"_And afterward--you will kill me?_"
"Lead the way," he repeated harshly.
It said no more but went obediently past him and trotted down the
corridor like a great, black dog.
* * * * *
He stood in the open airlock, the Varn against the farther wall where he
had ordered it to stand. Throon was in the radiation chamber and he had
held his first intelligible conversation with the natives that day.
The Varn was facing into the red-black gloom outside the lighted
airlock, where the departing natives could be heard crossing the glade.
"_Their thoughts no longer hold fear and suspicion_," it said. "_The
misunderstanding is ended._"
He raised the muzzle of the blaster in his hand. The black head lifted
and the golden eyes looked up at him.
"I made you no promise," he said.
"_I could demand none._"
"I can't stop to take you back to your own world and I can't leave you
alive on this one--with what you've learned from my mind you would have
the natives build the Varn a disintegrator-equipped space fleet equal to
our own ships."
"_We want only to go with you._"
He told it what he wanted it to know before he killed it, wondering why
he should care:
"I would like to believe you are sincere--and you know why I don't dare
to. Trusting a telepathic race would be too dangerous. The Varn would
know everything we knew and only the Varn would be able to communicate
with each new alien race. We would have to believe what the Varn told
us--we would have to trust the Varn to see for us and speak for us and
not deceive us as we went across the galaxy. And then, in the end,
Terrans would no longer be needed except as a subject race. They would
be enslaved.
"We would have laid the groundwork for an empire--the Varn Empire."
There was a silence, in which his words hung like something cold and
invisible between them.
Then the Varn asked, very quietly:
"_Why is the Plan failing?_"
"You already know," he said. "Because of the barrier--the communication
barrier that causes aliens to misunderstand the intentions of
Exploration men and fear them."
"_There is no communication barrier between you and I--yet you fear me
and are going to kill me._"
"I have to kill you. You represent a danger to my race."
"_Isn't that the same reason why aliens kill Exploration men?_"
He did not answer and its thought came, quickly, "_How does an
Exploration man appear to the natives of alien worlds?_"
How did he appear?... He landed on their world in a ship that could
smash it into oblivion; he stepped out of his ship carrying weapons that
could level a city; he represented irresistible power for destruction
and he trusted no one and nothing.
And in return he hoped to find welcome and friendship and
co-operation....
"_There_," the Varn said, "_is your true barrier--your own distrust and
suspicion. You, yourselves, create it on each new world. Now you are
going to erect it between my race and yours by killing me and advising
the Exploration Board to quarantine my world and never let another ship
land there._"
Again there was a silence as he thought of what the Varn had said and
of what it had said earlier: "_We are a very old race...._" There was
wisdom in the Varn's analysis of the cause of the Plan's failure and
with the Varn to vanquish the communication stalemate, the new approach
could be tried. They could go a long way together, men and Varn, a long,
long way....
Or they could create the Varn Empire ... and how could he know which it
would be?
How could anyone know--except the telepathic Varn?
The muzzle of the blaster had dropped and he brought it back up. He
forced the dangerous indecision aside, knowing he would have to kill the
Varn at once or he might weaken again, and said harshly to it:
"The risk is too great. I want to believe you--but all your talk of
trust and good intentions is only talk and my race would be the only one
that had to trust."
He touched the firing stud as the last thought of the Varn came:
"_Let me speak once more._"
He waited, the firing stud cold and metallic under his finger.
"_You are wrong. We have already set the example of faith in you by
asking to go with you. I told you we did not intend to hurt your brother
and I told you we saw the stars only as the little wild animals saw
them. The years in the dark caves--you do not understand--_"
The eyes of the Varn looked into his and beyond him; beautiful,
expressionless, like polished gold.
"_The Varn are blind._"