"I don't know. But from the way things have happened before, once they decide a course of action is necessary, they go all-out. There wouldn't be anything half baked about it."
Again, Caldwell could only agree. He waited for some kind of conclusion to emerge, but that seemed to be it. He reminded himself again that this was something he had been living with every day. For Mildred, it was a new revelation. He sought for a way to acknowledge that the message warranted her coming twenty light-years to deliver. "This is all very interesting," he told her. "You've obviously given it a lot of thought. So I'm curious. Do you have some specific ideas as to what we should do?"
Mildred seemed mildly surprised, as if such a question shouldn't need to be asked. "Well…" She turned up a hand, seemingly at a loss for a moment. "I mean, a person like you talks to people in governments everywhere, don't you, and things like that? I'd sort of assumed that if they were sufficiently informed as to the Thurien nature and probable disposition in the event of developments they perceived as threatening, then…" she made tiny circular motions in the air, "well, then they'd be able to decide their policies or whatever else they do in an appropriately prudent manner."
Caldwell had to bite his lip to stop himself from smiling. Oh, that the world could be that simple! All it would have taken to avert the procession of disasters called history would have been for someone to tell leaders mesmerized by delusions of their own genius and conquerors drunk on power to behave themselves and think of others first before doing anything rash. "They seem to have been doing better in more recent years," was the best he could find to offer. "It's like anything that involves lots of people and big changes. It can only move at its own speed. We can only be patient and persevere. The way you walk a mile is to just keep putting one foot in front of the other. A city is bricks laid one at a time." It didn't really say a lot, but sounded as if it did. Caldwell could be good with things like that. "But the things you've pointed out are important. You're right. They have to be treated very seriously."
Mildred seemed relieved. "Can I take it, then, that you'll make sure they're conveyed to the places where it will do the most good?" she said. "I'd hate to see us get into some kind of dreadful trouble with the Thuriens, and have to think that it might have been because I'd been there and learned what I have, and then not brought it to the attention of those in a position to put it to the best use."
"You can rest assured of it," Caldwell replied solemnly.
And yet, Caldwell was unable to dismiss their conversation lightly from his mind. It had forced him to bring out into the light and examine things that he knew but had been pushing to the back. Maybe he had been allowing himself to go soft in these latter years of acclaim and seniority. Too much golf, weddings, and black-tie dinners.
He had never been convinced that all of Earth's troubles could be blamed on the Jevlenese. Too many people had seized on the revelations of Jevlenese meddling in human affairs as an excuse to absolve themselves, or their nations, or their creeds, or their ideologies from guilt and responsibility, as if they had never had a part in the crimes that cried out for atonement from every page of history; or if there could be no atonement now, at least for some lessons to be learned that the future might be saved from seeing them repeated. There had been no shortage of native talent willing to share in the work and eager for its share of the spoils. The sure way to seeing those instincts taking charge again would be for Earth to lull itself into assuming the role of innocent victim and believing there was nothing for it to learn, and hence nothing that needed changing.
Owen, before his retirement, had voiced apprehension on more than one occasion about some of the things that came to his attention in the course of his dealings with responsible people in all quarters of the globe. While the world at large gluttonized on self-congratulation and the media reveled in its orgy of alien-centered sensationalism, the familiar rumblings of old hatreds that continued to fester, undercurrents of unrest, and ambitions to domination were still very much alive in the world. The official story, of course, fueling a spirit of public optimism and buoyancy toward the future, was one of leadership reborn, burying hatchets and about to bring the Golden Age in a new light of understanding that external forces had obstructed before. But the heady tone had always struck Caldwell as somehow unreal. What kind of forces might be biding their time at the back of it all, conspicuously on their best behavior while they assessed the redrawn game board and immensely raised stakes that the chance of access to a whole new regime of alien technology represented? Already, items were appearing openly in more outspoken areas of the partisan press and global net likening Terrans to the tiny but ferocious bands that had subjugated the Americas, and claiming that Earth's "moment" was approaching and that its destiny was "out there."
The old quotation ran through his mind again, that the only thing needed for evil to triumph was that good men do nothing. Apart from table talk and agreeing with a lot of people who felt likewise, what had he been doing? he asked himself. The short answer was, "not a lot." Like everyone else, when he examined the facts honestly, he had looked to other things to busy himself with, all the time assuming in a vague kind of way that never quite crystallized consciously that "something" would happen.
In the past this had never been his way. He hadn't taken over Navcomms and built it into the largest and most dynamic division of the UN Space Arm by waiting for "things" to "happen." Things didn't just happen. People made them happen. A colleague had asked him once, back in the early UNSA days, if he really thought that a few dedicated people who believed in what they were doing could change the world. Caldwell had replied, "They're the only ones who ever have." Actually, it wasn't his own line; he had come across it as a quote by a woman anthropologist, or something, from way back. But it was a good one, and he didn't think she would have minded his stealing it. His former self was still around, speaking in his head now, asking him what he was going to do about it.
He was still tussling with the question at home that evening, missing half the things that Maeve was saying and bringing a new precipitation of frost on the domestic scene just when things had begun to thaw. About the only thing he'd done by the end of the evening, to make amends and assuage his conscience, was cancel his golfing fixture.
The next morning, a bottle of brandy arrived for him and a bunch of roses for Maeve, from Mildred. It reverted breakfast to its normal warm and sunny condition, and gave his confidence in human nature a boost after his negative musings. But Mildred had never belonged to that part of humanity whose nature he had ever doubted in the first place.
By the next day, after repeated metaphorical walks around the subject in his head to explore all possibilities and angles, he had satisfied himself that, quaint though it was, Mildred's simple suggestion didn't contain any hidden key that he should have recognized. Embarking on some kind of moral lecture tour through the world's corridors of power was unlikely to achieve anything of note except feed it into the gossip mill that the strain had gotten to Caldwell finally, and possibly-done with all due civility, of course, and the requisite honors for him to cosset in his doting years-cost him his job.