“Some machine guns can probably be arranged,” Sam said, but he wondered how many machine guns the USA would need from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico, and for how many miles north of the border. And machine guns couldn’t do anything about plants from Home. What could? Nothing he saw, short of an army of people pulling them up by the roots.

The Lizards were making themselves at home on Earth. Sam had read plenty of science-fiction stories about people reshaping other planets to suit themselves, but never one about aliens reshaping Earth for their convenience. He didn’t need to read a story about that. By all the signs, he was living it.

Neither he nor Watkins had much to say as they rode back to Desert Center. They passed another couple of plants from Home. However the things propagated, they’d sure as hell got here.

“We’ll do everything we can,” Sam promised as he got down from his horse and, with more than a little relief, headed for his car.

“You’d better,” the sheriff said. He walked off toward his office, not looking back.

Another car was parked by the Buick. It hadn’t been there before. A couple of men in business suits came out of the little cafe across the street and walked briskly toward Sam. “Lieutenant Colonel Yeager?” one of them called. When Sam nodded, both men produced revolvers and pointed them at him. “You’d better come along with us, sir,” the first one said. “Orders. Sorry, pal, but that’s how it is.”

Walter Stone stared out through the window of the Lewis and Clark’s control room in considerable satisfaction. “Amazing what you can do with aluminized plastic, isn’t it?” he said.

“Not so bad,” Glen Johnson agreed. “You put out a big enough mirror, you pick up plenty of sunshine for power and for heat and for I don’t know what all else.”

Stone looked sly. “Are you sure you don’t?”

Johnson looked sly, too. “Who, me?” They both grinned. A mirror that focused a lot of light down to one small point was a splendid tool. It was also a weapon. If that point of light ever suddenly swung across a Lizard spy ship…

With a sigh, Stone said, “The only trouble is, that would mean war back home, which we can’t afford.”

“I know.” Johnson grimaced. “It’s not just that we can’t afford it, either. We’d damn well lose.”

“Are you sure?” the senior pilot asked.

“You bet your ass I am,” Johnson said, and tacked on an emphatic cough. “Don’t forget, I’m the guy who flew all those orbital missions. I know what the Race has got out there; hell, I know half that hardware by its first name. Push comes to shove, we get shoved.”

“Okay, okay.” Half to Glen’s relief, half to his disappointment, Stone didn’t want to argue with him. He liked arguments he wouldn’t have any trouble winning. Stone waved at the mirror again. “One of the reasons we’re out here is to complicate the Lizards’ lives in all sorts of ways they haven’t even thought about yet. Having plenty of power and energy available is a long step in that direction.”

“Did I say you were wrong?” Johnson asked, and then, “Say, what’s this I hear about another ship heading this way before too long?”

Walter Stone suddenly looked a lot less like a buddy and a lot more like a pissed-off colonel. “Goddamn radio room here leaks like a goddamn sieve,” he growled. “They open their mouths any wider, they’ll fall right in.”

“Yeah, well, probably,” answered Johnson, who hadn’t heard the rumor from any of the radio operators. “But come on. Now that I’ve got some of the word, give me the rest of it. It’s not like I’m going to send the Race a postcard or anything.”

“Bad security,” Stone said. Johnson gave him a look. It must have been an effective look, because the senior pilot turned red and muttered under his breath. At last, with very poor grace, he went on, “Yeah, it’s true. They’re building it out in orbit now. Next opposition, or somewhere fairly close to then, it’ll head out here, and we’ll see some new faces.”

“Good,” Johnson said. “I’m sick of seeing your old face.” That earned him a glare from Stone’s old face. Grinning, he probed some more: “How many people will they be sending out?”

“All I know is, the complement is supposed to be larger than the crew of the Lewis and Clark,” Stone answered. Johnson nodded, glad of the news; that was more than he’d known. Stone went on, “Two reasons. First, they won’t have as long a trip, so they can bring more people with the same resources. And second, they’ll have improved the design of the new ship.”

“How?” Johnson asked eagerly. This was the stuff he wanted to hear, all right.

But Stone said, “How? How the devil should I know? Matter of fact, I don’t know that for a fact.” He paused, listened to himself, and shook his head in annoyance before continuing, “I’m just assuming there will be. We’re not Lizards, after all; we don’t think our designs are set in cement.”

“Neither do they, not exactly,” Johnson said. “It’s just that we’ve been refining our designs for fifty years-a hundred, tops-and they’ve been doing it for fifty thousand. After that long, they don’t find the need to make a whole lot of changes.”

“Don’t teach your grandma to suck eggs,” Stone said irritably. “I know all that as well as you do, and you know I know it, too.”

“Yeah, but you’re cute when you’re angry,” Johnson said, which won him another glare from the senior pilot. He grinned again and went on, “With more people, we’ll be able to spread out a lot farther. The Lizards won’t be able to keep an eye on us so easy.”

“Which is the point of the exercise,” Stone said, as if to an idiot.

“No kidding.” Johnson grinned once more, refusing to let the other man get his goat. Then he let his imagination run away with him. “One of these days, maybe, we’ll have a regular fleet of ships going back and forth between Earth and the asteroid belt.” His eyes and voice went far away. “Maybe, one of these days, we will be able to go home again.”

But Walter Stone shook his head again, this time in flat negation. “Forget about it.” His tone brooked no contradiction. “If a ship comes out here, it’ll stay out here for good. We haven’t got enough to let us afford to send anything back, especially not a big ship. Nice to dream about, yeah, but it won’t happen.”

Johnson thought it over and discovered he had to nod. “Might have done poor Liz Brock some good, though,” he said.

“No.” Again, Stone wasn’t taking any arguments. “For one thing, you die with cancer of the liver back on Earth, too. And for another, the point is to make it so we don’t need to go back to Earth for anything. We’re supposed to be figuring out how to do everything we need here without going back to Earth. That’s the plan, and we’re going to make it work.”

“It’s only part of the plan,” Johnson said.

“Well, of course.” Stone sounded surprised he had to mention that.

A chime from the ship’s PA system announced the hour. Johnson said, “I’m off.” His shift was done. Stone’s still had two hours to go. Adding, “Don’t let anybody steal the chairs while I’m gone,” Johnson glided out of the control room.

Since the chairs, like all the furniture, were bolted down, that didn’t seem likely. As a parting shot, though, it could have been worse. Johnson brachiated to the galley. He ate strawberries, beans, potatoes-plants from the ever-growing hydroponics section. He also gulped vitamin pills. Not a whole lot of food that had come up from Earth was left; it was mostly reserved for celebrations. He missed meat, but less than he’d thought he would when it disappeared from the menu.

Some people were still complaining about that. The dietitian fixed one of them with a fishy stare and said, “It’s healthy. It’ll help you lose weight.”

“I’m already weightless,” the irate technician answered. “If I lose any more, I’ll invent antigravity.”

“There, you see?” said the dietitian, who didn’t realize her leg was being pulled. “That would be worthwhile, wouldn’t it?”

“That would be impossible, is what it would be,” the technician snarled. “Christ, I’d eat a lab rat by now, but we haven’t got any more of those left, either.” He took his food and glided off in high dudgeon.

Johnson was dutifully chewing his beans and wondering if the methane they made people generate was put to good use-he supposed he could ask somebody from the life-support staff about that-when Lucy Vegetti came floating into the galley. When the geologist saw Glen, she smiled and waved. So did he. He would have flown over and given her a big hug, but men didn’t make moves like that, not by the rules that had sprung up, for the most part informally, aboard the Lewis and Clark. Since men outnumbered women about two to one, women had all the choice. Johnson didn’t necessarily like it, but he knew better than to fight city hall.

After Lucy got her food, she came over to him and gave him a hug. That was in the rules. “How you doing?” he asked. “I didn’t know you’d gotten back from Ceres.”

“They don’t need me down there, not for a while,” she answered. She was short and stocky and very definitely looked Italian. On Earth, she might have been dumpy, but nobody sagged in space. She ate some potato and sighed. “God, I miss butter. But anyhow, I’m here for a while. The ice miners are a going concern on the asteroid, so pretty soon they’ll send me out prospecting somewhere else. Meanwhile, I get to come back to the big city and look at the bright lights for a while.” Her wave encompassed the Lewis and Clark.

“God help you,” Johnson said. “All that time away has softened your brain.” They both laughed. But he knew what she meant. There were more people aboard the Lewis and Clark than anywhere else for millions of miles. Seeing faces she hadn’t set eyes on for a while-not seeing the faces she’d been cooped up with for weeks-had to feel pretty good. Glen added, “You need somebody to drive your hot rod for you, just let me know.”

“I’d do better to let Brigadier General Healey know,” she said, and he nodded with regret altogether unfeigned. His opinion of the spaceship’s commandant was not high; the commandant’s opinion of him was, if anything, even lower. Had Healey had his druthers, he would have flung Johnson out the air lock when he came aboard the Lewis and Clark. Unlike the others here, Johnson hadn’t intended to come out to the asteroid belt in the first place. He’d just been curious about what was going on at the orbital space station. He’d found out, all right. Lucy’s smile changed. She lowered her voice and went on, “I like riding with you.”