leaning up the city.

And there was a lot about plans for a registration of voters, and
organization of election boards, and a local electronics-engineering
firm had been awarded a contract for voting machines. I didn't think
there had ever been a voting machine on Fenris before.

"The commander of the _Bolivar_ says he'll take your story to Terra
with him, and see that it gets to Interworld News," Dad told me as we
were sorting the corrected master sheets and loading them into the
photoprint machine, to be sent out on the air. "The _Bolivar_'ll make
Terra at least two hundred hours ahead of the _Cape Canaveral_.
Interworld will be glad to have it. It isn't often they get a story
like that with the first news of anything, and this'll be a big
story."

"You shouldn't have given me the exclusive by-line," I said. "You did
as much work on it as I did."

"No, I didn't, either," he contradicted, "and I knew what I was
doing."

With the work done, I remembered that I hadn't had anything to eat
since breakfast, and I went down to take inventory of the
refrigerator. Dad went along with me, and after I had assembled a
lunch and sat down to it, he decided that his pipe needed refilling,
lit it, poured a cup of coffee and sat down with me.

"You know, Walt, I've been thinking, lately," he began.

Oh-oh, I thought. When Dad makes that remark, in just that tone, it's
all hands to secure ship for diving.

"We've all had to do a lot of thinking, lately," I agreed.

"Yes. You know, they want me to be mayor of Port Sandor."

I nodded and waited till I got my mouth empty. I could see a lot of
sense in that. Dad is honest and scrupulous and public-spirited; too
much so, sometimes, for his own good. There wasn't any question of his
ability, and while there had always been antagonism between the
hunter-ship crews and waterfront people and the uptown business crowd,
Dad was well liked and trusted by both parties.

"Are you going to take it?" I asked.

"I suppose I'll have to, if they really want me. Be a sort of
obligation."

That would throw a lot more work on me. Dad could give some attention
to the paper as mayor, but not as much as now.

"What do you want me to try to handle for you?" I asked.

"Well, Walt, that's what I've been thinking about," he said. "I've
been thinking about it for a long time, and particularly since things
got changed around here. I think you ought to go to school some more."

That made me laug