No—no, that was wrong. The power did not lie in the ship, it was inert metal and will-less electronic intellect, a cosmic splinter that without man would spin darkly into eternity. The will, and hence the power, to destroy lay in men—in one man. One gorilla in uniform. One caveman holding a marshal’s baton. One pulsing mass of colloidal tissue, ultimately unstable, not even knowing its own desire.

Heym scowled and drew heavily on his cigarette. Goram had been soothed into comparative geniality, but his frantic notion of death as panacea was as strong as ever. The creature wasn’t even consistent—one moment talking philosophy of history as if he had brains, the next snarling his mindlessly destructive xenophobia. There was something wrong about Goram—though it might only be my own ignorance of practical psychology, thought Heym. As a research man I’m used to dealing with only one factor at a time. A situation in life is really too complex for me—I don’t have enough rules of thumb. I wish I’d brought a practicing technician along, say Kharva or Junn—they’d soon analyze the mental mechanism of our marshal and push the appropriate buttons.

The old sickening fear fell anew on him. What if, after all he should fail—what if fifteen hundred years of work were to be sponged out at the arbitrary whim of a superstition-ridden military moron? If I fail, the Empire fails with me—I know it. And it isn’t fair! I should have been told what I was being recalled to Sol for. I should have had a chance to prepare my arguments better. I should have been allowed to take a practical psycho along—but no, they obviously couldn’t permit me to do that or I’d have had everything my own way.

But couldn’t they see? Can’t they understand? Or has the worship of statism penetrated so deep that it’s like an instinct, a blind need for which everything else must be sacrificed?

He turned and went heavily toward his cabin to make ready.

* * *

Screened by an invisibility field, the lifeboat spiraled down toward the surface. Goram let the robopilot handle the vessel, and spent most of his time peering through a field-penetrating visiscope.

“Not much sign of habitation,” he said.

“No, I told you the population was still small,” replied Heym. “After all, only a few thousand were planted originally and the struggle for existence was as hard as with any savages for the first few centuries. Only lately has the population really begun growing.”

“And you say they have cities now—machines—civilization? It’s hard to believe.”

“Yes, it is. The whole result has been a triumphant confirmation of the psychotechnic theory of history, but nevertheless the sheer spectacular character of the success has awed us. I can understand it’s a little frightening. One naturally thinks a race which can go from naked savages to mechanized civilization in fifteen hundred years is somehow demonic. Yet they’re humans, fully as human as anyone else in the Galaxy, the same old Earthly stock as all men. They’ve simply enjoyed the advantage of freedom from stupidity.”