Charalas landed on Thomakein's estate in a small flier and asked Guy if he would like to see the famous Hall of History. They flew a quarter of the way around the planet, and during the trip, Charalas pointed out scenes of interest. It was enlightening to Guy, who hadn't seen anything beyond a few miles of Thomakein's estate. There were farms laid out on the production-line scale while the cities and towns that housed the farmers were sprawling, rustic villages of simple beauty. The larger cities had evolved from the square-block and rubber-stamp home kind to specialized aggregations in which the central, business sections were close-knit while the residences were widespread and well apart, giving each family adequate breathing room.
"The railroad," smiled Charalas, "is still with us. It will never leave, because shipments of heavy machinery of low necessity can be transported cheaper that way. Like the barges that ply the rivers with coal, ore, and grain, they are powered with adaptations of the space drive, but they are none the less barges or trains."
"They've found that, too," laughed Guy. "There is little economic value in trying to ship a million tons of coal by flier."
"Normally, you should say. The slowest conveyor system is rapid if the conveyor is always filled and the material is not perishable. Coal and ore have been here for eons. Therefore it is no hardship to wait for six weeks while a given ton of ore gets across the continent, provided that the user can remove a ton of ore from the conveying system simultaneously with the placement of another ton that will not get there for six weeks."
"Sounds correct, though I've never thought of it in that manner," said Guy thoughtfully. "But that must be why it is done. We hull ore across space untended, and in pre-calculated orbits, picking it up at Terra from Pluto, for instance. The driverless and crewless hull is packed with ore, towed into space by a space tug and set into its orbit, the tug then returning to the shipping area to await the next hull. The hull may take a couple of years to get to Terra, but when it does, it begins to emit a finder-signal and Terran space tugs pick the hull up and lower it to Terra. The hulls are returned with unperishable supplies to the Plutonian miners."
"We hadn't the necessity of applying that thought to space shipping," answered Charalas. "Tonis, the larger moon, is so close that special shipping methods are not needed. We have but a few colonists there, most of which are members of the laboratory staff."
"You've found moon laboratories essential in space work, too?" asked Guy.
"Naturally. Tonis is airless and upon it is the Ertinian astronomical laboratory."
"Moons—even sterile moons—are good for that," said Guy. "They—Say, Charalas, what is that collection of buildings below here? They look like something extra-special."
"They are. That is the place we're going to see."