Di Facino stared at him. "You know I'd do it," he said, "and I see what you mean. I wouldn't like it but that wouldn't stop me, if it was a matter of life and death for someone I loved. But you aren't trying to tell me Bleys is in that position in planning a blood bath for Earth?" "Not exactly," said Hal, "but in a position very much like it.... "
He hesitated. "I think I may be the only other human alive who understands some aspects of Bleys," said Hal. "You have to realize how differently he thinks from other people. Try to appreciate, for example, what his own existence has been like. He must be the loneliest human being alive. No, lonely's the wrong word. Say instead he's the most isolated of all humans, because he's never experienced anything but complete separation from everyone else and can't conceive of any state that'd be otherwise. So he suffers, but he isn't aware of suffering from this the way you and I would be, because he's never known any other state." "He could look around and see other humans who aren't suffering that way, and learn from them that other states of being exist," said di Facino. "Learning from them is just what he's shut himself off from," said Hal. "From the time he was old enough to notice such things, he had to see that the people around him had limited intelligence compared to his, and couldn't match him in other capabilities. Almost as soon as he knew himself, he must have felt alone in the universe, surrounded by creatures who looked and acted like him but lacked perceptions, and were easily controllable by him without their realizing it. All he had to do was put his mind to manipulating them, and they did whatever he wished. He was walled off by what he was from the rest of the race."
Hal hesitated, unsure whether he was not perhaps talking too much, then he decided to go ahead. "There's a couple of lines in a poem by Lord Byron. He was a nineteenth century English poet, and one of his poems was called The Prisoner of Chillon - Chillon being a fortress prison in Switzerland, and the prisoner was in solitary confinement there. The lines come when, after at last managing to get a glimpse of the outside through the high, small window of his cell, the prisoner finds confinement has changed him. The lines go...
...and the whole Earth would henceforth be
A wider prison unto me... "
Hal looked at them. Rourke di Facino was looking back with a hint of puzzlement. Amanda and Rukh, by contrast, had expressions that were strangely sympathetic. "So you see," wound up Hal, "while his situation was slightly different, in essence it was pretty much the same, in that Bleys learned almost from birth that all the worlds were only a 'wider prison' for him. He could search in every face he met and not see an understanding of what he felt in himself. Fame and fortune could mean nothing to him because he knew he could have them by merely reaching out his hand for them. He had no friends. Those who thought they loved him, did so without understanding. He had been given a lifetime to spend and nothing to spend it on. So he decided to do what he didn't think anyone
of future history it would never have taken if he hadn't come along. Even if the turning might mean doing some things he might not like, he'd do it. So, he went to work." "And ran into you," said Amanda. "I was there." Hal looked back at her.
Amanda merely watched him, steadily. "But why the blood bath?" said di Facino. "If he finally ends up with enough ships and trained men to wipe out our defensive forces, there are certainly ways of taking Earth without that kind of action." "There are, of course," said Hal. "What's he trying to do, then, frighten you into promoting a surrender for him?" "No," said Hal. "The obvious reason for the talk of a blood bath and this incident to support it is to try to push me into acting hastily. How long, would you say, Rourke, at the rate his forces outside the shield are building, until he gets to the point of having enough in ships to try that sort of mass jump through the shield and assault this world-with some hope of success?" "I'm not Donal Graeme," said di Facino. He spoke as if the time in which Donal had been known to exist was no more than yesterday, instead of close on a hundred years. "It depends on how fast he can drive the Younger Worlds to give him ships and crews for them. Anywhere from six months to five years, absolute time." "Let's say six months," said Hal. "If we're really only six months from such an assault and blood bath, there'd be some reason to panic. But I don't think we are. I think, as I say, he's trying to prod me to moving too quickly and making a mistake. "
They all watched him. This time even di Facino said nothing. "You see," said Hal, choosing the words of his explanation carefully, "he's not worried about being able to take over Earth. At the last minute, he can always pull a rabbit out of his hat and make the conquest in some unexpected way. He said as much three years ago when he and I met in the thickness of the phase-shield, just after the Dorsai and the Exotics had given all they had to give and the shield had gone into place to keep his ships out. He's worried about me - the fact that I also might pull a rabbit he doesn't suspect out of my hat, before he can out of his. I'm the one person he knows who might do something he can't expect. If he can panic me into moving even a little too hastily, I may fumble and not have time to produce that rabbit. " "God!" said di Facino. "What a way to try to pressure someone - with the threat to massacre perhaps billions of people. " "That threat at its closest is still six months off," said Hal. "You know, the motto of Walter Blunt, who founded the original Chantry Guild here on Old Earth, was destruct. What he wanted was to clear away everything and everybody but a few special people on a specialized Earth, that could then build to a special end. Note how Bleys' aim all along has echoed that. He wants to depopulate the Younger Worlds entirely and reduce the population of Old Earth to a particular group who'll mature over generations to something like himself." "What of it?" asked di Facino bluntly. "Just that the destruction Blunt preached never got off the ground. Instead the Chantry Guild shifted its aims toward nonviolence and an idea of philosophical evolution." "That was then." "Now's then, too, as the present is always made by and contains the elements of the past," said Hal. "Hold on a little longer, don't let your concern over this run away with you for six months yet." "Meanwhile, you'll be doing what?" "I want to have something to show you before I answer that," said Hal. "Right now, what I'm chasing has no more substance than a dream - any more than any discovery has before it's made. But I'm sure it's there, and if I'm right, it'll give us an escape hatch from this situation without any massacre and without a shooting war, long before six months are up. I'll let you know when I've some progress to report. Meanwhile, it's important that everyone on our side keep pushing ahead full speed and without any doubts." "On faith," said di Facino. "Exactly, on faith. There's nothing stronger." Hal glanced for a second at Rukh, then back at the small Commander-in-Chief. "Remember, the difference between our camp and his. Finally, that part of the race that believes in going forward and adventuring outward are here, around us, and those who'd turn back and hide their heads from the risk of progress are with Bleys. Everything either side does, from building ships to fighting them, is part of the thrust of that side's purpose, and it's 'going to be needed when the final confrontation comes."
Di Facino stared grimly at him, but sat silent for a long moment. "We'll do our part," he said at last, "as you know we will. For the rest - you're right. It's going to take faith for us to believe that you and - everyone else is doing theirs - lots of faith!"
They talked for a little while longer, but nothing more of importance was said, and the conference broke up.
CHAPTER 36
Sixteen hours had passed.