Joe's face was sad under its grimness as he paused to choose his words
and tension rang through the cave. "But no--you ran true to your basic
hateful pattern. You fought in your caves and on your seas and in your
seas--on your land and under your land. And now you propose to carry
your stupid useless wars out into space. I have come to tell you that
this, you will not do.
"Up to this point, you have endangered only yourselves but now the
balance of the galaxy can be tipped by your madness and this we will
not tolerate. I care not who is right or who is wrong in your disputes.
I do not look upon you as a divided world, I look upon you as a single
indivisible planet and looking thus--this I say to you."
* * * * *
Joe took a deep breath and plunged grimly on. "If one of your space
stations attacks the other for any reason whatsoever, both will be
destroyed. And in this destruction your planet will also vanish. It
will be obliterated completely as we have no intention of leaving
a dangerous dead hulk floating through space. It and you and
possibly your whole solar system will go at once because--no matter
what your opinions on the subject are, let me tell you this--_you
are expendable--your planet is expendable--your solar system is
expendable--and on the day after obliteration--you will not even be
missed_."
Joe turned in his chair and Biddy thought he looked awfully tired.
Then he said, "And now if you have any doubts go out, wherever you
are, and look up into the blessed skies God gave you--" Biddy watched
the sadness in Joe's eyes and heard him speak as though to children.
"--the skies we will take away from you unless you grow up and behave
yourselves."
With that, he snapped off a switch with a quick movement and turned.
He said, "Go outside and ready the ship for takeoff. You go with them,
Biddy." He looked at Davey and added, "Leave the lad with me for a few
minutes."
Joe's instructions were not questioned and a few moments later she was
outside with the young men gazing in wonder at the sky. Everything
was lighted up like the Fourth of July. But bigger--much bigger. From
every horizon giant lights of all colors were shooting up to meet
overhead. All the colors of the rainbow and some Biddy had never seen.
"It's--it's beautiful!" she gasped.
One of the young men smiled without humor. "Let's hope a second display
is never necessary." With that he hurried away with the others and
there was great activity around the ship. Then Joe came out--just as
the colors overhead were dying--and gave a signal and the men entered
the cave. Pretty soon they came out and all the mechanism and the
big shining box were floating along behind them--floating through the
air--as they were pulled toward the ship by thin lines of metal rope.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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