ch a  tense
grip on the gun that his fingers stood out white and stiff against the satin
brownness of the wood.
     He gasped a little  in his  effort to fight  down the rage that  boiled
inside him,  trying to explode. If they had stayed here  any longer, if he'd
not run them off, he knew he'd have given in to that towering rage.
     And it was better, much better, the way that it had been. He wondered a
little dully how be had managed to hold in.
     And was glad he had. For even as it stood, it would be bad enough.
     They would say he was a madman; that  he had run them off at  gunpoint.
They might even say that he had  kidnapped Lucy and  was holding her against
her will. They would stop  at nothing to make  him all the trouble that they
could.
     He  had no illusions  about what they might do,  for he knew the breed,
vindictive in their smallness-little vicious insects of the human race.
     He stood beside the porch and watched them down the hill, wondering how
a girl so fine as Lucy  could  spring from such decadent stock. Perhaps  her
handicap had served  as  a bulwark  against the kind of folks they were; had
kept her from becoming another one of them.
     Perhaps  if  she could have  talked with them or listened, she would in
time have become as shiftless and as vicious as any one of them.
     It had been a great mistake to get mixed up in a thing like this. A man
in his position had no  business in an involvement such as this. He had  too
much to lose; he should have stood aside.
     And yet what could he have done? Could he have refused to give Lucy his
protection, with  the blood soaking  through her dress from the lashes  that
lay  across her shoulders?  Should  he  have ignored  the  frantic, helpless
pleading in her face?
     He might  have done it  differently, he thought. There  might have been
other, smarter ways in which  to  handle it. But there had  been  no time to
think of any  smarter way. There only had been time to  carry her to  safety
and then go outside to meet them.
     And now, that he thought  of it, perhaps the best thing would have been
not  to go outside at all. If he'd stayed inside the  station, nothing would
have happened.
     It  had been  impulsive,  that  going  out to  face  them. It had been,
perhaps, the human thing to do, but it had not been wise. But he had done it
and it was over now and there was no turning back. If he had it to do again,
he would do it differently, but you got no second chance.
     He turned heavily around and went back inside the station.
     Lucy was still sitting on the sofa and  she held a flashing  object  in
her  hand. She was staring at it raptly and there was in her face again that
same vibrant  and alert expression he had seen that morning  when she'd held
the butterfly.
     He laid  the rifle on the desk  and stood quietly  there, but  she must
have caught the motion of him, for  she looked quickly up. And then her eyes
once more went back to the flashing thing she was holding in her hands.
     He saw that it was the pyramid of spheres  and now all the spheres were
spinning  slowly, in alternating clockwise and counterclockwise motions, and
that as  they spun  they shone  and glittered,  each in  its own  particular
color, as if there might be, deep inside each one of them, a source of soft,
warm light.
     Enoch  caught  his breath  at the  beauty and the wonder of it-the old,
hard wonder of what this thing might be and what it might be meant to do. He
had examined it a hundred times or  more and had puzzled at it and there had
been nothing he could find that was of significance. So far as he could see,
it  was  only something  that  was meant to be looked at, although there had
been  that persistent  feeling that  it  had  a purpose and  that,  perhaps,
somehow, it was meant to operate.
     And  now  it was  in  operation. He had tried a hundred times to get it
figured out and Lucy had picked it up just once and had got it figured out.
     He  noticed  the  rapture  with which  she  was  regarding  it.  Was it
possible, he wondered, that she knew its purpose?
     He went  across the room and touched her arm and she lifted her face to
look at him and in her eyes he saw the gleam of happiness and excitement.
     He made a questioning gesture toward the pyramid, trying to ask  if she
knew what it might be. But she did not understand  him. Or perhaps she knew,
but knew as well how impossible it would be to explain its purpose. She made
that  happy, fluttery  motion with her hand again, indicating the table with
its  load of gadgets and she seemed to  try  to laugh-there was, at least, a
sense of laughter in her face.
     Just a  kid, Enoch  told himself, with a box heaped  high with new  and
wondrous toys. Was that all it was to her? Was she happy and  excited merely
because she  supenly had  become aware  of all the beauty and the novelty of
the things stacked there on the table?
     He turned wearily and went back to the desk. He picked up the rifle and
hung it on the pegs.
     She should not  be in the  station.  No human being  other than himself
should ever be inside the  station. Bringing  her here,  he  had broken that
unspoken understanding he  had  with the aliens who had installed  him as  a
keeper. Although, of all the humans he could have  brought, Lucy was the one
who could possibly be exempt from the understood restriction.  For she could
never tell the things that she had seen.
     She could not remain, he knew. She must be taken home. For if she  were
not taken, there would  be a massive hunt for  her, a lost  girl-a beautiful
deaf-mute.
     A story of a missing deaf-mute girl  would bring  in  newspapermen in a
day or two. It would be in all the papers and on television and on radio and
the woods would be swarming with hundreds of searchers.
     Hank Fisher would  tell how  he'd  tried  to  break into the house  and
couldn't  and there'd be  others who would  try to break into the house  and
there'd be hell to pay.
     Enoch sweated, thinking of it.
     All the years of keeping  out  of  people's way, all the years of being
unobtrusive would be  for nothing then.  This strange house  upon  a  lonely
ridge would become a mystery for the world, and a challenge and a target for
all the crackpots of the world.
     He  went to the medicine cabinet, to get  the healing ointment that had
been included in the drug packet provided by Galactic Central.
     He  found it and opened the little box. More than  half of it remained.
He'd  used it through the  years, but sparingly. There  was, in fact, little
need to use a great deal of it.
     He  went across the room to where Lucy sat and stood back of  the sofa.
He showed her what he had and made motions to show her  what it was for. She
slid her dress off her shoulders and he bent to look at the slashes.
     The bleeding had stopped, but the flesh was red and angry.
     Gently he rubbed ointment into the stripes that the whip had made.
     She had  healed  the  butterfly,  he thought;  but she could  not  heal
herself.
     On the table  in front of her the pyramid of spheres still was flashing
and glinting, throwing a flickering shadow of color all about the room.
     It was operating, but what could it be doing? It was finally operating,
but not a thing was happening as a result of that operation.

        19
     Ulysses came as twilight was deepening into night.
     Enoch and  Lucy had just finished with their supper and were sitting at
the table when Enoch heard his footsteps.
     The alien stood in shadow and he looked,  Enoch thought, more than ever
like the cruel clown. His lithe, flowing body had the look of smoked, tanned
buckskin. The patchwork color of  his hide  seemed  to  shine  with  a faint
luminescence and the sharp, hard angles of his face, the smooth  baldness of
his head, the flat, pointed  ears pasted tight against the skull  lent him a
vicious fearsomeness.
     If one  did not  know  him for the  gentle character that he was, Enoch
told himself,  he  would  be  enough to scare a  man  out of  seven years of
growth.
     "We had been expecting you," said Enoch. "The coffeepot is boiling."
     Ulysses took a slow step forward, then paused.
     "You have another with you. A human, I would say."
     "There is no danger," Enoch told him.
     "Of another gender. A female, is it not? You have found a mate?"
     "No," said Enoch. "She is not my mate."
     "You have  acted  wisely through  the years,"  Ulysses  told him. "In a
position such as yours, a mate is not the best."
     "You  need  not  worry.  There  is  a  malady  upon  her.  She  has  no
communication. She can neither hear nor speak."
     "A malady?"
     "Yes, from the moment she was born.  She has never heard or spoken. She
can tell of nothing here."
     "Sign language?"
     "She knows no sign language. She refused to learn it."
     "She is a friend of yours."
     "For  some  years," said  Enoch. "She  came seeking  my protection. Her
father used a whip to beat her."
     "This father knows she's here?"
     "He thinks she is, but he  cannot know." Ulysses came slowly out of the
darkness and stood within the light.
     Lucy was watching him, but there was  no  terror on her face. Her  eyes
were level and untroubled and she did not flinch.
     "She takes me well," Ulysses said. "She does not run or scream."
     "She could not scream," said Enoch, "even if she wished."
     "I must be  most  repugnant,"  Ulysses  said, "at  first  sight to  any
human."
     "She does not see the outside only. She sees inside of you as well."
     "Would she be frightened if I made a human bow to her?"
     "I think," said Enoch, "she might be very pleased."
     Ulysses  made his bow, formal  and exaggerated, with one  hand upon his
leathery belly, bowing from the waist.
     Lucy smiled and clapped her hands.
     "You see," Ulysses cried, delighted, "I think that she may like me."
     "Why don't you sit down,  then," suggested Enoch, "and we all will have
some coffee."
     "I had  forgotten of the coffee. The sight of  this  other human  drove
coffee from my mind."
     He sat down  at the place where the third cup  had been set and waiting
for  him. Enoch started around the table, but Lucy rose  and went to get the
coffee.
     "She understands?" Ulysses asked.
     Enoch shook his head. "You sat down by the cup and the cup was empty."
     She poured the coffee, then  went over  to the sofa. "She will not stay
with us?" Ulysses asked. "She's intrigued by that tableful  of trinkets. She
set one of them to going."
     "You plan to keep her here?"
     "I can't keep her," Enoch said.  "There'll be a hunt for her. I'll have
to take her home."
     "I do not like it," Ulysses said.
     "Nor do I. Let's admit at once that I should not have brought her here.
But at the time it seemed the  only thing to do.  I had no time  to think it
out."
     "You've done no wrong," said Ulysses softly. "She cannot harm us," said
Enoch. "Without communication ..."
     "It's not that,"  Ulysses told him. "She's just a complication and I do
not  like further  complications. I came tonight to tell you, Enoch, that we
are in trouble."
     "Trouble? But there's not been any trouble."
     Ulysses lifted his coffee cup and took a long drink of it.
     "That is good," he said. "I carry back the bean and make it at my home.
But it does not taste the same."
     "This trouble?"
     "You remember the Vegan that died here several of your years ago."
     Enoch noped. "The Hazer."
     "The being has a proper name ..."
     Enoch laughed. "You don't like our nicknames."
     "It is not our way," Ulysses said.
     "My name for them," said Enoch, "is a mark of my affection."
     "You buried this Vegan."
     "In my family  plot," said Enoch. "As if he were my own. I read a verse
above him."
     "That is well and good,"  Ulysses  said. "That is  as it should be. You
did very well. But the body's gone."
     "Gone! It can't be gone!" cried Enoch.
     "It has been taken from the grave."
     "But you can't know," protested Enoch. "How could you know?"
     "Not I. It's the Vegans. The Vegans are the ones who know."
     "But they're light-years distant ..."
     And then he was not too sure. For on that night  the  wise old  one had
died and he'd  messaged Galactic  Central, he had been told  that the Vegans
had known the  moment  he had died. And there  had  been no need for a death
certificate, for they knew of what he died.
     It   seemed   impossible,   of  course,  but  there   were   too   many
impossibilities in the galaxy  which turned  out,  after all, to be entirely
possible for a man to ever know when he stood on solid ground.
     Was it possible, he wondered, that each Vegan  had some  sort of mental
contact with every other Vegan? Or  that some central census bureau (to give
a  human designation  to something that  was scarcely understandable)  might
have some sort of official linkage with every living Vegan, knowing where it
was and how it was and what it might be doing?
     Something of the sort, Enoch admitted, might indeed be possible. It was
not beyond  the  astounding  capabilities  that  one  found  on  every  hand
throughout the galaxy. But to maintain a similar contact with the Vegan dead
was something else again.
     "The body's  gone," Ulysses  said. "I can tell you that  and know it is
the truth. You're held accountable."
     "By the Vegans?"
     "By the Vegans, yes. And the galaxy."
     "I did what  I could," said Enoch hotly. "I did  what was  required.  I
filled the letter of  the  Vegan law. I paid the dead my honor and the honor
of my planet. It is not right that the  responsibility should go on forever.
Not that I  can believe  the body can  be really gone.  There is  no one who
would take it. No one who knew of it."
     "By human logic," Ulysses told him, "you, of course, are right. But not
by Vegan logic. And in  this case Galactic Central would tend to support the
Vegans."
     "The Vegans," Enoch said testily, "happen to be friends of mine. I have
never met a one of them that I didn't like or couldn't get along with. I can
work it out with them."
     "If only the Vegans were concerned," said Ulysses, "I am quite sure you
could. I would  have no worry.  But the situation gets complicated as you go
along. On the surface it seems a rather simple happening, but there are many
factors. The Vegans, for example, have known for some time that the body had
been  taken  and  they  were  disturbed,  of  course.  But  out  of  certain
considerations, they had kept their silence."
     "They needn't have. They could have come to me. I don't know what could
have been done ..."
     "Silent not because of you. Because of something else."
     Ulysses finished off his  coffee  and  poured  himself  another cup. He
filled Enoch's half-filled cup and set the pot aside.
     Enoch waited.
     "You  may not have been aware  of  it,"  said Ulysses, "but at the time
this station was established, there was considerable opposition to it from a
number of races in the galaxy. There were many reasons cited, as is the case
in all  such situations, but  the underlying reason,  when  you  get down to
basics,  rests squarely  on the continual contest  for  racial  or  regional
advantage. A situation akin, I would imagine, to the continual bickering and
maneuvering which you find here upon the Earth to gain an economic advantage
for one  group or  another,  or one  nation  and another. In  the galaxy, of
course,  the economic  considerations only occasionally are  the  underlying
factors. There are many other factors than the economic."
     Enoch noped.  "I  had  gained a hint of  this.  Nothing recently. But I
hadn't paid too much attention to it."
     "It's  largely a  matter of  direction,"  Ulysses said.  "When Galactic
Central began its expansion into this spiral arm, it meant there was no time
or effort  available for expansions in  other directions. There is one large
group of races which has held a dream for many centuries of  expanding  into
some of  the nearby globular clusters. It does make a  dim sort of sense, of
course. With the techniques  that we have, the longer  jump across  space to
some of the closer clusters is entirely possible. Another thing-the clusters
seem to be extraordinarily  free  of dust and gas, so that once we got there
we  could expand  more  rapidly  throughout the cluster than we can in  many
parts of the galaxy. But at best, it's a speculative business, for we  don't
know what we'll find there. After we've made all  the  effort  and spent all
the time we  may  find little or nothing,  except  possibly  some more  real
estate. And we have plenty of that  in  the  galaxy. But the clusters have a
vast appeal for certain types of minds."
     Enoch noped.  "I can see that.  It  would be the first venturing out of
the galaxy itself.  It might be the first short step on the route that could
lead us to other galaxies."
     Ulysses peered at him. "You, too," he said. "I might have known."
     Enoch said smugly: "I am that type of mind."
     "Well, anyhow, there was this globular-cluster faction-I suppose  you'd
call  it that-which  contended  bitterly when  we  began our  move  in  this
direction.  You  understand-certainly you  do-that  we've barely  begun  the
expansion into  this neighborhood. We have  less than a  dozen stations  and
we'll  need  a  hundred.  It  will  take  centuries before  the  network  is
complete."
     "So this faction is still contending," Enoch said. "There still is time
to stop this spiral-arm project."
     "That is right. And that's what  worries me. For the faction is  set to
use this incident of the missing body as an emotion-charged argument against
the extension of this network. It is being joined by other  groups that  are
concerned with certain special interests.  And these special interest groups
see a  better chance  of  getting  what they  want  if they  can  wreck this
project."
     "Wreck it?"
     "Yes, wreck it. They will start screaming, as soon as the body incident
becomes  open knowledge, that a planet so  barbaric as  the Earth is no  fit
location for a station. They will insist that this station be abandoned."
     "But they can't do that!"
     "They can," Ulysses said. "They will  say it is degrading and unsafe to
maintain  a  station so  barbaric  that even graves are rifled, on  a planet
where  the honored  dead  cannot  rest in peace. It  is  the kind of  highly
emotional  argument  that  will  gain  wide acceptance  and support in  some
sections  of the galaxy.  The Vegans tried their best. They tried to hush it
up, for  the sake  of  the project. They have  never done a thing like  that
before. They are a proud people and they feel a slight to honor-perhaps more
deeply  than  many  other  races- and  yet, for the  greater good, they were
willing to accept dishonor. And would have if they could have kept it quiet.
But  the story  leaked out  somehow-by  good  espionage, no doubt.  And they
cannot stand the loss of face in advertised  dishonor. The Vegan who will be
arriving  here  this  evening  is  an official  representative charged  with
delivering an official protest."
     "To me?"
     "To you, and through you, to the Earth."
     "But the Earth is not concerned. The Earth doesn't even know."
     "Of course it doesn't. So far as Galactic Central is concerned, you are
the Earth. You represent the Earth."
     Enoch  shook his head.  It was a crazy  way  of thinking. But, he  told
himself, he should  not be surprised. It was the kind of  thinking he should
have  expected. He was too hidebound,  he thought, too  narrow. He had  been
trained in the human way of thinking and,  even after all  these years, that
way of thought persisted. Persisted to a point where any way of thought that
conflicted with it must automatically seem wrong.
     This talk of abandoning Earth station was  wrong,  too. It made no sort
of sense.  For  abandoning of  the  station  would  not wreck  the  project.
Although, more than  likely, it would  wreck whatever hope he'd held for the
human race.
     "But even if you have to abandon Earth," he said, "you  could go out to
Mars. You could build  a  station there. If it's necessary to have a station
in this solar system there are other planets."
     "You don't  understand,"  Ulysses told him. "This station  is  just one
point of attack. It is no more  than  a  toehold, just a bare beginning. The
aim is  to wreck the project, to free the time  and effort that is  expended
here  for some other  project. If they  can force us to abandon one station,
then we stand discredited. Then all our motives and our judgment come up for
review."
     "But even if the project should be wrecked," Enoch pointed out,  "there
is no surety that any group would gain. It  would only throw the question of
where the time and energy  should be used into an open debate. You  say that
there are  many special interest  factions banding together to carry  on the
fight against us. Suppose  that they do win. Then they  must turn around and
start fighting among themselves."
     "Of course that's the  case," Ulysses admitted, "but then each of  them
has a chance to get what they want, or think  they have a chance. The way it
is they have no chance at all. Before any of  them has a chance this project
must go down the drain.  There  is  one group on the  far side of the galaxy
that wants to move  out into the thinly populated sections of one particular
section of the rim. They still  believe in an ancient legend which says that
their race arose as  the result of immigrants from another galaxy who landed
on the rim  and worked their way inward over many galactic years. They think
that if they can get out to the rim they can turn that legend  into  history
to their  greater  glory. Another group wants to go into a small spiral  arm
because of an obscure record that  many  eons ago  their ancestors picked up
some  virtually undecipherable messages which  they believed came  from that
direction. Through  the years  the story has  grown,  until today  they  are
convinced a race of intellectual giants will  be found in  that  spiral arm.
And there  is always  the pressure,  naturally, to  probe  deeper  into  the
galactic core. You must realize that we have  only started, that  the galaxy
still is largely unexplored, that  the thousands of  races who form Galactic
Central still are pioneers. And as a result, Galactic Central is continually
subjected to all sorts of pressures."
     "You sound," said Enoch, "as if  you  have  little hope  of maintaining
this station, here on Earth."
     "Almost no hope at  all," Ulysses told him. "But so far as you yourself
are concerned, there will be an option.  You  can stay here  and live out an
ordinary life on Earth or  you can be assigned to another  station. Galactic
Central hopes that you would elect to continue on with us."
     "That sounds pretty final."
     "I am  afraid,"  Ulysses said, "it  is. I  am sorry,  Enoch, to be, the
bearer of bad news."
     Enoch sat  numb and stricken. Bad news!  It was worse than that. It was
the end of everything.
     He sensed the crashing down of not  only his own personal world, but of
all the hopes of Earth. With the station gone, Earth once more would be left
in  the  backwaters  of  the  galaxy,  with  no hope of  help, no chance  of
recognition, no  realization  of  what lay waiting  in  the galaxy. Standing
alone and naked, the human race would go  on  in its same old path, fumbling
its uncertain way toward a blind, mad future.

        20
     The Hazer was elderly. The golden haze that enveloped him had  lost the
sparkle  of its  youthfulness.  It was a mellow  glow, deep and rich-not the
blinding haze of a younger being. He carried himself  with  a solid dignity,
and the flaring topknot that was neither hair nor feathers was white, a sort
of saintly whiteness. His face  was  soft  and tender,  the softness and the
tenderness which in a man might have been expressed in kindly wrinkles.
     "I am sorry," he told  Enoch, "that our meeting  must be such  as this.
Although, under  any circumstances, I am glad to meet  you. I  have heard of
you. It is not often that a being of an outside  planet  is  the keeper of a
station. Because  of this, young  being,  I have been intrigued with you.  I
have wondered what sort of creature you might turn out to be."
     "You need have no apprehension of him," Ulysses said, a little sharply.
"I will vouch for him. We have been friends for years."
     "Yes, I forgot," the Hazer said. "You are his discoverer."
     He  peered  around the room. "Another one," he  said.  "I did  not know
there were two of them. I only knew of one."
     "It's a friend of Enoch's," Ulysses said.
     "There has been contact, then. Contact with the planet."
     "No, there has been no contact."
     "Perhaps an indiscretion."
     "Perhaps," Ulysses said, "but under provocation that I doubt either you
or I could have stood against."
     Lucy  had risen to her  feet and  now  she came across the room, moving
quietly and slowly, as if she might be floating.
     The  Hazer spoke to  her in the common tongue. "I am glad to meet  you.
Very glad to meet you."
     "She cannot speak," Ulysses said. "Nor hear. She has no communication."
     "Compensation," said the Hazer.
     "You think so?" asked Ulysses.
     "I am sure of it."
     He walked slowly forward and Lucy waited.
     "It-she, the female form, you called it-she is not afraid."
     Ulysses chuckled. "Not even of me," he said.
     The  Hazer  reached  out  his  hand  to her and she stood quietly for a
moment, then  one  of  her hands came up and  took the Hazer's fingers, more
like tentacles than fingers, in its grasp.
     It seemed to Enoch, for a moment, that the cloak of golden haze reached
out  to wrap the Earth girl  in  its  glow. Enoch blinked  his eyes  and the
illusion, if it had been illusion, was swept away, and it only was the Hazer
who had the golden cloak.
     And how was it, Enoch wondered,  that there  was no fear in her, either
of Ulysses or the Hazer? Was it because, in truth, as he had said, she could
see  beyond  the outward guise, could  somehow sense the basic humanity (God
help me, I cannot think, even now, except in human terms!) that was in these
creatures?  And  if that  were true, was  it  because  she herself  was  not
entirely  human? A human, certainly,  in form and origin, but not formed and
molded into  the human culture-being  perhaps, what a human  would  be if he
were not hemmed about so closely by  the  rules of behavior and outlook that
through the years had hardened into law to comprise a common human attitude.
     Lucy dropped the Hazer's hand and went back to the sofa.
     The Hazer said, "Enoch Wallace."
     "Yes."
     "She is of your race?"
     "Yes, of course she is."
     "She is most unlike you. Almost as if there were two races."
     "There is not two races. There is only one."
     "Are there many others like her?"
     "I would not know," said Enoch.
     "Coffee," said Ulysses to the Hazer. "Would you like some coffee?"
     "Coffee?"
     "A most delicious brew. Earth's one great accomplishment."
     "I  am  not  acquainted with it," said the Hazer.  "I  don't  believe I
will."
     He turned ponderously to Enoch.
     "You know why I am here?" he asked.
     "I believe so."
     "It is a matter I regret," said the Hazer. "But I must ..."
     "If you'd rather," Enoch  said,  "we  can consider that the protest has
been made. I would so stipulate."
     "Why not?" Ulysses said. "There is no need, it seems to me, to have the
three of us go through a somewhat painful scene."
     The Hazer hesitated.
     "If you feel you must," said Enoch.
     "No," the  Hazer said.  "I  am  satisfied  if  an  unspoken protest  be
generously accepted."
     "Accepted," Enoch said, "on just one  condition. That I satisfy  myself
that the charge is not unfounded. I must go out and see."
     "You do not believe me?"
     "It is not a matter  of belief.  It is something that can be checked. I
cannot accept either for myself  or  for  my  planet until I  have done that
much."
     "Enoch," Ulysses said, "the Vegan has been gracious.  Not only now, but
before  this  happened. His race presses the charge most  reluctantly.  They
suffered much to protect the Earth and you."
     "And the feeling is that I would be ungracious if  I did not accept the
protest and the charge on the Vegan statement."
     "I am sorry, Enoch," said Ulysses. "That is what I mean."
     Enoch shook  his  head.  "For  years  I've  tried to understand and  to
conform to the ethics and ideas of all the people who have come through this
station. I've pushed my own  human instincts  and training to one side. I've
tried to understand other viewpoints and to evaluate other ways of thinking,
many of which did  violence to my  own. I am glad of  all of it, for  it has
given me a  chance to go beyond the narrowness of  Earth.  I think  I gained
something  from  it  all. But none of  this  touched Earth; only myself  was
involved. This  business  touches  Earth  and I  must approach  it  from  an
Earthman's viewpoint. In this particular instance I am not simply the keeper
of a galactic station."
     Neither  of  them said a word. Enoch stood waiting  and still there was
nothing said.
     Finally he turned and headed for the door.
     "I'll be back," he told them.
     He spoke the phrase and the door started to slide open.
     "If you'll have  me,"  said  the,  Hazer quietly, "I'd  like to go with
you."
     "Fine," said Enoch. "Come ahead."
     It  was dark outside and Enoch lit the lantern.  The  Hazer watched him
closely.
     "Fossil  fuel,"  Enoch told  him. "It burns at the  tip of  a saturated
wick."
     The Hazer said, in horror, "But surely you have better."
     "Much better now," said Enoch. "I am just old-fashioned."
     He led the way outside, the lantern throwing a small pool of light. The
Hazer followed.
     "It is a wild planet," said the Hazer.
     "Wild here. There are parts of it are tame."
     "My own planet is  controlled," the Hazer  said. "Every foot  of it  is
planned."
     "I know.  I have talked to many Vegans.  They described  the planet  to
me."
     They headed for the barn.
     "You want to go back?" asked Enoch.
     "No," said  the Hazer. "I find it  exhilarating. Those  are wild plants
over there?"
     "We call them trees," said Enoch.
     "The wind blows as it wishes?"
     "That's right," said  Enoch.  "We do not know as yet how to control the
weather."
     The  spade stood just inside the barn door and Enoch picked  it  up. He
headed for the orchard.
     "You know, of course," the Hazer said, "the body will be gone."
     "I'm prepared to find it gone."
     "Then why?" the Hazer asked.
     "Because I must be sure. You can't understand that, can you?"
     "You said back there in the station,"  the Hazer said, "that  you tried
to understand  the  rest  of us. Perhaps, for a change,  at least  one of us
should try understanding you."
     Enoch  led the way down the path through the  orchard. They came to the
rude  fence enclosing  the burial plot. The sagging gate  stood  open. Enoch
went through it and the Hazer followed.
     "This is where you buried him?"
     "This is my family plot. My mother  and father are here and I  put  him
with them."
     He handed the lantern to the Vegan and, armed with the spade, walked up
to the grave. He thrust the spade into the ground.
     "Would you hold the lantern a little closer, please?"
     The Hazer moved up a step or two.
     Enoch dropped to his  knees and brushed away the leaves that had fallen
on the ground. Underneath them was the soft, fresh earth that had been newly
turned.  There  was  a  depression  and a small  hole at the  bottom  of the
depression. As he brushed at the earth, he could hear the clods of displaced
dirt  falling through the hole and  striking on  something that  was not the
soil.
     The Hazer had moved the lantern again and he could not see.  But he did
not need to see. He knew there  was no use of digging; he knew what he would
find. He  should  have kept  watch. He  should not have put  up the stone to
attract attention-but  Galactic Central had said, "As if he  were your own."
And that was the way he'd done it.
     He  straightened, but  remained upon  his knees, felt  the damp  of the
earth soaking through the fabric of his trousers.
     "No one told me," said the Hazer, speaking softly.
     "Told you what?"
     "The memorial. And what is written on it. I was not aware that you knew
our language."
     "I learned it long ago. There were scrolls I wished to read. I'm afraid
it's not too good."
     "Two   misspelled  words,"  the   Hazer  told  him,  "and  one   little
awkwardness.  But those are  things  which do not  matter. What matters, and
matters very much, is that when you wrote, you thought as one of us."
     Enoch rose and reached out for the lantern.
     "Let's go back," he said sharply, almost  impatiently.  "I know now who
did this. I have to hunt him out."

        21
     The  treetops  far above moaned  in the rising wind. Ahead,  the  great
clump of canoe birch showed whitely in the dim  glow of the lantern's light.
The birch clump, Enoch knew, grew  on the lip of a  small cliff that dropped
twenty feet  or more and here one turned to  the right to get  around it and
continue down the hillside.
     Enoch turned slightly and glanced over his shoulder. Lucy was following
close behind. She smiled at him and made a gesture to say she was all right.
He made a motion to indicate that they must turn to the right, that she must
follow closely. Although, he told himself, it probably wasn't necessary; she
knew the hillside as well, perhaps even better, than he did himself.
     He turned to the right and followed along the  edge of the rocky cliff,
came to  the  break and clambered down to reach the slope below. Off to  the
left he could hear the murmur of the swiftly running creek that tumbled down
the rocky ravine from the spring below the field.
     The  hillside plunged more  steeply now and he led  a  way that  angled
across the steepness.
     Funny, he thought, that even in the darkness he could recognize certain
natural features-the crooked  white oak that twisted  itself,  hanging at  a
crazy  angle  above the  slope of hill; the small grove  of massive red oaks
that  grew out of a  dome of tumbled  rock, so placed that no axman had even
tried to cut them  down; the tiny swamp,  filled with  cattails, that fitted
itself snugly into a little terrace carved into the hillside.
     Far below he caught the gleam  of  window light and angled down  toward
it. He looked back over his shoulder and Lucy was following close behind.
     They came to a rude fence  of poles and crawled through  it and now the
ground became more level.
     Somewhere below a  dog barked in the dark and another  joined him. More
joined  in and the pack came sweeping up the slope toward them. They arrived
in a rush of feet, veered around Enoch and the lantern to  launch themselves
at Lucy-supenly transformed, at the sight of her, into a welcoming committee
rather than a company of guards. They reared upward, a tangled mass of dogs.
Her hands went  out and patted at their heads. As  if by  signal, they  went
rushing off in a happy frolic, circling to come back again.
     A short distance beyond the pole fence was a vegetable garden and Enoch
led the way across, carefully following  a path between  the rows. Then they
were in the  yard  and  the house stood before them, a  tumble-down, sagging
structure,  its  outlines  swallowed by  the  darkness,  the kitchen windows
glowing with a soft, warm lamplight.
     Enoch crossed the yard to  the kitchen door  and knocked. He heard feet
coming across the kitchen floor.
     The  door  came  open and  Ma Fisher stood framed against  the light, a
great, tall, bony woman clothed in something that was more sack than dress.
     She stared at  Enoch, half frightened, half belligerent.  Then, back of
him, she saw the girl.
     "Lucy!" she cried.
     The girl  came forward  with a  rush  and her mother caught her in  her
arms.
     Enoch  set  his lantern on the ground, tucked the  rifle underneath his
arm, and stepped across the threshold.
     The family had been  at supper, seated about a great round table set in
the center of  the kitchen.  An ornate oil lamp stood in the  center  of the
table. Hank had risen to his feet, but his three sons and the stranger still
were seated.
     "So you brung her back," said Hank.
     "I found her," Enoch said.
     "We quit  hunting  for her just a while  ago,"  Hank  told him. "We was
going out again."
     "You remember what you told me this afternoon?" asked Enoch.
     "I told you a lot of things."
     "You  told me that I had the devil in me. Raise  your hand against that
girl once more  and I promise you I'll show you just how much devil there is
in me."
     "You can't bluff me," Hank blustered.
     But the man was frightened. It showed in the limpness of  his face, the
tightness of his body.
     "I mean  it," Enoch said. "just  try me out and see." The two men stood
for a moment, facing one another, then Hank sat down.
     "Would you join us in some victuals?" he inquired.
     Enoch shook his head.
     He looked at the stranger. "Are you the ginseng man?" he asked.
     The man noped. "That is what they call me."
     "I want to talk with you. Outside."
     Claude Lewis stood up.
     "You don't have  to go," said Hank. "He can't  make you go. He can talk
to you right here."
     "I don't  mind," said Lewis. "In fact, I want to  talk with him. You're
Enoch Wallace, aren't you?"
     "That's  who he is," said  Hank. "Should of died of old age fifty years
ago.  But  look at him. He's got the  devil in him. I tell you, him and  the
devil has a deal."
     "Hank," Lewis said, "shut up."
     Lewis came around the table  and went out the door. "Good night," Enoch
said  to the  rest  of them.  "Mr. Wallace,"  said  Ma  Fisher,  "thanks for
bringing back my girl. Hank won't hit her again. I can promise you. I'll see
to that."
     Enoch went outside  and shut the door. He  picked up the lantern. Lewis
was out in the yard. Enoch went to him.
     "Let's walk off a ways," he said.
     They stopped at the edge of the garden and turned to face one another.
     "You been watching me," said Enoch.
     Lewis noped.
     "Official? Or just snooping?"
     "Official, I'm afraid. My  name is Claude  Lewis. There is no  reason I
shouldn't tell you-I'm C.I.A."
     "I'm not a traitor or a spy," Enoch said.
     "No one thinks you are. We're just watching you."
     "You know about the cemetery?"
     Lewis noped.
     "You took something from a grave."
     "Yes," said Lewis. "The one with the funny headstone."
     "Where is it?"
     "You mean the body. It's in Washington."
     "You shouldn't have taken it," Enoch said, grimly. "You've caused a lot
of trouble. You have to get it back. As quickly as you can."
     "It will take a little time," said Lewis. "They'll have to fly it  out.
Twenty-four hours, maybe."
     "That's the fastest you can make it?"
     "I might do a little better."
     "Do the very best you can. It's important that you get that body back."
     "I will, Wallace. I didn't know ..."
     "And, Lewis."
     "Yes."
     "Don't try to play it smart. Don't  ap  any frills. Just do what I tell
you. I'm  trying to be reasonable  because that's the  only thing to be. But
you try one smart move ..."
     He reached  out a hand  and grabbed  Lewis's  shirt front, twisting the
fabric tight.
     "You understand me, Lewis?"
     Lewis  was unmoved.  He  did  not try to pull away. "Yes,"  he said. "I
understand."
     "What the hell ever made you do it?"
     "I had a job."
     "Yeah, a  job.  Watching me. Not robbing graves."  He  let loose of the
shirt.
     "Tell me," said Lewis, "that thing in the grave. What was it?"
     "That's  none  of  your  damn'  business,"  Enoch told  him,  bitterly.
"Getting back that body is. You're sure that you can do it? Nothing standing
in your way?"
     Lewis  shook  his head. "Nothing  at all.  I'll phone  as soon as I can
reach a phone. I'll tell them that it's imperative."
     "It's all of that," said Enoch. "Getting  that  body back  is  the most
important thing you've ever done. Don't forget that for a minute. It affects
everyone on Earth.  You and me and everyone. And if you  fail, you'll answer
to me for it."
     "With that gun