Jason was standing just outside the entrance to the room, obviously waiting for him.
"Hal?" he said, as Hal came up to him. "There's a lot to be done…"
"I know," said Hal. He closed one hand briefly about the nearer of Jason's lean shoulders. "I'll only step in for a minute."
He went past the other man through the doorway, and stepped aside from it to put his back to the wall and watch the projected scene over the heads of those between him and the stage area. The images projected were not perfect. A halo of rainbow colors encircled the pictured three-dimensional action, which it seemed was being recorded from some distance. The images went in and out of focus as the Encyclopedia's capacity to calculate strove to keep pinpointed the exact distance between it and the light-years-distant transmitter, continually correcting with small phase shifts, as a ship might have to do to hold a constant position in interstellar space, relative to any other single point. The sound was irregular also - one moment clear and the next blurred.
The scene showed the large pad at Omalu where Hal had last parted from Amanda. The pad was full of spaceships, now; most of them obviously Dorsai but a fair number identifiable as having been built to Exotic specifications. The ship in closest focus at the moment had a large group of people slowly boarding it; mostly young adults and children, but here and there an older face could be seen among them. The scene blurred in, blurred out of focus, the sound wavering; and Hal found himself caught by what he watched as if he had been nailed to the wall behind him.
"They're singing something, but I can't catch the words," whispered the man just in front of him to the woman beside him. "Clea, can you make out the words?"
The woman's head shook.
Hal stood listening. He could not make out the words either, but he did not have to. From the tune he was hearing he knew them, from his boyhood as Donal. It was the unofficial Dorsai anthem, unofficial because there was no official anthem, any more than there was an official Dorsai flag or the armies the anthem spoke of; the Dorsai they were singing about was not the Dorsai they were leaving, but the Dorsai each one of them was carrying within them. He turned and went back out the door to find Jason waiting for him.
"All right, now," he said to the other man, as they went off down the corridor together. "What's most urgent of the things you've got in hand?"
Chapter Sixty-five
"The things I had in mind can wait," Jason said. "I just got a call from Jeamus. He's been trying to locate you, quietly."
"Jeamus?" Hal glanced toward the dining room where people were still watching the images from the Dorsai.
"Jeamus isn't there," Jason said. "It seems he got called back to Communications as soon as he stepped out of Tam Olyn's suite. He had a crew with him to set up the reception - he'd hoped to do it in the Director's suite, too - and he just left it to them to carry on to the dining room with it. He went back down to Communications himself, and he's just called me from there."
"He didn't say what about?"
"Just that he wanted you to come down there as quickly as possible, without telling anyone he'd called you."
Hal nodded, and led off down the corridor in which they were standing with long strides.
Within the door of the Communications Department, Jeamus, his face tight, caught sight of them the minute they entered, and came to hurry them into the privacy of his own small, personal office.
"What is it?" asked Hal.
"A signal," said Jeamus, "from Bleys. It just came in, via orbit relay private for me. I don't have a written copy because he asked me not to make one. The call came in without identification, to me, by name. I didn't even know he knew I existed. He said you'd know the call was authentic if I referred to him as one of the two visitors you once had in your library; and he gave me a verbal message for you."
Jeamus hesitated.
"You're Director now," he said. "It's only fair to tell you that fifteen minutes ago I'd have checked with Tam before passing this message along to you."
"That's all right," said Hal. "I assume you thought there might be something in it that might affect the security of the Encyclopedia. Fine. I'll appreciate your having the same sense of responsibility toward me now that I'm Director. What's the message?"
Jeamus still hesitated. He looked at Jason.
"It's all right," said Hal. "Jason can stay."
"Forgive me," Jeamus said. "Are you sure… I mean, this might affect more than the Encyclopedia. It might affect everything."
"I know Bleys; better, I think, than anyone else." Hal's eyes fastened on Jeamus' brown ones. "Any secrecy he's concerned about is only going to matter with those who're uncommitted - to being either for or against him. Jason can stay. Tell me."
"If you say so," said Jeamus. He took a deep breath. "He wants to meet you, secretly - here
"Here in the Encyclopedia?"
"No. Close to it," Jeamus said.
"I see." Hal looked about the small, neat office. "Tell him yes. Have him signal you, personally, once he's here. Then you yourself see to it that an iris no bigger than necessary to let him, personally, in is dilated in the shield-wall close to here. I'll meet him inside the shield-wall."
"All right," said Jeamus.
"And of course you'll tell no one," Hal said. "Including Ajela. Including Tam."
"I - " began Jeamus, and stuck.
"I know," said Hal. "The habits of years aren't easy to change in a minute. But I'm either Director or not; and you're either the head of my Communications Department or not. You expected me to go to Tam or Ajela as soon as you'd told me this, didn't you?"
"Yes," said Jeamus, miserably.
"Tam's out of it now," Hal said. "And Ajela I'll tell myself, in my own time. If you're tempted to go to either one in spite of what I've just said to you, stop first and think who'll take the Encyclopedia over if I don't. Ajela can keep it going; but I think you've heard Tam say often enough it's meant for more than this."
"Yes." Jeamus sighed. "All right, I won't say anything to either of them. But - " he looked suddenly up into Hal's face - "you'll tell me when you've told Ajela?"
"Yes," said Hal. He turned to Jason. "Come on. Didn't you have a whole list with you of things you wanted me to attend to?"
Jason nodded.
"Thanks, Jeamus," said Hal; and led Jason out of the Communications Section.
In the corridor outside, Jason stared at him as they walked.
"Can I ask?" he said. "What does it mean, this business of Bleys wanting to talk to you secretly?"
"I think it means he discovered he'd made a misjudgment," Hal answered. "Now, weren't you the one who told me how much work we had to do?"
The work was real enough. It was nearly four days, local time at the Encyclopedia, before Rukh was strong enough to make her address to the world; and Hal chose to put off his own first speech as Director until it could also act as an introduction to what Rukh would say. Meanwhile, the days were frantic ones, with the Encyclopedia like a fortress under siege. A full third of the non-specialist staff was busy in shifts around the clock, fielding queries from the surface of Earth from governmental bodies or planetary agencies like Space and Atmosphere.
The primary difficulty for the staff was the keeping of tempers. From sheer habit the various governments and authorities below had begun by demanding attention and answers. Only slowly had they come to realize that not merely was there no way they could force or threaten the shield-walled, independently powered and fully supplied Encyclopedia to do anything, but there had not been for the last eighty years. So they had finally backed off the path of bluster to the highway of diplomacy; but by that time the damage to the frayed patience of the Encyclopedia's relatively tiny staff had been done.