“We need a linguist.” Toskano glared about and crossed glances with one of the other philosophers waiting his turn at the microscope. “Bismaak! Do you know Duerer?”
“Yes,” said Bismaak.
“Well, try to find him as quickly as you can.”
“May I look now?” said Marko.
“As you brought the cards here, I suppose you have a right to,” said Toskano.
Under the lens, Marko saw a whole page of type set in double columns. This page, he found by moving the card slightly, was one of the little gray spots, no larger than the head of a large pin. Under the glass, it was enlarged until it was just legible.
Bismaak returned with a whiskered man introduced as Duerer, who took one look into the microscope and cried: “This is Old Anglonian! I can read a little of it, but we need Domingo Bivar. He has devoted his life to the study of the few writings and inscriptions we have in that language. I’ll fetch him.”
Duerer departed at a run. After some wait, he returned in his turn with a small man, dark like an Arabistani. The newcomer, introduced as Domingo Bivar, was identified as an Iverianan by the length of his hair, which hung almost to his shoulders. Dr. Bivar looked into the microscope and began to hop up and down as if the floor had become hot.
“This is a thing most extraordinary!” he shrilled. “Let me see another of the cards, for favor.”
After further scrutiny he said: “Dr. Toskano, I must have the microscope, much notepaper, much coffee, and -the undisturbed use of the room till tomorrow. May I?”
After much palaver, it was agreed that Bivar should have unrestricted use of the microscope until the following day. The Chimei brothers made it understood that they would stay in the room to supervise.
At supper, Marko saw the entire membership of the convention. Aside from the fact that some wore the garb of distant lands, like Arabistan and Mingkwo, there was nothing special about the philosophers. They looked just like people, to Marko’s faint disappointment. But he consoled himself with the thought that if this were the case, nobody would object to recognizing him as a philosopher on the ground of appearance.
The committee for preparing the debate met after supper. Marko sat hi with the rest. ‘He soon found that his own knowledge of the Descensionist controversy was too elementary to be of much help here. When he made a suggestion, they turned on him saying:
“Yes, my dear Master Prokopiu, but if you had been here this afternoon you would know that we went over that idea first of all.”
So Marko was reduced to sitting in abashed silence while the experts tossed ideas around. They were hard at it when a knock interrupted them. In came Ulf Toskano with a bearded man hi workman’s garb. The philosophers stared at the newcomers. One of the former rose and said:
“Greetings, Patriarch Yungbor. What brings Your Excellency into the lair of the enemy?”
There was a scraping of chairs as. the others, too, recognized the head of the Holy Eclectic Church. Although some of the philosophers, to judge by their comments, were violently anti-clerical, all had been conditioned to this courtesy.
The Reverend Pier Yungbor sat down heavily at the end of the table. Ardur Mensenrat, the chairman of the committee, said: “How on Kforri did you get here? I thought all you people were under lock and key too.”
The patriarch said: “Where the flock is faithful, the shepherd can look for unexpected succor. I take it you gentlemen are planning your side of tomorrow’s debate?”
“Right,” said Mensenrat.
“I am here to make an unprecedented request. Before I make it, let me say that I have what seem to me excellent reasons. You are philosophers; you pride yourselves on keeping your minds open. Try to keep them open in this case until you have heard me out. It will be difficult.”
He stared around the table. Mensenrat said: “Proceed, esteemed sir.”
“I ask that you ‘throw the game’; that you deliberately lose to us.”
The silence became loud. Yungbor looked mildly around the long ellipse and continued:
“You naturally ask why. Well, there are two reasons. The first is practical. Alzander Mirabo, as we all know, has long been hatching war against Iveriana. Specifically, he plans to march over the Equatorial Mountains and take them through their back country. We know the present government of Iveriana, weak and distracted by revolts, could never halt this invasion.
“The Kacike is a foolish old man, who has been preserved from assassination by ambitious subordinates only by their inability to agree upon a successor. His province of Sturia has been in open revolt for years. He sends armies against the Sturians, and his soldiers sell their arms to their enemies and desert. You see how much chance the Iverianans would have against the strongest, best-disciplined army in the world.”
A philosopher spoke: “Under those conditions, wouldn’t Eropian rule be all to the good?”
“No. For one thing, the Iverianans, however they betray and murder one another, hate foreigners even more and will fight to the last against them. I have been to Iveriana and know. They would practice hit-run, guerrilla war. The Prem would burn cities and slaughter hostages in retaliation, and so on until most Iverianans were dead, together with many of our own people.
“The Eclectic Church has been exerting all its influence against this crime. So far, by playing on the Prem’s beliefs, by dangling the hope of Earth and the fear of Space before him, we have held him off. But if he decides we are mistaken, what will hold him back then?
“Another thing. By cooperating with the Syncretic Church hi Vizantia and the Latitudinal Church hi Anglonia and Barmadislam in Arabistan and so forth, we have prevented any serious outbreak of war for four decades. Would you wish to break this peace?”
Another philosopher spoke up: “Patriarch, we have our ideals too, though you may not believe it.”
“I have said no such thing,” said Yungbor.
“Specifically, we attach a value to the discovery of truth. We think it’s good in itself. In this case we think we have found a particular truth that goes under the name of Descensionism. Would you have us suppress, it?”
Yungbor replied: “No doubt you are taking for granted the validity of Czipollon’s axiom, ‘The true is the right and the right is the true.’ Now think, gentlemen. Is there any reason for accepting such an idea as true in the first instance than any other? Take Evolution, for example. Let us supposeI concede nothing, but merely suppose for the sake of argument that Descensionism is true. Yet by pressing your belief, by urging it upon the people and their rulers, you may break the peace and touch off a round of wars worse than any seen hitherto on this distracted planet. Be assured, the Anglonians and Vizantians and Mingkworen will not sit idly by while Mirabo aggrandizes himself at the Iverianans’ expense. They fear him enough now. And with this flying machine the Anglonians have invented, war will be more terrible than ever.
“In fact, with all these scientific advances of which you so proudly boast, you may one day be able to wipe mankind off Kforri, as the forebears of the present gods are once said in the myths to have done to one another on Earth. Then all we shall need is one lunatic in command of a nation… . Well, what is the good in such a case?”
Mensenrat said: “There is one other item, which you have not considered. Our necks.”
Yungbor wagged his beard. “That goes without saying. There are ours too. I did not bring this matter up because it is obvious what our respective preferences would be on the level of such sordid motives. I did hope that I could appeal to worthier sentiments.
“And consider this possibility, the second reason whereof I spoke. I know that many of you gentlemen do not accept our creed. You say that this is or is not objectively true, and point to cases where our finite minds have been shown to be mistaken in the past. But consider! This creed, objectively true or not, is logically valid. It has been assembled by our great theologians over half a thousand years. And by means of it we keep the people in order. We restrain their natural violence and swinish lusts. We make it possible for them to live together as civilized men.