Five races. He saw his hand reach out for the sixth.

He shuddered. Weeks ago he had reached his decision.

Bleakly he thought: I can't do it.

Perspiration crept down his spine. If a planet were not blown up, the whole fabric of his society would collapse. Brionimar must never learn.

But Brionimar would learn. Earth was on the verge of space flight. Within a generation they would be listening for radio and television extension-waves in hyperspace that would indicate the existence of another civilization. In two generations they would be in the skies of Brionimar. And then the subjects would see salvation: here (they would reason) is another race capable of preserving the Universe. And there would be no appeasing their blind and mindless wrath until the last Oligarch was dismembered and bloodless.

His hand reached out and curled around an imaginary lever. It must be done, he thought. But not by me. Not by me. Not this hand. He looked down at his hands: white and immaculate and always clean. He washed them frequently.

Someone else must pull the lever.

I must leave a man behind at the bomb site to do it, he thought.

Psychology was a science on Brionimar; and he was a scientist. There was only one man he could be sure of out of all the crew. There were several fanatics, but he distrusted them. There was one idealist who would, of a psychological certainty, pull that lever and blow himself up along with Earth in the belief that his action was necessary to preserve the Universe.

Herb.

CHAPTER III

When the starmen came, they made headlines in the newspapers all over the world.

They sat down on the east-west runway of the Washington National Airport.

MEN FROM STARS LAND!

And shortly:

FIRST CONTACT REVEALS STARMEN HUMANOID!

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