"For my Ph.D. in anthropology. I thought I had it made, but it just went down the chute. And I don't know if any of you realize just how nearly impossible it is to make a really worthwhile original contribution to science in that field."
"As I started to tell you, Brownie," Garlock said, "I don't think you've lost a thing. There's a bigger and better one coming up."
"What?"
"Sh-h-h-h," Belle stage-whispered. "He's got a theory—such a weirdie that he won't talk about it to anybody."
"It isn't a theory yet—at least, not ripe enough to pick—but it's something more than a hunch," Garlock said.
"But what could possibly make as good a thesis as those extra-galactic tapes?" Lola wailed. "They would have made my thesis a summer breeze."
"More like a hurricane—the hottest thing since doctorate disputations first started," Garlock said. "However, as I started to say twice before, it still will be. Intra-galactic tapes will be just as good. In this case, better."
"W-e-l-l ... possibly. But we haven't any."
"That is what this conference is about. We can't destroy the stuff we have unless we can replace it with something better. My idea is that we should visit a few—say fifty—Tellus-type planets in this galaxy; the ones closest to Tellus. I'm pretty sure they'll be inhabited by Homo Sapiens. There's a chance, of course, that they'll be like Hodell and the others we've seen; in which case I don't see how we can keep Gunther genes confined to Earth. However, I'm pretty sure in my own mind that we'll find them all very much like Tellus, Gunther and all. What would you think of that for a thesis, Lola?"