"Vorgan, I and all of the Solar Sector are at your mercy. We fought you to prove our ability, and to gain your respect. Had we surrendered without a fight, we would have gained your contempt. Also," smiled Thompson, "it is foreign to our psychology to give up easily. But the main reason for fighting was to extract from you a modicum of respect. That we have done." "You assume--" "I know. You are puzzled by my temerity, amused by my position, and completely baffled by my purpose. Were it not so, I would be dead instead of here, behind this protecting glass. For otherwise you wouldn't bother with a race so dangerous to your very lives. Am I correct?" "Assume so. And proceed." * * * * * "The thing that makes us dangerous to you is the same thing that will make us useful to you." "A moment. At this point I can wait no longer," said Lindoo. "Before this bold Terran leads us too far from the subject, I must know: How did you preserve your forces in that bitter fighting where your ships fell like hail?" "We ran out of ships, not men," smiled Thompson. "We adapted a phase of the snatcher beam to personnel-protection. Each man carried a focal attractor in his clothing. Ship-destruction triggered a fast time-constant multi-driver circuit that inclosed each man in the incompressible spheres of the atomic crusher principle. They were withdrawn from the stricken ship while it was still exploding and brought back safely to a redistributing station where they re-entered the battle in a new ship." "We'll make a note of that," rumbled Vorgan. Lindoo looked a bit ashamed of himself for not having thought of it before. "Now, Terran," said Lindoo, "there was talk of a secret weapon. What was it and why was it not used?" "As a means of destruction," explained Thompson, "nothing of that nature exists. Terra's secret weapon in this case lies within your own minds. We were fighting for survival, and the retention of our integrity. Our secret weapon is the respect we extracted from you in fighting valiantly and losing necessarily. Our secret weapon is our minds and our ability to employ logic and data to a problem and come up with an answer. The personnel snatcher is but one phase of this weapon we possess. You admire it. It is, of course, yours by right of conquest. Other developments will be yours, also. But they would be lost if we had been merely trampled over and our interesting facets ignored by the high councils of the Loard-vogh. You have a horde of problems, Lord of All. A myriad of problems that we of Terra may solve. I offer you the Solar Sector as a research area!" "You offer?" asked Vorgan, puzzled. "You infer that we have not taken?" "Permit us our integrity. Sol is our home. Sol is unfit for you, and Terrans are not well liked in your empire because of the living death we carry. Permit us to remain in the Solar Sector and we will be your research area." "And free to breed discontent?" asked Lindoo.