“Which was?” d’Indre whispered.

“Sibylla, of course,” Brenner said, almost as softly. ‘‘The world where everything was wrong. Where the sum total defeated us. Like a woman who wouldn’t miscarry too often in high gravity, except that she never got enough ultraviolet or oxygen, and did get too many hard roentgens, and had a poor diet, and was overworked, and the very daylight wasn’t the right color for easy vision…An entire world, fighting us on a hundred different fronts, never letting up. That was the alien enemy. We wouldn’t have lasted another century.”

I said into the silence which followed: “Earth has known some analogies. Like the Vikings, around the year 1000. They made themselves rulers of England, Ireland, Normandy, Russia. They ranged unbeatable through half of Europe. They settled Iceland, they discovered America. But they could not hold Greenland. They had a colony there, and it hung on for maybe four hundred years, always more isolated, poorer, smaller, hungrier, weaker. In the end it perished. When archaeologists dug up the skeletons of the last survivors, every one was dwarfed and deformed. Greenland had beaten them.”

“I’ve read about it,” Brenner said. “Men won in the end. Eskimos, who had the right technology for the place. Europeans, later, with sheer power of machinery. We, our race, we’ll lick Sibylla yet, one way or another. But it’s taken the first battle. In such cases, a good general retreats.”

D’Indre had recovered his poise. “I also know the history,” he said. “Captain Simić’s report was exhaustive. I wished, however, to add a personal encounter to my data store before deciding what disposal of this affair I should advise.”

Brenner folded his arms and waited.

“As a matter of fact,” d’Indre said, “Captain Simić has already proposed a solution which seems viable to me. Parts of Earth remain empty because development has been economically unfeasible. The tropical deserts, for example, the Sahara or the Rub’ al-Qali. Sand, stone, drought, low water table or none, fierce heat and light, no worthwhile minerals. Converting them by machine would tie up too much capital equipment and skilled personnel that are badly needed elsewhere. Theoretically, the task could be accomplished by minimal robotic and maximal hand labor. But who among the proles combines the necessary attitude and hardihood? It will be interesting to see if the Sibyllans do.”

Briefly, humanness broke through him. “I am sorry, especially for the children,” he said. “But under present circumstances, this is the best that anyone can give you.”

Brenner remained steady. “I sort of expected it,” he said. “The captain dropped a few hints on our way down here. What about us, uh, conspirators?”

D’Indre spread his hands. “Your colony will need leadership. I daresay the Director will rule that providing such leadership is an acceptable expiation.”

Brenner’s own right hand crashed on the desk. Laughter roared from him. “Why, man!” he cried. “After what we’ve been up against, you think a nice kind Earthside desert’s going to be any problem?”