A Science Fiction Novel

The Star Seekers

By MILTONLESSER

Jacket Design by Paul Calle Endpaper Design by Alex Schomburg

Ceci'/e Matschat, Editor Carl Carmer, Consulting Editor

THEJOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY

Philadelphia • Toronto

Copyright, 1953 BY MILTON LESSER

Copyright in Great Britain and in the British Dominions

and Possessions Copyright in the Republic of the Philippines

FIRSTEDITION

To Deirdre Who will one day be seeking the stars herself

The long Journey

ROM THE DAY our unknown ancestor learned the use of fire and, so armed, sallied forth from his dark cave, the history of mankind has always been the story of seeking and searching. In terms of travel, the means of getting where you were going was just as important as the goal itself.

The early inventor who fashioned a dugout canoe won his people's praise not for getting to the other side of the river but for floating out over the perilous waters in his flimsy vessel.

The first man who thought to ride a horse could travel further and faster than anyone else.

When Columbus (and Leif Ericson before him) sailed his three frail ships to the edge of the world without falling off, the first long journey was made, and we've been trying to outdo it ever since.

Jules Verne said, "Around the world in eighty days." Today we do it in four. We span a continent in hours, breakfasting in New York, eating dinner in Los Angeles.

Right around the corner are space stations ten thousand miles straight up. That will be a longer journey—and a faster one.

The Moon, Mars, Venus and the other planets all lie within reach of today's science. Columbus will move over in the pages of history and make room for the first daring adventurer who plants our flag on the pumice of Luna and carries it to the ocher

wastes of Mars. It's a good bet to say the planets will be ours before you who read this book reach the pipe and slipper age.

But the first really long journey is still a dream, a twinkle in some imaginative scientist's eye, a blueprint on the drawing board of a far tomorrow. It is also the greatest adventure of them all, for to say that mankind will be content with the planets when the gateway to the stars lies almost within reach is to say that the drive which took us from stone to bronze to iron to plastic and atoms has disappeared. The distant stars await us; we will one day thrust aside the final barrier and embark upon the greatest journey of them all.

First, we'll find to our dismay that the distance to the nearest star, Alpha Centauri, which shines brightly in the southern sky but is invisible here in North America, is thousands of times greater than the distance to Pluto, the outermost planet. Alpha Centauri lies 4.3 light years (with light traveling at 186,000 miles per second!) off in the bleak emptiness of space, and because Einstein's contention that nothing can travel faster than light must be correct, interstellar travel will pose unique problems.

If you've ever toyed with a balanced aquarium, a miniature, self-sufficient world of glass tank, fish, plants, water and air, you've already solved the problem, at least in theory. For we must think in terms not of a small spaceship but of an artificial world which provides its own food, replenishes its own air in a natural process still superior to anything we've devised and protects its human inhabitants from the dangers of space.

Traveling at the credible speed of five thousand miles per second, the ship—which might be a small asteroid hollowed out for the purpose—will still take two hundred years to reach Alpha Centauri and the family of planets our future astronomers will have discovered circling it in orbits like those of Mercury, Venus, Earth and the other planets of this solar system. Because it takes two hundred years to conquer the abyss of interstellar space, that means the original crew won't arrive at Alpha Centauri at all. They will have lived their lives in space, grown old and died there. But their children will carry on, and their children after them. The sixth generation will be young and energetic and supplying the new leaders near journey's end.

Ours, then, will be the story of this sixth generation. They have known nothing but the walls of the huge ship and the glimpses of deep space outside. Earth is a legendary place. What remains of history is folklore. What remains of science: dogma, superstition, magic—both black and white. For without a full external world for demonstration and proof, science can be nothing but hearsay, something learned by rote and done by rote but hardly understood at all.

The ship itself is a twenty-mile-in-diameter globe spinning endlessly through the void. For its occupants, it is the Universe. To talk of an external world, of space and stars and the old, old Earth is to talk of the fourth dimension.

Those who planned the voyage, logically enough, failed to realize this. They arranged a safe, orderly, necessarily limited world; they did not expect chaos.

They provided everything for a rebirth of our culture. They dreamed of mankind bridging shoreless space and reaching out part way to infinity.

Through no fault of their own, they bred a world in which civilization backtracked into a strange, new dark age aboard a sphere which was both spaceship and Universe.

They paved the way for the greatest adventure of all—not the trip through space, but the challenge of superstition and barbarism when science and civilization became necessary factors in survival. The almost unthinkable journey across twenty-six trillion miles of space became an accomplished fact. It also became an accomplished failure, for those within the ship never dreamed their journey would one day end.

On and on they lived their days, those of the sixth and final generation, doing what they must to keep the ship going because their parents did it before them, but understanding nothing. Just beyond their reach lay the final adventure, the supreme test, the loom upon which the entire trip had been spun. In the warp and woof of superstition and dogma, they saw nothing.

But since momentous discoveries, like long journeys and fast journeys, more often than not await the touch of one man's hand, not of genius but hard work, perseverance, imagination and a touch of good fortune, perhaps the planners had not been so far awry.

They thought of a logical sequence of events and got wild, chaotic action. Still, the results would have pleased them.

If science and learning had to be rediscovered in a labyrinth of false ideas, all the better—for fresh

ideas come from fresh beginnings. But in a world where everything in the Universe is boiled down to its bare essentials, ideas do not suffice. Bold action becomes a necessity if the first really long journey is to end in anything but failure. . . .

Sitting in a house near the Canadian border in wintertime, with sub-zero winds shrieking through the cold woodlands outside but steam heat and electric lights keeping you warm, comfortable and snug, you get to wonder just how far in the future such a story lies. Man's achievements have a way of building one atop another, accelerating as they go. The growth of television, of atomic power, of fusion bombs as well as fission, of jets and rockets and plastic and all the wonder drugs has been startling. Although the groundwork lies in the past, science has come further in the last twenty-five years than it has in all of our crowded history.

So—how far in the future does the first really long journey lie? Not before the day after tomorrow, surely, but probably a lot sooner than we think.

M. L.

Contents

CHAPTER                                                                                       PAGE

The Long Journey...................................................      v

1.    The Four Circles......................................................       1

2.    The Jungle................................................................       9

3.    The Horned Beast.................................................... ..... 14

4.    Pity the Poor Enginer.............................................       20

5.    Town Council.....................................................    .      34

6.    A Place Called Urth................................................ ..... 43

7.    Kidnaped!..................................................................      55

8.    Needle Mountain.....................................................       72

9.    The Revelers..............................................................       90

10.    DreamWorld............................................................. ..... 108

11.    History in Hiding.....................................................       121

12.    The Center of the Universe ....                 134

13.    To Wreck a World...................................................       148

14.    Planetfall...................................................................       174

15.    The New Earth..........................................................       193

Chapter 1 The Four Circles

BECAUSE his father was an Enginer and his fathers father and all the men in his family for as far back as history goes, Mikal knew the time grew -   near when he must make the Journey of the Four Circles and so become an Enginer himself. For was it not written that when a boy reached his eighteenth year he would don the tunic and trousers of a man and make the Journey?

Two other youths of Mikal's acquaintance neared their eighteenth year with him, but with strange feelings he did not understand, Mikal wished it were otherwise.

"I wish we could get this silly Journey over with," Harol said on the eve of their departure. Harol, with his thick, plump body and flabby-jowled face, with the weak mouth and lazy eyes—what did Harol know of the Journey?

Fil irked Mikal too, in a different way. Bean-pole thin and with the reddest hair in all Astrosphere, cocky son of the Chief Enginer, Fil had his own ideas about the Journey of the Four Circles. "Bring back what trophies you want," he told Mikal and Harol. "When I return from the other three circles, you will know it. Even my father will know, and you are aware of my father's trophies."

Mikal had seen them once, the exotic trophies of the Chief Enginer. There had been something green and brown and somehow withered. People called it a plant, claiming it came from the Jungle. There had

been something called a recording tape, small and on a spool, and the Chief Enginer insisted it could talk, although no one had ever heard it. It came from the Place of Revelers and strange things were said to happen there. And there had been an evil-smelling black powder which disappeared in a puff of acrid smoke if you held a flame to it; that came from Far Labry, land of mystery.

So now Mikal prepared to visit the Jungle, the Place of Revelers and Far Labry—and was it not right that he should have a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach and an eagerness in his heart? Lazy-eyed Harol felt none of the eagerness; to red-topped Fil, all was a game.

"Poor Mikall" Harol scoffed. "The Journey isn't important. What comes after is what matters, so why don't you relax?"

"To be an Enginer one must understand all the Four Circles of the World, not just Astrosphere. It is written."

"It is written you should bring back worth-while trophies," said Fil, eying both of them scornfully. "If I can do that I will be on my way to taking my father's place as Chief Enginer when he grows old."

"My trophies shall be here," said Mikal seriously, tapping the side of his head.

"Mikal is a wizard of Far Labry!" intoned Harol with mock solemnity. "He carries his trophies in his skull."

"Not yet," Mikal told him earnestly, "but I will." Harol yawned, then grinned with all of his round face. "It is almost time to eat."

Mikal followed them to the dining hall with a growing sense of elation. This would be his last meal in Astrosphere until after he returned from the Journey, wiser and a man, he hoped. They stood at the end of the line, picked up their gleaming trays, spooned food on them from the conveyors sliding into view through a slit in the wall. No one ever seemed to care where the food came from, thought Mikal. It appeared out of the wall at the prescribed times and everyone ate. Now there was a first-rate mystery along with so much else in Astrosphere, yet no one seemed to notice it. Was it natural for food to slide into view, savory and ready to eat, from some unknown place? Perhaps, just perhaps, Mikal thought with tingling relish, he would find out after he embarked upon the Journey.

"It is written," said Saml, Mikal's father, "that I tell you nothing of the Journey aside from a few basic facts." A large, gaunt man still not past his prime, Mikal s father was almost as tall as the Chief Enginer himself, and broader across the shoulders. Laughter crinkled the corners of his eyes on an otherwise grim, rawboned face, and his hair at the temples had turned the color of polished steel. "You will visit the Jungle—"

"And learn what there is to learn about plants and strange things that grow and —"

"And bring back a trophy as proof," Saml said dryly, but failed to hide the twinkle in his eye. "Then you will visit the Place of Revelers—"

"And see things that are not real but images only, things some call ghosts."

"Ghost is an ancient word, yet what you find in the Place of Revelers will not be ghosts. You will carry back a trophy as evidence of your visit there. After that, you will go to Far Labry and—*

"And learn of magic, of strange, marvelous tricks, of the place where impossible things are done and people walk on air and—"

"Where do you learn all these things, Mikal?"

"Oh, it is common talk around Astrosphere, I guess."

"Well, when I was your age I heard none of it. When we embarked upon the Journey we found a totally unknown world awaiting us."

After a silence, Saml suddenly grinned and chucked Mikal's chin playfully with his big fist. "My son is almost a man," he mused, as much to himself as to Mikal. "A man."

"Father?"

"Yes, what is it?"

"What else is there?"

"Eh? What?"

"I mean, besides Astrosphere, the Jungle, the Place of Revelers and Labry?"

"Why—that is a strange question. What else could there be? Those are the Four Circles of the World. You have named them."

"I know, Father, but sometimes I wonder. If as you say those are the Four Circles of the World and there is no more, then does that mean everything else is nothing—nothing, going on forever and ever in all directions? Or is there something? Something else, I mean, that we know nothing about. If there is nothing forever, it is too strange to consider. But if there is something else, that seems still stranger. , . ."

Saml chuckled softly. "You have a dreamer s head on your shoulders, young Enginer."

"I merely wonder sometimes. Anyway, I am not yet an Enginer."

"You will be," said Saml proudly. "You will be. The greatest Enginer of them all, maybe. And son, listen to me. The Journey of the Four Circles is what you make of it. Drink in everything with your eyes and your ears and all your senses or you won't be content with Astrosphere the rest of your life. Make of the Joumey a glorious adventure, and if you return with trophies more in your heart and your head than in your hands I will understand."

"Thank you!" Mikal cried. "Thank you—"

"Whatever the thanks are for," said MikaTs mother, entering the room, "you won't feel like thanking anyone unless you get a good night's sleep before you start out tomorrow."

Saml shrugged more eloquently than words but winked at Mikal as he went off to bed.

Taller even than Fil was his father, the Chief Enginer. He stood lean and straight in the glistening hallway, his image reflected back from walls, ceiling and floor. To each of the three boys he gave a small ring of keys, saying: "The gold key opens the way to the Jungle, the key of silver to the Place of Revelers. The black key is for Far Labry. Go then all of you, and good luck."

"A question, Enginer," said Fil, using his father's title. "Is it necessary that we travel together?"

"Together or separately, as you wish."

"Good, because to find worth-while trophies one must travel fast and alone—and without a weight around one's neck." The thinly veiled scorn, Mikal realized, was for himself as much as plump Harol.

"Don't we take food with us?" Harol wanted to know.

Fil laughed, but the Chief Enginer merely shrugged. "Why burden yourselves? Food you will find along the way."

"Do we have a time limit?" Mikal asked. "How long can we stay?"

"As long or short as you like, provided you return with a trophy from each of the three other circles."

"See what I mean?" demanded Fil. "One wants to eat, the other to dawdle."

At any time but this Mikal would have brisded with rage. But now, what did the petty words mean? What, indeed, in the face of the impending Journey? Could words dim the luster of new worlds, of strange adventure awaiting them in distant places, of the lure of the unknown? Mikal should have felt angry, but he felt like singing.

"If there are no further questions ..said the Chief Enginer.

"No," said Fil.

Harol looked doubtful, swallowed uncertainly, was silent.

Mikal shook his head. He was glad the Chief Enginer had not felt inclined for speechmaking this day, for he would have chafed miserably at even the slightest delay.

Make of the Journey a glorious adventure, Saml had said.

As if it could be anything but that. Mikal realized that all his young life he had been waiting for this day with a strained, growing eagerness. Questions buzzed after each other inside his head in wild confusion, questions which he knew could not find answers in Astrosphere. Was that the real purpose, the lost purpose of the Journey? It wasn't written, yet . . .

The Chief Enginer turned and walked away down the corridor.

"Well," said Harol, glancing nervously about, not looking at the locked door ahead of them.

"Here goes," Fil told them, and inserted his gold key into the lock. Heart pounding, Mikal heard the tumblers fall. The door swung away from them.

"I don't know," said Harol.

Briefly, Mikal felt sorry for him, then watched Fil plunge recklessly through the doorway. Shoulders squared, head erect, Mikal followed after him.

"I was the first," Fil reminded them over his shoulder. "If anyone asks us when we return, remember. I was the first."

"Well," said Harol, still pausing on the threshold.

"I was the first," said Fil, his voice growing fainter as he forged ahead through the corridor.

Mikal laughed silently. Fil was the first and would go right on that way, clamoring for attention and importance, and missing all there was to be seen and learned and understood around him.

Harol finally made it through the doorway, grinning to hide his fear. He slouched within the new corridor and stood there, shifting his weight first from one foot to the other, then forward and backward.

In his excitement Fil had forgotten one of their

instructions, probably the most important of all. Every door they opened must be locked at once. Mikal turned, retreated to the door. He was followed hopefully by Harol, who sighed when Mikal shut the door, inserted his key and turned it in the lock.

Fil already had disappeared around a turn in the corridor when Mikal turned to start out after him. Fil did not matter, though. Nothing mattered except the Journey and the adventures which awaited him. Mikal turned his back on the door to Astrosphere and jauntily made his way along the unknown corridor.

Chapter 2 The jungh

ARELY fflGH ENOUGH for tall Fil to walk upright, the corridor turned and twisted ahead of them. Walking at a steady, rapid pace, Mikal soon overtook Fil, who seemed to move in fits and starts. Mikal was aware of Harol's boots clomping on the floor behind him with a heavy, somehow forlorn stride.

"I thought you two had scurried back to remain boys another year," Fil told Mikal, laughing. "You could if you wanted to."

"Who wants to?"

"Harol," said Fil. "Some people—" "Were all different. Why don't you leave him alone?"

"Don't you tell me—"

"Never mind. Forget I said anything." Clearly, overtures of friendship would be next to impossible with the Chief Enginer's red-haired son. "Hey!" cried Mikal suddenly. "Hey, look."

The corridor made one final turn ahead of them, then ended. A wall barred their way, not drab gray like the corridor, but gold, the color of the first key. Set in it not half as tall as a man was a door.

"I guess we try the gold key again," said Mikal, his heart pounding with excitement once more.

Fil darted forward, inserted his key in the lock, turned it and pushed on the door. It did not budge.

"Stuck," said Mikal, as Fil jarred it with his shoulder without success, muttering to himself.

Harol joined them, puffing slightly. "Maybe we'd better return to Astrosphere and wait until they repair it," he suggested hopefully. "If you want I could go back while you stay here."

"You do that," said Fil.

But the plump boy stood by uncertainly while Mikal helped with the door. "It's used so rarely," Mikal said, "no wonder it's stuck. Hold it, Fil. You get more leverage if you push as far from the hinges as possible."

"Stop telling me what to do." Fil slammed his shoulder against the center of the door futilely. He did this several times, leaving no room for Mikal to crowd next to him until he finally wearied of the effort and paced back and forth in growing irritation.

Grasping the handle firmly, Mikal crouched and forced his weight against the door just below the lock. He thought he felt it give a little, but when he tried the handle again the door still stood firm.

"I'll open it in a minute," Fil promised.

Mikal ignored him, pushed once more. The door swung outward so abruptly that he tumbled after it, rolling over and barely ducking his head against his chest in time as he flipped head over heels. Dusting his hands off he stood up, disappointed to see another corridor much like the first, except that the ceiling was at least twice as high. Mikal waited until he heard Fil and Harol crawling through the low doorway behind him, then set out along the new passageway. Hardly had he gone a dozen paces when the corridor turned sharply at right angles, revealing beyond the bend a slim-runged ladder which climbed to the ceiling.

The Jungle

11

"Anybody afraid of heights?" Mikal laughed, looking up.

"Do I appear frightened?" Fil demanded, placing his foot on the first rung gingerly, then starting to climb.

"No, but it is written that one must avoid heights, for—"

"Never mind what is written. One day I will do all the writing and the making of laws, and people will say it is so because Fil, son of Charls son of Thorn says it is so."

"Perhaps," said Mikal, and started to climb the ladder.

"Wait, please." It was Harol calling him. "You asked who was afraid. I—I'm afraid."

Mikal came down. "You've got to climb it. You can't stay here, just as you can t go back; for to go back is to admit you are yet a boy, a child. You will be disgraced."

"I cannot climb the ladder."

"Why?"

"I cannot climb it."

Fil had reached the top, was poking his hand against the ceiling. "There's a trap of some kind here," he called down to them. "Better hope this isn't jammed too."

"You climb ahead of me, Harol," commanded Mikal, "I'll stay right behind you and everything will be all right."

"N-no."

"You've got to." Mikal took his arm and led him toward the ladder. "Come on." "Well-"

"Go ahead." Mikal prodded him forward.

As Harol began his uncertain ascent, Mikal could see the plump boy trembling. But he must have glanced up and saw Fil leering down at him, for he stiffened arms and legs and redoubled his effort to control his fear, a round, grim, determined figure waddling up the ladder.

It was then that Fil forced the trap door up and out.

Pale-amber light flooded down upon them—and with it, assailing Mikal's nostrils with a refreshing strangeness, was a sweet, delicious aroma. Of smells he knew many: the aroma of fresh food on the conveyor belt; the scent of the perfume women sometimes used; the antiseptic smell of the dispensary, strong but pleasant, where his tonsils had been removed; the crisp, sharp odor which one associated with the spinning, whirling machines an Enginer learns to understand—but what floated down to him now, seemingly borne by the beautiful amber light, left him breathless.

A touch of perfume was in it and a touch of the hospital and the whirling machines and . .. and everything imaginable, but blended in such a way that he wanted to breathe in deeply, savoring the cloying sweetness almost as if it were a rare and tempting delicacy. This was his first contact with a world other than Astrosphere, and he would remember it always.

"Get a load of that stench!" Fil cried from above them. "We've reached the Jungle sure enough."

Fil had pushed the circular trap up and back, had hoisted himself up through a round opening in the

The Jungle

13

ceiling. When Harol reached that point there was a brief conference, and, after much tugging on Fil's part and pushing by Mikal, he struggled and squirmed through the hole and finally fought clear of it.

Mikal followed on his heels breathlessly, grasping the lip of the opening and thrusting himself clear of it easily.

He stood up and gawked, aware all at once that his glorious adventure truly had begun.

Chapter 3 The Horned Beast

I

HE THREE BOYS stood at the crest of a long, sloping hill, lost in an immensity they had never known before. Always in Astrosphere the gleaming metal ceiling stood just beyond the reach of a tall man. But now—it almost took Mikal's breath away—now the ceiling was lost in amber haze high above their heads, and the hillside sloped down away from it into a thick green tumble of vegetation.

"The Jungle," Mikal said, and then repeated it, for he could not believe his own voice, nor the sight his eyes took in: "The Jungle."

Harol seemed abnormally pale. "It—it's all so-spread out," he managed to say, wiping his forehead vigorously with a sleeve of his tunic.

"Keep right on staring," Fil taunted, bounding down the hill, "By the time you decide what to do I'll have my trophies and be on my way to the Place of Revelers."

Mikal watched him, a long-legged figure becoming smaller and smaller until at last he melted into the thick green vegetation of the Jungle and was gone. Mikal turned to Harol. "Well?"

"You better go ahead, Mikal. I—I can't."

"You'll like it once it isn't so strange any more. Come on."

But the plump boy stood his ground. "No, please. Go away."

This wasn't like the ladder, Mikal realized. Harol had seen ladders before, and there a little prodding

was sufficient to start him climbing. Now Harol was truly frightened. It did happen like that once in a while. A boy went back the way he'd come, to try again the next year. It was written, Mikal knew, that a boy be given three chances on three successive years. After that he could be a laborer or a technican, but never an Enginer. Mikal could well understand Harol's fear. Nothing in their experience remotely resembled the Jungle. Nothing was so big, so wild, so different. No conveyor belts would furnish food, no soft bed would await you after a hard day's work, no recreation hall, no swimming pool . . . Instead, Mikal realized with a growing sense of impatience, the Jungle offered in place of all these—mystery.

"Harol?"

"No."

"What will your father say when you return to Astrosphere trophyless?"

"I don't care. There's next year."

"Are you sure?" Already the heady fragrance of the Jungle beckoned Mikal so strongly he hardly could stand still. He felt sorry for Harol, but a wave of excitement engulfed him and he wanted to plunge recklessly, blindly into the waiting Jungle and swim in its green beauty.

"I am sure," said Harol, already turning and easing back through the trap door. "You can't make me go."

"No, I don't want to make you. All right, Harol. Good luck to you."

Harol sniffled as he lowered himself through the trap.

"Lock it after you," Mikal told him, remembering the regulations, and then ran down the hill.

The Jungle came up to meet him, and all at once he was in it, feeling it, breathing it, brushing the branches and brambles aside and shouting wordless sounds of joy. Tiny flying things flitted from tree to tree over his head, chattering and whistling endlessly. He thought to whistle back and found they could imitate the sounds he made. Mikal ran on and on until he became breathless, and then he sat down on a great stone, removed his boots and dangled his feet in a swift-gushing stream. The cool waters rushed by with a murmuring sound, and once a great-legged insect almost the size of Mikal's hand did a crazy dance upon the water's surface, then dipped its head, spread gauzy wings and whisked away.

Mikal put his boots back on and began following the course of the stream. Overhead, tree branches crisscrossed so thickly Mikal could not see through them. For hours he followed the stream, again removing and carrying his boots. Presently he came upon another pair, identical, and realized that Fil had come this way, had also decided to wade barefoot but had found carrying his boots an unnecessary task. Whistling cheerfully, Mikal plunged ahead. Something with thin, gay-colored wings flapped delicately by and Mikal reached out playfully to grab it, but it fluttered beyond his reach and was gone.

Berries and fruits were plentiful and, growing hungry, Mikal ate of them, slaking his thirst in the cool, fast-flowing water of the stream. As it became more difficult to see, he assumed the tree branches were thicker overhead, but soon real darkness descended, and Mikal stood vaguely afraid on dry land. He had never known darkness in all his life. When the white day-lights went off at the prescribed hour in Astro-sphere, the purple, eye-resting night-lights replaced them. Here in the Jungle the amber radiance faded and was gone, with nothing but a shroud of inky black replacing it.

Mikal groped about in confusion, called softly, then louder. Jungle sounds stirred at the sound of his voice, and something furry scurried by, brushing against his bare leg. Suddenly trembling, Mikal kneeled and rezipped his boots. A strange chill had come with the blackness, and Mikal felt more completely alone than ever before in his eighteen years.

Even his hands, held inches from his face, were swallowed up by the inky night. Mikal could see absolutely nothing. His first fear gave way to reason. This darkness must be a normal thing in the Jungle, for the animals and birds all about him had set up no fearful noise in protest. His father had once told him vaguely about these animals and birds. The darkness took the place of purple night-lights in the Jungle, Mikal thought. That was all, and once you got used to it, there was a certain restful quality about the darkness.

Crouching, Mikal explored around with his hand, found a length of ground upon which he could stretch out. He eased himself down upon it, half-expecting something completely unknown and hideous to engulf him. Nothing happened. The ground was firm, but not uncomfortable. Mikal shut his eyes tightly and for one brief moment pictured himself back in the snug warmth of his bedroom in Astrosphere. But there he was a boy, and soon he would return a man, if he completed the Journey of the Four Circles. He opened his eyes, tossed uneasily, changed his position on the damp ground and tried to sleep.

All night he squirmed restlessly, dozing two or three times and then waking abruptly when some new, unfamiliar Jungle sound disturbed him. The night will last forever, he thought, after he grew hungry again but realized it was too dark to find any of the berries or fruits. The lights had vanished and would not return, ever. . . .

When he almost began to wish he had taken Harol's way out, a vague, half-real, half-imagined light came to the Jungle. It was many minutes before Mikal could convince himself that it wasn't all imagination, many minutes longer before the light was sufficient for him to see clearly. Presently, however, the amber radiance returned, and it was exactly as if the night had never been. Mikal laughed at his own foolish fear, stood up, stretched and found stiffness in all his joints and muscles. He found some berries and ate them, then set out again along the bank of the stream.

By midday the Jungle had thinned out all about him. Occasional trees dotted the flat, rock-strewn meadow on which Mikal found himself. The stream still gushed merrily along, and Mikal wondered if it would lead him entirely out of the wooded area.

Suddenly it did. With trees behind and flat grassland ahead, Mikal kept walking. He squinted in the bright-amber light, saw a vague patch of movement far ahead of him, almost at the furthest range of his vision. Mottled brown and gray it was, surging and seething and changing shape even as Mikal watched.

He advanced quickly, covering the ground in long, loping strides.

Soon what had been a shapeless, mobile stain on the green meadow resolved itself into a seething swarm of huge animals. Great, ungainly, lumbering things, they milled about by the hundreds, munching on the grass. Mikal had slowed his pace to a walk. He approached warily, saw that the beasts, each probably weighing far more than a big man, had two wicked horns on their heads, four legs and long, swishing tails.

Monsters, thought Mikal, not knowing whether to advance or flee. Something prompted him to turn around and his eyes swept the meadow behind him. Far away the Jungle loomed and . . . but something rushed into his vision from the left.

Mikal stared foolishly, then began to run. One of the monsters apparently was not with its fellows. Not two hundred feet away, head down and horns pointing straight ahead, it plunged with a ground-consuming four-footed gallop straight at Mikal.

Pity the Poor Enginer

HEAL RAN, but knew running was useless. The creature could move with incredible speed for all its massive bulk. Once Mikal turned around and saw it had stopped, and for a moment he thought it had grown tired of the chase. But it pawed the ground, snuffled, then began to bellow. When it gathered momentum this time, thundering forward at ever-increasing speed, Mikal was sure flight would be utterly futile. He stood his ground, preparing to dodge out of the way. Briefly it crossed his mind that the trees of the Jungle would offer some protection, but he realized he never could reach them.

On galloped the monster, and Mikal tensed himself, ready to leap aside. At the last moment, when he fancied he could feel the thing's hot breath upon him, a great flashing swirl of color swept into view.

Mikal couldn't believe his eyes. It was a girl. Young, perhaps his own age, she carried a long bright cloak of many colors. She darted in front of Mikal, and he shouted for her to run while she could. She ignored him, as she waved the cloak at the monster which approached them, then side-stepped gracefully, bringing the swirling cloak around behind her body. The animal plunged on past them, its direction changed by the lure of bright, shining colors. Momentum swept it forward until, by the time it could check its wild rush, it stood just on the fringe of the swarm of similar animals. For a time it pawed the ground, as if unable to make up its mind. Then it joined the

others and was soon lost among them. Mikal let out a sigh of relief, realizing that only the girl's cloak had saved him.

She stood watching him, hands on hips. Mikal smiled, but she surveyed him coolly and from a distance. She wore her hair short-bobbed, like the girls of Astrosphere, but Mikal had never seen anything like her coarse blouse of some rough brown material or the short trousers which came almost to her knees. Freckles spotted her face and her hair was brown, highlighted with red. She had big, solemn eyes and she just stood there, looking at Mikal.

He cleared his throat. "I want to thank you," he said.

She kept staring at him, ignoring his words. Not understanding them? he wondered.

"That certainly was a close call," Mikal said. "If you hadn't come along—"

She came toward him slowly, the cape folded over one of her arms.

Mikal grinned. "My name is Mikal." She watched him carefully, he thought. That was it, she couldn't understand! "Me Mikal," he said, tapping his chest.

The girl stood not three paces off, apparently not listening.

"Me—Mikal." He thumped his chest vigorously.

"You needn't be so proud about it," the girl exclaimed, and suddenly leaped forward. Mikal could not even guess her intentions, so swiftly had she sprung into action. The great cape swept up and then down, descending in billowing folds over Mikal's head.

He struggled with the darkness it brought, but only succeeded in entangling himself more thoroughly in its folds. The cloak covered him completely as far down as his knees, and because he could see only in that direction, he looked down at the ground while he fought to free himself. The girl's legs flashed into view, one of them going behind Mikal and pushing back in against his ankle. Something—the girl's hands, he realized—pushed against his chest. He stumbled back, tripped over her leg, fell heavily.

Mikal thrashed about, still engulfed in the cloak. He rolled over on his stomach, but felt his arms drawn up tightly behind him. Swift, sure hands wrapped a thong round and round his wrists, binding them tightly together.

Quite suddenly the girl yanked at the cloak, removing it completely. Hands bound behind him, Mikal struggled into a sitting position.

"All right, Reveler!" she told him curtly. "On your feet."

Mikal stood up awkwardly, unable to use his bound arms. His face reddened, and not from mere exertion. With the help of her cloak, this girl had rendered him helpless in a few seconds!

"This is a strange day," she told him. "You're the second Reveler we've captured out here."

Reveler? But he was from Astrosphere. "There must be some mistake—" he began.

"You know there was," the girl taunted him. "You never should have come here, Reveler. Move!"

She walked around behind him, prodded him forward.

"You don't understand," Mikal tried to explain. "I'm not a Reveler. I come from Astrosphere."

"Where? Astro—" "Astrosphere."

"I never heard of it. There is the Place of Revelers and the Jungle where we Noahs live. How can you come from anyplace else?"

"There is also Far Labry, as well as Astrosphere."

"You Revelers are known for trickery and fast talking," the girl said. "Move!"

Mikal walked, found that the way led perilously close to the swarming animals.

"Don't be afraid," the girl said. "They won't bother you now. There are times when I think we ought to unleash this whole herd of cattle in the Place of Revelers. If they weren't necessary . . ."

"I am from Astrosphere," Mikal almost pleaded.

"Then that is a town in the Place of Revelers. It is the same thing. Since you are not one of us Noahs, you are a Reveler. Now, be quiet and keep walking."

Mikal realized further argument was useless. Once this girl made up her mind, he suspected nothing would change it. Perhaps she was leading him to someone in authority, in which case he would be able to explain who he was and why he had come here. Meanwhile, he only could walk as she directed. He wished she would talk some more, though, for he had never heard anyone speak quite the way she did. It was, he decided, as if, once, long, long ago, her people and his people spoke the same language but had not been in contact for so long that gradual changes occurred.

As the girl had predicted, the animals did not molest them. She called them a herd of cattle. After they had walked around behind the herd, Mikal saw a strange man-made structure in the middle of the meadow. Roughly square, but with a top that sloped upward at some forty-five degrees, it had four evenly spaced rectangular holes in its side and a fifth down at ground level which was larger.

"I live here," said the girl. "My father holds the other Reveler, and he has sent for help. The way you people think you can come into our land and tell us what to do. . . f

They had reached the structure and entered it through the ground-level opening. Mikal found himself in a well-fumished room. Quite pleasant, he noted, as nice as any living quarters in Astrosphere. Abruptly he knew that the structure was the Jungle way of keeping the outdoors out.

"I don't want to tell you how to do anything," Mikal protested.

"Be quiet! My father will know how to deal with you."

They passed through the well-furnished room into a hallway. The girl opened a door and told Mikal to precede her down a flight of stairs. Silently Mikal obeyed. It was dark at the bottom of the stairs, except where a small flame, perched strangely atop a conical white tiling twice the size of a man's index finger, cast a flickering light. There on the floor, not far from the flame, sat Fil, trussed as was Mikal and muttering to himself!

The girl pushed Mikal forward. "Sit down," she said.

He sat. "Hello, Fil," he said ruefully. "There," the girl told him triumphantly. "You know him. Then you are a Reveler."

She leaned close and blew at the flame which flared brightly and then went out, leaving them in intense darkness. Mikal heard her footsteps retreating, could see her dimly as she climbed the flight of stairs. When she shut the door behind her, the darkness was complete.

"Did she capture you too?" Mikal demanded. "No." Fil's voice was sullen. "How did you get here?"

"It was three of them. Three men. I struggled, but one of them got me from behind and—"

"I see," said Mikal, not knowing whether to believe Fil or not, but hardly caring. "How long have you been here?"

"Hours.Days. I don't know. It's so dark."

"It couldn't have been days, because the girl told me you were taken today."

"It's the darkness. You can't tell how long."

Mikal lapsed into silence.

"Talk, go ahead. It's good to hear something so you know there's more than this darkness."

After his first night in the Jungle, Mikal knew the dark held no special fears for him. It was inconvenient, yes, for you could not see well enough to perform even the simplest functions. By now, though, the strange fears which had kept him on the brink of sleep but refused to let him slumber the previous night were gone. "You talk to yourself," Mikal said. "I'm tired. "

He lay down on his side, as comfortably as he could with his hands bound behind him, and presently drifted off to sleep.

I     #     *     «     *

When he awoke, his arms were numb from lack of circulation. Light flooded the room from three of the flame-topped white cylinders. The girl stood there, watching him. With her was a man, older, big and strong-muscled, with hair graying at the temples, a craggy brow and wide-spaced gray eyes. He wore the same rough garments in which the girl was dressed. She was probably his daughter, Mikal realized.

"This one," the girl said, pointing to Fil, who was still sleeping, "came first, early in the afternoon. You ve already seen him. The other Reveler," she pointed at Mikal, "arrived later."

Her father smiled in disbelief. "You took them? You, alone?"

"I am a Noah," the girl said proudly. "They are but Revelers. I work in the fields and herd the cattle and walk miles every day, while they sit in the Place of Revelers and play their foolish games."

"It's true," said the man. "Besides, I always wished I had a son. I have raised you like a boy, rightly or wrongly, I do not know."

"I am your daughter," said the girl. "That too is why I could do what I did."

Fil stirred at Mikal's side, opened his eyes. "My arms are stiff," he moaned. "Can't you untie me?"

"Your thongs would stop their circulation, Marlyn," the man said. "If we unbound them and placed them on their honor not to attempt escape . . ."

"No!" The girl's eyes flashed. "You couldn't trust a Reveler, Father."

"That's just it," Fil wailed. "We're not Revelers. We never even heard of Revelers," he lied.

Mikal saw no reason not to tell the truth. "We have come from Astrosphere," he said, "on the Journey to learn what there is to know about other sections of the Universe—about the Jungle, the Place of Revelers and Far Labry. We mean no harm."

"Of this Labry and Astrosphere I never have heard," Marlyn's father told them, scowling in confusion. "Yet you ask us to believe your story when the places you mention have no existence." He looked at Marlyn, shrugging. "What do you think?"

"I think they are Revelers trying to confuse our minds with crazy stories."

"We will not decide this here and now. If they have a tale to tell, let them submit it in the proper place. What I plan is this: we will take them to the Town Council, where they may present their story. Then let the Council decide what is to be done."

"But it is a day's journey to the Town," Marlyn protested.

Again her father shrugged. "What would you propose? We cannot condemn them without fair hearing. Besides, we have no jurisdiction. What would we do with them? No, the Council must decide." The man crouched near Mikal, loosening his bonds. "I won't remove them entirely, young man; but there's no reason why we can't make you more comfortable."

Mikal felt his numb arms tingle with a million fiery darts. He soon found he could move his hands back and forth although he could not draw them in front of him. He worked them together slowly, massaging one numb wrist with the other, restoring circulation gradually. While he did so, the man was working on Fil's bonds, but Fil complained:

"If you take us on a long journey, how can we remain fettered like this?"

"Be glad it isn't worse," said Marlyn contemptuously.

Her father frowned in thought. "They would be uncomfortable. Listen, Marlyn. If we can have them pledge themselves not to escape . . ." ~ "No, Father!"

The man laughed loud and long. "By far Urth, you're a headstrong girl. I say yes."

*'I give you my word," said Mikal. He had been listening to the conversation only in snatches, for they had spoken of a town one day's journey distant, and the thought sent his mind reeling. Who ever heard of a place so far away? It was true you could walk for hours in Astrosphere, but you moved through passageways and tunnels, from one machine room to the next, and it hardly seemed a journey. The extent of the Jungle, Mikal knew, lay beyond his ken.

"I promise," Fil said, but cast a quick crafty glance at Mikal. Mikal turned away. If he gave his word, then he gave it. Anyway, he had come upon the Journey of the Four Circles not so much to pick up three meaningless trophies, as to learn all he could about the other three levels of the Universe. This town intrigued him. The idea of a place so far and yet so important he found fascinating.

"Then you're going to untie them?" Marlyn asked doubtfully.

Her father nodded. "They shall be unbound. But you will do it, Marlyn. It may help to curb that temper of yours." His eyes twinkled.

"No, you wouldn't make me . . ."

"Marlyn!" her father commanded sternly.

The girl tossed her short-cropped head defiantly, but when she looked again at her father, she knelt near Mikal and worked expertly on the thong which bound his wrists together. In a moment he was free. "Thank you," he said, massaging the needles out of his wrists.

"Don't thank me," Marlyn declared. "This was not my idea."

Mikal stood up while Fil was released. "Then I would like to thank you for your trust," he said to the girl's father.

The man's eyes still twinkled. "Show that you earn it, in that case, or I will never hear the end of it." He led the way to the flight of stairs, pinching the flame tops of the white cylinders with thumb and forefinger as he went. "Well, now," he said, "we seem ready. Marlyn, I want you to fix a hot meal for our guests. After that, we'll prepare some dried meat for the journey, get a good night's sleep and be on our way with the first traces of dawn."

Marlyn ate in angry silence, spooning the savory stew into her mouth mechanically. The silence satisfied Fil, who had selected a seat far removed at one end of the coarse table and seemed surprised when Mikal failed to join him. Drawing a tight shell around yourself, thought Mikal, was no way to learn things. He attacked his food with ravenous appetite, all the while seething with unanswered questions. Why didn't the people of the Jungle know anything about Far Labry and Astrosphere? What trouble existed between the Jungle and the Place of Revelers? What made Marlyn so suspicious of their every move?

That with the final mouthful of stew. Why did these people of the Jungle, who called themselves Noahs, keep the great herd of horned animals? That with his first taste of dessert, a delicious fruit pie.

Down went the dessert. And the man had mentioned Urth in an offhand way. Mikal did not know what or who Urth was, except that it was old, incredibly old, and existed before Astrosphere and the other parts of the Universe. It was written that Urth could swallow up Astrosphere and leave room for a hundred more. A thousand maybe. What did Marlyn's father know about Urth? This between gulps of milk.

After the meal Marlyn led them to a room with two simple beds and told them as she departed, "My father would trust you too far. He may sleep tonight, but I will be on guard. Try something foolish and you will be fettered again, hands and feet. Good night."

She closed the door behind her.

"She's a savage," said Fil, padding softly to the door and listening. "We'll wait some little time, Mikal. Then we'll be on our way." No.

"We should be able to—what do you mean, no?" "We gave our word."

"I didn't like my hands tied any more than you did. I'd have promised all of Astrosphere for that. We have no part in this trouble between the Jungle and the Place of Revelers."

Mikal shrugged. "Do as you wish. I'm remaining with Marlyn and her father. I'll go to this town with them tomorrow."

"You're crazy. But then, you're not the son of the Chief Enginer. You won't change your mind?"

"No. I think you should change yours."

"Two could escape more readily than one. Two pairs of eyes could look in all directions ..."

"No. It is your business if you want to escape. I'm going to sleep."

Minutes fled, became hours. Mikal drifted off into troubled sleep, dreaming that he and Fil had escaped, had tiptoed outside and crept cautiously away-straight into the path of the hundreds of horned beasts, their hoofs pounding the ground into dust. Mikal sat up abruptly, cold sweat on his face.

"Fil?" he called sofdy. He groped about in the darkness, crossed to Fil's bed. "Fil?"

The bed hadn't been slept in.

"Fil?"

Footsteps, hurrying, sounded outside. The door, which had neither lock nor bolt on either side, was thrust in suddenly, its hinges protesting. Mikal saw one of the flame-topped cylinders floating eerily. When his eyes grew accustomed to the light, he was aware of Marlyn carrying it.

"Where is the other one?" she cried.

"I don't know."

"I thought I heard something. I told Father we couldn't trust you Revelers."

Mikal spread his hands out wide and took a step toward her. "I am truly sorry," he said,

"Stop! Don't move. One of you went, and then the other was to follow. Was that the plan? You should be ashamed, giving your word like that."

"I never tried to escape."

"The evidence is as clear as ... never mind. Father! Father!" Marlyn called in a shrill voice.

Her father came pounding down the hallway, protecting one of the flame cylinders with a cupped hand. "What is it?"

"One of them escaped. The other one was on the point of leaving when I caught him. That's what you get for trusting them." She let her eyes rake Mikal scornfully. He was about to speak, but changed his mind. "Give me the word, Father, and I'll tie him so tighdy we could roll him all the way to the Town Council."

"You go to sleep, child."

"I could look for the other one."

"In this darkness? No, you sleep. I will remain with our prisoner here until the morning."

Mikal said, "It's a mistake. I didn't try—"

"Quiet," Marlyn told him. "You've caused enough trouble for one day. I'll remain awake with you, Father."

"You will go to sleep."

"Oh . . ." But Marlyn departed with her flame cylinder.

Two or three times Mikal addressed her father, but each time he responded only with stony silence. Fil had escaped all right, but at Mikal's expense. Everything he said or did when they reached the Town Council would be colored by Fil's rash act. Mikal had been a guest before; he was a prisoner now. A captive of the Noahs, who thought him a Reveler, and one who had tried to escape, at that. Still, he did not find it in his heart to be angry with Fil. If Fil wanted to escape, well, that was clearly his own business. But Mikal had to suffer the consequences.

The dim light of early dawn filtered in through the

room's one window. Marlyn's father stirred. He had in fact dozed, but M ileal saw no reason to awaken him. "Wu-ump . .. must have fallen asleep. Well, you must have also. Get yourself cleaned up, young man. We're on our way to the Town Council."

Mikal obeyed him mechanically. On his way to the Council, with a story they would never believe, he was a captive whose fellow prisoner had broken his bond and escaped. Four Circle Journeys had never started more strangely, Mikal thought. He wondered how it would all end.

Chapter 5 Town Council

M

IKAL had never done so much walking in all his life. Rock-strewn meadow gave way to forest again and forest to rolling hills. Here Mikal saw other herds of animals, smaller, gray, fleecy. "Sheep," said Marlyn's father in answer to his question, but he would explain no further. Marlyn, for her part, walked in complete silence, but she could cover the rocky grazing land and the rolling hills as easily as her father, matching his long strides with shorter, quicker ones. Mikal found the going rough at times, stumbling from rock to rock while Marlyn urged him on scornfully, gliding over the uneven terrain as surefooted as the fleecy animals.

Every now and then Marlyn and her father would call greetings to the men who, equipped with stout staffs instead of Marlyn's multicolored cloak, herded the gray beasts. With them were swifter, smaller animals, which would dart in at any members of the herd which strayed, yelping, baying and snapping at them until they resumed their places.

"The material for your clothing comes from the sheep," Marlyn's father explained. "Unless this Astro-sphere you claim residence in is different from the rest of the world. Our shepherds give their wool to the people of the Town who fashion it into clothing and place it on conveyor belts which disappear into the very edge of the world."

"Astrosphere," Marlyn scoffed. "Clearly, there is no such place."

But her father's first anger at Fil's escape had abated somewhat. "Do not condemn the lad unfairly," he said. "He will receive a hearing at the Council."

On they walked, and on. Presendy they came to a place where the rolling hills soared upward, rising almost to meet the amber roof of the Jungle. Mikal found himself hard-pressed to maintain the pace Marlyn and her father set, and he felt indignation more than anything else. Living their sheltered life in the glass and metal world of Astrosphere, his people did not have the strength, stamina or endurance of the Noahs. He suddenly wished he too had grown in an outdoor world, with the sweet-scented Jungle all around and the herds of grazing animals and the ability to travel fast and sure-footed across meadow and rolling hill and steep escarpment.

Marlyn urged him on and, infuriated by her taunts, he redoubled his efforts as they ascended the steep slope. They stopped to rest within a few score feet of the summit, where a swift stream raced downslope. They drank of its delightfully cool waters, then Marlyn passed around the dried meat she had packed. Mikal found his appetite had been in hiding behind his ragged breath and aching legs, for he ate with unexpected gusto.

"We have covered much ground," said Marlyn's father.

"And could have covered it much faster, but for him," Marlyn said, looking at Mikal.

"For one unaccustomed to hiking, he does well. I figured on two or three hours more."

"Well," Marlyn admitted grudgingly, "so did I." Her admission made Mikal feel very fine indeed.

Tm ready to continue," he said, ignoring the aches in his leg muscles.

They reached the summit, and Mikal blinked his eyes in disbelief. Here below him the hill fell away steeply, and spread out in a valley cupped by it and other hills was the town. "It's—it's beautiful!" Mikal cried eagerly.

The town consisted of scores of structures clustered in neat, rectangular patterns. Marlyn called them houses and buildings and seemed amazed he had never heard of them. Paths—streets, said Marlyn— separated one section from the next, and so far away that they looked hardly bigger than dots, Mikal saw people on these streets.

"We must be at the roof of the world," Mikal said breathlessly.

"From what the Revelers said when they first came here, we do have a high ceiling on the Jungle," Marlyn told him. Her anger showed signs of thawing too, Mikal noticed hopefully. If Marlyn and her father would sponsor him, or at least remain neutral, the Council might believe his story. He found this amusing: in deadly earnest he hoped they would believe him, and all the while he would be telling them only the truth. He wondered if strangers always approached each other with such grave doubt.

Mikal had at first thought they would descend the hill on foot, but his disappointment when he learned they would not gave way to excitement when Marlyn's father pointed and said:

"You see those cars?"

Mikal followed the pointing finger. Far down the hillside, but moving up it sluggishly with much creaking and protesting, were three square cars. Following their path with his eyes, Mikal saw a single metal rail running all the way up the hill almost to his feet. A cable balanced atop the rail pulled the cars, winding itself around a great wooden pole and disappearing down another slope of the hill.

"I will admit it's crude," Marlyn's father declared, "but no one could deny its effectiveness."

"A weight greater than the full cars hangs from the cable's other end. When the cars reach the summit, a lighter weight replaces it and the cars descend at controlled speed. Ingenious, eh?"

"But surely with electricity . . ." Mikal demanded, clearly perplexed.

"Elec—electro—" Marlyn stumbled on the unfamiliar word.

"With electricty you could do the same thing with half the trouble and twice the speed."

"I never heard of this elec—whatever you said," Marlyn told him.

"Nor I," said her father.

"Oh," said Mikal. "Oh!" There was so much the Noahs could teach him, and certain things he could show them as well. He wondered with some surprise why no one had ever thought of this before. Perhaps they both could learn something from the Revelers, and all of them, in turn from Far Labry. The thought was a wild one, but in the light of what had happened, he could hardly deny the possibility.

At the very brink of the hill, the cars creaked to a stop, disgorging a dozen passengers. Mikal found himself smiling at them, for Marlyn and her father seemed to know everyone present, always finding time for a pleasant smile or a word or two of greeting. In Astrosphere it was different. You knew your immediate neighbors, of course. You knew the people you worked with and their families, but strange faces peered at you from every passageway and tunnel. A radar Enginer might never know the name of the electronic Enginer who worked in the next compartment.

"Who's the stranger?" one of the newcomers asked Marlyn's father. "Will you visit the Town Council tonight?" "Of course. I never miss them." "Very well. You will find out at that time perhaps." "A mystery, eh, Landor?"

Landor, Marlyn's father, nodded. "We hope to solve it."

"Strange things are happening lately, Landor. Well, I'll keep you in mind next time my wife bakes some of those special cakes."

"You do that," said Landor with a smile. "I suppose we could spare a side of beef for the Kurtin family, right, Marlyn?" Speaking thus, Landor led the way to the waiting cars. Since no additional passengers arrived, the small train started back down the hill after a brief lapse of time. Mikal had watched the train's ascent from above. The cars had crawled slowly, laboring every inch of the way, it appeared, up the slope. Now, however, they gained speed with gravity as an ally. Soon they fairly flew down the steep ridge, the single cable and rail beneath them setting up a terrible clatter. Electricity had its advantages all right, but this, Mikal conceded, was fun.

The town rushed up to meet them with frightening

speed. Streets widened; houses moved apart, revealing well-cultivated gardens, tree-arched lanes and stately carriages drawn by still another variety of animal Marlyn called horses. After they climbed from the car, which had braked to a stop in a rocking, grinding last hundred yards, Mikal wanted nothing more than to walk around the streets of the town and explore. Landor and Marlyn, though, quickly spirited him off to a building where Landor's cousin lived and kept him there, while not under lock and key, under constant guard.

"It's for your own good," Marlyn said, more of her reserve melting with each passing minute, possibly because as far as she could see Mikal had been on good behavior since Fil's escape. "Our people do not like the Revelers. But if you are a Reveler you know all that."

"I am not."

"Anyway, if it were learned you're suspected, our people, calm and civil though they are, might not be responsible. If you really don't come from the Place of Revelers, you'll learn about all this later. Though where else you can possibly come from . . ." And Marlyn was lost in thought.

Landor was gone much of what remained of the afternoon, making arrangements for his presentation of Mikal at the Town Council. When he returned, he said:

"Lad, I will be honest with you. Bad feelings exist between the Noahs and the Revelers. I don't know why, but I'm somehow half-inclined to believe your story, despite what your friend did. I am for you, then, as much as I can be, but there is an ugliness in the air I do not like. When you are presented to the Council tonight, you alone can convince them you are no Reveler. I will merely yield the facts."

"If you told me something about this trouble, maybe I'd have a better understanding—"

Landor shook his head firmly. "That would never do. Suppose I am wrong. Suppose you are a Reveler. Your people maintain their own notion of the difficulty; we have ours. You might learn something from what I have to say. You'll get no information from me until we are certain Astrosphere exists outside of your head."

Mikal nodded. "You know best. But tell me this: what happens if they still think me a Reveler?"

Landor said nothing, glancing at Marlyn who shook her head. "Better convince them," she told Mikal, "if your story is true."

Landor's cousin, a scrawny, middle-aged, infirm man, gave them supper of what he said was mutton, and Marlyn informed Mikal it came from the fleecy animals called sheep. After that, Landor led Mikal and Marlyn out into the street crowded with people, all moving toward the center of town. Night had come, but every hundred feet or so flame burned brightly atop a tall pole, shedding a flickering illumination which cast eerie shadows. Apparently rumors spread rapidly, for Mikal heard snatches of conversation which made his heart pound furiously.

".. . has quite a find. Brevor wagers he's a Reveler."

"Landor the Rancher, that's right. A strange boy."

"1 don't know where he's from."

"Some claim he was sent by the Revelers on a secret . . ."

Voices ebbed and flowed in the crowd. ". . . Revelers . . ."

". . . bolder all the time. Why can't they leave us alone?"

". . . our way of life, they have theirs. To force it upon us . . ."

"It isn't rumor, my friend. Their raids hit our outlying areas almost every day. They want converts, it is rumored. Next thing you know they'll swoop down on the Town itself."

". . . to go into the Place of Revelers and strike back."

"If we could take some prisoners and free our own..."

"It is said the Revelers can change your mind and make you think the way they want you to."

"The atmosphere is ugly tonight. I would not like to be the strange boy if indeed he is a Reveler."

". . . violence for violence . . ."

Landor must have realized Mikal could not help overhearing some of the talk. "You would not believe this, but mine are a peaceful people. Still, if you push them too far, if you tell them what they have been doing for as far back as there is history is the wrong thing and they must now do things your way. . . . Not you, young man. I speak in general. The Revelers have started something that may not stop until my people, in their righteous wrath, have thrown open all the doors to the Place of Revelers, and made some changes there."

"That's interesting, Father, but it fails to help Mikal."

"Mikal, I'm afraid, must help himself in this. If

the Council thinks to ask it, I will tell them Mikal has been on his best behavior with us, but if they ask about any other strangers I must tell them about the one who escaped."

Their avenue now opened out upon the main thoroughfare of the Town, and they were swept along, as in a tide, with the growing crowd. Directly in the Town's center stood the largest structure, fashioned from the hard material which did not have metal's luster nor smoothness. Marlyn called it wood.

"The Council Hall," Landor explained. "It has no roof, and benches line its sloping sides. There is room here for all the Noahs."

"You mean everyone will be here?"

"Hardly," explained Landor. "Some always decide it is too much trouble to attend to our Council. Some contend one vote more or less won't matter. Some think because they have the right to vote they need not exercise it."

They entered the Hall, and Mikal found himself blinking up at the row on row of torches which rivaled daylight with their brightness. Once his pupils contracted, his eyes took in a sea of faces on all sides. More people than Mikal had ever seen at one time stared down from the galleries. By this time he could imagine them nothing but unfriendly faces, angry and uncompromising, convinced of his guilt in some still nameless crime. Their voices ebbed and flowed, a veritable flood of sound, impatient and clamoring. Mikal wiped one wet palm on his britches, took a deep breath, then another one, and followed Landor and Marlyn to the speaker's rostrum.

Chapter Ó A Place Called Urth

URPRISINGLY, Landor did not stop at the row of chairs adjacent to the rostrum. Marlyn drew Mikai down into a seat next to her own, but Landor went right on until he had reached the rostrum. He mounted it, and Mikal watched as a young man swung a great club around behind his back and brought it forward with tremendous force, straining every muscle in his body. The club struck a huge shield of burnished metal, unleashing a sonorous clanging which hushed the hundreds of whispering voices as by magic, leaving complete silence in its wake.

The young man's voice carried clearly. "Noahs, your Council Chief, Landor the Rancher!"

The introduction hit Mikal almost with physical force. Landor—the Chief? Landor had never indicated it; Marlyn hadn't, either. Yet Landor ruled all the people of the Jungle. Mikal suddenly found himself liking their way of government. Landor ruled them, yet when a decision of importance was to be reached, Landor did not make it himself. Instead, he journeyed far to the Council of his people and presented his case there. Mikal liked the Noahs' way of doing things, even if it did mean he would have to address more people than he had ever seen before, on a subject they would never believe.

Landor cleared his throat.

Marlyn whispered to Mikal, "Whatever you do, keep calm. Don't lose your head. And, good luck, MikaT

Landor addressed the crowd.

"My friends, rumor spreads fast among the Noahs. Already you know that we have something more important to discuss than the routine business of ranching, farming and manufacturing. The Revelers grow bolder eveiy day. Within the past thirty days, they have made twenty-five attacks on outlying areas, capturing forty prisoners."

An angry murmur stirred the crowd, but Landor stilled it with a gesture of his hand. "That is almost one attack every day," he pointed out, "and more than one prisoner taken every day. Why they want prisoners we can only guess, but it is generally believed —especially since all their prisoners have been young men and young women—that the Revelers will attempt to instill their way of thinking in our youth, then return them.

"We Noahs are proud of our way of life. We live simply, at peace with one another. Our wants are few; we take care of our own needs. Until recently, the reason we placed food and clothing on the conveyor belts which disappeared into the walls of the world was lost in antiquity. Now we know, however, that we do that for the Revelers, who cannot even provide their own food! It seems mildly fantastic that they would want to spread their way of life without first learning a better one!"

Laughter followed these words, and Landor again waved for silence. "Strange, is it not, that we never knew the Revelers existed until they began to raid our Jungle? And stranger still that we Noahs could continue our work, the work our fathers did, and their fathers before them, without knowing the purpose. But such is custom and tradition. If, then, there is the Place of Revelers as well as the Jungle, would it strike you as too impossible to suppose that other places might exist as well in this world of ours? Yesterday, I believe my daughter and I were visited by one from just such a place. You see . . ." Landor went on to explain how Mikal had appeared out of nowhere, how Maryln suspected he was a Reveler.

"Of course!" someone hooted. "A Reveler! What else could he be?"

And another: "Well, it's about time we got a prisoner, after all those they have taken."

But Landor, who Mikal now learned had a powerful set of lungs and knew how to use them, bellowed the crowd to silence. "I still speak!" he cried. "I have yielded the rostrum to no one. Our visitor claims he comes not from the Place of Revelers, but from another distant place we know nothing about. I say to you if only recently we learned of the Revelers, then perhaps he speaks truth."

"We want none of the Reveler's fancy talking."

"Ask him to return our young men and women, then we'll listen to him."

"Tell him to return whence he came before we forget we Noahs are civilized!"

"Peace!" Landor roared. "Peace, all of you. I give you Mikal, who claims his home is Astrosphere."

The crowd exploded in sound as Mikal stood up and took the few short strides to the rostrum. Even Landor's mighty voice fell before it, and when he climbed atop the rostrum Mikal knew he could just as well have remained in his place, for no one would hear him.

Landor, though, had other ideas. He signaled for the youth with the great club, who came on the run from the rear of the Hall and struck three times the sonorous gong. On the third stroke, an uneasy quiet had fallen over the assembly, and to Mikal it seemed no less terrifying than the howling.

"My name is Mikal," he said, shouting the words slowly and distinctly, for his accent might trouble the Noahs. What in Astrosphere can I say that will make them believe? he thought. In all his life he had never had the opportunity to learn whether or not stage fright might afflict him. It came now, the hard way, constricting his throat and making it hard for him to breathe, let alone talk. Still, he had to convince them, for otherwise he suspected he would never continue his Journey and so become an Enginer.

He clenched and unclenched his fists, welcoming the stirrings of sound his first words had evoked in the assembly. By the time they faded, he had regained enough of his composure to continue. "You of the Jungle are but one-fourth of the people in the world!" Mikal cried. Why tell them of Astrosphere alone? Why not the whole truth, giving them the picture of a world much greater than the walls of the Jungle encompassed?

"One-fourth! The lad invents worlds as he goes along."

"Revelers there are, much to our misfortune. And Noahs. Anything more I will not believe. We demand proof."

"Proof . . ."

"I live in Astrosphere," said Mikal, "the outermost region of the world. The Enginers there keep the world functioning, and—"

"He lies! Who supplies the food?"

"The clothing."

"Try to function without those."

"I meant the machinery of the world. The elec—" Mikal stopped in midsentence, suddenly understanding that what Enginers did would make entirely no sense to the Noahs. As a matter of fact, and Mikal's whole world began all at once to tumble in about his ears, even the Enginers practiced their art with great skill only from memory and tradition. Did any Engi-ner really know what he was doing, or for what purpose?

Indeed, Mikal could name and describe the machines of a dozen different Enginer compartments, but would be at a loss to explain their function. Bewildered by his own train of thought, yet not losing sight of his main goal to appease Landor's people at least long enough to hear him out, Mikal decided understatement might bring the best results.

"We of Astrosphere," he went on, returning awkwardly to the beginning of his speech and altering it, "live in the outermost section of the world, where we are fed and clothed by the Noahs of the Jungle."

"That's better!"

"Of course the Noahs provide for all the world."

"For us and the Revelers, you mean."

"Aye, perhaps, but is it not true that we also run food and clothing into the walls of the world in a direction opposite that of the Place of Revelers?"

"Umm . . . yes . . . ."

"Precisely!" cried Mikal. "Astrosphere is the outermost section of the world. Next is the Jungle, then comes the Place of Revelers. Finally there is Far Labry, all fed and clothed by the Noahs."

"Once the food supervisor tried to figure why we produced so much," someone declared from the edge of the crowd, "and could not. It was completely beyond him, he said. Now I suggest that if the lad speaks truth, if there are the Jungle and three additional places to feed, it begins to make sense."

"Never! Reveler tricks, that's all.

"Hear him out. Listen to the youth."

"There isn't much to tell," Mikal said. "I am from Astrosphere, making the Journey of the Four Circles to all the other parts of the world, returning with my new knowledge to become an Enginer. I have come to your land with that purpose only, although before I leave I must take back with me a trophy as proof of my visit. I think I can speak for the people of Astro-sphere when I say we want no part of your trouble with the Revelers. As for myself, I have to this day never seen a Reveler, although I will before my Journey ends."

"Is this Journey a common thing?" someone called.

"Yes," Mikal told him. "AH young men who would be Enginers must make the Journey."

"If that is so, lying Reveler, why have we not been visited by your people before this?"

"You're joking," Mikal said, perplexed. "You must have been visited."

"Now, by my honor, we have not!"

Order had come to the assembly. A man high up in the galleries to Mikal's left raised his hand and,

when Mikal nodded, said: "I am Torque the Cook. I say we have been visited."

That brief statement created a considerable stir. Landor mounted the platform and addressed Torque the Cook. "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean exactly what I said," Torque declared. "Hear me, all of you. Before the coming of the Revelers, what would you had thought if you encountered a stranger?"

When a woman raised her hand, Landor pointed at her. "Basat, wife of Cormo," she said. "I would have thought it impossible. Since none but Noahs exist, I would have thought, then this is a Noah I do not know."

"Exactly," said Torque the Cook. "Even strange clothing might have gone unnoticed, although, from time to time we used to hear tales of visitors, of strangers who appeared briefly somewhere in the Jungle and then vanished. Does it strike anyone as a coincidence that these strangers always were young men? Mikal of Astrosphere has told us the young men of his people make this Journey. I know not about the rest of you, but I for one am inclined to believe Mikal of Astrosphere."

Landor nodded vigorously while Mikal mopped his brow. "Well spoken, Torque the Cook," said Landor. "We've all heard these stories Torque has mentioned. Obviously we never could think of outsiders before we knew the Revelers, or anyone else, for that matter, existed. I, Landor, take my stand with Torque. Mikal of Astrosphere may come and go in peace until he is satisfied with what he has learned from the Noahs."

"Yes! Yes!" Marlyn shouted from her seat.

A general clamoring developed, and once more Landor had the youth strike the great gong lustily. "A show of hands," called Landor, "to determine— wait. Does someone else wish to speak?"

"Peldot the Farmer," said a gaunt man close to the rostrum. "As yet, I have decided neither one way or the other. If Mikal of Astrosphere claims knowledge of four worlds and not one, perhaps he can tell us of the place called Urth."

"Urth." His final word was chorused a dozen times in the hall. "Tell us of Urth."

Mikal shook his head at Landor. "They would grant me a knowledge I don't possess," he whispered. "We have our legends of Urth, but no one knows for sure what it is or where, or if it has any existence aside from legend."

Landor scowled. "That is unfortunate. A lot might depend on what you can tell my people of the place called Urth. Our legends tell of a great world far, far bigger than all of the Jungle, a world called Urth. I know this sounds fantastic, but somehow you lived on the outside instead of the inside. No one can explain why, but you did not fall off."

"We have such a legend," cried Mikal, hardly aware that he spoke aloud and everyone was listening again. "The oldest legend of my people tells of this place called Urth and the wonders to be found there. As Landor said, people lived on the outside and sometimes used great winged machines to go from place to place swifter than the wind. Wind," Mikal paused over the strange word which was part of the legend, "is something very swift, I don't know what."

"We have wind in the Jungle," said Landor proudly. "It is a blowing of air."

"Well, we do not have it in Astrosphere. Anyway, long ago, it is written, the fathers of our ancestors' fathers set forth from this Urth, embarking, as nearly as we can understand, in a great expanse of emptiness. Here the legend is confused. It is written in the newer books that our ancestors finally came here to Astro-sphere, the Jungle and the other places of the world and live to this day. But it is written in the older books that we are still journeying, that Astrosphere and the other sections are even now moving to some unknown destination.

"Today, few people in Astrosphere will take the legend as history. Most feel inclined to believe some hidden secrets lie buried in the writing, if we could but find them. As for myself," concluded Mikal, mildly embarrassed to find himself telling them his most secret thoughts, "I like the legend. I believe the legend is true. I believe this world of ours is a great —a great vessel of some kind, taking us from the Urth our ancestors once knew to some other place. To another Urth, perhaps. I believe we will reach that new Urth someday, or our children after us."

They shouted and stamped their feet and whistled. They said:

"He tells it far better than our storytellers!"

"Spoken thus, I could believe the old legend."

"He is no Reveler. The Revelers, I hear, laugh at the old legends and say nothing exists but what you can see, bounded by the walls of the world."

"No Reveler!"

"Mikal of Astrosphere, we welcome you among us."

Landor smiled wearily. "It appears as if you have convinced them, lad."

"I never dreamed," Mikal laughed in relief, "that they would be so interested in the old legend. I could keep on talking about that all day."

"Then better you don't let them hear you say that, for they will have you talking all day. My people love those old legends."

"So do I," Mikal admitted.

"Then tell me this: do you really believe what you said?"

"Why, yes. Yes, I do. Not many in Astrosphere consider the legend anything more than a pretty story, but sometimes someone thinks to ask himself what lies outside beyond the walls and—"

"Outside?"

"Yes, on the other side of the walls."

"Other side?" It was a concept difficult to grasp.

"Through the walls.In back of them. If you say nothing, nothing lies out there, that is one answer. If you say the walls go on forever, that is another. I never even told my father this, but I believe the real answer lies someplace in the middle. There is something; there is nothing. And there is this place called Urth."

"For one of your years you harbor deep thoughts."

"Maybe it is because I'm young," said Mikal. "All that we learn from our fathers, who learned from their fathers, need not be true. Yet we hear it so often we get to believe it eventually. Maybe if we start thinking for ourselves when we're young we will one day arrive at the truth."

"But to claim the older generation knows nothing—"

"I don't," Mikal said avidly. "They know more than I do, of course. But what I mean is this: everything they know may not be correct. One wrong idea leads to another, and—"

"And," Landor finished for him, "the whole fabric of our science and history could be wrong as a result. Why, until the Revelers began to invade with their schemes and games and ideas, we never dreamed anything or anyone existed outside this Jungle of ours. Now the Revelers, and you, Mikal, after tonight, have opened a whole new world for us. Would it be too impossible to assume that is still not the half of it? Can the old legends hold more truth in them than all the science we possess today?"

"I don't know," Mikal admitted. "I want to find out. On this Journey I am supposed to find a trophy in each world and bring it back to Astrosphere with me. But the trophies can wait; I want to find facts. I want to learn a little here and a little there and try to put everything together, and if it ever makes any sense at all, then I think it will make sense like the legends we read and then consider only as quaint stories. Landor, did you ever—ever want to believe in things?"

"One must believe in something, lad."

"I mean big things. Important things. Sometimes if you want hard enough to believe in things you do believe. I hope you don't think I'm talking like a child. But I want to believe. I believe. I believe in this place called Urth, Landor. Urth exists—somewhere. I believe that here in this world of ours is the answer; perhaps in the Place of Revelers or in Far Labry. I want to find that answer, Landor."

Marlyn had joined them moments before and now she stood listening, eyes rapt upon Mikal. "Father," she said, blushing, "tell me how we ever could have been so wrong about a person. Mikal, a Reveler. Even the thought of it is ridiculous, once you hear him talk."

Landor smiled. "That, too, strikes me as part of what Mikal has said all along: don't take things for granted. Don't accept facts which have no solid foundation. Even Mikal is at fault. He failed to tell us before what he has told us now, so how were we to know?"

"You make me sound like a Scholar," Mikal laughed, "and honestly, I'm not. I merely have an idea I want to believe, and until I find all the facts I'm willing to stretch a point or two. I have to."

"That is precisely what Marlyn did," declared Landor. "She trussed you up as a result, and marched you off a prisoner." Landor shook his head. "You young people can't remain consistent for a moment."

"We don't have to," said Marlyn, winking at Mikal. "It's more fun this way."

"Seriously," Mikal told Landor, "until I find all the facts I will stretch a point when I have to. To learn about a place called Urth, it's worth anything."

"A place called Urth," Landor mused. "If only we knew. Urth."

Chapter 7mn*P*&

I

ANDOR TURNED to face his waiting people. He raised both hands for silence, then said, "Do we agree upon Mikal of Astrosphere?" The waves of sound beating upon the rostrum were almost all in the affirmative. When Mikal looked again upon the vast sea of faces, the hostility, whether he had imagined it or otherwise, had vanished. Smiles stared down at him, friendly eyes appraised him, voices blended with other voices asked a multitude of eager questions.

Gesturing toward the crowd all around them, Marlyn said, "It seems you lose either way, Mikal. Now it looks as if your Journey must end because you will remain here in the Jungle all your life answering questions."

"Try and find me," Mikal said, and smiled. "I've got work to do."

"He has a place called Urth to find," Landor told his daughter, "and—"

"Listen to them," Marlyn said. "They want you to tell them more, Mikal."

It was because Maryln told him to listen that Mikal's eyes swept the crowd again. The row on row of people awaited his words expectantly, but . . .

Something was wrong!

Mikal hardly had time to realize it. Several dozen figures had detached themselves from the now-orderly assembly, had climbed the rows of benches and assigned themselves one per man the many torches

whichbrought almost the light of day into the Hall. One of the standing men raised his hand aloft; they all raised their hands and held them there. When the first man brought his hand down, Mikal cried a warning, suspecting at the last moment what was afoot. His warning fell on sudden chaos.

Allthe other hands swept downward too.

Eachof the men stationed one at every flaming torch might have been carved from the identical mold. Hands flashed down, reached under cloaks and came up with large, tapering cones. Simultaneously, the cones soared upward, then dipped down over the torches.

Alllight was snuffed out in an instant.

Mikalgroped about helplessly, realized that the hundreds on hundreds of Noahs had been rendered equally helpless. He stumbled against Marlyn in the dark, knew it was the girl only because she called out in alarm.

Someonein the crowd yelled hoarsely. Someone else caught it up. Scores of voices shouted in the complete darkness. Mikal could picture blindly groping figures jostling one another, pushing, tripping, falling. He called to Marlyn:

"Marlyn,can you hear me? Stay here on the rostrum. It's safest."

"Butwhat could all this mean?" Landor demanded.

Mikalfrowned his confusion at the darkness. "Why, I thought you mightknow."

"Hardly,"said Landor. Mikal heard him moving about, an uncertain treading of feet against the background of general pandemonium.

"Did you hear what I said, Marlyn?" Mikal asked. No answer.

"Strange," said Landor, alarm in his voice. "Marlyn? Marlyn!"

Mikal suddenly tensed himself in the complete blackness. There was the sound Landor's feet made, and the scuffling of other feet as well. It all seemed so unreal there in the complete blackness, with the angry, frightened sounds of the assembly far away, as in a dream.

Those other footfalls—Marlyn?

No.

Too many of them, too heavy. This was only Mikal's third encounter with darkness, and the fears of his first night in the Jungle returned. The night had covered a multitude of strange new things in the Jungle, animal sounds and bird sounds and the rustling noise of something slipping through the undergrowth. What sounds did night cover here and now? Night which had been brought on abruptly and without warning, in a calculated maneuver?

"Who's there?" Mikal called softly, afraid of the sound his own voice made.

"Yes," said Landor, "I hear—"

"Who is it?" Mikal demanded again, pirouetting about the rostrum in widening circles. He collided with something, heard Landor grumble his name. He struck something else, felt it stiffen and freeze. Tentatively he reached out again, then leaped forward.

He could feel his arms wrap around a man's body, could feel the man give ground. But all at once something slammed against his face with brutal force and he felt himself stumbling back, crashing into Landor, sprawling heavily on the floor. When Mikal rose to his feet he knew without searching that the rostrum would be empty of anyone save Landor and himself. Mikal rubbed the side of his jaw ruefully. Whoever it had been certainly knew how to punch.

"Strike a light!" Landor roared. "Someone strike a light."

Mikal leaped off the rostrum and plunged wildly into the crowd. "Marlyn!" he cried. And again: "Marlyn." It was useless. Other people, confused, frightened people, called other names. Mikal was borne forward in the surging crowd, whirled and eddied about. "Someone strike a light!" he heard Landor call again from far away.

"Tliko, is that you?"

"Stay where you are, Pawl; I'm coming."

"Hordon! Hordon, where are you?"

"It is the Revelers!" someone thought to say, and said it, Mikal knew despairingly, without realizing the consequences. The thought had been in the back of his mind ever since Landor had claimed no knowledge of what had happened, but to say it . . .

"The Revelers!"

"Here, you—take your hands off me." "The Revelers have come!"

It seemed hours later when a man finally struck flame to one of the torches and with it, the others. It took another hour for order to be restored, what with people running back and forth looking for other people, shouting, laughing hysterically when they met and embraced. The darkness did not bring such fear, thought Mikal, not to people accustomed to such darkness every night of their lives. Then was it the Revelers? Bolder with every day grew the Reveler raids. Landor had said so and Landor knew what he was talking about. Perhaps almost every man, woman and child in the crowd had kept the same thoughts buried deep in his mind, unwilling to voice them. Then one man had shouted the dread word and it had started. If fear and uncertainty were Reveler weapons, then they wielded them most effectively.

Gradually the crowd centered about the speaker's rostrum. Men with many sheets of paper stepped forward, mounted the rostrum, called long rolls of names. Dawn brought pale fingers of amber to the sky by the time the name calling was finished. Landor was very pale through it all, waiting, Mikal suspected, with futile hope for the list of ranchers to be called. Finally a voice cried out:

"Marlyn, daughter of Landor the Rancher."

Silence.

"Musner the Foreman." "Here."

Landor shook his head. "Marlyn," he whispered. "Marlyn. . . ."

The roll calling came to an end and Landor spoke to a hushed audience. He held his head high and spoke in a deep, solemn voice, and if it quavered once or twice, who could blame him? He spoke briefly and to the point, reciting only facts. Mikal listened, mentally tabulating as he did so:

Item—The Revelers have made their boldest raid to date, striking the Town itself, and during a meeting of the Town Council.

Item—It made sense. Realizing no one would notice them in the huge throngs, the Revelers must have infiltrated, waited their chance, then simply covered everything with a cloak of darkness and escaped.

Item—Fourteen Noahs, all young men and women, had been kidnaped.

Landor concluded: "I don't know what to do. At the moment I am only a poor father who has lost his daughter and who wishes he knew a way to retrieve her. I ask advice of the Council."

The Council meant everyone. All types of advice were forthcoming.

"We could go after them."

"Not with that head start—"

"Then why did we wait?"

"Foolish, we had to make sure, to take stock of our losses, to—"

"I still say go after them!" "Yes!"

"Track them down!"

Landor gestured for silence. "Not while they have

our loved ones," he said grimly. "If the purpose of

pursuit is to retrieve those we have lost, and if we

can't predict the Revelers' reaction to pursuit, I say >»

no.

"Landor's right." "Listen to Landor." "But what then?"

"If only we had some idea, some—"

"Wait a moment. This is Sacher the Cobbler talking." Sacher the Cobbler was a short, stooped man with rounded shoulders and sparse graying hair. "My son Birto was lost to the Revelers this night, so I speak from the heart. I say there is perhaps one here who knows more about all this than any of the rest of us. Doesn't it strike anyone as a preposterous coincidence that the man calling himself Mikal of Astro-sphere should have arrived on the eve of the Revelers' boldest attack? Why was Mikal in the Council Hall tonight? Why but to wrap a spell about us with his fancy legends and theories and keep us so occupied that we would not know what was happening until it was too late! There's the man we want!" He pointed dramatically at Mikal, pacing back and forth on the rostrum. "I say Mikal of Astrosphere or Mikal of the Place of Revelers or whoever he is can tell us something about this raid!"

Voices suddenly grown ugly welled up from the crowd massed around the rostrum. Sacher the Cobbler pushed his way through and shook his fist at Mikal. "What do you have to say, Mikal the Reveler?"

Mikal looked helplessly at Landor, but the older man averted his eyes and cleared his throat uncomfortably. It was logical enough, what Sacher had said. Entirely too logical from Mikal's point of view. As the Council began, they all were at least partially convinced a Reveler had come amongst them. As much by luck as by any stratagem, Mikal had convinced them otherwise. But with the black deeds of a Reveler raid paralleling his well-received words, little wonder crowd sentiment had shifted so abruptly. If even Landor looked away and would not bare his thoughts . . .

Mikal shouted, "I told you the truth before."

"Did you now?"

"You and your tales of Urth.A schoolboy's pipe dreams."

"Keeping our attention like that. We ought to . . ."

"Rotten Reveler, stealing our youngsters."

"Wait!" cried Mikal. "Let me—"

It was no use. The crowd surged to the very edge of the rostrum and wavered there. It would not waver long, Mikal knew grimly. One man could lead them; one more outburst from Sacher the Cobbler or someone like him and they would swarm over the rostrum like the insects Mikal had seen his first day in the Jungle.

Landor himself struck the sonorous gong, not once, but half a dozen times. "My people!" he roared ere the last echo had faded away. "Hear me. Hear Landor, your Chief. I grieve with those who grieve the most. My daughter Marlyn is among the missing. But I say to you we cannot condemn this lad in the heat of our excitement, not after we were ready to accept him as a friend in calmer moments."

"He deceived us."

"Reveler!"

"No!" Landor roared. "I cannot say for sure Mikal is not a Reveler. I do not know. But I say this: Mikal must be given every chance to prove his innocence."

"While we wait and let the Revelers have their way in everything."

"We have no choice," said Landor grimly. "What I propose is this: let Mikal go; give him his freedom. Let him go as our emissary to the Revelers."

"Preposterous!"

"No!"

"Landor is a fool!"

"Wait—you are the fool. Landor always has been a sage and good leader. Hear him out."

"You see," Landor went on, "if we send Mikal, there are two alternatives. First, let us assume he is a Reveler. He would simply be going home."

"And good riddance."

"Precisely," said Landor. "But if he is indeed Mikal of Astrosphere, he will be going among the Revelers alone, one man and unarmed. Perhaps he can discover what's behind their actions and some way to stop them."

"Why not one of us?Why not you, Landor?"

"Because Mikal was able to convince us he comes from Astrosphere. Perhaps he can convince the Revelers similiarly, and so seem an objective party to our strife. That is, if he's willing."

The crowd seethed and jostled all around the rostrum. "Better be willing," Landor whispered fiercely in Mikal's ear. "They might tear you apart if you're not. By Urth and all the things you claim to believe, Mikal of Astrosphere, your story had better be true. If it is not, I will track you down to the ends of the Place of Revelers and what lies beyond."

"I will go," Mikal said. "For you and for Marlyn, Landor; not for these people who change their minds and ideas faster than a man can think."

At once, he was sorry. Any group of people, under similar circumstances, would have reacted in like fashion. Things had happened so swiftly that not just the Noahs, but Mikal as well was completely bewildered. If someone said Landor were a Reveler and put up a halfway convincing argument, Mikal suspected his head could have been turned.

". . . so Mikal of Astrosphere will visit the Place of Revelers as our official emissary," Landor was saying.

Sullen silence caught and cushioned his words, and for a time Mikal though they had fallen on deaf or contrary ears. But no debate arose.

"As our emissary, Mikal will deliver this message to the Revelers: We of the Jungle are slow to wrath, but our wrath, once kindled, is not easily extinguished. We demand the safe return of all our people. We demand to be left in peace, before the Revelers find they have started something they never will be able to finish."

Still the sullen silence.

"So be it," said Landor in a tired voice. "There will be no business as usual this meeting. The Town Council is adjourned." He turned to Mikal. "Come."

He led Mikal down off the rostrum and through the crowd. At first the Noahs did not part; rather, they jostled and pushed closer, menacingly. They called ugly taunts, shook their fists, leered, closed in.

"I have spoken!" Landor cried in a terrible voice. "I am your leader. If you see fit to depose me, do so. Until that day, when I make a decision—I don't very often, not without your council—you will obey. Stand aside."

The crowd milled about, undecided. One path led to delay, to a possible solution. The other led to chaos. They hovered, leaning first one way, then the other.

"Make way!" shouted someone. It was Torque the Cook. "Make way for Landor the Rancher and Mikal of Astrosphere."

The crowd parted. A lane formed, and Landor hurried down it with Mikal. Behind them the crowd dispersed into little groups. There was talk, angry talk, and it would go on through the day. Few heads would touch pillows until the following evening, Mikal guessed.

They reached the broad thoroughfare, set out upon it. They turned off on the avenue that led to Landor's cousin's house, reached the house and went inside.

"Lock it," Landor told his cousin, pointing to the door. Landor's cousin was an infirm man who did not venture out much, hence he had not been to the Town Council.

"I have a lock, cousin. Here in town we have locks on our doors, but we hardly ever use them."

"You will use it this day, cousin. Shutter the windows."

"But-"

"Please. I am tired and must sleep if I am to think straight. Marlyn is gone, kidnaped by the Revelers. An angry crowd may be here at any time, demanding this boy. I don't know if we can trust him or not, but we've got to try. Lock the door."

"Yes, cousin.Y-yes."

Landor stretched out his big body wearily on a sofa. "Mikal, if you are lying ... I hope for your sake you are not."

Outside in the streets, new angry crowds were forming.

Mikal watched Landor's pale cousin lean far out over the window sills, straining with the effort as he pulled large wooden shutters in with him, slammed them shut and bolted them. "Somewhere there is a device which makes rain," said Landor's cousin.

"What's that?" Mikal asked him, interested. "What is rain?"

"Rain is—why, rain. Water spilling from the ceiling. Anyway, somewhere there is this machine and it is said we once knew how to control it. Now, however, the old art is lost. I at least have never heard of anyone who can make rain when he wants. So it rains every now and then, unexpectedly. Sometimes a terrible storm comes, and that is why we have these stout shutters."

Stout they were, and almost as soundproof as the spongy plastics which coated walls and ceilings in Astrosphere classrooms to keep the great throbbing sounds of machinery out. Sitting in the cousin's house, Mikal could not hear the noise of the people out on the streets.

Landor had sprawled limply on the sofa, and Mikal could hear him breathing deeply and regularly. Mikal felt weary himself, but sleep was out of the question. He feared for his safety only in a vague fashion. Other things, more important things, chased one another through his mind. Somehow he knew that the world always hadn't been this way, neatly compartmented into four sections, each doubtful of the others' existence. Somehow he suspected a sort of co-operative effort on the part of the people of the four sections. Perhaps, in that dim day before history and from which legend alone remained, the sections did work together and so were able to understand mysteries like what the world actually was and the nature of the place called Urth. Mikal found himself daydreaming of that time, when he knew he should be thinking of a hundred other things. If that time could come again, if people could be made to understand each other and trust each other, what wonders might they not achieve?

Milcal felt giddy with desire. All his life he had groped about, more with his imagination than with anything else, for the answers to a score of burning questions. Now he knew the answers did in truth exist—but to find them he would have to piece together something from Astrosphere with something from the Jungle and add to them, probably, still undreamed of things he could learn in the Place of Revelers and Far Labry.

If he ever reached them.

It was a full circle. He must go about the more concrete business of remaining alive and in one piece if he ever wanted to find out anything. From Landor's well-meaning but infirm cousin he could expect no help. And Landor? Landor hardly trusted him, had merely placated the crowd out of expediency. Landor had said as much: the Noahs had no place to turn, unless Mikal could help them. In setting Mikal free they had nothing to lose, for one Reveler more or less would not alter the Reveler policy—whatever that was. As a matter of fact, Mikal hardly knew what it was, except that the Noahs seemed opposed to it violently because it encroached upon their . . . their what? Freedom? Way of life? Beliefs? Mikal did not know. This, then, joined a long line of other mysteries which needed solving.

Step one, reach the Place of Revelers. Step two, to be determined if and when.

"Landor, get up." Mikal shook the older man's shoulder. Landor squirmed, rubbed his eyes. "Eh? Oh, Mikal. Have I been asleep long?"

"No. I think we'd better get started."

"We? My people need me, Mikal."

"You don't understand. I merely need a guide as far as the way to the Place of Revelers. I'll go alone."

"You mean you do not know the way?"

"I'm new here."

"Still, if you young men of Astrosphere made this Journey, do you have no maps, no charts?"

"No maps," said Mikal. "No charts. As far as I know, such things do not exist. Here in the Jungle I am supposed to find the way to the Place of Revelers. That would be some means of ascending to the ceiling of your section of the world, Landor. For it is there I must go."

"I know. I know. Although without the coming of the Revelers, I never would have suspected."

"Then you know such a place?"

"Yes. Far from here, as far as my ranch but in the opposite direction there is a hill. We call it Needle Mountain, for from a distance that is what it looks like, a great needle. Yet up close one can see the handholds, the clefts and ridges which make ascent possible. Needle Mountain can be scaled, if the need arises, though before the coming of the Revelers few people ever would have thought to try it.

"The Revelers come down that way, and some of my people have climbed Needle Mountain. A door is there, in the roof of the world; can you believe it? But it is locked and we cannot open it."

"I can," said Mikal, removing the slim silver key from his pouch of three. "This key unbars the way to the Place of Revelers. But tell me, if you know the Revelers come down Needle Mountain, why don't your people post a guard around it?"

Landor shook his head. "We tried that. They simply stopped using Needle Mountain and came through some unknown path. It is as if the Revelers have the power to walk through walls. Indeed, some people claim they have. I tell you, Mikal, these Revelers . . . but perhaps I am wasting my breath. Perhaps you know more about them than I could ever hope to know, because you have lived among them all your life."

"I won't argue with you," Mikal told him. "We went over all that ground before."

"But the coincidence—"

"I heard Sacher the Cobbler too."

"And Marlyn taken ... as if you led them to her."

"Marlyn and almost a score of others, Landor. I can't make you believe me, but I can try. I'll do everything in my power to bring Marlyn back for you. I guess I feel responsible, but not the way you think. If I had never come here, if Marlyn hadn't captured me, if you hadn't brought me to the Town Council..."

"We'd have come anyway. I preside, you forget."

"Still, maybe Marlyn would have sat somewhere else, wouldn't have mounted the rostrum when she did. I'D bring her back to you, Landor."

Landor stood up, grasped Mikal's shoulders in his two big hands. "I believe you will. Either you're the best liar whoever said a word to me, or—by Urth, I trust you, Mikal!" Landor turned and shouted into another room. "Cousin! Oh, cousin. Pack food for our friend Mikal, much food. And hurry." To Mikal he said, "There's no telling what those Revelers may have to eat."

"But your people prepare all the food."

"So we do," said Landor, shaking his head as if still surprised the food his cooks and bakers placed upon the disappearing conveyor belts actually reached some destination. "Head in a direction opposite my ranch, Mikal. If along the way you have any trouble or need help, tell anyone you meet Landor the Rancher sent you. If they recognize you as Mikal of Astrosphere, have that glib young tongue of yours ready, lad, for yours is not the most popular name in all the Jungle. Have a care with those Revelers. It is said they are sharp and shrewd tradesmen, dealing not in livestock and produce but in human minds and emotions."

Landor's cousin came with the food, as well as a pile of Noah garments draped across his arm. "I couldn't help overhearing, cousin," he said. "Perhaps your young friend will be less conspicuous in these."

"Why, yes!" Landor snorted. "Should have thought of it myself."

"Very well," said Mikal. "I'll wear them, but I had better take my own along—that is, if you want the Revelers to believe I can be both your emissary and a neutral observer at the same time."

"To be sure," said Landor, clucking his tongue. "Well, Mikal-"

"Yes, I'm ready."

"Good luck, lad. All the Noahs wish you that, without knowing it."

Mikal thanked him, peered through a chink in one

of the shutters. People still milled in the streets, but if they watched Landor's cousin's house more closely than the others, he did not notice it. He would need good luck, all right. There was no telling what he might need between here and Far Labry and back to Astrosphere, if the trouble between Noahs and Revelers served as an indication.

When Mikal poked his head cautiously out into the street, someone shouted: "There's the Reveler!"

Mikal ducked down a side alley and fled.

Needle Mountain

W

HEN MARLYN, daughter of Landor the Rancher, saw the Council Hall plunged into darkness, she immediately thought some of the Noahs had done it, possibly to discredit Mikal in some way. Her ideas on the subject were vague: how such action would discredit Mikal she did not know, but she decided to relight the torches herself before the situation got out of hand.

Already she could hear mutterings of surprise among her people. Feeling her way along slowly, she found the edge of the rostrum, climbed down and groped her way along in the crowd. People jostled her on all sides and before long she heard someone shout: "The Revelers!"

It was a possibility she had not considered, for although many claimed the Revelers would grow bold enough to attack the Town itself, the idea seemed unreal to her.

She stumbled against someone in the darkness, said she was sorry.

"That's all right. Uh, how old are you?" What a ridiculous question! "Eighteen," Marlyn found herself answering mechanically, "but why—" Rough hands grabbed her, a pair from either side. She cried out, but felt something thrown over her head, heard a voice say, "I've got one, Rolf. Let's go!"

Struggling futilely, she was borne aloft, imagined she must be held on someone's shoulder. She writhed and kicked, then subsided when she realized it was

useless. Whoever carried her knew exactly where he was going, for in a very short time they had left the noise of the crowded Hall behind them. Once on the street the sack was removed from Marlyn's head and she started yelling again, soon gave it up as hopeless. No one was about. No one would hear her.

Marlyn took stock of her situation. Her hands had been bound and she smiled when she remembered she had taken Mikal in almost the same fashion. Someone carried her on his shoulder like a sack of grain.

"Will you walk?" he demanded.

"Where are we going?"

"Will you walk without trying to escape?"

Well, it would be far more comfortable, and she remembered, again with a smile, that she and Landor had extracted the same promise from Mikal regarding his fettered hands.

Marlyn nodded. "Put me down," she said, feeling herself eased to the ground almost at once. One end of the rope securing her wrists trailed behind, and this the man held firmly.

"Good," he said.

Marlyn looked about in the dim light. Her captor she could not see, for he walked behind her, but off some little distance to the left walked another two men. The one to the rear was tall and long-limbed, but Marlyn could not see his face. The one in front, a rope trailing from his bound arms, turned every few steps to squint nervously and nearsightedly at his captor. That face she recognized. Gaunt, long-nosed, a small, pouting mouth, round spectacles perched askew on bridge of nose. "Why—why it's Birto, son of Sacher the Cobbler."

"Marlyn?" Birto whined in a high treble. "Marlyn, where are they taking us?" "I don't know. I can guess." "You mean—"

"I can't be sure," Marlyn admitted. "If they're Revelers, I'd say they are going home." "Marlyn, I'm afraid."

"It won't do you any good, Birto. Calm down."

Birto's myopic squint squeezed itself into a frown. "I always wondered why they took our people. I never dreamed it would happen to me. It was one thing to wonder where they took people you knew; it's something else to be taken yourself."

Marlyn grinned. "At least now you'll find out."

"Faster, you two." It was the man who held Birto's rope.

Birto stumbled and fell. Marlyn guessed it was deliberate.

"Get up, young man! We have to hurry."

"My leg," said Birto. "I am hurt. Now you will have to take someone else." Marlyn saw him play-act at hobbling.

"I'll carry you if I must. Move along."

Birto took a step and sprawled out upon the ground, but much too carefully, Marlyn thought, probing cautiously, then alighting almost gently.

"Really," said the man holding Birto's rope. "Get

"I can't," Birto lied hopefully.

"As you wish," the man said wearily. He lifted Birto as if he were weightless and carried him along, head tilted precariously toward the ground. "Do you find this better?"

"No!" Birto pleaded.

"If I set you down will you walk and quit complaining?"

"M-most assuredly," said Birto, his face almost upside down.

He was set upon his feet with a jarring thump, and Marlyn could not help laughing, although she knew Birto must have found the situation anything but funny. The man holding Birto's rope laughed with her, which made her scowl. If this—this Reveler found it amusing, she would not. "Do you always laugh when other people are hurt and frightened?" she demanded.

The man still laughed. "It depends upon the circumstances, young woman, entirely on the circumstances."

"I think you would find some pity—" "I merely carry out my assigned job." "As a kidnaper?"

"As a teacher," said the man. "You're lucky. You'll get to see a real world where we are going." "I suppose you don't like the Jungle." "True enough."

"Well, I do. That's something you probably wouldn't understand, that people could like something you don't."

"Have you ever been to the Place of Revelers?"

"You know I have not."

"Then how do you know you won't like it?"

"I never said I wouldn't. But if you are any indication of the people there, I can give you my answer now."

The man holding her rope pulled on it, saying,

"Less talk. Walk faster." Then to his companion: "Engage them in all the conversation you like later, Rolf. Now we've got to hurry." "Of course."

And they plodded on in silence.

Presently they left the Town entirely, and the man named Rolf lit a strange torch. Marlyn had never seen anything like it, a small club of some hard, shiny wood .... No, it wasn't wood, either ... of some hard, shiny substance which glowed at one end and lit the way for them better than any torch Marlyn had ever seen.

Marlyn heard voices ahead of them, outside the range of their light. "Rolf? Stiv? Is that you?"

"Yes," Rolf called softly.

"Splendid. You're the last."

Marlyn was ushered into what she at first thought was a small building of some sort, but in the light of half a dozen of the torches she saw it stood on four wheels. They all climbed inside. There she heard voices—angry, confused, bewildered. She recognized some of them, suspected all the faces would be familiar if she could see them clearly. The Revelers had made quite a haul this night.

"I want to go home," said Birto bleakly.

"I'll drive," Rolf told someone. Marlyn found herself directed to a chair against one wall. She sat down next to Birto, looked around and saw that the interior of the building—vehicle?—had an aisle running down its center and another row of double chairs on the other side. Up front, Rolf sat down at a single chair facing a great window. He deftly manipulated some strange levers and wheels, and Marlyn felt the seat jar under her. Something at the rear of the building —in a moment she would consider it a vehicle perma-nendy—purred softly, then louder.

All at once they were moving, gliding smoothly out over the meadow, traveling faster than Marlyn ever dreamed possible, far faster than the tramcars which took you down from the steep hills overlooking the Town.

"Help!" Birto shrilled. "We'll fly apart."

Other voices shouted, screamed. But after her first wild fear, Marlyn relaxed. The man named Rolf knew what he was doing, apparently, and this certainly was superior to any conveyance or mode of travel in all the Jungle. Wherever they were going, they would get there in a hurry. More curious than alarmed, Marlyn sat back and watched the terrain speed by as fingers of dawn probed the ceiling through the window to her right.

Mikal had never done so much running in all his life. In Astrosphere there was hardly anyplace to run to, certainly nothing to run from. But since the moment he had peered through the doorway of Landor's cousin's house and heard someone shout "Reveler!" he had been running almost constantly.

They knew the Town far better than he did. Running in circles, he had become lost, had to both keep himself hidden and find his way at the same time. If he looked out beyond the edge of the Town, though, he could see the great hill with its tramcars, and he knew Needle Mountain lay far off in the other direction. He found back streets, alleys, small apertures between crowded buildings, although for the most part a wide lawn separated each structure from the one flanking it on either side. "The Reveler! There!"

He ducked down one of the apertures, found to his dismay it led to a stone wall. He heard voices faintly at the opening. Trapped!

A window creaked up, a head peered out at him. The window seemed ridiculous, there in the chink between buildings. Apparently one of the structures had stood alone, had later found one of its walls blocked off.

"Mikal of Astrosphere, quick!"

The voice was familiar, and the face. Mikal gaped. It was Torque the Cook, who had opened the path for him and Landor when the crowd had threatened to crush them. "Quickly, Mikal."

Mikal took two swift strides, reached the window. He jumped, caught the sill, chinned himself up. Torque's capable hands caught his shoulders and helped draw him inside. "Sit on the floor," said Torque the Cook. "Be still."

Moments later, someone was knocking at the window. Mikal watched as Torque got it up and demanded, "Well, what it is? After last night, I would like some sleep. Must you carry on all night and all day as well?"

"We seek Mikal the Reveler."

"Then find him and let me sleep."

"We thought he came in this alley."

"Indeed?" Torque had missed his profession, unless they had no actors or plays in the Jungle, thought Mikal. As a matter of fact, Astrosphere itself only dabbled occasionally in the theatrical art. General enthusiasm had never been kindled. "Why he should choose this narrow alley," Torque was saying, "I'll never know. Well, then drag him out and let me go back to bed." "He's not here."

"I thought you said he came down this alley." "That's what we thought."

Torque growled, stuck his head out the window, turning in one direction, then the other. "I don't see Mikal the Reveler," he said.

"Apparently we were mistaken, Torque."

"Then by all the delicacies my stove knows every day, will you let me sleep? You'll get scrapings from Torque's oven, otherwise."

"We're sorry, Torque. We thought—"

"That what's-his-name the Reveler came this way. Well, he did not. But do me a favor, please. Find him fast and spirit him away even faster, for I want no disturbances."

"Yes, Torque. Sorry, Torque."

And they departed.

"There," said Torque the Cook, closing the window behind him and turning to face Mikal, "it isn't too difficult when you know what you are about. Did we not befuddle them completely?"

"You did," Mikal said. "For which I thank you, 1 orque.

"Well, don't thank me. If we Noahs decided to do something, time was we'd do it. Since the coming of the Revelers, though, there is nothing you can depend upon any longer. If Landor, our Chief, says one thing and issues it as one of his rare orders, and if the Council does not see fit to depose him on the spot, they should obey his edict. That is why I, Torque the Cook, have helped you. Also, Mikal, Torque must have a soft spot in his head somewhere, because last night I found myself believing your story. Perhaps because it is as you have said, I wanted to believe."

I'm grateful," said Mikal sincerely. "It appears I entered the Jungle at the wrong time."

"You can say that again, lad. Unless you can help us, as Landor thinks . . ."

"Well—" and Mikal stood up. "I guess it's safe to go now. Again, Torque, many thanks."

"You wait. Just you wait." Torque disappeared into another room, returned in a moment with a bowl of something which steamed and smelled delicious. "Better eat something good while you can. You don't think Torque the Cook places his best dishes on the conveyor belt, do you? Here, eat this."

Mikal certainly was hungry, and he sat down to the meal gratefully. It was meat, but he knew not what kind. It had a thick sauce that Torque the Cook alone could make. "Ummm," Mikal mumbled between savory mouthfuls. "Ummm, delicious."

"Don't talk while you chew, not one of Torque's dishes. They are meant to be explored and eaten like some rare new pleasure. Do you now wonder why Torque is considered the best cook of all the Noahs?"

"Not in the slight—"

"Quiet! Eat your food. You see, cooking, like many arts, is underrated in many circles, and—"

Eating and trying hard to cover his smile, Mikal heard a lecture on the wonders of the gastronomical world. Torque, at least, was a man well satisfied with his occupation.

Mikal finished, set the empty dish down. "Refill?" Torque demanded eagerly.

"No, thank you. I must be on my way."

"But surely one more dish of—"

"Landor wanted me to hurry," Mikal reminded Torque. "I want to reach Needle Mountain today, if possible."

"It's a long trek."

"I know. Good-by, Torque."

Torque led the way to his front door, opened it slowly and looked outside. "The way is clear," he said. "Luck to you, Mikal of Astrosphere."

Mikal thanked him again and departed. Apparently the furor had abated considerably, for the streets seemed almost deserted. Mikal made it to the edge of town without being seen, then set out across the broad meadowland, which spread out on all sides of him until, in the far distances, it seemed almost to climb toward the ceiling before it disappeared in haze.

All at once Mikal paused. What were those strange marks in the dusty roadside? Two of them running parallel, each a complex pattern of crisscrossed lines and ridges. Something had made that track there, but Mikal did not know what. Something which rolled. Round objects, at least two of them, perhaps more in double series. And heavy. To leave such an imprint the objects would have to be extremely heavy. It was so strange that Mikal almost wanted to forget temporarily about Needle Mountain and follow the mysterious track. After all, the Journey of the Four Circles was precisely for this sort of thing: find something strange, follow it, learn about it, increase your knowledge. But he had given Landor his word. Besides, he wanted no harm to befall Marlyn or any of the others, and although he had decided to reserve judgment on the Revelers until he encountered them face to face, they plainly seemed the aggressors in this strife.

Perhaps he'd learn about the tracks at some other time. If not, there were other mysteries. Needle Mountain probably held some of its own.

Before Mikal got two-thirds of the way to Needle Mountain, the ceiling opened up and spilled out a torrent of water. It drenched Mikal almost immediately. What was it someone had mentioned? Something called rain? A spilling of water from the ceiling unpredictably?

In no time the dusty roadside was transformed Into a quagmire. Distantly, Mikal heard some unseen cattle, sheep or other animals complaining against the rain. Mikal trudged on, his feet slipslopping through the mud. Here was another mystery, all right, and it might turn out a very fortunate one if it chased most of the farmers and ranchers indoors. Mikal must remember the feeling of this rain. He must remember everything about it: the clean way it smelled, the cool feel of it on his skin, the thrumming sound as it struck the roadside, the sighing as it spilled down on the grasses of the meadow.

For this was newness, this was strangeness—this was what he had come to the Jungle for, and he must remember it always and be able to tell people about it or consider his Journey a total loss. Still how could they hope to understand if they had not seen for themselves? "The ceiling opened up," he could imagine himself saying, "and water spilled forth." They would ask: "How? In buckets? Like from a tap?" No, not like that at all. How could he describe the steady downpour of millions and millions of droplets, the constant thrumming and sighing, the way the tall grasses bent before the onslaught of the water drops? Why they did not even know what grass was! Clearly, thought Mikal, one must experience things himself to appreciate them. More than ever he felt it wrong for there to be tradition and passageways and locked doors which kept people from one section of the world permanently separated from the other section. If he had to, he would spend all his life trying to convince his people.

Abruptly, the rain ceased. Tiny streamlets gushed down the roadside with Mikal, rushing on aimlessly until they became absorbed by the ground. And then, and then he tried to remember what the rain was like, exactly what it was like, and discovered he could not. People would have to see things for themselves, and not once but many times.

"Hallo!" called a shepherd tending his flocks. He waved his staff in friendly greeting, not much more than a dot far away across the meadow.

"Hallol" Mikal called back, waving his hand. He smiled, for he knew the shepherd would never guess he had called to Mikal, either of Astrosphere or the Place of Revelers, according to his point of view.

Mikal reached Needle Mountain before darkness. He saw it from a long way off, a great jagged spire thrusting its pinnacle up at the ceiling of the Jungle. A huge, naked rock it was, bare of vegetation or even the rich brown loam of the Jungle, Gray, black, craggy—foreboding. Mikal hurried on, his breath coming fast but not from exertion alone.

Needle Mountain, and the way to the Revelers. He'd hardly seen the Jungle at all, still had much to see and learn. Now the Place of Revelers beckoned with its strange portal, and the Jungle could wait. Marlyn? Was Marlyn even now somewhere on the other side, up and beyond Needle Mountain? It seemed logical enough, but it was hard to visualize. The world consisted of four circles, the ceiling of one leading to the floor of the next, with Astrosphere as the outermost, the rim, then the Jungle, the Place of Revelers, and at the very center, strangely and impossibly with no ceiling at all, Far Labry. Mikal wondered if the people of Far Labry ever suspected what went on far below their feet. He knew with certainty he must try to find the answer one day.

"Hello there. Who are you?"

Mikal stopped in his tracks. He had reached the base of Needle Mountain, which reared steep and menacingly far overhead. A man stood there, stout club in hand. Landor had told him Needle Mountain was guarded.

"I—" He was about to announce himself as Mikal of Astrosphere, but thought better of it. In all probability this man had not been to the Town Council, for Mikal had traveled swiftly. On the other hand, a messenger might have been sent to Needle Mountain, and despite Landor's edict on the subject, Mikal hardly could consider himself a popular figure among the Noahs.

"I merely came to see Needle Mountain, about which I have heard so much."

"Strange. I don't know you." Mikal shrugged. "Do you know everyone?" "Certainly. Oh, not by name. But by sight. Just who are you?" "Mikal, son of Saml," Mikal said truthfully enough. "From where?"

"Far on the other side of the Jungle."

"Near the ranch of Landor?"

Mikal nodded vigorously. "Yes, Landor's place is as close to mine as any in the Jungle. I have come to try my skill at climbing Needle Mountain."

"You cannot." The guard was a large man, big of bone and big of sinew. If he said no and was willing to back up words with his brawn and his club, Mikal would find a greater obstacle in his path than the mere climbing of Needle Mountain.

"I only want to see if I can do it."

"I don't make the laws around here, son. No one is permitted to climb Needle Mountain, and for good reason. Would you like to fall into the hands of the Revelers."

"Well—" began Mikal.

"Let me tell you something. If you're from as far away as you claim, you may not know it. The Revelers perch atop Needle Mountain. Some claim they can almost see them there. If you go up they will grab you."

"Ill take my chances," said Mikal.

"Not while I guard this place, you won't. Move along, son."

Mikal stood his ground. Close behind where the guard stood he saw a place where he might secure hand and footholds and begin his perilous climb. The guard was large, almost stout. Once on his way up Mikal doubted the man could overtake him.

"Look," he said in mock alarm. "Look there!"

"What? What is it?"

"Revelers!" Mikal fairly screamed and scampered up the base of Needle Mountain when the guard turned, shaded his eyes from the bright daylight and peered in the direction Mikal had indicated.

"I don't see any—hey! Come down from there."

Mikal did not look back. He continued climbing, scraping skin from his hands with every new grip. Climbing Needle Mountain, he soon found out, was almost like scaling a vertical wall rather than a steep hillside. Too steep for walking, it forced you to crouch and use hands as well as legs, not merely placing one arm forward, leaning your weight on it and advancing, but groping out, finding a jagged handhold, grasping it and chinning yourself up.

Mikal heard a scraping, sliding sound behind him, heard the guard's deep voice shout an oath. The man must have slipped from his first precarious foothold on the face of the precipice. Now he called angrily: "Well, I tried to stop you. Don't blame me if you wind up a prisoner of the Revelers."

Sweat dripped from Mikal's face, drenched his clothing, burned his eyes. His arms began to ache; his legs felt numb. Each time he dragged one leg forward he was sure he would not be able to repeat the process. Rut if he paused, if he lost his footing, the jagged, crags below would receive his body.

He felt his hands losing their hold, tried to grasp more tightly the outthrust rock from which his raw fingers were slipping. For all its roughness, the rock seemed slippery as glass. Doggedly, hands slipping, slow fraction of an inch at a time, Mikal hauled himself up. It did not matter, he thought gloomily. Even if he drew his body abreast of this final handhold, he'd never have strength for the next one. He couldn't simply hang there, couldn't turn around and retrace his steps down the sheer cliff. . . .

Then his eyes came on a level with his hands, and what he had grasped was a narrow ledge barely wide enough to support his reclining body. He chinned himself upon it with agonizing slowness, stretched his tired, numb body out along the ledge, trembling in every muscle. He sucked in great lungfuls of air, shut his eyes and sighed with exhaustion. He wanted to remain there forever, resting, regaining his strength. But he sat up quite suddenly and took stock of his situation. Darkness would come in less than an hour. He could never hope to advance as much as the length of his body in darkness, not safely. On the other hand, he could not remain on the ledge, for he was tired and he might fall asleep, and the slightest tossing or turning would suffice to hurl him down the side of the cliff.

He must climb the remaining distance before darkness came. Looking up, Mikal figured a third of the climb remained, for now he could see the very top of Needle Mountain quite plainly. Above it, almost touching it, was the ceiling of the Jungle, streaked with gold and amber dazzlingly and giving the Jungle its daylight. There, there directly above the upthrust point of Needle Mountain, did Mikal see a door in the ceiling? He could not be sure, but thought he did. Through it, the Place of Revelers . . .

Mikal stood up, for one brief moment stared down the side of Needle Mountain at the ground far below, then quickly turned his back and began climbing again.

The rest had helped, for Mikal moved swiftly, more surely now than before. Once or twice he almost lost his handholds, but that was to be expected, as was the returning numbness in his legs. All he could do was hug the face of Needle Mountain, regain his grip, chin himself up, find a place for his legs, and repeat the process.

Sweat had blinded him again by the time he reached the top. He did not know he had succeeded until his clawing hands found nothing to grab above him. He blinked, smiled, wrapped arms and legs around the topmost spire of the mountain and rested. When he opened his eyes again, he saw the trap door above his head clearly. He reached out with one hand, touched it. Feeling suddenly dizzy, he withdrew his hand and shut his eyes tightly. Everything was whirling inside his head, whirling. . . .

He fumbled with his pouch of keys, opened his eyes and found the silver one. Silver for the Place of Revelers.

The dizziness was not gone, in fact, had increased. He searched the trap door for a place to insert his key.

He tottered there on the top of Needle Mountain.

He found the keyhole overhead, but his raw hand trembled so much he at first could not insert the silver key. He used both hands to do it finally, his legs gripping the Needle Mountain spire and holding him

there. He felt himself swaying, managed to turn the key in the lock.

Tumblers fell smoothly. The door swung down at Mikal.

He ducked his head instinctively, lost his balance, felt his legs torn away from the spire. He clawed frantically with both hands, got a weak hold on the spire and felt himself slipping, both legs and one arm dangling in space.

He shouted hoarsely, knew that in a matter of seconds he would lose his grip entirely and tumble down to the base of Needle Mountain.

Above his head, the open portal to the Place of Revelers mocked him, its trap door still swinging back and forth slowly on its hinges.

Chapter 9 The Revelers

I

HAT HE COULD have been so completely wrong all his life had never for a moment entered the mind of Fil, son of the Chief Engineer. Here he was in the Place of Revelers, and discovering every moment he liked it far better than Astrosphere. Perhaps the Jungle had soured him on all other parts of the world, but in truth he knew he had made up his mind in advance.

Astrosphere had everything.

The other three circles, nothing—except for the trophies he would procure. Now, however, the neat little world he had patterned out for himself was fast fading from memory. The Place of Revelers made Astrosphere look as bad as the Jungle.

Well, Fil would have his cake and eat it.

In Astrosphere he stood a fine chance of one day becoming the Chief Enginer. He would like that. It was only natural the son of the Chief Enginer be given preference, provided he qualified for the job. Fil knew he would qualify. But still, he could not leave the wonders of the Place of Revelers forever. Perhaps he could introduce the Revelers to Astro-sphere. He had only recently, this very day, in fact, convinced them of Astrosphere's existence. If he could make the introduction and if the people of Astrosphere liked the Revelers as much as he did, he would probably be the most popular figure in all Astrosphere, not even excluding his father.

Foolish Harol who had fled! Naive Mikal who had kept his bond and even now was probably seeking after some dull, unnecessary information in the Jungle! Fil could have led them to all this; but no, they did not want it. As if he would have shared anything with them.

It took all kinds of people . . .

Idly, Fil twirled the knobs within easy reach of his hand. The screen before him flashed green and white, then cleared. In it he saw pictures. Three-dimensional pictures, which moved and talked and . . .

They could do anything.

"From the guild of actors," one of the cheerful little figures declared, "we bring you Kardy the Tragic in a role suited to his name. Kardy will play the part of ..."

The voice droned on, but Fil wanted nothing tragic. He twirled the dials again.

Soft music filled the room. A man with little things on his shoes which made loud noises when they struck the floor entered the room in the three-dimensional screen. The music increased in speed and the man began to dance. Tap . . . tap-tap-tap . . .

"How very clever!" Fil found himself saying out loud, and quickly turned the dial again, for fear he might miss something.

"Float in the Central Reveler Pool," a voice told him, and he watched little people bobbing in the pool on his screen. "Don't come, we'll fetch you."

We'll fetch you. . . .

Fil sighed indolently. They would, all right. They fetched you everywhere, when you weren't busy at home with all the entertainment provided. You did not waste energy traveling from place to place. You got fetched. Well, Fil would fetch information on all this back to Astrosphere and lead his people to the most wonderful everyday vacationland ever thought up.

Someone entered his room on a mobile chair. The chair braked to a smooth stop, its passenger eased back comfortably against the soft cushions.

"Aren't you watching Kardy the Tragic?" demanded the man, not much older than Fil himself.

"No, Skot. No, I wanted something cheerful."

Skot, who had been delegated the job of showing Fil around and making him happy, pouted. He had a soft round face with close-set eyes and a self-indulgent mouth. "Kardy the Tragic," he said, "is wonderful. Really, Fil, you must watch him."

"Very well." Skot hadn't disappointed him yet.

Kardy appeared on the screen after brief manipulation. He was on his knees and facing the audience, the unseen audience in all the soft, comfortable rooms like Fil's, large tears rolling down his cheeks. He was saying something, but Fil had missed the beginning, so found the speech meaningless, without continuity.

Skot looked, scowled, pouted, began to whimper. Kardy, small on the screen in three dimensions, was crying.

Skot cried along with him.

Fil shrugged, watching. Skot was more interesting just now than the three-dimensional screen. All Skot's people were like that, crying and laughing along with the actors who entertained them. Crying and laughing effortlessly and endlessly. Fil could laugh, all right. But Kardy's little figure ushered neither sadness, pity, fear or anything else from him. It did not matter. Perhaps one day he would learn. Perhaps one day they would eliminate the tiresome Kardys from their shows.

Fil sighed again, pressed a button for one of the fizzy sweet drinks with bubbles in it. "Soda" Skot called it. He drank contentedly after the glass had appeared from a slot in the wall.

"Good," he said, but Skot hardly heard him. Skot matched little Kardy tear for tear.

"It is called empathy," Skot had explained the day before. "Our entertainment is so constituted to give us the maximum in empathy."

Fil had said, "I don't know what that means."

"Well, empathy is the ability to put yourself in some other person s place and experience what he experiences. This dimension vision is nothing, nothing at all, Fil. When you are properly oriented we will show you something which really grants empathy. After all, most forms of spectator entertainment, our records indicate, are based upon empathy. The more empathy, the more successful the entertainment. We Revelers have carried that to its ultimate, as you shall see. Once every ten days we have our time of . . . But you'll see."

"Can't you tell me anything about it now?" Fil had asked.

"No, not allowed. Well, perhaps a little. Think of how much more complete empathy would be if you didn't have to be a spectator!"

Fil had not understood clearly, but had nodded anyway.

Now Skot stood up and smiled. Kardy had finished his performance and Skot had regained his composure almost at once. "Empathy," he said to Fil. "Most wonderful thing in the world."

Fil suddenly felt very strange. He'd not listened to Kardy's speech closely at all, but now that it was over he did feel a certain sadness, a desire to cry. What strange sort of thing was this empathy Skot spoke about? How far might it be carried?

"I told you!" Skot cried. "I told you."

Fil realized, bewildered, that he had been on the verge of tears. Something had caused it, but not merely Kardy's indifferent performance. Then what?

Fil probed Skot with questions, received evasions rather than answers. Well, the time would come, and meanwhile Fil had enough to keep him occupied. He lunched on food surprisingly similar to the fare in Astrosphere, except that you ate it right in your room, receiving it merely by pressing a button and waiting until it arrived. But after the main dish he munched on a delicious confection which Skot called "candy." They had none of this in Astrosphere.

"Come," said Skot, "the day is young and you have more to experience." Leaning back, Skot activated his mobile chair. Fil had learned the trick as well: you only had to pull a little lever for forward motion, push it for reverse, notch it to right or left if you wanted to turn.

On their chairs they left Fil's room, emerged into a broad, pleasant hallway. Pictures, gay and in breathtaking color, lined the walls. They were vast, life-sized murals of clean-limbed people, most of them young, playing games. They played with balls, danced with streamers around poles, raced and performed graceful acrobatics.

Did the pictures actually move? Fil found himself staring hard. It almost seemed they did, but it was an illusion. "Do you play any of those games?" he wanted to know.

"Never," said Skot, surprised. "Why should we? We have our empathy instead. Oh, long ago it is said people played those games and it is pleasant to look at the pictures, but why should we play them now?"

Other mobile chairs rolled by in the hallway, but the people seated on them ignored Fil and Skot completely. In his brief sojourn in the Jungle—he had watched people from afar and came into no contact with them, until, miraculously, the Revelers had found him—he had noticed one thing: the Noahs all seemed to know one another. That wasn't quite true in Astro-sphere, but you did get to know many people. Here in the Place of Revelers, however, one man seemed to remain aloof from the next, probably knowing the names of the dimension-vision actors far better than those of their neighbors.

They rolled on into a large theater where two or three hundred mobile chairs had been drawn up, all facing a big, convex dimension-vision screen.

"They're showing a game today," said Skot. "We could watch it in our rooms, naturally, but size helps to add to the illusion in a game, and every now and then it is worth giving up your privacy. Watch."

They had come barely in time. Familiar green and white light lanced the screen, then faded. A dozen men and women cavorted on the screen, life-sized and completely lifelike, playing a game with a large, lively ball and two baskets high over their heads. The team in blue won after the game had been in doubt for a sufficient length of time to bring over two hundred Revelers to the edge of their mobile chairs.

"Thrilling, isn't it?" said Skot.

Fil did enjoy the spectacle, but he thought to ask Skot why no one played these games any more. He'd asked it once, though, and Skot had almost seemed insulted. Perhaps playing games, participating instead of watching, was beneath the dignity of the Revelers. Fil must keep constant vigil over his questions, lest he unwarily offend someone and find it that much harder to carry out his still nebulous plans.

Lights went on. The screen faded green, white, then blank.

"Come," said Skot. "A large group of Noahs is arriving today. I don't want to rush you or make you do too many things at once—it isn't dignified, you know, hardly fit for a Reveler or probably for a man from Astrosphere, either, although the Noahs don't seem to mind—but if we hurry we will be in time for their preliminary indoctrination. Such meetings are an unfortunate necessity, for you can't suddenly present a Noah with dimension vision and expect him to react with anything but fright."

"They are primitive," Fil agreed.

"I know. Well, they are indoctrinated personally, and since there are a few facts you might learn during that indoctrination, would you care to attend?"

Fil couldn't be sure, but wasn't Skot getting around things that way? Wasn't he saying, subtly, that Fil, while a higher order of man than a Noah, was still lower than a Reveler? Fil tried to ignore it, for he wanted to cultivate Skot's friendship, at least for the time being. Was Skot secretly laughing at him? Then let them see who had the last laugh when Fil, one day the Chief of all the Enginers in Astrosphere, returned. "Why not?" he said pleasantly. "Lead the way, Skot."

And their mobile chairs rolled on down the hallway.

Blinds were secured over all the windows of the strange conveyance Marlyn, Birto and the other Noahs were spirited away in. Their double chairs were swiveled about by Rolf and the other Revelers, facing the rear of the bus. The bus came to a stop, and the man who had taken over driving for Rolf said, "You better take her. This part is tricky."

After a moment the bus started again. Bus, Marlyn had heard one of the Revelers call it.

"Why did they turn us around?" someone demanded.

"Why?" The chorus spread.

Marlyn said, "Needle Mountain is one way to reach the Place of Revelers. We know that way and it is guarded. The Revelers are taking us another way, don't want us to learn it."

"Then, then," Birto gasped at her side, "you mean we're leaving the Jungle?"

"What did you expect?"

"I—I hardly thought about it. I told myself this was all a bad dream and would end. People are taken by the Revelers, I know; but other people, not me. It could never happen to me, not to Birto, son of Sacher the Cobbler."

"It did," Marlyn told him dryly. "This is awful," said Birto. "Why did they have to pick me?"

Marlyn ignored him. Her body swung easily to the left, quickly and jarringly to the right. Since their chairs were turned around, her back leaned heavily toward the front of the bus, then she slumped forward in her chair to its rear. Swing to the left again, then the right. If she could translate what her body felt into words she might remember something valuable about the hidden way to the Place of Revelers. But it was all so confusing, traveling backward, seeing nothing and having to depend on the swaying motions imparted by turning, the weight or lack of weight by climbing or going down hills.

"I am afraid," said Birto.

"Not again." Marlyn could hardly feel sympathy for him, not when he was filled with so much self-pity.

Their conveyance came to a stop, their chairs were swung around again and Rolf rolled his side window down and was shouting:

"Ho! Hello in there! Let's get going."

A voice, faintly."All right, all right. Because my name is on the roster I have to do some work every now and then, but there's no need to get excited. I was about to watch Kardy perform, anyway, and you wouldn't expect me to miss that."

"I wouldn't expect you to miss anything," said Rolf, "least of all Kardy. Just open the gate and we'll be on our way."

"You work volunteers who actually have no empathy for hours on end every day, I don't know how you do it. All right, all right. I'm opening it."

Marlyn heard a great sliding sound, then the bus rolled smoothly on. One of the Revelers came around rolling up the window blinds, but by then the bus had stopped again. Their hands had long since been unfastened, soon after the bus had first started its journey, in fact.

"All out!" Rolf called, climbing from his seat and pushing a door open. One by one the Noahs filed through, most of them timidly. But Marlyn, despite their predicament, felt curiosity welling within her. She had been kidnaped. Well, and so had others. Worse things could happen. She had known from the outset that their destination would be the Place of Revelers, and now that she was there she certainly saw no advantage in timidity. She wanted to see the place, to learn about it, to . . . Why, that was strange. She was thinking just like the boy from Astrosphere, Mikal, spoke. She thought of him for the first time since the lights had gone out in the Council Hall. Perhaps all this had been part of a larger plan whose parts she could now begin to put together. If Mikal were sent by the Revelers to distract them, he certainly had succeeded. It could have been coincidence, of course, but if she found Mikal here in the Place of Revelers, a Reveler himself and not a citizen of Astrosphere, as he claimed, she knew there would be no holding her back.

Alighting from the bus, they walked down a broad hallway. Several people—not walking, but ridiculously sitting on moving chairs!—passed them by, smiling.

"Noahs," one said. "Quaint."

"Quaint? Barbarian. They seem so confused. It is said they walk every place they go." "Walk, eh? My-"

Marlyn bristled. "See here!" she cried. "What's wrong with walking?"

"Listen. She sounds normal enough."

"Normal?" Marlyn fairly shrieked. "What did you expect?" When she blushed with embarrassment or anger, it hid all the freckles on her face.

"After all," one of the chair-borne Revelers said, wheeling his chair about by some unknown mechanism and following their procession down the hall, "we have our own Activist Group even among the Revelers. They hardly ever use the moving chairs, you know. Nothing mobile for them, oh no. They even work—steadily. Yes, I said steadily. Who do you think brings the prisoners in?"

"That's enough," Rolf called from the head of the line. "We didn't bring them here for ridicule. Move along."

"Is that so? Activist!"

"Move along, I said." Rolf advanced on the chair threateningly. The chair rolled away.

Marlyn noticed that pictures, all in color and all well-executed, lined the walls. Then they left the hallway and entered a large room with simple, stationary chairs in it. "Find seats," said Rolf. "Sit down." Here, in the light, Marlyn saw him clearly for the first time. A broad-shouldered young man with blond hair and a cheerful face, he was taller than Landor, her father, and perhaps five or six years older than she was.

They all sat, and Rolf alone of the Revelers remained in the room. "Now then," he said. "You are going to receive your first orientation on our circle of the world and why you were brought here. In a few moments the speaker should arrive. Meanwhile—"

He paused. A door at the other end of the room opened and at first Marlyn guessed it was the speaker. But two mobile chairs rolled in. Sitting on one of them was a vapid-faced youth with sandy hair and dull eyes. On the other—Marlyn stared and her mouth fell open—was Mikal's companion, the one she had captured first and who later had escaped.

Marlyn sprang to her feet, ran for the mobile chair, grabbed Fil's tunic and yanked him to his feet. "You!" she cried. "You sneak!"

"Now, wait—"

Fil tried to back away warily, but her hand switched from tunic to his shock of red hair, grasping it firmly. All the tension which had built up in her since the abduction suddenly exploded violently and found Fil as its outlet. With her free hand she slapped his face and continued slapping it soundly until Rolf had reached her and dragged her away.

"Stop it," said Rolf. "What's the matter with you?"

"You wouldn't understand. Tell me, is he one of you Revelers?" As she spoke, Marlyn struggled in vain to get back at Fil, but Rolf held her effortlessly with one big hand. "Let go of me!" For if Fil were a Reveler, she knew, then so was Mikal.

The other youth who had entered on his mobile chair said, "He is not. He is a stranger here, from a place called Astrosphere, he says, although of Astro-sphere we have never heard."

"Well," said Marlyn. "Well." She relaxed, told Rolf: "You don't have to hold me any longer. I'm sorry, but he had it coming."

"I am Skot, Corridor Five," the other youth told Rolf. "I was instructed to bring this boy to the orientation."

"As you wish," said Rolf. He looked at Marlyn, the freckles slowly appearing again on her face. "But better roll your chairs to the other side of the room."

"She's a savage," Fil wailed, nursing his stinging face with the white imprint of Marlyn's hand on it. "Like everyone else in the Jungle."

"Now, wait a minute—" Marlyn began.

But said Rolf: "You told me I wouldn't have to hold you. Calm down. As for you, young man," he turned to Fil, "don't invite trouble. Just sit still and listen to the orientation. Skot, you can take him back to Corridor Five immediately afterward; I want to speak with this girl, anyway."

"Fine," said Skot.

"Savage," muttered Fil.

At that moment the door opened again. A large mobile chair rolled in, bigger than the rest, and Marlyn stared in disbelief. On the chair, and needing every inch of it, sat a mountain of a man. She could not tell how tall he was, but in girth he almost rivaled the cows on her father's ranch. He had many chins, flabby, rolling chins which joggled with even the slightest movement. His eyes were deep-pocketed between enormous brow and puffed, flabby cheeks. His jowls swayed and wagged with every breath he took.

A vast, shapeless tunic covered his body from bulging neck to ankles, and Marlyn thought two or three bed sheets might have been fashioned from it. She doubted seriously if he could rise from the mobile chair without assistance.

Even Rolf stared at him distastefully. Marlyn suddenly knew there was a difference between this Rolf and the rest of the Revelers she had seen so far. She could not fully understand the difference yet, but it existed. To say that Fil came from Astrosphere and hence all people of Astrosphere were not to be trusted might make sense until you met Mikal, she thought, and then you would have to revise your opinion. In the same way, Rolf and the fat man, or Rolf and the young man called Skot or Rolf and any of the others she had seen in the hall seemed worlds apart.

Rolf was saying, ". . . indoctrination will, we hope, bring understanding. Will the girl in row three, seat five (it was herself, Marlyn knew) remain after the lecture? I now present to you Senior Reveler Jebstakion of Corridor One."

Jebstakion rolled his chair forward, addressed the Noahs in a deep, booming voice. "You have been brought here at great expense and trouble to be enlightened. None of you will leave here until you are enlightened. Any questions?"

At this stage there were none.

"Enlightenment will consist of showing you the better things in life, the things you have been missing because you happened to be born in the Jungle. Your progress shall be slow; you shall be guided and coached every step of the way. Each of you shall be given into the hands of one of our young men during

your preliminary phase development To skip to the very end of my story before considering its middle," Jebstakion pushed a button on his chair. A door in the wall slid open, revealing a dark aperture. Jebstakion's hand moved with surprising speed, flicking up from under his tunic, entering the aperture and retrieving a great gob of some sticky food which he proceeded to chomp in his small mouth.

"You should consider your own middle," Marlyn whispered, and Rolf, who had drawn his chair up near her and had heard, chuckled softly.

"The end of our story—ummm, good—is this," Jebstakion boomed half-incoherently between large mouthfuls of the food. "All of you will one day be returned to the Noahs to bring them the fruits of what you have learned here. Fruits, yes." Jebstakion punched the button again, retrieved this time a large red apple, biting into it noisily.

"Why, we grow those in the Jungle!" cried Marlyn.

"Of course," Rolf told her. "Most of our food, from what I can learn, comes originally from the Jungle."

"Well," boomed Jebstakion, smacking his lips, "we will leave the middle of the story for your individual guides. Rolf of Corridor Three will give you each a numbered slip which will lead to your guide. Happy Reveling, all of you."

Skot and Fil followed Jebstakion from the room on their mobile chairs while Rolf passed out the slips of paper. "Down the hall," Rolf explained, "you will find another room. In it are your guides. Simply find the one whose number matches yours."

In ones and twos the Noahs left the room. Birto remained behind, finally said miserably, "Aren't you coming, Marlyn?"

"No. Our instructor here wanted to see me."

"Oh. But your guide?"

"Can wait," said Marlyn.

"No, he can't," Rolf smiled. "I am your guide."

"Well," said Birto doubtfully, squinting until he found the door. "I suppose I should find my guide." He stumbled uncertainly from the room.

"What did you want?" Marlyn demanded coolly.

Rolf smiled strangely. "Just what do you think of the Revelers?"

"Why-I-"

"I know it's on short notice, but let's have your opinion."

"Really," said Marlyn. "They're your neighbors and friends. You're one of them. Why should I tell you—"

"Answer the question, please," Rolf demanded.

"Very well, but don't say you weren't warned. From the little I've seen I'd say the Revelers were slow, lazy people, self-indulgent, arrogant, useless, conceited . . ."

"I am a Reveler," Rolf said quietly, "but I happen to agree with you. I think the Revelers are everything you claim, and more. And I'm one of them. I think that unless something is done about it, the consequences could be serious. Tell me, what do you know of Urth?"

Strange how he had presented a totally different question. Where was the connection? Marlyn wondered. "Not much. Urth exists in our old legends, and—"

"I know more than legend," said Rolf. "I know fact. Fact that would make your hair stand on end, I have discovered a great deal about this place called Urth. All the information is here among the Revelers, and there seems to be no way of getting it out."

"What information? What is so important about a legend?" In spite of her attempt at cool reserve, Marlyn felt herself becoming interested. Rolf seemed so—so completely, urgently enthusiastic.

"The legend doesn't matter, not at all. Earth—it is spelled with an 'ea' and not a 'u,' incidentally, although our legends spell it the other way—Earth is something called a planet. It revolves in something else called the 'sky' around another, larger thing called either a 'sun' or a 'star.' This world of ours, this place is nothing but a—well, a sort of bus. It's taking us from Planet Earth to another planet, another sun, another world to live." Rolf was breathless, talking to himself as much as to Marlyn. "Can you believe it, they live on the outside, not the inside of planets. And we're approaching another planet a million times bigger than this world of ours, so much bigger that we can't imagine it."

"I'm not sure I understand," Marlyn told him doubtfully.

"Listen. This you can understand. Unless everyone realizes what's happening, why we are here and how we got here and what can be done about it, we're going to reach that other, bigger world and crash. We will hit it so hard you won't even find the pieces. Do you understand that? Do you?"

"Well, I'm not sure I—"

"I went too fast," Rolf groaned. "It was too vague.

Marlyn, listen to me: unless we act and act fast, unless you can warn your people, and I can shake my people from their lethargy, unless we can stir all the people that live inside this bus or world or whatever it is, unless . . ." "Go on."

"Marlyn, in a very short time everyone will be killed! Everyone! Unless we can do something about it. Did you ever hear of a place called Far Labry?"

More questions. "No, I don't . . . wait a minute. Someone mentioned it once. The fourth, innermost circle of the world."

"Our records talk of it, but we haven't been able to find it. Can you picture the irony? With everyone about to perish, with the whole world going to crash and explode, no one understands; and we can't find the one place that might be able to save us."

Rolf had spoken so rapidly, so emotionally, that Marlyn hardly knew what to think. A stranger, a man from another world, could hardly make her believe everyone was going to perish in a very short time, not when everything seemed perfectly normal. He used such strange new words, like star and sun and sky. He'd have gotten along fine with Mikal, she thought. Mikal. Didn't Mikal say he had a key which could open the way to Far Labry? Where was Mikal now?

"The end of the world," said Rolf. "And the Revelers don't even play games. They do worse. They watch old pictures of people playing games, they sit in their overstuffed chairs and experience empathy." He pounded right fist into left palm. "The world is doomed. Doomed!"

Chapter JO Dream World

I

HE TRAP DOOR swung above Mikal's head, out of reach. Mikal was swinging too, holding to the spire of Needle Mountain with one hand, his legs dangling helplessly in air. At first his fingers hurt terribly, and then, not gradually but all at once, they became numb. They simply lost all sense of feeling and that was better, for the straining in his arm he could stand. He knew he still held on only because the sheer face of Needle Mountain swung gently back and forth relative to his own motion. He also knew he could not hold on much longer.

Something tugged at his right shoulder. Something else tugged at the left.

From somewhere so distant that he hardly could hear it a voice was saying:

"What, by the name of all the Corridors is he doing way up here?"

Then another voice, softer, it was either a boy or a woman: "Lucky for him the names of two Activists came up on the duty roster for this post today. Can you imagine it otherwise? They'd probably sit watching Kardy or someone else and let this boy drop. . . . Here, careful now."

Mikal felt himself hauled upward. There was a roaring in his ears. His eyes clouded over. "There. He's safe now. Well, I believe he's fainted." "I'll get some water."

The voice receded, faded away, and Mikal felt for one brief moment he still clung helplessly to the spire.

His fingers were slipping, slipping, and he had started to fall. . . . The blackness which enveloped him was warm and snug and he slept deeply. Later: "Here, drink this."

Someone propped up his head, held a water glass to his lips. He drank gratefully. "You're a very lucky young man." "What-"

"Don't try to talk. Rest."

Then they were talking among themselves again, and Mikal leaned back and listened, resting comfortably, it seemed, for the first time in years.

"Why should a lone Noah want to climb Needle Mountain?"

"I don't know. Looking for a friend who was taken?"

"Possibly. I'll get some salve for his hands."

Something cool and wet touched the skin of Mikal's hands, burned for a moment and then soothed.

"Should we notify Jebstakion?"

"Why? What for? And have him subjected to that indoctrination and orientation? To make another useless Reveler out of him? I have a better idea."

"What's that?"

"Why don't we notify Rolf? Rolf always said if he could find one Noah and keep him out of Jebstakion's hands it might help tremendously, although we still haven't found a Noah who even heard of Far Labry, let alone knows where it is."

Mikal tried to sit up, found he was too weak. He said, "I have heard of Far Labry. I have a key which can open the way. . . ."

"Delirious?"

"No, by the Corridors, I don't think so! Send a message to Rolf, quickly. Just 'Needle Mountain' and 'urgent.' He'll know."

Mikal heard footsteps recede. He fell asleep.

There was a third voice when he awoke, a deep, clear voice. He opened his eyes and could see clearly for the first time since before they took him off Needle Mountain. Took him—down? No, not from what he had heard. Took him up—up through the trap door to the Place of Revelers.

The deep voice belonged to a tall man with blond hair. "So this is the boy, eh?" he said.

"That's right, Rolf." A man and woman Rolfs age were at his side.

"I hope it's important. I have a girl back in the Corridors who has heard of Far Labry and who seems more intelligent than any of the other Noahs. Well, at least she has a lot of spunk."

"She'll keep."

"That's true, since I'm her guide. Well—ah, he's getting up."

Mikal smiled, sitting up. The woman propped a pillow under his head, and he noticed both his hands were swathed in bandages. "I'm all right now," he said to the woman. "Don't worry about me. Just a bit weak, that's all."

The shorter man said urgently, "You mentioned something before about Far Labry. What do you know about that place?"

"Not much. Only that it's the center of the world and somehow holds the secret of magic both black and white."

"Magic, eh?" Rolf seemed interested. "Yes, magic."

"How does one get to this Far Labry?"

Mikal shook his head. "That I don't know. I came here to find out, eventually. I have a key which can open the door—if we find the door."

"But we don't know where it is," Rolf admitted glumly.

Mikal shrugged. "That hardly seems possible. Young men of Astrosphere come through here every year, seeking the way to Far Labry."

"I never heard—" began the woman.

"That doesn't matter," Rolf reminded her. "If Jebstakion and the people of the Corridor One knew of such visitors, do you think they would tell us? The less the Activists know, as far as they're concerned, the better they like it. It was our idea bringing the Noahs here and—"

"But," the woman protested, "it certainly got out of hand. We never intended kidnaping them in the beginning. We thought they would come voluntarily if we told them of another world."

"Jebstakion thought differently," the shorter man said. "Jebstakion takes them against their will, subjects them to his indoctrination which," he grinned, "has still to prove itself successful."

"Anyway," Rolf went on, "perhaps Jebstakion couldn't help us knowing about the Noahs. The fact that we wanted to bring them here made Jebstakion bring them here, but on his terms, of course. Since the people of this lad's world—"

"Astrosphere," Mikal supplied.

"Since the people of Astrosphere only come once a year, I think Jebstakion could keep knowledge of them from the Activists. He had to do something about the Noahs to keep his peace with us, but if we don't learn about the people of Astrosphere, maybe he'd prefer it that way. If they come, and if they do pass through to Far Labry—"

"They certainly do," Mikal assured him.

"Then," Rolf concluded triumphantly, "Far Labry does exist. There is a way to Far Labry, right here from the Place of Revelers. Best of all, this boy has the key. How are you feeling—uh—"

"Mikal," said Mikal.

"Do you feel better, Mikal?"

"Yes."

"Splendid. Here, we'll get you something to eat, and then we'll be on our way. Incidentally, I ran across someone else who claimed he was from Astro-sphere today."

"Really?" Fil, Mikal thought. "Red-haired, tall?"

"That's the one. Had a little tussle with a girl of the Noahs, and he wasn't getting the better of it."

Mikal grinned happily. "Let me guess," he said. "She had freckles all over her face, but they have a way of disappearing when she gets mad."

"Why, yesl Her name is Marlyn."

"I came here looking for her," said Mikal. "Her father, who rules all the Noahs, sent me."

"But I thought you come from Astrosphere. Don't tell me the people of Astrosphere and the Noahs cooperate? Work together?"

"Hardly." Mikal laughed. "It's a long story. Look, I'll be glad to help you. If you find the door my key can open, I'll be happy to take you through. First I have to return Marlyn to Landor, her father, and—"

"First, nothing!" cried Rolf. "We have a world to save, if there's still time."

The woman came with some food and Mikal ate hungrily. He did not know what this big man named Rolf was talking about, but instinctively he liked and trusted him. "I think I'm going to like you Revelers."

"Is that so? You like us?" Rolf was smiling.

"Yes, I do."

"Good, because we're Activists. That means you'll hate the Revelers as much as we do. You have a lot to learn, Mikal, so let's go."

They stepped outside into a long, empty corridor. A vehicle of some sort, electric, Mikal guessed, was waiting. They stepped inside and were whisked away at tremendous speed.

"I left her right here in this room," Rolf said grimly.

Mikal looked around, saw a score of empty chairs, walls of gleaming metal much like those in Astrosphere. "Perhaps she grew curious and looked around some," said Mikal. "Maybe she's lost."

"I told her to wait for me. Jebstakion and I don't get along. He might decide Marlyn would do better with a non-Activist guide."

"Wait a minute!" cried Mikal. He found a crumpled slip of paper on one of the chairs. "Look at this. Maybe you can make sense out of it, I can't."

Rolf took it, read. "Skot, Corridor Five!" It had been scrawled in frantic haste, for the writing stick had torn into the paper twice, the paper had been wadded, then thrown upon the chair. "Skot," mused

Rolf. "Skot. . . . Say, I remember. The other boy from Astrosphere was in Skot's care. Your friend—"

"Fil is no friend of mine," said Mikal, wishing he knew whether or not that was Marlyn's handwriting.

"Come on," Rolf called over his shoulder, heading for the door. "Let's see what we can find in Corridor Five."

Mikal ran out of the room after him, with hardly time to study the pictures on the walls outside or the people rolling by in comfortable moving chairs. All the people turned to stare, however, as he and Rolf sped by. "It's been a long time since they've seen anyone running," Rolf chuckled.

They ran up the hallway, passing one branching corridor after another. Apparently Rolf knew the way, for he never paused, never glanced either to right or left, but continued straight ahead. Finally he did dart down one of the corridors, Mikal following on his heels.

They passed two doors, a third. At the fourth one, Rolf came to such a sudden stop that Mikal had all he could do to keep from crashing into him. "Skot should be inside," said Rolf, and slid the door back on its runners.

Mikal saw one of the mobile chairs, with a mild-faced, dull-eyed young man sitting on it. The Reveler turned indolently to the door as it opened, annoyed that his eyes had been distracted from the glimmering convex screen in front of him.

"What do you want, Rolf? Can't you see I'm occupied? If you will send a message we could meet and discuss whatever you want some time in the future."

"I want the girl, Marlyn. Where is she?"

"Oh, about the girl—" Skot's voice trailed off. "Never mind."

Rolf lifted him from the chair like a baby, with one strong hand under each of his armpits. "I said where is she?"

"Rolf! Have you gone mad? What are you doing?"

Rolf shook him and Mikal could actually hear his teeth rattle. "Talk, Skot. If you know where she is, tell us."

"I never expected this kind of . . . Rolf, put me down! I think you Activists are insane." "Talk!"

"All ... all right, if it means that much to you." Rolf released him.

"She—" Skot blubbered. "She—well, you see, this Fil of Astrosphere has been an ideal student, and when he asked a favor I couldn't very well refuse it, especially since it seemed so harmless."

"What favor?" demanded Rolf grimly.

"Today is the One in Ten, didn't you know?" Skot asked him brightly. "Everyone goes into complete empathy today. Everyone finds his own dream world and lives in it for a day."

"What's he talking about?" Mikal wanted to know.

"One day out of every ten," Rolf began, then thought better of it. "Later, Mikal. We've got to reach Marlyn before it's too late. Go ahead, Skot."

"There isn't much to tell. Fil said something about being curious how the One in Ten—I had explained it to him, you see—"

"Get to the point," Rolf growled.

"Fil was curious about how the One in Ten would affect this Noah, this Marlyn. If she reacted as I told him everyone reacts, he said something about all the world being united under the One in Ten. As far as I can gather, Fil went up to your place with one of the chairs, surprised Marlyn, overpowered her, took her to the One in Ten."

Rolf shoved him back in his chair savagely. "She's not ready for full empathy yet," he said bitterly. "You knew that, Skot, but you let him do it. I'll be back." He said to M ileal, "We're on our way again, and hurry."

As they ran, Rolf tossed snatches of the story of the One in Ten over his shoulder: "One day out of every ten those people who want it are granted full empathy. I know some of the science behind it, tell you later. We Activists never take the One in Ten, because it's habit-forming, if you can call laziness a habit. People experience so much in the One in Ten, they don't care about experiencing real emotions in real life. But its effect could be far worse on someone who's experienced hardly any of our empathy devices. You select a dream and dream it, only it's perfectly real. The old records say something about sounds too low-pitched for the human ear to hear, sounds which can make you think certain things, feel certain things .... Faster, Mikall . . . That's why Kardy and the others are so successful: subsonic stimulation accompanies them, predicating the emotions. At full intensity it's the One in Ten and it's far stronger. They never let children get near it, and because she's never experienced any of our empathy devices, Marlyn is like a child.

"To her the dream will be perfectly real. It will be accompanied by the low-pitched sounds, each one controlling a different emotion, each one making her live the dream. We've got to reach her in time, Mikal."

Up a flight of stairs they leaped, around a corner, down another corridor.

"But you say it's only a dream—"

"Instigated and directed by sound vibrations. In the old records you read of mass hypnotism by subsonic vibrations. A drumbeat could stir people to frenzy. Other sounds, unheard sounds, could lull or madden, anger, calm—any and all, Mikal. It's a dream world, all right, but one which might affect Marlyn the rest of her life."

They ran headlong through one corridor and another. Mikal knew he could never trace his way back without Rolf. Although he hardly understood all the man said, still, the urgency in Rolf's voice drove him on at a pace which to his surprise he was able to maintain.

Across a broad quadrangle they scampered pell-mell, weaving in and out among the mobile chairs. On the other side of the quadrangle they darted into another corridor.

"Hurry!" cried Rolf.

The corridor opened out upon a vast court flanked by metal towers and minarets. "Corridor One," Rolf hissed breathlessly. "Jebstakion and the other Senior Revelers won't move unless they have to. That's why the One in Ten takes place in this court."

The court swarmed with mobile chairs, not moving now. Hundreds of them, as many as there had been people in the Noah Town Council. On each chair was one of the Revelers. How could they hope to find

Marlyn in that immense crowd? One speck of confetti in a sea of confetti, Mikal thought, remembering the tiny flakes of paper they sometimes used to celebrate holidays.

"You go that way, I'll go this," Rolf said. "And find her." He disappeared into the confetti of chairs. Grimly Mikal did the same, making his way in another direction.

Then, while he began searching the vapid faces and threading his way among the chairs, a great fat man not far off to his left spoke into a slender tube he carried. It amplified his voice and boomed it out all over the court. "All right, everybody. This is Jebstakion. The signal to begin the One in Ten shall soon be given. Remember, you have only to sit back and relax, letting the sleep music lull you"

Mikal was aware of the Revelers on their chairs all around him placing small metal disks over one ear. Did the sound you could not hear emerge from those? Mikal thought so.

"Dream well," Jebstakion was saying. "Dream—"

He couldn't find Marlyn in time, not without some way of knowing where she was. He was too late. Without realizing what he was doing, he ran to the fat man, to Jebstakion, grabbed the slender tube from his puffy fingers, put it close to his hps, cried:

"Marlyn the Noah.Marlyn!" His voice bounced back loud and clear from the towers and minarets. Startled heads shot up, disks were removed from ears. There was a rustling.

"See who I am?" the fat man roared. "Jebstakion, that's who. Give that back to me."

"Marlyn!" Mikal cried again. "Marlyn, you've got to listen. This is Mikal, Mikal of Astrosphere. It's a trick. Don't use the disk. Let me know where you

!

»

"Give that back to me. I, Jebstakion, command you."

"Marlyn, you've got to listen." Mikal ignored the fat man completely.

Faintly, so far off to his right that Rolf might have been the closer, he heard, "Mikal, this way. This way."

He dropped the slender rod and ran.

"Who is that boy?" Jebstakion boomed when he had laboriously retrieved his amplifier. "I want to know who he is. I want him taken."

Mikal ran, was only dimly aware of hands reaching up halfheartedly from mobile chairs to stop him. An occasional Reveler got to his feet, but Mikal ran him down with momentum behind him. Only the Revelers could fail to stop him, he thought, suddenly understanding why Rolf and the Activists hated then-own people.

Ahead, he saw Marlyn, bound to one of the mobile chairs by stout leather thongs. And coming toward them on the run, Rolf 1

Rolf reached Marlyn, snapped the leather thongs —incredibly—with his hands. He looked long and terribly at Fil who sat in the adjacent chair, and by that time Mikal had reached them.

Rolf set Marlyn on her feet. "Can you run?"

"Y-yes, Rolf."

"Let's go!"

Fil, ridiculously, stood in their way. Before Rolf could brush him aside, Mikal took two quick strides,

bringing his balled right fist up from behind him as he came. With all his weight behind it, the blow caught Fil flush at the base of the jaw and almost lifted him off his feet. He stumbled back, fell into the mobile chair, an inert mass. One of his limp arms must have struck the controls, for the chair began to roll forward, adding to the general confusion.

His blow had struck the bandages from MikaTs right hand. Fil had it coming, he thought, if ever anyone did.

He followed Rolf and Marlyn through the crowd. Chairs rolled into motion now, as Revelers began to take after them, to hem them in, to cut them off from the corridor.

"If we can get clear," said Rolf as Mikal caught up to them, "it all happened so fast they may not know who we are."

"Fil will see to it they know," Mikal said glumly.

"Then with Jebstakion as an enemy, I'm afraid we're in for it."

They kicked and hacked and pushed their way through the chairs, whose now-enthusiastic drivers got in one another's way.

"Take them!" boomed Jebstakion. "Take them!"

Chapter lim**, in Hiding

ACK THROUGH the corridors they ran. Rolf led the way down little-used hallways, for few Revelers in their mobile chairs were abroad. Mikal knew that most of them had already rolled to Corridor One for the One in Ten. The Place of Revelers was a labyrinth of twisting, turning, convoluted corridors. Up a flight of stairs and down, around a corner, into an area where several corridors converged. Mikal thought to ask Rolf several times if they were lost, but the tall Activist plunged ahead, apparently with some goal in mind. Rolf set a grueling pace, slim Marlyn matched it with graceful strides, Mikal brought up the rear with lungs of fire and leaden legs.

"Here," hissed Rolf. "Quick."

He opened a door, ran through. Mikal paused long enough to close it behind them, thundered down another corridor. They reached a second door, went through. Rolf stopped running, walked for a time to keep his leg muscles from knotting painfully.

"They won't find us here," he panted. "We're safe because they don't know this place exists. We can hide as long as we want but we won't have food or water, and hiding won't get us anywhere."

Mikal had never seen anything like the great room they had entered. Shelves lined every wall of the place, thousands of books lined all the shelves. In Astrosphere, books were at a premium; he had never seen one-hundredth as many in all his life.

"A library," Rolf explained. "The Revelers never come here, not with all the empathy devices which they prefer. We Activists know of this library, though: it is here we come for our knowledge. But all the knowledge in the world won't do us any good with Jebstakion after us."

"But he can't find us here, you said," Mikal reminded him.

"True enough."

"Then," said Marlyn, "we can stay right here and plan what to do next."

"If this place is a library," Mikal told them, "Marlyn and I can also learn what—well, what the world is all about."

Rolf nodded earnestly. "It is said that if one read all the books in this place he would know all knowledge. My father's father was the first of the Activists. He found this library."

"What I don't understand," said Marlyn, sitting on the floor and propping her back against one of the shelves of books, "is why this Jebstakion wants to convert my Noahs to his way of thinking."

"He doesn't," Rolf told her. "Not really. It was an Activist idea to begin with, only we weren't interested in converting anyone. We just wanted to let the Noahs see this place because we figured they might be more energetic than our own people and might, through knowledge, provide strong new leaders for both circles. For all four sections of the world, as it turns out."

"But—" Marlyn began.

"But Jebstakion and the Revelers of Corridor One learned what we were attempting. They realized we couldn't be stopped outright; it would have caused trouble. They decided to play along with us, but they completely warped the idea. Now, with the majority of Revelers on their side, they bring Noahs here supposedly to convert them. Actually, the Noah minds are ruined by too much empathy too fast, but Jebstakion still claims he is trying."

"I don't think I like your Jebstakion," said Marlyn.

"He's the kind of man this way of life leads to," Rolf said, squatting on his heels.

"But all the Revelers couldn't be lazy. How about your actors and entertainers?" Mikal wanted to know.

"How about them? Why, I thought you knew. They don't exist. They used to, but all we have is a record of them, on film. There is a film projector and some film here in this library, but film of a very different sort. I'll show it to you later. As for the work which must be done, we have a duty roster, and people grudgingly comply. The Activists volunteer for work, however, and no one objects since that way names appear less frequently on the duty roster." Rolf frowned. "But this talk isn't getting us anywhere. Right now, we're safe, but we can't do a thing."

Mikal shrugged. "If we don't know the way to Far Labry we can't do anything whether we remain in this library or not. What's so important about Labry, anyway?"

Rolf stood up, paced impatiently. "The scientists. The scientific devices. If we can get help anywhere, it's in Far Labry. I have told you, this world of ours is not a world, but a kind of bus. Well, if the destination is reached, and according to the books I have read the time is near, we are going to hit it, hard.

We will crash unless we learn how to control this bus of ours."

"How do you know it's journey's end?"

"Simple. The books say when the sixth generation is in its prime, we shall arrive. I am sixth generation, according to the records of my family."

"From what I gather," said Mikal, "you mean this place we are approaching is far bigger than all the Four Circles of the World and we will smash ourselves against it unless we can learn how to stop in time."

"Right."

"Don't the books here say anything about that?" Marlyn asked.

"No." Rolf shook his head. "They do not."

"There is a place in Astrosphere," Mikal said, "that no one visits. A great room with walls of glass and a terrible blackness beyond them with thousands of tiny points of light on the blackness. In this place there are machines, devices, controls which no one seems to understand. I have seen the place because young boys make a habit of visiting it, maybe because they like to be frightened that way. I am the son of an Enginer, but I do not understand the place. Nor does my father, although he says it is written that one room with its walls of glass and light-studded blackness outside is the most important place in all of Astrosphere, if we could but discover its secrets."

"That could be it!" Rolf cried.

"Perhaps. It doesn't matter, though, for we can't understand it. We would still have to go to Far Labry for information. But Rolf, you mentioned Earth. You mentioned learning about Earth in this library."

"There are books and books—"

"Show us!" Marlyn jumped up in excitement.

"It would take months. There is this film projector, though, and old films which can do the job far more quickly. Follow me." Rolf walked down among the shelf on shelf of books, found one shelf which turned out on hinges, a door. They passed through the opening and entered a room smaller than the first. When Rolf lit one of the electric hand torches he found hanging on a hook near the door it revealed a room bare of any furniture except a small table, on which perched a squat machine with hooded, nozzle-like lens and a small cabinet. One wall of the room was starkly white, and when Rolf did something to the machine on the table, the nozzle-like lens glowed and a large square of yellow appeared on the white wall.

Rummaging in the cabinet, Rolf found a flat circular can of metal, showed it to Mikal. There, in plain black letters on the side of the can, was written: THE PLANET EARTH.

"Open it," Mikal pleaded. "Hurry." For as long as he could remember, the legends of the planet Earth— his people called it Urth—had held a fascination for him. As a little child he would sit up long past his bedtime, listening to the legends his father or some of the older boys could recount. Later, he would retire breathlessly to his bedroom and think what it would be like to have lived in the far prehistory on this place called Urth. On it, and not in it, for those legends which spoke of Earth as a place always spoke, strangely, of the outside and not the inside. Some of the storytellers did not know what it was, merely that it was beautiful.

Rolf pried the lid off the can, withdrew a reel upon which Mikal saw wound a thin strip, layer after layer of it, of some translucent material. Rolf expertly fastened reel to squat machine, pulled off the edge of the translucent thing, ran it through a series of prongs and then attached it to another empty reel. He snuffed out his hand torch, flicked a small lever on the side of the machine.

Mikal beat his hands together excitedly. From some unknown source wonderful music flooded the room.

"It's music of Earth," said Rolf, and they all listened.

All at once a picture flashed on the square of yellow which the machine projected on the wall, and a voice, deep and warm, said:

"It is recommended that these movies be shown only sparingly to members of the first generation, since there is unfortunately nothing the planners could do to prevent homesickness. Primarily, these pictures are intended for later generations who have been born in space aboard the ship and have lived all their lives there. These films will remind them in some small way of their heritage as men and women, of the planet which they left behind to seek the stars and spread humanity's seed among them, and of the things they or their children will one day build on another planet of another star."

It was, Mikal knew, a voice from the far dead past. It made him feel oddly afraid but terribly important, because he, Mikal of Astrosphere, was listening. And he thought, if only Saml, his father, could see these films.

While the voice spoke, he saw things he could not understand, but things beautiful nevertheless. High crags and cliffs soared up to a blue ceiling which seemed far above them, yet the crags and cliffs, he could tell, were far taller even than Needle Mountain. Later, a great ball of crimson fire hung low against the now blue and fleecy white ceiling, diffusing it with red and purple light. Still later, he was looking down on a great stream, so wide that conveyances rode upon it, a stream crossed over by gleaming, high-arched streets of metal. There were golden fields of tall grasses, swayed and rippled by some unseen, invisible hand. There was an impossible expanse of sullen gray water which seemed to meet the land in a sundering violence of crashing sound and white spray and then roll sofdy back in upon itself. And there was an obscuring rain of white which somehow gave Mikal the impression of intense cold and which covered everything with a growing white mantle.

Mikal saw cities. "This is New York City," said the voice, and Mikal watched a dazzling, sun-dappled array of towers and gleaming metal and glass structures swing into view and sweep closer, as if he were above it and floating down. "And this is Paris, London, Chicago, Vienna. . .

Mikal watched enthralled. Tears had welled up in his eyes and he did not care, for after all the longing and waiting he saw Earth, saw what Earth was really like, and now all the legends and stories told and whispered were as nothing.

"We hope you think our Earth is beautiful," said the voice. "We are making this motion picture in the year 2055. There has not been a war on Earth for almost a hundred years. All science, all energy is channeled toward progress, and since you aboard your ship which will sail the uncharted seas of space for two hundred years have records of all the great strides we have made, it is hoped you can bring this proud new record of mankind to the stars with you.

"For the sixth generation aboard ship it's the Alpha Centauri planets in the year 2255. We don't know what Earth will be like then; we can only guess. But what you are doing will push mankind ahead a thousand years, for in one way or another ever since we have developed science and technology we have been seeking the stars. You shall find them.

"We on Earth know the distance to Alpha Centauri, the nearest star, is tremendous, but you on the starship shall really understand that distance, your generations living their lives and passing on in the depths of space. In light years, the distance you must cover is represented by the figure four-point-three."

The numerals 4.3 appeared on the screen.

"That is, light traveling at the speed of 186,000 miles per second must travel four-point-three years before it goes from the Sun to Alpha Centauri. You are making the journey, as you know, in a completely balanced world. Air is replenished by the cycle between green plants and animals. Food is plentiful in the second of your four concentric spheres. Centrifugal force holds the four spheres in place, one inside the other, although that is merely a precaution, since nothing will jar them out of place during free flight.

"If only we of Earth could see your world and know what it is like to five on the insides of a series of globes and not on the outside of a much larger one! You will have no horizon, but a gentle sloping upward on all sides of you. You will have no sky, but a ceiling on three of your spheres, and nothing in the fourth and central one.

"All this, of course, you know. But to picture it, to be able to see it, to live it. . . ."

Mikal wondered if people were always like that. Did those on Earth really want to live in Astrosphere, the Jungle, the Place of Revelers and Far Labry? It seemed impossible. There was so much he had seen and heard which he never could hope to understand. This was history, he told himself, and not legend, and he felt a great swelling pride that he should hear and see. . . .

". . . never could build such a starship," the voice was saying. "Your books will give you all the details, naturally." Something appeared on the screen, and under it were printed the words STARSHIP— A SCHEMATIC DRAWING. To Mikal it was completely confusing. "We did not have to build it, for we had one almost ready made. We selected an asteroid with a diameter of twenty miles, one of the tiny minor planets circling the Sun, most of them in orbits between Mars and Jupiter. From this we built your starship, fashioning the four concentric spheres to increase your area almost fourfold. We—"

Rolf snapped the machine off, lit his torch and led the way back to the other room. "I never could understand that part of it, but at one time it must have made sense."

"So that is Earth," Mikal mused.

"Beautiful," said Marlyn. "It was like the Jungle all over again, only larger."

"And like the Place of Revelers," laughed Rolf.

"And probably Astrosphere and Far Labry as well. Come to think of it, though, I can't be so sure about the Place of Revelers. They never expected anything like this. What a situation, thanks to Jebstakion and his people! We told them unless something was done, unless we got to work and relearned things we had lost, the world would end. You know what he did? He laughed. Laughed, and sat there munching candy."

"I don't understand that," Marlyn said. "We don't make this candy in the Jungle, yet I thought all food—"

"You do provide the basic ingredients. There is milk, sugar, molasses. The Revelers refashion it: at that they don't mind working!" Rolf was pacing again, once they had reached the main room of the library. "So, the Activists are desperate. We know a great truth that could be a tragic truth because we can't do anything about it, and no one will believe us."

"Not only that," Marlyn pointed out, "but as soon as we step back into the corridors, we'll be captured."

"Stop talking like that, both of you!" Mikal cried. "What's the matter with you, anyway. If you convince yourselves you're beaten, then you won't have a chance. You'll just sit here until you get so hungry you stagger outside. Then you'll be captured and that will be the end of it."

"I am getting hungry," said Marlyn.

"I've been hungry a long time," Mikal told her. "To learn things."

Rolf grinned. "I guess we Activists have been hungry to do things. I think I see Mikal's point, though. If we sit here admitting we're licked, obviously we won't have a chance."

"Fine," said Mikal. "What's the first step?"

"Well," Rolf considered, "I'd say—"

"—that we have to find the way to Far Labry," Marlyn finished for him.

"Sounds right to me," Rolf nodded.

"What do we know about Labry's location?" Mikal asked them.

"Nothing." This was Rolf. "Absolutely nothing, except that you have the key. A lot of good the key will do if we can't find the lock it will open."

"You mean we haven't been able to find it so far, which doesn't mean we can t find it at all. Why don't we think about it awhile?"

"The Activists have been thinking," Rolf snorted, "and turning the Place of Revelers upside down looking for the way."

"But you Activists never saw one of our sojourners from Astrosphere?"

"No."

"Yet they came through every year, and since they didn't know the way to Far Labry any more than I do, someone here did know it, and told them."

"But who?" Rolf groaned.

"Not you Activists, not anyone who would tell you. Who would want to keep it from you, especially after you started bringing the Noahs in?"

"Why, I don't—yes, of course! The Corridor One Revelers, Jebstakion and his people."

"That is exactly what I was thinking," Mikal agreed.

And Marlyn said, "It sounds logical enough."

"That still leaves us exactly nowhere," Rolf grumbled. "Even if we're right, we can't do a thing. Because that would place the way to Far Labry someplace close to or possibly in Corridor One itself. We couldn't hide from Jebstakion to get there. We'd have to explore right under his nose to find what we want."

Mikal shrugged. "You know this world better than I do. Can we do it?"

"Well, if it can be done anywhere, this is the place. The Revelers won't exert themselves unless they absolutely have to. Time would be on our side if we hurried, and speed. Say, wait a minute. Looking for us, they'd search for three people on foot. What if we could get ourselves three of the mobile chairs and use them? Activists never do: neither you nor Marlyn would, out of choice."

"Sounds fine."

"All right. We get three chairs, roll straight into Corridor One on them and—and, then what?"

"We couldn't just search the place," Marlyn admitted.

"We wouldn't have much time," said Mikal.

"See?" Rolf shook his head. "We're still right back where we started from."

"No," grinned Mikal. "In theory, at least, we've reached the logical place to look, which seems to be Corridor One."

"Look. . . ." mused Rolf. "Why look at all, if we're in a hurry? If we can reach Corridor One without anyone suspecting who we are, that might do it. We could then rush into Jebstakion's room, confront him, make him tell us the way. If anyone knows, Jebstakion's the man."

"I like that," Mikal said. "It sounds good. Fast, simple and, well—"

"And bold enough to work!" Marlyn cried. "There

is something about unexpected boldness which always surprises people, my father Landor always said."

"There's your plan, then," Mikal told Rolf.

Rolf slapped his hands together gleefully. "The time to start is now!" He pounded Mikal's back soundly, led the way to the corridors.

They opened the door, peered outside. The way was clear. They stepped into the hallway and . . .

A mobile chair rolled into view around a corner. The man in it almost jumped from his seat.

"It is Rolf the Activist!" he shouted. "And the Noahs! Rolf and the Noahs Jebstakion wants. Help!"

Chapter ¡2 The Center of the Universe

ii IKAL'S FIRST IMPULSE was to run. They could move M more swiftly than the mobile chair. They could IVI lose it in the corridors, but part of their cherished II secrecy would be gone, for it would at least be known they were afoot and not hiding somewhere.

"Quick," Marlyn hissed, starting to run.

Mikal grabbed her arm, stopped her. "We want mobile chairs, don t we?"

"Help!The Activist Rolf!"

Rolf lifted the Reveler from his chair, deposited him ungently on the floor. He sat there, looking foolish. He made no attempt to rise.

"Can't he walk?" Marlyn asked.

"Of course he can, but it might have been months since the last time. He'll get around to it when he realizes no one is going to come here and pick him up, but by that time well be well on our way."

"Pick me up," said the voice, now feeble. After his first quick excitement, the Reveler had calmed down, holding his emotions in reserve for the empathy devices. "Lift me from the floor, Activist."

Marlyn climbed into the chair, sat down, began to roll along the corridor. "Well," she said, "the other day in dimension vision I saw the most—"

"What are you talking about?" Mikal demanded.

"Hold a conversation," Marlyn told him. "Anything, just make it natural. We're going to meet people soon and go right on by."

"Unlesswe meet them alone," Rolf said. "We still lack two chairs."

"We'llget them," Mikal promised.

Theydid, leaving two more Revelers in the hallway, propped against the wall and calling for help. One of them got up, essaying a few tottering steps before he disappeared from view as they rounded a comer,rolling serenely along.

Chairsmoved by in the corridor.

"Kardywas truly magnificent," said Rolf, taking the lead and speaking loudly. "If I've seen him once I've seen him a hundredtimes, but each time he has the same effect. Makes you cry and—"

"And,"sniffed Marlyn, "I saw him too."

Chairsrolled by. Revelers ignored them completely, and after a time Mikal began studying the pictures on the wall. Once the Revelers must have been an energetic people, for the pictures showed them strong and nimble, playing games, running, leaping, performing on gymnastic equipment.

Rolfmust have understood the look in his eyes, for he said, "Long ago, not any more. Now they revel' in name only. Unless you want to consider passive spectators Revelers." Someone rolled toward them. "Yes, it was the strangest sensation, floating in the Central Pool after all this inactivity. Such strenuous exercise is good for you, they say, as long as you do it in moderation."

"Youwon't find me floating in any pool," Marlyn said. "Not as long as I have my dimension vision."

"Iagree with you," declared the strange Reveler, without looking, and rolled by.

Rolling along and holding meaningless conversations when necessary, they reached Corridor One. Apparently they had been in the library long enough for the One in Ten to end, or perhaps the whole thing had been called off because of the disturbance. At any rate, the huge, tower-flanked court of Corridor One was nearly deserted.

"Do you know where Jebstakion lives?" Mikal demanded.

"Everyone does, for to be invited to Jebstakions place for a session in joint empathy is the highest honor a Reveler can receive, the first step toward making Senior Reveler. When mothers pass this place with their children they point it out and say 'ycm must strive someday to reach that place/ Follow me."

They did, rolling their chairs forward in single file, until they had left the courtyard and entered a silver-walled corridor. Someone behind them said breathlessly:

"Look! Those three have been invited to Jebsta-kion's."

"To Jebstakion's!Lucky. . . .**

"I do everything I am supposed to, and I never—"

"Some are lucky, that's all. You cannot question Jebstakion's judgment any more than you can question Surampa's ability to make you laugh or Kardy's to make you cry."

"Hey, youl You three!"

Startled, Mikal whirled his chair around, but the seated figure was smiling at him. "My name is Ternew. Put in a good word for me with Jebstakion, please."

"Certainly," Mikal said, and wheeled about again.

"This silver-walled corridor is private," Rolf explained. "It leads to Jebstakion's quarters alone. You can't get in without being invited." "Then how can we—?"

"Wait and see," Rolf said mysteriously. "Don't forget, the guard is a Reveler too, his name drawn from the duty roster. Here we are."

Their mobile chairs rolled to a stop before a door in the silver wall, where a sign said:

SENIOR OCCUPANT, CORRIDOR ONE: JEBSTAKION. By appointment only.

Rolf pushed the door in and they rolled through.

Sitting in a small room on his mobile chair, a middle-aged Reveler looked up sadly from his dimension-vision screen.

"I recall no appointments," he said.

"Then your recollection is poor," Rolf advised him.

"Jebstakion clearly said—"

"You heard wrong."

"That he was not to be disturbed today. Go away."

"We have an appointment," Rolf persisted. "We have been invited for a session of joint empathy."

"All three of you? I would have remembered. Go away."

"I have the confirmation right here," said Rolf, fumbling in his pocket.

"Fine. Then bring it to me, please." The Reveler had turned to his screen again.

"You come and get it," Rolf said blandly. "Your name is on the duty roster, not mine. You work, not me."

The Reveler took his eyes from the screen again. "Show it to me."

Rolf waved a sheet of paper in his hand. "Here."

"I can't read it from this distance."

"Then get up and come where you can see it."

"Please bring it to me."

"You want to look at it. Come here."

"Really, now—well, I suppose if you say you have been invited."

"I most assuredly have said that."

"And if Jebstakion knows you're coming—"

"Didn't I just tell you that?"

"Y-yes. Well, please hurry by. I've missed half of the performance already."

They wheeled on by him. He was lost in his screen completely.

"They are positively the laziest . . ." Marlyn whispered incredulously.

"Jebstakion's quarters are soundproofed to keep disturbances to a minimum," Rolf explained. "Once we get inside, if we can get the amplifier away from him, he won't be able to call for help. Here we are."

Their chairs rolled up to a door which opened as they came abreast of it. They rolled through and Mikal turned to see the door closing behind them.

Jebstakion sat in his specially constructed chair, which, Mikal observed, could be angled at any desired position. Jebstakion lay supine now, staring dreamily up at the ceiling, popping candies into his mouth. A dimension-vision screen glowed over his head, directly in his line of vision.

"Well, what do you want?" he demanded.

Rolf sprang from his chair, reached the reclining figure, grabbed the amplifying rod and snapped it in two across his knee. "Some information," he said, pressing the button which shut off the screen.

"What is the meaning—' Jebstakion began, then, regretfully it seemed, triggered his chair into a semi-upright position. "Rolf the Activist!" he cried.

Mikal and Marlyn hopped from their chairs, gathered around the fat man with Rolf. "And the two Noahs," said Jebstakion in complete disbelief. "I had issued strict orders not to be disturbed. And you, of all people. If you are petitioning for a session of joint empathy, it is denied. Furthermore, you are outlaws, facing expulsion from the Place of Revelers."

"I said we wanted information." Rolf leaned forward eagerly.

"Please go outside and place yourselves in the hands of the guard."

"Information," Rolf repeated.

"You are ruining my afternoon!"

"How do we get to Far Labry?" Mikal demanded.

"Be gone! I never heard of such a place." Jebstakion reached for the button controlling his dimension-vision screen, but Rolf pushed his hand away.

"Not until you tell us."

"I never heard of such a place."

"You want to expel us from here," Marlyn said. "Very well: expel us to Far Labry."

"I never heard—"

"You said that," Mikal reminded him coldly. "We'll go right on ruining your afternoon until you tell us. We happen to think you're lying, for I am from Astro-sphere and not the Jungle, and the people of Astro-sphere have come through here looking for Labry just as we have. You must know the way."

Snap! Rolf twisted one of the dials on Jebstakion's mobile chair, broke it off. "You know how difficult it is to repair this equipment," he said. "We want that information."

Snap! went another dial.

"Please, please—"

Mikal found a heavy object, hefted it experimentally, looked up at the dimension-vision screen. "We don't have much time," he said. "Into how many pieces do you suppose that screen would shatter?"

"You Activists have always sought Far Labryl" Jebstakion wailed. "You want to go there and learn strange, ridiculous things and come back and reshape this place."

"For your own good—"

"Let us decide that! You go around yelling foolish things about the world coming to an end and having to prevent it, and I think it is a trick to make us work again. We are Revelers. Revelers."

"You'll be dead Revelers unless we find the way to Far Labry. They might be able to save us. I'm serious, Jebstakion. This isn't a trick, it never was. How do we get to Far Labry?"

Mikal held his heavy object, an ornamental statue, aloft.

"Then you'll go and not bother me again?"

"I can't promise that," Rolf admitted. "If trying to save the world means bothering you in the process, you can bet you'll be bothered."

"Well?" Mikal lowered his arm, prepared to hurl the statue.

"Outside," Jebstakion bleated in defeat. "Keep going down the silver corridor. You'll find a door. But I cannot open it. I had a key once, when I was younger. I deliberately threw it away because the records said that door led to another world, and I knew if ever I was tempted I would have no rest once I opened that door."

"I have the key," Mikal said triumphantly, and they flashed outside, leaving their mobile chairs in Jebstakion's quarters. The guard still sat there watching his screen.

"Will I be happy to leave this place," Marlyn said. Then, looking at Rolf: "I—I'm sorry. It's your home."

"I'm not proud of it. I'll be just as glad, especially if we can find what we're looking for."

"And find a lot of answers to a lot of questions, I hope," Mikal said. "If Labry cannot answer everything we want to know, and if Rolf is right—"

They found the door, even as Jebstakion told them. Mikal fumbled in his pouch, withdrew the key of black.

Black for Far Labry, the place of magic.

With trembling fingers he released the lock, pushed the door in. It revealed a passage, not with smooth-hewn walls but with walls of coarse black stone. "We'll need your hand torch," Mikal told Rolf, who flicked on the light and led them down the tunnel.

They reached a narrow, winding flight of stone steps, so steep they almost were a ladder. The steps spiraled up—and up. Rolf probed with his beam, saw only the circular staircase, carved of the rock, retreating into gray haze.

"Can't see the top," he muttered.

"We can find it," said Mikal, and started up the stairs. Rolf handed the small torch up to him since it was difficult to pass on the narrow, twisting stairway. Marlyn brought up the rear.

They climbed.

Mikal never dreamed so many steps existed in all the world, let alone in one place. He wondered if Jebstakion could have tricked them, but knew it was not likely. His feet pumped mechanically, one after the other. He stayed close to the wall, avoiding the side of the stairway which dropped out over the edge of blackest nothing. The hand torch cast a puny circle of light; for the rest, blackness.

"Keep in contact with the wall," Rolf warned them. "These stairs are narrow."

And endless, Mikal thought.

There came a time when Marlyn, gasping, called a halt. Mikal was grateful for the respite, sitting carefully on one of the steep stone stairs, one leg pushing against the wall.

"How much further could it be?" Marlyn demanded, still breathless.

"Apparently they aren't particularly interested in guests," Rolf suggested. "I have seen more inviting entrances."

Mikal probed ahead with the hand torch while they sat, casting its circle of light up the stairs ahead of him. Quite suddenly, he began to laugh.

"Whatever is it?" Marlyn climbed to her feet, followed Rolf up to where Mikal sat.

"Look."

They stared over his shoulder, and Marlyn counted, "One, two, three, four, five. Five more steps to the top. Not knowing that, I would decide to rest when it isn't necessary."

"No harm done," said Rolf, and they climbed the remaining steps.

Mikal, who walked ahead with the light, called back: "If you expect anything other than another corridor, you're going to be disappointed."

Walls roughhewn, another passageway of black stone confronted them. Sufficiently wide for them to walk three abreast, it had a low ceiling which forced tall Rolf to stoop slightly at the shoulders.

"Are they all midgets in Labry?" Rolf demanded, smiling.

"You!" said Marlyn. "You're taller than a man has a right to be, that's all."

All at once Mikal felt awkward walking in the middle with his light. On his left was Marlyn, on his right, Rolf. He edged self-consciously toward Marlyn, then took a step behind her. He still did not know quite why he did it. When Marlyn had assumed his place in the middle, Mikal handed her the torch. By its light he was able to see she had linked her arm with Rolf's. They walked along that way, hands swinging together easily. Far from having the desired effect on him, Mikal found it made him feel more awkward than ever.

"I'm joking," Marlyn finally said. "It is very nice for a man to be so tall and straight."

Mikal thought to tell her he was still growing, that one day he might be as tall as Rolf. Then her sudden liking for tallness struck him strange, for Fil was tall, taller even than Rolf but much thinner, and she certainly did not like Fil. Well, there was no figuring out the mind of a girl—or a woman.

The passage ended abruptly, blocked off by a great metal door. Mikal tried his key, swung the round door out, then closed it behind them. Surprised, he discovered some unknown source lit the place, and he told Marlyn to turn off the hand torch.

The ledge dropped away sharply into what would have been a pit, except that it was filled by a metallic cylinder perhaps five times the length of a man stretched out. The cylinder had a lid which opened easily. Mikal opened it.

"There's no place to walk," Rolf said doubtfully.

"No." Mikal nodded.

"This reminds me of the tramcars we use to climb steep hills in the Jungle," Marlyn decided. "Maybe if we get down inside, it will take us somewhere."

Rolf scratched his head. "We would have to stretch out flat."

"We can't simply stand here," said Marlyn.

And that, Mikal realized, was true. Their ledge and the cylinder-filled pit were surrounded on all sides by black rock. "Well, what are we waiting for?" Smiling but not feeling particularly cheerful, Mikal eased himself down into the first section of the cylinder. The inside was dark, but not as uncomfortable as he had expected. Padding of some sort lined the sides and the bottom.

"Everybody in?" Mikal called, his voice unnaturally flat inside the cylinder.

"All packed," laughed Marlyn.

"I'll seal us in," Rolf said, and, following a clanking sound, they were immediately plunged into complete darkness.

"How do you suppose you get this thing started?" Mikal heard Marlyn say, and then he was groping about with his hands. He wondered if other young men from Astrosphere, reaching the final leg of their

Four-Circle Journey, had pondered the mysteries of this very cylinder even as he was doing now. His right hand encountered nothing but the spongy padding of the cylinder's interior, but his left hit against something which did not yield. It felt like a board, hard and solid, and in its very center was a small knob.

"I think I have something.''

"Well, try it," Marlyn suggested. "This is getting uncomfortable."

Mikal sucked in his breath, waited. Perhaps they were wrong. They only guessed this cylinder was a conveyance, and anything might happen if he pushed on the knob.

"I feel like getting up and stretching," pleaded Marlyn. "Come on."

Mikal discovered he did not have sufficient space to shrug. He grasped the knob firmly and pushed it.

Nothing happened.

He hated the idea of going back down the tremendous winding staircase, then realized it would be next to impossible anyway because Jebstakion would be waiting for them with more than a polite reception committee. Frantic now, he twisted the knob.

Something roared in his ears. A great invisible hand slammed him down against the soft padding and seemed intent on pushing his head down through his collar bone. Dimly, he heard Marlyn whimper, but then a whining, shrieking sound filled all the space within the cylinder, filled his ears, filled the entire Universe, it seemed. This could not be a mode of travel, this . . . And why not? After all, it was the way to Far Labry, and in Astrosphere it was written that anything was possible in Labry, the Center of the Universe.

Rolf's Activists must have agreed, for they said if help was to be found anywhere, Labry was the place. It suddenly occurred to Mikal that help had better be in the offing, since Jebstakion would await them in the Place of Revelers and angry mobs would wait for him further back toward Astrosphere, in the Jungle. If things did not work out, he had made a fine mess of his Journey. Still to pick up his first trophy, he had left two of the circles behind him. Yet his father Saml had agreed: some things, intangibles, were more important than mere trophies. Did he have those intangibles? Would he find the answer to everything in Far Labry? Smiling grimly, he understood clearly for the first time that he did not even know what answer he sought. Maybe he was a boy on a man's mission, with the future of his world at stake. Maybe. . . .

With shocking suddenness the whining sound vanished. Mikal was thrust forward, his head striking the thin padding at the front of the cylinder. If their conveyance indeed was a conveyance, its journey was over and they had arrived—somewhere.

Rolf unhinged the hatch, opened it. Marlyn clambered up and out quickly, stretching happily in the bright light. Stretching—

Mikal gaped.

She floated up, tumbled head over heels and went right on floating, without stopping until a net of gossamer-thin strands, which stretched as far as the eye could see in all directions, caught her, recoiled with her and flung her back to the floor.

"Rolf," she sobbed. "Rolf."

Rolf smiled reassuringly, reached out to comfort her. As he did, his hand led him, lifted him, threw him against Marlyn, and the two of them went tumbling off into space.

Unable to believe his eyes, Mikal grabbed the edge of the cylinder to pull himself upright. He went up, and kept on going up. He drifted, aware of no sensation of weight. If he moved his arm in slow circles, he could turn over or head in another direction. Whatever it was which made people walk on floors and not float in air apparently did not exist in Far Labry.

Anything was possible in Labry, all right—like floating people who did not know how to come down, thought Mikal in mounting despair. Ahead of him, Marlyn and Rolf twisted and spun slowly. Mikal thrashed his arms and legs and tried to follow them. He might have been floundering helplessly in water.

But it was air.

7o Wreck a World

AM THE SON of an Enginer and must not be afraid, Mikal told himself. This all can be explained. We

j will find a way to put it to our advantage although now it makes us helpless. That is the way of an

Enginer.

Floating to a stop near the gossamer net, Mikal remained perfectly still and discovered he could stay in one place if he did not move a muscle. So much as a twitch, however, would serve to send him tumbling off again.

Ahead of him, he heard Marlyn saying: "Try it, Rolf. Go ahead. It seems to work." "Well, all right. I have done some swimming in the Reveler pools, but not much, for the floaters complained all the thrashing and the spray disturbed them."

"We have lakes and brooks in the Jungle. We swim from the time we are babies. Watch."

Mikal watched too. Marlyn lacked out with her feet, reached forward first with her right arm, then her left, bringing them back slowly toward her body before she repeated the process. Her freckled face all asmile, she made progress in a straight line. After some false starts Rolf was able to imitate the motion, and together they swam through air toward Mikal, Rolf having a few bad moments when he reached out too suddenly and started to flounder helplessly.

"This is more fun than swimming in water," Marlyn exclaimed delightedly. "It doesn't take any effort."

She kicked over on her back and reached Mikal by making small flipping motions with her hands.

"Go ahead," she urged him. "Try it."

Dubiously, Mikal followed her instructions. Rhythm was important, he learned. As soon as he lost the slow, steady pattern of it, he started floundering about. Otherwise, he discovered, you could go more or less where you wanted.

"Hello!"

The voice startled Mikal. He turned, floated, struck the net and bounced back off it. Using a fast flipperlike motion, hands close to his sides, someone propelled himself toward them.

"Hold hands," he said.

They did so, and he led them, a human chain, down toward the floor. "Catch the guide ropes," he directed them.

Evenly spaced poles on the floor had strung between them a series of thick cables. Mikal grasped one, pulled himself down, sat. As long as he held the cable he would not wander off into the air.

"I am Raabin the Scientist," said the man. "An alarm went off when you used the jetcar. You are from Astrosphere, no doubt, taking the Journey of the Four Circles."

"You know of the Journey?" Mikal demanded.

Raabin, a small, thin man with twinkling eyes, a long nose and a bristly shock of gray hair, smiled. "We know all about it."

Rolf said, "One of us is from Astrosphere. One a Noah from the Jungle. And one from the Place of Revelers."

Raabin squinted at him. "Very unusual."

"You know our circles too?" Marlyn asked.

"Certainly. But the three of you together, that is most unusual."

"Who's in charge here?" It was Rolf who asked the question.

"In charge? What is that?"

"Your leader."

"Leader? I do not understand. We have no need for a leader. Everyone does his own work."

"We are looking for someone in authority," Rolf persisted.

"Then try me," smiled Raabin. "I have neither more nor less authority than anyone. What is it you want? Trophies. I will gladly provide you with trophies."

"Not trophies," said Mikal, "although that was the original purpose of my Journey. We need help." "What kind of help?"

"It is thought in the other circles," Marlyn explained, "that the people of Labry know everything there is to know."

"Well, now. You do knowledge a grave injustice. Although I wager we have no peers in theoretical science, even back on Earth."

"You have heard of Earth?" Mikal gasped.

"Most assuredly, young man. This starship left Earth just a few days short of two hundred years ago. Which reminds me, your people in Astrosphere should even now be slowing the starship, preparing to put it in an orbit around one of the Centaurian planets. How is the work progressing?"

"It's not." Mikal explained that no one in Astro-sphere knew anything about controlling the world, no one knew the world was moving, no one knew it had reached its destination.

"That's why we have come," said Rolf.

"This must be some joke."

"No." Rolf was very definite.

"You mean—your people have forgotten?"

"Everything."

"In this Laboratory we are busy. We never thought to examine the other levels of the ship, assuming everything was in order. Although the visitors from Astrosphere did seem naive, and it occurred to me as peculiar that no one ever came from the Jungle or the home of the entertainment specialists—what is it, Revelers?"

"Revelers," supplied Rolf.

"But see here, young man," Raabin turned earnestly to Mikal, "if the men of Astrosphere fail to make the proper preparations, we . . . Why, yes!" Apparently the idea surprised him. "We will all be destroyed."

"That's why we're here," said Rolf. "We need help." "You have come to the wrong place. Tell them in Astrosphere. Tell them to get to work."

'They won't understand," Mikal said wearily. "Anything," Rolf added. "Please." This was Marlyn.

"What a strange story. My fellow scientists certainly would like to hear of this. I must tell them at once. Our sociologists, for example, would want to study the situation and . . ."

Rolf interrupted him. "Do all the studying you want later. Right now we need some solution to all this."

"But—but our job is theoretical science. We have developed some truly amazing things in theory. I suppose it should have occurred to me something was wrong if no one came for our work from the other levels. You are positive this is no joke?"

"Positive," they all said.

"Imagine. Two hundred years in space, two hundred years living in a—a sectioned terrarium has stripped man of his knowledge. But then, I always suspected too-rigid specialization might lead to this sort of thing. There's an old adage about men knowing more and more about less and less and eventually knowing everything about almost nothing at all. Do I make myself clear?"

"No," said Rolf.

Mikal wished Raabin would not rant on dreamily about anything and everything, and tackle the problem confronting them instead.

"I spent two years on the quantum theory," said Raabin. "Two years trying to discover something about the quanta of light. Two years and I'm still not entirely convinced light consists of quanta at all. In the same way, each section of the ship had its own specialty. The Jungle provided food, clothing, replenished the air. The entertainment specialists were supposed to keep us all amused, ranging from books to compact museums to games to—"

"They certainly lost sight of their purpose," Rolf declared. "They amuse only themselves now, and feebly, at that."

"Astrosphere," Raabin went on, "kept the machinery of the world going and was to operate this star-ship and our ferry—"

"Ferry?" Mikal repeated the unfamiliar word.

"Ferry, of course. This starship, twenty miles in diameter, is too big to land on a planet. We have a smaller spaceship, a ferry. Or rather you have it in Astrosphere. I know the exact location, however."

"There are regions we never enter," Mikal admitted.

"In groups of four, the whole world interested itself (individually and collectively in more and more about less and less," Raabin muttered. "What a situationl Our sociologists—"

"Never mind your socy—never mind them," Marlyn cried. "Do something!"

"My dear young lady, don't you understand? There is nothing I can do. We can't teach practical application of theoretical science in a few short days. We can't—"

"Doesn't anyone here know how to—to stop the world from falling?" Mikal asked.

"Why, I suppose so. I suppose I could do it myself, since the theory is perfectly clear. Yes, I could stop the starship at the proper planet, find the ferry and start depositing all your people on their new world."

"Wonderful!" Marlyn hugged him in her enthusiasm.

"It wouldn't work," said Rolf.

"No, it wouldn't." Mikal frowned. "The Revelers want to be left alone. They want no contact with the other circles."

"We Activists forced them into contact with the Noahs, and they've botched that up."

"And after the experience my people have had with yours, Rolf," chimed in Marlyn, "you couldn't expect the Noahs to listen to anyone outside their own circle.

Even if we could stop the world somehow and find the home those films you showed us mentioned, no Noah would leave the Jungle for it."

"The Enginers of Astrosphere are as lazy as anyone else," Mikal pointed out glumly. "There are no special problems, but they're perfectly content with what they have and it would take an explosion to stir them."

"Two hundred years to travel," mused Raabin. "Twenty-six trillion miles of uncharted space to cross, and no one wants to do a thing about it."

"But we saw pictures of Earth!" Marlyn fairly shouted. "It was beautiful and you lived on the outside and everything was so big and—if we only could make them understand a new Earth awaited them."

"From what you told me," Raabin pointed out, "few of them must even know the old Earth exists. This starship is their Universe. Less than that. Only then-own circles have any real existence for them."

"They're got to be made to understand," Marlyn cried, waving her hand in desperation. She forgot the guide rope, floated up into air, twisting and turning. Swimming seemed unpredictable, for although she did manage to come down, she did not handle the situation with Raabin's ease. Raabin had been doing it all his life, and it was an art not easily mastered.

"I'm sorry," Marlyn apologized.

"You'd better relax," Rolf told her. "If you go swimming off like that I'll have to swim after you, I guess, and I'm not a very good swimmer."

"Sorry? You're sorry?" Mikal was laughing. "Don't be. Marlyn, what did you just do?"

"Why, I forgot about the guide rope and went floating off into space."

"Naturally," said Raabin. "Centrifugal force created by the rotation of all the four globes imparts artificial gravity to all areas of the starship except this one. This Laboratory is at the very center, where centrifugal force has no effect upon it. Obviously you floated."

"Can you control it?" Mikal asked eagerly. An idea was forming in his mind. Vague at first, it had grown crystal-clear.

"Certainly. We can stop the rotation. Why?"

"That may be our way out," Mikal said.

"Well, don't be so mysterious," Marlyn told him. "What's your idea?"

"Don't you know? You just now gave it to me. Marlyn, how do you think the Noahs would feel if they all went floating off like that, suddenly, without warning?"

"They wouldn't like it. What a strange question. They couldn't tend their flocks or—why, even the cattle and sheep would float away, I guess. The Noahs wouldn't like it at all."

"Rolf?"

"You mean if the same thing happened to the Revelers? If all of them weighed nothing and floated around?" Rolf began to chuckle. "I can just picture Jebstakion. Jebstakion—floating. Seriously, Mikal, they would be frantic. It would take them away from their screens, their other empathy devices, their couches. Jebstakion, floating. I can just picture it."

"Would they agree to anything to stop it?"

"I—I suppose so."

"The Noahs would, I know," Marlyn said. "They love their land. They love farming, cattle ranching; they love to run and walk, to ride horses, but they would not like to float."

Rolf smiled. "I think I see what you have in mind, Mikal. It might work."

"It would work."

"I wish someone would inform me," said Raabin. "This sounds interesting."

"We'll shake them from then* laziness," Mikal predicted. "We'll make it so bad they'll do whatever we tell them. You're sure you can turn this force on and off when you want to, Raabin?"

"Simple. Merely stop the rotation. Centrifugal force stops with it."

Mikal wondered briefly if too much enthusiasm came with too few years. Here he was, all of eighteen, trying to change the destiny not of one world but three—and four, if you counted Far Labry. Still, there were three of them—Marlyn, Rolf, himself. Three of them, with but days to act. No time for counseling, no time to consult the wisdom of their elders. Perhaps enough time to see the thing through and then hope it was the solution. For they would have one chance, Mikal knew, and one only. "All right," he said, trying to sound confident, "listen. We shut off this thing, this device of Raabin's. Do you agree, Raabin?"

"You know your people better than I. If you are in accord, I can merely nod my head along with yours."

"Then," said Mikal, "we wait. We wait long enough for everyone to grow worried. No matter how wild they guess, they'll never be able to figure out what's happening."

"What a shambles it will bring," Rolf said. "I suspect it affects not merely people, but things as well."

"Of course," said Raabin. "Here in the Laboratory everything is fastened down. Were that not the case in your circle—"

"It's not."

"Everything would float up and away at the slightest provocation. Liquids would slosh from containers, form a million tiny droplets and splatter walls and ceiling. Food would leap from mouths, tools from hands. Open a drawer, the bureau will depart for the furthest wall or the ceiling, depending on the direction of the force you apply. Oh, it would be chaos." Raabin rubbed his hands together. "Our sociologists would be fascinated. Of course, sociology is not my field, but I can imagine their interest. I am beginning to feel glad you came here."

In his scientific curiosity, Raabin had lost sight of more important considerations, Mikal realized with a smile. Fortunately, all they needed from Raabin was his device, for he would not be of much help in any other respect.

"Well, Raabin," Rolf asked, almost cheerfully, "when can we shut off this machine of yours?"

"Shut it off? Oh! Oh, yes." Raabin shook his head. "I suppose I forgot to tell you, we can't shut it off."

"Can't?" Rolf snorted. "Now you're joking."

"I never joke," said Raabin coldly. "We cannot shut it off because I haven't the authority."

"You said no one needed authority here," Mikal reminded him desperately.

"True. So I did. That is because we each have our own fields of specialization and endeavor. What you propose is tampering with something which is not supposed to be tampered with," Raabin said firmly. "That would require a full meeting of all the scientists in Labry. In my lifetime there has never been such a meeting."

Marlyn suggested, "Can't you—uh, can't you do this thing when no one is looking?"

"My dear young woman! Why do you think we need no authority here?"

"Then call your meeting!" Rolf cried. 'The world is at stake."

Raabin shook his head patiently. "I would if I could. It would take days. You see, all our scientists are at work in different places. The physicists here, biologists, biochemists and chemists there," he was pointing meaninglessly in various directions, "the sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists. . . ."

"We understand," Rolf spoke for all of them. "Is there some alarm you can ring, some sort of warning signal used in case of emergency, some—"

"Yes, to be sure."

"Splendid," said Rolf.

"But we can't use it. Quite ironical, don't you think? The only alarm we have is a general alarm which is triggered if something happens to the engine that rotates the starship and so gives it centrifugal force and artificial gravity. I can't ring that alarm because it would mean shutting off the machine, and I can't shut off the machine because I have to call a meeting first and I won't be able to call the meeting in time because I can't stop the machine to set off the alarm."

Marlyn smiled brightly. "Well, if you can't, you can't. But, Raabin, I'm immensely interested in this machine of yours. I'd like to see it."

That did not sound like Marlyn, thought Mikal.

"Your ancestors must have been extremely intelligent to build it," Marlyn persisted.

"They did not build it, although we all service it. I suppose it can be arranged."

"Oh, I'm glad," said Marlyn, winking at Rolf.

Raabin told them to join hands again and led them along through air. "Incidentally," said Raabin as they started, "don't worry about falling up. You can't fall very far because we've strung a net above the floor all the way around Labry."

It was a sensation to which Mikal would never grow accustomed: the floor, the walls on either side floated serenely by. They weighed nothing, and nothing impeded their progress. Presently they reached another one of the long conveyances which Raabin had called a jetcar.

"For every action," Raabin said to no one in particular, "there is an equal and opposite reaction. That is a law of physics, and it is upon this law the jetcar operates. The car moves through a tunnel barely wide enough to admit it. Come."

As before, they entered the car. The lid clamped shut, and Mikal heard the same intense whining in his ears. As before, pressure crushed him against the padding, forced his head back against his body.

"Here we are," Raabin finally said, pushing the lid back. They got out, floated in a huge hall. The walls glowed with light, something thrummed faintly, just above the threshold of sound.

Bolted to the floor in the very center of the place, a flattened metallic dome awaited them.

"It must be very wonderful," said Marlyn contritely. "How does it work, Raabin?"

He shrugged. "You would not understand. An atomic pile is employed, its energy imparting rotation to the four circles of the starship."

"No, I mean what turns it on and off."

Rolf looked at Marlyn, grinned, turned away.

Mikal whispered, "He told us it could not be done unless we got permission."

Marlyn merely smiled. "Wait," she said. Then to Raabin: "Tell me how you work it, please."

When Raabin hesitated, she asked another question: "If it were turned off just for a moment, say, if something went wrong with it and immediately was fixed, would it still set off the alarm?"

"Most assuredly," said Raabin. "Were this little lever pulled down," Raabin pointed, "centrifugal force would be halted and the alarm would go off."

"You mean this lever?" Innocently.

"Yes, young lady. That one."

Marlyn pulled the lever. Sirens wailed dolefully far overhead, and Mikal could imagine them wailing distantly all over Far Labry.

Raabin was shocked. His arms fluttered, he lost the guide rope and soared upward. "Why did you do that?" His voice wailed along with the sirens.

He flipped in air, plummeted toward the floor. He pulled the lever back. The sirens faded away.

"Young lady, I clearly told you—"

"It was only for a moment," Marlyn said. "Just long enough to set off the alarm and bring your people together. See, it is back in place."

"I know. I know." Raabin seemed confused. "But what can I tell them? What can I say that will explain why they are being taken from their work? They are happiest working. They—"

"Why don't you tell them the truth?" Rolf suggested.

Mikal nodded eagerly. "You've got to tell them the truth. If they know the situation and if they're willing, we can shut your machine off and go ahead with our plan."

"The sociologists—" began Raabin, but when he saw the three of them scowling hopelessly, he amended: "Forget the sociologists. I'll do what you say.

Marlyn jumped for joy. It was many minutes before she came down, dizzy but still happy.

It was later. The scientists had come from all the far corners of Labry, had come buzzing with a million questions, outraged at first, but Raabin quieted them. They floated in from all directions, single scientists and scientists in long, human chains. Young and old, men and women, even children scientists, students, they all came.

Raabin spoke to them, talking simply, presenting the facts. They listened without a sound. They still made no sound when he had finished, and Mikal searched the scores of faces for some sign. Glumly, he began to think they had lost, for the silence which followed Raabin's speech was deafening.

Finally, a lean, white-tunicked scientists with gray hair and big round eyes said, "It should be fascinating."

The voices all around him commenced babbling. "It could be done."

"Yes. Unfamihar with weightlessness, they would be helpless, would agree to anything."

"If the situation is as bad as physicist Raabin said—"

"It is worse," Raabin declared. "I am no speech-maker."

"We will wreck a small, artificial world to colonize a larger, natural one. Yes, there is justice in that."

"Thank you, Raabin. Thank you." Smiles and laughter. "You did wisely by setting off the alarm."

"Well now, I—"

"Hush! No modesty at a time like this, Raabin."

They all clustered around Raabin, pounding his back, smiling at him. Raabin was helpless in the crowd's enthusiastic embrace.

"You see?" Marlyn said, laughing. "You see?"

Rolf nodded. "It would take a girl to do that. A man would not, could not. I don't know why, a difference in our make-ups, I suppose. Someday on that new world, Marlyn, they ought to build a statue in your honor."

"My honor? Mikal's you mean." Hearing this, Mikal squared his shoulders proudly. "It was Mikal who brought us all together, Mikal who followed me from the Jungle, came to the Place of Revelers. Mikal who had the key to Far Labry."

"Forget it," Mikal told her. "Let's not congratulate anybody until this thing is done. The biggest part of the job still lies ahead of us. It's one thing for Raabin's people to agree with us. That still leaves our own people. Rolf, can you imagine what it would be like, convincing the Revelers to leave their home? Marlyn, would the Noahs turn their backs on the Jungle they love just because we tell them to?"

"I see what you mean," Rolf admitted.

"Well, my Noahs will have no choice, not once they all weigh nothing. I'll show them the way out. I'll-"

Raabin said, "Here in the place you call Labry we have all the material needed to start our colony on the new planet. But, as the young man pointed out, we will need colonists."

"This is what I have in mind," Mikal said. "Suppose we each of us return to his own home. Suppose I go to Astrosphere and ask them for a group of representatives, or leader, or whatever they want, to follow me. We could have Raabin's ferry all set, we could gather all the leaders of all the circles of the world m it.

"Certainly," Raabin took it up for him. "I could ferry them to the Centaurian planet, show them their new world. They would like it. They would have to like it. Men are made to live on planets, on big planets. To live on the outside of the world, and not on the inside like moles. To see a bright sun in the sky and feel rain and the change of seasons and the brisk wind whistling in off the oceans. Men are meant to see stars at night, thousands winking down at them from the sky. Men want a horizon, where earth and sky meet, a horizon which beckons with the mystery of what lies beyond."

His words hardly made sense to Mikal, but seemed nevertheless very beautiful. It reminded him somehow of the words which went with the old, old films Rolf had shown them in the Place of Revelers. He longed to see the things the film had revealed and Raabin had talked of, the things he could not understand because his people had not known them for so long.

Raabin searched his face long, seemed satisfied with the rapt expression there. And Marlyn was murmuring:

"The Noahs! The Noahs will have to like this new world. They love space, space for their crops and their herds, space to run and walk and play."

"Even the Revelers," Rolf was saying thoughtfully, "even the Revelers might find some pleasant surprises. Perhaps in the things Raabin describes they will find a new kind of empathy. Tell me, Raabin, will they?"

And Raabin: "If your Revelers do not love the sunset, the soft rains, the wind in the trees—we have our pictures too—the surf pounding itself out on lonely beaches, if they do not love all these, then they are not men."

So speaking, Raabin walked to the machine, pulled the lever down. "It is done," he said. "And now—"

"Now we head back to our homes," Marlyn blurted, "and bring our leaders, and—"

"No, we don't," Mikal told her, shouting to be heard over the wailing sirens. "We wait here. We wait long enough for them to worry and to think everything is hopeless. We don't return until then."

Raabin's head bobbed up and down. "It is good."

Mikal was not smiling any longer. In their first rush of wild enthusiasm, they had forgotten one thing which could easily spell the difference between success and failure. "If any one of us shows his face in the Place of Revelers," he said, "Jebstakion will see that he is captured. Weightlessness and floating won't prevent that."

"And I," Marlyn nodded, "I must pass through the Place of Revelers to return to my Jungle."

"If I enter the Jungle," Mikal went on, "assuming I somehow could pass through the Place of Revelers, the same thing would await me. Your people don't love me, Marlyn."

"Well," said Raabin, and that was all he said.

To have success within their grasp and then to watch helplessly as it slipped away was a terrible thing, Mikal knew. Far better to have no chance for success. Yet. . . . Surely there must be something they could do.

"Suppose you were to enter the circles at different places," Raabin suggested.

"I don't understand." Marlyn was shaking her head.

"There are many avenues from circle to circle, since it was originally intended that there be a steady flow of people back and forth. If they are watching for you on one avenue, and you come upon another . . ."

"Why not?" Marlyn cried. "We have Needle Mountain, but the Revelers know of another way to our Jungle."

"I would still have to pass through both the Place of Revelers and the Jungle," Mikal thought aloud. "But if I could do it undetected—"

"It can be arranged," said Raabin, and some of the other scientists nodded vigorously. Raabin continued:

"You will all be given sufficient time. Then you must bring your delegations not here, but to Astrosphere, for it is there the ferry waits. I will tell you where."

"Better tell me too," Mikal advised him. "For although my home is in Astrosphere, I know of no such place."

"It shall be done. You all shall find me waiting for you in the ferry."

One of the scientists had a map, and they all studied it.

When they entered the Place of Revelers through a secret way, Mikal found that his black key fit the door, even as Raabin had predicted. They passed through, and in the dim light on the other side, something struck Mikal's head. Instinctively he pushed away from it, then smiled.

Bobbing gently on currents of air, one of the vision screens floated before his face. Weightlessness had come to the Place of Revelers.

"Good luck," Rolf said, pushing off from the wall of the corridor and floating away. "I will meet you both in Astrosphere as soon as I can." He grasped Mikal's forearm, held it firmly; touched hands briefly with Marlyn. "Be careful." And he was gone.

Marlyn and Mikal followed the path Raabin had drawn for them, encountering a fantastic assortment of flotsam. Mobile chairs floated in the corridors. And cups, plates, items of apparel, more vision screens. Revelers floated too, calling faintly for help.

"I am missing Kardy. Get me down."

"Today I was called for a session of joint empathy with Senior Reveler Jebstakion. Please. . . ."

"My chair! Who took my chair?"

In the universal chaos no one bothered them, but Mikal saw something which gladdened his heart. Two small boys came floating toward them smiling. One said, "This is fun."

"Yes. Oh, yes. You can have your crummy old screen. I want to float through air like this. Wheeet"

"Hey! Look at me. You can turn over and everything. Race you to that wall." Tumbling, spinning and laughing, they floated on.

"The Revelers aren't hopeless," Mikal said. "If their children like the strangeness of floating they might be taught in time to like other things, normal things. Someday the Revelers will forget all about the vision screens and live like human beings again."

Hours later they entered the Jungle. At the very gateway two Revelers tried to stop them. Marlyn said she thought it must be the secret way the Revelers had used with their bus. But Mikal, more accustomed to weightlessness than they, darted around them, jostling, shoving, pushing. When he had finished, they were twisted together limb and limb, floating off helplessly.

Mikal found his silver key, used it.

"Marlyn—" he said.

She smiled, her nose crinkling, the freckles across the bridge of it bunching together. "Rolf and I shall find you in Astrosphere." Flipping her arms, she swam away across the gently undulating farmland.

Mikal felt a sudden, poignant sense of loss. His friends were gone—Rolf and Marlyn, with whom he had shared so much, gone their separate ways. But if everything worked out, reunion would come. New adventures, greater adventures for all three of them would be in the offing. It was strange, he mused, how fate had thrown them together, fate or something else which he could not quite explain even to himself and certainly could not name—a girl from the Noahs, a man of the Place of Revelers, a boy of Astrosphere. One from each of three circles of the world (the star-ship, he corrected himself with new-found knowledge ) and Raabin from the fourth to face perils which a few short days before they did not know existed.

Rolf and Marlyn, gone to fetch their leaders. And he, Mikal, was going home to Astrosphere!

Many hours later he found his father in conference with the Chief Enginer and other leaders. It seemed a remarkable conference, for its members floated about the Chief Enginer's room, some upright, some supine through no fault of their own. Mikal had hardly recognized Astrosphere anyway. People he knew had called to him nervously, grimly, hysterically, perched in air. Instruments, tools, furniture floated about. Someone told him he could find Saml, his father, in the Chief Enginer's quarters, and it was there that Mikal went.

The Chief Enginer, taller even than his son Fil and with hair as red, was saying, ". . .no explanation. We can get no work done, absolutely none."

"Will this continue?" someone asked gloomily.

"How am I to know? Suddenly, without warning, we are unable to stand. Nothing stays in place. Things float. People float. It is as if the world is coming to an end."

Saml shook his head gravely. "No. That is the wrong attitude. If indeed this swimming in air is a permanent thing, then we must do two things."

"What can we do?" the Chief Enginer demanded.

"Shh! Listen to Saml."

"Let Saml talk."

"First, we must try to discover the cause," said Saml. "I do not believe, frankly, that we can. We can certainly try, however."

"Where would you suggest we start?"

Saml shrugged, laughing when it made him float easily toward the ceiling, where he bumped his head and came down gently. "I do not know. The second thing is more important. I tell you this: we must conduct ourselves as if this were a permanent thing. We must place rods and stakes at convenient places in all Astrosphere, making it possible for us to move about and resume working. We must fasten tools and implements in place, secure furniture, rearrange our whole way of life to meet this crisis. We can meet it, and we must."

"That makes good sense," admitted the Chief Enginer. "I say we should heed Saml's words."

"But," someone wailed, "if only we knew the cause. If only we knew what could be done about it."

Mikal floated in through the open doorway. "I know the cause," he said quietly. "I know what can be done about it."

"Mikall" Saml cried, rushing ceilingward again in his eagerness to embrace his son. "Mikal, you have completed your Journey."

Then the voices all around them: "It is Mikal, Saml's son."

Long-established tradition made them forget momentarily their grave predicament. The Chief Enginer smiled, saying, "Have you your trophies?"

Mikal shook his head. "I come with no trophies."

"Empty-handed! What? But you were gone almost six days."

"He has returned, afraid, even as the boy Harol." "But six days."

"Impossible," said Saml. "Tell us, Mikal. Tell us you are joking. Where are the trophies, Mikal?"

Grinning, Mikal said: "If you insist I bring trophies, then you will find them all around you. You float. That is a trophy. That is all the trophies I have brought."

"What does he mean?"

"He is crazy. Something has deranged his mind."

"Please explain yourself, Mikal," Saml pleaded. Mikal knew it was a terrible blow to a man's pride if his youngster returned empty-handed from the Journey.

"You ask what has caused this weightlessness, this floating. I tell you I know. I know the cause and I know how to stop it."

They hovered about him like the Jungle bees hovering over blossoms for nectar. They showered him with questions, wanting to believe but not seeing how they could.

For his own part, Mikal hardly knew how to begin telling them. He could not merely say, with no preamble and no elaboration, that he had been responsible. They would either not believe him or believing, mob him. Yet, the truth has a way of making strangeness seem not so strange, he thought.

"It was done," he cried in a wild, breathless rush of words, "to convince you that our way of life is wrong, to convince you there is more to the Universe than our four-circled world, to convince you to try what I am going to suggest or, refusing, to perish," "What is he talking about?"

"Representatives are at this moment on the other circles of the world, bringing the same message—"

"What message? What are you talking about?"

"Perish? Who is going to perish?"

"More to the world than the four circles?"

"Clearly, he is deranged, for the four circles are the sum total of everything."

"In a sense," shouted Mikal desperately, "it is a message from the place called Earth that I bring you."

"Earth?"

"What did you discover of Earth on the other three circles?"

"A lie, obviously."

"There is nothing known elsewhere that we Engi-ners do not already know."

"Unless," mused Saml, "unless it be in Far Labry."

"Yes," Mikal said, at least in part sticking to the truth. "I learned what I learned in Far Labry. You've got to believe me before it's too late."

The Chief Enginer frowned. "How can we believe you if we do not understand you?"

It had been a mistake, Mikal realized. He had come upon the truth with dramatic swiftness, a fugitive in the Place of Revelers, hiding in the library where Rolf showed him all those wonderful things. With a whole lifetime of insufficient knowledge, that was one way to discover the truth and believe it. The other way was gradually. He understood that now. If he merely told the Enginers what he knew and offered no proof, he could go on babbling for days on end and they would not believe. Gradually meant telling them almost nothing, telling them only what was enough to bring them to Raabin and the ferry. Then let them see for themselves.

"Forget all that," Mikal finally said. "Forget what I told you if it doesn't make sense. But answer this: if there was a way to stop this floating, would you take it?"

"Any way," the Chief Enginer admitted. "We would try anything."

"I know of such a way, but you will have to listen to me—"

"If this is some boyish prank, young man . . ."

"I don't ask much of you," said Mikal, "and my gamble shall be as great as yours. If you find I don't know what I'm talking about, you may keep me from becoming an Enginer forever."

"Mikal!" Saml cried. "Are you sure?"

"Father, I am sure. We will need a delegation to accompany me."

"To where?" the Chief Enginer demanded. "We of Astrosphere leave our home but once, to make the Journey of the Four Circles."

"We won't leave Astrosphere," Mikal told him, again adhering to the truth at least in part. "Where I will take you is right here in Astrosphere." Raabin had indicated to him where the ferry was. "In one of the unknown places," Mikal added. "Follow me and we can put an end to this weightlessness, and I will show you wonders you have never dreamed of."

"The first will be sufficient," said the Chief Enginer coolly. "You have set the condition yourself, Mileal, son of Saml: if you fail, you will never be an Enginer. If you succeed, we will waive the three trophies for your service."

Saml told the Chief Enginer, "I would like to go along."

"Very well. Then it shall be the two of us. When, Mikal?"

Mikal considered. Had Raabin enough time to follow, to find the ferry and wait there for them?

"I hope you know what you re doing, son," Saml muttered.

"You asked me when? Now is as good as any time."

The Chief Enginer grumbling, Saml muttering to himself, they followed Mikal from the room. They went down the passageway which branched off on either side to the living quarters of the Enginers and their families, the cold metal and glass living quarters which Mikal now knew were not meant for men to live in all their lives once the starship had completed its long journey. Soon they had embarked, floating and swimming awkardly in air, on the final leg of their journey, beyond the passageway of machine shops and repair cubicles and into a tunnel which was unknown even to the Chief Enginer.

The tunnel opened on a wide space, its walls glass. Through them, glowing with unfamiliar beauty, were the stars of space!

"Raabin!" Mikal called softly. "Raabin, where are you?" His heart began to pound. "Raabin! Raaaabiiin!"

With all its mysterious beauty, with the stars shining against velvety blackness, the place was empty.

"Well?" the Chief Enginer demanded.

Chapter 14 Planetfall

I OOK," Saml insisted. "Look at the strangeness all I  around you. Is it not enough to wait?"

"Mikal said we would find someone waiting *- here. We have found no one."

Mikal groaned. Raabin alone could open the final door to the ferry. Meanwhile he must wait, keeping Saml and the Chief Enginer with him. Floating almost in the very center of the huge glass-walled vault, he spread his arms wide to take in the great sweep of stars on all sides.

"Look!" he cried. "Have you ever seen anything like it? Tell me, have you?"

Stars in patterns, sprinklings of stars, unblinking solitary orbs, great streaks and smears of what looked like cold fire against the blackness of space met their eyes.

"You have said the Four Circles of the World are the sum total of the Universe," Mikal reminded the Chief Enginer. "What do you say now?"

"Well, yes. This is something of which I was unaware. But it is within Astrosphere."

"It is outside!" Mikal shouted. "Outside, through the glass."

The Chief Enginer kicked himself over to one of the smooth-sloping walls of glass. "It is bare of paint," he admitted. "Still those pictures could be painted on the other side."

"They are not," Mikal told him.

"Even if they were," said Saml eagerly, "then at least you admit another side exists. Since Astrosphere is the outermost of the four circles, you admit there is something beyond Astrosphere. I think Mikal knows of what he is talking."

"Mikal is your son. Of course you would say that."

"I say it because Mikal claims he can help us."

"Well-"

Then there was a great scraping sound. One small section of wall which was not glass but metal opened toward them, revealing blackness beyond it. It was far away, vague in the starlight. A small dot appeared in the opening, blossomed toward them.

"Someone is coming," said Saml happily. "See?"

"Raabin!" Mikal cried. "Raabin."

"I was inside, exploring the ferry. Although theory and practical application of theory are two different things, I believe I can operate it. Have the others arrived?"

"No," said Mikal.

"Then these two, I assume, are Enginers. The gulf between an engineer—that is the old word, young man —and a theoretical scientist was never greater than it is here today, with your Enginers living inside the outermost shell of the starship and the theoretical scientists dwelling at its center, yet some of our epis-temologists—"

"Who?" said Mikal.

"Epistemologists. They study how men know what they know, the meaning of knowledge and other kindred fields. Anyway, some of them have pointed out that knowledge would take great strides forward if this artificial gap between engineers and scientists were closed. It is a point I have to suggest to the Enginers when we reach the Centauri planet/*

"Who is this man," demanded the Chief Enginer, "mouthing all this gibberish?"

"I am from Labry," said Raabin, using their word for his home.

"Then why don't you talk sense?" Bewildered by everything, the Chief Enginer had finally found an anchor for his confusion. Respect was something you earned, Mikal thought, not something merited by age or position. The thought surprised him; it had not been in his head six days ago, and he had looked upon the Chief Enginer with awe. But there was something of the boy Fil in him, and Mikal suspected it was a good thing that once they reached the Centauri planet—if they reached it—deeds and not tradition would count. With the four circles working together for the first time, new leaders, strong leaders, might emerge, leaders who would be willing to throw off the yoke of tradition and strike out on their own with all the new discoveries around them. Mikal liked the thought.

"You see?" Raabin was saying. "You see? It is a difficult gap to bridge."

"Can you stop this foolish floating?" the Chief Enginer asked Raabin.

"I can and I will, when this boy and his friends tell me to."

"What do you—" but the Chief Enginer's voice trailed off into silence.

Behind them, two figures floated into the vault of stars. One tall and lean, but broad of shoulder; the other a huge round man of almost impossible girth.

"Rolf!" Mikal shouted, waving his hand and soaring out toward one of the glass walls. Coming toward them, the one smiling broadly and the other wheezing and puffing from the almost negligible effort of swimming through air, were Rolf and Senior Reveler Jebstakion.

"This is far enough," Jebstakion protested. "All right, Rolf. I said I would come with you, and you can imagine the idea did not particularly please me. You were going to repair the damage so we could all sit back comfortably once more and experience empathy. It may be perfectly all right for you Activists to go gallivanting around, but not a true Reveler. I said I would forgive you for what you did, so I will, provided you can do what you claim."

Rolf ignored him, pounded Mikal's shoulder and sent them both tumbling off. "It's wonderful to see you," he said. "Wonderful. You can picture the job I had bringing him here." Rolf laughed, then abrupdy sobered. "Where is Marlyn?"

"She hasn't arrived yet."

"But she was closer, she should have come before me."

"Not yet," said Mikal, trying to keep the worry from his voice. "She should come soon."

"We could proceed without her," suggested Raabin, "and inform her people later."

Rolf shook his head stubbornly. "If she doesn't arrive soon, I'll go after her."

"So these two are Revelers," Saml mused. "It has been a long time. I saw Revelers once, Mikal, when I made the Journey."

"You must be from Astrosphere," said Rolf.

SamI nodded. "An Enginer."

"He is my father," Mikal told his friend. "I have brought the Chief Enginer and my father to witness what we are about to do," he added unnecessarily, trying to take Rolfs mind off Marlyn.

"We became lost," said a girl's voice.

They whirled. Rolf smiled, said, "Marlyn." And again, "Marlyn."

"Maybe you could understand Raabin's map, Rolf, but I am used to broad open fields and forest, and landmarks you can see. We turned down more tunnels, passageways, climbed more stairs, went down ramps. I thought Raabin had us going in circles. Sacher the Cobbler wanted to turn back, especially when he actually tried to climb the stairs instead of floating over them!"

With Marlyn were her father, Landor, and Sacher the Cobbler who, Mikal recalled with a sinking heart, had been his most outspoken critic that night at the Town Council. Sacher evidently came along representing the opposition. Now he was saying, "Let's get this nonsense over with."

Raabin led them through the vault of stars, but Sacher failed to see their beauty. "What a quaint source of lighting," he commented indifferently. "You should think they would have developed something more effective if they couldn't have the natural light of the Jungle."

"The Jungle's light," said Raabin, "is no more natural than anything else here. As closely as possible, it simulates sunlight; but then, you wouldn't know what sunlight is."

Leading his strange charges, Raabin floated off.

Mikal found something amusing about the odd assortment of people who followed the physicist, despite the fact that the future of all their peoples might hinge upon their actions. It was just that if someone actually had been in a position to select representatives from each of the circles for what lay ahead of them, his choice would have been totally different. From Astrosphere came three. First, a boy who understood more than the others and who earnestly wanted to believe what he did not yet understand. But what would a boy's words be worth, thought Mikal, in the face of the Chief Enginer's opposition? Saml could help, and Saml would try, but the Chief Enginer would balk him at every step, figuring the whole thing was a sham to cover MikaFs lack of trophies. At any rate, when decisions had to be reached, the second and third representatives of Astrosphere would carry far more weight than Mikal.

From the Jungle—well, there at least things looked promising. Marlyn maintained Mikal's position; Lan-dor had an open mind and might be able to overrule Sacher's narrow-mindedness. Rolf of the Revelers had sufficient years behind him to be considered a man, but the other Revelers hardly considered Rolf one of them. He led the Activists, led them in an open if passive revolt against their fellows, and they would as soon believe the opposite of what he said as anything at all. As for Jebstakion, Mikal had to grin. By no stretch of the imagination could Jebstakion be considered the explorer type.

Raabin was as good a representative of Far Labry as you could find, and once the scientists had agreed to help they posed no problem. To save a world, then, were a boy and a girl; a rebel whose people disliked him; a pompous, self-important Chief Enginer; a father prejudiced in his son's behalf, well-meaning but potentially powerless; an open-minded Noah and a narrow-minded one; and a mountain of a man who wanted nothing better than to sit on his specially constructed mobile chair and gaze upon vision screens or have beautiful dreams.

"We are moving through an air lock now," Raabin told his followers. "When the first door shuts, the second one opens, admitting us. It will then close, sealing off this inner chamber from which all the air will be drawn when the wall slides away."

"When the wall does what?" demanded the Chief Enginer. "Haven't you caused enough damage already?"

"But my dear Enginer," protested Raabin mildly. "How do you suppose we can go out into space if the wall is not removed?"

"Into space? What is space?"

"Space is—well—ummm. I can see we are going to have quite a job on our hands."

The chamber beyond what Raabin had called an air lock was almost as large as the vault of stars. In its very center, angled toward one of the glass walls at forty-five degrees, was a long, tapering, cone-shaped object, far larger than any building Mikal had seen among the Noahs except for the Council Hall.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Raabin asked. "There is your ferry."

The tapered end pointed at the wall of glass, pointed beyond it at the stars, but mainly at one star, direcdy in line with it, far brighter than the rest.

"Alpha Centauri," said Raabin, his gaze following an invisible line from the prow of the spaceship to the bright, unblinking star. It was somehow waiting patiently and eternally there in the cold blackness, as if it knew they would come.

"Get in," said Raabin, leading the way to the spaceship and opening its port, also an air lock.

"Well—" the Chief Enginer paused, undecided.

"You carry out your half of the bargain if my son is to carry out his," Saml said.

They entered.

"Such foolishness," Sacher the Cobler declared, following them with Landor.

"I can hardly fit," said Jebstakion, and meant it. Rolf helped him, then entered after him with Marlyn. Mikal and Raabin brought up the rear.

Raabin turned, began to pull the circular hatch shut.

"Wait! Wait!"

Raabin peered outside. "Someone is coming."

Mikal looked outside. Hurtling toward them through the air, arms and legs thrashing and kicking to impart a rapid if wobbly motion, was the Chief Enginer's lanky, red-haired son.

"Must he come along?" Marlyn asked wearily when Fil reached the hatch.

"I insist that he does," said the Chief Enginer, and not wanting to antagonize him further, Mikal cautioned Marlyn to silence.

"I have returned from the Journey," Fil said breathlessly.

"Your trophies?" demanded the Chief Enginer.

"Stored for safekeeping. I arrived right after you left for this place."

"You followed us," said Mikal.

"Yes, I did. I waited outside until—"

"Until you could see who else was coming," Marlyn finished for him, ignoring Mikal's warning. "You must figure it's pretty important with someone here from each of the circles."

"I merely want to come along."

"And he will," repeated the Chief Enginer.

"Listen," Fil said, floating in through the hatch, "whatever it is they told you is a trick of some kind. These three have been together doing strange things ever since we got to the Place of Revelers."

"We were doing strange things?" Marlyn almost screamed. "How about you? You and that Skot person, taking me to the One in Ten like that, and—"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You—liar!"

Mikal grew alarmed, for the freckles were disappearing from Marlyn's face. If she lost her temper now, the Chief Enginer might call everything off and leave the spaceship in a huff. Somehow Marlyn and Fil could never be together for a few minutes without coming to blows. And worse, Marlyn could handle herself all right with Fil, but Rolf might not see it that way. If Rolf took after Fil . . .

"Please, Marlyn," Mikal pleaded.

"I don't know what they're trying to do," Fil went blandly on, "but I would keep my eye on them, Father. I would—"

"You!" Marlyn stormed. "As if you're in a position to advise anyone."

"I wasn't talking to you. You're in Astrosphere now, not the Jungle. Behave yourself."

"Oh!" Marlyn leaped at Fil, soaring through space after him and slapping him soundly. Fil floated away, bumped into a wall, came floating back, fists clenched. Marlyn stuck her tongue out.

"Just a minute now!" Rolf roared, and got between them. "You'd better not try to—to hit a girl."

"Well, she started it!" Fil shrieked.

"She certainly did," said the Chief Enginer. "Either that girl goes, or we do."

Rolf had Fil firmly in tow, pinning his arms to his sides. Fil kicked and squirmed while Marlyn taunted him.

"Release my son," said the Chief Enginer. "We're leaving."

"Please," said Mikal. "All of you calm down. This can all be straightened out."

"You straighten it," said the Chief Enginer. "We are going."

But Rolf still held Fil while Landor tried to calm his daughter. "Don't you see, Marlyn? Don't you see? You'll spoil everything."

Fil subsided; Rolf let him go. Marlyn stood quietly, the freckles returning to her face.

"Come," said the Chief Enginer. He and Fil headed for the hatch.

Slam! The hatch made a loud, clanking noise as Raabin pulled it shut and bolted it. "There is one way to settle all this," he said cheerfully. "We're going into space. No, don't go near that door. Look."

He pointed to a round window to which they all floated—and stared. Outside, a section of the glass wall had doubled back on another section. A gaping hole, roughly square, had taken its place. The glass on all sides, crisscrossed by metal struts for support, framed the opening neatly.

"You can't go outside," said Raabin. "No air. No heat. It would kill you instantly."

The Chief Engineer paused uncertainly.

Fil said, "Another trick."

Raabin smiled, pulled a large lever down toward the floor. Everyone was slammed against the rear wall of the spaceship cabin. Going from weightlessness to twice their real weight during the instant of acceleration, they were helpless, propped up like rag dolls against the wall however they had fallen.

Raabin raised a trembling finger toward the port. "We are in space," he said. "For the first time in two hundred years, men have left the starship."

A brief look sufficed to tell Mikal Raabin was correct.

Even as he stared, weightlessness returned. He floated to the port for a better view, heard Raabin explaining:

"We grow heavy only at the moment of acceleration, and later when we come to a stop. Otherwise we are in free fall, just like the starship. In free fall, there is no weight."

All around them were the stars of space. So far had they come in almost no time at all that Mikal could not even see the starship. He tried the ports on each side of their vessel, tried the one in front and the one to the rear. The starship, which had been world and universe to his people, had vanished in a twinkling. For the first time Mikal began to understand that it was the merest of specks, a grain of dust in a vast universe of billions of much larger, much more important grains.

The stars stared back at him from all sides. The stars and the spaces between them in their immensity had swallowed up the starship. Suddenly and breathlessly, the starship, the world Mikal had known, did not matter. Ahead of them now he saw one star brighter than all the others. So bright that it dazzled him, hurt his eyes if he stared at it too long. Did he imagine it grew brighter, more dazzling? No, not his imagination, for Raabin had called that star Alpha Centauri, and Alpha Centauri was their goal and the goal of their people for two hundred years and across more empty space than his mind could fathom.

Mikal suddenly felt sorry for the Chief Enginer, for Jebstakion, even for Fil. They were embarking on a glorious adventure but would not let themselves know it.

Mikal stood for a long time watching Alpha Centauri, stood unmoving at the port while the bright star became a blazing globe, a beacon.

"We are circling Alpha Centauri at a distance of two billion miles," said Raabin later, after he had set their spaceship in an orbit around the star.

Mikal did not know what miles were, but figured two billion of them would cover a lot of distance. Why were they waiting?

"I forgot one thing," said Raabin in embarrassment. "I don't know which planet we want."

"Which one?" Rolf asked. "You mean there are more than one?"

"Two," Raabin informed him. "Our own solar systern, the solar system of the Planet Earth, had nine of them. Nine planets. Here there are only two, but that is one too many."

"Can't you find out?" Mikal demanded. "Won't someone in Labry know?"

Raabin shook his head, frowning. "We never had that knowledge, for we never had any astronomers. Buried in the center of the starship, how could we? The science of astronomy belonged to Astrosphere." He looked hopefully at Saml and the Chief Enginer.

"I have never heard of it," said Fil's father.

And Saml: "We know of no such thing."

"Perhaps there is some difference between the planets which could tell us what we want to know," Rolf suggested.

Raabin shrugged. "One lies closer to Alpha Cen-tauri than the other. But distances are a relative thing because Alpha Centauri is somewhat larger and hotter than the Sun of Earth. And we have no instruments for measuring the planetary heat."

"Isn't there anything else?" Marlyn asked. "Some other thing, something about Earth, maybe, that can tell us?"

Raabin paused to consider, then shook his head. "I do not know."

Mikal was thinking furiously. There had to be something, some clue which they had overlooked, some way of knowing which planet would suit them. Of course, they could land on both and find out that way, but if they selected the wrong one first, Jeb-stakion, Sacher and the Chief Enginer might refuse to go any further. Raabin could force them to visit the other one because he controlled the ship, but that first wrong impression might do untold damage since the Chief Enginer and the others would have to report back to their people favorably. Still, Mikal could not quite decide what could make one planet so different from another. Weren't they all the same? Weren't they . . . certainly not! At least something of the truth struck him when he realized that within the comparatively small dimensions of the starship such totally different worlds as Astrosphere, the Jungle, the Place of Revelers and Far Labry could exist one within the other. On a planetary scale differences might be unthinkable.

He finally said, "Doesn't Earth have any distinguishing feature? Something which sets it aside as different from everything else?"

Marlyn smiled brightly. "Yes! You told me so yourself. Earth is so big, so very much larger than the Jungle or your Astrosphere or anything else."

Size, thought Mikal. Why not? It was something to grasp at, something worth considering. Earth was large, unbelievably large. Shouldn't their new home among the stars be the same?

"That isn't very scientific," Raabin told them.

"Can you think of anything else?" Rolf asked him.

"No. Nothing else. Size it is, then. Although I do believe with more time and some serious thought—"

Mikal shrugged, gestured toward Jebstakion, muttering to himself off in a corner; toward Sacher, pacing back and forth irritably; toward Fil, whispering something in the Chief Enginer's ear. "Do we have time?"

"No," admitted Raabin. "As far as I can see, the second planet is larger than the first. Here," and he beckoned Mikal toward a small eyepiece in front of him. The eyepiece protruded from a long tube, the tube disappeared into the wall. Mikal looked, saw first a small blue globe, then a slightly larger whitish one.

"I am no astronomer," said Raabin, "but with our distance and the magnifying power of this telescope, I should guess the diameter of the first planet, the blue one, as between four and eight thousand miles. The white planet, between ten and fifteen. Then it's the white one?"

Rolf nodded. Mikal said, "Yes, the white one. But you mean those two small globes you showed me are—planets?" Why, they had been hardly more than dots, hardly very large or impressive-looking.

"We have a way to travel," Raabin said. "Watch the white planet grow."

Mikal lacked the opportunity, for trouble was brewing in the tight confines of the spaceship again. This time it was Sacher the Cobbler, who told Landor bitterly, "I have been thinking, Landor, and I do not like my thoughts."

"Then don't think them," Marlyn suggested.

"I am addressing your father. Landor, do you know what these thoughts say?"

Landor shook his head.

"They say something is wrong when twoscore of our youngsters are kidnaped by the Revelers, but—"

Jebstakion interrupted: "Even if you must use that term, kidnaped, you should at least realize it is for your youngsters' own good. We take them from the Jungle and show them civilization. Reveler civilization."

"You keep out of this!" Sacher cried.

"That's all over and done with," Rolf pointed out.

"You keep out of it too," said Sacher. "You're a Reveler, just like the other one. What I was saying, Landor: something is wrong if after all these kidnap-ings only one of our children is returned, and she happens to be the daughter of our leader. What do you know about this, Landor? What are you hiding? Don't forget, my son Birto was taken as well. You have your Marlyn back; I don't have Birto."

"I saw Birto not two days ago, Sacher," said Marlyn. "He was quite well, although a little frightened."

"Is there any wonder? How did you escape? How?"

"I could tell you, but you wouldn't believe me. Why don't you ask Jebstakion?"

The fat man said, "Ask me nothing. I don't want to talk to anyone."

"I am a Reveler too," Rolf said to Sacher. "I released her. Does that satisfy you?"

While Sacher pondered, Jebstakion was muttering half-aloud, "I would need a mountain of food to satisfy me. When will you stop this foolish game and let us all go home? Weightlessness is bad enough, but now you—"

"Exactly what I was thinking," said the Chief En-giner. "The Reveler makes sense."

"You agreed to see this thing through," Saml reminded him.

"But not to remain shut away from everything in this small room indefinitely."

Mikal had difiiculty believing his ears. To the Chief Enginer the spaceship was a small room, a prison rather than a way of escaping from the confines of their circumscribed world. He saw the stars outside;

the stars were nothing to him. He had so much to learn, and so little time. . . .

They argued on and on, first about one thing, then another. They represented four different ways of life which had been thrust abruptly together, and the tension among them was growing all the time. Mikal could sense it in the air, almost palpable. Fists might start flying at the slightest provocation. It had begun, logically enough, with spiteful Fil and high-strung Marlyn, but it had spread among all the conflicting factions.

"You will so talk," Sacher was telling Jebstakion. "If you know anything about the whereabouts of my son Birto . . ."

Jebstakion responded with stony silence.

"Tell me!" little Sacher cried indignantly, not so much because he did not have the knowledge, but because Jebstakion refused to recognize the fact that he so much as existed. Sacher floated toward him, looked ridiculously small hovering near Jebstakion's tremendous girth. "Well?"

Jebstakion brushed Sacher away, reaching out with his hand and cuffing the small man lightly. Sacher, weighing zero, flew to the farthest wall and hit it resoundingly.

"You can't do that to a Noah," Landor bristled. Even Landor, thought Mikal. Hurry, Raabin, hurry!

"I have done it," said Jebstakion, and lapsed into silence again.

"Please, Father," Marlyn pleaded, "one bad temper in the family can get us into enough trouble."

Now Marlyn was trying to placate Landor while Landor tried to placate Sacher. Rolf shrugged elo-

quently enough at Mikal, who wondered how long the strange crew could remain together without something exploding.

Fortunately it was Raabin who supplied the answer. "Brace yourselves, all of you," he said. "We are about to planetfall."

"Were going to land!" Marlyn cried in delight.

Weight returned crushingly, threw them forward in the direction of the spaceship's flight.

The spaceship shook.

A piercing, shrieking sound rushed in at them.

"Atmosphere friction," called Raabin. "I think I started the braking action too late. I think . . . you had better brace yourselves."

Brace themselves? Mikal found he could not move. An intolerable weight seemed to crush down on his chest and all at once it had grown uncomfortably warm, then hot, then almost broiling within the spaceship.

"Friction causes heat," Raabin mumbled. "Ship streaking through atmosphere . . . friction . . . heat. The outside of this spaceship must be almost hot enough to melt."

Mikal craned his neck, tried to look through the round ports. But they were opaque, blackened, ugly, having been fused by the intense heat.

"We're still falling too fast," Raabin called. "It is one thing to know the theory and another to put it into practice."

The crushing weight increased as the whining sound grew fainter.

"We're slowing," Raabin said. Then: "Fifty thousand feet!"

Mikal wished he knew what feet were. Some measure of height.

"Forty thousand!" called Raabin, peering at his instrument board.

"Let's — go back to — Astrosphere," cried Fil in mounting alarm.

"Ten thousand feet.... Five

At that moment Mikal felt himself lifted, flung up into the air, deposited again. The spaceship trembled, the cabin spun wildly. Someone shouted hoarsely; someone else, it sounded like Fil, screamed.

Mikal was dimly aware of a shambles inside the spaceship, of twisted, convoluted walls, broken instruments, buckling floor and dented ceiling. Raabin staggered away from the control board amidst a tinkling of glass.

"I would do much better next time," he said. "We have landed." He plunged forward on his face.

Chapter 15 TheNew Earth

I

HEY ALL GATHERED around Raabin in the broken cabin. Soon Raabin blinked, opened his eyes and smiled up weakly at them. "One thing about a theoretical scientist," he said, "if he ever gets around to putting the theory in practice, it's still only theory to him. I was wondering how soon I had to apply braking power. By the time I decided, it was almost too late."

"This thing you call a spaceship is wrecked," said Saml.

Landor nodded. "A complete shambles."

"That's fine," the Chief Enginer said bitterly. "If this is a—uh, vehicle of sorts, as you say, and if we have come some distance from Astrosphere, now that you've wrecked it how are we going to return?"

Mikal thought with mounting fright that the Chief Enginer's question was a good one.

But Baabin grunted, "I think you are wrong. We will have to ascertain the extent of the damage later. Buckling walls do not mean much unless there are holes in them. As for my wrecked instrument panel, frankly, I did not understand most of it anyway."

"Forget all that for the present," Rolf said, trying to sound cheerful. "After two hundred years we have arrived on a new planet. Doesn't someone want to claim it in the name of the Place of Revelers, Far Labry, Astrosphere and the Jungle?"

Marlyn walked to one of the round ports, then stood there scowling. But she had walked, and Mikal sud-

denly realized that something like normal weight had returned. As a matter for fact, he felt slightly heavier than usual, although that could have been because of the change from weightlessness. The walking worked wonders. Everyone began pacing around the cabin, trying his legs again, smiling. Even Jebstakion climbed ponderously to his feet, took a few slow steps, then, grunting his satisfaction, sat down again, for once not muttering.

Marlyn still scowled. "Come here," she said.

Mikal, Raabin and Rolf clustered about the port with her. Raabin shrugged. "So what? We will never know what this planet is like until we venture outside. I prefer the empirical method in certain things, anyway."

The port had been fused black and solid by the heat of their passage through the planet's atmosphere. "It must be hot out there," Rolf guessed.

"Not at all," Raabin told him. "It might be hot, might be cold, might be normal. The heat has to do with friction, with a rubbing together of molecules from the air and the spaceship's hull."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Marlyn demanded. "I'm going outside."

Landor looked up sharply. "Now, daughter—" he began.

The Chief Enginer cut him short. "Hold on there! If there is a new world to claim, I want to claim it for Astrosphere. I'm going."

Sacher the Cobbler grunted, crossed to the air lock. "Is that so? I still think this is a lot of nonsense, but if it happens not to be, since the Jungle has always provided food for everyone else, I think the Noahs ought to claim this world. Landor and I will go outside/'

"You don't realize how big this place is," Mikal pleaded. "More space than you ever saw in your lives. More than enough for everybody."

"Still," said Sacher, "the Noahs should have the honor."

Mikal threw his hands up impatiently. "We have enough problems as it is. Now you're inventing some."

"The thing is not without a solution. Three or four people can squeeze into the spaceship's air lock at once. Three or four people can touch the land of this new planet simultaneously," Raabin pointed out with logic.

"But who?" Rolf asked.

"Some from each world, of course," Raabin went on. "You can leave me out. I am not a glory seeker."

"I," said Jebstakion, "have had more than enough activity for one day."

"My father and I want to be the first," Fil said.

"There are two," Raabin counted them oif on his fingers. "We have room for two more."

"Landor and I," declared Sacher. "I want to show him what nonsense all this is."

"Any objections?" demanded Rolf.

No one spoke.

They were still quiet and pensive when Raabin opened the inner door of the air lock. Sacher, Landor, Fil and the Chief Enginer crowded into the little chamber beyond it, and Raabin told them, "The second door cannot be opened until the first one is clamped shut. Are you ready?"

"Might as well get finished with it," muttered

Sacher, and when the Chief Enginer nodded, Raabin closed the inner door with a loud bang.

"What a strange quartet to first set foot on a new world," Raabin was thinking aloud. "Except for the man Landor, they all are convinced this whole thing is some kind of a trick."

"Only they lacked sufficient intelligence to remain behind," Jebstakion said.

As the seconds fled, Mikal's thoughts raced furiously. What strange wonders were they discovering outside on the new world? He moved about impatiently. Like Marlyn, he would have liked going outside himself, but if a few seconds alone on the new planet would satisfy their more cynical passengers, it certainly was worth it. Would they see warm sunlight and rain and tides and all the things Raabin and the films had mentioned? Mikal could picture what would transpire later, when the much larger rear cabin of the spaceship carted the people of Astrosphere, the Jungle, the Place of Revelers and Far Labry, until no one was left on the starship. Then a new world would begin for all of them here.

Came a faint tapping at the air lock.

Marlyn jumped to her feet. "Do you hear something?"

Again the tapping, faint but insistent.

"Apparently they have satisfied themselves," Raabin said happily, opening the inner door.

Mikal stared. Marlyn screamed.

Gasping, clutching their throats, staggering, the four tumbled back within the spaceship!

For a time they could not talk, but fought instead to catch their breaths. Slowly color returned to their pale cheeks. Marlyn kneeled, touched a hand to her father's face. "He—he's so cold."

Landor looked at her mutely, then managed to whisper, "Sacher was right. It's all a trick. All along we have trusted Mikal for nothing," His eyes raked Mikal's face with hatred.

"But Landor, I—"

"You be still!" Marlyn cried sharply.

"Marlyn, whatever it is, Mikal couldn't know. None of us did," Rolf said, kneeling by her side and placing his big hand on her shoulder.

"I—I'm sorry."

Mikal wasn't listening. He ran for the air lock, entered through the still-open first door, paused in the chamber. "Close it, Raabin," he ordered.

"Mikal, please wait." This was Saml, alarm in his voice. "Wait until they can speak and tell you what was the matter."

"Close it, Raabin."

"Perhaps your father is right,"

"Close it. I've got to know." Tears of rage welled in Mikal's eyes.

Saml finally nodded. "Let him go, Raabin."

Mikal watched as Raabin shut the door on him, making it possible for him to open the second door himself and so step out upon the surface of the new planet. Something was wrong. Somehow, the world was not what they had expected. If he did not show his own willingness to go outside, how could they ever trust him for whatever was to follow?

He opened the second door and plunged blindly outside.

Howling winds buffeted him, flung tiny needle

specks of ice at him. He breathed deeply, choked, felt terrible pain in his chest. His eyes clouded, but he still could see the bleak crags, the tumbled, grotesque rocks, the bare, utter desolation. Was this the world his ancestors dreamed of, with its terrible cold, fierce wind, atmosphere that poisoned? Arms and legs numb, chest burning, Mikal turned to re-enter the air lock. His first wild rush had carried him only scant feet outside, but he pitched forward when he tried to walk, collasping on the planet's rocky surface. The rock was brittle and jagged, breaking and chipping under his weight. Only dimly now, the wind howled in his ears. The air lock, so close and yet infinitely far away, swam before his eyes.

He clawed out with his hands, dragged himself painfully over the flaking rock, got one numb, frozen hand over the round sill of the outer door. He pulled himself forward, one agonizing inch at a time. Inside the lock, he pounded gratefully on the inner door, then realized with a shock that it could not function until he had secured the outer one. Frozen numb, he had to turn around, grasp the outer door with hands that felt nothing, pull it.

Pull it. . . .

He heard a click, felt sudden warmth engulf him. Hands dragged him within the light, warm cabin.

"Obviously," Raabin was saying, "this was the wrong planet. We had one choice out of two, and made the wrong one."

The Chief Enginer snorted. "I could have told you all this was some foolish sham, although I still cannot figure out its purpose."

Half an hour had passed. Mikal felt weak, but otherwise had no ill effects from his moments on the frozen planet. Still, he could imagine how the others took it, half-doubting what they had been told all along.

Sacher nodded his head, his myopic gaze unblinking on Raabin. "Take us home," he said.

Raabin muttered, "That's out of the question. It is fantastic. We have only to visit the other planet, the right one. Then you will see."

"I want to see nothing but my good green Jungle," said Sacher.

"Interesting, is it not?" Raabin asked. "You assumed size of such significance only because the starship, in relation to the old Earth, was so small."

"I wish you had thought of that before," Rolf told him glumly.

"Well, I wanted time to think, but—"

"Take us home," Sacher said again.

"If you've come this far," Marlyn pleaded with him, "why don't you agree to one more attempt? The other planet—"

"Stop it, Marlyn." She looked up in surprise, for it was Landor, her father, talking. "We have had quite enough. I wanted to believe Mikal and the others. I tried to believe them. I went outside with Sacher and I really hoped that some things they said were true. I truly hoped . . . but you see the outcome. We could have died in that terrible place."

"But you didn't," Mikal said, "and neither did I. We live to try again."

"And perhaps be less lucky the second time? No, lad. We're going home."

Saml stood up, paced back and forth. "I wish I

knew. I wish I had enough wisdom to understand all these things. I don't think anyone does. Not one man here, not even you, Raabin, has sufficient wisdom. All we can do is vote. We either go home to our separate worlds—"

"You forget the weightlessness," Marlyn reminded him.

"Raabin said he could fix that. We vote. It's either home, or on to your second planet. If we decide in favor of the planet, we try only once. But one chance more."

"If the ship still works," Raabin said.

"Closed ballot?" Landor demanded, apparently satisfied with Saml's suggestion.

"What for?" Mikal wanted to know. "There's no need for that."

Raabin strode forward. "My vote," he said, "is to continue on to the second planet."

One, thought Mikal. "Father?" he demanded.

Saml frowned in thought. "I don't think you are lying, but you could be wrong. Still, if even half of what you say is true, it is worth a try. I vote with Raabin."

"Marlyn?"

"Of course we go."

"Sacher?"

"We've had enough of this nonsense." "Jebstakion?"

"Maybe our food floats through the corridors of the Place of Revelers, but still it is food. Home." "Fil?"

"What do you think? I told you all along that—" "How do you vote?" Marlyn demanded coldly.

"Back to Astrosphere," Fil told her.

The Chief Enginer nodded. "I also say that."

Rolf disagreed and so did Mikal. "That makes it five for the planet, four to go home," Mikal said triumphantly. "Therefore—"

"One moment," Landor said. "My vote."

There was a silence. They all looked at Landor, but he remained quiet.

"If we return to the Jungle," said Marlyn, "Raabin has explained how the starship, the world, will crash, destroying us all. We have to go on to the other planet and find a home for our people, Father. Can't you understand that?"

"No. I do not understand a lot of things. I only know that I trusted Mikal and let him speak before the Town Council, and that night you were kidnaped. Coincidence? I don't know." He shrugged. "For all I know Mikal could still be a Reveler."

"Senior Reveler Jebstakion votes against Mikal, votes to go home!"

"True, but the other Reveler, Rolf, votes to go on."

"I am no Reveler, I told you."

"I am sorry," Landor said. "Really sorry, Marlyn, but if I am to cast my vote it must be the way I see it. Mikal and the Revelers have brought nothing but trouble. In all the years of my life and the life of my father before me, and his father, the world was never threatened with destruction. Because you tell me it now, does not mean it is truth. I vote to return home."

Rolf shook his head sadly. "Five and five. Then do we sit here until the end of time?" He stalked impatiently about the cabin. "It might be all right with Jebstakion, but I want to do something."

Stalemate, thought Mikal, and Rolf must have read his mind, for he said: "We're right back where we started. Stalemate. You might as well forget we ever voted."

"I don't think so," declared Fil, smiling. Mikal looked at him suspiciously. What could he mean?

"I am only a child," Fil said.

"Really," the Chief Enginer contradicted him. "A child in years, but with the good brain of a man. Now, these others—" He pointed to Mikal and Marlyn.

"Exactly," Fil continued. "We children have no place voting with adults. Therefore I say my vote should not count."

"Of course!" shouted the Chief Enginer. "Of course. The vote of Mikal should also be discounted, as well as this girl's."

"Which leaves four in favor of returning home and only three in favor of going on," Fil said.

"I told you he had the brain of a man!" cried the Chief Enginer proudly. "Then it means we're all going home."

All the wonders of a new world were awaiting them, thought Mikal. Back at Astrosphere and the other circles, they would stand helpless, only a few short days from destruction. He looked at Fil in disgust, exclaiming:

"How would you like to know you may have been instrumental in killing everyone? Everyone. Not just the ten of us here in this spaceship; we don't matter. But killing everyone in Astrosphere and the other circles."

"You're crazy," said Fil.

"Maybe. I don't think so. I was willing to vote," Mikal told all of them, "because I thought it was the fairest way. But when the voting is fixed to meet the requirements of one side—"

"And," Rolf finished for him, "when you decide to discount the votes of two people who know more about all this than almost anyone else, then voting has no place. Raabin, have you decided whether this spaceship still functions?"

"When we lift up off this planet we will know, not before."

"All right. That suits me. Since you're the only one who can pilot it, I say you should be the only one who can vote. That's certainly no worse than Fil's suggestion."

"My suggestion meets with the approval of the majority," Fil said spitefully. "If we took a vote to see if Mikal, Marlyn and myself should be permitted to participate, it would come out four to three that we should not."

"Right!" cried the Chief Enginer proudly.

"Wrong," said Landor. "My vote stands, but the three you mention know no less about this than any of us. It is still stalemate."

Mikal shrugged hopelessly, heard Rolf saying, "Raabin, take this spaceship up. We're going to that other planet."

"We are not," insisted the Chief Enginer, stalking forward menacingly.

"I don't know . . ." Raabin muttered doubtfully.

"It's the only way," Rolf said.

"Your way, not ours," Fil's father told him, still advancing. They faced each other, squaring off, two big men. Raabin began to finger the controls, still muttering.

Raabin's hand poised over the starting lever.

Bellowing, the Chief Enginer rushed at Rolf, fist flailing. Rolf went down under the onslaught, striking the floor with a thud. He climbed to his feet groggily, shook his head to clear it. "If you want to fight—" he roared, and then closed with the Chief Enginer. They traded powerful blows while Raabin hovered frightened and uncertain behind them. Clearly, he was awaiting the outcome.

Tensions had mounted. Suspense had grown ever since they set out in the spaceship. There was no safety valve, no way to release their pent-up emotions. An explosion had been inevitable and it came now.

"Did you see what he did?" Marlyn cried. "Did you see the way your father attacked Rolf?" She turned on Fil with tears in her eyes, balling her fist and pummeling his chest with them. Fil retreated warily off into a comer, covering face with hands when her attack shifted there. "I'm just a little girl!" she cried, all the freckles gone. "I can't vote, can't 1?'

Fil ducked his head, but she yanked it up by the hair and struck him again with her hard little fist.

"You show him, Marlyn!" Sacher shouted, hardly aware that he had shifted his allegiance from the side he had voted for to the girl of his Noah home.

"I abhor violence," Jebstakion declared.

"You would," Sacher said, still shouting, and began grappling with the bigger man. "I don't know why I ever voted the way you did."

Landor ran to Marlyn's aid, unaware she needed none. By the time he got there, Fil was blubbering, but Landor shook him by the shoulders until his teeth rattled. "You leave my daughter alone!"

Jebstakion sat on Sacher, rendering him completely helpless although the smaller man's arm and legs thrashed tirelessly.

"Leave my son alone!" the Chief Enginer cried, turning to Landor. But he had his hands full with Rolf, and, as he turned, Rolf's big fist landed flush on his jaw. The Chief Enginer subsided.

"Well," said Raabin, enjoying it all. "I have never seen anything like this." He laughed a little foolishly, taking it all in with obvious enjoyment.

Even Jebstakion seemed interested. He stood up slowly, leaving Sacher still thrashing on the floor. "Well," he admitted, chuckling jovially, "there is a certain satisfaction in activity. I don't know why you're laughing, little man. What I said still goes." And he set out ponderously after Raabin.

Raabin blanched, turned back to his controls, pulled the lever. The battered spaceship quivered. Jebstakion sat down hard and remained sitting. Mikal felt himself crushed down against the floor, saw the activity all about him abruptly come to an end.

The spaceship had taken off for space again.

Later Raabin said, "I would feel better if we could see outside."

The fused ports were completely opaque.

"How close are we?" Mikal wanted to know.

"Very close, but the instruments don't function. I will ease us down slowly. Better hope it works."

"I'm hoping," said Mikal.

The antagonists, floating weightlessly all about the cabin, stared balefully at one another, but no one thought to start brawling again. Landor said, "Marlyn, you re a young lady now. You must act like one."

"I'm sorry, Father, but that boy—"

"I don't think a girl should be without spunk," Rolf sided with her.

"How do you fit into all this, young man?"

"You'll find out, Father," Marlyn promised happily, "after all this is over and we can settle down."

It crossed Mikal's mind that the girl Marlyn was becoming a woman. Well, whoever heard of palling around with a girl anyway? Or a woman?

"The planet is very close," Raabin mumbled, half to himself. "If I don't bring this ship down without a bump, it won't be able to take off again."

Weight returned when he applied the forward rockets for braking.

The spaceship landed with hardly a bump on the smaller planet, that planet which looked blue with a shade of green through Raabin's lens.

"We have arrived," said Raabin needlessly.

Mikal's heart began to hammer. This was the second planet of two. From what they could gather, the other one had been too far removed from Alpha Centauri. It was bleak and cold. And this planet, the inner one? If it, too, offered them no possibility of a home, then everything he had learned in the Reveler library, everything Raabin had told him, everything he had dreamed of and yearned for would come to nothing. Perhaps this planet was too close to Alpha Centauri? Perhaps burning gases filled its atmosphere? Perhaps . . . Mikal was too afraid to move until Raabin said:

"Well, who's going outside?" "I'll lead them," Mikal said. "Whoever wants to come."

"Not I," Jebstakion shouted. "I saw what happened when you tried that the last time."

"I wanted to go back to Astrosphere," said the Chief Enginer. "I still do."

Fil nodded, his blackened eyes blinking.

Landor shrugged. "I still do not know what to think."

Sacher merely squinted and said nothing, remaining as far from Jebstakion as he could.

"Furthermore," the Chief Enginer said tartly, "as soon as enough of you go outside, I have a good mind to force Raabin here to take this spaceship back home."

Rolf shook his head wearily. "Then we can't even see for ourselves."

Marlyn, though, was heading for the air lock. "You watch them," she said. "I'm going outside."

"I won't let you go alone," Rolf told her.

"Nor will I," said Landor. "I'm her father, young man."

"Can you watch them alone?" Mikal asked Rolf; and when the Activist nodded: "I'm going with Marlyn." His heart bobbed up into his throat.

"Alone, nothing," said Saml. "They'll behave themselves, Mikal. Go ahead."

Together with Marlyn he opened the first door, walked into the chamber, heard the first door snap shut.

"Well?" said Marlyn.

"Yes," said Mikal, moving in a dream. He opened

the second door, closed his eyes tightly, half-expecting some unknown horror to beset them. He stepped outside, Marlyn at his heels.

"Why—why, Mikal, it's beautiful!"

The heady fragrance of the Jungle was not so clean, not so fresh. The green of the Jungle could not match the sweet rolling hills which faded off to purple in the distance, not curving up and vanishing in haze, but marching off flatly, a legion of purple hills, until they met the clear blue sky far away and vanished with it.

"That's what Raabin means by a horizon," Marlyn explained, but Mikal wasn't listening.

They had landed near a large tree, its trunk thick with bark of many years. From its leafy branches, myriads of birds twittered down at them. Off in the distance, Mikal could hear a sound like the rushing of one of the Jungle streams, only far louder. Up overhead, clear and bright in the fine blue of the sky, the Sun, the new Sun of the new Earth, shone down upon them.

"It is most like the Jungle," Marlyn whispered. "My people will love it."

"Yes," said Mikal, "but you have seen the pictures Rolf showed us. We can build cities, towns, bridges, airships. We have a whole world to fashion, Marlyn, and one day it shall be not any more like one circle than another. It shall—"

"Mikal?"

"What?"

"No one followed us outside. Do you suppose—?" "Trouble? No." Mikal hardly heard his own words. The sunshine began to warm him and he felt like

leaping and running over the whole wonderful countryside, shouting that he, Mikal, and the people of the circles of the starship, had arrived to claim their home. "No trouble," he repeated dreamily. "They can't decide who is to come out; Rolf is afraid to leave, and your father—"

"Is right here!" cried Landor, as the door clanged shut behind him. "Why, nothing is the matter. It's magnificent. The Jungle, just like our Jungle, only larger."

Mikal tore his eyes from what they feasted on, retreated to the air lock. "There's one way to get them out," he called over his shoulder. He opened the first door, marched inside the chamber, beat with his fists on the second door. Turning, he retraced his steps, closing the first door behind him. "That should surprise them enough so they want to see what's going on!

It took only a few moments. Rolf came bursting out first. "Marlyn!" he cried. "Marlyn, what is it?"

She was smiling at him, and he stood by her side and took everything in with her, and he was smiling too.

One by one they emerged from the spaceship.

Saml: "Mikal, you were right."

It wasn't that simple, Mikal knew, without caring, for much work would lie ahead of them and all their people in the long days which followed. But it would be good work and clean, and they would be fashioning a new, better world for themselves in slow, patient strides.

And Sacher: "A bigger, better Jungle. Did I say nonsense? If only Birto could see this."

"He will," Marlyn said. "There's no reason for the Revelers and the Noahs to hate one another now." She grinned. "There's no reason for anyone to hate, now that we've found our home."

And Jebstakion: "Well, I must say. Yes, I must. There is a new sort of empathy here, all right. Those soft purple hills, and that ceiling—a sky, you call it? —that ceiling of blue is just the right shade, just the right . . . and ah, these fragrances. I forgive you nothing, don't misunderstand, but perhaps the Revelers will find something to their liking out here." Jebstakion squatted by the tree trunk, contemplating the blue, blue sky.

Someday, Mikal thought, even the Revelers will learn to work, for you could blame the way the Revelers lived upon their circumscribed world and a misunderstanding of their original purpose in it. The way Mikal felt, there was nothing this new Earth could not remedy.

And Fil: "Dumb luck, that's all. Yes, I like this place, but you can bet they didn't expect anything like this." Well, there would always be Fils.

But the Chief Enginer wanted to meet destiny at least halfway. With one sweep of his proud cold eyes he took in the trees and the purple hills, the blue sky and the bright sun, and he said:

"My people will like this place. As befitting a leader, I have seen it first. Now I must lead them here."

"And mine, I suppose," said Jebstakion, for it would not do well for the Chief Enginer to grab everything for himself and his people. "Although getting the Revelers to leave their mobile chairs will be quite a job. I, of course, am up to it."

"We can sow these hills and bring in our first crop before you know it," said Landor wistfully. "And all that grazing space for our cattle. Why, the herds will increase threefold someday."

"The ferry's going back," Raabin called happily, "to pick up the first group of colonists."

"Then they'll be from Astrosphere!" roared the Chief Enginer.

"No," Landor said patiently. "The Noahs must come first to sow the land."

"We Revelers," insisted Jebstakion, "need the most time to grow accustomed to this new place. Therefore we should be first."

"All of you," said Raabin. "Some from each place. Four or five trips should get the migration well underway. Twenty should complete it. We have the time."

With a new spring in his step, wide Jebstakion followed Raabin into the spaceship. On his heels came Landor and the Chief Enginer, walking side by side. "We'll be back soon with colonists," called Raabin. The port slammed shut. The spaceship trembled, soared skyward, was gone.

"We have so much to see," Saml said. "So much to do."

Sacher said, "There would be water power for looms and other machinery down by that stream, and—"

He babbled on cheerily. Off in the distance Mikal saw Rolf and Marlyn exploring the nearer hills, arm in arm, their faces up to the sun.

They were adults, Mikal knew, and he was a boy. They had their happiness, but in a way he considered himself more fortunate. He still had all the years of his youth ahead of him, years to watch the growth of their new world, to help it grow, to grow with it. The Journey of the Four Circles, begun hardly seven days ago, had ended. It had brought glorious adventure and more unexpected things than the rest of his life together. Now the Journey was over and a new one had taken its place. It would be far bigger, far more important and, he suspected, with far more adventures.

He whistled cheerfully and sought out the swift-gushing river, watching the sunlight glistening on its waters and wondering what was on the other side.