Jinx’s one point seven eight gravities put an unreasonable restriction on elegance and ingenuity in architectural design. The buildings in the habitable bands all look alike: squat and massive.

The East and West Ends, the vacuum regions, aren’t that different from any industrialized moon. I never developed much of an interest in touring factories.

As for the ocean shorelines, the only vehicles that go there go to hunt Bandersnatchi. The Bandersnatchi are freaks: enormous, intelligent white slugs the size of mountains. They hunt the tanks. There are rigid restrictions to the equipment the tanks can carry, covenants established between men and Bandersnatchi, so that the Bandersnatchi win about forty percent of the duels. I wanted no part of that.

And all my touring had to be done in three times the gravity of my homeworld.

I spent the third month in Sirius Mater, and most of that in the Camelot Hotel, which has gravity generators in most of the rooms. When I went out, I rode a floating contour couch. I passed like an invalid among the Jinxians, who were amused. Or was that my imagination?

I was in a hall of the Institute of Knowledge when I came on Carlos Wu running his fingertips over a Kdatlyno touch sculpture.

A dark, slender man with narrow shoulders and straight black hair, Carlos was lithe as a monkey in any normal gravity, but on Jinx he used a travel couch exactly like mine. He studied the busts with his head tilted to one side. And I studied the familiar back, sure it couldn’t be him.

“Carlos, aren’t you supposed to be on Earth?”

He jumped. But when the couch spun around, he was grinning. “Bey! I might say the same for you.”

I admitted it. “I was headed for Earth, but when all those ships started disappearing around Sol system, the captain changed his mind and steered for Sirius. Nothing any of the passengers could do about it. What about you? How are Sharrol and the kids?”

“Sharrol’s fine, the kids are fine, and they’re all waiting for you to come home.” His fingers were still trailing over the Lloobee touch sculpture called Heroes, feeling the warm, fleshy textures. Heroes was a most unusual touch sculpture; there were visual as well as textural effects. Carlos studied the two human busts, then said, “That’s your face, isn’t it?”

“Yah.”

“Not that you ever looked that good in your life. How did a Kdatlyno come to pick Beowulf Shaeffer as a classic hero? Was it your name? And who’s the other guy?”

“I’ll tell you about it sometime. Carlos, what are you doing here?”

“I…left Earth a couple of weeks after Louis was born.” He was embarrassed. Why? “I haven’t been off Earth in ten years. I needed the break.”