He leaned forward and offered a box of cigars. “I don’t know if I should,” he added. “Perhaps tobacco doesn’t suit your metabolism?”

“My what?” asked the visitor pleasantly. He was a big man, running a little to fat, with distinguished gray at the temples. It was not so odd that the Galactics should shave their chins and cut their hair in the manner of civilized Earth. That was the most convenient style.

“I mean, we smoke this weed, but it may poison you,” said Larson. “After all, you’re from another planet.”

“Oh, that’s OK,” replied Hurdgo. “Same plants grow on every Earth-like planet, just like the same people and animals. Not much difference. Thanks.” He took a cigar and rolled it between his fingers. “Smells nice.”

“To me, that is the most astonishing thing about it all. I never expected evolution to work identically throughout the universe. Why?”

“Well, it just does.” Captain Hurdgo bit the end off his cigar and spat it out onto the carpet. “Not on different-type planets from this, of course, but on Earth-type it’s all the same.”

“But why? I mean, what process—it can’t be coincidence!”

Hurdgo shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m just a practical spaceman. Never worried about it.” He put the cigar in his mouth and touched the bezel of an ornate finger ring to it. Smoke followed the brief, intense spark.

“That’s a…a most ingenious development,” said Larson. Humility, yes, there was the line for a simple Earthman to take. Earth had come late into the cosmos and might as well admit the fact.

“A what?”

“Your ring. That lighter.”

“Oh, that. Yep. Little atomic-energy gizmo inside.” Hurdgo waved a magnanimous hand. “We’ll send some people to show you how to make our stuff. Lend you machinery till you can start your own factories. We’ll bring you up to date.”

“It—you’re incredibly generous,” said Larson, happy and incredulous.

“Not much trouble to us, and we can trade with you once you’re all set up. The more planets, the better for us.”

“But…excuse me, sir, but I bear a heavy responsibility. We have to know the legal requirements for membership in the Galactic Federation. We don’t know anything about your laws, your customs, your—”

“Nothing much to tell,” said Hurdgo. “Every planet can pretty well take care of itself. How the hell you think we could police fifty million Earth-type planets? If you got a gripe, you can take it to the, uh, I dunno what the word would be in English. A board of experts with a computer that handles these things. They’ll charge you for the service—no Galactic taxes, you just pay for what you get, and out of the profits they finance free services like this mission of mine.”

“I see,” nodded Larson. “A Coordinating Council.”

“Yeh, I guess that’s it.”

The Secretary-General shook his head in bewilderment. He had sometimes wondered what civilization would come to be, a million years hence. Now he knew, and it staggered him. An ultimate simplicity, superman disdaining the whole cumbersome apparatus of interstellar government, freed of all restraints save the superman morality, free to think his giant thoughts between the stars!