Breakfast had been ominously superb. After four days of foodtabs, it could hardly have helped it. One of the nice things about eating real food indoors is that the aromas remain, lingering on the palate long after the last bite has been consumed. The other comfort of home I really appreciated was having been allowed to bathe. Our group had spread out considerably in the last twenty miles or so, and not from fear of attack. Gee, it's great to be back.
The room was one I knew well, although I hadn't seen it for years. It was large and comfortably furnished. Three walls were stacked floor to ceiling with a mighty collection of books that spilled over into a series of standup library shelves on the opposite end of the room. Escher and Frazetta prints lined what free wall-space there was, and there was not an uncomfortable chair in the room. From the huge curtained picture window on my right, dawn splashed the long oak table at which I sat, with the remains of my breakfast scattered before me.
I had spent a good many hours of my life sitting at that table, often alone with a book, as often with the owner of books, table and room: Dr. Michael Gowan, Fresh Start's Director of Education. The room held his spoor, and I wondered where he was, now that his home had been picked for V.I.P. prison.
Collaci watched in impassive silence while I ate, ate in silence while I watched. Since that one burst of loquaciousness after the Musky attack three days before, I hadn't been able to get a rise out of him. He didn't seem to regret having explained the facts of life to me—but his interest in further conversation was negligible. I wondered if he had opened up that night from a sense of obligation, payment of a debt of honor—Teach' hates to lose men under his command. The notion left me feeling cheapened, as if he'd left fifty dollars on the bed on his way out.
The two armed Guards also watched me in silence, as they had since we arrived in the middle of the night, and there was never the faintest chance of suckering anyone into the line of fire. I had dozed off in the uncanny stillness before dawn, but I'm certain no one else gave sleep a thought. Four days and three nights of good behavior hadn't earned me so much as an inch of slack, and if I wanted to get a high-velocity slug through my head, all I had to do was look clever when I buttered my toast. Collaci might have been sneakingly grateful for my pacifist powwow with the Sirocco Brothers, but his hired guns appeared to lack the imagination. If anything, their fear-hate had smelled stronger than ever lately. They had seen me commune somehow with things that mankind had sensed, feared, and loathed for centuries, and the happy outcome was irrelevant. If he's on our side went one grumble I had overheard on the trek home whyn't he line them Muskies up where we c'd pick 'em off?
Of course, they were by no means an accurate reflection of the kinds of minds I'd have to deal with when the Council convened, but they were a depressing preview of the sort of grass-roots reaction I could expect. It soured the maple syrup right on the pancakes.
All that silence got oppressive, so I got up and heated up Dr. Mike's radio (which he still calls a "tuner," even though the useless tuning knob has long since been removed for salvage). But it didn't help much. Dan O'Connor, who replaced me at the board when I split for New York, had become just as rotten a DJ as I'd known he would. His voice was a thin monotone over the AR-4s, and he had apparently decided on a morning program of Latin music. Worst, he forgot to change the selector when he shifted from disc to tape, and let a good twenty seconds of dead air go out before he noticed the absence of signal.
I switched off in disgust, sat down again, and watched Collaci gulp the remains of his coffee, which unlike my own was still hot. Mine had been given to me with too much milk, too cool to seriously discommode anyone if I happened to spill it in their eyes. It's those little ego-boosts that keep you going.
"Hey Teach'," I asked him cheerily, "can I call you for a witness?" I wanted to needle him, to break through that impenetrable cool and wrest from him a genuine emotion, any emotion at all. Fat chance.
"Son," he said, looking me in the eye, "you can call Wendell Carlson for a witness. You can call Marie Antoinette, or the Spirit of Christmas Past. No one'll stop you."
I nodded. "It is expedient that one man should etcetera."
He nodded right back at me. There was just enough expression on his face to half-fill a gnat's pocket. If Teach' had any feelings at all, they were so well shielded a telepath might have missed them. I felt a surge of anger, and sat on it fast. Who's needling who? I asked myself. Keep your cool, my man.
Myself replied that it made no slightest bit of difference whether I was calm in the next few hours or not—it would have made precious little difference if I'd been unconscious, or absent. The script's conclusion was written; this was only the performance, and to a closed house at that.
So sometimes the ad-libs make the show. Nobody listens to an angry man, and Wendell is counting on you.
Footsteps sounded outside the window, heard through the open doorway. A group of people crunching up the gravel path. One of the Guards left the library on cat feet, and the one covering me went that one last increment toward becoming one with his weapon. Teach' himself sat motionless, a granite promontory carved by the pounding sea into a remarkable likeness of a man.
"It begins," I said, and was annoyed at the hoarseness of the first syllable.
"Yes," he said, and his voice was just as hoarse.
The guard returned almost at once, with the three people I had been expecting: Dalhousie, Phinney, and Krishnamurti. The Council of Fresh Start. There ensued a long pause, during which all three busied themselves with not meeting my eyes or each other's, which was ludicrous enough to restore my good humor.
George Dalhousie clumped in first, the doorway fitting him as snugly as ever. George is no bigger than a Kodiak bear, and I've seen oxen I believe were stronger. He wore his usual faded denims, and an ancient cracked leather jacket against the morning chill. Big mud-stained engineer's boots encased his feet. His square tanned face was deeply lined, the eyes bagged. His shapeless cap of pepper-and-salt hair was still damp from the shower, and he had shaved hastily. His expression and spoor were not hard to read: George was horribly embarrassed.
Next came Helen Phinney, as immaculate as ever. Her grey hair was yanked back into its customary tight bun, and her lipstick had been drawn with the same precision as one of her circuit diagrams. She smelled mad. As I had expected, she wore black, and her carriage was rigid, as though she were maintaining her organic integrity by an effort of will. I read her hollow eyes and the set of her mouth, and knew that she had loved Dad very much. (He and I spoke of it once. I asked him why he hadn't ever married Helen. "She's white," he had said shortly and changed the subject). I wondered if she had heard my tape—or even listened to it. She glanced at my stump, then away, and I'd have sworn I saw her smile.
Last to enter was Sarwar Krishnamurti, a man cross-filed under several headings in my mind. Systems Planning Chief. Friend of Jacob Stone. Founding Uncle of the Techno Philosophy. Present unofficial mayor of Fresh Start: the man minding the store, anyhow.
And father of Alia.
He looked as crusty as ever (dammit, all three of them were "as ever." It seemed to me they ought to be changed somehow, marked by the decision to take my life. Did I look the same to them as before I'd killed Dad?) He was nearly as tall as Dalhousie, massed perhaps half as much, yet there was nothing gangly about him. His Fu Manchu moustache emphasized the lean planed length of his face and the elongated neck. He wore a tweed suit with vest and a wide necktie, which contrasted ludicrously with his leather sandals. From a mouth like a slit in a piece of paper jutted an empty meerschaum identical with the one my father had been smoking the last time I saw him. He had been more than Dad's second in command—had in some ways been almost a spouse. The two thought alike, dressed alike, worked together, shared so many mannerisms that it was impossible to tell who had originated which. Seeing him I felt just a bit like Hamlet in the first act. Which made his customary expression—purest scorn—more sardonic than ever. He took in my stump, with all the rest of me, in a single sweeping look.
He glanced at his two companions as if realizing for the first time their utter incompetence for the task ahead, which is how he looks at everybody, all the time, and motioned curtly to Collaci. The lean security chief left at once without a backward look, followed by the two Guards. I started to speak, and then subsided, concentrated on measuring my breaths.
The three seated themselves at the opposite end of the table. Dalhousie placed a battery-operated cassette-corder on the table between us and made a few quick level tests, then sat back and left it purring.
Well, pal, here you go. Tell 'em what they have to know. "Howdy, folks."
"Isham Stone," Krishnamurti began formally, "we the Council of F . . ."
"Cool it, Krish. Nobody here but us chickens. You aren't gonna make Nixon's Mistake and put that tape in the archives, so why bother pretending this is a legitimate session of the Council? You're Uncle Krish, Uncle George and Aunt Helen, and my name is Mud—let's get on with the killing."
Dalhousie clouded up, but Krish restrained him with only a shadow of a gesture. "What makes you think this is not a legitimate Council session, Isham?"
I didn't want to get Teach' in trouble (although I couldn't quite remember why not), so I skipped the main reason. "The time. The location, and its owner's mysterious absence. The absence of audience, secretary, Guards and counsel. The ridiculous look on George's face . . . shall I go on?"
"That will not be necessary," Krish said drily. "You are correct. This is a closed session."
"Star chamber—isn't that the phrase?"
"Now listen here," Dalhousie began indignantly.
"Shut up, George," Phinney told him.
"But Helen, he's implying . . ."
"Save it. He's right. Let's get on with it." Dalhousie still looked indignant, but he shut up.
"We shall require from you," Krish went on as if there had been no interruption, "all the data you have acquired regarding the Musky race."
I showed him my teeth. "And if you get it—?"
Dalhousie boiled over. "You want a reward for aiding your own race against those living farts?" he roared. "You're going to withhold vital strategic information and bargain with us?"
"Well, I confess I had some small hope of coming out of this alive, yes." That jolted him, bringing the guilt back to his face. "If it looks like that can be arranged, and if you manage to convince me that you're capable of using the data wisely, I might be persuaded to tell you what I know. But frankly I find both propositions dubious."
"What makes you think that we intend your death, Isham?" Krish asked, utterly poker-faced.
"I'm a big boy now, Krish. Look me in the eye and tell me I'm wrong."
He steepled his fingers and frowned. "You do seem less naïve than the boy who made that tape recording," he acknowledged. "It is a shame that you came to wisdom after murdering Jacob."
"Executing," I corrected. Helen went white, but Krish cut her off.
"If I allow the correction, it makes you no less a fool. Who appointed you judge, jury, and executioner?"
"My father," I said simply.
Three mouths opened and shut.
"Dad was the fool," I went on, "and his stupidity, coupled with pesky bad luck, destroyed most of the world and ultimately himself. It may yet destroy me, and the rest of the human race. But not if I can get you three to listen to what I have to say."
"Then you will talk?" Dalhousie asked.
"If you can convince me there's any percentage in it."
"What will it take to convince you, Isham?" Krish asked smoothly. "A guarantee of your life?"
"No, that'd convince me that you were lying. I'd like you to answer some questions."
"This is ridiculous," Phinney burst out. "We don't need his cooperation. Send for scopalamine and peel him like a grape." Her eyes were bright.
"Shut up, Helen," Krishnamurti snapped. "What are your questions, Isham?"
"What will you do with the information if I give it to you?"
They left it up to Krish. He took his time answering, which pleased me—I didn't want a knee-jerk response. But of course it made little difference.
"You have apparently learned how to communicate with the Muskies," he said with an expression of distaste. "We feel that in so doing you may have gained information which will help turn the tide in the present combat before our race is annihilated. We need an edge, Isham. Perhaps you can give it to us. If so, it is your duty as a human to do so. And if it is a spectacular enough edge, from a public relations point of view, we may—I say `may'—be able to grant you your life."
Boy, I was tempted. "And your ultimate intentions toward the Musky race?"
His answer was immediate. "Its destruction."
Here it came. The big question. Everything depended on their answers—and whether or not I believed them.
"What if I could bring you—not victory, but peace?"
That rocked all three. They all began talking at once, and it was a while before Krish was able to silence the others. When he had, he paused himself for a long moment, a new expression on his swarthy face. It was the one I had hoped against hope to see, the expression of a man reexamining his axioms.
"The possibility had never occurred to me," he admitted to me at last. "I'm not certain I believe you. Do you seriously contend that a human-Musky treaty could be negotiated?"
"I think there's a chance. Do you want to hear about it?"
"Yes."
Dalhousie started to speak, then thought better of it. He obviously had reservations, but just as obviously he intended to keep them to himself if it would get me to talk. Helen Phinney's expression was unreadable. Dammit, I could be playing into their hands—but if there was ever to be a chance, it was now. I had to gamble. "All right. Here's the story."
Krish's face was absolutely expressionless, an irregularity on the front of his skull.
"First I must tell you why the War started. Muskies have been around for longer than we have. A lot longer. Their race was born in the days when Earth was still a volcanic hell with an unbreathable atmosphere, and in those days they flourished. Their First Golden Age ended at roughly the same time that life as we know it began to evolve on the planet's surface, and their numbers gradually fell to a fraction of a percent of what they had once been. But they did not vanish. Their race survived, with the merest shadow of its former glory. Christ only knows how they reproduce, but evolution somehow thoughtfully cross-wired the process to the available food supply—something that might have saved our own race endless centuries of war and bloodshed. On a geologic time scale, they adjusted to the new conditions quite easily. For thousands of years, their `food' supply remained small but relatively stable. So, therefore, did their numbers.
"Then came the change.
"It was shockingly sudden, by their standards, because their individual life-spans are so many times longer than our own. I don't think they ever fully understood it. In a mere couple of hundred years—practically overnight—the available `food' supply increased hundreds, then thousands of times. Sheer reflex triggered off a breeding explosion, and in the last fifty years their population began to climb drastically, in inexorable geometric progression. Slowly the Muskies came to understand that this demographic upset had been brought about by creatures living on the Earth's surface—the ones whose emotional broadcasts had been entertaining them for so long. For some reason humans had—from the Musky point of view—chosen to interfere drastically with their destiny."
"Wait a goddamned minute," Dalhousie blurted. "I don't get it. How did we make their food supply increase? What the hell do they eat?"
I grinned at him. "Helen's figured it out. Haven't you, Helen? Tell Uncle George what Muskies eat."
"Air pollution," she said, whitefaced.
Dalhousie's face went utterly slack; simultaneously his shoulders knotted and swelled under the leather. The effect was so fascinating I almost missed the way Krishnamurti's eyes narrowed to slits. I wondered if he'd made the intuitive leap to the solution I meant to propose. I went on.
"See the implications, George? Those funny ground-huggers took to gathering together in bunches and mass-producing food. And then, when they'd artificially boosted the Musky population to an ecologically dangerous level, utterly disrupting an ancient and stable culture, they cut off the food supply literally overnight. The sulfur dioxide, the lead oxides, all the tasty hydrocarbons, all vanished instantly and for keeps. And at the same time all those Indian givers began going berserk, filling the emotional `ether' with broadcasts of terror, agony and despair. They began to slay each other, themselves, and—astonishingly—Muskies. For the first time in history, humans revealed an ability to perceive Muskies, and used it to kill.
"So what did the Muskies do? What would you do, George?"
"My god," he said hoarsely, and swallowed. "No wonder. No wonder."
Helen Phinney was tougher; her face was almost unnaturally composed. "It explains much," she said softly.
"It damned well does," Dalhousie exclaimed. "That Agro charge . . .
"Shut up, George!" Krishnamurti rapped.
"Yeah, George," I agreed. "You almost slipped and told me that we've always known Jordan's right when he claims that Musky raids tend to center around Fresh Start."
"Who told—? Oh!" Krishnamurti looked disgusted.
"Right, Krish—Dad again. Ever since Jordan made that charge two years ago, our P.R. department—pardon me, our Good Neighbors Bureau—has been blandly falsifying statistics to prove it's all a lie. I know—I work in the radio station, remember? Only it ain't a lie. The Muskies hang around downwind of Fresh Start because it's a soup kitchen. And they hang around cities for the same reason. When I first breathed New York air unplugged, it seemed worse than it could naturally be after twenty years—and so it was. The Muskies figured some way of hermetically enclosing the city, sealing in the last of the `food,' and they've been rationing it out ever since.
"But we're probably the only place on earth producing new food. In small quantities, yes—but producing."
"Then you're with Jordan," Dalhousie barked. "You're saying we should shut down Fresh Start, let technological civilization die forever and go back to the Stone Age." His face was reddening.
"Nuts," I replied. "I'm saying we should export smog."
Dalhousie and Phinney went into the jaw-dropping routine again. Krishnamurti's eyes still looked like paper cuts. Hit 'em while they're groggy, my man. I plowed on urgently.
"Think about it, George—Helen—Krish. Think of the kind of work you could accomplish if you didn't have to have three men guard every one working, if you didn't have to waste time and materials and power Musky-proofing every work-zone, if you didn't have to devote so much energy to mass-producing hot-shot and compatible weaponry, if you didn't keep losing good men to Musky raiders. How much more could you accomplish if the farmers and Agros who live around this burg weren't half-crazy with fear? How would you like free safe access to the tools and equipment of the cities? How would you like to be able to walk safely outdoors with a head cold? How would you like to stop all the killing?" I was startled by my own vehemence, and discovered that I was bathed in sweat.
"What sort of . . . treaty are you proposing?" Krishnamurti asked quietly.
"A simple symbiosis. If the Muskies promise to leave us alone to rebuild a technology, we promise to do it. We work with them, work out ways to expand at a stable, even rate beneficial to both sides. Dammit, if we use our fucking brains we can have industry and clean air both—the Muskies'll eat our pollution for us. But it'll call for understanding and good communications."
"Which you can provide?" Krishnamurti asked just a hair too smoothly.
"Hell, no," I said. "I've been working on talking to Muskies for weeks now and I haven't gotten past the `Me Tarzan—you Jane' stage. And that ain't even the big problem."
"Explain."
"Look: Muskies come in groups, called Names. Each Name contains anywhere from three to forty Muskies, and each individual is the Name—talk to one and you're talking to them all. It's a group-mind, with certain qualifications that are so subtle I don't understand them myself." Sure giving away a lot of free information, old son. Fuck it, I've got to convince them. "But there are thousands of Names still living, the survivors of starvation and human firepower—and communication between them can only be accomplished through the High Muskies."
"What the hell are High Muskies?" Dalhousie snapped.
"The aristocracy, George. The elders, the older and wiser heads. The Musky Council, if you will. Their diminished mass keeps them mostly in the upper stratosphere, though I'm not certain whether that's a matter of preference or necessity. I can't tell you why they can communicate with any Musky while the Names can't communicate with each other. I can't explain the relationships between High Muskies and Names. I can't even tell you for sure how much of this is fact and how much is guesswork—the distinction gets vague when you're talking with a Musky. But I can tell you with intuitive emotional certainty that the High Muskies are the key to ending the War. We've got to get to talk with one, people, and soon."
"What do you propose?" Krishnamurti asked again.
"Drop everything and begin constructing some sort of flying machine," I replied at once. I'd had the walk from New York to perfect this. "From what I know of Fresh Start's technical capabilities I would suggest a balloon, capable of lifting two or three people and about fifty pounds of electronic equipment. While that's being done—in fact, before it's begun—send an expedition to New York to work with Wendell Carlson." Phinney sucked air through her teeth. "I know we haven't got any semanticists or philologists, but somebody better qualified than me has to learn to talk with the windriders. I'd recommend Dr. Mike, and anybody else we've got who's good with languages. No sense sending 'em an embassy if the ambassadors can't speak the lingo."
"And when the . . . ambassadors have learned the `lingo,' and the balloon is ready?" Krish prompted, Eastern features impassive.
"Send 'em up and have 'em start learning High Musky. If they can accomplish that, they can try to work out some sort of peaceful coexistence agreement."
"And their chances of surviving?"
"I believe excellent. No Musky with whom I've `spoken' has displayed the slightest aggression. I don't know what goes on in whatever they use for heads, but apparently the ability to communicate is enough to raise you from the class of `them damn crazy vermin' to `potential people.' I can't say I've ever really communicated with them—half the time both sides get confused as hell—but we always part amicably. Our ambassadors may be a long time getting understood, but they'll be safe enough while they're trying. They might even be able to get an interim cease-fire in Fresh Start and surrounding areas."
I paused, took a deep breath and looked carefully at all three. "So there you go, people. There's the story, there's the chance of peace and the hope of the race. What do you say to a way to end the War and give the survivors—for the first time in history—clean technology, not to mention a new and rich culture to exchange with and learn from? The Muskies are an ancient and wise people who never knew war until men taught it to them—let's make peace with them and get on with the business of rebuilding the world. What do you say?"
And so it was all said, and I shut up to give them time to think it over. In the sudden silence, I saw Dalhousie's features go slack again, a sure sign that he was thinking at full speed. Phinney was frowning furiously, chewing hell out of a good lipstick job and drumming silver fingernails on the tabletop. Krishnamurti stared with a fixed intensity at that same tabletop, as if fascinated by the interplay of grain on its surface.
It was the noisiest silence I ever heard.
And while I was supposed to be studying my inquisitors, I found myself distracted by my own thoughts and emotions. The sincerity in my last words astonished me. To be sure, my life literally depended on the Council's decision—but I was startled to discover the priority that had in my feelings. With something like shock I discovered that ending the War was more important to me than my personal survival, that I would willingly die to bring about peace. The suspense I felt in regarding my inquisitors was not for myself alone but for my people, for the idea of humankind. For someone like me it was a hell of a realization. I wouldn't have been willing to die to kill Wendell Carlson, back when that seemed the prime motivation of my life—I undertook the task because I believed I could do it. Hara-kiri's not my style—or at least, it hadn't been. Altruism at your age, old son? You've been hanging around Wendell too long.
Or maybe just long enough?
I yanked my attention back to the tactical situation, confused and off-balance. Krishnamurti was looking directly into my eyes, and I started.
"A very good try, Isham," he said slowly, and my heart sank. "It very nearly worked. Your story has a kind of internal consistency which belies its basic absurdity. But it won't wash."
Dalhousie had been ready to agree; he back-pedaled mentally. "What are you saying, Sarwar?"
Krishnamurti smiled for the first time that morning. "Come now, George. You haven't been taken in by this ridiculous story? Use Occam's Razor, for heaven's sake. Isham here is sent to New York to execute Carlson. He returns, admitting that he failed and was held prisoner for an indefinite time by Carlson and his Musky friends, admitting that they drugged him, and the first thing he does is to murder his father. He flees back to his alien companions and the exiled renegade, and is brought back here only by force, over Musky opposition from what Collaci told me last night. In defense of all this he claims that Jacob was a madman, Carlson is a saint, and the Muskies are misunderstood creatures with whom we picked a fight. He advises that we drop our defenses and make a peace which will in one stroke solve all the problems of mankind. Isn't it obvious he's been brainwashed in some way by Wendell Carlson? Isn't it obvious that he is a tool in that psycopath's plan to destroy his own kind, a plan that began eighteen years ago and is not yet complete?"
"But . . ." George began.
"Think, man," Krishnamurti pushed on, with just a bit too much determination for a man interested in examining a question fairly. "Think. Did you really believe the tape that Isham left behind after he murdered Jacob? Do you believe that Jacob Stone, who built Fresh Start with his own two hands, was the madman, and a bearded hermit in New York the savior of mankind? Do you—?"
"It's true," I said flatly, hopelessly. "Guilt built Fresh Start. Dad's guilt. And Wendell's may yet save it."
"A good try indeed, Isham. I wish we could take the time to reverse your brainwashing and return you to sanity. I really do; I've always rather liked you. But it is a matter of urgent political necessity that we execute you at once." His lips curled up in the ghost of a sad smile. "Perhaps it is as well. If I had murdered the most loved and needed man in the world, I would rather die convinced my action was correct."
"I would rather," Phinney said icily, "that he die in full knowledge of his crime."
"Now, Helen," Krishnamurti soothed, "vengeance is pointless; if Jacob had realized that, he might be alive today. Reparation will do quite nicely. Let's patch up the mess his death caused and get on with the job."
"Get Collaci in here," I said suddenly.
"Why?"
"I want him for a witness."
Krishnamurti frowned. "I see no useful purpose . . ."
"You're going to take my life and I don't get to call a single witness?"
This time it was Dalhousie who spoke. "Dammit, we're dragging this out. We've heard what he has to say, Sarwar, and we know what we have to do. Let's finish up."
Krishnamurti nodded. "Isham Stone," he began formally, "You have been tried for the murder of Jacob Stone and found . . ."
"Excuse me," I said. No point in yelling "Hey rube," with the door closed the room was soundproof. I rose, turned my back on them and grasped my chair with my only hand. I came around fast, whipping the chair like a flail and letting it go at once. It cleared Krishnamurti's head by three inches, so quickly he never had time to duck, and shattered the picture window. As glass exploded out into the garden I continued my pivot, springing headlong toward the library door. It opened as I was in mid-air, the two Guards spilling into the room with rifles at the ready. But I was already between the jutting barrels, clamping one head under my stump and slapping the other into it savagely. The impact carried all three of us out into the hall, where we landed in a heap. The Guards stayed down. I was up at once, my hand prominently empty.
Collaci came through the shattered window in a ball, rolling as he hit the floor. He finished on his feet half-shielded by a bookshelf, and if I'd even looked like having a weapon the machine pistol in his hand would already have cut me in half. I grinned at him.
"Hiya, Teach'. I wanted you here, and they wouldn't call you."
He nodded. "So you did. You always did have a weakness for histrionics, son." He turned to Krishnamurti, who still sat frozen in the same position he'd held when the chair whistled past his ear. "Not trying to shut me out, are you, Krish?"
Krishnamurti began furious denials, and my grin widened. My primary purpose in summoning Teach' was already fulfilled—he'd listen to the "trial"-transcript tape now if he had to steal it, and perhaps he'd have brains enough to see that my proposal was logical and necessary. "What do you want, Isham?" he asked, cutting off Krishnamurti's excuses, and I went on to my secondary purpose—the faint hope that I might still reach the Council.
"I want to ask you a question, Teach', a question neither Dad nor these three would ever have asked, even of themselves. In your professional opinion as Chief of the Guard, as a Musky-fighter of twenty years' experience, how much longer will the human race survive if the War continues?"
He was startled, but he didn't need to make any calculations. His eyes got hard and cold, and his voice came out like a computer-construct. "Without a major breakthrough in long-range detection and destruction, a maximum of ten to twelve years."
Dalhousie and Phinney paled, but I could see Krishnamurti deciding to disbelieve. No good—for now, at any rate. "I advise negotiation, folks," I said, and gave up. I'd done my best. I could only hope they'd think over what I'd said.
"Take this man away and guard him well," Krishnamurti snapped at Collaci. "He stands condemned. Execution will be tomorrow at dawn in front of the Gate. Don't allow him to speak with anyone—at all."
Teach' looked at him for a long time, no readable expression on his face. "You're the boss," he said at last, and waved the machine pistol at me. "Let's go, son."
"Sure thing," I agreed, and we started for the door. As we reached it, a thought struck me and I turned, slowly enough to avoid startling Collaci's trigger finger.
"Helen," I said softly, and she looked up in surprise. "I'm sorry, Aunt Helen." I wasn't entirely sure what I meant—but I meant it.
She bit her lip. "Go away, Isham."
I nodded and left the Council behind, heading for the light of day. I hoped Teach' had a joint on him. I needed one.