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Updated: May 24, 2025
When she became hungry, she took food from the cabinet. She slept when she was tired. To pass the time, she turned the reading films through the projector. Most of the film stored in the shuttle covered material Mryna already knew. The Earthmen, clearly, had not denied any information to Rythar. Only one thing had been restricted astronomy.
For some reason the man who played at being god wanted the kids to believe Rythar was Earth, the totality of the universe enveloped in a cloud of mist. She knew that because she once asked god what a planet was. The face on the screen in the answer house became frigid with anger or was it fear? and the Earth-god said: "The word means nothing."
She could not except as a last resort let them kill her until they knew why the isolation of Rythar had failed. It was thirteen minutes before landing when Mryna finally heard an older, more dignified voice on the speaker. By then the green globe of Earth filled the sky; Mryna could make out the shapes of the continents turning below her.
She felt a slight lurch as the pickup left the hub of the Guardian Wheel. It swung in a wide arc. Through the viewplate she saw the enormous Wheel growing small behind her, silhouetted against the mist of Rythar. Suddenly the wheel glowed red with a soundless explosion. Its flaming fragments died in the void. Mryna dropped weakly on the lounge. Nausea spun through her mind.
She had once asked for a definition of illness, and it was apparent to her that this place which they called the Guardian Wheel was an expensive hospital for Earthmen. It was paid for by the sacrificial ores mined on Rythar. In a sense, Rythar was being enslaved and exploited by Earth.
The ship would still move in its appointed course. Her body would be aboard; perhaps the very furnishings in the cabin were now infected with the germ of the Sickness. When the ship touched Earth, the fatal poison would escape. Dully Mryna turned up another frame on the film, and she read what the Earthmen had done to help Rythar. They built the Guardian Wheel to isolate the Sickness.
Mryna did not want her garden world cluttered up with a lot of sick, old men discarded by Earth. She turned to the second page of the report. "The original colony survived for a year. The Sickness in the Old Village developed only after the first harvest of Rytharian-grown food. It is more and more evident that the botanical cycle of Rythar must be examined before we find the answer.
"From Rythar," one of them was saying. "A woman from Rythar!" "And we've blasted the communication center. We've no way of sending the warning back to Earth " They were gone. Mryna moved back into the spoke corridor. She felt her way silently toward the circular hub room and the god-car.
Mryna pulled away, drawing her shoulders back proudly. Why should she feel afraid? She stood a head taller than this dried up stranger; she knew the Earthwoman's strength would be no match for hers. "My name is Mryna Brill," she said quietly. "I came up in a god-car from Rythar." "Rythar?" The woman's mouth fell open. She whispered the word as if it were profanity.
Jameson has been telling us from the Guardian Wheel that we should adopt a different educational policy toward Rythar. Your scare broadcast was clever, but we're used to Jameson's tricks. He'll be removed from office for this, and if I have anything to say about it " "You didn't believe me?" Mryna gasped. "Of course not.
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