Tommy turned abruptly and walked straight out of the pilot-room, his small body lighting up the wall until he vanished.
Cynthia stared at her husband, her eyes dark with a questioning horror.
“The Green People,” Ned said. “Think, Cynthia. Does the name mean anything to you?”
Cynthia shook her head, her lips shaping a soundless No.
Ned sat down slowly, rubbing his jaw. “I just thought you might know something about Druidism, and what the strange rites of that mysterious cult meant to the ancient inhabitants of Gaul and the British Isles. According to the Roman historian Pliny, the Druids built stone houses for their pupils and called themselves the Green People.”
Starlight from the viewport illuminated Ned’s pale face. He paused, then said: “The Druids were soothsayers and sorcerers who disappeared from history at the time of the Roman conquest. It was widely believed they had the power of conferring eternal youth. They taught that time was an illusion, space the shadow of a dream.”
His eyes were grim with speculation. “The Druids were teachers almost in the modern sense. Pliny records that they had a passion for teaching, and thought of their worshippers as pupils, as children with much to learn. Instruction in physical science formed the cornerstone of the Druidic cult.”
Cynthia leaned forward, her face strained and intense as he went on.
“The Romans hated and feared them. There was a terrible, bloody battle and the Druids no longer danced in their groves of oak, in slow procession to a weird dirge-like chanting. They vanished from Earth and almost from the memory of man.”
Ned took a deep breath.
“Man fears the unknown, and knowledge is a source of danger. Maybe the Druids were never really native to Earth. What if this were their home planet—”
“Ned, you can’t really believe—”
“Listen!” Ned said.
The sound was clearly audible through the thin walls of the rocket-ship. It was a steady, dull droning—an eerie, terrifying sound.
Ned got up and walked to the viewport. He stared out—
He could see the Sweeney’s dwelling clearly. It was bathed in an unearthly green light, and around it in a circle robed figures moved through shadows the color of blood. Around and around in ever widening circles, their tall gaunt bodies strangely bent.
For a full minute he stared out. When his wife joined him he stretched out a hand and let it rest lightly on her shoulder.
“Perhaps we wouldn’t be far wrong if we thought of the Sweeneys as catalysts!” he said.
Cynthia stood very straight and quiet, a great fear growing in her.
“Catalysts, Ned?”
“It’s just a wild guess, of course. I can’t even tell you what made me think of it. But it does have a certain relevancy. In chemistry, as you know, a catalytic agent is a substance which promotes chemical action, but is in itself unchanged.”
“Well?”
“Why do men and women who surrender themselves to sorcery remain, in legend, eternally young? Young, unchanging. It’s a belief as old as prehistory and all the ages since. Only in the Middle Ages were witches pictured as shrunken, hideous old women. The ancient world pictured witches as eternally youthful, unaging.”
A long pause, and then Ned said: “As unaging as the forests of oak where they served as human catalysts for the Druids before the Druids left Earth forever?”
He suddenly seemed to be thinking aloud rather than addressing his wife.
“Well—and why not? The Druids must change, for change is the first law of life. But perhaps they can only find complete fulfillment, can only grow in wisdom and strength, by using human beings as little hard grains of chemical substance which must remain forever bright and shining.
“Human catalysts, imprisoned in a horrible little test tube of a house. If human beings aged and changed they would cease to be catalysts. They would become valueless to the Druids. And when the Romans discovered the truth—”
Agreement was clearly in Cynthia’s eyes. She moved closer to the viewport, her face pale.
“Fear, and a merciless hatred,” Ned said. “Pursuing the Druids, driving them from Earth. And dim, fearful legends remaining of a dark magic older than the human race.”
“Ned, they’ve stopped dancing!” Cynthia’s voice rang out sharply in the silence. “They’re coming toward the ship!”
“I know,” Ned said.
“But we don’t know what they’re planning to do!” Cynthia’s voice rose. “We’ve got to get out!”
“Steady,” Ned said, turning. “If we take off at peak acceleration I just can’t picture them stopping us!”
“Ned, the Sweeneys may be happier than we know,” Cynthia said, hours later. They were deep in subspace, a hundred light years from the little green world; and, in the warm security of the pilot-room, its menacing shadows seemed immeasurably remote.
“Happy?” Ned laughed harshly. “Kids who’ll never grow up. Adults cut off from all further growth. The same today, tomorrow and forever.”
“Their minds may change,” Cynthia said. “Their minds may grow, Ned. Tommy said that bright pupils could go far.”
“As catalysts, caught in a ghastly trap.”
“How can you be so sure, Ned? A wild guess, you called it. How do you know the Druids and the Sweeneys don’t learn from one another? Perhaps they grow wise together, in a wonderful bright sharing of knowledge and happiness that’s like nothing we can imagine.”
Ned looked at his wife. “Why say a thing like that? Why even think of it?”
“Pandora, I guess.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m a woman and the Pandora complex is pretty basic, darling. I’d be tempted to go back and throw open the box.”
“Something pretty black and horrible would come out,” Ned said sharply. “You can take my word for that. I hope you’re not forgetting that Pandora was the first woman chosen by Zeus to bring complete ruin on the human race.”
“She didn’t quite succeed. And how can we know for sure, Ned? If what you say is true, if the Druids were really driven from Earth, we haven’t done so well since. Wars and madness
