e been the original Garden of Eden?" Wong asked.
His face was impassive. "It fits, you know. Man was banished from an
ideal condition and forced to live by the sweat of his brow."

"Not that so much," Cal said. "Not unless the whole concept of evolution
is haywire, and we're reasonably sure it isn't that far off. Probably
the colonists have gone on strike, but I still keep thinking that when
we want to catch rats we set a trap with a better food than they can get
normally."

There was a twinkle in McGinnis's eye.

"You think Eden is an alluring trap, especially baited to catch human
beings?" he asked.

"I don't exactly think that. I just keep wondering," Cal answered.

They were interrupted by a diffident yet insistent knock on the door.
This in itself was such a violation of E.H.Q. rules, never to interrupt
the thinking of an E, that all three stopped talking. The three Juniors,
who had been sitting by, listening, arose from their seats and stood
facing the door. The orderlies looked to the E's for instruction. At a
nod from McGinnis, one of them walked over to the door and opened it.

Bill Hayes was standing there, flushed with embarrassment.

"Your pardon, E's," he said hurriedly. "I'm just an errand boy, under
instruction from General Administration. We have been served with a
court injunction to prevent assignment of a Junior to the Eden matter."

Cal froze in alarm and disappointment. At the last moment to have his
chance snatched away from him. He should have gone immediately the
review was over, without waiting for any advice McGinnis and Wong might
care to give. Now ...

McGinnis caught his eye and gave a slight nod toward a door that opened
on another hallway. He flashed a command with his eyes to get going,
then turned back to Hayes.

"I was unaware that the E's must heed court orders," he said frostily.

"It's a question of where civil jurisdiction stops and E jurisdiction
takes over," Hayes explained nervously. "While the colonists are
employed by E.H.Q., and under their direction, it is held they are also
Earth citizens, with citizen rights. Civil authority feels it must
answer for their welfare."

"I thought restrictions upon the E were removed by act of World Congress
some seventy years ago," Wong said mildly.

"The injunction makes it clear there is no restriction upon the Senior
E; just the Junior, who really isn't an E yet."

"It is the decision of the E's that a Junior will handle thi