own.

The whole earth had the jitters because of the apparently inevitable
trial of strength between its two most gigantic powers. Their rivalry
seemed irreconcilable. Most of humanity dreaded their conflict with
appalled resignation because there seemed no way to avoid it. Yet it
was admittedly possible that an all-out war between them might end
with all the world dead, even plants and microbes in the deepest seas.
It was ironic that the most reasonable hope that anybody could have
was that one or the other nation would come upon some weapon so new
and irresistible that it could demand and receive the surrender of the
other without atomic war.

Atom bombs could have done the trick, had only one nation owned them.
But both were now armed so that by treacherous attack either could
almost wipe out the other. There was no way to guard against desperate
and terrible retaliation by survivors of the first attacked country.
It was the certainty of retaliation which kept the actual war a cold
one--a war of provocation and trickery and counter-espionage, but not
of mutual extermination.

But Lockley had suggested--because it was the worst of
possibilities--that America's rival had developed a new weapon which
could win so long as it was not attributed to its user. If the United
States believed itself attacked from space, it would not launch
missiles against men. It would ask help, and help would be given even
by its rival if the invasion were from another planet. Men would
always combine against not-men. But if this were a ship from no
farther than the other side of the earth, and only pretended to be
from an alien world ... America could be conquered because it believed
it was fighting monsters instead of other men.

This was not likely, but it was believable. There was no proof, but in
the nature of things proof would be avoided. And if his idea should
happen to be true, the disaster could be enormously worse than an
invasion from another star. This first landing could be only a test to
make sure that the new weapon was unknown to America and could not be
countered by Americans. The crew of this ship would expect to be
successful or be killed. In a way, if an atom bomb had to be used to
destroy them, they would have succeeded. Because other ships could
land in American cities where they could not be bombed without killing
millions; where they could demand surrender under pain of death. And
get it.

Lockley looked at the