Greg pushed open the door of the control building. One man sat with his feet propped on a desk. Once the room had required a hundred technicians. Once the traffic-control panel, filling a wall nearly a quarter of a mile long, had been a maze of dancing, colored lights. Now the board was dead; the enamel was peeling; the exposed metal was red with rust.
The attendant took Greg's manifest without interest. "You're our first landing in two years, Captain—" He glanced at the sheet. "Captain Greg. I see you're in from Mars."
"I'm carrying five tons of Redearth." In the old days such a cargo would have cleared three million after transportation costs; a whole new industry had been built on the Martian antibiotical spore.
"No market, I'm afraid, Captain." The attendant flipped the manifest aside.
"Sell it at auction. I have to raise enough cash to—"
"You won't get a buyer."
"I've got to get some new equipment for my ship!"
"You'd have done better in the colonies. Mars has excellent repair facilities, we understand."
"At sky-high prices, sure."
"The earth isn't building flight equipment any more. What's the point? The kids don't want it." The attendant shrugged his shoulders. "You aren't the first one, Captain Greg, who's come home for nothing; and you won't be the last. Check with me tomorrow. I'll see what I can work out."