"Back to the spaceport. We'll get a ruling on this."

"But it's getting dark. Can't we make camp someplace and go back tomorrow?"

"I'm hungry," Billy said.

"We can eat later, Son."

Bruce Whiting continued to regard them sullenly. Then abruptly, his face softened. "Wait," he said. "Don't go. Your wife's right, Mr. Marshall. You can't make the trip after dark. Why don't you and your family camp here for the night.... Alice has supper nearly ready and there's more than enough to go around...."

"We have our own rations," Claude said.

Bruce Whiting spread out his hands. "Look, Mr. Marshall. I know how you feel. I know, because it's the same way I feel. I guess a man can't help the way he feels when something threatens the thing he's been dreaming about all his life. But it isn't my fault that this happened any more than it's your fault. Since the problem concerns both of us, I suggest we sit down and discuss it like intelligent human beings."

"Mr. Whiting's right," Joan said. "After all it isn't his fault—"

"Another thing," Bruce Whiting went on. "I'm expecting a half-trac out here tomorrow with some supplies. If you and your family wanted to, there's no reason why we couldn't all ride back with him.... Maybe we could get this thing straightened out then and still be friends."

Claude flicked a look toward the far-off hills that were haloed by the last rays of a strange sun. Within moments it would be dark. And a few yards away a woman threw another log on the fire and the pungent aroma of boiling coffee drifted across his nostrils.

"I'm hungry," Billy repeated.

Claude held out his hand.

"I'm sorry," he said. "As you say: this isn't our fault. We're just caught in the middle."

They ate picnic-style, off plastic dishes, while Bruce Whiting kept up a continuous stream of conversation, aided from time to time by his comely wife.

The Whiting's story was a familiar one. He'd been with an advertising agency when the colonization urge had struck him.... That was ten years ago.... He'd talked it over with his wife, and together they'd weighed the chances of surviving the rigid tests that eliminated 97% of the applicants.

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