"United action is incompatible with family-group."
"Assume and advise!"
Relays chattered. Abruptly the entire panel flashed crimson. The monitor spoke one word.
"Annihilation."
Saxon referred to his Inhibition handbook. He had never annihilated a culture before.
One hour later he went into the forest. Birds sang overhead. The sun dappled him in light and shadow. He stalked a small furry quadruped that squealed at him from a log and brought it down with his sonic pistol.
Back in the lifeboat he watched the animal regain consciousness in an air-tight tank, and very slowly he pulled a lever. A green vapor rolled into the tank. The quadruped screamed. The green vapor fed.
It was the penultimate in sporedom, yet it was more than a spore. It had virus characteristics, and its propagation rate was almost mathematically impossible. There was no known defense, and once used, the entire planet was forever untouchable. To Saxon's knowledge it had been utilized only once on Eden I.
At dusk, he took the lifeboat up fifty miles. He released the spores in a widening spiral, and finally jettisoned the tank. He went into an orbit at ten thousand miles, and waited.
It would take approximately a week.