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in theSolar System, the thing that spoke to them did not hide that it was only a robot. We’ve built up our whole concept of the Others from nothing more than what it said. Which is awfully little, Dan, if you stop to think. Suppose
Emissary
has brought back proof that we’re wrong. That the Others are extinct. Or never existed. Or are basically evil. Or whatever you can imagine. You’re a born heretic. You don’t find any of this unthinkable, do you?”
    “N-no. I do find it extremely unlikely. But supposing it for the sake of argument, what then?”
    “You could keep your sanity. But you’re an exceptional sort. Could humankind as a whole?”
    “What’re you getting at?”
    Once more Hancock raised her tormented head to confront him. “You like to read history,” she said, “and as an entrepreneur, you’re a kind of practical politician. Must I spell out for you what it would mean, the shattering of our image of the Others?”
    Brodersen’s pipe had died. He resurrected it. “Maybe you must.”
    “Well, look, man.” (He was oddly moved by the Americanism. They shared that background, though she came from the Midwest.
And Joelle was born in Pennsylvania,
he remembered.
Where are you now, Joelle?)
“When they found out what the strange object was, an actual T machine, and heard what the robot had to tell them, it may have been the greatest shock the human race has ever undergone—the whole human race. You had to take Jesus or Buddha on faith, and the faith spread slowly. But here, overnight, was direct proof that beings exist superior to us. Not merely in science and technology—no, what the Voice said indicated they were beyond us in their own selves. Angels, gods, whatever name you care to give. And seemingly benign but indifferent. We were told how to get from Sol to Phoebus and back; we were free to settle Demeter if we chose; the rest was left to us, including how to go onward from here.”
    “Yeah, sure,” he encouraged her.
    “Probably that was a large part of the shock: the indifference. Suddenly humans realized for a fact that they aren’t anything special in the universe. But at the same time, there is something to aspire to. No wonder a million cults, theories, self-assertions, outright lunacies sprang up. No wonder that after a while, Earth exploded.”
    “M-m-m, I wouldn’t blame the Troubles entirely on the revelation,” Brodersen said. “The balance that’d been reached earlier was almighty precarious. If anything, I think the idea of the Others helped keep everybody from running amuck—helped keep the real planet-killer weapons from seeing over-much use—so Earth is still habitable.”
    “As you like,” Hancock replied. “The point is, that idea has made a tremendous difference, maybe more than any traditional religion ever did.”
    She braced herself to go on: “Okay. Suppose the
Emissary
expedition learned it’s a false idea. As I suggested, maybe the Others are dead, or moved elsewhere, or less than we think, or worse than we think. Let that news out with no forewarning, let hysterical commentators knock the foundations loose from under hundreds of millions of people, and what happens? The Union isn’t firmly enough grounded that it can survive worldwide mania. And next time around, the planet-killers might well get unleashed.
    “Dan,” she begged, “do you see why we have to keep silence for a while?”
    He puffed his pipe. “I’m afraid I’ll need the details,” he answered.
    “But—”
    “You admitted this was hypothetical, didn’t you? Well, I don’t buy the hypothesis. If the Others were monsters, we wouldn’t be sitting here; we’d be wiped out, or we’d be domestic animals of theirs, or whatever. If they’re extinct—hunh, tell me how a species capable of building T machines is going to let itself become extinct. Nor do I imagine they’re not better than us; with that kind of technology, wouldn’t you improve your own race, supposing evolution