“She gave us the go-ahead,” the technician, entering the room, greeted. “It’s nuclear or bust.”

“What about the atomics?” a female engineer asked.

“I told her we could throw ’em together.”

“We’re going to need uranium,” one of the engineers interjected. “Where are we going to get it?”

“Mercury’s an option. Nights should be long enough, at least usually–the Sun does have a tendency to reverse itself once an orbit.”

“Everybody’s stuck at the bottom of Caloris.”

“The Galileians, or Saturn’s moons. We’ve already got Harpagia.”

“Is there enough? We haven’t even done a full radiometric survey yet, of any of them,” the woman countered.

“The Moon, then.”

“The concentration on the Moon is lower than it was in Earth granite,” objected the third man.

“But we know it’s there. If we take the time, we could find enough. Take the time to find it, mine it, sift through it, refine it—we just have to put a little elbow grease into it.”

“Yeah, just a little?”

“In the cosmic scheme of things…yes. A little.”