done and I was on my way
back home.

Then again, I told myself, there was always the chance of getting
killed. And in the mood I found myself, the idea of a peaceful,
unrespectful death was very pleasant.

For a second or two, anyhow.

"The Government holds the cities," the Captain was saying, "and
essential trade services--spaceports, that sort of thing. But a small
band of men can last for a long time out there in the wilds."

"Living off the country," I said.

He nodded again. "Wohlen's nine-nines Earth normals," he said. "But
you know that already."

"I know all of this," I said. "I'm just trying to update it a little,
if I can."

"Oh," he said. "Oh, certainly, S ... uh ... Mr. Carboy."

I sighed and puffed on the cigarette and waited for him to go on.
After all, what else was there to do?

* * * * *

For a wonder, the hypno had been just about accurate. That was
helpful; if I'd heard some new and surprising facts from the Captain
it would have thrown all the other information I had into doubt. Now I
could be pretty sure of what I was getting into.

By the time we landed, the Captain was through and I was running over
the main points in my head, for a last-minute check.

Wohlen, settled in the eighty-fifth year of the Explosion, had
established a Parliamentary form of government, set up generally along
the usual model: bicameral, elective and pretty slow. Trade relations
with Earth and with the six other inhabited planets had been set up as
rapidly as possible, and Wohlen had become a full member of the Comity
within thirty years.

Matters had then rolled along with comparative smoothness for some
time. But some sort of explosion was inevitable--it always
happens--and, very recently, that nice Parliamentary government had
blown up in everybody's face.

The setup seemed to be reminiscent of something, but it was a little
while before I got it: the ancient South American states, in the
pre-Space days, before the United Cabinets managed to unify Earth once
and for all. There'd been an election on Wohlen and the loser hadn't
bowed gracefully out of the picture to set up a Loyal Opposition.
Instead, he'd gone back on his hind legs, accused the winner of all
sorts of horrible things--some of which, for all I knew, might even be
true--and had declared Wohlen's independence of the Comity. Which
meant, in effect, independence from all forms of interplanetary law.

Of cours