He ducked his head down and hastily began to key in data from the statistic roll lying waiting for him on a nearby table.
The work kept his face hidden, but could not halt the trembling beginning to grow inside him. His reaction against the other man was no less, but now—faced with the moment of pressing the tape control key—he found all his history and environmental training against what he was about to do. Murder—screamed his conscious mind—it’ll be murder!
His throat ached and was dry as some seared and cindered landscape of Earth might one day be after the lashing of a Chedal space-based weapon. His chest muscles had tensed and it seemed hard to get his breath. With an internal gasp of panic, he realized that the longer he hesitated, the harder it would be. His finger touched and trembled against the smooth, cold surface of the tape control key, even as the fingers of his other hand continued to key in data.
“How much longer?” hissed Mial in his ear.
Ty refused to look up. He kept his face hidden. One look at that face would be enough to warn Mial.
What if you’re wrong?—screamed his mind. It was a thought he could not afford to have, not with the future of the Earth and all its people riding on this moment. He swallowed, closed his eyes, and jammed sideways on the tape key with his finger. He felt it move under his touch.
He opened his eyes. There had been no sound.
He lifted his gaze and saw Mial’s face only inches away staring down at him.
“What’s the matter?” whispered Mial, tearingly.
Nothing had happened. Somehow Mial was still alive. Ty swallowed and got his inner trembling under control.
“Nothing…” he said.
“What is the cause of this conversation?” broke in the deep, yammering, translated voice of one of the Laburti. “Is there a difficulty with the device?”
“Is there?” hissed Mial.
“No…” Ty pulled himself together. “I’ll handle it now. You can go back to them.”
“All right,” said Mial, abruptly straightening up and letting go of the case.
He turned and went back to join the Laburti Observer.
Ty turned back to his work and went on to produce his tape of statistical forecasts for both races. Standing in the center of the room to explain it, while the two alien groups held copies of the tape, he found his voice growing harsher as he talked.
But he made no attempt to moderate it. He had failed to stop Mial. Nothing mattered now.
These were Annie’s results, he thought, and they were correct and undeniable. The two alien races could ignore them only at the cost of cutting off their noses to spite their faces. Whatever else would come from Mial’s scheming and actions here—this much from Annie was unarguable. No sane race could ignore it.
When he finished, he dropped the tape brusquely on top of Annie’s case and looked directly at Mial. The dark-haired man’s eyes met his, unreadably.
“You’ll go back and wait,” said Mial, barely moving his lips. The Laburti Consul glided toward Ty. Together they left and returned to the room with the baggage, where Ty had been kept earlier.
“Your device will be here in a moment,” said the Laburti, leaving him. And, in fact, a moment later a mech moved into the room, deposited Annie on the floor and withdrew. Like a man staring out of a daze, Ty fell feverishly upon the side panel of the metal case and began unscrewing the wing nuts securing it.
The panel fell away in his hands and he laid it aside. He stared into the inner workings before him, tracing the connections to the power supply, the data control key, and the case that he had made earlier. There were the wires, exactly as he had fitted them in; and there had been no lack of power evident in Annie’s regular working. Now, with his forefinger half an inch above the insulation of the wires, he traced them from the data control key back to the negative power lead connection, and from the case toward its connection, with the positive power lead.
He checked, motionless, with pointing finger. The connection was made to the metal case, all right; but the other end of the wire lay limply along other connections, unattached to the power lead. He had evidently, simply forgotten to make that one, final, and vital connection.
Forgotten…? His finger began to tremble. He dropped down limply on the seat-surface facing Annie.
He had not forgotten. Not just… forgotten. A man did not forget something like that. It was a lifetime’s moral training against murder that had tripped him up. And his squeamishness would, in the long run, probably cost the lives of everyone alive on Earth at this moment.
He was sitting—staring at his hands, when the sound of the door opening brought him to his feet. He whirled about to see Mial.
It was not yet too late. The thought raced through his brain as all his muscles tensed. He could still try to kill the other man with his bare hands—and that was a job where his civilized upbringing could not trip him up. He shifted his weight on to his forward foot preparatory to hurling himself at Mial’s throat. But before he could act, Mial spoke.
“Well,” said the dark-haired man, harshly, “we did it.”
Ty froze—checked by the single small word, we.
“We?” He stared at Mial, “did what?”
“What do you think? The Chedal and the Laburti are going to agree—they’ll sign a pact for the equivalent of a hundred and twenty-five years of peaceful cooperation, provided matters develop according to the instrument’s estimates. They’ve got to check with their respective governments, of course, but that’s only a formality—” he broke off, his face tightening suspiciously. “What’s wrong with you?” His gaze went past Ty to the open side of Annie.
“What’s wrong with the instrument?”
“Nothing,” said Ty. His head was whirling and he felt an insane urge to break out laughing. “—Annie just didn’t kill you, that’s all.”
“Kill me?” Mial’s face paled, then darkened. “You were going to kill me—with that?” He pointed at Annie.
“I was going to send thirteen thousand volts through you while you were helping me with the Demonstration,” said Ty, still light-headed, “—if I hadn’t crossed myself up. But you tell me it’s all right, anyway. You say the aliens’re going to agree.”
“You thought they wouldn’t?” said Mial, staring at him.
“I thought you were playing some game of your own. You said you were.”
“That’s right,” said Mial. Some of the dark color faded from his face. “I was. I had to. You couldn’t be trusted.”
“I couldn’t be trusted?” Ty burst out.
“Not you—or any of your bunch!” Mial laughed, harshly. “Babes in the woods, all of you. You build a machine that proves peace pays better than war, and think that settles the problem. What would have happened without someone like me along—”
“You! How they let someone like you weasel your way in—”
“Why, you don’t think I was assigned to this mission through any kind of accident, do you?” Mial laughed in Ty’s face. “They combed the world to find someone like me.”
“Combed the world? Why?”
“Because you had to come, and the Laburti would only allow two of us with the analyzer to make the trip,” said Mial. “You were the best Operator. But you were no politician—and no actor. And there was no time to teach you the facts of life. The only way to make it plain to the aliens that you were at cross purposes with me was to pick someone to head this Mission whom you couldn’t help fighting.”