“But that’s true, isn’t it?”
“Well . . . yes, it must be true.”
“Okay. Now, is our boy Ford bright enough to realize what he is letting himself in for and tough enough to go through with it?”
Barstow reviewed what he knew of Ford and added his impressions from the interview. “Yes,” he decided, “he knows and he’s strong enough to face it.”
“All right. Now how about you, pal? Are you up to it, too?” Lazarus’ voice was accusing.
“Me? What do you mean?”
“You’re planning on double-crossing your crowd, too, aren’t you? Have you got the guts to go through with it when the going gets tough?”
“I don’t understand you, Lazarus,” Barstow answered worriedly. “I’m not planning to deceive anyone-at least, no member of the Families.”
“Better look at your cards again,” Lazarus went on remorselessly. “Your part of the deal is to see to it that every man, woman and child takes part in this exodus. Do you expect to sell the idea to each one of them separately and get a hundred thousand people to agree? Unanimously? Shucks, you couldn’t get that many to whistle ‘Yankee Doodle’ unanimously.”
“But they will have to agree,” protested Barstow. “They have no choice. We either emigrate, or they hunt us down and kill us. I’m certain that is what Ford intends to do. And he will.”
“Then why didn’t you walk into the meeting and tell ’em that? Why did you send me in to give ’em a stall?”
Barstow rubbed a hand across his eyes. “I don’t know.”
“I’ll tell you why,” continued Lazarus. “You think better with your hunches than most men do with the tops of their minds. You sent me in there to tell ’em a tale because you knew damn well the truth wouldn’t serve. If you told ’em it was get out or get killed, some would get panicky and some would get stubborn. And some old-woman-in-kilts would decide to go home and stand on his Covenant rights. Then he’d spill the scheme before it ever dawned on him that the government was playing for keeps. That’s right, isn’t it?”
Barstow shrugged and laughed unhappily. “You’re right. I didn’t have it figured out but you’re absolutely right.”
“But you did have it figured out,” Lazarus assured him. “You had the right answers. Zack, I like your hunches; that’s why I’m stringing along. All right, you and Ford are planning to pull a whizzer on every man jack on this globe-I’m asking you again: have you got the guts to see it through?”
Chapter 5
THE MEMBERS STOOD AROUND in groups, fretfully. “I can’t understand it,” the Resident Archivist was saying to a worried circle around her. “The Senior Trustee never interfered in my work before. But he came bursting into my office with that Lazarus Long behind him and ordered me out.”
“What did he say?” asked one of her listeners.
“Well, I said, ‘May I do you a service, Zaccur Barstow? and be said, ‘Yes, you may. Get out and take your girls with you.’ Not a word of ordinary courtesy!”
“A lot you’ve got to complain about,” another voice added gloomily. It was Cecil Hedrick, of the Johnson Family, chief communications engineer. “Lazarus Long paid a call on me, and he was a damned sight less polite.”
“What did he do?”
“He walks into the communication cell and tells me he is going to take over my board-Zaccur’s orders. I told him that nobody could touch my burners but me and my operators, and anyhow, where was his authority? You know what he did? You won’t believe it but he pulled a blaster on me.”
“You don’t mean it!”
“I certainly do. I tell you, that man is dangerous. He ought to go for psycho adjustment. He’s an atavism if I ever saw one.”
Lazarus Long’s face stared out of the screen into that of the Administrator. “Got it all canned?” he demanded.
Ford cut the switch on the facsimulator on his desk. “Got it all,” he confirmed.
“Okay,” the image of Lazarus replied. “I’m clearing.” As the screen went blank Ford spoke into his interoffice circuit.
“Have the High Chief Provost report to me at once-in corpus.”