"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 two or three of them. But that's not enough, looking at a few plays, listening to advertisements, music, and news bulletins. I should go down and live among them, read books, talk to scholars, work with them, play."

"You could do that and you'd really get to know them. But that takes time—and we don't have it."

"I realize that."

"A flat yes or no," said Bal.

"No. We can't help them," said Ethaniel. "There is nothing we can do for them—but we have to try."

"Sure, I knew it before we started," said Bal. "It's happened before. We take the trouble to find out what a people are like and when we can't help them we feel bad. It's going to be that way again." He rose and stretched. "Well, give me an hour to think of some way of going at it."

It was longer than that before they met again. In the meantime the ship moved much closer to Earth. They no longer needed instruments to see it. The planet revolved outside the visionports. The southern plains were green, coursed with rivers; the oceans were blue; and much of the northern hemisphere was glistening white. Ragged clouds covered the pole, and a dirty pall spread over the mid-regions of the north.

"I haven't thought of anything brilliant," said Ethaniel.

"Nor I," said Bal. "We're going to have to go down there cold. And it will be cold."

"Yes. It's their winter."

"I did have an idea," said Bal. "What about going down as supernatural beings?"

"Hardly," said Ethaniel. "A hundred years ago it might have worked. Today they have satellites. They are not primitives."

"I suppose you're right," said Bal. "I did think we ought to take advantage of our physical differences."

"If we could I'd be all for it. But these people are rough and desperate. They wouldn't be fooled by anything that crude."

"Well, you're calling it," said Bal.

"All right," said Ethaniel. "You take one side and I the other. We'll tell them bluntly what they'll have to do if they're going to survive, how they can keep their planet in one piece so they can live on it."

"That'll go over big. Advice is always popular."

"Can't help it. That's all we have time for."

"Special instructions?"

"None. We leave the ship here and go down in separate landing craft. You can talk with me any time you want to through our communications, but don't unless you have to."

"They can't intercept the beams we use."

"They can't, and even if they did they wouldn't know what to do with our language. I want them to think that we don't need to talk things over."

"I get it. Makes us seem better than we are. They think we know exactly what we're doing even though we don't."

"If we're lucky they'll think that."

Bal looked out of the port at the planet below. "It's going to be cold where I'm going. You too. Sure we don't want to change our plans and land in the southern