“I beg your pardon, sir!”

“Oh, don’t get into one of your huffs, Plekhanov.’*

They were at that stage again.

Technician Natt Roberts entered, even here in the informality of space, looking as trim as a male fashion model. He had a book in hand and sent the trend of conversation in a new direction.

He said worriedly, “I’ve been studying up on this and what we’re confronted with is two different ethnic periods—barbarism and feudalism. Handling them both at once doubles our problem.”

Cogswell, an energetic junior specialist who’d been sitting to one side said, “That’s not exactly sparkling new information, but I’ve been thinking about it too. And maybe I’ve got an answer. Why not all of us concentrate on Texcoco? When we’ve brought them up to the level of Genoa, which shouldn’t take more than a decade or two, then we can start working on Genoa, too.”

Mayer snapped, in a domineering voice. “And by that time we’ll have hardly more than half our fifty years left to raise the two of them to an industrial technology. Don’t be an idiot, Cogswell.”

Cogswell flushed his resentment.

Plekhanov said slowly, “Besides, I’m not sure that, given the correct method, we cannot raise Texcoco to an industrialized society in approximately the same time it will take to bring Genoa there.”

Mayer bleated a sarcastic laugh at that opinion.

Natt Roberts tossed his book to the table and sank into a chair. “If only one of them had maintained itself at a reasonable level of development, we’d have had help in working with the other. As it is, there are only eighteen of us.” He shook his head. “Why did the knowledge held by the original colonists melt away? How can an intelligent people lose such basics as the smelting of iron, gunpowder, the use of coal as a fuel?”

Plekhanov was heavy with condescension. “Roberts, you seem to have entered upon this expedition with a lack of background. Consider: You put down a hundred colonists, products of the most advanced culture; among these you have one or two who can possibly repair an IBM computer, but is there one who can smelt iron or even locate the ore? We have others who could design an automated textile factory, but do any know how to weave a blanket on a hand loom?