“So what do you make of that?” said Elissa. Sy merely shook his head and offered no comment.

“She’s telling us there are more surprises on the way,” said Peron. “I like Olivia, and I think she’s doing her best for us. She knows there are still things she’s not supposed to reveal to us, so she gives us hints and lets us work on them for ourselves. That was another one — but I don’t know how to interpret it. Damn it, though, I wish that the others were here. I’d like Kallen’s comments on the Gossameres. Do you think we made a bad mistake, splitting up like that?”

Peron had been asking himself and the other two that question ever since they left Sector Headquarters. It had seemed like a small thing at the time. Given their experiences after they left Whirlygig, the briefings from the Immortals had been boring rather than thrilling. They had learned about S-space for themselves, the hard way, and what should have come as revelations came merely as confirmation of known facts. The personnel at Sector Headquarters were minimal, little more than a communications and administrative group, and almost all the information was provided through education robots and computer courses — neither of which had been programmed with interest as a dominant factor. As Rosanne had put it, after a long and tedious series of humorless computer warnings about the physiological dangers of frequent movements to and from S-space: “You mean they had to bring us a whole light-year for this? Maybe when you’re an Immortal you don’t live longer — it just seems longer.”

One of their negotiated conditions with Captain Rinker for return of ship control to him had been a freedom to travel after their training and indoctrination. At first he had indignantly refused to consider such a thing. Unprecedented! He at last grudgingly agreed, after Kallen had sent several thousand service robots to Rinker’s living quarters. They cluttered up every available square foot of space, moved randomly about, refused to obey any of Rinker’s orders, and made eating, walking, or even sleeping impossible. When the indoctrination was finally over, each of them was bored and restless. And when they learned that two ships would be arriving at Sector Headquarters within one S-space day of each other, one bound for Earth directly, and the other proceeding there via Paradise, they had split into two groups. Kallen wanted to visit the investigating group of Immortals orbiting Paradise, while Lum and Rosanne were curious to take a trip down to the surface of the planet itself. The computer had contained a brief description of events that led to the extinction of the colony on Paradise, but as Lum had pointed out, that stark recitation of facts was unsatisfying. A healthy, thriving population of over a million humans had died in a few days, with no written or natural record to show how or why. If it could happen so easily on Paradise, why couldn’t it happen on Pentecost, or anywhere else?

Since the whole detour would amount to no more than a week of S-space travel, Elissa, Peron and Sy had taken the ship direct to Sol. Kallen, Rosanne, and Lum went to Paradise; And as Lum had cheerfully pointed out as they were leaving, they would never be more than an S-day apart through radio communications. They could talk to each other any time. Except that their ship’s equipment seemed to be in continuous higher priority use…

Now, Peron at least was regretting their decision to separate. And Sy was looking unusually thoughtful and withdrawn, even for him.

“Perhaps I have everything backwards,” he said at last. “When I said that I wanted to visit the galactic center, I assumed that it would be the place to find new mysteries. Maybe not. Perhaps the true unknown is elsewhere. Should I be looking at nothing, at the regions between the galaxies?”

He stood up abruptly and followed Olivia Ferranti out of the control chamber, leaving Peron and Elissa looking at each other uncertainly.

“More questions,” said Elissa.

“I know. And nobody willing to provide us with answers. I’ll tell you the biggest mystery of all. The society of Immortals has a complicated structure. They have the network of ships linking all the inhabited worlds, they have an elaborate recruiting system to bring people like us into S-space, and they have definite rules for encounters with other societies — even human ones. Lord knows what they’d do if they met aliens who were obviously intelligent and lived close to stars. But with all that, we never seem to get any closer to the Immortals who are in charge of the whole organization.”

“Maybe their society doesn’t operate like that — perhaps it’s a true democracy.” “I don’t believe it.” Peron leaned across and put his arm around Elissa’s shoulders. “Just think about it for a minute. Somebody has to develop rules and procedures. Somebody has to monitor them. Somebody has to arrange for food supplies, and energy, and travel, and construction. You have to have leaders. Without that you don’t have democracy — you have anarchy, and complete chaos. Where is their Government?”

Elissa was absently rubbing the back of Peron’s right hand, as it lay across her shoulder. “Didn’t we conclude that it’s on Earth, or at least in orbit somewhere in the Sol system?”

“We did. But I don’t believe it any more. I told Olivia Ferranti that we want to meet the leaders of the Immortals. She won’t talk about that, but she insists we’ll really enjoy the visit to Earth. How could she possibly say that, if we might be heading for a confrontation there?”

Elissa shook her head. She did not speak, and after a couple of minutes moved out of Peron’s embrace and quietly left the control cabin.

Peron was left alone, gloomily staring out into the pearly blankness of the S-space sky. It felt like only weeks since he was walking through the sticky marshes of Glug, or contemplating the dangers of a landing on Whirlygig. To him, and to Sy and Elissa, it was weeks.

But back on Pentecost, new generations of contestants had won and lost at Planetfest. By now, Peron’s name, along with Kallen, Lum, and the others, was no more than a footnote in an ancient record book. And Wilmer, or some newly trained Immortal, would be down on the planet’s surface, observing the new contestants and reporting back on their behavior.

And everyone they had known on Pentecost, except for Wilmer, was now long dead. Peron wondered about the great centuries-long project to reclaim the southern marshes of Turcanta Province. Was that finished now, with real-life agricultural developments replacing the futuristic artists’ drawings that had illustrated a geography lesson when he was back in school? And what other planet-shaping projects had been developed since then?

He and Elissa had talked of their decision, and there were no regrets. With what they had learned, there could have been no turning back to a planet-bound “normal” life on Pentecost. The idea of visiting Earth had filled them all with energy and enthusiasm; and he and Elissa were ridiculously happy together. And yet…

Peron had a premonition of other travels and troubles ahead, before the true secret of the Immortals was revealed.