"I presume your informant was quite concerned over the possible destruction of a friendly race?"
"Certainly," she said. "That is why he contacted me."
"If I were a member of the conquer-all faction of my story, Miss Ward, I would be trying to contact someone here to warn them of a terrible danger if the science were exploited. That would delay our work long enough for them to arrive, wouldn't it?"
"There is nothing so dangerous as a half-truth," said Edith Ward flatly.
"Nor as dangerous as a little knowledge," agreed Barden. "However, Miss Ward, my story is just as valid as yours. And since neither story may be checked for veracity, how do you propose to proceed?"
"I think you'd better stop!"
Barden sat down on the edge of the desk and looked down at her. She was sitting relaxed in the chair alongside, though it was only her body that was relaxed. Her face was tense and her eyes were half-narrowed as in deep concentration. Barden looked at her for a moment and then smacked a fist into the palm of his hand.
"Look," he said, "that's apparently what your informant wants. Now as to veracity, for every statement you make about the impossibility of interpreting theoretical logic into a complete prediction of physical phenomena without experimental evidence, I can state in your own words that you can't tell anybody what the outcome will be. You want me to stop. If my story is true, then Terra will have interstellar travel and will meet this incoming race on its own terms. Either proposition is O.K."
Edith Ward muttered something and Barden asked what she said.