--as far ahead of us as we are ahead of
pointer pups."

"Huh! Balloon-juice and prop-wash! I just _know_, Clee, that you're the
absolute tops of the whole, entire, macrocosmic universe."

"Well, we can dream, of course." Garlock withdrew his mind from Belle's
and turned his attention to the now quiet Semolo. "Well, my
over-confident and contumacious young squirt; are you done horsing
around or do you want to keep it up until you addle completely what few
brains you have?"

The Lizorian made no reply; but merely glared.

"The trouble with you half-baked, juvenile--I almost added 'delinquent'
to that, and perhaps I should have--Primes is that you know too damned
much that isn't true. As an old Tellurian saying hath it, 'you're
altogether too big for your britches.'

"Thus, simply because you have lived a few years on one single planet
and haven't encountered anyone able to stand up to you, you've sold
yourself on the idea that there's nobody, anywhere, who can. You're
wrong--you couldn't be more so if you had an army to help you.

"What, actually, have you done? What, actually, have you got?
Practically nothing. You haven't even started a starship; you've
scarcely started making plans. You realize dimly that the theory is not
in any of the books, that you'll have to slug it out for yourself, but
that is _work_. So you're still just posing and throwing your weight
around.

"As a matter of fact, you're merely a drop in a lake. There are
thousands of millions of planets, and thousands of millions of Prime
Operators. Most of them are probably a lot stronger than you are; many
of them may be stronger than my partner and I are. I am not at all
certain that you will pass even the first screening; but since you are
without question a Prime Operator, I will deliver the message we came to
deliver. Miss Mitala, do you want to listen or shall we drive it into
you, too?"

"I want to listen to anyone or anything who has a working starship and
who can do what you have just done."

"Very well," and Garlock told the general-distribution version of the
story of the Galactic Service.

"Quite interesting," Semolo said loftily, at its end. "Whether or not I
would be interested depends, of course, on whether there's a position
high enough for...."

"I doubt very much if there's one low enough," Garlock cut in sharply.
"However, since it's part of my job, I'll get in touch with you later.
Okay, Belle."

And in the Main--"What a