re
you started peddling it. You'd have found out other things about them,
too. You'd have learned that in spite of all their bumbling and fussing
and squabbling they're not so dull. You'd have found out that they're
marsupials, and that two out of five of them get thrown out of their
mother's pouch before they're old enough to survive. You'd have realized
that they have to start fighting for individual rights almost as soon as
they're born. Anything goes, as long as it benefits them as
individuals."

Meyerhoff grinned at the little man's horrified face. "Never heard of
that, had you? And you've never heard of other things, too. You've
probably never heard that there are just too many Altairians here for
the food their planet can supply, and their diet is so finicky that
they just can't live on anything that doesn't grow here. And
consequently, land is the key factor in their economy, not money;
nothing but land. To get land, it's every man for himself, and the loser
starves, and their entire legal and monetary system revolves on that
principle. They've built up the most confusing and impossible system of
barter and trade imaginable, aimed at individual survival, with land as
the value behind the credit. That explains the lying--of course they're
liars, with an economy like that. They've completely missed the concept
of truth. Pathological? You bet they're pathological! Only a fool would
tell the truth when his life depended on his being a better liar than
the next guy! Lying is the time-honored tradition, with their entire
legal system built around it."

Zeckler snorted. "But how could they _possibly_ have a legal system? I
mean, if they don't recognize the truth when it slaps them in the face?"

Meyerhoff shrugged. "As we understand legal systems, I suppose they
don't have one. They have only the haziest idea what truth represents,
and they've shrugged off the idea as impossible and useless." He
chuckled maliciously. "So you went out and found a chunk of ground in
the uplands, and sold it to a dozen separate, self-centered,
half-starved natives! Encroachment on private property is legal grounds
for murder on this planet, and twelve of them descended on the same
chunk of land at the same time, all armed with title-deeds." Meyerhoff
sighed. "You've got twelve mad Altairians in your hair. You've got a mad
planet in your hair. And in the meantime, Terra's most valuable uranium
source in five centuries is threatening to