“Why slow?” Ross demanded. “Why not use the faster-than-light drive for the big ships?”
Haarland grimaced. “I’ve got to answer that one for you sooner or later,” he said, “but let me make it later. Anyway, that’s what this ship was: a faster-than-light scout ship for a real longliner. What happened to the longliner the records don’t show; my guess is the colonists cannibalized it to get a start in constructing homes for themselves. But the scout ship was exempted. The captain of the expedition had it put in an orbit out here, and left alone. It’s been used a little bit, now and then—my great-grandfather’s father
went clear to 40 Eridani when my great-grandfather was a little boy, but by and large it has been left alone. It had to be, Ross. For one thing, it’s dangerous to the man who pilots it. For another, it’s dangerous to—the Galaxy.”
Haarland’s view was anthropomorphic; the danger was not to the immense and uncaring galaxy, but to the sparse fester of life that called itself humanity.
When the race abandoned Earth, it was a gesture of revulsion. Behind them they left a planet that had decimated itself in wars; ahead lay a cosmos that, hi all their searches, had revealed no truly sentient life.
Earth was a crippled world, the victim of its playing with nuclear fission and fusion. But the techniques that gave them a faster-than-light drive gave them as well a weapon that threatened solar systems, not cities; that could detonate a sun as readily as uranium could destroy a building. The child with his forbidden matches was now sitting atop a munitions dump; the danger was no longer a seared hand or blinded eye, but annihilation.
^And the decision had been made: secrecy. By what condign struggles the secrecy had been enforced, the secrecy itself concealed. But it had worked. Once the radiating colonizers had reached their goals, the nucleophoretic effect had been obliterated from their records and, except for a single man on each planet, from their minds.
Why the single man? Why not bury it entirely?
Haarland said slowly, “There was always the chance that something would go wrong, you see. And—it has.”
Ross said hesitantly, “You mean the nine planets that have gone out of communication?”
Haarland nodded. He hesitated. “Do you understand it now?” he asked.
Ross shook his head dizzily. “I’m trying,” he said. “This little ship—it travels faster than light. It has been circling out here—how long? Fourteen hundred years? And you kept it secret—you and your ancestors before you because you were afraid it might be used in war?” He was frowning.
“Not ‘afraid’ it would be used,” Haarland corrected gently. “We knew it would be used.”
Ross grimaced. “Well, why tell me about it now? Do you expect me to keep it secret all the rest of my life?”
“I think you would,” Haarland said soberly.
“But suppose I didn’t? Suppose I blabbed all over the Galaxy, and it was used in war?”
Haarland’s face was suddenly, queerly gray. He said, almost to himself, “It seems that there are things worse than war.” Abruptly he smiled. “Let’s find Ma.”
They returned through the coupling and searched the longliner for the old woman. A Sonny told them, “Ma usually hangs around the meter room. Likes to see them blinking.” And there they found her.
“Hello, Haarland,” she smiled, flashing her superb teeth. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
“Perfect, Ma. I want to talk to you under the seal.”
She looked at Ross. “Him?” she asked.
“I vouch for him,” Haarland said gravely. “Wesley.”
She answered, “The limiting velocity is C.”
“But C2 is not a velocity,” Haarland said. He turned to Ross. “Sorry to make a mystery,” he apologized. “It’s a recognition formula. It identifies one member of what we call the Wesley families, or its messenger, to another. And these people are messengers. They were dispatched a couple of centuries ago by a Wesley family whose ship, for some reason, no longer could be used. Why?—I don’t know why. Try your luck, maybe you can figure it out. Ma, tell us the history again.”
She knitted her brows and began to chant slowly: