"They may not be friendly."
"Oh, no. I've spoken with them. They've--"
"You've spoken with them. Call that reconnaissance. What would their
next step be? Invasion?"
"But they only have one ship, sir."
"You know that only because they say so. They might have a fleet."
"I've told you about their size. They--"
"Their size would not matter, if they have handweapons that may well be
superior to our artillery."
"That is not what I meant."
"I had this partly in mind from the first." The Industrialist went on.
"It is for that reason I agreed to see them after I received your
letter. Not to agree to an unsettling and impossible trade, but to judge
their real purposes. I did not count on their evading the meeting."
He sighed. "I suppose it isn't our fault. You are right in one thing, at
any rate. The world has been at peace too long. We are losing a healthy
sense of suspicion."
The Astronomer's mild voice rose to an unusual pitch and he said, "I
_will_ speak. I tell you that there is no reason to suppose they can
possibly be hostile. They are small, yes, but that is only important
because it is a reflection of the fact that their native worlds are
small. Our world has what is for them a normal gravity, but because of
our much higher gravitational potential, our atmosphere is too dense to
support them comfortably over sustained periods. For a similar reason
the use of the world as a base for interstellar travel, except for trade
in certain items, is uneconomical. And there are important differences
in chemistry of life due to the basic differences in soils. They
couldn't eat our food or we theirs."
"Surely all this can be overcome. They can bring their own food, build
domed stations of lowered air pressure, devise specially designed
ships."
"They can. And how glibly you can describe feats that are easy to a race
in its youth. It is simply that they don't have to do any of that. There
are millions of worlds suitable for them in the Galaxy. They don't need
this one which isn't."
"How do you know? All this is their information again."
"This I was able to check independently. I am an astronomer, after all."
"That is true. Let me hear what you have to say then, while we walk."
"Then, sir, consider that for a long time our astronomers have believed
that two general classes of planetary bodies existed. First, the planets
which formed at distances far enough from their stellar nucleus to
become cool enough to capture hydrogen. These would be large planets
rich in hydrogen, ammonia and methane. We have examples of these in the
giant outer planets. The second class would include those planets formed
so near the stellar center that the high temperature would make it
impossible to capture much hydrogen. These would be smaller planets,
comparatively poorer in hydrogen and richer in oxygen. We know that type
very well since we live on one. Ours is the only solar system we know in
detail, however, and it has been reasonable for us to assume that these
were the _only_ two planetary classes."
"I take it then that there is another."
"Yes. There is a super-dense class, still smaller, poorer in hydrogen,
than the inner planets of the solar system. The ratio of occurrence of
hydrogen-ammonia planets and these super-dense water-oxygen worlds of
theirs over the entire Galaxy--and remember that they have actually
conducted a survey of significant sample volumes of the Galaxy which we,
without interstellar travel, cannot do--is about 3 to 1. This leaves
them seven million super-dense worlds for exploration and colonization."
The Industrialist looked at the blue sky and the green-covered trees
among which they were making their way. He said, "And worlds like ours?"
The Astronomer said, softly, "Ours is the first solar system they have
found which contains them. Apparently the development of our solar
system was unique and did not follow the ordinary rules."
The Industrialist considered that. "What it amounts to is that these
creatures from space are asteroid-dwellers."
"No, no. The asteroids are something else again. They occur, I was told,
in one out of eight stellar systems, but they're completely different
from what we've been discussing."
"And how does your being an astronomer change the fact that you are
still only quoting their unsupported statements?"
"But they did not restrict themselves to bald items of information. They
presented me with a theory of stellar evolution which I had to accept
and which is more nearly valid than anything our own astronomy has ever
been able to devise, if we except possible lost theories dating from
Beforethewars. Mind you, their theory had a rigidly mathematical
development and it predicted just such a Galaxy as they describe. So you
see, they have all the worlds they wish. They are not land-hungry.
Certainly not for our land."
"Reason would say so, if what you say is true. But creatures may be
intelligent and not reasonable. Our forefathers were presumably
intelligent, yet they were certainly not reasonable. Was it reasonable
to destroy almost all their tremendous civilization in atomic warfare
over causes our historians can no longer accurately determine?" The
Industrialist brooded over it. "From the dropping of the first atom bomb
over those islands--I forget the ancient name--there was only one end in
sight, and in plain sight. Yet events were allowed to proceed to that
end."
He looked up, said briskly, "Well, where are we? I wonder if we are not
on a fool's errand after all."
But the Astronomer was a little in advance and his voice came thickly.
"No fool's errand, sir. Look there."