For a while he babbled, but then it began to make sense.
He told about the coming extinction of his race, and the plan for interbreeding which would save it. He had been on Earth, he said, for several years, choosing specimens for test purposes. The tests had proved positive and the first step of selection was almost completed. He had been stationed as a real doctor with a real practice, so that he would have the opportunity of giving preliminary physical examinations and passing on the names of potentially acceptable candidates. And there were many doctors like him spread all over the world. Since the United States was by far the Earth's healthiest country of any size, most of the selecting had been done right here.
"But what did you do with the men in the satellite?" Web asked, doing his best to follow but fast losing ground.
"How did you know—?" And then the alien almost collapsed again. He had heard, undoubtedly, of the one man that had escaped from the satellite. But that had been a Galactic—
"Why did you do that, kill all those men, and how?"
Web shook him, the alien yelped feebly, then babbled it out.
"The satellite was in a very dangerous position. It could see all our intercontinental travel, the ships we have going and coming daily. It would undoubtedly warn the planet of what it saw. But we could not simply destroy it. Blame for that might conceivably be placed on your enemies, and you are such unstable peop—that is—we—there was no need for a general war. We could not risk that, being ourselves just as vulnerable to atomic attack as any life. So we—removed the men on the satellite."
"How, dammit, how?"
When he swore the alien jumped.
"Through devices which you—if you do not already know, you cannot be—oh—yes—I will tell, I will tell—" The old man searched desperately for an explanation. "Your body has—every body is held together by electric forces. By million upon millions of tiny electric currents. The atoms of any body are kept in position by a—by an attraction between them. Now, if that attraction is nullified, the atoms will drift apart, disperse. The atoms will no longer exist in any form. That was what happened to the men in the satellite. They were—turned off."