Ralph Williams

“ He stared gloomily off at the mountains across the river, rising clean and snow-capped above the shanties and garbage piles of the transient workers who had overflowed the city to camp on the flats along the river; thinking:
Just over a hundred years ago this planet was first discovered by men. Less than sixty years ago the first colonists were brought here. They came to a brand-new planet, almost as naked as the day they were born—two hundred pounds per colonist, including their own weight—with a free hand to build a new world as they pleased. ”

“ Watts laughed. "Cops? There ain't going to be any cops coming. We're handling this ourselves. Don't worry about the cops, even if they could get an indictment, there ain't a jury in this town would convict for killing a native."
"I'm not worrying about that," McCullough said stolidly, "but I don't like what you fellows are doing, I might as well say right now, and I'm not going to be a party to it. Those natives stay right where they are till the law comes and gets them." ”

“ Watts said, "it ought to take the whole bunch and round them up and put them away on a reservation somewhere. You can't civilize a grayskin, they ain't even human to start with, so why try?"
"Nuts," Pete Tallant said. Where Watts was a redneck miner and construction worker; and McCullough a farmer picking up a little easy money on a temporary job; Tallant was an intellectual, a dark restive young Earthman working his way around to see how Earth's far colonies looked. Watts' yapping irritated him, but there was no point in arguing against that sort of brainless conviction, he knew. ”

“ The Centauran winced a little and closed his eyes briefly, but made no other sign. Ought to have morphine, McCullough thought, but would morphine work on a Centauran? He didn't know.
He pulled a chair over to the window, where he could watch both doors and the cot, and sat down with the gun across his knees. The riot was apparently still booming along. Men trotted by outside now and then, singly or in little groups, calling to each other. Once several went by with another Centauran corpse slung hand and foot to a pole. ”

“ The other four males had been watching open-mouthed. They turned abruptly and started back down the alley the way they had come, but there was a small knot of men there, watching them. The natives paused uncertainly. One broke away and ran toward the street, between McCullough's house and Tallant's tent, and the others followed.
Most of the Earthmen had no idea what was happening. The closer ones could see a couple of natives and a man lying on the ground, another man with a bloody face shouting something about knifing, and four natives running. ”

“ Plastic bubbles and tents and shanties and hauling water from the pump were well enough for bums and single men, but a family man might as well be building a decent home while he was about it. There would always be rental value in a good house here in town, especially with the new spaceport and the government moving here; and later, when the kids had to go to high school, it would be handy. Some day, too, he would be retiring, turning the farm over to Jimmy, he and Mary would need a place to live then.
"The old ones ain't so bad," Watts said. ”

“ I know it's mighty tough on women sometimes, but a man just can't give in on some things, that's all." He looked down, pleased as always by the contrast of her small, pale, delicate fingers lying in his large blunt chocolate-brown hand. ”

“ His neighbors, Henry Watts from across the street, and Pete Tallant from next door, had been helping him with the windows, and now they were helping him with the bottle. They were discussing the native question. In a way, this was the beginning of the riot.
"It's not that I got anything against them, in their place," Henry Watts said. "Their place just ain't in an Earthman's town, that's all. They keep crowding in, first thing you know there'll be more natives than there is Earthmen, then you just watch out. ”

“ Tallant said. "I know these people feed their young by regurgitation. So it's disgusting to mammals? So what?" He jumped down from the stoop and took the Centauran mother's arm and turned her gently around. "No viptiv," he said. "Run along."
Watts' face was almost purple now. "What the hell you think you're doing?" he shouted. He grasped the female's other arm. "Viptiv," he gritted in her face. "You took my money, now viptiv!"
"Let go that woman," Tallant said, "or I'll push your face in." He turned toward the group of males, who still stood stupidly staring. "Come on over here," he called. ”