Hurdgo looked out the window to the arrogant towers of New York. “Biggest city I ever saw,” he remarked, “and I seen a lot of planets. I don’t see how you run it. Must be complicated.”

“It is, sir.” Larson smiled wryly. Of course the Galactics would long ago have passed the stage of needing such a human ant hill. They would have forgotten the skills required to govern one, just as Larson’s people had forgotten how to chip flint.

“Well, let’s get down to business.” Hurdgo sucked on his cigar and smacked his lips. “Here’s how it works. We found out a big while back that we can’t go letting any new planet bust its way into space with no warning to anybody. Too much danger. So we set up detectors all over the Galaxy. When they spot the, uh, what-you-call-’ems—vibrations, yes, that’s it, vibrations—the vibrations of a new star drive, they alert the, uh, Coordinating Council and it sends out a ship to contact the new people and tell ’em the score.”

“Ah, indeed. I suspected as much. We have just invented a faster-than-light engine…very primitive, of course, compared to yours. It was being tested when—”

“Uh-huh. So me and my boys are supposed to give you the once-over and see if you’re all right. Don’t want warlike peoples running around loose, you know. Too much danger.”

“I assure you—”

“Yes, yes, pal, it’s OK. You got a good strong world setup and the computer says you’ve stopped making war.” Hurdgo frowned. “I got to admit, you got some funny habits. I don’t really understand everything you do…you seem to think funny, not like any other planet I ever heard of. But it’s all right. Everybody to his own ways. You get a clean bill of health.”

“Suppose…” Larson spoke very slowly. “Just suppose we had not been…approved—what then? Would you have reformed us?”

“Reformed? Huh? What d’you mean? We’d have sent a police ship and blown every planet in this system to smithereens. Can’t have people running loose who might start a war.”

Sweat formed under Larson’s arms and trickled down his ribs. His mouth felt dry. Whole planets—

But in a million years you would learn to think sub specie aeternitatis. Five billion warlike Earthlings could annihilate fifty billion peaceful Galactics before they were overcome. It was not for him to judge a superman.

* * *

“Hello, there!”

Husting had to yell to be heard above the racket. But the nearest of the spacemen looked at him and smiled.

“Hi,” he said.

Incredible! He had greeted little Joe Husting as a friend. Why—? Wait a minute! Perhaps the sheer brass of it had pleased him. Perhaps no one else had dared speak first to the strangers. And when you only said, “Yes, sir,” to a man, even to a Galactic, you removed him—you might actually make him feel lonely.

“Uh, like it here?” Husting cursed his tongue, that its glibness should have failed him at this moment of all moments.