The Final Encyclopedia

Chapter Sixty-one

Sometime in the hours of the night he exploded into wakefulness, sitting up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and getting to his feet in one swift, reflexive motion.

He stood utterly still in the darkness, his senses stretched to their limits, his eyes moving in steady search of the deeper shadows, his ears tensed for the faintest sound.

As he stood, his recently sleeping mind caught up with his already roused body. The hard electric surge of adrenaline was suddenly all through him. There was an aching and a heaviness in his left side and shoulder, as if he had slept with it twisted under him so long that a cutoff of circulation had numbed it. He waited.

Nothing stirred. The house was silent. Slowly, the ache and heaviness faded from his side and shoulder, and his tension relaxed. He got back into the bed. For a little while he lay awake, wondering. Then sleep took him once more.

But this time he dreamed; and in his dream he had come close at last to that dark tower which he had been approaching in his earlier dreams, across a rubbled plain that had become a wild land of rock and gullied earth.. Now, however, he was in a place of naked rock - a barren and blasted landscape, through which wound the narrow trail he was following.

He came at last to a small open space in which stood the ruins of a stone building with a broken cross on top of it. Just outside the shattered doorway of the building was a horse with a braided bridle, a saddle with a high cantle and armor on its chest and upper legs. It stood tethered to the lintel. When it caught sight of him, it threw up its head, struck its hooves on the broken paving beneath them and neighed three times, loudly. He went to it and mounted it; and rode on, for now the trail had widened. It led him along and between the rocks, sometimes by way of a scant ledge with sheer stone to his right, a sheer drop to his left; and then again between close rocky walls on either side. As he rode, the day, which was gloomy already, darkened even further until it was as if he rode at twilight.

What little illumination there was seemed to come from the sky in general. It was more light than starglow or moonglow, but not much more; and no trace of sun was visible, so that the dimness enclosed everything. Down among the rocks as he was, he could no longer see the tower, and the trail wound backward and forward, turning to every quarter of the compass. But he did hot doubt that he was still headed for the tower, for he could feel its presence, close now ahead of him.

He let the reins lie slack, because the horse seemed to be determined to carry him on, whether he controlled it or not; and in any case there was only one route to follow. From the first moment he had seen it at the chapel it had shown its eagerness to be ridden by him, and in this one direction.

Together, they continued a little ways; and then he saw, ahead and on his right, a break in the rock wall filled by a pair of locked gates, made of dark metal bars overgrown with green vines. Through the bars was revealed an area of stony wilderness in which nothing seemed to live or move; and pressed against the far side of the gates, gazing through them at Hal as he approached, was a slim figure that was Bleys Ahrens.

Hal checked his horse opposite the gate. It tossed its head impatiently against the pull of the bit, but stood; and for a moment the two men were face to face.

"So," said Bleys, in a remote voice, "we have the ghosts of those three tutors of yours, do we, raised again by you, and crying out against me for vengeance?"

"No," said Hal. "They were only creatures of history, just as you and I are. It's everyone who lives now, crying out to be freed from the chains that always held them."

"There's no freedom for them," said Bleys, still in the remote voice. "There never was."

"There is, and always has been," said Hal. "Open the gate, come through and let me show you."

"There is no gate," said Bleys. "No trail, no tower - everything but this land about us here is illusion. Face that, and learn to make the best of what is."

Hal shook his head.

"You're a fool," said Bleys, sadly. "A fool who hopes."

"We're both fools," said Hal. "But I don't hope, I know."

And he rode on, leaving Bleys standing, still leaning against the other side of the locked gate, until a turn in the narrow trail lost him to sight.

… Hal was roused again, this time by the chiming of a call signal, and opened his eyes to the phone screen at his bedside glowing white. Groggily he pushed himself to full awareness; and with that, suddenly, he was fully alert. No one except a few people at the Final Encyclopedia, such as Amid, Simon, Ajela and Tam, knew that he was here - or even had any reason to think that the estate was occupied.

He flung out an arm and punched on the phone. The screen cleared to show Ajela's face, tight with an unusual tension.

"Hal," she said. "Are you awake? They've tried to assassinate Rukh!"

"Where? When?" He pushed himself up on one elbow and saw himself screen-lit, imaged in a mirror across the room, the dark hair tumbled forward over his forehead, the strong-boned features below it scowling away the last numbness of slumber. The hard-muscled, naked torso above the bed covers was the brutal upper body of a stranger.

"A little over forty minutes ago, standard time," said Ajela. "The word is she's only wounded."

"Where is she?" Hal swung his legs over the edge of the bed, throwing the bed-covers back. "Will you get Simon down here to the estate for me right away?"

He got up and stepped past the screen, reaching for his clothes, from long automatic habit laid close and ready. He began dressing.

"We can't get traffic clearance down there for a courier ship," Ajela's voice came from the screen, behind him. "Not even for you, under Earth's regulations. An aircar'll pick you up and take you to Salt Lake - a shuttle'll be held there for you. It'll bring you straight to the Encyclopedia."

"No." He was almost dressed now. "I'll go directly to Rukh."

"You can't - where are you now?" Ajela said - and he moved back to sit on the bed and face the screen. "Oh, there you are! You can't just go to her. Her own people with her rushed her off and hid her after it happened. We don't know yet where they've taken her."

"I'd still be better on the scene, helping to find her."

"Be sensible." The tone of Ajela's voice was hard. "The most your being there could mean would be finding her a few minutes earlier. Besides, you've been out of touch with us and Earth, except for messages, for almost a year. You're needed here, to catch up. No one grudged you a day to make the trip you're on; but if it gets down to hard choices, your duty's here, not with Rukh."

He took a short breath.

"You're right," he said. "I need to talk to you all as soon as I can. The aircar's on its way?"

"Be with you in fifteen minutes. It'll land on that small lake behind your house."

"I'll be out there waiting," he said.

"Good." Ajela's voice softened. "It's all right, Hal. I know she'll be all right."

"Yes," said Hal, hearing his voice as if it came from someone else. "Of course. I'll be outside waiting for the aircar when it comes."

"Good; and we'll all be waiting for you when you get here. Come right to Tam's quarters."

"I will."

The screen went dark. He rose, finished dressing and went out.

In the open air behind the house, frost held the grounds and mountain areas beyond. In a cloudless, icy sky, the stars were large and seemed to hang low overhead. A nearly full moon was bright. The cold struck in at him, and his breath plumed straight upwards from his lips in the moonlight as he stood by the dark water's edge at the house end of the lake. After a while a dark shape scudded across the sky, occulting the stars, and dropped vertically to land on the water at the center of the lake. It turned toward him and slid across the watery surface to where he stood. The passenger door opened.

"Hal Mayne?" called a male voice from the lighted interior.

"Yes," Hal said, already inside the car. He dropped into a seat behind the driver as the door closed again and the vehicle leaped upward.

"We ought to make Salt Lake Pad in twenty minutes," said the driver, over his shoulder.

"Good," said Hal.

He sat back, letting his mind slip off into a calculation of the probabilities involved in Rukh's situation, using all of Donal's old abilities in that area. It was true enough, if she had not been killed outright and there was any decent sort of medical help available, she was almost sure to survive.

If.

He forced his mind to turn, coldly and dispassionately, to what it would mean to the confrontation with the Others if she had not lived; or had, but would no longer be able to lead Earth's people to an understanding of the cost of an Others' victory. The messages about her of which Ajela had just now spoken had, he knew, been painting a picture of strong successes, for Rukh and for those others she had recruited from Harmony and Association to speak elsewhere about Earth. He had been counting on those successes, taking them for granted.

If her help was now to be lost… it was true that he had fallen out of touch with the situation here on Earth, while he had been out scouting Bleys' military preparations on the Younger Worlds. What he had seen out there had not only confirmed his worst forebodings but driven the more immediate problem of controlling Earth from his mind. His losing touch with the Encyclopedia and Earth had, in a sense, been unavoidable - he could not be in two places at once - but its unavoidability did not alter the danger in which it had possibly put them all. The open contest with the Others here at humanity's birthplace was one in which lack of knowledge could guarantee defeat. Now that he knew what he knew, there was nothing for it but to move as swiftly as he could.

Ajela had been more right than she knew, in insisting he come back to the Encyclopedia just now. The breakpoint was upon them. How close upon them, he had not realized himself until the past evening. But the full implications of the realization was something to be explored later, when time was available. For now, even if Rukh had been no more than scratched, it was not. Every standard day now that he delayed in putting to work the information he had gained, more of its usefulness would leak away.

The shuttle, empty of passengers except himself, slid into the metal-noisy, bright-lit entry port of the Encyclopedia. Simon Graeme was waiting for him as he stepped out of the vehicle.

"I'm to take you to Tam Olyn's quarters," Simon said.

"I know."

They went quickly, bypassing the usual passage that led past the center of the Encyclopedia and stepping almost immediately through a side door into a quiet corridor that, by the internal magic of the Encyclopedia, led them only a dozen steps to Tam's entrance door.

Within, Tam's office-lounge was as Hal had remembered it, with the illusion of the little stream and the grove of trees. But both the temperature and humidity of the place were higher; and Tam, seated in one of the big chairs, looked further shrunken and stilled by the hard hand of age, into a final motionlessness in which there seemed to be no energy left for any movement or emotion.

Besides Tam, the office held Ajela and Jeamus Walters, the Engineering Chief of the Encyclopedia, standing facing Tam, one on either side of his chair. They turned together at the sound of the door-chimes; and both their faces lit up.

"Hal!" Ajela turned quickly to Tam. "You see? I told you. Here he is, now!"

She turned back to hug Hal as he reached her. But almost immediately she let him go again and pushed him toward the chair with the old man in it.

"Hal!" said Tam. His voice rustled like dry paper; and the fingers he put out for Hal to grip were leathery and cold. "It's good to have you here. I can leave it to you and Ajela, now."

"Don't," said Hal, brusquely. "I'm going to need you, for some time yet."

"Need me?" Tam's darkened eyes found a spark of life and his papery voice strengthened.

"That's right," Hal said. "I've got something specific to talk to you about as soon as there's a minute to spare."

He turned to Ajela.

"No more word on Rukh?" He saw the answer in her face before she could speak. "All right. What's the situation here that I need to catch up on?"

"Amid, Rourke di Facino and Jason Rowe were to be signalled the minute you landed," she answered. "They'll be here in minutes. Then we can go over the full situation. Meanwhile, sit down - "

"If you don't mind." The interruption by the short, broad Chief Engineer was soft-voiced, but insistent. "While you've got a minute to give me, Hal, I've got something wonderful to tell you. You know this phase-shift-derived communication system of the Exotics? The one by which they've been able to transmit simple message via color-code across interplanetary distances with at least forty-per cent effectiveness - "

"Jeamus," said Ajela, "you can tell Hal about that later."

"No," said Hal, watching the serious, round face under the thinning, blond hair, "if you can tell me in just a few words, go ahead, Jeamus."

"We didn't know about their method, here," said Jeamus; "because they were so good at keeping it secret; and they didn't appreciate the fact that here on the Encyclopedia we know more about collateral uses for the phase-shift than anyone else, including them. Also, they didn't have experience or the capacity to do the running calculations necessary to maintain a steady contact over light-years of distance; which is why they'd never succeeded in using it across interstellar space. After all, the problems involved were like trying to make a spaceship hop the distance from here to any one of the Younger Worlds in a single shift - "

"Jeamus," said Ajela, gently, "Hal said - 'a few words.' "

"Yes. Well," Jeamus went on. "The point is, we took what they already had; and in seven months here, we've come up with a system by which I can link with an echo transmitter on one of the Younger Worlds and give you this-moment, standard time, sight and sound of what the echo-transmitter's viewing. Do you understand, Hal? It's still got some problems, of course; but still - you can actually see and hear what's going on there with no time lag at all!"

"Good!" said Hal. "That's going to be a life-saver, Jeamus. It's something that'll be useful - "

"Useful?" Jeamus took an indignant step toward Hal. "It'll be a miracle! It's the greatest step forward since we put the shield wall around the Encyclopedia, itself. This is doing the impossible! I don't think you appreciate quite what - "

"I do appreciate it," Hal said. "And I realize what you and your people've done, Jeamus. But right now we're under emergency conditions when other things have priority. We'll talk abut this communication system in a little while. Now, what progress have you made on setting up that planet-sized shield-wall I asked you to work up?"

"Oh, that," said Jeamus. "It's all done. There's nothing to doing something like that, as I told you, except to make the necessary adjustments for the difference in size between the Encyclopedia and a planet. But this phase-shift communication - "

"Done?" said Hal. "In what sense done?"

"Well," there was an edge in Jeamus' voice, "I mean done - it's ready to go. I've even got the support ships equipped for it and their crews trained, ready to take station. It turned out we needed fifteen spaceships for a wall the size you wanted; and they've been set up. They'll take position around whatever world you want… and then it's done. Once the wall's up, they'll act as inner control stations to open irises, just as the Encyclopedia does - only of course larger and more of them - to the star around which the planet is orbiting, for energy input. They're parked now in close proximity orbit, staffed and ready to go, as soon as you tell them where. Not that they haven't got a pretty good idea where. They had to practice taking station, and everyone knows there's only one world larger than Earth that fits the specifications you gave me - "

The door to Tam's quarters chimed and opened. Nonne came in, moving swiftly in a dark brown robe that swirled about her feet as she strode forward. Her face was thinner and older-looking; and she was followed by both Jason Rowe and Rourke di Facino. Jason was wearing a thin, blue shirt and the sort of light-gray work slacks common in the unchanging, indoor climate of the Encyclopedia; clothes which had obviously never been fabricated on either Harmony or Association. In them, rather than his Harmony checked bush shirt and trousers, he looked, by contrast with Nonne, even smaller and younger than Hal remembered him. Rourke, however, was unchanged - still in his Dorsai wardrobe; as dapper, as crisp of manner and as unchanged as ever.

"Good," said Hal, turning from Jeamus. "I'm sorry to have been gone so long. Sit down and we'll talk. Jeamus, I'll catch up with you a little later."

Jeamus nodded dourly, and went out.

Ajela had pulled up one of the antique, overstuffed chairs. Nonne took the only other such one, turning it so that she faced Hal, as he pulled in a float from behind him and sat down next to Tam. Jason took another float, a little back from Nonne's and alongside it. He smiled at Hal and sat back in the float. Only Rourke continued to stand, behind and between Nonne and Jason. He folded his arms and looked keenly at Hal.

"I'm honored to see you all again," Hal said, looking about at them, "and my apologies for being out of touch with everyone this length of time. There wasn't any other way to do it; but I appreciate what it's been like for the rest of you. Why don't we go around the circle; and each of you tell me what you most want to talk to me about?"

Silence gave assent.

"Tam?"

"Ajela can tell you," said Tam hoarsely.

"Ajela?"

"The Final Encyclopedia's as ready as we're ever going to be, for whatever you've got in mind," said Ajela. "Earth's another matter. Rukh and her people have been working miracles I honestly didn't expect, myself. They've already raised a powerful wave of popular opinion all over the world that's ready to back us. But there's still a majority down there who're of a few thousand other sets of minds, or who're blithely ignoring the whole situation on the basis that whatever happens, Earth always comes out all right - by which I mean they simply assume there won't be changes in their backyards."

"What's your opinion of what's going to happen, now that Rukh's been at least hurt and maybe killed?" Hal said.

"Now…" Ajela hesitated and took a deep breath. "Now, until we can find out about her, and until word of how she is reaches the general Earth populace, it's anyone's guess."

She stopped speaking. Hal waited for a moment.

"Anything more?"

"No," said Ajela. "That's it. If you want anything more, you ask the questions."

Hal turned to Nonne.

"Nonne?"

"Both Mara and Kultis are prepared," she said gravely. Her hands smoothed the gown over her knees. "We've turned over to the Dorsai, the Encyclopedia here and to those Friendlies who oppose the Others, anything they said they needed and we had to give, as you told us to do. Those on both our worlds now are waiting for the next step - ready and waiting. It's up to you now to tell us what's next. Beyond that, as Ajela said, if you want details you've only to ask me."

Hal nodded; and was about to move his gaze to Jason when she spoke again.

"That doesn't mean there aren't a multitude of things I've got to discuss with you."

"I know," said Hal softly. "I'll get to that with all of you, in time. Jason?"

Jason shrugged.

"Those who oppose us still hold the cities and much of the countryside, on both Harmony and Association," he said. "But you don't need to be told that the Children of the Lord aren't ever going to stop fighting. There's little we can do for you, Hal, but go on fighting. I can tell you what we hold and where our strengths are; and if you can give me specific targets to aim at, we'll aim at them. As everybody else here says, beyond that you'll have to ask me questions - or let me ask you some."

Hal nodded again and looked finally at Rourke di Facino. But the spare, dandified little man answered before Hal could speak his name.

"We're ready to move," he said.

His arms were still folded. He stood, unaltered, as if the four words he had just brought forth were the sum total of anything that he could contribute to the conference.

"Thank you," answered Hal.

He looked at the others.

"Thank you all," he said. "To give you my own information in capsule form, Bleys has going what'll amount to an unending capability to attack us. He's got more than enough bases, more than enough materiel, more than enough people to arm and throw at all our capabilities for resistance. It's only a matter of a standard year or less; then he can begin that attack any time he wants; and, if pushed, he could begin it this moment. Being Bleys, I expect him to wait, until he's fully ready to move."

"I take it," said Nonne, "you want to force his hand, then?"

Hal looked soberly at her.

"We have to," he said.

"Then let me ask you a question," Nonne said. "I said there were a multitude of things I wanted to discuss with you. Let me ask you about one."

"Go ahead." Hal looked at her thoughtfully.

"We seem to be heading inevitably for the point," said Nonne, "where it's going to boil down to a personal duel between you and Bleys. For the sake of my people I have to ask you - do you really think you can win a duel like that? And if so, what makes you think so?"

"I'm not sure at all I can win," answered Hal. "There're no certainties in human history. As an Exotic, of all people, you should realize that - "

He checked himself. Ajela had just made a small sound in the back of her throat as if she had begun to speak and then changed her mind. He turned to her. She shook her head.

"No," she said. "Nothing." She was looking hard at Nonne.

"We've got to go with what advantages we've got," Hal went on, "and in most cases that means turning the advantages of the Others to our use. Did you ever read Cletus Graeme's work on strategy and tactics?"

"Cletus - ? Oh, that early Dorsai ancestor of Donal Graeme," said Nonne. "No. My field was recordist - character and its association with activity or occupation. Military maneuvers didn't impinge."

"I suppose not," said Hal. "Let me explain, then. Bleys is the most capable of the Others - you know that as well as I do. Otherwise he wouldn't be leading them. Someone more capable would have taken the leadership from him before this. So we've no choice who we've got to fight - we either defeat him, or lose. All I can tell you about my winning any duel with him is that if it ever comes down to that, I intend to be the winner; and as to why I think I might, it's because I've at least one advantage over him. My cause is better."

"Is that all?" Nonne's face was completely without expression.

"That can be all it takes," said Hal, gently. "A better cause can mean a better base for judgment; and better judgment is sometimes everything in a close contest."

"Forgive me," said Nonne, "if I boggle at the word everything."

"Think of two chess masters playing opposite each other," said Hal. "Neither one's going to make any obvious mistake. But either one can misjudge and make an obviously right move a little too early or a little too late. My job's going to be to try to avoid misjudging like that, while trying at the same time to lead Bleys into misjudgements. To do that, I'll be taking advantage of the difference in our characters and styles. Bleys has all the apparent advantages in this contest of ours. He can lead from strength. Earlier than anyone else among the Others, I think, he perceived that about the situation from the beginning. Certainly, his use of that fact has been the major factor in his being accepted by the rest of the Others as their most capable member. Since his recognition of this has worked for him so far I believe his perception of it is going to continue to lead him, as I said earlier, to wait until he's fully ready before he moves against us."

He broke off.

"Am I making my point clear to you?" he asked.

"Oh, yes," said Nonne.

"Good," answered Hal. "Now, then, it'd be bad strategy for him to change tactics that are winning for him without a strong reason, in any case. But I think we can count on this other factor in his thinking, as well. So, this leaves the initiative with us - which he will be aware of, but doesn't worry about. However, that same initiative can give us an advantage he may not suspect, if we can use it either to lull him into waiting too long to make a move, or startle him into moving too soon. It'll all depend on how good the plans are we've made."

"Then I take it you feel you've made good plans?"

He smiled gently at her.

"Yes," he said. "I do." He turned to Ajela. "I shouldn't have sent Jeamus away," he said. "Could you get him back here?"

Ajela nodded and reached to the control panel set in the arm of her chair. She touched one of the controls, murmuring to the receptor in the panel. Hal had turned back to the others.

"When you say you're ready to move," he said to Rourke, "do you mean just combat-ready adults, or all adults, or the whole population?"

"Nothing's ever unanimous," said Rourke, "and least of all, on the Dorsai, as I'd expect you to appreciate, Hal Mayne. A fair percentage of the population is going to stay. Some because age or sickness gives them no choice, some because they'd rather wait in the place they were born for whatever's going to happen to them. Nearly all of those of service age are ready to go."

"Yes," said Hal, nodding, "that was pretty much what I'd expected."

The voice of Jason sounded almost on the echo of his last word.

"Go where, Hal?" asked Jason.

"You didn't know?" Nonne looked across at the young Friendly.

"No," said Jason slowly, looking from her to Hal. "I didn't know. What was it I was supposed to have known?"

Instead of answering, Nonne looked at Hal.

"In a minute, Jason," Hal said. "Wait until Jeamus gets here."

They fell silent, looking at him. For a moment, as they sat waiting, Hal's mind went away from the immediate concerns.

He was aware of the four of them as individual puzzle-boxes, unique individual universes of thought and response, through which must be communicated what those they represented would need to understand. Once, as Donal, he would have seen them only as units, solid working parts of an overall solution to an overall problem. His greatest interest in them would have been that they should execute what he would direct them to do or say. Their objections would have been minor obstacles, to be laid flat by indisputable logic, until they were reduced to silence. The tag-end of some lines from the New Testament of the Bible, spoken by the Roman Centurion to Christ, came back to his mind, "I say to one, go, and he goeth and to another come, and he cometh…"

That sort of thinking could indeed produce a solution on the Donal level. But he had lived two lives since then to find something better, something more lasting. It had been his awareness of the need for that which had bothered Donal near the end of his time, as he stood, finally in charge of all the worlds and their workings, looking out at the stars beyond the known stars. He had seen the future clearly, then, and the fallacy in the idea that it could be won, even to a good end, by strength alone.

It had never been enough to make people dress neatly, walk soberly and obey the law. Only when the necessary improvement had at last been accepted by the inner self, when the law was no longer necessary, had any permanent development been accomplished. And if he could not show to these people here in this room with him now what would need to be done and achieved, then how was he going to show it to the billions of other individual human universes that made up the race?

It was not that they were not willing, any of them, to move to a higher and better land. But each of them, one by one, individually, in their billions, would have to make the trip by himself or herself when the time came; and for that, they would need to be able to see the way clear and the goal plain and desirable before them, so that each would move freely and on a personal determination to find it. Because the goal was not one that could be reached by intellectual decision alone. In the case of each person, it would require a combined effort of the conscious and the unconscious minds, of which only a handful of people in each past century had been capable. But now the way would be marked. Those who really desired to reach it could do so - they could all do so. Only, they would first have to see the marking of the way; and grow into a belief in their own abilities that would make them set their feet with utter confidence upon it.

And as yet that way was cloudy, even to him. He must go first, like a pioneer into new territory, charting as he went, making a road for the rest to follow - and that road began with these here, with Rukh and these others who had shown some desire to listen to him and follow him -

The chiming of the annunciator and the opening of the door to Tam's suite to let in Jeamus interrupted that train of thought.

"Come in, Jeamus," said Hal. "Take a seat if you like. I want to explain to these people what I asked you to design, in the way of a planetary shield-wall."

"Isn't this wasting valuable time?" Nonne broke in. "We all know he's been working on a shield-wall, and where it has to go - "

"I don't," said Jason, interrupting in turn. The eyes of the rest turned to him, for there was a strength and firmness to his voice that none of them, except Hal, had ever heard before. "Let's hear that explanation."

Jeamus had reached the circle by this time. His eyes rested for a second on the standing figure of Rourke, and he ignored the float that was within arm's reach of him.

"More than a standard year back," he said, "Hal asked me to look into making a phase-shift shield-wall, like the one we have around the Encyclopedia here to protect it, but large enough to protect a world. He specified a world slightly larger than Earth. We've done that. Once the ships to effect it are in proper position about that world, and in proper communication between themselves, it can be created instantly."

He looked at Hal.

"Do you want me to go into the principle of it and the details of its generation?"

"No," said Hal. "Just tell them what it'll do."

"What it'll do," said Jeamus to the rest of them, "is enclose what it surrounds in essentially a double shell which from either side will translate anything touching it into universal position - just as a phase-shift drive does. Only, in this case, the object won't be retranslated into a specific position again, the way a phase-drive does. I suppose all of you know that the phase-drive theory was developed from the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle - "

"Yes, yes," said Nonne. "We know all that. We know that the Principle says it's impossible to determine both the position and velocity of a particle with full accuracy; and the more accurate the one, the more uncertain the other. We know that in phase-drive terms this means, for all practical purposes, that in the instant of no-time in which velocity can be absolutely fixed, position becomes universal. We know this means anyone or anything trying to pass a shield-wall like the one around the Encyclopedia would be effectively spread out to infinity. We know that Hal Mayne plans to set up a garrison world with such a shield-wall around it - as no doubt Bleys Ahrens also does - and defend it with the Dorsai, and that world is to be our Exotic world of Mara - "

"No," said Hal.

Jeamus' head came around with a jerk. Ajela leaned forward, her face suddenly intent. Nonne stared at him.

"No?" she said. "No what? No, to which part of what I said?"

"It won't be Mara," said Hal gently. "It's to be right here - Earth."

"Earth!" burst out Jeamus. "But you told me larger than Earth! The dimensions you gave me - "

He broke off, suddenly.

"Of course!" he said wearily. "You wanted to enclose the Encyclopedia in it. Of course."

"Earth?" said Nonne.

"Earth," Hal repeated.

He touched the control panel on the edge of his float and one side of the room dissolved into a view of the Earth as seen from the orbit of the Encyclopedia. A great globe, blue swathed with white, it hung before them. Hal got up and walked toward it until he stood next to the view, seeming to the rest of them almost to stand over the imaged world, as someone might bend above something infinitely valuable.

"But this makes no sense!" said Nonne, almost to herself. "Hal!"

At the sound of his name he turned from the screen to face her across the small distance that now separated them.

"Hal," she said. "Earth? What's the point of defending Earth? What kind of a strong point can it make for you when more than half the people there don't care if the Others end up in control? You haven't even got their permission, down there, to put a shell around them, like the one we've been talking about !"

"I know," said Hal. "But asking first would've been not only foolish, but unworkable. They'll be surprised, I'm afraid."

"They'll make you take it down."

"No," said Hal. "Some will try, of course. But they won't succeed. The point is, they can't. And in time they'll come to understand why it has to be there."

"Wishful thinking!" said Nonne.

"No." He looked at her for a second. "Or at least, not wishful thinking in the sense you mean. I'm sorry, Nonne, but now, for the first time, we're at a point where you're going to have to trust me."

"Why should I?" Her answer was fierce.

He sighed.

"For the same reason," he said, "that's been operative from the time you first heard of me. You, your people, and everyone else who hopes to escape the Others hasn't any other choice."

"But this is madness!" she said. "Mara's willing to have you put a shield-wall around it. The people on Mara are even expecting it. The people on Mara are behind you to a person. They're ready for sacrifice; they've faced the need to sacrifice in order to survive. Hardly enough individuals to count on Earth have even thought of opposing the Others, let alone the cost of it."

"Something more than that, Nonne," put in Ajela. "Rukh's crusade has been a real crusade. They've been flocking in their thousands and hundreds of thousands to listen to her and the other people she brought in to carry the message."

"There's several billions of people on Earth!" said Nonne.

"Give Rukh time," said Ajela. "The process is accelerating."

"There's no more time," said Hal; and the eyes of all of them came to him. "Bleys has moved faster than any of you realize. I've just spent the last months seeing the evidence of that. A decision has to be made now. And it has to be for Earth."

"Why?" demanded Nonne.

"Because Earth holds the heart of the race," said Hal, slowly. "As long as Earth is unconquered, the race is unconquered. A man once said, talking to an Irishman in a hotel at five o'clock in the morning, back in the twentieth century, 'Suppose all the poets, all the playwrights, all the songmakers of Ireland were to be wiped out in an instant. How many generations would it take to replace them?' And before he could answer his own question, the Irishman held up one finger, as the answer the man had been about to give."

He looked at them all.

"One. One finger. One generation. And they were both right. Because not only the children who were still young would grow up to have poets and playwrights and songmakers among them; but those adults presently alive who'd never written or sung would suddenly begin to produce the music that had always been in them - in response to the sudden silence about them. Because the ability to produce such things never was the special province of a few. It was something belonging to the people as a whole, in the souls of every one of them, only waiting to be called forth. And what was true at the time of that conversation, and before and since, with the Irish people, is true as well, now, for the people of Earth."

"And not for the people of the other worlds?" asked Jason.

"In time, them too. But their forebearers were sent out by the hunger and fear of the race, to be expendable, to take root in strange places. For now, they stand - all of you stand, except Tam - at arm's length from the source of the music that's in you, and the future that's in you. You'll find it - but it would come harder and more slowly to any of you than it would for any of those down there - "

He gestured at the blue and white globe he had displayed.

They sat watching him, saying nothing. Even Nonne was silent.

"I told the Exotics," Hal went on, in the new silence, "I told the Dorsai - and I would have told your people, as well, Jason, if I'd had the proper chance to speak to them all - that in the final essential, they were experiments of the race. That they were brought into being only to be used when the time came. Now, that time's come. You all know the centuries of the Splinter Cultures are over. You know that, each of you, instinctively inside you. Their day of experimentation is done. Your kind lived, grew, and flourished for the ultimate purpose of taking one side of the great survival question of which road the race as a whole is going to follow into its future among the stars. Not to you and your children, unique and different, but to the children of the race in general, the future belongs."

He stopped. They still said nothing.

"And so," he said, tiredly, "it's Earth we have to end by protecting; Earth with all its history of savagery, and cruelty, and foolishness and selfishness - and all its words and songs and mighty dreams. Here, and no place else, the battle's finally going to be lost or won."

He stopped again. He wanted them to speak - if only so that he would not feel so utterly alone. But they did not.

He looked back at the blue and white globe of Earth.

"And it's here the question of the future is going to be decided," he said, softly, "and such as you and I will have to die, if that's our job, to get the answer needed for that decision to be made."

He stopped speaking and looked again at the imaged Earth. After a second or two, he was conscious of another body close behind him, and turned, lifting his eyes, to see that it was Ajela.

She put her arms around him; and merely held him for a minute. Then she let him go and went back to her seat by Tam.

"You give us reasons," said Nonne to him, "which aren't military reasons, and may not even be pragmatic, practical reasons. My point remains that Mara's a better base for a stonewall defense than Earth is. You haven't really answered me on that."

"This isn't," said Hal, "exactly a war we're entered into for pragmatic and practical reasons - except in the long run. But the fact is, you're wrong. Mara's a rich world, as the Younger Worlds go; but even after centuries of misuse and plundering of its resources, Earth is still the richest inhabited planet the human race knows. It's entirely self-supporting, and it still maintains a population twenty times as large as that of any other inhabited world, to this day."

He broke off abruptly, holding all their eyes with his. Then he went on.

"Also, there's a psychological difference. Enclose any other world, cut it off from contact with the other inhabited worlds, and emotionally it can't escape the feeling that it may have been discarded by the community of humanity, left behind to wither and die. As time goes on, it'll become more and more conscious of its isolation from the main body of the race. But Earth still thinks of itself as the hub of the human universe. All other worlds, to it, are only buds on its branch. If all those others are cut off, whatever the cost may be otherwise, emotionally the most Earth will think of itself as having lost are appendages it lived without for millions of years and can do without again, if necessary."

"That large population's no benefit to you," said Nonne, "particularly, if - as it is - it's full of people who disagree with what you're doing. They're not the ones who're rallying to the defense of Earth. You're planning to defend that world with the Dorsai."

"In the beginning," said Hal, "certainly. If the battle goes on, I think we'll find people from Earth itself coming forward to man the barricades. In fact, they'll have to."

He turned to the old man.

"Tam?" he said. "What do you think?"

"They'll come," said Tam. The rattly, ancient voice made the two words seem to fall, flat and heavy in their midst, like stones too weighty to hold. "This is where the Dorsai came from, and the Exotics, and the Friendlies - and everyone else. When defenders are needed from the people, they'll be there."

For a moment no one said anything.

"And that," said Hal, with a deep breath, "is another reason for it to be Earth, rather than Mara. In time, even your Marans would produce people to stand on guard. But they'd have to go back into what lies below their present character to do it."

"But they could and would," said Nonne. "In this time, when everything that's been built up is falling apart, even Maran adults would do that. Even I'd fight - if I thought I could."

A little smile, a not-unkindly smile, twitched the corners of Rourke di Facino's lips.

"Dear lady," he said to her. "That's always been the only difference."

The remark drew her attention to him.

"You!" she said. "You stand there, saying nothing. Did your people bargain to defend Earth where the people have never understood or appreciated what the Younger Worlds mean - least of all, your kind? Are you simply willing to be their cannon fodder, without at least protesting what Hal Mayne wants? You're the military expert. You speak to him!"

The little smile went from Rourke's lips, to be replaced by an expression that had a strange touch of sadness to it. He came slowly around from behind the chairs of the rest where he had been standing and walked up to Hal. Hal looked at the erect, smaller man.

"I've talked to Simon about you," Rourke said. "And to Amanda. Who you are is your own business and no one discusses it - "

"I don't understand," interrupted Nonne, looking from one of them to the other. "What do you mean - who he is, is his own business?"

For a second it seemed that Rourke would turn and answer her. Then he went on speaking to Hal.

"But it's the opinion of the Grey Captains that we've got to trust your judgment," he said.

"Thank you," said Hal.

"So," said Rourke, "you think it should be Earth, then?"

"I think it always had to be," said Hal. "The only question has been, when to begin to move; and as things stand now, Bleys gets stronger every standard day we wait."

"I repeat," said Nonne. "You don't have a solid Earth at your back - you don't begin to have a solid Earth at your back. Rukh may have been gaining ground fast - as you say, Ajela - but now she's out of the picture and the job she set out to do isn't done. If you move now, you're gambling, Hal, gambling with the odds against you."

She looked back at Hal.

"You're right," said Hal. He stood for a second in silence. "But in every situation a time comes when decisions have to be made whether all the data's on hand, or not. I'm afraid I see more harm in waiting than acting. We'll begin to garrison Earth and lock it up."

Rourke nodded, almost as if to himself.

"In that case," he said, "I'll get busy."

He looked over at Jeamus.

"I can use that new communications system of yours now, Chief Engineer," he said, turning and heading for the door. Jeamus looked at Hal, who nodded, and the balding man hurried after the small, erect back of the Dorsai.

Before either one reached it, however, the sound of a phone chime sounded. They stopped, as Ajela reached out to touch the control panel on the arm of her chair and all of the rest of them turned to look at her. A voice spoke from the panel, too low-pitched for the others to hear.

She lifted her head and looked at Hal.

"They've located Rukh," she said. "She's at a little place outside Sidi Barraní on the Mediterranean coast, west of Alexandria."

"I'll have to catch up with the rest of you later, then," Hal said. "Everything down below depends to some extent on how much she's going to be able to go on doing. Ajela, can you set up surface transportation for me while I'm on my way down to the shuttle port nearest Sidi Barrani?"

Ajela nodded. Hal started toward the door, looking over at the young Friendly.

"Jason," he said, "do you want to come?"

"Yes," said Jason.

"All right, then," Hal said, as Rourke and Jeamus stood aside to let him out the door first. "We'll be back in some hours, with luck. Meanwhile, simply begin what you'd planned to do, once the decision to move was taken."

He went out the door with Jason close behind him.