The Greks were not interested in man's achievements. They weren't interested in human beings as persons. They gave, indifferently, the information that should turn Earth into a terrestrial paradise when understood and applied. But they showed no enjoyment in their benevolence. They acted like men who didn't care for children, who gave toys or candy to them without feeling pleasure in the action. There was something wrong; something lacking.
And we who were right there saw it and didn't understand what it was!
Hackett made what time he could. He didn't try to get back even to a secondary road. They were too crowded. He stayed on the back roads, the service roads, the third-rate highways between small towns and villages. But they were chosen to lead gradually to the place from which the Grek ship would presently rise and disappear.
Oddly enough, by taking those back roads Hackett made better speed than most drivers. He arrived at the Grek ship's cradle after sundown, but hours earlier than some travelers on the jammed main roads. He arrived, in fact, early enough to be able to reserve a sleeping cubbyhole for Lucy for overnight. He could only get one, so he would have to sleep in his car. But he didn't mind.
When that arrangement was complete, they were hungry. Miles of land had been devoted to preparations for the lift-off ceremony. There were incredibly vast parking areas, already partly filled. The gigantic stands for onlookers covered acres upon acres. The bunting-draped auditorium was large enough even for the intended departure ball.
And naturally, in such a setting and for such a purpose, there were many minor enterprises designed to make a fast dollar. Hackett and Lucy got something to eat. There was no restaurant—because this event would last only twenty-four hours or so—but for hamburgers of inferior quality and uniced soft drinks he paid the price of a six-course dinner at an expensive nightclub. For the cubbyhole reserved for Lucy, he paid the price of a Presidential suite in a metropolitan hotel.
He and Lucy peered into the huge canvas-roofed hall where the predeparture ball would be held. It was abundantly draped with colored bunting which was too cheap to be opaque. The unpainted framing of the walls showed through. The floor had been hastily laid. There was the smell of sawdust. High up around the walls were the projection-TV screens to link all the celebrations, everywhere, into one.
"They say," said Hackett in a dry voice, "that there'll be ten thousand couples dancing here tonight. In honor of the Greks, of course. A highly suitable event. I'm sure they'll be lost in admiration!"
Lucy nodded. They went outside and found themselves passing a gate and entering the now silent, roofless, enormous grandstands. If they'd been built in any but the most penny-pinching manner, they would have been a remarkable spectacle in themselves. They completely surrounded the quarter-mile-long Grek ship.
Hackett and Lucy saw the ship, now.
It was wholly past belief. Partly buried in the cradle dug out for it to rest in, it was still more huge than any manmade object on Earth. It was five city blocks long, and though its cradle had been dug out to a depth of more than a hundred feet, its rounded upper surface, glittering in the moonlight, reached as high as the roof of a fifty-story building. It was overwhelming in its massiveness. It was daunting because of sheer size. There were men working on a platform before its forward end, installing microphones and cameras on a platform for the departure broadcast. They looked smaller than ants. The glaring fights they worked by were pinpoints of brightness in the black shadow cast by the ship in the moonlight.
"I don't think," said Hackett detachedly, "that anything as big as that can be imagined to be benevolent. The most plausible thing one can believe is that it's indifferent."
He moved purposefully along one of the walkways of the grandstand. Lucy followed, shivering a little. Greks were not much larger than men. Aldarians were not as tall as the average human. To think of such relative mites controlling anything so gigantic appalled her. And her imagination refused to picture them as constructing such a ship.
There was another matter. The Greks had let it be inferred that there were no more than six or seven—at most a dozen—Grek officers and instructors aboard. They had definitely said the class of student Aldarians was limited to forty or fifty members. So small a ship's company in so vast a ship seemed unreasonable. But pure frustration followed an effort to conceive what the rest of the ship contained.
Humans had been aboard, to be sure, but not one had gone beyond a single passageway and two or three small compartments at its end. No man knew more of the inside of the ship than that. The Greks ignored hints for a larger view. And they were so lavish with information by which the world should profit, that nobody wanted to offend them by impertinent curiosity.
As he went along the walkway, Hackett glanced again at the monstrosity of shining metal. It had not stirred since its arrival. It had displayed no weapon. It remained a mystery. Neither Greks—on the rare occasions when one or more of them left it—nor Aldarians had given any information about it. The Greks did explain that its space drive could only be understood and used by engineers fully understanding the scientific principles they were now trying to teach to carefully selected human students. But they'd rated Hackett as incapable of that training.
"They've announced," said Hackett detachedly, "that some of their Aldarian crewmen have volunteered to stay on Earth and help us get started toward civilization. Remarkable altruism! The Greks say they don't expect to be back in this part of the galaxy for a good ten of our years, and they say the trip isn't worth while for a single uncivilized world's commerce. But another training ship will be ordered to stop by and pick up the Aldarian volunteers eventually."
Lucy looked at him curiously. "I didn't know that."
"It will be in the newspapers tomorrow," he said sardonically. "There's been some fear that we're too stupid to carry on with only what information they've given us so fur. The theory of the power-broadcast system still hasn't fully been grasped by any of us natives. If we're to develop past the elementary stuff they're leaving with us, we have to have more instruction. Several governments asked for it. So there'll be some Aldarians staying here."
He turned again, this time down steps toward the grandstands' central space, in which the Grek ship lay motionless. Again Lucy followed.
She said suddenly, "Are you going somewhere special, Jim?"
He nodded and went on. He turned to the right, and saw signs. This was section such-and-such, subsection such-and-such, and aisle so-and-so. He came to a gate, held it wide. It opened upon a flight of steps going down under the rows of plank grandstand seats. He offered Lucy his hand for security and they went down and down and down. Streaks of star-studded sky could be seen between the seat planks overhead. There were struts and braces everywhere to support the weight of the crowd the stands would hold on the morrow.
There were small tarpapered temporary structures on the ground. Light showed out of the windows. They reached the bottom of the steps. Here were four or five roughly built one-story shacks.
"Emergency stuff," said Hackett explanatorily. "First-aid stations. Bulldozer shelters. We're going to the one yonder—the smallest one. You've got the thing the Aldarian gave you?"
"Of course," said Lucy uneasily.
"I advise you to turn it over to the people I'll introduce you to," said Hackett. "But that's your decision. If you feel like mentioning it after you know them, do so. Otherwise don't."