"Excellent." Slade hugged himself. "Excellent beyond description. Ah, all the Federation needed was proof. They've got it now! Rather, they will have it in twelve years. Lordy! I'll be fifty-one." He pounded Paul on the back, and Spearman, giving way to a bubbling overflow of good nature. "There'll be a new President, whole new Council I guess--and they won't be looking for us either, man." He danced a few steps and jabbed Paul in the ribs. "Think of it! Why, it's a Tom Sawyer job. You know? You remember? When you and I walk up the middle aisle in the Federation Hall--oh, man, man...." Paul had to find Nisana's face again, and the devastation of sorrow in it, before he understood. He stooped quickly to whisper, "I am not going back to Earth." The radiance in the aging red face was like a Charin girl's. And he heard Dr. Stern remark dryly, "Mark, I believe we've got some nearer bridges to cross." 4 One of the soft lizard-oil lamps gleamed in Kajana's room, though it was late and the house was hushed. Paul had not been able to find sleep; Dorothy would be watching at the bedsides of the four unconscious newcomers from Earth for another hour, until Tejron relieved her. Paul tapped at Kajana's never-closed doorway. "May I come in?" "Yes, please do." The little man smiled up from his pillows: they were filled with a stuff like dandelion down, almost as good as feathers. "Will you lift me a little?" Paul fussed over him, glad of something to do. "I was not sleepy. I finished transcribing from the shorthand, but my thought remains with it." "Shorthand--" "The talk of this afternoon. You didn't know I was recording it. You were all speaking somewhat beyond yourselves, in a way I wanted to preserve. I wish we had better pencils. These last are not bad, blue clay mixed with the graphite, but they still crumble too easily and the wood is big for my hand. I used the brown ink for the transcription." He shuffled the gray marsh-reed pages together. "You might like to look at it." "Yes. Tonight, I think. Doc did say some things worth remembering." Kajana smiled. "So did you." "Did I...? Pencils are one thing they must have had on the ship in abundance. The library too. Poor Doc, he'd have given anything for the books--so would I...." Kajana patted his hand. "Maybe it doesn't matter too much, Paul? We have our own books to make.... Besides--don't you think Spearman may have unloaded some things for us before he took off?" "Not a chance. His mind wouldn't work that way." "No? Well, you knew him better. Still, he had time, Paul. He knew we couldn't go after him: you told me he drained the fuel out of one lifeboat before he stole the other. And it was three hours, after you found he was gone, before you saw the big ship go up over the range." "And down," Paul said, still physically shaken with the memory, the sound, the sight of it. "Down into the sea forever." "What happened, do you think?"