For a moment Ben stopped, trying to adjust his eyes to the dim light inside the ship. They were standing in a huge hallway lighted with luminous poles, with shops and drydocks extending as far as they could see on either side of them. On all sides there were small blue-gray creatures hard at work, hundreds upon hundreds of them. In the drydocks Ben could see a dozen smaller ships swarming with elfin workmen, and across the room showers of sparks flew up from a dozen welding torches. The air was filled with the din of metal on metal; there was hammering and banging, and the whine of winches and the rumbling of overhead cranes carrying crews up and down the hulls of the ships.
The workmen paused as they moved down the center corridor, regarding them curiously with their strange empty blue eyes. Ahead, their guide hurried along as the corridor became a catwalk overlooking huge banks of computers and communications equipment. They passed another area where workmen were posting signals on a vast space map, moving swiftly as powerful radar transmitters swept information into their hands.
For all the hugeness of the ship, Ben Trefon had the curious sensation that he was in a dream world, a giant among elves, towering head and shoulders above the creatures that crowded around them as they passed. Yet from the way these creatures stood and from the expressions on their wizened faces, Ben wondered who the giants were, after all. There was nothing he could pinpoint, but could feel the enormous power of these people, a power that could obliterate him instantly if it were ever to be activated, yet a power which was dormant rather than active. There was no sign of hostility here; indeed, these creatures were regarding him with eagerness and expectation. All about him, whispering wordlessly in his ear, Ben could feel the wave of excitement growing as though a mighty bowstring were being pulled back until it was ready to snap.
It was an uncanny feeling, and a glance at Tom and Joyce’s puzzled faces told Ben that they could feel it too. But there was no time to stop and try to catch distinct impressions. Their escort turned suddenly down a side corridor and ushered them into a small room that looked surprisingly like the library of a Spacer home on Mars. One wall of the room was covered with a bank of instruments; another side held a huge store of microfilm spools and magnetic tapes. As they entered the room their eyes were drawn to the diminutive gray figure at a desk at the far side.
He was a creature like the others, but somehow he looked older, and his shoulders were bent as though he were carrying an enormous weight. He rose as the door closed behind them, and the creature who had escorted them hurried forward to greet him.
And once again Ben heard the musical voice in his ear saying, “Greetings, brother. They have come to us at last, even as you predicted.”
Across the room the creature stirred slightly, turning smoky blue eyes upon them for so long that Ben felt himself getting dizzy staring at them. Then the creature made another move, and a deeper voice echoed in Ben’s ears. “You have come a long way, both in time and in space,” the Elder was saying.
“You must be tired and hungry, perhaps confused.”
“We’re confused, all right,” Ben said sharply. “Who are you people? Where do you come from, and what are you doing here?”
“We are dwellers of the Rings, just as you are,” the voice came back gently. “And we have known your people well, in times past. The belt of power has been our avenue of contact. Now you must let me examine the one you wear.” The voice hesitated. “This chamber is pressurized and supplied with your oxygen needs. You may safely remove your suits.”
Stepping out of the heavy pressure suit, Ben loosened the black web belt from his waist. The capsule was still vibrating like a thing alive. When the creature reached out for it, their fingers touched for an instant, and Ben felt a tingle much like a slight electric shock. But the creature was slipping the capsule from the webbing, staring at it minutely.
He examined it for a long time in silence. Then he looked up at Ben. “So Ivan Trefon is really dead in this senseless war of yours,” the voice said sadly. “I had hoped to the last that our information might be wrong, that such a man had not really been wasted so tragically. But you are now wearing the belt that he wore.”
“I’m his son,” Ben said. “But my father never spoke of you.”
“I know. Your father was a man of honor and integrity. He kept the pledge of silence he made, for he knew that the time had not come to speak of us. In all the centuries that we have counseled with men of Earth it has never been time. But now perhaps it must become time, whether the time is right or not.” The creature looked straight at Ben Trefon. “Your war with the Earth-dwelling men must end before it is too late. Already it has gone too far for simple means, but this time we cannot intervene openly. We intervened once before, against our judgment, and the results were tragic. This time only you can intervene for yourselves.”
Ben saw the puzzled frowns on the Barrons’ faces. “We don’t understand,” he told the creature. “You seem to know so much about us, and we know nothing about you.”
“How we know is not important now,” the creature replied. “What we know is urgently important.
We know that you dwellers in space still do not realize the determination of your Earth brothers to destroy you. We know that many Spacers have withdrawn to their last battlement, their Central asteroid, and that the remaining forces have gathered to prepare a disastrous counterattack on Earth itself. Should Asteroid Central fall, the trigger would be pulled and a planetary holocaust would result.” The creature hesitated. “We cannot read the future. We can only predict on the basis of long and bitter experience.
Should your war be pursued to its end, the odds are four to one that all human life in the solar system will be obliterated, that the spark will be extinguished once and for all. And that cannot be permitted to happen.”
“But that’s not possible!” Tom Barron cried. “You talk as if we were children.”
“This is a war of children,” the creature returned sharply. “Only children would slaughter each other out of ignorance and fear. Only children would fail again and again to learn the lessons of their foolishness, and stubbornly, blindly persist in their childishness. Don’t speak to me about children, I know what children you are. But I also know the greatness you could achieve if you would only put away childish things.”
They stood silent under the rebuke. Behind the creature’s words Ben could sense a powerful wave of exasperation and anger mixed with concern, the exasperation and concern of an adult for a willful and recalcitrant child, mixed with apprehension and sorrow. For the first time Ben began to see some connection between these strange creatures and the events that had been happening. Pieces of the puzzle suddenly began to fit. He looked up at the little gray figure across the room. “You people are not from Earth,” he said. “You don’t come from any place in the solar system, do you?”
“Of course not,” the creature replied.
“Then who are you? Why do you care what happens to us in our wars?”
“Because that is our purpose here: to care. We have watched your planet for millennia, since the first spark of intelligence flared up in your people, and we have watched that spark grow into the raging fire it is today. Our job is to keep that fire alive until you cease being children and learn how to control it yourselves, until you learn how to use it. Then our work here will be done, if you have not destroyed yourselves in your childishness before you can mature. But one of your own people can tell you about us better than I can. I believe that your father left you something else as well as the belt of power, did he not?”
“The tape,” Tom Barron said.