w to get any substantial number of colonists?"
exclaimed Jorden.

"We'll put on a recruiting campaign. We'll go to the creative
groups--the engineers, the planners, the artists--we'll show that
opportunity for creative functioning and growth will be far greater in
the work of building colonial outposts than in any activity they now
enjoy. And we won't have to exaggerate, either. It's true.

"We'll be able to send out a colony of whom we can be certain. In the
past, colonies have invariably failed when they consisted only of
members fleeing from something, without possessing an adequate growth
factor.

"When this becomes thoroughly understood in my field, I shall probably
never live down my initial error of assuming that a colonist had to hate
or fear what he left behind in order to leave it forever. The exact
opposite is true. Successful colonization of the Universe by Earthmen
will occur only when there is a love and respect for the Homeland--and a
capacity for complete independence from it."

Ashby pressed his fingers together and looked at his visitors soberly.
"There is only one thing further," he said. "We've found out also that
Bonnie is not essentially a colonist--"

Bonnie's face went white. She pushed Jorden's arm away and leaned across
the desk. "You knew--! Then we can't--Why didn't you tell me this in the
beginning?"

"Please don't be hasty, Bonnie," said Ashby. "As I was about to say, we
have found, however, that another condition exists in which you can
become eligible and stable through a genuine love for a qualified
colonist, to the extent you are willing to follow him completely in his
ambitions and desires. This is strictly a feminine possibility--a woman
can become a sort of second order colonist, you might say.

"Of course, Jorden, you still have to make the basic decision as to
whether you want to go to Serrengia or not. We have found out merely
that you _can_."

"I think there's no doubt about my wanting to," said Jorden.

He turned Bonnie around in his arms again, and Ashby chuckled mildly. "I
have always said there is no piece of data you cannot find, provided you
can devise the proper experimental procedure for turning it up," he
said.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Colonists, by Raymond F. Jones

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