"We'll know soon enough," she said. "But I--I personally can't conceive of it, sir. Of course, the New-UN is very practiced in dealing with all kinds of cultures. Remember the time they had with those awful five-legged things from Canis Major? Wanted to trade all the tritium we'd need to blow up a planet just for trees; because they worshipped trees! Any and all kinds of trees...." Mason smiled. He was good looking when he smiled and the Space-tension was gone from his slate colored eyes. "I remember. But it looks as though they're going to have the toughest time with somebody just like us--two legs, two arms, oxygen-breathing.... Women, the man said. Just what the devil does he expect us to do? Draft 'em? Have an international lot drawing?" * * * * * She smoked quietly, and her gray eyes were thoughtful. "A matter of view-point, sir," she said finally. "As it always is. To them, females are for breeding only, to keep their war machine well stocked. From what Kriijorl said, they do not understand love as we do. There's simply one purpose...." "Well, that's why I think the whole thing is--well, as you say, inconceivable from our point of view. Our culture, our women just aren't conditioned for such an existence." "Think back two centuries, sir." "You don't have to keep calling me 'sir' like that!" Mason said, feeling a sudden warmth at the back of his neck as he said it. And then, "Two centuries back. Yes. After every war, Earth's birth rate would go crazy. Mother Nature ruled the roost in those days, didn't she? Supply and demand, cause and effect. It's a wonder Man ever got anywhere." "More wonder some men do--" Mason looked up. But Judith's face was, as usual, quite calm and detached. "You say something?" "I said I'd like to have you get Kriijorl to demonstrate that teleprobe thing of his for us, if you can, s---- Lance. How did he say it worked?" "I still don't get it completely. A peculiar mixture of radio and the electroencephalograph, I think. He said it replaced radio on Ihelos and Thrayx centuries ago. You can communicate to a group or an individual with it in language, or in basic thought pictures. That's what they use it mostly for, of course, and as such, it's termed a mentacom. But he told me that it can also be used as it was on us as a teleprobe when the subject isn't screened. They use a specially tuned carrier wave of some sort, he said, that impinges on a thought wave pattern, but instead of registering the pattern's electronic impulse equivalents as does the electroencephalograph, it 'reflects' them. Like a basic radar system. And the receiver, it's a tiny thing, breaks the reflected pattern down into values equivalent to those in which the 'listener' thinks; amplifies, and that's it! Mind reading made easy, I guess." Judith squirmed a little uneasily. "I'm glad they're not natural telepaths, anyway," she answered. "And even with a gimmick like that--"