A slight drizzle of rain began to fall. Dani pulled out the umbrella and Robert crowded under it with her. Neither thought of going indoors. In fact, most of the people on the street seemed to be ignoring the rain, concentrating instead on the broadcast. Robert realized that it must be something truly important and began to take an interest.

Dani grabbed Robert's arm as they watched the newscast. In the years after fusion power had propelled man to the asteroid belt, a G-type star in Orion was found to have a possible habitable planet. The excitement was overwhelming as the PLN converted a large asteroid into an interstellar ship. A lone astronaut named Brian Springer, a modern Buck Rogers, was placed in cryogenic storage and sent on the asteroid to the planet. The journey had taken twenty-seven years ship time, or forty-one years Earth-time. Now, almost one hundred years later, the first signals from the astronaut were making their way back.

Dani, Robert, and the rest of the solar system watched the view from the asteroid as Springer entered the new solar system.

"Isn't this exciting?" Dani's eyes were glued to the nearest window so she missed the frown on Robert's face.

The next image was from two years later. It was the asteroid, or what was left of it. The journey from Earth had required so much raw matter to power the fusion reactor that only about one sixth of the original asteroid was left. The next picture was a shock. It was the Springer, standing on the planet under an off-blue sky, saying that his radio had malfunctioned and it had taken him this long to mine the planet for the materials needed by the robot systems to build a new circuit board.

A low murmur started from all the people watching nearby. That meant that Springer had actually lived on the plant for the past two years! His ship wasn't equipped for long-term survival. If the planet was found to be uninhabitable, he was supposed to have placed himself back in cryogenic storage and head back home.

"What happened to the back up supply?" Robert wondered aloud, wiping moisture from his face. "You know that they had to have sent him prepared for almost every contingency. He should have had a spare radio on hand." Dani ignored him as the astronaut went on to describe in detail the planet, which he had named New Earth, and to stress that he had managed to live on his own for the past two years. As far as he was concerned, and the scientific data from the robots supported him, the planet was totally inhabitable.

Dani and Robert stood immobile for about an hour, watching as Springer described the local flora and fauna, giving the world an electronic sight-seeing tour.

Seeing the lakes, mountains, and fields of New Earth cut into Robert badly. Suddenly, he longed for nothing more than to be able walk alone across that field, stand next to that lake, and look into the mountains. With a population of five billion on Earth, you were never alone.

Near the end, Dani found the presence of mind to pull out her personal recorder and record the end of Springer's presentation.

"...make no mistake folks; this planet is dangerous. There is no life more advanced than insects and small water creatures. This is a young planet, after all. But the native plants are filled with toxins totally lethal to the human system. Nothing on this planet is fit to eat, but the water is drinkable after some basic filtering. I had to live for five months on survival rations, hoping the potatoes I brought with me and the corn would grow. They did, thank God." Springer sighed, sweating under a sun hotter than his native Sol, "The local mites or something have destroyed my latest crop. At the conclusion of this speech, I am going to place myself back into cryogenic storage to wait for the next expedition."

The rest was boring, at least a far as Robert was concerned, so he grabbed a protesting Dani by the elbow and led her to the tram station.