A day came back to him. He had been a country boy, remote even from the collective farms, but once when he was seven years old he sent in a winning Party slogan (he didn't know better then) and was awarded a trip to Europe. Somehow he had entered alone that museum called Notre Dame de Paris; and when he stood in its soaring twilight he realized how helplessly small and young he was. He cut the engines. For a moment free fall clutched at his stomach, then a renewed pressure swiveled his chair about in the gymbals. The scout boat was being hauled around Zolotoy, but downward: they were going to some specific place on the planet for some specific purpose. He looked through his loneliness at Ekaterina, and found her staring at him. Angrily, she jerked her face away, reached out and grasped the hand of Ilya Grushenko. CHAPTER IV On the way, the humans decompressed their atmosphere until it approximated that of Zolotoy. There was enough oxygen to support lethargic movement, but they donned small compression pumps, capacitor-powered, worn on the back and feeding to a nose-piece. Their starved lungs expanded gratefully. Otherwise they dressed in winter field uniforms and combat helmets. But when Ekaterina reached for her pistol, Grushenko took it from her. "Would you conquer them with this, Comrade Saburov?" he asked. She flushed. Her words came muffled through the tenuous air: "It might give us a chance to break free, if we must escape." "They could overhaul this boat in ten seconds. And ... escape where? To interstellar space again? I say here we stop, live or die. Even from here, it will be a weary way to Earth." "Forget about Earth," said Holbrook out of tautness and despair. "No one is returning to Earth before Novaya is strong enough to stand off a Soviet fleet. Maybe you like to wear the Party's collar. I don't!" Ekaterina regarded him for a long time. Even through the dehumanizing helmet and nose-piece, he found her beautiful. She replied: "What kind of freedom is it to become the client state of an almighty Zolotoy? The Soviet overlords are at least human." "Watch your language, Comrade Saburov!" snapped Grushenko. They fell back into silence. Holbrook thought that she had pierced him again. For surely it was true, men could never be free in the shadow of gods. Even the most benign of super-creatures would breed fear and envy and hatred, by their mere incomprehensible existence; and a society riddled with such disease must soon spew up tyrants. No, better to flee while they had a chance, if they still did at all. But how much longer could they endure that devil's voyage? The linked vessels fell downward on micrometrically controlled blasts. When a landing was finally made, it was so smooth that for a moment Holbrook did not realize he was on Zolotoy.