ow unique it is," Manning said, leaning forward
and setting down his glass with a bang. "It's just unique enough that I
can make it sound important in my report to the Council. I can make
myself sound a little impressive. That's how important it is; no more
than that."

Rynason pursed his lips, but didn't say anything. The waiter arrived
with his drink; he threw a green coin onto the table which was scooped
up before it had finished ringing to a stop, and sat back with the glass
in his hand.

"Is that your pitch to the Council?" he asked. "You're telling them that
Hirlaj is an important archaeological area and that's why you should get
the governorship?"

"Something like that," Manning nodded. "That, and my friend at
Seventeenth Cluster headquarters. Incidentally, he's an idiot and a
slob--turns on quadsense telemuse instead of working, drinks hopsbrau
from his own sector. I can't stand him. But I did him a few favors, just
in case, and they're paying off."

"I think it's marvelous the way our frontier policy caters to the
colonists," Mara said quietly. She was still smiling, but it was an
ironic smile which suddenly struck Rynason as characteristic of her.

He knew exactly what she meant. Manning's little push for power was
nothing new or shocking in Terran frontier politics. With the rapid
expansion of the Edge through the centuries, the frontier policy of the
Confederation had had to adapt itself to comparatively slipshod methods
of setting up governments in the newly-opened areas. Back in the early
days they'd tried sending out trained men from each Cluster
headquarters, but that had been foredoomed to failure: travel between
the stars was slow, and too often the governors had arrived after local
officialdoms had already been established, and there had been clashes.
The colonists had almost always backed the local governments, and there
were a few full-scale revolts when the system had been backed too
militantly by Cluster headquarters.

So the Local Autonomy System had been sanctioned. The colonists would
always support their own men, who at least knew conditions in the areas
they were to govern. But since this necessarily limited the choice of
Edge governorships to the roustabouts and drifters who wandered the
outworlds, the resulting administrations were probably even more corrupt
than they had been under the old system of what had amounted to
centralized graft. The Cluster Councils retained the power of a