“Yah. But like I said, I don’t know just what I’ll be doing.” I was telling the truth. When I explore a civilized world, I like to make my own discoveries.

“Well, call me if you get a chance. I wish you’d change your mind. I’d like to show you Earth.”

“I decline with thanks. Good-bye, Elephant. It’s been fun.”

Elephant waved and turned through the natives’ door. I went on to face the smuggler baiters. The last drink was still with me, but I could cure that at the hotel. I never expected to see Elephant again.

Nine days ago I’d been on Jinx. I’d been rich. And I’d been depressed.

The money and the depression had stemmed from the same source. The puppeteers, those three-legged, two-headed professional cowards and businessmen, had lured me into taking a new type of ship all the way to the galactic core, thirty thousand light years away. The trip was for publicity purposes, to get research money to iron out the imperfections in the very ship I was riding.

I suppose I should have had more sense, but I never do, and the money was good. The trouble was that the Core had exploded by the time I got there. The Core stars had gone off in a chain reaction of novas ten thousand years ago, and a wave of radiation was even then (and even now) sweeping toward known space.

In just over twenty thousand years we’ll all be in deadly danger.

You’re not worried? It didn’t bother me much, either. But every puppeteer in known space vanished overnight, heading for Finagle knows what other galaxy.

I was depressed. I missed the puppeteers and hated knowing I was responsible for their going. I had time and money and a black melancholia to work off. And I’d always wanted to see Earth.

Earth smelled good. There was a used flavor to it, a breathed flavor, unlike anything I’ve ever known. It was the difference between spring water and distilled water. Somewhere in each breath I took were molecules breathed by Dante, Aristotle, Shakespeare, Heinlein, Carter, and my own ancestors. Traces of past industries lingered in the air, sensed if not smelled: gasoline, coal fumes, tobacco and burnt cigarette filters, diesel fumes, ale breweries. I left the customs house with inflated lungs and a questing look.

I could have taken a transfer booth straight to the hotel. I decided to walk a little first.

Everyone on Earth had made the same decision.