"I'll be seeing you."
Keg Johnson greeted Don warmly. Then he said, "I knew you'd do it sooner or later," with a grin.
Don blinked. "The last time you said that was in the courtroom in Buffalo after we wrecked the economic system with the matter-duplicator. What is it this time?"
"According to the guys I've had investigating your coupled-crystal effect, it is quite simple. The effect will obtain with any crystalline substance—so long as they are absolutely identical! It took the duplicator to do it right to the atomic lattice structure. You'll get any royalties, Channing, but I'm getting all my ships talking from ship to ship direct, and from Canalopsis direct to any ship. You've just invented Venus Equilateral out of business!"
"Good!" exclaimed Don.
"Good?"
Don nodded. "Venus Equilateral is fun—and always has been. But, darn it, here we are out here in space lacking the free sky and the fresh natural air. We'd never abandon it so long as Venus Equilateral had a shred of necessity. But—now we can all go home to Man's Natural Environment. A natural planet."
"So what are you going to do?"
"Furnish the Communications Stations at Northern Landing, at Canalopsis, and on Terra with coupled-crystal equipments. Then we abandon Venus Equilateral in one grand celebration."