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But the Satorians weren't fools; they didn't expect Nansal to swallow the same bait a second time. Sator had another ace up her sleeve. Ten days after they arrived, every diplomat and courier of the Satorian delegation committed suicide!
Month followed month and months became years as the diplomats of Nansal tried, patiently and logically, to show the Satorians how unreasonable their demands were. Not once did they suspect that the Satorians had no intention of trying to get the conditions they asked for.
For years, the Satorians traded peacefully. In the meantime, Satorian spies were working to find the strengths and weaknesses of Nansal, searching to discover their secret weapons and processes, if any. And they rigorously guarded their own secrets. They refused to disclose the secrets of the magnetic beam and the magnetic space drive.
They demanded fleet bases on Nansal; they demanded an unreasonable rate of exchange between the two powers, one which would be highly favorable to Sator; they wanted to impose fantastic restrictions on Nansalian travel and none whatsoever on their own.
Falling back on their peculiar philosophy of life, they pulled a trick the Nansalians would never have thought of. They sued for peace. The government of Nansal was willing; they had had enough of bloodshed. They permitted a delegation to arrive. The ship was escorted into the city and the parleying began. The Satorian delegation asked for absolutely unreasonable terms.
There were only three enemy cities left on Nansal when, somehow, they managed to learn the secret of the magnetic screen. By this time, the forces of Nansal had increased tremendously, and they developed the next surprise for the Satorians. One after another, the three remaining cities were destroyed by a barrage of poison gas.
"In return," Arcot told him, "we will give you another weapon a weapon, this time, to defeat the astronomer's greatest enemy, distance. It is an electrical telescope which will permit you to see life on every planet of this system. With it, you can see a man at a distance ten times as great as the distance from Nansal to your sun!"
"Abaout haow saon you laive?" he asked in English. "Why tomorrow," Arcot said, in surprise. "Have you been practicing our language?" Torlos reverted to telepathy. "Yes, but that is not what I came to talk to you about. Arcot can a man of Nansal visit Earth?" Anxiously, hopefully, and hesitatingly, he asked. "I could come back on one of your commercial vessels, or come back when you return.
They combine all the best features of plants, reptiles, and mammals. I don't know where they'd be classified biologically!" After the meal, they went to the control room and strapped themselves into the control seats. Arcot checked the fuel gauge. "We have plenty of lead left," he said to Morey, "and Torlos has assured me that we will be able to get more on Nansal.
They were somewhat smaller than the Nansalians, and lighter in color, for their world was always sunless. The warm rays of the sun had tanned the skins of the Nansalians to a darker color. When the Satorians first came to Nansal, it was presumably in peace. After so many hundreds of years without war, the Nansalians accepted them, and trade treaties were signed.
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