THE COSMIC COMPUTER

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in the Terran Federation. The other planets were uninhabitable except in
airtight dome cities, but they were rich in minerals. Companies had been
formed to exploit them. No food could be produced on any of them except
by carniculture and hydroponic farming, and it had been cheaper to
produce it naturally on Poictesme. So Poictesme had concentrated on
agriculture and had prospered. At least, for about a century.

Other colonial planets were developing their own industries; the
manufactured goods the Gartner Trisystem produced could no longer find a
profitable market. The mines and factories on Jurgen and Koshchei, on
Britomart and Calidore, on Panurge and the moons of Pantagruel closed,
and the factory workers went away. On Poictesme, the offices emptied,
the farms contracted, forests reclaimed fields, and the wild game came back.

Coming toward the ship out of the east, now, was a vast desert of
crumbling concrete?landing fields and parade grounds, empty barracks and
toppling sheds, airship docks, stripped gun emplacements and