Viggon Sarri said, "I am still in command of this force. We'll continue
to observe until I am satisfied. You two officers have one common
idea--that of moving in fast. You have differing ideas of how we are
to move in. Until you can settle your difference and provide me with a
good logical basis for your decision--whichever way--then we'll follow
my plan. And my plan is to move in just as soon as we have enough data
on the character and strength of this race to provide us with the
correct way to take them."
"Then you are going to continue stalling?" demanded Naylo.
"Yes, if you wish to call it stalling. Maybe another man might call it
planning."
"We'll be just wasting time, as I've already said. We have enough stuff
to take 'em right now."
Viggon Sarri shrugged. "Yes. We could swoop in and take them like
mowing down a wheat field. Tell me, young men, what happens when you
mow down a wheat field."
They looked at him blankly.
Viggon smiled in a superior manner. "One of two things, depending upon
how you operate. If you mow it down and let it lay, you drop seeds and
next year it comes up thicker. If you mow it down, remove the seeds,
sow it with salt and kill the field, you have a useless plot of land, a
worthless territory. Then some day up comes weed and briar--which then
must be removed root and branch before the land is plantable again.
Just remember, we are after a profitable exchange of economy, not
another stellar system to list as a conquest for the sake of history
our children will read. I want my reward now, or next week. Having my
name on a monument does not have much appeal."
He was half standing with his hands closed into fists, his knuckles on
the table supporting him as he leaned forward to drive his facts home.
"Or," he added scathingly, "are you two firebrands so youthful that you
don't know that a man has only one single lone chance at this business
of living? And that your finest reward at eventide is knowing you have
lived a full and eventful life without screwing it up somewhere along
the line by making a lot of idiotic moves?"
Viggon Sarri turned on a heel and walked out.
* * * * *
Naylo and Twill turned to Linus Brein.
"What do you think?" Twill asked.
Linus Brein shrugged. "He is undoubtedly right. Besides, we don't know
all there is to know about the strange race out there yet."
"Oh, faugh! What else--"
Linus Brein smiled. He said slowly. "We don't even know whether or not
they are oxygen-breathing."
"We can assume from the stellar type of their primaries that they are."