"You saw it, didn't you?" Mittich demanded.
Vrausot scratched his jaw with a rigid talon. "Interesting—that trouble between the aliens and their automatons. What interpretation do you put on it?"
Pivoting on his tail, the other spun around from the screen to face the Chancellor. "That they don't even carry side arms. They had no defense whatsoever against their machines. If they were here looking for a fight, wouldn't they be armed at all times?"
Vrausot expressed ridicule by tracing a circle with the tip of his tapering snout. "Mittich, you amuse me. Only one sunset ago you were bending my tail to make me believe they may be cunning; that they might have strung out a seine for us."
"Yes?" the Assemblyman prompted, expecting more.
"Now I simply extend your own logic back to you. They prepared that drama down there for our benefit—just in case we were watching. They want us to believe they are stupid and helpless."
Assemblyman Mittich laced the other with a calculating stare. He was aware of the heavy irony in Vrausot's hisses and clicks and he knew the Chancellor was only deriding him.
"If I had to arrive at an alternate assessment, Assemblyman—" Vrausot paused and Mittich braced himself for more scorn. "It would be that the aliens are stupid, inept, blundering, defenseless. Actually, it would seem that they must have gained interstellar status only through accident."
"Oh, no. We know that isn't true."
Ignoring the interruption, the Chancellor continued. "And they were foolish enough to come here unarmed, apparently."