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on, "but space operations are still carried out in the same antiquated, irresponsible fashion. For a century, now, a very significant portion of the Earth's wealth and time have been spent on building space colonies, wealth and time that might better have been spent solving the problems of this planet. What's more, all too many people have taken advantage of the education provided by the great universities of this planet and then, as soon as they have their degrees and are ready to begin returning to the world economy something of what has been invested in them, they emigrate and go into cushy jobs in the offworld colonies! This Earth-to-space brain drain may prove to be the worst effect of the whole disastrous space program."
    Carstairs paused and drank from a water glass on the podium before him. "Well, we can't undo what's been done, but we can correct how it's done in the future. For better or worse, and I happen to think it's for worse, we've become dependent on materials from the offworld colonies and on technologies developed in offworld labs. They have a choke hold on us as deadly as that wielded by the energy cartels of the last century.
    "All of which brings us to the proposal which the Earth First Party is putting before the U.N. It's the opening campaign in our program to seize back from the offworld elitists we have created the future destiny of the people on Earth. This bill will be submitted simultaneously to the International Space Council and to the U.S. Senate for ratification. The protocols are as follows:" The lights dimmed further and a facsimile of the printout before Carstairs rolled up on the screen behind him.
    "Item One: All technical professions essential to space exploration, settlement and exploitation, shall henceforth be under the licensing board of Space Council member states. A licensed professional must be under contract to the government of a member state.
    "Item Two: All professionals in the critical categories may be placed under control of a licensing board even without their applications.
    "Item Three: No licensed professional may break contract while on an extraterrestrial assignment. Any contract jumping without first returning to Earth is a felony punishable by imprisonment of up to seven years.
    "Item Four: Any individual leaving the environment of the Earth-Moon twin planet system must leave his/her assets, to include currency, stock holdings, bank holdings, real property and any other possession defined by law of the licensing nation as 'asset,' save for such currency, property, etc. as shall be necessary for maintenance of life during the said extraterrestrial assignment, at the pleasure of the licensing government. He/she may reclaim all such assets by returning to the Earth-Moon system within a period of five years except when that individual is absent from the said system under a specific order of the government for a longer period. If he/she fails to return within five years, the said assets are forfeit to the government. The outer-worlders with holdings on the Earth-Moon system may continue to enjoy their property ownership if they return within five years of the passage and ratification of this bill. Until their return, all such assets shall be in custody of the ratifying state or the International Space Council.
    "Item Five: All of the above to be in effect immediately. However, those in the critical professional categories who are already off the Earth shall be licensed within six months or be returned to the Earth for retraining."
    The screen winked out and Carstairs put his paper down. "Well, there you have it. That's essentially the form in which our proposal will be put before the General Assembly and the Space Council. However, the Earth First Party is truly international, and there might be changes desired by signing member nations, to be binding only upon citizens of those nations. For instance, under some legal systems, the definition of the word 'asset' alone could