“So you mean to save your own life?”

“Now, wait! You know how dangerous a new planet can be. That’s the reason for putting the initial settlers under thirty years of absolute quarantine. If you think I—”

“No,” said Magnus. “No, you’re no coward, Davy, where it comes to physical things. When you deal with people, though, I don’t know what you’re like. You don’t yourself. Are you running away from man, as you’ve been trying to run from the Lord God Jehovah? Not so many folk on Rama as on Earth, no need to work both with and against them, as on a ship — Well.” He leaned forward, the pipe smoldering in his plastic hand. “I want you to be a spaceman, aye, of course. I cannot dictate your choice. But if you would at least try it, once only, so you could honestly come back and tell me you’re not born for stars and openness and a sky all around you — Do you understand? I could let you go to your planet then. Not before. I would never know, otherwise, how much I had let you cheat yourself.”

Silence fell between them. They heard the wind as it mourned under their eaves, and the remote snarling of the sea.

David said at last, slowly: “So that’s why you… yes. Did you give my name to Technic Maclaren for that dark star expedition?”

Magnus nodded. “I heard from my friends in the Authority that Maclaren had gotten the Cross diverted from orbit. Some of them were mickle put out about it, too. After all, she was the first one sent directly toward a really remote goal, she is farther from Earth than any other ship has yet gotten, it was like breaking a tradition.” He shrugged. “God knows when anyone will reach Alpha Crucis now. But I say Maclaren is right. Alpha may be an interesting triple star, but a truly cold sun means a deal more to science. At any rate, I did pull a few wires. Maclaren needs a gravitics man to help him take his data. The post is yours if you wish it.”

“I don’t,” said David. “How long would we be gone, a month, two months? A month from now I planned to be selecting my own estate on Rama.”

“Also, you’ve only been wed a few weeks. Oh, yes. I understand. But you can be sent to Rama as soon as you get back; there’ll be several waves of migration. You will have space pay plus exploratory bonus, some valuable experience, and,” finished Magnus sardonically, “my blessing. Otherwise you can get out of my house this minute.”

David hunched into his chair, as if facing an enemy.

He heard Tamara move about, slow in the unfamiliar kitchen, surely more than a little frightened of this old barbarian. If he went to space, she would have to stay here, bound by a propriety which was one of the chains they had hoped to shed on Rama. It was a cheerless prospect for her, too.

And yet, thought David, the grim face before him had once turned skyward, on a spring night, telling him the names of the stars.

The other man, Ohara, was good, third-degree black. But finally his alertness wavered. He moved in unwarily, and Seiichi Nakamura threw him with a foot sweep that drew approving hisses from the audience. Seeing his chance, Nakamura pounced, got control of Ohara from the waist down by sitting on him, and applied a strangle. Ohara tried to break it, but starving lungs betrayed him. He slapped the mat when he was just short of unconsciousness. Nakamura released him and squatted, waiting. Presently Ohara rose. So did the winner. They retied their belts and bowed to each other. The abbot, who was refereeing, murmured a few words which ended the match. The contestants sat down, closed their eyes, and for a while the room held nothing but meditation.

Nakamura had progressed beyond enjoying victory for its own sake. He could still exult in the aesthetics of a perfect maneuver; what a delightful toy the human body is, when you know how to throw eighty struggling kilos artistically through the air! But even that, he knew, was a spiritual weakness. Judo is more than a sport, it should be a means to an end: ideally, a physical form of meditation upon the principles of Zen.

He wondered if he would ever attain that height. Rebelliously, he wondered if anyone ever had, in actual practice, for more than a few moments anyhow… It was an unworthy thought. A wearer of the black belt in the fifth degree should at least have ceased inwardly barking at his betters. And now enough of all the personal. It was only his mind reflecting the tension of the contest, and tension was always the enemy. His mathematical training led him to visualize fields of force, and the human soul as a differential quantity dX — where X was a function of no one knew how many variables — which applied just enough, vanishingly small increments of action so that the great fields slid over each other and — Was this a desirable analogue? He must discuss it with the abbot sometime; it seemed too precise to reflect reality. For now he had better meditate upon one of the traditional paradoxes: consider the noise made by two hands clapping, and then the noise made by one hand clapping.

The abbot spoke another word. The several contestants on the mat bowed to him, rose, and went to the showers. The audience, yellow-robed monks and a motley group of townspeople, left their cushions and mingled cheerfully.

When Nakamura came out, his gi rolled under one arm, his short thick-set body clad in plain gray coveralls, he saw the abbot talking to Diomed Umfando, chief of the local Protectorate garrison. He waited until they noticed him. Then he bowed and sucked in his breath respectfully.

“Ah,” said the abbot. “A most admirable performance tonight.”

“It was nothing, honorable sir,” said Nakamura.

“What did you… yes. Indeed. You are leaving tomorrow, are you not?”

“Yes, master. On the Southern Cross, the expedition to the dark star. It is uncertain how long I shall be away.” He laughed self-deprecatingly, as politeness required. “It is always possible that one does not return. May I humbly ask the honorable abbot that—”

“Of course,” said the old man. “Your wife and children shall always be under our protection, and your sons will be educated here if no better place can be found for them.” He smiled. “But who can doubt that the best pilot on Sarai will return as a conqueror?”

They exchanged ritual compliments. Nakamura went about saying good-by to various other friends. As he came to the door, he saw the tall blue-clad form of Captain Umfando. He bowed.

“I am walking back into town now,” said the officer, almost apologetically: “May I request the pleasure of your company?”

“If this unworthy person can offer even a moment’s distraction to the noble captain?”

They left together. The dojo was part of the Buddhist monastery, which stood two or three kilometers out of the town called Susa. A road went through grainfields, an empty road now, for the spectators were still drinking tea under the abbot’s red roof. Nakamura and Umfando walked in silence for a while; the captain’s bodyguard shouldered their rifles and followed unobtrusively.

Capella had long ago set. Its sixth planet, I1-Khan the giant, was near full phase, a vast golden shield blazoned with a hundred hues. Two other satellites, not much smaller than this Earth-sized Sarai on which humans dwelt, were visible. Only a few stars could shine through all that light, low in the purple sky; the fields lay drowned in amber radiance, Susa’s lanterns looked feeble in the distance. Meteor trails crisscrossed heaven, as if someone wrote swift ideographs up there. On the left horizon, a sudden mountain range climbed until its peaks burned with snow. A moonbird was trilling, the fiddler insects answered, a small wind rustled in the grain. Otherwise only the scrunch of feet on gravel had voice.