A Gun for Dinosaur and Other Imaginative Tales

Impractical Joke

All right, honey, so I'm a beast and a bounder. But I'm not going back to Jack's party and I won't apologize. I'm going to take you home and go home too.

Sure, I know it was only a joke. But, darling, if we're going to get married, you've got to learn that I won't take practical jokes. Big ones or little ones; now or any time in the future.

Call me a stuffed shirt or say I have no sense of humor; it won't change me. And if you've got any ideas of reforming me after we're married, you'd better drop them.

Why? Oh, I never did like them much, and after what happened on Suomi ...

Haven't I told you, ever?

... Well, this was my first expedition. I'd just graduated with a major in journalism. This was just after the Raskolnikov drive made it possible for private persons to send out interstellar expeditions and also get them back in the same generation. I'd studied biology under Otis May and got a letter from him asking me to drop in.

You don't know him, do you? He's short and bald, and fifteen years ago he was very strong and muscular. He's full of energy and bustle; pleasant enough, but strait-laced. His idea of an evening's fun is to go to the Y.M.C.A. for a workout on the parallel bars.

With him were two others. One was a tall, pale, round-shouldered fellow with a profile like that of a polar-bear: a big pointed nose sticking out forward and no chin or forehead to speak of; sandy hair and bulging blue eyes. I got the impression of a frail man. May said:

"Mr. Fish, this is Roy Laskaris. Used to be a student of mine. Roy, Mr. Win thro p Fish."

The nose stuck out a big-knobby hand and grabbed mine in a grip that practically disjointed it. He leaned forward and shouted, spraying me with saliva: "Glad to know you, Roy! You just come along with us, we'll show the gaw damn world how to explore! Laskaris is Greek, ain't it?"

"Uh — yes," I said.

"Swell! Great minds, great heroes, great businessmen, all Greeks! A Greek can lick three Armenians and five Jews on a trade! Heh-heh-heh! We'll show 'em, Roy old boy old boy!"

Fish gave a loud braying laugh and broke the remaining bones in my hand with a final squeeze. May had spoken as if I ought to have known who he was. Evidently, he was not so frail as he looked; quite the contrary. His speech was upper-class New York City with a pseudo-British pronunciation grafted on it, but he didn't care anything about grammar. It gave a queer effect. I didn't much like his starting right off with a crack about the sharpness of my ancestors. After all they'd been in this country four generations, so I was no more "Greek" than Theodore Roosevelt was Dutch.

"And this is Dr. Edward Sander," May went on. He referred to the third man: a short middle-aged fellow with a square face, a gray mustache, and longish gray hair. Dr. Sander shook hands in a quiet mousy way and murmured something conventional.

We sat down with the others looking at me. May said: "Roy, I asked you here to offer a job on an interstellar expedition that Mr. Fish is financing."

So that explained that. I was awfully surprised. Here was I, a kid just out of college without even a job, though I was dickering with the Record for one. I said:

"That's wonderful, Professor May, but what sort of job? I don't know what I could do on such an expedition. I'm no scientist."

"Secretary," said May. "Keep records, journals, and so on. Write the official newspaper stories for release on return. Anything else that comes up. Expedition like this, everybody has to double in brass with a dozen jobs. Ship's too small to hold all the specialists we could use."

"How did you happen to pick me?" I asked.

I didn't want to protest my unworthiness too hard, but I didn't want to get in on false pretences and disappoint them. I was also curious, being kind of puny, not much of a mixer, and no outdoorsman at that time.

"Had my eye on you," said May. "Need people with no close relatives, for one thing. Time-lag, you know. Mustn't mind going away for years. Also we need them young, so they're adaptable and their broken bones heal fast."

"Where's it to?" I asked.

"Keid A Two, or Omicron Two Eridani A Two," he said. "Sixteen light-years. With the Raskolnikov drive, takes a year and a half, objective time, to get there, though it'll seem like nothing at all to you. One previous expedition there, Jap. Only preliminary recon; superficial. We hope to make a thorough ecological study."

"What are the — ah — terms?" I said.

I knew leaders of expeditions are always trying to save money by getting people to work for them free. I didn't know if I wanted to pop off for years for nothing but board and maintenance.

May looked at Fish, who seemed to have gone into a trance. Fish woke up and said: "Huh? Whazzat?"

"He wants to know about salary," said May.

"Oh. Don't worry, old boy old boy," shouted Fish. "I'll pay you. Same as an instructor gets here at the University. I don't believe in hiring people for nothing on these parties. If you don't pay 'em, you haven't got any hold on 'em. They're liable to walk out over some gaw damn silly little argument. Well, whaddaya say, old fruit? Are you with us?"

"Well — may I have time to think it over?" I said.

May began: "Don't see why not —"but Fish interrupted.

"Naw, you can't," he said, pronouncing "can't" with an "ah."

"Make up your mind now, old crumb. An explorer's gotta be a man of decision, what? So that's one way of screening out the right kind of people, huh? What'll it be, Roy old boy?" And then came that asinine laugh.

"Okay," I said. "I'll come."

Fish jumped up and came around. I thought he meant to attack me, but all he did was wring my poor limp hand again and pound my back.

"That's the kind of guy I like," he said. "Makes up his mind. Like that other Greek hero, Ulysses? Yah, I think I'll call you Ulysses, huh? Heh-heh-heh."

I must have been awfully stupid, because it never occurred to me that Winthrop Fish was going on this expedition. When I thought about it later, I saw he'd implied it clearly enough. For one thing, he was in his thirties, which then seemed practically senile to me. For another, I assumed that millionaires who financed expeditions stayed at home, since they'd be of little use on other planets and would only take up space better given to scientists. If somebody offered me a place on an expedition now with a man like Fish I'd say no, because I know how one eccentric can foul things up.

When May called a meeting of all the members of the expedition for briefing, there were Fish and his friend Sander. The first people May introduced to the rest by their official titles were Fish as "hunter" and Sander as physician. He, May, was the leader. There were five other scientists besides May: three other biologists, a geologist, and a meteorologist. Then there were the pilot, the co-pilot, and four engineers.

The pilot was Harry Constant, a big, square-jawed, heavy-set fellow with curly hair and a jolly grin. He spoke up:

"Say, Professor, is this all the people on this expedish?"

"Yes," said May.

"No dames?" said Constant.

May said: "No. I explained that I chose only single men —"

Constant interrupted: "Yeah, sure, but couldn't you have picked a lady scientist? After six months on Suomi even one of those would look good."

The co-pilot, a little guy named Philip O'Sullivan, laughed at this, but May looked annoyed and said: "Mr. Constant, I know something about organizing expeditions. Mixing sexes, just a way of asking for trouble. We shall have enough difficulties without bringing on those caused by human weakness."

"You're gaw damn right," spouted Winthrop Fish.

"Women are verily a byword and a hissing, as the good book saith. Never trust a woman."

At our last meal before we got to Suomi — that is, Keid A II — May briefed us on the planet, though we knew a lot of it already. He said:

"The first two weeks will be the hardest, setting things up. Work round the clock, cutting trees, clearing a site, unloading the ship, adjusting apparatus. Everybody pitches in. Once we're set up, we shall be pretty safe in spite of mud and bugs. Even climate, no storms or earthquakes, all animals pretty slow even if some are venomous. One real danger — if the Japs were right — naupredas."

"What's that, Professor?" said Constant.

"Naupreda yamamotonis. One of the Megamyzidae. Looks like an overgrown lamprey, up to twenty feet long. Not dangerous individually, but social. Forms great spherical colonies in swamps, thousands of naupredas all tangled up together in their own slime."

"You mean it's like a snake?" said Winthrop Fish.

"Rather. Rudimentary limbs, snakelike locomotion. Why?"

"Oh, my God! I'm deathly afraid of snakes," said Fish.

"Funny time to find that out," said May. "On your way to a planet where most of the larger animals are apodal or at least serpentiform."

"I suppose so. Other wild animals I don't give a gaw damn for. I'll walk right up to a lion and spit in his eye. But snakes -ugh!"

"You can stay in your tent when they're around," said May. "To go on: Naupredas form these colonies, breed, break out of the membrane around the colony, start out in a column. Great writhing mass; swim, crawl, eat everything in path. Nothing to do but run, hoping they won't corner you. No good shooting; too many. Got a flame-thrower and a box of phosphorus grenades. If you kill enough at the head of the column, the rest will turn. Instincts: live naupredas exude a smell that attracts others of their kind; dead ones a smell they avoid. Complex behavior-pattern developed out of a few simple chemical stimuli, as with army-ants. Sometimes the column accidentally joins itself to form a closed figure, and the naupredas march around the course until they die of exhaustion ..."

Suomi isn't the official name of Keid A II. There was a Finn on this Japanese expedition who thought the planet ought to be called that, not because it's the Finnish name for Finland, but because a name meaning "marshland" seemed appropriate. A swampier planet I've never heard of. It hasn't much surface water, but a very low relief, with neither high mountains nor deep oceanic basins. So, what water there is is scattered over its surface in millions of ponds, lakes, and swamps, with a lot of little seas for them to drain into.

The dry surfaces — if you can call any place on Suomi dry — were covered with a thick growth that looked like the plants that grew on earth back in the coal age: like mosses and horsetails and ferns grown to tree size. Most of these plants are too soft and pulpy to be of any use to an expedition, and most are poisonous for a man to eat. It's an awfully monotonous flora; no flowers or broadleafed plants.

The animals are something like earthly amphibia, mostly eel-shaped, though they come in all shapes and sizes, with and without legs. Imagine a world swarming with frogs, tailed frogs, newts, congo eels, hellbenders, and things like that, in all sizes from a pinhead up to fifty feet long. Many have venomous bites. There are only a few small high spots you could really call dry on the whole planet, and those are polar. Therefore, no higher form of life has evolved a life-cycle with breeding out of water, since there's no large area for such a species to expand into.

We set up camp on the highest land we could find in our area. Behind us was a swamp so full of big rushlike plants, a hundred feet high, that it was almost impossible to enter it. In front was a little isthmus between two lakes, with more swamp and ponds beyond it. Beyond these lay the Beebe River.

The temperature's comfortable enough in the equatorial regions, where we were, but you have to adjust to a day of seventeen hours instead of twenty-four. The oxygen is high enough to breathe — sixteen per cent — but the carbon dioxide is too high at five and a half. You can stand it for a while, though it makes you pant, but several hours of it will poison you with acute acidosis. Hence, outside your tent, you have to wear a respiration-hood, a thing of thin transparent plastic with a chemical intake-filter to absorb excess CO₂. It's not so bad as a regular oxygen mask, which pinches the bridge of your nose, but it's bother enough. You also spend your life in high rubber boots because of the mud.

So, picture our little camp with its air-tight tents, its chemical stove (since the native plants won't burn in that damp low-oxygen atmosphere) and the area where the scientists sorted and cleaned their specimens — the whole place swimming in slimy mud. Beyond, in all directions, a monotonous dark-green Wall of vegetation, things like giant rushes and asparagus spears without any real leaves.

And noise! Day and night, the animals kept up an awful racket of croaking, grunting, cheeping, bellowing, and burping. Mating calls, I suppose. If you looked carefully, you could sometimes see one of the grunters, usually nothing but a dark, shiny blob in the water.

The arthropods are like our insects, except that most are big two-winged things with only four legs. They look a little like flying spiders, and they get into everything. Some of them bite, too. They probably die of indigestion afterwards, but that doesn't help the Earthman.

Then, overhead is this hazy atmosphere that makes Keid look like an orange blob when you can see it. Mostly it's overcast, with a wind that blows from the northeast day and night, fifteen to twenty miles an hour. Once in a while a cloud drops a shower, but there are no really violent storms.

I soon learned that the expedition's secretary and youngest member, that is to say Roy Laskaris, was also the errand boy and handyman. We worked like fiends, sloshing around with a couple of pounds of mud on our boots; scrape it off, and it was back in a few minutes.

A couple of the biggest animals, the size of a crocodile, wandered into the camp and had to be shot to keep them from eating us with those triangular mouths that are standard on Suomian vertebrates. After that, a little electrified fence, a foot high, kept out all vertebrates big enough to be dangerous.

Winthrop Fish pitched in and worked like a beaver at the chores of the camp. In fact, he did more than I. Despite his pale unhealthy look, he was strong as a bull, while I was kind of skinny and under-muscled, though I got pretty well hardened by the time I'd been on three expeditions.

The work tapered off after the twelfth day, when we got the automatic apparatus set up. After that, I was kept busy by the scientists, who dumped mountains of records on me for typing and filing: sheets of illegible notes, index cards, slides, labels, and reports.

There was still a lot of dirty work: cooking, cleaning up, burying specimens that had decayed beyond use, and so on. May tried to make the pilots and engineers responsible for this, but they all proved lazy or fumble-fingered. In the end Fish and I did most of this work. Fish tried hard to conquer his ophidiophobia and got so he could pick up a dead legless amphibian and bury it, though at first it made him pale and trembly to do so. Sander helped the bacteriologist.

The pilots and engineers, all six, drew apart from the rest of the expedition. Constant was the natural leader of that group, being the biggest and most aggressive. Their loafing didn't make for good feelings. One evening at dinner in the main tent, May as usual asked for everybody's opinion. Winthrop Fish burst out:

"Look here, Professor, me and Roy have been doing all the gaw damn chores while the crew sit on their fat duffs playing penny-ante and making cracks at us. I don't mind hard work, but things ought to be shared more — more fairly, huh? I know you're the boss, but if I'm furnishing the dough I oughtn't to do all the dirty work." He was waving his arms and spraying by the time he finished.

The crew all started talking at once, each bragging about some chore he'd done a couple of days before. Harry Constant yawned and scratched his scalp and said:

"Sure, we've been working. He just don't know what's going on. He walks around muttering to himself —"

Then little Doc Sander, who was usually so quiet you never noticed him, broke in. He said: "That's enough, Harry!"

"Why?" said Constant, looking innocent.

"Well — uh," said Sander.

"We'll settle this now," said May. "No gambling — or any game-playing — during working hours."

The crew groaned. Constant said: "Aw, hell! This is the biggest bore I've been on. No dames, no liquor, can't smoke because of using up the atmosphere-filters, and now we can't even play cards. My God! What a bluenose you turned out to be!" He got up and pulled his hood over his head. "Let's go out and listen to the froggies croak, guys. Nothing else to do."

The trouble simmered down for a while. The crew did work harder, so Winthrop Fish and I got ahead of our work and found ourselves with nothing to do until the scientists piled up some more specimens. Fish said to me at breakfast:

"Roy old boy, let's go out for a little hunt today, whaddaya say whaddaya say? I haven't fired a gaw damn shot since we been here. Let's take a shotgun for specimens and a rifle in case we run into those naupredas. Whaddaya say, huh?" He pounded me on the back.

"You two be careful. Liable to get lost," said May. "Here's a sketch map, and don't get out of sight of the flag."

We'd put up a telescoping aluminum flagpole with a big American flag on top, not just for patriotism but to give a landmark. In that flat landscape you could see it from quite a distance, provided you found a tree you could climb without its collapsing under you and dropping you into a bog.

Fish said: "Say, Professor, how about giving us a couple of those phosphorus bombs in case we meet naupredas? Whaddaya say, huh?"

"No," said May. "You can run away from them if you do meet them. Saving the grenades in case a column heads toward camp."

So Fish and I took our guns and started out with our plastic hoods over our heads and big collecting bags on our backs. I soon knew why we didn't have to worry about getting out of sight of the flag. In the first place, when you sink up to your calves in mud, you don't walk very fast. In the second, the ground was so cut up with ponds that you had to walk three times the straight-line distance to get anywhere. And the fact that the gravity is about three per cent less than ours doesn't help much.

We followed the isthmus in front of the camp and went on to a big swamp beyond it. This swamp was part of the Beebe River, into which the lakes drained. But the Beebe is so sluggish and spreads out into so many arms and bays and swamps that you can't tell which way it's flowing without a map.

Finally, that short day fools you, even after you should have gotten used to it. We had to hurry home with our bags only half full so as not to be nighted in the swamps.

Aside from collecting some small specimens with the shotgun, there wasn't anything special about that little hunt. Still, I got a good look into Winthrop Fish's character. He talked a lot, but, since we both wore hoods, he couldn't spray me with spit. I learned that, though he never finished secondary school, he was well-read, especially in the literature of the outdoors, hunting, and natural history.

The trouble was, he couldn't do anything with all the many facts he'd picked up. Instead of reasons or principles, his mind was stuffed with childish prejudices, cliches, and cant phrases. You know the sort of thing: All women are predatory and treacherous; all Greeks (meaning me) are sharp bargainers; all politicians are crooks; and so on. He really believed all these things, and it did no good to argue. For instance, every time we saw an animal that might be a carnivore he'd shoot it, whether we already had specimens or not. He called it ridding the country of predators to protect the game, though the planet lacked anything we'd call game.

"I've always shot every gaw damn lousy predator and I'll always shoot every gaw damn lousy predator!" he shouted, waving his arms. "Crows, hawks, wildcats, everything like that. I kill 'em all!"

I'd picked up a smattering of ecology from the scientists and tried to argue about the place of carnivores in a well-balanced fauna. Fish only yelled louder:

"I'll kill 'em all! They're cruel and destructive! The trouble with you, Roy old boy old boy, is you're too soft-hearted for this kind of work." He punched me in a joshing way, nearly breaking my arm, and went on: "You've never been in God's great outdoors like I have! Hunting and fishing, that's the sport for a real man! The strenuous life! Lemme tell you about the time ..."

After he'd rambled on about some pointless hunting anecdote he said: "And you ought to see some of my trophies at home! I've got a house, you know, in Westchester County. Big barn of a place I rattle around in, all alone except for the cook and the butler and the gardener and the maid. Ever since my wife ran off with the kid ..."

He stopped talking to push a handkerchief up under the edge of his hood and wipe away the tears.

"Never trust a woman, old crumb!" he said. "They're all fickle and treacherous, like the good book says! I did once, and look what happened to me. If my lawyer hadn't dug up evidence, why, she'd have skinned me to the bone, old fruit; absolutely to the bone.

"But looky here, after we get back to earth, you gotta come see me. I ain't got many real friends, you know, in spite of the twenty-room house. I'll show you my heads, and that record salmon — well, anyway — what was I talking about? Oh, yah, I got a swimming pool too. If you haven't got a car of your own you can use one of mine. Whaddaya say, huh? Say you'll come see me, Roy! I'm alone so gaw damn much!"

He was kneading my arm with those steel fingers, and I saw he was really pleading. I said: "Sure, Winthrop, I'll be glad to come." I said it with mental reservations. I don't think he had homosexual tendencies, but you have to watch out whom you get involved with.

He slapped me on the back and nearly knocked me on my face in the mud. "I knew you would!" he yelled. "We'll have a real swell time, huh? Now let's knock off some of these gaw damn predators!"

I got the impression of a man whose personality had stopped growing at nine or ten, but who was still basically a kindly, well-meaning, lonely fellow for all his oddities. I asked:

"Winthrop, why did Doc Sander shush Harry Constant when he remarked about your habit of talking to yourself the other day?"

He giggled and looked at me with a funny expression, like a small child trying to be crafty. "Well, uh," he said, "I ain't supposed to talk about that. But since you're gonna be one of my few real friends, Roy old boy, I'll say in confidence I've been pretty sick in recent years. Yah, quite sick. And good old Doc doesn't want my nerves upset,. on account it's liable to bring on a relapse."

Well, darling, in all my three expeditions I never felt purer horror than I did then. Here was I, in the middle of millions of square miles of mud and swamp, shut in by these, monotonous dark-green tree-mosses nodding their heads in that monotonous northeast wind, listening to the monotonous grunting and chirping of a million slimy amphibians. Now in addition I found I was alone with a man who'd been "sick," only I suspected what kind of sickness it was. If the naupredas didn't swarm over us in a slimy mass and devour us, Winthrop Fish would do something awful to wreck the expedition. And what could one do to the expedition's financial backer?

At the same time, I couldn't help liking the fellow. I'd always taken a dim view of loonies. But Winthrop Fish was like a child or a dog that's always doing something wrong and then slobbering over you and wondering why you're angry.

I tried to pump him further about his illness. But he clammed up on that subject and talked about hunting and fishing until we got back.

We gave the scientists our specimens and headed for our tents to lie down for a few minutes before dinner. I'd just gotten my second boot off when I heard the most god-awful shriek. I looked out to see Winthrop Fish bounding out of his tent, not stopping to fasten the flap to keep the air inside conditioned, or even to pull his hood over his head. He was yelling his fool head off:

"It's got me! It's after me! Help! Get a gun!" Everybody jumped up. Fish ran the length of the camp, tripped over a tent peg and fell, got up covered with mud, and ran off in another direction. This time he tripped over the electrified fence, broke one of the wires, and got a shock. He got up screeching like a banshee and started off on another run. He was hollering and giggling and crying all at once. This time he made for the equipment tent. Doc Sander called: "Stop him, somebody!" I took a couple of steps and sank into the mud in my socks. While I hesitated, Fish popped into the equipment tent, came out with the rifle we'd been carrying, and blazed away at his and Sander's tent.

He got two shots off, right in the middle of that crowded little camp, when Maier the zoologist brought him down with a football tackle and Radek the geologist twisted the gun out of his hands. It took four men to hold him down, and it was just luck he hadn't killed anybody.

All this time instead of helping, Harry Constant and Phil O'Sullivan were staggering around, laughing like crazy men and slapping each other on the back. O'Sullivan was a nice little man, but he worshipped Constant and did anything he suggested.

Sander came running with his hypodermic and pushed through the crowd around Fish. Presently Jake Radek ran to the Fish-Sander tent, went in, and came out dragging a dead ten-foot ptyssus. That's Ptyssus kuritae, an eel-like creature that climbs trees and drops on passers-by like an anaconda. Fish had found the thing coiled up on his cot in a lifelike attitude, with its three jaws propped open to show the fangs. In the dim light in his tent, he almost sat on it before he noticed it. His horror of snakes did the rest.

We had to patch the bullet holes before the tent was usable. Winthrop Fish went in to lie down. When Sander came out he said:

"He'll sleep till tomorrow. I want to talk to all of you at dinner."

When I had served dinner (it being my turn) Sander looked around the tent and said: "I take it you had something to do with this, Harry?"

"No, sir, not a thing," said Constant with a grin. I don't think anybody believed him. Sander said:

"Well, whoever played that joke had better not do it again. Winthrop is a person of very precarious health. One more joke like that might have unpredictable results."

"Such as?" said Constant.

"Death, maybe," said Sander.

"What do you mean, Doc?" said Harry. "That was only a harmless little joke. A man's got to do something to keep from being bored to death."

"Not to Winthrop Fish, it wasn't harmless," said Sander.

May spoke up: "Guess you'd better tell the whole story, Ed. Only way to make these jokers know what they're doing."

Sander said: "Good lord, I couldn't do that! It would be a professional indiscretion —"

"Ed!" said May. "You tell them! Harry's a pretty good pilot, but on any subject outside of space flight he hasn't got one brain-cell to rub against the next. Got to spell it out."

"But that would be unethical," bleated Sander, "and would make me liable —"

"As leader I order you," said May. "Emergency. I'll take responsibility."

They argued some more, but Sander gave in. Otis May can be a very compelling guy. So Sander, looking unhappy, told us the tale:

"Winthrop Fish" (he said) "inherited one of the big American fortunes. His mother wisely put it in a trust fund so he can't waste it, though he's not really extravant considering his opportunities. His father died several years ago in Olympia Sanitarium, near White Plains. Involutional melancholia, resulting in suicide.

"Winthrop also showed a disturbed personality from an early age. He was a borderline schizophrenic. That means he might go along for decades without doing any harm, but under heavy stress he'd have a schizoid break. Rich schizophrenics sometimes live out their lives without a single break, because their money cushions them against stresses."

Constant said: "You mean you're that kind of doctor?"

"I'm a psychiatrist, if that's what you mean," said Sander.

"But you've been doctoring us like a regular — you know —"said Constant.

Sander said: "A psychiatrist has to be an M.D. first. Though he never got past the tenth grade, Winthrop did fairly well until he married in his late twenties. He married a prostitute — a real hard-boiled professional, with no heart of gold such as they sometimes have in fiction. She was out to get some of the Fish millions by any feasible method. She bore him one child and then the ménage began to deteriorate. She nagged him until he buried himself in books. She screeched at him day and night. I don't know if she was trying to drive him over the edge, at least on the conscious level, but that was the effect. He began to break; he got violent; she fled the house with the child. They had one of those complex and scandalous litigations. The tabloids had a saturnalia. In the end, they were divorced. She got a modest settlement, and he landed in Olympia.

"He was showing hebephrenic symptoms —"

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"It's the form of schizophrenia that results in silly, witless behavior. You know, the comical lunatic who's always laughing inopportunely. There were also unsystematized delusions.

"Now, hebephrenia has always had a poor prognosis. It quickly becomes aggravated and results in complete withdrawal from reality and disorganization of the personality. They end up with forced feeding, inability to control excretory functions, etcetera. At Olympia, however, we'd been working on a new attack, mostly chemico-therapeutic. We gave it to Winthrop, and soon his pattern ceased deteriorating and began to re-integrate. After a year, he seemed almost as competent as before the break, so we let him out of

Olympia and put him back in his house. His mother had died, and he therefore suffered from solitude, but otherwise he managed.

"He'd long wished to back an interstellar expedition. He could well afford it, and one of the components of his stress is a feeling of worthlessness, because neither he nor his father had been able to complete an education or work at a regular job. Therefore I thought it would be a valuable therapy to let him do it, and would advance the cause of science —"

Constant interrupted: "You're telling me, Doc, that you'd send a looney on a dangerous expedition like this, just because you head-shrinkers think it might get him over some psychosis?"

"Well, that's one way to put it, but —"

"And you call Fish nuts!" Constant shouted. "Why, damn your eyes, if you aren't the biggest looney of all — risking our lives because of some fool psychiatric theory —"

May hollered: "That'll do from you, Harry. You're not making the policy of this expedition." Then everybody yelled at once.

May shouted the rest down and said: "Don't care who thinks who is nuts. I'm telling you what you shall do. Want to complain about it, wait till we get back to earth. Meanwhile, no more pranks, jokes, jests, japes, or any of that nonsense. On a strange planet like this, a practical joke is the most impractical thing you can do. You saw that this afternoon. I mean you too, Harry. Understand me?"

Constant mumbled an agreement, and we broke up.

Things might have simmered down if Constant had had the sense to keep his mouth shut, but then he'd have been somebody else. Winthrop Fish was up late next morning, looking much the same but quieter. One of the crewmen had fried the bacon and went around the table in the main tent forking it out. Constant finished breakfast when Fish was just starting.

Constant stood up, slapped his big belly, and said: "Don't give him that long piece, Walter; he'll think it's a snake and throw a fit." Then he laughed and went out.

Fish sat for three seconds as if he'd been turned to stone. Then he tore out of the tent after Constant. I heard him scream: "So it was you, you bastard!" and then the sound of fists.

We all rushed out, pulling our hoods on. There was Harry Constant lying in the mud with his face bloody, and Winthrop Fish standing over him shouting: "Get up, you gaw damn swine!"

Fish's knuckles were bloody, too. Constant outweighed Fish by twenty or thirty pounds and was younger, but Fish was too fast for him when he got stirred up.

Constant groaned and sat up. One punch had flattened his nose and another had cut his lip. He stuck a hand inside his hood and felt around in his mouth. Then he mumbled:

"By God, you broke one of my teeth! I'll kill you for that!"

He started to get up, but everybody grabbed the two of them and pulled them apart. May said:

"If you don't call it off, as leader I'll have you both tied up. Now cool down. Apologize, both of you: one for the joke and one for the hits!"

There was a lot of growling of threats and insults, but in time they calmed down and even shook hands. Sander took Constant into the medical tent to fix his face.

A few hours later I was surprised to see Fish and Constant in what looked like friendly conversation. Fish said:

"Gee, Harry, I wouldn't have busted your tooth for anything. I only meant to give you a couple of little lumps."

"Guess you don't know your own strength," said Constant.

"Yah, that's right. Tell you what. As soon as we get back, you go to the best dentist in New York to have bridgework put in, and charge it to me. Whaddaya say, huh? Please, promise you will."

I didn't catch Constant's reply, but then he spoke in a normal voice while Fish always either shouted or talked in a conspiratorial whisper. Constant, however, seemed to be grinning through his bandages.

For a couple of days, the scientists got ahead of me, so I was too busy with records to keep track of Winthrop Fish. I did notice that Harry Constant seemed more bored and restless than usual, getting in the scientists' hair and asking silly questions.

One morning I saw Harry Constant, Winthrop Fish, and Phil O'Sullivan all going out together with a rifle and a shotgun, much as Fish and I had gone out a few days before. I went about my business until a couple of hours later, when these three appeared running madly towards the camp.

All I know about this collecting-trip is from the stories of those who were on it, mostly the story of Phil O'Sullivan.

It seems Constant got O'Sullivan aside that morning and suggested a wonderful joke on Fish. O'Sullivan was dubious, in the light of Sander's revelations and May's orders, but Constant could talk him into anything. I don't know how much this stunt was motivated by Constant's broad sense of humor — sadistic sense of humor, I should say — and how much by the wish for revenge.

The first step was to steal one of the phosphorus grenades from their box in the equipment tent. Of course May had said those were to be saved for emergencies, but a little thing like that never stopped Harry Constant.

They'd follow the isthmus between the two lakes in front of the camp and go on to the nearest branch of the Beebe. There, there was a kind of dome of mud that some of the little amphibians had built as a communal nest. Constant would point that out as a colony of the deadly naupredas. Then he'd throw the grenade at it and yell:

"Run for your lives! They're swarming out! They're headed this way like a million slimy snakes!"

Fish would fall into a panic and race back to camp yelling the alarm, while the other two followed at their leisure and laughed themselves sick.

Up to the point of throwing the grenade, everything worked out. What the pilots hadn't noticed was that about five yards from the mud dome was a real colony of naupredas, the spherical membrane that forms around the colony just showing above the water like the back of a whale.

Constant threw his bomb and yelled: "Run for your lives! They're swarming — by God, they are swarming! This is no joke!"

The grenade went off with a big burst of streamers of white smoke. A lot of particles of phosphorus struck the membrane, burned through it instantly, and aroused the naupredas, which were probably getting ready to burst their bag and set out on a march anyway. In ten seconds the swamp was alive with thousands of wriggling naupredas, from babies a couple of feet long up to oldsters of fifteen or twenty feet, all writhing along and opening and closing those three-cornered mouths.

The other animals instantly changed the tune of their grunting and croaking and squeaking, and the swamp came alive with slimy wrigglers and crawlers and hoppers, all getting away as fast as they could.

The three men took one look and ran. On hard level ground, a column of naupredas would be easy to run from, as they don't go faster than a fast walk. But on Suomi, where you sink up to your knees every few steps, or fall in a hole full of water, or have to climb over or squirm under fallen trunks, and push through clumps of giant reeds, it's something else.

When they were halfway to camp, O'Sullivan, being last, looked back and saw that the ribbon of wrigglers, three or four yards wide, was gaining. He dropped the shotgun to make more speed. Constant was number one with Fish close behind him.

Then Fish, who had the rifle, stopped and waved O'Sullivan past him. He panted: "Gwan — I'll shoot — rouse camp ..."

O'Sullivan was too terrified to argue. Fish began shooting at the leading naupredas as fast as he could work the bolt. It didn't bother the naupredas, which are such a low form of life that you have to be awfully lucky to kill one with a rifle shot. But the shooting roused the camp.

Everybody dropped what he was doing. The croaking and chirping of the animals seemed louder than usual. We were all looking at the woods beyond the isthmus when Constant and O'Sullivan ran out. As they got closer they waved their arms and shouted but were too short of breath to say anything we could understand.

They were halfway across the isthmus when Fish appeared. He'd dropped the rifle when he'd emptied the magazine and now was gaining on the others fast, so they reached the camp only a few jumps ahead of him. I never saw a man run so strongly, especially through mud in heavy boots.

Constant went right through the camp. He shouted something and kept on towards the ship. O'Sullivan stopped long enough to say to May: "Naupredas coming — come to the ship — lock ourselves in ..." Then he ran on too.

We looked at one another. If this were another of Constant's jokes we didn't want to be taken in. But, if naupredas were on the way, we didn't want to abandon the camp to them if we could help it. Even if we got to the ship, they'd swarm over everything and eat our specimens, and what they didn't break or upset they'd cover with slime. The electrified fence wouldn't stop a swarm like that.

Before we could make up our minds — not more than a couple of seconds, really — Fish ran into the camp. This time he jumped over the electrified fence. He ran to the equipment tent, skidded on the mud, and came out with his arms full of the carton of phosphorus grenades.

We weren't looking at him because a swarm of minor slimy things had come out of the woods. Some plunged into the lakes while others scuttled and hopped along the isthmus towards us. Behind them came the column of naupredas, wriggling along like some horrible living carpet. Whenever a naupreda caught one of the little wigglers it would halt to gulp it down while the others flowed .over and past it. The column followed the isthmus towards the camp.

The camp burst into action. All the scientists ran for the specimens and instruments they most valued. The crewmen lit out for the ship. May and Sander rushed into the equipment tent and lugged out the flame thrower.

Meantime Fish, leaping over the fence again, ran back to the isthmus, yelling: "Gaw damn sissies! I'll show 'em!"

He got to where it narrowed, so the naupredas couldn't get past him unless they took to the water; In their marching stage they prefer land. May, lugging one end of the flame thrower, yelled:

"Winthrop! Come back! You'll be killed! You're in our way!"

For May couldn't spray jellied gasoline from the flame thrower with Fish right between him and the column. Fish gave no sign of hearing. Instead, he set down the carton and picked up a grenade. He threw it at the naupredas, about thirty feet away. The little hoppers and crawlers scuttled past his legs.

The grenade didn't go off. He threw another, which didn't go off either. May groaned: "He's not pulling the pins!"

And so he wasn't, because May had never shown us how to

work the grenades. He hadn't shown us for fear Fish would start experimenting. Some of us had an idea how these bombs worked without having to be told, but not Winthrop Fish.

When his second bomb failed to explode, I guess he knew something was wrong. While the naupredas swarmed nearer, he picked up another grenade and turned it over. He had his back to us so nobody got a clear view. MacAuliffe, the meteorologist, was off to one side. He says he saw Fish pull the pin from the grenade, fumble with the bomb, and drop it into the box at his feet.

Some thought he might have done it on purpose, as the naupredas were so close that a phosphorus burst on the head of the column would have gotten Fish too. But I think he was just being his usual disorganized self.

There was a terrific explosion, not all at once, but taking maybe half a second, br-r-r-oomp!, like that. The whole isthmus and Winthrop Fish disappeared in a huge white cloud of phosphorus trails. Some of the burning phosphorus fell inside our perimeter, though nobody was hit.

The wind carried the cloud away, and the sputter of burning particles of phosphorus that covered the ground from the camp to the other end of the isthmus died down. The far end of the isthmus was covered with burned naupredas, some writhing and others dead. At the edge of the woods, where the rest of the column was still streaming out, the leaders halted at the smell, so they piled up in a great writhing mass. Then the column turned and streamed off along the far shore of one of the lakes.

We never did need the flame thrower. The naupredas kept on away from the camp, and we never saw that swarm again.

There was hardly enough left of Winthrop Fish to bury. Sander said that, while a phosphorus burn is one of the most painful injuries, Fish probably didn't have time to know he was hurt.

Constant and O'Sullivan came down the ship's ladder and back to camp. To give them credit, they at least acted ashamed. They'd run, while the poor nitwit they'd been baiting died like a hero. I'm sure we all thought somebody ought to beat the tar out of them, or at least out of Constant. But, as he was the biggest and strongest man in the party, nobody did.

For that matter, I think some of us wouldn't have minded a little quiet murder. But, without the pilots, how could we get back to earth? We couldn't even fire them when we got home, as their contracts ended then anyway, though the official reports of the expedition did ruin their careers as space pilots.

As Kurt Maier remarked in Constant's hearing: "Even if he was a looney, I likedhim. Better than some saner people."

And Radek added: "But can a man be sane who plays a joke on a psychotic, after he's been warned?"

Anyway, darling, that's why I won't take a practical joke. Ever. You see, they're not really practical at all.

In-Group

Ali Moyang was leading his party, gun ready, when he saw the bundle of clothes lying on the trail ahead. He held up a hand in warning and trotted forward until he stood over the bundle.

The bundle resolved itself into a man lying unconscious but still breathing in a rattling and irregular way. The man was nearly a head taller than Ali Moyang's stocky frame. He was unarmed, though a small canvas knapsack lay beside him. He obviously belonged to the white race, with a lobster-red skin, graying red hair, a close-cut red mustache, and a stubble of red whiskers covering his large red face. He bore the sagging look of a man who had been on the fat side but who had worked most of the fat off in a crucial struggle that had left him exhausted almost to death.

Ali thought, the fellow couldn't have been there long or he would have been stepped on by an uyedna or eaten by a ftom or otherwise maltreated by the unfriendly fauna of the planet Kterem, or 61 Cygni A VI.

The treasure hunter shook the recumbent man by the shoulder until the big body rolled over on to its back. Then Moyang unscrewed his canteen and dribbled a little water into the half-open mouth. The red man coughed, sputtered, and opened bleary blue eyes.

"Qui etes ..." he croaked, then changed to Anglo-Ter-ran: "Who are you?"

Moyang's slanting black eyes narrowed still further. "Suppose you tell me who you are first."

"My name is Bertin. Charles Bertin."

"What?" Moyang could not quite catch the man's mumble. "Professor Charles Bertin, of the University of Liege. Does that satisfy you?"

"How did you get here?"

"My — 'copter crashed. May I have — some more water?"

Moyang extended the canteen, asking: "What were you doing flying around the Jiltak region? You know you're stuck if you're forced down."

"I was — looking over the site of Zhovacim."

At the sound of the name of the ruined city, Moyang's hand jerked so that he splashed a little of the water into Ber-tin's face. Behind him, on the trail, his partners Ma and Peterson exchanged glances, while the four baggage-bearing Kteremians showed no legible expression on their unhuman faces.

"What were you going to do there?" said Moyang. "Scientific work."

"What kind?"

"Archeological stuff. You know, digging."

"Unh," said Moyang, staring at Bertin in honest perplexity. While he did not wish to leave the fellow to die on the trail, to have some scientific crackpot horning in on his, Moyang's, enterprise at this stage was about the most inconvenient thing that could have happened. He persisted:

"Why were you flying, then? You can't dig from the air."

'That was to come later. This was a preliminary recon, to make sure there were no — unfriendly people or things hiding in the ruins before going in on foot."

The water was loosening Bertin's desiccated vocal organs so that the words came faster and more clearly with each sentence.

"Were there any?" asked Moyang. "No. Not that I saw at least."

"Where are you based?"

Bertin began heaving himself to his feet, joint by joint. As

Moyang caught the big man's elbow to help him up, Bertin answered the last question: "Hadal."

"Oh!" said Moyang. "You're friendly with the Fshi?"

Bertin gave an expressive shrug, his hands, shoulders, and eyebrows all rising at once. "As friendly as one can get with another species. I was headed back towards Hadal when I collapsed. And thank you many times for saving my life. If I can help you in any way ..."

"I think you can," said Moyang.

"Ah?"

"Yes. Get us into Hadal. You know, introduce us to the chief with a good recommendation."

"Very well. Would it be too much to ask what you are after?"

As he spoke, Bertin picked up his knapsack. The augmented party began to move along the trail again, slowly because Bertin tottered rather than walked.

Moyang looked slantwise at his rescuee. "You'll learn."

"Well, at least tell me who you are. I should be able to call you something better than 'Hey you!'"

"I don't mind. I'm Ali Moyang, and these are my partners, Ma Shuan-di and Silas Peterson."

As Bertin ducked his large head in acknowledgment, Moyang continued: "Haven't you got a gun?"

"Yes, but I forgot it."

"Forgot it?"

"Yes, I am ashamed to say. I was so excited about seeing Zhovacim for the first time that I forgot to load it into my machine."

Peterson snickered and said: "Dope."

Bertin continued in a defensive tone: "Anyway I did not expect to crash. It was one of those tsestni."

He gave the native name for one of the small but violent whirlwinds, like miniature tornadoes, which the climatic conditions of the planet engendered. Then he looked sharply at Moyang, observing the stocky, well-knit frame, the flat yellow-brown face, the coarse straight black hair.

"Malayan or Indonesian?" he said.

Moyang nodded curtly, though his feeling towards Bertin was not unfriendly. The fact of having saved the man's life had built a bond of sorts between them. And, while the fellow seemed somewhat of a fool like all these brainy persons, his manner was pleasant enough in a naive way.

But Ali Moyang was conditioned by experience not to open up to strangers more than was necessary. Moyang only hoped that, when the professor learned of his objective, he would not make things difficult.

The long Kteremian day was well advanced when Moyang had come upon the fallen Bertin. When, after another two slow kilometers, Ma pointed out a good camping place, Moyang did not object to stopping.

Moyang took a package from one of the Kteremians, opened it, and extracted a Cohen tent. This was no bigger than a book when folded, but was soon erected into a structure big enough to hold all four Earthmen. He set the transparency control to full, so that the tent was a mere filmy shimmer veiling its spidery guy-wires. From another pouch he brought out a pocket-sized atomic air-conditioner which he attached to a loop that hung down from the peak. When the little machine began to hum, a delicious coolness made itself felt in the tent.

As the Kteremian helpers prepared the meal and handed it round, Bertin said: "I cannot contribute because I had eaten all my emergency rations — but now that I think, there is something ..."

The big man fumbled in his knapsack and brought out an ornate half-liter bottle.

"Brandy, by God!" cried Peterson. "It was a lucky day we found you, Mr. Bertin."

Bertin passed the bottle around. When his turn came, Moyang looked suspiciously at the cognac bottle. Drinking had never been among his vices. But then, he was tired, too, and might as well defer to the spirit of the occasion. They all had something to celebrate: Bertin for having had his life saved; the treasure hunters for having found a man who could give them entree to the village of the little-known Fshi. He drank.

With tongues loosened, a discussion arose: that old camp-fire standby about the best means of transportation for exploring the surface of Kterem. Bertin was a flying enthusiast. Peterson objected that the tsestni made it too hazardous; that mules were the logical answer. Moyang complained that mules could not live on the native vegetation, but sickened and died if they tried, and that therefore so much of their load had to be devoted to fodder that they had no capacity left for payload. Therefore one's own two feet, while slow and laborious, were the one sure means of locomotion. Ma suggested taming and breeding some suitable native species ...

When the brandy was gone, Moyang leaned back with a benign expression on his usually impassive face. He felt so benign, in fact, that when Bertin again asked him what he was after, he lazily replied:

"Oh, I suppose you'll learn sooner or later. We're after the treasure of Zhovacim."

"But —"said Bertin sharply, then fell silent, chewing the ends of his mustache.

"Yes?" said Moyang.

"What does this treasure consist of?"

"As I got the story from old Mendelius before he died, there are about a million sheets of gold inscribed with the records of the old kingdom of Zhovac, just waiting for somebody to take them. What do you know about it?"

Bertin nodded. "I talked to Mendelius too, and I have seen one of the sheets, in the chief's hut in Hadal."

"Do the Fshi go up there?"

"No, they are afraid to."

"Some tribal superstition?"

"Yes. But Mendelius brought this one sheet down and left it because he was too old to carry the extra weight."

"Are they heavy?" asked Moyang.

"Surprisingly so. What are you planning to do with these sheets?"

"Turn them into bullion."

Bertin paled under his redness and said in a strained voice: "There is a law about antiquities."

"Oh, that. When a mass of gold is melted up you can't tell what it was originally, and a cut will take care of nosey officials."

"Those sheets are of enormous scientific value, and you would melt them up for some lousy gold?"

"What do you mean, lousy gold? It's still money on this planet."

"You cannot take it back to Terra; the freight would eat up most of the value, and all gold is controlled there —"

"Who said anything about going back to Terra? I've got two wives and six children to support in Sveho, right here on Kterem."

Moyang scowled at the professor, his benignity evaporating. The man was going to be difficult after all. Ali Moyang had come across this type before: people who were solemnly fanatical about some abstract idea like law or history or science, subjects about which he knew little and cared less.

Bertin persisted: "But the scientific importance —"

"What's that worth on the open market? Can you get me a better offer for these sheets than I could get for them as raw gold?"

"N-no; there is no appropriation I can think of ..."

"Well then?"

"But," said Bertin, "you will never be able to carry this through."

"Why not?"

"You cannot work through the summer, which will soon be upon us; and by next autumn Zhovacim will have been declared a protected site."

"Why can't I work through the dry season?" Moyang felt a rising urge to tell this oversized fathead off. Europeans always thought they knew it all.

"Because in the Jiltak region the temperature goes up almost to the boiling point of water during the day. And you cannot estivate like the Kteremians. I was going to pull out in a few days myself."

Moyang pointed to his little air-conditioner, humming away above their heads. "We'll spend our days asleep in our tent and work at night by searchlights. By the time your bureaucrats get around to putting Zhovacim on the reserved list, we'll have gone over the place like a vacuum cleaner."

Bertin said: "Look, Moyang. Cannot I make you understand the importance —"

"Importance of what? What's so remarkable about a lot of sheets of gold with ancient scratches on them?"

"They have — or so I hope — the whole history of the kingdom of Zhovac, for a thousand Kteremian years! Pre-Hrata history! Since Alphonse Klein deciphered the Hrata Picto-graphic script a few years ago, we can read a good part of the Zhovac writing, from which the Hrata Pictographic evolved."

"Who cares? If you like history, there is more Terran history alone, not to mention the other civilized planets, than anybody could read in a lifetime."

"But damn it, this is knowledge! If those sheets are melted —"

Moyang's voice rose also. "You educated people make me tired. None of you ever does an honest day's work. I don't mind your fooling around with your history and science and all those fool games, but when you interfere with a man who's trying to make a more or less honest living —"

Bertin's big red fists clenched. "Before I let some ignorant grippe-sou destroy those relics, I would —"

"You'd what?" said Moyang in a softly dangerous voice.

Bertin mastered his emotions. "Never mind. Let us talk of something more pleasant."

"Oh, sure. How about these Fshi?"

"What about them?"

"I've heard various rumors: that they're harmless and friendly, or that they're dangerous and treacherous. Which is right?"

Bertin shrugged. "As Kteremian primitives go, they are not bad fellows. It depends on how you stand with them."

"How do you mean?"

"Whether, that is, you acquire the status of a member of the in-group."

"The what?"

Moyang began to fear that he was in for a lecture. That was the trouble with people like Bertin. Ask a simple question, and you get a string of technical terms no plain man can understand.

The red man's manner subtly acquired a professorial tinge. "In anthropology and anthropoidology, we recognize the concept of the in-group and the out-group. A Fshi does not divide the animal kingdom into Kteremians, other native vertebrates, human beings, and so on. Or rather he does, but only in a rudimentary way. The important distinction for them is between a Fshi, which means a member of the in-group, 'one of us,' and a tuzatsha, which means any animal — any active organism — that is not a Fshi, including Terrans and members of other Kteremian tribes. And while the Fshi are quite upright and altruistic towards other Fshi, they regard all tuzatsha as more or less fair game."

"Then why haven't they speared and eaten you?" asked Peterson.

"Oh, they are not anthropophagous, nor are they actively hostile to all tuzatsha — only to those whom they fear, such as the carnivorous ftom, or their enemies the Znaci. I was describing their mental attitude. You will not have any serious difficulty with them, though right now they are a little noisy and boisterous."

"Why are they?" asked Moyang.

"They are preparing for their mating season." Bertin yawned. "Do you mind if I sleep now? I have just had one of the worst days of my life."

When Bertin was snoring, Moyang assigned watches to Peterson and Ma, saying: "Watch that he doesn't get his hands on a gun."

"Yeah," said Peterson. "You can't trust these fanatics."

Hadal was like other Kteremian villages except that, being too far from the Terran center of Sveho, it had not been touched by the exotic cultural radiation from that city and therefore was not contaminated by television aerials projecting from the roofs of the huts, rusty automobiles parked beside them, and Kteremians wearing grotesque imitations of earthly clothing over their feathery pelts.

Sounds of iron-working came from the smithy, and a pervasive smell of garbage and ordure from everywhere. The village seemed unduly crowded for its size. The Fshi had flowers and other ornaments bound to their heads, necks, and limbs.

The chief of Hadal, whom Bertin introduced as Vitse2, came out to meet them with an honor guard of spearmen and crossbowmen. Moyang noted Bertin's fluency in the use of the Fshi language. Its only imperfection was that the whistles (represented in transcription by numerals) were not so sharp and distinct as in the speech of native Kteremians. Bertin was hardly to be blamed, since he did not have the great pink Kteremian incisor teeth to whistle through.

Nevertheless, Moyang, who had always gotten along well enough with trade-pidgin and a smattering of the language group of which Fshi was a dialect, did not admire Bertin for his linguistic skill. It was the sort of accomplishment for which he had no use.

The fields around the village provided a break in the everlasting forest. A group of Fshi were going over one of these fields with rakes and a roller to smooth it off. Over the tops of the trees Moyang could see the mountain peak of Spatril. Two-thirds of the way up its slope, a slight discoloration turned out through his binoculars to be the ruins of Zhovacim.

Moyang felt his pulse rising with eagerness to be off and up. He could already imagine the jewels and gorgeous raiment with which he would deck his wives with the proceeds from his loot, for he was generous in family matters.

Protocol being satisfied, the honor guard broke ranks and, with the rest of the tribe, crowded around the newcomers to finger their equipment with their talons and to comment on the physiology and probable habits of the Terrans. Moyang, knowing better than to show impatience or resentment, stood the inspection until the Fshi wandered off about their own affairs. Then, in his own broken Fshi, Moyang asked the chief where he might pitch his tent.

Vitse2 designated a level spot and departed also. As the tent went up, Moyang remarked:

"Are they always dressed up like this?"

"No," replied Bertin. "They have gathered from the outlying huts for tonight's mating dance. That is why they are decorated."

"How long does this go on? I don't want to be kept awake all night."

"I fear you will be. They dance continuously until the mating tomorrow at noon. It is quite spectacular."

"If you're interested. Which do you think would be the better plan: to camp here and hike up the mountain every day to work, or to camp on the mountain?"

"Oh, you must certainly camp here. There is no water on Spatril, and you would have to haul it up every day."

Moyang asked: "What's the difference, whether we climb down the mountain every day and up again, or up and then down?"

"If you haul the water up you are fighting gravity; whereas, if you haul your loot down, gravity will be helping you."

Moyang rubbed his nearly beardless chin thoughtfully. "Still, all that gold would be pretty heavy."

Bertin winced. "No heavier than the water you would have to haul up. It is unbelievable, the way you evaporate water during summer in this region."

"Why couldn't we send the helpers down for the water?"

"Because they will soon estivate." Bertin swept a hand to indicate the surrounding jungle. "You can hardly believe the change that will take place in a few days. All these trees will be so many dry sticks, without a leaf anywhere. The Fshi will have erected a thorn-bush barricade around Hadal and gone to sleep. Then, with the coming of the first rain of autumn, they will awaken, and the females will give birth ... Are you sure you will not change your mind about this mad scheme?"

"Not a chance."

The noise was even worse than Moyang had expected, all night, and he came out of the tent into the following dawn in a surly mood. The beflowered Fshi were still prancing about the field that they had levelled for the purpose. To one side of this field, a number of domestic animals had been tethered. Bertin, red-eyed from lack of sleep, was still squatting on the sidelines and taking motion pictures.

"Come along," growled Moyang.

"Come along where?" said Bertin. < "We're starting up the mountain right after breakfast."

"Go ahead."

"You're coming with us."

"Not today," said Bertin. "Not until the mating dance is over, and then I shall be too tired for climbing."

"I said you were coming," said Moyang. "Don't make us get rough."

"What is the matter with you? I am not bothering you. Go on up your mountain."

"And leave you here to sabotage our equipment, or stir the villagers against us? No sir! I want you where I can keep an eye on you."

"Well, you would have to carry me. I am much too exhausted from my recent experience to climb mountains."

"Damn it, maybe this will change your mind!" Moyang unhooked his gun from his belt and unfolded the stock with a click.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" said Bertin. "Go ahead, shoot!"

Moyang's finger touched the trigger. Then he lowered the gun.

"You crazy fanatic," he said. "You know I don't want to kill you. I'm not a murderer, just an honest treasure hunter."

"Then what is all the fuss about? All I ask is to be let alone today to watch this ceremony. You would find it interesting, too, if you would take your mind off gold for a minute."

"Me? Not likely."

"Anyway, you and your companions need a rest just as I do. If you are staying here all summer you will have plenty of time to raid the ruins. One day's delay will not hurt you."

Moyang said: "Will you give me your word to come with us tomorrow without argument?"

"Surely, surely."

"All right. We'll leave an hour before dawn, so as to get to Zhovacim before the heat of the day."

"A sound idea. Now watch the dance."

Moyang said: "I'd rather rustle some breakfast."

"Oh, but they are working up to the climax. This is something tourists travel light-years to see."

Moyang hesitated, watching the lines of Kteremians weaving back and forth. As he stood watching, intrigued in spite of himself, Ma and Peterson came out of the tent. The latter remarked:

"Those Joes can sure dent a board."

"What?" said Bertin.

Peterson repeated his remark, more loudly to penetrate the din, and did a little dance step of his own to illustrate his meaning.

Moyang asked: "What are all those animals tied up at the edge of the field?"

"They are for the blood," said Bertin. "What blood?"

"Why, although they are normally vegetarians, the male Kteremians require a drink of blood in order to be fertile."

"That so?" said Peterson. "It gives me a idea."

"Or, at least, so they believe. Nobody knows if it is true or a mere superstition."

Several Kteremians had left the dance and were doing things with the beasts. They had set out a big deep bowl. Two of them now hauled one animal, a svlek, up to the bowl and pulled its head out across the vessel. Another Fshi, whom

Moyang recognized by his ornaments as Vitse2, cut the creatures's throat with a copper knife so that the blood streamed into the bowl.

A retching noise beside him made Moyang turn. Ma, squeamish in such matters, was having trouble with his stomach. Moyang turned back to watch the spectacle. As the second beast was hauled forward, Moyang suddenly felt the powerful grip of taloned Kteremian hands upon his arms.

"Hey!" he cried, squirming in the grip. But, as they were a good deal bigger than he, it was impossible to break loose.

He had been seized from behind by two Fshi. Even before he turned his head, an outcry from his two companions told him that they had likewise been taken. Bertin and the native helpers from Sveho were also under constraint.

"Bertin!" yelled Moyang. "What's this?"

The red man calmly replied: "They are going to cut our throats as with the other beasts."

"What? Why? Do something! Talk to Vitse2!"

"You cannot talk to a Kteremian in rut."

"But what's the idea? They seemed friendly!"

"They are when not worked up by the ceremony. Now they regard us as tuzatsha and have no compunction about killing us."

A horrible suspicion entered Moyang's mind. "Did you know this was going to happen?" Bertin nodded.

"You mean you deliberately trapped us?"

"I had to."

"After we saved your life and everything?"

Bertin gave one of those colossal shrugs, as well as he could with his arms pinioned. "I am sorry, but it was either that or letting you destroy the historical records of Zhovacim. I tried to talk you out of that vandalism, but I could see you were determined."

The animals had now all been killed and one of the native helpers was hauled towards the bowl. Moyang screamed:

"You mean you're willing not only to have us killed but yourself as well? You lunatic! I should have shot you just now —"

Bertin smiled a melancholy little smile. "We should all be dead in another hundred years anyway, while knowledge goes on forever."

The first native helper's throat had now been cut and a second was on his protesting way to the bow. A knot of Fshi standing by the bowl seemed to be involved in some dispute. Finally the whole group turned and walked towards the victims, Vitse2 in the lead. The chief spoke in rumbling Fshi to Bertin, whose arms were released.

"What are they letting you go for?" shouted Moyang.

"They had a little dispute. The upshot was that they decided that because I spoke Fshi so well I must have the soul of a Fshi, and therefore I should be counted as a member of the in-group."

"But how about us?"

"Unfortunately you speak with what they consider a Znaci accent. The Znaci, as their hereditary enemies, are naturally members of the out-group."

"Did you know they were going to turn you loose, you treacherous devil?"

"No. Or rather I thought there was about a fifty-fifty chance that they would do so. It seemed a chance worth taking."

The supply of native helpers being exhausted, Ma was dragged off, protesting in a shrill singsong. Moyang said:

"Look, Bertin, get us out of this and I'll go away and never look at your damned city again ..."

Another shrug. "I am sorry, but I could not even if I wished."

Shouting hysterical curses, Moyang was dragged to the bowl. A taloned hand reached across from the far side of the vessel, grasped his hair, and pulled his head, face down, out over the pool of blood that had already been collected. The last thing that Ali Moyang saw was the staring and disheveled reflection of his own face in the scarlet surface.

New Arcadia

As the hoist descended, two groups, each of twenty or thirty people, ran towards us. The smaller group was made up entirely of men wearing kilts, while the other, the naked crowd, included both sexes.

Most of the men in both sets carried shillalahs and glowered at each other. When they got closer, so the two crowds got mixed up, they began pushing, waving their clubs, and shouting abuse. They spoke French because the original colony on Turania was mostly French Swiss.

The two leaders pushed forward and began yelling at Captain Kubala. One, a tall old fellow with a lot of white hair and beard and a headdress decorated with the glassy wings of some of the local fauna, I took to be Henri Vaud, the original leader of the colony. The other was a dark, sharp-nosed little man with big staring black eyes.

Kubala bellowed: "Hola! Silence!" When the noise had quieted a little, he pointed at the old man. "You, monsieur."

Vaud said: "Monsieur, you will naturally address yourself to me, as the duly elected president of Nouvelle-Arcadie, when this cow-head has ceased to push his raucous cries."

The leader of the nudies said: "Monsieur the captain, if you will silence this aged species of camel, I have a matter of the most urgent importance to submit to you."

"Who are you?" said Kubala.

"Me, I am Louis Motta, president of the republic of Liberté."

"He is a demagogue who has seduced some of my poor ones to rebellion," said Vaud. "I am still president of all the human souls on Turania —"

"I treat your claims with scorn!" cried Motta. "Liberté is a free and independent sovereign nation. We don't recognize the authority of this tyrant. But what is more urgent is that we are attacked by Cimbrians —"

"Naturally," said Vaud. "This salaud divides us in the face of peril, forsakes the safety of our island, invades the lands of the Cimbrians and provokes —"

"It's a gratuitous aggression of the Cimbrians!" yelled Motta.

"Wait! Silence!" shouted Kubala. "First, what do you mean by Cimbrians on Turania? Cimbria is ten light-years away."

"Oh, they are here," said Motta. "How or why I know not."

"And second," said Kubala, "Cimbrians are one of the most peaceful and orderly peoples in the Galaxy. They've never bothered anybody."

"You see?" said Vaud. "It's evident that he must have attacked them first."

"It's a lie!" screamed Motta. "They have killed two of our people and wounded five more. They have guns, which we do not. They glide themselves up and shoot us while we are quietly going about our business."

They both shouted until Kubala quieted them with his roar. "Let's do things in order," he said. "First, I am Czeslaw Kubala, captain of the Daedalus, whose tender you see here. This is Arthur Ramaswami, my first officer, and this" (indicating me) "is Gerald Fay of the World News Service. He will visit you until the last departure of the tender."

"He will visit which of us?" said Motta.

"Ask him," said Kubala.

I said: "Messieurs, I'm supposed to find out what's happened in the fifteen years since Nouvelle-Arcadie was founded. I want to visit everybody that time allows."

"Come when you like, my dear sir," said Vaud, "and stay as long as you like. I am naturally ardent that you shall get the correct story."

"You must visit us first, though," said Motta. "It is only logical. Liberté is a short walk from here on the continent, so you need not wait for a favorable wind to go to Nouvelle-Arcadie."

"Well ..." I said, but then one of the women in the naked crowd spoke.

"I pray you, monsieur, visit us first," she said. "We shall be desolated otherwise."

Anybody who has been thrown in with nudists knows that the effect wears off in ten minutes. After that, you don't even have to keep yourself from staring.

This girl, though, I found attractive. She wasn't beautiful; of medium height, rather more sturdy and muscular than we'd consider modish. She was dark, with her hair in a bun and her teeth a little irregular. No beauty, but she shone health, vigor, and personality. She wore sandals and carried a big bag slung over her shoulder by a strap of the bark of the leather tree, Scorteliber lentus.

Well, it's really a man of no strength of character I am. Any circumstance can push me into anything. I said I'd first visit Liberté, and gave my name again.

"Enchanted," she said. "Me, I am Adrienne Herz."

Kubala was asking Vaud: "What in particular do you want?"

"I want assistance in suppressing revolt," said Vaud. "I may exhort you for protection against criminal bands of my own species, isn't it?"

"Criminal bands!" yelled Motta.

Kubala stopped him and said: "I think not, Monsieur Vaud. Your original charter gave Nouvelle-Arcadie complete internal autonomy. These secessionists are all members of your original colony of their children, is it not?"

"But yes," said Vaud.

"Well, if you want to coerce them back into the fold, you must do it yourself."

"But we cannot! It would be against our pacifistic principles!" said Vaud.

Kubala said: "But then how could I —"

"But you are not one of us. You are not held by such principles!"

Kubala growled: "If that's your Latin logic ... All I'll do is to take back to Earth anybody who doesn't like it here.

Now, Monsieur Motta, what do you want? War with these mysterious Cimbrians?"

"Oh, no!" said Motta. "We Passivists are the only sincere pacifists. I wouldn't have you do the Cimbrians ill. What I really want is for you to fly to Cimbria and lodge a complaint with the government there."

"That's absolutely impossible," said Kubala. "Cimbria is almost as far from here as Earth, and I have a scheduled run. What did you say about pacifists being pacifists?"

"Passivists, not pacifists," said Motta. "Vaud's faction call themselves Activists, while we are the Passivists. Vaud has betrayed his original principles."

"How?"

"He has become organization-minded. All we have heard is order, discipline, regulations, and harder work to raise the standard of living. But as soon as one does that, one is on the road to autocracy, war, crime, imperialism, and all the other vices of civilization. So we have gone back to first principles."

Vaud said: "He lies! He is only a clever demagogue, hiding his ambition behind a mask of idealistic primitivism ..."

The shouting started again until Kubala quieted it and said: "Wouldn't you like your mail?"

"But naturally!" cried the Arcadians.

During the talk, the hoist had been running up and down the side of the tender, slung from a boom like a big bucket. On each trip it brought stuff that Vaud had ordered years ago: cloth, matches, razor blades, sheet rubber, paper, photographic supplies, medicines, and so forth.

The crewmen set up a table, and Ramaswami dumped the mailbags out on this. As the mail had all been microfilmed, three bags held it all, though the reading matter represented here was enormous. Ramaswami asked:

"What shall we do with these rolls? Each has letters or pages of printed matter addressed to different people. We thought you'd be one colony, so everybody could read his letters and publications on the viewers as his name came up. But if you're divided into two ..."

After some hemming and hawing, the girl who wanted me to visit Liberté, Adrienne Herz, said: "I suppose each faction will have to take half the rolls at hazard and make enlargements of the pages addressed to people in the other community. Then the Activist mailman and I will make a rendezvous and exchange them."

"You're the mail-girl for the Passivists?" said Kubala.

"That's correct," she said.

Vaud said: "August Zimmerli is acting as mailman for us." He indicated a fat man, and soon Ramaswami was dealing out rolls of microfilm, one to one and one to the other.

The part of Turania where we were is covered with dark forest. The Turanian trees are mostly broad-leaved evergreens, somber-looking save where they burst into flowers. These are sometimes the size of plates. That's because the flying arthropods grow so large, since there are no flying vertebrates to compete with them.

The trees had been cleared from the field in response to the Daedalus' radio-warning of its approach. As we left the field, the leaves closed in over us. A couple of insects the size of pigeons whizzed past us. (It's easier to call them insects than "insect-like Turanian exoskeletal arthropods.")

Adrienne Herz said: "Well, Monsieur Fay, my friends will be wild with jealousy when they see me bringing in the first earthman we've seen in many years."

I got red and stammery. She was carrying her mailbag; I couldn't carry it for her because I was completely loaded down with my own gear. I said:

"Mademoiselle, I'm only sorry I couldn't have been a better specimen of the breed. I hope I shan't embarrass you."

"Pouf! Monsieur quests for compliments." (I wasn't, but I didn't argue.) "What kind of Terrien are you?"

"Just a typical Earthman. My father is Irish, my mother is Russian, I was born in Japan and raised in the United States, I'm a British subject, and when I'm home I live in France. That's why they picked me for this job; that, and influence."

"You mean to say because you speak French so fluently?"

"Yes. Anyway, now that you're having a fend in Nouvelle-Arcadie, even an incompetent imitation of a correspondent like me can write it up. If everything had been as dull and peaceful as they warned me it would be, I'd have flubbed the assignment. I may yet."

"Hold! Vaud has told us that Terrans are so aggressive and vain that they're always talking themselves into positions where they have to fight their way out. You seem different."

"Just one of nature's mistakes," I said. "Is this crowd the whole population of Liberté?"

"But no, there are many more. Motta has let only a fraction of us come to the field for the alighting. He feared that an accident might blow up the whole population of the village at once."

"What about this feud?"

"It has commenced about thirty years ago," she said, "when I was a girl of sixty-five." (I was startled until I remembered it takes four and a half Turanian years to make one of ours.) "Henri Vaud put himself to complaining about the colony. You know, at the start everything was most liberal; a sort of co-operative anarchy. But Vaud said the lazies were putting too much of their portion of the work on the diligents; the men fought shamefully over the women; people formed secret societies against the interests of the majority, and so forth."

"Maybe they got bored with all that perfection."

"Perhaps. Anyway, Vaud talked of tighter organization, more discipline, and a more definite goal in life than heating ourselves to the sun on the beach. It sounded inspiring."

"And then?"

"First, there were stricter rules of conduct. Instead of the girls' making love as they pleased and marrying the first boy by whom they got pregnant, he has established a rigorous system of supervised courtship. Then there were regular hours of work instead of weekly totals.

"This new system has given us more production. We have eaten better and we've had more and better houses. The sick have received more attention and the infants more schooling. With more time given to the forge we've made more and better tools."

"It sounds fine so far," I said.

"But some people will always break laws, no matter how liberal. To stop them, Vaud made more and more rules. Nobody might leave Elysée without signing in and out. Everybody must address him formally as vous, while continuing to tutoyer each other ..."

We came to the stockade, which stretched to right and left into the forest. I could hear the sound of surf through the trees. The gate opened and a swarm of children boiled out, shrieking. We were soon wading knee-deep in naked children of all sizes. Adrienne said:

"The littles wanted to be excused from school to see the tender alight, but Motta has decided that the field would be too dangerous."

We went through the gate. Inside, the land had been cleared and cut up with Swiss neatness into tilled patches of wheat, melons, carrots, and so on. Some of the plants were native, but most were terran. Inside the main stockade was a smaller one around the village proper.

When I got settled, I spent a half-hour writing my impressions in shorthand. I may be a lousy correspondent, but I know how to go through the motions.

Then I left the guest house to look at Liberté. I wandered around the fields, took a few pictures, and followed the stockade down to the beach, where it ended in shallow water. A quarter-mile down the beach the other end of it ended likewise.

Despite the wind, the surf wasn't heavy. The beach was in the lee of Nouvelle-Arcadie, which rose from Taylor Sea a couple of miles west. I saw some little floating dots which I took to be Vaud's Activists paddling back to their island.

The beaches on Turania are mostly narrow, because for practical purposes there are no tides. The only moon looks much smaller than ours, only two or three times as big as Jupiter looks to us. There were a dozen or so outrigger dugout canoes and catamarans drawn up on the sand.

Some Passivists were swimming. One shouted to me to join them. I was tempted to do so, as the air was hot and damp and I was sticky. However, I got embarrassed and shook my head. If I stripped I should feel self-conscious, and if I went back for my trunks I should probably feel even more so. These children of nature would wonder if it was a truss.

At the upper edge of the beach, a little skinny man had some sort of apparatus set up on a tripod. I recognized a barometer and other meteorological instruments.

"Allô!" he said. "Me, I am Maximilian Wyss, and you are the terran writer, is it not?"

After civilities I asked him about the apparatus. He said: "I record the weather to see if we need some rain-making.

There are lots of rain squalls here, but they are mostly small. So, a small area like ours may be missed for many consecutive days. Or it may get them every day for half a year and be inundated."

"What's the forecast?" I asked.

"Rain tonight. Look to the west and you will see."

Groombridge 1618 was beginning to set behind Nouvelle-Arcadie. A visitor on Turania always gapes at sunsets. Since this star has about three times the visual diameter of Sol and moves through the sky only about half as fast, it takes nearly six times as long to set in a given latitude. Moreover, the planet is cloudier than Earth, so you see the huge red ball, if at all, through layers of clouds.

During the long sunset, the clouds became thicker until I could see only patches of the sun, though overhead the clouds were banded with yellows and reds and purples. Then the clouds closed in. They boiled and thickened, with lightning and thunder. The swimmers came in, and Maximilian Wyss packed up the portable parts of his apparatus.

"Here she comes," he said.

I started back for Liberté and was going through the inner stockade when it started. In two seconds I could hardly see to walk. I knocked on the first house and was told to come in. This I did, dripping.

" Allô!" said a plump middle-aged fellow. "Come in, my old. You are the correspondent from Earth, no? I am Carl Adorn." He introduced his wife and five children. "Seat yourself. What think you of our vile Utopia, he?"

We had to shout over the roar of the storm. I said: "Is that storm usual?"

"But yes, this is only a little one."

I started pumping Adorn about the story of the colony, but then somebody banged a gong.

"Supper," he said. "Come, everybody."

The seven Adorns marched out into the downpour. When they got to the dining hall they wiped themselves as they went in on a couple of foul-looking bath towels, but that did my soaked clothes no good. There were about a hundred Passivists, all talking like mad. I never saw so many pregnant women at once. I started to sit with the Adorns, but Louis Motta made me sit with him and the officers of the Daedalus.

Motta filled us full of their native wine and asked Captain

Kubala about the planets he'd seen. Kubala told about Cimbria (that is, Procyon A IV) and Scythia and Parthia. (I used to think the astronomers named the planets of other systems after Cunard liners, but I found out they simply used the same system as the Cunard-White Star people, which was to apply obsolete Terran geographical names.)

The food was plentiful and good, albeit vegetarian. It was all I could do to stick to my diet; I should become a fat man in no time if I let myself go on the calories. The Arcadians eat enormous amounts of the native Turanian melons. Himself found time to remark, between thunderclaps, that he'd like to see me after the meal.

In his office, Motta came to the point: "I notice you have visited the Adorns?"

"Yes," I said.

"And that earlier you conversed with Adrienne Herz?"

"Yes."

"Very well, my brave. I don't wish to hinder your social life or censor your movements, but as a practical matter you had better get your information on the colony from me."

"Why?"

"Because I am the only one who knows the complete story and can give you an impartial account. Certainly a notorious malcontent like Adorn is not a proper source. How long will you be on Turania?"

"Kubala says the tender will take off for the last time about thirty of your days hence. He has to pick up food and water — "

"Yes, yes, I know. I try to construct you a program that will occupy your time to best advantage. In that time you will not be able to visit Elysée."

"Hein?" I said. "But that's plenty of time, and I must go to Nouvelle-Arcadie! My employers would consider that I'd failed in my mission otherwise."

"Oh, you don't really want to go there. It's a miserable canoe trip. You will get drenched and seasick, and if the wind is contrary you may be unable either to go or to return when you wish. Furthermore, there is nothing on Nouvelle-Arcadie that you can't see here. The wild life on the island cannot compare with ours for size and variety."

"But I've got to! I must interview Vaud and his people."

"On the contrary, you'd get nothing from them but lies.

Vaud would give you a highly biased story of our break, justifying all his crimes and tyranny, while his people are too spineless and terrorized to tell you the truth."

"That may be, but I've got to try."

"No you don't. Your employers will never know the difference."

I said: "I'm in the habit of writing the truth as I see it."

"Be reasonable."

"I am reasonable. I have my duty —"

"You are just an obstinate young fool! It's a dangerous voyage."

"I'll take a chance."

"Not with my boats," he said. "When you come here, you put yourself under my jurisdiction. If I consider some act harmful to my people, I cannot let you do it."

I lost my temper. I know; a good correspondent wouldn't, but I never claimed to be a good anything. At that, I should probably have been too cowardly to speak out to the man if he hadn't been half my size. I stood up and shouted:

"You think you'll make me a prisoner here, just because I might hear something to your disadvantage, he? Well, let me tell you, monsieur —"

"Think you I will let you go to Elysée to tell Vaud all about us, so he can attack?" he shouted back.

"I'm a British subject and I'll go where I please."

"This isn't Britain and you shall do as I command."

"Command away, and we shall see," I said.

"None of my men shall take you to the island."

"Then I'll paddle there myself."

"You may not touch my boats. Build yourself a raft, or walk on the water." I was surprised to see tears in his eyes. "Everybody's against us: the Activists, and the Cimbrians, and now you. They hate us for our superior idealism. Go away, monster!"

I went, shaking, back to the guest house. Arthur Rama-swami was spending the night there and had a bottle of Turanian wine. We spent the evening drinking it and telling each other our troubles.

Next morning, I set out to interview the other Passivists. I also thought of promoting a secret trip to Nouvelle-Arcadie, perhaps by stealing one of the canoes. I don't know if I'd ever have been able to work up the courage.

I admire the rough-hewn swashbuckling heroes of romance who ruthlessly go after what they want in spite of God or man. Some people, deceived by my 250 pounds and rhinoceros-like build, mistake me for that kind of person. They don't know what a poor little mouse of an ego is cowering inside all that beef. I'm absurdly timid about laws and rules, perhaps because of my British associations.

When I tackled the first Passivist, he said: "Bon jour, Monsieur Fay," but when I tried to prolong the conversation he looked frightened and mumbled: "Je ne sais pas!"

When I tried others the same thing happened. They didn't know anything, or they had to hurry off to work ...

I found Adrienne and said: "Good-morning, Mademoiselle Herz."

"Good-morning, Monsieur Fay!" she said. "You slept well, I hope?"

"Are you speaking to me? Everybody else is giving me the silent treatment."

"Yes, President Motta has launched an order."

"I thought so. Holy-blue, that's a plain violation of the basic human rights, as guaranteed by the International Convention of —"

"But this isn't Earth," she reminded me. "Had you a terrible quarrel?"

"Bad enough. But couldn't we — ah — have a private talk somewhere?"

"Hm. I go for a swim after breakfast. I might swim north beyond the stockade, and, if a little later you happened along in the same direction, nobody would remark the coincidence."

I swam north parallel to the beach in leisurely fashion. Beyond the north end of the stockade was a swamp or estuary where a little stream emptied into the sea. Here a couple of Passivists were cutting a kind of reed or withe that grew here, and from which Liberté made its furniture. I kept on until I heard Adrienne calling:

"Monsieur Fay! Here!"

I walked ashore in Turanian costume and found her behind the first line of shrubbery. She put her. head out and looked back towards the stockade.

"Good," she said. "Nobody sees. Where would you like to go?"

I said: "If there's a trail up to some high point, so I could see the country ..."

"I know just such an animal trail."

We pushed through the brush, which scratched me cruelly but didn't seem to bother her, until she found the trail. It was wider than one would expect. She led me uphill away from the sea. I was soft from the space trip, despite my earnest exercises, and found the climb strenuous.

She trotted ahead like a deer. It was quiet except for the never-ending sough of the wind and the thrum of huge insects.

"Slow down!" I said. "Now, where were we? You were telling me how Vaud made all sorts of regulations, as that nobody should thee-and-thou him."

"Ah, yes. Next he tried to reintroduce clothes. The nudism had been one of his original principles, partly to avoid affectations and class distinction, partly because the temperature is always in the thirties" (she meant on the Centigrade scale) "except a few hours before dawn. So clothes are not necessary. But Vaud has decided that they would make us more decorous."

"Did they?"

"He had never succeeded, though he's persuaded his own faction to wear them on formal occasions like today. I think he designed that Scotch petticoat to hide his own potbelly, as he's not so pretty as when I was little.

"However, when all these changes had put the people in a state of violent agitation, Motta made a revolt. He had formed a secret club, the Passivists, dedicated to a return to first principles of simplicity, libertarianism, and voluntary co-operation. There was a great battle, with the men giving blows of fist and pulling the hair and the women pushing cries of encouragement.

"Motta, having only a third of the people, could not vanquish the rest. So, when the fighters had quit for lack of breath, he agreed to leave the island with his faction if given his share of supplies: boats, tools, medicine, and such. Vaud was in accord, as he could retain many indivisible things like the houses and the tractor. Thus we parted peacefully.

"The Passivists paddled over to the mainland and set up a new village. My faith, but we have worked for a while! We hardly had the village built and the fields disposed when we learned some things we ought to have thought of sooner."

"For example?"

"For one thing, there are no large beasts on Nouvelle Arcadie. Therefore guns aren't needed, and Vaud hadn't brought any. He thought if there were guns and quarrels raised themselves, somebody might shoot. But here we have these big maladroit lizards —"

"So I see," said I, pointing. The trail had dipped and become soft and mucky. In the muck was a footprint like that of an elephant with big claws.

"Ah, an oecusaurus," said Adrienne.

"Are they dangerous?" I asked, my voice getting squeaky.

"Not especially, unless they step on you by accident. But some of the smaller, carnivorous species are formidable. We lost a man and a little girl before we finished the outer palisade. And then came the Cimbrians."

"What about those?" I asked.

"You have heard Motta. There's some species of camp of Cimbrians beyond this range. They lead a wild life of the chase, shooting native reptiles with flint guns and riding terran horses down here to raid us."

"What?" said I. She repeated.

I said: "It doesn't make sense. Cimbrians could make modern arms if they wished, but they're the most peaceful and orderly civilized species known. I can't imagine Cimbrians riding horses and shooting muskets. Could they be another similar species mistaken for Cimbrians?"

"No. Motta knew some Cimbrians on Earth and assures us that these are authentic."

"Are they the remains of a lost colony or the like?"

She shrugged. "I know not, nor do I know how they have acquired earthly horses."

I shook my head. "It's as if we found earthmen on Cimbria or Riphaea, riding Turanian lizards and hunting heads. Maybe if you could capture one you could find out."

"Perhaps, but we're impotent before their guns, and we cannot run after their horses."

The trail had steepened, so for a time I had no breath to talk. When I saw a convenient tree trunk I said:

"D'you mind if we stop to rest? I'm out of practice at imitating the goat of the mountains."

"A few years here would render you hard. It's —"

"Yeowp!" I yelled, leaping up. As I sat down, something stung me on the bare behind. It was a fearsome sting, too, like a red-hot needle.

"Poor man!" said Adrienne. "You sat on a vespoid. See?"

I looked. The insect I had crushed, now giving its last kicks, did look like a large Terran wasp. Adrienne said:

"There were lots of these here when we built the village, and they pricked us cruelly until we burned their nests."

"I see disadvantages to this Adam-and-Eve performance," t said, rubbing the afflicted spot.

"I'll put some mud on it the first swamp we see. It's too bad you killed it."

"Why? That's a form of wildlife for which I have little sympathy."

"Because otherwise it would have flown in a straight line for its nest, and we could have found the nest and destroyed it. Old Maximilian Wyss, our chief scientist, says these nests are just like those of the paper wasps on Earth. Convergent evolution, he calls it."

I sat down again, looking carefully this time and sitting a little sideways. "Have you tried to make your own weapons against the Cimbrians?"

"Motta won't permit that He puts his faith in interplanetary committees. In confidence, some young men have experimented with bows, but — holy God! — archery is more complicated than it seems. None has yet got anything one can hit an oecusaurus with. So ..." She shrugged and spread her hands.

I got up and said: "All right, let's be going."

I could have sat much longer admiring Adrienne. But if we didn't start, she might have reason to suspect me of not having my mind on the history of Nouvelle-Arcadie.

"How far to the top?" I asked.

"Half a kilometer, I think."

I said: "You don't seem completely entrapped by Louis Motta's regime."

"I'm not, but what can I do? I have come with the Passivists for a reason other than doctrinaire arguments."

"What was that?"

"Under the new rules of Vaud, my parents tried to make me marry André Morax. Now André is not a wicked man, but he is the biggest bore in Nouvelle-Arcadie. Anyway I don't love him, so I have come away."

"Good for you!"

She smiled at me, which made me flush and stumble over my own big feet.

"Oh, Motta talks about the sacred rights of individualism," she said, "but he is at bottom as much a dictator as Vaud, and his followers are as sheep-like. Me, I am a true individualist. I believe in none of their fine talk but make up my own mind."

"Live the individualism!"

"How do they arrange marriages on Earth nowadays?"

I shrugged. "Oh, about the same as when your colony left. Most of the world follows the American system, where each boy invites a series of girls out to the cinema and other entertainment — 'dates,' they call them — until a couple decides to make it permanent. Some countries still have chaperons, or the parents make the arrangements."

"Are you married, monsieur?"

"No."

"Why not? You're old enough, aren't you?"

These people were charmingly friendly but they came right to the point. My skin began to burn.

"I'm old enough," I gruffed. "About half again as old as you."

"Then why?"

"Oh, no woman would ever look at a big ugly hulk like me."

"I see nothing wrong with you," she said, running her eyes up and down me as if I were a prize hog. "A little thick in the middle, perhaps, but some hard work would repair that. Did you go on these 'dates'?"

"W-well, a few."

My tongue was tied in knots, my feet seemed to have been put on backwards, and I could feel myself blushing all over. I don't know why I went ahead and opened up to Adrienne, except there's something about that nature-boy atmosphere that makes one drop all pretence.

"To t-t-tell the truth, mademoiselle, I'm such a shy timid fellow that the mere thought of a girl's rebuffing me fills me with horror."

"Oh, you big nicodemus! If you asked me on a 'date' I'd say, to a sure blow! when do we commence? That is, to say, if I didn't suspect you of immoral intentions. Our chiefs say that all earthmen are lascivious degenerates where the sexes are concerned. Are you a lascivious degenerate?"

"Well — uh — I — uh —" What could I say? "I d-don't think that would be a fair description. I —"

"Hush!"

"What is it?"

"Something on the trail," she said. "Into the bushes!"

She found us a place whence we could still see through the greenery to the trail. I heard something big moving, its feet thudding and the branches brushing its sides. There was movement among the leaves, and an oecusaurus appeared.

I couldn't see all of it at once because of the leaves, but it was no less impressive for that. The name means it's a lizard as big as a house. It was as tall as an elephant and half again as long, with four legs like tree-trunks, a thick neck long enough to reach the ground, a big squarish head ending in a parrot-beak, a thick reptilian tail that swung from side to side as it walked, and a warty skin with knobs and spines, especially on its back and head.

When the oecusaurus had gone and the rustling of its passage had died away, we crept back to the trail. Adrienne said:

"We must watch for that one on our way back."

"Is he going down to the sea for a drink?"

"Yes." I knew Taylor Sea was only slightly brackish, so I wasn't surprised that the local fauna drank from it.

Even though I knew the oecusaurus was a plant-eater and easily dodged, its passage took some of the carefree jollity out of our expedition. I found myself speaking in lowered tones and stopping to listen. When I got my mind off the fauna and back on Nouvelle-Arcadie, I asked:

"How many are there in Liberté now?"

"A hundred and eighty — nearly two hundred. I can find you ,the exact number. There are so many births that it changes from week to week."

"How about Elysée?"

"About twice our population."

"Has the whole human community grown?"

"But yes, it has more than doubled. Monsieur Wyss says we are increasing faster than any terran group. It's a healthy climate; the local diseases don't affect us; and we were all chosen for perfect health at the start. Besides, Vaud has insisted that we take full advantage of modern medicine."

"That, and the fact that there's nothing much else to do on these long nights," I added.

"None of your decadent terran cynicism, you big fat pataud," she said, "though it would be nice to go where the young men sometimes think of something else. I'm tired of beating them off."

"How do you manage that?"

"In the case that you, monsieur, should get any such ideas, I broke two ribs in the side of Maurice Rahn last year. And —"

Bang! There was a loud explosion and a big puff of gray smoke. Something hit a tree a foot from me and showered me with bits of bark.

I yelped and jumped away from the tree. I tripped over a big root of this tree that wound across the trail like a half-buried snake and fell into muck and shrubbery. I'm an awkward sort of ass in anything that takes agility.

Three Cimbrians popped out on to the trail, each carrying a short-barreled gun. Sure enough, they were muzzle-loading flintlocks. Cimbrians are taller than men — about six and a half feet — but much slenderer, so they weigh less on the average. They have silvery-gray fur all over, catlike faces, and long bushy tails with black rings like a raccoon.

They came so quickly that Adrienne had no time to move. One reached for her with its free hand. She jerked back and turned to run. Another Cimbrian tripped her and the third dropped his musket to jump on her back.

During these seconds I was struggling up. I charged into the group, roaring "Unhand that maiden!" or something as silly.

Out of the side of my eye, I saw one of the Cimbrians swing his gun by the barrel. I was trying to change direction when the gun-butt hit me over the head. This time I went down cold.

Of course you never know, when you wake up, how long you've been unconscious. I guess it was several minutes. When I came to, I could see, up the trail, two Cimbrians, with their guns slung across their backs, tying Adrienne to the back of a horse while the third stood by, holding the bridles of two other horses with one hand and swinging his musket this way and that with the other. The horses wore funny-looking saddles with big bags tied to them. While I was still blinking, one Cimbrian twittered something. They mounted the two unoccupied horses, one on one and two on the other, and off they rode as fast as the mounts could take the grade.

I stumbled to my feet and ran after them but never got in sight of them again. I ran until I had to stop; then some more, and so on. When I came out on the height to which Adrienne had been leading me, I could only sink down with my back to a tree and sit panting while the sweat ran down me and flying things buzzed round me.

When I could stand again I looked at the scene. To the west lay Taylor Sea, with Nouvelle-Arcadie in the foreground. Nearer yet, almost at the foot of the rise I had climbed, was Liberté and its fields. To the east I couldn't see much because of the trees, but it seemed to be more forested hills. Overhead loomed the huge yellow ball of Groombridge 1618. The wind whipped through the treetops around and below me, making them ripple like a field of wheat back home, while clouds swooped by close overhead.

Maybe it was cowardice that made me decide not to run on after Adrienne. I told myself, however, that my chances of rescuing her by plunging into an unknown forest, without food or any sort of equipment, would be poor. I had better go back to Liberté and raise a posse.

I ran most of the way back. It was downhill until I reached the beach. I met the oecusaurus coming up the trail again, but I dodged past it without trying to hide. It snorted at me but kept on about its business.

Louis Motta stroked his chin and said: "So, one transgressor of the law expects me to overturn the village to succor another from the results of your joint folly, no?"

"Yes, monsieur," I said.

"Then, you mistake yourself. Such an expedition would fail in view of the Cimbrians' superiority of armament. If they have not killed her already, they would do so if attacked. The attack would cost many of our lives, which we cannot afford, with all two of the Cimbrians and the Activists at enmity with us."

"But if you let them think they can carry off anybody they meet with impunity —"

"That's my responsibility, monsieur, and I pray you not to concern yourself with it. I may add that Mademoiselle Herz will not be an insupportable loss to our community. She was always a malcontent and a railer, without due respect for the will of the people as embodied in their chief officer. Now if you will excuse me, I have business."

I left Motta's office and started back towards the guest house, wondering what to do next. Then — well, this just shows how little my own initiative had to do with the happenings on this planet. I ran into Carl Adorn, who said:

"What passes, monsieur? Has there been a calamity?"

I told him about Adrienne, Motta, and the Cimbrians.

He tut-tutted. "This is a grave matter. Come to my house — not now, with me, lest it rouse our good president, but in an hour or so."

When I got there I found he had rounded up a few like-minded Passivists, who had brought an assortment of gear and supplies. Adorn explained:

"We dare not go out ourselves against the orders of Motta. Even if we did, he probably has reason about the futility of an attack on the Cimbrian camp. But you are a free agent, and nobody is likely to stop one of your size in any case. So, if you will try a rescue all alone, we can furnish you with all the means we have. Here are a map, a compass, a knife, a hatchet, matches, food, and everything else we can think of. I regret only that we cannot add a rapid-fire gun or a few grenades."

"Thanks," I said. (I never argued, which shows what a wishy-washy character I have.) "When would be a good time to go?"

"During the hour of the siesta, after dinner. And here is a package for Adrienne, in case they are holding her for ransom. It contains soap, brush and comb, and such things. Do you speak Intermundos?"

"After a fashion."

"Good. Some of these Cimbrians might also."

I looked over the supplies and said: "Can somebody fasten a good strong knife blade to a pole?"

"I can," said a man. "I make the knives. What sort of pole?"

"I'll get it," I said.

I went into the forest and cut a sapling. When the siesta-time came I slipped out, carrying my spear and other junk. I wore my bush-shirt and shorts, and to hell with Utopian customs. I needed the pockets, and besides I didn't want to be stung again.

It took a week of floundering, getting lost, escaping the local fauna, and eating most of my food before I found the Cimbrian camp. The time, however, was not wasted. Every day, as I tramped the game trails, I practiced throwing my spear. I must have thrown that thing at five thousand trees. The first day I could hit nothing. The second day my arm was so sore I could hardly throw. By the fifth day I was getting pretty good.

When I found the Cimbrians, I circled round at a good distance, locating the big fenced meadow where they kept their horses. The meadow had real grass, which I hadn't seen on Turania. I suspected that it had been brought from Earth to support the nags.

In the course of my circle, I found a stream that flowed away from the Cimbrian camp. When I drank from it, I was astonished to find it warm. No stream flowed into the camp from the other direction, so I thought the Cimbrians must have built their camp around a hot spring, of which there were several in this country.

When the first night came, I crawled close until I could hear the Cimbrians' twittering voices and see their fires. They sent a sentry out to patrol, but he did his job in a perfunctory manner, marching around the camp in a small circle and making all the noise in the world. Big and clumsy as I am, I avoided him.

When day came, I pulled back and climbed a tree that gave a view of the camp. The Cimbrians had the carcass of a reptile hung up by its feet. Whenever one of them got hungry, he cut off a steak and broiled it over a fire on a pointed stick. I supposed they had a due proportion of females, but I couldn't tell because sexual dimorphism is slight in this species.

Of Adrienne Herz I could see no sign. But then, she might have been in one of the log cabins. The biggest of these was built right over the hot spring. The water steamed as it flowed out under the wall.

On the second night I had a thunderstorm, so I could creep closer than before. I was within fifty yards of the camp when the sentry came out for his rounds. Another Cimbrian came with him, arguing. While I couldn't understand their twitter, I gathered that the sentry didn't want to slosh around in the dark, but the other insisted. If that was it, the sentry lost.

I got behind a tree as he passed me. I could hardly see him. When his back was to me, I stepped out and raised my spear.

Something warned him despite the noise and darkness. He turned and fumbled with his gun. I thought I was done for, but the gun didn't go off. I imagined him to be a tree trunk and let fly with the spear.

It hit. He fell, dropping his musket, and thrashed about. By the time I ran up to him he was almost still. He twittered feebly at me. I suppose I should have brained him with my hatchet, but I'm soft-hearted about animals.

I pulled the spear out of him, picked up his gun, and saw why he hadn't shot me. There was a piece of thin leather-bark tied around the lock to keep the wet out, and he had to untie this before he could fire.

Having been something of a gun crank, I knew pretty well how this firearm would work. I searched the Cimbrian and found his powder horn (a bucket-shaped leather container), his bag of balls, and another bag with thin little pieces at animal skin for wadding. By the time I had finished, the Cimbrian seemed dead.

The next step would be to convince the Cimbrians that they were surrounded and besieged. First I had to wait for the rain to stop.

I deserve no credit for thinking out this campaign. Being full of suppressed romanticism and all. I've read millions of words about fighting and adventuring on Earth in old times. I had only to imagine myself an American Indian, a medieval outlaw, or some such bushwhacker.

When the rain stopped, I couldn't untie the gun right away because of the drip from the trees. I was lying in a hollow and waiting when a twittering from the camp told me the Cimbrians were getting curious about their sentry. They put more wood on their fire, and a big party came out.

When I saw they were coming towards me, I wriggled away to one side and untied the gun lock. They found the sentry's body and clustered round it, chattering. I put the gun to my shoulder. It was awkward, as the stock was shaped for Cimbrian arms and shoulders, and I couldn't see the sights. I cocked it and pulled the trigger. There was a click and a little shower of sparks, but no shot.

I cocked the gun again, raised the firing-pan cover, scooped out the powder, replaced it by a pinch from my bucket, and tried again. The musket went off with a terrific bang and flash. I don't know if I hit any Cimbrians, but the group over the corpse flew apart as each Cimbrian dived for cover. A couple fired wildly in my general direction.

When my sight returned after the flash, I groped away from there on a circuit round the camp. When I had gone nearly halfway, I stopped and reloaded, listening to the chorus of excited Cimbrian voices. Reloading a gun like that in the dark without making any noise is one of the toughest jobs you can imagine. You wrap a patch round the ball, place it on the muzzle of the upright barrel, force it into the barrel with a bullet-starting lever hinged to the muzzle, and hammer or push it down the rest of the way with the ramrod. As these guns were rifled, it took a lot of push, but I didn't dare pound the rod down.

From the sounds, I judged the Cimbrians were spreading out to hunt me. I started hunting them in my turn.

Soon I got close enough to one to stick my spear into him before he saw me. He screeched and his gun went off. It didn't hit me, but there was an outburst of Cimbrian chatter. My victim pulled loose and stumbled back to the camp.

The flash brought all the others down upon me. I moved off to one side again, caught one against the campfire, and let him have it.

The kick nearly ruined me. I must have overcharged the gun in the dark. Now, though, I had two muskets. I had an advantage in that there was only one of me, so I didn't have to worry about killing anybody on my side.

After more twittering, all the Cimbrians ran back to the camp and piled into the houses. I could see musket barrels sticking out of the windows. Some of them moved things to make a rough barrier around the camp.

I fired a few more shots at long intervals to keep them awake and unhappy. When the first gray of the long Turanian dawn appeared through the trees, I crept forward and called out.

Intermundos is the interplanetary pidgin, based mainly on terran tongues. It was developed to be speakable by different species; hence it is phonetically simple, with only seven consonants and three vowels. It allows for variation in pronunciation: thus the s may stand for any voiceless fricative like f and h; n may be any nasal, and so on. (At that, it gives trouble to some species like the Serians who can't make nasal sounds.)

Like most artificial languages, it has a grammar of the un-inflected isolating type, like Chinese, because that's the easiest to learn. Having a rigid word order it is good only for bare statements, and it takes twice as long to make them as in any natural language. I called:

"Via las Sinvlianu! Na aki sal ain knaavu vun saaisu vun vuus?" meaning "Cimbrians! Where's your chief?" You see what I mean.

There was movement in the camp. More gun barrels pointed in my direction. I repeated, and then a fluty Cimbrian voice called back in Intermundos:

"Who are you and what do you want?"

"You are surrounded."

"So I see, but who are you?"

"We are the earthmen."

"Where did you get guns?" asked the voice.

"None of your business. Where is the woman you took?"

"None of your business. How many are you?"

"About three hundred. Do you still want to fight?"

"If you attack, we will kill the woman."

"Ah, then she is alive!" I said.

"She will not be for long, if you start shooting."

"If you kill her, we will kill all of you."

"If we give her up, you will kill us anyway, so we will keep her. But we will parley if you will send a man in."

"We will, if you will keep to your camp during the parley and let our man leave unharmed, whatever the outcome."

"He must come unarmed and alone," said the Cimbrian.

I stuck my spear in the ground, leaned my muskets against a tree, and walked into the camp. As I climbed over the barricade, the Cimbrians swarmed out, pointing guns and twittering. When the leader identified himself, I said:

"About this woman. I must see her to know if she is alive and well."

"This way," he said, and led me through the crowd to the center of the camp, where the big cabin had been built over the hot spring. "Twi-an!" he called.

Adrienne came to the door. She gave a shriek, grabbed me round the neck, and kissed me all over the face. I was so embarrassed I hardly knew what to do.

"You have come!" she cried. "I hoped you would, but I was in despair. Do we go right now, no?"

"Not yet," I said. "This is a parley."

"But if you have a big army ..."

"They still have you." I didn't dare come right out and say this was a bluff, because of the remote chance that some Cimbrian might know French. "First, how have you been?"

"Well enough, though I cowered myself in the wash house all night, hoping that your bullets would not pierce the walls."

"Are you the washerwoman?"

"But yes! Look inside."

I saw piles of plates and other gear around the hot spring. Adrienne's method was to put a lot of these things in a big net-bag and dunk them in the steaming pool. She pointed to a couple of wooden tubs, saying:

"They make me scrub their backs. It's hard to get things really clean, though. These savages have no soap."

"Well, I can fix that, but you'd have to take care — oh-oh, that gives me an idea. Here's a package from the people at Liberté."

I opened the bundle. Adrienne squealed with delight. I handed her the cake of soap and said:

"Let fall this into the hot spring. Then come out and stand close to me while I talk with the chief. Stand by for anything." I turned to the chief. "This woman is no good to us here," I said. "If you are going to keep her till she dies, you might as well kill her now. So, for the last time, will you give her up or must we kill you all?"

"You would not kill us all," he said. It's hard to interpret those feline expressions, but he seemed to have a slight grin.

"Why not?"

"Then whom would there be for you to fight?"

"You mean you think we like fighting with you?"

"Of course. We would not kill you all for the same reason. What is life without an enemy?"

"That is not our feeling. If we want to quarrel, we can do so among ourselves. We want you to let our woman go and never molest us again."

The chief scratched his head fur. "You ask us to die of boredom. We might as well kill you and Twi-an now and defy your army."

I was rambling away from the wash house as if I weren't going anywhere, but winding towards the place where I had entered the camp. Adrienne followed close behind.

"Perhaps," said the chief, "we could agree on a series of challenge battles instead of these raids."

"What do you mean?"

"Every so often each side would choose an equal number of their best fighters. These could slaughter each other while the rest of us looked on."

I was dealing with a psychology like that of a medieval knight or a primitive warrior to whom fighting is worth while for its own sake. I must be very careful ...

A Cimbrian ran up and chittered at the chief. The latter whirled on me. "So! There is no terran army! It was all your doing!"

He yelped to the others, who pointed and cocked their guns with a rattle of clicks.

There was a sound behind us like the cough of some great beast; then a rumble, a swish, and a chorus of chirps from the Cimbrians, who started back towards the wash house.

Adrienne and I turned to see the wash house flying straight up and falling apart into single logs. The hot spring had erupted.

The Cimbrians ran towards the geyser, which rose to a height of more than a hundred feet. They checked their rush and tumbled back as logs and boiling water began to fall upon them. Their shrieking was almost drowned in the roar of the geyser.

I grabbed Adrienne's wrist and pulled her over the barricade. We ran. I snatched up the two muskets, handed one to Adrienne, slung the other, picked up my spear, and ran on.

Some Cimbrians saw us. There was a crackle of musket shots, and some bans clipped the twigs about us. We ran faster, stumbling over roots. I led her around towards the meadow and opened the gate in the fence.

The geyser kept the Cimbrians too disorganized for prompt pursuit. By the time they boiled out of their village in all directions, I had untied the bridles of two horses from their stakes. I handed the bridles to Adrienne, saying: "Hold them tightly!"

She took them in a gingerly manner. The horses were as scared as she was, rolling their eyes and pulling.

"Please, monsieur!" she wailed. "I can't hold them!" They were skidding her along the grass.

I chopped through the other bridles. When I finished, I heard Cimbrians whooping. I took the bridles from Adrienne, hitched them round my arm, and clasped my hands in front of me.

"Put your foot there and mount," I said.

When she had done so, I said: "Hold the mane, grip the animal's body with your legs, duck if you see a branch coming, and don't fall off!"

"I'll t-try not to," she said. "I have never done this before, you know."

I vaulted on to the other horse (since they weren't saddled). The freed horses were milling round. My skittish beast calmed down when he felt my weight. I didn't know the Cimbrians' system of guidance, but by slapping and pulling on the reins I got the animal turned towards the rest of the herd, and a kick sent him bounding in among them. Then I beat the horses with the shaft of my spear until they all bolted through the gate.

My horse and Adrienne's followed. I lost my spear in the crush, but I was running out of hands and could only wish I'd been born a Virunian with four.

The horses streamed out past the Cimbrian camp. Cimbrians flitted about and fired a few shots. The horses ran faster, spreading out into the gloom of the trees. Some tripped and fell but got up again.

Soon the camp was out of sight and sound. The horses spread out and slowed down. Some stopped to nibble. Adrienne was off at the limit of vision.

When I finally got to her I gathered up her reins and led her horse while guiding my own away from the Cimbrian camp. When we were safe, she asked:

"What did you do to the source, monsieur?"

"When I was a boy, my father took me to Yellowstone Park. They warn you not to drop soap in the geysers, because it makes them erupt out of turn."

"How you are marvelous!" she said.

"Aw, Adrienne!" I said. "I'm just lucky."

The horses got so skittish at the sight of a swarm of human beings that we had to get off and lead them into Liberté. The Passivists went wild over us, all but Louis Motta. He hopped up on a stool and harangued the crowd:

"Fools! Do you know what this assassin has done? He has brought the whole mass of the aliens upon us. They will burn; they will massacre; they will utterly destroy us! And you acclaim him!"

"What do you expect us to do?" said a Passivist.

"Arrest him and the Herz and hold them to give to the Cimbrians when they arrive. It's our only hope."

The crowd looked astonished and uncertain.

"Is that so?" said I, unslinging the gun from my back. "Get ready, Adrienne. The first one who touches us —"

"No, no," said Adrienne. "Launch that old miserable from his taboret, and me, I'll manage the crowd."

"Down, poltroon!" I said, pushing Motta so he had to jarap off.

Adrienne leaped up in his place and began orating. (If die dear girl had a fault, it was a tendency, along with most women and especially French-speaking women, to screech when excited.) She yelled at them like one of those bloodthirsty characters out of the French Revolution:

"... You think you can deal with these creatures? That they will take a couple of human souls and go? They are not after us. What they want is the war, the fighting, the bloodshed. It's their pleasure, their sport, their ideal."

Motta shouted: "This is militaristic propaganda, the thing we fled Earth to escape! Psychology has proved that there's no combative instinct!"

"You don't believe me?" continued Adrienne. "Ask Jules Egli if there haven't been peoples like that on Earth; he knows terran history. You have a choice, not of giving us up or retaining us, but of fighting or being killed ... Motta is no good for leading a war. He knows nothing of it, and it's against his principles. Choose another leader, one who knows about such things, one who has already shown the greatest address, audacity, intrepidity, and ingenuity in such ardent matters. Make him your general ..."

When I realized she was pointing at me, I was so embarrassed that if there hadn't been a crowd all round me I should have sneaked off and hidden. Next thing I knew, the Passivists were slapping my back, making burlesque salutes, and asking for orders, while Motta screamed about unconstitutionality and burst into tears.

A couple of other Passivists got up and started to make speeches too. I saw that they would go on orating until the Cimbrians came, under the impression that, if only they talked big enough, the nasty part of warfare would take care of itself. I dragged Adrienne, Carl Adorn, Maximilian Wyss, and the man who made my spear out of the crowd and asked them into the guest house. It was empty.

"Where's Ramaswami?" I asked.

Wyss said: "The tender is up making contact with your mothership. It will return in five or six days."

"Pest!" I said. "I might have talked Kubala into lending us a machine gun. Well, let's see what we have."

Four days later I had the quaintest army you ever saw. At that, I could never have done as much as I did if it hadn't been for the length of the Turanian days. There were about fifty warriors armed with improvised weapons. There were spears like the one I had taken to the Cimbrian camp, axes, hammers, clubs, wrenches, knives, and a couple of swords converted from scythe-blades. For defence I had all the women making wicker shields, two and a half feet square, with rope handles, from those reeds north of the village.

I nearly went crazy trying to keep the Libertéans' minds on their duties. The minute I took my eyes off them they would start speech-making or wandering off to loaf or take care of their own business.

By the fourth day I was none too popular. The people grumbled that the Cimbrians weren't coming after all and all this drilling and arming was a waste of time. They called me a dictator and a Napoleon. A few days more, and Motta could have staged a counter-revolution. I sent a messenger to Vaud on Nouvelle-Arcadie, asking for help, but the messenger never came back.

On the fourth day, some of my fighters were throwing spears while others marched up and down the village and pretended to charge and retreat. I still didn't know how to cope with the Cimbrians' firearms. My best plan was to hold everybody behind the inner stockade while I shot our two muskets. If the Cimbrians tried to climb this wall, my people could knock them off as they came without much exposing themselves. I was worrying about these things when the lookout called down:

"Holà! Monsieur Fay! They issue from the woods!"

I banged the dinner-gong. The people in the fields ran for the inner stockade. The confusion was indescribable.

"They have climbed the outer palisade!" called the lookout. A minute later there was a crackle of shots. The lookout fell off his platform into the middle of the street.

The Passivists wailed: "Oh, this is terrible!"

"We shall never succeed against these beasts with their fearful guns!"

"What unhappiness! We are already beaten!"

"Adrienne!" I yelled. "Egli! Where are you?"

I gathered up my two muskets and ran to the east side of the village. I climbed up on the step and fired one gun at the oncoming Cimbrians. Then I ducked down, ran a few paces along the step, and fired the other. This was to make them think we had more than one rifleman.

The last of the Passivists reached the east gate, which was slammed in the faces of the Cimbrians. My two loaders, Adrienne and Jules Egli, found me. I already had one gun nearly reloaded and presently fired at the Cimbrians from close range. This time, when the smoke cleared away, I had the satisfaction of seeing a Cimbrian lying on the ground. Others were trying to boost one of their number over the stockade. I ran to the place and hit the Cimbrian over the head as he came up. Then my helpers handed me another loaded gun.

My officers had got the army into order and put them on the stockade. Relying on surprise, the Cimbrians hadn't brought any scaling ladders or other siege tools. They'd come damned close to success, too. Now they ran up and down outside the stockade, shooting when they saw the top of somebody's head.

After I had laid out another with a musket shot, their leaders called them back. Carrying their dead and wounded, they trailed out through the outer gate and into the woods, all but a few who sat down with their backs to the outer wall. They were too far to hit with these short guns but near enough to watch us.

As the day wore on, we heard sounds of carpentry from the woods. When nobody would climb the sentry tower again, because of what happened to the first lookout, I went up it myself.

The Cimbrians were making equipment. I couldn't see details under the, shadow of the trees, but I could imagine scaling ladders, battering rams, mantlets, and torches to throw into the village. Once they got in, I wouldn't have given a brass farthing for my Utopians' chances. Though a sensible folk in most ways, the Arcadians were so unused to war that the thought of it made them as mercurial as children.

I called a council of war in the guest house. The day was hot and sticky, so we sweated even in our nudity. Adrienne said:

"How about an attack, to scatter them now while they make their ladders?"

Adorn shook his head. "One good discharge and our people would flee all the length of the way to Nouvelle-Arcadie."

"But it takes them time to charge their guns, the same as us," she insisted. "Once the first salvo is pulled, we could close before they could fire another. And the Cimbrians don't have those — what are those little pikes they used to put on the ends of guns?" she asked me.

"Bayonets?"

"Exactly. So when we came to hands, they would have nothing to fight with but clumsy clubs."

Fankhauser, the knife maker, said: "No, when our people see half their number lying in their blood, they will not think of that any more. Even if they did, the Cimbrians need not shoot all their guns the first time. They could reserve some for a second discharge."

"Well," said Adorn, "we can't wait for them to batter down our poor little wall and troop in."

"How many could the boats carry?" I asked, pretty much in despair myself.

Adorn said: "Perhaps sixty, if they are crowded in, in one voyage. We might evacuate the infants to Nouvelle-Arcadie, but we should have to detach some of our combatants to paddle."

"The women could paddle," said Wyss.

Adrienne said: "Too late for that. The Cimbrians could catch them between here and the beach. Gerald, my old, how many more gun shots have you?"

I thought. "Perhaps twenty, if I don't stop a bullet myself."

"And if it doesn't rain and get your powder wet." She turned to Wyss. "What about that? Is it likely to rain?"

"It's probable," he said. "We have had a real drouth: five days without one drop."

Adrienne and I stared at one another and both started to speak: "If we could wet their powder ..."

"So no guns at all would go off ..."

I said to Wyss: "Can you make a rain here? Now?"

"If I had my iodide generator. The humidity is high enough."

"Where is your apparatus? On the beach?"

"Alas, yes. And they could shoot me enroute. But I will take the chance if you wish." The little man looked unhappy, but it's been said that the true hero is he who goes ahead even when terrified.

I thought fast. Somebody should go to cover him. Adrienne and Egli and I knew how to load the muskets; Adrienne and I knew how to shoot, for I'd given her a little practice on the way to Liberté. I stood up and said:

"Come, my friend. We go to the beach. Adrienne, take this gun and cover us from the west gate. If I don't get back, you and Jules will have to man the artillery, and Carl shall be general."

"Oh, let me go instead," she said. "You're our best shooter as well as our commandant —"

"Orders are orders. Carl, get our infantry together and explain the plan. We hope to drench them and then charge them."

A vulgar American expression tells how scared I was inside. It shows what you'll do to look good in front of the girl you love.

It was a little before we reached Liberté that I had found I was in love with Adrienne. Of course I said nothing. I knew my faults too well to suppose I could attract such a girl, despite the demonstration in the Cimbrian camp. She had merely been glad to see another human being and would have kissed Louis Motta.

I had given hard thought to the matter, though. If I dared not speak my piece to Adrienne, I might quit my job and join the Arcadians to be near her and silently worship her.

This prospect was grim, for I had found why, despite the Arcadians' many virtues, I didn't really like the place. The village atmosphere reminded me of Scorpion Rock, Arizona, to which my father moved when ill-health made him retire from the managership of World News, and where I spent a miserable boyhood.

You see, my father is a very intellectual, sophisticated, internationalized man, and some of these attitudes rubbed off on me. The local folks in Scorpion Rock weren't. Hence the boys made life hell for me until I grew too big to be bullied. Give me a big anonymous city, where you needn't be sociable with anybody just because he lives near you.

With Adrienne posted at the west gate, Wyss and I scooted for the beach, crouching. We made it without being seen. Wyss read dials and diddled with gadgets while I lay in the sand at the upper edge of the beach, my musket pointing towards the side of Liberté from which the Cimbrians might come.

At last Wyss got his generator going. "Are you ready?" I whispered.

"Not quite. I must adjust ..."

"Holy name of a name! Hurry!"

"In a moment ..."

Bang!

The shot came, not from Liberté, but from my left rear, where the outer stockade ran down to the water. A Cimbrian had waded round the end; seeing us, he'd taken a quick shot, which missed. I rolled over and sat up. By the time I had my sights in line, the Cimbrian had slipped around the end of the stockade out of sight.

I jumped up and had started in that direction, when it occurred to me that the shot would bring the rest. I'd better get back to Liberté. Maximilian Wyss was already running like a rabbit.

I caught up with him halfway to the gate. We ran side by side. Then three Cimbrians appeared, running towards us through a melon patch.

"Drop flat!" I shouted to Wyss.

I did but he didn't. Two of their guns and mine went off at the same time. One of their group fell. So did Wyss.

The Cimbrian who had fired but had not been hit started to reload, while the one who had not fired ran towards me. The beastly thing about muzzle loaders is not only that it takes so long to load them, but also that you have to stand up to do so. There I was, lying in the dirt with an empty flintlock while this fellow trotted up to put a ball through me at spitting range.

Bang! A puff of smoke from the gate, and the running Cimbrian spun round with a screech and fell.

I jumped up, gathered Wyss up under one arm, and ran for the gate. Beef sometimes has advantages. More Cimbrians appeared. There were several shots, but all passed safely aft of me.

Inside, Adrienne was reloading like mad, her eyes shining. "Is the poor little Wyss dead?" she said.

"Indeed not, young lady," said Wyss in a muffled voice. "I am wounded in the leg, and if it is not repaired I shall bleed to death. But I give you your rain."

I turned Wyss over to the women. Adorn had collected the men by the east gate. Adrienne cried:

"Gerald! Regard the beach!"

A cluster of Cimbrians was standing round the meteorological apparatus, I suppose trying to figure out what we had been up to.

It was a long shot, but I rested the barrel on the top of the stockade and squeezed it off. When the smoke cleared, the Cimbrians were scattering, but one had knocked over the stand on which the generator stood. We groaned.

Somebody shouted to come to the east side. I went. Cimbrians were pouring through the gate in the outer stockade, carrying ladders, a ram made of a trunk with the branches trimmed to stubs for handles, and other siege gear. Adrienne and I began shooting into them, but they shot back so that we could barely duck down after each shot to avoid being riddled.

On they came. Carl Adorn detached a few men to take care of scaling ladders; I pushed one ladder over backwards with a gun-butt. The ram hit the gate with a boom and a cracking of strained wood.

There came another boom — but this wasn't the ram; it was thunder. A drop hit my hand. A thundercloud had formed over the village.

In five seconds, the rain came down with a roar. There were a couple more shots from the Cimbrians, and the damp sput of misfires.

I jumped down and ran to the east gate, which still bulged and shook from the blows of the ram. I said: "Carl, help me pull back this bolt!"

The big timber that held the gate closed was cracked and bent from the blows so that it wouldn't move. While we struggled with it, the ram struck again, boom! The gate flew open, sagging on shattered hinges. Adorn and I leaped back. The momentum of the ram carried the front end of it into the village.

I stepped forward, grabbed the stub-end of a branch, and pulled the tree trunk inward, the way it was going. There was only one of me to twenty Cimbrians, but they're lightly built and weren't expecting a pull in that direction. The whole double string of them, ten on a side, came staggering into Liberté before they had the sense to let go.

I picked up my musket and began whacking them with the butt. The Passivists swarmed about with hammers and hatchets. In ten seconds the Cimbrians were all either down or fled.

We crowded through the gate and fell upon the Cimbrians outside. There wasn't any formal charge, just a brawl; forty-odd naked men, slipping and scrambling, with mud and blood running off them in the rain, tearing into sixty or seventy Cimbrians with their hair plastered in clumps by the wet.

I slugged with my gun butt until the stock broke. Then I picked up a dropped shield and kept on swinging the musket barrel. Even such a simple defence as a wicker shield gives a big advantage over somebody who has none. The Cimbrians wielded gun butts, knives, and hatchets, but to less effect than we did.

The Cimbrians began falling back towards the outer gate. They got jammed going through it, and we hacked and hammered and thrust and stabbed until we won through the gate over a carpet of fallen Cimbrians.

"Keep after them!" I shouted in a hoarse croak. I must have been yelling all the time. "Don't let them make a stand!"

The Cimbrians who had got through the gate ran off into the woods. The rain had stopped, though it still ran off the trees.

We caught no more Cimbrians, because they run faster than men. We did come on some untying their horses, chased them away, and took the horses ourselves. We had four killed (besides the sentry) to at least sixteen of them, but nearly all of us had cuts, bruises, or graver hurts.

I recalled most of our men by shouting and started back. We entered the village expecting heroes' welcomes.

Nobody met us. In fact, there seemed to be nobody there until Louis Motta ran out.

"You fools!" he screamed. "Vaud came, but not to aid us! He has taken all the women and infants back to Nouvelle-Arcadie! He and his men assembled the littles, and that menace made the women go quietly."

We stared stupidly, then ran through the village and down to the beach. All the canoes were gone; but, in plain sight a hundred yards out, the whole flotilla bobbed on its way to the island.

The men jumped and howled, but that didn't stop the rise and fall of the paddles. Motta declaimed:

"Now you see what comes of putting confidence in outsiders. Ten minutes sooner and you could have arrested this violation. But no, our great General Fay thinks not of that. This type takes every man in Liberté except Wyss and me, so there is nobody to warn you."

"Where were you?" I said. "Why didn't you warn us?"

"Because I was under the bed of Wyss, that's why. I hid myself there when I saw what they did, and I had no chance to get out until now. Wyss they did not hurt, but neither could they move him in his condition.

"Now, citizens, listen to me. Always have I been a man of peace, me, Louis Motta. I have offered the soft answer and turned the other cheek. But this, it is too much. I shall myself conduct you to vengeance and reparation ..."

Motta was good when he got steamed up. Some grumbled and asked what was the matter with the general they had. I stammered something about being available, but Motta tore into me, denounced my incompetence, and had me twisting my big feet in the sand with nothing to say like a dumb schoolboy.

"First," he said, "we must build new boats to replace those that have been stolen ..."

I watched Motta's new fleet paddle away with lugubrious feelings. Motta had refused to let me come along, I suppose for the obvious reasons.

Although the prospect of a battle terrifies me, I wanted to rescue Adrienne myself. For three days I quarreled furiously with Motta. He had got his political grip back on his men and threatened to have me locked up if I opposed him. Adorn might have helped me if he hadn't been badly hurt in the fight at the outer gate. So I stood on the beach like a big booby, wondering if I ought not to have throttled Motta and chanced a fight with his men.

I slouched back to the guest house to drink Turanian wine with Arthur Ramaswami. While the new canoes had been building, the tender had come back.

"Cheer up, Gerry," said Ramaswami. "We're taking off for good in a few days, and you can forget all this. You've been hero enough for one trip."

I had drunk myself fuzzy and was blubbering into my mug when there was a scuff of feet. A Passivist dashed in.

"Monsieur Fay!" he cried between gasps. "We are fools again! All is lost, because you were not there to lead us!"

I focussed on the man with an effort. "What's lost? And how did you get back so soon?"

"It is a disaster of the most insupportable! Listen; I tell you. We disembark at Elysée in full daylight — and there's no one! But nobody!

"So, we march like real soldiers into the town. We assemble in the square. Motta makes a harangue, full of the noblest sentiments. We are fired with patriotism. The perfidious enemy has fled, says he, but he has taken our dear ones.

Very well, we shall march the length and breadth of the island seeking the cowardly traitor. Motta draws us up in a column. He puts himself at the head. He gives the signal. Maurice Rahn beats the drum. We march into the forest.

"Then out of nowhere come the forces of Vaud. They are not only more than we; they not only surprise us; they are better armed. While we have been making boats, Vaud has been improving upon our armament. Instead of our bucklers of osier and our hatchets, his men have shields, helmets, and even some cuirasses of the bark of the leather tree, bound with strips and hoops of iron. They have swords and spears of iron. They throw the spears and precipitate themselves upon us with the swords, menacing us with horrible cries. Our musketeers shoot in a wild manner; they hit two or three Activists. Then the foe is upon us.

"Thus, Motta is struck down in the first charge. The rest flee. Some are cut down; some are made prisoner. A bare half escape in our boats, mostly without weapons. And afterwards?"

I looked at Ramaswami, who said: "The old man won't lend you guns. He might have done so to help you repulse the Cimbrians, but not for an inter-human feud."

I said to the Passivist: "I don't suppose it occurred to Motta to send scouts out on all sides?"

"But no, monsieur, why should it? Now that you say it, I see that this would be sage. But it is not a thing that would suggest itself to one who knows nothing of war."

"And I don't suppose anybody had time to chop holes in Vaud's boats before shoving off?"

"No."

"Then it seems to me as if the game were over."

"But monsieur, we debated the matter during our return, and we want you for our general again. It was only the rhetoric of the foolish Motta, and the fact that you are an outsider, that made us abandon you before."

"Thanks, but what can I do? Vaud's got the guns, most of the men, and all the women and children. You might as well make your peace with him."

"Excuse me, but that's impossible. When we were in process of paddling away, he stood on the shore and commanded us to return and submit. He menaced us that if we refused, he would never receive us but would have us shot at first view.

One of us hurled an insult, and Vaud tried to pull a musket at us. He did not know how to make it work well, so he missed. But he has made his sentiments evident."

"Well, what then?"

"We want you to lead us. You have already accomplished the impossible, and you can do it again."

There didn't seem anything to do, though. I walked far up the beach to think. Night attacks — surprise attacks — psycho-' logical offensives — guerilla warfare — all the rest of it.

My predicament was complicated by the fact that I didn't really want to kill Activists. It was easy to work up a battle lust against the Cimbrians, who are another species. No doubt they felt the same about us. And I certainly didn't want any women or children killed. Or Adrienne.

I started to sit down on a log; then flinched at the memory of my sting. I looked at the log. No vespoid; but the memory started a train of thought.

Three nights later, before dawn, we paddled up to the shore of Nouvelle-Arcadie, not at Elysée but a few hundred yards north of it.

We climbed ashore looking like spooks from a Gothic novel. Each wore a coverall, a bag with eye holes over his head, goggles over the bags, more bags on his feet, and work gloves. The gloves, goggles, and coveralls we had borrowed from the tender's stores, as they were not weapons. The bags we made. Most of us carried our usual wicker shields and hand weapons, but eight had large cloth bags tied shut. These bags buzzed ominously when jostled.

Carefully carrying our bags, we crept through the woods. The sky had begun to lighten when we sighted the camp. They had a sentry pacing the beach but hadn't thought to watch the landward side. Because of the lack of large animals on the island, Elysée had never been walled.

We crept up to the edge of the fields. I passed the word, when we were drawn up in a line, to walk briskly towards the village until we were discovered, then to run. We started.

We were halfway across when the sentry cried: "Halte-là!" and then: "Mon dieu!" He fired his musket.

We swept across the field without caring for the vegetables. The shot brought out the Activists, rubbing the sleep out of their eyes. At the sight of us they gave back with cries of horror.

As soon as we got inside the village, each of us that had a bag slashed it open with his knife. Out came a big battered vespoid-nest and a swarm of furious insects. As the Activists boiled out with weapons, the vespoids set upon them. They attacked us, too, but our clothes kept out all but a few stings, whereas with the Activists they had a clear field.

In a few seconds the Activists and their captives were a screaming mob running for the woods and the sea, jumping and slapping.

Half an hour later we had gathered up their weapons and fished Henri Vaud out of Taylor Sea. The vespoids had scattered. The Activists, seeing that we had won this throw, straggled back. Adrienne had one eye nearly shut from a sting on the cheek but was still the loveliest thing I'd ever seen. She looked at our masked faces.

"Is one of you Monsieur Fay?" she asked.

"I am," I said, taking off my disguise.

She grabbed me again as she had done in the Cimbrian camp. "I knew you'd come," she said at last.

"Ahem," said Vaud. "What do you do now, miscreant?"

"Me?" said I, looking innocent. "Why, nothing. Your people have a perfect democracy; let them settle their differences in a civilized manner. My party will use the guns only to keep order. Let's go for a walk, Adrienne."

On the beach I said: "I must go back to the mainland at once, my little."

"Go? But you can't — I mean to say, why?"

"The tender takes off this afternoon, and I must be there if I don't want to spend the next ten or fifteen years — terran years, that is — on Turania."

"Couldn't we persuade you to stay? The Cimbrians still menace us."

"No, my dear. I have my own business. But I shall certainly miss you." I gave a histrionic sigh. "If I had a girl like you on Earth — but of course there aren't any."

"What's so difficult about that?"

For a couple of seconds I dared not breathe for fear of spoiling something. "Why — uh — hey, you don't mean you'd marry me and go too, do you?"

"Certainly, stupid, if properly demanded. But didn't you tell me that in your civilization, the man offers the hand?"

Let us be drawing a veil over the next minute. Some things are sacred even to newspaper correspondents. Then I said:

"Are you sure you want to leave? This has been your home since you were a small child; your parents are here ..."

She frowned. "Gerald my adored, first, is it well heard that I have accepted you for love and not for material advantages? Otherwise I'll take it back."

"D'accord."

"Well then, to tell the truth, this rustic paradise bores me to distraction. Our chiefs always tell us how ideal it is to live simply in a little village. Me, I think I prefer the big wicked cities, where something happens. I even want to learn to wear clothes. Perhaps I am one of those lascivious degenerates of whom Vaud has warned us."

"Well, let's degenerate together, then. I too had my fill of the simple life as a kid of Arizona." I kissed her and led her back to Elysée.

Politics raged in the village. At least five people were making speeches. One demanded Vaud's impeachment; another called for a new constitutional convention; a third urged that they make him dictator.

Adrienne went to bid her parents farewell while I gathered the borrowed ship's stores, which I loaded into a canoe. Without asking permission, we shoved off and paddled eastward. A violent storm caught up with us, but we hardly noticed.

Turania's surprises weren't over. The rain stopped before we reached the mainland. When it lifted, a swarm of figures appeared coming down to the beach. As I got closer, I saw both men and Cimbrians. A couple of the latter carried modern-looking guns, but the rest seemed unarmed.

I wondered what had happened now: if the Cimbrians had come back despite their beating, or what. The village had lain undefended save for a few wounded men. I swung the canoe around to be ready to flee.

Czeslaw Kubala bellowed: "Gerry Fay! Come on in! It's all right!"

We came in. These Cimbrians looked more civilized" than the others. Although, like the others, they grew their own fur coats, they wore broad belts with shiny gadgets on them.

Kubala wrung my hand and said: "Is this young lady going with us?"

"Yes. Do you remember Mademoiselle Herz, once the mail-girl of Liberté but now my fiancée?"

"Enchanted! Congratulations and felicitations. I expect a few more fugitives from paradise before we lift." Kubala indicated the shiniest Cimbrian. "Gerry, this is Captain — uh — Kiatiksu Satsitu, or that's how it comes out in Intermundos. He's skipper of the other ship whose tender you see."

"What other tender?" I said.

Kubala jerked his thumb. I saw a second steel nose above the trees. Kubala said: "Good lord, didn't you hear it come down?"

"My mind was on other things. But what about the Cimbrians?"

"They've got a ship in orbit too. It seems they stopped by for the same reason we did, to see how their colony was coming."

Captain what's-his-name said in Intermundos: "We must apologize to you and to the terran colony, sir, for the harm you have sustained from our colonists. An indemnity shall be paid when this imbroglio is adjusted. We may remove our colony to the other side of the planet, where they will not soon again come in contact with you."

"Thanks," I said. "But why did they attack us?"

"We are a civilized folk, sir. Nothing like this has been allowed on Cimbria for thousands of years.

"Some, however, find our peaceful and orderly life uncongenial. A group of these restless persons gained permission to settle here, where they could live a life the opposite of ours: irregular, carefree, adventurous, even quarrelsome. We did not know they would come into conflict with your colony."

I asked: "Why are they armed with flintlocks? Modern guns I could understand, or being unarmed like our colonists I could understand, but why these archaic, obsolete weapons?"

'That was the doing of the Interplanetary Conservation Commission. The colonists wanted modern weapons; the Committee wanted to deny them all firearms lest they deplete the fauna. So this was a compromise." The Cimbrian paused. "Our people's aim was to set up a — what is that word which earthmen use for an ideal society?"

"A Utopia?"

"Thank you, sir; that is it. A Utopia."

The End