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was the same: to create the physical conditions for others to use; but not controlled domes and environments, since this was Rohanda. As they arrived on the planet and were released from the spacecraft, our observers were there – but concealed from them.
    The Rohandan atmosphere is not dissimilar from that ofC.P. 24, but it has 5 per cent more oxygen.
    I have to record that the observers – among whom I was one – felt more than a little disquiet as the poor creatures emerged on to the grassy, watered plains. They had been for all that time – to them it must have seemed interminable – on 23, either within the domes, or outside working in their cumbersome space suits. There were skies inside the domes – but false skies, which they knew, since they had made them; there was vegetation, but none they had not put there; there was water that they had set moving. Here they stood on earth that was not all sand and rock and gravel, but was grassed and fertile, under real skies … as they came pouring down the spacecraft steps they let out hoarse cries of wonder and gratitude, and then flung themselves down on the grass and rolled there, and then clutched each other and – so it sounded – laughed and, when we looked closely at their broad, hairy faces through our powerful lenses, wept: we saw the tears roll. Tears are not part of our own functioning on our Mother Planet, but they are of some among our family of species. We had not known that these animals wept; no mention had been made of it. And then they danced, slowly, solemnly, thousands upon thousands of them, holding up their arms, lifting their ape faces to the skies and celebrating their joy at returning to – normality? Was that what they thought, we wondered? That this was their own home again?
    So it turned out. They believed that they were home, since trees and blue skies and grasses and freedom from clumsy machinery and space equipment
were
their home; and did not realize for some time that this was not a part of their own planet but another planet.
    When they did, they were not given time to develop negative reactions.
    After an interval while they were allowed to rush about and to dance and to let out strange – and surely rhythmic – grunts and cries, a time while they were permitted to enjoy their freedom, they were again rounded up, divided into companies, and set to work. Forest had to be cleared for, firstof all, settlements of our colonizers; and then when this was accomplished, wider tracts cleared for the planting of crops, and the siting of laboratories. When one station was ready with its buildings, its cleared fields, its laboratories, then the entire work force was lifted off again to another site further south. As soon as they left, but not before, since these animals were not to see creatures more evolved than themselves, the first contingent of agriculturalists came in from our Mother Planet. They had been chosen by lottery; such was the fierceness of the competition for this work, it was the only method that could be guaranteed not to cause resentment.
    Ten different agricultural stations were established on Southern Continent I. These were enough not only to supply all of 23, but later there were plentiful supplies of what were luxury products, at luxury prices, for our Home Planet. The setting up of these took over a hundred R-years.
    The average life of the Lombis was 200 R-years. As always, when establishing a species on another planet, the way this would affect a life-term was a major consideration. We had come to expect random and wild fluctuation at the beginning, and thereafter unforeseen variations in life-term. The Lombis were no exception. During the first few R-years, some died for no apparent reason (some race-psychologists classed these deaths under the heading of Mal-Adaptation due to Life Disappointment), and the young that were born seemed likely to be set for longer life-terms. There