O Pioneer! Read Free Page B

promised. It was an Earth-sized planet, with perfectly breathable Earth-style air—which was what it more or less had to have, because none of the ET-DIXIE probes had ever found a life-bearing planet that didn't. And it had a lot of water. Just as described, it was mostly ocean, with the colony on a Sri Lanka-sized island that was part of an archipelago in its temperate zone.
    Giyt wondered about living on an island. He'd never done that, and it sounded—well, sort of confined. He had to admit that it was a nice island, though. It had everything the recruiter had promised. The island was built like a sombrero, with huge central peaks, the remnants of ancient volcanoes (but now, they swore, thoroughly dead), and the town they were to live in was on one of the series of broad plateaus that descended to the sea. Streams with pretty waterfalls raced down the mountainside to make Crystal Lake. The climate was ideal, sort of like a coastal Oregon spring. Their new home was within easy walking distance of the pretty freshwater lake that had, as promised, already been stocked with Earthly game fish. There was a fully functioning net, with a prime database that had been copied from the North American nexus itself; one subset was the complete Library of Congress base, so Giyt would not have to be without his favorite entertainment. There was a hypermarket, well stocked and promising to special-order from Earth anything they wanted that wasn't already on the shelves; there were beauty shops and an office depot with everything the Earth superstores had and five or six small but nice-looking restaurants and bars . . . and all those things just in the services Ex-Earth had provided, with all the wonders of an alien planet to explore as well.
    And then there was their home itself.
    It had been a long time since Evesham Giyt had lived in anything that didn't pull out of the wall, like a file drawer. He was a little uneasy as they prowled their six rooms with one of the Ex-Earth resident agents. She was a woman named Olse Hagbarth, and it was her job (and, she said, her pleasure—and that of her husband-slash-colleague, too) to make all the new colonists welcome. "Of course," she said, looking around at the furniture with some disdain, "this stuff belonged to the previous occupant. Pity about her. She went back to Earth—homesick, I guess. You don't have to keep her furniture. If you want to replace it we can get you just about anything you want from Earth. And listen, don't worry about spending your resettlement grant. There's more where that came from; Ex-Earth is loaded ."
    But Rina was happy with the furniture supplied, was happier than Giyt would have believed with the house itself, and with the queer, un-Earthly plants that grew in its modest garden, and with the kitchen and the bathroom that was all their own, and she couldn't wait until the agent left and they could try out their huge and comfortable new bed. "Shammy, Shammy," she murmured into his ear, "don't you think this is wonderful ?"
    It probably was, he agreed. Tupelo was everything they'd been promised.
    The only thing was, in one or two unexpected ways it was somewhat more than they'd been promised, because the recruiter in Wichita hadn't said anything about the fact that five rather odd-looking races from other star systems were also doing their best to colonize it.

III
     
     
    Come on, guys! Let's all give a big Tupelo welcome to Ms. and Mr. Evesham Giyt, just joining us in our little heaven in the heavens. Ms. Giyt was a college student back in Wichita, while Mr. Giyt was a network systems analyst and consulting agronomist. We're glad to have you here, Evesham and Rina! And listen, folks, don't forget that Mam Bretweller's square-dance treat is on this afternoon in Sommermen Square.
    — SILVA CRIST ' S SIESTA - TIME BROADCAST
     
    The funniest thing that happened to Evesham Giyt on Tupelo was when he got elected mayor of the human portion of the community.
    It was,