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It had been worth it, whatever Dad said. Even worth a licking, if it turned out that way.

IV

«^»

IT WAS WORSE that he had thought it would be.

As he came through the doors of the apartment in Quarters A, he saw his father, intercom in hand, andheard Wade Montray’s sharp, preoccupied voice, with overtones of trouble.

“—went out after school, and hasn’t come in; I checked with all his friends. The guard at the western gate saw him leave, but hasn’t seen him come back… I don’t want to sound like an alarmist, sir, but if he’d wandered into the Old Town— you know as well as I do what could have happened. Yes, I know that, sir, and I’ll take all the responsibility for letting it happen; it was foolish of me. Believe me, I realize that now—”

Larry said hesitantly “Dad—?”

Montray started, half dropping the cap of the intercom.

“Larry! Is that you?”

Montray said into the intercom, “Forget it. He just came in. Yes, I know, I’ll attend to it… All right,

Larry, come in here where I can get a good look at you.”

Larry obeyed, bracing himself for a storm. As he came into the main room, and the light fell on hisbruised face, Montray turned pale.

“Larry, your face! Son, what’s happened? Are you all right?” He came forward, quickly, taking Larry

by the shoulders and turning him toward the light; Larry tensed, trying to pull away.

“It’s all right, Dad; I got into a fight. A bunch of toughs. It’s all right.” He added quickly, “It looks worse

than it is.”

Montray’s face worked, and for a moment he turned away. When he looked at Larry again, his facewas controlled and grim, his voice level. “You’d better tell me about it.”

Larry began the story, trying to make light of the roughing up he had had, but his father interrupted,harshly, “You could have been killed! You know that, don’t you?”

“”I wasn’t, though. And really, Dad, it’s an incredible piece of luck, meeting Kennard and everything. It

was worth a little trouble—Dad, what’s wrong, what is it?”

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Montray said, “I made a mistake ever letting you go into the town alone. I know that, now. That’s allover. It could have been very serious. Larry, this is an order: You are not to leave the Terran Zoneagain—not at any time, not under any conditions.”

Startled, outraged, hardly believing, Larry stared at his father. “You can’t mean that, Dad!”

“But I do mean it.”

“But you haven’t even been listening to me, then! Nothing like that would happen again! Kennard said I

had the freedom of the city, and his father invited me to come again—”

“I heard you perfectly well,” his father cut in, “but you’ve had your orders, Larry, and I don’t intend to discuss it any further. You are not to leave the Terran Zone again— at any time. No”— he raised his hand as Larry began to protest—“not another word, not one. Go and wash your face and put something on those cuts and get to bed. Get going!”

Larry opened his mouth and, slowly, shut it again. It wasn’t the slightest use; his father wasn’t listening tohim. Fuming, outraged, he stalked toward his room.

It wasn’t like Dad to treat him this way—like a little kid to be ordered around! Usually, Dad wasreasonable. While he washed his bruised face and painted his skinned knuckles with antiseptic, hestormed silently inside. Dad
 
couldn’t
mean it—not now, not after the trouble he’d had getting accepted!

Finally he decided to let it ride until morning. Dad had been worried about him; maybe when he’d had achance to think it over, he’d listen to reason. Larry went to bed, still thinking over, with excitement, thenew friend he’d made and the opportunity this opened up—the chance to see the real Darkover, not theworld of the spaceport and the tourists but the strange, highly colored world that lay alien and beautifulbeyond them.

Dad would
have
 
to see it his way!

But he didn’t. When Larry tackled him again, over the breakfast table, Montray’s face was dark andforbidding, and would have intimidated anyone less determined than Larry.

“I said I didn’t even want to discuss it. You’ve had your orders, and that’s all there is to it.”

Larry bit his lip, scowling furiously into his plate. Finally, flaming with indignation, he raised his head andstared defiantly at his father. “I’m not taking that, sir.”

Montray frowned again. “What did you say?” Larry felt a queer, uneasy sensation under his belt. He hadnever openly defied his father since he was a toddler of four or five. But he persisted:

“Dad, I don’t want to be disrespectful, but you can’t treat me that way. I’m not a kid, and when you say

something like that, I have a right, at least, to an explanation.”

“You’ll do as you’re told, or else you’ll—” Montray checked himself. At last he laid down his fork and leaned forward, his chin on his hands, his eyes angry. But all he said was, “Fair enough, then. Here’s the story. Suppose, last night, you’d been badly hurt, or killed?”

“But I—”

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“Let me finish. One silly kid goes exploring, and it could create an interplanetary incident. If you’d gotten into real trouble, Larry, we would have had to use all the power and prestige of the Terran Empire just to get you out of it again. If we had to do that—especially if we had to use force and Terran weapons—we’d lose all the good will and tolerance that it’s taken us years to build up. It would all have to be done over again. Sure, if it came to a fight, we’d win. But we want to
 
avoid
 
incidents, not win fights which cost us more than we gain by winning them. Do you honestly think it’s worth it?” Larry hesitated. “Well, do you?”

“I suppose not, when you put it that way,” Larry said slowly. Mentally he was comparing this with what Kennard had said: how the Darkovans resented the use of the whole power of Terra, just to “pry into” what should be a private quarrel between one troublemaker and the people he had offended. It would also mean that if Larry had been harmed, the Terrans would have held all of Darkover responsible, not just the few young toughs who had actually committed the incident.

He was trying to think how he could explain this to his father, but Montray left him no time. “That’s thesituation. No more exploring on your own. And no arguments, if you don’t mind; I don’t intend to discussit any further with you. That’s just the way it’s got to be.” He pushed away his plate and stood up. “I’vegot work to do.”

Larry sat on at the empty breakfast table, a dull and simmering resentment burning through him. So Kennard had been rieht after all. It seemed that all of Darkover and all of the Terran Empire had to bedragged into it.

His head throbbed and he could hardly see out of his black eye, and his knuckles were so swollen thathe found it hard to handle a fork. He decided not to go to school, and spent most of the morning lying onhis bed, bitterly resentful. This meant the end of his adventure. What else was there? The dull world of Quarters and spaceport, identical with the world he’d left on Earth. He might as well have stayed there!

He got out the books he had promised Kennard. So he couldn’t even keep that promise! And Kennardwould think his word wasn’t worth anything. How could he get word to his Darkovan friend about thepunishment imposed on him? Kennard, and Kennard’s father, had shown him friendship andhospitality—and he couldn’t even keep his word!

Well, they’d started out by not thinking much of the Terrans—and now their opinion would just beconfirmed that Terrans weren’t to be trusted.

The day dragged by. The next day he went back to school, turning aside queries about his black eyewith some offhand story of falling over a chair in the darkness. But the day after, as the hour approachedwhen he had promised the Altons to visit them, his conflict grew and grew.

Damn it, he’d
promised
 
.

His father, looking into his glowering face at breakfast, had said briefly, “I’m sorry, Larry. This isn’tpleasant for me—to deny you something you want so much. Some day, when you’re older, perhapsyou’ll understand why I have to do this. Until then, I’m afraid you’ll just have to accept my judgment.”

He thinks he’ll cut off my interest in Darkover just by forbidding me to go outside the Terran

Zone
, Larry thought resentfully.
 
He doesn’t know anything about it, really—or about me
 
!

The day wore away, slowly. He considered, and rejected, the idea of a final appeal to his father. Wade

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Montray seldom gave an order, but when he did, he never rescinded it, and Larry could tell his father’smind was made up on this subject.

But it wasn’t fair—and it wasn’t right, or just! Painfully, Larry faced a decision that all youngsters facesooner or later: the knowledge that their parents are not always right—that sometimes they can be deadwrong!

Wrong or not, he thinks I ought to have to obey him anyhow! And that’s the bad thing. What elsecan I do?

He thought that would have to be the end of it, but the question somehow stuck, uncomfortably, withhim: Well, what else
 
can
 
I do?

I can refuse to obey him
, the thought came suddenly, as if he had never had it before.

He had never deliberately defied his father. The thought made him uncomfortable.

But this time, I’m right and he’s wrong, and if he can’t see it, I can. I made a commitment, and if I breakmy word, that in itself is going to make a couple of Darkovans—and important people—think that Terrans aren’t worth much.

This is one time where I’m going to
 
have
 
to disobey Dad. Afterward, I’ll take any punishment he wantsto hand out to me. But I’m not going to break my word to Kennard and his father. I’ll explain to themwhy I may not be able to come again, but I won’t insult their hospitality by just disappearing and not evenletting them know why I never came back.

Kennard saved me from a mauling—maybe from being killed. I promised him something hewants—some books— and I owe him that much.

He was uneasy about disobeying. But he still felt, deep down, that he was right.

If I’d been born on Darkover, he told himself, I’d be considered a man; old enough to do a man’s work,old enough to make my own decisions—and take the consequences. There comes a time in your lifewhen you have to decide for yourself what is right and what is wrong, and stop accepting what olderpeople say. Dad may be right as far as he knows, but he doesn’t know the whole story, and I do. And I’ve got to do what I think is right.

He wondered why he felt so sad about it. It hurt, suddenly, to realize that he’d made a decision he couldnever go back on. He might be punished like a child, when he got back; but suddenly he understood thathe’d never feel like one again. It wasn’t just the act of disobeying his father—any kid could do that. Itwas that he had decided, once and for all, that he no longer was
 
willing
 
to let his father decide right andwrong for him. If he obeyed his father, after this, it would be because he had thought it over and decided,on a grown-up basis, that he wanted to obey him.

And it hurt. He felt a funny pain about it, but it never occurred to him to change his mind. He’d decidedwhat he was going to do. Now he had to decide how he was going to do it.

His father had mentioned that if he, Larry, got into trouble, it might drag the whole Terran Zone into it. That was something to consider. That was fair enough. Larry wanted to be sure there was no danger ofthat.

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Then he thought:
 
I could be taken for a Darkovan, except for my clothes. I have been mistaken fora Darkovan by my accent. If I’m not dressed as a Terran, then I won’t get into any trouble
 
.

And
, he added to himself rather grimly,
 
if anything does happen to me, the Terrans won’t bedragged into it. It will be my own responsibility
 
.

Quickly, he got out of his own clothes and put on the Darkovan ones Kennard had lent him. He glancedbriefly at himself in the mirror. Part of himself recognized, a little ironic awareness, that he was enjoyingthe masquerade. It was exciting, an adventure. The other half of his awareness was a little grim. Bydeliberately taking off everything that could identify himself as Terran, he was deliberately giving up hisright to the protection of the Empire. Now he was on his own. He’d walk down into the city with nomore protection than his two hands and his knowledge of the language could give him.