In panic, he looked about him. There was still dancing in the hall, but it was muted now, and the jumping, frantic rhythm had reduced to a low beat that was more felt than heard. Their eyes were upon him, averting as he stared back in defiant bewilderment. He had not asked them all, but word had gone around from mouth to ear, until all knew his frantic decision. He held them in his stare when he had asked his last man, and knew it was futile to ask any longer. He whirled from the room and raced out to the hangars alone. The night was half gone and he had only until daylight to work, but he had to try. He unreeled the fuel hose and fed it to the partially empty tanks of the plane. While it throbbed with the pump’s pulsations, he ransacked the tool and supply sheds for drums to fill the cabin. He gathered some, but there didn’t seem to be nearly enough. What he had he wrestled up the landing stairs and through the doorway. He lashed them down and went searching for more, then came back to change the hose connection on the tanks. The dancing had ceased inside the house. All the guests, those who were his friends and had known him all his life, came out and stood in silent knots watching his frantic movements silhouetted against the night sky as he tried to prepare the plane alone. But it was too much of a task. Dawn came, and he hadn’t found enough barrels. He hadn’t filled those he had, and he hadn’t devised the way to feed their contents to the main tanks from inside the plane. He was licked, but he was still trying when they saw the plane of the Watch Police against the brightening sky, coming to take him to the re-orientation center. He climbed down in defeat and looked slowly about the ring of sober faces of his friends who had watched and refused to help. “I could have done it,” he cried, “if you’d given me a hand. I leave behind no friends at Lonestar--only enemies!” And then it came to him for the first time, apparently, that Barie could have helped, but she hadn’t. He turned to her, in the forefront of the group, and seemed to read in her eyes the thing he had always known was there but didn’t dare to admit. She had known it would be this way. She had never intended going with him. “You can’t keep childhood forever, Rick. I had to show you that,” she said. “It was the last good thing I could do for you!” Six days ago he’d had nothing in his heart but love for the land--and for Barie. He’d expected he’d have the right to pair with her. If you were an Agro, you could afford such hopes. The Machine didn’t bother Agros too much. It let them pair often with the ones they had chosen themselves. Only a few were denied it. And fewer still were taken away from the Region altogether, to pair and spend the rest of their lives elsewhere. Rick remembered those who had gone. Stan More, Daly Croden--not more than a couple of dozen since he’d been aware of the kind of world he lived in, and the things that sometimes happened to people.