In 1989 I went back to the story. I fleshed out the characters and fine-tuned the choices facing them until I finally was satisfied. THE TERY was now novel length-a short novel, to be sure, but I couldn't see padding the story just to bring it up to a certain word count. Some writers are putter-inners. I tend to be a taker-outer. In 1990 Baen published the novel-length version in paperback. The completed THE TERY was finally before the public, although it was the only one of my novels without a hardcover edition.

Dave Hinchberger of Overlook Connection Press said he could rectify that. I jumped at the chance.

But in reviewing the scans I realized that the prose needed work — a lot of work. I was in the middle of three other projects at the time but could not let the book go back into print as it was. So I made time and did an extensive edit. It’s still not perfect, but it’s as good as it’s going to get.

You now hold the definitive edition of THE TERY — the same text as revised for Overlook Connection Press edition.

This is it. No more changes.

I swear.

PROLOGUE

As they approached the crude stone chapel, the priest’s hopes became a subvocal litany — A whole planetful of Christians. . too good to be true. . bound to be disappointed — running through his head in a reverberating circuit until it blurred all other thoughts. But its inherent defeatism could not damp the tingling anticipation charging through him.

The planet had been opened only recently to outside contact and trade. Its original settlers had cut themselves off from the rest of humanity many centuries ago. But their descendants — most of them, anyway — had different ideas.