~Uh..."

"Captain!"

"Yes, Zebbie?"

"You proved that you can be tough with your husband. Can you be tough with yourself? Look me in the eye and tell me that you know more about intelligence than I do. Or that you can fight your way out of a rumpus better than I can."

"Zebbie, this isn't military intelligence. You look me in the eye and tell me that you know more about obstetrics than I do. How do you prepare for leapfrog transfusion and when is it likely to be needed? Define eclampsia. What do you do about placenta previa? I am less likely to get into a rumpus than you are....nd if I do, I'll throw my arms around his neck and cry. However... convince me that you know as much about obstetrics as I do and I'll consider letting You make contacts. In the meantime pick a midwestern town big enough for a fair-sized hospital and public library, and select a point for grounding and rendezvous; you will be in command while I'm gone."

I interrupted. "Hilda, I absolutely forbid-"

"Chief Pilot! Pipe down!" My wife turned her face away from me. "Chief Master at Arms, restore discipline."

"Aye aye, Ma'am! Jake, she means you."

"But-"

"Shut up! Crewmen don't give orders to the CO, and I've had a bellyful of your attempts."

Two hours later I was in Zeb's seat, biting my nails and sweating, while Zeb had my seat. I had given unconditional parole-the alternative having been to go (or be stuffed) through the bulkhead, then wait, locked in. I am not a total fool; I gave my word.

Zeb held us in cloud cover while my daughter, wearing earphones, stayed in contact with Hilda. Gay's cabin speaker was paralleled with the phones so that we could follow in part what went on below. Deety reported, "That fade is from entering a building; I could hear her footsteps. Zebadiah, if I fiddle with the gain, I might miss her as she comes out."

"Don't shift. Wait."

Eternities later we heard Hilda's sweet voice: "I'm heading for rendezvous. I no longer have to pretend that this is a hearing aid-but everybody accepted ~ it as such. You needn't be cautious picking me up; we're leaving."

Five minutes later we bounced and translated at once, then Zeb held her in cruise while Hilda reported:

"No trouble. Ze bewildair' French ladee she zink les Americain' verree gentils. Mais les arts medicals-poof! Infant mortality high, childbirth mortality gruesome. I could have left sooner but I got fascinated."

"Hilda," I protested, "you had me worried to death."

"Jacob, I had to be certain; it's such a nice world otherwise. Other contacts,Y should not take as long as I've solved the money problem."

"How?" Zebadiah asked. "I've been noodling that. There's an even chance that private ownership of gold will be illegal. A standard trick used whenever a government is in trouble."

"Yes, Zebbie-it's illegal there, too. I still have the bullion you had me carry. Instead I sold that heavy gold chain I was wearing. Sorry, Deety; I had to."

"Forget it, Hillbilly. That chain was a way to horde gold. Pop bought it for~ Mama Jane before they clipped the zeroes and remonetized."

"Well... I found a public phone-didn't try to use it; Edison would neve have recognized it. But it had a phone book, so I looked up 'gold'-and foun 'licensed gold dealers' and sold your chain-"

"And now you're stuck with a lot of local money."

"Zebbie! See why I didn't let you go down by yourself? The dealer was 0 course a coin dealer, too-and I bought foreign silver coins, worn, small, oldis, dates without being old enough to be collectors' items. French coins, but h didn't have enough, so I filled out with Belgian, Swiss, and German."

I said, "My dear, the coins you bought there will not be good here. Or at the next analog. Or the next."

"Jacob, who-other than a professional-is certain of designs on foreign cojns?-especially if they are a few years old and a bit worn. I got real silver, none of those alloys that don't have the right ring to them. At most a shopkeeper will phone his bank and ask for the rate. That's how I bought this," my beloved said proudly, pulling out of Deety's biggest purse a World Almanac.

I was not impressed. If she was going to buy a book, why not a technical manual that might contain new art, data Zeb and I could use?

My darling was saying, "We must buy one in each analog we ground in. It's the nearest thing to an encyclopedia less than a kilo mass you'll find. History, law, vital statistics, maps, new inventions, new medicine-I could have skipped the library and learned all I needed from this book. Zebbie! Turn to the list of U.S. Presidents."

"Who cares?" Zeb answered, but did so. Shortly he said, "Who is Eisenhower? This shows him serving one of Harriman's terms and one of Patton's."

"Keep going, Zebbie."

"Okay- No! I refuse to believe it. Us Carters are taught to shoot straight, bathe every month even in the winter, and never run for office."

Two days later Hilda and Zeb, as a French-tourist couple, found the world where we settled.

We slid in quietly, both through the histrionics of our "bewildered French lady" and Zeb's unmalicious chicanery. Sometimes he was our French lady's husband; other times he spoke English slowly with a strong Bavarian accent.

In this analog, the United States (called that, although boundaries differ) is not as smothered in laws, regulations, licensing, and taxes as is our native country. In consequence "illegally entered aliens" do not find it difficult to hide, once they "sling the lingo" and understand local customs.

Hilda and Zeb learned rapidly in a dozen towns, Deety and me "riding shotgun" in the sky. Deety and I learned from them and from radio. Then we moved to the Northwest, "natives" from back east, and coped with our only problem: how to keep Gay Deceiver out of sight.

Hilda and Deety hid her in the Cascades for three days while Zeb and I found and bought a farmhouse outside Tacoma-analog. That night we moved Gay into the barn, slapped white paint on the building's windows, and slept in Gay, with a feeling of being home!

We own six hectares and live in the farmhouse in front of Gay's hideaway. Gay will eventually go underground, protected by reinforced concrete; the barn will become a machine shop. We will build a new house over her bunker. Meanwhile, our old farmhouse is comfortable.

This United States, population under a hundred million, accepts immigrants freely. Zeb considered buying phony papers to let us enter "legally"-but Hilda decided that it was simpler to use Gay to smuggle us while we smuggled Gay. The outcome is the same; we will never be a burden to the state-once we get

our machine shop and electronics lab set up, Zeb and I will "invent" hundreds of gadgets this country lacks.

We seem to be near the warmest part of an interglaciation. Wheat grows where our native world has frozen tundra; the Greenland icecap has vanished; lowlands are under water, coastlines much changed.

Climate and custom encourage light clothing; the preposterous "body modesty" taboo does not exist. Clothing is worn for adornment and for protection- never through "shame." Nakedness is symbolic of innocence-these people derive that symbology from the Bible used in our native culture to justify the exact opposite. The same Bible-I checked. (The Bible is such a gargantuan collection of conflicting values that anyone can "prove" anything from it.)

So this is not a world where alien vermin can hide. A "man" who at all times kept arms and legs covered by long sleeves and long trousers would be as conspicuous as one in armor.

The sects here are mostly Christian-on a Saturday morning one sees families headed for church in their finest Sabbath-go-to-meeting clothes. But, since nakedness is symbolic of innocence, they undress in an anteroom to enter their temple unadorned. One need not attend services to see this; the climate favors light, airy structures that are mostly roof and slender columns.