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Creatures as advanced as the Ramans must have correspondingly developed morals. Otherwise, they would have destroyed themselves
‘But I’ve got to have a specimen!’ ‘You may have to be content with Jimmy’s flower – unless one of these creatures cooperates with you. Force is out. How would you like it if something landed on Earth and decided that you would make a nice specimen for dissection?’
He sometimes gave the impression that the activities of intelligent life were an unfortunate irrelevance in the majestic universe of stars and galaxies,
‘I’ll stick to the laws of physics, if you don’t mind, until I’m forced to give them up.
There was nothing actually here, except impalpable patterns of light and darkness; these apparently solid objects did not really exist. Even knowing this, more than once Norton felt an almost irresistible urge to laser his way into one of the pillars, so that he could have something material to take back to Earth. It was the same impulse, he told himself wryly, that would prompt a monkey to grab the reflection of a banana in a mirror.
In less than two hours, its direction of motion had swung through more than ninety degrees, and it had given a final, almost contemptuous proof of its total lack of interest in all the worlds whose peace of mind it had so rudely disturbed.
They would probably never even know that the human race existed; such monumental indifference was worse than any deliberate insult.
