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Lon was in a position to raise much more cain than ordinary. He’d made an amicable bargain with his fellow colonists. They brought truckloads of miscellaneous foliage to be put into his vegetation converter, and he converted it all into thanar leaves. The product was split two ways. Everybody was happy—except Carson—Because every colonist had already acquired enough thanar leaf to pay himself out of debt, and was working on extra capital.

If this kept up, the galactic market would be broken.

Carson had nightmares about that.

So the sun went through convulsions in emptiness, and nobody on its second planet paid any attention at all. After about a week, it occasionally subsided. When that happened, the ionization of the planet’s upper atmosphere lessened, the radiation screen grew thinner, and a larger proportion of light reached the surface. When the sun flared higher, the shield automatically grew thicker. An astronomical phenomenon which should have destroyed all life on the inner planets came to be taken for granted.