"No, Dave," the director said finally. "The Hyadeans did not brainwash you. I did. I also planted the false impression—to justify this mission. It was necessary that only I know the true situation."
Stewart staggered back.
"Yes," the other went on, "after you and Harlston told me there was another culture out there of undetermined size and intentions, I almost hit the panic stud. Two cultures expanding toward each other, previously unaware of each other's existence. The wrong move could be the shot heard around the galaxy.
"What to do? Report it to higher authorities? No. For I saw immediately what would happen: 'menace from space'; Terra and Centauri Three, our other worlds—'helpless before an unknown terror'; all that sort of stuff. Anybody could appreciate what the consequences would be.
"Send out a single ship to try for peaceful contact? But who would buy a scheme like that? Instead it would have been: Send out a thousand ships armed with laser intensifiers of every caliber, all manned by green, trigger-happy kids who had never fired a shot in battle back to the eighth generation before them."
Stewart realized there was no reason not to believe him. For, all along, Randall had acted as though he expected to run into something like an alien ship.
The director lowered himself wearily onto the transceiver and folded his hands. "Anyway, from what you reported, I had hopes that there could perhaps be peaceful contact—between two single, unarmed ships. The evidence seemed to point in that direction.
"There were our telepuppets, for instance. The OC had quit transmitting—a year ago. Later you tell me you sighted an alien ship on Aldebaran Four-B. If you put two and two together, you come out with something that looks like a logical four."
He fished for his pipe, stuck it between his teeth, but forgot to light it. "If we have hostile aliens working in our direction and planning on surprising us, would they interfere with our robots? Of course not. For then we would send a trouble-shooting gang out here to put the puppets back on their strings. And we might discover them and mess up their strategy.
"So, since the Hyadeans weren't aware you had discovered them in their own cluster, the malfunctioning telepuppets could mean only one thing: They had stumbled upon our robots, reconciled themselves to the existence of another intelligent culture, and purposely interfered with the operation of our team."