This was stretching it a bit because selective breeding of microbes for the recovery of metals in tailings have been developed back in the nineteen-fifties. But so far as I knew, no one had carried it as far as my client race. "Mr. Lood," I commanded. "Just one moment, Mr. Jones," said the bald Commissioner drily. "Let us have an outline of this _before_ we start." "Certainly, Your Honor. Mr. Lood will now extract gold from a sample of ocean water we have obtained." I signalled to the waiting carrier and it came trundling softly over the grass and deposited a large tank on the grass. "Genuine untouched ocean water, Your Honors," I said, slapping the tank. "Go ahead, Mr. Lood." The little fellow hopped up to the side of the tank and emptied another invisible horde from a test tube into the water. We waited. "Oh, yus," he said. And there on the bottom of the tank was an unmistakable sludge of metallic gold, shining speckled in the rays of sunlight bending through the water. I scooped out a sample and handed it round for the Commissioners to inspect. "Subject to analysis," grunted the fat one, "this certainly seems to be gold." "Of course, there is no reason why this should not be done on Earth, as a starting point." The thin Commissioner paused and looked at my client. "Does this process affect fish?" "Oh, yus," said Lood. "Kills all parasites. Fish, reptiles, and such." "Thank you," said the Commissioner drily. * * * * * Mr. Lood looked at me apologetically. "My people too small to tolerate fish," he explained. "Fish most dangerous wild beasts. Oh, yus." "Never mind," I reassured him. "Your Honors, I feel the court will take a more favorable view of the dry-land operation, then. Taking place as it does in the bowels of the earth, there is no danger to valuable livestock. And here we can demonstrate, for example, simple aluminum extraction, by the progressive reduction and oxidation and reduction of bacteria on a molecular scale. "I hope," I added, "this experiment will produce visible evidence of this great boon to mankind, though I must ask Your Honors to watch closely." Lood produced another test-tube, pressed a small hole in the grass with his finger and emptied the tube. The hole darkened. We all bent over to watch. Nothing happened. "Perhaps a dud batch?" I asked eventually. "Oh, no," said Lood. We peered intently into the small hole without seeing anything. Then a faint wisp of steam came out of the hole. I walked over the grass, picked up a long twig, walked back and thrust it into the hole. I could not touch bottom, so something was going on down there. The edges of the hole began to gleam with white metal. I was about to explain the alumina content of common clay, when the thin Commissioner and the tree stump he was sitting on went down with a whistling sound into a sudden pit that opened beneath him.