Hal nodded. "That's right," he said. "But you have to understand something. The addition of any new information always causes a slight movement in one of the chains - the apparent wires. There were tiny differences of position that gave away to Tam that the knowledge store had been systematically searched across wide fields of knowledge, in a way no one scholar would have needed to do. But if you'd been there and asked him, he wouldn't have been able to tell you what the knowledge was they'd examined. He could read the display, but not what it represented, not the actual information itself, and in spite of three years of trying, neither can I.-
He stared hard at her. "Do you follow me? The difference is the way it would be between having an encyclopedia in a set of books but with each book locked closed, so that you couldn't get at the information in it. " "Ah," said Rukh. She looked back at him appraisingly. "So Tam could see, but not read? And you-?" "I was only able to go a little further," said Hal. "I spent two years at it, and I got to the point where I could hold the whole display in my mind, as I had last looked at it. But the information's still locked away from me, too." "Now I don't follow you," said Ajela, leaning forward across the table toward him. "Why do you need to do more than that? Or even that much?"
He turned to her. "Because two things are needed to create anything - say, a great painting. The concept, which is the art of it, and the skill with colors and brush that's the craft behind its making. To have a great dream is one thing. To execute it in real elements calls for a skill with all the elements involved, and that requires knowledge. "
Ajela was frowning, he thought doubtfully. "Look," he said, "you could tell yourself 'I'd like a castle.' But to create that castle in the real universe, you'd have to know many things, the architecture of its structure, all the crafts of building with different materials, even knowledge about the ground that would have to support its weight. To physically enter a creative universe you have to first create at least some kind of Physical place to support your presence there. To do that, you need to know everything about the surface below your feet, the atmosphere around and above you, what kind of sun you want in the sky overhead... and a long, long list of other things." "I see, then," - said Rukh. "So that was why you wanted to be able to read from the knowledge of the core image directly?" "I'd have to be able to," said Hal. "It's impossible otherwise. " "In effect," Ajela said, her voice sharper than usual, "you were hoping to enter the Creative Universe and use there any or all of the information stored in the Final Encyclopedia - by making some use of phase mechanics, using your mind, alone?"
Hal nodded, slowly. "Very well. I now understand the size of the problem. But why give up now?" demanded Rukh. "Why, at this particular point?" "Because I believe the sooner I'm gone, the sooner my quitting is likely to improve the odds for all the rest of you." "What makes you say that?" Ajela's voice was even more sharp.
He was a little slow answering. He had been carried away by the unusual emotion behind his own last few words. "I'm hoping that with me gone, the pressure I've exerted, balancing the pressure of Bleys in the historical forces, will be removed, and the sudden vacuum will cause the forces to react against his side of the argument, rather than ours. It might even... be the cause of our winning, after all, by some different route." "What would you do, then?" Rukh's voice was abruptly soft.
Hal smiled grimly. "Take a new name for the last time, perhaps," he said. "Go down to the surface and enlist with the real Earth-borns who're signing up for training by the Dorsai. Anything, so that as a major force I'd be permanently out of the picture. I could probably be useful on one of those new warships they're turning out so fast." "Thou wouldst go looking for death," said Rukh, "which is a sin in the Name of God. And how would doing anything like that be best for the rest of us?" "I think it might rectify a mistake I made, attempting to influence the historic forces," Hal answered. "That's no answer," said Ajela with an absolutely nonExotic near-approach to exasperation. It was, thought Hal, a sign of the exhaustion in her finally beginning to wear her to the quick. "To make an excuse out of something the workings of which apparently only you fully understand!" "I've never claimed I fully understand the historic forces," Hal said. "I doubt if anyone in the human race will, for generations yet. There're simply too many factors operating in every case. But I thought you, at least, did - enough to understand why I'm doing this, Ajela." "I thought I did too," she replied, "but evidently I don't. You've talked about it many times, and explained it I don't know how often. Let me see what I remember. You've said something to the effect of - 'the course of history is determined by the cumulative effect of all the decisions resulting in physical acts of the people alive in the race at any given time. It used to be thought that only a few people made decisions. We now realize that these people are influenced by the people around them, and those people by more people around them, until in effect every person may have had an influence on decisions made, and therefore on the course of history. The farther back in history we go, the slower the influence of the mass of the people concerned, on any decision point." "That last bit's the crucial one," said Hal. "In earlier centuries it often took a very long time for mass decision to shape history, though it always did, in the end. The difference between then and now is communications. Present communications make it possible for the effect of mass attitudes and actions to have an effect almost immediately within the chain of human interaction. The minute I leave here permanently and this becomes known to the worlds in general, attitudes will change throughout the race and the effect of those changes be noticed very quickly. As I say, my going will leave a vacuum opposing Bleys, and the instinctive inertia of the historic forces should cause the racial momentum to react against him and for us." "How?" said Ajela. "You know what I've been after from my beginning as Donal," said Hal. "I've been trying to push humanity toward a greater instinctive sense of responsibility. Apparently this last effort, trying to access the Creative Universe, was too much force in one direction. The historic forces pushed back by producing something new, that none of the present human social groups could fight against. The Others, with their ability to influence any political structure from behind the scenes. They push away from responsibility, toward instinctive obedience."
He stopped, unsure about whether he had made sense to them Or not. "And?" said Rukh. "And so you've got the present situation, with Bleys heading up the other faction, and me, until now, heading up ours."
"I'll in still waiting to hear," said Ajela - but she said it patiently, this time "what this has to do with your giving up and going off, as Rukh said, to look for death."
"It removes me as the spearhead on our side," said Hal. "That gives Bleys and the Others too much of an advantage That means, as I said a few moments ago, he'll be the one who, pushing against the balance of forces, and they'll react against him." "What'll happen?" said Ajela. "I don't know," said Hal. "If you start to estimate something like that, you have to begin by estimating the influence of my leaving on people, like you, immediately around me. Then you have to figure in the impact of your reactions on the larger group of humans around you, and then on those around them, and so on and on - until you're into backlash reactions, and in the end you have to take everyone in the human race into account." "Have you forgotten Tam?" interrupted Rukh. "All these years he's been like Simeon, in the Gospel according to Luke, in the Book of God. You know the story of Simeon?" "Yes," said Hal, both his memory and his work with the core of the Encyclopedia bringing the passage back to his mind. "I don't!" said Ajela. "Tell me."