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a phoney faith and would have nothing to do with it.”
    â€œThat may be right,” the captain said. “Aliens, on the other hand, having no background to judge the concept of Christianity—however twisted that concept might be—may find themselves attracted to it. I suppose that it is from the aliens that the project gets its support. Some aliens are fabulously wealthy. That bunch of creeps now occupying my quarters practically stink of money.”
    â€œI asked you about the planet,” said Jill, “and you haven’t told me. We got off on something else.”
    â€œIt’s terrestrial,” said the captain, “with some minor differences. The Vatican colony is the only settlement. All the rest is howling wilderness that’s never been properly mapped; a few quick fly-overs by a survey ship and that is all. Only one settlement, as you know, is not unique. Many frontier planets boast only a single settlement, near the spaceport—both the planet and the settlement sharing the same name. Thus, Gutshot is the designation of both the planet and the colony surrounding the port, while End of Nothing means both the settlement and planet, as you choose. The thing is that no one except Decker knows anything about the planet farther than a few miles beyond the settlement, and I can’t think Decker has traveled any great distance into the mountains. Gutshot, of course, is better known. It’s littered with dinky little feudal holdings, but, even so, much of it is still wild and unexplored.
    â€œAs far as End of Nothing is concerned, it is virtually unknown. We suspect there is no intelligent creature native to the planet, although that is an assumption. No one has looked for an intelligence, and there just might be one, or more, tucked away somewhere. There is animal life—herbivores and carnivores that feed on the herbivores. Some of the carnivores, according to what one hears in the colony, are ferocious brutes. I asked Decker about them once and he shrugged me off. I never asked again. Now,” the captain said to Tennyson, quickly changing the subject, “how much time did you spend on Gutshot?”
    â€œThree years,” said Tennyson. “A little less than three years.”
    â€œYou got into trouble there?”
    â€œYou might say I did.”
    â€œCaptain,” said Jill, “it is unseemly of you to be prying. No one saw him get on the ship. No one knows he did. It’s no skin off your ass.”
    â€œIf it will ease your conscience any,” said Tennyson, “I can tell you that I committed no crime. I was a suspect. That was all. On Gutshot, being a suspect is enough to get you killed.”
    â€œDr. Tennyson,” said the captain primly, “when we land at End of Nothing, you can get off the ship with the understanding that I have never talked with you. I would think that might be the best for both of us. As I’ve said before, we humans stick together.”

Chapter Five
    This was the time of day that he liked the best, Decker thought—supper done and the dishes cleared away, a good fire blazing, the world shut outside the door and Whisperer at the table in the corner, working at shaping the piece of topaz they had brought home on the trip of the week before. Decker settled more comfortably in the chair, kicking off his moccasins and putting his stockinged feet on the raised hearthstone. In the fireplace a log burned through and settled on the other logs in a shower of sparks. New tongues of flame leaped up and ran along the burning wood. The chimney throat mumbled and was answered by the moaning wind that nosed along the eaves.
    Shifting in his chair, he looked toward Whisperer’s corner, but there was no sign of him. Sometimes you saw Whisperer, sometimes not. Set on one corner of the table was the intricately carved piece of pale green jade. A piece of work, Decker told himself, that was hard to make out. It was