He scorned the speed of the workmen that erected the home for Thomakein and Leilanane—now named Leilakein, of course—because it took them almost a thousand days. The same home, he knew, could have been erected upon the planets Venus, with material shipped cold from Terra, and the couple would have been living in it within sixty days.
But Terran workmen used tiny MacMillans to drill holes instead of the brace and bit of the ancients. Spikes and nails were unused on Terra, instantaneous welding was done on metal, and molecular-bonding, and forming. Wood was worked with portable power-tools, and fastened together with huge wire staples formed as used from spools of wire, and driven with the machine on the premises.
In the sky, traffic moved ponderously and sedately. Even in rush periods Ertinian traffic did not approach the mad scramble that took place on Terra.
Guy drove his flier through the skies with them and came to the conclusion that the hurrying scramble of traffic and its frequent accidents was productive of a bunch of better drivers. The percentages of dented wings to fliers in the sky was higher on Ertene.
He read an editorial in a paper objecting to the lanee's hairbreadth sky-tactics and Guy scorned the words because he hadn't been in the slightest danger. After all, Guy had learned to run a flier over Sahara Base, where a flier sometimes cut between building tops in a vertical bank to keep from hitting wingtips, and where one of the more scatter-brained stunts consisted of racing another driver to the last landing space.
"Sure, they lost fliers that way," grinned Guy aloud. But it made for the quick or the dead and it kept people on their toes.
He accepted Charalas' theories about survival, and admitted that if Terra were rotten and avaricious, so was he. He knew that if it came to a choice, he'd prefer that they experiment on a Titanian than upon him.
His only sore spot was the fact that Terra denied him his right to his secret—and his life. They had been more than unreasonable in that, expecting him to break his oath to them.
And that brought back the old argument. Who was right? Should he have agreed to Ertene's oath and then sold them out?
He shook his head. Had he been that kind, Ertene would not have permitted him to leave.