-looking gun began to sink slowly down through the surface of
Phil's instrument, like a rock disappearing in mud. Within seconds it
vanished completely; then, a moment later, it began to emerge from the
box's underside. Phil let the Geest gun drop into his hand, replaced it
on the wall, turned the third knob. The box withdrew its supports and
sank down to the mantle. Phil clipped it back inside his coat, closed
the coat, and strolled over to the center of the room to wait for Aunt
Beulah to return with the pies.

* * * * *

It was curious, Phil Boles reflected as his aircar moved out over the
craggy, plunging coastline to the north some while later, that a few
bold minds could be all that was needed to change the fate of a world. A
few minds with imagination enough to see how circumstances about them
might be altered.

On his left, far below, was now the flat ribbon of the peninsula, almost
at sea level, its tip widening and lifting into the broad, rocky
promontory on which stood Fort Roye--the only thing on the planet bigger
and of more significance than the shabby backwoods settlements. And Fort
Roye was neither very big nor very significant. A Class F military base
around which, over the years, a straggling town had come into existence,
Fort Roye was a space-age trading post linking Roye's population to the
mighty mother planet, and a station from which the otherwise vacant and
utterly unimportant 132nd Segment of the Space Territories was
periodically and uneventfully patrolled. It was no more than that. Twice
a month, an Earth ship settled down to the tiny port, bringing supplies,
purchases, occasional groups of reassigned military and civilians--the
latter suspected of being drawn as a rule from Earth's Undesirable
classification. The ship would take off some days later, with a return
load of the few local products for which there was outside demand,
primarily the medically valuable tupa roots; and Fort Roye lay quiet
again.

The planet was not at fault. Essentially, it had what was needed to
become a thriving colony in every sense. At fault was the Geest War. The
war had periods of flare-up and periods in which it seemed to be
subsiding. During the past decade it had been subsiding again. One of
the early flare-ups, one of the worst, and the one which brought the war
closest to Earth itself, was the Gunderland Battle in which Uncle
William Boles' trophy gun had been acquired. Bu