Caldwell scratched his brow and had to consider. This wasn't an approach he was used to dealing with. Mildred had her own way of cutting through the chaff when it suited her, he had to grant. "Oh, I guess… 'advanced'; 'benevolent'; 'nonviolent'; 'honest,'" he offered. "And, I suppose you could say, 'resolute,' when the need arises; 'rational'; 'realistic.'"
"Yes, it's the last ones that are significant. One of the things I've been learning a lot more about has been their history, all the way back since the time of the early Ganymeans. As you say, they're totally nonaggressive in their dealings with each other and with every other kind of race that they've encountered since their migration. Their very nature makes them incapable of anything else. But they've also shown on more than one occasion that when their existence or their way of life is threatened, they can be ruthlessly efficient in protecting themselves. And I use the word 'ruthless' quite deliberately."
She was no doubt referring to such episodes as the program to cleanse Earth of predators in preparation for colonization, which had been aborted and still gave the Thuriens feelings of guilt, and more recently their mind-blowing plan to seal off the Solar System. "I'm familiar with the cases in point," Caldwell said, nodding to head her off from any feeling of needing to explain.
He drummed his fingers on the desk. Mildred stared at them for a second or two, and then said, "When you put those two qualities together, I find it drives one to a rather sobering but inescapable conclusion. Earth's history of warfare and every other kind of violence is totally abhorrent to them. Yet they've seen how rapidly this aggressiveness enables us to advance what we think are our interests. They can have no doubt that with the situation that exists at the present juncture-Earth spreading across the Solar System despite all the attempts of the Jevlenese to prevent it, and now absorbing Thurien technology-a possibility exists that we might carry everything they abhor out among their own system of worlds, but equipped with a destructiveness unlike anything imaginable before." Now she had gotten Caldwell's interest. This wasn't new. He had gone over the same ground many times in his own mind and discussed it with Hunt, Danchekker, and others. It was a regular topic of debate among UNSA executives.
"Go on," he said.
She sighed. "The Thuriens might be benevolent, patient, compassionate, and all those other saintly things, but they are also political realists. They would never expose themselves to such a risk. If it ever started looking like developing into a real threat, there's no way they'd just sit there and let it happen."
Caldwell was beginning to revise his impressions of Mildred rapidly. He had been trying to get this point across to some career diplomats and so-called professionals in international affairs ever since the Pseudowar with the Jevlenese and the events that had led up to it-and that had been with the insights of people like Hunt and Danchekker, who had been involved with the Ganymeans from the beginning. Mildred had worked it out for herself in something like four months. "Do you have any idea what they'd do?" he asked. Naturally enough, that was the first hope that came to mind. But she shook her head.
"I don't know. But from the way things have happened before, once they decide a course of action is necessary, they go all-out. There wouldn't be anything half baked about it."
Again, Caldwell could only agree. He waited for some kind of conclusion to emerge, but that seemed to be it. He reminded himself again that this was something he had been living with every day. For Mildred, it was a new revelation. He sought for a way to acknowledge that the message warranted her coming twenty light-years to deliver. "This is all very interesting," he told her. "You've obviously given it a lot of thought. So I'm curious. Do you have some specific ideas as to what we should do?"
Mildred seemed mildly surprised, as if such a question shouldn't need to be asked. "Well…" She turned up a hand, seemingly at a loss for a moment. "I mean, a person like you talks to people in governments everywhere, don't you, and things like that? I'd sort of assumed that if they were sufficiently informed as to the Thurien nature and probable disposition in the event of developments they perceived as threatening, then…" she made tiny circular motions in the air, "well, then they'd be able to decide their policies or whatever else they do in an appropriately prudent manner."
Caldwell had to bite his lip to stop himself from smiling. Oh, that the world could be that simple! All it would have taken to avert the procession of disasters called history would have been for someone to tell leaders mesmerized by delusions of their own genius and conquerors drunk on power to behave themselves and think of others first before doing anything rash. "They seem to have been doing better in more recent years," was the best he could find to offer. "It's like anything that involves lots of people and big changes. It can only move at its own speed. We can only be patient and persevere. The way you walk a mile is to just keep putting one foot in front of the other. A city is bricks laid one at a time." It didn't really say a lot, but sounded as if it did. Caldwell could be good with things like that. "But the things you've pointed out are important. You're right. They have to be treated very seriously."
Mildred seemed relieved. "Can I take it, then, that you'll make sure they're conveyed to the places where it will do the most good?" she said. "I'd hate to see us get into some kind of dreadful trouble with the Thuriens, and have to think that it might have been because I'd been there and learned what I have, and then not brought it to the attention of those in a position to put it to the best use."
"You can rest assured of it," Caldwell replied solemnly.
And yet, Caldwell was unable to dismiss their conversation lightly from his mind. It had forced him to bring out into the light and examine things that he knew but had been pushing to the back. Maybe he had been allowing himself to go soft in these latter years of acclaim and seniority. Too much golf, weddings, and black-tie dinners.
He had never been convinced that all of Earth's troubles could be blamed on the Jevlenese. Too many people had seized on the revelations of Jevlenese meddling in human affairs as an excuse to absolve themselves, or their nations, or their creeds, or their ideologies from guilt and responsibility, as if they had never had a part in the crimes that cried out for atonement from every page of history; or if there could be no atonement now, at least for some lessons to be learned that the future might be saved from seeing them repeated. There had been no shortage of native talent willing to share in the work and eager for its share of the spoils. The sure way to seeing those instincts taking charge again would be for Earth to lull itself into assuming the role of innocent victim and believing there was nothing for it to learn, and hence nothing that needed changing.
Owen, before his retirement, had voiced apprehension on more than one occasion about some of the things that came to his attention in the course of his dealings with responsible people in all quarters of the globe. While the world at large gluttonized on self-congratulation and the media reveled in its orgy of alien-centered sensationalism, the familiar rumblings of old hatreds that continued to fester, undercurrents of unrest, and ambitions to domination were still very much alive in the world. The official story, of course, fueling a spirit of public optimism and buoyancy toward the future, was one of leadership reborn, burying hatchets and about to bring the Golden Age in a new light of understanding that external forces had obstructed before. But the heady tone had always struck Caldwell as somehow unreal. What kind of forces might be biding their time at the back of it all, conspicuously on their best behavior while they assessed the redrawn game board and immensely raised stakes that the chance of access to a whole new regime of alien technology represented? Already, items were appearing openly in more outspoken areas of the partisan press and global net likening Terrans to the tiny but ferocious bands that had subjugated the Americas, and claiming that Earth's "moment" was approaching and that its destiny was "out there."