"Go ahead. Window dressing. The Brass hasn't any idea of what's going on, any more than ours did."
The search went on until, "This is it," James reported. "Where? Over Margon Base?"
"Check. Kick us over there, ten or twelve hundred miles up."
"On the way, boss. Looks like your theory is about ready to pick."
"It isn't much of a theory yet; just that cultural and evolutionary patterns should be more or less homogeneous within galaxies. Until it can explain why so many out-galaxies are just alike it doesn't amount to much. By the way, I'm glad you people insisted on organization and rank and uniforms. The Brass is going to take a certain amount of convincing. Take over, Brownie—this is your dish."
"I was afraid of that."
The others watched Lola drive her probe—a diamond-clear, razor-sharp bolt of thought that no Gunther First could possibly either wield or stop—down into the innermost private office of that immense and far-flung base. Through Lola's inner eyes they saw a tall, trim, handsome, fiftyish man in a resplendent uniform of purple and gold; they watched her brush aside that officer's hard-held mental block.
"I greet you, Supreme Grand Marshal Entlore, Highest Commander of the Armed Forces of Nargoda. This is the starship Pleiades, of System Sol, Planet Tellus. I am Sol-System Vice-Admiral Lola Montandon. I have with me as guests three of my superior officers of the Galactic Service, including the Galactic Admiral himself. We are making a good-will tour of the Tellus-Type planets of this region of space. I request permission to land and information as to your landing conventions. The landing pad—bottom—of the Pleiades is flat; sixty feet wide by one hundred twenty feet long. Area loading is approximately eight tons per square foot. Solid, dry ground is perfectly satisfactory. While we land vertically, with little or no shock impact, I prefer not to risk damaging your pavement."
They all felt the Marshal's thoughts race. "Starship! Tellus—Sol, that insignificant Type G dwarf! Interstellar travel a commonplace! A ship that size and weight—an organized, uniformed, functioning Galaxy-wide Navy and they don't want to damage my pavement! My God!"