"What I don't understand," I said, "is why Gope doesn't mount a couple of guns on the car and blast his way through the raiders. Every time he goes off the Estate he's taking his life in his hands." The boys were shocked. "Even piratical renegades would never dream of taking a man's life, good Drgon," Sime said. "Every Owner, far and near, would band together to hunt such miscreants down. And their own fellows would abet the hunters! Nay, none is so low as to steal all a man's lives." "The corsairs themselves know full well that in their next life they may be simple goodmen--even slaves," the Chief Wine-Pourer put in. "For you know, good Drgon, that when a member of a pirate band suffers the Change the others lead the newman to an Estate, that he may find his place...." "How often do these Changes come along?" I asked. "It varies greatly. Some men, of great strength and moral power, have been known to go on unchanged for three or four hundred years. But the ordinary man lives a life of eighty to one hundred years." Sime paused. "Or it may be less. A life of travail and strife can end much sooner than one of peace and retirement. Or unusual vicissitudes can shorten a life remarkably. A cousin of mine, who was marooned on the Great Stony Place in the southern half-world and who wandered for three weeks without more to eat or drink than a small bag of wine, underwent the Change after only fourteen years. When he was found his face was lined and his hair had greyed, in the way that presages the Change. And it was not long before he fell in a fit, as one does, and slept for a night and a day. When he awoke he was a newman: young and knowing nothing." "Didn't you tell him who he was?" "Nay!" Sime lowered his voice. "You are much favored of Owner Gope, good Drgon, and rightly. Still, there are matters a man talks not of--" "A newman takes a name and sets out to learn whatever trade he can," put in the Carver of Roasts. "By his own skills he can rise ... as you have risen, good Drgon." "Don't you have memory machines--or briefing rods?" I persisted. "Little black sticks: you touch them to your head and--" Sime made a motion in the air. "I have heard of these wands: a forbidden relic of the Black Arts--" "Nuts," I said. "You don't believe in magic, do you, Sime? The rods are nothing but a scientific development by your own people. How you've managed to lose all knowledge of your own past--" Sime raised his hands in distress. "Good Drgon, press us not in these matters. Such things are forbidden." * * * * * I went on out to the car and climbed in to wait for Owner Gope. It was impossible to learn anything about Vallon's history from these goodmen. They knew nothing.