Nature, when you get close to her, is so
inexorable."
Bill eyed her a second. Then he put his arms around her, and patted
her hair tenderly.
"Is it getting on your nerves already, little person?" he asked.
"Nothing's going to go wrong. I've been in wild country too often to
make mistakes or get careless. And those are the two crimes for which
the North--or any wilderness--inflicts rather serious penalties. Life
isn't a bit harsher here than in the human ant heaps. Only everything
is more direct; cause and effect are linked up close. There are no
complexities. It's all done in the open, and if you don't play the
game according to the few simple rules you go down and out. That's all
there is to it. There's no doctor in the next block, nor a grocer to
take your order over the phone, and you can't run out to a cafe and
take dinner with a friend. But neither is the air swarming with
disease germs, nor are there malicious gossips to blast you with their
tongues, nor rent and taxes to pay every time you turn around. Nor am
I at the mercy of a job. And what does the old, settled country do to
you when you have neither money nor job? It treats you worse than the
worst the North can do; for, lacking the price, it denies you access to
the abundance that mocks you in every shop window, and bars you out of
the houses that line the streets.
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