extremely unlikely to be enough. When they could be burdened further, younger boys and girls would be shipped—old enough to help but not to pioneer. They could be sent to safety in a partly-built colony. Later smaller children could be sent, needing care from their older contemporaries. Only at long last would the adults leave their world for the new. They would stay where the danger was until all younger ones were secure.

"But now," said Walker thickly, "our children have made their world and now they refuse to receive their parents and grandparents! They have a world of young people only, under no authority but their own. They say that we lied to them about the coming flare of Phaedra's sun: that we enslaved them and made them use their youth to build a new world we now demand to take over! They are willing for Phaedra's sun to burst and kill the rest of us, so they can live as they please without a care for us!"

Calhoun said nothing. It is a part of medical training to recognize that information obtained from others is never wholly accurate. Conceding the facts, he would still be getting from Walker only one interpretation of them. There is an instinct in the young to become independent of adults, and an instinct in adults to be protective past all reason. There is, in one sense, always a war between the generations on all planets, not only Phaedra and Canis III. It is a conflict between instincts which themselves are necessary—and perhaps the conflict as such is necessary for some purpose of the race.

"They grew tired of the effort building the colony required," said Walker, his eyes burning as before. "So they decided to doubt its need! They sent some of their number back to Phaedra to verify our observations of the sun's behavior. Our observations! It happened that they came at a time when the disturbances in the sun were temporarily quiet. So our children decided that we were over-timid; that there was no danger to us; that we demanded too much! They refused to build more shelters and to clear and plant more land. They even refused to land more ships from Phaedra, lest we burden them with more mouths to feed! They declared for rest; for ease! They declared themselves independent of us! They disowned us! Sharper than a serpent's tooth...."

"... Is an ungrateful child," said Calhoun. "So I've heard. So you declared war."

"We did!" raged Walker. "We are men! Haven't we wives to protect? We'll fight even our children for the safety of their mothers! And we have grandchildren—on Canis III! What's happened and is 

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