THE PRINCES OF EARTH

MICHAEL KURLAND

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

DEDICATION

INTRODUCTION: THE MASTERPIECE THAT NEVER WAS

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XII.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Copyright © 1978, 2011 by Michael Kurland

Published by Wildside Press LLC

www.wildsidebooks.com

DEDICATION

For Liam, Max, and Katie,

With Love...

INTRODUCTION: THE MASTERPIECE THAT NEVER WAS

by Richard A. Lupoff

The year was 1978. Jimmy Carter was President of the United States. The best-selling novel of the year was Chesapeake, by James A. Michener, followed by works by Herman Wouk, Mario Puzo, Sidney Sheldon, and Judith Krantz. The Number One song of the year was “Stayin’ Alive,” by the Bee Gees, followed by songs recorded by John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, The Village People, Boney M, and the Bee-Gees (again). The Oscar for best feature film was won by The Deer Hunter. Other nominees were Coming Home, Heaven Can Wait, Midnight Express, and An Unmarried woman.

By 1978 Michael Kurland and I were already friends as well as colleagues, which we remain to this day. We’d collaborated on a couple of projects—a novel (that, alas, didn’t sell) and a short story (that, happily, did). We had both tried our hands at what were then known as “juvies.” Today they’re called “YA’s.” Young Adult novels.

These are not children’s books. Rather, they’re novels with young protagonists—usually teenagers—and that deal with the process and the problems of growing up. The most successful author of this type of book, at least in the science fiction field, was Robert A. Heinlein. “Heinlein juvies” were so popular that they were typically serialized in Astounding Science Fiction, Galaxy Magazine, or The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Nobody bothered to say that they were juvies then, but for hardcover book sales, largely to libraries, they were so labeled. Then for mass-market paperbacks they were repackaged as straightforward science fiction novels.

So much for labels.

As for Michael and myself—I got there first, in 1976, with Lisa Kane, a book about a teenaged werewolf. Michael followed in 1978 with a marvelous science fiction novel, The Princes of Earth. The publisher was Thomas Nelson, a firm that had been around since 1798, and had a long history of publishing religious and spiritual works. By this time, obviously, they had also ventured into other realms, including science fiction.

The Princes of Earth was a first-rate science fiction novel. In the best tradition of the Heinlein juvies, Michael Kurland had created a detailed picture of the future. Humankind had explored much of the galaxy. Thanks to the development of a hyperspace or faster-than-light-speed drive, it had become possible to reach distant stars in relatively quick time, and a galactic empire had been the result.

There were human-inhabited worlds, alien-inhabited worlds, and mixed-population worlds. Laws, customs, and cultures might vary wildly but they were all held together by the concept of Empire and the universal parliament.

Kurland’s protagonist, young Adam Warrington, had been raised on a planet that had reverted to a kind of fundamentalist Puritanism. By nature a free-thinker and individualist, Adam had a tough time of it until he was accepted at one of the Empire’s great universities. Then he was off on the greatest adventure of his life.

No need to go into further detail in this introduction. You’re about to read the book and I don’t want to spoil the joy that you have coming by giving away the plot. Except—except for one problem.

The book ends with classes about to commence at the university. It is Adam’s freshman year. One of the traditional juvie formats calls for following a young man or woman through the educational process. There are countless titles like John Doe’s First Year at State or Mary Roe, Sophomore. Chances are you’ve seen dozens of these, maybe even read some when you were in junior high—whoops, we’re supposed to call those institutions middle schools now—and looking forward to your own future in the halls of ivy.

But back in 1978 the executives at Thomas Nelson decided that they should play to their strength—religious books—and not dilute their efforts any longer with things like science fiction novels.

So Michael Kurland’s contract for further adventures of Adam Warrington was canceled. Yes, poor Adam was left, the eternal freshman, ready to plunge into his classes at Old Siwash, never to rise through the ranks of the Galactic Empire to whatever heights Michael had planned for him.

It’s a pity, as The Princes of Earth is a truly splendid book, and the volumes that would have followed it—and should have followed it—would have made for a grand reading experience. In The Princes of Earth there are hints of things to come, foreshadowings of themes to be developed in later volumes that are nothing short of astonishing. And glorious.

As it is, we have only this one, rather short novel to entice us into anticipating the wonders that would have followed.

And yet, even after all these years, Michael Kurland is still with us, writing marvelous novels and short stories and nonfiction pieces and editing brilliant anthologies. Maybe he’ll awaken in the middle of the night and exclaim, “By God, I don’t care that it’s been all these years! I started something and I’m going to finish it!”

And he’ll climb out of bed and hit the power switch on his computer and start work on The Return of Adam Warrington. I can hardly wait to read it.

CHAPTER I.

One week before high school graduation I got the notice. First period in the morning, right after the bell, my work board lit up, and there it was. Under it, as on all the other boards in the room, was the Planetary History quiz we were scheduled to have, but on my board there it was: ADAM WARRINGTON, it said, the neat computer letters blurring out the test under it, PLEASE REPORT IMMEDIATELY TO ROOM 2614.

What, I wondered immediately, had I done wrong? Or, more to the point, what did the school think I had done wrong? Mr. Babdyke, I noticed, was scowling at me from his console in front of the room, so the message must be repeated on the teacher’s board. Of course, it would be. I hurriedly reviewed all my recent indiscretions while I punched EXCUSE on the board. Mr. Babdyke printed pardoned, hurry up, in teacher’s red under mine, so I got up, straightened my jacket, and walked calmly out of the room. It was the first time I realized Mr. Babdyke had a sense of humor. I wondered what I was going to be pardoned for, if at all.

Clinging to one side of the broad, empty escalator (elevators are for teachers only), I remembered one or two things. But surely they couldn’t have found out who had punched the extra holes in the bell-ringing tape last Thursday before assembly. The poor, simple machine had gone crazy with an orgy of clanging during the speaker’s sermon before the maintenance crew was able to figure out what was wrong. The Reverend Thrumbody—I think that was his name—was defining sins of omission and commission for us, one of the school’s favorite topics. He must have added one to the list before that hour was up.

The Big Problem in school for that week was smoking. They’d caught one of the senior boys puffing on a homemade jibweed cigarette in the bathroom, and we’d been hearing about it ever since. But that let me out. The only time I’d ever tried it, two years before, I’d been sick as a dog—throwing up all over the place and afraid to go home until I stopped

When I reached the twenty-sixth floor, I saw that it wasn’t an administration level, but had classrooms. Twenty-seventh to thirtieth were administration. I was saved by a floor.

There were several other students in the corridor when I got there. I recognized some of them as fellow seniors, and we were all headed for the same room. I reached the BOYS door, took a deep breath, and plunged into the room with the rest. They all, I’m glad to say, seemed as worried as I was. A guilty conscience never likes to ride alone.

The desks were all dark, the work boards not lit up, so it didn’t matter where we sat. I went down to the front of the room and took a desk in the second row. It was pure habit. I like sitting where I can see the teacher without having to wait for him to project onto the desk board. If I’d thought about it, I’d probably have sat toward the rear, where whoever came in couldn’t see me as easily.

Both sides of the room seemed to be filling up now, the girls’ side, if anything, being slightly fuller than the boys’. I was quickly getting a lot less worried; anything this many kids had done—and over half of them girls—couldn’t be that bad.

After a few minutes Principal Lowepride came in and took a seat at the desk console. My seat at assembly is at the back, so it was the first time I’d seen him up close; he looked a lot older in person. Then two other people I didn’t know came in and sat beside him. One of them, a woman, wore the badge of School Administration, but the other didn’t seem to be from the school at all.

The woman stood up and went to the lectern. “Courtesy, students,” she said. “Please punch your names,” and the work boards lit up. I punched WARRINGTON, Ad. into mine. “All right,” she said, checking the panel, “they’re all here.”

She sat down and Principal Lowepride took her place. “Good morning, students,” he said.

“Good morning, Principal Lowepride,” we all chanted back.

“You represent the top two percent of the graduating class,” he told us, “and according to the Imperial Charter, as written into our binding, you’re required to hear this talk.” He didn’t sound at all happy about it.

“Imperial Charter” sounded very impressive, and I couldn’t help wondering if this was the legendary sex lecture that a school myth said we were supposed to get shortly before we graduated. But I decided it couldn’t be that. First of all, it wouldn’t be given for just the upper two percent, and second of all they wouldn’t give it with the girls and boys in the same room. I suppose girls had to know about sex too, but they’d certainly learn in a different classroom.

The upper two percent, he’d said. Today was the first time I’d heard that, and it was good news. It meant that I was eligible to go to college, as the upper two percent was certainly part of the upper ten. My father wanted me to go to college, since only a college graduate was allowed to vote or hold office. I couldn’t imagine ever wanting to become a deacon, or caring who was, but Father thought it was important. I was looking forward to Hapsburg Aggie, but for different reasons.

“Mr. Tule is on the staff of the Imperial Representative here on Jasper, and he’ll speak to you this morning,” Principal Lowepride said. Then he sat down and scowled. Jasper, as you’ve probably guessed, is the name of my planet. It isn’t very big or important, as I’ve found out since, so don’t feel bad if you haven’t heard of it. It’s the third planet out from the star Deuteronomy, one of the Reformation Group, if that helps.

Mr. Tule got up and faced us. You could tell right away that he was off-planet. His clothes, for one thing. Not that they were greatly different; it’s only polite—and, I found out later, a regulation—to dress the same as the natives on the planet where you’re stationed. He wore a black double-button suit with a white shirt, a high, stiff collar, and a broad tie like every other male in the room, but they were cut differently somehow, and he looked more relaxed in them. The shirt collar, for example, was cut slightly lower than our standard.

Right off, he started speaking, without saying “Good morning,” or “Courtesy,” which was just enough against custom to be unusual, but not enough to offend. Anyway, he got everyone’s attention, which must have been what he wanted. “I have an offer to make you,” he said. “It is an offer that must be made, by tradition and law, in the name of the Emperor, to the top two percent of every graduating class of every high school of every Human-federated planet, kingdom, freehold, colony, satrapy, and League member in the Empire.”

Now he really had our attention, or at least mine. The fact that Jasper was a part of a galactic empire didn’t figure much in our lives or thoughts. Jasper, like all the other independent planets, is just about completely self-governing and left alone, but every kid must daydream about the Emperor and his court on far-off Earth.

I found out later that he was exaggerating. Some planets had been able to have that law written out of their bindings, and some didn’t come up to standard. Then there are the planets that aren’t part of the Empire, but we won’t talk about those. Not right now.

“So in the name of Alexander the Ninth, Liege Sovereign of the Inner Planets, Protector of the Princes of Earth, Chairman of the Solar Hanse, and Hereditary Emperor of the Confederation of Human Planets, I extend to you this offer.” The titles rolled off his tongue. Everyone leaned forward in his seat. I know because I looked around. “You are to be privileged for the next two months, standard, if you so desire, to take the tests required for entrance to the Imperial University. The tests are to be administered by Imperial personnel, and your planetary officials—in this case the administration of this school—are to extend this opportunity to you freely. It shall not be denied to any of you for any cause. If, at the end of two months, you have not availed yourself of this offer, you will be asked to sign a waiver stating that you have freely refused.” He sounded very severe. I wondered if he thought someone wouldn’t want us to take the tests. I also wondered why we hadn’t been told about this before; you’d think it would be used as an incentive. Heaven knows they use everything else.

It sounded like a set speech, and he wasn’t using a cheat-screen. I could tell from where I sat that no words were being flashed on his retina. So he must have memorized the speech. If he’d gone to that trouble, then he thought it was important, so I listened closely to the rest.

“If you take the test and fail it”—he smiled—“and very few pass the test, so it’s no disgrace—you are to be admitted without prejudice to whatever form of higher education your planet offers, in this case a branch of Jasper’s Planetary College.

“If you pass the test, you are eligible to be sent, at the expense of the Emperor, to whichever branch of the Imperial University the examination shows you to be the most qualified for. The minimum time at the University, unless you flunk out,” he added, smiling again, “will be four standard years. After that you may go home if you wish, go on if you’re qualified, take employment with any private firm that offers it, or enter into service in whatever government branch is open to you.

“If you return home, or take private employment, you will be expected to reimburse the Emperor for the nominal cost of your education at a set rate, interest-free, over a period of time not to exceed ten years, standard. If you accept government service, the University is one of the job benefits, and you’ll probably be going back for more of it over the years. I refer to the Imperium government, of course, and not any local planetary governments.”

He stood there for a second, and then said, “That is all. I have been informed that there is no time for questions, so if you have any, contact me at the Emperor’s Freeground. My name is Tule. Ask for me. But if you forget, anyone there will help you. I’m in the Parthenon.”

The Parthenon is a small building with a lot of pillars in the middle of the Emperor’s Freeground. It’s bigger inside than it looks.

Tule walked out of the room, and Principal Lowepride got up and glared at us. “I’m sorry you had to hear that,” he said. “If it weren’t required, and they didn’t insist on it, you wouldn’t have.” He made they sound like a dirty word. “And I put this whole talk under seal: you are not to repeat any part of it to anyone, not even to the other students with you in this room.” That was laying it on kind of thick, but Principal Lowepride was good at such things.

“I’ll explain,” he said. He leaned over and got confidential with us, which always makes me kind of nervous.

“The Galaxy is a big place,” he informed us, “with all sorts of people in it. All sorts. Most of them are pretty decent folks like you and me, maybe not as strong on morality as we are here on Jasper, but pretty decent. But many of them are not decent at all.” He went into lecture 3-A on the Big Bad Galaxy, and I tuned out.

CHAPTER II.

Billy Denton caught up with me as I headed to parking lot after school. “Hey, Adam,” he called, ting his arm confidentially around my shoulders, what was that meeting about?”

Billy was a sloppy-looking, heavy kid who always looked as if he had a couple of buttons unbuttoned somewhere—even when he didn’t. He wanted to be buddy-buddy with everyone in the class, but he told nasty stories about people behind their backs. There was also a rumor that talking to Billy was a good way to inform the Dean of Discipline of all your latest endeavors.

“What meeting?” I asked him.

“Oh, come on,” he said, thrusting his face close mine and breathing in my eye. “What’s a friend for? You can trust me.”

I pretended to look around nervously. “I trust you, Billy,” I told him, “but I can’t talk about it. You know....

“I know?”

“Sure. It was the talk about—you know.” I looked embarrassed.

“Oh!” He finally caught on. “The talk about”—his voice dropped—“ess-dash-exx?”

“Billy!” I said.

“How come I didn’t get one?” he whined. “I thought we were all supposed to get a—you know—talk.”

“Sure,” I told him. “We’ll all get it before the end of the term, but in small groups.”

“There’s only a week left in the term,” he reminded me.

“Learn from your elders and do not question them,” I said, quoting the motto above our library door. Personally, I’ve always wondered how you can learn from someone you can’t question. “Anyway, they take only a few kids out of class at a time, but we’ll all get it.”

“We will?”

“Sure. Don’t worry about it.” I had reached my wheel, and I climbed on, stuffing my books and tapes in the junk box in back. “It’s a good lecture,” I told him. “You’ll see.”

I switched on the motor and wheeled out into the street. The image of Billy Denton waiting for the Special Lecture day after day for the next week, and it never coming, would brighten up my few remaining Study and Meditation periods.

The wheel is a vehicle peculiar to Jasper, and I should describe it to you. It’s a kind of monocycle: one large rubber wheel with the motor in the middle and the seat on top. It’s gyroscopically stabilized, can go about thirty kilometers an hour, and can run for about a hundred kilometers between charges. The legal age for riding a wheel is fourteen, and you hardly ever see anyone over fourteen and under twenty without one.

I took my time going home, thinking about the Imperial University and the entrance test. The idea of taking the test appealed to me, even though I had no interest in going to the University. Not that I thought the galactics were as immoral and decadent as Principal Lowepride had said—anything adults on Jasper didn’t want you to do was immoral and decadent—but my future was all laid out for me, and that wasn’t part of it. I was going to get a degree at the Agricultural College at Hapsburg, and go into my father’s business selling farming machinery. Warrington and Son Hydroponics and Electronics was an old established firm. My grandfather was the Son. He still came around two or three times a month to tell my father how to run the business.

But I would have kind of liked to take the test. It would really be something to be proud of, if I passed. And, as Mr. Tule had said, it couldn’t hurt if I failed. They would still have to let me into Hapsburg Aggie.

Principal Lowepride had stated strongly that it was not a Good Thing to take the test. He had hinted that they did all sorts of disgusting and repulsive things to you in the Parthenon. But Principal Lowepride was known for saying what he thought you should hear. Not that he ever actually lied—lying was immoral—but it was both moral and proper, when speaking to school children, to state the truth in terms that would simplify their understanding. Principal Lowepride could stretch very far from the facts to find those terms.

When I got home I did my chores, then settled down to get my homework out of the way before dinner. I did my math, ethics, and geography, and then, before getting into Problems of Morality, I punched Library: Information on my home board.

LIBRARY, the board said. CODE ? ? ?

I punched my class ID number.

REQUEST ? ? ? the board said.

Universities, I punched. List.

The library listed all the colleges and universities on Jasper.

The last entry was MORE, and I tapped that with my lightstick.

Now the list changed to show all the major universities throughout the Reformation Group. Again I tapped MORE.

This time when the board lit up it was covered with names, the print so small that I could hardly read any of them. There were names from ancient Earth, from the First Expansion, and from all over the galaxy. There, finally, in one corner, was IMPERIAL UNIVERSITY SYSTEM, very small. I tapped it.

THE IMPERIAL UNIVERSITY SYSTEM IS THE GENERAL NAME FOR THAT SYSTEM OF COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES CHARTERED OR ENDOWED BY THE IMPERIUM OR, IN SOME CASES, BY THE ROYAL FAMILY. AS VARIOUS ENTITIES OF THE SYSTEM WERE ESTABLISHED AT DIFFERENT TIMES OR ENTERED UNDER DIFFERENT CHARTER TERMS, THE INTERRELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE SEPARATE COLLEGES AND/OR UNIVERSITIES IS COMPLEX, AND A LARGE VARIETY OF EDUCATIONAL MODALITIES IS REPRESENTED. MANY OF THESE ARE QUITE UNACCEPTABLE TO THE ENLIGHTENED, AS THEY EMBRACE ATTITUDES OF MORALITY AND STANDARDS OF BEHAVIOR THAT IGNORE FUNDAMENTAL TEACHINGS OF ENLIGHTENED REFORMATION.

THE INSISTENCE OF THE IMPERIUM ON SELECTING CANDIDATES FOR POSTS WITHIN THE IMPERIAL BUREAUCRACY FROM GRADUATES OF THE IMPERIAL UNIVERSITY SYSTEM, AND THUS OVERWEIGHTING THE GOVERNMENT WITH PERSONNEL WHOSE BELIEFS ARE BASICALLY ANTAGONISTIC TO THOSE OF ENLIGHTENED REFORMATION, IS ONE OF THE MAJOR CAUSES OF FRICTION BETWEEN THE PLANETARY GOVERNMENTS OF THE REFORMATION GROUP AND THE IMPERIUM.

THE OLDEST AND BEST KNOWN OF THE UNIVERSITIES OF THE IMPERIAL SYSTEM IS THE UNIVERSITY OF SOL ON MARS. IT IS SAID TO HAVE BEEN FOUNDED WELL BEFORE THE FIRST EXPANSION, BUT NO ACTUAL DATE IS KNOWN. HEREDITARY NOBILITY OF THE SOLAR HANSE, LIFE MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS, ELECTORS OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, AND OFFICERS OF FLAG RANK IN THE SERVICE OF THE IMPERIUM ALL HAVE THE PERQUISITE OF SENDING THEIR CHILDREN TO THE UNIVERSITY OF SOL. THE UNIVERSITY OF GNADA IS FAMOUS FEDERATION-WIDE FOR ITS SCHOOL OF PLANETARY ENGINEERING. LANGERT COLLEGE IS KNOWN FOR ITS SCHOOLS OF MACROBIOLOGY AND LIBRARY SCIENCE. UNFORTUNATELY THESE SCHOOLS CONDONE IMMORAL BEHAVIOR, AND NO PARENT ON JASPER WOULD BE ENCOURAGED TO ALLOW HIS CHILD TO ATTEND.

That was all. There should have been a list of subject headings after that, so I could get whatever else I wanted to know. I punched Subjects—more. The screen cleared. The board hummed. CLOSED STACKS, the board said. AUTHORIZATION NEEDED: TEACH/AD

That meant I had to get the permission of a teacher or administrator to find out anything more on the subject. And that meant it had to be an authorized project. It seemed that the library didn’t want you to think anything nice about the Imperial University and didn’t want you to know anything at all beyond what every schoolboy already knew. I gave up and did my Problems of Morality homework.

Father came home late that evening, so we ate dinner almost an hour late. And he was in such a bad mood that he scared Miss Poot—she’s the maid—and she dropped the roast. Then he yelled at her for being so clumsy, and she ran out of the dining room with her hands over her mouth. Mother picked the roast off the table with the serving fork and put it back on the platter. She handed it to Father to carve, and told him that if he didn’t behave around the help and stop yelling, soon no girls would work for us and he’d have to buy a mechmaid. Father said this one wasn’t so hot, and he’d almost rather have a robot if they weren’t so expensive.

Sister Prudence, my twelve-year-old sib, said that Deacon Farthingail had a mechmaid and two maids and a groom, and that was because they had horses, and why couldn’t we keep a horse, please?

This was pretty average dinner-table conversation for us. What with Father’s temper, we went through maids pretty fast. Once we actually had a mechmaid for about three days, but then it started throwing things over its shoulder and we had to send it back to the factory. It never came back. It was made right on Jasper. Other planets in the Reformation Group make better robots, and some planets outside the Group make even better devices, but we have such a high import tax on manufactured goods that only the landholders and deacons can afford the off-planet stuff.

By the end of dinner Miss Poot had recovered enough to clear the table and serve tea. Mother and Sister Prudence and I held our breath while she tiptoed around the table and took things off at arm’s length, as though each dish were going to blow up in her face. Father affected to ignore her completely. He seemed to be in a much better mood since she had dropped the roast.

When tea had been poured, Father leaned back in his chair with his cup in both hands and stared speculatively over its rim at me. “Adam,” he said. “Um, Adam.”

“Father?”

“I have something to discuss with you, son—something serious.”

“Yes, Father?” Now what on Jasper could this be about?

Mother stood up. “Perhaps we ladies should leave the room,” she suggested.

“No, no, Clara, that won’t be necessary,” Father said, waving her back down. “This is not, um, man-talk.”

Mother sat back down. Sister Prudence looked relieved. She hated to be left out of anything.

“I understand, Adam, that you are one of the top ten percent of your class,” Father said. “Scholastically, at least. And therefore you are eligible to attend the Agricultural College at Hapsburg.”

“So I believe, Father,” I said. Now how did he know? The grades hadn’t been posted yet.

“We might even go farther,” he said, sipping his tea, “and say that you are in the top two percent.”

“Yes, Father.” So that was it. They must have called him.

Father shook his head. “How someone as bright as you can be so perpetually in trouble is beyond my understanding. Why you can’t understand that it’s not to your own best interest to misbehave and provoke your teachers...or take things apart...” He allowed the sentence to die out, and just finished by staring at me.

I didn’t say anything. I knew better than to answer him back. But that was unfair. It had been two years since I took the guts out of the flitterball and installed an affinity circuit. It had made it much more difficult for our team to lose when the ball just naturally preferred to go into the other goal. They’d suspended me from school for two weeks when they found out, and Father had resorted to corporal punishment for the first time since I was seven. The school authorities were particularly angry that I was reading technical material above my grade level. Everyone was supposed to know his place on Jasper.

But after all, that was two years ago.

“Now Dean Swift is afraid you’ll do something foolish and take that test they told you about this morning,” Father said, “so he called me. You, um, are, after all, not noted for your good judgment.”

Dean Swift was the Dean of Discipline. He was not fond of me.

“What test is that, Poppa?” Sister Prudence asked.

“Never you mind,” Father told her. “It doesn’t concern you. Young ladies are not given this test.”

There had been, as I remembered, slightly more girls in the room than boys, but I decided not to correct Father on that. On Jasper girls go to college only to become teachers or nurses, work fitting for a lady. Perhaps it was different elsewhere.

“You won’t, will you?” Father asked.

“Won’t what, Father?”

“Won’t take that test. I can call Dean Swift tomorrow and tell him that you’re not going to take it.”

“Father, does it strike you as strange that Dean Swift calls you when he doesn’t want me to do something? I mean, he could have just called me into his office and talked to me.”

“You can be a very difficult young man to talk to,” Father said. “And, from what I understand, the school officials cannot forbid you to take the test because of some technicality. Even though it’s clearly in your best interest.”

“But you can,” I said.

“I wouldn’t want to do that, Adam,” Father said. I could tell that he thought he was being very patient with me. “Not unless it were necessary.”

“But that’s not a choice,” I said, trying not to get angry. “You won’t forbid me from doing something unless I’m going to do it. But if I’m not going to do it, then you don’t have to forbid me.”

“Now, Adam,” Father said firmly, but mildly, “I am your father, not a problem in logic. I’m not interested in who shaved the barber, only in ensuring that my son won’t do something that’s not in his own best interest.”

It was happening again, and I couldn’t help it. I was getting angry, and Father was getting mild. I always felt in the wrong and guilty for getting angry, but when Father got mad at me he didn’t feel guilty, only proper and self-righteous.

I took a deep breath. “I had thought it might be interesting to take the test, Father, just to see how I placed.” I said it very calmly, but I could feel my heart pounding.

Father slowly stood up. “It would not be interesting,” he said. “You will not take the test. I will call up Dean Swift tomorrow morning and so inform him.” He left the dining room.

“Oh, dear,” Mother said.

“Excuse me,” I said, getting up. “I must go and finish my homework.”

For the next week Father and I exchanged very few words. And, as usual, I felt guilty.

Then, on the Thursday before graduation, the last official day of school, it happened.

There was a crew of painters in the downstairs hall when the doors to school opened in the morning. Large areas of the wall were already freshly sprayed, but they were still the same ugly yellowish-green they had been before. As I went up the escalator I noticed that several of the upper-floor corridors had also been sprayed. I couldn’t help wondering why. First, why do it in patches; and second, why not just wait two days until school was over to do it at all?

I sat down at my desk trying to figure it out. Not that it mattered, but it was a puzzle. Then the first-period bell rang, and my board lit up. ADAM WARRINGTON, it said, PLEASE REPORT TO ROOM 3031 IMMEDIATELY.

I gulped. Number 3031 was the principal’s office—I had been there before. Principal Lowepride didn’t send for you to congratulate you for passing spelling. I tried to think of something I had done that would interest Principal Lowepride. No sins of omission or commission for the past few weeks that I could think of. Well, there was only one way to find out. I punched EXCUSE on my board.

Excused, Mr. Babdyke printed.

It took fifteen minutes to get up to the thirtieth floor by escalator. In fifteen minutes light travels two hundred and seventy million kilometers. In fifteen minutes the average person can read nine thousand words, which would take him from the story of Creation in the Old Testament to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. At one standard G acceleration, in fifteen minutes you’d travel close to four thousand kilometers. Fifteen minutes is a long time.

Principal Lowepride had a robot secretary, the gift of previous graduates to a previous principal. “Ah,” it said, staring somewhere to the left of my head as I came into the outer office, “you must be the miscreant.” It had a high, reedy voice that sounded as though it were about to crack.

“Excuse me?” I said.

It shifted its gaze slightly to the right of my head. “Principal Lowepride instructed me: ‘As soon as the miscreant arrives, show him into my office.’ You are a ‘him.’ You have arrived. Therefore, you must be the miscreant.”

“Miscreant?” I guess I had done something.

It shifted its gaze again, and stared at my nose. “Miscreant: noun: a vile wretch; a villain; a rascal. One who has placed himself outside the...”

“Yes,” I interrupted, “I know what it means. I just want to know what it has to do with me!”

“...rules of decency and morality prevalent in society. Synonyms include: evildoer, sinner, transgressor, profligate, libertine, vandal, brute, ruffian, caitiff, desperado...”

“Never mind,” I said. “I guess you’d better show me into Principal Lowepride’s office.”

“...rascal, knave, blackguard, delinquent, troublemaker, culprit, offender, malefactor, recidivist, renegade, apostate. See specific word for usage. This way, please, miscreant.”

The creature wheeled out of its work cubicle and thumped across the floor to the door to the private office. It gave a quiver with each turn of its wheels, as though it were silently suffering from hiccups. It knocked on the door and opened it. “Student Adam Warrington is here,” it announced. I guess I was the miscreant, since it knew me by name.

I went in. Anyone who thinks that being scared when you’re questioned is a sign of guilt has never been a high school student entering his principal’s office. At least not on Jasper.

There were four people in the office: Principal Lowepride, Dean Swift, and a gentleman and lady I didn’t know.

“Courtesy,” I said. “Good morning.”

“Good morning, Warrington,” Principal Lowepride said. “Please shut the door.”

“If it isn’t the young practical joker,” Dean Swift said. He was sitting to Principal Lowepride’s right behind the big desk that took up so much of the office.

“Hush, Swift,” the lady said. She was on the other side of the desk, with her chair pulled much farther away from Principal Lowepride. “Warrington, come over here.”

The gentleman stood by the window and said nothing. He had that sort of healthy, well-scrubbed, smug look of a Youth Patrol leader, but he was dressed in civilian clothes.

I walked over to the desk and stood in front of the lady. “Yes, ma’am,” I said.

“You know what this is about, don’t you?” she asked. She was a small lady, who was probably not as old as she looked, dressed all in black, with intense eyes.

“No, ma’am,” I said. “I have no idea.”

“He has no idea!” Principal Lowepride yelped, thrusting his fat chin forward and his arms in the air. “Forty men have to get up at three in the morning and spend four hours painting a few thousand square meters of corridor wall—and he has no idea!”

“Hush, Lowepride,” the lady said, without taking her eyes off me. “My name is Miss Wigstaff,” she told me. “I am from the Office of Public Decency.”

“Yes, ma’am.” She was a cop. Now they really had me worried. What was all this about?

“The gentleman by the window,” she said, “is Mr. Eaststone, from the Bureau of Youth Control.”

I looked at him, and he smiled at me. I didn’t like his smile. “Yes, ma’am,” I said.

“Have you anything to say?” she asked.

I tried to think of something. “No, ma’am.”

“Really, Warrington,” Dean Swift sneered from his side of the desk, “you must think we’re all morons. Do you think we’re morons? Do you really think we’re morons?”

I was tempted to answer him.

“Let’s look at the facts, Warrington,” Miss Wigstaff said. “First”—she counted on her fingers—“we know that Jasper City Consolidated High School was vandalized this morning. Isn’t that right?”

It was news to me. “Oh,” I said. “That explains the painters.”

“Explains the painters!” Principal Lowepride yelped. “Blasphemy and obscenity all over the school walls!” For a man who was in charge of a teaching staff of over five hundred and a student body of over eight thousand, he had surprisingly little control. His face was red.

Mr. Eaststone from the Bureau of Youth Control walked toward me, his step all springy and menacing and controlled. He liked his work. “Adam Warrington,” he said in a voice that was loud and commanding, and yet gentle and infinitely sad, “there is no point to this. We want to help you. And, Adam, I think you know that you need help. That childish scribbling on the walls was a cry for help, wasn’t it, Adam?” The gentleness in his voice would have had me if I hadn’t seen the gleam in his eye.

Then, suddenly, I realized that they thought I had done the writing on the walls. I may sound dumb, but I was so totally innocent that it had never occurred to me. I had thought that they believed I knew who had done it, and were trying to get me to spill on a friend. But they thought I was the vandal, and judging by their attitude, the writing must have been pretty nasty.

“Answer me, Adam,” Mr. Eaststone said gently. “Speak with me and we’ll work this out. Would you like to go into the other room, where we can speak privately?” He rubbed his hands together as though he were spreading oil. I wouldn’t want to be alone in a room with him on a bet.

My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it, and there was an emptiness in the pit of my stomach. My mouth was dry. “I don’t know what you people are talking about,” I said. “I had nothing to do with whatever was written on the walls this morning and I don’t know who did. I think it’s a shame, and I hope you catch him, but I can’t help. Can I go back to class now?”

Miss Wigstaff leaned forward and jabbed a finger at me to punctuate her remarks. “You seem to be upset, Warrington,” she said. “Very upset.”

“Of course I am, ma’am,” I told her. “Wouldn’t you be if someone dragged you into a room and accused you of things you didn’t know anything about?”

“Not if I had a clear conscience,” Miss Wigstaff said.

“Nobody dragged you in here, Warrington,” Principal Lowepride barked.

“Would it surprise you, Warrington, to know that your wheel was identified as you left here at three o’clock this morning?” Dean Swift asked, looking down his lean, bony nose at me.

“Yes,” I said. “I was home, in bed, asleep.”

“Would it surprise you to hear that we found your fingerprints on the walls before we painted?” Miss Wigstaff asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Do you claim that you never touched the school walls?” Miss Wigstaff asked.

“Yes. I mean, well, no. Of course I must have touched the walls at one time or another. But not last night.”

“Did you wear gloves last night?” Eaststone asked softly. I could see that he thought he was awfully clever.

“I was asleep,” I said.

“Have you touched the walls at all recently?” Miss Wigstaff asked.

“I suppose I must have,” I said. “I don’t remember specifically.”

“He doesn’t remember!” Principal Lowepride said.

“We’re trying to be nice to you, Warrington,” Miss Wigstaff said. “We have enough on you to convict you in Youth Court: your fingerprints, the fact that your wheel was seen leaving, your school record as a practical joker and troublemaker.”

“We want to help you,” Eaststone said softly. He had continued creeping up until he was right next to me now, looking down. “If you’ll just confess to show us that you understand the error of your ways, it will go a long way toward helping you get through this unfortunate episode.” A sickening sweet smell clung to him.

“But I didn’t do anything,” I insisted. “I was home in bed.”

“That won’t wash, Warrington,” Dean Swift said.

After that I got stubborn, and refused to say anything. I was afraid that if I opened my mouth I’d start either screaming or crying, and I’d been taught all my life that it was unmanly to get hysterical. Besides, if they weren’t going to listen, there was no point in my talking. They seemed convinced already anyway.

They kept at me for a little while longer, but finally stopped when they saw that it wasn’t going to do any good. Then they had a short conference, with me waiting in the outer office. The robot secretary ignored me.

Principal Lowepride came out alone. “You may return to class, Warrington,” he said.

“Thank you, sir,” I said.

“Oh, and don’t bother showing up for graduation tomorrow,” he added, smirking at me.

“Excuse me, sir?”

“We’re holding back your certificate of completion until this is all settled. So there’s no point in your showing up for graduation, because without the certificate, you can’t graduate. That is all, Warrington; you may go.”

“But I can’t get into college without graduating,” I said.

“That’s true,” Principal Lowepride said. “Miss Wigstaff is of the opinion that we don’t have sufficient evidence of your guilt to convict you, but that a strong probability exists that you are the culprit.”

“Miscreant,” I muttered.

“What was that?”

“Nothing, sir.”

He glared at me suspiciously. “We are continuing our investigation,” he said. “When it’s completed, you will either be brought to trial or allowed to graduate.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “Thank you, sir. How long will that be?”

“I have no idea,” he said. “That will be all, Warrington,”

“Yes, sir,” I said. I went back to class to finish my last day of high school.

CHAPTER III.

My father was waiting for me when I got home. “Dean Swift called the store,” he said.

“I didn’t do it,” I told him.

“Blasphemy and obscenity,” Father mused. “All over the walls. Come into the study and let’s talk.”

We entered Father’s book-lined study. It was one of the few times I’d ever been allowed in this room. Father looked very serious. I wondered what Dean Swift had said when he called, and what Father was thinking. “I didn’t do it,” I repeated.

He closed the door firmly. “Of course you didn’t. If you were soft in the head, surely I’d have some inkling of it after raising you for seventeen years. Sit down.” He waved to a hardback chair, which I settled gingerly down on, while he sat back in his reading chair.

“You’re stubborn, opinionated, and disrespectful of authority,” Father said. “I can’t imagine where you picked up those traits. But you’re neither crazy nor stupid. Whoever vandalized the school this morning is at least one, and probably both. Crazy to do it, and stupid to think he can get away with it.”

“Principal Lowepride thinks I did it,” I said. “So does the Office of Public Decency.”

“They are sadly deficient in imagination,” Father said. “They can’t tell your sort of creative troublemaking from this senseless, destructive act. Whoever did this is badly in need of help.”

“That’s what Mr. Eaststone from the Bureau of Youth Control said,” I told Father, “except he thought it was me.”

Father leaned forward. “You weren’t out at three o’clock this morning, by any chance, were you?” he asked. “There’s no chance that it really was your wheel that they saw by the school?”

“I told you I didn’t do it,” I said, looking him straight in the eye.

“Not the same question,” he said. “I said I didn’t think you were capable of pulling a stupid stunt like that. I didn’t say I thought you were incapable of sneaking out at three in the morning to pull some other, uh, stupid stunt.”

I suddenly realized that I didn’t really understand my father. I would have bet that he didn’t know about my occasional midnight trips to doctor the bell-ringing tape or conduct other social-science experiments, and that if he had known you would have heard him yelling from here to the Horsehead Nebula. But it sounded as though he had a pretty good idea of what I’d been doing, and hadn’t said a word. I’d been worried about coming home to face Father, thinking he’d be sure to believe the school’s accusation, and instead he believed me without hesitation. I didn’t understand my father, but for the first time in several years, I was sure glad he was there.

“I didn’t go out last night,” I told him.

“The school custodian saw a wheel heading away from the parking lot at three in the morning,” Father said.

“What made him think it was mine?”

“He didn’t say it was yours,” Father said, “but he did say it was red.”

All wheels are black when they are sold. Most of them stay black. A lot of parents seem to think that the color of their kid’s wheel is a moral issue, and that black is the only moral color. About one wheel in ten gets painted. Mirror finish was popular a few years back, but the school decided that mirror was immoral and banned mirrored wheels from the school parking lot. That was the same year a girl got expelled for coming to school in long pants instead of a long skirt. She was an exchange student.

“Red’s a popular color,” I told my father. “There must be a hundred other students with red wheels.”

“But they haven’t got your reputation,” Father said.

“The school isn’t going to let me graduate,” I told him.

“We’ll see about that,” he said.

And he did. But there was nothing he could do. He came home the next night angrier than I’d ever seen him before. And if I didn’t graduate, I couldn’t go on to Hapsburg Aggie. And I could never vote, or hold any elective office.

If I had been actually charged with the vandalism and officially expelled from school, I could demand a hearing to get reinstated. Father was sure they’d have to find me innocent. But they didn’t charge me or expel me. I was merely suspended from classes pending investigation of the offense. The fact that I had no classes to be suspended from didn’t matter. The fact that no one was doing any investigating didn’t matter. The school administration thought that I had done it, and they couldn’t prove it, so there was no point in continuing the investigation. They’d merely keep me suspended for the legal limit of two years, by which time I’d be too old to be admitted to any college.

Which is why, a week after my classmates graduated without me, I went to the Emperor’s Freeground. I spent some time standing in front of the Parthenon trying to make up my mind whether or not to go in. I hadn’t come to take the test, just to find out if I still could. The Imperial University might not want a student who had been accused of writing blasphemy on the walls of his high school.

Not that I had any intention of going to the Imperial University. My scheme was merely to take the test, after which, according to Mr. Tule, I had to be admitted to a branch of the Planetary College of Jasper, even if I flunked. Hapsburg Aggie was a branch of the Planetary College.

The Emperor’s Freeground was an area on the outskirts of Jasper City that was legally not a part of Jasper. It belonged to the Emperor and was under Imperial jurisdiction. If a criminal ran onto the Emperor’s Freeground, the Jasper Office of Public Decency couldn’t chase him there. Of course, the Emperor’s Representative would probably just hand the criminal back to the Jasper authorities, but the point is that he doesn’t have to.

The Freeground was set up like a small park, with trees and brooks running through it, and a few buildings, mostly models of ancient Earth buildings, scattered about. There was the Parthenon, the Winter Palace, Monticello, the Qua Ti, and the Opera. Few Jaspert ever play in the park, although it’s open. It’s just one of those things that everyone knows is not done.

A girl came down the steps of the Parthenon as I stood there, and she smiled at me as she walked past.

She was the first person I’d seen since entering the Freeground. She somehow decided me; if she could come out of the Parthenon, I could go in.

The closer I got to it, the larger it looked, until, as I climbed the front steps, the columns seemed to stretch away forever on both sides. It was very impressive. The front door was a great immovable-looking mass of sculptured bronze that parted silently and slid into the walls as I approached.

The entrance hall was a large marble-walled room with incredibly high ceilings and one small round desk right in the center. A very pretty girl sat in a hole in the middle of the desk. She was not Jaspert.

“Courtesy,” I said, going up to her, “but I’ve come to see about taking the test. The Imperial University test, I mean.”

“Go through the door over there,” she said, pointing toward the far wall. One of the row of doors in it glowed red as she spoke.

I thanked her and crossed the floor casually, as though doors that glowed red on command were a normal part of my life. As I walked, it occurred to me that there was something odd about the room, but I couldn’t decide what it was. Then I noticed: I was walking across a marble floor in a large marble hall, and there was no echo. None.

The door stopped glowing as I reached it, and it slid open. In the next room, a small white room that was otherwise empty, was a man sitting in a chair. The man wore a plain black suit with just a suggestion of a red thread running through the weave. It somehow managed to look both elegant and alien to Jasper, without being visibly different from the pattern of suit I was used to seeing. The chair was an exaggerated sort of easy chair that not only provided support but seemed almost to envelop the man from head to foot.

The man, and the chair, swiveled to face the door as I came in. “Courtesy,” the man said.

“Courtesy,” I said. “My name is Adam Warrington.”

“Of course it is,” he said.

That stopped me. I took a deep breath and said, “I’d like to see Mr. Tule about the test for the Imperial University.”

“That’s right,” he said, smiling. “Mr. Tule isn’t accessible right now, but I’ll be glad to help you. My name’s Farb. Please sit.”

I was about to comment that there were no other chairs in the room when I realized that one now stood beside me. So I sat down. “Thank you,” I said. “I’d like to find out how I go about taking the test.”

He produced a sheet of plastic from the arm of his chair and handed it to me. “Stick your thumbprint on that for me,” he said. “That makes it official.”

The sheet was clear except for my name, WARRINGTON, Adam, printed in tiny letters at the top left-hand corner. There appeared to be tiny smudges set impossibly deep in the plastic—impossibly deep, because the sheet wasn’t thick enough for the smudges to be that far in. It was some sort of holographic record, I decided, trying to look as though I handled such things every day.

I was about to ask Mr. Farb whether he had any preference as to where I stuck my thumbprint when a small rectangle in the plastic glowed faintly yellow, and the words Right Thumb appeared below it. I pressed my right thumb firmly to the rectangle. “There,” I said, passing the sheet back to him. The yellow, and the thumbprint, faded from view.

“Excellent,” he said. “You may go through to the next room and begin.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Excuse me, but I just came to find out about taking the test. I’m not prepared—”

”You’re as ready as you’ll ever be,” Mr. Farb said. “This is not the sort of examination that you can study or prepare for. Go right through to the next room, please.” The door where I had come in opened again, but instead of leading back to the entrance hall, it now opened onto a long room with student desks and work boards.

“Please,” I said, “just a minute. Let’s go through this again.” I felt as though I were being pushed. I was also a bit startled to find that the door where I’d come in no longer led to where I’d come from. But I wasn’t going to let him see that. “What happens if I don’t take the test now?” I asked him.

“You will be asked to sign a form stating that you were given an opportunity to take the examination and refused it of your own free will and for motives of your own.”

“I can’t come back later and take it?”

“There is no advantage to be gained by waiting.”

I thought about it briefly, then shrugged. “Okay,” I said. “Then I might as well begin now.”

“Go into the next room,” Mr. Farb told me, “and good luck.”

I went into the next room and the door slid closed behind me. One of the work boards lit up and I went over to sit at that desk. WARRINGTON? the board asked in neat typeface in the upper left-hand corner.

Yes, I typed.

LIST GIVEN NAME AND ANY MIDDLE NAMES, the board said.

Adam Thornton, I typed.

Then the board listed a bunch of questions about my family history and health, going back about four generations. When I stalled over one question about whether my maternal grandmother had ever had Snell’s disease, the machine lit up and blinked at me with: IF YOU DON’T KNOW THE ANSWER TO A QUESTION, MERELY TYPE “DON’T KNOW” AND GO ON.

Don’t know, I typed, and went on. When I had finished the list of questions, the board said, GO INTO THE NEXT ROOM, and a section of wall turned into a door and opened. The Parthenon building seemed to be constantly rearranging itself.

The newly revealed room was stark white and full of sterile-looking machines, but empty of people. I went in, and the door closed behind me. “Courtesy, Adam Warrington,” a lady’s voice said from somewhere around me, “please take off all your clothes.”

“Excuse me?” I said, looking around. The room was still empty.

“Remove your clothes,” the lady’s voice told me. “This is the medical examination room.”

Now you must understand that on Jasper we do not remove all our clothes for anything. Boys swim in two-piece bathing suits that cover them from the shoulders to the knees. I don’t know what costume girls swim in, since mixed bathing is against custom and law on Jasper. And we were considered one of the more liberal planets in the Reformation Group. The taboo against nudity was so strongly ingrained in me that, when I got out of the bathtub every evening, I avoided looking at myself in the mirror.

“Do I have to?” I asked.

“Do you have to what?” the lady’s voice replied.

“Must I take my clothes off?”

“No one will chastise you if you don’t,” the lady said.

“But I’ll flunk the test?” I asked.

“You will not have taken the test if you refuse to disrobe,” the lady said reasonably.

“Oh.” That was no help. Well, by Jasper, if the only way to take the test, pass or fail, was to disrobe, then disrobe I would, lady or no lady. I took my jacket off and folded it on the table.

“Well?” the lady said after a while.

“Are you looking at me?” I demanded.

“Of course,” the lady said.

“Well, turn your back,” I said.

“I have no back,” the lady’s voice said. “I am a machine.”

I should have guessed, but I hadn’t. With no further discussion, I took the rest of my clothes off.

A white cylinder in the middle of the room rotated open, revealing a person-size space in the inside. “Step into the redilpopgnofarthen,” the machine with a lady’s voice said.

“You mean that white thing that just opened?” I asked.

“That is correct.”

“What is it? Why do you call it a redilpop—whatchamacallit?”

“It is a redilpopgnofarthen. It is called that because that is its name. Why do you call that device you have tossed your clothes over a ‘chair’?”

“What does it do?”

“The redilpopgnofarthen or the chair?”

“The redil—the white thing.”

“It analyzes the structure and internal processes of the human body and creates a profile of the person’s health, physical capabilities, and chemical and biological imbalances.”

“Oh,” I said, “then why don’t they call it a health analyzer?”

“The people who manufacture it, on the planet Garfingle, are the ones who named it; you must ask them.”

“Oh.”

“Now please, step into the device.”

I had been stalling, I realized, because I didn’t want to step into the device, whatever it was called. I have never been particularly fond of being poked and prodded and jabbed with needles. But, like most of us, I suppose, I’m more afraid of making a fool of myself than of being hurt. And standing there in the middle of the floor with no clothes on refusing to be examined certainly seemed foolish to me. So I did as I was told and stepped into the device.

The door—or whatever—closed behind me and, to the accompaniment of a slight humming sound, the machine filled up with what felt like plastic bags filled with soft gel. Cold plastic pushed against my body from all sides, from the neck down. A screen lit up a few inches in front of my eyes and flashed vivid colors at me in whirls and streams.

I tensed up, waiting for things to prod me or stick into me, but I couldn’t feel anything but the cold plastic. “Breathe deeply,” the mechanical lady’s voice said from all around me. Then she told me to hold my breath. Then she said, “Do not be alarmed,” and the cold plastic surrounding me heated up to something beyond body temperature and stayed there for a while. Then it cooled down again, and kept cooling until, if the gel had been water, I’m sure it would have frozen solid. Then two more plastic bags inflated around my ears, and I could hear strange beeping and humming sounds. Then all the bags deflated, or whatever, at once, and the door opened and I almost fell back into the room.

“You may replace your clothes,” the lady-machine told me.

“Thank you,” I said.

The door opened as I was buttoning my jacket—the same door I had come in by—only this time it opened onto a long corridor. “Follow the red line,” the voice told me. I was about to ask what red line when a line of glowing red light appeared, starting at the doorway and heading off around one of the turns in the newly revealed corridor.

I followed it. It ended in a sort of small square cubicle set into the wall. I entered the cubicle, and the floor dropped out from under me. After a startled second I realized that I was in a sort of doorless elevator, which was now going down at an impressive speed. After dropping five or six stories the floor stopped and I caught up with it. I decided I liked our more primitive, more sedate versions of elevators better than the Imperial model.

The red line now led across a large room to a closed door on the other side. Leaving the elevator quickly, before it decided to do its little trick again, I followed the line. The door opened when I reached it, letting me into a small room with a chair in the middle. The chair was the only object in the room, and it was mounted on a pedestal that rooted it firmly in place. It was a padded chair with two thick armrests and a high back that reached all the way up to support the back of the head. The room was painted a dark neutral color that just missed being flat black.

“Welcome,” a pleasant lady’s voice said from somewhere in the room. “You are candidate Adam Thornton Warrington?”

“That’s right,” I admitted.

“This is Test Booth Gamma, and I am your test guide,” the voice said. “My name is Danelle.”

Well. At least now it was a person. “Courtesy, Miss Danelle,” I said. “What do I do?”

“Sit in the test chair,” the voice said. “And it’s just ‘Danelle.’” She sounded amused.

I sat down in the test chair, which immediately readjusted itself to the shape of my body. I had heard about molding chairs before, but never sat in one. It’s a very strange feeling the first time. “Okay,” I said.

The door closed and the lights went out. A pretty girl’s face appeared in the darkness in front of me. It wasn’t any of the sorts of projection or backlighting that I’m familiar with. And the face didn’t seem to be projecting onto anything. It was just there, in front of me, clearly visible, although there was no other light in the room. It didn’t throw off any light either; there was no glow from it onto the walls or the chair or anything.

“All right,” the face said, “we’re ready to begin.” The voice was Danelle’s. She was looking at me as though she could see me, although she was just a disembodied head in front of me, cut off at the neck.

I experimented, leaning casually over to the left side of the chair. Her eyes followed me. I straightened back up. “What do we do now?” I asked.

“Instructions will be given to you from time to time,” she said. “You follow them to the best of your ability. I will serve as your guide and watch you and offer suggestions when it seems appropriate. You may also ask me questions whenever you like. Some I will be permitted to answer, some not.”

This sort of a test was completely outside my experience. Tests on Jasper were either yes-no or multiple choice. Essay questions were avoided to discourage improper thoughts, except in Jaspert Composition (Our language called itself Jaspert, although it was little different from the other languages of the group. If you speak Jaspert, you can understand any of the Reformish languages, and most of the broader Anglit group), where such mind-broadening topics as “The Importance of Cleanliness,” and “Jasper, Jewel of the Reformation Group” were offered for us to write a quick five pages on. Or they were “offered as topics upon which we could write a quick five pages,” as my Jaspert teacher would prefer.

But anyway, the tests I was used to were nothing like the test I was about to take. I became more interested in passing, just to show them I could. It would certainly give me status in Hapsburg Aggie. “Yes, I could have gone on to the Imperial University. I passed the test, you know. But I wanted to come here to good old H.A. My father’s alma mater, you know.” That might serve as a balance to the nasty stories Principal Lowepride was certain to consider it his duty to spread about me.

“I can ask you questions?” I asked. “It won’t count against me?”

Danelle laughed. “It depends on the questions,” she said. “A really dumb question will probably count against you. Anyway, I’m not the scorer; I’m completely on your side. Are you ready?”

“I suppose so.” I said. I had no idea whether I was ready or not.

“Okay. Take all the time you need, but don’t waste time. Good luck.” Danelle disappeared, fading out slowly like the Cheshire Cat, but not even leaving her grin behind. I was once again surrounded by total blackness.

Then a light-blue dot appeared in the air in front of me, and a deep voice said, “Open the two panels at the front of your armrests. The controls inside will, at this time, control the movement of the answerdot. Take a minute to practice.”

I felt around the armrests until I found two depressions on the outsides. By pushing up with my fingers in the depressions, I opened the fronts of the armrests. There were two toggle switches for each hand, and a series of buttons inset into each panel. The toggle switches moved the dot up and down and to the right and left. One of the buttons made the dot leave a thin line wherever it moved, and another erased the line. None of the other buttons seemed to do anything. I practiced moving the dot around and drawing squares and triangles and circles—circles were tough—and houses and stick figures, and I tried filling up the whole space in front of me with blue lines.

The test began. For the first half hour or so it was multiple choice, but of a more exotic sort than I was used to. I was asked to eliminate a shape that was unworthy of being with three other shapes, or pick a shape to join three other shapes. The shapes, which were suspended in the air in front of me, were completely three-dimensional, and they grew gradually more colorful and complex as the test progressed. I grew very adept in the manipulation of my dot as I used it to X out an unwanted shape or to circle a desired one.

Most of the time a pattern became apparent after a little staring and figuring, but sometimes the shapes were either so closely related or so clearly unrelated that no choice seemed logical. “Is it better to guess wrong or not to guess at all?” I asked the blackness at one point.

“You must answer each question in order to go on to the next,” Danelle’s voice told me. “In some cases ‘no choice’ will be one of the possible answers in front of you.”

And, as she said, after that “no choice” started showing up with fair regularity as one of the possible answers, which may have been cause and effect. That is: they may have been waiting for me to ask. That may have been one of the questions I was supposed to ask.

Then the test changed. A screen appeared in the air in front of me, with my answer dot inside it. A pattern of geometric shapes crossed the screen from left to right, and I had to maneuver the dot to avoid the shapes. While I was doing this, the deep voice asked me questions on galactic history and astrography, which I answered aloud. I got pretty good at it after a bit, but I was ashamed to realize how little I knew about the Empire that Jasper and the Reformation Group were members of. I hardly knew the names of any ex-emperors, and even though I knew the names of maybe fifty Human-inhabited planets, I couldn’t tell you what almost any of them were known for. And as for what my tester called the “non-Human intelligences,” all I could do was name a couple and tell what they looked like—sort of.

After a while I thought I had the pattern figured, but then it got faster and started coming from different directions. And every time I didn’t get the dot out of the way fast enough, a deep voice would say “hit,” and a small number in the lower right corner of the screen would get one unit larger. I had to concentrate on the dot so hard that I was missing questions, and then I overreacted by paying so much attention to the questions that the dot got picked off by every passing shape. By the time I had both things under control again, the test ended.

There was a pause now for me to rest. The chair produced a cooling drink from the right handrest, and I sipped at it. The drink was not Jaspert, but it was tart and tingly and very good.

When the test continued, it had entered a new phase. The deep-voiced tester would ask me a question about a hypothetical situation, and I would have to solve it by coming up with the best answer out of the many possible—or, at least, come as close to the best answer as I could. I could ask any clarifying questions I wanted, but sometimes I wouldn’t get an answer. For example:

“You are the commander of a Thermopylae-class battle cruiser, and an enemy alien is somewhere aboard your ship. What commands do you give?”

Or: “You are appointed Governor-General to Xeebor, a new planet that is just being colonized by people from the Bergundian Federation. The colonists are killing a native creature called the Xeebor Bear, a two-hundred-kilogram carnivore, because it breaks into their fenced fields and ruins their crops. Now a group called the ‘Friends of the Bear’ have presented you with a petition calling for the protection of the Xeebor Bear and eventual recognition of the creature as rightful owner of the planet. They claim that it is sentient under the meaning of the Imperial Planetary Settlement Act of Hiram IV—7.[1] What do you do?”

Also: “You leave a building late at night carrying several very important most-secret documents. Halfway down the block you spot several rough-looking men coming toward you who may be enemy agents. It is too late to make it back to the building before they reach you. What do you do?”

I doubt if I came up with the ideal solution for any of these problems, or for the twenty-or-so more they came up with, but it was fun figuring out the possibilities. Why, for instance, would a carnivorous animal tramp around in a fenced field, no matter how smart or dumb it was? Probably chasing some herbivorous animal. That should be checked out.

After the last question, the room went black again. Then it came alive, and I was in the control bubble of a fleet patrol boat, the small five-man boats that form a guard screen around the ships of the line in a deep-space battle fleet. Off to my right was a Sun-class battleship, the biggest in the fleet. Thousands of kilometers below me was the rounded bulk of a planet, most of its surface obscured by a heavy cloud layer. The scene was more than realistic; I would have sworn it was real if I hadn’t known better. The battleship was about five or six kilometers off, and was so clear and bright that it looked as if I could reach out and touch it.

“The planet below you,” the deep voice told me, “is Llyra, fourth planet from the sun Pendra. The Imperial Fleet is ranged in a protective net around Llyra, which is about to be attacked by the Sendrakgh. In five minutes, approximately, the fleet of the Sendrakgh will pop out of null-E space.

“You are battle-control officer of FPB-235, charged with protecting the Rigel, which is the battleship to your right. You are sitting in the battle-control chair. You have five minutes to practice using the controls. All laser weapons and missile tubes will now fire practice rounds only, so you may fire without fear of harming our own ships. You will be notified when they are activated for battle.”

“Wonderful,” I said. I pushed the various buttons and switches on my chair until I learned which ones did what, then practiced doing it. It was very simple. One set of controls swiveled the chair completely around, left or right, while another tilted it up and down. A red circle appeared straight ahead of me wherever I looked. This was the aiming circle, so whatever I saw I could shoot at. The buttons for the laser were on the left, missiles on the right. The missiles were for destroying enemy ships, while the laser beams were for enemy missiles launched by those ships. Friendly ships would appear to glow green to identify them. So I could shoot at anything that didn’t glow green.

After I’d been practicing for a few minutes, a thought occurred to me. “Say,” I said to whomever was listening, “was this a real battle?”

Danelle answered me. “That’s right,” she said. “It was fought over two hundred years ago.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“Llyra was destroyed,” she said. “Fourteen million people were wiped out by a planetbuster.”

“The Sendrakgh won?”

“No, the Sendrakgh lost. Their home planet was captured and they were dispersed. They are kept on primitive planets now, and not allowed space travel.”

The deep voice cut in. “The Sendrakgh fleet has just emerged. Your weapons systems are activated. Good luck.”

A cluster of black dots appeared about ninety degrees out from the distant white disk of Pendra. They spread out as they approached and quickly became the vast Sendrakgh battle fleet. Beams and cones of energy crossed the space between the two fleets. The heat streaks of missiles showed in my display as red-violet lines against the black of space.

Now the Sendrakgh fleet was close enough for me to see the individual ships. Their battleships were great double spheres connected by thick rods and covered with instrument and weapon blisters. They looked like giant diseased dumbbells. The small scouts and guard boats of the enemy fleet looked like sleek black insects.

The whole area became filled with a purple glow from the charged energy screens of the big ships. Every few seconds a missile—or a ship—would explode with a flare of white light that quickly went to black. When I had time to think about it I realized that the bubble screen around me automatically blanked out light when it got too bright. That was why I was able to look at the star Pendra, this planet’s sun, which appeared only as a dim disk the size of a ten-bit piece.

I was kept busy searching the sky and shooting at everything that moved that wasn’t ours. Mostly I was lasering missiles. It took a three-second beam to turn a streaking missile into an expanding cloud of bright gas.

Then, all at once, the planet below seemed to shudder slightly, and a small black cloud appeared in one quadrant.

And the sky went blank, and the light came on, and I was back in a small testing room in the Emperor’s Freeground on Jasper. I found that I was covered with sweat and completely exhausted.

“The test is over,” Danelle said from somewhere over my head. “Thank you.”

“How long did that last part go on?” I asked her.

“Just under half an hour,” she said.

It had seemed like no more than a couple of minutes, but that explained why I was so exhausted. My hands were trembling slightly, and I felt curiously lightheaded. I don’t think I’ve ever been so completely involved in anything as I’d been the last half hour.

“Go on home now,” Danelle said. “We’ll notify you tomorrow as to how you did.”

So I left the Freeground and went home. It didn’t really matter how I did, I thought, but I wanted to do well. My object—to take the test, so they’d have to let me into Hapsburg Agricultural College—was accomplished.

My father was at home when I got there, and I told him what I’d done.

He thought it over. “You should have consulted me,” he said.

“I planned to, sir,” I told him. “I just went there to get the information so we could discuss it, but when I went in they insisted that I take the test right away.”

My father shook his head. “Well, what’s done is done,” he said. “I just hope it’s for the best.”

“Well, at least they can’t stop me from going to Hapsburg Aggie now,” I said, which just shows you how wrong a person can be.

CHAPTER IV.

The next morning a messenger delivered a red envelope addressed to Candidate Adam Warrington to the house, and I opened it. Inside was a letter on stiff pink parchment-like paper with the Imperial Crest at the top, framed by the words “Office of the Imperial Representative—Jasper.”

TO: Candidate Adam Thornton Warrington Jasper

FROM: His Noble Excellency the Duke of Ley, Imperial Representative to the Reformation Group. The Emperor’s Freeground, Jasper.

Candidate Warrington:

This letter will notify you that your examination for admittance to the Imperial University has been evaluated and you have qualified.

Congratulations.

Sometime within the next two months, standard, you will be notified as to which campus of the Imperial University you have been accepted at, and when you should arrive. Your transportation will be provided by the Office of the Imperial Representative.

You will have one week from your notification to accept or reject the offer. If you have any questions, Mr. Tule of the Imperial staff will be available to answer them.

In the name of Alexander IX, Liege Sovereign of the Inner Planets, Protector of the Princes of Earth, Chairman of the Solar Hanse and Hereditary Emperor of the Confederation of Human Planets, the Imperial Representative extends his best wishes to all successful candidates.

Whether you choose to attend the Imperial University or not, may you have a life that is successful, interesting, and useful to Humanity.

I am,

H.N.E. the Duke of Ley

and by this seal, in the Emperor’s Name....

The letter was signed with a scrawl and embossed with a big, elaborate seal at the bottom.

I went into the breakfast room, where my father was just finishing his morning coffee. “Courtesy, sir,” I said, and held out the letter to him.

“So polite?” he murmured, taking the red envelope. “Well,” he said when he’d read the letter, “as the man says, congratulations.”

“I guess I won’t have any trouble getting into Hapsburg Agricultural now,” I said, hitching myself across the back of one of the chairs.

“I guess not,” Father agreed. “And you’ll be a credit to the business, I’m sure, when you graduate. Sit up straight in that chair.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, sitting up.

“I’ll go over to the school myself with this,” Father said. “I’ll speak to Principal Lowepride. We’ll arrange for your enrollment at Hapsburg.” And he tucked the letter in his vest pocket, stood up, wiped his mouth with his napkin, buttoned his jacket, nodded to me, and left the house.

When he came home that evening he was angry, very angry. I was talking to Sister Prudence in the hall when he came in the front door, slammed his hat onto the rack, said, “Haven’t you children anything better to do than sit around the house all day?” and stormed into his study before we had a chance to reply.

It had been five years since Father had called me a child. He’d called me a lot of other things in that time, but it was agreed that if I was to act like an adult, I had to be treated like one.

Father stayed in his study until dinner. During dinner he said nothing, except for his usual grumbling about the food and service. After dinner he went back to his study and, a few minutes later, called me in. “We’ve been foxed,” he told me.

“What do you mean, Father?”

“I had a long talk with Principal Lowepride,” Father said. “I’m afraid that by the end of the conversation I had used some language that I regret using. And I called the principal several terms that I don’t usually use. Not that I regret using them. Quite the contrary. But, of course, they did no good.”

I would have given quite a bit to have seen Father confronting Principal Lowepride, but I didn’t tell him that. “What happened, Father?” I asked. “Was it about my going to college?”

“Yes, Adam, I’m afraid that is just what it was about. After consulting several references and communicating with several people, Principal Lowepride was pleased to be able to tell me that you are not going to be admitted to Hapsburg Agricultural College.”

“But they have to—don’t they? I mean, I took the exam for the Imperial University.”

“Yes, but you passed. According to the relevant regulation, they only have to let you in if you fail.” Father shook his head sadly. “If that isn’t the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard of,” he said, “then I’ve never heard of anything stupid.”

I sat slowly down on the straightback leather chair. “If I—if I pass?” I said. “I mean, they don’t have to let me in if I pass?”

“That’s right. And Lowepride let me know in no uncertain terms just what he thought of your taking the Imperial University test at all. He seemed to think that that proved you were the culprit all along.”

“The miscreant,” I said.

Father looked at me for a long time, but he was clearly thinking of something else. Then he shook his head, bringing his thoughts back down to Jasper, and said, “Well, what are you going to do about it?”

“What do you mean?” I asked him. “What can I do about it?”

Again my father looked at me for a long time without saying a word. Then he said, “Adam, the Universe is a large and wonderful place, and what’s true on one planet or for one people is not necessarily true somewhere else. We have a set of truths here on Jasper that we live by, and they are perfectly adequate for our needs. But they are not the only possibilities. Other people live by rules that we would consider strange, or even possibly immoral, but they are happy with them, and who is to say that we are right and they are wrong?

“I think that you would have been perfectly content to spend your life here on Jasper, graduating from Hapsburg Agricultural College and taking your place in the family business. And I would certainly have been happy to have that happen. But circumstances have moved to prevent it.”

“I don’t have to go to college,” I told Father. “Why can’t I just take my place in Warrington and Son now? We could call it Warrington and Son and Son.”

“I would love to have you do that, Adam,” my father said. “But I don’t think you realize now just how important that college diploma is.”

“I can study on my own time,” I said.

“I’m sure you can,” Father said. “And I’m sure you would. But it’s not the college education that I’m talking about—not that that isn’t important. It’s the diploma itself. Without it you can’t vote or hold public office. And that makes you a second-class citizen. It might not matter to you now, but as you grow older it will.”

“So what can I do?” I asked, although I had a pretty good idea of what my father was suggesting.

“I think you should go,” Father said.

“To the Imperial University?”

“That’s right. I’m proud that you’ve been accepted, and I think that you should go. I don’t know if you’ll still want to come back here and spend your days working in the family store after you graduate—”

”Of course I will, Father,” I said.

“Don’t interrupt. And don’t commit yourself to anything you might regret. I want you to go. I told Principal Lowepride that I was going to urge you to go. All that I ask is that you conduct yourself in a manner that will not make your mother or me ashamed of you. Think things out before you jump in, and don’t ever do anything you think is wrong just because someone else tells you it’s the thing to do.”

“I won’t, Father. I promise.”

And so, due to a series of events only partly in my control, I wasn’t going to Hapsburg Aggie at all. Somewhere out there, circling some star I might not even be able to see from Jasper, was the planet that was going to be my home for the next four standard years.

About a month later another envelope from the Imperial Representative arrived at the house, this one containing a stiff card saying that I had been accepted at the University of Sol on the planet Mars.

I called up Mr. Tule at the Emperor’s Freeground and told him I wanted to go. He said that was good and in that case I’d leave in two weeks. He’d send me the details, and good luck.

Mars. The first planet settled when Mankind left Earth. And the University of Sol: the oldest university in the Imperial System, so old that nobody knew when it was founded. The university where the children of dukes and electors were taught to become dukes and electors. I was becoming more and more excited about going. I had a dream that night where the Emperor was standing at the foot of the ramp to welcome me as I stepped down onto the soil of Mars.

But I also found myself thinking of my mother and father, and how wonderful they were and how much I was going to miss them. I even thought about what a great sister Prudence was, and how much I was going to miss her, something I hadn’t thought before in the entire twelve years of her life. I was getting homesick already, and I hadn’t even left home yet.

Mr. Tule came by my house himself to give me a small oblong disk of clear plastic with a hole punched at one end. “This is your passport, identification card, and travel authorization,” he told me. “Don’t lose it. I suggest you wear it around your neck.” He reached into his vest pocket and pulled out a small white envelope. It held a fine gold chain. “This is from the testing staff at the Freeground,” he said. “A good-luck present.” He threaded it through the hole in the plastic disk and showed me how to work the tiny link, which screwed closed.

“Thank you,” I said, holding it. Men don’t wear necklaces on Jasper.

Seeing my hesitation, Mr. Tule smiled and stuck a finger under his own shirt collar, pulling up a gold chain similar to mine. On the end of it was a plastic disk that could have been identical. “Here’s my I-disk,” he said. “If you wear it under your clothes, no one will know.”

I put the chain around my neck and tucked the disk in my shirt. I might as well get used to doing things differently.

“Incidentally,” Mr. Tule said, “you were supposed to get an information kit, telling you what to expect at Sol and how to behave. But the kit got lost. So I’m afraid you won’t have time to study that stuff before you get there, but I’m sure they’ll give you one on Mars when you arrive.”

“Can you give me any pointers?” I asked.

Mr. Tule shook his head. “I’ve never been there,” he said. Then he shook hands with me very seriously and formally. “Good luck,” he said. “And one thing more: Don’t take much extra clothing; they’ll outfit you when you arrive.”

I spent the next two weeks wandering around Jasper visiting all my friends and all the places I liked to go. I stared at a lot of things that suddenly became very important to me, and hard to leave, like the creek with the small waterfall that I used to swim in during the hot summer, and Missey, my horse. I gave Missey to Sister Prudence, and she burst out crying and ran out of the room. I went after her and told her that she was making a lot of fuss over a ten-year-old mare whose only trick was kicking out the stall door every chance she got, and Prudence burst out crying again.

I made my mother promise that, barring fire, flood, or Jasperquake, she’d leave my stuff alone. If she wanted to pack it all up in a trunk and hide it down in the basement, that was fine, but I didn’t want her or Father deciding what to throw out and what to keep.

And then it was the day to leave. I said good-bye to Mother and Sister Prudence in the house, and Father drove me to the spaceport. I got out and took my suitcase, and we shook hands and he wished me luck and told me not to forget to write my mother at least twice a week. Then he drove off. Neither of us likes emotional good-byes, and if he’d stayed we might have had one.

The spaceport was where the shuttle that went up to the orbit station took off. The real spaceships never got closer to Jasper than the orbit station, five hundred kilometers straight up. Inside the spaceport they looked at my I-disk in a viewer and then took my suitcase away from me and gave me a ticket for a seat on the shuttle.

The shuttle looked like a giant airplane from the outside, but not from the inside. For one thing, there were no windows on the shuttle—not for the passengers, anyway—and it was all one long area; there were no separate compartments for women in back or for deacons in front. And the seats faced back instead of front; they were soft and done in red and gold fabric, instead of hard and brown. Also, there were stewards to assist the passengers.

These differences in style and decoration puzzled me until I figured out the reason: the shuttle was run by the spacelines instead of Jasper Planetary Transportation. The shield of Imperial Transgalactic, a gold spaceship against a field of stars, was woven into the fabric of the headrest on every seat.

I was in the third row of seats, which put me right at the rear of the shuttle, since the seats were numbered back to front and boarding was from the rear. The safety webbing formed an X across my body as the two halves stretched from shoulder to waist. Then a screen in front of me showed a short cartoon demonstrating how to use the safety equipment in case anything went wrong. After that, with a jounce and a wobble, the shuttle was moving across the concrete to the far end of the runway. The web across my chest tightened and I was pushed forward in my seat as the craft took off.

After about five minutes the screen in front of me lit up again, this time with a view of the ground below as it slowly fell away. I must have sighed, or gasped, or made some sort of noise at the sight, because the man in the seat next to me turned and smiled. “First time up, ha?” he asked. He was a short, balding man with a tremendous air of self-confidence, and I saw he was obviously not from Jasper, by the cut of his suit and the familiar—on Jasper, overly familiar—way he had spoken to me.

“Yes, sir,” I said. “I’ve been on airplanes before, but nothing like this.” We were so high above the clouds now that they looked as though they were resting on the ground. I could make out the full arc of the Bay of Temperance below, with all of Jasper City forming a large dot on the lower left-hand side.

“Well, you never get used to it,” he told me. “This and the view between the stars in null-E space. You just going up to the station, or are you headed on out? I’m going to Wayfare myself, and then on to the Transition Group.”

“I’m going to Sol,” I told him. “Mars.”

“No kidding. Say, isn’t that something! Always been meaning to head that way myself, but never managed it. I travel in seeds.” He pushed his hand between the webbing and extended it to me. “Name’s Peshnov.”

“Courtesy, Mr. Peshnov,” I said, shaking his hand as best I could through the webbing. “I’m Adam Warrington.”

“Courtesy. You any relation to old Thornton Warrington in Jasper City? Warrington and Son? Ha?”

“My grandfather.”

“No kidding. I’ve done business with the old man for the past forty years. And his son, must be your dad, for the past twenty-five. I get to Jasper about once every two years. Standard years, that is. None of your Jasper fifteen-month years.”

Everything on Jasper, and on most every other Human-inhabited planet, is figured in standard, Earth years. Unless you’re a farmer. Then the fact that Jasper’s year is actually four hundred and four days long becomes important, but it’s balanced a little by the fact that the day on Jasper is only twenty-two-and-a-half hours long. That makes Jasper’s year only three point seven percent longer than standard. It doesn’t sound like much, but it means that every twelve years or so Christmas swings from midwinter to midsummer.

“That’s very interesting,” I told Mr. Peshnov. “You sell seeds?”

“Buy and sell. Cross-fertilize, repollinate, hybridize, do genetic cross-matching; we create the perfect seeds for your planet’s growing conditions. Then, when different areas of a planet get settled, or the climactic conditions change, and suddenly the seed type that did fine for twenty generations isn’t doing so well, we do it all over again. It’s a fascinating business; I never get tired of it.”

For the next hour or so Mr. Peshnov told me of the wonders of being an interplanetary seed salesman, while I watched on the viewscreen as Jasper turned into a planet. Then the view switched from the rounded curve of Jasper’s evening horizon to the bright dot surrounded by black that was the space station. The dot grew in size until it became a disk, and then a wheel.

The engines cut, and we fell through space toward the silver wheel. I suddenly felt very uncomfortable and couldn’t figure out why until I noticed that I had no weight. I floated off the seat, held in only by the restraining web. For a minute I thought I was going to throw up, but then I didn’t, and after about five minutes I found that I actually liked it. It doesn’t feel as if you were falling, at least not after the first couple of minutes. I understand that there are people with inner-ear problems who always feel that way—as if they were falling—no matter how long they stay in float. I feel sorry for them, because floating is one of the most wonderful sensations I know.

As the shuttle pulled around the wheel to the docking hatch, the squat bulk of an interstellar liner came into view on the far side of the wheel. “There she is,” Mr. Peshnov said, nodding at the screen. “The I.T.P. Western Star. Take me to Wayfare and you on to Mars. Wish I could go with you. Back to Earth itself. Will someday.”

Two short bursts on the correcting thrusters, and the shuttle nosed itself perfectly into the docking clamps and the two hatches locked together. We unhooked our web restraints and left the shuttle. The stewards stood by as we left, to help those who had trouble with the weightlessness. I was clumsy but clearly having fun, so they left me alone.

Ordinarily, Mr. Peshnov told me, I might have spent two or even three days in the space station before transferring to the Western Star. Passengers stay off the ship while the cargo is being loaded and unloaded, but they’re brought up to the station starting three days before departure so as not to have too many shuttles heading for the station all at once. But we were the last shuttle-load up, and I barely had time for lunch in one of the space station’s seven self-service restaurants before passenger boarding was announced over the speakers.

A girl was checking passes at the boarding gate. She was wearing a white dress with red piping and a skirt that didn’t cover her knees. On Jasper women wear dresses that cover their ankles. As I walked up to her I self-consciously kept my eyes on her face, without looking down. She seemed to find this very funny, but she didn’t say anything. She checked my I-disk and handed me a boarding card with my name on it.

“You’re in cabin G-94,” she told me, pointing to the designation on the card. “The ship is numbered from the central core, ending with L-deck, which is the first one past the lock. The drop belt is just on the other side of the lock. Take it to G and walk to the left as you leave. There’ll be a general meeting at sixteen hundred hours in the passenger’s lounge to explain the rules and privileges of the ship: what you can’t do, what you may do, and what you must do.”

I had to strain a little to understand her Anglit accent. “Thank you,” I said.

“In the name of Western Star and Imperial Transgalactic, welcome aboard,” she said, making a palms-up gesture of welcome.

“Thank you,” I said, as she turned to the next passenger. Her skirt, I noted, was as short in back as it was in front.

Everything in the ship was gleaming metal over soft, deep-colored plastic. It created an interesting effect of friendliness and efficiency. How an empty corridor can feel friendly and efficient I don’t know, but this one did.

I stood outside my cabin for five minutes trying to open the door before a passing crewman showed me that the boarding card was also my door key. “Just till your palm print goes into the computer,” he said, and walked away before I could ask him what that meant.

My suitcase was waiting for me in my cabin, I was relieved to see. The cabin was small, but very compact, with a fold-down sink, a stand-up shower, a small privy, a smaller closet, a bed, and a desk. A footlocker at the foot of the bed served for clothes storage and as a chair for the desk. They were certainly not overly generous with room. Not that I minded, but I wondered what someone with a lot of luggage would do.

It suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t brought my watch, which was calibrated for the Jasper day and would be little use on Mars, so I had no idea what time it was—or when sixteen hundred hours would be. I knew that sixteen hundred hours was four in the afternoon, but I didn’t know whether the ship was on Standard, or some special ship’s time, or Jasper time, or what.

I was just about to go out into the corridor and find someone to ask, when a soft chime sounded from a speaker in the ceiling. “Attention, all passengers who just boarded at Jasper,” a soft male voice said. “Welcome aboard the Western Star. Please assemble in five minutes in the passenger’s lounge. Just follow the corridor arrows of F-deck. Thank you.”

So I left my cabin, making sure I had my boarding card-room key with me, and took the drop belt to F-deck. Small red arrows glowing in the corridor wall led me to the passenger lounge, which was a fair-sized room with writing desks, card tables, couches, chairs, a small food-service area, and a great window looking out on the Universe. It was only when I saw Jasper and the space station as distant objects through the window that I realized we were underway.

There were about thirty people in the room besides me, and nobody had a clearer idea of what was happening than I did. We all milled about, waiting for someone to tell us what to do. A few more people came through the door, among them Mr. Peshnov. And then a man in a white suit with blue piping stood up on a chair.

“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “Courtesy. Welcome to the Western Star. My name is Robel ep Dymstor, and I am second officer. Please, all of you, sit down.”

We wasted another minute or so figuring out how to sit down while he waited patiently. And then, when we were all seated, he continued: “There’s a voice-activated viewscreen in each of your rooms. It gives you immediate access to all the material in the ship’s library and call-up of the ship’s computing power if any of you want to work while on board. Typers and graphers and hard-copy devices are in the passenger library. There is also a gym, which we suggest you make use of, a swimming pool, an air-swimming domain, a game room, many ship’s stores, and various other facilities for the use and enjoyment of passengers. Your room screen will give you the location and hours of each of them.

“If you have any questions that your screen can’t answer, feel free to ask any officer or crewman that you see. However, don’t delay the ship’s personnel or feel slighted if they excuse themselves and rush off. Schedules on the Western Star are very strict for officers and crew, and talking to a passenger is no excuse for tardiness.

“Each door on the ship has a place for handprint identification on the left side. Before you leave the lounge, your print will be entered in the computer. Then any door you’re authorized to open will open for you. Your cabin door will open at your touch only, except in case of emergency. Any area off limits to passengers will not open for you.

“In case of emergency, obey the orders given to you by the ship’s officers or crew; they are trained to handle these situations and will be acting in your best interests.”

“How will we know if it’s an emergency?” someone asked.

“If one of the ship’s personnel gives you an order, assume it’s an emergency. If it isn’t, he’ll hear about it. If it is, he may be saving your life.

“Speaking of lifesaving, there will be one lifeboat drill a day, and nobody will be excused from it for any reason. The drill horn sounds like this”—a rising and falling wail came out of the speaker—“and you are to respond instantly when you hear it. You go to the nearest lifeboat from wherever you are. Crewmen will be stationed in the corridors to direct you.

“Incidentally, when I use the term ‘crewmen,’ I am also speaking of the ladies who happen to be members of the Western Star’s ship’s company. I know you folk from Jasper are not used to taking orders from women or seeing them in positions of authority, but the space guilds and Imperial Transgalactic Spacelines do not differentiate officers or crew on the basis of gender.

“Now as to meals: breakfast will be served from seven until ten. We run on Zeta time here, a twenty-four-hour clock based on Standard Earth time. Lunch is twelve to fourteen hundred hours. Dinner is the only formal meal. There are two seatings, one at nineteen thirty hours and the second at twenty-one hundred hours. You will be posted to one of the seatings; if you wish to change, notify your deck steward. Are there any questions?”

“I am an Esthetic Vegetarian,” a short, stout woman in a red pantsuit announced.

“Just tell your food preferences to the steward,” the second officer told her. “And any of the rest of you with special food needs tell the steward now, so that he can see that menus are planned for you. We are equipped to feed any of the sentient species that travel oxygen-atmosphere ships.”

“You mean there are aliens aboard this ship?” a man dressed in a flowing varicolored robe asked, sounding alarmed.

“No, I didn’t mean that,” the second officer said, “but as a matter of fact, there are several members of non-Human species aboard the Western Star. There is a Betal IV alpha-male traveling with an alpha-female and three beta-males. There’s a Sigmoid—it never leaves its cabin, of course. There are a group of Polypidlaq monks and a Yooserian. And, of course, we have a Greater Darwinian observer among the ship’s officers. It’s serving as junior astrogation warrant officer, I believe.”

The man in the colored robe stood up. “I am shocked, sir,” he said. “Shocked. As a member of the Humanate Congress and the Association of Greater Human Businessmen, I would like to register a complaint, in the strongest terms.”

“Very good, sir,” the second officer said. “With whom would you like to register it?”

“With the appropriate official.”

“Courtesy, sir. The Western Star travels under an Imperial charter, which regulates and specifies the conditions under which we are obliged to grant passage. Your complaint, sir, is with the Emperor.”

“Oh,” the man said, “I—”

“There is an Imperial legate on board, traveling, I believe, to Wayfare or Comstock. If you will give me your name, I will have him contact you.”

“Thank you,” the man said stiffly. “Allow me some time first to put my complaint into the proper form, and then I shall do as you suggest.”

“Of course,” Second Officer ep Dymstor said. “Are there any other questions? No? That’s all, then. Thank you for coming. As you leave the room, stop by the door and Junior Lieutenant ep Liztom will verify your handprint for the computer. You’d better do this now because the boarding pass will no longer open your cabin door. Courtesy, my friends. Have a good trip.”

Junior Lieutenant ep Liztom was the girl who had given me the boarding pass. She had changed out of the short skirt into a pair of slacks and a jacket, still white with red piping, very much like Second Officer ep Dymstor’s, except for the color of the piping. She had one band around her right sleeve, and he had four, two wide and two narrow. I thought she looked very good in the uniform. She probably looked very good in the short skirt too, but when you’re embarrassed to look at something it’s hard to see past your own embarrassment.

A line quickly formed in front of Junior Lieutenant ep Liztom. I hate standing in lines when I don’t have to, so I sat down on the couch to wait. Mr. Peshnov, the seed dealer, plumped himself down next to me. “Well, the great adventure has started, ha?” he said. “I bet you’re pretty excited. On the way to Mars. First time off Jasper. Quite a day, ha?”

“Yes, sir,” I said politely.

“If there’s any way an old, experienced traveler can guide you over the next few days, feel free to call on me,” Mr. Peshnov said. “I expect you’ll be surprised, shocked, and astounded quite a bit over the next little while. Nothing to be ashamed of. There’s quite a variance of style and behavior in the Human Race these days, not to speak of the aliens. A lot of things I wouldn’t do if you offered me the Imperium are being done every day by perfectly respectable people. And the most Human-looking alien—not that any of them are too Human-looking, if you ask me—probably has habits that would shock a horse. Don’t see many aliens on Jasper, ha? Forbidden, aren’t they?”

“No,” I said, rising to the defense of Jasper for some reason, “not at all.”

“Ever see one?”

“No.”

“Well, then, they’re not exactly encouraged, let us say.”

I couldn’t argue with that. “What was the man in the robe talking about?” I asked. “All that about greater humans and the like?”

“He doesn’t like aliens,” Mr. Peshnov said. “There are a lot like him around. It used to be a lot of people felt like that kind of inside, you know, only they were ashamed to say anything about it. But it seems to have become a popular viewpoint over the last few years. The Humanate Congress is a sort of political party that’s spreading through the Empire. They have seats in the parliaments of many local planetary governments, and I think they recently elected an Elector to the House of Commons of the Solar Hanse. Their whole policy is isolation from any non-Human people. The funny thing is, they don’t seem to go over big on any of the mixed planets, only on the mostly Human ones.”

I didn’t even know there were any mixed planets. “It sounds kind of silly,” I said.

“To you,” Mr. Peshnov said. “Not to them. That Association of Greater Human Businessmen—I’ve dealt with them. ‘Humans first’ is their motto. They don’t want me to sell my ultra wheat to the Yooserians, or my hybrid pintop maize on Polypidlaq. And they won’t buy rasherfruit or tintail because it didn’t originate on Earth. What can you say to that, ha? I say nothing. I sell to who will buy.”

“We’re not that bad on Jasper,” I said.

“No,” Mr. Peshnov agreed. “You don’t like anybody from off-planet. Human or alien; all in equity. Not you personally, you understand, you of Jasper. You personally seem to show a surprisingly non-Jaspert open mind.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say to that, but I was spared the need. Mr. Peshnov noticed that the line had dwindled, and he excused himself and joined the end. I waited a minute, staring out the viewpoint at Jasper as it dwindled in space. Since the day side of Jasper was below, getting smaller, we must be heading toward Deuteronomy, I realized in a flash of brilliant deduction. Deuteronomy is our sun. Jasper is Deuteronomy III. Jennings and Job, Deuteronomies II and IV, are also settled; both are colonies of Jasper. Nothing much interesting happens on them.

“It is beautiful, isn’t it?”

I turned. Junior Lieutenant ep Liztom and I were now alone in the lounge. “I never get used to it,” she said, “and I’ve been spacing for six years now.”

She looked hardly old enough to have been doing anything for six years. “Courtesy, ma’am,” I said. “I’ve never seen my planet from space before.”

“They all look different,” she said. “Proxima, Tantalis, Eddrey’s Planet, Sandsmarch, Finnigate with its blood-red moon, Jasper, Wayfare, Betal IV, the Great Perseii Station, Mars, Earth, the Thousand Planets; you could never mistake one for another, but they’re all equally beautiful from space. None of us ever tires of it.”

“It is quite a sight, ma’am,” I agreed.

“Don’t call me ma’am,” she said.

“Then what should I call you?”

“Either Junior Lieutenant ep Liztom, or just Lieutenant, or just Nancy. But not ma’am. Please.”

“Your name is Nancy?” I don’t know why that surprised me.

“My name is Junior Lieutenant Sarah-John Maydeath Nancy Tenn f ’Ivan ep Liztom. I’m a fourth-generation space brat.”

“I’m Adam Warrington,” I told her.

“I know,” she said. “Come give me your hand.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your hand. We have to get your handprint registered with the computer—that is, if you ever want to get into your cabin again.”

“Oh.” I crossed the lounge over to her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to delay you.”

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “Somebody has to be last. Besides, I have a message for you.”

“For me?”

“Yes. The captain requests the pleasure of your presence at the captain’s table at dinner tonight. Second seating. You’ll find a note to that effect on your message service when you get back to your cabin.”

“Oh,” I said. “That’s nice. Thank you.”

“Nice!” she laughed. “Do you know how many of the passengers would give their right arms up to the waist to sit at the captain’s table? That’s the greatest bit of egoboo there is on one of these liners, to be invited to eat at the captain’s table.”

“Egoboo?”

“Right. Slang. It means, roughly, a boost to the ego, a raise in status. Everyone on the passenger side of one of these trips is more concerned about status than anything.” She took my hand and pressed it against an opaque read-screen. “Warrington,” she said clearly at the screen, “Adam.”

“Confirmed,” the ship’s computer said, storing the pattern of my palm and fingerprints in an appropriate slot.

“Why would the captain want me to sit at his table?” I asked. “I mean, if it’s such a big thing?”

“You don’t know?” she asked. “Or are you merely being humble?”

I laughed this time. “I wish my father could hear you calling me ‘humble,’” I said. “No, I don’t know. I have no idea.”

“You are going to Mars?” she asked.

“That’s right.”

“You are a student at the University of Sol?”

“Well, I will be. That is, I haven’t got there yet.”

“And you didn’t know that that makes you a celebrity?”

“No. And I still don’t. Why does that make me a celebrity?”

“Beans! You sure put on a good humble act, for somebody who’s not humble. Sol is just the hardest school to get into in the entire Confederated Imperium, that’s all. I’ll bet you don’t even know about your I-disk, is that right?”

“What about my I-disk?”

“Here,” she said, flipping open the top of the handprint screen. “Stick it in this slot, it’s a reader. I’ll show you.”

I pulled at the gold chain around my neck and brought the I-disk up from under my shirt. “Here,” I said, taking it off and handing it to Junior Lieutenant Sarah-John Maydeath Nancy Tenn f ’Ivan ep Liztom. “Show me.”

Nancy put it in the slot and the reader screen lit up. It had my name across the top, and my picture from the shoulders up and a thumbprint sharing the rest of the screen. I wondered when they’d taken my picture. I didn’t remember its being taken.

Nancy touched a button, and the reader went one level deeper into the I-disk. This leaf said that I was attending the University of Sol on Mars; that I was born on August the third in the twelfth year of the reign of Alexander IX; that my blood type was A neg, sig, kappa, 334, mono, sig; that I had no dangerous allergies; that none of my organs were artificial; and that my rating was alpha-alpha-alpha.

“That’s as deep as I go,” Nancy said, sliding the disk out and handing it back to me.

I put it back around my neck. “What is that alpha business?” I asked, pushing the I-disk back under my shirt.

“Alpha-alpha-alpha,” Nancy said. “That means you have unlimited credit, unlimited travel, and unlimited access.”

“Wow,” I said. “Access to what?”

“Information. You ask a computer a question, and you won’t get ‘I’m sorry, but that information is closed.’ Not often, anyway.”

“Now I am impressed,” I said, remembering all the times I’d been shut off by the terminal at home. “And say—unlimited credit. You mean money?”

“That’s right. You really didn’t know?”

“The outside Universe is not very popular back on Jasper,” I told her. “It’s kind of hard to get information.”

“Not anymore,” she said.

“That credit business—you mean I could buy anything I wanted with just my I-disk?”

“That’s right. But remember, that’s credit, not money. I mean you’d have to pay for it sometime. The disk just tells people that you can be trusted for it.”

“Now why would they do that?” I asked, sort of just talking aloud, not expecting an answer.

“I suppose it’s to see if you can handle it,” Nancy said. “Graduates of Sol get the most important jobs in the galaxy, so they want to find out early if you are up to the responsibility.”

“You think fast, Lieutenant,” I said. “That sure sounds right to me. So having a high credit rating makes me a celebrity?”

“Beans!” she said. “You still haven’t got it? Look: how many people are there?”

“Where? And why do you keep saying ‘beans’?”

“We’re not allowed to curse. ‘Beans’ is as close as we get—on duty, anyway. It’s short for Beans’ Simplified Algorithmic Handbook for Computing Planetary Orbits and Approaches. All space officers have to learn how to use it—and it’s the closest thing we have to a curse word.”

“I thought the ship’s computer did all that stuff.”

“Of course it does. But if a meteoroid punches a hole through the computer’s cpu just as we’re entering a system, we have to be able to.”

“Oh.”

“How many people are there—all together?”

“I don’t know. Let’s see. There are...how many?...fourteen hundred peopled planets, more or less. They range from planets with no more than a couple of thousand up to Earth, which has about twenty billion.”

“Not counting Earth,” Nancy told me, “the average is about two hundred million per settled planet.”

“Okay,” I said. “At two hundred million per, times fourteen hundred, that makes”—I closed my eyes for a second and let my subconscious do the math—it’s better at math than I am—“two-point-eight times ten to the eleventh. About two hundred eighty billion people. And with Earth, that makes about three hundred billion. That’s a lot of people.”

“A lot,” Nancy agreed. “And now figure that ninety percent of them would cheerfully let all their teeth be pulled out if they or their children could go to the University of Sol. And the only way to get in, unless you’re born to it, is by competitive examination. And you made it. That makes you a novelty, anyway.”

“Swell,” I said.

“Think about it,” she said. “I must go now. See you at dinner.”

CHAPTER V.

When I thought about being a celebrity, all I felt was silly. So I decided not to think about it. I certainly wouldn’t be any sort of celebrity once we got to Mars; I’d just be another freshman. But it would be fun to eat at the captain’s table. As far as I was concerned, the captain of a null-E ship was the closest thing to a celebrity that I could ever hope to meet. It was considered one of the most responsible jobs in the Empire. The captain was in complete charge of forty thousand tons of ship and four thousand crew and passengers as they journeyed through the collapsed light-years of null-E space. He had complete life-and-death power over the crew and passengers in case of any mutiny or insurrection, and his decisions could only be countermanded by the Lords of Space, none of whom were usually on board.

I found all this out from the ship’s computer when I returned to my cabin. I also learned that the Western Star was going to Sol Terminus by way of Wayfare, Comstock, the Great Perseii Station, Dandry, and Betal Moonstone. From Sol Terminus I would go by inter-system liner to Mars, while Western Star would continue on her route from Sol to Sandip, Kol, the Andromeda Free Port, Nancel, and out to the Fringe stations. And these people, who were going to places whose names I had never heard of until the computer rolled them off, thought I was a celebrity. Well, it all goes to show that no one ever thinks that what he’s doing is nearly as interesting as what someone else is doing.

The ship’s computer also told me that I was supposed to dress for dinner.

“I was not planning to go unclothed,” I told the device.

The computer snorted. I don’t think they should make devices that snort or laugh or make other disrespectful sounds at Humans. “Dressing for dinner, young man, entails more than putting on a clean shirt and that dreadful Jaspert black suit,” it said.

There is something very disconcerting about having a wall speaker tell you how to dress. But the ship’s computer knew more about this than I did. “My wardrobe is extremely limited,” I told the device. “What would you suggest I wear?”

The screen lit up, with a sketch of a costume that on Jasper you see only in the history books—and even then the colors are much more somber. This one was gold and scarlet: gold leggings tucked into scarlet knee breeches, a ruffled white shirt with a scarlet cravat, an embroidered gold jacket, and a gold-and-scarlet cape. “Very conservative, very good taste,” the computer told me.

“I own nothing like that,” I said, “and I wouldn’t wear it if I did.” I was half convinced that this was a practical joke. Computers on Jasper were incapable of joking, but who knew what this star-crossing bubble-brain was capable of.

“As you wish,” the device said smugly.

“Maybe tomorrow,” I said.

“You are not sitting at the captain’s table tomorrow,” the device told me. “Tomorrow it will not matter what you wear.”

“It won’t?” I said.

“Of course not. First night for celebrities. Second night for important people. Other less important people other nights. Last night of any leg guests are invited at the captain’s choosing, regardless of rank or importance.”

“I see,” I said. So I was only a celebrity, not an important person. A fine distinction, and one that I approved of. I hoped that someday I would graduate to the status of important person. “How would I go about getting proper garb for sitting at the captain’s table? Or is it too late?”

“You may acquire the proper attire from the Gentlemen’s Clothiers and Roughwear Outfitters Shop on Level One. No, it is not too late.”

“Well!” I said. “So the ship’s stores are really stores on board the ship. I thought they meant storage rooms or something like that.”

“Storage areas aboard ship are called ‘bins,’ or ‘tanks,’ or ‘lockers,’ or ‘closets,’ or ‘cabinets,’ or—”

”Enough!” I yelled at the wall speaker, and, wonder of wonders, it stopped in mid-sentence.

I went down to Level I and found the G C & R O Shop. I still wasn’t convinced that I was going to wear the strange-looking garb the computer had sketched for me, or anything like it. Besides, they probably didn’t have anything in my size.

I stood outside the shop for some time, watching the hologram in the window switch from pose to pose and costume to costume. There were several that were a lot like the one the ship’s computer had sketched, and they were all labeled “Formal Wear.”

Finally I made up my mind and went in. The proprietor of the shop was tall and thin and kept wringing his hands together. He was dressed in orange pantaloons that ballooned out on both sides, a horizontally striped blue-and-white puffy shirt, and an orange-and-gold vest. He had long black hair, which was tied behind his head with a short gold string. “Ah!” he said as I came in. “A young Jasperian venturing abroad into the Galaxy. And what may I do for you, young master?”

“I have been invited to eat at the captain’s table this evening,” I told him. “I require appropriate garb.”

“You certainly do,” he said. He tilted his head sideways and examined me up and down like a bird eyeing a worm. “Something,” he said, “to emphasize those broad shoulders, that manly chest. Something to draw attention away from those big feet, those protruding ears. Something to exaggerate the adventurousness of youth and minimize the awkward gawkiness. Yes, I think I can do that.”

“Thank you,” I said, “I think.”

“I am an artist,” he told me. “My canvas is the human body. You will see.” He took a stylus and a thin light panel and started sketching rapidly, glancing back and forth between me and the panel. After a few minutes he put the stylus down with a flourish. “Mercrimi!” he said. “Pwissimi! It is finished. Observe.”

I looked over his shoulder at the light panel, and saw a stick figure with numbered geometric designs plastered over it. It didn’t look much like a person and nothing at all like clothing. “Very nice,” I said doubtfully.

“You are polite,” he said. “A good and useful trait. But it is not at the figure board that I wish you to observe. You are not trained to read the creative code. Here, I show you.” He pushed a button on the side of the board, and a full holo display lit up on one wall of the shop. “You see, I inform the fashion computer of what I have designed, and it displays the creation on a mannequin for you.”

The holo was a three-dimensional version of what the ship’s computer had sketched for me, but more elegant. This one was in bright green and deep black, with large cuffs and slashed pockets outlined in rolls of fabric. The hologram figure danced slowly in space, so I could see how the suit moved. The holo figure, I thought, was much better looking than I was—the sort of square-jawed, waistless hero type who could get away with wearing such outlandish (to my Jaspert mind) garb.

“That’s very pretty,” I said, “but it’s a bit much for me. Remember, we’re a lot more somber on Jasper. It’s going to be a while before I can wear anything like that in public without feeling that everyone is laughing at me.”

“I assure you that nobody will laugh if you wear this creation. On the contrary, your present outfit will provide much amusement.”

“That may be so,” I said, “but I want something more, ah, somber. Something in brown, perhaps. I like brown.”

“Brown?” he said, staring at me and wringing his hands together. “Quite a challenge, brown. Perhaps I could do something. Let me think. Yes, perhaps so.” He took up his stylus and board and went to work again. “Earth colors,” he said. “Simple lines. What an idea. Yes.” He pushed the display button and waved his hand at the holo. “Observe! Mercrimi!”

The new display was more like the suit I was wearing, but even more simply cut. The pants were still converted into knee breeches, but this time they tucked into black boots that came up to the knees. I’ve always been fond of boots. The cape—a cape seemed to be essential—was brown with a deep-red lining, and the jacket and breeches were the same brown outlined with red stitching. I wouldn’t have been seen on the street with it on Jasper, but I had to admit that I actually liked it. And I wasn’t on Jasper.

“I think I like it,” I said.

“I think you do too,” the proprietor told me. “I, Clemensal Brobagnak, never fail twice to please a customer. Step into the sizing booth.”

“How do I pay for this?” I asked him, stepping into the indicated booth. “I have almost no money.”

“What?” For the first time he seemed taken aback. “You come in here with no money? For why do you do this?”

“They told me something—that is, I was told that my credit was good. How does that work?”

“Let me see your I-disk,” Clemensal Brobagnak said suspiciously.

I took it off and handed it to him, and he put it in a reader. “You jest with me, sir,” he said, handing it back to me. “Your credit is good here, of course. Your credit is good anywhere in the fourteen hundred and twenty-six planets of the Imperial Confederation, and on all the ships that travel the space between them.”

An orange light filled the little booth for an instant and then was gone. “You may step out now, sir,” Brobagnak said. “Your new garments will be delivered to your cabin in about a quarter of an hour.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“It has been my pleasure to serve you,” he told me. “If you visit Earth, Brobagnak Cie. and Frat., the firm of my relatives, will be pleased to serve you.” And he bowed me out the door to his shop.

The clothes arrived back at my cabin shortly after I did, and they fit me like my epidermis. It took me a while to figure out what went where, and how to close the places that were supposed to be closed. There were no snaps or buttons and no rough patches that mated, but when you put two edges together that were supposed to stay closed, they stayed closed. Then it took me a while to figure out how to take off the clothes. I finally discovered that if you twisted the seams in opposite directions while pressing together, they would open at that spot and then slide open along their length. It’s very easy to do once you’ve done it a couple of times, and almost impossible to do by accident.

Now I was all set to go to dinner.

By the time the chimes sounded for the second seating, I was really ready to eat. I didn’t care where I was sitting, just bring on the food. I followed the signs that glowed softly in the corridors to show the way to the main dining room on J-deck.

The main dining room was large—much larger than I had expected. There must have been a hundred tables in the room, some for only two people, some seating as many as twenty. Figuring a quick rough average of ten people a table, the dining room sat about a thousand people. And the diners weren’t all people. For the first time in my life I was in the same room as members of an alien intelligent life form—several, as a matter of fact.

The only one I recognized for sure was the Yooserian, a three-meter-tall brown pole with a large round head at the top, a bunch of four short legs at the bottom, and a bunch of four short arms somewhere around the middle. The eighteen giant blue grasshoppers in brown robes crouched around a large table were probably the Polypidlaq monks. A small ball of red fur was squatting on a table waving its two thin, spindly arms about as it engaged in earnest conversation with a scantily clad very Human young lady sitting across from it. And what looked like a large bear with a long neck and fangs ten centimeters long was sitting at a table by itself.

The captain’s table was a long table, seating about twenty, on one side of the room. At each seat was a little card with a name on it. I was placed at one end between a very portly man in a red-and-silver costume, with heavy, ornate rings on almost every finger, and an elderly lady dressed in pure white robes and a white turban. She wore a deep-blue jewel the size of a hen’s egg on her bosom, but was otherwise unadorned.

The seat I would like to have had was at the other end of the table, next to a humanoid alien who looked like a friendly two-meter-tall house cat dressed in pink coveralls. Several of the places, including the captain’s in the center, were still empty when I arrived at the table, but the stewards started serving dinner anyway. We were all brought a thick soup, except the lady with the jewel to my left, who got a salad, and the alien, who was addressed as “Madam,” and must also have been a lady, who got what looked like a plate of crunchy breadsticks. The lady used chopsticks, and the alien lady used pointed prongs that slipped over the three stubby fingers on each hand.

A junior officer in the white uniform, but with blue braid instead of red, came over to the table. “The captain regrets her absence,” he said, “but we are about to transit to null-E space, and it is traditional for the captain to be on the bridge during transit. She should be with us in time for the main course.” Then he sat down at one of the vacant seats.

A tall man in a bright-red cape came to his place at the table, looked down at the other end, and said loudly, “I will not eat at the same table as any alien.” Then he strode off and found an empty seat across the room.

“That was Lord Higar,” the red-and-silver man on my right told me in a hushed whisper. “He is chairman of the League for Human Rights.”

“Why are you whispering?” the lady on my left asked in a high, precise voice. “It is no secret. Lord Higar is proud of his part in founding that despicable fanatical group. Although why they call themselves the League for Human Rights has never been made clear to me, since they aren’t for anything, but are merely against the rights of every other species.”

“If we don’t keep Humanity on top,” the man said, no longer whispering, “then we must surely and inexorably sink to the bottom! Even you must see that, Dame Proud.”

“Bah!” Dame Proud said. “Slogans in place of thought. Human history is full of little people peering around corners and under beds and finding imaginary bogeymen to frighten everyone with and make themselves bigger. What are we to be kept on top of? And what must we sink to the bottom of? Bah!”

“We have a right to consider ourselves first,” the man said. “Forces are at work in the Galaxy—there to see if you’re not too blind to look—that do not have the best interests of Humanity in mind.”

“True enough,” Dame Proud said, banging her chopsticks down on the table. “And most of them are Human. This race we are a part of has the widest spectrum of any I know. More geniuses and more idiots. More artists and more clods. More saints and more—Lord Higars. I think the only way in which we humans don’t show the greatest diversity is sexually, and even there we give it a good try. No, I really don’t know why we spend so much time and so much effort in looking for external bogeymen; they exist so clearly and frequently within the serried ranks of Humanity. We are our own worst enemy.”

I was beginning to feel as if I were the net at a tennis match. “Courtesy,” I said, “and excuse me, but I don’t understand. Who is Lord Higar, and what is the League for Human Rights?”

“Courtesy, young sir,” the man said. “Allow me to introduce myself. Citizen Pieter Sensa-Togert, at your service. Surely you jest, asserting that you don’t know of Lord Higar or the League. Why, everyone in the Hanse must know...”

Dame Proud laughed a light, silvery laugh. “You are mistaking the costume for the man, Sensa-Togert,” she said. “This youth dresses like a young Hanse lord, but his speech betrays him. Surely he is a Jasperian or Jasperite, or whatever they call themselves.” She looked at me, her clear hazel eyes seeming to see deep inside my brain. “Courtesy, lad,” she said. “I am Susanna Proud, Dame of the Hanse. Which ending is proper for a citizen of Jasper?”

“Courtesy,” I said. “My name is Adam Warrington and I am a Jasperian. We also say ‘I am Jaspert,’ if you like that better.”

“Gracious,” she said, laughing again. “By choice, I shall never say either. But thank you for the information.”

“Even you of Jasper must surely know of the League,” Sensa-Togert said, “and of the great period of crisis we Humans are now entering and the great dangers that confront us?”

“I’m afraid that, on Jasper, we are not encouraged to know of anything that goes on in the great Galaxy outside our own planet,” I told him. “We know something of the politics of the Reformation Group, of which we are a part, but little else.”

“Why, the Parliament of the Stars is to be convened next year, and we Humans hold but the barest majority. And there are those in positions of authority—not to say power—in Human affairs who would give away positions we need for our own growth and defense. That is what Lord Higar is trying to prevent, and he deserves the support of all loyal Humans throughout the Solar Hanse, indeed throughout the entire Confederation!” Sensa-Togert had a small mustache, which twitched as he spoke, making him look like a plump, worried rabbit.

“The position that Citizen Sensa-Togert is explaining,” Dame Proud said, “is held by only a very small, if extremely vocal, minority within the Hanse. It has always fascinated me how those who are the most wrong-headed always yell the most loudly and stridently, and how many people are always fooled by the noise.”

“I am not yelling, Dame Proud,” Sensa-Togert said stiffly.

“No, Lord Higar is doing your yelling for you, insulting that perfectly sweet Lysertling matron. How unmannerly of him.”

The main course was slid in front of us by red-coated stewards, and Sensa-Togert turned to his food, clearly glad of a chance to break off the conversation. We were served halves of some bird covered in a rich sauce except for the Lysertling, who got a whole bird and no sauce, and Dame Proud, who got a ceramic pot of mixed vegetables and grain.

“What is the Parliament of Stars?” I asked, in between bites of sauce-covered bird.

“The Parliament of Stars meets for five hundred days once every two hundred and fourteen years,” Dame Proud told me. “All recognized governments of all inhabited systems send delegates. All intelligent species are represented. At the Parliament the rules of governing the intercourse between the systems and between the Human and non-Human peoples are formulated to stay in effect until the next Parliament.”

“I remember reading about that,” I said. “But I thought it was ancient history.”

“Well, the last one was two hundred and thirteen years ago,” Dame Proud said, smiling, “and you might call that ancient history, although there are those of us who are old enough to remember it. The upcoming one will be the fifth, so that means they have been held for over a thousand years, standard.”

“Yes,” Sensa-Togert said, looking up from his food, “since the first atrocity.”

“Citizen Sensa-Togert is referring to the destruction of Hope by Greater Vand,” Dame Proud said.

“I’ve heard of that, too,” I said. “Hope was a Human planet....”

“And there is no record of what the Vand were,” Dame Proud said. “They may even have been Human too.”

“Not likely,” Sensa-Togert said, holding a bird leg like a midget club and glaring at Dame Proud.

“Nobody knows,” Dame Proud said. “After they destroyed Hope, Greater Vand emigrated to an unknown location. The whole planet just picked up and moved.”

“To escape a just retribution,” Sensa-Togert said.

“As may be,” said Dame Proud. “At any rate, the first Parliament of Stars was held shortly after that. Since then, all intelligent peoples of all races have tried to achieve what harmony they can in order to, at the very least, avoid killing each other.”

“Yes, and what has happened?” Sensa-Togert said. “The Catarrhy wars and the destruction of Llyra.”

“Two tragedies,” Dame Proud agreed. “And I could cite others. What of the Lippener Border Dispute, or the War of the Sandusky Cessation?”

“But that was Human against Human,” Sensa-Togert said.

“Exactly,” Dame Proud said. “We Humans have never needed any outside help in killing each other. But since the destruction of Hope by Greater Vand and the Emigration of Vand, we have at least tried to prevent the destruction of whole planets and whole peoples, of whatever race. Who is to know what the Great Plan intends for any of us?”

“The Great Plan!” Sensa-Togert said, snorting. “I should have guessed. Pacifism and vegetarianism and The Great Plan. You’re a Causalist!”

“You say that as though it were a dirty word,” Dame Proud said. “As a matter of fact, my vegetarianism is purely functional; animal protein makes me ill.”

There was a sudden lurch, as though the ship had been kicked sideways. Then I realized it was a loss of orientation in my own mind. Nothing had moved on the table, and the water glasses didn’t even jiggle. “We have entered null-E space,” Dame Proud said calmly. “This ship and all in it have just, in a mathematical sense, become imaginary.”

“Imaginary?” I asked, not sure I liked the sound of that.

“In order to compute where we are in null-E space, and where we will emerge, or transit back, into normal space, astrogators must use a class of mathematics involving what are called ‘imaginary numbers.’ And it is more than just a mathematical conceit. One could say that when we enter null-E space we cease to exist in a very real physical sense.” Dame Proud nodded thoughtfully and chewed on her dinner. “Furthermore, the physics of null-E space indicate that there is a finite probability that a ship transiting back to normal space might be removed from its intended point of emergence both in space and in time. We might come out of null-E parsecs away from our target, and thousands of years in the past.”

“Really?” I asked. “I’ve never heard that before.”

“Just a slight chance,” Dame Proud said.

“It never happens,” Sensa-Togert said firmly. “Never.”

“You’d know, of course,” Dame Proud said.

“I would have heard. I would know if such things happen.”

“A ship that was thrust into the past would just disappear as far as any outside observer was concerned,” Dame Proud said. “And ships do disappear.”

“Seldom,” Sensa-Togert said. “Very seldom.”

“What about the Quatti?” Dame Proud asked.

“That proves nothing,” Sensa-Togert said. “Or, rather, nobody can say what it does prove.”

“The Quatti?” I asked.

“A people that were found about ten years ago on a newly discovered planet,” Dame Proud told me. “They are humanoid to so many points of similarity that there seems no doubt that they are Human. And they leave a myth of having come to the planet on a big ship thousands of years ago.”

“Many civilizations have had such a myth,” Sensa-Togert said.

“Correct,” Dame Proud agreed. “And perhaps that should be looked into.”

Sensa-Togert shook his head in disgust and went back to his dinner.

Just then the captain came in and took her place at the center of the table. She was a tall, slender lady of middle years, with an air of competence and authority that marked her rank more surely than the golden sunbursts she wore on her collar. “Good evening, honored guests,” she said in a calm, soft voice. “I am Captain Lady Tara ep Tzinn. I’m sorry I couldn’t be with you at the start of the meal, but tradition placed me on the bridge at that time. We are the servants of tradition, we of the space service.” She sat down and turned to her lieutenant. “But there are two places empty. Mqdrekkor the Divornian and Lord Higar are both absent. Did my tardiness offend them?”

“Mqdrekkor has not appeared for dinner, Captain ep Tzinn, and Lord Higar chose not to grace us with his presence.” The lieutenant nodded his head toward where Lord Higar was eating his solitary meal. “The Noble Lord was offended by the presence of Madam M’Yar.”

“Oh, I see,” the captain said. She turned to the Lysertling. “I hope that Lord Higar’s attitude did not, in its turn, offend you, madam.”

The Lysertling shook her fuzzy head violently back and forth. “Not,” she said. “No. Not. Most notly.” She put one three-fingered hand delicately to her face. “He smell bad.”

“Ah! Then reciprocity is, as ever, observed. He would not have you and you would not have him. Enjoy your dinner, madam.”

“Most reply suitable,” the cat woman said, nodding firmly.

“Good,” the captain said, and turned to her own plate.

When we had finished the bird, the plates were cleared away and hot, moist squares of towel were handed to each of us to cleanse our hands. Then three different sorts of teas were served with a variety of small pastries. “You have not been in space before, Citizen Warrington?” Dame Proud asked. I knew that this was her version of polite conversation, since it must have been ultimately clear to her that I had never even been off Jasper before.

“No, ma’am,” I told her. “This is my first space voyage.”

“I trust it will be merely the first of many,” she said. “There is much to learn in the Galaxy, and knowledge is the only true riches. Continual learning is the only way to keep your mind young. The cosmeticians can keep the body young for hundreds of years, but what good is that if you have an atrophied mind?”

“You travel a lot, Dame Proud?”

“I have that fortune,” she said. “My profession keeps me on the move.”

“What do you do?” I asked her.

She touched the jewel on her robe. “I am an observer,” she said. The deep blue of the jewel seemed to lighten slightly and sparkle from inside as she touched it.

“An observer,” I repeated. “Is that like a reporter? Do you work for the news networks?”

“I have, on occasion, worked for the news networks,” she said, “but an observer is more than a reporter. Evidence presented by a member of the Guild of Observers is accepted as factual in any court of law or equity. We are recognized as being completely impartial and truthful.”

“You sounded pretty partisan to me,” Sensa-Togert said, stuffing another pastry into his mouth.

“We are required to be accurate only as to fact, my dear Citizen Sensa-Togert. No one should be prevented from having—or voicing—an opinion. But if you hire me to witness any transaction, you know that nothing can cause me to alter or shade the facts.”

“I know, I know,” Sensa-Togert said. “Don’t be so sensitive.”

“I am not in the least sensitive,” Dame Proud said.

The captain did not speak with anyone while she finished her dinner, but when she was done she spent a few moments talking with each of her guests. I found that I was at the table with some very interesting people. A tall man at the far end was a master cosmetician-synthesizer, who could create whole new artificial limbs and reshape any part of the body to new specifications. His companion, a woman who looked to be in her early twenties, was a concert librettist who was going back to Earth to celebrate her two hundredth birthday.

A man sitting across from the captain was the finalist in an Imperium-wide play contest who was going to Earth to arrange for his play to be put on for the judging committee. The captain asked him what the play was about, and he told her it was a dark drama of a Human-alien-Human triangle that took place seven kilometers deep in a vanadium mine in the first act and with its characters marooned on a comet in the second. “It’s full of subtle nuances and secondary motivation,” he told her. She seemed impressed.

An archdeacon from Jasper was at the table also. He was on his way to the missionary college on Wayfare. Next to him was a scientist who spent most of his time on a research ship floating stationary in the deep space between the stars. He was on his way to Mars to have a piece of scientific apparatus repaired by the Physics Lab Repair Shop at the University of Sol.

The other people, including Madam M’Yar, the cat-lady from Lysert, were connected in one way or another with the coming Parliament of Stars, which was to take place on Earth’s Moon, in a special city being built just for the delegates. Citizen Sensa-Togert turned out to be a caterer, who supplied specialty foods from far planets to the exclusive restaurants of the Hanse. He was going to see if he could get the contract for the restaurants of Parliament City.

When the captain talked to me, everyone at the table turned to look at me. For a moment I was very nervous, but Captain ep Tzinn immediately put me at ease. I think it was because when she spoke to you, you felt that she really cared. She was delighted that I was going to the University of Sol, and told me that she had graduated from there herself many years before. “Don’t even ask how many,” she said with a laugh. “But the University is timeless, and I’m sure it’s the same today as it was the day I left.”

The captain asked me whether I’d like to visit the bridge, and I told her that there was nothing I’d like better. “I’ll send Junior Lieutenant ep Liztom for you,” she promised, and she rose from her seat to indicate the end of dinner.

But for the next three days nothing happened. Not that I was bored—the ship was gigantic, much larger than I’d realized, and most of it was open to passengers. The central core had no pseudogravity, and a large part of it had been turned into a giant air-swimming area. There were sheets of rubberized fabric called “bounce sheets” stretched periodically around the hall and, by bouncing off them at the proper angles, you could go through complicated high-speed maneuvers, like a living billiard ball.

There was a two-hour course of instruction before you were allowed to go air-swimming—mostly practice in how to use the flippers and how to make turns, and giving stern warnings about keeping out of everyone else’s way. Working with a partner was great fun, if you had a partner, but one of the two of you had better be an expert or you both were going to end up with broken bones. Or so we were warned.

I found the attitude strange after growing up on Jasper. On the ship they taught you how to do something if you wished, warned you of its dangers, and then left you alone to do as you chose. On Jasper if something was dangerous they would simply forbid it.

The third time I went air-swimming, Junior Lieutenant Nancy ep Liztom was there doing a complicated air-ballet routine. She seemed really pleased to see me. “Come on in,” she called as I put my flippers on. “The air’s fine!”

“I’m not very good at this stuff,” I told her, adjusting the straps on my feet. “If man were meant to fly, he would have been born with flippers on.”

“I practically was,” Nancy said. “I was born in a free-fall tank on board the Major Barbara. Weightless birth was in for a while back then, but nobody’s doing it anymore. It was supposed to make the baby mature faster.”

“Did it?”

“Only if you consider the ability to do triple flips a sign of maturity. Come on out here, and I’ll take you through a couple of the simpler moves.”

I bounced myself off the wall and out to where Nancy was, but when I reached her I couldn’t stop until she grabbed me with one hand and the edge of a bounce sheet with the other. “First lesson,” she said, “is always know where you’re going to end up—and which end is going to be up when you do. And be very careful with those flippers; that gossamer fabric tears very easily.”

I looked down at the meter-wide span of fabric at the end of each foot flipper. “Why is it so thin?” I asked. “Won’t thicker fabric hold the air?”

“Sure, but if some booby plows into you, we want the ends to break off instead of clubbing or jabbing you.”

“Right,” I said. “Of course. Good thinking.”

“Say, you’re pretty good,” she said after I’d tried the same simple turn three times and then finally got it almost right. “You ought to consider a career in space; you have a natural affinity for it.”

“You,” I said, “are making fun of me, and that’s not nice.”

“I’m not,” she insisted. “You should see the way most lubbers do out here. They never learn, and never can.”

“Well, thanks for the compliment, anyway. And, speaking of that, whatever happened to my invitation to visit the bridge?”

“I don’t know,” Nancy said, looking troubled. “We’re on amber alert right now, and no passengers are allowed in any operational areas while an alert is on. When it’s over, I’m supposed to invite you up.”

“What is an amber alert?” I asked.

“It’s the first stage of alert. It means there’s a chance something may happen that’s detrimental to the welfare of the ship, so we all have to be extra careful.”

“What may happen?”

“Nobody knows but the captain, and she didn’t say.”

“Can’t you ask her?”

Nancy looked at me “You don’t ever ask the captain why she orders something. If she wants you to know, she’ll tell you.”

“Oh.”

“And listen. Please don’t tell any of the other passengers what I said. I mean, about the alert. Passengers aren’t supposed to know.”

“Why not? Maybe we could help.”

“Well...passengers behave very unpredictably unless they have something specific to do. That’s why we have lifeboat drill every day, so that it has become a habit if you ever need it.”

“Okay,” I agreed. “I won’t mention it. But when it’s over, I really would like to see the bridge.”

“I won’t forget,” Nancy said.

That day we came out of null-E space in a wide arc around a distant star. We slowed down enough to match speed with a snatch boat that had come out to take off the passengers for Wayfare. Then we sped up again, and by late evening, ship’s time, we reentered null-E space. I was lying on my bunk in my cabin when I felt the psychic jolt of reentry, and I suddenly remembered that Mr. Peshnov the seed salesman was leaving at Wayfare, and that I had forgotten to say good-bye to him.

CHAPTER VI.

For some reason I couldn’t sleep that night, so I went to the passengers’ lounge. Nobody else was there—it was already very late—and I settled myself in one of the soft, high-back chairs and stared out the large window, which was all that separated me from the Universe.

In null-E space the stars all look strange. First of all, fewer of them are visible, although trying to count them all would still take quite a while. Then the color differences are more pronounced. The stars shine in every color the human eye can see, and probably in a few that it can’t. They are the same stars as in regular space, but different parts of their spectra are visible. None of the light photons that usually make the stars visible can reach the ship, since in null-E space the ship is effectively traveling a lot faster than light. Other particles emitted from the stars do reach the ship, and they behave like photons when they strike the screens—or the window, which is a special boron-silicon-yttrium glass over half a meter thick to keep out dangerous radiation.

In null-E space you can see great coronas and sweeping bands of coruscating color, like star-spanning rainbows, sweeping and whirling, growing and changing, appearing and disappearing as you watch. In a matter of minutes the shape of space through your window will distort and change, never the same twice and never still. It was the most glorious show I had ever seen, and one that I will never tire of, no matter how many times I see it.

I sat and watched the ever-changing display of the Universe through the window into space for perhaps an hour or more. Then I dozed off in my chair and fell into a deep sleep. I dreamed I was flying through space, soaring between the stars, a great gaseous creature who could put his hand through planets and stare close-up at the insides of stars.

I don’t know why I woke up. Perhaps I heard something, but more probably I shifted position in my chair and my head fell off the backrest. At any rate, I did wake up, and it was very late. I decided that I’d spend the rest of the night securely in bed. So, yawning and stretching, I got up to go back to my cabin.

But when I got there, my cabin door wouldn’t open. I pressed my hand firmly against the identity plate and ordered the door to open, and nothing happened. I tried again, with the same result. I tried controlling my voice and saying “open” in different tones. I tried wiping my hand clean on my trousers before pressing it against the plate. I tried using my left hand. Nothing I could think of would open the door. I checked at the stairwell to see if I was in the right corridor, on the right level, and as far as I could tell, I was. The only thing left to do was to get access to the ship’s computer and find out why it wasn’t letting me back into my own cabin.

Then all the corridor lights went off.

I was now convinced that there was something wrong, but still couldn’t think of anything better to do than head back to the passengers’ lounge and use one of the computer terminals there. I walked slowly, my left hand gently touching the wall, toward the stairwell. I am not ordinarily afraid of the dark, but I am not ordinarily locked out of my cabin in an interstellar spaceship either. I thought I heard voices ahead of me. Then I was sure: two people, at least, whispering quietly.

“Hello!” I called. “Who’s there?”

There was a scuffling noise, and the whispering stopped. I got the impression, don’t ask me how, that one of the whisperers was now silently headed toward me. That idea didn’t appeal to me. Who could they be? What were they doing in the corridor in the middle of the night? All sorts of half-formed notions crowded into my head involving pirates, masked murderers, secret smuggling agreements, and all the other plots from the adventure stories my father had never liked me to watch. But mostly I thought I should get away from these people until I found out what was happening.

Just then my hand found the corner of the stairwell. The drop belt was right beyond, but I didn’t feel like trying it with the lights off. I quickly entered the stairwell and started downstairs, going as fast as I could in the dark without making any noise. Something else strange was happening, and I didn’t know what it was. It was getting harder to walk, and my muscles were responding strangely. I held on to the railing, using it as a guide and a support.

I reached the level below, where the passengers’ lounge was, and started out into the corridor, when I heard a faint snik! in front of me. I paused, listening, straining my ears and trying to suppress my already overactive imagination. The snik! was repeated, closer than before.

I turned back to the stairs, heading down. I felt curiously light-headed, and my feet were having a hard time gaining traction on the carpeted steps. I was down another full flight before I realized what it was that was happening: the pseudogravity was slowly being turned off. I went into the corridor and jumped, pushing myself off the floor very lightly. I not only touched the ceiling overhead, but I was able to flatten my entire body against it before I started slowly drifting back down.

There was a noise from the stairs—someone was following me down. I headed off down the corridor, half running, half air-swimming, pushing off from the walls or ceiling as often as from the floor, keeping my hands feeling the way in front. Now that my eyes had become adjusted to the dark, I could see a thin strip of fluorescence running along the upper margin of the left-hand wall, and I followed that as best I could.

A pair of legs scissored around mine, flipping me over, and a slender arm went around my neck, neatly locking my right arm in the process. I tried to fight, instinctively, despite my surprise, but I had no leverage and no place to go.

“Don’t move,” a familiar voice whispered, “and don’t make a sound, or I’ll break your neck!”

“Nancy!” I whispered hoarsely. “Lieutenant ep Liz-tom!”

The hold on my neck was cautiously loosened, and I sensed a small head peering around over my shoulder. “Adam Warrington!” she said. “What in the Imperium are you doing here?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “The lights went out, and someone was chasing me. Or I thought someone was chasing me. How can you tell who it is in the dark? And let go of me. Please.”

“I have infrared goggles on,” Nancy said. “From up close I can make out enough detail to tell who it is.” She let go of me, and I started massaging my neck and shoulder.

“Boy, you’ve got some grip on you, for a lady.”

“Don’t you forget it,” she said. “And whisper!”

“What’s going on?” I whispered.

“I’m not sure,” Nancy said. “We think pirates are trying to take over the ship. Somebody sure is. They attacked the bridge without warning. Killed the wheelman, the second officer, and an astrogation warrant.”

“Then they have control of the ship?”

“No. The bridge is now sealed off and turned off. The ship is being conned from the battle bridge. But there are some of these pirates still loose in the ship. The computer estimates twenty to thirty.”

“Pirates?” I asked. I always pictured pirates as swinging aboard sailing ships with wicked curved swords in their teeth.

“There are planets that support themselves by hijacking null-E ships,” Nancy said. “But Lady Tara says she thinks these people are political.”

“Lady Tara?”

“Captain ep Tzinn.”

“Oh. That’s right. What are you doing here?”

“Guarding this corridor. Why are you out?”

“I couldn’t sleep. I went to the passengers’ lounge. Then my door wouldn’t open when I tried to return to my cabin.”

“Right. Computer has sealed all the doors. And there’s no safe place I can send you in the dark. You’ll just have to wait here with me.”

“Maybe I can help you,” I said.

“Don’t be silly,” she said sharply.

That did it. I completed the transition from scared to angry in record time. “I’m not completely useless,” I said. It came out sharper than I intended. And louder.

“Keep your voice down,” Nancy said. “Better yet, don’t talk. I didn’t mean to insult you or hurt your pride. It’s just that this is my job, and I’m trained for it. That’s why we turned the pseudo-G off, to give the ship’s company the edge.”

“That makes sense,” I whispered “I’ll just stand—or float—here quietly.”

We remained silent for a while. Nancy kept her hand on my shoulder, which I found reassuring. I kept hearing, or imagining I heard, noises in the distance. But nobody came down our corridor.

“Are you armed?” I whispered to Nancy.

“No. We keep the number of internal weapons on the ship very low. If I’m not armed, no one can get a weapon by taking it away from me. And I have the advantage in unarmed weightless combat, because I practice it every day.”

“Are they armed?” I asked.

“The group that took the bridge had a handgun. I have no idea how they brought it aboard. They may still have it, but they’re locked in the bridge. The rest of them have tanglewebs, but nothing else as far as we can tell.”

“Tanglewebs?”

“Little round pellets they either throw or shoot through a slingshot. If one hits you it bursts, sending a sticky web all over you and making it very hard to move. If one hits you in the face you might suffocate.”

“Cute,” I said.

“They probably can’t throw them very well in no gravity,” Nancy said.

There was a noise at the end of the corridor, where the stairs were. We waited silently, but the sound wasn’t repeated. “What is on this level?” I asked. “I mean, what are you guarding?”

“A duplicate passageway to the battle bridge,” she said. “Kind of a back way. They probably don’t know it’s here.”

The passage lights suddenly came on full, then dropped to about a quarter brightness, which was still too much for a pair of eyes used to total black.

“Well,” I said, “it must be finished. Maybe the door to my cabin will open now.”

Nancy lifted her feet and floated a half meter off the floor. “No,” she said.

“No?”

“No gravity. The first thing we’d do if the ship’s emergency were over is gradually restore the pseudo-G. You’d feel it by now. Think of all those passengers asleep in their bunks who are actually floating a few centimeters over their bunks. Think of the ones who are awake and can’t get out of their cabins—and can’t keep their feet on the floor.”

“You mean—it’s them?”

“Somebody has found one of the emergency light switches, but still hasn’t figured out how to gain access to the computer. And one of the emergency light panels is in the battle bridge.” She turned and kicked off down the corridor, bounced off one wall, and came to a slamming stop at a cabin door. Fitting a ring she was wearing into a notch in the side of the palm-plate, she opened the door and went inside.

I followed more slowly, pulling myself from doorway to doorway so I wouldn’t overshoot and have to work my way back. When I got to the door I could see that it wasn’t a cabin, but a disguised corridor that went down at an angle into the innards of the ship. Nancy was already well on her way down. I bounced and kicked my way after her, working up a set of bruises that I felt for weeks afterward.

At the end of the corridor was an armored door that looked like the outside of a space hatch. Nancy had it slightly open by the time I reached her. I was right; it was a space hatch, and just inside was an airlock. “This is called the battle bridge,” she told me, pulling the massive door the rest of the way on its track. “It’s supposed to be completely independent of the main ship’s life support in case of attack.” Sweat stood out across her face as she pulled.

“Let me help you,” I said, and tried to add my strength to the pulling effort. The door massed over two tons, and was usually opened by machinery. The problem was, there was no place to hold on to when you pulled, and without gravity there was no weight to supply friction against the floor. But finally we had it open, and Nancy—Junior Lieutenant ep Liztom—went into the airlock.

“Let me come with you,” I said. “Maybe I can help.”

She thought about it for a second. “Come on in,” she said. “But stay behind me and keep out of the way.”

“Okay,” I agreed.

Closing the outer door to the lock was easier than opening it. We had to pull again, but this time we had the wheel for the inner lock to hang on to. In a minute or so we had it closed and sealed. A small panel glowed red, showing that the automatic interlock was activated, unlocking the inner door, since there was no pressure differential between the room inside and the lock.

“I’d like it better if the lights were still out,” Nancy whispered. “I’m going to open this door as quietly as possible, so don’t make any noise.”

I stayed stock-still while Nancy pushed the inner door open. It opened steadily and silently onto the battle bridge. All we could see was a row of red panels in front of us, but in the room on the other side of the panels we could hear a man yelling orders and a lot of bouncing around.

I started to go around the panels, but when I saw Nancy floating silently to their top, I followed. From on top of the panels, which were about two meters tall, we had a clear view of the rest of the battle bridge. It was an eight-sided room, with great screens taking up four of the sides. The command chair was in the center, raised up, and four control chairs faced each of the large screens. The screens showed the universe around the ship in various views and at different magnifications.

The rear four sides of the room held instrument complexes, mounted on desk consoles or racked in panels like the ones we were on top of. The main entrance was a large space lock high on the wall behind us and to the right. Steps came down from the lock to the floor.

In the center of the room, standing—or rather, floating—at the command chair, was Lord Higar, dressed in black. Four of Lord Higar’s henchmen were at the control chairs, while the six Western Star crew members in the room, including Captain Lady Tara ep Tzinn, stood together to one side of the room with their hands on top of their heads.

In Lord Higar’s hand was a wicked-looking slug-throwing handgun, and he was waving it at Captain ep Tzinn. “If you don’t quickly order your men to help us,” he yelled, “I’m going to have to shoot someone to show you I mean business!”

“I have no doubt that you mean business, Lord Higar,” Captain ep Tzinn said, her words glacially calm. “You would have to be a complete fool to do this merely as a prank.”

“Well, then, which of these controls is for the pseudogravity? None of us can read the markings.”

“You should have taken linguistic differences into account before you began this insane venture,” Captain ep Tzinn said. “You can’t expect me or any of my people to aid you in an act of piracy.” She seemed to be staring past Lord Higar right to where Nancy and I were lying.

Nancy raised her hand from the wrist and then dropped it again, and Captain ep Tzinn gave a barely perceptible nod.

Taking her goggles off and dropping them behind the panel, where they hung suspended in the air, Nancy rolled over to face me. She took a soft-tip pen from the pocket in the arm of her jacket and wrote on the panel top between us, “When I move you go to main lock and undog it.”

I looked over to the main lock and could see the large U-shaped dog that was keeping it locked, and I nodded at Nancy. I wasn’t exactly sure what she meant, but I thought it would become clear as I saw what happened.

Lord Higar was trying to control his temper. He was clearly not used to being thwarted, even in piracy. “We do what we do for a good and sufficient reason,” he said, “and if we must do it without you, why, then, so be it.” And he leveled his handgun at Captain ep Tzinn’s breast.

“You cannot control or astrogate this ship at random,” Captain ep Tzinn said, staring him in the eye. “If you kill us you will be doomed to travel null-E space to the farthest corners of the universe, unless you first contaminate the life-support system or blow up the ship in your ignorance. There will be no salvation, there will be no escape.”

“First I will kill you,” Lord Higar said, “and then the next in command, and then the next, and so on down the line until I find someone who would rather astrogate for us than die.”

“The chain of murders will be for nothing. There is no such person in this crew. For the last time, give yourself up.”

“You don’t seem to understand who’s in command here—”

As Lord Higar spoke, Nancy launched herself into space, pushing off from the wall-ceiling intersection in a tight spin aimed at Lord Higar’s back.

One of Lord Higar’s men spotted her hurtling through the air, and yelled a warning. Higar turned and tried to level his weapon at the spinning ball that was Nancy, but before he could, she extended, arms high toward the ceiling, feet smashing out into Higar’s face.

Everyone started moving then. I headed flat-out across the room to the lock. There was the sharp sound of the handgun firing twice. I reached the lock, harder than I’d intended, and had all the air knocked out of me by smashing up against it. Something twisted in my shoulder, and my right arm didn’t want to work. I rotated the locking dog with my left hand and pushed the door release. The door immediately swung open and armed ship’s officers pushed in one after the other until about twenty of them were through the lock.

There was a little scuffling until all the pirates in the room were secured, but with the loss of their leader they quickly gave up. And Lord Higar had proved no match for Junior Lieutenant Nancy ep Liztom in weightless combat.

The rest of the ship was methodically searched, and twenty-six more plotters were taken into custody by the ship’s crew. But I took no part in any of that; I was down in the ship’s hospital having a broken collarbone set and treated.

CHAPTER VII.

Four people had been killed in Lord Higar’s assault on the Western Star: three crewmen in the bridge and one of Lord Higar’s men, who was shot by Higar’s own handgun when he tried to hit Nancy. Three crewmen, two of Higar’s men, and one passenger—me—were injured.

The next day at eleven hundred hours, deep-space burial services were read, and the four dead were puffed into space on jets of air that would carry them away from the ship.

“And so these voyagers begin the endless journey,” Captain ep Tzinn read from the ages-old service of the Space Guild as each body left the ship. “They go where time has no meaning, where space has no limits. They join the company of all those who have died in space, and of all those who shall die in space, to meet in the eternal, limitless Valhalla that is the space between the stars.” She closed the book.

“Let it be written in the Great Scroll of the Guild that Second Officer Robel ep Dymstor and Qualified Spaceman Billup Stermatt died in the performance of their duties, and let their people be notified. Warrant Officer”—and here she made a series of sounds I cannot spell or pronounce—“an observer from Greater Darwin, died in the performance of its duty. Let its name be entered in honor in the Great Scroll, as it was in the service of the Western Star that it gave its life, and let its people be so notified.

“As for the other dead man, another will have to speak for him.”

And Captain Lady Tara ep Tzinn turned and walked out of the room.

At thirteen hundred, Deep Space Court was convened in the passengers’ dining room. The tables were removed and rows of chairs were set out facing the front of the room for the passengers and crew who wished to watch the proceedings. At a small table at front center sat Captain ep Tzinn, who was the judge. To her left, at a slightly longer table, sat the ship’s purser, the first officer, and Dame Proud. To her right, on a double row of chairs, sat the thirty accused. The machine shop had manufactured shackles for them, and they were all shackled together, each one’s right foot to the next man’s left, with Lord Higar first in line. The witness chair had been placed between the two tables. On the middle seat of the front row of observers sat a ship’s officer with a holo camera to take an official record of the court proceedings.

“Are we ready?” Captain ep Tzinn asked. “Good. Then let this court be open. We are inquiring into the events that took place aboard the Western Star on the night of April sixteenth, in this twenty-ninth year of the reign of Alexander the Ninth, leading up to and including the deaths of three ship’s officers and one passenger. Let the names of the dead be entered into the official minutes.”

The officer with the holo camera whispered something into his whisker mike and then nodded to Captain ep Tzinn.

The trial started with a series of witnesses to establish all the dull, procedural things that had to be established: the course of the ship, the probable location of the ship at the start of last night’s events, the true names of all passengers concerned as entered on the ship’s manifest, the ship’s doctor’s certification of the fact of death of three crew members and one passenger.

I sat in a corner watching, getting used to my neck brace, and waiting to be called as a witness. I found even the dull stuff to be fascinating, as slowly a chain of fact was woven around last night’s events, pinning them down and making them real.

At one point, after the doctor left the witness chair, Lord Higar stood up and asked, “Am I to be allowed to speak?” in a haughty voice, as if the answer were of little concern to him.

“Of course,” Captain ep Tzinn told him. “And you will be heard.”

“This court has no jurisdiction,” Lord Higar said.

“The Western Star is in null-E space,” Captain ep Tzinn replied. “If the captain or other senior officer of a rated ship in null-E space decides that an offense or an event is serious enough, the officer can convene a court. I am, and it is.”

“No one on this ship has jurisdiction over a lord of the Solar Hanse,” Lord Higar said.

Captain ep Tzinn nodded to the purser. “You are serving as law officer,” she told him. “What do you say?”

The purser opened a thick book which lay on the table in front of him and riffled the pages until he came to what he wanted. “Deep Space Act,” he read, “Hiram the Fourth, Year Three, and ratifying the appropriate Order of Confederation.” He ran his finger down the page until he came to what he wanted. “As a ship in null-Einsteinian space, by the known laws of nature, cannot communicate with the outside universe and cannot emerge except at precisely planned nodes, such a ship must be regarded as a world unto itself for the duration of such a voyage. The legal master of the ship is responsible for the health and safety of the crew and passengers and the safe transport of the cargo, and must be the sole arbiter of fact and justice, with power of summary punishment, confinement, and, if necessary, death over any sentient beings aboard.

“Any later review of such actions taken under this act may reprimand the master only if it can clearly show that the actions were unfounded, capricious, or vindictive.

“No person is immune to the authority of the ship’s master by reason of hereditary position, elective office, status, or title.”

He closed the book. “I think that covers it.”

“I believe,” Lord Higar said, “that the Solar Hanse, and, indeed, the Confederation, frowns upon a ship’s master imposing the death sentence. Is that correct?”

“That is correct,” Captain ep Tzinn said, staring coldly at Lord Higar. “It is seldom done.”

“And I have a procedural point,” Lord Higar said. “The court recorder is working for the, ah, prosecution. How can I be assured that a fair record is kept of these proceedings?”

“I have asked Dame Proud of the Observer’s Guild to sit in,” Captain ep Tzinn said, nodding at Dame Proud, who nodded back. “She has graciously agreed. Of course she will receive her usual Guild scale. Does that suit you?”

“You are recording?” Lord Higar asked Dame Proud.

“I am.”

“Then I guess I have to be satisfied. You may proceed with this farce,” Lord Higar said, sitting back down.

Now we got down to the incidents of the attempted takeover. A spaceman testified that he was tricked into opening the door to the bridge by Lord Higar, and that Lord Higar and his men rushed in, killed three crewmen on watch, and took over the bridge. Other testimony then established that Lord Higar left the bridge in charge of five of his men who were space-trained (on private yachts) and went off to secure the rest of the ship.

The first officer told how he isolated the bridge and cut it out of circuit, so control was transferred to the battle bridge, where Captain ep Tzinn reestablished command of the ship and cut off the lights and pseudogravity. But Lord Higar stormed the battle bridge before the crew could arm themselves to capture him, and isolated himself in there. The members of his scheme who could run a spaceship were locked off in the main bridge, so he tried to coerce his prisoners in the battle bridge to run the ship for him.

Then my turn came, and I testified to what I’d heard Lord Higar say while I was hiding on top of the panel.

Through all this Lord Higar remained calm and unruffled, acting as his own attorney and as attorney for all those accused with him. He seldom interrupted and seemed almost unconcerned with what was being said on the witness chair.

Then it was all over, all the evidence had been introduced, and the captain went off with the first officer and the purser to discuss their findings. Lord Higar turned to talk to his men while they were gone, and whatever he said seemed to cheer them up greatly, even to the point of laughing at a couple of his commerits. The audience was told that they could leave and would be recalled when the court was called back to order, but only a few people left. Most of them stayed in their seats as though frozen in place, awaiting the outcome.

After a few minutes of waiting, a general discussion of the trial and the crime broke out in the audience. I found the talk very interesting. Some of the people brought up things that had little relation to what had actually happened, as though they were of utmost importance, and some others seemed to have witnessed an entirely different set of events from those I had just lived through. One woman thought it was criminal that that uppity lady captain dared to try a member of the Hanse nobility. Another thought it disgraceful that the word of an alien was being taken over that of real Human beings—although no alien had given evidence. A large, red-faced man insisted that the rules of the Space Warfare Convention of Alexander III, 7, should apply. When I asked him who was at war with whom, he told me to have respect for my elders.

Less than half an hour later Captain ep Tzinn and her two aides returned with a verdict. The first officer and the purser took their seats, and Captain ep Tzinn stood behind her desk. “We find as follows,” she said. “Qualified Spaceman Jonas ep Alain….”

The spaceman, who had given evidence, stood at his name.

“...you are guilty of neglect and bad judgment in that, during an amber alert, you allowed a passenger to talk his way past you onto the bridge. It is my decision that, upon reaching your home port, you are to be grounded at the pleasure of the Guild, but for at least a year.”

The spaceman sat down. He didn’t look very happy.

“Junior Lieutenant Sarah-John Maydeath Nancy Tenn f ’Ivan ep Liztom,” the captain called.

Nancy stood up.

“You have acted in the best traditions of the service. A comment to that effect shall be appended to your record.”

Nancy sat down.

“Citizen Adam Warrington.”

I stood up. I had no idea what this was about, and found that my heart was pounding as badly as right before I launched myself at the airlock.

“You have been of material aid to the crew members of the Western Star in the performance of their duty,” the captain said to me. “The Guild Hall and the Lords of Space will be so notified. And you have my thanks.”

I sat down. I had no idea what that meant, but it sounded nice. And to be thanked personally by Captain ep Tzinn was reward enough in itself.

“Will the following persons please stand?” the captain said, and read a list of names starting with Lord Higar. All the prisoners stood.

“We find you all, separately and collectively, guilty of these crimes,” the captain said. “Assault, criminal trespass, piracy under the meaning of the act, interfering with the operations of an Imperial Transgalactic Spaceliner while in null-E space, kidnapping, and murder. Have you, any of you, anything to say before I pass sentence?”

Lord Higar stood up. “We do not admit to the competence of this court to judge us,” he said.

“That’s as it may be,” she said. “Nonetheless, I do judge you, in the name of this court.” She sat down. “You are guilty, all of you, of murder. It is the most heinous act imaginable, the taking of a sentient life: heinous because of its absolute finality; once taken, a life cannot be given back. You are also judged guilty of two other offenses that are considered capital crimes: piracy and kidnapping.

“But I shall not sentence you to death. I can no more return your life than you can return the lives of those four people you killed, and I am reluctant to take away that which I cannot return.”

Lord Higar leaned back and said something to the man behind him, who snickered.

“You imagine that, as I do not kill you, you will soon be free, because this voyage cannot last forever and I must soon turn you over to some planetary authority,” Captain ep Tzinn said, “and because your money and influence will soon combine to have you released.

“Well, I have thought about that, and that would be wrong.” Captain ep Tzinn stood up again. “I hereby sentence you to eternal banishment from the Hanse, the Confederation, and all the planets of Humanity. This judgment is to be carried out immediately, as soon as the astrogator can find a proper planet to release you on.”

Lord Higar jumped to his feet. “What! You can’t—”

”I can,” the captain said. “I have. You will be released, with all your personal gear and your hold baggage and enough supplies to sustain you for a time, upon a planet suitable for human habitation that contains no sentient race. The location of this planet shall be known only to me and the astrogation officer, and a sealed document with the coordinates shall be placed in the vault of the Space Guild, not to be opened for two hundred years, at which time a search party might come out to see what became of you.

“If any of you are so inclined, I suggest keeping a diary; it should be fascinating reading for those who find it.” Captain ep Tzinn looked around. “Is there any other business to put before this court? No? Then I declare this court closed.” And she turned and strode from the room.

Lord Higar stood where he was. His mouth worked, but no words came out. Then the security guards took him and the rest of his men away.

Two days later we pulled out of null-E space above a beautiful blue planet that circled a yellow-white star. Two small moons chased each other across the planet’s sky. A chain of islands ran across the planet’s equator, and one big continent spread across the southern hemisphere.

The winged shuttle was loaded with the involuntary settlers and all the equipment it could hold and set out on the long glide path to a water landing by a natural bay on the east coast of the southern continent. Eighteen hours later it returned to the Western Star, and we headed back out into deep space. Six hours after that we reached a node and flipped back into null-E space.

A week and a half later we reached Sol Terminus, and it was time for me to leave the Western Star. I was invited to the captain’s table on the last night, and Lady Tara—she asked me to call her Lady Tara—told us stories of space and what it meant to sail the ocean between the stars. She talked of a cold planet circling a distant star where the people look like silver beetles and build crystal lattices high into the thin air. She talked of Humans so long isolated from their race that they could no longer produce fertile offspring when they interbred with the rest of mankind. She spoke of the warm friendship and trust that grows in the cold of null-E space. And then she shook hands with me and wished me spacer’s luck. And she turned to the far end of the table and said, “Number One, the toast!”

And the first officer at the far end of the table lifted his glass and said, “Air, Water, Space, and Land.”

“Air, Water, Space, and Land,” the three other officers at the table repeated, while we lubbers sat silent.

“Junior!” Lady Tara said.

And Nancy, as the junior officer present, stood and drained her glass, and then put it upside down on the table. “Air we breathe,” she said, “water we drink, space we cross, and land we never.”

And the dinner was over.

From a distance Sol Terminus looked like a giant set of children’s blocks spilled out haphazardly into space twenty million kilometers past Mars’s orbit. Here and there over the surface, null-E passenger and cargo ships as big as the Western Star were resting like flies on a cow’s back. As we approached Sol Terminus it loomed ever larger until, when we had docked, it stretched off in all directions, the featureless metal plain of a mechanical planet.

The Western Star didn’t actually touch down on Sol Terminus, but rather the port extended a flexible quarter-kilometer-long umbilical for passengers. The cargo pods were offloaded by great telescoping arms that extended to grab a pod and remove it from the ship.

Nancy came off the ship with me and saw me over to the check-in for the intersystem liner. Sol Intersystem Transit Monopoly took my bag and told me I had four hours to wait for the next departure for Mars, so Nancy and I went over to the Solview Lounge to say good-bye to each other.

One whole wall of the Solview Lounge was window—about three stories high and a hundred meters wide, the largest window into space I had ever seen. A sheet of four-centimeter krys glass twelve hundred meters square was all that separated the room from the vacuum, radiation, and utter cold of space.

Nancy and I sat at a table right next to the window, which made me extremely nervous for the first few minutes. Looking out the window from right next to it made you feel as if you were falling off the edge, and it was a long way to fall. Out the window on the far left you could see the port facility, where the Western Star was still being serviced. Way off in space on the left you could see the vast array of mirrors that gathered the Sun’s energy for the use of Sol Terminus. On the right was a strange-looking space dock, a network of lacy beams and wires that twinkled with a myriad of tiny light sources in alternate circles of blue and gold, like some gigantic target.

“Do you have any idea what that is?” I asked Nancy, gesturing toward the scintillating space target off to the right.

“Sure,” she said. “It’s the clubhouse for the most exclusive club in the universe, the Windjammers.”

“Windjammers?”

“Tiny ships with giant sails of gossamer-trymar that ride the solar wind. The ships are balls with a four-meter diameter, pulled by sails four to six kilometers across. To join the club you have to have sailed a windjammer from Earth to Sol Terminus and back.”

“Alone?”

“Solo,” she agreed.

“I wonder how it feels.”

“I asked a windjammer once what it felt like to be alone in space for months at a time,” Nancy said, “and he quoted one of the first astronauts of ancient Earth. ‘Ninety percent of the time you’re bored to death,’ he said, ‘and ten percent of the time you’re scared to death.’”

I thought about that for a while. “I think I’d prefer the scared to the bored,” I said. “Of course, I imagine you could get a lot of books read.”

A long, skinny metal pipe extended up from the side of the table about thirty centimeters, and a round metallic eye on top looked at each of us in turn. “Courtesy,” a tinny voice said. “Welcome to Sol Terminus, O strangers from far lands and distant stars. I, who am screwed in to the base of this table, envy you your visual experiences. How may I serve you, O honored guests?”

“What are you?” I asked, while Nancy giggled softly.

“I am the waitbus robot, at your service. Would you like to see a menu?”

“Waitbus?”

“I wait on the tables. I bus the tables.”

“And you’re screwed in to the base of this table?”

“True. The eye that is I at this table is so screwed. The eye of I is also screwed into each of the other tables in this copious room, and three other dining rooms in this great complex. The brain of I, or the I that is my brain is in the unitized kitchen, in immediate proximity to the small food freezer. Which is why I get headaches. Would you like anything else?”

“We haven’t had anything yet.”

“Would you like to see a menu? Here is a menu.” Two thin plastic-looking cards appeared on the table, one in front of Nancy and one in front of me. When I reached out for mine, I found that it wasn’t really there; my hand went right through it without disturbing either the card or my hand. “Very showy,” I said.

“The Thousand Planets is famous for manufacturing high-quality robots and projection devices,” Nancy told me. “High-vacuum precision-controlled picodot circuitry devices.”

“What is, or are, the Thousand Planets?” I asked her.

“Between Mars, which is Sol Four, and Jupiter, which is Sol Five, there is a band of space occupied by asteroids, rocky planetoids from the size of a grain of sand to tens of kilometers in diameter. They are the rocky remains of a never-quite-formed planet, and there are millions of them. Over the years—over the centuries—many of them have become inhabited by various small groups that wanted to get away and be by themselves.”

“Away from where?” I asked.

“Earth,” Nancy said, “the most overcrowded planet in the Confederation. These groups are too small to be independent of Earth completely, but they sure have what they want, which is privacy. They are called the Thousand Planets, although nobody really knows how many of them there are, and they do things their own way out there. Sol Terminus is right on the rim of the asteroid belt, although it isn’t properly one of the Thousand Planets, since it’s run from Earth and for the inner planets as a business by the Sol Intersystem Transit Monopoly.”

“Have you decided?” the food robot asked, turning its bulging eye from side to side.

“Um,” I said, quickly reading over the menu. “Bring me a Mars Metropolitan Sandwich.”

“I’ll take a flight salad,” Nancy said. “And bring us each a caffé Mars.”

“A wise choice,” the robot assured us, and then dropped back into the table.

“How is your neck?” Nancy asked me.

“Fine, I think,” I said, moving my head around gingerly. “It still aches a bit, but that’s all.”

“It used to take months for broken bones to knit,” she said. “You’re lucky. One week in a neck brace, and it’s down to an ache.”

“I’m not complaining,” I told her. “Your ship’s doctor is a very good man.”

Nancy nodded. “And he has a lot of electronic and chemical help,” she said.

A wheeled tray with a central eyestalk brought us our food and served it with mechanical claws. “Tasty,” it said, “very tasty.”

Nancy stared at me from across her salad. “You are my friend,” she said positively, then attacked the food in front of her.

I was already well into my sandwich—it had been four or five hours since I’d last eaten—but I stopped and looked at her. “Of course, we’re friends,” I said.

“You don’t understand what I mean,” she told me. “Spacers make good friends, but usually only with other spacers. There seems to be some sort of gulf that separates us from lubbers. We think differently. Even passengers who travel regularly are still lubbers. You almost have to be born in space to think like a spacer.”

“And I do?” I asked.

“No,” Nancy said. “But the differences are not in the important things. I’m glad we’re friends, and I’ll look forward to seeing you again.”

“Me too,” I said. “I think it’s good to have friends who are in different professions or have different lifestyles. It helps keep you from getting in a rut; it keeps you aware that other things are happening. Besides, I like you.”

“And, most important, I like you,” Nancy agreed. “Not that you’re not right about the advantages of having friends from all over. It’s hard to do, but if you can, it’s worth it. Lady Tara seems to have friends all over the Galaxy, but the first officer doesn’t know anyone not in the Guild, it seems.”

Now that we had decided that we were friends, we munched our food silently and thought about things. I thought about how exciting it would be to be a spacer and travel on a great passenger ship and have friends all over the Galaxy. I don’t know what Nancy thought about.

A large round object appeared around one corner of the port facility and slowly occluded a larger and larger section of the sky. It seemed to be black, except that patches of it sparkled in the reflected work lights of the facility as it passed.

“What in the Imperium is that?” I asked, staring out at it.

“That’s a windjammer coming in,” Nancy said. “It’s farther away than it looks; that sail spread is probably at least four kilometers across. Somewhere right in the center is the cabin.”

“What happens now?” I asked.

“First he furls the sail. Then two or three hogs from the club will float out and fasten killer rockets to the cabin.”

“Hogs?”

“Spacehogs. Anyone who works in space with just a suit between him and the vacuum is called a spacehog.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s what he’s called. It’s an ancient term.”

“Oh. What are killer rockets?”

“That windjammer has built up a high outward velocity with its sail. The velocity has to be killed so it can dock,” she explained, clearly being very patient with my ignorance.

“I guess every profession has its own, specialized vocabulary,” I said. “Sounding like a spacer is more than just speaking Anglit with a spacer’s accent.”

“We don’t have an accent,” she said indignantly. “We speak Universal Anglit, the common language of all people. It is very carefully centered so that everyone, wherever we go, can understand us if they speak any sort of Anglit-derived language at all.”

“It sounds like an accent to me,” I said.

“I won’t tell you what that Jaspert you speak sounds like to me,” she said. We glared at each other, and then went back to finishing our food.

The sail started closing in on itself as we watched, cutting a strange series of geometric shapes in black across the bright starfield.

“That’s what I call fascinating,” I told Nancy.

“You want to get a closer look?” she asked.

“You mean go out there?”

“Well, I meant drag a telescope over to the table, but if you want to go out there, why not?” She dropped a ten-solar-bit piece into a tray on the side of the table. “Lunch is on me,” she said.

The tray digested the ten-bit piece and coughed up three bits fifteen in change, which Nancy scooped up. “Let’s go,” she said.

We scooted down a slidewalk and back over to the port and docking area of Sol Terminus. Nancy palmed open a couple of doors that would have been off limits for me, and we ended up in a small locker room on the wrong side of a big safety airlock.

“I’ll sign out a couple of worksuits,” Nancy said. “They’ll be charged out to the Western Star, so don’t worry about it. I’m sure Lady Tara would say we owe it to you.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I sure appreciate it. I’ve never been outside in a suit before.”

The checker ran a gauge over me when I told him I didn’t know my size, and handed me a worksuit. It was like a one-piece coverall with built-in gloves and shoes and all sorts of little fitting connections coming off from strange places.

“Don’t I need some sort of training or something to use one of these?” I asked Nancy, looking over the various valves and fittings.

“The thing is pretty idiot-proof,” she told me. “The life support slides into those brackets on your back, and it takes care of monitoring your oxygen consumption and demand. The helmet faceplate automatically shields you from staring into the sun. Of course there are a lot of stupid mistakes lubbers seem to delight in finding, but I’m sure you’ll avoid most of them. Besides, I’ll be with you. The only thing you need to know about is your radio. This button controls it. Suit-to-suit frequency here. General call here. Emergency here. Don’t push emergency unless it is. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said. “I’m reassured. How do I get into this thing?”

“Just pull it on over your clothes. Take your shoes and jacket off first and stick them in a locker.”

I hung my jacket up in one of the blue lockers along the wall and stuck my shoes in the bottom. Then I pulled the space worksuit over my legs and slid my arms into it. There were two clasps to close on each foot, locking the inner shoe in place, and then the suit zipped up the front. The helmets were all of a standard size, and clamped onto a ring around the neck of the suit. The material of the suit was about half a centimeter thick, except at stress joints and work areas like the knees, where it was doubled. The whole thing weighed about five kilograms and was kind of baggy all over. The helmet was another five kilograms.

Nancy checked out a pair of backpacks that were marked 4 HOUR: NO RECYCLE, checked to see that they were full, and connected mine up for me. There were about a dozen little nozzles and wires to fit up. I started to put my helmet on, but Nancy stopped me. “Don’t put it on till we’re in the lock,” she said. “No point in wasting suit air until you need it.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“Also,” she said, “always check up your own suit connections, no matter who puts it on for you. It’s your own life, and you’re responsible for it.”

“Right,” I said. I went over each of the connections that Nancy had made in my suit while she was installing her own backpack. They looked fine to me.

We went into the lock and Nancy showed me how to lock my helmet down. The life-support system automatically went on, and air veins in the suit filled up, pressing it tight against my body. It didn’t sag anymore, but filled out and felt hard and resistant to the touch.

The lock cycled, and the air was bled out. Nancy opened the outer door. “Be careful outside,” she said, her voice sounding very natural through the helmet phones. “There’s a red line outside the lock that marks the gravity terminator. On this side of it the station’s pseudogravity will hold you down, on the other side of it you’re weightless.”

“Completely? What about the real gravity of the station?”

“Well, let’s see; Sol Terminus must mass a few tens of millions of kilograms. Let’s say twenty-five million, just for an estimate.”

“Okay,” I said.

“And you must mass about seventy-five kilos.”

“Right.”

“Well, then, Sol Terminus pulls you toward its center with a force of about point oh one two five dynes, which means that you have an effective weight of about a hundredth of a gram. One good muscle twitch and you’d be headed out for an orbit of your own.”

“I’m convinced,” I said. “I’ll be good. How do I make sure I stay down?”

“The bottoms of the shoes are coated with a special resin that will stick to the metal plates of the station. Just don’t lift both feet at once.” And with this final helpful hint, she went out the lock ahead of me. I followed close behind, and the lock door automatically cycled closed behind me.

There is no way to describe the feeling of standing on a small, airless body surrounded by the Universe, of knowing that the only thing between you and a hundred thousand kilometers of vacuum is the thin bubble of krys glass that is your helmet. I was frozen in place, not by fear, but by the immensity of the Universe and the smallness of me.

“Come on,” Nancy said, “shake a leg. You can’t see anything from there.”

“I can see about a hundred thousand stars,” I told her. But I followed her on out to the curving surface of the station. And then, after about six steps, I fell off the side of the station and kept falling—or that’s what all my senses but my eyes told me. My eyes said I was still right where I had been, but I had just stepped over a wide red stripe painted on the surface. I was on the pseudogravityless side of the barrier, and it took me a few seconds to get used to it.

Walking with sticky shoes proved to be easier than I’d thought. I had a tendency to lean at strange angles as I walked and to take much larger steps than I should, and the only thing wrong with that was I looked funny. But I didn’t really care how I looked.

We rounded a corner of the station—something like climbing a hill with no feeling of climbing and no hill—and were facing the side of the sky that we had seen through the lounge window. There, flat in the sky ahead of us, was the windjammer, with its sail almost completely collapsed. It was now space side of the station (there are two basic directions in space: sun side and space side; they are the equivalent of up and down). Two men in suits like ours, but bright red, with maneuvering jets on their backs, were closing in on the cabin of the jammer, towing four silvery cylinders.

Off to the left, at an angle that made it invisible from the lounge window, was the strangest sight I’d ever seen in space: a white ball about ten meters across with hundreds of varicolored rods sticking out from all angles. It was tethered to the far side of Sol Terminus by long cables, which kept it floating free in space a few hundred meters off the station.

I pointed it out to Nancy. “What in the Imperium is it?” I asked.

“I’ve never seen anything like it before,” she said, staring speculatively at the strange construct. Then she snapped her fingers, or tried to through the space gloves. “Of course,” she said. “I know what it is.”

“Don’t tell me,” I said, as she slapped her hands together gleefully. I could see her laughing through the krys-glass helmet.

“It’s the Emperor’s birthday present,” she said.

“Courtesy?”

“It’s a gift from Emperor Alexander the Ninth to the citizens and subjects of the Solar Hanse on the occasion of his one hundredth birthday.”

“Alexander the Ninth is going to be one hundred?”

“So are we all,” Nancy said, “if we wait long enough. But Alexander will achieve that distinction this year.”

“I see,” I said, “and so he is giving his subjects a present.”

“Right.”

“A ten-meter ball.”

“Right.”

“Great. Just what I always wanted. How did he know?”

“The present comes when it is launched from here,” Nancy told me.

“Launched?”

“Right. That construct is a comet-ball. When launched into the proper parabolic orbit around the sun, it will provide a splendid display for everyone in the Solar System. As it dips in and gets closer to the sun, the solar wind will push particles off to form a tail millions of kilometers long. It should be a glorious spectacle.”

“What’s it made of?”

“Mostly ice, I think, doped with various organics to provide spectacular colors.”

“Wow,” I said. “That little ball?”

“It’s as big as most natural comets. It’s all a question of composition and orbit. And if they get this one just right, it will swing around on the far side of its orbit just in time to come back for Alexander’s two hundredth birthday. Is it not, indeed, an age of wonders we live in, as some ancient Greek once said?”

“I’m impressed,” I said.

“That’s funny,” Nancy said, staring off into space.

“Not really,” I told her. “I’m easily impressed with all the things we didn’t have back on Jasper.”

“No, not that,” Nancy said. “That is, not you. Those two spacehogs.”

“The ones at the windjammer?”

“Right. They’re fastening four killer rockets to the sides of that cabin. Usually it’s only two.”

“The jammer is going faster than usual?”

“I suppose. Only, since it’s powered by the same sun every other windjammer uses, where’d it get the extra velocity?”

“They’re only half as powerful as usual? The rockets, I mean.”

“No,” Nancy said. “They’re the standard model.”

“I don’t think I need another mystery,” I said. “I just got my cast taken off from the last one.”

“Don’t worry,” Nancy said. “Accidents in space don’t break bones—they kill you.”

“Thanks,” I said.

We were standing in the shadow of a large unloading arm, which meant that the two spacehogs couldn’t see us, although they were clearly outlined by the reflection of the port’s worklights off the shiny windjammer cabin. Nancy stared at the hogs and their work for about half a minute, and then I heard her whistle, a long, drawn-out sound.

“What is it?” I said.

“Those rockets,” she told me, “are being installed backward!”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that when they’re fired, instead of killing the ’jammer’s forward velocity, they’ll double it. And then the two extra rockets will double it again. Whatever those two men are doing out there, it isn’t right, and I have to stop it.” She fingered the general call button on her suit radio. “Here, you two spacehogs out by the windjammer. This is Lieutenant ep Liztom. What in the Imperium do you think you’re doing?”

There was no answer, and the two kept fastening the rockets backward onto the cabin without looking around.

Nancy thumbed the emergency-channel button.

“Hello, emergency monitor,” she said. “Trouble at the windjammer that’s docking now. This is Lieutenant ep Liztom of the Western Star.”

The two men finished their installation as Nancy talked, and started running connecting wires from one killer rocket to the next.

“What sort of trouble?” the emergency monitor asked.

“Two men are hooking up four killer rockets, and they’re on backward. Can you get a security team out here on the double?” She turned to me. “I’m going to have to jump for it,” she said. “If they get those rockets hooked up and set them off, we’ll never see that cabin again.”

“There isn’t anyone suited up right now,” the emergency monitor said. “It’ll take about ten minutes to get someone out there.”

“Well, get started,” Nancy said. She ran, in a measured lope, toward the jumping-off point for the windjammer. I came behind her as fast as I could. It was sort of like trying to ice skate without touching the ice except to push. “I’ll have to try to stop them from firing those things,” she said.

And she jumped. She did it like a perfect swan dive, but up instead of down. There is no up or down in space, except toward or off the sun, but she went up from where I was.

So I followed. Lining myself up with the cabin of the windjammer as best I could, I squatted down to the deck and then pushed myself off with the sides of my feet, so the sticky bottoms wouldn’t hold me down.

We moved very slowly between the station and the windjammer. It was a few seconds before Nancy noticed that I’d followed her. “What are you doing?” she called.

“Floating,” I told her.

She looked critically at me and back at the ’jammer cabin. “You’re going to miss,” she said. “Don’t panic. I’ll come after you as soon as I disarm those rockets.”

I checked the line I was moving in as best I could. She was right. I’d pushed myself off center somehow when I jumped, and I was going to miss the cabin by several meters at least. My throat closed up, and I felt as though I were going to choke. I was heading out toward the endless black Universe, with nothing ahead of me for as many light years as I could see. I had done the ultimately stupid act. I had rushed in where only a well-trained angel would dare to tread. It had never occurred to me that I might miss, or what it would mean if I did. And here I was, headed toward eternity.

One of the two spacehogs at the cabin spotted Nancy and me heading at him—or, in my case, not quite at him—and tapped his buddy on the arm, gesturing in our direction. The two of them spoke helmet to helmet for a few seconds; then one of them quickly finished a set of connections and left a gray box dangling from one of the rockets. With that they both pushed off and headed toward the other side of Sol Terminus, where the Windjammer Club entrance was.

“Didn’t want to stay and fight, eh?” I said. I would gladly have fought anyone, or anything, rather than face the fate that was rapidly and inexorably going to be mine. Sure, Nancy would come after me as soon as she could commandeer something with jets, but by then I would be awfully hard to find: a tiny dot growing ever smaller in the vastness of space.

The emergency monitor came back on. “I’ve been in touch with Prince Michael,” he said, “and he has no air for his emergency suit. He had to use it to repair some cables on the windjammer about two months ago, and it ran out of air just as he finished the job. He has been confined to his cabin ever since.”

“Prince Michael?” Nancy asked. “Of New York?”

“Yes. I can’t put you in touch direct because his radio doesn’t work on your suit frequencies, but he says he’d be very grateful if you could disconnect those rockets. Computer says that it’ll be at least two weeks before we can catch up with him if they go off, and his life support has been acting strange for the past month. It might not last another two weeks.”

“Well, the two who hooked the rockets just blasted,” Nancy said. “So they’ve probably got the rockets set to go in a few seconds. But I’ll see what I can do. Get someone out on a scooter, will you? My partner has overshot the cabin, and he may need retrieving.”

“Will do,” the emergency monitor said, without adding, “That idiot,” or any other comment that I felt he was probably entitled to make.

I spent some time wondering who Prince Michael of New York was, and why someone would want to kill him. It then occurred to me to wonder how long my air supply would last.

Nancy reached the windjammer cabin, right on the nose. I was now clearly going to miss it by about five meters, and there was nothing I could do to change that. It was so near, and yet so impossible to reach.

A bright cone of flame appeared at the tail of one of the rockets, and then the second, and then the third. Nancy quickly ripped a handful of wires out of the fourth, and that one failed to ignite. One of the three that was burning slowly yawed out from its position against the side of the cabin, until it was pointed nose in at about sixty degrees. The ship began to move away and ponderously started to spin around the axis formed by the three rockets.

Suddenly I saw a large black shape hurtling toward me, one of the collapsed vanes of the windjammer sail, and it was going to pass no more than a meter away from me. This, if I could use it, was a reprieve. All it would take was for me to stretch out enough to grab the vane and manage to hang on.

I practiced everything I had learned during the week in the Western Star’s air-swimming tank. I pulled myself into a ball to spin around faster until I was oriented the way I wanted to be. And then I reached, stretched in a taut, straight line from the tips of my toes to the tips of my fingers.

The vane hit at my wrists and I grabbed, ripping the bubble-thin material of the solar sail. A thin supporting rod whipped into my fingers, numbing them through the space gloves, and sprang free before I could grasp it. But slowly, by pulling on the constantly ripping material, I swung my body into the sail. Then, fighting the centrifugal force that kept trying to throw me off again, I crawled toward the center. It was like climbing a flagpole covered with tissue paper. But as I got closer to the center, the gravity effect of the centrifugal force lessened, and the framing supports got larger and easier to climb.

The cabin was a small globe studded with large portholes. The three rockets attached to it were still firing, causing it to go about in large, spasmodic spirals, headed roughly away from Sol Terminus but in an ever-changing direction. Nancy was lying flat against the cabin, her right arm wedged between it and one of the rockets. She didn’t move. As I worked my way over to her I could that her eyes were closed and her head was forward in the helmet. When I touched my helmet to hers, I could hear her breathing, so she must just have been knocked out. I pulled her free of the rocket and fastened her safety link to one of the rings on the outside of the cabin so she wouldn’t float away.

I looked through one of the ports and saw a man inside the cabin. He had long hair, fastened in back, and a neat spade beard around a thin face. He was wearing a loose-fitting white shirt with ruffles around the cuffs and a pair of puffy-looking deep-red pantaloons. He was talking on the radio when I saw him, and he paused to wave to me and smile. He seemed very unconcerned about the fact that he was going in an erratic spiral farther and farther from the station with a life-support system that promised to give out on him at any moment. He said something to me, and I put my helmet against the glass to try to hear it, but couldn’t.

I had no idea how long the rockets would burn, or how to shut them off—or, for that matter, whether you could shut them off. The only thing I could think of doing was to disconnect them from the cabin. I examined the closest one and saw that it was fastened in place with a double latch, one at the top and one at the bottom. I unsnapped each of them, and the rocket leaped off into the distance, burning my glove as it passed.

The removal of this one rocket increased the speed of rotation of the cabin and almost flung me from the surface. But I steadied myself against one of the masts that jutted out from the sides of the cabin. Slowly I worked my way around to the next rocket, which was pushing in on the cabin and causing most of the rotation. The rear clamp was already loose, as I had guessed, but the front clamp was wedged tightly in place by the body of the rocket and didn’t want to open. I took the rocket in both hands and worked it from side to side until finally the metal of the clamp gave way and the rocket jumped away from my hands and chased its sibling.

Nancy had come to while I was working on the second rocket. As I turned to the last one I saw her already at it, and only a second later it joined the other two in a race to the ends of the Universe.

The motion didn’t stop with the rockets gone—there is no friction in space to slow anything down—but it ceased being erratic and became a slow, steady tumble in a direction tangent to Sol Terminus. Nancy waved at me and said something, but I couldn’t hear her. My radio had been broken by one of the jolts my suit had taken in the past few minutes.

The security people at Sol Terminus swear that it was less than half an hour until their scooter reached us and pulled us off the windjammer, but as far as I’m concerned it took at least a week. They sent a space tug out to pick up the ’jammer’s cabin, since its motion was too exotic now to stop with killer rockets.

And I missed my flight. First, the security service of Sol Terminus questioned us about what had happened and about the two men we had seen, and then an inspector of the Solar Hanse Space Police asked us the same questions all over again. Then we were told to wait until a representative of the Special Branch of the Imperial Protective Service could talk to us, which would be right after he’d seen to the safety of Prince Michael.

“He’s just going to ask us the same questions,” I complained to Nancy.

“None of them want to take the responsibility,” Nancy said. “After all, somebody tried to kill Prince Michael.”

“Who would want to kill him?” I asked. “And what is this New York that he’s a prince of?”

“Prince Michael is one of the five Princes of Earth,” Nancy told me. “Don’t you people on Jasper know anything of what’s happening in the outside Universe?”

“As little as possible,” I told her. “The Princes of Earth are the Emperor’s sons?”

“His adopted sons. No direct descendant is allowed to take the throne. The Emperor’s real sons are known as Princes of the Blood, and they keep the title prince all their lives, but they can’t ever become emperor. One of the Princes of Earth will be the next emperor when Alexander dies. Prince Michael of New York might someday become Michael the Second, Liege Sovereign of the Inner Planets, Protector of the Princes of the Earth, Chairman of the Solar Hanse—and like that.”

“I’ll have to learn all that stuff,” I said.

“I should think so,” she told me.

The man from the Special Branch came in, asked us the same set of questions over again, and told us that the two phony spacehogs had disappeared. He then told us that Prince Michael wanted to thank us personally, and in another second, before I had a chance to be nervous, Prince Michael of New York, who might someday be the Emperor Michael II, walked into the room. He looked very pale and weak, and he had a limp, but there was something in his eyes and his voice that commanded your attention when he spoke. He thanked us and asked personal questions about who we were and where we were from and what our interests were. He told Nancy that he had met her mother, who was a famous admiral, now retired (which should not have surprised me, but did), and he told me that he had a daughter who was going to the University of Sol. He told us both that our names would be given to his doorkeeper, and that if we ever wanted to see him for some reason, we were welcome. Then he shook hands with us both, and left.

Nancy had to get back to the Western Star to go on duty, so we shook hands very formally and promised to see each other again whenever possible. But we both knew that it wouldn’t be possible for quite some time. I wanted to kiss her, just a good-bye kiss, but on Jasper boys and girls don’t do such things and I hadn’t been off Jasper that long, so I didn’t.

Then, at the door, Nancy turned and smiled and blew a kiss at me, and said, “See you, Adam.” And was gone.

CHAPTER VIII.

It works like this:

The Emperor reigns for two hundred years, unless he dies before his term is up. During this time he selects between five and ten people he deems worthy to succeed him to the title. They are known, regardless of sex, as the “Princes of Earth,” and are formally adopted by the Emperor and anointed to the succession and given titles. Then they spend their time training for the job of Emperor.

When the Emperor has served his people for two hundred years, or if he should die in office, the Princes choose by lot among them who shall ascend the throne and take up the mantle of office.

The general belief is that the office of Emperor is largely a figurehead job with no real power, but it has been noticed by historians that when a strong, good Emperor is in office, things generally go much better for the Solar Hanse and the Confederation than when a weak, poor Emperor sits on the throne. Several emperors had said, during speeches or when interviewed, that they consider it their major duty and most sacred obligation to prevent the human race from destroying itself, or any large portion of itself, in a war. The tenuous threads that hold together the Imperium are woven of the compelling need to eliminate the possibility of one planet’s destroying another in the insane furies generated by a major war. Ever since the destruction of Hope by Greater Vand and the Emigration of Vand a millennium ago, all Emperors have conceived it to be their particular responsibility to keep the whole Human family under the one blanket of the Imperium, and under the watchful eye of its agents.

I read up on all this as soon as I got to Mars and gained access to a library board. That was right after I arrived at the dome and they assigned me a room.

I should describe the dome. First, I guess, I should describe Mars. Okay. It’s red and it’s cold. There’s not enough atmosphere to breathe, but there’s just enough atmosphere to whip up giant sandstorms that obscure the sky for days and clog all the machines and get sand into everything that isn’t sealed, and into a lot that is.

Most of the people on Mars live in plastiskin domes, some as small as a tent, some as big as a city. The dome that houses the University of Sol, or most of the University, is a good-sized one, about twelve kilometers across and half a kilometer high. Since it is round, that makes for an area of just about one hundred thirteen square kilometers, which is a lot of land to stick under a dome.

The dome is made of a very light, very thin, extremely strong plastiskin, which is held up by air pressure from inside. Sandstorms can’t break through the plastiskin, although they scour the outside to the point where sections are periodically replaced.

All the land under the dome belongs to the University of Sol, although all of the University isn’t under the dome. The Physics Department has a vacuum lab on Deimos, the larger of Mars’s two moons. The Department of Prehistory has all sorts of projects going on Earth itself. Prehistory is defined as the study of what took place on Earth before Humanity expanded to the other planets: Ancient Greece and Rome and the Dark Ages and the False Peace and the Age of Exploration and all of that.

The University is divided into twelve colleges. On Jasper the college represents the general subject, like the College of Agriculture or the College of Religion. But at the University of Sol the colleges represent the twelve independent universities or colleges that came together to form the University back almost in prehistory. They are Berk, Bonn, Clay, Gill, Hyde, King, Mars, Mech, Ox, Pen, Vard, and Yale.

It used to be considered very important which college you went to. Certain planets, certain professions, certain families were associated with each college. You went to the college your parents went to, or at least an uncle or aunt. If you had no relative to “stand for you” at one of the colleges, then your parents’ professional guild would do it. If you had neither parents nor guild, then getting admitted to the University of Sol could be a difficult experience. Each college would accept a couple of “weeds” just to show how liberal they were, and the rest would be considered students at large, which carried no status. And at the University of Sol status was all.

Then, about two hundred years ago, Emperor Hiram IV changed the rules himself. Saying that the graduates of the University of Sol formed the “nerves of the Imperium,” and that the university and its colleges must be interested in “quality, not heredity,” he made the colleges pick by lot from the freshman class.

The colleges still maintain a rivalry, and each student feels a strong identification and pride in his college and fellow students, but now this pride is founded on continuing excellence and accomplishments, and not on the snobbery based on an accident of birth.

Or so they told me.

I was by lot assigned to Hyde College. I was given a pamphlet titled “Welcome, Incoming Freshmen,” and told that the bursar at Hyde would take care of all my needs.

One of the marks of distinction of each college was the individual architectural style of its buildings. The main university buildings were either domes or babyblock functional, but the colleges pulled from all eras and all styles in their desire to be unique. Bonn was all Greek columns and open spaces. Ox was all weathered sandstone, which was quite a trick considering that there was no sandstone on Mars and no weather inside the dome. Vard was red brick. King was all glass and steel. Hyde was flowing concrete, done in swirls and rounded angles, with round doorways and small, porthole-like windows. There were three buildings like that, one large one between two smaller ones. They looked like a flotilla of ships from some elvish kingdom that had been long stranded on the red sand.

The bursar of Hyde College assigned me Room Red-Green-Violet, which was about halfway down the second corridor on the second floor of the large building. The doors were all color coded with three large diamonds, in a number of different colors. He also took my size for everything from socks to hats and said that a bundle of Hyde College-authorized clothing would be delivered to my room. Everyone at the college was required to wear clothing picked from a narrow assortment of approved garments. It was a wide enough assortment so as not to be called a uniform, but still a narrow assortment. I asked him why the clothing restriction, and he said, “For our convenience.” I couldn’t think of any comment to make to that, so I went off to my room.

The rooms were not exactly monastic, but they were not exactly luxury hotel either. Each room was a double, with a bed at each end and a twinned pair of desks acting as a partition. Each desk had an elaborate built-in work board with a provision for printing out hard copy. Above the desks and all around the walls were bookcases and cabinets, and there were two long, skinny walk-in closets. There was a shower-and-sinks room that was shared with the room next door, and a separate lavatory that was not shared.

I settled in as best, and as quickly, as I could. I had the room to myself, at least for now. Later that day the bundle of clothing was delivered, and I put some of it on. It was heavy into pinks and grays: gray jackets and pink slacks and pink jackets and gray slacks. Shirts were white. Shoes—three pairs—were black. Everything, except the shoes, was loaded with pockets. All the jackets had the Hyde crest over the breast pocket on the left side and my last name neatly embroidered over the right side.

I had almost two weeks to wait before I started my first class. The University of Sol didn’t run on the quarter or semester system, as the schools back on Jasper did, but operated on a computer-assembled schedule of fits and starts—mostly, it seemed, fits. Courses began at random, ran for however many weeks they needed, and then stopped. A student was supposed to work his way up gradually to five courses, and then stay between four and six. Taking a vacation involved a lot of prior planning to arrange courses that all ended at about the same time.

The first year’s classes (roughly) were assigned to you by the computer; after that you were pretty much on your own. My first year’s classes were to be, according to the computer printout:

ANGLIT (1). How to use the language as a tool to understand and be understood. Many papers.

PREHISTORY (1). Earth before spaceflight; our common heritage.

PHYSICS (1). The basic physical laws that run the Universe, and how most of the gadgets in your everyday life work. A lab course.

HISTORY (1), THE DISPERSION. What Mankind has become.

ETHICS (1). How to act—and why. A lab course.

HISTORY (4), A HISTORY OF THE IMPERIUM. Covers the 45 major currents of planetary history of the past 2,000 years.

ALIEN ETHNOLOGY (1). How the major sentient alien species differ from Humans in culture, sex, mores, and behavior patterns. What to do and not to do when communicating with an alien.

BIOLOGY (la), HOW LIFE WORKS.

SPECIAL (22), THOUGHT PROCESSES IN HUMANS, ALIENS, AND MACHINES.

MATHEMATICS (2), ELEMENTARY MATH. From Boolean Algebra to Topological Calculus.

GOVERNMENT (2b). What works, and why; and what does not work, and why. A lab course.

These were the credit courses. Along with them, for the first three months, I’d be taking a non-credit course called “How to Use the University for Fun and Profit.”

So here I was—at the University of Sol, on the planet Mars, with no friends, no acquaintances, and the accent of an outworld hick, ready to conquer the Galaxy and start my rise to fame and fortune.

The room next to mine, Room Red-Green-White, was inhabited by two girls. This was the room that shared the bathroom with mine. There was an automatic lockout that prevented any door from opening when someone was in the room, but I still found the idea of sharing a bathroom with two strange girls to be rather unsettling.

I saw them going into their room several times in the next few days, and they affected to ignore me completely. I couldn’t complain about that since, according to the manners I was taught as a child on Jasper, I also had to pretend to ignore them.

Anyway, for the next few days I was kept very busy. The University spent some time giving me a variety of obscure tests of both mind and body. Then the Freshman Interviewer for Hyde College talked to me for two hours, trying to find out if I had any redeeming social virtues at all. I think he decided not; at any rate, he didn’t ask to speak to me again, and nothing at all came of the talking as far as I could tell.

Then, on the third day I was at Hyde College of the University of Sol, my roommate arrived and changed my life.

CHAPTER IX.

His name was Galahad de Roth, and his friends called him “Gilly.” His father, as I found out within the first ten seconds of meeting him, was Larch Beaugrift de Roth, Duke of Parthia. Galahad de Roth was very rich, very noble, and very doubtful that we would become friends. His first move, after coming into the room and seeing me, was to call the bursar and try to get his room changed. That didn’t work.

He was short and thick-necked and had a face like a bull terrier, which made him appear very masculine and rugged-looking. He also looked older than he was by about five years, despite the fact that he was a good ten centimeters shorter than I. He had an air of jaded knowledge about him and a group of friends who followed him around, mouths open, to see what witticism he would come out with next.

“It looks as though,” he told me when the bursar had turned him down, “despite my earnest entreaty, you and I are to be roomies for the term. Well, just don’t impose upon the relationship.”

“What do you mean,” I asked him, “impose?” It is amazing how quickly you can dislike someone you hardly know.

“I choose my friends very carefully,” he told me, “and not on the basis of an accident of proximity.”

“I also choose my friends carefully,” I said, “and not on the basis of an accident of birth!”

His eyes got wide and his mouth dropped. For a second I thought he was going to have a stroke. “You barbarian!” he said. “You utter barbarian!”

“Listen,” I said, “maybe if we both appeal to the bursar together, they’ll move you.”

He shook his head. “No,” he said. “I thought of that. I already told him that it was your idea.”

“You what?”

“Well, he asked me what you thought about it, so I told him it was your idea.”

“Well, de Roth, you’ve certainly got a lot of nerve. But I suppose a boy in your position grows up with a lot of nerve.”

“You’ll have to tell me what it’s like sometime,” de Roth said, “growing up on one of the far-flung outposts of the Imperium, without any civilizing influences. No idea which fork to use. You do use a fork, don’t you?”

“For what?” I asked.

De Roth gave a great sigh and went over to his side of the room to unpack. “This is going to be a trying year,” he said. “I can tell. Very trying.”

About fifteen minutes later, while we were both lying on our respective beds and trying to figure out what to do about each other, there came a knock on the door. “Gilly?” It was a girl’s voice.

De Roth swung his feet over the side of his bed and sat up. “I have that tomato,” he said.

“Why, man,” the outside voice said, “he doth bestride the narrow world like a tomato.”

De Roth went over and opened the door. Two girls were outside. “Welcome to my humble tomato,” he said. “Come on in.”

They came in. They looked at me curiously. “Is this your roomie?” one of them asked.

“Does he speak tomato?” the other inquired.

“He barely speaks Anglit,” de Roth said. “Ignore him.”

“Why, we couldn’t do that,” one of the girls said. She was tall and slender and had ringlets of brown hair cascading down her back. Her companion was shorter and slightly stouter and had waves of blond hair piled on top of her head and fastened in place with golden spikes.

“Who are you?” the blond girl asked me.

“Courtesy,” I said. “I am the ghost of tomato past.”

The brown-haired girl clapped her hands. “You will be visited by three tomatoes,” she said.

“And you must be tomato yet to come,” I told her.

The blond turned to her friend. “Who is he?” she asked.

“Reformation Group,” the brunette said. “Samuel, perhaps, or Jasper.”

“He is but an uncultured barbarian,” de Roth said. “Pay him no heed.”

“Adam Warrington,” I said. “From Jasper. Is it written on my forehead?”

“No, it is sounded in your speech. I study accents. I am Melisa Trina-Jones, and this lady is Delicate O’Shaughnessy. We’ve been friends of Gilly since he was even younger than he is now.”

“It is, indeed, a pleasure to meet you,” I told her. “And that’s the first time I’ve been able to say that since I arrived on this rusty planet.”

“Say,” de Roth pouted, “isn’t anyone going to pay any attention to me? How come this barbarian gets all the attention?”

“Gilly! Shame on you. You must get over these attacks of self-importance.”

“I am important,” de Roth said. “My father is one of the most important, influential men on Earth.”

“This isn’t Earth,” Melisa told him, “and you’re not your father. Gilly, just because a lot of sneering idiots follow you around thinking you’re somebody because your father’s the Duke of Parthia is no reason for you to be as consistently snotty as you succeed in being. We all have parents, you will remember.”

De Roth shifted uncomfortably. “This is not fun,” he said. “I’ll put up with this barbarian if we go do something that’s fun. My youth is fleeing before my eyes, and soon I shall be an old man and a sober one, hobbling with bent back over to the study boards.”

Melisa shook her head. “I don’t know why you came here anyway,” she said.

“The Duke insisted,” de Roth told her. “I wanted to stay home and race hundred-meter yachts. But here I am tied to the books.”

“There isn’t a book in this room,” Delicate said.

“I speak metaphorically,” he said.

“We’ll have to get you some books,” Melisa said. “They’d look so nice on that piece of furniture over there. It looks almost as if it were made to hold them.”

“You mean the bookshelf?” de Roth asked.

“You’ve got it,” she said. “What about some of the classics? ‘Romeo and Tomato’?”

“‘Portrait of the Artist as a Young Tomato’?” I suggested.

“Good. ‘The Tomato of the Baskervilles.’”

”Dante’s ‘Tomato,’” said Delicate.

“‘I, Tomato.’”

“‘Space Tomato.’”

“‘Huckleberry Tomato.’”

“‘A Connecticut Tomato in King Arthur’s Court.’”

“‘The Last of the Tomatoes.’”

“Promise?” asked de Roth.

“Cross my tomato and hope to sprout,” Delicate said. “Let’s go down to dinner. I’m starved.”

“You’re always starved,” Melisa said. “You must learn self-control.”

Ignoring Gilly de Roth’s dirty looks, Melisa invited me to join them at dinner, and I accepted.

Within about three days de Roth and I had fallen into one of those strange friendships where it is against the rules of the game to say anything nice—or even polite—to or about the other person, but the friendship bond is slowly forming. He was now “Gilly” to me, and I was “Adam” to him. But he was still as firmly convinced as ever that I was a barbarian, just as I was utterly sure that he was a useless snob.

The great secret about Gilly, which I didn’t realize until I’d known him for some time, was that he was a very lonely person. He had sailed yachts on the seas of Earth and in space, and had three homes on Earth and a dig on the Moon, but he had few friends. He despised the people who flocked around him on Earth, trying to bask in the doubly reflected glory of his father’s title and position. But it was all he had.

Three days before our classes started, Gilly’s father, the Duke of Parthia, showed up at the college and offered to take us both out to dinner. “You see that?” Gilly complained as we walked down to Brown-Black-Black to meet the Duke. “Everyone assumes that if you’re roomies, you’ve got to be close friends. So my father asks you out to dinner with us. Now when he sees you grubbing the food up with both hands and stuffing your face, he’ll blame me.”

“If he did, he’d be right,” I told Gilly. “I’ve watched you eat. If your head were any closer to the plate, you’d have your nose in your food. How you can manage to get a fork between your mouth and the plate is a puzzle to me.”

“How to button your shirt is a puzzle to you,” Gilly said. “Which pants leg to stick your foot in is...Father, I’d like you to meet Adam Warrington, my roomie. He’s from the Reformation Group. He doesn’t speak Anglit very well, but I’m doing my best to teach him. Adam, this is Lord de Roth, my father.”

“Courtesy, my lord,” I said. “It’s an honor.”

“On the contrary,” Lord de Roth said. “It’s an honor for me to meet the lad who saved Prince Michael’s life.”

That stopped me for a second. “That’s an exaggeration, my lord,” I said finally. “And besides, Lieutenant ep Liztom had a bit more to do with it than I. And how did you know?”

“Prince Michael and I are good friends,” Lord de Roth said, “besides sitting on the same side of the House in Lords. He told me all about it. The young lady is going to get a commendation or some such to go on her permanent service and Guild record. You get a notation on your University record—which, I’m afraid, doesn’t mean a thing. Grade point average is all; it is beyond rank or merit or status or relations. In the great Galaxy of Imperial service that lies beyond the University, your class standing is more important than your social standing, and your ability is twenty times as important as your parentage—as I keep trying to tell Gilly here.”

Gilly shook his head impatiently. “And, as I keep trying to tell you, Father, I’m not at all interested in a career in the Imperial service, or in politics, or in any other profession I might be suited for. Winning the trans-Pacific would give me all the glory I’d ever need.”

Lord de Roth sighed. “You’re eighteen,” he said to Gilly. “With a modicum of luck and care, you’ve got something over two hundred years more of waking up every morning and looking forward to the day’s events. Yacht racing will not occupy you, body and soul, for the next two hundred years. As an avocation, fine, but it won’t do as a vocation. You need something more meaningful.”

“Why can’t I do what I want?” Gilly said. “Why must you try to live my life for me?” This was obviously just the latest installment of a continuing discussion, in which Lord de Roth seemed to be ahead in points. Gilly, after all, was at the University.

We stepped into Lord de Roth’s groundcar, which immediately started off, heading toward the dome’s nearest exit. “It’s your life I’m talking about,” Lord de Roth told Gilly. “You must believe me. Personally, I don’t give a damn whether you pilot a sea yacht all your life or become president of the Confederation, if what you’re doing makes you happy. You certainly don’t have to earn money; we have money. But I think that when you’re older, probably somewhere between thirty and forty, you’ll find that you want something more from life than standing behind the tiller of the Golden Roth. If I’m mistaken it will always be on my head and you’ll never forgive me for it. If I’m right, you’ll probably never forgive me for that. So let’s just settle on what we’ve both got. I’m stuck with you for a son, and you’re stuck with me for a father. And the bonds that tie us together will certainly weather out whatever emotional strain is put on them by my forcing you to go to the finest university in the known universe.”

Our groundcar left the dome and headed due west. It was late afternoon of the Mars day, and the crater rim of Bulmar Crater was casting long shadows along the silver guide rail, which stretched off into the distance. “Where are we going?” I asked.

“To Lowell Cavern on the other side of Bulmar,” Lord de Roth told me. “A restaurant called Osto’s is built right into the cavern wall, with great windows overlooking the drop. It’s quite a sight.”

Gilly transferred his attention back to me. “You saved Melisa’s father’s life?” he asked. “How?”

“Prince Michael is Melisa’s father?”

“You didn’t know? Michael Trina-Jones, Prince of New York, is Melisa Trina-Jones’s father.”

“I never heard his last name,” I said.

Gilly laughed.

Ten minutes later the ground car went around a tight curve and entered a tunnel in the face of Bulmar Crater wall. After a few seconds the car slowed and then stopped. An airlock opened to admit the car and then closed behind it. In a short time a green light went on in the compartment and Gilly opened the door.

We were in a small, dimly lit chamber. In front of us was a door with a bronze plaque that said “Osto’s—Martian Cuisine.”

When we were all out of the car, Lord de Roth slid the door closed, and the car went off to park itself. The robot brain in that ground car was as good as the best robot in the most exclusive piece of equipment in use anywhere on Jasper. I was properly impressed, and, properly, did my best not to show it.

Osto bowed and scraped us into his restaurant, and gave us a private booth all decorated with dark woods and shiny brass studs, and one mirrored wall. Lord de Roth ordered for us: Mars table for three, and Osto bowed twice more and left.

Lord de Roth closed the booth curtain and dimmed the light. And the mirrored wall turned into clear glass. For a minute I couldn’t make out what was beyond, as my eyes adjusted to the light. Then I could see. We were on the lip of a chasm that seemed to stretch off forever into the depths of Mars. A faint phosphorescence from the rocks lining the gigantic hole provided the only source of light, and they effectively outlined the hole but faded quickly to pitch-black as the hole receded.

“Wow,” I said. It seemed an inadequate comment, but I had to say something and that just came out. “What is it?”

“It’s called Lowell Cavern, after a prehistoric astronomer,” Lord de Roth said. “It’s about three quarters of a kilometer wide, and goes down at a sixty-degree angle for about fifteen kilometers. It’s capped at the top by the stone ridge of Bulmar Crater. Nobody knows what it actually is, or how it got here, or when. It’s old; very, very old. It was probably here before the meteor hit that caused Bulmar Crater and sealed off the top.”

“What’s at the bottom?” I asked.

“Same as at the top,” Lord de Roth said. “More rock. And occasional traces of water vapor.”

“Mars table” turned out to be little dishes or cups filled with an incredible variety of foods. There were dozens of them, and each was a special Martian version of an Earth food, or a hybrid grown only on Mars. Baked, braised, puffed, glazed, sweet, sour, salt, tart, crisp, limp, some dishes that might once have been chicken, and some that I couldn’t identify at all; the food kept coming, dish after dish.

After the last dish of the dinner had been served and removed, Lord de Roth turned the lights in the booth entirely off, and we sat warming our hands over little steaming cups of cafe Mars. The only light came from the faintly glowing rocks of the cavern walls. Gilly and his father sat silently, expectantly, although what they expected I didn’t know.

There was a flicker. I just saw it out of the corner of my eye. Something moved outside the window. I turned to look where I thought I had seen the motion, but there was nothing there. I stared, looking carefully out the window all around the area where I had seen motion, but still nothing moved.

Then again the sense of motion, this time right where I was looking. I felt that I had seen motion, without seeing the thing that moved. Then something else moved, and I almost saw it. It was as though I were looking at ghosts, or at images created by my own mind, but not yet given shape.

“What’s happening?” I asked. “What am I seeing?”

“You do see them,” Lord de Roth said. “Most people don’t the first time.” He was staring out the window with a strange intensity, as though there were some secret that would be revealed to him if only he knew just where to look.

“What do they look like to you?” Gilly asked.

“It’s hard to say,” I told him. “I’m not even sure there’s anything there.”

“Neither is anyone else,” Lord de Roth said.

A weird creature, like a parody of a human being drawn in green sparks, floated into my view, grinned at me, and then disappeared—if it was ever there. Then just a head,—if it was a head—expanded from a spark the size of a pinpoint to a couple of meters around and immediately winked out. “What is it?” I said.

“What you’re seeing are called ‘Lowell’s creatures,’” Lord de Roth said. “Some people see them sometimes, and others never do. They cannot be photographed by any known technique, or detected by any known instrument but the human eye. Most aliens cannot see them at all. Yooserians, on the other hand, claim to be able to communicate with them. But Yooserians are known as the galaxy’s greatest, ah, storytellers.”

“Does anyone have any idea what, or who, the creatures are?” I asked. “What do the Yooserians say they are?”

“The Yooserians maintain a respectful silence on the question,” Lord de Roth said. “Some people say they are caused by random variations in the light intensity in the rock, and an overactive imagination; some say that they are the spirits of long-dead relatives; some think that they are the Martians—that is, the indigenous Martians; still others believe that they are hallucinations caused by some strange organic gas emitted by the rock.”

“What do you think?” I asked.

“I think they are very interesting,” Lord de Roth said.

“I think they’re people from some alternate universe trying to contact us,” Gilly said.

“You certainly have an active imagination,” his father said, “for someone who wants to spend the rest of his life sailing hundred-meter yachts.”

A face grinned at me through the glass.

CHAPTER X.

The next morning I got up late. Gilly had gone to breakfast. Gilly would eat anything that wasn’t tied down, and would even get up early to do it. After the meal I had had last night, I didn’t think I’d be eating for another three days, anyway.

I showered, standing extra-long under the water until the automatic timer shut it off. Water is treated with great respect on Mars. The drying cycle blew gusts of hot air at me until its sensors told it that any more would dry out my skin instead of just drying it off, and then it shut off. I was beginning to feel alert enough to go out and face the world—or the University, anyway.

When I got dressed my shoulders felt cramped in the jacket, and my arms stuck out about five centimeters too far past the sleeve cuffs. My first thought was that I had miraculously grown five or six centimeters overnight. Then I realized that I had put on Gilly’s jacket, and that he, clearly, in his rush to get down to the dining hall and stuff his face, had put on mine and never noticed. I looked in the mirror. Sure enough, there was the de Roth staring back at me in reverse mirror writing from over the right breast pocket.

Gilly was probably still in the dining hall. I left the room to go down and switch jackets with him, and get a glass of milk as long as I was there.

When I rounded the corner on the first floor I saw two men standing in the corridor. One was very tall and thin and had a small bushy mustache; his partner was short and fat and had a weary, sad expression. They were both dressed as businessmen, but somehow the clothes looked wrong on them, as though they were costumes or disguises. The short one had a small hand case of the sort barely large enough to hold a sandwich dangling from his left hand.

“Galahad de Roth?” the tall one asked.

“It looks that way,” I said, “but actual—”

He raised a slender styluslike cylinder, and a green vapor spurted from the end and spread around my face in a fine cloud. Slowly, as though in a dream, I fell over. I could still see and hear and think, but I could no longer control my muscles to move or talk.

The ground took a long time to reach me, but finally I was there, with my cheek pressed into the carpet.

The short one opened the hand case and unfolded it in a series of surfaces and angles that rapidly became a good-sized trunk. It was quite flexible as he unfolded it, but when it had reached its full size it quickly hardened and became rigid.

The two of them picked me up, shoulders and feet, and placed me inside the trunk. “Don’t worry,” the skinny, tall one said, “you’ll be all right.”

“Yeah,” the short one added, “for now.”

They closed the trunk, and for a long time after that all I know is that I was bounced around a lot and left alone a lot. There was air in the trunk so I could breathe, but that’s all I could do. The drug didn’t even begin to wear off. And I was getting colder and colder.

Finally, after what seemed like more time than there was left until the Sun became dark and cold, the trunk was opened again. Then the two men tipped it over and I was dumped out on the floor. A very tall, haughty man, dressed in the height of fashion, peered fastidiously down at me. He wore a small domino mask to cover his eyes, but his nose was long and thin and sloped in the middle and curved up at the end: altogether an unforgettable nose. Despite his mask, I would know him if I ever saw him again.

“Well!” he said, his voice a satisfied whine. “My little Lord de Roth. You must not take this personally. I—you see—I had need of your services and, being an impetuous man, I availed myself of them. I would not brook no for an answer. Indeed, I would not brook any answer at all. So here you are. You have arrived. I hope this does not too badly inconvenience you.”

I wanted to hit him in the face. I wanted to kick his shins and punch his nose. I wanted to sneer at him and tell him he had snatched the wrong kid, that I was not very ransomable. But I couldn’t move. My heart beat, and my breath continued, and my eyes could focus, but beyond that, nothing.

“You will be of great service to me,” he said. “Your very—you see—existence will benefit me greatly. You will be my guest—yes, guest—for a little while. I hope this does not interfere too greatly with your—if I may say—studies, which, I am given to understand, are not of particular urgency to you anyway, Master Galahad.”

He made some sound with his throat that might have been a chuckle or a gurgle, and turned away. Right about then I had an interestingly frightening thought: If he found out I wasn’t the real Galahad de Roth, I would be of no use to him for whatever he was scheming. And he might just burn me where I lay, or cut my throat, or—I decided not to think that one through.

The two men who had kidnapped me picked me up and carried me through a door and down a narrow corridor that was all fitted out in gleaming metal. I then realized we were in some sort of small spaceship. They brought me into another room, which had four acceleration couches, and I knew I was right. Someone was in one of the couches already, and I was strapped down with a sticky webbing into a second one. Then they left, and I heard the door click locked behind them.

“Gilly?”

It was a girl’s voice, and I thought I recognized it.

“Can you talk yet, Gilly?”

It was Melisa Trina-Jones.

“In a short while the drug will wear off,” Melisa said. “You’ll tingle all over, and then you’ll be able to move.”

Wonderful. Where I could move to, tied down in this couch, she didn’t say.

“Oh, Gilly, I’m scared,” she said.

There was a great roaring noise, and a giant hand pushed down on my chest. The ship was taking off at high acceleration. They must have been in a hurry to get somewhere—or, it occurred to me, away from somewhere.

I started to tingle all over. Then I started to itch all over, with a burning intensity. For a few minutes, which seemed like hours, all I could do was itch without scratching. Then I started to regain control of my muscles. I was strapped in, so I couldn’t use my hands, but I could partly relieve the itching by twisting my body against the restraints.

“You didn’t say anything about the itching,” I said, in a voice that didn’t sound at all like mine. It was all hoarse and stretched-sounding.

“You can talk!”

“Sort of. I wouldn’t be much of a conversationalist yet with this voice.’‘

“It doesn’t sound like you at all,” she said.

“It isn’t me at all,” I told her.

“Gilly?”

“No, Adam.”

“Adam! Yes, it does sound like Adam. Where’s Gilly?”

“As far as I know, he’s probably still eating breakfast. And wearing my jacket.”

“What are you doing here? I mean, they said they were going to take Gilly.”

“I’m wearing his jacket.”

“Oh.”

“What’s happening? Do you have any idea? Have they told you anything? I assume they kidnapped you too.”

“I go for a morning run around the campus for exercise,” she said. “I had just turned the corner of the Non-Human Religions building when a tall man in jogging coveralls caught up with me and squirted me in the face with some stuff that smelled like peaches, and I fell over. They carried me to a waiting groundcar concealed in a wheelbarrow with a canvas over me.”

“That’s about what happened to me,” I said, “except that I was just jogging down to breakfast.”

“They think you’re Gilly?”

“I assume so. They keep calling me Galahad.”

“Why don’t you tell who you are, and maybe they’ll let you go.”

“They’d probably just kill me and shove me out the hatch. If I’m not Gilly, then they don’t need me.”

“Oh.” She thought that over for a second. “ Then I guess you’d better be Gilly.”

“Have you any idea what they want?”

“Sort of. They—actually he—wants to influence our fathers—actually mine and Gilly’s—in their votes in the Parliament of the Stars.”

“By he you mean that gentleman with the mask and the nose?”

She giggled. “Certainly his most outstanding characteristics,” she agreed. “He represents an organization that calls itself the Humanate Congress.”

“I’ve heard of them.”

“Well, my father and Lord de Roth are full delegates for the Solar Hanse at the Parliament of Stars. The Humanate Congress wants to control their votes by controlling us.”

“I’m sure your father would agree to anything to protect you,” I said. “But how can they know he’ll keep his promises?”

“By keeping us until after the voting. And I’m not at all sure that he will agree. It’s an awful responsibility.”

“But can’t he just change his vote when you are returned? You know, demand a recount or something?”

“All votes at the Parliament of Stars are final. At least for the next two hundred and fourteen years. That’s the rule. No excuses, no recounts, no changing your mind.”

A gong rang in the ship, and then the hand stopped pressing against my chest. We were now in free fall, somewhere off Mars, and headed out. “Where do you suppose they’re taking us?” I asked.

“I wish I knew, Adam,” Melisa said.

“I’d better be Gilly for the next little while,” I told her, “unless you want to see my body floating by outside this boat.”

“Gilly,” she said.

A few minutes later the short, round man came into the room. “I will release you from the webbing,” he said. “Do not attempt to leave the room. Shortly food will be brought. I hope you are acquainted with the techniques for eating in free fall.”

He unsnapped the webbing and left before I could think of anything clever to say.

We spent the next three days in the small cabin, Melisa and I, a time punctuated only by occasional escorted trips to a bathroom down the corridor, periodic meals in suck-bottles, sudden bursts of the course-correcting rockets, and one long lecture from the masked man on the importance of Humanity first, and how we would all thank him for this someday.

We talked a lot, Melisa and I. She told me about little girlhood as the daughter of the Prince of New York, and I told her of youth in a small town on Jasper. At first I was worried about saying anything that would reveal to listeners that I wasn’t Gilly, but then I realized that they’d have no reason in the Universe to listen to us. We found a box of beads in a wall locker, and Melisa taught me to play Go on a grid she drew on the wall.

Late the third day the tall masked man came into the cabin. “Strap yourselves down,” he told us. “We have some velocity matching to do, and I don’t want to have to yell down to you every time we’re going to fire the rockets. Wouldn’t want to—you see—damage either of you. Prematurely, that is. So for the next hour or two I want you to stay strapped in. It’s—as they say—for your own good.” And he left, locking the door behind him.

“Where do you suppose we are?” Melisa asked.

“Three days’ travel from Mars, at whatever velocity we had when they stopped blasting. And they were blasting at something over one G for a quite a while.” I thought for a minute, remembering some things that Nancy had taught me about in-system space travel. “We must be heading away from the Sun,” I finally concluded.

“Why?”

“Because we picked up a tremendous velocity with that continuous blasting. And heading in toward the Sun would have increased the velocity, and we’d have to blast for quite a while to neutralize the speed and match velocities with whatever we’re arriving at. But heading away from the Sun would cause us to slow down, so we’d have less blasting to do to match orbital velocities.”

“Of course!” Melisa said. “The Thousand Planets. Where else?”

“What do you mean?”

“The Thousand Planets are as isolated and mysterious as though they were in a different system, light-years from here. Nobody knows anything about them. Each one is different, and they don’t even communicate with each other, much less with the outside Solar System.”

“I thought they sold exotic electronic equipment,” I said.

“The Thousand Planets’ Exploitation Group sells exotic electronic and robotic equipment,” Melisa said. “But nothing is known about any of the individual planets. Not even what they do with the money. They have a right under Earth law—they are protectorates of Earth—to their individuality, and they interpret that right as the right to maintain complete secrecy. Except for Eunomia, which is a health resort, and Victoria, which is a giant gaming complex, nobody is invited to visit any of them.”

The ship’s rockets blasted, pushing us both down to the deck. We pulled ourselves into couches and strapped in. “Why not?” I asked.

“They’re weird,” Melisa said. “They were all settled—if that’s the word for digging into a hunk of orbiting rock—by little strange groups from Earth who didn’t want to be like anyone else. And now those groups have been there for centuries, and they are most definitely not like anyone else. Not anymore.”

The ship blasted again, and then swung around on its axis to blast once more. “Well, we’re certainly arriving at somewhere,” I said.

It took about an hour and a half for our captors to maneuver their ship into whatever orbit they wanted. Then came about ten minutes of thudding and banging while they docked.

Then the masked man came back into our cabin carrying a hand recorder. “I want to get you both on crystal for your fathers to see,” he said. “We—our group—has heard from them both already, and they say they will discuss—ah—the terms as soon as they see evidence that you are both all right.”

“Both?” I said. I couldn’t help it; it just came out.

The masked man turned his nose toward me and stared for a minute. “And why not?” he asked.

“Oh, I, uh, didn’t think my father really cared what happened to me,” I said.

“Ah, the fledgling bird,” the masked man said, “ready to fall from the nest on his own. Youth will never change.” He pointed the recorder toward Melisa. “Speak, young lady, and move about, so that your father, Prince Michael, can see that you are in good health and have been not unduly poorly treated.”

Melisa sat up on the couch and waved into the recorder without enthusiasm. “Hi, dad,” she said. “I’m okay.” Her voice sounded dull and listless.

“A little more enthusiasm, young lady, if you don’t mind,” the masked man said. “I don’t want your father to think—you see—that you’ve been drugged or otherwise mishandled.”

“I was drugged,” she snapped. “That’s how you got me here.”

“That’s what I meant,” he said, keeping the recorder going, “a little life—a little animation.”

“I’ll give you animation!” Melisa said, in a sudden fit, and she launched herself across the small cabin at him.

“Good! Good!” he said, giving small yelping cries of satisfaction as he slapped her aside with the flat of his hand and kept recording. Melisa spun away from him and came up sharply against the metal wall of the cabin.

I jumped toward him, but was suddenly grabbed by my feet and hauled back to the couch. My hands were twisted behind my back and bent inward in a very painful hold. “Simmer down, small Duke,” the voice of my fat abductor sounded in my ear.

“Keep your head down, Karls,” the masked man said, swinging the recorder around to face me. “It’s the young gentleman’s turn to speak to his father. Go on, young gentleman.”

I stared into the recorder’s eye. “We’ve just docked at one of the Thousand Planets,” I said.

The masked man stopped the recorder and pulled it down to his side. He stared at me with his mouth open. Then he closed his mouth and set it in a hard line. Finally he laughed. “Very clever,” he said. “Indeed, very clever. But it is—you see—useless information. They are called—after all—the Thousand Planets because there are thousands of them, spread out over millions of kilometers of space.

“And now, I think, that will do. I have—I do believe—evidence that you are both alive and well at the present moment, which is all I need or desire. I will leave you two alone for another few moments.” He backed out the door. Then Karls pushed me across the room, and he was out the door before I could get back.

Melisa was crouched in a corner of the cabin, holding her head and crying softly. “Are you okay?” I asked, going over to her.

“No,” she snapped, glaring up at me, “I’m not okay. I’m locked up in a small cabin millions of kilometers away from home, kidnapped, and my head hurts. A lot.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“And you, the big hero,” she said, “just sit there while Big Nose throws me across the room and cracks my head against the wall.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“I’ll just bet you are,” she said.

They came and took us away, and brought us through an airlock and into a round reception chamber of some sort. It looked as though it had been carved out of solid stone. “This is where I’ll say good-bye to you,” the masked man said. “They’ll be out to get you sometime soon. You’ll be here until your parents come for you. You won’t like it much, but one must—you see—take the bitter with the sweet.”

“When will our parents come for us?” I asked.

“They will be notified of your location as soon as they have done what we wish. A matter of a small change in their vote in the upcoming Parliament.”

“But,” Melisa said, “the Parliament of the Stars runs for almost two years, and it’s not due to start for a couple of months yet.”

“That is true, young lady. Those, then, are the parameters of your—you might say—confinement. It depends upon just when the issues we are concerned with come up for a vote. Right now the agenda isn’t firm yet, so I cannot tell you better.”

“Where are we?” Melisa demanded, her voice edging toward the hysterical.

“Why,” the masked man said, gesturing around him, “you are here.” He and his companions left through the airlock.

CHAPTER XI.

There was what must have been pseudogravity on whatever asteroid we had been left on, since our weights were about normal. The room we were in was lighted by five large naked bulbs placed high above us next to the ceiling. Aside from the airlock, there were four other exits from the room, all of which were securely locked.

I explored what there was of the room while Melisa sat on the floor with her arms wrapped around her and rocked slowly back and forth. I thought she was crying, but whatever she was doing she didn’t want me to interfere, so I didn’t.

There were many signs chipped, or etched, or something, into the wall. They seemed to be slogans or mottoes.

WE ARE EACH ALL AND THAT IS ENOUGH

THE ONLY GOOD ANG IS A RELEASED ANG

THE PAST HAS NOT HAPPENED YET,

ONLY THE FUTURE IS DONE

THE HIGHER THE LEVEL,

THE LONGER THE FLOAT

There was nothing else in the room, save the doors, the lights, and the signs.

HEAVY

TO BELIEVE IS TO KNOW

WHAT CAN BE, IS: WHAT CANNOT BE, IS NOT

UP YOUR ANGS

“Adam.”

It was Melisa. I went over and knelt by her side.

“I’m sorry. For what I said. It’s just—it all became real for me all of a sudden. I mean, being kidnapped and all. It’s not a game anymore.”

“No,” I agreed, “it’s not a game.”

“I don’t want to be here for two years.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “We won’t.” My thought was that we’d starve to death long before the two years were up, but I didn’t say it.

“You think they’ll find us?”

“I think your father is smart enough to figure out a way.” Of course it might take a year or two....

“Where do you suppose we are?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. Better, because you know something about the Thousand Planets.

Melisa dried her eyes on her sleeve and looked around. “I know what everybody knows,” she said, “which isn’t much. They’re supposed to be strange people in the Thousand Planets. Each planet is different, and each people is stranger than the last. I don’t think I want to be here.”

There was a loud creaking sound, which continued for some time, and then one of the four doors slowly opened outward. A thin young man with a brushy mustache and a toothy smile came into the chamber. “Welcome, seekers,” he said. “You are here to find the truth, and it shall be offered.” He was wearing a light-blue shirt, silver pants, a red-lined gold cape, and had on one gold boot and one red boot.

“We are here because we were kidnapped!” Melisa said. “Are you part of the plot against us? Where are we? What are you going to do with us? Will you let us go? Will you call my father? He’ll pay you well.”

The man held up six fingers. Then he folded one of them down. “No,” he said.

He folded the next finger over. “You are on Aegle.”

The third. “No human can do anything with another human, that is illogical.”

The fourth. “No.”

The fifth, his right thumb. “No.”

The sixth (the first finger on his left hand). “I do not require or use money. Money is an illness.”

“What is your name?” I asked him.

“I am Meta-Doremus, in this incarnation,” he said.

“I am Adam, and this is Melisa,” I told him, in an attempt to be friendly, which was not what I felt like being.

“You will be named henceforth,” he said. “You have come here seeking, and your ang knows your true name.”

“We were brought here by kidnapers,” Melisa said.

“That is but an exterior cause,” Meta-Doremus said. “The interior knows no such boundaries.” He raised a finger. “Come!”

Melisa looked at me, and I shrugged. “We’d better follow him,” I whispered to her. “Staying here won’t help us at all.”

The planetoid Aegle was laid out like the inside of a ship, with a complex series of decks and stairs and rooms and cabins, interwoven with another complex web of pipes and wires and ducts. It was painted in a variety of bright colors, that had no seeming relation to any object being painted. A red stripe might wander up one wall, across half a duct, then turn right and smear across a doorway. The other wall might be large yellow circles in a blue field, and the remaining half of the duct might be purple. The effect was to make you unsure of the shape of anything until you’d stared at it for a while.

Meta-Doremus led us up stairs and along corridors and down stairs and through rooms and around corners and through hatches until we were thoroughly confused—not that we weren’t pretty confused to begin with. There didn’t seem to be anyone else around; all the corridors and rooms were deserted. “Do a lot of people live here?” I asked him.

“The number of angs present at any time is indivisible,” he said. “The number of bodies at the present moment exceeds twenty thousand.”

“Where are they all?”

“It is the hour of watching.”

I nodded as though I understood. He seemed to think I should, and I didn’t want to disappoint him.

He took us to a small room with no furniture, but with a lot of wires coming out of one wall and disappearing back into the ceiling. “Wait here,” he said, and went through another door.

Melisa promptly sat cross-legged on the floor. “I don’t think I like any of this,” she said. “What do you suppose it’s all about?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I think the kidnapers left us here because they know these people, whatever they are, won’t let us go. But I don’t think these people know anything about the kidnaping, or are a part of it.”

“Why?”

“Well, if Meta-Doremus is a representative example, they’re not together enough to do anything in the real Universe. You don’t have any idea what sort of people live on Aegle?”

She shook her head. “Never heard of it before,” she said.

Meta-Doremus came back in. “The Op will see you now,” he said.

“The what?” Melisa asked.

He didn’t seem offended. “The Op,” he repeated. “Op-eight, to be precise. He awaits.”

“Well then, I guess we’d better see him,” I said. “It would never do to keep an Op waiting.”

Meta-Doremus took us through into the next room, which was larger but equally devoid of furniture. A tall man with a long white beard, dressed all in gold, was lying stretched out on the floor, as though he had collapsed in midstride.

“This is Op-eight,” Meta-Doremus said, indicating the fallen man. Then he folded his arms and stood calmly a couple of meters away from the body.

“Shouldn’t we help him?” I asked.

“Help him what?” Meta-Doremus replied.

“Never mind,” I said.

“Oh,” Meta-Doremus said. “I don’t mind. It is bad for your ang to mind.”

“Are you just going to let him lie there?” Melisa asked.

Op-eight sat up and opened his eyes. “I was called away,” he said calmly, standing up.

“You are the seekers?”

“We were kidnapped and brought here against our will,” I said. “Are you going to hold us here?”

Op-eight nodded. “I am aware that you were brought here unknowingly,” he said. “But it is clearly part of the plan.”

“What plan?” I asked. Maybe I was wrong; maybe they were in on the kidnapping.

Op-eight gestured, a wide, all-embracing gesture. “The plan of all,” he said. “It is done, so it was to be done. The past has not happened yet; only the future is done. It is not your will that brings you here; it is the will of cosmic accident. You are seekers because you are here; it is enough. You will be trained. Your angs will be released. It is right. To believe is to know.”

“You’re not going to let us go?” Melisa demanded.

Op-eight shrugged. “What can be, is,” he told her. “What cannot be, is not.”

“What does that mean?”

“These things cannot be explained to those who do not understand,” he told her. “You must begin as an egg, and progress up to flight, releasing ang as you go.”

“What is ‘ang’?” I asked him.

Op-eight gazed at me placidly through half-lidded eyes. “You are ang,” he said, “and ang is you. And I am ang, and ang is me.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“Soon you will convey what is to be conveyed. After a mere twenty or thirty years your ang will be lucid, and you can join the waiting ones, which is the first plateau.”

“Waiting for what?”

Op-eight smiled and absentmindedly placed the tips of his thumbs together, palms apart and open. “Mother Hubbard,” he said. Then he collapsed back onto the floor in an undignified heap.

“Come,” Meta-Doremus said.

We followed Meta-Doremus through another maze of corridors and rooms to a large door that had a sign over it reading APOLLONICS I + ENTER YE WHO WOULD KNOW.

Meta-Doremus pushed the door open, and a loud booming voice said, “Do you know?”

“No,” Meta-Doremus said.

“Do you know that you do not know?”

“No,” Meta-Doremus said.

“Who knows?” the voice asked.

“I don’t know,” Meta-Doremus said.

“Enter,” the voice boomed.

Meta-Doremus went into the room behind the door, with us close behind. “That was Mother Hubbard,” he told me in a solemn voice.

I looked around. There was no one else in the room. “It was a man’s voice,” I objected.

“Mother Hubbard is a man,” he said. “He is the founder of Apollonics and Angistics, and it is he for whom we wait. We settled here on Aegle to await his return and practice his religiositic teachings.”

“When did he leave?” Melisa asked.

“Over a thousand years ago.”

“Where did he go?”

“No person knows. He promised to return, and so we wait.”

“But,” I said, “that was his voice?”

“Yes.”

“Anglit has changed so little in the past thousand years?”

“We have a computer analyze the recording and correct it for cogency periodically,” Meta-Doremus explained. “But every syllable is Mother Hubbard’s voice.”

“Ah!” I said.

“Sit,” Meta-Doremus said. “We must begin your teaching.”

I looked around the room. There were two long tables with benches on each side running the length. The tables, which seemed to be wooden, had parallel strips of white tile inlaid crosswise into their tops, dividing them into meter-wide segments. “What are we supposed to learn?” I asked.

“That which cannot be put into words,” Meta-Doremus said. “You are to learn the way. You are to learn to free your ang. You are to learn your true name.”

“Oh,” I said.

“While you are learning,” Meta-Doremus said, “I will have you assigned bunks. A pallet in boys’ org for you, and a pallet in girls’ org for you.”

“But we—”

”Good-bye for now,” he said, and slumped forward and fell to the floor.

“What, um, do you suppose causes that?” Melisa asked, pointing to the supine body of our host.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But I hope it’s not catching.”

Two men dressed in white robes came into the room from another door. One of them took me to a seat at one table, and the other took Melisa. The whole process, everything that was going on, seemed bizarre and ridiculous, but very frightening. It would have been easy to run, but there was no place to run to. The white-robed man sat opposite me, the other one opposite Melisa, and Meta-Doremus lay still on the floor with no one paying any attention to him.

Set into the tile top of the table in front of me was a black circle about twenty centimeters wide with a red cross inscribed in its center. The man opposite me took from his robes a triangular piece of clear plastic with what looked like intricate electronic circuitry imbedded inside it and a fine silver chain attached to one end. The device looked new, but the design was clearly centuries old, since the electronics inside were of a type that hadn’t been used in hundreds of years.

“This is the symbolizer,” the man told me. “It is used to release your angs. You will be using this a lot over the next few years. As soon as you get out of primary process, you will be given your own.”

“Wonderful,” I said.

“Here, take it,” he said, holding it by the chain and extending his hand across the table. I reached for it. “No, no,” he said. “Not by the symbolizer. Never touch the symbolizer. Take it by the chain.”

I took the end of the chain, as directed, and held the symbolizer directly over the center of the cross with my right hand. “You are right-handed, aren’t you?” he asked me, and I assured him that I was. “That’s good,” he said. “I once wasted a lot of time processing someone who didn’t bother telling me he was left-handed. It was my fault, of course. I should have asked.”

“What are we doing?” I asked him.

“You are starting process,” he said. “I’m going to ask you a lot of questions, and you answer them the best you can, and the symbolizer will tell us whether we have reached an ang hangup or just a process bar.”

“Oh,” I said.

He started asking me questions, while I held the symbolizer over the cross. They were mostly rambling questions about my childhood, without any apparent point or purpose. The tip of the symbolizer moved in a small circle above the table as I held the chain. Sometimes the motion of the gadget would change to a figure eight or a back-and-forth line, and then his questions would get more intense, digging into whatever we were talking about. One time we got hung up for a while on what color socks I wore to school, and another time we discussed the length of my sister’s hair for quite a while. I couldn’t make any sense out of the whole thing, except that he clearly thought that the motion of the gadget revealed some deep secrets about my innermost thoughts.

“Enough for today,” he said after a while. “If we go on for too long, all we get is tired.” That was the first sensible thing I’d heard since I arrived on this strange planetoid.

I looked around and saw that Meta-Doremus must have recovered, since he was no longer lying on the floor. As a matter of fact, he was no longer in the room. “Say,” I said to my teacher, or whatever he was, “why do you people all sometimes just fall over onto the floor?”

“We don’t all,” he said. “Only those of us of level three or above can dislocate.”

“Dislocate?”

“Yes. When your ang is called to a different time or place, your temporal body is dislocated and out of control.”

“Oh,” I said.

Meta-Doremus came back into the room. “Your bunks are assigned,” he said. “I see that you are finished with your first teaching. Was it not exciting? Did you not feel the release, as your mind and ang began to sever their bonds?”

“I feel tired,” Melisa said, turning from her bench to face him.

“Of course,” he told her. “That is a good sign, a sign of great progress. Come with me now, and I will take you each to your assigned bunks. Your new clothing will have to wait until tomorrow, as the clothes org is closed for the day.”

As Meta-Doremus led the way, Melisa took my hand and held me back until we were far enough behind him for her to be able to whisper to me without being overheard. “We have to get out of here,” she whispered. “I can’t take this. These people are going to drive me crazy! I don’t understand what they’re talking about. I don’t think they understand what they’re talking about.”

“Have you got a watch?” I whispered.

She nodded.

“Okay then. In exactly five hours meet me back here. Don’t forget the way. They should be asleep by then.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” I told her. “But I will by then. You’re right, we’ve got to get out of here.”

“Okay.” She squeezed my hand.

We reached the girls’ org first, and Meta-Doremus called out a lady, dressed all in gold except for red boots, to take Melisa. “They’ll take care of you in there,” he told her.

“Yes, come on in, dearie,” the lady said, smiling with the same forced smile that Meta-Doremus wore. “We’ll take good care of you here.”

Melisa gave me a quick panicked look, then composed her face and followed the golden lady inside.

Meta-Doremus took me two corridors and three bends farther, then pointed to an unmarked door. “Pallet seven by the right leg,” he told me. “I go now.”

He went on and I went in. The room was very strangely shaped, with zigs and zags and odd angles and corners. It was full of beds, which were indeed pallets: canvas mattresses full of straw on sixty-centimeter-wide planks, set about a meter apart. There must have been a couple of hundred of these pallets in the room. At the foot of each pallet was a wooden box, open at the top, full of neatly piled clothing.

The occupants of the room were boys who looked to be about four or five years younger than I was. There was just about one for every pallet, and they sat cross-legged on top of them. The low murmur of conversation that had been going on ceased when I entered the room, and every face turned to stare at me.

“Courtesy,” I said. “My name is Adam. I am to take pallet seven by the right leg.”

They kept staring, silently. This made me even more nervous than I already was. “Would one of you show me where it is, please?”

Without a word, they all pointed to an empty pallet far down the room. I went over to it and sat down. If they didn’t want to talk to me, fine. I had a lot of thinking to do for the next five hours.

I had promised Melisa that I was going to get us out of here. And, for that matter, I thought it was a pretty good idea myself. Too much longer with these people who left their temporal bodies collapsed on the floor while they traipsed around time and space in their angs would probably not be very good for my sanity either.

As I sat there making up all sorts of wild schemes for attracting the attention of Mars by setting off giant flares or altering a radio to broadcast a rescue beacon, the conversation around me slowly picked up where it had left off.

And I heard the answer, or what I hoped would turn out to be the answer.

One of the boys across the room from me was telling the boy in the pallet next to mine that his group was going on an expedition the next day. They were going “outside” to visit the “mother ship.”

Outside.

On the surface of this planetoid, somewhere, there was a ship. And it couldn’t be that hard to find; you could probably walk all around the planetoid in a couple of hours.

All we had to do was find out where they kept the vacuum worksuits, and go steal the ship.

Of course I had no idea how to pilot a spaceship, but maybe Melisa did. Or maybe the controls were clearly marked, with instructions printed neatly above the panels. Anyway, it was certainly better than staying here.

Lights out was announced in the easiest way possible: the lights suddenly went out. Luckily the watch I’d picked up at the University on Mars had a button to light up the numbers, so I just lay down to wait.

CHAPTER XII.

I couldn’t wait five hours. I arrived at the meeting place almost half an hour early.

Melisa was already waiting for me. “Did you meet anyone?” she whispered. “I think they’re all asleep.”

“That’s what I think too,” I said. “They don’t seem to have any guards out or anything, for, after all, what is there to guard?”

“How are we going to get out of here?”

“Thank you,” I said.

“For what?”

“For your faith in me. I have an idea we can try, and it may get us away from here and it may not. Can you pilot a spaceship?”

“I’ve piloted a dome-class yacht,” Melisa said, “but all you do is tell them where to go, and they do it. Very intelligent ships.”

“Well,” I said, “let’s hope this one is a dome-class, or something like it.”

“Which one?” she asked. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. “Somewhere on the skin of this planetoid there is the mother ship. One of the boys in my org is going to visit it tomorrow. Sort of a class expedition, I guess. Well, my idea is we should visit it first.”

“You think it’s fueled up and ready to go?” Melisa asked. “You think you can run it?”

“I hope it’s ready to go,” I said, “and I was hoping you could run it. But maybe there’s an instruction book around somewhere.”

“That’s not incredibly hopeful,” Melisa said.

“It’s the best I can do,” I said sourly.

“Oh, I’m not criticizing you,” Melisa assured me. “You did better than I did. The girls in my org—I wonder what an ‘org’ is—wouldn’t talk to me at all.”

“The boys didn’t do much talking to me either,” I told her. “Well, let’s get out of here, and we won’t have to worry about it.”

“Fine,” she said. “Which way?”

“Now that is a good question. I have no idea. And I have no other ideas either. If you keep going in any direction you’re bound to come to the outside. But this place is designed so it’s hard to keep going in one direction. And, besides, just any place on the outside won’t do.”

“Can’t we just walk around until we find the ship?” Melisa asked. “Aegle can’t be very big around.”

“True,” I said, “but we have to find vacuum suits before we can go out at all. And they’re probably all together beside the official exit, wherever that is.”

“I imagine there’d be some in a room by each exit,” Melisa said. “What good is an exit into space without handy vacuum suits?”

“That’s true,” I said. “But my idea is that they don’t encourage people to leave. They’ll have emergency ports to get back in, or for authorized people, who already have suits, to use—but probably have only one controlled port where suits are supplied.”

“You might be right,” Melisa agreed. “How do we find out?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But I guess we’d better do something. Say, do you think we can find the room we were left in?”

“The stone one with the doors?”

“Right.”

“I don’t know. There weren’t any suits in there.”

“Right. But there is a lock. I’ll bet they keep suits nearby. That’s probably the main entrance to this place.”

“And a very gloomy main entrance it is. But that fits. I think it’s back this way.”

Melisa and I spent the next two hours looking for the lock we had been left in. The maze of corridors doubled back on itself, and they all looked alike. But finally Melisa stopped in front of a door I could have sworn we’d passed by only a few minutes before. “I think this is it,” she said.

“It looks like all the rest,” I said.

“Yes, but it’s got a snap lock from this side,” she pointed out. “Remember all the doors were locked from the outside?”

“That’s right!” I stared at the door. “Of course, this just might be where they keep the deadly rattlesnakes.”

Melisa put her ear to the door. “I don’t hear any rattling,” she said.

“Okay,” I said. “It’s worth a try. Let’s see if we can open it.”

The lock was a strange one: a large round lump on the side of the door that went a few centimeters over the jamb and had all sorts of little bumps and knobs sticking out at odd angles.

“Here, let me,” Melisa said, crouching down to bring the lock to eye level. “Picking locks is a hobby of mine.” She slid a piece of straight plastic stiffener from the collar of her shirt and attacked the lock with it. For three or four minutes she prodded, twisted, and jiggled.

“Well?” I said.

“Have patience,” she told me. “Picking locks demands, above all else, infinite patience.”

“That’s all very well,” I told her, “but we don’t have infinite time.”

The lock clicked, and the door swung open. “Well, there,” she said. “If I’d known you were in a hurry—”

Just then we both heard footsteps from down the corridor. We quickly pushed through the door and closed it behind us. “You have a point,” Melisa whispered.

“Good timing,” I said. We waited until the footsteps had passed. “Now I just hope we haven’t locked ourselves in,” I added, looking around. We were in the large room that had been our first introduction to Aegle, having just entered through the door with HEAVY carved over it.

“No fear,” Melisa said. “I slid the plastic thingie between the door and the lock.”

“Good,” I said. “Now, if our logic is right, behind one of these other doors is a roomful of vacuum suits. Can we get through from this side?”

“No,” she said. “I need to be on the lock side of the door to pick the lock; that’s only common sense.”

“Right,” I agreed. “Let’s try the corridor side of the doors around that way.” I pointed to the left.

Melisa cautiously pushed the door back open and looked out. The corridor was clear again. We went down it and took the first branch that headed in the right direction. About three doors down I paused. “Here,” I said, “try this one. It feels right.”

Melisa set to work on the strange lock and opened it slightly faster than the first one. The room was full of odd pipes and valves with no labels. But there were also interior doors that led to the rooms to either side of it, and they were not locked.

“Here,” I said, “I’ll go this way, and you go that. The first one to come to suits goes to get the other. But no yelling.”

“Believe me,” she said, “you didn’t have to tell me that. I’ll be as cautious as an early worm.”

The first room I went in had oxygen pressurizing equipment, which was encouraging. The next one was a repair shop for things that looked like mechanical grasshoppers. Just as I was going through to the next, Melisa came in. “I found them!” she whispered.

“Great!” I said, following her back to the room she had found. The vacuum suits were all neatly lined up and hung from special rigs so the wearer could just step into them from behind and the rig would seal the suit and release it. The life-support backpacks were lined up on shelves along one wall. It wasn’t until we were both suited up, and had helped each other put on and adjust the backpacks, that I realized the one thing missing: there were no helmets in sight.

For over half an hour we searched for the helmets, getting more and more anxious as the minutes passed. In a couple of hours the first early-morning people would probably come in to open the rooms. Finally I opened a little cabinet with a mirrored front that was behind the counter. It looked as if it probably contained a first-aid kit. It was certainly too small to hold more than one helmet.

There, sitting on the shelf, was one helmet. When I took it out, the shelf slid silently down, and another helmet came into view. “I found them,” I said. “It’s some sort of trick.”

We crossed the large stone room to the lock and went in. Putting on our helmets at the last minute, the way Nancy had taught me, we cycled the lock and walked out onto the surface of Aegle.

The ship was in sight outside the lock, maybe a half kilometer away. After five steps in the ship’s direction, the gravity suddenly dropped to almost zero, just barely enough to keep one from floating off into space. For some reason the effect almost made me sick this time, and I had to stay still for a few minutes, fighting down the nauseous feeling in my stomach and throat.

Melisa walked over to the ship while I was being sick. We didn’t dare turn the suit radios on, so it wasn’t until she had returned and touched her helmet to mine that I got the word. “It’s no good,” she said.

“What’s no good?”

“The ship. Are you feeling better?”

“Yes,” I told her. “I’m okay now. What’s wrong with the ship?”

“From here it looks like a spaceship,” she said. “From up close it looks like what it is: the gutted shell of something that used to be a spaceship maybe two or three centuries ago.”

“You’re sure?” I asked, knowing that it was a stupid question.

She merely nodded. “What now?”

“Well, I guess we’ve got almost four hours to find another ship.”

She smiled through the helmet. “Did you ever hear the story of the three men who had to go tell their families that a great flood was going to wipe out their houses in exactly four hours?”

“No,” I said.

“Well, the first one ran into his house and said, ‘We’ve got just four hours to live. The second one announced, ‘We’ve got just four hours to make our peace with the Universe and prepare to die.’ “

”And the third?”

“The third one told his family, ‘We have just four hours to learn to breathe under water.’”

”Do you want to go back inside?” I asked.

“No, no, I agree with you,” she said. “We have just under four hours to find another ship, and we’d better start looking.”

“And we’d better stick together,” I said. “We could cover more ground—if you can call this ground—separately, but we’d never find each other again.”

“Right,” she said. “We’ll hold hands. Or gloves, anyway.”

“Which way shall we walk?”

Melisa looked around. “That bright red planet in front of us is Mars,” she said. “Let’s walk toward Mars.”

“Very good.”

The planetoid was so small that the horizon fell away practically under our feet, and the farthest point you could see on the surface was probably no more than two to three kilometers away; anything farther than that was under the curve of the horizon. We walked toward Mars until it was overhead, and then kept walking, keeping it at our backs. The sun came into view—merely an extra-bright star with a barely discernible disk at this distance.

“It’s no good,” Melisa said. “These strange people probably have nothing that can leave this horrible place.”

Just then the Sun went out. Even though, at this distance, the Sun was merely the brightest star in the sky, its sudden disappearance was very frightening. It took me a few moments to realize what must have happened: some dark body had interposed itself between us and the Sun.

Stars on both sides of the Sun started going out, a good sign that the dark body was getting closer. Melisa and I stood and watched this happening until we were able to tell the shape of the approaching object by the changing pattern of black in the sky.

“It’s a windjammer,” I said. “It must be way off course. I wonder what could have happened.”

“Look,” Melisa said, pointing toward a corner of the dark object that was slowly filling the sky. “That side of it seems to be ripped. It must have had an accident.”

“I wonder if the skipper is all right.”

“Is it going to hit Aegle?”

“I hope not. If it does, it will certainly kill anyone on board, and probably do us in, too; we’ll be knocked off into space.”

We watched with growing apprehension as the kilometers-wide spread of the windjammer sail approached the planetoid. It looked as though it would hit for sure, and we had no place to hide and not nearly enough time to get around to the lock we had left from, which seemed to be the only lock on the whole surface.

The ’jammer sail covered the whole sky, blotting out the universe, and then contacted with the surface of Aegle. The bubble-thin trymar skin of the sail parted as though it had never been, and only the struts and reinforcing crosspieces absorbed any of the impact, which they did by crumpling and twisting. The windjammer cabin missed impacting Aegle by over a kilometer, but the sail had grabbed a firm hold as it crumpled. The cabin section slowly wheeled around Aegle, spiraling in as the struts crumpled, and giving up energy. By the time it finally reached the surface of the planetoid it hit with no more than the impact of two hands clapping.

Melisa and I ran practically halfway around Aegle to reach the point where the cabin had landed, but the length of the leaps you can take on a body of such small mass is impressive, so it didn’t take long. We just had to be careful not to jump too strongly, or we might never come down.

There was a man in the windjammer’s cabin, and he seemed to be all right. He was strapped into an impact webbing that stretched across the cabin, and he wore a black hood over his head. I tried to attract his attention through the port, but didn’t succeed.

“What place is this?” a voice asked.

I turned, and the man was standing next to me on the surface of Aegle, clad, as he had been in the cabin, in but a thin coverall with no helmet. I looked back through the port, and he was still strapped into his webbing.

The man—or the apparition of a man—standing beside me laughed. “Don’t be afraid, boy,” he said. “This is merely a projection. Pure science, nothing mystical about it. The projector is that black gimcrack you see me wearing over my head. You can see into the cabin, can’t you?”

“Yes,” I said. “Can you hear me?”

“Of course. A complete two-way gimcrack, this is. Where am I? Courtesy, young lady, I didn’t notice you standing there until just now. I don’t think the vision scan on this is adjusted wide enough.”

“The name of this planetoid, apparently, is Aegle,” Melisa said. Her voice sounded clear in my helmet—probably a side effect of the gimcrack. “Can we help you? I don’t know how much help we can be, since the inhabitants of Aegle probably don’t feel too friendly toward us right now.”

The man—or the projection—stared at Melisa. “Courtesy,” he said, “but you’re not the Lady Melisa Trina-Jones, are you?”

“Yes,” Melisa admitted.

He turned to me. “Then you must be Adam Warrington.”

“That’s right,” I said.

“Well,” he said. “Fancy that. My name is Otis Smith, and it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Prince Michael will be delighted. There must be half a million people looking for you two. And I, trapped alone in the least efficient means of transportation in the Solar System, with a broken sail quadrant at that, find you. Wait a second and I will get the word out.”

The apparition disappeared abruptly. A couple of minutes later it reappeared. “A message is now beaming its way Earthward. Actually Moonward, I suppose, since at last report Prince Michael was on the Moon. Congratulations; you are rescued.”

“I hope so,” I said. “Whenever they can get here. But for now, probably you are captured along with us. They’re not going to let us leave, and they have no way off anyhow.”

“It’s a lucky thing for you,” Otis Smith said, “that I happen to be something of a communications enthusiast. Most of those who take windjammers out for the six-month journey to Sol Terminus wish to be quite alone, and carry only an emergency beacon. But I’ve been playing chess with a professor on Mars and writing political articles for an Earth periodical during my trip. That’s why I have this helmet, which is somewhat experimental.

“That’s also why, when a random meteor ripped off the right axial tendon of the ’jammer sail, I was able to call for assistance immediately. Right now the rescue cutter is about five minutes behind me, on full deceleration.”

Six or seven vacuum-suited figures appeared from around the horizon of Aegle, heading rapidly toward us. “I’m afraid that the Aegle rescue committee will beat them to it,” I said, watching them come.

Otis Smith—or his projection—turned to look at them. “They are your abductors?” he asked.

“That would be too strong,” I said. “It would take a while to explain. They didn’t abduct us, but they are certainly our captors, in that they are keeping us here against our will.”

“They will hear about it,” he said. “As for their present approach—watch this!” He stretched his arms and floated slowly into the air—although there was no air. When he was about ten meters off the surface, he stopped rising and headed toward the approaching group of Aegles, flapping his arms slowly.

They all stopped, frozen, and watched him approach until he was about twenty meters from them. Then, with one motion, they turned and went racing off back around the other side of the planetoid.

Otis Smith popped out of existence where he was, and appeared next to us again. “Rah, rah,” he said. “Cheer the victor, boo the vanquished. As long as people believe in magic somewhere deep in their souls, they can be fooled by such tricks. And here, I believe, comes the rescue clipper.”

A slender silver ship put down about fifty meters off, and two men popped out of a hatch and came loping toward us. One of them fed a special collapsed vacuum suit through the emergency hatch of the windjammer cabin, for Otis Smith to put on and be led to safety. The other one escorted Melisa and me into the ship.

An hour later we had on clean clothes, were sipping hot soup, and were on our way back to Mars.

“And just in time,” Melisa said.

“How’s that?” I asked.

“First day of classes tomorrow,” she said. “I’m looking forward to that.”

“School will seem awfully tame after all this,” I said.

Well, I’ve been wrong before.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The author of over thirty novels and a melange of short stories, articles, and other stuff, Michael Kurland has been writing professionally for over three decades. His stories are set in epochs and locations from Ancient Rome to the far future—anyplace where the reader won’t spot the anachronisms too easily. His works have appeared in Chinese, French, Italian, Spanish, German, Swedish, Polish, Portuguese, Japanese, Czech, and some alphabet with a lot of hooks and curlicues. They are believed to be the fragments of one great opus, a student of the Untermensch. He has been nominated for a Hugo, two Edgars, and the American Book Award, and various book clubs have picked up various of his books. More can be learned at his website: www.michaelkurland.com

[1]. “Hiram IV—7” is the seventh year of the reign of Emperor Hiram the Fourth. Imperial acts are dated this way.

Table of Contents

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

DEDICATION

INTRODUCTION: THE MASTERPIECE THAT NEVER WAS

by Richard A. Lupoff

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XII.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR