"But it is obvious that you failed! Even if two of them succeeded in escaping...."
"And before that, sir," Krembyl hurried on. "Before that, I shook the land masses violently, rent great fissures that permitted the gasses and flames to leap out from the central core and spread destruction. I submerged huge infected areas into the depths of the seas, and brought up new land masses, fresh and clean, into the light of Sol. I even...."
"Enough! Enough!" Ryt hit the desk before him a ponderous blow. "Silence, fool, while I think!"
Krembyl turned a sickly shade of green and let the document close in weary hands.
Sol III had been a particularly painful lancet in his side, even more so than had yet been guessed. He hoped the inspector would probe no deeper. But even as his hopes kindled, they became but ashes.
"There are a few more things I do not understand about this," Inspector Ryt was saying. "When this planet was formed from the elements of space, there was no contamination. It was virgin. And, yet, it is now contaminated. Why?"
Krembyl felt his inners churning fearfully. His whole body was so filled with trembling that he could not bring himself to fashion words.
Ryt's body grew blacker in the silence. "Why?" The word was lightning from the Stygian depths. "WHY?"
Krembyl's body rent asunder, and the effort of reknitting himself so weakened him that his voice was scarcely a whisper. "They—they came from Sol V, sir."