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"You can't tell," said Ethaniel. "We can look things over."
"And then what? How much authority do we have?"
"Very little," conceded Ethaniel. "Two minor officials on the way to Willafours--and we run directly into a problem no one knew existed."
"And when we get to Willafours we'll be busy. It will be a long time before anyone comes this way again."
"A very long time. There's nothing in this region of space our people want," said Ethaniel. "And how long can Earth last? Ten years? Even ten months? The tension is building by the hour."
"What can I say?" said Bal. "I suppose we can stop and look them over. We're not committing ourselves by looking."
They went much closer to Earth, not intending to commit themselves. For a day they circled the planet, avoiding radar detection, which for them was not difficult, testing, and sampling. Finally Ethaniel looked up from the monitor screen. "Any conclusions?"
"What's there to think? It's worse than I imagined."
"In what way?"
"Well, we knew they had the big bomb. Atmospheric analysis showed that as far away as we were."
"I know."
"We also knew they could deliver the big bomb, presumably by some sort of aircraft."
"That was almost a certainty. They'd have no use for the big bomb without aircraft."
"What's worse is that I now find they also have missiles, range one thousand miles and upward. They either have or are near a primitive form of space travel."
"Bad," said Ethaniel. "Sitting there, wondering when it's going to hit them. Nervousness could set it off."
"It could, and the missiles make it worse," said Bal. "What did you find out at your end?"
"Nothing worthwhile. I was looking at the people while you were investigating their weapons."
"You must think something."
"I wish I knew what to think. There's so little time," Ethaniel said. "Language isn't the difficulty. Our machines translate their languages easily and I've taken a cram course in t