new stars being organized,
and get on their rosters."

Coffin tautened. Again he was unsure why he felt an emotion: now, anger.
"I shall permit no disloyalty to the purpose for which we are engaged,"
he clipped.

"Oh, come off it," said Kivi. "Be rational. I don't know your reason for
undertaking this wretched cruise. You had rank enough to turn down the
assignment; no one else did. But you still want to explore as badly as
I. If Earth didn't care about us, they would not have bothered to invite
us back. Let us seize the opportunity while it lasts." He intercepted a
reply by glancing at the wall chrono. "Time for our conference." He
flicked the intership switch.

* * * * *

A panel came to life, dividing into fourteen sections, one for each
accompanying vessel. One or two faces peered from each. The craft which
bore only supplies and sleeping crewmen were represented by their
captains. Those which had colonists also revealed a civilian spokesman.

Coffin studied every small image in turn. The spacemen he knew, they all
belonged to the Society and even those born long after him had much in
common. There was a necessary minimum discipline of mind and body, and
the underlying dream for which all else had been traded: new horizons
under new suns. Not that spacemen indulged in such poetics; they had too
much work to do.

The colonists were something else. Coffin shared things with
them--predominantly North American background, scientific habit of
thought, distrust of all governments. But few Constitutionalists had any
religion; those who did were Romish, Jewish, Buddhist, or otherwise
alien to him. All were tainted with the self-indulgence of this era:
they had written into their covenant that only physical necessity could
justify moralizing legislation, and that free speech was limited only by
personal libel. Coffin thought sometimes he would be glad to see the
last of them.

"Are you all prepared?" he began. "Very well, let's get down to
business. It's unfortunate the Com officer gossiped so loosely. He
stirred up a hornet's nest." Coffin saw that few understood the idiom.
"He made discontent which threatens this whole project, and which we
must now deal with."

Coenrad de Smet, colonist aboard the _Scout_, smiled in an irritating
way he had. "You would simply have concealed the fact?" he asked.

"It would have made matters easier," said Coffin stiffly.

"In other words," said de