"I just like Earth," Jonny answered evenly, "and wanted to come back here when my education was finished."

"Oh, sure." Carlin nodded. "But if this world is as outworn as it looks, there's no field here for a CE. You ought to be out at Algol."

"You star-world people are all the same—always advising us to leave Earth!" Harb Land interrupted with suppressed passion. "That's what Control Council keeps harping on as a solution to all our poverty and problems. They keep asking, 'Why don't you emigrate to other stars?'"

Gramp Land shook his head. "We don't leave our planet as lightly as some folks do. No matter how far an Earthman goes, he always comes home."

"Still, you can hardly blame Control Council for giving you good advice," Carlin said, exasperated. "After all, it's your own fault if you foolishly squandered the copper resources of your planet and now lack power."

Harb Land's craggy face darkened. "Yes, we squandered our copper foolishly. We did it twenty centuries ago, when Earth was opening up the whole galaxy to travel. We spent our copper establishing the galactic civilization that's forgotten all about our power-starved world."

"Harb, please!" said Marn in a low voice, distress in her face.

A silence fell, and they finished the dinner without further conversation. But Jonny Land spoke to Carlin before he went upstairs.

"Don't take Harb too seriously. A lot of people here on Earth are so embittered about our lack of power that they're unreasonable."

Carlin found his bedroom dark. No automatic lights came on when he entered, and he could not find the switch. He gave it up, and got into bed and lay looking heavily out into the night.

Soft wind was stirring the trees around the house. Heavy scent of flowers drifted on it, stirring the window curtains. Down in the valley gleamed the spaceport beacons, and beyond lay a thin rim of glimmering sea over which the quarter-phase shield of Luna was rising.

He felt utterly miserable, homesick, wretched. If he were back at Canopus right now, he would be dancing with Nila in Sun City ballroom, or wandering in Yellow Gardens.

He drifted off to sleep despite himself, in his lumpy bed....

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