7

The first gray of dawn had not yet lighted the sky when Chester tottered into the softly lit gymnasium. Kuve, fresh and immaculate in white, looked up from a small table set up in the middle of the room.

"Good morning, Chester. You slept well?"

"Like a four-day corpse. And I feel equally lively now. I just came to tell you that I'm permanently crippled from yesterday's overexertions. You'd better get a doctor out here. I ought to be in bed, but . . . "

Kuve held up a hand. "Chester, you're expecting me to make much of you and urge you on with inspirational talk. However, I'm afraid we can't spare the time for a pep rally."

"Pep rally? I'm a sick man."

"Still, you're out of bed at the appointed time, dressed for work. And since you're here, you might just take a look at this."

Chester hobbled over to the table. Under a surface of beaded glass, pinpoints of red, green and amber light winked off and on in an unpredictable sequence.

"I want you to analyze the pattern here. When you're ready, put your finger on the button here at the edge which matches the color of the light which you think will blink on next."

Chester studied the light board. A red light blinked, then a green, another red, another, an amber, a green . . . He touched the red light. The board blanked off.

"That means you chose wrongly. Try again with a new pattern." Chester followed the lights. Green, red, amber, red, amber, green, red, green, red . . . 

He touched the amber light. The board blanked.

"Never accept the first level of complexity as a solution to a problem, Chester. Look beneath the surface; find the subtler patterns. Try again."

The lights blinked in steady sequence. On Chester's fifth try the entire board lit up. Chester looked pleased.

"Good," said Kuve. "When you have three correct solutions in sequence, we'll move on to patterns of a higher complexity."

"I had to think three lights ahead on the last one, Kuve. The patterns seem to change while I'm watching them."

"Yes, there's a simple developmental progression involved in this set."

"I have more the poetic type mind. I'm no electronic calculator."

"You'll think you are before the year is out. This training, in its advanced phases, by applying pressure of a type never encountered in ordinary experience, will develop cortical areas hitherto unused."

"I don't think I'm going to enjoy that last part," said Chester dubiously. "What does it mean?"

Kuve pointed to the far wall. "Look over there. Keep your eyes rigidly before you." He held up a hand at the edge of Chester's field of vision.

"How many fingers am I holding up?"

"I don't know; I can just barely tell there's a hand there."

Kuve waggled a finger. "Did you notice that movement?"

"Certainly."

Kuve moved a second finger, stilling the first, then a third finger, and a fourth.

"You saw the movement each time," he summed up, "which indicates that all four fingers are within your field of view." He extended two fingers. "Now how many fingers am I holding up?"

"I still can't tell."

"You can see the fingers, Chester; you've proven that. And yet you are, quite literally, unable to count these fingers which you see. The message sent to your brain through the portion of the optical mechanism concerned with peripheral vision is channeled to an undeveloped sector of your mind, a part of the great mass of normally unused cells in the cortex. The intelligence of this portion of your intellect is about at a par with that of a faithful dog which recognizes a group of children but is unable to formulate any conception of their number." He lowered his hand. "It is that portion of the brain which we shall train. Now, try this next pattern."

Chester leaned against the rail at the top of the eighty-foot tower, feeling the sun hot on his shoulders, watching as Kuve adjusted the ropes stretched across the pool below.

"This gives you a four-foot target," Kuve's voice said from the rice-grain-sized instrument set in the bone behind Chester's left ear. "Remember your vascomuscular tension patterns. Wait for the signal."

A beep sounded in Chester's ear—and he was in the air, wind shrieking past his ears, his chin to his chest, arms extended with hands flat, feet pointed.

He struck, twisted, shot above the surface, swam to the edge, and pulled himself up with a single smooth motion.

"You've come along well these first two weeks," Kuve said, motioning Chester to the table where a small steak waited. "You've explored the parameters of your native abilities; you've established an awareness of the values we're dealing with, and overcome the worst of the metabolic inertia. Your musculature is in good tone, though you still have a long way to go in developing bulk and power. Now you're ready to attack the subtler disciplines of balance, timing, precision, endurance and pace."

"You make it sound as though I haven't done anything. What about the high dives? That four-foot target isn't very big from eighty feet up."

"That exercise was designed to develop your self-confidence. Now you'll begin the real substance of your studies. We'll begin with simple games like fencing, riding, rope work, juggling, dancing and sleight-of-hand, and proceed by degrees into the more abstract phases."

"What are you training me for, a side show?"

Kuve ignored the interruption. "Your academic studies will be concentrated on dual attention, self-hypnosis, selective concentration, categorical analysis, advanced mnemonics, and eidetics, from which we will proceed to autonomics, cellular psychology, regeneration, and—"

"Let's go back to fencing. At least I know what that is."

"After you've dined we'll begin. In the meantime, tell me what the word 'now' means."

" 'Now' changes," said Chester, chewing. "It moves along with time. Every moment is 'now' for a while, and then it isn't."

"For a while? How long?"

"Not very long; an instant."

"Is 'now' a part of the past?"

"Of course not."

"The future?"

"No, the future hasn't happened yet. The past is already finished. 'Now' falls between them."

"How would you define a point, Chester?"

"The intersection of two lines," Chester said promptly.

"The position of intersection, to be more precise," said Kuve. " 'Line' and 'point' are terms referring to positions, not things. If a sheet of paper is cut in two, every molecule of the original sheet is contained in the two halves. If the cut edges are placed together, every particle is still to be found in the two parts; none fall between them. The line we see dividing the halves is only a position, not a material object."

"Yes, that's obvious."

"Past time may be considered as one of the parts of the paper, future time as the other. Between them is . . . nothing."

"Still, I'm sitting here eating my lunch. Now."

"Your ability to conceptualize falls short of the ability of the universe to proliferate complexities. Human understanding can never be more than an approximation. Avoid dealing in absolutes. And never edit reality for the sake of simplicity. The results are fatal to logical thinking."

Mina appeared on the terrace, wearing a close-fitting pink coverall and carrying foils and face masks. Chester finished his steak, pulled on a black coverall of tough resilient material, took the foil that Mina handed him.

Mina took her position, gripped her slender épée, arm and wrist straight, feet at right angles, left hand on hip. She tapped Chester's blade, then with a sudden flick sent it flying into the pool.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Chester. You weren't ready."

Chester retrieved the foil, assumed a stance in imitation of Mina's. They crossed blades—and Chester oofed as Mina's point prodded his chest. Mina laughed merrily. Chester blushed.

On the third try Mina locked Chester's blade with hers, then, with a twist, plucked it from his hand. "Chester"—she laughed—"you couldn't be trying." She laid her weapon aside and strolled off. Chester turned to Kuve, face red. Kuve stepped forward, motioned Chester into position.

"We'll have half an hour each morning and another after lunch," he said. "And," he added softly, "perhaps you'll have a surprise in store for Mina one of these days."

Chester circled Kuve warily, bare feet shuffling on the padded mat. Kuve stepped in, his right hand flashing past Chester's ribs and up to grasp Chester's right wrist, forced back by Kuve's left hand. Chester twirled, caught Kuve's left hand, forced the wrist down. Kuve leaned to relieve the pressure, shifting his hold to Chester's neck, then threw his hip against Chester's side and heaved. In mid-air Chester brought a leg up, clipped Kuve's jaw with his knee, twisted to land on all fours as Kuve's grip slipped free. Kuve shook his head, looking surprised. "Was that an accident, or . . . "

Chester hit him low, dodged left to avoid a headlock, clamped an arm over Kuve's head and reached for an ankle—

And was upended and slammed on the mat. He sat up, rubbing his neck. Kuve nodded approvingly. "You're coming along, Chester. If you hadn't been careless with your footwork just now, you might have pinned me."

"Maybe next time," Chester said grimly.

"I seem to note a certain suppressed hostility in your tone," Kuve said, eyeing Chester with amusement.

"Suppressed, hell. You've worked me like a rented heli for nine months."

"Cheer up, Chester. I have a new compound-reaction test situation for you. It's a very interesting problem group—but I warn you, it can be painful."

"In that respect it fits in nicely with the over-all program."

Chester followed Kuve across the terrace, through an arch, along a corridor, and out into an open court. Kuve pointed to a gate in the wall beyond which a patch of woods pressed close.

"Just go through the gate, Chester, and have a stroll in the forest. You'll find paths; whether you use them is left entirely to your own discretion. This is a tongue of the forest that runs up into the hills. I don't think you'll be in danger of straying too far, for reasons which will become apparent once you're in the forest—but nevertheless I'll caution you to stay close. As soon as you've made what you consider to be a significant observation, return."

Chester glanced toward the shadowed depths of the wood. "My first trip outside the prison grounds. Are you sure I won't run away?"

"Impossible via this route, I'm afraid. If you get into trouble, remember I'll be monitoring your communicator. Be back by dark."

"When in doubt, I'll remember the old school motto: Is-not is not not-is." Chester turned down the path. "Don't wait up for me. I may decide I like it out here."

Chester moved along the path at a steady pace, his eyes roving over his surroundings in a wide-scope comparison pattern.

A movement caught his eye; Chester threw himself backward, feet high. A rope whipped across his calves; then the noose was dangling high in the air. Chester came to his feet carefully, searching for a backup trap, saw none. He studied the tree to which the rope was attached, then moved off the trail to a nearby oak, scaled it quickly, moved out on a long branch, then dropped into the trapped tree. He untied the rope, a tough quarter-inch synthetic, coiled it around his waist, then slid back to the ground.

He moved into the underbrush, froze at a sharp pain in the back of his hand. Carefully he disengaged himself from a loop of fine-gauge barbed wire. Selecting a strand between barbs, he bent it backward and forward rapidly until it parted. He repeated the process with other strands, then went to hands and knees and eased under the barrier.

Half an hour later Chester stood on the brink of a sheer bluff. Fifty feet below, a stream glinted in a shaft of sunlight that fell between great trees. Upstream, a still pool showed black among smooth boulders. Chester noted that its placement was identical with the four-foot target area into which he had been diving daily—an open invitation.

He lay flat and examined the cliff face. The broken rock surface offered an abundance of hand- and foot-holds. Perhaps too many . . . 

It was forty feet to the spreading branches of a large elm growing on the opposite side of the stream. Chester uncoiled the rope from his waist, found a five-pound stone fragment with a pinched center, and tied it securely to the end of the supple line. He stood, whirled the stone around his head four times and let it fly. It arched across the branch, dropped and hung swinging. Gently, Chester pulled as the stone swung away, relaxed as it returned, pulled again. The oscillation built up. As the weight started its inward swing, Chester pulled sharply. The stone swung up and over, once, twice, three times around the branch. He tugged; all secure. Quickly he knotted his end of the rope about a length of fallen branch, then man-handled a two-hundred-pound boulder over it. He tested the attachment briefly, then crossed, hand over hand. He left the rope in place, descended to the edge of the quiet pool. Lifting a hundred-pound rock, he tossed it into the center of the black water. Instantly a large net, apparently spring-loaded, snapped into view, dripping water, to close over the stone. Chester smiled, raised his eyes to study the base of the cliff. Snarls of fine barbed wire guarded the lower six feet of the vertical rock face. It would have been an easy climb down, he reflected, but a long way back up.

The communicator behind his ear beeped. "Well, Chester, I see you've sprung the net at the pool. Don't feel too badly; you did very well. I'll be along to release you in a few minutes."

Chester smiled again and turned back into the forest.

Chester studied the sun, briefly reviewed the route he had followed in four hours of detecting and avoiding Kuve's traps. Sunset was just over an hour away, he judged, and he was three miles northwest by north from the Center. He halted, sniffing the air. The odor of wood-smoke was sharp among the milder scents of pine and juniper and sun-warmed rock. He had been climbing steadily for fifty minutes and was ready now to angle to the left to clear the upper end of a ravine. With each step the odor of smoke grew more noticeable. Now a soft gray wisp coiled from the shaded trunks ahead and above. Chester crouched low, moved on quickly. If there was a forest fire ahead, it would be necessary to get past it at once—before he was cut off from his route to the valley. He moved silently through sparse underbrush, saw through a gap in the trees a pale flicker of orange on the heights a hundred yards above. It would be close; he broke into a run.

The trees thinned. The tumbled rocks that marked the head of the gorge showed pale against the dark background of pines. A billow of smoke rolled toward him, carried by a down draft flowing into the canyon. Chester lay flat, drew a dozen deep breaths, then jumped up and scrambled over the broken rock. Ahead, fire twinkled among massive boles, flickered in whipping underbrush, leaped high in the crown of a pine. Hot sparks fell around him. He could hear the roar of wind-driven flames now. A sudden gust blew a wall of smoke toward him. It might be possible, he calculated, to round the knoll at the head of the rampart that edged his route on the right, then descend safely to emerge into the valley a mile north of the Center. There was no hope now of making it before dark. Chester worked his way higher. Another hundred yards—

Twenty feet upslope a heavily built man stepped into view. He was brown-bearded, dressed in patched pants and a loose jacket of faded plaid with three of the four buttons missing. His right hand was at his chin, two fingers hooked around a taut bowstring. The arrow notched in the string carried a four-inch head of polished steel, and it was aimed at Chester's navel.

"I know yew Downlanders move like the snake Demon when the Kez-favver tricked him into the fire pit, but Blew-tewf leaps faster van fought," the bearded man drawled in a barely intelligible dialect. "What yew want here in Free Places? Was life too tame down below?"

Chester frowned, running the sounds of the stranger's barbaric speech through his mind, noting sound substitutions and intonations; the pattern of the dialect was simple.

"If yew don't mind, I'd ravver Blew-tewf pointed over vere somewhere," Chester replied, motioning toward the deep woods, his eyes on the arrowhead. "Yew might just have greasy fingers or somefing of the sort."

"No need to mock the cant," the man said in clear English. "I was ten when I left the Downlands. Now, what do you want here?"

"I was rather hoping to discover a route back to the valley, but I'd settle for merely remaining unskewered and unbroiled. Do you mind if I press on? The fire is blowing this way, you know."

"Don't worry about the fire. I set it myself to run game. It'll burn out against the escarpment above. Now move off to your right and up past me. Blue-Tooth will be watching every move."

"I'm heading in the other direction," Chester said.

"You better do what I told you. Like you said, the fire's gettin' hot." The arrow was still aimed unwaveringly at Chester's stomach. The bow creaked as the bearded man set the arrowhead on the handgrip. "Make up your mind."

"But what in the world do you want with me?"

"Let's say I want news of the Downlands."

"Who are you? What are you doing up here in the hills? If you want news, you could come down to the Center."

"My name's Bandon, and I wouldn't be happy in your blasted Center. Don't turn around, just keep movin' along—and if yew're finkin' of the little trinket tucked away back of your ear, forget it. Yew're out of range."

"You're planning on holding me here for ransom?"

"What treasures could Downlanders offer to equal the life of the Free Places? Bandon laughed.

"You'll let me go in the morning?"

"Not in the morning or for many a morning vereafter. Forget the tame valleys, Downlander. Yew'll be here until yew die."

8

Twilight was fading from the peaks as Chester and Bandon clambered over the stones of a fallen wall to the level surface of a road that curved between tall poplars toward low buildings silhouetted against the peach-colored sky.

"This is our town, Downlander," Bandon said, breathing hard after the climb. "There's food here, and a fire against the night chill, and strong ale, and the fellowship of free men: all your needs between dusk and dawn."

"Very poetic," Chester said, noting the potholes and weed clumps in the road. "But you left out a few things I've grown accustomed to, like literature, celery, dentists and clean socks. And it looks like some of your houses lack roofs."

"What's a few leaks to a free man?" Bandon snapped.

"Every man to his own little eccentricity," Chester said. "But why do I have to join your club? I'll go quietly."

"Yew came here uninvited," Bandon said flatly. He lowered and unstrung his bow. "Don't be fool enough to try to leave. There's sentries posted to guard our approaches."

"I know; I saw them."

"In this light? Our best woodsmen?"

"Just joking," said Chester.

"Maybe you did, at that. You Downlanders are keen-eyed as the Kez-father himself. Tell me, where did you learn the cant?"

"Your dialect? Oh, I . . . ah . . . studied it. A hobby of mine."

"Then it's not true what some say, that you Downlanders can learn our speech in the wink of an eye?"

"A baseless rumor."

"I thought so. Come along now an' we'll see what the brothers make of you." They made their way in the deepening gloom toward the nearest of the buildings. Chester made out the details of chipped carving around doorways, fallen trellises, collapsed porticos. A broken statue lay in the road.

"This must have been a pretty nice town, once," Chester said. "What happened to it?"

Bandon snorted. "We threw off all those slave notions about drudging away to put on a show for the neighbors. We're free here. No one to tell us what to do. Folks that didn't like the idea moved out. Good riddance. We don't need 'em."

"Swell," Chester agreed. "But what happens when it gets cold?"

"Plenty wood around here. We build fires."

Chester eyed the blackened foundation of a burned-out house. "I see . . . "

"That was an accident," Bandon growled. "Plenty more houses where that came from." He stopped. "Hold it right here." He threw back his head and whistled shrilly. From doorways and dark hedges and the shadows of ragged trees, men appeared.

Chester estimated the crowd of unshaved, hide-clad hill-dwellers who surrounded him at fifty individuals, all male—none of them, he reflected, of the kind who would arouse a desire for further acquaintance.

"Vis Downlan'er's a guest," Bandon was saying to the assembled brethren. "We'll treat him as one of us—unless he tries tew go somewhere. Now, I'm takin' him in the palace wiv me—jus' until he can get a place of his own fix' up. I warn yew now: if he comes tew harm, I'll hol' the lot of yew personally responsible."

A tall, incredibly broad man in striped coveralls black with dirt swaggered forward. "We heard a lot about how tough vese Downlanders are," he growled. "Vis one don't look so tough."

"Maybe he's smart—vat's better yet," Bandon snapped. "Leave him alone, Grizz. Vat's an order."

Grizz looked around at his fellows. "Funny none of us is good enough tew get tew sleep in the palace. But vis spy here walks in an' right away he's treated like the Kez-favver hisself when he went tew fetch the king hat back from the sea bottom."

"Never mind vat. Now yew boys get a fire goin' in the Hall and roast up some venison and break open a few kegs of ale. We're goin' tew have a real celebration here tew show the new man what kind of jolly free life we lead."

A few shouts rang out, a faint yippee sounded from the rear. Grizz stared at Bandon. "We got no venison. Plenty canned beans and stale crackers. Only ale we got is a couple cases of near-beer Lonny stole last week."

"Dew the best yew can," Bandon snapped. "Look lively about it. I want tew see yew lookin' cheerful around here." He turned to Chester and motioned toward an imposing façade featuring chipped columns and broken glass. "Come along tew the palace; yew'll have a chance tew get cleaned up before the feast."

"Jus' a minute," Grizz said. He stepped up to Chester, brought an iron bar into view.

"I warned you, Grizz," Bandon started.

"I won' hurt him—yet." Grizz growled. He gripped the bar at either end, hunched his shoulders and strained. The metal gave, bent to a crude U. He let out his breath, shoved the bar at Chester.

"Straighten it, Swamp-walker."

"Not in the mood," Chester said mildly.

Grizz barked a laugh, dropped the bar with a clatter, stepped to the roadside and came back with a massive chunk of carved stone. "Here, catch." He heaved the boulder toward Chester, who moved his foot barely in time as the rock crashed down.

Bandon strung his bow with a quick motion. "Vat's enough, Grizz," he snapped. "Come along, Downlan'er."

"I'll be seein' yew, Swamp-walker," Grizz called after them.

Chester followed Bandon across a littered stone terrace, past gaunt paint-peeling doors into an echoing interior that smelled of stale hides and forgotten food scraps. A broken-down sofa leaned in one corner beside a table with a bandaged leg. A heap of bedding sprawled by a wide fireplace stacked with splintered chair rungs. A staircase with a broken banister curved up past a glassless window to a gallery.

"The place looks a little run-down," Chester commented. "Who used to live here?"

"Dunno." Bandon took a lighter from his pocket, snapped it until it caught. "'Bout out of fluid," he said. "Used to be some boss types lived here, but when we wouldn't take orders, they just moved out—had to get down in the flatlands to get fitted for chains, I guess."

"What kind of orders?"

"Oh, you know. Always wantin' to set up a committee to patch roofs or clean gutters or string wire. Dirty work."

"I think perhaps they had some reason on their side," Chester said, looking around at peeling wallpaper and decayed curtains.

"Heck, they should've done all that themselves. But no, they ran off and left it. We locked up a few of 'em and tried to make 'em work, but they got loose somehow."

"The boss caste is sneaky, all right," Chester said. "Always fooling us fun-loving folks by knowing something we don't."

"Durn right," Bandon agreed.

"Why don't you gather firewood in the forest instead of burning the furniture?" Chester asked. "There's no place to sit."

"Sure there is. Just look under that pile of hides there. We tried burning sticks, but they don't burn so good. This stuff's nice and dry. Now, soon's we have a cheery blaze goin', we'll have a talk about conditions down below. Still the same old slave life, I suppose: everybody minding everybody's else's business."

"Uh-huh," Chester said, glancing over the assorted debris scattered on the floor. "They're still burdened down with swimming pools and laundries and picnics and concerts and all manner of frivolity. By the way, where do the canned beans and crackers come from?"

"Plenty of stores here," Bandon said, dipping water from a barrel and pulling off his shirt. "Lots of stuff in 'em. The boys could turn up some good eats if they half tried." He splashed water on his face and chest, snorted, dabbed at himself with the shirt, then pulled it back on.

"O.K., it's all yours," he said. Chester eyed the brown water dubiously. "What happens when the stores are looted clean?"

"We've got plans," Bandon said darkly. "We won't starve." He shoved rubbish from a slack-twisted chair and seated himself. "I happen to have a couple of bottles of Tricennium brew tucked away," he said. "Soon's you're washed up, we'll have 'em. Wouldn't do to let on to the boys; not enough to go around."

"That's the spirit," Chester said. "I think I'll defer bathing until later."

"Huh! I thought you Downlanders were great ones for washin' off. Heck, I wash off myself all the time, like you just saw me do."

"You have a great instinct for personal daintiness," Chester said tactfully. "An admirable quality. Tell me, why all the emphasis on rugged individuality? Did someone take away your pet goat when you were a lad?"

"Worse'n that," Bandon said. "They used to try to make my pa do their dirty work for 'em. He didn't take kindly to it. He organized the Resistance. Now look." Bandon waved a hand in a proud gesture. "It's all mine—mine and the boys'."

"I can see you're not one to keep off a lawn just because somebody else planted it and keeps it mowed," Chester said admiringly. "Strictly self-sufficient. You just live in these old houses that happened to grow here and you eat wholesome, natural canned beans, the way the Lord intended, and you loot your clothes right out of Mother Nature's own abandoned dry-goods stores. To heck with maintenance. When this town wears out, there's always plenty of others."

"You can lay off the smart talk," Bandon said. "We've got as much right as anybody to live soft."

"Sure—just because some smart-aleck invented something and some exploiter built a factory to make it and some wisenheimer did the engineering, that's no reason you shouldn't wake up from your nap long enough to get your share. And now let's have that ale you were talking about. If I'm going to spend the rest of my life here, I'll have to start getting used to drinking it warm."

"Yew'll like it fine, after you get used to it," Bandon said. He went to a doorless refrigerator, lifted the lid and rummaged, came up with two brown bottles. Chester wandered around the room, noting the remains of a grandfather's clock, a gutted washing machine filled with firewood, a coil of clothesline, some picture wire, a scatter of rusted nails, bent coat-hangers, burst cardboard boxes, wadded clothing.

"What have you got against the conveniences of life, Bandon?" he asked, accepting a bottle. "What would be wrong with, say, cleaning this room up so it smelled as good as the woods outside of town? Is there anything particularly independent about keeping your discarded junk in the living room?"

"We don't care anything about setting up fancy places to live in. We prefer a kind of nice informal look."

"You're echoing a long line of philosophers who concluded that the secret of the universe consisted of sitting around in your own dirt—all the way from early Christians to twentieth-century beatniks. I can be just as self-righteous as the next fellow, while I'm sitting in an air-conditioned restaurant ordering haute cuisine with one hand and lighting up an expensive dope stick with the other, with a well-stacked young lady occupying the rest of my attention. The point is, why not be virtuous in comfort?"

"Look here, don't go trying to spread discontent around among my men."

"Your men? I thought you were all free as bedbugs in the railroad men's Y."

"We are. But any outfit needs a little organization. Don't you get the boys upset—otherwise I might just give Grizz the go-ahead."

"I have a disturbing conviction that Grizz may not wait for the go-ahead. He seems to resent me."

"Don't worry; I'll keep an eye on him." Bandon finished off his bottle. "Let's join the boys. I guess things ought to be rollin' pretty good by now. Just stay close—and yell if you need help."

Chester followed Bandon down the wide, rubble-littered front steps into the street and across into a large, garishly lighted ex-restaurant, to survey a scene of half-hearted festivity. A blaze in the fireplace dispelled the evening chill. Around it, the brothers stood, hands in pockets, muttering. At sight of Bandon and Chester, the massive figure of Grizz detached itself from the bar.

"Well, the new man's been makin' hisself comfortable," he said loudly. "Say, I hear yew Downlanders are fast. I wonder if . . . "

Grizz made a sudden movement. Chester put up a hand and the bone handle of a hunting knife slapped his palm, fell to the ground.

"Here, Grizz, yew had no call tew frow a knife at our guest!"

"Never mind, Bandon," Chester said easily. "He was just kidding."

"Lucky yew happen' tew stick out yewr han' jus' when yew did," Bandon said. "It was comin' butt first, but it would have hurt. Grizz, leave him alone." Bandon slapped Chester on the back. "I've got tew circulate around a little, talk tew a few of the boys. Yew get acquainted tew." He moved off.

There was a step behind Chester. He eased aside and half turned. Grizz thrust heavily through the spot he had just vacated. The nearby men moved back, fanning out. Chester stood looking up at Grizz. The mountaineer was at least seven feet tall.

"We don't take much tew spies," Grizz growled.

"I can see why," said Chester. "If the other half knew what you boys had all to yourselves up here, they'd leave home tomorrow."

"Vere's a way tew handle swamp-walkers," Grizz stated, rubbing his right fist in his left palm.

"Vat's right, Grizz," a voice called.

"Show him, Grizz," another suggested.

"Now, Bandon says treat vis swamp-walker like one of the boys." Grizz looked around. Heads nodded reluctant agreement.

"But what if maybe vis guy jumps me? I fight back, right?"

"Shewre yew dew!"

"Yew ain' a man tew back down, Grizz!"

"I seen him dew it!"

There was a sound behind Chester. He stepped casually to one side; a man stumbled past the spot on which Chester had been standing, blundered into Grizz. With a snarl, Grizz pushed aside the man who had jostled him, stepped to Chester, and threw a tremendous punch—as Chester looked the other way, leaned toward the fire. The blow brushed his neck. Chester seemed not to notice. He rubbed his hands together. "Nice blaze," he commented brightly. He took a step away from Grizz, still not looking at him, moved a chair aside with a deft motion.

Grizz stumbled over the chair leg, fell full length. Chester looked startled, bent to help Grizz up. "Excuse me, Grizz old boy." He made ineffectual brushing motions at Grizz, who came to his feet, hamlike fists doubled, as Chester stooped, came up with Grizz's knife.

Grizz froze, eyes on the blade.

"Guess you'll be needing this," Chester said, holding it out.

Grizz hesitated, then snarled and turned away.

"Nobody could be that clumsy—and that lucky," a voice said softly. Chester turned. Bandon stood eyeing him uncertainly. "But on the other han', nobody could be that fast and that smooth—if they were doin' it on purpose."

"A grand bunch of fellows," said Chester. "I'm feeling right at home."

"You're a strange one," Bandon said. "I've got a feeling maybe it's Grizz who better be careful."

"I hope he never gets a good grip on me," Chester said. "I'm afraid I'd bend into a U before Grizz realized the danger he was in. I think I'll take a stroll outside."

Bandon grunted and turned away. Chester went out into the street, his shadow pushing before him. A man stepped from the shelter of an ornamental fountain, bow in hand. Chester angled off to the right; a second man appeared, weapon ready.

"Just checking, fellows," Chester said. He sauntered back, strolled fifty yards toward the dark woods before sentries appeared silently. He stopped, admired the view while the guards waited, then retraced his steps to the Hall.

"Time to eat," Bandon called. "Grizz was just talkin' mean," he confided when Chester came up. "We've got plenty of good stuff here. Try these sardines."

Chester eyed the soggy fish. "I'm afraid they're not a favorite of mine. I'll wait for the game course."

"Salami on crackers?" Bandon suggested. "We cut off the bad part."

"Any fruit—or berries?" Chester suggested. "Or nuts?"

"That's stuff for squirrels and rabbits," Bandon said shortly. "Hey, after the feast, we're all goin' to have a little shindig. You'll enjoy it."

"Ah, the true joys of the free life at last. What do you do, sing rousing songs, dance horn pipes, exchange buffets, all that sort of thing?"

"Heck, no. We view television. There's some dandy historicals about the old times, when men were men."

"I see. It's a sort of indoctrination program."

"Look here, you might as well quit smartin' off. I tell you, this is the life. After a few years, you'll start to see what I mean."

"It's not the years, it's the next few hours that bother me. I dislike Tri-D intensely. Suppose I go back and tidy up your quarters for you while you enjoy the free life."

"Suit yourself. You can't get away. I'll see that Grizz stays at the show so you can relax."

"Thanks. I'll try to arrange things at your place to give a more fitting reception to any unexpected callers who might drop in."

9

It was three hours since the last sounds of revelry had died. In the palace, Chester sat awake, watching the red glow of the fireplace, and listening. In the corner Bandon snored softly on his pallet. Far away, a night bird called. Something creaked faintly near the door.

Chester crossed the room to Bandon, called his name softly. He grumbled, opened his eyes. "Hah?"

Chester put his face close to Bandon's. "Quiet," he breathed. "Grizz is at the door."

Bandon started up. Chester held him by a hand on his arm. "Let him in. It's better to take him here . . . alone."

"He wouldn't dare push his way into the palace," Bandon whispered.

"Stay where you are." Chester moved silently to the door, stood beside it in the dark. There was a rasping sound, very faint. Then the door moved an inch, paused for a full minute, moved again. From his place behind the heavy door post, Chester saw Grizz's small eyes and bushy beard. Then the door moved wider; Grizz stepped inside, closed the door soundlessly. As he turned back toward the bed where Bandon lay, Chester rammed the stiff fingers of his left hand into Grizz's stomach, then, as Grizz jackknifed forward, struck him backhanded under the ear with the side of his fist. Grizz fell with a heavy slam.

Bandon was on his feet now. "Don't give the alarm, Bandon," Chester whispered. "There's nobody to hear it but his henchmen."

Bandon said hoarsely, "What did he want here? How do you know—"

"Shhh. Grizz was after both of us, Bandon. If he knifed me, he'd have to finish you, too—or face Blue-Tooth later."

"You're ravin'. My people are loyal—includin' Grizz."

"Grizz was listening this evening when we were talking. He was afraid you'd be influenced. That gave him all the excuse he needed. So . . . here he is."

"You come here to make trouble," Bandon grated. "Like Grizz said."

Chester pointed to a heap of uncured hides behind the crude table. "Conceal yourself over there and listen."

Bandon reached up suddenly, took his bow from its peg on the wall, nocked the steel-tipped arrow. "I'll hide," he said. "An' this will be pointed straight at you—so don't try any tricks."

"Be careful with that. I'd hate to be skewered by accident."

Grizz was beginning to stir. Bandon stepped from sight in the shadows.

Grizz sat up, shook his head, got clumsily to his feet. He stood swaying, looked around the silent cabin and saw Chester, almost at his feet, curled up in the bed of rags, snoring lightly.

Grizz half crouched, pig eyes darting around the room. He took a knife from his belt, dug a moccasined toe into Chester's side. Chester rolled on his back, opened his eyes and sat up.

"Where's Bandon?" Grizz growled, the long blade tilted toward Chester's throat.

"Oh, hi there," said Chester. "Say, I hope you're O.K. now after your fall."

"I said where's Bandon?"

Chester looked around. "Isn't he here?"

"He slugged me and got away. Now, talk, Swamp-walker. What are yew tew love birds plannin'?"

Chester chuckled. "He's the chief here; I'm just a captive Downlander, remember?"

"Yew're a liar on bofe counts. Yew fink I'm dumb enough not tew see frew vis setup? The tew of yew are in somefing tewgevver. Where's he gone?"

"If I help you, will you let me go?"

"Shewre."

"You promise? I'll have safe-conduct back to the valley if I tell you where Bandon is so you can kill him?"

"Yeah, I promise. Safe-conduct. Yew bet."

"How do I know you'll keep your promise?"

"Are yew sayin' I'm a liar?" Grizz leaned closer with the knife.

"Careful. I haven't told you yet."

"Yew got my word on it: yew go free. Where is he?"

"Well . . . " Chester came to his knees. "He's on his way back to my Tricennium. He discovered you were taking over here, so he—"

"Fanks, sucker!" Grizz lunged with the knife. Chester threw himself back, yanking at a tripwire; a bucket of sand dropped from a rafter and took Grizz in mid-leap. He slammed the floor face first. Chester came to his feet holding the knife Grizz had dropped. Grizz moved groggily, shaking his head.

"Looks like you're a promise-breaker after all, Grizz," Chester said, moving in with the long blade ready.

Grizz scrabbled backward, one hand up to ward off a thrust. "Don't dew it, don't dew it!" he squalled.

"Keep your voice down. If anyone barges in, you'll be the first to go." Chester stood over Grizz. "Now, what about that promise you made? You were going to give me safe-conduct."

"Shewre. I'll see yew get away clean. Just leave it tew me."

"I could kill you, Grizz. But that wouldn't get me out of here." Chester looked worried. "Suppose I let you go. Will you give me an escort down to the valley?"

"Shewre I will, yew bet I will, fella. I just got excited when yew said Bandon was on his way down."

"Well, I guess I'll give you another chance." Chester put the knife in his belt. "But remember, you've given me your word."

"Vat's right, my word on it, fella."

"I've got to get a couple of things . . . " Chester turned away. In a lithe movement Grizz rolled to hands and knees, snatched up a rusted hatchet lying conveniently by, sprang at Chester's back.

And slammed face first into the hard-packed earth floor as his toe hooked the wire Chester had stretched across the room at ankle height.

Chester turned, looked down sadly at Grizz. "You did it again, Grizz. Dear, oh dear. I'm afraid I have no choice but to cut your throat, since you're not to be trusted."

"Look," whined Grizz, scraping dirt from his face. "I figured you wrong, see? I made a mistake."

"You certainly did," Chester said coldly. He moved closer, reached out and set the point of the blade under Grizz's chin. "One sudden move, and in it goes. How would it feel, Grizz? They say a really keen edge feels cold as it slices through. There wouldn't be too much pain, but breathing would get rather difficult, and, as the blood drained out of you, you'd get weak. In a few seconds you'd be unable even to stand. You'd just lie there and feel the life dwindle in you."

"Don't hurt me," Grizz gasped. "I'll dew anything."

"Who sent you here?" Chester snapped.

"Joj did. He's the one. He planned it all."

"Tell me about it."

"Vere's over a fousand of us. We've got steel crossbows, even chemical bombs." Grizz outlined plans for a raid on the nearest Tricennium. "It's planned for free days from now," he finished. "Vey haven't got a chance against us. But yew . . . yew let me up now, no hard feelings, and I'll see yew get yewr share. Whatever yew want—slaves, women . . . "

"No point in my going back now," said Chester thoughtfully. "I don't want to be there when the massacre takes place." He straightened, the knife still ready. "My best bet is to go along with you. I'm pretty good with a knife, Grizz. If I join you, do my share of the killing, will you pay off as you suggested?"

"Absolewtly. Yew can trust me now. I've learned my lesson." Grizz eyed the knife as Chester tossed it aside and put out his hand.

"We'll shake on that, Grizz."

Grizz came to his feet, reaching for Chester's hand, and with a tremendous surge spun him around, threw a whistling left at the back of Chester's neck that somehow failed to connect solidly, followed up with a right cross that Chester somehow managed to avoid. Chester went down and Grizz was on him, his two hundred and forty pounds of muscle and bone crushing Chester flat, while two thumbs like bolt-cutters probed Chester's Adam's apple.

"Now, Swamp-walker," Grizz breathed, "what was vat about lettin' blood out of me? Cut my froat, would yew? Feels cool, hey? How dew yew reckon it's gonna be when I put the fumbs in hard?"

"You gave me your word," Chester wheezed. "I kept my part of the bargain." He groped, found the loop of clothesline he had prepared and flipped it into position.

"I don't bargain wif Downlander spies. I tear 'em intew strips, barehanded."

"I let you go when I could have killed you," Chester got out. "Now let me up and give me my escort." With a quick flip, he dropped the loop over Grizz's head.

Grizz hardly noticed in his enthusiasm. "Yew fink I'm stupid? I've got plans for yew, Swamp-runner," he said, releasing his grip with one hand to tug at the loose noose. "Ever felt a bone break—slow?"

"You mean you're breaking your promise?"

"Yew catch on quick."

Chester looked up at Grizz's puffed face, the wide mouth among the wiry whiskers, the small eyes. He tugged on the line. An expression of surprise crept over Grizz's face. His back straightened, his head rising. He dug in his thumbs frantically, but Chester twisted away. Then Grizz was struggling to get his legs under him, his hands raking at the wire that was hoisting him up neck first.

Chester slid back, keeping pressure on the wire which ran over a rafter to the loop on Grizz's throat. Grizz scrambled to get his feet under him. "You're a very slow pupil, Grizz." Chester jerked the wire. Grizz's head bobbed. Chester hauled on the wire, then twisted it around a stout peg set in a massive post. Grizz stood on tiptoes, breathing rapidly, his eyes bulging, his head tilted sideways by the taut wire, his fingers groping fruitlessly at the noose buried in the fleshy neck.

Chester stood before him, hands on hips. "I guess I'll just hang you, Grizz," he said. "Less messy than cutting your throat."

"Please," Grizz whispered past the constricting wire. "Give me another chance."

"Have you learned your lesson?"

"Yeah, cut me down."

"Remember, it's no use trying to double-cross me. Now just give me an escort like a good fellow . . . " Chester released the wire. Grizz clawed the noose free, threw it aside, stood rubbing his throat and staring at Chester. Chester stood six feet from him, hands empty, looking at him casually. "Well, you're free now, Grizz. What about your promise?"

Grizz felt carefully about his head and neck, ran his hands over his arms, leaned to check his ankles, his eyes fixed on Chester.

"Oh, it's quite all right now, Grizz. There are no more wires attached to you."

Grizz glanced down, pushed out a foot to check for trap wires. He licked his lips.

"Don't do anything foolish, Grizz. I've warned you. I'm in control of you, not the other way around. The sooner you accept that . . . "

Grizz leaped, caught a tight-stretched wire square in the mouth and did a complete back flip.

"Get up!" Chester snapped. Grizz got to his feet, hands hanging at his sides, staring at Chester.

"Yours is the typical bully attitude," said Chester. "Anyone you consider to be stronger than you is your master; anyone who seems to be at your mercy becomes your victim. You've had a little trouble classifying me: I seemed to be a victim but repeatedly demonstrated that it was you who was being victimized. Are you ready now to accept reality?"

Grizz stood dumbly. Chester reached out, gripped the other's nose and twisted hard. Grizz gulped. Chester prodded him in the stomach, thumped his chest, kicked him lightly in the shin. "Well, care to try again?" Grizz swallowed hard, mouth opening and closing.

"I think perhaps you're properly oriented now, Grizz. You may go. Tell everyone that the attack has been postponed and that they're to stay clear of the palace. Don't tell anyone what happened here. Understand?"

Grizz nodded.

"And, Grizz, don't try to cheat on me."

There was a sound. Bandon stepped into view, the arrow aimed at Grizz's chest. "You intend to let this traitor walk out of here and warn 'em?"

"Hold on, Bandon. He won't give any trouble."

"Not if I can help it." Bandon made a sudden move and Chester whirled, snapped a hand out—

And stood gripping the shaft of the arrow, caught in mid-flight.

"You—you grabbed my Blue-Tooth's dart out of the air!" Bandon stared at Chester incredulously. "It's not possible!"

"Accept reality," Chester said. "It's simply a matter of trained reflexes and self-hypnotic alert conditioning."

"But then—when I brought you in—you could have . . . "

"That's right—but I wanted to see what was going on up here. Now we both know. We'd better move out now—fast. Grizz will snap out of his daze in a few minutes, and you'll discover how loyal your boys are."

"But . . . why should they want to turn on me? All I've done's been for their own good."

"Maybe—but the one thing your little group has in common is a yearning for more free goodies and less work. All anybody has to do to enlist their enthusiasm is promise them some easy loot."

"Hold on; I don't know what Grizz has said to them, but I can—"

"Promise them more," Chester finished. "But can you deliver? This is a dead end, Bandon. Come on with me."

"I'm still boss here," Bandon said. "Come on; you'll see." He started for the door.

"Do me a small favor," Chester said, tucking the rusted hatchet into his waistband. "Sneak out the back way and look the situation over before you do anything foolish. I'm leaving now. I have a trail of unfinished business to see to. I hope you won't try to interfere."

Bandon hesitated. "I guess I owe you something," he said. "Grizz was out to get me, sure. But you're makin' a mistake. The free life is the only way."

Chester coiled the clothesline and looped it in his belt. "If you were smart, you'd head for the nearest Center and get used to clean clothes and a good bed again. You don't belong here with these wood lice. Leave this routine to Grizz and the other wild life."

"I'm safe enough. Come on with me. I'll give you a safe-conduct through the lines."

"Sorry, Bandon; I don't think you could guarantee that. I'm taking the back way."

"There's nothin' back there but the cliff face. You can't get through my sentry lines. There's too many men out there. You can't catch five arrows at once—and some of the boys have powder guns."

"I know—so that just leaves me one way out."

"Up the escarpment? You can't climb that—it's straight up."

"I don't have a lot of choice. Sorry you're not going with me. But if you change your mind, there's a cleft just behind the third house from the corner. I'll start from there."

"Got it all figured out, eh? You Downlanders beat me. Well, suit yourself."

"Thanks. And keep your head down until you see which way the wind is blowing."

10

In the blackness of Bandon's back yard, Chester paused, listening. A soft wind moved in the tall pines. Small frogs called; a bird shrilled again and again. Chester moved across the weed-choked garden, worked his way through a wild-grown hedge and over a fallen fence, started up a gravelly slope. Starlight gave a faint illumination. Behind him there was a sudden voice in the street, an angry retort. Chester recognized Bandon's voice. He reached the base of the cleft, found handholds, started up. Yells sounded from below now and Grizz's bull roar. Chester pulled himself up to a ledge and turned, waiting. The voices went on; then the thump of running feet sounded, coming nearer.

"Over here," Chester called softly. He picked up a fist-sized rock, hefted it. Hoarse breathing sounded below, the scrabble of feet on gravel.

"Bandon?" Chester said softly.

"It's me," a choked voice came back. "Why, those lousy, miserable, ungrateful skunks!"

"Uh-huh," Chester said. "Hurry up." He tossed the rock aside, unlimbered the coil of tough clothesline. Other feet sounded now. A torch flared behind Bandon's house.

Grizz's voice bellowed commands: "Beat vat brush, boys. Ve turncoat can't be far off!"

There was a sound of sliding, followed by a thump. Below, Bandon cursed in a strained whisper. "How in the name of the Kez-father do you get up there?"

"Hey, I heard somefing over vere," a voice called. A second torch flared.

Chester tied a loop in the end of the clothesline, lowered it down the cleft. "Grab this," he whispered. "And keep it quiet."

Bandon muttered softly to himself; Chester felt the rope move as Bandon fumbled with it. "Hurry up!" Chester called.

"Haul away," Bandon said softly. Chester braced his feet and pulled. Bandon's feet scraped, sent small stones rattling down the rock face.

"Over vere!" two voices yelled at once. Pounding feet approached. There was a yelp and one torch went out.

"Somebody found my coon trap," Bandon grunted. With a final heave, Chester hauled him up high enough to grip the edge of the ledge. A moment later, they stood side by side.

"I'm going on up," Chester said. "Don't make a sound. As soon as I reach secure footing again, I'll lower the line."

"Don't waste any time," Bandon said. "Grizz may not be able to climb up here, but he's a pretty good hand with a long bow. A pure shame I didn't have time to gather up my Blue-Tooth."

"All you'd do is get us spotted quicker. Stand fast now." Chester reached up, found a grip, pulled himself up. The going was easy enough; the fingerholds were all of a quarter of an inch deep, and the climb was not even quite vertical; there was a slope of at least three degrees. As for the height, it was negligible: a mere sixty feet or so now. A few months ago, it would have been a different story, Chester thought suddenly, smiling. In the old days, he would have clung to the cliff, bleating for help.

Abruptly, the precariousness of his position dawned on Chester. What was he, Chester W. Chester IV, doing here, climbing up the face of a vertical precipice in the dark, with a crew of ferocious back-to-nature cultists at his heels? Suddenly, the meager handholds seemed grossly inadequate. Chester froze, digging with his toes for a secure footing. The light breeze seemed to batter at him like a gale. His shoulder blades drew together in anticipation of Grizz's long-bow bolt.

"Hey," Bandon's voice whispered anxiously from below. "Don't forget me."

Chester drew a deep breath and let it out slowly, feeling his fear-tensed muscles loosen. He was glad Kuve hadn't been around to see how easily he'd forgotten his training in a moment of panic. He went up another ten feet, found a foot-wide ledge and lowered the rope. There were three torches below now, near the foot of the cliff.

"Here's some footprints," someone shouted.

"Hey, look up vere," another voice shouted. "Did you see somefing move?"

"It's him!"

"Who's got a bow handy?"

"Bandon," Chester called softly. "Gather up a handful of rocks, then tie the rope around your waist. You pepper 'em while I pull you up. Maybe it will be enough to spoil their aim—or at least make them nervous."

"Sure."

Chester heard the rasp of stone, then a grunt as Bandon pegged one. There was a loud yell from below.

"Got the skunk!" Bandon whispered loudly. A moment later a second cry rang out.

"What's goin' on?" someone wanted to know.

"Rocks fallin'."

"Ohhh, my head!"

"Bandon, hurry up! Get that rope tied!" Chester felt the rope vibrate.

"All right," Bandon called. Chester heaved at the rope. It was hard work this time, with Bandon too fully occupied to assist by clawing his way up as Chester pulled. The rope cut into Chester's hands. An arrow clanged against the stone ten feet to one side, striking red sparks. Chester grunted and hauled. More arrows struck, one no more than a yard away. One of the torches below went out as its bearer yelled.

"Don't throw at the torches," Chester gasped. "All they do is blind them."

"Oh, sorry," Bandon said cheerfully. "The varmints are thick as fleas in a bearhide down there. Can't hardly miss."

He crawled up beside Chester. "Whoosh! That rope cuts! And we've still got a ways to go." An arrow ricocheted off the rock wall a yard from Chester's head.

"Let's get out of here. They'll bracket in on us before long. If you're hit, try not to yell."

"I'll keep 'em busy," Bandon said. He stooped, came up with a head-sized stone, and dropped it down into the darkness. It hit once with a crash; a moment later three hoarse yells sounded almost together.

"Ha!" Bandon exulted. "That's showin' 'em."

Three painful climbs and half an hour later Chester and Bandon lay stretched full-length on a wide ledge. The noise below had dwindled to an occasional half-hearted curse and a few groans. The arrows had stopped coming.

"Looks like we got away clean," Bandon said. "The skunks sure gave up easy."

"We'll rest a few minutes," Chester said. "Then we'll go on to the top and head back toward the Center—"

"Oh-oh," Bandon said.

"What's the matter?"

"Reckon I forgot somethin'."

"Well, I don't think we'd better go back for it, under the circumstances."

"It's not that. But I forgot to tell you. This cliff we've gone and climbed up on: no wonder the boys aren't too worried about getting' after us."

"Well?"

"There's no way down. If you'd seen it in daylight you'd know what I mean. It's a mesa, and the side we're climbing is the easy one."

Hot morning sun beat down on Chester's short-cropped head as he walked along the cliff edge to the boulder against which Bandon sat waiting.

"It's like I told you," Bandon said. "We're stuck."

"Why didn't you mention the topographical peculiarities of the place to me last night, when I first announced I was heading this way?" Chester asked.

"I figured it wouldn't matter, 'cause I didn't figure you'd be able to get up here anyhow. I figured you'd be back in a few minutes, beggin' my pardon and askin' for that safe-conduct. I guess I made kind of a fool of myself."

"I won't be so uncivil as to argue that point." Chester peered over the precipice. It dropped vertically for fifty feet, then shelved back. The base was visible a hundred yards below, plunging sheer into a green blanket of treetops.

"Grizz'll have the boys spotted all the way around, and trip wires rigged," Bandon said. "Even if we had a way to get down, they'd be on top of us like flies on a beer keg before we got out shirt tails tucked in."

Chester scaled a rock out over the forest, watched it curve and drop down, down . . . 

"Poor Genie," he said. "And Case."

"I don't know who you're grievin' over," Bandon said, "but you can add your own name to the list. If we don't starve up here, it'll be because we climbed down and broke our necks—or got plugged full of arrows. One thing we don't have to do is get heat stroke. Let's get over under the trees."

They walked across the stony ground toward the rising mound of wooded land that occupied the center of the ten-acre island of the mesa top.

"We'd better look around and see if there's anything edible growing up here," Chester said.

"And water," Bandon added. "I'm already gettin' thirsty."

"Maybe we can find some game. Why don't you set to work and make yourself a new bow? I'll start on a shelter, in case it rains—and we'll have to rig some sort of catch-basin, if we don't find a spring."

"What's the use? It'll just stretch out our dyin'. Maybe we ought to just take a flyin' jump. Maybe we'd land on a couple of Grizz's skunks."

"Here, none of that," Chester said sharply. "We may find that we can live quite comfortably here—in spite of the lack of canned beans and television. This is your opportunity to try the free life you're so fond of."

"Sure, but . . . " Bandon muttered.

"You start off in that direction." Chester pointed toward a stand of slender, bluish-needled conifers. "I'll check over there. We'll meet back here at the edge of the woods in an hour."

Chester laid aside the rusted hatchet with which he had been pounding in a stake.

"Any luck?" he called as Bandon tramped from the underbrush.

"I guess so," Bandon said dispiritedly. "There's a good stand of ash back there I can make some kind of bow out of. And I found some kind of an old tent—"

Chester came to his feet. "You mean the place is inhabited?"

Bandon shook his head. "Not any more. Come on. I need help to get it out. We can use the material to build that catch-basin, and I guess there's enough over to put a roof on that hut of yours." He nodded toward Chester's embryonic framework of sticks bound together with lengths of clothesline wire.

Chester followed Bandon back into the woods, pushing through tangled underbrush, squeezing between interlaced saplings. The taller trees became thicker and the ground more open as they progressed. Ahead, draped in the branches of a dead pine, Chester saw a billow of grayish-white, a snarl of lines trailing down almost to the ground.

"There it is," Bandon said. "Don't know what it's doin' in a treetop. But there's plenty of stuff there to make a hut and whatever else we need. And some good rope, too. Not that it's goin' to do us any good," he added.

"It's a parachute," Chester said in wonder. "I was under the impression that there were no aeronautics here, other than helis, and you don't need parachutes with those. They let themselves down gently if the power fails."

"What other kind is there?" Bandon inquired.

Chester explained to Bandon the function of a conventional flying machine.

"I never heard of any such thing," Bandon said, shaking his head. "But it seems like I remember some kind of big gas bag some fellows put on some kind of show with, once when I was a kid back in the Tricennium. They went sailin' right up into the sky. Damnedest thing you ever saw."

"I wonder what happened to the pilot who came down in this?"

"Oh, him," Bandon said. "He's right over here." He led the way across the carpet of leaves under the giant trees to a thicket. "In there."

Chester parted the brush and looked into a bower of woven branches thatched with dried grass. On the dirt floor were three hand-made earthenware pots and a woven basket with the desiccated remains of what might have once been fruit. Beside the basket lay the skeleton of a man.

"Good Lord!" Chester muttered. "Poor devil."

"Can't figure what killed him—'less it was old age," Bandon said. "No arrows stickin' in him, no broken bones. Plenty of food and water, I'd say."

"He must have bailed out of his balloon, landed here and found himself marooned," Chester said. "But surely he could have signaled in some way . . . "

"Must have been a long time back—before our town was built. And there's no other Tricennium for twenty miles."

"What about the Center? It's not more than five miles."

"They just built that a year or two back. Nope, he was stuck, all right. Just like us. We might just as well hunker down beside him—"

"But why didn't he use the parachute? He could have rigged it somehow and jumped!"

Bandon eyed the sagging yellow-white cloth above. "Jump off the cliff with that trailin' behind him, hey? I dunno. I'd hate to try it."

Chester hitched up his belt. "You may just have to. Come on, let's get it down from there."

Chester and Bandon stood gazing sadly at the broad expanse of weather-spotted and puckered nylon stretched on the ground before them. Two long, dark tears in the material ran from edge to edge.

"I see why he didn't use it," Chester said glumly. "Well, that's that. The material's still sound, though. We might as well cut it up in sections for easy hauling and get back to work on our hut."

"Don't reckon we could sew it up," Bandon said doubtfully.

"Not a chance. We might manage to work some threads loose and lace it back together, but it wouldn't hold air. And with a double load—well, we'd splash when we hit."

Bandon winced. "Let's get busy. I'll salvage those pots and the basket. Must be water near here, 's the reason he camped here."

An hour later, having used Bandon's bone-handled hunting knife to dissect the parachute, Chester folded the sections, coiled the lines and settled down to wait for his companion's return. He could hear him crashing through nearby underbrush.

Bandon emerged, red-faced and scratched. "Found it," he said. "Little pothole, damn near buried in prickle bushes. We'll spend half our time just getting' enough water to stay alive on."

"I'll use the hatchet to clear it away," Chester said. "Let's be going."

"Why not built right here?"

"I like the open glade near the edge better. Then, too, this place has certain morbid associations."

"You mean him?" Bandon nodded toward the dead man's hut. "Shucks, he can't hurt us."

"I'd like to be able to look out and see the rest of the world. Let's be moving. We have a lot to do before we can consider ourselves settled in."

"Squirrel food," Bandon said, spitting blackberry seeds. "Only three days on squirrel food, and my britches are so loose they'd fall off if I didn't have 'em roped on."

"Why don't you finish up that bow? Then maybe you'd be able to eat rabbit for a change," Chester said cheerfully. "Personally, I like berries."

"Bow's made," Bandon said shortly. "But I can't string it till I get a rabbit to gut. And I can't get a rabbit to gut till I—"

"Why don't you use nylon?"

"That stuff? Stretches like rubber. You couldn't throw an arrow fifty feet with that. And besides, I need arrowheads and feathers and glue. Now, I can make up a swell glue—just as soon's I can shoot a few critters."

"Chip some heads out of stone," Chester suggested. "And you ought to be able to find a few feathers around an old nest or some such place."

"I've got plenty of nice arrow shafts ready. Good tough, springy wood. And light."

Chester fingered an arrow. "You do nice work, Bandon. Too bad you left the part of the world where it would be appreciated. You could have fitted in nicely as an archery expert."

"I wouldn't have been an archery expert if I hadn't thrown off the shackles first."

"Still, if you go back . . . "

"Ha!" Bandon looked out over the airy vista of distant ridges. "Unless we turn into birds, that's not likely."

Chester sat up suddenly, flexed the arrow shaft in both hands.

"Bandon, what kind of wood is this? Is there a good supply of it?"

Bandon raised an eyebrow at the excitement in Chester's tone. He waved a hand. "The woods are full of it. What—"

"You say you can make glue?"

"Glue? Sure I can make glue. All you have to do is boil down a few carcasses . . . "

Chester was on his feet. "Bandon, you get that bow of yours working. I don't care if you string it with shoelaces. Bring me in a brace of rabbits and boil up a pot of stickum." He picked up the hatchet, its blade bright now from use. "I'm headed for the tall timber."

"Hold on, here. What's goin' on? We've got plenty of firewood; and I've lost too much weight to go traipsin' off on a rabbit hunt."

"For what I've got in mind, the lighter you are, the better. And I'm not hunting firewood; I'm after what they call aircraft spruce."

"Chester, just what have you got in mind?"

"We're going to leave here, Bandon. It will take a few days, but we'll travel in style."

"In style?"

"To be precise—in a home-built glider."

"She'll be built along the lines of an old-time training ship," Chester said. "Neat and simple."

"Simple? We've already got more junk lined up to go into this contraption than it would take to stock a store. Five kinds of wood, cloth, wire, string, glue—"

"And we're still grossly understocked, believe me. But I think we can do it."

"I don't see the need of usin' my knife to make that thing," Bandon said, watching Chester take long, curling shavings from a spruce spar with a jack plane made from a chunk of wood and the knife blade.

"It's a lot more efficient than a knife for trimming up structural members," Chester said. "How's the glue factory coming?"

"Oh, I've got enough glue to feather a million arrows. Can I quit boilin' down rabbit now and fix a couple to eat?"

"Sure. But don't overdo it. I wasn't kidding when I said the lighter we are, the better. Then I wish you'd go to work stripping down that clothesline; there's ten strands of steel wire under the plastic cover. We'll use that for diagonal frame-bracing. And I'll need lots of the nylon parachute lines unraveled, too. Reel it on a stick as you get it worked apart."

Bandon set to work. "I still don't see how you figure to flap the wings, Chester. To hold us up, you'll have to have a spread of maybe ten, twelve feet."

"Thirty," Chester said. "And a five-foot cord. Not a very efficient layout, but I'm afraid it's the best we can do with the materials at hand. Figuring us each at one-fifty—or a little less, if we eat sparingly for another week—and the airframe at two hundred pounds, that works out to three pounds per square foot. And we won't flap our wings—unless I've miscalculated badly."

"Well, I guess you know what you're doin'."

"Certainly. In my youth I was a fanatical model-plane builder. Free-flight, control-line, RC, hand-launch—the works."

"You done much flyin' off cliffs?"

"Well, if you mean in full-scale aircraft—"

"I do."

"Actually, none."

"None? But you've built a lot of them, hey?"

"Well, not actually anything big enough to carry a man—but I did put together a seven-foot multi-engine control-liner."

"You mean we're goin' to jump over a cliff in a contraption you've never tried out before, and that you maybe don't know how to work even if it doesn't come apart?"

"The alternative," Chester pointed out, "is sitting up here in the eagle's nest until we get too old to pick berries."

Bandon shouldered his bow. "I'm goin' out and get us a couple of eatin' rabbits," he announced. "We might just as well eat and drink and enjoy it while we can."

"That's right," Chester said. "Because tomorrow—who knows?"

"It looks like a coffin for a tall, skinny corpse," Bandon said, eyeing the twenty-foot openwork structure of spruce strips propped on sawhorses made from peeled logs.

"Two tall, skinny fellows," Chester said. "You stretch out here." He indicated a section floored with woven strips of willow bark. "I take up the right-hand position beside you. I'll have to have room to edge forward or back to correct the trim. Now, I want you to go along wrapping each joint with nylon patches, and working in glue. What I wouldn't give for a few square feet of one-eighth birch ply and a pound or two of wire brads."

"While you're wishin', you might just as well wish for a concealed staircase leadin' from here into that air-conditioned restaurant you were talkin' about. You can have the blonde. Just leave me to the steaks and chops."

Chester jumped as a sudden whop! sounded behind him. He whirled. A long steel-tipped arrow quivered upright against the sod.

"They're shootin' at us," Bandon blurted. "Where are they?" He stared wildly around.

Chester swept the scene with a glance. "That arrow came straight down—and from not very high up." He pulled it from the ground. "It wasn't buried more than a few inches."

As Chester looked toward the cliff edge, a second arrow shot up into view, curved and fell twenty feet away.

"Ah-hah! They're pegging them up here with an arbalest of some sort." A moment later a round stone the size of a grapefruit sailed into view, slowed to a stop and dropped back out of sight. "They've got a catapult working, too. I hope that drops back on someone's toe."

"I thought it was awful quiet these last few days," Bandon said. "They've been a busy bunch down there, getting' ready to lay down a barrage on us."

Chester watched a second stone fly into view and drop with a thump fifty yards away. Other arrows nipped up; some fell back, other clattered to earth at distances from ten to a hundred feet.

"How do they know where to aim?" Chester asked. "They're hitting pretty close."

"There's a couple pairs of binoculars in the town," Bandon said. "I reckon a few of the skunks are staked out on the next ridge watchin' every move we make." He shook a fist in the presumed direction of the spies. "See if you can figure it out, blast you!" he yelled defiantly. He turned to Chester. "Maybe we'd better move 'er back to the edge of the woods."

"I don't think we're in any real danger, short of an accident," Chester replied, watching a rock clatter down thirty feet distant. "There are as many falling behind us as in front. Let's just keep at it and hope for the best. I wonder why they're so persistent? They should be content to let us starve up here in peace, one would think."

"It's not that easy," Bandon said. "Grizz can't afford to let me get away—or die off."

"Why not?"

"Well, I've been thinkin'. He doesn't know where the treasury is—and he's not the kind of fellow to forget a thing like that."

"Treasury? I hadn't heard about that before. What does it consist of, a hoard of salami, canned crackers and replacement tubes for the Tri-D?"

"Nope. Guns and powder, mostly."

"Hmmm. I was about to suggest that you might throw a note over the side giving directions to its location, but under the circumstances that would be unwise."

An arrow dropped five feet from the edge of the wing.

"Oh-oh. We can't have any punctures now that we've started covering. Bandon, maybe you'd better start a counter-barrage while I work on the gluing. When I need you to stretch the next panel, I'll call you."

"That's a mighty flimsy-looking thing." Bandon studied the nearly completed project. "How long before we have to try it?"

"Not long. There are the tail surfaces to cover and install and the controls to link up. I'd say by sundown we'll be about ready—but of course, the glue needs overnight to set up thoroughly."

"That tail's not very big." Bandon gestured toward the stabilizer and rudder frames propped against a tree. "Why not just leave 'em off?"

"Impractical, I'm afraid," Chester said. "No tail assembly, no flight. We'd drop like a stone—tail first."

Bandon jumped as a rock crashed down at his feet. "Maybe we'd better head for the tall brush before Grizz gets lucky," he suggested nervously.

"And let them knock the glider apart at their leisure? Not—"

With a crash, a four-inch stone slammed through the woven floorboards of the pilot's compartment. Chester stared at it in dismay.

"We were lucky," he said. "It missed the keel. Bandon, get busy on that counterattack. We can't let them stop us now!"

11

A ruddy dawn was breaking over the distant eastern hills. Clutching an improvised cape about his shoulders against the early-morning chill, Chester examined the nylon-covered wing, glistening with dew.

"It looks as though she's survived the night intact."

"Here, look at this," Bandon called. He held up a paper-wrapped stone. "Looks like it might be a message." He stripped off the paper, glanced at it and handed it to Chester.

Kum don now and sav yerself frum gitin yer brans bust in. Bandon, it ant yu, jus the spi wer after. Grizz, bos. 

"Well, that's an attractive offer," Chester said. "If you trust him."

Bandon snorted. "I heard him makin' promises to you a few days back. I reckon I'll take my chances with the flyin' machine. But, say, Chester, how do you figure on gettin'' it over the edge? If we're both sittin' in it . . . "

"That's easy. We'll set up a pair of peeled willow rails; we'll use the poles we skinned for their bark. The glider will have to be anchored in position with a length of nylon line. When we're ready to go, I'll cut the cable. The rails will be laid up the slope at an angle, so a fifty-foot run ought to give us a good enough send-off. Of course, I'll have to put her nose down as soon as we're over the edge, to gain flying speed."

"Maybe if we rigged a weighted line and hung it over the edge, it would give her a little extra kick-off. We'd have to fix it so it'd drop off when we went over the edge."

"Good idea. You find us a suitable ballast stone—as big as you can lift. We'll try to get off before the morning barrage starts. I'll be ready to move her upslope and set up the track in about ten minutes."

Bandon nodded and moved off. Chester climbed into the pilot's compartment, stretched out face down and fitted his toes against the rudder bar. Looking over his shoulder, he could see the rudder wag in response to his foot movements. He tried the stick; the elevators flopped up and down correctly. A side pressure warped the trailing edge of the left wing panel up and down.

"Pre-flight check complete," Chester murmured to himself. He crawled out, moving carefully as the open-work fuselage creaked under his weight. Upslope, Bandon levered a boulder with a pole. It lifted, teetered, started a slow trundle downhill.

"Bandon!" Chester called, running forward. "Stop that!"

Bandon stood frozen, watching the massive rock gather speed, aimed directly for the glider perched at the cliffside. Chester slid to a halt, turned and dashed back for the ship. He skidded around under the wing, seized the tail post and hauled. The glider slid back with a grate of wood against soil, then jammed—just as the boulder took a mighty bound and leaped over it to drop from sight over the cliff. Chester slumped against the frail craft.

"Hey, Chester, I'm sorry about that."

A mighty crash sounded from below, followed by faint yells. Chester went to the edge and looked over. A great gap showed in the mass of foliage far below. Through the opening Chester saw men darting about among the splintered remains of a wooden structure. Bandon arrived at his side and stared down silently.

"Well, blast those skunks, Chester. You see that? They were buildin' an almighty big catapult down there. See the throwin' arm layin' off there to the left? Pretty smart, hey, sneakin' around under cover of those trees and fixin' to let fly with the big stuff. By the nine tails of the hill-devil, it's a good thing that stone got away from me."

"Maybe—but I'd just as soon we didn't do anything so dramatic again. Let's get that track set up."

Chester studied the panorama. "We'll angle it to the right to avoid that depression near the edge. I'll aim her right off there between those two knolls. With luck, we can stretch our glide to half a mile. That ought to give us all the start we need on our welcoming committee."

"Wonder what's happened to the artillery this morning? I guess maybe that little pebble we dropped on 'em shook 'em up a little."

"I hope so. It would be a shame to suffer a hit now."

Chester and Bandon set to work pegging wooden rails in place. They finished, then took up positions on opposite sides of the craft and lifted it clear of the ground.

"Hey, it's not so heavy," Bandon commented.

"Watch your footing," Chester said.

Together they toiled up the slope, maneuvered carefully, then settled the ship in place on the track.

"Hold her while I chock her," Chester called. He wedged a sizable stone fragment in place under the down-tipped nose. "All right, now we rig the restraining cable."

Chester payed out a length of nylon to the nearest tree, tied it securely, then attached the other end to the keel of the glider between the two pilot positions.

"All set," he said, removing the chock from the track. "All that's holding her now is the cable. When I cut that—off we go."

"It sure is quiet," Bandon commented, looking around. "I wonder . . . "

"Let's just be grateful," Chester said. "I wasn't looking forward to having to launch right out through a hail of arrows. I'll lay out the ballast line now while you bring in a stone."

At the edge of the precipice, Chester dropped the coil of nylon line and tied a secure noose ready to receive the weighting stone. As he rose to turn back, an unshaven face rose into view not ten feet from him; two grimy hands scrabbled for a grip.

Chester jumped, put a foot square in the face and pushed. With a yelp, the man dropped back; a tremendous crash followed. Chester looked over the edge. Twenty feet below, a rickety platform thrust up; three men crouched atop it, while another sprawled on his back, half through the shattered decking. One of the three brought a bow into position and launched an arrow in one motion; it whistled past Chester's ear. He whirled, grabbed up a hundred-pound rock and eased it over the edge. There was a noisy crunch. Now two of the men clung frantically to the shattered remains of the platform, while the third scrambled agilely down the rickety structure. The fourth man was gone. Looking to the left Chester saw a second platform and beyond it a third. And there were more to the right.

Chester was up and running. "Bandon! Forget the stone! Get to the glider!"

Bandon stared, then dropped the rock and headed for the craft at a run. From the woods behind the glider a man in a soiled shirt and torn pants emerged, his bow at the ready. Bandon, in mid-stride, nocked an arrow and let fly. The newcomer fell backward, feathers at his throat.

"Into your seat, fast!" Chester yelled.

"Say, I'm not really sure I want to risk this," Bandon exclaimed.

At the cliff edge, two men came into view simultaneously, scrambling up, starting for the glider at a run. Bandon whipped his bow up, set an arrow, twanged it on its way, sped a second. One man whirled and fell; the other dived for cover. Bandon dropped the bow and slid into his place, face down. Chester jumped in after him, wriggled his feet up against the rudder bar. Reaching down with his right hand, he sawed at the tether with the knife blade. More men appeared. One raised a bow and let an arrow fly. It struck the nose block with a whack!, stood quivering in the wood. The rope parted. With a lurch, the little ship started forward, grinding and bumping along the green-wood tracks. Wind whistled in Chester's face. The running men had halted, staring. The bowman raised his bow, loosed an arrow, missed by yards. As the glider bore down on him, he turned and fled. More men were coming over the edge now.

"The skunks stayed up late last night plannin' this one," Bandon yelled in Chester's ear. "They—"

"Quiet!" Chester choked.

The glider seemed to move forward with infinite leisure. The grass and gravel moved past in a ribbon that blurred slowly. The cliff edge was ahead now, coming closer.

"We're not going to make it!" Chester mumbled. "Not enough speed."

An arrow slammed off the framework above Chester's head, knocking off splinters. Ahead was blue sky and distant, hazy hills.

"Now!" Chester gasped. Abruptly the grate of wood on wood ceased—and the bottom dropped from under them. Chester shoved forward on the stick convulsively, his breath caught in his throat, his heart slamming madly under his ribs. Down, down, falling, the wide spread of green rushing up, wind screaming now in the wires at Chester's side, buffeting his face. Lying prone, he pulled back on the stick, neutralizing it, then farther back . . . 

He could feel the air pressure resisting the stick. He pulled harder, felt pressure build against his chest, saw the green below tilting away, flattening, saw the hills sliding down into view, with sky above them. He looked over the side. Treetops rushed past a hundred feet below.

"Hey!" Bandon yelled. "We're flyin', Chester!"

The nose rose, aiming now at the distant sky. Chester pushed the stick, felt the ship slow, hesitate minutely, then drop her nose. He swallowed. "Whip stall," he muttered. "Pilot-killers."

"Say, Chester, this is great!" Bandon called.

Chester inched forward, applied a little right rudder. The ship turned sloppily.

"A little aileron," Chester told himself. He edged the stick to one side, felt the ship tilt sharply. Air currents buffeted the glider. Chester gritted his teeth, fighting the motion. "Let it fly itself," he reminded himself, consciously relaxing. A gust rocked the craft; it righted itself. The nose crept up; Chester eased the stick forward. The nose came down. The flank of a hill was approaching. Chester applied rudder, coordinating the ailerons; the ship heeled, curved away.

"Wheeeee!" Bandon cried. "Just like a bird, Chester!"

There was a valley ahead, a steep cleft between hills. Chester aimed for it, holding a straight course. He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"Nothin' to it, Chester," Bandon said. "Here, have some nuts."

"Not yet, thanks," Chester called. "For heaven's sake lie still and let me fly this thing."

"Say, Chester, that's funny," Bandon said.

"What's funny?"

"We're gettin' higher instead of comin' down. Hey, Chester, how are we goin' to get down if this thing keeps goin' up?"

"You're raving," Chester said.

Wind screamed past his face, making his eyes water. He twisted his head and looked over the side. The trees below were a smooth blanket of green. He looked back. The mesa was visible a mile away.

"You're right!" Chester said. "I can see the top of the mesa. I guess we've snagged a thermal!"

"Is that good or bad?"

"Good. Now don't bother me for a few minutes, and I'll see if I can stretch our glide to a new Tricennium record!"

"Five miles," Chester called. "That was the Center back there."

"What keeps her in the air, Chester, without flappin' her wings?"

"We're riding rising air currents off these slopes. We've got a very poor glide angle, I'm afraid, but the updrafts are so strong we're gaining altitude in spite of our inefficiency. I'm hoping to catch some true thermals over the plains ahead. I'd estimate our altitude at about three thousand feet now. I'd like to work her up to about five and then set out west toward the Tricennium of the Original Wisdom. If we can make a few miles it will save us a long, hot walk."

"I'm all for it, Chester. I like it fine up here."

"That remark seems to indicate you've abandoned your simple-life philosophy. An aircraft—even a primitive one like this—is a far cry from chipping flints."

"Why, what do you mean, Chester? We made this ourselves, out of plain old wood and rabbit glue."

"Plus a few bits of nylon and some steel wire. But after all, every manufactured item is made from simple raw materials—even a Tri-D tube. All materials are natural, if you trace them back to their beginnings. There's nothing wrong with rearranging nature to give ourselves a few more comforts—it's misusing what we make that takes the savor out of life."

"Maybe so. But it's not really the stuff; it's the people that gravel me. I don't want anybody tellin' me what to do, tryin' to push me around. Soon's we land, I guess I'll head for the hills again."

"Bandon, learn to do something that other people want or need and you won't have to worry about being stepped on. Most of the shrill cries of social injustice come from people who contribute nothing to the scene that a chimpanzee couldn't do better. Why do you think people treasure the few really talented singers, actors, ball players, medical men, engineers that crop up? Because there are far too few of them—every one is a treasure. And if a new man comes along and writes a song that reaches out and touches something in everybody, he doesn't have to worry about being picked on. His fans won't let anything happen to him."

"Well, maybe I could start up an archery class, like you said. You suppose folks would come and want to learn?"

"Try it and find out. If there's something in archery that makes you love it, there'll be others that will get the same thrill. Be best at something—and let the world know it."

"Hey, Chester, look down there. A line running right across the countryside."

"A road," Chester explained. "That's good. We can follow it right back to town."

"And way up ahead—looks like buildings, away off."

"That's possible. From this altitude, the Tricennium should be visible; it's only about fifteen miles."

Chester squinted overhead for cumulus clouds, steered for the shadow of the nearest. The updraft rocket the tiny craft. "All right, Bandon, here we go." He banked the glider to the right and struck out for the distant city.

Half an hour later the glider whistled in past a row of tall trees, cleared an outlying house by inches, settled in over a broad green lawn. It skimmed for a hundred yards, then dropped with a mild jar to skid for another fifty feet before heeling over with one wing tip scooping up turf, describing an abrupt arc and coming to rest.

"Whew!" Chester sighed. He rose to hands and knees and looked around at the well-manicured greenery, the peaceful rooflines and the half-dozen men coming across the lawn at a jog trot.

"Get ready for a rude reception, Bandon. I'm not certain these fellows quite appreciate my little contribution to society. They may be the pushy kind."

"Well, I'd like to see 'em try it with me," Bandon growled.

"Don't leap to any untenable conclusions: they're a mild-looking lot, but they're full of surprises."

The leading greeter came up. "Extraordinary!" he commented, looking at the glider, Chester, Bandon and the long groove in the velvety lawn. "Where in the world did you come from?"

A second man came up. "Now, Gayme, what did I tell you? A stiff-winged, manned aircraft. Look at these two chaps. As ordinary a pair as you'd care to meet. So much for your talk of the supernormal."

"The manifestation is, I insist, supernormal, in the sense that it surpasses the ordinary run of events. Note the lack of motive power. How did such an assemblage of artifacts and personnel come to be up there to begin with?"

"Look here," Chester said.

"Tut, tut, Gayme. I'm sure there's a simple, rational explanation. I suggest we start at the beginning by asking a few questions." He eyed Bandon. "You, sir. Do you mind telling me just how you came to descend from an empty sky?"

"Sure, easy," Bandon said. "I live on a cloud, and I just came down to get a refill on moonbeams. Any other questions? If not, how about a few eats? I'm hungry."

"Ah-hah," Gayme crowed. "Just as I suspected. We'll consult Norgo."

"This is where I came in," Chester said. "Look, Bandon, I'll just slip over to the town square and see to a few things. I may not see you again. If I don't, I hereby will you full rights to the glider. Don't let them euchre you out of it; they're good at appropriating things in the name of science. And work on your archery."

"Hold on, Chester. Say, I figure we get on pretty good together. I figured you and I'd stick together."

"Sorry, Bandon, old chap. It's been a most rewarding experience, but I have some unfinished business to attend to—if it isn't altogether too late. I'm going to find an inconspicuous corner and lie low for a few hours. Good luck."

Bandon took his hand. "Well, all right, Chester. Sorry about getting' you into that fix back there."

"Thus," Gayme droned on, "the phenomenon is related to the spontaneous precipitation of frogs sometimes reported from outlying areas."

"Who is outlying whom?" his friend inquired archly. "Now, I . . . "

Chester moved off quietly across the lawn. No one called after him.

In gathering twilight Chester moved across the square toward the shadows of the cupola, the scene of his arrival ten months earlier. As he reached the flower bed ringing the monument, a tall figure stepped before him, peered at Chester's lithe, broad-shouldered figure, his tanned face, sinewy arms, short-clipped sun-bleached hair and tight-fitting Tricennium costume.

"Oh, sorry," he said. "I was waiting for the poor little nincompoop who had the fixation regarding the rug. They say he slipped away from the Center right in the middle of the experiment. You're one of Norgo's crew?"

"I'm the poor little nincompoop," Chester said flatly. "Get out of my way, Devant."

"Wha . . . ? Is it really you?"

"It's really me—and I'm reclaiming my property now."

Devant laughed. "Still the same pathetic line, eh? Well, Norgo warned that you'd probably head for here. I'll take you back now to finish your course of experimental study."

"I graduated."

"Oh, really?" Devant laughed again easily, reached for Chester. There was a brief flurry of motion and Devant hit the pavement—hard.

"Glad I ran into you, Devant," Chester said, stepping over him. "That's one piece of unfinished business out of the way. If I find I'm too late to help my friends, I'll be back to finish the job."

Devant scrambled up with a shout. There were answering calls, the pad of running feet. Chester sprinted for the rug, veered around a stone bench, made out the dim outline of a chair. An overhead light glared suddenly, showing Chester a ring of men closing in, Norgo in the lead, holding up a hand. The posse halted.

"Computer, are you there?" Chester called urgently. There was a long pause.

"Chester, you know you aren't allowed on the rug," Norgo called. "Just come along quietly now."

"Watch him," Devant cautioned, dabbing at his cheek. "He's learned a few tricks."

"Ah, Mr. Chester"—the familiar voice spoke from mid-air—"I had a little difficulty in locating you."

"Stand by," Chester said. "I'll be with you in a moment." He turned to face Norgo. "I'm sorry to rush off," he called, feet planted on the rug. "I'd have enjoyed staying longer, but personal affairs demand my attention. Give my regards to Kuve—and watch out for a rabble-rouser named Grizz. He lives up in the hills, but he's planning on moving into town soon."

"I had hoped your delirium would clear up once you were separated from your fetish object," Norgo said sadly. "Too bad." He signaled; the posse closed in.

"Goodbye, Norgo," Chester called. "Thanks for everything. And after I'm gone, remember: accept reality. Is-not is not not-is.

"All right, Computer," he added, "take me back to Genie."

12

Misty twilight turned to the glare of day on a city street. Chester looked around. Nothing had changed from his last glimpse of the scene ten months before, except that the crowd had dwindled to a few die-hards. The street was still roped off, although the phalanx of squad cars had been reduced to two vehicles, each with a pair of heavyweights in the front seat, none of whom was looking his way.

"Don't go away, Computer," Chester said softly. "I'll have to try to find Genie, and it may take a while."

"Very well, Mr. Chester," the computer's voice replied loudly. "I'll occupy myself with an analysis of—"

"Quiet!" Chester snapped, too late. Four round cop faces turned to stare at Chester. Car doors swung open; flat feet scrambled. Two cops advanced on Chester while two more rounded their vehicles, hitching at red leather pistol belts.

"Hey, what's them chairs and rug doin' back here?" one cop demanded.

"Who're you, Bud?" another spoke up.

Chester folded his arms and glared at the lead cop. "I thought I left instructions that this area was to be watched closely," he barked. "Who dumped these things here? You men think this is a used-furniture store?"

"What's that?" the lead cop said, letting his mouth hang open.

"Button your coat," Chester snapped. "And see that you shave before coming on duty next time." He put his hands behind his back and strode along the line of cops. "Sergeant, those boots need attention. And your car needs a wash."

"Hey, who're you?" a cop said.

"Who're you, sir!" Chester roared. "Don't you know the field uniform of a Commissioner of Police when you see one?"

"Sure," the cop replied promptly. "And that ain't it."

"State Police, that is," Chester amended.

"State Police? Heck, I seen the State Police Commissioner at the race track just last week."

"State Department Police, you nincompoop!" Chester bellowed. "Don't you realize this is a matter of international import? Why," he went on in a confidential tone, "I have it on good authority that the affair ties in with a scheduled interplanetary invasion."

"Geez," a cop said.

"Now," Chester went on smoothly, "do you happen to recall the case of the unclothed young woman who was arrested in this vicinity some time ago?"

The cops looked at each other. One lifted his chrome-plated helmet and squinted upward.

"Well," he said. "Ahhh . . . "

"I think maybe I remember something about that," another cop volunteered.

"Ah, fine. Can you tell me what disposition was made of the case? It seems to have slipped my memory."

"Well, let's see . . . "

"Perhaps she served a brief sentence and was sent on her way," Chester suggested. "She might even have gotten a job—somewhere nearby."

"A job," a cop repeated, staring at Chester.

"Why don't you come on down to the station house . . . ah . . . Commissioner? Maybe we can fix you up down there."

"Why, she may still be right there in the women's cell block," another cop spoke up. "Maybe you can have a nice little chat with her."

"An excellent suggestion, men," Chester said crisply. "You may drive me down at once."

"Sure. Right this way."

Chester followed two of the officers to their car. He rode along in silence, turning over ways and means. It was unlikely that after ten months Genie was still in the local lockup. Still, she might have compounded the original offense by assaulting members of the police force, damaging public property, attempting escape, resisting arrest and failing to produce a driver's license. And, of course, she was penniless—always a disadvantage when reasoning with the law.

The car drew up to a side entrance to a red brick building with twin pillars surmounted by milky white globes lettered POLICE. Chester stepped out and followed the driver up the steps while his partner trailed. Inside, the cop motioned Chester along a short corridor and into an inner room where a thin man in a red uniform glanced up from behind a desk with an irritated expression.

"Okay, Buddy," the lead cop said, looking at Chester. "Look who we got here—the International Commissioner of Police. Get a load of the outfit."

"Now, I'd like to know—" Chester started, stepping forward.

"He shows up in the stakeout and wants to know do we remember the dame we picked up down there."

"And by the way, the chairs and rug are back," the other cop volunteered.

The man behind the desk jumped up. "Back, are they? Did you get whoever delivered them?"

"And he says it's an invasion from Mars," the cop finished. "Naw, they was too quick for us. They had this fast car, see—"

"You imbeciles! Kablitzki, I'll have your stripes for this! Now get back down there and keep that area under surveillance—and that doesn't mean sitting in your car listening to the latest jerk-and-twitch record!"

"But, Chief, what about our pinch here? He's a dangerous nut case."

The Chief threw a glance at Chester. "Probably an escapee from a TV commercial. Lock him up for obstructing justice."

"Look here—" Chester began.

The two cops turned to him with expressions of relief, reaching out large square hands. Chester leaned aside, caught an outstretched arm, flipped the hand back and applied pressure. The cop yowled and leaped, landed in a heap.

"I simply want some information," Chester declared. "The girl I asked about—is she still under confinement?"

The second cop growled and moved in. Chester stiff-handed him under the third button, clipped him on the side of the neck as he fell past.

"Here—" the Chief cried, reaching for a drawer. Chester was across the desk, his hands gripping the thin man's collar.

"Listen, you confounded idiot!" Chester barked. "Where is the girl—the one you picked up for indecent exposure?"

The Chief struggled manfully; Chester rapped his head against the floor. One of the cops staggered into view. Chester hit him with the Chief.

"Now look," he insisted, holding the unfortunate official in an awkward position over the back of his padded chair. "All I want is information on the young lady's whereabouts. Why not cooperate in giving a little help to a law-abiding citizen?"

"She's . . . in the women's wing—north side, first cell on the right."

"Where are the keys?"

"It's a . . . combination."

"What's the combination?"

The office door burst open. A fat cop goggled, tugged at a heavy pistol in a hip holster. Chester swung the Chief around as a shield. More cops appeared. In the corridor a bell clanged stridently. Feet pounded. Chester hurled the Chief from him, turned, crossed his arms over his face and dived through the wide double-hung window, landed on grass in a tinkle of glass shards, rolled and came up running. He leaped the hedge, heading for a dark alley mouth across the street. A man stepped into his path.

"Don't let 'em get away," Chester bawled. The man stepped aside, looking startled. Chester sprinted up the alley, emerged in a busy street, fell back to a brisk walk. The coup had been a failure, but at least he knew where Genie was. Poor girl! Almost a year in a cold, gray cell.

In the next block Chester skidded to a halt before a wide plate-glass window against which six-inch letters spelled out caterpillar motors. Beyond the glass crouched a giant yellow vehicle, aglitter with chrome, spotlights, aerials. A placard before the looming golden monster said:

THE NEW CATERPILLAR
CONVERTIBLE FOR '67

(White Sidewall Tracks Extra)

There was an inconspicuous door beside the picture window. Chester pushed it open. Inside, a man with greased hair and a smile leaned against the polished flank of the mighty machine, talking to a paunchy customer of middle age.

" . . . convenient monthly payments," he was saying. Chester eased behind the immense convertible, climbed softly up, opened the bubble canopy and settled himself in the yellow leather seat. Gleaming instruments winked up at him from a polished panel. Down below the salesman said, " . . . heat and music, window washers, back-up lights, power seats, windows, top, steering, brakes, clasho-mesh transmission, triple tank-drain carburetion, luxurious cardboard interior, garbage disposal, foam-rubber mats, TV screen . . . "

Chester looked over the panel, located the starter. " . . . jet-blast mufflers," the salesman was saying. "Not one but—get this—two, yes, two Last Trump air horns, a full complement of cheery flashing lights in place of tiresome dials . . . " Chester switched on, pressed the starter. The engine caught with a roar. He shifted into low, moved toward the show window. The startled salesman yelled and leaped clear; the customer scuttled for safety. The great polished blade hit the glass, sent it clattering in jagged shards. The convertible rumbled through the opening, pivoted to the right, bounced a diminutive passenger car aside, took the center of the avenue. Chester sounded the Last Trump horns as the clasho-mesh shifted into high with a squeal of treads. The crowd scattered before the onrushing monster. An alert patrol car started up, gunned back into the car's path. Chester swerved, felt the rear quarters of the smaller vehicle crunch as the treads mounted it. He swerved to avoid a Good Humor man, clipped a beer truck with the tip of the blade, dumping it on its side. A head formed in the street.

Chester rounded into the street where a scattering of excited office workers clustered on the courthouse lawn. The north wing, the Chief had said. Chester squinted at the sun, steering for the opening in the hedge. North was to the right.

People were staring, pointing, then turning to run as the giant machine clattered across the curb, trampled the hedge and struck out across the lawn. A petunia bed disappeared under the relentless treads. High in the red brick side of the building, narrow barred windows were set at ten-foot intervals. Beneath them, the caterpillar ground to a halt. Over the rumble of the engine Chester heard excited cries. Faces appeared at the cell windows.

Chester opened the cab door and leaned out. "Genie!" he called. "It's I, Chester!"

There was a boom, and a bullet whined off the flank of the convertible. Chester ducked back inside. Above, he saw a familiar oval face appear at a window. He waved frantically. Genie waved back uncertainly. Chester threw the clasho-mesh in reverse and gunned back, pivoted, then moved forward. He set the corner of the blade against the brick wall and pressed the accelerator. The treads ground; the caterpillar bucked, then the treads spun helplessly as the turf gave way. A mighty stream of soil boiled out behind the machine.

Chester backed, lowered the blade, then raced the engine. The massive machine leaped forward and crashed against the brick wall with a thunderous impact. Chester felt the seat lurch; then bricks and mortar were falling, bounding off the polished hood, clattering against the plastic canopy. Clouds of dust rose. Timbers dropped, bent nails showing, where broken two-by-four studding dangled.

Chester backed off, looked over the situation. The gun boomed again, four times, rapidly. Two stars appeared in the plastic dome near his head. The cell-block wall showed a six-foot-high, ten-foot-wide gap, through which office furniture was visible. As he watched, another section of mortared bricks dropped. He moved in, hit the wall again. When he backed out from the load of debris, the upper floor joists were visible, sagging under a horizontal steel member. Chester moved in, jarred the wall again. A large section fell, exposing the open sides of two cells. He could see the iron-legged cots aslant on the tilted floor.

Chester maneuvered the caterpillar close to the shattered wall, raised the canopy and shouted to Genie. She appeared, on hands and knees, looking down over the edge at the huge, rumbling machine.

"Come on, quickly, Genie!" Chester beckoned urgently. He took a look over his shoulder. The fat cop was struggling to stuff cartridges into the cylinder of his foot-long revolver. Other cops were running in various directions.

"Is it really you, Chester?" Genie's voice quavered.

"Hurry!" Chester held up his arms. Genie moved then, turning to lower her trim, booted legs over the side, then slide down, hang by her hands and drop. Chester caught her, bundled her inside and slammed down the bubbletop just as the cop's gun went off. He backed quickly, turned, gunned off across the lawn. There were more shots. A bullet clanged off the canopy.

"Chester—it is you! You look so different—so handsome!"

"Genie, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to run out on you; I got back as soon as I could. But—"

"Why, Chester, you were marvelous! I knew it was you as soon as you said 'it is I' instead of 'it's me.' Wherever did you get this marvelous machine?"

"Nice, isn't it? Just the thing for traffic. Air conditioning, soundproofing—and bulletproof glass, luckily for us. But what I wanted to say was, I'm terribly sorry about you having to spend almost a year in jail."

"A year? Why, Chester, it hasn't been more than two hours since the policemen took us away!"

Chester blinked. "But . . . but . . . "

"Where will we go now, Chester? And where did you get those clothes, and that suntan, and those big, strong arms?"

"I . . . but I mean—you . . .  Well, never mind. We'll figure it out later. Right now we have to clear a path through to the rug."

Chester swung the caterpillar into the street where the cop-guarded rug waited. A fire engine, approaching at flank speed, swerved, mounted the curb, clipped off a fire plug and came to a halt in a striking display of waterworks. Chester slowed, crimped the wheel, lumbered past a police car and crunched to a stop. He opened the canopy and, amid shouts, assisted Genie out. She leaped lightly across the remains of splintered yellow sawhorses to the rug. Chester followed. A pair of the ever-present pink-coated policemen charged, sticks ready.

"Now!" Chester said, seizing Genie's hand. "Take us back to where we left Case, Computer! And don't make any mistakes on your coordinates this time!"

13

The shadows of the tall buildings dissolved into sunny skies. Chester and Genie stood on the grassy slope in the shade of the spreading branches. She turned to him, put soft arms around him.

"Oh, Chester. This is such fun!"

"Fun? Great heavens, Genie! Those people were shooting real bullets at us!"

"But you wouldn't let anything happen, I know."

"Well—at least it's a great relief to know you didn't actually spend a year in that cell. If you knew how I've been picturing you, languishing in durance vile—and Case! I assumed I was far too late to help him—but now, if we hurry—"

"I'm sure he'll be all right." Genie looked anxiously toward the ridge. "Still, I don't see the smoke any longer. I hope the fire hasn't burned down to the proper size for Mr. Mulvihill already."

"If those blasted natives have singed one hair of Case's head, I'll mow the whole tribe down!"

Twenty minutes' brisk walk brought them to the edge of the forest. On the trail ahead, two clean-shaven, sarong-clad men and a beautifully proportioned woman appeared. They paused, then flung up hands in greeting and began to dance and sing.

"Looks like a different tribe," Chester said. "Much better-looking people."

"They seem to want us to follow them."

With excited beckoning gestures the natives had turned and were darting away along a path.

"Well, we happen to be going in that direction anyway."

Chester and Genie moved on along the rough trail, came to the clearing where they had watched Case battle the giant.

"Not a sign of them," said Chester, looking around. "The cages are gone, everything." They pressed on, climbed a wooded slope and emerged from the forest into a wide village street, tree-lined and shady, bordered by beds of wild flowers behind which neat huts of brick, boards or split saplings dotted a parklike lawn. From a large house halfway along the street an imposing old man emerged, clad in neatly cut shorts and vest of coarse cloth. He pulled at a vast white beard as he came toward them.

"Good Lord!" said Chester, bewildered. "This is the wrong place, Genie! What kind of setting have you landed us in this time?"

"I don't know, Chester."

"Look at the old man with the beard. He's immense. I'll swear he must be an early Mulvihill; he looks enough like Case to be his grandfather."

The old man came up, looked piercingly at Chester, then at Genie. He pulled at his beard, nodding to himself.

"Well," he said. "So you came back after all."

Chester and Genie sat with Case on benches under a wild-cherry tree at the crest of a rise that fell away to a blue lake under steep pine-covered hills. A native girl poured brown wine from a stone jar into irregular mugs of heavy glass.

"Tell me that again, slow and easy, Chester," said Case. "You say it's the same day as when you left here?"

"For Genie it is. I lived through ten months."

"You do look different, Chester. I guess there's more to this business than meets the eye. That damn computer must have its time meters scrambled."

"Case, we thought they'd be roasting you alive. How did you manage to get into their good graces?"

"Well, let's see. The last I saw of you two, you were sneaking off behind a tree. I kept juggling for an hour. Then I did a few back flips and handstands, and then I got them to give me a rope and rigged it and did some rope-walking. By that time they'd noticed you were gone. I made a few motions to give 'em the idea you'd flown away in good demon style. They didn't care much; they wanted to see more ropework."

"By that time you must have thought we'd abandoned you."

"I admit I was a little mad at first when you didn't come charging over the hill with the Marines in tow. I guess it took a couple of years to get used to the idea I was stuck here. I figured something had happened to you, and I'd better just make the best of it. By that time I rated pretty high with the locals. They let me have the best den back in the thicket, and brought me all the food I wanted. It wasn't fancy but it was an easy life. Course, after thirty years . . . "

"Thirty years!"

Case nodded his white-maned head. "Yep. Near as I can tell. I used to cut notches in a tree for the years, but sometimes I was so busy I forgot."

"Busy? Doing what?"

"Well, there I was laying around all day, doing nothing, watching the natives scratch for a living, dirty, hungry, ignorant, dying of diseases, getting chewed up by bears or wildcats. And the food they gave me—half-raw dog meat, pounded raw turnips, now and then a mess of sour berries. Every now and then I'd have to put on a show, a little juggling or acrobatic work, just enough to keep the evil spirits out of town.

"Then one day I got to thinking. The country around here was the kind of real estate some smart developer could make a fortune out of back home. All it needed was the brush cut back and the trees trimmed and the lake shore cleaned up and garbage piles carted off somewhere and some fruit trees and flowers planted . . . 

"Well, before I could do any tree-trimming I had to have an ax. That meant I needed some iron. By that time I could get by O.K. in the native language. I asked 'em if they knew any place where there was red dirt; told 'em it was important magic. A few weeks later a hunting party came back from the other side of the lake with some pretty good samples. The witch doctor had some coal—used it to carve gods out of, 'cause it was easy to work. I built a furnace and piled it full of lumps of ore and chunks of coal and set it off, and, sure enough, after a couple of hours melted iron started running out the bottom of the furnace."

"Case, what do you know about smelting iron?" Chester interrupted. "You didn't happen to bring along The Handyman's Home Smelter's Handbook, did you?"

"I used to blacksmith for the show in a pinch," Case said. "I didn't know much—but I learned.

"I cast half a dozen ax and hatchet heads in clay molds the first time. They came out pretty good. I sharpened 'em up on a flat stone, and then heated 'em and dunked 'em in a pot of water. They hardened pretty good. Later on I got the formula down pat. It depends mostly on how much coal and stuff you've got in with the ore."

"A carbon content of between .7 and 1.7 percent produces the optimum combination of hardness and malleability," said Genie.

"I wish you'd been here, kid," said Case with a sigh. "You could have been a big help. But we managed. I pounded out a knife blade and fitted a handle to it and used that to cut ax handles. Then I put the natives to work clearing land—and it wasn't for show. The local wild life couldn't sneak up on the village any more—no cover. I had 'em root out all the bushes and coarse stuff, and the native grasses took over. We undercut all the trees as high as a man could reach. Then I had 'em shape the trees, pull down all the vines and stuff. Made it look like a regular park around here.

"Then we went to work on the lake. We made up some flat boats and got out and cleaned up the dead branches and cattails and then did a little dredging; built up a nice beach along this side. I rigged some fishing gear out of leather strips, showed 'em how to catch trout, and then staged a big fish fry. They didn't want to touch the fish; wasn't what their grandpaws ate, I guess. These kids were as conservative as a bunch of Ivy League alumni. But I gave 'em the old magic routine and they tried it. Now they spend half their time out on the lake. We made up a couple of saws and I showed 'em how to slice a tree into boards, and we built a few rowboats. Funny thing was, before long a couple of boys were ahead of me on boat-building—and fishing too. I made 'em up some bows and arrows and cast some iron arrowheads. Made up skinning knives and showed 'em how to scrape a hide and work it till it was soft.

"There were a lot of wild sheep and cattle around. We made up a batch of braided ropes and went out and brought in a couple of young goats and a half-grown critter that looked like an overgrown Texas longhorn. Later on we got a couple of newborn calves, a male and a female. In a couple of years we had a nice herd going. We let 'em graze the park here to keep the grass down. And o' course I showed 'em how to milk and we experimented around and made some cheese."

"I didn't know you knew that much about animal husbandry," Chester put in.

"Anybody that's worked around a circus knows which end of a critter to feed. That was the least of my problems. I was getting a lot of pleasure out of admiring the beach and the park, and thinking what a pile of dough I could make out of it if I had it all back home. Then I'd see a couple of the local gals come trotting by, buck naked, grimy, fat, with stringy hair, and pretty gamy, if you got too close to 'em." Case sighed. "And I wasn't much better, I guess. I'd kinda got out of the habit of shaving, and there wasn't too much point in taking a bath if you had to put the same old leather drawers back on. So I decided it was time to give a little thought to developing the feminine industries."

"The first thing I needed was some cloth, to get away from the smell of hides. I tried some wool off these goats we keep. It wasn't much good. We scouted around for some wild cotton, but couldn't find any. Finally discovered a kind of flax. Went to work and rigged up a spinning wheel. That took the best part of a year, but we finally worked it out. We spun up a big batch of yarn. I had a loom ready; that wasn't so hard. We set it up and wove us a blanket.

"Well, I trained a few of the girls, and set 'em to work spinning and weaving. Made up some needles out of bone; couldn't manage it in steel. I wasn't much of a seamster, but I had lots of time. I cobbled up a pair of breeches for myself first, then a shirt. But heck, it's too warm here for sleeves, and anyway they're hard to make. I settled on a vest; it's just right to keep the chill off on a cool morning."

"What about the winter?"

"Funny thing, there don't seem to be any seasons here. Stays about like this year around."

"Pre-Ice Age," Genie murmured.

"Then I had to make soap. I messed around with animal fat and ashes and finally worked out a pretty good formula. I had to make 'em wash, at first, but I gave 'em the old Great Spirit routine, and pretty soon they were down at the lake scrubbing something every time I turned around. They're as bad as a bunch of Methodists when it comes to trying to make points upstairs with something easier than laying off sin. And once you get clean, you itch if you start letting dirt pile up again—and you start noticing your roommate—so the last few holdouts got dunked and scrubbed.

"Then I saw the need for a little civic improvement. The dump where we'd been living all this time was alive with fleas and rats and the damnedest collection of chewed bones, worn-out hides, magic frogs' innards, mummified totem animals, and other junk—just like Grandma's attic back home. They were a little mad at first when I burned it down. I told 'em it was the word from on high and that the place had to go, but there was a crafty little devil of a witch doctor that had the confounded gall to stand up and call me a liar. Imagine!"

"Well, after all, Case, you had been telling them everything you'd been doing was divinely ordained."

"Worked pretty good, too. It might even be true. Anyway, after I took the witch doctor down and dumped him in the lake, nobody else complained."

"You were lucky he let it go at that. From what I've read about shamans, they can be dangerous enemies."

"Oh, I hadn't taught anybody to swim yet."

"You mean you drowned him? Case, wasn't that a little drastic?"

"Maybe. But I figured that if I was setting up a society, I might as well do it along realistic lines. There's no point in letting somebody half your size push you around—especially when you're right. A weakling makes as bad a dictator as anybody else. The way I saw it, it was up to me to stand up for my ideas."

"The next big man might not be as interested in the public welfare as you were, Case. What then?"

"To tell you the truth, Chester, I wasn't interested in the public welfare. I was only interested in making a comfortable place for me to live in. I wanted clean, healthy people around, because I don't like smelling dirty, sick ones. I wanted them to live good so they'd have the time and inclination to learn the things I was trying to teach them, like fishing—so I could eat fish; raising beef, so I could eat steak—and, later on, painting pictures that I could look at and making music for me to hear and taking an interest in cookery so they could lay on a good feed for me and being happy so there'd be a nice atmosphere in the village. In the end I discovered that I got a lot more pleasure out of associating with a nice bunch of people than out of anything else.

"I started some of 'em wood-carving, and other ones farming, and some of them making glass. I scoured the woods for new plants we could raise for food, and I kept trying out new dirt samples for other metals. Now we've got copper and lead and a little gold—and I've trained people to go on looking. I've started 'em thinking about things and trying new ideas. And ever since I drowned the witch doctor, I've played down the spirit angle. The younger generation doesn't need the threat of spooks to do things; they've got an interest that keeps them busy. A lot of them are way ahead of me now. They learn fast. I wouldn't be surprised if one of 'em doesn't invent chemistry any day now, or fire up a steam engine, or discover medicine."

"But a tyrant . . . "

"Any tyrant that sets up shop around here better be damned sure he doesn't develop any unpopular taste," said Case. "These folks put up with me because I bring 'em good things. They're selfish, just like me. I've established a precedent. The next boss better keep it up, or he'll be joining the witch doctor."

"It seems to have worked out well," Chester said, looking around at the peaceful village in the gathering twilight. "Still, I can't help feeling you should have instilled a little more idealism in them. Suppose they fall on hard times? What if the climate changes, or an epidemic strikes, or even a forest fire?"

"I don't think phony idealism would help. As far as I can see, all these schemes to make people squeeze into somebody's Grand Plan for Elevating Humanity usually end up with the elevatees on the short end of the stick. Everybody has his place in this village and a job to do that he's good at. My shoemakers can hold their heads up and the same goes for the fishermen and the hunters and the miners and the weavers and the vintners and the potmakers."

"What about the arts? With this materialistic orientation . . . "

"Everybody dances and everybody sings. They all play games and they all make statues out of mud and they all paint. Some are better than others, but it's doing it that counts. In our setup everybody's an artist, not just a few half-cracked far-outers."

"There don't seem to be many people here," said Genie. "Not more than three hundred, I'd estimate."

"Too many people in one place mean problems. Sanitation, transportation, noise, conflict of interests. There's plenty of wide-open real estate. I've got twelve other villages going within fifty miles of here—and none of them have over three hundred people. Everybody can have all the kids they want, but if you put the village over the three hundred mark, off you go to start your own. There's always plenty of volunteers to go along—people that want to get a good spot right on a lake or river, or hunters that like the idea of a virgin territory. There's a lot of trade among the towns, and the men usually get their wives from another village. Seems like it's human nature to prefer to go to bed with a stranger."

"It makes the Internal Revenue Bureau seem very remote," Chester said. "Why do we surround ourselves with unnecessary complexities?"

"Chester, this is a pretty good place here. Why don't you just settle down and forget all that?"

Chester shook his head. "I started off by trying to wiggle out of my tax problem with illegal schemes to make money. Then, when I landed you in trouble, I sneaked away and left you."

"But we agreed—"

"Genie tried to help me, and I left her stranded, too," Chester went on. "I'd just about hit bottom when Kuve took me in hand. When I broke out of the Research Center, I made up my mind I'd settle my score. I helped out a fellow named Bandon, and I paid Devant for a couple of undignified incidents. Then I was lucky enough to find Genie. I'm sorry about your tough time, Case. I've cost you thirty years."

"Best thirty years of my life, Chester. And now you're even."

"No, I still have the circus to think about."

"Hey, that's right, Chester. If it's really thirty years ago—I mean if thirty years haven't gone by—then maybe it's not too late to salvage something yet!"

"And," Chester went on, "there's Great-grandfather's invention to see to. He spent his life on it—and he's left it in my hands. It's up to me to save it. And there's something else, too."

Case got to his feet. "Well, no time like the present, Chester. Let's get going."

Half an hour later, Chester, Case, and Genie and a chattering group of villagers stepped under the trees toward the rug and the two brocaded chairs.

"Case, I suppose you'll want to make a speech, appoint a successor, make a few prophecies, whatever white gods do before sailing off into the sunset."

Case sighed. "I've got a lot of friends here, Chester. I'll hate to leave 'em. But there's no point in making a national holiday out of it. I've been trying to teach 'em how to run things for thirty years. I don't guess any last-minute instructions are going to change anything."

"Then let's go, Genie," Chester said. "But be sure you put us back in the right spot: specifically, Great-grandfather's underground control room."

Genie had a faraway look in her eyes. "I'm in touch with the computer," she said. "But . . . "

"What is it, Genie?"

"It appears," she said, "that the world we started from no longer exists."

14

"A number of awful suspicions are beginning to crystallize into convictions," Chester said. "Your villages, with their population limit of three hundred, and the Tricennia, where I spent a year. Could that have been this society at some remote time in the future?"

"Beats me, Chester. I've given up trying to figure out anything that has to do with that blasted computer."

"If so, that would mean we've tampered with actual reality. We asked the computer to show us scenes of the past in the simplest possible way—"

"You mean that infernal contraption came up with the genuine article instead of a good honest fake?"

Chester nodded. "I'm afraid our hoax has backfired, Case. The computer really is a time machine."

"When we were bodily transferred into the past," Chester said, "our presence there altered the future. I recall now that the computer seemed to imagine that the Tricennium was Great-grandfather's basement."

"But what about the city with those awful pink policemen, Chester?" Genie asked. "It was very similar to home, except for being a little out of date—and I imagine that was because Mr. Mulvihill's absence unbalanced things a little."

"Case had only been here a short time then; he hadn't yet altered things completely out of recognizable shape."

"So I guess we settle here after all."

"Let's ask the computer a few questions. Are we completely cut off from getting back home, Genie?"

"A wide spectrum of entropic streams was rendered invalid by factors at the eighth level of complexity stemming from Mr. Mulvihill's introduction . . . "

"Yeah," Case cut in, "but what about Chester's estate?"

"It has been relegated to the status of an unrealized pseudo-reality."

"Why didn't that moronic aggregation of war-surplus parts mention this in the first place?"

"It's a machine, remember," Chester said. "No initiative. We didn't ask."

"Well, if the house is gone, then where's the computer?"

"Shunted to a temporal vacuole," Genie said.

"Hey, Chester," Case said. "I've got a crafty notion. He raised his voice. "Computer, could you . . . ah . . . show us what Great-grandpop's place looked like—if it existed?"

"Oh, yes, easily." There was a moment of delay; then glassy walls shimmered into view around the group.

"I must caution you that this is a mere optical effect," Genie said. "It represents no substantive referent."

"You may have something here, Case," Chester said. "Computer, I'd like this view firmed up a little—more detail, greater verisimilitude. More realism."

"I'm not at all sure I can manage it, Mr. Chester. It involves readjusting my parameters drastically, which induces a severe electronic itch."

"Try."

"The effort may leave you isolated in a mass-probability environment whose very existence I have every reason to doubt."

"We'll take the chance."

There was a moment of silence. Then:

"There, I've managed tactile quality. You could feel the wall now if you touched it."

"Now add in taste, smell and sound effects. And daub in some externals, too."

After a moment the computer said, "I've extended the effect to include a pseudo-house, with pseudo-grounds, surrounded by pseudo-atmosphere."

"Breathable, I hope?"

"Oh, of course. All my illusions are of the finest quality and extremely accurate."

"In that case, you may proceed to supply the rest of the planet. Take your time and do a good job now."

"That last admonition was hardly called for, Mr. Chester."

"Sorry. But can you do it?"

"Oh, I've already finished."

"So now there's an apparent world outside, resembling the real one in every respect?"

"Yes, indeed; except that it isn't real, of course."

Chester crossed to the door, flung it open. The familiar dusty wine bottles lay quietly in their cradles opposite the reels and flashing lights of the control panel.

"This may not be home," Chester said, "but I think the point is academic."

There was a peremptory rap at the door.

"What's that?"

"A Mr. Overdog of the Bureau of Internal Revenue," the computer answered.

"Well, you asked for realism," Case said. "Shall I let him in?"

"How does he know about this place?" Chester asked.

"Oh, I informed him of it by letter," the computer spoke up. "Retroactively."

"Why? Haven't we got enough trouble?"

"You indicated that you wished the tax problem dealt with. I took appropriate action."

"Say, how much time's passed here while we were out building universes?" Case inquired.

"Seven days, two hours, forty-one minutes and two seconds."

"Shall I let him in, Chester?"

"You may as well."

The door was opened to reveal a lean, red-eyed man with an old-fashioned hat of orange fur covering his hairless head. He eyed Case and Genie.

"I received your letter," he snapped. "Where's Mr. Chester? I trust you're ready to get on with it. I'm a busy man."

"Why . . . ah . . . " Chester started.

More footsteps sounded. A portly man with ice-blue eyes under shaggy white brows puffed into the room.

"Mr. Chester," he began without preamble, "before concluding any agreement with the IRS, I hope you will entertain my offer."

"What are you doing here, Klunt?" Overdog snapped.

"Who's this?" Chester whispered urgently to Genie.

"He's from the Bureau of Vital Statistics," she whispered back. "He got a letter, too."

"When did all these letters get written? There hasn't been time since we remanufactured the world."

"It's remarkable what you can do with temporal vacuoles," Genie said. "The letters were postmarked three days ago."

"What kind of offer did you have in mind, Mr. Ahhh?" said Case.

"Assuming your . . . ah . . . information storage device functions as I've been informed, I'm prepared to offer you, on behalf of the Bureau of Vital Statistics . . . "

"I'll settle for half the tax bill," Overdog cut in. "And we'll entertain the idea of a liberal settlement of the balance, say, over a two-year period. Generous, I'd say. Generous in the extreme."

"Vital Statistics will go higher. We'll pay two full thirds of the bill!" Klunt stared at Overdog triumphantly.

"It's a conspiracy! You're playing with prison, Klunt!" He turned hard eyes on Chester. "Final word, Mr. Chester. Complete forgiveness of the entire tax debt! Think of it!"

"Chicken feed!" snorted Klunt. "I'll have a check for five million credits ready for you in the morning."

"Sold!" Chester said.

"On an annual lease basis, of course," Case added.

"Giving us full rights of access," Chester amended.

"A deal, gentlemen! I'll revolutionize Vital Statistics with this apparatus! With the increased volume of information, I should say a staff increase of fifty persons would not be excessive, eh, Overdog?"

"Bah! I'll expect your check tomorrow, Mr. Chester—and another next March!" He stalked out. Klunt followed, planning happily.

"Well, that's taken care of," Case said, beaming. "Nice work, Chester. I guess the Wowser Wonder Shows won't have to worry for a while."

Chester opened the door and looked out. "You're sure it's safe out there, Computer?" he called.

"The question seems to have become academic, Mr. Chester. A reappraisal indicates that the present scene is substantive after all. Mr. Mulvihill's village was a figment of the imagination, I now perceive."

"Oh yeah? What about this beard?"

"Psychosomatic," the computer said without conviction.

"What about Genie?" Case asked. "Do we leave her stored here, or what?"

"Genie's coming with me," Chester said.

"Well, I figured maybe she was part of the lease."

"Lease? Nonsense. Genie's as human as I am."

"Don't kid me, Chester. We were both here when she was built—right, Computer?"

"You asked that I produce a mobile speaker in the configuration of a nubile female," the computer replied. "The easiest method was to initiate the process of maturation in a living human cell."

"You mean you grew Genie from a human cell—in a matter of hours?"

"The body was matured in a time vacuole."

"But . . . where did you get the cell?"

"I had one on hand—one of yours, Mr. Mulvihill. I took a blood specimen for identification purposes, if you recall."

"But that's impossible. I'm a male!"

"It was necessary to manipulate the X and Y chromosome balance."

"So I'm a mother," said Case wonderingly, "and an unwed mother at that. It figures, though—growing a real girl was simpler than building one out of old alarm clocks."

"In that case," Chester said, taking Genie's hand, "I hope you'll consent to give the bride away in your capacity as both parents—assuming Genie agrees."

"Oh, Chester," Genie said.

"Well, folks," Case boomed, "let's have a drink and get used to the idea."

"I'll be along in a few minutes," Chester said. "I want to have a talk with the computer first."

"What about?"

"I've spent twenty-five years in society and contributed nothing. Now I'm going to start a school—just a small institution for a few selected students, at first. I want to see what I can do to straighten out a few of the world's irrationalities. The computer has the facts—and, thanks to Kuve, I've learned to think."

"Yep, you've changed, all right, Chester. Well, take your time. We'll wait."

Chester settled himself in the brocaded chair. "All right, Computer. Here we go with your first lesson: Is-not is not not-is. Not-is is not is-not. Not-is-not is not is . . . "