The enemy was ahead; the enemy was too damned far ahead.
So man fought doggedly on, hanging by his teeth, making each day, each second, count.
The Psychontact Division built up month by month as Parmay worked to get the right men into the right positions.
Specifically, Psychontact had the job of co-ordinating the colonies into a working whole, thus hoping to insure that the whole would be greater—and stronger—than the sum of its parts.
"Colonies! Colonies!" blazed Parmay, one morning. "You'd think we were bacteriological cultures!"
"Well," answered Alina, "of course we aren't."
"Well of course we are!" Parmay snapped back, "We're trying to spread, disease-like, over the galaxy in order to counteract the effects of another type of organism which is trying to do the same."
Alina was putting some of his things into a travelcase, and she went right on shoving them in as she answered.
"Romm, why does the alien problem bother you? You're getting to be a fanatic on the subject, and it's not your problem at all. Why don't you let Xenology do its job and you do yours?"
Parmay grabbed the travelcase as Alina closed it. He smiled nonchalantly. "Honey chile, I am not a fanatic; I just have to have something to yell about. Relieves tension and all that. Remind me to give you a lesson some time."