He broke off. His eyes were bright on Hal.
"And that's why you were working so hard to set up the idea that the Dorsai were going to move to one of the Exotic Worlds!"
"It's true," said Rukh, "that this letter's going to be all it takes to solidify public opinion on Old Earth against the Others. It's what was really needed to make them realize down there what the Others are after. We probably could have managed without it; but now that it's here, it couldn't have come at a better time. Hal, I think I ought to read it as part of my speech."
"Yes," said Hal.
"He must have jumped the gun when he heard we were coming in here - " Rourke broke off, thoughtfully. "No, he wouldn't have had time to have found that out and still get this published so that we'd have a copy, now."
"Yes, he would," said Amid. "One way on Mara and Kultis we used to get information between the worlds in a hurry, faster than anyone thought it could be done, was to set up a chain of spaceships holding position between any two worlds at an easy single phase shift apart. When there was a message to be sent, a ship would lift off one world with it, make one jump to rendezvous with the first ship in line, and pass the message on to it. The second ship'd make one jump and pass it on to a third jump - and so on. There'd be little search-to-contact time in the target area of each jump, since each one was so short; and the necessary calculation would already have been made by the ship ready to go; and because each pilot made only one jump, there'd be no problem with the psychic effects of enduring too many phase shifts close together. The only requirement of the system was that you needed to be able to afford to tie up a lot of ships, standing idle in your message line and waiting. We could, then. Bleys can afford it, now."
"Hmm," said Rourke.
"Yes," said Amid, looking at him, "I understand Donal Graeme also came up with the same system, independently, in his later years after he had the ships to do it. At any rate, if Bleys had been keeping a watch like that on all worlds potentially hostile to him, he could've known within twenty-four hours, standard, when the first of the Dorsai transports lifted; and in the same amount of time when the first of them began to appear above Earth. And he'd have already known that none were appearing above Mara or Kultis."
"So he panicked and moved too soon," Jason said. "I thought that letter didn't sound like him."
"I wouldn't call it panic, with someone like Bleys," Hal said. "His plan would have been to beat the news of the Dorsai moving to Old Earth with his own announcement. He'll have gained that - it's just that he's lost in another area - and if he'd decided Old Earth was lost for now, in any case, he may have simply written off the effect his letter would have there - though he couldn't have expected Old Earth's people to read it so soon."
He paused.
"As for sounding like him," Hal went on, "there are sides to him that none of the worlds have seen, yet."
He had captured their attention. He went on.
"I've got one more thing to tell you," he said. "Bleys has also sent a message asking me to meet him secretly; and I told him I'd do it - inside the shield-wall. I've been interested in why he'd want to talk just now. This - "
He pointed toward the message sheet, which now lay on a table beside Rourke's chair.
" - tells me what he's after. He'll need to sound out the effect of the successful move of the Dorsai to Earth on my thinking. As soon as Jeamus lets me know he's here, I'll be going to meet him; and that could be at any time now."
"But if he had to get the message, then leave from New Earth - " Rourke interrupted himself and sat musing.
"He may not have been on New Earth," said Amid. "Even if he was with Sirius at under nine light-years of distance from here, he could make the trip by crowding on the phase shifts and using the old crutch of drugs in two standard days."
"How would he know we knew about it yet?" demanded Rukh.
"I don't think there's much doubt he knows we have some newer, faster means of communicating," said Amid. "He just doesn't know how we do it, yet."
"It's almost time for us to talk," Rukh interrupted. "Hal, have you got your speech ready?"
"I don't have it written out, but I know what I want to say," Hal answered, as the others began to move their chairs and floats back out of picture range. He pressed a stud on the arm of his chair.
"Jeamus," he said. "Any time the transmission crew's ready, we'll get going on those speeches."
"We've been waiting outside in the corridor," Jeamus' voice answered from the door annunciator. "We'll come in now, then?"
"Come ahead," said Hal.
The technical crew entered.
"Are you going to wake up Ajela?" Rukh asked Hal. "If she's going to introduce you in a minute or two, she'll need a few seconds to come to."
"I suppose so," said Hal, reluctantly.
He got up, went over to Ajela and stroked her forehead. She slumbered on. He shook her shoulder gently. For a moment it seemed she would not respond even to that; but then her eyes opened suddenly and brightly.
"I haven't been sleeping," she said.
Her eyelids fluttered closed and she went back to breathing deeply.
"Jeamus can introduce me," said Hal. He picked up Ajela, carried her into one of the two bedrooms of his suite and laid her on the bed. She woke as he put her down.
"I'm not sleeping, I tell you!" she said crossly.
"Good," said Hal. "Just keep it up."
"I will!" She closed her eyes firmly, turned on her side and dropped off again.
Hal went out, closing the bedroom door behind him. He sat back down in his chair, and looked at the technical crew. "You alone first, Jeamus," said one of them, holding up one finger. "Ready…go!"
The small lights went on in the receptors aimed at Jeamus, who was standing beside Hal's chair.
"My name is Jeamus Walters," Jeamus said. "I'm the Chief of the Communications Section at the Final Encyclopedia; and I'm honored today to introduce the new Director of the Encyclopedia, about whom you'll be reading in the information releases just authorized by the Encyclopedia.
"May I present to you, peoples of Earth, the Director of the Final Encyclopedia. Hal Mayne!"
The lights winked out. Jeamus stood back. The lights went on again. Hal looked into their small brilliant eyes, shining now on him.
"What I have to say today is going to be very brief," he said, "since we're particularly busy here at the moment at the Final Encyclopedia. There'll be details on what's keeping us occupied in the releases Jeamus Walters mentioned; and I believe Rukh Tamani, who'll be speaking to you in a moment, may also have something to say about it.
"I've been honored by being chosen by Tam Olyn, Director of the Encyclopedia for over eighty years, to follow him in that post. As you all know, the only Director before Tam Olyn was Mark Torre; the man who conceived of, planned and supervised the building of this great work from its earliest form, earthbound at the city of St. Louis in the northwestern quadrisphere of this world.
"Mark Torre's aim, as you know, was to create a tool for research into the frontiers of the human mind itself, by providing a storage place for all known information on everything that mind has produced or recognized since the dawn of intellectual consciousness. It was his belief and his hope that this storehouse of human knowledge and creativity would provide materials and, eventually, a means of exploring what has always been unknown and unseeable - in the same way that none of us, unaided, can see the back of his or her own head.
"To that search, Tam Olyn, like Mark Torre before him, dedicated himself. To that same faith that Mark Torre had shown, he adhered through his long tenure of duty here.
"I can make no stronger statement to you, today, than to say that I share the same faith and intent, the same dedication. But, more fortunate than the two men who dedicated their lives to the search before me, I may possess something in addition. I have, I believe, some reason to hope that the long years of work here have brought us close to our goal, that we are very near, at last, now to stepping over the threshold of that universe of the unknown which Mark Torre dreamed of entering and reaping the rewards of exploring it - that inner exploration of the human race we have never ceased to yearn towards; unconsciously to begin with, but later consciously, from the beginning of time.