James Hogan - Giant's Star

Still looking at the Jevlenese, Heller went on, "We know that the early beliefs in the supernatural were established by miracle workers whom you recruited and trained, and injected as agents to found and popularize mass movements and countercultures based on myth, and to undermine and discredit any tendencies toward the emergence of the rational systems of thought that could lead to advanced technology, mastery over the environment, and a challenge to your position. Can you deny it?" She could read on their faces that her bluff had succeeded. They were standing rigid and unmoving, too numbed with shock to respond. Feeling more confident, Heller looked over at the Thuriens and resumed, "The superstitions and religions of Earth’s early cultures were carefully contrived and implanted. The beliefs of the Babylonians, the Mayas, the ancient Egyptians, and the early Chinese, for example, were based on notions of the supernatural, magic, legend, and folklore, to sap them of any potential for developing logical methods of thought. The civilizations that grew upon those foundations built cities, developed arts and agriculture, and constructed ships and simple machines, but they never evolved the sciences that could have unlocked true power on any significant scale. They were harmless."

Low mutterings and murmurs were rippling among the Thuriens as some of them only began to realize for the first time the full extent of what the Terrans had uncovered. "And what of Earth’s later history?" Calazar asked, mainly for the benefit of those Thuriens who had not been as involved in everything as he.

"The same pattern traces through to modern times," Heller replied. "The saints and apparitions who created legends by conveying messages and performing miracles were agents sent from Jevlen to reinforce and reassure. The cults and movements that perpetuated beliefs in spiritualism and the occult, in paranormal sciences and other such nonsenses that were in vogue in Europe and North America in the nineteenth century, were manufactured in an attempt to dilute the progress of true science and reason. And even in the twentieth century, the so-called popular reactions against science, technology, positive economic growth, nuclear energy, and the like were in fact carefully orchestrated."

"Your answer?" Calazar demanded curtly, staring at Broghuilio.

Broghuilio folded his arms, drew a long breath, and turned slowly to face directly toward where Heller was standing. He seemed to have recomposed himself and was apparently far from conceding defeat yet. He glared defiantly at the Terrans for a few seconds and then turned his head toward Calazar. "Yes, it was so. The facts are as stated. The motive, however, was not as described. Only a Terran mind could conceive of such motives. They are projecting into us their own evils." He threw out an arm to point at the Terrans accusingly. "You know the history of their planet, Calazar. All the violence and bloodthirstiness that destroyed Minerva is preserved today on Earth. I do not have to repeat to you their unending history of quarrels, wars, revolutions, and killing. And that, mark you, was despite our efforts to contain them! Yes, we planted agents to steer them away from the sciences and from reason. Do you blame us? Can you imagine the holocaust that would be sweeping across the Galaxy today if they had been allowed to return into space tens of thousands of years ago? Can you imagine the threat that it would have posed to you as well as to us?" He looked again at where the Terrans were sitting, and scowled distastefully. "They are primitives. Insane! They always will be. We kept their planet backward for the same reason that we would not give fire to children-to protect them as well as ourselves, and you too. We would do the same again. I have no apologies to offer."

"Your actions betray your words," Frenua Showm retorted. "If you believed that you had pacified a warlike planet, you would have been proud of the achievement. You would not have concealed the fact. But you did the opposite. You presented a falsified picture of Earth that showed it as warlike when in fact it was moving in exactly the direction that you should have considered desirable. You successfully delayed its advancement until its Minervan inheritance had been diluted sufficiently for it to advance wisely. But not only did you conceal that fact, you distorted it. How do you explain that?"

"A temporary aberration," Broghuilio replied. "Underneath nothing has changed. We altered the more recent development so that you would not be misled. A final solution to the problem was still called for."

Heller was thinking rapidly as she listened. The "final solution" had to mean that the Jevlenese had used Earth’s belligerence as an excuse to maintain their own military forces as she had suspected. It seemed to support another line of thought that her researches had caused her to wonder about, and here was an opportunity to test it. But to do so she would have to resort to bluff again. "I challenge that explanation," she said. "What I have described so far is only part of what the Jevlenese have been doing." All the heads in the room turned toward her. "By the time of the nineteenth century, it was obvious that Western civilization was rapidly spreading science and industrial technology across the globe in spite of all their efforts. At that point the Jevlenese changed their tactics. They actually began to stimulate and accelerate scientific discovery by leaking information in various quarters that precipitated major breakthroughs." She turned her head a fraction. "Dr. Hunt. Would you like to comment, please?"

Hunt had been expecting the question. He stood up and said, "The sharp discontinuities and nonlinearities that attended the major breakthroughs in physics and mathematics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have been a mystery for a long time. In my opinion, such conceptual revolutions could not have happened in the time they did without some external influence."

"Thank you," Heller said. Hunt sat down. She looked back at the Thuriens, more than a few of whom appeared puzzled. "Why would the Jevlenese do such a thing when their policy up until then had been to retard their rival? Because they were forced to accept the fact that they would not be able to keep Earth back any longer. Therefore, if Earth was about to become a high-technology planet anyway, the Jevlenese decided to use their already established infrastructure of influence to steer that advancement in such a direction that their rival would eliminate itself. In other words they set out to engineer events in such a way that the sciences which they themselves had helped develop would be used not to eradicate the scourges that had plagued mankind throughout history, but to wage war on a global scale and with unprecedented ferocity." She watched Broghuilio carefully as she spoke, and saw that she had hit the mark. Now was the moment to go for the kill.

"Deny that it was Jevlenese agents who infiltrated the European nobility at the end of the nineteenth century and created the rash of internecine jealousies that culminated in the horrors of the First World War," she challenged in a suddenly loud and cutting voice. "Deny that it was a Jevlenese-controlled organization that seized control of Russia after the 1917 revolution and developed the prototype for the totalitarian police state. And deny that you set up a Jevlenese group in the wreckage of postwar Germany to resurrect the hatreds that the League of Nations was formed to resolve by peaceful means. They were led by some very carefully selected and trained individuals, weren’t they? What happened to the real Adolf Hitler? Or perhaps you operated from behind the throne-Alfred Rosenberg, perhaps?" The three Jevlenese did not have to say anything. Their frozen postures and stunned expressions provided all the confirmation needed. Heller turned her head toward the Thuriens and explained, "World War II was supposed to be nuclear. The necessary scientific, political, social, and economic prerequisites had all been taken care of. It didn’t quite work as planned, but it came frighteningly close."