The hub planet of the Betelgeuse System was called Plantagenet III. It was a thriving junction for passenger carriers transporting settlers to undeveloped colony planets. As soon as Tirol’s ship landed he hurried across the field to the taxi stand.

“Take me to Tirol Enterprises,” he instructed, praying there was an outlet here. There had to be, but it might be operating under a front name. Years ago he lost track of the particulars of his sprawling empire.

“Tirol Enterprises,” the cab driver repeated thoughtfully. “Nope, no such outfit, mister.”

Stunned, Tirol said: “Who does the slaving around here?”

The driver eyed him. He was a wizened, dried-up little man with glasses; he peered turtle-wise, without compassion. “Well,” he said, “I’ve been told you can get carried out-system without papers. There’s a shipping contractor… called—” He reflected. Tirol, trembling, handed him a last bill.

“The Reliable Export-Import,” the driver said.

That was one of Lantano’s fronts. In horror Tirol said: “And that’s it?”

The driver nodded.

Dazed, Tirol moved away from the cab. The buildings of the field danced around him; he settled down on a bench to catch his breath. Under his coat his heart pounded unevenly. He tried to breathe, but his breath caught painfully in his throat. The bruise on his head where Ellen Ackers had hit him began to throb. It was true, and he was gradually beginning to understand and believe it. He was not going to get to Earth; he was going to spend the rest of his life here on this rural world, cut off from his organization and everything he had built up over the years.

And, he realized, as he sat struggling to breathe, the rest of his life was not going to be very long.

He thought about Heimie Rosenburg.

“Betrayed,” he said, and coughed wrackingly. “You betrayed me. You hear that? Because of you I’m here. It’s your fault; I never should have hired you.”

He thought about Ellen Ackers. “You too,” he gasped, coughing. Sitting on the bench he alternately coughed and gasped and thought about the people who had betrayed him. There were hundreds of them.

The living room of David Lantano’s house was furnished in exquisite taste. Priceless late nineteenth century Blue Willow dishes lined the walls in a rack of wrought iron. At his antique yellow plastic and chrome table, David Lantano was eating dinner, and the spread of food amazed Beam even more than the house.

Lantano was in good humor and he ate with enthusiasm. His linen napkin was tucked under his chin and once, as he sipped coffee, he dribbled and belched. His brief period of confinement was over; he ate to make up for the ordeal.

He had been informed, first by his own apparatus and now by Beam, that banishment had successfully carried Tirol past the point of return. Tirol would not be coming back and for that Lantano was thankful. He felt expansive toward Beam; he wished Beam would have something to eat.

Moodily, Beam said: “It’s nice here.”

“You could have something like this,” Lantano said.

On the wall hung a framed folio of ancient paper protected by helium-filled glass. It was the first printing of a poem of Ogden Nash, a collector’s item that should have been in a museum. It aroused in Beam a mixed feeling of longing and aversion.

“Yes,” Beam said. “I could have this.” This, he thought, or Ellen Ackers or the job at Interior or perhaps all three at once. Edward Ackers had been retired on pension and he had given his wife a divorce. Lantano was out of jeopardy. Tirol had been banished. He wondered what he did want.

“You could go a long way,” Lantano said sleepily.

“As far as Paul Tirol?”

Lantano chuckled and yawned.

“I wonder if he left any family,” Beam said. “Any children.” He was thinking about Heimie.

Lantano reached across the table toward the bowl of fruit. He selected a peach and carefully brushed it against the sleeve of his robe. “Try a peach,” he said.

“No thanks,” Beam said irritably.

Lantano examined the peach but he did not eat it. The peach was made of wax; the fruit in the bowl was imitation. He was not really as rich as he pretended, and many of the artifacts about the living room were fakes. Each time he offered fruit to a visitor he took a calculated risk. Returning the peach to the bowl he leaned back in his chair and sipped his coffee.

If Beam did not have plans, at least he had, and with Tirol gone the plans had a better than even chance of working out. He felt peaceful. Someday, he thought, and not too far off, the fruit in the bowl would be real.

Explorers We

“Golly,” Parkhurst gasped, his red face tingling with excitement. “Come here, you guys. Look!”

They crowded around the viewscreen.

“There she is,” Barton said. His heart beat strangely. “She sure looks good.”

“Damn right she looks good,” Leon agreed. He trembled. “Say—I can make out New York.”

“The hell you can.”

“I can! The gray. By the water.”

“That’s not even the United States. We’re looking at it upside down. That’s Siam.”

The ship hurtled through space, meteoroid shields shrieking. Below it, the blue-green globe swelled. Clouds drifted around it, hiding the continents and oceans.

“I never expected to see her again,” Merriweather said. “I thought sure as hell we were stuck up there.” His face twisted. “Mars. That damned red waste. Sun and flies and ruins.”

“Barton knows how to repair jets,” Captain Stone said. “You can thank him.”

“You know what I’m going to do, first thing I’m back?” Parkhurst yelled.

“What?”

“Go to Coney Island.”

“Why?”

“People. I want to see people again. Lots of them. Dumb, sweaty, noisy. Ice cream and water. The ocean. Beer bottles, milk cartons, paper napkins—”

“And gals,” Vecchi said, eyes shining. “Long time, six months. I’ll go with you. We’ll sit on the beach and watch the gals.”

“I wonder what kind of bathing suits they got now,” Barton said.

“Maybe they don’t wear any!” Parkhurst cried.

“Hey!” Merriweather shouted. “I’m going to see my wife again.” He was suddenly dazed. His voice sank to a whisper. “My wife.”

“I got a wife, too,” Stone said. He grinned. “But I been married a long time.” Then he thought of Pat and Jean. A stabbing ache choked his windpipe. “I bet they have grown.”

“Grown?”

“My kids,” Stone said huskily.

They looked at each other, six men, ragged, bearded, eyes bright and feverish.

“How long?” Vecchi whispered.

“An hour,” Stone said. “We’ll be down in an hour.”

The ship struck with a crash that threw them on their faces. It leaped and bucked, brake jets screaming, tearing through rocks and soil. It came to rest, nose buried in a hillside.

Silence.

Parkhurst got unsteadily to his feet. He caught hold of the safety rail. Blood dripped down his face from a cut over his eye.

“We’re down,” he said.

Barton stirred. He groaned, forced himself up on his knees. Parkhurst helped him. “Thanks. Are we …”

“We’re down. We’re back.”

The jets were off. The roaring had ceased… there was only the faint trickle of wall fluids leaking out on the ground.

The ship was a mess. The hull was cracked in three places. It billowed in, bent and twisted. Papers and ruined instruments were strewn everywhere.

Vecchi and Stone got slowly up. “Everything all right?” Stone muttered, feeling his arm.

“Give me a hand,” Leon said. “My damn ankle’s twisted or something.”

They got him up. Merriweather was unconscious. They revived him and got him to his feet.

“We’re down,” Parkhurst repeated, as if he couldn’t believe it. “This is Earth. We’re back—alive!”