The instruments in the control room, were battered and patched; and from the living quarters to the rear, issued a duet of snores--one throaty and rattly, Pa Mavrocordatus' beyond doubt; and the other an intermittent hiss, originating unquestionably in the dust-filtering hairs in the larynx of Geedeh, the little Martian scientist, whom Nick had befriended. "I can't figure you out, Nick," I said. "Rich, and not leaving this hell-hole of space. You're an idiot." "So are you, Chet," he returned knowingly. "In my place, you wouldn't go either--at least not without regrets. In spite of all hell, there's something big here in space that gets you. You feel like nothing, yourself. But you feel that you're part of something terribly huge and terribly important. You'd be happy on Earth for a week; then you'd begin to smother inside. The Minor Planets have become our home, Chet. It's too late to break the ties." Slowly it soaked into my mind that Nick was right. "Not to say anything bad against old Mother Earth, Chet," he continued. "Far from it! That's just what's needed out here--a little touch of our native scene. Growing things. A piece of blue sky, maybe. Enough gravity to make a man believe in solid ground again." Right then I began to smell Nick's plan, not only what it was, but all the impractical dreamer part of it. I began to grin, but there was a kind of sadness in me, too. "Sure! Sure, Nick!" I chided. "The idea's as old as the hills! Rejuvenate some asteroid. Bring in soil and water and air from Earth. Install a big gravity-generating unit. Ha! Have you any idea how many ships it would take to bring those thousands and thousands of tons of stuff out here--even to get started?" * * * * * I was talking loud. My voice was booming through the rusty hull of the _Corfu_, making ringing echoes. So just about as I finished, they were all around me. Pa Mavrocordatus, in pajamas and ragged dressing gown, his handle-bar moustaches bristling. Geedeh, the tiny Martian, draped in a checkered Earthly blanket, his great eyes blinking, and his tiny fingers, with fleshy knobs at their ends instead of nails, twiddling nervously near the center of his barrel-chest. And Irene, too, standing straight and defiant and little, in her blue smock. Irene hadn't been sleeping. Probably she'd been washing dishes, and straightening up the galley after supper. She still had a dish towel in her hands. Wealth hadn't altered the Mavrocordatus' mode of life, yet. Irene looked like a bold little kewpie, her dark head of tousled, curly hair, not up to my shoulder. She was exquisitely pretty; but now she was somewhat irritated. She shook a finger up at me, angrily. "You think Nick has a dumb idea, eh, Chet Wallace?" she accused. "That's only because you don't know what you're talking about! We won't have to bring a drop of water, or a molecule of air or soil, out from Earth! You ask Geedeh!"