The Bible affects their penal system, again by selective quotation: "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth-"

This results in a fluid code, with no intent to rehabilitate but to make the punishment fit the crime. I saw an example four days after we settled. I was driving our steam wagon and encountered a road block. A policeman told me that I could take a detour or wait twenty minutes; the highway was being used to balance a reckless driver.

I elected to pull over and wait. A man was staked with one leg stretched out at a right angle. A police wagon drove down that cleared highway, ran over his leg, turned and drove back over it.

An ambulance was waiting-but nothing was done for a timed seventeen minutes. Then surgeons amputated on the spot; the ambulance took him away and the block was removed.

I went back to my wagon and shook for many minutes, then returned home, driving cautiously. I didn't tell our family. But it was reported on radio and the evening paper had pictures-so I admitted that I had seen it. The paper noted that the criminal's insurance had been insufficient to cover the court's award to the victim, so the reckless driver had not only lost his left leg (as had his victim) but also had had most of his worldly goods confiscated.

There is no speed limit and traffic regulations are merely advisory-but there are extremely few accidents. I have never encountered such polite and careful drivers.

A poisoner is killed by poison; an arsonist is burned to death. I won't describe what is done to a rapist. But poisoning, arson, and rape are almost unknown.

My encounter with this brutal system of "balancing" almost caused me to think that my dear wife had been mistaken in picking this world-we should move! I am no longer certain. This place has no prisons, almost no crime, and

it is the safest place to raise children I've ever heard of.

We are having to relearn history. "The Years of Rising Waters" explain themselves. The change came before 1600; by 1620 new shorelines had stabilized. That had endless consequences-mass migrations, political disorder, a return of the Black Death, and much immigration from Great Britain and the lowlands of Europe while the waters rose.

Slavery never established here. Indentures, yes-many a man indentured himself to get his family away from doomed land. But the circumstances that could have created "King Cotton" were destroyed by rising waters. There are citizens here of African descent but their ancestors were not slaves. Some have indentured ancestors, no doubt-but everyone claims indentured ancestors even if they have to invent them.

Some aspects of history seem to be taboo. I've given up trying to find out what happened in 1965: "The Year They Hanged the Lawyers." When I asked a librarian for a book on that year and decade, he wanted to know why I needed access to records in locked vaults. I left without giving my name. There is free speech-but some subjects are not discussed. Since they are never defined, we try to be careful.

But there is no category "Lawyers" in the telephone book.

Taxation is low, simple-and contains a surprise. The Federal government is supported by a head tax paid by the States, and is mostly for military and foreign affairs. This state derives most of its revenue from real estate taxes. It is a uniform rate set annually, with no property exempted, not even churches, hospitals, or schools-or roads; the best roads are toll roads. The surprise lies in this: The owner appraises his own property.

There is a sting in the tail: Anyone can buy property against the owner's wishes at the appraisal the owner placed on it. The owner can hang on only by raising his appraisal at once to a figure so high that no buyer wants it- and pay three years back taxes at his new appraisal.

This strikes me as loaded with inequity. What if it's a family homestead with great sentimental value? Zeb laughs at me. "Jake, if anybody wants six hectares of hilly land and second-growth timber, we take the profit, climb into Gay-and buy more worthless land elsewhere. In a poker game, you figure what's in the pot."

Random Numbers

Hilda:

Jacob stood, raised his glass. "Snug Harbor at last!"

Zebbie matched him. "Hear, hear!"

Deety and I sat tight. Zebbie said, "Snap it up, kids!" I ignored him.

Jacob looked concerned. "What's the matter, dear one? Zeb, perhaps they don't feel well."

"It's not that, Jacob. Deety and I are healthy as hogs. It's that toast. For ten days, since we signed the deed, it's been that toast. Our toast used to be:

'Death to "Black Hats"!'"

"But, my dear, I promised you a new Snug Harbor. The fact that you girls are having babies made that first priority. This is the place. You said so."

I answered, "Jacob, I never called this 'Snug Harbor.' I reported that I had found a culture with advanced obstetrics, and customs that made it impossibh for Black Hats to hide. I wasn t asked what I thought of it.

"You signed the deed!"

"I had no choice. My contribution was one fur cape and some jewelry. Deety put in morebut effectively no gold. She fetched her stock certificates, other securities, some money-paper-and a few coins. I fetched two twenty-five newdollar bills. Deety and I left Earth as paupers. Each of us women-not girls'!, Jacob-was once wealthy in her own right. But in buying this place, you two decided, you two paid for it-all we did was sign. We had no choice."

Zebbie looked at Deety and said softly, "With all my worldly goods I thee endow," and took her hand.

Jacob said, "Thanks, Zeb. I, too, Hilda-if you don't believe that, then you don't believe I meant the rest: '-for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health-' But I did and I do." He looked up. "Zeb, where did we go wrong?"

"Durned if I know, Jake. Deety, what's the score? Give."

"I'll try, Zebadiah. Maybe all we should expect is washing dishes and wiping noses and changing diapers. But that doesn't seem like a be-all and end-all when you've gone banging around the universes... stood guard for your husband while he bathed in a mountain stream... or- Oh, the devil with it! This place is good and clean and wholesome and dull! I'll find myself joining the church just for company... then sleeping with the priest out of boredom!"

"Deety, Deety!"

"I'm sorry, Zebadiah. It would be boredom with Beulahland, not with you. The very hour we met, you saved my life; you married me before that hour was over, impregnated me before midnight, fought and killed for me only days later, saved my life twice more that same day, took me to another planet in another universe before midnight still that same day... and short hours later had again fought for me, twice. You are my gallant knight, sans peur et sans reproche. In the six weeks I have known you, you have gifted more romance, more glorious adventure, into my life than in all the twenty-two years before it. But the last twelve days-especially the last ten-have told me what we now look forward to."

Deety paused to sigh; I said quietly, "She speaks for me."

Deety went on, "You two would lay down your lives for us-you've come terrifyingly close. But what happened to your glorious schemes to rebuild the Solar System? To kill every last one of those vermin? Gay Deceiver sits in an old barn, dark and quiet-and today I heard you discussing how to market a can opener. Universes beyond the sky to the incredible Number of the Beast!- yet you plan to sell can openers while Hilda and I serve as brood mares. We haven't even visited Proxima Centauri! Zebadiah-Pop!-let's spend tonight looking for an Earth-type planet around Alpha Centauri-kill a million vermin to clean it, if that's what it takes! Plan what planets to put on Earth's Lagrange points. I'll write programs to meet your grandest plans! Let's go!"