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The Chief Surveyor of Belligerent
Potentials hovered, incomporeal,
above the data console with which he
communicated telepathically.
Before him stood an alien, native
to this small blue planet that orbited
a mediocre yellow star.  And two
upon the Chief Surveyor's staff stood by,
flanking the native, helping him to stand---
which, was at that moment, understandably
unsteady for him, having just received
a psychic anesthetic to relax
his fear of the unknown.  Docile, quiet,
he did not pose much of a challenge to
the Chief Surveyor's thorough mental probe
(not like some others surveyed recently).
"This is Omeros, who has had long life,"
the Chief Surveyor read to the console.
The local weather and the afternoon's
good meal parted out of the old one's mind.
Five senses it possessed, and that of sight
was more malfunctional than we could cure.
Beneath that, the imagination's trove,
a penetralia well stocked in this
one---opened without resistance.  In there,
the Chief Surveyor heard the natives' speech---
which we had not yet fully catalogued---
soar to their kind of spoken poetry.
The Chief Surveyor's strong telepathy
reviwed and understood the poetry
mostly through its expressive images.
An ancient city, old beyond known time,
boasted its claims to have been built by "gods";
with walls higher and thicker than in all
the cities of this small world.  To its shores,
a vast,belligerent, and vengeful fleet
landed, and armies disembarked from ships
that sailed the waters.  All of one species---
(on all the planet, only one could walk
upright)---allies and foes alike marked small
differences as dividers of first rank,
and obstacles to vital fellowship.
Then murderers and brawlers started to
attack and hack each other's flesh apart
with blades forged for intentions to destroy
and to avenge.  And this they called . . . Conquest,
imagined once more in the old one's mind,
Omeros of long life and poetry.
"Conquest," the Chief Surveyor rightly thought
broadcasting his conclusions to us all,
"is part of their genetic code, and, thus,
"each generation must be bound as this
"blind one is here bound to express it in
"thoughts to which his imagination clings.
"This instinct for warfare must never be
"admitted to inhabited space:  such
"a risk must never be allowed the least
"gainhold.  Return the specimen without
"further examination or delay.
"Too primitive for its own good, or ours,
"this species has nothing useful to give
"us.  Their technology and culture are
"even more backward than ours was when we
"commenced the Record Keeping.  They are so
"highly attracted to aggression and
"violence that they inflict on their allies
"as much as on their bitter enemies.
"We neither need nor want this sort of threat,
"ever about to detonate.  Therefore,
"as Chief Surveyor, I declare (with you
"as witnesses) a fully absolute,
"unmitigated quarantine of this entire
"star system, no communication or
"access of any sort for any sort
"of purpose, even in emergency."

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