Psi-High And Others

Prologue

For fourteen days, by Earth reckoning, the outpost ship of the Watchers patiently continued in its orbit, circling the great planet called Jupiter like a silent shadow, waiting for some sign of Kadar’s return.

The ship had come silently from halfway across the Galaxy, responding to a prearranged call signal. Now it was here, an undetected visitor to this remote solar province with its dwarf yellow star and its ten obscure planets. It was not the first time an outpost ship had come here, although visits had been relatively infrequent in the time since life had first appeared on the third planet of this star. Many in the Confederation—especially those with short memories—had opposed surveillance of such a backwater region at all, but the Watchers as usual had prevailed. They knew from long experience that it was not the remoteness of a new-appearing race that mattered, but its intelligence and its potential to build—or to destroy—the Confederation in the future. Once a people had broken free from the star that spawned them, remoteness was no longer a consideration. But the nature of the people was something else.

Now, as the outpost ship swung in its orbit, no ray of sunlight reflected from its surface. No radar signal bounced back to reveal even a shadow. The physical substance of the ship and the two Watchers aboard it were such that no radiant energy could be reflected; indeed, if an Earth ship were to come Into collision course with the Watchers it would pass right through and beyond them without so much as a hint that a “collision” had occurred. It was necessary, under the Covenant, that the Watchers remain undetected, and the Covenant had not been violated in all the tens of thousands of years that these ships had been regular visitors to this solar system. When contact had been made with these developing Earthmen, its true nature had always been concealed, just as the Covenant demanded.

And now the Watchers were waiting for the end of one such contact.

Of the two aboard the craft, only the younger was impatient. “Why so long?” he asked with increasing urgency. “He called for the rendezvous himself. Why does he keep us waiting? What could have gone wrong?”

The Old One sighed. Service with a Young One fresh from the academy was always more trial than joy. The eager textbook knowledge of the Covenant and its surveillance procedures were fine, but there was no experience to modulate all this frantic energy, and above all, no patience. “Nothing has gone wrong,” the Old One said. “Kadar will come, but he dare not just disappear from their midst for no reason. It must be done in the proper way, and that takes tune.”

“But so much time!” the Young One said. “Fourteen of their days, and no end in sight.”

“And this is so much time? After watching these stubborn people for millennia?” The Old One smiled. “Of course you’re eager to be gone; so am I. But consider Kadar’s problem scientifically.”

The Young One caught the gentle note of reproach. “Very well, sir. If you will instruct me.”

“Just consider: his departure would have to appear consistent with the way Earth people take leave of things—a ‘death’, so to speak—but it must also appear quite unremarkable. And in particular, nothing even to hint of foul play. Their people at the Hoffman Medical Center are not fools. And then with his ‘death’ accomplished, there would be still further delay. For all their advancement, Earth people still cling to certain long-revered rituals. Funerals, for instance.”

The Old One turned back to the space scanner as his young apprentice thought about this. Finally the Young One said, “Of course, I know they have come a long way, these Earthmen, but there are still many things I do not see. Why now, after all this time, are we ending our surveillance?”

“Because the time has come to withdraw,” the Old One said.

“How do we know? Has the Confederation already reached a decision?”

“Not yet. But it will, as soon as we return.”

“How can they, when we know so little about these creatures?”

“We know more about them than you think,” the Old One said. “It isn’t the quantity of data that makes the difference, it’s the quality. And basically, a decision for or against quarantine and possible imprisonment hangs upon one question: will these people one day become peaceful and productive partners in the Galactic Confederation, or will they become a malignancy in our midst that must then, too late, be confronted and expunged? There was one such malignant race, if you recall your history. They had many qualities in common with these Earthmen in their early days, and it took a million years of warfare to stop them. The Confederation cannot allow another such race the freedom to expand.”

“And you think a decision can be reached so soon?” the Young One asked. “Oh, I know that all the known intelligent races have followed certain patterns. Always they have been aggressive. Always they have been curious. Always they have fought their own wars, and always they have learned to control mass-energy conversion. But how can the future be predicted from these things early enough to do any good?”

“It can’t,” the Old One replied. “But those parts of the pattern don’t matter in the long run. You’ve ignored the three factors that do matter, the three things we had to know about these Earthmen before a decision could even be possible. How they deal with nuclear energy Is none of our concern. How they—or any race—deal with three other key universal problems is very much our concern, and a valid basis for predicting what the future holds.”

“And those three problems?”

“The obvious ones. How they use their growing knowledge of their own physiology and biochemistry, for healthy growth or for destruction. How they deal with their own evolutionary development, especially when the higher extrasensory powers begin to appear, as they always do. How they handle their first encounters with other intelligent creatures. Simple enough things, yet utterly crucial, because the solutions they find mold the pattern of their future”

The old one turned once again to scan the void of space around them. “That is why we came to this remote region in the first place: because intelligent life had appeared here and we had to know what solutions they found. With these people it has been easy. They’ve developed so very fast, for one thing; no other race in history has ever scrambled up as urgently as these people have. Which could make them all the more dangerous, of course, if they found the wrong solutions. In addition, they have always had a burgeoning curiosity about their own minds and bodies; and recently a single research organization, their so-called Hoffman Center, has been deeply involved in all three of the areas we have been watching. Useful, for vis. A single observation post from which we could follow all three lines of development.”

The Old One leaned back, smiling at his young companion. “So now the data is collected. Kadar will bring nothing new with him when he comes. Our tapes and records here already tell the whole story; perhaps you should review them again, while we wait. You might see then why our surveillance is over. And perhaps”—he paused, thinking once again of the three particular crises that he himself had witnessed among these Earthmen during his long centuries as Watcher here—“perhaps you will even see what the decision must ultimately be.”