Now the packet was turned so that Allen could catch the title. It was a high-quality piece he had personally participated in; as it stood it could have gone over any of T-M's media.

"Qualms," Allen said. "How do you mean?" He had a deep, cold sensation, as if he were involved in some eerie religious ritual. "If the packet won't go, then turn it back to us. We'll create a credit; we've done it before."

"The packet is beautifully handled," Mrs. Frost said, smoking. "No, Myron certainly didn't want it back. Your theme concerns this man's attempt to grow an apple tree on a colony planet. But the tree dies. The Morec of it is—" She again picked up the packet. "I'm not certain what the

Morec is. Shouldn't he have tried to grow it?"

"Not there," Allen said.

"You mean it belonged on Earth?"

"I mean he should have been working for the good of society, not off somewhere nourishing a private enterprise. He saw the colony as an end in itself. But they're means. This is the center."

"Omphalos," she agreed. "The navel of the universe. And the tree—"

"The tree symbolizes an Earth product that withers when it's transplanted. His spiritual side died."

"But he couldn't have grown it here. There's no room. It's all city."

"Symbolically," he explained. "He should have put down his roots here."

Sue Frost was silent for a moment, and he sat smoking uneasily, crossing and uncrossing his legs, feeling his tension grow, not diminish. Nearby, in another office, the switchboard buzzed. Doris' typewriter clacked.

"You see," Sue Frost said, "this conflicts with a fundamental. The Committee has put billions of dollars and years of work into outplanet agriculture. We've done everything possible to seed domestic plants in the colonies. They're supposed to supply us with our food. People realize it's a heartbreaking task, with endless disappointments... and you're saying that the outplanet orchards will fail."