Conway shook his head. "Impossible. If we fail here, there will be passions aroused on our side; they are aroused already."
Doremo shrugged. "Passions everywhere. I am very pessimistic about this."
Conway said persuasively, "But if you yourself believe that Sirius ought not to be on Saturn, could you not make an effort to persuade others of this? You are a person of influence who commands the respect of the Galaxy. I don't ask you to do anything but stick by your own belief. It may make all the difference between war and peace."
Doremo put his glass aside and dabbed at his lip with a napkin. "It is what I would very much like to do, Conway, but I don't even dare to try at this conference. Sirius has matters so entirely its own way that it might be dangerous for Elam to stand against them. We are a small world… After all, Conway, if you called this conference in order to reach a peaceful solution, why did you simultaneously send war vessels into the Saturnian system?"
"Is that what the Sirians told you, Doremo?"
"Yes. They showed me some of the evidence they had. I was even shown a captured Earth ship in flight to Vesta under the magnetic grapple of a Sirian vessel. I was told that no less a person than Lucky Starr, of whom even we on Elam have heard somewhat, was on board. I understand Starr is circling off Vesta now, waiting to testify."
Slowly Conway nodded.
Doremo said, "Now if Starr admits to warlike actions against the Sirians-and he will, otherwise it is inconceivable the Sirians will allow him to testify- then it will be all the conference needs. No arguments will stand against it. Starr, I believe, is an adopted son of yours."
"In a way, yes," muttered Conway.
"That makes it worse, you see. And if you say that he acted without Earth's sanction, as I suppose you must… "
"It's true that he did," said Conway, "but I am not prepared to say what we will claim."
"If you disown him, no one will believe you. Your own son, you see. The outer-world delegates will set up the cry of 'perfidious Terrestria,' of Earth's supposed hypocrisy. Sirius will make the most of it, and 1*11 be able to do nothing. I will not even be able to cast my personal vote in favor of Earth… Earth had better give in now."
Conway shook his head. "Earth cannot."
"Then," said Doremo with infinite sadness, "it will mean war, with all of us against Earth, Conway."
15. The Conference
Conway had finished his drink. Now he rose to go, shaking hands with a look of settled melancholy on his face.
He said, almost as an afterthought, "But you know, we haven't heard Lucky's testimony yet. If the effects aren't as bad as you think, if his testimony should even prove harmless, would you work then on behalf of peace?"
Doremo shrugged. "You are grasping at straws. Yes, yes, in the unlikely case that the conference is not stampeded past recall by your foster son's words, I will do my bit. As I told you, I am really on your side."
"I thank you, sir." They shook hands again.
Doremo stared after the departing Chief Councilman with a sad little shake of his head. Outside the door, however, Conway paused to catch his breath. It was really quite as much as he had expected. Now if only the Sirians would present Lucky.
The conference opened on the stiff and formal note to be expected. Everyone was painfully correct, and when Earth's delegation entered to take their posts in the front and at the extreme right of the hall, all the delegates already seated, even the Sirians in the front and extreme left, rose.
When the Secretary of State, representing the host power, rose to make a welcoming speech, he spoke in generalities about peace and the door it opened to the continuing expansion of mankind through the Galaxy, of the common ancestry and brotherhood of all men, of the grievous disaster war would be. He carefully made no mention of the specific points of issue, did not refer to Sirius by name, and, above all, made no threats.
He was graciously applauded. Then the conference voted Agas Doremo into the chair to preside (he was the only man on whom both sides could agree), and the chief business of the conference began.
The conference was not open to the public, but there were special booths for reporters from the various worlds represented. They were not to interview individual delegates but were allowed to listen and send out uncensored reports.
The proceedings, as was customary in such interstellar gatherings, were carried on in Interlingua, the language amalgam that served throughout the Galaxy.
After a short speech by Doremo extolling the virtues of compromise and begging no one to be so stubborn as to risk war where a slight yielding might insure peace, he recognized Earth's Secretary of State once more.
This time the Secretary was a partisan, presenting his side of the dispute forcefully and well.
There was, however, no mistaking the hostile attitude of the other delegates. It hung like a fog over the assembly hall.
Conway sat next to the orating Secretary, with his chin digging into his chest. Ordinarily it would be a mistake for Earth to present its major speech at the very start. It would be a case of shooting off the best ammunition before the nature of the target was known. It would give Sinus the opportunity for a crushing rebuttal.
But in this case, however, this was exactly what Conway wanted.
He whipped out a handkerchief, passed it over his forehead, then put it hastily back and hoped he had not been noticed. He did not want to seem worried.
Sirius reserved its rebuttal and, undoubtedly by arrangement, representatives of three of the outer worlds, three that were notoriously under Sirian influence, rose to speak briefly. Each avoided the direct problem but commented forcefully on the aggressive intentions of Earth and on its ambitions to reimpose a galactic government under its own rule. They set the stage for the eventual Sirian display and, having done so, there was a lunch recess.
Finally, six hours after the conference had been called to order, Sten Devoure of Sirius was recognized and rose slowly to his feet. He stepped forward with quiet deliberation to the rostrum and stood there, looking down upon the delegates with an expression of proud confidence on his olive-skinned face. (There was no sign of his misadventure with Bigman.)
There was a stir among the delegates that quieted only after a number of minutes during which Devoure made no effort to begin speaking.
Conway was certain that every delegate knew that Lucky Starr would be testifying soon. They were waiting for this complete humiliation of Earth with excitement and anticipation.
Devoure began his speech at last, very quietly. His introduction was historical. Going back to the days when Sirius was a Terrestrial colony, he rehearsed once again the grievances of that day. He brushed over the Hegellian Doctrine, which had established the independence of Sirius as well as that of the other colonies, as insincere, and one by one cited the supposed efforts of Earth to re-establish domination.
Coming down to the present, he said, "We are now accused of having colonized an unoccupied world. We plead guilty to that. We are accused of having taken an empty world and made it a beautiful habitation for human beings. We plead guilty to that. We are accused of extending the range of the human race to a world suitable for it that had been neglected by others. We plead guilty to that.
"We have not been accused of offering violence to anyone in the process. We have not been accused of making war, of killing and wounding, in the course of our occupation. We are accused of no crime at all. Instead, it is merely stated that not quite a billion miles away from the world we now so peacefully occupy there is another occupied world named Earth.
"We are not aware that this has anything to do with our world, Saturn. We offer no violence to Earth, and they accuse us of none. We ask only the privilege of being left to ourselves, and in return for that we are glad to offer to leave them to themselves.