"What about the women themselves, though? We sold them a bill of goods, too, you know. They're expecting modern cities and handsome, rugged heroes for husbands. I know damn well that a lot of the colonies aren't much more than sinkholes and I suspect the sanitary, rugged, thoughtful male is strictly off the artist's drawing board. What happens when the women find that out?" Escher took the ball out of the glass and went back a few paces for another try. "Don't forget, Mac, the girls are the ones who weren't wanted here, the ones who were heading up for lives as old maids. They're going to planets where they're strictly a scarce item, where they'll be appreciated. The colonists will think they're getting something special and they'll treat the girls that way. They'll take good care of them. There might be a few difficulties at first, but it'll come out all right." "In other words, the whole thing hinges on how the colonists receive the girls. Isn't that it?" The ball thunked solidly into the glass again and rolled out. "That's right. We've hedged our bets the best we can. Now we'll have to wait and see. But I don't think we have anything to worry about." "Uh-huh," MacDonald grumbled. "It works out nice in theory, but I wonder how it'll be in practice." VIII Phyllis let the deceleration press her into the cot and tried to relax. In ten minutes they would be disembarking in Landing City. Landing City, with its wide, paved streets and modern buildings, the neatly laid-out farms and the modern rocket port. There was a clanging of bells, a sudden feeling of nausea, and she knew they had landed. In the excited buzz of conversation from the others, she got her small suitcase and filed toward the hatch. They took her name and gave her the emigration bonus, and then she was on the ramp going down, smelling the cool fresh air and feeling a damp breeze against her face. She looked down.... The modern rocket port was a scorched expanse of dirty ground, with a rusting shed at one end that she guessed was the office. Landing City was a collection of rundown shacks and corrugated huts with mud streets and wooden sidewalks running between them. She should have guessed, she thought bitterly. She had been sold a bill of goods. And there was no going back now; she was stuck with it. Stuck with it. She took another look. At least it would be healthy, and there was something besides the concrete and granite of a city to look at. It wouldn't be day in and day out of sitting eight hours behind a typewriter, and then back to her lonesome two rooms for an evening of bridge or a night with a boring book. And there was nothing wrong with the town that couldn't be remedied and improved with a little work. She and the others would see to that. Progress was going to hit Landing City whether the colonists like it or not. The colonists.... She stared at the whiskery, ragged lot of men of all shapes and sizes that were waiting to welcome them.