dandelions in a green
lawn, the whir of a lawnmower and the smell of the cut grass; ivy on old
bricks and the rough feel of oak bark under her hands; water lilies and
watermelons and crepe papery dances and picnics by the river in the
summer dusk; and the library steps in the evening, with fireflies in the
cool grass and the school chimes sounding the slow hours through the
friendly dark.

She thought to herself, "It's been such a long time since you were home.
There will be a whole new flock of pigeons now." She smiled at the
recollection of the eager, awkward girl of twenty that she had been when
she had finished school and had entered the Government Education
Service. "Travel While Helping Others" had been the motto of the GES.

She had traveled, all right, a long, long way inside a rusty freighter
without a single porthole, to a planet out on the rim of the Galaxy that
was as barren and dreary as a cosmic slag heap. Five years on the rock
pile, five years of knocking yourself out trying to explain history and
Shakespeare and geometry to a bunch of grubby little miners' kids in a
tin schoolhouse at the edge of a cluster of tin shacks that was supposed
to be a town. Five years of trudging around with your nails worn and
dirty and your hair chopped short, of wearing the latest thing in
overalls. Five years of not talking with the young miners because they
got in trouble with the foreman, and not talking with the crewmen from
the ore freighters because they got in trouble with the first mate, and
not talking with yourself because you got in trouble with the
psychologist.

They took care of you in the Education Service; they guarded your diet
and your virtue, your body and your mind. Everything but your happiness.

* * * * *

There was lots to do, of course. You could prepare lessons and read
papers and cheap novels in the miners' library, or nail some more tin on
your quarters to keep out the wind and the dust and the little animals.
You could go walking to the edge of town and look at all the pretty gray
stones and the trees, like squashed-down barrel cactus; watch the larger
sun sink behind the horizon with its little companion star circling
around it, diving out of sight to the right and popping up again on the
left. And Saturday night--yippee!--three-year-old movies in the tin
hangar. And, after five years, they come and say, "Here's Miss
So-and-So, your relief, and here's your fi