"That's what I'm afraid of," he told her. "A transmitter is too simple to break down. They can get detuned, but we made the pairs for Ades and Terranova especially. Their tuning elements are set in solid plastite. They couldn't get out of tune!"
He picked up a small box. He tucked it under his arm.
"I'll be back," he told Dona heavily. "But I suspect you'd better pack."
He went out to the grounded flier. The Colony Organizer took it up and across the green-clad hills of Terranova. The vegetation of Terranova is extraordinarily flexible, and the green stuff below the flier swayed elaborately in the wind. The top of the forests bowed and bent in the form of billows and waves. The effect was that of an ocean which complacently remained upraised in hillocks and had no normal surface. It was not easy to get used to such things.
"I'm terribly worried," said the Organizer anxiously. "There is a tremendous shortage of textiles, and the ores we usually send back to balance our account are piling up."
"You're badly worried, eh?" said Kim grimly.
"Of course! How can we keep our economic system now?"
Kim made an angry noise.
"I'm a lot more worried than you are," he snapped. "Nothing should have stopped this particular pair of transmitters from working but the destruction of one or the other! This box in my pocket might tell me the answer, but I'm afraid to find out. I assure you that temporary surpluses and shortages of ores and textiles are the least of the things we have to worry about."
The little flier sped on, with the great, waving billows of the forest beneath it. On one hillock there was a clearing with a group of four plastic houses shining in the sunlight. They looked horribly lonely in the sea of green, but the population on Terranova was spread thin. Far over at the horizon there was another clearing. Sunlight glinted on water. A pleasure-pool. There was a sizable village about it. Half a dozen soarers spun and whirled lazily above. Kim said: