Regulations mean red tape — and red tape can strangle someone as handily as a hangman's rope. Particularly when the someone is an alien desperately in need of a spaceship repair job ...
Рэймонд Фишер Джоунс
This is a story about a spacesuit — a fine, practical discussion of the impracticability of mere theoretical checks on how things ought to work!
The patent system was introduced to induce inventors to reveal their secrets — but it doesn't compel them. It's far from perfect, and if you had an unpatentable secret... what fur could he made to fly!
The Alpha Colony on Planet 7 was an artist's paradise; here, all his wants and needs would be taken care of, and John Carwell could compose as he wished. And all knew that this was part of a great project for humanity's future. But John couldn't forget the girl in the Control-colony, living out in the jungle...