Caution and habit put a clamp on Eldridge’s tongue. He hesitated about answering so long that the commander turned in distress to the doctor, who reassured him with a slight movement of the head.
“Well, speak up,” said the commander, “we’ll be able to understand you, just as you’re able to understand us. Nothing’s going to hurt you; and anything you say won’t have the slightest effect on your… er… situation.”
He paused again, looking at Eldridge for a comment. Eldridge still held his silence, but one of his hands unconsciously made a short, fumbling motion at his breast pocket.
“My pipe—” said Eldridge.
The three looked at each other. They looked back at Eldridge.
“We have it,” said the doctor. “After a while we may give it back to you. For now… we cannot allow… it would not suit us.”
“Smoke bother you?” said Eldridge, with a touch of his native canniness.
“It does not bother us. It is… merely… distasteful,” said the commander. “Let’s get on. I’m going to tell you where you are, first. You’re on a world roughly similar to your own, but many…” he hesitated, looking at the academician.
“Light-years,” supplemented the deep voice. “…Light-years in terms of what a year means to you,” went on the commander, with growing briskness. “Many light-years distant from your home. We didn’t bring you here because of any personal… dislike… or enmity for you; but for….”
“Observation,” supplied the doctor. The commander turned and bowed slightly to him, and was bowed back at in return.
“…Observation,” went on the commander. “Now, do you understand what I’ve told you so far?”
“I’m listening,” said Eldridge.
“Very well,” said the commander. “I will go on. There is something about your people that we are very anxious to discover. We have been, and intend to continue, studying you to find it out. So far—I will admit quite frankly and freely—we have not found it; and the concensus among our best minds is that you, yourself, do not know what it is. Accordingly, we have hopes of… causing… you to discover it for yourself. And for us.”
“Hey….” breathed Eldridge.
“Oh, you will be well treated. I assure you,” said the commander, hurriedly. “You have been well treated. You have been… but you did not know… I mean you did not feel—”
“Can you remember any discomfort since we picked you up?” asked the doctor, leaning forward.
“Depends what you mean—”
“And you will feel none.” The doctor turned to the commander. “Perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself?”
“Perhaps,” said the commander. He bowed and turned back to Eldridge. “To explain—we hope you will discover our answer for it. We’re only going to put you in a position to work on it. Therefore, we’ve decided to tell you everything. First—the problem. Academician?”
The oldest one bowed. His deep voice made the room ring oddly.
“If you will look this way,” he said. Eldridge turned his head. The other raised one paw and the wall beside him dissolved into a maze of lines and points. “Do you know what this is?”
“No,” said Eldridge.
“It is,” rumbled the one called the academician, “a map of the known universe. You lack the training to read it in four dimensions, as it should be read. No matter. You will take my word for it… it is a map. A map covering hundreds of thousands of your light-years and millions of your years.”
He looked at Eldridge, who said nothing.
“To go on, then. What we know of your race is based upon two sources of information. History. And Legend. The history is sketchy. It rests on archaeological discoveries for the most part. The legend is even sketchier and—fantastic.”
He paused again. Still Eldridge guarded his tongue.
“Briefly, there is a race that has three times broken out to overrun this mapped area of our galaxy and dominate other civilized cultures—until some inherent lack or weakness in the individual caused the component parts of this advance to die out. The periods of these outbreaks has always been disastrous for the dominated cultures and uniformly without benefit to the race I am talking about. In the case of each outbreak, though the home planet was destroyed and all known remnants of the advancing race hunted out, unknown seed communities remained to furnish the material for a new advance some thousands of years later. That race,” said the academician, and coughed—or at least made some kind of noise in his throat, “is your own.”
Eldridge watched the other carefully and without moving.
“We see your race, therefore,” went on the academician, and Eldridge received the mental impression of an elderly man putting the tips of his ringers together judiciously, “as one with great or overwhelming natural talents, but unfortunately also with one great natural flaw. This flaw seems to be a desire—almost a need—to acquire and possess things. To reach out, encompass, and absorb. It is not,” shrugged the academician, “a unique trait. Other races have it—but not to such an extent that it makes them a threat to their co-existing cultures. Yet, this in itself is not the real problem. If it was a simple matter of rapacity, a combination of other races should be able to contain your people. There is a natural inevitable balance of that sort continually at work in the galaxy. No,” said the academician and paused, looking at the commander.
“Go on. Go on,” said the commander. The academician bowed.
“No, it is not that simple. As a guide to what remains, we have only the legend, made anew and reinforced after each outward sweep of you people. We know that there must be something more than we have found—and we have studied you carefully, both your home world and now you, personally. There must be something more in you, some genius, some capability above the normal, to account for the fantastic nature of your race’s previous successes. But the legend says only—Danger, Human! High Explosive. Do not touch—and we find nothing in you to justify the warning.”
He sighed. Or at least Eldridge received a sudden, unexpected intimation of deep weariness.
“Because of a number of factors—too numerous to go into and most of them not understandable to you—it is our race which must deal with this problem for the rest of the galaxy. What can we do? We dare not leave you be until you grow strong and come out once more. And the legend expressly warns us against touching you in any way. So we have chosen to pick one—but I intrude upon your field, doctor.”
The two of them exchanged bows. The doctor took up the talk speaking briskly and entirely to Eldridge.
“A joint meeting of those of us best suited to consider the situation recommended that we pick up one specimen for intensive observation. For reasons of availability, you were the one chosen. Following your return under drugs to this planet, you were thoroughly examined, by the best of medical techniques, both mentally and physically. I will not go into detail, since we have no wish to depress you unduly. I merely want to impress on you the fact that we found nothing. Nothing. No unusual power or ability of any sort, such as history shows you to have had and legend hints at. I mention this because of the further course of action we have decided to take. Commander?”
The being behind the desk got to his hind feet. The other two rose.
“You will come with us,” said the commander.
Herded by them, Eldridge went out through the room’s door into brilliant sunlight and across a small stretch of something like concrete to a stubby egg-shaped craft with ridiculous little wings.
“Inside,” said the commander. They got in. The commander squatted before a bank of instruments, manipulated a simple sticklike control, and after a moment the ship took to the air. They flew for perhaps half an hour, with Eldridge wishing he was in a position to see out one of the high windows, then landed at a field apparently literally hacked out of a small forest of mountains.