“Possibly they want us to really try it out and not total destruction.”
“But—?”
“Look, Edith. Supposing you wanted to have something developed for you by a consulting laboratory. You’ve done that yourself at Solar Labs. Wouldn’t you give them whatever information you had available?”
She nodded. “Nice explanation,” she said solemnly. “Excepting that if I were doing it, I’d not call one man and start him experimenting on one pretext and then call another member of the laboratory and tell him that the information would lead to disaster.”
“In other words, the big problem is motive.”
“Precisely. And that’s what we’re up against. Try to figure out the hidden motives of extrasolar cultures.”
“You believe there are two?”
Tom Barden nodded. “Uh-huh,” he said. “And all the talking we can do f
