"There are lots of corporations on Earth," Cricket in-terposed, "that would gladly pay S^lOO for the same ton, delivered on Earth."

  It was a strange economy there on Betsy Ann. There was broadcast electric power, a great improvement over the puny atomic power stations of Earth. Yet we were sitting in a primitive cabin, a crude construction of logs laid together to surround a restaurant space and heated by a wood fire in a stone fireplace. Crude as the surroundings were, I was comfortable. The open fire was a cheerful thing to watch after the starship cabin. In contrast, the lights were globes of gas ignited by broadcast power.

  The people, too, were oddly contrasting. I found that I, a captain and a graduate engineer from Earth's best academies, was one of the more inept in some ways, though I did manage to shine in others.

  Not much time had passed when a man wandered in, was introduced and joined us; I didn't think much of it. He was tall, stooped, thin and about forty. Dr. Strath-more was his name and the title surprised me. I hadn't expected doctors among the people there, but my surprise passed quickly. He asked questions with a voluble curiosity that was unexpected in a total stranger.

  While we were talking, three others walked in. Later others came in, singly and in pairs. They were all introduced, several of them as doctor this or that. I gave up trying to get the names straight. They were all firing questions about Earth conditions, whether there were any changes in attitude, what changes there had been in colonial trading policies and the like. The questions were coming so fast I didn't have much time to think about names.

  Then a rotund man walked in, and I recognized his face from the Tri-D even before he was introduced. He was Dr. Lamar Jacobs.

  "But—but you're a PhD., Doctor," I said. "You're the head of the Institute for Astrophysics! You're in the lunar laboratories!"

  He smiled cheerfully. "No," he said, "I'm on Betsy Ann. I've been here almost a year."

  Gallagher was laughing, and his laughter rang tttrough the small cabin, joined by others. "You think these were all medical doctors?" he asked finally through his laughter.

  "Of course," I said stiffly, getting embarrassed. "It did occur to me that you had quite a large number of medical men here, but then, I don't know the size of your colony."

  The colony had been growing. Once Gallagher had founded an independent colony, the colonists began to arrive. How each one got there was a separate story; why each one got there was a separate story too, except for the one thing they had in common: they wanted to live and work freely.

  They wanted to be free of the perpetual secrecy, regulation, and frustration of the impersonal systems that dominated Earth.

  The ones who had come to debrief me and to find out what talents I might have that would prove useful were mostly scientists and engineers. But every type of person in a civilization was represented by those who had found their way to Betsy Ann.

  "There's a sort of rule of thumb that we've found has worked out in which way people get here," Gallagher said. "If you're a conservative independent, let's call it, you head for a planet and get word to me. But if you're crackling mad at the way civilization's grown on Earth and its tame planets, if you're a no-holds-barred, let's-get-out-there-and-see-what-we-can-make-happen type, if you're mad because the government and the corporations control space—then you pirate a ship and head for Betsy Ann."

  All the time, Cricket sat there as though she belonged, her little-girl appearance belied by the ability with which she joined in the technical conversation. Her light, bantering tone added as sparkling and warm a note to the surroundings as the glowing lamps.

  When the owner of the canteen came over, bringing a guitar and handing it to her, the contrast was even stranger. She curled up, then, over the guitar and forgot anybody else was around while she crooned to it, tuning it. Meanwhile, the conversation went on, slightly muted, as though in respect to the guitar and its mistress.

  Finally, Cricket began humming and strumming, and then, in a slender voice, she began to sing.

  It was then, I think, that I despairingly fell in love with Cricket Joinson. It was despairingly because I realized I was old-fashioned, because this was a modern world with modern technology and I was Earth-bound in spite of Earth's rigid senilities. Gallagher had said, Let's consider the value, and then we'll discuss the price. All I'd been looking at for many years was the price; I had given no thought to the value of things. I sat feeling hopelessly without value because I had refused to pay the price.

  Then I took myself to task mentally. They could have freedom, but my job, I told myself severely, was to get back to Earth and force the facts of the colonies down the Space Commission's throat, to make them listen and change. I didn't say it aloud; I was quite sure they would laugh at me. But I felt that would be my contribution to a new civilization, and when it had been made and if I still felt the way I was beginning to feel, then perhaps I would have paid the price of entrance into Betsy Ann, for I felt I must pay before I had the right to join them. I wanted to pay the price in a manner that included a loyalty to Earth, although it had shown itself to be stupid, backward and intolerant.

  I continued to answer the questions as eagerly as they were asked, and my answers were all pitched to show reasoning behind the muddleheadedness that they showed. I think the men questioning me were impatient with that for a long time before Jim Strathmore spoke up.

  "Dundee," he said kindly, "stupidity always has its rationale. That makes it none the less stupid. Let me put it more strongly," he went on quietly. "Suicide always has its rationale, its justifications, its reasons. It's still suicide.

  "Earth," he said, "is committing suicide. We all know the rationale. We've all escaped from Earth. You can buy it and say 'poor pathetic Earth is acting stupidly,' or you can refuse it and say that if Earth wants to be pathetic, the only way to stop the trend is to establish a terminal so strong that Earth has to forget suicide and get on with the business of competing. Now, if Earth continues to commit suicide to the bitter end, well, it will be dead. But the race of man won't be dead, because we're here. So, though we can't prevent suicide of the planet, we can prevent suicide of the race, and we're doing just that.

  "If Earth wants to notice that there's life to be lived and competition to be had, then she can rise from her sickbed and get back into the business of living and growing and being vital."

  I was shocked. I hadn't thought of Earth as a "poor, pathetic planet," though I may have thought of the crowded millions there as pathetic people. When Lamar Jacobs said that the poor, pathetic people of Earth were that way by their own refusal to change the situation, and that they were trying to create colonies of pathetic people in their own image, I was inclined to agree with him.

  I learned a lot that night, although I was answering the questions. I learned a lot in the next few weeks, and though one hijacked ship came through and I knew I could go out with the ferry and take passage back to Earth, I made excuses to myself and stayed on Betsy Ann.

  Cricket ferried me around the planet on her business which seemed to include a lot more than just piloting meteors. Much later, I learned that she'd been shunted off her normal routine to go on errands for the purpose of ferrying me about. Gallagher seemed to take my report to Earth more seriously than I thought; he wanted to be sure I'd make a full report.

  I saw the Beta and Gamma tap stations. Since Betsy Ann is mostly desert, the most vital work I saw was where tap-powered machines were digging dams in desert areas, to stop the water that's always below the surface of a desert, and force it back to the surface.

  I also saw the method, probably copied from Gallagher's Glacier, by which they brought drinking water to the port and other centers. They froze ice ships at the poles and floated them down to the desert areas to melt there. This supplemented the dams and wells until the systems were completed and could take over the job. It was a far less expensive method than getting clear water from sea water.

  But it was the landing system of the big Alpha Tap that held me fascinated. When it went into operation at night, the faint play of lights that were the melting tap would dim and pale and for a period of perhaps two minutes the lamps of the area nearly went out as well.

  Then the horizon would light up again, and instead of the pale single streamer that flickered, instead of the omnipresent chee-ops; chee-ops that was the song of the tap in its normal operation, the huge, ladderlike structure of beams would flame into the sky, and the chorus of the other pyramidal structures would join into a deep subsonic roar like the after rumble of thunder, interspersed with harmonics that were more like a drum than the oboe note of the single tap.

  On the flaming ladder against the night, a darker mass would slowly make its way, a giant figure stepping up with improbable smoothness, lifted by the powerful chorus of light and sound, until it reached the top of the ladder, a bright point. Then its trajectory would curve, and it would sweep off and away, out of sight.

  The ladder had a pull to it, a pull that was as strong as space itself and as irresistible. I longed to be out in the starways, to climb those golden rungs and fling myself into the freedom of space. The sight of the tap gave me a longing for the farther stars, for infinity, perhaps. It was an unreasoning reaction. Safety is on a planet; space is dangerous. But the pull of that ladder was a deeper pull than I could withstand. I knew I would be going out again.

  Once, when I'd stood enmeshed in the powerful web as it lifted a ship out to the stars until sight and sound of it were gone, and the low, pulsing beat of the angor-watt; angor-watt had been replaced by the chee-ops of the single tap, I turned to find Cricket beside me, staring not at the tap, but at me. There was an expression on her face that made me take her in my arms, oblivious of the canteen and the people there.

  "You'll go with me?" I asked. "I have to go."

  Her voice against my chest was muffled. "Not to Earth," she said, "not to Earth for any reason."

  I let her go then, but I felt a loss.

  Ships were going out to Refuge now with some regularity, and although most of the trading was one-way, with Betsy Ann sending goods and accepting Refugian script, since they'd not had time to produce a return trade ability. Yet the returning ships were carrying things needed on Betsy Ann, and I learned that the black-market traders in the colonies were accepting the Refugian script at nearly face value, in spite of the fact that it was known that Refuge would pay Stella-mira as its first priority. That spoke a lot for Gallagher and for the feeling that was permeating the starways, a heady feeling. I think the Refugian script was actually considered a better long-term value than that of the company colonies; those who could were banking it for future use.

  Gallagher was not handling the trade now. Betsy Ann had its own ships, and though they could only trade in the black market, the black market was a flourishing thing. It had its dangers, but ways were found.

  Gallagher himself was still on Betsy Ann, though I saw little of him and actually forgot to ask what he was about.

  I was both surprised and pleased when he walked into the canteen one night while Cricket and I were having coffee; we had just returned from one of her business trips.

  "The Glacier's setting course for Durango," Gallagher said without even a greeting.

  I felt the smile on my face freezing. I had been excusing myself from finding a way to Earth, but my course was set. I had set that course myself, I told myself, and I couldn't deviate.

  I held my longings firmly in check, and I held my voice light and bantering, while I said, "Thought you'd forgotten all about Durango, Dublin."

  He looked at me queerly. "When you've got a goal," he said finally, "you can rush the goal and lose, or you can take your time and make plans and get them ready. That gives you a good chance. I've been tooling up."

  "If you'll have me," I heard myself answering, "I'm going along." I felt rather than heard Cricket let out a sigh, and it could have been one of relief. I don't know.

  Gallagher looked from me to her and back to me. 'Thought you were set for Earth and the Space Commission," he said.

  I guess that's when I first took a good look at what I was doing and why. I hardly recognized my own reasoning or even my own voice. I was watching at a great distance a change revealed that had already taken place.

  "Going to the authorities on Earth is a waste of time. "I think," I said slowly, "that I've got sense and guts, though it's late showing. If you think so too, I'll go along."

  I stopped then, but there was a silence, and the silence continued. Finally I went on.

  "There's the price of anything," I quoted Gallagher slowly, "and then there's the value. I been sort of fooled about the value, or maybe I wanted to'be fooled—the price is pretty high. But I think I'll opt for the value and pay the price, if I can find a way to make the trade."

  Then Gallagher threw back his head and laughed, a loud, happy, deep laugh that had a satisfying ring to it. Cricket was laughing too, with tears sparkling in her eyes as she laughed.

  And I sat there trying to see what was funny. It didn't seem funny to me at all, just a matter of pride and value and price I knew would be high.

  Gallagher rose, still laughing, and he looked down at me, and though I almost resented the look, it was pleasant deep inside.

  "We lift in two hours," he said. "You two won't need to bring anything except a few clothes. Heavy duty clothes," he added, "boots and field wear." Then he turned and left.

  VII

  Dejcl vti is a strange phenomenon. I've never had it before or since, but during the time we spent on Durango it occurred again and again. Maybe it was continous.

  It was as though we had been there before, doing the same things at the same time and the same places over and over again, to the point where I knew what was happening just before it happened.

  I seldom had any feeling that I wanted to interfere with what was going on. But even at the times when I did want to and did interfere, it was as though I'd done it before and was destined to do it again.

  Durango was one of the more settled planets, more settled by three or four generations. It had small but thriving cities, and a compromise between the company cities and the independents that broke into open warfare on occasion, but that was mostly quiescent hostility. It was in many ways like the relationship between England and its American colonies in early history. The company owned the planet by right of grant from the Space Commission, so it had the right to tax and to police the planet. But the colonists of the second, third and fourth generations were no longer indentured servants because a son was not responsible for the debts of his father. Earth wanted to keep the colonies as sources of raw materials, and to reserve for herself the right of manufacture. Durango would have been much better off to manufacture her own needs, but it wasn't permitted.

  By law, the independents who had won their way free of any indebtedness to the company and preferred to support themselves rather than work for the company had the right to do so; they were equal under the law and were taxed on the same basis that company em-ployees were taxed. Of course, company salaries were set to take care of the taxes, and the taxes were extracted before the salaries were paid. The taxes made any independent industrialization prohibitively expensive.

  So, by the book, it was a free trade economy. An independent shipper could land and take off and had the same rights as company shipper. Even the tariffs paid on goods shipped were the same. But the company owned the planet and collected the tariffs, so that though they were prohibitive to an outsider, they were a matter of taking money from one pocket and putting it into another to the company. There was also red tape, which could be cut or snarled at company convenience.

  Gallagher and I landed at the port;. Cricket stayed with the Glacier.

  Then came the red tape, and it wasn't too surprising that it was snarled. Talking to one blond clerk was like talking to a computer, one that seemed to keep losing track of what it was talking about. I finally realized, after a few hours, that her program read something like, "Keep them talking until Intelligence sends further instructions." Evidently, Intelligence needed plenty of time for whatever it was deciding, checking, or planning.

  "Well," said Gallagher happily, "it seems we've got a week here, Harald. All I really wanted to do here was to go over to Suzie's Place, anyhow. Why don't you come along with me while you decide what to do about the charges against you before the Space Commission?"

  I rose stiffly and nodded. "Sounds like sense to me," I said. "Maybe I'd better investigate my rights a bit before I walk into the compound where the Commission has jurisdiction. I'll clear those charges," I added grimly, for the idea of the charges had been eating into me.

  It was a grimy, down-at-the-heels port town, far different from Stellamira, because of the difference in planetary hostility. It was more spread out, and the company areas were not so strictly divided from those of the colonists. The segregation arose chiefly because the company officials lived in large places in the suburbs and the colonists in town. There were no ghetto walls. Crossing a street could take you from one area into the other; the differences were obvious, but the street was the division point.

  Suzie's Place was in the center of town, but it was an all-colonist establishment. It was early evening, and a neon sign over the swinging doors announced that the place was open for business. From out on the street the sound of a jingling piano and of raucous conversation and laughter could be heard.

  We pushed through the swinging doors and spotted Suzie by the piano. Gallagher waved at her and galloped across to where she stood, swung her up and kissed her roundly. I stood back and waited. When he'd set her down she turned to me and gave me a warm kiss on the cheek. Then she turned back to Gallagher.

  "So you've decided to forget that I hijacked your ship into a small detour?" she asked him loudly, without the slightest apology.