"Remember, my son, time is relative. These creatures lived, fought, loved, begat children, carried on scientific research and died, all in seventy short years. They existed at fever intensity. Their metabolism burns them up.
"Our lives are adjusted to a span of ten thousand years. We have a total population of little over a million. We are neither a war-like people, nor a highly-industrialized people.
"In one of their generations the humanoids accomplish almost as much as we do in one of ours. Think, my son, they perform in seventy years what it takes us ten thousand to do.
"If it ever came to hostilities between us we'd be doomed, overwhelmed almost before we realized what was happening."
Saxon listened in astonishment. The thought in the back of his mind kept trying to push to the fore, but he repressed it, afraid that the Aliens might see it.
"Their amazing fecundity," the Moderator was saying, "their short life spans, their ingenuity and ferocity made them a very real menace even isolated outside our stellar system. Fortunately, we also foresaw the inevitable crisis and prepared for it."
"Crisis?" Saxon echoed.
"The time when the humanoids would reach our scientific level and surpass us," said the Moderator in a grim voice. "That time has arrived!"
IX