The guards are young, carrying small arms. They look at us with astonishment as we move toward them. One of them raises his implement but the other whispers something to him and he drops it. They are indistinguishable, youths really, not adult creatures at all; the first young of this race I have ever seen. They look like a poor barrier but then again there are the weapons. “Excuse me,” I say, clearing my throat. “We’d like to leave.”

“Leave?” one of them says. His eyes widen. “Leave what?”

“The enclosure,” I say. “If we may.”

“Get back,” says the other, apparently a more ferocious type. Again he raises his weapon, again the mild guard fanatically whis­pers something to him and the weapon is slowly lowered until it confronts me somewhere at the knees.

“I’m afraid that’s quite impossible,” the mild guard says. “You can’t leave here. You must stay inside. We’re here to keep you inside. In all the time that we’ve been on this post nothing like this has ever happened.”

“It’s happening now,” I say. I try to keep all menace out of my voice. The point of the matter is to appease them, appeal to their better natures, utilize the guilt they must feel to become our collaborators. “Come on,” I say, using the heavy informality which my therapists now and then have tried when I have become very tired and momentarily blocked. “What’s the difference? Let us out. There are only fifteen or so of us; we’ll never be noticed until the morning or even later. You deny everything. You say we didn’t come your way.”

“There are eight of you,” the savage guard says, pointing and counting. “Only eight renegades. I think I’ll shoot you all.”

“Please,” the mild guard says gesturing at him. “Let me handle this. I’m the senior on post; there’s no need to do anything at all just yet, Raul.” He turns back to me, his fine open features with no guile at all. “Why do you want to leave?” he asks quietly.

I look at the others. They seem suffused at this moment with shyness, looking down at the floor with demure expressions I would not have thought them capable of mustering, Nala herself looking with interest straight up along the walls, through the planking and to the roofing an enormous distance beyond. In this part of the enclosure the roofing seems to be made of a different material; it gleams in many colors and a spectral wash comes down upon us, giving the guide a carnival expression as he says again, “Why? Explain yourself, I’m willing to listen,” and silences his partner with a gesture of his hand. I feel hopeful. Possibly he is the guard in complete authority at all posts of the enclosure. Youthful as he is there is something measured about his aspect, certain of his demeanor. The savage guard stands quietly, blink­ing. “Tell me.”

“Because it is abominable,” I say. I realize that I am now speaking not only for myself but for all circumstances and I strive for eloquence. I may never have such an opportunity again. “Because we are free, spirited creatures just as you are and we came to your planet not to oppress or hurt you but to give you infor­mation. Out of the great-spiritedness of our elders we were delegated to come your way and turn over to you technological and social secrets which would turn you out of the age of darkness in which we found you. Our elders are unspeakably wise; they are complex, they are long-suffering. They wanted you to leave your age of darkness and join all of us among the stars.

“This is how we came to you. And what have you done to us? You have imprisoned us. You have treated us like animals. You have counseled us with threats and eternal supervision, cut­ting off our lives at the source and have tortured out information which we would have given you willingly. You speak to us of ‘inspection tours’ and ‘surveillance’ when what you are really talk­ing about is brutality, the unceasing brutality of one set of crea­tures to others equal or immeasurably superior. You have cut us off in the flower of our strength, the youth of our hopes and made us cattle. And we can no longer bear it.

“A group of us have come to tell you that we will take this no longer and that we must leave. There are only eight of us now but if you cut us down there will be others. First twenty, then fifty, then two hundred will arise and smite you with the forces of justice. Let us pass. It is the easier way. We appeal to you with reason and a plea for equality. Those who come behind us will not be so patient or so kindly.”

“Do you mean,” the savage guard says, “that you’re going to come from your cages and attack us?”

“Quiet,” says the senior. His face is concentrated, tense. “This is very interesting. I want to hear more. I want you to finish.”

I spread my palms upward in a universal gesture. “I have nothing more to say. That is all. Let us pass.”

“Just like that,” the mild one says, “we’re supposed to let you through. And then what? Where would you go?”

“Back to our ship.”

“How do you find it?”

“We have obtained word from the therapists. The ship is near here; we have been told that. We may see it against the horizon. It has been kept in good repair awaiting our return. We will embark and we will not bother you again.”

“And what about the others?”

“What others?”

“There are two hundred of you still here. What’s going to happen to them when you leave?”

“Nothing, I assume,” I say. “We are too valuable to you; none of us can be spared. We will not abandon them, of course. We intend to alert forces on our home star who will rescue them. But without force.”

“Just as simple as that.”

“That simply,” I say and nod. “You can make it very simple if you will only let us through. Consider our suffering. Consider our pain, our brutalization. I am being very reasonable with you, considering what our real demands might be.”

“I don’t care,” the savage one says. “It’s not my problem.” He gives Nala a vague leer. “I’m just the assistant like you point out. You handle this any way you want.” He shrugs and then winks at me. “You’re trying to look on me as an evil person because I want to keep you here,” he says. “You’ll see.”

“Let us through,” Nala says, swinging through a convoluted gesture and standing beside me. “You have heard him speak. He has put the case for all of us. Let us through. No harm will come to any of you and much credit.”

“We can overpower you otherwise,” one hundred ninety-nine says. Apparently my speech has inspired him. “If you do not listen to the good words of our leader, we can take you by numbers.”

The guard makes a gesture of dismissal, the flat of his hand to the floor as the other one walks away, lays his weapon against a wall and with a yawn sits beside it. He seems abstracted, now removed from the situation. “Do what you want.” he says to the senior. “I’ve said my piece.”

“I’ll do that,” the mild guard says. “I’ll do what I want.” He looks at me intently. “You really want to leave?” he says.

“Yes.”

“You want to leave that badly? You’ve considered the risks and penalties and you still do?”

“Of course he does,” Nala says angrily. “Haven’t you listened to him?” She seems possessed of more energy than I have ever seen in her, other than the fornications. “He’s said it more elo­quently than any of us ever could—”

“All right,” the guard says quietly. “You don’t have to get mad atme . I’m not responsible after all. I just have to check things, get them sure in my own mind.” With enormous delicacy he slides a catch on his weapon, brings his weapon to his side and perches it, like the other’s, against a wall. He places the back of his hand against the door and pushes it open. Outside there is earth, sand, terrain, atmosphere. “Okay,” the guard says. “You may go.”

“We may go?”

“You may go,” he says to me. “What’s wrong, you don’t believe it? You don’t want to leave? You go through all that trou­ble and now you won’t take your chance? Go! The door is open.” He puts his hands on his head, stands in a receptive posture. “If you want to beat me up a little first, go right ahead,” he says. “If you find that necessary I wouldn’t stand—”

“That easily?” I ask. I am astounded. “You mean, we can just walk through that door?”

“Isn’t that what you wanted? You made the case for yourselves; I didn’t. I accept your case. Go. Go,” the guard says and casts a glance toward his weapon, “before I change my mind. Or before Raul does. Raul is very impulsive; I do not know how long I can control him by rank. Go. Just beyond this door are the lands surrounding the enclosure. There is no surveillance there. They will never catch you. Your ship will be visible in the distance. It is a two mile walk.”

“I don’t understand this,” I say. “That you would let us go so easily—”

“Quir,” Nala says, touching me, “Quir, do not talk to him any more. It is as he says. Go. Pass through the door. The others are already going.” And this is so, astonished or not, my conspirators are filing through the door and out of the enclosure in a short, neat procession, casting no glances behind them. The guard named Raul looks at them quizzically, runs a hand over his weapon but makes no move to detain them. I allow Nala to propel me through the door.

“Go,” the guard says again, gesturing. “Go quickly. Do you want everything? An escort?”

I look at him then as Nala propels me through the door and he looks at me; in the harsh light we trade one wickering glance of connection and in his high cheekbones, in his deep, frightened eyes in which compassion lurks like an animal at bay I think that I see everything or, failing that, that I see at least the beginnings of an explanation, but then the other guard in the corner begins to mumble and I hear the clicking of weaponry. I cannot continue to look at the guard although I feel in the intensity of his gaze that somehow if I do this I will learn everything, that it is not only compassion but the mystery of the enclosure itself which lies buried in his gaze . . . but the look is broken; his eyes, suddenly, cloud to disinterest and he turns away from me. I turn away from him and move through the door, feeling Nala’s insistent, gentle pressures. The door closes behind us. In the distance I see my shipmates. I feel breezes for the first time in many years, hear the sounds of the heavens as they surround me. I breathe the air of the planet which is so similar, in so many ways, to the atmosphere of our own home, and I feel it moving into my lungs, making me lightheaded, making me weak with a feeling midway between ex­hilaration and exhaustion, I look at the heavens, look at the Earth, feel Nala leaning against me and oblivious of my shipmates hear her talking into my side. She is trying to say something. I do not know if I understand her; her words are cut off by chokings and gasps of breath. It appears that she is laughing. I do not know if she is laughing or crying. I am confused and bring my arm around her to gentle her, to bring her in more closely in a gesture that has nothing to do with fornication and she sobs against me, then finally breaks the embrace and looks up into me.

“Oh Quir,” she says, “you poor brave fool. I didn’t think you’d do it. Pity me,Ididn’tthinkyou’ddoit ,” and now I believe she is crying and I draw her in more closely as my shipmates look with wonderment and feel in her gathering against me emotions more profound than any I have known for a long time and so we stay there for an instant that way while I shrug at my shipmates whose looks have now changed to impatience and try to show them in various ways that there is nothing I can do for the instant, nothing at all; I hold Nala, she is still talking to me but for this time I do not hear.

Behind me I hear a door slam and seal. The integrity of the enclosure has been restored.

I look up and in the distance I see the ship.