"The vermiforms made this little solar system and we didn't understand, couldn't understand. We got our liners replaced finally and no more than half of us were capable of standing a watch when we blasted off. Ambassador, we blasted the hell out of there!
"The vermiforms stayed where they were for a few seconds. Then they began to follow. We were streaming a good train, of course, the old fission train, a couple of miles of very fancy destruction and waste. So the worms came along. They overtook us easy. And they began to dance in and out of our train.
"Yes sir, Ambassador, they weaved and they circled in and out of that awful atom-blast. And I knew that the atom-blast will kill anything, chop through any armor. But not those worms! Now they showed us how superior they were! Now they made fun of our power!
"And I wanted to run and hide where my officer was hiding down among the mattresses we rigged for him among the girders along the keel. My mind was scarred by space and by everything that Earthmen were not born to—
"And then it happened."
Adjustments now had been made and the Ambassador could speak while the dressers almost threw him into the inner suit. His hand clawed his face and he said hoarsely, "For God's sake man, spare me!"
"And then it happened!" old Hoag shouted, thrusting away from those in the Center Room who were now trying physically to shut him up. "The worms died! They died in the atom-blast!"
The Ambassador stared, and around the ivory table they stared at the last of the pioneers.
"Died! The vermiforms' natural armor was proof against all the rays of space and it held out against the atom-blast for a quarter of minute. But then it went. One after the other they went limp and the blast spewed them backward and we could see the spreading holes in them. And then they were out of sight, dead, killed because they hadn't known any better, by George!
"And we went on to Phoebe and got along better than anyone else with the things that sit inside their crystals, thinking. Got the platinum nobody else could take. Because we knew that the universe can breed morons, incompetents! The crystal people are smarter than Earthmen, sure. But at least we knew we were smarter than somebody else!