he twelve hundred CLU
members we've got in Fort Roye now, seventy-six per cent were unemployed
this month. We'll have a compensation check from the Territorial Office
with the next ship coming in." He smiled at her expression. "Sure, the
boys _could_ go back to the tupa ranches. But not everyone likes that
life as well as you and the Feeneys."

"Earth government lets you get away with it?" Beulah asked curiously.
"They used to be pretty tight-fisted."

"They still are--but it's the law. The Territorial Office also pays any
CLU president's salary, incidentally. I don't draw too much at the
moment, but that will go up automatically with the membership and my
responsibilities."

"What responsibilities?"

"We've set up a skeleton organization," Phil explained. "Now, when Earth
government decides eventually to establish a big military base here,
they can run in a hundred thousand civilians in a couple of months and
everyone will be fitted into the pattern on Roye without trouble or
confusion. That's really the reason for all the generosity."

Beulah sniffed. "Big base, my eye! There hasn't been six months since I
set foot here that somebody wasn't talking about Fort Roye being turned
into a Class A military base pretty soon. It'll never happen, Phil.
Roye's a farm planet, and that's what it's going to stay."

Phil's lips twitched. "Well, don't give up hope."

"_I'm_ not anxious for any changes," Beulah said. "I like Roye the way
it is."

She peered at a button on the go-chair's armrest which had just begun to
put out small bright-blue flashes of light. "Pies are done," she
announced. "Phil, are you sure you can't stay for dinner?"

Phil looked at his watch, shook his head. "I'd love to, but I really
have to get back."

"Then I'll go wrap up the pies for you."

Beulah swung the go-chair around, sent it slithering up the stairs and
out the door. Phil stood up quickly. He stepped over to the fireplace,
opened his coat and detached a flexible, box-shaped object from the
inner lining. He laid this object on the mantle, and turned one of three
small knobs about its front edge to the right. The box promptly extruded
a supporting leg from each of its four corners, pushed itself up from
the mantle and became a miniature table. Phil glanced at the door
through which Beulah had vanished, listened a moment, then took the
Geest gun from the wall, laid it carefully on top of the device and
twisted the second dial.

The odd