sight he had seen
often, but never with the sense of challenge he experienced now. For
every moment brought him closer to what beyond all doubt would be the
toughest fight of his political career. But he felt that he had logic
on his side, though sentiment would very probably be against him.

He sat back, lit a cigarette, and considered the irony of the
situation. When legislation had been passed authorizing the Department
of Extraterrestrial Development to start the colony project, a list of
criteria had been drawn up for the would-be settler. It had
meticulously specified the requirements of health, intelligence, and
adaptability. And most rigidly adhered to of all had been the
provision that the applicant be over the age of twenty-five. For,
above all, it was assumed, a colonist must be mature.

And in that assumption, Duran concluded, had been hidden the fallacy
which had made a fiasco of the project. For was not maturity largely a
matter of finding an acceptable place for oneself in the scheme of
things? Was not maturity essentially a realistic, but wholly
irrevocable, resignation? If so, it had been inevitable that those who
came to volunteer would, for the most part, be the misfits and the
malcontents, men who hoped to escape the imagined or to find the
imaginary.

The mature, the resigned, had assuredly inherited the earth. Only the
young could seek the stars.

END

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