You know, a big country wants to invade a small country, it doesn’t start until there’s at least a riot on the border. It gives them a legal leg. Even a big country needs a legal leg.

All right. These characters from outer space, maybe all they had to have was a piece of paper from just one genuine, accredited human being, signing the Earth over to them. No, that couldn’t be right. Any piece of paper? Signed by any Joe Jerk?

I jammed a dime into the telephone and called Ricardo’s college. He wasn’t in. I told the switchboard girl it was very important: she said, all right, she’d ring around and try to spot him.

All that stuff, I kept thinking, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Sea of Azov—they were as much a part of the hook as the twenty-for-a-five routine. There’s one sure test of what an operator is really after: when he stops talking, closes up shop and goes away.

With Eksar, it had been the Earth. All that baloney about extra rights on the Moon! They were put in to cover up the real thing he was after, for extra bargaining power.

I go out to buy a shipment of small travel alarm clocks that I’ve heard a jobber is stuck with. Do I start arguing about the price of clocks? I do not. I tell the jobber I want to buy a truckload of folding ladies’ umbrellas, maybe a couple of gross of alarm clocks, say travel alarms if he’s got a nice buy in them, and can he do me any good in the men’s wallet line?

That’s what Eksar had worked on me. It was like he’d made a special study of how I operate. From me alone, he had to buy.

But why me?

All that stuff on the receipt, about my equity, about my professional capacity, what the hell did it mean? I don’t own Earth; I’m not in the planet-selling business. You have to own a planet before you can sell it. That’s law.

So what could I have sold Eksar? I don’t own any real estate. Are they going to take over my office, claim the piece of sidewalk I walk on, attach the stool in the diner where I have my coffee?