The Army Comes To Venus
Fantastic Universe – May 1959
(1959)*
Eric Frank Russell

He was secretly surprised to find himself enjoying this spell of gallantry. But worse was to happen.

-

	In thick, cloying mist the ship moaned like a tormented ghost of monstrous size. It descended slowly, warily, feeling with invisible electronic fingers for a place in which to sit.

	Those below stood gazing up into the fog, not sensing the probing ray, seeing nothing. A bunch of hard-bitten, bearded men in oiled slickers down which moisture trickled in thin streams.

	After a little while the fog appeared to solidify into an enormous wet cylinder with a steaming end. The ship came down, touched, settled. A sluggish wave of damp earth hunched itself on either side of the curved hull.

	Airlocks opened, duralumin gangways slid forth. The bearded ones clustered closer, avid for new faces. A shock-haired, red-whiskered man was the first to emerge, staggering under the weight of numerous bags and packs, carefully feeling his way down the metal steps.

	Somebody at the back of the waiting audience let go a yell of welcome. "Old Firelip, as I live and breathe!"

	Pausing halfway down the gangway, the newcomer screwed up rheumy eyes as he sought to identify the shouter. "Duckass, no less! What made the parole board let you out?"

	Listeners grinned, immediately accepting the new arrival as one of themselves. He had the two best qualifications, namely, a ready tongue and a friend in the attending mob.

	A fat man came next, waddling down and letting his bags go bump-bump-bump from step to step as he dragged them behind. He wore three chins and an expression of moony amiability.

	"Lookie, lookie, lookie, here comes Cookie," invited a brawny roughneck.

	The others chuckled. The fat man stopped, studied the other, spoke in high-pitched but undisturbed tones. "You must have second sight, chum. A cook is just what I am."

	'Then my belly says you're two years overdue. The few gals we've got here can do everything but cook."

	"Everything ?" asked the fat man with pointed interest.

	"You try 'em sometime."

	"Maybe I will." He lumbered the rest of the way down, his kit still bumping. Anything breakable in his bags was having a run of hard luck.

	A dozen nondescripts followed, all heavily burdened with everything, but the farmhouse roof. Pioneers bearing their tiny personal worlds on their backs.

	Several ship's officers and a few of the crew came out for a gossip, a sniff of moist air, a stamp around on real, solid ground. After them followed a string of people who looked like nobody in particular and wanted to stay that way. A few had the air of still trying to thwart the systematic circulation of police photographs.

	"Where's the molar mauler?" bawled an onlooker with a lopsided face.

	"Me," responded a white-haired ancient, trying to lug four boxes at once.

	Gumboil grabbed two of them. "Good thing you've come, Pop. You've got a customer right now. One more day and I'd be off my nut."

	They moved toward the nearby shanty town. The rest of the crowd remained to watch the ship; they were bored by frontier solitude and thankful for a petty event.

	A person who oozed officialdom showed himself at the airlock, stared out with cold authority. Characteristically, they bristled at the sight of him. He went inside and did not reappear. It wasn't six months since they had pulled a would-be tax collector to pieces.

	Several sluggards emerged, one dragging a pack resembling a tightly wrapped haystack. Half a dozen witnesses helped get it down amid a shower of wisecracks concerning weak bladders and portable comfort stations. The owner registered acute embarrassment.

	Two girls came from the airlock, suddenly silencing the wits. They were full-lipped, full-busted, had brilliant eyes and emphatic hips. Both were bottle-blondes. A distinct sigh of gratification ran through the audience. The girls put op knowing smirks, revealed white teeth. They tripped down the gangway with dainty steps and beckoning backsides. Four of the crew toted their bags, surrendered them to eager helpers.

	"Annie's place?"

	The girls nodded, giggled, weighed up the hungry clientele. Two barrel-chested men indulged in an acrimonious shoving match for the right to carry a bag on which both had laid hands simultaneously. They solved the problem by bearing it between them, giving alternate tugs to tear it from each other at every tenth step.

-

	Came a pause while the cargo-hatch opened, a long-armed crane swung out, began to lower boxes and crates. A few of the crowd shifted position to get a better view of the unloading.

	Another girl appeared, accompanied by a ship's officer. She was vastly different from her bosomy predecessors: small, slender, oval-faced and cool. Her black hair was natural, her equally black eyes not glassy, her expression slightly wistful instead of hard and brassy. Carefully the officer helped her down the steps, shook hands with her at the bottom.

	"G'wan, kiss her, you dummy," advised a hoarse voice.

	"Sailors don't care," commented another.

	"Love 'em and leave 'em," added a third.

	For a moment the officer looked as if he would like to make something of it. He hesitated, glowered at the ribald crowd to their immense satisfaction. Then he whispered anxiously to the girl, apparently questioning the wisdom of her remaining alone on this world. She smiled at him, shook her head.

	"Not tonight, Cuthbert," jeered an onlooking tough.

	"You've had your share," urged another. "Don't be greedy."

	"Give real men a chance," suggested somebody else.

	Several chortled at that sally, their tones loud and coarse. One smacked his lips in exaggerated anticipation. The officer lingered awhile, reluctant to go, but finally mounted the gangway and went into the ship. His expression was worried.

	Left to herself, the girl surveyed the hairy mob with calm self-possession. They returned the compliment, taking in her slender legs, narrow hips, dark hair. They undressed her with their eyes and liked what they saw.

	'You doing anything tonight, Honey-babe?" inquired a bear disguised as a man.

	"You wait your turn, Bulstrode," ordered a scar-faced neighbor. He spat on thick, calloused fingers, combed his hair and straightened an invisible tie. "This one is for gentlemen only." He leered with undisguised appetite at the subject of his remarks. "Isn't that so, Luscious?"

	"All men are gentlemen." She looked at Bulstrode with a kind of dark-eyed innocence. "When they wish to be."

	Bulstrode's optics dulled and his huge fingers twitched while he digested this. It took him quite a time. When he spoke again it was with an apologetic rumble.

	"I was only kidding, Ma'am. I sort of thought—"

	"She isn't interested, you hairy ape," interjected Scarface. "So don't waste breath advertising your ignorance." He rubbed his bristly chin and gave another pull to the non-existent tie. "Can I carry your stuff to Annie's place, Lovebird?"

	Shuffling slowly around on big, cumbersome feet, Bulstrode faced him and growled, "What makes you think she's heading for Annie's? Why, you slit-cheeked, ragged-eared louse!" Extending a spade-sized hand he spread it across the other's unhandsome features, curled his fingers and squeezed.

	The victim gurgled convulsively behind the horny palm, made frantic pulls at the thick wrist, finally kicked him good and hard on the shin. It sounded like kicking a tree.

	Taking no notice, Bulstrode began lo twist the face leftward, bending him sidewise.

	"Stop that," ordered the girl.

	Still holding on, Bulstrode turned a surprised face over a massive shoulder. "Hey?"

	"Stop it," she repeated. "You wouldn't behave that way in your own home."

	Bulstrode removed his grip and started examining his hand as if he had never seen it before. His opponent made snuffling noises, voiced a lurid oath and let go a haymaker. The angry fist caught the big man smack on the chin, rattling his teeth but not knocking him down.

	Sweeping a columnar arm around in the manner of one brushing away a persistent fly, Bulstrode pleaded, "Look, lady, just you go take a nice, quiet walk while I slaughter this jerk."

	"Don't be silly." Her dark eyes reproved the pair of them. "You're like a couple of overgrown children. You don't even know what you're squabbling about—do you?"

	They stared at her dully, not answering.

	"Do you?" she insisted.

	A tall, gray-haired individual spoke from the front rank of the vastly entertained audience. "You're not on the home planet now. This is Venus and don't you forget it. Terra never comes nearer than thirty million miles."

	"Home is as near as your memory says it is," she contradicted.

	"You may be right. But some of us haven't got so darned much worth, remembering." He paused, finished without bitterness, "That's why we're here."

	"Speak for yourself, Marsden," chipped in a squat, swarthy man standing behind Km. "I'm here to make money and make it fast."

	"I'm here because I love the sunshine," yelled a satirical voice from the rear.

	Some laughed, some didn't. All glanced upward at the fog which permitted visibility to no more than two hundred feet. Once in a while it lifted to two thousand. Often it descended in a thick, cloying mass to ground level. Moisture condensed on their slickers and ran down in tiny rivulets. The girl's black hair sparkled with diamonds of wetness.

	"If you're not going to Annie's," continued Marsden, "you'll have to find someplace else." A contemptuous sweep of his hand indicated her choice of six or seven hundred wooden shacks. "Take a look at what's on offer."

	"No place for a girl like you," informed Bulstrode, trying to ingratiate himself and eyeing her like an elephant hoping for a cracker.

	"Thank you, but I knew what to expect. I was well-primed in advance." She smiled at them. "So I brought my own home with me."

	Turning away, she tripped light-footed toward the ship's tail-end where cargo was piling up as the long-armed crane swung to and fro. Presently those on the ship dropped a ramp and rolled, down it a small aluminum trailer with two wheels amidships.

	"Oh, ye gods!" griped a snaggle-toothed onlooker, openly disappointed. "I'm the only guy on the planet with a pneumatic mattress. And what's it to her?"

	"If they're going to start transporting them homes and all," complained another, "it'll be the beginning of the end. Before you know it, this town will become too big for its boots."

	"Which town?" asked a third, gazing around and pretending to see nothing.

-

	Marsden saw her at her door three days later. Leaning on one of the hardwood posts that somebody had driven in to mark the limits of her property, he let his calculating gaze rest on the trailer, decided that what hung behind the facing window were the first lace curtains he'd seen in many years.

	"Getting settled down?"

	"Yes, thank you. I've been very busy. Unpacking and sorting things out takes quite a time,"

	"I suppose so. Has nobody helped you?"

	"I didn't need any help."

	"You may want plenty before you're through." He tilted his hat backward, went on, "Anyone bothered you yet?"

	"Dear me, no. Why should they?"

	"This is a man's town."

	Looking as if she hadn't the vaguest notion of what he meant, she said, "Then why don't they give it a name?"

	"A name? What's the use of a name? It isn't enough of a dump to deserve one. Besides, it's the only settlement on Venus. There isn't any other—yet Anyway, names cause arguments and arguments start fights."

	"If they'll quarrel over the mere question of what to call this town it's evident that they haven't enough to do."

	"When they're in the mood to let off steam they'll fight over anything. What else do you expect on the frontier?"

	She did not answer,

	"And they've plenty to keep them busy," he continued with a touch of harshness. "They're gnawing into a mountain of white granite that contains thirty pounds of niobium to the ton. It's mighty useful for high tensile and stainless steels. Also they're building a narrow-gauge railroad eastward to a deposit of pitchblende that makes a Geiger-counter chatter like a machine gun." He rubbed his lips with a thick and slightly dirty forefinger. "Yes, they work hard, swear hard, drink hard and fight hard."

	"There are other things as much worth fighting for."

	"Such as what?"

	"This town, for instance."

	"A cluster of tumbledown shanties. A haphazard array of smelly cabins. You call it a town?"

	"It will be a real one some day."

	"I can imagine." Marsden displayed a knowing grin. "Exactly as the boys would like it. Complete with city hall, police stations and a high-walled jail." He spat in the dirt to show what he thought of this prospect "A good many of them came here to get away from all that Do you know that at least forty per cent of them have served prison sentences?"

	"I don't see that it matters much."

	"Don't you?" He was slightly surprised. "Why not?"

	"Men who are really evil prefer to take things easy."

	"Meaning—?"

	"Those who've seen fit to come this far must have done so to make a fresh start with a clean sheet. They'd be stupid to make a mess of their lives a second time."

	"Some people are made that way," he informed.

	"And some make them that way," she retorted.

	"Oh, God, a reformer." He showed disgust. "What's your name?"

	"Miranda Dean."

	"Well, it could be worse."

	"What d'you mean?"

	"It could be Dolly Doberhorst."

	"Who on earth is she?"

	"An obese charmer round at Annie's." He studied her figure., "Some fellows like 'em fat And some don't"

	"Really?" She seemed quite unconscious of his meaning or of the trace of appetite in his eyes. "I'd better carry on with more chores else they'll never be done. Pardon me, won't you?" 

	"Sure."

	He watched her enter the trailer but did not continue on his way. He remained leaning on the post, picking his teeth with a thin stalk of grass and thinking that she'd be very much to his taste without her clothes. Yes, she'd be clean and wholesome, not painted and gross like the others. For a short time he continued to exercise his masculine privilege of pondering delightful possibilities until suddenly he became aware of a huge bulk looming at his side.

	Bulstrode followed his gaze and challenged, "What's the idea, staring at her place like that? You thinking of busting in?"

	"You wouldn't dream of it, of course?"

	"No, I wouldn't."

	"Don't give me that. Females are females. She's merely playing hard to get. And you're a liar, anyway."

	"That's enough for me," said Bulstrode, speaking low in his chest. "Take off that coat so I can start mauling your meat."

	"You'd better not get tough with me, Muscle-bound." Marsden protruded a pocket significantly. "Because."

	"There now, you've got a gun. Isn't that nice?" Bulstrode shuffled around to face him. "Like to know something ?"

	"What?"

	"I just don't give a damn."

	With that he thrust out a hairy paw, arrested it halfway as Miranda Dean reappeared and came toward them. Lowering the paw, he tried to hide it in the manner of a kid caught fooling with a prohibited slingshot. Marsden relaxed, took his hand from his pocket.

	Reaching them, she said brightly, "I thought you boys might appreciate these." Smiling at each in turn, she bestowed a couple of little black books and returned to her trailer.

	Taking one look at what he'd got, Marsden groaned, "Holy Moses, a prayer-book."

	"With hymns," confirmed Bulstrode on a note of complete incredulity.

	"A religious nut," said Marsden. "I knew she'd have a flaw somewhere. Nobody's perfect."

	"Hymns," repeated Bulstrode with the air of one whose idol has revealed feet of clay. His beefy features registered confusion.

	"What a laugh," Marsden went on. "When Annie hears about this she'll roll all over the floor."

	"It's no business of Annie's," asserted Bulstrode, feeling belligerent for no reason that he could understand.

	Jerking an indicative thumb toward the trailer, Marsden opined, "It's going to be. Sooner or later she will make it Annie's business. I know that kind of crackpot. I've met 'em before. They can't leave well enough alone. Stick their noses into everyone's affairs. They think it's their ordained mission in life to improve everything and everybody."

	"Maybe some of us could do with it," Bulstrode suggested.

	"Speak for yourself," advised Marsden scornfully. "A shave, a haircut and a bath and you'd rise almost to subhuman level." His tones hardened. "But this is a free world. Why should you wash or shave if you don't want to?"

	"It's honest dirt," said Bulstrode, giving him a retaliatory stare. "Soap and water can take it off—which is more than it could do for your mind."

	"Suffering saints, that holy tome must be working on you already. Throw it away before it takes hold."

	He set the example by tossing his own book into a bank of tall weeds. Bulstrode promptly retrieved it.

	"If we don't want them we ought to give them back to her. She may have paid good money for them."

	"All right," said Marsden with malicious anticipation. "You go tell her to put them where the monkey put the nuts, I'll stay here and watch the fun."

	"I'll keep them." Bulstrode crammed them into a hind pocket. "I'll hand them back to her some time when I'm passing."

	Marsden smiled to himself as he let the other amble away. Then he favored the trailer with another speculative stare before he departed in the opposite direction.

	The ship lifted in the late afternoon of the third day, groaned high in the dank, everlasting fog and was gone toward the mother planet that no ma" on Venus could see. A sister ship was due in about six weeks' time and another two months afterward. In the intervals between such visits those who remained were a primitive community vastly marooned beneath perpetual cloud.

-

	Miranda went out for her first sight-seeing stroll that same evening. It was pleasant enough because the vaporous blanket came no lower with the night, the air was rich with oxygen which clung to the lower levels although absent from the upper strata. All around were strong plant-odors and the area held comforting warmth.

	Here and there amid the sprawl of shacks gleamed many lights served by a small generating-station astride a rushing stream three miles away. Quite a blaze of illumination came from one building midway along the straggling and badly rutted main street.

	She walked slowly into this slovenly town whose citizens thought it unworthy even of naming. She noted the rickety fence around somebody's clapboard, one-room hovel and, nearby, the pathetic remnants of a tiny garden soon started and as soon abandoned. One Earth-rose still battled for life amid an unruly mob of Venusian growths intent upon strangling the stranger from afar.

	To her right a larger, three-roomed erection had a dilapidated shop-front with a wire screen in lieu of precious glass, a few rusting hammers, saws, chisels, pliers and other oddments exhibited behind. In the middle of this display stood a crudely lettered sign reading: Haircut $1.00. Beard Trim 40¢. What she had seen of the inhabitants made her wonder whether this sign had ever attracted a customer.

	Farther along she came to the extraordinarily well-lit building from which came the noise of fifty or more raucous voices and occasional bursts of song. By local standards it was a large edifice, built mainly of peeled logs and noteworthy for having windows of real glass. Somebody must have paid a fancy price to import those transparent sheets.

	Over the door hung a big board bearing neat, precise letters from which condensation dripped steadily.

-
ANNIE'S PLACE
Anna M. Jones, Prop.
-

	A burly, rubber-booted man trudged along the street, paused outside the door, examined Miranda curiously. He was a complete stranger to her and she to him.

	"What's wrong, Sweetie? Annie gone bad on you?"

	She eyed him in calm silence. 

	"Not deaf, are you?" 

	"No," she said.

	"Then why don't you answer a civil question?"

	"I didn't consider it civil."

	"So that's the way it is, eh?" He gave a thin scowl. "One of those finicky tarts. Like to pick and choose." He shrugged broad, damp shoulders. "You'll come to your senses eventually."

	"So will you."

	"You'll change before you're through with this life."

	"Don't we all?" she offered sweetly.

	"Not the way we want," he countered.

	"The way God wants," she said.

	"Jumping Joseph, don't give me that stuff!"

	With a loud sniff of contempt he went inside. The noise from the place boosted and sank as the door opened and shut. A waft of air puffed forth loaded with strong tobacco, strong booze and sweat.

	Under one of the windows lay an empty crate. Mounting it, Miranda raised herself on tiptoe and glanced inside. Not for long. Just for a brief moment but somewhat in the manner of a general studying the field of battle. It sufficed to show the expected scene of tables, chairs, bottles and eight or nine blowsy women. And even a piano.

	Thirty million miles. Every pound, every ounce had to be hauled a minimum of thirty million miles and often much more. So they didn't have this and they didn't have that—but they did have brewing facilities and a piano.

	Well, she couldn't blame them for it. All work and no play adds up to a miserable existence. This was a man's world and men needed an outlet. Annie was supplying the demand. Annie was giving them light and laughter plus girls to whom nothing was too hot or too heavy.

	But sooner or later men would discover that they had other needs, if not today then tomorrow or the day after, or next month, or next year. It would be for Miranda rather than for Annie to supply those.

	This was a world in the earliest pangs of birth. Astrophysics was the skilled midwife but the fidgeting father was Ordinary Humanity. The world was destined to grow up no matter how reluctant to escape its easy-going, irresponsible childhood.

	And it would grow up, become big and civilized, truly a world in its own right. The test of civilization is its capacity for satisfying individual needs, all needs, sober or sodden, sensible or crazy, the need for darkness or light, noise or silence, joy or tears, heaven or hell, salvation or damnation. The adult world would have room for opposites of everything — including Annie and her ilk.

	Hurriedly returning to her trailer, Miranda extracted something from its small case, returned to Annie's place nursing the object in her hands. Except for the tinkling of its piano, the building was silent as she neared. Then suddenly a chorus of hoarse, powerful voices roared into catchy song that shook the door and rattled the windows.

-
Anna Maria, Anna Maria, Anna Maria Jones, 
She's the queen of the tamborine, the banjo and the bones; 
Rootitoot she plays the flute in a fascinating manner, 
Pinkety-pong she runs along the keys of the grand pianner, 
Rumpety-tum she bangs the drum with very superior tones, 
Anna Maria, Anna Maria, Anna Maria Jones!
-

	They howled the last three words at the very tops of their voices and followed with much hammering upon tables and stamping of feet. Then came an anticipatory quietness as they awaited a response from the subject of their song.

	Outside the door Miranda promptly snatched this noiseless pause, stretched her little concertina, made it emit a drone of opening chords, and commenced to sing in a high, sweet voice. The tune was fully as catchy, in fact it had a definite boogey beat, but the words were different—something about Hallelujah, Christ the King.

	Within the building a chair got knocked over, a glass was smashed. There sounded a mutter of many voices and several coarse oaths. a crimson-faced, tousel-haired man jerked open the door and stared at Miranda.

	"Jeez!" he said, blinking. "Jeez!"

	Several more joined this dumbfounded onlooker, pressing around him or peering over his shoulders. They were too petrified with amazement to think up suitable remarks. Eventually they parted to make way for one of Annie's girls, a startlingly overdeveloped female with hennaed hair and a revealing frock.

	Crinkling heavily pencilled eyebrows at the singer, the newcomer said in hard, brittle tones, "Beat it, you fool!"

	"Haw-haw!" chortled the tousel-haired man, willing to extract the most from this diversion. "What's the matter, Ivy? You afraid of competition?"

	"From that?" Ivy let go a snort of disgust. "Don't talk crazy."

	"Oh, I don't know," he said, slyly baiting her. "Annie could use a young and slender one, just for a pleasant change."

	"Not a blasted hymn-howler, she couldn't," contradicted Ivy with much positiveness. "And neither could you. Get wise to yourself. You're no scented Adonis."

	"Off your knees, Slade," advised one of the others, trying to add fuel to the flames. "Ivy's got you down and she's counting you out."

	"Wouldn't be the first time," grinned Slade, giving Ivy a you-know-what-I-mean look.

	"Shut up," snapped Ivy irritably. She glared at Miranda. "Are you going to quit yawping or not?"

	Miranda sang on, apparently oblivious to everything.

	Exhibiting a fat fist ornamented with six rings in which zircons did duty as diamonds, Ivy rasped, "Shuffle off before I hammer you in the teeth. I'm not telling you again."

	Adding a couple more decibels to the volume, Miranda poured her hymn through the open door.

	Ivy's ample bosom heaved, her face flushed, her eyes glinted. "All right, Misery, you've asked for it. If the fellows won't close your sanctimonious trap, I will!"

	So saying she stepped forward, intent on mayhem. Slade grabbed at her and got her big arm, his badly gnawed fingers sinking into the puffy flesh.

	"Now, now, Ivy, take it easy."

	"Let go of me," ordered Ivy in dangerous tones.

	Miranda continued blithely to sing. For good measure she laid it in the groove with a couple of hot licks on the concertina.

	"Take your paw off my arm, you smelly tramp," bawled Ivy, crimson with fury.

	"Be a lady," suggested Slade, hanging on to her. "Just for once."

	That did it. Ivy's rage switched its aim forthwith.

	"What d'you mean, just for once?" Swinging her free arm she walloped him over the ear. The blow was intended to knock his head off but he had seen it coming and rocked with it.

	"Haw, haw, haw!" laughed a bearded, onlooker, holding his belly.

	"Come take the keys to the Kingdom," trilled Miranda. "Hallelujah! Hallelujah!"

	Still employing her unhampered arm, Ivy now smacked the bearded laugher clean in the whiskers. He sat down suddenly and hard, still chortling fit to choke. Several more cackled with him. Ivy hauled furiously against Slade's grip and voiced vitriolic imprecations.

	"Ivy!" called a sharp, authoritative voice from somewhere inside.

	"Look, Annie," hollered Ivy, "there's a dizzy dame out here and—"

	"What's it to me?" inquired the voice acidly. "For the love of Moses come in and shut that door-—the fresh air is killing us."

	Loud guffaws greeted that sally. Ivy forced herself to simmer down sufficiently to obey, throwing Miranda a look of sudden death before she went inside. The others followed, openly regretting this swift end to the fun. The door closed with a contemptuous bang.

	Miranda finished her singing and commenced addressing a speech to thin air. After four minutes of this an old frontiersman came creakily along the street, paused to look her over, stopped to listen. A bit later he removed his hat and held it in one hand. He was a scrawny specimen with clear blue eyes set in a face resembling an aged and badly wrinkled apple. For reasons best known to himself he did not consider it at all strange that a young woman should take time off to preach to a non-existent congregation.

	In fact when she reached the end he wheezed an underbreath, "Amen!" watched her tuck the concertina under one arm and head homeward. After she had gone he remained hat in hand for quite a time before he planted it on his head and mooched ruminatively on his way.

-

	From that time onward Miranda's singing became a regular evening performance. Sometimes she took her stand at one end of die potholed main street, sometimes at the other, and every now and again it was squarely in front of Annie's place.

	Gradually the oldster made it a habit to provide her with a one-man audience, standing not too near, not too far off, watching her with bright blue eyes and never uttering a word other than the final, "Amen!" It wasn't inborn piety coming out in later years, it wasn't sympathy with the spirit of rebellion, it wasn't his way of protesting against things that are as distinct from things that ought to be. It was nothing more than the urge to cheer on a little dog fighting a big one.

	Passers-by treated Miranda in three different ways. Some stared blankly ahead and refused to acknowledge her existence. Some threw her the brief, pitying glance one bestows on a village imbecile. The majority grinned and made her the target of coarse witticisms, always malicious and often cruel, opining loudly that religious mania is the natural result of chronic virginity. She never changed color, never winced, never permitted a barb to sink in.

	Once in a while the latter type had a go at heckling her speeches, taunting her with unseemly parodies, filling in her pauses with bawdy wisecracks or giving her the nock-support of mock-piety. Her one loyal listener resented these tactics but held his peace and remained content to pose nearby, hat in hand.

	There came a night when a burly, blue-jowled drunk dreamed up the ultimate insult. He stood on the boardwalk swaying and blearing all through the sermon, wiping glazed, out-of-focus eyes with the back of a hairy hand and belching loudly whenever she ended a sentence. Then when she had finished he turned to the oldster and ostentatiously tossed a coin into his hat. With a violent burp and an airy wave of his hand he staggered into Annie's place followed by three or four appreciative witnesses.

	Gazing angrily into his hat, his blue eyes burning, the old frontiersman said, "See that? The boozey bum flung us a nickel. What'll I do with it?"

	"Give it to me." Miranda extended an eager palm.

	He passed it over like one in a dream. "Mean to say you'll actually take money from a no-good sot?"

	"I would accept it from the Devil himself." She stuck the coin in a pocket. "We can use it for God's work."

	"We?" He misunderstood her use of the plural, thought it over, eventually mumbled, "Maybe you're right. Money is money no matter how you get it." Then he had another long think, screwing up his wizened features while he wrestled with a personal problem. Reaching a decision, he moved across, stood beside her shoulder to shoulder and held out his hat invitingly.

	"Would you care to sing with me?" she asked, squeezing an opening chord.

	"No, Ma'am. I've got a hell of a voice. Just let me be as I am."

	"All right." She closed her eyes, opened her mouth and jazzed up a fast one about marching, marching until we come to the Golden Gates.

	Ten minutes later a hurrying, self-conscious man reacted to the offer of the extended hat, threw a dime into it, cast a sacred glance around and beat it from the scene of the crime.

-

	She had been on Venus exactly eight weeks. Another ship had come and gone. By now the community glumly accepted that it had a harmless lunatic in its midst.

	Digging the little plot outside her trailer early one day, she paused to rest, rubbed the blistered palm of her right hand, glanced up and found a plump, frowsy-looking girl surveying her speculatively.

	"Good morning," greeted Miranda, smiling.

	"Morning," responded the other shortly and after some hesitation.

	"It's nice to meet another woman," Miranda went on. "There are so few of us and so many men around."

	"Don't I know it!" gave back the plump girl with subtle meaning. She looked warily up and down the street, eyed the trailer, seemed undecided whether or not to linger.

	"Would you care to come inside" Miranda invited. "There's coffee and cakes and I'm starving for a gossip and—"

	"I'm Dolly," chipped in the other, saying it with the air of begging pardon for a skunk in her purse.

	"How nice. My name is Miranda." Dumping the spade, she went to the trailer, opened its door.

	"I work at Annie's," announced Dolly, making no move.

	"That must be very interesting. I'd love you to tell me all about it."

	Registering a fat scowl, Dolly demanded, "Are you making fun of me?"

	"Good gracious, no."

	"They make plenty of you."

	"I'm used to it."

	"I'm not," said Dolly. She had another uneasy look up and down the street, added, "Hell of a place."

	"If you'd care to come in, please do."

	"I guess I will." She advanced as if breasting an invisible tide. "I've gone past caring, see?" Entering, she flopped onto a pneumatic seat, studied her surroundings with frank curiosity. "Nice little joint you've got here."

	"Thank you. I'm so glad you like it." Pumping her kerosene stove, Miranda lit it and adjusted the flame.

	"Damnsight better than my flea-trap. Everyone says you're cracked. H'm! It sure looks like it. This holy biz must pay off."

	"It does."

	"So I see," said Dolly with a touch of malice. Her eyes narrowed. "Where's the catch?"

	Miranda turned to look at her, coffee percolator in hand. "I'm afraid I don't understand."

	"Nobody makes a bad cent without surrendering their heart's blood for it one way or another," informed Dolly. "You have got to give in order to receive. What's your sacrifice?"

	"Nothing much. Only my life, such as it is." Capping the percolator, Miranda placed it on the stove, asked with deceptively casual interest, "What do you give?"

	"Shut up!" snapped Dolly savagely. She rocked to and fro, nursing a cheap and clumsy purse on her lap and staring down at her big knees. She did this for quite a time. Then without warning she harshed, "I'm damn sick of it!" and burst into tears.

	Taking no notice, Miranda continued to busy herself with various tasks in the tiny kitchen and left her visitor to howl it out. Dolly shook and sobbed, blindly feeling for a handkerchief. Finally she stood up, tear-stained and full of embarrassment.

	"I'd better be going."

	"Oh, not now, surely. The coffee is just about ready."

	"I've made a prize fool of myself."

	"Nonsense. A woman is entitled to a good cry once in a while." Taking little cakes from a cupboard, Miranda arranged them on a flowered plate. "Makes one feel lots better sometimes."

	"How the blazes do you know?" Dolly sat down again, dabbed the corners of her eyes, stared at the cakes. "Bet you've never bawled bloody murder."

	"I did the day my father died."

	"Oh." She swallowed hard, examined thick, unmanicured fingers, said after a long pause, "I don't remember my old man."

	"How sad." Miranda poured the coffee.

	"And not so much of my mother either," continued Dolly morbidly reminiscent. "I ran away from her when I was fifteen. She didn't think I was cut out to be a great actress. But I knew better, see?"

	"Yes, I see."

	"So I pranced around in the chorus line of a crummy road-show and that's as far as I got. The years rolled on, I couldn't keep my hips down and slowly but surely I was shoved toward the breadline by younger kids as daft as I had been. So ... so ... a girl has to do someihing, hasn't she?"

	"Most certainly," agreed Miranda. "Will you try one of these cakes. I made them myself last night."

	"Thanks." Dolly took a large bite, choked with emotion, blew her nose and said, "I went the way of all flesh, if you know what I mean. I got pawed around and kicked about something awful. But at least I ate. Thank God my mother never knew about it—she'd have died of shame."

	Miranda, wisely, offered no comment.

	"I finished up here with Annie. Sort of wanted to get away from everything over there." Dolly used her piece of cake to point more or less Earthward. "Now I'd go back on the next ship if there was anything for me to make it worth the going. But there isn't. Not for me. I picked this lousy, godforsaken dump and I'm stuck with it for keeps."

	"Well, there is plenty for a woman to do here," opined Miranda, sipping her coffee.

	"You're dead right there is—and I'm fed up doing it. What else is there?"

	"This town will want hundreds of things as time rolls on. It can't grow without them."

	"Such as what?" Dolly persisted skeptically.

	"Just for a start, a little laundry might be a good idea."

	"A laundry?" Dolly was reluctant to believe her ears. "The few girls do their own washing. The men don't wash at all. Who the blazes wants a laundry?"

	"The men," said Miranda. "Obviously."

	"Who'd operate it?" challenged Dolly, changing her angle of attack.

	"We two."

	She dropped her piece of cake, fumbled around for it, retrieved it and stared wide-eyed at Miranda. "Mean to say you really think I'd get busy scrubbing clothes for a living?" She gave an unconvincing sniff. "I wouldn't sink so low."

	"I would."

	"Then why don't you?"

	"I intend to." Miranda indicated a couple of large packing cases looming outside the window. "One plastic tent and one fully automatic washing-machine. All I need is power. They're fixing me up with an electricity supply tomorrow."

	"You've got a nerve," said Dolly. "Christ, you've got a nerve!"

	"Haven't you?"

	Standing up, Dolly prowled restlessly around the small space, gazed a couple of times at the packing cases, scowled and muttered to herself, mooched to and fro. After a while she said, "Don't tempt me."

	"Why not?"

	"Annie would sling me out on my neck. Either I work for her or I don't. Besides, I'd have no place to sleep."

	"This is a two-berth trailer."

	"So what?" Dolly let her hands flap around as if she didn't know what to do with them. "You don't need a haybag like me."

	"Everybody is needed by someone," said Miranda gently. "Everybody."

	"You're only saying that."

	"It's the truth, all the same. Don't you believe me?"

	"I'd like to. It isn't easy."

	"It should be," Miranda mused. "I've never found any difficulty in believing the things I want to believe."

	Ignoring that remark, Dolly again ambled round and round the tiny floor-space. "By God!" she said. "By God!"

	"Besides," added Miranda for good measure, "we'd be helped quite a piece."

	"Oh, yes? By whom?"

	"By God."

	Dolly flinched and snapped back, "We'll be on the skids with anyone less than God Almighty."

	"All that's required of us is courage. One can still have that when one has nothing else."

	"You're the kind of loony yap who can talk your way into anything and talk your way eut of it again," observed Dolly. She reached a reluctant decision, shrugged plump shoulders. "Looks like you are touched in the head and you've made me that way too. Anyway, you've got company. If you can get away with it why shouldn't I?"

	"Like another coffee?" Miranda reached for the cup.

-

	They were having a hopeless struggle with the tent next morning when Bulstrode came along, joined the fray, pitted his brute strength against unruly folds of plastic Between the three of them they erected it, pegged its stays, fixed it good and tight.

	"Anything more?" inquired Bulstrode, brushing his hands.

	"I hardly like to trouble you," said Miranda, her gaze straying toward the other crate.

	"Think nothing of it," he assured, secretly surprised to find himself enjoying this spell of gallantry. It lent him a special air of proprietorship. Breaking the crate open, he dragged the machine into the tent, looked it over, asked, "What's the use of this gadget with nothing to drive it?"

	"We're having power laid on this afternoon and water tonight," Miranda explained. "Tomorrow, you'll see, this will be the M and D Laundry."

	"The whatta?"

	"The Miranda and Dolly Laundry."

	"I've been wondering what you were doing here," said Bulstrode, giving Dolly an incredulous onceover. "Don't tell me you're in this?"

	"Any objections, Hamface?" demanded Dolly aggressively.

	"No business of mine," he said, backing away fast.

	"Thank you so much," put in Miranda. "We could never have coped without your help."

	"It was a pleasure." He glowered around in search of witnesses, truculently ready to prove his hardness to any who might accuse him of becoming soft. There were none in sight. He lumbered away and they heard him growl underbreath as he went, "A laundry—holy mackerel!"

-

	Staring after the burly figure, Dolly said wonderingly, "What made that muscle-bound bum pitch in?"

	"We needed him," said Miranda.

	Dolly stewed it over, responded quietly, "I'm beginning to think you've got something."

	"Do you feel it strongly enough to come out with me this evening?"

	"Out with you?" She showed, puzzlement swiftly followed by uneasiness. "Singing in the street?"

	"Yes."

	"Nothing doing." Dolly waved agitated hands. "Don't ask me that! I've given Annie the brush-off and come in with you on this crazy stunt but don't ask me that!"

	"What's wrong with it?"

	"There's nothing wrong, I suppose," admitted Dolly, her alarm increasing by leaps and bounds. "It's not the sort of tiling I care to do."

	"Afraid they'll laugh at you?" 

	"And how! They'll bellow until their buttons fly off."

	"They don't do that to me," Miranda mentioned.

	"That's because ...  because—" 

	"Because what?"

	"You've been around quite a time. They know you're off your head and they're tired of making the most of it. A joke wears thin when it's used again and again and again. They've come to the point of accepting you as you are."

	"That's true, Dolly. It always happens if you are sufficiently determined, if you stick it out long enough. And it can happen to you too."

	"I'm in no mood to try." Her voice went up a couple of notes. "I've been the plaything of boozey apes too long to make myself the target of their cheap sneers now. Don't shove me further than I want to go. Enough is enough."

	"All right. You don't mind me leaving you by yourself for a couple of hours?"

	"Mind? Why should I? Nothing can happen to me that hasn't happened fifty times. Besides, I'm not a kid. You go do your holy serenading. I'll tidy the place and have supper ready for when you come back."

	"Thank you. It will be nice to return to someone." Miranda smiled at her, added, "I'm glad to have you with me. I'm really glad."

	"Oh, cut it out," said Dolly, deeply embarrassed.

	And so that evening one remained in the trailer and absorbed the long-forgotten atmosphere of a home while the other took the concertina into town.

	The wrinkled oldster was waiting as now he invariably did. By this time Miranda had learned his name: James Hanford. But that was all she knew of him.

	"Good evening, Jimmy," she greeted.

	"Good evening, Miss Dean," he responded solemnly.

	Then he stood beside her at the kerb and held out his tattered hat while she began to sing. The collection amounted to one quarter, one nickel and one worthless brass slug.

-

	There sounded an imperative knock at the trailer door in the midafternoon of next day. Answering, Miranda found a tall, stately woman waiting outside. The visitor appeared to be in her late fifties, with white, regal-looking hair and intelligent but arrogant features.

	"Good afternoon," said Miranda, a trifle primly.

	"That depends on what one makes of it," answered the other in sharp, cynical tones. She subjected Miranda to a careful examination with dark gray eyes that had seen more than enough. "May I come in?"

	"Please do,"

	"Thank you." Entering, the visitor glanced around with begrudging approval, announced, "Doubtless you have heard of me. I am Annie." Her cultured voice held sour humor as she added, "Once known as Anytime Annie. But that was long ago."

	"How interesting," said Miranda. "Do sit down."

	"I prefer to stand." Again she had a look over the trailer. "H'm! Quite domesticated. Where is Dolly?"

	"Outside. Working in the tent."

	"So she really is here?" said Annie, in the manner of one confirming a ridiculous rumor. "Why has she left me?"

	"She's ambitious."

	"A clever answer," Annie conceded. "I admire you for it. You must be smarter than they say."

	"Thank you so much."

	"In which direction do her ambitions lie?"

	"We've started a laundry."

	"A laundry?" Annie's well-plucked eyebrows lifted a fraction. "Do you think you're a couple of Chinks?"

	"I presume you mean Chinese?"

	"That's right."

	"Do we look like Chinese?"

	"Dolly is and always has been far too stupid to know what's good for her," went on Annie, evading the point.

	"But you are so much wiser?"

	"I ought to be, my dear. Much as I hate to admit it, I am old enough to be her mother. I have been around for quite a spell. One learns a lot of things through the passing years."

	"I should hope so," Miranda gave back fervently. "It must be terrible to learn them all too late."

	Annie winced, recovered. "You have a quick tongue." She waved a hand to indicate the surroundings. "I think you could do better for yourself than this."

	"I'm quite happy."

	"Of course you are. You have youth on your side. The days of disillusionment have yet to come. But they will, they will!"

	"I doubt it," observed Miranda. "My line of business is vastly different from yours. I find it rather satisfying."

	"Clothes scrubbing and hymn howling," scoffed Annie, displaying a wealth of contempt. "Any incurable cretin could do either." She brushed the subject aside. "But I have not come here to waste time on profitless argument. All I want is a word with Dolly."

	"Very well." Sliding the window to one side, Miranda called toward the tent. "Dolly! Dolly!"

-

	In short time Dolly arrived, scowled at the sight of who was waiting for her, demanded, "What do you want?"

	"You!" informed Annie succinctly. "It's plenty hard enough to drag girls all the way here without them going temperamental on me afterwards. So collect your clothes and your scattered wits and come back where you belong."

	"You can go to hell," said Dolly.

	"Someday I shall—according to those peculiarly well-informed." Annie threw a brief, sardonic smile toward Miranda. "But that time is not yet. Meanwhile, you will continue to work for me." 

	"I'm not your slave. Why should I?"

	"Because I picked you out of the gutter and that's where you're heading right now."

	"That is a statement of opinion rather than of fact," Miranda put in.

	"I'll thank you to keep out of this," Annie retorted. "You have meddled enough." She returned attention to Dolly. "Well, are you going to see reason or not?"

	"I don't want to go back."

	"You will, in your own good time. And then I won't take you. Not at any price. You could starve to death on my doorstep and I wouldn't bother to toss you a crumb. So it's now or never." She studied the other calculatingly. "Opportunity is knocking for the last time. You can return to me or stay here and rot."

	"I'm staying."

	"Very well. Someday you'll regret it. When that time comes you need not bring your troubles to me." Turning to the door, she spoke to Miranda with exaggerated courtesy. "Thank you for having me."

	"You're most welcome," said Miranda. "Anytime."

	"So kind of you," responded Annie, refusing to twitch. Outside, she added, "I know your kind. I've met them before. You'll keep on and keep on squalling until you've got all the dopes solidly behind you." Her smile was a warning. "But you'll never get me."

	With that she departed. Miranda went indoors, sat down, stared at the subdued Dolly.

	"What a strange person. I didn't expect her to be like that."

	"Like what?" asked Dolly, little interested.

	"She seems slightly aristocratic."

	"Pah!" said Dolly. "A vaudeville artist busted on the boards. A theatrical floppo. She rose higher than I did, fell farther and landed harder. Still flaunts the grand manner. Still thinks she's really somebody. It's one of the things I hate about her—always acting so clever, so superior."

	"One must learn not to hate."

	"Why?"

	"Because people are as life has made them."

	"You can't alter people," declared Dolly flatly.

	"But you can change life," said Miranda. "Why, you have just changed yours."

-

	At the end of another six months the laundry was functioning regularly, at a modest profit, and had a small but steadily growing list of customers who were discovering that a clean shirt goes well with a shave and haircut.

	The tent had been replaced by a peeled log cabin built by Bulstrode and a dozen cronies who'd concealed their inward pleasure beneath a stream of blasphemy. The aged Jimmy had appointed himself general handyman and Bulstrode had developed the habit of keeping an eye on things by calling in from time to time.

	Most importantly of all, the community had now accepted the situation as one unalterable either by opposition or by pointed criticism. Indeed, it was impossible to think up an adequate reason for opposing. In everyone's eyes Dolly had become established as a genuine laundress while it was understood by one and all that Jimmy had some sort of stake in the business and that the bearlike Bulstrode was its unofficial protector.

	The days of ridicule and venom had drifted by like fragments of an evil dream. The subject was exhausted of cruel humor and there was nothing derogatory left to be said. Sheer persistence had converted the formerly odd into a present-day convention; all that once had been resented was now taken for granted and recognized as an integral part of the Venusian scene.

	Sheer persistence.

	Subconsciously sensing this change in social atmosphere, Dolly found that it required no redoubtable effort of will to go out with Miranda one evening. Taking a tambourine from its box in the trailer, she was satisfied at first merely to beat time with the singing but after four nights her courage suddenly welled up. She joined in with a bellowing but not unpleasant contralto and the town accepted without comment that now two voices were crying in the Venusian wilderness. Jimmy still remained silent, content to hold the hat and lend the moral support of his presence.

	But they were three. A daft virgin, an aged washout and an erstwhile whore.

	More ships had solidified out of the everlasting mist and dissolved back into it, the last bringing a couple of families complete with children. Swiftly erected shacks lengthened the main street by half a mile and there was half-hearted, perfunctory talk of throwing up a ramshackle school for the moppets. The nameless town was growing slowly but surely—creeping toward its destiny of a someday city.

-

	One morning Miranda left the laundry in the others' care, picked her way across four miles of rubble-strewn ground and reached the niobium extraction plant It was a big, dirty place where hammer-mills set up a deafening clatter and grinders roared without cease; a place full of big-chested men smeared with mud formed of granite-dust and moisture. Finding the office, she handed in her card.

	Somebody conducted her to an inner room where a wide-shouldered man with dark hair and fuzzy mustache stood behind his desk, the card in hand. A second man, red-haired and lean-faced, posed nearby and studied the visitor with frank curiosity.

	"Please be seated," said the mustached one, indicating a chair. "My name is Langtree." He motioned toward his companion. "And this is Mr. McLeish."

	"So glad to know you," responded Miranda.

	Waiting for her to sit, Langtree resumed his own chair, had another look at the card. "Now what can we do for you ...  er ...  Lieutenant?"

	McLeish gave a slight start of surprise, bent over to examine the card for himself.

	"I understand that this company registers title to land," said Miranda.

	"In that respect we are functioning on behalf of the Terran Government," Langtree told her. "It is a temporary expedient. Copies of claims are shipped to Earth and are not effective until approved and recorded there. We have no real legislative status of our own. We are merely deputed to act until such time as this planet can support a few bureaucrats."

	"All the same, you can assign unclaimed land?"

	"Providing that it has no known mineral deposits," he conceded. "Do you have something in mind ?"

	"Yes, Mr. Langtree. There's a nice, large vacant lot right in the middle of the main street I can't imagine why nobody has taken it. But if it hasn't been claimed, I want it."

	He gave a rueful smile. "That particular piece of estate has been reserved for this company's headquarters whenever we can get around to some real, solid building."

	"I'm sorry. I didn't know."

	"Don't let it worry you. Recently we have changed our minds and it's most unlikely that we'll use that plot"

	"Why not?" Her oval face became hopeful,

	"Originally we supposed that the town would remain centered exactly where it is right now and that we had grabbed ourselves a good, dominating position. But now it is obvious that things aren't going to work out that way. Geologists have discovered rich supplies of pitchblende in the east, a railroad will be constructed in that direction and the town's natural tendency will be to spread along the tracks." He pondered a moment, said, "You realize what that means ?"

	"No—what does it mean?"

	"If this place ever becomes big— which I think it will—and if it has a slummy area—which unfortunately is very probable—the plot you want will be smack among die shacks and garbage dumps. It will be in a district anything but salubrious."

	"So much the better."

	He frowned at that, went on, "Moreover it is directly opposite Annie's dump where all the rowdies tend to congregate"

	"So much the better," she repeated."

	"Have you ever lived in a big city?" put in McLeish. 

	"Yes."

	"In parts that are ...  well ... not nice?"

	"Nowhere else."

	"And did you like it?" he persisted.

	"Of course. It was very convenient for me because my work lay right outside my door."

	"Oh!" He subsided in defeat.

	Langtree harunphed, pulled at his mustache, asked, "For what purpose do you require this land, Lieutenant?"

	"For a place of worship—eventually."

	"That is what I thought." He played the mustache again. "You put me in a poor position to refuse."

	"Do you wont to refuse?" she inquired, open-eyed.

	"Not exactly." He sought around for means of expressing himself, continued, "Naturally we approve your plan. In fact we support it most heartily. But we deplore the timing."

	"Why?"

	"You've managed to establish yourself in a small and tough community. So far you've got by. But don't let that fool you. It's going to be lots tougher before it becomes easier."

	"You really think so?"

	"I'm certain of it. Since the first ship made its landfall we've had eighteen murders and forty or more attempted ones. Not to mention plenty of lesser crimes. That's nothing, nothing at all. The real labor pains are yet to come."

	He paused for comment from her but got none.

	"Immediately the railroad is completed we'll have four shiploads of roughnecks here to operate the mines. Only yesterday we received prospectors' reports of large deposits of silver and osmiridium in the north and those will entice plenty more hard character's." Studying her thoughtfully, he assured, "You haven't seen anything yet."

	"Neither has this town," she gave back, smiling.

	"I don't doubt that. And I don't doubt that you intend to show it plenty. But I'd feel a lot happier if you'd put the brake on your ambitions until at least we've reached the dignity of having a small police force."

	"Wouldn't it be much more satisfactory never to need one?" she asked.

	Throwing up both hands in mock despair, Langtree said, "I should know better than to argue with the opposite sex."

	"Then may I have this piece of land?" She leaned forward, her expression eager.

	"You're hamstrung, manacled, pinned down and counted out," opined McLeish, grinning at Langtree. "You might as well quit."

	"I surrender." Langtree heaved a sigh of resignation. "Go fetch the papers."

-

	When they had been brought he read carefully through them, filled them in triplicate, showed her where to sign, gave her one copy. She departed, grateful and bright eyed. Langtree flopped back in his seat and gazed absently at the wall.

	After a while, he said, "I guess it was inevitable. It had to come .sooner or later." 

	"Think so?"

	"Yes. Ever noticed how big cities are boosted out of the dirt?"

	"Sure," said McLeish. "They're raised by a horde of steel-erectors, bricklayers, masons and hod-carriers bossed by fellows who wander around consulting blueprints."

	"And by the long sustained pressure of a thousand and one determined groups," declared Langtree with emphasis. "The Quakers forced Philadelphia out of the earth. The Mormons raised Salt Lake City from the desert. Earth is spattered with New Jerusalems built by pernickety dissenters and various gangs of one-track-minders. Stands to sense the same things will happen wherever humanity is located."

	"Maybe you're right," McLeish admitted.

	"I remember that when they concocted that new rocket-fuel they said that space was ours. It wasn't. They had to spend years designing combustion-chambers able to contain the pressures. So now we're squirted across the heavens by a blast that is somewhat terrific. And still it isn't enough. Now we must settle, exploit and build under psychological thrusts that can't and won't be contained."

	"So it seems."

	"It's only a matter of time before some fellow with a bee in his bonnet will try to prevent all building within a particular square mile of land because he thinks it ought to be reserved for a city park. He'll get like-minders behind him. They'll bellow and bawl and agitate until the area is officially protected and finally becomes a park. Another mob will compel all booze saloons to behave in a civilized manner. Another gang will push and shove and play merry hell until we've a hospital and a maternity home long before we can really afford either. Sustained pressure—it gets there in the end."

	"It isn't easy to brush it aside," remarked McLeish.

	"It's well-nigh impossible," Langtree asserted. "The pushful groups provide a development-factor that objective scientists rarely take into account. They can bring about the cumulative effect of a very large bomb, but slowly." He thought some more, added reminiscently, "When I was a kid a creeper thrust a thin tendril through a minute crack in the garden wall. My old man wanted to cut it but Mom wouldn't let him. Sixteen years later that wall was busted. You'd have thought a heavy howitzer had scored a direct hit on it. My old man had to pay fifty dollars for new brickwork."

	"That girl is different," said McLeish. "She's a human being. She'd have to push until shed grown old."

	"Man, I've seen them do that too." Langtree threw an inquiring glance at the other. "Would you?"

	"Not on your life!"

	"She would. And it won't surprise me if she does."

	"It's a shame," decided McLeish for no logical reason. "But perhaps it's a good thing for this or any other world."

	"This or any other world needs a few good things," said Langtree.

-

	The vacant lot still remained a vacant lot at the end of another year. Some fine day when enough money, hands and material were available it would hold a stone-built, glass-windowed flophouse that would also be a house of God. \t times it seemed as if such a culmination was an impossibly long way off, that the temporarily homeless would have no place to sleep, the spiritually hungry no place to pray. But the lot was held in stubborn possession because everything comes to those who wait.

	At the laundry there were now three washing-machines and Jimmy had become an energetic, full-time worker therein. Bulstrode was a frequent visitor with the frequency increasing as the weeks went by. Once or twice the big man had been frightened and horrified by a secret desire to turn the street parading trio into a quartet. He had stepped upon it firmly, crushing it down.

	His strength was also his weakness in that he doubted his ability to counter a crude insult with anything less than a broken nose. And from occasional remarks let slip by Miranda he'd gathered that nose-busting was out, most definitely out. That made it awfully hard on a powerful man with furry arms. It meant that he would have to answer blood-heating jibes with a forgiving smile when it would be less trouble and infinitely more satisfying to break a neck.

	Such was the situation when the sixteenth ship came out of the eternal mist beyond which gleamed a host of stars including a great green one called Terra. The ship unloaded a little aluminum trailer the exact copy of Miranda's. An elderly couple, gray-haired and wise-eyed, arrived with it, positioned it next door, had a few small crates dumped alongside.

	A sedate celebration was held in the log laundry that afternoon. The newcomers greeted Miranda in the manner of oldtime friends, were introduced as Major and Captain Bennett. Miranda handed around pie, coffee and cakes, her face flushed and eyes alight with the pleasure of meeting.

	In due time Bulstrode wandered outside, stood gazing at the crates and whistling idly to himself. Soon Major Bennett joined him.

	"More washing contraptions?" Bulstrode asked.

	"Dear me, no. Three should be sufficient for a while." He examined the nearest boxes. "These are musical instruments."

	"Huh?" Bulstrode's heavy face livened with sudden interest. "Want them emptied out?"

	"There's no hurry. I'm sure we can manage."

	"I'm doing nothing. And I like busting crates open."

	"Then we may as well deal with them," said Major Bennett. "The job has to be done sometime." Finding a case-lever, he started prying up slats with the slow carefulness of the aged.

	Scorning this method, Bulstrode hooked big, hard fingertips under the lid of another, bulged his arms and drew it up with nails squeaking. He peeped inside. 

	"Suffering cats!" he whispered.

	"What's the matter?"

	"A drum." He voiced it in low, reverent tones like one uttering a holy name. Sliding trembling hands into the crate, he fondled the contents. "As I live and breathe, a big bass drum!"

	"Surely there is nothing remarkable about that?" said Bennett, mystified.

	With a faraway look in his eyes, Bulstrode told him, "For more than ten years I carried the big bass drum in the hometown band." 

	"You did?"

	"Yes, tiger-skin and all. It was a darned fine band."

	Lowering his arms into the crate, Bulstrode gently drew forth the drum. He made another dip, brought out a pair of fat-knobbed sticks also a broad leather sling complete with chest and belly hooks. He tightened the drum's vellum. Then slowly, like one in a dream, he donned the sling, fastened the drum upon his huge chest, looped the sticks on his wrists.

	For about half a minute he posed like a statue dreaming wistfully of days long gone by. Something took possession of him. Fire leaped into his eyes. He twirled the drumsticks into twin discs of light, spun them sidewise, above, inward, outward and across, flashing them hither and thither while flicking the taut vellum with expert beat.

	Boom. Doom. Bop - bop - boom went the big bass drum.

	Drawn by the sound the others came out of the laundry and watched fascinated while the drumsticks whirled and the great drum sounded. Finally, he stopped.

	"Jeez!" he said, flush-faced.

	Without comment Major Bennett extracted a silver cornet from its case and handed it to his wife. Next he produced a trombone, fitted it together, checked its slide action with a tentative toot. He eyed Bulstrode shrewdly.

	"By hokey!" said that individual. "It takes me back years." He looked around in a semi-daze, noticed Miranda socketing together a pole bearing a large flag. "Years!" he said.

	Still watching him, Bennett offered no remark. He had the manner of an experienced cook who knows exactly when the joint will be done to perfection.

	"This town could use a good band," asserted Bulstrode, eyeing the trombone and licking his lips.

	"We have nobody to play the flute, the oboe and the tuba," said Bennett quietly. "Nobody to beat the drum. Someday we'll find them among those able to kneel and pray, able to fight for the things they believe to be right."

	Unhooking the drum and discarding the sling, Bulstrode carefully placed them on the ground. Then he stared at his feet, fidgeted about, transferred the stare to the sky.

	"Reckon I'd better be going," he announced. Starting to back away, he met Miranda's eyes and found his feet strangely frozen to the earth.

	"Goodbye!" encouraged Dolly in a tone he did not like.

	A slight perspiration broke out on his forehead. His thick lips worked around but no words came forth. He was in psychic agony, like a man paralyzed by sheer need to flee.

	Putting down the trombone, Major Bennett took him by the arm, led him into the trailer and out of the others' sight.

	"Let us speak to God," he said and sank upon his knees.

	After considerable hesitation, Bulstrode made sure the door was shut and windows obscured before kneeling beside him. Putting an arm across his shoulders, Bennett held him while they spoke to God because that is the fashion of their kind. Other pressure-groups, other rigmaroles. This was theirs: to say what they wished to say side by side, shoulder to shoulder, before their Supreme Commander.

	When they came out, soldiers both, Miranda had opened another box containing hats but no uniforms. Peaked caps and poke bonnets ornamented with red-lettered ribbons. Self-consciously fitting on a cap, Bulstrode strove to divert attention from himself by loudly admiring Dolly in her new bonnet.

	"My, you look good in that.'' He enthused.

	"Don't you pick on me," she snapped.

	"But I mean it. You look kind of ...  uh ...  nice."

	"I'm as fat as a hog and I know it."

	"Plumpish," he corrected. "Just the way you ought to be."

	"Nuts," she said. "A hat's a hat and makes no difference to what's under it."

	"There is a difference. You're not the same person."

	"Oh, go take a walk you big clumsy lug!" With that, Dolly produced a handkerchief and started to snivel.

	"Jeepers," said Bulstrode, aghast. "I didn't mean to—"

	Miranda pulled gently at his sleeve and explained. "A woman often weeps when she's happy."

	"That so?" He crinkled bushy eyebrows at her, mildly dumbfounded. "Mean to say she's enjoying herself?"

	Dolly sobbed louder to confirm it.

	"Good grief!" said Bulstrode quite unconscious of the pun. He studied Dolly in frank amazement until eventually she composed herself, wiped her eyes and gave him an embarrassed smile.

	Now he refitted the sling and took up the drum in the manner of one claiming his own after countless years. He hooked it onto his chest, stood holding it in proud possession. He twirled the sticks, again delighting in the feel of them.

	"Christ Jesus," he said without blasphemy, "this town is going to take an awful licking!" A thought struck him and he looked hopefully at Miranda. "How soon are we going to give it to them hot and strong?"

	She didn't answer. She seemed to be waiting for something. All of them stood there in caps and poke bonnets watching him and waiting for something. Momentarily it puzzled him, that and the electric suspense in the air. For whom or what were they waiting? Was there any good reason to wait at all?

	 It entered his mind that the big drum takes the lead and sets the pace. 

	Always.

	Involuntarily his fingers tightened around the sticks, his leg muscles stiffened in readiness, his chest swelled, his eyes flamed and what was within him burst forth as a triumphant shout. 

	"Now!"

	It galvanized them into activity. Human pressure was on the boost. Old Jimmy donned the pole-sling, braced the flag in his grip. The others closed the trailers, collected their instruments, formed in two ranks of three each.

	For a few seconds they stood to attention like troops on parade. The pale, fog-ridden Venusian light sparkled on cornet and concertina, trombone and tambourine, while the big drum hung poised and the great flag flew above them fast and free.

	Then Bulstrode swung a stick and struck one loud, imperative note.

	Boom!

	In exact step both ranks started off upon the left foot and advanced with military precision upon the waiting town,

	Glory! Glory!

	The Salvation Army was marching into battle for the Lord.

The End