The Dustie hopped into the room ahead of them and settled into the biggest, most comfortable chair. Pete snapped his fingers sharply, and the brown creature jumped down again like a naughty child and climbed up on Pete's knee. The captain glanced at the chair with disgust and sat down in another. "Do you actually let those horrid creatures have the run of your house?" he asked. "Why not?" Pete said. "We have the run of their planet. They're quite harmless, really. And quite clean." The captain sniffed. "Nasty things. Might find a use for the furs, though. They look quite soft." "We don't kill Dusties," said Pete coolly. "They're friendly, and intelligent too, in a childish sort of way." He looked at the captain and Nathan, and decided not to put on the coffee pot. "Now what's the trouble?" "No trouble at all," the captain said, "except the trouble you choose to make. You have your year's _taaro_ ready for shipping?" "Of course." The captain took out a small pencil on a chain and began to twirl it. "How much, to be exact?" "Twenty thousand, Earth weight." "Tons?" Pete shook his head. "Hundredweight." The captain raised his eyebrows. "I see. And there are--" he consulted the papers in his hand--"roughly two hundred and twenty colonists here on Baron IV. Is that right?" "That's right." "Seventy-four men, eighty-one women, and fifty-nine children, to be exact?" "I'd have to look it up. Margaret Singman had twins the other night." "Well, don't be ridiculous," snapped the captain. "On a planet the size of Baron IV, with seventy-four men, you should be producing a dozen times the _taaro_ you stated. We'll consider that your quota for a starter, at least. You have ample seed, according to my records. I should think, with the proper equipment--" "Now wait a minute," Pete said softly. "We're fighting a climate here, captain. You should know that. We have only a two-planting season, and the 'proper equipment,' as you call it, doesn't operate too well out here. It has a way of clogging up with dust in the summer, and rusting in the winter." "Really," said Captain Varga. "As I was saying, with the proper equipment, you could cultivate a great deal more land than you seem to be using. This would give you the necessary heavier yield. Wouldn't you say so, Nathan?" The little nervous man nodded. "Certainly, captain. With the proper organization of labor." "That's nonsense," Pete said, suddenly angry. "Nobody can get that kind of yield from this planet. The ground won't give it, and the men won't grow it." The captain gave him a long look. "Really?" he said. "I think you're wrong. I think the men will grow it." Pete stood up slowly. "What are you trying to say? This business about quotas and organization of labor--"