traffic it could collect against.
“Pantropy was the obvious answernot for Port, certainly,
but for man’s future in general. Somehow, my father sold
that idea to some politicians, and to some people with money,
too. He was even able to find several survivors of those early
interstellar expeditions, people who knew some of the extra-
solar planets and the operation of the overdrive. All these
people wanted to make at least one demonstration experiment
in pantropy, an open-ended one which would lead to others
if it succeeded. .
“We are that experiment: this colony on Ganymede.
“Port had it outlawed before it was fairly started, but by
the time they found the Moon labs it was too late; we got
away. It was then that they put teeth into the laws, and made
them retroactive; they had to kill pantropy, and they knew it.
“And that is why, our very existence is a crime, Donald.
And it is an absolute requirement of Port’s policy that the
colony be a failure, and that they be able to prove it. That’s
why they want us back. They want to be able to exhibit us, to
show what helpless freaks we are on Earth, and to fell their
people that we couldn’t get along on Ganymede either, and
had to be bailed out of our own mess.
“After thatwell, there are those phony commerce-raiding
charges you told me about. We’ll be tried. We’ll be executed,
most likely, by exposing us in public to Earth-normal condi-
tions. It would be a fine object-lesson; indeed, the finishing
touch.”
Sweeney crouched down in his chair, utterly revolted by the