"Why did you set it up in the first place?"
"That's easy to answer," Phil said. "On the day the planetary population
here touched the forty thousand mark, Roye became legally entitled to
its labor union. Why not take advantage of it?"
"What's the advantage?"
"More Earth money coming in, for one thing. Of the twelve hundred CLU
members we've got in Fort Roye now, seventy-six per cent were unemployed
this month. We'll have a compensation check from the Territorial Office
with the next ship coming in." He smiled at her expression. "Sure, the
boys _could_ go back to the tupa ranches. But not everyone likes that
life as well as you and the Feeneys."
"Earth government lets you get away with it?" Beulah asked curiously.
"They used to be pretty tight-fisted."
"They still are--but it's the law. The Territorial Office also pays any
CLU president's salary, incidentally. I don't draw too much at the
moment, but that will go up automatically with the membership and my
responsibilities."
"What responsibilities?"
"We've set up a skeleton organization," Phil explained. "Now, when Earth
government decides eventually to establish a big military base here,
they can run in a hundred thousand civilians in a couple of months and
everyone will be fitted into the pattern on Roye without trouble or
confusion. That's really the reason for all the generosity."
Beulah sniffed. "Big base, my eye! There hasn't been six months since I
set foot here that somebody wasn't talking about Fort Roye being turned
into a Class A military base pretty soon. It'll never happen, Phil.
Roye's a farm planet, and that's what it's going to stay."