ble treads carried it smoothly down the three
steps to the sunken section of the living room, Beulah sitting jauntily
erect in it, for all the ninety-six years which had left her the last
survivor of the original group of Earth settlers on the world of Roye.
She tapped her fingers here and there on the chair's armrests, swinging
it deftly about, and brought it to a stop beside the tea table.

"That was Susan Feeney calling," she reported. "And _there_ is somebody
else for you who thinks I have to be taken care of! Go ahead and finish
the pie, Phil. Can't hurt a husky man like you. Got a couple more baking
for you to take along."

Phil grinned. "That'd be worth the trip up from Fort Roye all by
itself."

Beulah looked pleased. "Not much else I can do for my great-grand nephew
nowadays, is there?"

Phil said, after a moment, "Have you given any further thought to--"

"Moving down to Fort Roye?" Beulah pursed her thin lips. "Goodness,
Phil, I do hate to disappoint you again, but I'd be completely out of
place in a town apartment."

"Dr. Fitzsimmons would be pleased," Phil remarked.

"Oh, him! Fitz is another old worry wart. What he wants is to get me
into the hospital. Nothing doing!"

Phil shook his head helplessly, laughed. "After all, working a tupa
ranch--"

"Nonsense. The ranch is just enough bother to be interesting. The
appliances do everything anyway, and Susan is down here every morning
for a chat and to make sure I'm still all right. She won't admit that,
of course, but if she thinks something should be taken care of, the
whole Feeney family shows up an hour later to do it. There's really no
reason for you to be sending a dozen men up from Fort Roye every two
months to harvest the tupa."

Phil shrugged. "No one's ever yet invented an easy way to dig up those
roots. And the CLU's glad to furnish the men."

"Because you're its president?"

"Uh-huh."

"It really doesn't cost you anything?" Beulah asked doubtfully.

"Not a cent."

* * *

"Hm-m-m. Been meaning to ask you. What made you set up that ... Colonial
Labor Union?"

Phil nodded. "That's the official name."

"Why did you set it up in the first place?"

"That's easy to answer," Phil said. "On the day the planetary population
here touched the forty thousand mark, Roye became legally entitled to
its labor union. Why not take advantage of it?"

"What's the advantage?"

"More Earth money coming in, for one thing. Of t