It was an old theme, though he didn't argue it. He was entitled to personal reactions. "Maybe. Would you like to live on either of them?"
"Don't have to," she said, making an adjustment on the torpedo. "Never get out on a planet more than twice a year. In fact, I've almost forgotten what a year means."
That was the point, possibly, though there was no use to discuss it. "Anything else of interest?"
"We're coming to a smaller planet. Land, oceans, warm enough, and with an atmosphere we can probably breathe as is. Don't know the composition of the solid matter yet, but from our mass reading, it's a good bet that there won't be enough heavy stuff to justify settlement." She made a final delicate adjustment on the torpedo and began wheeling it to a launching tube. "This one's in a rich system, though, and will probably be used as an administration planet—vacation spot too. It won't go to waste, if that is what's worrying you."
In a way, it was. It was too bad that so many planets that were otherwise ideal for human habitation had to be passed over because they lacked the one essential. There was no help for it, of course. To settle planets, spaceships were necessary—and heavy elements to drive those ships. Nothing else mattered in the least.
Larienne snapped the torpedo in place and pressed a stud. The dark shape disappeared. Out in space, it fell into an orbit which eventually would land it safely on the planet.
"There," she said with quiet satisfaction. "It's tagged, and it will stay tagged until somebody digs it up."
It might be a month, or a hundred years, before Colonization got around to it. Meanwhile the torpedo was there, broadcasting at intervals the information that the tag ship had discovered. Somewhere in a remote planning center, a new red dot appeared in a three-dimensional model of space, to be accounted for in a revised program of expansion.
Larienne brushed the hair out of her eyes. There was a smudge on her face. "I'm busy," she said. "But I can get out of this if you need me."