Once we were out, and about two hundred yards ahead of the advancing walls, patios and houses, the three Commissioners turned on me. "Mr. Jones," they said with restraint. "You will now stop this reckless building project." I turned to Lood. "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?" I cleared my throat and let the thin Commissioner's remark pass. "Merely making the point, Your Honor, that the metal-carrying properties of bacteria have been hardly considered."