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"I will not," Elias promised.
"Sometimes," Mamie said, "it is pleasant to find that people do not want you to linger." Well, if
anybody should have known &
We pulled up beside the Cotton Blossom. The air lock was open and lighted, silhouetting Captain
McLeod where he waited for us.
"I can't get home to my nice, safe lounge quickly enough!" Mamie said, and bolted out the door and
toward the ramp. We all followed, but Prudence came, too. "Mr. Tallendar."
Barry stopped halfway to the ramp, then turned slowly, forcing a polite smile. He knew what was
coming. Horace turned with him, similarly urbane.
"Please, Mr. Tallendar, take me with you!" Prudence clasped his forearm with both hands. "I shall
go insane if I have to pass my whole life on this dingy little world! There is nothing for me here,
nothing! All the boys are clowns, all the men are surly boors! I shall die if I have to pass all my life
tending children and keeping house with never a moment of beauty or excitement! Oh, please, Mr.
Tallendar, please!"
"Young lady, my heart goes out to you," Barry said, "but I am afraid it is impossible."
At the foot of the ramp, Mamie looked up, then turned slowly and started walking back.
"Oh, it is not, it is not at all! Elias has agreed, though it will grieve him to lose me he knows how
unhappy I have been all these years! I was on the verge of despair, until your ship came! Oh, please, Mr.
Tallendar, do not cast me back to that!"
Barry looked up at Elias. "Do you give your approval?"
"I cannot say so publicly & " Elias began.
"Approval!" It was Mamie, swooping down like a Valkyrie. "Why should she need anyone's
approval but her own?"
"Possibly because it is illegal for a woman to leave the planet," Barry said, "or for anyone, if he is
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not a spacehand or merchant. Would I guess correctly there, Elias?"
Elias nodded mutely.
"That is criminal!" Mamie raged. "In fact, by DDE law, it is virtual slavery! She is a grown woman,
and her life is hers alone!"
Prudence cast a look of sheer adoration at her.
Back at the ramp, both Lacey and Suzanne had paused, their faces turned to stone.
"A good point," Barry admitted. "How old are you, young lady?"
'Twenty-two, sir!"
"Then you are an adult by IDE law," Barry said, "and once you are aboard our ship, you are subject
to that law, and no other, not even that of Citadel. Of course, I cannot permit you to board." He
resolutely turned his back, hands clasped on the head of his cane, and looked up at the stars. "It is a
beautiful night, is it not, Horace?"
"Splendid," Horace agreed, but he looked aghast.
Joy burned in Prudence's face. She didn't run back to the ramp, though she ran back to the car.
"Oh, farewell, brother!" She threw her arms about Elias' neck and hugged hard. "Farewell, and thank
you, thank you! Become a spaceman come and visit me!"
"I shall," he promised her, and looked up over her shoulder. "I trust her to your hands, Mrs. Lulala
to all of you."
"We shall prove worthy of the trust," Marnie assured him then, to Prudence, "Get aboard quickly,
child, before the Watch come to live up to their name!"
With a little sob, Prudence choked her brother one last time, then hurried away to the ramp.
I followed them up slowly, wondering whether or not I was happy about this.
Barry and I followed Ramou, walking fast, adding our own pace to the conveyor belt's speed.
At the hatchway, McLeod stepped out to bar Prudence's way, frowning. "I don't know you, Miss."
"In fact," Barry said, "you don't even see her do you, Captain McLeod?"
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McLeod looked up, surprised, then took in the looks on our faces, and Mamie's. He glanced down
at the car below, that was just now turning away, and you could see his mind adding two plus two and
arriving at a total of twenty-two.
"Why, no, Director Tallendar," he said slowly, "I don't see anything at all." And he stepped out of
the way.
Prudence gave a glad cry, kissed him soundly on his grainy old cheek, and hurried past him into the
ship, following Suzanne and Lacey, who were most emphatically not looking back.
The door closed behind us, and I said to Barry, "You know, you could get us all into a great deal of
trouble with this."
"Perhaps," Barry said, and there was cold determination in his voice. "But I could not, in any good
conscience, leave that poor child, who longs for only a little grace and refinement in her life, to be
exploited by such a medieval value system!"
I stared at him, amazed, then said slowly, "Why, you old fraud! You're as much of an evangelist as
they are!"
We assumed our usual stations on the bridge, while Ramou ran hither and thither about the decks,
making sure everyone was webbed in for takeoff for Barry had made it clear that he did not intend to
linger.
So, as it happened, had Citadel Control.
"Are you prepared for lift-off, Cotton BlossomV "Almost, Citadel Control," McLeod answered.
"Just waiting for confirmation that all supercargo is stowed and safe."
Ramou came panting in and dropped down onto his acceleration couch. He pulled the webbing over
his body with a rather wild-eyed look.
"Anything out of the ordinary, Number Two?" McLeod asked, in a tone heavy with hidden
meanings.
"No, sir. Everything normal," Ramou answered, though he looked at McLeod as if he were crazy
as if we all were.
"All secure, Citadel Control," McLeod said.
'Then lift off in sixty seconds!" Citadel commanded.
'They do want to get rid of us, don't they?" I murmured.
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'The feeling," Barry informed me, "is mutual."
"Two & one & lift-off!" McLeod commanded, and below us, the engines roared. A giant kicked us
fundamentally, and for a few seconds, the world was only roaring, redness filling my vision, and a
weight on my chest that seemed that of the whole planet.
Then it let up, and for a moment, I felt giddy, felt as if I weighed nothing, was floating in a primal
sea .. . but it was only reaction. Weight came back, and with it, relief.
"Check supercargo!" McLeod snapped, and Ramou turned to his own console. "Confirm successful
lift-off, please. Mr. Wellesley & Ms. Drury & Ms. Lulala & "
"Cotton Blossom! Abort!" Citadel Control suddenly barked. 'Turn your ship around and come
back!"
McLeod frowned. "You know we can't do that without taking an orbit around the planet to get
ready. What's the problem, Citadel Control?"
"We have just discovered that you have abducted one of our young women!"
"Abducted?" McLeod turned a face of bland innocence to Barry. "Have we abducted anybody?"
"What's he talking about?" Merlo demanded.
"You ask him," McLeod advised.
So the only one on the bridge who didn't know about Prudence leaned forward and said to the
authorities, "What are you talking about, Citadel Control? We haven't taken any hitchhikers along!"
"Yes, you have! And don't try to pretend you don't know about it!"
"I don't," Merlo snapped, his voice hard. "Are you making formal charges?"
Citadel Control was silent suddenly, no doubt realizing that the Cotton Blossom was now in
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