He grinned.
"Just asking."
"Don't," said Amanda, "and save us time, all around."
She looked about at the others. No one else said anything. She looked up at Hal.
"Go ahead," she said.
Hal looked around at them. There was nothing to be read from their faces. He plunged in.
"I assume there's no point in my wasting your time by telling you what you already know," he said. "The interstellar situation's now almost completely under the control of the Others; and what they're after in the long run is no secret. They want total control; and to have that, they've got to get rid of those who'll never work with them - some of the people on the Friendlies, essentially all of the Exotics, and the Dorsai people. The point the Exotics make is that the Others have to be stopped now, while there's still time. They think that, of all those opposed to the Others, the Dorsai are the one people who can do that; and they sent me with word that they'll give you anything they have to give, back you in any way they can, if you'll do it."
He stopped.
The faces around the table looked back at him as if they had expected him to continue.
"That's it?" said Ke Gok. "How do they think we can stop the Others? Don't they think we'd have done it before this, if we knew how?"
There was a moment of silence around the table. Hal thought of speaking and changed his mind.
"Just a minute," said the cadaverous old man. "They can't be thinking - this isn't that old suggestion we go out and play assassins?"
It was as if a whip cracked soundlessly in the room. Hal looked down the room at the hard faces.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I was obligated to bring you the message. I told them you'd never do it."
The silence continued for a second.
"And why were you obligated?" said Miriam Songhai.
"I was obligated," said Hal, patiently, "by the fact that delivering the message gave me the chance to speak to you all about what I, myself, believe is the only way to deal with the Others."
Another tiny silence.
"Perhaps," said di Facino - very softly, but the words carried through the dining room, nonetheless - "they don't realize how they insult us."
"Probably they don't - in the emotional sense," said Hal. "But even if they did, it wouldn't matter. They'd have to ask you anyway, because they don't see any other way out."
"What he's telling you," said Amanda, "is that the Exotics feel helpless; and people who feel helpless will try anything."
"I think you can tell them for us," said the cadaverous man, "that the day they give up the principles they've lived by for three hundred years, they can ask us again. But our answer will still be that we don't give up our principles."
He looked around the room.
"What would we have left, if we did something like that to save our necks? What would the point have been of living honestly, all these centuries? If we'd do assassin's work now, we'd not only not be Dorsai any longer; we'd never have been Dorsai!"
No one nodded or spoke, but a unanimity of approval showed clearly on the faces around the table.
"All right," said Hal. "I'll tell them that. But now can I ask, since I've got you all here, what you do intend to do about the Others, before they starve you to death?"
Hal looked at Amanda. But she was still merely sitting, a little back from the table, watching. It was Miriam Songhai who spoke.
"Of course we've no plans," she said. "You evidently do. Tell us."
Hal took a breath and looked at them all.
"I don't have a specific plan, either," he said. "But I believe I've got the material out of which a plan can be made. What it's based on, what it has to be based on, is an understanding of the historical situation that's resulted in the Others being so successful. Basically, what we're involved in now is the last act of an era in human development; and the Others are there to threaten us because they stand for one attitude that exists in the race as a whole; and we - you Dorsai, the Exotics, the true faithholders on the Friendlies and some others scattered around all the other worlds - stand for the attitude opposed to it. Natural historical forces in human development are what are pushing this conflict to a showdown. We're looking not merely at the ambitions of the Others, but at an Armageddon…"
He talked on. They listened. The light lancing in through the windows made the long, smooth surface of the table glisten like wind-polished ice; and the Grey Captains sat listening in utter stillness, as if they had been carved in place as they sat, to last forever. Hal heard his voice continuing, saying the same things he had said to Exotic ears; and much of what he must have said to Amanda, that first night here. But there was no sign or signal from this audience to tell him if he was reaching them. Deep within himself, the fear grew that he was not. His words seemed to go out from him, only to die in the silence, against minds that had already shut them out.
He glanced fleetingly at Amanda, hoping for some signal that might give him reassurance; and found none. She did not shake her head, even imperceptibly; but the unchanging gaze she returned to him conveyed the same message. Internally, Hal yielded. There was no point in simply continuing to hold them hostage with words, if the words were not being heard and considered by them. He brought what he had been saying to a close.
There was a moment without anyone speaking. The Captains stirred slightly, as people will who have sat for some time in one position. Throats were cleared, here and there. Hands were placed on the table.
"Hal Mayne," said Miriam Songhai, finally. "Just what plan do you have for yourself? I mean, what do you, yourself, plan to do next?"
"I'll be going from here to the Final Encyclopedia," he said. "There's where most of the information is, that I still need, for an effective understanding of the situation. Once I've got a complete picture, I can give you a specific plan of action."
"And meanwhile?" said Ke Gok, ironically. "You're merely asking us to hold ourselves in readiness for your orders?"
Hal felt a despair. He had failed, once more; and there was no magic, no ghosts were here, to save the day. This was reality; the incomprehension of those who saw the universe limited to what they already knew. Unexpectedly, an exasperation erupted in him; and it was as if something put a powerful hand on his shoulder and shoved him forward.
"I'm suggesting that you hold yourself in readiness for orders from someone," he heard himself answer, dryly.
There was a shock in hearing it. The voice was his own, the words were words he knew, but the choice and delivery of them was coming from somewhere deep within him; as far back as the ghosts he had heard speaking at this table. He felt a strength move in him.
"If I'm fortunate enough to be the one who first gets on top of the situation," he went on in the same unsparing voice, "they could indeed come from me."
"No offense, Hal Mayne," said di Facino, "but may I ask how old you are?"
"Twenty-one, standard," said Hal.
"Doesn't it seem, even to you," went on di Facino, "that it's asking a lot of people like ourselves, who've known responsibility on a large scale for twice or three times your lifetime, to take you and what you suggest completely on faith? Not only that, but that we should mobilize a planetful of people in accordance with that faith? You come to us here with no credentials whatsoever, except a high rating according to some exotic theory - and this world is not one of the Exotics."
"Credentials," said Hal, still dryly, "mean nothing and will never mean anything in this matter. If I find the answers I'm looking for, my credentials are going to be obvious to you, and to everyone else as well. If I don't, then either someone else is going to find the answers, or no one will. In either case, any credentials I have will be very much beside the point. The Exotics knew this."