s it free and clear, or are there Galactic taxes to
pay?"

If the Galactic Resident had had eyebrows, it is likely that they
would have lifted in surprise. "My dear professor! Aside from the fact
that we run our ... er ... government in an entirely different manner,
we would consider it quite immoral to take what a man earns without
giving services of an exact kind. I will charge you five credits for
this validation, since I am rendering a service. The bank will take a
full tenth of a percent in this case because of the inconvenience of
shipping cash over that long distance. The rest is yours to do with as
you see fit."

_Fifty-five credits out of fifty thousand_, McLeod thought. _Not bad
at all._ Aloud, he asked: "Could I, for instance, open a bank account
or buy a ticket on a star-ship?"

"Why not? As I said, it is your money. You have earned it honestly;
you may spend it honestly."

Jackson was staring at McLeod, but he said nothing.

"Tell me, sir," McLeod said, "how does the success of my book compare
with the success of most books in the galaxy?"

"Quite favorably, I understand," said the Resident. "The usual income
from a successful book is about five thousand credits a year. Some run
even less than that. I'm not too familiar with the publishing
business, you understand, but that is my impression. You are, by
Galactic standards, a very wealthy man, professor. Fifty thousand a
year is by no means a median income."

"Fifty thousand a _year_?"

"Yes. About that. I understand that in the publishing business one can
depend on a life income that does not vary much from the initial
period. If a book is successful in one area of the galaxy it will be
equally successful in others."

"How long does it take to saturate the market?" McLeod asked with a
touch of awe.

"Saturate the--? Oh. Oh, I see. Yes. Well, let's see. Most publishing
houses can't handle the advertising and marketing on more than a
thousand planets at once--the job becomes too unwieldy. That would
indicate that you sold an average of a million copies per planet,
which is unusual but not ... ah ... miraculous. That is why you can
depend on future sales, you see; over a thousand planets the
differences in planetary tastes averages out.

"Now if your publishers continue to expand the publication at the rate
of a thousand planets a year, your book should easily last for another
century. They can't really expand that rapidly, of course, since the