of
sudden sort of liberal--the way he gets when things seem to break
right."

Everything went fine for quite a while. Art Kuzak was out playing his
hunches, giving easy terms to those who couldn't pay at once.

"Might as well gamble," he growled from the distance. "Space and
terrestrial forces are still poised. If we lose at all, we lose the
whole works, anyway. So let's bring them from all around the Belt, from
Earth, Venus and from wherever they'll come. Give them a place to work,
or let them start their own deal. It all helps... You know what I hear?
The Tovies are letting men do things by themselves. To hold their own in
room as big as this, they have to. Their bosses are over a barrel. Just
organized discipline ain't gonna work. A guy has to want things his own
way..."

In a more general view, doubts were sneaking up on Frank Nelsen, though
as far as KRNH was concerned, he had started the ball rolling. "We'll
keep our fingers crossed," he said.

It was only a couple of Earth-days later that another member of the old
Bunch showed up. "I had to bubb all the way from Mercury to Post One to
get your location from Art, Frankie," he complained. "Cripes--why didn't
anybody ever try to beam Gimp and me, anymore? Solar radiation ain't
_that_ hard to get past... So I had to come sneak a look for myself, to
see what the Big Deal on the grapevine is."

"We left the back door unlatched for you, Two-and-Two," Nelsen laughed.
"And you crept in quietly. Swell to see you."

Sitting showered and in fresh clothes on Frank Nelsen's sundeck, any
changes in Two-and-Two Baines were less evident than one might have
supposed. His eyes had a much surer, farther look. Otherwise he was
still the same large hulk with much the same lugubrious humor.

"Mercury's okay, Frankie," he said. "About four thousand people are
living in the Twilight Zone, already. I could show you pictures, but I
guess you know. Whole farms and little towns under stellene. Made me
some dough doing lots of the building. Could have been more, but who
cares? Oh, Gimp'll be along out here sometime, soon. He was putting up
another solar powerhouse. But he's beginning to say, what the hell, the
future ain't there, or on any planet... So this is how it's gonna be,
huh? With some additions, sure. Factories, super markets, cornfields,
pig farms, parks, playgrounds, beauty parlors, all encased in stellene,
and orbiting in clusters around the sun, eh...? 'Hey, Pop!' some s