But his conscious mind sought refuge from the strangeness of space, and he talked almost constantly into his radio while he worked, talked about anything, everything, to the girl on the other end of the invisible link. "... and once the settlement is getting the power beamed from this contraption, we're going to explore the cities. Guess we won't be able to get very far inland, but we can still tackle Washington, Philadelphia and New York ... plenty for us there." Ruth asked, "What were they like before the war?" "The cities? That's right, you're too young to remember. They were big, Ruth, with buildings so tall people called them skyscrapers." He pulled a wrench from its magnetic holder in the satellite's self-contained tool bin. "And filled with life. Millions of people lived in each one ... all the people we have at the settlement could have lived on one floor of a good-sized hotel...." "What's a hotel?" * * * * * Tom grinned as he tugged at a pipe fitting. "You'll find out when you come with us ... you'll see things you could never imagine." "I don't know if I'll come with you." He looked up from his work and stared Earthward. "Why?" "Well ... Jason ... he says there isn't much left to see. And it's all radioactive and diseased." "Nonsense." "But Jason says...." Tom snorted. "Jason hasn't been out of the settlement for six years. I walked from Chicago to the settlement a year ago. I went through a dozen cities ... they're wrecked, and the radioactivity count was higher than it is here at the settlement, but it's not high enough to be dangerous." "And you want to explore those cities; why?" "Let's just say I'm a historian," Tom answered while his hands manipulated complex wiring unconsciously, as though they belonged not to him but to some unseen puppeteer. "I don't understand," Ruth said. "Look--those cities hold mankind's memory. I want to gather up the fragments of civilization before the last book is used for kindling and the last machine turns to rust. We need the knowledge in the cities if we expect to rebuild a civilization...." "But Jason and Dr. Arnoldsson and the engineers--they know all about...." "Jason and the engineers," Tom snapped. "They had to stretch themselves to the breaking point to put together this rocket from parts that were already manufactured, waiting for them. Do you think they'd know how to build a city? Dr. Arnoldsson is a psychiatrist; his efforts at surgery are pathetic. Have you ever seen him try to set a broken leg? And what about agriculture? What about tool-making or mining or digging wells, even ... what about education? How many kids your own age can read or write?" "But the satellite...." "The satellite won't be of any use to people who can't work the machines. The satellite is no substitute for knowledge. Unless something is done, your grandchildren will be worshipping the machines, but they won't know how to repair them." "No...."