e."

"Ten thousand miles up? In a vacuum?"

"Exactly."

"No space-suit?"

"That's the story."

Catlin and Frayberg looked at each other.

"Well, Wilbur," Catlin began.

Frayberg interrupted. "What we can use, Wilbur, is a sequence on
Sirgamesk superstition. Emphasis on voodoo or witchcraft--naked girls
dancing--stuff with roots in Earth, but now typically Sirgamesk. Lots of
color. Secret rite stuff...."

"Not much room on Cirgamesc for secret rites."

"It's a big planet, isn't it?"

"Not quite as big as Mars. There's no atmosphere. The settlers live in
mountain valleys, with air-tight lids over 'em."

Catlin flipped the pages of _Thumbnail Sketches of the Inhabited
Worlds_. "Says here there's ancient ruins millions of years old. When
the atmosphere went, the population went with it."

Frayberg became animated. "There's lots of material out there! Go get
it, Wilbur! Life! Sex! Excitement! Mystery!"

"Okay," said Wilbur Murphy.

"But lay off this horseman-in-space. There _is_ a limit to public
credulity, and don't you let anyone tell you different."

* * * * *

Cirgamesc hung outside the port, twenty thousand miles ahead. The
steward leaned over Wilbur Murphy's shoulder and pointed a long brown
finger. "It was right out there, sir. He came riding up--"

"What kind of a man was it? Strange-looking?"

"No. He was Cirgameski."

"Oh. You saw him with your own eyes, eh?"

The steward bowed, and his loose white mantle fell forward. "Exactly,
sir."

"No helmet, no space-suit?"

"He wore a short Singhalut vest and pantaloons and a yellow Hadrasi hat.
No more."

"And the horse?"

"Ah, the horse! There's a different matter."

"Different how?"

"I can't describe the horse. I was intent on the man."

"Did you recognize him?"

"By the brow of Lord Allah, it's well not to look too closely when such
matters occur."

"Then--you _did_ recognize him!"

"I must be at my task, sir."

Murphy frowned in vexation at the steward's retreating back, then bent
over his camera to check the tape-feed. If anything appeared now, and
his eyes could see it, the two-hundred million audience of _Know Your
Universe!_ could see it with him.

When he looked up, Murphy made a frantic grab for the stanchion, then
relaxed. Cirgamesc had taken the Great Twitch. It was an illusion, a
psychological quirk. One instant the planet lay ahead; then a man winked
or turned away, and when he looke