Free Visions of Liberty by Martin H. Greenberg, Mark Tier

them?"
    "Yes." One of the reasons they kept the spaceport cleared, and a regular schedule, was for reasons like this. A small percentage of the inhabitants changed their mind and took the subtle offer.
    Rebecca leaned against me. "My parents will not approve."
    "They can't stop you," I said. "This is your life we're talking about." I kissed her hair. It smelled of fresh bread and pumpkin pie. "Come with me."
    She stood up, letting go of my hand. "The hospital," she said. "Can they . . . really . . . ?"
    "Yes. Don't pack anything," I told her. "Just be ready."
    "Tonight?"
    I looked back down the road we would have to take to get to DY-99. "Later tonight."
    Rebecca walked back into the house. I saw her falter for a second, and she held on to the edge of a table for support. I winced.
    * * *
    I approached David. I felt wrong for deceiving him slightly as I asked him about a good deal for one of his horses.
    He smiled and stroked his beard.
    "We wondered how many more days it would take before you got tired of asking for rides," he said. He named a price and I agreed on the spot. I could have dickered a little, but I wanted to go home as soon as I could.
    We walked to the stables, and David led my new horse out. He was a sturdy young fellow. I chose not to pay too much attention, though, as I would be leaving him behind soon enough.
    " Herr Doctor," David said. "You still feel badly about young Suderman?"
    "Yes," I said. "I could have saved him."
    "All the good health in the world would be useless with an empty life, or in a community that had rotted away."
    "If there is no one alive to appreciate the community," I said, "then it is all pointless."
    "You believe this is all pointless, then."
    "No." I leaned my head against the horse, smelling its musky sweat. It shifted. "No. But it is wasteful." I broke into the words of the Hippocratic oath: "Into whatsoever house I shall enter, it shall be for the good of the sick to the utmost of my power . . . and then to also believe in the community and follow our practices."
    "Did you anticipate being torn like this? Before you came to New Pennsylvania?"
    "No," I said. "I was wrong. I thought on a world with total freedom that a doctor would be free to cure the sick."
    "But you do tend to the sick."
    "With methods and cures that haven't changed in five hundred years," I said bitterly. "Out there"—I waved my hand at the stars—"they replace hearts and lungs as easily as you replace a torn shirt. Yet here  . . ."
    "You should have looked deeper into your heart before making the decision to come here."
    "Then who would have tried to save Mark Suderman?" I said. "I lose far too many patients, patients I could save anywhere else—but I do save some ."
    "He was saved the day he made the decision to join the church," David Yoder said with a certainty that I wished I possessed. About anything.
    "It's getting near dark," I said. "I will be going now."
    "Gute nacht."
    I pushed the horse to a run after I was out of sight.
    * * *
    I threw two suitcases of clothes together. In my desk I pulled out something I never thought I would need, but had kept anyway. It was a wallet, and inside were plastic cards that on any other world would link me to lines of credit and old friends. I hitched the new horse to my spare buggy and tossed the suitcases in the back.
    A horse and buggy turned onto the gravel of my drive. I was sure it was David Yoder, but I was wrong. Two Elders, Zebediah Walshman and his brother, Paul, pulled aside the storm curtains.
    "William Hostetler?"
    I walked up to the buggy.
    "Yes."
    "We talked to Brother Yoder. He feels you are going through a crisis," Paul said.
    Zebediah looked over at my buggy. "Are you leaving for a while, William?"
    "Possibly," I said.
    "You are going to the Englanders?"
    I didn't reply.
    "We can't deny you that choice," Paul said. "But you will not take Rebecca with you."
    They turned the buggy back around and rattled off down the road. My heart