“That sounds a rather cynical remark,” Stormgren had replied doubtfully.
“It’s a little too much like ’Might is Right’. In our own past, the use of power has been notably unsuccessful in solving anything.”
“The operative word is correct. You have never possessed real power, or the knowledge necessary to apply it. As in all problems, there are efficient and inefficient approaches. Suppose, for example, that one of your nations, led by some fanatical ruler, tried to revolt against me. The highly inefficient answer to such a threat would be some billions of horsepower in the shape of atomic bombs. If I used enough bombs, the solution would be complete and final. It would also, as I remarked, be inefficient — even if it possessed no other defects.”
“And the efficient solution?”
“That requires about as much power as a small radio transmitter — and rather similar skills to operate. For it’s the application of the power, not its amount, that matters. How long do you think Hitler’s career as dictator of Germany would have lasted, if wherever he went a voice was talking quietly in his ear? Or if’ a steady musical note, loud enough to drown all other sounds and to prevent sleep, filled his brain night and day? Nothing brutal, you appreciate. Yet, in the final analysis, just as irresistible as a tritium bomb.”
“I see,” said Stormgren; “and there would be no place to hide?”
“No place where I could not send my — ah — devices if I felt sufficiently strongly about it. And that is why I shall never have to use really drastic methods to maintain my position.”
The great ships, then, had never been more than symbols, and now the world knew that all save one had been phantoms.
Yet, by their mere presence, they had changed the history of Earth. Now their task was done, and their achievement lingered behind them to go echoing down the centuries.
Karellen’s calculations had been accurate. The shock of revulsion had passed swiftly, though there were many who prided themselves on their freedom from superstition yet would never be able to face one of the Overlords. There was something strange here, something beyond all reason or logic.