Mr. Kutsov had a good library of books and I looked through them, in the process finding a number of very interesting things. History — the Losels’ natural home was on a continent to the west where they had been discovered one hundred years earlier. Since that time they had been brought over by the shipload and used for simple manual labor. There had previously been no native population of Losels on this continent. Now, in addition to those owned and used for work, there was a small but growing number of Losels running wild in the back country. Most of the opinions I read granted them no particular intelligence, citing their inability to do anything beyond the simplest sort of labor, their lack of fire and their lack of language. For my part, I remembered what Mr. Kutsov had said about the ability of the wild ones to recognize their particular enemies and that didn’t seem stupid to me at all. In fact, I was relieved that I had come off so well from my encounter with one that second day.

Geography — I oriented myself by Mr. Kutsov’s maps and I tentatively tried to copy them.

And I found a book that Mr. Kutsov had written himself. It was an old book, a novel called The White Way. It was not completely successful — it tried to do too many things other than tell a story — but it was far better than my brother Joe’s book.

When I found it, I showed it to Mr. Kutsov and he admitted that it was his.

“It took me forty years to write it, and I have spent forty-two years since then living with the political repercussions. It has been an interesting forty-two years, but I be not sure that I would do it again. Read the book if you be interested.”

There were politics in the book, and from something else Mr. Kutsov said in passing, I got the impression that the simple, physical job he held was in part a result. Politics are funny.

I found two other things. I found my clothes where Mr. Kutsov had hidden them and I found the answer to a question that I didn’t ask Mr. Kutsov in one of his newspapers. The last sentence of the story read, “After sentencing, Dentermount been sent to the Territorial Jail in Forton to serve his three-month term.”

The charge was Trespassing. I thought Incitement to Riot would have been better, and that the least they could do would be to spell his name correctly. Trust it to be Jimmy.

So when I got the chance, I put on my own clothes and my coat and snuck into town. Before I came home I found out where the jail was. On the way, I passed Horst Fanger’s place of business. It was a house, pen, shed, stable and auction block in the worst quarter of town. From what I gathered, it was the worst quarter of town because Horst Fanger and similar people lived there.

When I came back, Mr. Kutsov was very angry with me. “It been’t right,” he said, “going on the streets dressed like that. It been’t right for women.” He kept a fairly close eye on me for several days after that until I convinced him that I now knew better.

It was during the next two days, while I was being good, that I found the portrait. It showed Mr. Kutsov and a younger man and woman, and a little girl. The little girl was about my size, but much more stocky. Her hair was dark brown. It was obviously a family picture and I asked him about it.

He looked very grave and the only thing he said was, “They all be dead.” That was all. I couldn’t help but think that the picture might have something to do with his keeping me, and beyond that to his keeping me close at hand. Mr. Kutsov was a nice and intelligent old man, but there was something that was either unexplainable or irrational about the way he treated me. He expected me to stay in his house, though he should have known that I wouldn’t and couldn’t stay. When I ran off, he was unhappy, but then it was pathetic how little assurance it took before things were all right again. I think he was telling himself lies. He must have been telling himself lies. He was already preparing to make another wagon trip. His old-fashioned nature wouldn’t allow him to take me along, so quite happily he made plans for me to stay alone in the house until he got back. He told me where things were and what to do if I ran out of butter and eggs. I nodded and he was pleased.

When he went off to arrange his wagon load one afternoon, I went off to town again. To reach the jail, I had to walk across most of the town. Although it was the Territorial Capital, it was still a town and not a city, not as I understood the word. It was a raw, unpleasant day, the sort that makes me hate planets, and rain was threatening when I reached the jail. It was a solid, three-story building of great stone blocks, shaped like a fortress and protected by an iron spike fence. All the windows, from the cellar to the top floor, were doublebarred. I walked around the building as I had before and looked it over again. It seemed impregnable. Between the fence and the building was a run in which patrolled two large, hairy, and vicious-looking dogs. One of them followed me all the way around the building.

As I was about to start around again, the rain started. It gave me the impetus I needed, and I ran for the front door and dodged into the entrance.

I was standing there, shaking the rain off, when a man in a green uniform came stalking out of one of the offices that lined the first-floor hallway. My heart stopped for a moment, but he barely glanced at me and went right on by and up the stairs to the second floor. That gave me some confidence and so I started poking around.

I looked at the bulletin boards and the offices on one side of the hall when another man in green came into the hall and made straight for me, much like Mrs. Keithley. I didn’t wait, but walked toward him, too.

I said, as wide-eyed and innocently as I could, “Can you help me, sir?”

“Well, that depends. What sort of help do you need?”

He was a big, rather slow man with one angled cloth bar on his shirt front over one pocket, and a plate that said “Robards” pinned over the pocket on the other side. He seemed good-natured and un-Keithley-like.

“Well, Jerry had to write about the capitol, and Jimmy had to interview the town manager, and I got you.”

“Hold on there. First, what be your name?”

“Billy Davidow,” I said. I picked the last name out of a newspaper story. “And I don’t know what to write, sir, so I thought I’d ask one of you to show me around and tell me things. That be, if you would.”

“Any relation to Hobar Davidow?” he asked.

“No, sir,” I said.

“That be good. Do you know who Hobar Davidow be?”

I shook my head.

“No, I guess you wouldn’t. That would be a little before you. We executed him six, no, seven years ago. Mixed in the wrong politics.” Then he said, “Well, I be sorry, son. We be pretty caught up today. Could you come back some afternoon later in the week, or maybe some evening?”

I said slowly, “I have to hand the paper in this week.” Then I waited.

After a minute he said, “All right. I’ll take you around. But I can’t spare you much time. It will have to be a quick tour.”

The offices were on the first floor, with a few more on the third. The arsenal and target range were in the basement. Most of the cells were on the second, and the very rough people were celled on the third.

“If the judge says maximum security, they go on the third, everybody else on the second unless we have an overflow. We have one boy up there now.”

My heart sank.

“A real bad actor. He has already killed one man.”

My heart came back to normal. That, for certain, wasn’t Jimmy and his trespassing.

Maximum security had three sets of barred doors before you got to the cells, as well as armed guards covering the block and the doors from wall stations. The halls were lit with oil lamps and the light was warm and yellow. We didn’t go beyond the first door. Sgt. Robards just pointed and told me what things were like.