"That, for us, would be quite impossible," the alien replied slowly. "The chances of finding other life forms like our own are billions to one, the immensity of both our galaxies notwithstanding. Had you not ventured within range of our screens we would in all probability never known you existed. And to organize a search...." and now the smile on his lips was almost a sad thing, "a search of two galaxies—it would take us aeons, even at a thousand times the speed of light, simply to cover the vast distances involved, to say nothing of finding a similar life and thought form. And we do not have aeons, Lieutenant. We have but two—three, at most—generations.
"There is too little time to search for allies. We have no other choice, as you can see, than to take what advantage we can of those upon whom we may chance."
"But as my sergeant has already pointed out," Mason said, "our arms would be worthless to you. And, more importantly, we wish no more part in warfare. I am afraid, in that respect, you must excuse us, sir.... It has been a pleasure to have you aboard."
And suddenly, the smile was gone from the alien's face.
"I must demand of you, then—force you, if necessary—to take us to your planet, Lieutenant. For you can quite obviously help us. It is not your arms we want."
"I fail to understand you sir." Mason felt the icy sweat start again, repressed a shiver as it trickled the length of his spare body.
"Our planet, as our enemy's, is encircled by a wide ring of floating cosmic debris," the alien said. "In both instances, the rings are remnants of what once may have been satellites. In the ring which encircles us, we have successfully secreted refrigerated, lead-sheathed stores of male sperm, quite impossible for our enemy to locate. That is a necessity, of course, for any race that is constantly at war and is obliged to take all possible safeguards to insure its continued existence. We assume that Thrayx has done the same.
"However, our cell stores are useless if they lack ova to fertilize. On their last attack, Thrayxite ships succeeded in penetrating our innermost planetary defenses, and heavily damaged a number of our cities. Many of our women and young were victims.
"We therefore evacuated our planet's entire female population to an uninhabited world far distant. It was a young world and covered with thick forests, much like the labor planetoid which circles Thrayx, and we believed our breeders would be quite sufficiently camouflaged."
"Breeders?" Cain broke in.