The thought was abhorrent to me, but he argued, "If we don't eliminate them entirely they'll always be around to plague us. Just picture what this or any future colony would look like after a year or two of uninhibited mingling and loafing and swilling down that tala. Is that the civilization that Earth sent us out here to establish?"
In every part of the universe where living conditions have been too kind and discipline too lax, men have been known to go native, and suddenly I felt that Benson had been much more acute in his apprehensions than I, a graduate psychologist who was supposed to understand human nature.
Somewhat subdued I said, "How do you plan to accomplish a complete extermination? If we start hunting them down they'll just fade into the woods. Besides, you'd have a devil of a time getting agreement among our people to take on such a messy project."
"It has to be done, that's all. I want you to keep completely quiet about what we've learned until I can think about it. Bromley should have some ideas. He's a biologist."
When Benson said, "biologist", the obvious solution popped into my head. "If we could sterilize them—all the males, anyway—they have such a short life-span—"
"Too slow. Besides, how are you going to coax all the males to lie down and—" His eyes opened wider, "Radiation!"
"Exactly. We take them for a tour of the ship, including the X-ray booth, and pour on the power."
"Might be done at that. But it would be so slow."
Slow or not, no better plan was conceived among six of us who met secretly that night in Benson's new ship quarters. Donnegan brought his fellow biologist, Terrence Frost, and I had contacted the two medics. We reached swift agreement as to the necessity of taking steps, and decided to work on my rough plan. It was also voted not to divulge our intentions to the others, and then the meeting broke up.