Hotang Lu nodded in agreement and tried to convey their ignorance of
the size.
"I gather that they've never seen it."
"Chances are if they'd seen it they'd have bopped it themselves,"
observed Downing.
"Reasonable attitude."
"Well, we have about ten to the twenty-seventh power square miles of
blank and utter nothing to curry-comb for a dingus of some sort."
"Blank and utter nothing--hell! I wouldn't mind blank and utter
nothing. We could comb it if it weren't for sun, planets, asteroids,
meteors, noise-impulses from nowhere-in-particular, just plain hell,
and a crew of wild-personalized catmen." Lane paused to take a deep
breath. "As it is, the latter is the most complicated of the bunch
mentioned. We can't spread out in a space-lattice and comb. We've got
to do one of two things. Either we enlist the help--or get freedom of
search--of or from the catmen or we comb in a large and armed body."
"That's a nice problem. Either way."
"As has been mentioned before--'Take it or leave it!'"
"Mind explaining how you go about getting chummy with a race that took
a swing without asking questions first?"
"That's partly our fault. We just invaded."
"We couldn't spend a few months getting chummy first. We needed
power--and bad."
"All right," agreed Lane. "But they didn't know that. And it's all
right with me because I'm leery of letting anyone know that I'm
vulnerable. Especially people I don't know and therefore cannot trust."
"Have we got what it takes to barge in there and settle down? Can we
hold them off until we can make it clear that we don't want their
stinking planet?"
"Have we?"
"If we do right now, there'll be a lot of us that stay there for good."
"How many of us are expendable?"
"All of us as long as that dingbat is destroyed."