The uncrated machine was a jungle plow. It was a powerful piece of equipment which would attack jungle on a thirty-foot front, knock down all vegetation up to trees of four-foot diameter, shred it, loosen and sift the soil to a three-foot depth, and leave behind it smoothed, broken, pulverized dirt mixed with ground-up vegetation ready to break down into humus. Such a machine would clear tens of acres in a day and night, turning jungle into farmland ready for terrestrial crops. "We ran this for five minutes," said the bearded man fiercely as Hoddan nodded approval. He lifted a motor hood. The motors were burned out. Worthless insulation. Gears were splintered and smashed. Low-grade metal castings. Assembly bolts had parted. Tractor treads were bent and cracked. It was not a machine except in shape. It was a mock-up in worthless materials which probably cost its maker the twentieth part of what an honest jungle plow would cost to build. Hoddan felt the anger any man feels when he sees betrayal of that honor a competent machine represents. "It's not all like this!" he said incredulously. "Some is worse," said the old man, with dignity. "There are crates which are marked to contain turbines. Their contents are ancient, worn-out brick-making machines. There are crates marked to contain generators. They are filled with corroded irrigation pipe and broken castings. We have shiploads of crush-baled, rusted sheet-metal trimmings! We have been cheated of our lives!" * * * * * Hoddan found himself sick with honest fury. The population of one-third of a planet, packed into spaceships for two years and more, would be appropriate subjects for sympathy at the best of times. But it was only accident that had kept these people from landing on Thetis by rocket--since none of their ships would be expected ever to rise again--and from having their men go out and joyfully hack at an alien jungle to make room for their machines to land--and then find out they'd brought scrap metal for some thousands of light-years to no purpose. They'd have starved outright. In fact, they were in not much better case right now. Because there was nowhere else that they could go! There was no new colony which could absorb so many people, with only their bare hands for equipment to live by. There was no civilized, settled world which could admit so many paupers without starving its own population. There was nowhere for these people to go! Hoddan's anger took on the feeling of guilt. He could do nothing, and something had to be done. "Why ... why did you come to Darth?" he asked. "What can you gain by orbiting here? You can't expect--" The old man faced him.