"But I understood there was a law, that we couldn't charge an E for any offense."
"We can try him in the newspapers, can't we? On the televiewers. That's the whole point. We can't charge an E now, but wait until we get things stirred up on a morals basis. That law'll be changed in a hurry, because any legislator that tried to hold out against changing it would be drawn and quartered by his constituents—and has enough sense to know it.
"Hm-m," he breathed in satisfaction. "That's the way to go about it. Don't know why I haven't thought of it before. If you guys would read your history of how police enforcement officers got things back under control each time some idealist started squawking about human rights, you'd think of these things, too.
"Now don't go off half-cocked. Just stand by. Keep me posted on every move. If I've got to do the thinking on how to get those E's back under police control, the way scientists were before, I've got to have information.
"And keep taking pictures!"
16
"After everything disappeared, the buildings, the escape ship, everything," Cal reviewed, "and you, with your wife, found yourself crouching under the trees in what had been your front yard, without any clothes on—what then?"
"That was the beginning of it," Jed Dawkins answered. He looked toward his two companions as if for confirmation. He looked at the three crewmen, at Cal, all sprawled or crouched there beneath the tree at the edge of the clearing. "We thought it was the end of everything," he said in retrospect, "but we found out quick that things had just begun."