millisecond before the Starshine vanished into faster-than-light escape. They had tried each of the six planets of Cetis Alpha. They had gone rather desperately to Cetis Gamma, with four inhabited planets, and Sorene, with three. Then the inroads on their scant fuel-supply and their dwindling store of vegetation from Alphin II made them accept defeat. The massed volumes of the Galactic Pilot for this sector, age-yellowed, brittle volumes now, had told them of vegetation on the useless planet of the dwarf star Phanis. They came to it. Kim was stunned and bitter. And they landed.

After the ship had settled down in a weird valley with fantastic overhanging cliffs and a frozen small waterfall nearby, the two of them went outside. They wore space-suits, of course, because of the extreme thinness of the air.

"I suppose we can call this home, now," Kim said bitterly.

It was night. The sky was cloudless, and all the stars of the Galaxy looked down upon them as they stood in the biting cold. His voice went by space-phone to the helmet of Dona, by his side.

"I guess I can stand it if you can, Kim," she said quietly.

"We've got fuel for six weeks' drive," he said ironically. "That means we can go to any place within twenty-five light-years. We've tried every solar system in that range. They're all warned against us. They all had their projectors in operation. We couldn't land. And we'd have starved unless we got to some new material for the synthesizer. This was the only place we could land on. So we have to stand it, if we stand anything."

Dona was silent for a little while.

"We've got each other, Kim," she said slowly.

"For a limited time," he said. "If we use our fuel only for heat and to run the synthesizer for food, it will probably last several years. But ultimately it will run out and we'll die."

"Are you sorry you threw away everything for me, Kim?" asked Dona. "I'm not sorry I'm with you. I'd rather be with you for a little while and then die. Certainly death is better than what I faced."

Kim made a furious gesture.

"It's recognized, everywhere, that the population of a planet has the right to make all the laws of that planet. We are the population here. We could be married by our own act. But suppose we had children? When our 

 Prev. P 21/120 next