Selected Stories by Theodore Sturgeon

fact.”
    “How?”
    “The observatory.”
    They ran to it. They sky glowed its shimmering green, but through it the stars had begun to twinkle. Carl got to the telescope first, put a big hand on the swing-controls, and said, “Where first?” He tugged at the instrument. “Hey!” He tugged again.
    “Don’t!” said Teague sharply. Carl let go and backed away. Teague switched on the lights and examined the instrument. “It’s already connected to the compensators,” he said. “Hmp! Our hosts are most helpful.” He looked at the setting of the small motors which moved the instrument to cancel diurnal rotation effects. “Twenty-eight hours, thirteen minutes plus. Well, if that’s correct for this planet, it’s proof that this isn’t Earth or Prime—if we needed proof.” He touched the controls lightly. “Carl, what’s the matter here?”
    Carl bent to look. There were dabs of dull silver on the threads of the adjusting screws. He touched them. “Parametal,” he said. “Unflashed, but it has adhered enough to jam the threads. Take a couple days to get it off without jarring it. Look here—they’ve done the same thing with the objective screws!”
    “We look at what they want us to see, and like it,” said Tod.
    “Maybe it’s something we want to see,” said April gently.
    Only half-teasing, Tod said, “Whose side are you on, anyway?”
    Teague put his eye to the instrument. His hands, by habit, strayed to the focusing adjustment, but found it locked the same way as the others. “Is there a Galactic Atlas?”
    “Not in the rack,” said Moira a moment later.
    “Here,” said April from the chart table. Awed, she added, “Open.”
    Tensely they waited while Teague took his observation and referred to the atlas and to the catalog they found lying under it. When at last he lifted his face from the calculations, it bore the strangest expression Tod had ever seen there.
    “Our diving-helmet,” he said at last, very slowly, too evenly, “—that is, the factor which rationalizes our two mutually exclusive facts—is simply that our captors have a faster-than-light drive.”
    “But according to theory—”
    “According to our telescope,” Teague interrupted, “through which I have just seen Sol, and these references so thoughtfully laid out for us …” Shockingly, his voice broke. He took two deep breaths, and said, “Sol is two-hundred and seventeen light-years away. That sun which set a few minutes ago is Beta Librae.” He studied their shocked faces, one by one. “I don’t know what we shall eventually call this place,” he said with difficulty, “but we had better get used to calling it home.”
    They called the planet Viridis (“the greenest name I can think of,” Moira said) because none among them had ever seen such a green. It was more than the green of growing, for the sunlight was green-tinged and at night the whole sky glowed green, a green as bright as the brightest silver of Earth’s moon, as water molecules, cracked by the star’s intense ultraviolet, celebrated their nocturnal reunion.
    They called the moons Wynken, Blynken, and Nod, and the sun they called—the sun.
    They worked like slaves, and then like scientists, which is a change of occupation but not a change of pace. They built a palisade of a cypress-like, straight-grained wood, each piece needle-pointed, double-laced with parametal wire. It had a barred gate and peepholes with periscopes and permanent swivel-mounts for the needle-guns they were able to fabricate from tube-stock and spare solenoids. They roofed the enclosure with parametal mesh which, at one point, could be rolled back to launch the lifeboat.
    They buried Alma.
    They tested and analyzed, classified, processed, researched everything in the compound and within easy reach of it—soil, vegetation, fauna. They developed an insect-repellent solution to coat the palisade and an insecticide with an automatic spray to keep the compound clear of the