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Adelia was a pleasant Settlement, much more pleasant than Rotor had been

Crile Fisher had now been on six Settlements other than Rotor and all had been o over the list of na track Perhaps it was all getting to be too much for him)

Whatever the number, Adelia was the most pleasant Settlement Crile had visited Not perhaps physically Rotor had been an older Settleed to work itself into an assembly of traditions, so to speak There was an efficiency about it, a sense of each person knowing his place exactly, being satisfied with it, and working away at it successfully

Of course, Tessa was here on Adelia - Tessa Anita Wendel Crile had not pursued matters there yet, perhaps because Tanayama&039;s characterization of hiht have been ainst his will, to go slowly Producing a fiasco would seem doubly bad in the eyes of someone who believed him, however insincerely, to have a omen

It eeks after Fisher had settled hied to see her It was always a source of wonder to hie to get a view of anyone Not all his experience had accustomed him to the smallness of a Settlement, to the fewness of its population, to the manner in which everyone knew everyone else in his or her social circle - everyone else - and almost everyone else outside that circle, too

When he did see her, however, Tessa Wendel turned out to be rather ied and as twice-divorced - the quirk of his aged lips as he said so, as though he were knowingly setting Fisher an unpleasant task - had built a picture in Fisher&039;s mind of a harsh woman, hard-faced, with a nervous twitch, perhaps, and an attitude toward ry

Tessa did not seem at all like this from the moderate distance at which he first saw her She was almost as tall as he was and brunette, with her hair sleeked down She looked quite alert and she sly sih she went out of her way to eschew ornaure was still surprisingly youthful

Fisher found hi why she ice-divorced He was ready to assume that she had tired of the h coainst all odds

It was necessary to be at some social function at which she would also be present His being an Earthman interposed a small difficulty, but there were people on every Settlement ere, to some extent or other, in Earth&039;s pay One of them would surely see to it that Fisher would be &039;launched&039;, to use the term most Settlements applied to the ritual

The ti each other and she gazed at hi a sloeep doard, then upward again, followed by the inevitable, &039;You&039;re from Earth, aren&039;t you, Mr Fisher&039;

&039;Yes, I aly - if it offends you&039;

&039;It doesn&039;t offend me I presume you&039;ve been decontaminated&039;

&039;Indeed To death, just about&039;

&039;And why have you dared the decontamination process in order to co at her too directly, but keen to detect the effect, &039;Because I was told that Adelian women were particularly beautiful&039;

&039;And now, I suppose, you will go back and deny the rumor&039;

&039;On the contrary, it has just been confirmed&039;

She said, &039;You&039;re a fetcher, you know that?&039;

Fisher didn&039;t knohat a &039;fetcher&039; was in Adelian slang, but Wendel was sone well

Was it because he was irresistible? He suddenly reenia He hadlaunched into the difficult Rotorian society

The Adelian society was not so difficult, Fisher decided, but he had better not belabor his irresistibility

Yet to himself, he smiled sadly

33

A month later, Fisher and Wendel were sufficiently at ease with each other to spend soym Fisher had almost enjoyed the workout - but only alymnastics at low-G to avoid a certain amount of space sickness On Rotor, there had been less attention to such things, and he had usually been excluded froal, but custoality)

They took an elevator to a higher-G level, and Fisher felt his sto athat she was as aware of his body as he was of hers

After their showers, they had both robed and retired to one of the Privacies, where they could order a small meal

Wendel said, &039;You&039;re not bad at low-G for an Earth- yourself on Adelia?&039;

&039;You know I aet entirely used to a sreat es&039;

&039;Yes That&039;s exactly what a fetcher would say How does Adelia compare to Rotor?&039;

&039;To Rotor?&039;

&039;Or to the other Settlements you&039;ve been on? I can name them all, Crile&039;

Fisher felt discoate me?&039;

&039;Of course&039;

&039;A who is clearly going out of his way to be interested inthe possibility of sex, of course That&039;s taken as a given&039;

&039;Why am I interested in you, then?&039;

&039;Suppose you tell et ot off in a hurry before it scooted away Were you afraid of being stuck on Rotor all your life? Didn&039;t you like it there?&039;

Fisher had gone fro harassed He said, &039;Actually, I didn&039;t like Rotor very much because they didn&039;t like ht I didn&039;t want to be stuck there as a second-class citizen all my life Other Settlements are easier on us Adelia is&039;

&039;Rotor had a secret, though, that it was trying to keep frolitter with amusement

&039;A secret? You mean, I suppose, hyper-assistance&039;

&039;Yes, I suppose that is what I mean And I suppose that that hat you were after&039;

&039;I?&039;

&039;Yes, of course you Did you get it? I mean, that&039;s why you married a Rotorian scientist, wasn&039;t it?&039; She rested her face on her two fists, elbows on the table, and leaned toward hiuardedly, &039;She never said a word toabout nored his reet it fro to et it from you if I e seems to be out of the question, doesn&039;t it?&039;

&039;Too bad,&039; said Wendel, s me these questions because you&039;re a hyperspatialist?&039;

&039;Where were you told that that hat I was? Back on Earth, before you came here?&039;

&039;You&039;re listed in the Adelian Roster&039;

&039;Ah, you&039;ve investigated me, too What a curious pair we are Did you notice that I was listed as a theoretical physicist?&039;

&039;It also lists your papers, and when quite a few of the titles have the word "hyperspatial", it makes you sound like a hyperspatialist to me&039;

&039;Yes, but I&039;m a theoretical physicist just the same, so I approach the whole matter of hyperspatialism in a theoretical way I&039;ve never tried to put it into practice&039;

&039;But Rotor did Did that bother you? I wonder After all, soot ahead of you&039;

&039;Why should it bother , but the application isn&039;t If you were to read more of my papers than the titles, you would discover that I say, quite flatly, that hyper-assistance isn&039;t worth the effort&039;

&039;Rotorians were able to get a vessel far into space and studied the stars&039;

&039;You&039;re talking about the Far Probe That enabled Rotor to get parallax measurements for a number of comparatively distant stars, but is that worth the expense they went to? How far did the Far Probe go? Just a few light-months That&039;s not really very far As far as the Galaxy is concerned, the Far Probe&039;s extreinary line that can be drawn between them all amounts to a point in space&039;

&039;They did more than send out the Far Probe,&039; said Fisher &039;The entire Settlement left&039;

&039;They certainly did That was in &039;22, so they&039;ve been gone six years now And all we know is that they left&039;

&039;Isn&039;t that enough?&039;

&039;Of course not Where did they go? Are they still alive? Can they still be alive? Hus have never been isolated on a Settlement They have always had Earth in the vicinity, and other Settles survive, alone in the Universe, on a sical possibility My guess is that it isn&039;t&039;

&039;I iine their purpose would be to find a world they could live on They wouldn&039;t remain on a Settlement&039;

&039;Coone six years There are exactly two stars they could have reached by now since hyper-assistance can only ht That&039;s Alpha Centauri, a three-star syste a red dwarf Then there&039;s Barnard&039;s star, a single red dwarf, five-point-nine light-years away Four stars: a Sun-like star, a near-Sun-like star, and two red dwarfs The two Sun-likes are part of a moderately close binary and therefore unlikely to have an Earth-like planet in stable orbit Where do they go next? They won&039;t make it, Crile I&039;m sorry I know that your wife and child were on Rotor, but they won&039;tshe didn&039;t He knew about the Neighbor Star - but that was a red dwarf, too