"Any problem posed by one group of
 human beings can be resolved by any
 other group." That's what the Handbook
 said. But did that include primitive
 humans? Or the Bees? Or a ...
 
 
 CONTROL GROUP
 

 By ROGER DEE
 

 The
 cool green disk of Alphard
 Six on the screen was
 infinitely welcome after the arid
 desolation and stinking swamplands
 of the inner planets, an
 airy jewel of a world that might
 have been designed specifically
 for the hard-earned month of
 rest ahead. Navigator Farrell,
 youngest and certainly most impulsive
 of the three-man Terran
 Reclamations crew, would have
 set the Marco Four down at
 once but for the greater caution
 of Stryker, nominally captain of
 the group, and of Gibson, engineer,
 and linguist. Xavier, the
 ship's little mechanical, had—as
 was usual and proper—no voice
 in the matter.
 
 "Reconnaissance spiral first,
 Arthur," Stryker said firmly. He
 chuckled at Farrell's instant
 scowl, his little eyes twinkling
 and his naked paunch quaking
 over the belt of his shipboard
 shorts. "Chapter One, Subsection
 Five, Paragraph Twenty-seven: No planetfall on an unreclaimed
 world shall be deemed
 safe without proper— "
 
 Farrell, as Stryker had expected,
 interrupted with characteristic
 impatience. "Do you sleep with that damned Reclamations
 Handbook, Lee? Alphard Six
 isn't an unreclaimed world—it
 was never colonized before the
 Hymenop invasion back in 3025,
 so why should it be inhabited
 now?"
 
 Gibson, who for four hours
 had not looked up from his interminable
 chess game with
 Xavier, paused with a beleaguered
 knight in one blunt brown
 hand.
 
 "No point in taking chances,"
 Gibson said in his neutral baritone.
 He shrugged thick bare
 shoulders, his humorless black-browed
 face unmoved, when
 Farrell included him in his
 scowl. "We're two hundred twenty-six
 light-years from Sol, at
 the old limits of Terran expansion,
 and there's no knowing
 what we may turn up here. Alphard's
 was one of the first systems
 the Bees took over. It must
 have been one of the last to be
 abandoned when they pulled back
 to 70 Ophiuchi."
 
 "And I think you live for the
 day," Farrell said acidly, "when
 we'll stumble across a functioning
 dome of live, buzzing Hymenops.
 Damn it, Gib, the Bees
 pulled out a hundred years ago,
 before you and I were born—neither
 of us ever saw a Hymenop,
 and never will!"
 
 "But I saw them," Stryker
 said. "I fought them for the better
 part of the century they were
 here, and I learned there's no
 predicting nor understanding
 them. We never knew why they
 came nor why they gave up and
 left. How can we know whether
 they'd leave a rear-guard or
 booby trap here?"
 
 He put a paternal hand on
 Farrell's shoulder, understanding
 the younger man's eagerness
 and knowing that their close-knit
 team would have been the
 more poorly balanced without it.
 
 "Gib's right," he said. He
 nearly added as usual . "We're on
 rest leave at the moment, yes,
 but our mission is still to find
 Terran colonies enslaved and
 abandoned by the Bees, not to
 risk our necks and a valuable
 Reorientations ship by landing
 blind on an unobserved planet.
 We're too close already. Cut in
 your shields and find a reconnaissance
 spiral, will you?"
 
 Grumbling, Farrell punched
 coordinates on the Ringwave
 board that lifted the Marco Four out of her descent and restored
 the bluish enveloping haze of
 her repellors.
 
 Stryker's caution was justified
 on the instant. The speeding
 streamlined shape that had flashed
 up unobserved from below
 swerved sharply and exploded in
 a cataclysmic blaze of atomic
 fire that rocked the ship wildly
 and flung the three men to the
 floor in a jangling roar of
 alarms.
 
 
 
 "So the Handbook tacticians
 knew what they were about,"
 Stryker said minutes later. Deliberately
 he adopted the smug
 tone best calculated to sting Farrell
 out of his first self-reproach,
 and grinned when the navigator
 bristled defensively. "Some of
 their enjoinders seem a little
 stuffy and obvious at times, but
 they're eminently sensible."
 
 When Farrell refused to be
 baited Stryker turned to Gibson,
 who was busily assessing the
 damage done to the ship's more
 fragile equipment, and to Xavier,
 who searched the planet's
 surface with the ship's magnoscanner.
 The Marco Four , Ringwave
 generators humming gently,
 hung at the moment just
 inside the orbit of Alphard Six's
 single dun-colored moon.
 
 Gibson put down a test meter
 with an air of finality.
 
 "Nothing damaged but the
 Zero Interval Transfer computer.
 I can realign that in a couple
 of hours, but it'll have to be
 done before we hit Transfer
 again."
 
 
 
 Stryker looked dubious.
"What if the issue is forced before
 the ZIT unit is repaired?
 Suppose they come up after us?"
 
 "I doubt that they can. Any
 installation crudely enough
 equipped to trust in guided missiles
 is hardly likely to have developed
 efficient space craft."
 
 Stryker was not reassured.
 
 "That torpedo of theirs was
 deadly enough," he said. "And
 its nature reflects the nature of
 the people who made it. Any race
 vicious enough to use atomic
 charges is too dangerous to
 trifle with." Worry made comical
 creases in his fat, good-humored
 face. "We'll have to find
 out who they are and why
 they're here, you know."
 
 "They can't be Hymenops,"
 Gibson said promptly. "First,
 because the Bees pinned their
 faith on Ringwave energy fields,
 as we did, rather than on missiles.
 Second, because there's no
 dome on Six."
 
 "There were three empty
 domes on Five, which is a desert
 planet," Farrell pointed out.
"Why didn't they settle Six? It's
 a more habitable world."
 
 Gibson shrugged. "I know the
 Bees always erected domes on
 every planet they colonized, Arthur,
 but precedent is a fallible
 tool. And it's even more firmly
 established that there's no possibility
 of our rationalizing the
 motivations of a culture as alien
 as the Hymenops'—we've been
 over that argument a hundred
 times on other reclaimed
 worlds."
 
 "But this was never an unreclaimed
 world," Farrell said
 with the faint malice of one too
 recently caught in the wrong.
"Alphard Six was surveyed and
 seeded with Terran bacteria
 around the year 3000, but the
 Bees invaded before we could
 colonize. And that means we'll
 have to rule out any resurgent
 colonial group down there, because
 Six never had a colony in
 the beginning."
 
 "The Bees have been gone for
 over a hundred years," Stryker
 said. "Colonists might have migrated
 from another Terran-occupied
 planet."
 
 Gibson disagreed.
 
 "We've touched at every inhabited
 world in this sector, Lee,
 and not one surviving colony has
 developed space travel on its
 own. The Hymenops had a hundred
 years to condition their human
 slaves to ignorance of
 everything beyond their immediate
 environment—the motives
 behind that conditioning usually
 escape us, but that's beside the
 point—and they did a thorough
 job of it. The colonists have had
 no more than a century of freedom
 since the Bees pulled out,
 and four generations simply
 isn't enough time for any subjugated
 culture to climb from
 slavery to interstellar flight."
 
 Stryker made a padding turn
 about the control room, tugging
 unhappily at the scanty fringe
 of hair the years had left him.
 
 "If they're neither Hymenops
 nor resurgent colonists," he said,
"then there's only one choice remaining—they're
 aliens from a
 system we haven't reached yet,
 beyond the old sphere of Terran
 exploration. We always assumed
 that we'd find other races out
 here someday, and that they'd
 be as different from us in form
 and motivation as the Hymenops.
 Why not now?"
 
 Gibson said seriously, "Not
 probable, Lee. The same objection
 that rules out the Bees applies
 to any trans-Alphardian
 culture—they'd have to be beyond
 the atomic fission stage,
 else they'd never have attempted
 interstellar flight. The Ringwave
 with its Zero Interval Transfer
 principle and instantaneous communications
 applications is the
 only answer to long-range travel,
 and if they'd had that they
 wouldn't have bothered with
 atomics."
 
 Stryker turned on him almost
 angrily. "If they're not Hymenops
 or humans or aliens, then
 what in God's name are they?"
 
 
 
 "Aye, there's the rub," Farrell
 said, quoting a passage
 whose aptness had somehow seen
 it through a dozen reorganizations
 of insular tongue and a
 final translation to universal
 Terran. "If they're none of those
 three, we've only one conclusion
 left. There's no one down there
 at all—we're victims of the first
 joint hallucination in psychiatric
 history."
 
 Stryker threw up his hands in
 surrender. "We can't identify
 them by theorizing, and that
 brings us down to the business
 of first-hand investigation.
 Who's going to bell the cat this
 time?"
 
 "I'd like to go," Gibson said
 at once. "The ZIT computer can
 wait."
 
 Stryker vetoed his offer as
 promptly. "No, the ZIT comes
 first. We may have to run for it,
 and we can't set up a Transfer
 jump without the computer. It's
 got to be me or Arthur."
 
 Farrell felt the familiar chill
 of uneasiness that inevitably
 preceded this moment of decision.
 He was not lacking in courage,
 else the circumstances under
 which he had worked for the
 past ten years—the sometimes
 perilous, sometimes downright
 charnel conditions left by the
 fleeing Hymenop conquerors—would
 have broken him long
 ago. But that same hard experience
 had honed rather than
 blunted the edge of his imagination,
 and the prospect of a close-quarters
 stalking of an unknown
 and patently hostile force was
 anything but attractive.
 
 "You two did the field work
 on the last location," he said.
"It's high time I took my turn—and
 God knows I'd go mad if
 I had to stay inship and listen
 to Lee memorizing his Handbook
 subsections or to Gib practicing
 dead languages with Xavier."
 
 Stryker laughed for the first
 time since the explosion that
 had so nearly wrecked the Marco
 Four .
 
 "Good enough. Though it
 wouldn't be more diverting to
 listen for hours to you improvising
 enharmonic variations on
 the Lament for Old Terra with
 your accordion."
 
 Gibson, characteristically, had
 a refinement to offer.
 
 "They'll be alerted down there
 for a reconnaissance sally," he
 said. "Why not let Xavier take
 the scouter down for overt diversion,
 and drop Arthur off in
 the helihopper for a low-level
 check?"
 
 Stryker looked at Farrell. "All
 right, Arthur?"
 
 "Good enough," Farrell said.
 And to Xavier, who had not
 moved from his post at the magnoscanner:
"How does it look,
 Xav? Have you pinned down
 their base yet?"
 
 The mechanical answered him
 in a voice as smooth and clear—and
 as inflectionless—as a 'cello
 note. "The planet seems uninhabited
 except for a large island
 some three hundred miles in
 diameter. There are twenty-seven
 small agrarian hamlets surrounded
 by cultivated fields.
 There is one city of perhaps a
 thousand buildings with a central
 square. In the square rests
 a grounded spaceship of approximately
 ten times the bulk
 of the Marco Four ."
 
 They crowded about the vision
 screen, jostling Xavier's jointed
 gray shape in their interest. The
 central city lay in minutest detail
 before them, the battered
 hulk of the grounded ship glinting
 rustily in the late afternoon
 sunlight. Streets radiated away
 from the square in orderly succession,
 the whole so clearly
 depicted that they could see the
 throngs of people surging up
 and down, tiny foreshortened
 faces turned toward the sky.
 
 "At least they're human,"
 Farrell said. Relief replaced in
 some measure his earlier uneasiness.
"Which means that they're
 Terran, and can be dealt with
 according to Reclamations routine.
 Is that hulk spaceworthy,
 Xav?"
 
 Xavier's mellow drone assumed
 the convention vibrato that
 indicated stark puzzlement. "Its
 breached hull makes the ship incapable
 of flight. Apparently it
 is used only to supply power to
 the outlying hamlets."
 
 The mechanical put a flexible
 gray finger upon an indicator
 graph derived from a composite
 section of detector meters. "The
 power transmitted seems to be
 gross electric current conveyed
 by metallic cables. It is generated
 through a crudely governed
 process of continuous atomic
 fission."
 
 
 
 Farrell, himself appalled by
 the information, still found himself
 able to chuckle at Stryker's
 bellow of consternation.
 
 " Continuous fission? Good
 God, only madmen would deliberately
 run a risk like that!"
 
 Farrell prodded him with
 cheerful malice. "Why say mad men ? Maybe they're humanoid
 aliens who thrive on hard radiation
 and look on the danger of
 being blown to hell in the middle
 of the night as a satisfactory
 risk."
 
 "They're not alien," Gibson
 said positively. "Their architecture
 is Terran, and so is their
 ship. The ship is incredibly
 primitive, though; those batteries
 of tubes at either end—"
 
 "Are thrust reaction jets,"
 Stryker finished in an awed
 voice. "Primitive isn't the word,
 Gib—the thing is prehistoric!
 Rocket propulsion hasn't been
 used in spacecraft since—how
 long, Xav?"
 
 Xavier supplied the information
 with mechanical infallibility.
"Since the year 2100 when
 the Ringwave propulsion-communication
 principle was discovered.
 That principle has served
 men since."
 
 Farrell stared in blank disbelief
 at the anomalous craft on
 the screen. Primitive, as Stryker
 had said, was not the word
 for it: clumsily ovoid, studded
 with torpedo domes and turrets
 and bristling at either end with
 propulsion tubes, it lay at the
 center of its square like a rusted
 relic of a past largely destroyed
 and all but forgotten. What a
 magnificent disregard its builders
 must have had, he thought,
 for their lives and the genetic
 purity of their posterity! The
 sullen atomic fires banked in
 that oxidizing hulk—
 
 Stryker said plaintively, "If
 you're right, Gib, then we're
 more in the dark than ever. How
 could a Terran-built ship eleven
 hundred years old get here ?"
 
 Gibson, absorbed in his chess-player's
 contemplation of alternatives,
 seemed hardly to hear
 him.
 
 "Logic or not-logic," Gibson
 said. "If it's a Terran artifact,
 we can discover the reason for
 its presence. If not—"
 
 " Any problem posed by one
 group of human beings ," Stryker
 quoted his Handbook, " can be
 resolved by any other group, regardless
 of ideology or conditioning,
 because the basic
 perceptive abilities of both must
 be the same through identical
 heredity ."
 
 "If it's an imitation, and this
 is another Hymenop experiment
 in condition ecology, then we're
 stumped to begin with," Gibson
 finished. "Because we're not
 equipped to evaluate the psychology
 of alien motivation. We've
 got to determine first which case
 applies here."
 
 
 
 He waited for Farrell's expected
 irony, and when the
 navigator forestalled him by remaining
 grimly quiet, continued.
 
 "The obvious premise is that
 a Terran ship must have been
 built by Terrans. Question: Was
 it flown here, or built here?"
 
 "It couldn't have been built
 here," Stryker said. "Alphard
 Six was surveyed just before the
 Bees took over in 3025, and there
 was nothing of the sort here
 then. It couldn't have been built
 during the two and a quarter
 centuries since; it's obviously
 much older than that. It was
 flown here."
 
 "We progress," Farrell said
 dryly. "Now if you'll tell us how ,
 we're ready to move."
 
 "I think the ship was built on
 Terra during the Twenty-second
 Century," Gibson said calmly.
"The atomic wars during that
 period destroyed practically all
 historical records along with the
 technology of the time, but I've
 read well-authenticated reports
 of atomic-driven ships leaving
 Terra before then for the nearer
 stars. The human race climbed
 out of its pit again during the
 Twenty-third Century and developed
 the technology that gave
 us the Ringwave. Certainly no
 atomic-powered ships were built
 after the wars—our records are
 complete from that time."
 
 Farrell shook his head at the
 inference. "I've read any number
 of fanciful romances on the
 theme, Gib, but it won't stand
 up in practice. No shipboard society
 could last through a thousand-year
 space voyage. It's a
 physical and psychological impossibility.
 There's got to be
 some other explanation."
 
 
 
 Gibson shrugged. "We can
 only eliminate the least likely
 alternatives and accept the simplest
 one remaining."
 
 "Then we can eliminate this
 one now," Farrell said flatly. "It
 entails a thousand-year voyage,
 which is an impossibility for any
 gross reaction drive; the application
 of suspended animation
 or longevity or a successive-generation
 program, and a final
 penetration of Hymenop-occupied
 space to set up a colony under
 the very antennae of the
 Bees. Longevity wasn't developed
 until around the year 3000—Lee
 here was one of the first to
 profit by it, if you remember—and
 suspended animation is still
 to come. So there's one theory
 you can forget."
 
 "Arthur's right," Stryker said
 reluctantly. "An atomic-powered
 ship couldn't have made such a
 trip, Gib. And such a lineal-descendant
 project couldn't have
 lasted through forty generations,
 speculative fiction to the
 contrary—the later generations
 would have been too far removed
 in ideology and intent from
 their ancestors. They'd have
 adapted to shipboard life as the
 norm. They'd have atrophied
 physically, perhaps even have
 mutated—"
 
 "And they'd never have
 fought past the Bees during the
 Hymenop invasion and occupation,"
 Farrell finished triumphantly.
"The Bees had better
 detection equipment than we
 had. They'd have picked this
 ship up long before it reached
 Alphard Six."
 
 "But the ship wasn't here in
3000," Gibson said, "and it is
 now. Therefore it must have arrived
 at some time during the
 two hundred years of Hymenop
 occupation and evacuation."
 
 Farrell, tangled in contradictions,
 swore bitterly. "But
 why should the Bees let them
 through? The three domes on
 Five are over two hundred years
 old, which means that the Bees
 were here before the ship came.
 Why didn't they blast it or enslave
 its crew?"
 
 "We haven't touched on all the
 possibilities," Gibson reminded
 him. "We haven't even established
 yet that these people were
 never under Hymenop control.
 Precedent won't hold always, and
 there's no predicting nor evaluating
 the motives of an alien
 race. We never understood the
 Hymenops because there's no
 common ground of logic between
 us. Why try to interpret their
 intentions now?"
 
 Farrell threw up his hands in
 disgust. "Next you'll say this is
 an ancient Terran expedition
 that actually succeeded! There's
 only one way to answer the
 questions we've raised, and
 that's to go down and see for
 ourselves. Ready, Xav?"
 
 
 
 But uncertainty nagged uneasily
 at him when Farrell found
 himself alone in the helihopper
 with the forest flowing beneath
 like a leafy river and Xavier's
 scouter disappearing bulletlike
 into the dusk ahead.
 
 We never found a colony so
 advanced, Farrell thought. Suppose
 this is a Hymenop experiment
 that really paid off? The
 Bees did some weird and wonderful
 things with human
 guinea pigs—what if they've
 created the ultimate booby trap
 here, and primed it with conditioned
 myrmidons in our own
 form?
 
 Suppose, he thought—and derided
 himself for thinking it—one
 of those suicidal old interstellar
 ventures did succeed?
 
 Xavier's voice, a mellow
 drone from the helihopper's
 Ringwave-powered visicom, cut
 sharply into his musing. "The
 ship has discovered the scouter
 and is training an electronic
 beam upon it. My instruments
 record an electromagnetic vibration
 pattern of low power but
 rapidly varying frequency. The
 operation seems pointless."
 
 Stryker's voice followed, querulous
 with worry: "I'd better
 pull Xav back. It may be something
 lethal."
 
 "Don't," Gibson's baritone advised.
 Surprisingly, there was
 excitement in the engineer's
 voice. "I think they're trying to
 communicate with us."
 
 Farrell was on the point of
 demanding acidly to know how
 one went about communicating
 by means of a fluctuating electric
 field when the unexpected
 cessation of forest diverted his
 attention. The helihopper scudded
 over a cultivated area
 of considerable extent, fields
 stretching below in a vague random
 checkerboard of lighter and
 darker earth, an undefined cluster
 of buildings at their center.
 There was a central bonfire that
 burned like a wild red eye
 against the lower gloom, and in
 its plunging ruddy glow he made
 out an urgent scurrying of shadowy
 figures.
 
 "I'm passing over a hamlet,"
 Farrell reported. "The one nearest
 the city, I think. There's
 something odd going on
 down—"
 
 Catastrophe struck so suddenly
 that he was caught completely
 unprepared. The helihopper's
 flimsy carriage bucked and
 crumpled. There was a blinding
 flare of electric discharge, a
 pungent stink of ozone and a
 stunning shock that flung him
 headlong into darkness.
 
 
 
 He awoke slowly with a brutal
 headache and a conviction of
 nightmare heightened by the
 outlandish tone of his surroundings.
 He lay on a narrow bed in
 a whitely antiseptic infirmary,
 an oblong metal cell cluttered
 with a grimly utilitarian array
 of tables and lockers and chests.
 The lighting was harsh and
 overbright and the air hung
 thick with pungent unfamiliar
 chemical odors. From somewhere,
 far off yet at the same
 time as near as the bulkhead
 above him, came the unceasing
 drone of machinery.
 
 Farrell sat up, groaning,
 when full consciousness made his
 position clear. He had been shot
 down by God knew what sort of
 devastating unorthodox weapon
 and was a prisoner in the
 grounded ship.
 
 At his rising, a white-smocked
 fat man with anachronistic spectacles
 and close-cropped gray
 hair came into the room, moving
 with the professional assurance
 of a medic. The man stopped
 short at Farrell's stare and
 spoke; his words were utterly
 unintelligible, but his gesture
 was unmistakable.
 
 Farrell followed him dumbly
 out of the infirmary and down
 a bare corridor whose metal
 floor rang coldly underfoot. An
 open port near the corridor's end
 relieved the blankness of wall
 and let in a flood of reddish Alphardian
 sunlight; Farrell slowed
 to look out, wondering how
 long he had lain unconscious,
 and felt panic knife at him
 when he saw Xavier's scouter lying,
 port open and undefended,
 on the square outside.
 
 The mechanical had been as
 easily taken as himself, then.
 Stryker and Gibson, for all their
 professional caution, would fare
 no better—they could not have
 overlooked the capture of Farrell
 and Xavier, and when they
 tried as a matter of course to
 rescue them the Marco would be
 struck down in turn by the same
 weapon.
 
 The fat medic turned and
 said something urgent in his
 unintelligible tongue. Farrell,
 dazed by the enormity of what
 had happened, followed without
 protest into an intersecting way
 that led through a bewildering
 succession of storage rooms and
 hydroponics gardens, through a
 small gymnasium fitted with
 physical training equipment in
 graduated sizes and finally into
 a soundproofed place that could
 have been nothing but a nursery.
 
 The implication behind its
 presence stopped Farrell short.
 
 "A creche ," he said, stunned.
 He had a wild vision of endless
 generations of children growing
 up in this dim and stuffy room,
 to be taught from their first
 toddling steps the functions they
 must fulfill before the venture
 of which they were a part could
 be consummated.
 
 One of those old ventures had succeeded, he thought, and was
 awed by the daring of that thousand-year
 odyssey. The realization
 left him more alarmed than
 before—for what technical marvels
 might not an isolated group
 of such dogged specialists have
 developed during a millennium
 of application?
 
 Such a weapon as had brought
 down the helihopper and scouter
 was patently beyond reach of his
 own latter-day technology. Perhaps,
 he thought, its possession
 explained the presence of these
 people here in the first stronghold
 of the Hymenops; perhaps
 they had even fought and defeated
 the Bees on their own invaded
 ground.
 
 He followed his white-smocked
 guide through a power room
 where great crude generators
 whirred ponderously, pouring
 out gross electric current into
 arm-thick cables. They were
 nearing the bow of the ship
 when they passed by another
 open port and Farrell, glancing
 out over the lowered rampway,
 saw that his fears for Stryker
 and Gibson had been well
 grounded.
 
 The Marco Four , ports open,
 lay grounded outside.
 
 
 
 Farrell could not have said,
 later, whether his next move
 was planned or reflexive. The
 whole desperate issue seemed to
 hang suspended for a breathless
 moment upon a hair-fine edge of
 decision, and in that instant he
 made his bid.
 
 Without pausing in his stride
 he sprang out and through the
 port and down the steep plane
 of the ramp. The rough stone
 pavement of the square drummed
 underfoot; sore muscles
 tore at him, and weakness was
 like a weight about his neck. He
 expected momentarily to be
 blasted out of existence.
 
 He reached the Marco Four with the startled shouts of his
 guide ringing unintelligibly in
 his ears. The port yawned; he
 plunged inside and stabbed at
 controls without waiting to seat
 himself. The ports swung shut.
 The ship darted up under his
 manipulation and arrowed into
 space with an acceleration that
 sprung his knees and made his
 vision swim blackly.
 
 He was so weak with strain
 and with the success of his coup
 that he all but fainted when
 Stryker, his scanty hair tousled
 and his fat face comical with bewilderment,
 stumbled out of his
 sleeping cubicle and bellowed at
 him.
 
 "What the hell are you doing,
 Arthur? Take us down!"
 
 Farrell gaped at him, speechless.
 
 Stryker lumbered past him
 and took the controls, spiraling
 the Marco Four down. Men
 swarmed outside the ports when
 the Reclamations craft settled
 gently to the square again. Gibson
 and Xavier reached the ship
 first; Gibson came inside quickly,
 leaving the mechanical outside
 making patient explanations
 to an excited group of Alphardians.
 
 Gibson put a reassuring hand
 on Farrell's arm. "It's all right,
 Arthur. There's no trouble."
 
 Farrell said dumbly, "I don't
 understand. They didn't shoot
 you and Xav down too?"
 
 It was Gibson's turn to stare.
 
 "No one shot you down! These
 people are primitive enough to
 use metallic power lines to
 carry electricity to their hamlets,
 an anachronism you forgot
 last night. You piloted the helihopper
 into one of those lines,
 and the crash put you out for
 the rest of the night and most
 of today. These Alphardians are
 friendly, so desperately happy to
 be found again that it's really
 pathetic."
 
 " Friendly? That torpedo—"
 
 "It wasn't a torpedo at all,"
 Stryker put in. Understanding
 of the error under which Farrell
 had labored erased his
 earlier irritation, and he chuckled
 commiseratingly. "They had
 one small boat left for emergency
 missions, and sent it up to
 contact us in the fear that we
 might overlook their settlement
 and move on. The boat was
 atomic powered, and our shield
 screens set off its engines."
 
 Farrell dropped into a chair at
 the chart table, limp with reaction.
 He was suddenly exhausted,
 and his head ached dully.
 
 "We cracked the communications
 problem early last night,"
 Gibson said. "These people use
 an ancient system of electromagnetic
 wave propagation called
 frequency modulation, and once
 Lee and I rigged up a suitable
 transceiver the rest was simple.
 Both Xav and I recognized the
 old language; the natives reported
 your accident, and we came
 down at once."
 
 "They really came from Terra?
 They lived through a thousand
 years of flight?"
 
 "The ship left Terra for
 Sirius in 2171," Gibson said.
"But not with these people
 aboard, or their ancestors. That
 expedition perished after less
 than a light-year when its
 hydroponics system failed. The
 Hymenops found the ship derelict
 when they invaded us, and
 brought it to Alphard Six in
 what was probably their first experiment
 with human subjects.
 The ship's log shows clearly
 what happened to the original
 complement. The rest is deducible
 from the situation here."
 
 Farrell put his hands to his
 temples and groaned. "The crash
 must have scrambled my wits.
 Gib, where did they come from?"
 
 "From one of the first peripheral
 colonies conquered by the
 Bees," Gibson said patiently.
"The Hymenops were long-range
 planners, remember, and masters
 of hypnotic conditioning. They
 stocked the ship with a captive
 crew of Terrans conditioned to
 believe themselves descendants
 of the original crew, and
 grounded it here in disabled
 condition. They left for Alphard
 Five then, to watch developments.
 
 "Succeeding generations of
 colonists grew up accepting the
 fact that their ship had missed
 Sirius and made planetfall here—they
 still don't know where
 they really are—by luck. They
 never knew about the Hymenops,
 and they've struggled along
 with an inadequate technology in
 the hope that a later expedition
 would find them. They found the
 truth hard to take, but they're
 eager to enjoy the fruits of Terran
 assimilation."
 
 Stryker, grinning, brought
 Farrell a frosted drink that tinkled
 invitingly. "An unusually
 fortunate ending to a Hymenop
 experiment," he said. "These
 people progressed normally because
 they've been let alone. Reorienting
 them will be a simple
 matter; they'll be properly spoiled
 colonists within another generation."
 
 Farrell sipped his drink appreciatively.
 
 "But I don't see why the Bees
 should go to such trouble to deceive
 these people. Why did they
 sit back and let them grow as
 they pleased, Gib? It doesn't
 make sense!"
 
 "But it does, for once," Gibson
 said. "The Bees set up this
 colony as a control unit to study
 the species they were invading,
 and they had to give their
 specimens a normal—if obsolete—background
 in order to determine
 their capabilities. The fact
 that their experiment didn't tell
 them what they wanted to know
 may have had a direct bearing
 on their decision to pull out."
 
 Farrell shook his head. "It's
 a reverse application, isn't it of
 the old saw about Terrans being
 incapable of understanding an
 alien culture?"
 
 "Of course," said Gibson, surprised.
"It's obvious enough,
 surely—hard as they tried, the
 Bees never understood us
 either."
 
 
 THE END
What is the plot of the story?
113
f1621988b5c4414599cc4db98a12e139
The story is set in the fourth millennium, and humans have invented a technology - the Ringwave propulsion-communication principle -  that allows them to explore the neighboring cosmic systems. In the past, they were invaded by an alien species called Hymenops, or the Bees, who enslaved Terrans, and tried to colonize other planets but unexpectedly left years later. The crew members of the spaceship Marco Four are on a mission looking for the slave colonies that were abandoned by the Bees. Farrell, the navigator, is arguing with captain Stryker, Gibson - an engineer - and Xavier, the ship’s mechanic, and is trying to convince them to land on Alphard Six and claiming the planet is not inhabited. Stryker reminds him about the importance of vigilance on unexplored territories and tells Farrell to find a reconnaissance spiral. Something resembling an atomic torpedo explodes near the ship, rocking it. Later, the crew starts discussing who can possibly live on Alphard Six. They know that in the year 3000, there was no one on the planet. The ones who attacked them might be the Hymenopes or some Terrans enslaved by them, or even an unknown alien culture. The screen shows a town with a thousand buildings and a prehistoric ship with rocket propulsion. This ship seems to be eleven hundred years old, which is puzzling. This atomic-powered spaceship neither could’ve been constructed here nor could it have successfully traveled for hundreds of years. The area around Alphard Six was guarded by the Bees for several hundred years. So, it would be impossible for this ancient Terran ship to land on the planet without being detected by them. Farrell interrupts the discussion and suggests they go down and look. He gets on a helihopper, and Xavier quickly disappears in his scouter. The two other crew members left on the ship say that they just detected an electromagnetic vibration. Farrell notices a bonfire near the town. He is ready to report it when his helihopper suddenly jerks, a flare of electric discharge blinds him, and Farrell loses consciousness. He wakes up in an infirmary. A doctor speaks in unintelligible words and gestures to Farrell to follow him. While walking through the corridors of the ancient ship, he notices Xavier’s scouter, and later the Marco Four. Shocked, Farrell rapidly plunges inside the spaceship, and it darts up when suddenly Stryker appears from the sleeping cubicle and orders him to fly back. Gibson explains that Farrell piloted his helihopper into power lines and crashed. The Alphardians tried to communicate with the crew using an electromagnetic wave language and never attacked them. The Bees made the ancestors of these people believe that they were the descendants of an Earth expedition that perished a thousand years ago. The Alphardians don’t even know the Hymenops. Apparently, the Bees wanted to monitor the human species in a natural habitat. But they never understood human logic and after all, left all their colonies. 
107
4fbb81e1463b4d8b898f1a352757f914
Navigator Arthur Farrell is considered the youngest and most impulsive of the three-man Terran Reclamations crew. The crew has gone to the Alphard Six, which has a cool green disk. The other members of the crew are Stryker, Gibson, and Xavier. Stryker berates Farrell and begins citing the Reclamations Handbook about the rules regarding unreclaimed worlds. Farrell argues that it was never colonized, while Gibson looks up from his chess game and says there is no point in taking a chance of not encountering any of the Hymenops. Farrell says that they will never see a Hymenop, but Stryker says that he fought them for the better half of the century and still does not understand how they behave. They decide to find a reconnaissance spiral, despite Farrell grumbling. They examine whether anything is damaged on the Marco Four, after an explosion, and find that the only component that requires fixing is the Zero Transfer computer. Gibson explains that they cannot be Hymenops since the Bees put their faith in Ringwave energy fields. Although Stryker proposes colonists migrating from somewhere else, Gibson explains that it is impossible for the human slaves of the Hymenops to develop interstellar travel in four generations. Farrell volunteers to go down for the field work; Xavier announces that the planet is uninhabited except for a large island. There is a central city with a thousand buildings, and Farrell is relieved they are human. The power the people use runs on continuous fission, which surprises everyone. It is quite surprising for the crew to see an eleven-hundred year old Terran ship land on the planet. Stryker explains to Farrell that it had to be flown here because there are no materials on Alphard Six to create it. Gibson believes that the ship was built during the Twenty-second century, even though the atomic wars destroyed all historical records. Farrell decides that the only way is to go down and see for themselves. Xavier picks up an electromagnetic vibration pattern, and Farrell reports that he is passing over a hamlet nearest to the city. Suddenly, he is hit by an electric discharge and wakes up in an infirmary. A man comes and takes him out, despite speaking a different language, and he realizes that one of the old ventures had actually succeeded. He sees that the Marco Four has been grounded too and runs to the ship before pushing some controls to take off again. Stryker brings the ship down again, and Farrell is shocked because he thought they were shot down. It turns out that the Alphardians had been trying to send a distress signal. Gibson further explains that they had come from one of the first Bee colonies and were led to believe that their ship missed Sirius; however, the colonists are excited to enjoy assimilation. Although the Bees tried to set up the experiment to understand humans, the invaders failed at truly understanding them. 
109
5c6f15d5c078431794e9db2260acd88f
This story follows a Terran Reclamations crew aboard the Marco Four as they search for Terran colonies previously enslaved and since abandoned by the Bees. As they travel around, a sudden atomic fire hits the ship and the crew hurry to figure out where it had come from and who potentially caused it. Debating between Hymenops, resurgent colonists,  trans-Alphardians, or even a joint hallucination, the crew decide to investigate further. Xavier, the mechanical, surveys the planet and finds the landscape to be Terran, though with primitive technology at best. These findings leave them more confused than before, as they then debate how an eleven hundred years old ship could be there. 

Deciding then to investigate first-hand and see, Farrell goes into the helihopper and enters the colony. Just as Gibson encourages to go forward as it seems like the colony is communicating with them, Farrell crashes into an electrical line and falls unconscious. As he wakes up, Farrell is met by an unfamiliar medic and follows him out to a well-formed colony, marvelling at the presumed success of old ventures. However, he panics when he sees the Marco Four grounded and presumes his crewmates are in danger, and so he hurriedly rushes onboard and puts it in flight. Stryker stumbles out and takes them back down as Gibson quickly explains to Farrell the situation. It turns out that there is no danger at hand - the crash that landed Farrell unconscious was just an electrical line for the colony's hamlets. The colony, the Alphardians, are friendly and excited to be found. Although using Terran architecture and technology, these Alphardians were experimental human subjects by the Hymenops and observed by the Bees. The Bees chose to abandon their control colony when the Alphardians didn't show much - much like the old tale of Terrans not understanding alien culture either. In the end, the Alphardians are excited to assimilate into Terran colonists. 
112
b68da9c7b80b4bf899265f4767319b25
A Terran Reclamation crew arrives Alphard Six to find Terran colonies enslaved and abandoned by the Bees, or Hymenops, an alien species who retreated a hundred years ago. When the youngest navigator, Farrell, attempts to planetfall without scouting the planet, the captain, Stryker, reminds him of the possible danger of the planet and the necessity of reconnaissance. After arguing with other crew members, Farrell finally accepts to scout the unobserved world first. However, they are suddenly attacked by a thing rising from the land below. After the examination, Gibson, the engineer, announces that the only damage is Zero Interval Transfer Computer, used to operate the Transfer jump in space. The repairing time takes a couple of hours. Stryker worries about the possible attack during the repairing time, so they dispute the potential situation of the planet, and none of the hypotheses, such as the Hymenops’ colorizations, Earthmen’s ancient colonization, or the resurgent Terran colonization, hold based on technological development. Stryker concludes that they have to investigate the land themselves. Farrell volunteers to be the one. They see the ground through magnoscanner, finding a damaged spaceship that served as a power supply with the prehistoric technology, namely atomic fission. According to Gibson, the atomic-powered ship was no longer built after the atomic wars in the twenty-second century; the damaged ship must either be flown or be built on the planet. His hypothesis is rejected by Stryker and Farrell based on the impossibility of the long-range travel capability of the atomic-powered spaceship. They continue their endless debate until Farrell takes the helihopper to investigate. Xavier, the mechanic, uses his drone to scout ahead of Farrell, but soon the scouter is detected by the people on the planet. They try to communicate with them with the electron beam. When Farrell reaches the end of the forest, entering the fields, he is suddenly struck and passes out. When he wakes up, he is in an infirmary; an anachronistic man comes in. He talks and gestures unintelligibly, but Farrell follows him out, seeing Xavier’s scouter with port open. When Farrell follows the man, he sees Marco Four landed with the port open. Held by the guess that these people may possess higher technology and capture all of them, Farrell rushes into Marco Four, closes the port, and rises. Stryker appears and comes to him with bewilderment, driving the spaceship to land again. It is later explained that Hymenops take these people as the experimental object. The damaged ship was an expedition ship, which failed its duty. Hymenops found its derelict during their invasion and colonization of Terran planets. They put these people on the planet, made them believe that their ancestors were the crewmembers of the damaged ship, and conducted this experiment as a control group, compared to other experiments on other planets.
Who is Farrell and what happens to him throughout the story?
113
f1621988b5c4414599cc4db98a12e139
Arthur Farrell is the ship’s navigator, the youngest and most impulsive member of the crew. He tries to convince captain Stryker to land on Alphard Six, claiming that it cannot be inhabited. Stryker doesn’t agree and orders Farrell to find a reconnaissance spiral. After the torpedo explodes near the ship, they all discuss who the attackers could be. Farrell points out that there was no sign of life on Alphard Six around the year 3000, so the inhabitants appeared after this. Farrell agrees to be sent to the planet’s surface and explore. They continue talking and soon see an ancient ship in the center of the planet’s town. Farrell is quick to state that it couldn’t have come from Earth because it would've taken hundreds of years to travel here, and the ship’s ancient technology is not effective enough for such a voyage. Irritated, he interrupts the discussion and suggests he and Xavier go down and see who the inhabitants are. Farrell flies in a helihopper and notices a bonfire near the town. He starts reporting when the helihopper’s carriage crumples, an electric discharge blinds Farrell, and he momentarily loses consciousness. Later, he wakes up with a brutal headache in an infirmary inside the ancient ship. A medic with anachronistic spectacles and gray hair uses unintelligible words and gestures to Farrell to follow him. They pass several open ports, and he sees Xavier’s scouter and later the Marco Four. Shocked, he runs to the spaceship and takes off, when unexpectedly Stryker appears near him, ordering him to take the ship down. Soon Gibson explains that Farrell piloted into metallic power lines, and the crash put him out for almost a day. These Alphardians are incredibly friendly. The object the crew considered a torpedo was actually an emergency boat the inhabitants sent to the spaceship to make sure the people on board noticed their colony. Their spaceship’s technology set off the atomic engines of the boat, making it explode. Gibson and Xavier recognized an old language of frequency modulation the night before, heard about Farrell’s crash, and landed the ship to help. It turns out that the expedition that left Terra for Sirius in 2171 perished soon, and the Bees brought the spacecraft here. They also brought some people from their peripheral colonies conditioned to believe themselves descendants of the expedition. They have been let alone. Farrell understands that the Bees were trying to monitor this group and understand humans’ logic, but they never did. 


107
4fbb81e1463b4d8b898f1a352757f914
Navigator Arthur Farrell is part of the Terran Reclamations crew on the Marco Four ship. He is part of a three-man crew with a mechanical named Xavier. Farrell is also considered to be the youngest and most impulsive member of the crew; he also jumps to conclusions quickly and often gets corrected by either Stryker or Gibson. At the beginning of the story, Farrell is excited to go to the Alphard Six and almost forgets about the reconnaissance spiral. He tries to prove that the planet was never unreclaimed, even though the other two members are much more cautious in case there are traces left behind by the Bees. When they discuss what could be on the planet, Farrell continues to argue that the Bees never colonized Six. He also says that they might have all been the victims of a joint hallucination. He later volunteers to do the field work with Xavier, as he is sick of staying on the ship with either of the other two men. Farrell later goes down on the helihopper and goes past a hamlet when a blinding flare of electric discharge knocks him out. He later wakes up in an infirmary and believes he was taken by the enemy. However, as the medic leads him out, he realizes that these people are a result of one of the old ventures. Farrell mistakenly believes that the Marco Four is grounded too, which is why he runs to the ship and pushes a few buttons to take off. Later, however, he is reprimanded for his actions and explained that the people here mean no harm. 
109
5c6f15d5c078431794e9db2260acd88f
Arthur Farrell is the navigator and the youngest in the Terran Reclamations crew aboard the Marco Four. He is described to be impatient and impulsive but eager. Assigned to investigate the unknown colony they encounter, he disembarks into a helihopper to determine the planet's origins and inhabitants. As he begins to pull back, he passes over a hamlet and the helihopper suddenly crashes as Farrell falls unconscious. 

When he awakens, he finds himself in an infirmary and presumes himself to be prisoner. Following the medic out of the infirmary, Farrell marvels at the succession of rooms like the hydroponics garden and nursery that convinces him that previous old ventures on colonization had indeed succeeded. However, he is worried his fellow crewmates have been captured as well. When he sees the grounded ship, his fears comes true and he impulsively rushes aboard the ship to fly them away. Stopped short by Stryker, he soon finds out that no one was shot down by the colony. Instead, Farrell himself had flown into an electrical line and knocked himself out. In addition, the colony was friendly and eager to return to Terra with the crew, as they had been hoping for a while. 
112
b68da9c7b80b4bf899265f4767319b25
Farrell is the navigator on the spaceship Marco Four. He is the youngest and the most impulsive among the crew. He is also called Arthur. He attempts to planetfall the unobserved planet without scouting at first. He does not recognize the importance of the Reclamations Handbook. After getting struck, Farrell volunteers to investigate the planet and the primitive village. When they find out the damaged spaceship on the land uses continuous atomic fission to supply power, they are astonished. Farrell teases Stryker with the hypothesis that the people below are humanoid. Farrell uses the helihopper to investigate the land, with Xavier’s scouter scouting ahead of him. When he reaches the field, he is struck by the power lines used to transmit electricity in the city and passes out. He is in an infirmary room when he wakes up, and an anachronistic man comes in. Farrell thinks that all the other crew members are captive when he sees their spaceship land with the port open. As all the assumptions become more apparent in his head, he dashes to the Marco Four and rises it up. Disrupted by Stryker, he drives the spaceship down again. Farrell learns from Stryker that all their hypotheses are wrong, and these people are harmless and primitive as they had thought.
Who is Stryker and what are his characteristics?
113
f1621988b5c4414599cc4db98a12e139
Stryker is a crew member of the Marco Four, nominally captain of the group sent on a mission to locate the Terran slaves that were abandoned by the Bees. He seems experienced, calm, and disciplined, always following the Reclamation Handbook. Stryker has fought the Hymenops and spent a lot of time trying to understand their behavior. He values his team and doesn’t want to risk them or their ship in the search for the unknown and, for example, was ready to pull Xavier back when they just detected the waves, fearing it could be something lethal. He appreciates Farrell’s eagerness to find the new and enjoys bantering with him; he also respects other crew members, like Gibson and Xavier, and attentively listens to them when they discuss the origin of the atomic-powered ship. Stryker is intelligent enough to determine that this ancient ship couldn’t have been constructed on this planet - it was brought from somewhere else.

107
4fbb81e1463b4d8b898f1a352757f914
Lee Stryker is one of the other members of the Terran Reclamations crew. He is the one with experience fighting the Hymenops and always cautious of any remains of the enemy. Stryker is also very careful too, constantly citing lines from the Reclamations Handbook on the ship or to Farrell. He enjoys proving Farrell wrong as well, knowing how impulsive the younger member is in most situations. Stryker’s cautiousness does come in handy, as they do get into an explosion later on while in the atmosphere of the Alphard Six. Even though he is very cautious and knowledgeable, there are times where he becomes impatient out of curiosity. However, Stryker is a lot more reasonable than Farrell, rushing to land the ship again after Farrell starts it. He takes the time to explain to Farrell about their current situation as well. 
109
5c6f15d5c078431794e9db2260acd88f
Stryker is the captain of the Marco Four and the crew. He is described to be the most knowledgeable, not only in regard to the Reclamations Handbook but also first hand, as he had fought the Hymenops. Physically, he has a bare fringe and a fat face. 

He is intelligent as he leads the crew in theorising multiple explanations for the explosion as well as the potential inhabitants of the planet they encounter, as well as later deescalating Farrell's fear later on in the story. 
112
b68da9c7b80b4bf899265f4767319b25
Stryker is the captain of the Terran Reclamation crew Marco Four. He has a Reclamations Handbook that he constantly checks. He fought with the Bees before and learned that humans and the Bees, an alien species, would never understand each other. He is also called Lee by Farrell. He likes to tease Farrell, the youngest in the crew, to teach him the importance of abiding Reclamations Handbook for safety. He is tolerant and communicative that whenever Farrell acts impulsively or argues with other crew members, he will ease Farrell’s irritation and negotiate the solution among different ideas from the crew members. He is rational and practical that when all crew members theorize the possible situation after being struck, he concludes that they should investigate the land first-handly instead of denying every hypothesis.
Describe the setting of the story.
113
f1621988b5c4414599cc4db98a12e139
The story begins on a spaceship called the Marco Four. It is working on Ringwave generators and hangs inside the orbit of a dun-colored moon of the green planet Alphard Six. This ship has several tools, including a magnoscanner, the Zero Interval Transfer computer, and a screen that shows the surface of the planet. Then Farrell gets on a helihopper and soon crashes. The next day he wakes up in an infirmary with white walls, tables, lockers, chests, and some unfamiliar chemical odor.  It is one of the rooms of the ancient ship located in the central square of the town on Alphard Six. Farrell then walks down a bare corridor with a metal floor and rare open ports that let in a flood of reddish sunlight. He goes through storage rooms, hydroponics gardens, a gymnasium, a nursery, and a power room. He also notices the Marco Four parked near the square.

107
4fbb81e1463b4d8b898f1a352757f914
The story is initially set on the Marco Four, which is flying in the atmosphere of the Alphard Six. The ship has many controls, including a Ringwave generator, magnoscanner, and a Zero Interval Transfer computer. There is also an area for sleeping on the ship as well. Alphard Six itself is described to have a cool green disk and an airy jewel compared to the other areas. The planet itself is mostly uninhabited, but there is an island about three hundred miles in diameter that has signs of being habited. On the island, there are twenty-seven agrarian hamlets surrounded by cultivated fields. There is also a city with a thousand buildings and a central square. There is also a primitive spaceship there as well. When Farrell awakens later, he finds himself on a narrow bed in a whitely antiseptic infirmary. The infirmary is cluttered with tables, lockers, and chests full of material. When the medic guides him later, Farrell sees storage rooms, hydroponics gardens, a small gymnasium, and a nursery. 
109
5c6f15d5c078431794e9db2260acd88f
This story is set within Alphard Six, one of the many inner planets. These planets have been explored, colonzied, and abandoned by Terrans, the Hymenops, and the Bees. Alphard Six is not unreclaimed nor uninhabited and are home to the Alphardians, who reside in hamlets on the planet. 

This story also takes place on the ship, the Marco Four. It is where discussions between the crewmates occur as they debate the origins and potential inhabitants of Alphard Six. 
112
b68da9c7b80b4bf899265f4767319b25
The story happens on the planet Alphard Six. There are barren, desolated lands and swamplands on the planet. The planet looks uninhabitable except for a large island. Twenty-seven small farmhouses are surrounded by the cultivated fields on the island, surrounded by the forest. There is a city strewn with many buildings, the center of which is a square that rests a damaged spaceship of a size ten times larger than Marco Four. The damaged spaceship is used for the power supply in the city. Streets stretch out from the square in order.
What is the significance of the Ringwave technology?
113
f1621988b5c4414599cc4db98a12e139
The Ringwave technology allowed humans to explore the neighboring systems of planets, find new habitable territories, and colonize them. It also partially leads to the invasion of the Bees and allows humans to fight with them. The knowledge about the history of the Ringwave propulsion-communication principle, especially the fact that it was discovered in 2100, also helps the crew realize that the spaceship on planet Alphard Six is atomic-powered and thus prehistoric. It’s eleven hundred years old, also Terran, and was brought here from somewhere else. 

107
4fbb81e1463b4d8b898f1a352757f914
The Ringwave technology is what both the Bees and humans put their faith in. Ringwave energy is said to be very reliable, capable of long-range travel. Compared to any primitive technology before, the Ringwave and its Zero Interval Transfer principle was the only way for any instantaneous communication. It has been around since 2100, completely replacing rocket propulsion because the principles were so much more advanced. Even on the Marco Four, there is a Ringwave board and Ringwave generators used for travel through space. It is significant both for the humans and the Bees because both species rely on it for exploration. When the Bees colonized and conquered the humans, they relied on this technology. During the reclamation crew’s travels, they also used this technology to go to the different planets. 
109
5c6f15d5c078431794e9db2260acd88f
The Ringwave technology is significant because it is what propelled Terrans forward in their technological pursuits and is what helps advance their generation. It is what allows them to pursue long-range travel and interstellar flight as the crew go about their reclamation journey. Additionally, this is the point of similarity between the Terrans and the Bees as they both rely on Ringwave energy fields over missiles as the choice weapon. 

It is also significant because it highlights the difference between the Terrans and the Bees described and the Alphardians later discovered in the story. The Terrans and the Bees have access to such advanced technology that not only empowers their knowledge but their way of living, transportation, etc. In contrast, the Alphardians remain in the past with their comparatively archaic technologies and methods.
112
b68da9c7b80b4bf899265f4767319b25
Ringwave technology is an energy field used for the energy source of Macro Four, the Terran Reclamation spaceship. Both humans and the alien species, Hymenops or the Bees, possess the Ringwave technology. Before the invention of Ringwave’s propulsion-communication principle in 2100, humans used atomic fission and rocket propulsion. However, only the Zero Interval Transfer principle and the instantaneous communication of Ringwave technology can make long-range interstellar travel possible. Since it was invented, the atomic fission stage in technology has long been abandoned for its destructive power and incapability to sustain long-range space travel. Therefore, when the spaceship is attacked by a seemingly guided missile, which can only be equipped with atomic technology, the crew members deny all the hypotheses of the possible situation of the unobserved planet based on the technological development and the necessary time taken. Ringwave technology is significant in that the crew members theorize or assume the situation on the unobserved planet based on its existence and technological development.