"Certainly. Valuable ores were found on Pluto. Also a race of semi-intelligent natives. They traded worthless bits of glass and glittering, chromium-plated jewelry for gray and shapeless masses of dirt—but the dirt must be excavated from certain locations, and in certain ways. To keep the ores moving, and at this ridiculous rate of exchange, no program of education was installed on your Pluto. Even your Men of God—missionaries—obscured the real value of those ores. What did you give them in exchange?"
"We gave them protection against a common enemy."
"An enemy of yours that would probably have treated them no worse than you did. The protection you prattle of was protection of your own mines against the enemy, not of the natives against this enemy. In either case, the natives would be no better off."
"You paint our race as black-hearted," said Guy.
"And what did you do?" came the cynical thought. "As soon as you discovered this barrier-screen, you raised it over Pluto, and the rise in temperature, good for Terrans, killed the Plutonians to the last one! A benign race? Bah!"
"We—"
"Nothing you say will convince me that your main desire is not for yourselves! And if you think for one moment that we will permit you to throw up a barrier around Mephisto and kill us off, you're mistaken."
"You're all convinced that we mean harm?"
"You do!" The creature tapped the thought-beam instrument.
"I presume that you speak for the entire race?"