“If you ask me,” came the deep, gravel voice of Sark, one of the ground detail, “anybody who’d come and live on a hole like this place in an armpit like this had to be nuts from the start.”

“I’ve seen worse and I’ve seen it work,” Queson told him. “Back in those days they even had means of controlling weather and climate on a planetary basis. They didn’t do that here, but I think that was the ultimate goal. Take a place with all the elements but in the wrong places and forms, prove it and mold it, then eventually create out of an armpit, as you call it, a garden of beauty and plenty. Some of the best worlds we still have were created that way by these kind of people. This one just failed, for some reason.”

Now she badly wanted to know what that reason was, too. Not just because she had to weigh any threats against the salvagers from all this, but also because it was another chapter in the story of humanity. She hadn’t gotten her degrees to go into the salvage business; she’d gone into the salvage business to provide a means to satisfy her curiosity.

“Tag this building and prepare it for dismantling,” Nagel signaled to the salvage team through the intercom. It would take a few hours to fully analyze the site, but then less than two to salvage anything of and in it that might be of value. The robot deconstructors were very efficient once they’d been told what was what.

“Going into the next building,” Queson told them. Even as they progressed, slowly and methodically from building to building and throughout the site, business would be going on behind them. “Achmed, take this sample case back up to the base and have it fully analyzed,” she added, speaking to one of the nearby team. “Then return to us.”

The big man took it and frowned. “Yes, ma’am, Boss Lady,” he responded with a slightly mocking tone. “Um—you don’t think there’s anything dangerous here, do you? I mean, like germs and stuff?”