Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
Published in August, 1963 Copyright 1963 by Marion Zimmer Bradley
[Transcriber's note: This is a rule 6 clearance. PG has not been able to find a copyright renewal.]
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It was a week before the Lhari ship went into warp-drive, and all that time young Bart Steele had stayed in his cabin. He was so bored with his own company that the Mentorian medic was a welcome sight when he came to prepare him for _cold-sleep_.
The Mentorian paused, needle in hand. "Do you wish to be wakened for the time we shall spend in each of the three star systems, sir? You can, of course, be given enough drug to keep you in cold-sleep until we reach your destination."
Bart felt tempted--he wanted very much to see the other star systems. But he couldn't risk meeting other passengers.
The needle went into his arm. In sudden panic, he realized he was helpless. The ship would touch down on three worlds, and on any of them the Lhari might have his description, or his alias! He could be taken off, unconscious, and might never wake up! He tried to move, to protest, but he couldn't. There was a freezing moment of intense cold and then nothing....
The Lhari spaceport didn't belong on Earth.
Bart Steele had thought that, a long time ago, when he first saw it. He had been just a kid then; twelve years old, and all excited about seeing Earth for the first time--Earth, the legendary home of mankind before the Age of Space, the planet of Bart's far-back ancestors. And the first thing he'd seen on Earth, when he got off the starship, was the Lhari spaceport.
And he'd thought, right then, _It doesn't belong on Earth._
He'd said so to his father, and his father's face had gone strange, bitter and remote.
"A lot of people would agree with you, Son," Captain Rupert Steele had said softly. "The trouble is, if the Lhari spaceport wasn't on Earth, we wouldn't be on Earth either. Remember that."