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Updated: May 24, 2025
On the fertile soil of Rythar there were one hundred women and thirty men. All the boys had taken mates before they reached seventeen. Seventy girls were left unmarried, with no prospect of ever having husbands. A score or more became second wives in polygamous homes, but plural marriage had no appeal for Mryna. She was firmly determined to possess a man of her own.
Her face was tanned by the mist-filtered sunlight of Rythar; her lips were red and sensuous; her long, platinum-colored hair fell to her shoulders. She compared herself to the small, hard-faced female she had seen in the supply room. Was that a typical Earthwoman? Mryna's lips curled in a scornful smile.
The voices moved away. Mryna floated toward the hub room. She found the air lock and pulled herself into the god-car. The metal lock hissed closed and light came on. Then she knew she had made a mistake. This ship was not the one she had used when she came up from Rythar. The tiny cabin was fitted with a sleeping lounge, a food cabinet and a file of reading films.
For the first time in her life she read about the spinning dust of the universe lying beyond the eternal rain mist that hid her world. The solid, stable Earth of her childhood was solid and stable no longer, but a sphere turning through a black void. Nor was it properly called Earth, but a planet named Rythar.
Was this another form of the madness that had driven the people in the Wheel to destroy themselves? That made a convenient explanation, yet Mryna's mind was too logical to accept it. One film referred to the founding of the original colony on Rythar, a planet in the Sirian System which had been named for its discoverer.
True, it was not difficult to dig out the ore, but Mryna resented the fact that the kids on Rythar had not been told the truth. She had long ago lost her awe of the man called god; now she lost her respect as well. Mryna was glad she had not seen him, glad no one knew she was aboard the Guardian Wheel. She would return to Rythar.
On the other hand, we have direct evidence that no animal life has ever evolved on Rythar; the life cycle is exclusively botanical." The soil samples, Mryna realized, would be the vials of Earth which the Earth-god had requested so often. Were the Earthmen planning to move their hospital down to Rythar? That idea disturbed her.
Mryna Brill intended to ride the god-car above the rain mist. For a long time she had not believed in the taboos or the Earth-god. She no longer believed she lived on Earth. This paradise of green-floored forests and running brooks was something called Rythar. Six years ago, when Mryna was fourteen, she first discovered the truth. She asked a question and the Earth-god ignored it.
She found three small knobs close to the speaker and a plastic toggle labeled "voice reply." She snapped it shut and found that she could speak to the Chicago spaceport. Her problem was easily solved, then. She could say she came from Rythar. Without hesitation, Earth ships would be sent to blast her ship out of the sky before she would be able to land.
Rythar, according to the film, was one of a score of colonies established by Earth. It was unbelievably rich in deposits of uranium. That, Mryna surmised, was the name of the sacrificial ore they sent up in the god-cars. The atmosphere and gravity of Rythar duplicated that of Earth; Rythar should have become the largest colony in the system.
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