Chapter VIII: Part 8

"I reckon so, Doc. The flame certainly did change to green. I think I remember, long ago, hearing some engineers discuss the possibility of stepping up charlesite enough so it could be used in braking a big ship for descent, instead of keeping the atomics on all the way down. It would char everything over a wide area, but at least it wouldn't make radioactive desert...."

"I can't feel it," Wright mumbled. "Mirage...."

It was no mirage. The ship _Jensen_ stood high above blackened ground half a mile away; even here at the edge of forest there was a lingering smell, anciently familiar. Paul felt himself grinning stupidly. "Plain carbon tet or something like it. Must have shot it out to kill any grass fires. No mirage."

Towering silver-white above a hundred-foot tripod, it flaunted the letters of a great name, and David Spearman rubbed his eyes at it, leaning against Arek's knee, accepting the protective touch of her hand. Arek said, "What--Oh Paul, what will they be like?"

Wright shook his head, plainly feeling it now--the thought, the memories, the pleasure, and something far from pleasure. Paul answered, "They will--look like us, Arek."

Pakriaa pointed up. "There! That we remember. Oh, the beautiful--"

"A boat out already?" Paul searched and found the silver flight.

Wright chattered: "Have we anything, anything white? No--you and I out in the open, Paul--rest of you keep back. They need to recognize what we are--" He was shaking, and Paul embraced his shoulders to steady him as they moved into the open ground. Wright giggled hysterically. "Damn white flag myself--my whiskers--"

The boat swooped, swelling from a dot to keen familiar lines; it circled above them twice and came to earth in a perfect landing a hundred feet away. A blank pallor in the pilot's window would be a human face; there would be a human brain shocked into new wonder. It was still necessary for Paul to help his teacher through the grass, for Wright was swaying and stumbling. Paul reminded him: "They'll be sealed up, afraid of the air."

"Ah, yes. I say they needn't be--we have good air on Lucifer...."

Paul was aware of his own struggle for sanity, for clarity in the beginning of this impossible joy which was not pure joy. He heard himself shout at the top of his strong lungs: "'Ahoy the _Jensen_!' No, they won't hear it. Yes--they did, they did."

The door slid open for a meeting of two worlds. A square little bald man, a tall gray-haired woman who fussed at her ears, troubled by the change in atmospheric pressure. Faded overalls, the human look, incredulous stares changing to belief. The bald man gulped and stumbled; he grinned and held out his hand. "Dr. Christopher Wright, I presume?"

Wright could neither speak nor let go the hand. The woman said, "You must be--well, who could forget the photographs?--you're Paul Mason."

"Yes, We never--for years we haven't even thought--" "Mark Slade," said the bald man, "Captain Slade. This is Dr. Nora Stern.... Sir, I--you are well? You look well--"

"We are well," said Wright.

"I'm afraid to ask--the others? Dr. Oliphant? Captain Jensen? The--the little girls? And there was a young engineer--Edmund Spearman...."

Paul managed to say, "Both little girls are mothers. Dr. Oliphant and Captain Jensen died--Jensen on the ship, in the last acceleration. Spearman is--will be here before long, I think. You may find him somewhat changed--" Wright said, "We must let Ed speak for himself, Paul." In spite of the shock, the newness, Dr. Stern was sensitive to nuances. She said too loudly, "Beautiful country." She pressed both hands to her ears and took them away and spoke in a normal voice: "There...! Oh, what strange steep hills...!"

"N-not like any rock of Earth," Paul stammered. "Defies erosion." _And I am speaking with the pride of a home lover...._ "The open ground is a little dangerous--flying carnivores. Come and meet our friends."

Captain Slade had already seen the giants and pygmies at the edge of the woods; his small monkey face was ablaze with friendly curiosity and the startled amusement that will wake at anything new, but he said, "In just a moment. Let me take this in. If I can.... We've done it, Nora." He filled his lungs deeply, blinking at a few tears of pleasure. "A world like ours--a new world. Oh, Nora, it'll be a long time before we can believe this, you and I.... High oxygen, we noticed--feels like it. Sir, your ship--"

"Lost," said Wright, tranquilly now, no longer shaking from head to foot. "Out of control in descent, fell in a lake"--he motioned over his shoulder--"a few miles over there. We call it Lake Argo. Too deep even to think of salvage. One of the lifeboats cracked up; we used the other for about a year. Our friends, Captain--you'll like our friends--"

Slade murmured, "Speculation on parallel evolution seems to have been sound--here anyway. Humanoid, I see. Two species?"

"Human," said Wright. "Their English, by the way, is better than mine. They are close to us, Captain--very dear to us."

"I--see," said Captain Slade kindly. Paul thought: _He can't see--it's too new. But maybe he will try to see_.

"How many in your party, Captain?"

Slade grinned. "Only four, Mr. Mason." _Heavens! Mister? That's me._ "A smaller crew, bigger ship. Federation thought best. We left thirteen years after you. Twelve years on the journey. Of course we've had to double in brass considerably. The other two are a young couple--Jimmy Mukerji; he's from Calcutta--Oh, and by the way, Dr. Wright, his mother was Sigrid Hoch, anthropologist, one of your students."

"Sigrid--" Wright groped in the past. "Of course. I remember." But Paul guessed that he did not.

"Jimmy's a botanist _and_ engineer _and_--oh, general technician, good anywhere. Sally Marino--another good technician. Frankly I didn't want specialists--wanted kids who could turn a hand to anything, and I got 'em." Slade's friendly face saddened; he and Dr. Stern were walking clumsily to the woods, feeling the change in gravity. "Ours was to be the last interstellar ship, Dr. Wright, until either you or we came home. There'll be no building going on now. A Federation decision--matter of public opinion as well as economics. Well, the old lady over there did cost twice as much as your _Argo_, upped the Federation poll tax three per cent just to pay for her on paper. Could have got around that, maybe, but there was a beginning of public hysteria, protest--resentment at the idea of throwing lives and billions into space with nothing to show for it for many years. Fanatics on both sides, and both noisy, plus the war scare of course. Short-term thinking. Human."

"You can't blame them," said Nora Stern.

"I do blame them, Nora, now that we know it can be done...."

Elis had tried to be ready with a little speech of welcome, but shyness made him stiff with dignity, and it was evident that Dunin would break loose in nervous giggling. Elis said only, "You're very welcome. We hope you'll enjoy it here." Pakriaa might have been back in the days of tribal grandeur, but her control too was only a result of shyness and wonder as she echoed the Governor's words. It was unfairly difficult for the newcomers, Paul could see--the giants' furry nakedness and majesty, the pygmies' tininess and wrinkled baldness; even the Charin-like beauty of Miniaan's features might be invisible to new Charin eyes. But Slade and Dr. Stern behaved well, with a natural friendliness. "Why," said Slade, "these boys--"

"John and David Spearman," Paul explained. "Ann's boys. Spearman--we think he'll be here shortly."

Arek asked evenly, "You've come to stay, I hope?"

"To--stay?" Slade shot a startled glance at Wright, who avoided it, giving him no help.

Paul said quickly, "Captain, we ought to have warned you, but neither Doc nor I could get our wits together until you'd opened the door. About thirteen or fourteen hours from now you'll have a fever and a period of unconsciousness. Not too much discomfort and, so far as we know, no danger--anyhow all of us recovered in fine shape and we've had excellent health ever since. We decided it's just a part of acclimation to--we call this planet Lucifer. But if you think the two others should stay in the ship till you recover--"

Dr. Stern was measuring him shrewdly. "You look very healthy, both of you, and I know we can take your word for anything. Jimmy and Sally are pretty rugged. They'll be wild to join us. Sally will be at the intercom right now, tearing her pretty hair out in handfuls. They might as well chance it with us.... Where do you people live? We saw a--settlement? Over there south of the lake."

Wright glanced at Paul with vague entreaty. It was Miniaan who spoke, the small silver of her voice a music in the sun-streaked shadow: "The settlement below the lake is a thing of the past, an empire that died. We live on a warm island over yonder, the other side of those mountains, the island Adelphi. We are returning there now, after a--journey with some trouble in it."

"Adelphi," said Dr. Stern, savoring the name. "Mark--our two boats could fly them all there with us, couldn't they? Take out the emergency stuff to make room."

"It would be wise," said Paul. "We could take better care of you during the illness, at Adelphi. We have houses there. Here it's not very safe--biting flies and some dangerous animals."

Slade was doubtful. "Anything here that could interfere with the ship if we leave it unguarded?"

Miniaan laughed. "Certainly the people of Vestoia will not go near it."

"Nothing could harm it," said Wright. "Too big. How in hell do you get down out of it?"

Slade chuckled and made up his mind. "Electronic lock. Can work it from a transmitter in the lifeboat; only other way's from inside. Lets down a ladder. Automatic derricks in the side blisters to hoist the lifeboats if, as, and when. They thought of--_nearly_ everything." He hugged the gray-haired woman. "Even briefing on how to get along with each other for ten-plus years."

"Learning love can be difficult," said Pakriaa. Dr. Stern stared at the tiny woman with new intentness. Pakriaa's seamed face had taken on its dreamy look. "You must see our island. Last year Mashana Dorothy was Governor of our island. This year it is this man." She touched Elis' knee.

"A sinecure," Elis chuckled. "A sinecure, ladies'n' gentlemen."

Captain Slade laughed, standing five feet five, peering up at the Governor's eight feet seven--half a head more than Mijok's height. Paul thought he saw there the raw materials of friendship. Dr. Stern said, "And you call this planet Lucifer?"

"Light-bringer," said Nisana; there was grief in her face not evident in any of the others. "Son of the morning," Paul moved toward her, wondering.

Slade had missed the overtone, and cocked a dark eyebrow. "Industries?"

Wright shrugged. "A few, sir. All we seem to need at present in such a small community."

"Oh." Slade touched the old man's jacket. "This is fine fabric. I couldn't tell it from linen. Is it?"

"Very similar." Wright took Nisana's hand on his palm. "This lady is our best weaver because her hands are so small and sure. Our loom is clumsy because, of course, our metalworking is not far advanced. But it does good work for Nisana."

"I like to weave," Nisana whispered, looking here and there and not at Paul. "I like to make new things."

Paul glimpsed the twitch of Mijok's ears, the beckoning curve of a gray finger; Mijok whispered, "He's coming, Paul. A few hundred yards away in the woods, breathing hard and limping. Is there nothing we can do for him?"

"I don't know, Mijok. I'm afraid whatever is done he must do for himself, and it's late for that, very late." He saw that Mijok was trying to understand and could not. "His mind is--living in another country...."

But outwardly at least, Edmund Spearman was changed. He even searched out Dunin's worried face and apologized. "Should have accepted your offer--stupid of me." He smiled. "Wanted to show what a walker I was, I guess." John and David slipped behind Muson's back, tense and cold. Spearman shook Slade's hand, and Dr. Stern's. "My God, it doesn't seem possible. I can't take it in. Slade, you said? And Dr. Stern. We've wondered, dreamed, prayed for it. I can't tell you--I don't know what to say.... Good trip?"

"Excellent." Slade hugged himself. "Excellent beyond description. Ah, all the Federation needed was proof. They've got it now! Rather, they will have it in twelve years. Lordy! I'll be fifty-one." He pounded Paul on the back, and Spearman, giving way to a bubbling overflow of good nature. "There'll be a new President, whole new Council I guess--and they won't be looking for us either, man." He danced a few steps and jabbed Paul in the ribs. "Think of it! Why, it's a Tom Sawyer job. You know? You remember? When you and I walk up the middle aisle in the Federation Hall--oh, man, man...."

Paul had to find Nisana's face again, and the devastation of sorrow in it, before he understood. He stooped quickly to whisper, "I am not going back to Earth." The radiance in the aging red face was like a Charin girl's.

And he heard Dr. Stern remark dryly, "Mark, I believe we've got some nearer bridges to cross."

4

One of the soft lizard-oil lamps gleamed in Kajana's room, though it was late and the house was hushed. Paul had not been able to find sleep; Dorothy would be watching at the bedsides of the four unconscious newcomers from Earth for another hour, until Tejron relieved her. Paul tapped at Kajana's never-closed doorway. "May I come in?"

"Yes, please do." The little man smiled up from his pillows: they were filled with a stuff like dandelion down, almost as good as feathers. "Will you lift me a little?" Paul fussed over him, glad of something to do. "I was not sleepy. I finished transcribing from the shorthand, but my thought remains with it."

"Shorthand--"

"The talk of this afternoon. You didn't know I was recording it. You were all speaking somewhat beyond yourselves, in a way I wanted to preserve. I wish we had better pencils. These last are not bad, blue clay mixed with the graphite, but they still crumble too easily and the wood is big for my hand. I used the brown ink for the transcription." He shuffled the gray marsh-reed pages together. "You might like to look at it."

"Yes. Tonight, I think. Doc did say some things worth remembering."

Kajana smiled. "So did you."

"Did I...? Pencils are one thing they must have had on the ship in abundance. The library too. Poor Doc, he'd have given anything for the books--so would I...."

Kajana patted his hand. "Maybe it doesn't matter too much, Paul? We have our own books to make.... Besides--don't you think Spearman may have unloaded some things for us before he took off?"

"Not a chance. His mind wouldn't work that way."

"No? Well, you knew him better. Still, he had time, Paul. He knew we couldn't go after him: you told me he drained the fuel out of one lifeboat before he stole the other. And it was three hours, after you found he was gone, before you saw the big ship go up over the range."

"And down," Paul said, still physically shaken with the memory, the sound, the sight of it. "Down into the sea forever."

"What happened, do you think?"

"We'll never know. It was a new type of ship. His knowledge of such things was ten years old, Lucifer years. Likely the take-off was too complex for one man to handle it. After we saw it climb past the range, we stayed there--Doc and Dorothy and Miniaan and I--near the temple, just stayed there mind-sick and wondering. We saw it reappear--a dot, then a flame. He never quit trying. He had the atomics blazing all the way down. Sometimes they'd lift the ship a little, and we--I suppose we weren't breathing--we'd think yes--no, yes--no. I even thought: is he going to crash it _here_? But he was really many miles to the west, only seemed near, so bright in that darkness. A meteor--yes, call him a meteor--burned out and lost. Up to the very end, until we saw it strike the water near the western horizon, he was still trying, a mad insect heaving against the web of gravity. And we'll never know what he really wanted, either. I have an idea he may not have meant to go back to Earth. I think perhaps he wanted another star--one that never was."

And Paul wondered: _Should I tell Kajana what Doc said when it was all over? No, not now--not till I understand it myself._ ("I consider myself to blame." "What do you mean?" "Remember when Arek noticed he was gone? I saw him slip away ten minutes before she spoke. He looked at me, too. I think I may have known what he meant to do: I said nothing. Earth is a very distant place, Paul. The Federation is building no more interstellar ships, for a while--for a while." "But you--" "I may therefore be to blame. I look within and am confused, as so often. But all the same, here in our world I have helped to establish a few practical certainties." During that murmured interchange by the temple, Dorothy had been quite silent, as if she needed no question and answer, and Miniaan had ended it, saying, "Let's go back, and tell the others that something has ended.")

Kajana's old mind was roving after other matters, to him more important than Spearman or the beautiful lost ship from Earth. "Teddy," he said, "do you know, Paul, when the two silver boats came slipping down out of the sky Teddy only glanced at them once, and came running to carry me outdoors so that I could see them too. It was her first thought. Her father and mother in her, and what a new self too...!" Kajana was having pain, from the old hip-joint injury that would never heal. "That transcription, Paul--it's quite verbatim, even to a little hemming and hawing."

"Good." Paul studied the wizened red face, regretful that his painter's power could never record what was really Kajana--too much that must escape, even if the portrait were faithful to the small patient hands, the groove in the left fingers caused by years of effort with makeshift writing materials. Sears--and Paul could think it now without too much distress--Sears could have understood Kajana better. "Can I get you anything?"

"No, thank you, Paul. I'm very well tonight." But some other thought stirred in him, and Paul lingered, knowing what it was: a need for a particular reassurance, Kajana's only outward concession to his frailty. "Paul, what do you really think? When the time comes, will it be something like a sleep?"

"I believe so, Kajana. But not soon. We need you."

The mild face showed gratitude, then calm; it glanced beyond him. "Why, Abara--you should be snoring."

Abara followed his comfortable potbelly into the room; his fluty voice was indignant: "I never snore." He sank cross-legged by the bed, rocking lightly with a foot in each hand.

"I've heard you, old man."

"Lizard-fur!" said Abara. "Hear yourself snoring, of course."

Paul stretched. "You gentlemen settle down to a good soothing quarrel. I'll take off." Abara's left eyelid lowered and lifted gravely. "Good night." "Good night," said the little voices. Leaving the room, Paul heard Abara murmur, "Do you remember...."

Paul carried a taper from the permanent fire in the common room to relight the lamp in his and Dorothy's bedroom. It was late indeed, near to the time of the rising of the red moon, seen only the night before from the jungle west of Vestoia--what had been Vestoia. Here in the long room there was still a friendly disorder from the impromptu banquet of the evening. Because of the disturbance when Spearman's flight was discovered and preoccupation with the illness of the newcomers, the common room had received only a few housekeeping flurries. Mats were still scattered in the center of the floor; earthen wine cups stood about. Carrying the taper, Paul saw by his foot a graded series of round faces drawn on the earth with a twig. Helen was apt to do that when most of her mind was elsewhere: the faces were made of neat circles, even nose and mouth. Subject to a pinch on the bottom from her half-sister, Helen called them teddies. Paul smiled sleepily and stepped around.

Kajana took pride in the sharp printlike quality of his writing; under lamplight, the brown ink shifted into gold. Kajana had not recorded the casual beginning of the banquet: the idea had evidently come to him after some remark of Kamon's. Paul could not remember it clearly, but the old giantess had been roused to it by a thing the rather sad-faced, brown-haired girl Sally Marino had mentioned: the prospect of war on the planet Earth. Kajana had taken down what followed as direct dialogue; riffling through the gray pages, Paul noticed that Kajana had inserted no comment of his own at all. The phonetic shorthand, Paul knew, was Kajana's invention--ideal for his own use, but he had not been able to teach it even to Nisana. Too intricate, she said, needing the hyperacute ear which was a gift Kajana could not share.

SLADE: There seems never to be a single cause of war, only a
group of causes coming to a particular focus in time. Our
world, madam--

WRIGHT: Just Kamon. Somehow we've never formed the habit of
courtesy titles, Captain. Names, nicknames, and a few titles
of function--as for instance, if Elis were conducting one
of our meetings, we'd address him as Governor.

SLADE: Oh. Pleasant, I should think. Our world, Kamon, is
still divided in two parts. An ideological division. There
is the Asian Empire of Jenga. Let me show you--the map--

DUNIN: Here. I grabbed it. And what a map! If only we could
make such things!

DOROTHY: In time, sugar. Takes mighty complex machinery to
make such a map.

SLADE: One of the things that must come on the next trip
from Earth. Well--here is the Asian Empire. You can see the
vastness of it, one land mass, almost all of a continent--

MUKERJI: Except my country.

NORA STERN: Well, naturally, Jimmy--

MUKERJI: I tend to be sensitive on the point since we joined
the Federation somewhat belatedly.

SLADE: That's the Asian Empire. And there they believe, and
have long believed, that individual man is nothing--an ant
in a colony--the state is everything, a sole reason for
existence. The state--

WRIGHT: Which exists only in the minds of individual men.

SLADE: Ye-es.... For them the state takes the place of God,
of reason, of ethics, of--Oh, it's be-all and end-all, so
far as an individualist like myself can understand their
doctrine. A hundred years ago this empire was two great
states; they had the same doctrine then but called it by a
less honest name, communism, derived from certain naive
social theories of about a hundred years earlier--

SPEARMAN: Naive?

SLADE: Before I went in for engineering, sir, I majored in
history at McGill. With the help of a great deal of coffee,
I even read _Das Kapital_. It is not logical even from its
own dogmatic premises. Incidentally I think it can still be
found in secondhand bookstores.

SPEARMAN: As a matter of fact, when I left Earth, it was
quite readily available in up-to-date editions from the
Collectivist Press.

SLADE: Oh. Yes, I dare say it was.... Well, Kamon, about a
hundred years ago those two Asian states, still paying lip
service to the--debatable doctrine of communism
(satisfactory, Mr. Spearman?)--attacked each other in a long
war, making use of recently discovered atomic weapons as
well as man-made pestilence and other devices. It was not
actually a doctrinal war, but simply a power struggle
between two tyrannies. It was hideous, incredibly
destructive, and the only saving thing about it was that it
prevented them from visiting the same disaster on the rest
of the world. Neither side won, of course; a few decades
later a new dictator--a little one-eyed zealot from
Mongolia--inherited the desolation and built on the ruins a
new monolithic state, which still exists.

AREK: But what actually was this theory--this communism?

SLADE: Oh, the theory. Originally an appeal to the
dispossessed. In the nineteenth century and earlier there
were masses of poor, widespread suffering and injustice, too
much economic and political power in the hands of a few, who
abused their power with stupidity and cruelty. Marx and
other theorists imagined, or said they imagined, that the
situation could be remedied by reversal--give power to the
dispossessed (the proletariat, as they called them) and
injustice would right itself. Why they imagined that the
proletariat was any more fitted to rule than its
oppressors--why they supposed it would not abuse power quite
as viciously--they never bothered to explain. Naturally the
realists among them weren't concerned with any Utopian
outcome: they simply saw the doctrine as a means to personal
power for themselves and used it accordingly. The first
important one of these was a furious little man named Lenin.
He may have believed his own theories for a while--there
seems to have been some short-lived experimentation with the
contradictions of actual communism when he first won power
in Russia--but absolute power corrupts absolutely, as
somebody said. The foundations of an old-new despotism were
well established before he died--and was unofficially
deified and kept in a glass case for the consolation of the
atheist faithful. Matter of fact, Arek, a good many things
in Earth history would make a cat laugh.... The actual cure
for the ugly situation that existed turned out to be a
gradual economic leveling combined with the (very slow and
difficult) growth of representative government--so that
there would be no swollen fortunes, no severe poverty, and
no heavy concentrations of unchecked political power. But
that was most undramatic procedure: it needed the work of
centuries. No bloody revolution could ever achieve such an
end, nor could any other evil means ever bring it any
nearer. In the Federation we begin to have--an approximation
of it. The Asian Empire is merely despotism, old and stale,
old as the Pharaohs, committed to the policy of violence and
carrying the burden of slavery under modern names: the
natural product of fanatic doctrine after the power-hungry
have taken it over and made use of it.

SPEARMAN: Jenga's empire is not collectivism. It is a
perversion of it.

ANN: If you'll excuse me--

DOROTHY: Honey, of course! I think you got up too soon. The
boys are in bed. Come on--let me tuck you in and fuss at
you....

STERN: She's been ill?

WRIGHT: Yes. For a long time. But now I think she--

SPEARMAN: What--

AREK: Captain, tell us about the other part of Earth, the
part you come from.

SLADE: Canada? Oh, you mean the Federation itself. It's very
great, miss--I mean, Arek. Let's have the map again, my
dear. All of North America--here--parts of South America,
the United States of Europe, Union of Islam, Japan, India,
parts of Africa outside of Islam--then over here there's
Australia and New Zealand, and here's the Republic of
Oceania. Almost all the rest of the world, you see. Here's
Federal City. Find it? Follow my finger east of
Winnipeg--lake country, and very lovely: I was born near
there. The city was planned and built new in 1985; seems
long ago, isn't really. And then, Arek, there are some small
countries which have preferred to keep their national unity
outside of the Federation instead of inside it, although
they're affiliated with us and there aren't any barriers to
travel and other intercourse. A somewhat technical
distinction, since local sovereignties are well enough
preserved within the Federation.

WRIGHT: Not entirely a technicality. At the time we left
Earth, there were some tendencies in the Federation that
could lead to overcentralization, even with the recognition
of limited powers. And too much emphasis on the admitted
glories of machine civilization. I think it's an excellent
thing that some parts of the world should be a little
insulated from the enthusiasms of material progress. The
Federation itself will be the better for it.

SLADE: Perhaps. I think I know what you mean, Doctor. I was
always a small-government man, myself. Still, under the
threat of Jenga--

STERN: I can't see it as much of a threat.

SALLY MARINO: I don't know....

STERN: The empire will break down sooner or later, of its
own rigidity.

SLADE: But while we wait for that, the Federation has to be
strong, in the military as well as other senses.

MUKERJI: If we do just wait for it.

STERN: Preventive war is an absurdity, Jimmy.

MUKERJI: Yes, but--

STERN: Gradualist methods. The Federation can afford to
wait. The same gradualist methods that made the Union of
Islam possible, so long ago.

PAUL: I don't think the leadership of Turkey was gradualist
exactly, Dr. Stem. It took thirty years after 1960, but
considering the problem, that was great speed. Only a people
with immense moral courage and good sense would have dared
to undertake it at all. They weren't fanatics; they weren't
ridden by the devil of one idea; they had to work with
intelligent compromise, temperate adjustments, yielding here
and sternness there and patience all the time--but once they
took up the task they didn't rest or let go, and by 1990
there was a healthy union ready for full membership in the
Federation.

SLADE: Yes, that was speed. I expect you've given your
friends here a pretty good account of Earth history?

PAUL: We've tried. I don't know if we can allow ourselves
more than a B-plus. The subject is too enormous, and all we
had were imperfect memories. In the midst of our own work
for Lucifer, which is--paramount.

WRIGHT: Not even books. Captain, when you showed us over the
ship, it was very difficult for my fingers not to steal a
lens and a pocketful of those microtexts....

SLADE: My dear friend! Why didn't you say so? All you want.
That's for your friends here, entirely. No need to take any
of our library back to Earth if they can use it.

WRIGHT: I--excuse me--I don't know what to say.

SLADE: And by the way, Doctor, before I forget again to
mention it: after you left--I think it was in 2060--they
perfected a new drug which actually makes the accelerations
quite bearable. I don't know too much about it. Muscular
relaxation is a factor, and Nora can tell you more about it.
But I understand that even for persons past the--optimum
age--

WRIGHT: A moment, please.... I cannot go back to Earth,
Captain Slade. You mean it with the greatest kindness but it
is impossible.

SLADE: Why, forgive me, I supposed--I took it for granted--

WRIGHT: My place is here. This is my work. These are my
people.

TEJRON: I knew--I knew--

WRIGHT: What, my dear? I don't understand.

TEJRON: Oh, I should keep silent: this is for you to decide.
But you've said it. You won't leave us.

WRIGHT: No. No, I won't ever leave you. This is my home.

SLADE: But--

SPEARMAN: Can't argue with the passion of an expatriate. The
grass is always greener--

PAUL: It could be no other way, Captain, at least for Dr.
Wright and me, and I'm certain my wife will say the same
when she comes back.

WRIGHT: In some ways, Captain, the distance between Earth
and Lucifer is greater than the simple light years between
our two stars.

SLADE: I'm--sorry. Wasn't expecting it, that's all. Let me
get used to the idea a little.

SPEARMAN: You can consider me neutral, Captain Slade. I have
no place on Lucifer. One more utopia. Idealism running
contrary to obvious facts. It will break up--fine-spun
intellectual quarrels--no central control.

PAUL: Until, sometime, a strong man takes over and makes an
empire out of it...?

WRIGHT: Please--

SPEARMAN: No comment....

STERN: If I might differ with you, Mr. Spearman, it seems to
me--after being shown over this lovely island--the
domesticated cattle and those wonderful white beasts--the
plantations and the houses--the perfect English and adult
thinking of our new friends--above all, the school--it seems
to me that Dr. Wright and his colleagues are realists of the
first water. Of course I'm strongly prejudiced in their
favor, because--well, during the twelve years of our journey
I dreamed constantly of some such achievement as this
myself. So it's like coming home. I'm a doctor, Mr.
Spearman; before I was chosen for the journey, I ran a
clinic. As an intern, I had a lot of ambulance and emergency
service at one of the big hospitals in Melbourne; I saw a
superabundance of--let's call them obvious facts. Now I
think the sunny quiet here, the good health and intelligence
of the children, the gardens, the devotion of these people
to each other and to their work, the searching thought
they've given to their laws and their future--I fancy those
are obvious facts too...?

WRIGHT: Man is neither good nor bad, but both. But he can
swing the balance.

STERN: Too right. I think I understand you, Doctor--why you
want to stay here. I think I understand it very well.

SLADE: I wouldn't urge you. It's only that I--took something
else for granted. Foolishly. Let me be just a listener.

ELIS: And let me fill your cup. You're behind us, Captain.

MINIAAN: The big jug is empty. How'd'at happen?

MUSON: Portrait of a fat woman going away with another big
jug.

PAUL: Bless you, lady.

MUSON: It was you that finished emptying it. I think.

NISANA: Couldn't have been me....

STERN: Are there any important physiological differences?

WRIGHT: Nothing of first importance. Minor differences in
blood chemistry, shape of hands and feet. Our friends have
the hind brain in the spinal column, which may be the
reason for their better muscular co-ordination and--you
know, Doctor, I have often wished that the human race of
Earth, which we call Charin, had more room in its head for
the expansion of the frontal lobes.

ELIS: I have a very high opinion of your frontal lobes,
Christopher Wright. I have noticed that sometimes a large
skull merely rattles.

STERN: Just the same the point is well taken.

PAUL: Might call it the miracle of the lobes and wishes.

PAKRIAA: Why don't you wait till Muson comes back...?

SALLY MARINO: Don't you--now, maybe this is a foolish
question--don't you have to work awfully hard--I mean, with
so few technical aids? The--oh, oil lamps, the necessarily
primitive--of course, you've done miracles to have as much
as you do have, starting from almost nothing. What I'm
trying to say, doesn't mere survival take up so much time
and effort that it--well, wears you down?

PAUL: We have shelter, clothing, enough to eat--

MINIAAN: And drink.

PAUL: What we call a family, Sally, is made up of members of
all three races. Such a unit may have seven or eight adults
or more. Shelter, food--the basic needs are supplied by each
family working for itself; the large family unit distributes
the labor pretty well; and, if any family was stricken with
misfortune (none has been so far) the others would all help
as a matter of course. Now, we do have the germs of
beginning industries in textiles, sugar--

MINIAAN: Wine making.

ABARA: The lady is pied.

MINIAAN: The lady is not pied. Only very happy, and Vestoia
is a dead city, and the little illuama will be making their
nests where--Oh, Abara, you venerable ruin, I love you, I
love you....

ABARA: Well, not right here in front of all these nice
people....

MUKERJI: Beautiful way of life. Oh, here's Muson. Have we
drunk to everybody? Seems as though we must have overlooked
somebody, earlier.

NISANA: I don't think so. Yes, we have. Let's drink to the
olifants.

WRIGHT: And their seven calves....

PAUL: In textiles, for instance--Nisana does no housework
because her worktime is at the loom; each household sends
somebody over to work in the fiber and sugar plantations
across the lake. The system works, Sally, in this very tiny
community where everyone knows and respects everyone else,
where all the laws and customs encourage the ironing out of
differences before they become serious. And so far, work has
never become oppressive. Most of it we enjoy; the boring,
unpleasing jobs are shared because we know they have to be
done and we don't want anyone to have to carry too much of
their weight. And so far, we don't hunger for the complex
and fascinating possessions we knew on Earth. Such hungers
will come. Communities will grow. The best laws will fail
sometimes; there will be disputes, mistakes, injustices. But
we are forewarned by memories of Earth. Doc, I'm trying to
say things you could say better--

WRIGHT: No. Go on.

PAUL: Well.... We plan, tentatively, a hundred family units
here at Jensen City, a population of maybe a thousand
adults, no larger. When that point is reached (several years
away) then we must plan and build another town, probably
here on the island. At that point we add new problems and
perplexities. We may not need a monetary system until there
are several towns; when we do, it will not develop
haphazardly, but with the aid of all past knowledge we
possess, for safeguard and guidance.

SLADE: And when there are fifteen or twenty such
communities?

PAUL: They will want an over-all government; a miniature of
a federal system, we suppose. A republic, with fully
functional representative procedures, checked and
safeguarded against every abuse of power. Because in all our
study and memories of history, we've found no other type of
government that can operate with fairness to majorities and
minorities alike and leave men as free as any social animal
can ever be free. For that matter, Captain, we sometimes
glance ahead to a time when there will be hundreds or
thousands of towns: a time when our great-grandchildren of
all three races may want to experiment with large cities,
elaborate industries. Such things will bring their own heavy
difficulties, but we have reason to hope that our
great-grandchildren will have the patience and courage to
solve them as they arise. Brodaa, tell them about the
school.

BRODAA: I am not good in exposition, Paul.... We
are--strict, Captain, that the children should learn all the
tested factual knowledge we can give them. They must read,
speak, write--clearly, precisely, honestly. We do not allow
them to leave a method half learned, a task half done. If
there is a question, they must search for an answer; if
there is no sufficient answer known, they must learn to test
the insufficient answers and wait judgment. My own language
has flaws--I am an old woman--I still go to school, to Paul,
Mashana Dorothy, Dr. Wright, to learn more for my own sake
and for the little ones I teach. They must learn the
fundamental methods and facts as soon as they can start to
think at all. We are never afraid of teaching any child too
much or too soon--we respect them. Oh, Mashana, I was
wishing you would return.

DOROTHY: Need has arisen for the Dope? What goes on more or
less?

ELIS: Education.

PAUL: How is--

SPEARMAN: How is she?

DOROTHY: She is asleep, Ed. Nothing to worry about.

PAKRIAA: She will be healed.

MIJOK: Education on Lucifer. Pakriaa and I have the
pleasantest part of the teaching, I think. We show them the
ways of the forest and the open ground, the plants and other
living things, how to hunt without cruelty or waste, how to
be safe and happy alone in the woods at night, when to fear
and not to fear. As Samis shows them the care of the tame
beasts, and the work in the plantations....

WRIGHT: I'll add a little too, though Brodaa could do it
better--

MUKERJI: Come here, kink.

DOROTHY: Why, he loves you! That one won't usually go to
anybody but Muson. His wife is due to have kittens and he's
blue about it.

MUKERJI: Kittens--kinkens--

DOROTHY: Just kittens. Seven at one whack. Oof--shet ma
mouf.

HELEN: Mother, if you looked at seven kittens now they'd be
fourteen.

DOROTHY: Such comment, from a lady allowed to sit up late.
Such, I might add, perfectly accurate comment. Sleepy, baby?

HELEN: Not a bit.

DOROTHY: You are too. You snuggle like a kitten half full of
milk. Half an hour, huh?

HELEN: Mm.

WRIGHT: We see to it, Captain, that our children are not
stuffed with inflated words, equivocal words. When you talk
with them, they won't be chattering to you about freedom,
democracy, truth, justice. They learn these words closely;
we see to it that they learn them with caution. When they
use them we say--define, define. Democracy by what means,
within what limits, toward what end? Freedom from what, for
what? For what's the profit if I rattle on about freedom in
a semantic vacuum? I am free to speak, not free to kill and
wound; I must be free from slavery to the whims of others. I
can never be free from the bonds of a hundred duties,
responsibilities, loyalties to persons I love and principles
I cherish. Words without definition are sheer noise, and
noise never drummed any race into Paradise. Oh, the thing's
obvious as a child's building blocks--but I recall how on
Earth men tended to forget it twenty-four hours a day, and
here on Lucifer we forget it often enough--myself included.
But we do not forget it when we teach our children.... One
other thing--before this wine takes me back to second
childhood--as soon, Captain, as their minds are old enough--

AREK: Where did Spearman go?

WRIGHT: Oh, he--he just stepped out, I think. Stretch his
legs or something. As soon as their minds are old enough to
think with some independence and explore, we insist that
they start the lifetime struggle with man's primary
dilemma--

ELIS: I hoped you would speak of that, my brother.

WRIGHT: That he is an individual, his self-hood precious and
inviolate, yet he must live in harmony with other
individuals whose right to life and welfare is as certain as
his own. Approach the study of society from any direction
you will, that problem is at the heart of it, and must be a
thousand generations from now, because it must be met anew
with every infant born. We think, here, that the most
rewarding answer is in the old virtues of self-knowledge,
charity, honesty, forbearance, patience. Now, those are all
words that demand definition and multiple definition; on
that basis we have our children study them, search the depth
and height of them, in the not so simple problems of
childhood through the tougher ones of adolescence and
maturity. We make them understand that lip service will not
do: if one is to make himself honest he must eat honesty
with breakfast, sweat with it in the sun, laugh and play and
suffer with it and lie down with it at night until it's near
as the oxygen in his blood. Yes, we aim high. Cruelly high,
would you say? We don't think so. Perfection is a cold spot
on top of a mountain, and nobody ever climbed there. We have
trouble and fun and arguments; sometimes the garden weeds
grow until tomorrow or the day after, but we sleep well.

DOROTHY: Speaking of perfection and goodness and things and
stuff--I know it was Paul who put those violin strings by
Nan's bed, but which one of you supplied them?

SLADE: Well, he told me--

DOROTHY: Will it be all right if I reach over this daughter
of mine and kiss you?

SLADE: They did brief us, back on Earth, that we must
respect local customs--

MIJOK: And perhaps even another drink could do him no harm.

PAKRIAA: He's pied.

ELIS: I would not say that. Speaking as Governor, I say that
the local wine industry deserves every encouragement it can
get--and has, ever since Samis' favorite kink had kittens in
the bottom of the vest bat.

SAMIS: Correction.

MIJOK: Best vat. Speaking as Lieutenant Governor. Just
elected--did it myself.

MUSON: The toastmistress has been quiet lately.

NISANA: Who, me?

PAUL: By acclamation, yes.

NISANA: Le'me think. We did drink to the children--those in
bed and those who ought to be--

HELEN: 'Ception.

DOROTHY: Great big woman. You weigh a ton, sweet stuff, 'n'
so do your eyelids, they do.

NISANA: And we drank to the olifants. No no--I am too
happy--my mind is a lake without a breeze. You propose the
toast, Pakriaa.

SALLY: Matter of fact I'm already sort of whooliollicky--I
think--

DOROTHY: Hey--maybe it's not just the wine. Paul--Doc--it
must be almost thirteen hours--

PAUL: Yes--yes, almost. Maybe you'd better--

SALLY: No, let's have one more toast. At least one more,
Pakriaa?

WRIGHT: I'll drink with you, Pakriaa.

PAKRIAA: Oh--let us be happy. Friends, I give you the wine
itself and the earth that made it. I give you birth and
death and the journey of our days and nights between them,
the shining of green fields, the patience of the forest, the
little stars, the great stars, the love and the thought, the
labor and the laughter, the good morning sky.

* * * * *