are viciously resentful that they can't have what
somebody else is enjoying. Young ones, too, so twisted and warped with
frustrations they don't dare try what they daydream about. They're even
worse. Yeah, a morals charge is the way to get at him."

"But I understood there was a law, that we couldn't charge an E for any
offense."

"We can try him in the newspapers, can't we? On the televiewers. That's
the whole point. We can't charge an E now, but wait until we get things
stirred up on a morals basis. That law'll be changed in a hurry, because
any legislator that tried to hold out against changing it would be drawn
and quartered by his constituents--and has enough sense to know it.

"Hm-m," he breathed in satisfaction. "That's the way to go about it.
Don't know why I haven't thought of it before. If you guys would read
your history of how police enforcement officers got things back under
control each time some idealist started squawking about human rights,
you'd think of these things, too.

"Now don't go off half-cocked. Just stand by. Keep me posted on every
move. If I've got to do the thinking on how to get those E's back under
police control, the way scientists were before, I've got to have
information.

"And keep taking pictures!"

16

"After everything disappeared, the buildings, the escape ship,
everything," Cal reviewed, "and you, with your wife, found yourself
crouching under the trees in what had been your front yard, without any
clothes on--what then?"

"That was the beginning of it," Jed Dawkins answered. He looked toward
his two companions as if for confirmation. He looked at the three
crewmen, at Cal, all sprawled or crouched there beneath the tree at the
edge of the clearing. "We thought it was the end of everything," he said
in retrospect, "but we found out quick that things had just begun."

Cal nodded. Dawkins had told his tale simply, without fictitious
emotionalism, without straining to get the horror of it across--and
thereby succeeded. He glanced at his three crewmen, to see how they were
faring. Louie seemed to have gained some control over his nerves, and
yet the way he sat there staring at nothing showed he was enduring some
special horror of his own. Frank Norton shifted his position, pulled a
dry stick from beneath the leaves, looked at it resentfully, and tossed
it aside. He settled back down and indicated by his expression that now
he could be more comfortable.

One grate