"I hope so." He shook his head dubiously. "But what about us? We don't have to worry about humans, and probably those things out there haven't come close enough to learn about us. But they're pretty advanced. What if they should?" "You think they can detect us when we're dematerialized?" I smiled. "Don't be naive. Anyway, nothing risked, you know." I shouldn't have said that. I talk too much. "Nothing gained." He completed the sentence for me. He didn't look altruistic. "Just what do we stand to gain?" The others hadn't thought of it, and neither had I, from that angle. I ad-libbed. "It's not been good here lately. There's too many factors against us, agencies that I don't have to mention. "Feast or famine, mostly the last. And what are we going to do after an atomic war, when mutants come along? Are you sure we can compete with them? As bad as it is now, it can get worse." I paused to let the dire predictions sink in. "Someone has to do it, and I intend to be the one to find new worlds for us," I said. My confidence impressed the others, but not the heckler. "I can see that you'll find it for yourself. But how are you going to let us know?" "Just now I can't communicate from here to Philadelphia," I said. "It's a harassing business, merely trying to stay alive. Here I haven't had time to practice mental communication. But there conditions will be ideal and I expect to develop myself so that I can reach out anywhere in the galaxy." Objectively that was true. Subjectively I could have changed my mind about sharing my prize. They didn't think of that and I didn't mention it. The last objection was silenced. They went about their preparations and I about mine. * * * * * We set up the decoy in Illinois. No real reason I suppose, except that most of us are allergic to desert, the logical place to build spaceport and ships. Deserts are hot, dry and bright, and there are few humans there. In our own way we're fond of men, though they may not think so. Illinois it was, and if there was a note of incongruity in it, so much the better. A spaceship looked strange in the middle of the flat cornfields? Very well, it did. Let the robot investigator find out why it was there. The creation was not difficult. There was a haze in the air and the fields were green, and the spaceship pointed a sleek nose toward the sky. It was impalpable from below. A farmer plowed right through the stern tubes without knowing they were there. An inconvenience only; we blacked him out as seen from above. The farmhouse we converted into a control tower and the barn became a disembarkation structure.