"That is a bad thing." Cadnan tried to speak, but Marvor went on without stopping. "Dara is with me," he said, "and some of the others. There are not many. Most of the brothers and sisters are cowards." Then he had to define "coward" for Cadnan--and from "coward" he progressed to another new word, "freedom." That was a big word but Cadnan approached it without fear, and without any preconception. "It is not good to be free," he said at last, in a reasonable, weary tone. "In the cold there is a bad thing. In the rain there is a bad thing. To be free is to go to these bad things." "To be free is to do what you want," Marvor said. "To be free is to be your own master." After some thought Cadnan asked: "Who can be his own master? It is like being your own mate." Marvor seemed to lose patience all at once. "Very well," he said. "But you will not tell the masters what I say?" "Does a brother harm a brother?" Cadnan asked. That, too, was in the rules: even Marvor, he thought sleepily, had to accept the rules. "It is good," Marvor said equably. "Soon, very soon, I will make you free." "I do not want to be free." "You will want it," Marvor said. "I tell you something you do not know. Far away from here there are free ones. Ones without masters. I hear of them in the Birth Huts: they are elders who bring up their own in hiding from the masters. They want to be free." Cadnan felt a surge of hope. Marvor might leave, take away the disturbance he always carried with him. "You will go and join them?" "No," Marvor said. "I will go to them and bring them back and kill all the masters. I will make the masters dead." "You cannot do it," Cadnan said instantly, shocked. "I can," Marvor said without raising his voice. "Wait and you will see. Soon we will be free. Very soon now." 8 This is the end. Dodd woke with the words in his mind, flashing on and off like a lighted sign. Back in the Confederation (he had seen pictures) there were moving stair-belts, and at the exits, at turnoffs, there were flashing signs. The words in his mind were like that: if he ignored them he would be carried on past his destination, into darkness and strangeness. But his destination was strange, too. His head pounded, his tongue was thick and cottony in a dry mouth: drinking had provided nothing of an escape and the price he had to pay was much too high. _This is the end._ There was no escape, he told himself dimly! The party had resulted only in that sudden appearance, the grim-mouthed old woman. Drinking had resulted in no more than this new sickness, and a cloudy memory of having talked to an Albert, some Albert, somewhere.... He opened his eyes, felt pain and closed them again. There was no escape: the party Albin had taken him to had led to trouble, his own drunkenness had led to trouble. He saw the days stretching out ahead of him and making years.