E had blown his stack. They had
looked at many a problem finally solved by the E's, but never before had
such a ridiculous situation come up.

And right at the time, too, when the civil government had decided to
place a curb on E.H.Q.'s freedom of movement, its control over the
experimental phases of planet development. The injunction to halt a
Junior E from taking over the Eden problem fooled none of them. They
knew that Gunderson wasn't concerned for those colonists out there, that
he was merely using the public furor to advance his own personal power.
They knew that the police worked unremittingly, unceasingly, always and
ever to bring every phase of human activity under their control. They
knew it was a centuries-old tactic to wait for the right situation to
arise, so that the lawmakers could be stampeded into passing some law
which seemed only to apply to this given condition but in actuality
broadened police powers over a wide area of man's actions.

Yes, there was far more at stake here than the fate of fifty colonists.
In a sense E.H.Q. itself was the stake. The whole science of E was at
stake.

And E McGinnis had played right into Gunderson's hands. It was he who
had been the E influence in deciding to allow a Junior to handle the
problem in the first place. It was he who was standing off from the
planet, not landing and taking over things as he should.

There was obviously no danger. By his own report, the people on Eden
were in good health, and from their apparent actions, not even
distressed.

This message about no mechanical science being allowed, for example. Did
the Junior mean the colonists wouldn't allow it? Must mean that. What
else could prevent it? But when an E, a real E, took charge in an
experimental colony, the colonists had nothing further to say about the
matter. True, when the five-year experimental period was over and the
three-generation colonists took over a planet, then it came more under
civil control, and E.H.Q. largely withdrew with the provision that it
could step back in at any time the problem seemed not to have been
solved after all.

But while under the five-year test ... The E was the final word, or
should be. The colonists knew it. The E knew it, or should know it.
Obviously then it was weakness on the part of the Junior if he allowed
the colonists to dictate that there could be no mechanical science.
Proof of his inability to handle the job.

A perfect setup for Gunder