Marconi said succinctly, “Look in the star charts. It’s there.”
“Yes, but——”
“But, hell,” Marconi said in annoyance. “What in the world has got into you, Ross? Earth is a planet like any other planet. The starship Halsey colonized in was a starship like any other starship—only bigger. I guess, that is—I wasn’t there. After all, what are the longliners but colonists? They happen to be going to planets that are already inhabited, that’s all. So a starship is nothing new or even very interesting, and this is beginning to bore me, and you ought to read your urgent-priority-rush message.”
Ross felt repentant—knowing that that was just how Trader Marconi wanted him to feel. He said slowly, “I’m sorry if I’m being a nuisance, Marconi. You know how it is when you feel stale and restless. I know all the stories—but it’s so damned hard to believe them. The famous colonizing ships. They must have been absolutely gigantic to take any reasonable number of people on a closed-circuit, multigeneration ride. We can’t build them that big now!”
“No reason to.”
“But we couldn’t if we had to. Imagine shooting those things all over the Galaxy. How many inhabited planets in the charts—five hundred? A thousand? Think of the technology, Marconi. What became of it?”
“We don’t need that sort of technology any more,” Marconi explained. “That job is done. Now we concentrate on more important things. Learning to live with each other. Developing our own planet. Increasing our understanding of social factors and demographic——”
Ross was laughing at last. “Well, Marconi,” he said at last, “that takes care of that! We sure have figured out how to handle the social factors, all right. Every year there are fewer of them to handle. Pretty soon we’ll all be dead, and then the problem can be marked ‘solved.’”
Marconi laughed too—eagerly, as if he’d been waiting for the chance. He said, “Now that that’s settled, are you going to open your message? Are you at least going to have some lunch?”
The Yards messenger stumbled up to their table again, this time with an envelope for Marconi. He looked sharply at Ross’s unopened envelope and said nothing, pointedly. Ross guiltily picked it up and tore it open. You could act like a sulky child in front of a friend, but strangers didn’t understand.