Is America going to finally catch up to China? A look at Bidens “Build Back Better” trillions in investment

Oh my goodness! Trillions of dollars in rebuilding America. That means roads, bridges, trains, infrastructure, and factories. Trillions of dollars in spending. There is no doubt that with this enormous outlay of spending that American can catch up and overtake China. The inflation will be worth it. Right? Don’t be so sure.

There’s not much in the way of actual STEM budgeting. It’s all FIRE nonsense. Here we talk about it.

The White House’s official press release announcing the Build Back Better Act (BBB) pitches it as a “PLAN TO REBUILD THE MIDDLE CLASS.” It rhapsodizes about “working families” squeezed by the economy, and reminds voters that “Biden promised to rebuild the backbone of the country — the middle class.”

A cartoon illustrates the sort of person who would benefit from Biden’s Build Back Better programs: “Linda,” a white woman, who works at a manufacturing plant but struggles to raise her son, “Leo.”

One thing the White House’s official press release did not mention is that almost all of the $2 trillion doled out under BBB is expressly designated for Black, Latino, Native American, Asian American, Pacific Islander and non-English speaking individuals. White Americans will get nothing and like it.

“Even provisions that don’t explicitly exclude whites, turn out, on closer examination, to exclude whites.”
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Over and over again, the bill is written expressly NOT to help the hardworking Linda, apparently because she is white.

Here are just a few examples:

— $1 billion to Native American, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian communities for housing “needs.”

— $500 million for minority-serving schools of medicine.

— $112 million for teacher preparation programs at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs).

— $75 million for culturally appropriate care management and services for older individuals who are racial and ethnic minorities or are underserved due to sexual orientation or gender identity.

— $75 million to study maternal health for pregnant and postpartum minority individuals.

— $50 million study maternal mortality among minorities.

— $50 million to improve behavioral health outcomes for communities of color with substance abuse.

— $75 million to increase research capacity at minority-serving institutions.

And on and on and on.

The very first item in Title II of the bill, titled “ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION,” is a program to distribute more than $100 million in grants to address “low diversity within the teacher and school leader workforce.”

To be eligible for a grant, the recipient must have a plan “to increase the diversity of qualified individuals entering into the teacher, principal, or other school leader workforce.”

Similarly, the first provision of BBB’s “ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT” section is: “Minority Business Development Agency.”

But wait — here’s a plot twist!

This part also includes something for rural America! (So Democrats have heard of Appalachia.)

Twenty-one percent of the country is rural. Twenty-four percent is non-white. Guess how the money is divvied up?

One billion dollars for minorities and $200 million for “rural business centers.”

Even provisions that don’t explicitly exclude whites, turn out, on closer examination, to exclude whites. I’ve never seen so many synonyms for “non-white,” such as “persistent poverty communities,” “historically economically distressed,” “historical injustice” and “underserved communities.”

Hang on, Ann — what makes you think “underserved” means “non-white”?

I refer you to page 111 of the bill:

“This section also defines an ‘underserved community’ as a group of people who have been systematically denied the full opportunity to participate in aspects of economic, social, and civic life. Underserved communities include Black, Latino, Indigenous and Native American persons, Asian American and Pacific Islanders, other persons of color, [etc.].”

How about changes to our environmental laws?

White people love the environment!

Sorry, out of luck, again, white boy. BBB allocates almost $7 billion for …

“national service programs to carry out projects related to climate resilience and mitigation.”
Unfortunately, however, all those billions have to go to 

“entities that serve and have representation from low-income communities …; utilize culturally competent and multilingual strategies; … implemented by diverse participants from communities being served.”

One billion dollars of the “Climate Resilience and Mitigation” loot is specifically directed to “individuals who were formally incarcerated.” [Sic.]

Sure, climate change is important — but not as important as giving money to convicted felons!

What the hell happened to Linda?

Linda is wearing a hardhat, so her job has probably been outsourced. Maybe she’ll be helped by BBB’s humongous expansion of the Trade Adjustment Assistance program (TAA).

That’s the law passed in the 1960s to compensate American workers whose jobs have been shipped abroad by globalist swine who couldn’t care less about their fellow Americans and don’t mind that every single thing we need, including masks and medicine, is made in China.

Surely, some white people will qualify for that — steelworkers, autoworkers, glass, plastic and paper manufacturing employees.

In fact, the BBB hijacks the whole idea of compensating globalism’s losers and turns the TAA into just another massive welfare scheme.

Both the eligibility requirements and payment amounts are expanded beyond all reason, entitling “workers” to years and years of payouts, with no minimum employment period required, and no stipulation that trade has anything to do with the loss of their jobs.

Thus, for example, a program that is — again — meant to remunerate workers whose jobs were shipped abroad will now offer assistance to public sector employees.

How does a government employee lose a job at all — much less to trade? (I only wish we had Chinese people running our grade schools.)

Naturally, states will be required to work with “training providers” that have a proven track record serving “Black, Latino, Indigenous and Native American persons, Asian American and Pacific Islanders, other persons of color, members of other minority communities” and so on.

Republicans seem to think that if they just talk about how much Biden’s BBB plan costs, their job is done. They ought to read the bill. It might prompt them to finally say something about the Democrats’ clear animus against white Americans.    

Conclusion

Imagine. Imagine trillions of dollars going into these urban enclaves to serve the 13% of society. What will be the result? Will it be many bright and shining cities full of impressive skyscrapers, fast high speed trains, and more parks and infrastructure?

Where will the money go to, and who will have it, and what will they use it on? Because you KNOW that there is going to be a lot of holes in those massive sacks of money. So who is going to really benefit?

  • The under-employed and under-privileged?
  • Or the very wealthy that runs the cities like the mob bosses of old?

And of the money that flows to these areas, and those that flow out, what about the rest of the nation? Like Trump’s budget that make the Wall Street Bankers fantastically wealthy, this is poised to make the city mob bosses fantastically wealthy as well.

Who will not get wealthy?

I see the makings of a massive and colossal storm, and I do not want to be at ground zero when it hits. Look I am not being racist, I am being real. You just cannot exclude people from a budget by their race, upbringing or social standing on a whim and NOT expect consequences.

I am worried about those consequences.

And you should be as well.

It wouldn’t be so bad if there was some balance in the budget, but there isn’t any. It’s all a lopsided manifestation of corruption.

I have no answers, but I see no real changes anywhere in government structure. Just more of the same race baiting, underhand dealings and crime and corruption. For a nation that is supposed to be color-blind to race, this bill is the most racist document I have ever heard and read about. And that is disturbing. Because, knowing what I do know about the see-saw of American politics, that when the tide of public opinion flows in the other direction…

…things are going to get really, really bad. video 26MB

Ann said

How does a government employee lose a job at all — much less to trade? (I only wish we had Chinese people running our grade schools.) 

Well, it would American schools look like then? Well they would look like this…

Here’s a video about the roll call in first grade. video 25MB

Here’s a video on school food discipline, and eating everything that is on your plate. video 40MB

School; it would look like this. video 83MB

Second grade roll call. China. Discipline. video 6MB

School assembly practice. And it would look like this. video 55MB

And it would look like this. video 25MB

And like this too. video 27MB

America really needs to up it’s game instead of playing the blame game and pointing fingers. It needs to accept that the government is a travesty, the society is fucked up, and it is in it’s death thrall.

Do you want more?

I have more posts like this in my New Beginnings 2 index here… New Beginnings 2 .

More Links

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China sitrep December 2021

Oh my goodness!

Amazing skills of Chinese Kids

Video 2MB

“Given the gigantic scale of China’s achievements, anyone with sense in the world will study these intently.”

– There was a time when such things needed not be said.

Impressive speed of Change in China

Really impressive. Video 5MB

China is part of the solution

Video 1.5MB

Chinese vs. American “democracy”

Video 5.8MB

China and Cambodia relations

Contrary to the bullshit “news” out of the “West” China is great friends with it’s neighbors. Here’s a brief interview worthy of review. video 8MB

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Sitrep: Here Comes China – Taking the lead – a dialogue on democracy in China

By Amarynth for the Saker Blog including a number of data points from Godfree Roberts

Did you know that a huge International Forum on Democracy is ongoing in China right now?  This is before the supposed Biden “Summit on Democracy” which is an attempt to divide the world into Democracies and Autocracies, according to the wishes of the rules-based international order.

As we have seen so often from China, they acted with incredible speed and presented their own high-quality International Forum.  They also published a Chinese White Paper on Democracy and it outlines how their Whole Process People’s Democracy functions for their people:  http://en.people.cn/n3/2021/1204/c312369-9928374.html

In addition, China released a full report on the state of US democracy:  http://www.news.cn/english/2021-12/05/c_1310352578.htm

Interesting to note the tussle for the meaning of ‘democracy’ between PRC, or rather CPC, and the Empire in the CGTN piece.

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-12-04/Opening-ceremony-of-international-forum-on-democracy-begins-in-Beijing-15IRPiuCnsI/index.html

China has learned over the past three years how to defend itself against accusations coming from the combined Western influence sphere.  Although we know that the media in general still balances toward the combined Western Sphere, there is now a serious contender in the room with the ability, incredible speed of implementation, track record, education, and creative expressive talent to gain media supremacy in getting their message to the world.

Oh, the poor ‘partners’ …

Australia

The ‘partners’ are being led by their noses.  The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported that the US and its allies are the “biggest beneficiaries” of Australia’s trade row with China. Washington is in bed with Canberra, at the same time, it points the finger at Beijing and in the background, it picks up Australia’s lost Chinese trade.  So, simply stated, all the trade that Australia lost in their trade row with China, from coal to iron ore to meat, the US quietly picked up.

Taiwan

From Taiwan, I hear a similar activity is taking place but this is not yet confirmed by the needed 3 sources.  The idea of keeping the issues with Taiwan hot, is that the Taiwanese semiconductor foundry company (TSMC), the biggest employer in Taiwan with a raft of supporting industries around it, is being moved lock, stock, barrel, and existence to new facilities in Arizona.  We will wait for more confirmation, but this is a very dangerous move to make, as TSMC is not only the biggest semiconductor company in the world, the industry itself depends on a highly educated and trained workforce.  The Taiwanese workforce will lose its lunch.

But…

Following the US sanctions, China’s government stood up and took notice, and, being China, it wasn’t long before they developed a long term plan: Build from the ground up an entirely China developed chip manufacturing system that is 100% free from foreign companies and intellectual property.

Beijing hired over 100 TSMC specialists to help build their own semi-conductor industry and has been diligently building its own chips so it is not reliant on Taiwan:

https://sputniknews.com/20200812/beijing-seeks-100-tsmc-chip-staff-in-bid-to-boost-chinese-tech-self-reliance-in-major-trade-war-1080143216.html

To that end, a couple of years ago China set up several institutes of technology dedicated to training the physicists, engineers and workers needed to develop chip manufacturing techniques and technology that is free of western IP. The timetable is to be able to bulk manufacture 14nm chips (think PC desktops from two years ago) by 2024, to manufacture the current generation of chips by 2028 and to be equal with the best in the world by 2030.

The Chinese know that the “silicon tech route” is nearing its end and so they know that they can’t win the competition following that route. So their investments in the silicon route will remain limited.

The thinking in China is now focused on what comes after “Moore’s Law”. They know that the West is invested in the silicon route and needs to recuperate its huge investments by generating profits in that route. This means that the West will not be able to focus its investments on newer routes for the foreseeable future. Such a situation is seen as an opportunity : few competitors and the potential to being first to master these new technological routes.

Chinese technology institutes are fully immersed in these new routes. And huge investments are now being realized to try to leapfrog the Western Silicon Route by focusing on carbon chips or photonic-chips that seem to promise far higher speeds and far lower energy consumption…


China’s New Hypersonic Aircraft Is Based on a Rejected NASA Design

And it can go faster than five times the speed of sound.

A team of researchers in China has built and tested a prototype hypersonic flight engine that is allegedly based on a design that was scrapped by NASA over 20 years ago, according to a report from the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

The prototype itself might not lead to a production version of hypersonic aircraft. Still, in a paper in the Journal of Propulsion Technology, the team behind the machine said “understanding its work mechanism can provide important guidance to hypersonic plane and engine development.” 

NASA’s scrapped X-47C program is revived

The original design was proposed by Ming Han Tang, a former chief engineer of NASA’s hypersonic program in the late 1990s. Tang’s Two-Stage Vehicle (TSV) X-plane design was at the center of the Boeing Manta X-47C program, as per the SCMP report. However, before the program could verify the viability of the design, it was terminated by the U.S. government due to its high costs as well as a series of technical issues.

Unlike the majority of hypersonic aircraft proposals, which feature an engine on the underside, the TSV X-plane design by Tang has two separate engines on each side. At lower speeds, the engines work as normal turbine jet engines. With no moving parts, the configuration then allows the aircraft to quickly switch to high-speed mode to accelerate to more than five times the speed of sound.

Now, Professor Tan Huijun and colleagues at the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics in Jiangsu, China, have constructed a prototype based on Tang’s original specifications. They were able to do this due to the fact that the blueprints for the Boeing Manta X-47C program were declassified in 2011. Huijun and his team tested the prototype in a wind tunnel that allows testing in conditions resembling flight at Mach 4 to Mach 8. The tests revealed that Tang’s proposed engine design works in these conditions, meaning they should be able to conduct further tests and build new iterations of their prototype. 

The race to go hypersonic

The U.S. and China are in the midst of a space and aviation race. According to the SCMP article, a number of high-profile Chinese scientists quit NASA and other government engineering firms in the U.S. in the late 90s due to strained relations between the two countries. This reportedly coincided with the start of China’s hypersonic weapons program in the early 2000s.

China’s space agency recently announced that it is building a fission reactor for the Moon that will reportedly be 100 times more powerful than one in development by NASA. China’s government also announced earlier this year that it will collaborate with Russia on a lunar space station, which will directly rival NASA’s lunar Gateway program. In October, China also launched a hypersonic missile with “an advanced space capability” that took U.S. officials by surprise.

In July, meanwhile, the U.S. Air Force granted a hypersonic aircraft startup called Hermeus a $60 million contract to develop a prototype aircraft within three years that could travel at speeds of Mach 5 using only one engine. The race to go hypersonic is in full force.

China facts tell it all.

Seriously. When you see what the United States is, how it operates, and what it is doing you cannot help but come to the most obvious of obvious conclusions. video 60MB

Impressions of China

video 24MB

How Chinese Democracy works…

What most people seem not to know is that this internal process of representation in the party is mirrored at the level of state institutions :

— direct public elections take place at the local level of rural villages (since the nineties if my memory serves me well). Everyone can decide to be a candidate and all villagers can vote for the candidate of their choice. Cities rely on voluntary participation in local “quarters” (sorry I don’t know the right English word). The same goes on in the lowest party structure which is the local cell.

— the elected officials of the multiple villages then elect their representatives at the district level by choosing among themselves who they think is the most qualified to have authority over themselves in the future.

— and this representation mechanism is repeated at the higher institutional levels till the top echelon the Political Bureau.

The West calls democracy the fact of voting for representatives every 4 or 5 years. But in the meantime the citizens have no say over any decisions at the different institutional levels of state power.

In China things are quite different.

Representatives, elected directly by the people or elected among themselves, have to implement the will of the people. This is done through various consultation mechanisms.

Direct consultation means asking for the citizens’ opinions about the texts of a legislation before it is being voted upon… Some legislation texts come for public consultation then are reworked by the Congress and the reworked version comes back for further consultation…

Indirect consultation means various polling techniques. The implement of the will of the people necessarily implies that congress members know what the people want. Polling in China is not about getting someone elected. It is about legislating according to the will of the people…

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A taste of China

Dancing at the gateway to the Tibetan plateau. video 4MB

William Buffet Explains

Video 2.4MB


The Chinese are able to save money

They they can. In a nation that is not for-profit, that cares about the well being of it’s people, of course families can save, strive and grow. video 6MB

All the latest from Godfree Roberts’ newsletter,

Here Comes China:

BeiDou conducted the first inter-satellite and ground station communication using using lasers instead of radio signals, transmitting data a million times faster than radio and increasing satnav accuracy 4000%. Read full article →

A high-speed railway linking China to landlocked Laos opened Friday. The 660-mile, 160 km/h line runs through mountains and ravines from Kunming to Vientiane. Read full article →

Premier Li Keqiang says the establishment of a centre in Hong Kong to handle Asia – Africa trade and investment disputes will strengthen the city’s role as an arbitration hub and “provide more convenient and efficient dispute resolution services” for parties in both regions. [It also bypasses the WTO–Ed.] Read full article  →

China’s service trade rose 13% YoY to $659 billion in the first ten months of the year. Service exports rose 29% YoY, and service imports rose 1%. In October alone, the country’s service trade hit 414 billion yuan, up 24% YoY. Read full article  →

China now leads the world in trade of both goods and services and its trading partners now cover 230 countries and regions. China contributed 35% of the growth in global imports in the past five years. Read full article  →

Meeting its carbon goals could save China trillions: China could dodge $134 trillion in climate-related losses by meeting carbon neutrality targe. China is predicted to see an 81% reduction in its accumulative climate-related losses by 2100 if it achieves its carbon neutrality target, according to a new study from think tanks in Beijing and London. Read full article →

And extreme ethics violation in my view:  In 2018, Dr. He Jiankui shocked the world by announcing that he had used the CRISPR genome-editing technique to alter embryos that were implanted and led to the birth of two children. Today, the children are healthy toddlers and Western researchers want to get their hands on their DNA.  Read full article →

China has doubled installed renewable energy capacity since 2015, to one billion kW, or 43% of total installation: Wind power generation increased 30% year-on-year (299 million kWs), solar power generation grew 24% (282 million kWs), and hydropower remains at 385 million kWs; Cost inflation delays solar energy expansion. Read full article →

New groundwater regulations tackle overuse and contamination of 16 billion m³/year of water. Fines could reach  $783,000 daily. Right now 44% of groundwater monitoring stations record Grade V, the lowest water quality. Read full article →

China is scouring the countryside to find native seed, animal and fish genetic resources in a national germplasm census to protect “family property” and gain self-reliance in crop and animal breeding. “Excellent” plant and animal resources will be protected on company-run farms if they are in danger of extinction or turned over to Chinese breeding companies to exploit their commercial potential to propel Chinese seed companies as global competitors. Read full article →

Guinea-Bissau and Eritrea join the Belt And Road Initiative. Guinea-Bissau covers 36,125 square kilometres, with a population of 1,874,303, and like China’s Macau, was once part of the Portuguese Empire. Eritrea also signed an MoU with China to join the BRI and is expected to cement China’s presence in the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea, with interests ranging from a military base to protect shipping, in addition to infrastructure projects in ports and railways. China has been investing in the country for some time. Read full article →

To conclude, China developed its policies to deal with its national issues. But in so doing it has created both practical and theoretical achievements which are the world’s most advanced. China has never asked other countries to learn from its example, but neither can if forbid them to do so. Given the gigantic scale of China’s achievements anyone with sense in the world will study these intently. The “Resolution on the Major Achievements and Historical Experience of the Party over the Past Century” is therefore not only key for China, it is a document of crucial importance for the entire world. Learning from China.

China is going to grow a lot more.

You bet that it will. video 5MB

China inspirational song

This is big all over China. Let the Western news media and their idiotic leadership howl. China ain’t taking shit from no one. Deal with it. video 5MB

How China selects and trains it’s leadership

So very, very different from the group of morns that run the West these days. It’s actually applaudable. video 80MB

Chinese High Speed Train

It’s commonplace all over China. Not a big deal. video 5MB

Conclusions

Do your best. Be good, and realize that there are places on the planet that have their act together. China is one of those places.

Do you want more?

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You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.

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The REAL reason why China converted all the for-profit schools to non-profit business entities

If you have been paying a little attention at the International scene, you will be aware that China “clamped down” on the for-profit school model that was working inside of China. By the singular ‘stroke of a pen”, many Chinese billionaires suddenly lost a ton-load of money. And the West (read: America and the UK) are all in Shock. “What are they thinking” they holler.

They don’t “get it”. They do not understand. They think that making billions of dollars in profits is a sign of success and vibrancy. But no. It is not.

Again, China is showing the world, that it’s primary role is to take care of it’s citizens first. And if a few billionaires are crushed in the process, then so be it.

China’s hammer blow to private education shows it will do whatever it takes to meet its goals

From HERE.  Tom Fowdy 26Jul21.

Perceived as promoting inequality and a hindrance to birth rates, tutoring in China has suddenly been transformed into a non-profit industry. It’s a ruthless reminder that Xi Jinping will always put the needs of society first.
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In a spectacular display of government authority, China has, with the stroke of a pen, demolished its $120-billion private education industry by forcing it to reform into a non-profit initiative.

The move has cost at least one billionaire his fortune.

It follows a number of crackdowns waged by Beijing against various sectors of the economy which were deemed to contravene the national interest. The ruthlessness of such sudden decision-making has undoubtedly shocked Western observers and capitalist advocates, yet its purpose appears to be twofold.

As highlighted by Reuters, Beijing is dismantling a sector which is not only exacerbating the inequality of education among rich and poor, but is also increasingly perceived as an obstacle to the country’s fertility rates.

So now the hammer has come down on it as a social disruption. It shows that Beijing is prepared to do whatever it takes to meet its national goals, and is another example of how the Chinese Communist Party’s authority has stiffened against the creeping liberalization which the West once welcomed.

Education is of exceptional importance in east Asian societies, and is often considered a determining factor in a family’s status. Parents invest heavily in their children’s future, and as a result the systems in these countries often turn out to be extremely competitive, resulting in an intense commitment towards extra-curricular and out-of-school private study.

This has sparked the development of a huge private education and tutoring sector, with parents investing vast amounts of money to ensure that their children can be among the very best. It is admirable yet strenuous, and it inevitably has a knock-on effect on fertility rates, as each child effectively becomes a massive investment.

The example of neighboring South Korea, which is fully developed, illustrates how in a capitalist society, the zealous over-competitiveness of the education system is having negative effects on society. High-school-age children typically go to school, only to attend private ‘Hagwon’ classes afterwards, which often offer miserable working conditions for the teachers involved.

As a country that is developing fast, China has increasingly been heading in the same direction. Despite being a communist state, this has created a growing urban-rural divide, where the wealthy children of cities such as Shanghai are able to afford these educational boosters, but the poorer children of the provinces are left behind.

This is an obstacle for future growth.

Beijing also now sees this arrangement as dragging down its birth rate, which has become a national priority. A new white paper called for extensive reforms to enable people to be able to afford more children, including in education and healthcare.

As a result, Beijing has clamped down hard on this sector by instantaneously transforming it into a non-profit, sending shares plunging. The goal is not to end tutoring, but to make it more affordable and accessible to all, so the vices of inequality and capitalism cannot strangle society.

It’s a stark reminder that although China embraces market economics, it is nonetheless still a communist – state and under Xi Jinping, it is in many ways hardening its resolve to be so.

And this is, of course, precisely why the West does not like Xi.

The CPC chairman has reversed the trajectory of liberalisation in society, which Western observers once hoped would see China ‘evolve’ into a democracy. Instead, Xi has centralized and consolidated CPC rule.

His strategy is not so much tyranny, as has been caricatured, but based on an increasing belief that if China’s problems are to be overcome, the political will invested into it needs to more resolute.

The education saga helps explain why.

If the private education system was simply allowed to spiral out of control as a capitalist initiative – which is acceptable from a Western point of view – it would become an obstacle for the country’s other socio-economic goals and development.

Increasingly, we see this kind of ruthlessness shape Xi’s leadership of the country – such as at the start of the pandemic, when he imposed a lockdown in Wuhan, which was condemned by the West at the time, yet ultimately paid off.

Although the uncompromising nature of the Xi era has put China on a collision course with the West, it nonetheless may be what the country truly needs to move forward.

Many of his actions are arguably ‘necessary evils’ in the pursuit of a longer strategy, even if one believes they are morally troubling or even unacceptable.

The South Korean model of education is a warning sign of what can happen if an over-competitive educational culture is superseded by the demands of profit. Xi has just made sure this will not happen in China. It shows how the state is continuing to dominate Chinese society and drive forward its vision for the future, even if it means culling billionaires along that road.

Tutoring, healing, feeding humans, providing water and energy should be non profit. Why? 

Why should someone profit by providing basic services? 

Tell me why? 

Remark, non profit does not mean low wages nor free... it could mean efficient, fair, good and appreciated by customers, who would choose the best for them.
Hear! Hear!
Well I agree with the Chinese President because he believes that every child should have equal opportunity at the educational level. 

A poor family cannot afford expensive private tutoring maybe leaving the child from that poor family at a disadvantage when it comes to performance in exams, and the opportunity for a place at university. 

This is the best way to produce the best talent and China as a country will benefit in the future because of this policy.
I have always believed that countries should provide free education based on ability especially in science, technology, maths and medicine. Let them pay for their airy fairy degrees themselves. This is exactly what farmers have done forever, cultivate for best yield.
A brilliant management move by China. 

As it will stop a lot of inequalities, people will blend better with 0ne streamline education, much of one class people, unlike in many countries private schools with troublesome, violent separate races, of different castes. And private schools tend to stretch the boundaries with different courses, subjects and outlandish thinking---not good for a society. 

So much better to have one good public system only- let China show the way. The benefits for all people are ENORMOUS. I bet more than half of the people in the world will applaud 'the one education system.'
The corrosive capitalist mindset will surely turn China into a failed state like the US. It is a relief to see China protect itself and its people from the cancer that will subvert China and lead to its fall. 

Keeping an eye on the pro-West cabals inside China will protect it from suffering the same fate as the Soviet Union. Learn from History!

American and Western media are shocked!

And you can tell how they just don’t have a clue as to what is going on. Reading it, it sounds so “breathless”, “gasping”, “exasperated”, and “frustrated”. Read this article from HERE.

Jeeze! Get a fucking life woman.

I highlighted the “kill words and phrases“.

Can you possibly tell me that this wasn’t processed through AI to develop a thoroughly negative impression of China? And this is just one example of how Americans are manipulated to hate and demonize China.

Check it out. Learn something.

China is extending its regulatory storm from tech to education

Just as China’s regulatory storm against big tech came abruptly and brutally, Beijing’s deepening crackdown on private education companies is plunging the entire sector into an existential crisis.

China’s State Council and the Party’s central committee have jointly issued a set of rules (link in Chinese) aimed at curtailing the sprawling sector that has flourished thanks to massive funding from global investors and ever increasing spending from families fighting to help their children gain a better footing in life. After years of high growth, the size of the after-school tutoring sector has reached upwards of $100 billion, of which online tutoring services account for around $40 billion.

“The timing is also interesting as it coincides with the crackdown on the tech companies, and further confirms the intention of the government to regain control [of] and restructure the economy,” said Henry Gao, an associate professor of law at Singapore Management University, referring to Beijing’s sweeping regulatory overhaul of tech companies including Alibaba and Tencent, which have either been fined for monopolistic practices, ordered to give up their exclusive rights in certain sectors, or, in the case of Didi, have fallen afoul of national security rules.

China’s “double reduction” policy

The rules, released over the weekend, aim to ease homework and after-school study hours for students, which the policy dubbed the “double reduction.” They stipulate that companies teaching subjects covered in primary and middle school, which are compulsory in China, should register as “nonprofit institutions,” essentially banning them from making returns for investors. No new private tutoring firms can register, while online education platforms also need to seek new approval from regulators despite their previous credentials.

Meanwhile, companies are also banned from raising capital, going public, or allowing foreign investors to hold stakes in the firms, posing a major legal puzzle for funds like US firm Tiger Global and Singapore state fund Temasek that have invested billions in the sector. In a further blow to China’s ed-tech startups, the rules also say that the education department should push for free online tutoring services across the country.

The companies are also banned from teaching on public holidays or weekends.

Double-digit reductions in Chinese stocks

The looming rules, first reported by Bloomberg last Friday (July 23), immediately led to a sell-off last week in US-listed veteran education players such as New Oriental Education & Technology and TAL Education. In trading in Hong Kong today, where Oriental floated a secondary listing last year, shares of the company plunged 47% today. Meanwhile, Larry Chen, the former schoolteacher who founded Gaotu Techedu, a major online education player, fell out of the ranks of China’s billionaires.

Major education companies have been quick to say they will comply with the new government rules. New Oriental, the largest Chinese player in this space, said that the new regulations will “have material adverse impact on after-school tutoring services, a sentiment echoed by TAL.

The regulatory developments also spurred a broader $2 billion selloff in Chinese stocks, as the bar on foreign investment for education firms coupled with the crackdown on foreign IPOs after ride-hailing giant Didi confirmed to foreign investors just how exposed their investments are from China’s regulatory actions. Social media and gaming Tencent was down 7.7% in Hong Kong today after China told it to unwind its monopoly on exclusive music licensing rights, while food delivery giant Meitu was down nearly 14% after Chinese regulators today ordered better protections for delivery workers.

Why is China cracking down on education?

While the harshness of the new measures is surprising, the fact that they were coming wasn’t. In March, president Xi Jinping called after-school tutoring services a “social problem,” and in May he again lashed out at the industry’s “disorderly development.” Following Xi’s criticism of the sector, authorities set up a dedicated department to supervise it, including examining tutor qualifications and fees, as well as imposing a ban on teaching preschoolers primary school materials.

In addition to Beijing’s desire to put the brakes on tech sectors that it believes expanded too chaotically, the turn to education indicates the government’s worries about China’s dropping birth rate. One of the major purposes of the new rules is to “effectively ease the anxieties of parents,” as well as reduce family spending on education, according to the government document. A major obstacle for Chinese citizens to have more than one child is the sheer cost of doing so, and in particular the difficulty of securing a quality education, which authorities promised to address in May, when introducing the third-child policy.

One Chinese teacher Quartz spoke to noted that it may be middle-class families who feel this policy the most, given they are most likely to push their kids into tutoring. Affluent families, after all, can still engage private tutors or send their children abroad to elite schools.

“The new rules will benefit those who are in the grassroots class that don’t have much time or energy to supervise children’s studies,” said the teacher. “But for people like us who are in the middle-class bracket, we will be hit the hardest.”

The next target of China’s infinite crackdown

The new rules are yet another razor-sharp warning to global investors that high returns from investment in China Inc can turn into huge losses overnight.

Yuanfudao, one of China’s largest online tutoring service startups, raised $2.2 billion in two funding rounds partly led by Tencent in October, pushing its valuation to over $15.5 billion. But now it is unclear what will happen to the stakes held by investment firms, especially foreign ones, after the new rules dashed hopes of cashing out through upcoming IPOs.

“This incident highlights the crucial importance for global investors to have people who understand China, who can decipher investment risks from minor nuances in mundane government documents…Any company that wish to operate in China should put China’s regulatory uncertainties as the biggest risk factor,” said Gao, the professor.

The education sector is not the only one that needs to worry about government scrutiny, however.

On Weibo, many commentators have pointed at the housing market, whose skyrocketing prices have been cited often by citizens as a major difficulty to having children, as the next target of crackdown. In an analysis, Chinese financial columnist Jin Lun argues that any industry that is seen as contributing to people delaying having children will be a potential target. “High housing prices will also be cracked down as an ‘enemy’ that has been weighing down the birth rate. While the industry will continue to exist to meet demand, there is basically no hope of continuing to see housing prices rise,” wrote Jin.

Conclusion

This little article combines two other articles. The first was one from RT written by a long time Chinese observer. He describes what is going on and why. China is trying to avoid the “death traps that has so violently polluted the West.

The second article is how the event is “reported” in the American “news”. In this case MSM. It’ reads like a breathless hysterical document, and when you highlight the “Kill Phrases and words” the enormous density of them is strongly suggestive of AI processing.

How American “news” is written.

And as I have reported in the past, the “millions of dollars” to “control the anti-China” narrative funded by neocons is pretty relentless. This is just one such example. Can you possibly imagine what others might be?

Currently, Western Media is mostly inundated with lies about China since it's being demonized as the Enemy du Jour by the Outlaw US Empire and its vassals, so much of what's published is rubbish. 

...Chinese media has much greater credibility. I'll close by saying this older publication detailing China's national plan for implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as promoted by the UN contains the underlying rationale for many of China's policies.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jul 26 2021 20:32 utc

Meanwhile, in China, all is good.

I took some videos today. Enjoy. It’s a video (in five parts) of me walking out of my house, down the street, and getting a breakfast at Burger King. It’s everyday MM, but it will give you all a glimpse of what the “real” China is like.

Video One – Out the door

Video Two – Outside the Complex.

Video Three – Down the street.

Video Four – Burger King

Video Five – Past the quarantine zone.

Some thoughts…

I was in China teaching English in universities and to private students for much of the last fifteen years. I tried to go to a different province every year in an effort to understand China better. My subject was Oral English, and so my classes were entirely conversation. 

Some things I saw:

1) Chinese generally are intensely patriotic although they may disagree with certain aspects of Chinese systems.

2) Class leaders and local leaders are ELECTED. Higher level leaders are selected by committees.

3) Chinese fashion looks longingly Westward, imitating hip-hop and clothing and even playing some latest Western hits to attract people into stores.

4) China has 95% eliminated paper and coin currency.

5) Chinese somehow think Western faces are more beautiful. Nose and eye jobs are common. I tell them their features are considered beautiful in the West. They are unfazed. 

6) A mask is commonly worn for issues like a big pimple, a cough, or heavy pollution.

7) People generally follow rules without a problem, except when they don't. Cheating happens.

8) China has large land masses of designated minority areas with nominal or actual autonomous government. The population in these areas is not large, however. 

9) Many many of those pushing their children in after school programs are hoping their children can go study abroad, and even maybe move abroad eventually.

10) Chinese by and large don't know how high their standard of living is compared to other areas. The world ranking don't actually compare cost of living. With good public transportation, well-planned neighborhoods, cheap medical care and top notch education, I admire China.


Posted by: HelenB | Jul 26 2021 23:19 utc | 63

China resembles the America that I grew up in.

What America was.

Not the America of today, a land ruled by psychopaths, serviced by zombie-serfs and slaves, and decay all around.

This situation, where the stark difference is a “bitch slap” to the American government, the American leadership, and the American structure is too alarming. And the evil, corrupt leadership dos not like it one single bit.

America used to be a land with factories. Real. Honest to goodness factories. Places where things, parts were fabricated and made. Like this…

America used to have real factories.

Today, America has precious few factories. Most of what constitutes as a factory (on the government listings) are best described as “design centers”, and “corporate headquarters”. The buildings look nice, and it’s all so shiny, new and clean. But, it’s a land of cubicles, and accountants. Of lawyers, and Human Resources. It’s staffed by finance and marketing types. Very few actual engineers or workers.

Anyways…

You have heard it all before. Haven’t you?

It just makes me want to get with a beloved pet, a cat and just hang out or snuggle.

Just some pictures of people snuggling with their cats…

Snuggle 1.

Snuggle 2.

Snuggle 3.

Snuggle 4.

Snuggle 5.

 

Do you want more?

I have more posts in my New Beginnings index here..

New Beginnings

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Articles & Links

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Examples about how the Chinese teach their children to be successful

When I was growing up, my father did his best to give me an education. And throughout this time, he repeatedly emphasized that my future depended on the type of job that I had, and the size of the company that employed me. Larger companies offered more opportunities than smaller companies, and the more education that I would have would provide two things for me. Firstly, they would increase the job pool that I could choose from, and secondly they would enable me to start off with a higher salary than others.

He meant well, and certainly that formula worked well for his generation, but my generation suddenly became the “disposable worker” generation and layoffs became more common than not, and no one ever ended up with a job for life. Couple that with my role in MAJestic, and it was really a dog-eat-dog survival life with more than enough highs and lows.

And what you want to do, as a parent, is to make sure that your children have it better than you. Maybe not necessarily easier, but certainly better; more opportunities, and a chance, a real honest-to-goodness chance that they will be able to make a life for themselves in a world that is subject to whims and changes beyond their control.

Well, I am in China. And the Chinese have seen dramatic changes in their lives over the last thirty years, and many generations of Chinese have sacrificed and existed in a situation where there just wasn’t much in the way of any opportunities. And so they remain cautious, but guarded, about their children.

And thus, knowing that the (proverbial) rug “could be pulled out from under their feet”, many middle-class Chinese do what ever they can to guarantee that their children are equipped with the kinds of skills to make it, and survive in a contentious and changing world. And while China (as a nation is secure and prosperous), things could change. And as such, no one is taking any chances.

The educational system in China is not only great, but absurdly so. Not only do elementary students learn Chinese languages, and history, but they learn English as well, and their entrance into university is predicated on their ability to speak and pass English qualification exams.

Which makes things very interesting, as I will often see children studying all the time, jut about everywhere. Couple that with secondary classes that their parents also provide for them. These other classes range from swimming to dancing, to archery, to martial arts and everything in between. Some go into robotics, while others study the arts. And with that in mind I would like to present some videos of Kindergarten to first grade Chinese students…

They are all zipped up in a small 30MB file. I think that you all will enjoy them.

You can get the file HERE.

Conclusion

These children are not the exception. They are the normal average. If America believes that it can compete against China then they will need to reconfigure the school curriculum towards STEM subjects, and less on the soft social and humanities. They will also need to be very serious about the environment hat they are raising the children within.

For a nation of “lone wolves” can never truly work together without fighting, squabbling, and performing uncharacteristically self-defeating behaviors.

Do you want more?

This article is going into the China vs. America comparisons index.

USA vs China

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Articles & Links

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Some of the new “stuff” and developments that the Chinese are working on from a technology and gadget perspective.

China has been exploding with all sorts of new things, products and innovations. Most of which has yet to catch on in the West. There are many reasons for that, but the biggest one is regulation. People who possess new things; new products; new ideas, must get permission to use them. And in the West (especially inside America) this takes time.

For instance, in the 1990’s I was the Principal Engineer for a company that was leading the world in LED technology for automobiles. We were working on tail-lights, head-lights, and courtesy lights. We were pretty cutting edge for the time. And our products were great, and worked well.

The thing was that they could not be used in cars or trucks because the regulations that existed defined the characteristics of the lighting mechanism itself – an incandescent bulb, and not the end result; the ability to have a lighted area at a specific distance.

So in order to put our new, cheap and reliable system on the market we need to get around this “roadblock”. We had to petition to change the regulations to accept results-based measurement criteria as opposed to design-based measurement criteria. And when we started to do that, boy oh boy, did we “open up a can of worms”.

No one was happy.

It’s a long story and maybe I’ll get into it some other time. Anyways, LED technology did eventually enter the automobile market, and today it’s actually rare to see incandescent bulbs being used with the same kind of commonality that used to exist.

You must understand. Over the many years, the evil and corrupt, have corrupted business, technology and society and bent them to do THEIR bidding. And it was fine and well when no one noticed what was going on…

…and China has shown the way. Where big and small, everyone can live their lives and make, grow and innovate free of government interference’s. And while it is all possible that RAH! RAH! American exceptionalism will shine through…

…the fact is that it won’t.

Not until all those millions and millions of tiny little hands are out of your wallet. Sure, you can allocate 500 million dollars to a new hospital system. And you know what you will get? A bunch of reports “evaluating” the various studies on building the hospital system. You will not get a hospital.

All these little hands are put in place by decades of crime and corruption by the oligarchy. And they are not going away.

What am I talking about?

I’m talking about this…

Yeah. You can buy a complete box of 20 for under $1 at the local store.

Crime and corruption has ruining America. And because the government has done absolutely nothing about it, it will not matter what pity saying the leadership says, what speeches that they make, what money they allocate. Because nothing will actually get done.

Look at this example…

Video HERE.

Innovation is really more than just a trivial interest of mine. My non-MAJestic career spanned four decades of R&D, NPD and new emerging technologies all across the board.

Not only was I dealing with what ever the fuck I was dealing with in MAJestic, but also I held my “day job” which was involved in R&D, and NPD.

And today…

America is clueless. Absolutely clueless.

Stuff that America hasn’t a clue about.

Stuff that when America innovates that it uses Chinese interns, and Chinese immigrants on visas to design, make and develop. They work inside an American company. And it is the American company that gets the credit. Not the Chinese engineers and scientists.

Look at the winners of the World Mathematics Competition; it’s America!

Woo! Woo! America is number one! Yee-Hawwww!

But look closely…

Here we are going to talk about some of the “cool” things in China now.

I can have thousands of videos as the Chinese are “out of control” in innovation, engineering and design. Some of which is silly, some of which is awkward, and some of which is just… hum. But I picked some of the more interesting technologies in this post. I hope that you enjoy them.

This is a video dense article. Please allow time for the videos to load. For the most part, they are worth it.

5G AI Flooring

Lighted floors with movies and animation isn’t new in China. They have been around for at least a decade now and are semi-common in movie theaters, malls and KTV venues. But the latest designs are really very cool as they have motion sensors in the floor panels and 5G AI responses. The result is really interesting. As in this video…

Video can be accessed HERE.

As you move, the tiles light up and react to you.

I can see some great applications on dance floors and other venues of a similar nature.

Interesting applications for the tiles

Actually, these panels are really cool. They can sense a person on them, and near them as well as what you are doing. And as such they react appropriately. LOL!

Each panel has it’s own little micro-computer. And can work independently or as part of a cluster of times.

Video HERE.

Wall based AI

And, of course, what can go on the floor can also go on the wall. As this video clearly shows. Again, kind of nice. But the applications can be astounding. Think of advertising boards where you can touch the advertisement and interact it in language (any) or where it could link up with your cell phone.

Video HERE.

Drone jellyfish

Here’s a new type of drone. It’s based on jellyfish, and uses a bladder filled with a lighter than air gas…

Video HERE.

I can see cluster of jellyfish drones are working together in a swarm…

…silently, quietly and stealthily. All performing non-invasive tasks where no one takes notice.

Debit Card Technology

One way foreigners will use #CBDC in China during the 2022 Olympics will be with a CBDC card and automatic exchange machine!

Banks are going all-in on CBDC as it represents their return from payment irrelevance and are showing their latest tech at the China Digital Summit. 

Bank of China just revealed an automated exchange machine that looks like it will see use at the 2022 Olympics. 

“Overseas nationals with valid passports can put foreign banknotes into the machine, which will issue a physical e-CNY card based on the exchange rate. The card looks similar to the card-based digital yuan hardware wallet that was seen back in January.” 

“The prototype of the e-CNY card for foreigners also has a small screen that shows the available balance of the hardware wallet and can be used in shops that have an e-CNY payment terminal.” 

The same machine will also likely take foreign ATM cards according to patent filings I saw months back. 

I'm certain a bank sponsored e-CNY app will also be available for the Olympics as foreign cards are now accepted for tourists on #Alipay and #WeChat Pay. 

Fun to see the new developments! 

-The Block Crypto

In China, the debit cards show just how much money that you have in the account in real time…

Video HERE.

Add and delete money easily with no fees

And here’s another video showing how you can add or delete money to the account. Note that there are no fees to do this like in the USA. In fact, everything is fee-free and so easy and instantaneous.

Video HERE.

Recharging remotely

Of course, in China everyone uses electronic payments and banking. So it makes sense for you to recharge the card as necessary from your cell phone.

Video HERE.

Not that having a card is necessary. Most people no longer carry cards. They just carry their cell phone and that is it. But having a card is really handy for other purposes, like to give a gift to children, or to allocate a budget for the purchase of a particular item.

Next year most Westerners will experience this card during the Olympics.

Huawei Ring Innovation

”The U.S. embassy in Denmark threatening to cancel its subscription with a local newspaper if it used Chinese telecommunications equipment is an example of "coercive diplomacy," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Friday.”

“The Danish newspaper Politiken revealed on April 25 that it received an email from the U.S. diplomatic mission in the country asking it to verify whether it uses electronic devices, including routers, modems, and electronic communications equipment, from five Chinese companies, namely Huawei, ZTE, Hytera, Hikvision and Dahua and their subsidiaries and affiliates.” CGTN on Twitter.

-LinkedIN

Speaking of cell phones. Here’s a ring that you can use to control your cell phone with. Apparently it is an option on all the new Huawei phones.

Video HERE.

Huawei Automobile Innovation

Speaking of Huawei. You know Huawei hasn’t stopped with cell phones either. They have developed all sorts of really cool things for the automobiles. Not American automobiles, of course. For the Chinese automobiles. Like this…

Video HERE.

Granted many of the technologies are cool, but I don’t know how practical. Like this trunk opener. Maybe it’s all “Gee Wiz”, but do you really need it?

Video HERE.

Electronic window tinting

However, this next bit of technology is really cool. It’s self-tinting windows. Now available on Chinese cars. But, of course, it will takes years to be approved in America as you would have to run the SAE gauntlet as the various state agencies that regulate the innovation adaptation in automobiles. But in the rest of the world, it’s really cool.

Video HERE.

Swarm Drone Technology

Drones are “old news”. But what people don’t realize is that they are a Chinese technology with most of the commercial drones being made in China. And they are constantly innovating. The swarm drone technology is pretty much mature, and China has been using this for at least five years that I know of. What is really interesting is that the drones can create three dimensional images that your cellphone can scan in real time and link up with on the internet.

Video HERE.

Goopy Shit

Here’s some sticky goop for rodent, and crowd control. I’d hate to have to clean it up afterwards!

The direct video can be accessed HERE.

Fraken-camera

Here’s a Fraken-camera. It’s cool, and for a photography buff would probably be the “cat’s meow”, but gosh almighty it does seem like over kill, doesn’t it?

The video can be found HERE if it fails to load.

But you never see this in the American Media…

You NEVER read about Chinese innovation. So you assume that because you don’t see anything that China just is unable to innovate.

And with all the anti-China propaganda, this is what most American believe. Such as these quotes…

China doesn't innovate (central planning is incapable of innovation because creation/innovation requires market competitiveness and front-line payout/incentive).But central planning-based countries can cheat and steal. And that is what China does. 

-6 posted on 7/28/2019, 10:44:53 AM by RoosterRedux
Another sheeple on Free Republic chimes in…
Innovative my ass. Have yet to see anything innovative from the Chinese that they didn’t steal from us. That’s why they won’t fold to Trumps trade war. They know they would be screwed without their thievery.

-14 posted on 7/28/2019, 11:19:28 AM by Bommer

This is what Americans and the Western allied block think about China, but it is actually not true at all.

China can and does innovate. China has been the leader in innovation for a decade already. In fact, many people gloss over all the “tell tales” of innovation such as China lock on all the 5G patents, and it’s command of the patents on Artificial Intelligence, robotics, and manufacturing.

China today, is the leader in innovation.

You do not hear about innovation.

Instead all you hear about is how dangerous and evil China is.

And you know that this statement is true. The American media would rather die than say anything good about China. But what do you expect? America is a Military Empire, and it demands absolute servitude.

This too is very true.

In fact, this was so very obvious when you watched the absolutely arrogant Biden Administration layout it’s terms to a stunned Chinese audience in Alaska in April 2021.

Perhaps some clarity is needed WHY the American military Empire is so pissed that the Chinese isn’t backing down, and instead standing up to the Arrogant American bullies.

China knows what is at stake. It’s a merit-driven leadership that has read history, and know what to expect from America. So they have readied themselves against the huge dragon the snarls, spits fire, and eats up others in it’s never-ending appetite for gold, oil and riches.

China has prepared.

And America does not like it.

Not one bit.

I love this video. I posted it on another post, as this is a military unit stationed in XinJiang. But it’s an absolutely awesome video. And worth a look. China does not play.

I mean it.

China will use every method at their disposal to stop, and destroy radical CIA-backed terrorists from doing damage, and then they will go after their sources of funding, their training and their “safe” and “distant” handlers. As China grows, so does it’s muscle. If Turkey is involved, or if the United States is involved, you will see China establish covert and secretive units to take out the instigation elements (read: key people) in their homes in far away safe suburbs. It’s a new world.

Perhaps that is why America is starting to “shake in it’s boots”.

Let's see how safe AR Senator Tom Cotton, Neocon feels in his rural home in the mountains of Arkansas, or John Bolton, or Mike Pompeo. They might no longer be holding office, but they are still "pulling the strings and levers of power". China will put a complete end to all of this nonsense.

And it's war. Right?

This is what all these neocon jackasses have been saying. Read all their writings. Go ahead read the White House report when Trump left office, read the "Long Telegraph". They want to kill and remove the Chinese national leadership and replace them with Vichy people who will be puppets for their American global objectives. Of course China knows what the fuck is going on.

And it's fair game, eh?

You want to attack China. Well, it will fight back. With real, real claws. They have no fucking idea what kind of a "hornet's nest" they are kicking off the tree.

Watch the video.

This very cool video can be obtained directly HERE.

This is just a small picture of the vast array of defensive military that China has amassed to prevent any idiotic American dreams of another Syria, Yemen, or Iraq invasion for “democracy“, and to “rescue the Uighur’s“.

This entire video was filmed inside of Xinjiang.

Keep in mind that not only is the military presence large, but they are well-trained, run by merit, and utilize well maintained, state of the art equipment.

The idea that American troops can go into Xinjiang and “rescue the imprisoned Muslims from the concentration camps” is never going to happen.

Video can be obtained directly HERE.

But that’s exactly why the American propaganda machine is in full gear right now. To make it seem that China is one thing, that it really isn’t.

And we can see this is the comments on American Neocon websites…

“The PLA’s great weaknesses:”
I think you can add:

- Their recruitment pool has been halved by a government imposed one child policy that was maintained years after being understood as destructive by a government that can never admit mistakes.

- Their economy relying on resources (especially oil) that must be imported by sea along sea lanes that cross territory closer to and controlled by their enemies.

- Their economy relying on export markets made up of their major potential enemies.

- Their work force demographics currently transitioning from having a vast majority of highly experienced workers (those in the 45 - 65 age group) to having that group being retired.

-39 posted on 5/1/2021, 5:15:53 PM by conejo99
Obviously the commenters have never been to China, know nothing of China and repeat the neocon narratives as if they are factual.
.
And, you know, that’s why they are called  “sheeple”.  They have strong emotions about something that they have never experienced first-hand. Only from what they read. And so they respond out of extreme ignorance like this…
The PLA’s great weaknesses:

- They have no institutional knowledge on how to maintain force cohesion under fire that is HITTING.

- They cannot prevent strikes by a modern military against their homeland.

- Many of their new weapons systems are cartoon images of the real thing. (their stealth does not work)

- Their logistical infrastructure for manufacturing these new weapons is hopelessly corrupt.

- They STILL cannot manufacture a decent jet engine in numbers.

- You can hear their submarines leaving Hainan Island from Pearl Harbor.

How crushing it will be to them when they are handed their ass.

13 posted on 5/1/2021, 8:30:22 AM by Mariner
It used to be an operational assumption that the rigid, doctrinaire command structure of conscript Warsaw Pact and Chicom forces would result in disarray when key leaders were lost on the battlefield, and by contrast, US forces consisted of individual soldiers ready to step up and take initiative and assume leadership roles when situations demanded. From what I read and hear, I'm not sure those distinctions are as clear as they once were. 

-23 posted on 5/1/2021, 9:44:11 AM by Joe 6-pack
I have been reading these China is going to collapse anytime now stories for 20 years. They have only gotten more powerful.

- 31 posted on 5/1/2021, 10:24:34 AM by setter
They can't do logistics - they have never had to move lots of men and material under pressure. Something the US military is VERY good at (sometimes to our detriment). 

-32 posted on 5/1/2021, 10:25:42 AM by Psalm 73
I have to laugh at this one. “China cannot do logistics“.
.
It is always the same garbage narrative. China is an evil authoritarian regime and the people are huddled ignorant masses and they need rescuing from their evil overlords. Yada. Yada. Yada.
.
The Civil Police publicly beat and incarcerate people daily, and sometimes torture and kill - its no secret except from the West. Filming is rare because of the plainclothes cops are everywhere and will stop and destroy the camera/phone - as are the ubiquitous State cameras watching for people filming.

-42 posted on 5/1/2021, 7:56:47 PM by PIF
Again, the illusions that these people have are comically insane.
.
The only people on the forum that doesn’t agree with the neocon narrative are people who have actually been to China, or to Asia. And they say some sane things, but they are obviously in the minority.
.
No China did not ‘lie about’ their Covid totals, at least for the most case.

I am in Vietnam now. Some similarities between China, and Vietnam. And some BIG differences as well (like I don’t see Vietnam as a threat to America)

There have been a grand total of 35 deaths due to Covid.

Really.

Thirty five.

-48 posted on 5/1/2021, 11:15:04 PM by cba123

They are lone voices, often drowned out by the loud and the ignorant.

China does innovate. There are many technical devices that are made there that are not made here. Hell, you can't even find decent documentation for devices I use because no American companies neither design or make this stuff.

And of course there are some good comments.

America is the place where innovation is dying. How can we expect to produce engineers if there aren't jobs for them here?

26 posted on 7/28/2019, 10:17:45 PM by GingisK

He also responds to one of the sheeple’s comments…

..Have yet to see anything innovative from the Chinese that they didn’t steal from us...

Try to find something like an ESP32 that was made here first. Try to find a Bluetooth Low Energy transceiver on an XBee carrier that was made here first.

Those devices were both made in China. The ICs are made in the USA; however, there seems to be nobody here who will innovate products from them. Crap, people here can't get beyond Arduinos using peripherals that are created in China.

Few people understand how deep the damage to American innovation and engineering goes.

28 posted on 7/28/2019, 10:26:39 PM by GingisK

And this particular post addresses all the “Gung Ho” Sheeple that live off the illusion that the American media propaganda is correct…

... Few people understand how deep the damage to American innovation and engineering goes...
 
That's why I get so annoyed with the "Puff the Magic Tariff" brigades here on FR. Tariffs can work tactically if you have industries left to protect, otherwise they equate to putting expensive doors on an empty barn....while your horses are already grazing in the next county. A massive reduction in the Cost of Liberalism is the most important task to focus on.

30 posted on 7/29/2019, 4:45:36 AM by Mr. Jeeves

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School Lunches from around the world; a look at the differences in society and culture

One of the problems with a social media “echo chamber” is that you are unable to compare things.

That’s what an “echo chamber” is.

It’s talk and “news” about what you want to hear, and fences and barriers to what you do not want to hear.

You listen (day in, and day out) all about how great you are, and how bad everyone else is. And you know, there are no REAL comparisons. Just “rah, rah for us“. And those “other guys…” Well, “they are bad because of [place reason here].”

It’s a problem with all social media. And all these efforts to get rid of “hate” and other opinions that might offend tends to further strengthen the walls that surround these echo chambers. Eventually, all you and your friends within the chambers here is what you want to hear.

Well, we are going to make some comparisons to illustrate the dangers of echo chambers. Whether it is alt-right, or alt-left. And we are going to do it using something neutral.

Let’s look at school lunches.

We will start with a nation that is doing it right. We are going to talk about France. On a scale of 0 to 10, I rate them a 9. Why a 9? Well, they used to serve wine with the school lunches, don’t you know. But stopped doing so in the 1970’s.

Many parents would place one alcoholic drink of their choice in the child’s basket to take to school. Often half a litre of wine, cider, or beer depending on the region. Where there were cases of head teachers disallowing the drink be given to children, it’s said that some parents encouraged the children to drink their wine before they go to school, over breakfast.

...

As recent as it may seem, it was only in September 1981, shortly after the election of François Mitterrand, that alcoholic drinks were banned from high schools once and for all, when water became the only drink encouraged at the table. “In canteens and school restaurants, no alcoholic beverages are to be served, even if water is cut off,” said Alain Savary, Minister of National Education at the time.

-Culture Trip

So it’s a 9, not a 10.

France used to allow schoolchildren to sup wine in between lessons, which is almost unbelievable compared to today’s society. In fact, before the 1950s, French children were not only allowed to drink wine, beer or cider in the canteen, but they were encouraged to do so.

-Why French Schoolchildren Used To Drink Wine Between L

France

Maybe no one is drinking wine, but they do actually have nice lunches and a generous amount of time to enjoy and savor them.

School lunch in France at a country school.

Even the approach to lunch is different. For instance, a typical school lunch in France includes “courses”, including an appetizer, an entrée, and a dessert, accompanied by water or milk. On any given day, a French school lunch could include: A Typical School Lunch in France. Fresh bread and salad; Veal scallops or baked fish with lemon sauce

-French vs American School Lunches - Bistro Chic

French school lunches are very different from those in most other countries, especially those in the U.S.

French children are in school all day, even in the maternelle (roughly equivalent to U.S. kindergarden) and in the pre-school before that. Education covers life at large, including nutrition and meals.

For the French, learning how to eat a meal and appreciate diverse foods is like learning how to read, write and do arithmetic. It’s not an after-thought, or a thing that you must do as you rush from task to task, as is done in America today.

Another typical French elementary school meal.

Lunch is the main meal of the day for children. In French schools this meal has four courses:

  1. Vegetable starter: leafy green salad or sliced or grated vegetables.
  2. The warm main dish, which includes a vegetable side dish.
  3. Cheese course.
  4. Dessert is fresh fruit four times a week with a sweet treat on the fifth day.

The Ministry of National Education requires that the children sit at the lunch table for at least 30 minutes, in order to eat a civilized meal.

The municipal government is responsible for operating the cantine, now more appropriately called the restaurant scolaire, and adhering to the national nutritional requirements which include:

  • Within any four-week period (20 meals), only a maximum of four main dishes and three desserts can be high fat.
  • Similarly, fried food is limited to four meals per month, likely the same four high-fat main dishes.
  • Ketchup can only be served once per week, typically with the once-per-week fries, and only a limited amount provided with the meal. Many school simply don’t serve the high-sugar high-salt ketchup at all.
  • No sweetened and flavored milk, water is served.
  • No daily menu may be repeated within a month.

The municipal government can set prices within the constraints of the national law’s maximum limit and sliding scale.

The result is that, on average, a school lunch costs something like €2.30–2.80. The very wealthiest families might pay €5.40 per meal while those with the lowest of incomes pay €0.15 and free meals are available for those who can’t pay.

A typical lunch meal at a school in France.

American expats have been commenting on how different the rest of the world is compared to America “the best nation”. And they are very angry at being so “hood winked” and lied to.

Growing up, I never really paid attention to the nutritional content in my school’s  lunch program. But now, after having  children of my own, I’m concerned about what food they are eating at daycare, and eventually, what they will be eating in their elementary school.

The US standards for school food are extremely low. Much lower than that of some European countries, particularly France.

Let’s just say if there was a World Cup for school lunch nutrition, France would be kicking our tails right now! When you compare French and American school lunches, it is quite apparent why childhood obesity rates are growing in the US. 

American schools serve lunches that consist of highly processed foods, loaded with sodium, calories, saturated fat, preservatives, etc. And very little of what they serve even resembles real food.

Typical French elementary school lunch.

I walked into the dining room to see tables of four already set—silverware, silver breadbasket, off-white ceramic plates, cloth napkins, clear glasses, and water pitchers laid out ready for lunch. 

I was standing inside my children's public elementary school cafeteria, or "cantine" as the French call it, in our local town near Annecy, France. As part of my research into why French kids are better able to support healthy weight, the local city council gave me a tour of the public school's cantine and kitchen and let me ask any question that came to mind.

There are many theories as to why French people, and French children in particular, do not suffer from weight problems, obesity, diabetes, and hypertension like their American counterparts. 

Eating moderate quantities of fresh and freshly prepared food at set times of the day is definitely one of the most convincing reasons why. 

Daily exercise, in the form of three recess periods (two 15-minute and one 60-minute recess every day) and walking or biking to and from school, is another.

So what do French kids eat at school?

Menus are set up two months in advance by the cantine management staff and then sent to a certified dietitian who makes small "corrections." 

The dietitian might take out a small chocolate éclair and replace it with a kiwi for dessert if she thinks there's too much sugar that week. Or she may modify suggested menus by adding more or fewer carbohydrates, vegetables, fruits, or protein to keep the balance right.

Almost all foods are prepared right in the kitchen; they're not ready-made frozen. 

This means mashed potatoes, most desserts, salads, soups, and certainly the main dishes are prepared daily. Treats are included—the occasional slice of tart, a dollop of ice cream, a delicacy from the local pastry shop. (Check out these photos of a school lunch being prepared on premises.)

Of note: French elementary school students don't go to school on Wednesdays, so that's why there are only four meals.

Another plus for France. Wednesdays are off.

Conversely, in France all school lunches are freshly prepared with real food, not prepackaged. Even the approach to lunch is different. For instance, a typical school lunch in France includes “courses”, including an appetizer, an entrée, and a dessert, accompanied by water or milk. On any given day, a French school lunch could include:

A Typical School Lunch in France…

      • Fresh bread and salad
      • Veal scallops or baked fish with lemon sauce
      • Fruit and yogurt
      • Water or white milk

Compare that to…

A Typical School Lunch in the US…

      • Frozen cheesey bread
      • Frozen chicken fingers or fish sticks and fries
      • Fried apples or chocolate pudding
      • Flavored milk, juice, or soda

Furthermore, a typical school lunch in France lasts about an hour, reinforcing the French tradition of eating slowly and savoring your food.

In the US, children get roughly 20 minutes to finish their meal and socialize with friends, reinforcing the habit of eating fast and not really recognizing what your eating, let along the signs that you’re full.

French elementary school lunch.

Obviously, school lunch programs are not only to blame for childhood obesity rates and unhealthy childhood eating habits.

Children learn from their family and friends and even from television what is “good” and what is “bad” in regard to food and nutrition.

Still, what they learn in school and from their classmates about nutrition can stay with them for the rest of their lives…

Americans in Walmart.

In elementary and high school, my family could never really afford the daily school-provided lunches, which included sloppy joes, French fries, and chicken fingers. At the time, I really wished that I could afford the hot lunch so that I could be like everyone else.

But what I realize now is how lucky I am that I did NOT eat those lunches.

Instead, I would brown bag my lunch with a salad or a sandwich and whatever fruit or dessert we had in the house. By doing this, I not only saved money, but I learned the basics of healthy eating at a very young age and how to differentiate processed food from real, nutritious food.

Fast forward 50 years and I am nearly disgusted to think about what was served to my classmates back then, and even more disgusted that they still serve such unhealthy food in schools today.

I understand that American schools and districts have certain policies about food and that any food is better than none for kids whose parents can’t afford to feed them. But there’s no reason why we can’t serve our children healthy and real food.

From preschool through highschool, the meals served at school cafeterias (les cantines) in France usually consist of five-course meals. An appetizer, main dish, salad or vegetable, cheese or yogurt and dessert. Bread may or may not be an option depending on the meal. (Pictured above is a school lunch from a high school).

"All our fruits, vegetables, fish, and meat are sourced locally, some of them from local farms," according to Dany Cahuzac, the city counselor in charge of school matters, including the cantine. The local bakery delivers bread, a staple of every French meal, every morning. And every two days, there is at least one organic item on the menu. Once a month, an entirely organic meal is served. The only drink offered at lunchtime is filtered tap water, served in glass pitchers.

If you’re not from France, you might be surprised to learn that the cafeteria meals in French schools are normal meals a French family might serve at home. French fries are also a popular food item in France but is not served more than once or twice a week as part of a school lunch.

Another French school meal…

French school lunch.

In the U.S., Time magazine’s “School Lunches in France: Nursery-School Gourmets” seems to have been one of the articles that drew significant attention in America to French school menus.

Consider the CBS News story “Why my child will be your child’s boss”, which explained how Swiss school children are regularly taken into the forest and allowed — no, required — to use saws.

Or the Lenore Skenzay’s book Free-Range Kids describes how a U.S. high school principal threatened to suspend a group of seniors (that is, 18 years old, in their final year of school) for the “dangerous act” of riding their bicycles to school, and a group of parents protested because their 17- and 18-year old children were sent home from school on a train without an adult supervisor.

Meanwhile Swiss children as young as three are given saws to play with, and their kindergarten system advises parents to let 4- and 5-year-old children walk to school alone.

As the children come streaming into the cantine, they sit down at tables of four that are already set and wait for older student volunteers to bring the first course to their table. The child who sits in the designated "red" chair is the only one who is allowed to get up to fetch more water in the pitcher, extra bread for the breadbasket, or to ask for extra food for the table. After finishing the first course (often a salad), volunteers bring the main course platter to the table and the children serve themselves. A cheese course follows (often a yogurt or small piece of Camembert, for example), and then dessert (more often than not, fresh fruit).

"Eating a balanced meal while sitting down calmly is important in the development of a healthy child," adds Cahuzac. "It helps them to digest food properly, avoid stomachaches, and avoid sapped energy levels in the afternoon."

Then there are American school lunches and the concept of ketchup as a vegetable and frozen pizza as a vegetable.

Ronald Reagan’s FY1982 budget proposed US$57 billion in spending cuts, This budget was modified and passed as the Gramm-Latta Budget, cutting US$1 billion from the school lunch program while significantly increasing military spending.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture or USDA was then tasked with the impossible task of maintaining nutritional requirements for school lunches despite the loss of a billion dollars in funding.

On September 3, 1981, the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture announced a joint proposal by the USDA and the Food and Drug Administration to reclassify ketchup and pickle relish as vegetables.

Public outrage led to the eventual retirement of this specific proposal. However…

By 2011, USDA standards accepted just two tablespoons or 30 ml of tomato paste as counting for a full serving of vegetables. This allows a slice of cheese and meat pizza to also count as a full serving of vegetables.

Under American rules, this counts as a serving of salad.

The USDA wanted to change this to require at least a half-cup or 118 ml of tomato paste before counting it as a full serving of vegetables, also requiring more green vegetables and limiting the amount of potatoes served to one cup per week and thus significantly cutting back on the amount of French fries.

But…

The U.S. Congress would have nothing to do with that healthy nonsense, and quickly passed a bill barring the USDA from changing its existing nutritional guidelines.

This was an enormous victory for manufacturers of pre-processed French fries and frozen pizza!

The American Frozen Food Institute is a trade association that lobbied heavily and successfully on behalf of frozen pizza manufacturers including ConAgra and Schwan Food Company, and French fry manufacturers McCain Foods Ltd and J.R. Simplot Company, the last of which was already a supplier to McDonald’s.

Typical Americans.

Meanwhile the actual French people, including their school children, eat only a tiny fraction of the amount of “French fries” consumed by their American equivalents.

So what DO American school children eat?

United States

I suppose that this picture is the IDEAL American lunch meal…

The ideal consists of processed meat, pre-processed instant potatoes with sugar-laden ketchup, a sugar cookie, dessert of canned fruit in a sugar sauce, and a serving of vegetables.

The IDEAL, that is.

American schoolchildren, in general, aren’t as accustomed to eating the same fresh, healthy meals as some of their global neighbors. In the photo series above, the American meal includes chicken nuggets, peas, mixed fruit, mashed potatoes, and a cookie. While that satisfies certain federal guidelines for nutrition, there’s plenty here (preservatives, processed sugar) that’s less than ideal.

Still, the meal doesn’t look that bad.

Of course, as anyone who went to US public schools knows, the meals are rarely this aesthetically appealing.

Plenty of them look like this…

 

“Today, class, we’ll be having brown.”

For an explanation of the #ThanksMichelleObama hashtag, read this piece by Vox’s Libby Nelson.

Throughout the United States, the classic milk carton of white milk is served to the children; The classic milk carton.

"Unfortunately, the variety served at the schools my children went to in the U.S. was usually a rotating menu of burgers, burritos, and tacos. Some middle schools and high schools in California even served  McDonald’s."

Complaining about school lunch is a time-honored tradition. But teens on Twitter have found someone new to blame, tweeting photos of tiny and/or disgusting-looking school lunches with the hashtag #ThanksMichelleObama:

Because healthy eating, particularly for kids, is one of the Michelle Obama’s signature issues, it makes sense that she’d be associated with changes to the federal school lunch program.

But those changes actually started with Congress and were put into place by the US Department of Agriculture.

An “improved” lunch meal served to American Children in the United States. Milk, vegetable, meat. Viola!

Congress passed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act in 2010, requiring the federal government to issue school lunch guidelines based on recommendations from the Institute of Medicine.

Based on the photos above, the act might not always be living up to its name. Let’s look at what is going on in some better detail…

Why the American federal government changed school lunches

The regulations from the US Department of Agriculture require school lunches to meet higher nutritional standards. Which is a good thing.

Meals are now supposed to have more whole grains, less meat and less sodium than in the past, and they have to include at least one fruit or vegetable.

Schools also have to offer a wide variety of vegetables — in one week, they have to offer starches (such as potatoes), dark green vegetables (spinach, kale, and other greens), red or orange vegetables (such as carrots or beets), and beans or peas.

If students refuse to put a vegetable or fruit on their tray, the school isn’t reimbursed for that meal.

Thus it results in all sorts of strange looking meals…

Why American school lunches look so gross

Anybody who went to school can tell you that gross-looking school lunches aren’t new. But the new school lunch guidelines sound like they should lead to healthy, whole-grain rich meals — not the pizza, chicken nuggets, and hamburgers that were mainstays of school lunches in the past.

But…

But…

Why hasn’t it worked out that way?

Partly it’s because school lunches need to be cheap.

When California began a pilot program of serving fresh, local food one day a week, one district learned that two free-range chicken drumsticks for a high school student would cost 80 cents, more than the 60 cents they’re supposed to spend on an entree.

Healthier meals also require equipment that school kitchens, set up to reheat and serve batches of processed foods, sometimes don’t have.

That's correct, boys and girls, the modern schools have kitchens that do not make and cook food. they are designed to reheat pre-processed synthetic food elements.

Districts are also allowed to make agreements with food companies to turn the raw ingredients they get from the US Department of Agriculture into processed foods…

… ensuring they have a constant supply of chicken nuggets.

Schools didn’t stop offering pizza at lunch, a study in the journal Childhood Obesity found: they just started offering healthier pizza, whatever “healthier pizza” means. (It probably doesn’t taste as good.)

Does anyone know what a “healthier pizza” is?

A “healthier pizza” meal in an American elementary school.

Why American school vending machines are empty

Why are the kids emptying out the vending machines, and throwing away their lunches?

#ThanksMichelleObama is almost accurate here, if you can imagine Michelle Obama standing in for the US Department of Agriculture. (It is part of the executive branch!)

For the first time, the USDA now regulates foods that schools sell outside of the school lunch program — the sweet, salty snacks in vending machines and a la carte lines.

A fine American school lunch of Doritos with salsa, plain rice and milk. Yum! And people wonder why I am not sending my Children to America for an education!

American students are used to eat a lot of unhealthy food during the school day.

In the 2005 school year, the USDA says, students drank 452 million sodas, 26 million diet sodas, and 864 million fruit drinks. They ate 763 million candy bars and 1.4 billion desserts.

On average, high school students who ate those foods consumed an extra 277 calories a day, the majority of them empty calories from foods without much nutritional value.

To compensate, we can see the great healthy meals that are offered in the American school dining halls…

Delicious salt and fat laden hot dog, ketchup (it’s a vegetable don’t you know), a small tomato, apple and milk. Yum!

But beginning this school year, everything sold in schools — even outside the national school lunch program — has to meet nutrition guidelines.

Snacks must be under 200 calories, and foods must have some nutritional value — rich in whole grains, or have fruit, vegetables, protein, or dairy as a main ingredient, or contain 10 percent of the recommended daily value of important nutrients.

Sounds good.

But when you have a central bureaucracy dictating everything and bureaucrats deciding adaptation of policy guidelines, along with the toxic influences of big-food, big-education, and big-unions you end up getting what we see here.

So it’s not just Michelle Obama to blame — in fact, technically, she had nothing to do with the regulations.

But that’s the way America is today.

And that is why we see Americans are they are today.

You are what you eat. America today.

Summary of the American nutrition system

The comedy Idiocracy has shown us the way…

From AlterNet

The 2006 cult comedy Idiocracy is having its moment in the sun. Written and directed by Mike Judge, creator of “Beavis & Butthead,” Idiocracy envisions a future corporate American wasteland where Costco is as large as a small city, the food pyramid consists entirely of fast food, and the president of the United States (Terry Crews) is a five-time "Ultimate Smackdown" professional wrestling champion and ex-porn star. 

“So you’re smart, huh?” President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho says to hapless time traveler Joe “Not Sure” Bauers (Luke Wilson), an Average Joe chagrined to discover he’s now the smartest man in the country. “I thought your head would be bigger,” Camacho bellows. “Looks like a peanut!”

Donald Trump's political ascendancy has made Idiocracy seem like prophecy. (Or, per a viral tweet by the film’s screenwriter, a “documentary.”) 

As satire, however, Idiocracy is uneven, precisely because recent events have already exceeded its most trenchant bits of lunacy. In the fictional Idiocracy future, Congress is full of idiots who do nothing but yell, “You’re a dick!” at the president. 

But those antics pale in comparison to stunts pulled by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Trump, a billionaire real-estate developer and reality TV show star whose foreign policy proposals include telling China, Listen, you motherfuckers, we’re going to tax you 25 percent! 

In 2009, Trump purchased the rights to pro-wrestling show “Monday Night Raw” and then sold them back to the previous owner “for twice the price,” according to the World Wrestling Entertainment website. “Since then, the WWE Hall of Famer [has] focused on his ever-expanding real estate empire, his Emmy-nominated reality television show ‘The Apprentice’ and running for president of the United States.”

Mike Judge may be a funny guy, but his mind isn’t exactly subtle. A decade ago when Idiocracy was released, he was already treading well-worn ground by envisioning a future where being unable to pay debts is a crime (see: the return of debtor’s prison), the Violence Channel dominates the networks (see: all of cable), and a plotless film about a farting white ass wins Best Screenplay at the Academy Awards (see: Swiss Army Man, starring Daniel Radcliffe as a farting corpse).

To be sure, there is more than a grain of truth in Judge’s worry that educated people sound like “fags” to a population that speaks “a hybrid of hillbilly, valley girl, inner-city slang, and various grunts.” 

But in order to get the laughs, he went for low-hanging fruit, using eugenics as a plot device, romanticizing the effects of social engineering and coming perilously close to validating the dubious notion of IQ as a social sorting tool.

The film opens with a voiceover explaining that rampant breeding among the dimwitted has undone civilization. After 500 years of exponential idiocy, corporate America has responded by catering to the lowest common denominator. 

Thus, future Starbucks offers hand jobs. 

Fuddruckers has become Buttfuckers. Fox News is anchored by pro-wrestlers. Costco gives out law degrees. And the company behind the energy drink Brawndo owns the FDA, FCC and USDA. 

But the film got the power dynamic backward, thereby softballing its critique. As Adam Johnson pointed out on AlterNet, it decided to highlight “the problem—in this case political ignorance—without addressing its primary culprit: the consolidation of media into large corporations, a PR-fueled think tank industry fed by billionaires designed to promote toxic right-wing canards… and a decades-long corporate assault on K-12 and postsecondary education.”

In my opinion, Idiocracy is one of the great science-fiction films of the past decade. When most people think of science-fiction it’s an action packed Star Wars or Star Trek style space opera with space ships, robots, lasers and lots of action. While these films can be extremely entertaining, the actual “science” part of the equation is somewhat lacking. In my opinion the the most interesting science-fiction films are those based on an event or series of events occurring on Earth and the impact of these events on society.

What makes this form of science-fiction particularly interesting is that a memorable world is set up to allow the film to provide an insight on our current society.

Idiocracy vividly creates a future version of a polluted America where a handful of corporations seemingly run all commerce and social services, advertising is all pervasive and the media is dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. Idiocracy is a very funny film, but also one that asks a lot of uncomfortable questions about where society is heading…

U.K. school lunch

Now for comparison purposes let’s look at one of the “five eye” nations. This is the United Kingdom. You see, the group of five nations share culture, intelligence, society and other aspects of life with some minor differences (as long as it is permitted by the Untied States leadership).

These nations are;

  • United States
  • Canada
  • UK
  • Australia
  • New Zealand

So you would assume that these nations would have a similar lunch menu, but exercise some degree of autonomy in it’s selection…

And that is exactly what happened.

UK Lunch in schools.

A fine copy of American lunches, only with greater portion sizes, less sugars, and less salt. I am going to go out on a limp and say that the UK is on the right path, and following the right direction. No it’s not perfect. But they are trying. They do care.

Other nations have been revamping their school food programs with more nutritious, sustainable food for the better part of the past decade.

Years before Jamie Oliver did his thing, East Ayrshire, Scotland launched a pilot program called Hungry for Success. That program went far beyond boosting nutrition. It also focused on nutrition education; trained cooks; put organic, local food in school meals; and made the cafeteria a cooler place to hang out.

So how’d it go over? A Worldwatch Institute report says 67 percent of the town’s children said school meals tasted better.

It was later adopted nationwide, and elements of the program were later picked up by the UK.

Granted it is much better than what is offered in the Untied States, but it is still heavily laden with salts, sugars and other unhealthy elements and typically devoid of fruits and raw vegetables.

Let’s look at Japan.

Japan

In response to growing obesity rates among children, Japan passed The Basic Law of Shokuiku in 2005. It requires kids to get nutrition and food origin education at all public schools.

Japanese school lunch.

Fittingly for a country with its own rich traditional cuisine, Japan takes its catered elementary school lunches very seriously.

More than just a meal, lunchtime is considered on par with school lessons in its educational importance. It also helps create a bond between schoolmates in a way that perhaps only sharing a meal can do.

Tokyo school lunches are planned by the school’s nutritionist and cooked onsite by a group of staff hired specifically for that task. They prepare big pots of soup and rice and such, which the students on lunch duty retrieve from the kitchen, wheel into the classroom on a big trolley and then dish out to their classmates—it’s a bit like a portable canteen. Outside Tokyo, school lunch centers will make and distribute the food to schools.

Japanese school lunch.

The students on lunch duty dress for the part, in a white kitchen cap and a long white smock-style apron. They also don a regular, flu-use medical mask. As the other students pass by with their trays they accept a bowl of each dish from the lunch-duty kids and take them back to their desks.

Utensils are also provided.

When the children return to their seats, they place their tray on the luncheon mat that they have brought from home and laid out on their desk. Also on the desk should be a pocket pack of tissues, a small hand towel and a cup. Students bring these items from home daily in a little bag that they usually hang off the side of their backpacks. Recently some schools are asking students to bring a toothbrush, too, for a post-lunch brush-up. Teachers eat the same kyuushoku catered lunch at their desks along with the students.

So what do they eat?

Most often rice, soup, a salad and a meat or fish dish.

A 200-milliliter bottle of milk is included daily, but once or twice a month coffee milk or a yogurt drink is served instead.

Japanese school lunches.

The rice dish is rarely plain white rice. Instead it will have something such as mushrooms or wakame kelp mixed through it. It also gets served as fried rice or pilaf. Occasionally the kids get noodles instead. Bread appears as the staple about once a month and almost certainly is sweet. Dessert is served once or twice a week, most often as a piece of fruit, but occasionally as a jelly or pudding.

The soup is most often miso soup, but a variety of soups are served, including other Japanese soups, such as the clear sumashi jiru, as well as Western-style pumpkin soup and Chinese-style egg soup, which make regular, monthly appearances.

Salads appear most days and come in a wide variety—wakame salad, bean sprout salad, French salad, potato salad—but all ingredients, even cucumber, are cooked to prevent an outbreak of stomach virus.

Meat dishes are often served atop rice as a donburi.

Fish is the main dish on average about once a week.

Typical Japanese school lunch.

This is a rough guide, though, as the menu and the frequency of each type of dish differ according to the menu plan arranged by each school’s nutritionist.

The meals often reflect various festive events—both Japanese ones, with pumpkin served at the winter solstice, for example—and non-native ones, such as with a chocolate dessert on Valentine’s Day.

Parents pay for their children’s school lunches, but they don’t pay much; about ¥250 a meal in first and second grade, just under ¥300 in fifth and sixth grade, and midway between those in the middle years.

In line with broader Japanese society, schools here have become very aware of food allergies. The school entrance paperwork will include your child’s allergy information. Schools will likely cater for an allergic child by preparing her lunch without the allergic ingredients and placing it upon the kyuushoku trolley with her name on it.

Japan’s school-lunch system is said to have begun in Yamagata prefecture’s Tsuruoka city in 1889 when a priest-run elementary school served rice balls, grilled fish and pickles to students too poor to bring lunch to school. The move was widely recognized as a good thing, and schools across the nation began to follow suit.

The school lunch system teaches children etiquette, serving and clearing up skills, and aims to teach them to make healthy food choices and positive lifelong eating habits.

Japanese school lunch.

Since it also aims to have students try a wide range of food, teachers have traditionally encouraged them to eat all the food served to them.

Anecdotal accounts from sempai moms include a teacher insisting a student complete his lunch and him sitting there in front of it all the way through the post-lunch playtime and into the next lesson. Even back then the strictness to which the “please eat everything” rule was enforced varied according to the teacher, and today—in line with a shift in wider social values—such an extreme example is unlikely to be found.

Ideally, sharing a meal should be an enjoyable experience that unites a class by helping classmates get to know each other more intimately and understand one another better.

When Japanese parents reminisce together about their own elementary school days, talk of school lunches invariably emerges and, although spoken of fondly, the tastelessness of the dishes is usually the main topic.

It is a palpable bond for them.

Today’s school lunches have improved in taste, with both teachers and students praising them.  It is amazing what happens when parents, and local administrators work side by side and maintain tradition and healthy care for the future of society.

And let’s look at China…

China

In China, the kids eat well, healthy food. The portions tend to be gargantuan. Seriously, but you are not going to get fat on rice, vegetables and fish, are you?

Chinese school lunch.

Chinese school lunch. Notice that the portions are enormous!

Dave took his China images at a college cafeteria in Chengdu. It was school holidays and the campus was nearly deserted, but the cafeteria appeared fully operational. And we were astounded to find at least 30 items -- not including mantou (steamed bread) and rice -- on offer.

Fifteen yuan (a little over two US dollars) bought us the two meals above. With rice and mantou it was far more than we could eat. Mantou (which got hard as soon as it began to lose its heat in the unheated cafeteria) excepted the dishes were all quite good, delicious even. The stir-fried egg and tomato -- slightly sweet and very flavorful -- cauliflower (perfectly crisp-tender and touched with chili heat) and the baby bok choy (also perfectly done, tangled with tender strips of pork) were the stand-outs.

If I were in Chengdu and keeping to a very strict budget I'd be frequenting university dining halls. Think of it -- a day's worth of well-prepared and decently healthy meals for about U$3.

The Global Times ran a nice photo collage on the meals that children eat throughout China it’s a pretty good essay. From the article, (and all credit to the writer)…

Brazil School Lunch

And Brazil…

Brazil’s school feeding program, the second largest in the world feeds 42 million of the country’s school children. Part of Brazil’s Zero Hunger Program, the school lunch program has not only helped reduce child hunger and malnutrition, but it has also started to change how children relate to and understand food, while promoting local agriculture.

Brazil’s constitution requires that 30 percent of the ingredients for school meals be sourced from local, family farms. In so doing, the country has helped some four million of the country’s small farmers and promoted rural development.

As do many countries around the world, Brazil has the double burden of malnutrition and obesity. Poor kids without access to sufficient, nutritious food have a growing access to junk food, and, as a result, obesity is on the rise. Public schools in Brazil are trying to tackle the problem—one of their most effective tools is school gardens. Kids grow their own food and decide what produce to use for their daily school meals, all while building a better understanding of their food and what it means to eat healthy.

Brazil school lunch.

The Brazil lunch program has been praised the world over. Here’s some “take-a-ways” from The Tyee

Lesson 1: Delegate decision-making power to local governments

For most of its history, Brazil’s school feeding program was run from the capital, Brasilia. A federal agency bought the food and distributed it using large food service companies. Menus were more or less the same across the country.

Then, in the mid-1990s, the federal government decentralized the program. It provided dedicated funding to states based on the number of students. State education departments control this account, and the purchasing of food. But school cooks and principals get to craft menus (according to state guidelines and with help from state nutritionists) and report back to the state on the quality of food received.

In the state of Paraná in southern Brazil, local producers have begun to enrich their bread with vegetables, including beets, carrots and cassava, a tuber native to South America and an important part of the traditional diet in the region.

“We want to rescue traditional and healthier eating habits,” explained Andrea Bruginski, co-ordinator of student food and nutrition for the state’s education department. “Cassava, for example, is a traditional food that also offers more fibre, more vitamin B and complex carbohydrates.”

“Different schools have different menu requirements, depending on what grows in the region, depending on what the culture of the school is like, depending on what students are used it,” said Bruginski. “For us as nutritionists, we feel students should be familiar and comfortable with what they’re eating.”

Brazil school lunches compared to American school lunches.

Lesson 2: Craft policies to support small farmers

Brazil has a long history of agrarian activism rooted in the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST) — Landless Workers’ Movement — that emerged in the 1970s to fight for the rights of rural families pushed off their land during years of military dictatorship. The movement is known for bold direct actions, like the massive demonstrations it has organized, but it’s also an effective political force.

In the mid-1990s, it pushed to ensure small farmers could benefit from agricultural policies — like loans, insurance, price stabilization and market access — already enjoyed by big agribusinesses. The government responded with the National Program to Strengthen Family Agriculture — and created a separate ministry for small-scale farming, the Ministry of Agrarian Development. The ministry and the MST were crucial stakeholders in drafting the law mandating 30 per cent local purchasing.

The law has provided an incentive for farmers to organize in co-operatives so they can meet schools’ demands for large quantities of high quality produce.

The AOPA co-operative in Paraná sold about $2 million worth of produce to 382 schools in the state this year. The co-op works with 400 farmers in Paraná and three neighboring states.

Brazil school lunch. This is a vegetarian meal that is provided to elementary school students.

José Antônio da Silva Marfil, the co-op director, told me it has been able to “expand and access more and more opportunities” because of the new demand from schools. The co-op has been able to build new cold storage facilities at its warehouse, and the office now employs a full-time staff of five, including two administrators, two bookkeepers and a floor manager — the people who “make the wheels go ’round.”

“What’s important is that the administrative organization is polished,” Marfil told me. “That’s what makes us work.”

Lesson 3: Regional and local government commitment means more success

Although the PNAE is a national program, state and municipal governments are responsible for implementing it. All states are expected to supplement funding for food (which they do, to varying degrees). Some municipal governments also contribute. State education departments are responsible for food purchasing and maintaining cafeteria infrastructure.

So the program’s level of success depends heavily on how much state and municipal governments consider student nutrition a priority.

In Paraná, for instance, state officials can brag about having one of the highest rates of local food purchasing in the country (40 per cent of food served to students is from local farmers and processors) and one of the highest rates of organic food purchasing. In 2011, they delivered nine tonnes of organic produce to schools; now they deliver 2,414 tonnes.

Brazil school lunch.

Buying local required a big shift on the part of farmers, nutritionists and school administrators here. The two biggest challenges for farmers who wanted to participate in the program were getting through the application process (which consists of about 28 different forms) and then figuring out distribution logistics. Although non-perishable items go to a central warehouse, perishables must be delivered by the producer directly to schools once or twice per week.

In response, program administrators tried to simplify the process. They revamped regional boundaries to better match participating farmers with schools near them. They created YouTube videos to walk farmers through the application process. And they adjusted produce prices monthly, instead of annually, to better reflect market rates.

Lesson 4: Change can be slow, but will pay off

Brazil’s legislature passed the 30-per-cent local law in 2009. Implementing it required a major logistical shift for state education departments that were used to working with large food manufacturers and distributors. Farmers had to become accustomed to the paperwork required to do business with the state.

Even in states where progress has been slower, the school food program is having positive effects. Bahia, in northeastern Brazil, has not met the legislated goal of purchasing 30 per cent of food from family farmers — last year, it was around 20 per cent. But the year before it, it was only six per cent.

Eleneiole Alves Cordeiro is the manager of a farmers’ co-op in Bahia, Arco Sertão Central, that launched three years ago and now has 47 members producing everything from cassava and papaya to bread and the tapioca crackers that are so popular in the region. She said that although the prices offered by the state government through the program are too low, “it is opening doors for our product, spreading our products and interests in different markets.”

And this exposure is proving that small agriculture can produce good quality processed products — the kind of value-added products that can make farming more profitable.

“This spread, this growth, is breaking a paradigm… the stereotype that people believe that family agriculture does not have good products,” said Cordeiro. “That’s a lie. We know we are able and capable of producing quality products, good, dignified products that can contribute to the school feeding program.”

Lesson 5: There must be broad public support

When Brazil created its national student nutrition program in 1954, it was out of dire necessity. At the time, more than half the children in the country suffered from malnutrition. Much of the food used in the program was a commodity donated by USAID and other wealthy countries. For much of its history, the focus was on feeding kids, not feeding kids well, according to Daniel Silva Balaban, director of the World Food Program’s Center of Excellence Against Hunger.

Brazil school lunch.

Former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva began reforming the national school meal program in the early 2000s as part of a much broader vision for food security known as Fome Zero (Zero Hunger).

By then, Brazil had become an economic powerhouse. Industrial agriculture was booming and there was a rising middle class, but many Brazilians, particularly in rural areas, weren’t seeing much improvement in quality of life. Hunger, although not as prevalent, was still a big problem. People were hungry for change — hungry for a more equitable distribution of resources.

Taiwan (elementary school)

School lunch in Taiwan.

On the left: mushroom and minced pork, in the middle: Chinese chives stir fry with tempura, on the right: eggplant (probably stirfry), soup with radish and pork, and steamed white rice.

Singapore

Singapore school lunch.

The Singaporean school lunch looks very appetizing with the colorful plate. Singapore, a multicultural society where diverse cultures, languages and religions coexist, has its strength when it comes to food choices and quality. Although Marina Bay Sands is often recognized as the city’s modern landmark, Singapore is also known for its delicious street food.

People buy meals from outside food courts, and Singaporean students enjoy their lunches in the same way. Students in a Singaporean school go to a tuckshop, a collection of different stalls rented to a private cook, and choose between Singaporean and Western food.

Spain

From Medideas… Titled “School Lunch in Spain vs. School Lunch in the US” (all credit to the author)…

My memories of cafeteria food from public school in North Carolina are less than glamorous. I recall plenty of fish sticks, powdered mashed potatoes, questionable ground beef, and the occasional cup of bright green sherbet.

But at Colegio Santa María del Bosque, lunchtime is a very different experience. Every meal consists of two courses, served family-style in huge metal bowls.

Some aspects of school lunches in Spain are similar: the never-ending noise, the barely contained chaos, and the long tables reminiscent of those I used to sit at as a student. However, at lunchtime in Spain, there are no lines, no trays, and definitely no neon dessert.

Not to mention the fact that a team of sweet, smiling women prepares and serves the food. Indeed, these women take pride in feeding the army of kids and teachers that descends upon them each day; a far cry from the perpetually grumpy lunch ladies of my childhood.

What Are Spanish School Lunches Like?

On my very first day of school, I sat down with the other teachers at a table across the room from our students. I was entirely unsure of what to expect, as it was my first school lunch in Spain.

Within a few minutes, one of the lunch ladies brought out a heaping dish of paella: steaming yellow rice dotted with carrots, peas, potatoes, and tender pieces of bacalao (cod).

Of course, this wasn’t the same as the version I’d eaten in Barcelona at a touristy waterfront café; no cast iron skillet, no plump prawns, no mussels or clams, or sprigs of parsley. And I’m sure it bears little resemblance to the authentic delicacy you can only truly taste in Valencia, where the dish originated.

But on my first day of teaching, after trying to keep a group of exuberant eight-year-olds under control for an hour, this paella could not have tasted any better.

Typical School Lunches in Spain

In the months that have passed since that first day, school meals in Spain have rarely been disappointing. Generally, I enjoyed the food laid in front of me each afternoon. I have feasted on the simplest “tortilla española” in all its greasy delight; and warmed my soul with “solferino” and “crema de calabaza”, thick and hearty vegetable soups. I have stuffed myself with salty slabs of thinly sliced pork atop lettuce and tomatoes drowning in vinegar and olive oil. 

I have been introduced to “cocido”, the classic “madrileño” comfort food consisting of broth, noodles, stewed chickpeas, garlicky cabbage, various meats, and chunks of pure fat. And I have ended every meal with a piece of fresh fruit: apples, bananas, mandarin oranges, plump green grapes, and slices of juicy melon.

This alone is enough to forever cement in my mind the superiority of school lunch in Spain. Who needs powdered chocolate pudding when you’ve got good old-fashioned produce?

The Not-So-Great Side of School Lunch in Spain

Of course, there have been a couple of dishes that even I—a fairly adventurous and open-minded eater—have regarded with suspicion. Hard-boiled eggs covered in mayonnaise? Maybe not.

Pasta salad with tuna and black olives? Not my personal favorite.

And there’s no doubt that one would enjoy some of the typical Spanish dishes at my school more if they didn’t prepare them in industrial-sized batches. However, I am determined to give all of it a try, at least once.

If there’s anything I’ve learned from my time in the comedor (cafeteria), it’s that sometimes the most delicious and satisfying meals are truly found in the most unexpected of places. Namely, on plastic plates at a kid-sized table in an underground room filled with dozens of shouting children. ¡Buen provecho!

Thailand

From Thai School Life, and credit to the author…

Today I want to talk a little about the steps students go through to eat at school. As you can see in the top picture, the students are all lined up to receive a bowl of rice soup from one of the serving ladies. What makes this a little different to Western countries is that the students will “wai’ and say thank you before they take the bowl of food. This is ingrained into the students. They must always “wai” first before receiving anything.

Thailand school lunch.

Other schools, particularly the secondary schools, are a little different to us. They might have lots of little stalls in the canteen and the students can choose what they want to eat every day. At my school, the menu is set and there is a four week rotation. In total we have 20 meals which I will tell you more about later. So, the students all eat the same. No-one brings food in from home. By far the majority are Buddhists and maybe only a handful are Muslims.

On most days, there will be a tray of condiments which the students will use to make their meal more tastier. In some ways you have to be a bit of a scientist to get the proportions right of sweet, sour and spicy. But the students know what they are doing and some like adding chili until the soup runs red. Actually, this is one of the good things about eating noodle soups in Thailand. What the vendor will give you is bland and not spicy at all. It is then up to you to add the different sauces to your own satisfaction. I will go into more detail another day.

Back in the classroom, the students wait for their friends to sit down. We now have too many students and it is easier for everyone to eat their lunch in the classroom. Once everyone is sitting down, the students will then say a kind of grace. This is not really religious but more ethical. It is reminding them that they should eat properly and that they should be grateful to the people who provided them with the food. The following translation of the grace was done by Gor when he was my Primary 6 student a number of years ago.

“During the time that we eat lunch, don’t speak or say things that aren’t good. Don’t make a noise. Take enough food for only one mouthful. Chew the food into little pieces so that you can digest the food properly. Before you get up from your seat, clean up your desk. Put the plate or a bowl orderly into the enameled basin. You mustn’t waste any food. You must eat it all. There are many starving children in the world. Pity all of the children that don’t have anything to eat. All of the food has a worth. When you eat food you must have good manners. Don’t chew the food loudly. Don’t talk when you are eating and don’t say something that is bad. Don’t laugh when you are eating. Thank you to our teachers that take care of us and all of the cooks that make us the food we eat. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much.”

After that they then start eating. Everything is done very orderly and the students eat quietly. When they have finished, they put any waste food in a plastic bucket and their plates in an enamel bowl. Students who are on duty for that day will clean the classroom and then take the dirty plates and waste food down to the kitchen. Waste food is later fed to the stray dogs.

Thailand school lunch.

The plates are washed by the kitchen staff. However, the spoons and forks (they don’t use knives or chopsticks) are washed by the students on duty. After they have finished eating, many of the students then go to brush their teeth.

This is what the students eat over a four week period. There are actually three different menus: kindergarten, junior school and senior school. As there are some repeats I will just give you the menu for the older students. Not everyone eats the same thing at the same time. There are 1,800 students (and one small kitchen) so not everyone can have a rice based meal at the same time. So, half of the school have rice while the other half have some kind of soup.

Thai School Life

Czech Republic elementary school lunch

Lunch usually consists of soup and a main course. Usually, there is a salad or some sort of fruit along with something sweet for dessert. There is always tea and water with sweet syrup on tap and cacao if sweet buns are for lunch.

Most of the kids eat at the school canteen (cafeteria). It’s convenient and cheaper for many parents.

Finland

In the beginning of the 20th century Finland developed an incredible social innovation: free school meals. Many of its other national success stories have been made possible thanks to our education and school meal system. Its goal is to make the world’s best school meals even better and help others in their work.

During 70 years, Finland has come a long way to become the international forerunner we are today. There is now a versatile and unique food education agenda that has grown around the school lunch. The basis has still remained the same: to each equally, during every school day.

 

Potatoes and sausage bites with gravy, rice & corn tuna salad, Iceberg lettuce with tangerines and dressing. Served with a slice of bread, butter and skim or low fat milk.

The Finnish government (like most European nations) provides children with free school lunch. Finnish children have been receiving free food for over 60 years, and some cities extend free food service to people who can’t afford for the adequate nutrition intakes.

Food is very important for child development mentally and physically, and Finland obviously knows how to take a wholesome care of citizens. There is no wonder Finnish kids exceed academically among those in other countries. In general, the winter in Finland may be colder than your cities, but those people are big-hearted.

South Korea

School lunch in South Korea.

The Korean lunch looks very healthy, as expected. Korean people are very health-conscious, and this well-balanced lunch explains it well. The menu contains raw vegetables, spicy marinated pork, soup and rice. At a Korean restaurant, you are often served with Banchan, small dishes of food in the middle of a table to share. This lunch reflects the idea of Banchan: small portions of everything.

Sweden

Swedish school lunch.

Swedish lunch is typically served with a warm main dish, like a stew with potatoes, with a side dish. The side dish contains “knäckebröd,” the famous Swedish crispy bread, and salad or cooked vegetables. Students can choose to drink water, milk or lingonberry juice, which is known as mountain cranberries or partridge berries in North America. Swedish students get more than 2000 school lunches during their years of compulsory education.

Ukraine

Malaysia

To get his Malaysia photographs Dave talked his way into the cafeteria at an elementary school in Brickfields, more popularly known as one of Kuala Lumpur’s Little Indias. I didn’t accompany him on this adventure, and Dave didn’t taste the food; he remembers each lunch costing around 2 ringgit, or about 60 US cents.

The meals look decent enough, though the roti — which Dave notes wasn’t freshly made (he did arrive close to the end of lunch hour) may be a bit tired. A bowl of asam laksa makes for a fairly well-rounded meal … but candy bars and super-sweet pink drinks?

Both of these lunches say much about what figures large in the local cuisine. In Sichuan, as we found at humble restaurants in Chengdu, rice (or other starch) is still an important part of the meal, and is eaten in great quantities. Vegetables too — not just because they’re cheap, but because Sichuanese love them (and do wonderful things with them). Chilies are present in decent quantities in two out of four dishes, and when there’s meat it’s pork.

In Malaysia eating chilies from an early age is a given, and strong flavors too (but not alot of vegetables). How many American kids would opt to eat a spicy, fish-based noodle soup if they had a choice? And the Malaysian palate, viewed through these two randomly chosen school lunches at least, is truly multi-cultural — a southern Indian bread and a noodle soup with Malay and Chinese culinary roots.

Italy

Conclusions

Yeah. It appears that the United States has the unhealthiest meals for its’ children, managed in such a way to allow for massive graft and corruption, and distant unmonitored control.

The idea that there are “nutrition experts” concocting the meals at American schools is ludicrous.

What we see when you step out of the United States Pro-America “echo chamber” is a world where America appears pathetically inept, to a point of being cruel. And we can see this.

Obviously since this has been going on for decades and any efforts to change the system has failed.  It appears that the entire system is beyond redemption and must be scrapped and changes implemented on the local level with no external influences or input.

The only way that this type of innate and obvious criminal activity can be allowed to continue for so long, with so little change, implies that the leadership controlling these system are themselves corrupt, corrupted, or being lead by greedy psychopaths.

There is no way that a reheated salt and fat laden hotdog with a dab of sugar-saturated ketchup qualifies for a “healthy nutritious” meal.

And when you see enormously obese Americans riding government supplied electric carts to buy 24-packs of soda, you can rest assured that the American leadership wants this situation;

They planned for it, and they created it. It’s intentional. It is impossible for this condition; this situation to be accidental.

The only way out…

…is to nuke from orbit.

Do you want more?

I have more posts in my Life and Happiness Index here…

Life & Happiness

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And / or my food index here…

Food Index!

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Or the master index here…

Master Index

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How to have a baby in China and give it Chinese citizenship when you are a foreigner.

This was so interesting for me to see, because I've experienced the same thing - people I know who have lived & worked there (China)  have such a different view from those who haven't. 

And if you talk positively about China in the US, you are viewed with skepticism at best, at worst - viewed as a traitor. Judged by people who have never been to China!

-Greg Reed

How to have a baby in China. This article discusses what it is like for a foreigner to have a baby inside of China and give it Chinese citizenship. If you do not want to give it Chinese citizenship then there are few other options available for you. The baby would be born within China and be a “stateless person”. It would be your responsibility to apply for citizenship at the nearest embassy or consulate.

Why not automatically make it American?

I cannot tell you, my dear reader, how many times people have asked me this. They ask “Why didn’t you give your Child American citizenship?” As if, suddenly the American citizenship would grant my child an automatic and wonderful life…

American family
A sizable population of Americans are not working, and are instead being paid existence money. I want my children to be productive and make the world a better place as opposed to subsisting.

Hey! Have you been watching the United States lately?

But I will describe it in the simplist way possible.

Imagine three children;

  • Tom. Chinese born. Chinese citizen. Raised in China.
  • Dick. Chinese born. American citizen. Raised in China.
  • Harry. Chinese born. American citizen. Raised in America.

If you look at the three children, you can pretty much say that “Tom” represents most Chinese people. They are born in China of Chinese parents, and they attend Chinese schools, and have excellent opportunities within China.

Dick is the kind of child that a number of expats are faced with. As an expat, they come to China as part of a two or three year long duration package as part of a career move. They want their children to be raised where ever they live, but they want them to be American citizens to “enjoy” the rights and privileges of “being an American”.

Harry represents a scenario that many rich Chinese face. They want to move to America and raise their children as American citizens. So while the child might be born inside of China, they are raised in America as an American.

The Trade offs…

Well, most people reading this are neither native Chinese living in China (the “Tom” situation), nor a rich and wealthy Chinese who emigrated to China. (The “Harry” situation.) They are in the “Dick” situation.

And their question is simple.

Should the baby apply for Chinese citizenship or American (or other country) citizenship?

Well, to make the decision process easier, I have broken it down. Keep in mind that it is a far greater amount of work to make your baby a Chinese citizen than to make it an American citizen.

[1] Baby as a Chinese citizen…

You must follow the application procedures and be approved. The government will monitor the healthy of the baby and you must take tests and attend classes during the entire pregnancy.

Once the baby is born, it can attend Chinese schools, and be treated as a Chinese citizen even if one of it’s parents is non-Chinese. It gets social insurance, and placement in schools and the educational process.

When it grows up, it will have a “Family Register”, with a history, and be able to set up businesses within China. It will be subject to Chinese income tax which (for around 80% of citizens) is under 3% of the yearly income taken directly from the paycheck with no annual reporting requirements.

[2] Baby as a American citizen…

The baby can be birthed anywhere and no tests or procedures are required. However, it will not be granted a birth certificate. So the parents must work with the embassy before the birth to apply for citizenship. If you give birth, and do not have a birth certificate, you have until the baby is five years old before the difficulty in application process goes exponential.

Once the baby is approved and is an American (or other national), it can live pretty much like it’s expat parents, except…

It cannot go to most schools. Only Chinese students can go to the local school. It must go to an “approved” school that is permitted to take foreign students.

Can Foreigners Go to Primary or Secondary School in China?

While most international schools will only accept Chinese students who hold a foreign passport, Chinese public schools are required by law to accept children of legal foreign residents. 

Admissions requirements vary but most schools require an admissions application, health records, passport, visa information, and previous school records. Some, like nurseries and kindergartens, require a birth certificate. Others require recommendation letters, assessments, on-campus interviews, entrance exams, and language requirements.

Students who cannot speak Mandarin are usually held back a few grades and usually start in first grade until their language skills improve. All classes except English are taught entirely in Chinese. Going to a local school in China has become a popular choice for expat families who live in China but can’t afford the high price of international schools.

The admissions materials at local schools are typically in Chinese and there’s little support for families and students who do not speak Chinese. Schools in Beijing that accept foreign students include Fangcaodi Primary School (芳草地小学) and The High School Affiliated to Renmin University of China Beijing Ritan High School (人大附中).

There are over 70 schools approved by China’s Ministry of Education to provide foreign instruction. Unlike local children, foreigners must pay a yearly tuition which varies but starts at about 28,000RMB.

-What Is School in China Like

So your child has three options.

[1] If you live in a big city like Shanghai, Beijing, or Shenzhen, there is the possibility that an “approved” school will take in your child. Be prepared to pay a fee, and your child will probably need to go down a few grades until their Chinese language skills are improved.

[2] You child can be home schooled.

[3] Your child can attend “International Schools”. In China, the international schools are among the most expensive in the world with costs approaching $10,000 / month or 70,000 rmb/month.

Then once the baby gets older, it must obey American tax law where ever it lives. Which means that if the child decides to stay in China, it must pay both American taxes to the IRS as well as Chinese taxes. It will be double taxed for the rest of it’s life. This handicap MUST be taken into consideration in any calculus regarding the child’s future.

Things have mitigated somewhat for expats, but Americans do need to be careful and file yearly reports to the government. These requirements of reporting income, telling the American government what you do and why, and asking permission on how you handle financial affairs, whether it results in tax liabilities or not, are repugnant to a free person. It is up to you to decide if you want to saddle your child with this reporting nightmare.

Applying for Citizenship.

Most people assume that China is like their nation. That it has birth-right citizenship. You know, like America has. And that all you need to do is have sex, go to a hospital or even to a parking-lot, and have some witnesses that sign a birth certificate, and zoom! Your baby is a citizen.

Birthright citizenship is the legal principle that any person born on U.S. soil automatically becomes a citizen of the United States. 

Birthright citizenship was established in 1868 by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and confirmed by the US Supreme Court in the 1898 case of United States v. Wong Kim Ark.

-Birthright Citizenship in the United States

Nope. China doesn’t have this. Not in the least. And that is a good thing. It helps mitigate if not eliminate entirely many of the ills that America is facing with unrestricted immigration, “birthright immigration” and a “welfare state”.

If you want your baby to become a citizen of China, you must apply.

In short, you need to go down to the local government office, and fill out the application form; “Application for a baby to become a Chinese citizen while still in the womb.” (Or something like that.)

The rules are very strict. You either meet them or you do not. There is no “wiggle room” for borderline cases.

To become a citizen in China, you need to have a [1] male father, a [2] female mother, and [3] one of the parents must be of Chinese ancestry. Further, you need to apply with these criteria, to the local government office, and be approved by them.

If they approve, then they will issue you with two books. (And they are books.) One is white and one is pink. You will use these books to record and monitor the baby health while in the womb.

Monitoring the prenatal growth of the fetus.

The local government watches and maintains records of the baby’s growth in the womb. They provide mandatory training sessions for the mother, and pay for the tests to make sure that the baby will not have any defects or any sort of retardation.

If the baby has a physical, or mental defect, you will have a problem.

In short, you will not be permitted to have the baby and obtain citizenship for it.

Yes. You can still have the baby if your really want to. It’s just that it will not be a Chinese baby.

However, you will [1] need to pay for all the medical care and support by yourself. It will be a great financial burden, and [2] it will not be a citizen. Which means additional headaches.

In short, the odds that a parent would want to continue and give birth to the baby once it was found to have a defect at some level, like an inherited illness, a genetic defect that might cause a mental or psychological disorder, or a physical disorder is very… very small.

During the entire nine months of pregnancy a series of tests must occur that includes bloodwork and exams of the mother, as well as scans of the baby in the womb.

In order to prevent termination of the embryo because it might not be of the preferred gender (typically male in remote rural areas, like the Xinjiang Muslim areas), strict rules are in place that keeps the baby gender unknown until the moment of birth. This goes through every test. Including the DNA test.

In the DNA test, a needle is inserted into the womb and extracts a DNA sample of the baby. It then goes to a lab and is studies for all sort of inherited or rare illnesses or unusually allergies that might be present in abnormal DNA. The DNA that determines whether it is a boy or a girl is intentionally blacked out so the parent is unable to see what sex the baby would be.

Birthing Hospital

While any hospital can give birth to a baby, the local government would prefer you to use a “birthing hospital”. This hospital deals in one thing… anything about giving birth from the moment of conception to post birth problems.

These are busy places.

They usually are part of a big, wide campus. And on that campus are various buildings for pre-birth training, and what to expect for young mothers. As well as traditional Chinese medicine services. (Which actually DO WORK.)

Story time…

When we were trying to get pregnant (my wife that is), we were having a difficult time at it. We used artificial insemination, and yet, we had four (x4) miscarriages. Yikes! It’s was not only totally and completely expensive but a roller-coaster ride of emotion. After the fourth miscarriage, we went to the head doctor who said that we were doing everything right, but it wasn’t working. So she had us go to the Chinese traditional doctor section.

Traditional Chinese Medicine

So we went to the “Traditional Chinese Medicine” wing of the sprawling hospital complex. We made an appointment with the doctor there.

The doctor sat her down. Looked at her hands. Looked at her mouth. Looked at her feet. Then studied her spine. After examining her, the doctor said “well, of course!” She explained. “Your womb is cold!” She elaborated. “You can never give birth if your womb is cold and not receptive. You need to make it warm”.

Now the terms “warm” and “cold” are not direct translations for the Chinese terms. For there are no English terms for what they were describing. But it was close enough.

So she had to make these terrible concoctions of drinks that she quaffed down. She was put on a strict diet of what she could eat and drink. She also had to perform a kind of smoke therapy with this “smoke box” that she put on her belly and burned these kinds of strange grasses and plants on top of it with.

After four months of this, the doctor looked at her tongue and hands, then examined her feet and said “ok, you are ready and ripe to have a baby”.

Then, we went and had another artificial insemination (her egg and my little guys) and it took! So yeah, nine months later we had a beautiful Chinese baby girl.

Nay-Sayers say that this was just coincidence. But nope. It’s not. This and other events have 100% convinced me of the benefits of Traditional Chinese medicine.

The paperwork was automatic. Not only did she get a birth certificate, but she was placed in the “Family Register”. This is a book that lists all the members of a given household.

Inoculations

The government has an entire operation and system for monitoring the growth and well-being of young children. That includes monitoring of the child’s growth and weight. A review of the condition of the mother and the family environment. As well as all inoculations.

This is tied together with the local police.

If you do not attend the training course, or the doctor visits, the police will call you up and ask you if everything is going ok. I am not taking about missing a few scheduled appointments. I am referring to missing one singular appointment.

The Chinese view the early development of children to be the future of society; the bedrock of the Chinese nation and culture, as well as important to the future health of the economy of the world.

Certain regions have this police interaction all automated, and in Wenzhou there is an APP that is a straight direct line to the local police.

Yes. The local police knows who your baby is and everything about your child. If you child is lost or disoriented, it can go into any police station and they will be able to find out who it is and where it lives. If a new child appears in any police districts, it is noticed. And thus added to the central database. Thus stolen or lost childen are quickly found and accounted for.

Buying a house so the child can attend school.

Free government schools do not exist in China.

The schools are all associated with the local communities. For your child to attend a local school in the neighborhood, you must own a house.  Housing complexes have kindergarden, primary and middle schools attached.

Chinese children all get a primary and middle school public education. Each class averages 35 students. After middle school, parents must pay for public high school.

-What Is School in China Like

Now, unlike the USA, there are limits in house ownership. While it depends on the region, I can tell you that the limits for house ownership in Zhuhai, China are as follows…

  • Three house limit for the Father to own.
  • Three house limit for the Mother to own.
  • If the parent is a foreigner, then it is a two house limit.
  • The child is permitted to own no more than three houses.

Thus, a family of three (father, mother and baby) can own at most nine homes in Zhuhai, China.

Some notes.

Houses in China typically are part of enormous housing developments with schools and businesses set up in clusters.

Houses tend to be smaller than American houses.

Houses tend to be much more expensive than American houses.

In China property is not taxed. The Chinese believe that real freedom is the ability to own property, and real ownership of this means that it is free of taxiation and regulation.

Once you obtain a house, then your child can potentially attend the local school there. There is a criteria that is used for placement within the school, and it all revolves around your own personal family stability and social history.

Housing complex in Zhongshan China. The three schools are circled in red, and the central administration area for the local police, and government is circled in blue.
Housing complex in Zhongshan China. The three schools are circled in red, and the central administration area for the local police, and government is circled in blue.

When I mention this to Americans the “knee jerk” reaction is to think that that most Chinese students then don’t attend school. Their reasoning is that since most Americans are either renters or paying a mortage, that this must be true in the rest of the world as well. But actually the exact opposite is true. Most Chinese people OWN their houses. Renting is what is typically done by unmarried couples, or people who have to work away from their homes.

Obtaining the certificate of motherhood.

In order to assure that your child is able to get a seat within a local school, you will need to meet certain criteria based on your roles, your work, your career, and your contribution to society. This is the much maligned “social credit scoring” that you hear so much about in the American media.

But it’s not really a bad thing. Just don’t be rude, a criminal, or disruptive. You can increase your social rating through community efforts, being helpful, and other means.

If you are a troublemaker with a history of scamming people, or polluting, or just being rude, your score will be lower than someone who isn’t.

  • If you participate in the riots in Hong Kong, for example, your social rating is now zero… forever.
  • If you pushed someone on the bus or had some kind of altercation, or just threw trash on the road and was filmed by a road cam in the process, you will have a reduction in your social rating.

Now, in order to guarantee high placement of your child in a local school you will need to take a class in being a mother. You will get a certificate, and that grade and the presence of the certificate will guarantee placement in the best classes of students in the best schools.

This class is a very comprehensive and difficult class that involves books, movies, first-hand class instruction and homework. You must get over a 90% to pass the class and obtain the certificate. My wife took the class, and it consists of two tests. The first being 1000 questions and the second being 300 questions.

Conclusion

The decision to have a child in China is a big one, but need not be frightening. China is a fair and just place that is well organized, if very large and populated. The key to your child’s health and well being lies with you. And the very first decision you should make is what citizenship should your child have.

In this case, do you want Chinese or American citizenship?

American citizens get to have all sort of free stuff, like free healthcare, free food, and free housing. While in China, the citizens must work or die.
American citizens get to have all sort of free stuff, like free healthcare, free food, and free housing. While in China, the citizens must work or die.

As an American citizen, I chose Chinese citizenship for my children. I see China in 2040 bigger, stronger, happier and better in just about every way compared to a 2040 America. But that is just me. Many others disagree with me, and believe the opposite; that America is the best, always was and always will be.

Well…

Only time will tell.

Best Regards.

Do you want more?

I have more posts in my Chinese index here…

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Going to school after the EBP insertion and calibration.

This post discusses a hidden aspect of the EBP. It was used to teach and / train me (aside from it’s other purposes).

Once I had the EBP installed, and my genetic makeup modified, I underwent a long period of time being trained. This was during the time that I described in my post; lost as an autonomous vagabond. This period in my life was absolutely confusing. As I lived on the outskirts of society, living hand-to-mouth at a below-poverty level. While all the time, my consciousness was partitioned and participating within a training regimen.

Here we will discuss what it was like for me during my training and the kind of things that I was taught. It’s way, way, WAY “out there” and rather incredulous. But this is my record, and this is my autobiography. Read it or not. Believe it or not. I don’t fucking care. It’s your life.

Sponsors

I was trained by our extraterrestrial benefactors. MAJestic had nothing to do with the training. It was all associated with the EBP.

MAJestic

MAJestic controlled the ELF probes only.

They were used to monitor what was going on between the benefactors and my mind. I do believe that it must have been rather boring to the operators, as it relied on the optical sensors and the auditory sensors of my brain. While just about all the activity took place with consciousness with operates outside of the brain.

There was activity that took place between the ELF and the benefactors in regards to mission parameters at Oxia Palus. But this began AFTER this period of training.

MAJestic knew about the EBP. They knew that it was installed, and that I had a role that involved our benefactors. They also knew that they had to be “hands off” in regards to this role.

They did not know the scope of what the EBP entailed, or what my actual role with the benefactors would be.

Technology

Our benefactors consider the physical world to be a small part of the totality of reality. They operate within the non-physical world, and what we see in the physical is but a small part of their operations.

Thus it makes complete sense that I would be trained in using their technology, and their systems within their environment. And ya!, it’s really, really different than anything we (as humans) know.

The Mantids are a multi-dimensional species, and the EBP interfaced with that species using their technologies and their sciences.

Sequence of events.

This is the sequence of events…

  • Enter MAJestic.
  • ELF probes installed.
  • EBP installed and genetically re-engineered.
  • Left on my own as a vagabond.
  • Training via the EBP while a vagabond. – You are HERE.
  • Recovery by MAJestic at China Lake Naval Weapons Center.
  • Calibration of the ELF probes at China Lake.
  • Operations with the ELF probes via Oxia Palus.
  • Mission operations…

The Schools

To understand what is going on, you need to recognize that over a period of at least three years I “attended” schooling. It occurred in my mind via my consciousness. My brain observed two things happening all at once.

  • I lived a normal physical life, and my consciousness participated in that life.
  • My brain also observed that my consciousness attended school in the non-physical realms. This occurred simultaneously with my normal day to day life.

This education took place with my partitioned consciousness and our benefactors. There was zero participation with MAJestic. To an outside observer, there was zero physical evidence that anything was going on. There was nothing that would tell an outside observer what I was going through or enduring.

I went through “training” of a unknown nature at facilities and training centers.

While there were occasional “schools” that I attended that lasted for under a day. Most attendance was sequential at various “facilities” or “places”.

Appearance

While my consciousness migrated in the non-physical worlds, it would attend schools. These schools in all instances resembled human structures with campuses, buildings, vegetation, parks, quads, and entities. Most of the entities were human people, for the most part, but not always.

The appearance of the structures varied from a simple outdoor amphitheater to huge buildings of amazing construction and complexity.

I would attend classes with other students. Some of the classes had a few as three students while other classes had perhaps thirty. Most of the classes were of small size. Only a a few very rare occasions did I participate in larger classes.

There would be a teacher / instructor.

Often, that instructor would take a special notice of me and devote the class to my particular studies while the rest of the class watched on. I have no idea why this was the case.

Class length and duration

This education at different facilities had a degree of uniformity to it. I would attend “training” at one place for a period of time, and then attend another school or a different period of time. After that, another school, and then again, yet another school.

Duration was typically three days per school. This would occur during my waking life, as well as intrude into my dreams. I was 24-7 “on” in regards to this.

The longest time that I spent at any school was (perhaps) around two and a half weeks. The shortest time was just a few hours. I estimate that I attended perhaps 300 to 350 different “schools”.

That is quite a lot, in case you aren’t paying attention.

Breaks / vacations

There were breaks between sessions. I do not know why the breaks occurred or what was behind the breaks. Breaks typically lasted between four to six days. Then the education procedure would continue. I would typically have a break every three or four months or so.

When I was on a break, I would have a more or less “normal” life. No strange thoughts, experiences, dreams or feelings.

Subjects

The subjects were beyond the conception of anything that I can explain. Sorry.

If we used a scale to compare educational complexity, we might be able to compare difficulty and advancement levels. So here’s my attempt.

  • Toddler learning how to walk – 1
  • Kindergarten – 4
  • Elementary School – 12
  • High school – 22
  • College – 38
  • Post-graduate studies – 45

Using that as a scale, I would say that the content, the subjects, the content and the degree of saturation and density of the information portrayed as…

  • EBP 3 year training – 3450

Graduation(s)

I attended numerous “programs” that consisted of “blocks” of education and specific “classes”.

After a certain period of time had elapsed I would then attend another school.

Infrequently, and for reasons I do not understand, I would attend a sort of “graduation ceremony”. This procedure would acknowledge that I had obtained the necessary education, skills and abilities that I was supposed to learn.

I perhaps graduated, maybe, five separate times, plus my “final” graduation ceremony. Thus, I can only assume that I attended approximately six Major “educational programs” (and at least 12 minor programs) from which I obtained some type of ‘certificate”.

Ability

So, the question is what abilities do I now have?

I think that most of the training was associated with the world-line switching and slides that I experienced once I completed my training at China Lake NWC. I also believe that most of the training was elementary (from our benefactors point of view) as it taught me how to use their systems and understand their technologies.

After all, if you are going to teach a dog to drive a car, you would need to show him how to get into the car, where to sit, and other basics that we humans take for granted…

…and not to sniff and pee on the tire.

Important points

All this took pace before the ELF probes were calibrated at China Lake NWC.

Which means that the EBP and the genetic changes were such that they were able to partition my consciousness into a secondary “container”.

Imagine this much the same way that we partition a hard drive into different “drives”.

If you install a 500 MB hard-drive into a computer, it is preset as drive C:. Thus it would appear in your Windows Explorer as “Drive C:”.

Partitioning a hard drive into separate drives.
Partitioning a hard drive into separate drives.

You can use partitioning software to break that drive down into other drives. Such as Drive D:, Drive E: and Drive F:.

In a way, and this is very simplistic, I believe that this is what occurred with my consciousness.

Partitioning and education

Most of what I was taught had zero utility in my physical life.

Therefore, it wasn’t even transmitted to my physical brain in in any kind of meaningful way. I just cannot vocalize my teachings, or be able to explain them to anyone within this world-line.

The consciousness partitioning was absolute and what could be utilized by my physical body was conveyed by the shared consciousness. What could not be, was not transmitted. and this leads to some interesting conclusions…

  • There is a segmentation and stratification of understanding, experience and knowledge between the physical and non-physical worlds.
  • A given world-line within the physical world might have information restricted or access denied to the consciousness that is within that reality.
  • The idea that the physical reality is all that there is, is laughingly pathetic. It is but a very tiny part of a much larger, much more expansive non-physical reality.
  • To obtain my role in the physical reality, and acquire my experiences for the non-physical reality, certain non-physical universe training was necessary. What it is, and how to communicate it to the reader trapped within this physical reality is impossible.

Conclusion

My role in MAJestic required me to perform tasks for our benefactors.

I had two set of physical modifications. They were a set of ELF probes that were MAJestic implanted, and operated. And a EBP that was installed with other substantial genetic modifications and training by our benefactors.

The training of the EBP is what this post covers.

The EBP modified my physical body and created multiple consciousnesses. Both consciousnesses can communicate back and forth between each other. The two consciousnesses have different roles and different functions, and much of what the EBP educated me with was involved in the newly segmented consciousness. Not with my original consciousness.

And finally…

  • MAJestic traded myself to our benefactors for technology.
  • They used me as a kind of “ambassador”.
  • This role was monitored by MAJestic via the ELF technology.

This ambassador role was unlike anything that we can conceive of.

  • I was altered and changed.
  • Not only physically, but spiritually as well.
  • I had my consciousness segmented.

As such, I was able to utilize advanced non-physical technologies provided by our benefactors.

  • This training enabled me to conduct world-line travel with a great degree of facility over and above what most humans are capable of.
  • It enabled me to anchor world-lines.
  • It enabled me to be the “representative” of humans to “adjust” our world-line trends towards a preferred sentience.

Are you confused?

You should be. Our world, our universe, and our lives are not like anything that we have been taught or understand. It is different, really, really different on so many, many levels.

If you want to kick the computer screen and yell, go ahead. Then go read about the “enlightened ones”, the (shape changing) “reptilians”, chrononauts, the “Zeta’s” that are going to take over America, Eh? It’s your reality. Read about the “coming age of enlightenment” and other fictions.

This is my history. Not a relatable fiction that makes you feel good about yourself.

Like I said before. The “real world” doesn’t resemble anything that you think it does.

Do you want more?

I have more posts along these lines in my MAJestic Index, here…

MAJestic

Articles & Links

You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.

To go to the MAIN Index;

Master Index

.

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
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Please kindly help me out in this effort. There is a lot of effort that goes into this disclosure. I could use all the financial support that anyone could provide. Thank you very much.

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Advanced studies on the MWI and how world-lines and consciousness work together.

This article goes into a much more involved study of how consciousness interacts with world-lines in the MWI.

In so doing, we have to deconstruct some of the simpler conventions that we have used in the past, and layout a better foundation of how the MWI actually interacts with the consciousness.

In earlier posts, I have gone into details on how the MWI actually manifests in our reality. In those presentations, I intentionally simplified things for easy understanding.

It's sort of like how you teach a person to swim by holding them and letting them kick their legs in the water. You use "supports". These supports aren't really the "real thing", but they help you along the road to eventually master the real thing.

In this post, we will assume that you the reader have mastered a basic understanding of those previous points.

  • Consciousness moves in and out of world-lines.
  • This movement appears as “time”.
  • Our thoughts direct which world-lines that we enter.

Introduction

In this article, we will now elaborate upon the world-line construction. We will look at what it actually is and how it actually works. Not everyone needs to know or understand this. But for those that do, this will help obtain a better understanding of it.

What time actually is and how we naturally move through the various world-lines.
This is an illustration of what time actually is. Time does not exist. It is a perception that our consciousness has as it moves and weaves in and out of different world-lines. Here we use an old-fashioned movie reel projector to help illustrate this understanding.

It will appear really strange, but I do hope that I can help add some insight into everything.

Now, this article is for advanced students and are advanced studies.

Most of the people who have already mastered World-Line-Travel 101, you won’t need to read this. For the handful of people that understand world-line-travel-101, you don’t really need to understand much more than that.

But for those of you that need more, then here it is.

Of course, it’s long due. But all this COVID-19 nonsense has pretty much hijacked my postings and articles.

Quick Review

The universe is nothing like people think it is.

Instead of all of us sharing the same physical universe, we exist as consciousness within our very own personal reality. It only appears that we share it with others.

There is a near infinite number of these realities. They are known as individual world-lines.

We travel through these different world-lines at a rate of around 4 Hz. The selection of the world-line we exist within momentarily is manifested by our thoughts. This is a rather speedy switching in and out of world-lines.

Roughly, our consciousness pops in and out of four different world-lines every second.

Each world-line is nearly identical to the one before it.

The differences are determined by your thoughts, conscious and unconscious.

If you want to review what all this is about, I would suggest you check out these following posts first:

MWI
The Landscape of the MWI

So please keep in mind that while everything posted previously is quite accurate, it is actually simplified for understanding.

Now, we get into a deeper perception of how things actually work. And in the process better understand all that PSI and “twilight zone” stuff that appears from time-to-time.

Once you understand these new elements of consciousness fundamentals and world-line interaction, you can understand how people are able to do many "tricks" with PSI, and other strange things...

Clarification #1 – Consciousness cycles in and out of world-lines in a sinusoidal manner.

This should be obvious to the astute reader, but it needs to be stated.

The consciousness moves in and out of world-lines naturally. It moves in a sinusoidal manner. It moves in and out. In and out. Over and over.

The rate of travel varies from person to person, but typically averages around 4 Hz.

Standard sinusoidal waveform.
Standard sinusoidal waveform.

During this time it changes “shape properties”. Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth.

At “the top” of the cycle it takes on wave behavior.

At the “bottom” of the cycle, it takes on particle behavior.

Consciousness movement in and out of different world-lines.
Consciousness movement in and out of different world-lines.

When it takes on wave behavior it moves from one world-line to another directed by thought. It exists “in the spirit world”.

Movement of consciousness.
Movement of consciousness.

When it takes on particle behavior, it occupies a world-line and inhabits a physical body.

Our consciousness cycles in and out of different world-lines. Between each trip it exists within "heaven".
Our consciousness cycles in and out of different world-lines. Between each trip it exists within “heaven”.

With this understood, we can define the amount of time that the transition from world-line to world-line takes, as well as the duration a consciousness spends inside each world-line.

If there are 4 cycles per second, then, each trip back and forth from the "Heavenly realms" to a world-line is 1/4 a second. 

And thus, (roughly) each moment at a given world-line is half of that. Or, 1/8 of a second.

Some “take aways”;

  • Humans, via our consciousness, is continuously in touch with the “Heavenly realms”. Every moment we touch heaven, and enter our latest world-line.
  • When in the wave form, we can perform all sorts of activities and have all sorts of “abilities” not tied to any world-line. There are no physical limitations. Humans spend approximately 50% of their time “connected” to the “Heavenly realms”.
  • For us to maintain (retain) our memories from world-line to world-line, the memories are deposited outside the brain. It exists within the “Heavenly realms” not within the physical brain.

Key Correction #1 – Consciousness moves about the MWI when attached to a human body.

In my previous simplifications, I have referred to, and drawn the consciousness as a red blob; a point of light. I have stated that “Soul” can generate multiple Consciousnesses that it places on “journeys”. These “Journeys for experience” is a life-experience for a soul.

Simplified diagram of how consciousness moves in and out of the MWI and gives us the illusion of time.
Simplified diagram of how consciousness moves in and out of the MWI and gives us the illusion of time. This is what one second of life looks like for the average person. He / she enters and leaves four different world lines each second. This “movement” appears as time.

The Consciousness normally travels in and out of world-lines all a person’s life.

Once a consciousness uses up a body as it travels in and out of world-lines, it dies. The consciousness stays in the wave-form and “rests” within the “Heavenly realms”.

A decision is thus made by the soul, the consciousness, and their associations with other spirits, angels, and heavenly denizens on what to do next.

Often, it involves being injected on another “journey” in another life. This is often referred to as reincarnation.

This graphic shows how the the "passage of time" is viewed in the big-scale of things. MWI movement occurs during a human "lifespan". You can only experience world-line travel within a given life. (There's exceptions to this, but let's stay focused.)
This graphic shows how the the “passage of time” is viewed in the big-scale of things. MWI movement occurs during a human “lifespan”. You can only experience world-line travel within a given life. (There’s exceptions to this, but let’s stay focused.)

Key Correction #2 – Consciousness is not a point-source.

Consciousness is actually quite complex and complicated.

It is not a blob, a dot, a “something”.

It’s a collection of “stuff” that operates in such a way that the soul, the consciousness, the MWI and the thoughts generate memories and navigate the life-path to create experiences that the soul can learn from.

Soul creates a “consciousness” that it uses to travel the MWI.

It inserts it into a given world-line, and allows it to move unencumbered and subject to it’s own thoughts. Each world-line is a “physical reality” that the consciousness occupies.

The consciousness is connected to the soul by a device. This device is known as consciousness.
The soul, which resides in the “Heavenly realms” creates a consciousness from which to experience things and events. Thus learns and grows. Consciousness is the passageway or “tunnel” that connects the physical reality to the soul.

Now, in all of this, I drew consciousness (literately, and artistically) as a point. I drew it as a red circular blob. Like in the two earlier drawings.

As in the above drawing showing the consciousness as a red blob in front of a long tunnel to the soul.

Movement of consciousness into a world-line as depicted as a point source.
Movement of consciousness into a world-line as depicted as a point source.

However, the true reality is a bit different.

Get ready to have your mind blown.

The consciousness actually occupies multiple World-line-realities at any given moment simultaneously. It is actually not a “red blob”. It’s a lot of “red blobs”. Each one occupying a different world-line… simultaneously.

It is a “shared potential”. Some of the consciousness occupies one world-line at any given moment, while other aspects of it’s consciousness occupies other world-lines.

Sort of like this…

Consciousness occupies multiple world-lines at any given moment. The sum total of what our consciousness experiences is what we view as "our" present world-line.
Consciousness occupies multiple world-lines at any given moment. The sum total of what our consciousness experiences is what we view as “our” present world-line. It appears to be but one singular world-line, but it is actually a aggregate composite of all the world-lines that our consciousness occupies at any given moment. 1 / (30/4+40/4+20/4+10/4) = Momentary reality.

Then, they move on to the next group of world lines. Then again. Then again. Then again. Over and over.

It’s not a red blob moving in and out.

Consciousness occupies multiple world-lines at any given moment. The sum total of what our consciousness experiences is what we view as "our" present world-line.
Consciousness occupies multiple world-lines at any given moment. The sum total of what our consciousness experiences is what we view as “our” present world-line. They all change in the same cycle as governed by the consciousness.

Instead, consciousness occupies numerous world-lines at any given moment. Each world-line is different, but similar. The Consciousness interprets the differences as a singular world-line.

Key Correction #2 – World-Lines are not point-sources either.

We have a tendency to think of a “world” as a fixed and solid place. And the way that I have described the movement of time, has been the consciousness moving in and out from these fixed world-line realities.

A "world-line" is the resultant combined perception of a moment "frozen in time" that combines multiple world-lines into a singular apparent place. 

What we think a world-line is is not a fixed singular place.

It is the sum total average of all the experiences that a conscientiousness is exposed to at any singular moment in time.

By fracturing a consciousness and occupying many similar world-lines simultaneously, the resultant consciousness would end up with a richer "experience". It can also help to direct the travel and migrate to "better" world-lines per it's directives.
By fracturing a consciousness and occupying many similar world-lines simultaneously, the resultant consciousness would end up with a richer “experience”. It can also help to direct the travel and migrate to “better” world-lines per it’s directives.

It is the exact opposite of “living within an echo chamber“. It enables the consciousness to experience different experiences instead of simply reinforcing existing ones that the consciousness has been accustomed to over the years.

Key Correction #3 – World-Lines are not entirely empty of other consciousnesses.

To best understand how you can move in and out of multiple world-lines, it makes sense to think of things simply. Your consciousness is a point or sphere. The world-lines are empty and only occupied by “shadow consciousnesses”. But that’s really a simplistic picture.

It’s a simple narrative.

Imagine that you are only consciousness. And that you can move in and out of different world-lines freely. They seem to be occupied by all kinds of other people, but that is just an illusion. Most world-lines are just empty. And all those other people are just “quantum shadows” of others.

Now, this simplistic narrative needs to be revised to reflect the reality.

Instead of 100% of a consciousness entering a world-line where all the “quantum shadows” only have 0% occupancy within that reality…

…we now look at the reality…

Your consciousness might devote (say) 23% occupation within a given world-line, and all those “quantum-shadows” are actually occupied by other consciousnesses. Only they are a much smaller percentage. Often varying from 0.0002% to 0.1%.

Thus, in truth, all world-lines are not truly empty. They are occupied to some extent. And all of the other consciousnesses react to the way your consciousness behaves within any given particular world line.

Conclusion

And this, boys and girls, is the more advanced understanding of how the universe actually works. It’s simple, but complex.

It’s “rich” and “colorful”.

It also helps to understand how PSI and other psychic behaviors manifest within our reality.

And no, you are not going to find this anywhere else on the internet or in the halls of the universities. But this is what I have been tasked to understand (or at least part of it, anyways) as part of my MAJestic role.

I have much more, but it starts to really get complicated.

In it, I explain how the physical materials can be manipulated by thought and how one can travel through “apparent time”, and all sorts of curious other things. But, I am not ready to release all these other things out to the public at this time. It’s not the time.

I do not want to anger the PTB (Powers That Be) at this time.
I do not want to anger the PTB (Powers That Be) at this time.

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Being a father means teaching your children to stand up to bullies and beat the Dejesus out of them.

Being a father means many things. Often, in our politically correct, feminized, beta-ruled world, the father is neglected as if he knows nothing and has no purpose other than be a hand-maiden to the mother. That’s nonsense. The father has a terribly important role in raising children. And this article will illustrate it.

Introduction

Like the Yin and Yang, two people are required to raise a well-developed personality. One must take on the loving, caring and nurturing role. The other must take on the determined, strong and laborious role.

Like how “wisdom” = “knowledge” + “emotion”, raising a well-developed child requires both attributes of personality. When one attribute (or side) is larger than the other, an imbalance occurs. In a child, this imbalance can manifest all sorts of problems.

You do not want a “powder puff boy”, nor do you want a “she-woman amazon girl”. You want a well-rounded, well-developed and healthy child. One that will be smart, understanding, and capable.

My Narrative

When I was growing up, I was taught by my Catholic father to be kind and embrace the teachings of the New Testament in the Bible. I worked hard at it, and any time it seemed that I would not be giving of myself, careful of others, or sacrificial I was punished.

So, as a result, I was always giving away my money. I was always being the last one chosen in sports because I was not aggressive enough, and I was always getting picked on and beat up because I was not assertive enough.

My mother refused to allow me to play football. It was too dangerous she said. My father refused to allow me to stand up to neighborhood boys. “It’s turn the other cheek time” he said.

Over the years, it got worse and worse. I became the perfect downtrodden beta-male. I was the runt of the class.

So, when I was a “Junior” in eleventh grade, my coach at the school pulled me aside and allowed me to use the weight-lifting equipment reserved for the football team. He saw that I was getting harassed, and knew that I could not join any sports, even if I wanted to, I was working in the coal mines after school at that time.

Every opportunity I went to the weight room and worked out. I would lift and push myself. Each time thinking over and over how I was being pushed around by the other bullies and miscreants. It was so bad that even younger kids were doing so.

One would pin my arms with the others would seal my pencils and break them before my eyes and then gut punch me. Others would pull down my pants, and other would do tricks like throw water on me, steal my homework, destroy my art and science projects and other affairs. Each time, the school did nothing. When my parents found out they did nothing.

I suffered in torment.

I was alone.

So every day, I poured all my anger, hate and disgust into pushing iron. Each push, each lift I imagined what I would do. Each instance my rage burned brighter and brighter.

I got really strong and my body bulged with muscles.

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Some dimwit failed to notice that I was turning into a snarling giant. He, an underclassman, started to pick on me…

He pulled the tie-the-shoelaces-together and push me to the floor trick.

When I fixed my shoes and stood up, he was still laughing.

He taunted me. “What’s ya going to do? Cry. Oh, boo-hoo“.

I snapped.

I fucking lost it.

I went to a nearby desk and tore off a 1/4″ steel rod from the bottom of it. Then I went right up to him, and with my left arm I twisted his arm out of it’s socket and held him up high about a foot off the ground.

The entire time he’s howling in pain, and writhing in agony.

Two teachers ran up. The very same ones that told me to take the abuse. The very same ones that told me to ignore it. The very same ones that allowed this torment to continue for… years.

Fuck that. Fuck them!

The fucking kid is sobbing. Tears are rolling down his cheeks. Nearby girls are screaming at me. “Stop it!” They yelled at the tops of their voices.

Yeah. As if. Those same bitches were only moments ago snickering at me lying on the ground.

The teacher is threatening me with detention. Everyone is freaking out.

But, but…

I’m not backing down.

I pushed harder. His bones cracked. He howled in pain!

AAAAArrrrrrwwwwww!

“Stop! Stop! Please stop!” he begged. He pleaded. He cried.

But, you know what?

I couldn’t stop.

I couldn’t forget, and I couldn’t forgive. I remembered in bright vivid color all the other snide remarks, the tricks, the endless mindless torment and how no one… no fucking person… came to my aide. I also remembered when I came home beaten up with black eye, how my father…

…they very same father that told me to take it in the first place…

…yelled at me and punished me for “allowing it to happen”.

No.

Fucking.

Way.

I didn’t care. I was in an emotional rage AND that kid was going to be made to suffer.

OK.

Long story short, after he promised never… never, ever to pick on me again, I set him down. Then I took that 1/4″ steel rod and wrapped it around his neck.

When he went home his parents had to figure out how to remove it and understand the circumstances behind how it got there in the first place.

And yeah… there was some blow-back. However, nothing matched the pure satisfaction of watching him writhe in pain and the look of utter terror and horror on the faces of everyone else.

I was NEVER bothered or picked on ever again.

Boys need to be assertive, and be able to fight for their position within society. They are not girls. Do not pretend that society is progressive, modern and enlightened.

It isn’t.

A proud moment…

The following is from an article titled “Proud Parenting Moment: Son Beats Up Bully After Father Teaches Him How To Fight” originally written on August 17, 2018. All credit to the original author, and kudos from me.

So my son was being bullied pretty badly at school. People would make fun of his accent, use racial slurs towards him, throw open milk cartons at him at lunch, start rumors about him, they put his book bag in the toilet once, and a bunch of fucked shit kids do to each other.

My son had told on the main perpetrator to me and his mother and I went to the school and told them about my concerns and the school gave him a stern talking to which only stopped him for a few weeks and then he continued to bully my son.

So I went to the school and complained again and the administration had told me that they spoke to the kid and he had told them that he was just joking and he didn’t mean any of the stuff he was saying and that they were actually friends anyway the assistant principal told me that “boys will be boys” and that it was not out of the ordinary for boys to make fun of each other, but since the kid had admitted to doing it they gave him in-school suspension which is essentially a slap on the wrist.

So after that I realized that nothing was going to happen if I kept running back to the administration every time my son came home crying so I took matters into my own hands.

(Now I’m going to tell you something about me. In my home country I was an amateur boxer but due to the financial situation I was in, my mother did not want me to box she wanted me to work and study, so I cut a deal with her if I made that if to the Olympics I would go pro after but If I failed I would stop and work and go to university. Anyway I failed and stopped boxing and got a job and finished my studies.)

Ok, so what I did was taught my son how to fight. Everyday after I get home from work for the past 9 months I take him to the local boxing gym and taught him how to hit the bag, throw combinations, taught him about foot work and movement, how to work the speed bag, how to dodge, hit the pads and everything I else I knew from my old days as a boxer.

It worked wonders for my son not only did he become physically stronger, he also became mentally strong, he stopped coming home crying, he started to make friends and it had a real positive effect on him.

When I would ask him If he was still getting bullied he said it didn’t bother him what people he didn’t care about said about him, So I figured that was the end of the bully problem, I was wrong.

Two weeks ago I get a call from school that my son had gotten into a fight and that I had to go pick him up because he and the other boy were both suspended for 5 days for fighting.

When I go to pick my son up he is covered in blood, which was alarming at first but then he told me that it was not his blood it was the other boy, the one who put his bag in the toilet kept walking up to him and using racial insults towards him and my son told him If he didn’t stop he was going to beat him up, and he kept his promise.

Turns out my son broke the other kids nose, busted his lip and hit the other kids eye and it had swollen shut. My son has some bruises on his face but nothing compared to the other kid.

Now my son has been getting yelled at a lot by his mother, she made him write and apology letter to the boy…

…. the boys parents…

…to the principal…

…to the teacher…

…to the security guard who broke it up and she is really mad at me and blames me for this because I taught him how to fight but I honestly could not be more proud of him.

Sorry for the horrible grammar English is not my first language.

– Anonymous

Conclusions

Boys need to be assertive, and be able to fight for their position within society. They are not girls. Do not pretend that society is progressive, modern and enlightened.

It isn’t.


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Why America was established as a Republic and not as a Democracy

America was established as a Republic. As a Republic, it was designed to protect the liberty and the freedom of the American citizenry. Over the last two centuries, various individuals have “improved” upon this concept by replacing a Liberty protecting Republic, into a oligarchy ruled pretend-Democracy.

Here we take a look at this transition. We do so based on the book “Liberty in Peril,” by Randall Holcombe.

Liberty is freedom from the government.
Liberty is freedom from the government.

In his book, he challenges the presumption that liberty and democracy are complementary. They are not. You can either have a Republic, or you can have a Democracy. You cannot have both simultaneously.

High School Civics Class

There is no such thing as democracy. It's a sweet utopia. US was the first country to show threat only money design your status and access to privileges of 21st century. Western EU countries (like Germany) show that an average citizen has little to zero control over own countries processes. 

There is no such thing as democracy. there are fairy tales about it which are used as a tool of politics from the neo imperialist West towards everybody else. They consider us all savages and act accordingly. Because they are so "special" (remember one of this degenerative Obama-speeches?) 

- Michael Goryany 

When I took history and government in school, many critical issues were misrepresented. They were given short shrift, and in many instances ignored entirely.

These omissions greatly hampered my understanding of America and created mysteries that my teachers could not answer.

  • How can you have the fourth amendment, and also have the sixteenth amendment at the same time? One permits you to keep your financial affairs private, the other requires that you disclose them under the penalty of law.
  • How can you have a second amendment that cannot be infringed, and an ATF who’s entire purpose and objective is to infringe on the second amendment?
  • How can the United States be a Republic when the general population can vote for the President?

Indeed, the confusing nature of what America was founded as, and the way America was managed undermined my ability to understand what America really was.

Randall Holcombe’s book, Liberty in Peril: Democracy and Power in American History, fills in some very substantial gaps.

I believe that it is particularly great in regard to American constitutionalism, what it is, and what it was intended to be. He spends time describing how it has morphed from protecting liberty to advancing democracy instead. As well as how this love of “democracy” has run roughshod over Americans at the expense of liberty.

The founders did not intend the United States to be a democracy.
The founders did not intend the United States to be a democracy.

It does so with a host of novel and important insights rather than the disinterest generated by the books I suffered through in school.

Holcombe gets right to the main point:

The role of government as [America’s founders] saw it, was to protect  the rights of individuals, and the biggest threat to individual liberty  was the government itself.  

This is beautiful.

I only wish that it was taught in schools this way.

The American government was designed to protect the Rights of individuals.

... So they designed a government with constitutionally limited powers, constrained to carry out only those activities specifically allowed by the Constitution.  

Our nation was designed to have a very small government, with the restrictions on it, large, and clearly defined.

This book describes how the fundamental principle underlying American government has been transformed over the years…

...from protecting individual liberty...

...to carrying out the will of the people, as revealed by a democratic decision-making process. (p.  xxii) 

Holcombe begins by laying out the case that…

“...the Founders had no intention of creating a democracy...

...in the sense of a government that would be guided by popular opinion,” (p. 5) 

…in sharp contrast to current “understanding.” Where the point of government is to take polls and gauge public opinion. Then pretend to react to the opinion poll results.

Which of course is meaningless.

Studies have shown that the government does what it wants.

The media creates fake polls, and fake news, and fake opinion pieces and fake outrage to justify the governmental actions.

And what makes the transformation from a central focus on liberty to a central focus on democracy that routinely invades liberty…

... particularly significant is that the powers embodied in America’s twenty-first-century democratic government are those that eighteenth-century Americans revolted against to escape. (p. 7)

Liberty used to be important.

Since I do not have the space to dissect all of the issues in Liberty in Peril, I would like to highlight a few particularly noteworthy things.

Holcombe starts with John Locke, which is a common place to start for those interested in advancing liberty.

John Locke FRS was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "Father of Liberalism".
John Locke was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the “Father of Liberalism”.

But he also calls attention to Cato’s Letters, which was one of the most influential—but now almost completely ignored—influences leading to the birth of the American Revolution.

I have long been struck by how many of the insights our founders are credited with that actually trace back there (see the first major chapter of my book Lines of Liberty), and I echo Holcombe’s invitation for more people to discover it.

Liberty in Peril challenges the typical current presumption that liberty and democracy are complementary.

They are not.

If anything, they are direct opposites.

American "democracy" is a corruption. It is an oligarchy of the wealthy over the rest of humanity.
American “democracy” is a corruption. It is an oligarchy of the wealthy over the rest of humanity.
The principle of liberty suggests that first and foremost, the  government’s role is to protect the rights of individuals. 

The principle of democracy suggests that collective decisions are made according to the will of the majority…

The greater the allowable scope of democracy in government, the greater the threat to liberty…

In particular, the  ascendancy of the concept of democracy threatens the survival of the free market economy, which is an extension of the Founders’ views on liberty. (pp. 14-15)

This is reflected in the changing nature of elections.

At one time, elections might have been viewed as a method of selecting competent people to undertake a job with constitutionally-specified limits. 

With the extension of democracy,  elections became referendums on public policy. (p. 20)

The book also challenges commonly held presumptions that our Founders wanted democracy.

But while “the Founders wanted those in charge of  government’s operations to be selected by a democratic process,”...

... they  “also wanted to insulate those who ran the government from direct  influence by its citizens”...

... because “[b]y insulating political decision-makers from directs accountability to citizens...

... the government would be in a better position to adhere to its constitutionally-mandated  limits.” (p. 15)
Click and Goggle "democracy meme" to see just how effective and what the people think about "democracy" in the world today.
Click and Goggle “democracy meme” to see just how effective and what the people think about “democracy” in the world today.

And today, in 2020 we see how absolutely correct this assessment is.

“Thus, the Constitution created a limited government designed to  protect liberty, not to foster democracy.” (p. 16) 

But the United States…

“consistently has moved toward more democracy, and the unintended side  effect has been a reduction in liberty.” (p. 25)

After all, that was the sole purpose of both the 12th and the 17th amendments.

Holcombe lays out issues of consensus versus democracy, with consensus illustrated by market systems in which all those whose property rights are involved agree to transactions, (p. 29) but in government…

“a group is able to undertake more extensive collective  action if it requires less consensus to act.” (p. 30)

And the slippery slope is that…

The more citizens want to further national goals through government  action, the less consensus they will demand in the collective decision-making process. (p. 33) 

Another notable aspect of Liberty in Peril is how far beyond the typical discussion of constitutional issues it goes, substantially expanding readers’ understanding in intriguing ways.

For instance, how many Americans know of the Iroquois Constitution, which focused on unanimity?

The Iroquois constitution was based on the principles of peace, power and righteousness. It laid out a system of government and a method of electing representatives to its Long House Council surprisingly similar to the United States governmental system today. For instance, the Council is divided into Younger Brother and Elder Brother meetings, an instance of a bicameral legislature. Because trade and treaties with the Native Americans were critical to the success of the American colonies, the Iroquois constitution and related documents were translated into English and distributed throughout the colonies and European traders.
The Iroquois constitution was based on the principles of peace, power and righteousness. It laid out a system of government and a method of electing representatives to its Long House Council surprisingly similar to the United States governmental system today. For instance, the Council is divided into Younger Brother and Elder Brother meetings, an instance of a bicameral legislature. Because trade and treaties with the Native Americans were critical to the success of the American colonies, the Iroquois constitution and related documents were translated into English and distributed throughout the colonies and European traders.

How many are aware of the Albany Plan of Union, drawn up in 1754, or how it was influenced by the Iroquois Constitution?

The Albany Plan of Union was a plan to create a unified government for the Thirteen Colonies, suggested by Benjamin Franklin, then a senior leader (age 48) and a delegate from Pennsylvania, at the Albany Congress on July 10, 1754 in Albany, New York. More than twenty representatives of several Northern Atlantic colonies had gathered to plan their defense related to the French and Indian War, the front in North America of the Seven Years' War between Great Britain and France, spurred on by George Washington's recent defeat in the Ohio valley. The Plan represented one of multiple early attempts to form a union of the colonies "under one government as far as might be necessary for defense and other general important purposes."
The Albany Plan of Union was a plan to create a unified government for the Thirteen Colonies, suggested by Benjamin Franklin, then a senior leader (age 48) and a delegate from Pennsylvania, at the Albany Congress on July 10, 1754 in Albany, New York. More than twenty representatives of several Northern Atlantic colonies had gathered to plan their defense related to the French and Indian War, the front in North America of the Seven Years’ War between Great Britain and France, spurred on by George Washington’s recent defeat in the Ohio valley. The Plan represented one of multiple early attempts to form a union of the colonies “under one government as far as might be necessary for defense and other general important purposes.”

How many know that a “clear chain of constitutional evolution proceeds from the Albany Plan of Union to the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution of the United States”? (p. 43)

How many have noticed that “when compared with the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution clearly less constraining than the document it supplanted…the Constitution did not limit the powers of government; it expanded them”? (p. 48) Yet,

While the authors of the Constitution did deliberately expand the  powers of the federal government, they just as deliberately tried to  prevent the creation of a democratic government. (p. 52) 

How many are aware of what the Confederate Constitution tells us about the US Constitution.

A first draft that remains of the Confederate Constitution.
A first draft that remains of the Confederate Constitution.

As well as the drift from its principles since its adoption.

This is especially true because…

 “the problems that the authors of the  Confederate Constitution actually did address were overwhelmingly  associated with the use of legislative powers. Yes, legislative powers used to impose costs on the  general public to provide benefits to narrow constituencies”? (p. 107)

The Constitution often is portrayed as a document that limits the power of the federal government and guarantees the liberty of its citizens…

When compared to the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution places less constraint on the federal government and allows those who run the government more discretion and autonomy and less accountability.

The adoption of the Constitution enhanced the powers of government and laid the foundation for two centuries of government growth. (pp. 66-67)
American classroom teaching American history.
American classroom teaching American history.

Holcombe’s section on “The Elitist Constitution” is fascinating.

It lays out the case for why…

“[t]he Constitution devised democratic  processes for collective decision-making, but the Founders had no  intention of designing a government that would respond to the will of  the majority,” (p. 70) 

…as illustrated by the fact that citizens …

“had  almost no direct input into the federal government as the Constitution  was originally written and ratified.” (p. 70)

The section on the Electoral College is even more striking, as it stands in sharp variance from the presumptions behind almost the entire current debate over the National Popular Vote compact:

[A]t the time the Constitution was written the Founders anticipated that in most cases no candidate would receive votes from a majority of the electors. 

The Founders reasoned that most electors would vote for one candidate from their own states…

...and it would be unlikely that voting  along state lines would produce any candidate with a majority of the votes. (p. 75)

Consequently,

The Founders envisioned that in most cases the president would end up  being chosen by the House of Representatives from the list of the  top-five electoral vote recipients…

Furthermore, there was no indication that the number of electoral votes received should carry any weight besides creating a list of the top five candidates…

The process was not  intended to be democratic. (p. 76)

I found the issues discussed above to be of particular interest. But there is far more in the book to learn from, and often be surprised by, in comparison to what history courses usually teach.

Seventh grade history class as taught within a private school.
Seventh grade history class as taught within a private school.

Such issues include the evolution of parties, the influence of Andrew Jackson, who …

“fought for democracy, but, ironically, the result of  making the nation’s government more democratic has been to expand the  scope and power of government in response to popular demands for govern  programs,” (p. 91) 

which…

... “the Founders foresaw and tried to guard  against by limiting the role of democracy in their new government,” (p.  91), 

...the War Between the States (“the single most important event in the  transformation of American government,” (p. 93)

And, including the elimination of state succession as a real possibility, the Reconstruction Era amendments, the origins of interest group politics, the evolution of federal regulatory power, the evolution of the incentives of civil servants, the Sixteenth Amendment (income tax) as

 “a  response to the demand for a larger federal government,” (p. 149)  

…a different take on the 1920s, in which …

“[f]ar from representing a retreat from progressivism, the 1920s extended the now-established orthodoxy,  (p. 154) 

…added insight into the New Deal and the courts, Social Security as the …

“one New Deal program for the responsibility for fundamentally  transforming the historical, constitutional role of the federal  government,” (p. 175) 

…how

...“The Great Society represents the ultimate  triumph of democracy, because for the first time a major expansion in  the scope of government was based on the demands of the electorate, with no extenuation circumstances” (p. 205), 

…and far more.

In sum, there are very many good reasons to recommend Liberty in Peril. In it, Randall Holcombe provides not just a powerful and insightful look into crucial aspects of America’s evolution away from the principles of the revolution that created it but also an important warning:

Unfortunately, many Americans do not appear to fully understand these  dangers as they continue to push the foundations of their government away from liberty and toward democracy. (p. 225)

Why is this important?

 Now, global capital has created a tiny minority of wealthy people who  make the feudal lords seem almost a New York rush hour crowd by  comparison. As few as three multi-billionaire Americans have as much  combined wealth as 150 million Americans, all of those expected to  dutifully troop off to the polls and vote for continuing the system that  is moving much closer to a financial breakdown, with more pain and  suffering for more Americans and the rest of the world than the last  collapse caused. Using public funds to bail out private wealth  temporarily saved that one and the public good be damned. That cannot be  allowed to happen again, and uprisings all over the world are taking  place because more people can’t take it anymore. They feel the pain and  see the handwriting on the wall, which may still be beyond those of us  who can only use our smartphones to get dumb news which tells us nothing  but what consciousness control pays its media to cram into our heads. 

...

It once was easier to get away with when there were enough people  getting by to feel comfortable enough to think maybe it would eventually  all work out for the best. That former working middle class is sinking  lower, the lower class is in more misery than ever in modern times, and  the tiny minority at the top is richer than ever before based on its  purchase of armies and a professional class also dwindling in numbers  but still numerous enough to transform minds and politics into  acceptance of the economic slavery that passes for democracy.

It  can’t and won’t last much longer and if we wait for nature to take  action it will obviously be a disaster. But if we organize and act as a  human race, facing our problems as a race threatened with annihilation  if we don’t work together, the result could be the salvation offered by  real democracy in which the words of past revolutionaries like Malcolm  and Martin become the actions of the present generation. That means  ending capitalism and beginning humanity. 

- Frank Scott’s political commentary and satire are online at the blog legalienate: http//legalienate.blogspot.com 

Conclusions

Here are my “take aways” for whatever it is worth.

  • The founders did not intend, nor want, America to be a “democracy”.
  • They wanted America to be a Republic.
  • A Republic protects individual rights and freedoms, not to mention liberty.
  • A “democracy” is mob rule and is easily manipulated by people with money, power and influence.
  • This is what happened to America.
  • Today, America is a “democracy” in name, and an oligarchy by function.
  • As an oligarchy, as history clearly states, that it will end catastrophically.
  • The ONLY was to avoid catastrophic turmoil is to drastically alter the current operating framework that the United States exists under. It must go from “democracy” to something else…

If you enjoyed this post, you can view similar posts by checking out this link to the SHTF index. Here…

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What High School taught me about Diversity.

After the Obama Administration reworked American industry to promote “diversity” over merit, much of the Western world has followed suite and adopted his policy. It’s sort of a kind of mass mob acceptance of the latest fad that no one wants to be left out of.

You know, like “pet rocks”, “swallowing goldfish”, and “Deming Quality controls”.

It does pay well. LinkedIN advertises for “Diversity Directors” worth half a million dollars a year in salary.

Just about the same as all those “experts” for Y2K were paid, and those “experts” for “Global Cooling” back in the 1970’s. But really just how beneficial is it to the “bottom line”; the profitability of a given business? Is the hiring of a “diverse” selection of people better than hiring on merit?

If you believe all the hype, the answer is “yes”.

But somehow, I have this bad nagging feeling at the back of my head that says otherwise. Because “diversity” isn’t about wearing different clothes, or different skin tones, or believing different religious dogma. Diversity is a methodology that places no measurable criteria on the hiring requirements for a given position.

Diversity is a methodology that places no measurable criteria on the hiring requirements for a given position. 

Well, let’s look at this.

We will look at idea of “diversity” this from the point of view of what it was like in my High School years. For my High School was fully and intentionally diverse. And at that time, there were two techniques of grouping people. These techniques were by [1] merit, and [2] by random association. Or in other words; “diversity”. Thus we can compare diversity against merit as the criteria used in a selection process.

Now, the fact and truth is that "diversity" is just a code word for a scheme to provide an avenue to move African-Americans into positions of power all through American industry and institutions. 

That was why it was started, and the unspoken truth of why it exists.

High School

High School, and Elementary school for that matter, was always about equal doses of Diversity selection criteria, and criteria by merit.

High School, and Elementary school for that matter, was always about equal doses of Diversity selection criteria, and criteria by merit.
High School, and Elementary school for that matter, was always about equal doses of Diversity selection criteria, and criteria by merit.

Diversity selection was simply random groupings of children by arbitrary means. The most common way by the first letter of your last name. (I know this well, as that is how I always ended up sitting at the back of the classroom.) On rare occasions we would be organized by height, or some other arbitrary factor.

Which is, more or less, exactly the same thing as “diversity”. Which is the utilization of other characteristics aside from merit to rank and classify people.

Grading of students

However, when it came to grades, students were classified by merit. That being such that the best performing students obtained the highest grades. This was not only true in the class, but also in terms of the sports.

Cheerleaders were selected in their abilities to memorize and fit within the cheer-leading routines.

Athletes and football (and basketball) team tryouts determined who would become “letter-men”, and who would play what role in the games and sports that the High School would participate within. If you couldn’t perform, meet the requirements, or score, you would (more often than not) end up sitting on the bench most of the season.

Grouping of students

During class, sometimes the students would “form groups”.

More often than not, these groups were formed by random convenience. Members of each group would consist of some of the smarter kinds in the class and some of the stupidest. Some would have jocks and others would have princesses. Some would have nerds, and some would have metal heads. They would be just as diverse as you could possible imagine.

Now, in every single case, this is how it always worked out…

  • One or two of the most popular kids would take over the group.
  • The smartest nerds or high-performers would do the vast majority of the work.
  • The rest of the group would “slide by”.

In groups, the tendency was for the group to share the credit for the work of a precious few. At no time would there be any exceptions.

Occasionally, you might have a group with a combination of the high-performers, the nerds, and the “smart kids”. Who, of course would always win the award for the best performing group.

Occasionally, you might have a group with a combination of the high-performers, the nerds, and the "smart kids". Who, of course would always win the award for the best performing group.
Occasionally, you might have a group with a combination of the high-performers, the nerds, and the “smart kids”. Who, of course would always win the award for the best performing group.

There would also be groups, by the “luck of the draw” would end up with the lazy, low performing, and marginal students. These would end up never winning any awards or appreciation for what ever effort they put into the project they were assigned.

There would also be groups, by the "luck of the draw" would end up with the lazy, low performing, and marginal students. These would end up never winning any awards or appreciation for what ever effort they put into the project they were assigned.
There would also be groups, by the “luck of the draw” would end up with the lazy, low performing, and marginal students. These would end up never winning any awards or appreciation for what ever effort they put into the project they were assigned.

Formation of teams in sports

When I attended school, we had these events called “try outs”. There, a group of 50 or so kids would “try out” for a position on one of the many sports teams that the school had. You needed to “try out” and prove yourself valuable and worthy for the team. After all, there might only be some 20 slots available for you, and there were 50 people vying for those spots.

I grew up in the 1960's and the 1970's where the movie "Dazed and Confused" took place. That was my life.
I grew up in the 1960’s and the 1970’s where the movie “Dazed and Confused” took place. That was my life.

Member were selected by ability and skill. Those students with the best throwing arms ended up being Football quarterbacks. The fastest swimmers got to take lead roles in water sports, and the students that could hit the ball furthest got to play baseball.

The only people who wore seatbelts in the 1970s must’ve worked for  NHTSA. Manufacturers had been installing them in cars since 1968 when  they were ordered to by the federal government, and from that point  forward, car builders and policymakers tried everything to get people to  use them. First was just a gentle reminder on the dash. Then there was a  light on the dash. Then a light and a buzzer. Then a buzzer that  wouldn’t turn off, so you pulled the fuse, or you wrapped the seatbelt  behind you instead of just clicking it over your body the way the  manufacturer intended. 

It wouldn’t be until the 1980s until states encouraged seatbelt use. In  1993, that all started to change as California passed the nation’s first  seatbelt law that made not wearing one a primary violation, meaning you  could be stopped and ticketed just for not wearing one, rather than  having to be stopped for a more serious violation first. 

No one cared about the color of their skin, their family background, how smart they were, or whether their parents made enough or too little money. It was based on merit, and only those with merit in their respective fields could participate in the games.

No one cared about the color of their skin, their family background, how smart they were, or whether their parents made enough or too little money. It was based on merit, and only those with merit in their respective fields could participate in the games
No one cared about the color of their skin, their family background, how smart they were, or whether their parents made enough or too little money. It was based on merit, and only those with merit in their respective fields could participate in the games

I know. I was pretty terrible at sports. I couldn’t dribble for the life of me, and my ability to hit the baseball with a bat was hit or miss. Though, I was a pretty mean-little crab-soccer player. Yes, so instead of playing sports, I ended up working after school. First in the coal mines and then in the steel mills. Not to mention stock clerk and Gas station attendant.

It’s called life.

Those that could play ball well, got all the girls and had a lively time on the weekends. Those that couldn’t ended up working during our free time.

Modern contemporaneous examples

You can see examples in public and in industry on the effects of selecting membership by diversity as opposed to merit.

Here we have Detroit. It’s been a champion of diversity for decades now…

Detroit has been championing diversity hiring at all levels since well into the 1970's.
Detroit has been championing diversity hiring at all levels since well into the 1970’s.

Shanghai, in contrast, has been hiring by merit for at least fifty years. You can see what happens when people are in positions of power through merit.

Shanghai, China has been filling positions in government through merit for at least fifty years. You can see what happens when people who are in control, know well what they are doing.
Shanghai, China has been filling positions in government through merit for at least fifty years. You can see what happens when people who are in control, know well what they are doing.

Baltimore, USA is another example of how diversity hires can affect the overall standard and quality of life in a given community. Here we see a typical Baltimore community that has been managed by diversity hires for a good two decades…

Baltimore has been promoting using diversity criteria for at least two decades. you can well see how successful it has been.
Baltimore has been promoting using diversity criteria for at least two decades. you can well see how successful it has been.

Here is Hangzhou Bay Bridge China’s Hangzhou Bay Trans-oceanic Bridge is one of the masterpieces of modern architecture. It is the longest sea-crossing bridge in the world – 36 kilometres – and comes with a price tag of 11.8 billion yuan (US$1.70 billion). It was designed and built by the best engineers and designers in China. Each one obtained their positions through merit.

Hangzhou Bay Trans-oceanic Bridge is one of the masterpieces of modern architecture. It is the longest sea-crossing bridge in the world - 36 kilometres.
Hangzhou Bay Trans-oceanic Bridge is one of the masterpieces of modern architecture. It is the longest sea-crossing bridge in the world – 36 kilometres

Here is an American pedestrian overpass walkway in Florida designed and built by diversity hires. It was designed, and constructed by a group of mostly-female diversity hires. It collapsed on it’s very first day of use. This is in Florida, USA.

Newly built pedestrian walkway designed and built by diversity hires collapses in Florida.  Six people died and ten others were injured when the 174-foot span of the FIU pedestrian bridge collapsed.
Newly built pedestrian walkway designed and built by diversity hires collapses in Florida. Six people died and ten others were injured when the 174-foot span of the FIU pedestrian bridge collapsed.

Conclusion

Just because a mob of people believe something, and it is well-promoted in the media, does not make it true. At one time, people believed tomatoes were poisonous, and that bathing caused sickness, and that Epstein killed himself. All of which were false.

Diversity hires will ALWAYS perform poorly when compared to hires based on merit.

If I ever need to have open-heart surgery, I want the best doctor available. I do not want to have surgery performed on me by a slacker who fell asleep during heart-surgery class.

Some cool links on diversity

Posts Regarding Life and Contentment

Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.

Some of my favorite links and browser bookmarks.
Here are just some pretty decent websites, bookmarks, URL's and sites that I would like to share. I think that there is something here for everyone. These, in my mind, are the "cream of the crop" of underappreciated websites, and some places that you all might want to visit.
Mongolian Women under Genghis Khan
The history of how Australia obtained Sheilas; the story of The Lady Juliana, The 18th-Century Prison Ship Filled With Women.   This is the story of the Lady Juliana. This was a special ship designed to convey female convicts from England to Australia. The idea was that a boat load of female convicts would happily link up with a colony of convicts in Australia. Thus making everyone very, very happy, and reform the colony in New South Wales.
What is going on in Hollywood?
Why no High-Speed rail in the USA?
Link
Gaslighting
Link
Link
End of the Day Potato
Dog Shit
Tomatos
Link
Mad scientist
The Navy is scrapping the F/A-18 Hornet.
Gorilla Cage in the basement
The two family types and how they work.
How to manage a family household.
Link
The most popular American foods.
Soups, Sandwiches and ice cold beer.
Pleasures
Work in the 1960's
School in the 1970s
Cat Heaven
Corporate life
Corporate life - part 2
Build up your life
Grow and play - 1
Grow and play - 2
Baby's got back
Link
A womanly vanity
Army and Navy Store
Playground Comparisons
Excuses that we use that keep us enslaved.

More Posts about Life

I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.

Being older
Things I wish I knew.
Asian Nazi Chic
Link
Travel
PT-141
Bronco Billy
How they get away with it
Paper Airplanes
Snopes
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
1960's and 1970's link
The Confederados
Democracy Lessons
The Rule of Eight

Funny Pictures

Picture Dump 1

Be the Rufus – Tales of Everyday Heroism.

Be the Rufus - 1
Be the Rufus, part II. More tales of heroism.

Articles & Links

You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.

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A Report on the Xinjiang and Uyghur re-education camps in China.

At a press conference held by the government of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on Saturday, Elijan Anayit, a spokesperson for the Information Office of the Xinjiang government, condemned the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, which in September published a report titled "Documenting Xinjiang's Detention System," falsely claiming that China is persecuting ethnic minorities in Xinjiang.

Anayit said the claims are totally fabricated and don't hold water. He explained that from 2010 till the end of 2018, the Uygur population in Xinjiang increased by 25.04 percent, rising from 10.1715 million to 12.7184 million, whereas the Han population increased by just 2.0 percent, rising from 8.8299 million to 9.0068 million.

-Former Xinjiang trainees share their training center experiences
 news.cgtn.com 

This article takes a comprehensive and serious look at the abuse of the Uyghur Muslims at the hands of the dastardly Chinese Communists. We look at who this group of people are, and their culture, and what is going on regarding their relationship with the Chinese central government in Beijing. We also take a good hard look at how they are being used as pawns in a global wide game of geopolitical politics.

1 million Uyghur Muslims in concentration camps!” ... 
“Ethnic  Cleansing and Cultural Genocide!” ...

PBS NewsHour: Inside China's brutal persecution of Uighur Muslims - Season 2019 Episode 

Yikes!  These emotional phrases are very effective in geopolitical arguments. Often they are used as excuses to acquire money and funding out of the United States Congress towards one or more "efforts at spreading democracy". 

You know, just like the (so called) "successful" pro-democracy movements in Libya, Iran, Cuba, Syria, Iran, and now Venezuela. Look at just how successful American tax-dollars are promoting democracy around the world! 

It's a better way to spend the money, don't you know, than rebuilding Baltimore... Right?

Why rebuild Baltimore?

We shouldn't spend tax money on Americans in America. No! The money should be spread out all over the globe to fight for Democracy! Yessur!
We shouldn’t spend tax money on Americans in America. No! The money should be spread out all over the globe to fight for Democracy! Yessur!

So what’s the real story about the Chinese Uyghur Muslims? Let’s look at this issue in detail. Let’s go beyond exaggeration, distortion and sensationalism.

But let’s first review the propaganda.

You know. The propaganda that is directly aimed at YOU, the American reader. It’s all that propaganda to justify your Congressman throwing lavish parties, and hauling pallet-loads of “Benjamins” to far-away shadowy entities to spend as they see fit.

You know… for “democracy“.

    After the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the George W. Bush administration flooded the conquered country with so much cash to pay for reconstruction and other projects in the first year that a new unit of measurement was born.      Pentagon officials determined that one giant C-130 Hercules cargo plane could carry $2.4 billion in shrink-wrapped bricks of $100 bills. They sent an initial full planeload of cash, followed by 20 other flights to Iraq by May 2004 in a $12-billion haul that U.S. officials believe to be the biggest international cash airlift of all time.      This month, the Pentagon and the Iraqi government are finally closing the books on the program that handled all those Benjamins. But despite years of audits and investigations, U.S. Defense officials still cannot say what happened to $6.6 billion in cash — enough to run the Los Angeles Unified School District or the Chicago Public Schools for a year, among many other things.
After the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the George W. Bush administration flooded the conquered country with so much cash to pay for reconstruction and other projects in the first year that a new unit of measurement was born. Pentagon officials determined that one giant C-130 Hercules cargo plane could carry $2.4 billion in shrink-wrapped bricks of $100 bills. They sent an initial full planeload of cash, followed by 20 other flights to Iraq by May 2004 in a $12-billion haul that U.S. officials believe to be the biggest international cash airlift of all time. The only thing is that once the money was handed over to the American military forces for “safe-keeping” it disappeared.
 After the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the  George W. Bush administration flooded the conquered country with so much  cash to pay for reconstruction and other projects in the first year  that a new unit of measurement was born.

 Pentagon officials determined that one giant C-130 Hercules cargo  plane could carry $2.4 billion in shrink-wrapped bricks of $100 bills.  They sent an initial full planeload of cash, followed by 20 other  flights to Iraq by May 2004 in a $12-billion haul that U.S. officials  believe to be the biggest international cash airlift of all time.

 This month, the Pentagon and the Iraqi government are finally closing  the books on the program that handled all those Benjamins. But despite  years of audits and investigations, U.S. Defense officials still cannot  say what happened to $6.6 billion in cash — enough to run the Los  Angeles Unified School District or the Chicago Public Schools for a  year, among many other things. 

-Long War Journal

The Uyghur propaganda serves a purpose.

It is to support regional CIA activities within China. Create a war where allocated funds can be easily diverted. And, in so doing, channel the allocated tax dollars back to Washington and into the pockets of the oligarchy. That is why the neocons love war so much. The war zone is all confused and it is very easy to siphon money into their wallets.

It’s an enormous racket.

The Uyghur propaganda serves a purpose. It is to support  regional CIA activities  within China. Create a war where allocated funds can be easily diverted. And, in so doing, channel the allocated tax dollars back to Washington and into the pockets of the oligarchy. That is why the neocons love war so much. The war zone is all confused and it is very easy to siphon money into their wallets.
The Uyghur propaganda serves a purpose. It is to support regional CIA activities within China. Create a war where allocated funds can be easily diverted. And, in so doing, channel the allocated tax dollars back to Washington and into the pockets of the oligarchy. That is why the neocons love war so much. The war zone is all confused and it is very easy to siphon money into their wallets.
I recall, as probably most people don’t, that the  Central Intelligence Agency, with assistance from some of China’s  neighbors, put $30 million into the destabilization of Tibet and  basically financed and trained the participants in the Khampa rebellion  and ultimately sought to remove the Dalai Lama from Tibet–which they  did. 

They escorted him out of Tibet to Dharamsala. 

There were similar  efforts made with the Uyghurs during the Cold War that never really got  off the ground. In both cases you had religion waved as a banner in  support of a desire for independence or autonomy which, of course, is  anathema to any state.

- US Ambassador Chas. H. Freeman. 

Anti-China propaganda focusing on the Uyghur Muslims

The propaganda can get pretty ridiculous, and it often is…

Seriously?

Role Reversal:

Washington is reportedly sending white men to sleep in the same beds as black Detroit women while their husbands are serving time in prison. It's a racist racket against women of color.

Yes. It is that ridiculous.

You’ve got to be shitting me. That people actually believe this nonsense. But there you have it. American press reporting on a statement made by…

…wait for it…

…wait for it…

…wait for it…

Radio Free Asia.

Yup, the United States funded propaganda mouth piece for Asia.

Radio Free Asia is a CIA front organization.

Nah, you might say. It just can’t be CIA! There must be a mistake, you argue. The CIA doesn’t get involved in these kinds of things. Right? But…

The International Broadcasting Independent Grantee Organization grant program provides funding for projects that support freedom and democracy by enhancing an understanding about America and the world to overseas audiences. 

Grant funding is limited to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting Networks. 

-United States Grants for Radio

And the connections are everywhere. All you need to do is a mere five minutes of research to connect the dots.

The CIA and all this meddling is friggin’ everywhere. And, it’s not the only one…

"Eminent scholar Jerry Cohen  likens to the situation in Xinjiang to that of Nazi Germany, where  dozens of his relatives were detained, tortured and killed under a  similarly totalitarian regime. The connection between the totalitarian  ideology of the Chinese Communist Party and modern-day surveillance  technology has resulted in a terrible degradation of human rights for  the Uyghur people."

-   China’s Escalating Repression of the Uyghurs 

My goodness!

Who is this “expert” who is equating China with Nazi’s? Well, a quick search on the internet identifies him as a “venerable expert on Chinese affairs“. Where he is found working and writing for the American publication “National Review”. (A Conservative “Hawkish” Neocon Publication.) He is considered to be “a skilled and talented advocate for world-wide “democracy””.

National Review is an American semi-monthly editorial magazine focusing on news and commentary pieces on political, social, and cultural affairs. The magazine was founded by the author William F. Buckley Jr. in 1955. It is currently edited by Rich Lowry. Since its founding, the magazine has played a significant role in the development of conservatism in the United States, helping to define its boundaries and promoting fusionism while establishing itself as a leading voice on the American right. 

-Wikipedia

This organization is a true war-mongering alliance, that uses the cover of “American Conservatism”, for substantive reputation.

But, you know, this no longer flies true in the latest iteration of American Conservative thought. Since 2016, the American conservative movement has had a major shake-up. Americans are sick and tired of Democrats calling themselves Conservatives, just because they love to fight proxy wars.

Whats more, this organization knows it.

"Their unceasing agitation against a compromise peace in the Middle East,  coupled with their lobbying for America to endorse to Sharon’s ongoing  humiliation of the Palestinians, has managed to make America hated in  parts of the world where it used to be admired, even loved. 

Some of that  hatred has been turned—should we be surprised?—into anti-American  terror. 

Now, as it prepares to occupy Iraq against the will of much of  the Middle East while facing a rejuvenated al-Qaeda, America has fewer  real friends and more ill-wishers than ever in its history. 

This is in  considerable part the “accomplishment” of America’s neocons..."

- Among the Neocons 

So what is going on, eh?

Since the start of the Iraq War, the United States has sent tens of billions of dollars in assistance to Iraq, a large portion of which has been squandered or simply disappeared.
Since the start of the Iraq War, the United States has sent tens of billions of dollars in assistance to Iraq, a large portion of which has been squandered or simply disappeared.

So we know [1] that a major United States publication that supports Conservative Neocon ambitions; global proxy wars, is writing the anti-China Uyghur Muslim narratives.

We also know that they [2] have an “expert” that writes about the Muslims in China.

Further, [3] by “connecting the dots”, we know that the CIA, via the NED and NID funds this effort; the author and the publication.

Finally, we can see [4] the target is CIA directed to use the Uyghur Muslims as pawns in America-instigated revolution within China.

And as such…

[5] American tax-payer funds can be rerouted to other destinations. Destinations where the neocon sponsors can extract enormous profits.

They sent an initial full planeload of cash, followed by 20 other flights to Iraq by May 2004 in a $12-billion haul that U.S. officials believe to be the biggest international cash airlift of all time.    The only thing is that once the money was handed over to the American military forces for "safe-keeping" it disappeared.
They sent an initial full planeload of cash, followed by 20 other flights to Iraq by May 2004 in a $12-billion haul that U.S. officials believe to be the biggest international cash airlift of all time. The only thing is that once the money was handed over to the American military forces for “safe-keeping” it disappeared. All 21 plane-loads.

Who is this “expert” who reports these issues?

"Eminent scholar Jerry Cohen  likens to the situation in Xinjiang to that of Nazi Germany..."

OK. Fine. We have a name rather than “sources”, or “it was reported”… We have someone that we can investigate.

Then, as such an “expert“, he should have lived in China for a few years, and should travel back and forth between China and the United States quite often. Right? He’s an expert… right? He has first-hand information that has affected his thoughts, emotions and attitudes. He must have tons of experience to ignite the (apparent) rage inside of him to write such a flood of articles about the Muslims in China. Right?

Nope.

Jerome A. Cohen has never lived in China.

NEVER.

N-E-V-E-R.

Never, as in doesn’t even speak Chinese. Never, as in doesn’t know what a Chinese license plate looks like. Never, as in has zero Chinese friends. Never, as in does not know the difference between Tianjin, and Dangguang.

Never.

Never, as in “knows Jack-shit.”

Never.

Yet… Yet, here he is instructing and “educating” Americans on how to think, and getting their emotions all riled up. Eh.

In fact, according to his LinkedIN profile, he’s lived in Washington D.C. most of his pampered life. He’s a bonified member of the “Deep State”. And is a card-carrying member of the CIA regime-changing apparatus, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), as well as the National Democratic Institute (NDI).

He’s CIA you all.

Out of the spotlight, active U.S. interference takes place through  the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). 

The NED is bankrolling Hong  Kong "pro-democracy" and anti-Beijing groups such as the Solidarity  Center (SC), the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and Hong Kong Human  Rights Monitor to the tune of millions. In 2018 alone the NED reports  giving 155,000 U.S. dollars to the SC and 200,000 U.S. dollars to the  NDI.

The NED is a sham NGO founded in 1983 to replace functions  previously carried out by the CIA. 

Philip Agee, a former CIA agent and  author of "Inside the Company: CIA Diary" details how the CIA would set  up front organizations and funnel money into destabilization campaigns.

After  destabilization would come the coup-d'etat. The Brazilian 1964 coup  that overthrew President João Goulart and the Chilean 1973 coup against  Chilean President Salvador Allende were both backed by the CIA. In both  instances, left-wing parties were deposed and replaced by right-wing  military forces compliant to U.S. interests. 

- Why is the National Endowment for Democracy fueling Hong Kong protests? 

In particular, he (used to be) a member of the Uyghur Human Rights Project. Which enjoys full generous (taxpayer) funding out of the United States to institute regime changing efforts inside of China.

From 1984 to 1990 the NED received $15–18 million of congressional funding annually, and $25–$30m from 1991 to 1993. At the time the funding came via the United States Information Agency (USIA). 

-  National Endowment for Democracy - Wikipedia 

That is CIA meddling to a “T”.

Since the start of the Iraq War, the United States has sent tens of billions of dollars in assistance to Iraq, a large portion of which has been squandered or simply disappeared.

Government auditors say some $61 billion was spent  on reconstruction projects in Iraq from 2003 to 2012. At least 10  percent of the money cannot be accounted for. Some 15 percent of the  money spent, or roughly $8 billion, was wasted. 

-Fiscal Times

How about the Slave message inside Christmas cards?

All progiganda. Check this out. From here.

A British girl discovered a message inside of a box of charity Christmas cards bought from British grocery giant Tesco saying it had been packed by inmates. (Screenshot from CBS News)
A British girl discovered a message inside of a box of charity Christmas cards bought from British grocery giant Tesco saying it had been packed by inmates. (Screenshot from CBS News)

China on Monday denied accusations of forced labor at a Shanghai prison after media reported that a British girl found a message hidden in a Christmas card saying it had been packed by inmates, a piece of news later proved to be a “prank”.

Yeah. Sure.

“A prank”

The allegations came to light when The Sunday Times reported that six-year-old Florence Widdicombe from Tooting, south London, discovered a message inside of a box of charity Christmas cards bought from British grocery giant Tesco, reading…

“We are foreign prisoners in Shanghai  Qingpu Prison China. Forced to work against our will. Please help us,  notify human rights organization and contact Mr. Peter Humphrey.”

The news suddenly captured worldwide attention, while many doubt its authenticity.

Coincidently, or maybe not, Peter Humphrey mentioned in the message is exactly the writer of the article, a British former journalist who was imprisoned in Qingpu Prison in Shanghai for over two years for trafficking personal data.

Peter Humphrey is a British former journalist who was imprisoned in Qingpu Prison in China. (Screenshot from The Globe and Mail)
Peter Humphrey is a British former journalist who was imprisoned in Qingpu Prison in China. (Screenshot from The Globe and Mail)

In his report, Humphrey said he contacted several members of ex-prisoners in Qingpu Prison, who confirmed they had been packing Christmas cards for Tesco for at least two years, and were “being forced into mundane manual assembly or packaging tasks” for other Western companies. However, he didn’t mention the identity of these prisoners and the names of those Western companies.

On Monday, Zhejiang Yunguang Printing, the Chinese firm that supplies greeting cards to Tesco, slammed these “unfounded claims”, adding that they don’t have labor from Shanghai Qingpu Prison, according to Global Times.

This relationsip would be well documented and easy to prove,

Shanghai prison warden refutes forced labor accusation
https://lnkd.in/dxabUPa
Shanghai prison warden refutes forced labor accusation https://lnkd.in/dxabUPa

China’s Foreign Ministry also dismissed the allegations, saying it was “just a drama choreographed by Mr. Peter Humphrey”. “After verifying with relevant departments, we know for sure that there is no forced labor of foreign prisoners in Qingpu Prison in Shanghai,” noted Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang.

The news has also received wide attention from netizens, many of whom questioned whether it was credible. (Screenshot from comments under BBC News’ official Facebook account)
The news has also received wide attention from netizens, many of whom questioned whether it was credible. (Screenshot from comments under BBC News’ official Facebook account)

The news has also received wide attention from netizens, many of whom questioned whether it was credible.

Something fishy out of the UK.
Something fishy out of the UK.

“There is so much misinformation, it’s almost impossible to say with any certainty where it came from,” reads a Facebook user’s comment.

The news has also received wide attention from netizens, many of whom questioned whether it was credible. (Screenshot from comments under BBC News’ official Facebook account)

This is not the first time that Humphrey has popped out into the spotlight with a headline or two.

In 2018, after he confessed to charges he illegally bought and sold the personal information to clients, he asked Britain’s media regulator to revoke the broadcast license of China’s state television for helping to stage his allegedly forced confession and subsequent jailing in China.

In response to Humphrey’s accusations, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng said in a regular press briefing in November 2018 that China hoped Britain can support and facilitate the reporting work of international media in the UK. “China’s judicial departments handle cases according to the law, and safeguard the legal rights and interests of foreigners in China,” he added.

Fake stories concerning China stitched up by Western media is not unusual over these last few years.

Last month (November 2019), a piece of seemingly explosive news was reported by Australian media about a self-proclaimed spy Wang Liqiang who sought asylum in Australia, claiming to have reportedly given authorities information about operations in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Australia, which incurred heavy criticism from Australian media and politicians that China has interfered in the country’s politics and universities.

Ironically, Wang later confessed to fraud, making the story into a farce that put Australian media to shame.

Similarly, it is not surprising that Humphrey came back to the spotlight after one year of silence with a fake story, to which spokesman Geng replied by providing him with the advice that “if you want to grab more eyeballs, at least come up with some new tricks.” 

Here’s another article.

It’s amateur-hour on the pile-up against China.

Complete and absolute nonsense! Remember, boys and girls, any pronouncements (such as this) comes out of Beijing and is super-dooper well-documented.
Complete and absolute nonsense! Remember, boys and girls, any pronouncements (such as this) comes out of Beijing and is super-dooper well-documented.

I used to post on FreeRepublic. Then they sold out, just like Matt Drudge did. Now FR is something else. It is a mouth-piece for the oligarchy.

Now FR is something else. It is a mouth-piece for the oligarchy.
Now FR is something else. It is a mouth-piece for the oligarchy.

The CIA regime changing apparatus.

People! A recitation of the “talking points” of any CIA directive and regime changing apparatus should always be suspect.

No matter how much of a patriotic person you might be, the CIA, and the NED / NID have a terrible track-record of regime change. In almost every case resulting in death, bloodshed, and the implementation of an American-friendly dictatorship at the loss of freedom for the nations so targeted. As well as a mysterious loss of the allocated billions of dollars that was their charge.

Here’s some articles in case you don’t know what I am talking about…

America is currently fighting 8 simultaneous wars today. We have been in Afghanistan for almost 20 years. That is obscene.

  • World War II American involvement was three years.
  • World War I was four years.
  • The American Civil War was four years.
  • The first gulf war was one year.

What’s with all the wars?

In the past three years, over $3 billion in CASH was flown out of Kabul reports the Wall Street Journal. Officials don’t know exactly who got what, but have a general idea: “U.S. investigators believe top Afghan officials and their associates are sending billions of diverted U.S. aid and logistics dollars and drug money to financial safe havens abroad.” That’s still $9 billion less than what was lost in Iraq.
In the past three years, over $3 billion in CASH was flown out of Kabul reports the Wall Street Journal. Officials don’t know exactly who got what, but have a general idea: “U.S. investigators believe top Afghan officials and their associates are sending billions of diverted U.S. aid and logistics dollars and drug money to financial safe havens abroad.” That’s still $9 billion less than what was lost in Iraq.

Why are Americans dying in far-away third-world nations? Why are we paying for it? Why is America trying to fight everyone?

Why are we the policeman for the world, and what’s all this nonsense about spreading “democracy“…?

Why are we flying pallet loads of untraceable cash to the regions and not using (observable) bank transfers? Why are the billions of dollars vanishing? Why is it all being done so surreptitiously?

 American money began to disappear almost as soon as the Iraq War  began. In 2004, $19 billion in reconstruction assistance was provided to  Iraq. From 2005 to 2009, $26 billion was sent to Iraq for the same  purpose. 

 A Congressional Research Service (CRS) report published in 2009 said  much of this money was lost to waste, fraud and abuse. Stuart W. Bowen,  Jr., then Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR),  testified to Congress in 2009 that 15 to 20 percent of this money was  wasted. 

 -Fiscal Times 

On top of that, consider that the Uyghurs in Xinjiang are not living in a third world shit hole. The “proxy-war model for personal financial gain” can have dire consequences!

Picking a fight with nuclear-armed, merit-ruled China is like dancing on top of a fuel-soaked mattress while sparking the flint on a lighter. It’s idiotic!

Meanwhile, Detroit, San Francisco and Baltimore are absolute "shit holes". There is something seriously wrong when Americans are willing to throw money away on nonsensical regime change, while ignoring the festering rot in their very own backyard.

Really! What is America today?

What America is today.

It is crazy and absolutely NOT sustainable.

What does China think about all this?

China is fully aware of what is going on.

Though the American (manipulated) public might not be. As such, they are proceeding cautiously with a smile on their faces. We should not ever be under the illusion that they are oblivious to the Neocon interest in regime change within China.

They are aware, and they are ALERT.

What China thinks about the minorties.

An Overview of Xinjiang, China.

Most Americans haven’t a clue about China. Many think that it is a suburb of Memphis, Tennessee. I am not at all kidding.

I remember talking to a woman at the checkout line in Conway, Arkansas. We ended up talking about China and how different it was. She sincerely thought that it was a suburb of Memphis, Tennessee.

Arkansas…

Typical Americans
Most Americans do not know where China is located at relative to their hometown. In fact, polls have indicated that is is actually some confusion whether it is a separate nation, or another state residing within the United States. This extreme level of ignorance allows those in Washington D.C. to manipulate and control the thoughts and decisions of the average American citizen.

And when you talk about a subject specific to China, they act like a radical progressive democrat and shout loudly back at you. Often it is a canned phrase that they acquired off FOX news, or CNN. You know what I mean.

Canned phrases that can be repeated without thinking…

  • Communist!
  • Concentration camps.
  • Mind-control.
  • Religious prosecution!

Pretty amazing.

Brawndo - The Thirst Mutilator.
Brawndo – The Thirst Mutilator.

Knowledge Test

So one of the first things that I do when I end up getting sucked into a subject like this, is to pull out a map and ask the person which whom the discussion revolves, to point out where Xinjiang is.

If they are unable to locate it on a map, then I know that they are just a member of the mindless, manipulated American (and British) public.

You try. Give it a spin.

Where is Xinjiang on this map? Can you find it?

Blank simple map of China, no labels.
Blank simple map of China, no labels.

So, do you know where Xinjiang is? Point to it.

When I have run this little exercise… using a printer, and not allowing anyone to cheat using the internet, I am always surprised by the ignorance. (In fact, I actually carried up a folded printout in my backpack, for a spell.)

Initially, the person shrugs it off.

They won’t do it, and are insulted that you are trying to get them to show how ignorant they are. They do not like to be shown to be a fool. No one does, and so I cannot blame them. Can you?

I can't blame them. Most Americans can't point out Nebraska on a map, either.

It’s human nature, you know. We all want to think that we are brighter, smarter, and more intelligent than other people. So when we get into arguments, and it is pointed out that we are ignorant and manipulated, we resent it, and revolt against it.

OK.

Well, here is where Xinjiang is…

Map of China showing Xinjiang.
Map of China showing Xinjiang.
BRAWNDO’S GOT WHAT PLANTS CRAVE! 

Brawndo’s got  electrolytes. And that’s what plants crave. They crave electrolytes.  Which plants crave. they crave electrolytes. Which is what Brawndo has.  And that’s why plants crave Brawndo. Not water, like from the toilet.

Don’t try to make sense of it, because you can’t. Just take note of  the fact that Brawndo has electrolytes and does not come out of the  toilet, I guess. 


Brawndo’s got electrolytes. And that’s what plants crave.

What is Xinjiang like.

First of all, the media will never show the peaceful, prosperous parts of Xinjiang. Heck. They won’t show much of anything. It is extremely important for those in power to keep Americans ignorant of life outside of America.

 An April 2005 audit concluded that CPA managers of [reconstruction]  funds distributed in the South-Central region of Iraq could not account  for more than $96.6 million in cash and receipts. An October 2005 audit  found that South-Central personnel could not account for more than $20.5  million in Rapid Regional Response Program funds and made $2.6 million  in excessive payments.” 

 Waste was not limited to mismanagement, however. Sometimes it was criminal, the report found.

 “In late 2005, several U.S. citizens were criminally charged with  respect to the handling of these funds—and have since pled guilty. In  February 2007, five more were indicted, of whom four were convicted and  one pled guilty,” CRS reported. 

  -Fiscal Times  

Just like the media used an American video of an American rifle range to narrate a lie. For they wanted to convince the American population about “violent retribution on the Kurds when Americans pulled out“.

American media is just one lie after the other. It’s all manipulation propaganda. Take heed.

So this is the kind of images that the media uses when discussing the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang…

Human rights observers and independent experts said Tuesday that China seems to start massive DNA collection work from residents of a volatile region, where most Muslims are under strong security crackdowns.
Human rights observers and independent experts said Tuesday that China seems to start massive DNA collection work from residents of a volatile region, where most Muslims are under strong security crackdowns.

What they omit is that everyone in China has their DNA collected. I have my DNA collected in China, and I’m not even a citizen. Such selective reporting, and then presented with a negative spin is common in Western reporting of the Uyghurs.

The NGO reported that, while the government was not confiscating passports, acquiring a passport as an ethnic minority was near impossible. Beijing has dedicated significant effort in the past five years to curbing the freedoms of Xinjiang’s majority Uighur population, who are largely Muslim and whose state is home to a major separatist movement, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) .
The NGO reported that, while the government was not confiscating passports, however, acquiring a passport as an ethnic minority was near impossible. Beijing has dedicated significant effort in the past five years to curbing the freedoms of Xinjiang’s majority Uighur population, who are largely Muslim and whose state is home to a major separatist movement, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) .

This article comes on the heels of reports that China was confiscating passports. Which was proven false, and China demanded an apology.

Now, rather than retract the narrative, they rewrote it as “difficult to obtain a passport“. Not true either. But the march of propaganda must roll. Couple that with picture of army soldiers and you have an effective propaganda onslaught.

Here’s another example…

 The Uighur Muslim community in China’s Xinjiang region are facing arbitrary detentions, daily restrictions on religious practice, and “forced political indoctrination” in a mass security crackdown, Human Rights Watch said on Monday.  “The Chinese government is committing human rights abuses in Xinjiang on a scale unseen in the country in decades,” said Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch.  “The campaign of repression in Xinjiang is a key test of whether the United Nations and concerned governments will sanction an increasingly powerful China to end this abuse.”  In its 117-page report, “‘Eradicating Ideological Viruses’: China’s Campaign of Repression Against Xinjiang’s Muslims,” Human Rights Watch presents new evidence of the Chinese government’s mass arbitrary detention, torture, and mistreatment, and the increasingly pervasive controls on daily life.
The Uighur Muslim community in China’s Xinjiang region are facing arbitrary detentions, daily restrictions on religious practice, and “forced political indoctrination” in a mass security crackdown, Human Rights Watch said on Monday.

“The Chinese government is committing human rights abuses in Xinjiang on a scale unseen in the country in decades,” said Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch. “The campaign of repression in Xinjiang is a key test of whether the United Nations and concerned governments will sanction an increasingly powerful China to end this abuse.” In its 117-page report, “‘Eradicating Ideological Viruses’: China’s Campaign of Repression Against Xinjiang’s Muslims,” Human Rights Watch presents new evidence of the Chinese government’s mass arbitrary detention, torture, and mistreatment, and the increasingly pervasive controls on daily life.

The way it reads sounds like the Muslims are being arrested and imprisoned because of their religion. That’s not the case. They are being imprisoned because they are [1] residents of Xinjiang and [2] they have committed crimes. Crimes like theft, murder, rape, and abductions.

Criminals exist all over the world. 

That’s how propaganda works. It never provides the entire full and true situation. But, rather, it provides selected reports presented in a way to arouse emotions.

You know what? This is what Xinjiang really looks like…

Grand Bazaar in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang
Grand Bazaar in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang

Yeah. This is what it is really like, you all.

And Western media won’t talk about the billions of dollars that China has invested in Xinjiang, modernizing the cities, building 21 airports, linking with region with bullet trains etc.

This is hardly ever reported, but when it is, it is reported in a negative way. As if investing in things, buildings, constructions and hiring people is bad, terrible and unhealthy…

 Having eliminated poverty and solved basic subsistence problems, the  people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang have now set their eyes on more  prosperous lives, along with marked improvement in their standard of  living.

 In 2008, the per-capita net income of farmers in Xinjiang was 3,503  yuan, which is 28 times more than that of 1978, and 1.2 times more than  that of 2000 when the western development campaign was launched; the  per-capita disposable income of urban residents reached 11,432 yuan,  which is 35 times more than that of 1978, and double that of 2001. The  per-capita deposited savings of urban and rural residents averaged 14  yuan in 1955, 52 yuan in 1978, 4,913 yuan in 2000, and 11,972 yuan in  2008. Per-capita consumption was 122 yuan in 1952, 181 yuan in 1978,  2,662 yuan in 2000, and 4,890 yuan in 2007. 

- Development and Progress in Xinjiang 

Let’s compare the Chinese investment in Xinjiang with similar investments that the United States makes in America…

Uyghur High-Speed Rail in Xiajiang, China.

I’d try to compare it with the United States High Speed Rail, but I cannot. America doesn’t have high speed rail. Nor is America investing time and money to improve cultural minority enclaves. It is instead throwing money elsewhere.

Meanwhile, China is investing in Uyghur.

High-Speed Railway in Xinjiang
High-Speed Railway in Xinjiang
Why no High-Speed rail in the USA?

Ugyhur State-of-the-art Airports

I’d also like to compare the Uyghur airports with American airports, but I cannot do this either.

The latest international airport in the United States was built decades ago. At that time, people were still wearing bell-bottoms and wore afros.

The latest international airport in the United States was built decades ago. At that time, people were still wearing bell-bottoms and wore afros.
The latest international airport in the United States was built decades ago. At that time, people were still wearing bell-bottoms and wore afros.

Anyways, the amount of monetary investment in Xinjiang is astounding, and the Uyghur workers who are all involved in building these projects are all making a decent life for themselves and their families. The Chinese, as a traditional conservative society, believes that people need a “hand up” to improve their social mobility. That means jobs for the men, opportunities for the children and community for the women.

Thus all the new and modern airports and public works.

International airport in Xinjiang
International airport in Xinjiang, China.

In 2018, the 21 airports in Xinjiang handled 33 million passengers

And there are also thousands of mosques in Xinjiang, whose recorded history goes back more than 2000 years when the ancient Silk Road linked China to Italy and Greece. In China, there are mosques that were built in the 10th century, which demonstrates the tolerance and respect for religious rights in Chinese society.

Uyghur Religious Freedom in Xinjiang

If you read the American and British media, you would think that China is terribly repressive. Squashing free thought, and religious beliefs at will. It’s not true, not even remotely true. In fact, it’s absolute and complete nonsense.

You need to understand what is actually going on.

Xinjiang is the largest autonomous region in China, located in the Northwestern zone of the country. It is also where you will find the largest population of Muslims in China. Although the Hui Muslims make up the majority of Muslims in all of China, it is the Uyghur Muslims that are the largest in number when it comes to Xinjiang.

The Uyghurs are a Turkic Ethnic Group living in East and Central Asia, specifically the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China. They are a group of racially diverse people, including a variety of ethnicities ranging from Caucasians to Mongoloids.   As the area with the largest concentration of Muslims in China, there is no need to worry about finding nearby mosques and prayer places in Xinjiang.

This is Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China.
This is the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China.

There are about 20,000 mosques in Xinjiang

Also to remember are two nuggets of information: [1] Xinjiang is a really vast region — it’s four times as large as California(!); and [2] Uyghurs make up only about 40% of Xinjiang’s population. It is the truth and is not something that all the anti-Chinese propaganda broadcasts.

Learn something for a change instead of accepting the mindless manipulations…

 Since ancient times, Xinjiang has always been a region with a number  of religions existing side by side. The major religions in Xinjiang  today are Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, Catholicism and Daoism. The  Chinese government enacts a policy of freedom of religious belief, which  the government of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region has thoroughly  implemented. It protects citizens' rights of freedom of religious belief  in accordance with the law, safeguards the legitimate rights and  interests of religious circles, and promotes healthy and orderly  development of religion.

 Freedom of religious belief is a basic right bestowed by the PRC  Constitution on all its citizens. It is stipulated in the Constitution  as follows: "Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of  religious belief. No state organ, public organization or individual may  compel citizens to believe in, or not to believe in, any religion; nor  may they discriminate against citizens who believe in, or do not believe  in, any religion. The state protects normal religious activities." In  addition, the State Council promulgated "Regulations on Religious  Affairs," which stipulates: "Citizens enjoy freedom of religious belief.  No organization or individual may compel citizens to believe in, or not  to believe in, any religion; nor may they discriminate against citizens  who believe in any religion or citizens who do not believe in any  religion. Citizens who believe in religions and those who don't shall  respect each other and coexist in harmony, as shall citizens who believe  in different religions." Other relevant laws and regulations have  specific provisions on the protection of citizens' freedom of religious  belief. The state emphasizes that all citizens are equal before the law;  that the citizens have the freedom to believe in, or not to believe in,  any religion; that the citizens enjoy the rights of freedom of  religious belief and at the same time must carry out corresponding  responsibilities; that anyone who violates others' rights of freedom of  religious belief shall bear the legal liability; and that both religious  citizens and non-religious citizens shall bear the same legal liability  for breaking the law.

 In Xinjiang, people of all ethnic groups fully enjoy the right of  freedom in religious belief. The people's freedom to believe in, or not  to believe in, any religion is protected by the law, and no state organ,  public organization or individual may interfere with their choice. By  the end of 2008, the autonomous region had 24,800 venues for religious  activities, including mosques, churches and temples, in addition to over  29,000 clerical personnel, 91 religious organizations and two religious  colleges. Since the 1980s, more than 50,000 people from Xinjiang have  made pilgrimages to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. In recent years, the number  of people from Xinjiang who make the pilgrimage each year has been  around 2,700. By 2008, over 1,800 religious personages in Xinjiang had  been elected to posts in people's congresses and committees of the  Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference at all levels. They  have actively participated in deliberation and administration of state  affairs on behalf of religious believers, and in exercising supervision  over the government in respect to the implementation of the policy of  freedom of religious belief.

 The state and the government of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region  administer religious affairs and protect the legal rights and interests  of believers, religious organizations and venues for religious  activities in accordance with the laws. The State Council promulgated  the "Regulations on Religious Affairs." The Standing Committee of the  People's Congress of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region formulated and  promulgated the "Regulations for the Administration of Religious Affairs  in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region." The government of the  autonomous region formulated the "Provisional Regulations for the  Administration of Religious Activity Venues in the Xinjiang Uyghur  Autonomous Region," "Provisional Regulations for the Administration of  Clergy in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region" and "Provisional  Regulations for the Administration of Religious Activities in the  Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region." These regulations further clarify  that the citizens enjoy the right of freedom in religious belief, and  the country protects normal religious activities, as well as the legal  rights and interests of believers, religious organizations and venues  for religious activities in accordance with the law; that believers,  religious organizations and venues for religious activities should abide  by the Constitution and related laws and regulations, and safeguard  national unification, ethnic unity and social stability; that no  organization or individual may make use of religion to engage in  activities that disrupt public order, impair the health of citizens or  interfere with the state educational system, or in activities that harm  state and public interests, as well as citizens' legal rights and  interests; and that no one should use religion to interfere in the  performing of administrative and judicial functions by the state.

 According to corresponding laws and regulations, the autonomous  region protects all normal religious activities held either at venues  for religious activities or in believers' own homes in accordance with  customary religious practices, such as worshipping Buddha, reciting  scriptures, burning incense, worshipping, praying, preaching, attending  Mass, being baptized or ordained, celebrating religious festivals,  observing extreme unction, and holding memorial ceremonies, which are  all protected by law as the affairs of religious bodies or believers  themselves and may not be interfered with. However, the autonomous  region shall ban, in accordance with the law, activities that make use  of religion to intervene in the performing of administrative and  judicial functions of the state, as well as education, marriage or civil  lawsuits.

 Religious affairs are developing in a normal and orderly manner in  Xinjiang. Religious classics and books and magazines have been  published, including the Koran, Selections from Al-Sahih Muhammad  Ibn-Ismail al-Bukhari, Koran with Annotations and Selected Works of  Waez, in Uyghur, Han, Kazak and Kirgiz languages, as well as the New  Collection of Waez's Speeches series and the magazine China's Muslims in  Uyghur and Han languages, the later with a circulation of over one  million. Large numbers of mosques in Xinjiang have been designated as  key cultural relics sites under the protection of the state, the  autonomous region and the various counties. In 1999, the central  government allocated 7.6 million yuan for the reconstruction of the  Yanghang Mosque in Urumqi, the Baytulla Mosque in Yining and the Jamae  Mosque in Hotan. The government has also, on several occasions,  allocated special funds for the maintenance and repair of the Idkah  Mosque in Kashi and Tomb of the Fragrant Imperial Concubine (Apak Hoja  Mazzar), and Sulayman's Minaret in Turpan. In 2008 alone, 33 million  yuan was allocated by the state for the maintenance and repair of Idkah  Mosque and the Tomb of the Fragrant Imperial Concubine.

 Now, most people of Xinjiang's 10 major ethnic minority groups, with a  total population of over 11.3 million, believe in Islam. The number of  Islamic mosques has soared from 2,000 in the early days of the reform  and opening-up drive to 24,300 now, and the body of clergy from 3,000 to  over 28,000. Since its founding, the Xinjiang Islamic Institute gives  lessons in Uyghur and other minority languages and has trained 489  Imams, Hatips or other teachers for religious schools in the autonomous  region. It currently has 161 students. From 2001 to 2008, the Xinjiang  Islamic School trained more than 20,000 clerics. In addition, 3,133  Talips were trained by religious personages, in Islamic schools and  classes operated by Islamic associations in the various prefectures and  prefecture-level cities. Among them, 1,518 have graduated and 803 taken  up clerical posts. In an attempt to cultivate high-caliber clerical  personnel of Islam, since 2001, the regional government has sent 47  clerics for training in colleges and universities in Egypt and Pakistan.

 Historically, the region witnessed many conflicts between different  religions and between different sects of the same religion. In the  mid-10th century, the Islamic Karahan Kingdom waged a religious war  against the Buddhist kingdom of Yutian, lasting for more than 40 years.  During the Ming and Qing dynasties, religious battles continued for  several hundred years within Islamic circles. These wars between and  within religions seriously jeopardized the unity between different  religions and between different sects, as well as general social harmony  and stability. Since the founding of the PRC, the implementation of the  policy of freedom in religious belief and administration of religious  affairs in accordance with the law have promoted peace and harmony  between different religions in Xinjiang, as well as mutual respect and  understanding between religious and non-religious citizens and between  citizens believing in different religions. There have been no modern  conflicts or clashes caused by differences in religion or religious  sect. 

 - Development and Progress in Xinjiang  

The American reaction…

Hows Stuff Works is for fags. Electrolytes are what plants crave. Duh. 
Hows Stuff Works is for fags. Electrolytes are what plants crave. Duh.
Hows Stuff Works is for fags. Electrolytes are what plants crave. Duh.

Types of Uyghur Muslims

Now, let’s break down the facts. There are four types of Uyghur Muslims:

  1. Well-educated Uyghurs who are moderate/secular Muslims
  2. Poor and lower middle-class Uyghurs
  3. Nomads
  4. Separatists and terrorists

And let’s talk about them one by one. OK?

Moderate/Secular Uyghurs

These are middle or upper middle-class Muslims who enjoy normal lives, have good jobs, and integrate easily with the mainstream Chinese culture. There are even popular Uyghur musicians, TV hosts, rappers (!) etc. in China.

Here are two famous Uyghur actresses — Guli Nazha and Dilraba Dilmurat.

Guli Nazha's Fashion Look on Instagram on May 2, 2019
Guli Nazha’s Fashion Look on Instagram on May 2, 2019.

The beauty of the Uyghur Muslims is stunning.

Dilraba Dilmurat is a famous Uyghur Xinjiang, Chinese actress that is beloved all over China.
Dilraba Dilmurat is a famous Uyghur Xinjiang, Chinese actress that is beloved all over China.

Uyghur kids from educated families go to schools, live normal lives and have a lot of fun on social media like Tik Tok (“Douyin” in China). Women post selfies and have followings. Many of which are wealthy Chinese elites from the East Coast.

A not-famous young Uyghur woman who posts on Chinese media and who has a rather large following of Chinese followers. You go Girl!
A not-famous young Uyghur woman who posts on Chinese media and who has a rather large following of Chinese followers. You go Girl!

All through China, whether it is in Xingjiang or in Dongguang, the Chinese government supports education, and harmony though peaceful pursuits. Yes, I know, I sound like a propagandist. But, it is true.

The raising of children in a happy and secure world is the goal of the Chinese government, and the last four decades has proven this to be their objective.

Chinese football may have long been mostly known for its underachieving national team and their dismal record against rivals South Korea and Japan, but there is a football team in China that is without doubt the best in Asia, if not the whole world.
Chinese football may have long been mostly known for its underachieving national team and their dismal record against rivals South Korea and Japan, but there is a football team in China that is without doubt the best in Asia, if not the whole world. Known as Wuxiao in Chinese, the team were crowned champions at the National Youth Campus Football Championship Finals four times in a row from 2012 to 2015, the only four years the national tournament has been held. On the continental stage, they won all four under-13 titles at the international Weifang Cup in Weifang, East China’s Shandong Province since they were invited to play in 2011. And they repeatedly beat teams from South Korea and Japan with a winning margin of nearly 10 goals during their run of success at the tournament.

Most Americans have no idea that there is prosperity in Xinjiang. All that they know is that China is bad and eats dogs. China is communist and represses everyone, and the Muslims in Xinjiang want “freedom” and “democracy” most urgently.

And Brawndo is what plant’s crave. It’s got electrolytes.

Most Americans have no idea that there is prosperity in Xinjiang. All that they know is that China is bad and eats dogs. China is communist and represses everyone, and the Muslims in Xinjiang want "freedom" and "democracy" most urgently.
Most Americans have no idea that there is prosperity in Xinjiang. All that they know is that China is bad and eats dogs. China is communist and represses everyone, and the Muslims in Xinjiang want “freedom” and “democracy” most urgently. Oh, and Brando is good for you. It has electrolytes.

Working Class Uyghurs

There are also many working class Uyghurs who may own restaurants and gift shops or work as artists and craftsmen in touristy places. Their lives aren’t bad and most of them don’t get into trouble with the government.

Like anywhere in China, the families try to be upwardly mobile. That means, in China, through achievement and scholarship. The best students are granted the ability to move to the best schools and doors of opportunity open up for them and their families.

Thousands of kilometers from home, in a strange city with a sometimes loose grasp of the language, teenagers from the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region find themselves homesick, lonely and struggling to communicate.  But their dreams of a better education help them to persevere through the tough beginnings at one of the pilot schools in Beijing that have been recruiting Xinjiang students since 2000, when the central government started a program to help improve their education.
Thousands of kilometers from home, in a strange city with a sometimes loose grasp of the language, teenagers from the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region find themselves homesick, lonely and struggling to communicate. But their dreams of a better education help them to persevere through the tough beginnings at one of the pilot schools in Beijing that have been recruiting Xinjiang students since 2000, when the central government started a program to help improve their education.
 "Although the school is 3,000 kilometers away from home, it's still  worth studying here," said Dilara, a senior from Hami, who is now  studying at Luhe High School in eastern Beijing's Tongzhou district.

 Students apply for the program and those who pass entrance exams  organized by local governments are admitted to 93 inland city schools in  Beijing, Shanghai and 43 other cities. So far, 80,200 students have  participated. They study for free and receive a 650 yuan ($100) monthly  living allowance.

 "It's really attractive to me that the included schools are located  in developed cities like Beijing and Shanghai," said Dilara, a Uygur  student who had lived with her grandmother since she was a child.

 "We don't have to pay any tuition and even get monthly subsidy. That's quite a relief for me and my grandma."

 Arriving in Beijing at the age of 14, Dilara initially was bothered  by homesickness and the challenge of communicating." I felt ashamed to  communicate with teachers here because of my poor Mandarin," she said.
 The school provides one year of training to help the Xinjiang  students improve their language skills and offers psychological advice  before they start their high school curriculum.

 Early on, Dilara turned to Ayturan, a teacher from Ili who joined the  students at the Beijing school, but she soon adapted and made friends  with local students.

 Sometimes she and other students from Xinjiang are invited home by  local students, especially during winter vacations, when most of them  would rather stay at school than take the 30-hour train ride back home.

 Dilara recalled a recent visit to the home of her classmate Cui Xi.

 "His mother cooked mutton chops for us, which is exactly what I  missed so much, and his father encouraged me, just like my own father  does," she recalled.

 Cui Xi said daily life became more fun after the Xinjiang students joined the class.

 "We celebrate Eid al-Adha, the traditional festival, usually  celebrated by the Uygur in September, a fancy day filled with the aroma  of roast lamb and the ecstasy of carnival," Cui said.

 Now an 18-year-old senior, Dilara plans to further her education at  Beijing International Studies University. "I always hoped to study  tourism and promote my hometown to the world one day," she said.

 Li Tongshu, director of students at Luhe, said the success of the  graduates over the past 16 years gives her confidence that Dilara's  dream-and the dreams of the other students-will come true.

 "Nearly 1,400 Xinjiang graduates have been admitted by universities  at home and abroad, and among those, 800 have devoted themselves to  further building their hometowns," Li proudly said. 

-China Daily

Really Poor Uyghurs

Then there are really poor Uyghurs who live in slums.

Like anywhere else in the world, these are prime targets for recruitment by jihadists. Many of these Uyghur kids work on the streets and shine shoes or help their families with menial jobs like taking care of donkeys or other animals.

Like anywhere else in the world, these are prime targets for recruitment by jihadists.
Like anywhere else in the world, these are prime targets for recruitment by jihadists. The promise of meaning, value and worth and a bigger plan that includes spiritual involvement is very alluring.

When the Chinese government mandates that these children go to school, the Western media scream bloody murder…

What hypocrisy!

If these Uyghurs come to the US, the children will be forced to attend schools as well. In fact, in America the parents would be arrested if they tried to home-school their children.

That’s a fact, Jack!

Here is a school that the “evil Communists” forces the Uyghur kids to attend:

No. 66 Middle School in Urumqi, northwest China is home to 2,400 children from 13 different ethnic groups. They are all part of a Chinese government programme helping ethnically diverse students in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region to receive higher quality of education.  Known as the Xinjiang Class, the programme was introduced in 2000 to offer children living in the region’s remote areas the possibility to attend a top junior high school (ages 12-15), preparing students to then attend a senior high school in one of 17 cities across the country.
No. 66 Middle School in Urumqi, northwest China is home to 2,400 children from 13 different ethnic groups. They are all part of a Chinese government programme helping ethnically diverse students in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region to receive higher quality of education. Known as the Xinjiang Class, the programme was introduced in 2000 to offer children living in the region’s remote areas the possibility to attend a top junior high school (ages 12-15), preparing students to then attend a senior high school in one of 17 cities across the country.
The state is committed to the cultivation of high-caliber professionals  from minority backgrounds, sending promising students for overseas  studies and through programs such as Specialized Training for Xinjiang  Minority Sci-Tech Personnel and the High-Level Minority Talents Program.  

To develop education for ethnic minorities, it encourages the use of  minority languages in classroom teaching. For ethnic groups with their  own written languages in Xinjiang, school education is conducted in  their own languages. 

Over the years, special state funds have been  earmarked for the compilation and printing of textbooks in Uyghur,  Kazak, Mongolian, Xibe and Kirgiz languages, satisfying the needs of  minority students for textbooks of major courses. 

In Xinjiang, test  papers for the annual national college entrance examinations are printed  in Uyghur, Han, Kazak and Mongolian languages. 

- Development and Progress in Xinjiang  

Some of these kids don’t even speak Chinese, which greatly limits their abilities to find jobs later on as adults. So when they learn Chinese in school, the western propaganda screams, “cultural genocide.”

Sheer idiocy!

The BBC admits that the “communist” (gasp!) government has spent $1.2 billion in the last five years on upgrading and building new schools for children in Xinjiang. How many billions of USD has the American government spent on schools lately?

Oh, yes, the Department of Education is funded lavishly.

But I am not talking about salaries for bureaucratic cronies of whatever administration is in power. I am talking about the brick and mortar schools. Not being funded properly, and certainly not being managed well. Or haven’t you noticed?

This should be applauded, not demonized!

The Chinese government has done a phenomenal job by lifting 1.85 million Uyghur Muslims out of poverty between 2014 and 2017. Of course, the western media will never talk about it.
The Chinese government has done a phenomenal job by lifting 1.85 million Uyghur Muslims out of poverty between 2014 and 2017. Of course, the western media will never talk about it.
Before the founding of the PRC in 1949, Xinjiang had but one college,  nine secondary schools and 1,355 primary schools. Only 19.8% of  school-age children attended primary school, and the overall illiteracy  rate was a shocking 90%. 

Unprecedented changes have taken place in  education in Xinjiang after 1949. 

At present, Xinjiang has basically  made the nine-year compulsory education universal and eliminated  illiteracy in the young and middle-aged population. Adult and vocational  education started from scratch, and has been developing steadily. 

Since  2006, with the introduction of a new mechanism that guarantees rural  education funding, Xinjiang's primary and secondary school students have  enjoyed free compulsory education. 

In 2008, the government granted  living subsidies to all underprivileged students who live at school and  exempted urban students from tuition fees during their compulsory  education period. Since 2007, the state has initiated an annual budget  of 129 million yuan for the education of 51,000 very poor university  students and 95,000 secondary and higher vocational school students, 70%  of whom come from ethnic minorities. 

In 2008, the Xinjiang autonomous  region government invested a total of 18.77 billion yuan in the region's  education system, representing a year-on-year increase of 32.3%.  Statistics from that year show that Xinjiang had 4,159 primary schools  with 2,012,000 students, and a 99.6% enrollment rate for school-age  children. There were 1,973 secondary schools with 1,722,000 students,  and 32 institutions of higher learning with 241,000 undergraduate and  10,300 graduate students in total. 

- Development and Progress in Xinjiang   

Nomadic Uighurs

Then there are Uyghurs who are herders and nomads in the vast Xinjiang region.

The Changing World of the Yugur Nomads.  Chinese scholars say both the Uighurs and the Yugurs (sometimes called the Yellow Uighurs) are descendants of an ethnic group called the Huihu, a Turkic-speaking nomadic people who had an empire in the eighth to ninth centuries on the steppes of present-day Mongolia. Western scholars use the term Uighur or Uyghur to describe that earlier group.

-New York Times 

Although it seems romantic, their lives are not compatible with modern days. Most of them are stuck in extreme poverty and their kids also grow up completely illiterate. Sometimes the Chinese government relocates tens of thousands of these people into the cities and gives them jobs, free housing, health care etc.

Of course, US media will spin this as “ethnic cleansing.” (The government has helped millions of Chinese people in other areas get out of extreme poverty by similar relocation projects as well).

Relocation of nomads into cities = “Ethnic Cleansing”.

Many of these nomads appreciate the new life: “With central heating, gas, running water, Internet and cable TV, we no longer need to worry about things that troubled us in the past.”

Many of these nomads appreciate the new life:  “With central heating, gas, running water, Internet and cable TV, we no  longer need to worry about things that troubled us in the past.”
Many of these nomads appreciate the new life: “With central heating, gas, running water, Internet and cable TV, we no longer need to worry about things that troubled us in the past.”

Sometimes, if the parents don’t want to give up their nomadic lives, the government may move the children to boarding schools, where they get free lodging, meals and education.

The primary concern of the government is that unless the nomadic Uyghurs are educated, they will be stuck within a terrible cycle of poverty. And poverty breeds crime and social unrest.

Separatists and Terrorists

What is not mentioned in the mainstream media is that the West has been stroking separatism in Xinjiang since the 1950s!

 Addressing the National Press Club in Australia's capital  Canberra on Tuesday, the chairwoman of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC)  lied again, right to the reporters' faces. 

 Kadeer accused Chinese authorities of removing Uyghur-language lessons from schools and forcing the Uighurs to learn Chinese. 

 "I think the Chinese government should stop its invasive policy of  single-language (Chinese) education and allow students and their parents  to choose whatever language they aspire to learn," she said through an  interpreter. 

 Interestingly though, Kadeer made her remarks in Uyghur, the language  she would not have been able to speak should the Chinese government  have deprived her of her right to learn it. 

 China, Kadeer said, has adopted "biased policies towards ethnic  minorities" in the past 60 years, exploited the Uyghurs and pushed all  of them into a "state of extreme poverty." 

 But she herself was once a "millionairess" in Xinjiang and stood as a  strong testament to China's preferential policies toward ethnic  minorities there. 

 Starting from a small business in the 1980s, Kadeer worked her way up  to become the richest woman in Xinjiang before she broke Chinese law  and was sentenced to jail. 

 Still, during her appearance at the press club, Kadeer continued to  tell lies in a vain attempt to cover the bare facts and her separatist  intentions. 

 Throughout her "speech," Kadeer called China's Xinjiang Uygur  Autonomous Region "East Turkistan," and publicly proclaimed that  Xinjiang was an "independent country" before 1949 and that Chinese  troops "invaded" and "annexed" the region. 

 Books compiled by Western historians never said Xinjiang was an  independent country before 1949, not to mention that there was no such  ridiculous record of it in Chinese history.  

- Rebiya Kadeer lies again 

When the Chinese communists won in 1949 (by defeating US-supported faction, which went on to establish Taiwan), the US started arming/funding separatists in Tibet and Xinjiang.

Notice the signs. Who do you think the signs are directed towards? The Chinese government? Or, Americans? And why are they in American English, and not (say) British English. WHo wrote the signs, they they are illerate?
Notice the signs. Who do you think the signs are directed towards? The Chinese government? Or, Americans? And why are they in American English, and not (say) British English. Who wrote the signs, when they are supposedly illiterate? Why aren’t the signs in Chinese, the national language? Who are the signs directed towards?

The US brought in a lot of these extremists into Germany in the 1970s and helped them foment a movement for “East Turkestan.” 

Currently, the so-called “World Uyghur Congress” (WUC) is funded and glorified by the US government through NGOs such as National Endowment of Democracy (NED) — which also played a major role in the Tiananmen Square clashes in 1989 (see this article).

Shortly after the riot, Beijing targeted Rebiya Kadeer, a Uygur woman who flew to the United States on medical parole in 2005 and is president of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC), as the plotter and instigator of the violence. 

The separatist group ETIM is driving the hatred and fueling violence among Han and Uygur ethnic groups, Prof. Gunaratna said.

-  Xinjiang Riot Hits Regional Anti-terror Nerve 

By the way, the story of “1 million Muslims in concentration camps” (sometimes it’s 2 or 3 million!) comes from testimonies of WUC members.

However, to the dismay of propagandists, no Muslim country is buying the “concentration camps” narrative. They are ALL on the side of China.

 In 2005, Rebiya fled to the US after being released on bail for  medical treatment and now lives in Fairfax, Virginia, south of  Washington DC. Before going abroad, she had repeatedly promised the  Chinese government that she would never participate in any activity that  might jeopardize national security.

 Once she arrived in the US however, she has been committed to  "Xinjiang independence" activities. In the same year, she founded the  US-based International Uyghur Human Rights and Democracy Foundation  (IUHRDF). In 2006, she became president of the Uyghur American  Association (UAA) and was elected as president of the World Uyghur  Congress (WUC) at its Second General Assembly in the same year.

 As soon as Rebiya arrived in the US, the "renowned" National  Endowment for Democracy (NED) came to visit her, expressing a  willingness to offer financial support. The sponsor behind the  foundation is the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

 It has been disclosed that the NED annually grants 200,000 USD to the  UAA. In 2007, East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) organizations,  including the WUC and IUHRDF led by Rebiya, received a total of 520,000  USD of financial support from the NED.

 In addition, some anti-China US congressmen have become guests of  honor for Rebiya, and frequently invited her to deliver speeches at the  so-called "Congressional Human Rights Caucus Meeting."

 Even former president George W. Bush met with Rebiya twice in 2007  and 2008 prior to the Beijing Olympics, calling her a freedom warrior.  Members of the CIA often disguised as reporters and non-government  organization (NGO) volunteers expressed their concerns to her, keeping  close touch with her on the issue of ETIM prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

 Since the beginning of 2009, the WUC had prepared for its third  General Assembly, which also received support from American congressmen  and the NED.

 Rebiya once said they would plan some penetration and sabotage  activities at the third General Assembly targeting the grand celebration  for the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China; and  formulate a plan of "three phases for Xinjiang independence in 50  years."

 The WUC website impressively showed that the WUC Third General  Assembly was unexpectedly held in the South Congressional Meeting Room  with the participation of nearly 10 US congressmen. Most of these  congressmen are veteran anti-China politicians.

 On the second day following the July 5 incident, Rebiya made a speech  at a press conference held at the National Press Club, saying that the  Chinese government's accusations were "completely false." However, the  club is an institution under the US Department of State.

 Some US-based media have also become a "megaphone" for Rebiya. On  June 1, US-based WPFW Pacifica radio interviewed Rebiya, in which she  even claimed that historically, Tibet and Xinjiang were not part of  China, and stated that "repression, imprisonment, and executions" in  Xinjiang "had actually increased dramatically since 9/11."

 She claimed that the best way to make the outside world understand  the situation in Xijiang was to inform foreign officials, especially  those of the US, "Because they had always been very concerned with the  human rights situation in China. The Uyghur people always have this  strong faith in the United States."

 The New York Times disclosed on April 23 that Rebiya had said,  "Politicians and human rights organizations from all over the world were  active on behalf of Tibet. The conditions in the Uyghur nation were  much the same. But interest from abroad in the two...could not have been  more dissimilar." Rebiya also tried to smear China by writing articles  for the Washington Post, attempting to gain sympathy from the West by  means of the so-called pursuit of democracy and human rights. 

-  Rebiya Kadeer's funding sources 

Turkey is the closest to Uyghurs, who are of Turkic origin. Turkish leader Erdogan was in China few days ago and said that the Uyghur re-education centers won’t affect China-Turkey relations.

Turkish leader Erdogan was in China few days  ago and said that the Uyghur re-education centers won’t affect China-Turkey relations.
Turkish leader Erdogan was in China few days ago and said that the Uyghur re-education centers won’t affect China-Turkey relations.

Indonesia — the largest Muslim country in the world —has also said that it understands China’s predicament of dealing with separatists.

Similarly Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia and even Saudi Arabia have dismissed the sensational stories. Many diplomats and reporters have visited these camps and have come out reassured.

One more historical perspective: After the Mujahideen war in Afghanistan ended in 1989, many of those fighters went to Central Asia. And the disease of Wahhabism spread to Xinjiang as well.

One more historical perspective: After the Mujahideen war in  Afghanistan ended in 1989, many of those fighters went to Central Asia.  And the disease of Wahhabism spread to Xinjiang as well.
One more historical perspective: After the Mujahideen war in Afghanistan ended in 1989, many of those fighters went to Central Asia. And the disease of Wahhabism spread to Xinjiang as well.

From 2009 to 2015, there was a significant number of terrorist attacks by the Uyghur jihadists (here’s an example). That’s when China decided to really crack down.

During the peak of the Syrian war, about 18,000 radicalized Uyghur Muslims went to Syria and joined ISIS to fight Assad.

How China deals with the terrorists…

These videos are typical.

The future for Xinjiang.

In the 1980’s, when China first opened up to the West, the two points of entry were Taiwan and Hong Kong. Of that, Hong Kong was the primary entry point to the Chinese resources and market. Thus, from the 1980’s to today, Hong Kong grew exponentially. It went from a small, forgotten, British back-water colony to the major financial and banking center that it is today.

You can attribute it’s rise to the role that it had as the entry port for trade with the mainland.

In a like way, the Chinese government is planning a similar role for their “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI). Those people who now live in Xinjiang are completely poised to become the next generation super-wealthy of China. It will benefit the local Xinjiang people, the neighboring nations, and the Chinese nation as whole.

To this end, the existing global structure is being bypassed, and they do not like that

Thus, the future of Xinjiang also has a lot of economic implications.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has 1000s of freight trains and trucks carrying goods between China and Europe every year; and most of these trains and trucks go through Xinjiang. There are also many oil/gas pipelines from Central Asia that go through Xinjiang to power China’s industrial economy.

The Uyghur people are expected to become “Dubai Wealthy” in the next few decades. Provided of course, that the United States stands aside and let’s them live in peace and prosperity.

An unstable Xinjiang will wreak havoc on the Chinese economy.

China’s Belt and  Road Initiative (BRI) has 1000s of freight trains and trucks carrying  goods between China and Europe every year; and most of these trains and  trucks go through Xinjiang. There are also many oil/gas pipelines from  Central Asia that go through Xinjiang to power China’s industrial  economy.
China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has 1000s of freight trains and trucks carrying goods between China and Europe every year; and most of these trains and trucks go through Xinjiang. There are also many oil/gas pipelines from Central Asia that go through Xinjiang to power China’s industrial economy.

The Chinese government is trying to help the poor people and fight the jihadists at the same time.

The US really needs to fix its foreign policy, which is now based on chaos, confrontation, wars, Machiavellian divide-and-conquer strategies, and endless propaganda. The US needs a positive approach that’s based on cooperation, friendly competition and ethical policies.

Statement that the UN supports China on Xinjiang

Valentin Rybakov, center,  permanent representative of Belarus to the  UN, makes a joint statement on behalf of 54 countries in firm support  of China's counter-terrorism and de-radicalization measures in Xinjiang  during the discussion on human rights at the Third Committee of the  United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday at the UN headquarters in New  York. Liao Pan/CNS
Valentin Rybakov, center, permanent representative of Belarus to the UN, makes a joint statement on behalf of 54 countries in firm support of China’s counter-terrorism and de-radicalization measures in Xinjiang during the discussion on human rights at the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday at the UN headquarters in New York. Liao Pan/CNS

Belarus made a joint statement Tuesday on behalf of 54 countries in firm support of China’s counterterrorism and de-radicalization measures in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

 During a discussion on human rights at the Third Committee of the  United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York, Belarus  made the statement on behalf of countries including Pakistan, Russia,  Egypt, Bolivia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Serbia. It praised  China’s people-centered development philosophy and development  achievements.
  
 The statement spoke positively of the results of counterterrorism and  de-radicalization measures in Xinjiang, noting that these measures have  effectively safeguarded the basic human rights of people of all ethnic  groups in Xinjiang.
  
 The statement said that terrorism, separatism and religious extremism  have caused enormous damage to all ethnic groups in Xinjiang, which has  seriously infringed upon human rights, including the right to life,  health and development.
  
 “China has undertaken a series of counterterrorism and  de-radicalization measures in Xinjiang, including setting up vocational  education and training centers,” the statement said, adding that safety  and security have returned to Xinjiang now and “the fundamental human  rights of people of all ethnic groups there are safeguarded”.
  
 The statement also supported China’s commitment to openness and  transparency, mentioning it has invited a number of diplomats,  international organizations, officials and journalists to Xinjiang to  witness the progress of the human rights cause and the outcomes of  counterterrorism and de-radicalization.
  
 “What they saw and heard in Xinjiang completely contradicted what was reported in the (Western) media,” it wrote.
  
 The statement expressed opposition to relevant countries politicizing  the human rights issue and called on them to stop baseless accusations  against China.
  
 “We express our firm opposition to relevant countries’ practice of  politicizing human rights issues, by naming and shaming, and publicly  exerting pressures on other countries,” it wrote.
  
 “We call on relevant countries to refrain from employing unfounded  charges against China based on unconfirmed information before they visit  Xinjiang,” it wrote.
  
 At the meeting, more than 30 countries, including Kyrgyzstan,  Pakistan, Russia, Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Cuba and  Nicaragua, voiced support for China’s position and measures on human  rights.
  
 The Kyrgyzstan representative said the Kyrgyzstan Republic considers  Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region affairs to be purely an internal affair  of China and “appreciates the efforts of the government of China to  preserve the Uygur culture and religious freedom and freedom of  nationalities of Xinjiang and supports the measures taken by the Chinese  side to ensure Xinjiang’s security, stability and development”.
  
 “The measures taken by China to address the situation and continue  the economic development in Xinjiang are fundamental for the people of  China, which is supported and appreciated by the international  community,” said the Cambodia representative.
  
 “We commend China’s efforts to combat terrorism and extremism in  Xinjiang in accordance with the laws. We would like to reiterate our  opposition to any countries to use human rights as an excuse to  interfere any country’s internal affairs and attempts to put pressure in  the name of human rights should be avoided,” said the representative  from Myanmar.
  
 Zhang Jun, permanent representative of China to the UN, refuted the  “baseless” comments on Xinjiang made by the United States and some other  countries.
  
 Zhang said that the US and a few other countries made “groundless  accusations” against China, which is “gross interference in China’s  internal affairs and a deliberate provocation of confrontation”.
  
 “China firmly opposes and rejects it,” he said.
  
 He reiterated that Xinjiang’s preventive measures of counterterrorism  and de-radicalization are based on law and consistent with the will of  the people.
  
 “This is not about human rights and has nothing to do with racial  discrimination,” he said. “China wants to tell the United States and  other countries not to confront the international community and not to  go any further on the wrong path.” 

“This is not about human rights and has nothing to do with racial discrimination,” he said. “China wants to tell the United States (and other countries) NOT to confront the international community and NOT to go any further on the wrong path.”

The CIA declined to comment.

Godfree Roberts Study

Here is the complete write up on this issue by Godfree Roberts. It’s terribly long, but full of outstanding details. All credit to the author…

Many Chinese consider Uyghurs the descendants of a marooned, white imperialist army living on land that was China’s long before they arrived. Edgar Snow[1] visited Xinjiang in 1937 and reported, “Especially in the ninth century, when vast hordes of Ouigour Turks (whose great leader Seljuk had not yet been born) were summoned to the aid of the T’ang Court to suppress rebellion, Islamism entrenched itself in China. Following their success, many of the Ouigours were rewarded with titles and great estates and settled in the Northwest and in Szechuan and Yunnan. Over a period of centuries the Mohammedans stoutly resisted Chinese absorption but gradually lost their Turkish culture, adopted much that was Chinese, and became more or less submissive to Chinese law. Yet in the nineteenth century they were still powerful enough to make two great bids for power: one when Tu Wei-hsiu for a time set up a kingdom in Yunnan and proclaimed himself Sultan Suleiman; and the last, in 1864, when Mohammedans seized control of all the Northwest and even invaded Hupeh.”

Islam is neither the Uyghurs’ native religion nor their only one but, in its Wahabbi form, it has caused problems around the world, for which we can thank to two fervent Christians, Jimmy Carter and Zbigniew Brzezinski,[2] who considered a united Eurasia, “The only possible challenge to American hegemony.”

In 1979, months before the Soviet entry into Afghanistan, Brzezinski drafted and Carter signed a top-secret Presidential Order authorizing the CIA to train fundamentalist Muslims to wage Jihad against the Soviet Communist infidels and all unbelievers of conservative Sunni Islam and the Mujahideen terror war against Soviet soldiers in Afghanistan became the largest covert action in CIA history.[2] Brzezinski’s ‘Arc of Crisis’ strategy inflamed Muslims in Central Asia to destabilize the USSR during its economic crisis and, when Le Nouvel Observateur later asked if he had any regrets, Brzezinski snapped, “What is most important to the history of the world? Some stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe?”

The Uyghurs had collaborated with the Japanese in WWII and Rebiya Kadeer, ‘Mother of the Uyghurs’ and a US Government client, after kissing the ground at Yasukuni Shrine, called Xinjiang’s postwar reversion to Chinese administration a ‘reconquest.’ Ms Kadeer’s connections are interesting. In the late 1990s Hasan Mahsum, founder of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, ETIM, moved its headquarters to Kabul and met with Osama bin Laden and the CIA-trained Taliban to coordinate action across Central Asia. In 1995 Recep Tayyip Erdogan, then mayor of Istanbul declared, “Eastern Turkestan [Xinjiang] is not only the home of the Turkic peoples but also the cradle of Turkic history, civilization and culture. To forget that would lead to the ignorance of our own history, civilizati on and culture. The martyrs of Eastern Turkestan are our martyrs.” Under Erdogan Turkey became the transit point for international terrorists destined for Syria and Turkish airports were filled with Uyghurs traveling on Turkish passports.

Twenty years later, in 1999, the CIA’s Islam strategist, Graham E. Fuller, announced, “The policy of guiding the evolution of Islam and of helping them against our adversaries worked marvelously well in Afghanistan against the Russians. The same doctrines can still be used to destabilize what remains of Russian power, and especially to counter the Chinese influence in Central Asia.”[3]

We will return to Mr. Fuller anon but, first, some background from F. William Engdahl, “Today the West–and especially Washington–is engaged in full-scale irregular war against the stability of China. In recent months Western media and the Washington Administration have begun to raise a hue and cry over alleged mass internment camps in China’s northwestern Xinjiang where supposedly up to one million ethnic Uyghur Chinese are being detained and submitted to various forms of ‘re-education.’ Several things about the charges are notable, not the least that all originate from Western media and ‘democracy’ NGOs like Human Rights Watch, whose record for veracity leaves something to be desired.”

Tarring China with the brush of intolerance will be hard work. The colophon of the earliest dated, printed book in existence–a ninth century Chinese translation of the Diamond Sutra–reads, ‘For universal free distribution.’ Though two-thirds of Chinese are atheists in the Western sense and one-fourth are non-religious Taoists, their Constitution guarantees freedom of worship in government-sanctioned religious organizations and their government supports seventy-four seminaries, one thousand seven hundred Tibetan monasteries, three thousand religious organizations, 85,000 religious sites and 300,000 full time Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, Ancient Chinese, Taoist and Muslim clergy. The 2000 census recorded 20.3 million Muslims: 1.25 million Kazakhs, 8.4 million Uyghurs and 9.8 million Hui. Neither the Kazakh nor the Hui Muslims have caused trouble.

Mr. Fuller is on a first name basis with Uyghur leaders. Ruslan Tsarni, uncle of the Boston Marathon Tsarnaev brothers, was married to Fuller’s daughter Samantha in the 1990s and was an employee of the CIA-contracted RAND Corporation. In media interviews in the aftermath of the 2013 Boston bombing, ‘Uncle Ruslan’ gave an overdone performance condemning his two nephews while verifying the FBI’s portrayal of them. The media ignored the fact that Tsarni not only worked as a consultant for CIA fronts like RAND and USAID and as a contractor for Halliburton but even established an entity called the Congress of Chechen International Organizations which supported Islamic separatist militants in the Caucasus, using Fuller’s Maryland home as its registered address.

After deploying Islamists in Pakistan in the 2000s to disrupt Chinese infrastructure, in Myanmar to disrupt the China-Myanmar energy assets and across Sudan, Libya and Syria to choke off China’s oil and gas Fuller said, “Uyghurs are indeed in touch with Muslim groups outside Xinjiang, some of them have been radicalized into broader jihadist politics in the process, a handful were earlier involved in guerrilla or terrorist training in Afghanistan, and some are in touch with international Muslim mujahideen struggling for Muslim causes of independence worldwide.” Fuller assigned them to capitalize on the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, weaken trust in China’s government and provoke repression that Western media could condemn as ‘human rights crimes.’ Three weeks before the Games he sponsored a conference, “East Turkestan: 60 Years under Communist Chinese Rule” and the National Endowment for Democracy, NED,[4] handled PR for the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) the emigré group headed by billionaire Rebiya Kadeer[5] and her husband, Sidiq Rouzi, a Voice of America employee. Their ideology[6] is familiar.

On the eve of the Olympics an attempted suicide bombing on a China Southern Airlines flight was thwarted but terrorists in Kashgar, Southern Xinjiang, killed sixteen police officers four days before the opening. The next year Uighur extremists murdered another two hundred in Urumqi but Western media refused to characterize the attacks as acts of terrorism and the violence continued:

  • October 2013: ETIM attack at Tiananmen Square in Beijing killed five.
  • February 2014: A knife attack at a train station in Kunming killed 30.
  • April 2014: A knife and bomb attack in Urumqi killed three and wounded 79.
  • May 2014: Two cars crashed into a market in Urumqi and the attackers lobbed explosives, killing 31 people.
  • September 2014: Suicide bombers and clashes left 50 people dead and 50 injured.
  • October 2015: A knife attack on a coalmine killed 50.

Then came the Syrian War and, on the sidelines of a May 2017 meeting between Syrian and Chinese businessmen in Beijing, Syria’s ambassador[7] to China startled reporters with a surprising number, 5000, the number of Uighurs he claimed were fighting in Syria for various jihadist groups. Many have since returned to China and 12,900 (Uyghur families insist on traveling and staying together, even in prison) have been sentenced to up to two years, mostly for illegally entering the country and are held in re-education camps. The NED is not hiding its involvement:

 NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY 
China  (Xinjiang/East Turkistan). ASIA China [Xinjiang/East Turkistan]  Advocacy and Outreach for Uyghur Human Rights Project. $310,000.
To  raise awareness about Uyghur human rights issues and to bring such  issues to prominence globally. The grantee will research, document, and  provide independent and accurate information about human rights  violations affecting Uyghurs in China. It will also conduct outreach to  Chinese citizens in an effort to improve the human rights conditions for  Uyghurs. The grantee will organize leadership and advocacy training  seminars for Uyghur youth; monitor, document, and highlight human rights  violations in East Turkestan/Xinjiang; and strengthen advocacy on  Uyghur issues at the United Nations and the European Parliament. 

Today, NED money supports the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) which calls China’s Xinjiang Province ‘East Turkistan’ and China’s administration of Xinjiang as ‘Chinese occupation of East Turkistan,’ runs articles like, “Op-ed: A Profile of Rebiya Kadeer, Fearless Uyghur Independence Activist,” and admits that Kadeer seeks Uyghur independence from China.

Faced with an armed insurrection, most states impose martial law or a state of emergency, as Britain did in Malaya from 1945 to 1957 and the US did with the Patriot Act, but China decided–despite popular outrage–to write off its losses and play the long game.

China founded The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO),[1] a political, economic, and security alliance, with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, who stopped funneling money and providing corridors for Uyghur terrorists to move into and out of China. The SCO has since expanded to include India and Pakistan and Iran has begun the accession process, making it world’s largest security pact in both area and population and the only one whose membership includes four nuclear powers.

Forming the SCO was easier than assuaging public outrage. An unheard-of lawsuit by victims’ relatives accused the government of reverse discrimination so they stepped up security and published their objectives:

  1. restore law and order
  2. prevent terrorists from inflicting more violence
  3. use ‘high-intensity regulation’
  4. contain the spread of terrorism beyond Xinjiang
  5. purge extremists and separatists from society.

Neighborhood community centres–labelled ‘concentration camps’ in the western press–educate rural Uyghurs about the perils of religious extremism and train them for urban jobs.

In 2013 President Xi toured Eurasia and proposed the Belt and Road Initiative for three billion people, designed to create the biggest market in the world with unparalleled development potential, and built a gas pipeline to China from Turkmenistan through Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan which, like China’s other western pipelines, power lines, and rail and road networks, runs through the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

Beijing then moved jobs to Xinjiang and opened vocational schools to train rural youth in literacy and job skills and swore to protect its neighbors from terrorism in exchange for their pledge to reciprocate. To create jobs in the province Xi directed investment from forty-five of China’s top companies and eighty Fortune 500 manufacturers to Urumqi. Corporate investment increased from $10 billion in 2015 to $15 billion in 2017 and infrastructure investments of $70 billion in both 2017 and 2018 lifted the annual goods shipments past 100 million tons with a goal of hourly departures to fifteen European capitals. Half a million Uyghurs have relocated from remote villages to cities and, as a reult, 600,000 Uighurs were lifted out of poverty in 2016, 312,000 in 2017 and 400,000 in 2018. The last poor Uyghurs will join the cash economy in mid-2020.

The real war is being fought in our media and an engineer encountered a classic example in the heartbreaking tale of savage destruction of historic Kashgar Old Town, which The Washington Post called, “An Ancient Culture, Bulldozed Away,” The New York Times, “To Protect an Ancient City, China Moves to Raze It,” TIME, “Tearing Down Old Kashgar: Another Blow to the Uighurs.” Professor Patrik Meyer⁠ takes up the story:

As a tourist, those headlines resonate with me, too. I wish to keep the Kashgar Old Town untouched and to be able to wander along its narrow, shaded alleys lined by adobe houses. However, if I were responsible for the living conditions and safety of its residents, as well as for the modernization of Kashgar writ large, then I would see Beijing’s transformation in a more positive light. Given the almost unprecedented access I was granted between 2010 and 2013 to conduct ethno-political research in Xinjiang and my robust background in civil engineering, I consider myself well positioned to provide a broader perspective on the issues raised by Western journalists when criticizing the KOT renewal project. A simple survey of Western media outlets shows that harsh criticism of Beijing’s renewal of the KOT is built on four central arguments: demolition of Uyghur’s historical heritage, destruction of Uyghur’s social fabric, absence of Uyghurs’ voices in the project, and the sufficient seismic performance of existing houses. Moreover, Western journalists often argue that the goal of Beijing’s works in Kashgar is to weaken, or even erase, Uyghur identity, not to improve their living conditions.

KOT’s historical value is indisputable, but it is not as significant as assumed by the Western critics. While some houses are centennial, with charismatic courtyards and beautifully decorated wooden frames, the majority are a poorly built patchwork of old and new mud and masonry walls. Hence, while the old town as whole has significant historical value, many of its houses are not historically valuable. Kashgar is one of the few Chinese cities where the old town is being partly preserved and remodeled following traditional standards. There is indeed some damage being caused to the Uyghurs’ historical heritage, but it is far less significant than the Western critics claim and it is intended to modernize Kashgar, not to “Demolish the Uyghur History” as argued by the Smithsonian. The second dominant argument, the tearing apart the Uyghur identity, is also happening, but again, not to the extent or for the purpose that it is being reported in the West. China’s fast modernization results in numerous communities being reshaped and displaced, including the one in the KOT. However, when asked for their view about Beijing’s renewal of the KOT, most of its dwellers welcome it. And for good reasons. Their houses are often very small, poorly ventilated, dusty and dark, have no toilets, and are unpractical. It is those who do not live in the old town–Uyghurs, tourist, and Western journalists–who are most critical of the renewal project. Hence, I believe that the KOT project is causing Uyghur identity change, not its destruction, as argued by the West.

As for the third argument, that the Uyghurs have no say in the project, it is again only partially correct. Their voice is indeed absent from the upper levels of the project’s decision making process. However, the majority of homeowners decide whether to stay or leave the KOT and how to proceed with the repair of their houses. They are offered three options, the first being to permanently move to a free, new apartment larger their old house. Second, they can opt to let the government tear down the old house and replace it with a new structure for free, which does not included finishing works such as flooring, windows, and decoration. During the time that this work is being done, the families can rent an apartment subsidized by the government at about $900 per year. In case the house is deemed to be structurally sound, the homeowners are given a subsidy (about US$90/m2) to upgrade the house themselves. Additional subsidies are also offered for those willing to finish the façade using traditional Uyghur style. While there might be some irregularities within this system, most homeowners affected by the renewal of the KOT have the choice to stay or leave, which the Western critics seems to ignore.

Finally, a fourth dominant argument against Beijing’s KOT project is that the old town must be seismically safe because it has survived hundreds of years without being destroyed. Again, this is only partly true. There are a number of houses that were built properly over a hundred years ago, but the majority have been either poorly built or structurally modified in the last 30-50 years, making them prone to structural damage in case of a significant seismic event. Based on my expertise in seismic performance of adobe structures and my countless visits to the KOT, I can confirm that it is not feasible to retrofit most of its houses because of their deficient structural condition.

But the destruction of KOT was small beer compared to the onslaught that began in August, 2018, at the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, then conducting its regular review of China’s compliance with the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Gay McDougall, an American lay member of an independent UN body, claimed that China was interning one million Muslims. The OHCHR’s official news release showed that its sole American member made the only mention of alleged re-education camps and said she was “deeply concerned” about “credible reports” alleging mass detentions of millions of Uighurs Muslim minorities in “internment camps.” AP reported that McDougall ‘did not specify a source for that information in her remarks at the hearing’ and video from the session confirms that McDougall provided no source for her claim. Though she failed to name a single source Reuters reported, “UN SAYS IT HAS CREDIBLE REPORTS THAT CHINA HOLDS A MILLION UIGHURS IN SECRET CAMPS.”

China then invited the UN, the EU and the World Muslim Congress to send inspectors to for independent investigations. Eleven muslim nations accepted while the EU and Turkey declined. The Muslim Council’s report commended China for its treatment of Muslims and one inspector, Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, gave an interview to The Times of India:

“During this visit, I did not find any instances of forced labour or cultural and religious repression,” Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, the Charge d‘affaires, Pakistan‘s Embassy in China, told the state-run Global Times on Thursday.

“The imams we met at the mosques and the students and teachers at the Xinjiang Islamic Institute told us that they enjoy freedom in practicing Islam and that the Chinese government extends support for maintenance of mosques all over Xinjiang,” said Baloch, who visited Xinjiang as part of delegation of diplomats.

“Similarly, I did not see any sign of cultural repression. The Uighur culture as demonstrated by their language, music and dance is very much part of the life of the people of Xinjiang,” she said.

Asked about the security situation in Xinjiang, which has been “beset by terrorism”, Baloch said, “We learned that the recent measures have resulted in improvement of the security situation in Xinjiang and there have been no incidents of terrorism in recent months.”

“The counter-terrorism measures being taken are multidimensional and do not simply focus on law enforcement aspects. Education, poverty alleviation and development are key to the counter-terrorism strategy of the Chinese government,” she said.

Xinjiang‘s regional government invited diplomatic envoys as well as representatives from Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Afghanistan, Thailand, and Kuwait following reports about detention of thousands of Uighur and other Muslims in massive education camps.

The UN‘s Geneva-based Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination last year said that it was alarmed by “numerous reports of ethnic Uighurs and other Muslim minorities” being detained in Xinjiang region and called for their immediate release.

Estimates about them “range from tens of thousands to upwards of a million,” it had said.

China defended the camps, saying they are re-education camps aimed at de-radicalising sections of the Uighur population from extremism and separatism.

The US and several other countries besides UN officials have expressed concern over the camps.

China has been carrying out massive crackdown on the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) in Xinjiang province, where Uyghurs who formed majority in the region were restive over the increasing settlements of Han community.

Pakistan and several other Muslim countries faced criticism about their silence over China‘s crackdown on Muslims in Xinjiang.

China has about 20 million Muslims who are mostly Uighurs, an ethnic group of Turkic origin, and Hui Muslims, who are of the Chinese ethnic origin. While Uighurs lived in Xinjiang, bordering Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, Hui Muslims resided in Ningxia province.

A recent report in the Global Times said China passed a five-year plan to ‘sinicize Islam‘ in a bid to make it compatible with its version of socialism.

“This is China‘s important act to explore ways of governing religion in modern countries,” the report said.

Baloch said the delegation was given full and open access to the three centres that they visited in Kashgar and Hotan.

“The training program includes teaching of national common language (Chinese), law and constitution and vocational skills. The students also participate in recreational activities like sports, music and dance. We witnessed several skill classes being offered in these centres,” she said.

“During the visits to these centres, we had the opportunity to interact with both the management and the students. We observed the students to be in good physical health. The living facilities are fairly modern and comfortable with separate dormitories for men and women. They are being served halal food,” she said.

She said the Uighur language is being used in official establishments, airports, subway stations, police stations or hotels.

“Even  the copies of the Koran that we saw in the mosques and the Islamic  centre were translated into the Uighur language. The most visible sign  of protection of Uighur culture by the government is the government-run  bilingual kindergarten schools where children learn Putonghua as well as  Uighur language and culture from a very young age,” she said. 

A Chinese friend, Xiao Zhang, writes,

 “I have a friend who just came back from Xinjiang and he has visited  some of the re-education camps and talked with people there. He told me  that Uighurs really received vocational education inside, not kidding,  and cannot get out until completion of courses. The government in  Xinjiang simply kept all the potential “trouble makers” they could find  in detention based on the reports they received from various sources,  among which reports from communities make up a major part. The  government has known for years that poorly-educated, unemployed people  are more easily radicalized. Now they take actions to ensure they won’t  make trouble. This is another example of Chinese style of government  behaviour, just like one-child policy.” 

Another wrote,

“I have personally been to Xinjiang for around 20 days this summer. I went totally on my own. I did not sign up in any travel agencies for any travel groups. I did not drive but took the train, the bus, or the car, or the horse. From my personal experience, firstly, the Uyghurs are not the only minority in Xinjiang. I saw Mongols, Kazakhs, Hui Muslims and many other minorities. Here I mean Xinjiang is not a place that is dominated by Uyghurs, even if we don’t take the Han Chinese into consideration. It is a far more diverse place. Secondly, Uyghurs keep their different habits, traditions, language, and religions that are exotic to most Chinese. But they also face westernisation in clothing and habits just like people in other areas of China. People worry about the preservation of their cultures across China.

Interestingly, people in Urumqi were hardly dressed in a very religious way, although there were a great number of Muslims. I was told that the local government regarded some of the religious clothing as extremism, for they were not consistent with the local tradition. Maybe what they meant was that the local Muslims should not be dressed like extremists following strict religious laws, since there was no such law in China. People were mostly dressed in a quite modern look, or in their traditional clothing, yet no women will cover their face with black silk.

Thirdly, there is distrust between different ethnic groups. I have to admit that, because I feel that even people of the same ethnicity do not trust each other, let alone the distrust between ethnic groups. In Urumqi, the security check is very strict and almost everywhere. At the gate of a park in the city, I passed the checkpoint within seconds, but a Uyghur-looking man after me took much longer time to pass. Even though the security guard herself also seems to be Uyghur, she still checked the man’s ID cards and computer profiles very carefully. In many other places, I also feel the ‘privilege’ of being a Han Chinese. In Ili, where the East Turkestan Republic is located, I was told that Uyghur police officers were killed in an ATM nearby a year ago by the Uyghur terrorists with long swords. The terrorists were hoping to acquire guns from the officer. So the city restricted all activity in late night. Anyone who are out after midnight will be considered suspicious and the police can check their ID in the street or in the office. Here I want to make further explanation, for in most Chinese cities, it is totally safe to hang out at night at any time you want, and the police won’t patrol in the street checking your ID unless someone complains about noise and etc.

Surely there is racism arising in the distrust. In Urumqi, I asked why ethnic minorities were treated in an unfriendly way and they tried to tell me that it was because of the very unique situations in Xinjiang. Sounds like the discrimination is natural but I cannot judge based on what I learnt. A taxi driver told me that it was the Islam belief that makes the Uyghur not in harmony with the recent society led by the Communist Party and that the religion was toxic. I thought he was referring to Islamic extremism but in a seemingly biased way.

Fourth, I tried to learn about people’s attitudes towards the 2009 riots and got similar responses from Uyghurs and Han. They both feared the riots and tried to tell me how horrible that day was. Some Uyghurs who were Urumqi locals claimed that all those terrorists were not local to the city and tried to kill all the citizens with regardless of ethnicity which made them dreadful. In my journey, most of the Uyghurs I met were friendly farmers, some of whom were even willing to accommodate me for free. On one time, I was taking a 6-hour bus, I talked with a Uyghur guy sitting next to me. We almost talked about everything, including our hometowns, our families and so on. The guy was very talkative and friendly, leaving me a very good impression towards the Uyghur.

Lastly,  I mean, I never heard of the re-education camp. So I guess this was not  related to normal people’s life. The minorities I met were usually very  talkative and complained to me about many things including the  policies, the government, the relation between the Han and the  minorities, except the camp. I think most Chinese people just want to  live a peaceful life no matter in Xinjiang or outside Xinjiang. I was so  lucky to travel in Xinjiang, because the scenery I spotted was so great  that I would probably pay another visit in the future. 

Another visitor, Vadim Mikhailaov, visited,

“Xinjiang appears to have no criminality whatsoever and the police in the streets are unarmed. The checkpoints aren’t too time consuming if you have a Chinese ID card and know the security guards from daily contact. At the checkpoints we visited, on the other hand, annoyed police or security guards struggled with the protocol on how to handle foreigners. We all drank until late and went home without the slightest issue. Our group was coming from many places in the West where stumbling out of a bar late at night can often be quite dangerous. We had to admit that you feel safe at night in Xinjiang. Completely safe. Most places just asked for our passports, took a look, and let us through, sometimes asking which country we came from. A few guards didn’t want to deal with the hassle and just told us to bypass the metal scanner and get out of their sight. As everything in China, enforcement is sometimes spotty. But those were the exceptions; discipline in the surveillance apparatus was generally quite high. We walked leisurely through the city, and while we attracted some attention, we were neither stopped, nor stared at, nor (I think) followed. As I mentioned, there are police everywhere; standing, walking, and driving. They’re not aggressive, or intimidating, or stopping people at random. They’re just there making themselves present.

One  big difference between Turpan and Urumqi was that, again, most people  were Uyghur. But the police were Uyghur, too. The people manning the  checkpoints and the “convenience police stations,” and driving the  patrol cars were all Uyghur. It’s worth emphasizing that whatever is  happening in Xinjiang is not just an invasion by a foreign army  hell-bent on annoying the locals. The locals are quite annoyed, indeed,  but it’s their fellow tribesmen doing the grunt work. Or most of it,  anyway. I must say that the Uyghur police we saw were more easy-going  than the Han police we saw in Urumqi. More chill. Less zealous, you  could say. At any rate, they never gave us a hard time, and we got  plenty of smiles and easy treatment. Meanwhile France has soldiers, not  police, patrolling the streets of Paris. Considering his  post-resignation declaration about radical Islam replacing the Republic,  I have to wonder what the former French Minister of the Interior, Gérard Collomb, would make of Xinjiang? 

China’s Ambassador to Kazakhstan talked to local journalists:

Since the 1990s, the three evil forces – terrorism, religious extremism and separatism– have been a scourge in China’s Xinjiang and implemented a series of appalling terrorist attacks, including the incident in Urumqi on July 5, 2009. What should we do? Aside from taking strong measures, we also need to remove the soil for the three evil forces. All these measures aim to help people who were instigated by the three evil forces or influenced by extremism to come back to reason and to return to society to live a normal life. In order to achieve this purpose, China set up the training centers in accordance with China’s Constitution, the Counterterrorism Law and the Regulations of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region on De-radicalization and by referring to the successful experience on counterterrorism from other countries.

The training centers in Xinjiang do not target any ethnic group or certain religion and all people there are treated equally without discrimination. There are two criteria for whether an individual should be in the centers – whether they participated in illegal activities of the three evil forces and whether they pose a threat to the society.

For example, some individuals used social media, such as WhatsApp to promote jihad online or spread videos on violence in circumstances that were not serious enough to constitute a crime. These people go to the training centers. Some people, who received prison sentence for participating in terrorist or extremist activities but refuse to abandon extremism and plan to take revenge, also need to go to the training centers.

To put it simply, people who obey laws and regulations and commit no wrong deeds do not need to worry about “going to the training centers” no matter which ethnic group they are from and whatever their religion is. The training center is not prison, but a school for the public. There is only one goal for the school – to educate people and to stop good people becoming bad. What do people learn in the center? They learn Putonghua to make sure that all Chinese citizens can understand, can speak and can write the national common language. This is the basic requirement and responsibility for a citizen from any civilized country.

Trainees learn knowledge on laws so that all Chinese citizens understand that they live in the 21st Century where laws are put in place and strictly enforced and anyone who violates the laws will be held accountable. The trainees should have the basic awareness of laws so they are not so easily tempted by extremism. They also learn vocational skills at the centers, including pastry making, weaving and textile printing, shoes-making and fixing machinery, hairdressing and make-up and e-commerce. Trainees can choose one to two skills to learn based on their interests. There will be more chance for them to get employment and less risk of becoming involving with the three evil forces.

With the work of these training centers being implemented in order, more and more trainees have graduated from the centers and returned to society and earned a better life. There is no torture in these training centers but only protection and respect for human rights. In contrast to the fake news, trainees’ religions and traditions are fully respected – all the centers offer various kinds of food, including halal food for them to choose. There are different entertainment activities, including singing songs, dancing, chanting or playing basketball for their physical health. Speaking of human rights, let me ask a question, if a modern person could not understand or write the country’s common language, has no idea about modern marriage or zero vocational skills and only enslaves his wife at home or is mistreated by her arranged husband and are used or brainwashed by the three evil forces, how could you say he or she understands human rights?

All  the facts have told that the work of training centers has been effective  and helpful. For now, the stability and situation in China’s Xinjiang  has been improved and there have been no violent incidents in the region  for more than two years. It is not only a positive influence on  Xinjiang’s work on maintaining security but also makes a great  contribution to safeguarding the stability of the adjacent Central Asia  area. 

Shohrat Zakir, Chairman of the Government of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region:

Xinjiang has established a training model with professional vocational training institutions as the platform: learning the country’s common language, legal knowledge, vocational skills, along with de-extremization education as the main content, with achieving employment as the key direction. The vocational training institutions have set up departments of teaching, management, medical care, logistics and security, and allocated a corresponding number of faculty, class advisors, medical, catering, logistics and security staff. In the process of learning and training, the trainees will advance from learning the country’s common language to learning legal knowledge and vocational skills. Firstly, the trainees will take learning the country’s common language as the basis to improve their communication abilities, gain modern science knowledge and enhance their understanding of Chinese history, culture and national conditions. The teaching follows standardized plans, textbooks, materials and systems. The trainees are taught in various methods suited to their literacy to raise their abilities to use the country’s common language as soon as possible. Secondly, the learning of legal knowledge is taken as a key part of cultivating the trainees’ awareness of the nation, citizenship and rule of law. Legal experts are hired to lecture on the Constitution, the criminal law and the civil law, etc., and judges, prosecutors and lawyers are invited to teach the criminal law, the law on public security administration, the anti-terrorism law, the marriage law, the education law and Xinjiang’s de-extremization regulations. Thirdly, vocational learning is taken as a key way to help trainees find employment. Courses on clothing and footwear making, food processing, electronic product assembly, typesetting and printing, hairdressing and e-commerce have been set up to suit local social needs and job market. Multi-skill training is provided to trainees who have the desire and capability to learn, so that they acquire one to two vocational skills upon graduation. Businesses in garment making, mobile phone assembly and ethnic cuisine catering are arranged to offer trainees practical opportunities. In the meantime, they are paid basic incomes and a bonus. The mechanism has taken shape in which the trainees can ‘learn, practice and earn money.

In daily life, vocational institutions and schools strictly implement the spirit of laws and regulations, including the Constitution and religious affairs regulations, and respect and protect the customs and habits of various ethnic groups and their beliefs in diet and daily life. Faculties of the institutions and schools also try their best to ensure and meet the trainees’ needs in study, life, and entertainment on the basis of free education. The cafeteria prepares nutritious free diets, and the dormitories are fully equipped with radio, TV, air conditioning, bathroom and shower. Indoor and outdoor sports venues for basketball, volleyball and table tennis have been built, along with reading rooms, computer labs, film screening rooms, as well as performance venues such as small auditoriums and open-air stages. Various activities such as contests on speech, writing, dancing, singing and sports are organized. Many trainees have said that they were previously affected by extremist thought and had never participated in such kinds of art and sports activities, and now they have realized that life can be so colorful.

Moreover,  the vocational institutions and schools pay high attention to the  trainees’ mental health and helped them solve problems in life. They not  only provide professional psychological counseling services, but also  duly deal with complaints from the trainees and their families. All this  shows that the management of the vocational institutions and schools  are people-oriented. 

China’s censor banned the use of ‘anti-Islamic’ words on social media after a clash that involved Muslims fighting at a toll booth went viral. Weibo blocked phrases disrespectful to Muslims and search engines block insults, mockery and defamatory terms, “It’s time to remove radical phrases that discriminate against Islam and are biased against Muslims to prevent worsening online hatred towards them. Those phrases severely undermine religious harmony and ethnic unity,” said Xiong Kunxin, a professor at Beijing’s Minzu University of China in Beijing. “China closes streets for Eid prayers, pays for Muslim Chinese to make the hajj and censors the internet and social media to prevent criticisms of Islam that might inflame social tensions. The idea that they should suddenly demand that the Muslims turn over their Qurans and Prayer mats is classic fake news and state propaganda. As a result, peace may break out and the recent deluge of fake news from Western corporate media paints the Chinese government as a gross violator of human rights while the Empire has droned, bombed, starved and killed millions of Muslim children, women from Afghanistan to Yemen and displaced millions more.”

Video: A Uyghur Re-Education Camp.

Translation: “The center provides professional training in clothing  making, food preparation and IT. The guy named Ailijiang Masaidi said he  received RMB 2800/month and sending RM2600 home. His family is very  happy. The 2nd guy named Ahbulaihaidi is now working in a shoe making  factory. He said he has mastered most skills and would get RMB  4000-5000/month soon, that would means RMB 60-70k a year. His technical  manager says his company fully supports the factory’s effort in Hetian.  The 2nd guy says that clothing factory has been set up in Yutian. The  lady named Humakuli says she now work in a factory near her home  Kashgar. She is working and learning at the same time. Training includes  cultural learning about history about Xinjiang and about Zhonghua  civilization. The narratives then says the center provides cultural and  sports activities including painting, dance and Peking opera etc. The  guy who dress as consort Yang is Abdula. He said every one admires him  now because he is the best singer. Before he attend the center he was  told that all sort of entertainment including singing and dancing is  sinful. He said his life used to be gray and now is colorful. Then  Kashgar National Congress Deputy Chairman Mijidi said he wants the  people to learn about the traditional culture of the Uighur people.  Singing and dancing are all acceptable.” The program was implemented in  2014, and since then no terrorist attack has happened in China. So it  was considered a major success and was expanded greatly.

Notes

[1] Red Star Over China. Edgar Snow. 1937. Atlantic Books.

[2] The Grand Chessboard, 1990.

[3] Richard Labeviere, Dollars for Terror: The United States and Islam, Algora Publishing, 2000, p. 6.

[4] In 2017 the American government funded 48 anti-China groups and organizations through the National Endowment for Democracy, NED, to oppose and harm China’s reputation and to create social and ethnic tensions and conflicts within China. https://www.ned.org.

[5] A Chinese friend provided her background: She had 11 children, which confirms that Uighurs were not subject to China’s One Child Policy.. She was born to a family with no background. She started her business with a roadside convenience store and worked her way to be THE richest person in the province of Xinjiang. This proved Uighurs can earn their business success through hard work. She was a senior member of the People’s Congress of Xinjiang, and a senior member of the National People’s Congress of China. This shows Uighurs were not excluded from political life in China. She was arrested because she provided funding to Eastern Turkestan Independence Movement, labeled as terrorist organization by the US.

[6] “We have to conquer our own country and purify it of all infidels. Then we should conquer the infidels’ countries and spread Islam. The infidels who are usurping our countries have announced war against Islam and Muslims, forcing Muslims to abandon Islam and change their beliefs.” Abdullah Mansour, leader of the Uyghur ETIM. “The Duty of Faith and Support,” Voice of Islam/al-Fajr Media Center, August 26, 2009.

[7] “ISIS militants from China’s Muslim minority group vow to return home and ‘shed blood like rivers’ in the terror group’s first video to target the country By GARETH DAVIES FOR Daily Mail Online PUBLISHED 08:39 BST, 1 March 2017.

Conclusion

The Uyghur “situation” in the Xinjiang state of China is a “red Herring” designed to create friction in that area to destabilize China. It is a way to interfere in the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative that is creating a strong and unified Asia.

 Chinese President Xi Jinping six years ago  launched New Silk Roads, now better known as the Belt and Road  Initiative, the largest, most ambitious, pan-Eurasian infrastructure  project of the 21st century.

 Under the Trump administration, Belt and Road has been utterly  demonized 24/7: a toxic cocktail of fear and doubt, with Beijing blamed  for everything from plunging poor nations into a “debt trap” to evil  designs of world domination.

 Now finally comes what might be described as the institutional American response to Belt and Road: the Blue Dot Network.

 Blue Dot is described,  officially, as promoting global, multi-stakeholder “sustainable  infrastructure development in the Indo-Pacific region and around the  world.”

 It is a joint project of the US Overseas Private Investment  Corporation, in partnership with Australia’s Department of Foreign  Affairs and Trade and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation.
 Now compare it with what just happened this same week at the inauguration of the China International Import Expo in Shanghai.
 As Xi stressed:

 “To date, China has signed 197 documents on Belt and Road cooperation with 137 countries and 30 international organizations.”
 This is what Blue Dot is up against – especially across the Global  South. Well, not really. Global South diplomats, informally contacted,  are not exactly impressed. They might see Blue Dot as an aspiring  competitor to BRI, but one that’s moved by private finance – mostly, in  theory, American.

 They scoff at the prospect that Blue Dot will include some sort of  ratings mechanism that will be positioned to vet and downgrade Belt and  Road projects. Washington will spin it as a “certification” process  setting “international standards” – implying Belt and Road is  sub-standard. Whether Global South nations will pay attention to these  new ratings is an open question. 

- A “Blue Dot” Barely Visible from China’s “New Silk Roads” 

As China’s only threat to the current global power-balance is economic, the United States is threatened by China’s rise. Thus there are numerous efforts made to create strife and destabilize Asia.

  • Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang.
  • Millennial youth in Hong Kong.
  • Pork producers in Guangdong.
  • Western markets for Huawei products.
  • Taiwan “independence”.

To this end, neocons have been active with the CIA and NED / NID to create strife in the region. This includes a full-on propaganda onslaught, where most Americans are becoming conditioned for yet another proxy war in a far-off land.

This is welcomed by the neocons as [1] a magnificent source of personal (tax free) revenue, and [2] it’s “just” another in a long series of proxy wars. The thing is, China is not a third-world country and they will only accept CIA “pro-democracy” regime change activities only for so long.

It is possible that continued CIA psyops within China could result in a backlash of Nuclear Armageddon on American soil.

Do NOT poke the Panda.

Xinjiang is part of China and Xinjiang affairs are purely domestic affairs that allow no foreign interference. 

- Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Qin Gang  
This is what New York City will look like if America tries to initiate another proxy war with a major nuclear-armed superposer. They are a serious, serious nation. They DO NOT PLAY.
This is what New York City will look like if America tries to initiate another proxy war with a major nuclear-armed superpower. They are a serious, serious nation. They DO NOT PLAY. Do not be under the misguided impression that an American nuclear armed cruiser could sit off the coast of Taiwan and lob nuclear tipped missiles into China. China and Russia would both team up to bitch-slap America into the stone age. Take heed.

Another great link showing just who is behind this CIA narrative…

Claims that China has detained millions of Uyghur Muslims are based largely on two studies. A closer look at these papers reveals US government backing, absurdly shoddy methodologies, and a rapture-ready evangelical researcher named Adrian Zenz.

By Ajit Singh and Max Blumenthal

Video

Links about China

Here are some links about my observations on China. I think that you, the reader, might find them to be of interest. Please kindly enjoy.

The US involvement in the HK "Democracy Now" movement.
How the USA can win a trade war.
Chinese reaction to the Trump Tariff Wars.
China's Global Leadership
Popular Music of China
The logistics of relocating a facotry from China back to the USA.
Hong Kong and the NED CIA operations.
Chinese weapons systems
Chinese motor sports
End of the Day Potato
Dog Shit
Dancing Grandmothers
Dance Craze
When the SJW movement took control of China
Family Meal
Freedom & Liberty in China
Why are Americans so angry?
Evolution of the USA and China.
Ben Ming Nian
Beware the Expat
Fake Wine
Fat China
Business KTV
How I got married in China.
Chinese apartment houses
Chinese Culture Snapshots
Rural China
Chinese New Year
Trade Wars
How to get work in China if you have HIV.

China and America Comparisons

As an American, I cannot help but compare what my life was in the United States with what it is like living in China. Here we discuss that.

SJW
Playground Comparisons
The Last Straw
Leaving the USA
Diversity Initatives
Democracy
Travel outside
10 Misconceptions about China
Top Ten Misconceptions
A polarized world.
America's sunset.
Trump trade wars  - Phase One
Asshole

The Chinese Business KTV Experience

This is the real deal. Forget about all that nonsense that you find in the British tabloids and an occasional write up in the American liberal press. This is the reality. Read or not.

KTV1
KTV2
KTV3
KTV4
KTV5
KTV6
KTV7
KTV8
KTV9
KTV10
KTV11
KTV12
KTV13
KTV14
KTV15
KTV16
KTV17
KTV18
KTV19
KTV20

Learning About China

Who doesn’t like to look at pretty girls? Ugly girls? Here we discuss what China is like by looking at videos of pretty girls doing things in China.

Pretty Girls 1
Pretty Girls 2
Pretty Girls 3
Pretty Girls 4
Pretty Girls 5

Contemporaneous Chinese Music

This is a series of posts that discuss contemporaneous popular music in China. It is a wide ranging and broad spectrum of travel, and at that, all that I am able to provide is the flimsiest of overviews. However, this series of posts should serve as a great starting place for investigation and enjoyment.

Wolf Disco
Part 1 - Popular Music of China
Part 3 -Popular music of China.
Part 3 - The contemporaneous music of China.
part 3B - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 4 - The contemporaneous popular music of China.
Part 5 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 5B - The popular music of China.
Part 5C - The music of contemporary China.
Part D - The popular music of China.
Part 5E - A happy Joe.
Part 5F - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 5F - The popular music of China.
Post 6 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Post 7 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Post 8 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 9 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 10 - Music of China.
Post 11 - The contemporaneous music of China.

Parks in China

The parks in China are very unique. They are enormous and tend to be very mountainous. Here we take a look at this most interesting of subjects.

Parks in China - 1
Pars in China - 2
Parks in China - 3
Visiting a park in China - 4
High Speed Rail in China
Visiting a park in China - 5
Beautiful China part 6
Parks in China - 7
Visiting a park in China - 8

Really Strange China

Here are some posts that discuss a number of things about China that might seem odd, or strange to Westerners. Some of the things are everyday events, while others are just representative of the differences in culture.

Really Strange China 1
Really Strange China 2
Rally Strange China 3
Really Strange China 4
Really Odd China 5
Really Strange China 6
Really Strange China 7
Really Strange China 8
Really Strange China 9
Really Strange China 10
Really Strange China 11
Really Strange China 12
Really strange China 13
Really strange China 14

What is China like?

The purpose of this post is to illustrate that the rest of the world, outside of America, has moved on with their lives. That while they might not be as great as America is, they are doing just fine thank you.

And while America has been squandering it’s money, decimating it’s resources, and just being cavalier with it’s military, the rest of the world has done the opposite. They have husbanded their day to day fortunes, and you can see this in their day-to-day lives.

What is China like - 1
What is China like - 2
What is China Like - 3
What is China like - 4
What is China like - 5
What is China like - 6
What is China like - 8
What is China like - 8
What is China like - 9

Summer in Asia

Let’s take a moment to explore Asia. That includes China, but also includes such places as Vietnam, Thailand, Japan and others…

Summer Snapshots 1
Summer Snapshots 2
Summer Snapshots 3
Summer Snapshots 4
Snapshots Summer 5
Summer Snapshots 6
Summer Snapshot 7
Summer Snapshots 8
Summer Snapshots 9
Summer Snapshots 10
Summer Snapshots 11
Summer Snapshot 12

Some Fun Videos

Here’s a collection of some fun videos taken all over Asia. While there are many videos taken in China, we also have some taken in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Korea and Japan as well. It’s all in fun.

Some fun videos of China - 1
Fun Videos of Asia - 2
Fun videos of Asia - 3
Fun videos of Asia - 4
Fun Videos of Asia - 5
Fun videos of Asia - 6
Fun videos of Asia - 7
Fun videos of Asia - 8
Fun videos of Asia - 9
Fun videos of Asia - 10
Fun videos of Asia - 11
Fun videos of Asia - 12
Fun videos of Asia - 13
Fun videos of Asia - 14
Fun Videos of Asia - 15
Fun videos of Asia -16
The best way to cook marshmallows.

Articles & Links

You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.

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The role of women under the leadership of Genghis Khan

Here we discuss the women of Mongolia. How strong, tough, and beautiful they are. We also take a look at how they became that way. For they are who they are because of the strengths and guidance of one singular man; Genghis Khan. As such, we study the environment that forged such strong, fierce and beautiful women.

One of the things that I enjoy about history is looking at it in it’s entirety. That is to say, not just the dates, the places, the battles, and the warriors. But rather the tales of bravery and strife of the people who lived at that time. But, yes, it’s even more than that. You need to understand the culture and society at the time to really obtain a full and accurate impression of what was going on then. Here, in this article, we look at life under the brutal emperor Genghis Khan as a woman. After all, it’s a pretty fascinating subject, don’t you know.

Why women? Well, we pretty much know what it was like as a man; you fought and you died in glorious battle. You died for a man who you admired, and who you looked up to. He was your hero.

Even though Genghis Khan is considered as a bad person in the world due  to his brutal activities of killing people; in Mongolia, he was  considered as a hero. He brought civilization and law in Mongolia. The leadership of women was very appreciated in his native land. 

-Genghis Khan Facts

Men also didn’t tend to live long. It’s sort of like it is today, only back then you also had to contend with [1] illnesses without cures, [2] jealous neighbors who will kill you “just because”, [3] accidents without doctors, and [4] the occasional genocide of your entire tribe.

Ah, it was a truly tough life if you were a man.

Not that being a woman was any better, mind you. It’s just that it was a different time with different problems. Women had to deal with the annual baby, while busily keeping the other kids alive. All the time maintaining the household, budgeting the financing, feeding the family and engaging in family-to-family politics that were often at a “Game of Thrones” level.

Genghis Khan was a hero and a leader to his people. Young boys and men followed him and looked up to him. He was everything they ever dreamed of, and the man that they wanted to emulate.
Genghis Khan was a hero and a leader to his people. Young boys and men followed him and looked up to him. He was everything they ever dreamed of, and the man that they wanted to emulate.

Here we look at the ruler of the largest empire in the world. We look at the man, and the conservative society that he imposed on his people and on the peoples that he conquered.

Traditional Conservative Society

Now one of the things are is often overlooked in the histories of our past is the society from once they were derived. We just “assume” that they were like our present society, only with different clothing, and bad sanitation. Most people assume that it was almost like our present life, just at a different time.

Not true.

These are “traditional” conservative societies. Not “progressive”, modern, and “liberal” societies formed after the industrial revolution to “modernize” it to keep up with changing events and the “scientific method”.

There are two types of societies;

  • A traditional society. One that has remained constant for thousands of years.
  • A Progressive and modern society. One that is subject to change and alterations to fit the times. The oldest progressive society in the world is the “American Society”. It is slightly over one hundred years old.

Over 5000 years of mankind, families and evolution has created a world-wide template on what a traditional society is. That template is a global standard. The men folk engage in hunting, foraging and farming activities and the wife engages in domestic duties. It’s known as a “traditional”, and “conservative” family.

So, nope, you won’t see a shared division of labor.

Genghis Khan. IN those days a man must provide for his family. If something were to happen to him, then the family might end up destitute. So it was critically important that the father be strong and tough.   Scene is from the movie Bill and Ted's excellent adventure.
Genghis Khan. In those days a man must provide for his family. If something were to happen to him, then the family might end up destitute. So it was critically important that the father be strong and tough. Scene is from the movie Bill and Ted’s excellent adventure.

The husband won’t go rushing out the door to ride the horse to McMogel Inc. to clock in, while the wife rides her steed to a nearby village to engage in some urban planning activities. You know, go through the drive-through Yurt to get a Starbucks hot yak milk. It’s not like that. That is a progressive “modern” division of labor for families.

A traditional home is one where the man earnings a place in society for his family, and the woman cares for the home and children. It’s a conservative, and traditional , division of labor.

Now, of course, you the reader, might look askance at me.

It’s not only the division of labor that is different from our modern progressive family lifestyle. It is everything. The man MUST represent the family in the community, hold his own; earn his keep and provide for his family. If he fails, he risks banishment, subjugation, possible slavery and death for him and his family. The stakes are always high in a conservative society.

No slackers are permitted to live in a true conservative society.

(Which is perhaps why the progressive liberals are so Hell-bent on disarming them, in order to achieve their progressive utopia. Eh?)
If Genghis Khan would take a look at Americans today, what would he think? Do you believe that he would be proud and happy that Americans are so helthy, intelligent, smart, hard-working and healthy? Or do you believe that the would consider them weak, soft, pampered and "pushovers"? What would Genghis Khan or any of his 500 wives think?
If Genghis Khan would take a look at Americans today, what would he think? Do you believe that he would be proud and happy that Americans are so healthy, intelligent, smart, hard-working and healthy? Or do you believe that the would consider them weak, soft, pampered and “pushovers”? What would Genghis Khan or any of his 500 wives think?

Traditional Conservative Roles

In a traditional conservative society, there are roles. They are strict. They are easy to understand. They are easy to measure the success or failure of.

  • For the man, this might mean herding cattle, farming, fishing, or fighting with the local kingly leader. It’s ok for the man, as it leverages his strengths. (Though, not all that great on the wear and tear on his body.)
  • While the wife tends to the house, manages (and teaches) the kids and provides nutritious meals for the family. It’s always been a very comfortable division of labor and responsibilities.

Thus to understand Genghis Khan, and his treatment of women within that society, you need to understand and recognize that it was a different time, and a different place. It in no way resembles life and our societies today.

Modern American progressives having a discussion on the merits of the improved utopia under Socialist Bernie Sanders. They believe that a true utopia on earth can be obtained through applicaiton of modern techniques and a modern society where everyone is the same. Everyone is equal, and everyone is happy. In theri world view, they would be just as "equal" as the strongest man, the smartest woman, the fastest runner, or the most attractive  (or handsome) person. Simply because they intend to legislate it that way. Under Genghis Khan, however, they would be singled out as slackers and killed. *Maybe tortured first, it depends on their mood at the time.)
Modern American progressives having a discussion on the merits of the improved utopia under Socialist Bernie Sanders. They believe that a true utopia on earth can be obtained through application of modern techniques and a modern society where everyone is the same. Everyone is equal, and everyone is happy. In their world view, they would be just as “equal” as the strongest man, the smartest woman, the fastest runner, or the most attractive (or handsome) person. Simply because they intend to legislate it that way. Under Genghis Khan, however, they would be singled out as slackers and killed. (Maybe tortured first, it depends on their mood at the time.)

The modern progressive lifestyle that came into being during the feudal societies of the “middle ages”, as well that their modern manifestation the Wilsonian modern progressive lifestyle had another 600 years before it started to gain in popularity.

The Mongolian culture that we see today, is a result of things that took place many centuries before Wilsonian / Taft, and FDR “progressive modernization” was even conceived.

This all took place at a time when Men were Men, and Women were Women. Everyone had a role. If you did not fit within that role, you were killed. There was no mercy. Abominations were killed.

It’s all pretty straightforward, don’t you know.

Genghis Khan being offered a twinkie in the movie Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. While the comedy made humorous enjoyment of history, the fact remains that being a man (or a woman) in those times was no laughing matter. Death came quickly to those not deserving of life (as judged by your peers.) Yikes!
Genghis Khan being offered a Twinkie in the movie Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. While the comedy made humorous enjoyment of history, the fact remains that being a man (or a woman) in those times was no laughing matter. Death came quickly to those not deserving of life (as judged by your peers.) Yikes!

r/K Reproductive Strategy

To understand why the women of Mongolia are strong, tough and equals with men, you must understand the differences in society survival mechanisms. This is known as the r/K reproductive strategy and it affects everything.

  • Being equal does not mean a comparative measurement of strength.
  • Equality is self-contained independence within a role-defined framework.

To study this further, please click on the link below. Don’t worry as it opens up in another tab so that you can safely continue reading this article.

r/K selection theory

Genghis Khan’s rough childhood.

Let’s talk a little bit about the boss.

Genghis Khan was the Emperor of the Mongol Empire. He ruled the country from 1206 up to 1227. He was born on Delüün Boldog in 1162. He died at the age of 65 years old in 1227. The legend stated that he would be a good leader when he grew up since he was born with a blood clot in his clenched fist.

When Genghis Khan was just a child, his father Yesugei was poisoned by a rival tribe, the Tatars, when they sneakily offered him poisoned food.

Expert Tip: Don't eat food given to you by your enemies.

Young Genghis, who had been away, immediately went back home to claim his position as chief of the tribe. But once he arrived he discovered that things had changed. Once his father was gone, his family was blacklisted in his tribe. They decided to kick them out of the tribe, and thus ended up abandoning Genghis’ family instead.

Um. Maybe they should of killed him instead. Read Law 15: Crush Your Enemy Totally - The 48 Laws of Power .
Mongolia is not the place for "diversity" and "equality". It's a harsh life, where people msut fit in or suffer the consequences.
Mongolia is not the place for “diversity” and “equality”. It’s a harsh life, where people must fit in or suffer the consequences.
Genghis Khan had a very rough childhood. His father was killed by an  enemy tribe when Genghis was only nine years old. Later, Genghis tribe  expelled his mother, so the poor lady had to raise Genghis and six other children on her own. 

Needless to say, Mongolia in the 13th century was not the best place for an unprotected woman with seven children. All of Genghis' family suffered a lot from hunger and cold. That made Genghis a real fighter. 

He even killed his half-brother Bekhter for not sharing food. Genghis was ten at the time of this dispute. I understand that siblings might be a pain in the rear end sometimes, but killing them is not what normal people do. 

It was a clear sign that one hell of a cold-blooded warrior was growing up. Later, Genghis was enslaved by a rival clan, and it only made him hate everyone more. Of course, Genghis  escaped the slavery, and the rest is history. 

 -The Richest 

The troubles still weren’t over for the young Genghis. He also ended up being abducted by an enemy clan as a teenager, and had to make an escape to win his freedom. It was what was expected of him as a Mongol.

So, to clarify. After his father was poisoned, and his family banished from the community. The enemies of the family kidnapped him and used his as a slave. Where, of course, they did not treat him well. So he escaped.

Yeah, I’m sure that kind of background would tend to make anyone a little mean and distrustful.

Warrior Culture

If you were born a Mongol, you were a part of the  tribe in every facet of its society. This is evident in the fact  that the Mongols did not have a word for soldier, as every member of  their society was trained to be a part of their collective  war-machine, each of them learning to mobilize instantly. 

-Factinate
Mongolia was a tough place with harsh weather, and impossible geography. The people that lived there were strong and fierce.
Mongolia was a tough place with harsh weather, and impossible geography. The people that lived there were strong and fierce.

Genghis Khan as a young leader.

He had to work his way up from rock bottom.

He clawed, fought, betrayed, and horrified his enemies. He used his diplomatic skills to build friendships and alliances, and his knowledge of terror and warfare to vanquish his enemies.

 In an environment that bred hard men, Genghis was the hardest of them  all. Born in 1162 (according to McLynn; other estimates vary from 1155  to 1167), by the age of 14 he had killed his half-brother (and potential  rival) in an argument over a fish and had seized back his family’s  horses, stolen in a raid. 

He married at 16, and when a competing clan abducted and impregnated his wife Borte he assembled a large army to rescue her. 

In 1206 he survived a poisoned arrow in his neck, and as reward for a brutally effective military career, a noble council (quriltai) of the Mongolian clans proclaimed Temujin their leader, or ‘Genghis  [Chinggis] Khan’ — often translated as ‘Ruler of the Universe’. 

But at  that point he was just warming up.

He reformed his army, the instrument of conquest, along Manchurian lines in decimal units: ten in a platoon, 100 in a company, 1,000 in a  brigade and 10,000 in a division. Their pay was plunder. 

The wily Genghis also created a 10,000-strong imperial guard, making the sons of his generals officers in order to guarantee ‘good behaviour’. He  unleashed this vast army of over 100,000 across Asia.
                              
McLynn has subtitled his book ‘The Man Who Conquered the World’, but  he might have added ‘and Slaughtered Half of It’. 

First Genghis  subjugated — later all but annihilated — the Tanguts of north-western  China, before invading China’s powerful Jin empire in 1211. ‘Like a  shark, the Mongol empire had to be in continuous forward motion’ to  sustain itself. 

By 1213 he was in Peking. The image of Mongolian  warriors as fierce horsemen sweeping across the steppe is accurate, but  incomplete. When confronted by the truly formidable defences of Peking,  Genghis demonstrated great patience and resolve, starving the city into  submission in 1215. 

The inevitable resulting sack ‘was one of the most  seismic and traumatic events in Chinese history’. 

- Was Genghis Khan the cruellest man who ever lived? 

He set his self apart by combining skillful leadership in diplomacy and battle. Around 1206, the great assembly of Mongals named him “Genghis Khan” or supreme leader. Khan then proceeded to unite his people together.

The Mongols swift rise to power came from Khan’s dynamic leadership.

Genghis Khan was a leader that demanded excellence from his soldiers, harmony from his families, and obedience from his subjects. He did not accept deviations from the traditions of his society. Nor did he accept any cultural experiments into progressive "modern" society. He ruled firmly with no apologies.
Genghis Khan was a leader that demanded excellence from his soldiers, harmony from his families, and obedience from his subjects. He did not accept deviations from the traditions of his society. Nor did he accept any cultural experiments into progressive “modern” society. He ruled firmly with no apologies.

While the Mongol tribes had long renowned as dangerous and troublesome, Khan molded them into a much greater fighting force-disciplined organized, ruthless. He picked his generals from among his sons or trusted allies; he was also an adaptable ruler, and had the ability to learn from other.

Mongol empire expansion over time.
Mongol empire expansion over time.

He must have been one of the most ferocious people ever to live on the planet Earth. Genghis marked his reign with blood, feasts, and love of different women. People like Napoleon, Hitler, or Stalin look like amateurs when we compare them to Genghis Khan.

The killed people by the armies of Khan are more than the ones killed by  Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. It is estimated that army had killed 40  million people. 

-My Interesting Facts

Fierce Leadership.

This fierce Mongol knew how to rule, and he successfully did it for many years in the 13th century. There wasn’t a person back in the day, who would not be scared of Genghis Khan’s power. The Mongol Empire conquered all Asia, and no enemy could withstand Genghis Khan and his bloodthirsty army.

Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan killed so many Persians (modern day Iranians), that the  population of Persia didn’t return to pre-Mongol numbers until the  1900s, nearly 700 years later. 

-Factinate

Using his armies, he pushed outward and forward. He went forth and conquered anything in his path. Many cities and nations fell before his armies.

A map of the Mongol Empire under Genghis Khan.
A map of the Mongol Empire expansion under Genghis Khan.

While the Mongols loved to compromise, they were known for their brutal physical power.

 From there his armies moved west and targeted Persia in 1219, where the  Sultan had, in an act of extreme foolhardiness, deliberately provoked  Genghis by shaving off the beards of two of his ambassadors and killing a  third. Samarkand, that glorious city on the Silk Road, fell in 1220,  despite the defenders’ super-weapon of two dozen war elephants. McLynn  dismisses the oft-quoted figure of 50,000 killed there in a single day  (note the limited time span), but admits ‘it is clear that the death  toll was terrific and unacceptable’. 

 - Was Genghis Khan the cruellest man who ever lived?  

People believed that one Mongolian man could defeat ten or more warriors of other culture. And that was true.

Genghis Khan proved many times how strong his army was, defeating his enemies against all the odds.

Fighting was part of the Mongol culture. As such, Genghis loved to fight more than anything else.

Most military historians judge that no European force could have stopped  the disciplined and innovative Mongolian armies. “Employed against the  Mongol invaders of Europe, knightly warfare failed even more  disastrously for the Poles at Legnica and the Hungarians at Mohi in  1241”  

-Stephen Hicks

That being said, he did a lot of other things in his life as well. It is strange how little we know about Genghis Khan, the greatest Emperor of all time. And he was. His empire was enormous.

A map of the Mongol Empire under Genghis Khan.
A map of the Mongol Empire under Genghis Khan.

Genghis Khan amassed the largest contiguous empire the world had yet seen. Only the British Empire, when it included both Canada and Australia, would be larger. Unlike Alexander the great, the Caesars or the Persian emperors, Genghis Khan’s idea of conquest was not to occupy and rule another people, but rather to rape, pillage and destroy everything in his path.

Worse was to come in 1221 — ‘a year to live in infamy’. While  Genghis’s other armies had been busy in the east, threatening Tbilisi in  Georgia and terrifying the Christian world, Tolui, one of Genghis’s  equally reprehensible sons, took Merv (in modern-day Turkmenistan), one  of the largest cities in the world. 

Promised safety, the citizens  surrendered and emerged from behind their walls. Tolui ‘surveyed the  masses dolefully gathered with their possessions, mounted a golden chair and ordered mass executions to commence’. They took four days and nights to complete. Genghis’s rotten fruit did not fall far from the tree.

Terror — and the certainty of its visitation — was a major weapon in  Genghis’s arsenal: decapitated women, children and even cats and dogs were reputedly displayed. But while the butchery was indeed immense, it is worth questioning its extent on occasion: a depopulated city had little economic value, and imported colonisers could make up only so  much of the shortfall. 

- Was Genghis Khan the cruellest man who ever lived? 
Mongolia was a very difficult place to live, and thus the peopl that lived there become fierce and tough. Those in the West were no match for them became soft, and corrupt. They becamse easy prey for a tough warrior traditional conservative culture of warriors.
Mongolia was a very difficult place to live, and thus the people that lived there become fierce and tough. Those in the West were no match for them became soft, and corrupt. They became easy prey for a tough warrior traditional conservative culture of warriors.

His total disregard for human life led to him being utterly feared throughout virtually the entire Eurasian land mass.

And, aside from that, they also were terrible at keeping promises…

Subutai led an army of 20,000 Mongols against a Russian army 4 times its  size. 

The Mongol rear guard was defeated early in the battle, and so  the rest of the horde was forced to retreat. Mstislav the Bold chased  down the retreating Mongols with victory in his eyes. His army spread  out as they attempted to catch them, a chase which lasted many days.  Mstislav spotted Mongols in formation along the Kalka River, and  attacked without waiting for reinforcements. With his army in disarray,  Mstislav was forced to retreat back to a fortified camp. 

He had fallen  for a feigned retreat. 

Mstislave surrendered to Subutai with the agreement that neither he, nor any of his men would be harmed. They were all slaughtered upon leaving the camp. Luckily, Mstislav managed to  escape. Mstislav the Bold, boldly ran away. 

-ESKify

Being a woman under Genghis Khan.

When people think of strong women, their first reaction is (perhaps) some kind of cardboard-cutout out of Hollywood. They think of a woman acting like a man, dressing like a man, taking on manly battles and killing other men.

Maybe something like this…

The Hollywood comic-book model of what a strong woman is. To them it is a woman who acts, dresses and behaves like a man.
The Hollywood comic-book model of what a strong woman is. To them it is a woman who acts, dresses and behaves like a man.

If you’ve ever actually stopped to think about it, you probably assumed that life was pretty terrible for women under Genghis Khan. And you’d be forgiven for making that assumption. But it’s not true at all.

Most cultures that existed in the distant past have a not-exactly great reputation for treating women with respect and fairness. Thus, why would you think that a dictator of a traditional conservative nomadic society, and one as brutal as Genghis Khan, would be any different? 

You may be cool, but you'll never be as cool as a Mongolian Shepard with a AK-47 and a pet snow leopard.
You may be cool, but you’ll never be as cool as a Mongolian Shepard with a AK-47 and a pet snow leopard.

Most of what you’re about to read will probably be kind of surprising (it will certainly shake many assumptions that one might have regarding traditional conservatism, the role of women in these cultures and societies, and assumptions written down in school textbooks over the last few decades).

The truth is kind of a mixed bag.

Some women fared very well under Genghis Khan while others suffered terribly. But for the most part, the Mongols had some pretty progressive ideas about women’s rights, at least compared to many of the other cultures that existed at the time — Western culture included. 

Mongolian women are known for the strength, beauty and intelligence. They are renowned for bing excellent mothers and fine housekeepers.
Mongolian women are known for the strength, beauty and intelligence. They are renowned for being excellent mothers and fine housekeepers.

They still had to fit into neatly outlined roles and meet certain expectations, it’s just that they enjoyed a lot of freedom compared to women in other nations around the world.

So here is the truth about it was really like to be female under the reign of the infamous Mongolian conqueror. More or less.

This was one of the most devastating battles in European history. 25% of  Hungary’s population was wiped out by after the Mongol incursions. 

Half of all liveable places had crumbled, smashed to bits by hordes of  Mongols. Losses were heavy on both sides, but the Europeans suffered  most. This was the most major battle of the war between Hungary and the  Mongolians. 

-ESKify
Strong and beautiful Mongolian woman in traditional clothing.
Strong and beautiful Mongolian woman in traditional clothing.

The husband had to obey his wife.

This will shock many people. As it does not fit the narrative of what a traditional conservative family is like. If you listen to the progressive anti-traditional narrative, you would believe that all conservatives have a lifestyle right out of the Handmaids Tale.

The movie the Handmaid's Tail is a fiction that describes a most horrible world where gender defines a world divided into a slave and a master caste. To many feminists, they actually believe that this is what a traditional conservative society actually looks like. This fiction is nothing more than that. It is an attractive fiction that supports the views of the radical feminishts in a progressive modern society.
The movie the Handmaid’s Tail is a fiction that describes a most horrible world where gender defines a world divided into a slave and a master caste. To many feminists, they actually believe that this is what a traditional conservative society actually looks like. This fiction is nothing more than that. It is an attractive fiction that supports the views of the radical feminists in a progressive modern society.

But there you have it. One hundred years of progressive Marxism has rewritten the narrative to such a point that people become incredulous when exposed to the truth.

In conservative societies, the woman is the boss of the household. Households are run as matriarchal institutions with a paternal head for sociological hierarchy.

Back under Genghis Khan, the women were actually respected in Mongol society. Not only that, but men were expected to listen to the advice of their wives.

In traditional societies the man gives all of his earnings and all of what he creates to his wife. The wife budgets the resources, and helps steer the man to become a leader int heir society. It is the traditional conservative role that a woman takes on. THis is not unique to Mongolia. It is typical throughout the world.
In traditional societies the man gives all of his earnings and all of what he creates to his wife. The wife budgets the resources, and helps steer the man to become a leader in their society. It is the traditional conservative role that a woman takes on. This is not unique to Mongolia. It is typical throughout the world.
Khan believed that the children that he left behind were his strength.  Therefore, he had a lot of women in his harem.  When he died, he had a  lot of children. 

-My Interesting Facts

The Mongols were brutal fighters, to be sure, but they weren’t barbarians, well at least not in every aspect of their lives. Mongolian women were respected, often served as leaders, and were highly valued members of society.

Check out the very cool Mongolian headdresses. One of the most colorful and  original items of Mongolian national dress is the traditional head wear.  The Mongolian headdresses differs in shape and purpose.              

In fact according to Amonbe, the Mongols believed that a man ought to marry an older woman, because an older woman would have more wisdom than her husband, and would therefore be able to guide him in not making stupid life decisions.

Well, duh! That’s the way it is today in all the traditional conservative societies around the globe. From Poland, Brazil, to Japan, Korea and China.

A woman needs to be strong in Mongolia. Not only to deal with the weather and the climate, but to deal with the dog-eat-dog nature of the society there. A strong woman can inspire and direct her man to behave and act in ways that will bring success to the household.
A woman needs to be strong in Mongolia. Not only to deal with the weather and the climate, but to deal with the dog-eat-dog nature of the society there. A strong woman can inspire and direct her man to behave and act in ways that will bring success to the household.

In fact, no one respected a man who didn’t listen to his wife — it was a sign of immaturity and unmanliness. So just in case you thought that fierce Mongol warrior must also be a brute to the women in his life, well, you’re mistaken.

Genghis Khan was one of the most deeply feared historical figures in the  world for a good reason. Historians estimate that Genghis Khan is  responsible for over 40 million deaths, and at that time it was equal to  11 percent of the world's population. 

For comparison, we can look at  World War II, which has put "only" around three percent of the world's  population, 60-80 million people, to the graveyard. 

What Genghis Khan did is downright scary when we put it in perspective, right? Actually,  Genghis Khan's killings are partially responsible for making the climate  colder in the 13th century and removing over 700 million tons of CO2  from the planet Earth. 

If Genghis Khan were alive today, we would not  have to talk about global warming... but we would have to hide if we were not Mongolians. Good thing that even the most powerful cannot  resurrect from the dead. 

-The Richest
A portrait of a very beautiful Mongolian woman. Her husband would be a very, very lucky man, I'll tell you what.
A portrait of a very beautiful Mongolian woman. Her husband would be a very, very lucky man, I’ll tell you what.

Genghis Khan’s courts could tell your husband to be more romantic

When you imagine those early historical relationships between men and women, you probably think about some unsavory things. After all, we all harbor images of cavemen dragging cavewomen around by the hair. At least this is what we are taught in the common American mainstream media. Hey! Anyone else remember the cartoon “The Flintstones”?

A literal comic of a caveman dragging a woman around by the hair.
A literal comic of a caveman dragging a woman around by the hair.

Throughout history, an awful lot of women got abused by an awful lot of men. But do not think that the majority of cultures were based on this model. They weren’t. If they were, then we would not have societies like we do today. Instead we would have a caste system.

It would be a caste system defined by gender. Where the strongest physically (the men) would subjugate the weaker sex (the women). This would manifest in numerous ways. One of which would be shared communal families, and roving sexual partners, and a society where the women would be more inclined to look good rather than have babies.

It would be a r-reproductive society.

But we know that is not the case, historically at least. Most of the world operates under a K-survival model. It is only in the progressive modern West, where the r-strategy model has taken root.

Thus I find it interesting that r-strategy progressive modern societies promote the notion of a helpless little-waif female, when in reality women are anything BUT helpless.

I knew a guy who stole a friends' wallet. He carried on and on about how the friend needed the money and that everyone should go looking for the wallet.

It is the people who shout loudest about things are usually the ones that are broadcasting their failings, worries, fears, and socially inept behaviors.
A Mongolian woman at a cultural event celebrating their traditions and history.
A Mongolian woman at a cultural event celebrating their traditions and history.

Mongol women had a lot of control in the home and in the bedroom, too.

In fact, if you were a Mongol woman and your husband wasn’t up to performing his husbandly bedroom duties (having sex on a regular basis, communicating with the wife, and performing his duties in support of the household) you could actually petition the government to intervene.

Imagine going down to the local courthouse and presenting documented evidence of your husband’s romantic failings. There, a community tribunal of other leaders (cut from the same cloth as Genghis Khan, no doubt) would study the issue and demand the man to perform. If he failed, who knows what nasty consequence might await him.

In Mongolian society, there are reasons why the women smile so much.

Mongolian women tend to be stong, and attractive. They will fight fiercely for their husbands and their families. In fact, you would never find them EVER belittling their husbands as is customary in the Untied States. They are fiercely loyal to their men and their family.
Mongolian women tend to be strong, and attractive. They will fight fiercely for their husbands and their families. In fact, you would never find them EVER belittling their husbands as is customary in the Untied States. They are fiercely loyal to their men and their family.
Genghis Khan believed a man’s legacy was measured in the children he  left behind. That explains the why of the previous fact, but not the  how. Who has that much time? Conquering must be easier than it sounds. 

-Factinate

It is a man’s duty to perform. Both inside and outside the house. Anything less than that is an insult to Mongolians everywhere.

No foot binding in Mongolia.

Meanwhile in China, south of the Mongol empire, Neo-Confucianism outlined strict rules for female behavior. For instance, women were supposed to be chaste and obedient. This was often taken to the extreme. Where wives should basically exist only to serve their husbands. Well, except when their husbands die. Then they must exist only to serve their husbands’ families because they weren’t supposed to remarry.

Well, the truth is it’s not nearly as bad as all that.

I can’t imagine any Chinese women that I know tolerating that kind of harsh existence. Though, the point is that the Mongolians were far more accepting of parity of strengths between the two sexes. They felt that both the women and the men were equally strong.

Only in different ways.

Beautiful and strong, Mongolian women were the strength that powered and fueled their husbands to go out anf forthwards. They needed that strength. For the women would accompany their husbands on the Mongolian empire building campaigns. And when there were counterattacks or raids, the women would need to fight alongside with their husbands. The weak were not tolerated.
Beautiful and strong, Mongolian women were the strength that powered and fueled their husbands to go out and forth-wards. They needed that strength. For the women would accompany their husbands on the Mongolian empire building campaigns. And when there were counterattacks or raids, the women would need to fight alongside with their husbands. The weak were not tolerated.

In China, women in the upper classes had their feet bound starting at age six, because a three-inch foot made them a hot item, a four-inch foot made them a good consolation prize, and a five-inch foot … well, women with five-inch feet might as well start on that collection of cats now because spinsterhood is calling.

In Mongolia, women were not having any of that.

Elaborate Mongolian head attire. They wore this attire whether the weather was hot or freezing cold. They were fierce at a level that is unheard of today. That includes the strongest female characters in your contemporaneous Hollywood movies.
Elaborate Mongolian head attire. They wore this attire whether the weather was hot or freezing cold. They were fierce at a level that is unheard of today. That includes the strongest female characters in your contemporaneous Hollywood movies.

According to Amonbe, Mongolian women were tough — they raced horses, they fought in battle, and there was always a women-only round in the archery competitions.

So Mongolian women were basically just super-extra awesome and badass and they did not especially want to have tiny feet. Mongolian women were not thought of as subservient trophy wives, either — they were expected to be strong, fierce, and hard-working.

So Mongolian women were basically just  super-extra awesome and badass and they did not especially want to have  tiny feet. Mongolian women were not thought of as subservient trophy  wives, either — they were expected to be strong, fierce, and  hard-working.
So Mongolian women were basically just super-extra awesome and badass and they did not especially want to have tiny feet. Mongolian women were not thought of as subservient trophy wives, either — they were expected to be strong, fierce, and hard-working.

And when cultures place those kinds of expectations on women, that tends to inform the family dynamic. Women who are strong and fierce can’t also be complacent and subservient.

You would probably call me crazy if I told you that Temüjin is one of  the best-known people in history. However, that is true. 

You see,  Genghis Khan's real name was actually Temüjin, which means “of iron” or  “blacksmith.” It is a cool name, but definitely not for a warlord and  emperor. So, Temüjin changed his name to Genghis Khan in 1206. 

It is for  sure that "Khan" is the title, meaning "ruler," but historians are  still puzzled about the meaning of "Genghis." Some believe that it  translates to English as "ocean," but the more common version is that  "Genghis" is a transformation of the Chinese word "Zhèng," which means  "right" and "just." 

So, ironically Genghis Khan is translated as “the  just ruler." If you ask me, the 13th century was a very dark place to  live in if people called Genghis Khan, killer of 40 million innocent  souls, a just and right person. 

  -The Richest  

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Beautiful Mongolian lass.

Under Genghis Khan, women were the cartmasters

For a nomadic people, their homes were mobile. They mounted them on wheeled houses.

Incursions into Southeast Asia were largely successful, most factions  agreed to pay tribute, and only the Invasions into Vietnam and Java  failed. 

Europe was devastated by the Mongols. They destroyed near enough  every major Russian city, and invaded Volga Bulgaria, Bulgaria, Poland,  and Hungary. If rumours spread that the Mongols were coming, then it  would cause a mass panic, and some would run to safety. 

There was no  guaranteed way to defeat the Mongol hordes, they continuously defeated  much larger armies, so numerical strength couldn’t protect you. 

Mongol  conquests would leave once populous and flourishing areas as wastelands,  with little to no people, those remaining would be slaves. 

-ESKify
In Mongolia during the time of Genghis Khan, the women were in  charge of the carts and the men were strictly not allowed to ride in  them, unless they were sick. That probably had more to do with the fact  that Mongol men were supposed to be excellent horsemen (so they could  be excellent warriors and pillagers) and riding in a cart took precious  hours away from equestrian practice, but anyway. The carts were the  domain of the women, and no men allowed.
In Mongolia during the time of Genghis Khan, the women were in charge of the carts and the men were strictly not allowed to ride in them, unless they were sick. That probably had more to do with the fact that Mongol men were supposed to be excellent horsemen (so they could be excellent warriors and pillagers) and riding in a cart took precious hours away from equestrian practice, but anyway. The carts were the domain of the women, and no men allowed.

Imagine if you were the person in charge of driving and maintaining the family car and also, you could make all your male family members walk. You are in charge. Well, the Mongols mostly rode horses, but you get the idea.

In Mongolia during the time of Genghis Khan, the women were in charge of the carts and the men were strictly not allowed to ride in them, unless they were sick. And, for a Mongolian, it would have to be a pretty serious illness. I’ll tell you what.

In Mongolia, and it continues to this day, the women have a place and a role in society, and so do the men. A traditional conservative family structure is one where the yoke of life is pulled equally by the two members of the household. It's not a shared responsibility, but rather the man works his strenghts and the woman works and controls hers.
In Mongolia, and it continues to this day, the women have a place and a role in society, and so do the men. A traditional conservative family structure is one where the yoke of life is pulled equally by the two members of the household. It’s not a shared responsibility, but rather the man works his strengths and the woman works and controls hers.

That probably had more to do with the fact that Mongol men were supposed to be excellent horsemen (so they could be excellent warriors and pillagers) and riding in a cart took precious hours away from equestrian practice, but anyway. The carts were the domain of the women, and no men allowed.

Mongolian carts weren’t just a way to go back and forth to the grocery store, either, they were one of the most important components of the nomadic lifestyle.

This is in Tibet. What is very interesting is how the Mongolian culture completely overwhelmed the Tibetan culture and their traditional dress and behaviors reflect this fact over 600 years later.

According to the San Diego Tribune, the carts carried the felt tents that the Mongols lived in, and most of their goods and supplies, too. So if the cart drivers decided to go on strike, well, the whole community was in trouble.

Just another great example of “happy wife, happy life.”

Mongolian women wearing the clothing and hairdresses of their family. Which is, of course, handed down fromgeneration to generation via tradition.
Mongolian women wearing the clothing and hair dresses of their family. Which is, of course, handed down from generation to generation via tradition.
Genghis Khan was the most feared human of the 13th century, who could  destroy dynasties just by moving his little finger. He created the  Mongol Empire all by himself and earned his eternal spot in the history  books. 

However, a lot of people had to suffer for Genghis Khan to  succeed. Oh yes, the Mongolians were known for their horrendous  torturing techniques. One of the most popular was pouring molten silver  down the throat and ears of a victim. 

Genghis Khan also liked bending  his enemy's back until the backbone snapped. If that sounds barbaric,  skip this next part. So, the Mongols once celebrated victory over  Russians in a very bizarre way. They picked all the Russian survivors,  dropped them on the ground and put a heavy wooden gate on top of them.  

Then, Genghis Khan and the entire Mongol army had a huge banquet on that  wooden gate. They ate, drank, and watched how Russians were dying one  by one from the suffocation, pressure, and wounds. 

 -The Richest   

Women were expected to do physically demanding tasks

In a nomadic society, you can’t afford to have slackers. There’s just too much work to be done. So that means it there’s no room for anyone who can’t make him or herself useful, women and children included.

Genghis Khan believed in being rewarded for hard work, and operated on a  meritocracy over a nepotistic system. Many of his highest ranking  officers and generals had earned their way to those positions, instead  of simply being born to a particular family. 

-Factinate

According to the University of Victoria, Mongolian women were not only expected to shoulder a lot of the responsibility, they were also expected to do a lot of the heavy lifting.

  • It was the womens’ job to take down and put up the tents, and they had to do it quickly and efficiently.
  • They were also expected to be able to control the tribes’ often vast herds of animals, and do all that stereotypical women stuff, too, like raising the kids and cooking a meal every night. 
  • So women, as well as men, had the responsibility of doing the sort of work that today we’d probably call heavy manual labor.

It’s really not surprising, then, that Mongolian men had so much respect for women — it’s hard to disrespect someone who’s as hard-working and capable as you are, especially if you’re seeing it with your own eyes every single day.

Mongolian women in a historical Chinese painting.
Mongolian women in a historical Chinese painting.

Women often faced hardship and handled it with grace and fortitude, too. Genghis Khan’s own mother was forced to raise her children on game and wild roots because they’d been abandoned by her tribe after the death of her husband.

That upbringing probably had a lot to do with Genghis’ progressive ideas about women.

Genghis Khan created the first international postal service, allowing  people to mail parcels and letters to friends and family in other  countries without having to hire specialized couriers. The postal  service was similar to the American Pony Express. 

-Factinate

If Genghis Khan says “marry my daughter,” you should totally do it

“The greatest joy for a man is to defeat his enemies, to drive them  before him, to take all they possess, to see those they love in tears,  to ride their horses, and to hold their wives and daughters in his  arms.” 

-Genghis Khan. 

Genghis Khan had four poorly behaved sons, but most of his children were girls. And by most historical accounts, Genghis appears to have valued his daughters just as much as he valued his sons.

In fact, the San Diego Tribune says he once killed a guy who turned down his daughter’s hand in marriage, so yeah. Saying “no” to Genghis Khan was a terrible idea, but it was maybe an even worse idea to say “no” to one of his daughters.

When Genghis Khan tells you to marry his daughter, you had best do it.
When Genghis Khan tells you to marry his daughter, you had best do it.

Genghis was fond of quoting a proverb at his daughters’ weddings: “If a two-shaft cart breaks the second shaft, the ox cannot pull it. If a two-wheel cart breaks the second wheel, it cannot move.”

If you’re not good at metaphors, understand that Genghis was basically saying that men and women are two essential parts of the cosmic puzzle — without one part, the whole can’t function.

Mongolian father with his fourteen year old daughter going hunting. You see, she hunts using eagles. It's part of their long running conservative culture.
Mongolian father with his fourteen year old daughter going hunting. You see, she hunts using eagles. It’s part of their long running conservative culture.

Of course afterward, he would send the groom off to die on some dangerous military mission in the middle of nowhere, but whatever. It’s what happens to the menfolk. Anyways, it’s a nice thought.

Genghis Khan was tolerant of individual beliefs, encouraging religious  freedom amongst his subjects. It didn’t matter who you believed in,  because Genghis Khan believed in you. 

 -Factinate 

Marrying one of Genghis Khan’s daughters was maybe a sentence of death

Genghis Khan loved his daughters, but he also pretty clearly loved what they could do for him politically. In fact, he was actually quite clever in arranging marriages for his daughters. 

The Mongol were masterful at spreading fear and hate throughout Asia,  people feared them, and therefore hated them. 

They would rape and  pillage entire villages, and torture their victims for fun. Nobles would  get it the worst. Spilling noble blood was considered a crime, so they  simply crushed them to death, which took many hours. 

Mongols would  literally dine on top of them, making merry to the sounds of their  screams from underneath. The sounds of bodies squelching, and bones  snapping didn’t faze them. 

But rumours of this execution method struck  terror. Fear made them powerful, as people often chose to surrender and  pay tribute rather than risk fighting them. 

-ESKify
Fourteen year old daughter going hunting with her eagle. Historically, the Mongolians married early and marraiges at a (now considered young age) was the norm at the time of the great Genghis Khan.
Fourteen year old daughter going hunting with her eagle. Historically, the Mongolians married early and marriages at a (now considered young age) was the norm at the time of the great Genghis Khan. By the time the girl became sixteen she could hunt for herself, care for a full family, give birth and support her man.

Now it’s worth noting that women in Mongol society had the right to refuse marriage if it was to a man they disliked, and that alone was pretty progressive for a society that existed 800 years ago.

Yet for the daughters of Genghis, though, it almost didn’t matter whether or not they disliked their new husband, because they weren’t likely to stay married to him for very long. 

According to the Tyee,  Genghis would typically choose a royal husband for his daughters,  preferably a king from a friendly nation. If the king had other wives,  they got the boot, so let's just backpedal a little and say that life was pretty okay for most women living in Genghis Khan's empire but not  really for the wives of the kings who actually got along with him.  

Anyway, that sucked for the king’s former wives but it kind of actually also sucked for the king, because Genghis would always send his daughters’ new husbands off immediately on some dangerous mission in a Mongol war zone, where he’d almost certainly be killed. Then, Genghis’ daughter would take over the kingdom, thus expanding her father’s already massive empire.

Pretty brilliant, eh?

Here daughter; how would you like France? You’ll need to marry the King, but don’t worry, after a month, I’m going to ship him off to Siberia for a few years to test his loyalty. What do ya say? You want to marry him?

Strong Mongolian women on the move.
Strong Mongolian women on the move.
Yelu Chucai, one of Genghis Khan’s most trusted advisors, suggested that  the Khan tax people instead of just, you know, killing them. This  became a cornerstone of Genghis’ conquests.  

Genghis Khan was a brutal warlord, but also a generous ruler. He was  among the first global leaders to exempt the clergy and the poor from  taxation. 

-Factinate  

Life under Genghis Khan wasn’t great for everyone, though

Living peacefully under Genghis Khan was cool, but what if you were a woman in one of his conquered nations? Well, it wasn’t much different from being a woman in a war zone pretty much anywhere else during that time.

Women, gold, horses, and other objects were considered spoils of war, which meant soldiers got to do pretty much whatever they wanted to do with them, and you don’t have to stretch your imagination too much to figure out what that means. 

Genghis Khan had so much power that he could do whatever he wanted. For  instance, when Genghis occupied some new area, he would kill or enslave  all the men and share all the women amongst his tribe.

Genghis Khan  would even make beauty contests of captured women to decide which woman is the most beautiful one. Yeah, he was having his Miss Universe  competition before it was cool. 

So, the queen of those beauty competitions would win the privilege to become one of many Genghis Khan's women. Rest of the Mongolian army would share all the other contestants. 

 -The Richest  
Contemporaneous Mongolian beauty wearing Western clothing.
Contemporaneous Mongolian beauty wearing Western clothing.

On the other hand, if you were lucky enough to be super-extra beautiful, you could be forcibly entered into one of Genghis Khan’s weird beauty pageants.

 Girls in Mongolia seem to be a mystery to all but those who have  visited these rare lands. These unique girls offer Asian features with  larger bodies than most expect.

 I was baffled by the women I encountered in Mongolia.

 I’d never seen such tall, curvy Asians (well, Indonesian girls are  curvy) in all of my travels throughout the region. There was truly  something different about the Mongolian girls.

 After meeting, greeting, and mating with some of these fine  specimens, it finally clicked – these gals were direct descendants of  Genghis Khan. I was balls deep in warrior genes, and I can’t lie – the  thought of having myself a warrior-blooded baby certainly went through  my mind. 

-Life around Asia

According to Ancient Origins, once Genghis’ soldiers were done with the pillaging and the abusing, they brought Genghis himself the most beautiful women they’d encountered.

These women alone would be spared from the antics of the conquering army so they could be paraded in front of the man himself. The winner got the honor of becoming one of Genghis Khan’s many wives, which was probably preferable to ending up as the loser, though Ancient Origins doesn’t say what happened to them.

 First and foremost, these girls were definitely Asian. Their features  were dainty and stunning. However, Mongolian girls did not remind me of  Thai girls or Indonesian girls much. They seemed to have a unique mixture to them.

 I’d say many of the girls looked maybe 75% Asian with a mixture of Slavic genes, too.

 It was incredibly unique and quite sexy. Some guys said they weren’t  too into the look, but I loved it! Think a girl who is 2/3rds Asian and a  third Russian. How could that not be sexy?! 

 -Life around Asia 
Modern Mongolian beauty.
Modern Mongolian beauty.

Evidently, though, women who Genghis deemed not to be up to his standards of beauty were sent off with the soldiers to be abused and then discarded. So yeah, great to be a woman in peacetime Mongolia but when Genghis comes to town you might just want to emigrate to China.

0.5 Percent of all men alive today are believed to have a genetic  relation with Genghis Khan. It is estimated that his descendants are 8  percent of men in Asia. 

-My Interesting Facts

Genghis Khan liked to romance his enemies’ wives

Genghis Khan wasn’t an especially gracious winner — after he was done with the conquering, he enjoyed abducting his enemies’ wives and either romancing them or brutalizing them, depending on how cool they were with being abducted by Genghis Khan.

Mongolian girls are smart, beautiful, stacked, and feisty. They also can drink you under the table. They are warriors from warrior stock.
Mongolian girls are smart, beautiful, stacked, and feisty. They also can drink you under the table. They are warriors from warrior stock.

In fact in one of his most famous quotes he waxed poetic about the joys of the post-conquering aftermath:

"The greatest pleasure is to vanquish your enemies and chase  them before you, to rob them of their wealth and see those dear to them  bathed in tears, to ride their horses and clasp to your bosom their  wives and daughters." 

Nice guy, that Genghis.

He wasn’t always content to romance just one woman at a time, either. 

According to Ancient Origins, his army commanders were all super-impressed with his manliness because he frequently spent his evenings with multiple women.

While broad shoulders aren’t exactly a good trait on women, the women  in Mongolia didn’t get the short end of the stick in other ways.

In fact, I found some of the biggest Asian tits in the world to be in Mongolia. It was fantastic for me, as I’m a boobs man!

There are a number of rain-thin Mongolian girls that have big,  natural racks. I was thoroughly impressed. In fact, outside of  Indonesia, I haven’t seen bigger tits in an Asian country. The asses  here aren’t as amazing as the boobs, but there still above average for  Asia. 

 -Life around Asia  
Mongolian Girls sure are beautiful. They are stunners, and it doesn't matter what kinds of clothes they wear, traditional, Western or none what so ever. They are amazingly attractive.
Mongolian Girls sure are beautiful. They are stunners, and it doesn’t matter what kinds of clothes they wear, traditional, Western or none what so ever. They are amazingly attractive.

He wasn’t that into birth control, either, in fact by modern estimates Genghis Khan has roughly 16 million descendants. Now, the study that put forth this hypothesis can’t actually prove that the individual they identified is Genghis Khan, since no one knows where the Mongol leader is buried and therefore they can’t recover any of his DNA.

But this person lived roughly 1,000 years ago in the Mongol Empire and must have had access to a lot of women, and there really aren’t that many people from history that fit that description, so the assumption is pretty sound.

Modern Mongolian women are quite amazing and if you fall in love with them, be prepared to give them everything. Theya re traditional and conservative and expect the man to give them 100% of what he has. They will accept no less.
Modern Mongolian women are quite amazing and if you fall in love with them, be prepared to give them everything. They are traditional and conservative and expect the man to give them 100% of what he has. They will accept no less.
When we look at what Genghis Khan achieved with the Mongol Empire, we  cannot help but appreciate his mastermind as a warlord. It surely looks  like Genghis Khan had three dragons with him just like Khaleesi. 

I  cannot find any other explanation of Genghis Khan's success. I mean, he  defeated Jin Dynasty's one million troops with only 90,000 Mongolians by  his side. 

Yes, Genghis Khan managed to win a war with ten times fewer  troops than his opponent's army. On top of that, he was invading China,  so he had to overcome all the "little" problems such as the Great Wall  of China. Genghis Khan with his army had destroyed over 500,000 of  Chinese troop before getting control of Northern China and Beijing. 

The  rest of the Chinese army had to surrender to the power of Genghis Khan.  Destroying Jin Dynasty is only one of many examples of how great of a  warlord Genghis Khan was. Also, he had some brutal and loyal men by his  side, and let’s not rule out the dragon theory. 

 -The Richest   

Mrs. Khan got to have a bunch of sister-wives

There was no such thing as monogamy in Genghis Khan’s Mongolia. Men could have multiple wives, but each one would have her own tent where she’d live with her own children, so it’s not like the wives had to hang out and pretend to like each other or anything.

So a man with four wives would travel with his four wives. Each one driving forth a wagon with their housing “kit” and their kids tagging along. When the boys are three, they might be tied to a horse and ride along. So it would appear like a small caravan was moving forward. The man at the lead, and his numerous families tailing along behind.

This is actress Da Na. She plays in the Chinese television play Jin Chai Ying. She is a stunner, now isn't she. Eh?
This is actress Da Na. She plays in the Chinese television play Jin Chai Ying. She is a stunner, now isn’t she. Eh?

According to History on the Net, though, the whole family usually got along pretty well. The idea of jealousy and a need for monogamy are constructs of a modern progressive society. In those days, where warfare, social strife (killings, murders, poisonings, and accidents) often killed the males in society, it was important to maintain large flexible family units. Ones that can band together if things go South quickly.

There is strength in numbers. In today's modern progressive society where we all stare into our portable electronic devices, we feel that we do not need others. That we can survive alone, with maybe our dog or cat as companions. Maybe so. Though, personally I disagree. We need each other and the larger a family is, the stronger it can be.

A man’s first wife was considered his legal wife, so that made things somewhat less complicated from an inheritance perspective.

The children of the first wife got more of his booty when he died, which is a pretty handy rule for a guy like Genghis who had 500 wives and so many children that he probably couldn’t even remember all of their names.

Imagine what his last will and testament would have looked like if he’d had to divide his fortune up equally among them.

"To that  one wife who lives on the corner of Mare and Main, you know, the one  with the mole on her left ankle who makes a pretty good Mongolian beef  and broccoli stir fry but whose name I can't actually remember, I  bequeath this one gold coin which is literally all I can afford to give her considering that I have to divide my fortune up equally between like 15,000 people." 

Yeah, that never would have worked.

Mongolian Household.
Mongolian Household. It’s like the television show M.A.S.H. they are mobile and they can set up house in a mere couple of minutes.
Physical force is not enough to achieve something as great as Genghis  Khan did. Yes, there is no doubt that he is the greatest and most brutal  warlord in history, but he was also a very wise man. 

In 1201, during a  battle, Genghis Khan was shot by an enemy archer. Needless to say, he  was not happy about it. 

So, after the Mongolian army won the battle,  Genghis Khan spent some time looking for the man that shot him. He even  pretended that it was not him who got shot, but his horse, so the enemy  archer would have the courage to confront Genghis. 

An unbelievable thing  happened when the archer finally stepped out of the crowd and confessed shooting Genghis Khan. Instead of killing his enemy, Genghis Khan recognized his talent and asked him to join the Mongolian army. 

The  archer became a great general and loyally served Genghis for many years.  That is one of the reasons why Mongol Empire was such a success back in  the 13th century. 

 -The Richest    

After her husband died, she was in charge.

There was no expectation of remarriage after your husband died, and so a lot of women didn’t bother to remarry.

If  you were the first wife, you basically inherited everything and became  head of the household. After that you got to live pretty much  autonomously and independently, which is not something that was  especially common around the world during that time period.
If you were the first wife, you basically inherited everything and became head of the household. After that you got to live pretty much autonomously and independently, which is not something that was especially common around the world during that time period.

Because why would they?

If you were the first wife, you basically inherited everything and became head of the household. After that you got to live pretty much autonomously and independently, which is not something that was especially common around the world during that time period.

By contrast, Chinese women of the time were also not expected to remarry (in fact they were discouraged from remarrying), but they had to move in with their dead husbands’ families and basically serve as slave labor for the rest of their lives. So when you think about it, it’s actually pretty shocking that more of them didn’t go pounding on Genghis’ door in the hope of becoming his five hundred and first wife.

Because being left without an inheritance actually sounds way, way better than having to wait on your former in-laws for the rest of your life. But, then again, that’s just me.

After he was done conquering most of Asia, Genghis Khan  decided he needed to write some laws. Because he had a reputation to  protect, you know, as a fair and rational dude who was not actually  hungry for the blood and wives of his enemies.
After he was done conquering most of Asia, Genghis Khan decided he needed to write some laws. Because he had a reputation to protect, you know, as a fair and rational dude who was not actually hungry for the blood and wives of his enemies.

According to History on the Net, Mongolian women who remained unmarried after their husbands’ deaths were supposedly acting out of loyalty to their lost spouse. But after all, loyalty can only go so far. In Asia, it’s all about the pragmatic. So, let’s face it, the whole freedom, independence, and power thing was probably enough to make just about anyone feel really danged loyal to that dead guy. Yup. And this would be true whether he was a decent husband or not.

Genghis Khan wrote some pretty pro-woman laws later in life

After he was done conquering most of Asia, Genghis Khan decided he needed to write some laws. Because he had a reputation to protect, you know, as a fair and rational dude who was not actually hungry for the blood and wives of his enemies.

Sure, Genghis, whatever you say.

Mongolian women are true beauties.
Mongolian women are true beauties.

Anyway, the document Genghis produced with the assistance of his actually-literate advisor Tatatungo was called Yasak. It was designed to help keep the peace in Genghis’ newly conquered lands. 

According to Duhaime.org, there are no surviving copies of the Yasak but it was evidently pretty progressive. Well, at least in some areas. Notable was the Yasak’s moratorium against the kidnapping of wives and the selling of women.

Yup. Night-time raids on other villages and communities for the purposes of obtaining wives, slaves, and concubines is hereby ordered to be stopped.

In traditional conservative societies the husband and the wife have roles. They work together and live a K-strategy of survival. This differs from what is found in the more modern progressive societies in the United States and Europe that utilize the r-reproductive strategy for survival.
In traditional conservative societies the husband and the wife have roles. They work together and live a K-strategy of survival. This differs from what is found in the more modern progressive societies in the United States and Europe that utilize the r-reproductive strategy for survival.

The Yasak also forbade child soldiers and slavery (or at the very least the slavery of other Mongols). He also specifically prohibited discrimination based on religion. This was true, even if you were from Tibet, or a Muslim! In fact it was one of the first known legal codes that allowed its citizens religious freedom.

The Mongols had a new Khan, Genghis Khan (also Cinggis Khan), born in 1167 by the more simple name of Temügin.  By 1206, he had defeated all his rivals and when they all attended upon him to pay homage, he had a surprise for them.  Illiterate himself, he wanted a consolidated Mongolian state and he knew that this meant law.  So he asked his advisor Tatatungo to come up with the Yasak, a code of law to maintain the peace and order amongst his citizens.  Also known as the Great Law of Genghis Khan, no copy of the Yasak has survived. Indeed, it was only reluctantly that Genghis Khan even tolerated a basic form of script language, and only to allow for a basic administration of his Mongolian dominions.  The Yasak was unique in that it did not pretend to derive its authority from divine revelation, as has Hammurabi’s Code, as well as Jewish and Islamic law.
The Mongols had a new Khan, Genghis Khan (also Cinggis Khan), born in 1167 by the more simple name of Temügin. By 1206, he had defeated all his rivals and when they all attended upon him to pay homage, he had a surprise for them. Illiterate himself, he wanted a consolidated Mongolian state and he knew that this meant law. So he asked his advisor Tatatungo to come up with the Yasak, a code of law to maintain the peace and order amongst his citizens. Also known as the Great Law of Genghis Khan, no copy of the Yasak has survived. Indeed, it was only reluctantly that Genghis Khan even tolerated a basic form of script language, and only to allow for a basic administration of his Mongolian dominions. The Yasak was unique in that it did not pretend to derive its authority from divine revelation, as has Hammurabi’s Code, as well as Jewish and Islamic law.

It was a pretty remarkable document until you get to the stuff about cutting horse thieves in two with a sword and holding marriage celebrations for dead children. You know, other more contemporaneous punishments and activities.

So much for progressive thought.

Mongolian men and women are both fierce, strong and insanely loyal to each other. They are also independently minded and view their family as supreme. They maintain a traditional conservative lifestyle, and will not permit anyone to come between their family.
Mongolian men and women are both fierce, strong and insanely loyal to each other. They are also independently minded and view their family as supreme. They maintain a traditional conservative lifestyle, and will not permit anyone to come between their family.

Anyways, ol’ Genghis Khan was quite the fellow, and he really wanted to make good in the (now decimated) lands that he conquered. Because of this, and the history of his people, the women of Mongolia are what they are today.

I am an American Structural Engineer and spent approximately 1-1/2  years working in Mongolia, and living in UB. I have since moved on to  another project in Cape Town, SA, however wanted to comment on perhaps  the most accurate article I have read in relation to Mongolian women. 

I  have additionally worked in several other Asian counties to include  Singapore, Hong Kong, China, etc. I hope that you will agree that you  cannot even “basically” compare the contemporary Mongolian woman to any  other Asians. 

BTW, forget the “Asian Height Charts by Country” seen all  over the internet – not even close. For example, China, S. Korean and  even Japanese women are calculated taller in stature than Mongolian  ladies – Not eve close! 

When I strolled through Sukhbaatar Square on  warm days, it was not uncommon for me to see several Mongolian women  5′7″, 5′8″ even up to 5′10″. What stands out just as much, is that these  ladies have shapes and many pronounced bust-lines; mainly due to diet  (meat/dairy). 

They appear physically to be much stronger built than  other Asians. The best way I can explain it, Mongolian women have  physical shapes closer to Russian women than they do other Asians.

Another distinguishing factor, many Chinese, Japanese women have very  small hands and feet – not Mongolian women who have larger hands/feet.  Consider this, for a country of just over 3 million people, Nearly 50%  of all top Asian fashion models are from Mongolia. 

Battsetseg Turbat for  example has been in many famous American commercials to include  Budweiser and Apple. This is what surprised me most when I first stepped  off the plane upon my arrival to UB. Mongolian women’s height can be  deceiving when viewing online photos – the reason is that they have  voluptuous shapes to accompany their height.

An additional quality is personality. Mongolian women have big  personalities, laugh loudly and not afraid to approach someone they may  wish to meet. Additionally, Mongolian women when affronted, do not shy  away as do other Asians, however will meet the confrontation head-on  100%. What I have also noticed, when in other parts of Asia, women will  almost always give way when an American woman is walking down the  sidewalk toward them. 

Not in UB – A Mongolian woman will expect the  American woman to step aside most every time. 

In relation to toughness, Mongolia are second to none. In fact,  Mongolian women have very little respect for American women, thinking  them soft and spoiled (their words not mine). 

All Mongolian women are  excellent horsemen, whether raised in the Ger District or city. They are  like the land they inhabit, resilient and everlasting. 

I remember  taking a walk around Sukhbaatar Square with a Mongolian lady I  befriended to just enjoy the day . It was in November last year and  nearly freezing. I remember she was wearing heels, barely covered up and  seemed fine. I was layered to the hilt, still shivering although looked  like the Michelin tire man with all my garb. 

She must have noticed I  was freezing as suggested we walk to Millie’s Espresso to have lunch,  drink something warm and relax. These women impressed me as they were  able to balance their hardiness with their femininity. 

You are correct,  there is a slight mix of Slav in most Mongolian ladies, however, does  not distract from their Asian appearance. I do not know if I will ever  return to Mongolia, however, the Mongolian ladies will have my respect  and admiration for life. 

-Life Around Asia

Conclusion

The women who lived under the rule of Genghis Khan were strong, independent women that well understood their role, their niche and their lifestyle. They are who they are because they come from a traditional conservative culture where they must implement K-reproductive strategies. I believe that the success of the Mongol “hordes” wouldn’t be possible were it not for the strong support of the women-folk riding side by side with their husbands.

At that I will conclude this adventure into the women of Mongolia.

Posts Regarding Life and Contentment

Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.

What is going on in Hollywood?
Why no High-Speed rail in the USA?
Link
Link
Link
End of the Day Potato
Dog Shit
Tomatos
Link
Mad scientist
Gorilla Cage in the basement
The two family types and how they work.
How to manage a family household.
Link
The most popular American foods.
Soups, Sandwiches and ice cold beer.
Pleasures
Work in the 1960's
School in the 1970s
Cat Heaven
Corporate life
Corporate life - part 2
Build up your life
Grow and play - 1
Grow and play - 2
Baby's got back
Link
A womanly vanity
Army and Navy Store
Playground Comparisons
Excuses that we use that keep us enslaved.

More Posts about Life

I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.

Being older
Things I wish I knew.
Asian Nazi Chic
Link
Travel
PT-141
Bronco Billy
How they get away with it
Paper Airplanes
Snopes
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
1960's and 1970's link
The Confederados
Democracy Lessons
The Rule of Eight

Funny Pictures

Picture Dump 1

Be the Rufus – Tales of Everyday Heroism.

Be the Rufus - 1

Articles & Links

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The Lottery (Full Text) by Shirley Jackson

This is the full text of the classic story by Shirley Jackson titled “The Lottery”. This story used to be taught in schools all over the nation until politically correct progressives banned it. Today, only “old timers” such as myself, remember this story. Please enjoy it for what it is.

The main character.
The Lottery a story by Shirley Jackson.

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green. The people of the village began to gather in the square, between the post office and the bank, around ten o’clock; in some towns there were so many people that the lottery took two days and had to be started on June 20th, but in this village, where there were only about three hundred people, the whole lottery took less than two hours, so it could begin at ten o’clock in the morning and still be through in time to allow the villagers to get home for noon dinner.

The children assembled first, of course. School was recently over for the summer, and the feeling of liberty sat uneasily on most of them; they tended to gather together quietly for a while before they broke into boisterous play, and their talk was still of the classroom and the teacher, of books and reprimands. Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest stones; Bobby and Harry Jones and Dickie Delacroix—the villagers pronounced this name “Dellacroy”—eventually made a great pile of stones in one corner of the square and guarded it against the raids of the other boys. The girls stood aside, talking among themselves, looking over their shoulders at the boys, and the very small children rolled in the dust or clung to the hands of their older brothers or sisters.

Soon the men began to gather, surveying their own children, speaking of planting and rain, tractors and taxes. They stood together, away from the pile of stones in the corner, and their jokes were quiet and they smiled rather than laughed. The women, wearing faded house dresses and sweaters, came shortly after their menfolk. They greeted one another and exchanged bits of gossip as they went to join their husbands. Soon the women, standing by their husbands, began to call to their children, and the children came reluctantly, having to be called four or five times. Bobby Martin ducked under his mother’s grasping hand and ran, laughing, back to the pile of stones. His father spoke up sharply, and Bobby came quickly and took his place between his father and his oldest brother.

The lottery was conducted—as were the square dances, the teen club, the Halloween program—by Mr. Summers, who had time and energy to devote to civic activities. He was a round-faced, jovial man and he ran the coal business, and people were sorry for him because he had no children and his wife was a scold. When he arrived in the square, carrying the black wooden box, there was a murmur of conversation among the villagers, and he waved and called. “Little late today, folks. ” The postmaster, Mr. Graves, followed him, carrying a three-legged stool, and the stool was put in the center of the square and Mr. Summers set the black box down on it. The villagers kept their distance, leaving a space between themselves and the stool, and when Mr. Summers said, “Some of you fellows want to give me a hand?” there was a hesitation before two men. Mr. Martin and his oldest son, Baxter, came forward to hold the box steady on the stool while Mr. Summers stirred up the papers inside it.

The original paraphernalia for the lottery had been lost long ago, and the black box now resting on the stool had been put into use even before Old Man Warner, the oldest man in town, was born. Mr. Summers spoke frequently to the villagers about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box. There was a story that the present box had been made with some pieces of the box that had preceded it, the one that had been constructed when the first people settled down to make a village here. Every year, after the lottery, Mr. Summers began talking again about a new box, but every year the subject was allowed to fade off without anything’s being done. The black box grew shabbier each year: by now it was no longer completely black but splintered badly along one side to show the original wood color, and in some places faded or stained.

Mr. Martin and his oldest son, Baxter, held the black box securely on the stool until Mr. Summers had stirred the papers thoroughly with his hand. Because so much of the ritual had been forgotten or discarded, Mr. Summers had been successful in having slips of paper substituted for the chips of wood that had been used for generations. Chips of wood, Mr. Summers had argued, had been all very well when the village was tiny, but now that the population was more than three hundred and likely to keep on growing, it was necessary to use something that would fit more easily into he black box. The night before the lottery, Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves made up the slips of paper and put them in the box, and it was then taken to the safe of Mr. Summers’ coal company and locked up until Mr. Summers was ready to take it to the square next morning. The rest of the year, the box was put way, sometimes one place, sometimes another; it had spent one year in Mr. Graves’s barn and another year underfoot in the post office. and sometimes it was set on a shelf in the Martin grocery and left there.

There was a great deal of fussing to be done before Mr. Summers declared the lottery open. There were the lists to make up–of heads of families, heads of households in each family, members of each household in each family. There was the proper swearing-in of Mr. Summers by the postmaster, as the official of the lottery; at one time, some people remembered, there had been a recital of some sort, performed by the official of the lottery, a perfunctory, tuneless chant that had been rattled off duly each year; some people believed that the official of the lottery used to stand just so when he said or sang it, others believed that he was supposed to walk among the people, but years and years ago this p3rt of the ritual had been allowed to lapse. There had been, also, a ritual salute, which the official of the lottery had had to use in addressing each person who came up to draw from the box, but this also had changed with time, until now it was felt necessary only for the official to speak to each person approaching. Mr. Summers was very good at all this; in his clean white shirt and blue jeans, with one hand resting carelessly on the black box, he seemed very proper and important as he talked interminably to Mr. Graves and the Martins.

Just as Mr. Summers finally left off talking and turned to the assembled villagers, Mrs. Hutchinson came hurriedly along the path to the square, her sweater thrown over her shoulders, and slid into place in the back of the crowd. “Clean forgot what day it was,” she said to Mrs. Delacroix, who stood next to her, and they both laughed softly. “Thought my old man was out back stacking wood,” Mrs. Hutchinson went on, “and then I looked out the window and the kids was gone, and then I remembered it was the twenty-seventh and came a-running. ” She dried her hands on her apron, and Mrs. Delacroix said, “You’re in time, though. They’re still talking away up there. “

Mrs. Hutchinson craned her neck to see through the crowd and found her husband and children standing near the front. She tapped Mrs. Delacroix on the arm as a farewell and began to make her way through the crowd. The people separated good-humoredly to let her through: two or three people said, in voices just loud enough to be heard across the crowd, “Here comes your, Missus, Hutchinson,” and “Bill, she made it after all. ” Mrs. Hutchinson reached her husband, and Mr. Summers, who had been waiting, said cheerfully. “Thought we were going to have to get on without you, Tessie. ” Mrs. Hutchinson said, grinning, “Wouldn’t have me leave m’dishes in the sink, now, would you, Joe?” and soft laughter ran through the crowd as the people stirred back into position after Mrs. Hutchinson’s arrival.

“Well, now. ” Mr. Summers said soberly, “guess we better get started, get this over with, so’s we can go back to work. Anybody ain’t here?”

“Dunbar. ” several people said. “Dunbar. Dunbar. “

Mr. Summers consulted his list. “Clyde Dunbar. ” he said. “That’s right. He’s broke his leg, hasn’t he? Who’s drawing for him?”

“Me. I guess,” a woman said, and Mr. Summers turned to look at her. “Wife draws for her husband. ” Mr. Summers said. “Don’t you have a grown boy to do it for you, Janey?” Although Mr. Summers and everyone else in the village knew the answer perfectly well, it was the business of the official of the lottery to ask such questions formally. Mr. Summers waited with an expression of polite interest while Mrs. Dunbar answered.

“Horace’s not but sixteen yet. ” Mrs. Dunbar said regretfully. “Guess I gotta fill in for the old man this year. “

“Right. ” Sr. Summers said. He made a note on the list he was holding. Then he asked, “Watson boy drawing this year?”

A tall boy in the crowd raised his hand. “Here,” he said. “I m drawing for my mother and me. ” He blinked his eyes nervously and ducked his head as several voices in the crowd said things like “Good fellow, lack. ” and “Glad to see your mother’s got a man to do it. “

“Well,” Mr. Summers said, “guess that’s everyone. Old Man Warner make it?”

“Here,” a voice said, and Mr. Summers nodded.

A sudden hush fell on the crowd as Mr. Summers cleared his throat and looked at the list. “All ready?” he called. “Now, I’ll read the names–heads of families first–and the men come up and take a paper out of the box. Keep the paper folded in your hand without looking at it until everyone has had a turn. Everything clear?”

The people had done it so many times that they only half listened to the directions: most of them were quiet, wetting their lips, not looking around. Then Mr. Summers raised one hand high and said, “Adams. ” A man disengaged himself from the crowd and came forward. “Hi. Steve. ” Mr. Summers said, and Mr. Adams said. “Hi. Joe. ” They grinned at one another humorlessly and nervously. Then Mr. Adams reached into the black box and took out a folded paper. He held it firmly by one corner as he turned and went hastily back to his place in the crowd, where he stood a little apart from his family, not looking down at his hand.

“Allen. ” Mr. Summers said. “Anderson… Bentham. “

“Seems like there’s no time at all between lotteries any more. ” Mrs. Delacroix said to Mrs. Graves in the back row.

“Seems like we got through with the last one only last week. “

“Time sure goes fast” Mrs. Graves said.

“Clark… Delacroix. “

“There goes my old man. ” Mrs. Delacroix said. She held her breath while her husband went forward.

“Dunbar,” Mr. Summers said, and Mrs. Dunbar went steadily to the box while one of the women said. “Go on, Janey,” and another said, “There she goes. “

“We’re next. ” Mrs. Graves said. She watched while Mr. Graves came around from the side of the box, greeted Mr. Summers gravely and selected a slip of paper from the box. By now, all through the crowd there were men holding the small folded papers in their large hand, turning them over and over nervously Mrs. Dunbar and her two sons stood together, Mrs. Dunbar holding the slip of paper.

“Harburt… Hutchinson. “

“Get up there, Bill,” Mrs. Hutchinson said, and the people near her laughed.

“Jones. “

“They do say,” Mr. Adams said to Old Man Warner, who stood next to him, “that over in the north village they’re talking of giving up the lottery. “

Old Man Warner snorted. “Pack of crazy fools,” he said. “Listening to the young folks, nothing’s good enough for them. Next thing you know, they’ll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work any more, live hat way for a while. Used to be a saying about Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon. ‘ First thing you know, we’d all be eating stewed chickweed and acorns. There’s always been a lottery,” he added petulantly. “Bad enough to see young Joe Summers up there joking with everybody. “

“Some places have already quit lotteries,” Mrs. Adams said.

“Nothing but trouble in that,” Old Man Warner said stoutly. “Pack of young fools. “

“Martin. ” And Bobby Martin watched his father go forward. “Overdyke… Percy. “

“I wish they’d hurry,” Mrs. Dunbar said to her older son. “I wish they’d hurry.”

“They’re almost through,” her son said.

“You get ready to run tell Dad,” Mrs. Dunbar said.

Mr. Summers called his own name and then stepped forward precisely and selected a slip from the box. Then he called, “Warner. “

“Seventy-seventh year I been in the lottery,” Old Man Warner said as he went through the crowd. “Seventy-seventh time. “

“Watson. ” The tall boy came awkwardly through the crowd. Someone said, “Don’t be nervous, Jack,” and Mr. Summers said, “Take your time, son. “

“Zanini. “

After that, there was a long pause, a breathless pause, until Mr. Summers, holding his slip of paper in the air, said, “All right, fellows. ” For a minute, no one moved, and then all the slips of paper were opened. Suddenly, all the women began to speak at once, saving. “Who is it?,” “Who’s got it?,” “Is it the Dunbars?,” “Is it the Watsons?” Then the voices began to say, “It’s Hutchinson. It’s Bill,” “Bill Hutchinson’s got it. “

“Go tell your father,” Mrs. Dunbar said to her older son.

People began to look around to see the Hutchinsons. Bill Hutchinson was standing quiet, staring down at the paper in his hand. Suddenly, Tessie Hutchinson shouted to Mr. Summers. “You didn’t give him time enough to take any paper he wanted. I saw you. It wasn’t fair!”

“Be a good sport, Tessie,” Mrs. Delacroix called, and Mrs. Graves said, “All of us took the same chance. “

“Shut up, Tessie,” Bill Hutchinson said.

“Well, everyone,” Mr. Summers said, “that was done pretty fast, and now we’ve got to be hurrying a little more to get done in time. ” He consulted his next list. “Bill,” he said, “you draw for the Hutchinson family. You got any other households in the Hutchinsons?”

“There’s Don and Eva,” Mrs. Hutchinson yelled. “Make them take their chance!”

“Daughters draw with their husbands’ families, Tessie,” Mr. Summers said gently. “You know that as well as anyone else. “

“It wasn’t fair,” Tessie said.

“I guess not, Joe,” Bill Hutchinson said regretfully. “My daughter draws with her husband’s family; that’s only fair. And I’ve got no other family except the kids. “

“Then, as far as drawing for families is concerned, it’s you,” Mr. Summers said in explanation, “and as far as drawing for households is concerned, that’s you, too. Right?”

“Right,” Bill Hutchinson said.

“How many kids, Bill?” Mr. Summers asked formally.

“Three,” Bill Hutchinson said.

“There’s Bill, Jr. , and Nancy, and little Dave. And Tessie and me. “

“All right, then,” Mr. Summers said. “Harry, you got their tickets back?”

Mr. Graves nodded and held up the slips of paper. “Put them in the box, then,” Mr. Summers directed. “Take Bill’s and put it in. “

“I think we ought to start over,” Mrs. Hutchinson said, as quietly as she could. “I tell you it wasn’t fair. You didn’t give him time enough to choose. Everybody saw that. “

Mr. Graves had selected the five slips and put them in the box, and he dropped all the papers but those onto the ground, where the breeze caught them and lifted them off.

“Listen, everybody,” Mrs. Hutchinson was saying to the people around her.

“Ready, Bill?” Mr. Summers asked, and Bill Hutchinson, with one quick glance around at his wife and children, nodded.

“Remember,” Mr. Summers said, “take the slips and keep them folded until each person has taken one. Harry, you help little Dave. ” Mr. Graves took the hand of the little boy, who came willingly with him up to the box. “Take a paper out of the box, Davy,” Mr. Summers said. Davy put his hand into the box and laughed. “Take just one paper. ” Mr. Summers said. “Harry, you hold it for him. ” Mr. Graves took the child’s hand and removed the folded paper from the tight fist and held it while little Dave stood next to him and looked up at him wonderingly.

“Nancy next,” Mr. Summers said. Nancy was twelve, and her school friends breathed heavily as she went forward switching her skirt, and took a slip daintily from the box “Bill, Jr. ,” Mr. Summers said, and Billy, his face red and his feet overlarge, near knocked the box over as he got a paper out. “Tessie,” Mr. Summers said. She hesitated for a minute, looking around defiantly, and then set her lips and went up to the box. She snatched a paper out and held it behind her.

“Bill,” Mr. Summers said, and Bill Hutchinson reached into the box and felt around, bringing his hand out at last with the slip of paper in it.

The crowd was quiet. A girl whispered, “I hope it’s not Nancy,” and the sound of the whisper reached the edges of the crowd.

“It’s not the way it used to be,” Old Man Warner said clearly. “People ain’t the way they used to be. “

“All right,” Mr. Summers said. “Open the papers. Harry, you open little Dave’s. “

Mr. Graves opened the slip of paper and there was a general sigh through the crowd as he held it up and everyone could see that it was blank. Nancy and Bill, Jr. , opened theirs at the same time, and both beamed and laughed, turning around to the crowd and holding their slips of paper above their heads.

“Tessie,” Mr. Summers said. There was a pause, and then Mr. Summers looked at Bill Hutchinson, and Bill unfolded his paper and showed it. It was blank.

“It’s Tessie,” Mr. Summers said, and his voice was hushed. “Show us her paper, Bill. “

Bill Hutchinson went over to his wife and forced the slip of paper out of her hand. It had a black spot on it, the black spot Mr. Summers had made the night before with the heavy pencil in the coal company office. Bill Hutchinson held it up, and there was a stir in the crowd.

“All right, folks. ” Mr. Summers said. “Let’s finish quickly. “

Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones. The pile of stones the boys had made earlier was ready; there were stones on the ground with the blowing scraps of paper that had come out of the box Delacroix selected a stone so large she had to pick it up with both hands and turned to Mrs. Dunbar. “Come on,” she said. “Hurry up. “

Mrs. Dunbar had small stones in both hands, and she said, gasping for breath. “I can’t run at all. You’ll have to go ahead and I’ll catch up with you. “

The children had stones already. And someone gave little Davy Hutchinson a few pebbles.

Tessie Hutchinson was in the center of a cleared space by now, and she held her hands out desperately as the villagers moved in on her. “It isn’t fair,” she said. A stone hit her on the side of the head. Old Man Warner was saying, “Come on, come on, everyone. ” Steve Adams was in the front of the crowd of villagers, with Mrs. Graves beside him.

“It isn’t fair, it isn’t right,” Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her.

The End

Other links

Commentary

When I was in school, many of my classmates preferred to read the Cliff-notes version so that they could pass the tests, rather than just simply read the story for themselves. What an absolute waste. You pass a class, but learn nothing.

In a like way, you can go on the internet today, and read what other people have to think about this story. Yup. That’s progressive “group think” for you. Get consensus, then follow the herd. Be a mindless drone, why don’t you?

Your reaction to this story is important. It is unique and that uniqueness is what makes YOU special. Embrace it and treasure it.

Posts Regarding Life and Contentment

Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.

Why no High-Speed rail in the USA?
Link
Link
Link
Tomatos
Link
Mad scientist
Gorilla Cage in the basement
The two family types and how they work.
Link
Soups, Sandwiches and ice cold beer.
Pleasures
Work in the 1960's
School in the 1970s
Cat Heaven
Corporate life
Corporate life - part 2
Build up your life
Grow and play - 1
Grow and play - 2
Asshole
Baby's got back
Link
A womanly vanity
SJW
Army and Navy Store
Playground Comparisons
Excuses that we use that keep us enslaved.

Posts about the Changes in America

America is going through a period of change. Change is good… that is, after it occurs. Often however, there are large periods of discomfort as the period of adjustment takes place. Here are some posts that discuss this issue.

Parable about America
What is planned for American Conservatives - Part 2
What is going to happen to conservatives - Part 3.
What is planned for conservatives - part 4
What is in store for Conservatives - part 5
What is in store for conservatives - part 6
Civil War
The Warning Signs
r/K selection theory
Line in the sand
A second passport
Link
Make America Great Again.
What would the founders think?

More Posts about Life

I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.

Being older
Things I wish I knew.
Link
Travel
PT-141
Bronco Billy
How they get away with it
Paper Airplanes
Snopes
Taxiation without representation.
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
1960's and 1970's link
Democracy Lessons
A polarized world.
The Rule of Eight
Types of American conservatives.

Stories that Inspired Me

Here are reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come and enjoy a read or two as well.

Link
Space Cadet (Full Text) by Robert Heinlein
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
The Last Night
The Flying Machine
A story of escape.
All Summer in a day.
The Smile by Ray Bradbury
The menace from Earth
Delilah and the Space Rigger
Life-Line
The Tax-payer
The Pedestrian
Time for the stars.
Glory Road by Robert Heinlein
Starman Jones (Full Text) by Robert Heinlein.

Articles & Links

You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
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Starman Jones (Full Text) by Robert Heinlein.

This is a wonderful story. It is great “escapist reading”, and has some very significant deeper elements.

''there were things that were right and others that were wrong and it was not just a matter of where you were. He felt this with an inner conviction too deep to be influenced by Sam’s cheerful cynicism.''

 This ''inner conviction'' places Heinlein's work apart. Morality can't be proved. We must be convinced.

 This reflective, thoughtful, wondering threads it's way throughout. Who hasn't pondered -

 'Is morality adjustable?
 Who says what is right?
 How can I know for sure?
 Should I forgive myself or punish myself?'

 Presented so skillfully, so warmly, I have returned to Max several times in over five decades. I still tear up each visit.

 Max is disclosing his deception -

 “I was always explaining—in my mind of course, why I did it, justifying myself, pointing out that the system was at fault, not me. Now I don’t want to justify myself. Not that I regret it, not when I think what I would have missed. But I don’t want to duck out of paying for it, either.”
 
Walther nodded. 

“That sounds like a healthy attitude. Captain, no code is perfect. A man must conform with judgment and commonsense, not with blind obedience. I’ve broken rules; some violations I paid for, some I didn’t. This mistake you made could have turned you into a moralistic prig, a ‘Regulation Charlie’ determined to walk the straight and narrow and to see that everyone else obeyed the letter of the law. Or it could have made you a permanent infant who thinks rules are for everyone but him. It doesn’t seem to have had either effect; I think it has matured you.”

 Keen insight.

 Another theme is the proper use and abuse of authority. Government regulations -

 ''You don’t believe in anarchy, surely? Our whole society is founded on entrusting grave secrets only to those who are worthy.''

 Government protects you -

 When the idea soaked in, Max was shocked.
 “But they put you in jail for that!”
 “Where do you think you are now?”
 “Well, I’m not in jail. And I don’t want to be.”
 “This whole planet is one big jail, and a crowded one at that.''

 Security vs Liberty, a question that all face and choose their answer.
 And yet (this is what makes Heinlein fascinating) he is not defiant or disrespectful to authority.

 Explains why Max must agree to be Captain . . .

 Mr. Samuels said quietly,

 “I don’t agree with the Chief Engineer about the unimportance of legal aspects; most of these laws have wise reasons behind them. But I agree with what else he says. Mr. Jones, a ship is not just steel, it is a delicate political entity. Its laws and customs cannot be disregarded without inviting disaster.’’

 This deep respect for law and legality drive this story. The dangerous curves are when ‘law’ has to be superseded by ‘legal principles’.
 When? Why? How? Well . .
 .
 “It will be far easier to maintain morale and discipline in this ship with a young captain—with all his officers behind him—than it would be to let passengers and crew suspect that the man who must make the crucial decisions, those life-and-death matters involving the handling of the ship, that this all-powerful man nevertheless can’t be trusted to command the ship. No, sir, such a situation would frighten me; that is how mutinies are born.”

 This is deep trust in authority.

 However, this power is used to help others, not the captain.
 The respect is earned and willingly given.

 What a lesson!

 Heinlein presents this growing and searching - to submit, defy, accept and use authority in this work. Wonderful!

-Amazon product review by Clay Garner

THE TOMAHAWK

Max liked this time of day, this time of year. With the crops in, he could finish his evening chores early and be lazy. When he had slopped the hogs and fed the chickens, instead of getting supper he followed a path to a rise west of the barn and lay down in the grass, unmindful of chiggers. He had a book with him that he had drawn from the county library last Saturday, Bonforte’s Sky Beasts: A Guide to Exotic Zoology, but he tucked it under his head as a pillow. A blue jay made remarks about his honesty, then shut up when he failed to move. A red squirrel sat on a stump and stared at him, then went on burying nuts.

Max kept his eyes to the northwest. He favored this spot because from it he could see the steel stilts and guide rings of the Chicago, Springfield, & Earthport Ring Road emerge from a slash in the ridge to his right. There was a guide ring at the mouth of the cut, a great steel hoop twenty feet high. A pair of

stilt-like tripods supported another ring a hundred feet out from the cut. A third and last ring, its stilts more than a hundred feet high to keep it level with the others, lay west of him where the ground dropped still more sharply into the valley below. Half way up it he could see the power-link antenna pointing across the gap.

On his left the guides of the C.S.&E. picked up again on the far side of the gap. The entering ring was larger to allow for maximum windage deviation; on its stilts was the receptor antenna for the power link. That ridge was steeper; there was only one more ring before the road disappeared into a tunnel. He had read that, on the Moon, entrance rings were no larger than pass-along rings, since there was never any wind to cause variation in ballistic. When he was a child this entrance ring had been slightly smaller and, during an unprecedented windstorm, a train had struck the ring and produced an unbelievable wreck, with more than four hundred people killed. He had not seen it and his father had not allowed him to poke around afterwards because of the carnage, but the scar of it could still be seen on the lefthand ridge, a

darker green than the rest.

He watched the trains go by whenever possible, not wishing the passengers any bad luck—but still, if there should happen to be a catastrophe, he didn’t want to miss it.

Max kept his eyes fixed on the cut; the Tomahawk was due any instant. Suddenly there was a silver gleam, a shining cylinder with needle nose burst out of the cut, flashed through the last ring and for a breathless moment was in free trajectory between the ridges. Almost before he could swing his eyes the projectile entered the ring across the gap and disappeared into the hillside—just as the sound hit him.

It was a thunderclap that bounced around the hills. Max gasped for air. “Boy!” he said softly. “Boy, oh boy!” The incredible sight and the impact on his ears always affected him the same way. He had heard that for the passengers the train was silent, with the sound trailing them, but he did not know; he had never ridden a train and it seemed unlikely, with Maw and the farm to take care of, that he ever would.

He shifted to a sitting position and opened his book, holding it so that he would be aware of the southwestern sky. Seven minutes after the passing of the Tomahawk he should be able to see, on a clear evening, the launching orbit of the daily Moonship. Although much father away and much less dramatic than the nearby jump of the ring train it was this that he had come to see. Ring trains were all right, but spaceships were his love—even a dinky like the moon shuttle.

But he had just found his place, a description of the intelligent but phlegmatic crustaceans of Epsilon Ceti IV, when he was interrupted by a call behind him. “Oh, Maxie! Maximilian! Max… mil… yan!”

He held still and said nothing.

“Max! I can see you, Max—you come at once, hear me?”

He muttered to himself and got to his feet. He moved slowly down the path, watching the sky over his shoulder until the barn cut off his view. Maw was back and that was that—she’d make his life miserable if he didn’t come in and help. When she had left that morning he had had the impression that she would be gone overnight—not that she had said so; she never did—but he had learned to read the signs. Now he would have to listen to her complaints and her petty gossip when he wanted to read, or just as bad, be disturbed by the slobbering stereovision serials she favored. He had often been tempted to sabotage the pesky SV set—by rights with an ax! He hardly ever got to see the programs he liked.

When he got in sight of the house he stopped suddenly. He had supposed that Maw had ridden the bus from the Corners and walked up the draw as usual. But there was a sporty little unicycle standing near the stoop—and there was someone with her.

He had thought at first it was a “foreigner”—but when he got closer he recognized the man. Max would rather have seen a foreigner, any foreigner. Biff Montgomery was a hillman but he didn’t work a farm; Max couldn’t remember having seen him do any honest work. He had heard it said that Montgomery sometimes hired out as a guard when one of the moonshine stills back in the hills was operating and it might be so—Montgomery was a big, beefy man and the part might fit him.

Max had known Montgomery as long as he could remember, seen him loafing around Clyde’s Corners. But he had ordinarily given him “wagon room” and had had nothing to do with him—until lately: Maw had started being seen with him, even gone to barn dances and huskings with him. Max had tried to tell her that Dad wouldn’t have liked it. But you couldn’t argue with Maw—what she didn’t like she just didn’t hear.

But this was the first time she had ever brought him to the house. Max felt a slow burn of anger starting in

him.

“Hurry up, Maxie!” Maw called out. “Don’t stand there like a dummy.” Max reluctantly moved along and joined them. Maw said, “Maxie, shake hands with your new father,” then looked roguish, as if she had said something witty. Max stared and his mouth sagged open.

Montgomery grinned and stuck out a hand. “Yep, Max, you’re Max Montgomery now—I’m your new pop. But you can call me Monty.”

Max stared at the hand, took it briefly. “My name is Jones,” he said flatly. “Maxie!” protested Maw.

Montgomery laughed jovially. “Don’t rush him, Nellie my love. Let Max get used to it. Live and let live; that’s my motto.” He turned to his wife. “Half a mo’, while I get the baggage.” From one saddlebag of the unicycle he extracted a wad of mussed clothing; from the other, two flat pint bottles. Seeing Max watching him he winked and said, “A toast for the bride.”

His bride was standing by the door; he started to brush on past her. She protested, “But Monty darling, aren’t you going to—”

Montgomery stopped. “Oh. I haven’t much experience in these things. Sure.” He turned to Max—”Here, take the baggage”—and shoved bottles and clothes at him. Then he swung her up in his arms, grunting a bit, and carried her over the threshold, put her down and kissed her while she squealed and blushed.

Max silently followed them, put the items on the table and turned to the stove. It was cold, he had not used it since breakfast. There was an electric range but it had burned out before his father had died and there had never been money to repair it. He took out his pocket knife, made shavings, added kindling and touched the heap with an Everlite. When it flared up he went out to fetch a pail of water.

When he came back Montgomery said, “Wondered where you’d gone. Doesn’t this dump even have running water?”

“No.” Max set the pail down, then added a couple of chunks of cord wood to the fire. His Maw said, “Maxie, you should have had dinner ready.”

Montgomery interceded pleasantly with, “Now, my dear, he didn’t know we were coming. And it leaves time for a toast.” Max kept his back to them, giving his full attention to slicing side meat. The change was so overwhelming that he had not had time to take it in.

Montgomery called to him. “Here, son! Drink your toast to the bride.” “I’ve got to get supper.”

“Nonsense! Here’s your glass. Hurry up.”

Montgomery had poured a finger of amber liquid into the glass; his own glass was half full and that of his bride at least a third. Max accepted it and went to the pail, thinned it with a dipper of water.

“You’ll ruin it.”

“I’m not used to it.”

“Oh, well. Here’s to the blushing bride—and our happy family! Bottoms up!”

Max took a cautious sip and put it down. It tasted to him like the bitter tonic the district nurse had given him one spring. He turned back to his work, only to be interrupted again. “Hey, you didn’t finish it.”

“Look, I got to cook. You don’t want me to burn supper, do you?”

Montgomery shrugged. “Oh, well—the more for the rest of us. We’ll use yours for a chaser. Sonny boy, when I was your age I could empty a tumbler neat and then stand on my hands.”

Max had intended to sup on side meat and warmed-over biscuits, but there was only half a pan left of the biscuits. He scrambled eggs in the grease of the side meat, brewed coffee, and let it go at that. When they sat down Montgomery looked at it and announced, “My dear, starting tomorrow I’ll expect you to live up to what you told me about your cooking. Your boy isn’t much of a cook.” Nevertheless he ate heartily. Max decided not to tell him that he was a better cook than Maw—he’d find out soon enough.

Presently Montgomery sat back and wiped his mouth, then poured himself more coffee and lighted a cigar. Maw said, “Maxie, dear, what’s the dessert?”

“Dessert? Well—there’s that ice cream in the freezer, left over from Solar Union Day.” She looked vexed. “Oh, dear! I’m afraid it’s not there.”

“Huh?”

“Well, I’m afraid I sort of ate it one afternoon when you were out in the south field. It was an awfully hot day.”

Max did not say anything, he was unsurprised. But she was not content to leave it. “You didn’t fix any dessert, Max? But this is a special occasion.”

Montgomery took his cigar out of his mouth. “Stow it, my dear,” he said kindly. “I’m not much for sweets, I’m a meat-and-potatoes man—sticks to the ribs. Let’s talk of pleasanter things.” He turned to Max. “Max, what can you do besides farm?”

Max was startled. “Huh? I’ve never done anything else. Why?”

Montgomery touched the ash of the cigar to his plate. “Because you are all through farming.”

For the second time in two hours Max had more change than he could grasp. “Why? What do you mean?”

“Because we’ve sold the farm.”

Max felt as if he had had a rug jerked out from under him. But he could tell from Maw’s face that it was true. She looked the way she always did when she had put one over on him—triumphant and slightly apprehensive.

“Dad wouldn’t like that,” he said to her harshly. “This land has been in our family for four hundred years.”

“Now, Maxie! I’ve told you I don’t know how many times that I wasn’t cut out for a farm. I was city raised.”

“Clyde’s Corners! Some city!”

“It wasn’t a farm. And I was just a young girl when your father brought me here—you were already a big boy. I’ve still got my life before me. I can’t live it buried on a farm.”

Max raised his voice. “But you promised Dad you’d…”

“Stow it,” Montgomery said firmly. “And keep a civil tongue in your head when you speak to your mother—and to me.”

Max shut up.

“The land is sold and that’s that. How much do you figure this parcel is worth?” “Why, I’ve never thought about it.”

“Whatever you thought, I got more.” He gave Max a wink. “Yes, sir! It was a lucky day for your mother and you when she set her cap for me. I’m a man with his ear to the ground. I knew why an agent was around buying up these worn-out, worthless pieces of property. I…”

“I use government fertilizers.”

“Worthless I said and worthless I meant. For farming, that is.” He put his finger along his nose, looked sly, and explained. It seemed that some big government power project was afoot for which this area had been selected—Montgomery was mysterious about it, from which Max concluded that he didn’t know very much. A syndicate was quietly buying up land in anticipation of government purchase. “So we held ’em up for five times what they expected to pay. Pretty good, huh?”

Maw put in, “You see, Maxie? If your father had known that we would ever get…” “Quiet, Nellie!”

“But I was just going to tell him how much…” “‘Quiet!’ I said.”

She shut up. Montgomery pushed his chair back, stuck his cigar in his mouth, and got up. Max put water on to heat for the dishes, scraped the plates and took the leavings out to the chickens. He stayed out quite a spell, looking at the stars and trying to think. The idea of having Biff Montgomery in the family shook him to his bones. He wondered just what rights a stepfather had, or, rather a step-stepfather, a man who had married his stepmother. He didn’t know.

Presently he decided that he had to go back inside, much as he hated to. He found Montgomery standing at the bookshelf he had built over the stereo receiver; the man was pawing at the books and had piled several on the receiver. He looked around. “You back? Stick around, I want you to tell me about the live stock.”

Maw appeared in the doorway. “Darling,” she said to Montgomery, “can’t that wait till morning?”

“Don’t be in a hurry, my dear,” he answered. “That auctioneer fellow will be here early. I’ve got to have the inventory ready.” He continued to pull books down. “Say, these are pretty things.” He held in his hands half a dozen volumes, printed on the finest of thin paper and bound in limp plastic. “I wonder what they’re worth? Nellie, hand me my specs.”

Max advanced hastily, reached for them. “Those are mine!”

“Huh?” Montgomery glanced at him, then held the books high in the air. “You’re too young to own anything. No, everything goes. A clean sweep and a fresh start.”

“They’re mine! My uncle gave them to me.” He appealed to his mother. “Tell him, Maw.”

Montgomery said quietly, “Yes, Nellie, set this youngster straight—before I have to correct him.” Nellie looked worried. “Well, I don’t rightly know. They did belong to Chet.”

“And Chet was your brother? Then you’re Chet’s heir, not this young cub.” “He wasn’t her brother, he was her brother-in-law!”

“So? No matter. Your father was your uncle’s heir, then, and your mother is your father’s heir. Not you, you’re a minor. That’s the law, son. Sorry.” He put the books on the shelf but remained standing in front of them.

Max felt his right upper lip begin to twitch uncontrollably; he knew that he would not be able to talk coherently. His eyes filled with tears of rage so that he could hardly see. “You… you thief!”

Nellie let out a squawk. “Max!”

Montgomery’s face became coldly malignant. “Now you’ve gone too far. I’m afraid you’ve earned a taste of the strap.” His fingers started unbuckling his heavy belt.

Max took a step backward. Montgomery got the belt loose and took a step forward. Nellie squealed, “Monty! Please!”

“Keep out of this, Nellie.” To Max he said, “We might as well get it settled once and for all who is boss around here. Apologize!”

Max did not answer. Montgomery repeated, “Apologize, and we’ll say no more about it.” He twitched the belt like a cat lashing its tail. Max took another step back; Montgomery stepped forward and grabbed at him.

Max ducked and ran out the open door into darkness. He did not stop until he was sure that Montgomery was not following. Then he caught his breath, still raging. He was almost sorry that Montgomery had not chased him; he didn’t think that anyone could match him on his home grounds in the dark. He knew where the wood pile was; Montgomery didn’t. He knew where the hog wallow was.

Yes, he knew where the well was—even that.

It was a long time before he quieted down enough to think rationally. When he did, he was glad it had ended so easily, Montgomery outweighed him a lot and was reputed to be a mean one in a fight.

If it had ended, he corrected. He wondered if Montgomery would decide to forget it by morning. The light was still on in the living room; he took shelter in the barn and waited, sitting down on the dirt floor and leaning against the planks. After a while he felt terribly tired. He considered sleeping in the barn but there was no fit place to lie down, even though the old mule was dead. Instead he got up and looked at the house.

The light was out in the living room, but he could see a light in the bedroom; they were still awake, surely. Someone had closed the outer door after his flight; it did not lock so there was no difficulty getting in, but he was afraid that Montgomery might hear him. His own room was a shed added at the kitchen end of the main room, opposite the bedroom, but it had no outside door.

No matter—he had solved that problem when he had first grown old enough to wish to get in and out at night without consulting his elders. He crept around the house, found the saw horse, placed it under his window, got on and wiggled loose the nail that held the window. A moment later he stepped silently down into his own room. The door to the main part of the house was closed but he decided not to risk

switching on the light; Montgomery might take it into his head to come out into the living room and see a crack of light under his door. He slipped quietly out of his clothes and crawled into his cot.

Sleep wouldn’t come. Once he began to feel that warm drowsiness, then some tiny noise had brought him wide, stiff awake. Probably just a mouse—but for an instant he had thought that Montgomery was standing over his bed. With his heart pounding, he sat up on the edge of his cot, still in his skin.

Presently he faced up to the problem of what he was to do—not just for the next hour, not just tomorrow morning, but the following morning and all the mornings after that. Montgomery alone presented no problem; he would not voluntarily stay in the same county with the man. But how about Maw?

His father had told him, when he had known that he was dying, “Take care of your mother, son.” Well, he had done so. He had made a crop every year—food in the house and a little money, even if things had been close. When the mule died, he had made do, borrowing McAllister’s team and working it out in labor.

But had Dad meant that he had to take care of his stepmother even if she remarried? It had never occurred to him to consider it. Dad had told him to look out for her and he had done so, even though it had put a stop to school and did not seem to have any end to it.

But she was no longer Mrs. Jones but Mrs. Montgomery. Had Dad meant for him to support Mrs. Montgomery?

Of course not! When a woman married, her husband supported her. Everybody knew that. And Dad wouldn’t expect him to put up with Montgomery. He stood up, his mind suddenly made up.

The only question was what to take with him.

There was little to take. Groping in the dark he found the rucksack he used for hunting hikes and stuffed into it his other shirt and his socks. He added Uncle Chet’s circular astrogation slide rule and the piece of volcanic glass his uncle had brought back for him from the Moon. His citizen’s identification card, his toothbrush, and his father’s razor—not that he needed that very often—about completed the plunder.

There was a loose board back of his cot. He felt for it, pulled it out and groped between the studs—found nothing. He had been hiding a little money from time to time against a rainy day, as Maw couldn’t or wouldn’t save. But apparently she had found it on one of her snooping tours. Well, he still had to leave; it just made it a little more difficult.

He took a deep breath. There was something he must get… Uncle Chet’s books… and they were still (presumably) on the shelf against the wall common with the bedroom. But he had to get them, even at the risk of meeting Montgomery.

Cautiously, most slowly, he opened the door into the living room, stood there with sweat pouring down him. There was still a crack of light under the bedroom door and he hesitated, almost unable to force himself to go on. He heard Montgomery muttering something and Maw giggle.

As his eyes adjusted he could see by the faint light leaking out under the bedroom door something piled at the outer door. It was a deadfall alarm of pots and pans, sure to make a dreadful clatter if the door were opened. Apparently Montgomery had counted on him coming back and expected to be ready to take care of him. He was very glad that he had sneaked in the window.

No use putting it off—he crept across the floor, mindful of the squeaky board near the table. He could not see but he could feel and the volumes were known to his fingers. Carefully he slid them out, being

sure not to knock over the others.

He was all the way back to his own door when he remembered the library book. He stopped in sudden panic.

He couldn’t go back. They might hear him this time—or Montgomery might get up for a drink of water or something.

But in his limited horizon, the theft of a public library book—or failure to return it, which was the same thing—was, if not a mortal sin, at least high on the list of shameful crimes. He stood there, sweating and thinking about it.

Then he went back, the whole long trek, around the squeaky board and tragically onto one he had not remembered. He froze after he hit it, but apparently it had not alarmed the couple in the room beyond. At last he was leaning over the SV receiver and groping at the shelf.

Montgomery, in pawing the books, had changed their arrangement. One after another he had to take them down and try to identify it by touch, opening each and feeling for the perforations on the title page.

It was the fourth one he handled. He got back to his room hurrying slowly, unbearably anxious but afraid to move fast. There at last, he began to shake and had to wait until it wore off. He didn’t chance closing his door but got into his clothes in the dark. Moments later he crept through his window, found the saw horse with his toe, and stepped quietly to the ground.

His shoes were stuffed on top of the books in his rucksack; he decided to leave them there until he was well clear of the house, rather than chance the noise he might make with his feet shod. He swung wide around the house and looked back. The bedroom light was still on; he started to angle down toward the road when he noticed Montgomery’s unicycle. He stopped.

If he continued he would come to the road the bus passed along. Whether he turned right or left there, Montgomery would have a fifty-fifty chance of catching him on the unicycle. Having no money he was dependent on Shank’s ponies to put distance under him; he could not take the bus.

Shucks! Montgomery wouldn’t try to fetch him back. He would say good riddance and forget him!

But the thought fretted him. Suppose Maw urged him? Suppose Montgomery wouldn’t forget an insult and would go to any trouble to “get even”?

He headed back, still swinging wide of the house, and cut across the slopes toward the right of way of the C.S.&E.

Good Samaritan

He wished for a light, but its lack did not bother him much. He knew this country, every slope, almost every tree. He stayed high, working along the hillside, until he reached the exit ring where the trains jumped the gap, and there he came out on the road used by the ring road’s maintenance crews. He sat down and put on his shoes.

The maintenance road was no more than a track cut through trees; it was suited to tractor treads but not

to wheels. But it led down across the gap and up to where the ring road disappeared in the tunnel through the far ridge. He followed it, making good time in the born mountaineer’s easy, loose-jointed walk.

Seventy minutes later he was across the gap and passing under the entrance ring. He went on until he was near the ring that marked the black entrance to the tunnel. He stopped at what he judged to be a safe distance and considered his chances.

The ridge was high, else the rings would have been built in a cut rather than a tunnel. He had often hunted on it and knew that it would take two hours to climb it—in daylight. But the maintenance road ran right through the hill, under the rings. If he followed it, he could go through in ten or fifteen minutes.

Max had never been through the ridge. Legally it was trespass—not that that bothered him, he was trespassing now. Occasionally a hog or a wild animal would wander into the tunnel and be trapped there when a train hurtled through. They died, instantly and without a scratch. Once Max had spotted the carcass of a fox just inside the tunnel and had ducked in and salvaged it. There were no marks on it, but when he skinned it he found that it was a mass of tiny hemorrhages. Several years earlier a man had been caught inside; the maintenance crew brought out the body.

The tunnel was larger than the rings but no larger than necessary to permit the projectile to ride ahead of its own reflected shock wave. Anything alive in the tunnel could not avoid the wave; that unbearable thunderclap, painful at a distance, was so loaded with energy as to be quick death close up.

But Max did not want to climb the ridge; he went over the evening schedule of trains in his mind. The Tomahawk was the one he had watched at sundown; the Javelin he had heard while he was hiding in the barn. The Assegai must have gone by quite a while ago though he didn’t remember hearing it; that left only the midnight Cleaver. He then looked at the sky.

Venus had set, of course, but he was surprised to see Mars still in the west. The Moon had not risen. Let’s see—full moon was last Wednesday. Surely…

The answer he got seemed wrong, so he checked himself by taking a careful eyesight of Vega and compared it with what the Big Dipper told him. Then he whistled softly—despite everything that had happened it was only ten o’clock, give or take five minutes; the stars could not be wrong. In which case the Assegai was not due for another three-quarters of an hour. Except for the faint chance of a special train he had plenty of time.

He headed into the tunnel. He had not gone fifty yards before he began to be sorry and a bit panicky; it was as dark as a sealed coffin. But the going was much easier as the bore was lined to permit smooth shockwave reflections. He had been on his way several minutes, feeling each step but hurrying, when his eyes, adjusting to complete darkness, made out a faint grey circle far ahead. He broke into a trot and then into a dead run as his fear of the place piled up.

He reached the far end with throat burned dry and heart laboring; there he plunged downhill regardless of the sudden roughening of his path as he left the tunnel and hit the maintenance track. He did not slow up until he stood under stilt supports so high that the ring above looked small. There he stood still and fought to catch his breath.

He was slammed forward and knocked off his feet.

He picked himself up groggily, eventually remembered where he was and realized that he had been knocked cold. There was blood on one cheek and his hands and elbows were raw. It was not until he noticed these that he realized what had happened; a train had passed right over him.

It had not been close enough to kill, but it had been close enough to blast him off his feet. It could not have been the Assegai; he looked again at the stars and confirmed it. No, it must have been a special—and he had beaten it out of the tunnel by about a minute.

He began to shake and it was minutes before he pulled himself together, after which he started down the maintenance road as fast as his bruised body could manage. Presently he became aware of an odd fact; the night was silent.

But night is never silent. His ears, tuned from babyhood to the sounds and signs of his hills, should have heard an endless pattern of little night noises—wind in the leaves, the scurrying of his small cousins, tree frogs, calls of insects, owls.

By brutal logic he concluded correctly that he could not hear—”deef as a post”—the shock wave had left him deaf. But there was no way to help it, so he went on; it did not occur to him to return home. At the bottom of this draw, where the stilts were nearly three hundred feet high, the maintenance road crossed a farm road. He turned down hill onto it, having accomplished his first purpose of getting into territory where Montgomery would be less likely to look for him. He was in another watershed now; although still only a few miles from home, nevertheless by going through the ridge he had put himself into a different neighborhood.

He continued downhill for a couple of hours. The road was hardly more than a cart track but it was easier than the maintenance road. Somewhere below, when the hills gave way to the valley where the “foreigners” lived, he would find the freight highway that paralleled the ring road on the route to Earthport—Earthport being his destination although he had only foggy plans as to what he would do when he got there.

The Moon was behind him now and he made good time. A rabbit hopped onto the road ahead, sat up and stared, then skittered away. Seeing it, he regretted not having brought along his squirrel gun. Sure, it was worn out and not worth much and lately it had gotten harder and harder to buy the slugs thrown by the obsolete little weapon—but rabbit in the pot right now would go mighty nice, mighty nice! He realized that he was not only weary but terribly hungry. He had just picked at his supper and it looked like he’d breakfast on his upper lip.

Shortly his attention was distracted from hunger to a ringing in his ears, a ringing that got distressingly worse. He shook his head and pounded his ears but it did not help; he had to make up his mind to ignore it. After another half mile or so he suddenly noticed that he could hear himself walking. He stopped dead, then clapped his hands together. He could hear them smack, cutting through the phantom ringing. With a lighter heart he went on.

At last he came out on a shoulder that overlooked the broad valley. In the moonlight he could make out the sweep of the freight highway leading southwest and could detect, he thought, its fluorescent traffic guide lines. He hurried on down.

He was nearing the highway and could hear the rush of passing freighters when he spotted a light ahead. He approached it cautiously, determined that it was neither vehicle nor farm house. Closer approach showed it to be a small open fire, visible from uphill but shielded from the highway by a shoulder of limestone. A man was squatting over it, stirring the contents of a can resting on rocks over the fire.

Max crept nearer until he was looking down into the hobo jungle. He got a whiff of the stew and his mouth watered. Caught between hunger and a hillman’s ingrown distrust of “foreigners” he lay still and stared. Presently the man set the can off the fire and called out, “Well, don’t hide there! Come on down.”

Max was too startled to answer. The man added, “Come on down into the light. I won’t fetch it up to

you.”

Max got to his feet and shuffled down into the circle of firelight. The man looked up. “Howdy. Draw up a chair.”

“Howdy.” Max sat down across the fire from the tramp. He was not even as well dressed as Max and he needed a shave. Nevertheless he wore his rags with a jaunty air and handled himself with a sparrow’s cockiness.

The man continued to stir the mess in the can then spooned out a sample, blew on it, and tasted it. “About right,” he announced. “Four-day mulligan, just getting ripe. Find yourself a dish.” He got up and picked over a pile of smaller cans behind him, selected one. Max hesitated, then did the same, settling on one that had once contained coffee and appeared not to have been used since. His host served him a liberal portion of stew, then handed him a spoon. Max looked at it.

“If you don’t trust the last man who used it,” the man said reasonably, “hold it in the fire, then wipe it. Me, I don’t worry. If a bug bites me, he dies horribly.” Max took the advice, holding the spoon in the flames until the handle became too hot, then wiped it on his shirt.

The stew was good and his hunger made it superlative. The gravy was thick, there were vegetables and unidentified meat. Max didn’t bother his head about the pedigrees of the materials; he simply enjoyed it. After a while his host said, “Seconds?”

“Huh? Sure. Thanks!”

The second can of stew filled him up and spread through his tissues a warm glow of well-being. He stretched lazily, enjoying his fatigue. “Feel better?” the man asked.

“Gee, yes. Thanks.”

“By the way, you can call me Sam.” “Oh, my name is Max.”

“Glad to know you, Max.”

Max waited before raising a point that had been bothering him. “Uh, Sam? How did you know I was there? Did you hear me?”

Sam grinned. “No. But you were silhouetted against the sky. Don’t ever do that, kid, or it may be the last thing you do.”

Max twisted around and looked up at where he had lurked. Sure enough, Sam was right. He’d be dogged!

Sam added, “Traveled far?” “Huh? Yeah, quite a piece.” “Going far?”

“Uh, pretty far, I guess.”

Sam waited, then said, “Think your folks’ll miss you?”

“Huh? How did you know?”

“That you had run away from home? Well, you have, haven’t you?” “Yeah. Yeah, I guess I have.”

“You looked beat when you dragged in here. Maybe it’s not too late to kill the goose before your bridges are burned. Think about it, kid. It’s rough on the road. I know.”

“Go back? I won’t ever go back!” “As bad as that?”

Max stared into the fire. He needed badly to get his thoughts straight, even if it meant telling a foreigner his private affairs—and this soft-spoken stranger was easy to talk to. “See here, Sam, did you ever have a stepmother?”

“Eh? Can’t remember that I ever had any. The Central Jersey Development Center for State Children used to kiss me good night.”

“Oh.” Max blurted out his story with an occasional sympathetic question from Sam to straighten out its confusion. “So I lit out,” he concluded. “There wasn’t anything else to do. Was there?”

Sam pursed his lips. “I reckon not. This double stepfather of yours—he sounds like a mouse studying to be a rat. You’re well shut of him.”

“You don’t think they’ll try to find me and haul me back, do you?”

Sam stopped to put a piece of wood on the fire. “I am not sure about that.”

“Huh? Why not? I’m no use to him. He doesn’t like me. And Maw won’t care, not really. She may whine a bit, but she won’t turn her hand.”

“Well, there’s the farm.”

“The farm? I don’t care about that, not with Dad gone. Truthfully, it ain’t much. You break your back trying to make a crop. If the Food Conservation Act hadn’t forbidden owners to let farm land fall out of use, Dad would have quit farming long ago. It would take something like this government condemnation to make it possible to find anybody to take it off your hands.”

“That’s what I mean. This joker got your mother to sell it. Now my brand of law may not be much good, but it looks as if that money ought to come to you.”

“What? Oh, I don’t care about the money. I just want to get away from them.”

“Don’t talk that way about money; the powers-that-be will have you shut up for blasphemy. But it probably doesn’t matter how you feel, as I think Citizen Montgomery is going to want to see you awful bad.”

“Why?”

“Did your father leave a will?”

“No. Why? He didn’t have anything to leave but the farm.”

“I don’t know the ins and outs of your state laws, but it’s a sure thing that at least half of that farm belongs to you. Possibly your stepmother has only lifetime tenure in her half, with reversion to you when she dies. But it’s a certainty that she can’t grant a good deed without your signature. Along about time your county courthouse opens up tomorrow morning the buyers are going to find that out. Then they’ll come

high-tailing up, looking for her—and you. And ten minutes later this Montgomery hombre will start looking for you, if he hasn’t already.”

“Oh, me! If they find me, can they make me go back?” “Don’t let them find you. You’ve made a good start.”

Max picked up his rucksack. “I guess I had better get moving. Thanks a lot, Sam. Maybe I can help you someday.”

“Sit down.”

“Look, I had better get as far away as I can.”

“Kid, you’re tired out and your judgment has slipped. How far can you walk tonight, the shape you’re in? Tomorrow morning, bright and early, we’ll go down to the highway, follow it about a mile to the freighters’ restaurant south of here and catch the haulers as they come out from breakfast, feeling good. We’ll promote a ride and you’ll go farther in ten minutes than you could make all night.”

Max had to admit that he was tired, exhausted really, and Sam certainly knew more about these wrinkles than he did. Sam added, “Got a blanket in your bindle?”

“No. Just a shirt… and some books.”

“Books, eh? Read quite a bit myself, when I get a chance. May I see them?”

Somewhat reluctantly Max got them out. Sam held them close to the fire and examined them. “Well, I’ll be a three-eyed Martian! Kid, do you know what you’ve got here?”

“Sure.”

“But you ought not to have these. You’re not a member of the Astrogators’ Guild.” “No, but my uncle was. He was on the first trip to Beta Hydrae,” he added proudly. “No foolin’!”

“Sure as taxes.”

“But you’ve never been in space yourself? No, of course not.”

“But I’m going to be!” Max admitted something that he had never told anyone, his ambition to emulate his uncle and go out to the stars. Sam listened thoughtfully. When Max stopped, he said slowly, “So you want to be an astrogator?”

“I certainly do.”

Sam scratched his nose. “Look, kid, I don’t want to throw cold water, but you know how the world wags. Getting to be an astrogator is almost as difficult as getting into the Plumbers’ Guild. The soup is thin these days and there isn’t enough to go around. The guild won’t welcome you just because you are anxious to be apprenticed. Membership is hereditary, just like all the other high-pay guilds.”

“But my uncle was a member.” “Your uncle isn’t your father.”

“No, but a member who hasn’t any sons gets to nominate someone else. Uncle Chet explained it to me. He always told me he was going to register my nomination.”

“And did he?”

Max was silent. At the time his uncle had died he had been too young to know how to go about finding out. When his father had followed his uncle events had closed in on him—he had never checked up, subconsciously preferring to nurse the dream rather than test it. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “I’m going to the Mother Chapter at Earthport and find out.”

“Hmmm—I wish you luck, kid.” He stared into the fire, sadly it seemed to Max. “Well, I’m going to grab some shut-eye, and you had better do the same. If you’re chilly, you’ll find some truck back under that rock shelf—burlap and packing materials and such. It’ll keep you warm, if you don’t mind risking a flea or two.”

Max crawled into the dark hole indicated, found a half-way cave in the limestone. Groping, he located the primitive bedding. He had expected to be wakeful, but he was asleep before Sam finished covering the fire.

He was awakened by sunlight blazing outside. He crawled out, stood up and stretched the stiffness out of his limbs. By the sun he judged it to be about seven o’clock in the morning. Sam was not in sight. He looked around and shouted, not too loudly, and guessed that Sam had gone down to the creek for a drink and a cold wash. Max went back into the shelter and hauled out his rucksack, intending to change his socks.

His uncle’s books were missing.

There was a note on top of his spare shirt: “Dear Max,” it said, “There is more stew in the can. You can warm it up for breakfast. So long—Sam P.S. Sorry.”

Further search disclosed that his identification card was missing, but Sam had not bothered with his other pitiful possessions. Max did not touch the stew but set out down the road, his mind filled with bitter thoughts.

Earthport

The farm road crossed under the freight highway; Max came up on the far side and headed south beside the highway. The route was marked by “NO TRESPASS” signs but the path was well worn. The highway widened to make room for a deceleration strip. At the end of its smooth reach, a mile away, Max could see the restaurant Sam had mentioned.

He shinnied over the fence enclosing the restaurant and parking grounds and went to the parking stalls where a dozen of the big land ships were lined up. One was quivering for departure, its flat bottom a few inches clear of the metallic pavement. Max went to its front end and looked up at the driver’s

compartment. The door was open and he could see the driver at his instrument board. Max called out, “Hey, Mister!”

The driver stuck his head out. “What’s itching you?” “How are the chances of a lift south?”

“Beat it, kid.” The door slammed.

None of the other freighters was raised off the pavement; their control compartments were empty. Max was about to turn away when another giant scooted down the braking strip, reached the parking space, crawled slowly into a stall, and settled to the ground. He considered approaching its driver, but decided to wait until the man had eaten. He went back toward the restaurant building and was looking through the door, watching hungry men demolish food while his mouth watered, when he heard a pleasant voice at his shoulder.

“Excuse me, but you’re blocking the door.” Max jumped aside. “Oh! Sorry.”

“Go ahead. You were first.” The speaker was a man about ten years older than Max. He was profusely freckled and had a one-sided grin. Max saw on his cap the pin of the Teamsters’ Guild. “Go on in,” the man repeated, “before you get trampled in the rush.”

Max had been telling himself that he might catch Sam inside—and, after all, they couldn’t charge him just for coming in, if he didn’t actually eat anything. Underlying was the thought of asking to work for a meal, if the manager looked friendly. The freckled-faced man’s urging tipped the scales; he followed his nose toward the source of the heavenly odors pouring out the door.

The restaurant was crowded; there was one vacant table, for two. The man slid into a chair and said, “Sit down.” When Max hesitated, he added, “Go ahead, put it down. Never like to eat alone.” Max could feel the manager’s eyes on him, he sat down. A waitress handed them each a menu and the hauler looked her over appreciatively. When she left he said, “This dump used to have automatic service—and it went broke. The trade went to the Tivoli, eighty miles down the stretch. Then the new owner threw away the machinery and hired girls and business picked up. Nothing makes food taste better than having a pretty girl put it in front of you. Right?”

“Uh, I guess so. Sure.” Max had not heard what was said. He had seldom been in a restaurant and then only in the lunch counter at Clyde’s Corners. The prices he read frightened him; he wanted to crawl under the table.

His companion looked at him. “What’s the trouble, chum?” “Trouble? Uh, nothing.”

“You broke?” Max’s miserable expression answered him. “Shucks, I’ve been there myself. Relax.” The man waggled his fingers at the waitress. “Come here, honey chile. My partner and I will each have a breakfast steak with a fried egg sitting on top and this and that on the side. I want that egg to be just barely dead. If it is cooked solid, I’ll nail it to the wall as a warning to others. Understand me?”

“I doubt if you’ll be able to get a nail through it,” she retorted and walked away, swaying gently. The hauler kept his eyes on her until she disappeared into the kitchen. “See what I mean? How can machinery compete?”

The steak was good and the egg was not congealed. The hauler told Max to call him “Red” and Max gave his name in exchange. Max was pursuing the last of the yolk with a bit of toast and was considering whether it was time to broach the subject of a ride when Red leaned forward and spoke softly. “Max—you got anything pushing you? Free to take a job?”

“What? Why, maybe. What is it?” “Mind taking a little run southwest?”

“Southwest? Matter of fact, I was headin’ that way.”

“Good. Here’s the deal. The Man says we have to have two teamsters to each rig—or else break for eight hours after driving eight. I can’t; I’ve got a penalty time to meet—and my partner washed out. The flathead got taken drunk and I had to put him down to cool. Now I’ve got a check point to pass a hundred thirty miles down the stretch. They’ll make me lay over if I can’t show another driver.”

“Gee! But I don’t know how to drive, Red. I’m awful sorry.”

Red gestured with his cup. “You won’t have to. You’ll always be the off-watch driver. I wouldn’t trust little Molly Malone to somebody who didn’t know her ways. I’ll keep myself awake with Pep pills and catch up on sleep at Earthport.”

“You’re going all the way to Earthport?” “Right.”

“It’s a deal!”

“Okay, here’s the lash up. Every time we hit a check point you’re in the bunk, asleep. You help me load and unload—I’ve got a partial and a pick-up at Oke City—and I’ll feed you. Right?”

“Right!”

“Then let’s go. I want to scoot before these other dust jumpers get underway. Never can tell, there might be a spotter.” Red flipped a bill down and did not wait for change.

The Molly Malone was two hundred feet long and stream lined such that she had negative lift when cruising. This came to Max’s attention from watching the instruments; when she first quivered and raised, the dial marked ROAD CLEARANCE showed nine inches, but as they gathered speed down the acceleration strip it decreased to six.

“The repulsion works by an inverse-cube law,” Red explained. “The more the wind pushes us down the harder the road pushes us up. Keeps us from jumping over the skyline. The faster we go the steadier we are.”

“Suppose you went so fast that the wind pressure forced the bottom down to the road? Could you stop soon enough to keep from wrecking it?”

“Use your head. The more we squat the harder we are pushed up—inverse-cube, I said.”

“Oh.” Max got out his uncle’s slide rule. “If she just supports her own weight at nine inches clearance, then at three inches the repulsion would be twenty-seven times her weight and at an inch it would be seven hundred and twenty-nine, and at a quarter of an inch—”

“Don’t even think about it. At top speed I can’t get her down to five inches.”

“But what makes her go?”

“It’s a phase relationship. The field crawls forward and Molly tries to catch up—only she can’t. Don’t ask me the theory, I just push the buttons.” Red struck a cigarette and lounged back, one hand on the tiller. “Better get in the bunk, kid. Check point in forty miles.”

The bunk was thwartships abaft the control compartment, a shelf above the seat. Max climbed in and wrapped a blanket around himself. Red handed him a cap. “Pull this down over your eyes. Let the button show.” The button was a teamster’s shield, Max did as he was told.

Presently he heard the sound of wind change from a soft roar to a sigh and then stop. The freighter settled to the pavement and the door opened. He lay still, unable to see what was going on. A strange voice said, “How long you been herding it?”

“Since breakfast at Tony’s.”

“So? How did your eyes get so bloodshot?” “It’s the evil life I lead. Want to see my tongue?”

The inspector ignored this, saying instead, “Your partner didn’t sign his trick.” “Whatever you say. Want me to wake the dumb geek?”

“Umm… don’t bother. You sign for him. Tell him to be more careful.” “Right.”

The Molly Malone pulled out and picked up speed. Max crawled down. “I thought we were sunk when he asked for my signature.”

“That was on purpose,” Red said scornfully. “You have to give them something to yap about, or they’ll dig for it.”

Max liked the freighter. The tremendous speed so close to the ground exhilarated him; he decided that if he could not be a spaceman, this life would not be bad—he’d find out how high the application fee was and start saving. He liked the easy way Red picked out on the pavement ahead the speed line that matched the Molly’s speed and then laid the big craft into a curve. It was usually the outermost line, with the Molly on her side and the horizon tilted up at a crazy angle.

Near Oklahoma City they swooped under the ring guides of the C.S.&E. just as a train went over—the

Razor, by Max’s calculations. “I used to herd those things,” Red remarked, glancing up. “You did?”

“Yep. But they got to worrying me. I hated it every time I made a jump and felt the weight sag out from under me. Then I got a notion that the train had a mind of its own and was just waiting to turn aside instead of entering the next guide ring. That sort of thing is no good. So I found a teamster who wanted to better himself and paid the fine to both guilds to let us swap. Never regretted it. Two hundred miles an hour when you’re close to the ground is enough.”

“Uh, how about space ships?”

“That’s another matter. Elbow room out there. Say, kid, while you’re at Earthport you should take a look at the big babies. They’re quite something.”

The library book had been burning a hole in his rucksack; at Oklahoma City he noticed a postal box at the freight depot and, on impulse, dropped the book into it. After he had mailed it he had a twinge of worry that he might have given a clue to his whereabouts which would get back to Montgomery, but he suppressed the worry—the book had to be returned. Vagrancy in the eyes of the law had not worried him, nor trespass, nor impersonating a licensed teamster—but filching a book was a sin.

Max was asleep in the bunk when they arrived. Red shook him. “End of the line, kid.” Max sat up, yawning. “Where are we?”

“Earthport. Let’s shake a leg and get this baby unloaded.”

It was two hours past sunrise and growing desert hot by the time they got the Molly disgorged. Red stood him to a last meal. Red finished first, paid, then laid a bill down by Max’s plate. “Thanks, kid. That’s for luck. So long.” He was gone while Max still had his mouth hanging open. He had never learned his friend’s name, did not even know his shield number.

Earthport was much the biggest settlement Max had ever seen and everything about it confused him—the hurrying self-centered crowds, the enormous buildings, the slidewalks in place of streets, the noise, the desert sun beating down, the flatness—why, there wasn’t anything you could call a hill closer than the skyline!

He saw his first extra-terrestrial, an eight-foot native of Epsilon Gemini V, striding out of a shop with a package under his left arms—as casually, Max thought, as a farmer doing his week’s shopping at the Corners. Max stared. He knew what the creature was from pictures and SV shows, but seeing one was another matter. Its multiple eyes, like a wreath of yellow grapes around the head, gave it a grotesque faceless appearance. Max let his own head swivel to follow it.

The creature approached a policeman, tapped the top of his cap, and said, “Excuse me, sahr, but can you tirect me to the Tesert Palms Athletic Club?” Max could not tell where the noise came out.

Max finally noticed that he seemed to be the only one staring, so he walked slowly on, while sneaking looks over his shoulder—which resulted in his bumping into a stranger. “Oh, excuse me!” Max blurted. The stranger looked at him. “Take it easy, cousin. You’re in the big city now.” After that he tried to be careful.

He had intended to seek out the Guild Hall of the Mother Chapter of Astrogators at once in the forlorn hope that even without his books and identification card he might still identify himself and find that Uncle Chet had provided for his future. But there was so much to see that he loitered. He found himself presently in front of Imperial House, the hotel that guaranteed to supply any combination of pressure, temperature, lighting, atmosphere, pseudogravitation, and diet favored by any known race of intelligent creatures. He hung around hoping to see some of the guests, but the only one who came out while he was there was wheeled out in a pressurized travel tank and he could not see into it.

He noticed the police guard at the door eyeing him and started to move on—then decided to ask directions, reasoning that if it was all right for a Geminian to question a policeman it certainly must be all right for a human being. He found himself quoting the extra-terrestrial. “Excuse me, sir, but could you direct me to the Astrogators’ Guild Hall?”

The officer looked him over. “At the foot of the Avenue of Planets, just before you reach the port.” “Uh, which way do…”

“New in town?” “Yeah. Yes, sir.”

“Where are you staying?”

“Staying? Why, nowhere yet. I just got here. I…” “What’s your business at the Astrogators’ Hall?”

“It’s on account of my uncle,” Max answered miserably. “Your uncle?”

“He… he’s an astrogator.” He mentally crossed his fingers over the tense.

The policeman inspected again. “Take this slide to the next intersection, change and slide west. Big building with the guild sunburst over the door—can’t miss it. Stay out of restricted areas.” Max left without waiting to find out how he was to know a restricted area. The Guild Hall did prove easy to find; the slidewalk to the west ducked underground and when it emerged at its swing-around Max was deposited in front of it.

But he had not eyes for it. To the west where avenue and buildings ended was the field and on it space ships, stretching away for miles—fast little military darts, stubby Moon shuttles, winged ships that served the satellite stations, robot freighters, graceless and powerful. But directly in front of the gate hardly half a mile away was a great ship that he knew at once, the starship Asgard. He knew her history, Uncle Chet had served in her. A hundred years earlier she had been built out in space as a space-to-space rocket ship; she was then the Prince of Wales. Years passed, her tubes were ripped out and a mass-conversion torch was kindled in her; she became the Einstein. More years passed, for nearly twenty she swung empty around Luna, a lifeless, outmoded hulk. Now in place of the torch she had Horst-Conrad impellers that clutched at the fabric of space itself; thanks to them she was now able to touch Mother Terra. To commemorate her rebirth she had been dubbed Asgard, heavenly home of the gods.

Her massive, pear-shaped body was poised on its smaller end, steadied by an invisible scaffolding of thrust beams. Max knew where they must be, for there was a ring of barricades spotted around her to keep the careless from wandering into the deadly loci.

He pressed his nose against the gate to the field and tried to see more of her, until a voice called out, “Away from there, Jack! Don’t you see that sign?”

Max looked up. Above his head was a sign: RESTRICTED AREA. Reluctantly he moved away and walked back to the Guild Hall.

THE ASTROGATORS’ GUILD

Everything about the hall of the Mother Chapter was to Max’s eyes lavish, churchlike, and frightening. The great doors opened silently as he approached, dilating away into the walls. His feet made no sound on the tesselated floor. He started down the long, high foyer, wondering where he should go, when a firm voice stopped him. “May I help you, please?”

He turned. A beautiful young lady with a severe manner held him with her eye. She was seated behind a desk. Max went up to her. “Uh, maybe you could tell me, Ma’am, who I ought to see. I don’t rightly know just…”

“One moment. Your name, please?” Several minutes later she had wormed out of him the basic facts of his quest. “So far as I can see, you haven’t any status here and no excuse for appealing to the Guild.”

“But I told you…”

“Never mind. I’m going to put it up to the legal office.” She touched a button and a screen raised up on her desk; she spoke to it. “Mr. Hanson, can you spare a moment?”

“Yes, Grace?”

“There is a young man here who claims to be a legacy of the Guild. Will you talk with him?”

The voice answered, “Look, Grace, you know the procedures. Get his address, send him on his way, and send his papers up for consideration.”

She frowned and touched another control. Although Max could see that she continued to talk, no sound reached him. Then she nodded and the screen slid back into the desk. She touched another button and said, “Skeeter!”

A page boy popped out of a door behind her and looked Max over with cold eyes. “Skeeter,” she went on, “take this visitor to Mr. Hanson.”

The page sniffed. “Him?”

“Him. And fasten your collar and spit out that gum.”

Mr. Hanson listened to Max’s story and passed him on to his boss, the chief legal counsel, who listened to a third telling. That official then drummed his desk and made a call, using the silencing device the girl had used.

He then said to Max, “You’re in luck, son. The Most Worthy High Secretary will grant you a few minutes of his time. Now when you go in, don’t sit down, remember to speak only when spoken to, and get out quickly when he indicates that the audience is ended.”

The High Secretary’s office made the lavishness that had thus far filled Max’s eyes seem like austerity. The rug alone could have been swapped for the farm on which Max grew up. There was no communication equipment in evidence, no files, not even a desk. The High Secretary lounged back in a mammoth easy chair while a servant massaged his scalp. He raised his head as Max appeared and said, “Come in, son. Sit down there. What is your name?”

“Maximilian Jones, sir.”

They looked at each other. The Secretary saw a lanky youth who needed a haircut, a bath, and a change of clothes; Max saw a short, fat little man in a wrinkled uniform. His head seemed too big for him and Max could not make up his mind whether the eyes were kindly or cold.

“And you are a nephew of Chester Arthur Jones?” “Yes, sir.”

“I knew Brother Jones well. A fine mathematician.” The High Secretary went on, “I understand that you

have had the misfortune to lose your government Citizen’s Identification. Carl.”

He had not raised his voice but a young man appeared with the speed of a genie. “Yes, sir?”

“Take this young man’s thumb print, call the Bureau of Identification—not here, but the main office at New Washington. My compliments to the Chief of Bureau and tell him that I would be pleased to have immediate identification while you hold the circuit.”

The print was taken speedily; the man called Carl left. The High Secretary went on, “What was your purpose in coming here?” Diffidently Max explained that his uncle had told him that he intended to nominate him for apprenticeship in the guild.

The man nodded. “So I understand. I am sorry to tell you, young fellow, that Brother Jones made no nomination.”

Max had difficulty in taking in the simple statement. So much was his inner pride tied to his pride in his uncle’s profession, so much had he depended on his hope that his uncle had named him his professional heir, that he could not accept at once the verdict that he was nobody and nothing. He blurted out, “You’re sure? Did you look?”

The masseur looked shocked but the High Secretary answered calmly, “The archives have been searched, not once, but twice. There is no possible doubt.” The High Secretary sat up, gestured slightly, and the servant disappeared. “I’m sorry.”

“But he told me,” Max said stubbornly. “He said he was going to.”

“Nevertheless he did not.” The man who had taken the thumb print came in and offered a memorandum to the High Secretary, who glanced at it and waved it away. “I’ve no doubt that he considered you.

Nomination to our brotherhood involves a grave responsibility; it is not unusual for a childless brother to have his eye on a likely lad for a long time before deciding whether or not he measures up. For some reason your uncle did not name you.”

Max was appalled by the humiliating theory that his beloved uncle might have found him unworthy. It could not be true—why, just the day before he died, he had said—he interrupted his thoughts to say, “Sir—I think I know what happened.”

“Eh?”

“Uncle Chester died suddenly. He meant to name me, but he didn’t get a chance. I’m sure of it.”

“Possibly. Men have been known to fail to get their affairs in order before the last orbit. But I must assume that he knew what he was doing.”

“But—”

“That’s all, young man. No, don’t go away. I’ve been thinking about you today.” Max looked startled, the High Secretary smiled and continued, “You see, you are the second ‘Maximilian Jones’ who has come to us with this story.”

“Huh?”

“Huh indeed.” The guild executive reached into a pocket of his chair, pulled out some books and a card, handed them to Max, who stared unbelievingly.

“Uncle Chet’s books!”

“Yes. Another man, older than yourself, came here yesterday with your identification card and these books. He was less ambitious than you are,” he added dryly. “He was willing to settle for a rating less lofty than astrogator.”

“What happened?”

“He left suddenly when we attempted to take his finger prints. I did not see him. But when you showed up today I began to wonder how long a procession of ‘Maximilian Jones’s’ would favor us. Better guard that card in the future—I fancy we have saved you a fine.”

Max placed it in an inner pocket. “Thanks a lot, sir.” He started to put the books in his rucksack. The High Secretary gestured in denial.

“No, no! Return the books, please.” “But Uncle Chet gave them to me.”

“Sorry. At most he loaned them to you—and he should not have done even that. The tools of our profession are never owned individually; they are loaned to each brother. Your uncle should have turned them in when he retired, but some of the brothers have a sentimental fondness for having them in their possession. Give them to me, please.”

Max still hesitated. “Come now,” the guildsman said reasonably. “It would not do for our professional secrets to be floating around loose, available to anyone. Even the hairdressers do not permit that. We have a high responsibility to the public. Only a member of this guild, trained, tested, sworn, and accepted, may lawfully be custodian of those manuals.”

Max’s answer was barely audible. “I don’t see the harm. I’m not going to get to use them, it looks like.”

“You don’t believe in anarchy, surely? Our whole society is founded on entrusting grave secrets only to those who are worthy. But don’t feel sad. Each brother, when he is issued his tools, deposits an earnest with the bursar. In my opinion, since you are the nearest relative of Brother Jones, we may properly repay the earnest to you for their return. Carl.”

The young man appeared again. “The deposit monies, please.” Carl had the money with him—he seemed to earn his living by knowing what the High Secretary was about to want. Max found himself accepting an impressive sheaf of money, more than he had ever touched before, and the books were taken from him before he could think of another objection.

It seemed time to leave, but he was motioned back to his chair. “Personally, I am sorry to disappoint you, but I am merely the servant of my brothers; I have no choice. However… ” The High Secretary fitted his finger tips together. “Our brotherhood takes care of its own. There are funds at my disposal for such cases. How would you like to go into training?”

“For the Guild?”

“No, no! We don’t grant brotherhood as charity. But for some respectable trade, metalsmith, or chef, or tailor—what you wish. Any occupation not hereditary. The brotherhood will sponsor you, pay your ‘prentice fee and, if you make good, lend you your contribution when you are sworn in.”

Max knew he should accept gratefully. He was being offered an opportunity free that most of the swarming masses never got on any terms. But the cross-grained quirk in him that had caused him to

spurn the stew that Sam had left behind made this generous offer stick in his craw. “Thanks just the same,” he answered in tones almost surly, “but I don’t rightly think I can take it.”

The High Secretary looked bleak. “So? It’s your life.” He snapped his fingers, a page appeared, and Max was led quickly out of the Hall.

He stood on the steps of the Guild Hall and wondered dejectedly what he should do next. Even the space ships on the field at the foot of the street did not attract; he could not have looked at one without feeling like crying. He looked to the east instead.

A short distance away a jaunty figure leaned against a trash receptacle. As Max’s eyes rested on the man he straightened up, flipped a cigarette to the pavement, and started toward him.

Max looked at him again. “Sam!” It was undoubtedly the wayfarer who had robbed him—well dressed, clean shaved—but Sam nonetheless. Max hurried toward him.

“Howdy, Max,” Sam greeted him with an unembarrassed grin, “how did you make out?” “I ought to have you arrested!”

“Now, now—keep your voice down. You’re making yourself conspicuous.” Max took a breath and lowered his voice. “You stole my books.”

“Your books? They weren’t yours—and I returned them to their owners. You want to arrest me for that?”

“But you… Well, anyhow you…”

A voice, civil, firm, and official, spoke at Max’s elbow. “Is this person annoying you, sir?” Max turned and found a policeman standing behind him. He started to speak, then bit off the words as he realized the question had been addressed to Sam.

Sam took hold of Max’s upper arm in a gesture that was protective and paternal, but quite firm. “Not at all, officer, thank you.”

“Are you sure? I received word that this chico was headed this way and I’ve had my eye on him.” “He’s a friend of mine. I was waiting for him here.”

“As you say. We have a lot of trouble with vagrants. They all seem to head for Earthport.”

“He’s not a vagrant. He’s a young friend of mine from the country and I’m afraid he’s gotten a bit confused. I’ll be responsible.”

“Very well, sir.”

“Not at all.” Max let himself be led away. When they were out of earshot Sam said, “That was close. That nosy clown would have had us both in the bull pen. You did all right, kid—kept your lip zipped at the right time.”

They were around the corner into a less important street before Sam let go his grip. He stopped and faced Max, grinning. “Well, kid?”

“I should a’ told that cop about you!”

“Why didn’t you? He was right there.”

Max found himself caught by contradictory feelings. He was angry with Sam, no doubt about it, but his first unstudied reaction at seeing him had been the warm pleasure one gets from recognizing a familiar face among strangers—the anger had come a split second later. Now Sam looked at him with easy cynicism, a quizzical smile on his face. “Well, kid?” he repeated. “If you want to turn me in, let’s go back and get it over with. I won’t run.”

Max looked back at him peevishly. “Oh, forget it!” “Thanks. I’m sorry about it, kid. I really am.” “Then why did you do it?”

Sam’s face changed suddenly to a sad, far-away look, then resumed its cheerful cynicism. “I was tempted by an idea, old son—every man has his limits. Some day I’ll tell you. Now, how about a bit to eat and a gab? There’s a joint near here where we can talk without having the nosies leaning over our shoulders.”

“I don’t know as I want to.”

“Oh, come now! The food isn’t much but it’s better than mulligan.”

Max had been ready with a stiff speech about how he would not turn Sam in, but he certainly did not want to eat with him; the mention of mulligan brought him up short. He remembered uneasily that Sam had not inquired as to his morals, but had shared his food.

“Well… okay.”

“That’s my boy!” They went on down the street. The neighborhood was a sort to be found near the port in any port city; once off the pompous Avenue of the Planets it became more crowded, noisier, more alive, and somehow warmer and more friendly despite a strong air of “keep your hand on your purse.” Hole-in-the-wall tailor shops, little restaurants none too clean, cheap hotels, honky-tonks, fun arcades, exhibits both “educational” and “scientific,” street vendors, small theaters with gaudy posters and sounds of music leaking out, shops fronting for betting parlors, tattoo parlors fronting for astrologers, and the inevitable Salvation Army mission gave the street flavor its stylish cousins lacked. Martians in trefoil sunglasses and respirators, humanoids from Beta Corvi III, things with exoskeletons from Allah knew where, all jostled with humans of all shades and all blended in easy camaraderie.

Sam stopped at a shop with the age-old symbol of three golden spheres. “Wait here. Be right out.” Max waited and watched the throng. Sam came out shortly without his coat. “Now we eat.” “Sam! Did you pawn your coat?”

“Give the man a cigar! How did you guess?”

“But… Look, I didn’t know you were broke; you looked prosperous. Get it back, I’ll… I’ll pay for our lunch.”

“Say, that’s sweet of you, kid. But forget it. I don’t need a coat this weather. Truth is, I was dressed up just to make a good impression at—well, a little matter of business.”

Max blurted out, “But how did you… “, then shut up. Sam grinned. “Did I steal the fancy rags? No. I encountered a citizen who believed in percentages and engaged him in a friendly game. Never bet on

percentages, kid; skill is more fundamental. Here we are.”

The room facing the street was a bar, beyond was a restaurant. Sam led him on through the restaurant, through the kitchen, down a passage off which there were card rooms, and ended in a smaller, less pretentious dining room; Sam picked a table in a corner. An enormous Samoan shuffled up, dragging one leg. Sam nodded, “Howdy, Percy.” He turned to Max. “A drink first?”

“Uh, I guess not.”

“Smart lad. Lay off the stuff. Irish for me, Percy, and we’ll both have whatever you had for lunch.” The Samoan waited silently. Sam shrugged and laid money on the table, Percy scooped it up.

Max objected, “But I was going to pay.”

“You can pay for the lunch. Percy owns the place,” he added. “He’s offensively rich, but he didn’t get that way by trusting the likes of me. Now tell me about yourself, old son. How you got here? How you made out with the astrogators… everything. Did they kill the fatted calf?”

“Well, no.” There seemed to be no reason not to tell Sam and he found that he wanted to talk. Sam nodded at the end.

“About what I had guessed. Any plans now?” “No. I don’t know what to do now, Sam.”

“Hmm… it’s an ill wind that has no turning. Eat your lunch and let me think.” Later he added, “Max, what do you want to do?”

“Well… I wanted to be an astrogator…” “That’s out.”

“I know.”

“Tell me, did you want to be an astrogator and nothing else, or did you simply want to go into space?” “Why, I guess I never thought about it any other way.”

“Well, think about it.”

Max did so. “I want to space. If I can’t go as an astrogator, I want to go anyhow. But I don’t see how. The Astrogators’ Guild is the only one I stood a chance for.”

“There are ways.”

“Huh? Do you mean put in for emigration?”

Sam shook his head. “It costs more than you could save to go to one of the desirable colonies—and the ones they give you free rides to I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemies.”

“Then what do you mean?”

Sam hesitated. “There are ways to wangle it, old son—if you do what I say. This uncle of yours—you were around him a lot?”

“Why, sure.”

“Talked about space with you?” “Certainly. That’s all we talked about.”

“Hmm… how well do you know the patter?”

“…YOUR MONEY AND MY KNOW-HOW… “

“The patter?” Max looked puzzled. “I suppose I know what everybody knows.” “Where’s the worry hole?”

“Huh? That’s the control room.”

“If the cheater wants a corpse, where does he find it?”

Max looked amused. “That’s just stuff from SV serials, nobody talks like that aboard ship. The cook is the cook, and if he wanted a side of beef, he’d go to the reefer for it.”

“How do you tell a ‘beast’ from an animal?”

“Why, a ‘beast’ is a passenger, but an animal is just an animal, I guess.”

“Suppose you were on a ship for Mars and they announced that the power plant had gone blooie and the ship was going to spiral into the Sun? What would you think?”

“I’d think somebody was trying to scare me. In the first place, you wouldn’t be ‘on’ a ship—’in’ is the right word. Second, a spiral isn’t one of the possible orbits. And third, if a ship was headed for Mars from Earth, it couldn’t fall into the Sun; the orbit would be incompatible.”

“Suppose you were part of a ship’s crew in a strange port and you wanted to go out and look the place over. How would you go about asking the captain for permission?”

“Why, I wouldn’t.” “You’d just jump ship?”

“Let me finish. If I wanted to hit dirt, I’d ask the first officer; the captain doesn’t bother with such things. If the ship was big enough, I’d have to ask my department head first.” Max sat up and held Sam’s eye. “Sam—you’ve been spaceside. Haven’t you?”

“What gave you that notion, kid?” “What’s your guild?”

“Stow it, Max. Ask me no questions and I’ll sell you no pigs in a poke. Maybe I’ve studied up on the jive just as you have.”

“I don’t believe it,” Max said bluntly.

Sam looked pained. Max went on, “What’s this all about? You ask me a bunch of silly questions—sure, I know quite a bit about spaceside; I’ve been reading about it all my life and Uncle Chet would talk by the hour. But what of it?”

Sam looked at him and said softly, “Max—the Asgard is raising next Thursday—for starside. Would you like to be in her?”

Max thought about it. To be in the fabulous Asgard, to be heading out to the stars, to be—he brushed the vision aside. “Don’t talk that way, Sam! You know I’d give my right arm. Why needle me?”

“How much money have you?” “Huh? Why?”

“How much?”

“I haven’t even had time to count it.” Max started to haul out the wad of bills he had been given; Sam hastily and unobtrusively stopped him.

“Psst!” he protested. “Don’t flash a roll in here. Do you want to eat through a slit in your throat? Keep it down!”

Startled, Max took the advice. He was still more startled when he finished the tally; he had known that he had been given quite a lot of money but this was more than he had dreamed. “How much?” Sam persisted. Max told him, Sam swore softly. “Well, it will just have to do.”

“Do for what?”

“You’ll see. Put it away.”

As Max did so he said wonderingly, “Sam, I had no idea those books were so valuable.” “They aren’t.”

“Huh?”

“It’s malarkey. Lots of guilds do it. They want to make it appear that their professional secrets are precious, so they make the candidate put up a wad of dough for his reference books. If those things were published in the ordinary way, they’d sell at a reasonable price.”

“But that’s right, isn’t it? As the Worthy High Secretary explained, it wouldn’t do for just anybody to have that knowledge.”

Sam made a rude noise and pretended to spit. “What difference would it make? Suppose you still had them—you don’t have a ship to conn.”

“But… ” Max stopped and grinned. “I can’t see that it did any good to take them away from me anyhow. I’ve read them, so I know what’s in them.”

“Sure you know. Maybe you even remember some of the methods. But you don’t have all those columns of figures so you can look up the one you need when you need it. That’s what they care about.”

“But I do! I read them, I tell you.” Max wrinkled his forehead, then began to recite: “‘Page 272, Calculated Solutions of the Differential Equation of Motion by the Ricardo Assumption—” He began to reel off a series of seven-place figures. Sam listened in growing surprise, then stopped him.

“Kid, you really remember that? You weren’t making it up?” “Of course not, I read it.”

“Well, I’ll be a beat up… Look, you’re a page-at-a-glance reader? Is that it?”

“No, not exactly. I’m a pretty fast reader, but I do have to read it. But I don’t forget. I never have been able to see how people forget. I can’t forget anything.”

Sam shook his head wonderingly. “I’ve been able to forget a lot of things, thank Heaven.” He thought for a moment. “Maybe we should forget the other caper and exploit this talent of yours. I can think of angles.”

“What do you mean? And what other caper?”

“Hmm… no, I was right the first time. The idea is to get away from here. And with your funny memory the chances are a whole lot better. Even though you sling the slang pretty well I was worried. Now I’m not.”

“Sam, stop talking riddles. What are you figuring on?’

“Okay, kid, I’ll lay it on the table.” He glanced around, leaned forward, and spoke even more quietly. “We take the money and I spread it around carefully. When the Asgard raises, we’re signed on as crewmen.”

“As apprentices? We wouldn’t even have time for ground school. And besides you’re too old to ‘prentice.”

“Use your head! We don’t have enough to pay one apprentice fee, let alone two, in any space guild—and the Asgard isn’t signing ‘prentices anyhow. We’ll be experienced journeymen in one of the guilds, with records to prove it.”

When the idea soaked in, Max was shocked. “But they put you in jail for that!” “Where do you think you are now?”

“Well, I’m not in jail. And I don’t want to be.”

“This whole planet is one big jail, and a crowded one at that. What chance have you got? If you aren’t born rich, or born into one of the hereditary guilds, what can you do? Sign up with one of the labor companies.”

“But there are non-hereditary guilds.”

“Can you pay the fee? You’ve got a year, maybe two until you’re too old to ‘prentice. If you were sharp with cards you might manage it—but can you earn it? You should live so long! Your old man should have saved it; he left you a farm instead.” Sam stopped suddenly, bit his thumb. “Max, I’ll play fair. Your old man did leave you a fair start in life. With the money you’ve got you can go home, hire a shyster, and maybe squeeze that Montgomery item out of the money he swindled for your farm. Then you can buy your apprenticeship in some guild. Do it, kid. I won’t stand in your way.” He watched Max narrowly.

Max reflected that he had just refused a chance to pick a trade and be given a free start. Maybe he should reconsider. Maybe… “No! That’s not what I want. This… this, uh, scheme of yours; how do we do it?”

Sam relaxed and grinned. “My boy!”

Sam got them a room over Percy’s restaurant. There he coached him. Sam went out several times and Max’s money went with him. When Max protested Sam said wearily, “What do you want? To hold my heart as security? Do you want to come along and scare ’em out of the dicker? The people I have to reason with will be taking chances. Or do you think you can arrange matters yourself? It’s your money and my know-how… that’s the partnership.”

Max watched him leave the first time with gnawing doubts, but Sam came back. Once he brought with him an elderly, gross woman who looked Max over as if he were an animal up for auction. Sam did not introduce her but said, “How about it? I thought a mustache would help.”

She looked at Max from one side, then the other. “No,” she decided, “that would just make him look made up for amateur theatricals.” She touched Max’s head with moist, cold fingers; when he drew back, she admonished, “Don’t flinch, honey duck. Aunt Becky has to work on you. No, we’ll move back his hair line above his temples, thin it out on top, and kill its gloss. Some faint wrinkles tattooed around his eyes. Mmm… that’s all. Mustn’t overdo it.”

When this fat artist was through Max looked ten years older. Becky asked if he wanted his hair roots killed, or would he prefer to have his scalp return to normal in time? Sam started to insist on permanence, but she brushed him aside. “I’ll give him a bottle of ‘Miracle Gro’—no extra charge, it’s just rubbing alcohol—and he can make a big thing of using it. How about it, lover? You’re too pretty to age you permanently.”

Max accepted the “Miracle Gro”—hair restored or your money back.

Sam took away his citizen’s identification card, returned with another one. It had his right name, a wrong age, his right serial number, a wrong occupation, his own thumb print, and a wrong address. Max looked at it curiously. “It looks real.”

“It should. The man who made it makes thousands of real ones—but he charges extra for this.” That night Sam brought him a book titled Ship Economy and embossed with the seal of the Guild of Space Stewards, Cooks, and Purser’s Clerks. “Better stay up all night and see how much you can soak up. The man it belongs to won’t sleep more than ten hours even with the jolt Percy slipped into his nightcap. Want a pill to keep you awake?”

“I don’t think so.” Max examined it. It was in fine print and quite thick. But by five in the morning he had finished it. He woke Sam and gave it back, then went to sleep, his head buzzing with stowage and dunnage, moment arms and mass calculations, hydroponics techniques, cargo records, tax forms, diets, food preservation and preparation, daily, weekly, and quarterly accounts, and how to get rats out of a compartment which must not be evacuated. Simple stuff, he decided—he wondered why such things were considered too esoteric for laymen.

On the fourth day of his incarceration Sam fitted him out with spaceside clothes, none of them new, and gave him a worn plastileather personal record book. The first page stated that he was an accepted brother of the Stewards, Cooks, and Purser’s Clerks, having honorably completed his apprenticeship. It listed his skills and it appeared that his dues had been paid each quarter for seven years. What appeared to be his own signature appeared above that of the High Steward, with the seal of the guild embossed through both. The other pages recorded his trips, his efficiency ratings, and other permanent data, each properly signed by the first officers and pursers concerned. He noted with interest that he had been fined three days pay in the Cygnus for smoking in an unauthorized place and that he had once for six weeks been allowed to strike for chartsman, having paid the penalty to the Chartsmen & Computers Guild for

the chance.

“See anything odd?” asked Sam. “It all looks funny to me.”

“It says you’ve been to Luna. Everybody’s been to Luna. But the ships you served in are mostly out of commission and none of the pursers happens to be in Earthport now. The only starship you ever jumped in was lost on the trip immediately after the one you took. Get me?”

“I think so.”

“When you talk to another spaceman, no matter what ship he served in, it’s not one you served in—you won’t be showing this record to anybody but the purser and your boss anyhow.”

“But suppose they served in one of these?”

“Not in the Asgard. We made darn sure. Now I’m going to take you out on an evening of gaiety. You’ll drink warm milk on account of your ulcer and you’ll complain when you can’t get it. And that’s just about all you’ll talk about—your symptoms. You’ll start a reputation right now for being untalkative; you can’t make many mistakes with your mouth shut. Watch yourself, kid, there will be spacemen around you all evening. If you mess it up, I’ll leave you dirtside and raise without you. Let me see you walk again.”

Max walked for him. Sam cursed gently. “Cripes, you still walk like a farmer. Get your feet out of those furrows, boy.”

“No good?”

“It’ll have to do. Grab your bonnet. We’ll strike while the iron’s in the fire and let the bridges fall where they may.”

“SPACEMAN” JONES

The Asgard was to raise the next day. Max woke early and tried to wake Sam, but this proved difficult. At last the older man sat up. “Oh, what a head! What time is it?”

“About six.”

“And you woke me? Only my feeble condition keeps me from causing you to join your ancestors. Go back to sleep.”

“But today’s the day!”

“Who cares? She raises at noon. We’ll sign on at the last minute; that way you won’t have time to make a slip.”

“Sam? How do you know they’ll take us?”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake! It’s all arranged. Now shut up. Or go downstairs and get breakfast—but don’t talk to anybody. If you’re a pal, you’ll bring me a pot of coffee at ten o’clock.”

“And breakfast?”

“Don’t mention food in my presence. Show some respect.” Sam pulled the covers up over his head.

It was nearly eleven thirty when they presented themselves at the gate of the port; ten minutes later before the bus deposited them at the base of the ship. Max looked up at its great, bulging sides but was cut short by a crewman standing at the lift and holding a list. “Names.”

“Anderson.” “Jones.”

He checked them off. “Get in the ship. You should have been here an hour ago.” The three climbed into the cage; it swung clear of the ground and was reeled in, swaying, like a bucket on a well rope.

Sam looked down and shuddered. “Never start a trip feeling good,” he advised Max. “It might make you sorry to be leaving.” The cage was drawn up inside the ship; the lock closed after them and they stepped out into the Asgard. Max was trembling with stage fright.

He had expected to be sworn into the ship’s company by the first officer, as called for by law. But his reception was depressingly unceremonious. The crewman who had checked them into the ship told them to follow him; he led them to the Purser’s office. There the Chief Clerk had them sign and thumbprint the book, yawning the while and tapping his buck teeth. Max surrendered his forged personal record book, while feeling as if the deception were stamped on it in bold letters. But Mr. Kuiper merely chucked it into a file basket. He then turned to them. “This is a taut ship. You’ve started by very nearly missing it. That’s a poor start.”

Sam said nothing. Max said, “Yessir.”

The Chief Clerk went on, “Stow your gear, get your chow, and report back.” He glanced at a wall chart. “One of you in D-112, the other in E-009.”

Max started to ask how to get there, but Sam took his elbow and eased him out of the office. Outside he said, “Don’t ask any questions you can avoid. We’re on Baker deck, that’s all we need to know.” Presently they came to a companionway and started back down. Max felt a sudden change in pressure, Sam grinned. “She’s sealed. Won’t be long now.”

They were in D-112, an eight-man bunkroom, and Sam was showing him how to set the lock on the one empty locker when there was a distant call on a loudspeaker. Max felt momentarily dizzy and his weight seemed to pulse. Then it stopped. Sam remarked, “They were a little slow synchronizing the field—or else this bucket of bolts has an unbalanced phaser.” He clapped Max on the back. “We made it, kid.”

They were in space.

E-009 was down one more deck and on the far side; they left Sam’s gear there and started to look for lunch. Sam stopped a passing engineer’s mate. “Hey, shipmate—we’re fresh caught. Where’s the crew’s mess?”

“Clockwise about eighty and inboard, this deck.” He looked them over. “Fresh caught, eh? Well, you’ll find out.”

“Like that, huh?”

“Worse. A madhouse squared. If I wasn’t married, I’d ‘a’ stayed dirtside.” He went on his way.

Sam said, “Ignore it, kid. All the oldtimers in a ship claim its the worst madhouse in space. A matter of pride.” But their next experience seemed to confirm it; the serving window in the mess room had closed at noon, when the ship lifted; Max mournfully resigned himself to living with a tight belt until supper. But Sam pushed on into the galley and came out presently with two loaded trays. They found empty places and sat down.

“How did you do it?”

“Any cook will feed you if you let him explain first what a louse you are and how by rights he doesn’t have to.”

The food was good—real beef patties, vegetables from the ship’s gardens, wheat bread, a pudding, and coffee. Max polished his platter and wondered if he dared ask for seconds. He decided against it. The talk flowed around him and only once was there danger that his tyro status might show up, that being when a computerman asked him a direct question as to his last trip.

Sam stalled it off. “Imperial survey,” he answered briefly. “We’re both still covered.”

The computerman grinned knowingly. “Which jail were you in? The Imperial Council hasn’t ordered a secret survey in years.”

“This one was so secret they forgot to tell you about it. Write ’em a letter and burn them out about it,” Sam stood up. “Finished, Max?”

On the way back to the Purser’s Office Max worried as to his probable assignment, checking over in his mind the skills and experience he was alleged to have. He need not have worried; Mr. Kuiper, with a fine disregard for such factors, assigned him as stableman.

The Asgard was a combined passenger liner and freighter. She carried this trip Hereford breeding stock, two bulls and two dozen cows, and an assortrnent of other animals consigned for ecologic and economic reasons to colonies—pigs, chickens, sheep, a pair of Angora goats, a family of llamas. It was contrary to Imperial policy to plant most terrestrial fauna on other planets; the colonials were expected to establish economy with indigenous flora and fauna—but some animals have been bred for so many generations for the use of man that they are not easily replaced by exotic creatures. On Gamma Leonis VI (b), New Mars, the saurians known locally as “chuckleheads” or “chucks” could and did replace Percherons as draft animals with greater efficiency and economy—but men disliked them. There was never the familial trust that exists between horses and men; unless a strain of chucks should develop a degree of rapport with men (which seemed unlikely) they would eventually die out and be replaced by the horse, for the unforgivable sin of failing to establish a firm treaty with the most ravenous, intolerant, deadly, and successful of the animals in the explored universe, Man.

There was also a cage of English sparrows. Max never did find out where these noisy little scavengers were believed to be necessary, nor was he acquainted with the complex mathematical analysis by which such conclusions were reached. He simply fed them and tried to keep their quarters clean.

There were cats in the Asgard, too, but most of these were free citizens and crewmen, charged with holding down the rats and mice that had gone into space along with mankind. One of Max’s duties was to change the sand boxes on each deck and take the soiled ones to the oxydizer for processing. The other cats were pets, property of passengers, unhappy prisoners in the kennel off the stables. The passengers’ dogs lived there, too; no dogs were allowed to run free.

Max wanted to look back at Earth and see it as a shrinking globe in the sky, but that was a privilege reserved for passengers. He spent the short period when it would have been possible in hauling (by hand) green timothy hay from the hydroponics airconditioning plant to the stables and in cleaning said stables. It was a task he neither liked nor disliked; by accident he had been assigned to work that he understood.

His immediate boss was the Chief Ship’s Steward, Mr. Giordano. Mr. “Gee” split the ship’s housekeeping with Mr. Dumont, Chief Passengers’ Steward; their domains divided at Charlie deck. Thus Mr. Dumont had passengers’ quarters, officers’ country, offices, and the control and communication stations, while Giordano was responsible for everything down (or aft) to but not including the engineering space—crew’s quarters, mess, and galley, stores, stables and kennel, hydroponics deck, and cargo spaces. Both worked for the Purser, who in turn was responsible to the First Officer.

The organization of starships derived in part from that of military vessels, in part from ocean liners of earlier days, and in part from the circumstances of interstellar travel. The first officer was boss of the ship and a wise captain did not interfere with him. The captain, although by law monarch of his miniature world, turned his eyes outward; the first officer turned his inward. As long as all went well the captain concerned himself only with the control room and with astrogation; the first officer bossed everything else. Even astrogators, communicators, computermen, and chartsmen were under the first officer, although in practice he had nothing to do with them when they were on duty since they worked in the “worry hole” under the captain.

The chief engineer was under the first officer, too, but he was nearly an autonomous satrap. In a taut, well-run ship he kept his bailiwick in such shape that the first officer did not need to worry about it. The chief engineer was responsible not only for the power plant and the Horst-Conrad impellers but for all auxiliary engineering equipment wherever located—for example the pumps and fans of the hydroponics installations, even though the purser, through his chief ship’s steward, took care of the farming thereof.

Such was the usual organization of starship liner-freighters and such was the Asgard. It was not identical with the organization of a man-of-war and very different from that of the cheerless transports used to ship convicts and paupers out to colonies that were being forced—in those ships, the purser’s department was stripped to a clerk or two and the transportees did all the work, cooking, cleaning, handling cargo, everything. But the Asgard carried paid passengers, some of whom measured their wealth in megabucks; they expected luxury hotel service even light-years out in space. Of the three main departments of the Asgard, astrogation, engineering, and housekeeping, the Purser’s was by far the largest.

A first officer could reach that high status from chief astrogator, from chief engineer, or from purser, but only if he were originally an astrogator could he go on to captain. The three officer types were essentially mathematicians, business managers, or physicists; a captain necessarily had to be able to practice the mathematical skill of astrogation. First Officer Walther, as was usually the case with a liner, had formerly been a purser.

The Asgard was a little world, a tiny mobile planet. It had its monarch the captain, its useless nobility the passengers, its technical and governing class, and its hewers of wood and drawers of water. It contained flora and fauna in ecological balance; it carried its miniature sun in its power plant. Although its schedule contemplated only months in space, it was capable of staying in space indefinitely. The chef might run out of caviar, but there would be no lack of food, nor of air, nor of heat and light.

Max decided that he was lucky to be assigned to Mr. Giordano rather than to Chief Clerk Kuiper. Mr.

Kuiper supervised his clerks minutely, but Mr. Gee did not often stir his fat frame out of his

office-stateroom. He was a jovial boss—provided everything ran to suit him. Mr. Gee found it an effort

to go all the way down to the stables; once he became convinced that Max was giving the animals proper care and keeping the place clean he gave up inspecting, merely requiring Max to report daily. This gave Giordano more time for his principal avocation, which was distilling a sort of vodka in a cubby in his stateroom, using materials grown in the hydroponds—also in his charge. He carried on a clandestine trade in his product with the crew. By keeping his mouth shut and his ears open Max learned that this was a usual prerogative of a chief ship’s steward, ignored as long as the steward had the judgment to limit his operations. The ship, of course, had a wine mess and bar, but that was for the “beasts”—crewmen could not patronize it.

“I was once in a ship,” Sam told Max, “where the First clamped down—busted up the still, busted the steward to cleaning decks, and generally threw the book.” He stopped to puff on his cigar, a gift from the passenger steward; they were hiding out in Max’s stables, enjoying a rest and a gab. “Didn’t work out.”

“Why not?”

“Use your head. Forces must balance, old son. For every market there is a supplier. That’s the key to the nutshell. In a month there was a still in durn near every out-of-the-way compartment in the ship and the crew was so demoralized it wasn’t fit to stuff vacuum. So the Captain had a talk with the First and things went back to normal.”

Max thought it over. “Sam? Were you that ship’s steward?” “Huh? What gave you that idea?”

“Well… you’ve been in space before; you no longer make any bones about it. I just thought—well, you’ve never told me what your guild was, nor why you were on dirt, or why you had to fake it to get back to space again. I suppose it’s none of my business.”

Sam’s habitual cynical smile gave way to an expression of sadness. “Max, a lot of things can happen to a man when he thinks he has the world by the tail. Take the case of a friend of mine, name of Roberts. A sergeant in the Imperial Marines, good record, half a dozen star jumps, a combat decoration or two. A smart lad, boning to make warrant officer. But he missed his ship once—hadn’t been on Terra for some time and celebrated too much. Should have turned himself in right away, of course, taken his reduction in rank and lived it down. Trouble was he still had money in his pocket. By the time he was broke and sober it was too late. He never quite had the guts to go back and take his court martial and serve his sentence. Every man has his limits.”

Max said presently, “You trying to say you used to be a marine?”

“Me? Of course not, I was speaking of this guy Richards, just to illustrate what can happen to a man when he’s not looking. Let’s talk of more pleasant things. Kid, what do you plan to do next?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, what do you figure on doing after this jump?’

“Oh. More of the same, I guess. I like spacing. I suppose I’ll try to keep my nose clean and work up to chief steward or chief clerk.”

Sam shook his head. “Think it through, kid. What happens when your record in this ship is mailed to the guild? And another copy is mailed to the Department of Guilds and Labor?”

“What?”

“I’ll tell you. Maybe nothing happens at first, maybe you can space for another cruise. But eventually the red tape unwinds, they compare notes and see that while your ship lists you as an experienced steward’s mate, there isn’t any Max Jones in their files. Comes the day you ground at Terra and a couple of clowns with sidearms are waiting at the foot of the lift to drag you off to the calabozo.”

“But Sam! I thought it was all fixed?”

“Don’t blow a gasket. Look at me, I’m relaxed—and it applies to me, too. More so, for I have other reasons we needn’t go into to want to let sleeping dogs bury their own dead. As for it being ‘all fixed,’ it is—everything I promised. You’re here, aren’t you? But as for the files: old son, it would have taken ten times the money to tamper with guild files, and as for locating a particular microfilm in New Washington and substituting a fake that would show the record you are supposed to have—well, I wouldn’t know how to start, though no doubt it could be done, with enough time, money, and finesse.”

Max felt sensations almost identical with those he had experienced when Montgomery had announced that the farm was sold. Despite his menial position he liked it aboard ship, he had had no intention of ever doing anything else. He got along with his boss, he was making friends, he was as cozy as a bird in its nest. Now the nest was suddenly torn down. Worse, he was in a trap.

He turned white. Sam put a hand on his shoulder. “Stop spinning, kid! You’re not in a jam.” “Jail—”

“Jail my aunt’s Sunday hat! You’re safe as dirt until we get back. You can walk away from the Asgard at Earthport with your wages in your pocket and have days at least, maybe weeks or months, before anyone will notice, either at the guild mother hall or at New Washington. You can lose yourself among four billion people. You won’t be any worse off than you were when you first ran into me—you were trying to get lost then, remember?—and you’ll have one star trip under your belt to tell your kids about. Or they may never look for you; some clerk may chuck your trip record into the file basket and leave it there until it gets lost rather than bother. Or you might be able to persuade a clerk in Mr. Kuiper’s office to lose the duplicates, not mail them in. Nelson, for example; he’s got a hungry look.” Sam eyed him carefully, then added, “Or you might do what I’m going to do.”

Only part of what Sam had said had sunk in. Max let the record play back and gradually calmed down as he began to understand that his situation was not entirely desperate. He was inclined to agree about Nelson, as Nelson had already suggested indirectly that sometimes the efficiency marks on the ship’s books were not necessarily the ones that found their way into the permanent records—under certain circumstances. He put the idea aside, not liking it and having no notion anyhow of how to go about offering a bribe.

When he came, in his mental play back, to Sam’s last remark, it brought him to attention. “What are you

going to do?”

Sam eyed the end of his cigar stub. “I’m not going back.”

This required no diagram to be understood. But, under Imperial decrees, the suggested offense carried even heavier punishment than faking membership in a guild. Deserting was almost treason. “Keep talking,” Max said gruffly.

“Let’s run over where we touch this cruise. Garson’s Planet—domed colonies, like Luna and Mars. In a domed colony you do exactly what the powers-that-be say, or you stop breathing. You might hide out and have a new identity grafted on, but you would still be in the domes. No good, there’s more freedom even back on Terra. Nu Pegasi VI, Halcyon—not bad though pretty cold at aphelion. But it is still

importing more than it exports which means that the Imperials run the show and the locals will help dig out a wanted man. Now we come to Nova Terra, Beta Aquarü X—and that, old son, is what the doctor ordered and why the preacher danced.”

“You’ve been there?”

“Once. I should have stayed. Max, imagine a place like Earth, but sweeter than Terra ever was. Better weather, broader richer lands… forests aching to be cut, game that practically jumps into the stew pot. If you don’t like settlements, you move on until you’ve got no neighbors, poke a seed in the ground, then jump back before it sprouts. No obnoxious insects. Practically no terrestrial diseases and no native diseases that like the flavor of our breed. Gushing rivers. Placid oceans. Man, I’m telling you!”

“But wouldn’t they haul us back from there?”

“Too big. The colonists want more people and they won’t help the Imperials. The Imperial Council has a deuce of a time just collecting taxes. They don’t even try to arrest a deserter outside the bigger towns.” Sam grinned. “You know why?”

“Why?”

“Because it didn’t pay. An Imperial would be sent to Back-and-Beyond to pick up someone; while he was looking he would find some golden-haired daughter of a rancher eyeing him—they run to eight or nine kids, per family and there are always lots of eligible fillies, husband-high and eager. So pretty quick he is a rancher with a beard and a new name and a wife. He was a bachelor and he hasn’t been home lately—or maybe he’s married back on Terra and doesn’t want to go home. Either way, even the Imperial Council can’t fight human nature.”

“I don’t want to get married.”

“That’s your problem. But best of all, the place still has a comfortable looseness about it. No property taxes, outside the towns. Nobody would pay one; they’d just move on, if they didn’t shoot the tax collector instead. No guilds—you can plow a furrow, saw a board, drive a truck, or thread a pipe, all the same day and never ask permission. A man can do anything and there’s no one to stop him, no one to tell him he wasn’t born into the trade, or didn’t start young enough, or hasn’t paid his contribution. There’s more work than there are men to do it and the colonists just don’t care.”

Max tried to imagine such anarchy and could not, he had never experienced it. “But don’t the guilds object?”

“What guilds? Oh, the mother lodges back earthside squawked when they heard, but not even the Imperial Council backed them up. They’re not fools—and you don’t shovel back the ocean with a fork.”

“And that’s where you mean to go. It sounds lovely,” Max said wistfully.

“I do. It is. There was a girl—oh, she’ll be married now; they marry young—but she had sisters. Now here is what I figure on—and you, too, if you want to tag along. First time I hit dirt I’ll make contacts. The last time I rate liberty, which will be the night before the ship raises if possible, I’ll go dirtside, then in a front door and out the back and over the horizon so fast I won’t even be a speck. By the time I’m marked ‘late returning’ I’ll be hundreds of miles away, lying beside a chuckling stream in a virgin wilderness, letting my beard grow and memorizing my new name. Say the word and you’ll be on the bank, fishing.”

Max stirred uneasily. The picture aroused in him a hillbilly homesickness he had hardly been aware of.

But he could not shuffle off his proud persona as a spaceman so quickly. “I’ll think about it.”

“Do that. It’s a good many weeks yet, anyhow.” Sam got to his feet. “I’d better hurry back before Ole Massa Dumont wonders what’s keeping me. Be seeing you, kid—and remember: it’s an ill wind that has no turning.

Eldreth

Max’s duties did not take him above “C” deck except to service the cats’ sand boxes and he usually did that before the passengers were up. He wanted to visit the control room but he had no opportunity, it being still higher than passengers’ quarters. Often an owner of one of the seven dogs and three cats in Max’s custody would come down to visit his pet. This sometimes resulted in a tip. At first his

cross-grained hillbilly pride caused him to refuse, but when Sam heard about it, he swore at him dispassionately. “Don’t be a fool! They can afford it. What’s the sense?”

“But I would exercise their mutts anyhow. It’s my job.” He might have remained unconvinced had it not been that Mr. Gee asked him about it at the end of his first week, seemed to have a shrewd idea of the usual take, and expected a percentage—”for the welfare fund.”

Max asked Sam about the fund, was laughed at. “That’s a very interesting question. Are there any more questions?”

“I suppose not.”

“Max, I like you. But you haven’t learned yet that when in Rome, you shoot Roman candles. Every tribe has its customs and what is moral one place is immoral somewhere else. There are races where a son’s first duty is to kill off his old man and serve him up as a feast as soon as he is old enough to swing it—civilized races, too. Races the Council recognizes diplomatically. What’s your moral judgment on that?”

Max had read of such cultures—the gentle and unwarlike Bnathors, or the wealthy elephantine amphibians of Paldron who were anything but gentle, probably others. He did not feel disposed to pass judgment on nonhumans. Sam went on, “I’ve known stewards who would make Jelly Belly look like a philanthropist. Look at it from his point of view. He regards these things as prerogatives of his position, as rightful a part of his income as his wages. Custom says so. It’s taken him years to get to where he is; he expects his reward.”

Sam, Max reflected, could always out-talk him.

But he could not concede that Sam’s thesis was valid; there were things that were right and others that were wrong and it was not just a matter of where you were. He felt this with an inner conviction too deep to be influenced by Sam’s cheerful cynicism. It worried Max that he was where he was as the result of chicanery, he sometimes lay awake and fretted about it.

But it worried him still more that his deception might come to light. What to do about Sam’s proposal was a problem always on his mind.

The only extra-terrestrial among Max’s charges was a spider puppy from the terrestrian planet Hespera. On beginning his duties in the Asgard Max found the creature in one of the cages intended for cats; Max looked into it and a sad, little, rather simian face looked back at him. “Hello, Man.”

Max knew that some spider puppies had been taught human speech, after a fashion, but it startled him; he jumped back. He then recovered and looked more closely. “Hello yourself,” he answered. “My, but you are a fancy little fellow.” The creature’s fur was a deep, rich green on its back, giving way to orange on the sides and blending to warm cream color on its little round belly.

“Want out,” stated the spider puppy.

“I can’t let you out. I’ve got work to do.” He read the card affixed to the cage: “Mr. Chips” it stated, Pseudocanis hexapoda hesperae, Owner: Miss E. Coburn, A-092; there followed a detailed instruction as to diet and care. Mr. Chips ate grubs, a supply of which was to be found in freezer compartment

H-118, fresh fruits and vegetables, cooked or uncooked, and should receive iodine if neither seaweed nor artichokes was available. Max thumbed through his mind, went over what he had read about the creatures, decided the instructions were reasonable.

“Please out!” Mr. Chips insisted.

It was an appeal hard to resist. No maiden fayre crying from a dungeon tower had ever put it more movingly. The compartment in which the cats were located was small and the door could be fastened; possibly Mr. Chips could be allowed a little run—but later; just now he had to take care of other animals.

When Max left, Mr. Chips was holding onto the bars and sobbing gently. Max looked back and saw that it was crying real tears; a drop trembled on the tip of its ridiculous little nose; it was hard to walk out on it. He had finished with the stables before tackling the kennel; once the dogs and cats were fed and their cages policed he was free to give attention to his new friend. He had fed it first off, which had stopped the crying. When he returned, however, the demand to be let out resumed.

“If I let you out, will you get back in later?”

The spider puppy considered this. A conditional proposition seemed beyond its semantic attainments, for it repeated, “Want out.” Max took a chance.

Mr. Chips landed on his shoulder and started going through his pockets. “Candy,” it demanded. “Candy?”

Max stroked it. “Sorry, chum. I didn’t know.” “Candy?”

“No candy.” Mr. Chips investigated personally, then settled in the crook of Max’s arm, prepared to spend a week or more. It wasn’t, Max decided, much like a puppy and certainly not like a spider, except that six legs seemed excessive. The two front ones had little hands; the middle legs served double duty. It was more like a monkey, but felt like a cat. It had a slightly spicy fragrance and seemed quite clean.

Max tried talking to it, but found its intellectual attainments quite limited. Certainly it used human words meaningfully but its vocabulary was not richer than that which might be expected of a not-too-bright toddler.

When Max tried to return it to its cage there ensued twenty minutes of brisk exercise, broken by stalemates. Mr. Chips swarmed over the cages, causing hysterics among the cats. When at last the spider puppy allowed itself to be caught it still resisted imprisonment, clinging to Max and sobbing. He ended by

walking it like a baby until it fell asleep.

This was a mistake. A precedent had been set and thereafter Max was not permitted to leave the kennel without walking the baby.

He wondered about the “Miss Coburn” described on the tag as Mr. Chips’ owner. All of the owners of cats and dogs had shown up to visit their pets, but Mr. Chips remained unvisited. He visualized her as a sour and hatchet-faced spinster who had received the pet as a going-away present and did not appreciate it. As his friendship with the spider puppy grew his mental picture of Miss E. Coburn became even less attractive.

The Asgard was over a week out and only days from its first spatial transition before Max had a chance to compare conception with fact. He was cleaning the stables, with Mr. Chips riding his shoulder and offering advice, when Max heard a shrill voice from the kennel compartment. “Mr. Chips! Chipsie!

Where are you?”

The spider puppy sat up suddenly and turned its head. Almost immediately a young female appeared in the door; Mr. Chips squealed, “Ellie!” and jumped to her arms. While they were nuzzling each other Max looked her over. Sixteen, he judged, or seventeen. Or maybe even eighteen—shucks, how was a fellow to tell when womenfolk did such funny things to their faces? Anyhow she was no beauty and the expression on her face didn’t help it any.

She looked up at him and scowled. “What were you doing with Chipsie? Answer me that!”

It got his back fur up. “Nothing,” he said stiffly. “If you will excuse me, ma’am, I’ll get on with my work.” He turned his back and bent over his broom.

She grabbed his arm and swung him around. “Answer me! Or… or—I’ll tell the Captain, that’s what I’ll do!”

Max counted ten, then just to be sure, recalled the first dozen 7-place natural logarithms. “That’s your privilege, ma’am,” he said with studied calmness, “but first, what’s your name and what is your business here? I’m in charge of these compartments and responsible for these animals—as the Captain’s representative.” This he knew to be good space law, although the concatenation was long.

She looked startled. “Why, I’m Eldreth Coburn,” she blurted as if anyone should know. “And your business?”

“I came to see Mr. Chips—of course!”

“Very well, ma’am. You may visit your pet for a reasonable period,” he added, quoting verbatim from his station instruction sheet. “Then he goes back in his cage. Don’t disturb the other animals and don’t feed them. That’s orders.”

She started to speak, decided not to and bit her lip. The spider puppy had been looking from face to face and listening to a conversation far beyond its powers, although it may have sensed the emotions involved. Now it reached out and plucked Max’s sleeve. “Max,” Mr. Chips announced brightly. “Max!”

Miss Coburn again looked startled. “Is that your name?”

“Yes, ma’am. Max Jones. I guess he was trying to introduce me. Is that it, old fellow?” “Max,” Mr. Chips repeated firmly. “Ellie.”

Eldreth Coburn looked down, then looked up at Max with a sheepish smile. “You two seem to be friends. I guess I spoke out of turn. Me and my mouth.”

“No offense meant I’m sure, ma’am.”

Max had continued to speak stiffly; she answered quickly, “Oh, but I was rude! I’m sorry—I’m always sorry afterwards. But I got panicky when I saw the cage open and empty and I thought I had lost Chipsie.”

Max grinned grudgingly. “Sure. Don’t blame you a bit. You were scared.”

“That’s it—I was scared.” She glanced at him. “Chipsie calls you Max. May I call you Max?” “Why not? Everybody does—and it’s my name.”

“And you call me Eldreth, Max. Or Ellie.”

She stayed on, playing with the spider puppy, until Max had finished with the cattle. She then said reluctantly, “I guess I had better go, or they’ll be missing me.”

“Are you coming back?” “Oh, of course!” “Ummm… Miss Eldreth…” “Ellie.”

“—May I ask a question?” He hurried on, “Maybe it’s none of my business, but what took you so long? That little fellow has been awful lonesome. He thought you had deserted him.”

“Not ‘he’—’she’.” “Huh?”

“Mr. Chips is a girl,” she said apologetically. “It was a mistake anyone could make. Then it was too late, because it would confuse her to change her name.”

The spider puppy looked up brightly and repeated, “‘Mr. Chips is a girl.’ Candy, Ellie?” “Next time, honey bun.”

Max doubted if the name was important, with the nearest other spider puppy light-years away. “You didn’t answer my question?”

“Oh. I was so mad about that I wanted to bite. They wouldn’t let me.” “Who’s ‘they’? Your folks?”

“Oh, no! The Captain and Mrs. Dumont.” Max decided that it was almost as hard to extract information from her as it was from Mr. Chips. “You see, I came aboard in a stretcher—some silly fever, food poisoning probably. It couldn’t be much because I’m tough. But they kept me in bed and when the Surgeon did let me get up, Mrs. Dumont said I mustn’t go below ‘C’ deck. She had some insipid notion that it wasn’t proper.”

Max understood the stewardess’s objection; he had already discovered that some of his shipmates were

a rough lot—though he doubted that any of them would risk annoying a girl passenger. Why, Captain Blaine would probably space a man for that.

“So I had to sneak out. They’re probably searching for me right now. I’d better scoot.”

This did not fit in with Mr. Chips’ plans; the spider puppy clung to her and sobbed, stopping occasionally to wipe tears away with little fists. “Oh, dear!”

Max looked perturbed. “I guess I’ve spoiled him—her. Mr. Chips, I mean.” He explained how the ceremony of walking the baby had arisen.

Eldreth protested, “But I must go. What’ll I do?”

“Here, let’s see if he—she—will come to me.” Mr. Chips would and did. Eldreth gave her a pat and ran out, whereupon Mr. Chips took even longer than usual to doze off. Max wondered if spider puppies could be hypnotized; the ritual was getting monotonous.

Eldreth showed up next day under the stern eye of Mrs. Dumont. Max was respectful to the stewardess and careful to call Eldreth “Miss Coburn.” She returned alone the next day. He looked past her and raised his eyebrows. “Where’s your chaperone?”

Eldreth giggled. “La Dumont consulted her husband and he called in your boss—the fat one. They agreed that you were a perfect little gentleman, utterly harmless. How do you like that?”

Max considered it. “Well, I’m an ax murderer by profession, but I’m on vacation.” “That’s nice. What have you got there?”

It was a three-dimensional chess set. Max had played the game with his uncle, it being one that all astrogators played. Finding that some of the chartsmen and computermen played it, he had invested his tips in a set from the ship’s slop chest. It was a cheap set, having no attention lights and no arrangements for remote-control moving, being merely stacked transparent trays and pieces molded instead of carved, but it sufficed.

“It’s solid chess. Ever seen it?”

“Yes. But I didn’t know you played it.” “Why not? Ever play flat chess?” “Some.”

“The principles are the same, but there are more pieces and one more direction to move. Here, I’ll show you.

She sat tailor-fashion opposite him and he ran over the moves. “These are robot freighters… pawns. They can be commissioned anything else if they reach the far rim. These four are starships; they are the only ones with funny moves, they correspond with knights. They have to make interspace transitions, always off the level they’re on to some other level and the transition has to be related a certain way, like this—or this. And this is the Imperial flagship; it’s the one that has to be checkmated. Then there is… ” They ran through a practice game, with the help of Mr. Chips, who liked to move the pieces and did not care whose move it was.

Presently he said, “You catch on pretty fast.”

“Thanks.”

“Of course, the real players play four-dimensional chess.” “Do you?”

“Well, no. But I hope to learn some day. It’s just a matter of holding in your mind one more spatial relationship. My uncle used to play it. He was going to teach me, but he died.” He found himself explaining about his uncle. He trailed off without mentioning his own disappointment.

Eldreth picked up one of the starship pieces from a tray. “Say, Max, we’re pretty near our first transition, aren’t we?”

“What time is it?”

“Uh, sixteen twenty-one—say, I’d better get upstairs.”

“Then it’s, uh, about thirty-seven hours and seven minutes, according to the computer crew.”

“Mmm… you seem to know about such things. Could you tell me just what it is we do? I heard the Astrogator talking about it at the table but I couldn’t make head nor tail. We sort of duck into a space warp; isn’t that right?”

“Oh no, not a space warp. That’s a silly term—space doesn’t ‘warp’ except in places where pi isn’t exactly three point one four one five nine two six five three five eight nine seven nine three two three eight four six two six four three three eight three two seven, and so forth—like inside a nucleus. But we’re heading out to a place where space is really flat, not just mildly curved the way it is near a star.

Anomalies are always flat, otherwise they couldn’t fit together—be congruent.” She looked puzzled. “Come again?”

“Look, Eldreth, how far did you go in mathematics?”

“Me? I flunked improper fractions. Miss Mimsey was very vexed with me.” “Miss Mimsey?”

“Miss Mimsey’s School for Young Ladies, so you see I can listen with an open mind.” She made a face. “But you told me that all you went to was a country high school and didn’t get to finish at that. Huh?”

“Yes, but I learned from my uncle. He was a great mathematician. Well, he didn’t have any theorems named after him—but a great one just the same, I think.” He paused. “I don’t know exactly how to tell you; it takes equations. Say! Could you lend me that scarf you’re wearing for a minute?”

“Huh? Why, sure.” She removed it from her neck.

It was a photoprint showing a stylized picture of the solar system, a souvenir of Solar Union Day. In the middle of the square of cloth was the conventional sunburst surrounded by circles representing orbits of solar planets, with a few comets thrown in. The scale was badly distorted and it was useless as a structural picture of the home system, but it sufficed. Max took it and said, “Here’s Mars.”

Eldreth said, “You read it. That’s cheating.”

“Hush a moment. Here’s Jupiter. To go from Mars to Jupiter you have to go from here to here, don’t you?”

“Obviously.”

“But suppose I fold it so that Mars is on top of Jupiter? What’s to prevent just stepping across?” “Nothing, I guess. Except that what works for that scarf wouldn’t work very well in practice. Would it?”

“No, not that near to a star. But it works fine after you back away from a star quite a distance. You see, that’s just what an anomaly is, a place where space is folded back on itself, turning a long distance into no distance at all.”

“Then space is warped.”

“No, no, no! Look, I just folded your scarf. I didn’t stretch it out of shape! I didn’t even wrinkle it. Space is the same way; it’s crumpled like a piece of waste paper—but it’s not warped, just crumpled. Through some extra dimensions, of course.”

“I don’t see any ‘of course’ about it.”

“The math of it is simple, but it’s hard to talk about because you can’t see it. Space—our space—may be crumpled up small enough to stuff into a coffee cup, all hundreds of thousands of light-years of it. A

four-dimensional coffee cup, of course.”

She sighed. “I don’t see how a four-dimensional coffee cup could even hold coffee, much less a whole galaxy.”

“No trouble at all. You could stuff this sheer scarf into a thimble. Same principle. But let me finish. They used to think that nothing could go faster than light. Well, that was both right and wrong. It…”

“How can it be both?”

“That’s one of the Horst anomalies. You can’t go faster than light, not in our space. If you do, you burst out of it. But if you do it where space is folded back and congruent, you pop right back into our own space again—but a long way off. How far off depends on how it’s folded. And that depends on the mass in the space, in a complicated fashion that can’t be described in words but can be calculated.”

“But suppose you do it just anywhere?”

“That’s what happened to the first ones who tried it. They didn’t come back. And that’s why surveys are dangerous; survey ships go poking through anomalies that have been calculated but never tried. That’s also why astrogators get paid so much. They have to head the ship for a place you can’t see and they have to put the ship there just under the speed of light and they have to give it the gun at just the right world point. Drop a decimal point or use a short cut that covers up an indeterminancy and it’s just too bad. Now we’ve been gunning at twenty-four gee ever since we left the atmosphere. We don’t feel it of course because we are carried inside a discontinuity field at an artificial one gravity—that’s another of the anomalies. But we’re getting up close to the speed of light, up against the Einstein Wall; pretty soon we’ll be squeezed through like a watermelon seed between your finger and thumb and we’ll come out near Theta Centauri fifty-eight light-years away. Simple, if you look at it right.”

She shivered. “If we come out, you mean.”

“Well… I suppose so. But it’s not as dangerous as helicopters. And look at it this way: if it weren’t for the anomalies, there never would have been any way for us to reach the stars; the distances are too great.

But looking back, it is obvious that all that emptiness couldn’t be real—there had to be the anomalies. That’s what my uncle used to say.”

“I suppose he must have been right, even if I don’t understand it.” She scrambled to her feet. “But I do know that I had better hoof it back upstairs, or Mrs. Dumont may change her mind.” She hugged Mr. Chips and shoved the little creature into Max’s arms. “Walk the baby—that’s a pal.”

THREE WAYS TO GET AHEAD

Max intended to stay awake during the first transition, but he slept through it. It took place shortly after five in the morning, ship’s time. When he was awakened by idlers’ reveille at six it was all over. He jerked on his clothes, fuming at not having awakened earlier, and hurried to the upper decks. The passageways above Charlie deck were silent and empty; even the early risers among the passengers would not be up for another hour. He went at once to the Bifrost Lounge and crossed it to the view port, placed there for the pleasure of passengers.

The stars looked normal but the familiar, age-old constellations were gone. Only the Milky Way, our own galaxy, seemed as usual—to that enormous spiral of stars, some hundred thousand light-years across, a tiny displacement of less than sixty light-years was inconsequential.

One extremely bright yellow-white star was visible; Max decided that it must be Theta Centauri, sun of Garson’s Planet, their first stop. He left shortly, not wanting to chance being found loafing in passengers’ country. The sand boxes which constituted his excuse were then replaced with greater speed than usual and he was back in crew’s quarters in time for breakfast.

The passage to Garson’s Planet took most of a month even at the high boost possible to Horst-Conrad ship. Eldreth continued to make daily trips to see Mr. Chips—and to talk with and play 3-dee chess with Max. He learned that while she had not been born on Hespera, but in Auckland on Terra, nevertheless Hespera was her home. “Daddy sent me back to have them turn me into a lady, but it didn’t take.”

“What do you mean?”

She grinned. “I’m a problem. That’s why I’ve been sent for. You’re in check, Max. Chipsie! Put that back. I think the little demon is playing on your side.”

He gradually pieced together what she meant. Miss Mimsey’s school had been the third from which she had been expelled. She did not like Earth, she was determined to go home, and she had created a reign of terror at each institution to which she had been entrusted. Her widower father had been determined that she must have a “proper” education, but she had been in a better strategic position to impose her will—her father’s Earthside attorneys had washed their hands of her and shipped her home.

Sam made the mistake of joshing Max about Eldreth. “Have you gotten her to set the day yet, old son?” “Who set what day?”

“Now, now! Everybody in the ship knows about it, except possibly the Captain. Why play dumb with your old pal?”

“I don’t know what you are talking about!”

“I wasn’t criticizing, I was admiring. I’d never have the nerve to plot so high a trajectory myself. But as

grandpop always said, there are just three ways to get ahead; sweat and genius, getting born into the right family, or marrying into it. Of the three, marrying the boss’s daughter is the best, because—Hey! Take it easy!” Sam skipped back out of range.

“Take that back!”

“I do, I do. I was wrong. But my remarks were inspired by sheer admiration. Mistaken, I admit. So I apologize and withdraw the admiration.”

“But… ” Max grinned in spite of himself. It was impossible to stay angry at Sam. Sure, the man was a scamp, probably a deserter, certainly a belittler who always looked at things in the meanest of terms, but—well, there it was. Sam was his friend.

“I knew you were joking. How could I be figuring on getting married when you and I are going to…” “Keep your voice down.” Sam went on quietly, “You’ve made up your mind?”

“Yes. It’s the only way out, I guess. I don’t want to go back to Earth.”

“Good boy! You’ll never regret it.” Sam looked thoughtful. “We’ll need money.” “Well, I’ll have some on the books.”

“Don’t be silly. You try to draw more than spending money and they’ll never let you set foot on dirt. But don’t worry—save your tips, all that Fats will let you keep, and I’ll get us a stake. It’s my turn.”

“How?”

“Lots of ways. You can forget it.”

“Well… all right. Say, Sam, just what did you mean when you—I mean, well, suppose I did want to marry Ellie—I don’t of course; she’s just a kid and anyhow I’m not the type to marry—but just supposing? Why should anybody care?”

Sam looked surprised. “You don’t know?” “Why would I be asking?”

“You don’t know who she is?”

“Huh? Her name’s Eldreth Coburn and she’s on her way home to Hespera, she’s a colonial. What of it?”

“You poor boy! She didn’t mention that she is the only daughter of His Supreme Excellency, General Sir John FitzGerald Coburn, O.B.E., K.B., O.S.U., and probably X.Y.Z., Imperial Ambassador to Hespera and Resident Commissioner Plenipotentiary?”

“Huh? Oh my gosh!”

“Catch on, kid? With the merest trifle of finesse you can be a remittance man, at least. Name your own planet, just as long as it isn’t Hespera.”

“Oh, go boil your head! She’s a nice kid anyhow.”

Sam snickered. “She sure is. As grandpop used to say, ‘It’s an ill wind that gathers no moss.'”

The knowledge disturbed Max. He had realized that Eldreth must be well to do—she was a passenger,

wasn’t she? But he had no awe of wealth. Achievement as exemplified by his uncle held much more respect in his eyes. But the notion that Eldreth came from such an impossibly high stratum—and that he, Maximilian Jones, was considered a fortune-hunter and social climber on that account—was quite upsetting.

He decided to put an end to it. He started by letting his work pile up so that he could say truthfully that he did not have time to play three-dee chess. So Ellie pitched in and helped him. While he was playing the unavoidable game that followed he attempted a direct approach. “See here, Ellie, I don’t think you ought to stay down here and play three-dee chess with me. The other passengers come down to see their pets and they notice. They’ll gossip.”

“Pooh!”

“I mean it. Oh, you and I know it’s all right, but it doesn’t look right.”

She stuck out her lower lip. “Am I going to have trouble with you? You talk just like Miss Mimsey.” “You can come down to see Chipsie, but you’d better come down with one of the other pet owners.”

She started to make a sharp answer, then shrugged, “Okay, this isn’t the most comfortable place anyhow. From now on we play in Bifrost Lounge, afternoons when your work is done and evenings.”

Max protested that Mr. Giordano would not let him; she answered quickly, “Don’t worry about your boss. I can twist him around my little finger.” She illustrated by gesture.

The picture of the gross Mr. Gee in such a position slowed up Max’s answer, but he finally managed to get out, “Ellie, crew members can’t use the passenger lounge. It’s…”

“They can so. More than once, I’ve seen Mr. Dumont having a cup of coffee there with Captain Blaine.”

“You don’t understand. Mr. Dumont is almost an officer, and if the Captain wants him as his guest, well, that’s the Captain’s privilege.”

“You’d be my guest.”

“No, I wouldn’t be.” He tried to explain to her the strict regulation that crew members were not to associate with passengers. “The Captain would be angry if he could see us right now—not at you, at me. If he caught me in the passengers’ lounge he’d kick me all the way clown to ‘H’ deck.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“But… ” He shrugged. “All right. I’ll come up this evening. He won’t kick me, actually; that would be beneath him. He’ll just send Mr. Dumont over to tell me to leave, then he’ll send for me in the morning. I don’t mind being fined a month’s pay if that is what it takes to show you the way things are.”

He could see that he had finally reached her. “Why, I think that’s perfectly rotten! Everybody is equal. Everybody! That’s the law.”

“They are? Only from on top.”

She got up suddenly and left. Max again had to soothe Mr. Chips, but there was no one to soothe him. He decided that the day that he and Sam disappeared over a horizon and lost themselves could not come too soon.

Eldreth returned next day but in company with a Mrs. Mendoza, the devoted owner of a chow who

looked much like her. Eldreth treated Max with the impersonal politeness of a lady “being nice” to servants, except for a brief moment when Mrs. Mendoza was out of earshot.

“Max?”

“Yes, Miss?”

“I’ll ‘Yes, Miss’ you! Look, Max, what was your uncle’s name? Was it Chester Jones?” “Why, yes, it was. But why…”

“Never mind.” Mrs. Mendoza rejoined them. Max was forced to drop it.

The following morning the dry-stores keeper sought him out. “Hey, Max! The Belly wants you. Better hurry—I think you’re in some sort of a jam.”

Max worried as he hurried. He couldn’t think of anything he had done lately; he tried to suppress the horrid fear that Ellie was involved.

It was clear that Mr. Giordano was not pleased but all that he said was, “Report to the Purser’s Office. Jump.” Max jumped.

The Purser was not there; Mr. Kuiper received him and looked him over with a cold eye. “Put on a clean uniform and make it quick. Then report to the Captain’s cabin.”

Max stood still and gulped. Mr. Kuiper barked, “Well? Move!” “Sir,” Max blurted, “I don’t know where the Captain’s cabin is.”

“What? I’ll be switched! Able deck, radius nine oh and outboard.” Max moved.

The Captain was in his cabin. With him was Mr. Samuels the Purser, Mr. Walther the First Officer, and Dr. Hendrix the Astrogator. Max concluded that whatever it was he was about to be tried for, it could be nothing trivial. But he remembered to say, “Steward’s Mate Third Class Jones reporting, sir.”

Captain Blaine looked up. “Oh, yes. Find a chair.” Max found one, sat down on the edge of it. The Captain said to the First Officer, “Under the circumstances, Dutch, I suppose it’s the best thing to do—though it seems a little drastic. You agree, Hal?”

The Purser agreed. Max wondered just how drastic it was and whether he would live through it.

“We’ll log it as an exception, then, Doc, and I’ll write up an explanation for the board. After all, regulations were made to be broken. That’s the end of it.” Max decided that they were simply going to space him and explain it later.

The Captain turned back to his desk in a manner that signified that the meeting was over. The First Officer cleared his throat. “Captain… ” He indicated Max with his eyes.

Captain Blaine looked up again. “Oh, yes! Young man, your name is Jones?” “Yessir.”

“I’ve been looking over your record. I see that you once tried out for chartsman for a short time in the

Thule?”

“Uh, yes, Captain.” “Didn’t you like it?”

“Well, sir.” Max asked himself what Sam would say when confronted by such a ghost. “It was like this… to tell you the truth I didn’t do much except empty ash trays in the Worry—in the control room.” He held his breath.

The Captain smiled briefly. “It can sometimes work out that way. Would you be interested in trying it again?”

“What? Yes, sir!” “Dutch?”

“Captain, ordinarily I see no point in a man striking twice for the same job. But there is this personal matter.”

“Yes, indeed. You can spare him, Hal?”

“Oh, certainly, Captain. He’s hardly a key man where he is.” The Purser smiled. “Bottom deck valet.” The Captain smiled and turned to the Astrogator. “I see no objection, Doc. It’s a guild matter, of course.” “Kelly is willing to try him. He’s short a man, you know.”

“Very well, then…”

“Just a moment, Captain.” The Astrogator turned to Max. “Jones… you had a relative in my guild?” “My uncle, sir. Chester Jones.”

“I served under him. I hope you have some of his skill with figures.” “Uh, I hope so, sir.”

“We shall see. Report to Chief Computerman Kelly.”

Max managed to find the control room without asking directions, although he could hardly see where he was going.

CHARTSMAN JONES

The change in Max’s status changed the whole perspective of his life. His social relations with the other crew members changed not entirely for the better. The control room gang considered themselves the gentry of the crew, a status disputed by the power technicians and resented by the stewards. Max found that the guild he was leaving no longer treated him quite as warmly while the guild for which he was trying out did not as yet accept him.

Mr. Gee simply ignored him—would walk right over him if Max failed to jump aside. He seemed to

regard Max’s trial promotion as a personal affront.

It was necessary for him to hit the slop chest for dress uniforms. Now that his duty station was in the control room, now that he must pass through passengers’ country to go to and from work, it was no longer permissible to slouch around in dungarees. Mr. Kuiper let him sign for them; his cash would not cover it. He had to sign as well for the cost of permission to work out of his guild, with the prospect of going further in debt to both guilds should he be finally accepted. He signed cheerfully.

The control department of the Asgard consisted of two officers and five men—Dr. Hendrix the Astrogator, his assistant astrogator Mr. Simes, Chief Computerman Kelly, Chartsman First Class Kovak, Chtsmn 2/C Smythe, and computermen Noguchi and Lundy, both second class. There was also

“Sack” Bennett, communicator first class, but he was not really a part of the control gang, even though his station was in the Worry Hole; a starship was rarely within radio range of anything except at the very first and last parts of a trip. Bennett doubled as Captain Blaine’s secretary and factotum and owed his nickname to the often-stated belief of the others that he spent most of his life in his bunk.

Since the Asgard was always under boost a continuous watch was kept; not for them were the old, easy days of rocket ships, with ten minutes of piloting followed by weeks of free fall before more piloting was required. Since the Asgard carried no apprentice astrogator, there were only two officers to stand watches (Captain Blaine was necessarily an astrogator himself, but skippers do not stand watches); this lack was made up by Chief Computerman Kelly, who stood a regular watch as control

officer-of-the-watch. The other ratings stood a watch in four; the distinction between a computerman and a chartsman was nominal in a control room dominated by “Decimal Point” Kelly—what a man didn’t know he soon learned, or found another ship.

Easy watches for everyone but Max—he was placed on watch-and-watch for instruction, four hours on followed by four hours off in which he must eat, keep himself clean, relax, and—if he found time—sleep.

But he thrived on it, arriving early and sometimes having to be ordered out of the Worry Hole. Not until much later did he find out that this stiff regime was Kelly’s way of trying to break him, discover his weakness and get rid of him promptly if he failed to measure up.

Not all watches were pleasant. Max’s very first watch was under Mr. Simes. He crawled up the hatch into the control room and looked around him in wonderment. On four sides were the wonderfully delicate parallax cameras. Between two of them Lundy sat at the saddle of the main computer; he looked up and nodded but did not speak. Mr. Simes sat at the control console, facing the hatch; he must have seen Max but gave no sign of it.

There were other instruments crowded around the walls, some of which Max recognized from reading and from seeing pictures, some of which were strange—tell-tales and gauges from each of the ship’s compartments, a screen to reproduce the view aft or “below,” microphone and controls for the ship’s announcing system, the “tank” or vernier stereograph in which plates from the parallax cameras could be compared with charts, spectrostellograph, dopplerscope, multipoint skin temperature recorder, radar repeater for landing, too many things to take in at once.

Overhead through the astrogation dome was the starry universe. He stared at it, mouth agape. Living as he had been, inside a steel cave, he had hardly seen the stars; the firmament had been more with him back home on the farm.

“Hey! You!”

Max shook his head and found Mr. Simes looking at him. “Come here.” Max did so, the assistant astrogator went on, “Don’t you know enough to report to the watch officer when you come on duty?”

“Uh—sorry, sir.”

“Besides that, you’re late.” Max slid his eyes to the chronometer in the console; it still lacked five minutes of the hour. Simes continued, “A sorry state of affairs when crewmen relieve the watch later than the watch officer. What’s your name?”

“Jones, sir.”

Mr. Simes sniffed. He was a red-faced young man with thin, carroty hair and a sniff was his usual conversational embellishment, at least with juniors. “Make a fresh pot of coffee.”

“Aye aye, sir.” Max started to ask where and how, but Mr. Simes had gone back to his reading. Max looked helplessly at Lundy, who indicated a direction with his eyes. Behind the chart safe Max found a coffee maker and under it cups, saucers, sugar, and tins of cream.

He burned himself before getting the hang of the gear’s idiosyncrasies. Mr. Simes accepted the brew without looking at him. Max wondered what to do next, decided to offer a cup to Lundy. The computerman thanked him quietly and Max decided to risk having one himself, since it seemed to be accepted. He took it over beside the computer to drink it.

He was still doing so when the watch officer spoke up. “What is this? A tea party? Jones!” “Yes, sir?”

“Get the place policed up. Looks as if a herd of chucks had been wallowing in it.”

The room seemed clean, but Max found a few scraps of paper to pick up and stuff down the chute, after which he wiped already-gleaming brightwork. He had started to go over things a second time when Lundy motioned him over. Max then helped Lundy change plates in the parallax cameras and watched him while he adjusted the electronic timer. Mr. Simes pushed the ready button himself, which seemed to be his sole work during the watch.

Lundy removed the plates and set them up in the tank for chart comparison, took the readings and logged them. Max gave him nominal help and gathered some notion of how it was done, after which he again wiped brightwork.

It was a long watch. He went to his bunk drained of the elation he had felt.

But watches with Dr. Hendrix and with Chief Kelly were quite different. The Worry Hole was a jolly place under Kelly; he ruled as a benevolent tyrant, shouting, cursing, slandering the coffee, slurring his juniors and being sassed back. Max never touched a polish rag when Kelly was at control; he was kept too busy not merely helping but systematically studying everything in the room. “We haven’t a condemned thing to do,” Kelly shouted at him, “until we hit Carson’s Folly. Nothing to do but to ride this groove down until we hit dirt. So you, my laddy buck, are going to do plenty. When we get there you are going to know this condemned hole better than your mother knew your father—or you can spend your time there learning what you’ve missed while your mates are dirtside getting blind. Get out the instruction manual for the main computer, take off the back plate and get lost in them wires. I don’t want to see anything but your ugly behind the rest of this watch.”

Within ten minutes Kelly was down on his knees with him, helping him trace the intricate circuits.

Max learned, greatly assisted by his photographic memory and still more by the sound grounding in theory he had gotten from his uncle. Kelly was pleased. “I reckon you exaggerated a mite when you said you hadn’t learned anything in the Thule.”

“Well, not much.”

“Johansen have the Worry Hole when you were striking?”

“Uh, yes.” Max hoped frantically that Kelly would not ask other names.

“I thought so. That squarehead wouldn’t tell his own mother how old he was.”

There came a watch when Kelly trusted him to do a dry run for a transition approach on the computer, with Noguchi handling the tables and Kelly substituting for the astrogator by following records of the actual transition the ship had last made. The programming was done orally, as is the case when the astrogator is working under extreme pressure from latest data, just before giving the crucial signal to boost past the speed of light.

Kelly took it much more slowly than would happen in practice, while Noguchi consulted tables and called out figures to Max. He was nervous at first, his fingers trembling so that it was hard to punch the right keys—then he settled down and enjoyed it, feeling as if he and the machine had been born for each other.

Kelly was saying, “—times the binary natural logarithm of zero point eight seven oh nine two.” Max heard Noguchi’s voice call back the datum while he thumbed for the page—but in his mind Max saw the page in front of his eyes long before Noguchi located it; without conscious thought he depressed the right

keys.

“Correction!” sang out Kelly. “Look, meathead, you don’t put in them figures; you wait for translation by Noggy here. How many times I have to tell you?”

“But I did—” Max started, then stopped. Thus far he had managed to keep anyone aboard the Asgard

from learning of his embarrassingly odd memory.

“You did what?” Kelly started to clear the last datum from the board, then hesitated. “Come to think of it, you can’t possibly feed decimal figures into that spaghetti mill. Just what did you do?”

Max knew he was right and hated to appear not to know how to set up a problem. “Why, I put in the figures Noguchi was about to give me.”

“How’s that again?” Kelly stared at him. “You a mind reader?” “No. But I put in the right figures.”

“Hmm… ” Kelly bent over the keyboard. “Call ’em off, Noggy.” The computerman reeled off a string of ones and zeroes, the binary equivalent of the decimal expression Kelly had given him; Kelly checked the depressed keys, his lips moving in concentration. He straightened up. “I once saw a man roll thirteen sevens with honest dice. Was it fool luck, Max?”

“No.”

“Well! Noggy, gimme that book.” Kelly went through the rest of the problem, giving Max raw data and the operations to be performed, but not translating the figures into the binary notation the computer required. He kept thumbing the book and glancing over Max’s shoulder. Max fought off stage fright and punched the keys, while sweat poured into his eyes.

At last Kelly said, “Okay. Twist its tail.” Max flipped the switch which allowed the computer to swallow the program and worry it for an instant; the answer popped out in lights, off or on—the machine’s

equivalent of binary figures.

Kelly translated the lights back into decimal notation, using the manual. He then glanced at the recorded problem. He closed the record book and handed it to Noguchi. “I think I’ll have a cup of coffee,” he said quietly and walked away.

Noguchi reopened it, looked at the lights shining on the board and consulted the manual, after which he looked at Max very oddly. Max saw Kelly staring at him over a cup with the same expression. Max reached up and cleared the board entirely; the lights went out. He got down out of the computerman’s saddle. Nobody said anything.

Max’s next watch was with Dr. Hendrix. He enjoyed watches with the Astrogator almost as much as those with Kelly; Dr. Hendrix was a friendly and soft-spoken gentleman and gave as much attention to training Max as Kelly did. But this time Kelly lingered on after being relieved—in itself nothing, as the Chief Computerman frequently consulted with, or simply visited with, the Astrogator at such times. But today, after relieving the watch, Dr. Hendrix said pleasantly, “Kelly tells me that you are learning to use the computer, Jones?”

“Uh, yes, sir.”

“Very well, let’s have a drill.” Dr. Hendrix dug out an old astrogation log and selected a

transition-approach problem similar to the one Max had set up earlier. Kelly took the manual, ready to act as his “numbers boy”—but did not call the translations. Max waited for the first one; when it did not come, he read the figures from the page shining in his mind and punched them in.

It continued that way. Kelly said nothing, but wet his lips and checked what Max did each time the doctor offered a bit of the problem. Kovak watched from nearby, his eyes moving from actor to actor.

At last Dr. Hendrix closed the book. “I see,” he agreed, as if it were an everyday occurrence. “Jones, that is an extremely interesting talent. I’ve read of such cases, but you are the first I have met. You’ve heard of Blind Tom?”

“No, sir.”

“Perhaps the ship’s library has an account of him.” The Astrogator was silent for a moment. “I don’t mean to belittle your talent, but you are not to use it during an actual maneuver. You understand why?”

“Yes, sir. I guess I do.”

“Better say that you are not to use it unless you think an error has been made—in which case you will speak up at once. But the printed tables remain the final authority.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“Good. See me, please, in my room when you come off watch.”

It was “day time” by the ship’s clocks when he went off watch. He went to the passageway outside Dr. Hendrix’s room and waited; there Ellie came across him. “Max!”

“Oh. Hello, Ellie.” He realized uncomfortably that he had not seen her since his tentative promotion.

“Hello he says!” She planted herself in front of him. “You’re a pretty sight—with your bloodshot eyes matching the piping on your shirt. Where have you been? Too good for your old friends? You haven’t even been to see Chipsie.”

He had been, once, although he had not run into Ellie. He had not repeated the visit because the shipmate who had replaced him had not liked being assigned as chambermaid to cows, sheep, llamas, et al.; he had seemed to feel that it was Max’s fault. “I’m sorry,” Max said humbly, “but I haven’t had time.”

“A feeble excuse. Know what you are going to do now? You’re going straight to the lounge and I am going to trim your ears—I’ve figured out a way to box your favorite gambit that will leave you gasping.”

Max opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. “No.” “Speak louder. You used a word I don’t understand.”

“Look, Ellie, be reasonable. I’m waiting for Dr. Hendrix and as soon as he lets me go I’ve got to get some sleep. I’m about ten hours minus.”

“You can sleep any time.”

“Not when you’re standing four hours on and four off. You nap anytime you get a chance.” She looked perplexed. “You don’t mean you work every other watch? Why, that’s criminal.” “Maybe so but that’s how it is.”

“But—I’ll fix that! I’ll speak to the Captain.” “Ellie! Don’t you dare!”

“Why not? Captain Blaine is old sugar pie. Never you mind, I’ll fix it.”

Max took a deep breath, then spoke carefully. “Ellie, don’t say anything to the Captain, not anything. It’s a big opportunity for me and I don’t mind. If you go tampering with things you don’t understand, you’ll ruin my chances. I’ll be sent back to the stables.”

“Oh, he wouldn’t do that.”

“You don’t understand. He may be an ‘old sugar pie’ to you; to me he is the Captain. So don’t.” She pouted. “I was just trying to help.”

“I appreciate it. But don’t. And anyhow, I can’t come to the lounge, ever. It’s off limits for me.”

“But I thought—I think you’re just trying to avoid me. You run around up here now and you dress in pretty clothes. Why not?”

They were interrupted by Dr. Hendrix returning to his room. “Morning, Jones. Good morning, Miss Coburn.” He went on in.

Max said desperately, “Look, Ellie, I’ve got to go.” He turned and knocked on the Astrogator’s door.

Dr. Hendrix ignored having seen him with Ellie. “Sit down, Jones. That was a very interesting exhibition you put on.” The Astrogator went on, “I’m curious to know how far your talent extends. Is it just to figures?”

“Why, I guess not, sir.”

“Do you have to study hard to do it?”

“No, sir.”

“Hmm… We’ll try something. Have you read—let me see—any of the plays of Shakespeare?”

“Uh, we had Hamlet and As You Like It in school, and I read A Winter’s Tale. But I didn’t like it,” he answered honestly.

“In that case I don’t suppose you reread it. Remember any of it?” “Oh, certainly, sir.”

“Hmm—” Dr. Hendrix got down a limp volume.

“Let me see. Act two, scene three; Leontes says, ‘Nor night nor day nor rest: it is but weakness… ‘”

Max picked it up. “… it is but weakness to bear the matter thus; mere weakness. If the cause were not in being… ” He continued until stopped.

“That’s enough. I don’t care much for that play myself. Even the immortal Will had his off days. But how did you happen to have read that book of tables? Shakespeare at his dullest isn’t that dull. I’ve never read them, not what one would call’reading.'”

“Well, sir, Uncle Chet had his astrogation manuals at home after he retired and he used to talk with me a lot. So I read them.”

“Do I understand that you have memorized the entire professional library of an astrogator?” Max took a deep breath. “Well, sir, I’ve read them.”

Dr. Hendrix took from his shelves his own tools of his profession. He did not bother with the binary tables, that being the one Max had shown that he knew. He leafed through them, asked Max questions, finally identifying what he wanted only by page number. He closed the last of them. “Whew!” he commented, and blinked. “While I am aware that there are numerous cases of your talent in the history of psychology, I must admit it is disconcerting to encounter one.” He smiled. “I wonder what Brother Witherspoon would think of this.”

“Sir?”

“Our High Secretary. I’m afraid he would be shocked; he has conservative notions about protecting the’secrets’ of our profession.”

Max said uncomfortably, “Am I likely to get into trouble, sir? I didn’t know it was wrong to read Uncle’s books.”

“What? Nonsense. There are no’secrets’ to astrogation. You use these books on watch, so does every member of the ‘Worry’ gang. The passengers can read them, for all I care. Astrogation isn’t secret; it is merely difficult. Few people are so endowed as to be able to follow accurately the mathematical reasoning necessary to plan a—oh, a transition, let us say. But it suits those who bother with guild politics to make it appear an arcane art—prestige, you know.” Dr. Hendrix paused and tapped on his chair arm. “Jones, I want you to understand me. Kelly thinks you may shape up.”

“Uh, that’s good, sir.”

“But don’t assume that you know more than he does just because you have memorized the books.”

“Oh, no, sir!”

“Actually, your talent isn’t necessary in the control room. The virtues needed are those Kelly has—unflagging attention to duty, thorough knowledge of his tools, meticulous care for details, deep loyalty to his job and his crew and his ship and to those placed over him professionally. Kelly doesn’t need eidetic memory, ordinary good memory combined with intelligence and integrity are what the job takes—and that’s what I want in my control room.”

“Yes, sir.”

The Astrogator hesitated. “I don’t wish to be offensive but I want to add this. Strange talents are sometimes associated with ordinary, or even inferior, mentality—often enough so that the psychologists use the term ‘idiot savant.’ Sorry. You obviously aren’t an idiot, but you are not necessarily a genius, even if you can memorize the Imperial Encyclopedia. My point is: I am more interested in your horse sense and your attention to duty than I am in your phenomenal memory.”

“Uh, I’ll try, sir.”

“I think you’ll make a good chartsman, in time.” Dr. Hendrix indicated that the interview was over; Max got up. “One more thing.”

“Yes, sir?”

“There are excellent reasons of discipline and efficiency why crew members do not associate with passengers.”

Max gulped. “I know, sir.”

“Mind your P’s and Q’s. The members of my department are careful about this point—even then it is difficult.”

Max left feeling deflated. He had gone there feeling that he was about to be awarded something—even a chance to become an astrogator. He now felt sweated down to size.

GARSON’S PLANET

Max did not see much of Sam during the weeks following; the stiff schedule left him little time for visiting. But Sam had prospered.

Like all large ships the Asgard had a miniature police force, experienced ratings who acted as the First Officer’s deputies in enforcing ship’s regulations. Sam, with his talent for politics and a faked certffication as steward’s mate first class, managed during the reshuffle following Max’s transfer to be assigned as master-at-arms for the Purser’s department. He did well, treading on no toes, shutting his eyes to such violations as were ancient prerogatives and enforcing those rules of sanitation, economy, and behavior which were actually needed for a taut, happy ship… all without finding it necessary to haul offenders up before the First Officer for punishment—which suited both Mr. Walther and the crew. When Stores Clerk Maginnis partook too freely of Mr. Gee’s product and insisted on serenading his bunk mates, Sam merely took him to the galley and forced black coffee down him—then the following day took him down

to ‘H’ deck, laid his own shield of office aside, and gave Maginnis a scientific going over that left no scars but deeply marked his soul. In his obscure past Sam had learned to fight, not rough house, not in the stylized mock combat of boxing, but in the skilled art in which an unarmed man becomes a lethal machine.

Sam had selected his victim carefully. Had he reported him Maginnis would have regarded Sam as a snoop, a mere busybody to be outwitted or defied, and had the punishment been severe he might have been turned into a permanent discipline problem—not forgetting that reporting Maginnis might also have endangered a sacred cow, Chief Steward Giordano. As it was, it turned Maginnis into Sam’s strongest supporter and best publicist, as Maginnis’s peculiar but not unique pride required him to regard the man who defeated him as “the hottest thing on two feet, sudden death in each hand, a real man! No nonsense about old Sam—try him yourself and see how you make out. Go on, I want to lay a bet.”

It was not necessary for Sam to set up a second lesson.

A senior engineer’s mate was chief master-at-arms and Sam’s nominal superior; these two constituted the police force of their small town. When the technician asked to go back to power room watch-standing and was replaced by an engineer’s mate third, it was natural that Walther should designate Sam as Chief Master-at-Arms.

He had had his eye on the job from the moment he signed on. Any police chief anywhere has powers far beyond those set forth by law. As long as Sam stayed well buttered up with Mr. Kuiper, Mr. Giordano, and (to a lesser extent) with Mr. Dumont, as long as he was careful to avoid exerting his authority in either the engineering spaces or the Worry Hole, he was the most powerful man in the ship—more powerful in all practical matters than the First Officer himself since he was the First Officer’s visible presence.

Such was the situation when the ship grounded at Garson’s Planet.

Garson’s Planet appears to us to be a piece of junk left over when the universe was finished. It has a surface gravity of one-and-a-quarter, too much for comfort, it is cold as a moneylender’s heart, and it has a methane atmosphere unbreathable by humans. With the sky swarming with better planets it would be avoided were it not an indispensable way station. There is only one survey Horst congruency near Earth’s Sun and transition of it places one near Theta Centauri—and of the thirteen planets of that sun, Carson’s Planet possesses the meager virtue of being least unpleasant.

But there are half a dozen plotted congruencies accessible to Theta Centauri, which makes Carson’s Planet the inevitable cross-roads for trade of the Solar Union.

Max hit dirt there just once, once was plenty. The colony at the space port, partly domed, partly dug in under the domes, was much like the Lunar cities and not unlike the burrows under any major Earth city, but to Max it was novel since he had never been on Luna and had never seen a big city on Terra other than Earthport. He went dirtside with Sam, dressed in his best and filled with curiosity. It was not necessary to put on a pressure suit; the port supplied each passenger liner with a pressure tube from ship’s lock to dome lock.

Once inside Sam headed down into the lower levels. Max protested, “Sam, let’s go up and look around.”

“Huh? Nothing there. A hotel and some expensive shops and clip joints for the pay passengers. Do you want to pay a month’s wages for a steak?”

“No. I want to see out. Here I am on a strange planet and I haven’t seen it at all. I couldn’t see it from the control room when we landed and now I haven’t seen anything but the inside of a trans tube and this.” He

gestured at the corridor walls.

“Nothing to see but a dirty, thick, yellow fog that never lifts. Worse than Venus. But suit yourself. I’ve got things to do, but if you don’t want to stick with me you certainly don’t have to.”

Max decided to stick. They went on down and came out in a wide, lighted corridor not unlike that street in Earthport where Percy’s restaurant was located, save that it was roofed over. There were the same bars, the same tawdry inducements for the stranger to part with cash, even to the tailor shop with the permanent “CLOSING OUT” sale. Several other ships were in and the sector was crowded. Sam looked around. “Now for a place for a quiet drink and a chat.”

“How about there?” Max answered, pointing to a sign reading THE BETTER ‘OLE. “Looks clean and cheerful.”

Sam steered him quickly past it. “It is,” he agreed, “but not for us.” “Why not?”

“Didn’t you notice the customers? Imperial Marines.” “What of that? I’ve got nothing against the Imperials.”

“Mmm… no,” Sam agreed, still hurrying, “but those boys stick together and they have a nasty habit of resenting a civilian who has the bad taste to sit down in a joint they have staked out. Want to get your ribs kicked in?”

“Huh? That wouldn’t happen if I minded my own business, would it?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Suppose a hostess decides that you’re ‘cute’—and the spit-and-polish boy she was with wants to make something of it? Max, you’re a good boy—but there just ain’t no demand for good boys. To stay out of trouble you have to stay away from it.”

They threaded their way through the crowd for another hundred yards before Sam said, “Here we are—provided Lippy is still running the place.” The sign read THE SAFE LANDING; it was larger but not as pleasant as THE BETTER ‘OLE.

“Who’s Lippy?”

“You probably won’t meet him.” Sam led the way in and picked out a table.

Max looked around. It looked like any other fifth-rate bar grille. “Could I get a strawberry soda here? I’ve had a hankering for one for ages—I used always to get one Saturdays when I went to the Corners.”

“They can’t rule you out for trying.”

“Okay. Sam, something you said—you remember the story you told me about your friend in the Imperials? Sergeant Roberts?”

“Who?”

“Or Richards. I didn’t quite catch it.” “Never heard of the guy.”

“But…”

“Never heard of him. Here’s the waiter.”

Nor had the humanoid Sirian waiter heard of strawberry soda. He had no facial muscles but his back skin crawled and rippled with embarrassed lack of comprehension. Max settled for something called “Old Heidelberg” although it had never been within fifty light-years of Germany. It tasted to Max like cold soap suds, but since Sam had paid for it he nursed it along and pretended to drink it.

Sam bounced up almost at once. “Sit tight, kid. I won’t be long.” He spoke to the barman, then disappeared toward the back. A young woman came over to Max’s table.

“Lonely, spaceman?” “Uh, not especially.”

“But I am. Mind if I sit down?” She sank into the chair that Sam had vacated. “Suit yourself. But my friend is coming right back.”

She didn’t answer but turned to the waiter at her elbow. “A brown special, Giggles.” Max made an emphatic gesture of denial. “No!”

“What’s that, dear?”

“Look,” Max answered, blushing, “I may look green as paint—I am, probably. But I don’t buy colored water at house prices. I don’t have much money.”

She looked hurt. “But you have to order or I can’t sit here.”

“Well… ” He glanced at the menu. “I could manage a sandwich, I guess.”

She turned again to the waiter. “Never mind the special, Giggles. A cheese on rye and plenty of mustard.” She turned back to Max. “What’s your name, honey?”

“Max.”

“Mine’s Dolores. Where are you from?” “The Ozarks. That’s Earthside.”

“Now isn’t that a coincidence! I’m from Winnipeg—we’re neighbors!”

Max decided that it might appear so, from that distance. But as Dolores babbled on it became evident that she knew neither the location of the Ozarks nor that of Winnipeg, had probably never been on Terra in her life. She was finishing the sandwich while telling Max that she just adored spacemen, they were so romantic, when Sam returned.

He looked down at her. “How much did you take him for?”

Dolores said indignantly, “That’s no way to talk! Mr. Lipski doesn’t permit…”

“Stow it, kid,” Sam went on, not unkindly. “You didn’t know that my partner is a guest of Lippy. Get me? No’specials,’ no ‘pay-me’s’—you’re wasting your time. Now how much?”

Max said hastily, “It’s okay, Sam. All I bought her was a sandwich.”

“Well… all right. But you’re excused, sister. Later, maybe.” She shrugged and stood up. “Thanks, Max.”

“Not at all, Dolores. I’ll say hello to the folks in Winnipeg.” “Do that.”

Sam did not sit down. “Kid, I have to go out for a while.” “Okay.”

Max started to rise, Sam motioned him back. “No, no. This I’d better do by myself. Wait here, will you? They won’t bother you again—or if they do, ask for Lippy.”

“I won’t have any trouble.”

“I hope not.” Sam looked worried. “I don’t know why I should fret, but there is something about you that arouses the maternal in me. Your big blue eyes I guess.”

“Huh? Oh, go sniff space! Anyway, my eyes are brown.”

“I was speaking,” Sam said gently, “of the eyes of your dewy pink soul. Don’t speak to strangers while I’m gone.”

Max used an expression he had picked up from Mr. Gee; Sam grinned and left.

But Sam’s injunction did not apply to Mr. Simes. Max saw the assistant astrogator appear in the doorway. His face was redder than usual and his eyes looked vague. He let his body revolve slowly as he surveyed the room. Presently his eyes lit on Max and he grinned unpleasantly.

“Well, well, well!” he said as he advanced toward Max. “If it isn’t the Smart Boy.” “Good evening, Mr. Simes.” Max stood up.

“So it’s ‘good evening, Mr. Simes’! But what did you say under your breath?’ “Nothing, sir.”

“Humph! I know! But I think the same thing about you, only worse.” Max did not answer, Simes went on, “Well, aren’t you going to ask me to sit down?”

“Have a seat, sir,” Max said without expression.

“Well, what do you know? The Smart Boy wants me to sit with him.” He sat, called the waiter, ordered, and turned back to Max. “Smart Boy, do you know why I’m sitting with you?”

“No, sir.”

“To put a flea in your ear, that’s why. Since you pulled that hanky-panky with the computer, you’ve been Kelly’s hair-faired—fair-haired—boy. Fair-haired boy,” he repeated carefully. “That gets you nowhere with me. Get this straight: you go sucking around the Astrogator the way Kelly does and I’ll run you out of the control room. Understand me?”

Max felt himself losing his temper. “What do you mean by ‘hanky-panky,’ Mr. Simes?”

“You know. Probably memorized the last half dozen transitions—now you’ve got Kelly and the Professor thinking you’ve memorized the book. A genius in our midst! You know what that is? That’s a lot of…”

Fortunately for Max they were interrupted; he felt a firm hand on his shoulder and Sam’s quiet voice said, “Good evening, Mr. Simes.”

Simes looked confused, then recognized Sam and brightened. “Well, if it isn’t the copper. Sit down, Constable. Have a drink.”

“Don’t mind if I do.” Sam pulled up another chair. “Do you know Smart Boy here?”

“I’ve seen him around.”

“Keep your eye on him. That’s an order. He’s very, very clever. Too clever. Ask him a number. Pick a number between one and ten.”

“Seven.”

Mr. Simes pounded the table. “What did I tell you? He memorized it before you got here. Someday he’s going to memorize one and they’ll stencil it across his chest. You know what, Constable? I don’t trust smart boys. They get ideas.”

Reinforced by Sam’s calming presence Max kept quiet. Giggles had come to the table as soon as Sam joined them; Max saw Sam write something on the back of a menu and pass it with money to the humanoid. But Mr. Simes was too busy with his monologue to notice. Sam let him ramble on, then suddenly interrupted. “You seem to have a friend here, sir.”

“Huh? Where?”

Sam pointed. At the bar Dolores was smiling and gesturing at the assistant navigator to join her. Simes focused his eyes, grinned and said, “Why, so I do! It’s my Great Aunt Sadie.” He got up abruptly.

Sam brushed his hands together. “That disposes of that. Give you a bad time, kid?” “Sort of. Thanks, Sam. But I hate to see him dumped on Dolores. She’s a nice kid.”

“Don’t worry about her. She’ll roll him for every thin he has on him—and a good job, too.” His eyes became hard. “I like an officer who acts like an officer. If he wants to pin one on, he should do it in his own part of town. Oh, well.” Sam relaxed. “Been some changes, eh, kid? Things are different from the way they were when we raised ship at Terra.”

“I’ll say they are!”

“Like it in the Worry gang?”

“It’s more fun than I ever had in my life. And I’m learning fast—so Mr. Kelly says. They’re a swell bunch—except for him.” He nodded toward Simes.

“Don’t let him worry you. The best soup usually has a fly in it. Just don’t let him get anything on you.” “I sure don’t intend to.”

Sam looked at him, then said softly, “Ready to take the dive?”

“Huh?”

“I’m getting our stake together. We’ll be all set.”

Max found it hard to answer. He had known that his transfer had not changed anything basic; he was still in as much danger as ever. But he had been so busy with the joy of hard, interesting work, so dead for sleep when he was not working, that the subject had been pushed back in his mind. Now he drew patterns on the table in the sweat from the glasses and thought about it. “I wish,” he said slowly, “that there was some way to beat it.”

“There is a way, I told you. Your record gets lost.”

Max raised his eyes. “What good would that do? Sure, it would get me another trip. But I don’t want just another trip; I want to stay with it.” He looked down at the table top and carefully sketched an hyperboloid. “I’d better go with you. If I go back to Terra, it’s the labor companies for me—even if I stay out of jail.”

“Nonsense.” “What?”

“Understand me, kid. I’d like to have you with me. A time like that, having a partner at your elbow is the difference between—well, being down in the dumps and being on top. But you can stay in space, with a record as clean as a baby’s.”

“Huh? How?”

“Because you are changing guilds. Now only one paper has to get lost—your strike-out record with the stewards, cooks, and clerks. And they will never miss it because you aren’t on their books, anyhow. You start fresh with the chartsmen and computers, all neat and legal.”

Max sat still and was tempted. “How about the report to the Department of Guilds and Labor?”

“Same thing. Different forms to different offices. I checked. One form gets lost, the other goes in—and Steward’s Mate Jones vanishes into limbo while Apprentice Chartsman Jones starts a clean record.”

“Sam, why don’t you do it? With the drag you’ve got now you could switch to… uh, well, to…”

“To what?” Sam shook his head sadly. “No, old son, there is nothing I can switch to. Besides, there are reasons why I had better be buried deep.” He brightened. “Tell you what—I’ll pick my new name before I take the jump and tell you. Then some day, two years, ten, twenty, you’ll lay over at Nova Terra and look me up. We’ll split a bottle and talk about when we were young and gay. Eh?”

Max smiled though he did not feel happy. “We will, Sam. We surely will.” Then he frowned. “But, Sam, I don’t know how to wangle the deal—and you’ll be gone.”

“I’ll fix it before I leave. I’ve got Nelson eating out of my hand now. Like this: half cash down and half on delivery—and I’ll fix it so that you have something on him—never mind what; you don’t need to know yet. When you ground at Earthport, he asks you to mail the reports because you are going dirtside and he has work to finish. You check to see that the two reports you want are there, then you give him his pay off. Done.”

Max said slowly, “I suppose that’s best.”

“Quit fretting. Everybody has a skeleton in the closet; the thing is to keep ’em there and not at the feast.” He pushed an empty glass aside. “Kid, would you mind if we went back to the ship? Or had you planned to make a night of it?”

“No, I don’t mind.” Max’s elation at setting foot on his first strange planet was gone—Garson’s Hole was, he had to admit, a sorry sample of the Galaxy.

“Then let’s get saddled up. I’ve got stuff to carry and I could use help.”

It turned out to be four fairly large bundles which Sam had cached in public lockers. “What are they?” Max asked curiously.

“Tea cozies, old son. Thousands of them. I’m going to sell ’em to Procyon pinheads as skull caps.” Somewhat affronted, Max shut up.

Everything coming into the ship was supposed to be inspected, but the acting master-at-arms on watch at the lock did not insist on examining the items belonging to the Chief Master-at-Arms any more than he would have searched a ship’s officer. Max helped Sam carry the bundles to the stateroom which was the prerogative of the ship’s chief of police.

“THROUGH THE CARGO HATCH”

From Garson’s Planet to Halcyon around Nu Pegasi is a double dogleg of three transitions, of 105, 487, and 19 light-years respectively to achieve a “straight line” distance of less than 250 light-years. But neither straight-line distance nor pseudo-distance of transition is important; the Asgard covered less than a

light-year between gates. A distance “as the crow flies” is significant only to crows.

The first transition was barely a month out from Carson’s Planet. On raising from there Kelly placed Max on a watch in three, assigning him to Kelly’s own watch, which gave Max much more sleep, afforded him as much instruction (since the watch with Simes was worthless, instruction-wise), and kept Max out of Simes’ way, to his enormous relief. Whether Kelly had planned that feature of it Max never knew—and did not dare ask.

Max’s watch was still an instruction watch, he had no one to relieve nor to be relieved by. It became his habit not to leave the control room until Kelly did, unless told to do so. This resulted in him still being thrown into the company of Dr. Hendrix frequently, since the Astrogator relieved the Chief Computerman and Kelly would usually hang around and chat… during which time the Astrogator would sometimes inquire into Max’s progress.

Occasionally the Captain would show up on Dr. Hendrix’s watch. Shortly after leaving Garson’s Planet Dr. Hendrix took advantage of one such occasion to have Max demonstrate for Captain Blaine and First Officer Walther his odd talent. Max performed without a mistake although the Captain’s presence made him most self-conscious. The Captain watched closely with an expression of gentle surprise. Afterwards he said, “Thank you, lad. That was amazing. Let me see—what is your name?”

“Jones, sir.”

“Jones, yes.” The old man blinked thoughtfully. “It must be terrifying not to be able to forget—especially

in the middle of the night. Keep a clear conscience, son.”

Twelve hours later Dr. Hendrix said to him, “Jones, don’t go away. I want to see you.” “Yes, sir.”

The Astrogator spoke with Kelly for a few moments, then again spoke to Max. “The Captain was impressed by your vaudeville act, Jones. He is wondering whether you have any parallel mathematical ability.”

“Well—no, sir. I’m not a lightning calculator, that is. I saw one in a sideshow once. He could do things I couldn’t.”

Hendrix brushed it aside. “Not important. I believe you told me that your uncle taught you some mathematical theory?”

“Just for astrogation, sir.”

“What do you think I am talking about? Do you know how to compute a transition approach?” “Uh, I think so, sir.”

“Frankly, I doubt it, no matter how much theoretical drill Brother Jones gave you. But go ahead.” “Now, sir?”

“Try it. Pretend you’re the officer of the watch. Kelly will be your assistant. I’ll just be audience. Work the approach we are on. I realize that we aren’t close enough for it to matter—but you are to assume that the safety of the ship depends on it.”

Max took a deep breath. “Aye aye, sir.” He started to get out fresh plates for the cameras. Hendrix said, “No!”

“Sir?”

“If you have the watch, where’s your crew? Noguchi, help him.”

“Aye aye, sir.” Noguchi grinned and came over. While they were bending over the first camera, Noguchi whispered, “Don’t let him rattle you, pal. We’ll give him a good show. Kelly will help you over the humps.”

But Kelly did not help; he acted as “numbers boy” and nothing else, with no hint to show whether Max was right, or wildly wrong. After Max had his sights and had taken his comparison data between plates and charts he did not put the problem through the computer himself, but let Noguchi man the machine, with Kelly translating. After a long time and much sweat the lights blinked what he hoped was the answer.

Dr. Hendrix said nothing but took the same plates to the tank and started to work the problem again, with the same crew. Very quickly the lights blinked on again; the Astrogator took the tables from Kelly and looked up the translation himself. “We differ only in the ninth decimal place. Not bad.”

“I was wrong only in the ninth place, sir?”

“I didn’t say that. Perhaps I was more in error.”

Max started to grin, but Dr. Hendrix frowned. “Why didn’t you take doppler spectra to check?” Max felt a cold chill. “I guess I forgot, sir.”

“I thought you were the man who never forgot?”

Max thought intuitively—and correctly—that two kinds of memory were involved, but he did not have a psychologist’s jargon with which to explain. One sort was like forgetting one’s hat in a restaurant, that could happen to anyone; the other was being unable to recall what the mind had once known.

Hendrix went on, “A control room man must not forget things necessary to the safety of the ship. However as an exercise you solved it very well—except that you have no speed. Had we been pushing close to the speed of light, ready to cross, your ship would have been in Hades and crashed in the River Styx before you got the answer. But it was a good first try.”

He turned away. Kelly jerked his head toward the hatch and Max went below.

As he was falling asleep Max turned over in his mind the notion that Dr. Hendrix might even be thinking of him for—Oh no! He put the thought aside. After all, Kelly could have done it; he had seen him do early approaches many times, and faster, too. Probably Noguchi could have done it.

Certainly Noguchi could have done it, he corrected. After all, there weren’t any “secrets.”

As they approached the first anomaly the easy watch in three for officers and watch in four for the men changed to watch-and-watch, with an astrogator, an assistant, a chartsman, and a computerman on each watch. Max was at last assigned to a regular watch; the first watch was Dr. Hendrix assisted by Chartsman 1/c Kovak, Max as chartsman of the watch and Noguchi on the computer; the other watch was Mr. Simes assisted by Chief Kelly, Smythe as chartsman and Lundy as computerman. Max noticed that Dr. Hendrix had assigned his “first team” to Simes and had taken the less experienced technicians himself. He wondered why, but was pleased not to be working for Simes.

He learned at last why they called it the “Worry Hole.” Dr. Hendrix became a frozen-masked automaton, performing approach correction after correction and demanding quick, accurate, and silent service.

During the last twenty hours of the approach the Astrogator never left the control room, nor did anyone else other than for short periods when nominally off watch. Simes continued to take his regular watch but Dr. Hendrix hung over him, checking everything that he did. Twice he required the junior astrogator to reperform portions of his work and once elbowed him aside and did it himself. The first time it happened Max stared—then he noticed that the others were careful to be busy doing something else whenever Dr. Hendrix spoke privately to Simes.

The tension grew as the critical instant approached. The approach to an anomalous intraspatial transition can hardly be compared to any other form of piloting ever performed by human beings, though it might be compared to the impossible trick of taking off in an atmosphere plane, flying a thousand miles blind—while performing dead reckoning so perfectly as to fly through a narrow tunnel at the far end, without ever seeing the tunnel. A Horst congruency cannot be seen, it can only be calculated by abstruse mathematics of effects of mass on space; a “gateway” is merely unmarked empty space in vaster emptiness. In approaching a planet an astrogator can see his destination, directly or by radar, and his speed is just a few miles per second. But in making a Horstian approach the ship’s speed approaches that of light—and reaches it, at the last instant. The nearest landmarks are many billions of miles away, the landmarks themselves are moving with stellar velocities and appear to be crowding together in the

exaggerated parallax effects possible only when the observer is moving almost as fast as is his single clue to location and speed—the wave fronts of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Like searching at midnight in a dark cellar for a black cat that isn’t there.

Toward the last Kelly himself was on the computer with Lundy at his ear. Smythe and Kovak were charting, passing new data to Dr. Hendrix, who was programming orally to the computer crew, setting up the problems in his head and feeding them to the electronic brain almost without delay. The power room was under his direct control now; he had a switch led out from the control console in each hand, one to nurse the ship along just below speed of light, the other to give the Asgard the final kick that would cause her to burst through.

Max was pushed aside, no task remained in which there was not someone more experienced. On a different level, Simes too had been pushed aside; there was place for only one astrogator at the moment of truth.

Of all those in the Worry Hole only Captain Blaine seemed to be relaxed. He sat in the chair sacred to him, smoking quietly and watching Hendrix. The Astrogator’s face was gray with fatigue, greasy with unwashed sweat. His uniform was open at the collar and looked slept in, though he certainly had not slept. Max looked at him and wondered why he had ever longed to be an astrogator, ever been foolish enough to wish to bear this undivided and unendurable burden.

But the doctor’s crisp voice showed no fatigue; the endless procession of numbers marched out, sharp as print, each spoken so that there could be no mistake, no need to repeat, “nine” always sounded as one syllable, “five” always stretched into two. Max listened and learned and wondered.

He glanced up through the dome, out into space itself, space shown distorted by their unthinkable speed. The stars ahead, or above, had been moving closer together for the past several watches, the huge parallax effect displacing them to the eye so that they seemed to be retreating in the very sector of the sky they were approaching. They were seeing by infra-red waves now, ploughing into oncoming wave trains so fast that doppler effect reduced heat wave lengths to visible light.

The flood of figures stopped. Max looked down, then looked up hastily as he heard Dr. Hendrix say, “Stand by!”

The stars seemed to crawl together, then instantly they were gone to be replaced without any lapse of time whatever by another, new and totally different starry universe.

Hendrix straightened up and sighed, then looked up. “There’s the Albert Memorial,” he said quietly. “And there is the Hexagon. Well, Captain, it seems we made it again.” He turned to Simes. “Take it, Mister.” He let the Captain go first, then followed him down the hatch.

The control gang went back to easy watches; the next transition was many days away. Max continued as chartsman-of -the-watch in place of Kovak, who temporarily replaced Dr. Hendrix while the Astrogator got a week of rest: There was truly not much to do during the early part of a leg and the doctor’s superb skill was not needed. But Max greatly enjoyed the new arrangements; it made him proud to sign the rough log “M. Jones, Chtsmn o/W.” He felt that he had arrived—even though Simes found fault with him and Kelly continued to drill him unmercifully in control room arts.

He was surprised but not apprehensive when he was told, during an off-watch period, to report to the Astrogator. He put on a fresh uniform, slicked his hair clown, and went above “C” deck. “Apprentice Chartsman Jones reporting, sir.”

Kelly was there, having coffee with the Astrogator. Hendrix acknowledged Max’s salutation but left him standing. “Yes, Jones.” He turned to Kelly. “Suppose you break the news.”

“If you say so, sir.” Kelly looked uncomfortable. “Well, Jones, it’s like this—you don’t really belong in my guild.”

Max was so shocked that he could not answer. He was about to say that he had thought—he had understood—he hadn’t known—But he got nothing out; Kelly continued, “The fact is, you ought to buck for astrogator. The Doctor and I have been talking it over.”

The buzzing in his head got worse. He became aware that Dr. Hendrix was repeating, “Well, Jones? Do you want to try it? Or don’t you?”

Max managed to say, “Yes. Yes, sir.”

“Good. Kelly and I have been watching you. He is of the opinion and so am I that you may, just possibly, have the latent ability to develop the skill and speed necessary. The question is: do you think so?”

“Uh… that is—I hope so, sir!”

“So do I,” Hendrix answered dryly. ‘We shall see. If you haven’t, you can revert to your own guild and no harm is done. The experience will make you a better chartsman.” The Astrogator turned to Kelly. “I’ll quiz Jones a bit, Kelly. Then we can make up our minds.”

“Very good, sir.” Kelly stood up.

When the Chief Computerman had gone Hendrix turned to his desk, hauled out a crewman’s personal record. To Max he said harshly, “Is this yours?”

Max looked at it and gulped. “Yes, sir.”

Dr. Hendrix held his eye. “Well? How good a picture is it of your career thus far? Any comment you want to make?”

The pause might have been a dozen heart beats, though to Max it was an endless ordeal. Then a catharsis came bursting up out of him and he heard himself answering, “It’s not a good picture at all, sir. It’s phony from one end to the other.”

Even as he said it, he wondered why. He felt that he had kicked to pieces his one chance to achieve his ambition. Yet, instead of feeling tragic, he felt oddly relaxed.

Hendrix put the personal record back on his desk. “Good,” he answered. “Very good. If you had given any other answer, I would have run you out of my control room. Now, do you want to tell me about it? Sit down.”

So Max sat down and told him. All that he held back was Sam’s name and such details as would have identified Sam. Naturally Dr Hendrix noticed the omission and asked him point blank.

“I won’t tell you, sir.”

Hendrix nodded. “Very well. Let me add that I shall make no attempt to identify this, ah, friend of yours—if by chance he is in this ship.”

“Thank you, sir.”

There followed a considerable silence. At last Hendrix said, “Son, what led you to attempt this preposterous chicanery? Didn’t you realize you would be caught?”

Max thought about it. “I guess I knew I would be, sir—eventually. But I wanted to space and there wasn’t any other way to do it.” When Hendrix did not answer Max went on. After the first relief of being able to tell the truth, he felt defensive, anxious to justify himself—and just a little bit irked that Dr. Hendrix did not see that he had simply done what he had to do—so it seemed to Max. “What would you have done, sir?”

“Me? How can I answer that? What you’re really asking is: do I consider your actions morally wrong, as well as illegal?”

“Uh, I suppose so, sir.”

“Is it wrong to lie and fake and bribe to get what you want? It’s worse than wrong, it’s undignified!”

Dr. Hendrix chewed his lip and continued. “Perhaps that opinion is the sin of the Pharisees… my own weakness. I don’t suppose that a young, penniless tramp, such as you described yourself to be, can afford the luxury of dignity. As for the rest, human personality is a complex thing, nor am I a judge.

Admiral Lord Nelson was a liar, a libertine, and outstandingly undisciplined. President Abraham Lincoln was a vulgarian and nervously unstable. The list is endless. No, Jones, I am not going to pass judgment; you must do that yourself. The authorities having jurisdiction will reckon your offenses; I am concerned only with whether or not you have the qualities I need.”

Max’s emotions received another shock. He had already resigned himself to the idea that he had lost his chance. “Sir?”

“Don’t misunderstand me.” Hendrix tapped the forged record. “I don’t like this. I don’t like it at all. But perhaps you can live down your mistake. In the meantime, I badly need another watch officer; if you measure up, I can use you. Part of it is personal, too; your uncle taught me, I shall try to teach you.”

“Uh, I’ll try, sir. Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. I’m not even feeling particularly friendly to you, at the moment. Don’t talk with anyone. I’ll ask the Captain to call a guild meeting and he and Mr. Simes and I will vote on you. We’ll make you a probationary apprentice which will permit the Captain to appoint you to the temporary rank of merchant cadet. The legalities are a bit different from those of the usual route as you no doubt know.”

Max did not know, though he was aware that officers sometimes came up “through the cargo hatch”—but another point hit him. “Mr. Simes, sir?”

“Certainly. By this procedure, all the astrogators you serve with must pass on you.” “Uh, does it have to unanimous, sir?”

“Yes.”

“Then—Well, sir, you might as well forget it. I mean, I appreciate your willingness to, uh, but… ” His voice trailed off.

Dr. Hendrix smiled mirthlessly. “Hadn’t you better let me worry about that?” “Oh. Sorry, sir.”

“When it has been logged, I’ll notify you. Or ‘when and if,’ if you prefer.”

“Yes, sir.” Max stood up. “Sir? There were, uh, a couple of other things I wondered about.” Hendrix had turned back to his desk. He answered, “Well?” somewhat impatiently.

“Would you mind telling me—just for my curiosity—how you caught me?”

“Oh, that. No doubt you’ve given yourself away to several people. I’m sure Kelly knows, from the subjects he avoided. For example, I once heard Lundy mention to you Kiefer’s Ritz on Luna. Your answer, though noncommittal, implied that you did not really know what dive he was talking about—and it is impossible for a spaceman not to know that place, its entrance faces the east lock to the space port.”

“Oh.”

“But the matter came to the top of my mind in connection with this.” He again indicated the false record. “Jones, I deal in figures and my mind can no more help manipulating them for all the information they contain than I can help breathing. This record says that you went to space a year before your uncle retired—I remember what year that was. But you told me that your uncle had trained you at home and your performance bore out that statement. Two sets of alleged facts were contradictory; need I add that I was fairly sure of the truth?”

“Oh. I guess I wasn’t very smart?’

“No, you weren’t. Figures are sharp things, Jones. Don’t juggle them, you’ll get cut. What was the other matter?”

“Well, sir, I was kind of wondering what was going to happen to me. I mean about that.”

“Oh,” Hendrix answered indifferently, “that’s up to the Stewards & Clerks. My guild won’t take action concerning a disciplinary matter of another guild. Unless, of course, they call it ‘moral turpitude’ and make it stick.”

With that faint comfort Max left, Nevertheless he felt easier than he had at any time since he had signed on. The prospect of punishment seemed less a burden than constantly worrying about getting caught.

Presently he forgot it and exulted in the opportunity—at last!—to take a crack at astrogator. He wished he could tell Sam… or Ellie.

HALCYON

The probationary appointment was logged later that same day. The Captain called him in, swore him in, then congratulated him and called him “Mister” Jones. The ceremony was simple, with no spectator but Hendrix and the Captain’s secretary.

The commonplaces attendant on the change were, for a while, more startling to Max than the promotion itself. They started at once. “You had better take the rest of the day to shake down, Mr. Jones,” the Captain said, blinking vaguely. “Okay, Doc?”

“Certainly, sir.”

“Good. Bennett, will you ask Dumont to step in?”

The Chief Passengers’ Steward was unblinkingly unsurprised to find the recent steward’s mate third a ship’s officer. To the Captain’s query he said, “I was planning to put Mr. Jones in stateroom B-014, sir. Is that satisfactory?”

“No doubt, no doubt.”

“I’ll have boys take care of his luggage at once.”

“Good. You trot along with Dumont, Mr. Jones. No, wait a moment. We must find you a cap.” The Captain went to his wardrobe, fumbled around. “I had one that would do here somewhere.”

Hendrix had been standing with his hands behind him. “I fetched one, Captain. Mr. Jones and I wear the same size, I believe.”

“Good. Though perhaps his head has swelled a bit in the past few minutes. Eh?”

Hendrix grinned savagely. “If it has, I’ll shrink it.” He handed the cap to Max. The wide gold strap and sunburst the Astrogator had removed; substituted was a narrow strap with tiny sunburst surrounded by the qualifying circle of the apprentice. Max thought it must be old insignia saved for sentimental reasons by Hendrix himself. He choked up as he mumbled his thanks, then followed Dumont out of the Captain’s cabin, stumbling over his feet.

When they reached the companionway Dumont stopped. “There is no need to go down to the bunkroom, sir. If you will tell me the combination of your locker, we’ll take care of everything.”

“Oh, gee, Mr. Dumont! I’ve got just a small amount of truck. I can carry it up myself.”

Dumont’s face had the impassivity of a butler’s. “If I may make a suggestion, sir, you might like to see your stateroom while I have the matter taken care of.” It was not a question; Max interpreted it correctly to mean: “Look, dummy, I know the score and you don’t. Do what I tell you before you make a terrible break!”

Max let himself be guided. It is not easy to make the jump from crewman to officer while remaining in the same ship. Dumont knew this, Max did not. Whether his interest was fatherly, or simply a liking for correct protocol—or both—Dumont did not intend to allow the brand-new junior officer to go lower than “C” deck until he had learned to carry his new dignity with grace. So Max sought out stateroom

B-014.

The bunk had a real foam mattress and a spread. There was a tiny wash basin with running water and a mirror. There was a bookshelf over the bunk and a wardrobe for his uniforms. There was even a shelf desk that let down for his convenience. There was a telephone on the wall, a buzzer whereby he could summon the steward’s mate on watch! There was a movable chair all his own, a wastebasket, and—yes!—a little rug on the deck. And best of all, there was a door with a lock.

The fact that the entire room was about as large as a piano box bothered him not at all.

He was opening drawers and poking into things when Dumont returned. Dumont was not carrying Max’s meager possessions himself; that task was delegated to one of his upper-decks staff. The steward’s mate followed Dumont in and said, “Where shall I put this, sir?”

Max realized with sudden embarrassment that the man waiting on him had eaten opposite him for past months. “Oh! Hello, Jim. Just dump it on the bunk. Thanks a lot.”

“Yes, sir. And congratulations!”

“Uh, thanks!” They shook hands. Dumont let that proper ceremony persist for a minimum time, then said, “That’s all now, Gregory. You can go back to the pantry.” He turned to Max. “Anything else, sir?”

“Oh, no, everything is fine.”

“May I suggest that you probably won’t want to sew insignia on these uniforms yourself? Unless you are better with a needle than I am,” Dumont added with just the right chuckle.

“Well, I guess I could.”

“Mrs. Dumont is handy with a needle, taking care of the lady passengers as she does. Suppose I take this one? It can be ready and pressed in time for dinner.”

Max was happy to let him. He was suddenly appalled by a terrifying notion—he was going to have to eat in the Bifrost Lounge!

But there were further disturbances before dinner. He was completing the small task of stowing his possessions when there came a knock on the door, followed immediately by someone coming in. Max found himself nose to nose with Mr. Simes.

Simes looked at the cap on his head and laughed. “Take that thing off before you wear out your ears.” Max did not do so. He said, “You wanted me, sir?”

“Yes. Just long enough, Smart Boy, to give you a word of advice.” “Yes?”

Simes tapped himself on the chest. “Just this. There is only one assistant astrogator in this ship—and I’m it. Remember that. I’ll still be it long after you’ve been busted back to sweeping up after cows. Which is where you belong.”

Max felt a flush crawl up his neck and burn his cheeks. “Why,” he asked, “if you think that, didn’t you veto my appointment?”

Simes laughed again. “Do I look like a fool? The Captain says yes, the Astrogator says yes—should I stick my neck out? It’s easier to wait and let you stick your neck out—which you will. I just wanted to let you know that a dinky piece of gold braid doesn’t mean a thing. You’re still junior to me by plenty. Don’t forget it.”

Max clenched his jaw and did not answer. Simes went on, “Well?” “‘Well’ what?”

“I just gave you an order.”

“Oh. Aye aye, Mr. Simes. I won’t forget it. I certainly won’t.”

Simes looked at him sharply, said, “See that you don’t,” and left. Max was still facing his door, clenching his fists, when Gregory tapped on the door. “Dinner, sir. Five minutes.”

Max delayed as long as he could, wishing mightily that he could slide down to Easy deck and take his usual place in the warm, noisy, relaxed comfort of the crew’s mess. He hesitated in the lounge doorway, paralyzed with stage fright. The beautiful room was blazing with light and looked unfamiliar; he had never been in it save in early morning, to change the sandbox located down the pantry passage—at which times only standing lights were burning.

He was barely in time; some of the ladies were seated but the Captain was still standing. Max realized that he should be near his chair, ready to sit down when the Captain did—or as soon as the ladies were seated, he amended—but where should he go? He was still jittering when he heard his name shouted. “Max!”

Ellie came running up and threw her arms around his neck. “Max! I just heard. I think it’s wonderful!”

She looked at him, her eyes shining, then kissed him on both cheeks.

Max blushed to his ears. He felt as if every eye was turned on him—and he was right. To add to his embarrassment Ellie was dressed in formal evening dress of Hesperan high style, which not only made her look older and much more female, but also shocked his puritanical hillbilly standards.

She let go of him, which was well but left him in danger of collapsing at the knees. She started to babble something, Max did not know what, when Chief Steward Dumont appeared at her elbow. “The Captain is waiting, Miss,” he said firmly.

“Bother to the Captain! Oh, well—see you after dinner, Max.” She headed for the Captain’s table. Dumont touched Max’s sleeve and munnured, “This way, sir.”

His place was at the foot of the Chief Engineer’s table. Max knew Mr. Compagnon by sight but had never spoken to him. The Chief glanced up and said, “Evening, Mr. Jones. Glad to have you with us. Ladies and gentlemen, our new astrogation officer, Mr. Jones. On your right, Mr. Jones, is Mrs. Daigler. Mr. Daigler on her right, then—” and so on, around the table: Dr. and Mrs. Weberbauer and their daughter Rebecca, Mr. and Mrs. Scott, a Mr. Arthur, Senhor and Senhora Vargas.

Mrs. Daigler thought it was lovely, his being promoted. And so nice to have more young people at the table. She was much older than Max but young enough to be handsome and aware of it. She wore more jewels than Max had ever seen and her hair was lacquered into a structure a foot high and studded with pearls. She was as perfectly finished and as expensive as a precision machine and she made Max uncomfortable.

But he was not yet as uncomfortable as he could be. Mrs. Daigler produced a wisp of a handkerchief from her bosom, moistened it and said, “Hold still, Mr. Jones.” She scrubbed his cheek. “Turn your head.” Blushing, Max complied.

“There, that’s better,” Mrs. Daigler announced. “Mama fixed.” She turned away and said, “Don’t you think, Mr. Compagnon, that science, with all the wonderful things they do these days, could discover a lip paint that wouldn’t come off?”

“Stop it, Maggie,” her husband interrupted. “Pay no attention, Mr. Jones. She’s got a streak of sadism as wide as she is.”

“George, you’ll pay for that. Well, Chief?”

The Chief Engineer patted his lips with snowy linen. “I think it must already have been invented, but there

was no market. Women like to brand men, even temporarily.” “Oh, bosh!”

“It’s a woman’s world, ma’am.”

She turned to Max. “Eldreth is a dear, isn’t she? I suppose you knew her ‘dirtside’?—as Mr. Compagnon calls it.”

“No, ma’am.”

“Then how? I mean, after all, there isn’t much opportunity. Or is there?” “Maggie, stop pestering him. Let the man eat his dinner.”

Mrs. Weberbauer on his other side was as easy and motherly as Mrs. Daigler was difficult. Under her soothing presence Max managed to start eating. Then he noticed that the way he grasped a fork was not the way the others did, tried to change, made a mess of it, became aware of his untidy nails, and wanted to crawl under the table. He ate about three hundred calories, mostly bread and butter.

At the end of the meal Mrs. Daigler again gave her attention to him, though she addressed the Chief Engineer. “Mr. Compagnon, isn’t it customary to toast a promotion?”

“Yes,” the Chief conceded. “But he must pay for it. That’s a requirement.”

Max found himself signing a chit presented by Dumont. The price made him blink—his first trip might be a professional success, but so far it had been financial disaster. Champagne, iced in a shiny bucket, accompanied the chit and Dumont cut the wires and drew the cork with a flourish.

The Chief Engineer stood up. “Ladies and gentlemen—I give you Astrogator Jones. May he never misplace a decimal point!”

“Cheers!”—”Bravo!”—”Speech, speech!”

Max stumbled to his feet and muttered, “Thank you.”

His first watch was at eight o’clock the next morning. He ate breakfast alone and reflected happily that as a watch stander he would usually eat either before or after the passengers. He was in the control room a good twenty minutes early.

Kelly glanced up and said, “Good morning, sir.”

Max gulped. “Er—good morning, Chief!” He caught Smythe grinning behind the computer, turned his eyes hastily away.

“Fresh coffee, Mr. Jones. Will you have a cup?” Max let Kelly pour for him; while they drank Kelly quietly went over the details—acceleration schedule, position and vector, power units in use, sights taken, no special orders, etc. Noguchi relieved Smythe, and shortly before the hour Dr. Hendrix appeared.

“Good morning, sir.” “Good morning, Doctor.”

“Morning.” Hendrix accepted coffee, turned to Max. “Have you relieved the officer of the watch?” “Uh, why no, sir.”

“Then do so. It lacks less than a minute of eight.”

Max turned to Kelly and shakily saluted. “I relieve you, sir.”

“Very well, sir.” Kelly went below at once. Dr. Hendrix sat down, took out a book and started to read. Max realized with a chilly feeling that he had been pushed in, to swim or not. He took a deep breath and went over to Noguchi. “Noggy, let’s get the plates ready for the middle o’ watch sights.”

Noguchi glanced at the chronometer. “As you say, sir.” “Well… I guess it is early. Let’s take a few dopplers.”

“Aye aye, sir.” Noguchi climbed out of the saddle where he had been loafing. Max said in a low voice, “Look, Noggy, you don’t have to say’sir’ to me.”

Noguchi answered just as quietly. “Kelly wouldn’t like it if I didn’t. Better let it ride.” “Oh.” Max frowned. “Noggy? How does the rest of the Worry gang feel about it?”

Noguchi did not pretend not to understand. He answered, “Shucks, they’re all rooting for you, if you can swing it.”

“You’re sure?”

“Certain. Just as long as you don’t try to make a big hairy thing out of yourself like—well, like some I could mention.” The computerman added, “Maybe Kovak isn’t exactly cheering. He’s been having a watch of his own, you know—for the first time.”

“He’s sore?”

“Not exactly. He couldn’t expect to keep it long anyhow, not with a transition coming up. He won’t go out of his way to give you trouble, he’ll be fair.”

Max made a mental note to see what he could do to swing Kovak over to his side. The two manned the dopplerscope, took readings on stars forward of vector, checked what they found by spectrostellograph, and compared both with standard plates from the chart safe. At first Max had to remember that he was in charge; then he got so interested in fussy details of measurements that he was no longer self-conscious. At last Noguchi touched his sleeve. “Pushing ten o’clock, sir. I’d better get set up.”

“Huh? Sure, go ahead.” He reminded himself not to help Noggy; the chartsman has his prerogatives, too. But he checked the set up just as Hendrix always did, as Simes rarely did, and as Kelly sometimes did, depending on who had made it.

After they had gotten the new data Max programmed the problem on paper (there being plenty of time), then called it off to Noguchi at the computer. He thumbed the book himself, there being no “numbers boy” available. The figures were as clear in his recollection as ever, but he obeyed Hendrix’s injunction not to depend on memory.

The result worried him. They were not “in the groove.” Not that the Asgard was far out, but the discrepancy was measurable. He checked what he had done, then had Noguchi run the problem again,

using a different programming method. The result came out the same.

Sighing, he computed the correction and started to take it to Hendrix for approval. But the Astrogator still paid no attention; he sat at the console, reading a novel from the ship’s library.

Max made up his mind. He went to the console and said, “Excuse me, sir. I need to get there for a moment.” Hendrix got up without answering and found another seat. Max sat down and called the power room. “Control officer speaking. I intend to increase boost at eleven o’clock. Stand by for time check.”

Hendrix must have heard him, he thought, but the Astrogator gave no sign. Max fed in the correction, set the control chronometer to execute his wishes at eleven plus-or-minus nothing.

Shortly before noon Simes showed up. Max had already written his own log, based on Noguchi’s log, and had signed it “M. Jones.” He had hesitated, then added “C. O. o/W.” Simes went to Dr. Hendrix, saluted, and said, “Ready to relieve you, sir.”

Hendrix spoke his first word since eight o’clock. “He’s got it.”

Simes looked non-plussed, then went to Max. “Ready to relieve you.” Max recited off the situation data while Simes read the log and the order book. Simes interrupted him while he was still listing minor ship’s data. “Okay, I relieve you. Get out of my control room, Mister.” Max got out. Dr. Hendrix had already gone down.

Noguchi had loitered at the foot of the ladder. He caught Max’s eye, made a circle with thumb and finger and nodded. Max grinned at him, started to ask a question; he wanted to know if that discrepancy was a booby trap, intentionally left in by Kelly. Then he decided that it would not be fitting; he’d ask Kelly himself, or figure it from the records. “Thanks, Noggy.”

That watch turned out to be typical only in the one respect that Dr. Hendrix continued to require Max to be officer of the watch himself. He did not again keep quiet but rode Max steadily, drilling him hour after hour, requiring him to take sights and set up problems continuously, as if the Asgard were actually close to transition. He did not permit Max to program on paper but forced him to pretend that time was too short and that data must immediately go into the computer, be acted on at once. Max sweated, with remote controls in each fist and with Hendrix himself acting as “numbers boy.” The Astrogator kept pushing him for speed, speed, and more speed—never at the sacrifice of accuracy, for any error was unforgivable. But the goal was always greater speed.

Once Max objected. “Sir, if you would let me put it right into the machine, I could cut it down a lot.”

Hendrix snapped, “When you have your own control room, you can do that, if you think it wise. Now you’ll do it my way.”

Occasionally Kelly would take over as his supervisor. The Chief Computerman was formal, using such phrases as, “May I suggest, sir—” or “I think I’d do it this way, sir.” But once he broke out with, “Confound it, Max! Don’t ever pull a dumb stunt like that!”

Then he started to amend his remarks. Max grinned. “Please, Chief. For a moment you made me feel at home. Thanks.”

Kelly looked sheepish. “I’m tired, I guess. I could do with a smoke and some java.”

While they were resting Max noted that Lundy was out of earshot and said, “Chief? You know more than I’ll ever learn. Why didn’t you buck for astrogator? Didn’t you ever get a chance?”

Kelly suddenly looked bleak. “I once did,” he said stiffly. “Now I know my limitations.” Max shut up, much embarrassed. Thereafter Kelly reverted to calling him Max whenever they were alone.

Max did not see Sam for more than a week after he moved up to Baker deck. Even then the encounter was chance; he ran across him outside the Purser’s office. “Sam!”

“Good morning, sir!” Sam drew up in a smart salute with a broad grin on his face. “Huh? ‘Good morning, sir’ my foot! How’s it going, Sam?”

“Aren’t you going to return my salute? In my official capacity I can report you, you know. The Captain is very, very fussy about ship’s etiquette.”

Max made a rude noise. “You can hold that salute until you freeze, you clown.”

Sam relaxed. “Kid, I’ve been meaning to get up and congratulate you—but every time I find you’re on watch. You must live in the Worry Hole.”

“Pretty near. Look, I’ll be off this evening until midnight. What do you say I stop down to see you?” Sam shook his head. “I’ll be busy.”

“Busy how? You expecting a jail break? Or a riot, maybe?”

Sam answered soberly, “Kid, don’t get me wrong—but you stick to your end of the ship and I’ll stick to mine. No, no, keep quiet and listen. I’m as proud as if I had invented you. But you can’t fraternize in crew’s quarters, not even with the Chief Master-at-Arms. Not yet.”

“Who’ll know? Who’s to care?”

“You know blamed well that Giordano would love to tell Kuiper that you didn’t know how to behave like an officer—and Old Lady Kuiper would pass it along to the Purser. Take my advice. Have I ever thrown you a curve?”

Max dropped the matter, though he badly wanted a chin with Sam. He needed to tell him that his faked record had been breached and to consult with him as to probable consequences.

Of course, he considered as he returned to his stateroom, there wasn’t a thing to keep him from carrying out his orginal intention of jumping ship with Sam at Nova Terra—except that it was now no longer possible to imagine it. He was an officer.

They were approaching the middle transition; the control room went on watch-and-watch. But still Dr. Hendrix did not take the watch; Simes and Jones alternated. The Astrogator stood every watch with Max but required him to do the work and carry the responsibility himself. Max sweated it out and learned that practice problems and study of theory were nothing like having it matter when he had no way and no time to check. You had to be right, every time—and there was always doubt.

When, during the last twenty-four hours, the Worry gang went on continuous watch, Max thought that Dr. Hendrix would push him aside. But he did not. Simes was pushed aside, yes, but Max took the worry seat, with Hendrix bending over him and watching everything he did, but not interfering. “Great

heavens!” Max thought. “Surely he isn’t going to let me make this transition? I’m not ready for it, not yet. I’ll never keep up.”

But data was coming too fast for further worry; he had to keep processing it, see the answers, and make decisions. It was not until twenty minutes before transition that Hendrix pushed him aside without a word and took over. Max was still recovering when they burst through into a new sky.

The last approach-and-transition before Halcyon was much like the second. There were a couple of weeks of easy watches, headed by Simes, Jones, and Kovak, with both Kelly and Hendrix getting a little rest. Max liked it, both on and off watch. On watch he continued to practice, trying to achieve the inhuman speed of Dr. Hendrix. Off watch he slept and enjoyed himself. The Bifrost Lounge no longer terrified him. He now played three-dee with Ellie there, with Chipsie on his shoulder, giving advice. Ellie had long since waved her eyes at Captain Blaine and convinced him that a pet so well behaved, so well house-broken, and in particular so well mannered (she had trained the spider puppy to say, “Good morning, Captain,” whenever it saw Blaine)—in all respects so civilized should not be forced to live in a cage.

Max had even learned to swap feeble repartee with Mrs. Daigler, thinking up remarks and waiting for a chance. Ellie was threatening to teach him to dance, although he managed to stall her until resumption of watch-and-watch before transition made it impossible.

Again he found himself shoved into the worry seat for the last part of the approach. This time Dr. Hendrix did not displace him until less than ten minutes before burst through.

On the easy drop down to Halcyon Ellie’s determination won out. Max learned to dance. He found that he liked it. He had good rhythm, did not forget her instructions, and Ellie was a fragrant, pleasant armful. “I’ve done all I can,” she announced at last. “You’re the best dancer with two left feet I’ve ever met.” She required him to dance with Rebecca Weberbauer and with Mrs. Daigler. Mrs. Daigler wasn’t so bad after all, as long as she kept her mouth shut—and Rebecca was cute. He began to look forward to the fleshpots of Halcyon, that being Ellie’s stated reason for instructing him; he was to be conscripted as her escort.

Only one thing marred the final leg; Sam was in trouble. Max did not find out about it until after the trouble broke. He got up early to go on watch and found Sam cleaning decks in the silent passages of passenger quarters. He was in dungarees and wearing no shield. “Sam!”

Sam looked up. “Oh. Hi, kid. Keep your voice down, you’ll wake people.” “But Sam, what in Ned are you doing?”

“Me? I seem to be manicuring this deck.” “But why?”

Sam leaned on his broom. “Well, kid, it’s like this. The Captain and I had a difference of opinion. He won.”

“You’ve been busted?”

“Your intuition is dazzling.” “What happened?”

“Max, the less you know about it the better. Don’t fret. Sic transit gloria mundi—Tuesday is usually worse.”

“But—See here, I’ve got to grab chow and go on watch. I’ll look you up later.” “Don’t.”

Max got the story from Noguchi. Sam, it appeared, had set up a casino in an empty storeroom. He might have gotten away with it indefinitely had it remained a cards-and-dice set up, with a rake off for the house—the “house” being the Chief Master-at-Arms. But Sam had added a roulette wheel and that had been his downfall; Giordano had come to suspect that the wheel had less of the element of chance than was customary in better-run gambling halls—and had voiced his suspicion to Chief Clerk Kuiper. From there events took an inevitable course.

“When did he put in this wheel?”

“Right after we raised from Garson’s Planet.” Max thought uncomfortably of the “tea cozies” he had helped Sam bring aboard there. Noguchi went on, “Uh, didn’t you know, sir? I thought you and him were pretty close before—you know, before you moved up decks.”

Max avoided an answer and dug into the log. He found it under the previous day, added by Bennett to Simes’ log. Sam was restricted to the ship for the rest of the trip, final disciplinary action postponed until return to Terra.

That last seemed to mean that Captain Blaine intended to give Sam a chance to show good behavior before making his recommendation to the guilds—the Captain was a sweet old guy, he certainly was. But “restricted”? Then Sam would never get his chance to run away from whatever it was he was running away from. He located Sam as soon as he was off watch, digging him out of his bunkroom and taking him out into the corridor.

Sam looked at him sourly. “I thought I told you not to look me up?”

“Never mind! Sam, I’m worried about you. This’restricted’ angle… it means you won’t have a chance to—”

“Shut up!” It was a whisper but Max shut up. “Now look here,” Sam went on, “Forget it. I got my stake and that’s the important point.”

“But…”

“Do you think they can seal this ship tight enough to keep me in when I decide to leave? Now stay away from me. You’re teacher’s pet and I want to keep it that way. I don’t want you lectured about bad companions, meaning me.”

“But I want to help, Sam. I…”

“Will you kindly get up above ‘C’ deck where you belong?”

He did not see Sam again that leg; presently he stopped worrying about it. Hendrix required him to compute the planetary approach—child’s play compared with a transition—then placed Max at the conn

when they grounded. This was a titulary responsibility since it was precomputed and done on radar-automatic. Max sat with the controls under his hands, ready to override the autopilot—and

Hendrix stood behind him, ready to override him—but there was no need; the Asgard came down by the plotted curve as easy as descending stairs. The thrust beams bit in and Max reported, “Grounded, sir, on schedule.”

“Secure.”

Max spoke into the ship’s announcers. “Secure power room. Secure all space details. Dirtside routine, second section.”

Of the four days they were there he spent the first three nominally supervising, and actually learning from, Kovak in the routine ninety-day inspection and overhaul of control room instruments. Ellie was vexed with him, as she had had different plans. But on the last day he hit dirt with her, chaperoned by Mr. and Mrs. Mendoza.

It was a wonderful holiday. Compared with Terra, Halcyon is a bleak place and Bonaparte is not much of a city. Nevertheless Halcyon is an earth-type planet with breathable air, and the party from the Asgard had not set foot outdoors since Earthport, months of time and unthinkable light-years behind. The season was postaphelion, midsummer, Nu Pegasi burned warm and bright in blue sky. Mr. Mendoza hired a carriage and they drove out into green, rolling countryside behind four snuffling little Halcyon ponies.

There they visited a native pueblo, a great beehive structure of mud, conoid on conoid, and bought souvenirs—two of which turned out to have “Made in Japan” stamped inconspicuously on them.

Their driver, Herr Eisenberg, interpreted for them. The native who sold the souvenirs kept swiveling his eyes, one after another, at Mrs. Mendoza. He twittered some remarks to the driver, who guffawed. “What does he say?” she asked.

“He was complimenting you.” “So? But how?”

“Well… he says you are for a slow fire and no need for seasoning; you’d cook up nicely. And he’d do it, too,” the colonist added, “if you stayed here after dark.”

Mrs. Mendoza gave a little scream. “You didn’t tell us they were cannibals. Josie, take me back!”

Herr Eisenberg looked horrified. “Cannibals? Oh, no, lady! They don’t eat each other, they just eat us—when they can get us, that is. But there hasn’t been an incident in twenty years.”

“But that’s worse!”

“No, it isn’t, lady. Look at it from their viewpoint. They’re civilized. This old fellow would never break one of their laws. But to them we are just so much prime beef, unfortunately hard to catch.”

“Take us back at once! Why, there are hundreds of them, and only five of us.”

“Thousands, lady. But you are safe as long as Gneeri is shining.” He gestured at Nu Pegasi. “It’s bad juju to kill meat during daylight. The spirit stays around to haunt.”

Despite his reassurances the party started back. Max noticed that Eldreth had been unfrightened. He himself had wondered what had kept the natives from tying them up until dark.

They dined at the Josephine, Bonaparte’s best (and only) hotel. But there was a real three-piece

orchestra, a dance floor, and food that was at least a welcome change from the menus of the Bifrost Lounge. Many ship’s passengers and several officers were there; it made a jolly party. Ellie made Max dance between each course. He even got up his nerve to ask Mrs. Daigler for a dance, once she came over and suggested it.

During the intermission Eldreth steered him out on the adjacent balcony. There she looked up at him. “You leave that Daigler hussy alone, hear me?”

“Huh? I didn’t do anything.”

She suddenly smiled warmly. “Of course not, you big sweet ninny. But Ellie has to take care of you.” She turned and leaned on the rail. Halcyon’s early night had fallen, her three moons were chasing each other. The sky blazed with more stars than can be seen in Terra’s lonely neighborhood. Max pointed out the strange constellations and showed her the departure direction they would take tomorrow to reach transition for Nova Terra. He had learned four new skies so far, knew them as well as he knew the one that hung over the Ozarks—and he would learn many more. He was already studying, from the charts, other skies they would be in this trip.

“Oh, Max, isn’t it lovely!”

“Sure is. Say, there’s a meteor. They’re scarce here, mighty scarce.” “Make a wish! Make a wish quick!”

“Okay.” He wished that he would get off easy when it came to the showdown. Then he decided that wasn’t right; he ought to wish old Sam out of his jam—not that he believed in it, either way.

She turned and faced him. “What did you wish?”

“Huh?” He was suddenly self-conscious. “Oh, mustn’t tell, that spoils it.” “All right. But I’ll bet you get your wish,” she added softly.

He thought for a moment that he could have kissed her, right then, if he had played his cards right. But the moment passed and they went inside. The feeling stayed with him on the ride back, made him elated. It was a good old world, even if there were some tough spots. Here he was, practically a junior astrogator on his first trip—and it hadn’t been more than weeks since he was borrowing McAllister’s mules to work the crop and going barefooted a lot to save shoes.

And yet here he was in uniform, riding beside the best-dressed girl in four planets.

He fingered the insignia on his chest. Marrying Ellie wasn’t such an impossible idea now that he was an officer—if he ever decided to marry. Maybe her old man wouldn’t consider an officer—and an astrogator at that—completely ineligible. Ellie wasn’t bad; she had spunk and she played a fair game of three-dee—most girls wouldn’t even be able to learn the rules.

He was still in a warm glow when they reached the ship and were hoisted in. Kelly met him at the lock. “Mr. Jones—the Captain wants to see you.”

“Huh? Oh. G’night, Ellie—I’ll have to run.” He hurried after Kelly. “What’s up?” “Dr. Hendrix is dead.”

TRANSITION

Max questioned Kelly as they hurried up to the Captain’s cabin.

“I don’t know. I just don’t know, Max.” Kelly seemed close to tears. “I saw him before dinner—he came into the Hole to check what you and Kovak have been doing. He seemed all right. But the Purser found him dead in his bunk, the middle of the evening.” He added worriedly, “I don’t know what is going to happen now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well… if I was captain, I’d lay over and send for a relief. But I don’t know.”

For the first time Max realized that this change would make Mr. Simes the astrogator. “How long would it take to get a relief?”

“Figure it out. The Dragon is about three months behind us; she’d pick up our mail. A year about.” In the contradictions of interstellar travel the ships themselves were the fastest method of communication; a radio message (had such a silly thing been attempted) would have taken more than two centuries to reach Earth, a like time for a reply.

Max found the Captain’s cabin open and crowded with officers, all standing around, saying nothing, and looking solemn; he slipped inside without announcing himself and tried to be inconspicuous. Kelly did not go in. Captain Blaine sat at his desk with head bent. Several stragglers, members of the gay party at the Josephine, arrived after Max; First Officer Walther checked them off with his eyes, then said quietly to Blaine, “Ship’s officers all present, sir.”

Captain Blaine raised his head and Max was shocked to see how old he looked. “Gentlemen,” he said in a low voice, “you know the sad news. Dr. Hendrix was found dead in his room this evening. Heart attack. The Surgeon tells me that he passed on about two hours before he was found—and that his death was probably almost painless.”

His voice broke, then he continued. “Brother Hendrix will be placed in his last orbit two hours after we raise ship tomorrow. That is how he would have wished it, the Galaxy was his home. He gave unstintingly of himself that men should ride safely among the stars.”

He paused so long that Max thought that the old man had forgotten that others were present. But when he resumed his voice was almost brisk. “That is all, gentlemen. Astrogators will please remain.”

Max was not sure that he counted as an astrogator but the use of the plural decided him. First Officer Walther started to leave; Blaine called him back. When the four were alone, the Captain said, “Mr.

Simes, you will take over head-of-department duties at once. Mr., uh… “; his eyes rested on Max. “Jones, sir.”

“Mr. Jones will assume your routine duties, of course. This tragedy leaves you short-handed; for the rest of this trip I will stand a regular watch.”

Simes spoke up. “That isn’t necessary, Captain. We’ll make out.”

“Perhaps. But those are my wishes.” “Aye aye, sir.”

“Prepare to lift on schedule. Any questions?” “No, sir.”

“Goodnight, gentlemen. Dutch, stay a moment, please?”

Outside the door Simes started to turn away; Max stopped him. “Mr. Simes?” “Huh? Yes?”

“Any instructions for me, sir?”

Simes looked him over. “You stand your watch, Mister. I’ll handle everything else.”

The next morning Max found a crepe armband on his desk and a notice from the First Officer that mourning would continue for one week. The Asgard raised on schedule, with the Captain sitting quietly in his chair, with Simes at the control console. Max stood near the Captain, with nothing to do. Aside from the absence of Hendrix all was routine—except that Kelly was quite bad-tempered. Simes, Max admitted, handled the maneuver smartly—but it was precomputed, anyone could have done it; shucks, Ellie could have been sitting there. Or Chipsie.

Max had the first watch. Simes left him after enjoining him not to deviate from schedule without phoning him first. An hour later Kovak relieved Max temporarily and Max hurried to the passenger lock. There were five honorary pall bearers, the Captain, Mr. Walther, Simes, Max, and Kelly. Behind them, crowding the passageways, were officers and most of the crew. Max saw no passengers.

The inner door of the lock was opened; two steward’s mates carried the body in and placed it against the outer door. Max was relieved to see that it had been wrapped in a shroud covering it completely. They closed the inner door and withdrew.

The Captain stood facing the door, with Simes and the First Officer standing guard on one side of the door and, on the other side facing them, Max and Kelly. The Captain flung one word over his shoulder: “Pressure!”

Behind stood Bennett wearing a portable phone; he relayed the word to the power room. The pressure gauge over the lock door showed one atmosphere; now it started to crawl upward. The Captain took a little book from his pocket and began to read the service for the dead. Feeling that he could not stand to listen Max watched the pressure gauge. Steadily it climbed. Max reflected that the ship had already passed escape speed for the Nu Pegasi system before he had been relieved; the body would take an open orbit.

The gauge reached ten atmospheres; Captain Blaine closed his book. “Warn the passengers,” he said to Bennett.

Shortly the loudspeakers sounded: “All hands! All passengers! The ship will be in free fall for thirty seconds. Anchor yourselves and do not change position.” Max reached behind him, found one of the many hand holds always present around an airlock and pulled down so that his grip would keep his feet in contact with the deck. A warning siren howled—then suddenly he was weightless as the ship’s boost and the artificial anomalous gravity field were both cut out.

He heard the Captain say loudly and firmly, “‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.’ Let the body be cast forth.”

The pressure gauge dropped suddenly to zero and Dr. Hendrix was launched into space, there to roam the stars for all eternity.

Max felt weight again as the power room brought them back to ship-normal. The pressure gauge showed gradually building pressure. People turned away and left, their voices murmuring low. Max went up and relieved the watch.

The following morning Simes moved into Dr. Hendrix’s cabin. There was trouble with First Officer Walther about it—Max heard only third-hand reports—but the Captain upheld Simes; he stayed in the Astrogator’s quarters. The Worry Hole settled into routine not much different from what had gone before, except that Simes’ personality spread through everything. There had never been a posted watch list before; Kelly had always assigned the crewmen and the Doctor had simply informed the top-watch standers orally of his wishes. Now a typed list appeared:

FIRST WATCH Randolph Simes, Astrogator SECOND WATCH Captain Blaine

(M. Jones, acting apprentice, under instruction) THIRD WATCH Kelly, Ch. Cmptrmn. (signed) Randolph Simes, Astrogator

Below was a four-watch list for crewmen, also signed by Simes.

Max looked at it and shrugged it off. It was obvious that Simes had it in for him, though he could not figure out why. It was equally obvious that Simes did not intend to let him do any astrogation and that Max’s chances of being accepted in time as a fullfledged brother had now, with the death of Dr. Hendrix, sunk to zero. Unless, of course, Captain Blaine overrode Simes and forced a favorable report, which was extremely unlikely. Max again began to think of going along with Sam at Nova Terra.

Well, in the meantime he’d stand his watches and try to stay out of trouble. That was that.

There was only one transition to be made between Halcyon and Nova Terra, a leap of ninety-seven light-years three weeks out from Halcyon at a boost of seventeen gravities—the boost always depended on the distance from the star to the gateway, since the purpose was to arrive there just under the speed of light. The Worry Hole stayed on a watch in three for the officers and one in four for crewmen for the first two weeks. Captain Blaine showed up each watch but seemed quite willing for Max to carry out the light duties of that portion of the leg. He gave little instruction—when he did, he was likely to wander off into anecdotes, amusing but not useful.

Max tried to continue his own drill, carrying out the routine middle o’ watch computation as if it were the frantic matter it would have been near transition. Captain Blaine watched him, then said mildly, “Don’t get yourself into a state, son. Always program on paper when possible—always. And take time to check.

Hurrying causes mistakes.” Max said nothing, thinking of Dr. Hendrix, but carried out the orders.

At the end of his first watch under the Captain Max signed the log as usual. When Simes came on watch four hours later, Max was dug out of bed and required to report to the control room. Simes pointed to the log. “What’s the idea, Mister?”

“Of what, sir?”

“Signing the log. You weren’t officer of the watch.”

“Well, sir, the Captain seemed to expect it. I’ve signed a lot of logs and he’s always approved them in the past.”

“Hmm—I’ll speak to the Captain. Go below.”

At the end of his next watch, having received no instructions, Max prepared the log and took it to the Captain. “Sir? Do you want to sign this? Or shall I?”

“Eh?” Blaine looked at it. “Oh, I suppose I had better. Always let a head of department do things his own way if possible. Remember that when you are a skipper, son.” He signed it.

That settled it until the Captain started a habit of not being there, first for short periods, then for longer. The time came when he was absent at the end of the watch; Max phoned Mr. Simes. “Sir, the Captain isn’t here. What do you want me to do?”

“So what? It’s his privilege to leave the control room.”

“But Kelly is ready to relieve and the log isn’t signed. Shall I sign it? Or shall I phone him?” “Phone him? Jumping jeepers, no! Are you crazy?”

“What are your orders, sir?”

Simes was silent, then answered, “Print his name, then sign under it ‘By direction’—and after this use your head.”

They changed to watch-and-watch for the last week. Max continued under the Captain; Kelly assisted Simes. Once the shift was made Blaine became meticulous about being present in the control room and, when Max started to make the first computation, gently pushed him aside. “I had better take over, lad. We’re getting closer now.”

So Max assisted him—and became horrifyingly aware that the Captain was not the man he must once have been. His knowledge of theory was sound and he knew all the short cuts—but his mind tended to wander. Twice in one computation Max had to remind him diplomatically of details. Yet the Old Man seemed unaware of it, was quite cheerful.

It went on that way. Max began to pray that the Captain would let the new Astrogator make the transition himself—much as he despised Simes. He wanted to discuss his misgivings with Kelly—there was no one else with whom it would have been possible—but Kelly was on the opposite watch with Simes. There was nothing to do but worry.

When the last day arrived he discovered that Captain Blaine neither intended to take the ship through himself nor to let Simes do it; he had a system of his own. When they were all in the Worry Hole the Captain said, “I want to show you all a wrinkle that takes the strain out of astrogating. With no reflections on our dear brother, Dr. Hendrix, while he was a great astrogator, none better—nevertheless he worked too hard. Now here is a method taught me by my own master. Kelly, if you will have the remote controls

led out, please.”

He had them seat themselves in a half circle, himself, Simes, and Max, around the saddle of the computer, with Kelly in the saddle. Each of them was armed with programming forms and Captain Blaine held the remote-control switches in his lap. “Now the idea is for us each to work a sight in succession, first me, then Mr. Simes, then Mr. Jones. That way we keep the data flowing without strain. All right, lads, start pitching. Transition stations everyone.”

They made a dry run, then the Captain stood up. “Call me, Mr. Simes, two hours before transition. I believe you and Mr. Jones will find that this method gives you enough rest in the meantime.”

“Yes, sir. But Captain—may I make a suggestion?” “Eh? Certainly, sir.”

“This is a fine system, but I suggest that Kelly be put in the astrogating group instead of Jones. Jones is not experienced. We can put Kovak in the saddle and Lundy on the book.”

Blaine shook his head. “No. Accuracy is everything, sir, so we must have our best operator at the computer. As for Mr. Jones, this is how he must get experience—if he gets rattled, you and I can always fill in for him.” He started to leave, then added, “But Kovak can alternate with Kelly until I return. Mustn’t have anyone getting tired, that way mistakes are made.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

Simes said nothing more to Max. They started working sights, alternately, using written programming on printed forms. The sights were coming in on a twenty-minute schedule, giving each of them forty minutes for a problem if he cared to take it. Max began to think that the Captain’s method did have its points.

Certainly Dr. Hendrix had worked himself to death—ships did not wear out but men did.

He had plenty of time to work not only his own problems, but those of Simes. The data came out orally and there was nothing to keep Max from programming Simes’ sights in his head and checking on what went into the computer. So far as he could see Simes was doing all right—though of course there was no real strain involved, not yet.

They ate sandwiches and drank coffee where they sat, leaving their seats only for five minutes or so at a time. Captain Blaine showed up twenty minutes early. He smiled and said cheerily, “Everyone happy and relaxed? Now we really get down to it. I have just time for a cup of coffee.”

A few minutes later he sat down and took over the control switches from Simes. The sights were coming through on a ten-minute schedule now, still ample time. Max continued to work them all, his own on paper and the others in his head. He was always through in time to catch the data for the next sight, program it mentally and check translations as Lundy thumbed the book. It gave him a running picture of how closely they were in the groove, how much hunting they were having to do in approaching their invisible target. It seemed to him that Simes tended to over-correct and that the Captain was somewhat optimistically under-correcting, but neither was so far out as to endanger the ship.

Maybe he was wrong about the Captain—the Old Man seemed to steady down when it mattered. His own corrections, he was glad to see, the Captain applied without question.

After more than an hour with transition forty-five. minutes away Captain Blaine looked up and said, “All right, boys, we’re getting close. Slam them to us as fast as you can now.”

Smythe and Kovak, with Noguchi and Bennett running for them, slipped into high gear; data poured out

in a steady stream. Max continued to work every sight, programming his own in his head and calling off figures faster than he wrote them down. He noticed that Simes was sweating, sometimes erasing and starting over. But the figures Simes called out agreed with what Max thought they should be, from his own mental programming. Captain Blaine seemed relaxed, though he had not speeded up materially and sometimes was still using the computer when Max was ready to pour his sight into it.

At one point Simes spoke too rapidly, slurring his figures, Lundy promptly said, “Repeat, sir!”

“Confound it! Clean out your ears!” But Simes repeated. The Captain glanced up, then bent back to his own problem. As soon as the computer was free Captain Blaine called his own figures to Lundy. Max had already set up the Captain’s sight in his mind, was subconsciously listening while watching Simes.

An alarm bell rang in his mind. “Captain! I don’t check you!” Captain Blaine stopped. “Eh?”

“That program is wrong, sir.”

The Captain did not seem angry. He simply handed his programming board to Simes. “Check me, sir.” Simes glanced quickly at the figures. “I check you, sir!”

Blaine said, “Drop out, Jones. Mr. Simes and I will finish.” “But—”

“Drop out, Mister!”

Max got out of the circle, seething inside. Simes’ check of the Captain’s set up hadn’t meant anything, unless Simes had listened to and remembered (as Max had) the data as it came in. The Captain had transposed an eight and a three in the fifth and sixth decimal places—the set up would look okay unless one knew the correct figures. If Simes had even bothered to check it, he added bitterly.

But Max could not keep from noting and processing the data in his mind. Simes’ next sight should catch the Captain’s error; his correction should repair it. It would be a big correction, Max knew; traveling just under the speed of light the ship clipped a million miles in less than six seconds.

Max could see Simes hesitate as the lights from his next sight popped up on the computer and Lundy translated them back. Why, the man looked frightened! The correction called for would push the ship extremely close to critical speed—Simes paused, then ordered less than half the amount that Max believed was needed.

Blaine applied it and went on with his next problem. When the answer came out the error, multiplied by time and unthinkable velocity, was more glaring than ever. The Captain threw Simes a glance of astonishment, then promptly made a correction. Max could not tell what it was, since it was done without words by means of the switch in his lap.

Simes licked the dryness from his lips. “Captain?”

“Time for just one more sight,” Blaine answered. “I’ll take it myself, Mr. Simes.”

The data were passed to him, he started to lay his problem out on the form. Max saw him erase, then look up; Max followed his gaze. The pre-set on the chronometer above the computer showed the seconds trickling away. “Stand by!” Blaine announced.

Max looked up. The stars were doing the crawling together that marked the last moments before transition. Captain Blaine must have pressed the second switch, the one that would kick them over, while Max was watching, for the stars suddenly blinked out and were replaced instantaneously by another starry firmament, normal in appearance.

The Captain lounged back, looked up. “Well,” he said happily, “I see we made it again.” He got up and headed for the hatch, saying over his shoulder, “Call me when you have laid us in the groove, Mr. Simes.” He disappeared down the hatch.

Max looked up again, trying to recall from the charts he had studied just what piece of this new sky they were facing. Kelly was looking up, too. “Yes, we came through,” Max heard him mutter. “But where?”

Simes also had been looking at the sky. Now he swung around angrily. “What do you mean?” “What I said,” Kelly insisted. “That’s not any sky I ever saw before.”

“Nonsense, man! You just haven’t oriented yourself. Everybody knows that a piece of sky can look strange when you first glance at it. Get out the flat charts for this area; we’ll find our landmarks quickly enough.”

“They are out, sir. Noguchi.”

It took only minutes to convince everyone else in the control room that Kelly was right, only a little longer to convince even Simes. He finally looked up from the charts with a face greenish white. “Not a word to anybody,” he said. “That’s an order—and I’ll bust any man who slips. Kelly, take the watch.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“I’ll be in the Captain’s cabin.” He went below to tell Blaine that the Asgard had come out in unknown space—was lost.

ANYWHERE

Two hours later Max climbed wearily up into the Worry Hole. He had just had a bad half hour, telling the truth as he saw it. Captain Blaine had been disinclined to blame anyone but himself, but had seemed stunned and bewildered. Simes had been nasty. His unstated logic seemed to be that, since it could not possibly be his fault and since it was unthinkable to blame the Captain, it must be Max’s fault. Since Max had been relieved some minutes before transition, his theory seemed to be that Max had caused it by making a disturbance as they were approaching the critical instant—joggled their elbows, so to speak.

Mr. Walther had been present, a mute judge. They spoke of matters’ outside his profession; he had seemed to be studying their faces. Max had stuck doggedly to his story.

He found Kelly still on watch. Kovak and Smythe were taking spectrograms; Noguchi and Lundy were busy with papers. “Want to be relieved?” he said to Kelly.

Kelly looked troubled. “I’m sorry, but you can’t.” “Huh?”

“Mr. Simes phoned while you were on your way up. He says you are not to stand duty until further notice.”

“He did? Well, I’m not surprised.”

“He also said that you were to stay out of the control room.”

Max made a violent statement about Simes. He added, “Well, it was nice while it lasted. Be seeing you.”

He turned away but Kelly stopped him. “Don’t be in a hurry, Max. He won’t be up for a while. I want to know what happened. From the computer I can’t tell what goes on.”

Max told him, drawing on his memory for the figures. Kelly nodded at last. “That confirms what I’ve been able to dig out. The Captain flubbed with a transposition—easy to do. Then Simes didn’t have the guts to make a big correction when it came around to him. But one more thing you don’t know. Neither do they—yet.”

“Huh? What?”

“The power room recorder shows it. Guenther had the watch down there and gave it to me over the phone. No, I didn’t tell him anything was wrong. I just asked for the record; that’s not unusual. By the way, any excitement down below? Passengers blowing their tops?”

“Not when I came up.”

“Won’t be long. They can’t keep this quiet forever. Back to my story—things were already sour but the Captain had one last chance. He applied the correction and a whopping big one. But he applied it with the wrong sign, just backwards.”

Profanity was too weak. All Max could say was, “Oh, my!” “Yeah. Well, there’s the devil to pay and him out to lunch.” “Any idea where we are?”

Kelly pointed to Kovak and Smythe at the spectrostellograph. “They’re fishing, but no bites. Bright stars first, B-types and O’s. But there is nothing that matches the catalogues so far.”

Noguchi and Lundy were using a hand camera. Max asked, “What are they doing?”

“Photographing the records. All of ’em—programming sheets, the rough data from the chartsmen, the computer tape, everything.”

“What good will that do?”

“Maybe none. But sometimes records get lost. Sometimes they even get changed. But not this time. I’m going to have a set of my own.”

The unpleasant implications of Kelly’s comments were sinking into Max’s mind when Noguchi looked up. “That’s all, Boss.”

“Good.” Kelly turned to Max. “Do me a favor. Stick those films in your pocket and take them with you. I want them out of here. I’ll pick them up later.”

“Well… all right.” While Noguchi was unloading the camera Max added to Kelly, “How long do you

think it will take to figure out where we are, checking spectra?”

Kelly looked more troubled than ever. “Max, what makes you think there is anything to find?” “I don’t follow you.”

“Why should anything out there… ” He made a sweeping gesture. “… match up with any charts we’ve got here?”

“You mean,” Max said slowly, “that we might not be in our own galaxy at all? Maybe in another, like the Andromeda Nebula, say?”

“Maybe. But that’s not all. Look, Max, I’m no theoretical physicist, that’s sure, but so far as I know all that theory says is that when you pass the speed of light you have to go out of your own space, somewhere else. You’ve become irrelevant and it won’t hold you. But where you go, unless you are set just right for a Horst congruency, that’s another matter. The theory doesn’t say. Does it?”

Max’s head started to ache. “Gee, I don’t know.”

“Neither do I. But since we weren’t set to duck back into our own space at another point, we may be anywhere. And I mean anywhere. We may be in some other space-time totally unconnected with our own.” He glanced up at the strange stars.

Max went below feeling worse than ever. He passed Simes going up; the Astrogator scowled at him but did not say anything. When Max reached his stateroom he put the films in a drawer—then thought about it, removed the drawer and cached them in dead space behind the drawer.

Max stayed in his room and worried. He fretted over being kept out of the control room, wanting very badly himself to check the sky for known stars. B- and O-type stars—well, that was all right, but there were half a dozen other ways. Globular star clusters, now—they’d be easy to identify; snag four of them and you’d know where you were as clear as reading a street sign. Then it would be just a case of fining it down, because you’d know what to look for and where. After which you’d high-tail it for the nearest charted congruency, whether it took you a week or a year. The ship couldn’t really be lost.

But suppose they weren’t even in the right galaxy?

The thought dismayed him. If that were the case, they’d never get home before the end of time. It was chased out by another thought—suppose Kelly’s suspicion had been correct, that this was an entirely different universe, another system of space and time? What then? He had read enough philosophical fancies to know that there was no theoretical reason for such to be impossible; the Designer might have created an infinity of universes, perhaps all pretty much alike—or perhaps as different as cheese and Wednesday. Millions, billions of them, all side by side from a multidimensional point of view.

Another universe might have different laws, a different speed of light, different gravitational ballistics, a different time rate—why they might get back to find that ten million years had passed and Earth burnt to a cinder!

But the light over his desk burned steadily, his heart pumped as always, obeying familiar laws of hydraulics, his chair pressed up against him—if this was a different sort of space the differences weren’t obvious. And if it was a different universe, there was nothing to be done about it.

A knock came at the door, he let Kelly in and gave him the chair, himself sitting on the bed. “Any news?” “No. Golly I’m tired. Got those pix?”

Max took out the drawer, fished around behind it, gave them to Kelly. “Look, Chief, I got an idea.” “Spill it.”

“Let’s assume that we’re in the right galaxy, because—” “Because if we ain’t, there isn’t any point in trying!”

“Well, yes. All right, we’re in the Milky Way. So we look around, make quick sample star counts and estimate the distance and direction of the center. Then we try to identify spectra of stars in that direction, after deciding what ones we ought to look for and figuring apparent magnitudes for estimated distance. That would…”

“—save a lot of time,” Kelly finished wearily. “Don’t teach your grandpop how to suck eggs. What the deuce do you think I’ve been doing?”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s more than our revered boss thought of. While I been trying to work he’s been bellyachin’ around, finding fault, and trying to get me to say that he was dead right in everything—worrying about himself instead of worrying about his ship. Pfui! By the way, he grabbed the records just like I thought he would—’to show the Captain.’ He says.” Kelly stood up. “I’d better go.”

“Don’t rush. I’ll ring for coffee.”

“Running out of my ears now.” Kelly took the films from his pocket and looked at them dutifully. “I had Noggy make two shots of everything; this is a double set. That’s a good hidey-hole you’ve got. What say we stick one set in there and let it cool? Never can tell.”

“Kelly, you aren’t really expecting trouble over those records? Seems to me we’ve got trouble enough with the ship being lost.”

“Huh? Max, you’re going to make a good officer some day. But you’re innocent. Now I’m a suspenders and belt man. I like to take as few chances as possible. Doc Hendrix—rest his soul!—was the same way.” Kelly waited until Max had returned the spare set to the space back of the drawer, then started to leave. He paused.

“One thing I forgot to tell you, Max. We happened to come out pretty close to a star and a G-type at that.”

“Oh.” Max considered it. “Not one we know?”

“Of course not, or I would have said so. Haven’t sized it yet, but figuring normal range in the G’s we could reach it in not less than four weeks, not more than a year, at high boost. Thought you’d like to know.”

“Well, yes. Thanks. But I can’t see that it makes much difference.”

“No? Doesn’t it seem like a good idea to have a Sol-type star, with maybe Earth-type planets around it, not far off?”

“Well…”

“It does to me. The Adam-and-Eve business is rugged at best—and we might be in for a long stay.” With that he left.

No steward’s mate came to tell Max it was time for dinner; when he noticed that it was past time, he went to the lounge. Most of the passengers were already seated, although some were standing around talking. It was impossible to miss the feeling of unrest in the room. Max saw that the Captain was not at his table, nor was Mr. Walther at his. As he headed for his own table a Mr. Hornsby tried to grab his arm. Max shook him off. “Sorry, sir. I’m in a hurry.”

“Wait a minute! I want to ask you…”

“Sorry.” He hurried on and sat down. Chief Engineer Compagnon was not at the table, but the usual passengers were present. Max said, “Good evening,” and reached for his soup spoon, just to keep busy.

There was no soup to be toyed with, nor were there rolls and butter on the table, although it was ten minutes past the hour. Such things simply did not happen in Chief Steward Dumont’s jurisdiction. Come to think about it, Dumont was not in sight.

Mrs. Daigler put a hand on his arm. “Max? Tell me, dear—what is this silly rumor going around?” Max tried to maintain a poker face. “What rumor, ma’am?”

“You must have heard it! After all, you’re in astrogation. They say that the Captain turned the wrong corner or something and that we’re falling into a star.”

Max tried to give a convincing chuckle. “Who told you that? Whoever it was probably couldn’t tell a star from his elbow.”

“You wouldn’t fool your Aunt Maggie?”

“I can assure you positively that the Asgard is not falling into a star. Not even a small star.” He turned in his chair. “But it does look like something’s fallen into the galley. Dinner is awfully late.”

He remained turned, trying to avoid further questions. It did not work. Mr. Arthur called out sharply, “Mr. Jones!”

He turned back. “Yes?”

“Why stall us? I have been informed authoritatively that the ship is lost.” Max tried to look puzzled. “I don’t follow you. We seem to be in it.”

Mr. Arthur snorted. “You know what I mean! Something went wrong with that whatyoumucallit—transition. We’re lost.”

Max put on a school-teacherish manner, ticking off points on his fingers. “Mr. Arthur, I assure you that the ship is in absolutely no danger. As for being lost, I assure you just as firmly that if we are, the Captain neglected to tell me so. I was in the control room at transition and he seemed quite satisfied with it.

Would you mind telling me who has been spreading this story? It’s a serious thing, starting such rumors. People have been known to panic.”

“Well… it was one of the crew. I don’t know his name.”

Max nodded. “I thought so. Now in my experience in space… ” He went on, quoting from his uncle. “… I have learned that the only thing faster than light is the speed with which a story can spread through a ship. It doesn’t have to have any foundation, it spreads just the same.” He looked around again. “I wonder what has happened to dinner? I’d hate to go on watch hungry.”

Mrs. Weberbauer said nervously, “Then we are all right, Maxie?” “We’re all right, ma’am.”

Mrs. Daigler leaned toward him again and whispered, “Then why are you sweating, Max?”

He was saved by a steward’s mate rushing up to the table and starting to deal out plates of soup. Max stopped him when he came around and said quietly, “Jim, where’s Dumont?”

Out of the corner of his mouth the waiter said, “Cooking.” “Huh? Where’s the chef?”

The steward’s mate leaned down and whispered, “Frenchy is boiled as a judge. I guess he couldn’t take it. You know.”

Max let him go. Mr. Arthur said sharply, “What did he tell you?”

“I was trying to find out what went wrong in the galley,” Max answered. “Seems the cook incapacitated himself.” He spooned up a mouthful of the soup. “From the taste I’d say he had burned his thumb in this so-called chowder. Pretty bad, isn’t it?”

Max was saved from further evasions by the arrival of the First Officer. Mr. Walther went to the Captain’s table and banged on a glass with a spoon. “Your attention, please!”

He waited for quiet, then took a paper from his pocket. “I have an announcement to make on behalf of the Captain. Those of you who are familiar with the theory of astrogation are aware that space is changing constantly, due to the motions of the stars, and that consequently no two trips are exactly alike. Sometimes it is necessary, for this reason, to make certain changes in a ship’s routing. Such a circumstance has arisen in this present trip and the Asgard will be somewhat delayed in reaching her next destination. We regret this, but we can’t change the laws of nature. We hope that you will treat it as a minor inconvenience—or even as additional vacation, in the friendly and comfortable atmosphere of our ship. Please remember, too, that the insurance policy accompanying your ticket covers you completely against loss or damage you may be cost through the ship being behind schedule.”

He put away the paper; Max had the impression that he had not actually been reading from it. “That is all that the Captain had to say, but I want to add something myself. It has come to my attention that someone has been spreading silly rumors about this minor change in schedule. I am sorry if any of you have been alarmed thereby and I assure you that I will take very strict measures if the originator can be identified.” He risked a dignified smile. “But you know how difficult it is to trace down a bit of gossip. In any case, I want to assure you all that the Asgard is in no danger of any sort. The old girl was plying space long before any of us were born, she’ll still be going strong after we all die of old age—bless her sturdy bones!” He turned and left at once.

Max had listened in open-mouthed admiration. He came from country where the “whopper” was a respected literary art and it seemed to him that he had never heard a lie told with more grace, never seen one interwoven with truth with such skill, in his life. Piece by piece, it was impossible to say that anything

the First Officer had said was untrue; taken as a whole it was a flat statement that the Asgard was not lost—a lie if he ever heard one. He turned back toward his table mates. “Will someone pass the butter, please?”

Mr. Arthur caught his eye. “And you told us,” he said sharply, “that nothing was wrong!” Mr. Daigler growled, “Lay off him, Arthur. Max did pretty well, under the circumstances.” Mrs. Weberbauer looked bewildered. “But Mr. Walther said that everything was all right?”

Daigler looked at her with compassion. “We’re in trouble, Mama Weberbauer. That’s obvious. But all we can do is keep calm and trust the ship’s officers. Right, Max?”

“I guess that’s right, sir.”

“THIS ISN’T A PICNIC”

Max kept to his room that evening and the next day, wishing neither to be questioned by passengers nor to answer questions about why he had been relieved of duty. In consequence he missed the riot, having slept through it. He first heard of it when the steward’s mate who tended his room showed up with a black eye. “Who gave you the shiner, Garcia?”

“I’m not sure, sir. It happened in the ruckus last night.” “Ruckus? What ruckus?”

“You mean you don’t know?”

“This is the first I’ve heard of it. What happened?”

Garcia Lopez stared at the overhead. “Well—I wouldn’t want to say too much. You know how it is—nobody wants to testify against a mate. No?”

“Who asked you to peach on a mate? You don’t have to mention names—but what happened?”

“Well, sir. Some of those chicos, they ain’t got much sense.” Slowly Max learned that the unrest among the crew had been greater than that among the passengers, possibly because they understand more clearly the predicament. Some of them had consulted with Giordano’s poor-man’s vodka, then had decided to call on the Captain in a body and demand straight talk. The violence had taken place when the master-at-arms had attempted to turn them back at the companionway to “C” deck.

“Anybody hurt?”

“Not what you’d call hurt. Cut up a little. I picked this up… ” He touched his eye tenderly. “… from being too anxious to see what was going on. Slats Kovak busted an ankle.”

“Kovak! Why would he be in it?” It did not make sense that a member of the Worry gang should take part in anything so unreasonable.

“He was coming down, coming off watch, I guess. Maybe he was backing up the constable. Or maybe

he just got caught in the swinging doors. Your friend Sam Anderson was sure in the thick of it.” Sam! Max felt sick at heart—Sam in trouble again! “You’re sure?”

“I was there.”

“Uh, he wasn’t leading it, was he?”

“Oh, you got me wrong, M—Mr. Jones. He settled it. I never see a man who could use his hands like that. He’d grab two of ’em… clop! their heads would come together. Then he would grab two more.”

Max decided to come out of hiding and do two things; look up Kovak, find out how he was and what he might need or want, and second, look up Sam. But before he could leave Smythe arrived with a watch list to initial. He found that he was assigned watch-and-watch with Simes—and that he himself was due on watch immediately. He went up, wondering what had caused Simes to relent.

Kelly was in the control room; Max looked around, did not see Simes. “You got it, Chief?” “Until you relieve me. This is my last watch.”

“How’s that? Are you his pet peeve now?”

“You could say so. But not the way you think, Max. He drew up a watch list with him and me

heel-and-toe. I politely pointed out the guild rules, that I wasn’t being paid to take the responsibility of top watch.”

“Oh, brother! What did he say?”

“What could he say? He could order me in writing and I could accept in writing, with my objection to the orders entered in the log—and his neck is out a yard. Which left him his choice of putting you back on the list, asking the Captain to split it with him, or turning his cap around and relieving himself for the next few weeks. With Kovak laid up it didn’t leave him much choice. You heard about Kovak?”

“Yes. Say, what was that?” Max glanced over where Noguchi was loafing at the computer and lowered his voice. “Mutiny?”

Kelly’s eyes grew round. “Why, as I understand it, sir, Kovak slipped and fell down a companionway.” “Oh. Like that, huh?”

“That’s what it says in the log.”

“Hmm… well, I guess I had better relieve you. What’s the dope?”

They were in orbit under power for the nearby G-type star; the orders were entered in the Captain’s order book… in Simes’ handwriting but with Captain Blaine’s signature underneath. To Max it looked shaky, as if the Old Man had signed it under emotional stress. Kelly had already placed them in the groove. “Have we given up trying to find out where we are?” Max asked.

“Oh, no. Orders are to spend as much time as routine permits on it. But I’ll lay you seven to two you don’t find anything. Max, this is somewhere else entirely.”

“Don’t give up. How do you know?” “I feel it.”

Nevertheless Max spent the watch “fishing.” But with no luck. Spectrograms, properly taken and measured, are to stars what fingerprints are to men; they can be classified and comparisons made with those on file which are most nearly similar. While he found many which matched fairly closely with catalogued spectra, there was always the difference that makes one identical twin not quite like his brother.

Fifteen minutes before the end of the watch he stopped, and made sure that he was ready to be relieved. While waiting he thought about the shenanigan Kelly had pulled to get him back on duty. Good old Kelly! He knew Kelly well enough to know that he must not thank him; to do so would be to attribute to the Chief Computerman a motive which was “improper”—just wink the other eye and remember it.

Simes stomped in five minutes past the hour. He said nothing but looked over the log and records of observations Max had made. Max waited several minutes while growing more and more annoyed. At last he said, “Are you ready to relieve me, sir?”

“All in good time. I want to see first what you’ve loused up this time.” Max kept his mouth shut. Simes pointed at the log where Max had signed it followed by “C.O. o/W.” “That’s wrong, to start with. Add ‘under instruction.'”

Max breathed deeply. “Whose instruction, sir?” “Mine.”

Max hesitated only momentarily before answering, “No, sir. Not unless you are present during my watch to supervise me.”

“Are you defying me?”

“No, sir. But I’ll take written orders on that point… entered in the log.”

Simes closed the log book and looked him slowly up and down. “Mister, if we weren’t short-handed you wouldn’t be on watch. You aren’t ready for a top watch—and it’s my opinion that you won’t ever be.”

“If that’s the way you feel, sir, I’d just as lief go back to chartsman. Or steward’s mate.”

“That’s where you belong!” Simes’ voice was almost a scream. Noguchi had hung around after Lundy had relieved him; they both looked up, then turned their heads away.

Max made no effort to keep his answer private. “Very good, sir. Will you relieve me? I’ll go tell the First Officer that I am surrendering my temporary appointment and reverting to my permanent billet.”

Max expected a blast. But Simes made a visible effort to control himself and said almost quietly, “See here, Jones, you don’t have the right attitude.”

Max thought to himself, “What have I got to lose?” Aloud he said, “You’re the one who doesn’t have the right attitude, sir.”

“Eh? What’s that?”

“You’ve been riding me ever since I came to work in the Hole. You’ve never bothered to give me any instruction and you’ve found fault with everything I did. Since my probationary appointment it’s been four times worse. You came to my room and told me that you were opposed to my appointment, that you didn’t want me…”

“You can’t prove that!”

“I don’t have to. Now you tell me that I’m not fit to stand the watch you’ve just required me to stand. You’ve made it plain that you will never recommend me for permanent appointment, so obviously I’m wasting my time. I’ll go back to the Purser’s gang and do what I can there. Now, will you relieve me, sir?”

“You’re insubordinate.”

“No, sir, I am not. I have spoken respectfully, stating facts. I have requested that I be relieved—my watch was over a good half hour ago—in order that I may see the First Officer and revert to my permanent billet. As allowed by the rules of both guilds,” Max added.

“I won’t let you.”

“It’s my option, sir. You have no choice.”

Simes’ face showed that he indeed had no choice. He remained silent for some time, then said more quietly, “Forget it. You’re relieved. Be back up here at eight o’clock.”

“Not so fast, sir. You have stated publicly that I am not competent to take the watch. Therefore I can’t accept the responsibility.”

“Confound it! What are you trying to do? Blackmail me?

Max agreed in his mind that such was about it, but he answered, “I wouldn’t say so, sir. You can’t have it both ways.”

“Well—I suppose you are competent to stand this sort of watch. There isn’t anything to do, actually.” “Very good, sir. Will you kindly log the fact?”

“Huh?”

“In view of the circumstances, sir, I insist on the letter of the rules and ask you to log it.”

Simes swore under his breath, then grabbed the stylus and wrote quickly. He swung the log book around. There!”

Max read: “M. Jones is considered qualified to stand a top watch in space, not involving anomaly. (s) R. Simes, Astrogator.”

Max noted the reservation, the exception that would allow Simes to keep him from ever reaching permanent status. But Simes had stayed within the law. Besides, he admitted to himself, he didn’t want to leave the Worry gang. He comforted himself with the thought that since they were all lost together it might never matter what Simes recommended.

“Quite satisfactory, sir.”

Simes grabbed the book. “Now get out. See that you’re back here on time.”

“Aye aye, sir.” Max could not refrain from having the last word, standing up to Simes had gone to his head. “Which reminds me, sir: will you please relieve me on time after this?”

“What?”

“Under the law a man can’t be worked more than four hours out of eight, except for a logged emergency.”

“Go below!”

Max went below, feeling both exultant and sick. He had no taste for fights, never had; they left him with a twisted lump inside. He burst into his room, and almost fell over Sam.

“Sam!”

“The same. What’s eating you, boy? You look like the goblins had been chasing you.”

Max flopped on his bunk and sighed. “I feel that way, too.” He told Sam about the row with Simes.

Sam nodded approval. “That’s the way to deal with a jerk like that—insult him until he apologizes. Give him lumps enough times and he’ll eat out of your hand.”

Max shook his head dolefully. “Today was fun, but he’ll find some way to take it out on me. Oh, well!” “Not so, my lad. Keep your nose clean and wait for the breaks. If a man is stupid and

bad-tempered—which he is, I sized him up long ago—if you are smart and keep your temper, eventually

he leaves himself wide open. That’s a law of nature.”

“Maybe.” Max swung around and sat up. “Sam—you’re wearing your shield again.”

Sam stuck his thumb under the badge of office of Chief Master-at-Arms. “Didn’t you notice?” “I guess I was spinning too fast. Tell me about it—did the First decide to forgive and forget?” “Not precisely. You know about that little excitement last night?”

“Well, yes. But I understand that officially nothing happened?” “Correct. Mr. Walther knows when to pull his punches.” “What did happen? I heard you cracked some skulls together.”

“Nothing much. And not very hard. I’ve seen ships where it would have been regarded as healthy exercise to settle your dinner. Some of the lads got scared and that made them lap up happy water. Then a couple with big mouths and no forehead got the inspiration that it was their right to talk to the Captain about it. Being sheep, they had to go in a flock. If they had run into an officer, he could have sent them back to bed with no trouble. But my unfortunate predecessor happened to run into them and told them to disperse. Which they didn’t. He’s not the diplomatic type, I’m afraid. So he hollered, ‘Hey, Rube!’ in his quaint idiom and the fun began.”

“But where do you figure? You came to help him?”

“Hardly. I was standing at a safe distance, enjoying the festivities, when I noticed Mr. Walther’s bedroom slippers coming down the ladder. Whereupon I waded in and was prominent in the ending. The way to win a medal, Max, is to make sure the general is watching, then act.”

Max grinned. “Somehow I hadn’t figured you for the hero type.”

“Heaven forbid! But it worked out. Mr. Walther sent for me, ate me out, told me that I was a scoundrel and a thief and a nogoodnick—then offered me my shield back if I could keep order below decks. I

looked him in the eye, a sincere type look, and told him I would do my best. So here I am.” “I’m mighty pleased, Sam.”

“Thanks. Then he looked me in the eye and told me that he had reason to suspect—as if he didn’t know!—that there might be a still somewhere in the ship. He ordered me to find it, and then destroy any liquor I found.”

“So? How did Mr. Gee take that?”

“Why, Fats and I disassembled his still and took the pieces back to stores, then we locked up his stock in trade. I pleaded with him not to touch it until the ship was out of its mess. I explained that I would break both his arms if he did.”

Max chuckled. “Well, I’m glad you’re back in good graces. And it was nice of you to come tell me about it.” He yawned. “Sorry. I’m dead for sleep.”

“I’ll vamoose. But I didn’t come to tell you, I came to ask a question.” “Huh? What?”

“Have you seen the Skipper lately?”

Max thought back. “Not since transition. Why?”

“Nor has anyone else. I thought he might be spending his time in the Worry Hole.”

“No. Come to think, he hasn’t been at his table either—at least when I’ve been in the lounge.”

“He’s been eating in his cabin.” Sam stood up. “Very, very interesting. Mmm… I wouldn’t talk about it, Max.”

Simes was monosyllabic when Max relieved him. Thereafter they had no more words; Simes acted as if Max did not exist except for the brief formalities in relieving. The Captain did not show up in the control room. Several times Max was on the point of asking Kelly about it, but each time decided not to. But there were rumors around the ship—the Captain was sick, the Captain was in a coma, Walther and the Surgeon had relieved him of duty, the Captain was constantly at his desk, working out a new and remarkable way to get the ship back to where it belonged.

By now it was accepted that the ship was lost, but the time for hysteria had passed; passengers and crew were calm and there seemed to be general consent that the decision to put down around the solar-type star toward which they were headed was the only reasonable decision. They were close enough now that it had been determined that the star did have planets—no G-class star had ever been found to be without planets, but to pick them up on a stereoplate was consoling.

It came to a choice between planet #3 and planet #4. Bolometric readings showed the star to have a surface temperature slightly over 6000° Kelvin, consistent with its spectrum; it was not much larger than Father Sol; calculated surface temperatures for the third and fourth planets gave a probability that the third might be uncomfortably hot whereas number four might be frigid. Both had atmospheres.

A fast hyperboloid swing past both settled the matter. The bolometer showed number three to be too hot and even number four to be tropical. Number four had a moon which the third did not—another

advantage for four, for it permitted, by examining the satellite’s period, an easy calculation of its mass; from that and its visible diameter its surface gravity was a matter of substitution in classic Newtonian formula… ninety-three percent of Earth-normal, comfortable and rather low in view of its over

ten-thousand-mile diameter. Absorption spectra showed oxygen and several inert gases.

Simes assisted by Kelly placed the Asgard in a pole-to-pole orbit to permit easy examination—Max, as usual, was left to chew his nails.

The Captain did not come to the control room even to watch this maneuver.

They hung in parking orbit while their possible future home was examined from the control room and stared at endlessly from the lounge. It was in the lounge that Ellie tracked Max down. He had hardly seen her during the approach, being too busy and too tired with a continuous heel-and-toe watch and in the second place with much on his mind that he did not want to have wormed out of him. But, once the orbit was established and power was off, under standard doctrine Simes could permit the watch to be taken by crewmen—which he did and again told Max to stay out of the control room.

Max could not resist the fascination of staring at the strange planet; he crowded into the lounge along with the rest. He was standing back and gazing over heads when he felt his arm grabbed. “Where have you been?”

“Working.” He reached out and caressed Chipsie; the spider puppy leaped to his shoulders and started searching him.

“Hmmmph! You don’t work all the time. Do you know that I sent nine notes to your room this past week?”

Max knew. He had saved them but had not answered. “Sorry.”

“Sorry he says. Never mind—Max, tell me all about it.” She turned and looked out. “What have they named it? Is there anybody on it? Where are we going to land? When are we going to land? Max, aren’t you excited?”

“Whew! They haven’t named it yet—we just call it’the planet’ or ‘number four.’ Kelly wants to name it ‘Hendrix.’ Simes is hedging; I think he wants to name it after himself. The Captain hasn’t made any decision that I know of.”

“They ought to name it ‘Truth’ or ‘Hope’ or something like that. Where is the Captain, Max? I haven’t seen the old dear for days.”

“He’s working. This is a busy time for him, of course.” Max reflected that his evasion might be true. “About your other questions, we haven’t seen any signs of cities or towns or anything that looks like civilization.”

“What do you mean by ‘civilization’? Not a lot of dirty old cities surely?”

Max scratched his head and grinned. “You’ve got me. But I don’t see how you could have it, whatever it is, without cities.”

“Why not? Bees have cities, ants have cities, challawabs have cities. None of them is civilized. I can think of a lovely civilization that would just sit around in trees and sing and think beautiful thoughts.”

“Is that what you want?”

“No, it would bore me to death. But I can think about it, can’t I? You didn’t say when we were going to land?”

“I don’t know. When they decide it’s safe.”

“I wish they would hurry. Isn’t it thrilling? Just like Robinson Crusoe, or Swiss Family Robinson—I can’t keep those two straight. Or the first men on Venus.”

“They died.”

“So they did. But we won’t, not on—” She waved her hand at the lovely green and blue and cloudy-white globe. “—not on, uh, I’m going to call it ‘Charity’ because that’s what it looks like.”

Max said soberly, “Ellie, don’t you realize this is serious?” He kept his voice low in order not to alarm others. “This isn’t a picnic. If this place doesn’t work out, it might be pretty awful.”

“Why?”

“Look, don’t quote me and don’t talk about it. But I don’t think any of us will ever get home again.”

She sobered momentarily, then shrugged and smiled. “You can’t frighten me. Sure, I’d like to go home—but if I can’t, well, Charity is going to be good to us. I know it.”

Max shut up.

“—OVER A HUNDRED YEARS—”

The Asgard landed on Charity the following day. Eldreth affixed her choice by the statistical process of referring to the planet by that name, assuming that it was official, and repeating it frequently.

When word was passed that landing would commence at noon, ship’s time, Max went to the control room and simply assumed that it was his right to be present. Simes looked at him sourly but said nothing—for an evident reason: Captain Blaine was present.

Max was shocked at his appearance. The Captain seemed to have aged ten to fifteen years since the bad transition. In place of his habitual cheerful expression was one that Max had trouble tagging—until he recalled that he had seen it on horses, on horses too old to work but still working—head bent, eyes dull, mute and resigned against a fate both inescapable and unbearable. The old man’s skin hung loose, as if he had not eaten for days or weeks. He seemed hardly interested in what was going on around him.

He spoke only once during the maneuver. Just before the chronometer showed noon Simes straightened up from the console and looked at his skipper. Blaine lifted his head and said in a hoarse whisper, “Take her down, Mister.”

An Imperial military ship in landing on a strange spot would normally guide a radar-beacon robot down first, then home in on the beacon. But the Asgard was a merchant liner; she expected to land nowhere but at ports equipped with beams and beacons and other aids. Consequently the landing was made blind by precomputed radar-automatic and was planned for an open valley selected by photograph. The planet was densely wooded in most areas, choice was limited.

Simes presented a picture of the alert pilot, hands poised at the controls, eyes on the radar screen portraying the view below them, while racked in front of him were comparison photographs, radar and visual. The let down was without incident; starry black sky gave way to deep purple, then to blue. There was not even a jar as the ship touched, for its private gravity inside its Horstian field kept them from feeling impressed acceleration. Max knew they were down when he saw Simes cut in the thrust beams to cradle the ship upright.

Simes said to the microphone, “Power room, start auxiliaries and secure. All hands, dirtside routine, first section.” He turned to Blaine. “Grounded, Captain.”

Blaine’s lips shaped the words, “Very good, sir.” He got up and shuffled toward the hatch. When he had gone Simes ordered, “Lundy, take stand-by watch. The rest of you clear the control room.”

Max went down with Kelly. When they reached “A” deck Max said grudgingly, “It was a smart landing I’ll have to admit.”

“Thanks,” said Kelly.

Max glanced at him. “So you calculated it?” “I didn’t say that. I just said, ‘Thanks.'”

“So? Well, you’re welcome.” Max felt his weight pulse and suddenly he was a trifle lighter. “They cut the field. Now we’re really down.”

He was about to invite Kelly into his room for the inevitable coffee when the ship’s speakers sounded: “All hands! All passengers! Report to Bifrost Lounge for an important announcement. Those on watch are ordered to listen in by phone.”

“What’s up?” asked Max. “Why wonder? We’ll go see.”

The lounge was crowded with passengers and crew. First Officer Walther stood near the Captain’s table, counting the crowd with his eyes. Max saw him speak to Bennett, who nodded and hurried away. The large view port was across the lounge from Max; he stretched on his toes and tried to see out. All he could see was hilltops and blue sky.

There was a lessening of the murmur of voices; Max looked around to see Bennett preceding Captain Blaine through the crowd. The Captain went to his table and sat down; the First Officer glanced at him, then cleared his throat loudly. “Quiet, please.”

He went on, “I’ve called you together because Captain Blaine has something he wants to say to you.” He stopped and stepped back respectfully.

Captain Blaine slowly stood up, looked uncertainly around. Max saw him square his thin shoulders and lift his head. “Men,” he said, his voice suddenly firm and strong. “My guests and friends—” he went on, his voice sinking. There was a hush in the lounge, Max could hear the Captain’s labored breathing. He again asserted control of himself and continued, “I have brought you… I have brought you as far as I can… ” His voice trailed off. He looked at them for a long moment, his mouth trembling. It seemed impossible for him to continue. The crowd started to stir.

But he did continue and they immediately quieted. “I have something else to say,” he began, then paused. This pause was longer, when he broke it his voice was a whisper. “I’m sorry. God keep you all.” He

turned and started for the door.

Bennett slipped quickly in front of him. Max could hear him saying quietly and firmly: “Gangway, please. Way for the Captain.” No one said anything until he was gone, but a woman passenger at Max’s elbow was sobbing softly.

Mr. Walther’s sharp, clear voice rang out. “Don’t go away, anyone! I have additional announcements to make.” His manner ignored what they had all just seen. “The time has come to sum up our present situation. As you can see, this planet is much like our Mother Earth. Tests must be made to be sure that the atmosphere is breathable, and so forth; the Surgeon and the Chief Engineer are making them now. But it seems likely that this new planet will prove to be eminently suitable for human beings, probably even more friendly than Earth.

“So far, we have seen no indications of civilized life. On the whole, that seems a good thing. Now as to our resources—The Asgard carries a variety of domestic animals, they will be useful and should be conserved as breeding stock. We have an even wider variety of useful plants, both in the ship’s hydroponic gardens and carried as seeds. We have a limited but adequate supply of tools. Most important of all the ship’s library contains a fair cross-section of our culture. Equally important, we ourselves have our skills and traditions…”

“Mr. Walther!”

“Yes, Mr. Hornsby?”

“Are you trying to tell us that you are dumping us here?”

Walther looked at him coldly. “No. Nobody is being’dumped’ as you put it. You can stay in the ship and you will be treated as a guest as long as the Asgard—or you yourself—is alive. Or until the ship reaches the destination on your ticket. If it does. No, I have been trying to discuss reasonably an open secret; this ship is lost.”

A voiceless sigh went through the room. All of them knew it, but up till now it had not been admitted officially. The flat announcement from a responsible officer echoed like the sentence of a court.

“Let me state the legal position,” Mr. Walther went on. “While this ship was in space you passengers were subject to the authority of the Captain, as defined by law, and through him you were subject to me and the other ship’s officers. Now we have landed. You may go freely… or you may stay. Legally this is an unscheduled stopover; if the ship ever leaves here you may return to it and continue as passengers.

That is my responsibility to you and it will be carried out. But I tell you plainly that at present I have no hope to offer that we will ever leave here—which is why I spoke of colonizing. We are lost.”

In the rear of the room a woman began to scream hysterically, with incoherent sounds of, “… home! I want to go home! Take me…”

Walther’s voice cut through the hubbub. “Dumont! Flannigan! Remove her. Take her to the Surgeon.”

He continued as if nothing had happened. “The ship and the ship’s crew will give every assistance possible, consistent with my legal responsibility to keep the ship in commission, to aid any of you who wish to colonize. Personally I think…”

A surly voice cut in, “Why talk about ‘law’? There is no law here!”

Walther did not even raise his voice. “But there is. As long as this ship is in commission, there is law, no matter how many light-years she may be from her home port. Furthermore, while I have no authority

over any who choose to leave the ship, I strongly advise you to make it your first act dirtside to hold a town meeting, elect officers, and found a constitutional government. I doubt that you can survive otherwise.”

“Mr. Walther.” “Yes, Mr. Daigler?”

“This is obviously no time for recriminations…” “Obviously!”

Daigler grinned wryly. “So I won’t indulge, though I could think of some. But it happens that I know something professionally about the economics of colonizing.”

“Good! We’ll use your knowledge.”

“Will you let me finish? A prime principle in maintaining a colony out of touch with its supply base is to make it large enough. It’s a statistical matter, too small a colony can be overwhelmed by a minor setback. It’s like going into a dice game with too little money: three bad rolls and you’re sunk. Looking around me, it’s evident that we have much less than optimal minimum. In fact—”

“It’s what we have, Mr. Daigler.”

“I see that. I’m not a wishful thinker. What I want to know is, can we count on the crew as well?”

Mr. Walther shook his head. “This ship will not be decommissioned as long as there are men capable of manning it. There is always hope, no matter how small, that we may find a way home. It is even possible that an Imperial survey ship might discover us. I’m sorry—no.”

“That isn’t quite what I asked. I was two jumps ahead of you, I figured you wouldn’t let the crew colonize. But can we count on their help? We seem to have about six females, give or take one, who will probably help to carry on the race. That means that the next generation of our new nation is going to be much smaller. Such a colony would flicker and die, by statistical probability—unless every man jack of us works ten hours a day for the rest of his life, just to give our children a better chance of making it. That’s all right with me, if we all make an all-out try. But it will take all the manpower we have to make sure that some young people who aren’t even born yet get by thirty years from now. Will the crew help?”

Mr. Walther said quietly, “I think you can count on it.” “Good enough.”

A small, red-faced man whose name Max had never learned interrupted. “Good enough, my eye! I’m going to sue the company, I’m going to sue the ship’s officers individually. I’m going to shout it from the… ” Max saw Sam slipping through the crowd to the man’s side, the disturbance stopped abruptly.

“Take him to the Surgeon,” Mr. Walther said wearily. “He can sue us tomorrow. The meeting is adjourned.”

Max started for his room. Eldreth caught up with him. “Max! I want to talk with you.” “All right.” He started back toward the lounge.

“No, I want to talk privately. Let’s go to your room.”

“Huh? Mrs. Dumont would blow her top, then she’d tell Mr. Walther.”

“Bother with all that! Those silly rules are dead. Didn’t you listen at the meeting?” “You’re the one who didn’t listen.”

He took her firmly by the arm, turned her toward the public room. They ran into Mr. and Mrs. Daigler coming the other way. Daigler said, “Max? Are you busy?”

“Yes,” answered Eldreth. “No,” said Max.

“Hmm… you two had better take a vote. I’d like to ask Max some questions. I’ve no objection to your being with us, Eldreth, if you will forgive the intrusion.

She shrugged. “Oh, well, maybe you can handle him. I can’t.”

They went to the Daiglers’ stateroom, larger and more luxurious than Max’s and possessing two chairs. The two women perched on the bed, the men took the chairs. Daigler began, “Max, you impress me as a man who prefers to give a straight answer. There are things I want to know that I didn’t care to ask out there. Maybe you can tell me.”

“I will if I can.”

“Good. I’ve tried to ask Mr. Simes, all I get is a snottily polite brush off. I haven’t been able to get in to see the Captain—after today I see that there wouldn’t have been any point anyhow. Now, can you tell me, with the mathematics left out, what chance we have to get home? Is it one in three, or one in a thousand—or what?”

“Uh, I couldn’t answer it that way.” “Answer it your own way.”

“Well, put it this way. While we don’t know where we are, we know positively where we aren’t. We aren’t within, oh, say a hundred light-years of any explored part of the Galaxy.”

“How do you know? It seems to me that’s a pretty big space to be explored in the weeks since we got off the track.”

“It sure is. It’s a globe twelve hundred trillion miles thick. But we didn’t have to explore it, not exactly.” “Then how?”

“Well, sir, we examined the spectra of all first magnitude stars in sight—and a lot more. None of them is in our catalogues. Some are giants that would be first magnitude anywhere within a hundred light-years of them—they’d be certain to be in the catalogues if a survey ship had ever been that close to them. So we are absolutely certain that we are a long, long way from anywhere that men have ever been before.

Matter of fact, I spoke too conservatively. Make it a globe twice as thick, eight times as big, and you’d still be way over on the conservative side. We’re really lost.”

“Mmm… I’m glad I didn’t ask those questions in the lounge. Is there any possibility that we will ever know where we are?”

“Oh, sure! There are thousands of stars left to examine. Chief Kelly is probably shooting one this minute.”

“Well, then, what are the chances that we will eventually find ourselves?”

“Oh, I’d say they were excellent—in a year or two at the outside. If not from single stars, then from globular star clusters. You realize that the Galaxy is a hundred thousand light-years across, more or less, and we can see only stars that are fairly close. But the globular clusters make good landmarks, too.” Max added the mental reservation, if we aren’t in the wrong galaxy. There seemed no point in burdening them with that dismaying possibility.

Daigler relaxed and took out a cigar. “This is the last of my own brand, but I’ll risk smoking it now. Well, Maggie, I guess you won’t have to learn how to make soap out of wood ashes and hog drippings after all. Whether it’s one year or five, we can sweat it out and go home.”

“I’m glad.” She patted her ornate coiffure with soft, beautifully manicured hands. “I’m hardly the type for it.”

“But you don’t understand!” “Eh? What’s that, Max?”

“I didn’t say we could get back. I just said I thought it was fairly certain we would find out where we are.”

“What’s the difference? We find out, then we go home.”

“No, because we can’t be less than a hundred light-years from explored space.”

“I don’t see the hitch. This ship can do a hundred light-years in a split second. What was the longest leap we made this cruise? Nearly five hundred light-years, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, but—” Max turned to Eldreth. “You understand? Don’t you?” “Well, maybe. That folded-scarf thing you showed me?”

“Yes, yes. Mr. Daigler, sure the Asgard can transit five hundred light-years in no time—or any other distance. But only at calculated and surveyed congruencies. We don’t know of any within a hundred light-years, at least… and we won’t know of any even if we find out where we are because we know where we aren’t. Follow me? That means that the ship would have to travel at top speed for something over a hundred years and maybe much longer, just for the first leg of the trip.”

Mr. Daigler stared thoughtfully at his cigar ash, then took out a pen knife and cut off the burning end. “I’ll save the rest. Well, Maggie, better study up on that homemake soap deal. Thanks, Max. My father was a farmer, I can learn.”

Max said impulsively, “I’ll help you, sir.”

“Oh yes, you did tell us that you used to be a farmer, didn’t you? You should make out all right.” His eyes swung to Eldreth. “You know what I would do, if I were you kids? I’d get the Captain to marry you right away. Then you’d be all set to tackle colonial life right.”

Max blushed to his collar and did not look at Ellie. “I’m afraid I can’t. I’m a crew member, I’m not eligible to colonize.”

Mr. Daigler looked at him curiously. “Such devotion to duty. Well, no doubt Ellie can take her pick among the single men passengers.”

Eldreth smoothed her skirt demurely. “No doubt.” “Come, Maggie. Coming, Eldreth?”

CHARITY

“Charityville” was a going concern within a week. It had a mayor, Mr. Daigler, a main street, Hendrix Avenue, even its first wedding, performed by the mayor in the presence of the villagers—Mr. Arthur and little Becky Weberbauer. The first cottage, now building, was reserved for the newlyweds. It was a log cabin and a very sloppy job, for, while there were those among them who had seen pictures or had even seen log cabins, there was no one who had ever built one before.

There was an air of hope, of common courage, even of gaiety in the new community. The place was fragrant with new starts, forward-looking thoughts. They still slept in the ship and breakfasted there, then carried their lunches and labored mightily, men and women alike, through the short day—Charity spun on her axis in twenty-one-plus hours. They returned at nightfall, dined in the ship, and some found energy to dance a bit before going to bed.

Charity seemed to be all that her name implied. The days were balmy, the nights were mild—and beautiful beyond anything yet found in the Galaxy. Its star (they simply called it “the Sun”) was accompanied by more comets than had yet been seen around any star. A giant with a wide tail stretched from zenith to western horizon, diving at their Sun. Another, not yet so grand but awesome enough to have caused watchers for the end of the world on Earthly hilltops, approached from the north, and two more decorated the southern sky with lace of icy fire.

Concomitant with comets was, necessarily, an equal abundance of meteors. Every night was a shower of falling stars, every day ended like Solar Union Day with a display of fireworks.

They had seen no dangerous animals. Some of the settlers reported seeing centaurlike creatures about the size of Shetland ponies, but they seemed timid and had scurried away when discovered. The prevalent life form appeared to be marsupial mammals in various sizes and shapes. There were no birds, but there was another sort of flying life not found elsewhere—jellyfishlike creatures four or five feet high with dangling tendrils, animated balloons. They appeared to have muscular control over their swollen bladders for they could rise and fall, and could even, by some not evident means, go upwind against a gentle breeze—in higher winds they anchored to treetops, or floated free and let the wind carry them.

They seemed curious about Charityville and would hang over a work site, turning slowly around as if to see everything. But they never got within reach. Some of the settlers wanted to shoot one down and examine it; Mayor Daigler forbade it.

There was another animal too—or might be. They were called “peekers” because all that anyone had seen was something that ducked quickly behind a rock or tree when anyone tried to look. Between the possibly mythical peeker and the ubiquitous balloons the colonists felt that their new neighbors took a deep but not unfriendly interest in what they were doing.

Maggie Daigler—she was “Maggie” to everyone now—had put away her jewels, drawn dungarees from ship’s stores, and chopped off her hair. Her nails were short and usually black with grime. But she looked years younger and quite happy.

In fact, everyone seemed happy but Max.

Ellie was avoiding him. He cursed himself and his big mouth thrice daily and four times at night. Sure, Daigler had spoken out of turn—but was that any reason for him to open his mouth and put his foot in it? Of course, he had never figured on marrying Ellie—but shucks, maybe they were stuck here forever. “Probably,” not “maybe,” he corrected. The ban on joining the colony would be let up in time—in which case, what was the sense in getting in bad with the only eligible girl around?

An astrogator ought to be a bachelor but a farmer needed a wife. Mighty nice to have some one cooking the turnip greens and jointing a chicken while a man was out in the fields. He ought to know—Maw had let it slide often enough. Ellie wouldn’t be like Maw. She was strong and practical and with just a little teaching would do all right.

Besides she was about the prettiest thing he ever saw, if you looked at her right.

When Mr. and Mrs. Dumont, by special dispensation, joined the colony it caused him to act. Since the steward and stewardess would have no duties in a ship without passengers no one could reasonably object—but it gave Max an approach. He went to see the First Officer.

“Probationary Apprentice Jones, sir.”

Walther glanced up. “I think I’d say ‘Assistant Astrogator Jones’ if I were you. Closer to the facts. Come in.”

“Uh, that’s what I wanted to speak with you about, sir.” “So? How?”

“I want to revert to my billet.”

“Eh? Why would you rather be a chartsman than an astrogator? And what difference does it make—now?”

“No, sir. I’m electing to resume my permanent appointment, steward’s mate third.” Walther looked amazed. “There must be more to this. Explain yourself.”

With much stammering Max explained his trouble with Simes. He tried to be fair and finished with the dismal feeling that he had sounded childish. Walther said, “You’re sure about this? Mr. Simes has said nothing to me about you.”

“He wouldn’t, sir. But it’s true. You can ask Kelly.”

Walther thought for a while. “Mr. Jones, I wouldn’t attach too much importance to this. At your age these conflicts of personality often seem more serious than they are. My advice is to forget it and do your work. I’ll speak to Mr. Simes about his keeping you out of the control room. That isn’t proper and I am surprised to hear it.”

“No, sir.”

“‘No, sir’ what?”

“I want to return to steward’s mate.” “Eh? I don’t understand you.”

“Because, sir, I want to join the colony. Like Chief Steward Dumont.”

“Oh… A light begins to dawn.” Walther slapped the desk emphatically. “Absolutely no! Under no circumstances.”

“Sir?”

“Please understand me. This is not discrimination. If you were a steward’s mate and nothing else, I would consider your request—under the special circumstances which I believe pertain. But you are an astrogator. You know our situation. Dr. Hendrix is dead. Captain Blaine—well, you have seen him. He may recover, I cannot plan on it. Mr. Jones, as long as there is any faint hope that this ship will ever lift again, as long as we have crew to work her, no astrogator, no chartsman, no computerman will be relieved from duty for any reason whatsoever. You see that, don’t you?”

“I guess so, sir. Uh, aye aye, sir.”

“Good. By the way, keep this to yourself, but as soon as the colony can get along without us temporarily, I want the ship placed in a parking orbit so that you specialists can maintain a search. You can’t work very well through this atmosphere, can you?”

“No, sir. Our instruments were designed for open space.”

“So we must see that you get it.” The First Officer sat silent, then added, “Mr. Jones—Max, isn’t it? May I speak to you man to man?”

“Uh? Certainly, sir.”

“Mmm… Max, this is none of my business, but treat it as fatherly advice. If you have an opportunity to marry—and want to—you don’t have to join the colony to do it. If we stay, it won’t matter in the long run whether you are crew or a charter member of the village. If we leave, your wife goes with you.”

Max’s ears burned. He could think of nothing to say.

“Hypothetical question, of course. But that’s the proper solution.” Walther stood up. “Why don’t you take the day off? Go take a walk or something. Fresh air will do you good. I’ll speak to Mr. Simes.”

Instead, Max went looking for Sam, did not find him in the ship, discovered that he had gone dirtside. He followed him down and walked the half mile to Charityville.

Before he reached the building that was being worked on he saw a figure separate itself from the gang. He soon saw that it was Eldreth. She stopped in front of him, a sturdy little figure in dirty dungarees. She planted her feet and set fists on her hips.

“Uh, howdy, Ellie.”

“Up to your old tricks! Avoiding me. Explain yourself.”

The injustice of it left him stuttering. “But… Now see here, Ellie, it’s not that way at all. You’ve been…”

“A likely story. You sound like Chipsie caught with her hand in a candy dish. I just wanted to tell you, you reluctant Don Juan, that you have nothing to worry about. I’m not marrying anyone this season. So you can resume the uneven tenor of your ways.”

“But, Ellie… ” he started desperately.

“Want me to put it in writing? Put up a bond?” She looked fiercely at him, then began to laugh, wrinkling her nose. “Oh, Max, you large lout, you arouse the eternal maternal in me. When you are upset your face gets as long as a mule’s. Look, forget it.”

“But, Ellie… Well, all right.” “Pals?”

“Pals.”

She sighed. “I feel better. I don’t know why, but I don’t like to be on the outs with you. Where were you going?”

“Uh, nowhere. Taking a walk.”

“Fine. I’ll go too. Half a sec while I gather in Chipsie.” She turned and called, “Mister Chips! Chipsie!” “I don’t see her.”

“I’ll get her.” She ran off, to return quickly with the spider puppy on her shoulder and a package in her hand. “I picked up my lunch. We can split it.”

“Oh, we won’t be gone that long. Hi, Chipsie baby.” “Hi, Max. Candy?”

He dug into a pocket, found a sugar cube that he had saved several days ago for the purpose; the spider puppy accepted it gravely and said, “Thank you.”

“Yes, we will,” Ellie disagreed, “because some of the men saw a herd of those centaur ponies the other side of that ridge. It’s quite a hike.”

“I don’t think we ought to go that far,” he said doubtfully. “Won’t they miss you?”

“I’ve been doing my share. See my callouses?” She stuck out a grimy paw. “I told Mr. Hornsby that I was suddenly come down with never-get-overs and he would have to find somebody else to hold while he hammered.”

He was pleased to give in. They went up rising ground and into an arroyo and soon were in a grove of primitive conifers. Mr. Chips jumped down from Ellie’s shoulders and scurried up a tree. Max stopped. “Hadn’t we better catch her?”

“You worry too much. Chipsie wouldn’t run away. She’d be scared to death. Chipsie! Here, honey!”

The spider puppy hustled through branches, got directly above them, dropped a cone on Max. Then she laughed, a high giggle. “See? She just wants to play.”

The ridge was high and Max found that his hillbilly’s wind had been lost somewhere among the stars. The arroyo meandered slowly upwards. He was still woodsman enough to keep a sharp eye out for landmarks and directions. At weary last they topped the crest. Ellie paused. “I guess they’re gone,” she said disappointedly, staring out over flatter country below them. “No! Look over there. See them! About two dozen little black dots.”

“Uh huh. Yeah.”

“Let’s go closer. I want a good look.”

“I wonder if that’s smart? We’re a far piece from the ship and I’m not armed.” “Oh, they’re harmless.”

“I was thinking of what else might be in these woods.”

“But we’re already in the woods, and all we’ve seen are the hobgoblins.” She referred to the balloonlike creatures, two of which had trailed them up the arroyo. The humans had grown so used to their presence that they no longer paid them any attention.

“Ellie, it’s time we went back.” “No.”

“Yes. I’m responsible for you. You’ve seen your centaurs.”

“Max Jones, I’m a free citizen. You may be starting back; I’m going to have a close look at those underslung cow ponies.” She started down.

“Well—Wait a moment. I want to get my bearings.” He took a full look around, fixed the scene forever in his mind, and followed her. He was not anxious to thwart her anyhow; he had been mulling over the notion that this was a good time to explain why he had said what he had said to Mr. Daigler—and perhaps lead around to the general subject of the future. He wouldn’t go so far as to talk about marriage—though he might bring it up in the abstract if he could figure out an approach.

How did you approach such a subject? You didn’t just say, “There go the hobgoblins, let’s you and me get married!”

Ellie paused. “There go the hobgloblins. Looks as if they were heading right for the herd.” Max frowned. “Could be. Maybe they talk to them?”

She laughed. “Those things?” She looked him over carefully. “Maxie, I’ve just figured out why I bother with you.”

Huh? Maybe she was going to lead up to it for him. “Why?”

“Because you remind me of Putzie. You get the same puzzled look he does.” “‘Putzie?’ Who is Putzie?”

“Putzie is the man my father shipped me off to Earth to get me away from—and the reason I crushed out of three schools to get back to Hespera. Only Daddy will probably have shipped him off, too. Daddy is tricky. Come here, Chipsie. Don’t go so far.”

She continued, “You’ll love Putzie. He’s nice. Stop it, Chipsie.”

Max despised the man already. “I don’t like to fret you,” he said, “but it’s a long way to Hespera.”

“I know. Let’s not borrow trouble.” She looked him over again. “I might keep you in reserve, if you weren’t so jumpy.”

Before he could think of the right answer she had started down.

The centaurs—it seemed the best name, though the underparts were not much like horses and the parts that stuck up were only vaguely humanoid—clustered near the foot of the hill, not far out from the trees. They weren’t grazing, it was hard to tell what they were doing. The two hobgoblins were over the group, hovering as if in interest just as they did with humans. Ellie insisted on going to the edge of the clearing to see them better.

They reminded Max of clowns made up to look like horses. They had silly, simple expressions and apparently no room for a brain case. They appeared to be marsupials, with pouches almost like bibs. Either they were all females or with this species the male had a pouch too. Several little centaurs were cavorting around, in and out the legs of their elders.

One of the babies spied them, came trotting toward them, sniffling and bleating. Behind it the largest adult pulled out of the herd to watch the young one. The colt scampered up and stopped about twenty feet away.

“Oh, the darling!” Ellie said and ran out a few feet, dropped to one knee. “Come here, pet. Come to mama.”

Max started for her. “Ellie! Come back here!”

The large centaur reached into its pouch, hauled out something, swung it around its head like a gaucho’s throwing rope. “Ellie!”

He reached her just as it let go. The thing struck them, wound around and held them. Ellie screamed and Max struggled to tear it loose—but they were held like Laocoön.

Another line came flying through the air, clung to them. And another.

Mr. Chips had followed Ellie. Now she skittered away, crying. She stopped at the edge of the clearing and shrilled, “Max! Ellie! Come back. Please back!”

CIVILIZATION

Ellie did not faint nor grow hysterical. After that involuntary scream, her next remark was simply, “Max, I’m sorry. My fault.”

The words were almost in his ear, so tightly were they tied together by the clinging ropes. He answered, “I’ll get us loose!” and continued to strain at their bonds.

“Don’t struggle,” she said quietly, “It just makes them tighter. We’ll have to talk our way out of this.”

What she said was true; the harder he strained the tighter the pythonlike bonds held them. “Don’t,” Ellie pleaded. “You’re making it worse. It’s hurting me.” Max desisted.

The largest centaur ambled up and looked them over. Its broad simple face was still more ludicrous close up and its large brown eyes held a look of gentle astonishment. The colt approached from the other side and sniffed curiously, bleated in a high voice. The adult bugled like an elk; the colt shied sideways, then rejoined the herd on a dead run.

“Take it easy,” Ellie whispered. “I think they were scared that we would hurt the baby. Maybe they’ll just look us over and let us go.”

“Maybe. But I wish I could get at my knife.” “I’m glad you can’t. This calls for diplomacy.”

The rest of the herd came up, milled around and looked them over, while exchanging calls that combined bugling, whinnying, and something between a cough and a snort. Max listened. “That’s language,” he decided.

“Of course. And how I wish I had studied it at Miss Mimsey’s.”

The largest centaur leaned over them, smoothed at their bonds; they became looser but still held them. Max said sharply, “I think they are going to untie us. Get ready to run.”

“Yes, boss.”

Another centaur reached into its built-in pouch, took out another of the ropelike things. It dropped to its fore knees, flipped the end so that it curled around Max’s left ankle. The end seemed to weld into a loop, hobbling Max as effectively as a bowline knot; Ellie was treated the same way. The biggest centaur then patted their bonds, which fell off and writhed gently on the ground. It picked them up and stuffed them into its pouch.

The centaur which had hobbled them wrapped the ends of their tethers around its upright trunk, they merged into a belt. After an exchange of sour bugle calls with the leader, it patted the leashes… which then stretched like taffy, becoming quite twenty feet long and much more slender. Max pressed his knife on Ellie and said, “Try to cut yourself loose. If you can, then run for it. I’ll keep them busy.”

“No, Max.”

“Yes! Dawggone it, quit being a brat! You’ve made enough trouble.”

“Yes, Max.” She took the knife and tried to saw through the strange rope near her ankle. The centaurs made no attempt to stop her, but watched with the same air of gentle astonishment. It was as if they had never seen a knife, had no notion of what one was. Presently she gave up. “No good, Max. It’s like trying to slice duraplastic.”

“Why, I keep that knife like a razor. Let me try.”

He had no better luck. He was forced to stop by the herd moving out—walk or be dragged. He managed to close the knife while hopping on one foot to save his balance. The group proceeded at a slow walk for a few steps, then the leader bugled and the centaurs broke into a trot, exactly like ancient cavalry.

Ellie stumbled at once and was dragged. Max sat down, managed to grab his hobble and hang on while shouting, “Hey! Stop!”

Their captor stopped and looked around almost apologetically. Max said, “Look, stupid. We can’t keep up. We’re not horses,” while helping Ellie to her feet. “Are you hurt, kid?”

“I guess not.” She blinked back tears. “If I could lay hands on that hay-burning oaf, he’d be hurt—plenty!”

“You skinned your hand.”

“It won’t kill me. Just tell him to slow down, will you?”

Seeing them on their feet the monster immediately started to trot again. Down they went again, with Max trying to drag them to a halt. This time the leader trotted back from the main herd and consulted their custodian. Max took part, making up in vehemence what he lacked in semantic efficiency.

Perhaps he was effective; their keeper slowed to a fast walk, letting the others go ahead. Another centaur dropped back and became a rear guard. One of the animated balloons, which had continued to hover over the herd, now drifted back and remained over Max and Ellie.

The pace was just bearable, between a fast walk and a dogtrot. The route led across the open, flat floor of the valley and through knee-high grass. The grass saved them somewhat, as the centaur leading them seemed to feel that a fall or two every few hundred yards represented optimum efficiency. He never seemed impatient and would stop and let them get up, but always started off again at a clip brisk for humans. Max and Ellie ceased trying to talk, their throats being burned dry by their panting efforts to keep up. A tiny stream meandered through the bottom of the valley; the centaur jumped easily across it. It was necessary for the humans to wade. Ellie paused in midstream, leaned down and started to drink. Max objected, “Ellie! Don’t drink that—you don’t know that it’s safe.”

“I hope it poisons me so I can lie down and die. Max, I can’t go much farther.”

“Chin up, kid. We’ll get out of this. I’ve been keeping track of where we’ve gone.” He hesitated, then drank also, being terribly thirsty. The centaur let them, then tugged them on.

It was as far again to the rising ground and forest on the other side. They had thought that they were as tired as they could be before they started up hill; they were mistaken. The centaur was agile as a goat and seemed surprised that they found it difficult. Finally Ellie collapsed and would not get up; the centaur came back and stirred her roughly with a three-toed hoof.

Max struck him with both fists. The centaur made no move to retaliate but looked at him with that same stupid astonishment. Their rear guard came up and conversed with it, after which they waited for perhaps ten minutes. Max sat down beside Ellie and said anxiously, “Feeling any better?”

“Don’t talk.”

Presently the guard edged between them and drove Max back by stepping on him, whereupon the other centaur tugged on Ellie’s leash. It contracted and she was forced to scramble to her feet. The centaurs let them rest twice after that. After an endless time, when the local sun was dropping low in the west, they came out on flat table land, still heavily wooded. They continued through trees for a distance which Max’s count of paces told him was under a mile but seemed like ten, then stopped.

They were in a semi-clearing, a space carpeted with fallen needles. Their guard came up to the other centaur and took from him the end of Max’s leash, flipped it around the base of a tree, to which it clung. The other centaur did the same with Ellie’s leash to another tree about forty feet away. Having done so, they roughly urged the two together, while stopping to stroke their bonds until they were stretched out very thin. It allowed Max and Ellie enough slack that they might have passed each other.

This did not seem to please the centaurs. One of them shifted Max’s leash farther back into the surrounding bushes, dragging him with it. This time at the extreme limit allowed by their bonds they were

about six feet apart. “What are they doing?” asked Ellie. “Looks like they don’t want us to combine forces.”

Finished, the centaurs trotted away. Ellie looked after them, began to sob, then cried openly, tears running down her dirty face and leaving tracks. “Stow it,” Max said harshly. “Sniffling will get us nowhere.”

“I can’t help it,” she bawled. “I’ve been brave all day—at least I’ve tried to be. I… ” She collapsed face down and let herself go.

By getting down prone and stretching Max could just reach her head. He patted her tangled hair. “Take it easy, kid,” he said softly. “Cry it out, if you’ll feel better.”

“Oh, Maxie! Tied up… like a dog.”

“We’ll see about that.” He sat up and examined his tether.

Whatever the ropelike leash was, it was not rope. It had a smooth shiny surface which reminded him more of a snake, though the part that wound around his ankle showed no features; it simply flowed around his ankle and merged back into itself.

He lifted the bight and detected a faint throbbing. He stroked it as he had seen the centaurs do and it responded with flowing pulsations, but it neither shrank nor grew longer, nor did it loosen its grip. “Ellie,” he announced, “This thing is alive.”

She lifted a woebegone face. “What thing?” “This rope.”

“Oh, that! Of course.”

“At least,” he went on, “if it isn’t, it’s not really dead.” He tried his knife again, there was no effect. “I’ll bet if I had a match I could make it cry ‘Uncle.’ Got an Everlite, Ellie?”

“I don’t smoke.”

“Neither do I. Well, maybe I can make a fire some other way. Rubbing two sticks together, or something.”

“Do you know how?”

“No.” He continued stroking and patting the living rope, but, though he always got a response in pulsations, he did not seem to have the right touch; the bond stayed as before. He was continuing this fruitless attempt when he heard his name called. “Max! Ellie!”

Ellie sat up with a jerk. “Chipsie! Oh, Max, she followed us. Come here, darling!”

The spider puppy was high above them in a tree. She looked carefully around, then scurried down, making the last ten feet a flying leap into Ellie’s arms. They cuddled and made soft noises, then Ellie straightened up, her eyes shining. “Max, I feel so much better.”

“So do I.” He added, “Though I don’t know why.”

The spider puppy announced gravely, “Chipsie follow.”

Max reached across and petted her. “Yes, Chipsie did. Good girl!”

Ellie hugged the spider puppy. “I don’t feel deserted now, Max. Maybe everything will come out all right.”

“Look, Ellie, we’re not in too bad a spot. Maybe I’ll find the combination to tickle these ropes or snakes or whatever so they’ll give up. If I do, we’ll sneak back tonight.”

“How would we find our way?”

“Don’t worry. I watched every foot of the way, every change of direction, every landmark.” “Even in the dark?”

“Easier in the dark. I know these stars—I sure ought to. But suppose we don’t get loose; we still aren’t licked.”

“Huh? I don’t relish spending my life tied to a tree.”

“You won’t. Look—I think these things are just curious about us. They won’t eat us, that’s sure—they probably live on grass. Maybe they’ll get bored and turn us loose. But if they don’t, it’ll be rough on them.”

“Huh? Why?”

“Because of Mr. Walther and George Daigler—and Sam, Sam Anderson; that’s why. They’re probably beating the bushes for us right now. We are less than ten miles from the ship—five by a straight line.

They’ll find us. Then if these silly-looking centaurs want to get tough, they’ll learn about modern weapons. They and their fool throwing ropes!”

“It might take a long time to find us. Nobody knows where we went.”

“Yes,” he admitted. “If I had a pocket radio. Or some way to signal. Or even a way to build a fire. But I don’t.”

“I never thought. It just seemed like going for a stroll in the park.”

Max thought darkly that he had tried to warn her. Why, even the hills around home weren’t safe if a body didn’t keep his eyes peeled… you could run into a mean old bobcat, or even a bear. Person like Ellie never ‘ud had enough hard knocks to knock sense into her, that was her trouble.

Presently he admitted that he himself hadn’t looked for grief from anything as apparently

chuckled-headed and harmless as these centaur things. Anyhow, as Sam would say, no use cryin’ over spilt milk when the horse was already stolen.

“Ellie.”

“Huh?”

“Do you suppose Chipsie could find her way back?” “Why, I don’t know.”

“If she could, we could send a message.”

Chipsie looked up. “Back?” she inquired. “Please back. Go home.”

Ellie frowned. “I’m afraid Chipsie doesn’t talk that well. She’d probably just hiccup and get incoherent.” “I don’t mean that. I know Chipsie is no mental giant. I…”

“Chipsie is smart!”

“Sure. But I want to send a written message and a map.” He fumbled in a pocket, pulled out a stylus. “Do you have any paper?”

“I’ll see.” She found a folded paper in a dungaree pocket. “Oh, dear! I was supposed to take this to Mr. Giordano. Mr. Hornsby will be so vexed with me.”

“What is it?”

“A requisition for number-ten wire.”

“It doesn’t matter now.” He took the paper, scratched out the memorandum, turned it over and began to draw, stopping to consult the pictures filed in his mind for distances, which way the local sun lay, contours, and other details.

“Max?”

“Quiet, can’t you?” He continued to sketch, then added: “URGENT—to First Officer Walther: Eldreth Coburn and self captured by centaurs. Be careful and watch out for their throwing ropes. Respectfully,

M. Jones.” He handed it to Ellie. “That ought to do it. Is there any way to fasten it to her? I sure don’t want her to drop it.”

“Mmm… let me see. Turn your back, Max.” “Why?”

“Don’t be difficult. Turn your back.”

He did so, shortly she said, “All right now.” He faced her and she handed him a ribbon. “How’s this?”

“Swell!” They managed to tie the ribbon, with the note folded and firmly attached, around Mr. Chips’ waist, anchoring it to a middle limb… not too easy as the spider puppy seemed to think it was a game and was ticklish as well.

“There! Stop squirming, Chipsie, and listen. Ellie wants you to go home.” “Home?”

“Yes, home. Go back to the ship.” “Ellie go home?”

“Ellie can’t go home.” “No.”

“Honey, you’ve got to.” “No.”

“Look, Chipsie. You find Maggie and tell her Ellie said to give you some candy. You give Maggie this.” She tugged at the tied note.

“Candy?”

“Go home. Find Maggie. Maggie will give you candy.” “Ellie go home.”

“Please, Chipsie.”

“Ellie,” Max said urgently, “something is coming.”

Eldreth looked up, saw a centaur coming through the trees. She pointed. “Look, Chipsie! They’re coming! They’ll catch Chipsie! Go home! Run!”

The spider puppy squealed in terror and scurried for the trees. Once on a branch she looked back and whimpered. “Go home!” screamed Ellie. “Find Maggie!”

Mr. Chips shot a glance at the centaur, then disappeared. They had no time to worry further, the centaur was almost up to them. He glanced at them and went on by; it was what followed the centaur that grabbed their attention. Ellie suppressed a shriek. “Max! They’ve caught everybody.”

“No,” he corrected grimly. “Look again.” The gathering gloom had caused him to make the same mistake; it seemed that the entire ship’s company trotted after the centaur in single file, ankle leashed to ankle by living ropes. But only the first glance gave such an impression. These creatures were more than humanoid—but such degraded creatures had never sailed between the stars.

They shuffled quickly along like well-trained animals. One or two looked at Ellie and Max in passing, but their stares were bovine, incurious. Small children not on leash trotted with their mothers, and once Max was startled to see a wrinkled little head peeping out of a pouch—these man-creatures were marsupials, too.

Max controlled a desire to retch and as they passed out of sight he turned to Ellie. “Gosh!” “Max,” Eldreth said hoarsely, “do you suppose we’ve died and gone to our punishment?” “Huh? Don’t be silly. Things are bad enough.”

“I mean it. That was something right out of Dante’s Inferno.”

Max was swallowing uneasily and not feeling good-tempered. “Look, you can pretend you’re dead if you want to. Me, I’m alive and I mean to stay so. Those things weren’t men. Don’t let it throw you.”

“But they were men. Men and women and children.”

“No, they weren’t. Being shaped like us doesn’t make them men. Being a man is something else entirely.” He scowled. “Maybe the centaurs are ‘men.'”

“Oh, no—”

“Don’t be too sure. They seem to run things in this country.”

The discussion was cut short by another arrival. It was almost dark and they did not see the centaur until he entered their clearing. He was followed by three of the—Max decided to call them ‘men’ though he

resented the necessity—followed by three men. They were not on leashes. All three were bearing burdens. The centaur spoke to them; they distributed what they carried.

One of them set down a large clay bowl filled with water in the space separating Max and Ellie. It was the first artifact that any human had seen on Charity and did not indicate a high level of mechanical culture, being crudely modeled and clearly not thrown on a potter’s wheel; it held water, no more could be said for it. A second porter dumped a double armful of small fruits beside the bowl. Two of them splashed into the bowl, he did not bother to fish them out.

Max had to look twice to see what the third slave was carrying. It looked as if he had three large ovoid balls slung by ropes in each of his hands; second inspection showed them to be animals about the size of opossums which he carried by their tails. He went around the clearing, stopping every few feet and lifting one of his burdens to a lower branch. When he had finished they were surrounded by six small creatures, each hanging by its tail. The centaur followed the slave, Max saw him stroke each animal and press a spot on its neck. In each case the entire body of the little animal lit up, began to shine like a firefly with soft silvery light.

The clearing was softly illuminated thereby—well enough, Max thought, to read large print. One of the hobgoblins balloons came sailing silently between trees and anchored to a point thirty feet above them; it seemed to settle down for the night.

The centaur came over to Max and prodded him with a hoof, snorting inquiringly. Max listened carefully, then repeated the sound. The centaur answered and again Max mimicked. This useless exchange continued for a few phrases, then the centaur gave up and left, his train trotting after him.

Ellie shivered. “Phew!” she exclaimed, “I’m glad they’re gone. I can stand the centaurs, a little, but those men… ugh!”

He shared her disgust; they looked less human close up, having hair lines that started where their eyebrows should have been. They were so flat-headed that their ears stuck up above their skulls. But it was not this that had impressed Max. When the centaur had spoken to him Max had gotten his first good look into a centaur’s mouth. Those teeth were never meant for munching grain, they were more like the teeth of a tiger—or a shark.

He decided not to mention this. “Say, wasn’t that the same one that was leading the herd that caught us?” “How would I know? They all look alike.”

“But they don’t, any more than two horses look alike.” “Horses all look alike.”

“But… ” He stopped, baffled by a city viewpoint at which communication failed. “I think it was the same one.”

“I can’t see that it matters.”

“It might. I’m trying to learn their language.”

“I heard you swallowing your tonsils. How did you do that?”

“Oh, you just remember what a sound sounds like, then do it.” He threw his head back and made a very plaintive sound.

“What was that?”

“A shote stuck in a fence. Little shote by the name of Abner I had once.” “It sounds tragic.”

“It was, until I helped him loose. Ellie, I think they’ve bedded us down for the night.” He gestured at the bowl and the fruit beside it. “Like feeding the hogs.”

“Don’t put it that way. Room service. Room service and maid service and lights. Food and drink.” She picked up one of the fruits. It was about the size and shape of a cucumber. “Do you suppose this is fit to eat?”

“I don’t think you ought to try it. Ellie, it would be smart not to eat or drink anything until we are rescued.”

“Well, maybe we could go hungry but we certainly can’t go without water. You die of thirst in a day or two.”

“But we may be rescued before morning.”

“Maybe.” She peeled the fruit. “It smells good. Something like a banana.” He peeled one and sniffed it. “More like a pawpaw.”

“Well?”

“Mmm—Look here, I’ll eat one. If it hasn’t made me sick in a half hour, then you can try one.” “Yes, sir, boss man.” She bit into the one she held. “Mind the seeds.”

“Ellie, you’re a juvenile delinquent.”

She wrinkled her nose and smiled. “You say the sweetest things! I try to be.”

Max bit into his. Not bad—not as much flavor as a pawpaw, but not bad. Some minutes later he was saying, “Maybe we should leave some for breakfast?”

“All right. I’m full anyway.” Ellie leaned over and drank. Without words they had each concluded that the cloying meal required them to risk the water. “There, I feel better. At least we’ll die comfortably. Max? Do you think we dare sleep? I’m dead.”

“I think they are through with us for the night. You sleep, I’ll sit up.”

“No, that’s not fair. Honest, what good would it do to keep watch? We can’t get away.” “Well… here, take my knife. You can sleep with it in your hand.”

“All right.” She reached across the bowl and accepted it. “Good night, Max. I’m going to count sheep.”

“Good night.” He stretched out, shifted and got a tree cone out of his ribs, then tried to relax. Fatigue and a full stomach helped, the knowledge of their plight hindered—and that hobgoblin hanging up there.

Maybe it was keeping watch—but not for their benefit. “Max? Are you asleep?”

“No, Ellie.”

“Hold my hand? I’m scared.” “I can’t reach it.”

“Yes, you can. Swing around the other way.”

He did so, and found that he could reach over his head past the water bowl and clasp her hand. “Thanks, Max. Good night some more.”

He lay on his back and stared up through the trees. Despite the half light given by the luminiferous animals he could see stars and the numerous meteor trails crisscrossing the sky. To avoid thinking he started counting them. Presently they started exploding in his head and he was asleep.

The light of the local sun through the trees awakened him. He raised his head. “I wondered how long you would sleep,” Eldreth announced. “Look who’s here.”

He sat up, wincing with every move, and turned around. Mr. Chips was sitting on Ellie’s middle and peeling one of the papaya-like fruits. “Lo, Maxie.”

“Hello, Chipsie.” He saw that the note was still tied to her. “Bad girl!”

Mr. Chips turned to Ellie for comfort. Tears started to leak out. “No, no,” corrected Ellie. “Good girl. She’s promised to go find Maggie as soon as she finishes breakfast. Haven’t you, dear?”

“Go find Maggie,” the spider puppy agreed.

“Don’t blame her, Max. Spider puppies aren’t nocturnal back home. She just waited until we were quiet, then came back. She couldn’t help it. I found her sleeping in my arm.”

The spider puppy finished eating, then drank daintily from the bowl. Max decided that it didn’t matter, considering who had probably used it before they had. This thought he suppressed quickly. “Find Maggie,” Mr. Chips announced.

“Yes, dear. Go straight back to the ship as fast as you can and find Maggie. Hurry.”

“Find Maggie. Hurry fast. ‘Bye, Maxie.” The spider puppy took to the trees and scampered away in the right direction.

“Do you think she’ll get there?” asked Max.

“I think so. After all, her ancestors found their way through forests and such for a lot of generations. She knows it’s important; we had a long talk.”

“Do you really think she understands that much?”

“She understands about pleasing me and that’s enough. Max, do you suppose they can possibly reach us today? I don’t want to spend another night here.”

“Neither do I. If Chipsie can move faster than we can…” “Oh, she can.”

“Then maybe—if they start quickly.”

“I hope so. Ready for breakfast?” “Did Chipsie leave anything?” “Three apiece. I’ve had mine. Here.”

“Sure you’re lying? There were only five when we went to sleep.” She looked sheepish and allowed him to split the odd one. While they were eating he noticed a change. “Hey, what became of the over-sized lightning bugs?”

“Oh. One of those awful creatures came at dawn and carried them away. I was set to scream but he didn’t come close to me, so I let you sleep.”

“Thanks. I see our chaperone is with us.” The hobgoblin still hung in the tree tops. “Yes, and there have been peekers around all morning, too.”

“Did you get a look at one?”

“Of course not.” She stood up, stretched and winced. “Now to see what beautiful surprises this lovely day brings forth.” She made a sour face. “The program I would pick is to sit right here and never lay eyes on anything until George Daigler shows up with about a dozen armed men. I’d kiss him. I’d kiss all of them.”

“So would I.”

Until well past noon Eldreth’s chosen schedule prevailed, nothing happened. They heard from time to time the bugling and snorting of centaurs but saw none. They talked in desultory fashion, having already disposed of both hopes and fears, and were dozing in the sunshine, when they suddenly came alert to the fact that a centaur was entering the clearing.

Max felt sure that it was the leader of the herd, or at least that it was the one who had fed and watered them. The creature wasted no time, making it clear with kicks and prods that they were to allow themselves to be leashed for travel.

Never once were they free of the living ropes. Max thought of attacking the centaur, perhaps leaping on his back and cutting his throat. But it seemed most unlikely that he could do it quietly enough; one snort might bring the herd down on them. Besides which he knew no way to get free of their bonds even if he killed the centaur. Better wait—especially with a messenger gone for help.

They were led, falling and being dragged occasionally, along the route taken by the party of slaves. It became apparent that they were entering a large centaur settlement. The path opened out into a winding, well-tended road with centaurs going both directions and branching off onto side roads. There were no buildings, none of the outward marks of a civilized race—but there was an air of organization, of custom, of stability. Little centaurs scampered about, got in the way, and were ordered aside. There was activity of various sorts on both sides of the road and grotesque human slaves were almost as numerous as centaurs, carrying burdens, working in unexplained fashions—some with living-rope bonds, some allowed to run free. They could not see much because of the uncomfortable pace they were forced to maintain.

Once Max noted an activity on his side of the road that he wished to see better. He did not mention it to Ellie, not only because talking was difficult but because he did not wish to worry her—but it had looked like an outdoor butcher shop to him. The hanging carcasses were not centaurs.

They stopped at last in a very large clearing, well filled with centaurs. Their master patted the lines that bound them and thereby caused them to shorten until they were fetched close to his sides. He then took his place in a centaur queue.

A large, grizzled, and presumably elderly centaur was holding court on one side of the “square.” He stood with quiet dignity as single centaurs or groups came in succession before him. Max watched with interest so great that he almost lost his fear. Each case would be the cause of much discussion, then the centaur chieftain would make a single remark and the case would be over. The contestants would leave quietly.

The conclusion was inescapable that law or custom was being administered, with the large centaur as arbiter.

There was none of the travesties of men in the clearing but there were underfoot odd animals that looked like flattened-out hogs. Their legs were so short that they seemed more like tractor treads. They were mostly mouth and teeth and snuffling snouts, and whatever they came to, if it was not a centaur’s hoof, they devoured. Max understood from watching them how the area, although thickly inhabited, was kept so clean; these scavengers were animated street cleaners.

Their master gradually worked up toward the head of the line. The last case before theirs concerned the only centaur they had seen which did not seem in vibrant health. He was old and skinny, his coat was dull and his bones stuck pitifully through his hide. One eye was blind, a blank white; the other was inflamed and weeping a thick ichor.

The judge, mayor, or top herd leader discussed his case with two younger healthy centaurs who seemed to be attending him almost as nurses. Then the boss centaur moved from his position of honor and walked around the sick one, inspecting him from all sides. Then he spoke to him.

The old sick one responded feebly, a single snorted word. The chief centaur spoke again, got what seemed to Max the same answer. The chief backed into his former position, set up a curious whinnying cry.

From all sides the squatty scavengers converged on the spot. They formed a ring around the sick one and his attendants, dozens of them, snuffling and grunting. The chief bugled once; one attendant reached into its pouch and hauled forth a creature curled into a knot, the centaur stroked it and it unwound. To Max it looked unpleasantly like an eel.

The attendant extended it toward the sick centaur. It made no move to stop him, but waited, watching with his one good eye. The head of the slender thing was suddenly touched to the neck of the sick centaur; he jerked in the characteristic convulsion of electric shock and collapsed.

The chief centaur snorted once—and the scavengers waddled forward with surprising speed, swarming over the body and concealing it. When they backed away, still snuffling, there were not even bones.

Max called out softly, “Steady, Ellie! Get a grip on yourself, kid.” She answered faintly, “I’m all right.”

A FRIEND IN NEED

For the first time they were turned loose. Their master tickled their bonds, which dropped from their ankles. Max said softly to Ellie, “If you want to run for it, I’ll keep them busy.”

Ellie shook her head. “No good. They’d have me before I went fifty feet. Besides—I can’t find my way back.”

Max shut up, knowing that she was right but having felt obliged to offer. The chief centaur inspected them with the characteristic expression of gentle surprise, exchanged bugling comments with their captor. They were under discussion for some time, there appeared to be some matter to be decided. Max got out his knife. He had no plan, other than a determination that no centaur would approach either one of them with that electric-shock creature, or any other menace, without a fight.

The crisis faded away. Their captor flicked their leashes about their ankles and dragged them off. Fifteen minutes later they were again staked out in the clearing they had occupied. Ellie looked around her after the centaur had gone and sighed. “‘Be it ever so humble… ‘ Max, it actually feels good to get back here.”

“I know.”

The monotony that followed was varied by one thing only: fading hope and mounting despair. They were not treated unkindly; they were simply domestic animals—fed and watered and largely ignored. Once a day they were given water and plenty of the native papayas. After the first night they no longer had the luxury of “artificial” light, nor did the hobgoblin hang over their clearing. But there was no way of escape, short of gnawing off a leg and crawling away.

For two or three days they discussed the possibility of rescue with mounting anxiety, then, having beaten the subject to death they dropped it; it simply added to their distress. Ellie rarely smiled now and she had quit her frivolous back talk; it seemed that it had finally gotten through her armor that this could happen to Eldreth Coburn, only daughter of the rich and almost all-powerful Mr. Commissioner Coburn—a chattel, a barnyard animal of monsters themselves suitable only for zoos.

Max took it a little more philosophically. Never having had much, he did not expect much—not that he enjoyed it. He kept his worst fear secret. Ellie referred to their status as “animals in a zoo” because most of their visitors were small centaurs who came sniffling and bleating around with a curiosity that their elders seemed to lack. He let her description stand because he believed their status worse than that—he thought that they were being fattened for the table.

One week after their capture Eldreth declined to eat breakfast and stayed silent all morning. All that Max could think of to say evoked only monosyllables. In desperation he said, “I’ll beat you at three-dee and spot you two starships.”

That roused her. “You and who else?” she said scornfully. “And with what?” “Well, we could play it in our heads. You know—blindfold.”

She shook her head. “No good. You’d claim your memory was better than mine and I wouldn’t be able to prove you were cheating.”

“Nasty little brat.”

She smiled suddenly. “That’s better. You’ve been too gentle with me lately—it depresses me. Max, we could make a set.”

“How?”

“With these.” She picked up one of many tree cones that littered the clearing. “A big one is a flagship. We can pick various sizes and break the thingamajigs off and such.”

They both got interested. The water bowl was moved aside so that it no longer occupied the center of the space marked by the limits of their tethers and the no-man’s-land between them was brushed free of needles and marked with scratches as boards. The boards had to be side by side; they must stack them in their minds, but that was a common expedient for players with good visualization when using an unpowered set—it saved time between moves.

Pebbles became robots; torn bits of cloth tied to cones distinguished sides and helped to designate pieces. By midafternoon they were ready. They were still playing their first game when darkness forced them to stop. As they lay down to sleep Max said, “I’d better not take your hand. I’d knock over men in the dark.”

“I won’t sleep if you don’t—I won’t feel safe. Besides, that gorilla messed up one board changing the water.”

“That’s all right. I remember where they were.”

“Then you can just remember where they all are, Stretch out your arm.” He groped in the darkness, found her fingers. “Night, Max. Sleep tight.” “Good night, Ellie.”

Thereafter they played from sunup to sundown. Their owner came once, watched them for an hour, went away without a snort. Once when Ellie had fought him to a draw Max said, “You know, Ellie, you play this game awfully well—for a girl.”

“Thank you too much.”

“No, I mean it. I suppose girls are probably as intelligent as men, but most of them don’t act like it. I think it’s because they don’t have to. If a girl is pretty, she doesn’t have to think. Of course, if she can’t get by on her looks, then—well, take you for example. If you…”

“Oh! So I’m ugly, Mr. Jones!”

“Wait a minute. I didn’t say that. Let’s suppose that you were the most beautiful woman since Helen of Troy. In that case, you would… ” He found that he was talking to her back. She had swung round, grabbed her knees, and was ignoring him.

He stretched himself to the limit of his tether, bound leg straight out behind him, and managed to touch her shoulder. “Ellie?”

She shook off his hand. “Keep your distance! You smell like an old goat.”

“Well,” he said reasonably, “you’re no lily yourself. You haven’t had a bath lately either.”

“I know it!” she snapped, and started to sob. “And I hate it. I just… h- h- hate it. I look awful.” “No, you don’t. Not to. me.”

She turned a tear-wet and very dirty face. “Liar.” “Nothing wrong that some soap and water won’t fix.”

“Oh, if only I had some.” She looked at him. “You aren’t at your best yourself, Mr. Jones. You need a haircut and the way your beard grows in patches is ghastly.”

He fingered the untidy stubble on his chin. “I can’t help it.” “Neither can I.” She sighed. “Set up the boards again.”

Thereafter she beat him three straight games, one with a disgraceful idiot’s mate. He looked at the boards sadly when it was over. “And you are the girl who flunked improper fractions?”

“Mr. Jones, has it ever occurred to you, the world being what it is, that women sometimes prefer not to appear too bright?” He was digesting this when she added, “I learned this game at my father’s knee, before I learned to read. I was junior champion of Hespera before I got shanghaied. Stop by sometime and I’ll show you my cup.”

“Is that true? Really?”

“I’d rather play than eat—when I can find competition. But you’re learning. Someday you’ll be able to give me a good game.”

“I guess I don’t understand women.” “That’s an understatement.”

Max was a long time getting to sleep that night. Long after Eldreth was gently snoring he was still staring at the shining tail of the big comet, watching the shooting star trails, and thinking. None of his thoughts was pleasant.

Their position was hopeless, he admitted. Even though Chipsie had failed (he had never pinned much hope on her), searching parties should have found them by now. There was no longer any reason to think that they would be rescued.

And now Ellie was openly contemptuous of him. He had managed to hurt her pride again—again with his big, loose, flapping jaw! Why, he should have told her that she was the prettiest thing this side of paradise, if it would make her feel good—she had mighty little to feel good about these days!

Being captive had been tolerable because of her, he admitted—now he had nothing to look forward to but day after day of losing at three-dee while Ellie grimly proved that girls were as good as men and better. At the end of it they would wind up as an item in the diet of a thing that should never have been born.

If only Dr. Hendrix hadn’t died!

If only he had been firm with Ellie when it mattered.

To top it off, and at the moment almost the worst of all, he felt that if he ate just one more of those blasted pawpaws it would gag him.

He was awakened by a hand on his shoulder and a whisper in his ear. “Max!” “What the—?”

“Quiet! Not a sound.”

It was Sam crouching over him—Sam!

As he sat up, sleep jarred out of him by adrenalin shock, he saw Sam move noiselessly to where Ellie slept. He squatted over her but did not touch her. “Miss Eldreth,” he said softly.

Ellie’s eyes opened and stared. She opened her mouth, Max was terrified that she might cry out. Sam hastily signed for silence; she looked at him and nodded. Sam knelt over her, seemed to study something in the shadow-laced moonlight, then took out a hand gun. There was the briefest of low-energy discharges, entirely silent, and Ellie stood up—free. Sam returned to Max. “Hold still,” he whispered. “I don’t want to burn you.” He knelt over Max’s bound ankle.

When the gun flared Max felt an almost paralyzing constriction around his ankle, then the thing fell off. The amputated major part contracted and jerked away into the shadows. Max stood up. “How—”

“Not a word. Follow me.” Sam led off into the bushes with Ellie behind him and Max following closely. They had gone only twenty yards when there was a whimpering cry of “Ellie!” and the spider puppy landed in Eldreth’s arms. Sam turned suddenly.

“Keep her quiet,” he whispered, “for your life.”

Ellie nodded and started petting the little creature, crooning to it voicelessly. When Chipsie tried to talk, she silenced it, then stuffed it inside her shirt. Sam waited these few moments, now started on without speaking.

They proceeded for several hundred yards as near silently as three people who believe their lives hang on it can manage. Finally Sam stopped. “This is as far as we dare go,” he said in a low voice. “Any farther in the dark and I’d be lost. But I’m pretty sure we are outside their sleeping grounds. We’ll start again at the first light.”

“How did you get here in the dark, then?”

“I didn’t. Chips and I have been hiding in thick bushes since midafternoon, not fifty feet from you.” “Oh.” Max looked around, looked up at the stars. “I can take us back in the dark.”

“You can? It ‘ud be a darn good thing. These babies don’t stir out at night—I think.” “Let me get in the lead. You get behind Ellie.”

It took more than an hour to get to the edge of the tableland. The darkness, the undergrowth, the need for absolute silence, and the fact that Max had to take it slowly to keep his bearings despite his photographic memory all slowed them down. The trip downhill into the valley was even slower.

When they reached the edge of the trees with comparatively flat grassland in front Sam halted them and surveyed the valley by dim moonlight. “Mustn’t get caught in the open,” he whispered. “They can’t throw those snakes too well among trees, but out in the open—oh, brother!”

“You know about the throwing ropes?” “Sure.”

“Sam,” whispered Ellie. “Mr. Anderson, why did…”

“Sssh!” he cautioned. “Explanations later. Straight across, at a dogtrot. Miss Eldreth, you set the pace. Max, pick your bearings and guide us. We’ll run side by side. All set?”

“Just a minute.” Max took the spider puppy from Eldreth, zipping it inside his shirt as she had done. Mr. Chips did not even wake up, but moaned softly like a disturbed baby. “Okay.”

They ran and walked and ran again for a half hour or more, wasting no breath on words, putting everything into gaining distance from the centaur community. Knee-high grass and semi-darkness made the going hard. They were almost to the bottom of the valley and Max was straining to spot the stream when Sam called out, “Down! Down flat!”

Max hit dirt, taking it on his elbows to protect Chips; Ellie flopped beside him. Max turned his head cautiously and whispered, “Centaurs?”

“No. Shut up.”

A hobgoblin balloon, moving at night to Max’s surprise, was drifting across the valley at an altitude of about a hundred feet. Its course would take it past them, missing them by perhaps a hundred yards. Then it veered and came toward them.

It lost altitude and hovered almost over them. Max saw Sam aim carefully, steadying his pistol with both bands. There was momentarily a faint violet pencil from gun to hobgoblin; the creature burst and fell so close by that Max could smell burned meat. Sam returned his weapon and got to his feet. “One less spy,” he said with satisfaction. “Let’s get going, kids.”

“You think those things spy?”

“‘Think’? We know. Those polo ponies have this place organized. Pipe down and make miles.”

Ellie found the stream by falling into it. They hauled her out and waded across, stopping only to drink. On the other bank Sam said, “Where’s your left shoe, Miss Eldreth?”

“It came off in the brook.”

Sam stopped to search but it was useless; the water looked like ink in the faint light. “No good,” he decided. “We could waste the whole night. You’re due for sore feet—sorry. Better throw away your other shoe.”

It did not slow them until they reached the far ridge beyond which lay Charityville and the ship. Soon after they started up Ellie cut her right foot on a rock. She did her best, setting her jaw and not complaining, but it handicapped them. There was a hint of dawn in the air by the time they reached the top. Max started to lead them down the arroyo that he and Ellie had come up so many year-long days ago. Sam stopped him. “Let me get this straight. This isn’t the draw that faces the ship, is it?”

“No, that one is just north of this.” Max reconstructed in his mind how it had looked from the ship and compared it with his memory of the photomap taken as the ship landed. “Actually a shoulder just beyond the next draw faces the ship.”

“I thought so. This is the one Chips led me up, but I want us to stay in the trees as long as possible. It’ll be light by the time we’d be down to the flat.”

“Does it matter? There have never been any centaurs seen in the valley the ship is in.”

“You mean you never saw any. You’ve been away, old son. We’re in danger now—and in worse danger

the closer we get to the ship. Keep your voice down—and lead us to that shoulder that sticks out toward the ship. If you can.”

Max could, though it meant going over strange terrain and keeping his bearings from his memory of a small-scale map. It involved “crossing the furrows,” too, instead of following a dry water course—which led to impasses such as thirty-foot drops that had to be gone painfully around. Sam grew edgy as the light increased and urged them to greater speed and greater silence even as Ellie’s increasingly crippled condition made his demands harder to meet.

“I really am sorry,” he whispered after she had to slide and scramble down a rock slope, checking herself with bare and bloody feet. “But it’s better to get there on stumps than to let them catch you.”

“I know.” Her face contorted but she made no sound. It was daylight by the time Max led them out on the shoulder. Silently he indicated the ship, a half mile away. They were about level with its top.

“Down this way, I think,” he said quietly to Sam. “No.”

“Huh?”

“Chilluns, it’s Uncle Sam’s opinion that we had better lie doggo in those bushes, holding still and letting the beggar flies bite us, until after sundown.”

Max eyed the thousand yard gap. “We could run for it.”

“And four legs run faster than two legs. We’ve learned that lately.”

The bushes selected by Sam grew out to the edge of the shoulder. He crawled through them until he reached a place where he could spy the valley below while still hidden. Ellie and Max wriggled after him. The ground dropped off sharply just beyond them. The ship faced them, to their left and nearer was Charityville.

“Get comfortable,” Sam ordered, “and we’ll take turns keeping guard. Sleep if you can, this will be a long watch.”

Max tried to shift Mr. Chips around so that he might lie flat. A little head poked out of his collar. “Good morning,” the spider puppy said gravely. “Breakfast?”

“No breakfast, hon,” Ellie told her. “Sam, is it all right to let her out?”

“I guess so. But keep her quiet.” Sam was studying the plain below. Max did the same. “Sam? Why don’t we head for the village? It’s closer.”

“Nobody there. Abandoned.”

“What? Look, Sam, can’t you tell us now what’s happened?”

Sam did not take his eyes off the plain. “Okay. But hold it down to whispers. What do you want to know?”

That was a hard one—Max wanted to know everything. “What happened to the village?” “Gave it up. Too dangerous.”

“Huh? Anybody caught?”

“Not permanently. Daigler had a gun. But then the fun began. We thought that all they had were those throwing snakes and that we had scared them off. But they’ve got lots more than that. Things that burrow underground, for example. That’s why the village had to be abandoned.”

“Anybody hurt?”

“Well… the newlyweds were already in residence. Becky Weberbauer is a widow.”

Ellie gasped and Sam whispered sharply to be quiet. Max mulled it over before saying, “Sam, I don’t see why, after they got my message, they didn’t…”

“What message?”

Max explained. Sam shook his head. “The pooch got back all right. By then we knew you were missing and were searching for you—armed, fortunately. But there was no message.”

“Huh? How did you find us?”

“Chips led me, I told you. But that was all. Somebody stuffed her into her old cage and that’s where I found her yesterday. I stopped to pet her, knowing you were gone, Miss Eldreth—and found the poor little thing nearly out of her mind. I finally got it through my head that she knew where you two were.

So… ” He shrugged.

“Oh. But I can’t see,” Max whispered, “why you risked it alone. You already knew they were dangerous; you should have had every man in the ship with you, armed.”

Sam shook his head. “And we would have lost every man. A sneak was possible; the other wasn’t. And we had to get you back.”

“Thanks. I don’t know how to say it, Sam. Anyhow, thanks.”

“Yes,” added Ellie, “and stop calling me ‘Miss Eldreth.’ I’m Ellie to my friends.” “Okay, Ellie. How are the feet?”

“I’ll live.”

“Good.” He turned his head to Max. “But I didn’t say we wanted to get you back, I said we had to. You, Max. No offense, Ellie.”

“Huh? Why me?”

“Well… ” Sam seemed reluctant. “You’ll get the details when you get back. But it looks like you’ll be needed if they take the ship off. You’re the only astrogator left.”

“Huh? What happened to Simes?” “Quiet! He’s dead.”

“For Pete’s sake.” Max decided that, little as he liked Simes, death at the hands of the centaurs he would not have wished on any human; he said so.

“Oh, no, it wasn’t that way. You see, when Captain Blaine died…”

“The Captain, too?” “Yes.”

“I knew he was sick, I didn’t know he was that sick.”

“Well, call it a broken heart. Or honorable hara-kiri. Or an accident. I found an empty box for sleeping pills when I helped pack his things. Maybe he took them, or maybe your pal Simes slipped them in his tea. The Surgeon certified ‘natural causes’ and that’s how it was logged. What is a natural cause when a man can’t bear to live any longer?”

Ellie said softly, “He was a good man.” “Yes,” agreed Sam. “Too good, maybe.” “But how about Simes?”

“Well, now, that was another matter. Simes seemed to feel that he was crown prince, but the First wouldn’t stand for it. Something about some films the Chief Computerman had. Anyhow, he tried to get tough with Walther and I sort of broke his neck. There wasn’t time to be gentle,” Sam added hastily. “Simes pulled a gun.”

“Sam! You aren’t in trouble?”

“None, except here and now. If we—quiet, kids!” He peered more sharply through the bushes. “Not a sound, not a movement,” he whispered. “It may miss us.”

A hobgoblln was drifting down from north, paralleling the ridge above and out from it, as if it were scouting the high land. Max said in Sam’s ear, “Hadn’t we better scrunch back?”

“Too late. Just hold still.”

The balloon drifted abreast of them, stopped, then moved slowly toward them. Max saw that Sam had his gun out. He held his fire until the hobgoblin hovered above them. The shot burned needles and branches but it brought down the thing.

“Sam! There’s another one!”

“Where?” Sam looked where Max pointed. The second hobgoblin apparently had been covering the first, higher and farther out. Even as they watched it veered away and gained altitude.

“Get it, Sam!”

Sam stood up. “Too late. Too far and too late. Well, kids, away we go. No need to keep quiet. Sit down and slide, Ellie; it’ll save your feet some.”

Down they went, scattering rocks and tearing their clothes, with Mr. Chips on her own and enjoying it. At the bottom Sam said, “Max, how fast can you do a half mile?”

“I don’t know. Three minutes.”

“Make it less. Get going. I’ll help Ellie.” “No.”

“You get there! You’re needed.” “No!”

Sam sighed. “Always some confounded hero. Take her other arm.”

They made a couple of hundred yards half carrying Eldreth, when she shook them off. “I can go faster alone,” she panted.

“Okay, let’s go!” Sam rasped.

She proved herself right. Ignoring her injured feet she pumped her short legs in a fashion which did not require Max’s best speed to keep up, but nevertheless kept him panting. The ship grew larger ahead of them. Max saw that the cage was up and wondered how long it would take to attract attention and get it lowered.

They were half way when Sam shouted, “Here comes the cavalry! Speed it up!”

Max glanced over his shoulder. A herd of centaurs—a dozen, two dozen, perhaps more—was sweeping toward them from the hills on a diagonal plainly intended to cut them off. Ellie saw them too and did speed up, with a burst that momentarily outdistanced Max.

They had cut the distance to a few hundred yards when the cage swung free of the lock and sank lazily toward the ground. Max started to shout that they were going to make it when he heard the drum of hooves close behind. Sam yelled, “Beat it, kids! Into the ship.” He stopped.

Max stopped too, while shouting, “Run, Ellie!

Sam snarled, “Run for it, I said! What can you do? Without a gun?”

Max hesitated, torn by an unbearable decision. He saw that Ellie had stopped. Sam glanced back, then backhanded Max across the mouth. “Get moving! Get her inside!”

Max moved, gathering Ellie in one arm and urging her on. Behind them Sam Anderson turned to face his death… dropping to one knee and steadying his pistol over his left forearm in precisely the form approved by the manual.

“—A SHIP IS NOT JUST STEEL—”

The cage hit the ground, four men swarmed out as Max stumbled inside and dumped Ellie on the floor. The door clanged shut behind them, but not too quickly for Mr. Chips. The spider puppy ran to Ellie, clutched her arm and wailed. Eldreth tried to sit up.

“You all right?” Max demanded.

“Uh, sure. But… ” She shut up as Max whirled around and tried to open the cage door.

It would not open. It was not until then that he realized that the lift was off the ground and rising slowly. He punched the “stop” control.

Nothing happened, the car continued upward. About ten feet off the ground it stopped. Max looked up through the grille roof and shouted, “Hey! In the lock, there! Lower away!”

He was ignored. He tried the door again—uselessly, as its safety catch prevented it being opened when the cage was in the air. Frustrated and helpless, he grabbed the bars and looked out. He could see nothing of Sam. The centaurs were milling around in the middle distance. He saw one stumble and go down and then another. Then he saw the four men who had passed him. They were on their bellies in fair skirmish line not far from the cage, each with a shoulder gun and each firing carefully. The range was not great, about three hundred yards; they were taking steady toll. Each silent, almost invisible bolt picked off a centaur.

Max counted seven more centaur casualties—then the monsters broke and ran, scattering toward the hills. The firing continued and several more dropped before distance made firing uncertain.

Somebody shouted, “Hold your fire!” and one of the men stumbled to his feet and ran toward the center of the battle. The others got up and followed him.

When they came back they were carrying something that looked like a bundle of clothing. The cage lowered to the ground, they came inside and laid it gently on the floor. One of them glanced at Eldreth, then quickly removed his jacket and laid it over Sam’s face. Not until then did Max see that it was Mr. Walther.

The other three were Mr. Daigler, a power man whom Max knew only by sight, and Chief Steward Giordano. The fat man was crying openly. “The filthy vermin!” he sobbed. “He never had a chance. They just rode him down and trompled him.” He choked, then added, “But he got at least five of ’em.” His eyes rested on Max without recognition. “He made ’em pay.”

Eldreth said gently, “Is he dead?”

“Huh? Of course. Don’t talk silly.” The steward turned his face away.

The car bumped to a stop. Walther looked in through the lock and said angrily, “Get those bystanders out of the way. What is this? A circus?” He turned back. “Let’s get him in, men.”

As he was bending to help, Max saw Eldreth being led away by Mrs. Dumont. Tenderly they carried Sam in and deposited him on the deck where the Surgeon was waiting. Walther straightened up and seemed to notice Max for the first time. “Mr. Jones? Will you see me in my stateroom as quickly as possible, please?”

“Aye aye, sir. But… ” Max looked down at his friend. “I’d like to…”

Walther cut him short. “There’s nothing you can do. Come away.” He added more gently, “Make it fifteen minutes. That will give you time for a wash and a change.”

Max presented himself on time, showered, his face hastily scraped, and in clean clothes—although lacking a cap. His one cap was somewhere in the far valley, lost on capture. He found Chief Engineer Compagnon and Mr. Samuels, the Purser, with the First Officer. They were seated around a table, having coffee. “Come in, Mr. Jones,” Walther invited. “Sit down. Coffee?”

“Uh, yes, sir.” Max discovered that he was terribly hungry. He loaded the brew with cream and sugar.

They sat for a few minutes, talking of unimportant matters, while Max drank his coffee and steadied down. Presently Walther said, “What shape are you in, Mr. Jones?”

“Why, all right, I guess, sir. Tired, maybe.”

“I imagine so. I’m sorry to have to disturb you. Do you know the situation now?” “Partly, sir. Sam told me… Sam Anderson… ” His voice broke.

“We’re sorry about Anderson,” Mr. Walther said soberly. “In many ways he was one of the best men I ever served with. But go on.”

Max recounted what Sam had had time to tell him, but shortened the statements about Simes and Captain Blaine to the simple fact that they were dead. Walther nodded. “Then you know what we want of you?”

“I think so, sir. You want to raise the ship, so you want me to astrogate.” He hesitated. “I suppose I can.” “Mmm… yes. But that’s not all.”

“Sir?”

“You must be Captain.”

All three had their eyes fixed on him. Max felt lightheaded and for a moment wondered what was wrong. Their faces seemed to swell and then recede. He realized vaguely that he had had little to eat and almost no sleep for many hours and had been running on nerve—yes, that must be what was wrong with him.

From a long distance away he heard Walther’s voice: “… utterly necessary to leave this planet without delay. Now our legal position is clear. In space, only an astrogation officer may command. You are being asked to assume command responsibility while very young but you are the only qualified person—therefore you must do it.”

Max pulled himself together, the wavering figures came into focus. “Mr. Walther?” “Yes?”

“But I’m not an astrogator. I’m just a probationary apprentice.

Chief Engineer Compagnon answered him. “Kelly says you’re an astrogator,” he growled. “Kelly is more of an astrogator than I am!”

Compagnon shook his head. “You can’t pass judgment on yourself.” Samuels nodded agreement.

“Let’s dispose of that,” Walther added. “There is no question of the Chief Computerman becoming captain. Nor does your rank in your guild matter. Line of command, underway, necessarily is limited to astrogators. You are senior in that line, no matter how junior you feel. At this moment, I hold command—until I pass it on. But I can’t take a ship into space. If you refuse… well, I don’t know what we will have to do. I don’t know.”

Max gulped and said, “Look, sir, I’m not refusing duty. I’ll astrogate—shucks, I suppose it’s all right to call me the astrogator, under the circumstances. But there is no reason to pretend that I’m captain. You stay in command while I conn the ship. That’s best, sir—I wouldn’t know how to act like a captain.”

Walther shook his head. “Not legally possible.”

Compagnon added, “I don’t care about the legalities. But I know that responsibility can’t be divided. Frankly, young fellow, I’d rather have Dutch as skipper than you—but he can’t astrogate. I’d be delighted to have Doc Hendrix—but he’s gone. I’d rather hold the sack myself than load it on you—but I’m a physicist and I know just enough of the math of astrogation to know that I couldn’t in a lifetime acquire the speed that an astrogator has to have. Not my temperament. Kelly says you’ve got it already. I’ve shipped with Kelly a good many years, I trust him. So it’s your pidgin, son; you’ve got to take it—and the authority that goes with it. Dutch will help—we’ll all help—but you can’t duck out and hand him the sack.”

Mr. Samuels said quietly, “I don’t agree with the Chief Engineer about the unimportance of legal aspects; most of these laws have wise reasons behind them. But I agree with what else he says. Mr. Jones, a ship is not just steel, it is a delicate political entity. Its laws and customs cannot be disregarded without inviting disaster. It will be far easier to maintain morale and discipline in this ship with a young captain—with all his officers behind him—than it would be to let passengers and crew suspect that the man who must make the crucial decisions, those life-and-death matters involving the handling of the ship, that this

all-powerful man nevertheless can’t be trusted to command the ship. No, sir, such a situation would frighten me; that is how mutinies are born.”

Max felt his heart pounding, his head was aching steadily. Walther looked at him grimly and said, “Well?” “I’ll take it.” He added, “I don’t see what else I can do.”

Walther stood up. “What are your orders, Captain?”

Max sat still and tried to slow his heart. He pressed his fingers to throbbing temples and looked frightened. “Uh, continue with routine. Make preparations to raise ship.”

“Aye aye, sir.” Walther paused, then added, “May I ask when the Captain plans to raise ship?”

He was having trouble focusing again. “When? Not before tomorrow—tomorrow at noon. I’ve got to have a night’s sleep.” He thought to himself that Kelly and he could throw it into a parking orbit, which would get them away from the centaurs—then stop to figure out his next move.

“I think that’s wise, sir. We need the time.”

Compagnon stood up. “If the Captain will excuse me, sir, I’ll get my department started.”

Samuels joined him. “Your cabin is ready, sir—I’ll have your personal effects moved in in a few minutes.”

Max stared at him. He had not yet assimilated the side implications of his new office. Use Captain Blaine’s holy of holies? Sleep in his bed? “Uh, I don’t think that’s necessary. I’m comfortable where I am.”

Samuels glanced at the First Officer, then said, “If you please, Captain, this is one of the things I was talking about when I said that a ship is a delicate political entity.”

“Eh?” Max thought about it, then suddenly felt both the burden descend on him and the strength to meet it. “Very well,” he answered, his voice deepening. “Do it.”

“Yes, sir.” Samuels looked at him. “Also, Captain—if you wish it—I’ll have Lopez stop in and trim your hair.”

Max pushed locks back of his ear. “It is shaggy, isn’t it? Very well.”

The Purser and the Chief Engineer left. Max stood for a moment uncertainly, not sure what his next cue was in this new role. Walther said, “Captain? Can you spare me a few more minutes?”

“Oh, certainly.” They sat down and Walther poured more coffee. Max said, “Mr. Walther? Do you suppose we could ring the pantry and get some toast? I haven’t eaten today.”

“Why, surely! Sorry, sir.” Instead of ringing, the First Officer phoned and ordered a high tea. Then he turned to Max. “Captain, I didn’t give you all the story—nor did I wish to until we were alone.”

“So?”

“Don’t misunderstand me. My turning over command to you did not depend on these other matters—nor is it necessary for your officers to know everything that the Captain knows… even your department heads.”

“Uh, I suppose not.”

Walther stared at his coffee. “Have you heard how Mr. Simes happened to die?”

Max told him what little he had learned from Sam. Walther nodded. “That is essentially correct. Mmmm… It is not good to speak ill of the dead, but Simes was an unstable character. When Captain Blaine passed on, he took it for granted that he was immediately captain of this ship.”

“Well—I suppose it looked that way to him, from the legal standpoint.”

“Not at all! Sorry to correct you, Captain, but that is one hundred percent wrong.”

Max frowned. “I guess I’m dumb—but I thought that was the argument that was used on me?”

“No, sir. The ship being on the ground, command devolved on me, the senior. I am not required to turn command over to an astrogator until—and unless—the ship goes into space. Even then it is not automatically a matter of turning it over to the senior astrogating officer. I have a clearly defined responsibility, with numerous adjudicated cases in point: I must turn command over only to a man I believe can handle it.

“Now I have long had doubts about Mr. Simes, his temperament, I mean. Nevertheless, in this emergency, I would have found it terribly hard not to turn command over to him, once it was decided to raise ship. But before we lost the Captain I had had occasion to dig into Mr. Simes’ ability as an astrogator—partly as a result of a conversation with you. I talked with Kelly—as you have gathered, Kelly is very well thought of. I believe I know now how that last transition went sour; Kelly took pains to show me. That and the fact that Kelly told me bluntly that there wasn’t a member of the Worry gang willing to go into space under Mr. Simes made me decide that, if it ever came up, I’d let this ship sit here forever before I would let Simes be captain. That was just thinking ahead; the Captain was sick and prudence forced me to consider possibilities.

“Then the Captain did die—and Simes announced that he was captain. The fool even moved into the cabin and sent for me. I told him he was not in command and never would be. Then I left, got witnesses and took my chief of police along to eject him. You know what happened. Your life isn’t the only one that Anderson saved; I owe him mine, too.”

Walther abruptly changed the subject. “That phenomenal trick of memory you do—computing without tables or reference books. Can you do it all the time?”

“Uh? Why, yes.”

“Do you know all the tables? Or just some of them?”

“I know all the standard tables and manuals that are what an astrogator calls his ‘working tools.'” Max started to tell about his uncle, Walther interrupted gently.

“If you please, sir. I’m glad to hear it. I’m very glad to hear it. Because the only such books in this ship are the ones in your head.”

Kelly had missed the books, of course—not Walther. When he disclosed his suspicions to Walther the two conducted a search. When that failed, it was announced that one (but only one) set was missing; Walther had offered a reward, and the ship had been combed from stern to astrodome—no manuals.

“I suppose he ditched them dirtside,” Walther finished. You know where that leaves us—we’re in a state of seige. And we’d find them only by accident if we weren’t. So I’m very glad you have the same confidence in your memory that Kelly has.”

Max was beginning to have misgivings—it is one thing to do something as a stunt, quite another to do it of necessity. “It isn’t that bad,” he answered. “Perhaps Kelly never thought of it, but logarithms and binary translation tables can probably be borrowed from engineering—with those we could fudge up methods for any straight hop. The others are needed mostly for anomalous transitions.”

“Kelly thought of that, too. Tell me, Captain, how does a survey ship go back after it penetrates a newly located congruency?”

“Huh? So that is what you want me to do with the ship?”

“It is not for me,” Walther said formally, “to tell the Captain where to take his ship.”

Max said slowly, “I’ve thought about it. I’ve had a lot of time to think lately.” He did not add that he had dwelt on it nights in captivity to save his reason. “Of course, we don’t have the instruments that survey ships carry, nor does applied astrogation go much into the theory of calculating congruencies. And even some survey ships don’t come back.”

“But… ” They were interrupted by a knock on the door. A steward’s mate came in and loaded the table with food. Max felt himself starting to drool.

He spread a slice of toast with butter and jam, and took a big bite. “My, this is good!”

“I should have realized. Have a banana, sir? They look quite good—I believe hydroponics has had to thin them out lately.”

Max shuddered. “I don’t think I’ll ever eat bananas again. Or pawpaws.” “Allergic, Captain?”

“Not exactly. Well… yes.”

He finished the toast and said, “About that possibility. I’ll let you know later.” “Very well, Captain.”

Shortly before the dinner hour Max stood in front of the long mirror in the Captain’s bedroom and looked at himself. His hair was short again and two hours sleep had killed some of his fatigue. He settled a cap on his head at the proper angle—the name in the sweat band was “Hendrix”; he had found it laid out with one of his own uniforms to which captain’s insignia had been added. The sunburst on his chest bothered him—that he was indeed captain he conceded, even though it seemed like a wild dream, but he had felt that he was not entitled to anything but the smaller sunburst and circle, despite his four stripes.

Walther and Samuels had been respectful but firm, with Samuels citing precedents that Max could not check on. Max had given in.

He looked at himself, braced his shoulders, and sighed. He might as well go face them. As he walked down the companionway to the lounge he heard the speakers repeating, “All hands! All passengers! Report to Bifrost Lounge!”

The crowd made way for him silently. He went to the Captain’s table—his table!—and sat down at its head. Walther was standing by the chair. “Good evening, Captain.”

“Evening, Mr. Walther.”

Ellie was seated across from him. She caught his eye and smiled. “Hello, Ellie.” He felt himself blushing.

“Good evening, Captain,” she said firmly. She was dressed in the same high style she had worn the first time he had ever seen her in the lounge; it did not seem possible that this lady could be the same girl whose dirty face had looked at him over three-dee boards scratched in dirt.

“Uh, how are your feet?”

“Bandages and bedroom slippers. But the Surgeon did a fine job. I’ll be dancing tomorrow.” “Don’t rush it.”

She looked at his stripes and his chest. “You should talk.”

Before he could answer the unanswerable Walther leaned over and said quietly, “We’re ready, Captain.” “Oh. Go ahead.” Walther tapped on a water glass.

The First Officer explained the situation in calm tones that made it seem reasonable, inevitable. He concluded by saying, “… and so, in accordance with law and the custom of space, I have relinquished my temporary command to your new captain. Captain Jones!”

Max stood up. He looked around, swallowed, tried to speak, and couldn’t. Then, as effectively as if it had been a dramatic pause and not desperation, he picked up his water tumbler and took a sip. “Guests and fellow crewmen,” he said, “we can’t stay here. You know that. I have been told that our Surgeon calls the system we are up against here’symbiotic enslavement’—like dog to man, only more so, and apparently covering the whole animal kingdom on this planet. Well, men aren’t meant for slavery, symbiotic or any sort. But we are too few to win out now, so we must leave.”

He stopped for another sip and Ellie caught his eye, encouraging him. “Perhaps someday other men will come back—better prepared. As for us, I am going to try to take the Asgard back through the… uh, ‘hole’ you might call it, where we came out. It’s a chancy thing. No one is forced to come along—but it is the only possible way to get home. Anyone who’s afraid to chance it will be landed on the north pole of planet number three—the evening star we have been calling ‘Aphrodite.’ You may be able to survive there, although it is pretty hot even at the poles. If you prefer that alternative, turn your names in this

evening to the Purser. The rest of us will try to get home.” He stopped, then said suddenly, “That’s all,” and sat down.

There was no applause and he felt glumly that he had muffed his first appearance. Conversation started up around the room, crewmen left, and steward’s mates quickly started serving. Ellie looked at him and nodded quietly. Mrs. Mendoza was on his left; she said, “Ma—I mean ‘Captain’—is it really so dangerous? I hardly like the thought of trying anything risky. Isn’t there something else we can do?”

“No.”

“But surely there must be?”

“No. I’d rather not discuss it at the table.”

“But… ” He went on firmly spooning soup, trying not to tremble. When he looked up he was caught by a glittering eye across the table, a Mrs. Montefiore, who preferred to be called “Principessa”—a dubious title. “Dolores, don’t bother him. We want to hear about his adventures—don’t we, Captain?”

“No.”

“Come now! I hear that it was terribly romantic.” She drawled the word and gave Ellie a sly, sidelong look. She looked back at Max with the eye of a predatory bird and showed her teeth. She seemed to have more teeth than was possible. “Tell us all about it!”

“No.”

“But you simply can’t refuse!”

Eldreth smiled at her and said, “Princess darling—your mouth is showing.” Mrs. Montefiore shut up.

After dinner Max caught Walther alone. “Mr. Walther?” “Oh—yes, Captain?”

“Am I correct in thinking that it is my privilege to pick the persons who sit at my table?” “Yes, sir.”

“In that case—that Montefiore female. Will you have her moved, please? Before breakfast?” Walther smiled faintly. “Aye aye, sir.”

THE CAPTAIN OF THE ASGARD

They took Sam down and buried him where he had fallen. Max limited it to himself and Walther and Giordano, sending word to Ellie not to come. There was a guard of honor but it was armed to kill and remained spread out around the grave, eyes on the hills. Max read the service in a voice almost too low to be heard—the best he could manage.

Engineering had hurriedly prepared the marker, a pointed slab of stainless metal. Max looked at it before he placed it and thought about the inscription. “Greater love hath no man”?—no, he had decided that Sam wouldn’t like that, with his cynical contempt of all sentimentality. He had considered, “He played the cards he was dealt”—but that didn’t fit Sam either; if Sam didn’t like the cards, he sometimes slipped in a whole new deck. No, this was more Sam’s style; he shoved it into the ground and read it:

IN MEMORY OF

SERGEANT SAM ANDERSON LATE OF THE

IMPERIAL MARINES

“He ate what was set before him.”

Walther saw the marker for the first time. “So that’s how it was? Somehow I thought so.” “Yes. I never did know his right name. Richards. Or maybe Roberts.”

“Oh.” Walther thought over the implication. “We could get him reinstated, sir, posthumously. His prints will identify him.”

“I think Sam would like that.”

“I’ll see to it, sir, when we get back.” “If we get back.”

“If you please, Captain—when we get back.”

Max went straight to the control room. He had been up the evening before and had gotten the first shock of being treated as captain in the Worry Hole over with. When Kelly greeted him with, “Good morning, Captain,” he was able to be almost casual.

“Morning, Chief. Morning, Lundy.” “Coffee, sir?”

“Thanks. About that parking orbit—is it set up?” “Not yet, sir.”

“Then forget it. I’ve decided to head straight back. We can plan it as we go. Got the films?”

“I picked them up earlier.” They referred to the films cached in Max’s stateroom. Simes had managed to do away with the first set at the time of Captain Blaine’s death; the reserve set was the only record of when and where the Asgard had emerged into this space, including records of routine sights taken immediately after transition.

“Okay. Let’s get busy. Kovak can punch for me.”

The others were drifting in, well ahead of time, as was customary in Kelly’s gang. “If you wish, sir. I’d be

glad to compute for the Captain.”

“Kovak can do it. You might help Noguchi and Lundy with the films.”

“Aye aye, sir.” Data flowed to him presently. He had awakened twice in the night in cold fright that he had lost his unique memory. But when the data started coming, he programmed without effort, appropriate pages opening in his mind. The problem was a short departure to rid themselves of the planet’s influence, an adjustment of position to leave the local sun “behind” for simpler treatment of its field, then a long, straight boost for the neighborhood in which they had first appeared in this space. It need not be precise, for transition would not be attempted on the first pass; they must explore the area, taking many more photographic sights and computing from them, to establish a survey that had never been made.

Departure was computed and impressed on tape for the autopilot and the tape placed in the console long before noon. The ship had been keeping house on local time, about fifty-five standard minutes to the hour; now the ship would return to Greenwich, the time always kept in the control room—dinner would be late and some of the “beasts” would as usual reset their watches the wrong way and blame it on the government.

They synchronized with the power room, the tape started running, there remained nothing to do but press the button a few seconds before preset time and thereby allow the autopilot to raise ship. The phone rang, Smythe took it and looked at Max. “For you, Captain. The Purser.”

“Captain?” Samuels sounded worried. “I dislike to disturb you in the control room.” “No matter. What is it?”

“Mrs. Montefiore. She wants to be landed on Aphrodite.” Max thought a moment. “Anybody else change his mind?” “No, sir.”

“They were all notified to turn in their names last night.”

“I pointed that out to her, sir. Her answers were not entirely logical.”

“Nothing would please me more than to dump her there. But after all, we are responsible for her. Tell her no.

“Aye aye, sir. May I have a little leeway in how I express it?” “Certainly. Just keep her out of my hair.”

Max flipped off the phone, found Kelly at his elbow. “Getting close, sir. Perhaps you will take the console now and check the set up? Before you raise?”

“Eh? No, you take her up, Chief. You’ll have the first watch.”

“Aye aye, Captain.” Kelly sat down at the console, Max took the Captain’s seat, feeling self-conscious. He wished that he had learned to smoke a pipe—it looked right to have the Captain sit back, relaxed and smoking his pipe, while the ship maneuvered.

He felt a slight pulsation and was pressed more firmly into the chair cushions; the Asgard was again on her own private gravity, independent of true accelerations. Moments later the ship raised, but with

nothing to show it but the change out the astrodome from blue sky to star-studded ebony of space.

Max got up and found that he was still holding an imaginary pipe, he hastily dropped it. “I’m going below, Chief. Call me when the departure sights are ready to compute. By the way, what rotation of watches do you plan on?”

Kelly locked the board, got up and joined him. “Well, Captain. I had figured on Kovak and me heel-and-toe, with the boys on one in three. We’ll double up later.”

Max shook his head. “No. You and me and Kovak. And we’ll stay on one in three as long as possible. No telling how long we’ll fiddle around out there before we take a stab at it.”

Kelly lowered his voice. “Captain, may I express an opinion?”

“Kelly, any time you stop being frank with me, I won’t have a chance of swinging this. You know that.”

“Thank you, sir. The Captain should not wear himself out. You have to do all the computing as it is.” Kelly added quietly, “The safety of your ship is more important than—well, perhaps ‘pride’ is the word.”

Max took a long time to reply. He was learning, without the benefit of indoctrination, that a commanding officer is not permitted foibles commonplace in any other role; he himself is ruled more strongly by the powers vested in him than is anyone else. The Captain’s privileges—such as chucking a tiresome female from his table—were minor, while the penalties of the inhuman job had unexpected ramifications.

“Chief,” he said slowly, “is there room to move the coffee mess over behind the computer?” Kelly measured the space with his eye. “Yes, sir. Why?”

“I was thinking that would leave room over here to install a cot.” “You intend to sleep up here, sir?”

“Sometimes. But I was thinking of all of us—you shave up here half the time, as it is. The watches for the next few weeks do not actually require the O.W. to be awake most of the time, so we’ll all doss off when we can. What do you think?”

“It’s against regulations, sir. A bad precedent… and a bad example.” He glanced over at Noguchi and Smythe.

“You would write it up formal and proper, for my signature, citing the regulation and suspending it on an emergency basis ‘for the safety of the ship.'”

“If you say so, sir.”

“You don’t sound convinced, so maybe I’m wrong. Think it over and let me know.”

The cot appeared and the order was posted, but Max never saw either Kelly or Kovak stretched out on the cot. As for himself, had he not used it, he would have had little sleep.

He usually ate in the control room as well. Although there was little to do on their way out to rendezvous with nothingness but take sights to determine the relations of that nothingness with surrounding sky, Max found that when he was not computing he was worrying, or discussing his worries with Kelly.

How did a survey ship find its way back through a newly calculated congruency? And what had gone wrong with those that failed to come back? Perhaps Dr. Hendrix could have figured the other side of an

uncharted congruency using only standard ship’s equipment—or perhaps not. Max decided that Dr. Hendrix could have done it; the man had been a fanatic about his profession, with a wide knowledge of the theoretical physics behind the routine numerical computations—much wider, Max was sure, than most astrogators.

Max knew that survey ships calculated congruencies from both sides, applying to gravitational field theory data gathered on the previously unknown side. He made attempts to rough out such a calculation, then gave up, having no confidence in his results—he was sure of his mathematical operations but unsure of theory and acutely aware of the roughness of his data. There was simply no way to measure accurately the masses of stars light-years away with the instruments in the Asgard.

Kelly seemed relieved at his decision. After that they both gave all their time to an attempt to lay out a “groove” to the unmarked point in the heavens where their photosights said that they had come out—in order that they might eventually scoot down that groove, arriving at the locus just below the speed of light, then kick her over and hope.

A similar maneuver on a planet’s surface would be easy—but there is no true parallel with the situation in the sky. The “fixed” stars move at high speeds and there are no other landmarks; to decide what piece of featureless space corresponds with where one was at another time requires a complicated series of calculations having no “elegant” theoretical solutions. For each charted congruency an astrogator has handed to him a table of precalculated solutions—the “Critical Tables for Charted Anomalies.” Max and Kelly had to fudge up their own.

Max spent so much time in the control room that the First Officer finally suggested that passenger morale would be better if he could show himself in the lounge occasionally. Walther did not add that Max should wear a smile and a look of quiet confidence, but he implied it. Thereafter Max endeavored to dine with his officers and passengers.

He had of course seen very little of Eldreth. When he saw her at the first dinner after Walther’s gentle suggestion she seemed friendly but distant. He decided that she was treating him with respect, which made him wonder if she were ill. He recalled that she had originally come aboard in a stretcher, perhaps she was not as rugged as she pretended to be. He made a mental note to ask the Surgeon—indirectly, of course!

They were dawdling over coffee and Max was beginning to fidget with a desire to get back to the Worry Hole. He reminded himself sharply that Walther expected him not to show anxiety—then looked around and said loudly, “This place is like a morgue. Doesn’t anyone dance here these days? Dumont!”

“Yes, Captain?”

“Let’s have some dance music. Mrs. Mendoza, would you honor me?”

Mrs. Mendoza tittered and accepted. She turned out to be a disgrace to Argentina, no sense of rhythm. But he piloted her around with only minor collisions and got her back to her chair, so timed that he could bow out gracefully. He then exercised the privilege of rank by cutting in on Mrs. Daigler. Maggie’s hair was still short but her splendor otherwise restored.

“We’ve missed you, Captain.”

“I’ve been working. Short-handed, you know.”

“I suppose so. Er… Captain, is it pretty soon now?’

“Before we transit? Not long. It has taken this long because we have had to do an enormous number of fiddlin’ calculations—to be safe, you know.”

“Are we really going home?”

He gave what he hoped was a confident smile. “Absolutely. Don’t start any long book from the ship’s library; the Purser won’t let you take it dirtside.”

She sighed. “I feel better.”

He thanked her for the waltz, looked around, saw Mrs. Montefiore and decided that his obligation to maintain morale did not extend that far. Eldreth was seated, so he went to her. “Feet still bothering you, Ellie?”

“No, Captain. Thank you for asking.” “Then will you dance with me?”

She opened her eyes wide. “You mean the Captain has time for po’ li’l ole me?”

He leaned closer. “One more crack like that, dirty face, and you’ll be tossed into irons.” She giggled and wrinkled her nose. “Aye aye, Captain, sir.”

For a while they danced without talking, with Max a little overpowered by her nearness and wondering why he had not done this sooner. Finally she said, “Max? Have you given up three-dee permanently?”

“Huh? Not at all. After we make this transit I’ll have time to play—if you’ll spot me two starships.”

“I’m sorry I ever told you about that. But I do wish you would say hello to Chipsie sometimes. She was asking this morning, ‘Where Maxie?'”

“Oh, I am sorry. I’d take her up to the control room with me occasionally, except that she might push a button and lose us a month’s work. Go fetch her.”

“The crowd would make her nervous. We’ll go see her.” He shook his head. “Not to your room.”

“Huh? Don’t be silly. I’ve got no reputation left anyhow, and a captain can do as he pleases.”

“That shows you’ve never been a captain. See that vulture watching us?” He indicated Mrs. Montefiore with his eyes. “Now go get Chipsie and no more of your back talk.”

“Aye aye, Captain.”

He scratched Chipsie’s chin, fed her sugar cubes, and assured her that she was the finest spider puppy in that part of the sky. He then excused himself.

He was feeling exhilarated and oddly reassured. Seeing Mr. Walther disappearing into his room, he paused at the companionway and on impulse followed him. A matter had been worrying him, this was as good a time as any.

“Dutch? Are you busy?”

The First Officer turned. “Oh. No, Captain. Come in.”

Max waited during the ceremonial coffee, then broached it. “Something on my mind, Mr. Walther—a personal matter.”

“Anything I can do?”

“I don’t think so. But you’re a lot more experienced than I am; I’d like to tell you about it.” “If the Captain wishes.”

“Look, Dutch, this is a ‘Max’ matter, not a ‘Captain’ matter.”

Walther smiled. “All right. But don’t ask me to change my form of address. I might pick up a bad habit.”

“Okay, okay.” Max had intended to sound out Walther about his phony record: had Dr. Hendrix reported it? Or hadn’t he?

But he found it impossible to follow that line; being a captain had forced him into a different mold. “I want to tell you how I got into this ship.” He told it all, not suppressing Sam’s part now that it no longer could hurt Sam. Walther listened gravely.

“I’ve been waiting for you to mention this, Captain,” he said at last. “Dr. Hendrix reported it to me, in less detail, when he put you up for apprentice astrogator. We agreed that it was a matter that need not be raised inside the ship.”

“It’s what happens after we get back that frets me. If we get back.” “When we get back. Are you asking for advice? Or help? Or what?” “I don’t know. I just wanted to tell you.”

“Mmmm… there are two alternatives. One we could handle here, by altering a not very important report. In which…”

“No, Dutch. I won’t have phony reports going out of the Asgard.”

“I was fairly certain you would say that. I feel the same way, except that I would feel obligated for—well, various reasons—to cover up for you if you asked it.”

“I once intended to arrange a phony on it. I even felt justified. But I can’t do it now.”

“I understand. The remaining alternative is to report it and face the music. In which case I’ll see it through with you—and so will the Chief Engineer and the Purser, I feel sure.”

Max sat back, feeling warm and happy. “Thanks, Dutch. I don’t care what they do to me… just as long as it doesn’t keep me out of space.”

“I don’t think they’ll try to do that, not if you bring this ship in. But if they do—well, they’ll know they’ve been in a fight. Meantime try to forget it.”

“I’ll try.” Max frowned. “Dutch? Tell me the truth, what do you think about the stunt I pulled?” “That’s a hard question, Captain. More important is, how do you feel about it?”

“Me? I don’t know. I know how I used to feel—I felt belligerent.” “Eh?”

“I was always explaining—in my mind of course—why I did it, justifying myself, pointing out that the system was at fault, not me. Now I don’t want to justify myself. Not that I regret it, not when I think what I would have missed. But I don’t want to duck out of paying for it, either.”

Walther nodded. “That sounds like a healthy attitude. Captain, no code is perfect. A man must conform with judgment and commonsense, not with blind obedience. I’ve broken rules; some violations I paid for, some I didn’t. This mistake you made could have turned you into a moralistic prig, a ‘Regulation Charlie’ determined to walk the straight and narrow and to see that everyone else obeyed the letter of the law. Or it could have made you a permanent infant who thinks rules are for everyone but him. It doesn’t seem to have had either effect; I think it has matured you.”

Max grinned. “Well, thanks, Dutch.” He stood up. “I’ll get back up to the Hole and mess up a few figures.”

“Captain? Are you getting enough sleep?”

“Me? Oh, sure, I get a nap almost every watch.”

“Minus four hours, Captain.” Max sat up on the cot in the control room, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. The Asgard was in the groove, had been boosting along it for days, working up to that final burst that would squeeze them out of this space and into another—one they knew or some other, depending on how well their “fudging” had conformed to the true structure of the universe.

Max blinked at Kelly. “How long have you been up here?” “Not long, Captain.”

“Did you get any sleep?” “Well, now, Captain…”

“Forget it, you’re incorrigible. Got one ready?” “Yes, sir.”

“Shoot.” Max sat on the cot while they passed data to him, eyes closed while he programmed the problem and translated it into the binary numbers the computer understood. He had not been out of the Hole more than a few minutes at a time for days. He would doze between sights, wake up and process one, then lie down again.

He had kept Kelly and Kovak on watch-and-watch as long as possible—although it was hard to get Kelly to rest. Lundy, Smythe, and Noguchi had continued to rotate, overlapping when the going got faster in order to help each other with plate changing and readings. For Max there could be no relief; he must process each sight, supplying from his card-file memory the information in the missing manuals.

All the Worry gang were there but Lundy. He came up as Max finished and ordered the correction. “Compliments of cookie,” he announced, setting down a gallon of ice cream.

“What flavor?” asked Max. “Chocolate chip, sir.”

“My favorite. Just remember when you are dishing it that efficiency marks will be coming up one of these days.”

“Now, Captain, that’s not fair. The Chief has a lot more mass to feed than you have.” “And I have a very high metabolic rate,” announced Noguchi. “I need more.”

“Noggy, you have a built-in space warp in each leg. We’ll let Kelly dish it and hope that pride will restrain him.” Max turned to Kelly. “What schedule are we on?”

“Twenty minutes, Captain.” “Think we need that so soon?” “Just to be safe, sir.”

“Okay.” They ran another sight and ate the ice cream, after which Max shifted them to transition stations. Kelly did not take the computer. A key punched by Kovak gave the same answer as one punched by Kelly, and Max wanted Kelly on the vernier stereograph where his long experience could make the best of poor data. Lundy assisted Kelly, with Smythe and Noguchi shooting and running.

At minus two hours Max called Compagnon, told him that they were narrowing down; the Chief Engineer assured him that he would nurse boost and vector himself from there on. “Good hunting, Captain.”

On a ten minute schedule Max still found it easy, though he had to admit he wasn’t as fresh as a still-warm egg. But he was kept comfortably busy and the corrections were pleasantly

small—Compagnon must be doing a real job down there. When the preset on the computer said less than one hour to zero, he stood up and stretched. “Everybody all set. Somebody wake up Noggy.

Everybody got a pepper pill in him? And who’s got one for me?”

Kovak leaned back and handed him one, Max popped it into his mouth and downed it with a swig of coffee. “Grab a last sandwich if you’re going to. All right, gang—let’s hit it!”

The data flowed in a steady stream. After a while Max began to tire. He would no more than pick one correction off the lights on the computer and feed it to the power room than Kelly would have more data ready. A correction showed up that seemed off the curve, as if they were “hunting” excessively. He glanced back at the lights before applying it—then realized that a new set of data was being offered.

“Repeat!” he called out.

Kelly repeated. Max ran the figures over in his mind and found that they meant nothing to him. What had that last correction implied? Had he used a legitimate method in surveying this anomaly? Could you even call it surveying? Was this what a survey ship did to get out? How could they expect a man to…

“Captain!” Kelly said sharply.

He shook his head and sat up. “Sorry. Hold the next one.” With a feeling of panic he reviewed the data in his mind and tried to program. He knew at last how it felt to have the deadline bearing down fast as light—and to lose confidence.

He told himself that he must abort—slide past under the speed of light, spend weeks swinging back, and try again. But he knew that if he did, his nerve would never sustain him for a second try.

At that bad moment a feeling came over him that someone was standing behind his chair, resting hands

on his shoulders—quieting him, soothing him. He began clearly and sharply to call off figures to Kovak.

He was still calling them out with the precision of an automaton twenty minutes later. He accepted one more sight, digested it, sent it on to Kovak with his eyes on the preset. He applied the correction, a tiny one, and called out, “Stand by!” He pressed the button that allowed the chronometer to kick it over on the microsecond. Only then did he look around, but there was no one behind him.

“There’s the Jeep!” he heard Kelly say exultantly. “And there’s the Ugly Duckling!” Max looked up. They were back in the familiar sky of Nu Pegasi and Halcyon.

Five minutes later Kelly and Max were drinking cold coffee and cleaning up the remains of a plate of sandwiches while Noguchi and Smythe completed the post-transition sights. Kovak and Lundy had gone below for a few minutes relief before taking the first watch. Max glanced again at the astrodome. “So we made it. I never thought we would.”

“Really, Captain? There was never any doubt in my mind after you took command.” “Hmmm! I’m glad you didn’t know how I felt.”

Kelly ignored this. “You know, sir, when you are programming your voice sounds amazingly like the Doctor’s.”

Max looked at him sharply. “I had a bad time there once,” he said slowly. “Shortly before zip.” “Yes, sir. I know.”

“Then—Look, this was just a feeling, you see? I don’t go for ghosts. But I had the notion that Doc was standing over me, the way he used to, checking what I did. Then everything was all right.”

Kelly nodded. “Yes. He was here. I was sure he would be.”

“Huh? What do you mean?” Kelly would not explain. He turned instead to inspect post-transition plates, comparing them happily with standard plates from the chart safe—the first such opportunity since the ship was lost.

“I suppose,” said Max when Kelly was through, “that we had better rough out an orbit for Nu Pegasi before we sack in.” He yawned. “Brother, am I dead!”

Kelly said, “For Nu Pegasi, sir?”

“Well, we can’t shoot for Halcyon itself at this distance. What did you have in mind?” “Nothing, sir.”

“Spill it.”

“Well, sir, I guess I had assumed that we would reposition for transit to Nova Terra. But if that is what the Captain wants—”

Max drummed on the chart safe. It had never occurred to him that anyone would expect him to do anything, after accomplishing the impossible, but to shape course for the easy, target-in-sight destination they had left from, there to wait for competent relief.

“You expected me to take her on through? With no tables and no help?” “I did not intend to presume, Captain. It was an unconscious assumption.”

Max straightened up. “Tell Kovak to hold her as she goes. Phone Mr. Walther to see me at once in my cabin.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

The First Officer met him outside his cabin. “Hello, Dutch. Come in.” They entered and Max threw his cap on his desk. “Well, we made it.”

“Yes, sir. I was watching from the lounge.” “You don’t seem surprised.”

“Should I be, Captain?”

Max sprawled in his easy chair, stretching his weary back muscles. “You should be. Yes, sir, you should be.”

“All right. I’m surprised.”

Max looked up and scowled. “Dutch, where is this ship going now?” Walther answered, “The Captain has not yet told me.”

“Confound it! You know what I mean. Our schedule calls for Nova Terra. But there is Halcyon sitting right over there—a blind man could find it with a cane. What destination did you have in mind when you boosted me into command? Tell me what you expected then? Before you tagged me.”

“I had in mind,” Walther answered, “getting a captain for the Asgard.”

“That’s no answer. See here, the passengers have a stake in this. Sure, I had to take this risk for them, no choice. But now there is a choice. Shouldn’t we tell them and let them vote on it?”

Walther shook his head emphatically. “You don’t ask passengers anything, sir. Not in a ship underway. It is not fair to them to ask them. You tell them.”

Max jumped up and strode the length of the cabin. “‘Fair,’ you say. Fair! It’s not fair to me.” He swung and faced Walther. “Well? You’re not a passenger. You’re my First Officer. What do you think we should do?”

Walther stared him in the eye. “I can’t decide that for the Captain. That is why you are Captain.”

Max stood still and closed his eyes. The figures stood out clearly, in neat columns. He went to his phone and savagely punched the call for the control room. “Captain speaking. Is Kelly still there? Oh—good, Chief. We reposition for Nova Terra. Start work—I’ll be up in a minute.”

THE TOMAHAWK

Max liked this time of day, this time of year. He was lying in the grass on the little rise west of the barn, with his head propped up so that he could see to the northwest. If he kept his eyes there, on the exit ring of the C.S.&E. Ring Road, he would be able, any instant now, to see the Tomahawk plunge out and shoot across the gap in free trajectory. At the moment he was not reading, no work was pushing him, he was just being lazy and enjoying the summer evening.

A squirrel sat up near by, stared at him, decided he was harmless and went about its business. A bird swooped past.

There was a breathless hush, then suddenly a silver projectile burst out of the exit ring, plunged across the draw and entered the ring on the far side—just as the sound hit him.

“Boy, oh boy!” he said softly. “It never looks like they’d make it.”

It was all that he had climbed the rise to see, but he did not get up at once. Instead he pulled a letter from his pocket and reread the ending: “… I guess Daddy was glad to get me back in one piece because he finally relented. Putzie and I were married a week ago—and oh Max, I’m so happy! You must visit us the next time you hit dirt at Hespera.” She had added, “P.S. Mr. Chips sends her love—and so do I.”

Quite a gal, Ellie. She usually got her own way, one way or another. He felt a bit sorry for Putzie. Now if they had all stayed on Charity…

Never mind—an astrogator ought not to get married. Fondly he fingered the sunburst on his chest. Too bad he had not been able to stay with the Asgard—but of course they were right; he could not ship as assistant in a ship where he had once been skipper. And assistant astrogator of the Elizabeth Regina was a good billet, too; everybody said the Lizzie was a taut ship.

Besides that, not every young A.A. had a new congruency to his credit, even now being surveyed. He had nothing to kick about. He didn’t even mind the whopping big fine the Council of the Guilds had slapped on him, nor the official admonition that had been entered in his record. They had let him stay in space, which was the important thing, and the admonition appeared right along with the official credit for the “Hendrix” congruency.

And, while he didn’t argue the justice of the punishment—he’d been in the wrong and he knew it—nevertheless the guilds were set up wrong; the rules ought to give everybody a chance. Some day he’d be senior enough to do a little politicking on that point.

In the meantime, if he didn’t get moving, he’d have to buy that taxi. Max got up and started down the slope. The helicab was parked in front of the house and the driver was standing near it, looking out over the great raw gash of the Missouri-Arkansas Power Project. The fields Max once had worked were gone, the cut reached clear into the barn yard. The house was still standing but the door hung by one hinge and some kid had broken all the windows. Max looked at the house and wondered where Maw and the man she had married were now?—not that he really cared and no one around Clyde’s Corners seemed to know. They had told him at the courthouse that Maw had collected her half of the government-condemnation money and the pair of them had left town.

Probably their money was gone by now—Max’s half of the money was gone completely, it hadn’t quite paid his fine. If they were broke, maybe Montgomery was having to do some honest work, for Maw wasn’t the woman to let a man loaf when she was needing. The thought pleased Max; he felt he had a score to settle with Montgomery, but Maw was probably settling it for him.

The driver turned toward him. “Be a big thing when they get this finished. You ready to go, sir?”

Max took a last glance around. “Yes. I’m all through here.” They climbed into the cabin. “Where to? Back to the Corners?”

Max thought about it. He really ought to save money—but shucks, he would save plenty this next trip. “No, fly me over to Springfield and drop me at the southbound ring road station. I’d like to make it in time to catch the Javelin.”

That would put him in Earthport before morning.

The End

Posts Regarding Life and Contentment

Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.

Why no High-Speed rail in the USA?
Link
Link
Link
Tomatos
Link
Mad scientist
Gorilla Cage in the basement
The two family types and how they work.
Link
Pleasures
Work in the 1960's
School in the 1970s
Cat Heaven
Corporate life
Corporate life - part 2
Build up your life
Grow and play - 1
Grow and play - 2
Asshole
Baby's got back
Link
A womanly vanity
SJW
Army and Navy Store
Playground Comparisons
Excuses that we use that keep us enslaved.

Posts about the Changes in America

America is going through a period of change. Change is good… that is, after it occurs. Often however, there are large periods of discomfort as the period of adjustment takes place. Here are some posts that discuss this issue.

Parable about America
What is planned for American Conservatives - Part 2
What is going to happen to conservatives - Part 3.
What is planned for conservatives - part 4
What is in store for Conservatives - part 5
What is in store for conservatives - part 6
Civil War
The Warning Signs
r/K selection theory
Line in the sand
A second passport
Link
Make America Great Again.
What would the founders think?

More Posts about Life

I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.

Being older
Things I wish I knew.
Link
Travel
PT-141
Bronco Billy
How they get away with it
Paper Airplanes
Snopes
Taxiation without representation.
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
1960's and 1970's link
Democracy Lessons
A polarized world.
The Rule of Eight
Types of American conservatives.

Stories that Inspired Me

Here are reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come and enjoy a read or two as well.

Link
Space Cadet (Full Text) by Robert Heinlein
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Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
The Last Night
The Flying Machine
A story of escape.
All Summer in a day.
The Smile by Ray Bradbury
The menace from Earth
Delilah and the Space Rigger
Life-Line
The Tax-payer
The Pedestrian
Time for the stars.
Glory Road by Robert Heinlein

Articles & Links

You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
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Really Strange China (Part 4)

Let’s continue with our exploration of cute and unique China with these following examples…

Many people that I met were curious about China, but their impressions of China would end up with words like ‘communist,’ ‘pollution’ and ‘no Facebook.’ While many facts are true, the contemporary, living and multifaceted Chinese life is rarely heard of. 

-Tinyeyescomics

Please kindly note that this post has multiple embedded videos. It is important to view them. If they fail to load, all you need to do is to reload your browser.

Disco Swimming Party

The Chinese have a great love for being together and having fun and partying. Often they mix singing, dancing, and (of course) drinking with their other pleasures. As any other normal adult would. Here, we look at a typical swimming pool and their weekend festivities.

And, yes… this is TYPICAL.

I, myself, enjoy swimming. As a boy we would swim in the ocean and in the various pools around the community. This was true whether it was a private club, or at a friends house. I have always associated Summer with pools, and I think that all kids should have the same kind of fond memories attached to swimming and Summer as I have.

After all, who doesn’t want to go have fun?

Beach Scene
Photo from the late 1940s and early 1950s of some gals on the beach. You can well imagine a nice day, some fine food and friendship. Not to mention walking and swimming along the shore. Such memories I have of those times.

Back in my middle school days, all of us kids were part of the YMCA after-school swimming program. When ever they had one of these programs, my parents were the first to sign us kids up for the classes. I became quite good at swimming, and that later turned into an asset once I joined the US Navy.

After school, we would hop onto a bus and it would carry us over to a nearby town for our lessons. I seem to recall that the trip would last around a half an hour, and the entire time at the YMCA might have lasted around three hours. I suppose that gave our parents enough time away from us kids for some private time. Heh heh.

The YMCA had an indoor pool, but we would also go use outside pools during the Summer months. I had friends who loved to swim in the rivers and lakes, but they were way too dirty for my personal sensibilities.

Swimming in the Summer
For me, my time around the pools pretty much looked like this. Even at the pool where we were a member, my parents would pay for me to take swimming and diving lessons. I learned well how to do many dives.

Being with friends and noisy kids is part of the swimming experience. And, you know what? I think that it is great. I really do.

There will be plenty of opportunities for other kinds of beach and swimming pool adventures in your future. That’s life. Some will be great. Some will be not so great. Some will have you walking on the beach hand-in-hand with someone you love and care for dearly. Some experiences will involve alcohol. Some experiences will involve a group of close friends, with music, food and other pleasures.

I think that the best thing about life is to enjoy it as it is happening.

What I mean is that time is short and it is fleeting. You need to know that if you are always goal oriented, you will miss out in the opportunities and adventures that lie all around you right now. There is a saying to “take the time to smell the flowers”, and that is very true, but the saying has become trite and over used.

Appreciate you life as it is happening TODAY right now. You might not get another moment exactly like this one in the future.

1960s swimming pool
What are your favorite moments when you grew up? Can you be evocative of them? Was your childhood like the movie “On Golden Pond”? Or, maybe it was like the movie “The Goonies”? Enjoy what you have while you are living it.

OK, now going back to China.

Yes there are all kinds of ways that you can have fun at pools and on the beach. Just like in the United States or in an exotic holiday resort. You can go to pools, public water and pool parks, and even have your own pool where you would invite your friends over for some fun and frolic.

Here is a micro-video of a Chinese public pool. There are some things to note.

Unlike the video above, this one isn’t so rambunctious. It is quieter and more peaceful. It is not designed for groups of people to party and have a good time at. It is, instead, designed to relax and have a nice spa-like experience with friends and family. You will also notice that there is a huge canvas awning overhead. This is typical in China and most gals do not want their beautiful white skin to get dark.

You will note that the water is not deep either, and that there is a bench all along the sides of the pool for people to sit up and rest within the water. In this pool it is sort of like a cross between a whirl-pool and a regular pool. It is a place to relax, while the other video was a place to get crazy and have fun in.

Studying with Roommates

Most colleges and schools in China are dorms where there are from four to eight students crammed into one room. It is cozy, and over time, everyone develops a very close bond together. I used to think that this was terrible, but once I started to make Chinese friends, I saw the advantages of this.

You form “tribes” or “families” what are self-supporting.

G-friends dorm room
It is common all over Asia to form close-knit “tribes” or extended family as part of close living conditions. Seriously, you cannot get much closer together than living in Tokyo or Hong Kong. Here is the dorm that the K-Pop group “g-friends” live in.

This is very important when you are away from home for the first time, and need to have friends and associations for support, emotional health and friendship. In China, having friends and family is of extreme importance.

Dorm room occupancy comic
The Chinese typically share a room with four to eight others. The American often shares with one other person, and the British get their own private rooms to themselves.
I’ve experienced student dormitories in three countries: In the U.K. I have my own private room with shared public space; In the U.S. I shared my dorm with one roommate; In China, I used to live with 5 girls in the same room. 

This lack of privacy must be shocking for some of you, but in a country with 1.3 billion population, space is always a problem. 

While there are many inconveniences for not having enough private space, on the bright side, sharing a room with someone also makes you learn quite a deal about communication, responsibilities and tolerance. 
 
-Tinyeyescomics 

Here is a typical dorm room scene.

You will note that the room is rectangular with beds on stilts that lie over the study desks. This is not everywhere, but seems to work well. I have seen other arrangements, of course. You will also note that, like college dorm rooms all over the globe, the students decorate it to their own personal tastes.

I particularly like the swing chair. It’s actually pretty popular in Chinese dorm rooms.

Japanese Invasion

There is a movement toward wearing traditional Chinese clothing all over China. I personally love it, and enjoy watching girls wearing their really cute outfits. Well, girls (all over the world) enjoy dressing up and wearing different outfits. From time to time you will see these girls getting dressed up in period fashion and Japanese fashion. It’s all pretty darn cute.

Here we have some Chinese gals getting involved in some of the Japanese fashions in Shanghai.

Pretty Crazy, huh?

Of course, you do need to put this into perspective. Any “invasion” from Japan is not about displacing traditional Chinese culture. Rather it is about enjoying your own uniqueness within China. You see, in China there is no such thing as “cultural appropriation” that is a bunch of progressive hooey that is all the rage in the United States. In China you can pretty much be who ever you want to, and no fat overweight pink-haired feminist is going to scream in your face about it.

That enables the Chinese to enjoy their history, and their culture without any disdain or apologies.

And they do so. They are very proud of their culture and when given the opportunity, they will happily don traditional clothing and be themselves. Here we have a girl from one of the Southern regions of China. I believe (but am not sure) that her culture is from the Hainan island area. (Incidentally, the women have traditionally covered themselves in tribal tattoos. This is something that is NOT carried over with modern Chinese ladies. They prefer to leave their bodies unadorned.)

You can see the cross-cultural influences from other ethnic regions within China here.

The headdress is borrowed from some central Chinese cultures, and the flower in the hair is from the South Pacific with a relationship influence (flower on the right if married, on the left if single). In the Northern part of China, you will see the ladies wear long dresses with coverings on their arms. In the Southern sections (where it is HOT) you will find them wearing mini-skirts and loose clothing.

OK. At numerous videos for this part, let’s go and move on to the next past which covers even more strangeness inside of China this month…

Continued-graphic-arrow

If you want to go to the start of this series of posts, then please click HERE.

Links about China

Popular Music of China
Chinese weapons systems
Chinese motor sports
End of the Day Potato
Dog Shit
Dancing Grandmothers
Dance Craze
When the SJW movement took control of China
Family Meal
Freedom & Liberty in China
Ben Ming Nian
Beware the Expat
Fake Wine
Fat China
Business KTV
How I got married in China.
Chinese apartment houses
Chinese Culture Snapshots
Rural China
Chinese New Year

China and America Comparisons

SJW
Playground Comparisons
The Last Straw
Leaving the USA
Diversity Initatives
Democracy
Travel outside
10 Misconceptions about China
Top Ten Misconceptions

The Chinese Business KTV Experience

This is the real deal. Forget about all that nonsense that you find in the British tabloids and an occasional write up in the American liberal press. This is the reality. Read or not.

KTV1
KTV2
KTV3
KTV4
KTV5
KTV6
KTV7
KTV8
KTV9
KTV10
KTV11
KTV12
KTV13
KTV14
KTV15
KTV16
KTV17
KTV18
KTV19
KTV20

Learning About China

Pretty Girls 1
Pretty Girls 2
Pretty Girls 3
Pretty Girls 4
Pretty Girls 5

Contemporaneous Chinese Music

This is a series of posts that discuss contemporaneous popular music in China. It is a wide ranging and broad spectrum of travel, and at that, all that I am able to provide is the flimsiest of overviews. However, this series of posts should serve as a great starting place for investigation and enjoyment.

Part 1 - Popular Music of China
Part 3 -Popular music of China.
Part 3 - The contemporaneous music of China.
part 3B - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 4 - The contemporaneous popular music of China.
Part 5 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 5B - The popular music of China.
Part 5C - The music of contemporary China.
Part D - The popular music of China.
Part 5E - A happy Joe.
Part 5F - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 5F - The popular music of China.
Post 6 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Post 7 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Post 8 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 9 - The contemporaneous music of China.
Part 10 - Music of China.
Post 11 - The contemporaneous music of China.

Parks in China

Parks in China - 1
Pars in China - 2
Parks in China - 3
Visiting a park in China - 4
High Speed Rail in China
Visiting a park in China - 5
Beautiful China part 6
Parks in China - 7
Visiting a park in China - 8

Articles & Links

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