"It's sure different," Mike said, "but we haven't been here any two weeks, I don't think. Anyway it hasn't seemed like that long, has it Terry?" "Golly, I--" "Terry? Thought you two were Kurt and Ronal Blair? Washington, western hemisphere north?" "We live in Washington, that's for sure," Terry said. "But I'm--" "Hey I know, Terry. It's all like we said, and here that's us. You can be Kurt. I'm Ronal. But don't get mixed up." "Your father's Senior Quadrate Douglas Blair, isn't he?" the tall boy said. "He's the Douglas Blair part, anyway," Mike said. "Makes I guess over thirteen thousand dollars a year, too." "Say, you sure you're all right? I didn't think you were hit very hard in practice yesterday, but you talk as if you were. Thirteen thousand dollars is just about enough to buy a loaf of bread. Your father makes what mine does and what every other adult does--thirty billion dollars a year. Then after he contributes his dutiful share to the Prelatinate, he has a billion dollars left. Didn't you know that?" "Gosh no. Not exactly, I mean." "What's Prelatinate?" Terry asked. "What's--listen, fellows--any one of us, even a Quadrate's son, can be turned into the Director for saying a thing like that, even as a joke. Better watch it. If there's one thing you learn here, it's praise and respect for your government. They're pretty rough on sacrilege, I should think your father would have told you. My training was started when I was four, but you sound almost as though you haven't had any yet." "I don't even remember when I was four," Mike said. "That doesn't matter. When an adult tells you something--" The tall boy was interrupted then by a second sounding of the shrill signal, and at once, he hurried to the end of the building. The others fell in behind him in a column of threes. Mike and Terry took positions at the end of the column. "Where are we going?" "Breakfast, I hope!" Terry said. The tall boy pressed a stud in the wall, and the front door rolled back. Then he turned his head and bellowed "Section, tench-_hut_! Forward _march_!" And he sounded as though he enjoyed it. They marched out, and, to Terry's gratification, it was to a huge, diamond-shaped building in which they found breakfast waiting. * * * * * It was during the rest period after the half-hour session of calisthenics that the _Mikol VII_ landed. Terry and Mike had been laying prostrate on the thickly-matted, damp blue grass, a little out of breath but strangely enough, little more fatigued than had they just finished a short inning of sandlot baseball. They both had been watching the milky-blue sky, and had chosen a place to rest somewhat apart from the others. There were hundreds and hundreds of the others in formations of their own, Terry had noticed, and all together he could only guess at how many there were. There was one adult in charge of all of them, but they had not seen him closely yet nor heard his voice.