“They had to be decadent; every sign pointed to that conclusion. And of course the fact that they resort to the methods of fueling their revitalizers that we’ve experienced—when if we had their science, what might we not do, what substitutes might we not develop! No wonder they couldn’t explain their science to us; I doubt if they understand it fully themselves. They are the profligate, inadequate and sneak-thief heirs of what was once a soaring race!”
I was following my own unhappy images. “And we’re still hicks. Hicks who’ve been sold the equivalent of the Brooklyn Bridge by some dressed-up sharpies from Betelgeuse.”
Trowson nodded. “Or a bunch of poor natives who have sold their island home to a group of European explorers for a handful of brightly colored glass beads.”
But of course we were both wrong, Alvarez. Neither Trowson nor I had figured on Mainzer or Lopez or the others. Like Mainzer said, a few years earlier and we would have been licked. But man had entered the atomic age some time before 1945 and people like Mainzer and Vinthe had done nuclear research back in the days when radioactive elements abounded on Earth. We had that and we had such tools as the cyclotron, the betatron. And, if our present company will pardon the expression, Alvarez, we are a young and vigorous race.
All we had to do was the necessary research.
The research was done. With a truly effective world government, with a population not only interested in the problem but recently experienced in working together—and with the grim incentive we had, Alvarez, the problem, as you know, was solved.
We developed artificial radioactives and refueled the revitalizers. We developed atomic fuels out of the artificial radioactives and we got space travel. We did it comparatively fast, and we weren’t interested in a ship that just went to the Moon or Mars. We wanted a star ship. And we wanted it so bad, so fast, that we have it now too.
Here we are. Explain the situation to them, Alvarez, just the way I told it to you, but with all the knee-bending and gobbledegook that a transplanted Brazilian with twelve years oriental trading experience can put into it. You’re the man to do it—I can’t talk like that. It’s the only language those decadent slugs understand, so it’s the only way we can talk to them. So talk to them, these slimy snails, these oysters on the quarter shell, those smart-alecky slugs. Don’t forget to mention to them that the supply of radioactives they got from us won’t last forever. Get that down in fine detail.
Then stress the fact that we’ve got artificial radioactives, and that they’ve got some things we know we want and lots of other things we mean to find out about.
Tell them, Alvarez, that we’ve come to collect tolls on that Brooklyn Bridge they sold us.