True to their purpose, the Searchers had waited, watching the painful progress of this race of intelligent creatures called men. They listened to the clank of metal armor and smelled the sweaty leather of the Roman armies as they marched north into Gaul. They heard the thundering hoofbeats of the invading hordes from the East, and watched the crumbling of the mighty empire that had been Rome. Throughout the dark centuries that followed they watched and waited, occasionally reaching out for momentary contact with one man or another. Bit by bit their presence became known in the physical form they had chosen to use on Earth, and legends grew up among men, folk stories of elves and trolls and other creatures of the middle world, living on Earth with men but hidden from men’s senses unless they chose to be revealed. With quickening excitement the Searchers witnessed the blossoming of intelligence as the Middle Ages drew to a close and men discovered science and began systematically to explore their own minds and the physical world that lay about them. The signs of maturity began to gather; the capability was there. Soon, the Searchers were saying to each other, soon the time for contact would arrive.
Then, before their eyes, the variable appeared that the Searchers had been dreading. Just as a child grows rapidly in one way and remains a child in others, these men began moving swiftly with their newfound knowledge of science, and lagging in other areas. In rapid succession two terrible wars broke out, driving Earth technology before them even as humanity was forgotten. The day came when the Searchers saw an enormous bomb explode over an Earth city and form the dreadful mushroom cloud of atomic holocaust, and they knew that the turning point had been reached. They knew men now held the key to utter self-destruction. These children had fashioned their own gun and turned it upon themselves as the struggle between the perpetual childhood of slavery and the mature ideal of free individuals in a free society went on.
No one could choose for them as men continued striving to resolve that struggle. Leaping forward, they learned to leave their planet and explore their solar system, landing outposts of men on Earth’s moon, on Mars, on Venus. Slowly the struggle between slavery and freedom intensified, building up to a frightful war of nuclear weapons fought on Earth and in space alike, and slowly that war became probable, and then inevitable, and the Searchers at last were faced with a terrible choice: either to intervene or to allow these creatures to destroy themselves before their childhood ended.
Right or wrong, the Searchers chose to intervene.
It was an unthinkable choice for these observers from the stars, for bitter experience had told them that intervention in itself could precipitate disaster. But the alternative was equally unthinkable. Nuclear wars in other places and in other times had wiped life from the faces of planets. Intelligent races, flaring with such promise as these men, had been utterly destroyed. Intervention was considered the lesser of the evils, and cautious contacts were made with certain key humans, certain mature men, among the brave crews manning the opposing garrisons in space. By using the belts of power to contact certain men, the Searchers had revealed themselves, and on the very eve of the Great War, had drawn from these men their agreement to protect their race from itself by withholding fire when the war began.
As a result, it was a small war instead of a large one. The planet Earth was injured, but the race was not destroyed. Yet the intervention of the Searchers had proven a two-edged sword which even they could not control, and out of the Great War a new division had grown up to split men into warring factions. Hatred and spite and ignorance still out-weighed maturity in the minds of men. The forces in space were driven into exile there by their planet-bound brothers. Instead of healing the breach, time opened it wider as the necessities of survival threw fuel on the fire that raged between Earthmen and Spacers.
Until now, once again, a war of obliteration had begun, and the Searchers knew that somehow, once again, they were forced to intervene.
At first it seemed like a fairy story, a fantastic tale without any real connection with the lives of Spacers and Earthmen and no relation to the war that was now being fought. But now, as the mauki’s voice faded into silence and Ben looked across at Tom Barron’s sober face, he knew that they had been hearing no fantasy. They had been hearing plain history, a history none of them had ever heard before, but history nonetheless.
And now bits and pieces of the story began to fit together with other things Ben had known but had never understood. After that first intervention, with its tragic aftermath of Spacer exile, the Searchers had withdrawn, realizing that no solution had been found after all. But they maintained contact from time to time with certain representatives of the Spacer clan. Great care was taken to select men with more than usual maturity for contact, in hopes that through their leadership some way to repair the rift with Earthmen might be found.
Ivan Trefon had been one of their contacts. His father before him had been entrusted with one of the belts of power, to enable him to contact the Searchers should contact be necessary, and to allow the Searchers to contact him. And now Ben began to understand the real work his father had been doing, as a leader of the Spacers and as a member of the Council. Guided and directed by the Searchers, Ivan Trefon had spent his life working to bring peace between Earthmen and Spacers. Somehow he too had captured the vision the Searchers had brought with them: a vision of the enormous power for good that lay dormant in human intelligence if only the maturity could be found to control it. Ivan Trefon’s dedication had been fierce and unceasing, yet before his eyes he had seen the clouds of obliterative war gather, goaded on by hate and fear and ignorance.
It was no wonder, Ben thought, that his father had appeared so defeated and weary at the time of Ben’s last visit to the house on Mars.
But this time the Searchers themselves were helpless, for all their power. The Great War had appeared a disastrous accident, permitted to occur only through ignorance on the part of men, and the Searchers had decided against their better judgment to intervene to stop it. But now the same pattern seemed about to be repeated; nothing had been learned the first time, and these men of Earth had come no closer to the end of childishness than before. The Searchers now faced the bitter fact that these children could not be forced into maturity. If they were to overcome their flaw, it must be done under their own power. Again and again the Searchers had met to consider new intervention, and again and again the same answer had been reached. Men could leave childishness behind; the Spacer leaders had proven that in refusing to allow the Great War to obliterate the race. And if men could grow to maturity and would not, further intervention would be useless. If Earthmen and Spacers now were bent upon destruction, it was within their power; this time men themselves must make the choice.
Ben Trefon’s eyes caught the misty blue eyes of his host. “You mean that you refuse to intervene this time,” he said.
“We have done all that we can,” the Searcher’s voice said in Ben’s ear.
“But how could this war threaten the entire race?” Ben said. “Spacers might be wiped out, yes, but Earth itself would remain.”
“If that were true, we would never have drawn you into contact,” the Searcher said. “But your own Spacer fleet command has not been idle. Asteroid Central is under siege, but Spacer ships unable to return there have been massing around Outpost 3 for days, resisting every Earth attempt to disband them.
That Spacer fleet has warheads sufficient to reduce Earth to a cinder, should they be launched effectively at close range. And certain of the fleet leaders have prepared a counterattack.” The little creature eyed Ben Trefon sadly. “Your people have never before been vindictive,” he said. “But after the desolation of Mars by Earth ships, there is a spirit of revenge abroad among Spacers. If so much as a single shell from an Earth ship should penetrate the Maze and strike Asteroid Central, a fleet of Spacer ships will depart instantly from Outpost 3, to strike a devastating counter-blow at Earth herself. Spurred by vengeance, there will be no stopping that fleet if it leaves. And our calculations indicate that no living thing will be left on Earth should your warheads be released.”