“What Townman?”

            “The one who killed the patrollers and the Sarkite.”

            “Oh! Well, really! Do you suppose Fife will care about that if it’s a question of taking all Sark?”

            “I think so. You see, it isn’t that we have the Townman. It’s the circumstances of his capture. I think, Squire, that Fife will listen to me and listen very humbly, too.”

            For the first time in his acquaintance with Abel, Junz sensed a lessening of coolness in the old man’s voice, a substitution for it of satisfaction, almost of triumph.

           

           

FIFTEEN: The Captive

     

     

      IT WAS not very usual for the Lady Samia of Fife to feel frustrated. It was unprecedented, even inconceivable, that she had felt frustrated for hours now.

            The commander of the spaceport was Captain Racety all over again. He was polite, almost obsequious, looked unhappy, expressed his regrets, denied the least willingness to contradict her, and stood like iron against her plainly stated wishes.

            She was finally forced from stating her desires to demanding her rights as though she were a common Sarkite. She said, “I suppose that as a citizen I have the right to meet any incoming vessel if I wish.”

            She was poisonous about it.

            The commander cleared his throat and the expression of pain on his lined face grew, if anything, clearer and more definite. Finally he said, “As a matter of fact, my Lady, we have no wish at all to exclude you. It is only that we have received specific orders from the Squire, your father, to forbid your meeting the ship.”

            Samia said frozenly, “Are you ordering me to leave the port, then?”

            “No, my Lady.” The commander was glad to compromise. “We were not ordered to exclude you from the port. If you wish to remain here you may do so. But, with all due respect, we will have to stop you from approaching closer to the pits.”

            He was gone and Samia sat in the futile luxury of her private ground-car, a hundred feet inside the outermost entrance of the port. They had been waiting and watching for her. They would probably keep on watching her. If she as much as rolled a wheel onward, she thought indignantly, they would probably cut her power-drive.

            She gritted her teeth. It was unfair of her father to do this. It was all of a piece. They always treated her as though she understood nothing. Yet she had thought he understood.

            He had risen from his seat to greet her, a thing he never did for anyone else now that Mother was dead. He had clasped her, squeezed her tightly, abandoned all his work for her. He had even sent his secretary out of the room because he knew she was repelled by the native’s still, white countenance.

            It was almost like the old days before Grandfather died when Father had not yet become Great Squire.

            He said, “Mia, child, I’ve counted the hours. I never knew it was such a long way from Florina. When I heard that those natives had hidden on your ship, the one I had sent just to insure your safety, I was nearly wild.”

            “Daddy! There was nothing to worry about.”

            “Wasn’t there? I almost sent out the entire fleet to take you off and bring you in with full military security.”

            They laughed together at the thought. Minutes passed before Samia could bring the conversation back to the subject that filled her.

            She said casually, “What are you going to do with the stowaways, Dad?”

            “Why do you want to know, Mia?”

            “You don’t think they’ve plans to assassinate you, or anything like that?”

            Fife smiled. “You shouldn’t think morbid thoughts.”

            “You don’t think so, do you?” she insisted.

            “Of course not.”

            “Good! Because I’ve talked to them, Dad, and I just don’t believe they’re anything more than poor harmless people. I don’t care what Captain Racety says.”

            “They’ve broken a considerable number of laws for ‘poor harmless people,’ Mia.”

            “You can’t treat them as common criminals, Dad.” Her voice rose in alarm.

            “How else?”

            “The man isn’t a native. He’s from a planet called Earth and he’s been psycho-probed and he’s not responsible.”

            “Well then, dear, Depsec will realize that. Suppose you leave it to them.”

            “No, it’s too important to just leave to them. They won’t understand. Nobody understands. Except me!”

            “Only you in the whole world, Mia?” he asked indulgently, and put out a finger to stroke a lock of hair that had fallen over her forehead.

            Samia said with energy, “Only I! Only I! Everyone else is going to think he’s crazy, but I’m sure he isn’t. He says there is some great danger to Florina and to all the Galaxy. He’s a Spatio-analyst and you know they specialize in cosmogony. He would know!"

            “How do you know he’s a Spatio-analyst, Mia?”

            “He says so.”

            “And what are the details of the danger?”

            “He doesn’t know. He’s been psycho-probed. Don’t you see that that’s the best evidence of all? He knew too much. Someone was interested in keeping it dark.” Her voice instinctively fell and grew huskily confidential. She restrained an impulse to look over her shoulder. She said, “If his theories were false, don’t you see, there wouldn’t have been any need to psycho-probe him.”

            “Why didn’t they kill him, if that’s the case?” asked Fife and instantly regretted the question. There was no use in teasing the girl.

            Samia thought awhile, fruitlessly, then said, “If you’ll order Depsec to let me speak to him, I’ll find out. He trusts me. I know he does. I’ll get more out of him than Depsec can. Please tell Depsec to let me see him, Dad. It’s very important.”

            Fife squeezed her clenched fists gently and smiled at her. “Not yet, Mia. Not yet. In a few hours we’ll have the third person in our hands. After that, perhaps.”

            “The third person? The native who did all the killings?”

            “Exactly. The ship carrying him will land in about an hour.”

            “And you won’t do anything with the native girl and the Spatio-analyst till then?”

            “Not a thing.”

            “Good! I’ll meet the ship.” She rose.

            “Where are you going, Mia?”

            “To the port, Father. I have a great deal to ask of this other native.” She laughed. “I’ll show you that your daughter can be quite a detective.”

            But Fife did not respond to her laughter. He said, “I’d rather you didn’t.”

            “Why not?”

            “It’s essential that there be nothing out of the way about this man’s arrival. You’d be too conspicuous at the port.”

            “What of it?”

            “I can’t explain statecraft to you, Mia.”

            “Statecraft, pooh.” She leaned toward him, pecked a quick kiss at the center of his forehead and was gone.

            Now she sat helplessly car-bound in the port while far overhead there was a growing speck in the sky, dark against the brightness of the late afternoon.

            She pressed the button that opened the utility compartment and took out her polo-glasses. Ordinarily they were used to follow the gyrating antics of the one-man speedsters which took part in stratospheric polo. They could be put to more serious use too. She put them to her eyes and the descending dot became a ship in miniature, the ruddy glow of its stern drive plainly visible.

            She would at least see the men as they left, learn as much as she could by the one sense of sight, arrange an interview somehow, somehow thereafter.

            Sark filled the visiplate. A continent and half an ocean, obscured in part by the dead cotton-white of clouds, lay below.

            Genro said, his words a trifle uneven as the only indication that the better part of his mind was perforce on the controls before him, “The spaceport will not be heavily guarded. That was at my suggestion too. I said that any unusual treatment of the arrival of the ship might warn Trantor that something was up. I said that success depended upon Trantor being at no time aware of the true state of affairs until it was too late. Well, never mind that.”

            Terens shrugged his shoulders glumly. “What’s the difference?”

            “Plenty, to you. I will use the landing pit nearest the East Gate. You will get out the safety exit in the rear as soon as I land. Walk quickly but not too quickly toward that gate. I have some papers that may get you through without trouble and may not. I’ll leave it to you to take necessary action if there is trouble. From past history, I judge I can trust you that far. Outside the gate there will be a car waiting to take you to the embassy. That’s all.”

            “What about you?”

            Slowly Sark was changing from a huge featureless sphere of blinding browns and greens and blues and cloud-white into something more alive, into a surface broken by rivers and wrinkled by mountains.

            Genro’s smile was cool and humorless. “Your worries may end with yourself. When they find you gone, I may be shot as a traitor. If they find me completely helpless and physically unable to stop you, they may merely demote me as a fool. The latter, I suppose, is preferable, so I will ask you, before you leave, to use a neuronic whip on me.”

            The Townman said, “Do you know what a neuronic whip is like?”

            “Quite.” There were small drops of perspiration at his temples.

            “How do you know I won’t kill you afterward? I’m a Squire-killer, you know.”

            “I know. But killing me won’t help you. It will just waste your time. I’ve taken worse chances.”

            The surface of Sark as viewed in the visiplate was expanding, its edges rushed out past the border of visibility, its center grew and the new edges rushed out in turn. Something like the rainbow of a Sarkite city could be made out.

            “I hope,” said Genro, “you have no ideas of striking out on your own. Sark is no place for that. It’s either Trantor or the Squires. Remember.”

            The view was definitely that of a city now and a green-brown patch on its outskirts expanded and became a spaceport below them. It floated up toward them at a slowing pace.

            Genro said, “If Trantor doesn’t have you in the next hour the Squires will have you before the day is out. I don’t guarantee what Trantor will do to you, but I can guarantee what Sark will do to you.”

            Terens had been in the Civil Service. He knew what Sark would do with a Squire-killer.

            The port held steady in the visiplate, but Genro no longer regarded it. He was switching to instruments, riding the pulse-beam downward. The ship turned slowly in air, a mile high, and settled, tail down.

            A hundred yards above the pit, the engines thundered high. Over the hydraulic springs, Terens could feel their shuddering. He grew giddy in his seat.

            Genro said, “Take the whip. Quickly now. Every second is important. The emergency lock will close behind you. It will take them five minutes to wonder why I don’t open the main lock, another five minutes to break in, another five minutes to find you. You have fifteen minutes to get out of the port and into the car.”

            The shuddering ceased and in the thick silence Terens knew they had made contact with Sark.

            The shifting diamagnetic fields took over. The yacht tipped majestically and slowly moved down upon its side.

            Genro said, “Now!” His uniform was wet with perspiration.

            Terens, with swimming head, and eyes that all but refused to focus, raised his neuronic whip. .

 

            Terens felt the nip of a Sarkite autumn. He had spent years in its harsh seasons until he had almost forgotten the soft eternal June of Florina. Now his days in Civil Service rushed back upon him as though he had never left this world of Squires.

            Except that now he was a fugitive and branded upon him was the ultimate crime, the murder of a Squire.

            He was walking in time to the pounding of his heart. Behind him was the ship and in it was Genro, frozen in the agony of the whip. The lock had closed softly behind him, and he was walking down a broad, paved path. There were workmen and mechanics in plenty about him. Each had his own job and his own troubles. They didn’t stop to stare a man in the face. They had no reason to.

            Had anyone actually seen him emerge from the ship?

            He told himself no one had, or by now there would have been the clamor of pursuit.

            He touched his hat briefly. It was still down over his ears, and the little medallion it now carried was smooth to the touch. Genro had said that it would act as identification. The men from Trantor would be watching for just that medallion, glinting in the sun.

            He could remove it, wander away on his own, find his way to another ship--somehow. He would get away from Sark-- somehow. He would escape--somehow.

            Too many somehows! In his heart he knew he had come to the final end, and as Genro had said, it was either Trantor or Sark. He hated and feared Trantor, but he knew that in any choice it could not and must not be Sark.

 

            “You! You there!”

            Terens froze. He looked up in cold panic. The gate was a hundred feet away. If he ran. . . But they wouldn’t allow a running man to get out. It was a thing he dared not do. He must not run.

            The young woman was looking out the open window of a car such as Terens had never seen, not even during fifteen years on Sark. It gleamed with metal and sparkled with translucent gemmite.

            She said, “Come here.”

            Terens’ legs carried him slowly to the car. Genro had said Trantor’s car would be waiting outside the port. Or had he? And would they send a woman on such an errand? A girl, in fact. A girl with a dark, beautiful face.

            She said, “You arrived on the ship that just landed, didn’t you?”

            He was silent.

            She became impatient. “Come, I saw you leave the ship!” She tapped her polo-glasses. He had seen such glasses before.

            Terens mumbled, “Yes. Yes.”

            “Get in then.”

            She held the door open for him. The car was even more luxurious inside. The seat was soft and it all smelled new and fragrant and the girl was beautiful.

            She said, “Are you a member of the crew?”

            She was testing him, Terens imagined. He said, “You know who I am.” He raised his fingers momentarily to the medallion.

            Without any sound of motive power the car backed and turned.

            At the gate Terens shrank back into the soft, cool, kyrt-covered upholstery, but there was no need for caution. The girl spoke peremptorily and they passed through.

            She said, “This man is with me. I am Samia of Fife.”

            It took seconds for the tired Terens to hear and understand that. When he lurched tensely forward in his seat the car was traveling along the express lanes at a hundred per.

 

            A laborer within the port looked up from where he stood and muttered briefly into his lapel. He entered the building then and returned to his work. His superintendent frowned and made a mental note to talk to Tip about this habit of lingering outside to smoke cigarettes for half an hour at a time.

            Outside the port one of two men in a ground-car said with annoyance, “Got into a car with a girl? What car? What girl?” For all his Sarkite costume, his accent belonged definitely to the Arcturian worlds of the Trantorian Empire.

            His companion was a Sarkite, well versed in the visicast news releases. When the car in question rolled through the gate and picked up speed as it began to veer off and upward to the express level, he half rose in his seat and cried, “It’s the Lady Samia’s car. There isn’t another like it. Good Galaxy, what do we do?”

            “Follow,” said the other briefly.

            “But the Lady Samia--”

            “She’s nothing to me. She shouldn’t be anything to you either. Or what are you doing here?”

            Their own car was making the turn, climbing upward onto the broad, nearly empty stretches on which only the speediest of ground travel was permitted.

            The Sarkite groaned, “We can’t catch that car. As soon as she spots us she’ll kick out resistance. That car can make two-fifty.”

            “She’s staying at a hundred so far,” said the Arcturian.

            After a while he said, “She’s not going to Depsec. That’s for sure.”

            And after another while he said, “She’s not going to the Palace of Fife.”

            Still another interval and he said, “I’ll be spun in space if I know where she’s going. She’ll be leaving the city again.”

            The Sarkite said, “How do we know it’s the Squire-killer that’s in there? Suppose it’s a game to get us away from the post. She’s not trying to shake us and she wouldn’t use a car like that if she didn’t want to be followed. You can’t miss it at two miles.”

            “I know, but Fife wouldn’t send his girl to get us out of the way. A squad of patrollers would have done the job better.”

            “Maybe it isn’t really the Lady in it.”

            “We’re going to find out, man. She’s slowing. Flash past and stop around a curve!”

            “I want to speak to you,” said the girl.

            Terens decided it was not the ordinary kind of trap he had first considered it. She was the Lady of Fife. She must be. It did not seem to occur to her that anyone could or ought to interfere with her.

            She had never looked back to see if she were followed. Three times as they turned he had noted the same car to the rear, keeping its distance, neither closing the gap nor falling behind.

            It was not just a car. That was certain. It might be Trantor, which would be well. It might be Sark, in which case the Lady would be a decent sort of hostage.

            He said, “I’m ready to speak.”

            She said, “You were on the ship that brought the native from Florina? The one wanted for all those killings?”

            “I said I was.”

            “Very well. Now I’ve brought you out here so that there’ll be no interference. Was the native questioned during the trip to Sark?”

            Such naïveté, Terens thought, could not be assumed. She really did not know who he was. He said guardedly, “Yes.”

            “Were you present at the questioning?”

            “Yes.”

            “Good. I thought so. Why did you leave the ship, by the way?”

            That, thought Terens, was the question she should have asked first of all.

            He said, “I was to bring a special report to--” He hesitated. She seized on the hesitation eagerly. “To my father? Don’t worry about that. I’ll protect you completely. I’ll say you came with me at my orders.”

            He said, “Very well, my Lady.”

            The words “my Lady” struck deeply into his own consciousness. She was a Lady, the greatest in the land, and he was a Florinian. A man who could kill patrollers could learn easily how to kill Squires, and a Squire-killer might, by the same token, look a Lady in the face.

            He looked at her, his eyes hard and searching. He lifted his head and stared down at her.

            She was very beautiful.

            And because she was the greatest Lady in the land, she was unconscious of his regard. She said, “I want you to tell me everything that you heard at the questioning. I want to know all that was told to you by the native. It’s very important.”

            “May I ask why you are interested in the native, my Lady?”

            “You may not,” she said flatly.

            “As you wish, my Lady.”

            He didn’t know what he was going to say. With half his consciousness he was waiting for the pursuing car to catch up. With the other half he was growing more aware of the face and body of the beautiful girl sitting near him.

            Florinians in the Civil Service and those acting as Townmen were, theoretically, celibates. In actual practice, most evaded that restriction when they could. Terens had done what he dared and what was expedient in that direction. At best, his experiences had never been satisfactory.

            So it was all the more important that he had never been so near a beautiful girl in a car of such luxuriance under conditions of such isolation.

            She was waiting for him to speak, dark eyes (such dark eyes) aflame with interest, full red lips parted in anticipation, a figure more beautiful for being set off in beautiful kyrt. She was completely unaware that anyone, anyone, could possibly dare harbor dangerous thought with regard to the Lady of Fife.

            The half of his consciousness that waited for the pursuers faded out.

            He suddenly knew that the killing of a Squire was not the ultimate crime after all.

            He wasn’t quite aware that he moved. He knew only that her small body was in his arms, that it stiffened, that for an instant she cried out, and then he smothered the cry with his lips…

            There were hands on his shoulder and the drift of cool air on his back through the opened door of the car. His fingers groped for his weapon, too late. It was ripped from his hand.

            Samia gasped wordlessly.

            The Sarkite said with horror, “Did you see what he did?”

            The Arcturian said, “Never mind!”

            He put a small black object into his pocket and smoothed the seam shut. “Get him,” he said.

            The Sarkite dragged Terens out of the car with the energy of fury. “And she let him,” he muttered. “She let him.”

            “Who are you?” cried Samia with sudden energy. “Did my father send you?”

            The Arcturian said, “No questions, please.”

            “You’re a foreigner,” said Samia angrily.

            The Sarkite said, “By Sark, I ought to bust his head in.” He cocked his fist.

            “Stop it!” said the Arcturian. He seized the Sarkite’s wrist and forced it back.

            The Sarkite growled sullenly, “There are limits. I can take the Squire-killing. I’d like to kill a few myself, but standing by and watching a native do what he did is just about too much for me.”

            Samia said in an unnaturally high-pitched voice, “Native?”

            The Sarkite leaned forward, snatched viciously at Terens’ cap. The Townman paled but did not move. He kept his gaze steadily upon the girl and his sandy hair moved slightly in the breeze.

            Samia moved helplessly back along the car seat as far as she could and then, with a quick movement, she covered her face with both hands, her skin turning white under the pressure of her fingers.

            The Sarkite said, “What are we going to do with her?”

            “Nothing.”

            “She saw us; She’ll have the whole planet after us before we’ve gone a mile.”

            “Are you going to kill the Lady of Fife?” asked the Arcturian sarcastically.

            “Well, no. But we can wreck her car. By the time she gets to a radio-phone, we’ll be all right.”

            “Not necessary.” The Arcturian leaned into the car. “My Lady, I have only a moment. Can you hear me?”

            She did not move.

            The Arcturian said, “You had better hear me. I am sorry I interrupted you at a tender moment but luckily I have put that moment to use. I acted quickly and was able to record the scene by tri-camera. This is no bluff. I will transmit the negative to a safe place minutes after I leave you and thereafter any interference on your part will force me to be rather nasty. I’m sure you understand me.”

            He turned away. “She won’t say anything about this. Not a thing. Come along with me, Townman.”

            Terens followed. He could not look back at the white, pinched face in the car.

            Whatever might now follow, he had accomplished a miracle. For one moment he had kissed the proudest Lady on Sark, had felt the fleeting touch of her soft, fragrant lips.

           

           

SIXTEEN: The Accused

     

     

      DIPLOMACY has a language and a set of attitudes all its own. Relationships between the representatives of sovereign states, if conducted strictly according to protocol, are stylized and stultifying. The phrase “unpleasant consequences” becomes synonymous with war and “suitable adjustment” with surrender.

            When on his own, Abel preferred to abandon diplomatic double-talk. With a tight personal beam connecting himself and Fife, he might merely have been an elderly man talking amiably over a glass of wine.

            He said, “You have been hard to reach, Fife.”

            Fife smiled. He seemed at ease and undisturbed. “A busy day, Abel.”

            “Yes. I’ve heard a bit about it.”

            “Steen?” Fife was casual.

            “Partly. Steen’s been with us about seven hours.”

            “I know. My own fault, too. Are you considering turning him over to us?”

            “I’m afraid not.”

            “He’s a criminal.”

            Abel chuckled and turned the goblet in his hand, watching the lazy bubbles. “I think we can make out a case for his being a political refugee. Interstellar law will protect him on Trantorian territory.”

            “Will your government back you?”

            “I think it will, Fife. I haven’t been in the foreign service for thirty-seven years without knowing what Trantor will back and what it won’t.”

            “I can have Sark ask for your recall.”

            “What good would that do? I'm a peaceable man with whom you are well acquainted. My successor might be anybody.”

            There was a pause. Fife’s leonine countenance puckered. “I think you have a suggestion.”

            “I do. You have a man of ours.”

            “What man of yours?”

            “A Spatio-analyst. A native of the planet Earth, which, by the way, is part of the Trantorian domain.”

            “Steen told you this?”

            “Among other things.”

            “Has he seen this Earthman?”

            “He hasn’t said he has.”

            “Well, he hasn’t. Under the circumstances, I doubt that you can have faith in his word.”

            Abel put down his glass. He clasped his hands loosely in his lap and said, “Just the same, I’m sure the Earthman exists. I tell you, Fife, we should get together on this. I have Steen and you have the Earthman. In a sense we’re even. Before you go on with your current plans, before your ultimatum expires and your coup d’etat takes place, why not a conference on the kyrt situation generally?”

            “I don’t see the necessity. What is happening on Sark now is an internal matter entirely. I'm quite willing to guarantee personally that there will be no interference with the kyrt trade regardless of political events here. I think that should end Trantor’s legitimate interests.”

            Abel sipped at his wine, seemed to consider. He said, “It seems we have a second political refugee. A curious case. One of your Florinian subjects, by the way. A Townman. Myrlyn Terens, he calls himself.”

            Fife’s eyes blazed suddenly. “We half suspected that. By Sark, Abel, there’s a limit to the open interference of Trantor on this planet. The man you have kidnaped is a murderer. You can’t make a political refugee out of him.”

            “Well, now, do you want the man?”

            “You have a deal in mind? Is that it?”

            “The conference I spoke of.”

            “For one Florinian murderer. Of course not.”

            “But the manner in which the Townman managed to escape to us is rather curious. You may be interested. . .”

 

            Junz paced the floor, shaking his head. The night was already well advanced. He would like to be able to sleep but he knew he would require somnin once again.

            Abel said, “I might have had to threaten force, as Steen suggested. That would have been bad. The risks would have been awful, the results uncertain. Yet until the Townman was brought to us I saw no alternative, except of course, a policy of do-nothing.”

            Junz shook his head violently. “No. Something had to be done. Yet it amounted to blackmail.”

            “Technically, I suppose so. What would you have had me do?”

            “Exactly what you did. I’m not a hypocrite, Abel. Or I try not to be. I won’t condemn your methods when I intend to make full use of the results. Still, what about the girl?”

            “She won’t be hurt as long as Fife keeps his bargain.”

            “I’m sorry for her. I’ve grown to dislike the Sarkite aristocrats for what they’ve done to Florina, but I can’t help feeling sorry for her.”

            “As an individual, yes. But the true responsibility lies with Sark itself. Look here, old man, did you ever kiss a girl in a ground-car?”

            The tip of a smile quivered at the corners of Junz’s mouth. “Yes.”

            “So have I, though I have to call upon longer memories than you do, I imagine. My eldest granddaughter is probably engaged in the practice at this moment, I shouldn’t wonder. What is a stolen kiss in a ground-car, anyway, except the expression of the most natural emotion in the Galaxy?

            “Look here, man. We have a girl, admittedly of high social standing, who, through mistake, finds herself in the same car with, let us say, a criminal. He seizes the opportunity to kiss her. It’s on impulse and without her consent. How ought she to feel? How ought her father to feel? Chagrined? Perhaps. Annoyed? Certainly. Angry? Offended? Insulted? All that, yes. But disgraced? No! Disgraced enough to be willing to endanger important affairs of state to avoid exposure? Nonsense.

            “But that’s exactly the situation and it could happen only on Sark. The Lady Samia is guilty of nothing but willfulness and a certain naïveté. She has, I am sure, been kissed before. If she kissed again, if she kissed innumerable times, anyone but a Florinian, nothing would be said. But she did kiss a Florinian.

            “It doesn’t matter that she did not know he was a Florinian. It doesn’t matter that he forced the kiss upon her. To make public the photograph we have of the Lady Samia in the arms of the Florinian would make life unbearable for her and for her father. I saw Fife’s face when he stared at the reproduction. There was no way of telling for certain that the Townman was a Florinian. He was in Sarkite costume with a cap that covered his hair well. He was light-skinned, but that was inconclusive. Still, Fife knew that the rumor would be gladly believed by many who were interested in scandal and sensation and that the picture would be considered incontrovertible proof. And he knew that his political enemies would make the greatest possible capital out of it. You may call it blackmail, Junz, and maybe it is, but it’s a blackmail that would not work on any other planet in the Galaxy. Their own sick social system gave us this weapon and I have no compunction about using it.”

            Junz sighed. “What’s the final arrangement?”

            “We’ll meet at noon tomorrow.”

            “His ultimatum has been postponed then?”

            “Indefinitely. I will be at his office in person.”

            “Is that a necessary risk?”

            “It’s not much of one. There will be witnesses. And I am anxious to be in the material presence of this Spatio-analyst you have been searching for so long.”

            “I’ll attend?” asked Junz anxiously.

            “Oh yes. The Townman as well. We’ll need him to identify the Spatio-analyst. And Steen, of course. All of you will be present by trimensic personification.”

            “Thank you.”

            The Trantorian Ambassador smothered a yawn and blinked at Junz through watering eyes. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve been awake for two days and a night and I’m afraid my old body can take no more antisomnin. I must sleep.”

 

            With trimensic personification perfected, important conferences were rarely held face to face. Fife felt strongly an element of actual indecency in the material presence of the old Ambassador. His olive complexion could not be said to have darkened, but its lines were set in silent anger.

            It had to be silent. He could say nothing. He could only stare sullenly at the men who faced him.

            Abel! An old dotard in shabby clothes with a million worlds behind him.

            Junz! A dark-skinned, woolly-haired interferer whose perseverance had precipitated the crisis.    Steen! The traitor! Afraid to meet his eyes!

            The Townman! To look at him was most difficult of all. He was the native who had dishonored his daughter with his touch yet who could remain safe and untouchable behind the walls of the Trantorian Embassy. He would have been glad to grind his teeth and pound his desk if he had been alone. As it was, not a muscle of his face must move though it tore beneath the strain.

            If Samia had not . . . He dropped that. His own negligence had cultivated her willfulness and he could not blame her for it now. She had not tried to excuse herself or soften her own guilt. She had told him all the truth of her private attempts to play the interstellar spy and how horribly it had ended. She had relied completely, in her shame and bitterness, on his understanding, and she would have that much. She would have that much, if it meant the ruin of the structure he had been building.

            He said, “This conference has been forced upon me. I see no point in saying anything. I’m here to listen.”

            Abel said, “I believe Steen would like to have his say first.”

            Fife’s eyes filled with contempt that stung Steen.

            Steen yelled his answer. “You made me turn to Trantor, Fife. You violated the principle of autonomy. You couldn’t expect me to stand for that. Really.”

            Fife said nothing and Abel said, not without a little contempt of his own, “Get to your point, Steen. You said you had something to say. Say it.”

            Steen’s sallow cheekbones reddened without benefit of rouge. “I will, and right now. Of course I don’t claim to be the detective that the Squire of Fife represents himself to be, but I can think. Really! And I’ve been thinking. Fife had a story to tell yesterday, all about a mysterious traitor he called X. I could see it was just a lot of talk so that he could declare an emergency. I wasn’t fooled a minute.”

            “There’s no X?” asked Fife quietly. “Then why did you run? A man who runs needs no other accusation.”

            “Is that so? Really?” cried Steen. “Well, I would run out of a burning building even if I had not set the fire myself.”

            “Go on, Steen,” said Abel.

            Steen licked his lips and turned to a minute consideration of his fingernails. He smoothed them gently as he spoke. “But then I thought, why make up that particular story with all its complications and things? It’s not his way. Really! It’s not Fife’s way. I know him. We all know him. He has no imagination at all, Your Excellency. A brute of a man! Almost as bad as Bort.”

            Fife scowled. “Is he saying something, Abel, or is he babbling?”

            “Go on, Steen,” said Abel.

            “I will, if you’ll let me talk. My goodness! Whose side are you on? I said to myself (this was after dinner), I said, Why would a man like Fife make up a story like that? There was only one answer. He couldn’t make it up. Not with his mind. So it was true. It must be true. And, of course, patrollers had been killed, though Fife is quite capable of arranging to have that happen.”

            Fife shrugged his shoulders.

            Steen drove on. “Only who is X? It isn’t I. Really! I know it isn’t I! And I’ll admit it could only have been a Great Squire. But what Great Squire knew most about it, anyway? What Great Squire has been trying to use the story of the Spatio-analyst for a year now to frighten the others into some sort of what he calls ‘united effort’ and what I call surrender to a Fife dictatorship?

            “I’ll tell you who X is.” Steen stood up, the top of his head brushing the edge of the receptor-cube and flattening as the uppermost inch sliced off into nothingness. He pointed a trembling finger. “He’s X. The Squire of Fife. He found this Spatio-analyst. He put him out of the way, when he saw the rest of us weren’t impressed with his silly remarks at our first conference, and then he brought him out again after he had already arranged a military coup.”

            Fife turned wearily to Abel. “Is he through? If so, remove him. He is an unbearable offense to any decent man.”

            Abel said, “Have you any comment to make on what he says?”

            “Of course not. It isn’t worth comment. The man is desperate. He’ll say anything.”

            “You can’t just brush it off, Fife,” called Steen. He looked about at the rest. His eyes narrowed and the skin at his nostrils was white with tension. He remained standing. “Listen. He said his investigators found records in a doctor’s office. He said the doctor had died by accident after diagnosing the Spatio-analyst as the victim of psycho-probing. He said it was murder by X to keep the identity of the Spatio-analyst secret. That’s what he said. Ask him. Ask him if that isn’t what he said.”

            “And if I did?” asked Fife.

            “Then ask him how he could get the records from the office of a doctor who was dead and buried for months unless he had them all along. Really!”

            Fife said, “This is foolish. We can waste time indefinitely this way. Another doctor took over the dead man’s practice and his records as well. Do any of you think medical records are destroyed along with a physician?”

            Abel said, “No, of course not.”

            Steen stuttered, then sat down.

            Fife said, “What’s next? Have any of you more to say? More accusations? More anything?” His voice was low. Bitterness showed through.

            Abel said, “Why, that was Steen’s say, and we’ll let it pass. Now Junz and I, we’re here on another kind of business. We would like to see the Spatio-analyst.”

            Fife’s hands had been resting upon the desk top. They lifted now and came down to clutch the edge of the desk. His black eyebrows drew together.

            He said, “We have in custody a man of subnormal mentality who claims to be a Spatio-analyst. I’ll have him brought in!”

 

            Valona March had never, never in her life dreamed such impossibilities could exist. For over a day now, ever since she had landed on this planet of Sark, there had been a touch of wonder about everything. Even the prison cells in which she and Rik had been separately placed seemed to have an unreal quality of magnificence about them. Water came out of a hole in a pipe when you pressed a button. Heat came out of the wall, although the air outside had been colder than she had thought air could possibly get. And everyone who spoke to her wore such beautiful clothes.

            She had been in rooms in which were all sorts of things she had never seen before. This one now was larger than any yet but it was almost bare. It had more people in it, though. There was a stern-looking man behind a desk, and a much older, very wrinkled man in a chair, and three others.

            One was the Townman!

            She jumped up and ran to him. “Townman! Townman!”

            But he wasn’t there!

            He had gotten up and waved at her. “Stay back, Lona. Stay back!”

            And she passed right through him. She had reached out to seize his sleeve, he moved it away. She lunged, half stumbling, and passed right through him. For a moment the breath went out of her body. The Townman had turned, was facing her again, but she could only stare down at her legs.

            Both of them were thrusting through the heavy arm of the chair in which the Townman had been sitting. She could see it plainly, in all its color and solidity. It encircled her legs but she did not feel it. She put out a trembling hand and her fingers sank an inch deep into upholstery they could not feel either. Her fingers remained visible.

            She shrieked and fell, her last sensation being that of the Townman’s arms reaching automatically for her and herself f ailing through their circle as though they were pieces of flesh-tinted air.

            She was in a chair again, Rik holding one hand tightly and the old, wrinkled man leaning over her.

            He was saying, “Don’t be frightened, my dear. It’s just a picture. A photograph, you know.”

            Valona looked about. The Townman was still sitting there. He wasn’t looking at her.

            She pointed a finger. “Isn’t he there?”

            Rik said suddenly, “It’s a trimensic personification, Lona. He’s somewhere else, but we can see him from here.”

            Valona shook her head. If Rik said so, it was all right. But she lowered her eyes. She dared not look at people who were there and not there at the same time.

            Abel said to Rik, “So you know what trimensic personification is, young man?”

            “Yes, sir.” It had been a tremendous day for Rik, too, but where Valona was increasingly dazzled, he had found things increasingly familiar and comprehensible.

            “Where did you learn that?”

            “I don’t know. I knew it before--before I forgot.”

            Fife had not moved from his seat behind the desk during the wild plunge of Valona March toward the Townman.

            He said acidly, “I am sorry to have to disturb this meeting by bringing in a hysterical native woman. The so-called Spatio-analyst required her presence.”

            “It’s all right,” said Abel. “But I notice that your Florinian of subnormal mentality seems to be acquainted with trimensic personification.”

            “He has been well drilled, I imagine,” said Fife.

            Abel said, “Has he been questioned since arriving on Sark?”

            “He certainly has.”

            “With what result?”

            “No new information.”

            Abel turned to Rik. “What’s your name?”

            “Rik is the only name I remember,” said Rik calmly.

            “Do you know anyone here?”

            Rik looked from face to face without fear. He said, “Only the Towriman. And Lona, of course.”

            “This,” said Abel, gesturing toward Fife, “is the greatest Squire that ever lived. He owns the whole world. What do you think of him?”

            Rik said boldly, “I'm an Earthman. He doesn’t own me.”

            Abel said in an aside to Fife, “I don’t think an adult native Florinian could be trained into that sort of defiance.”

            “Even with a psycho-probe?” returned Fife scornfully.

            “Do you know this gentleman?” asked Abel, returning to Rik.

            “No, sir.”

            “This is Dr. Selim Junz. He’s an important official at the Interstellar Spatio-analytic Bureau.”

            Rik looked at him intently. “Then he’d be one of my chiefs. But,” with disappointment, “I don’t know him. Or maybe I just don’t remember.”

            Junz shook his head gloomily. “I’ve never seen him, Abel.”

            “That’s something for the record,” muttered Fife.

            “Now listen, Rik,” said Abel. “I'm going to tell you a story. I want you to listen with all your mind and think. Think and think! Do you understand me?”

            Rik nodded.

            Abel talked slowly. His voice was the only sound in the room for long minutes. As he went on, Rik’s eyelids closed and screwed themselves tight shut. His lips drew back, his fists moved up to his chest, and his head bent forward. He had the look of a man in agony.

            Abel talked on, passing back and forth across the reconstruction of events as they had originally been presented by the Squire of Fife. He talked of the original message of disaster, of its interception, of the meeting between Rik and X, of the psycho-probing, of how Rik had been found and brought up on Florina, of the doctor who diagnosed him and then died, of his returning memory.

            He said, “That’s the whole story, Rik. I’ve told you all of it. Does anything sound familiar to you?”

            Slowly, painfully, Rik said, “I remember the last parts. You know, the last few days. I remember something further back, too. Maybe it was the doctor, when I first started talking. It’s very dim. . . . But that’s all.”

            Abel said, “But you do remember further back. You remember danger to Florina.”

            “Yes. Yes. That was the first thing I remembered.”

            “Then can’t you remember after that? You landed on Sark and met a man.”

            Rik moaned, “I can’t. I can’t remember.”

            “Try! Try!”

            Rik looked up. His white face was wet with perspiration. “I remember a word.”

            “What word, Rik?”

            “It doesn’t make sense.”

            “Tell us anyway.”

            “It goes along with a table. Long, long ago. Very dim. I was sitting. I think, maybe, someone else was sitting. Then he was standing, looking down at me. And there’s a word.”

            Abel was patient. “What word?”

            Rik clenched his fists and whispered, “Fife!”

            Every man but Fife rose to his feet. Steen shrieked, “I told you,” and burst into a high-pitched bubbling cackle.

           

           

SEVENTEEN: The Accuser

     

     

      Fife said with tightly controlled passion, “Let us end this farce.”

            He had waited before speaking, his eyes hard and his face expressionless, until in sheer anticlimax the rest were forced to take their seats again. Rik had bent his head, eyes screwed painfully shut, probing his own aching mind. Valona pulled him toward herself, trying hard to cradle his head on her shoulder, stroking his cheek softly.

            Abel said shakily, “Why do you say this is a farce?”

            Fife said, “Isn’t it? I agreed to this meeting in the first place only because of a particular threat you held over me. I would have refused even so if I had known the conference was intended to be a trial of myself with renegades and murderers acting as both prosecutors and jury.”

            Abel frowned and said with chilling formality, “This is not a trial, Squire. Dr. Junz is here in order to recover the person of a member of the I.S.B., as is his right and duty. I am here to protect the interests of Trantor in a troubled time. There is no doubt in my mind that this man, Rik, is the missing Spatio-analyst. We can end this part of the conference immediately if you will agree to turn over the man to Dr. Junz for further examination, including a check of physical characteristics. We would naturally require your further help in finding the guilty psycho-prober and in setting up safeguards against a future repetition of such acts against what is, after all, an interstellar agency which has consistently held itself above regional politics.”

            Fife said, “Quite a speech! But the obvious remains obvious and your plans are quite transparent. What would happen if I gave up this man? I rather think that the I.S.B. will manage to find out exactly what it wants to find out. It claims to be an interstellar agency with no regional ties, but it’s a fact, isn’t it, that Trantor contributes two thirds of its annual budget? I doubt that any reasonable observer would consider it really neutral in the Galaxy of today. Its findings with regard to this man will surely suit Trantor’s imperial interests.

            “And what will these findings be? That’s obvious too. The man’s memory will slowly come back. The I.S.B. will issue daily bulletins. Bit by bit he will remember more and more of the necessary details. First my name. Then my appearance. Then my exact words. I will be solemnly declared guilty. Reparations will be required and Trantor will be forced to occupy Sark temporarily, an occupation which will somehow become permanent.

            “There are limits beyond which any blackmail breaks down. Yours, Mr. Ambassador, ends here. If you want this man, have Trantor send a fleet after him.”

            “There is no question of force,” said Abel. “Yet I notice that you have carefully avoided denying the implication in what the Spatio-analyst has last said.”

            “There isn’t any implication that I need dignify by a denial. He remembers a word, or says he does. What of it?”

            “Doesn’t it mean anything that he does?”

            “Nothing at all. The name Fife is a great one on Sark. Even if we assume the so-called Spatio-analyst is sincere, he had a year’s opportunity to hear the name on Florina. He came to Sark on a ship that carried my daughter, a still better opportunity to have heard the name of Fife. What is more natural than that the name became involved with his trace memories? Of course, he may not be sincere. This man’s bit-by-bit disclosures may be well rehearsed.”

            Abel thought of nothing to say. He looked at the others. Junz was frowning darkly, the fingers of his right hand slowly kneading his chin. Steen was simpering foolishly and muttering to himself. The Florinian Townman stared blankly at his knees.

            It was Rik who spoke, forcing himself from Valona’s grasp and standing up.

            “Listen,” he said. His pale face was twisted. His eyes mirrored pain.

            Fife said, “Another disclosure, I suppose.”

            Rik said, “Listen! We were sitting at a table. The tea was drugged. We had been quarreling. I don’t remember why. Then I couldn’t move. I could only sit there. I couldn’t talk. I could only think, Great Space, rye been drugged. I wanted to shout and scream and run, but I couldn’t. Then the other one, Fife, came. He had been shouting at me. Only now he wasn’t shouting. He didn’t have to. He came around the table. He stood there, towering over me. I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t do anything. I could only try to turn my eyeballs up toward him.”

            Rik remained standing, silent.

            Selim Junz said, “This other man was Fife?”

            “I remember his name was Fife.”

            “Well, was he that man?”

            Rik did not turn to look. He said, “I can’t remember what he looked like.”

            “Are you sure?”

            “I’ve been trying.” He burst out, “You don’t know how hard it is. It hurts! It’s like a red-hot needle. Deep! In here!” He put his hands to his head.

            Junz said softly, “I know it’s hard. But you must try. Don’t you see, you must keep on trying. Look at that man! Turn and look at him!”

            Rik twisted toward the Squire of Fife. For a moment he stared, then turned away.

            Junz said, “Can you remember now?”

            “No! No!”

            Fife smiled grimly. “Has your man forgotten his lines, or will the story seem more believable if he remembers my face the next time around?”

            Junz said hotly, “I have never seen this man before, and I have never spoken to him. There has been no arrangement to frame you and I am tired of your accusations in that direction. I am after the truth only.”

            “Then may I ask him a few questions?”

            “Go ahead.”

            “Thank you, I’m sure, for your kindness. Now you--Rik, or whatever your real name is--”

            He was a Squire, addressing a Florinian.

            Rik looked up. “Yes, sir.”

            “You remember a man approaching you from the other side of the table as you sat there, drugged and helpless.”

            “Yes, sir.”

            ‘The last thing you remember is this man staring down at you.”

            “Yes, sir.”

            “You stared up at him, or tried to.”

            “Yes, sir.”

            “Sit down.”

            Rik did so.

            For a moment Fife did nothing. His lipless mouth might have grown tighter, the jaw muscles under the blue-black sheen of the stubble on his cheeks and chin bunched a bit. Then he slid down from his chair.

            Slid down! It was as though he had gotten down on his knees there behind the desk.

            But he moved from behind it and was seen plainly to be standing.

            Junz’s head swam. The man, so statuesque and formidable in his seat, had been converted without warning into a pitiful midget.

            Fife’s deformed legs moved under him with an effort, carrying the ungainly mass of torso and head forward. His face flushed but his eyes kept their look of arrogance intact. Steen broke into a wild giggle and choked it off when those eyes turned on him. The rest sat in fascinated silence.

            Rik, wide-eyed, watched him approach.

            Fife said, “Was I the man who approached you around the table?”

            “I can’t remember his face, sir.”

            “I don’t ask you to remember his face. Can you have forgotten this?” His two arms went wide, framing his body. “Can you have forgotten my appearance, my walk?”

            Rik said miserably, “It seems I shouldn’t, sir, but I don’t know.”

            “But you were sitting, he was standing, and you were looking up at him.”

            “Yes, sir.”

            “He was looking down at you, ‘towering’ over you, in fact.”

            “Yes, sir.”

            “You remember that at least? You’re certain of that?”

            “Yes, sir.”

            The two were now face to face.

            “Am I looking down at you?”

            Rik said, “No, sir.”

            “Are you looking up at me?”

            Rik, sitting, and Fife, standing, stared levelly at one another, eye to eye.

            “No, sir.”

            “Could I have been the man?”

            “No, sir.”

            “Are you certain?”

            “Yes, sir.”

            “You still say the name you remember is Fife?”

            “I remember that name,” insisted Rik stubbornly.

            “Whoever it was, then, used my name as a disguise?”

            “He--he must have.”

            Fife turned and with slow dignity struggled back to his desk and climbed into his seat.

            He said, “I have never allowed any man to see me standing before this in all my adult life. Is there any reason why this conference should continue?”

            Abel was at once embarrassed and annoyed. So far the conference had backfired badly. At every step Fife had managed to put himself in the right, the others in the wrong. Fife had successfully presented himself as a martyr. He had been forced into conference by Trantorian blackmail, and made the subject of false accusations that had broken down at once.

            Fife would see to it that his version of the conference flooded the Galaxy and he would not have to depart very far from the truth to make it excellent anti-Trantorian propaganda.

            Abel would have liked to cut his losses. The psycho-probed Spatio-analyst would be of no use to Trantor now. Any “memory” he might have thereafter would be laughed down, made ridiculous, however true it might be. He would be accepted as an instrument of Trantorian imperialism, and a broken instrument at that.

            But he hesitated, and it was Junz who spoke.

            Junz said, “It seems to me there’s a very good reason for not ending the conference just yet. We have not yet determined exactly who is responsible for the psycho-probing. You have accused the Squire of Steen, and Steen has accused you. Granting that both of you are mistaken and that both are innocent, it still remains true that you each believe one of the Great Squires is guilty. Which one, then?”

            “Does it matter?” asked Fife. “As far as you’re concerned, I’m sure it doesn’t. That matter would have been solved by now except for the interference of Trantor and the I.S.B. Eventually I will find the traitor. Remember that the psycho-prober, whoever he is, had the original intention of forcing a monopoly of the kyrt trade into his own hands, so I am not likely to let him escape. Once the psycho-prober is identified and dealt with, your man here will be returned unharmed to you. That is the only offer I can make and it is a very reasonable one.”

            “What will you do with the psycho-prober?”

            “That is a purely internal matter that does not concern you.”

            “But it does,” Junz said energetically. “This is not just a question of the Spatio-analyst. There’s something of greater importance involved and I’m surprised that it hasn’t been mentioned yet. This man Rik wasn’t psycho-probed just because he was a Spatio-analyst.”

            Abel was not sure what Junz’s intentions were, but he threw his weight into the scales. He said blandly, “Dr. Junz is referring, of course, to the Spatio-analyst’s original message of danger.”

            Fife shrugged. “As far as I know, no one has yet attached any importance to that, including Dr. Junz over the past year. However, your man is here, Doctor. Ask him what it’s all about.”

            “Naturally, he won’t remember,” Junz retorted angrily. “The psycho-probe is most effective upon the more intellectual chains of reasoning stored in the mind. The man may never recover the quantitative aspects of his lifework.”

            “Then it’s gone,” said Fife. “What can be done about that?”

            “Something very definite. That’s the point. There’s someone else who knows, and that’s the psycho-prober. He may not have been a Spatio-analyst himself; he may not know the precise details. However, he spoke to the man in a state of untouched mind. He will have learned enough to put us far on the right track. Without having learned enough he would not have dared to destroy the source of his information. Still, for the record, do you remember, Rik?”

            “Only that there was danger and that it involved the currents of space,” muttered Rik.

            Fife said, “Even if you find out, what will you have? How reliable are any of the startling theories that sick Spatio-analysts are forever coming up with? Many of them think they know the secrets of the universe when they’re so sick they can barely read their instruments.”

            “It may be that you are right. Are you afraid to let me find out?”

            “I am against starting any morbid rumors that might, whether true or false, affect the kyrt trade. Don’t you agree with me, Abel?”

            Abel squirmed inwardly. Fife was maneuvering himself into the position where any break in kyrt deliveries resulting from his own coup could be blamed on Trantorian maneuvers. But Abel was a good gambler. He raised the stakes calmly and unemotionally.

            He said, “I don’t. I suggest you listen to Dr. Junz.”

            “Thanks,” said Junz. “Now you have said, Squire Fife, that whoever the psycho-prober was, he must have killed the doctor who examined this man Rik. That implies that the psycho-prober had kept some sort of watch over Rik during his stay on Florina.”

            “Well?”

            “There must be traces of that kind of watching.”

            “You mean you think these natives would know who was watching them.”

            “Why not?”

            Fife said, “You are not a Sarkite and so you make mistakes. I assure you that natives keep their places. They don’t approach Squires and if Squires approach them they know enough to keep their eyes on their toes. They would know nothing of being watched.”

            Junz quivered visibly with indignation. The Squires had their despotism so ingrained that they saw nothing wrong or shameful in speaking of it openly.

            He said, “Ordinary natives perhaps. But we have a man here who is not an ordinary native. I think he has shown us rather thoroughly that he is not a properly respectful Florinian. So far he has contributed nothing to the discussion and it is time to ask him a few questions.”

            Fife said, “That native’s evidence is worthless. In fact, I take the opportunity once more to demand that Trantor surrender him to proper trial by the courts of Sark.”

            “Let me speak to him first.”

            Abel put in mildly, “I think it will do no harm to ask him a few questions, Fife. If he proves unco-operative or unreliable, we may consider your request for extradition.”

            Terens, who, till now, had stolidly concentrated on the fingers of his clasped hands, looked up briefly.

            Junz turned to Terens. He said, “Rik has been in your town since he was first found on Florina, hasn’t he?”

            “Yes.”

            “And you were in town all that time? I mean you weren’t on any extended business trips, were you?”

            “Townmen don’t make business trips. Their business is in their town.”

            "All right. Now relax and don’t get touchy. It would be part of your business to know about any Squire that might come to town, I imagine.”

            “Sure. When they come.”

            “Did they come?”

            Terens shrugged. “Once or twice. Pure routine, I assure you. Squires don’t dirty their hands with kyrt. Unprocessed kyrt, that is.

            “Be respectful!” roared Fife.

            Terens looked at him and said, “Can you make me?”

            Abel interrupted smoothly, “Let’s keep this between the man and Dr. Junz, Fife. You and I are spectators.”

            Junz felt a glow of pleasure at the Townman’s insolence, but he said, “Answer my questions without side comments please, Townman. Now who exactly were the Squires who visited your town this past year?”

            Terens said fiercely, “How can I know? I can’t answer that question. Squires are Squires and natives are natives. I may be a Townman but I’m still a native to them. I don’t greet them at the town gates and ask their names.

            “I get a message, that’s all. It’s addressed ‘Townman.’ It says there’ll be a Squire’s Inspection on such-and-such a day and I’m to make the necessary arrangements. I must then see to it that the mill-workers have on their best clothes, that the mill is cleaned up and working properly, that the kyrt supply is ample, that everyone looks contented and pleased, that the houses have been cleaned and the streets policed, that some dancers are on hand in case the Squires would care to view some amusing native dance, that maybe a few pretty g--”

            “Never mind that, Townman,” said Junz.

            “You never mind that. I do.”

            After his experiences with the Florinians of the Civil Service, Junz found the Townman as refreshing as a drink of cold water. He made up his mind that what influence the I.S.B. could bring to bear would be used to prevent any surrender of the Townman to the Squires.

            Terens went on, in calmer tones, “Anyway, that’s my part. When they come, I line up with the rest. I don’t know who they are. I don’t speak to them.”

            “Was there any such inspection the week before the City Doctor was killed? I suppose you know what week that happened.”

            “I think I heard about it in the newscasts. I don’t think there was any Squire’s Inspection at that time. I can’t swear to it.”

            “Whom does your land belong to?”

            Terens pulled the corners of his mouth back. “To the Squire of Fife.”

            Steen spoke up, breaking into the give-and-take with rather surprising suddenness. “Oh, look here. Really! You’re playing into Fife’s hands with this kind of questioning, Dr. Junz. Don’t you see you won’t get anywhere? Really! Do you suppose if Fife were interested in keeping tabs on that creature there that he would go to all the trouble of making trips to Florina to look at him? What are patrollers for? Really!”

            Junz looked flustered. “In a case like this, with a world’s economy and maybe its physical safety resting on the contents of one man’s mind, it’s natural that the psycho-prober would not care to leave the guardianship to patrollers.”

            Fife intervened. “Even after he had wiped out that mind, to all intents?”

            Abel pushed out his lower lip and frowned. He saw his latest gamble sliding into Fife’s hands with all the rest.

            Junz tried again, hesitantly. “Was there any particular patroller or group of patrollers that was always underfoot?”

            “I’d never know. They’re just uniforms to me.”

            Junz turned to Valona with the effect of a sudden pounce. A moment before she had gone a sickly white and her eyes had become wide and stary. Junz had not missed that.

            He said, “What about you, girl?”

            But she only shook her head, wordlessly.

            Abel thought heavily, There’s nothing more to do. It’s all over.

            But Valona was on her feet, trembling. She said in a husky whisper, “I want to say something.”

            Junz said, “Go ahead, girl. What is it?”

            Valona talked breathlessly and with fright obvious in every line of her countenance and every nervous twitch of her fingers. She said, “I’m just a country girl. Please don’t be angry with me. It’s just that it seems that things can only be one way. Was my Rik so very important? I mean, the way you said?”

            Junz said gently, “I think he was very, very important. I think he still is.”

            “Then it must be like you said. Whoever it was who had put him on Florina wouldn’t have dared take his eye away for even a minute hardly. Would he? I mean, suppose Rik was beaten by the mill superintendent or was stoned by the children or got sick and died. He wouldn’t be left helpless in the fields, would he, where he might die before anyone found him? They wouldn’t suppose that it would just be luck that would keep him safe.” She was speaking with an intense fluency now.

            “Go on,” said Junz, watching her.

            “Because there was one person who did watch Rik from the start. He found him in the fields, fixed it so I would take care of him, kept him out of trouble and knew about him every day. He even knew all about the doctor, because I told him. It was he! It was he!”

            With her voice at screaming intensity, her finger pointed rigidly at Myrlyn Terens, Townman.

            And this time even Fife’s superhuman calm broke and his arms stiffened on his desk, lifting his massive body a full inch off his seat, as his head swiveled quickly toward the Townman.

           

           

EIGHTEEN: The Victors

     

     

      IT WAS as though vocal paralysis had gripped them all. Even Rik, with disbelief in his eyes, could only stare woodenly, first at Valona, then at Terens.

            Then came Steen’s high-pitched laugh and the silence was broken.

            Steen said, “I believe it. Really! I said so all along. I said the native was in Fife’s pay. That shows you the kind of man Fife is. He’d pay a native to--”

            “That’s an infernal lie.”

            It wasn’t Fife who spoke, but the Townman. He was on his feet, eyes glistening with passion.

            Abel, who of them all seemed the least moved, said, “What is?”

            Terens stared at him a moment, not comprehending, then said chokingly, “What the Squire said. I am in the pay of no Sarkite.”

            “And what the girl said? Is that a lie too?”

            Terens wet his dry lips with the tip of his tongue. “No, that’s true. I am the psycho-prober.” He hurried on. “Don’t look at me like that, Lona. I didn’t mean to hurt him. I didn’t intend any of what happened.” He sat down again.

            Fife said, “This is a sort of device. I don’t know exactly what you’re planning, Abel, but it’s impossible on the face of it that this criminal could have included this particular crime in his repertoire. It’s definite that only a Great Squire could have had the necessary knowledge and facilities. Or are you anxious to take your man Steen off the hook by arranging for a false confession?”

            Terens, hands tightly clasped, leaned forward in his seat. “I don’t take Trantorian money, either.”

            Fife ignored him.

            Junz was the last to come to himself. For minutes, he could not adjust to the fact that the Townman was not really in the same room with him, that he was somewhere else on the embassy grounds, that he could see him only in image form, no more real actually than was Fife, who was twenty miles away. He wanted to go to the Townman, grip him by the shoulder, speak to him alone, but he couldn’t. He said, “There’s no point in arguing before we hear the man. Let’s have the details. If he is the psycho-prober, we need the details badly. If he isn’t, the details he’ll try to give us will prove it.”

            “If you want to know what happened,” cried Terens, “I’ll tell you. Holding it back won’t do me any good any longer. It’s Sark or Trantor after all, so to Space with it. This will at least give me a chance to get one or two things into the open.”

            He pointed at Fife in scorn. “There’s a Great Squire. Only a Great Squire, says this Great Squire, can have the knowledge or the facilities to do what the psycho-prober did. He believes it, too. But what does he know? What do any of the Sarkites know?

            “They don’t run the government. Florinians do! The Florinian Civil Service does. They get the papers, they make the papers, they file the papers. And it’s the papers that run Sark. Sure, most of us are too beaten even to whimper, but do you know what we could do if we wanted to, even under the noses of our damned Squires? Well, you see what I’ve done.

            “I was temporarily traffic manager at the spaceport a year ago. Part of my training. It’s in the records. You’ll have to dig a little to find it because the listed traffic manager is a Sarkite. He had the title but I did the actual work. My name would be found in the special section headed Native Personnel. No Sarkite would have dirtied his eyes looking there.

            “When the local I.S.B. sent the Spatio-analyst’s message to the port with a suggestion that we meet the ship with an ambulance, I got the message. I passed on what was safe. This matter of the destruction of Florina was not passed on.

            “I arranged to meet the Spatio-analyst at a small suburban port. I could do that easily. All the wires and strings that ran Sark were at my finger tips. I was in the Civil Service, remember. A Great Squire who wanted to do what I did, couldn’t, unless he ordered some Florinian to do it for him. I could do it without anyone’s help. So much for knowledge and facility.

            “I met the Spatio-analyst, kept him away from both Sark and the I.S.B. I squeezed as much information out of him as I could and set about using that information for Florina and against Sark.”

            Words were forced out of Fife. “You sent those first letters?”

            “I sent those first letters, Great Squire,” said Terens calmly. “I thought I could force control of enough of the kyrt lands into my own hands to make a deal with Trantor on my terms and drive you off the planet.”

            “You were mad.”

            “Maybe. Anyway, it didn’t work. I had told the Spatio-analyst I was the Squire of Fife. I had to, because he knew that Fife was the biggest man on the planet, and as long as he thought I was Fife, he was willing to talk openly. It made me laugh to realize that he thought Fife was anxious to do whatever was best for Florina.

            “Unfortunately, he was more impatient than I was. He insisted that every day lost was a calamity, while I knew that my dealings with Sark needed time more than anything else. I found it difficult to control him and eventually had to use a psychic probe. I could get one. I had seen it used in hospitals. I knew something about it. Unfortunately, not enough.

            “I set the probe to wipe out the anxiety from the surface layers of his mind. That’s a simple operation. I still don’t know what happened. I think the anxiety must have run deeper, very deep, and the probe automatically followed it, digging out most of the conscious mind along with it. I was left with a mindless thing on my hands     m sorry, Rik.”

            Rik, who had been listening intently, said sadly, “You shouldn’t have interfered with me, Townman, but I know how you must have felt.”

            “Yes,” said Terens, “you’ve lived on the planet. You know about patrollers and Squires and the difference between Lower City and Upper City.”

            He took up the current of his story again. “So there I was with the Spatio-analyst completely helpless. I couldn’t let him be found by anyone who might trace his identity. I couldn’t kill him. I felt sure his memory would return and I would still need his knowledge, to say nothing of the fact that killing him would forfeit the good will of Trantor and the I.S.B., which I would eventually need. Besides, in those days, I was incapable of killing.

            “I arranged to be transferred to Florina as Townman and I took the Spatio-analyst with me on forged papers. I arranged to have him found, I picked Valona to take care of him. There was no danger thereafter except for that one time with the doctor. Then I had to enter the power plants of Upper City. That was not impossible. The engineers were Sarkites but the janitors were Florinian. On Sark I learned enough about power mechanics to know how to short a power line. It took me three days to find the proper time for it. After that, I could murder easily. I never knew, though, that the doctor kept duplicate records in both halves of his office. I wish I had.”

            Terens could see Fife’s chronometer from where he sat. “Then, one hundred hours ago--it seems like a hundred years-- Rik began remembering again. Now you have the whole story.”

            “No,” said Junz, “we have not. What are the details of the Spatio-analyst’s story of planetary destruction?”

            “Do you think I understood the details of what he had to say? It was some sort of--pardon me, Rik--madness.”

            “It wasn’t,” blazed Rik. “It couldn’t have been.”

            “The Spatio-analyst had a ship,” said Junz. “Where is it?”

            “On the scrap heap long ago,” said Terens. “An order scrapping it was sent out. My superior signed it. A Sarldte never reads papers, of course. It was scrapped without question.”

            “And Rik’s papers? You said he showed you papers!”

            “Surrender that man to us,” said Fife suddenly, “and we’ll find out what he knows.”

            “No,” said Junz. “His first crime was against the I.S.B. He kidnaped and damaged the mind of a Spatio-analyst. He belongs to us.”

            Abel said, “Junz is correct.”

            Terens said, “Now look here. I don’t say a word without safeguards. I know where Rik’s papers are. They’re where no Sarkite or Trantorian will ever find them. If you want them you’ll have to agree that I’m a political refugee. Whatever I did was out of patriotism, out of a regard for the needs of my planet. A Sarkite or a Trantorian may claim to be patriotic; why not a Florinian as well?”

            “The Ambassador,” said Junz, “has said you will be given over to the I.S.B. I assure you that you will not be turned over to Sark. For your treatment of the Spatio-analyst, you will be tried. I cannot guarantee the result, but if you co-operate with us now, it will count in your favor.”

            Terens looked searchingly at Junz. Then he said, “I’ll take my chance with you, Doctor. . . . According to the Spatio-analyst, Florina’s sun is in the pre-nova stage.”

            “What!” The exclamation or its equivalent came from all but Valona.

            “It’s about to explode and go boom,” said Terens sardonically. “And when that happens all of Florina will go poof, like a mouthful of tobacco smoke.”

            Abel said, “I’m no Spatio-analyst, but I have heard that there is no way of predicting when a star will explode.”

            “That’s true. Until now, anyway. Did Rik explain what made him think so?” asked Junz.

            “I suppose his papers will show that. All I can remember is about the carbon current.”

            “What?”

            “He kept saying, ‘The carbon current of space. The carbon current of space.’ That, and the words ‘catalytic effect.’ There it is.

            Steen giggled. Fife frowned. Junz stared.

            Then Junz muttered, “Pardon me. I’ll be right back.” He stepped out of the limits of the receptor cube and vanished.

            He was back in fifteen minutes.

            Junz looked about in bewilderment when he returned. Only Abel and Fife were present.

            He said, “Where--”

            Abel broke in instantly. “We have been waiting for you, Dr. Junz. The Spatio-analyst and the girl are on their way to the Embassy. The conference is ended.”

            “Ended! Great Galaxy, we have only begun. I’ve got to explain the possibilities of nova formation.”

            Abel shifted uneasily in his seat. “It is not necessary to do that, Doctor.”

            “It is very necessary. It is essential. Give me five minutes.”

            “Let him speak,” said Fife. He was smiling.

            Junz said, ‘Take it from the beginning. In the earliest recorded scientific writings of Galactic civilization it was already known that stars obtained their energy from nuclear transformations in their interiors. It was also known that, given what we know about conditions in stellar interiors, two types, and only two types, of nuclear transformations can possibly yield the necessary energy. Both involve the conversion of hydrogen to helium. The first transformation is direct: two hydrogens and two neutrons combine to form one helium nucleus. The second is indirect, with several steps. It ends up with hydrogen becoming helium, but in the intermediate steps, carbon nuclei take part. These carbon nuclei are not used up but are re-formed as the reactions proceed, so that a trifling amount of carbon can be used over and over again, serving to convert a great deal of hydrogen to helium. The carbon acts as a catalyst, in other words. All this has been known back to the days of prehistory, back to the time when the human race was restricted to a single planet, if there ever was such a time.”

            “If we all know it,” said Fife, “I would suggest that you are contributing nothing but a waste of time.”

            “But this is all we know. Whether stars use one or the other, or both, nuclear processes has never been determined. There have always been schools of thought in favor of each of the alternatives. Usually the weight of opinion has been in favor of the direct hydrogen-helium conversion as being the simpler of the two.

            “Now Rik’s theory must be this. The hydrogen-helium direct conversion is the normal source of stellar energy, but under certain conditions the carbon catalysis adds its weight, hastening the process, speeding it up, heating up the star.

            “There are currents in space. You all know that well. Some of these are carbon currents. Stars passing through the currents pick up innumerable atoms. The total mass of atoms attracted, however, is incredibly microscopic in comparison to the star’s weight and does not affect it in any way. Except for carbon! A star that passes through a current containing unusual concentrations of carbon becomes unstable. I don’t know how many years or centuries or millions of years it takes for the carbon atoms to diffuse into the star’s interior, but it probably takes a long time. That means that a carbon current must be wide and a star must intersect it at a small angle. In any case, once the quantity of carbon percolating into the star’s interior passes a certain critical amount, the star’s radiation is suddenly boosted tremendously. The outer layers give way under an unimaginable explosion and you have a nova.

            “Do you see?”

            Junz waited.

            Fife said, “Have you figured all this out in two minutes as a result of some vague phrase the Townman remembered the Spatio-analyst to have said a year ago?”

            “Yes. Yes. There’s nothing surprising in that. Spatio-analysis is ready for that theory. If Rik had not come up with it, someone else would have shortly. In fact, similar theories have been advanced before, but they were never taken seriously. They were put forward before the techniques of Spatio-analysis were developed and no one was ever able to account for the sudden acquisition of excess carbon by the star in question.

            “But now we know there are carbon currents. We can plot their courses, find out what stars intersected those courses in the past ten thousand years, check that against our records for nova formation and radiation variations. That’s what Rik must have done. Those must have been the calculations and observations he tried to show the Townman. But that’s all beside the immediate point.

            “What must be arranged for now is the immediate beginning of an evacuation of Florina.”

            “I thought it would come to that,” said Fife composedly.

            “I’m sorry, Junz,” said Abel, “but that’s quite impossible.”

            “Why impossible?”

            “When will Florina’s sun explode?”

            “I don’t know. From Rik’s anxiety a year ago, I’d say we had little time.”

            “But you can’t set a date?”

            “Of course not.”

            “When will you be able to set a date?”

            “There’s no way of telling. Even if we get Rik’s calculations, it would all have to be rechecked.”

            “Can you guarantee that the Spatio-analyst’s theory will prove to be correct?”

            Junz frowned. “I am personally certain of it, but no scientist can guarantee any theory in advance.”

            “Then it turns out that you want Florina evacuated on mere speculation.”

            “I think the chance of killing the population of a planet is not one that can be taken.”

            “If Florina were an ordinary planet I would agree with you. But Florina bears the Galactic supply of kyrt. It can’t be done.”

            Junz said angrily, “Is that the agreement you came to with Fife while I was gone?”

            Fife intervened. He said, “Let me explain, Dr. Junz. The government of Sark would never consent to evacuate Florina, even if the I.S.B. claimed it had proof of this nova theory of yours. Trantor cannot force us because while the Galaxy might support a war against Sark for the purpose of maintaining the kyrt trade, it will never support one for the purpose of ending it.”

            “Exactly,” said Abel. “I am afraid our own people would not support us in such a war.”

            Junz found revulsion growing strong within him. A planet full of people meant nothing against the dictates of economic necessity!

            He said, “Listen to me. This is not a matter of one planet, but of a whole Galaxy. There are now twenty full novae originating within the Galaxy every year. In addition, some two thousand stars among the Galaxy’s hundred billion shift their radiation characteristics sufficiently to render uninhabitable any habitable planet they may have. Human beings occupy one million stellar systems in the Galaxy. That means that on an average of once every fifty years some inhabited planet somewhere becomes too• hot for life. Such cases are a matter of historical record. Every five thousand years some inhabited planet has a fifty-fifty chance of being puffed to gas by a nova.

            “If Trantor does nothing about Florina, if it allows it to vaporize with its people on it, that will serve notice to all the people of the Galaxy that when their own turn comes they may expect no help, if such help is in the way of the economic convenience of a few powerful men. Can you risk that, Abel?

            “On the other hand, help Florina and you will have shown that Trantor puts its responsibility to the people of the Galaxy above the maintenance of mere property rights. Trantor will win good will that it could never win by force.”

            Abel bowed his head. Then he shook it wearily. “No, Junz. What you say appeals to me, but it is not practical. I can’t count on emotions as against the assured political effect of any attempt to end the kyrt trade. In fact, I think it might be wise to avoid investigating the theory. The thought that it might be true would do too much harm.”

            “But what if it is true?”

            “We must work on the assumption that it is not. I take it that when you were gone a few moments ago it was to contact the I.S.B.”

            “Yes.”

            “No matter. Trantor, I think, will have enough influence to stop their investigations.”

            “I’m afraid not. Not these investigations. Gentlemen, we will soon have the secret of cheap kyrt. There will be no kyrt monopoly within a year, whether or not there is a nova.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “The conference is reaching the essential point now, Fife. Kyrt grows only on Florina of all inhabited planets. Its seeds produce ordinary cellulose elsewhere. Florina is probably the only inhabited planet, on a chance basis, that is currently pre-nova, and it has probably been pre-nova since it first entered the carbon current, perhaps thousands of years ago, if the angle of intersection was small. It seems quite probable, then, that kyrt and the prenova stage go together.”

            “Nonsense,” said Fife.

            “Is it? There must be a reason why kyrt is kyrt on Florina and cotton elsewhere. Scientists have tried many ways of artificially producing kyrt elsewhere, but they tried blindly, so they’ve always failed. Now they will know it is due to factors induced in a pre-nova stellar system.”

            Fife said scornfully, “They’ve tried duplicating the radiation qualities of Fife’s sun.”

            “With appropriate arc lights, yes, that duplicated the visible and ultraviolet spectrum only. What about radiation in the infrared and beyond? What about magnetic fields? What about electron emission? What about cosmic-ray effects? I’m not a physical biochemist so there may be factors I know nothing about. But people who are physical biochemists will be looking now, a whole Galaxy of them. Within the year, I assure you, the solution will be found.

            “Economics is on the side of humanity now. The Galaxy wants cheap kyrt, and if they find it or even if they imagine they will shortly find it, they will want Florina evacuated, not only out of humanity, but out of a desire to turn the tables, at long last, on the kyrt-gouging Sarkites.”

            “Bluff!” growled Fife.

            “Do you think so, Abel?” demanded Junz. “If you help the Squires, Trantor will be looked on not as the saviors of the kyrt trade but of the kyrt monopoly. Can you chance that?”

            “Can Trantor chance a war?” demanded Fife.

            “War? Nonsense! Squire, in one year your holdings on Florina will be worthless, nova or not. Sell out. Sell out all Florina. Trantor can pay for it.”

            “Buy a planet?” said Abel in dismay.

            “Why not? Trantor has the funds, and its gain in good will among the people of the universe will pay it back a thousandfold. If telling them that you are saving hundreds of millions of lives is not enough, tell them that you will bring them cheap kyrt. That will do it.”

            “I’ll think about it,” said Abel.

            Abel looked at the Squire. Fife’s eyes fell.

            After a long pause he too said, “I’ll think about it.”

            Junz laughed harshly. “Don’t think too long. The kyrt story will break quickly enough. Nothing can stop it. After that, neither one of you will have freedom of action. You can each strike a better bargain now.”

 

            The Townman seemed beaten. “It’s really true?” he kept repeating. “Really true? No more Florina?”

            “It’s true,” said Junz.

            Terens spread his arms, let them fall against his side. “If you want the papers I got from Rik, they’re filed among vital statistic files in my home town. I picked the dead files, records a century back and more. No one would ever look there for any reason.”

            “Look,” said Junz, “I’m sure we can make an agreement with the I.S.B. We’ll need a man on Florina, one who knows the Florinian people, who can tell us how to explain the facts to them, how best to organize the evacuation, how to pick the most suitable planets of refuge. Will you help us?”

            “And beat the game that way, you mean? Get away with murder? Why not?” There were sudden tears in the Townman’s eyes. “But I lose anyway. I will have no world, no home. We all lose. The Florinians lose their world, the Sarkites lose their wealth, the Trantorians their chance to get that wealth. There are no winners at all.”

            “Unless,” said Junz gently, “you realize that in the new Galaxy--a Galaxy safe from the threat of stellar instability, a Galaxy with kyrt available to all, and a Galaxy in which political unification will be so much closer--there will be winners after all. One quadrillion winners The people of the Galaxy, they are the victors.”

           

           

EPILOG: A Year After

     

     

      “Rik! Rik!” Selim Junz hurried across the port grounds toward the ship, hands outstretched. “And Lona! I’d never have recognized either of you. How are you? How are you?”

            “As well as we could wish. Our letter reached you, I see,” said Rik.

            “Of course. Tell me, what do you think of it all?” They were walking back together, toward Junz’s offices.

            Valona said sadly, “We visited our old town this morning. The fields are so empty.” Her clothing was now that of a woman of the Empire, rather than that of a peasant of Florina.

            “Yes, it must be dreary for a person who has lived here. It grows dreary even for me, but I will stay as long as I can. The radiation recordings of Florina’s sun are of tremendous theoretical interest.”

            “So much evacuation in less than a year! It speaks for excellent organization.”

            “We’re doing our best, Rik. Oh, I think I should be calling you by your real name.”

            “Please don’t. I’ll never be used to it. I’m Rik. That’s still the only name I remember.”

            Junz said, “Have you decided whether you’re going to return to Spatio-analysis?”

            Rik shook his head. “I’ve decided, but the decision is, no. I’ll never remember enough. That part’s gone forever. It doesn’t bother me, though. I’ll be returning to Earth. . . . By the way, I rather hoped I’d see the Townman.”

            “I think not. He decided to go off today. I think he’d rather not see you. He feels guilty, I think. You have no grudge against him?”

            Rik said, “No. He meant well, and he changed my life in many ways for the better. For one thing, I met Lana.” His arm went about her shoulder.

            Valona looked at him and smiled.

            “Besides,” Rik went on, “he cured me of something. I’ve found out why I was a Spatio-analyst. I know why nearly a third of all Spatio-analysts are recruited from the one planet, Earth. Anyone living on a radioactive world is bound to grow up in fear and insecurity. A misstep can mean death and our planet’s own surface is the greatest enemy we have.

            “That makes for a sort of anxiety bred into us, Dr. Junz, a fear of planets. We’re only happy in space; that’s the only place we can feel safe.”

            “And you don’t feel that way any longer, Rik?”

            “I certainly don’t. I don’t even remember feeling that way. That’s it, you see. The Townman had set his psychic probe to remove feelings of anxiety and he hadn’t bothered to set the intensity controls. He thought he had a recent, superficial trouble to deal with. Instead there was this deep, ingrained anxiety he knew nothing of. He got rid of all of it. In a sense, it was worth getting rid of it even though so much else went with it. I don’t have to stay in space now. I can go back to Earth. I can work there and Earth needs men. It always will.”

            “You know,” Junz said, “why can’t we do for Earth what we’re doing for Florina? There’s no need to bring up Earthmen in such fear and insecurity. The Galaxy is big.”

            “No,” said Rik vehemently. “It’s a different case. Earth has its past, Dr. Junz. Many people may not believe it, but we of Earth know that Earth was the original planet of the human race.”

            “Well, perhaps. I can’t say, one way or the other.”

            “It was. It’s a planet that can’t be abandoned; it mustn’t be abandoned. Someday we’ll change it, change its surface back to what it once must have been. Till then--we’re staying.”

            Valona said softly, “And I’m an Earthwoman now.”

            Rik was looking out at the horizon. Upper City was as garish as ever, but the people were gone.

            He said, “How many are left on Florina?”

            “About twenty million,” said Junz. “We work slower as we go along. We have to keep our withdrawals balanced. The people that are left must always maintain themselves as an economic unit in the months that are left. Of course, resettlement is in its earliest stages. Most of the evacuees are still in temporary camps on neighboring worlds. There is unavoidable hardship.”

            “When will the last person leave?”

            “Never, really.”

            “I don’t understand.”

            “The Townman has applied unofficially for permission to remain. It’s been granted, also unofficially. It won’t be a matter of public record.”

            “Remain?” Rik was shocked. “But for the sake of all the Galaxy, why?”

            “I didn’t know,” said Junz, “but I think you explained it when you talked of Earth. He feels as you do. He says he can’t bear the thought of leaving Florina to die alone.”