Norma struggled a bit. "Please, Farradyne?"
"Maybe later," he said soothingly. "Sit down now, and wait."
Angrily, Norma turned and headed for the divan.
He turned to Carolyn. "What the hell is going on and why?"
"This is war," she said.
"Like hell it's war. This is backstabbing. But it'll be war as soon as we can fight back."
"It is war," she repeated. "Let it go at that. The process should not be unfamiliar to you; you've done it yourselves time and again. First you weaken the enemy by undermining his resources, lowering his resistance, by turning his efforts toward advancement against some stumbling block. Then—"
"I presume that doping the women of a race is a right and honorable practice?" sneered Farradyne.
"It is better than dropping a mercurite bomb. Face the fact, Charles. We got to interstellar space first and met another people as racially jealous as we are. We could have made a landing openly, but if we had, the warfare you are threatening would have been here and done with long ago and there would be nothing left of either of our people but smouldering planets to mark the meeting place of two stellar peoples."
"You can say this knowing that no Solan has the barest notion of how this doodad in the hold can permit us to travel faster than light?"