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As for Arvardan, he was concerned only withholiday His ship, the Ophiuchus, was not to be expected for at least a ht wish

So it was that on the sixth day after his arrival at Everest, Bel Arvardan left his host and took passage on the Terrestrial Air Transport Co between Everest and the Terrestrial capital, Washenn

If he took a commercial liner, rather than the speedy cruiser placed at his service by Ennius, it was done deliberately, out of the reasonable curiosity of a stranger and an archaeologist toward the ordinary life ofsuch a planet as Earth

And for another reason too

Arvardan was from the Sirian Sector, notoriously the sector above all others in the Galaxy where anti-Terrestrian prejudice was strong Yet he had always liked to think he had not succumbed to that prejudice hiist, he couldn&039;t afford to Of course he had grown into the habit of thinking of Earthmen in certain set caricature types, and even now the word "Earthly one to him But he wasn&039;t really prejudiced

At least he didn&039;t think so For instance, if an Earthman had ever wished to join an expedition of his or work for hi and the ability-he would be accepted If there were an opening for him, that was And if the other members of the expedition didn&039;t mind too much That was the rub Usually the felloorkers objected, and then what could you do?

He pondered thewith an Earth the Earthman were reasonably clean, and healthy In fact, he would in all ways treat hiht Yet there was no denying that he would always be conscious of the fact that an Earthman was an Earthman He couldn&039;t help that That was the result of a childhood iotry so complete that it was almost invisible, so entire that you accepted its axioms as second nature Then you left it and saw it for what it hen you looked back

But here was his chance to test himself He was in a plane with only Earthmen about him, and he felt perfectly natural, almost Well, just a little self-conscious

Arvardan looked about at the undistinguished and norers They were supposed to be different, these Earthmen, but could he have told these from ordinary men if he had met them casually in a crowd? He didn&039;t think so The woHis brows knit Of course even tolerance e, for instance, was quite unthinkable

The plane itself was, in his eyes, a small affair of imperfect construction It was, of course, atomic-powered, but the application of the principle was far fro, the power unit was not well shielded Then it occurred to Arvardan that the presence of stray gaht well strike Earthht strike others

Then the view caught his eyes From the dark wine-purple of the extreme stratosphere, Earth presented a fabulous appearance Beneath hiht (obscured here and there by the patches of sun-bright clouds) showed a desert orange Behind the stratoliner, was the soft and fuzzy night line, within whose dark shadow there was the sparking of the radioactive areas

His attention was drawn fro the others It seemed to center about an elderly couple, coed his neighbor "What&039;s going on?"

His neighbor paused to say, "They&039;ve beenthe Grand Tour"

"The Grand Tour?"

"You know All around the Earth"

The elderlyin voluble fashion his experiences and impressions His wife joined in periodically, withcoiven and taken in the best of hureatest attention, so that to Arvardan it seemed that Earthmen were as warm and human as any people in the Galaxy

And then someone asked, "And when is it that you&039;re scheduled for the Sixty?"

"In about a month," came the ready, cheerful answer "Sixteenth November"

"Well," said the questioner, "I hope you have a nice day for it My father reached his Sixty in a da rain I&039;ve never seen one like it since I was going with him-you know, a fellow likes company on a day like that-and he complained about the rain every step of the way We had an open biwheel, you see, and we got soaked &039;Listen,&039; I said, &039;what are you coot to cohter which the anniversary couple were not backward in joining Arvardan, however, felt plunged in horror as a distinct and uncomfortable suspicion entered hishis seat, "This Sixty, this subject of conversation here-I take it they&039;re referring to euthanasia I mean, you&039;re put out of the hen you reach your sixtieth birthday, aren&039;t you?"

Arvardan&039;s voice faded sohbor choked off the last of his chuckles to turn in his seat and favor the questioner with a long and suspicious stare Finally he said, "Well, what do you think he esture with his hand and smiled rather foolishly He had known of the custo discussed in a scientific paper But it was now borne in upon his, that thehim could, by custom, live only to sixty

The"Hey, fella, where you from? Don&039;t they know about the Sixty in your home town?"

"We call it the &039;Time,&039; " said Arvardan feebly "I&039;m from back there" He jerked his thumb hard over his shoulder, and after an additional quarterstare

Arvardan&039;s lips quirked These people were suspicious That facet of the caricature, at least, was authentic

The elderlywith enial wife "She&039;s not due for about three , she thinks, and we ether Isn&039;t that it, Chubby?"

"Oh yes," she said, and giggled rosily "Our children are all married and have homes of their own I&039;d just be a bother to them Besides, I couldn&039;t enjoy the time anyithout the old felloe&039;ll just leave off together"

Whereupon the entire list of passengers seee themselves in a si to each-a process involving conversion factors fro the married couples involved

One sht clothes and a deterot exactly twelve years, three months, and four days left Twelve years, three months, and four days Not a day more, not a day less"

Which so, reasonably, "Unless you die first, of course"

"Nonsense," was the i first Do I look like the sort oftwelve years, three months, and four days, and there&039;s not a man here with the hardihood to deny it" And he looked very fierce indeed

A sliarette from between his lips to say darkly, "It&039;s well for them that can calculate it out to a day There&039;spast his time"

"Ah, surely," said another, and there was a general nod and a rather inchoate air of indignation arose

"Not," continued the young arette puffs with a complicated flourish intended to remove the ash, "that I see any objection to a , to continue on past their birthday to the next Council day, particularly if they have some business to clean up It&039;s these sneaks and parasites that try to go past to the next Census, eating the food of the next generation-" He seerievance there

Arvardan interposed gently, "But aren&039;t the ages of everyone registered? They can&039;t very well pass their birthday too far, can they?"

A general silence followed, admixtured not a little with contempt at the foolish idealism expressed Soh atte to conclude the subject, "Well, there isn&039;tpast the Sixty, I suppose"

"Not if you&039;re a farorously " After you&039;ve been working in the fields for half a century, you&039;d be crazy not to be glad to call it off How about the adh, and the businessmen?"

Finally the elderly un the conversation, ventured his own opinion, emboldened perhaps by the fact that, as a current victi to lose

"As to that," he said, "it depends on who you know" And he winked with a sly innuendo "I knew a man once as sixty the year after the 810 Census and lived till the 820 Census caught him He was sixty-nine before he left off Sixty-nine! Think of that!"

"How did he e that?"

"He had a little money, and his brother was one of the Society of Ancients There&039;s nothing you can&039;t do if you&039;ve got that coeneral approval of that sentiarette emphatically, "I had an uncle who lived a year past-just a year He was just one of these selfish guys who don&039;t feel like going, you know A lot he cared for the rest of usAnd I didn&039;t know about it, you see, or I would have reported hio when it&039;s his tiot caught all right, and the first thing I knew, the Brotherhood calls on me and my brother and wants to kno come we didn&039;t report hi about it; nobody inabout it I said we hadn&039;t seen hiot fined five hundred credits just the same That&039;s when you don&039;t have any pull"

The look of disco Were these people madmen to accept death so-to resent their friends and relatives who tried to escape death? Could he, by accident, be on a ship carrying a cargo of lunatics to asylum-or euthanasia? Or were these si at hihts "Hey fella, where&039;s &039;back there?&039;"

"Pardon me?"