I’m not proud of it.”
He stood silent. Presently: “But you were a captive,” he said. “I
couldn’t be sure what they might do to you, who had first claim
on me.” After another pause: “I don’t look for any more violence.”
“How did you make . . . the boy . . . cooperate?” ,
Sherrinford paced from her, to the window, where he stood
staring out at the Boreal Ocean. “I turned off the mind-shield,”
he said. “I let their band get close, in full splendor of illusion.
Then I turned the shield back on, and we both saw them in
their true shapes. As we went northward, I explained to Mist-
herd how he and his kind had been hoodwinked, used, made
to live in a world that was never really there. I asked him if he
wanted himself and whomever he cared about to go on till
they died as domestic animals-yes, running in limited freedom
on solid hills, but always called back to the dream-kennel.” His
pipe fumed furiously. “May I never see such bitterness again.
He had been taught to believe he was free.”
Quiet returned, above the hectic traffic. Charlemagne drew
nearer to setting; already the east darkened.
Finally Barbro asked, “Do you know why?”
“Why children were taken and raised like that? Partly because
it was in the pattern the Dwellers were creating; partly in order
to study and experiment on members of our species-minds, that
is, not bodies; partly because humans have special strengths which
are helpful, like being able to endure full daylight.”
“But what was the final purpose of it all?”
Sherrinford paced the floor. “Well,” he said, “of course the ulti-
mate motives of the aborigines are obscure. We can’t do more than
guess at how they think, let alone how they feel. But our ideas do
seem to fit the data.
“Why did they hide from man? I suspect they, or rather their
ancestors-for they aren’t glittering elves, you know; they’re mor-
tal and fallible too-I suspect the natives were only being cautious
at first, more cautious than human primitives, though certain of
those on Earth were also slow to reveal themselves to strangers
Spying, mentally eavesdropping, Roland’s Dwellers must have
picked up enough language to get some idea of how different man
was from them, and how powerful; and they gathered that more
ships would be arriving, bringing settlers. It didn’t occur to them
that they might be conceded the right to keep their lands. Perhaps
they’re still more fiercely territorial than we. They determined to
fight, in their own way. I daresay, once we begin to get insight into
that mentality, our psychological science will go through its
Copernican revolution.”
Enthusiasm kindled in him. “That’s not the sole thing we’ll
learn, either,” he went on. “They must have science of their own,
a nonhuman science born on a -planet that isn’t Earth. Because
they did observe us as profoundly as we’ve ever observed our-
selves; they did mount a plan against us, one that would have
taken another century or more to complete. Well, what else do
they know? How do they support their civilization without visible
agriculture or aboveground buildings or mines or anything? How can
they breed whole new intelligent species to order? A million questions,
ten million answers!”
“Can we learn from them?” Barbro asked softly. “Or can we only
overrun them as you say they fear?”
Sherrinford halted, leaned elbow on mantel, hugged his pipe and
replied, “I hope we’ll show more charity than that to a defeated
enemy. It’s what they are. They tried to conquer us, and failed, and
now in a sense we are bound to conquer them since they’ll have to
make their peace with the civilization of the machine rather than see
it rust away as they strove for. Still, they never did us any harm as
atrocious as what we’ve inflicted on our fellow men in the past. And, I
repeat, they could teach us marvelous things; and we could teach them,
too, once they’ve learned to be less intolerant of a different way of
life.”
“I suppose we can give them a reservation,” she said, and didn’t know