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Updated: May 20, 2025
Tegan was sitting, too, blinking at Pete as if he were a stranger, and Dorfman was trembling like a leaf. Pete stared about him through the dim light, and then looked where Tegan was pointing at the end of the room. He couldn't see it clearly, at first. Finally, he made out a raised platform with four steps leading up.
His face was bitter as he stomped across the room, then returned to shake his fist under Pete's nose. "But did you see him?" he choked. "Governor of the colony! What does he know about growing taaro in this kind of soil? Did you see those hands? Soft, dainty, pink! How could a man with hands like that govern a colony?" Pete looked over at John Tegan. "Well, John?"
Try to raise the yield for them, yes. But not a governor. If they insist on that we can throw them out, and keep them out." "I don't think so. They'd kill every one of us first." John Tegan sat up, and looked Pete Farnam straight in the eye. "In that case, Peter, it might just be better if they did." Pete stared at him for a moment and slowly stood up. "All right," he said.
And if we turn them back, there's bound to be more later." "There's a lot of planet to hide on," said Tegan. "They may come back, but after a while they'll go again." Pete nodded. "I just hope we'll still be here when they do." They waited. It seemed like hours. Pete moved from post to post among the men, heavy-faced men he had known all his life, it seemed.
"Do you see what they're doing!" he screamed. "They'll be slaughtered, every one of them!" And then he was running down the road, shouting at them to stop, and so were Pete and Tegan and the rest of the men. Something hit Pete in the shoulder as he ran. He spun around and fell into the dusty road.
The big man looked up, his eyes hollow under craggy brows. "It's below the belt, Pete. But if the government's been overthrown, then the captain is right. It leaves us out on a limb." Pete shook his head. "I can't give him an answer," he said. "The answer has got to come from the colony. All I can do is speak for the colony." Tegan stared at the floor. "We're an Earth colony," he said softly.
Now he sat on the desk in the office, moving uneasily back and forth as Pete looked up at Mario's dark face, and then across at John Tegan and Mel Dorfman. John's face was dark with anger as he ran his fingers through the heavy gray beard that fell to his chest. Mel sat stunned, shaking his head helplessly. Mario was unable to restrain himself.
He found John Tegan commandeering a squad of ten dirty-faced men. "Are the women and children all out?" he shouted. "All taken care of." Tegan spat tobacco juice, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Where's Mel?" "Left flank. He'll try to move in behind them. Gonna be tough, Pete, they've got good weapons." "What about the boys last night?"
Be so good as to examine them." Pete glanced around the room. John Tegan and Hank Mario were watching him uneasily. Mary Turner was following the proceedings with her sharp little eyes, missing nothing, and Mel Dorfman stood like a rock, his heavy face curiously expressionless as he watched the visitors.
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