he Dusties hopped over
into his lap and began gawking happily at the broad fields as the jeep
jogged along. Pete stroked the creature's soft brown fur with his
tar-caked fingers. "Maybe someday these little guys will show us where
_they_ go for the winter," he said. "They must have it down to a
science."

Somehow the idea was funny, and both men roared. If the Dusties had
_anything_ down to a science, nobody knew what. Mario grinned and
tweaked the creature's tail. "They sure do beat the winter, though," he
said.

"So do we. Only we have to do it the human way. These fellas grew up in
the climate." Pete lapsed into silence as the village came into view.
The ship had landed quite a way out, resting on its skids on the long
shallow groove the colonists had bulldozed out for it years before, the
first year they had arrived on Baron IV. Slowly Pete turned Mario's
words over in his mind, allowing himself to worry a little. There _had_
been rumors of trouble back on Earth, persistent rumors he had taken
care to soft-pedal, as mayor of the colony. There were other things,
too, like the old newspapers and magazines that had been brought in by
the lad from Baron II, and the rare radio message they could pick up
through their atmospheric disturbance. Maybe something _was_ going wrong
back home. But somehow political upheavals on Earth seemed remote to
these hardened colonists. Captain Schooner's visits were always welcome,
but they were few and far between. The colony was small; one ship every
three years could supply it, and even then the _taaro_ crates wouldn't
half fill up the storage holds. There were other colonies far closer to
home that sent back more _taaro_ in one year than Baron IV could grow in
ten.

But when a ship did come down, it was a time of high excitement. It
meant fresh food from Earth, meat from the frozen lockers, maybe even a
little candy and salt. And always for Pete a landing meant a long
evening of palaver with the captain about things back home and things on
Baron IV.

Pete smiled to himself as he thought of it. He could remember Earth, of
course, with a kind of vague nostalgia, but Baron IV was home to him now
and he knew he would never leave it. He had too many hopes invested
there, too many years of heartache and desperate hard work, too much
deep satisfaction in having cut a niche for himself on this dusty,
hostile world, ever to think much about Earth any more.

Mario stopped in front of the