"We'll see," said Jerry. "It'll take us a month to get back, and there'll be another six months before the first wave of engineers is sent to begin the homesteads and industry sites. We'll see, Ensign."
It took two months for the engineers to go out and return.
They hadn't landed. A few orbits about the planet had shown them nothing but a vast dead ball of dust and rotted vegetation, totally unfit for human habitation. They brought back photographs taken of the dead planet that no longer deserved the name it had rated in life.
But Jerry Norcriss, Space Zoologist, made it a special point to avoid looking at any of them.