r other, but they had arranged their thoughts so solidly
that any attempt to get quickly at their meaning would only produce
confusion.

"Twenty years since," said the bearded man with an angry gesture, "we
made a bargain. We held a third of all the land of the planet, but our
young men were falling away from the ways of their fathers. We made a
bargain with the newcomers we had cherished. We would trade our lands,
our cities, our farms, our highways, for ships to take us to a new world
with food for the journey and machines for the taming of the planet we
would select. We sent of our number to find a world to which we could
move. Ten years back, they returned. They had found it. The planet
Thetis."

Again Hoddan had no reaction. The name meant nothing.

"We began to prepare," said the old man, his eyes flashing. "Five years
since, we were ready. But we had to wait three more before the
bargainers were ready to complete the trade. They had to buy and collect
the ships. They had to design and build the machinery we would need.
They had to collect the food supplies. Two years ago we moved our
animals into the ships, and loaded our food and our furnishings, and
took our places. We set out. For two years we have journeyed toward
Thetis."

Hoddan felt an instinctive respect for people who would undertake to
move themselves, the third of the population of a planet, over a
distance that meant years of voyaging. They might have tastes in costume
that he did not share, and they might go in for elaborate oratory
instead of matter-of-fact statements, but they had courage.

"Yes, sir," said Hoddan. "I take it this brings us up to the present."

"No," said the old man, his eyes flashing. "Six months ago we considered
that we might well begin to train the operators of the machines we would
use on Thetis. We uncrated machines. We found ourselves cheated!"

[Illustration]

Hoddan found that he could make a fairly dispassionate guess of what
advantage--say--Nedda's father would take of people who would not check
on his good faith for two years and until they were two years' journey
away. The business men on Krim would have some sort of code determining
how completely one could swindle a customer. Don Loris, now--

"How badly were you cheated?" asked Hoddan.

"Of our lives!" said the angry old man. "Do you know machinery?"

"Some kinds," admitted Hoddan.

"Come," said the leader of the fleet.

With a sort of dignity that