Oxygen soon returned in quantity to New Mars.

Farther north, the impacted remains of Phobos and Deimos, rich in organic materials, supported highland farms of new wheat strains, and the first experiments at Earthlike forests, chiefly conifers. In a few decades, New Mars would have territories virtually indistinguishable from Earth. She—New Mars had adopted Mother Earth's gender—promised to be a planet of broad green prairies, high semiarid forests, and deep, almost tropical oxygen-rich valleys.

Eight thousand were settled here, two thirds of the human race. The remaining third still lived on the Central Ark, some learning the theory of planetary management, some—a select few—waiting for their chance to ride more starships and carry out the judgment of the Law.

With virtually unlimited power supplies, no weapons, and resources sufficient for a hundred times their number already, their life on New Mars held promise of being idyllic. As always, only their own cussedness could change that.

He marched between the milky glass-walled greenhouses and up a low hill to a point where he could look down Feinman Rift. Far below, breeders tended the first range animals born out of genetic storage. It was warmer down there, and it rained far more often, and some complained that in a truly free society, that would be prime real estate, but the area was strictly reserved for the breeders. To give in to the community's baser instincts now might bring the Moms down on their backs again; it had happened once before, on the Central Ark, when human political authority had broken down into anarchy. Arthur did not wish to see it happen again.

Children do so hate to be disciplined.

Nobody knew who had sent these stern, dedicated robot guardians. Chances were they would never know. Arthur suspected that even benefactors had to be suspicious of their charges; it was best, for the time being, to simply stay hidden and quiet.

Arthur pinched his cheek and closed his faceplate against the cold. Then he looked to the east, above the pink haze of twilight, and saw the silvery point of Venus, still wrapped in a mantle of cloud.

Reuben Bordes was in command of the first exploratory and diagnostic mission to Venus. Twenty years ago, the now-moist Venerean clouds had parted briefly, and a decade-long rain had fallen, driving the planet's surface acids into chemical battle with molten rock thrown up by three centuries of fresh vulcanism. The clouds had closed again, and the reconnaissance expedition had been launched from the Central Ark.

Arthur did not envy Reuben his task. Venus was a hard case; it might be centuries more before humans could live in significant numbers on its surface.