e."

"Another expedition? To Andromeda perhaps? With you the leader?"

Michael shook his head. "We're finished with expeditions, Mr.
President."

There were mutterings in the council, and hastily whispered
consultations. Now they were watching the man and woman again.

"We feel," said the President, "it would be dangerous to allow you to
go out among the people. They've been informed that your statement
wasn't entirely true. This was necessary, to avoid a panic. The people
simply must not know the whole truth." He paused. "Now we ask you to
keep in mind that whatever we decide about the two of you will be for
the good of the people."

Michael and Mary were silent.

"You'll wait outside the council chambers," the President went on,
"until we have reached our decision."

As the man and woman were led away, the pumps beat in the stillness,
and at the edge of the shrinking seas the salt thick waters were being
pulled into the distilleries, and from them into the tier upon tier of
artificial gardens that sat like giant bee hives all around the
shoreline; and the mounds of salt glistening in the sunlight behind
the gardens were growing into mountains.

* * * * *

In their rooms, Michael and Mary were talking through the hours, and
waiting. All around them were fragile, form-fitting chairs and
translucent walls and a ceiling that, holding the light of the sun
when they had first seen it, was now filled with moonlight.

Standing at a circular window, ten feet in diameter, Michael saw, far
below, the lights of the city extending into the darkness along the
shoreline of the sea.

"We should have delivered our message by radio," he said, "and gone
back into space."

"You could probably still go," she said quietly.

He came and stood beside her. "I couldn't stand being out in space, or
anywhere, without you."

She looked up at him. "We could go out into the wilderness, Michael,
outside the force walls. We could go far away."

He turned from her. "It's all dead. What would be the use?"

"I came from the Earth," she said quietly. "And I've got to go back to
it. Space is so cold and frightening. Steel walls and blackness and
the rockets and the little pinpoints of light. It's a prison."

"But to die out there in the desert, in that dust." Then he paused and
looked away from her. "We're crazy--talking as though we had a
choice."

"Maybe they'll have to _give_ us a choice."

"What