Rukh turned toward her, but Hal knew that her words were still aimed at him. "...And behold,' '' said Rukh, as steadily as if she were reading from pages open before her, " 'there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and the same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Ghost was upon him. " 'And it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. " 'And he came by the Spirit into the temple: and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him after the custom of the law, " 'Then he took him up in his arms, and blessed God and said, " 'Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word... For mine eyes have seen thy salvation.'"
Rukh paused, and Ajela turned her gaze unwaveringly back to Hal. "If you give up now, Hal," said Rukh, "what about Tam, whose whole life has been waiting for you to fulfill the promise he found in you?"
Hal felt the pain of her words as if it was a physical thing inside him. "I know what it'll do to Tam," he said harshly. "But the race has to come first, and the only hope for the race I can see now is for me to step out of the equation. I've got to go, leaving the natural actions of the historic forces to guide us to what I couldn't reach by myself. Those forces have kept the race moving forward and upward from the beginning. It was my own good opinion of myself that led me to think I was necessary to moving it where it needed to go." "But what about him, when he learns you've quit?" said Ajela fiercely. "What about him, I say?" "Let him... " The words were painful to Hal, but he had to say them. "Let him go on thinking I'm still trying... to the end. It's the kindest thing, and there's no choice about my going. I have to keep repeating - unless I actually remove myself, the pressure on the historic forces won't change. Rukh-"
He turned to her. "You understand now, don't you?" he said. "All that can be done is let me go, and hope... "
But, surprisingly, Rukh was no longer listening to him. Instead, she was looking down at the screen inset in the desk-top before her. "There's someone outside - a very small ship dodging around outside the shield, trying to get inside right now," she said to Ajela, as if Hal was not only not speaking, but no longer there. "There is?" said Ajela.
She looked down at the screen before her and her fingers began to fly on the control pad beside it, tapping out commands. "We've talked before, you'll remember," said Hal, hoping that if he spoke on quietly, they would give up whatever had fascinated them on the screens and return to the important matter at hand, "about how the human race is, in some ways, like a single composite organism - a body made up of a number of separate and individual parts, the same way a hive of bees or an ant colony can be considered a single individual-"
But they were not listening. Looking into his own screens, Hal saw the focus there was now all on the movements of the small ship Rukh had mentioned. At Aiela's commands the screens were using the capabilities of the Encyclopedia to cancel out the visual blocking of a direct sight at the phase-shield, so that the ship outside it they watched was clearly visible, dodging among the enemy vessels.
Puzzled, Hal watched it, also. Its driver - no one who was familiar with spaceships used the ancient word "pilot" anymore - was phase-shifting in small jumps. His or her craft, a midge among the warships on patrol out there, was obviously trying to keep the gathering enemy from getting into formation around it. Meanwhile, it was jockeying for a position where it might be able to jump through the screen.
Just at that moment, in fact, it achieved the position it wanted, and jumped through. It was instantly englobed by two wings of defensive ships, driven by Dorsai commanders much more capable than those in the enemy ships outside - besides having had the advantage of being able to lie in wait for the small craft.
The enemy warships did not attempt to shift through in pursuit. They probably, thought Hal, had orders not to in any case but if they had they would have been easily destroyed by the better Dorsai-built craft and their more capable crews. The incoming vessel lay still in the midst of the defending vessels, making no effort to escape.
There was a chime on the air of the office. "Forgive this interruption, Ajela," said a masculine voice. "I know you're not to be disturbed during conferences, but this is a ship asking to be allowed into the Encyclopedia, and you left orders-" "It's small enough to get into one of the locks?" Ajela cut in. "Yes," said the voice.
The vessel entrances of the Encyclopedia, Hal knew, had been designed for the shuttles that carried people up from the surface of the Earth and back down again, or out to other ships. By ordinary warship standards the lock dimensions were impossibly small. For any regular space warship, it would have been like a bear trying to get into a badger hole. "Good. Permission to come in granted." Almost in the same breath she went on. "Hal," she said.
He raised his head at the sound of his name. "Hal, I want you to put this decision about giving up on hold, for a few days at least. This ship coming in is one I've been expecting. It just may have some information that could change the way you think. If you don't mind, I want to talk to the driver alone. So would you mind leaving the office, now? Rukh, wait for a minute, will you? There's something more I want to say to you. "
Hal looked back, surprised. Ajela had not merely asked if he would wait a few days before making his decision - a decision he had believed he had already made - she had, in effect, ordered him to wait. Not only was that unExotic, it was totally unlike her, and to top it off, she had no authority to order him to do, or not do, anything. Technically, she was his assistant. Though in justice he knew how little he had actually run the Encyclopedia, and how fully she had.
She could probably force him to stay, for a while, at least, by refusing him transportation to the surface, but the thought of the situation coming to that pass was ridiculous.
However, of course he would wait, for as long as she wanted. Or rather, for any reasonable length of time. Anything else was unthinkable. But the way she had put it was strange. It had to be her exhaustion talking. As, come to think of it, was her excluding him from whatever business she had with the driver of this incoming ship. The driver was almost certainly one of those who had volunteered to go out as a spy onto one of the Younger Worlds, so that Earth would have some idea of how matters stood out there. Though how anything so learned could affect his present decision to leave... however, there was no point in worrying about it now. "Of course," he said.
Getting up, he went out of the office, back toward his own quarters. There was, in fact, one more thing he was going to do in any case, though there was no telling if it would do any good. That was to write down and make sure it was stored in the Encyclopedia itself, all he knew or had learned, surmised or come to believe, about the Creative Universe and the possible ways into it.
He would include an account of the ways he himself had tried and failed. It might save whoever took up the work someday Some time that otherwise might be wasted in duplicating efforts that had proved useless.
Behind him, neither Ajela nor Rukh even looked up from their screens as the door closed.
CHAPTER 5
Amanda had made it to the system of Earth's Sun in five phase-shifts, where any non-Dorsai would have taken ten and she herself would have broken it into at least seven, under more leisurely conditions. The last shift brought her back into specific location deep enough in the gravitic shadow of Jupiter to hide her vessel from the instruments of the ships besieging Earth. From there, she paused to examine the situation.