"Mr. Rezar," Don said, "I haven't been trained in diplomacy so I'll speak plainly. We don't intend to give up New York. Contrary to general belief, there are about eight million people who _do_ want to live there. And I'm sure the inhabitants of Heidelberg and Magnitogorsk feel the same way about their cities." "Then you yield Superior," Rezar said. "I didn't say that." "Yield Superior and we will guarantee safe passage to Earth for all its inhabitants. We only want its physical facilities." "We'll yield the bubble gum factory to help your dental problem--for suitable reparations," Don said. "Payment will be made for anything we take. Give us Superior intact, including the factory and Cavalier Institute, and we will transport to any place you name an area of equal size from the planet Mars." "Mars?" Don said. "That'd be a very valuable piece of real estate for the researchers." "Take it," Don heard Frank Fogarty say from the Pentagon. Professor Garet spoke up. "If Cavalier goes, I go with it. I won't leave it." "And I won't leave you, Osbert," his wife said. "Will there be air up there among the asteroids?" "We are air-breathers like you," Rezar said. "When we have assembled our planet there will be plenty. You will be welcome, Professor and Mrs. Garet." "Hector?" Don said. "You're still mayor of Cavalier. What do you think?" "They can have it," Hector said. "I'll take a nice steady civil service job with the Federal Government, if you can arrange it." "Hector," Ed Clark said, "I think that sums up why you've never been a howling success in politics. You don't give a damn for the people. All you care about is yourself." Hector shrugged. "You needn't be so holy-sounding, Eddie-boy," he said. "Why isn't the _Sentry_ out this week? I'll tell you why. Because you've been so busy filing to the Trimble-Grayson papers on Thebold's private radio that you haven't had time for anything else. How much are they paying you?" Ed Clark, deflated, muttered, "News is news." "Is that what you were doing in Senator Thebold's Gripe Room on the midway?" Don asked Clark. "Making this deal?" "Now, General," Thebold said. "Would you deprive the people of their right to know? Throughout my Senate career I have carried the torch against government censorship, which is the path to a totalitarian state." "I'm sure part of the deal was that Clark's copy didn't make you anything less than a hero," Don said. "Don't be too righteous, young man," Thebold said. "'Lest ye be judged,' as they say. Are you not at this moment bargaining away a piece of a sovereign State of the sovereign United States? I don't happen to represent Ohio, but if I did I would rise in the upper chamber to demand your court-martial." "At ease, Senator!" Don ordered. "You're not in the upper chamber now. You're on an artificial satellite which at any moment is apt to take off into outer space."