Hal had encountered similar reactions from time to time, this past year, at the Encyclopedia; and once, turning a corner to find himself face to face with a mirror, in one of those unguarded moments where, for a second, the viewer fails to recognize himself - he had felt it himself. In that moment, before recognition and ordinary personal self-consciousness came back, he had seen someone who was not only large physically, but big beyond that size in some indefinable quality that was at once quiet, isolated and forever unyielding. For a fraction of a second there he had seen himself as a man he did not know, and when the recognition had came, it had brought not only a kind of embarrassment, but unhappiness; for until that moment he had been telling himself that he had at last learned to live with that inner difference and isolation of his, some time since. But now, here again with someone who had met him before, he had seen the mark of that difference, unerasable still upon him.
"Hilary, don't you know me?" he said. "Howard Beloved Immanuelson? Remember when Jason Rowe brought me around and you took us to join Rukh Tamani's Command?"
Hillary's eyes cleared to recognition. He held out his hand.
"Sorry," he said, "you've changed a bit. Who are you now?"
Hal gripped hands with him.
"My papers say I'm a Maran named Emer - commercially accredited to trade on Harmony by the Exotic Ambassadorial Office here."
"You could have fooled me," said Hilary, dryly, as their hands released. "Particularly wearing those ordinary clothes."
"You know Exotics don't always wear robes," said Hal. "Any more than Friendlies always dress in black. But, for your information only, you'd better have my real name. It's Hal Mayne. I'm of Earth."
"Old Earth?"
"Yes," said Hal. "Old Earth - and now, of the Final Encyclopedia, as well. I'm up to my ears in something larger than fighting the Militia, nowadays."
He looked closely at Hilary to read the other man's reaction.
"It isn't just here, or on Association, any longer," he went on, when Hilary said nothing. "Now, the battle against the Others is on all the worlds."
Hilary nodded. The wraith of a sigh seemed to tremble in him.
"I know," he said. "The old times are ending. I saw it coming a long time back. What can I do for you?"
"Just tell me where I can find Rukh," said Hal. "Some people were looking for me, but they haven't had any luck. For the sake of all the worlds, I've got to talk to her as soon as I can. There's a job only she can do for us."
Hilary's face became grim.
"I'm not sure I'd tell you unless you had someone to vouch for you. A year can move some people from one side to another. But in this case, it makes no difference. Whatever you've got in mind, you'd better find someone else to take it on," he said. "Rukh Tamani's dead - or if she isn't, I'd be sorry to hear it. The Militia have her. They caught up with her three weeks ago."
Hal stared at the older man.
"Three weeks ago… where?"
"Ahruma."
"Ahruma? You mean she's been there ever since she blew the Core Tap?"
"They had it almost repaired. She was reconnoitering to see if the repair work could be sabotaged. There's a limb of Satan named Colonel Barbage - Amyth Barbage - who's been devoting his full time to running her down. He got word she was in the city, made a sweep, and two of the people he picked up knew where she could be found - "
Hilary paused, shrugged.
"They talked, of course, after he got them back to the Militia Center. And he caught her."
Hal stared at him.
"I'm going to have to get her out as soon as possible," he said.
"Get her out?" Hilary stared at him for a long moment. "You're actually serious, aren't you? Don't you think if prisoners could be got out of Militia Centers, we'd have been doing it before this?"
"And you haven't, I take it," said Hal, hearing his own voice echoing harshly off the curved walls and roof that were one and the same.
Hilary did not even bother to answer.
"I'm sorry," said Hal. "But there's too much at stake. I'll have to get her out, and as soon as possible."
"Man," said Hilary softly. "Don't you understand? Odds are a hundred to one she's been dead for at least a couple of weeks!"
"I've got to assume she isn't," said Hal. "We'll go in after her. Who do I see in Ahruma to get help? Are there any of her old Command around here?"
Hilary did not move.
"Help," he said, almost wonderingly. Moving as if by their own volition, his hands picked up a tan square of saturated cleansing cloth from the mainframe below the windshield of the vehicle he had been working on and started to wipe themselves. "Listen to me, Hal - if that's really your name - we can't just pick up a phone and call Ahruma. All long distance calls are monitored. It'd take three days to find a courier, a week to pass him or her on through friends who can make transportation available between here and Ahruma, another week to get people there together to talk about trying a rescue - and then they'd all go home an hour later after they heard what you had in mind, because they all know, like me, that any such thing's impossible. You were in a Command. What do you think a handful of people with needle guns and cone rifles can do against a barracks-ful of police inside a fortress?"
"There are ways to deal even with fortresses," said Hal, "and as far as a phone message to Ahruma goes, I can probably make use of Exotic diplomatic communications, if the message can be coded safely. Why a week to get a courier there, anyway, when air transportation makes it in two hours?"
"God has afflicted your wits," said Hilary, calmly. "Even if we had someone locally who could show airport checkpoints an acceptable reason to make such a trip, it'd cost a fortune we don't have. Remember your Command, I say. Remember how you had to make do with equipment and weapons that were falling apart?"
"Credit's a problem?" Hal reached into his jacket and came out with a folder. He opened it to show the vouchers of balances in interstellar credit within it to Hilary. "I'm carrying more in interworld credit than you'd need for even a small army - given the exchange rate to Harmony currency. This is mine, and the Final Encyclopedia's. But if necessary, I'm pretty sure I could get more yet through Exotic diplomatic channels."
Hilary stared at the vouchers. His face became thoughtful. After a second, he walked around the vehicle across which he had been talking to Hal all this time.
"Coffee?" he said
"Thanks," answered Hal.
Hilary led the way to a desk some twenty feet away, with a small cooker holding a coffee pot and a stack of disposable cups. They sat down and the older man poured a couple of cups. He drank slowly and appreciatively from his own, while Hal put his cup to his own lips, then set it down again. He had almost forgotten what Harmony coffee tasted like.
"I'm going to trust you," said Hilary, putting his own cup back down among the cluttered paperwork on the worn surface of the desk. "It's impossible, just as I say, but with that kind of credit we can at least daydream about it."
"Why is it still impossible? What makes it impossible?" Hal asked.
Hilary stared at him without answering.
"You say you're from Old Earth," he said. "Not from Dorsai?"
"Old Earth."
"If you say so." Hilary nodded slowly. "All right, then, to answer your questions, weren't you held in the Center here for a day or so before you and Jason came to see me? So do I need to tell you what they're like inside?"
"I didn't see much of it," said Hal. "Besides, you said Rukh's in the Center at Ahruma, not the one here at Citadel."
"They're all built the same," said Hilary. "It'd need an army to force its way into one, let alone bring someone out, let alone the Militia'd probably kill any prisoner they suspected we were about to try and rescue."
"If it needs an army, we'll get an army," said Hal. "This is something that concerns all the fourteen worlds. But maybe that much won't be necessary. Draw me a plan of a Center, if they're all alike as you say. Who'd I talk to in Ahruma to help me organize this?"