"The Loard-vogh thought so."
"The Loard-vogh were ignorant of our intellect. And," smiled the Terran cheerfully, "they were forced to collect us. Terra, in a long-time fight, could have beaten them."
XXII.
Indan Ko scowled and thought for a moment. This huge Terran that crowded his palace like a giant in a doll's house was not making sense.
"I do not understand."
"Terra is known as the Planet of Terror," said Billy, "because of the evolutionary system caused by the hard radiation in that district. You have seen the viciousness of our fungus, our micro-organisms, of our life itself. Could the Loard-vogh stand up against a bombardment, planet by planet, of fungus-spores so tenacious that they grow on synthetic resins? Stellor Downing held a Sscantovian guinea pig in one hand for a moment and it died a most horrible death within minutes because of fungi that were innocuous to him. In my ship there is a slab of rare cheese. Delicious stuff, and what Terrans call 'quite high' because it is growing a full beard of mold. Could you—or the Loard-vogh—spread it on a slice of bread and eat it with impunity?"
"Definitely not."
"Seventeen million of the Loard-vogh died in the Battle of Sol, and more than half of them perished because Terran spores crept into chinks in their space armor. Chinks so small that they do not permit loss of air in space.
"You see, Indan Ko, the fear of Terra that drove the Loard-vogh frantic was because they thought that Terra would send out myriad after myriad of tiny spacecraft, loaded to the bomb bay doors with minute spore bombs. That we could have done. But we did not."