Someone else was thinking too, but wasn't keeping his thoughts to himself. They were being spoken, and virtually dripped with the thinker's fury.
"You sloppy, lazy parasites! I don't mind being stuck with a job and a deadline, even if it's a report that's due in only fifty years and needs about two hundred for a real conclusion. I'd sooner do it all myself than have some of you loose thinkers butting in! But if I'm to give my whole attention to it so I can produce something that won't be laughed at from here to the Magellanic Clouds, how about some of you watching what goes on on this planet? I didn't know those creatures were poking around until they began cutting sensor lines! Thirty, the protective life we've bred on the surface was your idea; why didn't you put it to work?"
The answering words tried to be soothing.
"Thirty was working—"
"Dreaming, you mean!"
"But I put one of the guardians on the job for him; it stopped the digging, didn't it?"
"Sure, after a lot of damage had been done. Do you want to come out in the open and repair my wiring—with those space travelers poking around? If they find you at it, the Council won't just laugh at us; they'll excommunicate us and let this new species of intelligence clean us out. Why did it take so long for the guardian to do anything?"
"Well, I—"
"Well, you were dreaming too, weren't you. Blast it, you're here to do constructive thinking, not just to entertain yourself. Haven't you any self-respect? They actually dug out Sixteen!"