Mr. Gertz grumbled.
The baby cried on.
Athra, Chairman of the War Council of Nahrla, squatted on the blood-red cushion and twisted the plastic features of his eyeless face into a portrait of contempt and impatience. He had listened silently to the arguments and counter-arguments of the council members, and only until their shrill, strident voices had grown tired of the useless debate did he speak. And when he spoke, they listened.
"Fools!" he said harshly. "Seven orbits has the sun made of Nahrla. Do you think Jeheera has waited this long to make its plans?"
A murmur went up at the mention of the hated name. Jeheera, their planetary neighbor, had hurled its declaration of war seven Nahrla-years ago. Still, the major preparations for the battle were not underway. The battlefield had been chosen: a distant world on the rim of the great nebula, a world whose green land areas and wide seas most resembled the terrain of the two combatants. It was traditional for Nahrla and Jeheera to fight on other worlds; through countless centuries, they had learned the bitter outcome of war on their own soil. Jointly, their exploratory forces had searched the galaxies for the scene of their next conflict. They had decided upon the planet called Earth by its inhabitants, and fixed the date of the engagement for forty years hence—a generation to the short-lived creatures of the green world, but only a brief span to the people of Nahrla.
"Forty years!" Athra rasped. "Seven gone already. And still we sit in idle quarrel, without our defenses prepared. Do you realize the consequence of such inaction? Do you not suppose that Jeheera has already sent its agents to this world, to scout out its population, its ways, its weaknesses, its dangers and pitfalls? And what have we learned? What information do our scouts supply?"
At the end of the hall, a figure arose, bowing humbly, its four jointless arms wrapped about its narrow body.
"If I may report, sir," he said quietly.