Harkway seemed to settle himself like a boxer. He said clearly, "The intelligent races of the galaxy are not devils and do not want our souls, Mr. Rack." Rack ignored the "Mr." He said, "But they'd want certain assurances from us, in return for their help, wouldn't they, Mr. Harkway?" "Certainly," said Harkway. "Assurances that no sane man would refuse them. Assurances, for example, that there would be no repetition of the Altair Incident--when a handful of maniacs in two ships murdered thousands of peaceful galactic citizens without the slightest provocation. Perhaps you remember that, Mr. Rack; perhaps you were there." "I was there," said Rack casually. "About five hundred thousand vermin were squashed. We would have done a better job, but we ran out of supplies. Some day we'll exterminate them all, and then there'll be a universe fit for men to live in. Meanwhile--" he glanced at the audience--"we're going to build. We're building now. Not with the vermin's permission, under the vermin's eye. In secret. On a planet they'll never find until our ships spurt out from it like milt from a fish. And when that day comes, we'll squash them down to the last tentacle and the last claw." "Are you finished?" asked Harkway. He was quivering with controlled rage. "Yes, I'm finished," said Rack wearily. "So are you. You're a traitor, Harkway, the most miserable kind of a crawling, dirt-eating traitor the human race ever produced. Get down off the platform." Harkway said to the audience, "I came here to try to persuade you to my way of thinking--to ask you to consider the arguments and decide for yourselves. This man wants to settle the question by prejudice and force. Which of us is best entitled to the name 'human?' If you listen to him, can you blame the Niori if they decide to end even this tiny foothold they've given you on their planet? Would you live in a universe drenched with blood?" Rack said quietly, "Monk." The squat man stood up, smiling. He took a clasp knife out of his pocket, opened it, and started up the side of the room. In the dead stillness, another voice said, "No!" It was, Cudyk saw with shock, Tom De Grasse. The youngster was up, moving past Rack--who made no move to stop him, did not even change expression--past the squat man, turning a yard beyond, almost at the front of the room. His square, almost childish face was tight with strain. There was a pistol in one big hand. Cudyk felt something awaken in him which blossomed only at moments like this, when one of his fellow men did something particularly puzzling: the root, slain but still quasi-living, of the thing that had once been his central drive and his trademark in the world--his insatiable, probing, warmly intelligent curiosity about the motives of men.