Some Details Missed In The Previous Post

On Mercury, a global network of transmission towers will collect solar energy and send it to orbiting antimatter factories, also to the laser beams that will launch the first starships.

The base has a central artificial intelligence that can control a robot on the surface.

Back on Earth, "Organicists" oppose human-machine linkages. Brannock replies that, if human beings are roboticized, robots are also humanized.

Brannock's return to space reminded me of lines in the song, "The Green Hills of Earth," composed by Robert Heinlein's character, Rhysling:

"The arching sky is calling
"Spacemen back to their trade..."

To reinforce this comparison, Brannock plays a guitar and writes sings.

As in several other works, e.g., "Starfog," Anderson imagines an unexpected problem on another planet - the stone gives way beneath Gimmick - and an explanation - "'...this particular mineral combination is unusually vulnerable to thermal stress...'" (Genesis, p. 27). Weakened by "'...gigayears of heat and cold...'" (ibid.), solar wind and cosmic rays, the scarp developed flaws until any substantial shock would demolish it. The spacemen learn.