They stopped at the cadets’ barracks, Hugh claiming an errand. The Witness lived in a small, smelly compartment directly across the Common from the barracks, where he would be readily accessible to any who had need of his talents. They found him sitting in his doorway, picking his teeth with a fingernail. His apprentice, a pimply-faced adolescent with an intent nearsighted expression, squatted behind him.

“Good eating,” said Hugh’s uncle.

“Good eating to you, Edard Hoyland. D’you come on business, or to keep an old man company?”

“Both,” Hugh’s uncle returned diplomatically, then explained his errand.

“So?” said the Witness. “Well—the contract’s clear enough:

“Black John delivered ten bushels of oats,

Expecting his pay in a pair of shoats;

Ed brought his sow to breed for pig;

John gets his pay when the pigs grow big.

“How big are the pigs now, Edard Hoyland?”

“Big enough,” acknowledged Hugh’s uncle, “but Black claims three instead of two.”

“Tell him to go soak his head. ‘The Witness has spoken.’ ”

He laughed in a thin, high cackle.

The two gossiped for a few minutes, Edard Hoyland digging into his recent experiences to satisfy the old man’s insatiable liking for details. Hugh kept decently silent while the older men talked. But when his uncle turned to go he spoke up. “I’ll stay awhile, Uncle.”

“Eh? Suit yourself. Good eating, Witness.”

“Good eating, Edard Hoyland.”

“I’ve brought you a present, Witness,” said Hugh, when his uncle had passed out of hearing.

“Let me see it.”

Hugh produced a package of tobacco which he had picked up from his locker at the barracks. The Witness accepted it without acknowledgment, then tossed it to his apprentice, who took charge of it.

“Come inside,” invited the Witness, then directed his speech to his apprentice. “Here, you—fetch the cadet a chair.”

“Now, lad,” he added as they sat themselves down, “tell me what you have been doing with yourself.”

Hugh told him, and was required to repeat in detail all the incidents of his more recent explorations, the Witness complaining the meanwhile over his inability to remember exactly everything he saw.

“You youngsters have no capacity,” he pronounced. “No capacity. Even that lout”—he jerked his head toward the apprentice—“he has none, though he’s a dozen times better than you. Would you believe it, he can’t soak up a thousand lines a day, yet he expects to sit in my seat when I am gone. Why, when I was apprenticed, I used to sing myself to sleep on a mere thousand lines. Leaky vessels—that’s what you are.”

Hugh did not dispute the charge, but waited for the old man to go on, which he did in his own time.

“You had a question to put to me, lad?”

“In a way, Witness.”

“Well—out with it. Don’t chew your tongue.”

“Did you ever climb all the way up to no-weight?”

“Me? Of course not. I was a Witness, learning my calling. I had the lines of all the Witnesses before me to learn, and no time for boyish amusements.”

“I had hoped you could tell me what I would find there.”

“Well, now, that’s another matter. I’ve never climbed, but I hold the memories of more climbers than you will ever see. I’m an old man. I knew your father’s father, and his grandsire before that. What is it you want to know?”

“Well—” What was it he wanted to know? How could he ask a question that was no more than a gnawing ache in his breast? Still—

“What is it all for, Witness? Why are there all those levels above us?”

“Eh? How’s that? Jordan’s name, son—I’m a Witness, not a scientist.”

“Well—I thought you must know. I’m sorry.”

“But I do know. What you want is the Lines from the Beginning.”

“I’ve heard them.”

“Hear them again. All your answers are in there, if you’ve the wisdom to see them. Attend me. No—this is a chance for my apprentice to show off his learning. Here, you! The Lines from the Beginning—and mind your rhythm.”

The apprentice wet his lips with his tongue and began:

“In the Beginning there was Jordan,

thinking His lonely thoughts alone.

In the Beginning there was darkness, formless,

dead, and Man unknown.

Out of the loneness came a longing,

out of the longing came a vision,

Out of the dream there came a planning,

out of the plan there came decision—

Jordan’s hand was lifted and the Ship was born!

Mile after mile of snug compartments,

tank by tank for the golden corn,