Beside him, Eileen was sobbing. "Fred, what's happened?"
"What's happened—?" Boone laughed, a harsh and bitter laugh. "We're trapped, Eileen; that's what: Trapped in a Helgae bubble like those domes we saw!"
Her tears died. She stared at him. "But the Helgae can't hurt humans—"
"They can't?" He threw out the query like a challenge. "What do we really know about it?"
"But—on Titan—"
"On Titan, we found what we thought was a dead or dying culture. No one's ever seen Helgae alive. Or maybe we have. They're a non-carbon chemistry life-form. The elemental blobs we figured for skeletal structure may actually be their version of organic matter. Our mekronal units could have been smashing the golden age of their civilization, for all we really know."
The girl's face blanched. "No! It can't be!"
"Why can't it?" Her opposition lashed Boone to new fierceness. "Man's never found a way to communicate with any other life-form—not even on our own home planet! We can't talk to ants or paramecium, let alone Martian torglors or Callistan crustachs. But we're egoists, so we've taken it for granted we're the only truly intelligent creatures. All over the system, we've moved in at will, taken what we wanted, because we had the power to do it. But maybe the Helgae are different. Maybe, on their plane, they can think as well as we, or better. Do you think they won't react when the Cartel rips apart their cities and hauls them off by millions for the sake of the mekronal that can be extracted from their bodies?"
Eileen drew back. Her eyes distended. "You're mad, Fred! The Helgae—they'd strike back if they were alive or had the power to think!"