icated building-steel is piled ready
for erection--under two thousand feet of sand. Without anything but
stored power it is hardly practical"--Redfeather's tone was
sardonic--"for us to try to dig it out. There are hundreds of millions
of tons of stuff to be moved. If we could get the sand away, we could
finish the grid. If we could finish the grid, we'd have power enough to
get the sand away--in a few years, and if we could replace the machinery
that wore out handling it. And if there wasn't another sandstorm."

He paused. Bordman took deep breaths of the cooler air. He could think
more clearly.

"If you will accept photographs," said Redfeather politely, "you can
check that we actually did the work."

* * * * *

Bordman saw the implications. The colony had been formed of Amerinds for
the steel work and Africans for the labor the Amerinds were congenitally
averse to--the handling of complex mining-machinery underground and the
control of modern high-speed smelting operations. Both races could
endure this climate and work in it--provided that they had cooled
sleeping quarters. But they had to have power. Power not only to work
with, but to live by. The air-cooling machinery that made sleep possible
also condensed from the cooled air the minute trace of water vapor it
contained and that they needed for drink. But without power they would
thirst. Without the landing grid and the power it took from the
ionosphere, they could not receive supplies from the rest of the
universe. So they would starve.

And the _Warlock_, now in orbit somewhere overhead, was well within the
planet's gravitational field and could not use its Lawlor drive to
escape with news of their predicament. In the normal course of events it
would be years before a colony ship capable of landing or blasting out
of a planetary gravitational field by rocket-power was dispatched to
find out why there was no news from Xosa II. There was no such thing as
interstellar signaling, of course. Ships themselves travel faster than
any signal that could be sent, and distances were so great that mere
communication took enormous lengths of time. A letter sent to Earth from
the Rim even now took ten years to make the journey, and another ten for
a reply. Even the much shorter distances involved in Xosa II's
predicament still ruled out all hope. The colony was strictly on its
own.

Bordman said heavily:

"I'll accept the photographs. I