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<div class="cv1"><h1><small>STARMAN'S QUEST</small></h1>

<h2><small>By Robert Silverberg</small></h2>

<p>The Lexman Spacedrive gave man
the stars&mdash;but at a fantastic price.</p>

<p>Interstellar exploration, colonization,
and trade became things of reality.
The benefits to Earth were enormous.
But because of the Fitzgerald Contraction,
a man who shipped out to space
could never live a normal life on Earth
again.</p>

<p>Travelling at speeds close to that of
light, spacemen lived at an accelerated
pace. A nine-year trip to Alpha Centauri
and back seemed to take only
six weeks to men on a spaceship. When
they returned, their friends and relatives
had aged enormously in comparison,
old customs had changed, even
the language was different.</p>

<p>So they did the only thing they could
do. They formed a guild of Spacers,
and lived their entire lives on the starships,
raised their families there, and
never set foot outside their own Enclave
during their landings on Earth.
They grew to despise Earthers, and the
Earthers grew to despise them in turn.
There was no logical reason for it, except
that they were&mdash;different. That
was enough.</p>

<p>But not all Starmen liked being different.
Alan Donnell loved space, and
the ship, and life aboard it. His father,
Captain of the <b>Valhalla</b>, lived for nothing
but the traditions of the Spacers.
But his twin brother, Steve, couldn't
stand it, and so he jumped ship.</p>

<p>It had happened only a few weeks
before, as Alan experienced it. For
Steve, though, he knew it would have
been nine years in the past. Now, while
Alan was still only 17 years old, Steve
would be 26!</p>

<p>Thinking about it got under Alan's
skin, finally. The bond between twins
is a strong one, and Alan couldn't
stand to see it broken so abruptly and
permanently. There were other things,
too. If Alan remained on the <b>Valhalla</b>,
he'd have to marry one of the girls of
the ship, and the choice of those his
own age was pitifully small. And above
all else, he was convinced that the
secret of the Cavour Hyperdrive was
hidden somewhere on Earth&mdash;the Cavour
Hyperdrive, that would enable
man to leap interstellar distances almost
instantaneously, and bring an end
to the sharp differences between
Earthers and Spacers.</p>

<p>These forces worked quietly within
him&mdash;and suddenly, without really
meaning to, Alan in turn jumped ship
and remained on Earth!</p>

<p>There were many times when he
regretted it. He found Earth a bewildering
and utterly hostile place. To stay
alive, he had to play a ruthless game&mdash;and
he couldn't even find anyone to
tell him the rules. Within the first few
hours, he came dangerously close to
being murdered and then to being
thrown in jail. He had no clues to the
whereabouts of Steve, and couldn't
even be sure his nine-years-older twin
brother was still alive. And the Cavour
Hyperdrive was the merest will-o'-the-wisp,
dancing wildly before him in his
dreams.</p>

<p>Somehow, he survived. It wasn't
easy, and he didn't do it without serious
sacrifices. He became a professional
gambler, and almost became a
drug addict. He became involved in a
monstrous criminal syndicate, knowing
that no criminal could possibly escape
punishment. He betrayed the few
friends he had, and fought furiously
against everyone and everything he
encountered.</p>

<p>He thought longingly, often, of the
<b>Valhalla</b>, and his lost life aboard her.
But he never completely lost hope.</p>

<p><b>Starman's Quest</b> is Alan Donnell's
story&mdash;a story that will keep you on
the edge of your chair until the very
last page. It's the most exciting book
yet from one of the most exciting new
writers ever to hit the science-fiction
field.</p>

<p class="center"><b>GNOME PRESS, INC.</b><br />
P.O. Box 161, Hicksville, N. Y.</p>

<p class="center">Cover by Stan Mack</p></div>

<hr />

<div class="cv2">
<p><b>BOOKS BY ROBERT SILVERBERG</b></p>

<p class="p1"><i>Starman's Quest</i></p>

<p class="p1"><i>Revolt on Alpha C</i></p>

<p class="p1"><i>The Thirteenth Immortal</i></p>

<p class="p1"><i>Master of Life and Death</i></p>

<p class="p1"><i>The Shrouded Planet</i><br />
(with Randall Garrett)</p>

<p class="p1"><i>Invaders from Earth</i></p></div>

<hr />
<div class="cv2"><h1><big>Starman's<br />
Quest</big></h1>

<p><i><big>by</big></i></p>

<h2>ROBERT<br />
SILVERBERG</h2>

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</div>

<p><span class="sp1">GNOME PRESS</span><br />
<br />
HICKSVILLE, N. Y.</p></div>

<hr />

<div class="cv2">
<p class="center">Copyright 1958 by Robert Silverberg</p>

<p class="center"><i>First Edition. All Rights Reserved</i></p>

<p><i>This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced
in any form without permission, except for brief
quotations in critical articles and reviews.</i></p>

<p class="center">Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 58-8767</p>

<p class="center">MANUFACTURED IN THE U.S.A.</p></div>

<div class="trn"><b>Transcriber's Note:</b>
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and
typographical errors have been corrected without note.
Variant spellings have been retained.</div>

<hr />
<h2><i>Author's<br />
Preface</i></h2>

<div class="blockquot"><p>This was my second novel, which I wrote when I was 19, in my junior year
at Columbia. I've written better ones since. But readers interested
in the archaeology of a writing career will probably find much to
explore here.</p>

<p class="rgt">Robert Silverberg<br />
17 May 2008</p></div>

<hr />

<p class="center">FOR <big>BILL EDGERTON</big><br />
<br />
<big>1933-1956</big></p>

<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span></p>
<h2><i>Prologue</i></h2>

<p><span class="dcap">The</span> Lexman Spacedrive was only the second
most important theoretical accomplishment of the exciting
years at the dawn of the Space Age, yet it changed
all human history and forever altered the pattern of sociocultural
development on Earth.</p>

<p>Yet it was only the <i>second</i> most important discovery.</p>

<p>The Cavour Hyperdrive unquestionably would have
held first rank in any historical assessment, had the
Cavour Hyperdrive ever reached practical use. The Lexman
Spacedrive allows mankind to reach Alpha Centauri,
the closest star with habitable planets, in approximately
four and a half years. The Cavour Hyperdrive&mdash;if
it ever really existed&mdash;would have brought Alpha C
within virtual instantaneous access.</p>

<p>But James Hudson Cavour had been one of those tragic
men whose personalities negate the value of their work. A
solitary, cantankerous, opinionated individual&mdash;a crank,
in short&mdash;he withdrew from humanity to develop the
hyperspace drive, announcing at periodic intervals that
he was approaching success.</p>

<p>A final enigmatic bulletin in the year 2570 indicated
to some that Cavour had achieved his goal or was on the
verge of achieving it; others, less sympathetic, interpreted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>
his last message as a madman's wild boast. It made little
difference which interpretation was accepted. James Hudson
Cavour was never heard from again.</p>

<p>A hard core of passionate believers insisted that he <i>had</i>
developed a faster-than-light drive, that he had succeeded
in giving mankind an instantaneous approach to the stars.
But they, like Cavour himself, were laughed down, and
the stars remained distant.</p>

<p>Distant&mdash;but not unreachable. The Lexman Spacedrive
saw to that.</p>

<p>Lexman and his associates had developed their ionic
drive in 2337, after decades of research. It permitted man
to approach, but not to exceed, the theoretical limiting
velocity of the universe: the speed of light.</p>

<p>Ships powered by the Lexman Spacedrive could travel
at speeds just slightly less than the top velocity of 186,000
miles per second. For the first time, the stars were within
man's grasp.</p>

<p>The trip was slow. Even at such fantastic velocities as
the Lexman Spacedrive allowed, it took nine years for a
ship to reach even the nearest of stars, stop, and return;
a distant star such as Bellatrix required a journey lasting
two hundred fifteen years each way. But even this was an
improvement over the relatively crude spacedrives then in
use, which made a journey from Earth to Pluto last for
many months and one to the stars almost unthinkable.</p>

<p>The Lexman Spacedrive worked many changes. It gave
man the stars. It brought strange creatures to Earth,
strange products, strange languages.</p>

<p>But one necessary factor was involved in slower-than-light
interstellar travel, one which the Cavour drive would
have averted: the Fitzgerald Contraction. Time aboard
the great starships that lanced through the void was contracted;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>
the nine-year trip to Alpha Centauri and back
seemed to last only six weeks to the men on the ship,
thanks to the strange mathematical effects of interstellar
travel at high&mdash;but not infinite&mdash;speeds.</p>

<p>The results were curious, and in some cases tragic. A
crew that had aged only six weeks would return to find
that Earth had grown nine years older. Customs had
changed; new slang words made language unintelligible.</p>

<p>The inevitable development was the rise of a guild of
Spacers, men who spent their lives flashing between the
suns of the universe and who had little or nothing to do
with the planet-bound Earthers left behind. Spacer and
Earther, held apart forever by the inexorable mathematics
of the Fitzgerald Contraction, came to regard each other
with a bitter sort of distaste.</p>

<p>The centuries passed&mdash;and the changes worked by the
coming of the Lexman Spacedrive became more pronounced.
Only a faster-than-light spacedrive could break
down the ever-widening gulf between Earther and Spacer&mdash;and
the faster-than-light drive remained as unattainable
a dream as it had been in the days of James Hudson
Cavour.</p>

<p class="rgt">&mdash;<i>Sociocultural Dynamics</i><br />
Leonid Hallman<br />
London, 3876</p>

<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span></p>
<h2><i>Chapter<br />
One</i></h2>

<p><span class="dcap">The</span> sound of the morning alarm rang out, four
loud hard clear gong-clangs, and all over the great starship
<i>Valhalla</i> the men of the Crew rolled out of their
bunks to begin another day. The great ship had travelled
silently through the endless night of space while they
slept, bringing them closer and closer to the mother
world, Earth. The <i>Valhalla</i> was on the return leg of a
journey to Alpha Centauri.</p>

<p>But one man aboard the starship had not waited for
the morning alarm. For Alan Donnell the day had begun
several hours before. Restless, unable to sleep, he had
quietly slipped from his cabin in the fore section, where
the unmarried Crewmen lived, and had headed forward
to the main viewscreen, in order to stare at the green
planet growing steadily larger just ahead.</p>

<p>He stood with his arms folded, a tall red-headed figure,
long-legged, a little on the thin side. Today was his
seventeenth birthday.</p>

<p>Alan adjusted the fine controls on the viewscreen and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>
brought Earth into sharper focus. He tried to pick out
the continents on the planet below, struggling to remember
his old history lessons. Tutor Henrich would not be
proud of him, he thought.</p>

<p><i>That's South America down there</i>, he decided, after rejecting
the notion that it might be Africa. They had
pretty much the same shape, and it was so hard to remember
what Earth's continents looked like when there
were so many other worlds. <i>But that's South America.
And so that's North America just above it. The place
where I was born.</i></p>

<p>Then the 0800 alarm went off, the four commanding
gongs that Alan always heard as <i>It's! Time! Wake!
Up!</i> The starship began to stir into life. As Alan drew
out his Tally and prepared to click off the start of a new
day, he felt a strong hand firmly grasp his shoulder.</p>

<p>"Morning, son."</p>

<p>Alan turned from the viewscreen. He saw the tall,
gaunt figure of his father standing behind him. His
father&mdash;and the <i>Valhalla's</i> captain.</p>

<p>"Good rising, Captain."</p>

<p>Captain Donnell eyed him curiously. "You've been up
a while, Alan. I can tell. Is there something wrong?"</p>

<p>"Just not sleepy, that's all," Alan said.</p>

<p>"You look troubled about something."</p>

<p>"No, Dad&mdash;I'm not," he lied. To cover his confusion
he turned his attention to the little plastic gadget he held
in his hand&mdash;the Tally. He punched the stud; the register
whirred and came to life.</p>

<p>He watched as the reading changed. The black-on-yellow
dials slid forward from <i>Year 16 Day 365</i> to <i>Year
17 Day 1</i>.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span></p>

<p>As the numbers dropped into place his father said,
"It's your birthday, is it? Let it be a happy one!"</p>

<p>"Thanks, Dad. You know, it'll feel fine to have a
birthday on Earth!"</p>

<p>The Captain nodded. "It's always good to come home,
even if we'll have to leave again soon. And this will be
the first time you've celebrated your birthday on your
native world in&mdash;three hundred years, Alan."</p>

<p>Grinning, Alan thought, <i>Three hundred? No, not
really.</i> Out loud he said, "You know that's not right,
Dad. Not three hundred years. Just seventeen." He looked
out at the slowly-spinning green globe of Earth.</p>

<p>"When on Earth, do as the Earthers do," the Captain
said. "That's an old proverb of that planet out there.
The main vault of the computer files says you were born
in 3576, unless I forget. And if you ask any Earther what
year this is he'll tell you it's 3876. 3576-3876&mdash;that's three
hundred years, no?" His eyes twinkled.</p>

<p>"Stop playing games with me, Dad." Alan held forth
his Tally. "It doesn't matter what the computer files say.
Right here it says <i>Year 17 Day 1</i>, and that's what I'm
going by. Who cares what year it is on Earth? <i>This</i> is
my world!"</p>

<p>"I know, Alan."</p>

<p>Together they moved away from the viewscreen; it was
time for breakfast, and the second gongs were sounding.
"I'm just teasing, son. But that's the sort of thing you'll
be up against if you leave the Starmen's Enclave&mdash;the
way your brother did."</p>

<p>Alan frowned and his stomach went cold. He wished
the unpleasant topic of his brother had not come up.
"You think there's any chance Steve will come back,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>
this time down? Will we be in port long enough for him
to find us?"</p>

<p>Captain Donnell's face clouded. "We're going to be on
Earth for almost a week," he said in a suddenly harsh
voice. "That's ample time for Steve to rejoin us, if he
cares to. But I don't imagine he'll care to. And I don't
know if I want very much to have him back."</p>

<p>He paused outside the handsomely-panelled door of
his private cabin, one hand on the thumb-plate that controlled
entrance. His lips were set in a tight thin line.
"And remember this, Alan," he said. "Steve's not your
twin brother any more. You're only seventeen, and he's
almost twenty-six. He'll never be your twin again."</p>

<p>With sudden warmth the captain squeezed his son's
arm. "Well, better get up there to eat, Alan. This is
going to be a busy day for all of us."</p>

<p>He turned and went into the cabin.</p>

<p>Alan moved along the wide corridor of the great ship
toward the mess hall in Section C, thinking about his
brother. It had been only about six weeks before, when
the <i>Valhalla</i> had made its last previous stop on Earth,
that Steve had decided to jump ship.</p>

<p>The <i>Valhalla's</i> schedule had called for them to spend
two days on Earth and then leave for Alpha Centauri
with a load of colonists for Alpha C IV. A starship's
time is always scheduled far in advance, with bookings
planned sometimes for decades Earthtime by the Galactic
Trade Commission.</p>

<p>When blastoff time came for the <i>Valhalla</i>, Steve had
not reported back from the Starmen's Enclave where all
Spacers lived during in-port stays.</p>

<p>Alan's memories of the scene were still sharp. Captain
Donnell had been conducting check-off, making sure all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>
members of the Crew had reported back and were aboard.
This was a vital procedure; in case anyone were accidentally
left behind, it would mean permanent separation
from his friends and family.</p>

<p>He had reached the name <i>Donnell, Steve</i>. No answer
came. Captain Donnell called his name a second time,
then a third. A tense silence prevailed in the Common
Room of the starship, where the Crew was assembled.</p>

<p>Finally Alan made himself break the angry silence.
"He's not here, Dad. And he's not coming back," he said
in a hesitant voice. And then he had had to explain to
his father the whole story of his unruly, aggressive twin
brother's plan to jump ship&mdash;and how Steve had tried to
persuade him to leave the <i>Valhalla</i> too.</p>

<p>Steve had been weary of the endless shuttling from star
to star, of forever ferrying colonists from one place to
another without ever standing on the solid ground of a
planet yourself for more than a few days here, a week
there.</p>

<p>Alan had felt tired of it too&mdash;they all did, at some time
or another&mdash;but he did not share his twin's rebellious
nature, and he had not gone over the hill with Steve.</p>

<p>Alan remembered his father's hard, grim expression
as he had been told the story. Captain Donnell's reaction
had been curt, immediate, and thoroughly typical:
he had nodded, closed the roll book, and turned to Art
Kandin, the <i>Valhalla's</i> First Officer and the Captain's
second-in-command.</p>

<p>"Remove Crewman Donnell from the roster," he had
snapped. "All other hands are on board. Prepare for
blastoff."</p>

<p>Within the hour the flaming jets of the <i>Valhalla's</i> planetary
drive had lifted the great ship from Earth. They<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>
had left immediately for Alpha Centauri, four and a half
light-years away. The round trip had taken the <i>Valhalla</i>
just six weeks.</p>

<p>During those six weeks, better than nine years had
passed on Earth.</p>

<p>Alan Donnell was seventeen years old.</p>

<p>His twin brother Steve was now twenty-six.</p>

<hr class="tb" />

<p>"Happy rising, Alan," called a high, sharp voice as he
headed past the blue-painted handholds of Gravity Deck
12 on his way toward the mess hall.</p>

<p>Startled, he glanced up, and then snorted in disgust as
he saw who had hailed him. It was Judy Collier, a thin,
stringy-haired girl of about fourteen whose family had
joined the Crew some five ship-years back. The Colliers
were still virtual newcomers to the tight group on the
ship&mdash;the family units tended to remain solid and self-contained&mdash;but
they had managed to fit in pretty well by
now.</p>

<p>"Going to eat?" she asked.</p>

<p>"Right enough," said Alan, continuing to walk down
the plastifoam-lined corridor. She tagged along a step or
two behind him.</p>

<p>"Today's your birthday, isn't it?"</p>

<p>"Right enough," Alan said again, more abruptly. He
felt a sudden twinge of annoyance; Judy had somehow
developed a silly crush on him during the last voyage to
Alpha C, and since then she had contrived to follow
him around wherever he went, bombarding him with
questions. She was a silly adolescent girl, Alan thought
scornfully.</p>

<p>"Happy birthday," she said, giggling. "Can I kiss you?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span></p>

<p>"No," returned Alan flatly. "You better watch out or
I'm going to get Rat after you."</p>

<p>"Oh, I'm not afraid of that little beast," she retorted.
"One of these days I'll chuck him down the disposal
hatch like the little vermin he&mdash;<i>ouch!</i>"</p>

<p>"You watch out who you're calling vermin," said a
thin, dry, barely-audible voice from the floor.</p>

<p>Alan glanced down and saw Rat, his pet and companion,
squatting near Judy and flicking his beady little
red eyes mischievously in the direction of the girl's bare
skinny ankle.</p>

<p>"He <i>bit</i> me," Judy complained, gesturing as if she
were going to step on the little creature. But Rat nimbly
skittered to one side, leaped to the trousers of Alan's
uniform, and from there clambered to his usual perch
aboard his master's shoulder.</p>

<p>Judy gestured at him in frustration, stamped her foot,
and dashed away into the mess hall. Chuckling, Alan followed
and found his seat at the bench assigned to Crewmen
of his status quotient.</p>

<p>"Thanks, fellow," he said softly to the little being on
his shoulder. "That's kid's getting to be pretty annoying."</p>

<p>"I figured as much," Rat said in his chittering birdlike
voice. "And I don't like the way she's been looking at
me. She's just the kind of individual who <i>would</i> dump
me in a disposal hatch."</p>

<p>"Don't worry about it," Alan said. "If she pulls anything
of the sort I'll personally see to it that she goes
out right after you."</p>

<p>"That does <i>me</i> a lot of good," Rat said glumly as Alan's
breakfast came rolling toward him on the plastic conveyor
belt from the kitchen.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span></p>

<p>Alan laughed and reached avidly for the steaming tray
of food. He poured a little of his synthorange juice into
a tiny pan for Rat, and fell to.</p>

<p>Rat was a native of Bellatrix VII, an Earth-size windswept
world that orbited the bright star in the Orion
constellation. He was a member of one of the three intelligent
races that shared the planet with a small colony
of Earthmen.</p>

<p>The <i>Valhalla</i> had made the long trip to Bellatrix, 215
light-years from Earth, shortly before Alan's birth. Captain
Donnell had won the friendship of the little creature
and had brought him back to the ship when time came
for the <i>Valhalla</i> to return to Earth for its next assignment.</p>

<p>Rat had been the Captain's pet, and he had given Alan
the small animal on his tenth birthday. Rat had never
gotten along well with Steve, and more than once he had
been the cause of jealous conflicts between Alan and his
twin.</p>

<p>Rat was well named; he looked like nothing so much
as a small bluish-purple rodent, with wise, beady little
eyes and a scaly curling tail. But he spoke Terran clearly
and well, and in every respect he was an intelligent, loyal,
and likable creature.</p>

<p>They ate in silence. Alan was halfway through his bowl
of protein mix when Art Kandin dropped down onto his
bench facing him. The <i>Valhalla's</i> First Officer was a big
pudgy-faced man who had the difficult job of translating
the concise, sometimes almost cryptic commands of Alan's
father into the actions that kept the great starship going.</p>

<p>"Good rising, Alan. And happy birthday."</p>

<p>"Thanks, Art. But how come you're loafing now? Seems
to me you'd be busy as a Martian dustdigger today, of all
days. Who's setting up the landing orbit, if you're here?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span></p>

<p>"Oh, that's all been done," Kandin said lightly. "Your
Dad and I were up all last night working out the whole
landing procedure." He reached out and took Rat from
Alan's shoulder, and began to tickle him with his forefinger.
Rat responded with a playful nip of his sharp
little teeth. "I'm taking the morning off," Kandin continued.
"You can't imagine how nice it's going to be to
sit around doing nothing while everyone else is working,
for a change."</p>

<p>"What's the landing hour?"</p>

<p>"Precisely 1753 tonight. It's all been worked out. We
actually are in the landing orbit now, though the ship's
gimbals keep you from feeling it. We'll touch down tonight
and move into the Enclave tomorrow." Kandin
eyed Alan with sudden suspicion. "You're planning to
stay in the Enclave, aren't you?"</p>

<p>Alan put down his fork with a sharp tinny clang and
stared levelly at the First Officer. "That's a direct crack.
You're referring to my brother, aren't you?"</p>

<p>"Who wouldn't be?" Kandin asked quietly. "The captain's
son jumping ship? You don't know how your father
suffered when Steve went over the hill. He kept it all
hidden and just didn't say a thing, but I know it hit him
hard. The whole affair was a direct reflection on his
authority as a parent, of course, and that's why he was so
upset. He's a man who isn't used to being crossed."</p>

<p>"I know. He's been on top here so long, with everyone
following his orders, that he can't understand how someone
could disobey and jump ship&mdash;especially his own son."</p>

<p>"I hope <i>you</i> don't have any ideas of&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>Alan clipped off Kandin's sentence before it had gotten
fully started. "I don't need advice, Art. I know what's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>
right and wrong. Tell me the truth&mdash;did Dad send you
to sound me out?"</p>

<p>Kandin flushed and looked down. "I'm sorry, Alan. I
didn't mean&mdash;well&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>They fell silent. Alan returned his attention to his
breakfast, while Kandin stared moodily off into the
distance.</p>

<p>"You know," the First Officer said finally, "I've been
thinking about Steve. It just struck me that you can't
call him your twin any more. That's one of the strangest
quirks of star travel that's been recorded yet."</p>

<p>"I thought of that. He's twenty-six, I'm seventeen, and
yet we used to be twins. But the Fitzgerald Contraction
does funny things."</p>

<p>"That's for sure," Kandin said. "Well, time for me to
start relaxing." He clapped Alan on the back, disentangled
his long legs from the bench, and was gone.</p>

<p><i>The Fitzgerald Contraction does funny things</i>, Alan
repeated to himself, as he methodically chewed his way
through the rest of his meal and got on line to bring the
dishes to the yawning hopper that would carry them down
to the molecular cleansers. <i>Real funny things.</i></p>

<p>He tried to picture what Steve looked like now, nine
years older. He couldn't.</p>

<p><i>As velocity approaches that of light, time approaches
zero.</i></p>

<p>That was the key to the universe. <i>Time approaches
zero.</i> The crew of a spaceship travelling from Earth to
Alpha Centauri at a speed close to that of light would
hardly notice the passage of time on the journey.</p>

<p>It was, of course, impossible ever actually to reach the
speed of light. But the great starships could come close.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>
And the closer they came, the greater the contraction of
time aboard ship.</p>

<p>It was all a matter of relativity. Time is relative to the
observer.</p>

<p>Thus travel between the stars was possible. Without
the Fitzgerald Contraction, the crew of a spaceship would
age five years en route to Alpha C, eight to Sirius, ten to
Procyon. More than two centuries would elapse in passage
to a far-off star like Bellatrix.</p>

<p>Thanks to the contraction effect, Alpha C was three
weeks away, Sirius a month and a half. Even Bellatrix
was just a few years' journey distant. Of course, when the
crew returned to Earth they found things completely
changed; years had passed on Earth, and life had moved
on.</p>

<p>Now the <i>Valhalla</i> was back on Earth again for a short
stay. On Earth, starmen congregated at the Enclaves, the
cities-within-cities that grew up at each spaceport. There,
starmen mingled in a society of their own, without attempting
to enter the confusing world outside.</p>

<p>Sometimes a Spacer broke away. His ship left him behind,
and he became an Earther. Steve Donnell had done
that.</p>

<p><i>The Fitzgerald Contraction does funny things.</i> Alan
thought of the brother he had last seen just a few weeks
ago, young, smiling, his own identical twin&mdash;and wondered
what the nine extra years had done to him.</p>

<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span></p>
<h2><i>Chapter<br />
Two</i></h2>

<p><span class="dcap">Alan</span> dumped his breakfast dishes into the hopper
and walked briskly out of the mess hall. His destination
was the Central Control Room, that long and broad
chamber that was the nerve-center of the ship's activities
just as the Common Recreation Room was the center of
off-duty socializing for the Crew.</p>

<p>He found the big board where the assignments for the
day were chalked, and searched down the long lists for
his own name.</p>

<p>"You're working with me today, Alan," a quiet voice
said.</p>

<p>He turned at the sound of the voice and saw the short,
wiry figure of Dan Kelleher, the cargo chief. He frowned.
"I guess we'll be crating from now till tonight without
a stop," he said unhappily.</p>

<p>Kelleher shook his head. "Wrong. There's really not
very much work. But it's going to be cold going. All
those chunks of dinosaur meat in the preserving hold are
going to get packed up. It won't be fun."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span></p>

<p>Alan agreed.</p>

<p>He scanned the board, looking down the rows for the
list of cargo crew. Sure enough, there was his name:
<i>Donnell, Alan</i>, chalked in under the big double C. As
an Unspecialized Crewman he was shifted from post to
post, filling in wherever he was needed.</p>

<p>"I figure it'll take four hours to get the whole batch
crated," Kelleher said. "You can take some time off now,
if you want to. You'll be working to make up for it soon
enough."</p>

<p>"I won't debate the point. Suppose I report to you
at 0900?"</p>

<p>"Suits me."</p>

<p>"In case you need me before then, I'll be in my cabin.
Just ring me."</p>

<p>Once back in his cabin, a square cubicle in the beehive
of single men's rooms in the big ship's fore section,
Alan unslung his pack and took out the dog-eared book
he knew so well. He riffled through its pages. <i>The Cavour
Theory</i>, it said in worn gold letters on the spine. He had
read the volume end-to-end at least a hundred times.</p>

<p>"I still can't see why you're so wild on Cavour," Rat
grumbled, looking up from his doll-sized sleeping-cradle
in the corner of Alan's cabin. "If you ever do manage to
solve Cavour's equations you're just going to put yourself
and your family right out of business. Hand me my
nibbling-stick, like a good fellow."</p>

<p>Alan gave Rat the much-gnawed stick of Jovian oak
which the Bellatrician used to keep his tiny teeth sharp.</p>

<p>"You don't understand," Alan said. "If we can solve
Cavour's work and develop the hyperdrive, we won't be
handicapped by the Fitzgerald Contraction. What difference
does it make in the long run if the <i>Valhalla</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>
becomes obsolete? We can always convert it to the new
drive. The way I see it, if we could only work out the
secret of Cavour's hyperspace drive, we'd&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"I've heard it all before," Rat said, with a note of
boredom in his reedy voice. "Why, with hyperspace drive
you'd be able to flit all over the galaxy without suffering
the time-lag you experience with regular drive. And then
you'd accomplish your pet dream of going everywhere
and seeing everything. Ah! Look at the eyes light up!
Look at the radiant expression! You get starry-eyed every
time you start talking about the hyperdrive!"</p>

<p>Alan opened the book to a dog-eared page. "I know it
can be done eventually. I'm sure of it. I'm even sure
Cavour himself actually succeeded in building a hyperspace
vessel."</p>

<p>"Sure," Rat said drily, switching his long tail from side
to side. "Sure he built one. That explains his strange
disappearance. Went out like a snuffed candle, soon as
he turned on his drive. Okay, go ahead and build one&mdash;if
you can. But don't bother booking passage for me."</p>

<p>"You mean you'd stay behind if I built a hyperspace
ship?"</p>

<p>"Sure I would." There was no hesitation in Rat's
voice. "I like this particular space-time continuum very
much. I don't care at all to wind up seventeen dimensions
north of here with no way back."</p>

<p>"You're just an old stick-in-the mud." Alan glanced at
his wristchron. It read 0852. "Time for me to get to
work. Kelleher and I are packing frozen dinosaur today.
Want to come along?"</p>

<p>Rat wiggled the tip of his nose in a negative gesture.
"Thanks all the same, but the idea doesn't appeal. It's
nice and warm here. Run along, boy; I'm sleepy." He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>
curled up in his cradle, wrapped his tail firmly around
his body, and closed his eyes.</p>

<hr class="tb" />

<p>There was a line waiting at the entrance to the freezer
section, and Alan took his place on it. One by one they
climbed into the spacesuits which the boy in charge provided,
and entered the airlock.</p>

<p>For transporting perishable goods&mdash;such as the dinosaur
meat brought back from the colony on Alpha C IV
to satisfy the heavy demand for that odd-tasting delicacy
on Earth&mdash;the <i>Valhalla</i> used the most efficient freezing
system of all: a compartment which opened out into the
vacuum of space. The meat was packed in huge open
receptacles which were flooded just before blastoff; before
the meat had any chance to spoil, the lock was opened,
the air fled into space and the compartment's heat radiated
outward. The water froze solid, preserving the
meat. It was just as efficient as building elaborate refrigeration
coils, and a good deal simpler.</p>

<p>The job now was to hew the frozen meat out of the
receptacles and get it packed in manageable crates for
shipping. The job was a difficult one. It called for more
muscle than brain.</p>

<p>As soon as all members of the cargo crew were in the
airlock, Kelleher swung the hatch closed and threw the
lever that opened the other door into the freezer section.
Photonic relays clicked; the metal door swung lightly
out and they headed through it after Kelleher gave the
go-ahead.</p>

<p>Alan and the others set grimly about their work, chopping
away at the ice. They fell to vigorously. After a while,
they started to get somewhere. Alan grappled with a
huge leg of meat while two fellow starmen helped him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>
ease it into a crate. Their hammers pounded down as
they nailed the crate together, but not a sound could be
heard in the airless vault.</p>

<p>After what seemed to be three or four centuries to
Alan, but which was actually only two hours, the job was
done. Somehow Alan got himself to the recreation room;
he sank down gratefully on a webfoam pneumochair.</p>

<p>He snapped on a spool of light music and stretched
back, completely exhausted. I don't ever want to see or
taste a dinosaur steak again, he thought. Not ever.</p>

<p>He watched the figures of his crewmates dashing
through the ship, each going about some last-minute job
that had to be handled before the ship touched down. In
a way he was glad he had drawn the assignment he had:
it was difficult, gruelingly heavy labor, carried out under
nasty circumstances&mdash;it was never fun to spend any length
of time doing manual labor inside a spacesuit, because
the sweat-swabbers and the air-conditioners in the suit
were generally always one step behind on the job&mdash;but at
least the work came to a definite end. Once all the meat
was packed, the job was done.</p>

<p>The same couldn't be said for the unfortunates who
swabbed the floors, scraped out the jets, realigned the
drive mechanism, or did any other tidying work. Their
jobs were <i>never</i> done; they always suffered from the nagging
thought that just a little more work might bring
the inspection rating up a decimal or two.</p>

<p>Every starship had to undergo a rigorous inspection
whenever it touched down on Earth. The <i>Valhalla</i> probably
wouldn't have any difficulties, since it had been gone
only nine years Earthtime. But ships making longer voyages
often had troubles with the inspectors. Procedure
which passed inspection on a ship bound out for Rigel<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>
or one of the other far stars might have become a violation
in the hundreds of years that would have passed
before its return.</p>

<p>Alan wondered if the <i>Valhalla</i> would run into any
inspection problems. The schedule called for departure
for Procyon in six days, and the ship would as usual be
carrying a party of colonists.</p>

<p>The schedule was pretty much of a sacred thing. But
Alan had not forgotten his brother Steve. If he only had
a few days to get out there and maybe find him&mdash;&mdash;</p>

<p>Well, I'll see, he thought. He relaxed.</p>

<p>But relaxation was brief. A familiar high-pitched voice
cut suddenly into his consciousness. <i>Oh, oh</i>, he thought.
<i>Here comes trouble.</i></p>

<p>"How come you've cut jets, spaceman?"</p>

<p>Alan opened one eye and stared balefully at the skinny
figure of Judy Collier. "I've finished my job, that's how
come. And I've been trying to get a little rest. Any
objections?"</p>

<p>She held up her hands and looked around the big
recreation room nervously. "Okay, don't shoot. Where's
that animal of yours?"</p>

<p>"Rat? Don't worry about him. He's in my cabin, chewing
his nibbling-stick. I can assure you it tastes a lot
better to him than your bony ankles." Alan yawned
deliberately. "Now how about letting me rest?"</p>

<p>She looked wounded. "If you <i>want</i> it that way. I just
thought I'd tell you about the doings in the Enclave
when we land. There's been a change in the regulations
since the last time we were here. But you wouldn't be
interested, of course." She started to mince away.</p>

<p>"Hey, wait a minute!" Judy's father was the <i>Valhalla's</i>
Chief Signal Officer, and she generally had news from a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>
planet they were landing on a lot quicker than anyone
else. "What's this all about?"</p>

<p>"A new quarantine regulation. They passed it two
years ago when a ship back from Altair landed and the
crew turned out to be loaded with some sort of weird
disease. We have to stay isolated even from the other
starmen in the Enclave until we've all had medical
checkups."</p>

<p>"Do they require every ship landing to go through
this?"</p>

<p>"Yep. Nuisance, isn't it? So the word has come from
your father that since we can't go round visiting until
we've been checked, the Crew's going to have a dance
tonight when we touch down."</p>

<p>"A dance?"</p>

<p>"You heard me. He thought it might be a nice idea&mdash;just
to keep our spirits up until the quarantine's lifted.
That nasty Roger Bond has invited me," she added, with
a raised eyebrow that was supposed to be sophisticated-looking.</p>

<p>"What's wrong with Roger? I just spent a whole afternoon
crating dinosaur meat with him."</p>

<p>"Oh, he's&mdash;well&mdash;he just doesn't <i>do</i> anything to me."</p>

<p>I'd like to do something to you, Alan thought. Something
lingering, with boiling oil in it.</p>

<p>"Did you accept?" he asked, just to be polite.</p>

<p>"Of course not! Not <i>yet</i>, that is. I just thought I might
get some more interesting offers, that's all," she said
archly.</p>

<p><i>Oh, I see the game</i>, Alan thought. <i>She's looking for an
invitation.</i> He stretched way back and slowly let his eyes
droop closed. "I wish you luck," he said.</p>

<p>She gaped at him. "Oh&mdash;you're <i>horrible</i>!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span></p>

<p>"I know," he admitted coolly. "I'm actually a Neptunian
mudworm, completely devoid of emotions. I'm
here in disguise to destroy the Earth, and if you reveal
my secret I'll eat you alive."</p>

<p>She ignored his sally and shook her head. "But why
do I always have to go to dances with Roger Bond?"
she asked plaintively. "Oh, well. Never mind," she said,
and turned away.</p>

<p>He watched her as she crossed the recreation room
floor and stepped through the exit sphincter. She was
just a silly girl, of course, but she had pointed up a very
real problem of starship life when she asked, "<i>Why do
I always have to go to dances with Roger Bond?</i>"</p>

<p>The <i>Valhalla</i> was practically a self-contained universe.
The Crew was permanent; no one ever left, unless it was
to jump ship the way Steve had&mdash;and Steve was the only
Crewman in the <i>Valhalla's</i> history to do that. And no
one new ever came aboard, except in the case of the infrequent
changes of personnel. Judy Collier herself was
one of the newest members of the Crew, and her family
had come aboard five ship years ago, because a replacement
signal officer had been needed.</p>

<p>Otherwise, things remained the same. Two or three
dozen families, a few hundred people, living together
year in and year out. No wonder Judy Collier always had
to go to dances with Roger Bond. The actual range of
eligibles was terribly limited.</p>

<p>That was why Steve had gone over the hill. What was
it he had said? <i>I feel the walls of the ship holding me in
like the bars of a cell.</i> Out there was Earth, population
approximately eight billion or so. And up here is the
<i>Valhalla</i>, current population precisely 176.</p>

<p>He knew all 176 of them like members of his own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>
family&mdash;which they were, in a sense. There was nothing
mysterious about anyone, nothing new.</p>

<p>And that was what Steve had wanted: something new.
So he had jumped ship. Well, Alan thought, development
of a hyperdrive would change the whole setup, if&mdash;if&mdash;&mdash;</p>

<p>He hardly found the quarantine to his liking either.
The starmen had only a brief stay on Earth, with just
the shortest opportunity to go down to the Enclave,
mingle with starmen from other ships, see a new face,
trade news of the starways. It was almost criminal to deprive
them of even a few hours of it.</p>

<p>Well, a dance was the second best thing. But it was a
pretty distant second, he thought, as he pushed himself
up out of the pneumochair.</p>

<p>He looked across the recreation room. <i>Speak of the
devil</i>, he thought. There was Roger Bond now, stretched
out and resting too under a radiotherm lamp. Alan walked
over to him.</p>

<p>"Heard the sad news, Rog?"</p>

<p>"About the quarantine? Yeah." Roger glanced at his
wristchron. "Guess I'd better start getting spruced up for
the dance," he said, getting to his feet. He was a short,
good-looking, dark-haired boy a year younger than Alan.</p>

<p>"Going with anyone special?"</p>

<p>Roger shook his head. "Who, special? Who, I ask you?
I'm going to take skinny Judy Collier, I guess. There's
not much choice, is there?"</p>

<p>"No," Alan agreed sadly, "Not much choice at all."</p>

<p>Together they left the recreation room. Alan felt a
strange sort of hopeless boredom spreading over him, as
if he had entered a gray fog. It worried him.</p>

<p>"See you tonight," Roger said.</p>

<p>"I suppose so," Alan returned dully. He was frowning.</p>

<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span></p>
<h2><i>Chapter<br />
Three</i></h2>

<p><span class="dcap">The</span> <i>Valhalla</i> touched down on Earth at 1753 on
the nose, to nobody's very great surprise. Captain Mark
Donnell had not missed schedule once in his forty ship
years in space, which covered a span of over a thousand
years of Earth's history.</p>

<p>Landing procedure was rigidly set. The Crew debarked
by family, in order of signing-on; the only exception to the
order was Alan. As a member of the Captain's family&mdash;the
only other member, now&mdash;he had to wait till the rest
of the ship was cleared. But his turn came eventually.</p>

<p>"Solid ground again, Rat!" They stood on the jet-fused
dirt field where the <i>Valhalla</i> had landed. The great
golden-hulled starship was reared up on its tail, with its
huge landing buttresses flaring out at each side to keep
it propped up.</p>

<p>"Solid for <i>you</i>, maybe," Rat said. "But the trip's just
as wobbly as ever for me, riding up here on your
shoulder."</p>

<p>Captain Donnell's shrill whistle sounded, and he cupped
his hands to call out, "The copters are here!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span></p>

<p>Alan watched the little squadron of gray jetcopters
settle to the ground, rotors slowing, and headed forward
along with the rest of the Crew. The copters would take
them from the bare landing field of the spaceport to the
Enclave, where they would spend the next six days.</p>

<p>The Captain was supervising the loading of the copters.
Alan sauntered over to him.</p>

<p>"Where to, son?"</p>

<p>"I'm scheduled to go over in Copter One."</p>

<p>"Uh-uh. I've changed the schedule." Captain Donnell
turned away and signalled to the waiting crew members.
"Okay, go ahead and fill up Copter One!"</p>

<p>They filed aboard. "Everyone get back," the Captain
yelled. A tentative <i>chugg-chuff</i> came from the copter; its
rotors went round and it lifted, stood poised for a moment
on its jetwash, and shot off northward toward the Starmen's
Enclave.</p>

<p>"What's this about a change in schedule, Dad?"</p>

<p>"I want you to ride over with me in the two-man copter.
Kandin took your place aboard Copter One. Let's go now,"
he shouted to the next group. "Start loading up Number
Two."</p>

<p>The Crewmen began taking their places aboard the
second copter, and soon its pilot signalled through the
fore window that he was loaded up. The copter departed.
Seeing that he would be leaving the field last, Alan made
himself useful by keeping the younger Crew children from
wandering.</p>

<p>At last the field was cleared. Only Alan and his father
remained, with the little two-man copter and the tall
gleaming <i>Valhalla</i> behind them.</p>

<p>"Let's go," the Captain said. They climbed in, Alan<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>
strapping himself down in the co-pilot's chair and his
father back of the controls.</p>

<p>"I never see much of you these days," the Captain said
after they were aloft. "Running the <i>Valhalla</i> seems to take
twenty-four hours a day."</p>

<p>"I know how it is," Alan said.</p>

<p>After a while Captain Donnell said, "I see you're still
reading that Cavour book." He chuckled. "Still haven't
given up the idea of finding the hyperdrive, have you?"</p>

<p>"You know I haven't, Dad. I'm sure Cavour really did
work it out, before he disappeared. If we could only discover
his notebook, or even a letter or something that could
get us back on the trail&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"It's been thirteen hundred years since Cavour disappeared,
Alan. If nothing of his has turned up in all that
time, it's not likely ever to show. But I hope you keep
at it, anyway." He banked the copter and cut the jets; the
rotors took over and gently lowered the craft to the distant
landing field.</p>

<p>Alan looked down and out at the heap of buildings
becoming visible below. The crazy quilt of outdated,
clumsy old buildings that was the local Starmen's Enclave.</p>

<p>He felt a twinge of surprise at his father's words. The
Captain had never shown any serious interest in the possibility
of faster-than-light travel before. He had always
regarded the whole idea as sheer fantasy.</p>

<p>"I don't get it, Dad. Why do you hope I keep at it? If
I ever find what I'm looking for, it's going to mean the
end of Starman life as you know it. Travel between planets
will be instantaneous. There&mdash;there won't be this business
of making jumps and getting separated from everyone
you used to know."</p>

<p>"You're right. I've just begun thinking seriously about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>
this business of hyperdrive. There wouldn't be any Contraction
effect. Think of the changes it would mean in
Starman society! No more&mdash;no more permanent separations
if someone decides to leave his ship for a while."</p>

<p>Alan understood what his father meant. Suddenly he
saw the reason for Captain Donnell's abrupt growth of
interest in the development of a hyperdrive.</p>

<p><i>It's Steve that's on his mind</i>, Alan thought. <i>If we had
had a hyperspace drive and Steve had done what he did,
it wouldn't have mattered. He'd still be my age.</i></p>

<p>Now the <i>Valhalla</i> was about to journey to Procyon.
Another twenty years would pass before it got back, and
Steve would be almost fifty by then.</p>

<p>That's what's on his mind, Alan thought. He lost Steve
forever&mdash;but he doesn't want any more Steves to happen.
The Contraction took one of his sons away. And now he
wants the hyperdrive as much as I do.</p>

<p>Alan glanced at the stiff, erect figure of his father as
they clambered out of the copter and headed at a fast
clip toward the Administration Building of the Enclave.
He wondered just how much pain and anguish his father
was keeping hidden back of that brisk, efficient exterior.</p>

<p><i>I'll get the Cavour drive someday</i>, Alan thought suddenly.
<i>And I'll be getting it for him as well as me.</i></p>

<p>The bizarre buildings of the Enclave loomed up before
him. Behind them, just visible in the purplish twilight
haze, were the tips of the shining towers of the Earther
city outside. Somewhere out there, probably, was Steve.</p>

<p><i>I'll find him too</i>, Alan thought firmly.</p>

<hr class="tb" />

<p>Most of the <i>Valhalla's</i> people had already been assigned
rooms in the quarantine section of one of the Enclave
buildings when Alan and his father arrived.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span></p>

<p>The bored-looking desk clerk&mdash;a withered-looking oldster
who was probably a retired Starman&mdash;gave Alan his
room number. It turned out to be a small, squarish room
furnished with an immense old pneumochair long since
deflated, a cot, and a washstand. The wall was a dull green,
with gaping cracks in the faded paint, and cut heavily
with a penknife into one wall was the inscription, BILL
DANSERT SLEPT HERE, <i>June 28 2683</i> in sturdy block
letters.</p>

<p>Alan wondered how many other starmen had occupied
the room before and after Bill Dansert. He wondered
whether perhaps Bill Dansert himself were still alive somewhere
between the stars, twelve centuries after he had
left his name in the wall.</p>

<p>He dropped himself into the pneumochair, feeling the
soggy squish of the deflated cushion, and loosened the
jacket of his uniform.</p>

<p>"It's not luxurious," he told Rat. "But at least it's a
room. It's a place to stay."</p>

<p>The medics started coming around that evening, checking
to see that none of the newly-arrived starmen had
happened to bring back any strange disease that might
cause trouble. It was slow work&mdash;and the <i>Valhalla</i> people
were told that it would take at least until the following
morning before the quarantine could be lifted.</p>

<p>"Just a precautionary measure," said the medic apologetically
as he entered Alan's room clad in a space helmet.
"We really learned our lesson when that shipload from
Altair came in bearing a plague."</p>

<p>The medic produced a small camera and focused it on
Alan. He pressed a button; a droning sort of hum came
from the machine. Alan felt a curious glow of warmth.</p>

<p>"Just a routine check," the medic apologized again.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>
He flipped a lever in the back of the camera. Abruptly
the droning stopped and a tape unravelled out of the side
of the machine. The medic studied it.</p>

<p>"Any trouble?" Alan asked anxiously.</p>

<p>"Looks okay to me. But you might get that cavity in
your upper right wisdom tooth taken care of. Otherwise
you seem in good shape."</p>

<p>He rolled up the tape. "Don't you starmen ever get
time for a fluorine treatment? Some of you have the worst
teeth I've ever seen."</p>

<p>"We haven't had a chance for fluorination yet. Our ship
was built before they started fluorinating the water supplies,
and somehow we never find time to take the treatment
while we're on Earth. But is that all that's wrong
with me?"</p>

<p>"All that I can spot just by examining the diagnostic
tape. We'll have to wait for the full lab report to come
through before I can pass you out of quarantine, of
course." Then he noticed Rat perched in the corner. "How
about that? I'll have to examine it, too."</p>

<p>"I'm not an <i>it</i>," Rat remarked with icy dignity. "I'm
an intelligent extra-terrestrial entity, native of Bellatrix
VII. And I'm not carrying any particular diseases that
would interest you."</p>

<p>"A talking rat!" The medic was amazed. "Next thing
we'll have sentient amebas!" He aimed the camera at Rat.
"I suppose I'll have to record you as a member of the
crew," he said, as the camera began to hum.</p>

<p>After the medic had gone, Alan tried to freshen up at
the washstand, having suddenly recalled that a dance was
on tap for this evening.</p>

<p>As he wearily went through the motions of scrubbing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>
his face clean, it occurred to him that he had not even
bothered to speak to one of the seven or eight Crew girls
he had considered inviting.</p>

<p>He sensed a curious disturbed feeling growing inside
him. He felt depressed. Was this, he wondered, what
Steve had gone through? The wish to get out of this tin
can of a ship and really see the universe?</p>

<p>"Tell me, Rat. If you were me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"If I were you I'd get dressed for that dance," Rat
said sharply. "If you've got a date, that is."</p>

<p>"That's just the point. I <i>don't</i> have a date. I mean,
I didn't bother to make one. I know all those girls so
well. Why bother?"</p>

<p>"So you're not going to the dance?"</p>

<p>"Nope."</p>

<p>Rat clambered up the arm of the pneumochair and
swivelled his head upward till his glittering little eyes
met Alan's. "You're not planning to go over the hill the
way Steve did, are you? I can spot the symptoms. You
look restless and fidgety the way your brother did."</p>

<p>After a moment of silence Alan shook his head. "No.
I couldn't do that, Rat. Steve was the wild kind. I'd
never be able just to get up and go, the way he did. But
I've got to do <i>something</i>. I know what he meant. He said
the walls of the ship were pressing in on him. Holding
him back."</p>

<p>With a sudden impatient motion he ripped open the
magnesnaps of his regulation shirt and took it off. He
felt himself changing, inside. Something was happening
to him. Maybe, he thought, he was catching whatever it
was Steve had been inflamed by. Maybe he had been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>
lying to himself all along, about being different in makeup
from Steve.</p>

<p>"Go tell the Captain I'm not going to the dance," he
ordered Rat. "Otherwise he'll wonder where I am. Tell
him&mdash;tell him I'm too tired, or something. Tell him anything.
But don't let him find out how I feel."</p>

<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span></p>
<h2><i>Chapter<br />
Four</i></h2>

<p><span class="dcap">The</span> next morning, Roger Bond told him all
about the dance.</p>

<p>"It was the dullest thing you could imagine. Same old
people, same dusty old dances. Couple of people asked
me where you were, but I didn't tell them anything."</p>

<p>"Good."</p>

<p>They wandered on through the heap of old, ugly buildings
that composed the Starmen's Enclave. "It's just as
well they think I was sick," Alan said. "I was, anyway.
Sick from boredom."</p>

<p>He and Roger sat down carefully on the edge of a
crumbling stone bench. They said nothing, just looking
around. After a long while Alan broke the uncomfortable
silence.</p>

<p>"You know what this place is? It's a ghetto. A self-imposed
ghetto. Starmen are scared silly of going out into
the Earther cities, so they keep themselves penned up in
this filthy place instead."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span></p>

<p>"This place is really old. I wonder how far back those
run-down buildings date."</p>

<p>"Thousand years, maybe more. No one ever bothers
to build new ones. What for? The starmen don't mind
living in the old ones."</p>

<p>"I almost wish the medical clearance hadn't come
through after all," said Roger moodily.</p>

<p>"How so?"</p>

<p>"Then we'd be still quarantined up there. We wouldn't
be able to come down and get another look at the kind
of place this really is."</p>

<p>"I don't know which is worse&mdash;to be cooped up in
quarantine or to go wandering around a dismal hole like
the Enclave." Alan stood up, stretched, and took a deep
breath. "Phew! Get a lungful of that sweet, fresh, allegedly
pure Terran air! I'll take ship atmosphere, stale
as it is, any time over this smoggy soup."</p>

<p>"I'll go along with that. Say, look&mdash;a strange face!"</p>

<p>Alan turned and saw a young starman of about his own
age coming toward them. He wore a red uniform with
gray trim instead of the orange-and-blue of the <i>Valhalla</i>.</p>

<p>"Welcome, newcomers. I suppose you're from that ship
that just put down? The <i>Valhalla</i>?"</p>

<p>"Right. Name's Alan Donnell, and this is Roger Bond.
Yours?"</p>

<p>"I'm Kevin Quantrell." He was short and stocky, heavily
tanned, with a square jaw and a confident look about him.
"I'm out of the starship <i>Encounter</i>, just back from the
Aldebaran system. Been in the Enclave two weeks now&mdash;with
a lot more ahead of me."</p>

<p>Alan whistled. "Aldebaran! That's&mdash;let's see, 109 years
round trip. You must be a real old-timer, Quantrell!"</p>

<p>"I was born in 3403. Makes me 473 years old, Earthtime.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>
But I'm actually only seventeen and a half. Right
before Aldebaran we made a hop to Capella, and that
used up 85 years more in a hurry."</p>

<p>"You've got me by 170 years," Alan said. "But I'm only
seventeen myself."</p>

<p>Quantrell grinned cockily. "It's a good thing some guy
thought up this Tally system of chalking up every real
day you live through. Otherwise we'd be up to here in
confusion all the time."</p>

<p>He leaned boredly against the wall of a rickety building
which once had proudly borne the chrome-steel casing
characteristic of early 27th Century architecture, but
whose outer surface was now brown and scaly from rust.
"What do you think of our little paradise?" Quantrell
asked sarcastically. "Certainly puts the Earther cities to
shame."</p>

<p>He pointed out across the river, where the tall, glistening
buildings of the adjoining Earther city shone in the
morning sunlight.</p>

<p>"Have you ever been out there?" Alan asked.</p>

<p>"No," Quantrell said in a tight voice. "But if this keeps
up much longer&mdash;&mdash;" He clenched and unclenched his fists
impatiently.</p>

<p>"What's the trouble?"</p>

<p>"It's my ship&mdash;the <i>Encounter</i>. We were outspace over
a century, you know, and when we got back the inspection
teams found so many things wrong with the ship that she
needs just about a complete overhauling. They've been
working her over for the last two weeks, and the way it
looks it'll be another couple of weeks before she's ready
to go. And I don't know how much longer I can stand
being penned up in this Enclave."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span></p>

<p>"That's exactly how your brother&mdash;&mdash;" Roger started to
say, and stopped. "Sorry."</p>

<p>"That's okay," Alan said.</p>

<p>Quantrell cocked an eye. "What's that?"</p>

<p>"My brother. I had a twin, but he got restless and
jumped ship last time we were down. He got left behind
at blastoff time."</p>

<p>Quantrell nodded understandingly. "Too bad. But I
know what he was up against&mdash;and I envy the lucky so-and-so.
I wish <i>I</i> had the guts to just walk out like that.
Every day that goes by in this place, I say I'm going over
the hill next day. But I never do, somehow. I just sit here
and wait."</p>

<p>Alan glanced down the quiet sun-warmed street. Here
and there a couple of venerable-looking starmen were
sitting, swapping stories of their youth&mdash;a youth that had
been a thousand years before. The Enclave, Alan thought,
is a place for old men.</p>

<p>They walked on for a while until the buzzing neon
signs of a feelie theater were visible. "I'm going in,"
Roger said. "This place is starting to depress me. You?"</p>

<p>Alan shot a glance at Quantrell, who made a face and
shook his head. "I guess I'll skip it," Alan said. "Not just
now."</p>

<p>"Count me out too," Quantrell said.</p>

<p>Roger looked sourly from one to the other, and
shrugged. "I think I'll go all the same. I'm in the mood
for a good show. See you around, Alan."</p>

<p>After Roger left them, Alan and Quantrell walked on
through the Enclave together. Alan wondered whether it
wasn't a good idea to have gone to the feelie with Roger
after all; the Enclave was starting to depress him, too, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>
those three-dimensional shows had a way of taking your
mind off things.</p>

<p>But he was curious about Quantrell. It wasn't often he
had a chance to talk with someone his own age from another
ship. "You know," he said, "we starmen lead an
empty life. You don't get to realize it until you come to
the Enclave."</p>

<p>"I decided that a long time ago," Quantrell said.</p>

<p>Alan spread his hands. "What do we do? We dash back
and forth through space, and we huddle here in the
Enclave. And we don't like either one or the other, but
we fool ourselves into liking them. When we're in space
we can't wait to get to the Enclave, and once we're down
here we can't wait to get back. Some life."</p>

<p>"Got any suggestions? Some way of fixing things up for
us without queering interstellar commerce?"</p>

<p>"Yes," Alan snapped. "I do have a suggestion. Hyperspace
drive!"</p>

<p>Quantrell laughed harshly. "Of all the cockeyed&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"There you are," Alan said angrily. "First thing you do
is laugh. A spacewarp drive is just some hairbrained
scheme to you. But haven't you ever considered that
Earth's scientists won't bother developing such a drive for
us if we don't care ourselves? They're just as happy the
way things are. <i>They</i> don't have to worry about the Fitzgerald
Contraction."</p>

<p>"But there's been steady research on a hyperdrive,
hasn't there? Ever since Cavour, I thought."</p>

<p>"On and off. But they don't take it very seriously and
they don't get anywhere with it. If they'd really put some
men to work they'd find it&mdash;and then there wouldn't be
any more Enclaves or any Fitzgerald Contraction, and we
starmen could live normal lives."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span></p>

<p>"And your brother&mdash;he wouldn't be cut off from his
people the way he is&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"Sure. But you laughed instead of thinking."</p>

<p>Quantrell looked contrite. "Sorry. Guess I didn't put
much jet behind my think-machine that time. But a
hyperdrive would wipe out the Enclave system, wouldn't
it?"</p>

<p>"Of course! We'd be able to come home from space and
take a normal part in Earth's life, instead of pulling away
and segregating ourselves here."</p>

<p>Alan looked up at the seemingly unreachable towers of
the Earther city just across the river from the Enclave.
Somewhere out there was Steve. And perhaps somewhere
out there was someone he could talk to about the hyperdrive,
someone influential who might spur the needed
research.</p>

<p>The Earther city seemed to be calling to him. It was a
voice that was hard to resist. He savagely jammed down
deep inside him the tiny inner voice that was trying to
object. He turned, looking backward at the dingy dreary
buildings of the Enclave.</p>

<p>He looked then at Quantrell. "You said you've been
wanting to break loose. You want to get out of the Enclave,
eh, Kevin?"</p>

<p>"Yes," Quantrell said slowly.</p>

<p>Alan felt excitement beginning to pound hard in the
pit of his stomach. "How'd you like to go outside there
with me? See the Earther city?"</p>

<p>"You mean <i>jump ship</i>?"</p>

<p>The naked words, put just that bluntly, stung. "No,"
Alan said, thinking of how his father's face had gone
stony the time Alan had told him Steve wasn't coming
back. "I mean just going out for a day or so&mdash;a sort of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>
change of air. It's five days till the <i>Valhalla's</i> due to blast
off, and you say the <i>Encounter</i> is stuck here indefinitely.
We could just go for a day or so&mdash;just to see what it's
like out there."</p>

<p>Quantrell was silent a long time.</p>

<p>"Just for a day or so?" he asked, at last. "We'll just go
out, and have a look around, just to see what it's like
out there." He fell silent again. Alan saw a little trickle
of sweat burst out on Quantrell's cheek. He felt strangely
calm himself, a little to his own surprise.</p>

<p>Then Quantrell smiled and the confidence returned to
his tanned face. "I'm game. Let's go!"</p>

<p>But Rat was quizzical about the whole enterprise when
Alan returned to his room to get him.</p>

<p>"You aren't serious, Alan. You really are going over
to the Earther city?"</p>

<p>Alan nodded and gestured for the little extra-terrestrial
to take his usual perch. "Are you daring to take my word
in vain, Rat?" he asked in mock histrionics. "When I say
I'm going to do something, I do it." He snapped closed
his jacket and flipped the switch controlling the archaic
fluorescent panels. "Besides, you can always stay here if
you want to, you know."</p>

<p>"Never mind," Rat said. "I'm coming." He leaped up
and anchored himself securely on Alan's shoulder.</p>

<p>Kevin Quantrell was waiting for them in front of the
building. As Alan emerged Rat said, "One question,
Alan."</p>

<p>"Shoot."</p>

<p>"Level, now: are you coming back&mdash;or are you going
over the way Steve did?"</p>

<p>"You ought to know me better than that. I've got reasons
for going out, but they're not Steve's reasons."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span></p>

<p>"I hope so."</p>

<p>Quantrell came up to them, and it seemed to Alan that
there was something unconvincing about his broad grin.
He looked nervous. Alan wondered whether he looked the
same way.</p>

<p>"All set?" Quantrell asked.</p>

<p>"Set as I'll ever be. Let's go."</p>

<p>Alan looked around to see if anybody he knew might
be watching. There was no one around. Quantrell started
walking, and Alan fell in behind him.</p>

<p>"I hope you know where you're going," Alan said.
"Because I don't."</p>

<p>Kevin pointed down the long winding street. "We go
down to the foot of this street, turn right into Carhill
Boulevard, head down the main drive toward the bridge.
The Earther city is on the other side of the river."</p>

<p>"You better be right."</p>

<p>They made it at a fairly good clip through the sleepy
Enclave, passing rapidly through the old, dry, dusty streets.
Finally they came to the end of the street and rounded the
corner onto Carhill Boulevard.</p>

<p>The first thing Alan saw was the majestic floating curve
of the bridge. Then he saw the Earther city, a towering
pile of metal and masonry that seemed to be leaping up
into the sky ahead of them, completely filling the view.</p>

<p>Alan pointed to the bridge-mouth. "That's where we
go across, isn't it?"</p>

<p>But Quantrell hung back. He stopped in his tracks,
staring dangle-jawed at the immense city facing them.</p>

<p>"There it is," he said quietly.</p>

<p>"Sure. Let's go, eh?" Alan felt a sudden burst of impatience
and started heading toward the approach to the
bridge.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span></p>

<p>But after three or four paces he realized Quantrell was
not with him. He turned and saw the other spaceman
still rooted to the ground, gazing up at the vast Earther
city as if in narcoshock.</p>

<p>"It's big," Quantrell murmured. "<i>Too</i> big."</p>

<p>"<i>Kevin!</i> What's wrong?"</p>

<p>"Leave him alone," Rat whispered. "I have a hunch he
won't be going with you."</p>

<p>Alan watched in astonishment as Quantrell took two
steps hesitantly backward away from the bridge, then a
third. There was a strange, almost thunderstruck expression
on Kevin's face.</p>

<p>Then he broke out of it. He shook his head.</p>

<p>"We aren't really going across&mdash;huh, Donnell?" He gave
a brittle little laugh.</p>

<p>"Of course we are!" Alan looked around nervously,
hoping no one from the <i>Valhalla</i> had spotted him in all
this time. Puzzled at Quantrell's sudden hesitation after
his earlier cockiness, Alan took a couple of shuffling steps
toward the bridge, slowly, keeping his eyes on the other
starman.</p>

<p>"I can't go with you," Kevin finally managed to say.
His face was flushed and strained-looking. He was staring
upward at the seemingly topless towers of the city. "It's
too big for me." He choked back a half-whimper.
"The trouble with me is&mdash;the&mdash;trouble&mdash;with&mdash;me&mdash;is&mdash;&mdash;"
Quantrell lowered his head and met Alan's stare. "I'm
afraid, Donnell. Stinking sweaty afraid. The city's too big."</p>

<p>Red-faced, he turned and walked away, back up the
street.</p>

<p>Alan silently watched him go.</p>

<p>"Imagine that. Afraid!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span></p>

<p>"It's a big place," Rat warned. "Don't you feel the same
way? Just a little?"</p>

<p>"I feel perfectly calm," Alan said in utter sincerity.
"I know why I'm going over there, and I'm anxious to
get moving. I'm not running away, the way Steve was.
I'm going to the Earther city to find my brother and to
find Cavour's drive, and to bring them both back here!"</p>

<p>"That's a tall order, Alan."</p>

<p>"I'll do it."</p>

<p>Alan reached the approach to the bridge in a few more
brisk steps and paused there. The noonday sun turned the
long arch of the bridge into a golden ribbon in the sky.
A glowing sign indicated the pedestrian walkway. Above
that, shining teardrop autos whirred by, leaving faint
trails of exhaust. Alan followed the arrows and soon
found himself on the bridge, heading for the city.</p>

<p>He glanced back a last time. There was no sign of
Kevin. The Starmen's Enclave seemed utterly quiet, almost
dead.</p>

<p>Then he turned and kept his gaze forward. The Earther
city was waiting for him.</p>

<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span></p>
<h2><i>Chapter<br />
Five</i></h2>

<p><span class="dcap">He</span> reached the end of the walkway and paused,
a little stunned, staring at the incredible immensity of
the city spread out before him.</p>

<p>"It's a big place," he said. "I've never been in a city
this big."</p>

<p>"You were born here," Rat reminded him.</p>

<p>Alan laughed. "But I only stayed here a week or two
at most. And that was three hundred years ago. The
city's probably twice as big now as it was then. It&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"Hey, you! Move on!" a harsh voice from behind
snapped suddenly.</p>

<p>"What's that?"</p>

<p>Alan whirled and saw a tall, bored-looking man in a
silver-gray uniform with gleaming luminescent bands
across the sleeves, standing on a raised platform above the
road.</p>

<p>"You can't just stand here and block the walkway,"
the tall man said. His words were heavily accented, thickly
guttural; Alan had a little trouble understanding them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>
The ship's language never changed; that of Earth kept
constantly evolving. "Get back in the Enclave where you
belong, or get moving, but don't stand here or I'll punch
your ticket for you."</p>

<p>Alan took a couple of steps forward. "Just hold on a
minute. Who&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"He's a policeman, Alan," Rat said softly. "Don't make
trouble. Do as he says."</p>

<p>Throttling his sudden anger, Alan nodded curtly at the
officer and stepped off the walkway. He was an outsider
here, and knew he couldn't expect the sort of warm
fellowship that existed aboard the ship.</p>

<p>This was a city. A crowded, uncomfortable Earther city.
These were the people who were left behind, who never
saw the stars in naked glory. They weren't going to be
particularly polite.</p>

<p>Alan found himself at an intersection, and wondered
where he was to begin. He had some vague idea of finding
Steve in this city as easily as he might aboard ship&mdash;just
check the A Deck roster, then the B Deck, and so on
until he found him. But cities weren't quite that neatly
organized, Alan realized.</p>

<p>A long broad street ran parallel to the river. It didn't
seem very promising: lined with office buildings and
warehouses. At right angles to it, though, stretching out
in front of him, was a colorful, crowded avenue that
appeared to be a major artery of the city. He glanced
tentatively in both directions, waited till a lull came in
the steady procession of tiny bullet-shaped automobiles
flashing by, and hastily jogged across the waterfront street
and started down the avenue.</p>

<p>Maybe there was some kind of register of population at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>
the City Hall. If Steve still lived in this city, he could
look him up that way. If not&mdash;&mdash;</p>

<p>Facing him were two rows of immense buildings, one
on each side of the street. Above every three blocks there
was a lacy aerial passageway connecting a building on
one side of the street with one on the other, high above
the ground. Alan looked up and saw black dots&mdash;they
looked like ants, but they were people&mdash;making their way
across the flexi-bridges at dizzying altitudes.</p>

<p>The streets were crowded. Busy stern-faced people raced
madly from one place to the next; Alan was accustomed
to the more orderly and peaceful life of a starship, and
found himself getting jostled by passersby from both
directions.</p>

<p>He was surprised to find the streets full of peddlers,
weary-looking little men trundling along behind small
slow-moving self-powered monocars full of vegetables and
other produce. Every few moments one would stop and
hawk his wares. As Alan started hesitantly up the endless-seeming
street, one of the venders stopped virtually in
front of him and looked at him imploringly. He was a
small untidy-looking man with a dirty face and a red
scar streaking his left cheek.</p>

<p>"Hey, boy." He spoke in a soft slurred voice. "Hey,
boy. Got something nice for you here."</p>

<p>Alan looked at him, puzzled. The vender reached into
his cart and pulled out a long yellow fruit with a small,
thick green stem at one end. "Go on, boy. Treat yourself
to some of these. Guild-grown, fresh-ripened, best there
are. Half a credit for this one." He held it almost under
Alan's nose. "Go on," he said insistently.</p>

<p>Alan fished in his pocket and produced one of the half-credit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>
pieces he had been given in the Enclave commissary.
For all he knew it was the custom of this city for a new
arrival to buy the first thing offered to him by a vender;
in any event, he was hungry, and it seemed that this was
the easiest way to get rid of the little man. He held out
the coin.</p>

<p>"Here. I'll take it."</p>

<p>The vender handed the piece of fruit over and Alan
accepted it. He studied it, wondering what he was supposed
to do now. It had a thick, tough rind that didn't
seem at all appetizing.</p>

<p>The vender chuckled. "What's the matter, boy? Never
seen a banana before? Or ain't you hungry?" The little
man's derisive face was thrust up almost against Alan's
chin.</p>

<p>He backed away a step or two. "Banana? Oh, sure."</p>

<p>He put the end of the banana in his mouth and was
just about to take a bite when a savage burst of laughter
cut him off.</p>

<p>"Looka him!" the vender cried. "Stupid spacer don't
even know how to eat a banana! Looka! Looka!"</p>

<p>Alan took the fruit out of his mouth unbitten and
stared uncomprehendingly at it. He felt uneasy; nothing
in his past experience had prepared him for deliberate
hostility on the part of other people. Aboard ship, you
did your job and went your way; you didn't force your
presence on other people or poke fun at them maliciously.
It was the only way to live when you had to spend your
whole lifetime with the same shipload of men and women.</p>

<p>But the little vender wasn't going away. He seemed
very amused by everything. "You&mdash;you a spacer, no?" he
demanded. By now a small crowd had paused and was
watching the scene.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span></p>

<p>Alan nodded.</p>

<p>"Lemme show you how, spacer," the vender said, mockery
topmost in his tone. He snatched the banana back
from Alan and ripped back the rind with three rough
snaps of his wrist. "Go on. Eat it this way. She tastes
better without the peel." He laughed raucously. "Looka
the spacer!"</p>

<p>Someone else in the crowd said, "What's he doing in the
city anyway? He jump ship?"</p>

<p>"Yeah? Why ain't he in the Enclave like all the rest
of them?"</p>

<p>Alan looked from one to the other with a troubled
expression on his face. He didn't want to touch off any
serious incident, but he was determined not to let these
Earthers push him around, either. He ignored the ring
of hostile faces about him and calmly bit into the banana.
The unfamiliar taste pleased him. Despite hoots and catcalls
from the crowd he finished it.</p>

<p>"Now the spacer knows how to eat a banana," the
vender commented acidly. "Here, spacer. Have another."</p>

<p>"I don't want another."</p>

<p>"Huh? No good? Earth fruits are <i>too</i> good for you,
starman. You better learn that fast."</p>

<p>"Let's get out of here," Rat said quietly.</p>

<p>It was sensible advice. These people were just baiting
him like a bunch of hounds ringing a hare. He flexed his
shoulder in a signal that meant he agreed with Rat's
suggestion.</p>

<p>"Have another banana," the vender repeated obstinately.</p>

<p>Alan looked around at the crowd. "I said I didn't want
another banana, and I <i>don't</i> want one. Now get out of
my way!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span></p>

<p>No one moved. The vender and his monocar blocked
the path.</p>

<p>"Get out of my way, I said." Alan balled the slimy
banana peel up in his hand and rammed it suddenly into
the vender's face. "There. Chew on that a while."</p>

<p>He shouldered his way past the spluttering fruit vender,
and before anyone in the crowd could say or do anything
he was halfway down the street, walking briskly. He lost
himself in the passing stream of pedestrians. It was easy
to do, despite the conspicuous orange-and-blue of his
<i>Valhalla</i> uniform. There were so many people.</p>

<p>He went on for two unmolested blocks, walking quickly
without looking back. Finally he decided he was safe. He
glanced up at Rat. The little extra-terrestrial was sitting
patiently astride his shoulder, deep, as usual, in some
mysterious thoughts of his own.</p>

<p>"Rat?"</p>

<p>"What, Alan?"</p>

<p>"Why'd they do that? Why did those people act that
way? I was a perfect stranger. They had no business making
trouble for me."</p>

<p>"That's precisely it&mdash;you <i>were</i> a complete stranger. They
don't love you for it. You're 300 years old and still 17 at
the same time. They can't understand that. These people
don't like starmen very much. The people in this city
aren't ever going to see the stars, Alan. Stars are just faint
specks of light that peek through the city haze at night.
They're terribly, terribly jealous of you&mdash;and this is the
way they show it."</p>

<p>"Jealous? But why? If they only knew what a starman's
life is like, with the Contraction and all! If they could
only see what it is to leave your home and never be able
to go back&mdash;&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span></p>

<p>"They can't see it, Alan. All they can see is that you
have the stars and they don't. They resent it."</p>

<p>Alan shrugged. "Let them go to space, then, if they
don't like it here. No one's stopping them."</p>

<p>They walked on silently for a while. Alan continued to
revolve the incident in his mind. He realized he had a
lot to learn about people, particularly Earther people. He
could handle himself pretty well aboard ship, but down
on Earth he was a rank greenhorn and he'd have to step
carefully.</p>

<p>He looked gloomily at the maze of streets before him
and half-wished he had stayed in the Enclave, where
starmen belonged. But somewhere out ahead of him was
Steve. And somewhere, too, he might find the answer to
the big problem, that of finding the hyperspace drive.</p>

<p>But it was a tall order. And he had no idea where to
begin. First thing to do, he thought, is find someone halfway
friendly-looking and ask if there's a central directory
of citizens. Track down Steve, if possible. Time's running
out. The <i>Valhalla</i> pulls out in a couple of days.</p>

<p>There were plenty of passersby&mdash;but they all looked
like the kind that would keep on moving without answering
his question. He stopped.</p>

<p>"<i>Come right in here!</i>" a cold metallic voice rasped,
almost back of his ear. Startled, Alan looked leftward and
saw a gleaming multiform robot standing in front of what
looked like a shop of some sort.</p>

<p>"Come right in here!" the robot repeated, a little less
forcefully now that it had caught Alan's attention. "One
credit can win you ten; five can get you a hundred. Right
in here, friend."</p>

<p>Alan stepped closer and peered inside. Through the
dim dark blue window he could vaguely make out long<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>
rows of tables, with men seated before each one. From
inside came the hard sound of another robot voice, calling
off an endless string of numbers.</p>

<p>"Don't just stand there staring, friend," the robot urged.
"Go right on through the door."</p>

<p>Alan nudged Rat quizzically. "What is it?"</p>

<p>"I'm a stranger here too. But I'd guess it was some
sort of gambling place."</p>

<p>Alan jingled the few coins he had in his pocket. "If
we had time I'd like to stop off. But&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"Go ahead, friend, go ahead," the robot crooned, his
metallic tones somehow managing to sound almost human
in their urgent pleading. "Go on in. One credit can win
you ten. Five can get you a hundred."</p>

<p>"Some other time," Alan said.</p>

<p>"But, friend&mdash;one credit can win you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"I know."</p>

<p>"&mdash;ten," the robot continued, undismayed. "Five can
get you a hundred." By this time the robot had edged
out into the street, blocking Alan's path.</p>

<p>"Are we going to have trouble with you too? It looks
like everybody in this city is trying to sell something."</p>

<p>The robot pointed invitingly toward the door. "Why
not try it?" it cooed. "Simplest game ever devised. Everybody
wins! Go on in, friend."</p>

<p>Alan frowned impatiently. He was getting angrier and
angrier at the robot's unceasing sales pitch. Aboard ship,
no one coaxed you to do anything; if it was an assigned
job, you did it without arguing, and if you were on free
time you were your own master.</p>

<p>"I don't want to play your stupid game!"</p>

<p>The robot's blank stainless vanadium face showed no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>
display of feeling whatsoever. "That's not the right attitude,
friend. <i>Everyone</i> plays the game."</p>

<p>Ignoring him, Alan started to walk ahead, but the
robot skipped lithely around to block him. "Won't you
go in just once?"</p>

<p>"Look," Alan said. "I'm a free citizen and I don't want
to be subjected to this sort of stuff. Now get out of my
way and leave me alone before I take a can opener to you."</p>

<p>"That's not the right attitude. I'm just asking you as
a friend&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"And I'm answering you as one. Let me go!"</p>

<p>"Calm down," Rat whispered.</p>

<p>"They've got no business putting a machine out here
to bother people like this," Alan said hotly. He took a
few more steps and the robot plucked at his sleeve.</p>

<p>"Is that a final refusal?" A trace of incredulity crept
into the robot's voice. "Everyone plays the game, you
know. It's unconsumerlike to refuse. It's uncitylike. It's
bad business. It's unrotational. It's&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>Exasperated, Alan pushed the robot out of the way&mdash;hard.
The metal creature went over surprisingly easily,
and thudded to the pavement with a dull clanking sound.</p>

<p>"Are you sure&mdash;&mdash;" the robot began, and then the voice
was replaced by the humming sound of an internal clashing
of unaligned gears.</p>

<p>"I guess I broke it." Alan looked down at the supine
robot. "But it wasn't my fault. It wouldn't let me pass."</p>

<p>"We'd better move on," Rat said. But it was too late.
A burly man in a black cloak threw open the door of the
gambling parlor and confronted Alan.</p>

<p>"What sort of stuff is this, fellow? What have you done
to our servo?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span></p>

<p>"That thing wouldn't let me pass. It caught hold of
me and tried to drag me inside your place."</p>

<p>"So what? That's what he's for. Robohucksters are perfectly
legal." Disbelief stood out on the man's face. "You
mean you don't want to go in?"</p>

<p>"That has nothing to do with it. Even if I <i>did</i> want
to go in, I wouldn't&mdash;not after the way your robot tried
to push me."</p>

<p>"Watch out, kid. Don't make trouble. That's unrotational
talk. You can get in trouble. Come on inside and
have a game or two, and I'll forget the whole thing. I
won't even bill you for repairs on my servo."</p>

<p>"Bill me? I ought to sue you for obstructing the streets!
And I just got through telling your robot that I didn't
plan to waste any time gambling at your place."</p>

<p>The other's lips curled into a half-sneer, half-grin.
"Why not?"</p>

<p>"My business," Alan said stubbornly. "Leave me alone."
He stalked angrily away, inwardly raging at this Earther
city where things like this could happen.</p>

<p>"Don't ever let me catch you around here again!" the
parlor man shouted after him. Alan lost himself once
again in the crowd, but not before he caught the final
words: "You filthy spacer!"</p>

<p><i>Filthy spacer.</i> Alan winced. Again the blind, unreasoning
hatred of the unhappy starmen. The Earthers were
jealous of something they certainly wouldn't want if they
could experience the suffering involved.</p>

<p>Suddenly, he realized he was very tired.</p>

<p>He had been walking over an hour, and he was not
used to it. The <i>Valhalla</i> was a big ship, but you could
go from end to end in less than an hour, and very rarely
did you stay on your feet under full grav for long as an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>
hour. Working grav was .93 Earth-normal, and that odd
.07% made quite a difference. Alan glanced down at his
boots, mentally picturing his sagging arches.</p>

<p>He had to find someone who could give him a clue
toward Steve. For all he knew, one of the men he had
brushed against that day was Steve&mdash;a Steve grown older
and unrecognizable in what had been, to Alan, a few
short weeks.</p>

<p>Around the corner he saw a park&mdash;just a tiny patch of
greenery, two or three stunted trees and a bench, but
it was a genuine park. It looked almost forlorn surrounded
by the giant skyscrapers.</p>

<p>There was a man on the bench&mdash;the first relaxed-looking
man Alan had seen in the city so far. He was about thirty
or thirty-five, dressed in a baggy green business suit with
tarnished brass studs. His face was pleasantly ugly&mdash;nose
a little too long, cheeks hollow, chin a bit too apparent.
And he was smiling. He looked friendly.</p>

<p>"Excuse me, sir," Alan said, sitting down next to him.
"I'm a stranger here. I wonder if you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>Suddenly a familiar voice shouted, "There he is!"</p>

<p>Alan turned and saw the little fruit vender pointing
accusingly at him. Behind him were three men in the
silver-gray police uniforms. "That's the man who wouldn't
buy from me. He's an unrotationist! Damn Spacer!"</p>

<p>One of the policemen stepped forward&mdash;a broad man
with a wide slab of a face, red, like raw meat. "This
man has placed some serious charges against you. Let's
see your work card."</p>

<p>"I'm a starman. I don't have a work card."</p>

<p>"Even worse. We'd better take you down for questioning.
You starmen come in here and try to&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"Just a minute, officer." The warm mellow voice belonged<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>
to the smiling man on the bench. "This boy
doesn't mean any trouble. I can vouch for him myself."</p>

<p>"And who are you? Let's see <i>your</i> card!"</p>

<p>Still smiling, the man reached into a pocket and drew
forth his wallet. He handed a card over to the policeman&mdash;and
Alan noticed that a blue five-credit note went along
with the card.</p>

<p>The policeman made a great show of studying the card
and succeeded in pocketing the bill with the same effortless
sleight-of-hand that the other had used in handing
it over.</p>

<p>"Max Hawkes, eh? That you? Free status?"</p>

<p>The man named Hawkes nodded.</p>

<p>"And this Spacer's a pal of yours?"</p>

<p>"We're very good friends."</p>

<p>"Umm. Okay. I'll leave him in your custody. But see
to it that he doesn't get into any more jams."</p>

<p>The policeman turned away, signalling to his companions.
The fruit vender stared vindictively at Alan for a
moment, but saw he would have no revenge. He, too, left.</p>

<p>Alan was alone with his unknown benefactor.</p>

<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span></p>
<h2><i>Chapter<br />
Six</i></h2>

<p><span class="dcap">"I guess I</span> owe you thanks," Alan said. "If they
had hauled me off I'd be in real trouble."</p>

<p>Hawkes nodded. "They're very quick to lock people
up when they don't have work cards. But police salaries
are notoriously low. A five-credit bill slipped to the right
man at the right time can work wonders."</p>

<p>"Five credits, was it? Here&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>Alan started to fumble in his pocket, but Hawkes
checked him with a wave of his hand. "Never mind. I'll
write it off to profit and loss. What's your name, spacer,
and what brings you to York City?"</p>

<p>"I'm Alan Donnell, of the starship <i>Valhalla</i>. I'm an
Unspecialized Crewman. I came over from the Enclave
to look for my brother."</p>

<p>Hawkes' lean face assumed an expression of deep interest.
"He's a starman too?"</p>

<p>"He&mdash;was."</p>

<p>"Was?"</p>

<p>"He jumped ship last time we were here. That was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>
nine years ago Earthtime. I'd like to find him, though.
Even though he's so much older now."</p>

<p>"How old is he now?"</p>

<p>"Twenty-six. I'm seventeen. We used to be twins, you
see. But the Contraction&mdash;you understand about the Contraction,
don't you?"</p>

<p>Hawkes nodded thoughtfully, eyes half-closed. "Mmm&mdash;yes,
I follow you. While you made your last space jump
he grew old on Earth. And you want to find him and
put him back on your ship, is that it?"</p>

<p>"That's right. Or at least talk to him and find out if
he's all right where he is. But I don't know where to
start looking. This city is so big&mdash;and there are so many
other cities all over Earth&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>Hawkes shook his head. "You've come to the right one.
The Central Directory Matrix is here. You'll be able to
find out where he's registered by the code number on
his work card. Unless," Hawkes said speculatively, "he
doesn't have a work card. Then you're in trouble."</p>

<p>"Isn't everyone supposed to have a work card?"</p>

<p>"I don't," Hawkes said.</p>

<p>"But&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"You need a work card to hold a job. But to get a
job, you have to pass guild exams. And in order to take
the exams you have to find a sponsor who's already in
the guild. But you have to post bond for your sponsor,
too&mdash;five thousand credits. And unless you have the work
card and have been working, you don't have the five
thousand, so you can't post bond and get a work card.
See? Round and round."</p>

<p>Alan's head swam. "Is that what they meant when they
said I was unrotational?"</p>

<p>"No, that's something else. I'll get to that in a second.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>
But you see the work setup? The guilds are virtually
hereditary, even the fruit venders' guild. It's next to impossible
for a newcomer to crack into a guild&mdash;and it's
pretty tough for a man in one guild to move up a notch.
You see, Earth's a terribly overcrowded planet&mdash;and the
only way to avoid cutthroat job competition is to make
sure it's tough to get a job. It's rough on a starman trying
to bull his way into the system."</p>

<p>"You mean Steve may not have gotten a work card?
In that case how will I be able to find him?"</p>

<p>"It's harder," Hawkes said. "But there's also a registry
of Free Status men&mdash;men without cards. He isn't required
to register there, but if he did you'd be able to track
him down eventually. If he didn't, I'm afraid you're out
of luck. You just can't find a man on Earth if he doesn't
want to be found."</p>

<p>"Free Status? Isn't that what the policeman said&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"I was in?" Hawkes nodded. "Sure, I'm Free Status.
Out of choice, though, not necessity. But that doesn't
matter much right now. Let's go over to the Central
Directory Matrix Building and see if we can find any
trail for your brother."</p>

<p>They rose. Alan saw that Hawkes was tall, like himself;
he walked with easygoing grace. Questioningly Alan
twitched his shoulder-blade in a signal that meant, <i>What
do you think of this guy, Rat?</i></p>

<p><i>Stick with him</i>, Rat signalled back. <i>He sounds okay.</i></p>

<p>The streets seemed a great deal less terrifying now that
Alan had a companion, someone who knew his way
around. He didn't have the feeling that all eyes were
on him, any more; he was just one of the crowd. It was
good to have Hawkes at his side, even if he didn't fully
trust the older man.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span></p>

<p>"The Directory Building's way across town," Hawkes
said. "We can't walk it. Undertube or Overshoot?"</p>

<p>"What?"</p>

<p>"I said, do you want to take the Undertube or the
Overshoot? Or doesn't it matter to you what kind of
transportation we take?"</p>

<p>Alan shrugged. "One's as good as any other."</p>

<p>Hawkes fished a coin out of his pocket and tossed it
up. "Heads for Overshoot," he said, and caught the coin
on the back of his left hand. He peered at it. "Heads
it is. We take the Overshoot. This way."</p>

<p>They ducked into the lobby of the nearest building
and took the elevator to the top floor. Hawkes stopped a
man in a blue uniform and said, "Where's the nearest
Shoot pickup?"</p>

<p>"Take the North Corridor bridge across to the next
building. The pickup's there."</p>

<p>"Right."</p>

<p>Hawkes led the way down the corridor, up a staircase,
and through a door. With sudden alarm Alan found
himself on one of the bridges linking the skyscrapers.
The bridge was no more than a ribbon of plastic with
handholds at each side; it swayed gently in the breeze.</p>

<p>"You better not look down," Hawkes said. "It's fifty
stories to the bottom."</p>

<p>Alan kept his eyes stiffly forward. There was a good-sized
crowd gathered on the top of the adjoining building,
and he saw a metal platform of some kind.</p>

<p>A vender came up to them. Alan thought he might be
selling tickets, but instead he held forth a tray of soft
drinks. Hawkes bought one; Alan started to say he didn't
want one when he felt a sharp kick in his ankle, and
he hurriedly changed his mind and produced a coin.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span></p>

<p>When the vender was gone, Hawkes said, "Remind me
to explain rotation to you when we get aboard the Shoot.
And here it comes now."</p>

<p>Alan turned and saw a silvery torpedo come whistling
through the air and settle in the landing-rack of the platform;
it looked like a jet-powered vessel of some kind.
A line formed, and Hawkes stuffed a ticket into Alan's
hand.</p>

<p>"I have a month's supply of them," he explained. "It's
cheaper that way."</p>

<p>They found a pair of seats together and strapped themselves
in. With a roar and a hiss the Overshoot blasted
away from the landing platform, and almost immediately
came to rest on another building some distance away.</p>

<p>"We've just travelled about half a mile," Hawkes said.
"This ship really moves."</p>

<p>A jet-propelled omnibus that travelled over the roofs
of the buildings, Alan thought. Clever. He said, "Isn't
there any public surface transportation in the city?"</p>

<p>"Nope. It was all banned about fifty years ago, on
account of the congestion. Taxis and everything. You can
still use a private car in some parts of the city, of course,
but the only people who own them are those who like
to impress their neighbors. Most of us take the Undertube
or the Overshoot to get around."</p>

<p>The Shoot blasted off from its third stop and picked
up passengers at its fourth. Alan glanced up front and
saw the pilot peering over an elaborate radar setup.</p>

<p>"Westbound Shoots travel a hundred feet over the roof-tops,
eastbound ones two hundred. There hasn't been
a major accident in years. But about this rotation&mdash;that's
part of our new economic plan."</p>

<p>"Which is?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span></p>

<p>"<i>Keep the money moving!</i> Saving's discouraged. Spending's
the thing now. The guilds are really pushing it.
Instead of buying one piece of fruit from a vender, buy
two. Spend, spend, spend! It's a little tough on the people
in Free Status&mdash;we don't offer anything for sale, so we
don't benefit much&mdash;but we don't amount to one per cent
of the population, so who cares about us?"</p>

<p>"You mean it's sort of subversive not to spend money,
is that it?" Alan asked.</p>

<p>Hawkes nodded. "You get in trouble if you're too
openly penny-pinching. Keep the credits flowing; that's
the way to be popular around here."</p>

<p>That had been his original mistake, Alan thought. He
saw he had a lot to learn about this strange, unfriendly
world if he were going to stay here long. He wondered
if anyone had missed him back at the Enclave, yet. Maybe
it won't take too long to find Steve, he thought. I should
have left a note for Dad explaining I'd be back. But&mdash;&mdash;</p>

<p>"Here we are," Hawkes said, nudging him. The door
in the Overshoot's side opened and they got out quickly.
They were on another rooftop.</p>

<p>Ten minutes later they stood outside an immense
building whose walls were sleek slabs of green pellucite,
shining with a radiant inner warmth of their own. The
building must have been a hundred stories high, or more.
It terminated in a burnished spire.</p>

<p>"This is it," Hawkes said. "The Central Directory
Building. We'll try the Standard Matrix first."</p>

<p>A little dizzy, Alan followed without discussing the
matter. Hawkes led him through a vast lobby big enough
to hide the <i>Valhalla</i> in, past throngs of Earthers, into a
huge hall lined on all sides by computer banks.</p>

<p>"Let's take this booth here," Hawkes suggested. They<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>
stepped into it; the door clicked shut automatically behind
them. There was a row of blank forms in a metal
rack against the inside of the door.</p>

<p>Hawkes pulled one out. Alan looked at it. It said,
CENTRAL DIRECTORY MATRIX INFORMATION
REQUISITION 1067432. STANDARD SERIES.</p>

<p>Hawkes took a pen from the rack. "We have to fill this
out. What's your brother's full name?"</p>

<p>"Steve Donnell." He spelled it.</p>

<p>"Year of birth?"</p>

<p>Alan paused. "3576," he said finally.</p>

<p>Hawkes frowned, but wrote it down that way.</p>

<p>"Work card number&mdash;well, we don't know that. And
they want five or six other numbers too. We'll just have
to skip them. Better give me a full physical description
as of the last time you saw him."</p>

<p>Alan thought a moment. "He looked pretty much like
me. Height 73 inches, weight 172 or so, reddish-blonde
hair, and so on."</p>

<p>"Don't you have a gene-record?"</p>

<p>Blankly, Alan said, "A what?"</p>

<p>Hawkes scowled. "I forgot&mdash;I keep forgetting you're a
spacer. Well, if he's not using his own name any more it
may make things really tough. Gene-records make absolute
identification possible. But if you don't have one&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>Whistling tunelessly, Hawkes filled out the rest of the
form. When it came to REASON FOR APPLICATION,
he wrote in, <i>Tracing of missing relative</i>.</p>

<p>"That just about covers it," he said finally. "It's a
pretty lame application, but if we're lucky we may find
him." He rolled the form up, shoved it into a gray metal
tube, and dropped it in a slot in the wall.</p>

<p>"What happens now?" Alan asked.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span></p>

<p>"Now we wait. The application goes downstairs and
the big computer goes to work on it. First thing they'll
do is kick aside all the cards of men named Steve Donnell.
Then they'll check them all against the physical description
I supplied. Soon as they find a man who fits the
bill, they'll 'stat his card and send it up here to us. We
copy down the televector number and have them trace
him down."</p>

<p>"The <i>what</i> number?"</p>

<p>"You'll see," Hawkes said, grinning. "It's a good system.
Just wait."</p>

<p>They waited. One minute, two, three.</p>

<p>"I hope I'm not keeping you from something important,"
Alan said, breaking a long uncomfortable silence.
"It's really good of you to take all this time, but I
wouldn't want to inconvenience you if&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"If I didn't want to help you," Hawkes said sharply,
"I wouldn't be doing it. I'm Free Status, you know. That
means I don't have any boss except me. Max Hawkes,
Esquire. It's one of the few compensations I have for the
otherwise lousy deal life handed me. So if I choose to
waste an hour or two helping you find your brother, don't
worry yourself about it."</p>

<p>A bell rang, once, and a gentle red light glowed over
the slot. Hawkes reached in and scooped out the container
that sat there.</p>

<p>Inside he found a rolled-up slip of paper. He pulled it
out and read the message typed on it several times, pursing
his lips.</p>

<p>"Well? Did they find him?"</p>

<p>"Read it for yourself," Hawkes said. He pushed the
sheet over to Alan.</p>

<p>It said, in crisp capital letters, A SEARCH OF THE<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>
FILES REVEALS THAT NO WORK CARD HAS
BEEN ISSUED ON EARTH IN THE PAST TEN
YEARS TO STEVE DONNELL, MALE, WITH THE
REQUIRED PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS.</p>

<p>Alan's face fell. He tossed the slip to the table and
said, "Well? What do we do now?"</p>

<p>"Now," Hawkes said, "we go upstairs to the cubbyhole
where they keep the Free Status people registered. We
go through the same business there. I didn't really expect
to find your brother here, but it was worth a look. It's
next to impossible for a ship-jumping starman to buy
his way into a guild and get a work card."</p>

<p>"Suppose he's not registered with the Free Status
people?"</p>

<p>Hawkes smiled patiently. "Then, my dear friend, you
go back to your ship with your mission incomplete. If
he's not listed upstairs, there's no way on Earth you could
possibly find him."</p>

<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span></p>
<h2><i>Chapter<br />
Seven</i></h2>

<p><span class="dcap">The</span> sign over the office door said REGISTRY
OF FREE-STATUS LABOR FORCE, and under that
ROOM 1104. Hawkes nudged the door open and they
went in.</p>

<p>It was not an imposing room. A fat pasty-faced man
sat behind a scarred neoplast desk, scribbling his signature
on forms that he was taking from an immense stack. The
room was lined with records of one sort or another, untidy,
poorly assembled. There was dust everywhere.</p>

<p>The man at the desk looked up as they entered and
nodded to Hawkes. "Hello, Max. Making an honest man
of yourself at last?"</p>

<p>"Not on your life," Hawkes said. "I came up here to
do some checking. Alan, this is Hines MacIntosh, Keeper
of the Records. Hines, want you to meet a starman friend
of mine. Alan Donnell."</p>

<p>"Starman, eh?" MacIntosh's pudgy face went suddenly
grave. "Well, boy, I hope you know how to get along on
an empty stomach. Free Status life isn't easy."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span></p>

<p>"No," Alan said. "You don't under&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>Hawkes cut him off. "He's just in the city on leave,
Hines. His ship blasts off in a couple of days and he figures
to be on it. But he's trying to track down his brother,
who jumped ship nine years back."</p>

<p>MacIntosh nodded. "I suppose you drew a blank in
the big room downstairs?"</p>

<p>"Yes."</p>

<p>"Not surprising. We get these ship-jumping starmen
all the time up here; they never do get work cards, it
seems. What's that thing on your shoulder, boy?"</p>

<p>"He's from Bellatrix VII."</p>

<p>"Intelligent?"</p>

<p>"I should say so!" Rat burst in indignantly. "Just because
I have a certain superficial physiological resemblance
to a particular species of unpleasant Terran
rodent&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>MacIntosh chuckled and said, "Ease up! I didn't mean
to insult you, friend! But you'll have to apply for a visa
if you're going to stay here more than three days."</p>

<p>Alan frowned. "Visa?"</p>

<p>Hawkes cut in: "The boy's going back on his ship, I
told you. He won't need a visa, or the alien either."</p>

<p>"Be that as it may," MacIntosh said. "So you're looking
for your brother, boy? Give me the specifications, now.
Name, date of birth, and all the rest."</p>

<p>"His name is Steve Donnell, sir. Born 3576. He jumped
ship in&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"Born <i>when</i>, did you say?"</p>

<p>"They're spacers," Hawkes pointed out quietly.</p>

<p>MacIntosh shrugged. "Go ahead."</p>

<p>"Jumped ship in 3867&mdash;I think. It's so hard to tell what
year it is on Earth."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span></p>

<p>"And physical description?"</p>

<p>"He was my twin," Alan said. "Identical twin."</p>

<p>MacIntosh jotted down the data Alan gave him and
transferred it to a punched card. "I don't remember any
spacers of that name," he said, "but nine years is a long
time. And we get so many starmen coming up here to
take out Free Status."</p>

<p>"You do?"</p>

<p>"Oh, fifteen or twenty a year, at least&mdash;and that's in
this office alone. They're forever getting stranded on leave
and losing their ships. Why, there was one boy who was
robbed and beaten in the Frisco Enclave and didn't wake
up for a week. Naturally he missed his ship, and no other
starship would sign him on. He's on Free Status now,
of course. Well, let's see about Donnell Steve Male, shall
we? You realize the law doesn't require Free Status people
to register with us, and so we may not necessarily have
any data on him in our computer files?"</p>

<p>"I realize that," Alan said tightly. He wished the chubby
records-keeper would stop talking and start looking for
Steve's records. It was getting along toward late afternoon
now; he had come across from the Enclave around noontime,
and certainly it was at least 1600 by now. He was
getting hungry&mdash;and he knew he would have to start
making plans for spending the night somewhere, if he
didn't go back to the Enclave.</p>

<p>MacIntosh pulled himself laboriously out of his big
webwork cradle and wheezed his way across the room to
a computer shoot. He dropped the card in.</p>

<p>"It'll take a few minutes for them to make the search,"
he said, turning. He looked in both directions and went
on, "Care for a drink? Just to pass the time?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span></p>

<p>Hawkes grinned. "Good old Hinesy! What's in the
inkwell today?"</p>

<p>"Scotch! Bottled in bond, best syntho stuff to come out
of Caledonia in the last century!" MacIntosh shuffled
back behind his desk and found three dingy glasses in
one of the drawers; he set them out and uncorked a dark
blue bottle plainly labelled INK.</p>

<p>He poured a shot for Hawkes and then a second shot;
as he started to push it toward Alan, the starman shook
his head. "Sorry, but I don't drink. Crewmen aren't
allowed to have liquor aboard starships. Regulation."</p>

<p>"Oh, but you're off-duty now!"</p>

<p>Alan shook his head a second time; shrugging,
MacIntosh took the drink himself and put the unused
third glass back in the drawer.</p>

<p>"Here's to Steve Donnell!" he said, lifting his glass
high. "May he have had the good sense to register his
name up here!"</p>

<p>They drank. Alan watched. Suddenly, the bell clanged
and a tube rolled out of the computer shoot.</p>

<p>Alan waited tensely while MacIntosh crossed the room
again, drew out the contents of the tube, and scanned
them. The fat man's face was broken by a smile.</p>

<p>"You're in luck, starman. Your brother did register
with us. Here's the 'stat of his papers."</p>

<p>Alan looked at them. The photostat was titled, APPLICATION
FOR ADMISSION TO FREE-STATUS LABOR
FORCE, and the form had been filled out in a handwriting
Alan recognized immediately as Steve's: bold,
untidy, the letters slanting slightly backward.</p>

<p>He had given his name as Steve Donnell, his date
of birth as 3576, his chronological age as seventeen. He
had listed his former occupation as <i>Starman</i>. The application<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>
was dated 4 June 3867, and a stamped notation on
the margin declared that Free Status had been granted
on 11 June 3867.</p>

<p>"So he did register," Alan said. "But now what? How
do we find him?"</p>

<p>Hawkes reached for the photostat. "Here. Let me look
at that." He squinted to make out the small print, then
nodded and wrote down something. "His televector
number's a local one. So far, so good." He turned the
form over and glanced at the reproduced photo of Steve
on the back. He looked up, comparing it with Alan.</p>

<p>"Dead ringers, these two. But I'll bet this one doesn't
look much like this any more&mdash;not after nine years of
Free Status!"</p>

<p>"It only pays off for the lucky few, eh, Max?" MacIntosh
asked slyly.</p>

<p>Hawkes grinned. "Some of us make out all right. You
have to have the knack, though. You can get awful
hungry otherwise. Come on, kid&mdash;let's go up a little
higher, now. Up to the televector files. Thanks for the
help, Hinesy. You're a pal."</p>

<p>"Just doin' my job," MacIntosh said. "See you tonight
as usual?"</p>

<p>"I doubt it," Hawkes replied. "I'm going to take the
night off. I have it coming to me."</p>

<p>"That leaves the coast clear for us amateurs, doesn't
it? Maybe I'll come out ahead tonight."</p>

<p>Hawkes smiled coldly. "Maybe you will. Let's go, kid."</p>

<p>They took the lift tube outside and rode it as high as
it went. It opened out into the biggest room Alan had
ever seen, bigger even than the main registry downstairs&mdash;a
vast affair perhaps a hundred feet high and four hundred
feet on the side.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span></p>

<p>And every inch of those feet was lined with computer
elements.</p>

<p>"This is the nerve-center of the world," Hawkes said
as they went in. "By asking the right questions you can
find out where anybody in the world happens to be at
this very moment."</p>

<p>"How can they do that?"</p>

<p>Hawkes nudged a tiny sliver of metal embedded in a
ring on his finger. "Here's my televector transmitter.
Everyone who has a work card or Free Status carries one,
either on a ring or in a locket round his neck or somewhere
else. Some people have them surgically embedded
in their bodies. They give off resonance waves, each one
absolutely unique; there's about one chance in a quadrillion
of a duplicate pattern. The instruments here can
pick up a given pattern and tell you exactly where the
person you're looking for is."</p>

<p>"So we can find Steve without much trouble!"</p>

<p>"Probably." Hawkes' face darkened. "I've known it to
happen that the televector pattern picks up a man who's
been at the bottom of the sea for five years. But don't
let me scare you; Steve's probably in good shape."</p>

<p>He took out the slip of paper on which he had jotted
down Steve's televector code number and transferred the
information to an application blank.</p>

<p>"This system," Alan said. "It means no one can possibly
hide anywhere on Earth unless he removes his televector
transmitter."</p>

<p>"You can't do that, though. Strictly illegal. An alarm
goes out whenever someone gets more than six inches
from his transmitter, and he's picked up on suspicion.
It's an automatic cancellation of your work card if you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>
try to fool with your transmitter&mdash;or if you're Free Status
a fine of ten thousand credits."</p>

<p>"And if you can't pay the fine?"</p>

<p>"Then you work it off in Government indenture, at
a thousand credits a year&mdash;chopping up rocks in the
Antarctica Penitentiary. The system's flawless. It <i>has</i> to
be. With Earth as overpopulated as it is, you need some
system of tracking down people&mdash;otherwise crime would
be ten times as prevalent as it is now."</p>

<p>"There still is crime?"</p>

<p>"Oh, sure. There's always somebody who needs food
bad enough to rob for it, even though it means a sure
arrest. Murder's a little less common." Hawkes fed the
requisition slip into the slot. "You'd be surprised what
a deterrent the televector registry system is. It's not so
easy to run off to South America and hide when anybody
at all can come in here and find out exactly where
you are."</p>

<p>A moment went by. Then the slot clicked and a glossy
pink slip came rolling out.</p>

<p>Alan looked at it. It said:</p>

<p class="center">TELEVECTOR REGISTRY<br />
21 May 3876<br />
Location of Donnell Steve, YC83-10j6490k37618<br />
Time: 1643:21</p>

<p>There followed a street map covering some fifteen
square blocks, and a bright red dot was imprinted in the
center of the map.</p>

<p>Hawkes glanced at the map and smiled. "I thought
that was where he would be!"</p>

<p>"Where's that?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span></p>

<p>"68th Avenue and 423rd Street."</p>

<p>"Is that where he lives?" Alan asked.</p>

<p>"Oh, no. The televector tells you where he is right
now. I'd venture to say that was his&mdash;ah&mdash;place of
business."</p>

<p>Alan frowned. "What are you talking about?"</p>

<p>"That happens to be the address of the Atlas Games
Parlor. Your brother Steve probably spends most of his
working day there, when he has enough cash to get in.
I know the place. It's a cheap joint where the payoffs
are low but easy. It's the kind of place a low-budget man
would frequent."</p>

<p>"You mean Steve's a gambler?"</p>

<p>Hawkes smiled. "Most Free Status men are. It's one
of the few ways we can earn a living without getting a
work card. There isn't any gamblers' guild. There are
a few other ways, too, but they're a lot less savory, and
the televector surveillance makes it hard for a man to
stay in business for long."</p>

<p>Alan moistened his lips. "What do <i>you</i> do?"</p>

<p>"Gamble. I'm in the upper brackets, though. As I say:
some of us have the knack. I doubt if your brother does,
though. After nine years he wouldn't still be working
the Atlas if he had any dough."</p>

<p>Alan shrugged that off. "How do we get there? I'd like
to go right away. I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"Patience, lad," Hawkes murmured. "There's plenty
of time for that. When does your ship leave?"</p>

<p>"Couple of days."</p>

<p>"Then we don't need to rush right over to the Atlas
now. Let's get some food in ourselves first. Then a good
night's rest. We can go over there tomorrow."</p>

<p>"But my brother&mdash;&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span></p>

<p>"Your brother," Hawkes said, "has been in York City
for nine years, and I'll bet he's spent every night for the
last eight of them sitting in the Atlas. He'll keep till
tomorrow. Let's get something to eat."</p>

<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span></p>
<h2><i>Chapter<br />
Eight</i></h2>

<p><span class="dcap">They</span> ate in a dark and unappealing restaurant
three blocks from the Central Directory Matrix Building.
The place was crowded, as all Earth places seemed to be.
They stood on line for nearly half an hour before being
shown to a grease-stained table in the back.</p>

<p>The wall clock said 1732.</p>

<p>A robowaiter approached them, holding a menu board
in its metal hands. Hawkes leaned forward and punched
out his order; Alan took slightly longer about it, finally
selecting protein steak, synthocoffee, and mixed vegetables.
The robot clicked its acknowledgement and moved
on to the next table.</p>

<p>"So my brother's a gambler," Alan began.</p>

<p>Hawkes nodded. "You say it as if you were saying,
<i>so my brother's a pickpocket</i>, or <i>so my brother's a cutpurse</i>.
It's a perfectly legitimate way of making a living."
Hawkes' eyes hardened suddenly, and in a flat quiet
voice added, "The way to stay out of trouble on Earth
is to avoid being preachy, son. This isn't a pretty world.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>
There are too many people on it, and not many can
afford the passage out to Gamma Leonis IV or Algol VII
or some of the nice uncluttered colony-worlds. So while
you're in York City keep your eyes wide and your mouth
zippered, and don't turn your nose up at the sordid ways
people make their livings."</p>

<p>Alan felt his face go red, and he was happy to have
the trays of food arrive at that moment, causing some
sort of distraction. "Sorry, Max. I didn't mean to sound
preachy."</p>

<p>"I know, kid. You lead a pretty sheltered life on those
starships. And nobody can adjust to Earthside life in a
day. How about a drink?"</p>

<p>Alan started to say that he didn't drink, but kept the
words back. He was on Earth, now, not aboard the
<i>Valhalla</i>; he wasn't required to keep ship's regs. And he
didn't want to be trying to look superior. "Okay. How
about Scotch&mdash;is that the stuff MacIntosh was drinking?"</p>

<p>"Fair enough," Hawkes said.</p>

<p>He signalled for a robot waiter, and after a moment
the robot slithered up to them. Hawkes punched a lever
on the robot's stomach and the metal creature began
to click and glow. An instant later a panel in its stomach
slid open and two glasses appeared within. The robot's
wiry tentacles reached in, took out the drinks, and set
them on the table. Hawkes dropped a coin in a slot in
the robot's side, and the machine bustled away, its service
completed.</p>

<p>"There you are," Hawkes said, pointing to the glass
of amber-colored liquid. "Drink up." As if to set an
example he lifted his own drink and tossed it down in
one gulp, with obvious pleasure.</p>

<p>Alan picked up the little glass and held it before his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>
eyes, staring at the man opposite him through its translucent
depths. Hawkes appeared oddly distorted when
viewed through the glass.</p>

<p>He grinned. He tried to propose a toast, but couldn't
think of any appropriate words, so he simply upended
the glass and drained its contents. The stuff seemed to
burn its way down his throat and explode in his stomach;
the explosion rose through his gullet and into his brain.
For a moment he felt as if the top of his head had been
blown off. His eyes watered.</p>

<p>"Pretty potent stuff!"</p>

<p>"It's the best there is," Hawkes said. "Those boys
really know the formulas."</p>

<p>Alan felt a wave of dizziness, but it passed quickly;
all that was left was a pleasant inner warmth, now. He
pulled his tray toward him and attacked the synthetic
meat and vegetables.</p>

<p>He ate quietly, making no attempt at conversation.
Soft music bubbled up around them. He thought about
his brother. So Steve was a gambler! And doing poorly
at it, Hawkes said. He wondered if Steve would want
to go back on the ship. He wondered also how it would
be if Steve did agree to go back.</p>

<p>The old comradeship would be gone, he realized sadly.
They had shared everything for seventeen years, grown
up together, played together, worked together. Up till
six weeks ago they had been so close that Alan could
almost read Steve's mind, and Steve Alan's. They made
a good team.</p>

<p>But that was finished, now. Steve would be a stranger
to him aboard the <i>Valhalla</i>&mdash;an older, perhaps wiser man,
with nine solid years of tough Earther life behind him.
He would not be able to help but regard Alan as a kid,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>
a greenhorn; it was natural. They would never be comfortable
in each other's presence, with the old easy familiarity
that was so close to telepathy. That nine-year
gulf would see to that.</p>

<p>"Thinking about your brother, aren't you?"</p>

<p>Alan blinked. "How did you know?"</p>

<p>Grinning, Hawkes said, "A gambler has to know how
to figure things. And it's written in permoscript all over
your forehead anyway. You're wondering what the first
face-to-face meeting's going to be like. I'll bet on it."</p>

<p>"I won't cover the bet. You'd win."</p>

<p>"You want to know how it'll be? I can tell you, Alan:
you'll feel sick. Sick and bewildered and ashamed of the
guy who used to be your brother. But that'll pass. You'll
look behind the things the nine years did to him, and
you'll see your brother back there. He'll see you, too.
It won't be as bad as you're expecting."</p>

<p>Somehow Alan felt relieved. "You're sure of that?"</p>

<p>Hawkes nodded. "You know, I'm taking such a personal
interest in this business because I've got a brother
too. <i>Had</i> a brother."</p>

<p>"Had?"</p>

<p>"Kid about your age. Same problem I had, too: no
guild. We were born into the street sweepers' guild, but
neither of us could go for that, so we checked out and
took Free Status. I went into gambling. He hung around
the Enclave. He always wanted to be a spacer."</p>

<p>"What happened to him?"</p>

<p>"He pulled a fast one. Starship was in town and looking
for a new galley-boy. Dave did some glib talking and
got aboard. It was a fluke thing, but he made it."</p>

<p>"Which ship?" Alan asked.</p>

<p>"<i>Startreader</i>. Bound out on a hop to Beta Crucis XVIII.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>
465 light-years." Hawkes smiled faintly. "He left a year,
year and a half ago. The ship won't be back on Earth
again for nine hundred thirty years or so. I don't figure
to be around that long." He shook his head. "Let's get
out of here. People waiting for tables."</p>

<p>Out in the street again, Alan noticed that the sun was
low in the sky; it was past 1800, and getting along toward
evening. But the streets were not getting dark. From
everywhere a soft glow was beginning to radiate&mdash;from
the pavement, the buildings, everywhere. It was a gentle
gleaming brightness that fell from the air; there was
no perceptible change from day-illumination to night-illumination.</p>

<p>But it was getting late. And they would miss him back
at the Enclave&mdash;unless Captain Donnell had discovered
that Alan had gone into the Earther city, in which case
he wouldn't be missed at all. Alan remembered sharply
the way the Captain had calmly blotted the name of his
son Steve from the <i>Valhalla's</i> roster as if Steve had never
existed.</p>

<p>"Are we going to go over to the Atlas now?"</p>

<p>Hawkes shook his head. "Not unless you want to go
in there alone?"</p>

<p>"Huh?"</p>

<p>"I can't go in there with you. I've got an A card, and
that's a Class C joint."</p>

<p>"You mean even gambling places are classified and
regulated and everything?"</p>

<p>Hawkes nodded. "It has to be that way. This is a very
complicated society you've stumbled into, Alan. Look:
I'm a first-rate gamesman. That's not boasting; it's empirical
truth proven over and over again during the
course of a fifteen-year career. I could make a fortune<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>
competing against beginners and dubs and has-beens, so
they legislate against me. You make a certain annual
income from gambling and you go into Class A, and
then you can't enter any of the lower-class joints like
the Atlas. You slip under the Class A minimum three
years in a row and you lose your card. I stay over the
minimum."</p>

<p>"So I'll have to go after Steve myself. Well, in that
case, thanks for all the help, and if you'll show me which
Shoot I take to get to the Atlas&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"Not so fast, son." Hawkes grasped Alan's wrist. "Even
in a Class C dump you can lose plenty. And you can't
just stand around hunting for your brother. Unless you're
there as a learner you'll have to play."</p>

<p>"So what am I supposed to do?"</p>

<p>"I'll take you to a Class A place tonight. You can come
in as a learner; they all know me. I'll try to show you
enough about the game so you don't get rooked. Then
you can stay over at my place and tomorrow we'll go up
to the Atlas and look around for your brother. I'll have
to wait outside, of course."</p>

<p>Alan shrugged. He was beginning to realize he was
a little nervous about the coming meeting with Steve&mdash;and
perhaps, he thought, a little extra delay would be
useful. And he still had plenty of time to get back to the
<i>Valhalla</i> after he saw Steve, even if he stayed in the city
overnight.</p>

<p>"Well?" Hawkes said.</p>

<p>"Okay. I'll go with you."</p>

<p>This time they took the Undertube, which they reached
by following a glowing sign and then an underground
passageway. Alan rode down behind Hawkes on the moving
ramp and found himself in a warm, brightly-lit underground<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>
world with stores, restaurants, newsboys hawking
telefax sheets, milling swarms of homebound commuters.</p>

<p>They reached the entrance to a tube and Hawkes
handed him a small oval object with figures engraved
on it. "That's your tube-token. It goes in the slot."</p>

<p>They passed through the turnstile and followed signs
indicating the West Side Tube. The tube was a long
sleek affair, windowless, shaped like a bullet. The tube
was already packed with commuters when they got aboard;
there were no empty seats, of course, and everyone seemed
to be jostling everyone else for the right to stand upright.
The sign at the end of the tube said, <i>Tube X#3174-WS</i>.</p>

<p>The trip took only a few minutes of seemingly effortless
gliding, and then they emerged far on the other
side of the giant city. The neighborhood they were in
was considerably less crowded; it had little of the mad
hubbub of the downtown district.</p>

<p>A neon sign struck his eyes at once: SUPERIOR
GAMES PARLOR. Under that in smaller letters was:
CLASS A ESTABLISHMENT. A robot stood outside,
a gleaming replica of the one he had tussled with earlier
in the day.</p>

<p>"Class A only," the robot said as they came near. "This
Games Parlor is for Class A only."</p>

<p>Hawkes stepped around him and broke the photo-contact
on the door. Alan followed him in.</p>

<p>The place was dimly lit, as all Earther pleasure-places
seemed to be. Alan saw a double row of tables spreading
to the back of the parlor. At each table was an earnest-looking
citizen hunched over a board, watching the pattern
of lights in front of him come and go, change and
shift.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span></p>

<p>Another robot glided up to them. "May I see your card,
please?" It purred.</p>

<p>Hawkes passed his card before the robot's photonic
scanners and the robot clicked acknowledgement, stepping
to one side and letting Hawkes pass. It turned to Alan
and said, "May I see your card, please?"</p>

<p>"I don't&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"He's with me," Hawkes said. "A learner."</p>

<p>A man in a dirty gray smock came up to them.
"Evening, Max. Hinesy was here already and told me
you weren't coming in tonight."</p>

<p>"I wasn't, but I changed my mind. I brought a learner
along with me&mdash;friend of mine name of Alan Donnell.
This is Joe Luckman, Alan. He runs this place."</p>

<p>Luckman nodded absently to Alan, who mumbled a
greeting in return.</p>

<p>"Guess you want your usual table?" Luckman asked.</p>

<p>"If it's open," Hawkes said.</p>

<p>"Been open all evening."</p>

<p>Luckman led them down the long aisle to the back of
the big hall, where there was a vacant table with one
seat before it. Hawkes slid smoothly into the seat and
told Alan to stand behind him and watch carefully.</p>

<p>"We'll start at the beginning of the next round," he
said.</p>

<p>Alan looked around. Everywhere men were bent over
the patterns of lights on the boards before them, with
expressions of fierce concentration on their faces. Far in
the corner Alan saw the pudgy figure of MacIntosh, the
Keeper of the Records; MacIntosh was bathed in his
own sweat, and sat rigid as if hypnotized.</p>

<p>Hawkes nudged him. "Keep your eyes on me. The
others don't matter. I'm ready to get started."</p>

<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span></p>
<h2><i>Chapter<br />
Nine</i></h2>

<p><span class="dcap">Hawkes</span> took a coin from his pocket and dropped
it in a slot at the side of the board. It lit up. A
crazy, shifting pattern of colored lights passed over it,
restless, never pausing.</p>

<p>"What happens now?"</p>

<p>"You set up a mathematical pattern with these keys,"
Hawkes said, pointing to a row of enamelled studs along
the side of the machine. "Then the lights start flashing,
and as soon as they flash&mdash;at random, of course&mdash;into the
pattern you've previously set up, you're the winner. The
skill of the game comes in predicting the kind of pattern
that will be the winning one. You've got to keep listening
to the numbers that the croupier calls off, and fit
them into your sequence."</p>

<p>Suddenly a bell rang loudly, and the board went dead.
Alan looked around and saw that all the other boards
in the hall were dark as well.</p>

<p>The man on the rostrum in the center of the hall
cleared his throat and sang out, "Table 403 hits us for a
hundred! 403! One hundred!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span></p>

<p>A pasty-faced bald man at a table near theirs rose with
a broad grin on his face and went forward to collect.
Hawkes rapped sharply on the side of the table to get
Alan's attention.</p>

<p>"Look here, now. You have to get a head start. As
soon as the boards light up again, I have to begin setting
up my pattern. I'm competing against everyone else
here, you see. And the quickest man wins, usually. Of
course, blind luck sometimes brings you a winner&mdash;but
not very often."</p>

<p>Alan nodded and watched carefully as Hawkes' fingers
flew nimbly over the controlling studs the instant the
tables lit for the next round. The others nearby were
busy doing the same thing, but few of them set about
it with the air of cocky jauntiness that Hawkes wore.</p>

<p>Finally he stared at the board in satisfaction and sat
back. The croupier pounded three times with a little
gavel and said, "103 sub-prime 5."</p>

<p>Hastily Hawkes made a correction in his equation. The
lights on the board flickered and faded, moving faster
than Alan could see.</p>

<p>"377 third-quadrant 7."</p>

<p>Again a correction. Hawkes sat transfixed, staring intently
at the board. The other players were similarly
entranced, Alan saw. He realized it was possible for someone
to become virtually hypnotized by the game, to spend
days on end sitting before the board.</p>

<p>He forced himself to follow Hawkes' computations as
number after number was called off. He began to see
the logical pattern of the game.</p>

<p>It was a little like astrogation, in which he had had the
required preliminary instruction. When you worked out
a ship's course, you had to keep altering it to allow for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>
course deflection, effects of planetary magnetic fields,
meteor swarms, and such obstacles&mdash;and you had to be
one jump ahead of the obstacles all the time.</p>

<p>It was the same here. The pilot board at the croupier's
rostrum had a prearranged mathematical pattern on it.
The idea of the game was to set up your own board in
the identical pattern. As each succeeding coordinate on
the graph was called out, you recomputed in terms of
the new probabilities, rubbing out old equations and
substituting new ones.</p>

<p>There was always the mathematical chance that a pattern
set up at random would be identical to the master
control pattern&mdash;but that was a pretty slim chance. It took
brains to win at this game. The man whose board was
first to match the pilot pattern won.</p>

<p>Hawkes worked quietly, efficiently, and lost the first
four rounds. Alan commiserated. But the gambler
snapped, "Don't waste your pity. I'm still experimenting.
As soon as I've figured out the way the numbers are
running tonight, I'll start raking it in."</p>

<p>It sounded boastful to the starman, but Hawkes won
on the fifth round, matching the hidden pattern in only
six minutes. The previous four rounds had taken from
nine to twelve minutes before a winner appeared. The
croupier, a small, sallow-faced chap, shoved a stack of
coins and a few bills at Hawkes when he went to the
rostrum to claim his winnings. A low murmur rippled
through the hall; Hawkes had evidently been recognized.</p>

<p>His take was a hundred credits. In less than an hour,
he was already seventy-five credits to the good. Hawkes'
sharp eyes glinted brightly; he was in his element now,
and enjoying it.</p>

<p>The sixth round went to a bespectacled round-faced<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>
man three tables to the left, but Hawkes won a hundred
credits each on the seventh and eighth rounds, then lost
three in a row, then plunged for a heavy stake in his
ninth round and came out ahead by five hundred credits.</p>

<p>So Hawkes had won four times in nine rounds, Alan
thought. And there were at least a hundred people in
the hall. Even assuming the gambler did not always have
the sort of luck he was having now, that meant most
people did not win very often, and some did not win
at all.</p>

<p>As the evening went along, Hawkes made it look simple.
At one point he won four rounds in a row; then he
dropped off for a while, but came back for another big
pot half an hour later. Alan estimated Hawkes' night's
work had been worth more than a thousand credits so far.</p>

<p>The gambler pushed his winnings to fourteen hundred
credits, while Alan watched; the fine points of the game
became more comprehensible to him with each passing
moment, and he longed to sit down at the table himself.
That was impossible, he knew; this was a Class A parlor,
and a rank beginner such as himself could not play.</p>

<p>But then Hawkes began to lose. Three, four, five
rounds in a row slipped by without a win. At one point
Hawkes committed an elementary mistake in arithmetic
that made Alan cry out; Hawkes turned and silenced him
with a fierce bleak scowl, and Alan went red.</p>

<p>Six rounds. Seven. Eight. Hawkes had lost nearly a
hundred of his fourteen hundred credits. Luck and skill
seemed to have deserted him simultaneously. After the
eleventh consecutive losing round, Hawkes rose from the
table, shaking his head bitterly.</p>

<p>"I've had enough. Let's get out of here."</p>

<p>He pocketed his winnings&mdash;still a healthy twelve hundred<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>
credits, despite his late-evening slump&mdash;and Alan
followed him out of the parlor into the night. It was late
now, past midnight. The streets, fresh and clean, were
damp. It had rained while they were in the parlor, and
Alan realized wryly he had been so absorbed by the game
that he had not even noticed.</p>

<p>Crowds of home-going Yorkers moved rapidly through
the streets. As they made their way to the nearest Undertube
terminal, Alan broke the silence. "You did all right
tonight, didn't you?"</p>

<p>"Can't complain."</p>

<p>"It's too bad you had that slump right at the end.
If you'd quit half an hour earlier you'd be two hundred
credits richer."</p>

<p>Hawkes smiled. "If you'd been born a couple of
hundred years later, you'd be a lot smarter."</p>

<p>"What is that supposed to mean?" Alan felt annoyed
by Hawkes' remark.</p>

<p>"Simply that I lost deliberately toward the end." They
turned into the Undertube station and headed for the
ticket windows. "It's part of a smart gambler's knowhow
to drop a few credits deliberately now and then."</p>

<p>"Why?"</p>

<p>"So the jerks who provide my living keep on coming
back," Hawkes said bluntly. "I'm good at that game.
Maybe I'm the best there is. I can feel the numbers with
my hands. If I wanted to, I could win four out of five
times, even at a Class A place."</p>

<p>Alan frowned. "Then why don't you? You could get
rich!"</p>

<p>"I <i>am</i> rich," Hawkes said in a tone that made Alan
feel tremendously foolish. "If I got much richer too fast
I'd wind up with a soft burn in the belly from a disgruntled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>
customer. Look here, boy: how long would <i>you</i>
go back to that casino if one player took 80% of the
pots, and a hundred people competed with you for the
20% he left over? You'd win maybe once a month, if
you played full time every day. In a short time you'd
be broke, unless you quit playing first. So I ease up. I
let the others win about half the time. I don't want <i>all</i>
the money the mint turns out&mdash;just some of it. It's part
of the economics of the game to let the other guys take
a few pots."</p>

<p>Alan nodded. He understood. "And you don't want
to make them too jealous of you. So you made sure you
lost consistently for the final half hour or so, and that
took the edge off your earlier winning in their minds."</p>

<p>"That's the ticket!"</p>

<p>The Undertube pulled out of the station and shot
bullet-like through its dark tunnel. Silently, Alan thought
about his night's experience. He saw he still had much,
very much to learn about life on Earth.</p>

<p>Hawkes had a gift&mdash;the gift of winning. But he didn't
abuse that gift. He concealed it a little, so the people
who lacked his talent did not get too jealous of him.
Jealousy ran high on Earth; people here led short ugly
lives, and there was none of the serenity and friendliness
of life aboard a starship.</p>

<p>He felt very tired, but it was just physical fatigue; he
felt wide awake mentally. Earth life, for all its squalor
and brutality, was tremendously exciting compared with
shipboard existence. It was with a momentary pang of
something close to disappointment that he remembered
he would have to report back to the <i>Valhalla</i> in several
days; there were so many fascinating aspects of Earth life
he still wanted to explore.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span></p>

<p>The Undertube stopped at a station labelled <i>Hasbrouck</i>.
"This is where we get off," Hawkes told him.</p>

<p>They took a slidewalk to street level. The street was
like a canyon, with towering walls looming up all around.
And some of the gigantic buildings seemed quite shabby-looking
by the street-light. Obviously they were in a less
respectable part of the city.</p>

<p>"This is Hasbrouck," Hawkes said. "It's a residential
section. And there's where I live."</p>

<p>He pointed to the tarnished chrome entrance of one
of the biggest and shabbiest of the buildings on the
street. "Be it ever so humble, there's no place like North
Hasbrouck Arms. It's the sleaziest, cheapest, most run-down
tenement in one hemisphere, but I love it. It's a
real palace."</p>

<p>Alan followed him through a gate that had once been
imposing; now it swung open rather rustily as they broke
the photobeam in front of it. The lobby was dark and
dimly lit, and smelled faintly musty.</p>

<p>Alan was unprepared for the shabbiness of the house
where the gambler lived. A moment after he spoke, he
realized the question was highly impertinent, but by
then it was too late: "I don't understand, Max. If you
make so much money gambling, why do you live in a
place like this? Aren't there any better&mdash;I mean&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>An unreadable expression flitted briefly across the
gambler's lean face. "I know what you mean. Let's just
say that the laws of this planet discriminate slightly against
Free Status people like yours truly. They require us to
live in approved residences."</p>

<p>"But this is practically a slum."</p>

<p>"Forget the <i>practically</i>. This is the raw end of town,
and no denying it. But I have to live here." They entered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>
a creaky old elevator decorated with too much chrome,
most of it chipped, and Hawkes pressed <i>106</i>. "When I
first moved in here, I made up my mind I'd bribe my
way into a fancier neighborhood as soon as I had the
cash. But by the time I had enough to spare I didn't
feel like moving, you see. I'm sort of lazy."</p>

<p>The elevator stopped with a jarring jolt at the hundred-sixth
floor. They passed down a narrow, poorly-lit corridor.
Hawkes paused suddenly in front of a door, pressed
his thumb against the doorplate, and waited as it swung
open in response to the imprint of his fingerprints against
the sensitive electronic grid.</p>

<p>"Here we are," he said.</p>

<p>It was a three-room apartment that looked almost as
old and as disreputable as the rooms in the Enclave. But
the furniture was new and attractive; these were not the
rooms of a poor man. An elaborate audio system took up
one entire wall; elsewhere, Alan saw books of all kinds,
tapes, a tiny mounted globe of light-sculpture within
whose crystal interior abstract colors flowed kaleidoscopically,
a handsome robot bar.</p>

<p>Hawkes gestured Alan to a seat; Alan chose a green
lounge-chair with quivering springs and stretched out.
He did not want to go to sleep; he wanted to stay up half
the night and talk.</p>

<p>The gambler busied himself at the bar a moment and
returned with two drinks. Alan looked at the glass a
moment: the drink was bright yellow in color, sparkling.
He sipped it. The flavor was gentle but striking, a mixture
of two or three tastes and textures that chased each other
round Alan's tongue.</p>

<p>"I like it. What is it?"</p>

<p>"Wine from Antares XIII. I bought it for a hundred<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>
credits a bottle last year. Still have three bottles left, too.
I go easy on it; the next ship from Antares XIII won't
be in for fourteen more years."</p>

<p>The drink made Alan mellow and relaxed. They talked
a while, and he hardly noticed the fact that the time was
getting along toward 0300 now, long past his shiptime
bunk-hour. He didn't care. He listened to every word
Hawkes had to say, drinking it in with the same delight
he felt when drinking the Antarean wine. Hawkes was
a complex, many-faceted character; he seemed to have
been everywhere on Earth, done everything the planet
had to offer. And yet there was no boastfulness in his
tone as he spoke of his exploits; he was simply stating facts.</p>

<p>Apparently his income from gambling was staggering;
he averaged nearly a thousand credits a night, night in
and night out. But a note of plaintiveness crept into his
voice: success was boring him, he had no further goals
to shoot for. He stood at the top of his profession, and
there were no new worlds for him to conquer. He had
seen and done everything, and lamented it.</p>

<p>"I'd like to go to space someday," he remarked. "But
of course that's out. I wouldn't want to rip myself away
from the year 3876 forever. You don't know what I'd
give to see the suns come up over Albireo V, or to watch
the thousand moons of Capella XVI. But I can't do it."
He shook his head gravely. "Well, I better not dream.
I like Earth and I like the sort of life I lead. And I'm
glad I ran into you, too&mdash;we'll make a good team, you
and me, Donnell."</p>

<p>Alan had been lulled by the sound of Hawkes' voice&mdash;but
he snapped to attention now, surprised. "Team? What
are you talking about?"</p>

<p>"I'll take you on as my protege. Make a decent gambler<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>
out of you. Set you up. We can go travelling together,
see the world again. You've been to space; you can tell
me what it's like out there. And&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"Hold on," Alan said sharply. "You've got things mixed
up a little bit. I'm going to Procyon on the <i>Valhalla</i>
at the end of this week. I appreciate everything you've
done for me, but if you think I'm going to jump ship
permanently and spend the rest of my life&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"You'll stay on Earth, all right," Hawkes said confidently.
"You're in love with the place. You know yourself
you don't want to spend the next seven decades of your
life shuttling around in your old man's starship. You'll
check out and stay here. I know you will."</p>

<p>"I'll bet you I don't!"</p>

<p>"That bet is herewith covered," Hawkes drawled. "I
never pass up a sure thing. Is ten to one okay&mdash;your
hundred against my thousand that you'll stay?"</p>

<p>Alan scowled angrily. "I don't want to bet with you,
Max. I'm going back on the <i>Valhalla</i>. I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"Go ahead. Take my money, if you're so sure."</p>

<p>"All right, I will! A thousand credits won't hurt me!"
Suddenly he had no further desire to listen to Hawkes
talk; he rose abruptly and gulped down the remainder
of his drink.</p>

<p>"I'm tired. Let's get some sleep."</p>

<p>"Fair enough," Hawkes said. He got up, touched a
button in the wall, and a panel slid back, exposing a bed.
"You sack out here. I'll wake you in the morning and
we'll go looking for your brother Steve."</p>

<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span></p>
<h2><i>Chapter<br />
Ten</i></h2>

<p><span class="dcap">Alan</span> woke early the next morning, but it was
Rat, not Hawkes, who pulled him out of sleep. The
little extra-terrestrial was nibbling on his ear.</p>

<p>Bleary-eyed, Alan sat up and blinked. "Oh&mdash;it's you.
I thought you were on a silence strike."</p>

<p>"There wasn't anything I wanted to say, so I kept
quiet. But I want to say some things now, before your
new friend wakes up."</p>

<p>The Bellatrician had been silent all the past evening,
tagging along behind Alan and Hawkes like a faithful
pet, but keeping his mouth closed. "Go ahead and say
them, then," Alan told him.</p>

<p>"I don't like this fellow Hawkes. I think you're in for
trouble if you stick with him."</p>

<p>"He's going to take me to the Atlas to get Steve."</p>

<p>"You can get to the Atlas yourself. He's given you all
the help you'll need."</p>

<p>Alan shook his head. "I'm no baby. I can take care
of myself, without <i>your</i> help."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span></p>

<p>The little alien creature shrugged. "Suit yourself. But
I'll tell you one thing, Alan: I'm going back to the
<i>Valhalla</i>, whether you are or not. I don't like Earth, or
Hawkes either. Remember that."</p>

<p>"Who said I was staying here? Didn't you hear me bet
Max that I'd go back?"</p>

<p>"I heard you. I say you're going to lose that bet. I
say this Hawkes is going to fast-talk you into staying
here&mdash;and if I had any need for money I'd put down
a side-bet on Hawkes' side."</p>

<p>Alan laughed. "You think you know me better than
I know myself. I never for a minute thought of jumping
ship."</p>

<p>"Has my advice ever steered you wrong? I'm older than
you are, Alan, and ten or twenty times smarter. I can
see where you're heading. And&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>Alan grew suddenly angry. "Nag, nag, nag! You're
worse than an old woman! Why don't you keep quiet
the way you did last night, and leave me alone? I know
what I'm doing, and when I want your advice I'll ask
for it."</p>

<p>"Have it your own way," Rat said. His tone was mildly
reproachful. Alan felt abashed at having scolded the little
alien that way, but he did not know how to make proper
amends; besides, he <i>was</i> annoyed at Rat's preachiness.
He and Rat had been together too long. The Bellatrician
probably thought he was still only ten years old and in
need of constant advice.</p>

<p>He rolled over and went back to sleep. About an hour
later, he was awakened again, this time by Hawkes. He
dressed and they ate&mdash;good real food, no synthetics, served
by Hawkes' autochef&mdash;and then set out for the Atlas
Games Parlor, 68th Avenue and 423rd Street, in Upper<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>
York City. The time was 1327 when they emerged on the
street. Hawkes assured him that Steve would already be
at "work"; most unsuccessful gamblers started making
the rounds of the parlors in early afternoon.</p>

<p>They took the Undertube back to the heart of the
city and kept going, into the suburb of Upper York.
Getting out at the 423rd Street terminal, they walked
briskly through the narrow crowded streets toward 68th
Avenue.</p>

<p>When they were a block away Alan spotted the sign,
blinking on and off in watery red letters: ATLAS GAMES
PARLOR. A smaller sign proclaimed the parlor's Class
C status, which allowed any mediocre player to make use
of its facilities.</p>

<p>As they drew near Alan felt a tingle of excitement.
This was what he had come to the Earther city for in
the first place&mdash;to find Steve. For weeks he had been
picturing the circumstances of this meeting; now it was
about to take place.</p>

<p>The Atlas was similar to the other games parlor where
Alan had had the set-to with the robohuckster; it was
dark-windowed and a shining blue robot stood outside,
urging passersby to step inside and try their luck. Alan
moistened his dry lips; he felt cold and numb inside. He
won't be there, he thought; he won't be there.</p>

<p>Hawkes took a wad of bills from his wallet. "Here's
two hundred credits for you to use at the tables while
you're looking around. I'll have to wait outside. There'd
be a royal uproar if a Class A man ever set foot inside
a place like the Atlas."</p>

<p>Alan smiled nervously. He was pleased that Hawkes
was unable to come with him; he wanted to handle the
problem by himself, for a change. And he was not anxious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>
for the gambler to witness the scene between him and
Steve.</p>

<p><i>If</i> Steve were inside, that is.</p>

<p>He nodded tightly and walked toward the door. The
robohuckster outside chattered at him, "Come right on,
sir, step inside. Five credits can get you a hundred here.
Right this way."</p>

<p>"I'm going," Alan said. He passed through the photobeam
and into the games parlor. Another robot came
sliding up to him and scanned his features.</p>

<p>"This is a Class C establishment, sir. If your card is
any higher than Class C you cannot compete here. Would
you mind showing me your card, sir?"</p>

<p>"I don't have any. I'm an unrated beginner." That was
what Hawkes had told him to say. "I'd like a single table,
please."</p>

<p>He was shown to a table to the left of the croupier's
booth. The Atlas was a good bit dingier than the Class A
parlor he had been in the night before; its electroluminescent
light-panels fizzed and sputtered, casting uncertain
shadows here and there. A round was in progress; figures
were bent busily over their boards, altering their computations
and changing their light-patterns.</p>

<p>Alan slid a five-credit piece into the slot and, while
waiting for the round to finish and the next to begin,
looked around at his fellow patrons. In the semi-dark
that prevailed it was difficult to make out faces. He would
have trouble recognizing Steve.</p>

<p>A musky odor hung low over the hall, sweet, pungent,
yet somehow unpleasant. He realized he had experienced
that odor before, and tried to remember&mdash;yes. Last night
in the other games parlor he had smelled a wisp of the
fragrance, and Hawkes had told him it was a narcotic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>
cigarette. It lay heavy in the stale air of the Class C parlor.</p>

<p>Patrons stared with fanatic intensity at the racing pattern
of lights before them. Alan glanced from one to the
next. A baldhead whose dome glinted bright gold in the
dusk knotted his hands together in an anguish of indecision.
A slim, dreamy-eyed young man gripped the
sides of the table frenziedly as the numbers spiralled
upward. A fat woman in her late forties, hopelessly dazed
by the intricate game, slumped wearily in her seat.</p>

<p>Beyond that he could not see. There were other patrons
on the far side of the rostrum; perhaps Steve was over
there. But it was forbidden for anyone to wander through
the rows of tables searching for a particular player.</p>

<p>The gong rang, ending the round. "Number 322 wins
a hundred credits," barked the croupier.</p>

<p>The man at Table 322 shambled forward for his money.
He walked with a twisted shuffle; his body shook palsiedly.
Hawkes had warned him of these, too&mdash;the dreamdust
addicts, who in the late stages of their addiction became
hollow shells of men, barely able to walk. He took his
hundred credits and returned to his table without smiling.
Alan shuddered and looked away. Earth was not a pretty
world. Life was good if you had the stream running with
you, as Hawkes did&mdash;but for each successful one like
Hawkes, how many fought unsuccessfully against the
current and were swept away into dreamdust or worse?</p>

<p>Steve. He looked down the row for Steve.</p>

<p>And then the board lit up again, and for the first time
he was playing.</p>

<p>He set up a tentative pattern; golden streaks flitted
across the board, mingling with red and blue blinkers.
Then the first number came. Alan integrated it hastily
and realized he had constructed a totally worthless pattern;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>
he wiped his board clean and set up new figures,
based on the one number he had. Already, he knew, he
was hopelessly far behind the others.</p>

<p>But he kept with it as the minutes crawled past.
Sweat dribbled down his face and neck. He had none of
Hawkes' easy confidence with the board's controls; this
game was hard work for a beginner. Later, perhaps, some
of the steps would become automatic, but now&mdash;&mdash;</p>

<p>"Seventy-eight sub twelve over thirteen," came the
droning instructions, and Alan pulled levers and twisted
ratchets to keep his pattern true. He saw the attraction
the game held for the people of Earth: it required such
deep concentration, such careful attention, that one had
no time to ponder other problems. It was impossible to
think and compete at the same time. The game offered
perfect escape from the harsh realities of Earther
existence.</p>

<p>"Six hundred twelve sigma five."</p>

<p>Again Alan recompensated. His nerves tingled; he felt
he must be close to victory. All thought of what he had
come here for slipped away; Steve was forgotten. Only
the flashing board counted, only the game.</p>

<p>Five more numbers went by. Suddenly the gong rang,
indicating that someone had achieved a winning pattern,
and it was like the fall of a headsman's axe to Alan. He
had lost. That was all he could think of. He had lost.</p>

<p>The winner was the dreamy-eyed youth at Table 166,
who accepted his winnings without a word and took his
seat. As Alan drew out another five-credit piece for the
next round, he realized what he was doing.</p>

<p>He was being caught up in the nerve-stretching excitement
of the game. He was forgetting Steve, forgetting
the waiting Hawkes outside.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span></p>

<p>He stretched back in his seat and peered as far down
the row as he could see. No sign of Steve there; he had
to be on the other side of the croupier. Alan decided to
do his best to win; that way he could advance to the
rostrum and scan the other half of the hall.</p>

<p>But the game fled by too quickly; he made a false
computation on the eleventh number and watched in
dismay as his pattern drew further and further away from
the numbers being called off. He drove himself furiously,
trying to make amends, but it was impossible. The winner
was the man at Table 217, on the other side. He was a
lantern-jawed giant with the powerful frame of a longshoreman,
and he laughed in pleasure as he collected his
money.</p>

<p>Three more rounds went by; Alan picked up increasing
skill at the game, but failed to win. He saw his shortcoming,
but could not do anything to help it: he was
unable to extrapolate ahead. Hawkes was gifted with the
knack of being able to extend probable patterns two or
three moves into the future; Alan could only work with
the given, and so he never made the swift series of
guesses which led to victory. He had spent nearly an
hour in the parlor now, fruitlessly.</p>

<p>The next round came and went. "Table 111 takes us
for a hundred fifty credits," came the croupier's cry. Alan
relaxed, waiting for the lucky winner to collect and for
the next round to begin.</p>

<p>The winner reached the centrally located rostrum. Alan
looked at him. He was tall, fairly young&mdash;in his thirties,
perhaps&mdash;with stooped shoulders and a dull glazedness
about his eyes. He looked familiar.</p>

<p>Steve.</p>

<p>Feeling no excitement now that the quest had reached<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>
success, Alan slipped from his seat and made his way
around the croupier's rostrum and down the far aisle.
Steve had already taken his seat at Table 111. Alan came
up behind him, just as the gong sounded to signal the
new round.</p>

<p>Steve was hunched over the board, calculating with
almost desperate fury. Alan touched his shoulder.</p>

<p>"Steve?"</p>

<p>Without looking up Steve snapped, "Get out of here,
whoever you are! Can't you see I'm busy?"</p>

<p>"Steve, I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>A robot sidled up to Alan and grasped him firmly by
the arm. "It is forbidden to disturb the players while
they are engaged in the game. We will have to eject you
from this parlor."</p>

<p>Angrily Alan broke loose from the robot's grasp and
leaned over Steve. He shook him by the shoulder, roughly,
trying to shake loose his mind from the flickering games board.</p>

<p>"Steve, look up! It's me&mdash;Alan&mdash;your brother!"</p>

<p>Steve slapped at Alan's hand as he would at a fly. Alan
saw other robots converging on him from various points
in the room. In a minute they'd hurl him out into the
street.</p>

<p>Recklessly he grabbed Steve by the shoulders and spun
him around in his seat. A curse tumbled from Steve's
lips; then he fell strangely silent.</p>

<p>"You remember me, Steve? Your brother Alan. Your
<i>twin</i> brother, once."</p>

<p>Steve had changed, certainly. His hair was no longer
thick and curly; it seemed to have straightened out, and
darkened a little. Wrinkles seamed his forehead; his eyes
were deep-set and surrounded by lines. He was slightly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>
overweight, and it showed. He looked terribly tired.
Looking at him was like looking at a comic mirror that
distorted and altered your features. But there was nothing
comic about Steve's appearance.</p>

<p>In a hoarse whisper he said, "Alan?"</p>

<p>"Yes."</p>

<p>Alan felt robot arms grasping him firmly. He struggled
to break loose, and saw Steve trying to say something,
only no words were coming. Steve was very pale.</p>

<p>"Let go of him!" Steve said finally, "He&mdash;he wasn't
disturbing me."</p>

<p>"He must be ejected. It is the rule."</p>

<p>Conflict traced deep lines on Steve's face. "All right,
then. We'll both leave."</p>

<p>The robots released Alan, who rubbed his arms
ruefully. Together they walked up the aisle and out into
the street.</p>

<p>Hawkes stood waiting there.</p>

<p>"I see you've found him. It took long enough."</p>

<p>"M-Max, this is my brother, Steven Donnell." Alan's
voice was shaky with tension. "Steve, this is a friend of
mine. Max Hawkes."</p>

<p>"You don't need to tell me who he is," Steve said. His
voice was deeper and harsher than Alan remembered it.
"Every gamesman knows Hawkes. He's the best there is."
In the warm daylight, Steve looked even older than the
twenty-six years that was his chronological age. To Alan's
eyes he seemed to be a man who had been kicked around
by life, a man who had not yet given up but who knew
he didn't stand much of a chance for the future.</p>

<p>And he looked ashamed. The old sparkle was gone
from his brother's eyes. Quietly Steve said, "Okay, Alan.
You tracked me down. Call me whatever names you want<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>
to call me and let me get about my business. I don't
do quite as well as your friend Hawkes, and I happen to
be in need of a lot of cash in a hurry."</p>

<p>"I didn't come to call you names. Let's go someplace
where we can talk," Alan said. "There's a lot for us to
talk about."</p>

<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span></p>
<h2><i>Chapter<br />
Eleven</i></h2>

<p><span class="dcap">They</span> adjourned to a small tavern three doors
down 68th Avenue from the games parlor, an old-fashioned
tavern with manually operated doors and stuffed
moose heads over the bar. Alan and Hawkes took seats
next to each other in a booth in back; Steve sat facing
them.</p>

<p>The barkeep came scuttling out&mdash;no robot in here,
just a tired-faced old man&mdash;and took their orders. Hawkes
called for beer, Steve for whiskey; Alan did not order.</p>

<p>He sat staring at his brother's oddly changed face.
Steve was twenty-six. From Alan's seventeen-year-old
vantage-point, that seemed tremendously old, well past
the prime of life.</p>

<p>He said, "The <i>Valhalla</i> landed on Earth a few days ago.
We're bound out for Procyon in a few days."</p>

<p>"So?"</p>

<p>"The Captain would like to see you again, Steve."</p>

<p>Steve stared moodily at his drink without speaking,
for a long moment. Alan studied him. Less than two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>
months had passed for Alan since Steve had jumped ship;
he still remembered how his twin had looked. There had
been something smouldering in Steve's eyes then, a kind
of rebellious fire, a smoky passion. That was gone now.
It had burned out long ago. In its place Alan saw only
tiny red veins&mdash;the bloodshot eyes of a man who had
been through a lot, little of it very pleasant.</p>

<p>"Is that the truth?" Steve asked. "<i>Would</i> he like to see
me? Or wouldn't he just prefer to think I never was
born at all?"</p>

<p>"No."</p>

<p>"I know the Captain&mdash;Dad&mdash;pretty well. Even though
I haven't seen him in nine years. He'd never forgive me
for jumping ship. I don't want to pay any visits to the
<i>Valhalla</i>, Alan."</p>

<p>"Who said anything about visiting?"</p>

<p>"Then what <i>were</i> you talking about?"</p>

<p>"I was talking about going back into the Crew," Alan
said quietly.</p>

<p>The words seemed to strike Steve like physical blows.
He shuddered a little and gulped down the drink he held
clutched in tobacco-stained fingers. He looked up at Alan,
finally.</p>

<p>"I can't. It's impossible. Flatly impossible."</p>

<p>"But&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>Alan felt Hawkes' foot kick him sharply under the
table. He caught the hint, and changed the subject. There
was time to return to it later.</p>

<p>"Okay, let's skip it for now. Why don't you tell me
about your life on Earth these last nine years?"</p>

<p>Steve smiled sardonically. "There's not much to tell,
and what there is is a pretty dull story. I came across
the bridge from the Enclave last time the <i>Valhalla</i> was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>
in town, and came over into York City all set to conquer
the world, become rich and famous, and live happily
ever after. Five minutes after I set foot on the Earther
side of the river I was beaten up and robbed by a gang
of roving kids. It was a real fine start."</p>

<p>He signalled the waiter for another drink. "I guess
I must have drifted around the city for two weeks or more
before the police found me and picked me up for vagrancy.
By that time the <i>Valhalla</i> had long since hoisted
for Alpha C&mdash;and didn't I wish I was on it! Every night
I used to dream I had gone back on the ship. But when
I woke up I always found out I hadn't.</p>

<p>"The police gave me an education in the ways of
Earther life, complete with rubber hoses and stingrays,
and when they were through with me I knew all about
the system of work cards and free status. I didn't have
a credit to my name. So I drifted some more. Then I
got sick of drifting and tried to find a job, but of course
I couldn't buy my way in to any of the hereditary guilds.
Earth has enough people of her own; she's not interested
in finding jobs for kid spacemen who jump ship.</p>

<p>"So I starved a little. Then I got tired of starving. So
about a year after I first jumped ship I borrowed a thousand
credits from somebody foolish enough to lend them,
and set myself up as a professional gambler on Free Status.
It was the only trade I could find that didn't have any
entrance requirements."</p>

<p>"Did you do well?"</p>

<p>"Yeah. Very well. At the end of my first six months
I was fifteen hundred credits in debt. Then my luck
changed; I won three thousand credits in a single month
and got shifted up to Class B." Steve laughed bitterly.
"That was beautiful, up there. Inside of two more months<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>
I'd not only lost my three thousand, I was two thousand
more in hock. And that's the way it's been going ever
since. I borrow here, win a little to pay him back, or
lose a little and borrow from someone else, win a little,
lose a little&mdash;round and round and round. A swell life,
Alan. And I still dream about the <i>Valhalla</i> once or twice
a week."</p>

<p>Steve's voice was leaden, dreary. Alan felt a surge of
pity. The swashbuckling, energetic Steve he had known
might still be there, inside this man somewhere, but
surrounding him were the scars of nine bitter years on
Earth.</p>

<p>Nine years. It was a tremendous gulf.</p>

<p>Alan caught his breath a moment. "If you had the
chance to go back into the Crew, no strings attached,
no recriminations&mdash;would you take it?"</p>

<p>For an instant the old brightness returned to Steve's
eyes. "Of course I would! But&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"But what?"</p>

<p>"I owe seven thousand credits," Steve said. "And it
keeps getting worse. That pot I won today, just before
you came over to me, that was the first take I'd had in
three days. Nine years and I'm still a Class C gambler.
We can't all be as good as Hawkes here. I'm lousy&mdash;but
what other profession could I go into, on an overcrowded
and hostile world like this one?"</p>

<p>Seven thousand credits, Alan thought. It was a week's
earnings for Hawkes&mdash;but Steve would probably be in
debt the rest of his life.</p>

<p>"Who do you owe this money to?" Hawkes asked
suddenly.</p>

<p>Steve looked at him. "The Bryson syndicate, mostly.
And Lorne Hollis. The Bryson people keep a good eye<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>
on me, too. There's a Bryson man three booths up who
follows me around. If they ever saw me going near the
spacefield they'd be pretty sure to cut me off and ask for
their money. You can't welsh on Bryson."</p>

<p>"Suppose it was arranged that your debts be cancelled,"
Hawkes said speculatively.</p>

<p>Steve shook his head. "No. I don't want charity. I know
you're a Class A and seven thousand credits comes easy
to you, but I couldn't take it. Skip it. I'm stuck here
on Earth for keeps, and I'm resigned to it. I made my
choice, and this is what I got."</p>

<p>"Listen to reason," Alan urged. "Hawkes will take
care of the money you owe. And Dad will be so happy
to see you come back to the ship again&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"Like Mars he'll be happy! See me come back, beaten
up and ragged, a washed-out old man at twenty-six? No,
sir. The Captain blotted me out of his mind a long time
ago, and he and I don't have any further business
together."</p>

<p>"You're wrong, Steve. He sent me into the Earther city
deliberately to find you. He said to me, 'Find Steve and
urge him to come back to the ship.' He's forgiven you
completely," Alan lied. "Everyone's anxious to have you
come back on board."</p>

<p>For a moment Steve sat silent, indecisive, frowning
deeply. Then he made up his mind. He shook his head.
"No&mdash;both of you. Thanks, but I don't want any. Keep
your seven thousand, Hawkes. And you, Alan&mdash;go back
to the ship and forget all about me. I don't even deserve
a second chance."</p>

<p>"You're wrong!" Alan started to protest, but a second
time Hawkes kicked him hard, and he shut up. He stared
curiously at the gambler.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span></p>

<p>"I guess that about settles it," Hawkes observed. "If
the man wants to stay, we can't force him."</p>

<p>Steve nodded. "I have to stay on Earth. And now I'd
better get back to the games parlor&mdash;I can't waste any
time, you know. Not with a seven thousand credit backlog
to make up."</p>

<p>"Naturally. But there's time for one more drink, isn't
there? On me. Maybe you don't want my money, but
let me buy you a drink."</p>

<p>Steve grinned. "Fair enough."</p>

<p>He started to wave to the bartender, but Hawkes shot
out an arm quickly and blocked off the gesture. "He's
an old man and he's tired. I'll go to the bar and order."
And before Steve could protest, Hawkes had slipped
smoothly out of the booth and was on his way forward
to the bar.</p>

<p>Alan sat facing his brother. He felt pity. Steve had
been through a lot; the freedom he had longed for aboard
ship had had a heavy price. And was it freedom, to sit
in a crowded games parlor on a dirty little planet and
struggle to get out of debt?</p>

<p>There was nothing further he could say to Steve. He
had tried, and he had failed, and Steve would remain
on Earth. But it seemed wrong. Steve <i>did</i> deserve a second
chance. He had jumped ship and it had been a mistake,
but there was no reason why he could not return to his
old life, wiser for the experience. Still, if he refused&mdash;&mdash;</p>

<p>Hawkes came back bearing two drinks&mdash;another beer
for himself and a whiskey for Steve. He set them out on
the table and said, "Well, drink up. Here's hoping you
make Class A and stay there."</p>

<p>"Thanks," Steve said, and drained his drink in a single
loud gulp. His eyes widened; he started to say something,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>
but never got the words out. He slumped down in his
seat and his chin thumped ringingly against the table.</p>

<p>Alan looked at Hawkes in alarm. "What happened to
him? Why'd he pass out?"</p>

<p>Hawkes smiled knowingly. "An ancient Earth beverage
known as the Mickey Finn. Two drops of a synthetic
enzyme in his drink; tasteless, but extremely effective.
He'll be asleep for ten hours or more."</p>

<p>"How'd you arrange it?"</p>

<p>"I told the bartender it was in a good cause, and he
believed me. You wait here, now. I want to talk to that
Bryson man about your brother's debts, and then we'll
spirit him out to the spaceport and dump him aboard the
<i>Valhalla</i> before he wakes up."</p>

<p>Alan grinned. He was going to have to do some explaining
to Steve later, but by that time it would be too
late; the starship would be well on its way to Procyon.
It was a dirty trick to play, he thought, but it was
justifiable. In Hawkes' words, it was in a good cause.</p>

<p>Alan put his arms around his brother's shoulders and
gently lifted him out of the chair; Steve was surprisingly
light, for all his lack of condition. Evidently muscle
weighed more than fat, and Steve had gone to fat. Supporting
his brother's bulk without much trouble, Alan
made his way toward the entrance to the bar. As he
went past the bartender, the old man smiled at him. Alan
wondered what Hawkes had said to him.</p>

<p>Right now Hawkes was three booths up, leaning over
and taking part in an urgent whispered conference with
a thin dark-faced man in a sharply tailored suit. They
reached some sort of agreement; there was a handshake.
Then Hawkes left the booth and slung one of Steve's
dangling arms around his own shoulder, easing the weight.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span></p>

<p>"There's an Undertube that takes us as far as Carhill
Boulevard and the bridge," Hawkes said. "We can get
a ground vehicle there that'll go on through the Enclave
and out to the spacefield."</p>

<p>The trip took nearly an hour. Steve sat propped up
between Alan and Hawkes, and every now and then his
head would loll to one side or another, and he would
seem to be stirring; but he never woke. The sight of two
men dragging a third along between them attracted not
the slightest attention as they left the Undertube and
climbed aboard the spacefield bus. Apparently in York
City no one cared much about what went on; it made
no difference to the busy Earthers whether Steve were
unconscious or dead.</p>

<p>The ground bus took them over the majestic arch of
the bridge, rapidly through the sleepy Enclave&mdash;Alan saw
nobody he recognized in the streets&mdash;and through the
restricted area that led to the spacefield.</p>

<p>The spaceport was a jungle of ships, each standing on
its tail waiting to blast off. Most of them were small
two-man cargo vessels, used in travel between Earth and
the colonies on the Moon, Mars, and Pluto, but here
and there a giant starship loomed high above the others.
Alan stood on tiptoes to search for the golden hull of the
<i>Valhalla</i>, but he was unable to see it. Since the starship
would be blasting off at the end of the week, he knew
the crew was probably already at work on it, shaping it
up for the trip. He belonged on it too.</p>

<p>He saw a dark green starship standing nearby; the
<i>Encounter</i>, Kevin Quantrell's ship. Men were moving
about busily near the big ship, and Alan remembered
that it had become obsolete during its last long voyage,
and was being rebuilt.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span></p>

<p>A robot came sliding up to the three of them as they
stood there at the edge of the landing field.</p>

<p>"Can I help you, please?"</p>

<p>"I'm from the starship <i>Valhalla</i>," Alan said. "I'm
returning to the ship. Would you take me to the ship,
please?"</p>

<p>"Of course."</p>

<p>Alan turned to Hawkes. The moment had come, much
too suddenly. Alan felt Rat twitching at his cuff, as if
reminding him of something.</p>

<p>Grinning awkwardly, Alan said, "I guess this is the
end of the line, Max. You'd better not go out on the
spacefield with us. I&mdash;I sort of want to thank you for all
the help you've given me. I never would have found
Steve without you. And about the bet we made&mdash;well,
it looks like I'm going back on my ship after all, so I've
won a thousand credits from you. But I can't ask for it,
of course. Not after what you did for Steve."</p>

<p>He extended his hand. Hawkes took it, but he was
smiling strangely.</p>

<p>"If I owed you the money, I'd pay it to you," the
gambler said. "That's the way I work. The seven thousand
I paid for Steve is extra and above everything else. But
you haven't won that bet yet. You haven't won it until
the <i>Valhalla's</i> in space with you aboard it."</p>

<p>The robot made signs of impatience. Hawkes said,
"You'd better convoy your brother across the field and
dump him on his ship. Save the goodbyes for later. I'll
wait right here for you. Right here."</p>

<p>Alan shook his head. "Sorry, Max, but you're wasting
your time by waiting. The <i>Valhalla</i> has to be readied
for blastoff, and once I check in aboard ship I can't come
back to visit. So this is goodbye, right here."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span></p>

<p>"We'll see about that," Hawkes said. "Ten to one odds."</p>

<p>"Ten to one," Alan said. "And you've lost your bet."
But his voice did not sound very convincing, and as he
started off across the field with Steve dragging along beside
him he frowned, and did some very intense thinking indeed
in the few minutes' time it took him to arrive at
the shining <i>Valhalla</i>. He was beginning to suspect that
Hawkes might be going to win the bet after all.</p>

<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span></p>
<h2><i>Chapter<br />
Twelve</i></h2>

<p><span class="dcap">He</span> felt a little emotional pang, something like
nostalgia, as the <i>Valhalla</i> came into sight, standing by
itself tall and proud at the far end of the field. A cluster
of trucks buzzed around it, transferring fuel, bringing
cargo. He spotted the wiry figure of Dan Kelleher, the
cargo chief, supervising and shouting salty instructions
to the perspiring men.</p>

<p>Alan tightened his grip on Steve's arm and moved
forward. Kelleher shouted, "You men back there, tighten
up on that winch and give 'er a hoist! Tighten up, I say!
Put some muscle into&mdash;&mdash;" He broke off. "Alan," he said,
in a quiet voice.</p>

<p>"Hello, Dan. Is my father around?"</p>

<p>Kelleher was staring with frank curiosity at the slumped
figure of Steve Donnell. "The Captain's off watch now.
Art Kandin's in charge."</p>

<p>"Thanks," Alan said. "I'd better go see him."</p>

<p>"Sure. And&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>Alan nodded. "Yes. That's Steve."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span></p>

<p>He passed between the cargo hoists and clambered
onto the escalator rampway that led to the main body
of the ship. It rose, conveying him seventy feet upward
and through the open passenger hatch to the inner section
of the towering starship.</p>

<p>He was weary from having carried Steve so long. He
put the sleeping form down against a window-seat facing
one of the viewscreens, and said to Rat, "You stay here
and keep watch. If anyone wants to know who he is,
tell them the truth."</p>

<p>"Right enough."</p>

<p>Alan found Art Kandin where he expected to find him&mdash;in
the Central Control Room, posting work assignments
for the blastoff tomorrow. The lanky, pudgy-faced First
Officer hardly noticed as Alan stepped up beside him.</p>

<p>"Art?"</p>

<p>Kandin turned&mdash;and went pale. "Oh&mdash;Alan. Where in
blazes have you been the last two days?"</p>

<p>"Out in the Earther city. Did my father make much of
a fuss?"</p>

<p>The First Officer shook his head. "He kept saying you
just went out to see the sights, that you hadn't really
jumped ship. But he kept saying it over and over again,
as if he didn't really believe it, as if he wanted to convince
himself you were coming back."</p>

<p>"Where is he now?"</p>

<p>"In his cabin. He's off-watch for the next hour or
two. I'll ring him up and have him come down here,
I guess."</p>

<p>Alan shook his head. "No&mdash;don't do that. Tell him to
meet me on B Deck." He gave the location of the picture-viewscreen
where he had parked Steve, and Kandin
shrugged and agreed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span></p>

<p>Alan made his way back to the viewscreen. Rat looked
up at him; he was sitting perched on Steve's shoulder.</p>

<p>"Anyone bother you?" Alan asked.</p>

<p>"No one's come by this way since you left," Rat said.</p>

<p>"Alan?" a quiet voice said.</p>

<p>Alan turned. "Hello, Dad."</p>

<p>The Captain's lean, tough face had some new lines on
it; his eyes were darkly shadowed, and he looked as if
he hadn't slept much the night before. But he took Alan's
hand and squeezed it warmly&mdash;in a fatherly way, not a
Captainly one. Then he glanced at the sleeping form
behind Alan.</p>

<p>"I&mdash;went into the city, Dad. And found Steve."</p>

<p>Something that looked like pain came into Captain
Donnell's eyes, but only for an instant. He smiled. "It's
strange, seeing the two of you like this. So you brought
back Steve, eh? We'll have to put him back on the roster.
Why is he asleep? He looks like he's out cold."</p>

<p>"He is. It's a long story, Dad."</p>

<p>"You'll have to explain it to me later, then&mdash;after
blastoff."</p>

<p>Alan shook his head. "No, Dad. Steve can explain it
when he wakes up, tonight. Steve can tell you lots of
things. I'm going back to the city."</p>

<p>"What?"</p>

<p>It was easy to say, now&mdash;the decision that had been
taking vague form for several hours, and which had
crystallized as he trudged across the spacefield toward the
<i>Valhalla</i>. "I brought you back Steve, Dad. You still have
one son aboard ship. I want off. I'm resigning. I want
to stay behind on Earth. By our charter you can't deny
such a request."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span></p>

<p>Captain Donnell moistened his lips slowly. "Agreed,
I can't deny. But why, Alan?"</p>

<p>"I think I can do more good Earthside. I want to look
for Cavour's old notebooks; I think he developed the
hyperdrive, and if I stay behind on Earth maybe I can
find it. Or else I can build my own. So long, Dad. And
tell Steve that I wish him luck&mdash;and that he'd better do
the same for me." He glanced at Rat. "Rat, I'm deeding
you to Steve. Maybe if he had had you instead of me,
he never would have jumped ship in the first place."</p>

<p>He looked around, at his father, at Steve, at Rat. There
was not much else he could say. And he knew that if he
prolonged the farewell scene too long, he'd only be
burdening his father and himself with the weight of sentimental
memory.</p>

<p>"We won't be back from Procyon for almost twenty
years, Alan. You'll be thirty-seven before we return to
Earth again."</p>

<p>Alan grinned. "I have a hunch I'll be seeing you all
before then, Dad. I hope. Give everyone my best. So
long, Dad."</p>

<p>"So long, Alan."</p>

<p>He turned away and rapidly descended the ramp.
Avoiding Kelleher and the cargo crew, for goodbyes would
take too long, he trotted smoothly over the spacefield,
feeling curiously lighthearted now. Part of the quest was
over; Steve was back on board the <i>Valhalla</i>. But Alan
knew the real work was just beginning. He would search
for the hyperdrive; perhaps Hawkes would help him.
Maybe he would succeed in his quest this time, too. He
had some further plans, in that event, but it was not
time to think of them now.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span></p>

<p>Hawkes was still standing at the edge of the field, and
there was a thoughtful smile on his face as Alan came
running up to him.</p>

<p>"I guess you won your bet," Alan said, when he had
his breath back.</p>

<p>"I almost always do. You owe me a hundred credits&mdash;but
I'll defer collection."</p>

<p>They made the trip back to York City in virtual silence.
Either Hawkes was being too tactful to ask the reasons
for Alan's decision or else&mdash;this seemed more likely, Alan
decided&mdash;the gambler had already made some shrewd
surmises, and was waiting for time to bear him out.
Hawkes had known long before Alan himself realized
it that he would not leave with the <i>Valhalla</i>.</p>

<p>The Cavour Hyperdrive, that was the rainbow's end
Alan would chase now. He would accept Hawkes' offer,
become the gambler's protege, learn a few thing about
life. The experience would not hurt him. And always
in the front of his mind he would keep the ultimate goal,
of finding a spacedrive that would propel a ship faster
than the speed of light.</p>

<p>At the apartment in Hasbrouck, Hawkes offered him
a drink. "To celebrate our partnership," he explained.</p>

<p>Alan accepted the drink and tossed it down. It stung,
momentarily; he saw sadly he was never going to make
much of a drinking man. He drew something from his
pocket, and Hawkes frowned.</p>

<p>"What's that?"</p>

<p>"My Tally. Every spaceman has one. It's the only way
we can keep track of our chronological ages when we're
on board ship." He showed it to Hawkes; it read <i>Year
17 Day 3</i>. "Every twenty-four hours of subjective time<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>
that goes by, we click off another day. Every three hundred
sixty-five days another year is ticked off. But I guess I
won't be needing this any more."</p>

<p>He tossed it in the disposal unit. "I'm an Earther now.
Every day that goes by is just one day; objective time and
subjective time are equal."</p>

<p>Hawkes grinned cheerfully. "A little plastic doodad to
tell you how old you are, eh? Well, that's all behind you
now." He pointed to a button in the wall. "There's the
operating control for your bed; I'll sleep in back, where
I did last night. First thing tomorrow we'll get you a
decent set of clothes, so you can walk down the street
without having people yell '<i>Spacer!</i>' at you. Then I want
you to meet a few people&mdash;friends of mine. And then we
start breaking you in at the Class C tables."</p>

<hr class="tb" />

<p>The first few days of life with Hawkes were exciting
ones. The gambler bought Alan new clothing, modern
stuff with self-sealing zippers and pressure buttons, made
of filmy clinging materials that were incredibly more
comfortable than the rough cloth of his <i>Valhalla</i> uniform.
York City seemed less strange to him with each passing
hour; he studied Undertube routes and Overshoot maps
until he knew his way around the city fairly well.</p>

<p>Each night about 1800 they would eat, and then it was
time to go to work. Hawkes' routine brought him to
three different Class A gambling parlors, twice each week;
on the seventh day he always rested. For the first week
Alan followed Hawkes around, standing behind him and
observing his technique. When the second week began,
Alan was on his own, and he began to frequent Class C
places near the A parlors Hawkes used.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span></p>

<p>But when he asked Hawkes whether he should take
out a Free Status registration, the gambler replied with
a quick, snappish, "Not yet."</p>

<p>"But why? I'm a professional gambler, since last week.
Why shouldn't I register?"</p>

<p>"Because you don't need to. It's not required."</p>

<p>"But I want to. Gosh, Max, I&mdash;well, I sort of want to
put my name down on something. Just to show I belong
here on Earth. I want to register."</p>

<p>Hawkes looked at him strangely, and it seemed to Alan
there was menace in the calm blue eyes. In suddenly
ominous tones he said, "I don't want you signing your name
to anything, Alan. Or registering for Free Status. Got
that?"</p>

<p>"Yes, but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"No buts! Got it?"</p>

<p>Repressing his anger, Alan nodded. He was used to
taking orders from his shipboard superiors and obeying
them. Hawkes probably knew best. In any case, he was
dependent on the older man right now, and did not want
to anger him unnecessarily. Hawkes was wealthy; it might
take money to build a hyperdrive ship, when the time
came. Alan was flatly cold-blooded about it, and the concept
surprised and amused him when he realized just
how single-minded he had become since resigning from
the <i>Valhalla</i>.</p>

<p>He turned the single-mindedness to good use at the
gaming tables first. During his initial ten days as a professional,
he succeeded in losing seven hundred credits
of Hawkes' money, even though he did manage to win
a three-hundred-credit stake one evening.</p>

<p>But Hawkes was not worried. "You'll make the grade,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>
Alan. A few more weeks, days maybe, while you learn the
combinations, limber up your fingers, pick up the knack
of thinking fast&mdash;you'll get there."</p>

<p>"I'm glad <i>you're</i> so optimistic." Alan felt downcast. He
had dropped three hundred credits that evening, and it
seemed to him that his fumbling fingers would never
learn to set up the combinations fast enough. He was
just like Steve, a born loser, without the knack the game
required. "Oh, well, it's your money."</p>

<p>"And I expect you to double it for me some day. I've
got a five-to-one bet out now that you'll make Class B
before fall."</p>

<p>Alan snorted doubtfully. In order to make Class B, he
would have to make average winnings of two hundred
credits a night for ten days running, or else win three
thousand credits within a month. It seemed a hopeless
task.</p>

<p>But, as usual, Hawkes won the bet. Alan's luck improved
as May passed and June dwindled; at the beginning
of July he hit a hot streak when he seemed to be
marching up to the winner's rostrum every other round,
and the other Class C patrons began to grumble. The
night he came home with six hundred newly-won credits,
Hawkes opened a drawer and took out a slim, sleek
neutrino gun.</p>

<p>"You'd better carry this with you from now on," the
gambler said.</p>

<p>"What for?"</p>

<p>"They're starting to notice you now. I hear people
talking. They know you're carrying cash out of the game
parlors every night."</p>

<p>Alan held the cool gray weapon, whose muzzle could
spit a deadly stream of energized neutrinos, undetectable,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>
massless, and fatal. "If I'm held up I'm supposed to use
this?"</p>

<p>"Just the first time," Hawkes said. "If you do the job
right, you won't need to use it any more. There won't be
any second time."</p>

<p>As it turned out, Alan had no need for the gun, but
he carried it within easy reach whenever he left the
apartment. His skill at the game continued to increase;
it was, he saw, just like astrogation, and with growing
confidence he learned to project his moves three and
sometimes four numbers ahead.</p>

<p>On a warm night in mid-July the proprietor of the
games hall Alan frequented most regularly stopped him
as he entered.</p>

<p>"You're Donnell, aren't you?"</p>

<p>"That's right. Anything wrong?"</p>

<p>"Nothing much, except that I've been tallying up your
take the past two weeks. Comes to close to three thousand
credits, altogether. Which means you're not welcome
around this parlor any more. Nothing personal, son. You'd
better carry this with you next time out."</p>

<p>Alan took the little card the proprietor offered him.
It was made of gray plastic, and imprinted on it in yellow
were the letters, CLASS B. He had been promoted.</p>

<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span></p>
<h2><i>Chapter<br />
Thirteen</i></h2>

<p><span class="dcap">Things</span> were not quite so easy in the Class B
games parlors. Competition was rough. Some of the players
were, like Alan, sharp newcomers just up from the bottom
of the heap; others were former Class A men who were
sliding down again, but still did well enough to hang
on in Class B. Every day, some of the familiar faces were
gone, as one man after another failed to meet the continuing
qualifications for the intermediary class.</p>

<p>Alan won fairly steadily&mdash;and Hawkes, of course, was
a consistent winner on the Class A level. Alan turned his
winnings over to the older man, who then allowed him
to draw any cash he might need without question.</p>

<p>The summer rolled on through August&mdash;hot and sticky,
despite the best efforts of the local weather-adjustment
bureau. The cloud-seeders provided a cooling rain-shower
at about 0100 every night to wash away the day's grime.
Alan was usually coming home at that time, and he would
stand in the empty streets letting the rain pelt down on
him, and enjoying it. Rain was a novelty for him; he had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>
spent so much of his life aboard the starship that he had
had little experience with it. He was looking forward
to the coming of winter, and with it snow.</p>

<p>He hardly ever thought of the <i>Valhalla</i>. He disciplined
himself to keep thoughts of the starship out of his mind,
for he knew that once he began regretting his decision
there would be no stopping. Life on Earth was endlessly
fascinating; and he was confident that someday soon he
would get a chance to begin tracking down the Cavour
hyperdrive.</p>

<p>Hawkes taught him many things&mdash;how to wrestle, how
to cheat at cards, how to throw knives. None of the things
Alan learned from Hawkes were proper parts of the
education of a virtuous young man&mdash;but on Earth, virtue
was a negative accomplishment. You were either quick
or dead. And until he had an opportunity to start work
on the hyperdrive, Alan knew he had better learn how
to survive on Earth. Hawkes was a master of survival
techniques; Alan was a good student.</p>

<p>He had his first test on a muggy night early in September.
He had spent his evening at the Lido, a flossy games
parlor in the suburb of Ridgewood, and had come away
with better than seven hundred credits&mdash;the second best
single night he had ever had. He felt good about things.
Hawkes was working at a parlor far across the city, and
so they did not arrange to meet when the evening was
over; instead, they planned to come home separately.
Usually they talked for an hour or two each night before
turning in, Alan reviewing his evening's work and having
Hawkes pick out the weak points in his technique and
show him the mistakes he had made.</p>

<p>Alan reached Hasbrouck about 0030 that evening.
There was no moon; and in Hasbrouck the street-lighting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>
was not as efficient as it was in more respectable areas of
York City. The streets were dark. Alan was perspiring
heavily from the humidity. But the faint hum of the
cloud-seeders' helicopters could be heard; the evening
rain was on the way. He decided to wait outside a while.</p>

<p>The first drops splashed down at 0045. Alan grinned
gleefully as the cool rain washed away the sweat that
clung to him; while pedestrians scurried for cover, he
gloried in the downpour.</p>

<p>Darkness lay all around. Alan heard sudden footsteps;
a moment later he felt sharp pressure in the small of his
back and a hand gripping his shoulder.</p>

<p>A quiet voice said, "Hand over your cash and you won't
get hurt."</p>

<p>Alan froze just an instant. Then the months of Hawkes'
training came into play. He wiggled his back tentatively
to see whether the knife was penetrating his clothing.
Good; it wasn't.</p>

<p>In one quick motion he whirled and spun away, dancing
off to the left and clubbing down sharply on his opponent's
knife-hand. A grunted exclamation of pain rewarded him.
He stepped back two steps; as his attacker advanced, Alan
drove a fist into his stomach and leaped lithely away
again. This time his hand emerged holding the neutrino
gun.</p>

<p>"Stand where you are or I'll burn you," he said quietly.
The shadow-shrouded attacker made no move. Cautiously
Alan kicked the fallen knife out of his reach without
lowering his gun.</p>

<p>"Okay," Alan said. "Come on over here in the light
where I can see who you are. I want to remember you."</p>

<p>But to his astonishment he felt strong arms slipping
around his and pinioning him; a quick twist and his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>
neutrino gun dropped from his numbed hands. The arms
locked behind his back in an unbreakable full nelson.</p>

<p>Alan writhed, but it was no use. The hidden accomplice
held him tightly. And now the other man came forward
and efficiently went through his pockets. Alan felt more
angry than afraid, but he wished Hawkes or someone else
would come along before this thing went too far.</p>

<p>Suddenly Alan felt the pressure behind his neck easing
up. His captor was releasing him. He poised, debating
whether or not to whirl and attack, when a familiar voice
said, "Rule Number One: never leave your back unguarded
for more than half a second when you're being
held up. You see what happens."</p>

<p>Alan was too stunned to reply for several moments. In
a whisper he said finally, "Max?"</p>

<p>"Of course. And lucky for you I'm who I am, too. John,
step out here in the light where he can see you. Alan,
meet John Byng. Free Status, Class B."</p>

<p>The man who had originally attacked him came forward
now, into the light of the street-glow. He was shorter
than Alan, with a lean, almost fleshless face and a scraggly
reddish-brown beard. He looked cadaverous. His eyeballs
were stained a peculiar yellowish tinge.</p>

<p>Alan recognized him&mdash;a Class B man he had seen several
times at various parlors. It was not a face one forgot easily.</p>

<p>Byng handed over the thick stack of bills he had taken
from Alan. As he pocketed them, Alan said in some
annoyance, "A very funny prank, Max. But suppose I had
burned your friend's belly, or he had stabbed me?"</p>

<p>Hawkes chuckled. "One of the risks of the game, I
guess. But I know you too well to think that you'd burn
down an unarmed man, and John didn't intend to stab
you. Besides, I was right here."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span></p>

<p>"And what was the point of this little demonstration?"</p>

<p>"Part of your education, m'boy. I was hoping you'd
be held up by one of the local gangs, but they didn't
oblige, so I had to do it myself. With John's help, of
course. Next time remember that there may be an accomplice
hiding in the shadows, and that you're not safe
just because you've caught one man."</p>

<p>Alan grinned. "Good point. And I guess this is the
best way to learn it."</p>

<p>The three of them went upstairs. Byng excused himself
and vanished into the extra room almost immediately;
Hawkes whispered to Alan, "Johnny's a dreamduster&mdash;a
narcosephrine addict. In the early stages; you can spot
it by the yellowing of the eyeballs. Later on it'll cripple
him, but he doesn't worry about later on."</p>

<p>Alan studied the small, lean man when he returned.
Byng was smiling&mdash;a strange unworldly smile. He held
a small plastic capsule in his right hand.</p>

<p>"Here's another facet of your education," he said. He
looked at Hawkes. "Is it okay?"</p>

<p>Hawkes nodded.</p>

<p>Byng said, "Take a squint at this capsule, boy. It's
dreamdust&mdash;narcosephrine. That's my kick."</p>

<p>He tossed the capsule nonchalantly to Alan, who caught
it and held it at arm's distance as if it were a live viper.
It contained a yellow powder.</p>

<p>"You twist the cap and sniff a little," Hawkes said. "But
don't try it unless you hate yourself real bad. Johnny can
testify to that."</p>

<p>Alan frowned. "What does the stuff do?"</p>

<p>"It's a stimulant&mdash;a nerve-stimulant. Enhances perception.
It's made from a weed that grows only in dry, arid
places&mdash;comes from Epsilon Eridani IV originally, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>
the galaxy's biggest plantation is in the Sahara. It's habit-forming&mdash;and
expensive."</p>

<p>"How much of it do you have to take to&mdash;to get the
habit?"</p>

<p>Byng's thin lips curled in a cynical scowl. "One sniff.
And the drug takes all your worries away. You're nine
feet tall and the world's your plaything, when you're up
on dream dust. Everything you look at has six different
colors." Bitterly Byng said, "Just one catch&mdash;after about
a year you stop feeling the effect. But not the craving.
That stays with you forever. Every night, one good sniff&mdash;at
a hundred credits a sniff. And there's no cure."</p>

<p>Alan shuddered. He had seen dreamdust addicts in the
advanced state&mdash;withered palsied old men of forty, unable
to eat, crippled, drying up and nearing death. All that for
a year's pleasure!</p>

<p>"Johnny used to be a starman," Hawkes said suddenly.
"That's why I picked him for our little stunt tonight.
I thought it was about time I introduced you two."</p>

<p>Alan's eyes widened. "What ship?"</p>

<p>"<i>Galactic Queen.</i> A dreamdust peddler came wandering
through the Enclave one night and let me have a free
sniff. Generous of him."</p>

<p>"And you&mdash;became an addict?"</p>

<p>"Five minutes later. So my ship left without me. That
was eleven years ago, Earthtime. Figure it out&mdash;a hundred
credits a night for eleven years."</p>

<p>Alan felt cold inside. It could have happened to him,
he thought&mdash;that free sniff. Byng's thin shoulders were
quivering. The advanced stage of addiction was starting
to set in.</p>

<p>Byng was only the first of Hawkes' many friends that
Alan met in the next two weeks. Hawkes was the center<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>
of a large group of men in Free Status, not all of whom
knew each other but who all knew Hawkes. Alan felt
a sort of pride in being the protege of such an important
and widely-known man as Max Hawkes, until he started
discovering what sort of people Hawkes' friends were.</p>

<p>There was Lorne Hollis, the loansman&mdash;one of the men
Steve had borrowed from. Hollis was a chubby, almost
greasy individual with flat milky gray eyes and a cold,
chilling smile. Alan shook hands with him, and then felt
like wiping off his hand. Hollis came to see them often.</p>

<p>Another frequent visitor was Mike Kovak of the Bryson
Syndicate&mdash;a sharp-looking businessman type in ultra-modern
suits, who spoke clearly and well and whose
specialty was forgery. There was Al Webber, an amiable,
soft-spoken little man who owned a fleet of small ion-drive
cargo ships that plied the spacelines between Earth and
Mars, and who also exported dreamdust to the colony on
Pluto, where the weed could not be grown.</p>

<p>Seven or eight others showed up occasionally at Hawkes'
apartment. Alan was introduced to them all, and then
generally dropped out of the conversation, which usually
consisted of reminiscences and gossip about people he did
not know.</p>

<p>But as the days passed, one thing became evident:
Hawkes might not be a criminal himself, but certainly
most of his friends operated on the far side of the law.
Hawkes had seen to it that they stayed away from the
apartment during the first few months of Alan's Earther
education; but now that the ex-starman was an accomplished
gambler and fairly well skilled in self-defense,
all of Hawkes' old friends were returning once again.</p>

<p>Day by day Alan increasingly realized how innocent and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>
childlike a starman's life was. The <i>Valhalla</i> was a placid
little world of 176 people, bound together by so many
ties that there was rarely any conflict. Here on Earth,
though, life was tough and hard.</p>

<p>He was lucky. He had stumbled into Hawkes early in
his wanderings. With a little less luck he might have
had the same sort of life Steve had had ... or John
Byng. It was not fun to think about that.</p>

<p>Usually when Hawkes had friends visiting him late
at night, Alan would sit up for a while listening, and then
excuse himself and get some sleep. As he lay in bed he
could hear low whispering, and once he woke toward
morning and heard the conversation still going on. He
strained his ears, but did not pick up anything.</p>

<p>One night early in October he had come home from the
games parlor and, finding nobody home, had gone immediately
to sleep. Some time later he heard Hawkes and
his friends come in, but he was too tired to get out of bed
and greet them. He rolled over and went back to sleep.</p>

<p>But later that night he felt hands touching him, and he
opened an eye to see Hawkes bending over him.</p>

<p>"It's me&mdash;Max. Are you awake?"</p>

<p>"No," Alan muttered indistinctly.</p>

<p>Hawkes shook him several times. "Come on&mdash;get up
and put some clothes on. Some people here who want
to talk to you."</p>

<p>Only half comprehending, Alan clambered unwillingly
from bed, dressed, and splashed cold water in his face.
He followed Hawkes back inside.</p>

<p>The living room was crowded. Seven or eight men were
there&mdash;the ones Alan thought of as the inner circle of
Hawkes' cronies. Johnny Byng, Mike Kovak, Al Webber,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>
Lorne Hollis, and some others. Sleepily Alan nodded at
them and took a seat, wondering why Hawkes had dragged
him out of bed for this.</p>

<p>Hawkes looked at him sharply. "Alan, you know all
these people, don't you?"</p>

<p>Alan nodded. He was still irritated at Hawkes; he had
been sound asleep.</p>

<p>"You're now facing ninety per cent of what we've come
to call the Hawkes Syndicate," Hawkes went on. "These
eight gentlemen and myself have formed the organization
recently for a certain specific purpose. More of that in a
few minutes. What I got you out here to tell you was
that there's room in our organization for one more man,
and that you fit the necessary qualifications."</p>

<p>"Me?"</p>

<p>Hawkes smiled. "You. We've all been watching you
since you came to live with me, testing you, studying you.
You're adaptable, strong, intelligent. You learn fast. We
had a little vote tonight, and decided to invite you in."</p>

<p>Alan wondered if he were still asleep or not. What
was all this talk of syndicates? He looked round the circle,
and realized that this bunch could be up to no good.</p>

<p>Hawkes said, "Tell him about it, Johnny."</p>

<p>Byng leaned forward and blinked his drug-stained eyes.
In a quiet voice, almost a purr, he said, "It's really very
simple. We're going to stage a good old-fashioned hold-up.
It's a proposition that'll net us each about a million credits,
even with the ten-way split. It ought to go off pretty easy
but we need you in on it. As a matter of fact, I'd say
you were indispensable to the project, Alan."</p>

<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span></p>
<h2><i>Chapter<br />
Fourteen</i></h2>

<p><span class="dcap">Hawkes</span> took over, explaining the proposition
to a now very much awake Alan.</p>

<p>"There's going to be a currency transfer at the World
Reserve Bank downtown next Friday. At least ten million
credits are going to be picked up by an armored truck
and taken to branch banks for distribution.</p>

<p>"Hollis, here, happens to have found out the wave-patterns
of the roboguards who'll be protecting the currency
shipment. And Al Webber has some equipment that
can paralyze roboguards if we know their operational
wavelength. So it's a simple matter to leave the car
unprotected; we wait till it's loaded, then blank out the
robots, seize the human guards, and drive away with the
truck."</p>

<p>Alan frowned thoughtfully. "Why am <i>I</i> so indispensable
to this business?" He had no desire to rob banks or
anything else.</p>

<p>"Because you're the only one of us who isn't registered
on the central directory. You don't have any televector
number. You can't be traced."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span></p>

<p>Suddenly Alan understood. "So <i>that's</i> why you didn't
let me register! You've been grooming me for this all
along!"</p>

<p>Hawkes nodded. "As far as Earth is concerned, you
don't exist. If any of us drove off with that truck, all they
need to do is plot the truck's coordinates and follow the
televector patterns of the man who's driving it. Capture
is inevitable that way. But if <i>you're</i> aboard the truck,
there's no possible way of tracing your route. Get it?"</p>

<p>"I get it," Alan said slowly. <i>But I don't like it</i>, he
added silently. "I want to think about the deal a little
longer, though. Let me sleep on it. I'll tell you tomorrow
whether I'll go through with it."</p>

<p>Puzzled expressions appeared on the faces of Hawkes'
eight guests, and Webber started to say something, but
Hawkes hastily cut him off. "The boy's a little sleepy,
that's all. He needs time to get used to the idea of being
a millionaire. I'll call each of you in the morning, okay?"</p>

<p>The eight were shepherded out of the apartment rapidly,
and when they were gone Hawkes turned to face Alan.
Gone now was the bland friendliness, gone the warm-hearted
brotherliness of the older man. His lean face
was cold and businesslike now, and his voice was harsh
as he said, "What's this talk of thinking it over? Who
said you had any choice about this thing?"</p>

<p>"Don't I have any say in my own life?" Alan asked
hotly. "Suppose I don't want to be a bank robber? You
didn't tell me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"I didn't need to. Listen, boy&mdash;I didn't bring you in
here for my health. I brought you in because I saw you
had the potential for this job. I've coddled you along for
more than three months, now. Given you a valuable education
in how to get along on this planet. Now I'm asking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>
you to pay me back, a little. Byng told the truth: you're
indispensable to this project. Your personal feelings are
irrelevant just now."</p>

<p>"Who says?"</p>

<p>"I do."</p>

<p>Alan stared coldly at Hawkes' transformed face. "Max,
I didn't bargain for a share in your bank-robbing syndicate.
I don't want any part of it. Let's call it quits right now.
I've turned over quite a few thousand credits of my
winnings to you. Give me five hundred and keep the
rest. It's your pay for my room and board and instruction
the last three months. You go your way, I'll go mine."</p>

<p>Hawkes laughed sharply. "Just as simple as that? I
pocket your winnings and you walk out of here? How
dumb do you think I am? You know the names of the
syndicate, you know the plans, you know everything. A
lot of people would pay big money for an advance tip
on this bit." He shook his head. "I'll go my way and you'll
go it too, Alan. Or else. You know what that <i>or else</i>
means."</p>

<p>Angrily Alan said, "You'd kill me, too, if I backed
down now. Friendship doesn't mean a thing to you. 'Help
us rob this bank, or else.'"</p>

<p>Hawkes' expression changed again; he smiled warmly,
and when he spoke his voice was almost wheedling.
"Listen, Alan, we've been planning this thing for months.
I put down seven thousand to clear your brother, just
so I'd be sure of getting your cooperation. I tell you there's
no danger. I didn't mean to threaten you&mdash;but try to see
my side of it. You <i>have</i> to help out!"</p>

<p>Alan looked at him curiously. "How come you're so
hot to rob the bank, Max? You earn a fortune every night.
You don't need a million more credits."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span></p>

<p>"No. I don't. But some of them do. Johnny Byng does;
and Kovak, too&mdash;he owes Bryson thirty thousand. But I
organized the scheme." Hawkes was pleading now. "Alan,
I'm bored. Deadly bored. Gambling isn't gambling for
me; I'm too good. I never lose except when I want to.
So I need to get my kicks someplace else. This is it.
But it won't come off without you."</p>

<p>They were silent for a moment. Alan realized that
Hawkes and his group were desperate men; they would
never let him live if he refused to cooperate. He had
no choice at all. It was disillusioning to discover that
Hawkes had taken him in mostly because he would be
useful in a robbery.</p>

<p>He tried to tell himself that this was a jungle world
where morality didn't matter, and that the million credits
he'd gain would help finance hyperdrive research. But
those were thin arguments that held no conviction. There
was no justification for what he was going to do. None
whatsoever.</p>

<p>But Hawkes held him in a cleft stick. There was no
way out. He had fallen among thieves&mdash;and, willy-nilly,
he would be forced to become one himself.</p>

<p>"All right," he said bitterly. "I'll drive the getaway
truck for you. But after it's over, I'll take my share and
get out. I won't want to see you again."</p>

<p>Hawkes seemed to look hurt, but he masked the emotion
quickly enough. "That's up to you, Alan. But I'm glad
you gave in. It would have been rough on both of us
otherwise. Suppose we get some sleep."</p>

<p>Alan slept poorly during what was left of the night.
He kept mulling the same thoughts round and round
endlessly in his head, until he wished he could unhinge<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>
the front of his skull and let the thoughts somehow
escape.</p>

<p>It irritated him to know that Hawkes had taken him
in primarily because he fit the qualifications for a plan
concocted long before, and not for his own sake. All the
intensive training the gambler had given him had been
directed not merely toward toughening Alan but toward
preparing him for the role he would play in the projected
robbery.</p>

<p>He felt unhappy about the robbery too. The fact that
he was being coerced into taking part made him no less
a criminal, and that went against all his long-ingrained
codes of ethics. He would be just as guilty as Hawkes or
Webber, and there was no way out.</p>

<p>There was no sense brooding over it, he decided finally.
When it was all over he would have enough money to
begin aiming for his real goal, development of a workable
hyperspace drive. He would break completely with
Hawkes, move to some other city perhaps. If his quest
were successful, it would in some measure be an atonement
for the crime he was going to commit. Only in
some measure, though.</p>

<p>The week passed slowly, and Alan did poorly at his
nightly work. His mind was anywhere but on the flashing
games board, and the permutations and combinations
eluded him. He lost, though not heavily.</p>

<p>Each night the ten members of the Syndicate met at
Hawkes' apartment and planned each step of the crime
in great detail, drilling and re-drilling until it was second
nature for each man to recite his particular part in the
robbery. Alan's was at once the simplest and most difficult;
he would have nothing to do until the others had finished<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>
their parts, but then he would have to board the armored
car and outrace any pursuers. He was to drive the car
far outside city limits, where he would be met and relieved
of the cash by Byng and Hollis; then he was to lose the
truck somewhere and return to the city by public transit.</p>

<p>The day of the robbery dawned cold and clear; an
autumn chill was in the air. Alan felt some anticipatory
nervousness, but he was calmer than he expected to be&mdash;almost
fatalistically calm. By nightfall, he would be a
wanted criminal. He wondered whether it would be worth
it, even for the million credits. Perhaps it would be best
to defy Hawkes and make some sort of escape try.</p>

<p>But Hawkes, as always a shrewd judge of human character,
seemed obviously aware that Alan was wavering.
He kept a close watch over him, never allowing him to
stray. Hawkes was taking no chances. He was compelling
Alan to take part in the robbery.</p>

<p>The currency transfer was scheduled to take place at
1240, according to the inside information that Hollis had
somehow obtained. Shortly after noon, Hawkes and Alan
left the apartment and boarded the Undertube, their
destination the downtown section of York City where
the World Reserve Bank was located.</p>

<p>They reached the bank about 1230. The armored truck
was parked outside, looking sleek and impregnable, and
four massive roboguards stood watch, one by each wheel.
There were three human policemen too, but they were
strictly for effect; in case of any trouble, the roboguards
were expected to handle the rough work.</p>

<p>The bank was a mighty edifice indeed&mdash;over a hundred
stories high, rising in sweeping setbacks to a point where
its tapering top was lost in the shimmering noonday sky.
It was, Alan knew, the center of global commerce.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span></p>

<p>Armed guards were bringing packages of currency from
within the bank and were placing them on the truck.
Alan's heart raced. The streets were crowded with office
workers out for lunch; could he get away with it?</p>

<p>It was all precisely synchronized. As Hawkes and Alan
strolled toward the bank, Alan caught sight of Kovak
lounging across the street, reading a telefax sheet. None
of the others were visible.</p>

<p>Webber, Alan knew, was at this moment sitting in an
office overlooking the bank entrance, staring out the
window at the scene below. At precisely 1240, Webber was
to throw the switch on the wave-damper that would paralyze
the four roboguards.</p>

<p>The instant the roboguards froze, the other conspirators
would go into action. Jensen, McGuire, Freeman, and
Smith, donning masks, would leap for the three human
guards of the truck and pin them to the ground. Byng
and Hawkes, who would enter the bank a moment before,
would stage an impromptu fist-fight with each other just
inside the main entrance, thereby creating confusion and
making it difficult for reinforcement guards to get past
them and into the street.</p>

<p>Just outside the door, Hollis and Kovak would lurk.
As the quartet pounced on the truck's guards, they would
sprint across and yank the driver out of the cab. Then
Alan would enter quickly from the other side and drive
off, while the remaining nine would vanish into the crowd
in as many different directions as possible. Byng and
Hollis, if they got away, would head for the rendezvous
to meet Alan and take the cash from him.</p>

<p>If it went off properly the whole thing should take less
than fifteen seconds, from the time Webber threw the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>
switch to the time Alan drove away with the truck. If it
went off properly.</p>

<p>The seconds crawled by. The time was 1235, now. At
1237 Hawkes and Byng sauntered into the bank from
opposite directions. Three minutes to go. Alan's false
calm deserted him; he pictured all sorts of possible
calamities.</p>

<p>1238. Everyone's watch was synchronized to the second.</p>

<p>1239. 1239:30.</p>

<p>Thirty seconds to go. Alan took his position in a crowd
of bystanders, as prearranged. Fifteen seconds to go. Ten.
Five.</p>

<p>1240. The roboguards were in the act of directing the
locking of the truck; the loading had been carried out
precisely on schedule. The truck was shut and sealed.</p>

<p>The roboguards froze.</p>

<p>Webber had been right on time. Alan tensed, caught up
in the excitement of the moment and thinking now only
of the part he was to play.</p>

<p>The three policemen glanced at each other in some
confusion. Jensen and McGuire came leaping out at
them&mdash;&mdash;</p>

<p>And the roboguards returned to life.</p>

<p>The sound of blaster shots was heard within the bank;
Alan whirled, startled. Four guards came racing out of
the building, blasters drawn. What had happened to
Hawkes and Byng&mdash;why weren't they obstructing the
entrance, as it had been arranged?</p>

<p>The street was a scene of wild confusion now; people
milled everywhere. Alan saw Jensen writhing in the steel
grip of a roboguard. Had Webber's device failed?
Evidently so.</p>

<p>Alan was unable to move. He saw Freeman and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>
McGuire streaking wildly down the street with police
in keen pursuit. Hollis stood staring dumbly inside the
bank door. Alan saw Kovak come running toward him.</p>

<p>"Everything's gone wrong!" Kovak whispered harshly.
"The cops were waiting for us! Byng and Hawkes are
dead. Come on&mdash;run, if you want to save yourself!"</p>

<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span></p>
<h2><i>Chapter<br />
Fifteen</i></h2>

<p><span class="dcap">Alan</span> sat very quietly in the empty apartment
that had once belonged to Max Hawkes, and stared at
nothing in particular. It was five hours since the abortive
robbery. He was alone.</p>

<p>The news had been blared out over every form of
communication there was; he knew the story by heart.
A daring robbery had been attempted, but police detection
methods had yielded advance warning, and the
robbers had been frustrated. The roboguards had been
specially equipped ones which could shift to an alternate
wavelength in case of emergency; they had blanked out
only momentarily. And special guards had been posted
within the bank, ready to charge out. Byng and Hawkes
had tried to block the doorway and they had been shot
down. Hawkes was killed instantly; Byng died an hour
later in the hospital.</p>

<p>At least two other members of the gang had been
apprehended&mdash;Jensen and Smith, both trapped by the
roboguards. It was known that at least two other men<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>
and possibly more had participated in the attempt, and
these were being traced now.</p>

<p>Alan was not worried. He had not been within a
hundred feet of the crime, and it had been easy for him
to slip away unnoticed. The others had had little difficulty
either&mdash;Webber, Hollis, Kovak, McGuire, and Freeman.
There was a chance that Hollis or Kovak had been recognized;
in that case, they could be tracked down by
televector. But Alan was not registered on the televector
screens&mdash;and there was no other way of linking him with
the crime.</p>

<p>He glanced around the apartment at Hawkes' bar and
his audio system and all the dead man's other things.
Yesterday, Alan thought, Hawkes had been here, alive,
eyes sparkling as he outlined the plans for the robbery
a final time. Now he was dead. It was hard to believe that
such a many-sided person could have been snuffed out
so soon, so quickly.</p>

<p>A thought occurred. The police would be investigating
the disposition of Hawkes' property; they would want
to know the relationship between Hawkes and Alan, and
perhaps there would be questions asked about the robbery.
Alan decided to forestall that.</p>

<p>He reached for the phone. He would call Security,
tell them he had been living with Hawkes and had heard
of the gambler's sudden violent death, and in all innocence
ask for details. He would&mdash;&mdash;</p>

<p>The door-announcer chimed.</p>

<p>Alan whirled and put down the receiver. Reaching out,
he flicked on the doorscreen and was shown a view of a
distinguished-looking middle-aged man in the silver-gray
uniform of the police. <i>So soon?</i> Alan thought. <i>I didn't
even get a chance to call&mdash;&mdash;</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span></p>

<p>"Who is it?" he asked, in a surprisingly even voice.</p>

<p>"Inspector Gainer of Global Security."</p>

<p>Alan opened the door. Inspector Gainer smiled warmly,
walked in, took the seat Alan offered him. Alan felt tense
and jumpy, and hoped not too much of it showed.</p>

<p>The Security man said, "Your name is Alan Donnell,
isn't it? And you're a Free Status man, unregistered, employed
as a professional gamesman Class B?"</p>

<p>Alan nodded. "That's right, sir."</p>

<p>Gainer checked a notation on a pad he carried. "I
suppose you've heard that the man who lived here&mdash;Max
Hawkes&mdash;was killed in an attempted robbery this
morning."</p>

<p>"Y-yes, sir. I heard it a little while ago, on the newscasts.
I'm still a little shaken up. W-would you care for
a drink, Inspector?"</p>

<p>"Not on duty, thanks," Gainer said cheerfully. "Tell
me, Alan&mdash;how long did you know Max Hawkes?"</p>

<p>"Since last May. I'm an ex-starman. I&mdash;jumped ship.
Max found me wandering around the city and took me
in. But I never knew anything about any robberies,
Inspector. Max kept his mouth pretty well sealed most
of the time. When he left here this morning, he said he
was going to the bank to make a deposit. I never
thought&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>He stopped, wondering whether he sounded convincing.
At that moment a long jail sentence or worse seemed
inevitable. And the worst part of it was that he had not
wanted to take part in the robbery, indeed <i>had</i> not taken
part&mdash;but in the eyes of the law he was undoubtedly as
guilty as any of the others.</p>

<p>Gainer raised one hand. "Don't misunderstand, son.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>
I'm not here as a criminal investigator. We don't suspect
you had any part in the attempt."</p>

<p>"Then why&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>He drew an envelope from his breast pocket and unfolded
the papers it contained. "I knew Max pretty well,"
he said. "About a week ago he came to see me and gave
me a sealed envelope which was to be opened only in the
event of his death on this particular day, and to be
destroyed unopened otherwise. I opened it a few hours
ago. I think you ought to read it."</p>

<p>With trembling fingers Alan took the sheaf of papers
and scanned them. They were neatly typed; Alan recognized
the blocky purple characters of the voicewrite
Hawkes kept in his room.</p>

<p>He started to read.</p>

<p>The document explained that Hawkes was planning
a bank robbery to take place on Friday, October 3, 3876.
He named none of his accomplices. He went on to state
that one Alan Donnell, an unregistered ex-starman, was
living with him, and that this Alan Donnell had no
knowledge whatsoever of the intended bank robbery.</p>

<p><i>Furthermore</i>, Hawkes added, <i>in the event of my death
in the intended robbery, Alan Donnell is to be sole heir
and assign of my worldly goods. This supersedes and replaces
any and all wills and testaments I may have made
at any past time.</i></p>

<p>Appended was a schedule of the properties Hawkes
was leaving behind. Accounts in various savings banks
totalled some three quarters of a million credits; besides
that, there were scattered investments, real estate holdings,
bonds. The total estate, Hawkes estimated, was worth
slightly over one million credits.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span></p>

<p>When Alan finished, he looked up startled and white-faced
at the older man. "All of this is mine?"</p>

<p>"You're a pretty rich young man," Gainer agreed. "Of
course, there are formalities&mdash;the will has to be probated
and contested, and you can expect it to be contested by
somebody. If you still have the full estate when the courts
get through with you, you'll be all right."</p>

<p>Alan shook his head uncomprehendingly. "The way he
wrote this&mdash;it's as if he <i>knew</i>."</p>

<p>"Max Hawkes always knew," Gainer said gently. "He
was the best hunch-man I've ever seen. It was almost as
if he could look a couple of days into the future all the
time. Sure, he knew. And he also knew it was safe to leave
this document with me&mdash;that he could trust me not to
open it. Imagine, announcing a week ahead of time that
you're going to rob a bank and then turning the announcement
over sealed to a police officer!"</p>

<p>Alan started. The police had known about the robbery
in advance&mdash;that was how Max and the dreamduster Byng
had been killed. Had Gainer been the one who had
betrayed them? Had he opened the sealed envelope ahead
of time, and sent Max to his death?</p>

<p>No. It was inconceivable that this soft-spoken man
would have done such a thing. Alan banished the thought.</p>

<p>"Max knew he was going to be killed," he said. "And
yet he went ahead with it. Why?"</p>

<p>"Maybe he wanted to die," Gainer suggested. "Maybe
he was bored with life, bored with always winning, bored
with things as they were. The man was never born who
could figure out Max Hawkes, anyway. You must have
found that out yourself."</p>

<p>Gainer rose. "I'll have to be moving along, now. But
let me give you some suggestions, first."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span></p>

<p>"Sir?"</p>

<p>"Go downtown and get yourself registered in Free
Status. Have them give you a televector number. You're
going to be an important person when you get all that
money. And be very careful about who your friends are.
Max could take care of himself; you may not be so lucky,
son."</p>

<p>"Is there going to be an investigation of the robbery?"
Alan asked.</p>

<p>"It's under way already. You may be called down for
questioning, but don't let it worry you. I turned a copy
of Max's will over to them today, and that exonerates
you completely."</p>

<p>It was strangely empty in the apartment that night;
Alan wished Gainer had stayed longer. He walked through
the dark rooms, half expecting Max to come home. But
Max wasn't coming home.</p>

<p>Alan realized he had been tremendously fond of
Hawkes. He had never really shown it; he had never
demonstrated much warmth toward the gambler, especially
in the final days when they both lived under the
pressure of the planned robbery. But Alan knew he owed
much to Hawkes, rogue and rascal though he was. Hawkes
had been basically a good man, gifted&mdash;<i>too</i> gifted, perhaps&mdash;whose
drives and passions led him beyond the bounds
of society. And at thirty-five he was dead, having known
in advance that his last day was at hand.</p>

<p>The next few days were busy ones. Alan was called to
Security headquarters for questioning, but he insisted he
knew nothing about the robbery or Hawkes' friends, and
the document Hawkes had left seemed to bear him out.
He was cleared of all complicity in the robbery.</p>

<p>He next went to the Central Directory Matrix and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>
registered in Free Status. He was given a televector transmitter&mdash;it
was surgically embedded in the fleshy part
of his thigh&mdash;and he accepted a drink from fat old Hines
MacIntosh in remembrance of Hawkes.</p>

<p>He spoke briefly with MacIntosh about the process of
collecting on Hawkes' estate, and learned it was a complex
process, but nothing to be frightened of. The will was
being sent through channels now.</p>

<p>He met Hollis in the street several days later. The
bloated loansman looked pale and harried; he had lost
weight, and his skin hung flabbily over his bones now.
Little as Alan liked the loansman, he insisted on taking
him to a local restaurant for lunch.</p>

<p>"How come you're still hanging around York City?"
Alan asked. "I thought the heat was on for any of Max's
old buddies."</p>

<p>"It is," Hollis said, wiping sweat from his white shiny
forehead. "But so far I'm in the clear. There won't be
much of an investigation; they killed two and caught two,
and that'll keep them happy. After all, the robbery was
a failure."</p>

<p>"Any notion why it failed?"</p>

<p>Hollis nodded. "Sure I have a notion! It was Kovak
who tipped them off."</p>

<p>"Mike?&mdash;but he looked okay to me."</p>

<p>"And to everybody. But he owed Bryson a lot, and
Bryson was anxious to dispose of Max. So Kovak turned
the plans of the robbery over to Bryson's boys in exchange
for a quitclaim on the money he owed, and Bryson just
forwarded it all on to the police. They were waiting for
us when we showed up."</p>

<p>That cleared Gainer, Alan thought in some relief.
"How did you find all this out?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span></p>

<p>"Bryson himself told me."</p>

<p>"What!"</p>

<p>"I guess he didn't know exactly who besides Max was
in on the deal. Anyway, he certainly didn't know I was
part of the group," Hollis said. "Old man Bryson was
laying off some bets with me and he let something slip
about how he tipped the police to Max. Then he told me
the whole thing."</p>

<p>"And Kovak?"</p>

<p>"Dead," Hollis said bluntly. "Bryson must have figured
that if he'd sell Max out he'd sell anybody out, so Kovak
got taken care of. He was found yesterday. Heart failure,
the report said. Bryson has some good drugs. Say, kid&mdash;any
word yet on what's going to happen to all Max's
dough?"</p>

<p>Alan thought a moment before replying. "I haven't
heard a thing. I guess the government inherits it."</p>

<p>"That would be too bad," Hollis said speculatively.
"Max was well loaded. I'd like to get my hands into some
of that dough myself. So would Bryson and his bunch,
I'll bet."</p>

<p>Alan said nothing. When he was through eating, he
paid the check and they left, Hollis heading north, Alan
south. In three days, Hawkes' will would go through the
courts. Alan wondered if Bryson, who seemed to be York
City's major criminal syndic man, would try to angle some
share of Max's money.</p>

<p>A Bryson man did show up at the hearing&mdash;a slick-looking
operator named Berwin. His claim was that
Hawkes had been affiliated with Bryson a number of years
ago, and that Hawkes' money should revert to Bryson
by virtue of an obscure law of the last century involving<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>
the estates of professional gamblers killed in criminal
actions.</p>

<p>The robocomputer who was in charge of the hearing
pondered the request a few moments; then relays clicked
and the left-hand panel on the computer face lit up with
a bright red APPLICATION DENIED signal.</p>

<p>Berwin spoke for three minutes, ending up with a
request that the robocomputer disqualify itself from the
hearing and allow itself to be replaced by a human judge.</p>

<p>The computer's decision was even quicker this time.
APPLICATION DENIED.</p>

<p>Berwin tossed Alan's side of the courtroom a black look
and yielded ground. Alan had engaged a lawyer recommended
once by Hawkes, a man named Jesperson. Briefly
and concisely Jesperson cited Alan's claim to the money,
read the terms of the will, and stepped back.</p>

<p>The computer considered Jesperson's plea a few moments,
reviewing the brief which the lawyer had taped
and fed to the computer earlier. Time passed. Then
the green panel lit, and the words, APPLICATION
GRANTED.</p>

<p>Alan smiled. Bryson had been defeated; Max's money
was his. Money that could be turned toward intensified
research on the hyperdrive.</p>

<p>"Well, son?" Jesperson asked. "How does it feel to be
a millionaire?"</p>

<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span></p>
<h2><i>Chapter<br />
Sixteen</i></h2>

<p><span class="dcap">At</span> the time, he had been much too excited and
flustered to answer anything. But, as the next twelve
months went by, he learned that being a millionaire was
quite pleasant indeed.</p>

<p>There were headaches, of course. There was the initial
headache of signing his name several hundred times in
the course of the transfer of Hawkes' wealth to him.
There were also the frequent visits from the tax-collectors,
and the payment to them of a sum that staggered Alan
to think about, in the name of Rotation Tax.</p>

<p>But even after taxes, legal fees, and other expenses,
Alan found he owned better than nine hundred thousand
credits, and the estate grew by investment every day. The
court appointed a legal guardian for him, the lawyer
Jesperson, who was to administer Alan's money until
Alan reached the biological age of twenty-one. The decision
was an involved one, since Alan had undeniably
been born three hundred years earlier, in 3576&mdash;but the
robojudge that presided over that particular hearing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>
cited a precedent seven hundred years old which stated
that for legal purposes a starman's biological and not
his chronological age was to be accepted.</p>

<p>The guardianship posed no problems for Alan, though.
When he met with Jesperson to discuss future plans, the
lawyer told him, "You can handle yourself, Alan. I'll
give you free rein with the estate&mdash;with the proviso that
I have veto power over any of your expenditures until
your twenty-first birthday."</p>

<p>That sounded fair enough. Alan had reason to trust
the lawyer; hadn't Hawkes recommended him? "I'll agree
to that," Alan said. "Suppose we start right now. I'd like
to take a year and travel around the world. As my legal
guardian you'll be stuck with the job of managing my
estate and handling investments for me."</p>

<p>Jesperson chuckled. "You'll be twice as wealthy when
you get back! Nothing makes money so fast as money."</p>

<p>Alan left the first week in December, having spent
three weeks doing virtually nothing but sketching out
his itinerary. There were plenty of places he intended
to visit.</p>

<p>There was London, where James Hudson Cavour had
lived and where his hyperdrive research had been carried
out. There was the Lexman Institute of Space Travel in
Zurich, where an extensive library of space literature had
been accumulated; it was possible that hidden away in
their files was some stray notebook of Cavour's, some clue
that would give Alan a lead. He wanted to visit the area
in Siberia that Cavour had used as his testing-ground,
and from which the last bulletin had come from the
scientist before his unexplained disappearance.</p>

<p>But it was not only a business trip. Alan had lived
nearly half a year in the squalor of Hasbrouck&mdash;and because<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>
of his Free Status he would never be able to
move into a better district, despite his wealth. But he
wanted to see the rest of Earth. He wanted to travel
just for the sake of travel.</p>

<p>Before he left, he visited a rare book dealer in York
City, and for an exorbitant fifty credits purchased a
fifth-edition copy of <i>An Investigation into the Possibility
of Faster-than-Light Space Travel</i>, by James H. Cavour.
He had left his copy of the work aboard the <i>Valhalla</i>,
along with the few personal possessions he had managed
to accumulate during his life as a starman.</p>

<p>The book dealer had frowned when Alan asked for the
volume under the title he knew. "<i>The Cavour Theory</i>?
I don't think&mdash;ah, wait." He vanished for perhaps five
minutes and returned with an old, fragile, almost impossibly
delicate-looking book. Alan took it and scanned
the opening page. There were the words he had read
so many times: "The present system of interstellar travel
is so grossly inefficient as to be virtually inoperable on
an absolute level."</p>

<p>"Yes, that's the book. I'll take it."</p>

<p>His first stop on his round-the-globe jaunt was London,
where Cavour had been born and educated more than
thirteen centuries before. The stratoliner made the trip
across the Atlantic in a little less than three hours; it
took half an hour more by Overshoot from the airport
to the heart of London.</p>

<p>Somehow, from Cavour's few autobiographical notes,
Alan had pictured London as a musty old town, picturesque,
reeking of medieval history. He couldn't have
been more wrong. Sleek towers of plastic and concrete
greeted him. Overshoots roared by the tops of the buildings.
A busy network of bridges connected them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span></p>

<p>He went in search of Cavour's old home in Bayswater,
with the nebulous idea of finding some important document
wedged in the woodwork. But a local security
officer shook his head as Alan asked for directions.</p>

<p>"Sorry, lad. I've never heard of that street. Why don't
you try the information robot up there?"</p>

<p>The information robot was a blocky green-skinned synthetic
planted in a kiosk in the middle of a broad well-paved
street. Alan approached and gave the robot
Cavour's thirteen-century-old address.</p>

<p>"There is no record of any such address in the current
files," the steely voice informed him.</p>

<p>"No. It's an old address. It dates back to at least 2570.
A man named Cavour lived there."</p>

<p>The robot digested the new data; relays hummed softly
within it as it scanned its memory banks. Finally it
grunted, "Data on the address you seek has been reached."</p>

<p>"Fine! Where's the house?"</p>

<p>"The entire district was demolished during the general
rebuilding of London in 2982-2997. Nothing remains."</p>

<p>"Oh," Alan said.</p>

<p>The London trail trickled out right then and there.
He pursued it a little further, managed to find Cavour's
name inscribed on the honor role of the impressive
London Technological Institute for the year 2529, and
discovered a copy of Cavour's book in the Institute
Library. There was nothing else to be found. After a
month in London, Alan moved on eastward across Europe.</p>

<p>Most of it was little like the descriptions he had read
in the <i>Valhalla's</i> library. The trouble was that the starship's
visits to Earth were always at least a decade behind,
usually more. Most of the library books had come aboard
when the ship had first been commissioned, far back in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>
year 2731. The face of Europe had almost totally altered
since then.</p>

<p>Now, shiny new buildings replaced the ancient houses
which had endured for as much as a thousand years. A
gleaming bridge linked Dover and Calais; elsewhere, the
rivers of Europe were bridged frequently, providing easy
access between the many states of the Federation of
Europe. Here, there, monuments of the past remained&mdash;the
Eiffel Tower, absurdly dwarfed by the vast buildings
around it, still reared its spidery self in Paris, and Notre
Dame still remained as well. But the rest of Paris, the
ancient city Alan had read so much of&mdash;that had long
since been swept under by the advancing centuries. Buildings
did not endure forever.</p>

<p>In Zurich he visited the Lexman Institute for Space
Travel, a magnificent group of buildings erected on the
royalties from the Lexman Spacedrive. A radiant statue
sixty feet high was the monument to Alexander Lexman,
who in 2337 had first put the stars within the reach of
man.</p>

<p>Alan succeeded in getting an interview with the current
head of the Institute, but it was anything but a
satisfactory meeting. It was held in an office ringed with
mementoes of the epoch-making test flight of 2338.</p>

<p>"I'm interested in the work of James H. Cavour," Alan
said almost immediately&mdash;and from the bleak expression
that appeared on the scientist's face, he knew he had made
a grave mistake.</p>

<p>"Cavour is as far from Lexman as possible, my friend.
Cavour was a dreamer; Lexman, a doer."</p>

<p>"Lexman succeeded&mdash;but how do you know Cavour
didn't succeed as well?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span></p>

<p>"Because, my young friend, faster-than-light travel is
flatly impossible. A dream. A delusion."</p>

<p>"You mean that there's no faster-than-light research
being carried on here?"</p>

<p>"The terms of our charter, set down by Alexander
Lexman himself, specify that we are to work toward improvements
in the technique of space travel. It said nothing
about fantasies and daydreams. No&mdash;ah&mdash;hyperdrive
research is taking place at this institute, and none will
take place so long as we remain true to the spirit of
Alexander Lexman."</p>

<p>Alan felt like crying out that Lexman was a bold and
daring pioneer, never afraid to take a chance, never
worried about expense or public reaction. It was obvious,
though, that the people of the Institute had long since
fossilized in their patterns. It was a waste of breath to
argue with them.</p>

<p>Discouraged, he moved on, pausing in Vienna to hear
the opera&mdash;Max had always intended to spend a vacation
with him in Vienna, listening to Mozart, and Alan felt
he owed it to Hawkes to pay his respects. The operas
he saw were ancient, medieval in fact, better than two
thousand years old; he enjoyed the tinkly melodies but
found some of the plots hard to understand.</p>

<p>He saw a circus in Ankara, a football game in Budapest,
a nullgrav wrestling match in Moscow. He journeyed
to the far reaches of Siberia, where Cavour had spent his
final years, and found that what had been a bleak wasteland
suitable for spaceship experiments in 2570 was now
a thriving modern city of five million people. The site
of Cavour's camp had long since been swallowed up.</p>

<p>Alan's faith in the enduring nature of human endeavor
was restored somewhat by his visit to Egypt&mdash;for there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>
he saw the pyramids, nearly seven thousand years old;
they looked as permanent as the stars.</p>

<p>The first anniversary of his leaving the <i>Valhalla</i> found
him in South Africa; from there he travelled eastward
through China and Japan, across the highly industrialized
islands of the Far Pacific, and from the Philippines he
returned to the American mainland by jet express.</p>

<p>He spent the next four months travelling widely
through the United States, gaping at the Grand Canyon
and the other scenic preserves of the west. East of the
Mississippi, life was different; there was barely a stretch
of open territory between York City and Chicago.</p>

<p>It was late in November when he returned to York
City. Jesperson greeted him at the airfield, and they rode
home together. Alan had been gone a year; he was past
eighteen, now, a little heavier, a little stronger. Very
little of the wide-eyed boy who had stepped off the
<i>Valhalla</i> the year before remained intact. He had changed
inwardly.</p>

<p>But one part of him had not changed, except in the
direction of greater determination. That was the part
that hoped to unlock the secret of faster-than-light travel.</p>

<p>He was discouraged. His journey had revealed the
harsh fact that nowhere on Earth was research into hyperdrive
travel being carried on; either they had tried and
abandoned it as hopeless, or, like the Zurich people, they
had condemned the concept from the start.</p>

<p>"Did you find what you were looking for?" Jesperson
asked.</p>

<p>Alan slowly shook his head. "Not a hint. And I really
covered ground." He stared at the lawyer a moment.
"How much am I worth, now?"</p>

<p>"Well, offhand&mdash;" Jesperson thought for a moment.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>
"Say, a million three hundred. I've made some good
investments this past year."</p>

<p>Alan nodded. "Good. Keep the money piling up. I may
decide to open a research lab of my own, and we'll need
every credit we've got."</p>

<p>But the next day an item arrived in the morning mail
which very much altered the character of Alan's plans
for the future. It was a small but thick package, neatly
wrapped, which bore as return address the name <i>Dwight
Bentley</i>, with a London number.</p>

<p>Alan frowned for a moment, trying to place the name.
Then it came back to him&mdash;Bentley was the vice-provost
of the London Institute of Technology, Cavour's old
school. Alan had had a long talk with Bentley one afternoon
in January, about Cavour, about space travel, and
about Alan's hopes for developing a hyperspace drive.</p>

<p>The parcel was the right size and thickness to contain
a book. Alan slit the fastenings, and folded back the outer
wrapper. A note from Bentley lay on top.</p>

<div class="blockquot"><p class="rgt"><i>London<br />
3rd November 3877</i></p>

<p><i>My dear Mr. Donnell:</i></p>

<p><i>Perhaps you may remember the very enjoyable chat
you and I had one day at this Institute last winter, on the
occasion of your visit to London. You were, I recall,
deeply interested in the life and work of James H. Cavour,
and anxious to carry on the developments he had achieved
in the field of space travel.</i></p>

<p><i>Several days ago, in the course of an extensive resurveying
of the Institute's archives, the enclosed volume
was discovered very thoroughly hidden in the dusty recesses
of our library. Evidently Mr. Cavour had forwarded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>
the book to us from his laboratory in Asia, and it had
somehow become misfiled.</i></p>

<p><i>I am taking the liberty of forwarding the book on to
you, in the hopes that it will aid you in your work and
perhaps ultimately bring you success. Would you be kind
enough to return the book to me c/o this Institute when
you are finished with it?</i></p>

<p class="rgt"><i>Cordially,<br />
Dwight Bentley</i></p></div>

<p>Alan let the note slip to the floor as he reached for the
enclosed book. It was leather-bound and even more fragile
than the copy of <i>The Cavour Theory</i> he had purchased;
it looked ready to crumble at a hostile breath.</p>

<p>With mounting excitement he lifted the ancient cover
and turned it over. The first page of the book was blank;
so were the second and third. On the fourth page, Alan
saw a few lines of writing, in an austere, rigid hand. He
peered close, and with awe and astonishment read the
words written there:</p>

<div class="blockquot"><p><i>The Journal of James Hudson Cavour. Volume 16&mdash;Jan.
8 to October 11, 2570.</i></p></div>

<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span></p>
<h2><i>Chapter<br />
Seventeen</i></h2>

<p><span class="dcap">The</span> old man's diary was a curious and fascinating
document. Alan never tired of poring over it, trying to
conjure up a mental image of the queer, plucky fanatic
who had labored so desperately to bring the stars close
to Earth.</p>

<p>Like many embittered recluses, Cavour had been an
enthusiastic diarist. Everything that took place in his
daily life was carefully noted down&mdash;his digestion, the
weather, any stray thoughts that came to him, tart observations
on humanity in general. But Alan was chiefly
interested in the notations that dealt with his researches
on the problem of a faster-than-the-speed-of-light spacedrive.</p>

<p>Cavour had worked for years in London, harried by
reporters and mocked by scientists. But late in 2569 he
had sensed he was on the threshold of success. In his diary
for January 8, 2570, he wrote:</p>

<p>"The Siberian site is almost perfect. It has cost me
nearly what remains of my savings to build it, but out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>
here I will have the solitude I need so much. I estimate
six months more will see completion of my pilot model.
It is a source of deep bitterness in me that I am forced
to work on my ship like a common laborer, when my
part should have ceased three years ago with the development
of my theory and the designing of my ship. But
this is the way the world wants it, and so shall it be."</p>

<p>On May 8 of that year:</p>

<p>"Today there was a visitor&mdash;a journalist, no doubt. I
drove him away before he could disturb me, but I fear
he and others will be back. Even in the bleak Siberian
steppes I shall have no privacy. Work is moving along
smoothly, though somewhat behind schedule; I shall be
lucky to complete my ship before the end of the year."</p>

<p>On August 17:</p>

<p>"Planes continue to circle my laboratory here. I suspect
I am being spied on. The ship is nearing completion.
It will be ready for standard Lexman-drive flights any
day now, but installation of my spacewarp generator will
take several more months."</p>

<p>On September 20:</p>

<p>"Interference has become intolerable. For the fifth day
an American journalist has attempted to interview me.
My 'secret' Siberian laboratory has apparently become
a world tourist attraction. The final circuitry on the
spacewarp generator is giving me extreme difficulties;
there are so many things to perfect. I cannot work under
these circumstances. I have virtually ceased all machine-work
this week."</p>

<p>And on October 11, 2570:</p>

<p>"There is only one recourse for me. I will have to leave
Earth to complete the installation of my generator. The
prying fools and mockers will not leave me alone, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>
nowhere on Earth can I have the needed solitude. I shall
go to Venus&mdash;uninhabited, uninhabitable. Perhaps they
will leave me alone for the month or two more I need
to make my vessel suitable for interstellar drive. Then
I can return to Earth, show them what I have done, offer
to make a demonstration flight&mdash;to Rigel and back in days,
perhaps&mdash;&mdash;</p>

<p>"Why is it that Earth so tortures its few of original
mind? Why has my life been one unending persecution,
ever since I declared there was a way to shortcut through
space? There are no answers. The answers lie deep within
the dark recesses of the human collective soul, and no
man may understand what takes place there. I am content
to know that I shall have succeeded despite it all. Some
day a future age may remember me, like Copernicus,
like Galileo, as one who fought upstream successfully."</p>

<p>The diary ended there. But in the final few pages were
computations&mdash;a trial orbit to Venus, several columns of
blastoff figures, statistics on geographical distribution of
the Venusian landmasses.</p>

<p>Cavour had certainly been a peculiar bird, Alan
thought. Probably half the "persecutions" he complained
of had existed solely inside his own fevered brain. But
that hardly mattered. He had gone to Venus; the diary
that had found its way back to the London Institute of
Technology testified to that. And there was only one
logical next step for Alan.</p>

<p>Go to Venus. Follow the orbit Cavour had scribbled
at the back of his diary.</p>

<p>Perhaps he might find the Cavour ship itself; perhaps,
the site of his laboratory, some notes, anything at all. He
could not allow the trail to trickle out here.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span></p>

<p>He told Jesperson, "I want to buy a small spaceship.
I'm going to Venus."</p>

<p>He looked at the lawyer expectantly and got ready to
put up a stiff argument when Jesperson started to raise
objections. But the big man only smiled.</p>

<p>"Okay," he said. "When are you leaving?"</p>

<p>"You aren't going to complain? The kind of ship I
have in mind costs at least two hundred thousand credits."</p>

<p>"I know that. But I've had a look at Cavour's diary,
too. It was only a matter of time before you decided
to follow the old duck to Venus, and I'm too smart to
think that there's any point in putting up a battle. Let
me know when you've got your ship picked out and I'll
sit down and write the check."</p>

<p>But it was not as simple as all that. Alan shopped for
a ship&mdash;he wanted a new one, as long as he could afford
it&mdash;and after several months of comparative shopping and
getting advice from spaceport men, he picked the one
he wanted. It was a sleek glossy eighty-foot job, a Spacemaster
3878 model, equipped with Lexman converters
and conventional ion-jets for atmosphere flying. Smooth,
streamlined, it was a lovely sight as it stood at the spacefield
in the shadow of the great starships.</p>

<p>Alan looked at it with pride&mdash;a slender dark-green
needle yearning to pierce the void. He wandered around
the spaceport and heard the fuelers and oilers discussing
it in reverent tones.</p>

<p>"That's a mighty fine piece of ship, that green one
out there. Some lucky fellow's got it."</p>

<p>Alan wanted to go over to them and tell them, "That's
my ship. Me. Alan Donnell." But he knew they would
only laugh. Tall boys not quite nineteen did not own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>
late-model Spacemasters with price-tags of cr. 225,000.</p>

<p>He itched to get off-planet with it, but there were more
delays. He needed a flight ticket, first, and even though
he had had the necessary grounding in astrogation technique
and spacepiloting as an automatic part of his
education aboard the <i>Valhalla</i>, he was rusty, and needed
a refresher course that took six weary months.</p>

<p>After that came the physical exams and the mental
checkup and everything else. Alan fumed at the delay,
but he knew it was necessary. A spaceship, even a small
private one, was a dangerous weapon in unskilled hands.
An out-of-control spaceship that came crashing to Earth
at high velocity could kill millions; the shock wave might
flatten fifty square miles. So no one was allowed up in
a spaceship of any kind without a flight ticket&mdash;and you
had to work to win your ticket.</p>

<p>It came through, finally, in June of 3879, a month after
Alan's twentieth birthday. By that time he had computed
and recomputed his orbit to Venus a hundred different
times.</p>

<p>Three years had gone by since he last had been aboard
a spaceship, and that had been the <i>Valhalla</i>. His childhood
and adolescence now seemed like a hazy dream to him,
far in the back of his mind. The <i>Valhalla</i>, with his father
and Steve and all the friends of his youth aboard, was
three years out from Earth&mdash;with seven years yet to go
before it reached Procyon, its destination.</p>

<p>Of course, the Crew had experienced only about four
weeks, thanks to the Fitzgerald Contraction. To the
<i>Valhalla</i> people only a month had passed since Alan had
left them, while he had gone through three years.</p>

<p>He had grown up, in those three years. He knew where
he was heading, now, and nothing frightened him. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>
understood people. And he had one great goal which was
coming closer and closer with each passing month.</p>

<p>Blastoff day was the fifth of September, 3879. The
orbit Alan finally settled on was a six-day trip at low
acceleration across the 40,000,000-odd miles that separated
Earth from Venus.</p>

<p>At the spaceport he handed in his flight ticket for
approval, placed a copy of his intended orbit on file with
Central Routing Registration, and got his field clearance.</p>

<p>The ground crew had already been notified that Alan's
ship was blasting off that day, and they were busy now
putting her in final departure condition. There were
some expressions of shock as Alan displayed his credentials
to the ground chief and climbed upward into the control
chamber of the ship he had named the <i>James Hudson
Cavour</i>, but no one dared question him.</p>

<p>His eyes caressed the gleaming furnishings of the control
panel. He checked with the central tower, was told
how long till his blastoff clearance, and rapidly surveyed
the fuel meters, the steering-jet response valves, the automatic
pilot. He worked out a tape with his orbit on it.
Now he inserted it into the receiving tray of the autopilot
and tripped a lever. The tape slid into the computer,
clicking softly and emitting a pleasant hum.</p>

<p>"Eight minutes to blastoff," came the warning.</p>

<p>Never had eight minutes passed so slowly. Alan snapped
on his viewscreen and looked down at the field; the
ground crew men were busily clearing the area as blastoff
time approached.</p>

<p>"One minute to blastoff, Pilot Donnell." Then the
count-down began, second by second.</p>

<p>At the ten-seconds-to-go announcement, Alan activated
the autopilot and nudged the button that transformed his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>
seat into a protective acceleration cradle. His seat dropped
down, and Alan found himself stretched out, swinging
gently back and forth in the protecting hammock. The
voice from the control tower droned out the remaining
seconds. Tensely Alan waited for the sharp blow of
acceleration.</p>

<p>Then the roaring came, and the ship jolted from side
to side, struggled with gravity for a moment, and then
sprang up free from the Earth.</p>

<p>Some time later came the sudden thunderous silence
as the jets cut out; there was the dizzying moment of free
fall, followed by the sound of the lateral jets imparting
longitudinal spin to the small ship. Artificial gravity took
over. It had been a perfect takeoff. Now there was nothing
to do but wait for Venus to draw near.</p>

<p>The days trickled past. Alan experienced alternating
moods of gloom and exultation. In the gloomy moods he
told himself that this trip to Venus was a fool's errand,
that it would be just another dead end, that Cavour had
been a paranoid madman and the hyperspace drive was
an idiot's dream.</p>

<p>But in the moments of joy he pictured the finding of
Cavour's ship, the building of a fleet of hyperdrive
vessels. The distant stars within almost instantaneous
reach! He would tour the galaxies as he had two years
ago toured Earth. Canopus and Deneb, Rigel and
Procyon, he would visit them all. From star to bright star,
from one end of the universe to the other.</p>

<p>The shining oval of Venus grew brighter and brighter.
The cloud layer that enveloped Earth's sister planet
swirled and twisted.</p>

<p>Venus was virtually an unknown world. Earth colonies
had been established on Mars and on Pluto, but Venus,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>
with her harsh formaldehyde atmosphere, had been
ignored. Uninhabited, uninhabitable, the planet was unsuitable
for colonization.</p>

<p>The ship swung down into the cloud layer; floating
wisps of gray vapor streamed past the orbiting <i>Cavour</i>.
Finally Alan broke through, navigating now on manual,
following as best he could Cavour's old computations.
He guided the craft into a wide-ranging spiral orbit
three thousand feet above the surface of Venus, and
adjusted his viewscreens for fine pickup.</p>

<p>He was orbiting over a vast dust-blown plain. The sky
was a fantastic color, mottled blues and greens and an
all-pervading pink, and the air was dull gray. No sun
at all penetrated the heavy shroud of vapor that hung
round the planet.</p>

<p>For five hours he scouted the plain, hoping to find
some sign of Cavour's habitation. It was hopeless, he told
himself; in thirteen hundred years the bitter winds
of Venus would have destroyed any hint of Cavour's
site, assuming the old man had reached Venus successfully.</p>

<p>But grimly Alan continued to circle the area. Maybe
Cavour had been forced to land elsewhere, he thought.
Maybe he never got here. There were a million maybes.</p>

<p>He computed his orbit and locked the ship in. Eyes
pressed to the viewscreen, he peered downward, hoping
against hope.</p>

<p>This trip to Venus had been a wild gamble from the
start. He wondered if Max Hawkes would have covered
a bet on the success of his trip. Max had been infallible
when it came to hunches.</p>

<p><i>Well</i>, Alan thought, <i>now I've got a hunch. Help me
one more time, Max, wherever you are! Lend me some
of your luck. I need it, Max.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span></p>

<p>He circled once more. The Venusian day would last
for three weeks more; there was no fear of darkness.
But would he find anything?</p>

<p><i>What's that?</i></p>

<p>He leaped to the controls, switched off the autopilot,
and broke out of orbit, going back for a return look.
Had there been just the faintest metallic glint below,
as of a spaceship jutting up from the sand?</p>

<p>Yes.</p>

<p>There was a ship down there, and a cave of some sort.
Alan felt strangely calm. With confident fingers he
punched out a landing orbit, and brought his ship down
in the middle of the barren Venusian desert.</p>

<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span></p>
<h2><i>Chapter<br />
Eighteen</i></h2>

<p><span class="dcap">Alan</span> brought the <i>Cavour</i> down less than a mile
away from the scene of the wreckage&mdash;it was the best he
could do, computing the landing by guesswork&mdash;and
climbed into his spacesuit. He passed through the airlock
and out into the windswept desert.</p>

<p>He felt just a little lightheaded; the gravity was only
0.8 of Earth-norm, and besides that the air in his spacesuit,
being perpetually renewed by the Bennerman re-breathing
generator strapped to his back, was just a shade
too rich in oxygen.</p>

<p>In the back of his mind he realized he ought to adjust
his oxygen flow, but before he brought himself to make
the adjustment the surplus took its effect. He began to
hum, then to dance awkwardly over the sand. A moment
later he was singing a wild space ballad that he thought
he had forgotten years before. After ten feet he tripped
and went sprawling down in the sand. He lay there,
trickling the violet sands through the gloves of his spacesuit,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>
feeling very lightheaded and very foolish all at the
same time.</p>

<p>But he was still sober enough to realize he was in
danger. It was an effort to reach over his shoulder and
move the oxygen gauge back a notch. After a moment
the flow levelled out and he felt his head beginning to
clear.</p>

<p>He was marching through a fantastic baroque desert.
Venus was a riot of colors, all in a minor key: muted
greens and reds, an overbearing gray, a strange, ghostly
blue. The sky, or rather the cloud layer, dominated the
atmosphere with its weird pinkness. It was a silent world&mdash;a
dead world.</p>

<p>In the distance he saw the wreckage of the ship;
beyond it the land began to rise, sloping imperceptibly
up into a gentle hill with bizarre sculptured rock outcroppings
here and there. He walked quickly.</p>

<p>Fifteen minutes later he reached the ship. It stood
upright&mdash;or rather, its skeleton did. The ship had not
crashed. It had simply rotted away, the metal of its hide
eaten by the sand-laden winds over the course of centuries.
Nothing remained but a bare framework.</p>

<p>He circled the ship, then entered the cave a hundred
feet away. He snapped on his lightbeam. In the darkness,
he saw&mdash;&mdash;</p>

<p>A huddled skeleton, far to the rear of the cave. A
pile of corroded equipment; atmosphere generators, other
tools now shapeless.</p>

<p>Cavour had reached Venus safely. But he had never
departed.</p>

<p>To his astonishment Alan found a sturdy volume lying
under the pile of bones&mdash;a book, wrapped in metal plates.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>
Somehow it had withstood the passage of centuries, here
in this quiet cave.</p>

<p>Gently he unwrapped the book. The cover dropped off
at his touch; he turned back the first three pages, which
were blank. On the fourth, written in the now-familiar
crabbed hand, were the words: <i>The Journal of James
Hudson Cavour. Volume 17&mdash;October 20, 2570&mdash;&mdash;</i></p>

<hr class="tb" />

<p>He had plenty of time, during the six-day return
journey, to read and re-read Cavour's final words and to
make photographic copies of the withered old pages.</p>

<p>The trip to Venus had been easy for old Cavour; he
had landed precisely on schedule, and established housekeeping
for himself in the cave. But, as his diary detailed
it, he felt strength ebbing away with each passing day.</p>

<p>He was past eighty, no age for a man to come alone to
a strange planet. There remained just minor finishing to
be done on his pioneering ship&mdash;but he did not have the
strength to do the work. Climbing the catwalk of the
ship, soldering, testing&mdash;now, with his opportunity before
him, he could not attain his goal.</p>

<p>He made several feeble attempts to finish the job, and
on the last of them fell from his crude rigging and fractured
his hip. He had managed to crawl back inside the
cave, but, alone, with no one to tend him, he knew he
had nothing to hope for.</p>

<p>It was impossible for him to complete his ship. All
his dreams were ended. His equations and his blueprints
would die with him.</p>

<p>In his last day he came to a new realization: nowhere
had he left a complete record of the mechanics of his
spacewarp generator, the key mechanism without which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>
hyperspace drive was unattainable. So, racing against
encroaching death, James Hudson Cavour turned to a
new page in his diary, headed it, in firm, forceful letters,
<i>For Those Who Follow After</i>, and inked in a clear and
concise explanation of his work.</p>

<p>It was all there, Alan thought exultantly: the diagrams,
the specifications, the equations. It would be possible to
build the ship from Cavour's notes.</p>

<p>The final page of the diary had evidently been Cavour's
dying thoughts. In a handwriting increasingly ragged and
untidy, Cavour had indited a paragraph forgiving the
world for its scorn, hoping that some day mankind would
indeed have easy access to the stars. The paragraph ended
in midsentence. It was, thought Alan, a moving testament
from a great human being.</p>

<p>The days went by, and the green disk of Earth appeared
in the viewscreen. Late on the sixth day the <i>Cavour</i>
sliced into Earth's atmosphere, and Alan threw it into
the landing orbit he had computed that afternoon. The
ship swung in great spirals around Earth, drawing ever
closer, and finally began to home in on the spaceport.</p>

<p>Alan busied himself over the radio transmitter, getting
landing clearance. He brought the ship down easily,
checked out, and hurried to the nearest phone.</p>

<p>He dialed Jesperson's number. The lawyer answered.</p>

<p>"When did you get back?"</p>

<p>"Just now," Alan said. "Just this minute."</p>

<p>"Well? Did you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"Yes! I found it! I found it!"</p>

<hr class="tb" />

<p>Oddly enough, he was in no hurry to leave Earth now.
He was in possession of Cavour's notes, but he wanted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>
to do a perfect job of reproducing them, of converting
the scribbled notations into a ship.</p>

<p>To his great despair he discovered, when he first examined
the Cavour notebook in detail, that much of the
math was beyond his depth. That was only a temporary
obstacle, though. He hired mathematicians. He hired
physicists. He hired engineers.</p>

<p>Through it all, he remained calm; impatient, perhaps,
but not overly so. The time had not yet come for him
to leave Earth. All his striving would be dashed if he
left too soon.</p>

<p>The proud building rose a hundred miles from York
City: <i>The Hawkes Memorial Laboratory</i>. There, the
team of scientists Alan had gathered worked long and
painstakingly, trying to reconstruct what old Cavour had
written, experimenting, testing.</p>

<p>Early in 3881 the first experimental Cavour Generator
was completed in the lab. Alan had been vacationing in
Africa, but he was called back hurriedly by his lab director
to supervise the testing.</p>

<p>The generator was housed in a sturdy windowless
building far from the main labs; the forces being channelled
were potent ones, and no chances were being taken.
Alan himself threw the switch that first turned the
spacewarp generator on, and the entire research team
gathered by the closed-circuit video pickup to watch.</p>

<p>The generator seemed to blur, to waver, to lose substance
and become unreal. It vanished.</p>

<p>It remained gone fifteen seconds, while a hundred researchers
held their breaths. Then it returned. It shorted
half the power lines in the county.</p>

<p>But Alan was grinning as the auxiliary feeders turned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>
the lights in the lab on again. "Okay," he yelled. "It's a
start, isn't it? We got the generator to vanish, and that's
the toughest part of the battle. Let's get going on Model
Number Two."</p>

<p>By the end of the year, Model Number Two was
complete, and the tests this time were held under more
carefully controlled circumstances. Again success was only
partial, but again Alan was not disappointed. He had
worked out his time-table well. Premature success might
only make matters more difficult for him.</p>

<p>3882 went by, and 3883. He was in his early twenties,
now, a tall, powerful figure, widely known all over Earth.
With Jesperson's shrewd aid he had pyramided Max's
original million credits into an imposing fortune&mdash;and
much of it was being diverted to hyperspace research.
But Alan Donnell was not the figure of scorn James
Hudson Cavour had been; no one laughed at him when
he said that by 3885 hyperspace travel would be reality.</p>

<p>3884 slipped past. Now the time was drawing near.
Alan spent virtually all his hours at the research center,
aiding in the successive tests.</p>

<p>On March 11, 3885, the final test was accomplished
satisfactorily. Alan's ship, the <i>Cavour</i>, had been completely
remodeled to accommodate the new drive; every
test but one had been completed.</p>

<p>The final test was that of actual performance. And
here, despite the advice of his friends, Alan insisted that
he would have to be the man who took the <i>Cavour</i> on
her first journey to the stars.</p>

<p>Nine years had passed, almost to the week, since a
brash youngster named Alan Donnell had crossed the
bridge from the Spacer's Enclave and hesitantly entered
the bewildering complexity of York City. Nine years.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span></p>

<p>He was twenty-six now, no boy any more. He was the
same age Steve had been, when he had been dragged
unconscious to the <i>Valhalla</i> and taken aboard.</p>

<p>And the <i>Valhalla</i> was still bound on its long journey
to Procyon. Nine years had passed, but yet another remained
before the giant starship would touch down on
a planet of Procyon's. But the Fitzgerald Contraction had
telescoped those nine years into just a few months, for
the people of the <i>Valhalla</i>.</p>

<p>Steve Donnell was still twenty-six.</p>

<p>And now Alan had caught him. The Contraction had
evened out. They were twins again.</p>

<p>And the <i>Cavour</i> was ready to make its leap into
hyperspace.</p>

<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span></p>
<h2><i>Chapter<br />
Nineteen</i></h2>

<p><span class="dcap">It</span> was not difficult for Alan to get the route of
the <i>Valhalla</i>, which had been recorded at Central Routing
Registration. Every starship was required by law to
register a detailed route-chart before leaving, and these
charts were filed at the central bureau. The reason was
simple: a starship with a crippled drive was a deadly
object. In case a starship's drive conked out, it would
keep drifting along toward its destination, utterly helpless
to turn, maneuver, or control its motion. And if any
planets or suns happened to lie in its direct path&mdash;&mdash;</p>

<p>The only way a ship could alter its trajectory was to
cut speed completely, and with the drive dead there
would be no way of picking it up again. The ship would
continue to drift slowly out to the stars, while its crew
died of old age.</p>

<p>So the routes were registered, and in the event of drive
trouble it was thus possible for a rescue ship to locate the
imperilled starship. Space is immense, and only with a
carefully registered route could a ship be found.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span></p>

<p>Starship routes were restricted information. But Alan
had influence; he was easily able to persuade the Routing
Registration people that his intentions were honorable,
that he planned to overtake the <i>Valhalla</i> if they would
only let him have the coordinates. A bit of minor legal
jugglery was all that was needed to give him access to
the data.</p>

<p>It seemed there was an ancient regulation that said
any member of a starship's crew was entitled by law to
examine his ship's registered route, if he wanted to. The
rule was intended to apply to starmen who distrusted
their captains and were fearful of being shipped off to
some impossibly distant point; it said nothing at all about
starmen who had been left behind and were planning to
overtake their ships. But nothing prohibited Alan from
getting the coordinates, and so they gave them to him.</p>

<p>The <i>Cavour</i> was ready for the departure. Alan elbowed
his way through the crowd of curious onlookers and
clambered into the redesigned control chamber.</p>

<p>He paused a moment, running his fingers over the
shiny instrument panel with its new dials, strange levers,
unfamiliar instruments. Overdrive Compensator. Fuel
Transmuter. Distortion Guide. Bender Index. Strange
new names, but Alan realized they would be part of the
vocabulary of all future spacemen.</p>

<p>He began to work with the new controls, plotting his
coordinates with extreme care and checking them through
six or seven times. At last he was satisfied; he had computed
a hyperdrive course that would loop him through
space and bring him out in only a few days' time in
the general vicinity of the <i>Valhalla</i>, which was buzzing
serenely along at near the speed of light.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span></p>

<p>That was practically a snail's pace, compared with
hyperdrive.</p>

<p>The time for the test had come. He spoke briefly with
his friends and assistants in the control tower; then he
checked his figures through one last time and requested
blastoff clearance.</p>

<p>A moment later the count-down began, and he began
setting up for departure.</p>

<p>A tremor of anticipation shot through him as he
prepared to blast off on the first hyperdrive voyage ever
made. He was stepping out into the unknown, making
the first use ever of a strange, perhaps dangerous means
of travel. The drive would loop him out of the space-time
continuum, into&mdash;<i>where?</i>&mdash;and back again.</p>

<p>He hoped.</p>

<p>He punched down the keys, and sat back to wait for
the automatic pilot to carry him out from Earth.</p>

<p>Somewhere past the orbit of the moon, a gong told him
that the Cavour drive was about to come into play. He
held his breath. He felt a twisting sensation. He stared
at the viewscreen.</p>

<p>The stars had vanished. Earth, with all its memories
of the last nine years, was gone, taking with it Hawkes,
Jesperson, York City, the Enclaves&mdash;everything.</p>

<p>He floated in a featureless dull gray void, without stars,
without worlds. <i>So this is hyperspace</i>, he thought. He
felt tired, and he felt tense. He had reached hyperspace;
that was half the struggle. It remained to see whether
he would come out where he expected to come out, or
whether he would come out at all.</p>

<hr class="tb" />

<p>Four days of boredom. Four days of wishing that the
time would come to leave hyperspace. And then the automatic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>
pilot came to life; the Cavour generator thrummed
and signalled that it had done its work and was shutting
down. Alan held his breath.</p>

<p>He felt the twisting sensation. The <i>Cavour</i> was leaving
hyperdrive.</p>

<p>Stars burst suddenly against the blackness of space;
the viewscreen brightened. Alan shut his eyes a moment
as he readjusted from the sight of the gray void to that
of the starry reaches of normal space. He had returned.</p>

<p>And, below him, making its leisurely journey to
Procyon, was the great golden-hulled bulk of the <i>Valhalla</i>,
gleaming faintly in the black night of space.</p>

<p>He reached for the controls of his ship radio. Minutes
later, he heard a familiar voice&mdash;that of Chip Collier,
the <i>Valhalla's</i> Chief Signal Officer.</p>

<p>"Starship <i>Valhalla</i> picking up. We read you. Who is
calling, please?"</p>

<p>Alan smiled. "This is Alan Donnell, Chip. How goes
everything?"</p>

<p>For a moment nothing came through the phones but
astonished sputtering. Finally Collier said thickly, "<i>Alan?</i>
What sort of gag is this? Where are you?"</p>

<p>"Believe it or not, I'm hovering right above you in a
small ship. Suppose you get my father on the wire, and
we can discuss how I'll go about boarding you."</p>

<p>Fifteen minutes later the <i>Cavour</i> was grappled securely
to the skin of the <i>Valhalla</i> like a flea riding an elephant,
and Alan was climbing in through the main airlock.
It felt good to be aboard the big ship once again, after
all these years.</p>

<p>He shucked his spacesuit and stepped into the corridor.
His father was standing there waiting for him.</p>

<p>"Hello, Dad."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span></p>

<p>Captain Donnell shook his head uncomprehendingly.
"Alan&mdash;how did you&mdash;I mean&mdash;and you're so much older,
too! I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"The Cavour Drive, Dad. I've had plenty of time to
develop it. Nine good long years, back on Earth. And
for you it's only a couple of months since you blasted
off!"</p>

<p>Another figure appeared in the corridor. Steve. He
looked good; the last few months aboard the <i>Valhalla</i>
had done their work. The unhealthy fat he had been
carrying was gone; his eyes were bright and clear, his
shoulders square. It was like looking into a mirror to
see him, Alan thought. It hadn't been this way for a long
time.</p>

<p>"Alan? How did you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>Quickly Alan explained. "So I couldn't reverse time,"
he finished. "I couldn't make you as young as I was&mdash;so
I took the opposite tack and made myself as old as
you were." He looked at his father. "The universe is
going to change, now. Earth won't be so overcrowded.
And it means the end of the Enclave system, and the
Fitzgerald Contraction."</p>

<p>"We'll have to convert the <i>Valhalla</i> to the new drive,"
Captain Donnell said. He looked still stunned by Alan's
sudden appearance. "Otherwise we'll never be able to
meet the competition of the new ships. There will be
new ships, won't there?"</p>

<p>"As soon as I return to Earth and tell them I've been
successful. My men are ready to go into immediate production
of hyperspace vessels. The universe is going to be
full of them even before your ship reaches Procyon!" He
sensed now the full importance of what he had done.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>
"Now that there's practical transportation between stars,
the Galaxy will grow close together&mdash;as close as the Solar
System is now!"</p>

<p>Captain Donnell nodded. "And what are you planning
to do, now that you've dug up the Cavour drive?"</p>

<p>"Me?" Alan took a deep breath. "I've got my own ship,
Dad. And out there are Rigel and Deneb and Fomalhaut
and a lot of other places I want to see." He was speaking
quietly, calmly, but with an undercurrent of inner excitement.
He had dreamed of this day for nine years.</p>

<p>"I'm going to take a grand tour of the universe, Dad.
Everywhere. The hyperdrive can take me. But there's
just one thing&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"What's that?" Steve and the Captain said virtually
in the same moment.</p>

<p>"I've been practically alone for the last nine years. I
don't want to make this trip by myself. I'm looking for
a companion. A fellow explorer."</p>

<p>He stared squarely at Steve.</p>

<p>A slow grin spread over his brother's face. "You devil,"
Steve said. "You've planned this too well. How could
I possibly turn you down?"</p>

<p>"Do you want to?" Alan asked.</p>

<p>Steve chuckled. "Do you think I do?"</p>

<p>Alan felt something twitching at his cuff. He looked
down and saw a bluish-purple ball of fur sitting next to
his shoe, studying him with a wry expression.</p>

<p>"Rat!"</p>

<p>"Of course. Is there room for a third passenger on this
jaunt of yours?"</p>

<p>"Application accepted," Alan said. Warmth spread over
him. The long quest was over. He was back among the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>
people he loved, and the galaxy was opening wide before
him. A sky full of bright stars, growing brighter and closer
by the moment, was beckoning to him.</p>

<p>He saw the Crewmen coming from their posts now; the
rumor had flitted rapidly around the ship, it seemed.
They were all there, Art Kandin and Dan Kelleher and
a gaping Judy Collier and Roger Bond and all the rest
of them.</p>

<p>"You won't be leaving right away, will you?" the
Captain asked. "You can stay with us a while, just to
see if you remember the place?"</p>

<p>"Of course I will, Dad. There's no hurry now. But
I'll have to go back to Earth first and let them know
I've succeeded, so they can start production. And then&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"Deneb first," Steve said. "From there out to Spica,
and Altair&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>Grinning, Alan said, "More worlds are waiting than we
can see in ten lifetimes, Steve. But we'll give it a good
try. We'll get out there."</p>

<p>A multitude of stars thronged the sky. He and Steve
and Rat, together at last&mdash;plunging from star to star,
going everywhere, seeing everything. The little craft
grappled to the <i>Valhalla</i> would be the magic wand that
put the universe in their hands.</p>

<p>In this moment of happiness he frowned an instant,
thinking of a lean, pleasantly ugly man who had befriended
him and who had died nine years ago. This
had been Max Hawkes' ambition, to see the stars. But
Max had never had the chance.</p>

<p><i>We'll do it for you, Max. Steve and I.</i></p>

<p>He looked at Steve. He and his brother had so much to
talk about. They would have to get to know each other
all over again, after the years that had gone by.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span></p>

<p>"You know," Steve said, "When I woke up aboard the
<i>Valhalla</i> and found out you'd shanghaied me, I was
madder than a hornet. I wanted to break you apart. But
you were too far away."</p>

<p>"You've got your chance now," Alan said.</p>

<p>"Yeah. But now I don't want to," Steve laughed.</p>

<p>Alan punched him goodnaturedly. He felt good about
life. He had found Steve again, and he had given the
universe the faster-than-light drive. It didn't take much
more than that to make a man happy.</p>

<p>And now a new and longer quest was beginning for
Alan and his brother. A quest that could have no end,
a quest that would send them searching from world to
world, out among the bright infinity of suns that lay
waiting for them.</p>
</html>