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  All of them seemed to be getting along. He had not seen either Monty or Maxine that evening, but he had talked to others, and all of them seemed to be satisfied - or at least keeping up the appearance of being satisfied. If there were general dissatisfaction, Bishop told himself, there wouldn't even be the appearance of being satisfied, for there is nothing that an Earthian likes better than some quiet and mutual griping. And he had heard none of it - none of it at all.

  He had heard some more talk about the starting of the athletic teams and had talked to several men who had been enthusiastic about it as a source of revenue.

  He had talked to another man named Thomas who was a gardening expert at one of the big Kimonian estates, and the man had talked for an hour or more on the growing of exotic flowers. There had been a little man named Williams who had sat in the bar beside him and had told him enthusiastically of his commission to write a book of ballads based on Kimonian history, and another man named Jackson who was executing a piece of statuary for one of the native families.

  If a man could get a satisfactory job, Bishop thought, life could be pleasant here on Kimon.

  Take the rooms he had. Beautiful appointments, much better than he could expect at home. A willing cabinet-robot who dished up drinks and sandwiches, who pressed clothes, turned out and locked up, and anticipated your no-more-than-half-formed wish. And the room - the room with the four blank walls and the single chair with the buttons on its arm. There, in that room, was instruction and entertainment and adventure. He had made a bad choice in picking the battle of Hastings for his first test of it, he knew now. But there were other places, other times, other more pleasant and less bloody incidents that one could experience.

  It was experience, too - and not merely seeing. He had really been walking on the hilltop. He had tried to dodge the charging horses, although there'd been no reason to, for apparently, even in the midst of a happening, you stood by some special dispensation as a thing apart, as an interested but unreachable observer.

  And there were, he told himself, many happenings that would be worth observing. One could live out the entire history of mankind, from the prehistoric dawnings to the day before yesterday - and not only the history of mankind, but the history of other things as well, for there had been other categories of experience offered - Kimonian and Galactic - in addition to Earth.

  Some day, he thought, I will walk with Shakespeare. Some day I'll sail with Columbus. Or travel with Prester John and find the truth about him.

  For it was truth. You could sense the truth.

  And how the truth?

  That he could not know.

  But it all boiled down to the fact that while conditions might be strange, one could still make a life of it.

  And conditions would be strange, for this was an alien land and one that was immeasurably in advance of Earth in culture and in its technology. Here there was no need of artificial communications nor of mechanical transportation. Here there was no need of contracts, since the mere fact of telepathy would reveal one man to another so there'd be no need of contracts.

  You have to adapt, Bishop told himself.

  You'd have to adapt and play the Kimon game, for they were the ones who would set the rules. Unbidden, he had entered their planet and they had let him stay, and staying, it followed that he must conform.

  "You are restless, sir," said the cabinet from the other room.

  "Not restless," Bishop said. "Just thinking."

  "I can supply you with a sedative. A very mild and pleasant sedative."

  "Not a sedative," said Bishop.

  "Then, perhaps," the cabinet said, "you would permit me to sing you a lullaby."

  "By all means," said Bishop. "A lullaby is just the thing I need."

  So the cabinet sang him a lullaby, and after a time Bishop went to sleep.

  12

  The Kimonian goddess at the Employment Bureau told him next morning that there was a job for him.

  "A new family," she said.

  Bishop wondered if he should be glad that it was a new family or if it would have been better if it had been an old one.

  "They've never had a human before," she said.

  "It's fine of them," said Bishop, "to finally take one in."

  "The salary," said the goddess, "is one hundred credits a day."

  "One hundred - "

  "You will only work during days," she said. "I'll teleport you there each morning, and in the evening they'll teleport you back."

  Bishop gulped. "One hundred - What am I to do?"

  "A companion," said the goddess. "But you needn't worry. We'll keep an eye on them, and if they mistreat you - "

  "Mistreat me?"

  "Work you too hard or - "

  "Miss," said Bishop, "for a hundred bucks a day, I'd - "

  She cut him short. "You will take the job?"

  "Most gladly," Bishop said.

  "Permit me - "

  The universe came unstuck, then slapped back together.

  He was standing in an alcove and in front of him was a woodland glen with a waterfall, and from where he stood he could smell the cool, mossy freshness of the tumbling water. There were ferns and trees, huge trees like the gnarled oaks the illustrators like to draw to illustrate King Arthur and Robin Hood and other tales of very early Britain - the kind of oaks from which the Druids had cut the mistletoe.

  A path ran along the stream and up the incline down which the waterfall came tumbling, and there was a blowing wind that carried music and perfume.

  A girl came down the path and she was Kimonian, but she didn't seem as tall as the others he had seen and there was something a little less goddesslike about her.

  He caught his breath and watched her, and for a moment he forgot that she was Kimonian and thought of her only as a pretty girl who walked a woodland path. She was beautiful, he told himself - she was lovely.

  She saw him, and clapped her hands.

  "You must be he," she said.

  He stepped out of the cubicle.

  "We have been waiting for you," she told him. "We hoped there'd be no delay, that they'd send you right along."

  "My name," said Bishop, "is Selden Bishop, and I was told - "

  "Of course you are the one," she said. "You needn't even tell me. It's lying in your mind."

  She waved an arm about her.

  "How do you like our house?" she asked.

  "House?"

  "Of course, silly. This. Naturally it's only the living room. Our bedrooms are up in the mountains. But we changed this just yesterday. Everyone worked so hard at it. I do hope you like it. Because, you see, it is from your planet. We thought it might make you feel at home."

  "House," he said again.

  She reached out a hand and laid it on his arm.

  "You're all upset," she said. "You don't begin to understand."

  Bishop shook his head. "I just arrived the other day."

  "But do you like it?"

  "Of course I do," said Bishop. "It's something out of the old Arthurian legend. You'd expect to see Lancelot or Guinevere or some of the others riding through the woods."

  "You know the stories?"

  "Of course I know the stories. I read my Tennyson."

  "And you will tell them to us?"

  He looked at her, a little startled.

  "You mean, you want to hear them?"

  "Why, yes, of course we do. What did we get you for?"

  And that was it, of course.

  What had they got him for?

  "You want me to begin right now?"

  "Not now," she said. "There are the others you must meet. My name is Elaine. That's not exactly it, of course. It is something else, but Elaine is as close as you'll ever come to saying it."

  "I could try the other name. I'm proficient at languages."

  "Elaine is good enough," she said carelessly. "Come along."

  He fell in behind her on the path and followed up the incline.

  An
d as he walked along, he saw that it was indeed a house - that the trees were pillars holding up an artificial sky that somehow failed to look very artificial and that the aisles between the trees ended in great windows which looked out on the barren plain.

  But the grass and flowers, the moss and ferns, were real, and he had a feeling that the trees must be real, as well.

  "It doesn't matter if they're real or not," said Elaine. "You couldn't tell the difference."

  They came to the top of the incline into a parklike place, where the grass was cut so closely and looked so velvety that he wondered for a moment if it were really grass.

  "It is," Elaine told him.

  "You catch everything I think," he said. "Isn't - "

  "Everything," said Elaine.

  "Then I mustn't think."

  "Oh, but we want you to," she told him. "That is part of it."

  "Part of what you got me for?"

  "Exactly," said the girl.

  In the middle of the parklike area was a sort of pagoda, a flimsy thing that seemed to be made out of light and shadow rather than anything with substance, and all around it were a half a dozen people.

  They were laughing and chatting and the sound of them was like the sound of music - very happy, but at the same time, sophisticated music.

  "There they are," cried Elaine.

  "Come along," she said.

  She ran and her running was like flying, and his breath caught in his throat at the slimness and the grace of her.

  He ran after her and there was no grace in his running. He could feel the heaviness of it. It was a gambol rather than a run, an awkward lope in comparison to the running of Elaine.

  Like a dog, he thought. Like an overgrown puppy trying to keep up, falling over its own feet, with its tongue hanging out and panting.

  He tried to run more gracefully and he tried to erase the thinking from his mind.

  Mustn't think. Mustn't think at all. They catch everything. They will laugh at you.

  They were laughing at him.

  He could feel their laughter, the silent, gracious amusement that was racing in their minds.

  She reached the group and waited.

  "Hurry up," she called, and while her words were kindly, he could feel the amusement in the words.

  He hurried. He pounded down upon them. He arrived, somewhat out of breath. He felt winded and sweaty and extremely uncouth.

  "This is the one they sent us," said Elaine. "His name is Bishop. Is that not a lovely name?"

  They watched him, nodding gravely.

  "He will tell us stories," said Elaine. "He knows the stories that go with a place like this."

  They were looking kindly at him, but he could sense the covert amusement, growing by the moment.

  She said to Bishop: "This is Paul. And that one over there is Jim. Betty. Jane. George. And the one on the end is Mary."

  "You understand," said Jim, "those are not our names."

  "They are approximations," said Elaine. "The best that I could do."

  "They are as close," said Jane, "as he can pronounce them."

  "If you'd only give me a chance," said Bishop, then stopped short.

  That was what they wanted. They wanted him to protest and squirm. They wanted him to be uncomfortable.

  "But of course we don't," said Elaine.

  Mustn't think. Must try to keep from thinking. They catch everything.

  "Let's all sit down," said Betty. "Bishop will tell us stories."

  "Perhaps," Jim said to him, "you will describe your life on Earth. I would be quite interested."

  "I understand you have a game called chess," said George. "We can't play games, of course. You know why we can't. But I'd be very interested in discussing with you the technique and philosophy of chess."

  "One at a time," said Elaine. "First he will tell us stories."

  They sat down on the grass, in a ragged circle.

  All of them were looking at him, waiting for him to start.

  "I don't quite know where to start," he said.

  "Why, that's obvious," said Betty. "You start at the beginning."

  "Quite right," said Bishop.

  He took a deep breath.

  "Once, long ago, in the island of Britain, there was a great king whose name was Arthur - "

  "Yclept," said Jim.

  "You've read the stories?"

  "The word was in your mind."

  "It's an old word, an archaic word. In some versions of the tales - "

  "I would be most interested sometime to discuss the word with you," said Jim.

  "Go on with your story," said Elaine.

  He took another deep breath.

  "Once, long ago, in the island of Britain, there was a great king whose name was Arthur. His queen was Guinevere and Lancelot was his staunchest knight - "

  13

  He found the writer in the desk in the living room and pulled it out. He sat down to write a letter.

  He typed the salutation:

  Dear Morley,

  He got up and began pacing up and down the room.

  What would he tell him?

  What could he tell him?

  That he had safely arrived, and that he had a job?

  That the job paid a hundred credits a day - ten times more than a man in his position could earn at any Earth job?

  He went back to the writer again.

  He wrote:

  Just a note to let you know that I arrived here safely and already have a job. Not too good a job, perhaps, but it pays a hundred a day and that's better than I could have done on Earth.

  He got up and walked again.

  There had to be more than that. More than just a paragraph.

  He sweated as he walked.

  What could he tell him?

  He went back to the writer again:

  In order to learn the conditions and the customs more quickly, I have taken a job which will keep me in touch with the Kimonians. I find them to be a fine people, but sometimes a little hard to understand. I have no doubt that before too long I shall get to understand them and have a genuine liking for them.

  He pushed back his chair and stared at what he'd written.

  It was, he told himself, like any one of a thousand other letters he had read.

  He pictured in his mind those other thousand people, sitting down to write their first letter from Kimon, searching in their minds for the polite little fables, for the slightly colored lie, for the balm that would salve their pride. Hunting for the words that would not reveal the entire truth:

  I have a job of entertaining and amusing a certain family. I tell them stories and let them laugh at me. I do this because I will not admit that the fable of Kimon is a booby trap and that I've fallen into it -

  No, it would never do to write like that.

  Nor to write:

  I'm sticking on in spite of them. So long as I make a hundred a day, they can laugh as much as they want to laugh. I'm staying here and cleaning up no matter what -

  Back home he was one of the thousand. Back home they talked of him in whispers because he made the grade.

  And the businessmen on board the ship, saying to him: "The one who cracks this Kimon business is the one who'll have it big," and talking in terms of billions if he ever needed backing.

  He remembered Morley pacing up and down the room. A foot in the door, he'd said: "Some way to crack them. Some way to understand them. Some little thing - no big thing, but some little thing. Anything at all except the deadpan face that Kimon turns toward us."

  Somehow he had to finish the letter. He couldn't leave it hanging, and he had to write it.

  He turned back to the writer:

  I'll write you later at greater length. At the moment I'm rushed.

  He frowned at it.

  But whatever he wrote, it would be wrong. This was no worse than any of another dozen things that he might write.

  Must rush off to a conference.

  Have
an appointment with a client.

  Some papers to go through.

  All of them were wrong.

  What was a man to do?

  He wrote:

  Think of you often. Write me when you can.

  Morley would write him. An enthusiastic letter, a letter with a fine shade of envy tingeing it, the letter of a man who wanted to be, but couldn't be, on Kimon.

  For everyone wanted to go to Kimon. That was the hell of it.

  You couldn't tell the truth, when everyone would give their good right arm to go.

  You couldn't tell the truth, when you were a hero and the truth would turn you into a galactic heel.

  And the letters from home, the prideful letters, the envious letters, the letters happy with the thought you were doing so well - all of these would be only further chains to bind you to Kimon and to the Kimon lie.

  He said to the cabinet: "How about a drink?"

  "Yes, sir," said the cabinet. "Coming right up, sir."

  "A long one," Bishop said, "and a strong one."

  "Long and strong it is, sir."

  14

  He met her in the bar.

  "Why, if it isn't Buster!" she said, as though they met there often.

  He sat on the stool beside her.

  "That week is almost up," he said.

  She nodded. "We've been watching you. You're standing up real well."

  "You tried to tell me."

  "Forget it," said the girl. "Just a mistake of mine. It's a waste of time telling any of them. But you looked intelligent and not quite dry behind the ears. I took pity on you."

  She looked at him over the rim of her glass.

  "I shouldn't have," she said.

  "I should have listened."

  "They never do," said Maxine.

  "There's another thing," he said. "Why hasn't it leaked out? Oh, sure, I have written letters, too. I didn't admit what it was like. Neither did you. Nor the man next to you. But someone, in all the years we've been here - "

  "We are all alike," she said. "Alike as peas in the pod. We are the anointed, the hand-picked, stubborn, vanity-stricken, scared. All of us got here. In spite of hell and high water we got here. We let nothing stand in our way and we made it. We beat the others out. They're waiting back there on Earth - the ones that we beat out. They'll never be quite the same again. Don't you understand? They had pride, too, and it was hurt. There's nothing they would like better than to know what it's really like. That's what all of us think of when we sit down to write a letter. We think of the belly laughs by those other thousands. The quiet smirks. We think of ourselves skulking, making ourselves small so no one will notice us -