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That kid thought I was Darkovan. Even with the clothes I was wearing. From hearing me speak thelanguage, he couldn’t tell the difference.

He looked back, almost wistfully, at the vanishing panorama of Darkover beyond the forbiddengateway. They were passing now into a street of houses and buildings that were just like Earth ones, and Larry’s father sighed—with relief?

“Just like home. At least you won’t be too homesick here,” he said, checked the numbers on a card he

held, and pushed open a door. “Our rooms are in this building.”

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Inside, the lights had been set so that the light was that of Earth at noon, and the apartment—five roomson the fourth floor—might have been the one they had left on Earth. All the while they were unpacking,dialing food from the dispensers, exploring the rooms, Larry’s thoughts ran a new and strange pattern.

What was the point of living on a strange world if you did your best to make your house, the furniture,the very
 
light
 
, look exactly like the old one? Why not
 
stay
 
on Earth if you felt like that?

Okay, if they wanted it this way. That was okay with him. But he was going to see more of Darkoverthan this.

He was going to see what lay behond that gate. The new world was beautiful, and strange—and hecould hardly wait to explore it.

Homesick? What did Dad think he
 
was
 
?

II

«^»

LARRY PUSHED BACK the heavy steel door of Quarters B building, and emerged into the thin coldcutting wind of the courtyard between buildings. He stood there shivering, looking at the sky; the hugered sun hung low, slowly dropping toward the horizon, where thin ice-clouds massed in mountains ofcrimson and scarlet and purple.

Behind him Rick Stewart shivered audibly, pulling his coat tight. “Brrrr, I wish they had a passagewaybetween the buildings! And I can’t see a thing in this light. Let’s get inside, Larry.” He waited a minute,impatiently. “What are you staring at?”

“Nothing.” Larry shrugged and followed the other lad into Quarters A, where their rooms were located. How could he say that this brief daily passage between Quarters B—where the school for spaceport youngsters, from kindergarten to pre-university, was located—and Quarters A, was his only chance to look at Darkover?

Inside, in the cool yellow Earthlike light, Rick relaxed. “You’re an odd one,” he said, as they took theelevator to their floor. “I’d think the light out there would hurt your eyes.”

“No, I like it. I wish we could get out and explore.”

“Well, shall we go down to the spaceport?” Rick chuckled. “There’s nothing to see there but starships,

and they’re an old story to me, but I suppose to you they’re still exciting.”

Larry felt exasperated at the patronizing amusement in Rick’s voice. Rick had been on Darkover threeyears—and frankly admitted that he had never been beyond the spaceport. “Not that,” he said; “I’d liketo get into the town—see what it’s like.” His pent-up annoyance suddenly escaped. “I’ve been on Darkover three weeks, and I might as well be back on Earth! Even here in the school, I’m studying thesame things I was studying at home! History of Terra, early Space Exploration, Standard Literature,mathematics—”

“You bet,” Rick said. “You don’t think any Terran citizens would stay here, if their kids couldn’t get a

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decent education, do you? Requirements for any Empire university.”

“I know that. But after all, living on this planet, we should know a little something about it, shouldn’t

we?”

Rick shrugged again. “I can’t imagine why.” They came into the rooms Larry shared with his father, anddumped their school books and paraphernalia. Larry went to the food dispenser—from which foodprepared in central kitchens was delivered by pneumatic tube and charged to their account—and dialedhimself a drink and a snack, asking Rick what he wanted. The boys stretched out on the furniture, eatinghungrily.

“You
 
are
 
an odd one,” Rick repeated. “Why do you care about this planet? We’re not going to stay here all our lives. What good would it do to learn everything about it? What we get in the Terran Empire schools will be valid on any Empire planet where they send us. As for me, I’m going into the Space Academy when I’m eighteen—and goodness knows, that’s reason enough to hit the books on navigation and math!”

Larry munched a cracker. “It just seems funny,” he repeated with stubborn emphasis, “to live on a worldlike this and not know more about it. Why not
 
stay
 
on Earth, if their culture is the only one you careabout?”

Rick’s chuckle was tolerant. “This your first planet out from Earth? Oh, well, that explains it. Afteryou’ve seen a couple, you’ll realize that there’s nothing out there but a lot of barbarians and outworlders. Unless you’re going in for archaeology or history as a career, why clutter up your mind with the details?”

Larry couldn’t answer. He didn’t try. He finished his cracker and opened his book on navigation. “Wasthis the problem that was bothering you?”

But while they put their heads together, figuring out interstellar orbits and plotting collision curves, Larrywas still thinking with frustrated eagerness of the world outside —the world, it seemed now, he’d neverknow.

Rick didn’t seem to care. None of the youngsters he’d met here in the Trade City seemed to care. Theywere Earthmen, and anything outside the Terran Zone was alien— and they couldn’t have cared less. They lived the same life they’d have lived on any Empire planet, and that was the way they wanted it.

They’d even been surprised—no, thunderstruck—to hear that he’d learned the Darkovan speech. Theycouldn’t imagine why. One of the teachers had been faintly sympathetic; he’d shown Larry how to makethe complicated letters of the Darkovan alphabet, and even loaned him a few books written in Darkovan. But there wasn’t much time for that. Mostly he got the same schooling he’d have had on Earth.

Darkover, even the light of Darkover’s red sun, was barriered out by walls and yellow earth-type lights;and the closed minds of the Terran Zone personnel were even more of a barrier.

When Rick had gone, Larry put his books away and sat scowling, thinking it over, until his father camein.

“How’s it going, Dad?”

He was fascinated by his father’s work, but Wade Montray wouldn’t talk about it much. Larry knewthat his father worked in the customs office, and that his work was, in a general way, to see that nocontraband was smuggled from Darkover to the Terran Zone, or vice versa. It sounded interesting to

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Larry, through his father kept insisting it was not much different from the work he’d done on Earth.

But today he seemed somewhat more communicative.

“How about dialing us some supper? I was too busy, today, to stop and eat. We had some trouble at the Bureau. One of the City Elders came to us, as mad as a drenched cat. He insisted that one of our men had carried weapons into the City, and we had to check it up. What happened was that some young fool of a Darkovan had offered one of the Spaceport Guards a lot of money to sell him one of his pistols and report it lost. When we checked with the man, sure enough, he’d done just that. Of course, he lost his rank and he’ll be on the next spaceship out of Darkover. The confounded fool!”

“Why, Dad?”

Wade Montray leaned his chin on his hands. “You don’t know much Darkovan history, do you? Theyhave a thing called the Compact, signed a thousand years ago, which makes it illegal for anyone to haveor to use any weapon except the kind which brings the man who uses it into the same risk as the man heattacks with it.”

“I don’t think I quite understand that, Dad.”

“Well, look. If you wear a sword, or a knife, in order to use it, you have to get close to your victim—and for all you know,
 
he
 
may have a knife and be better than you are at using it. But guns, shockers, blasters, atomic bombs— you can use those without taking any risk of getting hurt yourself. Anyway, Darkover signed the Compact, and before they agreed to let the Terran Empire build a spaceport here for trade, we had to give them iron-clad guarantees that we’d help them keep contraband out of Darkover.”

“I don’t blame them,” Larry said. He had heard the tales of the early planetary wars on Earth.

“Anyway. The man who bought this gun from our space-force guard has a collection of rare old weapons, and he swears he only wanted it as part of his collection—but nobody can be sure of that. Contraband
 
does
 
get across the border sometimes, no matter how careful we are. So I had quite a day trying to trace it down. Then I had to arrange for a couple of students from the medical schools here to

go out into the back country on Darkover, studying diseases. We’ve arranged to admit a few Darkovans to the medical schools here. Their medical science isn’t up to much, and they think very highly of our doctors. But it isn’t easy even then. The more superstitious natives are prejudiced against anything

Terran. And the higher caste Darkovans won’t have anything to do with us because it’s beneath their dignity to associate with aliens. They think we’re barbarians. I talked to one of their aristocrats today and he behaved as if I smelled bad.” Wade Montray sighed.

“They think we’re barbarians,” Larry said slowly, “and here in the Terran Zone, we think
 
they
 
are.”

“That’s right. And there doesn’t seem to be any answer.”

Larry put down his fork. He burst out, suddenly, “Dad, when am I going to get a chance to seesomething of Darkover?” All his frustration exploded in him. “All this time and I saw more through a gateon the spaceport than I’ve seen since!”

His father leaned back and looked at him, curiously. “Do you want to see it so much?”

Larry made it an understatement. “I do.”

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His father sighed. “It’s not easy,” he said. “The Darkovans don’t especially like having Terrans here.

We’re more or less expected to keep to our own Trade Cities.”

“But why?”

“It’s hard to explain,” said Wade Montray, shaking his head. “Mostly they’re afraid of our influence on

them. Of course they’re not all like that, but enough of them are.”

Larry’s face fell, and his father added, slowly, “I can try to get permission, sometime, to take you on atrip to one of the other Trade Cities; you’d see the country in between. As for the Old Town near thespaceport—well, it’s rather a rough section, because all the spacemen in from the ships spend theirfurloughs there. They’re used to Earthmen, of course, but there isn’t much to see.” He sighed again. “Iknow how you feel, Larry. I suppose I can take you to see the market, if that will get rid of this itch youhave to see something outside the Terran Zone.”

“When? Now?”

His father laughed. “Get a warm coat, then. It gets cold here, nights.”

The sun hung, a huge low red ball on the rim of the world, as they crossed the Terran Zone, threaded themaze of the official buildings and came out at the edge of the levels which led downward to thespaceports. They did not go down toward the ships, but instead walked along the highest level. Theypassed the gate where—once before— Larry had stood to look out at the city; only this time they wenton past that gate and toward another one, at the far edge of the port.

This gate was larger, and guarded by black-clad men armed with holstered weapons. Both of the guardsnodded in recognition at Larry’s father as they went through into the open square.

“Don’t forget the curfew, Mr. Montray. All Zone personnell not on duty are supposed to be inside the

gates by midnight, our time.”

Montray nodded. As they crossed the square side by side, he asked, “How are you getting along on thenew sleep cycle, Larry?”

“It doesn’t bother me.” Darkover had a twenty-eight hour period of rotation, and Larry knew that some

people found it difficult to adjust to longer days and nights, but he hadn’t had any trouble.

The open square between the spaceport and the Darkovan city of Thendara was wide, open to the sky,and darkly spacious in the last red light of the sun. At one side it was lighted with the arclights from thespaceport; at the other side, it was already dimly lit with paler lights in a medium pinkish color. At the farend there was a row of shops, and Darkovans and Earthmen were moving about in front of them. Thewares displayed were of a bewildering variety: furs, pottery dishes, ornate polished knives with brightsheaths, all kinds of fruits, and what looked like sweets and candies. But as Larry paused to inspectthem, his father said in a low voice, “This is just the tourist section—the overflow from the spaceport. Ithought you’d rather see the old market. You can come here any time.”