was theatrical only because he was aware of
it, the leader of the people of Colin showed the way. Hoddan had been
admitted with his spaceboat into one gigantic cargo hold. He was now
escorted to the next. It was packed tightly with cases of machinery. One
huge crate had been opened and its contents fully disclosed. Others had
been hacked at enough to show their contents.

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 purpos