heir
gifts. Their papers and their books, which would show us how to rebuild
our waning civilization--advance us a thousand years in less than fifty;
restore to us our lost arts.... And compared to you, we were so very
few.

"In return, they said that all they wanted was permission to set up a
research site. They told us they were a scientific expedition from far
out-System. Aldeberan, they said. Part of a vast exploratory program
which they had been conducting for centuries.

"We believed them--why not? One day, we thought, we too will be in
Space. And with that day would begin one of the greatest projects of
exploration that our race had ever known. So we agreed, and gladly."

"Hold it, hold it! 'They'--who the hell are 'they'? You can spare the
suspense...."

And then there was no more words. The pictures formed in his mind as
before, only stronger, now, and there were no details left out.

The weapons of war had been built, not by the out-System men, but by
their hosts. The plans had not proven too difficult to follow....

The new knowledge was not hoarded, was not held under jealous guard by
those who had given it, but by those to whom it had been given. One man
from another; one group of men from another. States and nations from
each other.

Until there was no trust left on all the planet.

There were the wars, then.

And when they were over, the new masters had established their first
beachhead in the new System.

"But, it was only a beachhead, and had been only intended as such--" The
pictures broke off; the unspoken words resumed. "Your planet was the
ultimate target, but at first, your civilization was not adequately
advanced to fall prey to their technique. Their weapon is knowledge, but
the potentialities of that knowledge must be understood by a people
before it can be effectively used to destroy them.

"The rest must be self-evident. After we destroyed ourselves, they sank
their infectious, hollow roots into our planet. And from then,
investigated your Earth from time to time ... and waited....

"Waited, because they knew you would be coming. And they knew what kind
of men you would be. Strong men, with the light of the stars in your
eyes. Yet confused, weak men, with the darkness of suspicion and
jealousy still in your souls. Such are humans, after all....

"That is why we stopped you, Johnny Love. Once your blast-off ogee had
carried you beyond the curvature of their horizon and brought y