"Yes. What do you want of Earth, explicitly?"

"Water, honorable sir. Water for my people. As much as we wish, when we wish it, at a reasonable price; and we also desire friendship, so that we may help each other."

The Japanese sucked in his breath, quivering angrily. "You want our friendship. Yet you do this to our people!"

"You do no less to my people, honorable sir. Olduk is sorry, see?" He weaved, caught onto a chair to support himself. His leathery, parchment face seemed more wrinkled and bloodless than ever before. His reddish eyes held a deep, pleading hope.

"We are children of Tantalus, all," he whispered. "It is not right that we live in a mythical Hades, see, honorable sirs? Give my people water—"

He pitched forward on his face. The Speaker started toward him, his eternal sphere of water in his hands, but the Japanese stopped him, held him back from the sprawling, twelve-foot figure.

He said, "Have you ever studied Martian psychology?"

"N-no," said the Speaker, puzzled.

"The theory is that they are incapable of dishonesty, and therefore they do not believe it exists. Of course, it's only a theory, and nobody believes it, but why couldn't we try it out?"

The Speaker was startled. "You mean we should give them our word, and then back out on it?"

"Yes," the Japanese sucked in his breath. He saw the hesitation on the Speaker's face, and said with icy, mocking disdain, "Are you going to give water to a race whose sole purpose will be to increase their population so they can conquer Earth? Think, fool! Do you want to hold that sphere of water in your hands forever?" He smirked. "In the interval of peace, we can go to the Maracot Deep, lift that sunken ship out without having to worry about a surface film. We can take it to dry land, and with a little work, cut the ship open, destroy the mechanism. With that destroyed—"

His contempt, and his reference to the maddening sphere of water the Speaker held, wilted the Speaker.

"We'll do it," he said slowly, casting an uneasy look at the sprawled Martian.

Thirty minutes later, the three men watched the sphere of water in the Speaker's hands. A radiogram had been sent 

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