They were finished. The newer one snapped off the thread at the ring and tapped it at the end, and with a little pop! the thread expanded into a long sheet of paper like a tape. He gave it a small flick and it landed in front of the original small gray man. He picked it up, scanned the figures on it, and then looked at the end.

“With spare parts and freight,” he said, “it comes to C500,962,878,431 at two parts in eleven annual interest rate, plus an estimated C285,000,006 annual military and maintenance personnel salaries, housing and equipage.”

He tossed the long tape across the table to Jonnie and concluded, “There it is. An efficient and economical planetary defense system. All top-of-the-line merchandise. Good for a hundred years. That's the sort of thing you should have had! And you can still have it!”

That was C498,960,878,431 more than Earth had! It had made him realize how broke Earth was. Now was the time to find out more about these two. “I surely appreciate your information. If you will excuse me, what are you two gentlemen? Arms salesmen?”

He might as well have dropped a bomb on them, they looked so startled! Then they looked at each other and both of them laughed.

“Oh, I am so sorry,” said the original small gray man. “It is so terribly impolite of us. You see, we are quite well known in our respective areas. And we know so much about you, in fact, know you so well, that it just never occurred to us that we never introduced ourselves!

“I am His Excellency Dries Gloton. And I am very pleased to meet you, Sir Lord Jonnie Tyler."

Jonnie shook his hand. It was a dry hand, quite rough.

“And this,” said His Excellency, “is Lord Voraz. Lord Voraz, Sir Lord Jonnie Tyler.”

Jonnie shook his dry, rough hand and said, “It is really just Jonnie Tyler, Your Lordship. I have no titles.”

“We choose to doubt that,” said Lord Voraz.

His Excellency said, “Lord Voraz is the Central Director, Chief Executive Officer, and Overlord of the Galactic Bank.”

Jonnie blinked but bowed.

Lord Voraz said, “Dries here likes to call himself the chief collections executive but it is a sort of bank joke. He is actually the Branch Manager of the Galactic Bank for this sector. You might have noticed a time or two that I stepped on his toes accidentally. A Branch Manager has total authority for his sector and is a bit jealous of his prerogatives.” He laughed, teasing his junior. “Your planet comes in his sector and dealings about it are entirely up to him. He's the one who has to show a profit for his area. Now I, I am simply here because the emissaries have met. These are very troubled-”

Dries Gloton cut him off sharply. “His Lordship can't be expected to know all the ins and outs of sector business. He does very well to keep up with universes.”

Lord Voraz laughed again, “Oh, dear, I am really sorry we worried you. Why, we have been looking-”

Dries cut him off again, “We're just here to help, Sir Lord Jonnie. By the way, would you like to start an account? A personal account?” He was fishing in his pockets for the materials. "We can give you a very low number and absolute confidence assured.”

Suddenly Jonnie realized that he had no money. Not just no money in his pockets. He didn't have and never had had any money at all. He'd even given the gold coin away. He thought maybe he got pilot pay that was given to Chrissie, but he had never seen it. He steered off apprehensive thoughts of Chrissie quickly. He had better keep his mind on this talk. But he was broke. Penniless.

"I’m sorry,” he said. “Perhaps later if I ever get any money to deposit.”

The two gave each other a quick look. But Dries said, “Well, just remember, we're not enemies of yours.”

“I think you would be very bad to have as enemies,” said Jonnie, still fishing. “That fleet wouldn't go away until you talked to Snowl."

“Oh, that!” said Dries Gloton. “The Galactic Bank has lots of services for its customers. What you saw there was just notarial services. They needed a radio notary code trace to attest and verify that it was a valid conference order. He wouldn't take their word, of course. They trust the bank.”

“Was calling the emissaries here a bank service, too?” said Jonnie.

“Well, no,” began Lord Voraz.

“You could call it so, if you like,” said Dries. “For sometimes such a conference is arranged as a service. It 's in the interest of the Galactic Bank to have civilized planets do business together smoothly.”

Jonnie was not at all satisfied but he put an easy face on it. “These emissaries do seem to obey you, though. They call you 'Your Excellency' and they call Lord Voraz 'His Worship.' What do you do if they don't obey you? You know, not come to the conference or do what you say.”

The thought shocked Lord Voraz. Before Dries Gloton could stop him, he said, “Unthinkable! Why, the bank would call in their loans, shut off their credit. Their economies would shatter. They would go bankrupt. Their whole planet could be sold right out from under them. Oh, they would think several times before-”

Dries finally got his attention and shut him off. “Now, Your Worship,” he said softly, “I know you feel strongly about these matters but we must remember that this is my sector and things that concern this planet are my worry. Forgive me. I think possibly Sir Lord Jonnie doesn't really know too much about the Galactic Bank. We haven't reprinted the information leaflets for ages. Would you like to know more about it, Sir Lord Jonnie?”

Jonnie definitely would. He privately had become very alert about “the whole planet could be sold right out from under them.”

Chapter 4

Chong-won poured more tea.

“You mustn't get the impression we are violent people,” said Dries, taking a large swallow from a bowl.

Just powerful and deadly, Jonnie thought.

“Our race is called the 'Selachee,' continued Dries. “We are indigenous to the only three habitable planets of the Gredides System. The planets are mostly water– nine surface parts of water to only two parts of land on the average. And we have only banking as our industry.”

He smiled and drank more tea. “We're ideal bankers. We can eat anything, drink anything, breathe almost any atmosphere, live on almost any gravity. By tribal mores, we worship total honesty and the righteousness of obligation.”

Jonnie thought that was probably true, but he also thought they were not telling all they knew and especially what they intended to do. “Honesty” might not include the whole truth, and there might be some real clues here as to what was going on. He smiled politely and listened closely.

“We have about five billion inhabitants on each planet,” continued Dries, “and

It is quite a busy population. Although mostly devoted to banking, we have, of course, our engineers and specialists and, naturally, lots of mathematicians. Nearly five hundred thousand years ago we developed space flight. That's about the right figure, isn't it, Your Worship?”

Lord Voraz was still a bit out of sorts at the idea of planets going back on obligations. But he put a good, professional banking face on it. “Four hundred ninety-seven thousand, four hundred thirty-two years this coming Sidereal day one hundred three for this universe,” he said.

“Thank you,” said Dries, having gotten His Worship back into the discourse.

“And three hundred two thousand years ago-'

“Three hundred two thousand three,” said Lord Voraz.

“Thank you.... We ran into the Psychlos! Now, don't be alarmed. We were not conquered. We didn't even fight a war. In those days the Psychlos were not as bad as they became about a hundred thousand years later. In that time, they had not begun killing for the love of it-I’m sure I don't have to go on to you about Psychlos.”