hy not." He gestured expressively at the star
chart papered over one wall of his office. "We've certainly got plenty
of them. But what happened with your first one?"

"It d-d-duh--"

"Mr. Holliday, I certainly won't be offended if you'd prefer to look out
the window," Mead said quickly.

"Thank you." After a moment, he began again. "It didn't work out," he
said, his glance flickering back to Mead for an instant before he had to
look out the window again.

"I don't know where my figuring went wrong. It _didn't_ go wrong. It was
just ... just _things_. I thought I could sell enough subdivisions to
cover the payments and still keep most of it for myself, but it didn't
work out."

He looked quickly at Mead with a flash of groundless guilt in his eyes.
"First I had to sell more than I'd intended, because I had to lower the
original price. Somebody'd optioned another planet in the same system,
and I hadn't counted on the competition. Then, even after I'd covered
the option and posted surety on the payments, there were all kinds of
expenses. Then I couldn't lease the mineral rights--" He looked at Mead
again, as though he had to justify himself. "I don't know how that deal
fell through. The company just ... just _withdrew_, all of a sudden."

"Do you think there might have been anything peculiar about that?" Mead
asked. "I mean--could the company have made a deal with the colonists
for a lower price after you'd been forced out?"

Holliday shook his head quickly. "Oh, no--nothing like that. The
colonists and I got along fine. It wasn't as though I hadn't put the
best land up for sale, or tried to make myself rich. Why, after I'd had
to sell some of the remaining land, and I knew it wasn't worth staying,
any more, some of them offered to lend me enough money to keep fifty
thousand square miles for myself." He smiled warmly, his eyes blank
while he focused on memory.

"But that wasn't it, of course," he went on. "I had my original
investment back. But I couldn't tell them why I couldn't stay. It was
_people_--even if I never saw them, it was the thought of people, with
aircraft and rockets and roads--"

"I understand, Mr. Holliday," Mead said in an effort to spare him
embarrassment.

Holliday looked at him helplessly. "I couldn't tell them that, could I,
Mr. Mead? They were good, friendly people who wanted to help me. I
couldn't tell them it was people, could I?"

He wet his dry lips and locked his eyes on the view