"Such as?"
"It may be that the physical destruction resulting from the humanoids getting together is not the worst thing that can happen to us. What about the moral and intellectual destruction that comes of their being here at all? With all due respect to Agent Breckenridge, what if They intended for us to find out about the humanoids; what if the humanoids are never supposed to get together, but merely to remain separate in order to give us something to worry about."
"Why?"
"Tell me this. What measures have already been taken against the humanoids? I suppose that Security is going through the files of all citizens who have ever been across the border or close enough to it to make kidnapping possible. I know, since Macalaster mentioned it yesterday, that they are following up suspicious psychiatric cases. What else?"
Jeffreys said, "Small X-ray devices are being installed in key places in the large cities. In the mass arenas, for instance—"
"Where ten humanoids might slip in among a hundred thousand spectators of a football game or an air-polo match?"
"Exactly."
"And concert halls and churches?"
"We must start somewhere. We can't do it all at once."
"Particularly when panic must be avoided?" said Lynn. "Isn't that so? It wouldn't do to have the public realize that at any unpredictable moment, some unpredictable city and its human contents would suddenly cease to exist."