"Intoxication!" Travis cried out happily, "then is our goal made known. Consider: from your poor natal horoscope, in this city, this land, no fortune arises. You doom yourself, with Lappy, by remaining here. But what business is this? Seek you not better times? Could you not go forth to another place, and so become people of gravity, of substance, of moment?" The girl regarded for a moment, puzzled, then caught his point and shook her head sadly. "Odd man, without profit. You misconstrue. Such as we, my brother and I, are not condemned by place, but by twistings of the character. My natal Huck, retrograde in the tenth, gives an untrustworthy, criminous person. It would be so here, there, anywhere. My pattern is set. Such travels as you describe are for those who conflict only with place. I, and my brother, it is our sad fortune to conflict with _all_." "But this is the core," Travis insisted. "The conflict is with _Mert_! Consider, such travail as is yours stems from the radiations of Huck, of Weepen, of Scharb. But should you remove yourself beyond their reach, across great vastnesses of space to where other planets subtend--and in their alien radiation extinguish and nullify those of Huck--what fortune comes then? What rises, what leaps in joy?" The girl sat speechless, staring at Travis with great soft eyes. The boy Lappy, who until that moment had been grinning happily over the news that his laws were true, suddenly understood what Travis was saying and let his mouth fall open. But the girl sat without expression. Then, to Travis' dismay, a slow dark look of disgust came over her face. "This," she said ominously, "this smacks of _vetching_." The word fell like a sudden fog. Lappy, who had begun to smile, cut it sharply off. Travis, remembering what vetching meant to these people, gathered his forces. "Woman," he said bitingly, "you speak in offense, but with patience and kindness I heal your insult. I control my choler, but my blood flows hot, therefore fasten your tongue. Tell me not that I have overvalued you, for your brain is clear, your courage thick. Wherefore speak of vetch? What vetch is there in travel? He vetches who leaves a certainty for another certainty, who attempts to avoid his starry fate. But you go from a certain end to an end not certain at all, to places of dark mystery, of grim foreboding. It may be that you perish, or pain in the extreme, as well as gain fortune. The end is not clear. This then is not vetching. Now retreat your words, and reply to me as one does to a friend, a companion, one who seeks your good." He sat tautly while the girl thought it out. Eventually she dropped her eyes in submission and he sighed inwardly with relief. It was accomplished. He would have to shore it up perhaps with a little elaboration, but it was accomplished. Ten minutes later he was standing free and unbound in the passageway. It was just barely in time. Down the round dark tunnel two men came.