Naylo laughed. "I'd rather shove it down their throats by taxation.
Then we'd collect without having to give them a string of uranium beads
for exchange."
Faren Twill asked Viggon Sarri for his opinion.
Viggon said, without changing expression, "There are races that will
not abide the idea of collaboration, and there are races that either
revolt or die under any superior government. It has been my lifework
to expand the Bradian culture, one way and another, across the galaxy.
When we finish with this problem here, another world--in this case
another series of colonized worlds--will enter one of the forms of
economic relationships with Brade. Whether we blast in and smash them,
or ooze in and coerce them quietly; take them over, or hail them as an
ally."
"Ally?" roared Regin Naylo scornfully. "This bunch of primitives who
haven't even got an infrawave detector?"
"Ally?" snarled Faren Twill disgustedly. "This people who cannot
protect their spacecraft from warp failure?"
Viggon Sarri held up his doubly-prehensile hand. "Either of you may
be right," he said. "But remember that we do have time. So we'll
wait until we know more about their basic character before we take
any course. Go consult Linus Brein. Watch his computations and his
evaluations. Come back when you have more complete data for your own
evaluation."
Naylo and Twill left together.
Viggon Sarri called Brein on the ultra-infrawave.
"Linus? My headstrong youths are coming over to look at your data. Like
any other kids they know everything, but dammit, like a lot of kids one
of them may be right. Maybe I'm overcautious. So give them all the data
you have, and let them evaluate it. I'll happily pin a medal on one of
them if he's right and I'm wrong. Okay?"
Linus Brein agreed.