"The experimentation had been designed to provide Kalechi's
master-biologists with models towards which to work. They proposed to
utilize the high mutability of their species to develop a Satog type
that would be the exact physical counterpart of a human being and could
live undetected on our worlds for the several years required to prepare
for the attack. They were amazingly successful. Each group of cells in
the long series which began moving towards an approximation of the human
pattern was developed only far enough to initiate the greatest favorable
shift possible at that point in its genetic structure. Cell generations
may have followed each other within hours in this manner, for over six
decades.
"The goal of the experiment, the last generation issued in Kalechi's
laboratories, were Satog copies of embryonic human beings. This stage
was comprised of approximately twelve hundred individuals who were now
permitted to mature and were schooled individually in complete isolation
by Satog teachers. They were indoctrinated with their purpose in
life ... the destruction of our populations ... and trained fully in
the manner of accomplishing it.
"Eventually, each was shipped to a Federation world. Cover identities as
obscure Federation citizens with backgrounds and records had been
prepared. The final instructions given these agents were simple. They
were to do nothing to draw attention to themselves, make no attempt to
contact one another. They were to create their stocks of lethal
organisms, provide methods of distribution and, on a selected day, three
Federation years away, release the floods of death."
* * * * *
The voice paused briefly, went on. "It is a sobering reflection that
this plan--an attack by a comparatively minor race with one specialized
skill on the greatest human civilization in history--might very well
have been appallingly successful. But the Great Satogs failed, in part
because of the very perfection of their work.
"From the human beings on board Ohl Cantrall's captured survey ship the
Satog scientists selected Cantrall himself and two female technicians on
his staff as the models to be followed in developing Kalechi's
pseudohumanity. In the twelve hundred members of the group sent to the
Federation ninety years later, these three identity-patterns are
recognizable. They appear in varying degrees of combination, but an
occasional individual will show only one or the other of the three
patterns involved.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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