Behind him, around him, the bombardment continued.
PUBLIC OPINION FIVE
Being an excerpt from Chapter Seven of A Fourth Grade Reader in Confederation History, by Dr. A. Lindell Jones, with the assistance of Mary Beth Wilkinson, published in New York, U. S. A., Earth in September of the year one hundred and ninety-nine of the Confederation and approved for use in the public schools by the Board of Education (United) of the U. S. A., Earth, in January of the year two hundred of the Confederation.
... The first explorers on Fruyling's World named the new planet after the heroic captain of their ship, and prepared long reports on the planet for the scientists back home in the Confederation. The reports mentioned large metallic deposits, and this rapidly became important news.
The metallic deposits were badly needed by the Confederation for making many of the things which still are found in your homes: such useful objects as cleaners, whirlostats and such all require metal from Fruyling's World.
Of course, there were not many explorers on the new planet, and it was a hard job for them to dig out the metal the Confederation needed.
But the planet had natives on it already. The natives were called Alberts, and here is a picture of them. Aren't they funny-looking?
The Alberts were happy to help with the digging in exchange for some of the good things the explorers talked about, because they didn't have many good things. But the explorers built houses for them and gave them food and taught them English, and the Alberts dug in the ground and helped get the metal ready to ship back to the Confederation.