"We have been too busy to think of anything else as yet, but our worlds are large, and your worlds are large. Commerce can develop across the ten million light years of space as readily as it now exists across the little space of our own system. It is a journey of but five days, and later machines will make it in less! Commerce will come, and with it will come close communication. "I will accept this plaque with the understanding that I am but your friend and advisor. Too much power in the hands of one man is bad. Even though you trust me completely, there might be an unscrupulous successor. "And I must return to my world. "Your first ship will be ready tomorrow, and when it is completed, my friends and I will leave your planet. "We will return, though. We are ten million light years apart, but the universe is not to be measured in space anymore, but in time. We are five days apart. I will be nearer to you at all times than is Sator! "If you wish, others of my race shall come, too. But if you do not want them to come, they will not. I alone have Tharlano's photographs of the route, and I can lose them." For a moment, the Three spoke together, then the Scientist was again thinking at Arcot. "Perhaps you are right. It is obvious your people know more than we. They have the molecular ray, and they know no wars; they do not destroy each other. They must be a good race, and we have seen excellent examples in you. "We can realize your desire to return home, but we ask you to come again. We will remember that you are not ten million light years, but five days, from our planet." When the conference was ended, Arcot and his friends returned to their ship. Torlos was waiting for them outside the airlock. "Abaout haow saon you laive?" he asked in English. "Why--tomorrow," Arcot said, in surprise. "Have you been practicing our language?" Torlos reverted to telepathy. "Yes, but that is not what I came to talk to you about. Arcot--can a man of Nansal visit Earth?" Anxiously, hopefully, and hesitatingly, he asked. "I could come back on one of your commercial vessels, or come back when you return. And--and I'm sure I could earn my living on your world! I'm not hard to feed, you know!" He half smiled, but he was too much in earnest to make a perfect success. Arcot was amazed that he should ask. It was an idea he would very much like to see fulfilled. The idea of metal-boned men with tremendous strength and strange molecular-motion muscles would inspire no friendship, no feeling of kinship, in the people of Earth. But the man himself--a pleasant, kindly, sincere, intelligent giant--would be a far greater argument for the world of Nansal that the most vivid orator would ever be. Arcot asked the others, and the vote was unanimous--let him come! The next day, amid great ceremony, the first of the new Nansalian ships came from the factories. When the celebration was over, the four Earthmen and the giant Torlos entered the _Ancient Mariner_.