to evacuate before this Plant is destroyed. The verdict is final."

The dining hall echoed with moans. Hands leaned to agonized temples. The thoughtcaster again, on a wide band frequency. Through the pain I was conscious of Starza's voice. The Guild was trying to bluff us. We wouldn't let them. I stumbled out of the hall, my teeth chattering, took the lift down to the first level, and got outside, to walk free in the park.

Here was Eden. Giant conifers and ferns wove a cool green pattern of delight, and the laughter of the crystal fountains soothed. Terms had fashioned this garden, had created a poem in living green, a quiet fugue of oneness, each leaf blending exquisitely with the next, the unity, the perfect whole. For one weak moment I let the pattern seep insidiously into me, and then, ashamed, focused my eyes on that jarring splash of white in the center of the garden. The ten-foot model of the Amalgamated X-3M, squat with power, lifting on her stern jets. A symbol of Amalgamated's strength, the indomitable spirit of mankind, beauty born of pure utility. Oddly, a half-remembered poem of the Ancients flitted through my brain:

Dirty British Coaster with her salt-caked smokestack,

Butting through the Channel on the mad March days—

That was man.

On an infinity of planets he had met resistance, through force, through guile—even through beauty. And he had conquered. I drew a slow deep breath and sat on one of the benches, staring up at the gigantic horseshoe of the factory, hearing the muted hum of the atomics. Twenty-four hours.

I tried to run through my axioms, and I was suddenly terrified. I couldn't remember them! That damned thoughtcaster. Twice in one day. Perhaps there was some gradual neural disintegration. My head hurt terribly. Tomorrow I'd go to Psych for a checkup. I thought about that marble villa in Venusport, and about my bank account. Not enough. Another year, just one more year, and I could retire, at thirty-four. I thought about the Venusian twilights, and the turquoise mists off the Deeps, and wondered dully if I'd ever see Venus or the Earth again.

I saw Fern, walking among the conifers, her face a pale mask of strain. "You heard it, Jake?"

I nodded.

We sat in the aquamarine twilight, and Fern was shivering, and I put my arm around her.

 Prev. P 11/19 next