It is this lack of action that made the outcome. Guy Maynard was a Terran. Terrans have been accustomed for centuries to action. From the time of the caveman to the present, Terrans have lived in a cultural system that was ever accelerating. They progressed from the animal-powered vehicle to the machine-powered vehicle in a matter of years, and they went from land-travel to air-travel in the scant matter of years. Life on Terra has been a constantly-increasing tempo to the present, when Terrans traverse space in velocities measured in thousands of miles per second.
It is improbable that Terrans will slow down. Like the Ertinians, once a race is geared to high-velocity, slowing down is impossible.
The Ertinians, geared to a nomad life, could not conceive of a stable system and like the proverbial tramp, continued to think in terms of travel.
The Terran—Guy Maynard—found the peaceful life on Ertene suitable for a long time. He expected that action would take place once Thomakein and Leilanane were mated, but things fell into their grooves again, and time went on interminably.
Guy tried to push the physicists that were working on his pet projects and found a placitude that maddened him. The necessities of sudden and decisive action were not there. Ertinians didn't think as Terrans do. Eons had passed since anything of real velocity was needed, and their thinking habits had been trained along these lines.
The idea of accepting an idea and developing it immediately into a practical thing was unheard of. There had been no need. Certainly there must be no need now.
Guy was a dynamo of action in a world geared to ten miles per hour.
He found that their scientific developments were slow and cumbersome. Their science was not their own, but that of the worlds of their passage, and with years between such contacts, scientific ambition was low, indeed. With no competitive force driving them forward, Ertene had assumed the role of a lazy man, content to live in indolence.
Had any danger come to Terra, it would have been answered immediately and more than likely Terra would have gone out to meet the threat on the threat's home ground. But after the first flurry of worry over the disclosure of Ertene to Terra by the man Gomanar, Ertene's concern subsided. Half-heartedly Ertene put up vortex projectors about their cities, and then returned to their homes.
At first, Guy worried about these weapons. It was not fair to his peace of mind to see on every hand the evidence of Ertene's dislike of Terra. His own feelings were mixed; Terra hadn't played fair with him, true, but the idea of ruling a planet that would kill thousand upon thousand of his people stuck in Guy's throat. He worried about this, and because he could tell no one about it—not even Thomakein for fear that his motives be mis-read—he worried alone.