Over the watching throng a sigh was rising, such a sigh as may come from the lips of those who have seen wonders past the understanding.
At the top of the coliseum, where the vast red deserts stretched away under a thin harness of tiny canals, they paused.
Roy Larkin had changed. The fear and the terror were gone. A different enthusiasm was in his voice. "We can still bring minerals here but we will no longer operate as I had planned. We will operate on a cost-plus basis, we will deliver them here at a price...."
"The buyer can afford," Boyd Larkin said softly.
"Right," his son said.
Behind them stood Malovar and Seekin. Malovar grunted approvingly. "Through such men as you, minerals can come to Mars—and with them new life may come to an old and dying world."
Malovar looked beyond the city to the red deserts. He seemed to be seeing them as vast stretches of greenery, as interlacing canals with lush vegetation covering all the land that now was desert but someday would be something else. His face glowed.
"You also seem to have won a victory here," Boyd Larkin spoke.
"Yes," Malovar answered. "I have blended the laws of my people with the drive of you humans, made each aware of the other, made each respect and support the other. The victory will be there, in the years that are to come."