Enigma
Page 40
“No,” Neale said, shaking her head. “I asked you here to tell you that I believe you. The survey ships will be recalled. The orders should be going out even now.”
Thackery sighed, and allowed his shoulders to slump. “It had to come, in time. The farther out we went, the more ships we would need. We couldn’t have continued the way we were forever, Sterilizers or not.”
“Nor can we stop cold out of fear. Merritt, you understand the situation of the moment perfectly. But have you looked past the moment, and thought about the impact news of the Sterilizers will have?”
“It will have to be carefully handled—possibly restricted—”
“And say what about our sudden loss of enthusiasm? No, Merritt. It’s not possible for us to simply call the ships home and hide. We’ll end up destroyed by the fear that they would find us again.” Neale shook her head. “No—if we’re going to keep what we have, we’re going to have to go looking for them.” She looked up at the picture of Tai Chen. Her eyes were wet, and her next words were directed to the lifeless image, not to Thackery. “It seems we must build your warships, after all.”
For a long moment, Thackery said nothing. “I won’t enjoy seeing that.”
“It won’t happen quickly. Nevertheless, I share your sentiment,” Neale said. “I’ve postponed retirement a half-dozen times already. Now the problem that has been keeping me here has been solved, and I do not find much appeal in the one that will replace it. I’ve seen enough time and enough change. So I have already decided I will be resigning in short order.”
Thackery’s eyes flicked back to the portrait of Tai Chen. “I’m going to need to stay a while, at least.”
Neale nodded. “Then you will need one of these,” she said, and extended her closed right hand toward him. When she uncurled her fingers, she revealed a black ellipse lying in her palm. “I presume that if yours had come through the spindle with you, you would be wearing it?”
Thackery stared at her, then slowly reached for the emblem.
“No,” Neale said, “Let me.” She stepped toward him and pinned the emblem on the left breast of Thackery’s collarless wrap. “A lot has happened since the first time I did that,” she said, backing away. “I told you then that you didn’t deserve to wear it. Today no one deserves to wear it more. You did a hell of a job, Merritt. They’ll remember your name for a long time.”
“I never wanted that,” he said hoarsely, fingering the black ellipse.
“I know,” she said. “But for a long time I thought you did—because I did.” She smiled wanly. “I can still remember how excited we all were when Jiadur came. It was like the whole world had changed. We just couldn’t stop talking about it. I wanted to know everything, stayed up through the night to watch the net when the first exploration team boarded. I wanted to be the one who was first—the one they were talking about.
“It wasn’t until I was back here the first year after joining the Committee that I realized how little the citizenry cared, how little notice they took of what we were doing. That was when solving the colony problem began to matter most.”
“Is that why you let me have Munin?”
She nodded. “I wanted to see them shaken out of their complacency. I wanted to make them raise their eyes from their own little comfortable nests and come to grips with the new history. It didn’t matter to me who accomplished it.
“And now you have. The changes Jiadur brought are nothing compared to what your news will. The discovery of the colonies is nothing compared to the discoveries you’ve made. We now know that we are just one of three great intelligences in the galaxy, three intelligences which stand isolated from each other by their very essence. You’ve brought us knowledge of both a friend to whom we have a debt we can hardly begin to discharge, and an enemy against whom we have a grudge we can hardly begin to assuage. No one man will ever change the world more.”
“The World Council I knew frowned on hero-making.”
“It still does—except when there is no choice, as now. The Service will start it, and the nets will do the rest. I’m afraid you are to become one of those historic figures you learned about in school, the ones who always understood what was at stake, seized the moment, and never had any regrets.”
“That’s not the way it was,” he said softly, remembering.
She smiled wistfully, sharing his pain, and took his arm as they started back down the corridor. “It never is, Merry. It never is.”