Garuth had spent twenty-eight years of his life with the Shapieron. A group of scientists on ancient Minerva had advocated a program of extensive climatic and geological engineering to control the predicted buildup of carbon dioxide. The project would have been extremely complicated, however, and simulation models revealed a high risk of rendering the planet uninhabitable sooner rather than later by disrupting the greenhouse effect that enabled Minerva to support life at its considerable distance from the Sun. As an insurance against this risk, another group proposed a method for increasing the Sun’s radiation output by modifying its self-gravitation, the idea being that the climatic-engineering program could go ahead, and if instabilities did set in to the point of destroying the greenhouse effect, the Sun could be warmed up to compensate. Thus, overall, Minerva would be no worse off.
As a precaution, the Minervan government decided to test the later idea first by dispatching a scientific mission aboard the Shapieron to conduct a full-scale trial on a sunlike star called Iscaris, whose planets supported no life of any kind. It was as well that they did. Something went wrong that caused Iscaris to go nova, and the expedition had been forced to flee without waiting for completion of the repairs to the ship’s main-drive system, which were in progress at the time. Hurled to maximum speed and with its braking system inoperative, the Shapieron returned to the vicinity of the solar system and circled for over twenty years by its own clocks under conditions of compounded time dilation while a million times that amount sped by in the rest of the Universe. And so, eventually, the ship had come to Earth.
As Garuth stood in the doorway of one of the lecture theaters of the ship’s school and gazed across the rows of empty seats and scratched worktops to the raised dais and array of screens at the far end, his mind recalled those years. Many who had left Minerva with him had not survived to see this day. At times he had believed that none of them would ever see it. But, as was the pattern of life, a new generation had replaced those who were gone—a generation born and raised in the emptiness of space, who, apart from the brief stay on Earth, had known no other home than the inside of the ship. In many ways Garuth felt like a father to all of them. Although his own faith had wavered at times, theirs had not, and as they had never thought to doubt, he had brought them home. What would happen to them now? he wondered.
Now that the day had arrived, he found he had mixed feelings. The rational part of him was joyful, naturally, that the long exile of his people was over, and they were at last reunited with their kind; but at a deeper level, another part of him would miss this miniature, self-contained world, which for so long now had been the only one he had known. The ship, its way of life, and its tiny, close-knit community were as much part of him as he was part of them. Now all that was over. Would he ever be able to belong in the same way in the mind-defying, overwhelming civilization of Thurien with technologies that bordered on magic and a population of hundreds of billions flung across light-years of stars and space? Could any of them? And if not, could they ever belong anywhere again?
After a while he turned away and began walking slowly through the deserted corridors and communications decks toward an access point into a transfer tube that would take him back to the ship’s command section. The floors were worn by years of treading feet, the corners of the walls abraded and smoothed by the passings of innumerable bodies. Every mark and score had its own tale to tell of some event that had occurred somewhere in the course of all those years. Would all that now be forgotten?
In some ways he felt that it already bad been. The Shapieron was in high orbit over Thurien, and most of its occupants had been taken down to accommodations prepared for them on the surface. There had been no public celebrations or welcoming ceremonies; the fact that the ship had been intercepted still had to be concealed. Only a handful of Thuriens were aware that Garuth and his people existed at all.
Shilohin was waiting on the Command Deck when he arrived, studying information on one of the displays. She looked around as he approached. "I had no idea just how complex the operation to intercept the ship was," she said. "Some of the physics is quite remarkable."
"How so?" Garuth inquired.
"Eesyan’s engineers created a composite hyperport—a dual-purpose toroid that functioned as an entry port in one direction and an exit in the other at the same time. That was how they made the substitution so quickly: the dummy came out of one side as we went into the other. But to control it, they had to get their timing down to picoseconds." She paused and gave him a searching look. "You seem sad. Is something wrong?"
He gestured vaguely in the direction he had just come from. "Oh, it’s just . . . walking through the ship . . . empty, with nobody around. It takes some getting used to after so long."
"Yes, I know." Her voice fell to an understanding note. "But you shouldn’t feel sad. You did what you promised. They will all have their own lives to live again soon. It will be for the better."
"I hope so," Garuth said.
At that moment ZORAC spoke. "I’ve just received another message through VISAR: Calazar is free now and says he’ll see you as soon as you’re ready. He suggests meeting at a planet called Queeth, approximately twelve light-years from here."
"We’re on our way," Garuth said. He shook his head wonderingly at Shilohin as they left the Command Deck. "I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to this."
"The Earthpeople seem to be adapting well," she replied. "The last time I talked to Vic Hunt, he was trying to find a way of getting a coupler installed in his office."
"Earthpeople can adapt to anything," Garuth said with a sigh.
They entered the room in which the Thuriens had installed a row of four portable percepto-coupling cubicles, which represented the only means of using the Thurien system since the Shapieron was not wired for VISAR, hence Calazar could not "visit" the ship. Had the ship not been in orbit and therefore in free-fall, the weight of the microtoroid contained in the communications module of the equipment would have buckled the deck at best. Garuth entered one of the cubicles as Shilohin selected another, and he settled back in the recliner to couple his mind into VISAR. An instant later he was standing alongside Calazar in a large room that was part of an artificial island floating fifty miles above the surface of Queeth. Shilohin appeared next to him a few seconds later.
"Terrans are shrewder than you give them credit for," Garuth stated after the three of them had been talking for some time. "We lived among them for six months, and we know. What is difficult for the Ganymean mind to grasp is that deception and the recognition of deception are parts of their way of life. They have a natural feel for it and will soon get to the truth. Trying to conceal it any longer will only make the situation more embarrassing for all of us when they do. You should be frank with them now."
"And besides, this is not the Ganymean way," Shilohin said. "We have told you the true situation on Earth and how we were made welcome and helped there in every way possible. Your earlier doubts were justified because of the lies reported to you by the Jevlenese, but that no longer holds. You owe it to the Terrans, and to us, to tell them the whole truth now."
Calazar moved away a short distance and turned to stand with his hands clasped behind his back while he considered what they had said. The room they were in formed an oval projection hanging from the underside of the island. Its interior comprised a sunken floor surrounded by a continuous, sloping transparent wall that looked down over the purple, cloud-flecked surface of Queeth in every direction. Outside the wall and above, the mass of the island loomed in a series of metallic contours, blisters, and prominences converging together as they curved away out of sight overhead. "So . . . we won’t be able to keep the truth from them," Calazar said at last without turning his head.
"Remember it was the Terrans who first recognized the risk that the Jevlenese could have planned to destroy the Shapieron with Earth set up to take the blame," Garuth reminded him. "The Thuriens would never have thought of it. Let’s be honest—Terran and Jevlenese minds think very much alike, and Ganymean minds think very differently. We are not predators, and we have not evolved the art of sensing predators."
"And for the same reason you might well find you need the Terrans to help get to the bottom of exactly what the Jevlenese are up to," Shilohin added. "Are you any nearer to finding out why they have been systematically falsifying their reports of Earth for years?"
Calazar turned from the viewing wall and faced them again. "No," he admitted.
"Years," Garuth repeated pointedly. "And you suspected nothing until you began receiving the communications from Farside."
Calazar thought for a while, then sighed and nodded in resignation. "You are right—we suspected nothing. Until recently we believed the Jevlenese had integrated well into our society as enthusiastic students of our science and culture. We saw them as co-citizens who would spread outward with us to other worlds. . . ." He gestured behind him and downward. "This one, for example. We even helped them to establish their own autonomously administered and completely self-governed planet as the cradle of a new civilization that would cross the Galaxy in partnership with our own."
"Well, something has obviously gone badly wrong somewhere," Shilohin commented. "Maybe it needs a Terran mind to fathom out what and why."
Calazar looked at them for a moment longer, then nodded again. "Officially Frenua Showm is responsible for our dealings with Earth," he said. "We should talk to her about this. I’ll see if I can get her here now." He turned his face away and called in a slightly raised voice, "VISAR, find out if Frenua Showm is available. If she is, show her a replay of our conversation here and ask if she’d join us when she has seen it."
"I’ll see to it," VISAR acknowledged.
After a short silence Shilohin remarked, "She didn’t strike me as being overfond of Earthpeople in the replay of the Vranix meeting."
"She has never trusted the Jevlenese," Calazar answered. "Her sentiments apparently extend to include Terrans also. Maybe it’s not surprising." After another silence he commented, "Queeth is an interesting world, with an emergent intelligent race spread across much of its surface. The Jevlenese have cooperated in bringing many similar planets into our system in the past. They seem to possess a natural aptitude for dealing with primitive races in a way that would not come easily to Ganymeans. I’ll show you an example of what I mean. VISAR, let’s have another view of the place I was looking at earlier."
A solid image appeared above the open area in the center of the floor. It was of a view looking down on a township in which blocks of hewn rock or baked clay had been built into crude buildings of strangely curved designs. They were huddled around the base of a larger and more imposing edifice of ramps and columns set at the top of an arrangement of broad flat steps ascending on all of its six sides. As Garuth looked at the structure, it reminded him in a vague way of the depictions of ancient temples that he had seen while he was on Earth. The space at the foot of the steps on one side was densely packed with figures.
"Queeth is not integrated into VISAR yet," Calazar informed them as they watched. "Therefore we can’t go down there. The view is being captured under high resolution from orbit and injected into your visual cortexes."
The view narrowed, and the magnification increased. The crowd consisted of beings who were bipeds with two arms and a head, but the parts not covered by their roughly cut clothes seemed to be formed from what looked like a pink, glinting crystal rather than skin. Their heads were elongated vertically and covered with reddish mats on top and behind, their limbs were long and slender, and they moved with a flowing grace that Garuth found strangely captivating.
What made his eyes open wider in surprise was the group of five figures posing above the crowd at the top of the steps, standing motionless and erect in flowing garments and high, elaborate headdresses. They seemed aloof and disdainful. And then Garuth realized suddenly what the movements of the slender, pink aliens meant. The movements were signaling supplication and reverence—worship, aimost. The starship commander turned his head sharply to direct a questioning look at Calazar.
"The Queeths think that the Jevlenese are gods," Calazar explained. "They come down from the sky in magic vessels and work miracles. The Jevlenese have been experimenting with the technique for some time as a means of pacifying primitive races and instilling respect and trust in them before moving them from barbarism toward civilization. Apparently they got the idea from Earth—from their surveillance observations of long ago."
Shiohin seemed concerned. "Is it wise?" she asked. "How could a race hope to advance toward rational methods and effective control of its environment if its foundations are built on such unreason? We know what happened on Earth."
"I was wondering if you’d say something like that," Calazar said. "I myself have been wondering the same thing. Perhaps, before these recent developments, we have been altogether too trusting of the Jevlenese." He nodded soberly. "I think we will see some big changes in the not-too-distant future."
Before either of the others could reply, VISAR informed them, "Frenua Showm will join you now."
"We don’t need the view anymore," Calazar said. The image of Oueeth vanished, and a second or two later Showm was standing by Calazar.
"I don’t like it," she said frankly. "The Terrans will want a confrontation with the Jevlenese, and that would mean all kinds of problems. The whole situation is complicated enough as it is."
"But we did set the Jevlenese up to handle the surveillance of Earth," Calazar pointed out. "Why shouldn’t we expect to accept the consequences?"
"We didn’t set them up," Showm said. "They argued and pressed demands until the Thurien administration of the time conceded. They practically took it over." She shook her head apprehensively. "And the idea of the Terrans getting involved in our investigations makes me nervous. I don’t like the thought of them gaining access to Thurien-level technology. Remember what happened to the Lunarians. And look at what the Jevlenese have been doing since they acquired their own version of VISAR. It’s simply a fact with all their kind—if they get their hands on advanced technology, they abuse it." She glanced at Garuth and Shilohin and then looked back at Calazar. "Our concern was for the Shapieron. It is now safely at Thurien. If the rest were up to me alone, I’d break off contact with Earth now and leave them out of it completely while we straighten out the situation with the Jevlenese. We don’t need Terrans. They’ve served their purpose."
"I must protest!" Garuth exclaimed. "We regard them as close friends. If it hadn’t been for their help, we would never have reached Thurien at all. We cannot simply disregard them. It would be an insult to every Ganymean on the Shapieron."
Before Calazar could reply, VISAR interrupted with another announcement. "Excuse me again, but Porthik Eesyan is asking to join you. He says it’s urgent."
"Well, we’re not going to resolve this in minutes," Calazar said. "Very well, VISAR. We will receive him."
Eesyan materialized at once. "I’ve just left Hunt and Danchekker at Thurien," he said. The Thuriens took VISAR so much for granted that they never bothered with preliminaries. "I was half expecting it—they’ve found out about the Jevlenese. They’re demanding to talk to us all about them."
Calazar stared at him in astonishment. The others looked equally taken aback. "How?" Calazar asked. "How could they? VISAR has been censoring all references to them from the data-stream beamed to Earth. They couldn’t have witnessed one scene with a single Jevlenese in it."
"They’ve deduced that humans are here," Eesyan replied, modifying his previous statement. "They’ve worked out that the surveillance has to have been run by humans. We’ll have to do something. I don’t think I can stall them much longer—especially Danchekker."
Garuth turned toward Calazar and Showm, at the same time spreading his hands wide. "I hate to say I told you so, but it is as I said—you can’t keep secrets from Terrans. Now you’ve got to talk to them." Calazar looked inquiringly at Showm.
Showm searched her mind for an alternative but couldn’t find one. "Very well," she agreed wearily. "If it must be. Let’s bring them here while we’re together and tell them the facts."
"What about Karen Heller, VISAR?" Calazar asked. "Is she coupled into the system at this moment too?"
"She’s at Thurien examining surveillance reports from earlier years," VISAR replied.
"In that case invite her to join us," Calazar instructed. "Then bring them all here as soon as they’re ready."
"One second." A short pause followed. Then, "She’s just finishing hard-copying some notes through to McClusky. She’ll be here in half a minute." Simultaneously Hunt and Danchekker materialized in the middle of the floor.
"I still say I’ll never get used to this," Garuth muttered to Shilohin.