The Archadministrator said, “Impossible!”

Devi-en said, “There is the planet. Here we are. We have been waiting fifteen years.”

The Archadministrator’s long arms came up and crossed over his head and down again to the opposite shoulders. “Then there is only one thing to do. The Council has considered the possibility that the planet may have achieved a stale mate, a kind of uneasy peace that balances just short of a nuclear war. Something of the sort you describe though no one suggested the actual reasons you advance. But it’s something we can’t allow.”

“No, your Height?”

“No.” He seemed almost in pain. “The longer the stalemate continues, the greater the possibility that large-primate individuals may discover the methods of interstellar travel. They will leak out into the Galaxy in full competitive strength. You see?”

“Then?”

The Archadministrator hunched his head deeper into his arms, as though not wishing to hear what he himself must say. His voice was a little muffled. “If they are balanced precariously, we must push them a little, Captain. We must push them.”

Devi-en’s stomach churned, and he suddenly tasted his dinner once more in the back of his throat. “Push them, your Height?” He didn’t want to understand.

But the Archadministrator put it bluntly: “We must help them start their nuclear war.” He looked as miserably sick as Devi-en felt. He whispered, “We must!”

Devi-en could scarcely speak. He said, in a whisper, “But how could such a thing be done, your Height?”

“I don’t know how. And do not look at me so. It is not my decision. It is the decision of the Council. Surely you understand what would happen to the Galaxy if a large-primate intelligence were to enter space in full strength without having been tamed by nuclear war.”

Devi-en shuddered at the thought. All that competitiveness loosed on the Galaxy. He persisted, though. “But how does one start a nuclear war? How is it done?”