There was aimless conversation of the “How do you like it here?” variety. Vahino, it developed, had visited the Solar System quite a few times in the past decade. Not surprising, in view of the increasingly close economic ties between his planet and the Commonwealth There were a great many Cundaloan students in Earthian universities, and before the war there had been a growing tourist traffic from Sol to Avalki. It would probably revive soon—especially if the devastation were repaired and—

“Oh, yes,” smiled Vahino. “It is the ambition of all young anamai, men on Cundaloa, to come to earth, if only for a visit. It is not mere flattery to say that our admiration for you and your achievements is boundless.”

“It’s mutual,” said Dalton. “Your culture, your art and music, your literature—all have a large following in the Solar System. Why, many men, and not just scholars, learn Luaian simply to read the Dvanago-Epai in the original. Cundaloan singers, from concert artists to nightclub entertainers, get more applause than any others.” He grinned. “Your young men here have some difficulty keeping our terrestrial coeds off their necks. And your few young women here are besieged by invitations. I suppose only the fact that there cannot be issue has kept the number of marriages as small as it has been.”

“But seriously,” persisted Vahino, “we realize at home that your civilization sets the tone for the known Galaxy. It is not just that Solarian civilization is the most advanced technically, though that has, of course, much to do with it. You came to us, with your spaceships and atomic energy and medical science and all else—but, after all, we can learn that and go on with you from there. It is, however, such acts as…well, as your present offer of help: to rebuild ruined worlds light-years away, pouring your own skill and treasure into our homes, when we can offer you so little in return—it is that which makes you the leading race in the Galaxy.”

“We have selfish motives, as you well know,” said Dalton a little uncomfortably. “Many of them. There is, of course, simple humanitarianism. We could not let races very like our own know want when the Solar System and its colonies have more wealth than they know what to do with. But our own bloody history has taught us that such programs as this economic-aid plan redound to the benefit of the initiator. When we have built up Cundaloa and Skontar, got them producing again, modernized their backward industry, taught them our science—they will be able to trade with us. And our economy is still, after all these centuries, primarily mercantile. Then, too, we will have knitted them too closely together for a repetition of the disastrous war just ended. And they will be allies for us against some of the really alien and menacing cultures in the Galaxy, planets and systems and empires against which we may one day have to stand.”

“Pray the High One that that day never comes,” said Vahino soberly. “We have seen enough of war.”