked faster, almost briskly. It was strange to see him move like a young and active man.

“If I were younger,” he said, “I’d go down there.” He smiled again and pointed up at the zenith, where the blue was beginning to waver and fade as the sky screens slipped away. “This brings back memories.”

“You didn’t like that other world,” Trina said. “Not any more than Father did.”

“The air was bad there,” Elias said.

The signal buzzer sounded again. The center screens came down. Above them, outlined by the fuzzy halo of the still remaining sky, the black of space stood forth, and the stars, and the great disk of the planet, with its seas and continents and cloud masses and the shadow of night creeping across it from the east.

“You see, Trina?” Max said softly.

The voices of the people rose, some alive with interest and others anxious, fighting back the planet and the unfamiliar, too bright stars. Trina clutched Max Cramer’s hand, feeling again the eagerness of that first day, when he had come to tell her of this world.

“You’re right,” she whispered. “It is like Earth.”

It was so much like the pictures, though of course the continents were different, and the seas, and instead of one moon there were two. Earth. A new Earth, there above them in the sky.

Elias let out his breath slowly. “Yes,” he said. “It is. It’s not a bit like that world we visited. Not a bit.”

“When you’re down there it’s even more like Earth,” Max said. “And all the way down you could watch it grow larger. It wouldn’t be at all like open space.”

At the poles of the planet snow gleamed, and cloud masses drifted across the equator. And the people looked, and pointed, their voices growing loud with eagerness.

“Why don’t we land the world now?” Trina cried. “Why wait for the ship to bring people up here?”

“Landing the world would take a lot of power,” Elias said. “It would be foolish to do it unless we planned on staying for quite a while.” He sighed. “Though I would like to go down there. I’d like to see a really Earth type planet.”

He looked at Max, and Max smiled. “Well, why not?” he said.

Elias smiled too. “After all, I’ve been in space once. I’ll go again.” He turned and pushed his way through the people.

Trina watched him go. Somehow he seemed a symbol to her. Old and stable, he had been head of the council since she was a child. And he had gone into space with her father….

“Please come, Trina,” Max said. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

With both Max and Elias along, certainly it couldn’t be too bad. Max was right. There was nothing, really, to be afraid of. She smiled up at him.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll go.”

And then she was walking with Max Cramer toward the ship and trying not to remember her father crying in his sleep.

He was marched into another office, and he knew he was on the Moon. The far wall was spherical and was made up of the outer shell of the pressure dome which kept out the frigid cold nights and furnace-hot days. It was opaque and Marquis could see the harsh black and white shadows out there—the metallic edges of the far crater wall.

This Manager was somewhat fat, with a round pink face and cold blue eyes. He sat behind a chrome shelf of odd shape suspended from the ceiling with silver wires.

The Manager said, “No. 5274, here there is only work. At first, of course, you will rebel. Later you will work, and finally there will be nothing else. Things here are rigidly scheduled, and you will learn the routines as the conditioning bells acquaint you with them. We are completely self-sufficient here. We are developing the perfect scientifically-controlled society. It is a kind of experiment. A closed system to test to what extremes we can carry our mastery of associative reflex to bring man security and happiness and freedom from responsibility.”

Marquis didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say. He knew he couldn’t get away with trying to kill this particular Managerial specimen. But one man, alone, a rebel, with something left in him that still burned, could beat the system. He had to!

“Our work here is specialized. During the indoctrination period you will do a very simple routine job in coordination with the cybernetics machines. There, the machines and the nervous system of the workers become slowly cooperative. Machine and man learn to work very intimately together. Later, after the indoctrination—because of your specialized knowledge of food-concentrate preparation—we will transfer you to the food-mart. The period of indoctrination varies in length with the individuals. You will be screened now and taken to the indoctrination ward. We probably won’t be seeing one another again. The bells take care of everything here. The bells and the machines. There is never an error—never any mistakes. Machines do not make mistakes.”

He was marched out of there and through a series of rooms. He was taken in by generators, huge oscilloscopes. Spun like a living tube through curtains of vacuum tube voltimeters, electronic power panels. Twisted and squeezed through rolls of skeins of hook-up wire. Bent through shieldings of every color, size and shape. Rolled over panel plates, huge racks of glowing tubes, elaborate transceivers. Tumbled down long surfaces of gleaming bakelite. Plunged through color-indexed files of resistors and capacitances….

…here machine and man learn to work very intimately together.

As he drifted through the machine tooled nightmare, Marquis knew what he had been fighting all his life, what he would continue to fight with every grain of ingenuity. Mechanization—the horror of losing one’s identity and becoming part of an assembly line.

He could hear a clicking sound as tubes sharpened and faded in intensity. The clicking—rhythm, a hypnotic rhythm like the beating of his own heart—the throbbing and thrumming, the contracting and expanding, the pulsing and pounding….

…the machines and the nervous system of the workers become slowly cooperative.

Beds were spaced ten feet apart down both sides of a long gray metal hall. There were no cells, no privacy, nothing but beds and the gray metalene suits with numbers printed across the chest.

His bed, with his number printed above it, was indicated to him, and the guard disappeared. He was alone. It was absolutely silent. On his right a woman lay on a bed. No. 329. She had been here a long time. She appeared dead. Her breasts rose and fell with a peculiarly steady rhythm, and seemed to be coordinated with the silent, invisible throbbing of the metal walls. She might have been attractive once. Here it didn’t make any difference. Her face was gray, like metal. Her hair was cropped short. Her uniform was the same as the man’s on Marquis’ left.

The man was No. 4901. He hadn’t been here so long. His face was thin and gray. His hair was dark, and he was about the same size and build as Marquis. His mouth hung slightly open and his eyes were closed and there was a slight quivering at the ends of the fingers which were laced across his stomach.

“Hello,” Marquis said. The man shivered, then opened dull eyes and looked up at Marquis. “I just got in. Name’s Charles Marquis.”

The man blinked. “I’m—I’m—No. 4901.” He looked down at his chest, repeated the number. His fingers shook a little as he touched his lips.

Marquis said. “What’s this indoctrination?”

“You—learn. The bells ring—you forget—and learn—”

“There’s absolutely no chance of escaping?” Marquis whispered, more to himself than to 4901.

“Only by dying,” 4901 shivered. His eyes rolled crazily, then he turned over and buried his face in his arms.

The situation had twisted all the old accepted values squarely around. Preferring death over life. But not because of any anti-life attitude, or pessimism, or defeatism. None of those negative attitudes that would have made the will-to-die abnormal under conditions in which there would have been hope and some faint chance of a bearable future. Here to keep on living was a final form of de-humanized indignity, of humiliation, of ignominy, of the worst thing of all—loss of one’s-self—of one’s individuality. To die as a human being was much more preferable over continuing to live as something else—something neither human or machine, but something of both, with none of the dignity of either.

We drove past a shrine and around two curves, climbing all the while, past some huddled houses on the left, and the whole shining sea spread out on the right.

The woman said, “If you know a place where the coffee is drinkable, stop.”

“I have no money,” I said. Diamonds I had, a bagful of them, for we knew that huddlers treasured diamonds. But no money.

“I’ve got money,” she said. “I’ve got a hell of a lot more money than I have sense. Have you ever been in love, Bogart?”

“Never,” I said.

We were coming into a small huddled area, now. A sign read, Pacific Palisades.

“I have,” she said. “I still am. Isn’t it a miserable rotten world?”

“This one?” I asked, and then said quickly, “I mean—this part of it?”

“Any part of it,” she said. “I’ve seen most of it, and any part where there’s men is bad, Bogart.”

“My name,” I told her, “is not Bogart. My name is Fred Werig.”

“A pleasure, Fred,” she said. “My name is Jean Decker. And I’m beginning to feel better.”

“It couldn’t be my company,” I said, “so it must be the air. I haven’t seen any coffee places that are open.”

I caught a flare of light from the corner of my eye, and turned to see her applying flame to something in her mouth. I remembered from our history; she was smoking. It was a habit long dead where I came from.

And then I remembered what she’d said about being drunk, and knew that, too, as one of our long disused vices. What was it Akers had said about ‘being directed’? A theory, but discredited now, since our scientific advance. But this almost parallels evolution?

“Cigarette?” she said, and I said, “No, thanks. I—don’t smoke.”

“You’re the only thing in Los Angeles that doesn’t,” she said bitterly. “Where are you from, Fred?”

“New York,” I said. “Where are you from, Jean?”

“Believe it or not, I was born here,” she said. “I’m one of the three people in this town who was born here.”

“It’s a big town, isn’t it?” I said. “Less huddled than the others.”

“Huddled,” she said, and laughed. “Huddled. I like that. They huddle, all right, and not just the football teams. The gregarious instinct, Freddy boy.”

“Well, yes,” I agreed, “but why, Jean? Why haven’t they outgrown it? Is it—fear?”

“You would have to ask somebody bright,” she said. “When you get to Bundy, turn over toward Wilshire. We’ll find an eating place that’s open.”

“You tell me when I get to Bundy,” I said. “I’m not exactly familiar with this part of town.”

She told me, and we got to Wilshire, eventually, and on Wilshire there were many eating places.

We went into one; it was too cold to eat outside. And it was bright in there, and I got my first really clear look at the face and figure of Jean Decker.

Well, it was ridiculous, the attraction that seemed to emanate from her. It actually made me weak.

And she was staring at me, too.

“If you’re hungry,” she said finally, “get a sandwich. You won’t find me stingy…. What in the world is that material in that suit, Fred?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “You are beautiful, Jean.”

She smiled. “Well, thanks. You can have a piece of pie, too, for that. That certainly is a fine weave in that material. What did your tailor call it?”

We were next to a sort of alcove, furnished with a table and two high-backed benches, and she sat down. I sat across from her.

“I don’t have a tailor,” I said. “Your lips are so red, Jean.”

She frowned. “Slowly, sailor.”

Then a waitress was there, and I saw how red her lips were, too, and I realized it was another of the old vices I’d forgotten, cosmetics.

“Just coffee, for me, black,” Jean said. “Golden boy over there will have a beef barbecue, probably, won’t you, Fred?”

“I guess,” I said. “And some milk, cow’s milk.”

Jean laughed. “It’s my money. Have canary milk.”

“Not tonight,” I said.

The waitress went away, and there was a noticeable period of silence. Jean was tracing some design on the table top with her index finger. Her nails, too, were painted, I saw. I liked the effect of that.

She looked up, and faced me gravely, “Fred, you’re a very attractive gent, which you undoubtedly know. Are you connected with pictures?”

I shook my head. “Just a traveler, a tourist.”

She said, “Oh” and went back to tracing the design. I thought her finger trembled.

A very dim smile on her face, and she didn’t look away from the table top. “You’ve been—picked up before, undoubtedly.”

“No. What kind of talk is this, Jean?”

Now, she looked up. “Crazy talk. You’re no New Yorker, Freddy lad. You’re a Middle Westerner; you can’t fool me. Fresh from the farm and craving cow’s milk.”

“I never saw a cow in my life,” I told her truthfully, “though I’ve heard about them. What makes you think I’m from a farm?”

“Your freshness, your complexion and—everything about you.”

The waitress brought our food, then, and I didn’t answer. I tried to keep my eyes away from Jean as I ate; I had a mission, here, and no time for attachments beyond the casual. I was sure, even then, that loving Jean Decker would never qualify as casual.

She drank her coffee and smoked; I ate.

She asked, “Where are you staying, in town, Fred? I’m sober enough to drive, now.”

“I’ll get public transportation,” I said. “You get home, and to bed.”

She laughed. “Public transportation? Freddy, you don’t know this town. There isn’t any. Did you just get here, tonight?”

I looked at her, and nodded.

“On the bum?” she said quietly.

“I—suppose,” I said honestly, “though the word has connotations which don’t describe me.” I put my hand in my jacket pocket and fumbled in the open bag for one of the smaller diamonds. I brought one out about the size of my little finger nail, and placed it on the table.

All the light in the room seemed to be suddenly imprisoned there. She stared at it, and up at me.

“Fred—for heaven’s sake—that’s not—real, is it?”

I nodded.

“But—it—” She glanced from the diamond to me, her mouth partially open. “Fred, what kind of monstrous gag is this? God, I thought I’d seen everything, growing up in this town. Fred—”

“I’d like to sell it,” I said. “You, Jean, are my only friend in this town. Could you help me arrange for its sale?”

She was looking at me with wonder now, studying me. “Hot?” she asked.

“Hot—?”

“Stolen—you know what I mean.”

“Stolen? Jean, you didn’t mean to accuse me of that.”

Skepticism was ugly on her lovely face. “Fred, what’s your angle? You step out of the darkness like some man from Mars in a strange suit, with no money, but a diamond that must be worth—”

“We’ll learn what it’s worth,” I said. “Mars isn’t inhabited, Jean. Don’t you trust me? Have I done anything to cause you to distrust me?”

“Nothing,” she said.

“Do you distrust all men, Jean?”

“No. Just the ones I’ve met. Oh, baby, and I thought you were a farmer.” She was crushing out her cigarette. “You haven’t a place to stay, but I’ve got a guest house, and you’ll stay there, tonight. You aren’t stepping back into the darkness, tonight, Fred Werig. You, I want to know about.”

The words held a threat, but not her meaning, I was sure. And what better way to orient myself than in the home of a friend?

Howard had meanwhile taken his mother’s hand. “You’re not going to work, are you, Mommy?” he asked.

“Not for ten years, dear. I’ll be here when you want me, so why don’t you go play on the balcony? I’ve got to get Daddy off and give Ralph his bath.”

“I’ll bathe him,” Sophie volunteered. “You help, Howie. We can make like we’re young.”

“Don’t drop him,” Kate warned.

“Clean up the bathroom afterward,” added Bozzy.

“Yes, sir,” said Howard, for the first time in his life.

The children left, and Kate came close to pour Bozzy his cup of Daystart. He slipped an arm around her waist and squeezed convulsively.

“Darling!” she said, stroking his bald spot. “You’re positively trembling!”

“Wouldn’t you be, if you had to take over from somebody you like as well as I like Mr. Kojac? And for no good reason, except he’s seventy-five and I’ll soon be forty.”

Kate pushed away from him, frowning. “Sometimes you’re so silly, it scares me. You know perfectly well that if you don’t take Mr. Kojac’s job, someone else will. He’d rather have it in your hands than in a stranger’s, and I’d rather live on his income than on a laborer’s. So stop moping and drink your Daystart, while I call a cab.”

No help in that quarter, Bozzy decided as she left. All Kate could think of was that she’d soon be the wife of a big-shot: the manager—that is, controls setter—of a furniture factory.

Bozzy had never told her how simple the job really was, though he supposed she knew.

You first ordered designs, and then you ordered a poll taken on the designs. A computer tabulated the poll’s results and pointed out the design most likely to sell.

You then fed economic data into the same computer, and found out how many units the market could take. You called in the engineers to set up the machines, and the maintenance men to keep them running. In brief, you were errand boy to a bunch of gadgets, with nothing to do but look important.

He was practicing his important look when Kate bustled in and spoiled it by sitting on his lap.

“You’re going to do fine today,” she said, “and you’re going to get off to a good start. I made them show me your cab. It’s one of their brand-new battery-electric ones, a sort of mauve that will go with your purple robe. You’ll look swell in it.”

Bozzy was kissing her when the lobby buzzer sounded three long rings.

“There’s your cab,” Kate said, rising.

He followed her to the living room. Projected on one wall was a picture of the cabman facing the lobby annunciator, fifty-three stories down. The man was tall, fat, and in need of a shave, yet he wore purple tights with pink and green trim.

Bozzy shuddered. “Who in the world concocted that rig?”

“Your wife, sir,” the cabman answered.

“It’s beautiful,” said Bozzy. “I’ll be right down.”

He wasn’t, though. Kate told the kids he was leaving, and they trooped out of the bathroom to say good-by.

Bozzy could tell Ralph was the one being bathed only because he was naked—all three were equally wet, and equally anxious to embrace their Daddy. He had to make himself a new robe while the cab meter ticked and Kate jittered.

But once started, the drive between balconied buildings and intervening plazas went fast enough. Bozzy wasn’t over half an hour late in reaching Mr. Kojac’s apartment building.

The old man waited in the street, looking spare, spruce, and impatient.

“I do wish,” he said, easing himself into the cab, “that you had a less anti-social attitude. Now you’ll have to claim I delayed you.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Bozzy mumbled. “It’s kind of you to take the blame.”

He thought it was also typical. He had understudied Mr. Kojac for the preceding two years, and felt there was no one else in the world for whom he could have as much respect.

“Actually, sir,” he explained, “I was delayed by the children.”

“An excuse, Boswell! Whether conscious or subconscious, nothing more than an excuse! Distaste for today’s ceremonial is smeared over your face like so much bread-and-jelly.”

Unconsciously, Bozzy wiped his cheeks.

Mr. Kojac laughed. “You’re guilt-ridden and that’s plain absurd. All young men in your position have to go through exactly the same thing. You must simply make up your mind to do what society requires.”

“All I can think of is your kindness,” Bozzy blurted. “People should replace those they hate!”

“But the understudy system wouldn’t work, then,” Mr. Kojac pointed out. “You can’t learn from a man who upsets you.”

Bozzy nodded miserably.

In silence, he let himself be carried toward the furniture factory, till Mr. Kojac asked, “Did you bring the stimulants?”

“Oh, yes, sir. Excuse me. I should have offered them sooner.” With embarrassed clumsiness, he fished from a pocket in his under-wear the pills required by custom. “Here you are, sir,” he said in ritual form. “Big pills make troubles little.”

Mr. Kojac smiled. “I don’t need any,” he said gently. “You do. Take one.”

“That isn’t proper!”

“No one will know. Go ahead.”

He would feel like a fool to take a pill brought only for Mr. Kojac’s use. He would feel much more like a fool if he broke down during the ceremony—might even lose his job.

He took the pill, finally, and immediately felt sorry. He was still tense and twitchy when they reached the factory.

As custom demanded, everyone was out of sight. Nobody met them at the gate, or observed their silent progress up the escalator to the personnel office. Noiselessly, through empty soundproof offices, they walked together to the ceremonial chamber.

The door they used was the room’s only entrance. It was hooked open invitingly. Within was a small conference table of imitation oak, and six chairs of imitation leather. Ceiling, walls, and floor were plastic sheets in soft, sandy shades that harmonized with the furniture’s rich browns.

On the table were four wristlets, four anklets, and two belts, all made of iron links and stamped with either Bozzy’s or Mr. Kojac’s name. As he had been told to do, Bozzy picked out and put on his own set while Mr. Kojac rested in the armchair at the head of the table. Then, breathing noisily, he knelt before Mr. Kojac and fastened the old man’s anklets.

He rose, grunting. Mr. Kojac held out first the left hand, then the right, while Bozzy put the wristlets on him. Their cheeks accidentally touched while Bozzy fastened the belt. He thought of his father and was irrationally tempted to plant a kiss, as if he were four instead of forty.

He stifled the impulse and shook hands instead.

“Good luck,” Mr. Kojac said.

The procedure did not call for that remark, and so, for a second, Bozzy forgot what came next. Then, helped by the stimulant pill, he focused his thoughts, crossed the room, and turned a lighted red switch that glowed by the door.

He heard a muffled clank as iron links froze to the magnetized armchair, sounding the signal for his speech.

“Sir,” he intoned, “the Company takes this opportunity to express its deep and heart-felt appreciation of the thirty-five years you have devoted to serving the Company, the furniture industry generally, and that great public, our customers.”

Without looking at Mr. Kojac, he bowed, turned, went out, and released the catch holding the door open. It closed automatically, and automatically set in motion the rest of the ceremony.

From somewhere out of sight, fat Mr. Frewne waddled over and briefly shook Bozzy’s hand.

“You’ve done fine,” he wheezed. “A little late getting started, but that’s to be expected. Every-thing’s fine—just fine!”

Praise seemed a miscue. Bozzy didn’t quite know how to answer.

“Sir,” he asked, mopping his forehead, “what about Mr. Kojac?”

“Oh, he’s all right,” Mr. Frewne said. “Those fumes are fast. We can leave the rest to the undertaker.”

He slapped Bozzy on the back and pushed him down the corridor. “Come on into my office, boy. I’ll pour you a drink—pour us each one, as a matter of fact. And hand over your iron jewelry, son. You won’t need that stuff again for thirty-five years.”

Four cups and two pipes later, after Johnny, that’s our fourteen-year-old, and Mary had gone to bed, Jim and I were still just sitting. He was obviously thinking, and I was mostly sitting. Not much thinking. The trouble with my thinking was that a background of selling everything from Encyclopedias to, at present, used cars, and an education consisting mostly of high school and hard knocks just didn’t qualify me in Jim’s league. The silence lengthened. Pretty soon he stirred in his chair, cleared his throat and said, “Let’s go look again.”

“Have you come to any conclusions?”

“Well, yes and no,” Jim said. “Look at it this way Pop; suppose this is not a fluke and I’m able to duplicate this thing. Suppose I’m able to take this transformer and duplicate it too. All on a larger scale. How could it be used to good advantage? It’d probably do away with elevators in most cases, except you’d have to walk down. But then, by making the field weaker, maybe I could fix it so’s you’d float down. Then too, I wonder if it can be applied to aircraft of any kind… I suppose you could take it and…” his eyes were shining.

I interrupted; “Jim, you haven’t really tested what the thing will do and it is late, so before you go into many more schemes, let’s sleep on it. We can get right after it in the morning. You can, that is, because all I can do is watch.”

The next morning bright and early I was awakened by Johnny, who was dancing around the room, shouting something on the order of “Hey! Somebody’s gottoget’erdown! Somebody’s gottoget’erdown!”

Making myself heard over the din, I hollered, “Who’s got to get who down? For Pete’s sake, stop yelling so loud!”

Having been out-shouted, Johnny calmed down enough to catch his breath and gasp, “Say, Dad, Duchess is in Jim’s room and she’s on the ceiling, and yougottoget’erdown!”

Well, it dawned on me then what he was talking about. Duchess is our nine-months-old Great Dane pup. Weighs about a hundred pounds. So, pulling on bathrobe and slippers, I went down stairs, and hurried into Jim’s room. Sure enough, plastered on the ceiling and looking mighty scared and sick and sheepish was Duchess. When I came in she wagged a feeble tail at me and squirmed a bit. Mary, Johnny and Jim were all standing looking at her.

“Dad, I don’t know how it happened,” Jim said. “Guess I forgot to pull the plug last night. First I knew was when I heard a thump and a yelp… woke up and she was practically right over my bed.”

Duchess was apparently unhurt, so I walked over and reached up to coax her down. Just then Jim shouted, “Dad! Don’t do…!” And my head hit the ceiling! Like a fool I had walked right over the plastic plate!

Showalter remained after the others left. He sat across the desk while Hockley turned back to the window. Only the tip of the gammatron tower now caught the late afternoon sunlight.

“Maybe I’m getting old,” Hockley said. “Maybe they’re right and the Lab isn’t worth preserving if it means the difference between getting or not getting tutelage from the Rykes.”

“But you don’t feel that’s true,” said Showalter.

“No.”

“You’re the one who built the Lab into what it is. It has as much worth as it ever had, and you have an obligation to keep it from being destroyed by a group of politicians who could never understand its necessity.”

“I didn’t build it,” said Hockley. “It grew because I was able to find enough people who wanted the institution to exist. But I’ve been away from research so long—I never was much good at it really. Did you ever know that? I’ve always thought of myself as a sort of impressario of scientific productions, if I might use such a term. Maybe those closer to the actual work are right. Maybe I’m just trying to hang on to the past. It could be time for a jump to a new kind of progress.”

“You don’t believe any of that.”

Hockley looked steadily in the direction of the Lab buildings. “I don’t believe any of it. That isn’t just an accumulation of buildings over there, with a name attached to them. It’s the advancing terminal of all Man’s history of trying to find out about himself and the Universe. It started before Neanderthal climbed into his caves a half million years ago. From then until now there’s a steady path of trial and error—of learning. There’s exultation and despair, success and failure. Now they want to say it was all for nothing.”

“But to be pupils—to let the Rykes teach us—”

“The only trouble with Silvers’ argument is that our culture has never understood that teaching, in the accepted sense, is an impossibility. There can be only learning—never teaching. The teacher has to be eliminated from the actual learning process before genuine learning can ever take place. But the Rykes offer to become the Ultimate Teacher.”

“And if this is true,” said Showalter slowly, “you couldn’t teach it to those who disagree, could you? They’d have to learn it for themselves.”

Hockley turned. For a moment he continued to stare at his assistant. Then his face broke into a narrow grin. “Of course you’re right! There’s only one way they’ll ever learn it: go through the actual experience of what Ryke tutelage will mean.”

Most of the workrooms at Information Central were empty this time of evening. Hockley selected the first one he came to and called for every scrap of data pertaining to Rykeman III. There was a fair amount of information available on the physical characteristics of the world. Hockley scribbled swift, privately intelligible notes as he scanned. The Rykes lived under a gravity one third heavier than Earth’s, with a day little more than half as long, and they received only forty percent as much heat from their frail sun as Earthmen were accustomed to.

Cultural characteristics included a trading system that made the entire planet a single economic unit. And the planet had no history whatever of war. The Rykes themselves had contributed almost nothing to the central libraries of the galaxies concerning their own personal makeup and mental functions, however. What little was available came from observers not of their race.

There were indications they were a highly unemotional race, not given to any artistic expression. Hockley found this surprising. The general rule was for highly intellectual attainments to be accompanied by equally high artistic expression.

But all of this provided no data that he could relate to his present problem, no basis for argument beyond what he already had. He returned the films to their silver cans and sat staring at the neat pile of them on the desk. Then he smiled at his own obtuseness. Data on Rykeman III might be lacking, but the Ryke plan had been tried on plenty of other worlds. Data on them should not be so scarce.

He returned the cans and punched out a new request on the call panel. Twenty seconds later he was pleasantly surprised by a score of new tapes in the hopper. That was enough for a full night’s work. He wished he’d brought Showalter along to help.

Then his eye caught sight of the label on the topmost can in the pile: Janisson VIII. The name rang a familiar signal somewhere deep in his mind. Then he knew—that was the home world of Waldon Thar, one of his closest friends in the year when he’d gone to school at Galactic Center for advanced study.

Thar had been one of the most brilliant researchers Hockley had ever known. In bull session debate he was instantly beyond the depth of everyone else.

Janisson VIII. Thar could tell him about the Rykes!

Hockley pushed the tape cans aside and went to the phone in the workroom. He dialed for the interstellar operator. “Government priority call to Janisson VIII,” he said. “Waldon Thar. He attended Galactic Center Research Institute twenty-three years ago. He came from the city Plar, which was his home at that time. I have no other information, except that he is probably employed as a research scientist.”

There was a moment’s silence while the operator noted the information. “There will be some delay,” she said finally. “At present the inter-galactic beams are full.”

“I can use top emergency priority on this,” said Hockley. “Can you clear a trunk for me on that?”

“Yes. One moment, please.”

He sat by the window for half an hour, turning down the light in the workroom so that he could see the flow of traffic at the port west of the Lab buildings. Two spaceships took off and three came in while he waited. And then the phone rang.

“I’m sorry,” the operator said. “Waldon Thar is reported not on Janisson VIII. He went to Rykeman III about two Earth years ago. Do you wish to attempt to locate him there?”

“By all means,” said Hockley. “Same priority.”

This was better than he had hoped for. Thar could really get him the information he needed on the Rykes. Twenty minutes later the phone rang again. In the operator’s first words Hockley sensed apology and knew the attempt had failed.

“Our office has learned that Waldon Thar is at present on tour as aide to the Ryke emissary, Liacan. We can perhaps trace—”

“No!” Hockley shouted. “That won’t be necessary. I know now—”

He almost laughed aloud to himself. This was an incredible piece of good luck. Waldon Thar was probably out at the space port right now—unless one of those ships taking off had been the Ryke—

He wondered why Thar had not tried to contact him. Of course, it had been a long time, but they had been very close at the center. He dialed the field control tower. “I want to know if the ship from Rykeman III has departed yet,” he said.

“They were scheduled for six hours ago, but mechanical difficulty has delayed them. Present estimated take-off is 1100.”

Almost two hours to go, Hockley thought. That should be time enough. “Please put me in communication with one of the aides aboard named Waldon Thar. This is Sherman Hockley of Scientific Services. Priority request.”

“I’ll try, sir.” The tower operator manifested a sudden increase of respect. “One moment, please.”

Hockley heard the buzz and switch clicks of communication circuits reaching for the ship. Then, in a moment, he heard the somewhat irritated but familiar voice of his old friend.

“Waldon Thar speaking,” the voice said. “Who wishes to talk?”

“Listen, you old son of a cyclotron’s maiden aunt!” said Hockley. “Who would want to talk on Sol III? Why didn’t you give me a buzz when you landed? I just found out you were here.”

“Sherm Hockley, of course,” the voice said with distant, unperturbed tones. “This is indeed a surprise and a pleasure. To be honest, I had forgotten Earth was your home planet.”

“I’ll try to think of something to jog your memory next time. How about getting together?”

“Well—I don’t have very long,” said Thar hesitantly. “If you could come over for a few minutes—”

Hockley had the jolting feeling that Waldon Thar would just as soon pass up the opportunity for their meeting. Some of the enthusiasm went out of his voice. “There’s a good all-night inter-planetary eatery and bar on the field there. I’ll be along in fifteen minutes.”

“Fine,” said Thar, “but please try not to be late.”

On the way to the field, Hockley wondered about the change that had apparently taken place in Thar. Of course, he had changed, too—perhaps for much the worse. But Thar sounded like a stuffed shirt now, and that is the last thing Hockley would have expected. In school, Thar had been the most irreverent of the whole class of irreverents, denouncing in ecstasy the established and unproven lore, riding the professors of unsubstantiated hypotheses. Now—well, he didn’t sound like the Thar Hockley knew.

He took a table and sat down just as Thar entered the dining room. The latter’s broad smile momentarily removed Hockley’s doubts. The smile hadn’t changed. And there was the same expression of devilish disregard for the established order. The same warm friendliness. It baffled Hockley to understand how Thar could have failed to remember Earth was his home.

Thar mentioned it as he came up and took Hockley’s hand. “I’m terribly sorry,” he said. “It was stupid to forget that Earth meant Sherman Hockley.”

“I know how it is. I should have written. I guess I’m the one who owes a letter.”

“No, I think not,” said Thar.

They sat on opposite sides of a small table near a window and ordered drinks. On the field they could see the vast, shadowy outline of the Ryke vessel.

Thar was of a race genetically close to the Rykes. He lacked the feathery covering, but this was replaced by a layer of thin scales, which had a tendency to stand on edge when he was excited. He also wore a breathing piece, and carried the small shoulder tank with a faint air of superiority.

Hockley watched him with a growing sense of loss. The first impression had been more nearly correct. Thar hadn’t wanted to meet him.

“It’s been a long time,” said Hockley lamely. “I guess there isn’t much we did back there that means anything now.”

“You shouldn’t say that,” said Thar as if recognizing he had been too remote. “Every hour of our acquaintance meant a great deal to me. I’ll never forgive myself for forgetting—but tell me how you learned I was aboard the Ryke ship.”

“The Rykes have made us an offer. I wanted to find out the effects on worlds that had accepted. I learned Janisson VIII was one, so I started looking.”

“I’m so very glad you did, Sherm. You want me to confirm, of course, the advisability of accepting the offer Liacan has made.”

“Confirm—or deny it,” said Hockley.

Thar spread his clawlike hands. “Deny it? The most glorious opportunity a planet could possibly have?”

Something in Thar’s voice gave Hockley a sudden chill. “How has it worked on your own world?”

“Janisson VIII has turned from a slum to a world of mansions. Our economic problems have been solved. Health and long life are routine. There is nothing we want that we cannot have for the asking.”

“But are you satisfied with it? Is there nothing which you had to give up that you would like returned?”

Waldon Thar threw back his head and laughed in high pitched tones. “I might have known that would be the question you would ask! Forgive me, friend Sherman, but I had almost forgotten how unventuresome you are.

“Your question is ridiculous. Why should we wish to go back to our economic inequalities, poverty and distress, our ignorant plodding research in science? You can answer your own question.”

They were silent for a moment. Hockley thought his friend would have gladly terminated their visit right there and returned to his ship. To forestall this, he leaned across the table and asked, “Your science—what has become of that?”

“Our science! We never had any. We were ignorant children playing with mud and rocks. We knew nothing. We had nothing. Until the Rykes offered to educate us.”

“Surely you don’t believe that,” said Hockley quietly. “The problem you worked on at the Institute—gravity at micro-cosmic levels. That was not a childish thing.”

Thar laughed shortly and bitterly. “What disillusionment you have coming, friend Sherman! If you only knew how truly childish it was. Wait until you learn from the Rykes the true conception of gravity, its nature and the part it plays in the structure of matter.”

Hockley felt a sick tightening within him. This was not the Waldon Thar, the wild demon who thrust aside all authority and rumor in his own headlong search for knowledge. It couldn’t be Thar who was sitting passively by, being told what the nature of the Universe is.

“Your scientists—?” Hockley persisted. “What has become of all your researchers?”

“The answer is the same,” said Thar. “We had no science. We had no scientists. Those who once went by that name have become for the first time honest students knowing the pleasure of studying at the feet of masters.”

“You have set up laboratories in which your researches are supervised by the Rykes?”

“Laboratories? We have no need of laboratories. We have workshops and study rooms where we try to absorb that which the Rykes discovered long ago. Maybe at some future time we will come to a point where we can reach into the frontier of knowledge with our own minds, but this does not seem likely now.”

“So you have given up all original research of your own?”

“How could we do otherwise? The Rykes have all the answers to any question we have intelligence enough to ask. Follow them, Sherman. It is no disgrace to be led by such as the Ryke teachers.”

“Don’t you ever long,” said Hockley, “to take just one short step on your own two feet?”

“Why crawl when you can go by trans-light carrier?”

Thar sipped the last of his drink and glanced toward the wall clock. “I must go. I can understand the direction of your questions and your thinking. You hesitate because you might lose the chance to play in the mud and count the pretty pebbles in the sand. Put away childish things. You will never miss them!”

They shook hands, and a moment later Hockley said goodbye to Thar at the entrance to the field. “I know Earth will accept,” said Thar. “And you and I should not have lost contact—but we’ll make up for it.”

Watching him move toward the dark hulk of the ship, Hockley wondered if Thar actually believed that. In less than an hour they had exhausted all they had to say after twenty years. Hockley had the information he needed about the Ryke plan, but he wished he could have kept his old memories of his student friend. Thar was drunk on the heady stuff being peddled by the Rykes, and if what he said were true, it was strong enough to intoxicate a whole planet.

His blood grew cold at the thought. This was more than a fight for the National Laboratories. It was a struggle to keep all Mankind from becoming what Thar had become.

If he could have put Thar on exhibition in the meeting tomorrow, and shown what he was once like, he would have made his point. But Thar, before and after, was not available for exhibit. He had to find another way to show his colleagues and the Senators what the Rykes would make of them.

He glanced at his watch. They wouldn’t like being wakened at this hour, but neither would the scientists put up much resistance to his request for support in Markham’s meeting. He went back to the bar and called each of his colleagues who had been in the meeting that day.

Hockley was called first when the assembly convened at ten that morning. He rose slowly from his seat near Markham and glanced over the somewhat puzzled expressions of the scientists.

“I don’t know that I can speak for the entire group of scientists present,” he said. “We met yesterday and found some differences of opinion concerning this offer. While it is true there is overwhelming sentiment supporting it, certain questions remain, which we feel require additional data in order to be answered properly.

“While we recognize that official acceptance can be given to the Rykes with no approval whatever from the scientists, it seems only fair that we should have every opportunity to make what we consider a proper study and to express our opinions in the matter.

“To the non-scientist—and perhaps to many of my colleagues—it may seem inconceivable that there could be any questions whatever. But we wonder about the position of students of future generations, we wonder about the details of administration of the program, we wonder about the total effects of the program upon our society as a whole. We wish to ask permission to make further study of the matter in an effort to answer these questions and many others. We request permission to go as a committee to Rykeman III and make a first hand study of what the Rykes propose to do, how they will teach us, and how they will dispense the information they so generously offer.

“I ask that you consider this most seriously, and make an official request of the Rykes to grant us such opportunity for study, that you provide the necessary appropriations for the trip. I consider it most urgent that this be done at once.”

There was a stir of concern and disapproval from Congressional members as Hockley sat down. Senators leaned to speak in whispers to their neighbors, but Hockley observed the scientists remained quiet and impassive. He believed he had sold them in his telephone calls during the early morning. They liked the idea of obtaining additional data. Besides, most of them wanted to see Rykeman III for themselves.

Senator Markham finally stood up, obviously disturbed by Hockley’s abrupt proposal. “It has seemed to us members of the Committee that there could hardly be any need for more data than is already available to us. The remarkable effects of Ryke science on other backward worlds is common knowledge.

“On the other hand we recognize the qualifications of you gentlemen which make your request appear justified. We will have to discuss this at length, but at the moment I believe I can say I am in sympathy with your request and can encourage my Committee to give it serious consideration.”

A great deal more was said on that and subsequent days. News of the Ryke offer was not given to the public, but the landing of the Ryke ship could not be hidden. It became known that Liacan carried his offer to other worlds and speculation was made that he offered it to Earth also. Angry questions were raised as to why the purpose of the visit was not clarified, but government silence was maintained while Hockley’s request was considered.

It encountered bitter debate in the closed sessions, but permission was finally given for a junket of ninety scientists and ten senators to Rykeman III.

This could not be hidden, so the facts were modified and a story given out that the party was going to request participation in the Ryke program being offered other worlds, that Liacan’s visit had not been conclusive.

In the days preceding the take-off Hockley felt a sense of destiny weighing heavily upon him. He read every word of the stream of opinion that flowed through the press. Every commentator and columnist seemed called upon to make his own specific analysis of the possibilities of the visit to Rykeman III. And the opinions were almost uniform that it would be an approach to Utopia to have the Rykes take over. Hockley was sickened by this mass conversion to the siren call of the Rykes.

It was a tremendous relief when the day finally came and the huge transport ship lifted solemnly into space.

Most of the group were in the ship’s lounge watching the television port as the Earth drifted away beneath them. Senator Markham seemed nervous and almost frightened, Hockley thought, as if something intangible had escaped him.

“I hope we’re not wasting our time,” he said. “Not that I don’t understand your position,” he added hastily to cover the show of antagonism he sensed creeping into his voice.

“We appreciate your support,” said Hockley, “and we’ll do our best to see the time of the investigation is not wasted.”

But afterwards, when the two of them were alone by the screen, Silvers spoke to Hockley soberly. The mathematician had lost some of the wild exuberance he’d had at first. It had been replaced by a deep, intense conviction that nothing must stand in the way of Earth’s alliance with the Rykes.

“We all understand why you wanted us to come,” he said. “We know you believe this delay will cool our enthusiasm. It’s only fair to make clear that it won’t. How you intend to change us by taking us to the home of the Rykes has got us all baffled. The reverse will be true, I am very sure. We intend to make it clear to the Rykes that we accept their offer. I hope you have no plan to make a declaration to the contrary.”

Hockley kept his eyes on the screen, watching the green sphere of Earth. “I have no intention of making any statement of any kind. I was perfectly honest when I said our understanding of the Rykes would profit by this visit. You all agreed. I meant nothing more nor less than what I said. I hope no one in the group thinks otherwise.”

“We don’t know,” said Silvers.

“It’s just that you’ve got us wondering how you expect to change our views.”

“I have not said that is my intention.”

“Can you say it is not?”

“No, I cannot say that. But the question is incomplete. My whole intention is to discover as fully as possible what will be the result of alliance with the Rykes. If you should conclude that it will be unfavorable that will be the result of your own direct observations and computations, not of my arguments.”

“You may be sure that is one thing that will not occur,” said Silvers.

It took them a month to reach a transfer point where they could change to a commercial vessel using Ryke principles. In the following week they covered a distance several thousand times that which they had already come. And then they were on Rykeman III.

A few of them had visited the planet previously, on vacation trips or routine study expeditions, but most of them were seeing it for the first time. While well out into space the group began crowding the vision screens which brought into range the streets and buildings of the cities. They could see the people walking and riding there.

Hockley caught his breath at the sight, and doubts overwhelmed him, telling him he was an utter and complete fool. The city upon which he looked was a jewel of perfection. Buildings were not indiscriminate masses of masonry and metal and plastic heaped up without regard to the total effect. Rather, the city was a unit created with an eye to esthetic perfection.

Silvers stood beside Hockley. “We’ve got a chance to make Earth look that way,” said the mathematician.

“There’s only one thing missing,” said Hockley. “The price tag. We still need to know what it’s going to cost.”

Upon landing, the Earthmen were greeted by a covey of their bird-like hosts who scurried about, introducing themselves in their high whistling voices. In busses, they were moved half way across the city to a building which stood beside an enormous park area.

It was obviously a building designed for the reception of just such delegations as this one, giving Hockley evidence that perhaps his idea was not so original after all. It was a relief to get inside after their brief trip across the city. Gravity, temperature, and air pressure and composition duplicated those of Earth inside, and conditions could be varied to accommodate many different species. Hockley felt confident they could become accustomed to outside conditions after a few days, but it was exhausting now to be out for long.

They were shown to individual quarters and given leisure to unpack and inspect their surroundings. Furniture had been adjusted to their size and needs. The only oversight Hockley could find was a faint odor of chlorine lingering in the closets. He wondered who the last occupant of the room had been.

After a noon meal, served with foods of astonishingly close approximation to their native fare, the group was offered a prelude to the general instruction and indoctrination which would begin the following day. This was in the form of a guided tour through the science museum which, Hockley gathered, was a modernized Ryke parallel to the venerable Smithsonian back home. The tour was entirely optional, as far as the planned program of the Rykes was concerned, but none of the Earthmen turned it down.

Hockley tried to concentrate heavily on the memory of Waldon Thar and keep the image of his friend always before him as he moved through the city and inspected the works of the Rykes. He found it helped suppress the awe and adulation which he had an impulse to share with his companions.

It was possible even, he found, to adopt a kind of truculent cynicism toward the approach the Rykes were making. The visit to the science museum could be an attempt to bowl them over with an eon-long vista of Ryke superiority in the sciences. At least that was most certainly the effect on them. Hockley cursed his own feeling of ignorance and inferiority as the guide led them quietly past the works of the masters, offering but little comment, letting them see for themselves the obvious relationships.

In the massive display showing developments of spaceflight, the atomic vessels, not much different from Earthmen’s best efforts, were far down the line, very near to the earliest attempts of the Rykes to rocket their way into space. Beyond that level was an incredible series of developments incomprehensible to most of the Earthmen.

And to all their questions the guide offered the monotonous reply: “That will be explained to you later. We only wish to give you an overall picture of our culture at the present time.”

But this was not enough for one of the astronomers, named Moore, who moved ahead of Hockley in the crowd. Hockley saw the back of Moore’s neck growing redder by the minute as the guide’s evasive answer was repeated. Finally, Moore forced a discussion regarding the merits of some systems of comparing the brightness of stars, which the guide briefly showed them. The guide, in great annoyance, burst out with a stream of explanation that completely flattened any opinions Moore might have had. But at the same time the astronomer grinned amiably at the Ryke. “That ought to settle that,” he said. “I’ll bet it won’t take a week to get our system changed back home.”

Moore’s success loosened the restraint of the others and they beseiged the guide mercilessly then with opinions, questions, comparisons—and even mild disapprovals. The guide’s exasperation was obvious—and pleasant—to Hockley, who remained a bystander. It was frightening to Markham and some of the other senators who were unable to take part in the discussion. But most of the scientists failed to notice it in their eagerness to learn.

After dinner that night they gathered in the lounge and study of their quarters. Markham stood beside Hockley as they partook cautiously of the cocktails which the Rykes had attempted to duplicate for them. The Senator’s awe had returned to overshadow any concern he felt during the events of the afternoon. “A wonderful day!” he said. “Even though this visit delays completion of our arrangements with the Rykes those of us here will be grateful forever that you proposed it. Nothing could have so impressed us all with the desirability of accepting the Ryke’s tutelage. It was a stroke of genius, Dr. Hockley. And for a time I thought you were actually opposed to the Rykes!”

He sipped his drink while Hockley said nothing. Then his brow furrowed a bit. “But I wonder why our guide cut short our tour this afternoon. If I recall correctly he said at the beginning there was a great deal more to see than he actually showed us.”

Hockley smiled and sipped politely at his drink before he set it down and faced the Senator. “I was wondering if anyone else noticed that,” he said.

Hockley slept well that night except for the fact that occasional whiffs of chlorine seemed to drift from various corners of the room even though he turned the air-conditioning system on full blast.

In the morning there began a series of specialized lectures which had been prepared in accordance with the Earthmen’s request to acquaint them with what they would be getting upon acceptance of the Ryke offer.

It was obviously no new experience for the Rykes. The lectures were well prepared and anticipated many questions. The only thing new about it, Hockley thought, was the delivery in the language of the Earthmen. Otherwise, he felt this was something prepared a long time ago and given a thousand times or more.

They were divided into smaller groups according to their specialties, electronic men going one way, astronomers and mathematical physicists another, chemists and general physicists in still another direction. Hockley, Showalter and the senators were considered more or less free floating members of the delegation with the privilege of visiting with one group or another according to their pleasure.

Hockley chose to spend the first day with the chemists, since that was his own first love. Dr. Showalter and Senator Markham came along with him. As much as he tried he found it virtually impossible not to sit with the same open-mouthed wonder that his colleagues exhibited. The swift, free-flowing exposition of the Ryke lecturer led them immediately beyond their own realms, but so carefully did he lead them that it seemed that they must have come this way before, and forgotten it.

Hockley felt half angry with himself. He felt he had allowed himself to be hypnotized by the skill of the Ryke, and wondered despairingly if there were any chance at all of combating their approach. He saw nothing to indicate it in the experience of that day or the ones immediately following. But he retained hope that there was much significance in the action of the guide who had cut short their visit to the museum.

In the evenings, in the study lounge of the dormitory, they held interminable bull sessions exchanging and digesting what they had been shown during the day. It was at the end of the third day that Hockley thought he could detect a subtle change in the group. He had some difficulty analyzing it at first. It seemed to be a growing aliveness, a sort of recovery. And then he recognized that the initial stunned reaction to the magnificence of the Rykes was passing off. They had been shocked by the impact of the Rykes, almost as if they had been struck a blow on the head. Temporarily, they had shelved all their own analytical and critical facilities and yielded to the Rykes without question.

Now they were beginning to recover, springing back to a condition considerably nearer normal. Hockley felt a surge of encouragement as he detected a more sharply critical evaluation in the conversations that buzzed around him. The enthusiasm was more measured.

It was the following evening, however, that witnessed the first event of pronounced shifting of anyone’s attitude. They had finished dinner and were gathering in the lounge, sparring around, setting up groups for the bull sessions that would go until long after midnight. Most of them had already settled down and were talking part in conversations or were listening quietly when they were suddenly aware of a change in the atmosphere of the room.

For a moment there was a general turning of heads to locate the source of the disturbance. Hockley knew he could never describe just what made him look around, but he was abruptly conscious that Dr. Silvers was walking into the lounge and looking slowly about at those gathered there. Something in his presence was like the sudden appearance of a thundercloud, his face seemed to reflect the dark turbulence of a summer storm.

He said nothing, however, to anyone but strode over and sat beside Hockley, who was alone at the moment smoking the next to last of his Earthside cigars. Hockley felt the smouldering turmoil inside the mathematician. He extended his final cigar. Silvers brushed it away.

“The last one,” said Hockley mildly. “In spite of all their abilities the Ryke imitations are somewhat less than natural.”

Silvers turned slowly to face Hockley. “I presented them with the Legrandian Equations today,” he said. “I expected to get a straightforward answer to a perfectly legitimate scientific question. That is what we were led to expect, was it not?”

Hockley nodded. “That’s my impression. Did you get something less than a straightforward answer?”

The mathematician exhaled noisily. “The Legrandian Equations will lead to a geometry as revolutionary as Riemann’s was in his day. But I was told by the Rykes that I ‘should dismiss it from all further consideration. It does not lead to any profitable mathematical development.’”

Hockley felt that his heart most certainly skipped a beat, but he managed to keep his voice steady, and sympathetic. “That’s too bad. I know what high hopes you had. I suppose you will give up work on the Equations now?”

“I will not!” Silvers exclaimed loudly. Nearby groups who had returned hesitantly to their own conversations now stared at him again. But abruptly he changed his tone and looked almost pleadingly at Hockley. “I don’t understand it. Why should they say such a thing? It appears to be one of the most profitable avenues of exploration I have encountered in my whole career. And the Rykes brush it aside!”

“What did you say when they told you to give it up?”

“I said I wanted to know where the development would lead. I said it had been indicated that we could have an answer to any scientific problem within the range of their abilities, and certainly this is, from what I’ve seen.

“The instructor replied that I’d been given an answer to my question, that ‘the first lesson you must learn if you wish to acquire our pace in science is to recognize that we have been along the path ahead of you. We know which are the possibilities that are worthwhile to develop. We have gained our speed by learning to bypass every avenue but the main one, and not get lost in tempting side roads.’

“He said that we’ve got to learn to trust them and take their word as to which is the correct and profitable field of research, that ‘we will show you where to go, as we agreed to do. If you are not willing to accept our leadership in this respect our agreement means nothing.’ Wouldn’t that be a magnificent way to make scientific progress!”

The mathematician shifted in his chair as if trying to control an internal fury that would not be capped. He held out his hand abruptly. “I’ll take that cigar after all, if you don’t mind, Hockley.”

With savage energy he chewed the end and ignited the cigar, then blew a mammoth cloud of smoke ceilingward. “I think the trouble must be in our lecturer,” he said. “He’s crazy. He couldn’t possibly represent the conventional attitude of the Rykes. They promised to give answers to our problems—and this is the kind of nonsense I get. I’m going to see somebody higher up and find out why we can’t have a lecturer who knows what he’s talking about. Or maybe you or Markham would rather take it up—through official channels, as it were?”

“The Ryke was correct,” said Hockley. “He did give you an answer.”

“He could answer all our questions that way!”

“You’re perfectly right,” said Hockley soberly. “He could do exactly that.”

“They won’t of course,” said Silvers, defensively. “Even if this particular character isn’t just playing the screwball, my question is just a special case. It’s just one particular thing they consider to be valueless. Perhaps in the end I’ll find they’re right—but I’m going to develop a solution to these Equations if it takes the rest of my life!

“After all, they admit they have no solution, that they have not bothered to go down this particular side path, as they put it. If we don’t go down it how can we ever know whether it’s worthwhile or not? How can the Rykes know what they may have missed by not doing so?”

“I can’t answer that,” said Hockley. “For us or for them, I know of no other way to predict the outcome of a specific line of research except to carry it through and find out what lies at the end of the road.”

Hockley didn’t sleep very well after he finally went to bed that night. Silvers had presented him with the break he had been expecting and hoping for. The first chink in the armor of sanctity surrounding the Rykes. Now he wondered what would follow, if this would build up to the impassable barrier he wanted, or if it would merely remain a sore obstacle in their way but eventually be bypassed and forgotten.

He did not believe it would be the only incident of its kind. There would be others as the Earthmen’s stunned, blind acceptance gave way completely to sound, critical evaluation. And in any case there was one delegate who would never be the same again. No matter how he eventually rationalized it Dr. Forman K. Silvers would never feel quite the same about the Rykes as he did before they rejected his favorite piece of research.

Hockley arose early, eager but cautious, his senses open for further evidence of disaffection springing up. He joined the group of chemists once more for the morning lecture. The spirit of the group was markedly higher than when he first met with them. They had been inspired by what the Rykes had shown them, but in addition their own sense of judgment had been brought out of suspension.

The Ryke lecturer began inscribing on the board an enormous organic formula, using conventions of Earth chemistry for the benefit of his audience. He explained at some length a number of transformations which it was possible to make in the compound by means of high intensity fields.

Almost at once, one of the younger chemists named Dr. Carmen, was on his feet exclaiming excitedly that one of the transformation compounds was a chemical on which he had conducted an extensive research. He had produced enough to know that it had a multitude of intriguing properties, and now he was exuberant at the revelation of a method of producing it in quantity and also further transforming it.

At his sudden enthusiasm the lecturer’s face took on what they had come to recognize as a very dour look. “That series of transformations has no interest for us,” he said. “I merely indicated its existence to show one of the possibilities which should be avoided. Over here you see the direction in which we wish to go.”

“But you never saw anything with properties like that!” Carmen protested. “It goes through an incredible series of at least three crystalline-liquid phase changes with an increase in pressure alone. But with proper control of heat it can be kept in the crystalline phase regardless of pressure. It is closely related to a drug series with anesthetic properties, and is almost sure to be valuable in—”

The Ryke lecturer cut him off sharply. “I have explained,” he said, “the direction of transformation in which we are interested. Your concern is not with anything beyond the boundaries which our study has proven to be the direct path of research and study.”

“Then I should abandon research on this series of chemicals?” Carmen asked with a show of outward meekness.

The Ryke nodded with pleasure at Carmen’s submissiveness. “That is it precisely. We have been over this ground long ago. We know where the areas of profitable study lie. You will be told what to observe and what to ignore. How could you ever hope to make progress if you stopped to examine every alternate probability and possibility that appeared to you?” He shook his head vigorously and his plume vibrated with emotion.

“You must have a plan,” he continued. “A goal. Study of the Universe cannot proceed in any random, erratic fashion. You must know what you want and then find out where to look for it.”

Carmen sat down slowly. Hockley was sure the Ryke did not notice the tense bulge of the chemist’s jaw muscles. Perhaps he would not have understood the significance if he had noticed.

Hockley was a trifle late in getting to the dining room at lunch time that day. By the time he did so the place was like a beehive. He was almost repelled by the furor of conversation circulating in the room as he entered.

He passed through slowly, searching for a table of his own. He paused a moment behind Dr. Carmen, who was declaiming in no mild terms his opinions of a system that would pre-select those areas of research which were to be entered and those which were not. He smiled a little as he caught the eye of one of the dozen chemists seated at the table, listening.

Moving on, he observed that Silvers had also cornered a half dozen or so of his colleagues in his own field and was in earnest conversation with them—in a considerably more restrained manner, however, than he had used the previous evening with Hockley, or than Carmen was using at the present time.

The entire room was abuzz with similar groups.

The senators had tried to mingle with the others in past days, always with more or less lack of success because they found themselves out of the conversation almost completely. Today they had no luck whatever. They were seated together at a couple of tables in a corner. None of them seemed to be paying attention to the food before them, but were glancing about, half-apprehensively, at their fellow diners—who were also paying no attention to food.

Hockley caught sight of his political colleagues and sensed their dismay. The field of disquietude seemed almost tangible in the air. The senators seemed half frightened by what they felt but could not understand.

Showalter’s wild waving at the far corner of the room finally caught Hockley’s eye and he moved toward the small table which the assistant had reserved for them. Showalter was upset, too, by the atmosphere within the room.

“What the devil is up?” he said. “Seems like everybody’s on edge this morning. I never saw a bunch of guys so touchy. You’d think they woke up with snakes in their beds.”

“Didn’t you know?” said Hockley. “Haven’t you been to any of the lectures this morning?”

“No. A couple of the senators were getting bored with all the scientific doings so I thought maybe I should try to entertain them. We took in what passes for such here, but it wasn’t much better than the lectures as a show. Tell me what’s up.”

Briefly, Hockley described Silvers’ upset of the day before and Carmen’s experience that morning. Showalter let his glance rove over his fellow Earthmen, trying to catch snatches of the buzzing conversation at nearby tables.

“You think that’s the kind of thing that’s got them all going this morning?” he said.

Hockley nodded. “I caught enough of it passing through to know that’s what it is. I gather that every group has run into the same kind of thing by now, the fencing off of broad areas where we have already tried to do research.

“After the first cloud of awe wore off, the first thing everyone wanted was an answer to his own pet line of research. Nine times out of ten it was something the Rykes told them to chuck down the drain. That advice doesn’t sit so well—as you can plainly see.”

Showalter drew back his gaze and stared for a long time at Hockley. “You knew this would happen. That’s why you brought us here—”

“I had hopes of it. I was reasonably sure this was the way the Rykes operated.”

Showalter remained thoughtful for a long time before he spoke again. “You’ve won your point, I suppose, as far as this group goes, but you can’t hope to convince all of Earth by this. The Rykes will hold their offer open, and others will accept it on behalf of Earth.

“And what if it’s we who are wrong, in the end? How can you be sure that this isn’t the way the Rykes have made their tremendous speed—by not going down all the blind alleys that we rattle around in.”

“I’m sure it is the way they have attained such speed of advancement.”

“Then maybe we ought to go along, regardless of our own desires. Maybe we never did know how to do research!”

Hockley smiled across the table at his assistant. “You believe that, of course.”

“I’m just talking,” said Showalter irritably. “The thing gets more loopy every day. If you think you understand the Rykes I wish you would give out with what the score is. By the looks of most of these guys I would say they are getting ready to throttle the next Ryke they see instead of knuckle under to him.”

“I hope you’re right,” said Hockley fervently. “I certainly hope you’re right.”

By evening there was increasing evidence that he was. Hockley passed up the afternoon lecture period and spent the time in the lounge doing some thinking of his own. He knew he couldn’t push the group. Above all, he mustn’t give way to any temptation to push them or say, “I told you so.” Their present frustration was so deep that their antagonism could be turned almost indiscriminately in any direction, and he would be offering himself as a ready target if he were not careful.

On the other hand he had to be ready to take advantage of their disaffection and throw them a decisive challenge when they were ready for it. That might be tonight, or it might be another week. He wished for a sure way of knowing. As things turned out, however, the necessity of choosing the time was taken from him.

After dinner that night, when the group began to drift into the lounge, Silvers and Carmen and three of the other men came over to where Hockley sat. Silvers fumbled with the buttons of his coat as if preparing to make an address.

“We’d like to request,” he said, “that is—we think we ought to get together. We’d like you to call a meeting, Hockley. Some of us have a few things we’d like to talk over.”

Hockley nodded, his face impassive.

“The matter I mentioned to you the other night,” said Silvers. “It’s been happening to all the men. We think we ought to talk about it.”

“Fine,” said Hockley. “I’ve been thinking it would perhaps be a good idea. Pass the word around and let’s get some chairs. We can convene in ten minutes.”

The others nodded somberly and moved away with all the enthusiasm of preparing for a funeral. And maybe that’s what it would be, Hockley thought—somebody’s funeral. He hoped it would be the Rykes.

The room began filling almost at once, as if they had been expecting the call. In little more than five minutes it seemed that every member of the Earth delegation had assembled, leaving time to spare.

The senators still wore their looks of puzzlement and half-frightened anxiety, which had intensified if anything. There was no puzzlement on the faces of the scientists, however, only a set and determined expression that Hockley hardly dared interpret as meaning they had made up their minds. He had to have their verbal confirmation.

Informally, he thrust his hands in his pockets and sauntered to the front of the group.

“I have been asked to call a meeting,” he said, “by certain members of the group who have something on their minds. They seem to feel we’d all be interested in what is troubling them. Since I have nothing in particular to say I’m simply going to turn the floor over to those of you who have. Dr. Silvers first approached me to call this discussion, so I shall ask him to lead off. Will you come to the front, Dr. Silvers?”

The mathematician rose as if wishing someone else would do the talking. He stood at one side of the group, halfway to the rear. “I can do all right from here,” he said.

After a pause, as if coming to a momentous decision, he plunged into his complaint. “It appears that nearly all of us have encountered an aspect of the Ryke culture and character which was not anticipated when we first received their offer.” Briefly, he related the details of the Ryke rejection of his research on the Legrandian Equations.

“We were told we were going to have all our questions answered, that the Ryke’s science included all we could anticipate or hope to accomplish in the next few millenia. I swallowed that. We all did. It appears we were slightly in error. It begins to appear as if we are not going to find the intellectual paradise we anticipated.”

He smiled wryly. “I’m sure none of you is more ready than I to admit he has been a fool. It appears that paradise, so-called, consists merely of a few selected gems which the Rykes consider particularly valuable, while the rest of the field goes untouched.

“I want to offer public apologies to Dr. Hockley, who saw and understood the situation as it actually existed, while the rest of us had our heads in the clouds. Exactly how he knew, I’m not sure, but he did, and very brilliantly chose the only way possible to convince us that what he knew was correct.

“I suggest we do our packing tonight, gentlemen. Let us return at once to our laboratories and spend the rest of our lives in some degree of atonement for being such fools as to fall for the line the Rykes tried to sell us.”

Hockley’s eyes were on the senators. At first there were white faces filled with incredulity as the mathematician proceeded. Then slowly this changed to sheer horror.

When Silvers finished, there was immediate bedlam. There was a clamor of voices from the scientists, most of whom seemed to be trying to affirm Silvers’ position. This was offset by explosions of rage from the senatorial members of the group.

Hockley let it go, not even raising his hands for order until finally the racket died of its own accord as the eyes of the delegates came to rest upon him.

And then, before he could speak, Markham was on his feet. “This is absolutely moral treachery,” he thundered. “I have never heard a more vicious revocation of a pledged word than I have heard this evening.

“You men are not alone concerned in this matter. For all practical purposes you are not concerned at all! And yet to take it upon yourselves to pass judgment in a matter that is the affair of the entire population of Earth—out of nothing more than sheer spite because the Rykes refuse recognition of your own childish projects! I have never heard a more incredible and infantile performance than you supposedly mature gentlemen of science are expressing this evening.”

He glared defiantly at Hockley, who was again the center of attention moving carelessly to the center of the stage. “Anybody want to try to answer the Senator?” he asked casually.

Instantly, a score of men were on their feet, speaking simultaneously. They stopped abruptly, looking deferentially to their neighbors and at Hockley, inviting him to choose one of them to be spokesman.

“Maybe I ought to answer him myself,” said Hockley, “since I predicted that this would occur, and that we ought to make a trial run before turning our collective gray matter over to the Rykes.”

A chorus of approval and nodding heads gave him the go ahead.

“The Senator is quite right in saying that we few are not alone in our concern in this matter,” he said. “But the Senator intends to imply a major difference between us scientists and the rest of mankind. This is his error.

“Every member of Mankind who is concerned about the Universe in which he lives, is a scientist. You need to understand what a scientist is—and you can say no more than that he is a human being trying to solve the problem of understanding his Universe, immediate or remote. He is concerned about the inanimate worlds, his own personality, his fellow men—and the interweaving relationships among all these factors. We professional scientists are no strange species, alien to our race. Our only difference is perhaps that we undertake more problems than does the average of our fellow men, and of a more complex kind. That is all.

“The essence of our science is a relentless personal yearning to know and understand the Universe. And in that, the scientist must not be forbidden to ask whatever question occurs to him. The moment we put any restraint upon our fields of inquiry, or set bounds to the realms of our mental aspirations, our science ceases to exist and becomes a mere opportunist technology.”

Markham stood up, his face red with exasperation and rage. “No one is trying to limit you! Why is that so unfathomable to your minds? You are being offered a boundless expanse, and you continue to make inane complaints of limitations. The Rykes have been over all the territory you insist on exploring. They can tell you the number of pretty pebbles and empty shells that lie there. You are like children insistent upon exploring every shadowy corner and peering behind every useless bush on a walk through the forest.

“Such is to be expected of a child, but not of an adult, who is capable of taking the word of one who has been there before!”

“There are two things wrong with your argument,” said Hockley. “First of all, there is no essential difference between the learning of a child who must indeed explore the dark corners and strange growths by which he passes—there is no difference between this and the probing of the scientist, who must explore the Universe with his own senses and with his own instruments, without taking another’s word that there is nothing there worth seeing.

“Secondly, the Rykes themselves are badly in error in asserting that they have been along the way ahead of us. They have not. In all their fields of science they have limited themselves badly to one narrow field of probability. They have taken a narrow path stretching between magnificent vistas on either side of them, and have deliberately ignored all that was beyond the path and on the inviting side trails.”

“Is there anything wrong with that?” demanded Markham. “If you undertake a journey you don’t weave in and out of every possible path that leads in every direction opposed to your destination. You take the direct route. Or at least ordinary people do.”

“Scientists do, too,” said Hockley, “when they take a journey. Professional science is not a journey, however. It’s an exploration.

“There is a great deal wrong with what the Rykes have done. They have assumed, and would have us likewise assume, that there is a certain very specific future toward which we are all moving. This future is built out of the discoveries they have made about the Universe. It is made of the system of mathematics they have developed, which exclude Dr. Silvers’ cherished Legrandian Equations. It excludes the world in which exist Dr. Carmen’s series of unique compounds.

“The Rykes have built a wonderful, workable world of serenity, beauty, scientific consistency, and economic adjustment. They have eliminated enormous amounts of chaos which Earthmen continue to suffer.

“But we do not want what the Rykes have obtained—if we have to pay their price for it.”

“Then you are complete fools,” said Markham. “Fortunately, you cannot and will not speak for all of Earth.”

Hockley paced back and forth a half dozen steps, his eyes on the floor. “I think we do—and can—speak for all our people,” he said. “Remember, I said that all men are scientists in the final analysis. I am very certain that no Earthman who truly understood the situation would want to face the future which the Rykes hold out to us.”

“And why not?” demanded Markham.

“Because there are too many possible futures. We refuse to march down a single narrow trail to the golden future. That’s what the Rykes would have us do. But they are wrong. It would be like taking a trip through a galaxy at speeds faster than light—and claiming to have seen the galaxy. What the Rykes have obtained is genuine and good, but what they have not obtained is perhaps far better and of greater worth.”

“How can you know such an absurd thing?”

“We can’t—not for sure,” said Hockley. “Not until we go there and see for ourselves, step by step. But we aren’t going to be confined to the Rykes’ narrow trail. We are going on a broad path to take in as many byways as we can possibly find. We’ll explore every probability we come to, and look behind every bush and under every pebble.

“We will move together, the thousands and the millions of us, simultaneously, interacting with one another, exchanging data. Most certainly, many will end up in blind alleys. Some will find data that seems the ultimate truth at one point and pure deception at another. Who can tell ahead of time which of these multiple paths we should take? Certainly not the Rykes, who have bypassed most of them!

“It doesn’t matter that many paths lead to failure—not as long as we remain in communication with each other. In the end we will find the best possible future for us. But there is no one future, only a multitude of possible futures. We must have the right to build the one that best fits our own kind.”

“Is that more important than achieving immediately a more peaceful, unified, and secure society?” said Markham.

“Infinitely more important!” said Hockley.

“It is fortunate at least, then, that you are in no position to implement these insane beliefs of yours. The Ryke program was offered to Earth, and it shall be accepted on behalf of Earth. You may be sure of a very poor hearing when you try to present these notions back home.”

“You jump to conclusions, Senator,” said Hockley with mild confidence. “Why do you suppose I proposed this trip if I did not believe I could do something about the situation? I assure you that we did not come just to see the sights.”

Markham’s jaw slacked and his face became white. “What do you mean? You haven’t dared to try to alienate the Rykes—”

“I mean that there is a great deal we can do about the situation. Now that the sentiments of my colleagues parallel my own I’m sure they agree that we must effectively and finally spike any possibility of Earth’s becoming involved in this Ryke nonsense.”

“You wouldn’t dare!—even if you could—”

“We can, and we dare,” said Hockley. “When we return to Earth we shall have to report that the Rykes have refused to admit Earth to their program. We shall report that we made every effort to obtain an agreement with them, but it was in vain. If anyone wishes to verify the report, the Rykes themselves will say that this is quite true: they cannot possibly consider Earth as a participant. If you contend that an offer was once made, you will not find the Rykes offering much support since they will be very busily denying that we are remotely qualified.”

“The Rykes are hardly ones to meekly submit to any idiotic plan of that kind.”

“They can’t help it—if we demonstrate that we are quite unqualified to participate.”

“You—you—”

“It will not be difficult,” said Hockley. “The Rykes have set up a perfect teacher-pupil situation, with all the false assumptions that go with it. There is at least one absolutely positive way to disintegrate such a situation. The testimony of several thousand years’ failure of our various educational systems indicates that there are quite a variety of lesser ways also—

“Perhaps you are aware of the experiences and techniques commonly employed on Earth by white men in their efforts to educate the aborigine. The first procedure is to do away with the tribal medicine men, ignore their lore and learning. Get them to give up the magic words and their pots of foul smelling liquids, abandon their ritual dances and take up the white man’s great wisdom.

“We have done this time after time, only to learn decades later that the natives once knew much of anesthetics and healing drugs, and had genuine powers to communicate in ways the white man can’t duplicate.

“But once in a long while a group of aborigines show more spunk than the average. They refuse to give up their medicine men, their magic and their hard earned lore accumulated over generations and centuries. Instead of giving these things up they insist on the white man’s learning these mysteries in preference to his nonsensical and ineffective magic. They completely frustrate the situation, and if they persist they finally destroy the white man as an educator. He is forced to conclude that the ignorant savages are unteachable.

“It is an infallible technique—and one that we shall employ. Dr. Silvers will undertake to teach his mathematical lecturer in the approaches to the Legrandian Equations. He will speculate long and noisily on the geometry which potentially lies in this mathematical system. Dr. Carmen will elucidate at great length on the properties of the chain of chemicals he has been advised to abandon.

“Each of us has at least one line of research the Rykes would have us give up. That is the very thing we shall insist on having investigated. We shall teach them these things and prove Earthmen to be an unlearned, unteachable band of aborigines who refuse to pursue the single path to glory and light, but insist on following every devious byway and searching every darkness that lies beside the path.

“It ought to do the trick. I estimate it should not be more than a week before we are on our way back home, labeled by the Rykes as utterly hopeless material for their enlightenment.”

The senators seemed momentarily appalled and speechless, but they recovered shortly and had a considerable amount of high flown oratory to distribute on the subject. The scientists, however, were comparatively quiet, but on their faces was a subdued glee that Hockley had to admit was little short of fiendish. It was composed, he thought, of all the gloating anticipations of all the schoolboys who had ever put a thumbtack on the teacher’s chair.

Hockley was somewhat off in his prediction. It was actually a mere five days after the beginning of the Earthmen’s campaign that the Rykes gave them up and put them firmly aboard a vessel bound for home. The Rykes were apologetic but firm in admitting they had made a sorry mistake, that Earthmen would have to go their own hopeless way while the Rykes led the rest of the Universe toward enlightenment and glory.

Hockley, Showalter, and Silvers watched the planet drop away beneath them. Hockley could not help feeling sympathetic toward the Rykes. “I wonder what will happen,” he said slowly, “when they crash headlong into an impassable barrier on that beautiful, straight road of theirs. I wonder if they’ll ever have enough guts to turn aside?”

“I doubt it,” said Showalter. “They’ll probably curl up and call it a day.”

Silvers shook his head as if to ward off an oppressive vision. “That shouldn’t be allowed to happen,” he said. “They’ve got too much. They’ve achieved too much, in spite of their limitations. I wonder if there isn’t some way we could help them?”

They ushered the man and woman into the beamed and paneled council chambers and sat them in thick chairs before the wall of polished wood desks across which stared the line of faces, silent and waiting. And on a far wall, facing them all, hung a silver screen, fifty feet square.

The President stood. “Members of the council.” He paused. “As you heard, they report—complete failure.” He turned to Michael. “And now, the proof.”

Michael stood beside the motion picture projector, close to his chair. The lights dimmed. There was only the sound of the pumps throbbing in the darkness close and far away, above and beneath and all around. Suddenly on the screen appeared an endless depth of blackness filled with a mass of glowing white, which extended into the room around the watching people, seeming to touch them and then spreading, like an ocean, farther away and out and out into an endless distance.

Now streaks of yellow fire shot into the picture, like a swarm of lightning bugs, the thin sharp nosed shadows of space ships, hurtling, like comets, toward the clustered star smear. And then silent thoughts flashed from the screen into the minds of the spectators; of time passing in months, years and centuries, passing and passing until they themselves seemed to be rushing and rushing into the blackness toward blinding balls of white light, the size of moons.

The dark shapes of smaller spheres circling the blinding ones moved forward into the picture; red, blue, green, yellow, purple and many mixtures of all these, and then one planet filled the screen, seeming to be inflated, like a balloon, into a shining red ball. There was a razor edge of horizon then and pink sky and an expanse of crimson. Flat, yellow creatures lay all around, expanding and contracting. A roaring rose and fell like the roaring of a million winds. Then fear flowed out of the picture into the minds of the watchers so that they gasped and cringed, and a silent voice told them that the atmosphere of this planet would disintegrate a human being.

Now the red ball seemed to pull away from them into the blackness and the blinding balls of light, and all around could be seen the streaks of rocket flame shooting away in all directions.

Suddenly a flash cut the blackness, like the flare of a match, and died, and the watchers caught from the screen the awareness of the death of a ship.

They were also aware of the rushing of time through centuries and they saw the streaking rocket flames and planets rushing at them; saw creatures in squares and circles, in threads wriggling, in lumps and blobs, rolling jumping and crawling; saw them in cloud forms whisking about, changing their shapes, and in flowing wavelets of water. They saw creatures hopping about on one leg and others crawling at incredible speeds on a thousand; saw some with all the numbers of legs and arms in between; and were aware of creatures that were there but invisible.

And those watching the screen on which time and distance were a compressed and distilled kaleidoscope, saw planet after planet and thousands at a time; heard strange noises; rasping and roaring, clinks and whistles, screams and crying, sighing and moaning. And they were aware through all this of atmosphere and ground inimical to man, some that would evaporate at the touch of a human body, or would burst into flame, or swallow, or turn from liquid to solid or solid to liquid. They saw and heard chemical analyses, were aware of this ocean of blackness and clouds of white through which man might move, and must ever move, because he could live only upon this floating dust speck that was Earth.

The picture faded in, close to one of the long, needle nosed crafts, showing inside, a man and a woman. Time was telescoped again while the man cut a tiny piece of scar tissue from his arm and that of the woman, put them in bottles and set them into compartments where solutions dripped rhythmically into the bottles, the temperature was held at that of the human body, and synthetic sunlight focused upon them from many pencil like tubes.

The watchers in the council chamber saw the bits of tissue swell into human embryos in a few seconds, and grow arms and legs and faces and extend themselves into babies. Saw them taken from the bottles and cared for, and become replicas of the man and woman controlling the ship, who, all this time were aging, until life went out of their bodies. Then the ones who had been the scar tissue disintegrated them in the coffin-like tubes and let their dust be sucked out into space—all this through millions of miles and a hundred years, compressed for the watchers into sixty seconds and a few feet of space.

Instantly there was black space on the screen again, with the fingers of flame pointing out behind the dark bodies of the ships.

And then the spectators saw one ship shudder and swerve into a blazing, bluish white star, like a gnat flying into a white hot poker; saw another drop away and away, out and out into the blackness past the swirling white rim of the galaxy, and sink into a dark nothingness.

Great balls of rock showered like hail onto other ships, smashing them into grotesque tin cans. The stream of fire at the tail of another ship suddenly died and the ship floated into an orbit around a great, yellow planet, ten times the size of Jupiter, then was sucked into it. Another burst like a bomb, flinging a man and woman out into the darkness, where they hung suspended, frozen into statues, like bodies drowned in the depths of an Arctic sea.

At this instant from the watching council, there were screams of horror and voices crying out, “Shut it off! Shut it off!” There was a moving about in the darkness. Murmurs and harsh cries of disapproval grew in volume.

Another ship in the picture was split down the side by a meteor and the bodies inside were impaled on jagged blades of steel, the contorted, bloody faces lighted by bursts of flame. And the screams and cries of the spectators rose higher, “Shut it off…. Oh Lord….”

Lights flashed through the room and the picture died.

Michael and Mary, both staring, saw, along the line of desks, the agonized faces, some staring like white stones, others hidden in clutching fingers, as though they had been confronted by a Medusa. There was the sound of heavy breathing that mixed with the throbbing of the pumps. The President held tightly to the edges of his desk to quiet his trembling.

“There—there’ve been changes,” he said, “since you’ve been out in space. There isn’t a person on Earth who’s seen a violent death for hundreds of years.”

Michael faced him, frowning. “I don’t follow you.”

“Dying violently happened so seldom on Earth that, after a long time, the sight of it began to drive some people mad. And then one day a man was struck by one of the ground cars and everyone who saw it went insane. Since then we’ve eliminated accidents, even the idea. Now, no one is aware that death by violence is even a possibility.”

“I’m sorry,” said Michael, “we’ve been so close to violent death for so long…. What you’ve seen is part of the proof you asked for.”

“What you showed us was a picture,” said the President. “If it had been real, we’d all be insane by now. If it were shown to the people there’d be mass hysteria.”

“But even if we’d found another habitable planet, getting to it would involve just what we’ve shown you. Maybe only a tenth of the people who left Earth, or a hundredth, would ever reach a destination out in space.”

“We couldn’t tolerate such a possibility,” said the President gravely. “We’d have to find a way around it.”

The pumps throbbed like giant hearts all through the stillness in the council chambers. The faces along the line of desks were smoothing out; the terror in them was fading away.

“And yet the Earth is almost dead,” said Michael quietly, “and you can’t bring it back to life.”

“The sins of our past, Mr. Nelson,” said the President. “The Atomic wars five thousand years ago. And the greed. It was too late a long time ago. That, of course, is why the expedition was sent out. And now you’ve come back to us with this terrible news.” He looked around, slowly, then back to Michael. “Can you give us any hope at all?”

“None.”

“Another expedition? To Andromeda perhaps? With you the leader?”

Michael shook his head. “We’re finished with expeditions, Mr. President.”

There were mutterings in the council, and hastily whispered consultations. Now they were watching the man and woman again.

“We feel,” said the President, “it would be dangerous to allow you to go out among the people. They’ve been informed that your statement wasn’t entirely true. This was necessary, to avoid a panic. The people simply must not know the whole truth.” He paused. “Now we ask you to keep in mind that whatever we decide about the two of you will be for the good of the people.”

Michael and Mary were silent.

“You’ll wait outside the council chambers,” the President went on, “until we have reached our decision.”

As the man and woman were led away, the pumps beat in the stillness, and at the edge of the shrinking seas the salt thick waters were being pulled into the distilleries, and from them into the tier upon tier of artificial gardens that sat like giant bee hives all around the shoreline; and the mounds of salt glistening in the sunlight behind the gardens were growing into mountains.

In their rooms, Michael and Mary were talking through the hours, and waiting. All around them were fragile, form-fitting chairs and translucent walls and a ceiling that, holding the light of the sun when they had first seen it, was now filled with moonlight.

Standing at a circular window, ten feet in diameter, Michael saw, far below, the lights of the city extending into the darkness along the shoreline of the sea.

“We should have delivered our message by radio,” he said, “and gone back into space.”

“You could probably still go,” she said quietly.

He came and stood beside her. “I couldn’t stand being out in space, or anywhere, without you.”

She looked up at him. “We could go out into the wilderness, Michael, outside the force walls. We could go far away.”

He turned from her. “It’s all dead. What would be the use?”

“I came from the Earth,” she said quietly. “And I’ve got to go back to it. Space is so cold and frightening. Steel walls and blackness and the rockets and the little pinpoints of light. It’s a prison.”

“But to die out there in the desert, in that dust.” Then he paused and looked away from her. “We’re crazy—talking as though we had a choice.”

“Maybe they’ll have to give us a choice.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“They went into hysterics at the sight of those bodies in the picture. Those young bodies that didn’t die of old age.”

He waited.

“They can’t stand the sight of people dying violently.”

Her hand went to her throat and touched the tiny locket.

“These lockets were given to us so we’d have a choice between suffering or quick painless death…. We still have a choice.”

He touched the locket at his own throat and was very still for a long moment. “So we threaten to kill ourselves, before their eyes. What would it do to them?”

He was still for a long time. “Sometimes, Mary, I think I don’t know you at all.” A pause. “And so now you and I are back where we started. Which’ll it be, space or Earth?”

“Michael.” Her voice trembled. “I—I don’t know how to say this.”

He waited, frowning, watching her intently.

“I’m—going to have a child.”

His face went blank.

Then he stepped forward and took her by the shoulders. He saw the softness there in her face; saw her eyes bright as though the sun were shining in them; saw a flush in her cheeks, as though she had been running. And suddenly his throat was full.

“No,” he said thickly. “I can’t believe it.”

“It’s true.”

He held her for a long time, then he turned his eyes aside.

“Yes, I can see it is.”

“I—I can’t put into words why I let it happen, Michael.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know—what to—to say. It’s so incredible.”

“Maybe—I got so—tired—just seeing the two of us over and over again and the culturing of the scar tissue, for twenty centuries. Maybe that was it. It was just—something I felt I had to do. Some—real life again. Something new. I felt a need to produce something out of myself. It all started way out in space, while we were getting close to the solar system. I began to wonder if we’d ever get out of the ship alive or if we’d ever see a sunset again or a dawn or the night or morning like we’d seen on Earth—so—so long ago. And then I had to let it happen. It was a vague and strange thing. There was something forcing me. But at the same time I wanted it, too. I seemed to be willing it, seemed to be feeling it was a necessary thing.” She paused, frowning. “I didn’t stop to think—it would be like this.”

“Such a thing,” he said, smiling grimly, “hasn’t happened on Earth for three thousand years. I can remember in school, reading in the history books, how the whole Earth was overcrowded and how the food and water had to be rationed and then how the laws were passed forbidding birth and after that how the people died and there weren’t any more babies born, until at last there was plenty of what the Earth had to give, for everyone. And then the news was broken to everyone about the culturing of the scar tissue, and there were a few dissenters but they were soon conditioned out of their dissension and the population was stabilized.” He paused. “After all this past history, I don’t think the council could endure what you’ve done.”

“No,” she said quietly. “I don’t think they could.”

“And so this will be just for us.” He took her in his arms. “If I remember rightly, this is a traditional action.” A pause. “Now I’ll go with you out onto the Earth—if we can swing it. When we get outside the city, or if we do—Well, we’ll see.”

They were very still together and then he turned and stood by the window and looked down upon the city and she came and stood beside him.

They both saw it at the same time. And they watched, without speaking, both knowing what was in the other’s mind and heart. They watched the giant four dimensional screens all through the city. A green, lush planet showed bright and clear on them and there were ships standing among the trees and men walking through the grass, that moved gently like the swells on a calm ocean, while into their minds came the thoughts projected from the screen:

“This will be your new home. It was found and then lost. But another expedition will be sent out to find it again. Be of good hope. Everything will be all right.”

Michael turned from the window. “So there’s our evidence. Two thousand years. All the others killed getting it. And with a simple twist, it becomes a lie.”

Mary sat down and buried her face in her hands.

“What a terrible failure there’s been here,” said Michael. “The neglect and destruction of a whole planet. It’s like a family letting their home decay all around them, and living in smaller and smaller rooms of it, until at last the rooms are all gone, and since they can’t find another home, they all die in the ruins of the last room.”

“I can’t face dying,” Mary said quietly, “squeezed in with all these people, in this tomb they’ve made around the seas. I want to have the open sky and the quiet away from those awful pounding pumps when I die. I want the spread of the Earth all around and the clean air. I want to be a real part of the Earth again.”

Michael barely nodded in agreement. He was standing very still now.

And then there was the sound of the door opening.

They both rose, like mourners at a funeral, and went into the council chambers.

Again they sat in the thick chairs before the wall of desks with the faces of the council looking across it like defenders.

The pumps were beating, beating all through the room and the quiet.

The President was standing. He faced Michael and Mary, and seemed to set himself as though to deliver a blow, or to receive one.

“Michael and Mary,” he said, his voice struggling against a tightness, “we’ve considered a long time concerning what is to be done with you and the report you brought back to us from the galaxy.” He took another swallow of water. “To protect the sanity of the people, we’ve changed your report. We’ve also decided that the people must be protected from the possibility of your spreading the truth, as you did at the landing field. So, for the good of the people, you’ll be isolated. All comforts will be given you. After all, in a sense, you are heroes and martyrs. Your scar tissue will be cultured as it has been in the past, and you will stay in solitary confinement until the time when, perhaps, we can migrate to another planet. We feel that hope must not be destroyed. And so another expedition is being sent out. It may be that, in time, on another planet, you’ll be able to take your place in our society.”

He paused. “Is there anything you wish to say?”

“Yes, there is.”

“Proceed.”

Michael stared straight at the President. After a long moment, he raised his hand to the tiny locket at his throat.

“Perhaps you remember,” he said, “the lockets given to every member of the expedition the night before we left. I still have mine.” He raised it. “So does my wife. They were designed to kill the wearer instantly and painlessly if he were ever faced with pain or a terror he couldn’t endure.”

The President was standing again. A stir ran along the barricade of desks.

“We can’t endure the city,” went on Michael, “or its life and the ways of the people.” He glanced along the line of staring faces.

“If what I think you’re about to say is true,” said the President in a shaking voice, “it would have been better if you’d never been born.”

“Let’s face facts, Mr. President. We were born and haven’t died—yet.” A pause. “And we can kill ourselves right here before your eyes. It’d be painless to us. We’d be unconscious. But there would be horrible convulsions and grimaces. Our bodies would be twisted and torn. They’d thresh about. The deaths you saw in the picture happened a long time ago, in outer space. You all went into hysterics at the sight of them. Our deaths now would be close and terrible to see.”

The President staggered as though about to faint. There was a stirring and muttering and a jumping up along the desks. Voices cried out, in anger and fear. Arms waved and fists pounded. Hands clasped and unclasped and clawed at collars, and there was a pell mell rushing around the President. They yelled at each other and clasped each other by the shoulders, turned away and back again, and then suddenly became very still.

Now they began to step down from the raised line of desks, the President leading them, and came close to the man and woman, gathering around them in a wide half circle.

Michael and Mary were holding the lockets close to their throats. The half circle of people, with the President at its center was moving closer and closer. They were sweaty faces and red ones and dry white ones and hands were raised to seize them.

Michael put his arm around Mary’s waist. He felt the trembling in her body and the waiting for death.

“Stop!” he said quietly.

They halted, in slight confusion, barely drawing back.

“If you want to see us die—just come a step closer…. And remember what’ll happen to you.”

The faces began turning to each other and there was an undertone of muttering and whispering. “A ghastly thing…. Instant…. Nothing to do…. Space’s broken their minds…. They’ll do it…. Eyes’re mad…. What can we do?… What?…” The sweaty faces, the cold white ones, the flushed hot ones: all began to turn to the President, who was staring at the two before him like a man watching himself die in a mirror.

“I command you,” he suddenly said, in a choked voice, “to—to give me those—lockets! It’s your—duty!”

“We’ve only one duty, Mr. President,” said Michael sharply. “To ourselves.”

“You’re sick. Give yourselves over to us. We’ll help you.”

“We’ve made our choice. We want an answer. Quickly! Now!”

The President’s body sagged. “What—what is it you want?”

Michael threw the words. “To go beyond the force fields of the city. To go far out onto the Earth and live as long as we can, and then to die a natural death.”

The half circle of faces turned to each other and muttered and whispered again. “In the name of God…. Let them go…. Contaminate us…. Like animals…. Get them out of here…. Let them be finished…. Best for us all…. And them….”

There was a turning to the President again and hands thrusting him forward to within one step of Michael and Mary, who were standing there close together, as though attached.

Haltingly he said, “Go. Please go. Out onto the Earth—to die. You will die. The Earth is dead out there. You’ll never see the city or your people again.”

“We want a ground car,” said Michael. “And supplies.”

“A ground car,” repeated the President. “And—supplies…. Yes.”

“You can give us an escort, if you want to, out beyond the first range of mountains.”

“There will be no escort,” said the President firmly. “No one has been allowed to go out upon the Earth or to fly above it for many hundreds of years. We know it’s there. That’s enough. We couldn’t bear the sight of it.” He took a step back. “And we can’t bear the sight of you any longer. Go now. Quickly!”

Michael and Mary did not let go of the lockets as they watched the half circle of faces move backward, staring, as though at corpses that should sink to the floor.

It was night. The city had been lost beyond the dead mounds of Earth that rolled away behind them, like a thousand ancient tombs. The ground car sat still on a crumbling road.

Looking up through the car’s driving blister, they saw the stars sunk into the blue black ocean of space; saw the path of the Milky Way along which they had rushed, while they had been searching frantically for the place of salvation.

“If any one of the other couples had made it back,” said Mary, “do you think they’d be with us?”

“I think they’d either be with us,” he said, “or out in space again—or in prison.”

She stared ahead along the beam of headlight that stabbed out into the night over the decaying road.

“How sorry are you,” she said quietly, “coming with me?”

“All I know is, if I were out in space for long without you, I’d kill myself.”

“Are we going to die out here, Michael?” she said, gesturing toward the wall of night that stood at the end of the headlight, “with the land?”

He turned from her, frowning, and drove the ground car forward, watching the headlights push back the darkness.

They followed the crumbling highway all night until light crept across the bald and cracked hills. The morning sun looked down upon the desolation ten feet above the horizon when the car stopped. They sat for a long time then, looking out upon the Earth’s parched and inflamed skin. In the distance a wall of mountains rose like a great pile of bleached bones. Close ahead the rolling plains were motionless waves of dead Earth with a slight breeze stirring up little swirls of dust.

“I’m getting out,” she said.

“I haven’t the slightest idea how much farther to go, or why,” said Michael shrugging. “It’s all the same. Dirt and hills and mountains and sun and dust. It’s really not much different from being out in space. We live in the car just like in a space ship. We’ve enough concentrated supplies to last for a year. How far do we go? Why? When?”

They stepped upon the Earth and felt the warmth of the sun and strolled toward the top of the hill.

“The air smells clean,” he said.

“The ground feels good. I think I’ll take off my shoes.” She did. “Take off your boots, Michael. Try it.”

Wearily he pulled off his boots, stood in his bare feet. “It takes me back.”

“Yes,” she said and began walking toward the hilltop.

He followed, his boots slung around his neck. “There was a road somewhere, with the dust between my toes. Or was it a dream?”

“I guess when the past is old enough,” she said, “it becomes a dream.”

He watched her footprints in the dust. “God, listen to the quiet.”

“I can’t seem to remember so much quiet around me. There’s always been the sound of a space ship, or the pumps back in the cities.”

He did not answer but continued to watch her footsteps and to feel the dust squishing up between his toes. Then suddenly:

“Mary!”

She stopped, whirling around.

He was staring down at her feet.

She followed his gaze.

“It’s grass!” He bent down. “Three blades.”

She knelt beside him. They touched the green blades.

“They’re new,” he said.

They stared, like religious devotees concentrating upon some sacred object.

He rose, pulling her up with him. They hurried to the top of the hill and stood very still, looking down into a valley. There were tiny patches of green and little trees sprouting, and here and there, a pale flower. The green was in a cluster, in the center of the valley and there was a tiny glint of sunlight in its center.

“Oh!”

Her hand found his.

They ran down the gentle slope, feeling the patches of green touch their feet, smelling a new freshness in the air. And coming to the little spring, they stood beside it and watched the crystal water that trickled along the valley floor and lost itself around a bend. They saw a furry, little animal scurry away and heard the twitter of a bird and saw it resting on a slim, bending branch. They heard the buzz of a bee, saw it light on a pale flower at their feet and work at the sweetness inside.

Mary knelt down and drank from the spring.

“It’s so cool. It must come from deep down.”

“It does,” he said. There were tears in his eyes and a tightness in his throat. “From deep down.”

“We can live here, Michael!”

Slowly he looked all around until his sight stopped at the bottom of a hill. “We’ll build our house just beyond those rocks. We’ll dig and plant and you’ll have the child.”

“Yes!” she said. “Oh yes!”

“And the ones back in the city will know the Earth again. Sometime we’ll lead them back here and show them the Earth is coming alive.” He paused. “By following what we had to do for ourselves, we’ve found a way to save them.”

They remained kneeling in the silence beside the pool for a long time. They felt the sun on their backs and looked into the clean depth of the water deeply aware of the new life breathing all around them and of themselves absorbing it, and at the same time giving back to it the life that was their own.

There was only this quiet and breathing and warmth until Michael stood and picked up a rock and walked toward the base of the hill where he had decided to build the house.

But the showdown came earlier than he expected, speeded because the ship landed close by. Chet told himself he should have counted on that kind of accuracy, but he’d underestimated his fellow pilots.

He had himself signalled Earthside, just before the crash, that his ship was about to land. He’d given his position—described sea and shoreline. They’d find him, if he stayed chained to the post.

But he didn’t. Taken unaware by the Agvars who loosed him, Chet was docile, happy even—certain they wouldn’t hurt him now, but would try to minimize their former cruelty as they turned him over to the spacemen.

When they put new chains on him, around neck and waist, he thought it was only to make sure he didn’t run away before they could deliver him ostentatiously to the ship.

A dozen adult males had gathered in the clearing, but that was hardly an unusual event. Even when they all started out, on a winding trail that didn’t head in the direction of the ship’s recent landing-sounds, Chet was convinced they were just circling some geographic obstacle.

He was interested in the forest of 20-foot mosses and 50-foot evergreen hardwoods pressing densely on each side of the trail. Unconscious when they’d carried him from the beach, he’d never been out of the village since, had never inspected these woods. And he thought his mates from Earth would want to know about them.

Chet could easily have outdistanced the clumsy Agvars if not forced to imitate their crouching walk. But he knew from experience that to show off his erect stance and 18-inch height advantage would make them find some unpleasant way to put him in his place.

They’d shown him that quite often. He’d show them—but later, not just yet. And after showing them, he’d put these Agvars behind him—them, their filthy planet, and their scorching sun.

It had often tortured him, that gauzy, amorphous solar blaze, but never more than now. For the sun of Hedlot, when he glanced at it vengefully, proved from its position that he was not being taken to the ship, but away from it.

Disappointment didn’t rouse Chet to a fighting pitch—it caused him to become crafty. Slyness and deceit, the indirect weapons of the powerless, were not attributes schooled into a student space-pilot. But he’d learned them tied naked to a sunbaked post. That, too, is an effective school.

He hung back, faking fatigue. Malingering brought him pokes and jerks, made the Agvars choke him and beat him and harangue him in their sullen mutter of clicks and growls and glottal catches. But some sense of urgency drove them to give up their fruitless sadism after a while, and drag him through the trail’s blue mud by brute strength, two on the neck-chain, two hauling at his waist.

He let them. Not that he was inured to pain—he just was stubborn.

He wondered, once when they all stopped at a spring for a drink and some rest, whether their haranguing showed the Agvars were sorry they hadn’t taught him their language. Probably not, he decided; probably they didn’t want to think he could have learned it.

He’d tried, in the absence of lessons, by repeating what he heard around him. He’d learned a few words, of course. And for a while, a couple of villagers had seemed to enjoy and encourage his parrot-like attempts to recite whole sentences they voiced for him. But after a few beatings, Chet gathered that he’d only been mouthing obscenities. And that experience, plus inertia, had made him give up the attempt.

Just as well, he now decided. If they’d known of his technical skills, if they’d let him raise their standards, the Agvars might be carrying bows and arrows, instead of mere slings and sticks.

Their hard luck! What they didn’t know, they’d never learn from him! The mere presence of a spaceship on the same planet gave him a buoyant feeling of contempt.

But though contempt helped him endure that journey through the tall mosses and taller trees, it couldn’t ward off exhaustion. When the party stopped at the foot of a sheer rock spire that rose four or five hundred feet above the tallest growth, he collapsed and slept.

They woke him in the pre-dawn twilight and another group of Agvars took over. These—there were only three—looked older than the familiar villagers. And they’d smeared their faces with bands of red and yellow mud. He wondered….

He stopped wondering when they passed a pile of bones at the base of the spire. Among the grisly relics were skulls—brow-ridged, pointed, unmistakably Agvar. Sacrifices!

He was to be killed, then, to propitiate his own rescuers. His three guides—or guards—must be witch-doctors! He let them drag him along while he thought about it.

They’d give him no breakfast, not even water. If they’d eaten themselves, it was while he still slept. The scraps, if any, hadn’t been flung in his face, and there’d been no smooth post to lick the dew from.

Hunger and thirst were nothing new, but neither was the resulting lethargy. Realizing his danger, Chet could only hang back.

Today though that was an old stall; the witch-doctors seemed to expect it. They broke branches from the trees and beat him till he bled. And when the climb up the rocks began, they put one of their number behind him to push, set the other two in front to pull, and tried by main strength to haul him up the five hundred foot rock-face.

Hazily, not hastily, Chet tried to think of a way out. His starved brain could come up with nothing. That, he finally decided, was only natural; it was not thinking that was needed, but action.

Still, he wasn’t precipitate. Caution reinforced his habitual lassitude while trying to dispell it. Half a dozen times he tensed for combat, only to relax hopelessly. But finally he found a place—and the will—to make a stand.

He passed up a wide shelf, and let them tug him along a narrow ledge without much objection. He chose a near-vertical pitch about a hundred feet from the bottom—a mere crack that slanted upward to the right, offering the shallowest of hand- and foot-holds.

He could only hope that he wasn’t in sight from the trail—or else that the villagers had left. He couldn’t see through the treetops to make sure. But he hadn’t the strength to worry.

He froze to the rock, pulling as if in fright. The two witch-doctors in single file above him jerked on the chains they held. But they needed a hand apiece to hold on with, and couldn’t lift him.

The one below, standing on a six-inch ledge, tried to push. When that didn’t work, he broke off a chunk of rock and beat Chet’s left foot with it.

Spurred by the sudden pain, Chet kicked the witch-doctor in the face. The Agvar fell, screaming—until he crashed through the treetops and was still.

To Chet, forgetful of his hearing superiority, it seemed as if that outcry would be heard on Earth itself. Certainly he expected it to alarm the countryside. Still, unless the swift foot-thrust had been seen, no one would be sure the witch-doctor’s fall was not an accident….

Chet had tasted victory for the first time in three years! He’d had a little revenge, and he wanted more. He could take the other two witch-doctors with him to death!

He put all his weight on the chains they held. But they chose not to die—let go, instead, to save themselves. The chain-ends rattled past, dislodging a small avalanche of dust and gravel and bruising stones—dislodging him when the full weights jerked at neck and waist.

Prepared, he didn’t let himself be pulled away from the cliff’s face. He slid down it to the ledge from which the Agvar below him had fallen. There he teetered a moment, balancing precariously on toes scraped raw in his slide. Clawing fingers found a crack to the right, a knob to the left—safety! He clung there breathless.

No time for resting! Rattling stones warned of pursuit. He looked quickly around, found a route, and after a short traverse let himself slide to a long talus-slope. Down it he ran barefoot through sharp debris into concealing mosses.

The silence alarmed him. But it freed him from the need for craft; he didn’t know what to avoid nor where it might be lurking, so he set out for the spaceship by what he hoped was the shortest way.

In the village, he’d located the landing-place by sound, fixed it by sun. The sun would guide him now. Not accurately, but well enough.

The ship would have landed in a clearing. Standing on its tail, it should loom high over the woods. And its men would scatter—he ought to run into one.

Run he did, trotting under thirty pounds of hardwood chain on reserves of strength dredged from a deep pit of desperation, through a forest overgrown with menace, full of life he could always sense but seldom see—of noises whose origin he couldn’t guess.

The Agvars, for all their inferior hearing, could at least interpret what they heard. Chet couldn’t. Every whispered cry, wild grunt and muttered growl was completely unfamiliar. He didn’t know which sound signalled danger. He feared them all.

But more than sounds he feared the silence that chinked the logs of time between each nerve-wracking noise. Often he had to stop and rest, and silence threatened him then like the ominous quiet of bated breath. When he’d force himself to go on, each tree seemed like a porchful of malicious old women, pretending to disregard him as he passed, certain to make trouble when he’d gone. The buzz of small life-forms was a deprecatory murmur, ready at any second to burst into condemnation and terror….

What was that sound? And that? Noises that seemed out of place in their familiarity pinned him to the forest floor.

It was only the village. Satisfied, he worked up courage to skirt the place and walk on toward the ship.

But he was near collapse. When he heard human voices he could only yell incoherently once or twice, sob, and pass out.

Dimly through succeeding days Chet was aware of the ship’s sickbay, of the enlisted attendants, the hovering doctor, the silent commander. Later he realized he’d been kept under opiates so his body could recover while his mind rested. At the time, he felt only the dimness.

It wore off abruptly. He was in a civilized cot, stretching luxuriously, aware of warmth and comfort and a cheerful voice that seemed familiar.

He opened his eyes. A fat young corpsman had been watching.

“How do you feel, sir?” the boy said. “Ready for coffee?”

“Sure,” Chet answered. And grinned lazily as he sat up to sip the proffered cup. “You’ve taken good care of me.”

“Used to be a barber in civilian life,” the boy said smugly. And Chet found with an exploratory hand that he’d been shaven and shorn, bathed, bandaged where necessary—even, he saw, clad in a pair of fancy red broadcloth pajamas.

“You’ve got me cleaned up, all right,” he said. “Whose p.j.’s have I got on?”

“Dr. Pine’s, sir. You’ll see him in a couple of minutes—he and the Old Man been waiting to question you. There’s a robe and slippers, if you want me to help you get up….”

“I’m not helpless,” Chet said, boasting in his turn. He proved it by climbing—gingerly—out of the cot. The boy helped him into the robe, found the slippers, pushed the small room’s one chair an inch closer to the open porthole, and left, closing the door behind him.

Vaguely Chet found he knew the two men who soon entered the room—they’d been there before. But this was his first fully conscious look at them. Commander Seymour, the C.O., looked surprisingly young for his job. He was young, Chet decided—not over thirty-five—and his short slight figure made him seem younger still.

He had few words. “You’re looking fine, Barfield,” he said, and sat on the edge of the cot, thin face impassive, gray eyes alert.

Dr. Pine—tall, balding, affable—was associated in Chet’s mind with hypodermic needles, bitter medicines, restrictions. Today, the doctor gave him a firm and friendly handshake, but yesterday, Chet felt, that same hand had inflicted pain.

“Glad to see you looking so well,” the doctor said, taking a stance against the wall by the porthole. He sounded sincere enough, but Chet, resuming his chair, wondered how much of the gladness was based on the doctor’s pride in professional handiwork.

There was an awkward pause. Chet remembered to murmur polite replies to the men who were so obviously sizing him up. Then he asked, “When do you think I’ll be ready for duty?”

His visitors exchanged a glance. “Later,” Commander Seymour said. “Take it easy while you can, Barfield.” He smiled unconvincingly at what must have been meant as a joke.

Talk again lapsed, and Chet became uncomfortable. “The corpsman said you wanted to ask me some things,” he said. And added, “You’ve already questioned me, haven’t you?”

“Only a little,” Dr. Pine said, flexing his long fingers and looking down at them. “We—ah—we had to find out about your shipmates. Commander Seymour wanted to look for them, naturally….”

Naturally…. “Are we going to leave here now, sir?” Chet asked the commander.

“Not yet,” he said. “Dr. Pine has a job to do.”

“What’s that, Doctor?”

“I’m going to study your Agvar friends, Mr. Barfield. Want to help?”

“Sure,” Chet said. “There’s nothing I’d rather do than bring you a few corpses to dissect.”

“That—ah—that isn’t the idea,” Dr. Pine said, bending his fingers and rocking from toes to heels. “I—ah—I want to do a little anthropology—study them in the life….”

“Why?” Chet demanded. “I can tell you all about them. I can tell you what they did to me, too! They don’t deserve to live! And this planet won’t be safe for spacemen till they’re dead. Why waste time studying them? It isn’t as if you were a professional anthropologist, sir—didn’t you give me medical care?”

“Yes…. But I do anthropology, too. Medical help—ah—gains the confidence of the people….”

“You mean—?” Chet was at first incredulous, then outraged. “You mean you’re not going to punish them?”

“That’s right,” Dr. Pine said, smiling.

“That’s wrong!” Chet contradicted.

Cheeks burning, he turned to Commander Seymour. “How about you, sir? Do you want your men chained to a post if they get captured? Do you want me to dismiss three years of torture as a mistake, or something? Do you want—”

“Here, here!” Commander Seymour said. He didn’t raise his voice. But as he rose from the cot, Chet rose with him, and found himself at attention. They eyed each other.

“Relax,” Dr. Pine suggested. “Please sit down—both of you.”

Commander Seymour obeyed his subordinate. But Chet, still standing, still angry, turned hotly on the doctor.

“I can’t just sit and let you talk about rewarding the Agvars for torturing me!” he cried. “We don’t have to appease them—they can’t fight. You don’t have to be afraid—”

“That’ll do, Barfield!” Commander Seymour was on his feet again, and his tone was sharp. It quieted Chet instantly.

In silence he watched Commander Seymour motion Dr. Pine to follow him out the door. Someone locked it after them.

Alternately tossing on the cot and pacing the floor, Chet seethed for hours. His first interview with the new C.O., and two bawlings-out in five minutes! Because of Pine—Pine, who kept him confined in this room, seeing no one but the attendants, having his meals alone….

When a day passed, and then two, and he felt his strength returning, Chet was sure that Dr. Pine kept him out of the wardroom and away from the other officers only as punishment. Three years a prisoner—and a prisoner still! By the time Commander Seymour came to see him again, Chet had spent hours plotting revenge.

“Barfield,” the commander said, “Dr. Pine is going—alone—to the village you escaped from. He’ll pretend he’s you, or someone like you—whichever he can get away with. So here’s your chance for a little fresh air—you can guide us to the village.”

“Does that mean I go on active duty, sir?”

“Not quite. Dr. Pine hasn’t released you from sickbay.”

Pine again! Pine found him good enough to imitate, it seemed, but not good enough to put on duty.

Suddenly Chet saw the possibilities. So Pine was going to impersonate him? Then Pine would be taken for an escaped sacrifice, a prisoner who’d killed a witch-doctor!

Tell him? Huh. Let him find out the hard way! Then even he, yellow as he was, would want revenge on the Agvars. If he survived their welcome….

“I’ll be glad to go, sir,” Chet said.

They brought him fatigues, not a dress uniform. But fatigues and shoes—even tight ones—were clothing, at least. And clothing would change his appearance. The Agvars had never seen him dressed, nor, since his first days, with a haircut and shave. Whether Pine’s impersonation worked or not, Chet saw no danger for himself in approaching the village. But he wondered how it was to be managed.

He was told the plan when Commander Seymour and Dr. Pine met him outside by the ship’s tail. The commander, who was armed, and the doctor, already naked except for a pair of slippers and a sunlamp tan, would go with him by the shortest route direct to the village. But only Dr. Pine would enter it.

Commander Seymour explained Chet’s part—and his own. “Barfield,” he said, “I want you to find and point out some kind of game animal they use for food. I count on killing something after we come under the Agvars’ observation. That should show off our weapon-superiority—and pave the way for a feast.”

“No medical stuff?” Chet asked sarcastically. “I thought Dr. Pine was supposed to cure all their ills, not give them indigestion.”

“He has to get their confidence before he can treat them,” Commander Seymour explained seriously. “And on a strange planet like this, he’s taking quite a chance to try treatment at any time: if it fails, they’re apt to accuse him of murder!”

Chet said nothing. But he felt as if he’d drawn a wild card in a poker game.

They’d entered the woods. Even before that, Dr. Pine had lagged because his slippers kept falling off, and now he brought up the rear. Chet, in the lead, took a last long look at the ship before the trees and mosses cut off his view.

He went on slowed by vague reluctance. He didn’t like this forest. The trees dwarfed and oppressed him. Old fears began to stir and gnaw, but at new places.

Perhaps the two men he guided would stand together against him. If so, revenge on one would cut him off from both as sharply as the forest cut him off from the ship….

Well, it was worth it! They hadn’t put him on duty, hadn’t accepted him as one of themselves…. He couldn’t be cut off much more than he was already!

And Seymour might listen to reason. After all, he was a practical man, a leader. And Pine was yellow!

“What’s Pine after, sir?” Chet asked over his shoulder. “Why take these risks you’ve mentioned?”

“Well, partly for safety: if we kill any Agvars, we’re likely to have to kill them all, or have the survivors to contend with indefinitely. That might cost us some casualties…. And of course there’s the research angle, but that’s out of my line.”

“What’s the matter with punishment, sir—discipline? You use discipline on your crew—why not on their enemies?”

“Because the men understand the rules and the penalties. The Agvars don’t.”

“Kill them, sir! That they’ll understand!”

“No!” Commander Seymour spoke sharply. “If they don’t fight back, that’s cold-blooded slaughter. If they do, it’s war. I don’t hold with butchery, Barfield, and I certainly won’t risk casualties just to give you a cheap feeling of satisfaction!”

He couldn’t escape. Commander Seymour, looking from over Chet’s shoulder like a walking sneer, stuck close. But he gave the impression of following a man who smelled bad.

Was he? Chet wondered.

Wondering, he unconsciously hung his head, slowed—stopped. Dr. Pine caught up. He and Commander Seymour, faintly breathless from the trying need to regulate their respiration consciously, looked at Chet questioningly.

Again they were sizing him up. Suddenly Chet wished he could go back to that first interview in the sickbay, and change all the things he’d said.

“We can’t go on!” he blurted. “You don’t know what you’re getting into, Doctor!”

“Oh?” said Dr. Pine agreeably. “I know more than you think, young feller.” He smiled encouragingly.

“That—that I’ve killed a witch-doctor? That you may be taken for a murderer?”

“Sure! You—ah—you talked about it under drugs. We… weren’t spying, Chet. We just wanted you to tell your story without reliving all the agony. It wasn’t intended as—ah—a trap….” He massaged his fingers apologetically.

“No….” Chet agreed. “But-I-was-trying-to-lead-you-into-one!”

Had he said that aloud? Chet couldn’t be sure.

He listened for his own voice. The woods were quiet. His breathing seemed strangely loud. He held it—and heard the Agvars moving in the woods. Rustling, scraping, crackling—grunting their guttural dialog. Crashing! Threatening them!

“Let’s go back!” he urged, trying to sound casual. But his trail was blocked.

“Stick around,” Dr. Pine suggested easily. “You—ah—you haven’t said anything we didn’t know. We’re going right ahead.”

“But why?” Once more Chet was hotly incredulous. “To risk your life for a few stray facts? Become a casualty while trying to avoid casualties? It doesn’t make sense!”

Dr. Pine stared at his own hands as if to hide his shyness in them. “As to the fact-seeking,” he said slowly, “well… it’s a matter of opinion. I’ve lost a few classmates…. Risks in research are commonplace—and accepted as worthwhile by most people….

“And—ah—peace…. You once called it appeasement, but it isn’t, always. Well, look. If we fought those Agvars, somebody’d have to take a patrol into their village and capture prisoners for our Intelligence, right?”

Chet nodded dumbly.

“Well, in a way, I—ah—am the peaceful equivalent of that patrol. The—ah—risk I run is less than if we had a war and a patrol skirmish as part of it, though. And why in the world not take for peace a risk we’d routinely accept in war?”

Why not? But why not minimize it, just the same. The Agvars, invisible but noisy, were all around them, now. At any moment the woods might rain spears.

“It would be safer with two of us,” Chet said musingly. “Your knowledge of anthropology and medicine—mine of the people—”

“Barfield, you’re still on the sicklist,” Commander Seymour pointed out. He watched Chet’s face for a long moment before adding, “Still—if you’re over your sick-minded need for revenge—it’s possible Dr. Pine may find you fit. It’s up to him.”

Chet was afraid to ask directly. He pleaded with his eyes.

Dr. Pine grinned broadly at the both. “He’s ready for duty, sir,” he said.

Commander Seymour stepped back and scowled. “All right, Mr. Barfield,” he barked, “I’ll give you just three minutes to change to the uniform of the day!”

Chet’s jaw dropped. His vision, also downcast, noted the fatigues he wore, the muddy shoes. Then he looked up, saw the twinkle in his C.O.’s eyes, and understood.

In exactly three minutes he made the required change. He would enter the village as he’d left it—in the undress uniform of a Man….