The message was charged with emotion; it was impossible to believe that the man was lying. Indeed, thought Alan, there was no reason why he should lie. If he could wipe out New York with one small golden egg, he had no need to make allies of a few puny humans.
"Again, our sole excuse is the lack of time. We did find many places where only a portion of those checked were under rebel control. Those places we did not bomb, trusting that if we struck the large cities and the projects where disk manufacture was under way, we could mop up the others with ground fighting."
I wonder if Project Star is gone, thought Alan.
"I wonder," echoed Win aloud. Then they turned to each other, astounded. "Darling," she said after a second, "that's the one thing I like about this hardening, pain-removing process—now we can talk to each other without words!"
"Think what we can do with our mouths while we're talking," he grinned.
The leader went on. "I may interject here that we took over control of your artificial satellite some days ago. We did not kill the men therein, who were not enemies, but control them by simple hypnosis. They will of course be freed of this as soon as our job is done and a peace settled on between our worlds."
Brave looked up at the sky. Albertus, of course, could not be seen with the naked eye, but he said, "I know a couple of the lads that run that space station. Good boys. I'd been afraid they were dead. I knew they wouldn't have let us be smeared like this if they'd been able to prevent it."
"Only one city we bombed that we had not personally checked on; that is the large one over there," and he gestured toward Manhattan. "We could not send our men on the ground into that place; the entranceways are too complex, the place is too big, it would have taken too long; and we could scarcely fly over and drop spies. After earnest consultation we decided to bomb it. Being the largest concentration of civilized people in your world, being so close to the major rebel project, we felt—we knew—that it was full of enemies. Our stupidly certain assumption was wrong. We can never make reparation for that mistake, we cannot begin to make amends to you. Your only help will be the knowledge that we will live with the memory of that mistake the rest of our lives; and they are long, long lives.
"We are men of good will. We beg you to believe this. We have outlawed war and our planet lives at peace, prosperous peace. Now we have committed an intolerable crime against a brother race. We are hurt, in our way, as much as you have been hurt."