"What does Chementinski want me for?" he demanded. "He knows I've been out of Tower Hall all these years. I got no secrets any more; he knows that too. Why do you think he told you to get me instead of somebody useful, like Eblis Eierkopf?"
Tears streamed from Leonid's eyes. "Loveship, sir! He loves, like me! Like George! Never mind Eierkopf!"
Max shook his head. "It's not love." More gently then, but uncompromisingly, he declared that the principal difference between himself and Chementinski was that the latter, while professing to love studentdom, had always been more or less repelled by individual students; whereas Max, devoted as he was to individual people, had always regarded studentdom in general as more stupid, brutal, and vulgar than otherwise — or else a meaningless abstraction. The weakness of Max's position, as he readily admitted, was that, since EATing the Amaterasus, he was unable to sacrifice anybody to the Common Good, in which he could no longer believe; thus he was unfit for administration. "But your Chementinski, this Classmate X: he could sacrifice everybody, himself too!"
"Not!" Leonid objected; but I confirmed Max's opinion with Classmate X's own statement to that effect, made to me in the U.C. building.
"How else could he sacrifice you?" Max demanded. "A son he should kill his own self for!"
"Good of the Union! My idea! Make-up test, for past!"
Max put a hand on Leonid's shoulder and once more shook his head. Chementinski, he said sorrowfully, had ever been a most unstable fellow, driven by a succession of ideals in which he'd passionately wished to believe, and never satisfied with the genuineness of his commitment. His whole attitude during the EAT-project, Max remembered, had been a fierce self-justification: It was EAT or be EATen, wasn't it? Better a few thousand Amaterasus in ten minutes than another two years of riot! It was for the sake of peace, freedom, and culture, wasn't it? Not to mention pure science, and the deterrent against future campus riots… The effect of this constant questioning was that he'd talked himself out of his beliefs, come to regret his contribution to WESCAC (as had Max, for other reasons), and decided that only by arming both schools of thought with ultimate weaponry could peace of mind now be preserved. Hence his defection.
"What happened since, I don't know," Max concluded. "But he knew I didn't believe what he did, and it always upset him when I thought he was wrong. If Chementinski thinks we got to EAT the Amaterasus once, he can't stand it anybody smart should disagree; if he defects to East Campus, we all got to defect, so he shouldn't wonder was it flunked or passed. That's why he wants me there, Leonid; he can't convince himself he did right."
"Unselfnessness!" Leonid bawled. "He's most unvainestest there is!" He glared imploringly at me. "Talk once, George!"
"I think Max is right," I said. I told him then what I'd learned from Classmate X himself: that he had deliberately led his stepson to believe that he was not forgiven for the zoo-escapade, and could redeem himself in his stepfather's eyes only by expending himself to capture Max. I expected angry denials — would scarce have dared the information had we not been in separate cells, and was prepared, in self-defense, to force his agreement, if necessary, by reminding him that it would be vain to claim the inspiration himself. But Leonid came to the bars, cheeks wet, and asked merely: "Is it true, Goat-Boy? He didn't hate? Ever since?"
"I swear it. He only pretended. He knew you'd do anything to please him…"
"His own son!" Max snorted. "To prove his selflessness! Ach, that Chementinski!"
But Leonid cried, "Passèdhoodness!" and, indifferent to his gulling, danced a wild step about the cell, so relieved was he that his stepfather had not been angry with him after all. It was some time before Max could declare his conviction that any man who sacrificed his own son thus calculatingly, for whatever cause, was incapable not only of anger but of any emotion whatever, especially love. I might have agreed, with some reservations (for while Classmate X had revealed himself to me as far from cold-blooded with regard to his stepson, the deliberate sacrifice of him in the name of Selflessness seemed to me therefore all the more monstrously vain) — but Leonid was seized at this point with a new violent emotion.
"I love!" he shouted tearfully. "Full of selfity, me!" His problem, from what I could make of his exclamations, was that despite his best efforts he was yet a million versts from the impersonality he aspired to, and of which Classmate X was the faultless exemplar. He loved his stepfather, Max, Anastasia, me — he loved everyone he'd ever met, except a few whom he hated, and thus despaired of ever earning Classmate X's love — which of course it was but further selfishness for him to crave!
"Hopelesshood!" From the pocket of his prison-trousers he suddenly snatched a little bottle, not unlike the container of disappeared ink bestowed on me by Sakhyan's colleagues. But this was full of a realer fluid, some of which he swallowed and began at once to strangle triumphantly upon.
"Hooray! Eradicationness! Goodbye me!"
Max made feeble haste to stay him as soon as we realized what he was doing, but Leonid worked his skill upon the doorlock and deftly slipped out into the aisle, where once again he tipped the bottle to his lips. His face purpled.
"No more me!" he croaked. "Tell Mrs. Anastasia I love!" Max and other prisoners shouted for a guard; as was sometimes the case, none was about. Leonid fell; yet even curling on the floor he made to drink again that deadly draught, to insure his end.
"Verboten!" Max pleaded, hopping like a caged dwarf. "Stop him once, George, he shouldn't swallow!"
Leonid, supine, had decided to wave one arm and sing as he expired. "Releasedom! Freehood! Death to Selfity!" He put the bottle to his mouth.
Distressed as I was to see him perish, I would I fear have only watched, and that not merely because I was locked in. But something in his words, more than the emergency itself, got through the torpor I had dwelt in since my noosing. My head cleared miraculously; I saw not just Leonid's plight but his error — and more! In no time at all I was beside him in the aisle; had seized the bottle and was forcing air into his mouth — for he had ceased to breathe. Then, thinking better, I released Max for that work and went to fetch help, running four-footed for speed and letting myself without hesitation through half a dozen barred doors on the way. No guards were on duty; so lax was their warden's discipline, and so many the obstacles to our freedom, they often loitered in the exercise-yard or gathered in the cells of wanton lady girls. The first official I encountered was Stoker himself, and that not until I'd climbed to the highest tier of cells, at ground-leveclass="underline" those reserved theoretically for apathetic C-students and professors too open-minded to have opinions. At sight of me Stoker smiled, stepped aside, and indicated with his arm the final gate, which opened into the Visitation Room and thence to the offices and freedom, as if inviting me to continue on my way.
"It's you I was looking for," I said.
"How droll. I was just coming for you. You have visitors." I explained the emergency. Amused, Stoker sniffed the deadly bottle, now only half full, and returned it to me.