He grinned when Pam handed him the written sheet.
"It's outrageous!" snapped Sandy. "It's ridiculous! They ought to get down on their knees to you, Joe, to thank you for what you've done!"
Burke shook his head.
"I don't think I'd like that. Neither would you. We'll make out, Sandy. There'll be a colony started on that world the matter-transposer links us to. It might be fun living there. What say?"
Sandy grumbled. But she looked at him with soft eyes.
"I'd rather be mixed up with—what you might call pioneers," said Burke, "than people with reputations to defend and announced theories that are going to turn out to be all wrong. The research in this fortress and on that planet will make some red faces, on Earth. And there's another thing."
"What?" asked Sandy.
"This war we've inherited without doing anything to deserve it," said Burke. "In fact, the Enemy. We haven't the least idea what they're like or anything at all about them except that they go off somewhere and spend a few thousand years cooking up something lethal to throw at us. They tired out our ancestors. If they'd only known it, they won the war by default. Our ancestors moved away to let the Enemy have its own way about this part of the galaxy, anyhow. And judging by past performances, the Enemy will just stew somewhere until they think of something more dangerous than artificial sun-masses riding through our solar systems."
"Well?" she demanded. "What's to be done about that?"
"With the right sort of people around," said Burke meditatively, "we could do a little contriving of our own. And we could get a ship ready and think about looking them up and pinning their ears back in their own bailiwick, instead of waiting for them to take pot-shots at us."