Garlock called the meeting to order and all four sat down. The Tellurians lighted cigarettes and the others—who, to the Earthlings' surprise, also smoked—assembled and lit two peculiar-looking things half-way between pipe and cigarette. And both pairs of smokers, after a few tentative tests, agreed in not liking at all the other's taste in tobacco.
"You know, of course, of the trip we took yesterday?" Garlock asked.
"Yes," Delcamp admitted. "We read ComOff Flurnoy. We know of the seventy planets, but nothing of what you found."
"Okay. Of the seventy planets, all have Op fields and all have two or more Operators; one planet has forty-four of them. Only sixty-one of the planets, however, have Primes old enough for us to detect. Each of these worlds has two, and only two, Primes—one male and one female—and on each world the two Primes are of approximately the same age. On fifteen of these worlds the Primes are not yet adult. On the forty-six remaining worlds, the Primes are young adults, from pretty much like us four down to considerably younger. None of these couples is married-for-family. None of the girls has as yet had a child or is now pregnant.
"Now as to the information circulating all over this planet about us. Part of it is false. Part of it is misleading—to impress the military mind. Thus, the fact is that the Pleiades, as far as we know, is the only starship in the whole galaxy. Also, the information is very incomplete, especially as to the all-important fact that we were lost in space for some time before we discovered that the only possible controller of the Gunther Drive is the human mind...."
"What!!!!" and argument raged until Garlock stopped it by declaring that he would prove it in the Margonians' own ship.
Then Garlock and Belle together went on to explain and to describe—not even hinting, of course, that they had ever been outside the galaxy or had even thought of trying to do so—their concept of what the Galaxian Societies of the Galaxy would and should do; or what the Galaxian Service could, should, and would become—the Service to which they both intended to devote their lives. It wasn't even in existence yet, of course. Fao and Deggi were the only other Primes they had ever talked to in their lives. That was why they were so eager to help the Margonians get their ship built. The more starships there were at work, the faster the Service would grow into a really tremendous....
"Fao's getting ready to blow her top," Delcamp flashed Garlock a tight-beamed thought. "If I were doing it I'd have to start right now."