“Hush, Ross! Somebody might be listening.” There was sickening fright on Helena’s face. “Didn’t you hear? We _have_ to vote for the best man. ‘Oldest Is Bestest,’ you know. That’s what Democracy _means_, the freedom of choice. They read us the ages, and we choose which is oldest. Now please, Ross, hurry before somebody starts asking questions!” The voting was over, and the best man had won in every case. It was a triumph for informed public opinion. The mob poured out of the hall in happy-go-lucky order, all precedences and formalities suspended for Holiday. Helena grasped Ross firmly by the arm. The crowd was spreading over the quiet acres surrounding the Center, each little cluster heedlessly intent on a long-planned project of its own. Under the pressure of Helena’s arm, Ross found himself swerving toward a clump of shrubbery. He said violently, “No! That is, I mean I’m sorry, Helena, but I’ve got something to do.” She stared at him with shock in her eyes. “On Holiday?” “On Holiday. Truly, Helena, I’m sorry. Look, what you said last night—from now till tomorrow morning, I can do what I want, right?” Sullenly, “Yes. I _thought_, Ross, that I _knew_ what——” “Okay.” He jerked his arm away, feeling like all of the hundred possible kinds of a skunk. “See you around,” he said over his shoulder. He did not look back. Three kilos back, he told himself firmly, then the right-hand fork in the road. And not more than a dozen kilos, at the most, to the spaceport. He could do it in a couple of hours. One thing had been established for certain: If ever there had been a “Franklin Foundation” on this planet, it was gone for good now. Dismantled, no doubt, to provide building materials for an eartrumpet plant. No doubt the little F-T-L ship that the Franklin Foundation was supposed to cover for was still swinging in an orbit within easy range of the spaceport; but the chance that anybody would ever find it, or use it if found, was pretty close to zero. If they bothered to maintain a radar watch at all—any other watch than the fully automatic one set to respond only to highvelocity interstellar ships—and if anyone ever took time to look at the radar plot, no doubt the F-T-L ship was charted. As an asteroid, satellite, derelict or “body of unknown origin.” Certainly no one of these smug oldsters would take the trouble to investigate. The only problem to solve on this planet was how to get off it—fast. On the road ahead of him was what appeared to be a combination sex orgy and free-for-all. It rolled in a yelling, milling mob of half a hundred excited juniors across the road toward him, then swerved into the fields as a cluster of screaming women broke free and ran, and the rest of the crowd roared after them.