"I do not believe the world was faced with destruction, monsieur. I
have come to the conclusion that you have perpetrated a farce upon
mankind."
The alien sat himself down at the desk again. "I see you will need an
explanation. But you are wrong, you know. Faced with destruction you
were. The destruction, however, was not a matter of collision with some
other body, or whatever you might have imagined. The destruction would
have come from within. Man was on the verge of destroying himself. One
more conflict, or, at most, two, would have done it.
"The Galactic Union has long been aware of man who has developed
mechanically in a phenomenal manner but has not been able to develop
socially to the point where his science is less than a danger. This
ship was sent to you in hopes of accomplishing exactly what has been
accomplished. We believed your racial instinct would be strong enough
to unite you when the race as a whole thought it was threatened with
extinction."
The alien got to his feet. "I am afraid we must leave now. Let me
say that I hope that man will soon be able to take his place in the
Galactic Union."
Monsieur Duclos winced. "The Galactic Union," he said. "The League of
Nations and the United Nations were bad enough." He smiled wryly. "And
I thought that with the establishment of a world government, we had
abolished such conferences forever. I can just see myself as the first
delegate from earth. Heaven forbid!"