The Moderator moistened his lips. "The humanoids devised a machine that detects us. An adaption of the thought projector, which enabled them to detect our telepathic potential. Once they could isolate our thought waves, they were able to trace them to their source by a process similar to locating the source of a radio beam."
Saxon narrowed his eyes, recalling the thought projector which the radiation branch of Government's Bureau of Research had been experimenting with. So that's how General Atomic had uncovered the Aliens.
"General Atomic," the Moderator was saying, "suspected the existence of mutants, telepaths, ever since an agent of theirs by the name of Emil turned in a report on you!"
Saxon started.
The Moderator's first fright was over, he realized. The old man was regarding him with a faint smile.
Saxon glanced behind him in alarm; but there was nothing there. He clenched his fist until the knuckles whitened. "What other methods did you use to keep the humanoids in check?"
There was a subtle change in the voice of the Moderator when he answered. It was ringing, hard. "As I said, we foresaw this crisis. To discourage stellar travel we planted a pathologic fear of deep space in the humanoid subconscious.
"Certain of their discoveries we have suppressed. Notably, the space-time stellar drive. The Little Death, as you call it, has been discovered three separate times in the past thousand years."
"What?"
"Yes. Are you surprised? Once by an unknown scientist, once by a physicist, Dr. Walter, and lastly by Dr. Villainowski."