"What's that?" said Tam. "Ajela, I thought you told them - "
"I said we weren't to be bothered, except for something of the gravest importance," she answered, reaching for the console on the arm of her float. "They wouldn't call us unless it was that… Chuni?"
"Ajela? - We've got a request from Bleys Ahrens to come for a talk with Hal Mayne."
Ajela's finger lifted from the phone connection. Her eyes, and Tam's as well, went to Hal.
"Yes," said Hal, after a moment. "I suppose it was bound to happen. I'll talk to him, of course."
"Tell Bleys Ahrens he can come on in," Ajela said over the phone circuit. "Hal will see him."
"All right," answered the voice at the far end. "And - Ajela?"
"What?"
"We've got another request that came in at almost the same moment, from a jitney that's just docking in B chamber now. An Exotic named Amid; doesn't have a pass, but he also wants to talk to Hal. Bleys Ahrens is holding distance in a private spacecraft. I don't think they know about each other."
Ajela looked again at Hal.
"Amid first," said Hal. "Then Bleys. Amid may have some information for me that'd be useful before I meet Bleys. I told you about Amid; he's the one I mailed my papers to when the Militia caught me finally on Harmony; and he passed the word to the local Exotic consulate to help me if I could get to them, then took care of me on Mara."
"Let them both in, Chuni," said Ajela. "Hal's going to see Amid first. Take him to Hal's room; and if you think they don't know about each other, better keep the two of them separate."
She glanced at Hal and Hal nodded. She closed off the phone circuit.
"Well," said Hal, "I think, under the circumstances, I'd better cut this short. There's too much to tell you to try to rush through it now. The essential point is, the chain leads back to a John Hawkwood, in the fourteenth century. Or rather, it leads back to the Renaissance; and if it hadn't been for John Hawkwood, we might not have had a Renaissance."
"That's rather a large statement, isn't it?" said Tam. "You aren't trying to tell us that history goes the way it does not simply because of a chain of social developments, but because of a chain of unusual individuals?"
"No," said Hal. "Pressures within the river of historical forces determine the bends and turns in that river; and the unusual individuals are thrown up by those same pressures at the turning points. A different turn or bend would have thrown up a different individual. At least, that's the way it always was in the past. But, beginning about a thousand years ago, the race started to move into an area where certain individuals began to develop a consciousness of the river; and, depending upon how great that consciousness is, each one since has been consciously able to make some at least partially successful attempt to bend the river to his or her will. That's why someone like Bleys with his great awareness of what's now happening can be many times more effective than he could have been in any past period of history."
He stood up.
"I should go," he said. "I want time to talk to Amid without Bleys knowing that I've kept him waiting."
"What difference would it make if he knew?" Ajela said.
"I don't know. With anyone else I wouldn't be so concerned," said Hal. "But I'm cautious about exposing even the corner of any potentially useful data to that mind of Bleys'. I'll talk to you again as soon as I've seen these two."
Amid, looking almost toylike in a silver-gray robe, was waiting for him when Hal stepped back into his own room. The small Exotic was standing by Hal's desk.
"Sit down," said Hal, taking a seat himself, away from the desk. "It's good to see you."
Amid smiled wryly, and settled himself in a float.
"It's good of you to say so," he said. "Are you sure you're that pleased to see me?"
"Of course," said Hal. "How long will you stay?"
Amid's face sobered.
"Forever," he said, quietly. For a moment the lines of his face were sad and older than Hal had ever seen them. "Or, in practical terms, as long as I can be of any use to you."
Hal considered him thoughtfully for a moment.
"Should I take it opinions about me have changed on the Exotics?"
"In a sense," said Amid. "I'm afraid we've given up. That's why I'm free to come to you."
"Given up?" Hal sat looking at him. "That's a little like saying an elephant has given up being an elephant - it makes no sense at all. You don't mean it literally?"
"Literally? Of course not," said Amid. "No more than any healthy-minded person means it when he says he's going to give up living. Death is unthinkable; and since the Others mean to kill us off, to acquiesce in that is impossible. No, it's only that our best calculations show us no way out. Effectively, the contest is over. The Others have already won."
"You can't mean that either," said Hal.
"No other answer's possible. How much do you know, about what they've been doing lately?"
"Not much," said Hal. "We interpret the factors that reach us, particularly with Tam Olyn's understanding of the Encyclopedia to help us; and we get a general picture of the fact that they're mobilizing rapidly under Bleys Ahrens. But it's all inference - even if it's very high level inference. Specific information's what we don't get much of."
"That's why I'm here. I can help you with that." Amid sat with Exotic stillness in his chair, but Hal felt a tenseness in him. "For example, the situation isn't just that the Others are mobilizing against you; it's that they've already achieved mobilization - past the point where it looks as if they can be stopped. But, about me. With no visible way to go, we're all left free to do what we choose. So, I decided to humor my natural inclinations, and offer you my services, while the Others can still be fought. That's what I meant when I said I could stay forever, if you want. I can stay with you until the end."
Hal sat back in his float, thoughtfully.
"Oh," said Amid. "And, incidentally, we admit now that you and the Dorsai were right. The attempt to assassinate the Others, individually, wouldn't have worked. Each one of them's now got a large partisan population around them, on all the nine worlds they control. Even if they all could be killed, their deaths would only make those populations determined to destroy us in revenge."
"This is interesting," said Hal, slowly. "When I got here, some twelve standard months ago, all I could learn, through Tam Olyn, was that Danno was dead, and that Bleys had taken over, and started to mobilize."
"When you got away from Bleys on Coby," said Amid, "I think you signed Danno's death warrant. We'd known for years that he and Bleys had very different ideas of what the destiny of the Others should be. Danno wanted peace and plenty in his time; and nothing much more. Bleys had a somewhat longer view."
Hal looked more closely at him.
"You sound as if you're giving me more credit for alarming Bleys than I'd suspected you would."
"I'm free now to say and do what I want," said Amid.
"How could Bleys move so fast with this mobilization that all of you on the Exotics would be sure he'd already won?"
"Not - already won," Amid answered, "but certain to win. Because of that tremendous leverage on other people that the Others seem to be able to bring to bear. What he's done, in effect, is start a popular movement against all of us who might oppose him."
"How? On what basis?" Hal said.
Amid smiled, almost wistfully.
"The man's a genius," he said. "He simply turned everything inside out. He made the Others' enemies the villains who'd destroy civilization. The popular opinion now becomes that there's a plot on the part of those same people on Earth who always wanted to control the Younger Worlds and their populations. The plot is supposed to be masterminded by those like yourself on the Final Encyclopedia; who, as everyone knows, for two hundred years have been busy developing scientific black magic of great power - the variant of the phase drive that gives you your protective envelope here is visible proof of that. The story goes that the main business of the Encyclopedia has been the development of awesome weaponry all these two centuries, and with these they can sweep all human life from the other worlds, unless those worlds surrender to them. The only hope of the Younger Worlds is that the Encyclopedia isn't quite ready to act; and if they move fast, they can kill the dragon before it gets out of its cave."