"Pretty barren," said Dr. Hoyt, looking out the window at the vegetationless ground below. "Why's that?"
He'd known he was going to Deneb, Dr. Kalmar thought angrily. The least he could have done was read up on the place. He had.
"It's an Earth-type planet," Dr. Kalmar said in a blunt voice, "except that life never developed on it. We had to bring everything—benign germ cultures, seed, animals, fish, insects—a whole ecology. Our farms are close to the cities. Too wasteful of freight to move them out very far. Another few centuries and we'll have a real population, millions of people instead of the 20,000 we have now in a couple of dozen settlements around this world. Then we'll have the whole place a nice shade of green."
"City boy myself," said Dr. Hoyt. "Hate the country. Hydroponics and synthetic meat—that's the answer."
"For Earth. It'll be a long time before we get that crowded here on Deneb."
"Deneb," the young doctor repeated, dissatisfied. "That's the name of the star. You mean to tell me the planet has the same name?"
"Most solar systems have only one Earth-type planet. It saves a lot of trouble to just call that planet Deneb, Vega or whatever."
"Is that clutch of shacks the city?" exclaimed Dr. Hoyt.
"Denebia," said Dr. Kalmar, beginning to enjoy himself finally.
"Why, you could lose it in a suburb or Bosyorkdelphia!"