et the alarm bell.
If she touches it--"

"Where is she?"

"In the cookery, where she should be. I told her we would eat in an
hour. That ought to keep her busy."

Dr. Brende made an attempt at a smile. "I think we are all a little
overwrought--though with reason, no doubt. Sit down, Jac. Elza, come
here by me. Don't look so solemn, child."

He drew Elza to him, with his arm about her. I would have spoken, but
his gesture checked me. "I have much to say, Jac. I think I understand
these events, perhaps better than any of you. Let me go back two
years--when I was in the Venus Central State."

I nodded my remembrance; and he went on:

"At that time the authorities there were greatly perturbed. They were
menaced by rebellion in the Cold Country. They would not let the Cold
Country people into the Central State, for it is already overcrowded.
You did not know that, did you?"

"You mean the threatened rebellion?" I asked. "They were trying to keep
it secret, but we heard rumors."

"Just so. And Jac, I will tell you why they kept it secret. The Central
State was encouraging emigration to the Earth. The Venus Cold Country is
a poor place to live in--and on a whole its inhabitants are miserable
people. Villainous, too, I should say. The Central State did not want
them within its borders; and so it kept secret its troubles with
them--and encouraged emigration to the Earth.

"We--as you know--make no distinction between Venus people. We are
friendly with the Central State, and the Cold Country is governed by
it--or was until tonight. Thus, you see, we have been in the position of
having to receive these renegade immigrants. Shut out from all the good
land and decent climate of Venus, they began coming here.

"But we did not want them, and of late we have been holding them off,
cutting the quota allowed very materially. Last week, as you also know,
in Triple Conference, our three races decided to allow at each Inferior
Conjunction of the Earth and Venus, so small a quota that the Central
State protested vigorously.

"The controversy has been hot; but the Central State--trying to foist
off its undesirables on us--knows it is in the wrong. And fundamentally,
it is friendly to us--I think it has proven that in the last two hours."

Again I would have spoken, but he went on at once.

"I know you're familiar with most of this, Jac. But you news-gatherers
sometimes reason in too lurid a fashion. Let me go on. Mars was draw