"This is an outpost planet and the aliens, if they exist, will surely find it first. We'll need a Class I base. You must in time support extra-planetary defenses."
"You make the changes, Stephen. Whatever you say. Then we'll sign."
He shuffled his feet. "I'm afraid I can only initial it, Madame Minister. Prime Reference must ratify. I will urge most strongly—"
"Oh Stephen," she interrupted, pretty face stricken, "might we lose our treaty after all?"
"There's a chance, I can't deny it."
"Oh dear! I haven't the heart to tell Wendy."
"I need to think," the ambassador said. He excused himself unhappily.
Days passed and the settlement grew. The ambassador put away his blue and gold and worked with his hands. The native strap-leaf vegetation flowered riotously through long, warm days, and so did Earth plants in the test plots. The shapely Fishdollars became golden-tan and more charming than ever.
The Patrolers worked like fiends erecting buildings and plants, striving to outdo the merchant spacers. The girls helped where they could and bubbled admiringly at the prodigies of labor. The minister of public works told Chong privately that one marine equalled two merchant spacers. The latter, as if unaware of their lesser worth, worked like fiends too.