"Yes, in a way."
"It's fossilized, Einsteinian thinking. Damn the admirals!"
"The admirals think Einstein is God. You better think the admirals are God," Kihara warned.
The ambassador thought. The outpost planet ... last, loneliest, loveliest, exquisite, apart ... one man with imagination ... serve humanity and be damned for it now, canonized later....
One afternoon he walked with Wendy to their favorite spot on a headland above the sea. She climbed before him up the steep, narrow way, and the sea wind fluttered her skirt. The outpost planet ... democracy ... daughter planets teeming with pretty girls like Wendy and stalwart young men like ... really imaginative galactic ecology....
Sunset neared and half the sky, as usual, flamed gorgeously. The sea sent back the color and beat hypnotically against the cliff base. Wendy stood on tiptoe, arms raised, skirt wind-molded, sweetly rounded form outlined against the sky.
"Stevie, Stevie," she whispered, "isn't our planet beautiful? I would rather die than leave it. I feel ... fulfilled, somehow."
"Wendy, I haven't told you, but—"
She came to him in quick concern, her hand on his arm. Then it came out of him in a rush.