by Tom Godwin
the conviction that we had pretendedto be harmless animals so that we could catch him off-guard and killhim. One of us leaped at him as he fired the second time, to knock theblaster from his hand. We needed only a few minutes in which toexplain--but he would not trust us that long. There was a misjudgment ofdistance and he was knocked off the cliff._"
Again he did not reply.
"_We did not intend to kill your brother_," the thought came, "_but youdo not believe me_."
* * * * *
He spoke for the first time. "No, I don't believe you. You arephysically like cats and cats don't misjudge distances. Now, you wantsomething from me before you try to kill me, too. What is it?"
"_I will have to tell you of my race for you to understand. We callourselves the Varn, in so far as it can be translated into a spokenword, and we are a very old race. In the beginning we did not live incaves but there came a long period of time, for thousands of years, whenthe climate on our world was so violent that we were forced to live inthe caves. It was completely dark there but our sense of smell becamevery acute, together with sufficient sensitivity to temperature changesthat we could detect objects in our immediate vicinity. There weresubterranean plants in the caves and food was no problem._"
* * * * *
"_We had always been slightly telepathic and it was during our long stayin the caves that our intelligence and telepathic powers became fullydeveloped. We had only our minds--physical science is not created indark caves with clumsy paws._
"_The time finally came when we could leave the caves but it was oflittle help to us. There were no resources on our world but earth andstone and the thin grass of the plains. We wondered about the universeand we knew the stars were distant suns because one of our own sunsbecame a star each winter. We studied as best we could but we could seethe stars only as the little wild animals saw them. There was so much wewanted to learn and by then we were past our zenith and already dyingout. But our environment was a prison from which we could never escape._
"_When your ship arrived we thought we might soon be free. We wanted toask you to take some of us with you and arrange for others of your raceto stop by on our world. But you dismissed us as animals, useful onlyfor making warm fur coats, because we lived in caves and had no science,no artifacts--nothing. You had the power to destroy us and we did notknow what your reaction would be when you learned we were intelligentand telepathic. A telepathic race must have a high code of ethics andnever intrude unwanted--but would you have believed that?_"
He did not answer.
"_The death of your brother changed everything. You were going to leaveso soon that there would be no time to learn more about you. I hid onthe ship so I could study you and wait until I could prove to you thatyou needed me. Now, I can--Throon is dying and I can give you the properwords of explanation that will cause the others to bring him into theship._"
"Your real purpose--what is it?" he asked.
"_To show you that men need the Varn. You want to explore the galaxy,and learn. So do the Varn. You have the ships and we have the telepathicability that will end the communication problem. Your race and mine cansucceed only if we go together._"
He searched for the true, and hidden, purpose behind the Varn proposaland saw what it would have to be.
"The long-range goal--you failed to mention that ... your ultimate aim."
"_I know what you are thinking. How can I prove you wrong--now?_"
There was no way for the Varn to prove him wrong, nor for him to provethe treachery behind the Varn proposal. The proof would come only withtime, when the Terran-Varn co-operation had transformed Terrans into aslave race.
The Varn spoke again. "_You refuse to believe I am sincere?_"
"I would be a naive fool to believe you."
"_It will be too late to save Throon unless we act very quickly. I havetold you why I am here. There is nothing more I can do to convince youbut be the first to show trust. When I switch on the lights it will bewithin your power to kill me._"
* * * * *
The Varn was gambling its life in a game in which he would be gamblingthe Plan and his race. It was a game he would end at the first sound ofmovement from the astrogator unit across the room....
"_I have been here beside you all the time._"
A furry paw brushed his face, claws flicked gently but grimly remindingalong his throat.
He whirled and fired. He was too late--the Varn had already leapedsilently away and the beam found only the bare floor. Then the lightscame on, glaringly bright after the darkness, and he saw the Varn.
It was standing by the control board, its huge yellow eyes watching him.He brought the blaster into line with it, his finger on the firing stud.It waited, not moving or shrinking from what was coming. The translucentgolden eyes looked at him and beyond him, as though they saw somethingnot in the room. He wondered if it was in contact with its own kind onJohnny's World and was telling them it had made the gamble for highstakes, and had lost.
It was not afraid--not asking for mercy....
The killing of it was suddenly an act without savor. It was something hewould do in the immediate future but first he would let it live longenough to save Throon.
He motioned with the blaster and said, "Lead the way to the airlock."
"_And afterward--you will kill me?_"
"Lead the way," he repeated harshly.
It said no more but went obediently past him and trotted down thecorridor like a great, black dog.
* * * * *
He stood in the open airlock, the Varn against the farther wall where hehad ordered it to stand. Throon was in the radiation chamber and he hadheld his first intelligible conversation with the natives that day.
The Varn was facing into the red-black gloom outside the lightedairlock, where the departing natives could be heard crossing the glade."_Their thoughts no longer hold fear and suspicion_," it said. "_Themisunderstanding is ended._"
He raised the muzzle of the blaster in his hand. The black head liftedand the golden eyes looked up at him.
"I made you no promise," he said.
"_I could demand none._"
"I can't stop to take you back to your own world and I can't leave youalive on this one--with what you've learned from my mind you would havethe natives build the Varn a disintegrator-equipped space fleet equal toour own ships."
"_We want only to go with you._"
He told it what he wanted it to know before he killed it, wondering whyhe should care:
"I would like to believe you are sincere--and you know why I don't dareto. Trusting a telepathic race would be too dangerous. The Varn wouldknow everything we knew and only the Varn would be able to communicatewith each new alien race. We would have to believe what the Varn toldus--we would have to trust the Varn to see for us and speak for us andnot deceive us as we went across the galaxy. And then, in the end,Terrans would no longer be needed except as a subject race. They wouldbe enslaved.
"We would have laid the groundwork for an empire--the Varn Empire."
There was a silence, in which his words hung like something cold andinvisible between them.
Then the Varn asked, very quietly:
"_Why is the Plan failing?_"
"You already know," he said. "Because of the barrier--the communicationbarrier that causes aliens to misunderstand the intentions ofExploration men and fear them."
"_There is no communication barrier between you and I--yet you fear meand are going to kill me._"
"I have to kill you. You represent a danger to my race."
"_Isn't that the same reason why aliens kill Exploration men?_"
He did not answer and its thought came, quickly, "_How does anExploration man appear to the natives of alien worlds?_"
How did he appear?... He landed on their world in a ship that couldsmash it into oblivion; he stepped out of his ship carrying weapons th
atcould level a city; he represented irresistible power for destructionand he trusted no one and nothing.
And in return he hoped to find welcome and friendship andco-operation....
"_There_," the Varn said, "_is your true barrier--your own distrust andsuspicion. You, yourselves, create it on each new world. Now you aregoing to erect it between my race and yours by killing me and advisingthe Exploration Board to quarantine my world and never let another shipland there._"
Again there was a silence as he thought of what the Varn had said andof what it had said earlier: "_We are a very old race...._" There waswisdom in the Varn's analysis of the cause of the Plan's failure andwith the Varn to vanquish the communication stalemate, the new approachcould be tried. They could go a long way together, men and Varn, a long,long way....
Or they could
