" 'Now, however, we have learned of an unholy alliance, which threatens each one of us with eventual and literal slavery under the domination of that institution orbiting Earth under the name of the Final Encyclopedia. I and my friends have long known that the Final Encyclopedia was conceived for only one purpose, to which it has been devoted ever since its inception. That purpose has been the development of unimaginable and unnatural means of controlling the hearts and minds of normal people. In fact, its construction was initially financed by the Exotics for that purpose; as those who care to investigate the writings of Mark Torre, its first Director, will find.
" 'That aim, pursued in secrecy and isolation which required even that the Encyclopedia be placed in orbit above the surface of Earth, has been furthered by the Encyclopedia's practice of picking the brains of the best minds in each generation; by inviting them, ostensibly as visiting scholars, to visit that institution.
" 'Also, it has continued to be financed by the Exotics, who, records will show, have also had a hand in financing the Dorsai, who were from the first developed with the aim of becoming a military arm that could be used to police all other, subject worlds.
" 'That unholy work, over the last three hundred years, has now borne fruit. The Encyclopedia and its backers - including the people of Old Earth themselves, whose early, bloody attempts to keep all the newly settled worlds subject to them - were only frustrated by the courageous resistance of the peoples on all those worlds, after a hundred years of unending fighting; as you all know from the history books you studied as children.
" 'Now the people of Old Earth, under the leadership of the Final Encyclopedia, have finally thrown off all pretense of innocent purpose. They have withdrawn the unbelievable wealth accumulated by the Exotic Worlds by trade and intrigue from such people as ourselves, moving it to their treasury on Earth. They have also, openly, in one mass movement, evacuated the Dorsai from their world and brought them to Earth; to begin building the army that is intended to conquer our new worlds, one by one, and leave us enslaved forever under the steel rule of martial authority. And they have begun to ready for action those awesome weapons the. Encyclopedia itself has been developing over three centuries.
" 'They are ready to attack us - we who have been so completely without suspicion of their arrogant intentions. We stand now, essentially unarmed, unprepared, facing the imminent threat of an inhuman and immoral attempt to enslave or destroy us. We will now begin to hear thrown at us, in grim earnest, the saying that has been quietly circulated among the worlds for centuries, in order to destroy our will to resist - the phrase that not even the massed armies of all the rest of mankind can defeat the Dorsai, if the Dorsai chose to confront those armies.
" 'But do not believe this - ' "
Rourke snorted.
"He can say that again, right here and now," he said in an undertone, unfortunately a little too loudly not to interrupt Hal's reading, "and keep on repeating it until it penetrates a few thick skulls down on Old Earth!"
His eye caught Hal's.
"Sorry. It's just that we're all braced to hear a loud group down there, saying, 'but what do we need to do anything for? We've got the Dorsai; and they like to fight.' "
He coughed.
"Sorry, again. Go on, Hal."
" '… Do not believe this,' " Hal continued, " 'It was never true, only a statement circulated by the Exotics and the Dorsai for their own advantage. As for massed armies, as you all know, we have none - '
"Not true," commented Amid. "Sorry. My turn to apologize, Hal. Go on."
" '… we have none. But we can raise them. We can raise armies in numbers and strengths never dreamed of by the population of Old Earth. We are not the impoverished, young peoples that Old Earth, with Dow deCastries, tried to dominate unsuccessfully in the first century of our colonization. Now, on nine worlds our united numbers add up to nearly five billion. What can be done against the courage and resistance of such a people, even by the four million trained and battle-hardened warriors that Old Earth has just imported from the Dorsai - ' "
Rourke snorted again, as the number was mentioned, but this time contained himself and said nothing.
" '… United, we of the nine worlds are invincible. We will arm, we will go to meet our enemy - and this time, with the help of God, we will crush this decadent, proud planet that has threatened us too long; and, to the extent it is necessary, we will so deal with the people of Old Earth as to make sure that such an attempt by them never again occurs to threaten our lives, our homes, and the lives and homes of those who come after us.
" 'In this effort, I and my friends stand ready to do anything that will help. It has always been our nature never to seek the limelight; but in the shadow of this emergency I have personally asked all whom you call the Others, and they have agreed with me, to make themselves known to you, to make themselves available for any work or duty in which they can be useful in turning back this inconceivable threat.
" 'The unholy peoples of Old Earth say they will come against us. Let them come, then, if they are that foolish. Let us lay this demon once and for all. How little they suspect it will be the beginning of the end, for them!
" '… Signed, Bleys Ahrens.' No title, just the signature."
Hal handed the message over to Rukh, who was closest to him. She scanned it and passed it on around the circle of listeners.
"That business of four million battle-ready veterans!" Rourke said. "I tell you, I can see trouble coming from Earth about that. We'll have hell's own job to make them understand that we brought in families - families! If there's six hundred thousand battle-age and combat-fit adults among them, we're lucky; and at least two-thirds of those are going to have to be sleeping and eating, not to mention out, sick or disabled, at any given time. Not to mention where the replacements are going to come from when we start taking losses. And they expect us to guard a perimeter considerably larger in area than the planet Earth, itself? Wait'll they discover they're going to end by putting more of their own people than our whole population into the firing line to defend an area that size."
"That's something the future'll have to take care of," said Hal. "Once they realize what's needed to survive, there'll be those who'll be ready to help. But my hope is that we can find another way to win, here in the Encyclopedia, itself, than by trying to match, one for one, the literally millions of soldiers he'll need to, and can, raise in order to put any iris we open in the shield-wall instantly under an attack that won't be halted until we close it again. But never mind that, too, for now. If you've all had a look at that message sheet - "
They had. Even Nonne had studied it.
"So there's another instance of what you meant by Bleys possibly making the mistake of moving too soon or too late!" burst out Jason. "He waited too long to come out with this letter, didn't he? If he'd brought it out even a month ago - certainly if he'd come out with the same sort of talk about a coalition against us, even if he hadn't been able to cite the Dorsai moving to Earth - he could have sowed a lot of doubt down below and panicked a lot more of Earth's people into taking hard positions, that could have shut out the Dorsai before they could get here - "