We were both silent. There seemed nothing further to say. The distance was as far between us as between Sol and Primus Gladus. I fumbled in my briefcase.
"This is something that may interest you, Solly." I handed him the folder containing his topsoil project. "Found it in my file just this afternoon. Thought maybe you could use it where you're going."
He looked at it. His forehead wrinkled in a frown.
"Remember?" I cued him. "College days?"
A light came into his eyes from a source thousands of light-years away. "Oh yes," he uttered slowly, a faint smile touching the corners of his mouth. "That was our big business venture. The Topsoil Initiator." He looked at me peculiarly. "Bart, how come you kept it all these years?"
"I always thought it was a good idea." This was not a lie. "But why," I said, "haven't you done anything with it?"
"O-o-o-oh," he drawled, "no drive, I guess. The real reason, I guess, is that I never had enough money to buy a barren, rocky acre where I could give it a practical tryout."
"Ten years seems like such a long time to wait for results," I said.
Solly reflected with that faint remembering smile on his lips. "It did then."