I turned toward the little Martian. The dark pupil-slits, and the yellow irises of his huge eyes, covered me. "Irene has spoken the truth, Chet," he told me in his slow, labored English. "The Asteroid Belt, the many hundreds of fragments that compose it, are the remains of a planet that exploded. So there is soil on many of the asteroids. Dried out--yes--after most of the water and air disappeared into space, following the catastrophe. But the soil can still be useful. And there is still water, not in free, liquid form, but combined in ancient rock strata; gypsum, especially. It is like on Mars, when the atmosphere began to get too thin for us to breathe, and the water very scarce on the dusty deserts." I said nothing, wished I had kept silent. "We roasted gypsum in atomic furnaces," Geedeh finished, "driving the water out as steam, and reclaiming it for our underground cities. The same can be done here among the Minor Planets. And since water is hydrogen dioxide, oxygen can be obtained from it, too, by electrolysis. Nitrogen and carbon dioxide, necessary to complete the new atmosphere, which will be prevented from leaking into space by the force of the artificial gravity, can be obtained from native nitrates, and other compounds. Only vital parts of the machinery need be brought out from Earth and Mars by rocket. The rest can be made here, from native materials." Geedeh's voice, as he spoke to me, was a soft, sibilant whisper, like the rustle of red dust in a cold, thin, Martian wind. "You bet," Pa Mavrocordatus enthused. "Nick's got a good idea. I'm gonna raise my flowers! I'm gonna raise tomatoes and cabbages and carrots, right here on one of them asteroids!" It struck me as funny--asteroids--cabbages! Nothing I could think of, could seem quite that far apart. Black, airless vacuum, rough rocks, and raw, spacial sunshine! And things from a truck garden! It didn't match. But then, Pa Mavrocordatus didn't match the asteroids either! He'd had a truck garden once, outside of St. Louis. And yet he was out here in space, and had been for a year and a half! Well, even if the idea _was_ practical, I thought first that they were still just dreaming--kidding themselves that it would be a cinch to accomplish. And not being able to fight through. Then I glanced back at Nick. That look on his face was there again. A strange mixture of confidence, worry, grimness, and vision. It came to me then that he was no kid at all. * * * * * "Let me in on the job?" I asked hopefully. "Sure!" Nick returned. "We wouldn't be telling you all this, if we didn't want you. That's why we came back to Enterprize--hoping to find you around some place."