On the other hand, the Alori were fumble-fingered when it came to the simplest compound machines. The most intelligent of them could not understand an ordinary radio transceiver, and they were astronauts entirely by rule of thumb. They bad only the vaguest notion of the atom, none at all of the nucleus. General field theory was so alien to them as to be repellent.
More and more, Trevelyan realized what an implacable hostility this people had-not to being within his civilization,
but to the civilization itself.
“if they don’t think they can stand competition,” he said once, “their own philosophy ought to tell them that their way of life is unfit and should go under. But they can take it if they have to. They have knowledge we would pay anything for. And there wouldn’t even be competition .1ii-i the normal sense, not when every planetary system is or can easily be made completely self-sufficient.”
“I don’t know,” answered Nicki. “Does it matter very
much?”
He looked sharply down at her. “Yes,” he said at last.
“It does.”
They were standing on the southern coast, atop a rocky headland. Before them lav the sea; a fresh damp wind blew in under the high sky, tossing Nicki’s dark yellow bair.
“It’s almost as if they were fanatics, like the militant religions of the statist tyrannies of old days on Earth,” he
said.
“So one wav of life gives place to another,” said Nicki. “Is that wort@ killing about?”
“It’s more than that. War corrupts as much as power. When I told you once there was no reason for interstellar empire, I ignored one possibility because I didn’t think it existed any more. Empires are a defense, If someone attacked for ideological reasons, the planets assaulted would need a tight organization to fight back.”
“But would tbey-the Union-bave to fight? Wouldn’t it be easier to give in?”
“It’s not a question of whether they would have to fight or not. The fact is that tney would. A society tends to be self-maintaining, especially against outside pressure.” Trevelyan laid a hand on his wife’s shoulder. “This doesn’t sound like you, darling. You used to be a regular fire-breathi-ng dragon.” –
‘I wasn’t happy then,” she said. “But this-it’s so quiet and beautiful, Micah. It-” Her voice trailed off.
“Don’t you want to go stariumping again?”
“Oh, yes. Someday. But why not for the Alori?”
“Because when the last comes to the last, Nicki, we’re bumans. Man has always been a fighter. We can take what is good for us, but it must be on our own terms.”
“You’ve got an answer for everything, haven’t you?”
He grinned. Nicki was still a spirited wench.
Later be made open inquiries of the Alori, and fitted their polite but unyielding answers into the pattern be was assembling in his own mind. They saw the universe as an organic whole in which everything must belong. Division was madness.
The mechanical civilization of the Union was abhorrent to them.
In spite of that, they could have left the Union alone; but its drive was outward, and they lay in its path. Their knowledge was beyond price to Man; he would want to know.
And contact would be deadly for them. Intercourse would modify both cultures, but the Alori could not stand change.
“I can understand it,” said Nicki softly. “Suppose somebody caught me, Micah, and used one of those personality machines on me so I wouldn’t love you any more. I’d know that when they were finished, it would be all right. You wouldn’t mean anything to me then. But I’d fight it every stop of the way. I’d be gouging eyes and kicking low and screaming my threat out.”
He kissed her, there in the rustling darkness of the forest.
The suggestion that the Union would be sympathetic and willing to isolate the Great Cross met only a courteous skepticism. And Trevelyan bad to admit that was justifled. Such an isolation would only be a temporary expedient. Sooner or later, on one pretext or another, there would be contact. By that time, the Union would be too strong to
cope with. The Alori meant to act now; they had already