Chapter 3

 Capt. Halsey hurriedly downed the rum. "Skippers are picked because they're tough-minded and authoritarian¹. In space you need it occasionally. Fortunately I lived up to specifications². A peaceful sort like my Lyranian just couldn't take it—fortunately."

"Fortunately?" I asked.

"Sure. What else? Possibly those natives we conditioned would help our case, possibly not. And in the meantime the Lyranians would suck Alex dry. And with the Two Two Four gone it'd be maybe a couple of hundred years before we ran into them again, and by then they'd really be ready—loaded for bear with itchy trigger fingers—and we just might have a war on our hands. As it is we'll send out a battle fleet to give some authority to our negotiators so no one will get hurt. They just shouldn't have picked Alex as typical of us. With his attitude and our weapons, they naturally got a lot of wrong ideas."

"Wrong?" I prompted the skipper.

Halsey chuckled³. "Yes, that's what I said—wrong ideas," he said in that remote second voice. "Just because you've forgotten self-defense doesn't mean that other peaceful civilizations don't remember it."

The End
 

1 authoritarian   

n./adj.专制(的)，专制主义者，独裁主义者

参考例句：

• Foreign diplomats suspect him of authoritarian tendencies.各国外交官怀疑他有着独裁主义倾向。
• The authoritarian policy wasn't proved to be a success.独裁主义的政策证明并不成功。

2 specifications   

n.规格；载明；详述；（产品等的）说明书；说明书( specification的名词复数 )；详细的计划书；载明；详述

参考例句：

• Our work must answer the specifications laid down. 我们的工作应符合所定的规范。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• This sketch does not conform with the specifications. 图文不符。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

3 chuckled   

轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She chuckled at the memory. 想起这件事她就暗自发笑。
• She chuckled softly to herself as she remembered his astonished look. 想起他那惊讶的表情，她就轻轻地暗自发笑。