the fact that their life here on Capella IV was
possible only by application of modern industrial technology. That rodeo
down the plaza--tank-tilting instead of bronco-busting. Here they were,
living frozen in a romantic dream, a world of roving cowboys and ranch
kingdoms.

No wonder Hoddy hadn't liked the books I had been reading on the ship.
They shook the fabric of that dream.

There were people moving about, at this relatively quiet end of the
plaza, mostly in the direction of the barbecue. Ten or twelve Rangers
loitered at the front of the Alamo, and with them I saw the dress blues
of my two Marines. There was a little three-wheeled motorcart among
them, from which they were helping themselves to food and drink. When
they saw us coming, the two Marines shoved their sandwiches into the
hands of a couple of Rangers and tried to come to attention.

"At ease, at ease," I told them. "Have a good time, boys. Hoddy, you
better get in on some of this grub; I may be inside for quite a while."

As soon as the Rangers saw Hoddy, they hastily got things out of their
right hands. Hoddy grinned at them.

"Take it easy, boys," he said. "I'm protected by the game laws. I'm a
diplomat, I am."

There were a couple of Rangers lounging outside the door of the
President's office and both of them carried autorifles, implying things
I didn't like.

I had seen the President of the Solar League wandering around the
dome-city of Artemis unattended, looking for all the world like a
professor in his academic halls. Since then, maybe before then, I had
always had a healthy suspicion of governments whose chiefs had to
surround themselves with bodyguards.

But the President of New Texas, John Hutchinson, was alone in his office
when we were shown in. He got up and came around his desk to greet us, a
slender, stoop-shouldered man in a black-and-gold laced jacket. He had a
narrow compressed mouth and eyes that seemed to be watching every corner
of the room at once. He wore a pair of small pistols in cross-body
holsters under his coat, and he always kept one hand or the other close
to his abdomen.

He was like, and yet unlike, the Secretary of State. Both had the look
of hunted animals; but where Palme was a rabbit, twitching to take
flight at the first whiff of danger, Hutchinson was a cat who hears
hounds baying--ready to run if he could, or claw if he must.

"Good day, Mr. Silk," he said, shaking hands with me after the
introductio