owers--very broad.

"Well, that isn't my business right now," Jackson said. "I just wanted
to find out what this was all about. You'll hear from us, Professor
McLeod."

"I don't doubt it," said McLeod.

The six men filed out the door.

* * * * *

Alone, McLeod stared at the wall and thought.

Earth needed every Galactic credit it could get; that was certain. The
trouble came in getting them.

Earth had absolutely nothing that the Galactics wanted. Well, not
absolutely, maybe, but so near as made no difference. Certainly there
was no basis for trade. As far as the Galactics were concerned, Earth
was a little backwater planet that was of no importance. Nothing
manufactured on the planet was of any use to Galactics. Nothing grown
on Earth was of any commercial importance. They had sampled the
animals and plants for scientific purposes, but there was no real
commercial value in them. The Government had added a few credits to
its meager collection when the animals had been taken, but the amount
was small.

McLeod thought about the natives of New Guinea and decided that on the
Galactic scale Earth was about in the same position. Except that there
had at least been gold in New Guinea. The Galactics didn't have any
interest in Earth's minerals; the elements were much more easily
available in the asteroid belts that nearly every planetary system
seemed to have.

The Galactics were by no means interested in bringing civilization to
the barbarians of Earth, either. They had no missionaries to bring new
religion, no do-gooders to "elevate the cultural level of the
natives." They had no free handouts for anyone. If Earthmen wanted
anything from them, the terms were cash on the barrelhead. Earth's
credit rating in the Galactic equivalent of Dun & Bradstreet was
triple-Z-zero.

[Illustration]

A Galactic ship had, so to speak, stumbled over Earth fifteen years
before. Like the English explorers of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth
Centuries, the Galactics seemed to feel that it was necessary to
install one of their own people on a new-found planet, but they were
not in the least interested in colonization nor in taking over Earth's
government. The Galactic Resident was not in any sense a Royal
Governor, and could hardly even be called an ambassador. He and his
staff--a small one, kept more for company than for any necessary
work--lived quietly by themselves in a house they'd built in Hawaii.