"Every word of it. If I could find my sort of world anywhere in the universe, I'd pull up stakes in a minute and—"
"You can create your own world, Mr. Firth."
"Do you suppose I haven't tried? In every election I back my candidates with all I have—prestige, propaganda, money. It does no good. The fools prefer to be governed by other fools, like themselves."
"I didn't mean here, Mr. Firth." The Stranger smiled as he lit a cigarette. "You see, my friend, I have a world for sale—a brand new world."
"One of the asteroids?" Firth laughed bitterly. "I could have done that years ago. They're too close to the commercial orbits. How long would it be before one of our ships found the place? Then I'd be right back in the system again—and a laughing stock as well."
"This is a planetoid beyond Pluto. It'll be generations before any of our ships—"
"A frozen world? No thanks!"
"Only on the surface. It's a hollow sphere, with a granite crust half a mile thick. Inside there's a suggestion of passageways and caverns, which may have been made artificially. Perhaps this was an outpost of a race which lived and died billions of years before our time."
"An archeological gold mine!"
"But Science pays so little, Mr. Firth. I'm interested in cash, not prestige."