"One by one, its garrisons have been withdrawn from Venus, Mars, Jupiter, the asteroids, until now the organization which used to proudly boast the maintenance of order throughout the whole system has become nothing more than an armed protective corps for Earth itself."
"Is that true?" gasped Nora Powell. "But why should the other planets refuse to cooperate?"
"It's our own fault," confessed Warren glumly. "The Patrol was a good idea, but it wasn't organized properly. Its membership should have been drawn from the likeliest youths of each world. Instead, through selfishness or cunning or greed—I don't know why—Earth undertook the policing of the entire solar system with only the young men of her own world.
"Then again, throughout many decades we have steadfastly refused to aid the other worlds in developing spacecraft. Earth, and Earth alone, knows the secret of the construction of hypatomic motors which make spaceflight possible. It is a secret we guard jealously. That is why there exists no Venusian fleet, no Martian fleet, Jovian fleet. Only an Earth fleet which—and perhaps with reason—the denizens of all the other planets fear as an aggressive force.
"Earth, too, has the only merchant fleet. And while it is no doubt true that other planets profit somewhat by the interchange of commerce our merchantmen make possible, it is into Earth's coffers pours the wealth of the universe."
"Why—why, that's true," said Dr. Bryant. "I had never realized it before, but that is undoubtedly responsible for the known disaffection between Earth and the outlying planets. But, Captain Warren, the common people of Earth don't realize this! They, like myself, are too busy with the small details of their private lives to wonder more than casually about such things. It never occurred to me to wonder at the lack of other interplanetary merchantmen. I suppose I always took it for granted that we of Earth were doing our solar neighbors a great favor by regulating interplanetary commerce. Now I can see—"
He paused, his eyebrows knit in thought. Then—"But something must certainly be done about this situation. What can we do?"
"Right now," replied Warren gravely, "nothing. We have a more important task confronting us. But if and when this other affair is successfully cleared up, something should be finally done to create a new world order truly based on the principle of equal rights ... with liberty and justice for all."
Muldoon said cautiously, "But, wait a minute. There's a bug in that reasoning somewhere. You say the other planets haven't learned the secret of the hypatomic motor? Well, ships crash, don't they? And ships can be captured. It seems to me that if any nation really wanted to learn that secret—"