Chapter 2

The Varn was facing into the red-black gloom outside the lighted airlock, where the departing natives could be heard crossing the glade. "_Their thoughts no longer hold fear and suspicion_," it said. "_The misunderstanding is ended._"

He raised the muzzle of the blaster in his hand. The black head lifted and the golden eyes looked up at him.

"I made you no promise," he said.

"_I could demand none._"

"I can't stop to take you back to your own world and I can't leave you alive on this one--with what you've learned from my mind you would have the natives build the Varn a disintegrator-equipped space fleet equal to our own ships."

"_We want only to go with you._"

He told it what he wanted it to know before he killed it, wondering why he should care:

"I would like to believe you are sincere--and you know why I don't dare to. Trusting a telepathic race would be too dangerous. The Varn would know everything we knew and only the Varn would be able to communicate with each new alien race. We would have to believe what the Varn told us--we would have to trust the Varn to see for us and speak for us and not deceive us as we went across the galaxy. And then, in the end, Terrans would no longer be needed except as a subject race. They would be enslaved.

"We would have laid the groundwork for an empire--the Varn Empire."

There was a silence, in which his words hung like something cold and invisible between them.

Then the Varn asked, very quietly:

"_Why is the Plan failing?_"

"You already know," he said. "Because of the barrier--the communication barrier that causes aliens to misunderstand the intentions of Exploration men and fear them."

"_There is no communication barrier between you and I--yet you fear me and are going to kill me._"

"I have to kill you. You represent a danger to my race."

"_Isn't that the same reason why aliens kill Exploration men?_"

He did not answer and its thought came, quickly, "_How does an Exploration man appear to the natives of alien worlds?_"

How did he appear?... He landed on their world in a ship that could smash it into oblivion; he stepped out of his ship carrying weapons that could level a city; he represented irresistible power for destruction and he trusted no one and nothing.

And in return he hoped to find welcome and friendship and co-operation....

"_There_," the Varn said, "_is your true barrier--your own distrust and suspicion. You, yourselves, create it on each new world. Now you are going to erect it between my race and yours by killing me and advising the Exploration Board to quarantine my world and never let another ship land there._"

Again there was a silence as he thought of what the Varn had said and of what it had said earlier: "_We are a very old race...._" There was wisdom in the Varn's analysis of the cause of the Plan's failure and with the Varn to vanquish the communication stalemate, the new approach could be tried. They could go a long way together, men and Varn, a long, long way....

Or they could create the Varn Empire ... and how could he know which it would be?

How could anyone know--except the telepathic Varn?

The muzzle of the blaster had dropped and he brought it back up. He forced the dangerous indecision aside, knowing he would have to kill the Varn at once or he might weaken again, and said harshly to it:

"The risk is too great. I want to believe you--but all your talk of trust and good intentions is only talk and my race would be the only one that had to trust."

He touched the firing stud as the last thought of the Varn came:

"_Let me speak once more._"

He waited, the firing stud cold and metallic under his finger.

"_You are wrong. We have already set the example of faith in you by asking to go with you. I told you we did not intend to hurt your brother and I told you we saw the stars only as the little wild animals saw them. The years in the dark caves--you do not understand--_"

The eyes of the Varn looked into his and beyond him; beautiful, expressionless, like polished gold.

"_The Varn are blind._"

THE END

Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from _Amazing Science Fiction Stories_ September 1958. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.