od stemmed from something
deeper than sympathy for the islanders. It found roots in his daily
rambles over the little island granted him by the Township for the
painting he had begun as a blind to his assignment, and in the gossip of
old Charlie Mack and the few others he had met. He had learned to
appreciate the easy life of the islands well enough to be dismayed now
by what must happen under EI pressure to old Charlie and his handful of
sun-browned fisherfolk.

* * * * *

Unexpectedly, because Jeff had not considered that it might matter, he
was disturbed by the realization that he wouldn't be seeing Jennifer,
old Charlie Mack's red-haired niece, once occupation began. Jennifer,
who sailed with her uncle and did a crewman's work as a matter of
course, would despise the sight of him.

The Consul's pessimism jolted Jeff back to the moment at hand.

"Homeside will deny their autonomy, Aubray. I've had a warp-beam message
today ordering me to move in."

The situation was desperate enough at home, Jeff had to admit. Calaxian
calm-crystals did what no refinement of Terran therapeutics had been
able to manage. They erased the fears of the neurotic and calmed the
quiverings of the hypertensive--both in alarming majority in the
shattering aftermath of the Fourth War--with no adverse effects at all.
Permanent benefit was slow but cumulative, offering for the first time a
real step toward ultimate stability. The medical, psychiatric and
political fields cried out for crystals and more crystals.

"If the islanders would tell us their source and let us help develop
it," Satterfield said peevishly, "instead of doling out a handful of
crystals every Tenday, there wouldn't be any need of action. Homeside
feels they're just letting us have some of the surplus."

"Not likely," Jeff said. "They don't use the crystals themselves."

Old Dr. Hermann put his chin almost on the Consul's shoulder to present
his wizened face to the scanner.

"Of course they don't," he said. "On an uncomplicated, even
simple-minded world like this, who would need crystals? But maybe they
fear glutting the market or the domination of outside capital coming in
to develop the source. When people backslide, there's no telling what's
on their minds and we have no time to waste negotiating or convincing
them. In any case, how could they stop us from moving in?" Abruptly he
switched to his own interest. "Aubray, have you learne