“I wish I could follow this ridiculous line of chatter,” Bork snapped savagely. “But I’m afraid I’m wasting your time and mine. Please excuse me.”
Sighing, Gambrell said, “You just don’t listen to me, do you?”
“I’ve been listening. What’s so important about this uniqueness of these people that must be preserved at all costs?”
Instead of answering, Gambrell crisply said, “Close your right eye, Bork. You’re right-handed, aren’t you?”
“Yes, but—”
“Close your right eye. There. Suddenly you lose depth perception, notice? Your eyes function stereoscopically; knock out one point of focus and you see things two-dimensionally. Well, we see things two-dimensionally, Bork, all of us. The whole galaxy does. We see things through the eyes of oxygen-breathing carbon entities, and we distort everything to fit that orientation.
“The Mellidani could be our second eye. If we leave them alone, free to look at events and phenomena in their own special alien unique way—they can provide that other point of focus for us. We have to preserve this thing they have; if we let the Federation destroy it by lumping them into the vast all-devouring amoeba of confederate existence, we may never find another race quite so alien, just as we can never regenerate a blinded eye. That’s why we poisoned their minds against you. That’s why we got here first and made sure they would never join the Federation. And they won’t.”
Angrily, Bork said, “They will! This is ridiculous!”
Gambrell shrugged. “Go ahead, then. Speak ye to the Mellidani, and see how far you get. This isn’t an ordinary race you’re dealing with. Incidentally, the Mellidani leader has been listening to this whole conversation over a private circuit.”
That was the final gesture of contempt. Bork surged to the door, rage clotting his throat, and stalked out of Gambrell’s office wordlessly. Federation dead, indeed! Point of focus! The Federation would absorb the Mellidani, no doubt of it. They would!
He reached ground-level and found his aides. “Let’s get back to the ship,” Bork ordered brusquely. “I want to speak to the Mellidani again. The Earthmen haven’t won this conflict yet.”
They drove through the clinging yellow-green fog to the slim needle that was the Federation ship. As they drove, Bork cast frantically about in his mind for some argument that was new, that was not cliché-riddled and time-worn. And no answers presented themselves.
He felt panic throbbing in his chest. The first dark cracks were starting to appear on the gleaming shield of his self-confidence—and, perhaps, on the greater shield of the Federation’s vaunted prestige. The Earthman’s words echoed harshly in his mind. You’ll never get Mellidan VII. The Federation is dead. Point of focus. Alien viewpoint. Necessary. Perspective.
Then eleven thousand years of Galactic domination reasserted their hold. Bork grew calm; the Earthman’s words were air-filled nonsense, without meaning. Mellidan VII was not yet lost. Not yet.
We’ll show them, he thought fiercely. We’ll show them. But the old emissary’s heart suddenly was not quite sure they would.