"I'm a city girl. I like Xxla. And if I marry him, all that goes up the flue. I'll be marooned with him, God knows where, for years. Stuck, just stuck. "Still--he is Von Stutsman, and he's on his way up. Everyone says that. Ten, twenty years, he'll be back to Xxla, and he'll come back on top. "Oh ... I don't know what I want to do! If I marry him, I can get all the things I've always wanted. Position, security. He's older than I am, but he's really a nice guy. It's just that he's dull. He can't talk about anything but Party, Party, Party. "That's what I came out to this cabin for. To think things over, to try to get things straightened out. And then you came along. Maybe it gives me a chance for something exciting before I ship off to the boondocks. Does that make sense to you? "I'll get married and sit out there, and I'll turn the pages of the Party magazine and smile sweetly to myself. Because, you see, I'll always be able to lean forward and say, 'Dear? Once upon a time, I helped hide an Earth spy in Xxla.' And that'll knock that silly and self-satisfied look off his face for once.... Oh, I don't know! Let me alone!" With that, she fled to the bedroom and slammed the door behind her. He could hear her sobbing helplessly. In the afternoon, she came out. He had fallen asleep. She shook him gently to waken him. "Eh? Oh! Huh?" He smiled foolishly. "Wash up in there," she told him. "I'm sorry I blew up on you this morning. I'll cook something." When he came back, she was serving them their dinner on steaming platters. "Look, Ge-Ge," he said over coffee. "You don't like your government. We'll help you out. There's this Galactic Federation idea." He explained to her the cross-fertilization of the two cultures. "Shamar, my friend," she said, "did you see Earth's proposal? There was nothing in it about giving us an interstellar drive. We were required to give Earth all transportation franchises. The organization you used to work for was to be given, as I remember it, an exclusive ninety-nine year right to carry all Earth-Itra commerce. It was all covered in the newspapers, didn't you see it?" Shamar said, "Well, now, I'm not familiar with the details. I wasn't keeping up with them. But I'm sure these things could be, you know, worked out. Maybe, for Security reasons, we didn't want to give you the interstellar drive right off, but you can appreciate our logic there. Once we saw you were, well, like us, a peace-loving planet, once you'd changed your government to a democracy, you would see it our way and you'd have no complaints on that score." "Let's not talk politics," she said wearily. "Maybe it's what you say, and I'm just naturally suspicious. I don't want to talk about it." "Well, I was just trying to help--" The sentence was interrupted by a monstrous explosion. "Good God!" Shamar cried. "What was that?"