be just staying on here after the
experimental was over--maybe getting a doctor to reverse the operation
so they could have kids--which, of course, you couldn't have in an
experimental colony.

And that was bad. What with easy living and wanting kids as was normal
to most, experimental colonists weren't so plentiful that Earth could
afford to lose any.

Some of the colonists wanted to leave this--well, they called it a Lotus
Land, whatever that was--right away, before everybody went under, got
plumb ruined. They were all for taking the escape ship and hightailing
it back to Earth. Sure, they knew there'd be a stink, and they'd get a
little black mark in somebody's book for not obeying orders to stick it
out. But that was better than losing their trade, their desire to follow
it. Maybe there'd be a penalty and they'd be marooned to stay on Earth
for a while. But they'd bet there was a hundred planets laying idle
right now because there weren't enough experimentals to go around.

They'd get a black mark, but after a while they'd get another job too.
Anyway, living on Earth couldn't be any worse for them than living here.

Half of them wanted to stay here permanently. The other half wanted to
leave right now. That was what the committee was going to decide today.
He'd done some checking around, and it looked like they were going to
vote to go. He'd also checked with them who wanted to stay permanently,
and it looked like, in a showdown, they'd come along. They were proud to
be men, too, men and women. Everybody would join. He'd been pretty sure
of it.

Even the dissenters who'd moved away across the ridge. That was the
trouble with them. There hadn't been enough hardship to bind the
community together. People forgot how to be kind to one another and get
along when there wasn't any hardship to share among themselves.

It would mean deserting the planet entirely. Even though his sympathies
were with the ones who wanted to go, Jed felt there was something wrong,
real bad, about deserting the planet. Still and all, if they voted to go
he couldn't stop them.

Maybe Earth would let the three-generation colonists come on out without
the total test period. But maybe not. Maybe E.H.Q. would decide that
Eden was too hard to colonize because it was too easy. Maybe they'd
abandon the planet entirely. There'd be no more humans here, and no more
coming.

That was when he hit the ground with a solid thump!

He first thought th