ively. "So to speak, Johnny, I
called the cops. Yesterday--with the small radio transmitter. When you
and Bubs and Evelyn were up in those old buildings. I reported Neely and
his companions."

"Reported them?"

"Sure. To Mr. Mahoney, the boss at the mining camp. I was glad to find
out that there is a little law and order around here. Mr. Mahoney was
nice. He said that he wouldn't be surprised if they were cooled in the
can for a few days, and then confined to the camp area. Matter of fact,
I radioed him again last night. It's been done."

John Endlich's vast sigh of relief was slightly tainted by the idea that
to call on a policing power for protection was a little bit on the timid
side.

"Oh," he grunted. "Thanks. I never thought of doing that."

"Johnny."

"Yeah?"

"I kind of got the notion, though--from between the lines of what Mr.
Mahoney said--that there was heavy trouble brewing at the camp. About
conditions, and home-leaves, and increased profit-sharing. Maybe there's
danger of riots and what-not, Johnny. Anyhow, Mr. Mahoney said that we
should 'keep on exercising all reasonable caution.'"

"Hmm-m--Mr. Mahoney is _very_ nice, ain't he?" Endlich growled.

"You stop that, Johnny," Rose ordered.

But her husband had already passed beyond thoughts of jealousy. He was
thinking of the time when Neely would have worked out his sentence, and
would be free to roam around again--no doubt with increased annoyance at
the Endlich clan for causing his restraint. If a riot or something
didn't spring him, beforehand. John Endlich itched to try to tear his
head off. But, of course, the same consequences as before still
applied....

* * * * *

As it turned out, the Endlichs had a reprieve of two months and fourteen
days, almost to the hour and figured on a strictly Earth-time scale.

For what it was worth, they accomplished a great deal. In their great
plastic greenhouse, supported like a colossal bubble by the humid,
artificially-warmed air inside it, long troughs were filled with pebbles
and hydroponic solution. And therein tomatoes were planted, and lettuce,
radishes, corn, onions, melons--just about everything in the vegetable
line.

There remained plenty of ground left over from the five acres, so John
Endlich tinkered with that fifty-million-year-old tractor, figured out
its atomic-power-to-steam principle, and used it to help harrow up the
ancient soil of a smashed planet.