Loudly, from a nearby house, the racket of a radio blared up suddenly; dance music, and then an announcer giving a commercial for some sort of farm machinery.

"... Depth and angle of the furrow," the voice declared, echoing in the cold bright morning air, "pre-set and selfadjusting so that even the most unskilled owner can--almost the first time--"

Dance music returned; the people had turned to a different station.

The squabble of children rose up. Is it going to be like this all day? she asked herself, wondering if she could face it. And Jack, away until the weekend at his job--it was almost like not being married, like not having a man. Did I emigrate from Earth for this? She clapped her hands to her ears, trying to shut out the noise of radios and children.

I ought to be back in bed; that's where I belong, she thought as she at last resumed dressing for the day which lay ahead of her.

In his employer's office in downtown Bunchewood Park, Jack Bohlen talked on the radio-telephone to his father in New York City. The contact, made through a system of satellites over millions of miles of space, was none too good, as always; but Leo Bohlen was paying for the call.

"What do you mean, the Franklin D. Roosevelt Mountains?" Jack said loudly. "You must be mistaken, Dad, there's nothing there--it's a total waste area. Anybody in real estate can tell you that."

His father's faint voice came. "No, Jack, I believe it's sound. I want to come out and have a look and discuss it with you. How's Silvia and the boy?"

"Fine," Jack said. "But listen--don't commit yourself, because it's a known fact that any Mars real estate away from the part of the canal network that works--and remember that only about one-tenth of it works--comes close to being an outright fraud." He could not understand how his father, with his years of business experience, especially in investments in unimproved land, could have gotten on to such a bum steer. It frightened him. Maybe his dad, in the years since he had seen him, had gotten old. Letters told very little; his dad dictated them to one of his company stenographers.