"Chances are if they'd seen it they'd have bopped it themselves," observed Downing.
"Reasonable attitude."
"Well, we have about ten to the twenty-seventh power square miles of blank and utter nothing to curry-comb for a dingus of some sort."
"Blank and utter nothing—hell! I wouldn't mind blank and utter nothing. We could comb it if it weren't for sun, planets, asteroids, meteors, noise-impulses from nowhere-in-particular, just plain hell, and a crew of wild-personalized catmen." Lane paused to take a deep breath. "As it is, the latter is the most complicated of the bunch mentioned. We can't spread out in a space-lattice and comb. We've got to do one of two things. Either we enlist the help—or get freedom of search—of or from the catmen or we comb in a large and armed body."
"That's a nice problem. Either way."
"As has been mentioned before—'Take it or leave it!'"
"Mind explaining how you go about getting chummy with a race that took a swing without asking questions first?"
"That's partly our fault. We just invaded."
"We couldn't spend a few months getting chummy first. We needed power—and bad."
"All right," agreed Lane. "But they didn't know that. And it's all right with me because I'm leery of letting anyone know that I'm vulnerable. Especially people I don't know and therefore cannot trust."