watha and the planets of the Beta and Gamma
Systems. What I want to see is the mines and factories reopened, people
employed, wealth being produced."

"And where'll we sell what we produce? Remember, the mines closed down
because there was no more market."

"No more interstellar market, that's true. But there are a hundred and
fifty million people on Poictesme. That's a big enough market and a big
enough labor force to exploit the wealth of the Gartner Trisystem. We
can have prosperity for everybody on our own resources. Just what do we
need that we have to get from outside now?"

His father stopped again and sat down on the edge of a fountain--the
same one, possibly, from which Conn had seen dust blowing as the airship
had been coming in.

"Conn, that's a dangerous idea. That was what brought on the System
States War. The Alliance planets took themselves outside the Federation
economic orbit and the Federation crushed them."

Conn swore impatiently. "You've been listening to old Klem Zareff
ranting about the Lost Cause and the greedy Terran robber barons holding
the Galaxy in economic serfdom while they piled up profits. The
Federation didn't fight that war for profits; there weren't any profits
to fight for. They fought it because if the System States had won, half
of them would be at war among themselves now. Make no mistake about it,
politically I'm all for the Federation. But economically, I want to see
our people exploiting their own resources for themselves, instead of
grieving about lost interstellar trade, and bewailing bumper crops, and
searching for a mythical robot god."

"You think, if you can get something like that started, that they'll
forget about the Brain?" his father asked skeptically.

"That crowd up in Kurt Fawzi's office? Niflheim, no! They'll go on
hunting for the Brain as long as they live, and every day they'll be
expecting to find it tomorrow. That'll keep them happy. But they're all
old men. The ones I'm interested in are the boys of Charley's age. I'm
going to give them too many real things to do--building ships, exploring
the rest of the Trisystem, opening mines and factories, producing
wealth--for them to get caught in that empty old dream."

He looked down at the dusty fountain on which his father sat. "That
ghost-dream haunts this graveyard. I want to give them living dreams
that they can make come true."

Conn's father sat in silence for a while, his cigar smoke red in the
su