he proclaimed, and stalked off the
bridge.

"Cousin Aurelia is very genteel," Betty snapped at the captain. "You had
no right to insult her. Besides, she's only twenty pounds overweight."

"Don't mind me. I go for her type." Possett shook his head darkly and
turned toward Charles. "Button, man to man, a back-country planet's no
place for the ladies. Look, I'll take the thing off your hands. I can
handle Burgee. Twelve thousand cold cash for your stuff and the deed,
and I'll throw in a lift to New Texas. There's a liner from there."

Charles thought of the comfortable Earth and was tempted. "But I paid
thirty-five," he protested uncertainly. "I mean, twelve is--"

"Take it or leave it. I'm trying to do you a favor."

"No, I guess we'll leave it," answered Betty.

Charles looked around in surprise. Her lips were compressed, her blue
eyes narrowed with astonishing determination.

"We've come all this way," she declared, "so we might as well keep it. I
think it has--well, possibilities. We've had the whole house done over
and the servants remodeled. And we'll have all the DoItAll
services--teleprojection, medical care, and everything else--from the
New Texas substation. I'm sure we'll get along nicely."

The skipper of the _Beautiful Joe_ wasn't pleased. "It's your necks.
Don't be blaming me for what happens," he growled. "Well, where do you
want to set down?"

"Set down?" gulped Charles. "R-right now?"

"Land and unload, it says in the contract. I ain't got all day. I'll
dump you at Burgee's old landing, load up with fresh water, and blast
off for New Texas."

Charles had no other spot in mind.

"Okay," Possett said to the two robot crewmen at the main controls,
"take her down."

* * * * *

At the waterfall's edge, flowering trees twisted their roots in the
cliffside, and a fresh wind scattered plumes of its spray through their
leaves. Taller trees, bell-blossomed, fanned out from the pool, gave way
to a meadow, and followed the course of the stream down a broadening
valley--among faceted boulders of translucent quartz, rose-pink, green,
and golden, sheltering small, lustrous spires of fragile fungi.

On the meadow stood the house, the latest in Second Victorian, complete
with carved plastic false-front in early Schenectady Gothic. The Buttons
themselves, with Cousin Aurelia, stood in front of it. They wore long
linen dusters and sun helmets with heavy mosquito veils. They w