"Why?"
"Because we are playing with the other man's cards, remember. We're not leading authorities in this art. You got both the square-wave generator and the monopolar field out of them. Now why hadn't they tried it before?"
"On the theory that no beginner ever has a valid idea? No soap. Maybe they've been too close to the woods to see anything but them trees. Of course, there's another little angle we've not considered."
"Go on. First it was a political difference between factions for and against subjugation. Then I came in and threw in my two cents which sort of hardened the argument a bit. We didn't know whether my stuff was shoved in to stop production or to save Sol. We know now that your informant was telling the truth but not the whole truth. We know that mine was honest but not why he was. Then we came to the possibility that someone somewhere tossed us a fish because they were afraid to try it. Why the stopper on that?"
"Possibly they want us to really try it out and not total destruction."
"But—?"
"Look, Edith. Supposing you wanted to have something developed for you by a consulting laboratory. You've done that yourself at Solar Labs. Wouldn't you give them whatever information you had available?"
She nodded. "Nice explanation," she said solemnly. "Excepting that if I were doing it, I'd not call one man and start him experimenting on one pretext and then call another member of the laboratory and tell him that the information would lead to disaster."
"In other words, the big problem is motive."
"Precisely. And that's what we're up against. Try to figure out the hidden motives of extrasolar cultures."