Falija said, “So the seven roads are one road now. Seven Margarets on seven planets with one road among them…”
“And everything dependent upon time,” said Ferni. “I wonder if that’s what has the Siblinghood in a furor…”
Flek, Jaker, and Poul had risen, and they were gone almost before those of us remaining had digested what had just happened.
“I’m suddenly hungry,” Mar-agern said. “Would it be possible to have something to eat?”
“Certainly,” Naumi replied. “Especially if, during supper, we can hear more about this mother-mind business.”
The eight of us, including Falija, dined alone in a small dining room at the officers’ mess, an exceptionally good dinner, as the academy cooks were trying out the menus they had selected for the reunion. As we ate, we decided what else needed to be done before we could go to B’yurngrad. When we had freed M’urgi from her captors, we would continue through the B’yurngrad way-gate to Cantardene (assuming Caspor’s map of the way-gates was accurate) to find another of us, if and only if Jaker’s one-eyed egotist hadn’t found her first.
“The gates on Cantardene may or may not be close together,” I remarked. “The ones here and on Fajnard were. I never saw the one that enters Tercis…”
“I did,” said Falija. “It was very near the one we used, hidden back in a cleft in the rock where most of them seem to be. It makes sense that each pair would be close together.”
I murmured, “I should mention that we left Tercis because a couple of pseudohumans were chasing us. Or trying to. On Fajnard, they were definitely chasing us.”
“Robots,” said Bamber Joy, who, while eating enormously, had said very little up until then. “Acted like robots, talked like robots. Might have come from some technological Walled-Off on Tercis.”
“What Walled-Off did you come from?” Ferni asked curiously.
“Rueful,” I answered. “The name says it all, and it’s too long a story for tonight.”
“Not a high-tech place, though?” asked Naumi.
I shook my head. “No, Naumi, not a high-tech place. We had electricity, and that was about the extent of it. No powered vehicles except for those from Tercis Central we occasionally saw, plus the one Ned and Walter drove.”
“Let’s leave it until morning,” Naumi said. “Our minds will go on worrying at it overnight, and they may give us a head start after we’ve slept.”
We finished our meal and trooped back to the cadet house, where Mar-agern and I were given rooms down the hall. Falija, Bamber, and Glory took their pick of bunks in a nearby dormitory.
I returned to the common room, needing to sit quietly for a time before attempting sleep, but I found Naumi, Ferni, and Caspor still there. When I came in, Naumi rose, went to a low cupboard along the wall, and took out a bottle.
“Caspor? Ferni? Margaret? Yes? Me, too.” He poured, distributed, and sat down opposite us, turning the glass idly in his hand. “Have any of you ever hear of a planet called Hell?”
“Yes,” I said. “We learned of it in school, back on Earth, and Falija mentioned it to me just a few moments ago. The native race has almost gone extinct several times. By now, they probably are.”
“That seventh star-point, hanging out there in the nowhere. That’s how someone described that planet, Hell, to me.”
“That’s what Falija said. That’s a seventh planet.”
“We’re a long way from walking road number seven,” said Caspor. “Right now I’m a good deal more worried about a place like Cantardene in the known-where than anyplace in the nowhere. And there’s always the possibility I’m totally wrong about this whole thing.”
Naumi emptied his glass, yawned, rose, and bid us good night, concluding, “You’re usually right, Caspor. I don’t see we have any choice but taking a chance on it.”
They went off to bed. I sat there for some time, thinking of that seven-pointed star, wondering about Hell, and what one of us could be doing on it, out in the nowhere.
I Am Gretamara/on Chottem
The Gardener arrived in Bray late in the evening. She found Sophia and me sitting on the terrace beneath the tree. As we rose to greet her, she said, “You’ve found out what was rotten here on Chottem!”
Sophia said, “Gardener, you knew something was wrong!”
“I’d smelled it, Sophia. This is too recently settled a planet to permit any legitimate accumulation of great wealth, not in one lifetime, not in several, yet Stentor was a rich man, and Von Goldereau grows richer by the hour.”
“Slaves,” I said. “Men grow rich selling slaves.”
“Yes, selling slaves, including children, has always been a quick way to riches.”
I said, “The children don’t come from this world, Gardener. They have to come from somewhere else.”
“An old man brought me the keys to the cellars,” said Sophia. “He said he’d given his grandson to my grandfather to be sent to another world to be educated as a gentleman. I’m afraid this was a cruel and vicious joke. What world needs human children to educate and make gentlemen?”
“There is no such world. There is a world, however, where children are surplus, and another where children are bought and sold.”
“Earth,” I said. “And Cantardene.”
Gardener nodded. “Yes. Anyone needing a guaranteed source of children would deal with Earth.”
“Would any parent sell…?” I breathed.
“Earthians have sold their children for thousands of years,” said the Gardener. “Surplus daughters have been sold as prostitutes, surplus sons to the army. Among the sterile castes of K’Famir, human pets are common, but that does not account for the numbers necessary to have amassed this fortune.”
I was gripped by the memory of my own feelings when I had been ripped away from my home. Through tears, I said, “With riches like those in the cellars, Stentor must have brought enormous numbers from Earth. But how? On what ships?”
“Omniont or Mercan captains wouldn’t transport cargoes to Chottem that would sell for more
