Hockley chose to spend the first day with the chemists, since that was his own first love. Dr. Showalter and Senator Markham came along with him. As much as he tried he found it virtually impossible not to sit with the same open-mouthed wonder that his colleagues exhibited. The swift, free-flowing exposition of the Ryke lecturer led them immediately beyond their own realms, but so carefully did he lead them that it seemed that they must have come this way before, and forgotten it.
Hockley felt half angry with himself. He felt he had allowed himself to be hypnotized by the skill of the Ryke, and wondered despairingly if there were any chance at all of combating their approach. He saw nothing to indicate it in the experience of that day or the ones immediately following. But he retained hope that there was much significance in the action of the guide who had cut short their visit to the museum.
In the evenings, in the study lounge of the dormitory, they held interminable bull sessions exchanging and digesting what they had been shown during the day. It was at the end of the third day that Hockley thought he could detect a subtle change in the group. He had some difficulty analyzing it at first. It seemed to be a growing aliveness, a sort of recovery. And then he recognized that the initial stunned reaction to the magnificence of the Rykes was passing off. They had been shocked by the impact of the Rykes, almost as if they had been struck a blow on the head. Temporarily, they had shelved all their own analytical and critical facilities and yielded to the Rykes without question.
Now they were beginning to recover, springing back to a condition considerably nearer normal. Hockley felt a surge of encouragement as he detected a more sharply critical evaluation in the conversations that buzzed around him. The enthusiasm was more measured.
It was the following evening, however, that witnessed the first event of pronounced shifting of anyone’s attitude. They had finished dinner and were gathering in the lounge, sparring around, setting up groups for the bull sessions that would go until long after midnight. Most of them had already settled down and were talking part in conversations or were listening quietly when they were suddenly aware of a change in the atmosphere of the room.
For a moment there was a general turning of heads to locate the source of the disturbance. Hockley knew he could never describe just what made him look around, but he was abruptly conscious that Dr. Silvers was walking into the lounge and looking slowly about at those gathered there. Something in his presence was like the sudden appearance of a thundercloud, his face seemed to reflect the dark turbulence of a summer storm.
He said nothing, however, to anyone but strode over and sat beside Hockley, who was alone at the moment smoking the next to last of his Earthside cigars. Hockley felt the smouldering turmoil inside the mathematician. He extended his final cigar. Silvers brushed it away.
“The last one,” said Hockley mildly. “In spite of all their abilities the Ryke imitations are somewhat less than natural.”
Silvers turned slowly to face Hockley. “I presented them with the Legrandian Equations today,” he said. “I expected to get a straightforward answer to a perfectly legitimate scientific question. That is what we were led to expect, was it not?”
Hockley nodded. “That’s my impression. Did you get something less than a straightforward answer?”
The mathematician exhaled noisily. “The Legrandian Equations will lead to a geometry as revolutionary as Riemann’s was in his day. But I was told by the Rykes that I ‘should dismiss it from all further consideration. It does not lead to any profitable mathematical development.’”
Hockley felt that his heart most certainly skipped a beat, but he managed to keep his voice steady, and sympathetic. “That’s too bad. I know what high hopes you had. I suppose you will give up work on the Equations now?”
“I will not!” Silvers exclaimed loudly. Nearby groups who had returned hesitantly to their own conversations now stared at him again. But abruptly he changed his tone and looked almost pleadingly at Hockley. “I don’t understand it. Why should they say such a thing? It appears to be one of the most profitable avenues of exploration I have encountered in my whole career. And the Rykes brush it aside!”
“What did you say when they told you to give it up?”
“I said I wanted to know where the development would lead. I said it had been indicated that we could have an answer to any scientific problem within the range of their abilities, and certainly this is, from what I’ve seen.
“The instructor replied that I’d been given an answer to my question, that ‘the first lesson you must learn if you wish to acquire our pace in science is to recognize that we have been along the path ahead of you. We know which are the possibilities that are worthwhile to develop. We have gained our speed by learning to bypass every avenue but the main one, and not get lost in tempting side roads.’
“He said that we’ve got to learn to trust them and take their word as to which is the correct and profitable field of research, that ‘we will show you where to go, as we agreed to do. If you are not willing to accept our leadership in this respect our agreement means nothing.’ Wouldn’t that be a magnificent way to make scientific progress!”
The mathematician shifted in his chair as if trying to control an internal fury that would not be capped. He held out his hand abruptly. “I’ll take that cigar after all, if you don’t mind, Hockley.”
With savage energy he chewed the end and ignited the cigar, then blew a mammoth cloud of smoke ceilingward. “I think the trouble must be in our lecturer,” he said. “He’s crazy. He couldn’t possibly represent the conventional attitude of the Rykes. They promised to give answers to our problems—and this is the kind of nonsense I get. I’m going to see somebody higher up and find out why we can’t have a lecturer who knows what he’s talking about. Or maybe you or Markham would rather take it up—through official channels, as it were?”
“The Ryke was correct,” said Hockley. “He did give you an answer.”
“He could answer all our questions that way!”
“You’re perfectly right,” said Hockley soberly. “He could do exactly that.”
“They won’t of course,” said Silvers, defensively. “Even if this particular character isn’t just playing the screwball, my question is just a special case. It’s just one particular thing they consider to be valueless. Perhaps in the end I’ll find they’re right—but I’m going to develop a solution to these Equations if it takes the rest of my life!
“After all, they admit they have no solution, that they have not bothered to go down this particular side path, as they put it. If we don’t go down it how can we ever know whether it’s worthwhile or not? How can the Rykes know what they may have missed by not doing so?”
“I can’t answer that,” said Hockley. “For us or for them, I know of no other way to predict the outcome of a specific line of research except to carry it through and find out what lies at the end of the road.”
Hockley didn’t sleep very well after he finally went to bed that night. Silvers had presented him with the break he had been expecting and hoping for. The first chink in the armor of sanctity surrounding the Rykes. Now he wondered what would follow, if this would build up to the impassable barrier he wanted, or if it would merely remain a sore obstacle in their way but eventually be bypassed and forgotten.
He did not believe it would be the only incident of its kind. There would be others as the Earthmen’s stunned, blind acceptance gave way completely to sound, critical evaluation. And in any case there was one delegate who would never be the same again. No matter how he eventually rationalized it Dr. Forman K. Silvers would never feel quite the same about the Rykes as he did before they rejected his favorite piece of research.