I gave friendship—and what has Cobber's answer been? Your people sold weapons to the ignorant and brutal of my people. You taught them to kill and burn. You aroused the greed and lust in us with the offer of power. We reached for knowledge—and you pushed us back into the depths of savagery. Are you my friend, Cobber?
Cobber could not answer. Powerless, impotent, he could not fulfill the demand for just revenge that Kama had asked. A thousand plans pursued their way through his mind. A thousand solutions leapt up, offering themselves. He could have killed Wilson and shown them the body. But it would have meant death for all them in the courts of Earth.
What was the alternative? In his mind he could see the story. The spaceship would return home with a cargo full of catalytic and the story of ignorant beings willing to mine the metal for tanks of oxygen. Cheap, easy to manufacture oxygen in exchange for power! Other ships would come and other men like Wilson, greedy men, powerful men, men with lust in their hearts.
Kama's people, scarcely on the first rung of civilization's ladder, would be thrust back into the darkness. Tribal warfare, spurred on and encouraged by Earthmen, would deplete the planet. A new culture, just born, would die. Was this a fair price for the greed markets of Earth?
Are you my friend? He heard the thought again.
Slowly he rode back to the spaceship. The storm was over. The crew of the ship were clearing the ammonia drifts away in preparation for the blasting.
The airlock was open. Cobber rode to it and turned around, guns facing his men.
Six seconds.
Seven.
"I am your friend, Kama," Cobber said softly to himself. "Remember me!"