Llud started to speak again; then he felt the nearly imperceptible lurch that meant the Quest III had applied a terrific acceleration at an angle to its line of flight. Gwar Den had done a quick job.
The impacts of enemy fire ceased; the ship's abrupt swerve had temporarily shaken off its rocket-driven tormentors.
Almost simultaneously the image on the screen looked startled. The man turned as if listening to some one else. "So you've begun a frantic attempt to dodge. It won't help you—" His jaw dropped and he listened again; this time he was a little longer overcoming his surprise. Knof Llud knew what the second message had been as surely as if he had been there—that the Quest III, far from doubling back, was still heading for Earth, from a slightly different angle, and was even accelerating. The side thrust had already ceased. That expenditure of fuel reduced the chances, but it had to be risked.
The little man faced Knof Llud again and smiled savagely. "Whatever you're trying, we're ready for you!"
"No doubt," thought the captain with some satisfaction. He sat up straighter and gazed at the little man. His discouraged air was gone and the look in his eyes was the distillate of cold, searing scorn. He said, biting off the words with deliberate emphasis, to that one and the others who would be listening, "You pitiful pigmies."
The face in the screen grew darker with rage; it opened its mouth and closed it with a snap.
"You pitiful pigmies," repeated Knof Llud. "You're pigmies not only in physical size, but in everything else. You've thrown away everything that made being human worthwhile, all for the sake of your one pigmy ambition—to multiply your crawling little lives and become more and more at the same time that you become less and less. You've shrunk into vermin. In the end you'll probably shrink away to nothing, and good riddance."
With sudden change of pace he shot out a question: "What's the longest wave length of visible light?"
"2100 angstroms," the answer was mechanical. Then, "You—"
The captain smiled a smile of weary disdain. "I thought so. Six hundred trillion of you, eh? Crawling around down there in the dark, because you see in the far ultraviolet—and the atmosphere stops those frequencies. You can't see the stars! For thousands of years men watched the stars and wanted them and were kept trying by sight of them—but you can't see the stars any more."