Lucky said, "Your Space Service is, I think, somewhat the equivalent of our Council of Science."
"Yes, it is," said Zayon gravely. "In that sense we are colleagues, though on opposite sides of the fence."
"Serviceman Zayon, then. Serviceman Yonge. Is Mr. Devoure… "
Devoure broke in, "I am not a member of the Space Service. It is not necessary that I be. Sirius can be served outside the Service too."
"Particularly," said Yonge, one hand resting on the scarred forearm as though to hide the mark, "if one is nephew of the director of the Central Body."
Devoure rose. "Was that meant as sarcasm, Serviceman?"
"Not at all. It was meant literally. The relationship makes it possible for you to do Sirius more service than otherwise."
But there was a dry quality to his statement, and Lucky was not unaware of the flash of hostility between the two aging Servicemen and the young and undoubtedly influential relative of Sirius's overlord.
Zayon tried to deflect the direction things had taken by turning to Lucky and saying mildly, "Has our proposition been offered you?"
"You mean the suggestion that I lie at the interstellar conference?"
Zayon looked annoyed and a bit puzzled. He said, "I mean to join us, to become a Sirian."
"I don't think we had quite reached that point, Serviceman."
"Well, then consider this. Our Service knows you well and we respect your abilities and accomplishments. They are wasted on an Earth that must lose someday as a matter of biologic fact."
"Biologic fact?" Lucky frowned. "The Sirians, Serviceman Zayon, are descended from Earthmen."
"So they are, but not from all Earthmen; only from some, from the best, from those with the initiative and strength to reach the stars as colonists. We have kept our descent pure; we have not allowed the weaklings in, or those with poor genes. We have weeded out the unfit from among ourselves so that we are now a pure race of the strong, the fit, and the healthy, while Earth remains a conglomerate of the diseased and deformed."
Devoure broke in, "We had an example here a while ago, the Councilman's companion. It infuriated and nauseated me merely to be in the same room with him; a monkey, a five-foot travesty of a human being, a lump of deformity… "
Lucky said slowly, "He is a better man than you, Sirian."
Devoure rose, fist drawn back, trembling. Zayon moved toward him rapidly, laying a hand on his shoulder. "Devoure, sit down, please, and let me go on. This is not the time for extraneous quarrels." Devoure shook the other's hand off roughly but sat down all the same.
Serviceman Zayon went on earnestly, "To the outer worlds, Councilman Starr, Earth is a terrible menace, a bomb of sub-humanity, ready to explode and contaminate the clean Galaxy. We don't want that to happen; we can't allow it to happen. It's what we're fighting for: a clean human race, composed of the fit."
Lucky said, "Composed of those you consider fit. But fitness comes in all shapes and forms. The great men of Earth have come from the tall and the short, from all manner of head shapes, skin colors, and languages. Variety is our salvation and the salvation of all mankind."
"You are simply parroting something you have been taught. Councilman, can't you see you are really one of us? You are tall, strong, built like a Sirian; you have the courage and daring of a Sirian. Why combine with the scum of Earth against men like yourself, just because of the accident of your birth on Earth?"
Lucky said, "The upshot of all this, Serviceman, is that you wish me to come to the interstellar conference on Vesta and deliver statements designed to help Sirius."
"To help Sirius, yes, but true statements. You have spied on us. Your ship was certainly armed."
"But you waste your time. Mr. Devoure has already discussed the matter with me."
"And you have agreed to be the Sirian you really are?" Zayon's face lit up at the possibility.
Lucky cast a side glance at Devoure, who was inspecting the knuckles of his hands with an indifferent air.
Lucky said, "Why, Mr. Devoure advanced the proposition in another fashion. Perhaps he did not inform you of my arrival sooner than he did in order to have time to discuss the matter with me alone and to use his own methods. Briefly, he simply said that I was to attend the conference on Sirian terms or else my friend Bigman was to be sent out in a stripped space ship to die of starvation."
Slowly the two Sirian Servicemen turned to look at Devoure, who merely continued the contemplation of his knuckles.
Yonge said slowly, speaking directly to Devoure, "Sir, it is not in the Service tradition… "
Devoure exploded in sudden flaming anger. "I am not a Serviceman and I don't give a half-credit piece for your tradition. I'm in charge of this base, and its security is my responsibility. You two have been appointed to accompany me as delegates to the conference on Vesta so that the Service will be represented, but I am to be chief delegate, and the success of the conference is also my responsibility. If this Earthman does not like the type of death reserved for his monkey friend, he need only agree to our terms, and he will agree to them a lot faster with that as stimulus than your offer of making a Sirian out of him.
"And listen further." Devoure rose from his seat, paced angrily to the far end of the room, and then turned to glare at the frozen-faced Servicemen who listened with disciplined self-control. "I'm tired of your interference. The Service has had enough time to make headway against Earth and has a miserable record in that regard. Let this Earthman hear me say this. He should know it better than anyone. The Service has a miserable record, and it is I who have trapped this Starr and not the Service. What you gentlemen need is a little more guts, and that I intend to supply-… "
It was at this moment that a robot threw open the door and said, "Masters, I must be excused for enter ing without orders from you, but I have been instructed to tell you this concerning the small master who has been taken into custody… "
"Bigman!" cried Lucky, jumping to his feet. "What has happened to him?"
After Bigman had been carried out of the room by the two robots he had thought furiously. Not, really, of possible ways of escaping. He was not so unrealistic as to think he could make his way through a horde of robots and, singlehanded, get away from a base as well organized as this one, even if he had The Shooting Starr at his disposal, which he had not.
It was more than that.
Lucky was being tempted to dishonor and betrayal, and Bigman's life was the bait.
Either way, Lucky must not be subjected to this. He must not have to save Bigman's life at the cost of becoming a traitor. Nor must he have to save his honor by sacrificing Bigman and carry the guilt with him for the rest of his life.
There was only one way to prevent both alternatives. Bigman faced that coldly. If he were to die in some way with which Lucky had nothing to do, the big Earthman could bear no blame, even in his own mind. And there would no longer be a live Bigman with which to bargain.
Bigman was forced into a small diagravitic car and taken for another two-minute drive.
But those two minutes were enough to crystallize matters firmly in his mind. His years with Lucky had been happy, exciting ones. He had lived a full lifetime in them and had faced death without fear. He could face death now, also without fear.
And a quick death would not be so quick as to prevent him from evening a tiny bit of the score with Devoure. No man in his lifetime had insulted him so without retaliation. He could not die and leave the score unevened. The thought of the arrogant Sirian so filled Bigman with anger that for a moment he could not have told whether it was friendship for Lucky or hatred of Devoure that was driving him.
The robots lifted him out of the diagravitic car, and one passed its huge metal paws gently and expertly down the sides of the Martian's body in a routine search for weapons.