Provost faltered. “Tried to make contact, I suppose.”
“Physical contact? Nonsense. We wouldn’t have dared. We couldn’t possibly risk contact until we knew how they thought and behaved, until we knew for certain that we could defend ourselves against them if necessary, that they had some kind of vulnerability. Once we knew that, the way would be open for contact. But no matter how eager we were for contact, and no matter how friendly they might appear we would have had to have the weapon to fight them first. Or take an insane risk, the risk of total destruction.”
He understood her, but it didn’t make sense. He thought of Miranda outpost, Titan Colony, and shook his head. “It doesn’t add up,” he said. “What they did here was incredible.”
“Only if you assumed that they were hostile,” she said softly.
“What about the contact ship, the colony on Titan? They burned them both, blew them to kingdom come.”
“Because they had to. They did what we would have done under the same circumstances. They goaded us. Then they took cover and waited to see what we would do. They made us come after them where we couldn’t reach them physically, to see what we could do. They deliberately kept one step ahead, making us reveal ourselves every step of the way, until they found the soft spot they were seeking and threw us into panic. What they failed to realize was that they were inevitably mirroring themselves in everything they did.”
Silence then. In the dark cubicle, Provost could see the hazy image of the girl in his mind, pleading with him, trying to make him understand. Gradually it began to make sense. “So they have their weapon,” he said slowly, “and still we can’t make contact with them because we have none against them.”
“Had none,” the girl corrected him. “But we have seen them in the mirror. Their thoughts and actions and approach have been human-like. They recognized our panic for what it was when they saw it. How could they have, unless they themselves knew what panic was—from their own experience?”
“And now?”
“We turn the tables,” she said. “If they also have a vulnerability, there will be no more barrier to contact. But we don’t dare assume, we have to know. Every time they have goaded us we have reacted. We’ve got to stop that now. We’ve got to withdraw from them completely, leave them with nothing to work with, nothing to grasp.”
“But the Satellite—”
“The Satellite is dead for the time being, asleep. There’s no one here but us for them to contact. Now we have to withdraw too. If we do that, can’t you see what they will have to do?”
Slowly he nodded. He sensed that she hadn’t told him all of it, but that, too, was all right. Better that there be nothing that the Enemy could draw from his mind. “You tell me what to do, and when,” he said.
“Close your mind down, as completely as you can. Barricade it against them, if you can. Keep them out, leave nothing open for them to probe. Cut them off cold. But be ready when I signal you.”
He twisted in the cramped seat in the cubicle, clamping down his control as he felt Dorie clamping down hers. It was an exercise in patience and concentration, but slowly he felt his mind clearing. Like a rheostat imperceptibly dimming the lights in a theater, the Satellite went dimmer, dimmer, almost dead. Only a flicker of activity remained, tiny and insignificant.
They waited.
It might have been hours, or even days, before the probing from the Enemy began. Provost felt it first, for he had known it before, tiny exploratory waves from the alien minds, tentative, easy to strike away. He caught himself just in time, allowed himself no response, trying to make his mind a blank gray surface, a sheet of nothing.
More probing then, more urgency. Sensations of surprise, of confusion, of concern. Unanswered questions, fleeting whispers of doubt in the alien minds. Slowly confusion gave way to doubt, then to fear.
This was something the Enemy clearly had not anticipated, this sudden unequivocal collapse. The probing grew more frantic in its intensity. Deepening of doubt, and then, amazingly, regretfulness, self-reproach, uncertainty. What has happened? Could we have destroyed them? Could we have driven them too far?
The probing stopped abruptly. Provost felt the DepPsych girl stir; vaguely his eyes registered the darkness of the cubicle around him, the oval viewport in the wall showing the pale yellow globe of Saturn lying below, its rings spreading like a delicate filigree . . . .
Nothing.
In his own mind he felt a stir of panic, and fought it down. What if the DepPsych girl were wrong? It was only a human mind which had assumed that creatures which behaved alike were alike. In the silence a thousand alternative possibilities flooded his mind. The minutes passed and the panic rose again, stronger. .
Then he saw it in the viewport. Up from the methane clouds they came, slowly, four great ships in perfect formation. They rose and stabilized in orbit, moved again, stabilized, moved again.
They were approaching the Satellite.
He felt his fingers clench on the grips as he watched, his mind leaping exultantly. She had been right. They were forced out. The offensive had shifted, and now the Enemy were forced to move.
Provost saw with perfect clarity the part the DepPsych girl hadn’t told him—the thing he and she were going to do.
They waited until the ships were very close. Then:
“Provost! Now!”
They struck out together, as a unit, hard. They hit with all the power they could muster, striking the sensitive alien minds without warning. They could feel the sudden crashing impact of their attack. He could never have done it alone; together their power was staggering. The alien minds were open, confused, defensive; they reeled back in pain and fear—
In panic.
Suddenly the four great ships broke apart. They moved out in erratic courses, driving back for the planet’s surface. They scuttled like bugs when a rock is overturned, beyond control and frantic. In a matter of minutes they were gone again, and the silence rose like a cloud from the surface.
VIII
Somewhere in the Satellite a bell was ringing. John Provost heard it, dreamily, as he rose and stretched his cramped muscles. He met Dorie Kendall in the corridor, and he could tell from the look on her face that she knew it was over, too.
The aliens were vulnerable. They were vulnerable to the same primitive and irrational defense reactions that humans were vulnerable to when faced with a crisis? the suspension of reason and logic that constituted panic. The knowledge was the weapon that Earthmen needed, to make contact possible.
Now each side had a weapon. The mirror had reflected the aliens accurately, and the meaning of the reflection was unmistakably clear. There need be no danger in contact now. Now there could be a beginning to understanding.
Without a word John Provost and the girl began to waken the crew of the Satellite.
Epilogue
Somewhere within the Watcher’s ship a gentle alarm began to chime, more of a dreamlike echo than a sound. The Old One stirred, turned again to the space scanner, as his young companion hurried into the cabin.
“Is it Kadar? At last?”
“Look for yourself,” the Old One said.
In the blackness of space between Mars and Jupiter something had appeared on the screen, a faint fluorescent glow that shimmered and faded and then returned more strongly. Soon it was nearer, and the tiny scooter ship seemed to materialize before their eyes. Then, in a deft maneuver, the scooter came abreast and was engulfed by the mother ship, and Kadar had returned to them.
At last.
“No problems?” the Old One asked later, after Kadar had refreshed himself. “Nothing new to add? We can really go?”
“Nothing new,” said Kadar. “It was a graceful exit, I might say; no fanfare, no suspicions. And we can go—although I’ll miss them, I suppose, after spending so long among them.”
“And your final impression?”
“The same as before, of course, for a favorable decision. I’ve known that for dec
ades, just as you have. But even so, we have to go. After all, they don’t need us any more.”
The Young One, listening dubiously, frowned. “Don’t need us? I don’t understand.”
“You reviewed the records again?” the Old One asked.
“Of course—but I thought we were Watchers only. How could they have needed us if we were merely watching? And why was Kadar there so long, posing as one of them in their own Hoffman Center? Have we in fact been doing more than watching? The Covenant forbids contact or interference.”
The Old One smiled. “Of course. But guidance could be something else again. Especially when a people show such frightening promise. These Earthmen could qualify as Watchers, one day! But the smallest choices now could mean so much, the balance between the right move and the wrong so very delicate. Can a gentle nudge at precisely the right point in time be condemned as interference?”
“Maybe not,” the Young One said angrily, “but color it as you will, we still have violated the Covenant. We have been more than Watchers here. We have been teachers and guides as well.”
“Not quite,” the Old One said. “Protectors, if you insist, seeking now and then to shield them from themselves until no shield was needed. What is their quaint term, Kadar? Guardian angels. Every child has one, some of them believe, until he learns to find his way.”
“And now?” the Young One said.
“We will be back,” replied the Old One, turning to the ship’s controls with finality. “But not as guardian angels. Merely to watch the child grow strong and healthy. He has already learned to find his way.”
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