«Associate … with the human race.» Jeremy felt breathless, weak. His voice was hollow.
«I am not a human being, Mr. Keating. I come from a far-distant world, a world that is nothing like this one.»
«No … that can’t …»
Rungawa’s smile slowly faded. «Some of your people call me a saint. Actually, compared to your species, I am a god.»
Jeremy stared at him, stared into his deep black eyes, and saw eternity in them, whirlpools of galaxies spinning majestically in infinite depths of space, stars exploding and evolving, worlds created out of dust.
He heard his voice, weak and childlike, say, «But you look human.»
«Of course! Completely human. Even to your X-ray machines.»
An alien. Jeremy’s mind reeled. An extraterrestrial. With a sense of humor.
«Why not? Is not humor part of the human psyche? The intelligences who created me made me much more than human, but I have every human attribute—except one. I have no need for vengeance, Mr. Keating.»
«Vengeance,» Jeremy echoed.
«Yes. A destructive trait. It clouds the perceptions. It is an obstacle in the path of survival.»
Jeremy took a deep breath, tried to pull himself together. «You expect me to believe all this?»
«I can see that you do, Mr. Keating. I can see that you now realize that not all the UFO stories have been hoaxes. We have never harmed any of your people, but we did require specimens for careful analysis.»
«Why?»
«To help you find the correct path to survival. Your species is on the edge of a precipice. It is our duty to help you avoid extinction, if we—»
«Your duty?»
«Of course. Do not your best people feel an obligation to save other species from extinction? Have not these human beings risked their fortunes and their very lives to protect creatures such as the whale and the seal from slaughter?»
Jeremy almost laughed. «You mean you’re from some interstellar Greenpeace project?»
«It is much more complex than that,» Rungawa said. «We are not merely trying to protect you from a predator, or from an ecological danger. You human beings are your own worst enemy. We must protect you from yourselves—without your knowing it.»
Before Jeremy could reply, Rungawa went on, «It would be easy for us to create a million creatures like myself and to land on your planet in great, shining ships and give you all the answers you need for survival. Fusion energy? A toy. World peace? Easily accomplished. Quadruple your global food production? Double your intelligence? Make you immune to every disease? All this we can do.»
«Then why … ?» Jeremy hesitated, thinking. «If you did all that for us, it would ruin us, wouldn’t it?»
Rungawa beamed at him. «Ah, you truly understand the problem! Yes, it would destroy your species, just as your Europeans destroyed the cultures of the Americas and Polynesia. Your anthropologists are wrong. There are superior cultures and inferior ones. A superior culture always crushes an inferior, even if it has no intention of doing so.»
In the back of his mind, Jeremy realized that he had control of his legs again. He flexed the fingers of his left hand slightly, even the index finger that still curled around the trigger of the dart gun. He could move them at will once more.
«What you’re saying,» he made conversation, «is that if you landed here and gave us everything we want, our culture would be destroyed.»
«Yes,» Rungawa agreed. «Just as surely as you whites destroyed the black and brown cultures of the world. We have no desire to do that to you.»
«So you’re trying to lead us to the point where we can solve our own problems.»
«Precisely so, Mr. Keating.»
«That’s why you’ve started this World Government,» Keating said, his hand tightening on the gun.
«You started the World Government yourselves,» Rungawa corrected. «We merely encouraged you, here and there.»
«Like the riots in Tunis and a hundred other places.»
«We did not encourage that.»
«But you didn’t prevent them, either, did you?»
«No. We did not.»
Shifting his weight slightly to the balls of his feet, Keating said, «Without you the World Government will collapse.»
The old man shook his head. «No, that is not true. Despite what your superiors believe, the World Government will endure even the death of ‘the Black Saint.’»
«Are you sure?» Keating raised the gun to the black man’s eye level. «Are you absolutely certain?»
Rungawa did not blink. His voice became sad as he answered, «Would I have relaxed my control of your limbs if I were not certain?»
Keating hesitated, but held the gun rock-steady.
«You are the test, Mr. Keating. You are the key to your species’ future. We know how your wife and son died. Even though we were not directly responsible, we regret their deaths. And the deaths of all the others. They were unavoidable losses.»
«Statistics,» Keating spat. «Numbers on a list.»
«Never! Each of them was an individual whom we knew much better than you could, and we regretted each loss of life as much as you do yourself. Perhaps more, because we understand what each of those individuals could have accomplished, had they lived.»
«But you let them die.»
«It was unavoidable, I say. Now the question is, Can you rise above your own personal tragedy, for the good of your fellow humans? Or will you take vengeance upon me and see your species destroy itself?»
«You just said the World Government will survive your death.»
«And it will. But it will change. It will become a world dictatorship, in time. It will smother your progress. Your species will die out in an agony of overpopulation, starvation, disease and terrorism. You do not need nuclear bombs to kill yourselves. You can manage it quite well enough merely by producing too many babies.»
«Our alternative is to let your people direct us, to become sheep without even knowing it, to jump to your tune.»
«No!» Rungawa’s deep voice boomed. «The alternative is to become adults. You are adolescents now. We offer you the chance to grow up and stand on your own feet.»
«How can I believe that?» Keating demanded.
The old man’s smile showed warmness. «The adolescent always distrusts the parent. That is the painful truth, is it not?»
«You have an answer for everything, don’t you?»
«Everything, perhaps, except you. You are the key to your species’ future, Mr. Keating. If you can accept what I have told you, and allow us to work with you despite all your inner thirst for vengeance, then the human species will have a chance to survive.»
Keating moved his hand a bare centimeter to the left and squeezed the gun’s trigger. The dart shot out with a hardly audible puff of compressed air and whizzed past Rungawa’s ear. The old man did not flinch.
«You can kill me if you want to,» he said to Keating. «That is your decision to make.»
«I don’t believe you,» Jeremy said. «I can’t believe you! It’s too much, it’s too incredible. You can’t expect a man to accept everything you’ve just told me—not all at once!»
«We do expect it,» Rungawa said softly. «We expect that and more. We want you working with us, not against us.»
Jeremy felt as if his guts were being torn apart. «Work with you?» he screamed. «With the people who murdered my wife and son?»
«There are other children in the world. Do not deny them their birthright. Do not foreclose their future.»
«You bastard!» Jeremy seethed. «You don’t miss a trick, do you?»
«It all depends on you, Mr. Keating. You are our test case. What you do now will decide the future of the human species.»
A thousand emotions raged through Jeremy. He saw Joanna being torn apart by the mob and Jerry in his cot screaming with fever, flames and death everywhere, the filth and poverty of Jakarta and the vicious smile of the interrogator as he sharpened his razor.