“That the youth of the race is revived?”
“Yes.”
“With its atomic bombs?”
“The atomic bombs,” returned the Astronomer, “need not be the end of civilization. These visitors of mine had their atomic bomb, or whatever their equivalent was on their own worlds, and survived it, because they didn’t give up. Don’t you see? It wasn’t the bomb that defeated us, but our own shell shock. This may be the last chance to reverse the process.”
“Tell me,” said the Industrialist, “what do these friends from space want in return?”
The Astronomer hesitated. He said, “I will be truthful with you. They come from a denser planet. Ours is richer in the lighter atoms.”
“They want magnesium? Aluminum?”
“No, sir. Carbon and hydrogen. They want coal and oil.”
“Really?”
The Astronomer said, quickly, “You are going to ask why creatures who have mastered space travel, and therefore atomic power, would want coal and oil. I can’t answer that.”