Of course not, thought the captain. No more than we could sprout wings and fly back to Earth.
He fought to keep his tone calm, convincing. "Why can't they? They're telepaths. They've gotten all our knowledge from our minds. They can be just as good in space as we are—maybe better. And they'll save humanity. Right. Taaleeb?"
"Right," said Taaleeb, smiling.
"Wonderful!" said Fox, clapping his hands. "Let's go to the village."
"But they haven't the intelligence," protested Lieutenant Washington. "Captain, I think you're—"
"Look at the way they've learned to talk our language. Doesn't that indicate an extremely high intelligence?"
"That's right," agreed Fox. "It does, Lieutenant. Let's go, Captain. Ready?"
Garcia edged forward, blinking the drowsiness from his eyes. "How about Van Gundy, Captain? Who killed Van Gundy?"
Captain Torkel started to speak. The lie stuck in his throat. He telepathed, You tell him, Taaleeb. You tell him the lie.
Taaleeb said, "You killed him, friend Garcia. We have looked into your mind. We see what happened. You began to break the portholes. Friend Van Gundy tried to stop you. He had knife, you took knife. You killed him. You took the flame-weapon because you were afraid of what friend captain might do."