“I know how it is. I should have written. I guess I’m the one who owes a letter.”
“No, I think not,” said Thar.
They sat on opposite sides of a small table near a window and ordered drinks. On the field they could see the vast, shadowy outline of the Ryke vessel.
Thar was of a race genetically close to the Rykes. He lacked the feathery covering, but this was replaced by a layer of thin scales, which had a tendency to stand on edge when he was excited. He also wore a breathing piece, and carried the small shoulder tank with a faint air of superiority.
Hockley watched him with a growing sense of loss. The first impression had been more nearly correct. Thar hadn’t wanted to meet him.
“It’s been a long time,” said Hockley lamely. “I guess there isn’t much we did back there that means anything now.”
“You shouldn’t say that,” said Thar as if recognizing he had been too remote. “Every hour of our acquaintance meant a great deal to me. I’ll never forgive myself for forgetting—but tell me how you learned I was aboard the Ryke ship.”
“The Rykes have made us an offer. I wanted to find out the effects on worlds that had accepted. I learned Janisson VIII was one, so I started looking.”
“I’m so very glad you did, Sherm. You want me to confirm, of course, the advisability of accepting the offer Liacan has made.”
“Confirm—or deny it,” said Hockley.
Thar spread his clawlike hands. “Deny it? The most glorious opportunity a planet could possibly have?”
Something in Thar’s voice gave Hockley a sudden chill. “How has it worked on your own world?”
“Janisson VIII has turned from a slum to a world of mansions. Our economic problems have been solved. Health and long life are routine. There is nothing we want that we cannot have for the asking.”
“But are you satisfied with it? Is there nothing which you had to give up that you would like returned?”
Waldon Thar threw back his head and laughed in high pitched tones. “I might have known that would be the question you would ask! Forgive me, friend Sherman, but I had almost forgotten how unventuresome you are.
“Your question is ridiculous. Why should we wish to go back to our economic inequalities, poverty and distress, our ignorant plodding research in science? You can answer your own question.”
They were silent for a moment. Hockley thought his friend would have gladly terminated their visit right there and returned to his ship. To forestall this, he leaned across the table and asked, “Your science —what has become of that?”
“Our science! We never had any. We were ignorant children playing with mud and rocks. We knew nothing. We had nothing. Until the Rykes offered to educate us.”
“Surely you don’t believe that,” said Hockley quietly. “The problem you worked on at the Institute— gravity at micro-cosmic levels. That was not a childish thing.”
Thar laughed shortly and bitterly. “What disillusionment you have coming, friend Sherman! If you only knew how truly childish it was. Wait until you learn from the Rykes the true conception of gravity, its nature and the part it plays in the structure of matter.”
Hockley felt a sick tightening within him. This was not the Waldon Thar, the wild demon who thrust aside all authority and rumor in his own headlong search for knowledge. It couldn’t be Thar who was sitting passively by, being told what the nature of the Universe is.
“Your scientists—?” Hockley persisted. “What has become of all your researchers?”
“The answer is the same,” said Thar. “We had no science. We had no scientists. Those who once went by that name have become for the first time honest students knowing the pleasure of studying at the feet of masters.”
“You have set up laboratories in which your researches are supervised by the Rykes?”
“Laboratories? We have no need of laboratories. We have workshops and study rooms where we try to absorb that which the Rykes discovered long ago. Maybe at some future time we will come to a point where we can reach into the frontier of knowledge with our own minds, but this does not seem likely now.”
“So you have given up all original research of your own?”
“How could we do otherwise? The Rykes have all the answers to any question we have intelligence enough to ask. Follow them, Sherman. It is no disgrace to be led by such as the Ryke teachers.”
“Don’t you ever long,” said Hockley, “to take just one short step on your own two feet?”
“Why crawl when you can go by trans-light carrier?”
Thar sipped the last of his drink and glanced toward the wall clock. “I must go. I can understand the direction of your questions and your thinking. You hesitate because you might lose the chance to play in the mud and count the pretty pebbles in the sand. Put away childish things. You will never miss them!”
They shook hands, and a moment later Hockley said goodbye to Thar at the entrance to the field. “I know Earth will accept,” said Thar. “And you and I should not have lost contact—but we’ll make up for it.”
Watching him move toward the dark hulk of the ship, Hockley wondered if Thar actually believed that. In less than an hour they had exhausted all they had to say after twenty years. Hockley had the information he needed about the Ryke plan, but he wished he could have kept his old memories of his student friend. Thar was drunk on the heady stuff being peddled by the Rykes, and if what he said were true, it was strong enough to intoxicate a whole planet.
His blood grew cold at the thought. This was more than a fight for the National Laboratories. It was a struggle to keep all Mankind from becoming what Thar had become.
If he could have put Thar on exhibition in the meeting tomorrow, and shown what he was once like, he would have made his point. But Thar, before and after, was not available for exhibit. He had to find another way to show his colleagues and the Senators what the Rykes would make of them.
He glanced at his watch. They wouldn’t like being wakened at this hour, but neither would the scientists put up much resistance to his request for support in Markham’s meeting. He went back to the bar and called each of his colleages who had been in the meeting that day.
Hockley was called first when the assembly convened at ten that morning. He rose slowly from his seat near Markham and glanced over the somewhat puzzled expressions of the scientists.
“I don’t know that I can speak for the entire group of scientists present,” he said. “We met yesterday and found some differences of opinion concerning this offer. While it is true there is overwhelming sentiment supporting it, certain questions remain, which we feel require additional data in order to be answered properly.
“While we recognize that official acceptance can be given to the Rykes with no approval whatever from the scientists, it seems only fair that we should have every opportunity to make what we consider a proper study and to express our opinions in the matter.
“To the non-scientist—and perhaps to many of my colleages—it may seem inconceivable that there could be any questions whatever. But we wonder about the position of students of future generations, we wonder about the details of administration of the program, we wonder about the total effects of the program upon our society as a whole. We wish to ask permission to make further study of the matter in an effort to answer these questions and many others. We request permission to go as a committee to Rykeman III and make a first hand study of what the Rykes propose to do, how they will teach us, and how they will dispense the information they so generously offer.
“I ask that you consider this most seriously, and make an official request of the Rykes to grant us such opportunity for study, that you provide the necessary appropriations for the trip. I consider it most urgent that this be done at once.”