"Strictly commercial. Get it from Banks."
"And you'll—personally—go on my hour with it?"
"Yes. Also, we'll demonstrate—take you to any star-system in the galaxy. You and all the rest of the newshawks who were here and any fifty VIP's you want to invite. Tomorrow morning all right with you?"
"You, personally, in the Pleiades?" Bundy insisted.
"Better than that. The other two starships, too. You've got them—particularly those four Primes—clearly in mind?"
"Not exactly, there was so much of it. Spread it on me now, huh?" Garlock did so. "Thanks, pal, for the scoop. I'll crash it right now, and follow up with Banks. 'Bye!"
"Think you can deliver on that, Clee?" Banks asked.
"Sure. Both Deggi and Alsyne will need a lot of extra money, fast. They'll play along."
They did; and that three-starship tour—which visited twenty solar systems instead of one—was the most sensational thing old Earth had ever spawned.
Belle and Garlock did not spend that week end on Earth. "We go," they said, as soon as the Pleiades was empty of pressmen, and they took James and Lola along. "If we never see another such brawl as this is going to be," Belle told Banks, who was basking in glory and entreating them to stay on for the show, "it will be exactly twenty minutes too soon."