t the war never came near
Roye. The action was all in the opposite section of the giant sphere of
the Space Territories, and over the years the war drew steadily farther
away.

And Earth's vast wealth--its manpower, materials and money--was pouring
into space in the direction the Geest War was moving. Worlds not a tenth
as naturally attractive as Roye, worlds where the basic conditions for
human life were just above the unbearable point, were settled and held,
equipped with everything needed and wanted to turn them into independent
giant fortresses, with a population not too dissatisfied with its lot.
When Earth government didn't count the expense, life could be made
considerably better than bearable almost anywhere.

Those were the circumstances which condemned Roye to insignificance. Not
everyone minded. Phil Boles, native son, did mind. His inclinations were
those of an operator, and he was not being given an adequate opportunity
to exercise them. Therefore, the circumstances would have to be changed,
and the precise time to make the change was at hand. Phil himself was
not aware of every factor involved, but he was aware of enough of them.
Back on Earth, a certain political situation was edging towards a
specific point of instability. As a result, an Earth ship which was not
one of the regular freighters had put down at Fort Roye some days
before. Among its passengers were Commissioner Sanford of the
Territorial Office, a well-known politician, and a Mr. Ronald Black, the
popular and enterprising owner of Earth's second largest news outlet
system. They were on a joint fact-finding tour of the thinly scattered
colonies in this remote section of the Territories, and had wound up
eventually at the most remote of all--the 132nd Segment and Roye.

That was one factor. Just visible twenty thousand feet below
Phil--almost directly beneath him now as the aircar made its third
leisurely crossing of the central belt of the peninsula--was another.
From here it looked like an irregular brown circle against the
peninsula's nearly white ground. Lower down, it would have resembled
nothing so much as the broken and half-decayed spirals of a gigantic
snail shell, its base sunk deep in the ground and its shattered point
rearing twelve stories above it. This structure, known popularly as "the
ruins" in Fort Roye, was supposed to have been the last stronghold of a
semi-intelligent race native to Roye, which might have become extinct