That was all they had told us. Most of it was plain lies. There were more than a dozen Greks, and many more than forty or fifty Aldarians. There were female Aldarians, and children. They were treated as animals, or perhaps as slaves. There was a time when human slaves were mutilated for their masters' convenience, and when dead slaves were dumped like dead animals, anywhere no one would object. Slave owners were not, on the whole, notorious for fine sensibilities or altruism. It wasn't likely the Greks had spent six terrestrial months instructing humans—and much of their instruction was deliberate nonsense—only to go away and reflect pleasurably upon the benefits they'd given to the human race.
And they knew more than men did. They had space ships larger than men could imagine building. They traveled faster than the speed of light. If they said they'd be back in ten years, it was probable that they'd be back sooner. They wouldn't wait for humans to reorganize themselves enough to use the new knowledge they had. The Greks would plan to come back when the old systems of production and distribution had been abandoned, and before practical new systems had been devised. They'd come back when they were most needed—
Hackett stiffened. One part of his brain surveyed the meaning of what had just passed through it. Another part said savagely, "Think of something, eh? Well, that makes it better than a guess that they haven't gone far!"
He found himself raging because of an opinion he'd reached without conscious logic. But he believed it. The Greks had gone away, not to let the human race benefit from their instructions, but to let mankind shatter its own civilization to bits because they'd shown it a possible more desirable one. They'd carefully and deftly made the wreckage of the existing culture certain, and they'd left without making the development of a new culture possible.
Given time—and not too much time, at that—the people who starved because they'd abandoned what they'd had for what the Greks only promised would need the Greks to organize and control them. They'd demand hysterically that the Greks return and give them the benefits that only Greks could give, and that now they couldn't live without.
There'd be no need for the Greks to conquer Earth. They'd only to wait, and men would conquer themselves and enslave themselves to the Greks, because otherwise they'd die.
Hackett may have been the first man to realize all this. The Greks weren't yet eighteen hours gone. It may be that no other man was before him in feeling the numbing despair the facts produced. When other men saw it—
Most men would never see it. Nothing could make them. Even if you proved it, they wouldn't believe it. Show it and they'd refuse to look.
For a few moments Hackett understood how a man could entertain the idea of suicide. Black despair filled him. It amounted to utter loss of belief in the essential goodness of existence. Because this was wrong! This was evil! It was not bearable!
Beside him, Lucy stirred. The car in which they rode ran swiftly down the road. Its headlights glared ahead. Fences, woodland, the edges of open fields flowed toward them and flashed past them to right and left. The car purred. The wind of its own making made thuttering noises, where a window was partly open.
Lucy said tentatively, "Jim?"
His throat did not want to make sounds. He said thickly, "What?"
"I've got an idea," said Lucy. "There are some Aldarians left behind. You know, the volunteers who are supposed to help us apply all the teachings of the Greks and make this world a sort of paradise."
Hackett made a mumbling noise.
"They know Grek science," said Lucy carefully. "The real Grek science, that actually works. They're the technicians. The Greks don't make things. The Aldarians do. The Greks are rulers. You might say they're the politicians who know how to rule other nations, like the Aldarians, and make them slaves. Earth may not be the first planet they've used this system on. What I'm driving at is that the Greks may know all about ruling, like the Romans used to. But they may not know much of anything else. The Romans used Greek slaves as schoolmasters and painters and sculptors. They had other slaves for manufacturing and agriculture and commerce. They specialized in ruling!' But they overspecialized, which is a weakness. Maybe—just possibly—the Greks have the same weakness."
Hackett found himself listening with fierce attention. "Go on!"
"That's all," said Lucy unhappily. "I can't go on from there. But it seems as if it might—have a bearing on things. For instance, the Aldarian in the hospital. He had a secret from the Greks. It—it could be that the other Aldarians knew it, and tried desperately to get that gadget away from him so it wouldn't be discovered. And they were caught and tortured to make them tell what they were about. . . . You see?"
Hackett said thickly, "Yes. That could be."
"There were women Aldarians in the pit, Jim. They'd been killed. There was a child. Murdered! And they deafened the Aldarians on purpose! There must be tension between the Greks and the Aldarians. I think I'm saying that maybe we aren't faced with one set of aliens who want to rule the Earth and all humanity. Maybe we're facing Greks who want to do that, and Aldarians who know what makes the Greks powerful, and, if they dared, would hate them. . . . That—might make a difference."
Hackett thought hard. For the second time in minutes one part of his brain thought of one thing and another regarded the meaning of that thing. The second knew a peculiar astonishment. Perhaps he was the first man to see Earth's situation clearly and to know the fullness of complete despair. But Lucy, who was a woman, had seen the situation still earlier and had gone past despair to find something that offered hope. It wasn't much hope. It wasn't a definite reason not to despair. But it did offer something that could be a starting point for resistance to fate and chance.
He drew a deep breath. "That," he said grimly, "is about the smallest grain of encouragement anybody has ever been able to think of, but at least it's something. It could be everything!" Then he said with a sort of mirthless amusement, "If this thing doesn't end with everybody dead, Lucy, I'm going to ask you to marry me. Not for your money, but for your brains."
Lucy did not smile. She settled back in the seat. "See what you can do with it," she said. "I'm glad you don't think it's foolish."
The car went on and on through the night.
At daybreak they passed through a small town.
Later, they found a roadside diner and stopped for something to eat. It was notable that throughout the tumult and upset of human affairs because of the Greks, it was the larger enterprises which became completely disorganized. Owners of small businesses— diners, service shops, country stores, little repair shops and the like—did not become unemployed. They had their businesses to protect. They continued to work even with the prospect of no need for labor in the near, though indefinite, future.
At eight in the morning they found a town of ten thousand people in which one or two stores were opening. At Hackett's suggestion, the FBI car stopped at a woman's shop, and Lucy bought things to wear, since her suitcase had been destroyed with Hackett's car. The FBI driver cashed her check instead of having the store do so. Hackett found a place to buy shirts and the like. Then they drove on.