Industrial espionage was a field he thought would have collapsed after Earth died.

What did it matter if Earth died, as long as a new civilization would be built on a distant, safer world?

"Then mankind couldn't have been a harbinger, for Earth died even though men were many."

In the far future, the Earth is dying.

If war came and Earth died, it didn't make sense.

How many believers in that old religion could have been off-planet when the Earth died?

Without our work, Earth long ago would have died from the memory of Man.

What's more, they know the Earth is dying.

The plain fact is that the Earth will die of them within a week.

The Earth was dying; a long, slow, painful death.