“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Tears blurred Cleland’s eyes.
“Then make amends,” Nansen said.
“That will do,” Brent clipped. “The servitors will bring your mattresses, collect your garbage, and transmit me your requests. Meals will arrive at our usual times. Or just food will, if and when you prefer to do your own cooking. Behave yourselves, and think.”
Dayan came forward. “Tim,” she said, “we thought better of you.”
“It’s for you!” Cleland cried.
“That will do,” Brent repeated. “Don’t listen to her, Tim.” To the rest: “I’ll look in on you daily or oftener, and I’m willing to talk with you here or on the intercom, if you don’t abuse the privilege. At reasonable hours and in reasonable style, okay? Shipmates, think how this one man, Nansen, has forced this to happen. Think hard. Good night.”
He turned to go. Cleland hesitated. “Come,” Brent ordered. “Pick up the torch and that chunk, and come along.”
He strode down the corridor. Cleland slouched after.
Nansen gathered his people around the table.
“First and foremost,” he reminded them, “we must keep control of ourselves. Anger and anxiety will wear us down without leaving a mark on these bulkheads.”
“What can?” asked Sundaram.
It was as if they were closing in. The bright murals on them had become scornful. Air felt chill.
“Suggestions?” Nansen invited. “Engineer Yu?”
“Nothing comes to mind,” she sighed. “I will keep trying.”
“Don’t bother,” Zeyd advised. “This is a mental problem. Can we work on Brent?”
“I don’t believe so,” Mokoena said. “Of course, I had no inkling he would go this far. But in my opinion, nobody will persuade him, now that he’s in motion. He’s utterly intense, driven, fearless.”
“Unstable?” wondered Nansen.
“Not really, I think.” Mokoena’s manner became clinical. As the physician, she was also the psychologist. Though what matters most is how nature endowed her with a feeling for others, Nansen reflected. “He is insane in a way,” she said. “The stress in him has snapped whatever restraints he had. But it’s an emotional imbalance. He projects his traits on you, Ricardo. Otherwise he’s rational. His plot and the bold, flawless execution show that.”
“Those ambitions, those expectations, you call them rational?” Dayan demurred.
“He is taking a wild gamble, yes. He knows it. For him the prize is worth the stake — power, adulation, his name written huge in history.”
“How?”
“It’s plain to see, by hindsight. Remember how often he spoke of what we can do at Earth, armed with the technology we’ve acquired from the star cluster and the Tahirians. It does have tremendous military potential, doesn’t it? But we’d not likely ever permit such use of it. Meanwhile, in his eyes, we have kept him here, unemployed, empty-handed, caged, while we hazarded his life for the sake of more knowledge; knowledge of nothing but academic interest. Oh, he understands full well that what he’d bring to Earth may prove puny and irrelevant. But down underneath he does not accept that understanding. For a chance at destiny, he’ll risk, he’ll sacrifice, anything and anyone.”
Nansen nodded. “It sounds right. Earth has known many like that.”
“Too blood-drenching many,” Dayan said between her teeth.
“Well,” Zeyd proposed, “if we can’t influence him, what about the Tahirians?”
“To begin with,” Nansen pointed out, “we have no parleur. And Brent has undoubtedly brought them under his authority. I wish I knew how. Poor Emil, poor Simon.”
“Poor all of them,” said Sundaram.
“Tim, then,” Zeyd pursued. “We heard him, we saw him. He’s bewildered, fighting his conscience. We can talk to him.”
“Get him close to the slot,” Ruszek rumbled. “I’ll reach out and grab his throat.”
“That would not unseal the door,” Nansen said.
“Brent wouldn’t surrender anyway,” Dayan added. “If we get unruly, he can starve us into submission. My people learned long ago how that works.”
“Argh!” Ruszek’s fist thundered on the table.
“Laps, no,” Sundaram urged.
Ruszek looked at the linguist as if in appeal.
“That injured shoulder is giving you much pain, isn’t it?” Sundaram continued. “If the company will excuse us, I think you and I should retire to the galley for a time.”
After that door had closed on the two men, their comrades heard the low sound of a mantra.