"... and kindly do not trouble to advise us where the Space Council moves you. We will sleep more soundly for believing that it will be many, many light-years away."
And they turned and walked away, leaving me with my client—and, apparently, my traveling companion.
A quiet and suppressed sobbing made me turn and look at Lood. He wept dolefully.
"We have nothing," he said. "Oh, no. We have nothing to offer. Nothing that you humans want."
"Well," I said, "that's the way it goes sometimes."
And what, I wondered, was I going to do for a living now?
"Free food," gulped Lood. "Free housing. Free gold and metals. We had all hoped so much from this. Oh, yus."
There did not seem any point in telling him his people were several hundred years too late. Once upon a time he would have been hailed as a savior of a starving and poor human race, a great benefactor of mankind. Now he was just a nuisance. And I was another for letting him loose.
"Well," I assured him, "you have got one guest until they shift you off your asteroid. Me. Free food and housing will suit me fine. And maybe we'll find some very backward part of the Galaxy where they need gold and such.
"It's a pity," I added, as we started to walk towards the spaceport, "that you can't control these bacteria of yours."