The Best of Fritz Leiber by Fritz Leiber

that I can breathe normally. But as for using it in any larger way—I’d be mortally afraid of its getting out of control. My one small experiment was disastrous. I wouldn’t dare.”
    The Senior Coleopteroid shot a guarded aside to the Chief. “Shall I try to hypnotize his disordered mind and get this device from him?”
    “Do so.”
    “Very well, though I’m afraid the device will protect his mind as well as his body. Still, it’s worth the chance.”
    “Mr. Whitlow,” thought the Chief abruptly, “it is time we got down to cases. Every word you say makes your proposal sound more irrational, and your own motives more unintelligible. If you expect us to take any serious interest, you must give us a clear answer to one question: Why do you want us to attack Earth?”
    Whitlow twisted. “But that’s the one question I don’t want to answer.”
    “Well, put it this way then,” continued the Chief patiently. “What personal advantage do you expect to gain from our attack?”
    Whitlow drew himself up and tucked in his necktie. “None! None whatsoever! I seek nothing for myself!”
    “Do you want to rule Earth?” the Chief persisted.
    “No! No! I detest all tyranny.”
    “Revenge, then? Has Earth hurt you and are you trying to hurt it back?”
    “Absolutely not! I would never stoop to such barbaric behavior. I hate no one. The desire to see anyone injured is furthest from my thoughts.”
    “Come, come, Mr. Whitlow! You’ve just begged us to attack Earth. How can you square that with your sentiments?”
    Whitlow gnawed his lip baffledly.
    The Chief slipped in a quick question to the Senior Coleopteroid. “What progress?”
    “None whatsoever. His mind is extraordinarily difficult to grasp. And as I anticipated, there is a shield.”
    Whitlow rocked uneasily on his shoulder, his eyes fixed on the star-edged horizon.
    “Ill tell you this much,” he said. “It’s solely because I love Earth and mankind so much that I want you to attack her.”
    “You choose a strange way of showing your affection,” the Chief observed.
    “Yes,” continued Whitlow, warming a bit, his eyes still lost. ‘1 want you to do it in order to end war.“
    “This gets more and more mysterious. Start war to stop it? That is a paradox which demands explanation. Take care, Mr. Whitlow, or I will fall into your error of looking on alien beings as evil and demented monsters.”
    Whitlow lowered his gaze until it was fixed on the Chief. He sighed windily. “I guess I’d better tell you,” he muttered. “You’d have probably found out in the end. Though it would have been simpler the other way—”
    He pushed back the rebellious hair and massaged his forehead, a little wearily. When he spoke again it was in a less oratorical style.
    “I am a pacifist. My life is dedicated to the task of preventing war. I love my fellow men. But they are steeped in error and sin. They are victims of their baser passions. Instead of marching on, hand in hand, trustingly, toward the glorious fulfillment of all their dreams, they insist on engaging in constant conflict, in vile war.”
    “Perhaps there is a reason for that,” suggested the Chief mildly. “Some inequalities that require leveling or—”
    “Please,” said the pacifist reprovingly. “These wars have grown increasingly more violent and terrible. I, and others, have sought to reason with the majority, but in vain. They persist in their delusions. I have racked my brain to find a solution. I have considered every conceivable remedy. Since I came into the possession of… er… the device, I have sought throughout the cosmos and even in other time-streams, for the secret of preventing war. With no success. Such intelligent races as I encountered were either engaged in war, which ruled them out, or had never known war—these were very obliging but obviously could volunteer no helpful information—or else had outgrown war by the painful and horrible process of fighting until there