t's torture. I want to know
about it."

"He is very bad. He opened the monorail car and the air rushed out.
Forty-two Singhalusi and Hadrasi bloated and blew up."

"And what happened to the sjambak?"

"He took all the gold and money and jewels and ran away."

"Ran where?"

"Out across Great Pharasang Plain. But he was a fool. He came back to
Singhalut for his wife; he was caught and set up for all people to look
at, so they might tell each other, 'thus it is for sjambaks.'"

"Where do the sjambaks hide out?"

"Oh," she looked vaguely around the room, "out on the plains. In the
mountains."

"They must have some shelter--an air-dome."

"No. The Sultan would send out his patrol-boat and destroy them. They
roam quietly. They hide among the rocks and tend their oxygen stills.
Sometimes they visit the old cities."

"I wonder," said Murphy, staring into his beer, "could it be sjambaks
who ride horses up to meet the space-ship?"

Soek Panjoebang knit her black eyebrows, as if preoccupied.

"That's what brought me out here," Murphy went on. "This story of a man
riding a horse out in space."

"Ridiculous; we have no horses in Cirgamesc."

"All right, the steward won't swear to the horse. Suppose the man was up
there on foot or riding a bicycle. But the steward recognized the man."

"Who was this man, pray?"

"The steward clammed up.... The name would have been just noise to me,
anyway."

"_I_ might recognize the name...."

"Ask him yourself. The ship's still out at the field."

She shook her head slowly, holding her golden eyes on his face. "I do
not care to attract the attention of either steward, sjambak--or
Sultan."

Murphy said impatiently. "In any event, it's not who--but _how_. How
does the man breathe? Vacuum sucks a man's lungs up out of his mouth,
bursts his stomach, his ears...."

"We have excellent doctors," said Soek Panjoebang shuddering, "but alas!
I am not one of them."

* * * * *

Murphy looked at her sharply. Her voice held the plangent sweetness of
her instrument, with additional overtones of mockery. "There must be
some kind of invisible dome around him, holding in air," said Murphy.

"And what if there is?"

"It's something new, and if it is, I want to find out about it."

Soek smiled languidly. "You are so typical an old-lander--worried,
frowning, dynamic. You should relax, cultivate _napau_, enjoy life as we
do here in Singhalut."

"What's _