Kara was stubborn, too. "The threat is not against your Earth! It's against Ruun, my world. I told you--" "But your man Rett, the real Rett--he had that probe-ray record of our most secret atomic installations on him." "Of course he did," she said angrily. Birrel gathered that she had liked Rett, not romantically but as a good comrade in arms. She had taken the news of his death rather hard. "Why do you think he was there at all? He took that record from the Irrian. It was the proof we needed of the Irrians' activities here, so that our government back home will act before it's too late. If your people hadn't shot him, everything would have been arranged by now. As it is, it's worse than ever." "Look," said Birrel. "I want to believe you, Kara. I do believe you. But it's just too big a responsibility for me to take on my own shoulders. Connor--" "Connor!" she said contemptuously. "You're afraid." "Yes," he said. "I'd be a fool if I wasn't." She put her head between her hands and said in a very patient voice, "I am trying to remember your side of it. Now listen to me once again. There is a star--you call it Wolf 359. It has several planets, of which five are inhabited. We, the people of Ruun--" "Control four of the five planets," Birrel said, not without a faint edge of skepticism for the story he had already heard from her. "Peaceably," she said. "The other three worlds allied themselves with us voluntarily. They are completely autonomous. But they are less favorably situated than Ruun and they can't support large populations, so they're relatively weak. And they wanted a strong friend, rather than a strong master--like Ir. Would _you_ enjoy living under Vannevan?" He had to admit he would not. "But are the Irrians all like him?" "Of course not," said Kara. "But Ir, the fifth world, is ruled by oligarchs, of whom Vannevan is one. The people of Ir may not like it--indeed, we've heard some of them don't--but they're pretty well held down." But still, Birrel thought, both parties to this interstellar quarrel were strangers to him. And anyway, the decision was not his to make. He said so, and she said, "But it is yours to make. Nobody else can make it. There isn't time." She plunged on desperately, trying to make him understand. "For centuries we've fought the Irrian oligarchs to keep them from dominating the whole system. The only time we had any peace was when the oligarchs took to fighting among themselves for power at home. Because of that struggle, many years ago they finally exhausted every bit of fissionable matter on Ir. We were able to prevent them from getting any more from our federated planets, and so for a long time there has been peace. You see? We had atomic weapons, they had not. They were no longer any danger. And of course we didn't need our strong military forces any more. All we've had for decades is just enough to act as an interplanetary police force. And now--"