rising and falling in the even rhythm of sleep.

Hovic and Lowe splashed through the water and came up out of the darkness, their hair streaming, eyes shining whitely in pinched faces. They were muddy and dirty—and beaten.

"You didn't do it," Hovic said hoarsely when he saw Hanlon. "Thank Heaven for that. How did you guess?"

"I've sat here all night, thinking about it," Geddes said. "I thought about the two of you up there claiming your rights as winners, and I should have gotten a vicarious excitement out of it. But I didn't, and finally I knew why. They threw you out, didn't they?"

They avoided his eyes. "It was awful," Lowe said miserably. "They were—furious. I wanted to die."

"So Hanlon was right again," Geddes said. "Doesn't that mean something to you, that he was right every time? He knew instinctively from the start that a man's natural belligerence springs directly from his sex, and that the Foundation wouldn't risk its making trouble among us on the trip. So they—eliminated it. That's why I brought Hanlon out of hypnol, because they hadn't gotten that far with him before he washed out. Because he is our last hope of keeping the race alive."

The three of them stood and watched the play of dreams across Hanlon's sleeping face with something like awe in their eyes.

"I was just wondering," Lowe said, "if something like this may have happened before? If the whole thing may not be like one of those old parchment writings the archaeologists dig up, where an earlier story has been erased and a newer one written over it? A palimpsest, I think it's called.... How do we know where we came from, in the beginning?"

Geddes stooped and shook Hanlon awake. "You'll find the boat by the river," he said. "You're starting out fresh with a new world, Hanlon. Take care of it."

They had climbed the personnel ladder and were closing the port behind them when they heard the splashing of water as Hanlon swam the river. A moment later his high, ringing yell drifted back and was lost without echo on the plain.

"He didn't waste time on the boat," Hovic said, enviously.

They were strapping themselves in for the Terra IV's final flight when Geddes laughed for the first time since the blast-off.

"I think 

 Prev. P 12/13 next