“Yes, there was a tape,” Ben said. “A mauki chant, but we couldn’t understand it.”
“Let me see the tape” the creature said.
Ben drew the spool from an inner pocket and handed it over. The creature went to a player at the side of the room, placed the tape in the slot and adjusted the controls.
“It won’t be any good,” Ben said. “It’s in a language none of us understands.” The tiny gray creature smiled. “Who knows?” he said. “Perhaps you will understand it now. Perhaps that in itself will help you understand why we are here.”
For a moment there was no sound in the room but the swish-swish of the tape in the player, then, suddenly, the room was flooded with music. It was the same music that Ben and Tom had heard from the player in the vault below the House of Trefon, the same measured rhythms, the same woman’s haunting voice, the same refrain they had heard before. Even the words were the same, words which had seemed familiar but not quite understandable before, as if they were words of a subtly different tongue.
But now, incredibly, the meaning of the words became clear. Ben stared at the frayed tape going through the player, heard the same scratchy defects from repeated replaying as he had heard before, but now the mauki’s chant was understandable, unmistakable in its meaning.
Like so many of the mauki chants Ben had heard, this was a story set to music. Like those other chants, it dealt with times and places and great events, but this story was utterly strange to Ben Trefon.
He listened, and the Barrons listened too, their faces reflecting the increasing wonder in their minds as the story unfolded.
It was the story of a people, but not of human people. They were similar to men in many ways, with the loves and hates and fears of men, but a people far older and greater and more powerful than men had ever dreamed of being. These people had been living for untold ages at the time when Earth and her sun were no more than motes of dust in the emptiness of space between the galaxies. Already then these people had been engaged for eons in an endless, patient search through the vast reaches of the universe.
Where they had come from and why and how they had first begun to roam the galaxies even they themselves did not know… but they did know that they had a purpose to fulfill, a purpose that spanned all space and extended through all time. And that purpose was to search out, wherever it might be, with infinite patience and perseverance, a certain tiny flame that they knew flickered up from time to time in new galaxies and old across the firmament.
They were called the Searchers, and their dedication to their goal exceeded understanding. There was no time too long to wait, no distance too far to travel, if there was hope that their search might finally lead once again to another source of precious flame they sought. They did not know what that flame was, nor how it came about, nor why it occurred when it did, but they knew full well the incredible, unthinkable power for good or for evil that it signified. And they knew that there was nothing more rare and wonderful in all the universe than this tiny flame whenever it appeared anew: the flame of intelligence flaring up in a race of creatures evolving here or there across the galaxies, with the reason and compassion and strength that always accompanied it.
Time and again the Searchers discovered the flame of intelligence burning brightly on remote planets of remote stars; each new discovery was a time for rejoicing, for then once again the real work of the Searchers could begin. Most intelligent races were planet-born and star-bound. Without aid they would arise, and flourish, and die within the boundaries of their own solar systems, perhaps sensing that other intelligences existed elsewhere in the universe, but unable to reach across the immensities of interstellar space to contact them. Some, more advanced than others, even sensed that their intelligence, in itself, was incomplete, that its real potentials could never possibly be realized without joining with other intelligences across the starways. And for them the tragedy was even greater if they could not find a way to reach from galaxy to galaxy.
But the Searchers were not planet-born, and their lives were not bounded by the time limits of racial history. Geological ages for them were the same as minutes on their time scale; they alone could take the time to search out intelligence wherever it might arise, and nurse it to maturity, and draw it into contact with the great community of intelligent races that grew and flourished in the universe of life. For the Searchers it was a sacred trust that they could not and would not relinquish.
There had been a time when a group of Searchers, traveling with incredible power through the depths of space, had sensed the tiny flame of intelligence flaring up in a race of creatures living on the third planet of a medium-sized main-sequence star situated far out on one of the arms of an immense spiral galaxy.
How the Searchers had sensed its presence no one could say; it was enough that they knew it was there, and with excitement and joy plans were made for contact. But contact was approached with caution as the Searchers landed upon the planet where the flame was burning. Long experience had taught them to observe and assess a new intelligence first in secrecy and silence, for raw intelligence without the temper of maturity could do immeasurable harm if contacted too soon. Almost at once the Searchers knew that a flaw was present here, a flaw they had encountered countless times before.
There was intelligence among these creatures who called themselves men. There was reason among them, there was an enormous vigor and curiosity, but their intelligence was raw and uncontrolled. The Searchers had seen the flaw in other races before; these men themselves had words to describe the flaw that crippled them. Like children who had never grown up, their intelligence lacked maturity and compassion. They were only beginning to grasp the difference between themselves and the unintelligent creatures that lived and died around them. Their potential was enormous; the things that they might one day accomplish in a community of intelligent races were staggering, but they were not yet ready for even a suspicion that they might have such potential, for they still thought and acted and behaved as children.
It was a sinister flaw, a grave impediment. The Searchers knew that some intelligent races had never learned to over-come it. Some had lived out their racial history in ignorance of what they might become simply because they had never grown up enough to be told. And it was a flaw which had to be overcome before contact with other races could be permitted.
For a childish intelligence could never cope with the powers that contact would provide them. A race of intelligent children would never contribute. It would only exploit. Without maturity, this intelligent race of men was incredibly dangerous, far too dangerous to entrust with knowledge it would be unable to control.
It was tragic, but simple. A child could not be handed a loaded gun.
So the Searchers waited. They had first come to Earth in a time of empire, and they watched in silent horror as great cities arose from the labor of peasants, tyrants bludgeoned their way to power, soldiers marched and slavery flourished. They waited patiently as men struggled and fought among themselves, as children do, watching hopefully for the first signs of maturity to appear. Over the centuries, bit by bit, they began to hope that their patience might ultimately be rewarded.
In the dimly lighted room the song of the mauki paused, and the music changed subtly. Ben shook his head, only half comprehending what he was hearing. The Barrons seemed equally wonder-struck. It was as if something was drawing out their minds and painting a picture for them through other eyes, a picture of their own people that they had never seen before. A thousand questions burst into Ben’s mind, but there was no chance to ask them, for the mauki’s song continued, an incredible song, yet a song so compelling that it defied disbelief.