'The biological obligation will not be denied. The Russians fulfilled it from political motives, as, no doubt, you will try to do. The Eskimos did it by primitive instinct. But the result is the same.

'For you, however, it will be more difficult. To the Russians, once they had decided that the Children at Gizhinsk were not going to be useful, as they had hoped, the proper course was not in question. In Russia, the individual exists to serve the State; if he puts self above State, he is a traitor, and it is the duty of the community to protect itself from traitors whether they are individuals, or groups. In this case, then, biological duty and political duty coincided. And if it were inevitable that a number of innocently involved persons should perish too, well, that could not be helped; it was their duty to die, if necessary to serve the State.

'But for you, the issue is less clear. Not only has your will to survive been much more deeply submerged by convention, but you have the inconvenience here of the idea that the State exists to serve the individuals who compose it. Therefore your consciences will be troubled by the thought that we have "rights".

'Our first moment of real danger has passed. It occurred when you first heard of the Russian action against the Children. A decisive man might have arranged a quick "accident" here. It has suited you to keep us hidden away here, and it suited us to be hidden, so it might have been cunningly managed without too much trouble. Now, however, it cannot. Already, the people in Trayne hospital will have talked about us; in fact, after last night there must be talk and rumours spreading all round. The chance of making any convincing "accident" has gone. So what are you going to do to liquidate us?'

Bernard shook his head.

'Look,' he said, 'suppose we consider this thing from a more civilized standpoint – after all, this is a civilized country, and famous for its ability to find compromises. I'm not convinced by the sweeping way you assume there can be no agreement. History has shown us to be more tolerant of minorities than most.'

It was the girl who answered this time:

'This is not a civilized matter,' she said, 'it is a very primitive matter. If we exist, we shall dominate you – that is clear and inevitable. Will you agree to be superseded, and start on the way to extinction without a struggle? I do not think you are decadent enough for that. And then, politically, the question is: Can any State, however tolerant, afford to harbour an increasingly powerful minority which it has no power to control? Obviously the answer is again, no.

'So what will you do? We are very likely safe for a time while you talk about it. The more primitive of you, your masses, will let their instincts lead them – we saw the pattern in the village last night – they will want to hunt us down, and destroy us. Your more liberal, responsibly-minded, and religious people will be greatly troubled over the ethical position. Opposed to any form of drastic action at all, you will have your true idealists – and also your sham idealists: the quite large number of people who profess ideals as a form of premium for other-life insurance, and are content to lay up slavery and destitution for their descendants so long as they are enabled to produce personal copybooks of elevated views at the gate of heaven.

'Then, too, with your Government of the Right reluctantly driven to consider drastic action against us, your politicians of the Left will see a chance of party capital, and possible dismissal of the Government. They will defend our rights as a threatened minority, and children, at that. Their leaders will glow with righteousness on our behalf. They will claim, without referendum, to be representing justice, compassion, and the great heart of the people. Then it will occur to some of them that there really is a serious problem, and that if they were to force an election there would very likely be a split between the promoters of the party's official Warm-heart policy, and the rank and file whose misgivings about us will make them a Cold-feet faction; so the display of abstract righteousness, and the plugging of well-tested, best-selling virtues will diminish.'

'You don't appear to think very highly of our institutions,' Bernard put in. The girl shrugged.

'As a securely dominant species you could afford to lose touch with reality, and amuse yourselves with abstractions,' she replied. Then she went on: 'While these people are wrangling, it will come home to a lot of them that the problem of dealing with a more advanced species than themselves is not going to be easy, and will become less easy with procrastination. There may be practical attempts to deal with us. But we have shown last night what is going to happen to soldiers if they are sent against us. If you send aircraft, they will crash. Very well then, you will think of artillery, as the Russians did, or of guided missiles whose electronics we cannot affect. But if you send them, you won't be able to kill only us, you will have to kill all the people in the village as well – it would take you a long time even to contemplate such an action, and if it were carried out, what government in this country could survive such a massacre of innocents on the grounds of expediency? Not only would the party that sanctioned it be finished for good, but, if they were successful in removing the danger, the leaders could then be safely lynched, by way of atonement and expiation.'

She stopped speaking, and the boy took up:

'The details may vary, but something of the sort will become inevitable as the threat of our existence is more widely understood. You might easily have a curious epoch when both parties are fighting to keep out of office rather than be the one that has to take action against us.' He paused, looking out thoughtfully across the fields for some moments, then he added:

'Well, there it is. Neither you, nor we, have wishes that count in the matter – or should one say that we both have been given the same wish – to survive? We are all, you see, toys of the life force. It made you numerically strong, but mentally undeveloped; it made us mentally strong, but physically weak: now it has set us at one another, to see what will happen. A cruel sport, perhaps, from both our points of view, but a very, very old one. Cruelty is as old as life itself. There is some improvement: humour and compassion are the most important of human inventions; but they are not very firmly established yet, though promising well.' He paused, and smiled. 'A real bit of Zellaby, that – our first teacher,' he put in, and then went on. 'But the life force is a great deal stronger than they are; and it won't be denied its blood-sports.

'However, it has seemed possible to us that the serious stage of the combat might at least be postponed. And that is what we want to talk to you about...'