the answers themselves. But I couldn't. They don't believe in the Brain
as a tool, to use; it's a machine god that they can bring all their
troubles to. You can't take a thing like that away from people without
giving them something better."

"I noticed you suggested building a spaceship and agreed with the
professor about building a computer. What was your idea? To take their
minds off hunting for the Brain and keep them busy?"

Conn shook his head. "I'm serious about the ship--ships. You and Colonel
Zareff gave me that idea."

His father looked at him in surprise. "I never said a word in there, and
Klem didn't even once mention--"

"Not in Kurt's office; before we went up from the docks. There was Klem,
moaning about a good year for melons as though it were a plague, and you
selling arms and ammunition by the ton. Why, on Terra or Baldur or
Uller, a glass of our brandy brings more than these freighter-captains
give us for a cask, and what do you think a colonist on Agramma, or
Sekht, or Hachiman, who has to fight for his life against savages and
wild animals, would pay for one of those rifles and a thousand rounds of
ammunition?"

His father objected. "We can't base the whole economy of a planet on
brandy. Only about ten per cent of the arable land on Poictesme will
grow wine-melons. And if we start exporting Federation salvage the way
you talk of, we'll be selling pieces instead of job lots. We'll net
more, but--"