"You must stop it," I said.
"Oh, yus," he agreed, nodding happily. "Most marvelous, no. Ample
housing for all and sundry. Homes for peoples. Immediate occupancy. You
like basic plan house, yus?"
"Mr. Lood," snarled the fat Commissioner. "The problem on every
habitable planet so far has been to find room to build. Earth is
congested...."
Distant crashing informed me that an unprecedented houseclearing was
still going on.
"... And so are all authorized planets yet discovered. I speak for my
learned brethren in saying that this ... this anthill of yours is one
thing the Galactic Community can do without."
"And do without right now," added his bald colleague.
"You wish to stop?" asked Lood.
Small tears filled the periphery of his round eyes.
"Yes," I confirmed brutally. "Can you stop it?"
"Oh, yus. Must have antiseptics."
* * * * *
It took the fire department four hours of spraying from their copters
to reduce the entire housing estate to dust. And then an even blanket
of brown feathery residue lay unbroken for several acres, save here
and there where the shells of previous buildings stood up gauntly and
accusingly.
"All bugs gone," said Lood sadly.
"But what about this mess?" demanded the bald Commissioner.
"Comes out of air. Floating particles. Process cleans air, too."
A fresh wind from across the blanket of dust came inopportunely to
punctuate Mr. Lood's remark. As soon as they could talk again, the
Commissioners suggested resuming in another city.
"Assuming, Mr. Jones, you wish to produce further aspects of your, hum,
case."
Six red and bleary eyes stared at me from a coating of brown dust of
only vaguely judicial appearance.
"I think, Your Honors, the next evidence had better be delivered in the
open," I said, and pointed to a nearby park.
Much, if not all, of the dust fell off us as we walked over to the
small green hill in the center of the park. The birds twittered, the
sun shone, the breeze was fresh; and after the Commissioners had
settled on convenient tree stumps, I felt quite hopeful about the third
line of evidence. Lood stood optimistically by.
"Your Honors," I said, "you are aware that Earth suffers a grave
shortage of metals. Almost all economical quantities have been mined
out. Yet, Your Honors--" I paused dramatically--"in the haematin
of human blood alone, whose main function is to carry oxygen to the
system, there is nearly twice as much iron by weight as oxygen."
"Precisely which of us, Mr. Jones, do you propose to mine first?"