Meanwhile, the Gtetan police communicated with me as the local commanding officer of the Galactic Patrol. They told me where L’payr was hidden and demanded extradition. I pointed out that, as yet, I lacked jurisdiction, since no crime of an interstellar nature had been committed. The stealing of the ship had been done on his home planet—it had not occurred in deep space. If, however, he broke any galactic law while he was on Earth, committed any breach of the peace, no matter how slight …

“How about that?” the Gtetan police asked me over the interstellar radio. “Earth is on Secretly Supervised Status, as we understand it. It is illegal to expose it to superior civilizations. Isn’t L’payr landing there in a two-throttle hyperspace-drive ship enough of a misdemeanor to entitle you to pick him up?”

“Not by itself,” I replied. “The ship would have to be seen and understood for what it was by a resident of the planet. From what we here can tell, no such observation was made. And so long as he stays in hiding, doesn’t tell any human about us and refrains from adding to the technological momentum of Earth, L’payr’s galactic citizenship has to be respected. I have no legal basis for an arrest.”

Well, the Gtetans grumbled about what were they paying the star tax for, anyway, but they saw my point. They warned me, though, about L’payr—sooner or later his criminal impulses would assert themselves. He was in an impossible position, they insisted. In order to get the fuel necessary to leave Earth before his supplies ran out, he’d have to commit some felony or other—and as soon as he did so and was arrested, they wanted their extradition request honored.

“The filthy, evil-minded old pervert,” I heard the police chief mutter as he clicked off.

I don’t have to tell you how I felt, Hoy. A brilliant, imaginative ameboid criminal at large on a planet as volatile culturally as Earth! I notified all our agents in North America to be on the alert and settled back to wait it out with prayerfully knotted tentacles.