Barbage was standing by the bedside, frowning back at them.
"Her strength must not be wasted," Barbage said. "I do this only because she insists. Tell her briefly what you have to say."
"No, Amyth," said Rukh from the bed, "they can talk until I ask them to stop. Hal, come here - and you, too, Jason."
They stepped to the bedside. Clearly, Hal saw, Rukh had never recovered from the thinness to which her ordeal at the hands of the Harmony Militia had reduced her; and now, with her upper left side and shoulder, farthest from them, bulky with bandages under the loose white bed dress she wore, she looked even more frail than when Hal had seen her last. But her remarkable beauty was, if anything, more overwhelming than ever. In the green-blue light reflected into the room by the vegetation and water outside, there appeared to be a translucency to her dark body, framed by the pale buttercup shade of the bed coverings.
Jason reached out to touch the arm of her unwounded side, gently, with the tips of his fingers.
"Rukh," he said softly. "Thou art not in pain? Thou art comfortable?"
"Of course, Jason," she said, and smiled at him. "I'm not badly hurt at all. It's just that the doctor said I was needing a rest, anyway - "
"She hath been close to exhaustion for some months, now - " began Barbage harshly, but checked himself as she looked at him.
"It's all right," she said. "But Amyth, I want to talk to Hal alone. Jason, would you forgive us… ?"
"If this is thy wish." Barbage lowered the pistol, turned to the shimmering image wall and passed through it. Jason turned to follow.
"Jason - I'll be talking to you, too. Later." Rukh spoke hastily. He smiled back at her.
"Of course. I understand, Rukh - whenever you want to, I'll be here," he said, and went out.
Left alone with Hal she lifted her good right arm with effort from the bedspread covering her and started to reach out to him. He stepped close and caught hold of her hand with his own before hers was barely above the covers. Still holding it, he pulled a chair float up to her bedside with his other hand and sat down close to her.
"It occurred to me you'd be showing up here," she said, with a smile. Her hand was warm but narrow-boned in his own much larger grasp.
"I wanted to come the moment I heard," he said. "But it was pointed out to me that there were things to do, decisions I had to make. And we didn't know where you were until a few hours ago."
"Amyth and the others decided I ought to vanish," she said, "and I think they were probably right. This is an area where the people like me."
"Where they love you, you mean," said Hal.
She smiled again. For all its beauty, it was a tired smile.
"Duty kept you from searching for me right away, then," she said. "Did duty bring you now?"
He nodded.
"I'm afraid so," he said. "Time can't wait for either of us. Rukh, I had to make a decision to start things moving. We're out of time. I've sent word to the Dorsai they're to come here; and a phase shield-wall, like the one about the Final Encyclopedia, is going to be thrown around the whole Earth - including the Encyclopedia, in orbit. From now on, we're a fortress under siege."
"And the Exotics?" she said, still holding his hand, and searching his eyes. "All of us thought it would be one of the Exotics you'd chose to fortify and defend, with the help of the Dorsai."
"No." He shook his head again. "It was always to be here, but I had to keep that to myself."
"And Mara and Kultis, then? What happens to them?"
"They die." His voice sounded unsparing in his own ears. "We've taken their space shipping, any of their experts and valuables, and whatever else they could use. The Others will make them pay for giving us those things, of course."
She shook her head slowly, her eyes somberly upon him.
"The Exotics knew this would happen?"
"They knew. Just as the Dorsai knew they'd have to abandon their world. Just as you and those others from Harmony and Association who came here knew you came here not for a few months or years, but probably for the rest of your lives." He gazed for a long second at her. "You did know, didn't you?"
"The Lord told me," she said. She drew her hand softly from within his fingers and put it around them, instead. "Of course, we knew."
"All things were headed this way from the beginning," he said. His voice had an edge like the edge found in the voice of someone in deep anger. He knew he did not have to lay the cold truth out for her in spoken words, but his own inner pain drove him to it. "In the end, when the choosing of sides came, the Dorsai were to fight for the side of the future, the Exotics were to make it possible for them, at the cost of everything they'd built. And those of you from the Friendlies who truly held faith in your hands were to waken the minds of all who fought on that side so they could see what it was they fought for."
Her fingers gently stroked the back of his hand.
"And Earth?" she said.
"Earth?" He smiled a little bitterly. "Earth's job is to do what it has always done - to survive. To survive so as to give birth to those who'll live to know a better universe."
"Shh," she said; and she stroked his hand gently with her thin fingers. "You do the task that's been set you, like us all."
He looked at her and made himself smile.
"You're right," he said. "It doesn't change how I feel - but you're right."
"Of course," she said. "Now, what did you come to ask from me?"
"I need you back at the Encyclopedia," he said, bluntly, "if you're able to travel at all. I want you to make a broadcast to all of Earth from the Encyclopedia; and I want all of Earth to know you're speaking from the Encyclopedia. I need you to help explain why the Dorsai are coming here and why a phase-shield-wall's been put around this planet, both without anyone asking the Earth people's permission. I can talk to them at the same time you do and take any responsibility you'd like me to spell out. But no one else can make them understand why these things had to be done the way you can. The question is - can you travel?"
"Of course, Hal," she said.
"No," he replied deliberately. "I mean exactly what I say - are you physically able to make the trip? You're too valuable to risk losing you for the sake of one speech, no matter how important it is."
She smiled at him.
"And if I didn't go, what would happen then, when the Dorsai start arriving down here and they discover the shield-wall?"
"I don't know," he said. His eyes met hers on a level.
"You see?" she said. "I have to go; just as we all have to do what we have to do. But don't worry, Hal. I really am all right. The wound's nothing; and otherwise there's nothing wrong with me a few weeks of rest won't cure - once the Dorsai are here and the shield-wall's up. There's no reason I can't have time off then, is there?"
"Of course there isn't."
"Well, then - "
But what she had started to say was cut off by the sudden eruption through the wall of a man of ordinary height with thin, fading brown hair, a bristling gray mustache and a face that seemed too young for either. He was wearing a sand-colored business suit that looked as if he had been sleeping in it and had just been wakened. The expression on his face was one of bright anger. Amyth Barbage was right behind him.
"You!" he said to Hal. "Get out of here!"
He swung to face Rukh, on the bed.
"Am I your doctor or not?" His voice beat upward under the pale, white ceiling of the quiet room. "If I'm not, tell me now; and you can find yourself someone else to take care of you!"