passed against pantropy, but for a while the laws didn’t have
many teeth; Congress was leary of forbidding vivisection at
the same time, and didn’t know exactly what it was being
asked to forbid; Port didn’t want to be too explicit. My father
was detennined to see pantropy tried while the laws still pro
vided some loopholeshe knew well enough that they’d be
stiffened as soon as Port thought it safe to stiffen them. And
he was convinced that we’d never colonize the stars by dome-
building or terraforming. Those might work on some of our
local planetsMars, Venusbut not outside.”
“Outside? How would anybody get there?”
“With the interstellar drive, Donald. It’s been in existence
for decades, in fact for nearly half a century. Several explor-
atory voyages were made with it right after it was discovered,
all of them highly successfulthough you’ll find no mention
of them in the press of the time. Port couldn’t see any profit
emerging out of interstellar flight and suppressed the news,
sequestered the patents, destroyed the records of the trips
insofar as it could. But all the Port ships have the overdrive,
just in case. Even our ship has it. So does your ferry-pilot
friend up there.”
Sweeney shut up.
“The thing is this: most planets, even right here inside the
solar system, won’t sustain domes to begin with, and can’t be
terraformed in any even imaginable way. Jupiter, for in-
stance. And too many others will yield to either procedure too
slowly, and too unprofitably, to tempt Port. Over interstellar
distances, Port won’t even try, since there’d be no trade or