The Settlement Chief met him on the landing site.
"This place is going to take some getting used to. It's like a mirror version of Earth. The elements which are rare on Earth are the most abundant here while the common elements are extremely rare."
"So why are we here then," the guy asked, "we can't settle here, oxygen must be very rare."
"We are not here to settle, kid" the Chief said "we are here to export. It's the biggest stroke of luck the Gaia Company has had since we found that big diamond inside Jupiter. We'll all be very rich after this, you can count on that."
They travelled in silence after that until they reached the settlement gates. The new guy couldn't believe his eyes.
"The buildings are made of gold!", he said.
"Not just gold , it's alloyed with one part platinum and one part radium, to glow at night."
When they entered the settlement the guy was even more surprised.
"A nuclear reactor at every home?"
"Yep, Uranium's as common as dirt here. You just have to dig two inches and there it is. Also very radioactive, that's why we had the ground covered with gold to keep the radiation contained. Now we just supply the uranium through pipes."
The guy saw some people carrying large bags down to their houses.
"Who are those guys?" he asked.
"Scientists. The old buggers are very happy nowadays. All the elements that had to be artificially manufactured on Earth are naturally occuring here. They have been conducting experiments since the day we came here. Some of them haven't been seen for six months."
They travelled like this for an hour until they finally reached the Department of Communication.
"This is where you are assigned kid" the Chief said "Radio wave communication doesn't work very well here, all the radioactivity in the atmosphere interferes with the signal. So we are going old school, telegraphs. Your job is to manage the lines and look after the posts. You will be the Department Head. There are 20 guys working under you. Come on, let's meet some of them."
They walked a little while until they came to a forest. The guy couldn't keep his jaw shut. The trees were made of metals. Some of them were glowing radioactively. Some were burning just by exposure to some oxygen. Some were made of gold, some of platinum, some of silver.
"I don't believe this."
"Well, it's right in front of your eyes. We brought some trees from Earth to plant here for the oxygen. But things changed. The guys from NASA tell me that because of the lack of common elements found on Earth, the trees had to make use of what they could get. So here we have trees of every precious metal - gold, silver, platinum - you name it. We cut them off and send them to Earth. Pretty soon they're going to become common as iron but till then make hay while the sun shines, right? We don't use them for making the posts as they are actually quite soft and the people try to steal them. Here we also have trees of Seaborgium (chemical symbol Sg, atomic number 106), Flerovium (chemical symbol Fl, atomic number 114) and Oganesson (chemical symbol Og, atomic number 118). All very rare and very important, the guys at NASA are paying us very big money to supply them. They say it's the biggest find in Chemistry since Lavoisier discovered Hydrogen."
The Chief was talking while they walked. He stopped near a plantation of trees and pointed to them. The new guy looked at a bunch of trees, silvery-gray in colour, shining smoothly in the moonlight.
"Now those are the trees you are interested in", the Chief said. "Made of pure Rhenium (chemical symbol Re, atomic number 75). The fourth or fifth rarest element on Earth. Very strong, third highest melting point, highest boiling point, denser than lead, not affected by strong alkalies, sulphuric acid, hydrochloric acid or even aqua regia. It's the perfect metal for this job. Strong, sturdy and not radioactive. That's what we have been using for the posts all this time."
"You don't mean to say..." the new guy began to say.
"Yes," the Chief cut him off, "this place is full of Re posts."
