y. Exactly."

"Oh." Bundy deflated suddenly. "You'll have to prove it--demonstrate
it--of course."

"Of course? You tickle me. Not only do I not have to prove it, I won't.
I won't even confirm it."

Bundy glared at Garlock, then whirled on Banks. "If you don't give me
this in shape to use, you'll never get another line or mention
anywhere!"

"Oh, no?" For the first time in his professional life Banks gloated,
openly and avidly. "From now on, my friend, who is in the saddle? Who is
going to come to whom? Oh, _brother_!"

When the fuming newsmen had gone, Garlock said, "It'll leak, of course."

"Of course," Banks agreed. "'It is rumored ...' 'from a usually reliable
source ...' and so on. Nothing definite, but each one of them will want
to put out the first and biggest."

"That's what I figured. It'll have to break sometime and I thought
easing it out would be best ... but wait a minute...." he thought for
two solid minutes. "But we're going to need a lot of money, and we're
just about broke, aren't we?" This thought was addressed to Frank Macey,
the Galaxians' treasurer.

"Worse than broke--much worse."

"I could loan you a couple of credits, Frank," Belle said, brightly.
"But go ahead, Clee."

"People like to be sidewalk superintendents. Suppose they could watch
the construction of an outpost so far away that nobody ever dreamed of
ever getting there. Could you do anything with that, Jerry?"

"_Could I! Just!_" and Banks, went into a rhapsody.

"That's the first good idea any one of you crackpots has had for five
years," Macey said, suddenly. "But wouldn't transportation of material
and so on present problems?"

"No; just buying it," Garlock said, soberly. "Oh, rather, paying for
it."

"No trouble there...."

"What?" Belle exclaimed. "'No trouble,' it says here in fine print? How
the old skinflint has changed--instead of screaming his head off about
spending money he's actually _offering_ to. Frank, I'll loan you _three_
credits!"

"Hush, honey-chile, the men-folks are talking man-business. Look, Clee.
We'll use the _Pleiades_ at first, while we're building a regular
transport. A hundred passengers per trip, one thousand credits one
way...."

"Wow!" Belle put in. "Our ex-skinflint is now a bare-faced,
legally-protected robber."

"By no means, Belle," Evans said. "How much would that be per mile?"

"Say ten round trips per day. That would be twenty million a day gross
for a small ship not inten