Bumsider

Jeff Adams stared northward. From this spot he could see over the hummocks and just make out the scarlet glow along the top of the Barrier, though he couldn't see the land along the base. This side, for two hundred miles to the east and to the west, was fallows country: loose, parched soil, except when the infrequent rains barely moistened it and caked the top, too sandy to support any Terran plant life. Only a few hundred yards north of the Barrier the green fields began. You could lean against the Barrier and stare through; the invisible impenetrable force-field wouldn't hurt you, even if you hurled yourself against it. A Bumsider could dream of being Inside and wonder what crime or deficiency had got his ancestors exiled to Bumside—but not for long; in Bumside you had to keep moving to keep eating...