CINDY

The band had a singer, a weedy, spotty youth who sang accurately but woodenly. Most of what he sang was new to her, or rather, too old to have come her way, but some of the old standards were familiar. She noted two, the ancient Night and Day and a more recent fast number The World With a Place For You and Me.

Burrell saw the passing of the note and wanted to wait and see what happened. But Tanya said: "Let's dance"; since it had been agreed that she should call the tune, he got up and danced with her.

If he was not the best dancer in the galaxy, he usually managed to surprise people, for they expected him to be slow and heavy on his feet. Although not shaped like an athlete, he was in excellent condition, and his responses were so fast he could combine beautifully with another dancer, alternating rapidly between leading and following.

"Well," said Tanya breathlessly as they went back to their table, "you really showed me something there. We must do this more often." Roberta watched them dancing with something like regret. Even without sex between them, she and Burrell could have become closer but it had never happened. She had been willing to thaw, that time he saved her life when her seat belt came loose. She had even kissed him. But since then, it had been he, she thought, who had done the back-pedalling. What was wrong, she pondered. It was almost as though he didn't want her because she appealed to him.

The waiter came back to her. "Mr. Conrad says if you come back tomorrow at ten o'clock he'll see you."

Roberta's uncertain temper boiled over. "Tell Mr. Conrad," she said coldly, "that I'm going to finish my drink. That will take about three minutes. Then I'm going to leave. And I'll never set foot in this place again. So if he wants me he'll have to be quick about it."

The waiter was startled. He backed away, saying nothing, and she was reminded of what she had told Burrell: these people could be pushed around. In comparison with Burrell, she was (she told herself) as meek and mild as a lamb. Still, even she could make them jump.

In less than three minutes the waiter returned with a small, tubby, bald man. He bustled up to the table indignantly and opened his mouth. Before anything came out, she took the wind out of his sails by smiling at him. Roberta's smile was a rare thing: Burrell had seen it only three or four times. Familiarity was given no chance to breed contempt. It was not devalued. The dancing girls' bright smiles had meant nothing. Roberta's was in a different class.

She nodded to him to sit down, which he did. "Miss… ?" he said.

"Just Cindy. If I have to sign for money you'll find out who I am. Otherwise, no."

"Really, Miss Cindy, you can't just walk in here and—"

"I have. The only question now remaining is whether I just walk out again."

"I don't need any entertainers."

"You're wrong. You do. The band is good, the singer only fair, the dancers terrible."

"I offered you a chance to—"

She stood up. "I understand there's a place called the Silver Slipper. And an establishment rejoicing under the name of The Two Left Feet. Goodbye, Mr. Conrad."

"You haven't any music with you. Or stage clothes. You can't just—"

"Tell the band to play The World With a Place For You and Me. Then Night and Day."

He hesitated, then responded to the tone of command, waddling to the stand.

Now you've done it, Roberta told herself. She was no extrovert. At the same time she was not shy or self-conscious; having made up her mind to do something, she wouldn't be fazed by an audience.

There was no announcement. The band simply started to play and Roberta began to dance. It was only after she had started that the lights went down and the spots came on. The hum of conversation died a little, not much.

She wore a long gold skirt and a blue coverup top, which bared her arms but not her shoulders. Though the music was fast she moved slowly, swaying rather than dancing. As the customers saw how pretty she was, the talking died still more.

Suddenly she snapped off her skirt and tossed it aside. The blue top proved to be part of a leotard, and if she had seen the club's dancers before she put it on, she couldn't have arranged a greater contrast. Their costumes didn't fit too well because costumes that fitted too well weren't nice. They wore bras which weren't meant to show and did. She wore nothing but the thin leotard, which clung to her like a coat of blue paint. She talked with her torso, laughed with her legs. There wasn't one high kick in the whole act. Seeming to slow down the fast music, she rippled. A knee bend became a smooth hip movement, a waist flick, a toss of ash-blonde hair.

Instead of shaking everything in sight, as the dancers had done, Roberta undulated gently like reeds in the breeze. The audience, now completely silent, were allowed to watch something she was doing for her own pleasure. There was a deliberate, ironic contrast between the jazzy music and her slow swaying.

Very quickly it was over, and Tanya murmured to Burrell: "No wonder you stay with her…" The applause was sparse and self-conscious, surprisingly unenthusiastic. If Roberta wasn't a great dancer, she had least proved that without words she still had something to say. Burrell realized suddenly that these restrained Edinburgh people , were afraid to applaud such a performance too much. They wanted more, but they would pretend they didn't.

Tanya was in no doubt. "She's got the job," she said. The polite applause was fading, and Roberta was wrapping her skirt around her again. A momentary halt in the clapping was interpreted by Burrell as disappointment that Roberta's legs, which were well worthy of extended study, were being wrapped up after only two minutes on view. The band started again and she moved to the microphone. She sang the verse of Night and Day and people started leaning forward. Her singing voice was lower than her speaking voice, a warm contralto. Its power had little to do with volume—you felt you had to lean forward to hear it, despite the microphone.

The band proved their sensitivity; their playing became warm and intimate, like Roberta's voice, and the tempo eased a fraction. And then the song, too, was over. Roberta's two numbers, dancing and singing, had at least one thing in common—the three minutes or so seemed like mere seconds.

This time the applause was generous, perhaps unnecessarily so. She had done nothing remarkable and she would never have got a job singing or dancing solo in Paradise. But in the Marimba, she was in a different class from the chorus girls and the band singer, and everybody knew it. Perhaps she got more applause for her singing because the customers felt they could show the enthusiasm they hadn't dared display for her dancing. Conrad took Roberta to a small room backstage, and she noticed yet again the smallness of most things Terran, the houses, the shops, the offices. There was no lack of space that she could see. The Terrans just didn't have the expansiveness of the colonies.

"Well, I think we can offer you something," Conrad said cautiously.

"The dance was a bit near the bone, though."

"They could get used to it," she said.

"Yes, that's what I think," he agreed. "Maybe if you wore a costume more like our girls—"

"No!" she said explosively. "I'll wear less or I'll wear more, but I won't go on in bits and pieces."

"Bits and pieces?"

She had used an idiom he didn't know. To prevent him thinking about it, she said abruptly: "How much, Conrad?"

"Five pounds a week?" he said hopefully.

Five pounds was half what Eliot gave for three days' hire of the Flora. A tenth what she had already drawn on account for her police job. She laughed derisively.

"All right, then, twenty," said Conrad, surrendering.

"Five, twenty… what's the next word?"

"Twenty-five is top," he said, and this time she believed him.

"Right, Conrad. I'll take it."

"And you call me Mister."

She had achieved a certain ascendancy that she had no intention of relinquishing. "For twenty-five a week I sing and dance. If you want me to call you Mister, that's extra."

"You call me Mr. Conrad," he retorted with a flash of spirit, "or I tell Starways you're here."

She had overdone it. Her accent, her singing, her dancing, the way she wore clothes were all clues. Her belligerence was perhaps the straw that put the camel through the eye of the needle.

"Tell anybody you like I'm here," she said. "If you think I'm under contract to anybody, you're wrong. And I'm not going under contract to you either. Contracts are for people who think they can't do better. Me, I'm not at all sure."

It worked. She was sure of it. There was doubt in his eyes again. For a moment he had been certain.

"You'll go on again later?"

"Like hell I will. I've got to see about music, work things out with the band. I need clothes. You've got to bill me, advertise, set an opening night. Do I have to tell you everything?"

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Burrell and Tanya went on to the Silver Slipper. Roberta was on her own now.

The respectability of Edinburgh's nightclubs was no surprise to Burrell. Some of the patrons got very drunk, as in nightclubs elsewhere, but they didn't become troublesome. No voices were raised; there were no fights. From what Tanya said and didn't say, he gathered that these clubs were considered dens of vice by about half the community yet nothing remarkable went on in most of them. If the police had no iron control of these places, the magistrates had the last word in the continuance or revocation of licences. The drinks had to be what they were supposed to be and the gambling tables had to be honest. There was no drug problem, rather to his surprise. The anti-drug pressures were social rather than punitive.

That left sex, and it was sexual permissiveness that gave the clubs a bad name.

Like all respectable communities, this one swept certain things under the carpet. There was no open promiscuity. The unmarried male and the unmarried female, unable in this social atmosphere to copulate in the public parks, even at night, had to go to certain places set aside for the purpose: the clubs. The routine was simple and unvarying. Having come to the club already with a partner, or having picked one up there and come to an agreement, financial or otherwise, one asked for a private supper.

"You might have told me," Burrell said. "We ate in the Marimba."

"Are you assuming that we're going to eat again?" she said mockingly.

"Well, aren't we?"

"Maybe. I'm curious. I gather you make Casanova look like Blueboy. Anyway, Roberta thinks so."

"Roberta knows nothing about it," he said, too quickly.

"So I understand. Strange, isn't it?"

"I'm not one for talking about sex."

"No great lover, then," she said in the same mocking tone. "Just a bull. Or a ram. Is Ram your real name?"

"Yes. Does a great lover have to talk?"

"Undoubtedly. He has to woo. Make a girl feel great. Flatter her. Melt her. After all, sex isn't so wonderful. It needs a lot of propaganda to build it up to something."

"You haven't lived."

Those three words annoyed her. She liked to feel she had done everything, knew everything. "And you have?" she challenged. He shrugged. "I told you I'm not one for talking."

"All right," she said irritably. "We'll take a private room. That's all it means, you know. You can have a sandwich and a beer but it costs the same anyway."

The private room was purely functional. Two chairs, a table and a divan. The divan had no sheets.

"Go on, then," said Tanya, still annoyed. "Don't talk. Don't tell me I'm wonderful. Don't tell me you're wonderful. Show me."

* * *

Much later, as they drank their beer, Tanya Scott had to assert herself somehow.

First she admitted, to be fair: "You were right. I hadn't lived." And then, to assert herself: "You came from Shetland, of course. Both of you. You know that, as an Outlander, you don't exist here? I can kill you and it will be as if you'd never been."

He was not shocked, not even particularly surprised. Tanya was intelligent and she was some sort of detective. Also she had been in his company for hours.

Once some tiny thing like a word not in use on Earth or a minor piece of impossible ignorance on his part alerted her, she could go on probing gently and imperceptibly until she had it all. It was absolutely no use pretending he had not been discovered.

"I thought you'd never guess," he said. "Now tell me why you haven't been Exiled."

She had to smile. "You know a certain amount," she said. "Not much. You want to know more. And maybe I will tell you. But first—just why are you here?"

"Curiosity," he said.

She shook her head decisively. "I've met other Outlanders. Not many. Curiosity moved some of them. I believe curiosity motivated Roberta. But not you."

"Well, more than ordinary curiosity," he admitted. "There's a story…

but I won't tell you it right now."

"Why not?"

His answer was unexpected even to himself. "I've never told Roberta. I feel I have to tell her first. Besides, I'm not completely sure yet myself." His brow knitted contemplatively.

She nodded, accepting that.

"Tanya," he said urgently, "we can help each other." She nodded again. "That's true. You're guessing but I know. Did you ever meet a man called John Ehrlich?"

"No."

"You fool!" she suddenly spat at him. "I know you met him. You must have met him. He sent you here, didn't he?"

"Then why ask?"

"To see if you'd tell the truth."

"Tanya," he said carefully, "you haven't told me much. In fact, you haven't told me anything except that you could kill me, and you haven't told me that you're not going to. Now if I met somebody as potentially dangerous as you in the next five minutes, and he asked me, 'Do you know Tanya Scott?' what would you expect me to say?"

She calmed down. "That's reasonable," she said. "Let's go home and get some sleep. Tomorrow you're going to get a history lesson—from Professor Hamish McCrindle at the university."

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The next morning Burrell was sent to an academy where there might be student trouble. There wasn't: the girls and boys, fourteen and fifteen, stared at him; perhaps because he was there, they didn't step out of line. Possibly they knew what had happened the day before.

Burrell missed talking things over with Roberta. He would have told her his real reason for coming to Earth as far as he could discern it but now that he was ready, they were kept apart. He was sent out early and when he returned to Sergeant Scott's house on his way to look in at HQ for further instructions, she had gone to the Marimba.

Tanya was there, just up, still sleepy. She was warm and leggy in a short wrap, and Burrell was willing to take up where they had left off the night before. She, apparently, was not.

"You go to the university this afternoon at two," she said. "McCrindle expects you."

"And Roberta?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"For her the way is different. Maybe she won't be told anything. It depends."

"On what?"

"Burrell, you've already jumped in with both feet. If we let you go on acting the way you undoubtedly will act, you'd be Exiled and my father couldn't stop it. Roberta… we don't know yet. It depends how she's getting on now."

"Your father is in this with you?"

She did not ask: "In what?" She said: "No. He's a policeman. That's all. He guesses I'm something more, but he doesn't want to know."

"What more are you?"

She shook her head impatiently. "Wait. You won't tell me everything. You can't expect me to tell you everything."

"I might do a deal."

"I don't want a deal right now. See the professor." At the police HQ he was told to report to the university at two and report to Professor Hamish McCrindle. With unaccustomed caution, he tried to find out how Tanya had managed to arrange for him to be sent there officially when according to her, the briefing was unofficial and Sergeant Scott didn't know anything about it. All he was told was that there might be trouble among the students and McCrindle would tell him what to do.

When he arrived at the university he was shown into a small waiting room. Roberta was already there.

"Who sent you?" he asked.

"George Shirran. The pianist at the Marimba. He knows I came from Shetland."

"You told him?"

"No. He found out."

As Tanya had done. It wasn't difficult. Probably Shirran had guessed, when Roberta danced, that no shy Terran miss could dance like that. The chorus girls weren't so terrible after all. They knew they had to be peasants or Exiles.

Burrell found himself more glad to see her than he expected. There was both more and less between them than between him and Tanya. Unspoken though it was, he knew somehow that Tanya had not the slightest intention that any relationship between them should become permanent. On the other hand, mere habit and the things they had experienced together were forming a bond between Roberta and him. Somehow, Burrell felt, she understood him, understood him in ways he did not understand himself. The thought frightened him a little.

Although he had not fallen in love with Roberta any more than she with him, he wanted more of her than just to possess her once, the pattern of his usual encounters with women.

"Cindy," he said, "we're a couple of minutes early, and before we see this character, I'd like you to know the story of my life." She laughed. "You've lived so little? And why tell me now?" she added seriously.

"Because I guess I'll have to tell Tanya and I want to tell you first. My wife was Terran, Cindy."

"I guessed you'd been married. But I never thought she could be Terran. Why do you know so little about Earth?"

"Because she wouldn't talk about it. Cindy, I was wild as a kid. Not only wild but bad. When I was seventeen and was sent to jail, my respectable parents gave up. I suppose I had to be sent to jail—everything else had been tried. I was four years in jail—"

"You killed somebody?"

"Not quite. He lived. Anyway, jail worked. For me, jail did what it's supposed to do and often doesn't. I didn't like jail and decided I was never going back. I didn't decide to become honest, just more careful. When I finally got out I was more polished. Then I met Mary. She was small, like you. Not so pretty but appealing. She was quiet, you'd almost think shy. I knew from the start she'd just come out from Earth and that she was on her own. Naturally I wondered about that, a girl of twenty-two emigrating on her own, but she made it quite clear she didn't want to talk about that, and she never did. You see, she wasn't shy at all. Once she had made up her mind, she was like a rock. She made me stay honest. I had to, she would have left me, you see."

"You loved her," Roberta said in wonder.

"Didn't I say so?" He had not said so. "I never met another girl like her. You'd never believe anybody could accomplish so much by doing so little. It was her courage, I suppose. Life in Orleans can be pretty rough, but I never knew her afraid. No, that's not true, sometimes she was afraid like anybody else, but she never let it affect her in the slightest. She stopped a riot once. They would have had to kill her, and they weren't prepared to go quite that far."

Hearing the pride in his voice, Roberta wondered how he could have waited so long without talking about Mary. But even before he confirmed it for her, she suspected what the answer would be.

"She died trying to have a son she couldn't have," Burrell said unemotionally. "All the courage in the galaxy couldn't make her strong. The baby died, too."

She had not thought she would ever feel sorry for Burrell. And she said nothing, knowing that if she did express sympathy he would probably hit her. Burrell could not take sympathy and despised those who could.

"For ten years I worked," Burrell went on. "I wasn't honest any more, only when Mary was alive. It didn't matter to me—nothing really did. I cheated and schemed and built a small empire, just for something to do, I guess, for I had no purpose then. The obsession to come to Earth came on gradually, year by year. From Orleans the fare to Earth is so staggering you have to be a millionaire to think about it. The other way it's subsidized. The idea of working my way to Earth didn't occur to me, for I was a construction man, not a spaceman. Anyway, I found out the Starways deal, and knew I had to get to Paradiso and still be a millionaire when I got there—"

The door opened and a tall, thin, whitehaired man looked in. "Miss Murdock? Mr. Burrell? You wanted to see me?"

Burrell stood up, but it was Roberta who spoke. "We were sent to see you," she said.

He sighed. "They send so many… and it never comes to anything. Oh, well, come in."

CHAPTER NINETEEN

McCrindle looked like a professor. Yet Burrell had seen men very like him who were storekeepers, janitors, and house painters.

"I don't want to know anything about you," he said flatly, sitting behind his desk and taking off his glasses. From the short-sighted way he blinked at them, it seemed he didn't even want to be able to recognize them again.

"I don't want to know who you are or what you're going to do. You'll probably be killed anyway."

"Killed?" Roberta exclaimed.

"No questions. Ask the others. Those who sent you. I used to believe in this, but I don't any more… I assume you're Outlanders. I'm here to tell you how Earth got like this."

He looked at the ceiling and addressed it, not them.

"Earth eventually stopped fighting major wars. Then there was a population problem. People lived longer, weren't killed off by disease, weren't blown up by bombs. And birth control wasn't a good thing for the human race. The rich, the intelligent, the talented, limited their families. The poor, the stupid, the useless, didn't.

"At first, colonizing the galaxy didn't seem to be any answer. The first starships could take about fifty people. And it was ten years or more before the ship got back. Fifty was nothing. Earth wanted rid of fifty million people at a time. Men, women, and children. Particularly the children, before they grew up and produced more children.

"Another thing: the people wouldn't go. Certainly there was no trouble finding fifty; but if there had been places for fifty million, they would not have been filled. Most people want to live and die where they're born. Only a few have the spirit of adventure.

"But the snowball grew. The colonies started growing, but not nearly fast enough. They wanted people from Earth; Earth wanted rid of people. The shipping problem was gradually beaten; ships got faster, bigger. The colonies built ships too. A practical method of hibernation was found, so that the human cargo didn't need so much space on the way, didn't move around, didn't eat. Vast capsules were assembled in space, and one real ship could handle a dozen capsules—"

"We know most of this," Burrell said.

"You don't know it the way I'm telling it!" McCrindle snapped pettishly.

"Listen. Then you can go away. And do whatever it is you do. They send you to me because I know more about this than they do and can tell it better. And because I used to believe—"

"Please go on, professor," said Roberta.

"Before anybody realized it, the actual transport problem was beaten. This was appreciated only when it became difficult to fill the places. All the pioneers had gone. In Britain and America and Russia and China there were still some who were ready to go, but not nearly enough. Earth was still far too full and the colonies, not four or fourteen or forty any more, but four hundred, still wanted people. Small settlements die, big settlements survive. To be really self-supporting, a colony needs a population of at least five million.

"But people wouldn't go. The exodus already started hadn't by any means solved the problem but it took enough pressure off for people to be able, all over the world, to say 'It'll be all right in my time.' So the governments of the world agreed on the Exile Acts."

Burrell tried to interrupt but heeded Roberta's gesture.

"To understand them all," said the professor, bringing his gaze down from the ceiling and bunking at the man and girl sitting on the other side of his desk, "you must realize that whatever was officially said, the real deliberate intention was to use any and every excuse to get rid of as many people as possible. Phrases like 'the right type of colonist' were used, but what was intended was simply to kick out millions and millions of people. The colonies, didn't want murderers and other criminals, but they did want strong, aggressive, independent people. So a whole list of categories was drawn up. People who wanted to get out of contracts, debts, marriage, other responsibilities could do so by volunteering. People who got into any sort of trouble could be compulsorily Exiled. Teenagers weren't sent away, but if by the time they were twenty-one they'd built up a record or nonconformism, they were Exiled then."

Burrell understood why the juvenile delinquency problem never quite got out of hand, and why it was the fourteen and fifteen-year-olds," not the nineteen-year-olds, who were tough and intractable. At fourteen, you had a long time to go. At nineteen, you were not so sure you were prepared to leave Earth, and didn't want to be forced to go. You started, belatedly but perhaps still in time, building up a record of conformity, of reformation.

"It's easier to start an avalanche than to stop it. Here in Scotland, people suddenly woke up one morning to find the life they had known had broken down. There were no railways any more—not enough passengers. Television and radio audiences dwindled, the service became more and more sketchy and finally stopped. Communications gradually broke down. World trade virtually ceased. Communities became self-supporting. In Edinburgh today you can't get rice. Silk. Diamonds. Rubber. Bananas. Coffee. We use our own coal, iron, tin, natural gas, stone, petroleum, wood. Our own dairy produce.

" And we can't reverse the policy. It's not possible to call a world summit any more. There are no national leaders—they all got sent way. Earth is bleeding to death and we can't stop the flow. Can't or won't. The leaders we do have, the older people, the town councillors, don't want to stop it. They want to go on getting rid of the hotheads."

"Where," said Burrell, "does Starways come in?" The professor gave his first sign of approval. He picked up his glasses and put them on.

"That's the heart of the matter," he said. "Starways came in just before our system broke down. They got agreement to use certain regions we didn't want. They ferried in tourists—you must know more about that than I do. It was agreed that neither they nor the tourists would interfere with us or even contact us: there would be little point in exiling strong people, only to bring them back and have them mingle with the population. In return they took over something we could no longer do for ourselves—defence. With many populated planets, each must have a defence system against the others." Roberta nodded to herself. The sleepy village terrorized by a bully brought in a fighter to take care of the bully. Inevitably the fighter took the bully, and the village. Earth did need a certain amount of defence… another name for it was protection. Even at that time, there would have been galactic agreement backing up Terran self-determination. Anybody who took a ship to Earth, landed without permission, and started kicking the populace around would have been a pirate. But the pirate would probably have got away with it.

So when Earth ceased to be able to defend herself, somebody else was needed to do it. Starways was ready to oblige. And take everything. Leaders could still have been found on Earth to organize, to unify. But Earth continued exporting every leader or potential leader. It was a suicidal policy. And the result was going to be suicide.

"No wonder you're discouraged," said Roberta, with masterly understatement.

"They want Australia. They want all of Scotland. Then they could bring in millions of tourists. Perhaps build permanent residences for millionaires, I don't know. If we gave them Scotland and Australia, they'd want Africa. China. Russia. America. They want the whole world. And we can't stop them."

That, Roberta thought, was the matter in a nutshell. Not They can't be stopped but the far truer We can't stop them.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Burrell was impatient with McCrindle as they walked back to police HQ. "An old hasbeen," he said. "Once a rebel, now a frightened old man." Roberta wasn't listening. "What a story!" she breathed. "A world cutting its own throat. The world."

Burrell shook his head impatiently. "It's impossible—"

"No. It's happened. Getting rid of the malcontents… permanently. How many communities have wanted to do that and thought it would be heaven if they did?"

Still impatient, Burrell said: "It's so simple. All they have to do is—"

"Whatever it is, it's not simple. But before we go on, finish your own story. You said you worked for ten years and only gradually began to think of going to Earth."

"I certainly didn't expect this," he grumbled. "A dying world. A dead world. I thought a world that could produce Mary—"

"You don't understand," she said, becoming impatient in her turn.

"This world rejected your Mary. This isn't her world. It's more yours than hers—you're here, aren't you? Did she never tell you whether she left voluntarily or was Exiled?"

"Never. Once she made it clear, early on, that she didn't want to talk about Earth, I didn't press her. And then suddenly it was too late."

"You were faithful to her while she was alive, weren't you?"

"Yes… though you may find it hard to believe."

"I don't find it hard to believe. What have you been doing since, taking revenge on all other women for being alive when Mary isn't?" Burrell looked morose.

"Did you come to Earth looking for another Mary?"

"I don't know," he said slowly. "Suddenly one day I realized I was rich enough, if I sold the business and found my own way to Paradiso, actually to go to Earth. The ordinary spaceman isn't trained, he's just unskilled labor. I worked my way to Paradiso and it didn't cost me a cent. I might have joined Starways and got here free too, but that would have taken time. And to get the chance to stay in Paradiso I had to tip my hand and give away the fact that I was a millionaire."

"And once here," she said significantly and a little sadly, "you found Tanya." She had been right, she realized; there was a depth and a strength in-the man behind the brutal facade. But she was too late. He shook his head. " Tanya is no Mary." He might have said more but as they approached police HQ, Tanya herself stepped quickly from a doorway and said: "You can't go there, either of you. Starways have notified all British authorities that you absconded from a tourist party, and that means you'll be sent back. Why did you give your right names?"

"Why not?" said Burrell. "And how did Starways get in touch?"

"I'll tell you all about it, but not here. You can't go to police HQ, my father's house, the Marimba, or the Silver Slipper." They followed her as she strode southwards, away from the city center, away from all the places they had been in Edinburgh. "Why didn't you give false names?" she asked. "Now everything you started here is finished—"

"Oh, nonsense," said Burrell shortly. "We do it another way, that's all."

"If only you'd given different names—"

"I gave our real names because that's the way I work. If I could have avoided giving names at all, I would. Once I had to give a name, I gave my own. I'm not a spy."

"Aren't you? What did you think of what McCrindle told you?" It was Roberta who answered. "I agree with Burrell. We wanted to make things happen. Don't you?"

"You know there's a group, then? And that I'm in it?"

"We've guessed a lot of things," Burrell said. "We're tired of guessing. When are you going to tell us something?"

"Soon," she said quite mildly. "You could have been Starways agents, you know. You still could be."

"And what would that mean?"

"That McCrindle and George Shirran and I would all be Exiled."

"Would that be bad?"

"We want to work here, not in the colonies."

"If you want to fight Starways, if you want to make these people their own masters again, that's where you've got to work. Out there." Tanya stopped in her stride, looking shrewdly into his eyes. "That's what you think, is it? Roberta?"

"No," Roberta said evenly. "I'd work here. Organize. Build up an action group. Stop or at least suspend Exile. That's what you're trying to do, isn't it?"

"And after that," Burrell asserted, "you'd still have to take on Starways on their own ground. There you might win. Here you can't." Tanya said: "You don't know what you're talking about," and Roberta said at the same time, more calmly: "You can't organize Terran resistance except among the Terrans."

Burrell answered them both: "I'm no genius, but in business I managed to make several millions. And this is a business matter. You're not going to stop Starways with guns. You've got to stop them in the boardrooms and in the stock markets." He stopped. Suddenly Burrell knew what he wanted to do, what he had come to Mary's home to do.

They had been standing arguing, and passers-by were staring. Tanya, who didn't want to attract attention, calmed herself and led them on. They were entering an area of large old stone houses, many of them boarded up. Roberta laughed. "I've often called you a bull. And here we are, me wanting to start a revolution and you wanting to fight a paper battle."

"You can't help people who won't help themselves. I can understand Earth's population problem, and the desperate measures that were taken to solve it. But centuries ago Earth should have said 'Right, it's solved,' and stopped Exile. Even now the Terrans could get together, stop Exile, keep their leaders and fighters, and spit in Starways' eye. Instead the older people, the people who run things—as far as they're run at all—still stick their heads in the sand and insist Exile goes on. They don't want the challenge of opposition. All their lives there's been an easy solution—expel the rebel."

Tanya nodded. She and others like her, natural rebels, had had to realize very early in life that to be able to go on rebelling under cover, they had to conform out in the open. Hence her connection with the police. She looked around quickly, and when nobody was in sight led them into a narrow lane that gave access to the rear of some of the houses. She stopped at a dilapidated green door, opened it with a key, and locked it behind them.

They were in a fiercely overgrown garden.

"Some of these houses are perfectly sound," she said. "Population is still going down, but the optimists think it'll start to rise any day. Now they want it to rise. Substandard houses are knocked down, but these might be used again some day."

Another key opened the heavy old back door.

Inside, the house was clean, though bare, and had rooms larger than any Burrell and Roberta had seen so far in Scotland. The house dated from more expansive days, possibly Victorian.

"You can stay here," Tanya said. "The houses on both sides are empty, and people aren't curious. Just don't draw too much attention to yourselves, that's all."

In the huge old kitchen, she put on water to boil for tea. Burrell was surprised that the house had electricity and the supply was still on. Tanya explained that in an atmosphere of indifference, it was quite safe to bank on people's lack of curiosity. Occasionally electricity was used in this house, and when bills based on central metering were sent to an accommodation address elsewhere, they were paid, and that was all the small, understaffed power board cared about. "You promised us answers," said Burrell. "First, how did Starways get in touch?"

"Radio. There's no public service any more, but there are small, low-power stations at Wick, Peterhead, Aberdeen and here, using equipment supplied by Starways. We think they're deliberately designed so that we can communicate locally but not nationally or internationally. And though we do have scientists and technicians, there's no industrial backing. If you wanted a television tube, you'd have to hunt around for one made a hundred years ago."

Roberta began to see why Tanya had wanted them to lie low for a time while they experienced and learned the current situation. Without this experience, she and Burrell were liable to get themselves Exiled by a careless word or deed while taking unnecessary care over things the incurious Terrans wouldn't notice.

Tanya said abruptly: "All right, I'll tell you the situation. We have been organizing. And not for a year or twenty years, but more than fifty. There is an organized opposition; unfortunately, since rebels seldom agree, it's not united. Since the various Terran groups would never work together under a Terran, we've known for a long time we'd need an Outland leader. John Ehrlich and others in Paradiso and elsewhere have been trying to send us leaders for years. And quite a few have got through, contacted us, and stayed. But most get returned to Starways."

"And some of them are never heard of again?" Burrell prompted, remembering McCrindle had used the word "killed."

"Mostly the ones we don't contact. We have a system of notifying Starways of names, making sure they know we know them and that future Exiles know them too. That ensures their safety."

"Tell me," said Burrell, thinking of something that suddenly became relevant, "are Exiles brainwashed? By you? By Starways?"

"There is a mild conditioning. Part hypnotic, part drugs—not surgical. A general reluctance to talk about Earth is implanted; that's all. This was by agreement long ago, renewed for different reasons ever since. At first the idea was that an overpopulated world didn't want to have to fight off visitors and would-be settlers. The less propaganda there was about Earth, good or bad, the better. Later Earth had developed a hermit complex and wanted even more to be forgotten, left alone. And Starways had come into it— they didn't want pressure to open up Earth until they were in a position to make a killing on it. They've been very careful to keep their monopoly. They even keep their Terran Tours profits down so that nobody—"

"You don't need to tell me about that," Burrell said. "I can understand Starways. Go on about your organization. What's it called?"

"That's part of the trouble," said Tanya almost apologetically. "It's called about five thousand things. Here we call ourselves the Aware." "I like it," said Roberta.

"I don't," Burrell retorted. "It's got to be something people will die for. Freedom, the Free Fighters, something like that."

"Scotland the Brave," Roberta dug out from somewhere. "Well, that would do locally," Burrell agreed. "How strong are you, Tanya?"

"About a tenth of the population."

"That's pretty good," Burrell said, agreeably surprised. "Ten percent?

We're overwhelmed. Even a minority group could outvote us if it ever came to that."

"Ten percent groups have often ruled nations," said Roberta gently.

"We don't want a dictatorship—"

"Well you had better find some way that works," said Burrell coarsely.

"You can't afford luxuries like high ideals. If you don't have faith in what you're proposing for your country—your people—then how can you expect the other ninety percent to ever trust you."

Tanya didn't argue. "Well, perhaps that's why," she said quietly,

"Ehrlich spoke to you and tried to make sure you came to Earth."

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

In the ensuing weeks Roberta came to admire Burrell for his energy, determination, bluntness, single-mindedness.

In two's and three's, by the dozen, by the score, the members of the Aware were brought to the old house and Burrell harangued them. He swore at them, Roberta observed, ten times as much as he had ever sworn at her. He acted (or was it an act?) the part of the bluff, honest, unsubtle patriot. That he was not fighting for his own world seemed, paradoxically, to strengthen his hand.

He inspired them and sent them away glowing and proud. Scotland the Brave was tried out as a slogan, and it caught on. It became a password, a rallying call. Members of the Aware would not have given up their name and joined the Patriots or the Fifers or any of the other existing organizations, but all could come together under the new Scotland the Brave banner.

Burrell began to get visitors from farther afield, first the nearby villages and then the more distant towns. Once a group of twenty came from Newcastle, in England. They called themselves the Tynesiders. Roberta spoke at nearly all the meetings, more cool, more scholarly, than Burrell. Yet her contribution was equally important, as Burrell was the first to acknowledge. She had the facts. As time went on, she gathered more and more facts. Burrell made them feel that the impossible was possible. Roberta showed them how the impossible might be made possible.

A large group from Glasgow calling themselves the Clydemen came along in truculent mood. Their leader, a bigger man than Burrell, seemed to see him as an obstacle to be removed. Burrell plugged his usual line for a while and then, meeting obstruction at every turn, challenged Jock McVicar: "You want to fight?"

Jock McVicar did not want to fight. In his teens he had been tough and had fought often, with fists, knives, and boots. But he had learned, as all rebels had to learn if they were to stay on Earth, that at least an appearance of conformity was obligatory. And that was twenty years ago. However, Jock McVicar was perfectly prepared to fight. When challenged "Put up or shut up," he never shut up. Like many rebels, he had long ago become accustomed to the idea that the revolution would never take place and had accepted that he was the leader of an army that would never be called upon to fight. Thus his role in life had become the crushing of opposition among his allies rather than among the enemy. When you couldn't fight the enemy, there was nothing left to do but strengthen the fighting machine in the hope that one day it would get the chance to fight. This meant assimilating all the splinter groups in the Clydemen. There were no women in the Glasgow group; he saw it as his current duty to take over this new Edinburgh attention-grabbing faction, retain the leader Burrell but put him in his place, and send the women back to their babies and their sinks.

"Sure," he said. So, in the former ballroom of the old house, they went for each other with what on McVicar's part soon became killing rage. Burrell was twenty or thirty pounds lighter than his opponent and was at a disadvantage in height and reach. Normally a vicious and dirty fighter, he was careful to fight clean now. If he won by foul means, the Clydemen might actively work against the Scotland the Brave group. Burrell could not afford this.

When McVicar found his blows going astray and Burrell's landing, he bored in head down, his arms going like pistons. Burrell had a chance to raise his knee and end the fight, and knew it, but used his fist instead. McVicar staggered back, his nose spurting blood, and when he came in again, he tried clumsy wrestling holds. Burrell let him do this several times until everybody knew that his opponent had started the wrestling. Then he threw McVicar cross-buttock, and caught him in a backbreaker. McVicar hissed and a moment later shouted his surrender, and that was that.

Roberta, a cool spectator, came in then. It simply would not do to depose and humble the Glasgow leader. He had to be flattered and reinstated.

"One thing you've got to do, though, Mr. McVicar," she said steadily, "is reverse your policy on women members. On the other side, women have a vote. If you don't let them in on your side, you're only—"

"We've done all right," McVicar growled, while his men, silent, listened and waited. "We're strong. We're united."

"But not effective," said Burrell. He knew what Roberta was doing and did not want to queer her pitch. Nevertheless, McVicar could not be allowed to forget that he had fought and lost, not fought and won. "Me, I'm not interested in useless, secret opposition. I fight to win. If I can't win, I'll fight somewhere else where I will."

McVicar, who was not stupid, said belligerently: "Then maybe that's what you ought to be doing, Mister Burrell. Fighting Starways, not us."

"That's exactly what I intend to do. I don't want to be the leader here." McVicar became interested… extremely interested. He genuinely believed in the cause and had spent twenty years working in his own way for it. His views had not changed and could not change overnight, yet if letting women into the movement and following the orders of somebody else would mean action with a chance of success at last, he would have reluctantly agreed.

"Let's talk about this," he said.

As Tanya and Burrell were forced to admit, Roberta was their trump card in dealing with the motley dissidents who visited the Scotland the Brave headquarters to see what was going on. She stayed cool and she had tact. She nearly set the house on fire twice, she burned her arm trying to cook a meal, and she fused the lights, but in less severely practical fields, she was the queen. She didn't have Tanya's impulsiveness and impatience or Burrell's brute determination. She was, paradoxically, intensely practical in theoretical matters. Time and again in dealing with visiting groups, she ran counter to the other two, placating and wooing people whom Tanya and Burrell would both have handled on an ultimatum basis, and coolly refusing to conciliate others. And she invariably proved to be right.

She was an ambivert, capable both of solitary study and work and of her performance in the Marimba. It was generally agreed now that it was a great pity she and Burrell had not had an opportunity to become established in open employment. For one thing, it would have provided cash, always necessary to undercover groups; as it was they had to depend on the funds of the group even for their food. Fortunately, there was a class of people too timid actually to become open revolutionaries who satisfied their mild craving for revolt by giving money. Open employment would also have taught them more first-hand knowledge of the current situation… not that Burrell and Roberta stayed all the time in the big, apparently derelict, house. They often wandered about together, separately, or with Tanya, always as inconspicuously dressed as possible. Once Burrell went to Musselburgh. The Flora was still there, moored in the harbor, a freshly-painted wooden rudder in place. She looked ready to be sailed back to Shetland.

But Burrell didn't look closely at the dinghy. Never going near the Flora

, he looked around him and presently picked out a man whose attention never wavered from the boats in the harbor and the people moving around it. Burrell went away for an hour, returned, and found him still there. This brought up the question: were there Starways agents in Edinburgh, and if so, what were their aims and how far would they go in pursuing them? Tanya said not far. Starways genuinely didn't interfere…

For the meetings, Roberta, and later Tanya at her instigation, chose to present an image both flamboyant and elegant. The timid Earth people wanted larger-than-life leaders. Tales of Burrell's strength, frankness, and ruthlessness, based on his handling of the affair of the Clydemen and similar incidents, multiplied. The half-reluctant rebels needed to feel they had a superman at their head, and while Burrell refused to build himself up as one, Roberta shrewdly did all she could to foster the idea. As for her own image, playing the shy, dedicated, dowdy intellectual was out. Since she didn't have strength or height or an overwhelming personality, she deliberately used her beauty and her particularly provocative shape to make an impression at the meetings, often on people who might never see her again. The men admired and the girls stared, criticized, were secretly jealous, and then went away and copied her.

Roberta had long since learned why people in the country were relatively smart and townspeople drab: self-protection. In the country nobody cared how you looked, and you could please yourself. In the town anybody who attracted attention, who was flamboyant and daring, who wore bright colors, was a potential rebel and Exile. You weren't Exiled for wearing a dress with a plunging neckline. But once you placed yourself in the public eye, you were halfway to Exile for one reason or another. Dowdy, drab clothes were a sort of camouflage. Pretty girls and virile young men pretended not to be there.

Quite deliberately Roberta created curiosity about the relations among her and Burrell and Tanya, and refused to satisfy it. The men could, if they liked, believe she was a virgin crusader or that she and Burrell were passionate lovers. That Burrell was a great lover was part of the image she helped to foster, and he helped by his readiness to prove it when any attractive girl among the revolutionaries expressed the slightest interest. But she remained an enigma. She could address the meetings wearing a revolutionary-cum-women's liberation outfit of long black pants and a white shirt not only open all the way but with the buttons torn off, and she would talk of sex with a frankness that made Burrell seem like a Methodist minister, and would later coolly, competently freeze any attempt at familiarity with her.

To the revolutionaries, she was Cindy. They heard Burrell call her that, and Cindy it became. Those who heard the name Roberta Murdock shook their heads and went on calling her Cindy.

It amused Roberta that Tanya, after a torrid first chapter with Burrell, cooled off.

* * *

"Why?" Burrell said, puzzled and angry, the first time Tanya refused him.

"Burrell, this thing is important to me; Scotland the Brave. I don't want it complicated and messed up by personal relationships."

"There's not the slightest danger of it being messed up by personal relationships. If you're thinking of Cindy, she doesn't give a damn."

"I'm thinking of everything—you, me, Roberta, the movement, Earth, Starways. When we started this, you were just a fugitive. But now, you and Roberta are doing something that's never been done before. You're unifying us. That visit last night by three of the London group was the biggest thing that ever happened here. And you knocked them out. You and Roberta. They've gone back wild with enthusiasm to spread the word—"

"Sure, I'm terrific. But that's got nothing to do with you and me."

"Of course it has. You're the Messiah—"

"What the—!" said Burrell. "All I'm doing is trying to inject some spunk into people too scared to do what they want to do. Then I'm going to turn the organization over to McVicar or somebody like him and get back to civilization and see what I can do there."

Momentarily diverted, Tanya said: "You don't think this is civilization?"

"No, I don't. This is past civilization, overripe civilization. I once tried to read a guy called Toynbee. I think he had some of the answers. I wish I could remember what they were."

"He was a Terran. He didn't have the answers. Only the questions."

"Tanya, what's got into you? The nearer we get to achieving something, the more you pull back."

"That's why. I'm like McVicar. Like most of the people you've met here. I wanted change. Now that I can see that the change I wanted is at last remotely possible, I'm not so sure I want it."

Burrell swore violently, and at once, before he could say any more, Tanya said quickly: "No, I don't mean that. Of course I want it. What I mean is, it now seems frighteningly important that the change has to be right."

He was so baffled that when Tanya went home, he went straight to Roberta and asked her about it.

She said softly: "Well, you see, Tanya is a Terran, in spite of everything. The first tendency in all of them, even Tanya, is to draw back."

"You mean we're wasting our time? We'll never get them to move?"

"Oh, no. McVicar fought you, didn't he? Get them in a position where it's easier for them to go forward than go back, and they'll fight like heroes. But this thing with Tanya is all bound up in two words she said to you— frighteningly important. She's frightened that she will make a wrong move."

Burrell found himself more interested in looking at her than in listening to her.

Her ash-blonde hair was immaculate as usual, her face so carefully made up that nobody could be sure it was made up at all. She wore a tight green sweater, proving once again that she didn't need a bra. When others copied her, they usually proved they did. Her face was quiet, yet alive with the keen interest she found in her work. Strangely enough, he realized, he wanted to please her, make her care about his desires and about his faults; he wished she were jealous of his amorous exploits with women. .

"You know," he said, wondering at the discovery, "you're more like Mary than Tanya is."

"You mean I look more like her?" she asked, deliberately dense.

"No, I don't mean that. Though you do. You're far prettier than Mary ever was but in height and shape you're the same. She was small and had as good a figure as yours."

"Otherwise you would never have noticed her."

"I notice every girl," he said, and she knew it was true. "Cindy, will you marry me?"

She did a double take, at first sceptically unamused and then amazed as she realized he meant it. Covering up her confusion, she said, "Are you asking because you've decided that's the only way you're going to get me?"

"No, because I finally see how like Mary you are."

"It's no great compliment to be asked to substitute for another girl."

"It's the biggest compliment I can pay you."

She got up and started to walk about, uncharacteristically agitated. It was impossible, of course, yet not so ridiculous that she could laugh and refuse to take it seriously, or let Burrell down gently by explaining incontrovertibly how wrong for him she was.

Although she had come to admire him, particularly since they'd been in Edinburgh, no love relationship had ever grown up between them. It was as though they hadn't allowed it to. She didn't miss him when he was away, and she had decided recently that she was able to work with him better and more smoothly because there was nothing between them, not sex, not love or hate, not even liking or dislike—just a common purpose. But she knew that wasn't true; there was anything but indifference between them.

His amorous adventures had bothered little at first. When she had pointed Sugar out to him in Paradiso, she was glad to be rid of him. The affair of Lynn had annoyed her but mainly because Burrell jeopardized everything through his lust. As for jealousy, she had told herself then and later that it was ridiculous to object to Burrell giving others what she didn't want herself, and she had blocked every other thought from her mind since.

Now she suddenly found, to her intense mortification, that she did want him; he appealed to her physically far more than she had admitted to herself. How this had come about and why it took an honest if unexpected proposal to make her realize it she didn't know, and this wasn't the time for self-analysis.

"Tanya is right," she said, stopping in her pacing. "Sex can complicate things. And marriage can complicate matters even more. Do you think I didn't know that you started this thing with the idea that I knew a lot and might be useful but you could always ditch me if the going got . tough?"

"I changed my mind on that," said Burrell steadily, "the night you convinced me that trying to escape from Sahara was a mistake. You were right, and you became a partner."

"But now, we still may have to split. You're going back; maybe I'm staying, I don't know. If we leave things as they are, that's all right. If we get married—"

"Why don't you just answer my question—will you marry me? Then we can take it from there."

"As to marriage," she said, "the answer, meantime, is no." The buzzer sounded. Automatically they both looked at the clock, an old alarm clock that had lost its alarm. It was after midnight and visits by rebels were by arrangement, invariably at least three hours earlier. The buzzer, however, was for Scotland the Brave personnel only, set under the sill of one of the nearby windows. Police or other unwanted callers would batter on one of the doors, either the front or the back: only allies would press the buzzer.

So they went downstairs without particular suspicion, though in accordance with the security routine Burrell had always insisted on, he stayed below the stairs with an ancient revolver in his hand, and Roberta opened the door.

"Good God!" somebody said, and Burrell trained the gun on the doorway in which Roberta stood silhouetted, brightly lit from outside by a full moon in a clear sky.

The voice went on: "It's Roberta Murdock. You're the femme fatale. I wish I were fifty years younger. As it is, it's safe to let me in, Roberta."

"John Ehrlich," said Roberta, with mild surprise.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

They had whisky, the most genuine of Scotch whisky, made and matured not a mile away, and John Ehrlich drank it reverently. "The water," he said dreamily, "the pure Scottish water. Paradiso can't match it with its clinical H2O. Burrell, I expected to find you here. I've heard a lot about what you've been doing, and I had to come and see for myself. But Roberta, I heard only of a girl called Cindy. I presumed you'd dumped Roberta Murdock, or she'd been drowned and you'd found somebody else. It never occurred to me that you'd kept your own name and she'd changed hers. Why?"

"It's a long and unimportant story," Roberta said. "Call me Cindy or Roberta—I answer to either. How did you get here?"

"That, too, is a long and unimportant story—"

"No," said Burrell, quite quietly but with considerable determination.

"It's extremely important and we want to hear about it. How come you're a Terran Exile, living in Paradiso, an employee of Starways, a tourist agent for Earth, and able to drop in here when you please—after hearing through Starways what's going on here? And incidentally, I've got a gun in my pocket, and I'm perfectly prepared to shoot you."

"What a lot of questions and statements all at once," said Ehrlich, refusing to be hurried over his whisky. "Very much to the point, though, I must admit. The Starways situation you must know about by now. They want Earth, maybe not the whole world right now but certainly much more of it, probably eventually all of it. They want it peaceably, legally, and without a fight. They want it gradually, so that investment can be made out of profits. They want it exclusively, and their determination to have a monopoly is the real reason why they're proceeding so cautiously. They're not inviting competition by publishing all over the galaxy what a gold mine they're sitting on. That clear?"

"Perfectly clear. And we already knew it."

"I'm not an employee of Starways. True, I get accommodation in Paradiso at a nominal rate, so if you want to say they pay me I won't argue. I help them by telling prospective tourists about Earth, and I help myself by making sure that people like you and Roberta get there. Over the years I haven't accomplished a lot, but this time I seem to have hit the jackpot. I thought you'd get things moving, Burrell, and you have."

"How do we know you're not a triple agent?"

"You don't," said Ehrlich comfortably, "and for that reason I suggest you remember that I could be. That way you won't tell me too much and can't blame me if something goes wrong. My being able to drop in as I please is part of my equivocal deal with Starways. They think I'm with them, not interested in petty cash but very interested in a large lump sum payable when, say, they get Australia. Or Scotland."

"I don't know about Australia," said Burrell, "but there isn't the slightest chance of their getting Scotland. Though these people won't fight, they won't move."

"They wouldn't have to move; the next phase of the Starways plan includes showing off the natives. Letting tourists and Terrans mix.

"It might not be far off. The Terrans, helped by Starways, have done a pretty good job on divide and be ruled. There's no real British government anymore. Or Scottish government. All that's left is the local councils. Suppose Starways did a deal wtih Edinburgh, for something Edinburgh wants—there's plenty. Starways would move in, and what would the rest of Britain and Europe and Earth do about it?"

Burrell nodded. "All right. But one more thing I have to know—how do I get back to Paradiso, and farther than Paradiso?"

"That's easy. You've probably heard that some people in your position, who've contacted the Terrans and then want to go back, mysteriously disappear. That's true. To my knowledge none of them have ever been simply murdered—shot in the head by Starways staff. They get lost accidentally. For instance, if you gave yourself up and let yourself be sent back, either through the Exile machinery or as an acknowledged runaway tourist, at some point in transit some unfortunate accident might occur. If you sailed back by boat, one of the big radio-powered cruisers around Shetland might run you down; all efforts to save you, watched by a score of excited tourists, would unfortunately fail."

He poured himself more whisky. "But," he said reassuringly, "I've done a little blundering around in Paradiso, and so have some friends. It's known you left a diamond in the care of a Paradiso bank. That doesn't look like the act of a man who intends to lose himself permanently on Earth. Also it would look very strange if such a man, returning to Shetland, happened to be drowned in an accident involving a Starways boat. No, you can go back any time you like, Burrell. I'm not so sure about Roberta. It would take us some time to find some way to make sure that it was equally safe for her to return."

"You needn't worry," said Roberta quietly. "I'm staying here."

"And you, Burrell? Despite what you've been doing, you're thinking of going back?"

"You yourself told me," said Burrell pointedly, "not to tell you too much."

"That's so. But if you want to go back soon, better tell me. I could help to fix it. You could even come with me."

"That would suit me."

"I'm going to Vienna first, and returning here."

"Flown by Starways? To Vienna and back?"

"No, my own way."

"That's quite an undertaking."

"I know the ropes. Buses to London. A boat to Hamburg. There are some. More buses. It'll take me a month to get to Vienna and back. So you'll have another month here."

"I'll be ready to leave."

Roberta looked at Burrcll quizzically and tried not to feel disappointment. But soon he would be going. She realized that after all she liked him very much, perhaps loved him.

If he went and she stayed, she would know something that she now realized had been almost entirely lacking throughout.

Fear. Of being alone… of losing him.

* * *

Ehrlich had left for his hotel. Unlike them, he could operate openly in Edinburgh. In fact he had to stay where Starways could reach him. It was late, and Roberta was tired. She took it for granted the interrupted moment was lost, like so many interrupted moments, and that when she and Burrell took up the matter again, if they ever did, it would be on a new footing. She had declared she was staying and he that he was going, though not immediately.

But as they went upstairs and came to the stairway junction where she went one way and he the other, he took her very gently in his arms and kissed her. With arms encircling her completely, he kissed the nape of her neck, then travelled up to her lips once more. When she met his gaze, it was as unfathomable as her own. Whether his clasp would have tightened if she had tried to escape remained undecided, for she made no such attempt.

Burrell himself broke the spell and dropped his arms. With an ironic smile, he continued up the stairs and quietly closed the door to his room behind him. Roberta stood there for some minutes.

The next morning, Burrell approached her again. "Will you marry me, Cindy?"

"How can we get married? You're going and I'm staying—" He kissed her again.

She put on a wrap and went to sit beside him. "Burrell." she said, "you told me I reminded you of Mary. But I'm not like her. I'm too intelligent or too silly. I think in many ways, I've been silly throughout most of my life. If we were together, sometimes I'd despise you. And sometimes you'd depise me—"

"No." He was qutie definite about it, convinced in his own mind and only trying to convince her. "Have we spent all this time despising and hating and fighting with each other? Then why should we start? You were right at Sahara. You were a bloody fool when you let go the tiller and stood up and let the boom knock you into the sea—"

"Anyone can make a mistake," she flashed angrily and not very brilliantly.

"And have you noticed something else? You used to have a furious temper. Lately it's been under remarkable control."

Once again she was halted. It was true she had never completely given way to her temper since that moment in Sahara when she was ready to blow the whole thing.

"You really mean to stay?" he said.

"Yes. You think I'm wrong?"

"No. I said from the first the real battle isn't here. But there's a battle here too, of course. That's why I stayed to get it started. Things are moving now. It might be harder to stop them than to keep them going. That's where your sense and tact will influence them. I'm going over now for a frank discussion with Ehrlich before he moves on."

She nodded slowly. "You really have plans? Plans that might work?"

"They depend on Ehrlich. His coming gives me a chance to try something that was otherwise impossible. Cindy, will you marry me?"

"Not now," she said, "but ask me again."

"That I can't promise."

"We both have something to do first… something we must do separately. But I think we needed each other to get started." He nodded, comprehending. "But Cindy, the galaxy is a big place. When I leave you I'll be going to Paradiso, maybe farther. Whatever you want and I want, I may never see you again. I may never find you again." It was true. The enormous expense of star travel meant there were hardly any regular passenger services except between a few major ports of the universe. Even if you had the money, you could spend years trying to get from one particular place to another particular place. And Roberta was realistic. It had taken Burrell ten years to reach Earth. Well all she could do, all either of them could do, was hope.

* * *

Burrell did have long discussions with Ehrlich, and she heard little of the outcome. Ehrlich departed. She heard rumors of a council in Vienna, perhaps the nearest thing to a world council left. She didn't try to find out more; Burrell had said if it was not necessary for her to know his plans, she had better not know them.

Starways remained a vast and sinister presence in the background. What Starways would do, whether Starways would do anything, remained anybody's guess. They knew Burrell and Roberta were in Edinburgh; somebody was watching the boat at Musselburgh. They could have infiltrated Edinburgh, found out about Scotland the Brave, traced Burrell and had him murdered. Evidently this was not their policy. Burrell was coming to believe more and more that Starways remained determined to do everything the legal way, becoming involved in no local skullduggery that might eventually be exposed in the capitals of the galaxy and rock the Starways' empire. If this was true, it was fine for the Edinburgh end of his operations, fine for Roberta… but it would in no way lessen the severity of the struggle he was going to try to start with Starways. On the contrary, it strengthened Starways' hand. If he had found on Earth the slightest malpractice, breach of contract, scandal, he would of course have exploded it where it hurt Starways most. But there wasn't any.

For his last few weeks, Burrell threw himself into all-out organization. They had their first public success when the Glasgow council ruled that in view of serious depopulation, Exile should be suspended for five years. It was a mere gesture, likely to be overturned at the next meeting, but McVicar told Burrell exultantly they had plans to make it stand.

"There's hardly anybody for Exile anyway. Those there are, are our people, and they'll obey us. We'll tell them to play it cool, be neither glad to stay nor sorry not to go."

Burrell grinned. "You'll make a politician yet, McVicar. You want to get this accepted, nobody thinking it really matters. Then—"

"Burrell, I'm no bloody politician. Neither are you. I want to break heads."

"But there's a time for breaking heads, and this isn't it. We have to get a few decisions like this through, and while the reactionaries are warning of bloody revolt, nothing happens. Apparently Exile doesn't matter—"

"All right, I heard your speeches. The insidious revolt. The bloodless rebellion. The secret coup. I don't like it, but I'll try it."

"You'll have to do more than that. You'll have to run it." McVicar snorted derisively. "We all know that when you're not around, those girls run the show."

It was a considerable advance, Burrell thought, that he now called them

"those girls." Compared with his previous descriptions of them, this was the height of politeness.

"Cindy is not, never was, and never will be a leader. Tanya is. But I'll be leaving you in charge."

McVicar hesitated, then said: "That's what I want. But I warn you—I'm a man of violence."

"So am I."

"I know. That's why I can't understand why you won't allow any. It would be easy to make these people follow us."

"In a mining camp, in a tough construction gang, you can rule by the fist. Here you can't. Win a peaceful victory and the people go along with it. But any threats, coercion, and blows, and the elders will call in Starways—against you."

McVicar nodded reluctantly.

* * *

Ehrlich, surprisingly, brought back the mandate Burrell had sought, and he brought it back fairly quickly, before Roberta, for one, was ready. Suddenly she found that Burrell was leaving that day, by bus for Aberdeen, then to Thurso, where a Starways boat would take him and Ehrlich to Shetland.

There was only a public, virtually silent farewell. Then they were off. Tanya said: "Offhand I shouldn't think you and I could get along without Burrell around to knock our heads together, but I suppose we'll have to try."

"Yes," said Roberta absently. "We'll have to try."

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The journey was accomplished with no great difficulty. More impatient men would have let the snags and delays get the better of them—at Dingwell they had to wait two days for a bus and it went only as far as Brora, where they found the one inn had gone out of business—but Burrell could be patient, and he used the time to pump Ehrlich, eventually deciding that he now knew more of the things that mattered than Ehrlich did.

At Thurso, or rather Scrabster, the small fishing port nearby, they had to wait for the Starways boat based in Orkney. As Burrell had surmised, touching at Orkney on the way to the Scottish mainland would most certainly have led to capture. There were Starways posts on some of the islands, and there was an arrangement with the Terrans on the others that the presence of strangers was automatically reported.

As the cruiser from Orkney came into Thurso Bay, drawing the local fishermen out to watch, Ehrlich said: "If you're not sure, now's the last time to get lost."

Burrell didn't bother to answer. Even when he wasn't sure he was doing the right thing, once he-made up his mind, it became the right thing. The boat was very similar to the radio-powered ships used around Shetland, though from the sound of it, it ran on oil or gas. The fishermen, who had seen it many times before, still watched with interest and envy. The dilapidated condition of their own boats explained why. If the Terrans had not reverted to barbarism and ignorance, they had certainly lost all big industry, which meant that maintenance and repair of all things mechanical was slow and difficult. The main source of spare parts was cannibalism, which would mean eventually the end of mechanization. Burrell made a mental note that practical engineers would be more useful in mobilizing Earth than mercenary soldiers.

A Starways man in uniform stepped ashore, nodded to Ehrlich, stared coldly at Burrell.

"Captain Nathan," said Ehrlich, "Mr. Burrell."

"Burrell, you realize we could have you on about ninety-seven charges?"

"We all realize that," said Ehrlich. "But it's pointless even to mention it, Captain, since we know it's not going to happen. Starways doesn't publicize such incidents."

None of the fishermen were near enough to hear what was being said. However, Captain Nathan cast a doubtful glance at them and hurried Ehrlich and Burrell on board.

There were only two crewmen—the spic and span cruiser needed no more and could, indeed, have been handled easily by one man. By picking the right moment, Burrell thought, he could overpower all three and steal the boat, which would be very useful to the Scotland the Brave movement. In a boat like this he could visit three coastal towns a day…

But it was only an idea.

The captain said coldly: "Where did you leave the boat you stole at Scalloway?"

"At Musselburgh, near Edinburgh—didn't you know? Somebody knows."

"You sailed straight to Edinburgh from Scalloway?"

"No, we touched briefly higher up, not far south of Peterhead, I think."

"And otherwise you didn't see land?"

Burrell realized that Nathan, despite his uninviting manner, was professionally curious, and there was no harm in telling him about the voyage of the Flora. As he did so, he captain, without apparently thawing, made no secret of his respect for a sailor who could accomplish such a trip in such a boat.

"I wish I'd been with you," he said.

"I wish you had too. Roberta never became much good in a boat." He mentioned the name deliberately, to give Nathan a chance to comment. Also by establishing that Roberta was no sailor, he hoped to give her a better chance if it should ever prove necessary for her to do some sailing. The captain, however, didn't take him up, merely saying dryly that he didn't know if Burrell was a master yachtsman or had fool's luck. Burrell, balancing the desirability of making this man think he was a fool against the possibility of gaining the friendship and respect of a Starways man, chose the latter.

Ehrlich was alone in the warm cabin. Standing at the stern, swaying easily with the movement of the boat, Burrell and Nathan discussed, argued and sometimes agreed; presently Nathan let him take the helm of the cruiser and admitted grudgingly he knew boats.

It was a useful encounter, Burrell's first beyond the superficial with any of the Starways men on Earth. It showed that he was not necessarily dealing with villains all the time.

* * *

Back at Paradiso, Burrell immediately called on Flora Fay. In Shetland and on the way to Paradiso with a group of returning tourists, he and Ehrlich had neither sought nor avoided each other's company. Ehrlich didn't want to be compromised and Burrell, knowing he might have a use for him later, didn't want him to become compromised. The official picture was that Ehrlich, still hoping for a large handout from Starways, was rather annoyed with Burrell for breaking the rules and involving him. And Burrell let it be known that it had been Ehrlich who persuaded him to go back.

In case anyone thought he might have left his heart on Earth, he flirted with the three prettiest girls on the ship to keep up his image and afford negative evidence.

It was not until he saw Flora Fay again that he knew for sure the unfinished affair with Roberta had left its mark on him. Flora wore what might have been the same dress except that it was green, with the same reckless plunge. Since he had sent in his name and she was expecting him this time, she could have set her personal temperature control at cool or cold. On the contrary, she came to meet him, the faint smile and the smoky shadows in her green eyes, with an open invitation. Yet she seemed considerably less attractive than he remembered, a steely, mechanical woman.

"About time, too," she said softly, giving him her hand. "All these months in Paradiso, and you never came to see me again." That was silly and unworthy of her. She must know where he had been. Even if she hadn't been questioned about him, which was scarcely credible, she was in a position to know that he had not drawn on his credit

"except for the check for the Terran Tour, and would obviously have found out.

Perhaps she was merely giving him a chance to tell something other than the truth or less than the whole truth. "I've been away," he said, releasing her hand. It was ironic that on the first occasion in ten years when he found he wanted to turn down a chance to make love to a beautiful woman, the situation made it necessary for him to go through with it.

"I want," he said, "to see the big boss, whoever he is. I'm sure you can arrange it."

She stepped back, her green eyes calculating. She was not pleased. She thought she had been slapped across the face.

"The director of the bank?" she said.

"Higher than that. The top man in Starways."

"That's Harry Negus. What reason can I give."

"You won't need to give a reason. Just my name." She shrugged, searching for a way to be obstructive. Flora Fay was not used to rejection. Even the appearance of rejection.

He suddenly realized her type. To Burrell, only a few highly privileged women ever became individuals. Mary was one, Roberta another. Tanya…

not quite. The rest he classed principally by their attitude to men and sex. And this cold-hot glossy bank manager suddenly slipped into place. He had seen her type before.

As she turned away impatiently, he bent and caught her ankle, pulled and twisted. She pitched forward, on her face but turning. He launched himself at her and fell on top of her, pinioning her arms on either side of her head. In normal gravity she could have been quite badly hurt. In the gentle gravity of this level of Paradiso she was merely winded, dishevelled, and angry, fighting back in fury worthy of Roberta and quite capable of throwing him a couple of feet in the air, as she proved.

But Roberta had fought and meant it. She didn't mean to lose the fight and Flora Fay did. Still struggling violently and forcing Burrell to be rough in his handling of her, the passionate bank manager showed in several different ways to the experienced Burrell that she would be more furious still if he stopped.

When the storm was over she murmured: "Shut your eyes. Please. Turn your head and shut your eyes."

He obeyed, and she was gone, an inner door slamming behind her. Like others of her type, once passion was spent she had to resume her elegant fur-clad image quickly and privately.

Flora Fay managed it with characteristic rapidity. In a matter of seconds she was back in a cool white gown, every golden hair in place.

"Harry Negus," she said coolly. "I'll see what I can do."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Harry Negus was small and obese and bespectacled, with little round eyes behind the windows. He was not, Burrell had discovered, the actual top man, though he was managing director of Starways Inc. El Supremo was the chairman, Olaf Fennel, who was often at Paradiso but didn't happen to be there at that particular moment.

Negus said: "I hope you realize, Mr. Burrell, that you have laid yourself open to an expensive lawsuit, which you would lose. When you signed for the Terran Tour you signed a contract, in effect, giving a strict understanding that you would not—"

"Forget that," said Burrell. "I've already forgotten it. Negus, I'm a businessman. I go where there's profit and I find it." The little round eyes opened wider. "That's interesting. You didn't, then, do what you did for sentimental reasons? We know your wife was Terran."

"If I wanted to contact Terrans because my wife was Terran, would I have waited ten years? Though I admit that gave me the idea. Negus, I know all about your plans for Earth, and they're okay. The trouble is that you and I aren't going to share in the bonanza. We'll be dead. Me, I go for quicker returns."

"Quicker returns are generally less certain."

"Negus, I've seen Earth and met the people, and you haven't. You want Scotland. I can give you Scotland. You want Australia. I can give you Australia."

Negus made no pretense that he was uninterested. "How?"

"You can take Scotland. I've been there, and I know." Negus lost interest. "Mr. Burrell, Starways is one of the biggest companies in the galaxy, because we always take a safe ten percent rather than an unsafe fifty percent.

Our present plans for Earth are sure. We're not interested in a bigger take sooner—"

"I know how to take Scotland."

"So do we—with a lot of trouble now, with no trouble at all in perhaps a century. I understand you're a fighter, Mr. Burrell. We don't fight. We get what we want without fighting. Eventually."

"I can get you Australia now."

"You haven't been to Australia."

"No, but I've still been nearer than you. Australia is a big country. It felt the pinch of overpopulation later than other places and recovered sooner. There's a hundred ghost towns in Australia. When the population dropped, the Aussies tried to go back to what they'd done before, sheep farming. But world trade petered out, and what was the use of a billion tons of wool they couldn't sell? Cattle, too—a depopulated Earth has gone back to being locally self-supporting. The result is that the Australians, the few Australians left, are in a bad way and they're prepared to deal if the deal is right—"

"We know about Australia. The snag is that we can't deal with Australia, only with Earth. And the Terrans won't agree. They gave us limited rights in return for guarantees we'd keep everybody else out. They don't want us in Australia, perhaps building up a permanent population greater than the total population of the rest of Earth."

"I can get you Australia for seventeen billion."

"Outright sale?" asked Negus incredulously.

"No. Limited lease. Twenty years."

Negus shook his head. "Frankly, I don't believe you. But even if I did, it's not a proposition we'd be interested in. I'm sure Mr. Fennel would want security of tenure, continuity… and we'll get that by being patient."

"You won't pay seventeen billion for Australia for twenty years?" The blunt question made Negus slightly uncomfortable, as it was intended to do. Burrell knew the Harry Negus type. Good subordinates, but scared of changing directions.

Negus always thought first: What would Mr. Fennel do? and acted accordingly.

Starways' policy was to wait under the Terran tree for the apples to fall—not to climb the tree, not even to shake the tree. Fennel might have taken the decision to change the policy. Negus wouldn't.

The seventeen billion offer was delicately balanced. On the face of it, twenty years' tenure of Australia for seventeen billion was quite a good bargain. Not a giveaway offer but tempting. On the other hand, twenty years was hardly long enough to get properly started. It would take three years to plan and organize what to do with Australia and another five to do it. Meantime Starways could be reversing the policy of back-pedalling on Terran Tours, advertising and creating vast galactic demand. But with only a limited lease Starways could not offer permanent homes in Australia, only tours as at present, though on a vastly multiplied scale. Outlay on all this, say a thousand billion. Starways would have a gradually inceasing property stake in hotels and other permanent property in Australia, amounting to thousands of billions by the end of the twenty years.

And then Earth could say: Price for the next ten years— we won't sign for twenty— is two thousand billion. Protecting its investment, Starways would have to pay any sum. And be bled by the Terrans, instead of the other way round.

Earth could even say: You've had your twenty years. That's it. Get out. Of course, Starways wouldn't get out, not after making such an investment. Starways would put on the pressure and the Terrans would lose; the Terrans would have to lose. Negus came out in a sweat at the very thought of anything else happening.

Yet even if Starways won, this would entail a complete reversal in policy, fighting instead of waiting. In the end, assuming victory, Starways would get at enormous cost something that would have dropped into the bag, free, if the original patient plan had not been foolishly jettisoned. And the criminally stupid Starways ex-employee responsible would go down in history with Ethelred the Unready and other figures of fun. Harry Negus didn't want that kind of immortality.

"No," he said deliberately, "I won't."

"Very well," said Burrell with suspicious mildness, and got up to go.

* * *

During the next fifteen days, Negus heard of many approaches by Ram Burrell to many people. Not everybody visiting Paradiso was a millionaire, and some of those who were had stopped trying to make more. But naturally at least twenty percent of the Paradiso people were businessmen with capital to invest, quite often as much as seventeen billion. If they didn't have it, they could arrange credit or a cartel or form a company. But Burrell got nowhere. Quite often the men he contacted made inquiries, and the invariable consequence of the inquiries was no action. Negus was relieved, even complacent. His judgment was vindicated. If Starways, with its monopolistic foothold on Earth, was not interested, nobody else was. And although that was to be expected, it was comforting that even when he generously allowed Burrell to try to drum up opposition under his nose, Burrell failed utterly.

On the sixteenth day Burrell left on the first ship out of Paradiso since his arrival, a ship bound for Marsay.

Negus, who still had a slight uneasiness over the affair, was happy about this. Burrell, having failed to sell Australia in Paradiso, was certainly not going to sell Australia on Marsay. Marsay was a rough, tough, uncultured world; it didn't even have a stock market. If Burrell had waited for a ship to Atlas (though he'd have had to wait much longer), Negus would have remained vaguely uneasy. Atlas was the major financial world in this sector.

* * *

The captain only laughed at first. "Mr. Burrell," he said patiently, "you don't do things like that. In emergency, of course, we'd do everything possible to help the Silverstream, but there's no emergency. The fact that we and the Silverstream will pass within a million miles of each other is merely an interesting fact released to give the passengers a slight thrill. In deep space, that counts as a near miss. But it's no more feasible to transfer you than the pilots of two supersonic aircraft passing each other in oppposite directions could change seats. You have to understand—"

"How much would it cost?" said Burrell.

The captain laughed again, patiently. "The costs would be astronomical. But that's theoretical. Starships simply don't stop in space, short of the most desperate emergency—"

"It's a matter of fuel and time. You've got plenty of fuel. Passenger-ship regulations demand enormous safety margins. And the time you lose can be made up by using still more fuel. So it comes down to cost of fuel. Which I am prepared to pay."

The captain no longer laughed. He was becoming slightly annoyed. "Mr. Burrell, even if you footed a bill that would come to several millions, my company would send me to the nearest asylum if I did anything resembling what you're suggesting, unless I could show far better reason than—"

"Unless you could show good reason why you agreed. An advantage to your company. Astrogo. How about something that puts Astrogo one up on Starways?"

The captain became alert and cautious. Starways to Astrogo was whale to minnow. When Starways said: "I'd give worlds for…" it could do just that. Starways owned worlds as well as spaceships, real worlds and worlds like Paradise Worlds were more profitable than spaceships, so Starways continued to run ships, more as insurance against ultimata by other shipping groups than anything else. Starways could put any competitor out of business, but seldom did, preferring to throw crumbs. In different cases Starways would buy companies rather than break them, this being probably not as cheap or easy, but quicker.

"One up?" he queried.

"A place ahead of Starways in the queue."

"What queue?"

"A lucrative one, I promise you."

"Starways would elbow us out of the way, or buy us."

"So?"

The captain was no financial wizard. He saw, however, that his company might be very interested in acquiring the tiniest interest in something Starways might want. Whether Astrogo tried to develop this itself or happily sold out to Starways, Astrogo would want it. The question was: did this blunt, stocky man have anything?

He said: "The question is, what have you got?"

Burrell, for the first time, smiled. "No, it isn't," he said. "The question is, will you take a chance and transfer me to the Silverstream—which is going to Atlas. You won't lose. I'll pay the obvious costs. And you may gain. Your company may gain. I'll give you a paper saying that if what I'm trying to swing—we'll call it Burrell Enterprises, just to have a name for it—gets off the ground, you'll fly it."

Unlike Harry Negus, the captain was used to making decisions for himself. Certainly there were people above him; but they weren't above him in his bridge.

"All right," he said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

After Earth and Paradiso, Atlas seemed frantic. Big gleaming cars flashed past on six-lane highways; the air above was filled with automatically-controlled fliers—hoppers on the first ten levels, then airtaxis, then planes.

When the shiny cars turned off the freeways, they became fish out of water, gasping for parking places. Burrell, astonished to find the sight so unfamiliar, realized it was two years since he had seen anything like it. For anyone prepared to walk it was easy to get around, but hardly any adult except Burrell was prepared to walk. There was no time to walk. Only teenagers walked, and they ran. The traffic-dodging game was forbidden to anyone under thirteen, and the eighteen-year-olds had driving licences, so Burrell moved on two legs, slowly and steadily, among darting thirteen-to seventeen-year-olds, and enjoyed it. Fashions had changed, or perhaps Atlas had fashions of its own, scorning the rest of the galaxy. The youths wore loose, floppy trousers and tight black sweaters, and the girls wore tight trunks and loose shirts. Burrell liked this. He hated the unisex fashion scene where it was hard to tell the boys from the girls. The boys' hair was short and the girls' long. He approved. He went first to the Astrogo building and bullied his way into the cool sanctum of a boss or near-boss, who was a slim young man in the usual floppy trousers and tight black sweater. His name was Alvin Thomas and he was no more than twenty-six.

News had not reached him of Burrell's deal with the Astrogo captain, and he listened politely as Burrell told him about it, and made a note to have the captain transferred to a domestic cattle run.

"No, you won't do that," said Burrell. "You'll promote him. If I tell you something, can I be sure it won't leak?"

"If it's to the advantage of Astrogo that it won't leak, you can be absolutely certain."

Burrell liked the look of Alvin Thomas. He was a man who was going to get on. The only difficulty was how to win and keep his loyalty. Men like Thomas were always getting a better offer.

"Have you ever been to Earth?"

"Yes, on the Starways conducted tour. It's a sad place."

"Not so sad. One or two of us have been stirring up the place. How would you like a piece of Earth?"

Thomas, too, could size up a man. "Let's go out on the roof," he said.

"Would you like a drink?"

"No, but would you happen to have a good cigar?" Thomas would, though he didn't use them.

On the roof, under a striped umbrella, Thomas sipped a martini while Burrell smoked and talked. After a bit Thomas interrupted. "Two things I want to get straight. I'm interested, Burrell, very interested. Before you go any farther, though, I want two straight answers. Did you mean Starways to turn you down? And why are you talking to me—just to get Starways to raise the bid?"

"Of course I made Starways turn me down. I don't just want to make a slight change in Starways' rule of Earth, I want to break it. Completely and permanently. Astrogo just happened to own the ship on which I left Paradiso. A few months ago, I was a crewman on an Astrogo ship—a very different sort of ship—but I've no hard feelings. Astrogo will do as well as anybody else. So I'm here, talking to you, not Silver Lines."

"But if we don't bite, you'll go to Silver Lines."

"Yes."

Thomas grinned. "All right, go ahead."

A waitress from the canteen brought coffee and sandwiches. Her face was nothing to look at, but her legs were. Burrell not only looked, he saw Thomas looking and saw Thomas seeing him looking. Despite the twenty years' difference in their ages, the understanding between them quickly deepened.

"Who's the man you didn't name earlier?" Thomas asked.

"I'll trust you with the name. But you've got to keep it to yourself. It's Ehrlich, John Ehrlich."

"I guessed that. I've met him."

"I guessed that, too. That's why I'm telling you." They both grinned.

"Ehrlich's life work has been building up a Terran council with at least theoretical representative powers. Thirty years ago there was no such thing. You couldn't get Terran agreement to anything. The last time anybody got Terran agreement it was Starways… Now at last there is such a council, in Vienna."

"You didn't go there?"

"No, but Ehrlich got a sort of agreement. I told him I had to have something to bargain with. I got Australia. Frankly, I don't know how binding the agreement is, how strong a hold the council in Vienna has over what the Australians will do. But my reading is, most Terrans will do what they're told except in a small part of Scotland. I've been careful not to move in there but somewhere else altogether."

Thomas made himself another drink. Burrell watched shrewdly. He was not prepared to trust any man who was a slave of anything or anybody. He noticed the careful, precise way Thomas made his drink. Hard drinkers didn't care; all they wanted was the kick. Besides, Thomas obviously wanted to remain in full possession of his faculties. Evidently he had reason to believe that he was going to go on doing so.

"Why do it this way at all?" the younger man said. "Shoving Earth deeper into the mire, instead of trying to haul her out of it?"

"Money," said Burrell simply. "Oh, in theory there's no problem. If Earth wants to throw off her shackles, all she's got to do is stand up. But that's not going to happen."

Thomas nodded, and Burrell asked: "Incidentally, how did you feel about it?"

"You can't help those who won't help themselves."

"Why the hell not?"

Thomas raised his hand. "Look," he said gently, "you're doing fine, Burrell. But don't try to browbeat me. I don't browbeat. Now let's go back a couple of squares. I said 'Why do it this way?' and you said 'Money.' Take it from there."

"Earth won't even try to throw off Starways. So we have to. You can only fight Starways with money. And it's got to be billions."

"And even then you'll lose," Thomas said.

"Depends how you go about it. I mean to fight in the stock markets." Thomas whistled. "Surely where you're most certain to lose?"

"I don't think so. The first thing is to form a company. Burrell Enterprises. But I don't care about the name. Anything—Mother Earth, if you like. Or is that too corny?"

"Astrogo-Burrell-Earth. ABE. Everybody's heard of Abe Lincoln. Use the tie-up. 'He freed the slaves.' "

Burrell thought for a moment and nodded. "All right. Abe. ABE. Now this is where you come in. You've got ships, ships going all over the galaxy. Use them to spread the gospel."

They hammered it out. For Alvin Thomas it was a knife-edge decision in the end. If he had been thirty-one, married, with two young children and heavy mortgages, he'd have said no. As it was, at twenty-six, unmarried, he said yes.

"Astrogo may kick me out," he said cheerfully, "and if that happens I'll come in with you."

Burrell took a glass after all, and they drank to it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

They floated a twenty-billion company in units of 10; it was over-subscribed in a week in Atlas alone.

Starways did nothing.

Astrogo did nothing, for Thomas took care that the real commitment was on Atlas, with him at the head, and the reports that went out to head office in Xanadu would make the top men hesitate. The news that he had managed to acquire a bigger stake in Earth than Starways would prevent anybody from publicly disowning him before finding out more. And it was understandable that he might have had to work fast and decisively. The prospectus stressed that ABE tourist trips to Earth were unlikely to be a commercial proposition for at least five years. It even hinted that a deal might have to be done with other interests—though Starways wasn't mentioned.

But in one way, ABE, unlike Starways, banged the big drum. The cautious Starways policy of limited tours, limited advertisement was exploded. Everywhere Astrogo ships went from Atlas, somebody on board was empowered to spend money to create interest in Earth. The first thing Starways did was, predictably, to try to buy the whole of Astrogo. But when it turned out that buying Astrogo didn't necessarily mean control of ABE, Starways backed out, leaving Astrogo directors wondering if they were glad or sorry, but certain of one thing— they had to control ABE, whatever ABE was, whether to sell it, develop it themselves or squash it.

The first members of the Astrogo head office court, directors Hebben and Tanner, arrived at Atlas.

Thomas told them: "I think you'll agree, gentlemen, that this opportunity would have been criminal to miss."

Burrell told them: "Sure, we've used your name and facilities. But if you think that means you've got more than a foot in the door, it's time for a rethink. We need a spaceline, but there are other spacelines." Later, with uncharacteristic stupidity, Starways tried to buy ABE. Starways should have known, and probably did, that the real antagonists were only Ram Burrell and Alvin Thomas; these two had things sewn up so that they alone could block or accept any such offer. But Starways still believed an open checkbook was the irresistible force. The Starways bid pushed up the price of ABE shares, nominally 10 and standing at 17, to an incredible 136. When it was rejected, the price dropped to only 131, then climbed to 173 on expectation of a further increased bid.

Burrell and Thomas sold quite a lot at 173. Thomas had started out by being scrupulously honest in all his dealings. He refused to become involved in Burrell's double, triple, and quadruple dealings whereby he retained control of a company with only about a tenth as much of his own money in it as he was supposed to have. "Look, Alvin," Burrell said, not unkindly, "if I were keeping my own personal loot safe in Starways while I was doing this, I'd be a crook. But you know very well that if the cash I've got in the company isn't nearly enough, it's still all I've got." Thomas saw the point, and after that, he cut a few corners too. Starways presently changed direction and began to ride on the back of ABE's Earth-boosting propaganda. The Terran Tour traffic was to be enormously expanded. Instead of luxury tours to all seven Starways resorts, Cuba, Malta, Shetland, Hawaii, Sahara, Russia and Tibet, visitors would go to one only, at much cheaper rates. And tours would start from Atlas, Xanadu, Marsay, and Persus.

"I don't like it," said Thomas, putting the cork back in the bottle, which confirmed that he was worried. "That looks like panic. The extra turnover is peanuts. Why does Starways bother?"

"I think," said Burrell, unworried, "we're still seeing Harry Negus at work. You remember, I told you about him. A scared little second-in-command who never thinks,

What's the best thing to do? but What would the boss do if he were here? No change in program, just turn up the volume. Negus is boosting what he's got while he's still got it."

Thomas relaxed and took the cork out of the bottle. "You may not always be right, but you always sound as if you are. Am I really a better second than Negus?"

"We're going to have to find out, because it's time I got back to Earth. You'll have to run the show here."

"So I'll run it," said Thomas. "Why back to Earth?"

"For a start, to find out whether we've really got Australia." Thomas nodded. "That would be nice to know. Provided the answer's yes. What else?"

"For one thing, I've got to make sure Starways doesn't try to pull anything there. For another, it's time we both found out how you'd do without me around."

Thomas looked thoughtful. "I guess I'd be inclined to be like Harry Negus. Always thinking What would the boss do if he was here?"

"That's all right," said Burrell smoothly, "when the boss is me."

* * *

Burrell decided it was time for an ABE survey of Australia. Floating a company, getting the backing of a spaceline, creating interest in Earth, making money, confusing Starways, finding another deputy, had all been necessary. Now that things had been set in motion in Atlas, he was free to return to Roberta, and being free, found himself surprised how much he wanted to.

He wanted to see Roberta again, but he realized that marriage to her, even if it proved possible, was going to be very involved. He was almost reluctant to find what he had been unconsciously seeking all these years. That he would have to be faithful to her was not a problem. He and she were at one in that; while neither would allow jealousy to affect them before they were married, afterwards they, expected exclusiveness. The ship left just the day before Alvin, as acting head of ABE, received a fantastic write-your-own-terms offer from Starways. The sole snag was that it was open to one man only. It was openly, deliberately designed to split him and Burrell.

Thomas was tempted. He was fully aware that Burrell had a price. Burrell might say a thing was not for sale, but when the price went up and up he would eventually change his mind. And if Burrell was eventually going to double-cross him, why not doublecross Burrell first?

"Doubting Thomas," he told himself. "Burrell hasn't doublecrossed you yet. It's possible that he never will."

What he did with Starways' quintuple-secret offer was publish it. ABE, having dropped from 173 to 61, where Burrell and he had bought in again, soared to 262. Thomas sold enough to ensure that whatever happened, he would never be poor again. He didn't sell for Burrell, although he had such power. He thought ABE might well go higher.

Since they were not going to build enormous hotels and swimming pools in Australia, they didn't need more capital. Tourists would live rough and cheap. That was if ABE ever went into the business at all: ABE

was a pistol to be held at certain heads, and Burrell and Thomas shared the secret that it might never be fired.

Massive orders were placed for huts, bunks, and tents for the Pioneer trips to Australia; the See The Mines tours, the Bondi Beach package, the Bush Safari, the Ghost Towns trek. Details were still vague but the orders were in and that meant business. People were already signing up by the hundreds of thousands. They were furious when the medical check that ABE required showed that some of them couldn't stand up to the rigors of certain tours.

Doubting Thomas wondered uneasily, as the flood swelled, if Burrell really had any rights in Australia…

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Captain Wagner said for the umpteenth time: "You understand I can't guarantee anything, Mr. Burrell. If you're not at the exact spot at the exact time, I'll try to make contact twenty-four hours later, but—"

"Relax, Wagner. I'm not a spy entering the enemy camp."

"Technically you are. Starways were granted full and exclusive rights in their seven bases, and they're still claiming that the Terrans would grant no rights to anybody else anywhere. We may have a right to land in Australia, at least, you say so, but we have no right to land in Starways territory—"

"Edinburgh isn't Starways' territory; Shetland is, and that's hundreds of miles away. In Edinburgh, Starways and ABE have exactly the same rights. None."

"Yet Starways have established a connection—"

"Illegal. They wouldn't even mention it in the courts, because they know we'd shoot it down."

"It's still not too late to go to Australia first, contact the Terrans there, establish a base, and then—"

"So long, Wagner," said Burrell, extending his hand. Wagner was not a bad spaceline captain, and he was not as jittery as he sounded. The trouble was that an Astrogo spaceliner captain, unlike the captain of the Dirty Cow, was not used to bending the law every time he landed, every time he took off, and over nearly every cargo he carried and the conditions under which he carried it.

The Triple Crown was orbiting at fifty thousand miles, and though this was not illegal, the captain had formally informed Starways' main Terran base on Hawaii of her presence (which Starways could be assumed to have established anyway). However, the captain and Burrell had come down in the tender to a spot in the Firth of Forth only a couple of miles off Edinburgh, and this was of extremely doubtful legality. Despite Burrell's assurances, the captain could not believe that in a civilized world, there were no coastal defenses, no radar, no armed patrol boats. He expected at any moment to be blown up or arrested, and his uneasiness stemmed from his conviction that either would be perfectly justified.

The tender, using its hovercraft facility, was sitting, not floating on the water. This time Burrell had a proper compass, and the little collapsible boat had a tiny motor not dependent on radio power. It would not run out of fuel for weeks. The snag was it could make only three knots at best. Wagner took Burrell's hand, started to say something, shook his head and stepped back as Burrell jumped into the boat. In fifteen seconds it was lost in the mist.

The tender heaved itself off the murky waters of the Firth using, paradoxically, the rudimentary deepspace drive it carried rather than ordinary jets, because jets were too visible too far, even in mist. And Burrell, in the little boat, started the engine and headed southwest. He didn't know the tides and the wind was variable. But he was bound to sight the coast soon and eventually a darker shadow presently became a sandy beach.

With no way of telling whether Edinburgh lay east or west, he turned westwards and soon found a spur of rock. He drove the boat ashore, dismantled it, and searched, in first light, for a place to hide it. On the other side of the rock lay a wrecked fishing boat, just above high-water mark. Closer examination indicated it wasn't a wreck at all, just a boat that had been hauled up on the shore one day while there still was a crew, and left there.

There was evidence of some vandalism, probably by children, and everything useful had long since been stripped from the boat—this seemed to Burrell an excellent reason to hide his own tiny dismantled boat in the wreck, which didn't seem to have been disturbed for years. When he climbed a flight of old, broken stone steps from the beach and found desolation, he was more than ever satisfied that his boat would be safe where it was.

In the brush there was a road, or what had once been a road. It was a gloomy, misty morning, cold at the coast but warmer as he moved inland. Presently he came to a better road, still used at least on occasion. This time he was dressed in a dark blue sweater and dark blue trousers, with stout boots. This made it easy for him to pass as a fisherman at the coast, and as an unskilled workman elsewhere.

Although he entered Edinburgh from an unfamiliar direction, he struck southwards, and presently found himself in familiar ground. The house somehow seemed more forlorn than ever, the dilapidated green door even more dilapidated. But it was still locked, and he had no key this time. He bent down and felt for the loose stone. Finding the stone but no key, he had a momentary revelation of how important it was to him to see Roberta again. He had taken it for granted that within the next few minutes he was going to see her; he had also taken it for granted, for no reason at all, that all would be settled between them instantly. Now he would have to find Tanya, perhaps go to Glasgow or Newcastle or London or Vienna or wherever else Roberta had gone, but could he take the time with the ship waiting for him, with Australia waiting for him, with destiny waiting for him?

Then as he put the stone back he found the key. He had dragged it out with the stone.

Contrary to what he had assumed, she was still there. He found her upstairs, in bed, awakened by his entry.

"Cindy," he said, and moved closer.

"Hello," she said, pulling up the clothes in front of her. The word, the cool tone and the gesture stopped him.

"You don't seem surprised."

"I knew you were coming, through Ehrlich. He was here two days ago. Starways tracked your ship the moment it entered the solar system." He would not let her coolness stop him. He sat on the bed and when she pulled the sheets tighter about her he grasped her hands firmly in his and pulled them apart.

Her face, close to his, contorted in the old fury and she hissed at him:

"Burrell, if you don't let me go I swear I'll kill you." He could not let her go. She was twice as desirable as he remembered, and if some third party had intervened at that moment and put it to him reasonably that after being away for more than a year with no messages passed between them he might well win her by patience and lose her by impatience, he would have snapped, "That suits me!" She was clawing, biting, heaving, kicking. Once before they had fought like this, at Babylon. Then he had not cared particularly about her, and though he naturally considered taking her by force, had been cool enough to overpower her and talk sense into her.

This time everything was different. He had asked her to marry him, and if she had not exactly said yes, she had not exactly said no either. He was not a word wooer. She would have him or she would not.

It was an epic encounter, though one that could only result in defeat for the girl. When he finally had her slim, pale body pinned and helpless, she still breathed hate and fury up at him.

And he said tiredly: "All right, you win, if you want it that much. Goodbye, Cindy."

He left her, panting, on her back on the tumbled bed.

Burrell was a strong man. He did not weep for the might-have-been. But as he walked down the street toward Tanya's house, he considered the irony behind his many inconsequential sexual conquests; when he had desperately wanted to win, he had met defeat. With that thought, he put Roberta deliberately out of his mind and mentally listed the things he must accomplish in Edinburgh.

Many of the formerly empty houses were occupied again, he noticed. There seemed more people in the streets, and they seemed younger. This must be imagination. The Exile drain meant only a few faces disappearing in any particular locality. Even if nobody had been Exiled in the last year, there would be no perceptible difference.

But another thing struck him even more forcibly as he walked. As the sun came out, so did the people, and the change from a year ago was definite and undeniable.

They had been drab. Even in summer they wore dark clothes, heavy clothes, mended clothes. It had been easy for Roberta (he pursed his lips in annoyance as he felt the twinge of regret) to make an impression because she tried, and nobody else did. Tanya and a few others in the Scotland the Brave movement did, but they were atypical anyway. Now there were bright shirts, bright dresses. A young mother pushing a pram wore the shortest possible dress, its hem just covering her bottom. A young couple walking slowly, entwined, wore His and Hers yellow shorts, and they weren't hikers.

So perhaps, he thought with real pleasure, the rejuvenation of Earth was really under way. In fact, if the surprising number of babies in evidence was anything to go by, the rejuvenation of Edinburgh had begun at least nine months earlier, only a few months after his arrival there. He did not give himself all or even a lot of the credit, which must go to Roberta and Tanya and McVicar and many others. At the same time he felt no false modesty about his part in the change.

A small but determined effort, applied at the right place, could work miracles. It could be the faith that moved mountains.

He had helped to make rebellion fashionable. Now the vast don't-know majority, previously scared not to conform, were beginning to become scared not to rebel. Having a baby was rebellion; arguing was rebellion; going out in the streets instead of staying at home was rebellion; being, looking, pretending to be young was rebellion; wearing yellow shorts was rebellion.

He wondered what Starways thought of it all.

* * *

In Atlas, news of a money crisis far away, deep in the galaxy, sent the stock market reeling. Among the few to weather the storm were Starways, of course, and that lusty infant ABE. Alvin Thomas, well aware that at such a moment confidence was everything, put in new orders, permitted a leak of Burrell's arrival in Australia, and refused to deny rumors that what he had found there exceeded their wildest expectations. The fact that he could not possibly have received any news from Earth yet had no more effect on the rumors than facts ever had in the past.

And then came a stroke of luck, another rumor that Thomas hadn't started because he hadn't thought of it.

Starways was desperately trying to hold on to Earth, the rumor ran. This, if true, meant that Starways needed Earth. That without Earth, Starways profits would plummet.

The story went that Starways agents working from the seven bases on Earth were campaigning hard for Terran support, trying to buy it, trying to force it. And there was a fact along with all the speculation, a fact that was given considerable weight—Starways was now finding it difficult to fill the vacancies on the existing Terran Tours.

At first, naturally, all publicity about Earth, including ABE's competitive publicity, had sent people rushing to book for the only currently available Terran tours, those of Starways. But there had been a backlash; the first of these people were now returning, not just to Paradiso but to all the other new departure points, and were talking, and the mass media were reporting what they said.

The Starways tour was a fiasco. You never met a single Terran. You were free to see Earth only within the confines of seven small prisons. You might never have left your own world. Sahara wasn't Sahara, Babylon wasn't Babylon and Bagdad wasn't Bagdad.

So would-be tourists were starting to clamor for the new ABE tours. When were they going to start? Was there a guarantee that you would meet Terrans?

Alvin Thomas freely gave the guarantee, knowing Burrell would have done the same thing.

Starways shares began to drop. Those who had started the drop by selling some of their interest wondered uneasily how far it would go. ABE

went up to 300, a dizzy figure for shares that had started at 10. Starways dropped from 513 to 499, held there for a time and then climbed above the 500 mark briefly. Then when a statement came from Paradiso in the name of Olaf Fennel, a ringing rallying call, Starways climbed to 514… and thousands of shareholders who had bitten down to the second joints of their fingers thankfully sold.

Starways crashed to 313, whereupon Alvin Thomas, a realist, bought considerably, not only for himself but for Burrell too. And when Starways dropped to 285, instead of regretting his action, he bought more. At this point Alvin Thomas, a moderately honest young man, got a final last ultimate offer from Starways.

It came direct from Olaf Fennel, and in addition to incalculable cash, which was of less interest to Thomas now he had become a

multimillionaire, it offered:

Ironclad life contracts for Burrell and himself as Starways directors;

Full legal coverage for any of the personal consequences of acceptance;

The post of deputy controller, Terran Tours, for Burrell. The post of general manager, Paradiso, for Thomas.

And Thomas wanted to say yes.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

As Burrell neared Tanya's house he became cautious.

There could be, probably were, Starways infiltrators in Edinburgh. If he and Roberta could pass as Terrans, so could Starways agents. And Starways agents were automatically enemies of ABE.

How far they were prepared to go he had no idea. Starways traditionally was cautious, not so much scrupulously correct and law-abiding as careful never to be caught in anything. The unproven deaths of certain tourists who tried to get away from Terran Tours were a case in point. Probably Starways never deliberately murdered any of these; on the other hand, probably Starways could have saved the lives of many of these people and hadn't moved a finger.

It was by no means impossible that a special case would be made of Ram Burrell. His death would not snuff out ABE, but no doubt Starways would consider it a step in the right direction.

For this reason, when he heard a swift step behind him he sidestepped into a doorway and caught his pursuer firmly.

It was Roberta: a breathless Roberta in a blue shirt and the now fashionable yellow shorts.

He released her. There was no one else about, which had been one of his reasons for suspecting danger. She was flushed and her heaving bosom, as he had noticed more than once before, made her maddeningly attractive to anyone as susceptible as himself.

"Hello again, Cindy," he said.

"You can't leave like that. Leave if you like, but not like that. Not without talking."

"I was prepared to talk, too."

"And I was prepared to listen. Now I'm not so sure."

"But you came after me. In a hurry."

"You were going to Tanya. Don't. Let's go the other way."

"Certainly. Let's make for the sea."

They walked slowly. "Tanya?" he queried.

"Starways contacted her. She decided to appear to cooperate, after a decent period of reluctance. So that she'd have some information about the opposition. We agreed that she would never come near us until Starways suggested it, and apparently that hasn't happened yet."

"Dangerous?"

"We don't know. Starways has a few people here, not many."

"I guessed that."

"They haven't done anything yet but try to get information. We don't mind that. Scotland the Brave has made a lot of progress since you left. Exile is stopped, the birthrate is soaring, and the official councils are very uneasy."

"Don't you want Starways to go on underestimating you?"

"Not any more. If the Starways' top men think they're beaten, they'll surrender."

He nodded. "My idea, too. Cindy, you're coming to Australia." She shook her head ruefully. "I have too much to do here." He stopped and grasped her shoulders, not too gently. "Cindy, there's been enough of this. You're twenty-three now. I'm forty-five. We're running out of time. I'm not letting you go again."

Suddenly she flashed that rare smile and replied, "All right."

"What does that mean?"

"I'm coming with you to Australia."

He wanted to kiss her. But there were people about again, and they were staring. You still didn't make love in public on Earth.

"I'll have to see somebody before I go," she said.

"A lover?"

She smiled slightly. "I'll make you a present of the information that there's been nothing like that for me since you left. I bet you can't say the same."

"If I told you how little there's been," he said, "you'd be surprised. Who do you have to see?"

"Somebody in the movement. Not Tanya. I think George Shirran would be best. You remember, the pianist at the Marimba. He'd better see you too. It does a lot for morale when we have an important visitor. How have you been making out?"

He told her and discovered that despite Ehrlich's visit, she knew very little of events beyond Paradiso. Of course, in Paradiso, the strength of the ABE challenge had been played down.

She wanted to return to the house for clothes and other things; literally all she had with her was what was visible.

"You couldn't have taken long to come to your senses," he said, deliberately controversial.

"You didn't,take long to lose yours," she retorted. "One thing we've got to get clear, Burrell. I will never be forced. Not even if I marry you."

"I hoped you wouldn't need to be forced."

"You can hope what you like. Don't do it, that's all." She added wickedly, "It will be unnecessary anyway."

* * *

They saw George Shirran, and while Roberta took the opportunity of washing her face, an action omitted in her rush, Burrell warned the man not to trust anything the group might hear about him and ABE through Starways.

"They won't let through a single thing that will boost your morale," Burrell said. "On the contrary, they'll tell you ABE is failing, that I'm selling out—"

"And are you going to sell out?" Shirran asked bluntly.

"My partner, Alvin Thomas, would like to. My guess is that at this moment he's sorely tempted. But he doesn't have Australia."

"Do you?"

"That's what we're going to find out."

"Don't sell out, Burrell. If you do, it'll be the end."

"Nonsense."

"You mean you're thinking about it?"

"I mean I'm not thinking about it. What the hell do you think I was doing here? I didn't need Scotland the Brave; I met Ehrlich before I even came to Earth. I might have swung the Australian deal without ever coming to Edinburgh, much less staying for months—"

"We know Cindy won't desert us," said Shirran steadily. "I'm not so sure about you. We need you, Burrell. We'll need you for a long time yet."

* * *

Burrell bought a sleeping bag, one sleeping bag, and then they called on a young minister, a Scotland the Brave adherent, and were married. There was no difficulty except residential qualification, which the young minister knew Roberta had. And in Burrell's case he ruled that Burrell's previous stay made him a resident of the capital.

"Roberta Burrell," Roberta said, trying it for the feel of it, and made Burrell promise to call her Roberta, not Cindy. Half an hour later she reversed this and stopped calling him Ram, which she felt as ever was impossible, and went on calling him Burrell.

They were not cold, huddled in the sleeping bag on the beach under the ruined boat, and Roberta slept for several hours in his arms, though Burrell, not a nervous type, never did more than doze briefly. They had to make contact with the ship, which meant setting out in the dinghy at three a.m. Fortunately the sea was calm and the night clear. At three it was dark but already the sky was beginning to lighten. In order to keep warm, Roberta did all the heavy work, succeeding so well that she was glowing by the time they were under way. In Edinburgh the days were not nearly as hot as in Babylon, but the nights not nearly as cold.

Their earlier voyage was recalled as Roberta said: "I'm not complaining, Burrell, of course, but I wish as captain of this boat you'd take steps to provide breakfast and scalding hot coffee."

"I thought of it, but breakfast will be far better on a luxury sundeck in the Triple Crown after a quick bath."

"If we get to the Triple Crown. I wish I were as confident as you of making contact. You've got a decent compass this time and a motor, but how you can be sure of being in a precise spot—"

"See that?" he pointed. "The lights of Edinburgh. That's why I was praying there wouldn't be a fog. Over there, lights on the other side of the firth. Burntisland—remember, we held a meeting there. We'll be picked up on a line between them. The engine bleeps a signal every ten seconds." She relaxed. "You might have told me that before."

"You didn't ask."

"I was scared to ask."

"Cindy, I don't think you're scared of very much."

"Burrell, it's time you knew at least one thing about your wife. I'm often scared. I'm often scared stiff."

"You're not boasting, Cindy," he said quietly, "but you could be. If you can be scared stiff and nobody knows it, you've got twice as much courage as some dope like me who hasn't the sense to be scared." The pickup was made without any trouble. By eight o'clock, to the relief of Captain Wagner, they were speeding toward Australia and Mr. and Mrs. Burrell were eating grapefruit and drinking hot coffee.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

The tender landed on the sea and hovered there, not off the formerly populous east coast of Australia, but in a bay in Western Australia.

"What happens now?" Captain Wagner asked.

Burrell said: "We wait."

Wagner wanted to know more, with good reason, but as Burrell told Roberta when he had left them: "The less I tell him that turns out to be wrong, the better."

"You haven't told me very much."

"Cindy, Ehrlich fixed this, not me, and he fixed it in Vienna, which is a lot nearer Edinburgh then Vienna is to Australia. There were a few Australians in Vienna, and they were supposed to come back here and fix something. With luck, they succeeded."

"So all this has been a colossal gamble? If the people here don't know anything about any deal, we're sunk?"

"Not necessarily. I never got a written agreement, but I got a list of names I memorized—Singer, Sprott, Holly, Campbell, Timson, Smith, Mackay, Wilier, Raeper, Brock, Savage, Jensen. I get them together and I'll be able to do some sort of deal. So Ehrlich said."

Within an hour a small boat came out, and five minutes later Burrell and Roberta were in the tender's tiny bar with Ian Wilier and Denis Jensen. Both were tall and bronzed, the best physical specimens they had seen among Terrans.

"Yes, we've heard of you, Burrell," said Wilier, drinking whisky. "What do you want?"

Jensen, drinking beer, couldn't keep his eyes off Roberta.

"First," said Burrell briskly, "what do you want?" They fenced for several minutes, Wilier knocking back whisky with great rapidity and no perceptible effect, and Jensen, mesmerized, staring at Roberta.

She was dressed cautiously in a white suit with a Iongish skirt. Her brief was to listen, not say too much, and come in if Burrell needed her, in any of her several capacities.

Presently Wilier admitted that they wanted people.

"Australia has always needed people," he said, the whisky loosening his tongue at last. "Except for the Hundred Years. We started off with rabbits, kangaroos, and convicts. Now there are no rabbits, no kangaroos, and no convicts. The Aborigines got integrated, which was the worst thing that ever happened to them. If they hadn't got integrated, they'd have had the whole of Australia now. Instead, nobody has it."

Now that Wilier was speaking freely, Burrell didn't understand much of what he said.

Fortunately, Wilier went back to it. "That was the bad time, the Hundred Years," he said. "Crook for everybody. We still had a big, empty country. The whole world, but especially the whites, overflowed on us. We didn't put up the barriers until it was far too late…" This was interesting, and though it didn't appear to be getting them anywhere, Burrell let it flow.

Australia, always a land of pioneers, was the first to decant. The world's problems ran their course in Australia faster than anywhere else. A vast sparsely-populated country suddenly became a frantically-overcrowded country, with natural resources strained to the limit. Equally suddenly, it emptied again, with nobody to work the machines or the land… a sheep country again, with nobody to buy the wool or mutton.

"We need people," said Wilier simply.

The Australians did not want, as Burrell had been led to believe, money, assistance, transportation elsewhere. They wanted, once again, not tourists, but people to come in and work, build houses, get the country started again.

"The idea was to bring in tourists," Burrell said slowly, "but many will stay, if you want them. Many Terran Exiles would come back." Speaking for almost the first time, Jensen said: "They'd have to bring tools, machines, labor—"

Roberta rewarded him with a smile and entered the conversation too.

"They'll bring everything, Denis."

"Girls like you, Mrs. Burrell?"

"Not so much among the settlers. They'll be older. Among the tourists, yes." She kept on her prim white jacket. Perhaps it was time to start acting like a wife. She didn't know how Burrell would act if she gave him good cause for jealousy, but she strongly suspected he would quite simply hit her.

Poor Jensen. Were the Aussie girls really so awful? (She soon found out they were not awful at all; indeed they were magnificent creatures. Jensen, like many another man, was bowled over by the different, the exotic.) When they went ashore they saw something of the ruin of Australia. Burrell had feared Starways propaganda, knowing that Starways was in touch with many Terran communities through radio. But Hawaii was a long way from Eastern Australia; the whole of the continent lay between Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra and his new friends. There was no inter-continental communication at all.

The area round the bay was lush and friendly, with trees and flowers and shrubs and plenty of fresh water. But the conditions in which the small community of Bindarra (population 970) lived made Edinburgh seem more than ever like the Athens of the North.

The Bindarrans had not gone back to nature. They could all read and write. From a generator adapted to run on wood, they had electric light. They used knives and forks. They had cattle and vegetables and fruit. But as supplies failed, skills lost had not been redeveloped. Roberta soon discovered that one of the main reasons why she had created such a sensation with Denis Jensen was that Bindarra lacked cloth. There were sheep and they had wool, but very little skill in manufacturing. There was no cotton, no linen, of course no nylon. Some of the girls wore grass skirts, a practical and sensible idea. Evidently nobody knew how to weave wool into tweed.

The golden amazons of Bindarra strode proudly in brief woollen clothes and grass skirts, but they had nothing to wear to compete with Roberta's elegant dresses and suits of fine cloth, some from Edinburgh. And Roberta stressed the difference. Instead of wearing the shorts and suntops she had been inclined to favor in other warm and not so warm places, she left them to the amazons and appeared instead in a succession of cool whites and pastels, rarely showed her legs or her midriff, and when she did feel like making eyes pop, chose plunging necklines or see-through blouses, which were not in the Australian girls' repertoire.

Bindarra was the only known settlement in a radius of five hundred miles. The nearest town was Perth, nearly a thousand miles away.

"You know, of course," Roberta whispered, "that agreement with this lot doesn't mean a damn thing. I haven't got my slide rule handy, but I'd say you've got about 0.0001 percent of an Australian mandate."

"It's good enough," Burrell said. "It bloody well has to be."

CHAPTER THIRTY

"I sometimes wonder," said Wilier thickly, two months later, "if all you've brought us is corruption. We used to make spirits that seemed fiery enough, but this whisky of yours is three times as strong. You've set up a brewery; your men have fixed the generator, and with more power to play with we've started making washing machines. Now everybody has to have a washing machine. We're weaving cloth again; the women all want new clothes. We're canning food; soon we're going to need somebody to sell it to. Money scarcely mattered. Some of us never bothered with it. Now everybody has to make money."

"It's the start of what you wanted, Ian," said Roberta patiently. "Soon tourists will come. And they'll spend money, lots of it."

"These 'native crafts' you've started," Wilier sneered. "We're making artificial ersatz substitute native carvings of fertility gods and boomerangs we never heard about before. We're sticking fancy stones on boxes—"

"The tourists will snap them up. Tourists want to spend money. If there's nothing to spend it on, they're frustrated." Roberta and Burrell had proved a good team to get such projects going, she with her zero practical rating and vast theoretical knowledge, he with immense practicality and a vast store of ignorance. The crew of the Triple Crown—the tender had brought them all down, leaving only a skeleton maintenance section on the orbiting ship—worked willingly and enthusiastically on different projects, doing it for fun though they would have resented being ordered to do things so different from their normal skills.

Wilier sighed. "Things go crook for me when I drink. Maybe you and Burrell are the best thing that ever happened to us. Only it's not like I expected."

"Things never are," she said.

She liked the Aussies, finding in them an individuality which had been lacking in Edinburgh. She found it rather sad that the ABE expedition was already eroding their individuality.

"One thing I got to admit," Wilier said. "You certainly made the women better to look at."

Roberta smiled but did not point out that it went deeper than that. Arguably, the big tanned Bindarran girls had seemed more naturally attractive before the Triple Crown came. But the Bindarran men didn't think so. Vital ingredients had been lacking… elegance, daintiness, mystery, deliberate provocation.

"You know everything," said Wilier, pouring more whisky. "Why've we got more women than men?"

Roberta answered, "We've found that in small isolated communities in the galaxy—where a group gets lost for a century or two until galactic exploration links up with them again—more girls are born. Nature's idea seems to be that in a small group the more childbearers the better. One male can impregnate umpteen females. Only it doesn't often work out that way. Monogamy is seldom abandoned. In fact, there's a lot of evidence that small isolated groups tend to die out rather than get bigger. They cling to non-survival customs, whatever nature is trying to do, and the tribe gets smaller, not bigger."

Wilier nodded. "Like us," he said gloomily.

A door crashed open, and Quillon, the Triple Crown's third radio man, dashed out on the veranda. "Where's Mr. Burrell?" he asked breathlessly.

"Away in the jeep somewhere. He won't be back for hours. What's the matter?"

Quillon was tall, thin, red-haired, impulsive and very young. He looked at Wilier, and Roberta could see him belatedly coming to the conclusion he should have spoken to her quietly and privately instead of virtually making a public announcement that something had happened.

"It's a message," he said lamely. "For Mr. Burrell, and it's personal."

"A message? A radio message? From the Triple Crown?"

"Relayed by the Triple Crown."

"But that can't be. There's nothing and nobody in space near enough to—"

"Spit it out, man," said Wilier. "Or I'll start to think you've got secrets from us."

"Go ahead," said Roberta. It might have been better if Quillon hadn't given Wilier a hint. Now that he had, it was too late.

"It's from Hawaii. In the name of Starways. Picked up by the Triple Crown and passed on. They want to speak to Burrell. Only Burrell."

"You didn't acknowledge?"

"No."

"Quite right. So they don't know where we are?"

"They know it's Australia. But they seemed to think Eastern Australia."

"That's fine. If they think that, they don't know much. Keep listening, but don't answer."

"What does that mean?" Wilier asked, when Quillon had gone.

"I haven't the slightest idea. "But they'll call again." They did. Four hours later. Burrell and Roberta waited in the radio hut with Quillon. Hawaii had promised to come on the air at 18.30 hours with a message for Burrell.

"Total surrender?" Roberta said, raising a quizzical eyebrow.

"Hardly. They wouldn't surrender this way, but in the boardroom." There were preliminary crackles. Then a clear voice said: "Burrell, you're probably hearing this. We want you to answer, but we don't suppose you will until we give you good reason. Is the fact that Alvin Thomas is in Paradiso now good enough?"

Burrell nodded to Quillon and took the microphone. "You just want to know where we are," he said. "Well, this won't help you, because we're relaying through the

Triple Crown and we don't mind your knowing where she is." There was new interest in the clear voice when it replied: "I'm Nathan, remember me? I took you back to Shetland. We talked. My employers don't expect you to trust me, but they think you'll trust me more than anybody else."

"Fair enough. What am I to trust you about?"

"We know you were in Edinburgh. We know you married Roberta Murdock there. We assume, frankly, that you haven't totally failed in Australia. I'm putting our cards on the table, Burrell. We don't know exactly where you are, but we can track the Triple Crown and we know you've been somewhere in Australia for two months. How are you doing?"

"All right."

"You'd say that anyway, but I believe you. You wouldn't have stayed three weeks unless you were working on something. Burrell, Starways wants you in Paradise To do a deal. Alvin Thomas is there; Olaf Fennel and Harry Negus are there. It has to be possible to work something out."

"On what lines?"

"Well, I wouldn't know, would I?"

No, he wouldn't. Burrell toyed with the idea of insisting that any deal about Earth should be made on Earth. He could make Fennel and Negus come to Australia, bringing Alvin Thomas with them. It would give him a psychological advantage and more time to consolidate.

His eyes met Roberta's, and he knew she had guessed what he was thinking. First, there was no harm in talking. She nodded her head. He had deliberately brushed Starways off at the beginning, making an offer Negus would refuse. And later he had virtually ignored Starways approaches. But this time…

He made stabbing motions at the ground and looked a question at Roberta. This time she shook her head and he nodded. One big disadvantage of getting the others here was that they would know too much. They'd have a chance to see how tiny a toehold Burrell had, and talk to Jensen and Wilier and all the other Bindarrans.

"All right," he said. "I'll go to Paradiso. But you'll have to take me. My wife and me. The Triple Crown stays here meantime." Roberta's eyes widened at that, and she looked doubtful. To leave Wagner and his men in charge at Bindarra didn't seem a very good idea. Also, it would make Burrell and Roberta dependent on Starways for transport.

Burrell said casually: "We'll only trouble you for a oneway trip. Astrogo ships are calling at Paradiso all the time. If we do reach agreement, it will be important enough to make it worthwhile diverting a ship; either back here or to Atlas."

"You'd have to get to one of our bases, and go back with the next batch of tourists."

"Fine. Let's make it Hawaii, I can be there in three hours."

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

The conference was most select. Just six people were present—no stenographer, no tape recorder.

There was a certain amount of maneuvering before they started, Fennel and Negus trying under pretense of extreme urgency to get the conference under way the moment Burrell arrived, to prevent him conferring with Alvin Thomas. Burrell went along with this outrageous piece of finagling because Starways wanted to exclude Roberta; he wanted her in. Faced with a straight though unspoken deal, that Burrell would give up conferring if Roberta was in, Negus, left holding the baby, said that would mean three to two. Then, still with no help from his boss, he suggested calling in John Ehrlich as a Terran observer.

"Fine, that'll be three-three," said Burrell, and they let him get away with that, though they must know that Ehrlich's allegiance was, to say the least, equivocal.

The impatience of the Starways pair to get started made Burrell wonder… stock market news, maybe? A complete surrender by Alvin Thomas? Thomas looked guilty and uneasy, but he evidently wanted to talk to Burrell first, which didn't look like a sellout. No, probably Fennel merely felt as many businessmen felt that rushing the other side meant he kept the initiative.

Burrell was prepared to let him go on thinking so.

Fennel was a tall man with an egg head and an egghead manner. He looked and sounded like a professor.

"Mr. Burrell," he said, "I will not attempt to conceal from you the fact that your operations have caused us considerable financial anxiety. Starways doesn't like conflict—"

"Garbage," said Burrell deliberately.

"Please do not be offensive."

"Then don't talk garbage. What do you want?"

"A settlement."

"Easy. You move out of Earth."

"We may, perhaps, do that."

This was news to Ehrlich. Despite the need for him to remain apparently a friend of Starways, he sat up sharply and stared incredulously at Fennel.

It was not news to Alvin Thomas; he was tugging Burrell's jacket under the table.

Burrell needed no warnings.

"That would be very friendly of you."

"We might be prepared to sell you our entire interest in Earth, with all the fittings, as it were." He laughed at his joke. "As I said, we don't like conflict. And this matter of Earth, an infinitesimal affair among Starways'

myriad enterprises, of virtually no importance whatever, cannot be allowed to—"

"More garbage. You didn't build Paradiso on Earth's doorstep for nothing. Not one in a thousand of Paradiso visitors goes on to Earth…

now. But you've got plans for the future about that, haven't you?" This time Fennel was equal to the occasion. "We are prepared to sell Paradiso to you. In fact, we insist on it."

"I begin to see. Paradiso's about twenty years old now. Has it started to make a profit yet?"

Fennel looked at Negus, bringing him in. Negus coughed, shot an anxious glance at his chief, decided he was supposed to answer and answer truthfully, and said: "Last year the capital costs were paid off. Paradiso was the biggest investment ever made in tourism—"

"I know about that. What's all this going to cost?"

"It would be a matter for prolonged negotiation, naturally," said Fennel blandly. "But if we agree in principle—"

"If we agree in principle," retorted Burrell grimly, "ABE will be saddled with a burden calculated to break its back. Then Starways, that patient dragon, will devour the dying victim."

Fennel, who had thought he was gaining the ascendancy, was taken aback by Burrell's succinct analysis.

"There is an attractive alternative," he said hurriedly, before he was quite ready. "Your partner, Mr. Thomas, finds it most tempting." He explained the offer Alvin Thomas had found tempting.

"Burrell," said Thomas deliberately, "he's told you the truth. I do find it tempting. I'd like to say yes. But I haven't said yes. We're totally uncompromised."

"Of course," Burrell murmured, slightly surprised, as if nothing else had ever crossed his mind.

"In other words," said Roberta, "sell Earth out."

"At a very considerable profit," said Fennel.

"As an ex-Terran," Ehrlich intervened smoothly, "I am slightly baffled by the necessity for either of you to have everything… why must it be complete control for Starways or ABE—a monopoly? If Earth is going to benefit—and surely that's part of the idea—won't Earth benefit more by having two friends instead of one?"

Neither Fennel nor Negus rushed to answer that one.

Roberta picked it up: "I've been on Earth, as you know. Earth will benefit greatly from ABE development. Earth has been suffering, in fact dying, under Starways control. Any takeover by Starways would be a sellout."

"It's quite wrong," said Fennel quietly, "to think we've been oppressing Earth. On the contrary—"

"On the contrary," Roberta retorted, "you've been cooperating wholeheartedly in the Terrans' policy of bleeding themselves to death." Burrell said: "Nevertheless, the Starways offer, if modified slightly, is far more interesting than this nonsense about ABE taking over Earth and Paradise Or even Earth without Paradise"

"It is?" said Harry Negus, slightly dazed.

Roberta said nothing, looking steadily at Burrell.

"We understood," Fennel added, "that you are a very obstinate man, Mr. Burrell. However, if you're prepared to talk about this—" Burrell said directly to Fennel: "I said, if modified slightly. I want control on Earth. Policy control. For life."

Fennel shook his head. "Starways never gives anything as far-reaching as policy control of an entire planet to a single man. You could become a dictator, a tyrant. Besides, the effect on Starways—"

"Because I don't look like one and don't act like one, a lot of people seem to have difficulty in seeing that I'm a businessman. I can make a lot of money for you."

"Living on Earth?"

"Partly. Mostly. But with occasional trips to Paradiso and Atlas."

"Let's have some straight talking," said Fennel, at which Burrell nearly laughed aloud, and Alvin Thomas did. "Aren't you some sort of messiah?

Haven't you promised the Terrans you'll lead them to freedom?"

"Yes," said Roberta. "He is and he has." Fennel looked at Ehrlich. "As you sent him to Earth hoping he'd be." So they had rumbled Ehrlich.

"Perhaps," Ehrlich admitted. "But I'm interested in this. Starways redeveloping Earth. With Burrell in charge. I'd be prepared to help him."

"But not just to make money," said Roberta.

Burrell spoke to her directly. "Yes, to make money. I told you long ago that was the only way it could be done. Campaigns founded on love and kindness and charity flop. Campaigns on a firm commercial basis succeed."

Ehrlich nodded.

Burrell turned back to Fennel. "All you want is to make money from Earth, without risk, without trouble. How it's done you don't really care. I'm offering you a way."

"We take over ABE but you retain control?"

"Of Earth. You get ABE."

"I can't agree to that," said Alvin Thomas.

"I thought you very nearly agreed to less?"

Thomas hesitated, and then said: "I guess I never saw you selling out, Burrell. Anything I said or thought was against that background." Burrell grinned. "So it's you that's the idealist, not me."

"What bothers me about this," said Negus, since Fennel stayed silent, thoughtful, "is that we'd be changing our entire policy—" Fennel interrupted impatiently: "Starways has always been prepared to change its policy. Selling ABE Paradiso and the Earth interests would have been a bigger policy turnabout than appointing Burrell controller on Earth. What bothers me is the responsibility we'd be giving you. I suppose we can take it for granted that you'd want ironclad contracts—"

"Including strong protection against your contesting my sanity," Burrell agreed. "Also, I want my wife as deputy."

"Not Thomas here?"

"He wants to run Paradiso. Let him."

There was a great deal more talk. But in the end, guarded general agreement was reached.

Without Roberta. She didn't say another word.

* * *

They went back to the pool where they had first met, and this time, browned by the Australian sun, Roberta didn't need a sunfilter dress but wore it just the same, trying to make a last fleeting contact with the Roberta Murdock who had never met Ram Burrell.

"You spoke very plainly, Cindy," he said, "and then you suddenly stopped."

"I don't like it. To me it's still a sellout. Was it really impossible to buy Paradiso and the Earth interests?"

"Yes. I'd die in debt. That was the idea. When you reckon that Paradiso—and look at the money being spent in it—has taken twenty years to pay off the capital cost, and that I'd have to pay all that back, plus a stiff valuation of Earth interests, plus our own development costs—"

"I see. But this way—can you tell me honestly that you haven't been bought?"

He had indeed been bought, for far more than any sports' ace or movie star. However, he had no difficulty in understanding what she meant.

"I may have sold myself," he admitted, "but I haven't sold anybody else. The shareholders will be perfectly happy. So will Astrogo."

"But, the Terrans. You'll have to milk them to make Starways rich."

"Sure. And they'll love it."

"They'll only have changed one servitude for another."

"Cindy, you know what Bindarra needs. Tourists. Money. New blood. Settlers. Life. Then the Aussies on the east coast will want the same."

"I know. But I'm disappointed. This wasn't what I was working for."

"I told you more than a year ago. The only way to beat Starways was in the boardroom. In the stock market. Well, I've done it."

"You haven't beaten Starways."

"I've got Earth."

She nodded. "Far more than Alexander, Napoleon, Genghis Khan, Hitler, Caesar ever possessed; you've got Earth. I wonder if you can be trusted wtih it?"

"You'll be with me."

"I've never been able to sway you. You know that."

"Sahara."

"That was only pointing out what you didn't see."

"Are you going to stop pointing out things I don't see?"

"Is this what you really want?" she asked doubtfully.

"Cindy, I never wanted anything more. It's a big job, a tough job. I'll have to be tough—"

"You'll find that easy."

His hand moved gently up her thigh, over her hip. The sundress was a filter and little more. She smiled at him.

She would have to give this man a child, perhaps more than one. He was someone very special, to her and many millions of other human beings, and she had to do her best for him.

For Ram Burrell was ruler of the world.