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He stirred restlessly, read it through a second time, got up and paced around his tiny cabin. There were
twelve hundred occupied worlds within the scope of the Empire. He'd seen about one-tenth of them. No
spaceman could live long enough to get a look at the lot. The service was divided into cosmic groups,
each dealing with its own sector.
Except by hearsay, of which there was plenty and most of it highly colored, he would never know what
heavens or pseudo-heavens existed in other sectors. In any case, it would be a blind gamble to pick an
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Give Me Liberty
unfamiliar world for landbound life on someone else's recommendation. Not all think alike, or have the
same tastes. One man's meat may be another's man's poison.
The choice for retirement which was the unlovely name for beginning another, different but vigorous
life was high-priced Terra or some more desirable planet in his own sector. There was the Epsilon
group, fourteen of them, all attractive providing you could suffer the gravity and endure lumbering
around like a tired elephant. There was Norton's Pink Heaven if, for the sake of getting by in peace, you
could pander to Septimus Norton's rajah-complex and put up with his delusions of grandeur.
Up on the edge of the Milky Way was a matriarchy run by blonde Amazons, and a world of wizards, and
a Pentecostal planet, and a globe where semisentient vegetables cultivated themselves under the
direction of human masters; all scattered across forty light-years of space but readily accessible by
Blieder-drive.
There were more than a hundred known to him by personal experience, though merely a tithe of the
whole. All offered life and that company which is the essence of life. But this world, Gand, had
something the others lacked. It had the quality of being present. It was part of the existing environment
from which he drew data on which to build his decisions. The others were not. They lost virtue by being
absent and faraway.
Inobtrusively, he made his way to the Blieder-room lockers, spent an hour cleaning and oiling his
bicycle. Twilight was approaching when he returned. Taking a thin plaque from his pocket, he hung it
on the wall, lay on his bunk and stared at it.
F I.W.
The caller-system clicked, cleared its throat, announced, "All personnel will stand by for general
instructions at eight hours tomorrow.
"I won't," said Harrison. He closed his eyes.
* * *
Seven-twenty in the morning, but nobody thought it early. There is little sense of earliness or lateness
among space-roamers to regain it they have to be landbound a month, watching a sun rise and set.
The chartroom was empty but there was much activity in the control cabin. Grayder was there with
Shelton, Hame, Navigators Adamson, Werth and Yates and, of course, His Excellency.
"I never thought the day would come," groused the latter, frowning at the star map over which the
navigators pored. "Less than a couple of weeks, and we get out, admitting defeat."
"With all respect, your Excellency, it doesn't look that way to me," said Captain Grayder. "One can be
defeated only by enemies. These people are not enemies. That's precisely where they've got us by the
short hairs. They're not definable as hostile."
"That may be. I still say it's defeat. What else could you call it?"
"We've been outwitted by awkward relations. There's not much we can do about it. A man doesn't beat
up his nieces and nephews merely because they won't speak to him."
"That's your viewpoint as a ship's commander. You're confronted by a situation that requires you to go
back to base and report. It's routine. The whole service is hidebound with routine." The ambassador
again eyed the star map as if he found it offensive. "My own status is different. If I get out, it's a
diplomatic defeat, an insult to the dignity and prestige of Terra. I'm far from sure that I ought to go. It
might be better if I stayed put though that would give them the chance to offer further insults."
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Give Me Liberty
"I would not presume to advise you what to do for the best," Grayder said. "All I know is this: we carry
troops and armaments for any policing or protective purposes that might be found necessary here. But I
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