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couldn’t breed from the artificial wombs, they converted female fertility into a fetish, and fertile women assumed the dominant position in your society. Of course, the inherited effect of millions of years of evolution as a bisexual species couldn’t be undone overnight, but they tried their uttermost to make it so, even to the extent of inventing legends about the Greatest Mother, with her Night Eye and her Day Eye. That’s all they are, you know: just stories, which someone thought up to justify the matriarchy—uh, excuse me—rule by women.”
    The boys winced in unison. Since both the Eyes were of course closed at the moment, though, the blasphemy naturally went unpunished… which was heartening.
    “Eventually,” Hans pursued, “even the fastest ships we could construct—even though they broke what for generations we had regarded as a universal law concerning the speed of light, but I won’t bother you with that—even our fastest ships proved inadequate to keep up our contact with all the planets that our race had spread to, and for quite a long time we were completely out of touch except with the very closest. And we could only afford to make one or two flights a year to and from those.
    “About a hundred years ago, that all changed, with the invention of the Bridge System. Either of you know Mother Uskia?”
    Licking their lips, Lork and Jeckin exchanged glances. To them, that was rather like being askedwhether they knew the Lord God Almighty. But Lork eventually said, “Well, I guess we must have seen her. And we sure have heard about her!”
    “So you must be aware that she isn’t on Ipewell right now?”
    The word had been put around: that the Greatest Mother was keeping her Eye on things until Uskia’s return. Lork boldly nodded.
    “They told us she had gone to heaven, because she was so perfect after having seven female children!”
    “Well—ah—not exactly.” Hans repressed a smile. “At the moment she’s on the planet our starship comes from, Earth. She’s there to negotiate the splicing-in of Ipewell to the Bridge System. By means of it, matter—including living people—can be transported from world to world… though of course the most important thing we transfer is always knowledge.
    “We Earthsiders have made it our great task to reunite scattered humanity on all the planets to which it has now wandered. This is not something other worlds must pay for. It’s our service to the human race. It’s our greatest ambition. Anyone can go by Bridge to anywhere he or she chooses, provided he or she carries no arms and no sickness—and we can cure almost every kind of sickness now. That’s the sole condition we lay down: that
anyone
can use the Bridges.”
    “But suppose—” Lork found himself fumbling. “Suppose someone had done something wrong, and wanted to use the Bridge to get away?”
    “To escape punishment, you mean? Ah! That’s a very acute question! But give me an example.”
    “Well—uh—I mean if they caught us here, talking to you, they’d condemn us to be…” Words failed him.
    “Punished for what crime? Talking to a new friend? Under the laws of Earth that’s not a crime! Of course, if you’d killed somebody—”
    “Killed somebody?” Jeckin burst out. “You mean like killing a steer for beef? But people don’t! Why should they? You can’t eat people!” He stumbled terribly over the concept; it was so unspeakably foreign to his way of thinking.
    “I think that’s why Ipewell is going to Join the Bridge System. Which operates under the laws of Earth. So far, none of your laws has seemed to contradict ours, except the ones that apply to disadvantaged males. And that sort of thing, of course, we simply won’t tolerate.”
    “If you built a Bridge here,” Lork ventured, “could… could we use it?”
    “If by the laws of Earth you’re of the age of discretion, the answer’s yes.”
    Fay heard the two boys sigh as one. Her own sigh was not