Carlin shrugged. "It's all right, I suppose. But I just can't understand how you people could let your planet get into this kind of shape. Why haven't you spread out more, instead of huddling around a few archaic centralized cities like that one back yonder?"

The lame young Earthman answered slowly, his thin, brown face turned to the road ahead.

"The answer to that is simple. One word, in fact. And that word is 'power.' We just don't have power enough here on Earth to smooth it out into a garden-planet like your star-worlds, to come and go around it any distance at will."

"Atomic power is about the easiest thing to produce there is," Carlin commented skeptically.

"Yes, if you have copper fuel," Jonny Land replied. "If we had enough copper we could make a garden of this world too, could spread all around its loveliest spots and come and go by fast flier, could give up the old hydroponic farming and synthesize our food, and produce the luxuries you people have on the star-worlds.

"But we have little copper. Earth, and its sister-planets here, are all starved for it. Once, we had a lot. But not now. And it's economically impossible to haul copper in sufficient quantities from other stars. That's why we're power-starved, unable to progress."

Carlin made no further comment. He was not much interested. He was only wondering sickly how long he would have to stay on this unkempt, stagnant planet.

The sun was burning his neck, for the old truck was topless. He was jolted by holes in the ancient road. The sweetness of the air had lost its magic for him, for now with the twilight had appeared swarms of evil little gnats and midges.

"This is the house," said Jonny Land, pulling up the truck in front of a square dwelling.

Laird Carlin's heart sank. It was like the other houses he had seen, a ferroconcrete structure festooned with climbing flower-vines, surrounded by tall, untrimmed trees except on the side that looked down into the twilit valley. Primitive hydroponic tanks gleamed dully beyond the trees.

He followed the lame youngster into a dim, cool living room. It looked like an antique stage set to Carlin, with its ridiculous cloth curtains at the windows, its obsolete krypton light bulbs in the ceiling, its massive furniture that was actually made of wood.

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