"So the amoeba said, floating on the surface of the ocean, with his highest point the crest of the wave and his lowest the trough between two waves," replied Eli. "And if he was right, what are we doing here, a hundred feet above the water level of mid-Atlantic? But suppose it was true? Is there any reason it must continue to be true? And if it was true, what useful purpose do you perform by assisting what needs no assistance to continue?" He paused and looked at Sellars. "That reason wasn't your real one. I know what is."
"Oh?" said Sellars.
"Yes," answered Eli. "And I'll tell you what it is without your asking. Because I know you won't ask."
Sellars' eyes had dropped toward the desk top. He did not look up as Eli went on.
"You're a strong man, Tony," Eli said. "Almost too strong for your own good. You can't face a problem without doing something about it. If it can't be resolved you find a solution that, if nothing else, will make it appear to be settled for the time being. And that is exactly what you've done with, the world at the present time."
Still Sellars said nothing and did not raise his hand.
"Regimentation," went on Eli. "Forced order and activity commanded by a single central head. All the appearance of progress and development. That was your idea. Keep the pump going, even if the well is dry. Pretend that we have not yet reached the decisive end-point."
Sellars raised his eyes finally. His face was hardened with pain.
"What else is there?" he said.
Eli smiled.
"Thank you, Tony," he said. "You asked. And I'll tell you." He smiled again at the bitter incredulity in Sellars' eyes.
"The Members had the right instinct, you know," he said. "They've been dreaming of a superman without the faults of man. It was a young immature dream, because it assumed that we would suddenly hop to the top of the mountain without the labor of climbing it. But they were looking in the right direction. Man has battled his external world and won. Now he begins a new campaign to conquer his inner self. The old time of physical struggle is behind us. From now on we march into new land, so different and unknown and vast that no one can even guess at what lies waiting for us there."
He stopped and looked at the other man.
"Well, Tony?" he said.
Sellars was free of the compulsion that had so long held him. But he did not notice. He put his elbow on the desk and leaned his head against his hand, wearily rubbing his forehead with slow movements of his fingertips.
"If I believed this…" he said. "If I could believe this…"
"Why do you think I've come here, except to prove it to you?" replied Eli. "The proof is here for you to discover for yourself. The first and biggest block we face—"
"No!" said Sellars suddenly and sharply, interrupting him. He straightened up behind the desk and shook his head briefly, like a man coming out of a daze. "This is fantastic. No, Eli!" he put both hands palm down on the desk and shoved himself up onto his feet. Solid and unyielding he looked across the desk at Eli.
"It was a good try; and you almost made it," he said. "But I'm a little beyond the years of believing in fairy tales just because they're what I want to hear. Sorry." And he stepped out from behind his desk and turned for the door, picking up the mnemonic cube with his speech notes.
"Fairy tales?" said Eli. "Are you sure that what I told you was just a fairy tale?"
Sellars paused and faced him once more.
"I'll become sure," he answered. "One day I'll be positive. And what will you do now?"
"Nothing," said Eli quietly. "I told you I had no weapons but words. There is your door. Beyond it, your representatives are waiting for you. If you choose to walk to and through that door without facing what I have to offer you, all I can do is stand and watch you go."
Sellars lowered his head and started toward the door. There was something ponderous and awesome about this last gesture. It was as if his great will had such mass that sheer momentum must carry it slowly but inevitably to disaster, as the thousand-ton ocean liner turns slowly from a broken towing cable and with deceptive and terrible gentleness swings in toward the silent, waiting crowd on the fragile pier. He almost made it to the door, but before he reached it, his feet had slowed to a halt and he turned painfully and with hesitation to face Eli—this man who had never hesitated over a decision in his life and who now stood torn and helpless with the agony of his indecision.
"Damn you!" he said. "What's your proof?"
Eli moved toward him until they looked into each other's face across a distance of only inches.
"First," he said, "comes trust. It is the first step for all of us on this new road we walk. The walls of secrecy and shame and hidden fears must go down. If you want to, Tony, you can look into my mind with the help of the Members and see that what I told you of the future is true and possible. But the only way this is possible, is for you to let me, at the same time look into your mind. If we do this, we will have no secrets from each other; and no one can force you to it. You must agree and be willing to trust."
"Trust…" echoed Sellars, his voice struggling.
"The time will come when everyone will trust and be open with each other," said Eli sympathetically. "For people brought up as we are in our time it is very hard. I can do it because I know in advance now, what I will see and meet. It's my particular strength. But everybody has his own—and yours, I think, lies in your urge to be right, no matter what the cost. Can you do it?"
"Yes," said Sellars. He seemed to gather himself. "I can do anything," he said.
"I know you can," answered Eli softly.
Sellars lifted his eyes to Eli's and there found reassurance.
"I think I could trust you anyway," he said.
And with those words the barriers between them fell forever.
"You see?" said Eli, after a long while.
"I see," said Tony Sellars.
There was a deep emptiness in his voice. He walked over and sat down heavily at the desk.
"What will I do now?" he asked hopelessly, suddenly very human and defenseless.
"Believe in a different future, that's all," said Eli. "And work for it. Work is something we'll never lack. Not this generation, nor the next, nor even the next after that, will everyone in the world be willing to do what you've just done." He moved forward toward the desk. "You think I've taken something from you, Tony; but you're going to find that in losing that you've gained something much bigger and better to replace it. Hope, Tony."
"Yes, hope…" As if roused slowly from his preoccupation with himself, Tony's eyes went to the screen on his desk which showed his ships still clustered about the station. He reached out with one hand and depressed a stud. Invisibly a direct connection flared between his desk and the pilot room of the lead ship. The scene vanished to be replaced by the features of a slim young man wearing a pilot's uniform on which the green Transportation facings were still to be seen.
"Your orders are canceled," said Sellars wearily. "Return to Cable Island." And he cut the connection in the face of the young man's startled expression.
"Thanks," said Eli. "And now?"
Sellars took a deep breath and rose to his feet.
"Now," he said, his voice gaining firmness as he spoke. "I'm due to talk to the group heads in the Council Room."
Across the open channel of his understanding, the cost and meaning of this statement reached through to Eli.
"I could tell them for you, Tony," he said.
"No," Sellars shook his head. His old certainty was flooding back. "The mistake was mine. The explanation will have to be mine."
He turned from the desk and made his way toward the door as Eli watched him go. With his hand on the button of it, he turned and looked back."
"Those Members," he said, "the ones I had executed. I suppose the Members I hadn't caught told you about them."
"No," answered Eli. "I'm not ordinarily telepathic, but that one time I was in actual contact. One of the men executed was Seth Maguin, a hal
f-brother of mine."
Sellars' face went bleak. "I see," he said. He paused for a moment. "I'm sorry."
"I know," said Eli softly.
For a second more, Sellars hesitated. Then he turned and, pushing the door open, went through it. It started to swing closed again, but some invisible force caught it and held it open.
"Thank you, whoever that was," said Eli. "I did want to watch."
He drifted forward to where the angle of the room hid him from the eyes of those in the amphitheater. Beyond the square, flat back of Sellars he saw the faces of the group leaders in their sections about the room, silent and waiting.
"Spokesman and representatives," began Sellars and hesitated, as if gathering strength.
Eli turned and saw a movement in the air beside him; and as he watched he saw Tammy coalesce out of nothingness.
"I wanted to come too," she said, looking up at him. "Eli, do you know you don't limp any more?"
He put his shadow arm around her shadow shoulders, feeling, distant miles away across the ocean, in the station, the warmth and softness of her as his physical body duplicated the action. He smiled back at her.
"That's because I've given up being a cripple otherwise," he said. "Now hush. And listen. This is something that in our present civilization it takes a great man to do."
They fell silent. Out before them Sellars lifted the cube he held in his hand and looked at it for a second. Then quietly, he dropped it into the disposal slot of the desk before him and watched it being incinerated. He looked out once more at his audience and put both his big, square hands palm down on the desk in front of him. He leaned forward and began to speak.
"Gentlemen," he commenced simply, "I have made a mistake…"
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