"I am permitted to tell you that your comrade has been removed to
hospital and is in good condition."
Joris said nothing. Trehearne saw his sunken eyes looking across the
spaceport and thought how it must be for him to come back thus to this
place where for years he had sat with his hands guiding the Vardda
ships that came and went. Then the car took them out of the spaceport,
fast. Trehearne saw that other cars, with guards alone in them, ran
unobtrusively along ahead of and behind them.
And nothing was changed in Llyrdis. The peacock city preened itself
beneath the sun, iridescent, splendid, its streets thronged with the
smiling Vardda and the other stranger races--echoing with music,
brilliant with color. They passed a Vardda man and girl who stood,
laughing as they talked. And it was then that Trehearne ceased
altogether to hope.
"We're going to the Council Hall," Edri said presently.
Joris nodded somberly. "I could have told you that. As a Council
member, I have to be formally impeached and removed before charges
against me can be pressed." He added grimly, "Old Ristin, the chairman,
won't weep over that. We tangled pretty often, in the past."
The Council Hall sat amid a crowded nexus of governmental buildings.
It dominated Llyrdis, not by size, but by age. It was a grey old
pile, without beauty but with the massiveness and solidity of eternal
things. Its courts and corridors and staring officials Trehearne saw
only vaguely. They slid over his vision, and nothing seemed entirely
tangible until, in an anteroom, Shairn's face leaped real to his eyes.
She had been waiting to see him pass, he knew. Her face was white
and strained, and she said nothing, but her eyes said, "_Michael!
Michael!_" He looked back at her as they went on and he wondered what
she read in his own eyes. And then they had entered the deliberative
chamber itself.
It was not large and not crowded, a half-moon-shaped hall with
something more than a hundred Vardda in its chairs. Of the blur of
faces turned toward him, most were grave, some curious, some open in
their hatred.
Ristin, the chairman, was a magnificent white-haired old Lucifer who
disdained the petty vanity of pretending that this was a routine matter.
"This Council is not a judicial body," he informed the four. "The
criminal charges against you--piracy, resisting of authority--will
be handled by the regular courts. We are here investigating a matter
urgent to the state."
Joris got up, thrusting his gray head forward like an old mastiff's. He
growled, "Since this is an investigation, you can't legally carry it
out without hearing us."
Ristin said grimly, "The Coordinator of the Port was always good at
making himself heard here. But you will have to wait this time, Joris."
He looked up at the watching Vardda faces as he added, "The problem of
your personal offense is not foremost. What concerns us most urgently
is the general policy to be adopted by the Council."
Trehearne hardly heard. That glimpse of Shairn had done things to him
and his mind was far away. He wondered vaguely why Edri, who had sat
sagging heavily beside him, suddenly stiffened, why Edri convulsively
grasped his wrist.
Ristin was continuing, "Therefore I emphasize again that we of the
Council must not let any emotion of resentment sway our judgment. We
are elected to serve the best interests of the Vardda as a whole and we
must let no lesser considerations in any way affect our decision."
Then Joris laughed. His head came up, and his bellowing laughter echoed
and re-echoed from the vaulted roof. He swung around to Trehearne and
Edri and Quorn, and his eyes were blazing now. "_By God, you did it
after all!_"
Trehearne, still only half understanding, felt a white-hot thrill. Edri
had begun to tremble violently.
Ristin's cool voice cut in. "Believe me, your exultation is premature.
Nevertheless there is no purpose in concealing the fact that your
actions have presented us with an unprecedentedly grave problem."
Quorn said hoarsely to Trehearne, "Don't you get it? Our message got
through!"
Trehearne understood then. The gravity of the watching faces, the
bitter hatred in some of them, the strong leadership the old chairman
was wielding to conquer the crisis--all these belied the everyday
appearance of Llyrdis that had been the death-knell of his hopes. He
knew, now. He knew that through them, after a thousand years, the voice
of Orthis had spoken to the Galaxy. And it had been heard--somewhere it
had been heard.
Ristin was saying, "So far only vague rumor and hearsay is abroad.
Every operator who might have heard the broadcast has been warned not
to repeat it but there are bound to be Orthists among them. The fact
that non-Vardda worlds possess ultra-wave receivers for use in their
commerce with us is an even more serious matter. It stands thus--that
in spite of the news-services' co-operation with us on the matter, it
is slowly becoming public knowledge that Orthis' secret was found and
broadcast. At least three recordings of it have been found, and two
written records. We can assume that there are more."
Joris said grimly, "In other words--the secret is out and everyone will
soon know that--and what are you going to do about it?"
"The Coordinator of the Port has summed it up," Ristin agreed, coolly.
"What shall we do about it?"
A tall Vardda leaped up and cried, "I suggest that the first thing we
do is to execute these traitors!"
There was a fierce chorus of agreement from a few dozen voices. Ristin
called sharply for order.
"I have reminded you that our paramount consideration at this moment
must be the ultimate best interests of our people! Let us have no more
such outbreaks."
An older Vardda man rose in the tiers and said quietly, "Before I
advance my suggestion I should admit that I have always had secret
Orthist sympathies. I don't think that I am the only one here who can
say that. You must allow for that." He went on. "I would have liked
long ago to see this unnatural monopoly ended. Now our hand has been
forced. I suggest that our best and wisest course is to act at once--to
declare publicly that we Vardda are going to _give_ the secret to the
whole Galaxy."
He paused, to emphasize his point. "The secret is out anyway. But
by acting quickly we can take credit for that. We can aver that the
broadcast was made with our consent. Remember, whether we like it or
not, in a few generations other worlds will be flying the stars--and we
do not want them cherishing a legacy of hatred for us then."
Trehearne, listening, smiled grimly. "Politics don't change much across
the Galaxy."
"But it's all we hoped for," Edri whispered. "It would work, too!"
Discussion, angry debate, had sprung up. It went on and on, passionate
voices accusing and denying, Ristin sternly maintaining order, bringing
back the argument to the main issue time after time. Finally, in a lull
of the disputing voices, Joris swung around and faced the Council.
"Now listen to me," the old man roared. "You'd think the way some of
you talk that this meant the end of the Vardda, the end of Llyrdis,
the end of everything. That's utter asininity. In the first place,
mutations don't take place overnight. It will be a generation or
two before the other races start going out between the stars in any
numbers."
Trehearne saw that sink home. The Vardda Council, being human, could
not worry too deeply for long about a future they wouldn't see.
"And furthermore," Joris bellowed, "when every half-baked folk in the
Galaxy does take to starflight, does that mean the great Vardda trade
is ruined forever? Listen! We Vardda were the first to go out to the
stars. _The first!_ Do you think all the lubberly races of the Galaxy
can compete with us out there? Do you think so?"
He caught them with that, with the Vardda pride, the Vardda glory.
Trehearne saw the strained faces changing. Not all of them, but many.
Joris paused before he said his final word. "Do you think there will
ever be a time when we Vardda can't hold our own?"
There was not much talk after that. There were questions, protests,
doubts, but little more argument. All the arguments had been spoken.
"We have to decide this now or never," Ristin told them. "If we delay
longer, there will not be a choice."
Trehearne heard the resolution read, and the voting and the result.
Not easily could the Vardda yield! Forty-three voted against the
resolution. But seventy-nine for it.
Ristin said, "It will be announced by general broadcast tonight that,
in view of the advance of civilization on many star-worlds, the Vardda
deem the time ripe to share the secret of mutation with other selected
races."