The World Swappers by John Brunner Page B

went straight back into the street.
    She had not spoken to her mother, who was in the kitchen; her father would be working late tonight at the power station. With luck, she could get to Jaroslav’s and back before her absence was noticed. With luck. She was too scared to think beyond that point.
    Usually Jaroslav greeted her at the door of his home and showed her into the small anteroom where she could change into her treasured dress from Earth before joining him in the lounge. Tonight he brought her straight through to the main room. There was a stranger there.
    Sweating in her heavy clothes, Enni stood shifting from foot to foot, aching to know what the danger was that Jaroslav had written about, while the strange man – tall and bearded – looked her over thoughtfully. The pause grew unbearable.
    “Enni,” said Jaroslav at last, “this is Captain Leeuwenhoek of the space trader Amsterdam. He’s a very close friend of mine, and he may be able to save us from appalling danger.”
    Leeuwenhoek nodded and gave a mechanical smile.
    “The situation’s this,” said Jaroslav. “The elders have found out that you’ve been coming here on your own. They’re planning to arrest you at home tonight and beat you until you confess that I have seduced you.”
    On Ymir, no one used words as frank as “seduce”; Enni felt a vast blush heat her skin, making the already great warmth intolerable. She said, “But that wouldn’t be true!”
    Jaroslav just looked at her, and she rushed on, “But you can’t mean that the elders would lie like that!”
    The spaceman, sitting at Jaroslav’s side, coughed and spoke for the first time. “With due respect, miss, your elders have a reputation for being the finest liars in the galaxy. Ask anyone who has to do business with them. They’re so self-righteous they end up by convincing themselves they’re telling the truth.”
    “But it wouldn’t be a lie, so far as they’re concerned,” Jaroslav said quietly. “People like that are only prepared to believe the worst of their fellow men, because they’re only capable of the worst themselves. They suspect, and in their hearts they’re sure, that I’ve done evil to you. They would beat you until you lied to save yourself more pain. Then they would have the chance they have so long sought to destroy me.”
    Leeuwenhoek chipped in, “You see, young woman, Jaroslav here is a friend of us spacemen. We’d make damned sure your elders did nothing to him groundlessly. But we couldn’t say a word if he’d really – uh – taken advantage of you. According to Ymiran law they’d have a case against him, all right, and we would have to admit it. We’re honest. Have to be. The elders know it.”
    Enni made vague waving gestures, and they interpreted the motion correctly and fell silent to let her think. After a pause, she said, tears trembling in her eyes, “But Jaroslav, what can we do?”
    “There’s only one thing to be done,” said Jaroslav brutally. “Get you out of the elders’ reach.”
    “How? There’s nowhere I could go without people asking questions, and the news would get back –”
    “Nowhere on Ymir,” said Jaroslav. “But you’ve often said you wanted to see other worlds, Enni. Here’s your chance. The Amsterdam is due to lift in two hours. You’ll have to be aboard.”
    Enni’s eyes grew suddenly round and wide with horror. “I couldn’t” she whispered. “I just couldn’t.”
    “You’ll have to,” said Jaroslav. “Either you go, or you wait until the elders send a custodian around to fetch you. They’ll whip the skin off your back to start with. If you still don’t tell them what they want to hear, they’ll put salt on the cuts. After that, they’ll hang you head first over a barrel of ice water and duck you until you’re blue. You’ve seen heretics on trial – you know what would happen.”
    She knew. She had taken the fifteen-year-old’s classes in citzenship. She had seen the solemn