Field was a capital offense, anyway. (This afforded little comfort, in that once a group of people have surrounded themselves with a Molein Field they are quite independent, as Turpan had observed, of the law.)

When they had withdrawn a few yards from the skimmercar, Turpan sighted upon it with the moisture rifle and the plastic hull melted and ran down in a mass of smoking lava. "The past is past," Turpan said, "and better done with. Come, let us seek out our new friends."

There were men and there were women, clamorously cheerful at their work, unloading an ancient and rickety ferrycopter in the surprise valley below the cliffs upon which Stephen and Turpan stood. Stephen, perspiring for the first time in his life, was almost caught up in their enthusiasm as he watched that fairy village of plasti-tents unfold, shining and shimmering in the reflected hues of the Molein aurora.

When Turpan had satisfied himself that there was no danger, they descended, scrambling down over rough, shaly and precipitous outcroppings that presented no problem for Stephen, but to which Turpan, oddly enough, clung with the desperation of an acrophobe as he lowered himself gingerly from crag to crag—this slightly-built young man who had seemed nerveless in the sky. Turpan was out of his métier.

A man looked up and saw them. He shouted and waved his arms in welcome. Turpan laughed, thinking, perhaps, that the welcome would have been less warm had his identity been known here.

The man climbed part way up the slope to meet them. He was youthful in appearance, with dark hair and quick, penetrating eyes. "I'm the Planner of Flight One," he said. "Are you from Three?"

"We are not," Turpan said.

"Flight Two, then."

Turpan, smiling like a basilisk, affected to move his head from side to side.

And the Planner looked alarmed. "Then you must be the police," he said, "for we are only three groups. But you are too late to stop our secession, sir. The Molein barrier exists—let the Technocracy legislate against us until it is blue in the face. And there are three hundred and twelve of us here—against the two of you."

"Sporting odds," Turpan said. "However, we are merely humble heretics, like yourselves, seeking asylum. Yes indeed. Quite by accident my friend and I wandered into your little ovum universe as it was 

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