for that first blow? That took some thought. Maybe chemical, maybe biological; you didn't want to use anything nuclear because that would wreck the terminal, too. The best thing of all would be to find something that would kill Petty-Primes but not Earth humans. For that you would need to know a lot about Petty-Prime biochemistry.
It took only a moment to check that out, and he. was pleasantly surprised to find that there was, in fact, a considerable store of such data already in the banks.
Of course, before you could get that sort of operation off the ground you would have to secure your staging base on Tupelo itself. That would involve neutralizing all the other races on the planet, but that should be pretty straightforward: arrest the leaders, evacuate the area around the EPR terminal, bring in the weapons from Earth and the assault troops to follow—
But Tupelo's eetie leaders would probably resist, and that would mean killing. Not just killing creatures on another planet a zillion kilometers away, but murdering actual neighbors. Nonhuman neighbors, sure.
But even theoretically, even in this mind game, did he actually want to kill, say, Mrs. Brownbenttalon and her husband?
It occurred to him that the commanders of some expeditionary force from Earth, assuming anyone on Earth were crazy enough to want to try anything like that, would have no such compunctions: eetie freaks would be just eetie freaks to them. (But that, of course, wasn't going to happen; it was precisely to prevent any such lunatic effort that all six races had to be present to allow transmissions to come in.)
Then it occurred to him that one of those eetie freak races might, just possibly, be crazy enough to want to try to invade Earth in the same way; and then he understood why there had been all those soldiers with their machine guns around the EPR terminal on Earth when he and Rina had come through it to get here.
That made Giyt thoughtful in a different way. It seemed that somebody had been thinking about the prospects of invasions before him. Not just as a daydream, either, but as a real-world possibility.
That was not an enjoyable thought. The human race on Earth had pretty much got over its addiction to wars. Talk, sure. But no action. Nobody had the armaments for real war any more. Like most of his predecessors, the current American president followed the policy of speaking as loudly and offensively as possible, but carrying no stick at all.
But what did this stuff in the files mean? Was the cycle going to start again in space? Maybe right here on Tupelo?
Giyt shook his head at his own folly. Not a chance! That was ridiculous. There were no signs of that sort of pre-battle tension, and even if there were, there just weren't any weapons on the planet to carry out such a scheme.
That was when he heard the rat-a-tat-tat- boom from outside.
That startled him, and it almost felt for a moment as though it was those machine guns firing. It wasn't, though; he realized that at once. It was only the dumb thing the Kalkaboos did with their firecrackers every morning to greet the dawn. But it told him that sunrise had come. His private time was over. Any minute now Rina would be coming in to find out if he wanted pancakes or cereal for breakfast. And he hadn't made a dent in his real work.
He sighed and went back to the dreary business of trying to understand the commission reports. Briefly he wondered if he had made a serious mistake in trading his idyllic life in Bal Harbor for the irksome constraints of this new existence on Tupelo. He couldn't honestly say that he had any good reason to be happier here.
The funny thing was that he actually was happier. Not for himself. For Rina. There was no doubt that the woman was blossoming by the hour here on Tupelo; and how strange it was, Giyt thought wonderingly, that he found himself happy simply because she was.
VII
There is only one inhabited island on the planet Tupelo. It occupies the
It took only a moment to check that out, and he. was pleasantly surprised to find that there was, in fact, a considerable store of such data already in the banks.
Of course, before you could get that sort of operation off the ground you would have to secure your staging base on Tupelo itself. That would involve neutralizing all the other races on the planet, but that should be pretty straightforward: arrest the leaders, evacuate the area around the EPR terminal, bring in the weapons from Earth and the assault troops to follow—
But Tupelo's eetie leaders would probably resist, and that would mean killing. Not just killing creatures on another planet a zillion kilometers away, but murdering actual neighbors. Nonhuman neighbors, sure.
But even theoretically, even in this mind game, did he actually want to kill, say, Mrs. Brownbenttalon and her husband?
It occurred to him that the commanders of some expeditionary force from Earth, assuming anyone on Earth were crazy enough to want to try anything like that, would have no such compunctions: eetie freaks would be just eetie freaks to them. (But that, of course, wasn't going to happen; it was precisely to prevent any such lunatic effort that all six races had to be present to allow transmissions to come in.)
Then it occurred to him that one of those eetie freak races might, just possibly, be crazy enough to want to try to invade Earth in the same way; and then he understood why there had been all those soldiers with their machine guns around the EPR terminal on Earth when he and Rina had come through it to get here.
That made Giyt thoughtful in a different way. It seemed that somebody had been thinking about the prospects of invasions before him. Not just as a daydream, either, but as a real-world possibility.
That was not an enjoyable thought. The human race on Earth had pretty much got over its addiction to wars. Talk, sure. But no action. Nobody had the armaments for real war any more. Like most of his predecessors, the current American president followed the policy of speaking as loudly and offensively as possible, but carrying no stick at all.
But what did this stuff in the files mean? Was the cycle going to start again in space? Maybe right here on Tupelo?
Giyt shook his head at his own folly. Not a chance! That was ridiculous. There were no signs of that sort of pre-battle tension, and even if there were, there just weren't any weapons on the planet to carry out such a scheme.
That was when he heard the rat-a-tat-tat- boom from outside.
That startled him, and it almost felt for a moment as though it was those machine guns firing. It wasn't, though; he realized that at once. It was only the dumb thing the Kalkaboos did with their firecrackers every morning to greet the dawn. But it told him that sunrise had come. His private time was over. Any minute now Rina would be coming in to find out if he wanted pancakes or cereal for breakfast. And he hadn't made a dent in his real work.
He sighed and went back to the dreary business of trying to understand the commission reports. Briefly he wondered if he had made a serious mistake in trading his idyllic life in Bal Harbor for the irksome constraints of this new existence on Tupelo. He couldn't honestly say that he had any good reason to be happier here.
The funny thing was that he actually was happier. Not for himself. For Rina. There was no doubt that the woman was blossoming by the hour here on Tupelo; and how strange it was, Giyt thought wonderingly, that he found himself happy simply because she was.
VII
There is only one inhabited island on the planet Tupelo. It occupies the
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