Glystra studied her closely. Marvelous mobility of feature—sparkle of eye, lilt of voice when she spoke of joy— a mouth that was never quite in repose. And when she dwelt on her grief her eyes became large and wistful, and the nervous beauty of her face and body seemed to become less explicit, glowing from some wonderful region inside her mind, as light shines from the inner part of a star.

  “And how is it that you were selected to nurse me?”

  She shrugged, studied the backs of her hands. “I’m an outlander; I know the methods of Grosgarth—some of which have been learned from Earth books. Naisuka.”

  Glystra looked up in puzzlement, repeated the word. “What is that?”

  “It’s a Beajolais word.” She settled herself to the ground at his feet, leaned back against the wall, stretched with the easy looseness of a kitten. “It means—well, it’s what makes a person decide to do things for no reason whatever.”

  He pointed down the slope. “What country is that nestled down there?”

  She turned half on her side, propped herself on one elbow. “The Jubilith claiming ends at the Tsalombar Woods.” She indicated a far line of forest. “The Tree-people live there, above the tritchsod.”

  Another idiom unfamiliar to Glystra.

  Up by the village the Earthmen appeared. Glystra watched their approach. Guilt in any one of them seemed as remote as guilt in Nancy. But someone had helped Abbigens, someone had burnt out the motors. Of course it might have been Arthur Hidders, and he was gone.

  “Sit down,” said Glystra. They took seats on the turf. Glystra looked doubtfully at Nancy. She smiled up cheerfully, made no move to rise; indeed, settled herself more comfortably, stretching her legs, pointing her toes—exotic as a rare bird.

  Glystra hesitated, then turned back to the men. “We’re in a tough spot, although I suppose I don’t need to belabor the point.“

  No one spoke.

  “We’re shipwrecked with no possibility of getting help from Earth. As far as technical superiority goes, we’re no better off than the people of the village. Maybe worse. They understand their tools, their materials; we don’t. If we had unlimited time, we might be able to patch up some kind of radio and call the Enclave. We don’t have that time. Any minute we can expect soldiers to take us to Grosgarth. ... In Grosgarth the Bajarnum will make an example of us. He doesn’t want interference, he’ll make sure we’re aware of it. We’ve got one chance, that’s to get out of Beaujolais, put miles behind us.”

  He paused, looked from face to face. Pianza was mild, non-committal, Cloyville’s big forehead was creased in a heavy frown, Ketch was petulantly digging at the ground with a bit of sharp gravel. Bishop’s face was faintly troubled, with little puckers like inverted V’s over his eyes. Darrot ran a hand through his sparse red hair, muttered something to Ketch, who nodded. Corbus the chief engineer sat quietly, as if unconcerned. Vallusser the second engineer glared, as if Glystra were the cause of his difficulties. He said in a thick voice, “What happens when we escape. Where do we escape to? There’s nothing out there—” he waved his hand down the slope “—but wild men. They’ll kill us. Some of them are cannibals.”

  Glystra shrugged. “You’re free to do whatever you like, save your skin the best way you can. Personally I see one way out. It’s hard, it’s long, it’s dangerous. Maybe it’s impossible. It’s close to certain not all of us will make it. But we want to escape with our lives, we want to go home. That means—” he accented his words heavily “—one place on Big Planet. The Enclave. We’ve got to get to the Enclave.”

  “Sounds good,” said Cloyville. “I’m all for it. How do we do it?”

  Glystra grinned. “The only means of locomotion we’ve got—our feet.”

  “Feet?” Cloyville’s voice rose.

  “Sounds like a pretty stiff hike,” said Darrot.

  Glystra shrugged. “There’s no use fooling ourselves. We’ve got one chance to get back to Earth—that’s make Earth Enclave. The only way to get there is to start.”

  “But forty thousand miles?” Cloyville protested plaintively. “I’m a big man, hard on my feet.”

  “We’ll pick up pack-animals,” said Glystra. “Buy them, steal them, we’ll get them somehow.”

  “But forty thousand miles,” muttered Cloyville.

  Glystra nodded. “It’s a long way. But if we find the right kind of river, we’ll float. Or maybe, find a ship, sail around the coast.”

  “Can’t be done,” said Bishop. “The Australian Peninsula reaches down, curves back east. We’d have to wait till we reached Henderland, then cut down, around the Blackstone Cordillera, to the Parmarbo. And, according to the Big Planet Almanac, the Parmarbo is virtually unnavigable due to reefs, pirates, carnivorous sea anemones and weekly hurricanes.”

  Cloyville groaned again. Glystra heard a sound from Nancy, and looked down, saw her mouth quivering in efforts to restrain a giggle. He rose to his feet, and Pianza watched him doubtfully. “How do you feel, Claude?”

  “I’m weak. But tomorrow I’ll be as good as new. Nothing wrong with me a little exercise won’t cure. One thing we can be thankful for—”

  “What’s that?” asked Cloyville.

  Glystra motioned to his feet. “Good boots. Water-proof, wear-proof. We’ll need them.”

  Cloyville ruefully inspected his big torso. “I suppose the paunch will work off.”

  Glystra glanced around the circle. “Any other ideas? You, Vallusser?”

  Vallusser shook his head. “I’ll stay with the crowd.”

  “Good. Now here’s the program. We’ve got to make up packs. We want all the metal we can conveniently carry; it’s precious on Big Planet. Each of us ought to be able to manage fifteen pounds. Tools and knives would be best, but I suppose we’ll have to take what we can salvage . . . Then we’ll want clothes, a change apiece. Ship’s chart of Big Planet, if available. A compass. Everyone had better find himself a good knife, a blanket, and most important— handweapons. Has anyone checked the ship?”

  Corbus put his hand in his blouse, displayed the black barrel of an ion-discharge pistol. “This belonged to the Captain. I helped myself.”

  “I’ve got my two,” said Cloyville.

  “There should be one in my cabin aboard ship,” said Pianza. “There was no way in yesterday, but maybe I can squeeze in somehow.”

  “There’s another in mine,” said Glystra. He put his hands on the arm of the chair, rose to his feet. “We’d better get started.”

  “You’d better rest,” said Darrot gruffly. “You’ll need all your strength. I’ll see that your pack is made up.”

  Glystra relaxed without embarrassment. “Thanks. Maybe we’ll make better time.”

  The seven men filed uphill, into the forest of silky blue-green trees. Glystra watched them from the doorway.

  Nancy rose to her feet. “Best now that you should sleep.”

  He went inside, lowered himself to the cot, put his hands under his head, lay staring at the beams.

  Nancy stood looking down at him. “Claude Glystra.”

  “What?”

  “May I come with you?”

  He turned his head, stared up in astonishment. “Come where?”

  “Wherever you’re going.”

  “Around the planet? Forty thousand miles?”

  “Yes.”

  He shook his head decisively. “You’d be killed with the rest of us. This is a thousand to one chance.”

  “I don’t care ... I die only once. And I’d like to see Earth. I’ve wandered far and I know many things . . .” She hesitated.

  Glystra put the spur to his brain. It was tired and failed to react. Something was out of place. Would a girl choose such a precarious life from pure wanderlust? Of course, Big Planet was not Earth; human psychology was unpredictable. And yet—he searched her face, was it a personal matter? Infatuation? She colored.

  “You blush easily,” Glystra observed.

  “I’m strong,” said Nancy. “I can do as much work as either Ketch or Bishop.”

  “A pretty girl can cause a lot of trouble.”

  She shrugged. “There are women everywhere on Big Planet. No one need be alone.”

  Glystra sank back on the couch, shaking his head. “You can’t come with us, Nancy.”

  She bent over; he felt her breath on his face, warm, moist. “Tell them I’m a guide. Can’t I come as far as the forest?”

  “Very well. As far as the forest.”

  She ran outside, into the golden radiance of the day.

  Glystra watched her run up the flowered slope. “There goes trouble.” He turned his face to the wall.

  3. Free For All

  He slept an hour, two hours, soaking the rest into his bones. When he awoke, afternoon sunlight was slanting in through the doorway, a flood of richest saffron. Up the slope, the village merry-making was in full swing. Lines of girls and young men, in parti-colored motley like Nancy’s, capered back and forth in a dance of light-hearted buffoonery. To his ears came a shrill jig played on fiddles, concertinas, guitars, rhapsodiums. Back, forth, across his vision ran the dancers, bounding in a kind of prancing goose-step.

  Pianza and Darrot looked in through the doorway. “Awake, Claude?” asked Pianza.

  Glystra swung his feet over the edge of the cot, sat up. “Good as new.” He stood up, stretched, patted the back of his head, the soreness had nearly disappeared. “Everything ready?”

  Pianza nodded, “Ready to go. We found your ion-shine, also a heat-gun belonging to the mate.” He looked at Glystra half-sidewise, an expression of mild calculation on his face. “I understand Nancy has been included in the expedition.”

  “No,” said Glystra, with some irritation. “I told her she might come as far as the forest, that’s only two or three hours away.”

  Pianza looked doubtful. “She’s made herself up a pack. Says she’s going with us.”

  Darrot gave his head a terse shake. “I don’t like it, Claude.” He had a rough baritone voice. It sounded harsh and grating now. “This march is no place for a girl. Bound to be friction, inconvenience.”

  Darrot’s cast of mind was peculiarly grim, thought Glystra. In a conciliatory voice he said, “I’m in full agreement with you. I refused her point blank.”

  “But she’s all packed,” said Pianza.

  Glystra said tartly, “Well, if she insists on going, if she follows a hundred yards to the rear, I don’t see how we can stop her short of physical constraint.”

  Pianza blinked. “Well, naturally. . . .” His voice trailed off.

  Darrot was unconvinced. His square face wore a look of mulish displeasure. “She’s travelled widely, she’s been to Grosgarth. Suppose she’s one of the Bajarnum’s secret agents? I understand they’re everywhere, even on the other side of the planet, even on Earth.”

  “It’s possible,” admitted Glystra. “Anything’s possible. For all I know, you work for the Bajarnum yourself. Someone does.”

  Darrot snorted, turned away.

  “Don’t worry,” said Glystra, slapping him on the shoulder. “When we get to the forest, we’ll send her back.” He went to the door, stepped outside. Much of his strength had returned, although his legs felt limp and lax.

  Pianza said, “Bishop salvaged the ship’s first aid kit, and all his food pills and vitamins. They may be useful; our food won’t always be the best.”

  “Good.”

  “Cloyville found his camping equipment and we’re taking along the stove and the water-maker.”

  “Any spare power units for the ion-shines?”

  “No.”

  Glystra chewed his lip. “That’s bad . . . Find the nun’s body?”

  Pianza shook his head. “Her cabin is on the bottom.”

  “Too bad,” said Glystra, although he felt little real remorse. The woman had hardly existed as a human being: he had been conscious of a thin white face, a black robe, a black head-dress, an air of intensity, and all was now gone.

  Down from the village came the Earthmen, and around them circled the dancers, gay, exalted, aware only of their own motion and color. Ketch, Corbus, Vallusser, Cloyville, Bishop—and Nancy. She stood a little apart, watching the dancing with an air of serene detachment, as if she had renounced whatever ties bound her to Jubilith.

  An elder of the village came down the slope, a thin brown man in a heavy loose smock of horizontal brown, gray and white stripes. The rhythm was still in his ears; he jigged to the music following him down the hill.

  He spoke to Cloyville, remonstrated; Cloyville pointed to Glystra. The old man jigged to where Glystra stood waiting. He sang out, “Surely you won’t leave us now? The day is at its close; night drifts over the massif and our merriment is not yet upon us.”

  Glystra held out his arms while Pianza helped him into his pack. He said with a grin, “Dance a couple sets for me.”

  “You’ll be a-dark!”

  “We’ll be a-dark more times than this once.”

  “Inauspicious, importunate.” He broke into a chant such as children might sing at their games. “The hop-legged sprites abound in the dark; skin to skin they will weld your legs. Bone to bone, flesh to flesh, and all your life shall be hop-step-one, hop-step-one. . . .”

  Nancy caught Glystra’s eye, shook her head slightly. Glystra turned away, looked out over Big Planet, already flooded in light of a darker gold. Behind him were the dancers in groups of five, wheeling, kicking out their legs at the knee, wagging their heads drolly, and the music waxed shrill and happy. Looking down the vast slope, Glystra suddenly felt weak before the immensity of the journey ahead. Jubilith seemed warm and secure. Almost like home. And ahead—distance. Sectors and sections, extents and expanses. Looking to where Earth’s horizon would lie, he could lift his eyes and see lands reaching far on out: pencil lines of various subtle colors, each line a plain or a forest, a sea, a desert, a mountain range . . . He took a step forward, looked over his shoulder. “Let’s go.”

  For a long time the merry music followed their backs, and only when the sun passed behind the slope and mauve dusk came down from the sky did the sounds dwindle to the silence of distance.

  The way led across the bracken, a thick resilient mat of gray stalks beaded with dull green nodules. The slope was gentle and uniform, and the coming of Big Planet night brought no difficulties; it was only necessary to walk down the fall of the ground.

  Cloyville and Darrot strode together at the head of the group; then came Glystra, with Nancy at one elbow and Pianza at the other. To their left walked Ketch a little apart, and behind came Bishop, eyes on the ground. At the rear, twenty paces behind, walked Corbus, striding easily, and Vallusser, picking his way as if his feet hurt.

  Twilight waned and stars appeared. Now there was nothing in the world but darkness, the sky, the breast of the planet and their own infinitesimal persons.

  Nancy had been carefully quiet, but now in the dark, she pressed closer to Glystra. Glystra, expecting various wiles and persuasions, grinned to himself and prepared to withstand an assault on his senses.

  She spoke in a soft low voice. “Tell me, Claude, which of those stars is Old Sun?”

  Glystra scanned the heavens. The constellations were strange and made no particular pattern.

  He remembered that on leaving Earth for Big Planet, Cetus was astern till they arrived at Index . . . There, was Spica, and nearby the black bulge of the Porridge Pot. “I think that’s the Sun there—right above the bright white star, in toward the big blot of fog.”

  She stared wide-eyed into the sky. “Tell me about Earth.”

  “It’s home,” said Glystra. He looked for several seconds up at the white star. “I’d like to be there . . .”

  “Is Earth more beautiful than Big Planet?”

  “That’s a hard question to answer. Offhand—no. Big Planet is—big. Impressive. The Himalayas on Earth are foothills beside the Sklaemon Range or the Blackstone Cordillera.”

  “Where are they?” Nancy asked.

  Glystra’s mind had been wandering. He looked at her blankly. “Where are what?”

  “Those mountain ranges? Here on Big Planet?”

  “The Sklaemons are about thirty thousand miles northwest, in a part of Big Planet called Matador. The Ski-men live there, I believe. The Blackstone Cordillera is to the southeast, about five thousand miles above the Australian Peninsula, in Henderland.“

  “There’s so much to be learned ... So many places to see ...” Her voice broke a trifle. “The Earth-men know more about us than we know ourselves. It isn’t fair. You keep us in mental shackles ...”

  Glystra laughed sourly. “Big Planet is a compromise of many people’s ideas. Nobody thinks it’s right.”

  “We grow up barbarians,” she said passionately. “My father—”

  Glystra looked at her quizzically. “A barbarian is not aware that he is a barbarian.”

  “—was murdered. Everywhere is murder and death. .. .”

  Glystra tried to hold his voice at a dispassionate level. “It’s not your fault that this is so—but it’s not the fault of the Earth people either. We’ve never attempted to exercise authority past Virginis Reef. Anyone passing through is on his own—and his children pay the price.”

  Nancy shook her head—a kind of personal little jerk with head cocked sidewise, indicating incomplete conviction.

  Glystra tried to think. There was little he could say to her that was concrete and definite. He detested human pain and misery as whole-heartedly as she did. He was equally convinced that Earth could maintain authority only through a finite volume of space. It was likewise impossible to prevent people who so desired to pass the boundaries and declare themselves free of supervision. He also admitted that in such a case, many might suffer from the mistakes of a few. It was an injustice arising from the very nature of human beings. Nancy had known the injustice—the murder, the grief, the anger, the aberrations which reinforcing and building up down the generations, now infected tribes, peoples, races, continents, the entire world. These immediacies would be in the forefront of her mind; his problem was to convey a sense of more-and-less relationships, to endow these vaguenesses and conditionals with enough power to counter the force of her emotion.