"If they do, I'll bet it is distilled quintessence of skunk," Sims replied gloomily. "I'll be willing to bet that our native friends tried that trick ages ago and gave it up for a bad job. They're pretty fair biochemists as well as being philosophers."
"Could be," Lanceford said thoughtfully. "I never thought of that."
"You'd better start thinking all the time. These lads are smart. Why do you think we have this complicated rigmarole about native relations and respect? Man, we're running scared. We don't want to lose this planet, and anything less than the kid-glove treatment would be sheer suicide until we learn how far we can go. These natives have an organization that'd knock your eye out. I didn't believe it myself until I got the proof. As you learn more about it, you'll understand what I mean. We're dealing with an ecological unit on this planet!"
"But I thought—"
"That you were here to explore a primitive world?"
"Wasn't that what I was trained for?"
"No. We can do that sort of thing with a couple of geodetic cruisers. We don't need men trekking through the jungles to assay a world's physical resources. That business went out of date during the Dark Ages. There's a better reason than that for these treks."
"Like what?"
"You asked the question. Now answer it," Sims said. "You have enough data."
Lanceford thought for a moment "I can see one reason," he said slowly.