Walter Kubilius

“ Wilson's tank rumbled a few feet forward from the semi-circle.
"You don't dare shoot, Cobber," he said quietly. "You're outnumbered thirty to one."
"Stand back! All of you!" Cobber shouted into the mike. "I'll blow up the first one that moves!"
"Don't be a fool, Cobber," Wilson said. "There's enough catalytic rock stored in the ship for all of us. I can make you a rich man. Put down those guns and we'll forget what has happened. Put down those guns."
"This ship is not going back to Earth," Cobber said.
"Put down those guns, Cobber!" Wilson shouted. "You can't win!" ”

“ But his weak and old hands would prove of little value against the youthful strength of Wilson.
"Oxygen! In an atmosphere of carbon disulphide and methane you sell them tanks of oxygen!"
"Yes."
"You know what you sell the Kamae?" Cobber asked, gripping him by the shoulders. "Death! A single spark—one rock striking another, a simple stroke—and that oxygen becomes a bursting, fuming flame! In this atmosphere it is worse than the most powerful dynamite. Whole villages have been wiped out. Entire cities have been burned to the ground by your oxygen. ”

“ The spaceship would return home with a cargo full of catalytic and the story of ignorant beings willing to mine the metal for tanks of oxygen. Cheap, easy to manufacture oxygen in exchange for power! Other ships would come and other men like Wilson, greedy men, powerful men, men with lust in their hearts.
Kama's people, scarcely on the first rung of civilization's ladder, would be thrust back into the darkness. Tribal warfare, spurred on and encouraged by Earthmen, would deplete the planet. A new culture, just born, would die. ”

“ Here and there the anhydrous bodies of the Kamae lay stone still. The small village, tucked away by the shores of the russet sea, was wiped out. Many of the bodies were ripped apart, torn to shreds as if by some monster from the depths of the methane sea. ”