He buzzed inarticulately for a moment. Then, “I have to say no. It is impossible. I could stop for a time, or pretend to you that I stop, but that would solve nothing. It will be—it will do the greatest harm if I stop; you don’t understand. It is necessary to continue.”
I said, “That’s your answer?”
“Yes. If you will let me explain—”
I stepped toward him. I didn’t hold my breath, but I think half-consciously I expected him to gas me. He didn’t. He didn’t move; he just waited.
Seen at close range, the flesh of his head seemed to be continuous with the black substance of the cone; instead of any sharp dividing line, there was a thin area that was neither one nor the other.
I put one hand over the fleshy bulb, and felt his eyes retract and close against my palm. The sensation was indescribably unpleasant, but I kept my hand there, put the other one against the far side of the cone—pulled and pushed simultaneously, as hard as I could.
The top of my head came off.
I was leaning against the top of the open trunk, dizzy and nauseated. The pain was like a white-hot wire drawn tight around my skull just above the eyes. I couldn’t see; I couldn’t think.
And it didn’t stop; it went on and on.... I pushed myself away from the trunk and let my legs fold under me. I sat on the floor with my head in my hands, pushing my fingers against the pain.
Gradually it ebbed. I heard Aza-Kra’s voice buzzing very quietly, not in English but in a rhythm of tone and phrasing that seemed almost directly comprehensible; if there were a language designed to be spoken by bass viols, it might sound like that.
I got up and looked at him. Shining beads of blue liquid stood out all along the base of the cone, but the seam had not broken.
I hadn’t realized that it would be so difficult, that it would be so painful. I felt the weight of the two automatics in my pockets, and I pulled one out, the metal cold and heavy in my palm.... but I knew suddenly that I couldn’t do that either.
I didn’t know where his brain was, or his heart. I didn’t know whether I could kill him with one shot.
I sat down on the bed, staring at him. “You knew that would happen, didn’t you,” I said. “You must think I’m a prize sucker.”
He said nothing. His eyes were half-closed, and a thin whey-colored fluid was drooling out of the two mouths I could see. Aza-Kra was being sick.
I felt an answering surge of nausea. Then the flow stopped, and a second later, the nausea stopped too. I felt angry, and frustrated, and frightened.
After a moment I got up off the bed and started for the door.
“Please,” said Aza-Kra. “Will you be gone long?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Does it matter?”
“If you will be gone long,” he said, “I would ask that you loosen the handcuffs for a short period before you go.”
I stared at him, suddenly hating him with a violence that shook me.
“No,” I said, and reached for the door-handle.
My body knotted itself together like a fist. My legs gave way under me, and I missed the door-handle going down; I hit the floor hard.
There was no sensation in my hands or feet. The muscles of my shoulders, arms, thighs, and calves were one huge, heavy pain. And I couldn’t move.
I looked at Aza-Kra’s wrists, shackled to his drawn-up ankles. He had been like that for something like fourteen hours. He had cramps.
“I am sorry,” said Aza-Kra. “I did not want to do that to you, but there was no other way.”
I thought dazedly, No other way to do what?
“To make you wait. To listen. To let me explain.”
I said, “I don’t get it.” Anger flared again, then faded under something more intense and painful. The closest English word for it is “humility”; some other language may come nearer, but I doubt it; it isn’t an emotion that we like to talk about. I felt bewildered, and ashamed, and very small, all at once, and there was another component, harder to name. A ... threshold feeling.
I tried again. “I felt the other pain, before, but not this. Is that because—”
“Yes. There must be the intention to injure or cause pain. I will tell you why. I have to go back very far. When an animal becomes more developed—many cells, instead of one—always the same things happen. I am the first man of my kind who ever saw a man of your kind. But we both have eyes. We both have ears.” The feathery spines on his neck stiffened and relaxed. “Also there is another sense that always comes. But always it goes only a little way and then stops.
“When you are a young animal, fighting with the others to live, it is useful to have a sense which feels the thoughts of the enemy. Just as it is useful to have a sense which sees the shape of his body. But this sense cannot come all at once, it must grow by a little and a little, as when a surface that can tell the light from the dark becomes a true eye.
“But the easiest thoughts to feel are pain thoughts, they are much stronger than any others. And when the sense is still weak—it is a part of the brain, not an organ by itself— when it is weak, only the strongest stimulus can make it work. This stimulus is hatred, or anger, or the wish to kill.
“So that just when the sense is enough developed that it could begin to be useful, it always disappears. It is not gone, it is pushed under. A very long time ago, one race discovered this sense and learned how it could be brought back. It is done by a class of organic chemicals. You have not the word. For each race a different member of the class, but always it can be done. The chemical is a catalyst, it is not used up. The change it makes is in the cells of all the body— it is permanent, it passes also to the children.
“You understand, when a race is older, to kill is not useful. With the change, true civilization begins. The first race to find this knowledge gave it to others, and those to others, and now all have it. All who are able to leave their planets. We give it to you, now, because you are ready. When you are older there will be others who are ready. You will give it to them.”
While I had been listening, the pain in my arms and legs had slowly been getting harder and harder to take. I reminded myself that Aza-Kra had home it, probably, at least ten hours longer than I had; but that didn’t make it much easier. I tried to keep my mind off it but that wasn’t possible; the band of pain around my head was still there, too, a faint throbbing. And both were consequences of things I had done to Aza-Kra. I was suffering with him, measure for measure.
Justice. Surely that was a good thing? Automatic instant retribution, mathematically accurate: an eye for an eye.
I said, “That was what you were doing when they caught you, then—finding out which chemical we reacted to?”
“Yes. I did not finish until after they had brought me to Chillicothe. Then it was much more difficult. If not for my accident, all would have gone much more quickly.”
“The walls?”
“Yes. As you have guessed, my air machine will also make other substances and expel them with great force. Also, when necessary, it will place these substances in a— state of matter, you have not the word—so that they pass through solid objects. But this takes much power. While in Chillicothe my range was very small. Later, when I can be in the open, it will be much greater.”
He caught what I was thinking before I had time to speak. He said, “Yes. You will agree. When you understand.”
It was the same thing he had told me at Chillicothe, almost to the word.
I said, “You keep talking about this thing as a gift but I notice you didn’t ask us if we wanted it. What kind of a gift is that?”
“You are not serious. You know what happened when I was captured.”
After a moment he added, “I think if it had been possible, if we could have asked each man and woman on the planet to say yes or no, explaining everything, showing that there was no trick, that most" would have said yes. For people the change is good. But for governments it is not good.”