Bordman grimaced, and
again said:

"Damn! Why didn't I think of that myself?"

"Because," said Aletha, smiling, "you aren't a Doctor of Human History
with a horse-raising husband and a fondness for ice cream. Even so, a
technician was needed to break down the problem here into really simple
terms." Then she said, "I think Bob Running Antelope might approve of
you, Mr. Bordman."

Bordman fumed to himself.

"Who's he? Just what does that whole comment mean?"

"I'll tell you," said Aletha, "when you've solved one or two more
problems."

Her cousin came back into the room. He said with gratification:

"Chuka can turn out silicone-wool insulation, he says. Plenty of
material, and he'll use a solar mirror to get the heat he needs. Plenty
of temperature to make silicones! How much area will we need to pull in
four thousand gallons of water a night?"

"How do I know?" demanded Bordman. "What's the moisture-content of the
air here, anyhow?" Then he said vexedly, "Tell me! Are you using
heat-exchangers to help cool the air you pump into the buildings, before
you use power to refrigerate it? It would save some power----"

The Indian project engineer said absorbedly:

"Let's get to work on this! I'm a steel man myself, but----"

They settled down. Aletha turned a page.

The _Warlock_ spun around the planet. The members of its crew withdrew
into themselves. In even two months of routine tedious voyaging to this
planet, there had been the beginnings of irritation with the mannerisms
of other men. Now there would be years of it. At the beginning, every
man tended to become a hermit so that he could postpone as long as
possible the time when he would hate his shipmates. Monotony was already
so familiar that its continuance was a foreknown evil. The crew of the
_Warlock_ already knew how intolerable they would presently be to each
other, and the foreknowledge tended to make them intolerable now.

Within two days of its establishment in orbit, the _Warlock_ was manned
by men already morbidly resentful of fate; with the psychology of
prisoners doomed to close confinement for an indeterminate but ghastly
period. On the third day there was a second fist fight. A bitter one.

Fist fights are not healthy symptoms in a spaceship which cannot hope to
make port for a matter of years.

* * * * *

Most human problems are circular and fall apart when a single trivial
part of them is solved. There u