"With Walter's help, of course," Amid answered calmly. "After his death and your entrance into the Final Encyclopedia, we lost you; and only traced you to Coby after Bleys' interest pointed you out to us, again. The fact that you've been able to keep out of his hands is, to say the least, remarkable; and it's that, primarily, that's raised our interest in you. Generally speaking, you're someone we've all been keeping an eye out for, lately. When it became obvious Bleys was making a serious effort to flush you out on Coby, we arranged for one of us to be on each of the ships available to you then for off-world escape. I was lucky enough to be on the one you took."
"Yes," said Hal. "I see. You're interested in me because Bleys is."
"Not because—for the same reason—Bleys is," said Amid. "We assume he wants you neutralized, or on his side. We want you made effective in opposition to him. But not just because he's interested in you. We're interested—we've always been interested—in you, simply because our ontogenetic calculations recommend an interest."
"A little more than recommend, don't they?" Hal asked.
Amid tilted his head a little to one side like a bird, gazing at him.
"I don't believe I follow you," he said.
Hal breathed slowly before answering. The lethargy was all gone out of him now. Instead there was a sort of sadness, a gray feeling.
"Bleys threatens the very existence of your culture," he answered. "I suppose I ought to say that it's the Others who threaten its very existence. Under those conditions, don't your calculations do more than just recommend an interest in me? Or—let me put it a little differently. Is there anyone else they recommend an equal interest in, in that respect?"
Amid sat in the sunlight, looking at him.
"No," he said, at last.
"Well, then," said Hal.
"Yes," said Amid, still watching him. "Apparently you understand the situation better than we thought you did. You're barely into your twenties, aren't you?"
"Yes," Hal said.
"You sound much older."
"Right now," said Hal, "I feel older. It's a feeling that came on me rather recently."
"While you were on Harmony?"
"No. Since then—since I've had time to think. You talked about my staying out of Bleys' hands. I haven't been able to do that, you realize? He had me in a cell of the Militia Headquarters in Ahruma."
"Yes," said Amid. "But you escaped. I take it you've talked face to face with him, then, since the moment of your tutors' deaths?"
"I didn't talk to him at the time of my tutors' deaths," said Hal. "But, yes, a day or two before I got away he came to my cell and we talked."
"Can I ask about what?"
"He seems to think I'm an Other," Hal said. "He told me some of the reasons why he expects me to come over to their side in the end. Mainly, they add up to the fact that there's no other position that'll be endurable for me."
"And I take it you disagreed with him?"
"So far."
Amid looked at him curiously.
"You're not completely sure he isn't right?"
"I can't afford to be sure of anything—isn't that the principle you've always held to, yourselves, here on the Exotics?"
Amid nodded again.
"Yes," he said, "you're older than anyone would have thought—in some ways. But you did mail your papers to me. You did come to us for help."
"To the best of my knowledge I'm on the opposite side of Bleys and the Others," Hal said. "It's only sense to make common cause with those who're also opposed. I had a long time to think in that cell, under conditions where my thinking was unusually concentrated."
"I can imagine," said Amid. "You seem to have gone through a sort of a rite of passage, according to Nerallee."
"How much did she tell you?" Hal asked.
"That was all—essentially," said Amid. "She's got her personal responsibilities as a Healer; and, in any case, we'd rather hear what you wished to tell us about such things, in your own words."
"At least at first?" said Hal. "No, I've no objection to your knowing. When I talked to her, I assumed what I said was going to be made available to the rest of you, if you thought you needed to know it. Actually, what I went through isn't the important point. What's important is I came out of it with a clearer picture of the situation than—possibly—even you here on the Exotics."
Amid smiled a little. Then the smile went away.
"Anything's possible," he said slowly.
"Yes," said Hal.
"Then, tell me," said Amid. The old eyes, set deep in their wrinkles, were steady on him. "What do you think is going to happen?"
"Armageddon. A final war—with a final conclusion. A quiet war that, when it's over, is going to leave the Others completely in control; with the Exotics gone, with the Dorsai gone, what was the Friendly culture gone, and all progress stopped. The fourteen worlds as a large estate with the Others as landlords and no change permitted."
Amid nodded slowly.
"Possibly," he said, "if the Others have their way."
"Do you know any means of stopping them?" said Hal. "And if you do, why be interested in me?"
"You might be that means, or part of it," said Amid, "since nothing in history is simple. Briefly, the weapons we've developed here on Mara and Kultis are useless against the Others. Only one Splinter Culture's got the means to be effective against them."
"The Dorsai," said Hal.
"Yes." Amid's face became so devoid of life and motion for a second that it was more like a living mask than a face. "The Dorsai are going to have to fight them."
"Physically?"
Amid's eyes held his.
"Physically," he agreed.
"And you thought," said Hal, "that being raised as I've been—so that effectively I'm part Exotic and part Dorsai, as well as being part Friendly—I might be the one you'd want to carry that message to them."
"Yes," said Amid, "but not just that. Our calculations on you show you as a very unusual individual in your own right—it may be that you're particularly fitted to lead in this area, at this time. That would make you much more than just an effective messenger. You must understand how high some of us calculate your potential to be—"
"Thanks," said Hal. "But I think you're dealing in too small terms. You seem to be thinking of someone who can lead, but only under your direction. I can't believe that the Exotics, of all people, don't have a clearer picture of the situation than that."
"In what way?" Amid's voice was suddenly incisive.
"I mean," said Hal, slowly, "I can't believe you, of all people, have any illusions. There's no way what you've built here and on Kultis can survive in the form you know it. Any more than the Dorsai or the Friendly Culture can survive as they now are; whether the Others are stopped, or not. The only hope at all is to try to win survival for the whole race at whatever necessary cost, because the only alternative is death for the whole race; and because that's what's going to happen if the Others win. It'll take them some generations, maybe, but if they win, in the end their way will end the human race."
"And?" The word was close to being a challenge from the small man.
"And so the only way to survival means facing all possible sacrifice," said Hal. "What is it you and your fellow Exotics would be willing to give up everything else to preserve—when it comes down to that?"
Amid looked at him, nakedly.
"The idea of human evolution," he said. "That, above all, mustn't die. Even if we and all our work in the past four centuries has to be lost."
"That, yes. I think ideas can be saved," said Hal, "if the race is going to be saved as a whole. All right, then. I imagine you've got a number of people you want me to meet?"
He stood up. Amid rose also.
"I believe," he said, "we've underestimated you."
"Perhaps not." Hal smiled at him. "I think I'll change clothes first. Will you wait a minute?"
"Of course."
Hal went back to his sleeping qu
arters. Among the clothing suspended there, cleaned and waiting for him, were the clothes he had been wearing on Harmony when he had knocked at the door of the Exotic Consulate. He exchanged them for the green robe he had been wearing and went back to Amid in the conversation pit.
"Yes, we did indeed underestimate you," the old man said, looking at the clothes when Hal returned. "You're much, much older than when I met you aboard the ship to Harmony."
Chapter Thirty-nine
"As it happens," said Amid, leading Hal through the pleasant maze of rooms and intervening areas that made up his home, "the people who want to talk to you are already here. While you were dressing, I called around and they were all available."
"Good," said Hal.
He strode along beside the much smaller man, holding his pace down to the one that age dictated for Amid. The self-restraint reminded him, suddenly, of how frail the other actually was. Amid must be far up in years, considering the state of Exotic medical science; nowhere near as old as Tam Olyn, of course, but old in any ordinary human terms.
"I've no idea," Amid said, "where your knowledge of our ways stops. But I suppose you know that, like the Dorsai, for all effective purposes we don't have governing bodies on Mara or Kultis. Decisions affecting us all become the concern of those in whose field they most clearly lie; and the rest of us, in practice, accept the decision those experienced minds come up with for the situation—though anyone who wants to can object."
"But they generally don't?" Hal said.
"No," Amid smiled up at him. "At any rate, the point is that the four people you're to talk to aren't political heads of areas or groups, but people whose fields of study best equip them to evaluate and interpret your capabilities. For example, my own study of the Friendly Worlds makes me particularly fitted to understand what you did, and what the results may be from what you did, on Harmony. The others are comparable experts."
"All in fields as applied to ontogenetics?"
"Ontogenetics underlies nearly everything we do—" Amid broke off. They had reached the entrance to what seemed to be less a room than a porch, or balcony, projecting out from a wall of the general house. Beyond the graceful, short pillars of a balustrade there was nothing visible but sky and the distant tops of some deciduous trees. Some empty chair floats, but nothing else, were visible on the balcony. Amid turned to Hal.
"We're early," he said, "and that gives us a moment. Step across the hall with me."
He turned and led the way into a room with its entrance opposite that of the balcony. Hal followed, frowning a little. The neatness of the opportunity to tell him something was almost suspect. It could be sheer accident, as Amid had implied; or it could be that what the other was about to tell him was something that the Exotics had wanted him to know before they spoke with him, but something they had not wanted him to have too much time to think over beforehand.
"I should explain this, so you aren't puzzled by the fact that some of those you'll be talking to may seem to doubt you unreasonably." Amid closed the door behind them and stood looking up into Hal's face. "Walter InTeacher taught you at least the elements of ontogenetics, I think you said?"
Hal hesitated. At fifteen, he would have answered without hesitation that he understood a great deal more than just the elements of ontogenetics. But now, standing at his mature height, after five years of life experience with a number of people on two strange worlds, standing face to face with a born Exotic, on Mara, he found a certain restraint in him.
"The elements, yes," he answered.
"You're aware, then, that ontogenetics is basically the study of individuals, in their impacts on current and past history, the aim being to identify patterns of action that can help us to evolve an improved form of human?"
Hal nodded.
"And you know," said Amid, walking over to a small, square table with a bare top, apparently carved of some light-colored stone, "that beyond its statistical base and its biological understandings, the work's always been highly theoretical. We observe, and try to apply the results of our observation, hoping that the more knowledge we can pile up the more clues we'll find, until eventually, we'll be able to see a clear pattern leading to the evolved form of humanity."
He paused, now standing beside the tabletop, and looked up at Hal again.
"I suppose you know it was our interest in that sort of piling up of knowledge that led us to supply most of the funds that made the building of the Final Encyclopedia possible; first as an institution in the city of Saint Louis, on Earth, then as it is now, in orbit around that world. Though, as you also must know, neither the Exotics nor anyone else owns the Final Encyclopedia, now."
"I know," said Hal.
"Well, the point I wanted to make is that there're innumerable ways to graph individual potential."
Amid drew the tip of his forefinger from right to left on the tabletop beside him; and a black line sprang into existence in the light, stony material of the surface, following his touch. He crossed the line he had drawn with a vertical one at right angles to it.
"One of the simplest ways to graph ungauged genetic potential for the race at any given moment—" He drew another, horizontal line lifting at a small angle from the base line of the graph, "gives us what seems to be a slowly ascending curve. Actually, however, this line is only an average derived from a number of points scattered both above and below the base line, where the points above the line refer to historical developments clearly traceable to the action or actions of some individuals—."
"Like Donal Graeme and the fact he made a single legal and economic whole of the fourteen worlds?" said Hal.
"Yes." Amid looked at him for a moment, then went on. "But the points can also refer to much smaller historical developments than that; even to single actions by obscure individuals whom it's taken us several centuries to identify. However—below the base line the points refer to individual actions that can only probably be linked in a cause-and-effect pattern, with the historical developments that concern us…"
He paused and looked at Hal.
"You follow me?"
Hal nodded.
"As it happens," Amid turned back to his graph, "inevitably, when this sort of charting is done, we end up with certain individuals being represented by points both above and below the line. Individuals of developing historic effect will often be represented by points below the line before their effect emerges above the line, where their points show a clear relation between their actions and certain historical results. Points below the line, unfortunately, don't necessarily indicate the eventual emergence of points above, for any individual. In fact, points below the line are often achieved by individuals who never show any effect above the line at all."
He paused again, and looked at Hal.
"Now, all of this may mean anything or nothing," he said after the pause. "All work like this, as I said, is theoretical. The results we get this way may have nothing whatever to do with the actual process of racial evolution. However, it's only right that you know this sort of figuring, projected forward, is one of the ways we use to try and estimate the ontogenetic value of any given individual, and the probability of that person having an ability to influence current history."
"I see," said Hal, "and I take it that as of the present moment I'm one of those who charts out with points below the line but none above?"
"That's right," said Amid. "Of course, you're young. There's plenty of time for you to show direct influences on the present history. And your effects below the line so far are impressive. But the fact remains, that until you show some direct evidence above the line, your potential to do so remains only that, and estimates of what you may be able to perform in your lifetime are a matter of individual opinion, only."
He hesitated.
"I follow you," said Hal.
"I'd expect you to," said Amid, almost grimly. "Now I, myself, speaking from knowledge of my own particular specialty and seeing what you did in the short time you were on Ha
rmony, estimate you as someone I expect to be highly effective—effective on a scale that can only be compared to that of Donal Graeme in his time. But this is only my opinion. I believe you'll find that some of those you're about to talk to may regard your potential as no more than possible, on the basis of the same calculations that cause me to think the way I do."
He stopped. For a moment, Hal ignored him, caught up by his own thoughts.
"Well, thanks," he said at last, rousing himself. "It's good of you to warn me."
"There's more," Amid said. "I mentioned earlier that you seemed a great deal older than I remembered you on ship to Harmony. As a matter of fact this is something more than a subjective opinion on my part. Our recent tests of you show certain results that we've never found before, except in rather mature individuals—those middle-aged, at least. I was simply confirming this from my own feelings. But if you really are unusually mature, for some reason we can't yet understand, this could be something that might incline some who presently doubt to favor the opinion of someone like myself about your potential effectiveness, provided we can find an explanation for it. Can you think of anything to explain it?"
"When were these tests made?" Hal looked into the eyes of the small man.
"Recently," said Amid. His returning gaze was perfectly steady. "In the last few weeks."
"Nerallee?"
"It's part of her work," said Amid.
"Without mentioning to the person she's taking care of that she's making such tests?"
"You have to understand," said Amid, "a great deal may be at stake here. Also, as a matter of fact, knowledge that the tests are being made on the part of the subject could affect the results of the test."
"What else did she find out about me?"
"Nothing," said Amid, "that you don't already know about yourself. But I asked you if you had an explanation of these indications of an unusual maturity?"
"I'm afraid not," said Hal, "unless being raised by three men all over eighty years old had something to do with it."
"Not in any way we can understand." Amid was thoughtful for a moment. An abrupt sweep of his hand above the table surface erased the lines on it. "If you do think of any explanation while we're talking this afternoon, though, I suggest you mention it. It would, I think, be to your advantage."
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