Another Arpalone appeared, indistinguishable to Tellurian eyes from any one of the others.
"But why do you want to mix into something that's none of your business?" Knahr was neither officious nor condemnatory. He simply could not understand.
"Since you have no concept of our quality of curiosity, just call it education. The question is, do or do you not want those four deeply-buried cells blasted out of existence?"
"Of course I do."
"Okay. You've got all of 'em you're going to get. Tell your 'copters to give us about five miles clearance, and we'll all fall back, too."
They drew back, and there were four closely-spaced explosions of such violence that one raggedly mushroom-shaped cloud went into the stratosphere and one huge, ragged crater yawned where once churned ground had been.
