Venusianstock. My people came from outside. Our world exists in the same planeas yours, a planet circling one of the nearer stars. This place wasnever our home, but we had colonies on Venus, Earth, Mars and one ofJupiter's moons. Other colonies--like this one--and observatories andquarantine stations. Our scientific observers and the medical staffstayed here. They studied and recorded and treated.
"We were not gods nor demons nor anything else supernatural. Just apeople not human, but not too remote from humanity. Just emissaries andworkers, students and doctors. You might call us elder brothers to thehuman race. We came not to conquer, enslave and exploit, but to help.Sometimes the Masters came with us, since they were interested in ourwork.
"Many times, by our guidance, human beings reached high levels ofdevelopment in the arts and sciences. We taught them and guided theirstumbling steps, and released to them such knowledge as we dared trustto them. Time and again, we raised them from the slime, only to havethem fall back. There is fatal disease in the race, a disease ofinstability and cruelty and violence. Call it madness--insanity--in thetechnical sense. It is pathological, and the disease is common to thehuman race, in all its ramifications. The Solar System is mad, and allwho dwell in it are lunatics. Dangerous and homicidal lunatics. Sol'ssystem is the asylum and pesthouse of our galaxy. We--my people--are itskeepers and doctors.
"We are charged with the care and treatment of an ailing form of life.Because of our near likeness, in form and thought, it was hoped that wecould understand and help them; in time, perhaps, find a cure. There areother races inhabiting the galaxy--many of them, civilized, intelligent,living, and sometimes even of matter similar to ours. Their minds andbodies are too different. We are nearest, both in form and feeling.
"We have tried, patiently and hopefully. For the most part, it is a longhistory of frustration and failure. The corruption is too deep, toobasic. It is part of the life-pattern of the race. Some individuals mayrise above it, but its taint lies dormant even in them. At best, theyare carriers. And there seems little future for such a race.
"Your galactic neighbors have been patient. But now a time of decisionis near. Your ships explore, exploit at will within your system. Youhave pushed your limits to the furthest expansion of that system.Colonized and despoiled. Now, you stand at the expanding horizon ofstellar flight. Other star-systems tempt your imaginations, andtechnology batters at the problems involved.
"Your neighbors are watching, and afraid. If your people burst outsidethe limits of Sol's system, the contagion of your madness will spreadand engulf the galaxy. At our request, they have given time, grantingextensions freely. For countless centuries we have tried, and oureffort, all our work and thought, has led only to failure. Now, theothers have set a time limit, and the deadline is very close. Veryclose. You are all living on borrowed time; and but for our pleadings,it would be still less.
"The masters often send emissaries to us, as we send ours to the planetsof Sol. They help and advise us--not as superior beings or as gods,commanding--but as elder brothers, trying to share their wisdom, tryingto help and guide us. They only help and advise, never intervene unlessasked. Their advice is wisdom--sometimes terrible, difficult tounderstand, painful to accept. Recently, they brought a message from theother peoples--a message and ultimatum. And the Masters advised us toaccept failure, to let them destroy humanity as a blot on the galaxy. Webegged one more chance, a last, desperate gamble, probably foredoomed tofailure. But they granted us the painful right of the doctor. We canoperate, but if the patient dies, so do we. That was our choice."
* * * * *
As she talked, Songeen had engaged herself busily with the queerlyformal operations of tracing the intricate diagrams.
"Do you believe me?" she asked, looking up.
"I'm not sure," Newlin replied frankly. "Are these Masters your gods?"
"Not gods. Living, intelligent beings, civilized, but not like us. Notmaterial. I cannot explain. Even they are but advisers and messengers.Not all-wise, nor all-powerful. I wish they were; for they are kind."
"You sound like nice people," Newlin admitted. "I wish I could believeyou. Off-hand, I think you're crazy. You say we're all off the beam.Then you talk like delusions of grandeur, and I have reason to know youcan be homicidal. One of us is nuts. It's a toss-up."
Songeen smiled wearily. "It is possible that I am infected. I aminoculated against it, but so was Genarion. Will you believe that Iloved him? He was my husband. We were children together, like brotherand sister. Later, we were schooled together, were married, and asked tobe assigned our task together. I did not sentence him, and I would havedied myself first. But he had been here too long. If he had gone back,the contagion would have gone with him. It was fated. You and I weremere tools. Weapons."
"I'm sorry, Songeen. I do believe you loved him."
She shook her head in curious ruffle of emotion. "He was not the first.Many of our kind have renounced their birthright to go among yourpeople, become like you and share your hideous lives. They are part ofyour great religions, part of the legendary history of your races."
Silence fell between them. Newlin thought of dying Mars, the burnt-outhusk of Venus, the political and economic pesthole of Earth--even thegrim, gray, terrible frontiers on the further planets and moons. Hisrecollections were a dreadful pageant of spectres, of an ugly,terror-haunted childhood, of the bleak years of his barren, lonelywanderings--the memory kitbag of a homeless, and often hunted, spacebum.
"I can believe you," Newlin admitted slowly. "Most of the trulyworthwhile leaders of mankind stand so far above the mob that they seemcast in a different mold. The real leaders--not politicians, normilitary brass. The thinkers and scientists, even the prophets. Everygreat religion sprang from the vision or inspiration of a single leader.Beyond the chaff, the fragments of his actual thoughts and words--alwayssound good. But their followers don't follow them."
Songeen's face twisted in bitter wrath. "How terribly true! Can blindmen follow the sun? They feel its warmth and reach out to it, but theystumble and fall on their own clay feet. Blind eyes and hands can neverreach the light. Most of our emissaries, of that kind, die horribly, andtheir message is distorted to serve the ends of madness and corruption."
"Is there no hope for us?"
She stared at him. The pale glow of her moonbright eyes softened andintensified.
"One hope, and only in yourselves. We have tried and failed. If you feelso strongly, why have you done nothing?"
Bitter hatred snagged in Newlin's throat, making his laugh a sound ofhorror. "Not me. I can pity the masses of poor and down-trodden, butonly as masses. As abstractions. Individually, I loathe them. Corneredrats will fight back--but men lick the boots of their tormentors. Ilearned only hate and defiance. I'm a cornered rat, not a man."
There was sound now, outside the door they had entered. Low at first, amere scrabbling, as if the trackers had located their refuge. In momentsonly, there came a heavy pounding, followed by the skirl of atomicdrills. Newlin tensed, his hand itching at the butt of his blaster.
"I'm a rat," he went on. "Cornered, like any other rat. And the terriersare out there scratching at my hole. If you'll open that non-squeakdoor, I'll talk to them. Maybe even kill a few."
"No," said Songeen positively. "No killing."
"But I'm a killer," Newlin insisted. "I've killed men before for a lotless reason. They're mining the door. How long do you think that willlast against explosives?"
"Not long," the girl admitted. "But long enough. I have the key at last.Stand back."
* * * * *
Something formless and faintly radiant hovered indescribably in space.Suspended above the worn flooring, without visible support or tangibleoutline--it existed. Something like weird emptiness, a void appearing inthe air itself.
"This is the portal," Songeen told him calmly. "Choose now. I will takeyou with me if I can without permission. But do not come with me,unwarned. There is gra
ve peril, beyond anything I can describe to you.Beyond your experience or imagination. I will try to get you safelyback, somehow. But I can promise nothing. And if you stay too long,there is no coming back. You must remain there; even if the terror ofyour surroundings kills you."
She stood beside the mysterious doorway, waiting. Newlin made a start tofollow her, then balked.
"Wait!" he ordered roughly, as she was about to lead the way. "I can'tgo with you--not like this."
"Afraid?"
"Yes, but not of you or your world. I trust you. But you say everyonehere is crazy. That it's infectious. Won't I carry the contagion intoyour world?"
Songeen hesitated. Shadows deepened inside her
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