Worlds Apart by J. T. McIntosh Page A

anyone could think of Toni's second name offhand. They had to go back in memory and remember her being born. She was the daughter of Albert Cursiter and Nancy Brown, they remembered, and she took after her mother. Nancy had been the Toni of her generation. She had died in the only disaster of Mundan history -- the bush fire that had killed five people, back when the country round about Lemon was still being explored and no one had much experience of Mundan bush fires. Like Toni, she hadn't been pretty -- only enormously attractive. She was called Nancy Brown because that was easier to remember than the name of the husband of the time. Actually she had been Nancy Mayor, Brown, Simpson, Smith, Cursiter, Jackson, and Morgan, in short order.
    Mundis was flatter than Earth. There had never been a survey from the air, so it was quite possible that some parts of the world would prove surprising. But certainly all that had ever been explored had proved very much the same.
    Over almost all of the surface of the planet a coarse grass grew. Its roots were so long and powerful that it seemed to be capable of leveling the ground itself. Once, no doubt, Mundis had been mountainous, but the grass had conquered all but the barest, rockiest ground. Even there it was working slowly and patienly, first gaining a precarious footing and then gradually eating away the mountain. Possibly the hill on which New Paris had been built was all that was left of a whole mountain range. The valley of Lemon was not so much a flat area among hills as a depression in flat ground.
    Here and there forests grew. Mundan trees were small and thick. Their wood was harder and tougher than the wood of Earth. It didn't burn as the wood the colonists were used to burned: only under pressure, reluctantly, but finally with enormous release of energy. Fires occasionally started in the grass or bush, and they would sweep rapidly along until they reached a wood. That stopped them. The woods were the natural fire depots of Mundis. Bush fires didn't often get round them; the trees were such powerful water pumps that the vegetation all round a wood smoldered damply instead of blazing.
    The search for Pertwee and Toni, in country like this, was admittedly a formality. If they had been careful not to leave tracks, they had left none.
    Dogs were useless for tracking. The grass had a harsh, musky odor that covered human scent very rapidly.
    Alice sought out Rog during the search. "Did you put Toni up to this?" she asked bluntly.
    Rog nodded, and dumfounded Alice once again. Rog was unpredictable. He would admit nothing or everything. It was no surprise to her that he should be behind the disappearance of Toni and Pertwee, but she hadn't expected him to admit it as casually as that.
    "Why?" she demanded.
    Rog nodded forward at June, a little further ahead. "June was jealous," he said. "I had to get rid of Toni."
    Alice snorted. "If you expect me to believe that, you must think I'm dumb."
    "I don't think you're dumb, Alice."
    That was all he would say on the subject.
    The search, having accomplished all that anyone expected it to accomplish -- nothing -- was given up in the early evening. Pertwee and Toni were gone, lost, safe until they cared to come back, if they ever did.
    And good luck to them, said Rog and his friends with the cheerful unconcern they had often shown over the prohibitions of the Constitution.
    5
    Another meeting was held at Jessie Bendall's house, but the constitution of this one was different. Jessie and the Bentleys knew what Robertson would say -- "Death to both of them. They must be shown that the law means precisely what it says." They knew what Boyne would say, shaking his head -- " This thing is against the laws of God and man."
    But they didn't know what the attitude of the silent minority would be, the quiet, solitary people like Toni's improbable father, Albert Cursiter, and Bob Foley, and Kim Jackson. So they invited them instead of Robertson and