"_Friendship!_ Everyone knows the Morethans hate terrestrials. They tolerate us only because we're stronger!" "Stronger physically." Shortmire's smile was fading. "Even technology is a kind of physical strength." * * * * * New apprehension took shape in Hubbard. "You're not going metaphysical in your old age, are you, Jan? And even if you are," he said quickly, while he was still innocent of knowledge, hence could not be consciously offending the other man's beliefs, "what a cult to choose! Blood, terror and torture!" Shortmire grinned again. "You've been watching vidicasts, Peter. They've laid it on so thick, I'll probably find Morethis deadly dull rather than just ... deadly." Certainly, all Hubbard knew of Morethis was based on hearsay evidence, but this was not a court of law. "Jan you're a fool! A third of the terrestrials who go to Morethis never come back, and mostly they're young men, strong men." "Then they're the fools." Shortmire's voice was low and tired. "Because they're risking a whole lifetime, whereas all I'll be risking is a few years of a very boring existence." Hubbard said no more. Even though the law still did not condone it, a man had the right to dispose of his own life as he saw fit. Shortmire stood up. Barely stooped by age, he looked, with his great height and extreme emaciation, almost like a fasting saint--a ludicrous simile. "My wine palate is gone, Peter," he said, clapping the younger old man's shoulder, "women and I seem to have lost our mutual attraction, and I never did have much of a singing voice. At least this is one experience I'm not too old to savor." "Death, do you mean?" Hubbard asked bluntly. "Or Morethis?" Shortmire smiled. "Perhaps both." So Peter Hubbard was not surprised when, a few months later, he got word that Jan Shortmire had died on Morethis. The surprising thing was the extraordinarily prosaic manner of his death: he had simply fallen into a river and drowned. No traveler on Morethis had been known to die by undisputed accident before; as a result, the vidicasts devoted more attention to the event than they might have otherwise. But the news died down, as other news took its place. In so large a universe, something was always happening; the dog days were forever gone from journalism. Going through the old man's papers in his capacity as executor, Hubbard came across an old passport. He was startled to discover that this trip had not been Shortmire's first to Morethis. Why had he lied about it? But that was a question that no one alive could answer--or so Hubbard thought. Almost two years went by before the will was finally probated on all the planets where Shortmire had owned property. Then the search for Emrys Shortmire began. Messages were dispatched to all the civilized planets, and Peter Hubbard settled back for a long wait. * * * * *