Printing that many would take a while with a handpress; it would also put it on the agenda for the next Meeting. There were times when direct democracy drove him crazy, but it had one great merit-when a decision was finally made, everyone felt they'd had their say. In a way he'd be sorry when the population got big enough for the House of Delegates provision in the new constitution to kick in-that would be soon, too, the way things were going.

"Next," he muttered, and looked at his In box.

A proposal to license and inspect day-care centers… ask Martha. Leaton wanted to import a trial run of coal from Alba for the forge-works… ask him whether it's really necessary. A proposal to establish a new Base down around the site of Buenos Aires.

Hmmm. That's a tough one. It was a long way away, and they were already spread out thinner than he liked. On t' other hand, that was the edge of one of the biggest areas of good farmland on the planet; also, the preliminary survey said the locals were very thin on the pampas, even by the standards of the 1242 B.C. Americas, which meant an Islander settlement wouldn't be too disruptive. In the very long run, it would mean a big chunk of the world modeled on the Republic's ideals.

Put it in the discuss-with-the-Council file, he decided after a moment.

And it looked like Peter Girenas was going to get enough votes before the Meeting to finance his expedition. He scanned down the list of names on the petition form, stopped, and began to laugh. After a moment Martha stuck her head in the office door.

"Something funny, dear?" she said, arching an expressive eyebrow.

"Mebbe, or mebbe I'm laughing so I won't curse. Take a look at who's backing young Girenas and Company's petition for a grant."

She came over to his desk. "The usual suspects… Emma Carson?"

"And all her friends." He shook his head. "I guess she thinks his chances of coming out of it alive are even worse than I do… and Emma never did forget an injury."

"Plus, she thinks with him out of the way, the Rangers might not be so hard on her," Martha said thoughtfully.

"Not if we have anything to do with it," he replied.

On impulse, he pulled his wife down into his lap. She gave a small snort and arched that eyebrow again, but put an arm around his shoulders and kissed him.

"Am I correct in assuming you want to quit work early?" she said, stirring strategically.

"Ayup," he grinned. "Why not? We do have a treaty to celebrate."

The door of the Wild Rose Chance opened, letting in a blast of cold air and a few drops of stinging March rain. Peter Girenas looked up and waved his friends over. They came, after they'd wiped their boots and hung their rain slickers on pegs driven into the wall to drip into the trough beneath. Several paused sheepishly when one of the waitresses pointed to a sign stating: no weapons allowed and handed her their rifles or crossbows to be racked behind the bar.

Eddie Vergeraxsson was the first to reach him. He was a chief's son from Alba who'd been brought over as a hostage after the Alban War and decided he liked the Republic better and stayed; about twenty, brown-haired and hazel-eyed, lean and fast like a bundle of whipcord. He wore the fringed, camo-patterned Ranger buckskins as if he hadn't been brought up to kilts, and the bowie at his waist and tomahawk thrust into the back of his belt as if they'd grown there.

"Why so much ammunition?" he said, reading over the older ranger's shoulder. "Gonna be heavy."

Peter Girenas sighed a little, in the privacy of his head. Eddie was a good ranger-perhaps the best tracker and woodsman in the Corps, after Peter, good at languages, brave as a lion, deadly with any weapon. A nice guy to sit down and have a beer with, too. But he was Alban, and he had the manana attitude of his tribe deep in his bones. His people took to guns like Lekkansu to firewater, though.

"Eddie, we're going a long ways from home. We can't drop over to the mill and trade some venison for another hundred rounds. That's why I'm taking two stallions along as well as a dozen pack mares. Just in case everything takes longer than we thought."

"Oh. Okay, Pete, that sounds sensible."

He leaned back and took a pull at his beer. The table they'd taken at the Wild Rose Chance was littered with notes and letters and files, plus plates and bowls and jugs. Peter propped the paper he was reading up against a milk jug and pulled his plate closer, forking up ham steak in red gravy with a hearty appetite.

"I think we're going to make it," he said. "What the Meeting voted, it'll just cover what we need."

Nods went up and down the table. "You did good, Pete-made those lost geezers back on the Island sit up and take notice," Sue Chau said.

He felt himself puffing up a little but suppressed it. "Not too hard," he said. "Hell, I even got the Carsons rooting for me."

Eddie laughed into his beer. "Diawas Pithair, won't they turn red and blue when we come back richer than kings? And even richer in glory."

Peter nodded. He wouldn't have put it quite that way-"glory" wasn't a word he was comfortable with-but there was no denying that was part of the reason. Even more than the gold or the cheers, though… I want to see it. I want to be the first Islander to see it, while it's still…fresh.

He looked around the table. There were probably as many reasons as there were people in his group; more, since each of the six probably had more than one.

Eddie wants to shine, and get enough gold to buy a big farm here and a horse-herd and throw parties and maybe take a vacation back in Alba and impress the hell out of his relatives, he thought.

Beside him was Henry Morris, the oldest in the group-over thirty. A big, slow, strong redhead, a pupil of Hillwater's; trained by Doc Coleman too. He had a thing about animals and plants and such; he was looking for a long-term career with the Conservancy Office. This would make up for a youthful indiscretion; he'd been involved with Pamela Lisketter, back when. Not much, but enough to make it difficult for him to get a government job. He'd be worth his weight in gold; no knowing when they'd need a sawbones.

Sue… well, maybe 1 flatter myself, but Sue wants to come along because I'm going, I think. Partly, and partly for the sheer fun of it.

Dekkomosu the Lekkansu was quiet, down at the other end. Beer hit him that way; he was short and stocky and muscular, hair still in a roach, but he was dressed in a white woods-runner's buckskins rather than his native not-much. He and Peter were blood brothers, and there wasn't much left of the tribesman's family; they'd been hit heavy in the plagues. Figure he just wants to get far away and forget things.

And Jaditwara… she's just so goddam strange. A tall, slim, blond Fiernan-she had the Spear Mark. Hard to tell what her motivations were; she'd just said that the stars told her Moon Woman wanted her to do it, and as far as she was concerned that was that. But Jesus, she could draw! No way they were going to let a Pre-Event camera and rationed film go along on this, and the Island-made equivalents were far too heavy and cumbersome.

"Good thing the Meeting wasn't held in Fogarty's Cove," Sue said.

Peter nodded, looking around the warm, crowded room. He had friends in Fogarty's Cove-that and looking at some horses was why he was here- but most of the Long Island settlers were against anything that distracted from pushing the frontier further west up-Island.

The taproom of the Wild Rose Chance was pretty full. They'd had a week of mild weather, but the March rain outside was near-as-damn sleet, and people near the door yelled whenever someone came in, bringing a little of it with them. Further in, that wasn't a problem; the big fireplace along the south wall was blazing. The air was thick with the good smells of roasting meat, baking bread, woodsmoke, and leather coats drying on pegs around the wall.