"Has it occurred to you—to any of you," Allerton added, glancing around the table, "that this whole thing might be some sort of test? That our willingness to take on what seems to be a hopeless task may be how all those aliens out there judge our spirit and ingenuity?"

"More likely testing our intelligence," Nagata murmured.

"I have an idea," Liadov spoke up. "As Mr. Allerton seems to be the only one of us interested in demonstrating mankind's resolve to our new neighbors—and as he is so fond of invoking Yankee ingenuity as the solution to all our problems—I suggest we give the United States a UN mandate to develop and administer this world. With a certain amount of UN support, of course."

"All right," Allerton said abruptly. "If I can get Congress to approve, we'll do it.

And"—he leveled a finger at Liadov— "we'll do it well."

The next day the matter was brought before the General Assembly, which endorsed the mandate by a 148 to 13 vote. A month later the U.S. Senate followed suit, and the world newly christened Astra became the center of perhaps the biggest project the Army Corps of Engineers had ever undertaken.

Eleven months after that, the first colonists arrived.

Chapter 1

From orbit Astra resembled nothing so much as a giant mudball on which someone had thoughtlessly spilled a bucket or two of pale blue paint. Both of the continental land masses were as dead-dull-bland as anything Colonel Lloyd Meredith had ever seen. No reds, certainly no greens; just the occasional blue of a lake or a line of white-capped mountains. Even the continental-shelf mineral deposits upon which the planet's future industry depended so heavily came out as a blue-washed white. "I wish we'd brought some paint," he commented to the man beside him.