spent a year of our lives in this cramped old flivver--and we don't have many of them to spare!" She glared venomously at Grampa.

"We've still got Fweepland," Four said solemnly.

"Fweepland?" Reba repeated.

"This planet. It's not big, but it's fertile and it's harmless. As real estate, it's worth almost as much as if it were solid uranium."

"A good thing, too," Junior said glumly, "because this looks like the end of our search. Short of a miracle, we'll spend the rest of our lives right here--involuntary colonists."

Joyce spun on him. "You're joking!" she screeched.

"I wish I were," Junior said. "But the polarizer won't work. Either it's broken or there's something about the gravity around here that just won't polarize."

"It's these '23 models," Grampa put in disgustedly. "They never were any good."

The land of the Fweep turned slowly on its axis. The orange sun set and rose again and stared down once more at the meadow where the improbable spaceship rested on its improbable stern. The sixteen Earth hours that the rotation had taken had changed nothing inside the ship, either.

Grampa looked up from his pircuit and said, "If I were you, Junior, I would take a good look at the TV repairman when we get back to Earth. _If_ we get back to Earth," he amended. "You can't be Four's father. All over the Universe, gravity is the same, and if it's gravity, the polarizer will polarize it."

"That's just supposition," Junior said stubbornly. "The fact is, it isn't because it doesn't. Q.E.D."

"Maybe the polarizer is broken," Fred suggested.

Grampa snorted. "Broken-shmoken. Nothing to break, Young Fred. Just a few coils of copper wire and they're all right. We checked. We know the power plant is working: the lights are on, the air and water recirculation systems are going, the food resynthesizer is okay. And, anyway, the polarizer could work from the storage battery if it had to.""Then it goes deeper," Junior insisted. "It goes right to the principle of polarization itself. For some reason, it doesn't work here. Why? Before we can discover the answer to that, we'll have to know more about polarization itself. How does it work, Grampa?"

Grampa gave him a sarcastic grin. "Now you're 

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