I found Nessa's hand and squeezed it reassuringly. She must have been baffled by the things I'd said. Then I took up with Skagarach where I'd left off on the beach. "All this hand-to-hand combat rot," I said. "Where will that get you--us? Dealing with rockets and space stations, and doing it with submachine guns, after all. It's race suicide." "You're thinking on the wrong tack. We are the primeval beings, yes; and we're facing, and prepared to use, the farthest reaches of scientific achievement. But look, Ray: if an intelligent caveman came among a group of moderns, and saw a gun lying there, and was taught how to use it, which would be the bright thing to do--snatch it and use it on them, or wade in with his fists? "We intend to blot out Homo sapiens and we shall do it. But not with stone clubs, not with revolvers. No, we'll lay hands tonight on man's greatest weapon, the only weapon which can be turned against the whole globe: the space station. You object to our primitive methods. You're not thinking deeply enough. The pure science of the station, the rockets and the VTO tugs buffaloes you. You can't see a horde of men with handguns and grenades capturing those awesome devices." "That's right, I can't." "Why not? There is no more problem here than there is attacking a bank vault, or an outpost of soldiers. So far as the government knows, there is no secret army within its borders! They haven't the faintest notion that _we_ exist, an army of manlike non-men. "It's the broad conception that stumps you, Ray. So picture each operation by itself. The storming of the rocket ports--by quite adequate troops of ours, well-armed and savage. Then the towing of the rockets, by VTO tugs, to Pompey Island--this done by technicians and scientists who are not men, but Neanderthals. Then the locking of the space station to the rockets, and the takeoff for outer space. Sixty of us in these boats, plus twenty waiting with other musters at the rocket stations will man that moon. From attack on Pompey to blast-off from Terra should take from one to three hours." "You are insane," said Nessa in a shocked voice. "No," said Skagarach seriously, "we are sane. But we have fought for the existence of our race through too many thousands of years, in too many lands and too many ages, to have mercy now that our hour is at hand." * * * * * I felt as though I'd been dropped into icy water. Skagarach wasn't kidding. And Bill Cuff was worse than he. And I had lied to them. I could picture in brain-shattering detail what they would do to Nessa when they discovered that; for my lie could blow up their whole scheme. They'd torture her, not me, for they needed me. I looked at the thought and I couldn't stand it.