R55 made it sound easy, but I knew that even if R1 had truly taken advantage of the Lizardmen, it would not have been that simple.
The Lizardmen might be rigid and dogmatic, but they certainly were not stupid.
Otherwise, they could never have achieved what they had, nor possessed a civilization and technology so far beyond ours.
Many times, we thought we had gained some small advantage, only to suffer a far greater loss in the end.
Take the people of a certain European country. We held stereotypical and rigid impressions of them, believing they did everything by the book and strictly followed procedures, as though no mistakes were allowed.
To us, such a people seemed pedantic. We even saw their orderliness as glasses on a blind man—an unnecessary set of restraints. Yet for a time, it was precisely such a people who possessed the greatest industry in our world.
They were grounded. They did not cut corners or pursue so-called shortcuts. Step by step, they were ultimately able to go farther.
Perhaps R1 had suffered at the hands of the Lizardmen precisely because of such contempt.
The Lizardmen surely understood the principle of dealing with bad neighbors. That was why they would eliminate such a neighbor and replace them with one who better served their interests.
"So, can you tell who is a Lizardman?" I asked R55. I had already asked the doctor and R105 this question, and now I was asking R55.
R55 narrowed his eyes. "We should be able to tell, I suppose. Every time they appear, they make themselves look like ordinary humans, but their habits do not change. They are picky, stubborn, and obsessive about everything they do. If the prescribed procedure is A, then within that procedure, they will absolutely never choose B