“But we’ll get around to that in due course, won’t we?”

“Maybe,” said Wolf. “Or maybe not. It depends.”

“Depends upon what?”

“Whether we make full and intelligent use of our resources, especially people—meaning people such as you.”

“You could be more specific,” Mowry suggested.

“Look, in technical matters we are ahead of the Sirian Combine, a little ahead in some respects and far ahead in others. That gives us the advantage of, better weapons, more efficient armaments. But what the public does not know—because nobody has seen fit to tell them—is that the Sirians also have an advantage. They outnumber us by twelve to one and outweigh us by material in the same proportion.”

“Is that a fact?”

“Unfortunately it is, though our propagandists don’t bother to mention it. Our war-potential is superior qualitatively. The Sirians have superiority quantitatively. That’s a very serious handicap to us. We’ve got to counter it in the best way we know how. It won’t be done by playing for time while we make the effort to breed like flies.”

“I see.” Mowry gnawed his bottom lip, looked thoughtful.

“However,” Wolf went on, “the problem becomes less formidable than it looks if we bear in mind that one man can shake a government, two men temporarily can put down an army twenty-seven thousands strong, or one small wasp can slay four comparative giants and destroy their huge machine into the bargain.” He paused, watching the other for effect, continued, “Which means that by scrawling suitable words upon a wall, the right man in the right place at the right time might immobilise an armoured division with the aid of nothing more than a piece of chalk.”

“You’re concocting a pretty unorthodox form of warfare.”

“So much the better.”

“I am sufficiently perverse to like such methods. They appeal to me.”