"I think that is an incorrect view, Comrade Alicia. They are all too human. Let me explain," he added hastily. "Are they silly clowns, so foolish and inept that no one can take them seriously? No. They are far too powerful for that. Are they so wicked that anyone would recoil from them? No. To speak of helping the oppressed become free is not wicked. Comrade Mao endorsed just that principle many times. No one would recoil from such a sentiment."
"Shum, you fool, are you taking their side?" Angorak's cry was more incredulous than angry.
"Not at all, Comrade Angorak, only pointing out that they are not so unlike human beings as one might suspect. The erks are very like certain world powers of a hundred years ago. They have elevated slogans to the point of dogma. In doing so, they have lost sight of the principles that made the slogans valid in the first place."
"Speak plainly, you fool!"
"I will, Comrade Angorak. Do we not see just such behavior in history? Was it not just so with the great powers that destroyed each other in nuclear war?—that they spoke, the one of 'freedom' and the other of 'equality,' so loudly that neither could hear the rightness in what the other said?"
"Our ancestors, Shum," thundered Angorak, "were well aware of these contradictions! It was for that reason that China decided to have nothing to do with either of those hegemonistic, imperialist, war-mongering, power-hungry tyrannies!"
"Our ancestors," sighed Shum, "had that choice, yes.
But we do not, do we? We can't decide to have nothing to do with the Yanks and the erks. We can only hope that we can find a way to prevent them from 'helping' our planet in the way they have helped so many others."
"Like those poor little pink things," sobbed Potter Alicia.
"And what is that way?" demanded Angorak. "I do not know," said Shum respectfully. "But we have the knowledge. The question is, how can we use it?"
No knowledge is of much value unless it is used. To use knowledge means to share it with someone; and who could Manyface share with?
His first thought was a right thought, saving the unfortunate fact that it was impossible. As a high Party official his first duty was to find Tchai Howard or the assault-team commander and tell them what the library held. The erks had made that out of the question. The erks were trusting, but not entirely crazy, and so Howard and the soldiers were well out of Manyface's reach.
What about Castor?
Yes, thought Manyface to himself (or, yes, concurred the committee within Manyface's skull by majority vote), Castor was a good choice. (A strong minority within the skull opposed the choice on the grounds that Castor might get hurt. The minority was only one, and anyway she was not being rational most of the time.) So Manyface acted. There was something in his possession that would lure Castor to him; it was time to use it. He composed a letter to Castor and found a smart erk who was willing to promise to deliver it.
The letter said:
Honored Mr. President:
I am glad to say that your wife, Maria, is alive and well in Saskatchewan. Before we left, she prepared a taped message to deliver to you. I have it. Would you like to meet me to view the tape?
Fung Bohsien
It was a simple and straightforward bait, right? So the committee viewed it. But Castor shook their confidence. He didn't take the bait. The smart erk toiled back to Manyface with the doleful report that the President said he couldn't care less about messages from ex-wives who had run out on him when he was poor and unknown and certainly shouldn't be given any special consideration now that he was the President of the United States.
Manyface swore at the erk. That did not help anything, except to entertain the erk. When Manyface stopped shouting and went back into executive session inside his head, the erk went disappointedly away and the minds of Manyface accepted the fact that it was not going to be so easy.
If Castor would not come to Manyface, then Manyface would have to go to Castor.
But where was the foolish boy? Manyface asked Tsoong Delilah, who replied only with a furious, "How should I know, you old fool?" He asked among the smart erks and got, in essence, the same answer, although more politely phrased. He retired that night without sleep coming easily, for the parts of his brain were snapping at each other. It was after sunrise that he woke with a start, for one of the voices inside him woke to cry, "The library!"
Of course, the library! Manyface should have figured that out at once. The erks didn't know where Castor was; but then, the one who had volunteered to be a messenger could not have known either. Manyface had simply asked them the wrong question: Not "Do you know where Castor is?" but "Where is Castor?" Obviously the erks had a way of finding out such things—so obvious that none of them thought to mention it.
So Manyface made his way through the sweaty morning to the library. The index screen disclosed Castor's current whereabouts at once—the city nest, in the sleeping quarters—and what it disclosed him doing made Manyface blush.
He had to hurry out of the city, over to the nest, up to the sleeping levels—it was bright morning now, in the short day of World, and most of its inhabitants were long since aroused from sleep. If Castor's main interest had been sleep he, too, would no doubt have been long gone; but he was in the nuptial chambers. Manyface had to wait for him to come out. When at last he appeared it was with a young sister on each arm, the women looking very contented, Castor himself looking mostly tired. "I don't care about the damn tape, Manyface," he said at once. Manyface shrugged.
"Then perhaps you will just take a walk with me?" he urged politely.
Castor looked at him with dignity. "For what? I'm not your houseboy anymore."
"No," agreed Manyface, "but my friend, I hope. I would like to take a friendly stroll, is all."
Castor gave him a puzzled look, for they both knew that that was a preposterous suggestion. Walking in the sultry air of World was work, even though they weighed less, with the air so hot and steamy. But only by walking, Manyface believed, could he even hope to avoid those all-watching lenses. They crossed the strip of purple-blue moss that the erks (or the Living Gods) had fancied in the way that human beings liked lawns. They walked in the opposite direction from the spacecraft tarmac, for fewer people were there. Of course, a gaggle of erks followed them, but Manyface looked them over carefully and decided they were all dumb erks. They wore no clothes; they did not speak intelligibly—above all, they seemed happy and carefree, and not even smart erks were those things all the time.
They reached an irrigation ditch. Manyface joyfully removed his sandals and rolled up his culottes. He stood in the ditch, squeezing the thick mud of World between his toes, and gazed up at Castor, watching and frowning from the bank. He said, "You know that these people will destroy China completely."
Castor shrugged.
"I understand," Manyface said. "China is not your homeland. It does not matter to you that the Great Wall will be lava and the Forbidden City a cinder, since you have never seen them. But tell me, Mr. President of the United States, do you think North America will escape the same destruction?"
Castor pushed a dumb erk off his lap as he sat on the bank. Wading in the mud was not interesting to him, since he had had enough of that at the Heavenly Grain Collective. He shook his head and said tenderly, "Foolish old man, these people are my allies. Why would they hurt my country?"
"Ah," said Manyface, nodding the giant head. "You don't know then, do you? You have not been in the library."
Castor's expression changed, now interested and a little resentful.
Manyface chuckled. "I know that your studies here have been mostly anatomical. I can't blame you for that.