Every other planet regarded the men of Ades as outlaws, rebels, and criminals. The people of Terranova, therefore, were not cut off from the immigrants and supplies and the technical skills of Ades. They were necessarily isolated from the rest of the human race. And then, besides that, there were sixteen millions of people left on Ades, cut off from the hope that Terranova represented.
Kim Rendell was called on immediately. The Colony Organizer of Terranova, himself, went in person to confer and to bewail.
Kim Rendell was peacefully puttering with an unimportant small gadget when the Colony Organizer arrived. The house was something of a gem of polished plastic—Dona had designed it—and it stood on a hill with a view which faced the morning sun and the rising twin moons of Terranova.
The atmosphere-flier descended, and Dona led the Organizer to the workshop in which Kim puttered. The Organizer had had half an hour in which to think of catastrophe. He was in a deplorable state when Kim looked up from the thing with which he was tinkering.
"Enter and welcome," he said cheerfully in the formal greeting. "I'm only amusing myself. But you look disturbed."
The Colony Organizer bewailed the fact that there would be no more supplies from Ades. No more colonists. Technical information, urgently needed, could not be had. Supplies were necessary for exploring parties, and new building-machines were desperately in demand, and the storage-reserves were depleted and could last only so long if no more came through.
"But," said Kim blankly. "Why shouldn't they come through?"
"The matter-transmitter's stopped working!" The Colony Organizer wrung his hands. "If they're still transmitting on Ades, think of the lives and the precious material that's being lost!"
"They aren't transmitting," said Kim. "A transmitter and a receiver are a unit. Both have to work for either one to operate—except in the very special case of a transmitter-drive ship. But it's queer. I'll come take a look."
He slipped into the conventional out-of-door garments. Dona had listened. Now she said a word or two to Kim, her expression concerned. Kim's expression darkened.