And the old man was hesitant to tell Paul what he had seen.
As they climbed the opposite hill that hid the ship Paul kicked questioningly at the drums that had contained nitrogen-fixing bacteria. He raised the rusty hood of the tractor. He stopped and went into the shed again, a lot of freeze boxes in there. The way the mines on the outer planets were booming, no fresh vegetables for them, these people would have been rich by now.
As he ran past the old man, his voice rang loud in that silent world: "I could fix that generator."
Its power pile had given his chest geiger a friendly buzz. If his brother Harry was alive—
Over the hill the spaceship poised like a monument.
To every man who ever died away from home, Paul thought as he ran over the leaves. Harry brother, there she stands, boy.
She was going. Already tiny figures were dismantling the well rig. They had refilled the tanks with water, the fist for the mighty arm that was the power pile. The heat exchanger was the wrist. The steam, disassociated into H and O by the manmade sun, would provide the mass to push back, pushing them forward to a rock in the sky where there might be heavy metals and there might not. While more efficient expansion compounds were used by the military, water was most practical for poor men who went shares.
"What would it take to own this land, Cap?" Paul gasped while his arm swept in endless rolling hills and many-shadowed valleys. One sun was nuzzling the horizon so the air was red with afternoon. The suns arranged it so there was no night.
"A fool," retorted the elected captain and he slammed the crowbar against the oxidation on the fin.
Above this continuing racket, Paul shouted: "A smart guy could get richer here than on one of those damned rocks."