“I’m glad you’re aboard this trip, though I am sorry you are going to Pyrrus. But we’ll have lots of time to talk and there are so many things I want to find out. About other planets. And why people go around acting the way they do. Not at all like home where you know why people are doing things all the time.” She frowned over the tape for a moment, then turned her attention back to Jason. “What is your home planet like?”

One after another the usual lies he told people came to his lips, and were pushed away. Why bother lying to a girl who really didn’t care if you were serf or noble? To her there were only two kinds of people in the galaxy. Pyrrans, and the rest. For the first time since he had fled from Porgorstorsaand, he found himself telling someone the truth of his origin.

“My home planet? Just about the stuffiest, dullest, dead-end in the universe. You can’t believe the destructive decay of a planet that is mainly agrarian, caste-conscious and completely satisfied with its own boring existence. Not only is there no change-but no one wants change. My father was a farmer, so I should have been a farmer too-if I had listened to the advice of my betters. It was unthinkable, as well as forbidden for me to do anything else. And everything I wanted to do was against the law. I was fifteen before I learned to read-out of a book stolen from a noble school. After that there was no turning back. By the time I stowed away aboard an off-world freighter at nineteen I must have broken every law on the planet. Happily. Leaving home for me was just like getting out of prison.”

Mete shook her head at- the thought. “I just can’t imagine a place like that. But I’m sure I wouldn’t like it there.”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t,” Jason smiled. “So once I was in space, with no law-abiding talents or skills, I just wandered into one thing and another. In this age of technology, I was completely out of place. Oh, I suppose I could have done well in some army, but I’m not so good at taking orders. Whenever I gambled I did well, so little by little I just drifted into it. People are the same everywhere, so I’ manage to make out. very well wherever I end up.”