"Let's face the facts. Why you brought me here I don't know. You weren't concerned for my welfare, and I don't think you're avid for the stuffed owl I owe you."

Namour started to speak, then checked himself and painfully rubbed the side of his face.

Chiike went on.

"Whatever the reason, I'm here. So long as I stay and keep your scheme going, I'm paying you all I owe you. Otherwise, and except for the owl, we're even. You keep to your line of work and I'll keep to mine. Now back to the help. I'll take your six-month Yips, if you insist! But I'll use them for dog work only and fill out with my own staff, which is the way I want it anyway."

Namour pulled himself to his feet.

"For your information, the Conservator won't allow any more Yip extensions. If you don't like it, go down to Riverview House and tousle him around like you did me."

Chiike laughed.

"I may be wild but I'm not reckless. I'll have to puzzle this one out."

Namour departed without further words. Relations thereafter between the two were polite but not overly cordial. Namour gave no more orders to Chiike, while Chiike made no further complaints in regard to the six-month Yips. Bureau D allowed him the services of Porric co-Diffin, to be trained as an assistant manager, while the Yips were employed only at "dog work."

With the onset of autumn anticipation of the wine festival, Parilia, with its banquets, masques and revels began to color the thoughts of everyone. At Parilia almost any kind of eccentric behavior was not only condoned but encouraged, so long as a costume purported to conceal identities.

Araminta Hotel had long been booked and over booked so that, during the week of Parilia, all manner of desperate expedients would become necessary. In the end, no one would suffer disappointment; if necessary, the six great houses would throw open their guest chambers and feed the visitors in the formal dining halls, and no one so lodged had ever been known to complain.

Glawen had undertaken no special role at Parilia. He lacked proficiency with musical instruments, and the antics of Floreste's Mummers interested him not at all. His studies at the lyceum had given him no difficulty, even though he had continued flight training, and at the end of the first quarter-term he was awarded a Certificate of Excellence.

Aries received an Urgent Notice of Unsatisfactory Achievement.

Giawen's methods were disarmingly simple: he did his work methodically, promptly and thoroughly. Aries used a different philosophy. From the beginning his work was meager, late and incomplete. He was nevertheless confident that through clever manipulation, bluff and sheer elan he could avoid tedious drudgery and drill and yet promote good grades for himself.

Upon receiving the Urgent Notice, Aries was both impatient and exasperated. In a single decisive gesture he crumpled the message and flung it aside; such was his opinion of all pedagogues! Why did they bother him with such priggish little messages? What did they hope to achieve? The notice told him nothing he wanted to hear; the pedants

lacked all largeness of perception! Surely it was obvious that he could not cram his large and sweeping talents into the petty little pigeonholes which they had designated, and which were all they knew! Ah well, he must ignore, or by some means slide around, all this pettifoggery. One way or another things would sort themselves out and he would be graduated into full Agency. Any other possibility was unthinkable! If worse came to worst, he might even be forced to study! Or his mother, Spanchetta, would set matters right with a few well-chosen words, although involving Spanchetta was a risky business. Far better, if at all possible, to let sleeping dogs lie.

At the end of Aries' second term this would be at the beginning of summer, before Glawen's sixteenth birthday Aries had failed promotion into the third-year class. It was a serious situation which Aries could remedy only by attending summer school and passing an examination.

Unfortunately, Aries had made other plans involving Master Floreste and the Mummers, which he did not wish to alter.

The Honorable Sonorius Offaw, superintendent of the lyceum, called Aries to his office and made the situation clear: if Aries failed to meet the lyceum's minimum requirements before his twenty-first birthday, his Agency status would be canceled and he would become a collateral without option, which meant that under no circumstances could he regain Agency status, unlike collaterals who had met the educational qualifications.

Once or twice Aries tried to interrupt, in order to express his own views, but the superintendent made Aries listen to the very end, so that Aries became more annoyed and edgy than ever.

At last Aries said: "Sir, I understand that my grades should be better, but, as I tried to explain, I was ill during both of the midterm examinations, and did poorly. The instructors in each class refused to make allowances."

"Rightly so. The examinations measure your scholastic achievements not the state of your health." He looked at Aries' card.

"I see you have opted into Bureau D."

"I intend to be an oenologist," said Aries sullenly.

"In that case, I advise that you attend summer school and make up your failed work; otherwise you will be cultivating your grapes in very far vineyards."

Aries scowled.

"I'm already committed to Master Floreste for the summer. I am a member of the Mummers Troupe, as you probably know."

"That is irrelevant. I can hardly express myself more succinctly but I will try. Either do your schoolwork or fail to graduate."

Aries cried out in pain: "But we will be making an off-world tour to Soum and Dauncy's World, which I don't want to miss!"

Sonorius Offaw rubbed his forehead with the tips of his fingers.

"You may go. I will communicate with your parents and inform them of your problem."

Aries departed the office, and a day later intercepted the official note before it reached Spanchetta: an act of subtle ingenuity, Aries told himself with a grin. If his mother had read the note, she might well have kept him home all summer, with his nose pressed to the scholastic grindstone. What a bore! He desperately wanted to make this particular tour, if only to prevent Kirdy Wook from having a free hand with the girls. Not that Kirdy, a large earnest fresh-faced youth, was all that much of a threat.

So Aries avoided summer school, and toured off-world with the Mummers, returning to Araminta Station a few days before Glawen's birthday, much too late for summer session. When lyceum started, Aries found himself enrolled at the second-year level.

How should he best explain the matter to his mother?

By not explaining at all: that was the answer. The matter would probably evade her notice; then, by one means or another, he would repair the difficulty.

The final day of the quarter-term was a half day, and the students were allowed a free afternoon. Glawen, Aries and four others took themselves to the dock beside the airport, to oversee the arrival of the ferry from Yipton with a contingent of workers for the grape harvest.

The group consisted of Glawen, Aries, Kirdy Wook, Uther Offaw, Kiper Laverty and Cloyd Diffin. Kirdy, the oldest and, like Aries, a Mummer, was a large careful young man, somber of manner, with round blue eyes; large features, and a fair, almost pinkish complexion. He used a terse mode of speaking, perhaps to disguise his shyness. In general the girls thought Kirdy dull and a trifle self-righteous.

Sessily Veder, whose pretty face and irrepressible personality charmed all who saw her, referred to Kirdy as a "fussy old pussycat." If he heard her, he gave no sign, but a week later, to the surprise of everyone, he joined the Bold Lions, as if to demonstrate that he wasn't such a dullard after all.

Kiper Laverty, who was Glawen's age, contrasted in every way with Kirdy, in that he was brash, noisy, active, not at all shy, and ready for any and all mischief.

Uther Offaw, a complicated individual almost as old as Kirdy, performed meticulous work at the lyceum, but in private demonstrated a wry mentality which spun off ideas wild, quaint and sometimes

reckless. His hair, a straw-colored ruff, grew back from a high forehead which seemed to funnel directly into a long nose. Uther was also a Bold Lion.

Cloyd Diffin, another Bold Lion, presented a staid imperturbable face to the world. He was strong and stocky, with dark hair, a heavy hooked nose and massive chin. Cloyd formulated few ideas of his own but could be counted upon to follow the lead of others.

The six youths strolled up Beach Road to the dock, where the ferry from Lutwen Atoll was about to discharge its cargo of Yips. At the debarkation gate stood Namour, the labor coordinator: a man tall and handsome with a head of glistening white hair. Namour, a Clattuc collateral, had fared far and wide across the Reach; he had known good times and bad; he had engaged in a hundred exploits and adventures, most of which he refused to discuss. He claimed to have seen everything worth seeing and to have done everything worth doing:

a cool flat statement which no one had ever challenged. His experiences had left him with a patina of urbane good manners and an understated elegance, which Aries thought to use as a model for his own conduct.

The six youths joined Namour, who acknowledged their presence with an austere nod. Aries asked: "How many in today's load?"

"According to the roster, one hundred and forty." "Hmmf!

That's quite a parcel. Are they all grape workers?"

"I expect we'll use some of them at Parilia."

Aries inspected the Yips lined up along the ship's rail:

young men and women dressed alike in knee-length white kilties. They waited quietly, with mild expressions: by and large a well-favored folk. The young men were of uniformly good physique, if somewhat slender, with bronze skins, ringlets of dusty-blond hair, golden-hazel eyes set faun like widely apart. The faces of the girls were softer and rounder, and their hair showed generally a darker copper-gold color. Their arms and legs were slim and graceful: no question but that the Yip girls were beautiful.