With the exception of a few additional delegates composed of
high-ranking Texcocan and Genoese political and scientific heads, the
line-up at the end of forty years was the same as ten years
earlier--except for the absence of Jerry Kennedy.
Extra tables had been set up, and chairs to accommodate the added
numbers. To one side were the Genoese: Martin Gunther, Fredric Buchwald,
Peter MacDonald, with such repeat delegates as Baron Leonar and the
Honorables Modrin and Russ and half a dozen newcomers. On the other were
Barry Watson, Dick Hawkins and Natt Roberts, Taller and such Texcocans
as the scientists Wiss and Fokin, army heads, Security Police officials
and other notables.
[Illustration]
Note pads had been placed before each of them and both Watson and
Gunther were equipped with gavels.
While chairs were still being shuffled, Barry Watson said over the table
to Gunther, "Jerry?"
Martin Gunther shrugged "Jerry's indisposed. As a matter of fact, he's
at one of the mountain sanitariums, taking a cure. He'll be all right."
"Good," Dick Hawkins said. "We've lost too many."
Watson pounded with his gavel. "Let's come to order. Gunther do you have
anything to say in the way of preliminaries?"
"Not especially. I believe we all know where we stand, including the
newcomers from Genoa and Texcoco. In brief, this is the fourth meeting
of the Earth teams that were sent to these two planets to bring backward
colonists to an industrialized culture. It would seem that we are both
succeeding--possibly at different rates. Forty years have passed, ten
remain to us."
For a moment there was silence.
Finally Roberts said, "Possibly you have already discovered this through
your agents, but we have released the information on prolonging of
life."