"Yeah. You think it'll work?"
"I don't know."
"But you'd rather die, that it, than be a knowing slave to another civilization, even though it is undisputed master of—"
"That's why I'd rather die, Cragin! Because they're false masters!"
He didn't reply. She was confusing him again, and perhaps the basic reason for the confusion was that he didn't understand why she mixed him up. If there was anything Earth's culture stood for, it was the integrity of the fact—maturation and development of the individual through strict adherence to the known. Only the proven fact was worthy of belief and acceptable as a basis for thought. Nothing else.
But the girl wasn't behaving that way.
"All right. We gamble that an IQ of 115 is acceptable. Then we gamble that we can effect a break. In other words we just take a chance on a chance; make a really long shot out of it."
"Will you, Cragin?"
He laughed a little. Hell, sooner or later, anyway—
"Hand me my rattle," he said. "I better practice. The asteroids are falling down, falling down; the asteroids are falling down, my fair lady...."