"Mr. Lood," intoned the bald Commissioner, "to stay on your present asteroid you will have to prove that your race offers something that cannot be found elsewhere in the Galactic Community. Now have these funguses of yours any special medicinal values, for example?" "Please?" "Can you cure diseases with them?" "Oh, no." "Ah," said the thin and fat Commissioners together. "Proceed, Mr. Jones." * * * * * That put Lood somewhere back behind the twentieth-century discoverers of penicillin and the myecins, and even back behind the pioneer Pasteur. Five hundred years back, in fact. "Yes. Well. Let's see how my clients handle housing, Your Honors. I think you'll find this quite revolutionary. Mr. Lood?" Lood hopped off the witness seat and trotted up to the long table normally reserved for attorneys. Lately, I have found my professional colleagues strangely reluctant to stay in court when I have a case, so Lood had the entire table to himself. He pulled a small jar out from under the table and spread a pile of dust on the tabletop. Then he unscrewed the jar and gently poured nothing out of it onto the dust. Nothing visible, that is. But I assumed it was teeming with viruses and such. "While Mr. Lood gets this started, Your Honors," I said, hoping the viruses or whatever were not fatal to humans, "may I submit the usefulness of fungus foods for space-travel and for pioneers on inhospitable planets?" "Are we having difficulties with General Food-Concentrates, the Travelers Capsule Combine and the other ten thousand concerns in this line, Mr. Jones?" the bald Commissioner asked quietly. You can't say I didn't try. I shut up and watched Lood fuss with the dust on the table. It started moving as if it were bubbling and Lood stood back. Slowly, the dust on the table formed itself into a brick, a long eight by six by three inch brick. Lood smiled happily. "And here, Your Honors," I said triumphantly, "here is automatic housing." "One brick does not make a house, Mr. Jones." "If Your Honors will just watch...." The brick slowly elongated and split into two perfect bricks, lying on the table end to end. "Mass colony action of bacteria," said Lood wisely. "Oh, yus." The two bricks each split into two further bricks. These divided and multiplied themselves while we watched, out to the end of the table. "I would like Your Honors to observe the way these bricks overcome natural hazards," I said, getting into my stride. I pointed to the bricks drooping over the end of the table. A brick fell onto the floor at each end, then built itself up until it joined the line of bricks on the table, forming a perfect arch at each angle. The line on the table was now three bricks high, so I walked round and stood behind the wall. "You see, Your Honors, suppose I need a house. I merely combine these suitable microbes and dust. And there we are, a house."