Cliff nodded. "You saw that bit about the new Chinese disintegrator? If the Government had seriously considered our Crumbler—"
Kay glanced at the huge, humming top that filled the center of the laboratory. It spun so fast that it appeared as nothing but a spherical shadow, through which one could see the sparse furnishings, the table, the apparatus ranged upon it, and the window over-looking the upper streets of New York.
"Yes—if!" he answered bitterly. "And I'm willing to bet the Chinese have an inferior machine, built upon the plans that Chinese servant stole from us last year."
"We deserved it, Cliff," said Kay again. "For ten years we've harried and enslaved the yellow man, and taken a hundred thousand of his men and women to sacrifice to the Earth Giants. What would we have done, if conditions had been reversed?"
"Self-preservation," Cliff suggested.
"Exactly. The law of the survival of the fittest. They thought that they were fitter to survive. I tell you they had right on their side, Cliff, and that's what's beaten us. Now—a hundred thousand of our own boys and girls must be fed into the maw of these monsters every year. God, suppose it were Ruth!"
"Or you or I," said Cliff. "If only we could perfect the Crumbler!"
"What use would that be against the Earth Giants? There's nothing organic about them, not even bones. Pure protoplasm!"
"We could have used it against the Chinese," said Cliff. "Now—" He shrugged his shoulders hopelessly.