In December, forty-two kids who were exactly a year older than we were, were scattered across the Western Hemisphere of New Dalmatia. They were dropped one at a time with horses and packs and no clear idea of where they were or what planet they were on, then got waved goodbye to. Also in December, about one week later, thirty-one of us kids went on a three-day field trip with Mr. Marechal and an assistant named Pizarro, also to New Dalmatia. The differences, of course, were that we knew where we were going, what we would find there, how long we were going to stay, and a few other nonessentials like that.

Four horses were taken, large draft animals. All of us kids came down to the scout bay with good shoes on our feet, heavy clothing, and back packs. We’d been issued these when we started Survival Class. I’d outgrown my shoes, however, and been issued new pairs, and I was almost ready to ask for a larger set of clothes. As we went on board, I saw Mr. Pizarro and Mr. Marechal counting us off. They weren’t too obvious about it because there was that set idea of the voluntary nature of Survival Class and they make a point of not checking up. Still, they wanted to know how many they were taking — somebody would be bound to say something if they came back a half-dozen short.

Mr. Pizarro was our pilot. When everybody was aboard — everybody meaning all thirty-one of us, nobody missing; I happen to know that Robert Briney got out of bed with a cracked rib (his horse kicked him) to come along — they raised the ramp and took off. There was some nervous talking and joke telling. Mr. Marechal was even tolerant enough not to tell everybody to be quiet.

I picked a chair against the partition that separated the walk-around from the bull-pen where we were sitting. I’ve never been at my best in groups like that — where there are only a few people that I know well I talk, but where there are crowds I fade into the background. Besides, I had something to do. Att and Jimmy did come over, though.

“What are you writing?” Att asked.

I put down my notebook. “Ethics notes,” I said. “I’m organizing my ideas for a paper Jimmy and I have to do for Mr. Mbele.”

Jimmy asked, “How are you doing it?”

I took his hand and ran a finger across the back of it. “I’m not asking you that. You’ll see when I’m done.”

Big Att sat down then and said, “What sort of thing does it have to be?”

Jimmy mussed my hair lightly and said, “No one particular thing. It has to be on the subject of ethics.”

I ducked my head away from Jimmy’s hand and said, “You seem nervous, Aft.”

“A little, I guess,” he said. “I’ve never been down on a planet. I don’t see how you can be so calm and just sit here and write.”

“Scribble,” Jimmy said.

“It’s not so new for me,” I said. “I’ve been down before.”

“Her dad takes her when he goes,” Jimmy said.

After a few more minutes, Jimmy and Att broke out a pocket chess set and began to play and I turned back to my notes. I finished off utilitarianism before we landed.

Ethics is the branch of philosophy that concerns itself with conduct, questions of good and evil, right and wrong. Almost every ethical system — and there are a great many of them, because even people who supposedly belong to the same school don’t agree a good share of the time and have to be considered separately — can be looked at as a description and as a prescription. Is this what people actually do? Is this what people ought to do?

Skipping the history and development of utilitarianism, the most popular expression of the doctrine is “the greatest good for the greatest number,” which makes it sound like its relative, the economic philosophy communism which, in a sense, is what we live with in the Ship. The common expression of utilitarian good is “the presence of pleasure and the absence of pain.”

Speaking descriptively, utilitarianism doesn’t hold true, though the utilitarian claims that it does. People do act self-destructively at times — they know the pleasureful and choose the painful instead. The only way that what people do and what utilitarianism says they do can be matched is by distorting the ordinary meanings of the words “pleasure” and “pain.” Besides, notions of what is pleasurable are subject to training and manipulation. The standard is too shifting to be a good one.

I don’t like utilitarianism as a prescription, either. Treating pleasure and pain as quantities by which good can be measured seems very mechanical, and people become just another factor to adjust in the equation. Pragmatically, it seems to make sense to say One hundred lives saved at the cost of one?-go ahead! The utilitarian would say it every time — he would have to say it. But who gave him the right to say it? What if the one doesn’t have any choice in the matter, but is blindly sacrificed for, say, one hundred Mudeaters whose very existence he is unaware of? Say the choice was between Daddy or Jimmy and a hundred Mudeaters. I wouldn’t make a utilitarian choice and I don’t think I could be easily convinced that the answer should be made by use of the number of pounds of human flesh involved. People are not objects.

We set down in a great nest of trees in bright morning sunshine. The air was clear and brisk. The season was early summer and things were in bloom. The gravity was enough less than normal that it was noticeable, but not enough less to cause discomfort. We landed in a valley by a quiet river. Our side of the river was gentle with great trees rising from a springy floor, but the other side of the river was a sixty-foot bluff, rough-edged, marked by protrusions of rock, ledges and occasional bits of greenery.

I grabbed up my pack by the straps, slung it over my shoulder and went trooping outside with everybody else, down the ramp and into the sun and the cool air. In my pack were a change of clothes, a change of shoes, manual toothbrush, hairbrush, bedroll, and some odds and ends. We had bubble tents, but we had been told not to bring them. I had a heavy shirt and a light shirt underneath, and since the pocket in the outer shirt was small and the shirt was beginning to be tight through the shoulders and across the breast, I dropped my notebook down my shirt front. It would stay as long as I stayed buttoned and tucked. I squinted as I came into the sun.

The trees stretched serenely upwards as though nothing could ever ruffle their composure, the river moved silently past and then curved away, and the light made patches of light and dark as it cut through the trees, alleys in which dust motes could be seen swimming. The chatter of a bird was the only counterpoint to the noise we made. Most of the kids had never been on a planet before and this was a gentle, pleasant introduction. The wind blew lightly, toying with my hair and sleeve, and died again. The horses were led out after us along with harnesses, ropes and chains.

Mr. Marechal called for us to gather around.

“The first fifteen of you will be with Mr. Pizarro,” he said. “That’s through Mathur. From Morlock on you’ll be with me. We’re going to build cabins today, and tomorrow, toc If it takes that long. Mr. Pizarro thinks that his group can build a cabin faster than my group can. We’re going to see about that.”

That was an obvious sort of appeal, but it sounded like fun, so I didn’t even giggle. Jimmy, Riggy, Robert Briney, that Farmer boy and the Herskovitz boy were all in my group. Venie and Helen and Att were in Mr. Marechal’s group. Jimmy yanked at my sleeve and we followed Mr. Pizarro away from Mr. Marechal to a place of our own. He sat down on a rock and motioned us to take places on the springy ground around him. Mr. Pizarro was a young man with a narrow face and a brushy red moustache.

“All right,” he paid. “What we are going to build is a log cabin, fifteen by twenty feet. We’re going to need about sixty logs. I want all of you kids to get some experience in felling trees, but the boys will do most of it. This is what the cabin will look like.”