He was trying to sabotage a missile base, with several others. His
papers were challenged and he was shot. I'm sorry."
"Dead," she stammered. "Dead. Will they kill us all, one by one?"
She began to weep.
"Unless we stop them."
"How, damn it! How?"
"A piece at a time."
"But you said you had a plan. For ME."
"I do."
"Well what is it? Stop treating me like a child!"
"Not now. I'll come back tomorrow after dark."
"All right. God." She could not believe it. He turned to go.
Without turning. "You'd best harden your heart, Elonna, or it will
freeze inside you. I'm sorry about Lawrence.
He was gone.
*
The next day seemed endless, but at last he came. He looked over the
equipment leaned against the wall, then came and sat across from her.
He was at once both kinder and colder.
"I have a plan, Elonna, and them is a reasonable chance it will work.
But it may be more than your mind is equipped to handle. Also. . .it
is sexual in nature."
"You think I don't know that, the way you're always looking at me?"
"Listen first. Save your scorn for the enemy. You will need it all."
"I'm sorry. I'm not mad at you."
"Never, NEVER apologize. And don't ever feel pity for a man who's done
you wrong. If you do at a critical time in this, we're lost."
"You're worse than he was."
"Yes, and I'm still alive." He stirred uncomfortably in the chair. "I
didn't mean that. Have you got any water?"
"Yes." She sent the boy to get some.
"Try to understand, Elonna. As undersecretary to Hunter, I'm
surrounded by them constantly. These guerrillas, even Lawrence, flit
in and out of the fire."
"Lawrence did more than flit."
"Yes he did. And if I could change that, I would..... But I live in
the midst of it. I can't afford the luxury of emotion. And I want
desperately to bring them down. That they're my own people doesn't
help."
She studied him more closely.
"You say they're your own people. What about us? Are we just pieces
on the board?"
"Not a fair question. You don't know what we're up against." The boy
handed him a filled cup.
"Lawrence was found of saying that, and he's dead."
"Yes, and I'm likely to end the same way."
"Then why do you do it?"
"Because they ARE my own people. Maybe you pity them, try to
understand. I don't. There's no excuse for this, Elonna. None. It's
all been played out a hundred times before.
"There lives are empty and harsh," he continued. "So they say it must
be somebody's fault. Surely their God can't want them to suffer, apple
of his eye as they're supposed to be. So it must be anti-God. And who
is this? The blacks and other minorities, the corrupt and inept
liberals, a benign socialist colony two systems away. For God's sake,
we've been in Space for two hundred years, we should know better. They
forget, or choose to ignore, all the lessons it's taught us: that
we're only very small, and should help each other. They turn their
backs on history and the simplest understanding, and still find some
dark corner in which to masturbate their hatred. There's no excuse for
it. None."